624. Line 166: Thy adversary's wife doth pray for thee. -This is not a happy line. If Anne had been alive, her natural anxiety to become a widow would have given it greater point.

625. Line 173: I DIED FOR HOPE ere I could lend thee aid. -This is a passage which has been much but needlessly amended. Theobald conjectured "for holpe;" Hanmer forsoke; Tyrwhitt fore-done. For the probable meaning of the expression see our foot-note. Dyce (note 110) quotes from Greene's James the Fourth, v. 6:

'Twixt love and fear continual are the wars;
The one assures me of my Ida's love,
The other moves me for my murder'd queen:
Thus find I grief of that whereon I joy,
And doubt in greatest hope, and death in weal.
Alas, what hell may be compar'd with mine,
Since in extremes my comforts do consist!

War then will cease when dead ones are reviv'd;
Some then will yield when I am dead for hope.

-Works, p. 217. In that passage the expression dead for hope certainly means "dead to hope."

626. Line 176: And Richard FALL in height of all his pride. -So Ff.; Qq. have falls. We prefer retaining the subjunctive of Ff.

627. Line 180: The lights BURN BLUE.-It is Now dead midnight.--The superstition that the lights burn blue in the presence of a ghost seems to be a very old one, and to have survived even to the present time. Brand in his Popular Antiquities (p. 627) says: "Should there be a lighted candle in the room during the time of an apparition, we are instructed that it will burn extremely blue; this being a fact 'so universally acknowledged that many eminent philosophers have busied themselves in accounting for it, without once doubting the truth of the fact."' He is quoting the opinion of Grose, and on p. 626 he says: "Grose confesses his inability to learn that ghosts carry tapers in their hands, as they are occasionally depicted, though they contrive to illuminate the room in which they appear, destitute though it be of fire or candle." This luminosity was of a more or less phosphorescent nature; and therefore the superstition about the candles burning blue may have no further foundation than the idea that the light became pale and blue, like a phosphorescent light, in the presence of a ghost. Ghosts are frequently described as bringing a cold atmosphere with them. The effect of reducing the oxygen of a room would be, I believe, to make the lights burn pale and blue. The following passage is from Lilly's Gallathea (ii. 3): “That's a stincking spirit, I thought there was some spirit in it because it burnt so blew. For my mother would often tell me that when the candle burnt blew, there was some ill spirit in the house, and now I perceive it was the spirit brimstone" (Works, vol. i. p. 235). In Monk Lewis well-known ballad "Alonzo the Brave" the same idea occurs on the entrance of the ghost:

The punctuation in line 182 is from F. 1; Q. 1, which
most editors follow, has: What do I fear? myself? Either
reading may be right. It is worth noting the intense
egotism of line 183. Richard is completely self-contained,
and depends for sympathy, or love, on no one. The
whole of the passage, lines 182-203 inclusive, looks very
much like an after insertion. Some of the lines are poor
enough, but the last eleven lines (193-203) could ill be
spared. It is interesting to compare with this speech
that of the king in Hamlet, iii. 3, especially the following
passages:
But, O, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder!
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon'd, and retain the offence?

Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd Came to my tent; and every one did threat To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard. These lines certainly come in here rather awkwardly. Rann, Johnson would have placed them after line 192. following Mason's suggestion, inserted them after line 214, and that arrangement is followed by many modern editors, including Dyce. Grant White would insert them after line 178, which is a far more sensible suggestion: for surely Richard would not talk to Ratcliff about the souls of all that he had murdered. The probability is that the speech originally consisted of only nine lines, and that these lines followed 181. When the insertion of lines 182-203 was made, perhaps the author, or person who transcribed the insertion, forgot to draw his pen through these three lines. They certainly form here an anticlimax, for, in the two preceding lines, Richard's natural cynicism had regained its sway, and he would seem to have dismissed, for a moment, all thoughts of the ghosts. But still, as we do not like to omit them alto gether, and do not see that there is any particular reason for placing them elsewhere in any one position more than

This speech of Richard's and the one of Ratcliff's are omitted in Ff, which give only half a line to Richard0 Ratelif. I fear, I fear!—so that Ratcliff's answer, line 215, has not much sense, as the king has not said anything about shadows. This omission on the part of Ff. is clearly accidental, and arose from the transcriber mixing the second O Ratcliff of line 214 with the one of line 212 Those editors who insert lines 204-206 after line 214 do so because of Ratcliff's reference to shadows in the next line; but he may very well be supposed to refer to Richard's fearful dream mentioned in line 212. As has already been pointed out, in note 630 above, it is very unlikely that Richard would have talked of his murders as murders to any of his dependants.

633. Lines 220, 221:

Come, go with me;

Under our tents I'll play the EAVES-DROPPER. Walker suggests that we should transfer the semicolon from the end of line 220 to after Under our tents; and so Hanmer and Capell punctuated the passage. But Under our tents here is a similar expression to Under our windows. This is the only passage in Shakespeare where this word eares-dropper occurs. It is a word which seems to have given a great deal of trouble. F. 4 is the only old copy which spells the word correctly; Q.1 has easedropper; Q. 2, euse dropper; Q. 3, ewse-dropper; Q. 4, eause-dropper; Q. 5, Q. 6, Q. 7, Q. 8, ewese-dropper; F. 1, F. 2, F. 3, ease-dropper. In The Tempest, v. 1. 17, eaves is spelt correctly; in All's Well, iii. 7. 42, it is spelt eeues; and in Measure for Measure, iii. ii. 186, eeues. Of the various forms given here from the texts of Qq. and Ff. ease may have been the old way of spelling the word.

634. Line 224: Cry mercy; i.e. "I cry you mercy." That phrase occurs frequently in Shakespeare; but this is the only instance of the omission of the objective case. I is sometimes omitted, e.g. Two Gent. of Verona, v. 4. 94: "O, cry you mercy, sir."

635, Line 231: and cried ON victory.-Compare Hamlet, v. 2. 375: "This quarry cries on havoc."

636. Line 236.-This speech is partly founded on the speeches given in Hall; but the resemblance is not very close. According to Hall (p. 416) Richmond delivered this speech "mounted on a lytell hyll so that all his people myght se and beholde hym perfitly to there great reioysyng." The speech is far too long to quote. following passages are those most used by the dramatist. VOL. III.

The

Lines 243, 244: "besyde this I assure you that there be yonder in that great battaill, men brought thither for feare and not for loue, souldiours by force compelled and not w good will assembled: persons which desyer rather the destruccion then saluacion of their master and captayn" (p. 417). Line 258: "but yf we wyn this battaill, ye hole riche realme of England with the lordes and rulers of the same shall be oures, the profit shall be oures and the honour shall be oures. Therfore labour for your gayne and swet for your right: while we were in Brytaine we had small liuynges and lytle plentye of wealth or welfare, now is the time come to get abundaunce of riches and copie of profit which is the rewarde of your seruice and merite of your payne" (p. 417). Lines 267, 268: And this one thyng I assure you, that in so iuste and good a cause, and so notable a quarell, you shall fynde me this daye, rather a dead carion vppon the coold grounde, then a fre prisoner on a carpet in a laydes chamber" (p. 418). 637. Line 250: made precious by the FOIL.-Compare Richard II. i. 3. 266, 267:

Esteem as foil, wherein thou art to set The precious jewel of thy home-return. 638. Line 262: Your children's children QUIT it in your age.-Qq. Ff. by mistake have quits.

639. Line 269: Sound drums and trumpets, boldly, cheerfully.-Qq. Ff. read "boldly and cheerfully;" the and in the line below having probably caught the transcriber's eye. The correction is Pope's.

640. Lines 281-283:

The sun will not be seen to-day;

The sky doth frown and lour upon our army.

I would these dewy tears were FROM the ground. These allusions do not seem to have been noticed by any of the commentators. A great point is made of the fact that Richmond had so placed his army that they would have the sun at their backs, while it would be in the eyes of Richard's army. Though all the chroniclers allude to this precaution of Richmond's, they do not make any mention of the weather being, as seems to be implied here, gloomy and wet. The meaning of the last line is not quite clear. Does Richard mean that it was drizzling, or that there was a damp mist; or does he mean that he wishes there was not so much dew on the ground, from being="away from"? The battle of Bosworth was fought on the 22nd August, at which time of the year it was likely that, on marshy ground, there would be a mist rising in the morning.

641. Lines 292–300.-Hall thus describes the arrangement of Richard's forces (p. 414): "kyng Richard beyng furnished wt men & all abilimetes of warr, bringyng all his men out of there camp into ye plaine, ordered his forward in a marueylous lēgth, in which he appointed both horsemen and footmen to thentēt to emprynte in ye hartes of the yt loked a farre of, a sodeine terror & deadlie feare, for ye great multitude of y armed souldiours: & in the fore Frount he placed ye archers like a strong fortified trench or bulwarke: ouer this battaile was captain Jhon duke of Norfolke with whom was Thomas erle of Surrey his sonne. After this lōg vätgard folowed king 145 63

Richard hi self, wt a strōg cōpaigny of chosen & approued me of warr, hauyng horsmen for wynges on both ye sides of his battail." It will be seen that Shakespeare has closely followed his authorities.

642. Line 293: My foreward shall be drawn OUT ALL in length. So Q. 1; all the other old copies omit out all; and perhaps we ought to read be drawn out in length.

643. Line 298: They thus directed, we will follow.-Pope added "we ourself;" but the line may have been purposely left imperfect, in order to suit the hurried and almost feverish manner of the speaker.

644. Line 301: Saint George TO BOOT!-There is much difference of opinion as to the exact meaning of this expression. Some explain to boot as="to help;" but there is no doubt that it simply means "in addition,' lit. 'for an advantage." See Skeat, sub voce. In Richard II. i. 3. 84 we have a somewhat similar expression:

Mine innocency and Saint George to thrive!

Hall and Holinshed both have Saint George to borrow! which must have been the oldest form. Compare Richard II. note 70.

645. Lines 304, 305:

"Jockey of Norfolk, be not Too bold,

For Dickon thy master is bought and sold."

All the chroniclers have these two lines verbatim as in text. Qq. Ft. have "so bold," except Q. 6, Q. 7, Q. 8, which have "to bold." This is evidently a mistake. Capell was the first to make the obvious correction.

646. Line 316. A sort of vagabonds, rascals, RUNAWAYS.— Qq. and F. 1 have “and runaways." F. 2 was the first to omit the and. For runaways used as runagates, compare Romeo and Juliet, iii. 2. 6, and see note 107 on that passage. It is worth noting that Richard has called Richmond "white-liver'd runagate" (iv. 4. 463).

647. Line 319: To desperate VENTURES and assur'd destruction.-Qq. Ff. have "desperate adventures," which spoils the metre of the line. Capell made the necessary correction.

648. Line 322: They would DISTRAIN the one, distain the other.-Qq. Ff. have restrain. The emendation is Hanmer's, following Warburton's suggestion, and has been adopted by Walker and Dyce and by Collier's MS. Corrector. There seems to be no instance in Shakespeare of the use of restrain in the sense required here, whereas distrain is used twice in the sense of "to take possession of;" in Richard II. ii. 3. 131:

My father's goods are all distrain'd and sold. and in I. Henry VI. i. 3. 61.

649. Line 324: Long kept in Bretagne at our MOTHER'S cost. So Qq. Ft. This mistake arose from Shakespeare having copied (as noticed above, note 479) from the second edition of Holinshed, which, by a printer's error, has mother's instead of brother's. Richmond was really supported by Richard's brother-in-law, the Duke of Burgundy, who married his sister Mary. Hall, from whom Holinshed copied, as usual, verbatim, has, quite correctly, in Richard's speech (p. 415), "brought vp by my brothers

meanes and myne like a captiue in a close cage in the court of Fraunces duke of Britaine.' We have followed, very reluctantly, most editors in preserving this error, one which Shakespeare surely would have corrected had it been pointed out to him. Some commentators insist that it is worth retaining this error, because it proves that Shakespeare copied from Holinshed and not from Hall, and that the edition he used was the second edition, in which alone this mistake occurs. But granting this to be the fact, we fail to see why a mistake so obvious, and so absurd, should be retained in the text. 650. Line 325:

A MILK-SOP, one that never in his life Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow. Hall has this very expression (p. 415): "he is a Welsh mylkesoppe, a mā of small courage and of lesse experience in marcyall actes and feates of warr.'

651. Line 334: beaten, BOBB'D, and thump'd.-This not very eloquent sentence is Shakespeare's own. To bob meant not only "to cheat," but "to give a sharp blow." It generally seems to have been used in more or less comic passages. Shakespeare uses the word in the same sense in Troilus and Cressida, ii. i. 76: "I have bobb'd his brain more than he has beat my bones."

652. Line 344: Off with his son's head!-Qq. Ff. have: Off with his son George's head!

Hanmer made it a metrically perfect line by printing: Off instantly with his son George's head!

But the line is, probably, meant to be incomplete in order to emphasize the abruptness of the speaker. Some emendation in the text seems necessary, if the line is to be spoken with that quickness and decision which are, dramatically speaking, absolutely requisite. Other emendations which suggested themselves are:

Off with his George's head! Off with young George's head! Off with son George's head!

Off with's son George's head!

The last we should have printed, but although his very often occurs, in the elided form 's, with other prepositions, its elision here would not make the line any easier to speak. It is probable that the author originally wrote the line as we have printed it, and that the word George was subsequently added; at anyrate, the dramatic requirements are fulfilled by the emendation we have ventured to print.

653. Line 345: My lord, the enemy is past the marsh. — Compare Hall (p. 418): "Betwene both armies ther was a great marrysse."

ACT V. SCENE 4.

654. Line 3: Daring an OPPOSITE to every danger.— Compare Hamlet, v. 2. 60-62:

'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites;

and II. Henry VI. v. 3. 21, 22:

'Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,
Being opposites of such repairing nature.

So in Westward for Smelts: "Yet doth he deny to grapple with none, but continually standeth ready to oppose himselfe against any that dare be his opposite" (Percy Society Reprint, 1848, p. 6).

655. Line 7: A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse! -The following are among some of the contemporaneous allusions to this passage, which appears to have been very largely imitated and parodied by the writers of the period:

Marston, Scourge of Villanie, 1598, satyre 7:
A man, a man, a kingdome for a man!

In Parasitaster, or the Fawne, 1606:

A foole, a foole, a foole, my coxcombe for a foole!

-Sig. H 3, back. In What you Will, 1607, ii. 1, he quotes the line literally, as follows:

Ha! be mount[s] Chirall on the wings of fame.
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!
Looke the, I speake play scrappes.

Richard Brathwaite, Strappado for the Divell, 1615:
If I had liv'd but in King Richards dayes,
Who in his heat of passion, midst the force
Of his Assailants troubled many waies
Crying a horse! a Kingdome for a horse.
O then which now at Livery stayes
Had beene set free.

Heywood's Iron Age, 1611:

Syn. A horse, a horse.

-Upon a Poets Palfrey, p. 154.

Pyr. Ten Kingdomes for a horse to enter Troy.

-Works, vol. iii p. 369. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Little French Lawyer, iv.: Look up, brave friend; I have no means to rescue thee. My kingdom for a sword.

-Works, ii. p. 431. There may be a reminiscence of this line in the following passage from Heywood, II. Edward IV.:

A staff, a staffe!

A thousand crownes for a staff!

-Works, vol. i. p. 143.

656. Line 13.-We have placed part of the stage-direction here, slightly altered, which is usually placed at the beginning of the next scene. The stage-direction in Qq. is: "Alarum, Enter Richard and Richmond, they fight, Richard is slain then retrait being sounded. Enter Richmond, Darby, bearing the crowne with other Lords, &c.' That of Ff. is: "Alarum, Enter Richard and Richmond, they fight, Richard is slaine.

Retreat, and Flourish. Enter Richmond, Derby bearing the crowne, with diuers other Lords." Dyce altered this to: "Alarums. Enter, from opposite sides, KING RICHARD and RICHMOND; they fight, and exeunt fighting. Retreat and flourish. Then re-enter RICHMOND, with STANLEY bearing the crown, and divers other Lords, and Forces," and has the following note: "Mr. Knight retains the stage-direction of the old copies '-they fight; Richard is slain,' &c., and says in his note, 'it is important to preserve it, as showing the course of the dramatic action.' How Mr. Knight understands the dramatic action' to be carried on here, I cannot conceive. If, after Richard is killed in the sight of the audience, Stanley enters bearing the crown which he has plucked off from his 'dead temples,' there must have been two Richards in the

field. The fact is, that here, as frequently elsewhere, in the old copies, the stage-direction is a piece of mere confusion: Richard and Richmond were evidently intended by the author to go off the stage fighting." The Cambridge edd. retain the stage-direction of the old copies (note xxvii.): " because it is probable from Derby's speech, 'From the dead temples of this bloody wretch,' that Richard's body is lying where he fell, in view of the audience;" and Dyce observes: "Nor is any stress to be laid on the expression this bloody wretch:' in p. 441 Richard, though not present, is called this foul swine' and this guilty homicide.'" There certainly seems to be some confusion if the stage-direction of the old copies be adhered to, because Derby, i.e. Stanley, could hardly enter bearing the crown, if Richard were on the stage with the crown on his head. When Richard III. is acted, this last scene is always omitted; the play ending with the death of Richard, or rather with the entry of Richmond and his supporters, and the crowning of the victor in dumb-show. The way in which we have arranged the stage-direction seems to get rid of the difficulty.

As to the crown Hall says (p. 420): "Then ye people reioysed & clapped hades criyng vp to heauen, kyng Henry, kyng Henry. When the lord Stanley sawe the good will and gratuite of the people he toke the crowne of kynge Richard which was founde amongest the spoyle in the felde, and set it on therles hed, as though he had byne elected king by the voyce of the people as in auncient tymes past in diuers realmes it hath been accustomed, and this was the first signe and token of his good lucke and felicite." The Clarendon Press edd. (p. 235) say: "Tradition relates that it (the crown) was found in a hawthorn bush, and in Henry the Seventh's Chapel 'the stained-glass retains the emblem of the same crown hanging on the green bush in the fields of Leicestershire. (Stanley, Memorials of Westminster Abbey, p. 159.)" Richard is said to have worn the crown in order to render himself conspicuous, or, according to Polydore Virgil, "thinking that Day should either be the Last of his Life, or the First of a Better" (Buck, vol. i. p. 542).

ACT V. SCENE 5.

657. Line 9: But, tell me, is THE young George Stanley living?-All the old copies read:

But tell me is young George Stanley living?

an awkward, unrhythmical line. Various emendations have been proposed. Pope would read "tell me first;" Keightley, "tell me pray;" Dyce, "tell me now." We have ventured to print the emendation in our text as being, in some respects, preferable.

658. Line 11: Whither, if't please you, we may now withdraw us.-Qq. have (substantially): "if 't please you we may now withdraw us;" Ff. "if you please we may withdraw us."

659. Lines 13, 14:

John Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers, Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon. Printed as prose in Q. 1, perhaps rightly. The Walter Lord Ferrers here mentioned was Sir Walter Devereux,

663. Lines 28-31:

Divided in their dire division,

By God's fair ordinance CONJOIN together!

Qq. Ff. have a full stop at the end of line 28. We have, like most editors, followed Johnson's proposed punctua tion.

Dyce quotes (note 130) from Drayton's Polyolbion, Fifth Song, p. 76, ed. 1622:

Whose mariages conioynd the White rose and the Red. 664. Line 35: Abate the EDGE of traitors, gracious Lord. -Compare I. Henry IV. i. 1. 17, 18:

The edge of war, like an ill sheathed knife,

No more shall cut his master.

665. Line 36: That would REDUCE these bloody days again.-Reduce is used in only one other passage in Shakespeare in this sense, in Henry V. v. 2. 63: Which to reduce into our former favour.

Compare also ii. 2. 68 of this play:

All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes, where it seems to mean simply "to bring," the only other passage in which Shakespeare uses the verb at all.