Page:Henry VI Part 1 (1918) Yale.djvu/138

126  [Aside]. This stage direction, here and in the following lines, is added by modern editors. It will be observed that the speeches so marked are only partially inaudible.

 A quasi-proverbial saying, found in Titus Andronicus (II. i. 82, 83) and elsewhere.

 Rouen. Modern editors place this scene at the 'Camp of the Duke of York, in Anjou,' to connect it with the previous scene which they put 'Before Angiers.' Really there are here two scenes, which, save for the authority of convention, ought to be separated. The first, dealing with the death of Joan in 1431, must be localized at Rouen. The second, beginning at line 94, dramatizes the peace negotiations which took place at Arras in 1435. With the meeting between Joan and her father should be contrasted the different treatment of the same theme in Act IV, scene xi, of Schiller's play. (Schiller, for dramatic effect, places the father's denunciation at Rheims immediately after the coronation of Charles VII.)

 ''Alençon! that notorious Machiavel.'' The reference to Machiavelli (1469-1527) is an anachronism in York's mouth, but no modern figure was more familiarly talked of by the Elizabethans. By them he was regarded as the symbol of heartless ambition. It is very likely that in coupling Alençon with Machiavel the author intended a by-reference to the notorious Duke of Alençon who came a wooing to Queen Elizabeth in 1579 and aroused the violent antipathy of her subjects.

 poison'd. This can perhaps be interpreted to mean that the throat poisoned by choler chokes the voice. Many editors, however, and with good reason, accept Theobald's emendation, 'prison'd.'

 Among the people gather up a tenth. Levy a special tax of ten per cent on incomes. Suf-