conference.' At this the king and his councillors would go up stage or entirely off, while the trumpets play 'a long flourish' to indicate a lapse of time before their return.
I. iii. 134. Which. The antecedent is difficult to discover; it may be 'aspect' (l. 127) or 'pride' (l. 129). The Folio text of this passage, which omits ll. 129–133, is still more incoherent.
I. iii. 174. compassionate. The meaning of 'compassionate' is disputed. It may mean (1) 'self-pitying'; (2) 'sorrowfully lamenting'; (3) 'piteous.' In any case the drift of the whole passage is that an appeal to sentiment is in vain.
I. iii. 239–242; 268–293. These lines, present in all the Quartos and omitted in the Folio, seem, like 129–133, to have been cut from the acting version for the sake of shortening the scene. See App. C.
I. iii. 274. journeyman. A workman who has finished his apprenticeship and now hires out by the day, in many cases traveling about from place to place for the sake of experience.
I. iv. 12–14. 'For' = 'because.' 'That' (l. 13) refers to his reluctance to profane the word 'farewell.' Aumerle says that he could not wish Bolingbroke to fare well, and therefore pretended to be so overcome with emotion as to be unable to speak at all.
I. iv. 43. too great a court. 'He kept the greatest port [state], and mainteined the most plentifull house that ever any king in England did either before this time or since. For there resorted dailie to his court above ten thousand persons that had meat and drinke there allowed them. . . . And in gorgeous and costlie apparrell they exceeded all measure, not one of them that kept within the bounds of his degree. Yeomen and groomes were clothed in silkes, with cloth of graine and skarlet, over sump-
