[107], [113]. a glasse of ink: a mirror made of ink, i. e. the paper with the proofs of Tamyra's unfaithfulness.
[107], [116]. fames sepulchres: the foulness beneath which her good name is buried.
[107], [120-21]. were . . . rarely: were it never so uncommon, bear it with as unexampled courage.
[109], [156]. In her forc'd bloud. Dilke is followed in the substitution of her for his. The allusion is evidently to the letter that Tamyra afterwards writes to D'Ambois in her own blood. Cf. [v, 1, 176-77].
[110], [169-70]. Lest . . . abuse: lest a furious outburst due to your foreknowledge of the plot against us.
[111], [185]. And . . . policy: and the Monsieur's stratagems shall be taken in the flank by my own.
[111], [186]. Center. Here and in [l. 192] this word, though strictly meaning the central point of the earth, seems used for the earth itself, as the centre of the universe. For this use cf. Shaks. Tro. and Cress. i, 3, 85-86.
"The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center
Observe degree, priority, and place."
[111], [191]. calme . . . ruine: unsuspecting tranquillity previous to a convulsion of the elements.
[113], [17-18]. The stony . . . sleeper. The thunderstone, or thunderbolt, was supposed to have no power of harming any one who was asleep, or who wore laurel leaves. Leigh, in his Observations on the First Twelve Cæsars (1647), p. 43, says of Tiberius that "he feared thunder exceedingly, and when the aire or weather was any thing troubled, he even carried a chaplet or wreath of laurell about his neck, because that as (Pliny reporteth) is never blasted with lightning."