KING JOHN. ACT I. SCENE I.-Northampton. A Room of State in the Palace. Enter King JOHN, Queen ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others, with CHATILLON. King John. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us? The borrow'd majesty of England here. Eli. A strange beginning ;-borrow'd majesty! K. John. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy. Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son, Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine: K. John. What follows, if we disallow of this ? To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld. K. John. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood, Controlment for controlment: so answer France. Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth, The furthest limit of my embassy.. K. John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace : [1] The word behaviour seems here to have a signification that I have never found in any other author. The king of France, says the envoy, thus speaks in my behaviour to the majesty of England; that is, the king of France speaks in the character which I here assume. JOHNSON. [2] Opposition from controller. JOHNSON. Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;' [Exeunt CHAT. and PEи. This might have been prevented, and made whole, Which now the manage of two kingdoms must K. John. Our strong possession, and our right, for us. Or else it must go wrong with you, and me: So much my conscience whispers in your ear; Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers ESSEX. That e'er I heard: Shall I produce the men? K. John. Let them approach. Our abbies, and our priories, shall pay [Exit Sheriff. Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, and PHILIP, his bastard brother. This expedition's charge.-What men are you? [3] This simile does not suit well: the lightning indeed appears before the thunder is heard, but the lightning is destructive, and the thunder innocent. JOHNSON. The allusion may, notwithstanding, be very proper, so far as Shakespeare had applied it, i. e. merely to the swiftness of the lightning and its preceding and foretelling the thunder. Bt there is some reason to believe that thunder was not thought to be innocent in our author's time, as we elsewhere learn from himself Sec King Lear, Act III. sc. ti. Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. sc. v. Julius Cesar, Act 1. sc. and still more decisively in Measure for Measure, Act 11. sc. ii. This old superstition is still prevalent in many parts of the country. RITSON, K. John. What art thou? Rob. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge. Bast. Most certain of one mother, mighty king, Eli. Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother, And wound her honour with this diffidence. Bast. I, madam? no, I have no reason for it; K. John. A good blunt fellow :-Why, being younger born, Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance? ; Bast. I know not why, except to get the land. And were our father, and this son like him ;--- O old sir Robert, father, on my knee I give heaven thanks, I was not like to thee." K. John. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here! The accent of his tongue affecteth him : In the large composition of this man? K. John. Mine eye hath well examined his parts, And finds them perfect Richard.Sirrah, speak, What doth move you to claim your brother's land? Bast. Because he hath a half-face, like my father; The trick or tricking, is the same as the tracing of a drawing, meaning that peculiarity of face which may be sufficiently shown by the slightest outline. STEEVEN. With that half face would he have all my land: Bast. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land; K. John. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate; Rob. Shall then my father's will be of no force, To dispossess that child which is not his ? [6] The poet sneers at the meagre sharp visage of the younger brother, by com paring him to a silver groat, that bore the king's face in profile to shew but half the face. THEOBALD. [7] This is a decisive argument. As your father, if he liked him, could not have been forced to resign him, so not liking him, he is not at liberty to reject him. JOHNSON. Bast. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir, Than was his will to get me, as I think. Eli. Whether hadst thou rather,-be a Faulconbridge, And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land; Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion, Lord of thy presence, and no land beside ?" Bast. Madam, an if my brother had my shape, And I had his, sir Robert his9 like him ; And if my legs were two such riding-rods, My arms such eel-skins stuff'd ; my face so thin, Lest men should say, Look, where three-farthings goes !* 'Would I might never stir from off this place, I'd give it every foot to have this face; I would not be sir Nob in any case. Eli. I like thee well; Wilt thou forsake thy fortune, Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me ? I am a soldier, and now bound to France. Bast. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance : Your face hath got five hundred pounds a year; Yet sell your face for five-pence, and 'tis dear.- Eli. Nay, I would have you go before me thither. Bast. Philip, my liege; so is my name begun; K. John. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bear'st: Kneel thou down Philip, but arise more great; [8] Lord of thy presence means, master of that dignity and grandeur of appear. ance that may sufficiently distinguish thee from the vulgar without the help of for tune.-Lord of his presence apparently signifies, great in his own person, and is used in this sense by King John in one of the following scenes. JOHNSON. [9] Sir Robert his, for Sir Robert's, is agreeable to the practice of that time, when the 's added to the nominative was believed, I think erroneously, to be a contraction of his. JOHNSON. [1] The sticking roses about them was then all the court fashion. WARBURTON. [2] In this very obscure passage our poet is anticipating the date of another coin; humorously to rally a thin face, eclipsed, as it were, by a full blown rose. We must observe, to explain this allusion, that Queen Elizabeth was the first, and indeed the only prince, who coined in England three-half-pence, and three-farthing pieces. She coined shillings, six-pences, groats, three-pences, two-pences, three-half-pence, pence, three farthings, and half-pence; and these pieces all had her head, and were alternately with the rose behind, and without the rose. THEOBALD. |