Enter a Messenger.

Mess. Royal commanders, be in readiness:
For with a band of thirty thousand men

Comes Warwick, backing of the Duke of York;
And in the towns, as they do march along,
Proclaims him king, and many fly to him.
Darraign your battle, for they are at hand.
Clif. I would your highness would depart the field:

The queen hath best success when you are absent.

Q. Mar. Ay, good my lord, and leave us to our fortune.
K. Hen. Why, that's my fortune too: therefore I'll stay.
North. Be it with resolution then to fight.

Prince. My royal father, cheer these noble lords,
And hearten those that fight in your defence.
Unsheathe your sword, good father: cry,
George!"

...

"Saint

70

75

80

67-72. Royal .. thirty towns .. along fly to him. Darraign battle are at hand] 65-70. Royall fiftie townes whereas they passe along flies to him. Prepare. battels be at hand Q. Ay, good my fortune] 71-73. I would . . Do good 76, 77. Why ... fortune. stay. North. Be. fight fortune, therefore Ile stay still. Clif. Be George] 76-78. Good father cheere these noble Lords,

73-75. I would. my

fortunes Q. fight] 74, 75. Why Q. 78-80. My

66

...

Marlowe, Tamburlaine, Part II. iv. I (Dyce, 61, a): 'my other toward brother here For person like to prove a second Mars."

66-69. Enter a Messenger... Warwick, backing of the Duke of York] Immediately after the knighthood of Henry's son, and the settling of riots in London between the Commons and the Queen's "Northren horsemen," Hall writes: "But what soeuer man purposeth, God disposeth; for all these deuises were shortly transmuted into another forme, because trew report was broght, not onely to the citie, but also to the quene, that the erle of Marche [Duke of York] had vanqueshed the erles of Pembroke and Wiltshyre. and that the erle of Warwycke had mete with the sayd erle of Marche at Chippyng Norton and that they with both their powers were cominge towarde London. These trew tales turned the quenes purpose in so muche that she with her husband and sonne, departed from Saint Albon's into the North Countrey (pp. 252-255). This is undoubtedly the hint on which Shakespeare spoke:

75. good my lord] Shakespeare's favourite transposition. We have had "good my lords " already in Part I. IV. i. 133. See note at sweet my child," Love's Labour 's Lost, I. ii. 65, and "good my knave," ibid. III. i. 144. The expression here is in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Part II. III. iv. (Dyce, 57, a): "Come, good my lord, and let us haste from hence."

79. hearten] omitted (with the line) in Q, and only again in Lucrece, 295: "heartens up his servile powers." Compare Golding's Ovid, viii. 290: "So heartens he his little son to

March. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD, WARWICK,
NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, and Soldiers.

Edw. Now, perjur'd Henry, wilt thou kneel for grace,
And set thy diadem upon my head;

Or bide the mortal fortune of the field?

Q. Mar. Go, rate thy minions, proud insulting boy!
Becomes it thee to be thus bold in terms

Before thy sovereign and thy lawful king?
Edw. I am his king, and he should bow his knee;
I was adopted heir by his consent:

Since when, his oath is broke; for, as I hear,

85

You, that are king, though he do wear the crown,
Have caused him, by new act of Parliament,
To blot out me, and put his own son in.

90

Clif. And reason too:

Who should succeed the father but the son?

Rich. Are you there, butcher? O! I cannot speak!
Clif. Ay, crook-back; here I stand to answer thee,

Or any he the proudest of thy sort.

Rich. 'Twas you that kill'd young Rutland, was it not?
Clif. Ay, and old York, and yet not satisfied.

...

95

Vnsheath your sword, sweet father crie Saint George. Clif. Pitch we our battell heere, for hence wee will not moue. Enter the house of Yorke Q. 81. March. Enter Edward, George ] March. Enter Edward . . . Clarence Ff. 81-83. Now kneel for . the field?] 79, 80. Now . yealde thy crowne, And kneele for mercie at thy soueraignes feete? Q. 84-86. Go, rate. bold in terms Before . king?] 81-83. Go rate malapert, Before thy king and lawfull soueraigne? Q. 87, 88. I am bow his consent] 84, 85. I am... bend his consent Q. 89-92. Since when, I hear own son in] 86-90. George. Since when he hath broke his oath. For as we heare . . . own son in Q. reason too son?] 91. And reason George speak !] 92. Are you their butcher ? Qq 1, 2 (there Q 3). 96, 97. Ay Or any sort] 93. I or any of your sort] Q. 98, 99. 'Twas you York, and satisfied] 94, 95. Twas you Yorke too, and . . . satisfide Q.

blot out me,

...

...

follow." And in Spenser's Ruines of Rome, st. 22.

84. proud insulting] See above, II. i. 168 (note).

89. Since when] A new speech in Q, given to "George," begins here. In the first Folio this is altered to Clarence. Ff 2, 3, 4 set it right.

97. Or any he the proudest of thy sort] See note at 1 Henry VI. iv. vii. 84; and above, at "The proudest he,' 1. i. 46. This line occurs in Greene's

son? Q.

93, 94. And 95. Are

Alphonsus (Grosart, xiii. 396): "Or any he, the proudest of you all." It may very well have amazed Greene to see it here. But that implies that 3 Henry VI. precedes the Groatsworth of Wit.

97. sort] set, kind. Usually in a bad sense in Shakespeare. Hawes used it :

"So fayre and good a sorte

Of goodly knyghtes (Pastime of Pleasure) (Chiswick rept, p. 129), 1509.

Rich. For God's sake, lords, give signal to the fight.

100

War. What say'st thou, Henry, wilt thou yield the crown?
Q. Mar. Why, how now, long-tongued Warwick! dare you
speak?

When you and I met at Saint Alban's last,
Your legs did better service than your hands.

War. Then 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis thine.
Clif. You said so much before, and yet you fled.
War. 'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.
North. No, nor your manhood that durst make you stay.
Rich. Northumberland, I hold thee reverently.

Break off the parley; for scarce I can refrain
The execution of my big-swoln heart
Upon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.
Clif. I slew thy father: call'st thou him a child?
Rich. Ay, like a dastard and a treacherous coward,
As thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland;
But ere sun set I'll make thee curse the deed.

105

ΙΙΟ

115

K. Hen. Have done with words, my lords, and hear me speak. Q. Mar. Defy them then, or else hold close thy lips.

...

100, 101. For God's... signal... the crown ?] 96, 97. For Gods... synald (signall Q 3)... thy crowne? Q. 102-104. Why long-tongued hands] 98-100. What, long tongde... hand Q. 105-107. Then 'twas fly, and. Clifford... thence] 101-103. I, then twas flee, but Clifford, that... thence Q. 108-112. No,

Upon that Clifford.

...

...

manhood... make... I hold child-killer] 104-109. No, manhood Warwike, that could make . . . Northumberland, Northumberland, wee holde against that Clifford there, child killer Q. 113-116. I slew ... dastard Why I kild. villaine sunne set [Sundeed Q. 117-125. Have done my lords My liege. cured his tongue] 114-122. Haue doone great lordes My Lord cru'd (cur'd Q 3) hangs upon his tongue Q.

...

sun set deed] 110-113. set F 2, Sun set Ff 3, 4]

102. long-tongued] Again in Titus Andronicus, IV. ii. 150. Shakespeare was fond of the word tongued. He uses it with close-, honey-, lewd-, maiden-, poisonous-, shrill-, trumpet-, and wasp-. He uses -mouthed similarly (Spenser has "fire-mouthed "), but the tongued compound is his own probably. He is the monarch of compounds, and Schmidt his chiefest exponent.

109-112. Northumberland... childkiller] The unmetrical confusion in Q is again noticeable.

IIO. refrain] Nowhere else used transitively by Shakespeare. Compare Peele's David and Bethsabe (468, b): "If thou unkindly shouldst refrain her bed." New Eng. Dict. gives the passage in text as earliest of "refrain " in sense of "give up (something).”

...

"

III. big-swoln] Occurs again (of the face of the sea) in Titus Andronicus, III. i. 224. Compare "high-swoln,' Richard III. 11. ii. 117. Another proof of Shakespeare's continued authorship, for this line occurs in The First Part of Contention: "The big swolne venome of thy hatefull heart" (1. i. 86), in a speech of the Cardinal's which has no counterpart in 2 Henry VI. The word here is in Q.

112. child-killer] See Hall's words, quoted at I. iv. 95.

116. sun set] of Q, is certainly to be preferred to "sunset." So I read in King John, III. i. 110, but not in Romeo and Juliet, III. v. 128, nor in Sonnet 73. Ff 3, 4 have "sun

set."

K. Hen. I prithee, give no limits to my tongue :
I am a king, and privileged to speak.
Clif. My liege, the wound that bred this meeting here
Cannot be cured by words; therefore be still.
Rich. Then, executioner, unsheathe thy sword.

By Him that made us all, I am resolv'd
That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.
Edw. Say, Henry, shall I have my right or no?

A thousand men have broke their fasts to-day,
That ne'er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.
War. If thou deny, their blood upon thy head;

For York in justice puts his armour on.

Prince. If that be right which Warwick says is right,
There is no wrong, but every thing is right.
Rich. Whoever got thee, there thy mother stands;
For well I wot thou hast thy mother's tongue.
Q. Mar. But thou art neither like thy sire nor dam,
But like a foul misshapen stigmatic,
Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided,

126-132. Say, Henry... fasts .

blood upon

120

125

130

135

If that . . . which

every thing is right] 123-129. What saist thou, Henry

...

fast.

bloods be on If all.. that.. all things must be right Q. 133-138. Whoever dreadful stings] 130-135. Whatsoever

...

fainting lookes Q.

ard III. III. iv. 79: "I swear I will not dine until I see the same"; where it is taken verbatim from Grafton's Continuation of Hardyng, P. 495, 1543.

133. Whoever got thee] See "Menelaus," below, 1. 147. At the birth of Prince Edward, Hall says (rept. p. 230): "which was christened & named Edward .. whose mother susteyned not a little slaunder and obloquye of the common people, saiyng that the kyng was not able to get a chyld, and that this was not his sonne, with many slaunderous woords, to the quenes dishonor, which here nede not to be rehersed." This speech is erroneously (as the answer shows) given to Warwick in the Folios.

134. well I wot] See 1 Henry VI. IV. vi. 32 (note), and Introduction, p. xxviii.

136. foul stigmatic] These words, "foul stigmatic," have occurred already in Part II. v. i. 215, applied by young Clifford to Richard. See note. Drayton remembered to use it in his Epistle from Q. Margaret.

140

As venom toads, or lizards' dreadful stings.
Rich. Iron of Naples hid with English gilt,
Whose father bears the title of a king,
As if a channel should be call'd the sea,
Sham'st thou not, knowing whence thou art extraught,
To let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?

Edw. A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns,
To make this shameless callat know herself.
Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,
Although thy husband may be Menelaus;

145

139-143. Iron... whose... Sham'st... knowing... heart?] 136-140. Iron .. Thy. Shames. knowing from whence thou art deriude, to parlie thus with Englands lawfull heires? Q. 144, 145. A wisp this shameless ... herself] 141, 142. A wispe that shamelesse her selfe Q. 149. Helen... by thee] omitted Q.

138. venom] Used adjectively again in Richard III. 1. iii. 291; and Lucrece, 850.

66

138. lizards' dreadful stings] Altered from "fainting looks" of Q. Lizards stings occurs in 2 Henry VI. III. ii. 325. "Fainting looks," looks that produce fainting. One would suggest Lodge's "faintful."

141. channel] gutter, kennel, drain. 142. extraught] derived (the Quarto word). A participle for extracted, like distraught for distracted. Spenser has "from whos race... she was lineallie extract" (Faerie Queene, III. ix. 38). "Extraught " occurs twice in the Troublesome Raigne of King John, where Shakespeare read it, probably earlier than this play: "I beg some instance whence I am extraught" (Shakespeare's Library, Hazlitt, p. 234). And on p. 236. Earlier examples are in New Eng. Dict.

143. detect] betray, expose. The oldest sense, and Shakespeare's usual one. This line completely differs from Quarto. See next note.

143. base-born] A word of Peele's, but earlier in Churchyard. See note in Part II. 1. iii. 82 to "base-born callat." In neither case is this word in the Quartos. Spenser has "baseborn men" in Ruines of Time and Teares of the Muses. It is several times in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Part

I.

144. A wisp of straw] the badge of a scold. See Nares for ample illustrations, culled mostly from the com

146

"So perfyte and exacte a scoulde
that women mighte geve place
Whose tatlynge tongues had won
a wispe.'

The only early one I can add is from
Gabriel Harvey's Pierces Supereroga-
tion (Grosart, ii. 219), 1593:
"She
hath already put-on her wispen gar-
land"-Harvey's tu quoque to Nashe
in Pierce Penilesse. See, too, Ben
Jonson, The Vision of Delight, 1607.

It

145. callat] See Part II. 1. iii. 82, and note at "base-born callat." is hard to reject the idea that the repetition here (from Part II.) is smoothed away by parting the company of these terms, though only by a line or two. "Callat" is an old word, often in Skelton and Golding (Irish, cailleach). A violent scold, or horrid old woman.

147. Menelaus] Steevens quotes from Troilus and Cressida (v. i. 60), where Thersites, speaking of Menelaus, calls him "the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull,— the primitive statue and oblique memorial of cuckolds." Schmidt adds the reference to Troilus and Cressida, 1. i. 115: "Menelaus horn," the prototype of cuckolds.