28–9 The snares … him Cf. Cornelia, 5.72–9, ‘The fields are spred, and as a household Campe / Of creeping Emmets in a Countrey Farme, / That come to forrage when the cold begins, / Leauing theyr crannyes to goe search about, / Couer the earth so thicke, as scarce we tread / But we shall see a thousand of them dead: / Euen so our battailes, scattred on the sands, / Dyd scoure the plaines in pursuit of the foe’ (Lambrechts, 167).

  28 snares Cf. 11.21–2, 84–5; also 1H6 4.2.21–2.

  29 Muster assemble (OED v.1 2a, 3a)

  31 toil trap for wild animals, here used figuratively (OED n.2 3); appropriate in relation to its other sense of battle, mêlée (n.1 1). Cf. 65; also JC 2.1.205, ‘Lions with toils’.

  34 On … death In the chronicles Edward makes no specific threat.

  35–8 conveys the same spirit as H5 4.3.40–6, before the battle of Agincourt

  36, 38 season … savour still of fortify … continue to relish

  36 those grievous thoughts i.e. the fear of impending death: grievous as ‘Offensive to the senses’ (OED a. 2c) reinforces season and savour (cf. 12.1–3). The fear of ‘grievous lingering death’ (2H6 3.2.247) is examined in Sc. 12. See also 50–3n.

  37 breaketh out escapes (from the surrounding French)

  Nestor’s … earth i.e. for many years to come: Nestor’s longevity was proverbial (see Dent2, N126.11).

  39–40 Edward’s capping of Derby’s days with praise attempts the finality of a rhyming couplet.

  39 Prince Edward died in 1376, a year before his father, at the age of 40.

  * * *

  31 rends] (wrends) bites] (byts) 37 breaketh out] break’th out Capell; break out Armstrong

  40 epitaph literally the inscription on his tomb; so posthumous reputation

  42 that perhaps with primary reference to the Prince (his) rather than blood

  45 slain, or ta’en Cf., e.g., R2 5.6.4, ‘But whether they be ta’en or slain we hear not’.

  ta’en monosyllabic (Q ‘tane’): captured

  46–7 Interrupting the flight of a falcon in training may jeopardize the process.

  46 dare technical term for the dazzling of birds (usually larks at night with torches) to catch them; the falcon is more appropriate for a prince.

  47 haggard-like of birds of prey: ‘Caught after having assumed the adult plumage; hence, wild, untamed’ (OED haggard a. 1); applied to the Prince, he will become untrainable. Cf. TS 4.1.182.

  49 still always, in future

  50–3 a clear forecast of 12.1–3, 40, 131–62, where the Prince expresses his views on death as he and Audley face seemingly inevitable disaster at Poitiers

  50 himself himself Cf. 2.100–1n. The repeated reflexive pronoun is strongly characteristic of Shakespeare: cf. VA 161, 763, 1129, and Luc 157, 160, 998, 1566; also 1H6 4.4.49, TS 4.1.163 and R3 4.4.399, 5.3.185–190, 202–3.

  redeem save (cf. 22n.); see 2.373n.

  thence i.e. danger

  51 cheerful adverbial, as at 1.160 (see n.)

  55 sweet Prince respectful form of address; a familiar formula in Elizabethan drama, famous from Horatio’s ‘Goodnight, sweet Prince’ (Ham 5.2.343)

  * * *

  40 epitaph] (Ephitaph) 41 SP] Q2; An: Q 45 ta’en] (tane) 47 haggard-like] (huggard like)

  56 SD *King Edward’s words at 58 suggest the need for a SD here; it remains unclear to Edward, however, which army is in retreat. See 4.131 SDn.

  57–8 Cf. 5.74 and n.

  58 dismal fatal (OED a. 2)

  60.1 triumph The sense of triumphal procession as well as victory is present here: see 4.12n.

  60.2 shivered lance indicates that the Prince has engaged in mounted combat. Cf. Spanish Tragedy, 1.1.54, ‘shiuered Launces darke the troubled aire’.

  *his sword … Soldier In Q this phrase is printed in the right margin opposite 85–7, at the moment when the King requires the Prince’s sword in order to dub him knight. The soldier would probably enter here with the Prince and the bier bearing Bohemia.

  60.3 King of BOHEMIA See LN.

  borne before The entry of the bier ‘borne before’ may allow a moment of doubt about the corpse’s identity before the audience sees the Prince; see Bennett & Proudfoot, 328–9.

  60.3–4 wrapped … colours The ‘colours’ (banners) are not identified, but are presumably those of France or Bohemia. Clark’s production referred the dialogue about the emblem of a pelican at the end of the scene to the ‘colours’, assigning them to Bohemia (see 109–13n.). Legend has it that after the battle Prince Edward adopted the King of Bohemia’s badge; this was not, however, a pelican, but an ostrich feather (see David Green, Edward The Black Prince (Harlow, 2007), 38, 110). For the wrapping of a dead king in colours, cf. Alcazar, l. 1412 (Peele, 2.346).

  60.4 They … him Cf. Froissart, 302, ‘Than he [King Edward] went with all his batayle to his sonne the prince and enbrased hym in his armes and kyst hym’ (see also Holinshed, 3.372, who omits the lords).

  * * *

  56 SD] Capell subst. 57 But] Forbear, my lords, – But Capell 58 trumpets’] Capell; Trumpets Q; trumpet’s Hop 60.2–4 lance, … They] Lance; his Sword, and batter’d Armour, born before him, and the Body of the King of Bohemia, wrapt in the Colours: Lords / Capell 60.2his sword … Soldier] this edn; opp. 85–7 Q; opp. 89–91 Q2; after 89 Brooke; after 87 Sams 60.3BOHEMIA] Q2; Boheme Q 60.4colours] (Coullours); colours of Bohemia Oxf

  62 recalls Prince Edward’s arming in Sc. 6 (see 6.179, 186, 192, 198n.). Cf. 18.186 and n. on Plantagenet; also Spanish Tragedy, 3.14.106–7, ‘Welcome, Balthazar, / Welcome, braue Prince’ (BV).

  63 SD *Cf. Holinshed, 3.373, ‘The prince inclined himselfe to the earth in honouring his father, as he best could’ (following Froissart, 302). The Prince must rise to have freedom of movement during the ensuing long speech.

  63 done my duty by paying respects or homage to his father

  beseemed was fitting (OED v. 2a)

  64 regreet you return your greeting

  65–9 alludes to the proverb ‘After winter follows summer’ (Dent, W506.1) and possibly to Whitney, 137, ‘Constantia comes victoriae’ (‘Constancy is the companion of victory’), which concludes, ‘And if he keepe his course directe, he winnes / That wished porte, where lastinge ioye beginnes’. Cf. Tit 1.1.74–7, ‘Lo, as the bark that hath discharged his freight / Returns with precious lading to the bay / From whence at first she weighed her anchorage, / Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs’; also 18.79.

  65 toil fight; labour (OED n.1 1a; 3); recalls woven toil at 31

  67 gulfs whirlpools (OED n. 3a); cf. 11.24 (and nn.).

  steely as hard as steel (OED a. 2a, first cited from this line); cf. 6.219n.

  68 freight i.e. the dead King John of Bohemia. Q’s ‘fraught’ is an obsolete spelling.

  wished wishèd: longed-for

  69 travel’s refers equally to voyage, 66, and toil, 65 (see 10.44n.)

  71 first-fruit generally plural, but here singular as comprising a single dead king: the fruits first gathered in a season ‘with reference to the custom of making offerings of these to God or the gods’; hence ‘the first products of a person’s work or endeavour’, in the singular ‘something representative of a greater quantity’ to come later (OED 1, 2a). The Prince offers his sacrifice to his father rather than God (cf. 18.216n.).

  * * *

  63 SD] WP; opp. 62–4 Q; opp. 63–4 Q2; after 63 Capell Kneels and kisses] (kneele and kisse) hand,] this edn; hand Q; hand. Q2 then rises] this edn 66 boisterous] (boystrous) 68 freight] (fraught) 69 travel’s] travail’s Collier2

  72 Cropped … down continues the image of fruit gathering; cf. 4.79, 6.40 and nn.

  even at the at the very; even is emphatic (and monosyllabic: e’en).

  gate of death biblical phrase ‘used to denote a near approach to death’ (OED gate n.1 3b): cf. Psalms, 9.13, and Job, 38.17; refers to Prince Edward’s plight rather than that of Bohemia. Cf. True Trag. of R3, TLN 2026–7, ‘worthie Richard that did neuer flie, but followed honour to the gates of death’.

  73 Boheme Q2’s emendation to ‘Bohemia’ is unnecessary: Q’s ‘Boheme’ is an abbreviated early form fitting the line’s metre: see 4.35n. Holinshed, 3.372, has ‘Boheme’ and ‘Bohem’ (Froissart, 298–9, has ‘Behaygne’). The form also occurs in Q at 60.3, 4.40 SP, 6.45.2 (elsewhere ‘Bohemia’ or ‘Bohemian’). In SPs and SDs, where metre is not in question, the form has been modernized.

  74 *When thousands Q’s ‘Whom you sayd’ implies that the Prince heard the King’s speeches earlier in this scene (which may not matter theatrically as, although he could not have done, the audience did); but the rhetorical parallel with whom I slew in 73 seems clumsy. Capell’s widely adopted emendation to ‘Whose thousands’ caters for the plural their at 76. Misreading of thousands as ‘you sayd,’ is palaeographically feasible: y (the thorn) was sometimes used to represent initial th, while ‘sand’ has already been twice misread as ‘said’ at 2.303 (see t.n.). Sams rightly notes that ‘Whose’ for ‘Whom’ is merely one among a range of options, and himself proposes the graphically easier ‘When’.

  entrenched … about i.e. surrounded me (see OED entrench v. 1a). Cf. Plutarch, sig. 3L2v, ‘ignoraunt men that had no skill to fight, but yet for their ouermultitude, might intrenche him rounde about’, and Dido, 5.1.10, ‘triple-wise entrench her round about’. Cf. also 10.3, 18.133.

  75 lay as thick struck as incessantly (OED lie v.1 6; thick adv. 3, also 1c, ‘lay it on thick’ = ‘to do something with vehemence or excess’). Cf. Sidney, Arcadia, 505, ‘For Amphialus … laid on so thick upon Argalus that his shield had almost fallen piece-meal to the earth’.

  crest plume, hence helmet

  76 As … anvil The simile of a blacksmith’s forge reflects both the force and the implacable regularity of the blows. Cf. Aufidius, embracing Martius, in Cor 4.5.111–12, ‘Here I clip / The anvil of my sword’.

  glaives halberts or swords, especially broadswords (OED n. 2a, 3), here most likely the latter; Sharrock, sig. C4r, describes King Edward near the end of the battle when he ‘with gastly gleiue, like thunderbolt driues forth away’.

  77 still constantly

  did underprop sustained me (‘me’ being understood)

  79–80 continuing the image of warfare as heavy labour (cf. toil, 65). Cf. the proverb ‘Many (little) strokes fell great oaks’ (Dent, S941); also 6.129–30n. See 2.52n., 606n.

  * * *

  73 Boheme] Bohemia Q2 74 When thousands] this edn (Sams); Whom you sayd, Q; Whose thousands Capell; Who you saw (anon in WP)

  80 load of oaks Felling will transform the oaks into a load (OED n. 6, great amount) of timber; load also suggests weight and burden (2a, 3a).

  81 recover bring his weapons, i.e. the hallowed gifts of 6.212, back into action (OED v.1 12c); recall his zealous vow at 6.212–18 (6b, first instance dated 1602)

  84 in despite notwithstanding (the odds against me)

  *carved … forth Q2’s ‘caru’d’ has been adopted by all editors. A similar error occurs in TNK 4.3.87. Cf. Mac 1.2.19–20, ‘Like Valour’s minion, carved out his passage, / Till he faced the slave’; also R2 2.3.143–4, ‘in braving arms / Be his own carver, and cut out his way’.

  85 The Prince’s narrative ends with an action reversing the dumb-show at 7.0.1–3.

  multitude See 6.39n.

  86 Lo behold

  *thus Context recommends emendation, from Q’s ‘this’, to thus: see 3.165n.

  filled fulfilled

  88–93See LN.

  88 Cf. Spanish Tragedy, 1.5.16, ‘For well thou hast deserued to be honored’ (BV).

  88, 104Ned See 1.141, 157n.

  88 SD *kneels In accordance with Arise at 91 Prince Edward must again ‘kneel’ (cf. 63 SD).

  *King … Soldier See 60.2n. on ‘his sword … Soldier’.

  89 yet reeking warm still steaming (OED reek v.1 2b, citing Luc 1377 and JC 3.1.158). Cf. E1, ll. 843–4 (Peele, 2.101). Q2 alters reeking to ‘wreaking’, the compositor’s preferred spelling (OED v.1 gives this as a variant) rather than a misunderstanding of the epithet.

  90 *sought Though Q’s ‘fought to be’ is lexically defensible, it is idiomatically suspect (cf., e.g., 3H6 2.2.3). Tyrrell’s sought is convincing: confusion of f with long s was among the easiest of graphic or type errors (cf., e.g., savouring/favouring, 4.135). ‘Seek’ with ‘bane’ is a more familiar collocation, perhaps alluding to Psalm 119.93–5 in The Whole Book of Psalms, collected into English metre (1562), often appended to editions of the Geneva Bible and the Prayer Book: ‘The wicked men doo seke my bane’ (sig. Y6r).

  bane destruction

  * * *

  81 recover] remember Capell; recorde Brooke 84 carved] Q2 (caru’d); craud Q 86 thus] Q2; this Q filled] (fild); ’fill’d Capell 88 SD] Capell subst., after 89 89 reeking] (reaking), Capell; wreaking Q2 90 sought] Tyrrell; fought Q

  91 knight-at-arms fully armed knight, by analogy with ‘man-at-arms’ (OED arm n.2 3b); cf. E1, ll. 87–90, ‘Imbrace them Barons, these have got the name, / Of English Gentlemen and knights at armes: / Not one of these but in the Champaine field, / Hath wonne his crowne, his collar and his spurs’ (Peele, 2.75).

  92–3 Cf. Holinshed, 3.372–3, ‘Faire sonne, God send you good perseuerance in this your prosperous beginning, you haue noblie acquit your selfe, you are well worthie to haue the gouernance of a realme committed to your hands for your valiant dooings’ (from Froissart, 302).

  92 confounded overwhelmed (OED v. 4a)

  94–5 Cf. H5 4.8.75, ‘Here is the number of the slaughtered French’, and 81–2, ‘This note doth tell me of ten thousand French / That in the field lie slain.’

  96–8 *the only prose in the play (appropriate for a casualty list). Some editors have retained Q’s lining, which can be scanned at best as limping verse. Cf. Holinshed, 3.373, ‘the king to search what the number was of them that were slaine, and vpon the view taken, it was reported vnto him, that there were found dead eleuen princes, foure score baronets, 12 hundred knights, and more than thirtie thousand other of the meaner sort’ (following Froissart, 303).

  96 of esteem worthy

  98 common Q2’s alteration to ‘Priuate’ (adopted by Capell) is an unnecessary synonym substitution (perhaps motivated by a sense that common is derogatory).

  our … thousand Not in the chronicles, this creates a huge discrepancy in numbers of the dead between the two forces.

  99 Our … praised the God of all Christians, or the God whose special concern is with England and its King. Cf. 5 and nn.; also H5 4.7.85–6. Cf. Holinshed, 3.373: Edward ‘willed no man to make anie boast of his owne power, but to ascribe all the praise to almightie God for such a noble victorie’ (see Froissart, 302).

  100–1 the play’s last allusion to the King’s pursuit of the Countess of Salisbury in Scs 2 and 3, and a direct rebuttal of King John’s taunt at 6.155–62

  100 for as

  wantonness Cf. 6.156.

  101 cockney one who is effeminate, spoiled (OED n. 2a)

  jades Cf. 6.162 and n.

  * * *

  93 proved] (proude) 94 Here] handing the King a scroll Here Winny 96 SD] this edn 96–8]this edn (Sams); Q lines Barons, / thousand / thousand. / ; Capell lines fourscore / knights; / soldiers; / thousand. / 98 common] Priuate Q2 99 SP] Q2 (K. Ed.); not in Q 99–100]Q2 lines France, / wantonnesse, / 100 knowst] (knowest)

  102 Cf. Holinshed, 3.372, ‘king Philip [the play’s John] as it were by constreint departed out of the field, … he cheefelie consented to ride his waie for his owne safegard, when he saw the losse was such as on that daie it could not be recouered’ (from Froissart, 301).

  fearful either ‘inspiring terror’, in which case sardonic, or ‘frightened’; see 4.43n.

  escaped Cf. Holinshed, 3.374, ‘Philip de Valois himselfe … escaped from the battell.’

  103 Towards See 2.116n.

  Poitiers disyllabic (as always in Shakespeare): from Crécy (26 August 1346) the action leaps over 10 years to prepare for Prince Edward’s other famous victory, at Poitiers (19 September 1356), in the course of a separate expedition not involving King Edward.

  104–5 Audley figures prominently in accounts of the battle of Poitiers, and is appropriately sent there with Prince Edward. Derby, not at the battle of Poitiers, was present at a late point at the siege of Calais, and so is told to proceed there with the King: see 10.0.1n. See also 6.219–26n. Artois, unhistorically (having died in 1342), also serves with the Prince at Poitiers in the play (Scs 14, 17, 18). See 6.12.1n.

  104 still without let-up

  105 Edward did move briskly from Crécy to Calais: see Holinshed, 3.373, ‘The king of England with his armie kept still his field, vntill mondaie in the morning, and then dislodged … and on the wednesdaie being the thirtith day of August, he came before the strong towne of Calis, and there planted his siege’ (from Froissart, 304–5).

  Calais Q’s forms, ‘Callice’, ‘Calice’, ‘Callis’, reflect Elizabethan pronunciation. Calais was strategically crucial because of its position near the border of Flanders. The name would have resonated with an Elizabethan audience because of the English loss of Calais in 1558, after nearly two centuries. See 3.201 LN. See also p. 16.

  106 begirt … with siege See 1.129n.; cf. 2.189n.

  haven town town with a harbour, seaport

  107–8 These lines’ finality (although not clinched by a rhyming couplet) suggests the end of the scene. Only three other scenes (9, 12 and 18) close without a couplet. As in most scenes (1, 3, 4, 6, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18), the closing lines consist of a rallying cry, following royal orders. In performance, inclusion of 109–13 can be anticlimactic (e.g. Clark).