Among the thorns and dangers of this world. -How easy dost thou take all England upFrom forth this morsel of dead royalty,The life, the right and truth of all this realm,Is fled to heaven; and England now is leftTo tug and scamble, and to part by the teeth The unowed interest of proud-swelling state. Now, for the bare-picked bone of majesty, Doth dogged War bristle his angry crest, And snarleth in the gentle eyes of Peace:
Now powers from home, and discontents at home,Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits (As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast) The imminent decay of wrested pomp.
Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can Hold out this tempest. -Bear away that child, And follow me with speed; I"ll to the king:
A thousand businesses are brief in hand,
And Heaven itself doth frown upon the land.［ExeuntThe Dauphin, aided by the disaffected nobles of England, gives battle to John at St. Edmund"s-Bury. The king"s troops are repulsed, and John is conveyed to Swinstead Abbey, sick of a fever. There the King dies.
SCENE. -Swinstead Abbey.
Enter BIGOT and Attendants, who bring in KING JOHN in a chair.
K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room;It would not out at windows, nor at doors. There is so hot a summer in my bosom, That all my bowels crumble up to dust:
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen Upon a parchment, and against this fire Do I shrink up.
P. Henry.How fares your majesty?
K. John. Poisoned-ill fare; -dead, forsook, cast off.
And none of you will bid the Winter come,To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;Nor let my kingdom"s rivers take their course Through my burned bosom, nor entreat the North To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips,And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much, I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,And so ungrateful, you deny me that.
P. Henry. O that there were some virtue in my tears. That might relieve you!
K. John.The salt in them is hot. Within me is a hell; and there the poisonIs, as a fiend, confined to tyrannizeOn unreprievable condemned blood.
Enter FAULCONBRIDGE.
Faul. O, I am scalded with my violent motion, And spleen of speed to see your majesty!
K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye. The tackle of my heart is cracked and burned;And all the shrouds, wherewith my life should sail, Are turned to one thread, one little hair:
My heart hath one poor string to stay it by, Which holds but till thy news be uttered; And then all this thou seest is but a clod, And module of confounded royalty.
Faul. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward; Where Heaven He knows how we shall answer him: For, in a night, the best part of my power,As I upon advantage did remove, Were in the Washes all unwarilyDevoured by the unexpected flood.［The KING diesSal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear. -My liege! my lord ! but now a king, now thus!
P. Henry. Even so must I run on, and even so stop. What surety of the world, what hope, what stay, When this was now a king, and now is clay? -At Worcester must his body be interred,For so he willed it.
Faul.Thither shall it then. And happily may your sweet self put onThe lineal state and glory of the land!
To whom, with all submission, on my knee I do bequeath my faithful servicesAnd true subjection everlastingly.
Sal. And the like tender of our love we make, To rest without a spot for evermore.
P. Henry. I have a kind soul, that would give you thanks, And knows not how to do it, but with tears.
Faul. O let us pay the time but needful woe, Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs. - This England never did, (nor never shall,)Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms,And we shall shock them! Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true.
NOTES
① From France to England.-That is, All in France goes from France to England.
② The copy of your speed.-Referring to the remarkable speed which had attended King John"s invasion of France in the earlier part of the play, and of which the Dauphin had said,-"So hot a speed, with such advice disposed, Such temperate order in so fierce a cause, Doth want example."③ If, whether.
④ Beldams, old women; lit fine-lady; but belle is used as a prefix in French (much as grand is used in English); for example, belle-mire , mother-in-law.
⑤ A many thousand, many a thousand. A is used before many , or a word expressing number, when the whole of the things are to be regarded as one mass; for example, "An eight days." (Luke, ix. 28.)⑥ Embattailed, marshalled in order of battle.
⑦ Quoted, marked; noted.
⑧ Braved, set at defiance. To brag , to boast, is from the same root; the primary meaning of which is to crack, and so to attract notice. Hence, also, Sc. braw , showy; Fr. brave , gay, gallant; O. E. brave , handsome; and modern brave , courageous.
⑨ Not for my life = I dare not for my life defy a nobleman; yet I dare defend my innocent life against any man, even an emperor.
⑩ Do not prove me so, by provoking me to kill you .
Rheum, tears: lit. any fluid. It comes from a Greek word meaning to flow . Cincture, belt, or girdle; lit . any thing which binds or surrounds.
Swinstead Abbey.-The historical account gives Newark Castle in Nottinghamshire as the scene of King John"s death.
Maw, mouth.
To set mine eye=To close mine eyes after I am dead. Module, a model or image.
The Washes, between Norfolk and Lincoln, where King John lost his baggage and regalia in 1216.