Page:Henry VI Part 1 (1918) Yale.djvu/121

King Henry the Sixth the realme of France.' He adds: 'The noble men present promised to obserue his precepts, and to performe his desires.'

 Eltham. A village nine miles southeast of London, on the road to Dartford and Canterbury. The Palace, of which picturesque remains still exist, was a favorite residence of the English sovereigns from the thirteenth to the middle of the sixteenth century. In line 176, steal is a modern emendation (by Mason) for 'send' of the Folios. Though not inevitable, the change is supported by the rime, frequent at the close of scenes, and it has been adopted in most recent texts. On the other hand, support for the Folio reading may perhaps be found in the words of Holinshed, who refers to Winchester's alleged purpose 'to set hand on the kings person, and to haue remooued him from Eltham, the place that he was in, to Windsor.'

 Mars his true moving. The planet Mars has a very eccentric orbit, and his apparently irregular course puzzled astronomers till explained by Kepler in 1609. Editors have noted a strikingly similar allusion in Thomas Nashe's preface to Have with you to Saffron Walden (1596): 'you are as ignorant as the Astronomers are in the true mouings of Mars, which to this day they could neuer attaine too.' (McKerrow's Nashe, iii. 20.)

 the nine sibyls of old Rome. The Cumaean Sibyl offered King Tarquin nine books. The poet has transferred the number to the sibyls themselves, of whom various numbers (but not nine) are reckoned.

 the sword of Deborah. Cf. Judges, chapters 4 and 5.

 Excellent Pucelle, if thy name be so. Holinshed's Chronicle introduces Joan of Arc as 'Ione Are' or more fully, 'Ione de Are, Pusell de dieu.' The Folio text of the play usually refers to