III. ii. 6. plain-song. A simple melody without variations.

III. ii. 65. the mines is not. It is hardly necessary to point out the many irregularities in Captain Fluellen's use of singulars and plurals. He takes similar liberties with actives and passives and with the verbs 'to be' and 'to have.' In his speeches, as in those of the Scotch and Irish officers, dialect peculiarities are not explained unless they present unusual difficulties.

nation. Macmorris,

III. ii. 136-139. Of my who is of an excitable Celtic temperament, is quick to resent a fancied sneer at his country.

III. v. 7. scions. This word originally denoted small twigs cut from one tree and grafted upon another. The Dauphin is referring, of course, to the Norman extraction of the English.

III. v. 12. but. Grammatically the oath, 'Mort de ma vie,' governs this word. 'If these Englishmen march along uncontested, death take me if I do not sell my dukedom.'

III. v. 36. Montjoy. Not a name, but a title, borne by the chief heralds of France through many centuries. It is probable, however, that Shakespeare himself supposed that it was a name. Cf. III. vi. 150.

III. vi. S. d. English and Welch. The use of these words as synonyms for the names of Gower and Fluellen emphasizes Shakespeare's intention of representing national types in these captains.

III. vi. 13. aunchient lieutenant. Fluellen, with characteristic redundancy, gives Pistol two different titles.

III. vi. 42. pax. Perhaps this is a mistake for 'pyx,' the box containing the Host or consecrated wafer of the Mass. To steal a pyx would be a very serious sacrilege, and we know that on this expedition King Henry ordered a man hanged for such a theft. The pax, on the other hand, was a less sacred object—

the piece of wood or metal, engraved with the picture of Christ, which was given to the laity to be kissed during the celebration of the Mass.

III. vi. 62. The fig of Spain. Pistol merely repeats and elaborates the exclamation of line 59. 'Figo' was the Spanish word for 'fig.'

III. vii. 14. as if his entrails were hairs. The tennis balls of the day were stuffed with hair. Cf. Much Ado About Nothing, III. ii. 46, 47.

III. vii. 19. pipe of Hermes. Hermes, by playing on his pipe, charmed the hundred-eyed Argus to sleep. III. vii. 71, 72. "The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.' (2 Peter 2. 22.)

III. vii. 98. go to hazard. Shakespeare adopts this incident from Holinshed. "The Frenchmen in the meanewhile, as though they had beene sure of victorie, made great triumphe, for the capteins had determined before how to diuide the spoile, and the soldiers the night before had plaid the Englishmen at dice.'

III. vii. 126. 'tis a hooded valour. This is a metaphor drawn from falconry. The hawk was kept hooded till it was released to fly at the game. "To bate' was to flap the wings, as the hawk invariably did, after being unhooded, preparatory to flight. Probably the Constable uses this word punningly with a play upon another meaning of 'bate': to dwindle, to diminish.

IV. i. 55. Saint Davy's day. It was an old Welsh custom to wear a leek upon Saint David's day to commemorate the victory said to have been won by King Arthur over the Saxons on Saint David's day in the year 540 A. D. It is the tradition that the battle was fought in a garden where leeks were growing and that Saint David ordered Arthur's soldiers to wear the leek in honour of the victory. Shakespeare

refers to this custom in two other passages in this play: IV. vi. 102 ff. and V. i. 74.

IV. i. 246. French crowns. There is a double pun here: a play upon two different meanings of 'crown,' and an allusion to the crime of clipping gold coins.

IV. i. 283. The farced title. Perhaps there is an allusion here to the herald that goes before the king and proclaims his full title in high-sounding phrases. More probably running 'fore means 'prefixed to' the name of the king.

IV. i. 321. chantries. Originally a chantry was an endowment for the maintenance of one or more priests to sing daily mass for the souls of the founders or others specified by them. Later it came to mean a chapel, altar, or part of a church so endowed.

IV. i. 323-325. Though all that I can do, etc. King Henry acknowledges that such works of piety as the founding of chantries have availed him nothing; not by such means can he cleanse his conscience of the sense of guilt. After all that he can do, he must still penitently implore pardon.

IV. ii. 36. dare the field. Another phrase borrowed from the terminology of falconry. The bird was said to be 'dared' when it was so terrified by the hawk that it kept close to the ground.

IV. ii. 60, 61. The French 'thought themselues so sure of victorie, that diuerse of the noble men made such hast towards the battell, that they left manie of their seruants and men of warre behind them, and some of them would not once staie for their standards: as, amongst other, the duke of Brabant, when his standard was not come, caused a baner to be taken from a trumpet and fastened to a speare; the which he commanded to be borne before him in steed of his standard.' (Holinshed.)

IV. iii. 57. Crispin Crispian. Saint Crispin's day was sacred to two brothers, Crispinus and Crispianus,

who were martyred for their faith at Soissons early in the fourth century.

IV. iv. S. d. Excursions. This stage direction indicates that small groups of armed men hurry across the stage as if in the heat of battle.

IV. iv. 4. Qualtitie calmie custure me. This is the reading of the Folio. The passage is usually emended to read, 'Quality? Calen O custure me!' The last four words in this amended reading form the refrain of a popular Irish song of Shakespeare's day and are a corruption of the Irish phrase, 'Colleen, oge asture,' i.e., 'young girl, my treasure.' According to this conjecture, Pistol repeats the only word he has understood in the French gentleman's speech and follows it by quoting, with characteristic irrelevancy, the burden of this popular song. The present editor has restored the Folio reading because the resemblance between Pistol's words and the burden of the song is not close enough to be altogether convincing; but the theory represents the most satisfactory explanation that has been offered. C. D. Stewart (Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare, Yale University Press, 1914, pp. 71-74) argues that Pistol is trying to talk French: 'Quel titre comme accoster me.

IV. iv. 14. moys. Probably the French 'muys' or 'muids,' a measure of corn, equal to five quarters English measure. It has also been suggested that 'moys' were some sort of coin.

IV. iv. 76. devil i'the old play. This refers not to any particular play, but to the old Morality plays, in which the Devil was frequently the butt of the Vice or clown, who, armed with a wooden dagger, subjected him to all manner of physical indignities. The 'roaring devil' in these plays presented just such a combination of braggadocio and cowardice as Pistol.

IV. vii. 104. in a garden. This is another reference to the traditional Arthurian battle in the leekgarden. Cf. IV. i. 55 and note.

IV. vii. 105. Monmouth caps. These caps were soft and flat, with a plume, and were worn particularly by soldiers. As their name indicates, they were originally made at Monmouth, where the cap-making industry appears to have flourished. "The best caps were formerly made at Monmouth, where the Capper's Chapel doth still remain.' (Fuller, Worthies of Wales, 1660.)

IV. viii. 128. Non nobis. This is the one hundred and fifteenth psalm, which begins, in the Latin version, 'Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.'

V. Chor. 30. general. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, set out from London on March 27, 1599, to suppress Tyrone's rebellion in Ireland. (Cf. Appendix B.) His return was by no means the triumph which Shakespeare prophesies in these lines. He mismanaged his campaign most conspicuously, frequently acting in opposition to the commands of the queen, and finally concluded a truce with Tyrone in September in order that he might be free to return to London and vindicate himself before the queen. In the following June he was called before a special court to answer for his mismanagement of the mission and was deprived of his offices.

V. Chor. 38. emperor's. In five lines the Chorus passes over the events of four years. Emperor Sigismund landed at Dover on May 1, 1416, about six months after the battle of Agincourt, and immediately set about his task of making peace between England and France; but it was not until May, 1420, that the peace treaty was signed. Shakespeare makes no reference to Henry's second military expedition to France and the long siege of Rouen.

V. ii. 17. basilisks. The basilisk cannon was named after a fabulous serpent, the basilisk or cockatrice, that was said to kill its victims with a glance.