To bid one's beads is to utter a prayer for each bead. 831. Like pine-tree, etc. ground." The MS. has " Like pine uprooted from the 842. To mark, etc. The MS. has "And cried," etc. 849. The scatter'd van, etc. The MS. reads: 863. Can that, etc. The MS. reads: "Can that be proud Lord Marmion!" { brave 867. Sped. Despatched, "done for." Cf. Romeo and Juliet, iii. 1. 94, where Mercutio, after being stabbed by Tybalt, says, "I am sped." See also Milton, Lycidas, 122: "What need they? They are sped" (that is, provided for). 872. When doffed, etc. The MS. has "And when he felt the fresher air." 873. Gan. See on iv. 456 above. 880. Yet my last thought, etc. The MS. reads: "Yet my last thought 's for England - hie, To Dacre give my signet-ring. Fitz-Eustace, to Lord Surrey fly." 890. Scotland's. The MS. has "King James's.” 902-913. O woman! etc. The Critical Review, quoting these lines, remarks: "The hero of the piece, Marmion, who has been guilty of seducing a nun, and abandoning her to be buried alive, of forgery to ruin a friend, and of perfidy in endeavoring to seduce away from him the object of his tenderest affections, fights and dies gloriously, and is indebted to the injured Clara for the last drop of water to cool his dying thirst. This last act of disinterested attention extorts from the author the smoothest, sweetest, and tenderest lines in the whole poem. It is with pleasure that we extract numbers so harmonious from the discords by which they are surrounded." 914. She stooped, etc. The MS. reads: 975. Avoid thee. Away with thee, begone. Cf. Shakespeare, C. of E. iv. 3. 48: "Satan, avoid!" 977. Oh! look, etc. The MS. reads: 987. And fired, etc. "Oh! look, my son, upon this cross, On saints and heavenly bliss! - The MS. has "And sparkled in his eye." 997. Vaward. See on 716 above. 999. Oh! for a blast, etc. The allusion is to the battle of Roncesvalles in the mountains of Navarre, where in 778 the rearguard of Charlemagne's army, under the command of his nephew Roland, was surprised and defeated by the Saracens and their allies. Roland had a magic horn by which he might have summoned Charlemagne to his aid, but he disdained using it until the battle became desperate; and then his uncle was led to believe that it had been blown only in hunting the deer, and did not finally come to the rescue until Roland had died of his wounds. The Song of Roland, which recounts his marvellous exploits, was one of the most popular heroic poems of the Middle Ages. Olivier, or Oliver, was another of Charlemagne's paladins, and no less renowned for his knightly achievements. The names of the pair have been perpetuated in the familiar proverb, " A Rowland for an Oliver." Fontarabian is from Fontarabia, a frontier town of Spain, not many miles from Roncesvalles. 1012. In vain, etc. The MS. reads: for far they stray, And spoil and havoc mark'd their way. 1018. Tilmouth. Cf. ii. 270 (and note on ii. 257) above. 1022. But as they left, etc. The MS. has "But still upon the darkening heath." 1031. Ply. The 1st ed. has "deal." 1033. The stubborn spearmen, etc. The MS. reads: "Ever the stubborn spears made good Their dark impenetrable wood; Each Scot stepp'd where his comrade stood, The instant that he fell, Till the last ray of parting light, Then ceased perforce the dreadful fight, And sunk the battle's yell. For the figure in wood, cf. 1154 below; also Lady of the Lake, vi. 402 : "Their centre ranks, with pike and spear, A twilight forest frowned; ور and again in 443: "The spearmen's twilight wood." 1059. And raise the universal wail. Jeffrey says of this part of the poem: "The powerful poetry of these passages can receive no illustration from any praises or observations of ours. It is superior, in our apprehension, to all that this author has hitherto produced; and, with a few faults of diction, equal to anything that has ever been written upon similar subjects. From the moment the author gets in sight of Flodden field, indeed, to the end of the poem, there is no tame writing, and no intervention of ordinary passages. He does not once flag or grow tedious; and neither stops to describe dresses and ceremonies, nor to commemorate the harsh names of feudal barons from the Border. There is a flight of five or six hundred lines, in short, in which he never stoops his wing, nor wavers in his course; but carries the reader forward with a more rapid, sustained, and lofty movement, than any epic bard that we can at present remember." 1081. And fell on Flodden plain. "There can be no doubt that King James fell in the battle of Flodden. He was killed, says the curious French Gazette, within a lance's length of the Earl of Surrey; and the same account adds, that none of his division were made prisoners, though many were killed; a circumstance that testifies the desperation of their resistance. The Scottish historians record many of the idle reports which passed among the vulgar of their day. Home was accused, by the popular voice, not only of failing to support the king, but even of having carried him out of the field, and murdered him. And this tale was revived in my remembrance, by an unauthenticated story of a skeleton, wrapped in a bull's hide, and surrounded with an iron chain, Isaid to have been found in the well of Home Castle; for which, on inquiry, I could never find any better authority, than the sexton of the parish having said, that, if the well were cleaned out, he would not be surprised at such a discovery. Home was the chamberlain of the king, and his prime favorite; he had much to lose (in fact did lose all) in consequence of James's death, and nothing earthly to gain by that event: but the retreat. or inactivity, of the left wing, which he commanded, after defeating Sir Edmund Howard, and even the circumstance of his returning unhurt, and loaded with spoil, from so fatal a conflict, rendered the propagation of any calumny against him easy and acceptable. Other reports gave a still more romantic turn to the king's fate, and averred that James, weary of greatness after the carnage among his nobles, had gone on a pilgrimage, to merit absolution for the death of his father, and the breach of his oath of amity to Henry. In particular, it was objected to the English, that they could never show the token of the iron belt; which, however, he was likely enough to have laid aside on the day of battle, as encumbering his personal exertions. They produce a better evidence, the monarch's sword and dagger, which are still preserved in the Herald's College in London. Stowe has recorded a degrading story of the disgrace with which the remains of the unfortunate monarch was treated in his time. An unhewn column marks the spot where James fell, still called the King's Stone (Scott). 1084. Besecmed. See on iv. 149 above. 1085. Yon blithe night. At Holyrood. See v. 171 fol. above. 1090. Moated Lichfield's lofty pile. The cathedral was moated at the time of the siege referred to in Scott's note below. The city had no walls; but Bishop Langton surrounded the close of the cathedral with a strong wall, and constructed two causeways across the "pool" or marsh which lay between the close and the city. The houses in the close were pierced with loopholes; the battlements of the cathedral were lined with musketeers; and “drakes,” or long guns, were mounted on the great central spire. 1095. When fanatic Brook, etc. "This storm of Lichfield cathedral, which had been garrisoned on the part of the king, took place in the great civil war. Lord Brook, who, with Sir John Gill, commanded the assailants, was shot with a musket-ball through the visor of his helmet. The royalists remarked that he was killed by a shot fired from St. Chad's cathedral, and upon St. Chad's day, and received his death-wound in the very eye with which he had said he hoped to see the ruin of all the cathedrals in England. The magnificent church in question suffered cruelly upon this and other occasions; the principal spire being ruined by the fire of the besiegers" (Scott). 1100. Couchant. Reclining; an heraldic term. 1104. Blazed. Blazoned, set forth. IIIO. One of those flowers, etc. Neither Scott nor Lockhart has a note here; but the reference is to a fragment of an old ballad on the Battle of Flodden, which a lady repeated to Sir Walter: "I ride single on my saddle, For the flowers of the forest are a' wede away." See Prof. Child's English and Scottish Ballads, vol. vii. p. 72. 1120. Marmion's nameless grave. See on iii. 170 above. 1127. Springlet. Little spring; a diminutive perhaps coined by Scott himself. 1138. Commune. Here accented on the first syllable. 1154. Wood. See on 1033 above. 1155. Holinshed or Hall. Raphael Holinshed, from whose Chronicles Shakespeare drew so much of the material for his English historical plays; and Edward Hall, a chronicler of the same period. 1159. Charged his old paternal shield, etc. That is, adorned it with heraldic devices in honor of his achievements at Flodden. Charged and bearings are terms of heraldry. 1168. More. Sir Thomas More. Lord Sands and Sir Anthony Denny figure in Shakespeare's Henry VIII. 1169. The curtain. Of the bridal bed. 1170. Katherine. Queen Katherine. There are many allusions in old English literature to throwing the stocking at weddings. See several pages on the subject in Brand's Popular Antiquities. 1174. Love they, etc. That is, may they love, etc. L'ENVOY. 3. Gentles. See on iii. 509 above. 4. Rede. Here 66 = story. It commonly means counsel, or advice; as in Hamlet, i. 3. 51: And recks not his own rede" (cares not for his own counsel); Špenser, F. Q. vi. 2. 30: “To whose wise read she hearkning," etc. 5. Statesman. The reading of the early eds. Recent ones have statesmen." 16. To head of age. ed. of 1821 reads: Recent eds. have "to the head of age." The And pillow to the head of age." Hurl (i. ind. 257). Glistering (ii. 404) ADDENDA. Rush, whirl; rare as an intransitive verb. neither of whom uses glisten. Winded (iii. 3). See also Lady of the Lake, i. 500 and v. 52. Scott uses it also in prose; as in the note on vi. 573 above. Viewed (iii. 59). Note the omission of to in the following infinitive mix. Though thou.. and men (iv. ind. 17-20). There is an obvious allusion to the opening lines of the Odyssey. Gilbert Hay (iii. 508). The allusion is probably to Gilbert Hay (or de Haye), Lord of Errol, who was created high constable of Scotland by Robert the Bruce in 1315; but we can find no other reference to his bout with the Elfin Warrior. Grimly (iv. 440). Grim, hideous; rare as an adjective. (=ghastly) is also rare. Ghast |