By heaven, I think, my sword's as sharp as yours: Your worth, your greatness, and nobility. Big. Out, hunghill! dar'st thou brave a nobleman ? Hub. Not for my life: but yet I dare defend My innocent life against an emperor. Sal. Thou art a murderer. Hub. Do not prove me so; Yet, I am none :7 Whose tongue soe'er speaks false, Bast. Keep the peace, I say. Sal. Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge. Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame, That you shall think the devil is come from hell. Hub. Lord Bigot, I am none. Big. Who kill'd this prince? Hub. 'Tis not an hour since I left him well: Sal. Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes, Big. Away, toward Bury, to the Dauphin there! work? Beyond the infinite and bound.ess reach [6] Honest defence; defence in a good cause. JOHNS. [7] Do not make me a murderer, by compelling me to kill you; I am Hitherte not a murderer. JOHNS. Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death, Art thou damn'd, Hubert. Hub. Do but hear me, sir. Bast. Ha! I'll tell thee what; Thou art damn'd as black-nay, nothing is so black; Thou art more deep damn'd than prince Lucifer: There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child. Bast. If thou didst but consent To this most cruel act, do but despair, And, if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread That ever spider twisted from her womb Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be A beam to hang thee on; or would'st thou drown thyself, And it shall be as all the ocean, Hub. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought Bast. Go, bear him in thine arms. I am amaz'd, methinks; and lose my way [8] I remember once to have met with a book, printed in the time of Henry VIII. (which Shakspeare possibly might have seen) where we are told that the deformity of the condemned in the other world, is exactly proportioned to the degrees of their guilt The author of it observes how difficult it would be on this account, to distinguish between Belzebub and Judas Iscariot STEEV [9] Scamble and scramble have the same meaning. STEEV. [1] That is, the int rest which is not at this moment legally possessed by ny one, however rightfully entitled to it On the death of Arthur, the aight to the English crown devolved to his sister, Eleanor. MAL Now powers from home, and discontents at home, And heaven itself doth frown upon the land. [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE I.-The same. A room in the Palace. Enter King JOHN, PANDULPH with the Crown, and Attendants. King John. THUS have I yielded up into your hand, The circle of my glory. Pand. Take again [Giving JOHN the Crown. From this my hand, as holding of the pope, Your sovereign greatness and authority. K. John. Now keep your holy word go meet the French; And from his holiness use all your power To stop their marches, 'fore we are inflam'd. Our discontented counties do revolt ; Our people quarrel with obedience ; Rests by you only to be qualified. Then pause not; for the present time's so sick, Or overthrow incurable ensues. Pand. It was my breath that blew this tempest up, Upon your stubborn usage of the pope : But, since you are a gentle convertite, 3 My tongue shall hush again this storm of war, [2] Wrested pomp, is greatness obtained by violence. JOHNS. [3] A convertite is a convert. STEEV. Upon your oath of service to the pope, Go I to make the French lay down their arms. [Exit. My crown I should give off? Even so I have: Enter the Bastard. Bast. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out, But Dover castle: London hath receiv'd, Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers: To offer service to your enemy; And wild amazement hurries up and down K. John. Would not my lords return to me again, Bast. They found him dead, and cast into the streets; An empty casket, where the jewel of life By some damn'd hand was robb'd and ta'en away. Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire; Away; and glister like the god of war, And fright him there? and make him tremble there? To meet displeasure further from the doors; And grapple with him, ere he come so nigh. K. John. The legate of the pope hath been with me, [4] To forage is here used in its original sense, for to range abroad. JOHNS. And I have made a happy peace with him; Bast. O inglorious league ! Shall we, upon the footing of our land, To arms invasive? shall a beardless boy, Mocking the air with colours idly spread, 5 They saw we had a purpose of defence. K. John. Have thou the ordering of this present time. Bast. Away then, with good courage; yet, I know, Our party may well meet a prouder foe. SCENE II. A Plain near St. Edmund's-bury. [Exeunt. Enter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and Soldiers. Lew. My lord Melun, let this be copied out, Sal. Upon our sides it never shall be broken. [5] He has the same image in Macbeth: "Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky, [6] i. e. the rough draught of the original treaty between the Dauphin and the English lords. STEEV. |