Page:Henry VI Part 2 (1923) Yale.djvu/152

140 That ostriches could eat nails and other iron was one of the 'vulgar errors' common in Shakespeare's time.

 As for words, whose greatness answers words. So much for words, whose pomposity corresponds to the pompousness of yours. The line is unsatisfactory and probably corrupt.

 Ah sancta majestas, who would not buy thee dear? A six-foot line, frequently employed by Marlowe for emphasis. It is found in the Contention version.

 Humphrey of Buckingham. Buckingham was brother-in-law of Salisbury and uncle of Warwick. Though a supporter of King Henry, he was friendly with the Yorkists, and was employed on the morning of the first battle of St. Albans (May 22, 1455) as an intermediary between the two forces. York's armed return from Ireland and protest against Somerset occurred in 1452. The incidents of over three years of difficult negotiation are condensed in the present scene.

 And now, like Ajax Telamonius, On sheep or oxen could I spend my fury. An allusion (not in the Contention) to the madness of Ajax, when he slew a flock of sheep in his rage that the arms of Achilles had been adjudged to Ulysses rather than himself. Shakespeare refers to the myth again in Love's Labour's Lost, IV. iii. 6, 7: 'By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep.'

 Saint George's Field. A large open drill ground between Southwark and Lambeth, south of the Thames.

 Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear, Is able with the change to kill and cure. Telephus, who had been wounded by Achilles' spear, could not be cured till the rust of the same weapon was applied to his wound. This classical figure also is missing in the Contention version.