And for it to set us hereon more agog,

A prophet came (a vengeance take them all!)
Affirming Henry to be Gogmagog,

Whom Merlin doth a mouldwarp ever call,
Accurst of God, that must be brought in thrall

By a wolf, a dragon, and a lion strong,

Which should divide his kingdom them among."

III. i. 160, 161. Compare Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 5860:

Thou saist, that dropping houses, and eek smoke,

And chiding wives maken men to flee

Out of her owen hous";

Vaughan adds the following:-"It is singular that Shakespeare should have combined two annoyances commemorated together by an old Welsh proverb, which I would translate:

'Three things will drive a man from home:
A roof that leaks.

A house that recks,

A wife who scolds whene'er she speaks."

III. ii. 32. ‘Thy place in council thou hast rudely lost,' i.e. 'by thy rude or violent conduct'; there is an anachronism here, as the Prince was removed from the council for striking the Chicf Justice in 1403, some years after the battle of Shrewsbury.

III. ii. 38. 'doth'; Quartos and Folios, 'do,' which may be explained as due to the plural implied in every man'; Rowe,' docs'; Collier MS., 'doth.'

III. ii. 62. 'carded his state'; 'to card' is often used in Elizabethan English in the sense of 'to mix, or debase by mixing' (e.g. You card your beer if you see your guests begin to get drunk, half small, half strong,” Green's Quip for an Upstart Courtier); Warburton suggested 'carded' "scarded," i.c. discarded"; but the former explanation is undoubtedly correct. 'To stir and mix with cards, to stir together, to mix'; the meaning is brought out by a quotation from Topsell's Four-footed Beasts (1607), "As for his diet, let it be warm mashes, sodden wheat and hay, thoroughly carded with wool-cards."

III. ii. 154. if He be pleased I shall perform'; the reading of Quartos; Folio 1, ‘if I performe, and doe survive'; Folios 2, 3, 4, "if I promise, and doe survive," etc.

III. ii. 164. 'Lord Mortimer of Scotland, a mistake for Lord

March of Scotland, George Dunbar, who took sides with the English.

A vessel of the early XVth century. From flesh, nor good red herring." the seal of John Holland, Lord Admiral III. iii. 164. I pray God my of England, 1417. girdle break'; an allusion to the old adage, "ungirt, unblessed"; the breaking of the girdle was formerly a serious matter, as the purse generally hung on to the girdle, and would, in the event of the girdle breaking, probably be lost.

IV. i.. 31. that inward sickness-'; Rowe first suggested the dash in place of the comma of the early editions; the sentence is suddenly broken off.

IV. i. 85. term of fear'; the Folios and later Quartos (7 and 8) 'dream' for 'term.'

"All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Baited like eagles having lately bathed';

this, the reading of the early editions, has been variously emended; Steevens and Malone suggested that a line has dropt out after wind, and the former (too boldly) proposed as the missing line :

"Run on, in gallant trim they now advance";

on the other hand, Rowe's proposal to read 'wing the wind' for 'with' has had many supporters, though it is said that 'wing the wind' applies to ostriches less than to any other birds; Dyce, however, quotes a passage from Claudian (In Eutropium II., 310-313) to justify it :

"Vasta velut Libya venantum vocibus ales

Cum premitur, calidas cursu transmittet arenas,
Inque modum veli sinuatis flamina pennis

Pulverulenta volat";

the Cambridge editors maintain that this means that the bird spreads its wings like a sail bellying with the wind-a different thing from 'winging the wind.' 'But the Cambridge editors," Dyce replies, "take no notice of the important word volat, by which Claudian means, of course, that the ostrich, when once her wings are filled with the wind, flies along the ground (though she does not mount into the air)"; he adds the following apt quotation from Rogers :

"Such to their grateful ear the gush of springs
Who course the ostrich, as away she wings."
COLUMBUS, Canto viii.

baited = baiting; to bait or bate" to flap the wings, as the hawk did when unhooded and ready to fly."

'having lately bathed'; "writers on falconry," says Steevens, "often mention the bathing of hawks and eagles as highly necessary for their health and spirits. All birds, after bathing, spread out their wings to catch the wind, and flutter violently with them in order to dry themselves. This, in the falconer's language, is called bating."

IV. ii. 29. 'younger sons to younger brothers,' i.e. ' men of desperate fortune and wild adventure'; the phrase, as Johnson pointed out, occurs in Raleigh's Discourse on War.

V. i. Stage direction. The Quartos and Folios make the Earl of Westmoreland one of the characters; but, as Malone pointed out, he was in the rebel camp as a pledge for Worcester's safe conduct.

V. i. 13. old limbs'; Henry was, in reality, only thirty years old at this time.

V. ii. 8. suspicion'; Rowe's emendation for 'supposition' of the early editions. Johnson points out that the same image of 'suspicion' is exhibited in a Latin tragedy, called Roxana, written about the same time by Dr. William Alabaster.

V. ii. 18. adopted name of privilege,' i.e. the name of Hotspur will suggest that his temperament must be his excuse.

V. ii. 33. 'Douglas' must here be read as a trisyllable.

6

V. ii. 60. By still dispraising praise valued with you'; omitted by Pope and others as 'foolish,' but defended by Johnson-" to

vilify praise, compared or valued with merit, superior to praise, is no harsh expression."

V. ii. 72. so wild a libertine'; Capell's emendation for the reading of the Folios, ‘at libertie,' and Quartos 1-4 ‘a libertie'; Theobald punctuated the line thus: of any prince, so wild, at liberty'; others proposed 'wild o' liberty,' which Collier erroneously declared to be the reading of the three oldest Quartos.

V. iii. 46, 47. Turk Gregory never did such deeds in arms'; Warburton observes:-" Fox, in his History, hath made Gregory (i.e. Pope Gregory VII., called Hildebrand) so odious that I don't doubt but the good Protestants of that time were well pleased to hear him thus characterized, as uniting the attributes of their two great enemies, the Turk and Pope, in one."

V. iv. 81. But thought's the slave of life,' etc.; Dyce and others prefer the reading of Quarto 1.:

'But thoughts the slaves of life, and life time's fool,
And time that takes survey of all the world,

Must have a stop.'

i.e. "Thoughts, which are the slaves of life, aye, and life itself, which is but the fool of Time, aye, and Time itself, which measures the existence of the whole world, must come to an end" (Vaughan).

V. iv. 167. 'Grow great,' so Quartos; Folios, 'grow great again.'

V. v. 41. 'sway'; Folios and later Quartos 'way.'

Explanatory Notes.

The Explanatory Notes in this edition have been specially selected and adapted, with emendations after the latest and best authorities, from the most eminent Shakespearian scholars and commentators, including Johnson, Malone, Steevens, Singer, Dyce, Hudson, White, Furness, Dowden, and others. This method, here introduced for the first time, provides the best annotation of Shakespeare ever embraced in a single edition.

66

ACT FIRST.
Scene I.

34-46. My liege, etc.:-The matter of the passage is thus related by Holinshed: Owen Glendower, according to his accustomed manner robbing and spoiling within the English borders, caused all the forces of the shire of Hereford to assemble togither against him, under the conduct of Edmund Mortimer, Earle of March. But comming to trie the matter by battell, whether by treason or otherwise, so it fortuned, that the English power was discomfitted, the earle taken prisoner, and above a thousand of his people slaine in the place. The shamefull villanie used by the Welshwomen towards the dead carcasses was such as honest eares would be ashamed to heare, and continent toongs to speake thereof. The dead bodies might not be buried, without great summes of monie given for libertie to conveie them awaie." 92-95. the prisoners, etc. :-Percy had an exclusive right to these prisoners, except the Earl of Fife. By the law of arms, every man who had taken any captive, whose redemption did not exceed ten thousand crowns, had him clearly to himself to acquit or ransom at his pleasure. But Percy could not refuse the Earl of Fife; for, he being a prince of the royal blood, Henry might justly claim him, by his acknowledged military prerogative.

Scene II.

2. [Prince.] We see the Prince, as Brandes says, "plunging into the most boyish and thoughtless diversions, in company with