[26], [211]. carrie it cleane: comes off easily superior.
[27], [237-38]. Your descants . . . this ground. There is a complicated play on words here. Descant in music is the melodious accompaniment to a simple theme, the plainsong or ground. Hence arises the derived meaning, a variation on any theme, a comment, often of a censorious kind. This, as well as the original meaning, is implied here, while ground has, of course, its usual as well as its technical sense.
[28], [243-44]. Ile be your ghost to haunt you. May this be an early reference to Banquo's ghost? Macbeth was probably produced in 1606, the year before Bussy D'Ambois was printed.
[28], [261]. musk-cats: civet-cats, and hence, scented persons, fops.
[28], [262]. this priviledge. The royal presence-chamber, though the King has left it, is still regarded as inviolable.
[29]. [Henry, Guise, Montsurry and Attendants.] The Qq of 1607 and 1608, instead of Montsurry and Attendants, read Beaumond, Nuncius. Nuncius is a mistake, as he does not enter till after l. 24. Beaumond is evidently a courtier, who speaks ll. 105-107 (Such a life . . . of men), and who goes out with the King after l. 206. In 1641 and later Qq it was apparently thought desirable to leave out this "single-speech" character and transfer his words to Montsurry; but by an oversight Beau. was left prefixed to the second half of l. 105, and the S. D., Exit Rex cum Beau., was retained after l. 206. The editor has therefore substituted Mont. for Beau. in either case. Montsurry being thus present at the pardon of Bussy, the 1641 and later Qq leave out ll. 1-50 of the next Scene wherein inter alia Montsurry speaks of the pardon as yet undecided, and Guise enters to announce it to him.
Dilke in his edition in 1814 thought Beaumond a misprint for Beaupre, who appears in other scenes, and whom he took to be a man, instead of a woman. Hence he reads Montsurry, Beaupre and Attendants both here and after l. 206. The other editors have not realized that there is any discrepancy to be explained.
[29], [12-13]. bruits it . . . healthfull: proclaims it through the world to be sound and wholesome.
[31], [51-52]. Pyrrho's opinion . . . are one. A sweeping generalisation, which cannot be accepted as an interpretation of the doctrines of the sceptical philosopher of Elis.
[31], [54-58]. As Hector . . . speak. The reference is to Iliad, vii, 54 ff., though Hector is there described as keeping back the Trojans with his spear.