And let thy blows, doubly redoubled, Fall like amazing thunder on the cafque 7 Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live. BOLING. Mine innocency, and Saint George to [He takes his feat. thrive! NOR. [Rifing.] However heaven, or fortune, cast my lot, There lives or dies, true to king Richard's throne, Caft off his chains of bondage, and embrace Go I to fight; Truth hath a quiet breaft. 85 Simple Volante verse 7 Fall like amazing thunder on the cafque-] To amaze, in ancient language, fignifies to stun, to confound. Thus, in Arthur Hall's tranflation of the third Iliad, 4to. 1581 : And striking him upon the helme, his foe amazed makes." See alfo, King John, A& IV. fc. iii. STEEVENS. Mine innocency,] Old copies-innocence. Corrected by Mr. Steevens. MALONE. This feaft of battle-] "War is death's feaft," is a proverbial faying. See Ray's Collection. STEEVENS. I As gentle and as jocund, as to jeft,] Not fo neither. We fhould read to just; i. e. to tilt or tourney, which was a kind of sport too. WARBURTON. The fense would perhaps have been better if the author had written what his commentator fubftitutes; but the rhyme, to which fenfe is too often enslaved, obliged Shakspeare to write jeft, and obliges us to read it. JOHNSON. The commentators forget that to jest sometimes fignifies in old language to play a part in a mask. Thus, in Hieronymo : K. RICH. Farewell, my lord: fecurely I efpy [The King and the Lords return to their feats. MAR. Harry of Hereford, Lancafter, and Derby, Receive thy lance; and God defend the right ! BOLING. [Rifing.] Strong as a tower in hope, I cry-amen. MAR. Go bear this lance [To an Officer.] to Thomas duke of Norfolk. 1 HER. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Stands here for God, his fovereign, and himself, On pain to be found falfe and recreant, To prove the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray, 2 HER. Here ftandeth Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, On pain to be found falfe and recreant, Attending but the fignal to begin. MAR. Sound, trumpets; and fet forward, com batants. [A Charge founded. Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down." "He promised us in honour of our gueft, "To grace our banquet with fome pompous jeft." and accordingly a máík is performed. FARMER. Dr. Farmer has well explained the force of this word. So, in The Third Part of King Henry VI: as if the tragedy "Were play'd in jeft by counterfeited actors." TOLLET. hath thrown his warder down.] A warder appears to K. RICH. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears, And both return back to their chairs again :- [A long flourish. [To the Combatants. Draw near, Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' fwords; [4And for we think the eagle-winged pride Of fky-afpiring and ambitious thoughts, With rival-hating envy, fet you on 5 To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle fleep;] Which fo rous'd up with boisterous untun'd drums, With harsh refounding trumpets' dreadful bray, And grating fhock of wrathful iron arms, have been a kind of truncheon carried by the person who prefided at these single combats. So, in Daniel's Civil Wars, &c. B. I: "When lo, the king, fuddenly chang'd his mind, "Cafts down his warder to arreft them there." STEEVENS. 3 With that dear blood which it hath fostered;] The quartos read With that dear blood which it hath been fofter'd. I believe the author wrote With that dear blood with which it hath been foster'd. The quarto, 1608, reads, as in the text. STEEVENS. 4 And for we think the eagle-winged pride &c.] These five verfes are omitted in the other editions, and restored from the first of 1598. 5 POPE.. -Set you on -] The old copy reads-on you. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 1 Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,6 And make us wade even in our kindred's blood ; 6 To wake our peace, Which fo rous'd up Might fright fair peace,] Thus the fentence ftands in the common reading abfurdly enough; which made the Oxford editor, instead of fright fair peace, read, be affrighted; as if thefe latter words could ever, poffibly, have been blundered into the former by transcribers. But his business is to alter as his fancy leads him, not to reform errors, as the text and rules of criticism direct. In a word then, the true original of the blunder was this: the editors, before Mr. Pope, had taken their editions from the folios, in which the text ftood thus: -the dire afpect Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbour fwords; -fright fair peace. This is fenfe. But Mr. Pope, who carefully examined the firft printed plays in quarto, (very much to the advantage of his edition,) coming to this place, found five lines, in the first edition of this play printed in 1598, omitted in the first general collection of the poet's works; and, not enough attending to their agreement with the common text, put them into their place. Whereas, in truth, the five lines were omitted by Shakspeare himself, as not agreeing to the rest of the context; which, on revise, he thought fit to alter. On this account I have put them into hooks, not as fpurious, but as rejected on the author's revife; and, indeed, with great judgment; for To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle as pretty as it is in the image, is abfurd in the fense: for peace awake is ftill peace, as well as when afleep. The difference is, that peace afleep gives one the notion of a happy people funk in floth and luxury, which is not the idea the speaker would raise, and from which ftate the fooner it was awaked the better. WARBURTON. To this note, written with fuch an appearance of taste and judgment, I am afraid every reader will not fubfcribe. It is true, that peace awake is ftill peace, as well as when afleep; but peace awakened by the tumults of these jarring nobles, and peace indulging in profound tranquillity, convey images fufficiently oppofed to each other for the poet's purpofe. To wake peace, is, to introduce difcord. Peace afleep, is peace exerting Therefore, we banish you our territories :- But tread the ftranger paths of banishment. BOLING. Your will be done: This muft my comfort be, That fun, that warms you here, shall shine on me; K. RICH. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom, Which I with fome unwillingness pronounce: NOR. A heavy sentence, my moft fovereign liege, its natural influence, from which it would be frighted by the clamours of war. STEEVENS. 7 The fly-flow hours-] The old copies read-The fly-flow hours. Mr. Pope made the change; whether it was necessary or not, let the poetical reader determine. In Chapman's version of the second Book of Homer's Odyssey, we have: 66 and those flie hours "That still surprise at length." It is remarkable, that Pope, in the 4th Book of his Essay on Man, v. 226, has employed the epithet which, in the prefent inftance, he has rejected: "All fly flow things, with circumfpective eyes." See Warton's edit. of Pope's Works, Vol. III. p. 145. STEEVENS. :-" the The latter word appears to me more intelligible :thievish minutes as they pafs." MALONE. |