Page:Henry IV Part 1 (1917) Yale.djvu/141

King Henry the Fourth the wings impatiently and flutter away from a perch. Three ostrich plumes have always been the cognizance of the Prince of Wales.

 images. The reference is probably to the festival robes which adorn the images of the saints on holy days.

 'Your praise of him causes me greater pain than the ague in the Spring.'

 maid. Bellona, goddess of war.

 Sutton-Co'fil'. Sutton-Coldfield, a town twenty-four miles northwest of Coventry.

 'makes an angel, or ten shillings, that I have spent.'

 'Whose banns had been twice published,' i.e., they were to be married immediately.

 St. Luke's Gospel, 15. 15-16.

 old limbs. The historical King Henry was thirty-seven years old at the time of the battle of Shrewsbury; the historical Hotspur was forty; and the historical Prince Hal seventeen. The King of Shakespeare's play is, however, an elderly man, and Hotspur and Hal are both young. I. i. 87-89 shows that Shakespeare regarded his two youthful heroes as of the same age; and III. ii. 112-113 would indicate that they were very young.

 The cuckoo frequently lays her eggs in the hedge-sparrow's nest; and the hedge-sparrow brings up the young cuckoos, until they have 'grown to such a bulk' that they destroy their foster-parents. Cf. Lear, I. iv. 235:

 There is probably a pun here on the words death and debt which were pronounced alike.