Chapter CI: Act V

SC. 2. "That spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines."

The context requires _spoils_.

* * * * *

SC. 3. "Fill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch-_light_."

As he required a light, for he was going to write, and 'watch' alone never has this sense, I think _light_ may have been effaced. Introd. p. 58.

* * * * *

"Bid my guard watch. _Now_ leave me."

* * * * *

"Harry, that prophesy'd thou shouldest be king,
Doth comfort thee in sleep _now_. Live and flourish."

There is evidently a syllable wanting after 'sleep'; and _now_ seems, being as it were opposed to the preceding line, to be the most likely word. We might, perhaps, but with loss of force, read _slumber_ for 'sleep,' or 'Flourish and live'; but everywhere else it is 'Live and flourish.' The usual reading is 'in _thy_ sleep,' thus setting metre at defiance. Introd. p. 79.

* * * * *

"The lights burn blue. It is now dread midnight."

This passage down to the line 'Find in myself,' etc., is perhaps the worst in all Shakespeare. Steevens was, I think, right in supposing that, though it is undoubtedly the poet's, he cancelled it; and I am of opinion that he substituted the three last lines of the speech--which, it may be seen, do not cohere with what precedes--and that the cancelled passage was retained by the copyist or printer, as was done in L. L. L. iv. 3, and v. 2.

* * * * *

"They thus directed, we will follow _then_."

* * * * *

SC. 4. "But tell me, _pray_, is young George Stanley living."

The omission of _pray_ is here as in 1 Hen. IV. v. 2.

* * * * *

"All this divided York and Lancaster--
Divided in their dire division--
Oh! now let Richmond and Elizabeth," etc.

KING HENRY VIII.