ACT THIRD PROLOGUE Enter Chorus. Chor. Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies In motion of no less celerity Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen The well-appointed king at Hampton pier With silken streamers the young Phoebus fan- Play with your fancies, and in them behold sea, 4. "Well-appointed" is well furnished with all necessaries of war. -The old copies read "Dover pier"; but the Poet himself, and all accounts, and even the chronicles which he followed, say that the king embarked at Southampton.-H. N. H. "Hampton," Theobald's correction of Ff. "Dover."-I. G. 6. "fanning”; Rowe's emendation of Ff. 1, 2, “fayning,” Ff. 3, 4, "faining"; Gould conj. “playing.”—I. G. "the young Phœbus fanning"; fluttering in the morning sun.C. H. H. 1 Breasting the lofty surge: O, do but think Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy, men, 20 Either past or not arrived to pith and puis sance; For who is he, whose chin is but enrich'd Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a Behold the ordnance on their carriages, With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur. Tells Harry that the king doth offer him 31 28. "Suppose," etc. This embassy actually met Henry at Winchester.-C. H. H. 32-34. "and the them"; linstock was a stick with linen at one end, used as a match for firing guns.—Chambers were small pieces of ordnance. They were used on the stage, and the Globe Theater was burned by a discharge of them in 1613.-Of course Shakespeare was a reader of Spenser, and this passage yields a : With linstock now the devilish cannon touches, [Alarum, and chambers go off. And down goes all before them. Still be kind, And eke out our performance with your mind. [Exit. SCENE I France. Before Harfleur. Alarum. Enter King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, Gloucester, and Soldiers, with scaling-ladders. K. Hen. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. But when the blast of war blows in our ears, slight trace of his reading. Thus in The Faerie Queene, Book i. can. 7, stan. 13: "As when that divelish yron engin, wrought In deepest hell, and fram'd by Furies skill, -H. N. H. 35. "Eke"; the first folio, "eech"; the others, "ech"; probably representing the pronunciation of the word.-I. G. 7. “summon up," Rowe's emendation of Ff. “commune up.”— I. G. ་ ་ Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head 10 O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! Have in these parts from morn till even fought, Dishonor not your mothers; now attest 21 That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you. Be copy now to men of grosser blood, And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen, Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture; let us swear 15. "nostril"; Rowe's emendation of Ff. "nosthrill.”—I. G. 17. “noblest English”; so in the folio of 1632. The first folio has "noblish English," which is evidently a mistake, the printer or transcriber having repeated the ending ish. Malone reads "noble English," which is better in itself, but has not quite so good authority. The whole speech is wanting in the quartos.-H. N. H. 21. "argument"; matter. The parallel to Alexander makes it probable that lack of enemies to conquer rather than of "cause to fight for" is meant; none being left to oppose them.-C. H. H. 24. "be copy"; of course copy is here used for the thing copied, that is, the pattern or model.-H. N. H. That you are worth your breeding; which I For there is none of you so mean and base, 30 I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, [Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off. SCENE II The same. Enter Nym, Bardolph, Pistol, and Boy. Bard. On, on, on, on, on! to the breach, to the breach! Nym. Pray thee, corporal, stay: the knocks are too hot; and, for mine own part, I have not Pist. The plain-song is most just; for humors 32. "straining"; Rowe's emendation of Ff. "Straying.”—I. G. 3. "corporal”; it appears in a former scene of this play that Bardolph has been lifted up from a corporal into a lieutenant since our acquaintance with him in Henry IV, and that Nym has succeeded him in the former rank. It is not quite certain whether the Poet forgot the fact here, or whether Nym, being used to call him corporal, in his fright loses his new title.-H. N. H. 5. "case"; that is, a pair of lives; as "a case of pistols," "a case of poniards," "a case of masks." So in Ram Alley we have “a case of justices."-H. N. H. |