Footnotes from the Arden edition of Henry V. In addition to the Shakespeare lexicons, please use these as a reference for your paraphrasing assignment due Wednesday 12/3.
a muse of fire: ‘inspiration as brilliant and aspiring as the highest and brightest of the four elements’
invention: creative imagination. pronounced with four syllables.
swelling: majestic
like himself: in his own heroic manner
port: bearing, demeanour
Leashed in: kept on the leash, three was the usual number of hounds coupled in one leash
famine, sword and fire: the traditional instruments of war, also a reference to Bellona’s three ‘handmaidens’: blood, fire and famine.
gentles: gentlemen and gentlewomen, especially as an audience
Chorus: commentator(s)
prologue-like: in the manner (rather than in the costume) of a prologue-like speaker
humble: gentle
hear: To hear, rather than see, a play is the usual Shakespearean expression
with imagined wing: on the wing of imagination, the speed of imagination
of no less celerity than that of thought: as swift as thought
well-appointed: well-equipped
his royalty: his royal person
brave: fine, making a gallant appearance
With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning: fanning with its silken pennants the hot face of the rising sun.
Play wth your fancies: indulge your imaginations
whistle: the master’s or the boatswain’s whistle perhaps
which doth order give to sounds confused: which 1) conveys orders to the sailors, 2) reveals that there is orderliness in the bustle of working the ships.
threaden: made of thread, especially of linen thread. Shakespeare contrasts the apparent slightness of the sails with the weight and size of the ships that they move
Borne: carried forward
bottoms: vessels
furrowed: as if they are ploughed with their keels
Breasting the lofty surge: meeting the high swell of the sea with their bows
rivage: shore. Shakespeare’s only use of the word.
Harfleur: the French port at the mouth of the Seine. Accent on the first syllable
Grapple: fasten with grappling irons
sternage: the sterns (a Shakespearean coinage and the only recorded occurrence)
as dead midnight still: as quiet as midnight when nothing stirs
pith and puissance: strength and power
whose chin is but enriched with one appearing hair: humorous for a youth with no beard
culled and choice-drawn: picked out and selected
cavaliers: military gentlemen
Work: set in action
carriages: frames on which cannon are mounted
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur: with their deadly open mouths turned towards encircled Harfleur, historically, Henry besieged it from every side.
th’ambassador from the French comes back: the English ambassador (Exeter comes back from the French)
doth offer him Katherine his daughter and with her, to dowry, Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms: Historically, this offer is made by the French embassy ahead of the siege
to dowry: as dowry, or the property that a woman brings to her husband at marriage
likes not: is not pleasing
nimble gunner: in the Art of Warre (1591) there is a recommendation for the effectiveness of a “nimble discharge of a gun”
linstock: staff to hold the gunner’s lighted match
devilish: reference to Spenser’s Faerie Queen and a simile drawn from a cannon “that devilish iron England wrought/ In deepest Hell, and framed by Furies skill.”
touches: The gunner’s match was applied to the touch-hole of the cannon, to ignite the gunpowder
Once more….English dead: The breach in Harfleur’s walls has evidently been assailed at least once.
breach: from Gesta Henrici Quinti, a breach in the bulwark specially erected to defend one of the gates
blast of war: the warlike trumpet’s sound
tiger: a creature proverbial for ferocity
conjure: Galenist physiological theory maintained that the blood contained in the vital spirits, thus conjuring up the spirits in the blood.
nature: natural feeling
hard-favoured: hard-featured, for example ‘ugly looking’
aspect: appearance, accent on second syllable
portage: portholes of a ship
o’erwhelm: overhang so as to cover more or less, also to submerge completely
As fearfully as doth…his confounded base: ‘as dreadfully as the worn rock overhangs and projects beyond its ruined base’
jutty: project beyond
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean: washed or greedily swallowed by the wild and destructive sea
ocean: pronounced in three syllables
bend up: strain to the utmost, bring into tension as with a string
his: its
On, on, you noble English…teach them how to war: King Henry addresses the gentry first and then the yeomen
fet: fetched, derived
of war-proof: of valour tried in war
proof: proved or tested strength of armour or arms
Alexanders: Alexander the Great, who sighed for more worlds to conquer
argument: subject of contention, for example opponents with whom to fight
Be copy now to men of grosser blood: be an example now to men (for example, your opponents, the French) whose blood is less fine (not being derived from such valiant fathers)
yeomen: strictly, farmer freeholders; here applied in a complimentary way to the rest of the soldiers
Whose limbs were made…worth your breeding: a somewhat jocular metaphor from the breeding and grazing of farm animals, conspicuous for strength and courage
us: royal plural rather than referring to the aristocracy of king and nobles
I: Kng relaxes into informality
The mettle of your pasture: the quality of your rearing, the stuff of which one is made
worth your breeding: worthy of your parentage
mean and base: of low social position
in the slips: held in leashes ready to be loosed upon a hare.
upon the start: while waiting for th ehare to be dislodged from cover
The game’s afoot: Your quarry flies before you
Follow your spirit: let your body follow your eager spirit
charge: onset
God for Harry, England and Saint George!: “God for Harry’s cause! Saint George for England’s victory!”
a case of lives: more lives than one, a set of lives
The humour of it: this business
plain-song: simple melody, as contrasted with descant, here figuratively for the plain truth
The plain-song is most just, for humours do abound: You are right to call it the plain truth (that the knocks are too hot) for there are plenty of things happening.
God’s vassals: Pistol’s word for “men”
And sword and shield…immortal fame: Pistol is quoting a well known song
duly: properly
truly: honestly
Avant: go forward, be off
cullions: rascals
duke: captain
men of Mold: men made of earth, mortal men
bawcock: fine fellow (French beau coq)
lenity: mildness
chuck: chick, a term of endearment
swashers: blustering braggarts
boy: servant
man to me: more of a man than I am
antics: buffoons
white-livered: cowardly; having no blood in the liver, the liver being the supposed seat of courage
red-faced: literally so and by implication choleric in appearance
faces it out: carries a quarrel through with effrontery, brazens it out
breaks words: exchanges hostile words
keeps whole weapons: preserves weapons in one piece
men of few words are the best men: bravest men, most manly
broke any man’s head: gave anyone’s head a blow that made it bleed
anything: however valueless
purchase: plunder
piece of service: conspicuous military exploit (ironical)
carry coals: endure insults without retaliation, quibbling
as familiar with men’s pockets…handkerchers: to go into men’s pockets (to pick them) as often as their gloves or handkerchiefs do for safekeeping.
makes much against my manhood: strongly goes against my courage
pocketing up of wrongs: enduring injuries without retaliation, putting wrongfully acquired goods in my pockets
must leave them and seek some better service: The Boy means this literally but it is poignantly prophetic if Shakespeare added this soliloquy after he had decided that the Boy was to be killed while guarding the luggage (the better service)
goes against [our] weak stomach: against my inclination (no stomach for this fight)
cast it up: abandon it, vomit it up
ANA Drama Class 