King John
Act V, Scene 4
Another part of the battlefield.
Costume design for Lord Bigot
From Charles Kean's scrapbook
19th century
- Enter Salisbury, Pembroke, and Bigot.
Earl of Salisbury
1- I did not think the King so stor’d with friends.
Earl of Pembroke
2 - 3- Up once again! Put spirit in the French;
- If they miscarry, we miscarry too.
Earl of Salisbury
4 - 5- That misbegotten devil Faulconbridge,
- In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.
Earl of Pembroke
6- They say King John, sore sick, hath left the field.
- Enter Melune wounded.
Melune
7- Lead me to the revolts of England here.
Earl of Salisbury
8- When we were happy we had other names.
Earl of Pembroke
9- It is the Count Melune.
Earl of Salisbury
10- Wounded to death.
Melune
11 - 21- Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold!
- Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,
- And welcome home again discarded faith.
- Seek out King John and fall before his feet;
- For if the French be lords of this loud day,
- He means to recompense the pains you take
- By cutting off your heads. Thus hath he sworn,
- And I with him, and many more with me,
- Upon the altar at Saint Edmundsbury,
- Even on that altar where we swore to you
- Dear amity and everlasting love.
Earl of Salisbury
22- May this be possible? May this be true?
Melune
23 - 49- Have I not hideous death within my view,
- Retaining but a quantity of life,
- Which bleeds away even as a form of wax
- Resolveth from his figure ’gainst the fire?
- What in the world should make me now deceive,
- Since I must lose the use of all deceit?
- Why should I then be false, since it is true
- That I must die here and live hence by truth?
- I say again, if Lewis do win the day,
- He is forsworn if e’er those eyes of yours
- Behold another day break in the east;
- But even this night, whose black contagious breath
- Already smokes about the burning crest
- Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun,
- Even this ill night your breathing shall expire,
- Paying the fine of rated treachery
- Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives,
- If Lewis by your assistance win the day.
- Commend me to one Hubert with your king;
- The love of him, and this respect besides,
- For that my grandsire was an Englishman,
- Awakes my conscience to confess all this.
- In lieu whereof, I pray you bear me hence
- From forth the noise and rumor of the field,
- Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts
- In peace, and part this body and my soul
- With contemplation and devout desires.
From: Costume designs for King John
John Miller, George Scharf, 1823
Earl of Salisbury
50 - 62- We do believe thee, and beshrew my soul
- But I do love the favor and the form
- Of this most fair occasion, by the which
- We will untread the steps of damned flight,
- And like a bated and retired flood,
- Leaving our rankness and irregular course,
- Stoop low within those bounds we have o’erlook’d,
- And calmly run on in obedience
- Even to our ocean, to our great King John.
- My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence,
- For I do see the cruel pangs of death
- Right in thine eye. Away, my friends! New flight,
- And happy newness, that intends old right.
- Exeunt leading off Melune.
Costume design for Robert Bigot
From Charles Kean's scrapbook
19th century