horses, by our habits, and by every other appoint-
ment, to be ourselves.

Poins. Tut! our horses they shall not see; I'll tie them 175
in the wood; our vizards we will change after we
leave them and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram
for the nonce, to immask our noted outward gar-

ments.

180

Prince. Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us. Poins. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as truebred cowards as ever turned back; and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I'll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be, the incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us 185 when we meet at supper: how thirty, at least, he fought with; what wards, what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this lives the jest.

Prince. Well, I'll go with thee: provide us all things 190 necessary and meet me to-morrow night in East

Prince. I know you all, and will a while uphold

The unyoked humour of your idleness:

180. Yea, but] But Ff. these Qq 6-8.

185. same] omitted Qq 5-8, Ff.

[Exit.

195

188. this]

189. lives] Q I; lies the rest. 194. a while] a-while Ff 1, 2.

180. too hard for us] more than a match for us. Cf. Henry VIII. v. i. 57: "I will play no more to-night; you are too hard for me." 184-185. incomprehensible] illimit able. An English Expositor, 1684 (7th edit.): Incomprehensible. Which cannot be comprehended, or contained." New Eng. Dict. quotes Nashe, Have with you: "He is asham'd of the incomprehensible corpulencie thereof" [i.e. of his book].

187. wards] guards, positions on guard. The words "he lay at" may be supplied after "wards."

187-188. extremities] extremes of danger.

188. reproof] disproof, confutation. 189. lives] The reading of Q I receives support from Much Ado About Nothing, iv. i. 190; and King John, IV. ii. 72. See also Coriolanus, IV. iii. 26; and iv. i. 56 post.

191. to-morrow night] Capell reads to-night, but change is unnecessary. The Prince's appointment with Poins is made for the evening following the robbery. So Poins in lines 129-130 ante: "I have bespoke supper to-morrow night in Eastcheap." Knight removes any ambiguity by pointing meet me. To-morrow night in Eastcheap,

195. unyoked] unrestrained, whether the metaphor be that of an animal disporting itself when relieved of the yoke (cf. "unyoke," to leave off work, in Hamlet, v. i, 59), or of a steed un

Yet herein will I imitate the sun,

Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,

To sport would be as tedious as to work;

200

But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come, 205
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,

By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

210

214. foil] foile Qq 1-3; soile, soyle or soyl the rest. 216. Exit.] omitted Ff.

tamed, that has never submitted to the yoke, as in 2 Henry IV. iv. ii. 103: "Like youthful steers unyoked." Cotgrave: "Desaccouplé... Uncoupled, unyoaked."

195. humour] inclination.

196-202. the sun... him] Malone compares Sonnets, xxxiii. Cf. also Nashe, Preface to Sidney's Astrophel and Stella (1591): "The Sunne for a time may maske his golden head in a cloud, yet in the end the thicke vaile doth vanish, and his embellished blandishment appeares"; Spenser, Faerie Queene, 1. vi. 6; and Dekker, If this be not a good Play (Pearson, iii. 279) : "Thou art a sunne, And let no base cloudes muffle thee."

Then those, which come by sweet contingences";

and Sonnets, cii. 12. For "accidents,"
incidents, cf. Tempest, v. i. 250.
210. falsify hopes] prove men's
anticipations to have been without
foundation. Malone quotes 2 Henry
IV. v. ii. 126-129. Hopes, expecta-
tions, as in Othello, 1. iii. 203. So "to
hope" was sometimes used in a neutral
sense (cf. Gk. èxπífew and L. sperare).

211. sullen ground] dark background. Steevens compares Richard II. 1. iii. 265.

214. foil] a leaf of dull metal that "sets off" a brighter metal or a precious stone in a jewel. Massinger, The Guardian, II. v:—

"all these are
But foils and settings off."
The soile (soyle or soyl) of Qq 4-8 and
Ff is certainly a misprint.

215. a skill] an art. See in J. Dennys, Secrets of Angling, 1613, the lines by J. Davies entitled In due praise of this praise-worthy Skill and Worke. The verses open with: "In skils that all doe seeke, but few doe finde,” and conclude with:

"Who thinke this skill's too low than, for the high,

215

[Exit.

I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.

SCENE III.-London. The Palace.

Enter the KING, NORTHUMBERLAND, WORCESTER, HOTSPUR, SIR WALTER BLUNT, with others.

King. My blood hath been too cold and temperate,

Unapt to stir at these indignities,

And you have found me; for accordingly
You tread upon my patience: but be sure

I will from henceforth rather be myself,
Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition;
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect

Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.
Wor. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves
The scourge of greatness to be used on it;

And that same greatness too which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly.

North. My lord,

King. Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see

5

ΙΟ

15

3.

The Palace] Scene changes to an Apartment in the Palace. Theobald. me; for] Keightley read me so. 8. that] the Ff 2-4. 9. soul] omitted Ff 2-4. 14. My lord,-] Capell; My Lord Qq 4, 5; My Lord. the rest.

This Angler reade, and they'l be
tane thereby."

216. Redeeming] making amends for time misspent. See Ephesians v. 16.

SCENE III.

London. The Palace] The scene should perhaps be laid at Windsor, where, in Holinshed, the Percys beard the King, requiring him to cause the deliverance, by ransom or otherwise, of Edmund Mortimer. See also 1. i. 103, 104 ante.

3. found me] found me out, taken my measure. So in Othello, 11. i. 253. Cf. Sidney, Arcadia, II: "Philoclea had streight found her," i.e. read her secret; and Holland, Plutarch's Morals, 1603: "Fulvius soone found him and conceived presently what hee meant thereby.'

4. You tread patience] So in The Birth of Merlin, ii. ii: "Šir, you tread too hard upon my patience,"

5, 6. I will ... condition] I will rather be the king I am than follow the mildness of my disposition. Condition, disposition, temper, as in Coriolanus, v. iv. 10: "Is't possible that so short a time can alter the condition of a man," and Middleton and Rowley, A Fair Quarrel, II. i: "Capt. Ager. You know he's hasty,- Lady Ager. So are the best conditions."

8. title of respect] claim to respect, respect to which I have a title.

13. portly] stately, majestic. So in Marlowe, Tamburlaine (Dyce, p. 11): "this Soldan's daughter rich and brave

Danger and disobedience in thine eye :

O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
And majesty might never yet endure

The moody frontier of a servant brow.

You have good leave to leave us: when we need

Your use and counsel, we shall send for you. [Exit Wor.
You were about to speak.

Yea, my good lord.
Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,

Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As is deliver'd to your majesty:

Either envy, therefore, or misprision

Is guilty of this fault and not my son. Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.

But I remember, when the fight was done,

19. servant] servants Qq 6-8. 22. To North.] Rowe. 23. name] omitted Ff. 27. Either envy, therefore] Who either through

17. O, sir,] separate line S. Walker conj. 21. Exit Wor.] omitted Ff. 26. is] he Qq 5-8; was Ff. enuy Ff. 28. Is] Was Ff.

When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home;
He was perfumed like a milliner;

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

He
gave
his nose and took 't away again;
Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talk'd,

(he Q 5), Either envy, therefore_into
Who either through enuy, and Is in
line 28 into Was.

31. dry] thirsty. North's Plutarch, Caius Marius: "he was very dry, and asked for cold water to drink.'

33-48. Came there .] A curious parallel to this incident will be found in Roman-British history. Tacitus, Annals, xiv. 39, and Milton, History of Britain (Bohn, v. 212): “Polycletus, no Roman but a courtier, was sent by Nero to examine how things went. He admonishing Suetonius .. to the Britons gave matter of laughter, Who so much even till then were nursed up in their native liberty, as to wonder that so great a general should be at the rebuke and ordering of a courtservitor."

...

33. neat] spruce, foppish. See the description of a "neat fellow" in Porter, Two Angry Women of Abing ton (Hazlitt's Dodsley, vii. 286). And Brome, The Northern Lasse, Iv. i: "His neatness consists most diverslie sir. Not only in the decent wearing of those cloaths and clean linnen, pruning his hair, ruffling his boots, or ordering his shooe-tyes.' To regularise the verse Pope read trimly for and trimly, Capell and trim; but no change is required, Hotspur's impatience, here as often, breaking through the restraints of metre.

33. trimly] finely, elegantly. 34. Fresh as a bridegroom] Cf. 3 Henry VI. II. i. 23, 24, and Marston, What You Will, 11. i: "He is . . neate as a bride-groome, fresh as a new-minted sixpence."

34. new reap'd] newly trimmed, close clipped. The beard was worn short by men of fashion at the date of the play,

66

35

40

36. He was milliner] See Florio's Montaigne, II. xii: a perfumed quaint courtier"; The_Return from Parnassus (Hazlitt's Dodsley, ix. 184): "There is no fool to... the perfumed fool"; and Middleton, The Old Law, 11. ii: "So passing well perfum'd too! who's your milliner?" "Milliner" signified in Shakespeare's time a tradesman who dealt in gloves, purses and other perfumed wares imported originally from Milan. See A Warning for Fair Women, 1: "The gloves you showed me and the Italian purse are both well made. but trust me, the perfume I am afraid will not continue "; and W. Rowley, A Search for Money, 1609 (Percy Soc. ed., ii. 17): "the milliners threw out perfumes to catch him by the nose, and ... sweete gloves to fit his hand." See also W. Stafford, A briefe Conceipt of English pollicy, 1581 (ed. Furnivall, p. 51).

38. pouncet-box] a box for containing pounce, a fine aromatic powder. F. ponce, L. pumicem. The word has no connection with the verb pounce, to perforate. Warburton observes that long before tobacco was introduced aromatic powder was used as snuff.

41. Took it in snuff] snuffed it up, with a play on the meaning "was incensed at it." The same quibble occurs in H. Glapthorne, The Hollander, 1. i, where a Dutchman thought "to have purchas'd a monopoly for Tobacco; but that the Vintners tooke in snuffe, and inform'd the gallants, who had like to have smoak'd him for 't." Shakespeare's reference is probably not to tobacco, which was "first brought and made known in England by Sir John Hawkins about 1565, but not used by englishmen in many years after" (E.