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K. J. Five moons?

Hub.

Old men, and beldams, ' in the streets

Do prophesy upon it dangerously;

Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths:
And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
And whisper one another in the ear;

And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist,
While he that hears makes fearful action,

With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
Standing on slippers (which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet),
Told of many thousand warlike French,
That were embattled and ranked in Kent:
Another lean, unwashed artif’icer2

Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.

K. J. Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?
Why urgèst thou so oft young Arthur's death?

Thy hand hath murdered him: I had a mighty cause
To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.

Hub. Had none, my lord! Why, did not you provoke me?
K. J. It is the curse of kings to be attended

By slaves, that take their humors for a warrant
To break within the bloody house of life :

And, on the winking of authority,

To understand a law; to know the meaning

Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns

Mōre upon humor than advised respect.

Hub. Here is your hand and seal for what I did.

K. J. Oh, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earth Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal

Witness against us to damnation !

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds

Makes deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,

A fellow by the hand of nature marked,

1

'Běl dăm, grandmother; an old

or scolding woman; a hag.

'Artif' i oer, an artist; a mechan ic; one who makes or contrives.

Quoted, and signed, to do a deed of shame,
This murder had not come into my mind:
But, taking note of thy abhorred aspect,
Finding thee fit for bloody villany,
Apt, liable to be employed in danger,
I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death,
And thou, to be endeared to a king,

Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.
Hub. My lord-

K. J. Hadst thou but shook thy head, or made a pause,
When I spake darkly what I purposed;

Or turned an eye of doubt upon my face,

As bid me tell my tale in ex'press words:

Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,
And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me :
But thou didst understand me by my signs,

And didst in signs again parley with sin;

Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,
And, consequently, thy rude hand to act

The deed, which both our tongues held vile to name.

Out of my sight, and never see me mōre!

My nobles leave me ; and my state is braved,
Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers:
Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,'

This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,
Hostility and civil tumult reigns

Between my conscience and my cousin's death.
Hub. Arm you against your other enemies;

I'll make a peace between your soul and you.

Young Arthur is alive. This hand of mine
Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.
Within this bosom never entered yet

The dreadful motion of a murderous thought,
And you have slandered nature in my form;
Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,

Is yet the cover of a fairer mind

Than to be butcher of an innocent child.

1 "Fleshly land," "kingdom," ""confine of blood and breath"-these expressions mean his own body, or person.

K. John. Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers,
Throw this report on their incensed rage,
And make them tame to their obedience!
Forgive the comment that my passion made
Upon thy features; for my rage was blind,
And foul imaginary eyes of blood
Presented thee more hideous than thou art.
O, answer not; but to my closet bring
The angry lords, with all expedient haste :
I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

AT

IV.

148. THE HISTORY OF PRINCE ARTHUR.

PART FIRST.

T two-and-thirty years of age, in the year 1200, John became king of England. His pretty little nephew, Arthur, had the best claim to the throne; but John seized the treasure, and made fine promises to the nobility, and got himself crowned at Westminster within a few weeks after his brother Richard's death. I doubt whether the crown could possibly have been put upon the head of a meaner coward, or a more detestable villain, if the country had been searched from end to end to find him out.

2. The French king, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right of John to his new dignity, and declared in favor of Arthur. You must not suppose that he had any generosity of feeling for the fatherless boy: it merely suited his ambitious schemes to oppose the king of England.

3. So John and the French king went to war about Arthur. He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years old. He was not born when his father, Geoffrey, had his brains trampled out at the tournament ; and, besides the misfortune of never having known a father's guidance and protection, he had the additional misfortune to have a foolish mother (Constance by name), lately married to her third husband.

1 Tournament, (têr′ na ment), a mock fight by a number of men on horseback, practiced as a sport in the middle ages.

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4. She took Arthur, upon John's accession, to the French king, who pretended to be very much his friend, and made him a knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage; but who cared so little about him in reality, that, finding it his interest to make peace with King John for a time, he did so without the least consideration for the poor little prince, and heartlessly sacrificed all his interests.

5. Young Arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly; and in the course of that time his mother died But the French king, then finding it his interest to quarrel with King John again, again made Arthur his pretense, and invited the orphan boy to court.

6. "You know your rights, prince," said the French king, "and you would like to be a king. Is it not so?" "Truly," said Prince Arthur, "I should greatly like to be a king

7. "Then," said Philip, "you shall have two hundred gentlemen, who are knights of mine, and with them you shall go to win back the provinces belonging to you, of which your uncle, the usurping king of England, has taken possession. I myself, meanwhile, will head a force against him in Normandy

8. Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau because his grandmother Eleanor, was living there, and because his knights said, "Prince, if you can take her prisoner, you will be able to bring the king, your uncle, to terms!" But she was not to be easily taken. She was old enough by this timeeighty; but she was as full of stratagem as she was full of years and wickedness. Receiving intelligence of young Arthur's approach, she shut herself up in a high tower, and encouraged her soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur with his little army besieged the high tower.

ap

9. King John, hearing how matters stood, came up to the rescue with his army. So here was a strange family party! The boyprince besieging his grandmother, and his uncle besieging him.

1 Accession, (ak såsh' un), coming to the throne; becoming king. "Knight, a military dignity; an officer of rank in old times. 'Sacrificed, (såk' ri fizd), destroyed, or gave up for something else.

4 Pre tense', a show of what is not real; a holding out of something

feigned or false; that which is pretended; excuse.

"Norman dy, an ancient province of France, bounded north and west by the English Channel.

6

Mirebeau, (Me`re hỏ′), a town of France, department of Vienne, 16 miles N. N. W. of Poitiers (pwå'te à').

TH

V.

149. THE HISTORY OF PRINCE ARTHUR.

PART SECOND,

HIS position of affairs did not last long. One summer night, King John, by treachery, got his men into the town, surprised Prince Arthur's force, took two hundred of his knights, and seized the prince himself, in his bed.

2. The knights were put in heavy irons, and driven away in open carts, drawn by bullocks, to various dungeons, where they were most inhumanly treated, and where some of them were starved to death. Prince Arthur was sent to the castle of Falaise.'

3. One day, while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully thinking it strange that one so young should be in so much trouble, and looking out of the small window in the deep, dark wall, at the summer sky and the birds, the door was softly opened, and he saw his uncle, the king, standing in the shadow of the archway, looking very grim.

4. "Arthur," said the king, with his wicked eyes mōre on the stone floor than on his nephew, "will you not trust to the gentleness, the friendship, and the truthfulness of your loving uncle?" "I will tell my loving uncle that," replied the boy, "when he does me right. Let him restore to me my kingdom of England, and then come to me and ask the question."

5. The king looked at him and went out. "Keep that boy close prisoner," said he to the warden of the castle. Then the king took secret counsel with the worst of his nobles, how the prince was to be got rid of. Some said, "Put out his eyes and keep him in prison, as Robert of Normandy was kept." Others said, "Have him stabbed." Others, "Have him hanged." Others, "Have him poisoned."

6. King John, feeling that in any case, whatever was done afterward, it would be a satisfaction to his mind to have those handsome eyes burnt out, that had looked at him so proudly, while his own royal eyes were blinking at the stone floor, sent certain ruffians to Falaise to blind the boy with red-hot irons.

7. But Arthur so pathetically entreated them, and shed such piteous tears, and so appealed to Hubert de Bourg, the warden

Falaise, (få låz ́), a town of France. The castle occupies a commanding position, and before the invention of gunpowder was a place of great strength.

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