Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set 2: 3 PEM. And, when it breaks 3, I fear, will issue thence The foul corruption of a sweet child's death. K. JOHN. We cannot hold mortality's strong hand: Good lords, although my will to give is living, SAL. Indeed, we fear'd, his sickness was past cure. PEM. Indeed, we heard how near his death he was, Before the child himself felt he was sick : This must be answer'd, either here, or hence. Think you, I bear the shears of destiny? That blood, which ow'd the breath of all this isle, 2 Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles SET:] But heralds are not planted, I presume, in the midst betwixt two lines of battle; though they, and trumpets, are often sent over from party to party, to propose terms, demand a parley, &c. I have therefore ventured to read-sent. THEOBALD. Set is not fixed, but only placed; heralds must be set between battles, in order to be sent between them. JOHNSON. 3 And, when it breaks,] This is but an indelicate metaphor, taken from an imposthumated tumour. JOHNSON. This must not be thus borne: this will break out To all our sorrows, and ere long, I doubt. Exeunt Lords. K. JOHN. They burn in indignation; I repent; There is no sure foundation set on blood; No certain life achiev'd by others' death. Enter a Messenger. A fearful eye thou hast ; Where is that blood, Pour down thy weather:-How goes all in France? MESS. From France to England-Never such a power For any foreign preparation, Was levied in the body of a land! The copy of your speed is learn'd by them; K. JOHN. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk? Where hath it slept5? Where is my mother's care? That such an army could be drawn in France, And she not hear of it? MESS. My liege, her ear Three days before: but this from rumour's tongue 4 From France to England.] The King asks how all goes in France, the Messenger catches the word goes, and answers, that whatever is in France goes now into England. JOHNSON. 5 0, where hath our intelligence been DRUNK ? Where hath it SLEPT ?] So, in Macbeth : "Wherein you drest yourself? hath it slept since?" VOL. XV. Y MALONE. K. JOHN. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion! O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd My discontented peers!-What! mother dead? How wildly then walks my estate in France !Under whose conduct came those powers of France, That thou for truth giv'st out, are landed here? MESS. Under the Dauphin. Enter the Bastard and PETER of POMFRET. K. JOHN. Thou hast made me giddy With these ill tidings.-Now, what says the world To your proceedings? do not seek to stuff My head with more ill news, for it is full. BAST. But, if you be afeard to hear the worst, Under the tide : but now I breathe again BAST. HOW I have sped among the clergymen, 6 How WILDLY then WALKS my estate in France !] So, in one of the Paston Letters, vol. iii. p. 99: "The country of Norfolk and Suffolk stand right wildly." STEEVENS, i. e. How ill my affairs go in France !-The verb, to walk, is used with great licence by old writers. It often means, to go, to move. So, in the Continuation of Harding's Chronicle, 1543: "Evil words walke far." Again, in Fenner's Compter's Commonwealth, 1618: "The keeper, admiring he could not hear his prisoner's tongue walk all this while," &c. MALONE. So, in Again, in The 7 — I was AMAZ'D-] i. e. stunned, confounded. Cymbeline: -I am amaz'd with matter." Merry Wives of Windsor, vol. viii. p. 200. "You do amaze her: hear the truth of it." STEEVENS. And here's a prophet, that I brought with me K. JOHN. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst PETER. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out So. K. JOHN. Hubert, away with him; imprison him; And on that day at noon, whereon, he says, I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd. Deliver him to safety 9, and return, For I must use thee.-O my gentle cousin, [Exit HUBERT, with PETER. Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd ? BAST. The French, my lord; men's mouths are full of it: Besides, I met lord Bigot, and lord Salisbury, And here's a prophet,] This man was a hermit in great repute with the common people. Notwithstanding the event is said to have fallen out as he had prophesied, the poor fellow was inhumanly dragged at horses' tails through the streets of Warham, and, together with his son, who appears to have been even more innocent than his father, hanged afterwards upon a gibbet. See Holinshed's Chronicle, under the year 1213. DOUCE. See A. of Wyntown's Cronykil, b. vii. ch. viii. v. 801, &c. STEEVENS. observes, that he Pope's legate, the GREY. him into safe cus Speed (History of Great Britain, p. 499,) [Peter the Hermit] was suborned by the French king, and the Barons for this purpose. 9 Deliver him to safety,] That is, "Give tody." JOHNSON. I WHO, they say,] Old copy-whom. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. K. JOHN. Gentle kinsman, go, And thrust thyself into their companies : BAST. I will seek them out. K. JOHN. Nay, but make haste; the better foot before. O, let me have no subject enemies, speed. man. Go after him; for he, perhaps, shall need MESS. With all my heart, my liege. K. JOHN. My mother dead! Re-enter HUBERT. [Exit. HUB. My lord, they say, five moons were seen to-night 2: Four fixed; and the fifth did whirl about The other four, in wond'rous motion. K. JOHN. Five moons? HUB. Old men, and beldams, in the streets Do prophecy upon it dangerously: 2-five moons were seen to-night, &c.] This incident is mentioned by few of our historians. I have met with it no where but in Matthew of Westminster and Polydore Virgil, with a small alteration. GREY. This incident is likewise mentioned in the old King John. STEEVENS. |