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So newly join'd in love, so strong in both 17,
Unyoke this seizure, and this kind regreet 18?
Play fast and loose with faith? so jest with heaven,
Make such unconstant children of ourselves,
As now again to snatch our palm from palm:
Unswear faith sworn; and on the marriage bed
Of smiling peace to march a bloody host.
And make a riot on the gentle brow
Of true sincerity? O holy sir,

My reverend father, let it not be so:
Out of your grace, devise, ordain, impose
Some gentle order; and then we shall be bless'd
To do your pleasure, and continue friends.

Pand. All form is formless, order orderless, Save what is opposite to England's love. Therefore, to arms! be champion of our church! Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse, A mother's curse, on her revolting son.

France, thou may'st hold a serpent by the tongue, A cased 19 lion by the mortal paw,

A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,

Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.

K. Phi. I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith. Pand. So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith; And, like a civil war, sett'st oath to oath, Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform'd; That is to be the champion of our church! What since thou swor'st, is sworn against thyself, And may not be performed by thyself:

17 i. e. so strong both in hatred and love; in deeds of amity or deeds of blood.

18 A regreet is an exchange of salutation.

19 A cased lion is a lion irritated by confinement. So in King Henry VI. Part III. Act i. Sc. 3:

'So looks the pent up lion o'er the wretch
That trembles under his devouring paws.'

For that, which thou hast sworn to do amiss,
Is not amiss when it is truly done 20;

And being not done, where doing tends to ill,
The truth is then most done not doing it:
The better act of purposes mistook
Is, to mistake again: though indirect,
Yet indirection thereby grows direct,

And falsehood falsehood cures; as fire cools fire,
Within the scorched veins of one new burn'd.
It is religion, that doth make vows kept;
But thou hast sworn against religion;

By what thou swear'st, against the thing thou swear'st;
And mak'st an oath the surety for thy truth
Against an oath: The truth thou art unsure
To swear, swear only not to be forsworn 21;
Else, what a mockery should it be to swear?
But thou dost swear only to be forsworn;
And most forsworn, to keep what thou dost swear.
Therefore, thy latter vows, against thy first,
Is in thyself rebellion to thyself:

And better conquest never canst thou make,
Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts
Against those giddy loose suggestions:
Upon which better part our prayers come in,
If thou vouchsafe them: but, if not, then know,
The peril of our curses light on thee;

So heavy, as thou shalt not shake them off,
But, in despair, die under their black weight.
Aust. Rebellion, flat rebellion!

20 Where doing tends to ill,' where an intended act is criminal, the truth is most done by not doing the act. The criminal act therefore, which thou hast sworn to do, is not amiss, will not be imputed to you as a crime, if it be done truly, in the sense I have now affixed to truth; that is, if you do not do it.

21 By what thou swear'st, &c. In swearing by religion against n, thou hast sworn by what thou swearest; i. e. in that hou hast sworn, against the thing thou swearest by; i. e.

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Bast.

Will't not be?

Will not a calf-skin stop that mouth of thine?

Lew. Father, to arms!

Blanch.

Upon thy wedding day? Against the blood that thou hast married?

What, shall our feast be kept with slaughter'd men?
Shall braying trumpets, and loud churlish drums,—
Clamours of hell,-be measures to our pomp?
O husband, hear me!—ah, alack! how new
Is husband in my mouth? even for that name,
Which till this time my tongue did ne'er pronounce,
Upon my knee I beg, go not to arms

Against mine uncle.

Const.

O, upon my knee,

Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee,
Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom
Fore-thought by heaven.

Blanch. Now shall I see thy love; What motive may

Be stronger with thee than the name of wife?

Const. That which upholdeth him that thee upholds,

His honour: O, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour!
Lew. I muse, your majesty doth seem so cold,
When such profound respects do pull you on.
Pand. I will denounce a curse upon his head.
K. Phi. Thou shalt not need:-England, I'll fall
from thee.

Const. O fair return of banish'd majesty!
Eli. O foul revolt of French inconstancy!
K. John. France, thou shalt rue this hour within
this hour.

Bast. Old time the clock-setter, that bald sexton

time,

Is it as he will? well then, France shall rue. Blanch. The sun's o'ercast with blood: Fair day, adieu !

Which is the side that I must go withal?
I am with both: each army hath a hand;
And, in their rage, I having hold of both,
They whirl asunder, and dismember me.
Husband, I cannot pray that thou may'st win;
Uncle, I needs must pray that thou may'st lose;
Father, I may not wish the fortune thine;
Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive:
Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose ;
Assured loss, before the match be play'd.
Lew. Lady, with me; with me thy fortune lies.
Blanch. There where my fortune lives, there my
life dies.

K. John. Cousin, go draw our puissance together,[Exit Bastard. France, I am burn'd up with inflaming wrath ; A rage, whose heat hath this condition, That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,

The blood, and dearest valu'd blood, of France.

K. Phi. Thy rage shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn

To ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire:
Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy.

K. John. No more than he that threats.-To arms

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Bast. Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;

Some airy devil1 hovers in the sky,

1 There is a minute description of numerous devils or spirits, and their different functions, in Nash's Pierce Pennilesse his Supplication, 1592, where we find the following passage :-The spirits of the aire will mixe themselves with thunder and lightning, and so infect the clyme where they raise any tempest, that

And pours
While Philip breathes.

down mischief. Austria's head lie there:

Enter KING JOHN, ARTHUR, and HUBERT.

K.John. Hubert,keep this boy :-Philip2,make up: My mother is assailed in our tent,

And ta'en, I fear.
Bast.
My lord, I rescu'd her;
Her highness is in safety, fear you not:
But on, my liege: for very little pains
Will bring this labour to an happy end.

SCENE III. The same.

[Exeunt.

Alarums; Excursions; Retreat. Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR, the Bastard, HUBERT, and LORDS.

K. John. So shall it be; your grace shall stay

behind, [TO ELINOR. So strongly guarded.-Cousin, look not sad:

[To ARTHUR.

Thy grandam loves thee, and thy uncle will
As dear be to thee as thy father was.

Arth. O, this will make my mother die with grief.
K. John. Cousin [To the Bastard], away for
England; haste before:

sodainely great mortalitie shall ensue to the inhabitants. The spirits of fire have their mansions under the regions of the moone.'

2 Here the king, who had knighted him by the name of Sir Richard, calls him by his former name. Shakspeare has followed the old plays, and the best authenticated history. The queen mother, whom King John had made regent in Anjou, was in possession of the town of Mirabeau, in that province. On the approach of the French army, with Arthur at their head, she sent letters to King John to come to her relief, which he immediately did. As he advanced to the town he encountered the army that lay before it, routed them, and took Arthur prisoner. The queen in the mean while remained in perfect security in the castle of Mirabeau.

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