But ah, I will not:-Yet I love thee well;
And, by my troth, I think, thou lov'st me well.
Hub. So well, that what you bid me undertake.
Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
By heaven, I'd do't.

K. John.
Do not I know, thou would'st?
Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
On yon young boy: I'll tell thee what, my friend,
He is a very serpent in my way;

And, wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,
He lies before me: Dost thou understand me?
Thou art his keeper.

Hub.

And I will keep him so,

That he shall not offend your majesty.

Enough.

I could be merry now: Hubert, I love thee;
Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee;

Remember.

-Madam, fare you well:

I'll send those powers o'er to your majesty.
Eli. My blessing go with thee!

For England, cousin:

K. John.
Hubert shall be your man, attend on you
With all true duty.-On toward Calais, ho?!

[Exeunt.

King John, after he had taken Arthur prisoner, sent him to the town of Falaise, in Normandy, under the care of Hubert, his chamberlain, from whence he was afterwards removed to Rouen, and delivered to the custody of Robert de Veypont. Here he was secretly put to death. This is one of those scenes (says Steevens) to which may be promised a lasting commendation. Art could add little to its perfection; no change in dramatic taste can injure it; and time itself can substract nothing from its beauties.'

SCENE IV. The same. The French King's Tent.

Enter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH, and Attendants.

K. Phi. So, by a roaring tempest on the flood, A whole armado1 of convicted 2 sail

Is scatter'd and disjoin'd from fellowship.

well.

Pand. Courage and comfort! all shall yet go K. Phi. What can go well, when we have run so ill? Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost? Arthur ta'en prisoner? divers dear friends slain? And bloody England into England gone, O'erbearing interruption, spite of France?

3

Lew. What he hath won, that hath he fortified : So hot a speed with such advice dispos'd, Such temperate order in so fierce a cause 3, Doth want example; Who hath read, or heard, Of any kindred action like to this?

K. Phi. Well could I bear that England had this praise,

So we could find some pattern of our shame.

Enter CONSTANCE.

Look, who comes here! a grave unto a soul;
Holding the eternal spirit, against her will,
In the vile prison of afflicted breath*:-

I pr'ythee, lady, go away with me.

1 Armado is a fleet of war; the word is adopted from the Spanish, and the recent defeat of the Spanish armado had made it familiar.

2 Convicted is vanquished, overcome. To convince and convict were synonymous. See Macbeth, Act i, Sc. 7, and Act iii, Sc. 4.

3 A fierce cause is a cause conducted with precipitation. Fierce wretchedness in Timon of Athens is hasty, sudden misery.

4 the vile prison of afflicted breath' is the body; the same vile prison in which the breath is confined.

Const. Lo, now! now see the issue of your peace!
K. Phi. Patience, good lady! comfort, gentle
Constance!

Const. No, I defy5 all counsel, all redress,
But that which ends all counsel, true redress,
Death, death:-O amiable lovely death!
Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!
Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,
Thou hate and terror to prosperity,
And I will kiss thy détestable bones;

And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows;
And ring these fingers with thy household worms;
And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,
And be a carrion monster like thyself:

Come, grin on me; and I will think thou smil'st,
And buss thee as thy wife! Misery's love,

O, come to me!

K. Phi.

O fair affliction, peace.

Const. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry:O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth! Then with a passion would I shake the world; And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy, Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice, Which scorns a modern invocation.

Pand. Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.
Const. Thou art not holy to belie me so;
I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;
My name is Constance: I was Geffrey's wife;
Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost :
I am not mad:-I would to heaven, I were!
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!
Preach some philosophy to make me mad,

5 To defy formerly signified to refuse, to reject.
'I do defy thy commiseration.'-Romeo and Juliet.
6 i. e. this mouth.
7 i. e. common.

And thou shalt be canoniz'd, cardinal:
For, being not mad, but sensible of grief,
My reasonable part produces reason
How I may be deliver'd of these woes,
And teaches me to kill or hang myself:
If I were mad, I should forget my son;
Or madly think, a babe of clouts were he:
I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity.

K. Phi. Bind up those tresses; O, what love I note In the fair multitude of those her hairs!

Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen,
Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends
Do glew themselves in sociable grief;
Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,
Sticking together in calamity.

Const. To England, if you will3.

K. Phi.

Bind up your hairs.

Const. Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?

I tore them from their bonds; and cried aloud,
O that these hands could so redeem my son
As they have given these hairs their liberty!
But now I envy at their liberty,

And will again commit them to their bonds,
Because my poor child is a prisoner.-

And, father cardinal, I have heard you say,
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven;
If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
For, since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
To him that did but yesterday suspire9,

8 Probably Constance in despair means to apostrophize the absent King John: Take my son to England if you will.' 9 To suspire Shakspeare uses for to breathe. Thus in King Henry IV. Part II :

'Did he suspire, that light and weightless down

Perforce must move.'

In Bullokar's Expositor, 1616, we have suspiration, a breathing or sighing.

There was not such a gracious 10 creature born,
But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,

And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost;
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;
And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.

12

Pand. You hold too heinous a respect of grief. Const. He talks to me, that never had a son 11. K. Phi. You are as fond of grief, as of your child. Const. Grief fills the room up of my absent child 1o, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me; Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; Then, have I reason to be fond of grief. Fare such a loss as I, well: had you I could give better comfort than you do.I will not keep this form upon my head,

you

[Tearing off her head-dress.

When there is such disorder in

my

wit.

O lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's cure! [Exit.

10 Gracious is used by Shakspeare often in the sense of beautiful, comely, graceful. Florio, in his Italian Dictionary, shows that this was no uncommon signification; he explains gratioso, graceful, gracious, also comely, fine, well-favoured, gentle. 11 To the same purpose Macduff observes:

12 6

'He has no children.- 9

The thought occurs again in King Henry VI. Part III. Perfruitur lachrymis, et amat pro conjuge luctum.' Lucan, 1. ix.

Maynard, a French poet, has the same thought :

Qui me console excite ma colere,

Et le repos est un bien que je crains:
Mon deuil me plaît, et me doit toujours plaire
Il me tient lieu de celle que je plains.'