EPILOGUE. Enter CHORUS. Chor. Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen, Our bendingo author hath pursued the story, In little room confining mighty men, Mangling by startso the full course of their glory. Small time, but in that small most greatly lived 5 This star of England: Fortune made his sword; By which the world's best gardeno he achieved, And of it left his son imperial lord. Of France and England, did this king succeed; 10 Whose state so many had the managing, That they lost France and made his England bleed: Which oft our stage hath shown°; and, for their sake, In your fair minds let this acceptance take. [Exit NOTES. ACT I, PROLOGUE. LINE 4. Swelling. Growing in interest as the play proceeds. 6. Port. Bearing or appearance. 9. Flat unraised spirits. Dull and uninspired. II. Cockpit. Properly a pit for a cock fight; here used con. temptuously for the floor of the theatre. 12. Vasty. Vast, a frequent usage in Shakespeare. Cf. II, 2, 123, 13. This wooden 0. The Globe Theatre, which was built of wood and was circular inside. 16. Attest. Stand for. 30-31. Turning the accomplishment, etc. Bringing within the limits of an hour events which have taken many years to accomplish. SCENE I. This scene is based on the following passages in Holinshed : “In the second yeare of his reigne, king Henrie called his high court of parlement, the last daie of Aprill in the towne of Leicester, in which parlement manie profitable lawes were concluded, and manie petitions mooued, were for that time deferred. Amongst which, one was, that a bill exhibited in the parlement holden at Westminster in the eleuenth yeare of king Henrie the fourth (which by reason the king was then troubled with ciuill discord, came to none effect) might now with good deliberation be pondered, and brought to some good conclusion. The effect of which supplication was, that the temporall lands deuoutlie giuen, and disordinatlie spent by religious, and other spirituall persons, should be seized into the kings hands, sith the same might suffice to mainteine, to the honor of the king, and defense of the realine, fifteene earles, fifteene hundred knights, six thousand and two hundred esquires, and a hundred almesse-houses, for reliefe onelie of the poore, impotent, and needie persons, and the king to haue cleerelie to his coffers twentie thousand pounds, with manie other prouisions and values of religious houses, which I passe ouer. 6. This bill was much noted, and more feared among the religious sort, whom suerlie it touched verie neere, and therefore to find remedie against it, they determined to assaie all waies to put by and ouerthrow this bill : wherein they thought best to trie if they might mooue the kings mood with some sharpe inuention, that he should not regard the importunate petitions of the commons." 1. Self. Same. 3. Was like. Was likely to pass. 4. Scambling. Scrambling. Cf. V, 2, 208. 5. Question. Consideration or debate. 7. On. Of, as often in Shakespeare. 10. Testament. Will or bequest. 15. Lazars. Beggars. 91 16. Indigent faint souls. Poor and weak persons. Corporal Corporeal or bodily. 22. Full of grace and fair regard. Virtuous and fair-minded. 26. Mortified. Killed or dead. Cf. Macbeth, V, 2, 3–5 : “For their dear causes Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm Excite the mortified man." 36. His. 28. Consideration. Reflection or thoughtfulness. Notice the allusion to the Bible story of the expulsion from Eden of Adam and Eve. 34. Heady currance. Overpowering current. 35. Nor never. The double negative is common in Shakespeare. Hydra-headed. Many-headed, like the fabled Hydra. Its. Cf. 66. All at once. Although this phrase applies here in the modern sense, it meant in Shakespeare's time everything else, and probably has that meaning here. 38. Divinity. Theology. 41. Commonwealth affairs. Affairs affecting the common wel. fare ; public matters. 43. List. Listen to. 45. Cause of policy. Question of public concern or government policy. 46. Gordian knot. Apparently unsolvable difficulty. An allusion to the story of the famous knot in Gordium, Phrygia, which, according to an oracle, could be untied only by him who was to be the conqueror of Asia. Alexander the Great cut it with his sword and declared that the prediction had been realized. 47. Familiar. Familiarly. That. So that. |