133–6 Froissart, 147, seems to give the hint for these lines: see LN. Cf. 3.63–5n.

  133 sweet Fortune, turn combines images of Fortune’s wheel and the responsiveness of Fortune to changing winds

  134 *froward Q’s ‘forward’ (eager, spirited; OED a. 6a, c) makes sense, but Q2’s ‘froward’ (adverse, unfavourable) provides apt contrast with favouring, 135.

  135 advantage See 2.490–1n.

  favouring sky favourable wind and weather conditions; heaven’s blessing (Riv)

  136 the other used collectively = the others (see Abbott, 12); cf. 150, 18.52.

  * * *

  124 sweetest] Capell; sweete Q; to sweet (Craik) harmony] (hermonie) digests] (disgests) 125 SP] Q2; not in Q, but K.Io.Now is catchword on E3r; ki:Io: MS in Folger 125–6]Q2 lines thundring / soueraigntie: / 125 hear’st] (hearest) thundering] (thundring) 131 SD] Capell; after 132 Q 133 it be] om. Q2 Fortune] (fortune) 134 froward] Q2; forward Q 135 favouring] Q2; sauoring Q 136 the other] Capell; thither Q; th’other Q2

  137 My heart misgives Cf. 3H6 4.6.94.

  mirror of Cf. 1H6 1.4.73 and H5 2.0.6.

  pale death from Horace, Odes, 1.4.13–14, ‘Pallida mors aequo pede pulsat pauperum tabernas / Regumque turres’ (‘Pale death strikes the hovels of the poor and the palaces of kings with equal foot’). Cf. also Revelation, 6.8.

  138 day Cf. 117n.

  140 Cf. Froissart, 148, ‘the Frenchmen, Normayns, and other were dysconfetted’, and Holinshed, 3.358, ‘Howsoeuer it was, the Englishmen got a famous victorie, to the great comfort of themselues, and discomfort of their aduersaries.’ Cf. also 1H6 1.1.58–9, ‘Sad tidings … / Of … discomfiture’.

  discomfiture overthrow, rout

  142 ta’en the foil been defeated (OED n.2 2a)

  ta’en monosyllabic (Q ‘tane’)

  144–84 the play’s first ‘set-piece’ description of battle: cf. 5.54–68, 18.109–56. Lambrechts, 160–1, compares 165–6 (see n.) with Spanish Tragedy, 1.2.59–60; Braunmuller extends this to cover the whole of the General’s description (Spanish Tragedy, 1.2.22–84), instancing ‘the way actions of the contending parties alternate ritually or balletically, the link between light/dark and life/death, the fragmentation of whole bodies into body parts, the purple-colouring of land (sea) by human blood etc.’ (Cam). Cf. the repeated battle-descriptions in Spanish Tragedy at 1.3.60–71, 4.6–28. See also 161n. Sharrock describes the sea-battle of Sluys at sigs B4v–C1r.

  146 Cf. 1H6 5.4.85 and Spanish Tragedy, 1.2.25 (BV).

  spleen Cf. 1.160 (and n.).

  147 in the face i.e. face to face (Riv)

  148 conjoined joined in action; cf. 29, 126 (see n.). Cf. Sharrock, sig. B4v, ‘Shipp, fast to shipp conioynes’; also 18.150.

  by from

  148, 149admiral See 73n.

  * * *

  142 ta’en] (tane) 148, 149 admiral] (Admirall)

  149 shot ‘That which is discharged in shooting’, i.e. stones, arrows or esp. balls or bullets from firearm or cannon (OED n.1 13a, 14a). Cf. 123n.

  150 By this by now

  other singular for plural (see 136n.); the remaining vessels of the two fleets

  151 earnest-penny foretaste, indication of something to come (OED 1; see Dent2, Appendix B, EE2.1). Cf. 12.3n. on earnest, and 157–8n.

  a further wrack more destruction (OED wrack n.1 2a)

  152 fiery dragons In the 16th century the mythical dragon could be a sea monster, with or without wings, breathing fire; biblically it had apocalyptic associations (Revelation, 12) presaging death; also a symbol of anger (e.g. R3 5.3.350).

  took … flight proudly took wing, to attack, not flee; cf. 84nn., 6.152.

  153–4 from … death i.e. fired fatal artillery from their smoky gun-decks; wombs = bellies. Cf. 12.4–5, 13.125–6, 14.2–3, 18.153–4 and nn.

  155 The smoke of battle turns day to artificial night; cf. 13.1, 18.152–4. The smoky darkness may be compounded by night: cf. Holinshed, 3.358, ‘after they had fought all the night till the next morning, the Englishmen at length preuailed’. Froissart, 148, however, states that ‘This batayle endured fro the mornyng tyll it was noone’.

  156–7 The living (the quick) and dead are equally engulfed in darkness (night; death). Cf. Prayer Book, 58, ‘From thence [i.e. heaven] shall he [Jesus Christ] come to judge the quick and the dead’.

  157 reft aphetic form of ‘bereft’; cf. Soliman and Perseda, 3.1.137 (BV).

  159 hideous noise Cf. the description of Sluys in Fabyan, sig. 2q4r, ‘Then approached the hole flote vpon bothe sides, with hydous & ferefull dynne & noyse’.

  160 seemed seemèd

  161 Purple used of blood (OED a. 2c, first cited from FQ, 2.6.29). Cf., e.g., R3 4.4.277, Luc 1734; also Spanish Tragedy, 1.2.60–2 (see 144–84n.), and Sharrock, sig. C1r, ‘no semblance now at all / Of greenish colour cleare, dame Thetis wallowing waues retaine / But purple hue do beare’.

  channel sea bed and the body of water in it (OED n.1 1). Cf. Sharrock, sigs B4v, C1r, ‘On both sides fiercer growes the fight, bloud, bloud, pursues full fast, / He headlong tumblyng downe, in gulfie channell quicke is cast’, ‘Their men on scriking, drowne, we drowne, into the channell turnde’.

  * * *

  160 dumb] (dombe)

  162 maimed maimèd

  163 her the sea’s

  moisture i.e. water of the sea (OED n. 1c); cf. Soliman and Perseda, 1.3.79–81, ‘the earth is my Countrey, / As … the marine moisture / To the red guild fish’.

  164 cranny cleftures tautologous: narrow splits or fissures. OED records no adjectival ‘cranny’, but the noun and the form ‘crannied’ (see t.n.) are well known from MND 3.1.66, 5.1.156–7, 162. Cf. 8.28–9n. The form cleftures is a self-explanatory variant of ‘cleft’, but this instance is one of only two cited in OED. See 2.568n.

  planks of either the hull or decks

  165–6 Cf. Spanish Tragedy, 1.2.59–60, ‘Heere falls a body scindred from his head, / There legs and armes lye bleeding on the grasse’; also Cornelia, 5.1.258, ‘Here lay an arme, and there a leg lay shiuer’d’. See 144–84n. and cf. 18.136–8 (138n.).

  165 dissevered See 1.123n.

  169 Then … see The Mariner uses direct address for the first time. Cf. Sharrock, sig. C1r, ‘There might you see huge hulkes half burnde.’

  170 tottering disyllabic (tott’ring): tossing, pitching; collapsing (OED v. 2, citing this line; 3a). Cf. 5.76 (see nn.).

  ruthless flood pitiless inundation or superabundance of water

  171 lofty tops Cf. 13.113.

  172 shifts expedients

  hurt attack

  173 force The antitheses, resolution/cowardice (174), fame/compulsion (175–6), make Capell’s emendation to ‘fear’ attractive; Q’s ‘force’ would be an easy misreading of MS ‘feare’. However, as Cam points out, force is synonymous with compulsion, and should here be understood as ‘coercion’, a passive constraint, not an active principle.

  174 resolution steadfastness, determination

  *of Q’s ‘of a’ may result from dittography, ‘a’ = of.

  * * *

  164 cranny] cranny’d Capell 173 force] fear Capell 174 cowardice] Q2; a cowardize Q; MS deletion of a Folger

  175 *Were Q’s ‘We’ entails awkward mutation of the reporter into a figure in his own picture. While this may find some support in our (181) and we (182), Capell’s emendation (positing a copy-form ‘wer’ misread as ‘wee’) is easy; cf. 90n.

  lively pictured painted or depicted ‘to the life’ or in lifelike manner; draws conscious attention to the verbal representation of actual events (cf. described at 62). Cf. Spanish Tragedy, 3.13.84–5.

  the one the first of each pair, i.e. valour and resolution

  176 The other the second of each pair, i.e. force and cowardice

  by compulsion forced (to fight); see 173n. and cf. KJ 2.1.218.

  laid about attacked (OED lay v.1 32e)

  177 *Nonpareille pronounced with four syllables (sounding final ‘-e’): unequalled, peerless; Capell’s (French) normalization of Q’s ‘Nom per illa’. Retaining Q would preserve metrical regularity (although French words are usually modernized in this edn), but as ‘Nom’ is presumably an error for ‘Non’, Capell’s form seems preferable. No such ship appears in Froissart or Holinshed at Sluys, but an English Nonpareil served notably against the Spanish Armada in 1588: see LN; also 72n. More apposite is the less favourable association in Robert Wilson, Three Lords and Three Ladies of London, 1589, where the form ‘Non par illi’ appears as the motto for the figure of Pride (the King of Spain), sigs G1v, G3r.

  178 black snake It is unclear whether ‘blacke snake’, printed in roman type and uncapitalized in Q, is a title or a description. Capell understood it as the latter, printing ‘black-snake’, but see t.n. No editor has yet traced a ‘Black Snake’.

  Boulogne Q ‘Bullen’, and so pronounced in English, with stress on first syllable. Holinshed lists ‘Barke of Bullen’ among the ships of the English navy (1.201), perhaps suggesting this French vessel’s name. Boulogne was disputed between the English and the French in the 1540s. Holinshed, 3.357, describes an English attack on ‘Bullongne’ just before Sluys.

  179 bonnier finer (in appearance and size), without the Scottish associations of bonny (see 2.26, 57, 70n.)

  180–2 both … way See 133–6 LN.

  181 Revolted went over (to the enemies’ side) (OED v. 2c)

  182 perforce forcibly

  183 Thus my tale Cf. Soliman and Perseda, 5.4.36 (BV).

  184 untimely inopportunely (OED adv. 1, citing this line)

  * * *

  175 Were] Capell; We Q 177Nonpareille] Capell subst.; Nom per illa Q 178 black … Boulogne] (blacke snake of Bullen), Warren; black-snake of Boulogne / Capell; Black Snake of Boulogne / Winny 180 wind] Q2; Wine Q

  185 with present speed rapidly and without delay

  187 bid them battle challenge them to fight (Riv)

  188 gentle noble; cf. 2.367.

  189 soldier’s See 61.1n.

  Sc. 5

  Sc. 5 This invented scene, set in an unnamed and unlocated French town, bridges the gap between the 1340 sea-battle and the Anglo-French encounter at Crécy in 1346, and contributes a touch of common humanity. Its account of the English advance is congruous with the chronicle narrative, but not with the play’s implied landing of King Edward in Flanders and the consequent separation from his son (but see 62–8n.). See LN. Clemen, 109, claims that the scene imitates R3 2.3 (see 13–15n., 20–3n., 29n.) and cites the comparable effect of Woodstock, 3.3; see also Price.

  0.1–3, 1, 5, 8 SPs *Q’s SPs, ‘One’, ‘Two’ and ‘Three’, blur the distinction made in the entry SD between Frenchmen and citizens, i.e. those who have fled their homes as against the Citizen who is still living in the town in which the scene is apparently set (cf. 46 and 69, urging citizens to flee). These SPs have been emended for clarity in keeping with Q’s SD rather than its SPs – ‘Two’ and ‘Three’ becoming ‘1’ and ‘2’ ‘FRENCHMAN’, fleeing their homes, with the woman, perhaps the wife of one of them (24), their children and their worldly goods (stuff, 2, bag and baggage, 4), and ‘One’ being identified as the Citizen. See 0.3nn.

  0.3 meet them Cf. 3.0.1–3 and n., 4.39.2 and n. The Citizen and the refugees use separate points of entry.

  *another Citizen Q’s ‘another Citizens’ is clearly mistaken in its plural (possibly the result of revision of ‘other’ to ‘another’); ‘another’ implies that the two Frenchmen are likewise citizens. It is possible that the distinction between the non-fleeing Citizen and the refugees was an afterthought, which would explain why Q’s SPs fail to carry it through.

  * * *

  187 too] (to) 189 pierced] (perst) Sc. 5]Oxf; SCENE II. Picardy. Fields near Cressi. Capell; SCENE SIX Warren 0.1–3]Riv subst.; Enter two French men, a woman and two little Children, meet them another Citizens. Q; Enter two Frenchmen; a woman and two little children meet them, and other Citizens.

  1–4 Cf. STM 6.85–7 (Hand D): ‘Imagine that you see the wretched strangers, / Their babies at their backs, with their poor luggage, / Plodding to th’ ports and coasts for transportation’ (cited in Riv). See also Honigmann.

  1 my masters gentlemen (without implication of hierarchy)

  2 stuff goods and chattels (OED n.1 1g)

  3, 5 quarter day ‘Quarter days marked the beginning of each quarter, when land and house leases began or expired, and removals took place’ (Cam); also the day on which ‘payment of rent and other quarterly charges fall due’ (OED).

  4 bag and baggage all of one’s possessions (originally a military term, signifying an honourable retreat with all possessions intact)

  5 quartering day a gruesome pun, as quartering was the final stage of execution by hanging, drawing and quartering; cf. 18.37.

  6 *ye Q2’s correction of Q’s ‘we’ has been generally accepted, as 1 Frenchman is plainly making a distinction between the Citizen and himself.

  9 is arrived For the use of auxiliary is (rather than ‘has’) with intransitive verbs, see Abbott, 295.

  * * *

  Q2; Enter a Frenchman, meeting certain Others, a Woman, and two Children, laden with Houshold-stuff, as removing. / Capell; Enter at one door two Frenchmen without baggage. Enter at another door, meeting them, other Frenchmen and a Frenchwoman with two little children, all with baggage Oxf 0.2with baggage] Capell subst. 1+SP CITIZEN] Winny; One: Q; 1. F. / Capell; 3 Fr. Riv; FRENCHMAN WITHOUT BAGGAGE Oxf 2 ye] you Q2 5+SP 1 FRENCHMAN] Winny; Two: Q; 2. F. / Capell; I cit. / Armstrong; FIRST FRENCHMAN WITH BAGGAGE Oxf 52day] Q2; pay Q 6 ye] Q2; we Q; you Capell 8+SP 2 FRENCHMAN] Winny; Three: Q; 3. F. / Capell; 2 cit. / Armstrong; SECOND FRENCHMAN WITH BAGGAGE Oxf

  12 envy and destruction possible hendiadys, ‘destructive malice’ (OED envy n. 1a)

  is See 2.134n.

  13–15 Cf. R3 2.3, where the first speaker (here Citizen or Q’s ‘One’, there ‘1 CITIZEN’) is similarly differentiated from two others by his optimistic outlook (see Sc. 5n.).

  14 cost detriment (OED n.2 5d)

  16–23 allusion to Aesop’s fable of the improvident grasshopper and the prudent ant. See Whitney, 159. Cf. KL 2.2.257–8 and Greene, Groats-worth, 47–8. For more ants, see 8.28–32n. The sententious tone of these lines resembles that of the citizens in R3 2.3.

  17 mirthful jollity At 3H6 5.7.43, King Edward characterizes the christening celebrations as ‘mirthful comic shows’ (cited by Sams as the only Shakespearean use of the adjective, noting ‘the same context of apparent tautology’); in both instances the tautology emphasizes improvidence. Cf. Cornelia, 4.2.192–3, ‘So, in euery place let be / Feasts, and Masks, and mirthfull glee’.

  18 would … time wishes to recover the time he has lost. For redeem, see 2.373n.

  20–3 proverbial (Dent2, C417, ‘A cloak (To be cloaked) for the rain’); cf. R3 2.3.32, ‘When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks’ (see Sc. 5n.).

  21 rain Q’s spelling ‘raigne’ is paralleled in Q Luc 1271, ‘raigning’.

  23 throughly disyllabic variant form of ‘thoroughly’

  washed drenched

  suspects expects (OED v. 5)

  24 charge … this ‘so many dependants in our charge’ (Cam)

  train following (of dependants)

  25 look … for look ahead to provide for

  26 Cf. 2.409–10n.

  relieved given assistance, delivered from trouble (OED v. 4a)

  * * *

  11‘What then’,] Oxf; What then Q; What then, Q2 Why,] Q2; why Q 14 ye] you Q2 21 rain] (raigne) 23 throughly] thoroughly Tyrrell

  27 Belike apparently; cf. 10.41, 67.

  despair … success For the double negative implied by despair (used for emphasis), see Abbott, 406; success = ‘fortune (good or bad)’ (OED n. 2a). Cf. 3H6 2.2.46, JC 5.3.65, Cornelia, Argument, 8.

  28 your country does not exclude the sense ‘our’, as 2 Frenchman’s opinion (about France’s security) rather than his nationality is at issue

  subjugate pa. pple. form of ‘subjugated’ (OED, citing this line) = vanquished, subdued. See 4.75n.

  29 ’tis … worst proverbial (Dent, W912); unheeded by 1 Citizen in R3 2.3.31, ‘Come, come, we fear the worst; all will be well’ (see Sc. 5n.).

  30 unnatural immoral, inhuman (OED a. 2b)

  33–5 fearful … handful … rightful Repetition of the suffix formalizes the gradation of the argument from unfavourable odds to the triumph of right. For fearful (inspiring terror), cf. 4.43n.; for handful, cf. 12.55, 15.33; for rightful, cf. 1.167 and n.

  33 millions a generic hyperbole signifying vastly many; see 2.110n., 12.6n.

  33–4 in respect / Of in comparison to

  34 handful … enemies Cf. 1Tam, 2.3.17 (see 4.57n.), and 2Tam, 3.1.41, ‘Being a handful to a mighty host’.

  35–7 Just as a French nobleman, Artois, presents the grounds for Edward’s claim to the French crown (1.7–41), this reassertion of his right is put into a Frenchman’s mouth. Cf. also 4.107–10n., 13.97–102n.

  35 quarrel See 1.167n.

  37 Where whereas (see Abbott, 134); cf. 11.49.

  three degrees removed three steps distant from the direct line of descent; although historically Philip VI was King of France at this time, in the play this refers to John of Valois (see 1.21n.). John was great-nephew of Philip IV, as the son of the son of his brother = three degrees. With Philip VI’s succession, the French crown passed from the Capetian line to the House of Valois.

  38–45 possibly suggested by Froissart: see LN. Cf. the prophecy at 11.68–73 (see n.); see also 4.35 LN. Using prophecies to set up audience expectation is familiar from Shakespeare’s employment of it in, e.g., 2H6 1.4, R3, KJ.

  40 oracles prognostications (OED n. 9a)

  42 Whenas archaic form for ‘when’ (not recorded in Shakespeare); cf. 6.43, 211.

  lion i.e. King Edward; a rampant lion figures in the crest of England.

  roused rousèd

  43 fleur-de-lys See 4.79n.