Beaumont & Fletcher, A King and No King

Beaumont & Fletcher, A King and No King, The Works of Beaumont & Fletcher, Volume II, Ed. The Rev. Alexander Dyce, London, Edward Moxon, Dover Street, 1843.

A King and No King was “allowed to be acted in 1611” … That it was written by Beaumont and Fletcher in conjunction is not to be doubted. (233)

Arbaces: …I could tell the world,
How I have laid his kingdom desolate
By this sole arm, propt by divinity;
Stript him out of his glories; and have sent
The pride of all his youth to people graves;

(KNK, 1.1.241)


Arbaces: The daughters of your country, set by her,
Would see their shame, run home, and blush to death
At their own foulness. Yet she is not fair,
Nor beautiful; those words express her not:
They say, her looks have something excellent,
That wants a name. Yet were she odious,
Her birth deserves the empire of the world;

(KNK, 1.1.242)


Bessus: That you would have not gave spied your best advantages; for your majesty, in my opinion, lay too high; methinks, under favour, you should have lain thus.
Mardonius: Like a tailor at a wake.

(KNK, 1.1.244)


Arbaces: Why dost thou laugh?
By all the world, I’m grown ridiculous
To my own subjects. Tie me to a chair,
And jest at me! But I shall make a start,
And punish some, that others may take heed
How they are haughty. …

(KNK, 1.1.245)


Mardonius: when I commend you, you hug me for that truth; when I speak your faults, you make a start, and fly the hearing. But—
Arbaces: When you commend me! Oh, that I should live
To need such commendations! If my deeds
Blew not my praise themselves about the earth,
I were most wretched. Spare your idle praise:

(KNK, 1.1.249)


Bessus: Why, I was run twice through the body, and shot i’th’head with a cross arrow, and yet am well again.
Panthea: I do not care how thou dost: is he well?

(KNK, 2.1.260)


All: God preserve your majesty!
Arbaces: Now you may live securely in your towns,
Your children round about you; you may sit
Under your vines, and make the miseries
Of other kingdoms a discourse for you,

(KNK, 2.2.271)


Arbaces: Here’s one within will labour for you both.

(KNK, 3.1.280)


Arbaces: …Rule your disorder’d tongue,
Or I will temper it.

(KNK, 3.1.282)


Arbaces: Mardonius! Stay, Mardonius! For, though
My present state requires nothing but knaves
To be about me, such as are prepar’d
For every wicked act, yet who does know
But that my loathed fate may turn about,
And I have use for honest men again?

(KNK, 3.3.294)


Gobrias: …Your royal brother,
When he shall once collect himself, …
Must, from those roots of virtue, never dying,
Though somewhat stopt with humour, shoot again
Into a thousand glories, …

(KNK, 4.1.299)


Panthea: … Our two sorrows
Work, like two eager hawkes, who shall get highest.

(KNK, 4.1.299)


Tigranes: …But, wretched fool,
Why did I plant thee ’twixt the sun and me,
To make me freeze thus? why did I prefer her
To my fair princess? ...

(KNK, 4.2.301)


Mardonius: ’Tis a strange fever, and ’twill shake us all
Anon, I fear. …

(KNK, 4.2.305)


Mardonius: I have no letters, sir, to anger you,
But a dry sonnet of my corporal’s
To an old sutler’s wife; and that I’ll burn, sir.
’Tis like to prove a fine age for the ignorant.

(KNK, 4.2.307)


Bessus: My sorest business is, I have been kick’d.
Second Swordman: How far, sir?
Bessus: Not to flatter myself in it, all over:
My sword lost, but not forc’d; for discreetly
I render’d it, to save that imputation.
…
First Swordman: I think it had been cowardly indeed.
Second Swordman: But our friend has redeem’d it, in delivering
His sword without compulsion; and that man
That took it of him, I pronounce a weak one,
And his kicks nullities:
He should have kick’d him after the delivery,
Which is the confirmation of a coward.

(KNK, 4.3.313)


Arbaces: …as unsound men
Convert the sweetest and the nourishing’st meats
Into diseases, so shall I, distempere’d,
Do thee: I prithee, draw no nearer to me.

(KNK, 4.4.317)


Mardonius: Here comes the very person of him; do
As you shall find your temper; I must leave you:
But if you do not break him like a biscuit,
You are much to blame, sir.

(KNK, 5.1.324)


Second Swordman: H’as a devilish hard foot; I never felt the like.
Firest Swordman: Nor I; and yet, I’m sure, I ha’felt a hundred.
Second Swordman: If he kick thus i’the dog-days, he will be dry-founder’d.—
What cure now, captain, besides oil of bays?
Bessus: Why, well enough, I warrant you; you can go?
Second Swordman: Yes, Heaven by thank’d! but I feel a shrewd ache;
Sure, h’as sprang my huckle-bone.
First Swordman: I ha’lost a haunch.
Bessus: A little butter, friend, a little butter;
Butter and parsely is a sovereign matter:
Prababtum est.
…
First Swordman: Be valiant. Oh, my ribs!
Second Swordman: Oh, my small guts!
A plague upon these sharp-toed shoes! They are murderers.

(KNK, 5.4.334)


Mardonius: I am sorry ’tis so ill.
Arbaces: Be sorry, then:
True sorrow is alone; grieve by thyself.

(KNK, 5.4.336)


Arbaces: I have a thousand joys to tell you of,
Which yet I dare not utter, till I pay
My thanks to Heaven for’em. …

(KNK, 5.4.347)