ElizabethanDrama.org
presents the Annotated Popular Edition of |
DAVID
AND BETHSABE |
|
by George
Peele Performed
c. 1596 Featuring complete and
easy-to-read annotations. Annotations and notes ©
Copyright ElizabethanDrama.org, 2019 |
The
love of King David and Fair Bethsabe. |
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With
the Tragedie of Absalon. |
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As it
hath ben diuers times plaied on the stage. |
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Written
- by George Peele. |
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LONDON,
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Printed
by Adam Islip. |
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1599 |
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DRAMATIS PERSONAE: |
INTRODUCTION to the PLAY |
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David and his Family: |
George Peele's David and Bethsabe
is the only history |
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play (of the era's
approximately 600 extant dramas) to be |
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David, King of Israel and Judah. |
adopted totally from
the Bible, specifically retelling much of |
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Cusay, a lord, and follower of David. |
the story of King
David. Though the characters constantly |
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appeal to God, Peele
knowingly and gleefully focuses on all |
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Amnon, son of David by Ahinoam |
the elements of
David's tale that he knew his audience would |
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Jethray, Servant to Amnon. |
enjoy the most -
murder, rape, incest, adultery and war. |
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Chileab, son of David by Abigail. |
Written in iron-fisted and rigorously
unwavering iambic |
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Absalon, son of David by Maacah. |
pentameter, yet
containing in almost every line a touch of |
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Thamar, daughter of David by Maacah. |
alliteration, David
shows off Peele's great skill as a poet, and |
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Adonia, son of David by Haggith. |
possesses a number of
passages, especially in the Prologue |
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Salomon, son of David by Bethsabe. |
and opening scene, of
undeniable beauty and grace. |
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Joab, captain of the host to David, and nephew of |
NOTE on the TEXT'S SOURCE |
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David and son of his sister Zeruia. |
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Abisai, nephew of David and son of his sister Zeruia. |
The text of the play is taken from
Alexander Dyce's |
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Amasa, nephew of David and son of his sister
Abigail; |
1874 edition of David
and Bethsabe, cited below at #3. |
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also captain of the host to Absalon. |
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Jonadab, nephew of David and son of his brother |
NOTES on the ANNOTATIONS |
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Shimeah; also friend to Amnon. |
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Mention of Dyce, Bullen, Keltie,
Blistein and Manly |
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Other Characters: |
in the annotations
refers to the notes provided by each |
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of these editors in
their respective editions of this play, |
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Urias, a warrior in David's army. |
each cited fully
below. |
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Bethsabe, wife of Uriah. |
The most commonly cited sources are listed
in the |
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Maid to Bethsabe. |
footnotes immediately
below. The complete list of |
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footnotes appears at
the end of this play. |
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Nathan, a prophet. |
1. Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
online. |
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Sadoc, high-priest. |
2. Crystal, David and Ben. Shakespeare's
Words. |
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Ahimaas, his son. |
London, New York:
Penguin, 2002. |
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Abiathar, a priest. |
3. Dyce, Rev. Alexander. The Dramatic
and Poetical |
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Jonathan, his son. |
Works of Robert Greene
and George Peele. London: |
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Achitophel, chief counsellor to Absalon. |
George Routledge and
Sons: 1874. |
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4. Bullen, A.H. The Works of George
Peele, Vol. II. |
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Ithay, a Captain from Gath. |
Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin and Company, 1888. |
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Semei. |
5. Keltie, John S. The Works of the
British Dramatists. |
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Hanon, King of Ammon. |
Edinburgh: William P.
Nimmon, 1873. |
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Machaas, King of Gath. |
6. Blistein, Elmer, ed. The Works of
George Peele |
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Woman of Thecoa. |
(Charles T. Prouty,
gen. ed.). New Haven: Yale University |
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Press, 1970. |
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Messenger, Soldiers,
Shepherds, and Attendants. |
22. Manly, John Charles. Specimens of
Pre-Shakspe- |
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Concubines to David. |
rean Drama, Vol. II. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1897. |
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Chorus. |
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A: Background: Saul and the Rise of David. |
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Saul was Israel’s first king. Having led
his people to numerous military victories, Saul finally fell into the Lord’s
disfavour when, in attacking the Amalekites, he ignored God’s injunction to
“have no compassion on them, slay both man and woman, infant and suckling,
oxe and sheepe, camel and asse” (1 Samuel 15:3). Samuel instead captured the
Amalekite king Agog alive, and his soldiers saved the enemy's best lambs,
sheep and oxen in order to sacrifice them to the Lord. |
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God, angry (“Beholde, to obey, is
better then sacrifice”, 1 Sam. 5:22), rejected Saul, and chose David, son
of Jesse, a shepherd boy, to become Israel's next king. The Lord’s spirit
deserted Saul, and was replaced by an evil spirit, which tormented (“vexed”)
him; Saul took the advice of his servants and sent for David, a known
musician, and when David played his harp for Saul during his fits of madness,
the evil spirit left the old king. |
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Saul kept David in his household, and
David grew up to be a strong military leader; but Saul, jealous of the
younger man, tried for years to kill David, but to no avail, as David was
protected by the Lord. David spent years in hiding, until Saul was finally
killed – he actually fell on his own sword – during a battle with the
Philistines, at which point David fulfilled his destiny to become king of
Israel. |
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After ruling from the city of Hebron for
the first seven and a half years of his reign, David founded a new capital
for Israel at Jerusalem; here he built a Palace, and here he also housed the
Ark of the Covenant, thus making Jerusalem Israel's combined political and
religious center.9 Israel's second king continued to roll up
military victories, finding further glory as a slayer of all of Israel’s
enemies - the Philistines, the Moabites, the Edomites, the Ammonites, and the
Syrians. |
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Our play begins as Israel's army, under
the command of David's nephew Joab, is besieging the Ammonite city of Rabbah,
located about 40 miles north-east of Jerusalem. David is not with the army,
but rather at home, in the Palace. To this point in the Biblical account,
David has never done anything wrong in the eyes of the Lord. |
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B: 16th Century Bibles Available to Peele. |
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George Peele had several Bibles to use
as potential sources for David and Bethsabe. A close comparison of the
play's text to various passages in the different Bibles makes it clear that
the Bishop's Bible of 1568 was Peele's primary go-to version, but he
did also borrow from other Bibles as the spirit moved him. |
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The close degree to which Peele followed
the Bible verse-by-verse as he wrote much of David, especially in a
number of the longer speeches, is striking. So much so, that your editor decided
to include in the notes many of the Bible verses adopted by Peele so that
you, the reader, may enjoy the comparisons; indeed, it is pleasing and easy
to imagine Peele sitting with quill in hand and an open Bible on his desk or
table, glancing frequently at each successive verse as he wrote line after
line of his play. |
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For the record, here is a list of the
various Bibles Peele had to choose from in the mid-1590's as he composed David: |
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1. The Wycliffe Bible was
the first English language Bible, a translation composed, at least in part,
by the theologian John Wycliffe in the 1380's. Wycliffe died in 1384 before
finishing his project, but others completed the Bible for him. The Wycliffe
editions are handwritten, as they predate Gutenberg's invention of the
printing press by more than half a century. |
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2. The Tyndale Bible,
written by William Tyndale (c. 1494-1536), was the first Bible printed in the
English language; Tyndale only completed the New Testament and the first five
books of the Old before being strangled and burned at the stake for his
heresy of publishing a Bible in a vernacular language. |
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3. The Coverdale Bible,
published by Miles Coverdale (1488-1568), a disciple of Tyndale's, in 1535,
completed Tyndale's translation, and was hence the first complete printed
English translation of the Bible. |
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4. The Matthew Bible was
published in 1537 by another Tyndale follower, John Rogers (c.1500-1555), who
worked under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew. Rogers was the first Englishman to
translate the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew languages, rather than
from the Latin Vulgate Bible, as earlier translators had done. |
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5. The Great Bible,
initially published in 1539, was the first authorized English language
version of the Bible. The project was overseen by Thomas, Lord Cromwell
(Henry VIII's secretary), and Miles Coverdale; the resulting Bible borrowed
heavily from previous translations. |
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6. The Geneva Bible was
first published in completed form in 1560 by the Church of Geneva in
Switzerland. It was the first Bible to add numbered verses to the Chapters.
This was the Bible most used by Shakespeare. |
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7. The Bishop's Bible of
1568 was basically revised version of the Great Bible, published under the
authorization of Elizabeth I. |
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All Biblical quotations in the
annotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the Bishop's Bible. |
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This Note was prepared
in large part from information appearing in the website GreatSite.com.23
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C: the Strange Case of Multiple Spellings of
Proper Names Within David and Bethsabe. |
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The 1599 original quarto of David
and Bethsabe contains myriad printer's errors; the most striking of
these mistakes is that many of the proper names are spelled in two or more
different ways throughout the quarto. |
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Here is a list of the major offenders: |
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1. The name of the woman known in modern
times as Bathsheba is spelled Bethsabe only in Section I,
mostly Bersabe in Section II, and mostly Bethsabe
in Section III. |
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2. The capital city of the Ammonites is
spelled Rabath only in Section I, and only Rabba
in Section II. |
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3. Absalon appears almost
exclusively as Absolon in Section I, about twice as many times
as Absalon over Absolon in Section II, and Absalon only in Section III. |
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4. The name of the King of the Ammonites
is spelled Ammon only in Section I, but mostly Hannon
in Section II. |
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5. Abisai's name appears in multiple
ways throughout the play: Abisai, Abisay,
Abyssus and Abyshai. |
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With respect to the sharp difference
between the way most of these names are spelled in Section II on the one hand
and the outer sections I and III on the other, David Editor John Manly
provides a simple explanation: to wit, Section II was set or printed by a
different person than the one who prepared the outer sections. |
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As to how and why such blatant
discontinuities could occur, no one knows, but it provides a good example of
the lack of quality control, and a seeming absence of any proof-reading, that
plagues early copies of Elizabethan plays. |
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D: Peele's Choice of Proper Names for David. |
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Another intriguing feature of David
and Bethsabe is that Peele does not appear to have borrowed his spellings
for the characters' names from the same Bible. |
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For example, Rabath
appears this way only in the Wycliffe Bible, and Rabba
is from the Bishop's and Coverdale Bibles; we also have Bethsabe
(Bishop's only) and Bersabe (Wycliffe only). |
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Many of the name choices appear in
multiple Bibles; Isboseth, for example, is found in the Bishop's,
Coverdale, and Geneva Bibles. |
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On the other hand, Peele's spelling for Ammon
(David's son), Ithay, and both spellings for the Ammonite king
- Ammon and Hannon - appear in none of the Bibles
at all. |
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Of course, the modern reader has enough
to do to focus on following the densely allusive and poetical language of the
play to have to worry about dealing with multiple spellings of the major
characters' names; so, in order to minimize confusion, I have settled on the
following spellings for this edition of the play: |
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1. Bethsabe for David's
lover and later wife. |
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2. Rabbah for the capital
city of the Ammonites, following Dyce. |
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3. Absalon for David's
third son. |
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4. Hanon for the king of
the Ammonites. |
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5. Abisai for David's
nephew. |
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In addition, this edition will employ Amnon
for David's first son, following Dyce, which is the spelling found in all the
Bibles (other than the Wycliffe). |
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E. Peele's Use of Alliteration. |
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Alliteration has a long and noble
history in English poetry. The earliest English epic poems, such as Beowulf
and the later Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, were written in densely
alliterative lines (but without regular meter). |
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Peele uses alliteration almost
continuously throughout the play. While the notes point out some of the more
dramatic and interesting of the examples, you may wish to note as you read
the healthy proportion of lines in the play which contain even just a pair of
alliterative words, and sometimes two pairs. |
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Examine, for example, the following four
lines chosen more or less at random from David's first speech; every line
contains an alliterative pair of words: |
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Of moss that sleeps with sound the
waters make |
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For joy to feed the fount with their
recourse; |
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Let all the grass that beautifies her
bower |
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Bear manna every morn instead of dew… |
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F. Settings, Scene Breaks and Stage
Directions. |
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The original quarto of David and
Bethsabe did not identify scene settings, nor were there any scene
breaks; we have generally adopted the setting suggestions of Manly; the scene
break suggestions are the editor's |
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DAVID
AND BETHSABE |
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By
George Peele |
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Performed
c. 1596 |
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First
Published 1599 |
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PROLOGUS. |
Prologus: the Prologue, sometimes called a Chorus, is a
device used to introduce the play to an audience, and is recited by a single
actor. |
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1 |
Of Israel's sweetest
singer now I sing, |
1: the Prologue may
indeed be sung; the singer will sing about David, Israel's second king, who
was also famous for his skill as a musician. Blistein notes that only the Geneva
Bible refers to David as "the sweete singer of Israel"
(2 Samuel 23:1), but he misidentifies the sourced verse as Psalms 23:1. |
2 |
His holy style
and happy victories; |
2: holy style =
could mean "the excellence of his expression". |
Whose Muse was
dipt in that inspiring dew |
3-4: David's sublime
musical skills were inspired by a Muse. |
|
4 |
Arch-angels stillèd from the breath of Jove, |
4: Arch-angels
= numbering seven, the arch-angels comprised a specific class of angels who
took part in the affairs of humanity (see the note at line 8 below).7
|
Decking her temples with the glorious flowers |
= adorning her brows. |
|
6 |
Heavens rained on tops of Sion and Mount
Sinai. |
6: Heavens
= Heavens and Heaven will almost always be
pronounced as a monosyllable, with the medial v omitted: Hea'ns. |
Upon the bosom of his
ivory lute |
= a small plucked
instrument, usually used to describe an early guitar; in the Bible, however,
David is always described as playing a harp, which he was believed to pluck
with his fingers, and not a pick (Lockyer, p. 734).9 |
|
8 |
The cherubins
and angels laid their breasts; |
= the beings known
generically as angels are divided into 3 classes (called hierarchies),
each of which contained 3 sub-classes (called choirs); the
second hierarchy is named the counselors, of which the cherubim
are the second choir; the third hierarchy is called the messengers,
whose first choir is comprised of the arch-angels (see the note
at line 6) and second choir the angels.7 |
And, when his consecrated
fingers strook |
= sacred, sanctified.2 = ie. struck. |
|
10 |
The golden wires
of his ravishing harp, |
10: wires
= pronounced with two syllables: WI-yers. |
He gave alarum
to the host of Heaven, |
11: gave alarum
= "raised an alarm for", or "raised a call to arms to",
ie. alerted. |
|
12 |
That, winged with
lightning, brake the clouds, and cast |
= archaic language for
"broke through". = tossed. |
Their crystal armour
at his conquering feet. |
13: a line in
Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Part One, describes "angels in
their crystal armours" who "fight a doubtful battle". |
|
14 |
Of this sweet poet,
Jove's musiciän, |
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And of his
beauteous son, I prease to sing. |
15: his
beauteous son = ie. Absalon, the beautiful third son of David, whose
tale here complements that of David and Bethsabe. |
|
16 |
Then help, divine Adonai,
to conduct |
= alternate title for
God, used as a substitute for his "ineffable name";1 St.
Jerome employed this epithet in Exodus 6:3 of his famous Latin translation of
the Bible known as the Vulgate: "qui apparui Abraham Isaac et
Iacob in Deo omnipotente et nomen meum Adonai non indicavi eis". |
Upon the wings of my well-tempered
verse |
= pleasant, agreeable.1 |
|
18 |
The hearers' minds
above the towers of Heaven, |
= pronounced as a
mono-syllable. |
And guide them so in
this thrice-haughty flight, |
= ie. lofty flight; thrice
is simply an intensifier. |
|
20 |
Their mounting
feathers scorch not with the fire |
20-21: "so that
they do not get burned by the fire that only |
That none can temper
but thy holy hand: |
thou, God, can control
and moderate." |
|
22 |
To thee for succour
flies my feeble Muse, |
22: the narrator's
Muse will not be up to the job to inspire him to tell his tale with enough
skill, and so the Muse (and hence the narrator himself) asks God to assist
her. |
And at thy feet her iron
pen doth use. |
= ie. a chisel to
engrave or carve out her poetry;24 pens of |
|
24 |
iron are mentioned frequently in the literature of
the time; the Bible mentions iron pens in Job 19:24 and
Jeremiah 17:1. |
|
The Prologue-speaker, before going out, draws a |
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26 |
curtain and discovers Bethsabe, with her Maid, |
= reveals. |
bathing over a spring: |
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28 |
she sings, and David sits above viewing her. |
|
The Prologue: Peele's Prologue was held in high enough
regard to be included in later collections of religious - and especially
Jewish - poems and the such; examples include 1913's The Hebrew Anthology
and The Standard Book of Jewish Verse of 1917. |
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SCENE I. |
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The Royal Palace,
Jerusalem. |
Bible Verses Depicted
in Scene I: 2 Samuel 11:1-6. |
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David sitting on the Palace roof, |
Entering Characters: David is the King of Israel; he |
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watching Bethsabe below bathing over a spring. |
would perhaps appear
to the audience on the balcony at the back of the stage. |
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THE SONG. |
124: The Song
is sung by Bethsabe; note that the song is comprised of rhyming couplets
(except perhaps for the final two lines). |
|
1 |
Hot sun, cool fire, tempered
with sweet air, |
= moderated. |
2 |
Black shade, fair
nurse, shadow my white hair: |
2: fair
= beautiful. |
Shine, sun; burn,
fire; breathe, air, and ease me; |
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4 |
Black shade, fair
nurse; shroud me, and please me: |
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Shadow, my sweet
nurse, keep me from burning, |
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6 |
Make not my glad cause
cause of mourning. |
6: "do not let
that for which I have reason to rejoice - my fair complexion (which in
Elizabethan times was considered most attractive) - become a liability by
burning in the hot sun." |
Let not my beauty's
fire |
7-10: these lines give
us a good example of dramatic irony: the audience knows that David is
watching, and about to seduce Bethsabe, while Bethsabe herself remains
ignorant of her immediate fate. |
|
8 |
Inflame unstaid
desire, |
= immoderate,
unrestrained. |
Nor pierce any bright
eye |
9-10: "nor come
into the field of vision of any man who |
|
10 |
That wandereth
lightly. |
happens to be glancing
around." |
12 |
Beth. Come, gentle Zephyr, tricked
with those perfumes |
12-26: Bethsabe's
first speech is an apostrophe to Zephyr, |
That erst in
Eden sweetened Adam's love, |
13: the wind is
described as having refreshed Eve (Adam's |
|
14 |
And stroke my bosom
with thy silken fan: |
= balmy, soft.1 |
This shade, sun-proof,
is yet no proof for thee; |
15: Bethsabe's shade
is safe from the sun, but cannot stop |
|
16 |
Thy body, smoother
than this waveless spring, |
|
And purer than the
substance of the same, |
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18 |
Can creep through that
his lances cannot pierce: |
= ie. that which. = ie. the sun's. |
Thou, and thy sister,
soft and sacred Air, |
= properly speaking,
there was no deity of the air per se, as |
|
20 |
Goddess of life, and governess
of health, |
= another word for goddess.2 |
Keep every fountain
fresh and arbour sweet; |
= shady retreat, ie. a
bower, formed by encircling trees, |
|
22 |
No brazen gate
her passage can repulse, |
22: no brass (brazen)
gate can stop the air from passing |
Nor bushly thicket
bar thy subtle breath: |
23: bushly
thicket = dense growth of brush; bushly may |
|
24 |
Then deck thee
with thy loose delightsome robes, |
24: deck thee
= "dress yourself" (especially with beautiful |
And on thy wings bring
delicate perfumes, |
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26 |
To play the wantons
with us through the leaves. |
= the phrase carries
the sense of "behave playfully" or |
"flirt".1 |
||
28 |
David. What tunes, what words, what looks, what |
|
My soul, incensèd
with a sudden fire? |
= inflamed; note how
David returns to the fire imagery of |
|
30 |
What tree, what shade,
what spring, what paradise, |
the Prologue and the Song. |
Enjoys the beauty of
so fair a dame? |
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32 |
Fair Eva, placed in
perfect happiness, |
32: "beautiful
Eve, set in Eden"; note the use of Eva for Eve
for purposes of meter. |
Lending her
praise-notes to the liberal heavens, |
33: ie. "praising
generous (liberal) Heaven in song". |
|
34 |
Strook with the accents of arch-angels' tunes, |
34: sung in the
sublime style or manner of, or perhaps ac- |
Wrought not more pleasure to her husband's thoughts |
= worked, ie. brought. |
|
36 |
Than this fair woman's
words and notes to mine. |
|
May that sweet plain
that bears her pleasant weight |
= could mean
"meadow".1 |
|
38 |
Be still enamelled
with discoloured flowers; |
= beautified by
colour. = ie. multi-coloured,
variegated.1 |
That precious fount
bear sand of purest gold; |
= fountain, ie.
spring. |
|
40 |
And, for the pebble,
let the silver streams |
= ie. in place of the
pebbles. |
That pierce earth's
bowels to maintain the source, |
= ie. keep the spring
filled with water. |
|
42 |
Play upon rubies,
sapphires, chrysolites; |
= name given
generically to any of various green gems.1 |
The brims let
be embraced with golden curls |
= waters.1 = ie. surrounded. |
|
44 |
Of moss that sleeps
with sound the waters make |
= note the lack of
subject-verb agreement with curls and |
For joy to feed the
fount with their recourse; |
= ie. the waters'
flow. |
|
46 |
Let all the grass that
beautifies her bower |
= shady retreat. |
Bear manna
every morn instead of dew, |
= the food
miraculously provided for the Israelites in the |
|
48 |
Or let the dew be
sweeter far than that |
|
That hangs, like
chains of pearl, on Hermon hill, |
= the highest peak in
the Anti-Lebanus mountains that lie on the border between Syria and Lebanon;
the reference is from Psalms 133:3: "It is also like unto the dew of
Hermon, which falleth down the hill of Zion." |
|
50 |
Or balm which trickled
from old Aaron's beard. − |
50: from Psalms 133:2:
"It is like unto a precious ointment poured upon the head, which
runneth down upon the beard, even upon Aaron's beard, which also runneth down
the skirts of his garments". |
Cusay, come up, and
serve thy lord the king. |
51: his lyrical
interlude complete, David calls for his servant. |
|
52 |
||
Enter Cusay above. |
Entering Character: Cusay, a lord and retainer of David's, |
|
54 |
appears on the roof, ie. the balcony at
the rear of the |
|
Cusay. What service doth my lord the king command? |
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56 |
||
David. See, Cusay, see the flower of Israel, |
= ie. Bethsabe. |
|
58 |
The fairest daughter
that obeys the king |
= meaning only that
she is one of the king's subjects. |
In all the land the
Lord subdued to me; |
||
60 |
Fairer than Isaac's
lover at the well, |
60: Isaac
was the son of Abraham, who instructed his oldest servant to return to
Abraham's home in Mesopotamia to find Isaac a wife. Arriving at a well
outside the city of Padan Aram, the servant asked the Lord for a sign; a
young woman, named Rebecca (who turned out to be the grand-daughter of
Abraham's brother) happened by, who gave the servant water, and from this act
the servant new this was his gal. (Genesis 24). |
Brighter than
inside-bark of new-hewn cedar, |
61: because wood of
the cedar, the famous evergreen tree, was used to build David's Palace, he
would be familiar with the appearance of cut cedar trees (2 Sam. 5:11); (it
is unclear how flattering it would be to Bethsabe to be compared to a tree's
innards). |
|
62 |
Sweeter than flames of
fine-perfumèd myrrh, |
= myrrh
is a resin extracted from certain trees, used in perfume (see e.g. Proverbs
7:17); earlier editors note that fine probably should be fire,
to go with flames. |
And comelier
than the silver clouds that dance |
= more graceful;2
comlier is pronounced with two syllables |
|
64 |
On Zephyr's
wings before the King of Heaven. |
= Zephyr
is the west wind, mentioned earlier by Bethsabe |
66 |
Cusay. Is it not Bethsabe the Hethite's wife, |
66-67: Bethsabe
= Bethsabe will always be stressed on its |
Urias now at Rabbah siege with Joab? |
first syllable: BETH-sa-be. |
|
68 |
Rabbah = the first seven
times the city is mentioned in the original edition, it is spelled Rabbath,
as it appears in the Wycliffe Bible; the remaining eleven times, it is
spelled Rabba, as it appears in both the Bishop's and Coverdale
Bibles; I have chosen to follow Dyce's decision to print Rabbah,
the Geneva Bible's spelling, everywhere (the KJV would also go on to
use Rabbah). |
|
David. Go know, and bring her quickly to the king; |
||
70 |
Tell her, her graces
hath found grace with him. |
70: in this punning
line, graces means "good qualities" and |
grace means
"favour". |
||
72 |
Cusay. I will, my lord. |
|
74 |
[Exit.] |
|
76 |
David. Bright Bethsabe shall wash, in David's bower, |
76-82: David's brief
soliloquy both begins and ends with a |
In water mixed with
purest almond-flower, |
= the almond tree's
light-pink blossoms appear before the |
|
78 |
And bathe her beauty
in the milk of kids: |
= young goats. |
Bright Bethsabe gives
earth to my desires; |
= ie. "is a
living embodiment of".1 |
|
80 |
Verdure to earth; and to that verdure flowers; |
= ie. "gives
verdure"; verdure refers to green vegetation |
To flowers
sweet odours; and to odours wings |
= flowers
is pronounced as a single syllable here. |
|
82 |
That carry pleasures
to the hearts of kings. |
79-82: a chain of
connections of "the house that Jack built" |
variety: Bethsabe
gives wings to the sweet smell (odours) that she gives to the
flowers that she gives to the verdure that she gives to the earth that she
gives to David's desires. |
||
84 |
Enter Cusay, below, to Bethsabe, |
|
she starting as something affright. |
85: Bethsabe is
startled at Cusay's appearance. |
|
86 |
||
Cusay. Fair Bethsabe, the King of Israel |
||
88 |
From forth his
princely tower hath seen thee bathe; |
|
And thy sweet graces
have found grace with him: |
||
90 |
Come, then, and kneel
unto him where he stands; |
|
The king is gracious,
and hath liberal hands. |
= ie. is generous. |
|
92 |
||
Beth. Ah, what is Bethsabe to please the king? |
= who. |
|
94 |
Or what is David, that
he should desire, |
94-95: Bethsabe is
censorious: basically, "why would David |
For fickle
beauty's sake, his servant's wife? |
want to commit the sin
of taking Urias' (his servant's) wife |
|
96 |
just because he is
attracted by her beauty?" Bethsabe describes her beauty as fickle,
meaning "changeable", because it is so transitory (a common trope
in Elizabethan drama). |
|
Cusay. David, thou know'st, fair dame, is wise and just, |
||
98 |
Elected to the heart of Israel's God; |
= selected; to this
point in David's history, he has been fully |
Then do not thou expostulate
with him |
= remonstrate.2 |
|
100 |
For any action that
contents his soul. |
|
102 |
Beth. My lord the king, elect to God's own heart, |
102-4: much debated
lines, primarily revolving around who |
Should not his gracious
jealousy incense |
his in line 103 and whose in line
104 refer to: they could |
|
104 |
Whose thoughts are chaste:
I hate incontinence. |
mean God, but Keltie
suggests Bethsabe has Urias in mind. |
106 |
Cusay. Woman, thou wrong'st the king, and doubt'st |
= suspects; Cusay, who
has never yet seen David act in any |
Whose truth maintains
the crown of Israel, |
||
108 |
Making him stay
that bade me bring thee straight. |
= wait. = commanded. = right away. |
110 |
Beth. The king's poor handmaid will obey my lord. |
110: Vivien Westbrook,
in her book Long Travail and |
Great Paynes,11 notes the similarity of
Bethsabe's response to Cusay to that which the Virgin Mary responded in part
to the angel in Luke 1:38 ("Behold the handmaiden of the Lord");
Peele's intent, she argues, is to completely exonerate Bethsabe for what
David will do to her. (See her introduction, p. xxxiv).11 |
||
112 |
Cusay. Then come, and do thy duty to his grace; |
|
And do what seemeth
favour in his sight. |
113: ie. "and do
that which will deserve his favour". |
|
114 |
||
[Exit, below, with Bethsabe.] |
||
116 |
||
David. Now comes my lover tripping like the roe, |
= moving lightly or
nimbly. = a small species of deer. |
|
118 |
And brings my longings
tangled in her hair. |
= desires.1 = perhaps a subtle bit of foreshadowing of
the |
To joy her love
I'll build a kingly bower, |
= enjoy, clearly
suggestive. = shady and leafy retreat. |
|
120 |
Seated in hearing
of a hundred streams, |
= within the sound. |
That, for their homage
to her sovereign joys, |
121: homage
= reverence shown.1 |
|
122 |
Shall, as the
serpents fold into their nests |
= "like the
way", or "just as". |
In oblique turnings,
wind the[ir] nimble waves |
123: oblique
turnings = literally "slanting revolutions".1 |
|
124 |
About the circles of
her curious walks; |
= delicate, careful,
or prompted by curiosity.1 |
And with their murmur
summon easeful sleep |
||
126 |
To lay his
golden sceptre on her brows. − |
= ie. personified
Sleep's. |
Open the doors, and entertain
my love; |
127-9: David commands
his servants. |
|
128 |
Open, I say, and, as
you open, sing, |
entertain = receive as a
guest.1 |
Welcome, fair
Bethsabe, King David's darling. |
||
130 |
||
Enter, above, Cusay, with Bethsabe. |
||
132 |
||
Welcome, fair
Bethsabe, King David's darling. |
||
134 |
Thy bones' fair
covering, erst discovered
fair, |
134: Thy bones'
fair coverings = a unique description of Bethsabe' skin; Elmer
Blistein, in his notes to our play contained in The Dramatic Works of
George Peele, observes that the imagery of bones is a
favourite of Peele's, who mostly uses them in a figure of speech known as a metonymy
(meaning that bones is used to represent something else,
usually the human body) (p. 259);6 indeed, bones
appears 15 times in our play. |
And all mine eyes with all thy beauties pierced:
|
135: And
= as Dyce notes, And perhaps means "have", or else a
line may have dropped out, another common printer's error. |
|
136 |
As Heaven's bright
eye burns most when most he climbs |
136-9: just as the sun
is the strongest when it is at its highest |
The crookèd zodiac
with his fiery sphere, |
137: crooked
= curved, referring to the path of the sun.6 |
|
138 |
And shineth furthest
from this earthly globe; |
|
So, since thy beauty scorched
my conquered soul, |
= scorched
connects with burns (line 136) and fiery (line |
|
140 |
I called thee nearer
for my nearer cure. |
140: David puns on nearer:
the first nearer means "closer" |
142 |
Beth. Too near, my lord, was your unarmèd heart |
142-3: "I was
already too near to you, when your heart, |
When furthest off my hapless
beauty pierced; |
unprotected as it was (as if by armour),
was pierced |
|
144 |
And would this
dreary day had turned to night, |
= if only. |
Or that some pitchy
cloud had cloaked the sun, |
= black. |
|
146 |
Before their lights
had caused my lord to see |
= ie. the light of the
day and the sun both. = ie. permitted. |
His name disparaged
and my chastity! |
147: "both his
reputation and my honour disgraced." Note how awkwardly the sentence is
written to fit the iambic meter: a more standard arrangement of the words -
"His name and my chastity disparaged" - does not work metrically. |
|
148 |
||
David. My love, if want of love have left thy soul |
=lack. |
|
150 |
A sharper sense of honour than thy king,
|
= ie. with a. = ie. "than that possessed by your
king". |
(For love leads princes
sometimes from their seats,) |
= ie. kings. = from their thrones, a metaphor for
"to behave |
|
152 |
As erst my heart was
hurt, displeasing thee, |
152-3: "then, as
earlier I had displeased you, which gave me |
So come and taste thy
ease with easing me. |
pain, come and give
relief to my injury while getting a taste of pleasure yourself." |
|
154 |
||
Beth. One medicine cannot heal our different harms; |
155-8: Bethsabe picks
up on David's talk of injuries and responds to his sleazy offer with a dense
medical metaphor of her own. |
|
156 |
But rather make both rankle
at the bone: |
= fester.2 |
Then let the king be
cunning in his cure, |
157: "so why
don't you find a more clever way to heal your |
|
158 |
Lest flattering both,
both perish in his hand. |
158: "so as to
prevent you from successfully beguiling or |
misleading both of us, which would cause
us both to |
||
160 |
David. Leave it to me, my dearest Bethsabe, |
|
Whose skill is cónversant in deeper cures. − |
= ie. David means
himself here. |
|
162 |
And, Cusay, haste
thou to my servant Joab, |
= hurry. |
Commanding him to send
Urias home |
||
164 |
With all the speed can
possibly be used. |
|
166 |
Cusay. Cusay will fly about the king's desire. |
|
168 |
[Exeunt.] |
David Recalls Urias: in the Bible, David sends for Urias only
after finding out that Bethsabe is pregnant with his (David's) child; his
purpose in doing so is to have Urias sleep with his wife so that he will
believe the child is his. This delicate factor is omitted in our play, so
that David's motive in sending for the soldier would be technically unclear
at this point in the play. |
SCENE II. |
||
Before the Walls of
the City of Rabbah, |
Bible Verses Depicted
in Scene II: 2 Sam. 12:26-28. |
|
David recognized an insult when he saw
one, and he sent his army to fight the Ammonites; led by Joab, the Israelite
army engaged the Ammonites in battle outside the gates of Rabbah, while the
mercenary Syrian army Hanon had hired just for the occasion ran away, then
returned, and then were crushed as well by the Israelites. (2 Sam. 10:5-18) |
||
Enter Joab, Abisai, Urias, and others, |
Entering Characters: Joab is the commander-in-chief of the Israelite
army; since he is the son of David's sister Zeruia, Joab is a nephew of
David's. |
|
1 |
Joab. Courage, ye mighty men of Israel, |
|
2 |
And charge your
fatal instruments of war |
= load.1 = death-dealing weapons. |
Upon the bosoms of
proud Ammon's son[s], |
= the men or soldiers
of Ammon, the name of the nation the |
|
4 |
That have disguised
your king's ambassadors, |
4-5: see the
introductory note entitled Backstory to Scene II |
Cut half their beards
and half their garments off, |
at the beginning of this scene above. |
|
6 |
In spite of Israel and his daughters' sons! |
= "in defiance
of" or "in scorn of". |
Ye fight the holy battles of Jehovah, |
7: Ye =
old plural form of you. |
|
8 |
King David's God, and
ours, and Jacob's God, |
= Jacob
was one of a pair of twin sons of the aforementioned Isaac and Rebekah. Peele
uses the expression Jacob's God seven times in the play (two of
those times righteous and jealous appear between Jacob's
and God) and Jacob's ruler once. |
That guides your weapons to their conquering
strokes, |
= who. |
|
10 |
Orders your footsteps, and directs your thoughts |
= manages, directs. |
To stratagems that harbour
victory: |
= contain, comprise.1 |
|
12 |
He casts his sacred
eyesight from on high, |
|
And sees your foes run
seeking for their deaths, |
13: "in order to
avoid". |
|
14 |
Laughing their labours
and their hopes to scorn; |
14: God laughs at the
enemies' efforts and scorns their |
While 'twixt
your bodies and their blunted swords |
= between. = ie. the edge removed to make the enemy's |
|
16 |
He puts on armour of
his honour's proof, |
= tested power, or
impenetrability.1 |
And makes their
weapons wound the senseless winds. |
17: the sense is that
the enemy's swords, thanks to God's |
|
18 |
intervention, will
only be good for slashing at the wind. |
|
Abis. Before this city Rabbah we will lie, |
||
20 |
And shoot forth shafts
as thick and dangerous |
= arrows. |
As was the hail that
Moses mixed with fire, |
21-23: allusion to the
seventh Plague of Egypt, in which the |
|
22 |
And threw with fury
round about the fields, |
Lord sent hail mixed with thunder and
lightning (fire) |
Devouring Pharaoh's
friends and Egypt's fruits. |
against the land of the Pharaoh,
destroying the crops |
|
24 |
||
Urias. First, mighty captains, Joab and Abisai, |
25-28: Urias
recommends they assault the city's water supply. |
|
26 |
Let us assault, and
scale this kingly tower, |
|
Where all their conduits
and their fountains are; |
= a disyllable: CON-duits. |
|
28 |
Then we may easily
take the city too. |
25-28: commentators
have long explained that Rabbah had a fortified upper town, in which most of
the population lived, and a lower town, where the stream that supplied the
city with its water was located. Capturing the city's source of water puts
its citizens in a particularly perilous situation. |
Except for the Matthew Bible, all
the contemporary Bibles describe the water source as the city of waters
or water city (2 Sam. 12:27); Peele, however, seems to have borrowed
his idea of a kingly tower from the Matthew Bible, which
calls the water supply "the castle from whence they had their water." |
||
30 |
Joab. Well hath Urias counselled our attempts; |
|
And as he spake
us, so assault the tower: |
= spoke to, ie.
recommends to. |
|
32 |
Let Hanon now, the
king of Ammon's son[s], |
|
Repulse our conquering
passage if he dare. |
||
34 |
||
Enter Hanon, Machaas, and others, upon the walls. |
Entering Characters: Hanon is the king of Ammon; Machaas
is the King of Gath, a Philistine city located about 30 miles south-west of
Jerusalem. Machaas appears as an ally of the Ammonite monarch. |
|
36 |
||
Hanon. What would the shepherd's-dogs of Israel |
= Hanon plays on the
phrase shepherd's dog, a common expression used to refer to a
sheep dog; shepherd is a reference to David, who as a young man
worked as the shepherd of his family; to call another a dog was
a serious insult in Elizabethan times. |
|
38 |
Snatch from the mighty
issue of King Ammon, |
38: "take from
the children (ie. citizens) of the king of Ammon". At 2 Sam. 10:19, the
Bibles all refer to the "children of Ammon": see the note in
the next line. |
The valiant Ammonites
and haughty Syrians? |
= proud or high-minded
Syrians, the name used to collectively identify all the allies of the
Ammonites;6 we may note that the Bible asserts that the Syrians
had made peace with the Israelites prior to the siege of Rabbah, "and
so the Syrians feared to help the children of Ammon any more" (2
Sam. 10:19). |
|
40 |
'Tis not your late
successive victories |
= ie. "recent
series of". |
Can make us yield, or quail
our courages; |
= intimidate,
dispirit.1 |
|
42 |
But if ye dare assay
to scale this tower, |
= attempt, assault.1 |
Our angry swords shall
smite ye to the ground, |
= ie. off of the
tower. |
|
44 |
And venge our
losses on your hateful lives. |
= avenge. = odious.1 |
46 |
Joab. Hanon, thy father Nahas gave relief |
46-47: the Bible, at 2
Sam. 11:2, states that David had sent |
To holy David in his
hapless exile, |
emissaries to Hanan to
express his condolences for the new king at the death of his father, King
Nahas, who had "shown kindness unto me"; but what the nature
of that kindness was is described nowhere in the Bible. |
|
48 |
Livèd his fixèd date, and died in peace: |
= "and lived to
his appointed time"; the idea is that he died |
But thou, instead of
reaping his reward, |
||
50 |
Hast trod it under
foot, and scorned our king; |
= "stepped all
over it". |
Therefore thy days
shall end with violence, |
||
52 |
And to our swords thy vital
blood shall cleave. |
= life-sustaining.2 = adhere. |
54 |
Mach. Hence, thou that bear'st
poor Israel's shepherd's- |
54: Machaas, reminding
Joab once again of David's humble |
The proud lieutenant
of that base-born king, |
55: proud
= arrogant. |
|
56 |
And keep within the
compass of his fold; |
56: "and stay
within the boundary of David's sheep's pen |
For, if ye seek to
feed on Ammon's fruits, |
57-58: Machaas scorns
the attempts of the Israelites to |
|
58 |
And stray into the
Syrians' fruitful meads, |
= meadows. |
The mastives of
our land shall worry ye, |
59: mastives
= ie. mastiffs, large guard dogs. |
|
60 |
And pull the weesels
from your greedy throats. |
= windpipes. = rapacious.1 |
62 |
Abis. Who can endure these pagans' blasphemies? |
|
64 |
Urias. My soul repines at this disparagement. |
= complains, feels
discontent.2 |
66 |
Joab. Assault,
ye valiant men of David's host, |
=
"attack!" = army. |
And beat these railing
dastards from their doors. |
= abusive cowards. |
|
68 |
||
[Assault, and they win the tower; |
||
70 |
and then Joab speaks above.] |
|
72 |
Thus have we won the
tower, which we will keep, |
|
Maugre the sons of Ammon and of Syria. |
=
"notwithstanding the power of".1 |
|
74 |
||
Enter Cusay below. |
||
76 |
||
Cusay. Where is Lord Joab, leader of the host? |
||
78 |
||
Joab. Here is Lord Joab, leader of the host. |
||
80 |
Cusay, come up, for we
have won the hold. |
= stronghold or
fortress.2 |
82 |
Cusay. In happy hour, then, is Cusay come. |
= hour
is disyllabic here: HOW-er (we may note that the |
first syllable actually sounded more
like ho at the time). |
||
84 |
Cusay goes up. |
|
86 |
Joab. What news, then, brings Lord Cusay from the
king? |
|
88 |
Cusay. His majesty commands thee out of hand |
= immediately.1 |
To send him home Urias
from the wars, |
||
90 |
For matter of some
service he should do. |
|
92 |
Urias. 'Tis for no choler hath surprised the king, |
92-93: "I hope
that no anger has seized (surprised)1 the king |
I hope, Lord Cusay,
'gainst his servant's truth? |
which has caused him
to suspect my loyalty (truth) to him?" |
|
94 |
||
Cusay. No; rather to prefer Urias' truth. |
= ie. promote Uriah
for his loyal service. |
|
96 |
||
Joab. Here, take him with thee, then, and go in peace; |
||
98 |
And tell my lord the
king that I have fought |
98-104: these lines
are adopted from 2 Sam. 12:28. |
Against the city
Rabbah with success, |
||
100 |
And scalèd where the
royal palace is, |
|
The conduit-heads
and all their sweetest springs: |
= reservoirs or water
sources.1 |
|
102 |
Then let him come in
person to these walls, |
102-6: Joab knows that
the residents of Rabbah will soon be desperate without fresh water, and so
wants David to come finish the job and capture the city proper himself, so
that he may reap the glory of having done so, before the Ammonites surrender;
this is an honourable offer by Joab. |
With all the soldiers
he can bring besides, |
||
104 |
And take the city as
his own exploit, |
|
Lest I surprise
it, and the people give |
= seize.1 |
|
106 |
The glory of the
conquest to my name. |
|
108 |
Cusay. We will, Lord Joab; and great Israel's God |
|
Bless in thy hands the
battles of our king! |
||
110 |
||
Joab. Farewell, Urias; haste away the king. |
= hurry away to. |
|
112 |
||
Urias. As sure as Joab breathes a victor here, |
||
114 |
Urias will haste
him and his own return. |
= hurry himself; note
how Urias generally refers to himself |
in the third person, a common manner of
speaking in |
||
116 |
[Exeunt Cusay and Urias.] |
|
118 |
Abis. Let us descend, and ope the palace' gate, |
= open. |
Taking our soldiers in
to keep the hold. |
119: Abisai suggests
they strengthen their defenses now that |
|
120 |
they have captured the tower. |
|
Joab. Let us, Abisai: − and, ye sons of Judah, |
||
122 |
Be valiant, and
maintain your victory. |
= valiant
is disyllabic: VAL-yant. |
124 |
[Exeunt.] |
|
SCENE III. |
||
The House of Amnon in
Jerusalem, |
Bible Verses Depicted
in Scene III: 2 Sam. 13:1-7. |
|
Enter Amnon, Jonadab, Jethray, and Amnon's Page. |
Entering Characters: Amnon is the oldest son of
David, by his first wife Ahinoam; Jethray is Amnon's servant. |
|
1 |
Jonad. What means my lord, the king's belovèd son, |
1-8: Jonadab inquires
as to why Amnon, who has at his |
2 |
That wears upon his right triumphant arm |
2-3: Jonadab compares
the power that Amnon wields to a |
The power of Israel
for a royal favour, |
favour, ie. a token of affection, such as a glove or
hand- |
|
4 |
That holds upon the
tables of his hands |
4-5: Jonadab then
compares all the honour possessed by |
Banquets of honour and
all thought's content, |
Amnon to a feast he may consume at his
leisure. |
|
6 |
To suffer pale
and grisly abstinence |
6: the independent
clause begun in line 1 ("What means my |
To sit and feed upon
his fainting cheeks, |
lord") is finally continued here, after
a round of dependent |
|
8 |
And suck away the
blood that cheers his looks? |
clauses (lines 1.5-5). |
10 |
Amnon. Ah, Jonadab, it is my sister's looks, |
10f: Amnon
explains that he appears bloodless because he |
On whose sweet beauty
I bestow my blood, |
is love-sick, consumed with his desire
for his half-sister |
|
12 |
That makes me look so amorously
lean; |
= an interesting
pairing of words: Amnon is gaunt in his |
Her beauty having
seized upon my heart, |
||
14 |
So merely
consecrate to her content, |
|
Sets now such guard
about his vital blood, |
||
16 |
And views the passage
with such piercing eyes, |
|
That none can scape
to cheer my pining cheeks, |
||
18 |
But all is thought too
little for her love. |
13-17: difficult
lines: Amnon's heart, which is completely |
(merely)
dedicated to serving Thamar, keeps watch (with its piercing eyes)
over the blood which passes through it with such diligence that none of the
blood can leave the heart to flow to Amnon's cheeks to give it colour. |
||
20 |
Jonad. Then from her heart thy looks shall be relieved, |
|
And thou shalt joy
her as thy soul desires. |
= enjoy; Jonadab, who
is described at 2 Sam. 13:3 as a |
|
22 |
||
Amnon. How
can it be, my sweet friend Jonadab, |
22-23: compare 2 Sam.
13:2: "And he was so sore vexed, |
|
24 |
Since Thamar is a
virgin and my sister? |
that he fell sick for his sister Thamar;
for she was a |
virgin, and he thought it hard for him
to do any thing |
||
26 |
Jonad. Thus it shall be: lie down upon thy bed, |
|
Feigning thee
fever-sick and ill-at-ease; |
27: "pretend you
are sick with a fever and in discomfort;" |
|
28 |
And when the king
shall come to visit thee, |
|
Desire thy sister Thamar may be sent |
= request that. = ie. half-sister. |
|
30 |
To dress some dainties
for thy malady: |
30" "to
prepare (dress) some delicious food for you in |
Then when thou hast
her solely with thyself, |
= alone. |
|
32 |
Enforce some favour to
thy manly love. |
32: Jonadab is
euphemistically suggesting Amon should |
See where she
comes: entreat her in with thee. |
33: "look, here
she comes; ask her to go inside with you." |
|
34 |
||
Enter Thamar.
|
Entering Character: Thamar is David's daughter with
|
|
36 |
Maacah. |
|
Tham. What aileth Amnon, with such sickly looks |
||
38 |
To daunt the favour
of his lovely face? |
= the sense is,
"blemish the attractiveness". |
40 |
Amnon. Sweet Thamar, sick, and wish some |
40: sick
= ie. "I am sick". |
Dressed with the
cunning of thy dainty hands. |
41: "prepared by
you with your skillful and artful hands." |
|
42 |
||
Tham. That hath the king commanded at my hands; |
||
44 |
Then come and rest thee,
while I make thee ready |
= ie.
"yourself". = "prepare
for you". |
Some dainties easeful
to thy crazèd soul. |
= soothing. = impaired by illness.1 |
|
46 |
||
Amnon. I go, sweet sister, easèd with thy sight. |
||
48 |
||
[Exeunt Thamar, Amnon, Jethray, and Page.] |
Thamar's Arrival: note how the scene jumped from Amnon planning
to ask David to send Thamar to him immediately to Thamar's appearance before
him, she having already been instructed by David to go to the prince. |
|
50 |
||
Jonad.
Why
should a prince, whose power may command, |
51-54: in the first
part of this soliloquy, Jonadab notes the |
|
52 |
Obey the rebel
passions of his love, |
irony of Amnon, who has the power to
order anyone to |
When they contend but
'gainst his consciënce, |
||
54 |
And may be governed or
suppressed by will? − |
54: Jonadab suggests
that Amnon should be able to keep his |
Now, Amnon, loose
those loving knots of blood, |
55-57: Jonadab returns
to the image of Amnon's blood being stopped up, causing him to lose the
colour in his countenance. |
|
56 |
That sucked the
courage from thy kingly heart, |
= the original quarto
prints an ambiguous sokte here, which |
And give it passage to
thy withered cheeks. |
||
58 |
Now, Thamar, ripened
are the holy fruits |
58f: Jonadab
shows his hypocrisy here; his expressed pity for what is about to happen to
Thamar seems disingenuous considering he was the one who devised the scheme
to help Amnon get access to Thamar. |
That grew on plants of
thy virginity; |
||
60 |
And rotten is
thy name in Israel: |
60: meaning Thamar is
about to lose her honour and good |
Poor Thamar, little
did thy lovely hands |
||
62 |
Foretell an action of such violence |
= predict. |
As to contend with
Amnon's lusty arms |
||
64 |
Sinewed with vigour of his kindless love: |
= strengthened. = unnatural, ie. lacking natural feeling,
as |
Fair Thamar, now dishonour
hunts thy foot, |
65: dishonour
= ie. because she will no longer be a virgin |
|
66 |
And follows thee
through every covert shade, |
= concealing. |
Discovering thy shame and nakedness, |
= revealing. |
|
68 |
Even from the valleys of Jehosaphat |
68: Even
= like most disyllabic words with a medial "v", |
Up to the lofty mounts
of Lebanon; |
69-70: the mountains
of Lebanon were famous for their |
|
70 |
Where cedars, stirred
with anger of the winds, |
70-71: the personified
cedar trees of Lebanon spread the |
Sounding in storms the tale of thy disgrace, |
= proclaiming. |
|
72 |
Tremble with fury, and
with murmur shake |
|
Earth with their feet
and with their heads the heavens, |
||
74 |
Beating the clouds
into their swiftest rack, |
74-75: the trees
reveal Thamar's condition to the clouds, |
To bear this wonder
round about the world. |
which will quickly
scatter around the world and repeat what they have heard. |
|
76 |
||
[Exit.] |
Jonadab's Pity: we may notice how unfair the world is to
Thamar, who will lose her maidenhead, and thus her reputation, through no
fault of her own, while Amnon does not have to worry himself about his
reputation suffering in the same way. |
|
SCENE IV. |
||
Outside the Door to
Amnon's House. |
Bible Verses Depicted
in Scene IV: 2 Sam. 13:15-20. |
|
Re-enter Amnon thrusting out Thamar, and Jethray. |
||
1 |
Amnon. Hence from my bed, whose sight offends my soul |
= "get away" |
2 |
As doth the parbreak
of disgorgèd bears! |
2: "as does the
vomit of bears"; one of the most disturbing |
4 |
Tham. Unkind, unprincely, and unmanly Amnon, |
|
To force, and then
refuse thy sister's love, |
||
6 |
Adding unto the fright
of thy offence |
|
The baneful
torment of my published shame! |
= destructive.1 = proclaimed or well-known.1 |
|
8 |
O, do not this
dishonour to thy love, |
|
Nor clog thy soul with
such increasing sin! |
||
10 |
This second evil far
exceeds the first. |
4-10: since she has
been robbed of her virginity, the least |
Amnon can do is let
her remain with him, so she does not have to show her shamed self to the
world; Amnon's refusal to do this, which in a sense would at least
demonstrate his willingness to take responsibility for his actions, is, she
says, a worse failing than his rape of Thamar itself. |
||
12 |
Amnon. Jethray, come thrust this woman from my
sight, |
|
And bolt the door upon
her if she strive. |
= fights or argues,
ie. resists. |
|
14 |
Compare 2 Sam. 13:17: "(Amnon)
called his boy that served him, and said: 'Put away this woman from me, and
bolt the door after her.'" |
|
[Exit.] |
||
16 |
||
Jeth. Go, madam, go; away, you must begone; |
||
18 |
My lord hath done
with you: I pray, depart. |
= finished. = ie. please. |
20 |
[Shuts her out. − Exit.] |
|
22 |
Tham. Whither,
alas, ah, whither shall I fly, |
= to where. = flee. |
With folded arms
and all-amazèd soul? |
23: folded arms
= ie. her arms wrapped around herself.1 |
|
24 |
Cast as was Eva from that glorious soil,
|
= thrown out. = ie. Eve.
= land, region. |
(Where all delights
sat bating, winged with thoughts, |
= fluttering, a term
from falconry, used with winged. |
|
26 |
Ready to nestle in her
naked breasts,) |
|
To bare and barren vales
with floods made waste, |
27-29: Thamar
describes the land outside Eden to where she |
|
28 |
To desert woods, and
hills with lightening scorched, |
= ie. lightning,
pronounced as normal with two syllables. |
With death, with
shame, with hell, with horror sit; |
= Dyce feels sit
is in error, but is stumped as to what the |
|
30 |
There will I wander
from my father's face; |
right word was that was intended here. |
There Absalon, my
brother Absalon, |
||
32 |
Sweet Absalon shall
hear his sister mourn; |
|
There will I lure
with my windy sighs |
33: lure
= recall from flight, another term from falconry; |
|
34 |
Night-ravens
and owls to rend my bloody side, |
= ravens
is pronounce in one syllable: ra'ens.
= tear. |
Which with a rusty
weapon I will wound, |
||
36 |
And make them
passage to my panting heart. |
= give the birds a
path. |
Why talk'st thou,
wretch, and leav'st the deed undone? |
||
38 |
Rend hair and
garments, as thy heart is rent |
|
With inward fury of a
thousand griefs, |
||
40 |
And scatter them by
these unhallowed doors, |
= unholy doors, ie.
the doors of Amnon's house. |
To figure
Amnon's resting cruëlty, |
= represent or
signify. = Bullen wonders if wresting,
|
|
42 |
And tragic spoil
of Thamar's chastity. |
= spoil
is pronounced as a one-syllable word. |
44 |
Enter Absalon. |
Entering Character: Absalon
is Thamar' brother,
and |
46 |
Abs. What causeth Thamar to exclaim so much? |
= cry out;2
we may note the example here of the stage |
convention of a
character, while alone on-stage, describing his or her thoughts and emotions
out loud to no one in particular, but which may conveniently be overheard by
any who are nearby. |
||
48 |
Tham. The cause that Thamar shameth to disclose. |
|
50 |
Abs. Say; I thy brother will
revenge that cause. |
= "tell me." |
52 |
Tham. Amnon, our father's son, hath forcèd me, |
= raped. |
And thrusts me from
him as the scorn of Israel. |
||
54 |
||
Abs. Hath Amnon forcèd thee? by David's hand, |
55-56: by
David's…with him = a double, and therefore |
|
56 |
And by the covenant
God hath made with him, |
stronger, oath; Elizabethan characters
often made vows |
Amnon shall bear
his violence to hell; |
= "carry his
violent act with him". |
|
58 |
Traitor to Heaven,
traitor to David's throne, |
|
Traitor to Absalon and
Israel! |
||
60 |
This fact hath Jacob's
ruler seen from Heaven, |
= (evil) deed. = ie. God. |
And through a cloud of
smoke and tower of fire, |
61-64: the flood of
pronouns can sometimes make an Elizabethan sentence hard to follow; here,
Absalon is describing God causing Amnon to suffer a destructive crash as he
drives his chariot. |
|
62 |
As he rides vaunting
him upon the greens, |
62: "as Amnon,
boasting (vaunting), rides his chariot |
Shall tear his
chariot-wheels with violent winds, |
||
|