The Tragedy of Arthur: A Novel (65 page)

41.
entail
assign, as in a will.

42.
conditionally
on condition that.

43.
Cod up thy will
“Get hold of yourself.” Literally, “Put your penis back in your pants.” [
RV
]

44.
luce
a type of fish. [More precisely, a pike used in heraldry. —
RV
]

45.
docked tail
cut-off ending. [Also, slang for a circumcised penis. —
RV
]

46.
mouth-made
insincere.

47.
rate
manner, style, conduct.

48.
unproofed vigor
untested strength.

49.
momentary
temporary.

Act IV, Scene II

1.
the wife
the midwife.

2.
as lief
I would prefer.

3.
jar
jostle.

4.
A short line. The queen begins to worry at her fetus’s stillness? [
RV
]

5.
Elizabethans believed that fish and other sea life were able to breathe underwater, thanks to spouts of fresh air that bubbled on the ocean’s floor. [
RV
]

6.
wake
realize.

7.
in broil
in battle.

8.
wrangle
to dispute or contest.

9.
chrisom
a child dead within a month of birth, shrouded in its christening robes (“chrisom-cloth”).

10.
Mordred will not mind the infant’s little cries, but will sweep him away to become king. [
RV
]

11.
peasant weeds
disguised as a peasant.

12.
counter-strive
strive against each other.

13.
discovery space
in Elizabethan theaters, a curtained area, also called an “inner stage.” [Here, used metaphorically for womb. —
RV
]

Act IV, Scene III

1.
Cf Christopher Marlowe’s poem “Hero and Leander”: “Above our life we love a steadfast friend.” The poem was first published in 1598, but Shakespeare would likely have known of it before. As was often the case with these two men, it is nearly impossible to disentangle who was influencing whom. See
Rival Playwrights
by Professor James Shapiro. [
RV
]

2.
Hector
a Trojan hero.

3.
made me fair weather
feigned friendship to me.

4.
posts
rides with haste.

5.
This line appears verbatim in Sonnet 55, line 9, published in 1609 but certainly written much earlier. A similar “pre-borrowing” from
The Sonnets
(or later recycling
for The Sonnets
) occurs in
Edward III
, approximately contemporaneous to
The Tragedy of Arthur
. [
RV
]

6.
do mind
recall.

7.
Mordred is just realizing, in modern words, that he’s been conned.

8.
amort
dejected.

9.
liberal
promiscuous, and here pronounced in three syllables. [
RV
]

Act IV, Scene IV

1.
kern
Irish foot soldier.

2.
capriole
leap, caper.

3.
peg
to fix, guarantee.

4.
giddy
indecisive.

5.
Empillowed
apparently a Shakespearean invention. [
RV
]

6.
The episode of Philip of York is perhaps another clue to the disappearance of
The Tragedy of Arthur
. Queen Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, similarly ennobled an illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy. The boy died at age seventeen, but the king, having only daughters, had apparently considered making him his heir. As with the portrait scene in III.i, this scene may have been viewed as commentary on the queen’s father and therefore more than sufficient to earn a banishment from the London stage. A further note: Henry VIII was the
younger
son of Henry VII, and would not have been king but for the premature death of his elder brother. His name? Arthur. [
RV
]

7.
queer
untrustworthy, suspicious.

8.
Again, an opportunity for a director to decide precisely when Arthur believes Philip, if at all. [
RV
]

9.
cozenage
fraud, deception.

10.
foist
roguery, trick.

11.
catalogue of boons
list of demands.

12.
admit
accept.

13.
print
copy, duplicate.

14.
lineaments
outlines, shapes.

15.
sharker
swindler.

16.
equability
evenhandedness.

17.
beseem
to suit, accord, fit.

18.
quirk
quibble with.

19.
case of truth
a legal question decidable on facts.

20.
gloomy
another clue to dating the play,
gloomy
appears only in Shakespeare’s earliest plays. [
RV
]

21.
Elizabethan zoology held that young eagles matured by staring at the sun. [
RV
]

22.
compass
devised, contrived.

23.
Jove … pate
In mythology, Minerva burst fully armed from Jupiter’s forehead, where her mother had nurtured her.

24.
“Didn’t that hurt?” but also “Was it hard to think up this plan?” [
RV
]

25.
tench
a fish with red spots, giving it the appearance of being flea-bitten. [
Tinca vulgaris
. —
RV
]

26.
jordan-faced
resembling the contents of a chamber pot.

27.
scroyle
scoundrel, wretch. [Used again by Shakespeare in
King John
.
—
RV
]

28.
pashed
smashed.

29.
In many ways, this is the least Shakespearean moment in the entire play, and, though Mr. Phillips did not note it, I will: the revelation to the audience here—that Philip is in fact a fraud—would normally occur
before
his acceptance by Arthur (if Arthur is sincere in believing the boy’s story and is not simply accepting it as a useful lie to break his pact with Mordred). This particular dramatic effect occurs elsewhere in the canon—I am thinking of Iachimo and the trunk in
Cymbeline
and the statue of the “dead” Hermione in
The Winter’s Tale
—but not in quite the same way. That having been said, the unique occurrence of an effect or word in one particular play by no means proves he didn’t write it. There are canonical plays that include unique examples of vocabulary, for example, the technical term being
hapax legomenon
. That he did something only once does not prove he didn’t do it. And, in this case, I am obviously not dissuaded of his authorship. Rather, I would consider this as an experiment he felt was not worth repeating, or an effect that audiences did not like. [
RV
]

30.
unlooked
unexpected.

31.
bating
beating impatiently, as if to take off.

32.
mews me up
Continuing the bird imagery, mewing a bird is to confine it or tie it down. [
RV
]

Act V, Scene I

1.
There is, perhaps, a sexual implication in this line. [
RV
]

2.
Mordred mistakes the actors for foreign royalty. The actors, in turn, mistake Mordred for another actor, dressed, not very convincingly, as a king.

3.
avaunt
begone!

4.
base interluder
a lowly actor.

5.
puffy
blustering, bombastic.

6.
malapert
presumptuous one.

7.
current
actual, real.

8.
compassed
built upon, contrived.

9.
Charlemagne … Jove
emperor of the Franks, Roman emperor, king of the Israelites, king of the Jews, king of Troy, Roman thunder god. [
RV
]

10.
Icarus
in Greek myth, the boy who with his wings of feathers and wax flew too near the sun and fell into the sea. [
RV
]

11.
gulls … paints
a virtuoso triple meaning (1) Only birds cannot distinguish makeup from real blood; (2) Only fools cannot distinguish kings from actors; and (3) Only a fool would mistake you, Mordred, for a king. One is reminded of the words of the Italian writer Cesare Pavese: “Shakespeare was conscious of a double or treble reality fused together into one line or a single word.” [
RV
]

12.
needless word
remove “mother” from “mother-queen” and marry Guenhera as queen.

13.
misconster
misunderstand.

14.
crooning
bellowing, like a bull, especially Scottish dialect. [
RV
]

15.
pert
impertinent.

16.
my continuance
“the continuation of my line.”

17.
I.e., the throne to Philip. [
RV
]

18.
kersey king
the player king, dressed in kersey, a coarse cloth.

19.
like
likely.

Act V, Scene II

1.
welkin
sky.

2.
saggish
soggy.

3.
Sisyphus
a mistake on Bell’s part, or my father’s. In myth, Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to push a rock up a hill, never reaching the summit.

4.
There is in this line an implication of Guenhera cuckolding Arthur. [
RV
]

5.
bawcock
from “beau coq”—fine fellow. [
RV
]

6.
squiff
skiff.

7.
Strike her
a command to lower sails.

Act V, Scene III

1.
quaggy
boggy.

2.
sermoner
a preacher.

3.
right for right
fair.

4.
front
confront, oppose.

5.
kens
knows.

6.
tercel-gentle
male peregrine falcon.

7.
carriages … caps
The wheeled cannons are sunk to the axles. [Anachronism. —
RV
]

8.
fletcher
an arrow maker.

9.
heaven’s car
the sun.

10.
give the fico
make an obscene gesture.

11.
o’ertopping
surpassingly arrogant.

12.
caterans
Scottish troops.

13.
o’ermanned
outnumbered.

14.
singly
in single combat.

15.
engirt
encircled.

16.
abroach
in motion. My father, I am reminded, told me that he once announced a University of Minnesota football game for the college radio station, KUOM. Among the reasons he was not asked back was his repeated color commentary that “the backfield is abroach.”

17.
nook
to hide in a corner. [Interestingly, the next recorded usage of this rare verb (1611) is by a younger playwright, Thomas Middleton, who collaborated with Shakespeare on
Timon of Athens
around 1605. A case, perhaps, of being able to trace Shakespeare’s direct influence—in one small way—on the generation after his. —
RV
]

18.
fain
gladly.

19.
mangonel
a catapult.