NOTES.
[Note I.]
Dramatis Personæ. In Rowe's list, which remained uncorrected by any editor before Capell, the Duke of Clarence is introduced and the Duke of York is called 'Uncle to the king.' The list we have given differs in a few other unimportant points from that of Rowe.
In the first Folio the title of the play is The Life of Henry the Fift. The second Folio has The Life of King Henry the Fift. In the Folios the play is divided into acts, but not into scenes, although they prefix Actus Primus, Scena Prima, to the first act. The division was first made by Pope.
[Note II.]
Act II. Prologue, 31, 32. Mr Knight says, "The passage is evidently corrupt; and we believe that the two lines were intended to be erased from the author's copy; for 'the abuse of distance' is inapplicable as the lines stand." Mr Keightley proposes to read,
'and we'll digest
The abuse of distance as we forge our play.'
We have left the reading of the Folios, as no proposed emendation can be regarded as entirely satisfactory.
[Note III.]
II. 2. 139, 140. Malone misquotes the reading of Pope in this passage, and his error is repeated without correction in subsequent editions. Mr Mitford in the Gentleman's Magazine, Nov. 1844, proposes to read, 'To mark the full-fraught man and least inclined,' &c., quoting 'inclined' as if it were the received text. Perhaps it is a printer's error.
[Note IV.]
II. 2. 176. Mr Collier in a note which has remained uncorrected in his second edition says, "Malone, without any authority from Quartos or Folios, printed 'Whose ruin you three sought.'" The fact is that this is the reading of every Folio, except the first, and of every edition, without exception, which had appeared before Malone's.
[Note V.]
II. 3. 16. Here is Pope's note on this famous passage: 'These words and a table of green fields are not to be found in the old editions of 1600 and 1608. This nonsense got into all the following editions by a pleasant mistake of the Stage-editors, who printed from the common piecemeal-written parts in the Play-house. A Table was here directed to be brought in (it being a scene in a tavern where they drink at parting) and this direction crept into the text from the margin. Greenfield was the name of the Property-man in that time who furnished implements &c. for the actors. A table of Greenfield's.'
Theobald's emendation was suggested, he says, by a marginal conjecture in an edition of Shakespeare 'by a gentleman sometime deceased.' Shakespeare Restored, p. 138.
Mr Spedding approves of talked as being nearer to the ductus literarum, according to the handwriting of the time. The reading talked derives some support from the following passage in the Quartos:
'His nose was as sharpe as a pen:
For when I saw him fumble with the sheetes,
And talk of floures, and smile vpo his fingers ends
I knew there was no way but one.'
[Note VI.]
II. 4. 1. We retain the reading comes which is authorized by the Folios. It is an example of the idiom mentioned in the note to King John, V. 4. 14. So we find in the passage of the first and third Quartos, corresponding to II. 4. 72, 'Cut up this English short,' and again in that corresponding to IV. 3. 69, 'The French is in the field.' See, also, IV. 4. 74.
[Note VII.]
III. 2. 18. The Quartos here read 'breaches,' not 'preaches,' and the Folios 'breach,' not 'preach.' Throughout the speeches of Fluellen the old copies sometimes mark the peculiarity of his pronunciation, by using 'p' for 'b,' and 't' for 'd,' sometimes not; an inconsistency, which Hanmer and others have attempted to correct. As a rule, we have silently followed the first Folio. See Merry Wives of Windsor, Note II. The same will apply to the Scotch of Jamy and the Irish of Macmorris; for these dialects, which could not be represented by the printer, were left to the actor's power of imitation.
Ritson, in his Remarks, p. 108, says, 'In the Folio, it is the duke of Exeter and not Fluellen, who enters and to whom Pistol addresses himself. Shakespeare had made the alteration and the player editors inserted it in the text, but inadvertently, left Fluellen in possession of the margin.' No copy of any Folio with which we are acquainted bears out Ritson's assertion. All have Enter Fluellen, as well as Flu. in the margin. It seems to us that there is some comic humour in making Pistol, almost beside himself with fright, endeavour to propitiate the captain by giving him high sounding titles. The language, too, of the exhortation is more suitable to the choleric Fluellen than to the stately Exeter.
[Note VIII.]
III. 1. 112-114. Mr Knight, at the suggestion of a friend, transposes this passage thus: 'Of my nation? What ish my nation? What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation ish a villain, a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal.' We agree with Mr Staunton's suggestion, that 'the incoherence of the original was designed to mark the impetuosity of the speaker.'
[Note IX.]
III. 3. 32. The editor of the variorum edition of 1803, adopting the emendation 'deadly,' which was really Capell's conjecture, though Malone appropriates it, makes it appear, as if on the authority of Malone, that 'deadly' is the reading of the second Folio. We have left unnoticed many similar errors, which run, uncorrected, through the successive variorum editions.
[Note X.]
III. 4. 1. We content ourselves with a few specimens of the errors and variations of the old copies in this scene. The French was set right, or nearly so, by successive alterations made by Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Warburton, and Capell. Some obvious corrections in the distribution of the dialogue were made by Theobald.
[Note XI.]
III. 5. 1. The stage direction of the Folios is as follows:
Enter the King of France, the Dolphin, the Constable of France, and others. To the speeches which commence lines 10 and 32 they prefix Brit. But as the Duke of 'Britaine' does not appear elsewhere in the play, and as the stage direction of the Quartos runs: Enter King of France, Bourbon, Dolphin, and others, we have followed Theobald in introducing Bourbon among the persons who enter and in assigning the two speeches to him. 'Bourbon,' and not 'Britaine,' is mentioned among the lords in line 41. In Holinshed (p. 1077, ed. 1577), the Dukes of Berry and Britaine are mentioned as belonging to the French king's council, and not the Duke of Bourbon. Shakespeare probably first intended to introduce the Duke of Britaine, and then changed his mind, but forgot to substitute Bour. for Brit. before the two speeches. Rowe omitted to insert the Duke of 'Britaine' in his list of Dramatis Personæ.
[Note XII.]
III. 5. 40. As the metre will not allow us to set Delabreth right by reading D'Albret, we do not see what is gained by substituting De-la-bret, which is as erroneous as the word which Shakespeare copied from Holinshed. The same chronicler afterwards calls him Dalbreth. (Holinshed, ed. 1577, p. 1175 and 1176).
[Note XIII.]
III. 6. 100-106. Pope, following the Quarto to a certain extent, alters the whole passage thus:
'We would have such offenders so cut off,
And give express charge that in all our march
There shall be nothing taken from the villages
But shall be paid for, and no French upbraided
Or yet abused in disdainful language;
When lenity and cruelty play for kingdoms
The gentler gamester is the soonest winner.'
[Note XIV.]
III. 6. 111-128. Pope gives the speech as follows:
'Thus says my King: say thou to Harry England,
Although we seemed dead, we did but sleep:
Advantage is a better soldier than rashness.
Tell him we could at Harfleur have rebuk'd him,
But that we thought not good to bruise an injury
Till it were ripe. Now speak we on our cue,
With voice imperial: England shall repent
His folly, see his weakness, and admire
Our suff'rance. Bid him therefore to consider
What must the ransom be, which must proportion
The losses we have born, the subjects we
Have lost, and the disgrace we have digested;
To answer which, his pettiness would bow under.
First for our loss, too poor is his Exchequer;
For the effusion of our blood, his army
Too faint a number; and for our disgrace,
Ev'n his own person kneeling at our feet
A weak and worthless satisfaction.
To this defiance add; and for conclusion,
Tell him he hath betray'd his followers,
Whose condemnation is pronounc'd. So far
My King and master; and so much my office.'
[Note XV.]
IV. Prol. 45. Theobald's reading of this obscure passage is as follows:
'Then, mean and gentle, all
Behold, (as may unworthiness define)
A little touch, &c.'
In his note he says: 'The poet, first, expatiates on the real influence that Harry's eye had on the camp: and then addressing himself to every degree of his audience, he tells them, he'll shew (as well as his unworthy pen and powers can describe it) a little touch, or sketch of this hero in the night.'
Hanmer reads,
'Then mean and gentle all
Behold, &c.'
Capell, following substantially Theobald, reads,
'Then, mean and gentle all,
Behold, &c.'
Theobald supports his reading by two quotations from previous speeches of the chorus (I. prol. 8; II. prol. 35) in which the audience are addressed as 'gentles;' but this does not justify the supposition that he would address any of them as 'mean.' The phrase 'mean and gentle' appears to us to refer to the various ranks of the English army who are mentioned in the previous line. Delius's conjecture that a line is lost after the word 'all' seems very probable.
[Note XVI.]
IV. 1. 274, 275. Theobald says, "The poet might intend, 'Take from them the sense of reckoning those opposed numbers; which might pluck their courage from them.' But the relative not being expressed, the sense is very obscure; and the following verb seems a petition, in the imperative mood."
Perhaps a line has been lost, which, by help of the Quartos, we might supply thus:
'Take from them now
The sense of reckoning of the opposed numbers,
Lest that the multitudes which stand before them
Pluck their hearts from them.'
[Note XVII.]
IV. 2. 60. The conjectural reading, guidon: for guard: on, which we have adopted, and which is attributed by recent editors to Dr Thackeray, late Provost of King's College, Cambridge, is found in Rann's edition, without any name attached. Dr Thackeray probably made the conjecture independently. We find it written in pencil on the margin of his copy of Nares's Glossary, under the word 'Guard.'
[Note XVIII.]
IV. 3. 13, 14. Thirlby's emendation, which indeed seems absolutely to be required by the context, is supported by the corresponding passage in the Quartos:
'Clar. Farewell kind Lord, fight valiantly to day,
And yet in truth, I do thee wrong,
For thou art made on the true sparkes of honour.'
[Note XIX.]
IV. 3. 52. We retain his mouth, because it gives a very complete sense, and because the authority of the Folio is greatly superior to that of the Quarto. The names of the King, Bedford, &c. were to be familiar as household words in the mouth of the old veteran, that is, spoken of every day, not on one day of the year only. The neighbours, who had no personal recollections connected with those names, were only reminded of them by their host on St Crispin's day.
[Note XX.]
V. 1. 73. Although it appears from line 75, 'And there my rendezvous is quite cut off,' that Capell's emendation is what Shakespeare ought to have written, yet as the reading 'Doll' is found throughout both the Quartos and Folios, it is probable that the mistake is the author's own, and therefore, in accordance with our principle, we have allowed it to remain.
[Note XXI.]
V. 2. 174. Warburton's printer by mistake gave 'married' for 'new-married.' Johnson says: "Every wife is a married wife: I suppose we should read 'new-married,'" which is in fact the reading of every edition before Warburton's. In line 149, he omitted to correct Warburton's misprint of 'Kate' for 'dear Kate.' The Doctor seems to have collated the older editions by fits and starts, with long intervals of laziness.
[Note XXII.]
V. 2. 176. As it is clear that the king is meant to speak bad French, we leave uncorrected what we find in the Folios. His French is much worse in the Quartos. In line 208, most editors, somewhat inconsistently, leave 'mon' for 'ma' while they change 'cher' and 'devin' to 'chère' and 'divine.'
[Note XXIII.]
V. 2. 276. This curious misprint, 'hatred' for 'flattery', escaped the notice of Pope, who repeated it in both his editions. Theobald first pointed it out in his Letters to Warburton, Nichols' Illustrations, Vol. II. p. 429.
[Note XXIV.]
V. 2. 322. Shakespeare copied both French and Latin from Holinshed, where by mistake 'Præclarissimus' is printed for 'Præcharissimus' (p. 1207, ed. 1577). The same error is found in Hall, Henry V. fol. 39 b (ed. 1550).
[Note XXV.]
V. 2. 360. The printer of the second Folio when he misread 'Sonet' for 'Senet,' probably supposed it to be the title of the poem of fourteen lines, which the Chorus speaks, though the position of the word is ambiguous. The printer of the fourth Folio and Rowe place it as if it belonged to the Enter Chorus rather than to the Exeunt. Pope omitted the word altogether, and it did not reappear till Mr Dyce restored it.