Page:Henry VI Part 1 (1918) Yale.djvu/126

114 of the installation of a new lord mayor of London in 1591.

 Adonis' gardens. What these were in classic literature has been acrimoniously disputed, but a beautiful and extended description, which perhaps inspired the present line, is given by Spenser, Fairy Queen, bk. iii. canto vi.

 Rhodope's of Memphis. One of the most beautiful pyramids was said to have been built by Rhodope, a Greek courtesan who married the king of Memphis. The reading in the text is a conjecture of Capell for 'Rhodophes or Memphis' of the Folios.

 the rich-jewell'd coffer of Darius. Alexander the Great is said to have kept Homer's poems under his pillow at night and during the day to have carried them 'in the rich iewel cofer of Darius, lately before vanquished by him in battaile.' (Puttenham, Art of English Poesie, 1589.)

 dead march. The dead march is in honor of Salisbury, whose body is carried with the army. Cf. line 4 of the next scene. (Hart.)

 redoubted Burgundy. Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, had been alienated from the Dauphin by the treacherous murder of his father in 1419. He was the ally of the English from the time of the treaty of Troyes (1420) till 1435. He was the second cousin of Charles VII and father of the famous Charles the Bold.

 The French leap o'er the walls in their shirts. This entire episode, which the dramatist has transferred to Orleans, is based upon an incident that really occurred in May, 1428 (a year before the relief of Orleans), at Le Mans in the adjacent province of Maine. Holinshed, following earlier chroniclers, records that the Frenchmen, surprised by an early morning counter-attack, 'got vp in their shirts, and lept ouer the walles.'