That undergo this charge? Who else but I, Sweat in this business, and maintain this war? Pand. You look but on the outside of this work. 3 [Trumpet sounds. What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us? Enter the Bastard, attended. Bast. According to the fair play of the world, I come to learn how you have dealt for him; Pand. The dauphin is too wilful-opposite, Bast. By all the blood that ever fury breathed, The youth says well.-Now hear our English king; For thus his royalty doth speak in me. He is prepared; and reason too, he should. This apish and unmannerly approach, 1 Banked is supposed by some to mean the throwing up of intrenchments, and by others, traversing the river banks. 2 1. e. assembled it, drew it out of the field. 3 Face down, bear down by a show of magnanimity. This harnessed mask, and unadvised revel, 2 That hand, which had the strength, even at your door, To lie, like pawns, locked up in chests and trunks; Lew. There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace. We grant, thou canst outscold us; fare thee well; We hold our time too precious to be spent With such a brabbler. Pand. Give me leave to speak. 1 The old copies read unheard. The emendation is Theobald's. It should be remarked that hair was often spelled hear. 2 To take, for to leap. Hunters still say to take a hedge or gate, meaning to leap over them. Baret has "to take horse, to leap on horse back." 3 i. e. the crowing of a cock; Gallus being both a cock and a French man. 4 Nest. 5 Needles. 6 Boast. Bast. No, I will speak. Lew. We will attend to neither. Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war Bast. Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out; And so shall you, being beaten. Do but start An echo with the clamor of thy drum, And even at hand a drum is ready braced, That shall reverberate all as loud as thine; Sound but another, and another shall, As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear, And mock the deep-mouthed thunder; for at hand (Not trusting to this halting legate here, Whom he hath used rather for sport than need) Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits A bare-ribbed death, whose office is this day To feast upon whole thousands of the French. Lew. Strike up our drums, to find this danger out. Bast. And thou shalt find it, dauphin, do not doubt. [Exeunt. SCENE III. The same. A Field of Battle. Alarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT. K. John. How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert. Hub. Badly, I fear. How fares your majesty? K. John. This fever, that hath troubled me so long, Lies heavy on me. O, my heart is sick! Enter a Messenger. Mess. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge, Desires your majesty to leave the field; And send him word by me, which way you go. K. John. Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there. Mess. Be of good comfort; for the great supply,' 1 Supply is here used as a noun of multitude, as it is again in Scene V That was expected by the dauphin here, K. John. Ah me! this tyrant fever burns me up, SCENE IV. The same. Another part of the same. Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and others. Sal. I did not think the king so stored with friends. Pem. Up once again; put spirit in the French; If they miscarry, we miscarry too. Sal. That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge, In spite of spite, alone upholds the day. Pem. They say, king John, sore sick, hath left the field. Enter MELUN, wounded, and led by Soldiers. Mel. Lead me to the revolts of England here. Sal. When we were happy, we had other names. Pem. It is the count Melun. Sal. Wounded to death. Mel. Fly, noble English; you are bought and sold; Unthread the rude eye of rebellion, And welcome home again discarded faith. For, if the French be lords of this loud day, 2 He2 means to recompense the pains you take, By cutting off your heads. Thus hath he sworn, Upon the altar of Saint Edmund's Bury; 1 The king had not long since called him by his original name of Philip, but the messenger could not take the same liberty. 2 The Frenchman, i. e. Lewis, means, &c. Even on that altar, where we swore to you Sal. May this be possible? may this be true? Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax He is forsworn, if e'er those eyes of yours But even this night,-whose black, contagious breath Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun,- Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives, Sal. We do believe thee,-and beshrew my soul But I do love the favor and the form Of this most fair occasion, by the which We will untread the steps of damned flight; 1 i. e. dissolveth. 2 Rankness, as applied to a river, here signifies exuberant, ready to overflow; as applied to the actions of the speaker and his party, it signifies wanton wildness. |