Page:Henry IV Part 2 (1921) Yale.djvu/146

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The Second Part of

clude the stipulation that the execution of the wishes of the rebels shall be consigned to their own hands.

IV. ii. Shakespeare evidently had no thought of a change of scene, or of pause in action, here. Even the first Folio has no stage direction of exeunt at the end of Scene i., and no indication of scene division. I have kept the conventional modern arrangement for convenience of reference; but the reader should remember that the Archbishop and his party do not leave the stage,—they merely step forward to greet Prince John as he enters.

IV. iii. 125. a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil. Falstaff refers to the old superstition that gold mines were guarded by devils.

IV. iv. S. d. The Jerusalem Chamber. An apartment adjoining the southwest tower of Westminster Abbey, built in the fourteenth century as a guestchamber, and deriving its name from the tapestries depicting the history of Jerusalem with which it was hung. Since the seventeenth century it has been used as a council chamber.

IV. iv. 33-35. 'Nevertheless when he is incensed he breaks out in fiery fashion like flint; he abounds in caprices as winter abounds in moisture; and he changes his moods as suddenly as water freezes and melts at the edge of a pond at daybreak.' Flaws are the blades of ice seen on the edges of water on winter mornings.

IV. iv. 44-48. 'That the vessel of their united blood may never leak, even though that blood should be mingled with the venom caused by hints and suggestions tending toward discord, which in this age will be sure to be poured in; and even though this venom should work with the strength of aconite or gunpowder.'

IV. iv. 79, 80. 'It seldom happens that the bee, having deposited her comb in dead carrion, leaves the