FullReads

ARCHY:
New devil’s politics. 365
Hell is the pattern of all commonwealths:
Lucifer was the first republican.
Will you hear Merlin’s prophecy, how three [posts?]
‘In one brainless skull, when the whitethorn is full,
Shall sail round the world, and come back again: 370
Shall sail round the world in a brainless skull,
And come back again when the moon is at full:’–
When, in spite of the Church,
They will hear homilies of whatever length
Or form they please. 375

[COTTINGTON?]:
So please your Majesty to sign this order
For their detention.

ARCHY:
If your Majesty were tormented night and day by
fever, gout, rheumatism, and stone, and asthma, etc.,
and you found these diseases had secretly entered
into a conspiracy to abandon you, should you think
it necessary to lay an embargo on the port by which
they meant to dispeople your unquiet kingdom of man? 383

KING:
If fear were made for kings, the Fool mocks wisely;
But in this case–[WRITING]. Here, my lord, take the warrant,
And see it duly executed forthwith.–
That imp of malice and mockery shall be punished. 387

[EXEUNT ALL BUT KING, QUEEN, AND ARCHY.]

ARCHY:
Ay, I am the physician of whom Plato prophesied,
who was to be accused by the confectioner before
a jury of children, who found him guilty without
waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without
benefit of clergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the
Twelfth-night Queen of Hearts, and the overgrown
schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin
Laud–who would reduce a verdict of
‘guilty, death,’ by famine, if it were impregnable
by composition–all impannelled against poor Archy
for presenting them bitter physic the last day
of the holidays. 397

QUEEN:
Is the rain over, sirrah?

KING:
When it rains
And the sun shines, ’twill rain again to-morrow:
And therefore never smile till you’ve done crying. 400

ARCHY:
But ’tis all over now: like the April anger of woman,
the gentle sky has wept itself serene.

QUEEN:
What news abroad? how looks the world this morning?

ARCHY:
Gloriously as a grave covered with virgin flowers.
There’s a rainbow in the sky. Let your Majesty look at it, for

‘A rainbow in the morning 407
Is the shepherd’s warning;’

and the flocks of which you are the pastor are
scattered among the mountain-tops, where every
drop of water is a flake of snow, and the
breath of May pierces like a January blast. 411

KING:
The sheep have mistaken the wolf for their shepherd,
my poor boy; and the shepherd, the wolves for their
watchdogs.

QUEEN:
But the rainbow was a good sign, Archy: it says that
the waters of the deluge are gone, and can return no more.