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Alexander Pope [1747], The works of Shakespear in eight volumes. The Genuine Text (collated with all the former Editions, and then corrected and emended) is here settled: Being restored from the Blunders of the first Editors, and the Interpolations of the two Last: with A Comment and Notes, Critical and Explanatory. By Mr. Pope and Mr. Warburton (Printed for J. and P. Knapton, [and] S. Birt [etc.], London) [word count] [S11301].
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SCENE V. Enter Exeter.

Fr. King.
From our brother England?

Exe.
From him; and thus he greets your Majesty:
He wills you in the name of God Almighty,
That you divest your self, and lay apart
The borrow'd glories, that, by gift of heaven,
By law of nature and of nations, 'long
To him and to his heirs; namely, the Crown;
And all the wide-stretch'd honours, that pertain
By custom and the ordinance of times,

-- 355 --


Unto the Crown of France. That you may know,
'Tis no sinister nor no aukward claim,
Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd;
He sends you this most memorable Line,
In every branch truly demonstrative, [Gives the French King a Paper.
Willing you over-look this pedigree;
And when you find him evenly deriv'd
From his most fam'd of famous ancestors,
Edward the Third; he bids you then resign
Your Crown and Kingdom, indirectly held
From him the native and true challenger.

Fr. King.
Or else what follows?

Exe.
Bloody constraint; for if you hide the Crown
Ev'n in your hearts, there will he rake for it.
And therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder, and in earthquake, like a Jove:
That, if requiring fail, he may compel.
He bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
Deliver up the Crown; and to take mercy
On the poor souls, for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws; upon your head
Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,
The dead mens' blood, the pining maidens' groans,
For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers,
That shall be swallow'd in this controversie.
This is his claim, his threatning, and my message;
Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,
To whom expresly I bring Greeting too.

Fr. King.
For us, we will consider of this further:
To morrow shall you bear our full intent
Back to our brother England.

Dau.
For the Dauphin,
I stand here for him; what to him from England?

Exe.
Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not mis-become

-- 356 --


The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Thus says my King; and if your father's Highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his Majesty;
He'll call you to so hot an answer for it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France
8 note
Shall chide your trespass, and return your mock
In second accent to his ordinance.

Dau.
Say, if my father render fair reply,
It is against my will; for I desire
Nothing but odds with England; to that end,
As matching to his youth and vanity,
I did present him with those Paris balls.

Exe.
He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe:
And, be assur'd, you'll find a difference,
(As we his subjects have in wonder found,)
Between the promise of his greener days,
And these he masters now; now he weighs time
Even to the utmost grain, which you shall read
In your own losses, if he stay in France.

Fr. King.
To morrow you shall know our mind at full.
[Flourish.

Exe.
Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our King
Come here himself to question our delay;
For he is footed in this land already.

Fr. King.
You shall be soon dispatch'd with fair conditions:
A night is but small breath, and little pause,
To answer matters of this consequence.
[Exeunt.

-- 357 --

1 noteACT III.

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Alexander Pope [1747], The works of Shakespear in eight volumes. The Genuine Text (collated with all the former Editions, and then corrected and emended) is here settled: Being restored from the Blunders of the first Editors, and the Interpolations of the two Last: with A Comment and Notes, Critical and Explanatory. By Mr. Pope and Mr. Warburton (Printed for J. and P. Knapton, [and] S. Birt [etc.], London) [word count] [S11301].
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