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SCENE III.

The Same.

Alarums; Excursions; Retreat. Enter King JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR, the Bastard, HUBERT, and Lords.

K. John. So shall it be; your grace shall stay behind,

So strongly guarded. - Cousin, look not sad:

Thy grandam loves thee, and thy uncle will
As dear be to thee as thy father was.

[To ELINOR.

[To ARTHUR.

Arth. O! this will make my mother die with grief.

K. John. Cousin, [To the Bastard.] away for England:

haste before;

And ere our coming, see thou shake the bags

Of hoarding abbots; their imprisoned angels1

Set at liberty: the fat ribs of peace

Must by the hungry now be fed upon :

Use our commission in his utmost force.

Bast. Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back,

When gold and silver becks me to come on.

I leave your highness. - Grandam, I will pray

(If ever I remember to be holy)

For your fair safety: so I kiss your hand.

Eli. Farewell, gentle cousin.

K. John.

Coz, farewell.

[Exit Bastard.

Eli. Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.

[She takes ARTHUR aside.

K. John. Come hither, Hubert. O! my gentle Hubert,

We owe thee much: within this wall of flesh

There is a soul counts thee her creditor,

And with advantage means to pay thy love:

And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.

Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say,

1

THEIR imprisoned ANGELS] Of course referring to the coin so called, upon the name of which most writers have played. "Their" is from the corr. fo. 1632, and is necessary for the metre, as well as otherwise.

But I will fit it with some better time2. -
By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham'd
To say what good respect I have of thee.

Hub. I am much bounden to your majesty.

K. John. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet;

But thou shalt have: and creep time ne'er so slow,
Yet it shall come, for me to do thee good.

I had a thing to say, -but let it go.
The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,
Attended with the pleasures of the world,
Is all too wanton, and too full of gawds,
To give me audience :- if the midnight bell
Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth,
Sound on into the drowsy ear of night*:
If this same were a churchyard where we stand,
And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;
Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,
Had bak'd thy blood, and made it heavy, thick,
(Which, else, runs tickling up and down the veins',
Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes,
And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,
A passion hateful to my purposes,)

Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,
Hear me without thine ears, and make reply
Without a tongue, using conceit alone,
Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words,
Then, in despite of broad-eyed watchful day',

2 But I will fit it with some better TIME.] The old copies have tune for "time:" Pope made the correction, also found in the corr. fo. 1632.

* Sound on into the drowsy EAR of night:] Many of the commentators would read one instead of "on," which is contradicted by the "midnight bell" in a line just preceding. "Eare of night" for "race of night" is the emendation in the corr. fo. 1632, and is in all probability Shakespeare's word: we have therefore placed it in the text. The "midnight bell," with its twelve times repeated strokes, is very poetically said to "sound on into the drowsy ear of night;" one sound produced by the "iron tongue" driving the other "on," or forward, until the whole number is complete, and the prolonged vibration of the last blow on the bell only left to fill the empty space of darkness. It is almost droll to find the Rev. Mr. Dyce (who approves of "ear" and objects to "on") contending that "the midnight bell" means the bell at one in the morning, and calling three witnesses to the fact, who none of them support him by their evidence: when Defoe, for instance, speaks of "one o'clock in the night," he is not so simple as to call it midnight, but merely "night," as in truth it was.

4 (Which, else, runs tickling up and down the veins,] We let "tickling" stand, as very likely the poet's word, but it is tingling in the corr. fo. 1632.

5 Then in despite of BROAD-EYED watchful day,] We cannot resist Pope's

I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.-
But ah! I will not:-yet I love thee well;
And, by my troth, I think, thou lov'st me well.

Hub. So well, that what you bid me undertake,
Though that my death were adjunct to my act,

By heaven, I would do it.

K. John.

Do not I know, thou wouldst?

Good Hubert! Hubert-Hubert, throw thine eye

On yond' young boy: I'll tell thee what, my friend,

He is a very serpent in my way;

And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,

He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?

[blocks in formation]

Enough!

I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee;

Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee:

Remember.-Madam, fare you well:

I'll send those powers o'er to your majesty.

Eli. My blessing go with thee!
K. John.

For England, cousin: go.

Hubert shall be your man, attend on you

With all true duty. On toward Calais, ho!

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

The Same. The French King's Tent.

Enter King PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH, and Attendants.

K. Phi. So, by a roaring tempest on the flood, A whole armado of convented sail

alteration of brooded, of the folios, to "broad-eyed "-the epithet is so happy and so like Shakespeare. The old corrector of the folio, 1632, saw that brooded must be wrong, and perhaps gives us the custom in his day, converting brooded into the broad. Brooded has surely nothing to do with brooding chickens.

6 A whole armado of CONVENTED sail] It is "convicted sail" in all the folios. "I read (says Mr. Singer) convented," but he omits to add that he took this ex

Is scatter'd, and disjoin'd from fellowship.

Pand. Courage and comfort! all shall yet go well.
K. Phi. What can go well, when we have run so ill?

Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost ?
Arthur ta'en prisoner? divers dear friends slain ?
And bloody England into England gone,
O'erbearing interruption, spite of France?

Lew. What he hath won, that hath he fortified:
So hot a speed with such advice dispos'd,
Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,
Doth want example. Who hath read, or heard,
Of any kindred action like to this?

K. Phi. Well could I bear that England had this praise, So we could find some pattern of our shame.

Enter CONSTANCE.

Look, who comes here? a grave unto a soul;
Holding th' eternal spirit against her will,
In the vile prison of afflicted breath.-
I pr'ythee, lady, go away with me.

Const. Lo now, now see the issue of your peace!
K. Phi. Patience, good lady: comfort, gentle Constance.
Const. No, I defy all counsel', all redress,
But that which ends all counsel, true redress,
Death, death. O, amiable lovely death!
Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!
Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,
Thou hate and terror to prosperity,
And I will kiss thy detestable bones;
And put my eye-balls in thy vaulty brows;
And ring these fingers with thy household worms;
And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,
And be a carrion monster like thyself:

Come, grin on me; and I will think thou smil'st,
And buss thee as thy wife. Misery's love,
O, come to me!

O, fair affliction, peace!

K. Phi.

cellent emendation from the corr. fo. 1632. It will be found on p. 206 of "Notes and Emendations." Neither does he pretend to say that the change is proposed in his corrected copy of the folio, 1632, which often so singularly and usefully confirms the changes contained in my corrected folio, 1632. "Convented," of course, means convened or assembled: the armado had been collected.

7 No, I DEFY all counsel.] One of the old senses of "defy" was refuse.

Const. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry.-
O! that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth ;
Then with a passion would I shake the world,
And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy,
Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice,
Which scorns a widow's invocation..

Pand. Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.
Const. Thou art not holy to belie me so.
I am not mad: this hair I tear, is mine;
My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;
Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost!
I am not mad :-I would to heaven, I were,
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!-
Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
And thou shalt be canoniz'd, cardinal;
For, being not mad, but sensible of grief,
My reasonable part produces reason
How I may be deliver'd of these woes,
And teaches me to kill or hang myself:
If I were mad, I should forget my son,
Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.
I am not mad: too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity.

K. Phi. Bind up those tresses. O! what love I note
In the fair multitude of those her hairs:
Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen,
Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends1
Do glue themselves in sociable grief;
Like true, inseparable, faithful lovers,
Sticking together in calamity.

Const. To England, if you will.

8 Which scorns a widow's invocation.] In the folios it is "a modern invocation," which can only mean a common invocation, just such an invocation as Constance would not use. She has already spoken of herself as a "widow," and here again she refers to her condition and its helplessness. We owe this emendation to the corr. fo. 1632, and as modern cannot be the true word, we willingly accept this highly probable and natural substitution.

9 Thou art NOT holy, &c.] The negative having dropped out in the first folio, the deficiency was not supplied in print until the publication of the fourth folio in 1685. We however find "not" written in the margin of the corr. fo. 1632.

1

ten thousand wiry FRIENDS] In the old copies, from first to last, "friends" is misprinted fiends: there can be no doubt that it is an error of the press, as is shown by the insertion of the letter r in the corr. fo. 1632. In the next line but one r again made its escape in "lovers," but is restored on the same authority.

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