As wild Medea young Absyrtus didR:

In cruelty will I seek out my fame.

Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house;

[Taking up the Body.

As did Æneas old Anchises bear,

So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders:
But then Æneas bare a living load,

Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine.

[Exit.

Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET and SOMERSET, fighting, and SOMERSET is killed.

Rich. So, lie thou there;

For, underneath an alehouse' paltry sign,
The Castle in Saint Albans, Somerset

Hath made the wizard famous in his death 9.

Sword, hold thy temper; heart, be wrathful stil!: Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill.

[Exit.

Alarums: Excursions. Enter KING HENRY, QUEEN MARGARET, and Others, retreating.

Q. Mar. Away, my lord! 'you are slow; for shame, away!

• When Medea fled with Jason from Colchos, she murdered her brother Absyrtus, and cut his body into several pieces, that her father might be prevented for some time from pursuing her. See Ovid Trist. 1. iii. El. 9:

"Divellit, divulsaque membra per agros
Dissipat, in multis invenienda locis:-

Ut genitor luctuque novo tardetur, et artus
Dum legit extinctos, triste moretur iter."

The death of Somerset here accomplishes that equivocal prediction of Jourdain, the witch, in the first act:

"Let him shun castles:

Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains

Than where castles mounted stand."

Such equivocal predictions were much in vogue in early times, and the fall of many eminent persons is by the Chronicles represented as accomplishing them: being delivered in obscure terms, any fortuitous event was the more readily supposed to verify them.

K. Hen. Can we outrun the heavens? good Mar

garet, stay.

Q. Mar. What are you made of? you'll nor fight,

nor fly :

Now is it manhood, wisdom, and defence

To give the enemy way; and to secure us
By what we can, which can no more but fly.

[Alarum afar off.

If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom 10
Of all our fortunes: but if we haply scape
(As well we may, if not through your neglect),
We shall to London get; where you are lov'd;
And where this breach, now in our fortunes made,
May readily be stopp'd.

Enter Young CLIFFORD.

Y. Cliff. But that my heart's on future mischief set, I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly;

But fly you must; uncurable discomfit

Reigns in the hearts of all our present party 11.
Away, for
your relief! and we will live

To see their day, and them our fortune give :
Away, my lord, away!

[Exeunt

10 This expression, the bottom of all our fortunes, is peculiarly Shakespeare's; he has it again in King Henry IV. Part I.— "The very bottom and the soul of hope, The very list, the very utmost bound Of all our fortunes."

Again in Romeo and Juliet:

"Which sees into the bottom of my grief."

And in Measure for Measure:

"To look into the bottom of my place."

11 The folio has parts, which has hitherto been supposed to stand for parties, but it is evidently an error for party; by which, as Mr. Tyrwhitt and Steevens observe, the offensive jingle of hearts and parts is avoided, and the line rendered much more harmonious.

SCENE III. Fields near Saint Albans.

Alarum: Retreat. Flourish; then enter YORK, RiCHARD PLANTAGENET, WARWICK, and Soldiers, with Drum and Colours.

York. Of Salisbury, who can report of him,
That winter lion, who, in rage, forgets
Aged contusions and all brush of time1;
And, like a gallant in the brow of youth2,
Repairs him with occasion? this happy day
Is not itself, nor have we won one foot,
If Salisbury be lost.

Rich.

My noble father,

Three times to-day I holp him to his horse,

Three times bestrid him3; thrice I led him off,
Persuaded him from any further act:

But still, where danger was, still there I met him;
And like rich hangings in a homely house,

So was his will in his old feeble body.
But, noble as he is, look where he comes.

Enter SALISBURY.

Sal. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought today;

By the mass, so did we all.—I thank you, Richard:
God knows, how long it is I have to live;

And it hath pleas'd him, that three times to-day
You have defended me from imminent death.-

1 Warburton would substitute "all bruise of time." But, as Steevens observes, "the brush of time" is the gradual detrition of time. So in Timon of Athens:

"One winter's brush."

2 i. e. the height of youth: the brow of a hill is its summit.

3 That is, three times I saw him fallen, and striding over him defended him till he recovered. This act of friendship Shakespeare has frequently mentioned. See the First Part of King Henry IV. Act v. Sc. 1 ad finem.

Well, lords, we have not got that which we have1; "Tis not enough our foes are this time fled, Being opposites of such repairing nature5.

York. I know, our safety is to follow them; For, as I hear, the king is fled to London, To call a present court of parliament. Let us pursue him, ere the writs go forth :— What says Lord Warwick? shall we after them? War. After them! nay, before them, if we can. Now by my hand, lords, 'twas a glorious day: Saint Albans' battle, won by famous York, Shall be eterniz'd in all age to come.— Sound, drums and trumpets! and to London all: And more such days as these to us befall! [Exeunt.

Well, lords, we have not got that which we have, i. e. we have not secured that which we have acquired. Thus in Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece :

"Oft they have not that which they possess."

5 Being opposites of such repairing nature, i. e. being enemies that are likely so soon to rally and recover themselves from this defeat. To repair, in ancient language, was to renovate, to restore to a former condition. Thus in Cymbeline:

"O, disloyal thing

That should'st repair my youth.”

And in All's Well that Ends Well:

"It much repairs me

To talk of your good father."

THIRD PART OF KING HENRY

THE SIXTH.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

HE action of this play opens just after the first battle of St. Albans [May 23, 1455], wherein the York faction carried the day; and closes with the murder of King Henry VI. and the birth of Prince Edward, afterwards King Edward V. [November 4, 1471]. So that this history takes in the space of full sixteen years.

The title of the old play, which Shakespeare altered and improved, is "The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the Death of good King Henry the Sixth: with the whole Contention between the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke: as it was sundrie times acted by the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembroke his Servants. Printed at London by P. S. for Thomas Millington, and are to be solde at his Shoppe under St. Peter's Church in Cornewal, 1595." There was another edition in 1600 by the same publisher: and it was reproduced with the name of Shakespeare on the title page, printed by T. P. no date, but ascertained to have been printed in 1619.

The present historical drama was altered by Crown, and brought on the stage in 1680, under the title of The Miseries of Civil War. Surely the works of Shakespeare could have been little read at that period; for Crown, in his prologue, declares the play to be entirely his own composition:

"For by his feeble skill 'tis built alone,

The divine Shakespeare did not lay one stone."

Whereas the very first scene is that of Jack Cade, copied almost verbatim from the Second Part of King Henry VI. and several others from this Third Part, with as little variation.