BAST. Here's a good world!-Knew you of this fair work? Beyond the infinite and boundless reach Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death, HUB. Do but hear me, sir. BAST. Ha! I'll tell thee what; Thou art damn'd as black-nay, nothing is so black; Thou art more deep damn'd than prince Lucifer 3 : As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child". BAST. If thou didst but consent To this most cruel act, do but despair, And, if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread That ever spider twisted from her womb Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be A beam to hang thee on; or would'st thou drown thyself", Put but a little water in a spoon, 5 Thou art more deep damn'd than prince Lucifer:] So, in the old play: 66 Hell, Hubert, trust me, all the plagues of hell Hangs on performance of this damned deed; "This seal, the warrant of the body's bliss, "Ensureth Satan chieftain of thy soul." MALONE. There is not yet, &c.] I remember once to have met with a book, printed in the time of Henry VIII. (which Shakspeare possibly might have seen,) where we are told that the deformity of the condemned in the other world, is exactly proportioned to the degrees of their guilt. The author of it observes how difficult it would be, on this account, to distinguish between Belzebub and Judas Iscariot. STEEVENS. 7-drown THYSELF.] Perhaps thyself is an interpolation. It certainly spoils the measure; and drown is elsewhere used by our author as a verb neuter. Thus, in King Richard III.: 66 Good lord, methought, what pain it was to drown.” STEEVENS. And it shall be as all the ocean, HUB. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought BAST. Go, bear him in thine arms.- The life, the right, and truth of all this realm Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits 8 I am AMAZ'D,] i. e. confounded. So, King John, p. 322, says: I was amaz'd 9 To tug and SCAMBLE,] So, in K. Henry V. Sc. I.: "But that the scambling and unquiet time." Scamble and scramble have the same meaning. See note on the passage quoted. STEEVENS. The UNOWED interest] i. e. the interest which has no proper owner to claim it. STEEVENS. That is, the interest which is not at this moment legally possessed by any one, however rightfully entitled to it. On the death of Arthur, the right to the English crown devolved to his sister, Eleanor. MALONE. The imminent decay of wrested pomp 2. [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE I. The Same. A Room in the Palace. Enter King JOHN, PANDULPH with the Crown, and Attendants. K. JOHN. Thus have I yielded up into your hand The circle of my glory. PAND. Take again [Giving JOHN the Crown. From this my hand, as holding of the pope, Your sovereign greatness and authority. K. JOHN. Now keep your holy word: go meet the French; And from his holiness use all your power To stop their marches, 'fore we are inflam'd*. 2 The imminent decay of wRESTED POMP.] Wrested pomp is greatness obtained by violence. JOHNSON. Rather, greatness wrested from its possessor. MALONE. 3 - and CINCTURE-] The old copy reads-center, probably for ceinture, Fr. STEEVENS. The emendation was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 4 use all your power To stop their marches, 'FORE we are inflam'd.] This cannot be right, for the nation was already as much inflamed as it could be, and so the King himself declares. We should read for, instead of fore, and then the passage will run thus: Our discontented counties' do revolt; Then pause not; for the present time's so sick, PAND. It was my breath that blew this tempest Upon your stubborn usage of the pope : 66 use all your power "To stop their marches, for we are inflam'd; "Our discontented counties do revolt," &c. M. MASON. s - counties-] Perhaps counties, in the present instance, do not mean the divisions of a kingdom, but lords, nobility, as in Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, &c. STEEVENS. 6 -a gentle CONVERTITE,] A convertite is a convert. So, in Marlow's Jew of Malta, 1633: 66 Gov. Why, Barabas, wilt thou be christened? "Bar. No, governour; I'll be no convertite." STEEVENS. The same expression occurs in As You Like It, where Jaques, speaking of the young Duke, says: 66 There is much matter in these convertites." In both these places the word convertite means a repenting sinner; not, as Steevens says, a convert, by which, in the language of the present time, is meant a person who changes from one religion to another; in which sense the word can neither apply to King John, or to Duke Frederick: In the sense I have given it, it will apply to both. M. MASON. A convertite (a word often used by our old writers, where we should now use convert) signified either one converted to the faith, or one reclaimed from worldly pursuits, and devoted to penitence and religion. 66 Mr. M. Mason says, a convertite cannot mean a convert, because the latter word, in the language of the present time, means a person that changes from one religion to another." But the question is, not what is the language of the present time, but what was the language of Shakspeare's age. Marlow uses the word convertite exactly in the sense now affixed to convert. John, who had in the former part of this play asserted, in very My tongue shall hush again this storm of war, Go I to make the French lay down their arms. [Exit. K. JOHN. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet Say, that, before Ascension-day at noon, Enter the Bastard. BAST. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out, But Dover castle: London hath receiv'd, Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers: And wild amazement hurries up and down K. JOHN. Would not my lords return to me After they heard young Arthur was alive? strong terms, the supremacy of the king of England in all ecclesiastical matters, and told Pandulph that he had no reverence for "the Pope, or his usurp'd authority," having now made his peace with the "holy church," and resigned his crown to the Pope's representative, is considered by the legate as one newly converted to the true faith, and very properly styled by him a convertite. The same term, in the second sense above-mentioned, is applied to the usurper, Duke Frederick, in As You Like It, on his having "put on a religious life, and thrown into neglect the pompous court: " out of these convertites "There is much matter to be heard and learn'd." So, in The Rape of Lucrece: "He thence departs a heavy convertite." MALONE. |