KING JOHN.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Northampton. A Room of State in the Palace. Enter King JOHN, Queen ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others, with CHATILLON.

King John.

Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?
Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the king of France,
In my behaviour,' to the majesty,

The borrow'd majesty of England here.

Eli. A stringe beginning ;-borrow'd majesty!

K. John. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.
Chat. Philip of France, in right and true behalf

Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,

Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
To this fair island, and the territories;

To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine:
Desiring thee to lay aside the sword,
Which sways usurpingly these several titles ;
And put the same into young Arthur's hand,
Thy nephew, and right royal sovereign.

K. John. What follows, if we disallow of this?
Chat. The proud control of fierce and bloody war,
To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.

K. John. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood, Controlment for controlment: so answer France.

Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth, The furthest limit of my embassy.

K. John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace :

[1] The word behaviour seems here to have a signification that I have never found in any other author. The king of France, says the envoy, thus speaks in my behaviour to the majesty of England; that is, the king of France speaks in the character which I here assume. JOHNSON

[2] Opposition from controller. JOHNSON.

Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France ;'
For ere thou canst report I will be there,
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard :
So, hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,
And sullen presage of your own decay.-
An honourable conduct let him have :—
Pembroke, look to't :-Farewell, Chatillon.

[Exeunt CHAT. and PEM.

Eli. What now, my son? have I not ever said,
How that ambitious Constance would not cease,
Till she had kindled France, and all the world,
Upon the right and party of her son?

This might have been prevented, and made whole,
With very easy arguments of love;

Which now the manage of two kingdoms must

With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

K. John. Our strong possession, and our right, for us. Eli. Your strong possession, much more than your right

Or else it must go wrong with you, and me:

So much my conscience whispers in your ear;
Which none but heaven, and you, and I, shall hear.

Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers Essex
Essex. My liege, here is the strangest controversy,
Come from the country to be judg'd by you,

That e'er I heard: Shall I produce the men?

K. John. Let them approach.

Our abbies, and our priories, shall pay

[Exit Sheriff.

Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, and PHILIP, his bastard brother.

This expedition's charge.-What men are you?
Bast. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman,
Born in Northamptonshire; and eldest son,
As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge;
A soldier, by the honour-giving hand
Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.

[3] This simile does not suit well: the lightning indeed appears before the thunder is heard, but the lightning is destructive, and the thunder innocent.

JOHNSON.

The allusion may, notwithstanding, be very proper, so far as Shakespeare had applied it, i. e merely to the swiftness of the lightning and its preceding and foretelling the thunder. But there is some reason to believe that thunder was not thought to be innocent in our author's time, as we elsewhere learn from himself. See King Lear, Act III. sc. ii Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. sc. v. Julius Casar, Act I. sc. iii and still more decisively in Measure for Measure, Act II. sc. ii. This old superstition is still prevalent in many parts of the country. RITSON.

K. John. What art thou?

Rob. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.
K. John. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?
You came not of one mother then, it seems.

Bast. Most certain of one mother, mighty king,
That is well known; and, as I think, one father:
But, for the certain knowledge of that truth,
I put you o'er to heaven, and to my mother;
Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.

Eli. Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother,

And wound her honour with this diffidence.

Bast. I, madam? no, I have no reason for it; That is my brother's plea, and none of mine; The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out At least from fair five hundred pound a year: Heaven guard my mother's honour, and my land! K. John. A good blunt fellow :-Why, being younger born,

Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance ?

Bast. I know not why, except to get the land.
But once he slander'd me with bastardy :

But whe'r I be as true begot, or no,*
That still I lay upon my mother's head;
But, that I am as well begot, my liege,
(Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!)
Compare our faces, and be judge yourself.
If old sir Robert did beget us both,

And were our father, and this son like him ;--
O old sir Robert, father, on my knee

I give heaven thanks, I was not like to thee.

K. John. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!
Eli. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face,"

The accent of his tongue affecteth him :
Do you not read some tokens of my son
In the large composition of this man?

K. John. Mine eye hath well examined his parts,
And finds them perfect Richard.Sirrah, speak,
What doth move you to claim your brother's land?
Bast. Because he hath a half-face, like my father;

[4] Whe'r for whe.her. STEEVENS.

[5] The trick or tricking, is the same as the tracing of a drawing, meaning that peculiarity of face which may be sufficiently shown by the slightest outline. STEEVENS