The Works of Shakespeare ...

Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky,
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars
That have consented unto Henry's death!
King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long!
England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.
Glou. England ne'er had a king until his time.
Virtue he had, deserving to command:

His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams;
His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings;
His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire,
More dazzled and drove back his enemies
Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces.
What should I say! his deeds exceed all speech:

1549: "Ane stearre . . . callit ane comeit; quhen it is sene, ther occurris haistyly efter it sum grit myscheif." Greene often refers to the superstition: "like the elevation of a Commet which foreshewes ever some fatall and finall ruine" (Penelopes Web (Grosart, v. 175), 1587). And in Mamillia (Grosart, ii. 150), 1583: "his foes contrariwise conjecturing the worst, said that his pompous prodigalitie and rich attire were the two blazing starres and carefull comets which did alwaies prognosticate some such event." Common in later plays. And see Spenser's Faerie Queene, III. i. 16, where Upton's note gives classical references. Camden tells of one in 1582. See line 55 below, note.

3. Brandish] flash and glitter like a brandished sword. See quotation from Holland's Plinie at line 2. New Eng. Dict. has "Brandysh, or glytter, like a sword, corusco (Huloet, 1552). And Sylvester's Du Bartas :

"Thine eyes already (now no longer eyes;

But new bright stars) do brandish

in the skyes."

3. crystal] bright, clear. Often used in connection with the skies. Compare "the heaven crystalline " in the old Taming of a Shrew (Six Old Plays, p. 190), 1594. A similar expression occurs in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Part I. v.: "Flora in her morning's pride, shaking her silver tresses in the air." The reader is at once reminded of Marlowe by these opening lines.

4. revolting] rebellious. A favourite word in Shakespeare.

5. consented unto] agreed with, acted

ΙΟ

in concert. See Richard II. 1. ii. 25.
Lat. Concentus (Steevens). Compare
Golding's Ovid, bk. xi. lines 78, 79:
"The Thracian women
As many

fas consenting to this wicked act were
ound."

10. brandish'd] See note at line 3. Spenser has "his brandisht blade" (Faerie Queene, II. xi. 37).

II. dragon's wings] Compare Troilus and Cressida, v. viii. 17. "That old dragon" that the Redcross knight slays in Spenser's Faerie Queene was in Shakespeare's mind: "Then, with his waving wings displayed wide" (1. xi. 18);

"His blazing eyes

Did burn with wrath and sparkled living fire,

As two broad Beacons ...

...

warning give that enemies conspyre" (st. xiv.).

12. replete with] full of. Compare The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke (Shaks. Library, Hazlitt, p. 85), 1592: Thy lookes are all repleat with Majestie"; and The Troublesome Raigne of King John (Shaks. Library, Hazlitt, p. 316), 1591: My life repleat with rage and tyranie." And see 2 Henry VI. 1. i. 20, and 3 Henry VI. 111. ii. 84. The expression occurs only in Shakespeare's earliest work, especially in the historical plays. It is not uncommon earlier. See Hawes' Pastime of Pleasure, 1509 (passim).

14. fierce] Used adverbially again in Henry V. II. iv. 9.

15. What should I say !] it is hopeless. Compare Golding's Ovid, bk. ii. 240, 245: "What should he doe? . He wist not what was best to doe, his

He ne'er lift up his hand but conquered.

Exe. We mourn in black: why mourn we not in blood?
Henry is dead and never shall revive.

Upon a wooden coffin we attend,
And death's dishonourable victory
We with our stately presence glorify,
Like captives bound to a triumphant car.
What! shall we curse the planets of mishap
That plotted thus our glory's overthrow?
Or shall we think the subtle-witted French
Conjurers and sorcerers, that, afraid of him,
By magic verses have contriv'd his end?
Win. He was a king bless'd of the King of kings.
Unto the French the dreadful judgment-day
So dreadful will not be as was his sight.
The battles of the Lord of hosts he fought:
The church's prayers made him so prosperous.

Glou. The church! where is it? had not churchmen pray'd
His thread of life had not so soon decay'd:

wittes were ravisht so" (1567). And
Grafton's Chronicle, 1569 (reprint 1809,
i. 574), Henry the Sixt: "What should
I saye, the Captaines on horsebacke
came to the gate and the Traytors
within slue the porters and watchemen
and let in their friendes." Often in
Hall and Grafton.

16. lift] lifted. Common in early writers: "they drewe foorth, and lift Joseph out of the pit" (Genesis xxxvii. 28, Geneva Bible, altered in modern text). And Greene, A Looking Glasse for London (Grosart, xiv. 29, line 553) "And when I trac't upon the tender grass,

Love, that makes warme the center
of the earth,

Lift up his crest to kisse Remilia's
foote."

And Peele, David and Bethsabe:
"Hath fought like one whose arms
were lift by heaven" (468).

17. mourn in blood] Compare mourn in steel" (3 Henry VI. ì. i. 58).

19. wooden] senseless, expressionless, unfeeling. The extended sense gives some colour to the line. See "that's a wooden thing" (v. iii. 89). Suffolk's contemptuous expression for the king. Compare Greene's Orpharion (Grosart, xii. 17), 1588-9: "or fayre without wit, and that is to marry a woodden picture

with a golden creast, full of favour but flattering.'

23. planets of mishap] An expression of Greene's: "Borne underneathe the Planet of mishap" (Alphonsus, King of Arragon, Grosart, xiii. 391).

26. Conjurer] a magician; one who has to do with spirits. So in Part II. 1. ii. 76. Roger Bolingbroke the conjurer " is a nigromancer in the Chronicles. And compare Comedy of Errors, Acts iv. and v. "A Ballad of the life and deathe of Doctor Faustus the Cunngerer" (Stationers' Register, 1589). Sacrapant in The Old Wives Tale (Peele) is a conjurer.

27. magic verses] Compare Faerie Queene, 1. ix. 48:

"All his manly powres it did disperse,

As he were charmed with inchaunted rimes:

That oftentimes he quaked, and fainted oftentimes."

34. thread of life] Again in 2 Henry VI. iv. ii. 31, and Pericles, I. ii. 109. Compare Golding's Ovid, ii. 81, 819 (1567):

"And in the latter end

The fatall dame, shall breake thy threede."

Without any ect reference to the Fates, compare (eele's) Jack Straw (Hazlitt's Dodsley, v. 409): "When thread of life is. Almost fret in twain."

My bon

None do you like but an effeminate prince,
Whom, like a school-boy, you may over-awe.
Win. Gloucester, whate'er we like, thou art protector,
And lookest to command the prince and realm.
Thy wife is proud; she holdeth thee in awe,
More than God or religious churchmen may.
Glou. Name not religion, for thou lov'st the flesh,

And ne'er throughout the year to church thou go'st
Except it be to pray against thy foes.

Bed. Cease, cease these jars and rest your minds in peace!
Let's to the altar: heralds, wait on us.

Instead of gold we'll offer up our arms,

Since arms avail not now that Henry's dead.

Posterity, await for wretched years,

Our isle be made a nourish of salt tears,

When at their mothers' moist'ned eyes babes shall suck,

And none but women left to wail the dead.
Henry the Fifth! thy ghost I invocate:
Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils!
Combat with adverse planets in the heavens!
A far more glorious star thy soul will make
Than Julius Cæsar or bright-

49. moist'ned] F 1; moist Ff. 2, 3, 4. 50. nourish] Ff, Cambridge; marish Pope, Craig; nourice Theobald. 56. or bright-] or bright Francis Drake Pope conj.; or bright Cassiopeta Theobald conj.; or bright Berenice Johnson conj. (Other suggestions are Orion Mitford, Great Alexander Bullock, Cepheus Keightley, Charlemagne Anon.)

And must be awed and governed like a child" (Dyce, 203, a). 38. lookest] expectest.

50. nourish] nurse. A frequent word in use of the fatherland or country; as in Holland's Plinie, bk. iii. ch. v. p. 56 (1601): "that land [Italy] which is the nource of all lands.. the mother chosen by the powerfull grace of the To nourish" and "to nurse gods." had identical uses, which are extended Halliwell's Dictionre to the noun. "Nominale MS. Nutrix, Steevens gives an example from Lyd te's Tragedies of John Bochas, bk. i...

al,

norys

"otes

vii.:

vas in his floures
\f philosophers

Athenes whan. Was called nourish wise." Spenser calls Night the woe" (Faerie Queene,

ourse of

III. iv. 55).

52. thy ghost I invocate] invoke or pray to. Compare Richard III. 1. ji. 8: Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost." And Locrine, Iv. i.: "by the gods whom thou dost invocate, By the dread ghost of thy deceased sire." And in Sonnet xxxviii. New Eng. Dict. has earlier examples.

55, 56. more glorious star. . . Than
Julius Cæsar] See Golding's Ovid's
Metamorphoses, The Epistle, lines 292,
293 (1567):—

"The turning to a blazing starre of
Julius Cæsar showes
That fame and immortalitie of
vertuous doing growes.'

And again, bk xv. lines 944-56:—
"... from the murthred corce of
Julius Cæsar take

His sowle with speede . . . Venus
out of hand

Amid the Senate house of Rome
invisible did stand,

And from her Cæsars bodye tooke
his new expulsed spryght.

men

den

prince ver-awe

rt protector and realm

in awe, 1 may

flesh

h thou gos

nds in pe

Pad

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My honourable lords, health to you all!
Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,
Of loss, of slaughter, and discomfiture:
Guienne, Champaigne, Rheims, Orleans,
Paris, Guysors, Poictiers, all are quite lost.

Bed. What say'st thou, man, before dead Henry's corse?
Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns

Will make him burst his lead and rise from death.

Glou. Is Paris lost? is Roan yielded up?

If Henry were recall'd to life again

These news would cause him once more yield the ghost. Exe. How were they lost? what treachery was us'd? es shall Mess. No treachery, but want of men and money. Amongst the soldiers this is muttered,

65. is Roan] F 1; and is Roan Ff 2, 3, 4; Rouen Cambridge.

She no sooner let it flye,
But that a goodly shyning starre it
up a loft did stye
And drew a greate way after it
bryght beames like burning
heare."

The mention of hair shows that the
comet is referred to again. Plutarch
says "there was a great comet which
seven nights together was seen very
bright after Cæsar's death." See note
in Arden edition to Julius Cæsar, II. ii.
31. And see more in Holland's Plinie,
bk. ii. ch. xxv.: "6
By that starre it was
signified (as the common sort beleeved)
that the soule of Iulius Cæsar was
received among the divine powers of
the immortal gods." That the above
account in Golding of Cæsar's constella-
tion was familiar to Shakespeare is
evident from the account of the ". warn-
ings of the Gods" before the murder
(lines 879-95). They supply the
"battles feyghting in the clowdes,"
"the rain of blood," the gastly
spryghts" of Julius Cæsar, II. ii. 12-25.
56. or bright-] M. Mason says,
'Pope's conjecture is confirmed by this
peculiar circumstance, that two blazing
stars (the Julium Sidus) are part of the
arms of the Drake family." And Malone
rightly affirms that this blank arose
from the transcriber or compositor
not being able to make out the name.
The rhyme is the chief argument in
favour of Drake, which is however very
unacceptable of a then-living man.

Nor.

64. lead] the lining or inner shell of the wooden coffin. Compare Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of Malta, Iv. ii.: "[They remove the coffin, lift Oriana out of it, and then put it back into the monument.] . Mir. Softly good friend; take her into your arms. Put in the crust again." The "crust here is the lapping of lead mentioned in The Passionate Pilgrim, xxi. 391-95. See too Middleton's A Mad World, my Masters, II. ii.: "let him trap me in gold, and I'll lap him in lead." Without a knowledge of this a passage in The Merchant of Venice, 11. vii. 49-51 loses its force. Marlowe gives: "Not lapt in lead but in a sheet of gold" (Tamburlaine, pt. ii., end of Act ii.). "Wrapt in lead," meaning dead, occurs twice in Spenser's Shepheards Calendar (June and October), 1579.

67. cause him yield] For "to" omitted after "cause," compare Greene, George-a-Greene (at the end): “Whose fathers he caus'd murthered in those warres."

70. this is muttered] Grafton has here (i. 562): "the Duke of Bedford openly rebuked the Lordes in generall, because that they in the time of warre, through their privie malice and inwarde grudge, had almost moved the people to warre and commocion, in which time all men should ..

serve and dread their soveraigne Lorde King Henry, in performing his conquest in Fraunce, which was in maner brought to conclusion."

That here you maintain several factions;

And whilst a field should be dispatch'd and fought,
You are disputing of your generals.

One would have lingering wars with little cost;
Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings;
A third thinks, without expense at all,
By guileful fair words peace may be obtain'd.
Awake, awake, English nobility!

Let not sloth dim your honours new-begot :
Cropp'd are the flower-de-luces in your arms
Of England's coat, one half is cut away.
Exe. Were our tears wanting to this funeral
These tidings would call forth her flowing tides.
Bed. Me they concern. Regent I am of France.

Give me my steeled coat: I'll fight for France.
Away with these disgraceful wailing robes!
Wounds will I lend the French instead of eyes,
To weep their intermissive miseries.

76. A third thinks] F 1, Cambridge; A third man thinks Ff 2, 3, 4, Steevens, etc., Craig; a third thinks that Keightley conj. 78. Awake, awake] Ff 1, 3, 4; Awake, away F 2. 80, 81. arms of England's coat,] Ff; arms; Of England's coat Cambridge; arms, Of England's coat Pope. 83. her] Ff, Malone, Steevens; their Theobald, Cambridge, Craig.

...

71. maintain • factions] back up, uphold factions or parties. New Eng. Dict. quotes Hanmer, Chronicle of Ireland (ante 1604): "His three sonnes ... formerly went into Ireland to maintaine one of the factions." See note, II. iv. 109 below, on factions. 72. field... dispatch'd] armed force, or order of battle made ready and sent promptly away. 74-76. One Another . . . A third] Compare Faerie Queene, 1. xii. 10. 80. flower-de-luces] The fleur de lis, or lily of France. A heraldic bearing and artistic ornament probably representing the Iris. "Iris, this herbe is called Floure-delyce" (R. Banckes? Herball, Sig. D, ii. 30, 1525). As a part of England's coat, Grafton says: "Ihon Rastall sayth in his chronicle that it is not lyke to be true that the great Hall of Westminster that is now, was buylded by this king, but rather in the tyme of King Richarde the Second. For sayth he, the Armes that are there both on the timber and on the stone worke, which is the three Lyons quartered with the flower de luce, and the white Hart for his badge, were the armes of King Richard. For there was never king of England that gave the

flower de luce which was the armes of
Fraunce before King Edward the
thirde" (i. 176).
81. coat] coat of arms.
"Your arms
of England's coat" is equivalent to
"your English coat of arms," spoken
by a foreign messenger who already
uses English nobility in a foreign
manner. The punctuation should not
be altered from the old edition.

83. her flowing tides] England's flowing tides (Malone). The prosaic alteration of Theobald's is gladly rejected. A similar quibble (tide, tied) is in Lyly's Endymion, IV. ii.

85. steeled coat] coat of mail. Not again in Shakespeare. An expression of Greene's in Alphonsus, King of Arragon (line 1553): "Buckle your helmes, clap on your steeled coates." Marlowe has "steeled crests (Tamburlaine, pt. II. ii. 2); Lodge has" thy steeled crest" (Wounds of Civil War, Hazlitt's Dodsley, vii. 114). Compare "coats of steel," 3 Henry VI. II. i. 160, and note.

87, 88. lend... eyes to weep] Compare Timon of Athens, v. i. 160.

88. intermissive] coming at intervals. New Eng. Dict. has an earlier example from Ferne's Blazon of Gentrie, 1586.

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