37–53 If … thoughts The tension created in this speech is built rhetorically: John gathers to his point through a series of conditional statements (If … If … Or if … Or if ) which build to the concluding clauses (Then … I would).

  37 midnight bell church bell striking the midnight hour; cf. AC 3.13.184, ‘Let’s mock the midnight bell.’

  * * *

  26 tune] time Pope

  38 iron tongue the bell’s clapper. Cf. Theseus’ ‘The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve’ (MND 5.1.353).

  brazen (1) made of brass; (2) shameless

  39 race course of time, progress (see OED n.1 II 5c, citing this line, and 5b)

  41 possessed possessèd; filled up

  42 melancholy ‘Melancholy was thought due to the thickening of the blood, and vice versa as here’ (Ard2).

  43 baked the effect of melancholy, usually thought of as cold fluid, but here paradoxically it heats the blood to a disabling thick consistency. See 3.1.340–3n.

  44 tickling tingling (Ard2),‘stirring or moving with a thrill of pleasure: said of the heart, lungs, blood, spirits’ (OED v. I 1, citing Holinshed, Chron IV, 378: ‘How the spirits and livelie blood tickle in our arteries and small veines, in beholding you the light of this realme’)

  45 idiot laughter Cf. Thomas Dekker’s Old Fortunatus, 3.1.30, ‘Cheekes, / Wrinkled with idiot laughter’.

  48 without eyes John subconsciously anticipates his order of the blinding of Arthur. Cf. Claudius’s unwitting revelation of the murder of his brother, Hamlet Senior: ‘nature … whose common theme / Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried / From the first corpse till he that died today / “This must be so.” ’ (Ham 1.2.102–6).

  50 conceit imagination, thought, understanding

  52 brooded wide-eyed, a version of ‘broad-eyed’

  53 into … thoughts a common expression: ‘To pour into someone’s bosom’; cf. Antonio de Guevara, Golden Epistles, trans. Sir Geoffrey Fenton (1582), sig. T1v: ‘So simple ought we to be towards our friende, as in his bosome to powre our secretes’ (Dent, B546.2), noted by Honigmann.

  pour as with poison, etc.; cf. the Ghost of Hamlet Senior’s description of his murder: ‘And in the porches of my ears did pour / The leperous distilment’ (Ham 1.5.63–4).

  61 very serpent John sacrilegiously alludes to scripture: Jacob described the tribe of Dan as ‘a serpent by the way, an adder by the path, byting the horse heles, so that his ryder shal fall backwarde’ (Genesis, 49.17).

  64 Thou … keeper John continues his perverse scriptural allusions with reference to the rhetorical question of Cain, ‘Am I my brothers keper?’ (Genesis, 4.9).

  keeper gaoler, guardian

  66 After 47 lines of building tension and careful hesitation the resolution is reached in one monosyllabic pentameter: the two speakers sharing the line as they share one thought.

  My lord Editors disagree about the nature of Hubert’s response, making it either a statement (and keeping F’s full stop) or a question (as in surprise or failure to comprehend). By now Hubert understands the goal of John’s thought, but we suggest that the question offers a sense of ironic deviousness in its feigned incomprehension.

  * * *

  66 lord.] lord? Rowe

  73 true duty John, perhaps without self-awareness, raises again the problem of multiple and implicitly hierarchical allegiances.

  Calais pronounced ‘kaliss’

  3.4.1 flood sea, ocean

  2 armada fleet, with the lingering association of the great Spanish Armada of 1588

  *convected Fleay was the first to suggest this emendation of F’s ‘convicted’, which does make some sense as ‘vanquished, defeated’, but lacks the emendation’s link with armada, suggesting ‘sailing together’ as in a fleet.

  3 fellowship unity, from their group, with a pun on ship = naval vessel, which in the plural makes up the group now scattered

  5 run scaled; said of a vessel when it sails swiftly or easily (OED v. 10), but also with the suggestion of having fled from battle

  * * *

  67 now.] Rowe; now, F 71 SD] Oxf1 3.4] Capell; Scæna Tertia. F 0.1] Enter France, Dolphin, Pandulpho, Attendants. F 1+ SP] Fra. F 2 armada] Theobald subst.; armado F convected] Fleay; convicted F; collected Pope; conjuncted (Maxwell)

  7 Divers several

  8 1England i.e. the King

  9 O’er-bearing overpowering

  interruption hindrance, resistance, thwart. OED n. 3 cites this line.

  spite of despite

  11 with … disposed disciplined by such judgement (Riv2)

  advice prudence

  12 cause affair, quarrel

  13 Doth want example is without precedent, is unique

  14 kindred similar

  16 pattern precedent, an instance appealed to (OED n. 7, citing this line)

  16.1 *her hair dishevelled The hair worn down was a conventional stage symbol for mental distraction. See Dessen (online, 7). Cf. the SD at R3 2.2.33.1 for the widowed Queen Elizabeth, ‘with her hair about her ears’.

  17–19 grave … prison See Dent, B497, ‘The body is the prison of the soul’; cf. 3H6 2.1.74–6. Constance’s grief has made her a walking grave which imprisons her soul in her body. Ard2 notes two parallel instances for this metaphor of the body: ‘After thy breath hath left thy bodye, and thy soule is set free from this vile prison of earth’ (Tarlton’s News (1590), 4) and ‘the poore soule which must … passe out of his vile prison’ (Barley, Celestina (1596), 203).

  19 breath life

  * * *

  10+ SP] (Dol.) 14 kindred action] Theobald; kindred-action F 16.1 her hair dishevelled] Capell

  21 issue result, outcome, consequence, with a pun on the sense ‘offspring’

  22 Patience … comfort In the tradition of consolatio literature, King Philip adopts the role of the consoler, suggesting Constance adopt Patience to bear her grief and offering her strength (comfort). According to the Platonic–Stoic philosophy on which the consolatio literature is based, patience is enjoined because reason alone can protect life from the disorder of the passions (an assumption which Constance challenges). The classical tradition assumed that the consoler was genuinely concerned for the welfare of those suffering. Shakespeare often subverts the genre by presenting hypocritical consolers who only feign condolence (King Philip and Pandulph) by comforting just those people whose suffering they have caused (see Vickers, 248, 275).

  23 ‘In Shakespeare’s plays it seldom happens that consolation has the desired result of making the sufferer accept his or her condition … In a striking number of cases consolation is simply refused, the main reason given being the sufferer’s claim that his or her grief is too intense to be assuaged with words’ (Vickers, 258).

  redress relief, succour

  24 true redress i.e. the relief offered by death

  25–36 Death … me This apostrophe to death channels Romeo’s analysis of the same subject (RJ 5.3.101ff.), with Constance’s ‘the couch of lasting night’ helping to resolve the ‘palace’/‘pallet’ crux of RJ 5.3.107–8 in favour of ‘pallet’: ‘And never from this [pallet] of dim night / Depart again’. See Smallwood, 256, and Tobin, N&Q (1980), 161–2. Cf. also 2H6 2.4.87–8.

  25 lovely lovable

  26–33 odoriferous … monster The sequence of words contains a number of like elements from Southwell, Epistle: ‘uglye monsters … odoriferous … worme … stench … sound … household … vermin’ (5r–7r; 20 r–v, cited in Klause, 415).

  27 couch … night resting place of death

  28 prosperity happiness. For the thought of Death being an enemy to man’s prosperity cf. Ecclesiasticus, 41.1.

  30 vaulty arched, cavernous; so intimate is the ghoulish embrace between Constance and Death that her eyes are in his eye-sockets.

  * * *

  25 Death! Death,] Pope subst.; Death, death, F

  32 gap of breath i.e. mouth

  fulsome physically disgusting, foul, loathsome. OED a. 4a cites this line.

  33 carrion deathly, corrupt. As a synonym for personified death carrion is used pleonastically by Shakespeare in the Prince of Morocco’s discovery of the skull within the casket he has chosen: ‘O, hell! What have we here? / A carrion death, within whose empty eye / There is a written scroll’ (MV 2.7.62–4).

  34 grin … smil’st The fixed, empty grin of a jawless skull is compared to the smile of the living; cf. Yorick’s grinning skull in Ham 5.1.181–2. Honigmann distinguishes well the two facial expressions: ‘A grin is fixed, showing the teeth; a smile vivacious, with the play of the features.’

  36 affliction afflicted one

  38–9 tongue … world ‘Seneca’s Medea (423–5) cries out that “This day shall do, shall do that whereof no day shall e’er be dumb. I will storm [invadam] the gods and shake [quatiam] the world [cuncta]” (Beaurline). For the Senecan influence of Constance’s tirades, see Jones, Origins, 270.

  40 fell anatomy cruel skeleton

  42 modern ordinary; Cf. Jaques’s description of the justice, ‘Full of wise saws and modern instances’ (AYL 2.7.157).

  43 madness … sorrow Pandulph remarks that Constance’s expression of grief is not governed by reason. Cf. Marcus in the role of comforter in Tit: ‘O brother, speak with possibility, / And do not break into these deep extremes … But yet let reason govern thy lament’ (3.1.215–19). The notion that grief makes one mad was a commonplace, cf. Edward II, 5.1.114, ‘Ah pardon me, greefe makes me lunatick’.

  * * *

  35 Misery’s] Rowe; Miseries F

  44 *not holy with reference to Pandulph’s status as a man of the Church, which forbids him to lie about Constance’s expression of grief Oxf1 notes. F’s reading, ‘holy’, may be correct which would make Constance’s statement one of bitter sarcasm, though the line is metrically short. F4’s reading restores the missing syllable that may have been omitted by the compositor.

  belie calumniate, slander

  48–50 I would … forget Like Gloucester in KL, Constance would prefer the narcosis of madness to the burden of reason and perception: cf. KL 4.6.276–9, ‘Better I were distract, / So should my thoughts be severed from my griefs, / And woes by wrong imaginations lose / The knowledge of themselves.’

  49 like probable

  51 philosophy i.e. practical wisdom

  54 reasonable part i.e. brain, intellect

  54–5 reason / How ‘the idea of a way in which’

  55 delivered of delivered from; give birth to (thus freeing herself from the burden of grief). By 92 grief has become the substitute for her lost child. (Smallwood)

  58 babe of clouts rag doll (clouts = cloths); Ard2 adds to the notion of rag doll: ‘ “(person) of clouts” was an idiom for “inferior (person)”: cf. Mother Bombie: “I had as liefe haue one [a husband] of clouts” (Lyly, III, 224) … Shakespeare may intend the figurative sense too, for in ll. 93–8 Grief becomes the inferior substitute.’

  * * *

  44 not] F4; not in F 61 SD] this edn

  63 silver drop tear

  64 wiry a common Elizabethan metaphor for hair (wires); cf. Son 130.4, ‘If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head’.

  65 sociable sympathetic

  68 To England … will The line does not respond to the immediate context but to Philip’s request at 20. Perhaps the incongruity represents yet another symptom of Constance’s state of distraction. Beaurline says, ‘Constance responds to the implication of France’s last speech – in effect, “If you truly sympathize with my plight, attack England.” It is unnecessary to assume (with Wilson) that she replies to France’s invitation to “go away with me” and that the intervening dialogue was added later.’

  73 envy at begrudge

  77–9 we shall … Cain another possible instance of Shakespeare’s borrowing an idea and vocabulary from a post-1591 work. Southwell stresses the same theme of personal recognition: ‘Oure countrye is heaven … There a greate number of our friends exspecteth us … What unspeakable comforte is it to come to the syghte … of them …? Caynes sacrifice’ (Epistle, 136r–7r, cited in Klause, 415).

  77–8 Constance sees heaven as a place where persons will have their individual earthly form.

  77 see … heaven Ard2 points out that ‘[t]he Anglican Church also accepted this doctrine, but it was disputed: cf. P.S., Cristal Glass for Christian Women (1591), sig. Cvff.’ Cf. R3 3.3.25, ‘Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.’

  * * *

  64 friends] Rowe; fiends F 76 SD] Oxf

  80 did … suspire i.e. was born only yesterday

  suspire breathe

  81 gracious graceful, handsome, attractive

  82 canker-sorrow … bud ‘The canker soonest eats the fairest rose’ (Dent C56); my bud refers to Arthur (the ‘half-blown rose’ of 3.1.54). The canker is the caterpillar that destroys plants. Cf. TGV 1.1.42–3, ‘Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud / The eating canker dwells’; Son 35.4, ‘And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.’

  85 dim scarcely visible

  meagre emaciated

  ague’s fit shaking brought on by chills or fever; fever’s paroxysm, sudden attack. Cf. Cassius’ description of Caesar: ‘He had a fever when he was in Spain, / And when the fit was on him I did mark / How he did shake. ’Tis true, this god did shake’ (JC 1.2.119–21).

  86 so … so i.e. in that condition. Constance’s description of Arthur’s physical state reverses the concept of the body’s glorification at the Resurrection when ‘this corruptible must put on incorruption’ (see 1 Corinthians, 15.53).

  88–9 1never … more Ard2 notes the Marlovian parallel in Edward II, ‘I shall never see / My louely Pierce, my Gaueston againe’ (sig. F3), and there is a further parallel lament for a dead daughter in Lear’s ‘thou’lt come no more, / Never, never, never, never, never’ (KL 5.3.306–7).

  90 heinous a respect terrible an idea; heinous = wicked, sinful. Excessive indulgence in grief was considered a sin against the will of God; cf. Dorset’s response to his mother’s grief over the death of her husband in R3 2.2.89–95.

  91 a variation of the proverbial attitude, ‘He that has no children knows not what love is’ (Dent, C341); cf. 3H6 5.5.63 and Mac 4.3.219–20.

  * * *

  79 male child] Pope; male-childe F

  93–8 Here grief is the personification of the total living presence of the lost child, or the personification of grief as an inseparable presence to the bereaved. Cf. R2 1.2.55, ‘With her companion, Grief, must end her life’, and 2.2.7, ‘Why I should welcome such a guest as Grief’.

  95–6 pretty … parts There is much in Constance’s grief-stricken lament that is anticipated by the Jewish matron Miriam’s grief over the imminent death of her only son, who is to be sacrificed and eaten for necessary food, as described by Nashe in Christ’s Tears, a favourite text of Shakespeare’s (Works, 2.71–7). See also my food at 104, perhaps similarly affected by Nashe’s anecdote.

  96 Remembers reminds

  97 Stuffs out fills out

  100 Now, knowing what it feels like to lose a child, she would be qualified to offer consolation (see Vickers, 276).

  101 SD *Having bound her hair at 76, Constance unbinds it, leaving the stage in the same manner with which she entered.

  101 form coiffure, due shape, orderly arrangement, i.e. of her hair (OED n. 8, citing this line)

  106 outrage violent injury (to herself), implying suicide (Constance refers to suicide in 56)

  * * *

  101 SD] this edn 105 sorrows’] Capell; sorrowes F

  108 tedious … tale Cf. Dent, T53.1, ‘Tales twice told are ungrateful’, and 4.2.18–19, ‘This act is as an ancient tale new told, / And in the last repeating, troublesome’; cf. RJ 5.3.230, Mac 5.5.24–8.

  110 bitter shame i.e. for the French defeat, not for Constance’s grief

  113 repair recovery, restoration (OED n.2, citing this line)

  114 fit the mortal crisis of the disease (OED n.2 2b)

  116 this day the day’s battle

  119–20 when … eye Cam2 notes the proverb ‘When Fortune most doth smile, then will she frown’ (Dent, F598.1). Pandulph stresses the only apparent positive in the midst of an ultimate negative for John.

  119 means … good i.e. intends to do most good to men

  126 prophetic predictive, presageful (OED a. 2, citing this line)

  * * *

  114–15 leave, … departure] Capell; leaue … departure, F

  128 dust grain of dust (OED n.1 2a), see 4.1.92. Cf. R2 2.3.91, ‘Dared once to touch a dust of England’s ground’.

  rub impediment by which a bowl is hindered in, or diverted from, its proper course, from the game of lawn bowling (note also the Bastard’s imagery at 2.1.574–84); hence obstacle

  131–4 Cf. Holinshed, 165a, ‘so long as Arthur liued, there would be no quiet’.

  132 whiles while

  warm life blood

  infant’s young man’s; boy’s; not a very young child in swaddling clothes. Another use of a word which stresses Arthur’s youth but with further specific meanings: a person who has not reached legal age, a minor (‘in the case of a ruler, one who has not reached the age at which he becomes constitutionally capable of exercising sovereignty’, OED n.1 2); a youth of noble or gentle birth (OED n.1 3). See Spenser’s description of another Arthur as ‘The Infant hearkned wisely to her tale’ (FQ, 6.8.25).

  135–6 snatched … boist’rously Cf. the dying Henry IV, who speaks of the crown in similar language: ‘It seemed in me / But as an honour snatched with boist’rous hand’ (2H4 4.3.319–20).

  136 boist’rously elided thus for the metre; violently as well as noisily. OED cites this line.

  137 slippery place Cf. Psalms, 73.18–19, ‘thou hast set them [the wicked] in slipperie places, and castest them downe into desolation. How suddenly are they destroyed, perished (and) horribly consumed.’ Although biblical, this adjective may derive as well from Nashe’s description of a moment of great danger in the siege of Jerusalem: ‘The Marble floor of it they made so slippery with theyr unrespited, and not so much as Saboth-ceased blood-shed, and bowel-clinging fatte of them that were slaine, that a man might better swimme than walke on it. The place without the Citty …’ (Works, 2.66). The word slippery is later used by Shakespeare to describe Antony’s parlous condition immediately after the assassination: ‘My credit now stands on such slippery ground’ (JC 3.1.191). See also Cor 4.4.12 (slippery here pronounced ‘slipp’ry’).