Page:Henry VI Part 3 (1923) Yale.djvu/136

124 minor actor associated at different times with various companies.

 Let me embrace thee, sour adversity. The Folio reads 'Let me embrace the sower Aduersaries.'

 Because in quarrel of the house of York The worthy gentleman did lose his life. This statement, which the reviser has taken over from the True Tragedy, is incorrect. Sir John Grey was slain at the second battle of St. Albans, fighting on the side of Queen Margaret. In Richard III, I. iii. 127-130, Shakespeare gives the facts accurately, making Richard say to the Queen:

'In all which time you and your husband Grey

Were factious for the house of Lancaster.

Was not your husband

In Margaret's battle at St. Albans slain?'

(In line 2 of the present passage the name of the lady's husband is given as Sir Richard Grey in both the True Tragedy and the Folio; 'Sir John Grey' is the correction of modern editors.)

 That's a day longer than a wonder lasts. A 'nine days' wonder' being the proverbial superlative.

 an unlick'd bear-whelp That carries no impression like the dam. Fabulous natural history, reported by both Ovid and Pliny. The young bear was supposed to be born a formless mass of flesh which the mother reduced to symmetry by licking with her tongue.

 And set the murtherous Machiavel to school. Machiavelli was born in 1469, five years later than the historical date of this scene; but the anachronism is justified by the fact that Gloucester's character owes much to the current Elizabethan distortion of Machiavelli's doctrine of the Prince.

 Yield not thy neck To fortune's