Page:Henry VI Part 1 (1918) Yale.djvu/136

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
124
The First Part of

IV. iv. Modern editors designate this scene as occurring on 'Other Plains in Gascony,' but it is evident that there is no change of place, since Lucy continues upon the stage. (The later Folios inserted an 'Exit' after the last line of scene iii, but there is none in the original text.)

IV. iv. 13. Whither, my lord? Lucy impatiently echoes the question, which he scorns to answer. His concern is with the person from whom, not the one to whom, he is sent.

IV. vi. 44. On that advantage. Perhaps this can be construed in the sense of 'for the sake of that advantage,' i.e., personal safety. In that case the phrase must be understood as modifying fly in line 46. This, however, is strained, and it may be better to interpret 'Fie on that advantage' and supply an exclamation point for the comma at the end of line 45.

IV. vii. 63-71. Great Earl of Washford, etc. Great interest attaches to this list of Talbot's titles. No source for it has been discovered earlier than an epitaph of Talbot printed in 1599 (in Richard Crompton's Mansion of Magnanimitie) , which runs thus: 'here lieth the right noble knight, John Talbott, Earle of Shrewsbury, Washford, Waterford, and Valence, Lord Talbot of Goodrige, and Vrchengfield, Lord Strange of the blacke Meere, Lord Verdon of Alton, Lord Crumwell of Wingfield, Lord Louetoft of Worsop, Lord Furniuall of Sheffield, Lord Faulconbrige, knight of the most noble order of S. George, S. Michaell, and the Golden fleece, Great Marshall to king Henry the sixt of his realme of France . . .' It will be seen that this agrees almost verbatim with the text of the play, the only alterations in the latter being the omission of one title and the addition of a few words for metrical purposes. The prose of the epitaph is therefore treated in the very manner in which in the Roman plays Shakespeare treated much of the prose of North's Plutarch, and the whole