Puc. And, while I live, I'll ne'er fly from a man. [They fight. CHAR. Stay, stay thy hands; thou art an Ama-` zon, And fightest with the sword of Deborah. Puc. Christ's mother helps me, else I were too weak. CHAR. Whoe'er helps thee, 'tis thou that must help me : Impatiently I burn with thy desire;3 My heart and hands thou hast at once subdu'd. Let me thy servant, and not sovereign, be; CHAR. Mean time, look gracious on thy prostrate thrall. REIG. My lord, methinks, is very long in talk. ALEN. Doubtless he shrives this woman to her smock; Else ne'er could he so long protract his speech. REIG. Shall we disturb him, since he keeps no mean? 3 Impatiently I burn with thy desire;] The amorous constitution of the Dauphin has been mentioned in the preceding play: "Doing is activity, and he will still be doing." COLLINS. The Dauphin in the succeeding play is John, the elder brother of the present speaker. He died in 1416, the year after the battle of Agincourt. RITSON. ALEN. He may mean more than we poor men do know: These women are shrewd tempters with their tongues. REIG. My lord, where are you? what devise you on? Shall we give over Orleans, or no? Puc. Why no, I say, distrustful recreants! Fight till the last gasp; I will be your guard. CHAR. What she says, I'll confirm; we'll fight it out. Puc. Assign'd am I to be the English scourge. This night the siege assuredly I'll raise: Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days, Since I have entered into these wars. Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to nought.5 4 Expect Saint Martin's summer,] That is, expect prosperity after misfortune, like fair weather at Martlemas, after winter has begun. JOHNSON. 5 Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to nought.] So, in Nosce Teipsum, a poem by Sir John Davies, 1599: "As when a stone is into water cast, "One circle doth another circle make, "Till the last circle reach the bank at last." The same image, without the particular application, may be found in Silius Italicus, Lib. XIII : "Sic ubi perrumpsit stagnantem calculus undam, 66 Contingat geminas patulo curvamine ripas." MALONE. This was a favourite simile with Pope. It is to be found also With Henry's death, the English circle ends; CHAR. Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?" Thou with an eagle art inspired then. Helen, the mother of great Constantine, 8 Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters, were like thee. in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Book VIII. st. 63, of Sir John Harrington's translation: "As circles in a water cleare are spread, "When sunne doth shine by day, and moone by night, "Succeeding one another in a ranke, "Till all by one and one do touch the banke." I meet with it again in Chapman's Epistle Dedicatorie, prefixed to his version of the Iliad: 66 -As in a spring, "The plyant water, mov'd with any thing "In perfect circles, that moue round about And the same image is much expanded by Sylvester, the translator of Du Bartas, 3d part of 2d day of 2d week. HOLT WHITE. 6 like that proud insulting ship, Which Cæsar and his fortune bare at once.] This alludes to a passage in Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar, thus translated by Sir Thomas North: "Cæsar hearing that, straight discovered himselfe unto the maister of the pynnase, who at the first was amazed when he saw him; but Cæsar, &c. said unto him, Good fellow, be of good cheere, &c. and fear not, for thou hast Cæsar and his fortune with thee." STEEVENS. "Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?] Mahomet had a dove, "which he used to feed with wheat out of his ear; which dove, when it was hungry, lighted on Mahomet's shoulder, and thrust its bill in to find its breakfast; Mahomet persuading the rude and simple Arabians, that it was the Holy Ghost that gave him advice." See Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World, Book I. P. I. ch. vi. Life of Mahomet, by Dr. Prideaux. GREY. 8 Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters,] Meaning the four daughters of Philip mentioned in the Acts. HANMER. Bright star of Venus, fall'n down on the earth, How may I reverently worship thee enough?9 ALEN. Leave off delays, and let us raise the siege. REIG. Woman, do what thou canst to save our honours; Drive them from Orleans, and be immortaliz❜d. CHAR. Presently we'll try:-Come, let's away about it: No prophet will I trust, if she prove false. [Exeunt. SCENE III. London. Hill before the Tower. Enter, at the Gates, the Duke of GLOSTER, with his Serving-men, in blue Coats. GLO. I am come to survey the Tower this day; Since Henry's death, I fear there is conveyance." Where be these warders, that they wait not here? Open the gates; Gloster it is that calls. [Servants knock. 1 WARD. [Within.] Who is there that knocks so imperiously? 1 SERV. It is the noble duke of Gloster. 9 How may I reverently worship thee enough?] Perhaps this unmetrical line originally ran thus: How may I reverence, worship thee enough? STEEVENS. 1--there is conveyance.] Conveyance means theft. HANMER. So Pistol, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: "Convey the wise it call: Steal! foh; a fico for the phrase." STEEVENS.. 2 WARD. [Within.] Whoe'er he be, you may not be let in. 1 SERV. Answer you so the lord protector, villains? 1 WARD. [Within.] The Lord protect him! so we answer him: We do no otherwise than we are will'd. GLO. Who willed you? or whose will stands, but mine? 2 There's none protector of the realm but I.- Servants rush at the Tower Gates. Enter, to the Gates, WOODVILLE, the Lieutenant. WOOD. [Within.] What noise is this? what traitors have we here? GLO. Lieutenant, is it you, whose voice I hear? Open the gates; here's Gloster, that would enter. WOOD. [Within.] Have patience, noble duke; I may not open; • Break up the gates,] I suppose to break up the gate is to force up the portcullis, or by the application of petards to blow up the gates themselves. STEEVENS. To break up in Shakspeare's age was the same as to break open. Thus, in our translation of the Bible: "They have broken up, and have passed through the gate." Micah, ii. 13. So again, in St. Matthew, xxiv. 43: "He would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.” Some one has proposed to read Break ope the gates, WHALLEY. but the old copy is right. So Hall, HENRY VI. folio 78, b: "The lusty Kentishmen hopyng on more friends, brake up the gaytes of the King's Bench and Marshalsea," &c. MALONE. |