46, 72 drum drummer

  46, 49 thunders … thundering a stock epithet of drums

  * * *

  38 abundance] Delius; aboundant Q; abundant Capell; aboundance WP 40]Capell lines me; / her / 42.1LODWICK] Lodowicke Q2 43 What] Capell; Ki: What Q 44–5]Collier lines now? / liege, / majesty. / 45 SD] Capell 462this] his (this edn)

  47 start startle; rouse

  tender delicate; loving. Cf. 2.180n.

  48 sheepskin drum (metonymy from the parchment (49) drumhead)

  brawls raises a clamour (OED v.1 2); squabbles (v.1 1a)

  49–52 Cf. 2.231–3n.

  49 parchment sheepskin, used in drums but also for writing (OED n. 1a)

  50 conduct convey

  sweet lines as of a love letter; cf. TGV 1.3.45.

  51 bosom a favourite female cache for love-letters (cf. TGV 3.1.144, 246–8)

  53–62 Cf. VA 107–8, ‘Scorning his churlish drum and ensign red, / Making my arms his field, his tent my bed’.

  53 reduce Many possible senses may be involved: bring back to a different state or condition (OED v. 6a); restore from error (6b); adapt (12a); translate (20a); bring to order, by compulsion (25a). The word suggests promotion to a better use, and at the same time demotion from the military to the amatory (cf. 2.242–5n.).

  him it, the drumskin (see 2.569n.)

  scolding Cf. brawls (48).

  54–5 counsel bearer / Betwixt carrier of confidences or secrets between, ‘go-between’ (see OED counsel n. 5b)

  56 touch play

  57 Edward adapts a familiar proverb, ‘He may go hang himself in his own garters’ (Dent, G42); braces are ‘leathern thong[s] which slide up and down the cord of a drum, … used to regulate the tension of the skins, and thus the pitch of the note’, also ‘the cord itself’ (OED n.2 10a, b, citing this line). Cf. 1H4 2.2.42–3 and TN 1.3.11–12.

  58 uncivil antisocial (OED a. 3a, citing this line). Cf. 2.12; also civil, 18.203.

  59 An early reader of Q2 (H2) noted ‘Sonn. 29’, recognizing the similarity to l. 3 of the sonnet, ‘And trouble deaf heav’n with my bootless cries’. Cf. 18.10n.

  resounds echoing sounds, resonances

  Away hypermetrical (see 5n.)

  60 quarrel contention (OED n.3 3a); cf. 1.167n.

  arms weapons; upper limbs. See 53–62n.

  * * *

  48 sheepskin] (shipskin) 49, 56 Go,] Capell; Go Q 49 thundering] (thundring) 54 counsel] (counsaiie), Capell; counsaile Q2 59]Capell lines resounds: / Away. – / 59 SD Lodwick] Q2 (Lodo.)

  62 i.e. to the sound of a deep rhythmic beat of piercing groans (alluding to the beat of a drum); fuses various suggestions, sexual in deep, penetrable and groans, military in deep, march and penetrable.

  deep low in pitch, resonant (OED a. 14a); profoundly felt (9); the spondaic deep march may have a further sense of ‘heavy going’ (5). Cf. TGV 1.1.21–3, ‘VALENTINE That’s on some shallow story of deep love – / How young Leander crossed the Hellespont. / PROTEUS That’s a deep story of a deeper love’ (see 149–53 and n.).

  march rhythm of a drumbeat (OED n.5 6); action of marching, with possible further suggestion of long and toilsome walk (2a, c)

  penetrable penetrating

  63 My … arrows Cf. 1H6 4.4.191, ‘O, were mine eyeballs into bullets turned’.

  63–5 3my … artillery Edward compares the breath of his sighs to a favourable wind, which can help defeat an enemy (see 4.133–6), or as here overcome a reluctant lover. Cf. Luc 586, ‘My sighs like whirlwinds labour hence to heave thee’.

  64 vantage favour, advantage (see 2.490–1n.)

  65 sweet’st artillery most amorous looks; artillery = the arrows shot by his eyes (63)

  66–70 Cf. 2.327n.

  66 wins … me i.e. places herself so that I have the sun (herself) in my eyes, gets the advantage of me (from the proverb ‘To get the sun of one’ (Dent, S987)); a familiar tactic in warfare (cf. 4.133–6 LN). Cf. 2.128–34 (and 131–4n.), 327 (and n.), 565–6 (and n.).

  67–8 thence … That that is why

  68 the … blind The Countess’s dazzling beauty has caused Cupid’s proverbial blindness. Cf. 47.

  69 hath … steps i.e. can see his way

  70 too much relates both to loved and glory. Q’s ‘two’ is an infrequent spelling of ‘too’ (cf. 12.30 t.n.).

  loved lovèd

  71 How now? The King asks for the drummer’s identity (cf. 46–7) on Lodwick’s entry; Cam’s conjecture that this is a response to renewed drumming before Lodwick’s return (see 70.1 t.n.) seems unlikely as he was sent to convey the King’s order for the drumming to stop (56–9).

  * * *

  65 sweet’st] (sweetest) 70 too] (two), Q2 70.1]Capell; after 71 Q LODWICK] Lodowicke Q2

  72 lusty lively; cf. Edward’s ‘lustful’ march at 62.

  73 Stands with accompanies

  thrice-valiant See 2.322n.

  73 SD *Lodwick must leave the stage here in order to enter again at 99.1.

  73.1The Prince’s arrival gives the King his strongest incentive yet to abandon his pursuit of the Countess, which he nearly does at 91–8.

  74–5 his … his a familiar sonnet theme: cf. Son 3.9 (GTW); also at 85–6.

  75 Modelled reproduced; possibly a coinage from the noun, OED model n. 2a. Q2’s ‘Molded’ has the same meaning and was current in the 1590s.

  strayed erring (OED v.2 4a)

  76 rates scolds, reproves

  76, 78thievish … theft Cf. 6.53, 70n., 13.64; also Luc 34–5 and Son 48.14.

  77 Who which

  79 cloak … poverty offer the pretext of need

  on in

  81–4 as he was ordered at 1.141–4

  82 choicest buds hand-picked young men (OED choice a. 1a); buds = young men (OED n.1 3b, citing KJ 3.3.82)

  83 to combines the ideas of purpose and motion towards (OED prep. 8b); Q2’s ‘in’ is unnecessary. Moore Smith cites MM 3.1.56, ‘having affairs to heaven’.

  * * *

  72 struck] (stroke) 73 SD] Collier2 subst. 73.1]after 79 Melchiori1 PRINCE EDWARD] Prince. LODOWICK retires to the Door. / Capell 74 SD] Moltke 74 boy. O] Q2; boy, oh Q; boy. Exit Lodwick. Aside O Riv 75 Modelled] (Modeld); Molded Q2 79 cloak] (cloke) 83 to] in Q2

  85 delineate delineated (OED a. cites this as its first occurrence)

  87 Who which (his eyes, and by extension his mother’s)

  wistly intently, attentively; cf. 8.108. Cf. also Luc 1354–5, VA 343–4, R2 5.4.7 and Arden of Faversham, 6.9.

  88 The King acknowledges what Lodwick reported of him at 2.182–3. Cf. 158.

  89–90 For the body giving outward signs of lust, cf. 2.167–87; for it as a lantern, cf. Du Bartas, 2.1.2.199–200, ‘as our soule deere, / Through the dim lanthorne of our flesh shines cleere’. Melchiori compares 2H4 1.2.46–50, ‘for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it … yet cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him’. Unless referring to the King’s intended cuckolding of Salisbury (which seems unlikely), the ‘horn’ in Q’s ‘lanthorne’ lacks pertinence, sanctioning modernization to lanterns.

  89 *Capell’s emendations of Qq ‘as’ to is, ‘me’ to men and ‘lanthorne’ to ‘lanthorns’ (i.e. lanterns) are required to make any sense of 89–90: plural men and lanterns are recommended by themselves in 90; is avoids lust being the object of itself; an easy misreading of show as intransitive (‘are visible’) may explain the error of ‘as’ for is, but 90 confirms that show is transitive.

  90 Light unchaste (OED a.1 14b); frivolous (14a); playing on shining (hence visible) light, and the burning brightness of fire (a.2 1a)

  90, 186even monosyllabic (e’en)

  91 loose silks soft and luxurious fabrics signifying loose morals and inconstancy; contrasts with eternal steel (95)

  wavering vacillating, inconstant; in relation to the silks, fluttering (because loose)

  92–4 See LN.

  92 large limit broad territory; cf. 11n.

  *Brittany Q2’s trisyllabic form of the name, stressed on its first and last syllables as in modern English, is a metrically appropriate emendation for Q’s disyllabic ‘Brittayne’. See 1.133n. The sudden mention of Brittany rather than France may remind the audience of the campaign in which the Countess’s husband is serving. It balances Edward’s thoughts of his own wife and Queen prompted by his son’s arrival. For details of the Breton campaign, see 1.133–4n., LN and Sc. 9n.

  * * *

  85 SD] Moltke 87 make] made Q2 89 is] Capell; as Q men] Capell; me Q lanterns] Capell (lanthorns), Tyrrell; lanthorne Q 90 themselves even] WP; them selues; euen Q; themselues, euen Q2 91 of] Q2; or Q 92 Brittany] Q2 (Britany); Brittayne Q; Bretagne Melchiori1

  94 little … myself my body; mansion = ‘the body as the “dwelling place” of the soul’ (OED n. 1d), and, as a stately residence (3b), appropriate as the body of a king. Contrasts with large … Brittany (92). Cf. 2.401–8n.; also TGV 5.4.8.

  96–7 shall … friend The expression is awkward, as is the metre of 96, but the sense is clear: ‘Shall I prove a friend to my enemies by my lack of self-mastery?’

  97 *enemies’ Winny’s plural interpretation of Q’s ‘enimies’ seems preferable to Capell’s singular, which could restrict reference to the King of France.

  99 colours banners

  sweet sweeten (OED v.1 1a). Cf. Sidney, ‘A Shepheard’s tale no height of stile desires’ (1593), ‘Come she, and sweet the aire with open brest’ (Sidney, Poems, 254). Capell’s conjectured ‘sweep’ misses the punning association of colours (banners) with flowers or fruit: cf. 12.25–9; also VA 1079 and Son 99.13–14.

  100–1 See LN.

  100 cheer face, expression

  101 replicates E2, 3.1.149 (Merriam). Cf. MM 2.4.18, ‘One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you’, where there is also a threat of seduction or rape.

  102–4 Edward’s assumption of English victory is again upset by the Countess’s arrival. That the Countess diverts Edward recalls the unhappy consequences in Sc. 2 of her insistence on his staying at Roxborough. The military metaphor of exchanging the captive French for the Countess as payment (or ‘ransom’) sustains the scene’s seesaw motion between Edward’s two projects, amatory and military (see 2.188–9n.).

  102 there it goes i.e. so much for my good resolutions

  very mere

  * * *

  97 enemies’] Winny; enimies Q; enemy’s Capell 99 colours] (coullours) sweet] sweep Capell; beat Delius 99.1LODWICK] Lodowicke Q2 102 SD] Melchiori1

  104 Dauphin the ‘title of the eldest son of the King of France, from 1349 to 1830’ (OED 1). Q’s ‘Dolphin’ is an obsolete form of the word, derived from Lat. Delphinus, ‘the same as the name of the animal’ (OED Etymology). Mention of the Dauphin sets up an implicit parallel with Prince Edward that is developed in later scenes, notably 13. Cf. 18.111.

  peers Reference here is to the ‘peers of France’ deriving from the twelve main houses of French nobility (OED n. 4b), as at 6.122, 18.167.

  105 Ned See 1.141, 157n.

  106–7 Edward, having earlier counted himself ‘rich enough in seeing her’ (77), now contrasts Queen Philippa’s appearance with the Countess’s fair golden beauty, the current poetic ideal. Cf. Son 132.13–14, ‘Then will I swear beauty herself is black, / And all they foul that thy complexion lack’.

  106 black dark; may allude obliquely to Prince Edward’s familiar title, ‘the Black Prince’; cf. 13.111 and n. Cam compares sunburnt, 2.274 (see n.).

  109 these winter clouds the reminders of war brought by his son and lords (cf. 12.4); cf. 2.325.

  111–13 challenges the validity of a just war (see 1.167n.). Cf. 11.35–42 and n.; also pp. 6–10.

  111 ‘it is a greater sin to wage war’ (Cam)

  hack and hew familiar tautologous collocation (see OED hew v. 2). Cf. 4.61; also 1H6 4.4.159.

  112 embrace … bed commit adultery with

  113 register list, catalogue. Cf. 2.248–9; also Luc 765, MW 2.2.177, 2Tam, 3.2.23–4.

  rarieties exceptional characteristics, ‘esp. in respect of excellence’ (OED rarity 3). By analogy with ‘variety’, the spelling here indicates a four-syllable alternative to the noun ‘rarity’ (see OED rariety, citing this line; frequent in the plays of Thomas Heywood).

  114 i.e. from the beginning of time until now; cf. 1H4 2.4.91–3. Cf. also 2.427–32n.

  leathern skin-clad (OED 1c: its only example in this sense); allusion to Adam’s fall, resulting in his being clothed in animal skins (Genesis, 3.21). Cf. 2.32.

  Adam Cf. 2.430 and see p. 28.

  youngest hour present hour (i.e. now)

  * * *

  104 Dauphin] (Dolphin) 105, 108 Go,] Q2; Goe Q 105 SD Prince Edward.] (Pr.), Collier 106 SD] Moltke 108 hither] (hether) SD] after 110 Capell Lodwick] (Lod.); Lodowicke Q2 109 these] those Q2 113 rarieties] varieties Delius; fair rarities Moltke

  116 do … wilt drop all restraints. Cf. TGV 1.2.129; also E2, 5.1.88.

  117 So provided that

  118 my soul’s playfellow Cf. Per 1.0.33–4.

  thou Edward adopts the more intimate form of the pronoun; cf. 1.55, 57n., 2.123n.

  119 ‘yea’ Distinct from ‘yes’ (up to about 1600), yea was used in response to a question not involving a negative = ‘it is so’ (see OED yea adv. 1a, yes adv. 2a).

  120 objection in contention for; cf. 11.13.

  121 on his blessing Cf. 2.620.

  122 The alexandrine allows the Countess to appear compliant before her qualification your due, converting yield from the King’s absolute intransitive use to a transitive prescription of limits, i.e. that duty (2.89) to which the King has a moral and legal right.

  124 Q’s version makes good sense: ‘Than [to yield] right for right and [to] render (= return, reciprocate) love for love’. Behind it may lie reminiscence of Romans, 13.7–9, ‘Geue to euery man therfore his dutie, tribute to whom tribute … honour to whom honour [belongeth]. Owe nothyng to no man, but to loue one another … For this: Thou shalt not commit adulterie.’ Cf. also Painter, ‘takyng repentaunce for her former crueltye and rigor, [she] is come to render her selfe at your commaundement’ (sig. 3T4r).

  * * *

  114.1LODWICK, with the] Capell subst. 115 Go,] Capell; King. Goe Q; King. Goe, Q2 Lodwick] Lodowicke Q2 2thy] my Capell 117 SD] Capell subst. 119‘yea’] Collier; yea Q 120 objection] subjection Delius; abjection Collier 121 commanded –] Capell; commanded. Q 122 me?] Collier; me. Q 124 render] tender Capell

  125 unexpectedly fails to echo the previous line. The lines’ rhetorical balance is broken by parallel placing of the verb render and the adjective endless. This asymmetry led Capell to propose ‘tender’ for render. A more plausible emendation would be ‘render’ for endless (just imaginable as a misreading of Q’s ‘endles’): cf. Luc 943, ‘To wrong the wronger till he render right’. Yet Q makes sense in terms of the Countess’s extension and contradiction of Edward’s catalogue of reciprocal gifts. She has already rejected yielding to the King on pain of endless woe (2.625). Cf. 164–5 and nn. Although marked as ‘aside’ by Capell, the line is linked to the rest of the speech (with But (126)), and the Countess addresses the King directly from this point.

  126 sith since (only here in E3); used by Shakespeare only in early works (3H6, TS, Tit, VA, TGV)

  bent determined, set (OED a. 3)

  127–8 elliptical; ‘neither’ is implied by nor: ‘That [neither] my unwillingness’ (see Abbott, 396)

  127 my husband’s love the King’s love for Salisbury; Salisbury’s loving loyalty to the King; Salisbury and the Countess’s mutual love

  128 nor … respected i.e. nor any significant consideration (see 2.493n.). Cf. 2.103n.; also VA 911, ‘Full of respects, yet naught at all respecting’.

  130 awe overcome, with the influence of fear (OED v. 1a)

  regards considerations

  131–2 i.e. I shall constrain myself to be pleased with what displeases me and force myself to do what I wish not to.

  131 Cf. TS 1.1.80, ‘content you in my discontent’. See 2.103n.

  132 Cf. 2.409–10n.

  I will For omission of the relative, see Abbott, 244.

  133 lets impediments

  134 highness’ See 2.426n. on marriage’, 434n.

  135 by heaven Edward volunteers an oath; in Painter, the Countess requires one: see LN. Cf. 180–4, where the Countess demands that Edward swear.

  * * *

  131 bind] bend Collier 2my] thy Collier 132 I will] ‘I will’ Armstrong2 135 them] Capell; then Q

  136 their lives that the lives of those who (Abbott, 218)

  stand … love refers back to 134; plural ‘loves’ might be expected after between, but our love implies plurality and sustains the Countess’s reluctance to accept the King’s proposition; again at 140, 155 (love is singular throughout the play).

  137 choked up suffocated completely (OED v. phr. 1); see 2.156n. on make up, 472n., 12.5n.

  138 thrice-loving an allusion to the King’s excess of love-objects. Lapides, glossing loving as ‘beloved’ (cf. Abbott, 372, cited by Brooke), remarks, ‘Edward, says the Countess, is loved by his queen, the Earl, and the countess’. Cf. 2.322n.

  140 title entitlement (OED n. 7a)

  142 opposition contrary or hostile action (OED 3a)

  143 Metrical roughness may be smoothed by giving So the value of two beats (adding extra emphasis to the Countess’s response) and making desire trisyllabic (de-si-er).

  144 execute apt in relation to the Countess’s proposition; may also hint at the judicial death penalty, as enforced by a king. Cf. 18.24–5.

  144, 145the one … the other murder … adultery

  146–7 just as the King had manipulated Warwick’s oath of loyalty (2.477–516), the Countess now turns his own oath (135) against him.

  147 make good fulfil

  * * *

  136 love] loves Collier2 143 So] And so Capell; So too (Craik)

  148 shall strongly emphatic