We come within our awful banks again *, WEST. This will I show the general. Please you, lords, In sight of both our battles we may meet: sense:"auctoritate consignata literæ. Cicero pro Cluentio." It has this signification again in this play: "And (God consigning to my good intents) Again, in King Henry V.: "And take with you free power to ratify, 66 Any thing in or out of our demands; Again, ibid.: "It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid to consign to-." Confin'd, in my apprehension, is unintelligible. Supposing these copies to have been made by the ear, and one to have transcribed while another read, the mistake might easily have happened, for consign'd and consin'd are, in sound, undistinguishable; and when the compositor found the latter word in the manuscript, he would naturally print confin'd, instead of a word that has no existence. Dr. Johnson proposed the reading that I have adopted, but explains the word differently. The examples above quoted show, I think, that the explication of this word already given is the true one. MALONE. Though I have followed Mr. Malone's example by admitting Dr. Johnson's conjecture, the notes of various commentators are left before the reader, to whose judgment they are submitted. STEEVENS. 4 We come within our AWFUL banks again,] Awful banks are the proper limits of reverence. JOHNSON. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona : "From the society of awful men." STEEVENS. It is also used in the same sense in Pericles: 66 A better prince and benign lord "Prove awful both in deed and word." M. MASON. Dr. Warburton reads lawful. We have awful in the last Act of this play: "To pluck down justice from her awful bench." Here it certainly means inspiring awe. If awful banks be right, the words must mean due and orderly limits. MALone. 5 And either end in peace, which heaven so frame! ARCH. My lord, we will do so. [Exit WEST. Mow B. There is a thing within my bosom, tells me, That no conditions of our peace can stand. HAST. Fear you not that: if we can make our peace Upon such large terms, and so absolute, As our conditions shall consist upon, Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains. 5 AND either-] The old copies read-" At either," &c. That easy, but certain, change in the text, I owe to Dr. Thirlby. THEOBALD, 6 CONSIST upon.] Thus the old copies. Modern editorsinsist. STEEVENS. Perhaps the meaning is, as our conditions shall stand upon, shall make the foundation of the treaty. A Latin sense. in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 1609: "Then welcome peace, if he on peace consist." See also p. 153: "Of what conditions we shall stand upon." MALONE. 7 nice,] i. e. trivial. So, in Romeo and Juliet: So, "The letter was not nice, but full of charge." STEEVENS. 8 That, were our ROYAL faiths martyrs in love,] If royal faith can mean faith to a king, it yet cannot mean it without much violence done to the language. I therefore read, with Sir T. Hanmer, loyal faiths, which is proper, natural, and suitable to the intention or the speaker. JOHNSON. Royal faith, the original reading, is undoubtedly right. Royal faith [as Mr. Capell observes] means, the faith due to a king. So, in King Henry VIII. : "The citizens have shown at full their royal minds; i. e. their minds well affected to the king. Wolsey, in the same We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind, ARCH. No, no, my lord; Note this,-the king is weary Of dainty and such picking grievances": To new remembrance: For full well he knows, HAST. Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods play, when he discovers the king in masquerade, says, "here I'll make my royal choice," i. e. not such a choice as a king would make, but such a choice as has a king for its object. So royal faith, the faith which is due to a king; which has the sovereign for its object. MALONE. This reading is judiciously restored, and well supported by Mr. Malone. STEEVENS. 9 Of dainty and such PICKING grievances:] I cannot but think that this line is corrupted, and that we should read: "Of picking out such dainty grievances." JOHNSON. Picking means piddling, insignificant. STEEVENS. I wipe his tables clean:] Alluding to a table-book of slate, ivory, &c. Warburton. 'Tis very true;→ May offer, but not hold. ARCH. And therefore be assur'd, my good lord marshal, Our peace will, like a broken limb united, MoWB. Be it so. Here is return'd my lord of Westmoreland. Re-enter WESTMORELAND. WEST. The prince is here at hand: Pleaseth your lordship, To meet his grace just distance 'tween our armies ? Mow B. Your grace of York, in God's name then set forward. ARCH. Before, and greet his grace:-my lord, we come. [Exeunt. SCENE II. Another Part of the Forest. Enter, from one side, MOWBRAY, the Archbishop, HASTINGS, and Others: from the other side, Prince JOHN of LANCASTER, WESTMORELAND, Officers and Attendants. P. JOHN. You are well encounter'd here, my cousin Mowbray : Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop; 2 Than now to see you here an iron man 2, an IRON man,] Holinshed says of the Archbishop, that Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum, Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven", "coming foorth amongst them clad in armour, he incouraged and pricked them foorth to take the enterprise in hand." STEEVENS. 3 Turning the word to sword, &c.] A similar thought occurs in Gower's Confessio Amantis, 1554: 4 66 "Into the sworde the churche kaye Is turned, and the holy bede," &c. the IMAGIN'D Voice of God himself;] an apparent error of the press, have-" the Pope introduced the reading of the text. wrote STEEVENS. "To us, the image and voice," &c. So, in a subsequent scene: "And he, the noble image of my youth." MALOne. I cannot persuade myself to reject a harmonious reading, that another eminently harsh may supply its place. STEEVENS. the sanctities of heaven,] This expression Milton has 5 copied : "Around him all the sanctities of heaven 6-workings:] i. e. labours of thought. So, in King Henry V.: "the forge and working-house of thought." STEEVENS. |