Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,a To tread down fair respect of sovereignty, Sal. Pardon me, madam, I may not go without you to the kings. Const. Thou may'st, thou shalt, I will not with thee: go I will instruct my sorrows to be proud: [She throws herself on the ground. Enter KING JOHN, KING PHILIP, LEWIS, BLANCH, ELINOR, Bastard, AUSTRIA, and Attendants. K. Phi. 'Tis true, fair daughter; and this blessed day, a Prodigious. Preternatural. b Stoop. What is called an "emendation" by Hanmer still holds its place. Malone rejects it; Mr. Dyce adopts i, "For grief is proud, and makes his owner stout." The meaning of the passage appears to us briefly thus; Constance refuses to go with Salisbury to the kings-she will instruct her sorrows to be proud; for grief is proud in spirit, even while it bows down the body of its owner. The commentators substitute and defend the word "stout" because they received stoop in the sense of submission. Constance continues the fine image throughout her speech: "To me, and to the state of my great grief, Let kings assemble; " here grief is "proud." "Here I and sorrows sit;" Ever in France shall be kept festival: Const. A wicked day, and not a holyday! [Rising. What hath this day deserv'd? what hath it done, That it in golden letters should be set, Among the high tides, in the kalendar? Nay, rather, turn this day out of the week; This day of shame, oppression, perjury: Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child Pray, that their burdens may not fall this day, Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd: But on this day, let seamen fear no wrack; No bargains break, that are not this day made: This day, all things begun come to ill end; Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change! K. Phi. By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause To curse the fair proceedings of this day. Const. You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit, Resembling majesty; which, being touch'd, and tried, Proves valueless: You are fors worn, forsworn ; And our oppression hath made up this league :Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjur'd kings! A widow cries; be husband to me, heavens! Aust. And sooth'st up greatness. What a fool art thou, A ramping fool; to brag, and stamp, and swear, Pand. Hail, you anointed deputies of heaven!— And from Pope Innocent the legate here, K. John. What earthly name to interrogatories To charge me to an answer, as the pope. Add thus much more,-That no Italian priest K. Phi. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this. K. John. Though you, and all the kings of Christendom, Are led so grossly by this meddling priest, Against the pope, and count his friends my foes. Pand. Then by the lawful power that I have, Thou shalt stand curs'd, and excommunicate: And blessed shall he be, that doth revolt From his allegiance to an heretic; And meritorious shall that hand be call'd, Canonized, and worshipp'd as a saint, That takes away by any secret course Thy hateful life. O, lawful let it be, Const. That I have room with Romea to curse a while! Good father cardinal, cry thou, amen, Το my keen curses: for, without my wrong, There is no tongue hath power to curse him right. Pand. There's law and warrant, lady, for my curse. Const. And for mine too; when law can do no right, Let it be lawful, that law bar no wrong; Pand. Philip of France, on peril of a curse, Eli. Look'st thou pale, France ? do not let go thy hand. Const. Look to that, devil! lest that France repent, And, by disjoining hands, hell lose a soul. Aust. King Philip, listen to the cardinal. Bast. And hang a calf's-skin on his recreant limbs. Aust. Well, ruffian, 1 must pocket up these wrongs, Because Bast. Your breeches best may carry them. K. John. Philip, what say'st thou to the car dinal? Const. What should he say, but as the car dinal ? a Room with Rome. Rome was formerly pronounced room, and Shakspere indulges in a play upon words, even when the utterer is strongly moved. Const. O, if thou grant my need, Which only lives but by the death of faith, That need must needs infer this principle,— That faith would live again by death of need; O, then, tread down my need, and faith mounts up; Keep my need up, and faith is trodden down. K. John. The king is mov'd, and answers not to this. Const. O, be remov'd from him, and answer well. Aust. Do so, king Philip; hang no more in doubt. Bast. Hang nothing but a calf's-skin, most sweet lout. K. Phi. I am perplex'd, and know not what And tell me how you would bestow yourself. With slaughter's pencil; where revenge did paint Of smiling peace to march a bloody host, Pand. All form is formless, order orderless, A fasting tiger safer by the tooth, Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold. K. Phi. I may disjoin my hand, but not my That is, to be the champion of our church! And falsehood falsehood cures; as fire cools fire, And mak'st an oath the surety for thy truth a A chased lion. We have ventured here upon a slight change. The original reads, "a cased lion," which is supposed to mean a lion in a cage. The image is, strictly taken, weakened, if not destroyed, by this epithet; for the paw of a confined lion is often held with impunity. And yet cased may mean irritated by confinement. Some would read "chafed." The very pardonable insertion of an h presents us a noble picture of a hunted lion at bay. The emendation, though proposed by one of the first editors, has not been adopted. We think we have to choose, rejecting cased, between chased and chafed. Mr. Dyce prefers chafed, and gives a very satisfactory reason for his preference in quoting Henry VIII. Act 11. Sc. 11."So looks the chafed lion Upon the daring huntsman that has gall'd him." But even here the very context proves that we might read chased; the confusion arising from the use of the long, so like an ƒ. Therefore, thy later vows, against thy first, And better conquest never can'st thou make, "The truth thou art unsure "To swear, swears only not to be forsworn." Several modern editions read swear. The meaning seems to be this:-the truth-that is, the troth, for which you have made an oath the surety, against thy former oath to heaven-this troth, which it was unsure to swear-which you violate your surety in swearing-has only been swornswears only-not to be fors worn; but it is sworn against a former oath, which is more binding, because it was an oath to religion-to the principle upon which al: oaths are made. b Measures-solemn dances. Pand. I will denounce a curse upon his head. K. Phi. Thou shalt not need:-England, I will fall from thee. Const. O fair return of banish'd majesty! Bast. Old time the clock-setter, that bald sexton time, Is it as he will? well then, France shall rue. Blanch. The sun 's o'ercast with blood: Fair day adieu ! Which is the side that I must go withal? I am with both: each army hath a hand; e; Bast. My lord, I rescued her; Her highness is in safety, fear you not; But on, my liege; for very little pains Will bring this labour to a happy end. [Exeunt. 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 So strongly guarded.—Cousin, look not sad: Arth. O, this will make my mother die with K. John. Cousin, [to the Bastard.] away for And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags Bast. Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back,1 When gold and silver becks me to come on. your hand. Coz, farewell. [Exit Bastard. Eli. Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word. [She takes ARTHUR aside. K. John. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle We owe thee much; within this wall of flesh Hub. I am much bounden to your majesty. a Set thou. Theobald introduced thou. b Better tune. The old copy reads tune. Pope corrected this to time. We are by no means sure that the change was called for. The "tune" with which John expresses his willingness to fit" the thing he had to say is a bribe;he now only gives flattery and a promise. "The time" for saying the thing" is discussed in the subsequent portion of John's speech. 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: a 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, K. John. Do not I know thou would'st? Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye On yon 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 a Sound on. So the original. But on and one were often spelt alike; and therefore the passage must be determined by other principles than that of fidelity to the text. Which is the more poetical, "Sound on into the drowsy race of night," or "sound one?" Shakspere, it appears to us, has made the idea of time precise enough by the "midnight bell;" and the addition of "one" is either a contradiction or a pleonasm, to which form of words he was not given. "The midnight bell" sounding "on, into" (or unto, for the words were used convertibly) the drowsy march, race, of night, seems to us far more poetical than precisely determining the hour, which was already determined by the word "midnight." But was the "midnight bell" the bell of a clock? Was it not rather the bell which called the monks to their "morning lauds," and which, according to the regulations of Dunstan, was ordinarily to be rung before every office? In Dunstan's "Concord of Rules," quoted by Fosbrooke, the hours for the first services of the day are thus stated, Mattins and Lauds, midnight. Prime, 6 A.M. It is added, "if the office of Lauds be finished by day break, as is fit, let them begin Prime without ringing; if not, let them wait for day-light, and, ringing the bell, assemble for Prime." It must, however, be noticed, that when Bernardo describes the appearance of the Ghost, in Hamlet, he marks the time by the bell then beating one." In this instance the word is spelt one (not on) both in the early quartos and in the folio of 1623. |