Prev | Next | Contents

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 294: So in Holinshed, as well as in the play, where however 'cousin' need not have its specific meaning.]

[Footnote 295: 'May,' Johnson conjectured, without necessity.]

[Footnote 296: As this point occurs here, I may observe that Shakespeare's later tragedies contain many such reminiscences of the tragic plays of his young days. For instance, cf. Titus Andronicus, I.

1. 150 f.:

In peace and honour rest you here, my sons,

* * * * *

Secure from worldly chances and mishaps! Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells, Here grow no damned drugs: here are no storms, No noise, but silence and eternal sleep,

with Macbeth, III. ii. 22 f.:

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, Can touch him further.

In writing IV. i. Shakespeare can hardly have failed to remember the conjuring of the Spirit, and the ambiguous oracles, in 2 Henry VI. I.

4. The 'Hyrcan tiger' of Macbeth III. iv. 101, which is also alluded to in Hamlet, appears first in 3 Henry VI. I. iv. 155. Cf. _Richard III._ II. i. 92, 'Nearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,' with Macbeth II. iii. 146, 'the near in blood, the nearer bloody'; _Richard III._ IV. ii. 64, 'But I am in So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin,' with Macbeth III. iv. 136, 'I am in blood stepp'd in so far,' etc. These are but a few instances. (It makes no difference whether Shakespeare was author or reviser of Titus and Henry VI.).]
   
   
   
   
   

Prev | Next | Contents