Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviours from the great,
Grow great by your example, and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution*.
Away; and glister like the god of war,
When he intendeth to become the field 5:
Show boldness, and aspiring confidence.
What, shall they seek the lion in his den,
And fright him there? and make him tremble there?
O, let it not be said!—Forage, and run
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,
And I have made a happy peace with him;
And he hath promised to dismiss the powers
Led by the Dauphin.

Bast.

O inglorious league!
Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,
Insinuation, parley, and base truce,

To arms invasive? shall a beardless boy,
A cocker'd silken wanton brave our fields,
And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
Mocking the air with colours idly spread",

Becomes the field.'

6 Forage here seems to mean to range abroad; which Dr. Johnson says is its original sense: but fourrage, the French source of it, is formed from the low Latin foderagium, food: the sense of ranging therefore appears to be secondary.

7 We have the same image in Macbeth:

'Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky,

And fan our people cold.'

From these two passages Gray formed the first lines of his 'Bard.'

And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms:
Perchance, the cardinal cannot make your peace;
Or if he do, let it at least be said,
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. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. A Plain, near St. Edmund's-]
-Bury.

Enter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN,
PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and Soldiers.

Lew. My Lord Melun, let this be copied out,
And keep it safe for our remembrance:
Return the precedent1 to these lords again;
That having our fair order written down,
Both they, and we, perusing o'er these notes,
May know wherefore we took the sacrament,
And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.

Sal. Upon our sides it never shall be broken. And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear A voluntary zeal, and unurg'd faith, To your proceedings; yet, believe me, prince, I am not glad that such a sore of time Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt, And heal the inveterate canker of one wound, By making many: O, it grieves my soul, That I must draw this metal from my side To be a widow-maker; O, and there,

Where honourable rescue and defence,

8 i. e. I know that our party is able to cope with one yet prouder, and more confident of its strength than theirs.

1 i. e. the rough draught of the original treaty. In King Richard II. the scrivener employed to engross the indictment of Lord Hastings says, 'It took him eleven hours to write it, and that the precedent was full as long a doing.'

Cries out upon the name of Salisbury :
But such is the infection of the time,
That, for the health and physick of our right,
We cannot deal but with the very hand
Of stern injustice and confused

wrong.

And is't not pity, O my grieved friends!
That we, the sons and children of this isle,
Were born to see so sad an hour as this;
Wherein we step after a stranger2 march
Upon her gentle bosom, and fill

up

Her enemies' ranks (I must withdraw and weep
Upon the spot3 of this enforced cause),

To grace the gentry of a land remote,
And follow unacquainted colours here?

What, here?-O nation, that thou could'st remove! That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about, Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself, And grapple 5 thee unto a Pagan shore;

Where these two Christian armies might combine The blood of malice in a vein of league,

And not to-spend it so unneighbourly!

2 Shakspeare often uses stranger as an adjective. See the last scene:

Swearing allegiance and the love of soul

To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.'

So in a Midsummer Night's Dream:

'To seek new friends and stranger companies.'

3 i. e. the stain.

To clip is to embrace; not yet obsolete in the northern counties.

5 The old copy reads cripple. The emendation was made by Pope. The poet alludes to the wars carried on by the Christian princes in the Holy Land against the Saracens, where the united armies of France and England might have laid their animosities aside and fought in the cause of Christ, instead of fighting against brethren and countrymen.

6 Shakspeare here employs a phraseology used before in the Merry Wives of Windsor: vol. i. p. 269, note 7 :

'And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight.'

Lew. A noble temper dost thou show in this; And great affections, wrestling in thy bosom, Do make an earthquake of nobility.

O, what a noble combat hast thou fought,
Between compulsion and a brave respect?!
Let me wipe off this honourable dew,
That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks:
My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,
Being an ordinary inundation;

But this effusion of such manly drops,
This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul3,
Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amaz'd
Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven
Figur'd quite o'er with burning meteors.
Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,
And with a great heart heave away this storm:
Commend these waters to those baby eyes,
That never saw the giant world enrag'd;
Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,
Full warm of blood, of mirth, of gossiping.
Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep
Into the purse of rich prosperity,

As Lewis himself:-so, nobles, shall you all,
your sinews to the strength of mine.

That knit

Enter PANDULPH, attended.

And even there, methinks, an angel spake9:
Look, where the holy legate comes apace,

7 This compulsion was the necessity of a reformation in the state; which, according to Salisbury's opinion (who in his preceding speech calls it an enforced cause) could only be procured by foreign arms; and the brave respect was the love of country. This windy tempest till it blow up rain

8

Held back his sorrow's tide.'-Rape of Lucrece.

9 In what I have now said an angel spake for see, the holy legate approaches to give a warrant from heaven, and the name of right to our cause.

To give us warrant from the hand of heaven;
And on our actions set the name of right,
With holy breath.

Pand.

Hail, noble prince of France!
The next is this,-King John hath reconcil'd
Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,
That so stood out against the holy church,
The great metropolis and see of Rome :
Therefore thy threat'ning colours now wind up,
And tame the savage spirit of wild war;
That, like a lion foster'd up at hand,
It may lie gently at the foot of peace,
And be no further harmful than in show.

Lew. Your grace shall pardon me, I will not back; I am too high-born to be propertied 1o,

To be a secondary at control,

10

Or useful serving-man, and instrument,
To any sovereign state throughout the world.
Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars,
Between this chástis'd kingdom and myself,
And brought in matter that should feed this fire;
And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out
With that same weak wind which enkindled it. ·
You taught me how to know the face of right,
Acquainted me with interest to 11 this land,
Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;
And come you now to tell me, John hath made
His peace with Rome? What is that
I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,

10 Appropriated.

peace

11 This was the phraseology of the time :-
'He hath more worthy interest to the state
Than thou the shadow of succession.

to me

?

King Henry IV. Part II. Again in Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol ii. p. 927 :-'He had a release from Rose, the daughter and heir of Sir John de Arden, before specified, of all her interest to the manor of Pedimore.'