sions.]
[Footnote III.18: _----admire our sufferance._] i.e., our
patience, moderation.]
[Footnote III.19: _Without impeachment:_] i.e., hindrance.
_Empechement_, French.]
[Footnote III.20: _Yet, Heaven before,_] In the acting edition,
the name of God is changed to Heaven. This was an expression in
Shakespeare's time for _God being my guide_.]
[Footnote III.21: _Though France himself,_] i.e., though _the King
of France_ himself.]
END OF ACT THIRD.
HISTORICAL NOTES TO ACT THIRD.
(A) _Come you from the bridge?_] After Henry had passed the Somme, Titus
Livius asserts, that the King having been informed of a river which must
be crossed, over which was a bridge, and that his progress depended in a
great degree upon securing possession of it, despatched some part of his
forces to defend it from any attack, or from being destroyed. They found
many of the enemy ready to receive them, to whom they gave battle, and
after a severe conflict, they captured the bridge, and kept it.
(B) _Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;
For he hath stol'n a pix, and hanged must 'a be._
It will be seen by the following extract from the anonymous Chronicler
how minutely Shakespeare has adhered to history-- "There was brought to
the King in that plain a certain English robber, who, contrary to the
laws of God and the Royal Proclamation, had stolen from a church a pix
of copper gilt, found in his sleeve, which he happened to mistake for
gold, in which the Lord's body was kept; and in the next village where
he passed the night, by decree of the King, he was put to death on the
gallows." Titus Livius relates that Henry commanded his army to halt
until the sacrilege was expiated. He first caused the pix to be restored
to the Church, and the offender was then led, bound as a thief, through
the army, and afterwards hung upon a tree, that every man might behold
him.
(C) _Go, bid thy master well advise himself:
If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolour:_]
My desire is, that none of you be so _unadvised_, as to be the occasion
that I in my defence shall _colour_ and make _red your tawny ground_
with the effusion of Christian blood. When he (Henry) had thus answered
the Herald, he gave him a great reward, and licensed him to depart.
--_Holinshed_.
_Enter CHORUS._
_Cho._ Now entertain conjectur
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