The Tragedy of Arthur: A Novel

by Arthur Phillips

  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 One, III.i, between Hotspur and his wife. [RV]

  7. to make a match of heaven to make a perfect match.

  8. pastance recreation, pastime.

  9. strived As an example of stylometry, the computer report of Arthur noted that Shakespeare tended to use “strived” early in his career and “strove” later. [RV]

  10. wit mind, awareness. No implication of comic acuity. [RV]

  11. blasted damaged, ruined, stricken.

  12. hale haul.

  13. addeemed adjudged.

  14. jade contemptuous term for low-quality horse.

  15. cote overtake. [A term from hunting with dogs. —RV]

  16. imperfect incomplete.

  Act II, Scene IX

  1. balsamo balsam.

  2. thanes Scottish nobility.

  3. birlinns the large rowboats of western Scotland’s chieftains.

  4. Colmekill the traditional burial site of Scottish kings, on the northwestern Scottish island of Iona; cf Macbeth II iv. 33. [RV]

  5. clan Again, as with birlinn, Shakespeare’s use of Scottish dialect is noteworthy. [RV]

  6. The line is short by two syllables, implying a pause, perhaps indicating that Mordred waits for Loth to reply. [RV]

  7. singly in single combat.

  8. raught reached for, grasped.

  9. It is not clear whether the messenger is still delivering Arthur’s words or is expressing his own (understandable) feelings. [RV]

  10. site grief. [Only in Scottish use in the sixteenth century. One is tempted to imagine Shakespeare quizzing Scottish friends for dialect words.—RV]

  11. “You would hold my own correct criticism against me.” [RV]

  12. Note short line for stage business: removal of head, reaction. [RV]

  13. unjointed incoherent.

  14. malt-horse brewer’s horse, an idiot.

  15. Again, a short line. Mordred hears Loth say something? Or pretends to hear something? Or realizes his opportunity? Here, again, a director will have a chance to make the play his or her own. [RV]

  16. table writing tablet. “The slate is clean.”

  17. gimmaled hinged or ringed, as in armor. [Used by Shakespeare twice more, in Edward III and Henry V.—RV]

  18. loquacity earliest recorded use. The OED shows subsequent usage in 1603. [RV]

  Act III, Scene I

  1. Mon duc de Gloosestayre The French ambassador presumably has a thick accent. His efforts to pronounce “Gloucester” are transliterated in a three-syllable mock-French concoction: Glue-suh-stair. Shakespeare did, on occasion, mock the French and did try to transcribe the sound of foreign accents in his plays. However, in this case, I am unable to shake the memory of my father’s fondness for the Warner Brothers cartoon skunk Pepé Le Pew.

  2. Arthur In the ambassador’s accent, “Arthur,” a troublesome trochee (AR-thur) becomes a convenient iamb (ar-TOOR). [RV]

  3. German Ocean the North Sea.

  4. Rebels again, spoken with a French accent, presumably this is iambic: re-BELS. [RV]

  5. revolter a rebel. [Perhaps a faux-French neologism, but it appears in English as of 1602, though nowhere else in Shakespeare.—RV]

  6. girdle not a ladies’ undergarment, just a belt, though still the image is quite odd! [RV]

  7. portrait covered The stage business with the foreign princess’s portrait may give another clue to Arthur’s disappearance. Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, agreed to wed his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, based on a portrait of her. He sued for an annulment after meeting her. This episode of Arthur and Matilde may have been viewed as too close to home. [RV]

  8. doge the supreme ruler of Venice.

  9. cavilling petty argument.

  10. prate idle talk.

  11. weal well-being, prosperity.

  12. Mend my soul a very mild oath, probably used ironically here, as in “Heavens to Betsy!” [RV]

  13. peroration rhetoric.

  14. synecdoche Arthur plays dim, claiming not to understand Gloucester’s point, but his request for less synecdoche is surely ironic, since “this crowned head” is an example of synecdoche. [RV]

  15. affects feelings.

  16. Note the short line: a pause of hesitation. [RV]

  17. Again, a shortened line. [RV]

  18. cockerel young rooster.

  19. pippin a variety of apple.

  20. crabs and costards types of apples.

  21. scruple iota, jot.

  22. bill of charge official accusation.

  23. An intriguing puzzle. Alexander Pope writes “Hope springs eternal” in 1733. Might he have read The Tragedy of Arthur in that same country house from which the senior Mr. Phillips stole the play? [RV]

  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 li
ne. [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 a horse drawing a cart of skins to enter the building, continue through to the yard to make a delivery, and exit the same way. For Silvius to be so fat as to block the cross-passage is, of course, a grotesque exaggeration on the Master’s part. [RV]

  11. The Master was going to say “Arthur” again.

  Act III, Scene III

  1. imbecile puny, weakened. No implication of mental deficiency.

  2. durst dared.

  3. decay downfall, ruin.

  4. doubted feared.

  5. meacock effeminate, cowardly.

  6. crotchet whimsical fancy.

  7. dandled pampered.

  8. mazed bewildered, perplexed.

  9. abrook tolerate.

  10. each We learn in IV.i that the queen has already miscarried twice. [RV]

  11. conceitful imaginative, witty. In this context, it echoes also the question of her lack of conception, as in fertility. [RV]

  12. Mordred’s Short Man Disease is now confirmed. My father once said to Ted Constantine, while being led out of yet another courtroom, “Status can never make up for stature, Ted. You’ll be U.S. attorney general and you’ll still feel my balls resting on your hairpiece.”

  13. Admire wonder, marvel.

  14. wide-lipped open-mouthed.

  15. rav’ning bloodthirsty, voracious.

  16. clout rag [especially with menstrual connotation. —RV]

  17. tire woman’s headdress.

  18. Note short line. A pause as Cumbria prepares to speak the treasonous next line. [RV]

  19. fealty The word tended to take three syllables early in Shakespeare’s career and two syllables later. Here it takes three. [RV]

  20. misprising misunderstanding.

  Act V, Scene I

  1. lady-whifflers female ushers.

  2. re-breathed apparently Shakespeare’s coinage. Next attested use is in 1606. [RV]

  3. re-breathed my heir “in whom I have again conceived a child.”

  4. “I abdicate my reign [to you].” (Latin)

  5. sharp sharpen.

  6. tut an exclamation of impatience.

  7. puling whining.

  8. wink turn a blind eye.

  9. Imprimis “In the first place.” [A common legalism to introduce a list, the following points beginning with “Item.”—RV]

  10. St. Lambert’s Day September 17.

  11. bosky covert bushy grove.

  12. mellay melée, the open combat portion of a jousting tournament.

  13. unmitigated Shakespeare uses “mitigate” on a few occasions, but “unmitigated” only twice, here and in Much Ado About Nothing. Apparently it didn’t catch on; it doesn’t appear again in the OED until 1814, when Jane Austen picks up on it. [RV]

  14. two and dozen branches A sonnet has fourteen lines.

  15. ban condemn, rather than forbid.

  16. tick-tack an early form of backgammon.

  17. tomboy immodest woman; geese fools, but also slang for prostitute.

  18. empery rule.

  19. sharp … neck … edge “Keep talking like that and your tongue will get your head cut off.”

  20. compulsatory involuntary, required. [Another case where Shakespeare used a word twice and never again: here and in Hamlet. See “Have I Twice Said Well” by David Crystal in Around the Globe magazine, 23, p. 11. —RV]

  21. rudesby an insolent fellow.

  22. ballade a poetic form of between twenty-five and thirty-five lines.

  23. masque an elaborate music, dance, and verse entertainment.

  24. Martinmas November 11.

  25. sorts agrees, suits, conforms.

  26. manuals books on etiquette and chivalric love, presumably.

  27. phoenix … ash The mythical phoenix bird was thought to consume itself in flame and then be reborn from its own ashes.

  28. plenish up replenish.

  29. titely quickly.

  30. knife and fork hand knives and pitchforks. The dining fork did not appear in England for another decade. [RV]

  31. bestrut to strut, walk pompously.

  32. pick pike.

  33. stalls market stands.

  34. beshrew curse.

  35. plaud applaud.

  36. This may be a reference to the story of King Cnut, who demonstrated the limits of royal authority when he commanded the tide of a river to stop. [RV]

  37. proditor traitor.

  38. Croesus an ancient Lydian king renowned for wealth.

  39. Soldan supreme medieval ruler of a Muslim power, though usually not the Turks. [RV]

  40. false conceptions miscarriages.

  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.
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  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]