ACT III. SCENE I.

The fame. The French King's Tent.

Enter CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and SALISBURY.

Conf. Gone to be married! gone to fwear a peace!
Falfe blood to falfe blood join'd! Gone to be friends!
Shall Lewis have Blanch? and Blanch thofe provinces !
It is not fo; thou haft mis-fpoke, misheard;
Be well advis'd, tell o'er thy tale again:
It cannot be ; thou doft but say, 'tis fo;
I truft, I may not truft thee; for thy word
Is but the vain breath of a common man ;
Believe me, I do not believe thee, man;
I have a king's oath to the contrary.
Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me,
For I am fick, and capable of fears; 9
Opprefs'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears;
A widow, 2 hufbandlefs, fubject to fears;
A woman, naturally born to fears:

And though thou now confefs, thou didst but jeft,
With my vex'd fpirits I cannot take a truce,
But they will quake and tremble all this day.
What doft thou mean by fhaking of thy head?
Why doft thou look fo fadly on my fon?
What means that hand upon that breast of thine?
Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,
Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?
Be thefe fad figns confirmers of thy words?

Then

9 i. e. I have a strong fenfibility; I am tremblingly alive to apprehenfion.

MALONE.

2 This was not the fact. Conftance, was at this time married to a third husband, Guido, brother to the Viscount of Touars. She had been divorced from her second husband, Ranulph, Earl of Chefter. MALONE.

3 The fad figns are, the fhaking of bis head, the laying his band en bis breaf, &C. MALONE,

Then fpeak again; not all thy former tale,
But this one word, whether thy tale be true.
Sal. As true, as, I believe, you think them false,
That give you caufe to prove my faying true.
Conft. O, if thou teach me to believe this forrow,
Teach thou this forrow how to make me die;
And let belief and life encounter fo,

As doth the fury of two defperate men,
Which, in the very meeting, fall, and die.-
Lewis marry Blanch! O, boy, then where art thou?
France friend with England! what becomes of me?-
Fellow, be gone; I cannot brook thy fight;
This news hath made thee a most ugly man.
Sal. What other harm have I, good lady, done,
But fpoke the harm that is by others done?
Conft. Which harm within itself fo heinous is,
As it makes harmful all that speak of it.

8

Arth. I do befeech you, madam, be content.
Conft. If thou, that bid'ft me be content, wert grim,
Ugly, and fland'rous to thy mother's womh,
Full of unpleafing blots, and fightless 7 ftains,
Lame, foolish, crooked, fwart, prodigious,9
Patch'd with foul moles, and eye-offending marks,
I would not care, I then would be content;
For then I fhould not love thee; no, nor thou
Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.
But thou art fair; and at thy birth, dear boy!
Nature and fortune join'd to make thee great :
Of nature's gifts thou may'ft with lillies boast,
And with the half-blown rofe: but fortune, O!
She is corrupted, chang'd, and won from thee;
She adulterates hourly with thine uncle John;
And with her golden hand hath pluck'd on France
To tread down fair refpect of fovereignty,
And made his majesty the bawd to theirs.

France

7 The poet ufes fightless for that which we now exprefs by unfightly, difagreeable to the eyes. JOHNSON.

Swart is brown, inclining to black. STEEVENS.

That is, portentous, fo deformed as to be taken for a foretoken of evil.

JOHNSON.

France is a bawd to fortune, and king John;
That ftrumpet fortune, that ufurping John :-
Tell me, thou fellow, is not France forfworn?
Envenom him with words; or get thee gone,
And leave those woes alone, which I alone,
Am bound to underbear.

Sal.

Pardon me, madam,

I may not go without you to the kings.

Conft. Thou may'st, thou shalt. I will not go with thee: I will inftruct my forrows to be proud;

For grief is proud, and makes his owner ftout.2
To me, and to the state of my great grief,
Let kings affemble; 3 for my grief's fo great,

That

2 The old editions have―makes its owner ftoop: the emendation is Sir T. Hanmer's. JOHNSON.

Our author has rendered this paffage obfcure, by indulging himself in one of thofe conceits in which he too much delights, and by bounding rapidly, with his ufual licence, from one idea to another. This obfcurity induced Sir T. Hanmer for ftoop to fubftitute ftout; a reading that appears to me to have been too haftily adopted in the fubfequent editions.

The confufion arifes from the poet's having perfonified grief in the first part of the paffage, and fuppofing the afflicted perfon to be bored to the earth by that pride or haughtiness which Grief is faid to poffefs; and by making the afflicted perfon, in the latter part of the paffage, actuated by this very pride, and exacting the fame kind of obeifance from others, that Grief has exacted from her." I will not go (fays Conftance) to thefe kings; I will teach my forrows to be proud; for Grief is proud, and makes the afflicted foop; therefore here I throw myself, and let them come to me." Here, had the ftopped, and thrown herself on the ground, and had nothing more been added, however we might have disapproved of the conceit, we should have had no temptation to disturb the text. But the idea of throwing herself on the ground fuggests a new image; and becaufe her fately grief is fo great that nothing but the huge earth can fupport it, the confiders the ground as her throne; and having thus invested herfelf with regal dignity, the as queen in mifery, as poffeffing (like Imogen) "the fupreme crown of grief," calls on the princes of the world to bow down before her, as fhe has herself been bowed down by affliction.

Such, I think, was the process that paffed in the poet's mind; which appears to me fo clearly to explain the text, that I fee no reafon for departing from it. MALONE.

3 In Much ado about Nothing, the father of Hero, depreffed by her difgrace, declares himself fo fubdued by grief that a thread may lead him. How is it that grief in Leonato and Lady Constance produces effects direct

ly

:

4

That no fupporter but the huge firm earth
Can hold it up here I and forrow fit ;
Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it."
[She throws herself on the ground.

Enter

ly oppofite, and yet both agreeable to nature? Sorrow foftens the mind while it is yet warmed by hope, but hardens it when it is congealed by defpair. Diftrefs, while there remains any profpect of relief, is weak and flexible, but when no fuccour remains, is fearless and ftubborn; angry alike at those that injure, and at those that do not help; careless to pleafe where nothing can be gained, and fearless to offend when there is nothing farther to be dreaded. Such was this writer's knowledge of the paffions. JOHNSON.

4 -bere I and forrow fit ;] The old copy has-forrows.

STEEVENS.

A flight corruption has here destroyed a beautiful image. There is no poetical reader that will not join with me in reading- here I and Sorrow St." M. MASON.

5 I must here account for the liberty I have taken to make a change in the divifion of the fecond and third acts. In the old editions, the fecond act was made to end here; though it is evident Lady Conftance here, in her defpair, feats herself on the floor: and the must be supposed, as I formerly obferved, immediately to rife again, only to go off and end the act decently; or the flat fcene must fhut her in from the fight of the audience, an absurdity I cannot wish to accufe Shakspeare of. Mr. Gildon and fome other criticks fancied, that a confiderable part of the second act was lost; and that the chaẩm began here. I had joined in this fufpicion of a scene or two being loft; and unwittingly drew Mr. Pope into this error. "It seems to be fo, (fays he,) and it were to be wish'd the reftorer (meaning me) could fupply it." To deferve this great man's thanks, I will venture at the task; and hope to convince my readers, that nothing is loft, but that I have fupplied the fufpected chaẩm, only by rectifying the divifion of the acts. Upon looking a little more narrowly into the conftitution of the play, I am fatisfied that the third act ought to begin with that scene which has hitherto been accounted the last of the fecond act and my reafons for it are thefe. The match being concluded, in the fcene before that, betwixt the Dauphin and Blanch, a meffenger is fent for Lady Conftance to King Philip's tent, for her to come to Saint Mary's church to the folemnity. The princes all go out, as to the marriage; and the Bastard staying a little behind, to defcant on intereft and commodity, very properly ends the act. The next scene then, in the French king's tent, brings us Salisbury delivering his meffage to Conftance, who, refufing to go to the folemnity, fets herself down on the foor. The whole train returning from the church to the French king's pavilion, Philip expreffes fuch fatisfaction on occafion of the happy folemnity of that day, that Conftance rifes from the floor, and joins in the Scene by entering her protest against their joy, and carfing the business of

Emer King JOHN, King PHILIP, Lewis, BLANCH, ELINOR, Baftard, AUSTRIA, and Attendants.

K. Phi. 'Tis true, fair daughter; and this blessed day, Ever in France fhall be kept festival: To folemnize this day, the glorious fun Stays in his courfe, and plays the alchemift; Turning, with fplendor of his precious eye, The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold: The yearly courfe, that brings this day about, Shall never fee it but a holyday.

Conft. A wicked day, and not a holyday! [Rifinge What hath this day deferv'd? what hath it done; That it in golden letters fhould be fet, Among the high tides," in the kalendar? Nay, rather, turn this day out of the week ;7 This day of fhame, oppreffion, perjury: Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child

the day. Thus, I conceive, the fcenes are fairly continued; and there is no chafm in the action, but a proper interval made both for Salisbury's coming to Lady Conftance, and for the folemnization of the marriage. Befides, as Faulconbridge is evidently the poet's favourite character, it was very well judged to clofe the act with his foliloquy. THEOBALD.

This whole note feems judicious enough; but Mr. Theobald forgets there were, in Shakspeare's time, no moveable fcenes in common playhoufes. JOHNSON.

It appears from many paffages that the ancient theatres had the advantages of machinery as well as the more modern stages.

How happened it that Shakspeare himself fhould have mentioned the act of shifting frenes, if in his time there were no fcenes capable of being fhifted? Thus in the chorus to King Henry V.

Scene."

"Unto Southampton do we fhift our This phrafe was hardly more ancient than the cuftom which it defcribes.

6i. e. folemn feafons, times to be obferved above others.

STEEVENS

STEEVENS.

7 In allufion (as Mr. Upton has obferved) to Job iii. 3: "Let the day perish," &c. and v. 6: "Let it not be joined to the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months." MALONE.

In The Fair Penitent, the imprecation of Califta on the night which betrayed her to Lothario, is chiefly borrowed from this and fubfequent verfes in the fame chapter of Job. STEEVENS,

VOL. IV.

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