The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [173]
24. bots intestinal worms that beset horses. This looks suspiciously to me like “I need to see a man about a horse.”
25. piping … fife music of love rather than of war. [RV]
26. dreary cruel, horrid, perhaps melancholy, but not current meaning of boring or gloomy.
27. purblind myopic.
28. in kind ironically, a little grist for the mill of the Bacon-wrote-Shakespeare school. “In kind” in this sense is used nowhere else in Shakespeare, but is used in 1622 by Francis Bacon in his Henry VII. Of course, this may only prove that Bacon imitated Shakespeare or that they were both innovative in writing the spoken language of their period. [RV]
29. conceit fanciful notion, poetic figure.
30. impress forced into service.
31. camomilèd hopes Camomile was reputed to grow stronger for being trampled upon. The adjective is Shakespeare’s invention. [RV]
32. blind boy Cupid.
33. in gyves tied, as if with the straps that hold a hunting falcon to a wrist or perch.
34. special particular.
35. hammering the flint trying to solve a difficult problem, from trying to light a fire or fire a pistol with a flint. [RV]
36. perforce by force.
37. arr snarl like a dog (onomatopoeia). The imagery in these four lines comes from bear-baiting. Arthur casts himself in the role of the bear (as his name would suggest) which Guenhera picks up on in her next line. [RV]
38. groundling audience members standing in the courtyard of a theater, bullring, or bear pit.
39. noble bear As my father tirelessly reminded me as a boy, “Arthur” means “noble bear” in some Celtic tongue or other.
40. bound in surrounded.
41. dowsabels sweethearts [especially pastoral. —RV]
42. dog-star Sirius, but by implication the hottest days of the year, the dog days of summer.
43. scrabbling scratching frantically, like a dog.
44. Achilles’ spear The spear that wounded Telephus, in Greek myth, could also heal him. [RV]
45. luxurious lascivious, lustful.
46. Regret Somewhat surprisingly, here and below in line 307 are the only two instances of this word in Shakespeare’s works, although it was used in books, which evidence suggests Shakespeare read, such as Spenser’s Faerie Queene. [RV]
47. gorse prickly furze. [Ulex europaeus. —RV]
48. celandine a wildflower.
49. yellow buds … celandine … private paste One hears Shakespeare’s Warwickshire childhood in these lines, one of those lovely moments that one is tempted to label autobiographical. Ranunculus ficaria, or lesser celandine, is a wildflower of the English Midlands, does indeed open and close for the sun (albeit not after being picked and woven), and was indeed used for a curative “private” ointment, as reflected in another nickname, “pilewort.” [RV]
50. salt-ripe on the verge of crying.
51. oakshot presumably, streamed through the branches of an oak. An invention of Shakespeare’s. [RV]
52. eyne eyes.
53. wispen wispy, made of wisps.
Act III, Scene II
1. augured predicted.
2. traffics commerce, trading.
3. foison plentiful harvest.
4. round with young pregnant.
5. whelps gives birth, especially for animals.
6. croup rump, from base of tail to mid-back.
7. This is the line that, presented to my mother, prompted her dismissal of the entire play as “grotesque,” not to mention “unreadable.” “Better he should have spent his prison years lifting weights,” she sighed.
8. Silvius a common name in pastorals, English folklore, etc., and, as Mr. Phillips noted elsewhere, used for a shepherd in As You Like It. [RV]
9. The Master stops himself from saying “Arthur.”
10. cross-passage another remarkable piece of linguistic evidence for the play’s authorship. A cross-passage was a corridor in a medieval house connecting two opposite doors, one giving onto the street and one onto the building’s yard. There is a cross-passage in the house where Shakespeare was born and raised. It passes in front of his father’s glove workshop and was used to allow