Vulgar words in Aspects of Literature (Page 1)
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They may not like the bastard progeny of the various mistresses they adored--of a Science which they enthroned above instead of subordinating to humanistic values, of a brutal Imperialism which the so-called Conservatives among them set up in place of the truly humane devotion of which man is capable, of the sickening humanitarianism which appears in retrospect to have been merely an excuse for absolute indolence--but they certainly have forfeited the right to censure it.
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The only character Shakespeare added to those he found ready to his hand was that of James Gurney, who enters with Lady Falconbridge after the scene between the Bastard and his brother, says four words, and departs for ever.
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It is obvious that Shakespeare's sole motive in introducing Gurney is to provide an occasion for the Bastard's characteristic, though not to a modern mind quite obvious, jest, based on the fact that Philip was at the time a common name for a sparrow.
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The Bastard, just dubbed Sir Richard Plantagenet by the King, makes a thoroughly natural jibe at his former name, Philip, to which he had just shown such breezy indifference.
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The jest could not have been made to Lady Falconbridge without a direct insult to her, which would have been alien to the natural, blunt, and easygoing fondness of the relation which Shakespeare establishes between the Bastard and his mother.
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In Act III, scene ii., Warburton's emendation of 'airy' to 'fiery' had in Coleridge's day been received into the text of the Bastard's lines:-- 'Now by my life, this day grows wondrous hot; Some airy devil hovers in the sky.'
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Again, the Folio text of the meeting between the Bastard and Hubert in Act V., when Hubert fails to recognise the Bastard's voice, runs thus:-- 'Unkinde remembrance: thou and endles night, Have done me shame: Brave Soldier, pardon me That any accent breaking from thy tongue Should scape the true acquaintaince of mine eare.'
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He is overwrought by his knowledge of 'news fitting to the night, Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible,' and by his long wandering in search of the Bastard:-- 'Why, here I walk in the black brow of night To find you out.'