ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
Reading edition
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.
“Cant. If it pass against us We lose the better half of our possession. Ely. This would drink deep. Cant. ’Twould drink the cup and all.” Henry V., act i., sc. 1.
Though Henry did not touch the property of the English Church, he appropriated the revenues of one hundred and ten priories held by aliens, and made no restitution.
“I’le send him Balls and Rackets if I liue That they such Racket shall in Paris see, When ouer lyne with Bandies I shall driue, As that before the Set be fully done, France may (perhaps) into the Hazard runne.”
On these lines Mr. Julian Marshall observes: “This passage is remarkable, as offering one of the first examples of the double sense of racket, meaning hubbub as well as the implement used in tennis; and also as showing the early use of the word bandy, which we shall find recurring later in the history of the game.” None of the historians who have related the incident mention the pointed reply to the Dauphin put into Henry’s mouth by Shakespeare, that he would “strike his father’s crown into the hazard.” The old playwright on whose foundation Shakespeare built merely says, “Tel him that in stead of balles of leather we wil tosse him balles of brasse and yron.” Drayton must consequently have borrowed the term from Shakespeare, which is a pretty conclusive proof of his having read “Henry V.” as well as witnessed its performance. Regarding Shakespeare’s justification for the technical terms used by him, Mr. Marshall judiciously remarks: “It is certain that tennis was played and that rackets were used in the time of Henry V.; but whether chases were marked and a hazard invented, and to which of our hazards that hazard would answer, are questions which we cannot solve, and which doubtless never troubled ‘sweet Will’ for one single moment.”
Sir Harris Nicolas prints in his appendix a ballad on the story of the tennis balls, “obligingly communicated by Bertram Mitford, of Mitford Castle, in Northumberland, Esquire, who wrote it from the dictation of a very aged relative.” He also gives another version, from what source derived is not stated. The Roxburghe collection of ballads at the British Museum contains yet a third version, which, as it differs in many respects from the other two, is printed as an appendix to these Notes. Judging from the type, the date of the Museum broadside would appear to be about 1750, and the piece itself can hardly be earlier than the eighteenth century.
“Play with your fancies, and in them behold Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing; Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails, Borne with the invisible and creeping wind, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea.”
“To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest, To-morrow for the march are we addrest.”
In fact, as Drayton tells us, he remained eight days in Harfleur, awaiting the Dauphin’s reply to his challenge, which Holinshed does not mention. Shakespeare, Drayton, and Holinshed alike pass over the exceedingly picturesque circumstance of the expulsion of the women and children under escort of the English troops. Drayton only says: “Out of the Ports all Vagrants he doth driue.”
“Not to-day, O Lord, O, not to-day, think not upon the fault My father made in compassing the crown! I Richard’s body have interred new: And on it have bestowed more contrite tears Than from it issued forced drops of blood: Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, Who twice a day their withered hands hold up Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests Sing still for Richard’s soul. More will I do; Though all that I can do is nothing worth, Since that my penitence comes after all, Imploring pardon.” Henry V., act iv., sc. 1.
Shakespeare’s infinite superiority in moral delicacy, not merely to his imitator, but to all poets except the very best, is forcibly shown by his causing Henry to abstain from all attempts to excuse his father and himself at the expense of Richard, so natural in the mouth of an ordinary person, so unbecoming a hero.
“For he this day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile This day shall gentle his condition”—
appear to be derived from the same source as the exaggerated statement of Archbishop Des Ursins, that on another occasion Henry promised that his plebeian soldiers should be ennobled and invested with collars of SS. This cannot be taken directly from Des Ursins, whose history of the reign of Charles VI., though written in the fifteenth century, was not published until 1614.
“Let the brow o’erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock O’erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.” Henry V., prologue to act iii.
“I was not angry since I came to France Until this instant.” Henry V., act iv., sc. 7.
“Charitable licence, That we may wander o’er this bloody field To book our dead, and then to bury them.” Henry V., act iv., sc. 7.
TO MY FRINDS THE CAMBER-BRITANS AND THEYR HARP.
It has already been observed in the Introduction that this grand lyric gave the model for Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade.” This latter poem appears along with “Maud,” and another piece in the same slender volume contains unequivocal proof of the Laureate’s acquaintance with Drayton. In the powerful poem entitled “Will” occur the lines—
“Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, The city sparkles like a grain of salt.”
In a passage of Song IX. of the “Polyolbion,” excerpted by Mr. Bullen, Drayton says—
“The mightie Giant-heape so less and lesser still Appeareth to the eye, untill the monstrous hill At length shewes like a cloud; and further being cast, Is out of kenning quite.”
The identity of epithet might possibly be accidental, but the resemblance extends to the entire passage.
A singularly beautiful stanza from Drayton’s “Barons’ Warres,” also in Mr. Bullen’s selection, must have been unconsciously present to Shelley’s mind when he wrote in “The Witch of Atlas”—
“While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece Of sandal wood, rare gems, and cinnamon. Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is; Each flame of it is as a precious stone Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this Belongs to each and all who gaze thereon.”
Drayton writes:
“The Fire of precious Wood, the Light Perfume Which left a sweetnesse on each thing it shone, As every thing did to it selfe assume The Sent from them and made the same their owne So that the painted Flowres within the Roome Were sweet, as if they naturally had growne; The Light gave Colours, which upon them fell, And to the Colours the Perfume gave smell.”
A still stronger proof of the extent to which Shelley had unconsciously imbibed the spirit of Drayton is afforded by a comparison of the noble speech of Fame in “The tragicall legend of Robert Duke of Normandie” (Bullen, pp. 25, 27) with Shelley’s still finer “Hymn of Apollo.” There is hardly any instance of direct verbal resemblance; but the metre, the strain of sentiment, the oratorical pose, the mental and moral attitude of the two poems are so much alike as to justify the assertion that the younger owes its form and much of its spirit to the older.
The following is the Roxburghe version of the ballad of the Dauphin’s present of tennis-balls, mentioned at p. 106:—
KING HENRY V. HIS CONQUEST OF FRANCE,
IN REVENGE FOR THE AFFRONT OFFERED BY THE FRENCH KING; IN SENDING HIM (INSTEAD OF THE TRIBUTE) A TON OF TENNIS-BALLS.
As our King lay musing on his bed, He bethought himself upon a time, Of a tribute that was due from France, Had not been paid for so long a time. Fal, lal, etc. He called for his lovely page, His lovely page then called he; Saying, You must go to the King of France, To the King of France, sir, ride speedily. O then went away this lovely page, This lovely page then away went he; Low he came to the King of France, And then fell down on his bended knee. My master greets you, worthy sir, Ten ton of Gold that is due to he, That you will send his tribute home, Or in French land you soon him will see. Fal, lal, etc. Your master’s young and of tender years, Not fit to come into my degree, And I will send him three Tennis-Balls That with them he may learn to play. O then returned this lovely page, This lovely page then returned he, And when he came to our gracious King, Low he fell down on his bended knee. [A line cut off.] What is the news you have brought to me? I have brought such news from the King of France That he and you will ne’er agree. He says, You’re young and of tender years, Not fit to come to his degree; And he will send you three Tennis-Balls That with them you may learn to play. Recruit me Cheshire and Lancashire, And Derby Hills that are so free; No marry’d man, or widow’s son, For no widow’s curse shall go with me. They recruited Cheshire and Lancashire, And Derby Hills that are so free; No marry’d man, nor no widow’s son, Yet there was a jovial bold company. O then we march’d into the French land With drums and trumpets so merrily; And then bespoke the King of France, Lo yonder comes proud King Henry. The first shot that the Frenchmen gave They kill’d our Englishmen so free, We kill’d ten thousand of the French, And the rest of them they run away. And then we marched to Paris gates, With drums and trumpets so merrily, O then bespoke the King of France, The Lord have mercy on my men and me. O I will send him his tribute home, Ten ton of Gold that is due to he, And the finest flower that is in all France, To the Rose of England I will give free.