The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [166]
23. ear reap.
24. to her! a hunting cry. Shakespeare makes it clear that Arthur exchanges one prey for another. [RV]
25. When time was “Who was in his day known as …”
26. Mentor When Odysseus went to the Trojan War, he left Mentor as guardian and teacher of his son.
27. sword of lath wooden sword.
28. made to die when touched to pretend to die when hit.
29. pick-a-back piggy back.
30. Smacks tastes.
31. gallant-springing growing up beautifully.
32. cockered indulged.
33. Albion Great Britain.
34. Saxon Historically, the Saxons migrated into Britain, either peacefully or as invaders, from about A. D. 400 to 600.
35. breed-bate trouble-maker.
36. an if.
37. meet suitable.
38. heavy cheer serious news.
39. perfidy deceitfulness, treachery.
40. litter a coach or wagon.
41. See Henry VI, Part One, III.ii.95, from which my father stole this line.
42. Or in which Shakespeare quotes the same source material, or in which Shakespeare’s likely collaborator on Henry VI, Part One—Nashe, Peele, or Greene—quoted Shakespeare’s preexisting Arthur play. The explanations are both numerous and unconfirmable, but they do not with any likelihood point to the fraud Mr. Phillips endorses in his Introduction. [RV]
43. terms of manage military commands.
44. Pictish Pictland, which in this play is the dominant northern power, seems to have covered eastern Scotland from Roman times until the tenth century.
45. borderer enemies along the border.
46. farland foreign.
47. bide a trice put up with a brief delay.
48. slips leashes.
49. friends across the Wye troops from Wales. [RV]
Act I, Scene II
1. for Swain Arthur is somehow disguised as a peasant or shepherd. [RV]
2. booth to shelter.
3. white face It is possible she already sees through Arthur’s disguise, since his skin is pale, not like someone who spends his days outdoors. [RV]
4. Ecce signum “Behold the sign.” (Latin, and thank God for online translators.)
5. Or professional editors: Shakespeare used the phrase again in Henry IV, Part One. [RV]
6. cowslip a wildflower. I can only imagine my father straining to find one in a prison book of English flora.
7. Again, Mr. Phillips is jumping at shadows. The cowslip—Primula veris—appears in three other Shakespeare works. [RV]
8. Itching, are you Joan hears “ecce” as “itching,” or desiring sex. She immediately shifts from the friendly, informal “thou” to the more distant (and chaste) “you.” It is in details like this that one senses the work of the master playwright of the sixteenth century, not a convict of the twentieth. [RV]
9. stretch ’em no credit you won’t let them kiss you on a promise. [RV]
10. stag … horns Joan is teasing with double meanings. If Arthur is young and pretty, that will change, just like the shape of a cloud, and someday he will become a cuckold; cuckolds were said to grow horns when their wives betrayed them. [RV]
11. banns public notice of an engagement.
12. sedge grassy plants growing in wet places. [A sexual-anatomical innuendo is not impossible. — RV]
13. plight a troth to make a promise of marriage.
14. tilly-vally nonsense. [Used twice more by Shakespeare in his plays.—RV]
15. turnmelon See “Step On” by the band Happy Mondays: “You talk so hip, you’re twisting my melon, man.”
16. Meaning obscure. A face so ugly it rots produce? A duplicitous person? Possibly an error of type-setting, but no alternatives have yet been suggested by early readers. [RV]
17. bell-wether the leading sheep of the flock. It wears a bell around its neck.
18. Afeard frightened.
19. main open sea.
20. turtle a turtledove. A symbol of faithfulness. [RV]
21. conceit idea, imagination.
22. Joan hears sexual insinuation in his words. [RV]
23. bid to weigh some caitiff’s asked to judge some wretch’s.
24. closets private chambers.
25. nigh near.
26. mien appearance.
27. belike probably, perhaps.
28. chamberlain Arthur is referring to her dog.
29. Patch clown.
30. Jackdaw a proverbially stupid bird. [RV]
31. stand affected be willing, be moved to do something.
32. folding returning the sheep