Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

References to this poem

King Stephen: A Fragment of a Tragedy ACT I SCENE IV

  • Mau. Set him before me. Not for the poor sake
  • Mau. Of regal pomp and a vain-glorious hour,
  • Mau. As thou with wary speech, yet near enough,
  • Mau. Hast hinted. Gloc. Faithful counsel have I given;
  • Gloc. If wary, for your Highness’ benefit.
  • Mau. The heavens forbid that I should not think so,
  • Mau. For by thy valour have I won this realm,
  • Mau. Which by thy wisdom will I ever keep.
  • Mau. To sage advisors let me ever bend
  • Mau. A meek attentive ear, so that they treat
  • Mau. Of the wide kingdom’s rule and government,
  • Mau. Not trenching on our actions personal.
  • Mau. Advis’d, not school’d, I would be; and henceforth
  • Mau. Spoken to in clear, plain, and open terms,
  • Mau. Not side-ways sermon’d at. Gloc. Then, in plain terms,
  • Gloc. Once more for the fallen King —
  • Mau. Your pardon, brother,
  • Mau. I would no more of that; for, as I said,
  • Mau. ’Tis not for wordly pomp I wish to see
  • Mau. The rebel, but as a dooming judge to give
  • Mau. A sentence something worthy of his guilt.
  • Gloc. If’t must be so, I’ll bring him to your presence.
  • Mau. My Lord of Chester, is’t true what I hear
  • Mau. Of Stephen of Boulogne, our prisoner,
  • Mau. That he, as a fit penance for his crimes,
  • Mau. Eats wholesome, sweet, and palatable food
  • Mau. Off Glocester’s golden dishes — drinks pure wine,
  • Mau. Lodges soft? ches. More than that, my gracious Queen,
  • Ches. Has anger’d me. The noble Earl, methinks,
  • Ches. Full soldier as he is, and without peer
  • Ches. In Counsel, dreams too much among his books.
  • Ches. It may read well, but sure ’tis out of date
  • Ches. To play the Alexander with Darius.
  • Mau. Truth! I think so. By heavens it shall not last!
  • Ches. It would amaze your Highness now to mark
  • Ches. How Glocester overstrains his courtesy
  • Ches. To that crime-loving rebel, that Boulogne —
  • Mau. That ingrate! ches. For whose vast ingratitude
  • Ches. To our late sovereign lord, your noble sire,
  • Ches. The generous Earl condoles in his mishaps,
  • Ches. And with a sort of lackeying friendliness,
  • Ches. Talks off the mighty frowning from his brow,
  • Ches. Woos him to hold a duet in a smile,
  • Ches. Or, if it please him, play an hour at chess —
  • Ches. Glocester has fit rewards — nay, I believe,
  • Ches. He sets his bustling household’s wits at work
  • Ches. For flatteries to ease this Stephen’s hours,
  • Ches. And make a heaven of his purgatory;
  • Ches. Adorning bondage with the pleasant gloss
  • Ches. Of feasts and music, and all idle shows
  • Ches. Of indoor pageantry; while syren whispers,
  • Ches. Predestin’d for his ear, ’scape as half-check’d
  • Ches. From lips the courtliest and the rubiest
  • Ches. Of all the realm, admiring of his deeds.
  • Mau. A frost upon his summer! ches. A queen’s nod
  • Ches. Can make his June December. Here he comes.

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MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “King Stephen: A Fragment of a Tragedy ACT I SCENE IV.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, by G. Kim Blank. Edition 3.26 , University of Victoria, 12 July 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_king_stephen_act_i_scene_iv.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “King Stephen: A Fragment of a Tragedy ACT I SCENE IV,” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.26 , last modified 12th July 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_king_stephen_act_i_scene_iv.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “King Stephen: A Fragment of a Tragedy ACT I SCENE IV.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.26 , last modified 12th July 2023. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_king_stephen_act_i_scene_iv.html.