As to my ample hope was promised
Before I drew this gallant head of war,
And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world,
To outlook conquest and to win renown
Even in the jaws of danger and of death.

[Trumpet sounds.

What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?

Enter the BASTARD, attended.

Bast. According to the fair play of the world,
Let me have audience; I am sent to speak:
My holy lord of Milan, from the king

I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;
And, as you answer, I do know the scope
And warrant limited unto my tongue.

Pand. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,
And will not temporize with my entreaties;
He flatly says he'll not lay down his arms.

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, This harness'd masque and unadvised revel, This unhair'd sauciness and boyish troops, The king doth smile at; and is well prepared To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms, From out the circle of his territories.

That hand which had the strength, even at your

door,

113. drew this gallant head of war, assembling this gallant force.

115. outlook, outface, facedown conquest' is conceived as cowed into submission by the defiant looks of the victor.

121. dealt, acted.

120

130

124. wilful-opposite, refractory.

125. temporize, come to terms. 133. unhair'd, beardless. Theobald's emendation for 'unheard' Ff.

To cudgel you and make you take the hatch
To dive like buckets in concealed wells,
To crouch in litter of your stable planks,

To lie like pawns lock'd up in chests and trunks,
To hug with swine, to seek sweet safety out
In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake
Even at the crying of your nation's crow,
Thinking his voice an armed Englishman;
Shall that victorious hand be feebled here,
That in your chambers gave you chastisement?
No: know the gallant monarch is in arms
And like an eagle o'er his aery towers,
To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.
And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,
You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb.

Of
your dear mother England, blush for shame;
For your own ladies and pale-visaged maids
Like Amazons come tripping after drums,
Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,
Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts
To fierce and bloody inclination.

Lew. There end thy brave, and turn thy face

in peace;

140

150

We grant thou canst outscold us: fare thee well; 160 We hold our time too precious to be spent

Lew.

We will attend to neither.

Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war
Plead for our interest and our being here.

Bast. Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out;

And so shall you, being beaten

do but start
An echo with the clamour 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-mouth'd 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

170

A bare-ribb'd 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. 180

SCENE III. The 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, Fauiconbridge,

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
That was expected by the Dauphin here,
Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin Sands.
This news was brought to Richard but even now:
The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.

K. John. Ay me! this tyrant fever burns me

up,

And will not let me welcome this good news.
Set on toward Swinstead: to my litter straight;
Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Another part of the field.

Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, and BIGOT.

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.

Mel. Lead me to the revolts of England here.
Sal. When we were happy we had other names.
Pem. It is the Count Melun.

ΙΟ

13. retire themselves, re

8. Swinstead; near Spalding, Lincs. The modern spelling is treat. Swineshead.

7. revolts, rebels.

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.
Seek out King John and fall before his feet;
For if the French be lords of this loud day,
He means to recompense the pains you take
By cutting off your heads: thus hath he sworn
And I with him, and many moe with me,
Upon the altar at Saint Edmundsbury;
Even on that altar where we swore to you
Dear amity and everlasting love.

Sal. May this be possible? may this be true?
Mel. Have I not hideous death within my view,
Retaining but a quantity of life,

Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax
Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?

What in the world should make me now deceive,
Since I must lose the use of all deceit?

Why should I then be false, since it is true
That I must die here and live hence by truth?
I say again, if Lewis do win the day,

He is forsworn, if e'er those eyes of yours

Behold another day break in the east:

But even this night, whose black contagious breath
Already smokes about the burning crest

Of the old, feeble and day-wearied sun,

II. Unthread the rude eye (met. from the needle's eye'), retrace your hazardous passage.

15. He, i.e. the Dauphin. The Camb. edd. thence suspect, that 'lords' in the previous line should be lord,' the French being then a singular, as elsewhere.

·

23. a quantity, a modicum,

just perceptible amount.

10

20

30

24. a form of wax, a wax effigy; referring to the practice in witchcraft of destroying an enemy by melting a waxen image of him-the fate of the man being controlled, according to a widespread article of folklore, by that of the image. 29. hence, i.e. in heaven.