30. wind … racks a pun. Lit: “All your talk doesn’t change things.” Fig: “All your wind isn’t strong enough to move the air [heir, i.e., Arthur].” [RV]
31. with steel with force, or at point of a sword.
32. scratch … th’ resisting itch to satisfy his sexual appetite, which satisfaction was literally resistant, as the earl’s wife was raped. [RV]
33. David of the Jews In the Second Book of Samuel, King David sent to war (and certain death) Uriah, whose wife, Bathsheba, David had impregnated.
34. shade make.
35. blown tainted.
36. fracted broken.
37. What speaks my aunt in this? nothing, as Alda stands silent now. Cf note to stage direction above. [RV]
38. enfeoffèd sworn as a subordinate, given land in exchange for obedience.
39. forward early, premature.
40. privy secret.
41. false-troubled feigning concern.
42. If they but On condition that.
43. vassalage humble subjects.
44. smoking steaming.
45. lover friend.
46. hardly with great difficulty.
47. circummured walled in securely.
48. uplands highlands.
49. weens thinks, imagines, has the ambition.
50. puppy foolish young man.
51. laystalls toilets, outhouses.
52. Physic doctor.
53. drench a drink.
54. frame shape, prepare.
55. sense Likely the sense of smell is intended here. [RV]
56. toadstool as an adjective, unique to Shakespeare. [RV]
57. passioning derive enthusiastically explain.
Act I, Scene IV
1. Holinshed’s Chronicles, Shakespeare’s source for this play, says only the following: “The Britons disdainfully using the Pictish ambassadors …” It is from this seed that Shakespeare created I.iv, a most extraordinary dramatization of that simple idea. [RV]
2. flexure bent knee.
3. perfect complete, unquestioned.
4. rate measure, settle the amount of.
5. puissance power.
6. Foresees assumes, counts on.
7. stamp mark, proof.
8. coulter plough.
9. skink to decant liquor, or wait tables.
10. mawks, beef, ling three slang terms for prostitutes or loose women. [RV]
11. St. George’s field section of London known for prostitutes. [RV]
12. George’s day April 23 happens to be my birthday as well as King Arthur’s. A little greeting from my father and proof of Dana’s claim that the play is “about me.”
13. George’s day is also taken to be Shakespeare’s unconfirmed birthday. The mention of it as King Arthur’s birthday raises the possibility that Shakespeare was perhaps allowing himself some self-revelation here, in Somerset’s description of a man who frequents prostitutes. Perhaps Shakespeare, a man who lived for months or years at a time away from his wife, was intimately familiar with St. George’s field. More likely still, April 23 is also the foundation day of the Order of the Garter (which had Arthurian overtones), so there are many far more likely explanations for this reference than that the play was forged to honor a twenty-first-century American novelist. [RV]
14. Another joke implying Arthur is sexually insatiable and Gloucester is merely his procurer: postern gate was slang for anal sex. [RV]
15. raspberry Prior to the discovery of this text, the earliest recorded use of “raspberry” in English dates from 1602, some five years after the play’s publication. It is such details that further convince me of its authenticity. [RV]
16. “Since he’s come of age, the prince has been almost constantly engaged in sexual antics.” [RV]
17. so long as that a double entendre. The length of the prince’s new beard (reaching his thumbs) is confounded with the length of his penis. [RV]
18. a tailor’s tailors, and fools, were reputedly well-endowed. [RV]
19. luxury-amazed lust-maddened.
20. kecksie flourish with royal music (flourish) made by blowing on a blade of dried grass (kecksie). [RV]
21. continence self-restraint.
22. descried revealed, disclosed.
23. tales lead beasts … follow pun: tales as rumors, wagging the head. [RV]
24. pate head.
25. choose “He can kill you (with the edge), knock you unconscious (with the fig-shaped pommel), or just tag you for show (with the flat).” [RV]
26. Puns: York (in the north), where the father (Uter) died, and where the son unnaturally wishes to die, a desire as unnatural as the sun setting in the north. [RV]
27. See Dr. Strangelove, one of my father’s favorite movies: “Gentlemen, no fighting in the War Room.”
28. sirrah a term of address expressing contempt or the speaker’s authority.
29. clog’st burdens.
30. chough a bird [thought to chatter nonsense. —RV]
31. absolution pertinent “forgiveness is now more to the point.”
32. doubt fear.
33. dwarfish duke the first of several references to Mordred’s height.
34. boisterous violence violent rape.
35. criminal pronounced in two syllables. [RV]
36. pillar to support. Apparently a Shakespearean invention as a verb. [RV]
37. triobular worthless. [Literally, worth three oboli, small coins. —RV]
38. left no issue If this play was performed in the early 1590s, a childless English monarch being replaced with a Scottish one would not yet have been politically sensitive. By 1597, it certainly would have been. [RV]
39. vail to lower in submission.
40. bondmen slaves, serfs.
41. feculent containing, or of the nature of, feces.
42. Mercury … pip’st Mercury—the messenger god—had wings on his heels. Were they attached higher (fixed above) on this messenger, they could blow away the flatulent stench of the words. [RV]
43. pre-pardon forgiveness before the act. Earliest known usage had previously been 1625. [RV]
44. gleeks jokes.
45. violence Shakespeare gives the word two or three syllables as his verse requires. Here, pronounced with three syllables. [RV]
46. writing hand … secretary’s “Secretary hand” was one of several different styles of handwriting in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, more difficult to forge and therefore more suitable for confidential correspondence. [RV]
47. callis-sand sand of Calais, used for blotting. [RV]
48. cistern … water “can your leaky memory remember my message?”
49. Ostensibly “bruised,” but I hear my father’s fondness for Crockett Johnson’s children’s classic Harold and the Purple Crayon, the story of a lonely boy who creates the world around him with his art.
50. shamed to rose embarrassed and blushing, but here bruising from the blows.
51. ice their stones cool off their testicles.
52. candied frozen.
53. Extraught descended.
54. basilisk a monster lizard reputed to paralyze anyone it looked upon. [RV]
55. mickle great.
56. Desert … to ash Sodom and Gomorrah [from the Book of Genesis. —RV]
57. unlock perhaps a pun on “loch”? [RV]
58. upscale climb over.
59. roweled spiked.
60. jauncing prancing.
61. Gall’way nag a particularly small Scottish breed of horse. Mentioned by Shakespeare again in Henry IV, Part Two. This also marks the second reference to Mordred as small in stature. [RV]
62. carry coals to bear indignities uncomplainingly.
63. lese-majesty treason.
64. hanging letters-patent literally, a written commission conferring Alexander his special status; in this case, Somerset is also threatening to cut off his ears. [RV]
65. froward evil or ungovernable person.
66. Arthur Rex ?
??Arthur is the king.” The only Latin I know by heart. [Note: the meter comes to a halt on this line, leaving time for the action. —RV]
67. lazy drone a parasite. [Interestingly, Shakespeare uses “drone” in four other plays, twice with the epithet “lazy.” —RV]
68. weasel implying ferocity, blood-thirstiness, and deceit.
69. intemprature hasty, ill-considered mood. [Also, “intemperance” in other Shakespearean usage. —RV]
70. gear matter, affair.
71. palfrey a gentle horse.
72. jarring discordant, fighting.
Act I, Scene V
1. gamesters gamblers.
2. mark at ten on one lay the odds at ten to one.
3. And finger … seat “And try on my crown and sit in my throne.”
4. vaulting ween high ambition.
5. stripe my back flog himself as penance over his father’s murder of the Earl of Cornwall.
6. churl contemptible fellow.
7. glistering glittering.
8. in some sort somehow.
9. us Note that Arthur begins using the royal “we” here, accepting his kingship, reflecting that acceptance even in his diction. [RV]
Act II, Scene I
1. trans-substanced The Master of the Hounds commits a few malapropisms. Here, he means “transubstantiated,” the Catholic dogma of the communion transformation. Considering the religious strife of Protestant England in the 1590s, a level of Catholic mockery here is possible. [RV]
2. excommasticate again, a malapropism; here, for excommunicate. [RV]
3. flesh rile up a hunting dog with meat.
4. crisple to ripple, ruffle.
5. pleasure-jack or apple-squire hedonist or pimp.
6. tib a common woman’s name or a strumpet.
7. have his will double entendre: Have his way or have an erection. [RV]
8. slop tunic or trousers.
9. wot not don’t know.
10. puttock of a wren The wren is small and gentle; a puttock is a bird of prey. [RV]
11. commodated arranged.
12. tarry delay.
ACT II, SCENE II
1. porpentine porcupine.
2. fell fierce, deadly.
3. Humber’s tide The Saxons have invaded England along the Humber River, disembarked, and invaded York by land.
4. conjoined met up, joined forces.
5. portcullised fortified behind a portcullis, a castle gate.
6. shiv’ring splintering.
7. con learn, memorize.
8. Absit omen “May the omen be absent” (Latin). [“May this not come to pass” or “Heaven forbid.” —RV]
9. Decline and conjugate in Latin, reciting or listing the various endings to nouns and verbs, respectively.
10. hard probably cruel, harsh, rather than “difficult,” although the double meaning of difficult conjugation and declension may be present. [RV]
11. Chambers sound of cannons.
Act II, Scene III
1. Diomedes Diomedes was a hero in the Trojan War.
2. Diomedes on Deinos leapt While that’s true, the reference here is actually to the giant Diomedes, who kept four horses, mad from consuming human flesh. One of the horses was called Deinos (“the terrible”). Hercules’ labors included stealing the horses. [RV]
3. endamagement harm, injury.
4. As I did doubt he might A little disingenuous, since Mordred sent Alexander expressly to provoke a war. [RV]
5. mien manner, mood.
6. upspring upstart.
7. beaver’s vents the slits or airholes of his visored helmet.
8. quartered shield … ween The four sections (quarters) of Arthur’s coat of arms reveal his ambition (ween) to be king of all the British Isles: Wales (dragon), England (lions), Scotland/ Pictland (thistle), and Ireland (harp). [These symbols are, of course, anachronistic to the period of Arthur. —RV]
9. Bannerets pennons, military flags.
10. escape … by postern gate Mordred unintentionally attaches a fecal image to the northerners, likely amusing to the London audience, and likely sufficient to offend James VI, triggering the Nicolson Letter of 1598. [RV]
11. obolus … debt … farm “He will repay our injuries in greater quantity later.” From collecting (“farming”) tax or debt. An obolus was a coin of the lowest value. [RV]
12. hie hurry.
13. gins snares.
14. deck decorate.
15. assay to test, sample, try on.
16. vivers food. [True enough, but especially in Scottish dialect. In fact, the term was exclusively Scottish until the nineteenth century, demonstrating again Shakespeare’s gift for listening to the voices around him in London and imitating the dialects. —RV]
17. blazon’s quartered fancies the whimsical, wishful ambitions of Arthur’s coat of arms (blazon) drawn in four parts (quartered).
Act II, Scene IV
1. general in my greetings (ironic) attacking everyone he saw with equal generosity.
2. gratulate to greet.
3. pounds upon my arm a pun: pounds as weight to rest and as money to wager on Arthur’s arm. [RV]
4. Pluto’s wealth Pluto was god of the underworld and its extensive riches. [Hence, “plutocrat.” —RV]
5. vict’ry-ripe on the verge of victory.
6. mead meadow.
7. Legend had it that the invaders burned their boats upon arriving in England, leaving themselves no tempting option of returning home, so each foe will have to be killed. [RV]
8. broil fighting.
9. culv’rin type of cannon. [Anachronistic. —RV]
10. halidom an oath, “by all that’s holy” or “by what I hold to be holy.”
11. career to charge, gallop.
12. freshly … yew as flexible and springy as wood from a yew tree (used to make bows). [RV]
13. holp helped.
14. Named for my father’s perpetual tormentor, Ted Constantine, Hennepin County attorney and father of my best friend, Doug.
15. The name is in Holinshed, Malory, and several other Arthur stories. Shakespeare did not select it to comment on a twentieth-century Minnesota prosecutor. [RV]
16. embers inspired, I suspect, by my father’s habit of visiting the Embers restaurant in Minneapolis, where I can imagine him writing this play.
17. factious seditious, secessionist.
18. stamp royal a kind of dance.
19. worry harass.
20. agastment fright, alarm.
21. Petit Bretagne Brittany, as opposed to Grand Bretagne, or Great Britain.
22. A bit convoluted: “Though Lincoln will only be 25 percent as large a battle as the one we have just fought, even that opportunity to fight will be lost if we don’t hurry, since kids with stones will scatter the remaining enemy.” [RV]
23. Arthur’s mysterious business in York is never entirely clarified in the text. I can see four alternative explanations for this: (1) The 1597 text is corrupt. (2) We are meant to see the arrival of Philip in Act IV as the denouement to a sexual adventure here in Act II. (3) There was some stage business in the original production which is now unclear to us (and modern directors will no doubt find their own interpretations). (4) Shakespeare allowed a mystery to sit at the heart of his character’s behavior, as he later did in Othello, for example. [RV]
24. hest command.
25. new-dyed brand-new.
26. unction anointment with oil.
27. hindmost rank rearguard unit.
28. heel Achilles’ heel.
29. range roam, wander.
30. too hard upon your first assay too soon after your first battle.
31. bend not to my impose refuse to obey my orders.
32. thick-sinew’d muscle-bound.
33. saucy impertinent, insolent.
34. revolve upon consider, meditate over.
35. truant negligent.
36. Short-tongued taciturn.
37. Outrav’ling
untangling, clarifying.
38. gallop up anon catch up soon.
39. notable significant.
40. stay detain, delay.
41. cock and pie a mild oath.
42. you … skin “My armor and coat of arms (painted skin) will reflect my royalty, even if they are on you.” [RV]
43. chartered … gainsay “Though you are permitted to question kings …”
Act II, Scene V
1. “Noble speeches require a lot of gas.”
2. pudding-bags a mold or bag for making pudding.
3. turned twisting.
4. bend thy brows scowl.
5. skirr to flee.
6. dragon presumably a cannon carved into the shape of a dragon. [Anachronism. —RV]
7. ordnance artillery. [Anachronism. —RV]
8. coneys rabbits.
9. yellow blond.
10. giving thee “rest you merry” “Sending you on your way with best wishes.” [RV]
11. butter … cream He was shaking so much from fear that he would have churned cream into butter.
12. canker an insect larva that attacks plants.
13. a fig an obscene, contemptuous gesture.
14. powder tubs thought to be a cure for venereal diseases, such as syphilis, the so-called French sickness. [RV]
15. Pard’s Head the Leopard’s Head, presumably an inn or pub.
Act II, Scene VII
1. displays his haunch turns tail.
2. Four-fold … stealth “We found hidden here four times the force we were expecting.”
3. proud flesh scar tissue, raised as if proud.
4. recreant cowardly.
5. shard bestrewn dung-covered.
6. fledgèd fully plumed, feathered.
7. tower in falconry (continuing the imagery of “fledgèd”), the action of flying to a high point before swooping down to kill. [RV]
8. unhonest dishonorable, immoral.
9. as friar King Arthur is disguised for safe travel alone from York to Lincoln. As his words below indicate, he is also—in modern parlance—on a “walk of shame,” and his changeable mood in this scene is typical of those early-morning retreats from regrettable adventures.
10. errant wandering.
11. clean searched cleaned, as a wound.
12. shent exempt, pure.
13. A modern director has some interpretive choice as to when, precisely, Gloucester realizes that the “friar” is Arthur. [RV]