FullReads

[NOTE:
22-90 In Paris…rebuke 1870; omitted 1824.]

ARCHY:
The fool is here.

LAUD:
I crave permission of your Majesty
To order that this insolent fellow be
Chastised: he mocks the sacred character,
Scoffs at the state, and–

[NOTE:
95 state 1870; stake 1824.]

KING:
What, my Archy? 95
He mocks and mimics all he sees and hears,
Yet with a quaint and graceful licence–Prithee
For this once do not as Prynne would, were he
Primate of England. With your Grace’s leave,
He lives in his own world; and, like a parrot 100
Hung in his gilded prison from the window
Of a queen’s bower over the public way,
Blasphemes with a bird’s mind:–his words, like arrows
Which know no aim beyond the archer’s wit,
Strike sometimes what eludes philosophy.– 105
[TO ARCHY.]
Go, sirrah, and repent of your offence
Ten minutes in the rain; be it your penance
To bring news how the world goes there.
[EXIT ARCHY.]
Poor Archy!
He weaves about himself a world of mirth
Out of the wreck of ours. 110

[NOTES:
99 With your Grace’s leave 1870; omitted 1824.
106-110 Go…ours spoken by THE QUEEN, 1824.]

LAUD:
I take with patience, as my Master did,
All scoffs permitted from above.

KING:
My lord,
Pray overlook these papers. Archy’s words
Had wings, but these have talons.

QUEEN:
And the lion
That wears them must be tamed. My dearest lord, 115
I see the new-born courage in your eye
Armed to strike dead the Spirit of the Time,
Which spurs to rage the many-headed beast.
Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve,
And it were better thou hadst still remained 120
The slave of thine own slaves, who tear like curs
The fugitive, and flee from the pursuer;
And Opportunity, that empty wolf,
Flies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy actions
Even to the disposition of thy purpose, 125
And be that tempered as the Ebro’s steel;
And banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak,
Whence she will greet thee with a gift of peace
And not betray thee with a traitor’s kiss,
As when she keeps the company of rebels, 130
Who think that she is Fear. This do, lest we
Should fall as from a glorious pinnacle
In a bright dream, and wake as from a dream
Out of our worshipped state.

[NOTES:
116 your 1824; thine 1870.
118 Which…beast 1870; omitted 1824.]

KING:
Beloved friend,
God is my witness that this weight of power, 135
Which He sets me my earthly task to wield
Under His law, is my delight and pride
Only because thou lovest that and me.
For a king bears the office of a God
To all the under world; and to his God 140
Alone he must deliver up his trust,
Unshorn of its permitted attributes.
[It seems] now as the baser elements
Had mutinied against the golden sun
That kindles them to harmony, and quells 145
Their self-destroying rapine. The wild million
Strike at the eye that guides them; like as humours
Of the distempered body that conspire
Against the spirit of life throned in the heart,–
And thus become the prey of one another, 150
And last of death–