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Dau. 'Tis midnight, I'll go arm myself.
Orl. The Dauphin longs for morning.
Ram. He longs to eat the English.
Con. I think, he will eat all he kills.

[Exit.

Orl. By the white hand of my lady, he 's a gallant prince.

Con. Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.
Orl. He is, simply, the most active gentleman of France.
Con. Doing is activity: and he will still be doing.
Orl. He never did harm, that I heard of.

Con. Nor will do none to-morrow; he will keep that good name still.

Orl. I know him to be valiant.

Con. I was told that, by one that knows him better than you.

Orl. What's he?

Con. Marry, he told me so himself; and he said, he cared not who knew it.

Orl. He needs not, it is no hidden virtue in him.

Con. By my faith, sir, but it is; never any body saw it, but his lackey:4 'tis a hooded valour; and, when it appears, it will bate.5

Orl. Ill will never said well.

5

his lackey:] He has beaten nobody but his footboy.

Johnson.

-'tis a hooded valour; and, when it appears, it will bate.] This is said with allusion to falcons which are kept hooded when they are not to fly at game, and as soon as the hood is off, bait or flap the wing. The meaning is, the Dauphin's valour has never been let loose upon an enemy, yet, when he makes his first essay, we shall see how he will flutter. Johnson.

See Vol. VI, p. 106, n. 7. Malone.

"This is a poor pun, taken from the terms used in falconry. The whole sense and sarcasm depends upon the equivoque of one word, viz. bate, in sound, but not in orthography, answering to the term bait in falconry. When the hawk is unhooded, her first action was baiting, that is flapping her wings, as a preparation to her flying at the game. The hawk wants no courage, but invariably baits upon taking off the hood. The Constable of France sarcastically says of the Dauphin's courage, "'Tis a hooded valour (i. e. it is hid from every body but his lackey,) and when it appears, (by preparing to engage the enemy,) it will bate' (i. e. fall off, evaporate); and not, as Dr. Johnson supposes, bluster or flutter the wings, in allusion to the metaphor." Suppl. to the Gent. Mag. 1789, p. 1199. Steevens.

Con. I will cap that proverb with-There is flattery in friendship.

Orl. And I will take up that with-Give the devil his due.

Con. Well placed; there stands your friend for the devil: have at the very eye of that proverb, with-A pox of the devil.7

Orl. You are the better at proverbs, by how muchA fool's bolt is soon shot.

Con. You have shot over.

Ort. Tis not the first time you were overshot.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My lord high constable, the English lie within fifteen hundred paces of your tent.

Con. Who hath measured the ground?

Mess. The lord Grandpré.

Con. A valiant and most expert gentleman.-'Would it were day!8-Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for the dawning, as we do.

Orl. What a wretched and peevish fellow is this king of England, to mope with his fat-brained followers so far out of his knowledge!

Con. If the English had any apprehension, they would

run away.

Orl. That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy headpieces.

Ram. That island of England breeds very valiant creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.

Orl. Foolish curs! that run winking into the mouth of a Russian bear, and have their heads crushed like rotten

6 I will cap that proverb-] Alluding to the practice of capping verses. Johnson.

7-with-A pox of the devil.] The quartos, 1600 and 1608, read-with, a jogge of the devil. Steevens.

8 'Would it were day!] Instead of this and the succeeding speeches, the quartos, 1600 and 1608, conclude this scene with a couplet:

91

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"The sun is high, and we wear out the day." Steevens.

- peevish] In ancient language, signified-foolish, silly Many examples of this are given in a note on Cymbelipe, Act I› sc. vii: “He's strange and peevish." Steevens.

apples: You may as well say, that's a valiant flea, that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.

Con. Just, just; and the men do sympathize with the mastiffs, in robustious and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their wives: and then give them great meals of beef,1 and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves, and fight like devils.

Orl. Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef. Con. Then we shall find to-morrow-they have only stomachs to eat, and none to fight. Now is it time to arm: Come, shall we about it?

Orl. It is now two o'clock: but, let me see, by ten, We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.

[Exeunt.

ACT IV.

Enter CHORUS.

Chor. Now entertain conjecture of a time, Vien creeping murmur, and the poring dark, Fills the wide vessel of the universe.2

1

1596:

-give them great meals of beef,] So, in King Edward III,

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but scant them of their chines of beef,

"And take away their downy featherbeds," &c. Steevens. Our author had the Chronicle in his thoughts: "- keep an English man one month from his warm bed, fat beef, stale drink,”

&c.

So also, in the old King Henry V :

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Why, take an Englishman out of his warm bed, "And his stale drink, but one moneth,

"And alas, what will become of him?"

Malone.

Fills the wide vessel of the universe.] Universe for horizon: for we are not to think Shakspeare so ignorant as to imagine it was night over the whole globe at once. He intimates he knew other wise, by that fine line in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

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following darkness like a dream." Besides, the image he employs shows he meant but half the globe, the horizon round, which has the shape of a vessel or goblet.

Warburton. There is a better proof, that Shakspeare knew the order of night and day, in Macbeth:

"Now o'er the one half world
"Nature seems dead."

From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, The hum of either army stilly sounds, 3

That the fix'd sentinels almost receive

The secret whispers of each other's watch:4
Fire answers fire; and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umber'd face:"
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents,

But there was no great need of any justification. The universt, in its original sense, no more means this globe singly than the circuit of the horizon; but, however large in its philosophical sense, it may be poetically used for as much of the world as falls under observation. Let me remark further, that ignorance cannot be certainly inferred from inaccuracy. Knowledge is not always present. Johnson.

The wide vessel of the universe is derived, I apprehend, from a different source than that which Dr. Warburton supposes. Shakspeare, in another play, styles night the blanket of the dark: it is probable that the affinity between blanket and sheet suggested to him the further relation between sheet and vessel, which occurs in the Acts, ch. x, v. 11: " and saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as if it had been a great SHEET, knit at the four corners and let down unto the earth." Henley.

3

stilly sounds,] A similar idea perhaps was meant to be given by Barnaby Googe, in his version of Palingenius, 1561: "Which with a pleasaunt hushyng sound

"Provok'd the ioyes of bed."

"Sæpe levi sumnum suadebit inire susurro."

Virg. Eccl. I, 56. Steevens. stilly sounds,] i. e. gently, lowly. So, in the sacred wri

tings: "a still small voice." Malone.

4 The secret whispers of each other's watch:] Holinshed says, that the distance between the two armies was but two hundred and fifty paces. Malone.

5 Fire answers fire;] This circumstance is also taken from Holinshed: "but at their coming into the village, fires were made (by the English) to give light on every side, as there likewise were in the French hoste." Malone.

6—

the other's umber'd face:] Of this epithet, used by Shakspeare in his description of fires reflected by night, Mr. Pope knew the value, and has transplanted it into the Iliad on a like occasion :

"Whose umber'd arms by turns thick flashes send.” Umber is a brown colour. So, in As you Like it:

"And with a kind of umber smirch my face."

The distant visages of the soldiers would certainly appear of this hue, when beheld through the light of midnight fires.

Steevens

The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.

The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.8
Proud of their numbers, and secure in soul,
The confident and over-lusty French

9

Do the low-rated English play at dice;1
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night,
Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp

So tediously away. The poor condemned English,2
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires

Sit patiently, and inly ruminate

Piercing the night's dull ear;] Hence perhaps the following idea in Milton's L'Allegro:

"And singing startle the dull night." Steevens.

8 And the third hour of drowsy morning name.] The old copy— nam'd. Steevens.

How much better might we read thus?

The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.

Tyrwhitt.

I have admitted this very necessary and elegant emendation.

9

Steevens.

Sir T. Hanmer, with almost equal probability, reads: And the third hour of drowsy morning's nam❜d. Malone. over-lusty-] i. e. over-saucy. So, in Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch: "Cassius's soldiers did shewe themselves verie stubborne and lustie in the campe," &c. Steevens.

1 Do the low-rated English play at dice;] i. e. do play them away at dice. Warburton.

From Holinshed: "The Frenchmen in the mean while, as though they had been sure of victory, made great triumphe, for the captaines had determined before how to divide the spoil, and the souldiers the night before had plaid the Englishmen at dice."

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2 The confident and over-lusty French

Malone.

The poor condemned English,] Our classical readers will not be displeased with an opportunity of comparing Shakspeare's picture of the French and English camps with that of the Barbarian and Roman troops, as exhibited in a night-scene by the mas terly pencil of Tacitus, Annal. I, lxv: "Nox per diversa inquies: cùm Barbari festis epulis, læto cantu, aut truci sonore subjecta vallium ac resultantes saltus complerent; apud Romanos invalidi ignes, interruptæ voces, atque ipsi passim adjacerent vallo, oberrarent tentoriis, insomnes magis quàm pervigiles. Ducemque terruit dira quies." Steevens.

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