Enter the Bastard, attended. Bast. According to the fair play of the world, I come, to learn how you have dealt for him; Pand. The dauphin is too wilful opposite, Bast. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd, The youth says well :-Now hear our English king; For thus his royalty doth speak in me. He is prepar'd; and reason too, he should : This harness'd masque, and unadvised revel, That hand, which had the strength, even at your door, To cudgel you, and make you take the hatch; To dive, like buckets, in concealed wells; To crouch in litter of your stable planks; To lie, like pawns, lock'd up in chests and trunks; a Unhair'd-unbearded. For your own ladies, and pale-visag'd maids, To fierce and bloody inclination. Lew. There end thy brave," and turn thy face in peace; We grant thou canst outscold us: fare thee well; We hold our time too precious to be spent With such a brabbler. Pand. Give me leave to speak. We will attend to neither :— Bast. No, I will speak. Lew. Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war Plead for our interest, and our being here. Bast. Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out; An echo with the clamour of thy drum, [Exeunt. SCENE III.-The same. A Field of Battle. Alarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT. K. John. How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert. Hub. Badly, I fear: How fares your majesty ? a Brave-bravado. K. John. This fever, that hath troubled me so long, Lies heavy on me; O, my heart is sick! Enter a Messenger. Mess. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge, Desires your majesty to leave the field, And send him word by me which way you go. K. John. Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there. That was expected by the dauphin here, K. John. Ah me! this tyrant fever burns me up, SCENE IV.-The same. 2 [Exeunt. Another part of the same. Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and others. Sal. I did not think the king so stor❜d with friends. Pem. Up once again; put spirit in the French : If they miscarry, we miscarry too. Sal. That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge, In spite of spite, alone upholds the day. Pem. They say, king John, sore sick, hath left the field. Enter MELUN, wounded, and led by Soldiers. Mel. Lead me to the revolts of England here. Sal. Wounded to death. Mel. Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold; Unthread the rude eye a of rebellion, a a Unthread the rude eye. Theobald corrupted this passage into "untread the rude way;" he turned, by an easy process, the poetry into prose. Malone, who agrees in the restoration of the passage, says Shakspere "was evidently thinking of the eye of a needle," and he calls this, therefore, an humble metaphor. Nothing, it > And welcome home again discarded faith. Sal. May this be possible? may this be true? Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax What in the world should make me now deceive, Since I must lose the use of all deceit ? Why should I then be false; since it is true That I must die here, and live hence by truth? I say again, if Lewis do win the day, He is forsworn if e'er those eyes of yours Behold another day break in the east: But even this night,—whose black contagious breath Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun, Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire; Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives, appears to us, is humble in poetry that conveys an image forcibly and distinctly; and "the eye of a needle" by the application of the poet may become dignified. But the word thread, perhaps metaphorically, is used to convey the meaning of passing through anything intricate, narrow, difficult. "They would not thread the gates," in 'Coriolanus, and "One gains the thickets and one thrids the brake," in Dryden, have each the same meaning. The "rude eye" in the line before us is the rough and dangerous passage of "rebellion." In lieu whereof, I pray you, bear me hence Sal. We do believe thee,-And beshrew my soul. Of this most fair occasion, by the which Leaving our rankness and irregular course, Even to our ocean, to our great king John. My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence; Right in thine eye.—Away, my friends! New flight; And happy newness, that intends old right. [Exeunt, leading off MELUN. SCENE V.-The same. The French Camp. Enter LEWIS and his Train. Lew. The sun of heaven, methought, was loth to set, When with a volley of our needless shot, Enter a Messenger. Mess. Where is my prince, the dauphin? Here:-What news? a The original has measure, and omits the article before English. b Tottering. Steevens reads tatter'd—Malone tattering. The original tottering was the same as tattering, of which Capell gives an example in his 'School of Shakspeare,' p. 54. But tottering, in our present meaning of unsteady, may be received without difficulty. |