lodging at some distance from the king's court. Editors have, however, preferred to retain the Quarto (Contention) arrangement, by which the Murderers go out alone. 'Then enter the King and Queene' and all the rest except Suffolk, who is at once directly addressed by the King: 'My Lord of Suffolk, go call our uncle Gloster.'
III. ii. 26. Meg. In the Folio the word is 'Nell.' So in lines 79, 100, and 120 'Elinor' (or 'Elianor') appears instead of the 'Margaret' which modern editors have substituted. None of the lines in question occur in the Contention version. They are to be ascribed to a slip of the reviser's pen, induced, of course, by his familiarity with 'Nell' and 'Eleanor' as applied to the Duchess of Gloucester in earlier scenes. The mistake is of a sort more easily committed by a reviser, applying patches throughout the play, than by an author who thought in terms of the scene as a whole.
III. ii. 60, 61. heart-offending groans Or blood consuming sighs. Shakespeare is fond of the old idea that every sigh costs the heart a drop of blood. The notion is here given in double form and then repeated in line 63: 'blood-drinking sighs.' In the Third Part, IV. iv. 22, we have 'blood-sucking sighs.' Compare A Midsummer-Night's Dream, III. ii. 97: 'with sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear.'
III. ii. 76. What! art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf? A common allusion which goes back to Psalm 58. 4, 5: 'they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.' Cf. Shakespeare's 112th Sonnet, lines 10, 11: 'my adder's sense To critic and to flatterer stopped are.'
III. ii. 116-118. as Ascanius did, When he to madding Dido would unfold His father's acts, commenc'd in burning Troy! The allusion is new with the reviser, and like many of Shakespeare's classical
