The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [171]
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]
14. whisper confess.
15. bishopric, fish, pear, burst a rapid-fire series of double entendres: Arthur claims to visit the Bishop of Caerleon and engage with him in orgies. [RV]
16. carbonado sliced and grilled meat.
17. take me for a joint-stool take me for granted.
18. That’s my dad at the quill there, no question.
19. bales bundles, as in agriculture or commerce, implying, too, that the prisoners are bound.
20. tithing a tenth, as in the amount of tax owed to the church.
21. lower world earth. [RV]
22. extirped uprooted.
23. hanging morose.
24. murrained infected.
25. shrike shriek.
26. disease scrofula, a lymphic disorder, was thought curable by being touched by the sovereign.
27. From Aesop’s fables. [RV]
28. disloignèd removed to a distance.
29. iron men men at arms.
30. manet indicates that a character remains when others exit.
31. cock-a-prance swaggering fop. [RV]
32. beadsman someone paid to pray for others.
33. Bright-armored clean-armored, as he supposedly had not fought. [RV]
Act II, Scene VIII
1. inspect inspection.
2. gripes vultures.
3. forepast in the past.
4. reeves … shire a supervising official with royal jurisdiction. [Shire-reeve is the etymology of “sheriff.” —RV]
5. boot use.
6. It is interesting to note the brief shift to prose here: old friends, once intimates, now talk as intimates, before returning to affairs of state in line 41, where Arthur also returns them to the more formal “you.” A similar case of shifting to prose between two characters of the same class can be found at the end of Henry IV, Part