Enter Rumour, painted full of tonguesa. RUM. Open your ears: For which of you will stop I, from the orient to the drooping west, • Painted full of tongues. This direction for the appearance of Rumour is found only in the quarto of 1600. The direction explains the sixth line: "Upon my tongues continual slanders ride." Rumour appears to have been exhibited in a similar manner in the masques preceding Shakspere's time, and subsequently. Of the speech of Rumour Dr. Johnson says, "It is wholly useless." The object of the poet was evidently to connect this Part of Henry IV. with the First Part. Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, Among my household? Why is Rumour here? Hath beaten down young Hotspur, and his troops, Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I The. So the folio; quarto, that. [Exit. The Porter before the Gate; Enter LORD BARDOLPH. L. BARD. Who keeps the gate here, ho?-Where is the earl? PORT. What shall I say you are? L. BARD. Tell thou the earl, That the lord Bardolph doth attend him here. PORT. His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard. NORTH. What news, lord Bardolph? every minute now The times are wild; contention, like a horse L. BARD. As good as heart can wish: How is this deriv'd? Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury? L. BARD. I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence; A gentleman well bred, and of good name, That freely render'd me these news for true. NORTH. Here comes my servant, Travers, whom I sent L. BARD. My lord, I over-rode him on the way; And he is furnish'd with no certainties, More than he haply may retail from me. Enter TRAVERS. NORTH. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you? With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, "Stratagem-some military movement, according to the Greek derivation of the word;-some enterprise; some decisive act on one part or the other, resulting from the wild times of contention. A gentleman almost forspent a with speed, That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse: He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him L. BARD. If my young lord My lord, I'll tell you what ; your son have not the day, Upon mine honour, for a silken point I'll give my barony: never talk of it. NORTH. Why should the gentleman that rode by Travers Forspent. For, as a prefix to a verb, is used to give it intensity. Forwearied, in 'King John,' and forspent, here, mean wearied out, outspent. The prefix, according to Tooke, is identical with forth. Ill. So the folio; the quarto, bad. Hilding-an expression of contempt for a cowardly spiritless person. Some derive it from the Anglo-Saxon hyldan, to bend;—from which hilding, hireling. We find it several times in Shakspere. Capulet calls Juliet a hilding. In Henry V.' we have "a hilding foe." Adventure. So the folio. The common reading is, at a venture. Title-leaf. Poems of lament-elegies, in the restricted sense of the word-were distinguished by a black title-page. Whereon, in the quarto; the folio, when. |