K. John. A grave. K. John. He shall not live. Enough. I could be merry now: Hubert, I love thee; K. John. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. The same. The French King's Tent. Enter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH and K. Phi. So, by a roaring tempest on the flood, A whole armado1 of convicted2 sail Is scatter'd and disjoin'd from fellowship. Pand. Courage and comfort! all shall yet go well. K. Phi. What can go well, when we have run so ill? Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost? Arthur ta'en prisoner? divers dear friends slain? And bloody England into England gone, O'erbearing interruption, spite of France? Lew. What he hath won, that hath he fortified: So hot a speed with such advice dispos'd, Such temperate order in so fierce a cause3, 7 King John, after he had taken Arthur prisoner, sent him to the town of Falaise, in Normandy, under the care of Hubert, his chamberlain, from whence he was afterwards removed to Rouen, and delivered to the custody of Robert de Vey pont. Here he was secretly put to death. "This is one of those scenes (says Steevens) to which may be promised a lasting commendation. Art could add little to its perfection; no change in dramatic taste can injure it; and time itself can substract nothing from its beauties.' 1 Armado is a fleet of war; the word is adopted from the Spanish, and the recent defeat of the Spanish armado had made it familiar. ? Convicted is vanquished, overcome. To convince and convict were synonymous. See Macbeth, Act i, Sc. 7, and Act iii, Sc 4. 3 A fierce cause is a cause conducted with precipitation. Fierce wretchedness in Timon of Athens is hasty, sudden misery. Doth want example; Who hath read, or heard, Of any kindred action like to this? K. Phi. Well could I bear that England had this praise, So we could find some pattern of our shame. Enter CONSTANCE. Look, who comes here! a grave unto a soul; Const. Lo, now! now see the issue of your peace! Const. No, I defy5 all counsel, all redress, Come, grin on me; and I will think thou smil'st, K. Phi. O fair affliction, peace. Const. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry:O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth! Then with a passion would I shake the world; And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy, 4 the vile prison of afflicted breath' is the body; the same vile prison in which the breath is confined. 5 To defy formerly signified to refuse, to reject. 'I do defy the commiseration.-Romeo and Juliet. 6 i. e. this mouth. Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice, Pand. Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow. Const. Thou art not holy to belie me so; I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine; My name is Constance: I was Geffrey's wife; Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost: I am not mad:-I would to heaven, I were! For then, 'tis like I should forget myself: O, if I could, what grief should I forget!Preach some philosophy to make me mad, And thou shalt be canoniz'd, cardinal: For, being not mad, but sensible of grief, My reasonable part produces reason How I may be deliver'd of these woes, And teaches me to kill or hang myself; If I were mad, I should forget my son; Or madly think, a babe of clouts were he: I am not mad; too well, too well I feel The different plague of each calamity. K. Phi. Bind up those tresses; O, what love I note Like true, inseparable, faithful loves, Bind up your hairs. Const. To England, if you will8. And will again commit them to their bonds, 7 i. e. common. 8 Probably Constance in despair means to apostrophize the absent King John: "Take my son to England if you will.' And, father cardinal, I have heard you say, For, since the birth of Cain, the first male child, As dim and meagre as an ague's fit; And so he'll die; and, rising so again, When I shall meet him in the court of heaven I shall not know him: therefore never, never Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. Pand. You hold too heinous a respect of grief. Const. He talks to me, that never had a son11. K. Phi. You are as fond of grief, as of your child. Const. Grief fills the room up of my absent child12, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me: Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; Then, have I reason to be fond of grief. Fare you well: had you such a loss as I, 9 To suspire Shakspeare uses for to breathe. Thus in King Henry IV. Part 11: 'Did he suspire, that light and weightless down In Bullokar's Expositor, 1616, we have suspiration, a breathing or sighing. 10 Gracious is used by Shakspeare often in the sense of beautiful, comely, graceful. Florio, in his Italian Dictionary, shows that this was по uncommon signification; he explains gratioso, graceful, gracious, also comely fine, well-favoured, gentle. 11 To the same purpose Macduff observes: 'He has no children ——' The thought occurs again in King Henry VI. Part 111. 12 Pertruitur lachrymis, et amat pro conjuge luctum.' Lucan, 1. ix. Maynard, a French poet, has the same thought:— Et le repos est un bien que je crains : I could give better comfort than you do.- [Tearing off her head-dress. When there is such disorder in my wit. O lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son! My life, my joy, my food, my all the world! My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure! [Exit. K. Phi. I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her. [Exit. Lew. There's nothing in this world can make me joy; Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale13, And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's14 taste, That it yields nought, but shame, and bitterness. Psalm xc. 13 'For when thou art angry, all our days are gone, we bring our years to an end, as it were a tale that is told. Thus also in Macbeth : Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 14 The old copy reads word's. The alteration was made by Pope. Malone thinks that it is unnecessary; and that by the sweet word, life is meant. Steevens prefers Pope's emendation, which is countenanced by Hamlet's 'How weary, stale, flat, unprofitable Vol. IV. 16 |