Pand. It was my breath that blew this tempest up, Upon your stubborn usage of the pope;
But since you are a gentle convertite,
My tongue shall hush again this storm of war,
And make fair weather in your blustering land.
On this Ascension-day, remember well,
Upon your oath of service to the pope,
Go I to make the French lay down their arms.
[Exit. K. John. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet
Say that before Ascension-day at noon
My crown I should give off? Even so I have:
I did suppose it should be on constraint;
But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.
Bast. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out
But Dover Castle: London hath received,
Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers:
Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone
To offer service to your enemy,
And wild amazement hurries up and down
The little number of your doubtful friends.
K. John. Would not my lords return to me again,
After they heard young Arthur was alive?
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
K. John. That villain Hubert told me he did live.
Bast. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.
But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear and sad distrust
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior
That borrow their behaviors 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:
Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
What, shall they seek the lion in his den,
And fight him there? and make him tremble
there?
O, let it not be said: forage, and run
To meet displeasure farther from the doors, 60 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.
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,
67. "fair-play orders"; instructions for courteous treatment (of the enemy).-C. H. H.
A cocker'd silken wanton, brave our fields, 70
And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
Mocking the air with colors idly spread,
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 defense.
K. John. Have thou the ordering of this present time.
Bast. Away, then, with good courage! yet, 1
Our party may well meet a prouder foe.
The Dauphin's camp at St. Edmundsbury. 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 precedent 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 an unurged faith
To your proceedings; yet believe me, prince,
1. “this,” i. e. "this compact with the English lords.”—I. G.
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 honorable rescue and defense
Cries out upon the name of Salisbury!
But such is the infection of the time,
That, for the health and physic 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 stranger, march
Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up
Her enemies' ranks,-I must withdraw and
Upon the spot of this enforced cause,―
To grace the gentry of a land remote,
And follow unacquainted colors here?
What, here? O nation, that thou couldst re-
move!
That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,
Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself,
And grapple thee unto a pagan shore;
27. "step after a stranger, march," so the Folios; Theobald "stranger march," but the original reading seems preferable.-I. G. 30. "The spot"; that is, the stain.-H. N. H.
36. "grapple," Pope's emendation of "cripple" of the Folios; Steevens conjectured “gripple,” Gould “couple.”—I. G.
Where these two Christian armies might com
The blood of malice in a vein of league,
And not to spend it so unneighborly!
Lew. A noble temper dost thou show in this;
And great affections wrestling in thy bosom
Doth make an earthquake of nobility.
O, what a noble combat hast thou fought
Between compulsion and a brave respect!
Let me wipe off this honorable 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 soul, 50
Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amazed
Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven
Figured 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 enraged:
Not met with fortune other than at feasts,
Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossiping.
Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as
deep
Into the purse of rich prosperity
44. "Brave respect"; this compulsion was the necessity of a reformation in the state; which, in Salisbury's opinion, could only be procured by foreign arms; and the brave respect was the love of country.-H. N. H.
59. "Full of warm blood," Heath's conjecture for "Full warm of blood" of the Folios.-I. G.
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