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Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake!

Or else, when thou didst keep my lambs a-field,
I wish some ravenous wolf had eaten thee!
Dost thou deny thy father, cursed drab?
O! burn her, burn her: hanging is too good.

30

[Exit.

York. Take her away; for she hath lived too long
To fill the world with vicious qualities.

35

Puc. First, let me tell you whom you have condemn'd:

Not me begotten of a shepherd swain,

But issued from the progeny of kings;
Virtuous and holy; chosen from above,
By inspiration of celestial grace,
To work exceeding miracles on earth.
I never had to do with wicked spirits:
But you, that are polluted with your lusts,
Stain'd with the guiltless blood of innocents,
Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices,
Because you want the grace that others have,
You judge it straight a thing impossible
To compass wonders but by help of devils.
No, misconceived! Joan of Arc hath been
A virgin from her tender infancy,
Chaste and immaculate in very thought;
Whose maiden blood, thus rigorously effused,
Will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven.
York. Ay, ay: away with her to execution!
War. And hark ye, sirs; because she is a maid,
Spare for no fagots, let there be enow:
Marlowe has this jaw-breaker as a
monosyllable in Edward II. See In-
troduction.

29. ratsbane] Mentioned again 2 Henry IV. 1. ii. 48, and King Lear, III. iv. 55. The only example in New Eng. Dict. of an earlier date than this (which is not cited) is from a Church Warden's account. Ratsbane was sublimate. Compare Jonson's and Chapman's Eastward Ho! Iv. i.: "Take arsenic, otherwise called realga, which indeed is plain ratsbane, sublime 'hem three or four times." And Every Man in his Humour, II. iii.: "Its little better than ratsbane or rosaker." And Epicene, 11. i. "take a little sublimate and go out of the world like a rat."

32. drab] strumpet. Frequent in Shakespeare.

40. inspiration of celestial grace] See extract at v. iii. 30: "This woman was not inspyred with the Holy Ghost,

40

45

50

55

nor sent from God (as the Frenchmen beleeue) but an enchantress" (Hall).

43. polluted with] Not again in Shakespeare. Pucelle's language is intentionally Biblical. Compare Ezekiel xxiii. 17, 30, xx. 31, etc.

49. misconceived] Not again in Shakespeare. Peele (?) has a good passage in Jack Straw (Hazlitt's Dodsley, v. 384)

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"The Multitude, a beast of many

heads,

Of misconceiving and misconstruing minds."

The word is found in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

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52, 53. blood . . cry for vengeance] Compare Richard II. 1. i. 104-106:"Whose blood cries

To me for justice (Genesis iv. 10).

56. Spare for no faggots] Compare Much Ado About Nothing, 111. v. 66:

Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake,
That so her torture may be shortened.

Puc. Will nothing turn your unrelenting hearts?
Then, Joan, discover thine infirmity,

That warranteth by law to be thy privilege.

I am with child, ye bloody homicides:
Murder not then the fruit within my womb,
Although ye hale me to a violent death.

60

York. Now heaven forfend! the holy maid with child!
War. The greatest miracle that e'er ye wrought!
Is all your strict preciseness come to this?
York. She and the Dauphin have been juggling:

I did imagine what would be her refuge.
War. Well, go to; we will have no bastards live;
Especially since Charles must father it.
Puc. You are deceiv'd; my child is none of his :
It was Alençon that enjoy'd my love.

York. Alençon! that notorious Machiavel:

60. discover] Ff 3, 4; discovet Ff 1, 2.
Matchevile F 4.

"We will spare for no wit"; and Romeo
and Juliet, IV. iv. 6. Greene has it in
Orlando Furioso (xiii. 164, l. 1021):-
"Runne to Charlemaine, spare for

no cost:

Tell him Orlando sends for An-
gelica."

And Grafton, i. 339: "Eche of them
kept a great estate and port, and spared

no cost.

59. unrelenting] Occurs again 3 Henry
VI. II. i. 58, and in Titus Andronicus,
II. iii. 141. Marlowe has "unrelenting
ears" in Tamburlaine, Part II. v. iii.

62. homicides] See 1. ii. 25 above.
65. heaven forfend !] Occurs nine or
ten times in Shakespeare, usually with
"heavens." See 3 Henry VI. II. i. 191.
"Forfended" (forbidden) occurs separ-
ately, only in King Lear, v. i. II.

74. Alençon ! that notorious Machi-
avel] See again 3 Henry VI. III.
ii. 193, and note. And Merry Wives
of Windsor, III. i. 104. New Eng.
Dict. quotes from Buchanan's Admoni-
tion, 1570: "Proud contempnars or
machiavell mokkaris of all religioun
and vertew." Machiavel was a great
writer and consummate politician, and
the infamous methods advanced in his
Il Principe (1513) are regarded now as
rather a necessity of his time, and an
advance on his contemporaries. Gabriel

65

70

74. Machiavel] Machevile Ff 1, 2, 3;

Harvey says: "So Cæsar Borgia, the
souerain Type of Machiavels Prince,
wan the Dukedome of Vrbin, in one
day" (Pierces Supererogation (Grosart,
ii. 305-306), 1592). By stratagem and
sudden assault. My friend, Mr. Francis
Worllett, sends me an interesting note
on Machiavel, with regard to Alençon.
Machiavel was known chiefly to Eliza-
bethans from the Frenchman Gentillet,
not from the Italian. Of course one
excepts Bacon, who appreciated him,
as possibly did also Harvey. Gentillet's
Discourse against Machiavel is a
French refutation or misrepresentation
of him, published in 1576. The preface
to the English version is dated 1577,
although the first printed edition we
have is much later. The French book
was dedicated to the Duc d'Alençon,
and Gentillet brought upon himself
much ridicule by not knowing that the
Duke was a most notorious Machiavel.
This tones down the anachronism into
an interesting topical allusion in the
passage in the text. Hall tells us that
John, Duke of Alençon, who was exe-
cuted in France in Henry's thirty-sixth
year, was accused of high treason and
of conspiring with the English to re-
cover Normandy, whereupon he suffered
death very unjustly. He had been a
prisoner and well entertained in Eng-

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It dies an if it had a thousand lives.
Puc. O! give me leave; I have deluded you:

'Twas neither Charles nor yet the duke I nam'd,
But Reignier, King of Naples, that prevail'd.
War. A married man! that's most intolerable.
York. Why, here's a girl! I think she knows not well,
There were so many, whom she may accuse.

War. It's sign she hath been liberal and free.
York. And yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure.

Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat and thee:
Use no entreaty, for it is in vain.

Puc. Then lead me hence; with whom I leave my curse :
May never glorious sun reflex his beams.
Upon the country where you make abode ;
But darkness and the gloomy shade of death
75. an if] Theobald; and if Ff.

land (p. 238). York's remark is there-
fore quite uncalled for, except in the
sense of his being two Alençons rolled
into one-a position which several
characters occupy in these plays. Even
then it is more likely Shakespeare had
in his mind the notorious Alençon
(afterwards Henri III.) of the massacre
at St. Bartholomew's (then Anjou).
Readers of Dumas will recall his char-
acter, brought up as he was in the
Italian school of politics by his mother,
Catherine de' Medici. The Alençon to
whom Gentillet dedicated his Discours
in 1576 was Francis of Valois, fourth
son of Catherine. He died at the age
of thirty in 1584. For an account
of Machiavel's character as found in
Elizabethan literature, with an attempt
to relieve him from the extravagant re-
probation therein, see Pioneer Human-
ists, by J. M. Robertson. It is from
Herr Edward Meyer's book (Weimar,
1897), who counted 395 references to
Machiavel, as a monster of wickedness,
usually.

84. Strumpet, thy words condemn
thee] an additional plea. Compare
Greene, Orlando Furioso (xiii. 188):-
"We will have her punisht by the
lawes of France,

To ende her burning lust in flames
of fire."

Boswell Stone quotes here from Holin-
shed (iii. 604): "and yet seeking to
eetch out life as long as she might,
stake [stuck] not (though the shift
were shamefull) to confesse herselfe a

75

80

85

strumpet, and (unmaried as she was) to be with child. For triall, the lord regent's lenitie gave hir nine moneths staie, at the end wherof she (found herein as false . . .) was thereupon deliuered ouer to secular power, and so executed."

87. sun reflex his beams] This verb is not found again in Shakespeare. The phrasing is Marlowe's:

"For neither rain can fall upon the earth,

Nor sun reflex his virtuous beams thereon

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(Tamburlaine, Part I. III. ii. (20, a), 1586). One is inclined to give Marlowe credit for a good deal of the savagery here, such as lies in lines 87-93.

See

88. make abode] dwell, live. again Two Gentlemen of Verona, Iv. iii. 23, and King Lear, 1. i. 136. Drayton uses it in his Heroical Epistles.

89. darkness death] Malone points out that this is scriptural: "to give light to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death."

89. gloomy] Occurs again only in Titus Andronicus, IV. i. 53, and Lucrece, 803. Another example of the many words seemingly deliberately dropped out of Shakespeare's later work.

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Glooming" is in Romeo and Juliet, v. iii. 305. Both forms occur in the first book of the Faerie Queene: "A little glooming light, much like a shade" (1. i. 14); "a gloomy glade" (1. vii. 4). Peele has "gloomy several times : gloomy Time sat whipping on the team" (Polyhymnia). And Alcazar, IV.

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90

[Exit, guarded.

Environ you, till mischief and despair
Drive you to break your necks or hang yourselves!

York. Break thou in pieces and consume to ashes,
Thou foul accursed minister of hell!

95

Enter Cardinal BEAUFORT, Bishop of WINCHESTER, attended.
Car. Lord regent, I do greet your excellence
With letters of commission from the king.
For know, my lords, the states of Christendom,
Mov'd with remorse of these outrageous broils,
Have earnestly implor'd a general peace
Betwixt our nation and the aspiring French;
And here at hand the Dauphin and his train
Approacheth to confer about some matter.
York. Is all our travail turn'd to this effect?

After the slaughter of so many peers,
So many captains, gentlemen, and soldiers,
That in this quarrel have been overthrown,
And sold their bodies for their country's benefit,
Shall we at last conclude effeminate peace ?
Have we not lost most part of all the towns,
By treason, falsehood, and by treachery,
Our great progenitors had conquered?
O! Warwick, Warwick, I foresee with grief
The utter loss of all the realm of France.
War. Be patient, York: if we conclude a peace,

93. Enter Cardinal Beaufort, attended Capell. travail] travel Ff.

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100

105

IIO

.] Enter Cardinall Ff (after line 91); Enter Cardinal 101. matter] F 1; matters Ff 2, 3, 4.

ii.: "Best, then, betimes t' avoid this gloomy storm.' And David and Bethsabe (473, a):

"hurls through the gloomy air, His radiant beams." New Eng. Dict. has Titus Andronicus, dated 1588, as earliest use. This date follows Fleay (Manual), an unreliable authority who rejected that date later placing it not earlier than 1593 (for Shakespeare's part), which is probably correct. Golding gives the word's evolution: " some mistie cloud that ginnes to gloom and loure" (Ovid, vi. 292). 93. minister] servant.

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93. Enter Cardinal Beaufort. For the negotiations here referred to, see extract at the beginning of this Act. There is a certain quiet dignity and

102.

strength in the remainder of this scene that is quite in the way of Shakespeare. There is no need to question this authority. It is altogether outside Greene or Marlowe's work. But although we meet the language of Shakespeare, we look in vain for his genius.

99. aspiring French] This is again like Marlowe. “Th' aspiring Guise” occurs several times in The Massacre at Paris; "aspiring Lancaster" in Edward the Second (184, b). Greene has Aspiring traitor' in George-a-Greene (xiv. 161). In this sense of ambitious (applied to a person or persons) it is scarcely met with in Shakespeare, but Spenser used it.

66

112. realm of France] See note at II.

ii. 36.

It shall be with such strict and severe covenants
As little shall the Frenchmen gain thereby.

115

Enter CHARLES, ALENÇON, Bastard, REIGNIER, and others.

Cha. Since, lords of England, it is thus agreed

That peaceful truce shall be proclaim'd in France,
We come to be informed by yourselves

What the conditions of that league must be.

York. Speak, Winchester; for boiling choler chokes
The hollow passage of my poison'd voice,
By sight of these our baleful enemies.

Car. Charles, and the rest, it is enacted thus:

That, in regard King Henry gives consent,
Of mere compassion and of lenity,
To ease your country of distressful war,
And suffer you to breathe in fruitful peace,
You shall become true liegemen to his crown.
And, Charles, upon condition thou wilt swear
To pay him tribute, and submit thyself,
Thou shalt be placed as viceroy under him,
And still enjoy thy regal dignity.

Alen. Must he be then as shadow of himself?

120

125

130

and others] Capell; omitted Ff. 133. as] a F 4.

115. Bastard] Ff; omitted Capell. 121. poison'd] prison'd Theobald.

120. boiling] In this sense is selected for ridicule in Midsummer Night's Dream. Compare Grafton's Continuation of Hardyng, p. 583: “his wickednes boylyng so hote within his brest." 120, 121. choler chokes ... passage of my voice] Compare Marlowe, Tamburlaine, Part II. III. ii. :

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'My mother's death hath mortified my mind

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A world of dreadful sins holp there
to fight."

Prisons were very poisoned places.
125. lenity] mildness. Twice in 3
Henry VI. and in several other plays.

And sorrow stops the passage of Compare (Peele's) Jack Straw :-
my speech."

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121. poison'd] Theobald's emendation is very probably correct. But compare Othello, v. ii. 364, and Coriolanus, v. ii. 92, for the obsolete sense of "destroy' which the verb had. There is much more to be said for " prison " here than in Love's Labour's Lost, IV. iii. 302 (Arden edition, p. 103, note), where Theobald would also make the alteration. It was an old confusion with printers. Peele has "O deadly wound that passeth by

mine eye,

The fatal poison of my swelling

heart"

"And though his looks bewray such lenity

Yet at advantage he can use extremity"

(Hazlitt's Dodsley, v. 388). And Selimus (Grosart's Greene, xiv. 210): "My lenitie addes fuel to his fire."

131. viceroy] Compare Tamburlaine, Part II. v. i. (69, a): "Come, Asian viceroys." See below, 1. 143. Only again (jocularly) in The Tempest.

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133-135. shadow substance] See note, II. iii. 37. Shakespeare never wearied of knocking these two words together.

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