With that half-face would he have all my land:
A half-fac❜d groat five hundred pound a-year!

3

Rob. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,
Your brother did employ my father much :—

Bast. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:
Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother.
Rob. And once despatch'd him in an embassy
To Germany, there, with the emperor,
To treat of high affairs touching that time:
Th' advantage of his absence took the king,
And in the mean time sojourn'd at my father's;
Where how he did prevail, I shame to speak:
But truth is truth; large lengths of seas and shores
Between my father and my mother lay,-
As I have heard my father speak himself,—
When this same lusty gentleman was got.
Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd
His lands to me; and took it, on his death,
That this, my mother's son, was none of his ;
And, if he were, he came into the world
Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.
Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,
My father's land, as was my father's will.

K. John. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate;
Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him:
And, if she did play false, the fault was hers;
Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands
That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,
Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,
Had of your father claim'd this son for his?
In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept
This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;
In sooth, he might: then, if he were my brother's,
My brother might not claim him; nor your father,
Being none of his, refuse him: This concludes:
My mother's son did get your father's heir;
Your father's heir must have your father's land.

a That half-face is a correction by Theobald, which appears just, the first folio giving "half that face." For an explanation of half-face, see Illustrations.

Rob. Shall then my father's will be of no force,
To dispossess that child which is not his?
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 Cœur-de-lion,
Lord of thy presence,a and no land beside?

Bast. Madam, an if my brother had my shape,
And I had his, sir Robert his, like him;

b

And if my legs were two such riding-rods;
My arms such eel-skins stuff'd; my face so thin,
That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose,

4

Lest men should say, Look, where three-farthings goes ;*
And, to his shape, were heir to all this land,
'Would I might never stir from off this place,
I would give it every foot to have this face;
It would not be sir Nobd 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 Your face hath got five hundred pound a-year; Yet sell your face for five pence, and 't is dear. Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.

chance:

Eli. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.
Bast. Our country manners give our betters way.

a Presence may here mean "priority of place," préséance. As the son of Cœurde-lion, Faulconbridge would take rank without his land. Warburton judged it meant "master of thyself." If this interpretation be correct, the passage may have suggested the lines in Sir Henry Wotton's song on a 'Happy Life,’—

"Lord of himself, though not of lands,

And, having nothing, yet hath all."

We are inclined to receive it in the sense of the man's whole carriage and appearance "a goodly presence."

b Sir Robert his. This is the old form of the genitive, looked into a legal instrument know. Faulconbridge says, sir Robert's shape—as he has."

To his shape-in addition to his shape.

such as all who have "If I had his shape

d We have given the text of the folio-"It would not be sir Nob,”—not “I would not be." "This face," he says, "would not be sir Nob." Nob is now, and was in Shakspere's time, a cant word for the head.

K. John. What is thy name?

Bast. Philip, my liege; so is my name begun; Philip, good old sir Robert's wife's eldest son.

K. John. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bearest :

Kneel thou down Philip, but arise more great;

Arise sir Richard, and Plantagenet.

5

Bast. Brother, by the mother's side, give me your
hand;

My father gave me honour, yours gave land:
Now blessed be the hour, by night or day,
When I was got, sir Robert was away.
Eli. The very spirit of Plantagenet!
I am thy grandame, Richard; call me so.

Bast. Madam, by chance, but not by truth: What though? Something about, a little from the right,

In at the window," or else o'er the hatch; Who dares not stir by day must walk by night;

And have is have, however men do catch:

Near or far off, well won is still well shot;

And I am I, howe'er I was begot.

.

K. John. Go, Faulconbridge; now hast thou thy desire, A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.— Come, madam, and come, Richard; we must speed For France, for France; for it is more than need. Bast. Brother, adieu; Good fortune come to thee! For thou wast got i' the way of honesty.

[Exeunt all but the Bastard.

A foot of honour better than I was;
But many a many foot of land the worse.
Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.

Good den, sir Richard, God-a-mercy, fellow;
And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter:
For new-made honour doth forget men's names;
"T is too respective, and too sociable,

a In at the window, &c.

These were proverbial expressions, which, by analogy with irregular modes of entering a house, had reference to cases such as that of Faulconbridge's, which he gently terms "a little from the right."

b Good den-good evening-good e'en. (See Note to 'Romeo and Juliet.')

For your conversion.

Now your traveller,

He and his toothpick at my worship's mess,
And when my knightly stomach is suffic'd,
Why then I suck my teeth, and catechise
My picked man of countries:

My dear sir,

(Thus, leaning on my elbow, I begin,)
I shall beseech you-That is question now;
And then comes answer like an Absey book:
O, sir, says answer, at your best command;
At your employment; at your service, sir:
No, sir, says question, I, sweet sir, at yours:
And so, ere answer knows what question would,
Saving in dialogue of compliment;

And talking of the Alps and Apennines,
The Pyrenean, and the river Po,

It draws toward supper in conclusion so.
But this is worshipful society,

And fits the mounting spirit like myself:
For he is but a bastard to the time,
That doth not smackd of observation;
(And so am I, whether I smack, or no ;)
And not alone in habit and device,
Exterior form, outward accoutrement;
But from the inward motion to deliver
Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth:
Which, though I will not practise to deceive,
Yet to avoid deceit I mean to learn;

For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.

a Conversion. This is the reading of the folio, but was altered, by Pope, to conversing. The Bastard, whose "new-made honour is a conversion,- —a change of condition,—would say that to remember men's names (opposed, by implication, to forget) is too respective (punctilious, discriminating) and too sociable for one of his newly attained rank.

b Picked man of countries. "The travelled fool," "the pert, conceited, talking spark," of the modern fable, is the old "picked man of countries." "To pick " is the same as "to trim." Steevens says it is a metaphor derived from the action of birds in picking their feathers. "He is too picked, too spruce, too affected," occurs in 'Love's Labour 's Lost,' Act V.

© Absey-book, the common name for the first, or A, B, C, book. The Catechism was generally included in these books; and thus the reference in the text to "question" and "answer."

d Smack. The original has smoke.

But who comes in such haste, in riding robes?
What woman-post is this? hath she no husband,
That will take pains to blow a horn before her?

Enter Lady FAULCONBRIDGE and JAMES GURNEY.
O me! it is my mother: How now, good lady?
What brings you here to court so hastily?

Lady F. Where is that slave, thy brother? where is he?
That holds in chase mine honour up and down?
Bast. My brother Robert? old sir Robert's son?
Colbrand the giant,' that same mighty man?
Is it sir Robert's son that you seek so?

Lady F. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy, Sir Robert's son: Why scorn'st thou at sir Robert? He is sir Robert's son; and so art thou.

Bast. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a while? Gur. Good leave, good Philip.

Bast.

Philip?-sparrow !a_James, There's toys abroad; anon I'll tell thee more. [Exit GURN. Madam, I was not old sir Robert's son;

Sir Robert might have eat his part in me
Upon Good-Friday, and ne'er broke his fast:
Sir Robert could do well; Marry—to confess-
Could he get me? Sir Robert could not do it;
We know his handiwork:-Therefore, good mother,
To whom am I beholden for these limbs ?

Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.

Lady F. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too, That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour? What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?

Bast. Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like: b

Philip?-sparrow ! The sparrow was called Philip,-perhaps from his note, out of which Catullus, in his elegy on Lesbia's sparrow, formed a verb, pipilabat. When Gurney calls the bastard "good Philip," the new "Sir Richard " tosses off the name with contempt-" sparrow!" He then puts aside James, with "anon I'll tell thee more."

b Basilisco-like. Basilisco is a character in a play of Shakspere's time, 'Soliman and Perseda,' from which Tyrwhitt quotes a passage which may have suggested the words of the Bastard. The oaths of Basilisco became proverbial. Basilisco is mentioned by Nash, in 1596.