21 ’pie magpie

  22 The line would make better metrical and grammatical sense without the first word. But the verbs in this song appear to be stating, not merely wishing for, the absence of evil-omened birds – which lends still greater irony to the sudden arrival of the queens and to 40–2, below.

  bride-house ‘The house where a wedding is held’ (OED), now used only in dialect

  * * *

  16 angel] F; angle Q; augel (Theobald) 18 Is] Q; Be Seward 20 chough hoar] Seward / Clough hee Q

  24.1 stained dyed (Proudfoot); black

  24.1–2 imperial crowns In KT the speaker says only that each of them ‘hath be a duchesse or a queene’ (923). Waith (Oxf1) cites OED (‘Of or pertaining to a sovereign state’) to show that the adjective need not refer to empire.

  25 pity’s … gentility’s ‘pity’ and ‘gentilesse’ are key words in Chaucer. Cf. the Queen’s words in KT: ‘Some drop of pitie, through thy gentilnesse / Upon us wretched women let thou fall’ (920–1).

  26 respect pay attention to

  29–30 him … bed your future husband, as yet unknown but already destined by Jove for that honour (cf. 5.3.37–40)

  31 clear pure

  33 raze you scrape out, erase (for you) th’ book of trespasses ‘recording angel’s register of sins’ (Leech)

  34 all trespasses listed as yours

  35 No knees to me! Cf. ‘Your knees to me, to your corrected son?’ (Cor 5.3.57)

  36 What whatever

  stead help, be of use to

  37 bind … her earn my gratitude

  * * *

  36 stead] (steed) Q

  38 Deliver speak

  39 Q, apart from ‘kneel to Emilia’ at 106, gives no indication of how and when the numerous references to kneeling and rising are to be carried out. Many editors assume that the queens kneel throughout the scene, joined by Hippolyta at 192 and Emilia at 200. Leech directs them to rise at 77; Waith (Oxf1) has the Second and Third Queens rise when they are first invited to do so (37), while the First Queen remains kneeling until 76, and the Third Queen, after kneeling to Emilia at 106, rises at 119. I have largely followed Montgomery’s stage directions, which seem theatrically effective, though they require emending Q’s SD at 106 to ‘[kneeling still] to Emilia’.

  40 Creon the first connection of the play to the Theban legend

  41–2 Waith (Oxf1) compares ‘Where dwell’st thou? – Under the canopy … I’ th’ city of kites and crows’ (Cor 4.5.38–43).

  44 urn place in an urn

  45–6 eye … Phoebus the sun

  48 purger of the earth Theseus, whose banner, in KT, bears ‘the red statue of Mars’ on a white background (975–7), here seems identified with the god himself. Bawcutt compares 5.1.62–6.

  50 chapel place in a chapel; see urn, 44, another example of a noun used as a verb

  51 of out of

  52–4 another apparent reminiscence of Cor 4.5 (see 41–2n.)

  52 crowned crownèd

  * * *

  40 endure] (Mason); endured Q 41 talons] 1711 (subst.); Tallents Q 42 fields] Q; field F

  55 transported ‘carried away by my thoughts’ (Skeat compares Tem 1.2.76)

  58 vengeance and revenge This apparent redundancy also occurs in R2 4.1.67 (Littledale).

  59 King … lord In KT the queen herself tells Theseus this. The name is spelled Campaneus in the 1602 edition of Speght’s Chaucer, and pronounced with stress on the second and fourth syllables. Here it is stressed on the first and third. In Greek, it has three syllables, as in Jonson, Catiline, 5: 4.5.755 (RP). ‘Probably Fletcher would not have committed this false quantity’ (Spalding, 30n.).

  60 should marry was about to marry

  61–2 I met … fair The punctuation is ambiguous: by Mars’s altar is either the place where Theseus (as a participant in the wedding procession) met Capaneus or a mild oath. The latter is more likely, since Theseus elsewhere swears by Mars (see 1.4.17).

  63 Juno’s mantle Jonson, in Hymenaei, describes her mantle as covered with lilies and roses (Jonson, 7: lines 219–20). Leech suggests that the lines evoke the spread tail of the peacock, traditionally associated with Juno. Bawcutt refers to the mantle worn by Juno when she wants to seduce Zeus (Iliad, 14), an episode which also seems to be in the dramatist’s mind at 175.

  64 spread her Apparently used reflexively, the verb refers to the abundance of the Queen’s hair which, like Hippolyta’s, would have been worn loose for the wedding.

  64–5 wreath … threshed … blasted ‘Here Theseus may be supposed to point to one of the “wheaten chaplets”’ (Skeat). But Theseus may have a more abstract meaning: the queen, when he last saw her, was a virgin, unharvested by her husband, unblasted by fortune.

  66 Hercules probably pronounced with two syllables: ‘Ercles’ (Skeat cites ‘Ercles’ vein’ in MND 1.2.29). See List of Roles for Theseus’ relationship with Hercules.

  * * *

  59 lord. The] 1711 subst.; Lord the Q 61 groom.] Leech; Groome, Q 62 Mars’s] (Marsis)

  68 *Nemean hide the hide which Hercules wore after killing the Nemean lion in one of his ‘labours’. The word is scanned the same way (three syllables, stressed on the first) in LLL 4.1.88 and Ham 1.4.83 (RP).

  69 his sinews thawed His muscles dissolved with the warmth of sexual desire (as when he let himself become ‘effeminate’ for love of Omphale).

  71–3 The converse of this is expressed in Cor: ‘He wants nothing of a god but eternity, and a heaven to throne in. – Yes, mercy, if you report him truly’ (5.4.24–6). Cf. 87.

  73 power one syllable

  press urge; perhaps, as in ‘press gangs’: forcibly make a soldier. Mincoff (113–14) compares other images of pressing and stamping at 108–9 and 216–17.

  74 undertaker OED cites this as an example of the now obsolete meaning, ‘One who aids or assists’, translating the Latin susceptor. If Theseus assists the First Queen to rise during his next speech, the stage picture embodies her words.

  75 Bellona the Roman goddess of war. Theseus insists on his own humanity.

  77 SD Cf. the hero standing in silence, then turning away, in Cor 5.3.168. Theseus stands frozen while the Second and Third Queens make their petitions.

  78–9 that … boar Hippolyta was not present at the famous hunt of the Calydonian boar which included Theseus, Hercules and the huntress Atalanta; the reference may be intended simply to emphasize her fierceness as a huntress, also recalled in MND.

  80–1 the male … captive Unlike MND, TNK stresses the background of war between the Amazons and Theseus’ army.

  * * *

  68 Nemean] Seward; Nenuan Q

  82–3 Born … in Q’s stilde might also be still’d, i.e., instilled; the meaning would be the same: ‘Theseus, who was born to keep created things in the same relative position of honour in which nature first appointed them’ (Skeat). Craik suggests an allusion to the fact that Adam was created first, both in time and in dignity.

  84 bound … o’erflowing like water confined in a river or fountain

  85 soldieress OED gives this as the first use of the word.

  86 poise weigh

  87 Whom Seward emended to who, but the word’s immediate function as the object of know dominates its grammatical one as the subject of hast.

  power on power over. Rolfe compares ‘The pow’r that I have on you is to spare you’ (Cym 5.5.418).

  88 ever one syllable

  ow’st ownest

  89–90 who … speech The multiplicity of relative pronouns (that in 78, 79, 86, who and whom in 87, 88 and 89) makes this speech sound like a series of afterthoughts. Most of the pronouns refer to Hippolyta herself, but who in 89 could be either Theseus or Love (Cupid). The sense is that Hippolyta, conquered in battle, nevertheless conquers by every word she speaks or every intention (tenor) that Theseus intuits from her speech.

  90 glass of ladies a mirror, or model, for other women. Cf. ‘Let all sweet ladies break their flattering glasses, / And dress themselves in her’ (Webster, DM, 1.1.204–5).

  92 Under … sword probably based on ‘the expression “Under the shadow of thy wings”, which occurs frequently in Scripture’ (Shaheen)

  93 require request

  94 key voice, tone (as in music)

  94–5 like … three that is, not like an unwomanly Amazon

  95 weep … fail weep rather than give up

  96 kneel with us. Cf. MM 5.1.447.

  * * *

  83 styled] (stilde) 89 for] Q; to Seward 90 thy] Seward; the Q 95–6] one line Q

  98 a dove’s … off The comma after motion, which most editors remove, may indicate the slight pause before the shock effect. Littledale compares ‘Like to a new-kill’d bird she trembling lies’ (Luc 457).

  99 blood-sized soaked with blood like a wall or paper that has been soaked with size (a gelatinous glaze). Littledale compares Ham 2.2.484: ‘o’er-sized with coagulate gore’.

  102 I had … trace I would as gladly follow

  this good action either the attack on Creon or the petitioning of Theseus. Cf. 173.

  104 so willing way ‘so willing a journey’ (Seward). The comma after willing in Q suggests that it may have been the original ending of the sentence, or that the compositor took it to be one. Hippolyta may compare herself and Theseus to Hercules at the crossroads, choosing between the paths of virtue and of pleasure. The strewn flowers would make the way of pleasure visible.

  taken seized, enchanted. The sense is closest to OED v. II ** 7.

  105–6 Let … anon Hippolyta now becomes part of the tableau along with the motionless, troubled Theseus.

  106–7 my petition … ice ‘Implying that her earlier speech, 29–34, was cold and formal’ (Bawcutt). Cf. ‘a mockery king of snow, / Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke, / To melt myself away in water-drops!’ (R2 4.1.250–2).

  107 uncandied melted; ‘candied’ in the sense of congealed occurs frequently in Shakespeare (Littledale compares ‘the cold brook / Candied with ice’, Tim 4.3.225–6, also ‘discandy’ in AC 4.12.22). Muir (112–22) points out the relation of this ‘image cluster’ to AC 3.13.153–66.

  108 drops her tears

  108–9 sorrow … matter The Third Queen contrasts the form in which she had intended to speak and the matter, or subject, of her speech, too deeply felt to be confined in any form. Form is normally seen as pressed on matter like the stamp on a coin, but in this case the conjunction of form with matter has resulted in still greater formlessness.

  * * *

  104 willing way] Seward; willing, way Q 106 SD] Oxf; kneele to Emilia. Q

  110 Emilia continues the Third Queen’s conceit, assuring her that her appearance expresses her feelings, in the tears on her cheek. An unspoken pun on ‘lines’ may be implied, as in Son 101, where the friend’s beauty is described as ‘dulling my lines’; collections of elegiac poems were sometimes called ‘tears’. The queen replies that her feelings are written not on her face but in her heart.

  111–13 ‘there (i.e. in my cheeks and eyes) you can behold my grief only in an uncertain manner, as when you look at pebbles which appear wrinkled through the transparent stream above them’ (Skeat)

  111 there … There Seward changed the second there to here, arguing that ‘she evidently points at her heart’. Mason and most later editors take the first there to mean her cheeks and the second her eyes.

  *SD Since the Third Queen tells Emilia to look into her eyes, it seems appropriate that she should rise at this point, if Emilia herself has not raised her.

  113 ’em her grief; the comparison with pebbles has attracted a plural object

  115 the centre of the earth. OED cites ‘I will find / Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed / Within the Center’ (Ham 2.2.159–61). The queen urges others to mine, or fish, the depths of her heart to extract the feelings she is unable to utter.

  116 lead his line weight his fishing line with lead to make it sink deeper. Developing Muir’s argument (see 107n.), E. A. Armstrong (207) suggests that line is part of a cluster of images associating fishing with wrinkles and writing.

  117 pardon me Bawcutt suggests that the queen is afraid she might seem to be accusing Emilia of insensitivity.

  118–19 Extremity … fool Littledale compares The Honest Man’s Fortune (a Field–Fletcher–Massinger collaboration, 1613): ‘Cunning Calamity / That others’ gross wits uses to refine, / When I most need it, dulls the edge of mine’ (Dyce, 3:3.1).

  118 sundry wits some people’s minds

  120–1 Who cannot … dry This sounds proverbial, though I know no other examples. Possibly wet and dry should be in quotation marks: ‘only someone utterly insensitive, or lacking the most basic vocabulary, could fail to recognize a grief so obvious as yours’.

  * * *

  111 SD] Oxf subst. (after behold ’em); not in Q 112 pebbles] F; (peobles) Q glassy] Seward; glasse Q; Like pebbles in a wrinckled glassy stream (Hopkinson MS)

  122 ground-piece A piece is a painting, but the meaning of ground has to be inferred from its context. Waith (Oxf1) plausibly suggests a link with the verb ‘to ground’ in the sense of ‘teach the rudiments’ (OED v. 5): ‘an example to be copied as a teaching aid’. Since ground can also be the depths of the heart (OED sb. 1c, Bible 1611), Emilia might be developing the Third Queen’s conceit about the centre. Real people are compared to, or mistaken for, works of art in several plays of this period, notably WT and Webster’s WD and DM. There is an implicit allusion to the weeping Niobe, who eventually turned to stone and became a fountain.

  123 ’gainst … grief in preparation for the time when I should wish to depict the greatest grief (the queen, like Hippolyta, would become a ‘mirror’, or model, for women)

  capital mortal

  123–4 indeed … demonstration such a demonstration of how someone looks who has indeed (i.e., in reality, not just in a painting) been pierced to the heart by grief

  125 The subject of being could be either the queen (‘since you are, alas, a real suffering woman’ (see 123–4n.)), or Emilia herself (‘since I am naturally sympathetic to all members of our sex’). The latter is consistent with 36–7.

  126 ardently burningly

  127 counter-reflect the heat of your grief will reflect off my heart and on to Theseus’, ‘as from a mirror’ (Oxf1). Reflect is stressed on the first syllable.

  128 brother’s brother-in-law’s

  130–1 Forward … ceremony Cf. Caesar’s ‘Set on, and leave no ceremony out’ (JC 1.2.11). Though he does not reject the queens’ request, Theseus wants to complete the wedding ceremony before setting off for Thebes.

  133 Your suppliants’ war the war which they are asking him to wage. The term recalls The Suppliants, tragedies by Aeschylus and Euripides.

  * * *

  123 grief, indeed] Proudfoot; grief indeed Q 132 longer] Seward; long Q

  134 Knolls tolls, like a bell. OED quotes this as an example of usage without the meaning of a death knell. But the ominous connotations may be intended: cf. ‘Theseus, / Who, where he threats, appals’ (1.2.90).

  134–9 what … touch For other examples of this type of hyperbole see Edgar’s Dover cliff speech (KL 4.5.13) and Florizel’s praise of Perdita (WT 4.4.135ff.). The queen claims both that Theseus’ wisdom enables him to do on the spur of the moment what others can do only after long consideration and that his very thoughts have the power of actions.

  136 meditance meditating; the only example of this usage in OED

  138 as ospreys … fish The osprey, or fish-hawk, was a bird to which fish were thought to yield by turning on their backs: hence, it became a symbol of natural authority (see Cor 4.7.33–5). Brockbank (pp. 273–4n.) cites examples from Peele and Drayton, and quotes Case, who points out that the word is spelled asprey in the Q of TNK, as in the F text of Cor.

  140 What beds by contrast with the marriage bed that awaits Theseus and Hippolyta

  What griefs our beds ‘Have’ is understood from the previous line: ‘our beds are full of grief because our lords have no resting place’.

  141 fit … dead perhaps playing on the phrase ‘fit for the living’

  142–5 ‘The whole speech implies that human favour allows a decent burial even to suicides’ (Skeat).

  142 *drams’ precipitance precipitating one’s death by taking poison. Other readings have been suggested (see t.n.). Seward took the queen to be listing four separate means of suicide, one of which was precipitance (throwing oneself off a precipice). The latter (a recognized Roman punishment with which Coriolanus is threatened) is surprisingly common in Renaissance literature: the hero of Tasso’s Aminta (acted 1582) attempts it, as does Gloucester in KL. Colman (1778) takes the phrase to mean the act of precipitating one’s death by one of these three means, all of them in the possessive. Bowers, who is followed here, thinks it marginally more likely that precipitance refers only to drams; the queen distinguishes poison from medicine and a quick from a slow poison.

  * * *

  138 move] F; mooves Q ospreys] (Aspreyes) 142 drams’ precipitance] Leech; drams precipitance Q; drams, precipitance Seward

  145 dust and shadow their graves

  146 visitating a variant of visiting, meaning surveying (Skeat cites Cotgrave, ‘visiter’ (French)). OED cites this as the only example of this sense in English. Cf. the ‘visiting moon’ (AC 4.14.68). Leech suggests a further sense of ‘inflicting harm’; households suffering from the plague were said to be visited.

  149 To give ‘by giving’ (Brooke). RP compares Fletcher’s Double Marriage, Bowers, 9: 3.3.283. The lineation is confusing (see t.n.); Seward wanted to regularize it by reading, after comfort, ‘[And engage / Myself and powers] to give your dead lords graves’. Craik suggests, more concisely, ‘and take order / To’.

  151 ‘needs to be done immediately’ (Bawcutt). Presents, like ‘presently’, carries a strong sense of ‘in the present’.