ACT III. SCENE I. The Same. The Parliament-House. Flourish. Enter King HENRY, EXETER, GLOSTER, Win. Com'st thou with deep premeditated lines, Glo. Presumptuous priest! this place commands my patience, Or thou should'st find thou hast dishonour'd me. Win. Gloster, I do defy thee.-Lords, vouchsafe Glo. Thou bastard of my grandfather! As good? Win. Ay, lordly sir; for what are you, I pray, But one imperious in another's throne? Glo. Am I not protector, saucy priest? Win. Unreverent Gloster! Glo. Thou art reverent Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life. Win. Rome shall remedy this. Roam thither then. My lord, it were your duty to forbear. Som. Ay, see the bishop be not overborne. Methinks, my lord should be religious, And know the office that belongs to such". War. Methinks, his lordship should be humbler; It fitteth not a prelate so to plead. And know the office that belongs to such.] Theobald changed the prefixes to this and some preceding lines, but apparently without sufficient reason for varying from the old copies. The altered arrangement of the speeches seems quite as liable to objection, though some editors have adopted it without notice. VOL. V. E Som. Yes, when his holy state is touch'd so near. Plan. Plantagenet, I see, must hold his tongue ; [Aside. K. Hen. Uncles of Gloster, and of Winchester, [A Noise within: Down with the tawny coats! What tumult's this? War. An uproar, I dare warrant, Begun through malice of the bishop's men. [A Noise again: Stones! Stones! Enter the Mayor of London, attended. May. O, my good lords, and virtuous Henry, Pity the city of London, pity us! The bishop and the duke of Gloster's men, Forbidden late to carry any weapon, Have fill'd their pockets full of pebble-stones; That many have their giddy brains knock'd out. Enter, skirmishing, the Retainers of GLOSTER and WIN- K. Hen. We charge you, on allegiance to ourself, To hold your slaught'ring hands, and keep the peace. Pray, uncle Gloster, mitigate this strife. 1 Serv. Nay, if we be Forbidden stones, we'll fall to it with our teeth. 2 Serv. Do what ye dare; we are as resolute. [Skirmish again. Glo. You of my household, leave this peevish broil, And set this unaccustom'd fight aside. 1 Serv. My lord, we know your grace to be a man Just and upright; and, for your royal birth, Inferior to none but to his majesty; And ere that we will suffer such a prince, 3 Serv. Ay, and the very parings of our nails Shall pitch a field, when we are dead. [Skirmish again. Stay, stay, I say! Glo. And, if you love me, as you say you do, my soul! K. Hen. O, how this discord doth afflict Or who should study to prefer a peace, If holy churchmen take delight in broils? War. Yield, my lord protector;-yield, Winchester; Except you mean, with obstinate repulse, 7 — an INKHORN mate,] The epithet "inkhorn" was usually applied in derision of pedantry. Thus Churchyard in his "Choice," sign. E e 1, has this line: “As ynkhorne termes smell of the schoole sometyme;" and in the comedy "The Weakest goeth to the Wall," 1600, one of the characters asks, "Is not this better farre than respice, And precor, and such ink-horne terms?" We, and our wives, and children,] Malone inserts our before "children," unnecessarily for the sense of the passage, and to the injury of the line as it stands in the old copies. To slay your sovereign, and destroy the realm. Win. He shall submit, or I will never yield. War. Behold, my lord of Winchester, the duke Glo. Here, Winchester; I offer thee my hand. K. Hen. Fye, uncle Beaufort! I have heard you preach, That malice was a great and grievous sin; And will not you maintain the thing you teach, But prove a chief offender in the same? War. Sweet king!-the bishop hath a kindly gird'. For shame, my lord of Winchester, relent: What! shall a child instruct you what to do? Win. Well, duke of Gloster, I will yield to thee; Love for thy love, and hand for hand I give. Glo. Ay; but I fear me, with a hollow heart. [Aside'. Betwixt ourselves, and all our followers. 9 Win. So help me God, as I intend it not! [Aside. the bishop hath a kindly GIRD.] The difficulty in this passage is the word "gird," which is employed in rather an unusual manner: it commonly means a taunt or reproof; and if so taken here, we must suppose Warwick to speak ironically, for "kindly gird" seems a contradiction in terms. Monck Mason tells us that "kindly gird" is a yearning of kindness; but if So, how does the interpretation agree with the two lines that immediately follow, showing that Warwick thinks the bishop has no " yearning of kindness?" Possibly "gird" is a misprint for some more applicable term. [Aside.] Not so marked in the old copies, where the asides are seldom noticed, but clearly so to be read. Sometimes they speak so evidently for themselves, that it is needless to encumber the text. |