Have I not here the best cards for the game, Pand. You look but on the outside of this work. [Trumpet sounds. What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us? Enter the Bastard, attended. Bast. According to the fair play of the world, I come, to learn how you have dealt for him; Pand. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite, Bast. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd, The youth says well.-Now, hear our English king, For thus his royalty doth speak in me. He is prepar'd; and reason, too, he should: This apish and unmannerly approach, This harness'd masque, and unadvised revel, on the shores of the Thames. In the old "King John" Lewis thus mentions "Rochester" as having submitted, and in Shakespeare the same character may allude to that and other places on the river: "Your city, Rochester, with great applause, By some divine instinct laid arms aside; This unheard sauciness, and boyish troops', That hand, which had the strength, even at your door, To dive like buckets in concealed wells; To crouch in litter of your stable planks; To lie like pawns lock'd up in chests and trunks; 1 This UNHEARD sauciness, and boyish troops,] So the old copies without exception, and we adhere to the ancient and most intelligible text, notwithstanding Theobald's suggestion, that "unheard" ought to be unhair'd. Some modern editors have unscrupulously printed unhair'd, without the slightest intimation that it was not the old reading. 2 - and make you TAKE the hatch ;] i. e. leap over the hatch of the door. 3 Even at the crying of your nation's CROW,] Malone thinks that this line refers to "the voice or caw of the French crow," but Douce truly contends that the allusion is to the "crow" of a cock, that being the national bird of France; "gallus meaning both a cock and a Frenchman." Their NEEDL's to lances,] So printed in the old copies of 1623 and 1632, to show that "needles" was to be read in the time of a monosyllable. Modern editors have taken the liberty of printing it needs, a form of the word which, as far as we can judge, Shakespeare never employed; for when it occurs elsewhere in his works, even if it be to be read as one syllable, we find it printed needles. See "Midsummer Night's Dream," Vol. ii. p. 433, note 4. To fierce and bloody inclination. Lew. There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace: We grant thou canst outscold us. Fare thee well: We hold our time too precious to be spent With such a brabbler. Pand. Bast. No, I will speak. Lew. Give me leave to speak. We will attend to neither. Strike up the drums! and let the tongue of war Plead for our interest, and our being here. Bast. Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out; And so shall you, being beaten. Do but start An echo with the clamour of thy drum, As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear, A bare-ribb'd death, whose office is this day Lew. Strike up our drums to find this danger out. [Exeunt. SCENE III. The Same. A Field of Battle. Alarums. Enter King JOHN and HUBERT. K. John. How goes the day with us? O! tell me, Hubert. Hub. Badly, I fear. K. John. This fever, How fares your majesty? that hath troubled me so long, Lies heavy on me: O! my heart is sick. Enter a Messenger. Mess. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge, Desires your majesty to leave the field, And send him word by me which way you go. K. John. Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there. Mess. Be of good comfort; for the great supply, K. John. Ah me! this tyrant fever burns me up, [Exeunt. SCENE IV. The Same. Another Part of the Same. Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and Others. Sal. I did not think the king so stor'd with friends. Pem. Up once again; put spirit in the French: If they miscarry, we miscarry too. Sal. That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge, In spite of spite, alone upholds the day. 5 Pem. They say, king John sore sick bath left the field. Enter MELUN wounded, and led by Soldiers. Mel. Lead me to the revolts of England here. toward Swinstead,] i. e. Swineshead, but called Swinstead also in the old "King John," and in ballads of the time. Pem. It is the count Melun. Sal. Wounded to death. Mel. Fly, noble English; you are bought and sold: Unthread the rude eye of rebellion, And welcome home again discarded faith. Seek out king John, and fall before his feet; Sal. May this be possible? may this be true? Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax Why should I then be false, since it is true He is forsworn, if e'er those eyes of yours Behold another day break in the east: But even this night, whose black contagious breath Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun, Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire, Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives, 6 RESOLVETH from his figure 'gainst the fire?] To "resolve" of old was the same as to dissolve. "This is said," remarks Steevens, "in allusion to the images made by witches. Holinshed observes, that it was alleged against dame Eleanor Cobham and her confederates, 'that they had devised "an image of wax," representing the king, which, by their sorcerie, by little and little consumed, intending thereby, in conclusion, to waste and destroy the king's person." " |