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Hub. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,

Bast.

Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath
Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,
Let hell want pains enough to torture me.
I left him well.

Go, bear him in thine arms.
I am amazed, methinks, and lose my way
Among the thorns and dangers of this world.
How easy dost thou take all England up!
From forth this morsel of dead royalty,
The life, the right and truth of all this realm
Is fled to heaven; and England now is left
To tug and scamble and to part by the teeth
The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.
Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty
Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest

And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace:
Now powers from home and discontents at home
Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,
As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast,
The imminent decay of wrested pomp.

136, 137. Be guilty of the stealing, etc.] Compare III. iv. 19 and iv. ii. 246 supra.

137. embounded in] enclosed within.

140. amazed] stupefied, struck dumb with astonishment. Compare ii. 137 supra.

IV.

146. scamble] scramble for, get by rough means. Compare Henry V. 1. i. 4: "the scambling and unquiet times." Cotgrave has "Griffe graffe: by hook or by crook, squimble squamble, scamblingly, catch that

catch may."
"scramble."

135

140

145

150

Rowe emended to

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Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can
Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child
And follow me with speed: I'll to the king:
A thousand businesses are brief in hand,
And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.

158. in] at Rowe.

155. cincture] So Pope; center Ff.
158. brief in hand] call for immediate attention or dispatch.

155

[Exeunt.

ACT V

SCENE I.-King John's palace.

Enter KING JOHN, PANDULPH, and Attendants. K. John. Thus have I yielded up into your hand The circle of my glory.

Pand.

[Giving the crown.

Take again

From this my hand, as holding of the pope

Your sovereign greatness and authority.

K. John. Now keep your holy word: go meet the French, 5
And from his holiness use all your power

To stop their marches 'fore we are inflamed.
Our discontented counties do revolt;
Our people quarrel with obedience,
Swearing allegiance and the love of soul

2. Take again] Lettsom conjectured "Take 't again," which Dyce printed in his second edition. An object is thus supplied to "take.' Heath conjectures that "From this " should read "This from," which very ingeniously achieves the same end. By inserting a comma after 19 66 pope, sovereign greatness and authority" may be made object to "take": the meaning is thus preserved and the grammatical construction_saved. It is so printed in the 1821 Boswell- Malone. The Folios

66

have no comma.

8. counties] Are we to interpret

ΙΟ

this as "nobles" (county count, as in Romeo and Juliet), with Steevens and Delius, or as "shires," with Schmidt and Wright? I think the fact that there is no mention of the rebellion of the nobles (which at that time was the real danger, as Shakespeare knew), if this is supposed not to refer to them, decides the matter. John would never have omitted them from his list of troubles. This reason overweighs the negative evidence that "counties is used by Shakespeare in other places only for Italian nobles.

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10. love of soul] the sincerest love,

To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.

This inundation of mistempered humour

Rests by you only to be qualified :

Then pause not; for the present time's so sick,
That present medicine must be minister'd,

Or overthrow incurable ensues.

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,

15

20

Go I to make the French lay down their arms. [Exit. K. John. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet 25 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.

Enter the Bastard.

Bast. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out 30
But Dover Castle: London hath received,
Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers:
Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone

16. incurable] incurably F 4. Mr. Moore-Smith quotes Measure for Measure, 1. i. 18: "we have with special soul elected him," and Schmidt's dictum that the soul is represented as "the seat of real, not only professed, sentiments."

13. qualified] stemmed. Cotgrave has "Seder: to still, quiet, asswage,

qualifie, mitigate." So Two Gentlemen of Verona, II. vii. 22: "But qualify the fire's extreme rage."

19. convertite] An old form of "convert." Compare Lucrece, 743: "He thence departs a heavy convertite."

To offer service to your enemy,

And wild amazement hurries up and down
The little number of your doubtful friends.

35

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 away.
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:

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Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;

Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviours 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,

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