No More Learning

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--

STRAFFORD:
That which would be ambition in a subject
Is duty in a sovereign; for on him,
As on a keystone, hangs the arch of life,
Whose safety is its strength.