93 precious sense sight. Note the recurrence of this term and idea in LLL 5.2.445; Oth 3.4.68, ‘Make it a darling, like your precious eye’; and KL 5.3.188–9, ‘my father with his bleeding rings, / Their precious stones new lost’, and 3.2.70–1, ‘The art of our necessities is strange, / And can make vile things precious.’ Cf. King Philip’s earlier reference to the sun’s precious eye (3.1.79) shining on the engagement of Blanche and the Dauphin, the union that has led to Arthur’s awkward situation.

  94 boist’rous painfully rough, according to OED a. 4, which quotes this line along with that of Romeo’s description of love (RJ 1.4.26). In the preface to the second edition of Christ’s Tears (1594) Nashe defends his use of ‘boystrous compound wordes’ because of the need ‘Our English tongue’ has of polysyllables (see Hubert’s command to Arthur, hold your tongue, 96). Cf. 75n. RP notes how rare a trisyllabic pronunciation of this term is in Shakespeare, and indeed it does not scan as trisyllabic here.

  95 vile See again in KL the blending of ‘vile’ and blinding in Cornwall’s ‘Out, vile jelly, / Where is thy lustre now?’ (3.7.82–3).

  96 your promise Hubert nervously turns on Arthur for this breaking of his promise to be stone-still (76), a bit harsh given the play’s environment of near-total, larger-scale promise-breaking.

  Go to ‘come, come’, indicative of ‘derisive incredulity’ (OED go v. to go to)

  * * *

  91 God,] Oxf; heauen: F mote] Steevens; moth F

  100 cut … tongue less severe a punishment than blinding and also one that would prevent him from subsequent appeal (cf. Lavinia in Tit)

  102 but … you a note of excruciating sentimentality, familiar to readers of Renaissance lyric in the masochistic commitment of the frustrated Petrarchan lover

  107 In undeserved extremes in (inflicting) unmerited torments (Riv2). Honigmann notes a pun on Lat. in extremis, ‘in one’s last agony’. The notion of a not-quite extinct, recoverable fire is, of course, to be found benignly in Son 73.

  undeserved as a punishment, harm (OED ppl. a. 2b)

  else otherwise

  110 ashes Note especially, however, the parallel in R2 5.1.46–50, where the King says, ‘For why the senseless brands will sympathize / The heavy accent of thy moving tongue / And in compassion weep the fire out; / And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black’ (Oxf1).

  114 sparkle project sparks into

  * * *

  100 will,] Rowe; will F

  116 Snatch at bite, snap

  tar vex, provoke (OED v.2 1)

  118 office function (OED n. 3a)

  118–20 only … uses ‘You alone lack that mercy which even fire and iron exhibit – fire and iron, things notably used in affairs where no mercy is required’ (Ard1).

  121 thine As before, Hubert’s shift from you to thee and its variants shows a shift in attitude, here to one of emotional commitment (noted by RP). See also 3.1.36n.

  122 *owns Honigmann, perhaps with an appreciation of both irony and the antithetical sense of primal words, retains F’s ‘owes’, seeing a pun suggesting indebtedness rather than possession.

  123 sworn another allusion to the network of interconnecting and contrary oaths and promises

  128 dogged doggèd; surly, sullen, morose (OED a. 2c), like dogs in their cruelty (rather than their pertinacity, a later sense of the word)

  false reports In Holinshed, Hubert is said to have ‘caused it to be bruited abroad through the countrie that the King’s commandement was fulfilled, and that Arthur through sorrow and griefe was departed out of this life. For the space of fifteene daies this rumour incessantlie ran through both the realmes of England and France’ (quoted in Bullough, 4.32).

  129 child more suggestive of Hubert’s fond attachment and less descriptive of Arthur’s actual age

  doubtless, and secure without fear, and safe, free from apprehension, fear (OED doubtless a. A, citing this example)

  * * *

  116 tar] edd; tarre F 120 mercy-lacking] Pope; mercy, lacking F 122 owns] Pope; owes F

  132 closely covertly, secretly, privately (OED adv. 3)

  133 Much danger less an attempt to place Arthur under a heavy obligation and more to remind the audience of the situation

  undergo suffer, endure

  4.2.1 *again F’s reading, ‘against’, was a frequent variant of again in the sixteenth century. See OED again comb. form.

  sit John is on his throne; in some productions the chair itself is clearly a decorated version of the seat onto which Arthur was bound in the previous scene.

  2 cheerful eyes Oxf1 points out that rhetorically this is an instance of synecdoche, with eyes as the noblemen. The representative part for the whole carries a good deal of irony, recalling as it does the danger to Arthur in the previous scene.

  4 superfluous In Troublesome Reign Pembroke stresses the political danger created by a second (in history, actually the third) coronation of John: ‘Pardon my feare, my censure doth infer your Highness not deposed from Regall State would breed a mutine in people’s mindes what it showed meane to have you crowned againe’ (Pt 1, 13.1489–92). Shakespeare has moved Pembroke’s comment in Troublesome Reign about the request to free Arthur, ‘Please it you grant, you make your promise good, / With lesser losse than one superfluous haire / That not remembered falleth from your head’ (Pt 1, 13.1564–6). Pembroke is alluding to Christ’s statement followed by judicial warning, ‘Yea, and all the heares of your heade are nombered (Matthew, 10.30).

  * * *

  131 God] Oxf; heauen F 4.2.0.1 Flourish] Oxf crowned] this edn 0.2 and Attendants] this edn 1 SD] this edn again crowned] F3; against crown’d F

  6 stained stainèd

  9 possessed Salisbury’s verb recalls its noun form in the first mention of the dubiousness of John’s claim to the throne, 1.1.39–40.

  10 guard a non-comic pun, combining (1) John’s position in defence of his throne and (2) Salisbury’s criticism that guard = ornament, adding to what is already sufficiently ornamented and what the following sequence of unnecessary additions demonstrates (4.2.11–16)

  11 refined refinèd

  15 eye of heaven figurative for ‘sun’. Cf. 3.1.79 and, again, the cheerful eyes of 2 (above), which keep alive in the audience’s subconscious memory the recent tribulations of Arthur.

  garnish ‘to dress, clothe, esp. in an elegant fashion’ (OED v. 3). While it is clear that the word has been chosen to stress the superior nature of John’s iterative crowning, like guard, it is a non-comic pun, carrying the meaning ‘to furnish (a place) with means of defence; to garrison; to supply with men, arms and provisions’ (OED v. I 1 obs.).

  16 wasteful … ridiculous Salisbury targets two of the most serious political themes, money and respect, with respect being even more important to a ruler.

  17 But that except; Pembroke repeats his diction and syntax as well as his theme. Cf. 3ff.

  19 repeating making, performing over again (OED v. 6a)

  troublesome causing or inclined to cause disturbance (OED a. 1b). This is a subtle sign of acknowledgement of Shakespeare’s chief source, Troublesome Reign.

  20 urged urgèd

  unseasonable not suitable for the action specified or implied (OED a. 1b, citing this example)

  * * *

  8 longed-for change] F4 (long’d-for); long’d-for-change F

  22 disfigured disfigurèd

  24 fetch about take a roundabout course or method (OED fetch v. 11a, citing this line)

  27 new … robe recently made vestment. In its unnecessary newness, it creates doubt about the wearer. Clothes do make the man, or at least the King.

  29 confound overthrow, defeat or bring to nought (OED v. 1b)

  covetousness strong or inordinate desire (OED 1, citing this line)

  37 well pleased If, as most often is the case in performance, Salisbury is being ironic, the subsequent ‘make a stand at’ (39) must have a double meaning, to ‘pause, stop short of’ (Dover Wilson) and to ‘conflict with’ (Honigmann).

  * * *

  21 antique] Pope; Anticke F well-noted] Pope; well noted F 31 worser] Smallwood (Maxwell); worse F

  41 possessed Shakespeare continues to ring the changes on this resonating term, sounded in 1.1.39, 2.1.266 and 2.1.366, and continued in 3.3.41, 4.2.9 and 4.2.145.

  42–3 And more … with OED endue [= indue] v. 8c cites this line under the definition ‘supply with’. John never does provide the nobles with his added reason, as against Troublesome Reign, where the King argues that his second crowning both assures the monarch of loyalty of his nobles who have gone along with this repetition and makes him reciprocally committed to them, ‘love with love’ (Pt 1, 8.1558).

  46 I will … grant In Troublesome Reign, John urges the nobles to ‘Aske me and use me, try and finde me yours’ (Pt 1, 8.1560).

  47–66 Pembroke’s argument to John is primarily based on the political rather than the moral consequence of keeping Arthur imprisoned, although that political element is itself a consequence of the injustice of Arthur’s treatment.

  48 sound Oxf1 sees a pun here: ‘plumb the depths of’ and ‘proclaim’.

  52–3 restraint … murmuring Klause notes the parallel diction from Southwell: ‘she coveteth agaynst the spirite, that so daylye she murmureth … and is not restrayned’ (Epistle, 44r).

  55 rest Ard2 sees an aphetic version of ‘arrest’.

  57–60 mew … exercise an anticipation of the treatment of Orlando in AYL

  57 mew up shut up, confine, conceal (OED mew v.2 3)

  * * *

  42 when] Smallwood (Tyrwhitt); then F 50 safety,] Johnson; safety: F

  58 tender having the weakness and delicacy of youth; youthful, immature (OED a. 4)

  61–2 That … occasions i.e. in order to prevent those disaffected from the crown (the time’s enemies) from using Arthur’s mistreatment (this) to improve their opportunities for criticism (grace occasions)

  62–3 let it … bid Honigmann finds this expression ambiguous: ‘“let his liberty be the suit which you have told us to ask”, or “let it be our suit that (it may be given out that) you asked us to ask for his liberty”.’ Pembroke is working overtime to extort from John Arthur’s freedom while simultaneously providing the King here, and subsequently, with a face-saving move.

  68 SD1 The timing of Hubert’s entry in F is crucial inasmuch as only now does John, believing Hubert is bringing him news of the death of Arthur, agree to Pembroke’s request; he does so happily and cunningly, yielding a boon which, he thinks, no longer has any reality. Johnson and subsequent editors have moved Hubert’s entry to 67, after ‘Let it be so’ (a version of ‘Amen’ and an echo of Pandulph’s prophecy of Arthur’s fate at 3.3.125ff.) with the result that John is less Machiavellian and more impotent.

  69 This … man ironic inversion of Pilate’s comment identifying Jesus, ‘ecce homo’ (John, 19.5 (Vulgate))

  * * *

  60 exercise.] Rowe; exercise, F 61 time’s] Pope; times F 65 Than] Pope; Then F 68 SD1] Collier; after liberty. 66 F SD2] Capell subst. (Hanmer) 69 SD] this edn

  72–5 that … do Pembroke is another instance, along with Cassius at Philippi, Hamlet observing Claudius at ‘prayer’ and Othello overhearing Iago and Cassio, of misinterpretation. Shakespeare, ever the student of epistemology, explores the ways we know and don’t know, showing a theatrical methodical doubt about knowledge even at the very time of Descartes’ birth.

  76–8 Salisbury describes a psychomachia between the forces of will and conscience, represented by (according to Dover Wilson) the coats or flags (‘colours’), red and white, of the heralds, underlined by the alternating flushing and paling of John’s cheeks. The fluctuation of colour in royal cheeks is reflected in R2 3.2.76–9, ‘But now the blood of twenty thousand men / Did triumph in my face, and they are fled; / And till so much blood thither come again, / Have I not reason to look pale and dead?’

  76 In the anonymous King Leir (1605, but performed as early as May, 1594), the Messenger correctly suggests that Ragan is thinking of the murder of her father: ‘See how her colour comes and goes againe’ (1173).

  79 passion … ripe The image is one of an impostume swollen with pus. As Pembroke notes in the next lines, the breaking of the cyst will issue in corruption, metaphorical as well as literal. Cf. Hamlet’s reflection on the metaphoric abscess that breaks into war, ‘This [the war between the Norwegians and Poles] is th’impostune of much wealth and peace / That inward breaks and shows no cause without / Why the man dies’ (Ham 4.4.26–8).

  82 Honigmann suggests that John means ‘(a) We (the King) cannot save anyone from Death; (b) We (mankind) cannot hold Death’s hand (without dying, i.e. we must all die. Cf 5.2.22.’ This echoes the holding of the lion’s paw of 3.1.259 and continues the resonating motif of hand-holding uncertain in duration; hold may mean ‘grasp’ or ‘shake’ as in shaking hands, but it is still more likely that it is elliptical for ‘hold back’ or ‘restrain’.

  * * *

  73 Doth] Dyce; Do F 82 SD] this edn

  83 my will … living i.e. I am still committed to my promise of freeing Arthur. The expression gives new meaning to ‘a living will’.

  86 Salisbury moves beyond irony to direct sarcasm.

  89 This Shakespeare is the master of the naked demonstrative. Here we are to add ‘crime of Arthur’s death’.

  91 shears of destiny (1) alluding to the instrument used by the third of the three Fates, Atropos, to cut the thread of life; but also (2) a secondary reminder of Arthur as the lamb who has been shorn of all

  92 a second would-be exculpatory rhetorical question, with pulse one of the ‘various figurative or allusive uses, denoting life, vitality, energy, feeling, sentiment, tendency, drift, indication, etc.’ (OED n. 2 citing this line)

  95 your Salisbury perhaps stresses your the better to suggest, ‘I hope the same fate happens to you’. Capell, according to Honigmann, paraphrased the line, ‘So thrive it with you in your game as your game deserves’.

  97 th’inheritance pathetically ironic inasmuch as all of the territory coming to Arthur, who has been at the centre of great landed struggles, is a tiny grave

  98 little kingdom i.e. grave. Cf. the King’s self-indulgent resignation in R2 3.3.153–4, ‘And my large kingdom for a little grave, / A little, little grave, an obscure grave’.

  forced forcèd; according to Ard2 (1) brought about by violent means; (2) artificially or carefully raised

  99–100 That … hold Honigmann finds this rhetorical expression conventional in terms of royal epitaphs, citing from Holinshed the description of the end of John’s father and Arthur’s grandfather, Henry II: ‘“And yet while all the earth could scarse my greedie mind suffice, / Eight foot within the ground now serves, wherein my carcase lies” (116, ii)’. Hal uses the same topos in paying tribute to Hotspur: ‘Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk! / When that this body did contain a spirit / A kingdom for it was too small a bound, / But now two paces of the vilest earth / Is room enough’ (1H4 5.4.87–91).

  100 Bad … while elliptical for ‘it is a bad world when such things happen’

  101 This … this The first demonstrative refers to Arthur’s unjust death and the second to the news of that death.

  103 indignation Not only are the nobles offended by the murder of Arthur, but they feel their own worth and dignity have been lessened by the behaviour of the man they have sworn fealty to.

  I repent Ard2 notes that John’s repentance is based on politics not morality. He fears the loss of his political base, as a later would-be monarch expressed himself.

  104 foundation … blood It is, however, a fact of history that public buildings of all sorts were begun with an accompanying animal sacrifice. Southwell, in An Humble Supplication (written in 1591, circulated in manuscript, and published in 1600), wrote of ‘tempering the mother of their foundations with Innocent bloud’ (43).

  105.1 Ard2 puts the arrival of the Messenger before ‘I repent’, believing that the very sight of the Messenger further upsets the King, who is afraid to receive any more bad news.

  106–7 blood … checks The Messenger seems to have caught the same blushing and paling that John himself revealed at 4.2.76–8.

  * * *

  99 owned] Pope (own’d); ow’d F 102 SD Pembroke … lords] Oxf 105.1] Johnson; opp. 103 F; after indignation 103 Ard2

  109–10 Pour … power The near brogue-like pronunciation of extended vowels and rolling r in Elizabethan English would link these two terms euphoniously.

  111 foreign preparation In Christ’s Tears, Nashe the satirist writes, ‘I speake not of myself so much as of foraine preparations that are whetting their pens to pricke him to death’ (Works, 2.181).

  113 copy … speed The example of John’s earlier rapid invasion of France is the model of the current French invasion of England. Cf. Chatillon’s description of the velocity with which John has reached France at 2.1.56ff.

  115 tidings news, but with the association of ‘tides’, the seas across which the French have come

  116–17 drunk … slept Malone was the first to note that Shakespeare repeats this figure in Lady Macbeth’s indictment of her husband: ‘Was the hope drunk / Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?’ (Mac 1.7.35–6).

  120 first of April While it is tempting to see a philosophical or at least political comment here, with Eleanor and all her life-long machinations dying on April’s Fool’s Day, Honigmann notes that this is indeed the correct historical date of Eleanor’s death and alone recorded as such among the sources available to Shakespeare in the Latin MS Wakefield Chronicle. This edition does not doubt that Shakespeare’s Latin was sufficient to have read this text, but doubts that on grounds of economy of energy he would have looked at so rare a text for added details when he had already so many historical and dramatic source materials. A more indirect route for the knowledge of this bit of historical fact seems more likely an orally transmitted remark both correct and useful for its ironic potential.