Act IV Sc. 1
“Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rage
And countenanc’d by boys and beggary.”
There may be some doubt about ‘bloody’; for ‘rage’ Sidney Walker and Collier’s folio read rags, which seems confirmed by the following line.
“Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood.”
For ‘graves’ Warburton and Hanmer read glaives, Steevens, greaves. Neither of these words occurs in Shakespeare, and I rather suspect that the poet’s word was braves, i.e. bravadoes, boasts. “I will not bear these braves of thine” (Tam. of Shr. iii. 1). “Now where’s the Bastard’s braves?” (1 Hen. VI. iii. 2).
“And are enforc’d from our most quiet there.”
For ‘there’ Warburton read sphere; perhaps we might read haven. But, as in Lear (i. 1) we have “Thou losest here a better where to find,” ‘there’ is probably the poet’s word, both it, here and where being used as nouns signifying place.
“My brother-general the commonwealth...
To brother-born a household cruelty
I make my quarrel in particular.”
The second line is not in the folio, and there may be, as some critics think, a line lost; but my punctuation removes all difficulty. We have only to understand makes his quarrel; yet how strangely critics have puzzled over this not very difficult passage! We should perhaps read ‘generals’; for Hastings and Bardolph seem to have equal authority with Mowbray. Lord Scroop had been put to death at Bristol, 1 Hen. IV. i. 3.
“And bless’d and grac’d, and did more than the king affect.”
Thirlby conjectured indeed for ‘and did.’ I rather think there was, as usual, an effacement at the end of the line.
“Every thing set off
That might so much as think you enemies.”
This is a strange use of ‘think’; we should perhaps read hint, were it not that this verb does not occur in Shakespeare.
“And present execution of our wills
To us and to our purposes confin’d.”
For ‘confin’d’ Hanmer read confirm’d; Johnson, consign’d. I confess I do not clearly understand the passage.
“That were our royal faiths martyrs in love.”
Hanmer and Johnson read loyal; but Malone makes a good defence of ‘royal.’
“No, no, my lord. Note this, the king is weary of
Such dainty and such picking grievances.”
I think it was thus the poet wrote, but that such was effaced and then ‘of’ transposed on account of the metre.
Sc. 2
“You have taken up
Under the counterfeited zeal of God,
The subjects of his substitute, my father.”
I would read seal, in which I am supported by Sidney Walker and Collier’s folio. In iv. 1 we have
“That you should seal this lawless bloody book
Of forged rebellion with a seal divine.”
Sc. 4
“As he, whose brow with homely biggin bound.”
For ‘whose,’ I read without hesitation, who, his, probably written who’s.
“Changes the mode; for what in me was purchas’d.”
Collier’s folio reads purchase, which is very plausible.
“And all thy friends whom thou must make thy friends.”
This is nonsense, produced in the usual way (Introd. p. 64). Tyrwhitt proposed ‘my friends,’ i.e. those who are regarded as such. For the first ‘my friends,’ we may read my, thy, or the foes.
“True: those that were your father’s enemies,
Have steep’d their galls in honey and do serve you
With hearts create of duty and of zeal.”
Hen. V. ii. 2.
“I cut them off.”
Mason’s reading some seems to be certain.