Come from the country to be judged by you, Our abbies, and our priories, shall pay [Exit Sheriff. Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, and This expedition's charge.-What men are you? 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, 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; At least from fair five hundred pound a year: 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, 3 But whe'r -] Whe'r for whether. That still I lay upon my mother's head; (Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!) 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 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; With that half-face would he have all my land: A half-faced groat five hundred pound a year! 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; 4 He hath a trick of Cœur-de-lion's face,] By a trick, in this place, is meant some peculiarity of look or motion. 5 With that half-face-] The poet sneers at the meagre sharp visage of the elder brother, by comparing him to a silver groat that bore the king's face in profile, so showed but half the face: the groats of all our kings of England, and indeed all their other coins of silver, one or two only excepted, had a full face crowned; till Henry VII. at the time above mentioned, coined groats, and halfgroats, as also some shillings, with half-faces, i. e. faces in profile, as all our coin has now. And in the meantime sojourn'd at my father's; (As I have heard my father speak himself,) K. John. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate; Eli. Whether hadst thou rather, be a Faulcon bridge, And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land; 6 took it, on his death,] i. e. entertained it as his fixed opinion, when he was dying. Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion, Lord of thy presence, and no land beside'? Bast. Madam, an if my brother had my shape, Lest men should say, Look, where three-farthings goes'! I would not be sir Nob' 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 chance: Eli. Nay, I would have you go before me thither. 7 Lord of thy presence, and no land beside?] Lord of his presence apparently signifies, great in his own person, and is used in this sense by king John in one of the following scenes. 8 And I had his, sir Robert his, like him ;] This is obscure and ill-expressed. The meaning is-If I had his shape, sir Robert's — as That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose, Lest men should say, Look, where three-farthings goes!] In this very obscure passage our poet is anticipating the date of another silver coin; humorously to rally a thin face, eclipsed, as it were, by a full-blown rose. We must observe, to explain this allusion, that queen Elizabeth was the first, and indeed the only prince, who coined in England three-half-pence, and three-farthing pieces. "To his shape," 1 And, to his shape, were heir to all this land,] means, in addition to the shape he had been just describing. ? I would not be sir Nob-] Sir Nob is used contemptuously for sir Robert. 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 bear'st: Kneel thou down Philip, but arise more great †; Bast. Brother, by the mother's side, give me your hand; My father gave me honour, yours gave land:- 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: + "but rise more great ;"- MALONE. Arise, sir Richard, and Plantagenet.] It is a common opinion, that Plantagenet was the surname of the royal house of England, from the time of King Henry II., but it is, as Camden observes, in his Remaines, 1614, a popular mistake. Plantagenet was not a family name, but a nick-name, by which a grandson of Geffrey, the first Earl of Anjou, was distinguished, from his wearing a broom stalk in his bonnet. But this name was never borne either by the first Earl of Anjou, or by King Henry II., the son of that earl by the Empress Maude; he being always called Henry Fitz-Empress; his son, Richard Coeur-de-lion; and the prince who is exhibited in the play before us, John sans-terre, or lackland. MALone. 4 Something about, a little from the right, &c.] This speech, composed of allusive and proverbial sentences, is obscure. I am, says the sprightly knight, your grandson, a little irregularly, but every man cannot get what he wishes the legal way. He that dares not go about his designs by day, must make his motions in the night; he, to whom the door is shut, must climb the window, or leap the hatch. This, however, shall not depress me; for the world never inquires how any man got what he is known to possess, but allows that to have is to have, however it was caught, and that he who wins, shot well, whatever was his skill, whether the arrow fell near the mark, or far off it. JOHNSON. |