32 retail retell, recount

  27.1] Capell; opp. 25 Q; after 29 F; after 33 Pope 28 who] Q; whom F 32 retail] Q (retale), F (retaile)

  33 tidings comes Using singular verb forms with plural subjects was a not uncommon practice from the mid-16th to the mid-17th century, especially with nouns that could be thought of as collective (Abbott, 333). Cf. 5.5.47.

  34 Sir John Umfreville a name most editors think Shakespeare replaced with Lord Bardolph, the change occurring in the course of revision. Evidence that Umfreville once figured in this scene is provided by Q, in which the SP for 161 (a line not in F) is Vmfr. At 1.3.81, the fact that Lord Bardolph is ignorant of news imparted to him in this scene (131–5) lends further support to the hypothesis that his role in 1.1 was originally written for someone else. Chambers speculates that Lord Bardolph had ‘replaced Sir John Umfreville through a belated historical correction, not fully carried out’ (Shakespeare, 1.379). The Oxford editors carry out that substitution here, thus creating an octosyllabic line with an awkward repetition of ‘Lord’.

  37 forspent worn out

  38 breathe allow to rest

  bloodied i.e. its flesh torn by the rider’s spurs

  41 bad F’s ‘ill’ is often preferred by editors because Northumberland uses the phrase ill luck at 51 in an apparent echo of Travers, and Shakespeare uses it elsewhere as well (cf. MV 3.1.89–91); but there is no compelling reason to reject Q.

  42 spur was cold a play on Harry Percy’s nickname, Hotspur: cold = dead. Cf. 50.

  43 able strong, vigorous, powerful (OED adj. 5); perhaps, here, sufficiently re-covered to proceed

  the head freedom of rein, not restrained by a bridle

  44 armed spurred; armèd

  45 jade worn-out horse, hack; usually used contemptuously, but here, compassionately

  33 with] Q; fro F 34 Sir John Umfreville] Q (Vmfreuile), F (Vmfreuill); Lord Bardolph Oxf (Capell) 36 hard] Q; head F 41 bad] Q; ill F 44 forward] Q; forwards F armed] Q; able F; agile Pope

  46 rowel head spiked wheel at the end of a spur

  47 devour the way eat up the road. Compare similar imagery in Job, 39.24: ‘He [the war horse] swalloweth the grounde for fearcenes and rage’ (Geneva Bible); also in Catullus’ Ode 35.7 and in Jonson’s Sejanus, 5.10.763–4 (Ard1).

  48 Staying … question allowing no further conversation (OED stay v. 19). Cf. MV 4.1.342: ‘I’ll stay no longer question.’

  49–50 Said … Coldspur? Daniel may have inspired the quibbles on hot and cold: ‘Such wracke of others bloud thou didst behold / O furious Hotspur, ere thou lost thine owne! / Which now once lost that heate in thine waxt cold’ (CW, 3.114).

  52 have … day has not won the battle

  53 point piece of lace for tying a garment; hence, a trifle

  54 Never … it ‘Mark my words.’

  55 1that possibly a case of compositorial anticipation, in which case F’s ‘the’ would be correct

  56 instances examples, evidence

  57 hilding contemptible, worthless (OED sb. 2)

  59 at a venture at random, recklessly, without due consideration (OED venture sb. 1c)

  48 Ha? Again:] F; Ha? Again, Q; Ha! Again? Capell 55 1that] Q; the F 57 stol’n] QF (stolne) 59 Spoke] Q; Speake F; Spake F2–4 a venture] Q (a venter); aduenture F SD] this edn; opp. 59 Q; after 59 F

  60 title-leaf title-page. See TITLE t.n. for evidence of the descriptive nature of Elizabethan title-pages. Title-pages for tragedies frequently mentioned the fates of major characters.

  62 strand shoreline, beach

  imperious flood high tide. Cf. imperious surge at 3.1.20.

  63 witnessed usurpation visible trace. The line of seaweed left along the shore is said to resemble the line of a furrowed brow. The word usurpation, apt for this play about a usurping king, is used to describe the encroachment of an abnormally high tide.

  67 brother i.e. Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, who has been sentenced to death by the King in 1H4 5.5.14, yet who, Morton falsely assures Northumberland, is still living (82)

  70–4 Neither Homer nor Virgil includes this episode in recounting the sack of Troy. In Virgil, Aen., 2.268–97, the ghost of Hector appears to Aeneas in his sleep to warn him of danger, and Aeneas awakes to find Troy on fire, but Priam is not mentioned. However, a revival of Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, re-titled Jeronimo and acted on 7 January 1597, may have included, among other interpolated passages, the lines ‘Draw me like old Priam of Troy, crying, “The house is a-fire, the house is a-fire, as the torch over my head”’ (Fourth Addition, 156–8) – a possible source for the reference here (Ard2).

  70 Even was certainly pronounced ‘e’en’ to ensure a pentameter line.

  72 curtain i.e. the curtain around his bed

  62 strand] QF (strond) whereon] Q; when F 64 Morton] F, Q (Mourton) 68 tremblest] Q; trembl’st F 73 was burnt] Q; was burn’d F; had burnt Cam2

  74 ere … tongue before the man had time to speak

  78 Stopping filling

  79 stop prevent from hearing anything further, punning on the sense of ‘stop’ in 78. Cf. Ind.1–2.

  83 dead? F’s punctuation would change Q’s agonized question to a more resigned statement.

  84 spoken with reference to himself: suspicion has led him to anticipate the truth in the speech above (67–81).

  85–7 He … chanced The man who fears a truth, and therefore would prefer not to know it, instinctively reads (Hath … knowledge) in others’ eyes what that truth is.

  87 is chanced has happened

  88–9 Ordinarily it is an offence (disgrace) to contradict an earl, but Northumberland will consider it sweet for Morton to give the lie to his intuition (divination) of what happened at Shrewsbury.

  92 spirit intuition, perception (OED sb. 12)

  79 my] Q; mine F 83 son – ] Rowe3; sonne: Q; Sonne. F dead?] Q; dead. F 86 others’] Capell; others QF 88 an] Q; thy F

  94 strange reluctant (OED adj. 11b)

  95 shak’st thy head Morton tacitly confesses the truth by nodding his head.

  hold’st it believe it to be

  fear a fearful act

  96 F’s ‘say so’ completes the pentameter line but is not necessary to the meaning (cf. 4.3.52n.), while Q’s abbreviated line allows a brief pause for Northumberland to take in the painful prospect of his son’s death.

  98 he … dead a proverbial sentiment (‘To belie the dead is a sin’) (Dent, D124.1), common in drama of this period

  belie slander, calumniate (OED v. 2)

  101 Hath … office performs an unrewarding service or task

  102 sullen deep, dull and mournful in tone (OED adj. 3b). Cf. Son 71.1–2: ‘No longer mourn for me when I am dead / Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell’.

  103 tolling F’s substitution of ‘knolling’ for tolling is not easy to explain, since the words are virtually synonymous. OED cites this line as the earliest instance of both words’ use to mean ringing out for a dead or dying person.

  105–6 In the contest for credibility, Morton upstages Lord Bardolph by arguing that second-hand reports must give way before his own eye-witness account of Hotspur’s death. In 1H4, however, only Falstaff is onstage to witness Harry’s combat with Hotspur, and Harry infamously permits him to take credit for killing Hotspur at 5.4.156–8. Shakespeare’s inconsistency allows Morton to render his more accurate account of Hotspur’s death in the following lines (107–11).

  96 slain,] Q; slaine, say so: F 102–3 bell, / Remembered tolling] Q; Bell / Remembred, knolling F 106 God] Q; heauen F

  108 Rend’ring faint quittance making meagre resistance; quittance, meaning a return of blows, works as a financial metaphor as well: the repayment of a debt – here, what is owed to Harry.

  out-breathed out of breath, possibly implying that his opponent had more stamina

  109–11 Holinshed and Stow (Annales) simply record that Hotspur was killed by soldiers of the royal army. Shakespeare is therefore unhistorical: in crediting Harry with the prize – ‘The Prince killeth Hotspur.’ (1H4 5.4.75 SD) – he may have been inspired by a passage in Daniel wherein the King is told that at Shrewsbury ‘shall young Hotespur with a fury led / Meete with thy forward sonne as fierce as he’ (CW, 3.97).

  112 In few in a few words, in short

  whose Hotspur, not death, is the implied antecedent.

  114 Being bruited once from the moment it was reported

  115 best-tempered having the hardness and elasticity of steel, metaphorically forged in the fire mentioned at 112

  116 metal with a pun on mettle, meaning courage, spirit or strength of character. Anticipated by tempered in the previous line, metal introduces a series of images, continuing in this line with steeled, which compares the rebel soldiers’ conduct on the field with heavy lead (118) and their flight from the field with arrows (123). F’s ‘Mettle’, indistinguishable from Q’s ‘mettal’ in the theatre, lacks its metaphoric richness in print.

  party soldiers

  117–18 The meaning is not clear. Possibly the abatement – the blunting of the edge (OED abate v. 8) – of Hotspur’s metal (sword or mettle) by his death caused those soldiers who had once been steeled by him to lose their edge: that is, to bend, turn back on themselves, and become as dull and heavy as they used to be. To be as dull or heavy as lead was proverbial (Dent, L133.1, 134).

  120 Upon enforcement under compulsion; when force is applied to it

  109 Harry] Q; Henrie F 110 never-daunted] F; neuer daunted Q 116 metal] Q (mettal), F4; Mettle F1–3

  121 heavy in dejected by, playing on heavy as ‘weighted down’ at 119 and anticipating the quibble on weight at 122. The phrase contrasts with the lightness of their fear that propels them at 122–5.

  123 fled ambiguously used here as the past tense of both flee and fly (flew); likewise the fleeing of soldiers is suggested at 125 by the verb Fly. By using these verbs interchangeably, Shakespeare fuses arrows and soldiers together, turning the simile into a half-metaphor.

  123 aim target or thing aimed at

  125 Then two meanings, both apply: at that time; for that reason. The latter better explains So soon at 126.

  Worcester Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester and Northumberland’s brother

  128 Holinshed’s report that Douglas ‘slew Sir Walter Blount, and three other apparelled in the King’s suit and clothing’ (3.523) is the source of this passage and two passages in 1H4 (5.3.1–29, 5.4.24–37). For references to the King’s decoys in this play, see 16n., 17–18n.

  129 ’Gan … stomach began to lose his courage (OED vail v.2 4a: abase, humble, lower)

  grace sanction by fleeing with them, used ironically in reference to Douglas’s noble title

  131 Stumbling … took an abbreviation of Holinshed, who records Douglas’s ‘falling from the crag of an high mountain’, his capture and his subsequent release by the King (3.523). The account in 1H4 5.5.17–31 spoken by Hal, who is so impressed by Douglas’s ‘valours’ that he delivers him ‘ransomless and free’, is closer to Holinshed than is Morton, who attributes fear to Douglas.

  133 power army (OED sb. 9)

  encounter confront, do battle with (OED v. 1)

  126 So] Q; Too F

  137 physic medicine. Cf. a similar paradox in RJ 2.3.19–20: ‘Within the infant rind of this weak flower / Poison hath residence and medicine power’; and in Luc 530–2: ‘The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted / In a pure compound; being so applied, / His venom in effect is purified.’

  137–9 and … well The syntax is ambiguous. Having and Being may arguably modify me, or an implied ‘I’, rather than these news. Northumberland affirms that Morton’s report, poisonous enough to make him sick had he been well, has paradoxically given him the impetus (physic) to get out of his sickbed and take action. The structure of 138–9 produces, in Weis’s phrase, ‘a taut chiasmus’.

  137 these news Though Morton has made news singular at 135, Northumberland’s plural form was commonly used when the word referred to an account of recent events rather than its dissemination (OED sb. 2a).

  140 wretch miserable or unfortunate person (OED sb. 2)

  141 life the weight of living

  142 Impatient … fit modifies wretch at 140. Impatient means unable to endure the fit, a severe illness or a paroxysm brought on by fever (OED fit sb. 3a), an image enhanced by fire (142).

  143 keeper’s nurse’s (OED sb. 1e)

  144 enraged made hot or feverish (OED enrage v. 6b)

  145 nice unmanly

  146 scaly gauntlet A gauntlet is a glove worn as armour, usually made of leather and covered with steel plate, in this case scaly with overlapping pieces of metal (OED scaly adj. 5).

  147 sickly coif For coif, see 6.1–2n.; sickly is transferred from Northumberland to the coif, a hypallage similar to that at 1.3.99.

  137 these] Q; this F 143 keeper’s] Rowe; keepers QF 145, 147 SD] Oxf subst.

  148 guard protection or defence, with a possible play on its obsolete meaning, ornamental trimming on a garment (OED sb. 11a)

  wanton of clothing: luxurious, self-indulgent, effeminate (OED adj. 4)

  149 fleshed with conquest their taste of victory making them hunger for more bloodshed (OED flesh v. 1, 2a, 2c). Dogs were fed with raw meat (fleshed) to whet their appetites for the chase.

  150 bind … iron fit my head with a helmet. More conventionally laurels, not iron, would bind one’s brows: Northumberland imagines a perversely ceremonial scene of arming.

  150–1 approach … hour the subjunctive form, meaning ‘let the roughest hour approach’. Weis reads the line as ‘let them approach’, but there is no logical antecedent for ‘them’. See a similar use of the subjunctive at 4.3.250–2.

  153–60 Northumberland’s hyperbolic call for the world to return to chaos anticipates the vaunting of later tragic heroes: Lear, who commands all nature’s germens to spill at once because his daughters have proven ungrateful (KL 3.2.6–9); Timon, who bids the social fabric unravel because his friends have abandoned him (Tim 4.1.1–41); and Macbeth, who would risk chaos to learn what his future holds (Mac 4.1.50–61). Macbeth’s invocation of a moral as well as a natural disorder most closely echoes Northumberland’s speech which, by willing a fratricidal spirit to Reign in all bosoms, hints at the moral degeneration of the rebels’ cause. Northumberland himself has, through his treachery, contributed to the very unrest which has cost his son’s life and led to his present despair.

  153 kiss touch; an ironically delicate verb for the apocalyptic collapse of earth and sky

  153–4 Now … confined! Nature, the principle of order, is bid to allow the ocean (flood) to encroach on the land and thus become wild because unconfined. Allusions to the flood in Genesis and to the great Stratford flood of 1588 are both possible.

  155–6 The metaphor of the world as a stage was proverbial (‘This world is a stage and every man plays his part’, Dent, W882; cf. AYL 2.7.140–67), and ling’ring act, meaning both a prolonged performance and an extended struggle, extends the metaphor: cf. Henry’s account of his own kingship as a performance at 4.3.326–7. But To feed contention – that is, to nourish or exacerbate a quarrel – makes it a mixed metaphor.

  149 fleshed] QF; flush’d Capell 155 this] Q; the F

  157 one … Cain a universal impulse to murder one’s brother: see Genesis, 4.1 – 8. Bolingbroke alludes to the Cain and Abel story twice in R2 (1.1.104–6, 5.6.43 – 4), seemingly without being aware that the reference alludes to himself as the guilty murderer of his cousin (= brother).

  159 rude scene barbarous and violent action; or, in a continuation of the stage metaphor, a bad performance

  161–5 These warnings to Northumberland not to succumb to passion are reminiscent of those spoken to Hotspur after he has drowned his wisdom in a sea of rant (1H4 1.3.208–36). Shakespeare draws an implicit comparison between father and son.

  161 SP *Q assigns this line to Sir John Umfreville, whose role was probably conflated with Lord Bardolph’s during revision (see 34n.). This edition follows Pope and many subsequent editors in changing the SP to Lord Bardolph: cf. 162 SPn. Capell is clearly wrong to assign the line to Travers, who, a mere messenger, would not speak to a lord in this way.

  161 strained passion excessive or unnatural outburst – whether of feeling or rhetoric, either of which would apply (OED strained ppl.a. 4; passion sb. 6c); strainèd