Page:Henry VI Part 3 (1923) Yale.djvu/131

King Henry the Sixth cording to Ovid) attempted to guide the chariot of the sun and was dashed to pieces. Compare II. vi. 11-13.

 Come, make him stand upon this molehill here. 'Some write that the duke was taken aliue, and in derision caused to stand vpon a molehill.' (Holinshed.)

 O tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide! This line, which occurs in the same form in the True Tragedy, has been made famous by Robert Greene's parody in his attack on Shakespeare (Groatsworth of Wit, 1592): 'for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrie.'

 tigers of Hyrcania. Proverbially fierce from the time that Vergil made Dido (Æneid iv. 367) refer to 'Hyrcanæ tigres.' Hyrcania was a province in ancient Persia on the Caspian Sea.

 There, take the crown, and with the crown my curse. This gesture, rather absurd in the case of York's paper crown, is suggestive of the abdication of Marlowe's Edward II (line 2043): 'Here, take my crowne, the life of Edward too.'

 Methinks 'tis prize enough to be his son. The True Tragedy prints 'pride' instead of 'prize,' and the former may be the proper word.

 Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns? The apparition here described is related by the chroniclers as occurring just before Edward's victory at Mortimer's Cross (February 2, 1461): 'At which time the sunne (as some write) appeared to the earle of March like three sunnes, and suddenlie ioined altogither in one. Upon which sight he tooke such courage, that he, fiercelie setting on his enimies, put them to flight.' (Holinshed.) The engagement at Morti-