Editorial note — Scene II.—INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL AT TROYES IN CHAMPAGNE.

I.1 ——task] Keep busied with scruples and disquisitions.

I.2 Archbishop of Canterbury,] Henry Chichely, a Carthusian monk, recently promoted to the see of Canterbury.

I.3 Bishop of Ely.] John Fordham, consecrated 1388; died, 1426.

I.4 ——wrest,] i.e., distort.

I.5 ——or bow your reading,] i.e., bend your interpretation.

I.6 Or nicely charge your understanding soul] Take heed, lest by nice and subtle sophistry you burthen your knowing soul, or knowingly burthen your soul, with the guilt of advancing a false title, or of maintaining, by specious fallacies, a claim which, if shown in its native and true colours, would appear to be false. —Johnson.

I.7 ——miscreate,] Ill-begotten, illegitimate, spurious.

I.8 ——in approbation] i.e., in proving and supporting that title which shall be now set up.

I.9 ——impawn our person,] To engage and to pawn were in our author’s time synonymous.

I.10 ——gloze] Expound, explain.

I.11 ——imbare their crooked titles] i.e., to lay open, to display to view.

I.12 In allusion to the battle of Crecy, fought 25th August, 1346.

I.13 So hath your highness;] i.e., your highness hath indeed what they think and know you have.

I.14 They of those marches,] The marches are the borders, the confines. Hence the Lords Marchers, i.e., the lords presidents of the marches, &c.

I.15 ——in few.] i.e., in short, brief.

I.16 ——a nimble galliard won;] A galliard was an ancient dance. The word is now obsolete.

I.17 ——let me bring thee to Staines.] i.e., let me attend, or accompany thee.

I.18 ——Arthur’s bosom,] Dame Quickly, in her usual blundering way, mistakes Arthur for Abraham.

I.19 ’A made a finer end,] To make a fine end is not an uncommon expression for making a good end. The Hostess means that Falstaff died with becoming resignation and patient submission to the will of Heaven.

I.20 ——an it had been any christom child;] i.e., child that has wore the chrysom, or white cloth put on a new baptized child.

I.21 ——turning o’ the tide:] It has been a very old opinion, which Mead, de imperio solis, quotes, as if he believed it, that nobody dies but in the time of ebb: half the deaths in London confute the notion; but we find that it was common among the women of the poet’s time. —Johnson.

I.22 ——I saw him fumble with the sheets,] Pliny, in his chapter on the signs of death, makes mention of “a fumbling and pleiting of the bed-clothes.” The same indication of approaching death is enumerated by Celsus, Lommius, Hippocrates, and Galen.

I.23 ’A could never abide carnation;] Mrs. Quickly blunders, mistaking the word incarnate for a colour. In questions of Love, published 1566, we have “yelowe, pale, redde, blue, whyte, gray, and incarnate.”

I.24 Shall we shog off?] i.e., shall we move off—jog off?

I.25 Let senses rule;] i.e., let prudence govern you—conduct yourself sensibly.

I.26 ——Pitch and pay;] A familiar expression, meaning pay down at once, pay ready money; probably throw down your money and pay.

I.27 ——hold-fast is the only dog,] Alluding to the proverbial saying— “Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better.”

I.28 ——caveto be thy counsellor.] i.e., let prudence be thy counsellor.

I.29 ——clear thy crystals.] Dry thine eyes.