72-3 *her … wear what she affected (that is, liked) to wear – pretty, though carelessly chosen. Though both Leech and Bowers argue for retaining Q’s careless were at 73, most editors, following Seward, have emended to wear, which seems related to decking in 74.

  73 happily perhaps (haply)

  * * *

  58–64] marginal SD: 2 Hearses rea-/ dy with Pala-/ mon: and Arci-/ te: the 3. / Queenes. / Theseus: and / his Lordes / ready. Q 67 breasts] Brooke; breasts, oh Q 68 blossom] Q; bosom (Lamb) oh, she] Brooke; she Q 73 happily her careless, wear,] 1778 subst.; happely, her careles, were, Q; happily her careles were 1711; haply careless wear Seward

  74 serious decking dressing on important occasions

  75 *hummed one Q’s on can be a variant spelling for one (see 1.2.70n.), but it is also worth considering Tucker Brooke’s suggestion that on means ‘on and on’.

  76 coinage invention, improvisation

  77 sojourn … on The contrast is between sojourning with the tune (visiting it) and dwelling there (living permanently with it).

  78 rehearsal story

  79 fury-innocent a notoriously difficult line, often emended (see t.n.). There seems some connection, not clearly worked out, between innocent (in the sense of baby) and bastard in 80. The fury may also relate to the rapidity and breathlessness with which Emilia evidently speaks (see 82). Blincoe suggests (337–8) that the compound is an adjective meaning ‘innocent of fury’ and contrasts with the rage that love inspires in Palamon and Arcite. The phrase is an oxymoron, because furies are normally sent to punish the guilty and are guilty themselves. In KT the tragedy at the end is caused by a malevolent fury sent from Saturn; in the play this supernatural element is eliminated, but in Florio’s translation of Montaigne the word occurs in the context of same-sex love. wots knows

  80 old importment’s bastard a false (illegitimate) version of whatever produced it: in this case, importment. (See Tim 1.2.107–9.) Hart (286–7) comments on the frequency with which Shakespeare coins words ending in ‘ment’. Mason’s interpretation of it as emportement (passion) has been adopted by several editors who assume that Emilia is apologizing for giving such a feeble rendition of the intensity of her childhood feelings. But importment, an obsolete word meaning ‘importance’ or ‘significance’, makes sense here. Emilia’s tone is mocking as well as melancholy when she describes her seriousness over childish trifles; she may now be mocking, not the relationship with Flavina, but her own seriousness in talking about it.

  end both conclusion (Emilia apologizes for having talked so much) and purpose

  82 *dividual Seward’s emendation of Q’s individuall seems justified by the metre and by the existence of dividual in other contexts; RP cites ‘Not to be sever’d nor dividuall’ in Michael Drayton, Endymion and Phoebe, 517–18. However, Blincoe (‘Sex’) also argues plausibly for individuall, citing Cotgrave’s definition of it as the united love of man and woman in marriage.

  * * *

  75 one] 1778; on Q 76 musical] F; misicall Q 79 fury-innocent] Q; every innocent (Lamb); surely Innocence Seward; sorry innocence (Bertram); seely innocence Oxf wots well] Q; wot I well (Mason) 80 importment’s] importments Q; emportment’s (Mason) 82 dividual] Seward; individuall Q

  83 high-speeded pace a clue to the delivery of Emilia’s speech

  84-5 you … man ‘Like Flavina, you shall never love any man.’

  89-90 sickly … longs the pregnant woman’s desire, or ‘longing’, for foods she does not normally like; also the sick person’s changing appetites. In MND Demetrius remembers his immature love for Hermia as ‘an idle gaud / Which in my childhood I did dote upon’ (4.1.170–1) and compares Helena to food that he loathed ‘like a sickness’ but now, in his ‘health’, has come to love (176–9). Cf. ‘I loath it [love] now / As men in Feavers meat they fell sick on’ (Massinger and Fletcher, A Very Woman, Bowers, 7: 4.2.49–50).

  94 in go in

  94-6 with … heart In referring to her sister’s earlier words (47–9), Hippolyta is also suggesting a parallel: if Emilia is sure that Theseus must, in all reason, prefer Hippolyta to both himself and Pirithous, the logical conclusion is that she herself will eventually prefer a husband to the memory of her childhood friendship.

  1.4

  1.4.0.1 Cornets See note on music in Appendix 6.

  A battle … within Battle noises are heard off stage.

  0.2 THESEUS as victor Davenant’s ‘as from victory’ suggests what was meant: probably he was crowned with a laurel wreath, with prisoners led behind his triumphal procession.

  * * *

  96–7] Q lines heart. / faith, / mine. / 1.4] Scæna 4. Q 0.1 Cornets] after 1.3.97 Q

  0.3 PALAMON … hearses They may be brought in either at the beginning of the scene or shortly before Theseus notices them at 13.

  1 To … dark May no fates be malignant toward you. Cf. ‘Let all the number of the stars give light / To thy dear way’ (AC 3.2.65–6).

  4 mounted high

  9 rites spelled rights in Q; the word has both meanings

  *would supply’t would make up any gap (by being present myself). Though the sentence in Q ends at this point, ‘But’ in 10 suggests that Theseus, as in 1.1, is talking about acting both in person and by deputy: he himself will not remain for the funeral but will return at once to Athens.

  11 even make even, settle (OED v. I 4a)

  12 imperfect unfinished

  13 heaven’s … you May heaven look on you kindly.

  14 SP The Herald would be recognized by his distinctive costume.

  15 appointment their armour and other trappings. Skeat cites KT, 1017: ‘The heraulds knew hem [Palamon and Arcite] best in speciall.’

  * * *

  9 rites.] Seward; rights, Q 13 SD Exeunt Queens] after those Q Theseus … hearses] this edn; not in Q

  16 sisters’ children In KT they are described as ‘of the blood riall / Of Thebes, and of sistren two yborne’ (1018–19).

  19 Make lanes cut a path. The image is used in North’s translation of Plutarch’s life of Coriolanus. Cf. ‘Follow / The lane this sword makes for you’ in The False One, a Fletcher–Massinger collaboration (Bowers, 8: 5.3.65) (RP). aghast horrified (refers to the troops) note attention

  20 mark object of attention

  21-2 What … leave Both Theseus’ question and the Herald’s answer can be emended (see t.n.) but are clear in context: Theseus is looking for the person he interrogated earlier; the Herald deferentially supplies the information himself.

  26-7 The SD (see t.n.) which appears in the margin of Q at this point indicates preparation for the ‘funeral solemnity’ of 1.5.

  27 been recovered recovered; the verb was often used transitively: cf. ‘If I can recover him’ (Tem 2.2.68).

  28 have … men are still alive enough to be called men

  29-30 The … others What little is left of their lives (perhaps with a suggestion that they have almost been drained of blood) is infinitely better than most people even in their full strength. Cf. dregged (1.2.97).

  * * *

  18 smeared] (smear’d) Qc; succard Qu 21 What prisoner was’t] Q; what was’t that prisoner Dyce 22 Wi’ leave] Dyce; We leave Q; We learn (Heath); we ’leave Littledale; 26–7] marginal SD: 3. Hearses rea-/ dy Q

  31 Convent assemble. Stressed on the second syllable. Cf. 1.5.9.

  in their behoof for their benefit, or on their behalf. (The two words are often confused: see OED behoof.)

  31-2 our … waste ‘Of the two extremes, be recklessly generous rather than stingy with our most costly medicines.’ Cf. 7–9.

  33-7 Rather … death KT says that Theseus ‘nold hem not ransoun’ (Chaucer, Riv: ‘nolde no ransoun’ (1024)) but does not explain why. His behaviour is seen here as a harsh compliment to their valour.

  34 their morning state as they were this morning

  36 forty-thousandfold forty thousand times

  38 our kind air Since the action takes place near Thebes, our does not mean Athenian (though the pure air of Athens is praised in a Chorus to Oedipus at Colonus) but the ‘common air’ (cf. R2 1.3.157) that is kind (natural, as well as pleasant) to all humanity.

  unkind because it was thought dangerous for wounds to ‘take air’

  39 more i.e., even more than man can do

  40-5 *Since … reason This difficult passage has been explained in a number of ways. The two most plausible are, first, that Theseus justifies his sympathy for the kinsmen, and excuses their fighting for Creon, on the grounds that the various causes he lists have been known to make men act out of a sick will and against their better judgment (Leech, Proudfoot, Bowers); second, that he exhorts the doctors to do, as people sometimes can in the extreme situations he lists, ‘even more than is humanly possible’ (Brooke). I take his speech in the second, more positive, sense: sheer will-power can enable the sick person to excel (o’er-wrestle) the strong person who can do only what reason accepts as possible.

  43 mark something at which to aim

  44 imposition obligation (from one of the causes just mentioned)

  * * *

  39 do,] this edn; doe Q sake –] this edn; sake Q 40 frights,] Q; fights, (Heath); fight’s Dyce friends’] Weber; friends, Q 41 Love’s] Seward; Loves, Q 43 Hath] Q; Have (Heath) to] (too)

  45 o’er wrestling Bertram’s suggestion that Q’s or means ‘o’er’ makes sense of a difficult construction. He compares ‘o’er-wrested’ (TC 1.3.157).

  46 Apollo’s mercy Apollo was the god of healing

  our best (doctors)

  48 Where conflates adverbs of both time (‘after’) and place (‘there’)

  49 ’fore ahead of. Q has for, but at least half of Theseus’ army is with him at Thebes and in 2.1.47 the Jailer says that he returned to Athens ‘privately in the night’. He presumably sends the two wounded men with his own small entourage.

  * * *

  45 O’er-wrestling] Leech (Bertram); (Or wrastling) Q 49 ’fore] Seward; (for) Q 1.5] Scæna 5. Q 0.1 Music] after 1.4.49 Q 0.2 solemnity] Solempnity &c. Q

  1.5

  1.5.0.1–2 Q does not specify who sings here, or even whether this is a song; the queens might have recited it antiphonally, like the dirge in Cymbeline (4.2.258). Most editors assume that the last line was repeated in chorus. Certainly the ‘&c’ after 0.2 in Q suggests that a large number of people took part in the ‘solemnity’ (black mourning cloaks would have concealed the costumes of cast members).

  1 bring away The objects of this verb are all the symbols of woe mentioned in this stanza. The queens invert the opening bridal song which gathered ‘all dear Nature’s children sweet’ and all birds of good omen.

  3 Both dole and looks are ambiguous; the line, in context, seems to make more sense if dole is taken in the sense of OED sb. 1 (portion, share or fate), rather than sb. 2 (grief, mourning), with looks as a noun rather than a verb: ‘Our portion (or fate) consists of the mourners’ deathly expressions – as if we were not only dying of grief but already dead of it.’

  4 cheers outward looks (Skeat compares ‘a deadly chere’ (KT, 913))

  6 clamours … flying Muir (128) points out that this line is echoed in the flying/dying rhyme of Tennyson’s lyric, ‘The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls’, which precedes Canto 4 of The Princess. Chaucer wrote of ‘The great clamour’ of the women at the burning of the bodies (KT, 995).

  8 quick-eyed the first of several compound epithets with ‘eyed’. Cf. 2.2.21, 2.2.37 and 2.5.29.

  14 A thousand … ways See Webster, DM, 4.2.219–20: ‘I know death hath ten thousand several doors / For men to take their exits.’ But the idea is common, as in Lucian’s Toxaris (a famous dialogue on friendship): ‘this god Death takes many shapes and puts at our disposal an infinite number of roads that lead to him’ (165).

  15-16 Recalls KT: ‘This world is but a throughfare ful of wo, / And we been pilgrimes, passing to and fro’ (2848–9). Littledale and Masefield (194) claim to have seen gravestones with similar inscriptions. Waith (Oxf1) cites a close verbal parallel from Thomas Tuke, A Discourse of Death (1613): ‘Death meets with us a thousand ways. As into a gret Citie, or into the maine Sea, so vnto death there are many waies. It is as the center, wherein all the lines do meete; a towne of Mart, where many waies from contrarie coasts doe end’ (sig. C3). See Dent, D140, for proverbial examples.

  15 straying wandering in all directions

  16 SD severally by different exits

  * * *

  9–10] one line Q 10 We … woes] We convent, &c. Q 12 seize] (ceaze) 2.1] Actus Secundus. / Scæna I. Q 2–57] as verse Q

  2.1

  2.1.1–57 The compositor of Q set the first line as prose, the rest as verse.

  1 depart part

  2 cast give. That is, he may part with some spare cash at the time of the marriage.

  4 salmon large and valuable catch (i.e., rich prisoner), as opposed to poor men, or minnows. The Jailer would have been expected to supplement his salary with fees and bribes from prisoners who could afford them.

  5 better lined wealthier. Cf. ‘The linings of his coffers’ (R2 1.3.61).

  5-6 than … speaker than I can see any reason for people to say

  7 Marry a mild oath, originally from the name of the Virgin Mary; its occurrence, like the use of prose, fits the more contemporary and colloquial tone of the subplot

  8 assure promise to bestow

  11 estate settle (financially)

  12 the solemnity the celebrations surrounding the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta

  13 of from

  *SD Some editors put the Daughter’s entry later, but see 1.2.83n.

  14 tender give, hand over

  18 court hurry See 12.

  21 strewings fresh rushes for the floor. Perhaps an allusion to the proverb ‘Rushes for the stranger’ (Dent, R213), which also occurs in Fletcher’s Valentinian (Bowers, 4: 2.5.93); it means that strangers get better treatment than those one sees every day – such as the Wooer.

  * * *

  13 SD carrying rushes] Weber subst.; not in Q 18 that now;] 1778; That. Now, Q

  23-4 make … ashamed In Webster, DM, the imprisoned heroine is said to show ‘a behaviour so noble, / As gives a majesty to adversity’ (4.1.5–6). The phrase comes from Sidney’s Arcadia, 1.2, where it refers to the hero Musidorus.

  25 all … chamber Bawcutt compares Donne, ‘The Good Morrow’: ‘love, all love of other sights controls, / And makes one little room, an everywhere’. Hamlet says that he ‘could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space’ (Ham 2.2.254–5).

  26 absolute perfect, complete

  27 troth word of honour: a mild oath stammers speaks inadequately

  28 they … report They excel even the high reputation they already have.

  29 grise a small step in a stairway. Also spelled grece (the main heading in OED); Q’s greise suggests something closer to Shakespeare’s other uses of the word in TN 3.1.135 and Oth 1.3.200, where the F spellings are grize and grise respectively.

  29-30 the only doers the only ones worth mentioning; a way of expressing the superlative. OED a. 5 cites Ham 3.2.125: ‘your only jig-maker’.

  33 enforce either ‘strengthen’ (OED v. I 2) or ‘produce by force’ (OED v. III 11)

  34 their mirth a cause for mirth

  35 toy trifle

  37 sense consciousness

  40 restraint captivity

  41 divided broken, incomplete

  martyred … deliverance because the sigher tried to keep it from getting out. Break from (42), like deliverance, suggests the common comparison between prison and the womb. Cf. Middleton and Rowley’s The Changeling: ‘That sigh would fain have utterance … / … how it labours / For liberty …’ (2.2.104–6).

  43 presently at once

  48 SD For the staging of this scene.

  51-2 the lower probably the shorter, but perhaps seeming so only in terms of their present positions in the window or windows. The various descriptions of the two men are contradictory. See 4.2.44n.

  53 Go to an imperative expressing disapproval

  leave leave off

  53-4 they … object Would is ambiguous: either, ‘They don’t want to look at us’, or, ‘They would not stare at us as we are doing at them’.

  55-6 Lord … men Like Goneril’s ‘O the difference of man and man!’ (KL 4.2.26), these words are usually spoken after the exit of the others, as a rueful or contemptuous comparison between the Wooer and the kinsmen.

  * * *

  48 SD] after 47 Q 2.2] Scæna 2. Q

  2.2

  2.2.0.1 Perhaps prison is indicated by the fact that the two men are in chains (Palamon is still wearing them in 3.1). But see also 274.

  1 In 2.1 the Daughter talks as if Palamon and Arcite had been confined together for a while, yet their opening exchange suggests that they are meeting for the first time since their recovery. As Waith (Oxf1) says, the opening dialogue seems intended to show how the two men reached the state of calm resignation described in 2.1.37–45.

  6 Laid up … to come resigned my future time

  7-8 This brief ubi sunt passage (a series of rhetorical questions lamenting a vanished past) evokes a very different Thebes from the one the kinsmen wanted to leave in 1.2. It has no counterpart in KT but Boccaccio gives Arcita three stanzas of lament at the ruins of Thebes (4.14–16).

  8 kindreds OED gives no occurrence of the plural use at such an early date and it is possible that the final ‘s’ is an error. Perhaps Palamon’s and Arcite’s families are meant to be two separate entities.