The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [140]
We all our faithful love to Arthur swear.
ALL
We all do swear. To Arthur! Arthur’s king!
GLOUCESTER
Then waits for you a prince to crown, then war,
And, far-afield, most patient-hopeful, peace.
Exeunt [not Gloucester]
Improvidently Loth in haste and pride,
If not from charity, hath served my king,
And graciously invited jarring72 lords
To point unitedly at him their swords.
Exit
[ACT I,] SCENE V
[Location: The Royal Court, London]
[Enter] Arthur [crowned] solus
ARTHUR
So on a sudden am I made a king.
There is no boy who’d have it otherwise:
To step from forest games and don true crown.
But London’s gamesters1 mark at ten on one2
That Arthur balance still this crown on head,
Or head on neck, ere summer’s come and blown.
Those numbers tickle me; I’ll Gloucester send
To play a thousand marks that I will fall.
E’en now do am’rous Pict and German hie
From north and east to visit me at court,
And finger my own hat on this my seat.3
There’s something in this wooden chair calls out
To men of vaulting ween4 but little wit.
What? Dare I hold myself above them? Nay.
I know I have no right to wear this crown.
I’ll contradict no pope who calls me king,
But in this privy council kings speak troth:
No right have I, no higher claim than Loth.
A bastard, I, from bloody tyrant sire.
Unkingly, too, am I from th’angry mood
In which I was conceived, some kindnesses
Neglected, mother forced in loveless bed,
And from my part in this bed’s play, they tell,
My monstrous getting surely cursed the land,
Which God will ceaseless venge with pox and drought.
What action might I take to ease this doom?
I stripe my back5 at butchered Cornwall’s tomb?
Still I th’usurper am, by father damned.
O, Arthur, coward boy! Ungrateful churl!6
Say who art thou that acts as solemn judge
Of own creator, shoves him off thy dam,
With pitying heart unbirths thy thankless self?
What king was he to spawn such king as I?
What king he was now lives within my skin.
I bear his blood, his wit, his faults, his sin,
Save he did crave a kingdom for his own,
While crown unsought now perches up on me.
This glistering7 ring was plucked o’ my father’s corpse:
Have I no will in me to venge his death?
He murdered fell whilst I did weave up stems
Into a crown t’anoint a maiden’s brow.
That circlet placed, was she in some sort8 changed?
Nay, nay. Nor can a crown make me a king.
What king am I to be? Not wise, not bold,
My kingdom ought to be the wood and bank,
The vast infinity of summer eves.
But, hear: I talk as if I might now choose.
Cheer up thy mewling self; put doubt to th’axe!
[He looks in mirror]
Here, search this glass: what kingly sight is there?
By right or no, this cap doth suit us9 well.
What foes will come, let come, but no man tell
That Arthur yielded ere he fought to death
For that was his, bestowed by father’s breath.
Exit Arthur
ACT II, SCENE I
[Location: The Royal Kennels]
Enter the Royal Master of the Hounds and his Boy
MASTER
Raised, lifted, up high I am. There’s none less than
the pope who said it so, for say if Arthur is the king,
then is his kennel-duke the king’s kennel-duke,
and all his hounds the king’s hounds now, not prince’s.
The pope in Rome proclaims it, and that’s how we
are all trans-substanced1 now. Tell the beagles,
though they’ll likely bide thee no more, now they
are king’s beagles now, not the same, not at all. They
make voice the same, but the meaning’s altered. And
thou! No more a boy to the prince’s hound-master.
Stand tall, boy, so tall as great hound’s withers! Thou
servest the master of the king’s hounds now. Cuff the
other boys so far thou hast a will.
BOY
And they’ll not cuff me more?
MASTER
An if they do, thou sayest the pope will
excommasticate2 ’em.
BOY
They say the king will not see the dogs no more, no
time for hunts now.
MASTER
When the king had thy years, he passed all hours with
me, slipped his watchers, came tripping to the
hounds. Knew them all and one, e’en by their name,
called ’em to their slips, learnt to flesh3 ’em.