That judge hath made me guardian to this boy: Under whose warrant, I impeach thy wrong; And, by whofe help, I mean to cháftife it. K. JOHN. Alack, thou doft ufurp authority. K. PHI. Excuse; it is to beat ufurping down. ELI. Who is it, thou doft call ufurper, France? CONST. Let me make answer ;-thy ufurping fon. ELL. Out, infolent! thy baftard fhall be king; That thou may'ft be a queen, and check the world!' CONST. My bed was ever to thy son as true, As thine was to thy husband: and this boy Liker in feature to his father Geffrey, Than thou and John in manners; being as like, As rain to water, or devil to his dam. My boy a baftard! By my foul, I think, His father never was fo true begot; It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother." called a blot or difference. So, in Drayton's Epiftle from Queen Ifabel to K. Richard II: "No baftard's mark doth blot his conquering fhield." Blot and fains occur again together in the firit fcene of the third act. STEEVENS. Blat had certainly the heraldical fenfe mentioned by Mr. Steevens. But it here, I think, means only blemishes. So again, in Act III. MALONE. 3 That thou may't be a queen, and check the world!] "Surely (fays Holinfhed) Queen Eleanor, the kyngs mother, was fore againft her nephew Arthur, rather moved thereto by envye conceyved against his mother, than upon any just occafion, given in the behalfe of the childe; for that the faw, if he were king, how his mother Conftance would looke to beare the most rule within the realme of Englande, till her fonne fhould come to a lawfull age to govern of himfelfe. So hard a thing it is, to bring women to agree in one minde, their natures commonly being fo contrary." MALONE. 4—an if thou wert his mother.] Conftance alludes to Elinor's infidelity to her husband Lewis the Seventh, when they were in the ELI. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father. CONST. There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee. AUST. Peace! BAST. AUST. Hear the crier." What the devil art thou? BAST. One that will play the devil, fir, with you, An 'a may catch your hide and you alone." Holy Land; on account of which he was divorced from her. She afterwards (1151) married our King Henry II. MALONE. 5 Hear the crier.] Alluding to the ufual proclamation for filence, made by criers in courts of juftice, beginning Oyez, corruptly pronounced O-Yes. Auftria has juft faid Peace! MALONE. 6 One that will play the devil, fir, with you, An'a may catch your hide and you alone.] The ground of the quarrel of the Baftard to Auftria is no where specified in the prefent play. But the ftory is, that Auftria, who killed King Richard Caur-de-lion, wore as the spoil of that prince, a lion's hide, which had belonged to him. This circumftance renders the anger of the Bastard very natural, and ought not to have been omitted. POPE. See p. 27, n. 9, and p. 28, n. 2. MALONE. The omiffion of this incident was natural. Shakspeare having familiarized the ftory to his own imagination, forgot that it was obfcure to his audience; or what is equally probable, the ftory was then fo popular that a hint was fufficient at that time to bring it to mind; and thefe plays were written with very little care for the approbation of pofterity. JOHNSON. 7 You are the hare-] So, in The Spanish Tragedy: "He hunted well that was a lion's death; "Not he that in a garment wore his skin: "So hares may pull dead lions by the beard." See p. 6, n. 4. STEEVENS. The proverb alluded to is, " Mortuo leoni et lepores infultant.” Erafmi ADAG. MALONE. BLANCH. O, well did he become that lion's robe, That did difrobe the lion of that robe! 8 BAST. It lies as fightly on the back of him, As great Alcides' fhoes upon an afs: But, afs, I'll take that burden from your back; Or lay on that, shall make your shoulders crack. AUST. What cracker is this fame, that deafs our ears With this abundance of fuperfluous breath? It lies as fightly on the back of him, As great Alcides' fhoes upon an afs:] But why his hoes in the name of propriety?, For let Hercules and his bees have been really as big as they were ever supposed to be, yet they (I mean the hoes) would not have been an overload for an afs. I am perfuaded, I have retrieved the true reading; and let us obferve the juftness of the comparifon now. Faulconbridge in his refentment would fay this to Auftria: That lion's fkin, which my great father King Richard once wore, looks as uncouthly on thy back, as that other noble hide, which was borne by Hercules, would look on the back of an afs." A double allufion was intended; first, to the fable of the afs in the lion's fkin; then Richard I. is finely fet in competition with Alcides, as Auftria is fatirically coupled with the afs. THEOBALD. ་་ The shoes of Hercules are more than once introduced in the old comedies on much the fame occafions. So, in The Isle of Gulls, by J. Day, 1606: are as fit, as Hercules's hoe for the foot of a pigmy." Again, in Greene's Epiftle Dedicatory to Perimedes the Blacksmith, 1588: "and fo, left I fhould fhape Hercules' fhoe for a child's foot, I commend your worship to the Almighty." Again, in Greene's Penelope's Web, 1601: "I will not make a long harveft for a fmall crop, nor go about to pull a Hercules' hoe on Achilles' foot." Again, ibid: "Hercules' hoe will never serve a child's foot." Again, in Stephen Goffon's School of Abufe, 1579: draw the lyon's fkin upon fop's affe, or Hercules' fhoes on a childes feete." Again, in the second of William Rankins's Seven Satyres, &c. 1598: "Yet in Alcides' bufkins will he ftalke." STEEVENS. - to upon an afs:] i. e. upon the hoofs of an afs. Mr. Theobald thought the hoes must be placed on the back of the afs; and, therefore, to avoid this incongruity, reads-Alcides' bows, MALONE, what we fhall do K. PHI. Lewis, determine ftraight. LEW. Women and fools, break off your conference. King John, this is the very fum of all,- Wilt thou refign them, and lay down thy arms? Arthur of Bretagne, yield thee to my hand; 9 K. Phi. Lewis, determine, &c.] Thus Mr. Malone, and perhaps rightly; for the next fpeech is given in the old copy (as it ftands in the prefent text) to Lewis the dauphin, who was afterwards Lewis VIII. The fpeech itself, however, feems fufficiently appropriated to the King; and nothing can be inferred from the folio with any certainty, but that the editors of it were careless and ignorant. STEEVENS. In the old copy this line ftands thus: King Lewis, determine what we shall do straight. To the first three fpeeches fpoken in this fcene by King Philip, the word King only is prefixed. I have therefore given this line to him. The tranfcriber or compofitor having, I imagine, forgotten to diftinguifh the word King by Italicks, and to put a full point after it, thefe words have been printed as part of Austria's fpeech: "King Lewis," &c. but fuch an arrangement must be erroneous, for Lewis was not king. Some of our author's editors have left Auftria in poffeffion of the line, and corrected the error by reading here, " King Philip, determine," &c. and giving the next fpeech to him, inftead of Lewis. I once thought that the line before us might ftand as part of Auftria's fpeech, and that he might have addreffed Philip and the Dauphin by the words, King,-Lewis, &c. but the addreffing Philip by the title of King, without any addition, feems too familiar, and I therefore think it more probable that the error happened in the way above ftated. MALONE. Anjou,] Old copy-Angiers. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. ELI. Come to thy grandam, child. CONST. Do, child, go to it' grandam, child; Give grandam kingdom, and it' grandam will Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig: There's a good grandam. ARTH. Good my mother, peace! I would, that I were low laid in my grave; CONST. Now fhame upon you, whe'r fhe does, or no! 3 His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's fhames, ELI. Thou monftrous flanderer of heaven and earth! CONST. Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and Call not me flanderer; thou, and thine, ufurp Of this oppreffed boy: This is thy eldest fon's fon,+ 3 Now fhame upon you, whe'r fhe does, or no!] Whe'r for whether. So, in an Epigram, by Ben Jonfon: "Who thall doubt, Donne, whe'r I a poet be, Again, in Gower's De Confeffione Amantis, 1532: MALONE. Read: auhe'r he does, or no!—i. e. whether he weeps, or not. Conftance, fo far from admitting, exprefsly denies that he fhames him. RITSON. 4 Of this oppreffed boy: This is thy eldeft fon's fon,] Mr. Ritfon would omit the redundant words-This is, and read: Of this oppreffed boy; thy eldest fon's fon. STEEVENS. |