The Tragedie of King George II
By Mark Boghen
British researchers at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum are increasingly confident that a recently unearthed play fragment was written by William Shakespeare. Statistical analyses based on word and expression frequency are an almost perfect match with the Bard's work of the period during which Cymbelline and The Tempest are thought to have been completed. The Open Shakespeare Project has released a transcript of the fragment on the Internet, giving scholars worldwide their first glance at the text...
The Tragedie of King George II
PROLOGUE
Attend thou citizens of worlds unknown
To the topsied turns of a distant throne.
King's sons are kings illegitemate who,
Dulled by their apprenticeships deep in sack,
Take up the sceptre and orb but weakly
And, poisoned by councils of Nestors false
Whose tongues forkèd flick of Freedom only
To drip the venom of lucre gained,
Draws every lance and sword and shield of
His soul-torn people to a distant field.
ACT ONE, scene one.
(The White Palace)
Enter SIR LUPUS WITTS and LORD RICHARD OF CHAINE, two members of the Council.
Sir Lupus. Haste we now, for soon the king
From his sport will enter,
And short hours shall we have
To engage our darker dream
Ere the time of his repose draws on us.
Lord Richard. Too true.
Rare have I seen a throne so little used
And a bedstead so busy.
But if we are to strike in Araby
As so long have we purposed,
We must a deception practice;
On our lord first, and the rest in time.
Sir Lupus. And Colinwood?
Lord Richard. A straight pin by my soul!
But oftimes the straight are outsped
By the crook'd!
Sir Lupus. Hush ye now! Hear, they come!
Enter KING GEORGE II and SIR COLINWOOD
King George. Ah! 'Tis well, 'tis well!
T'was as We spake now to Colinwood,
Whom We call Thinshanks
For spindled of leg is he.
Spake We, When shall We see
The Wolf-man and his Chain-master?
For these are the monikers which
Upon ye two We have branded,
The better to make such jests
As founder all true wisom.
Sir Lupus. And we thank thee for it Lord.
Lord Richard. Indeed, we thank thee!
King George. Soothly, all that misses
From our Council's completion
Is that fair mistress,
Sinora Paella, in whose company
We have so oft been misunderestimated.
Alacks, she has travelled many far inches
To Grecan lands to dispose of our
Best reputation, as our representativer.
Colinwood. (Aside) Can he truly rupture phrases so,
When still a king whose powers grow?
King George. What more gabbery this morn?
Our patience for this endless jaw-jawing grows not.
We are not our Father. Action is our reasoning,
And sans it, we know not our place.
Colinwood. The Minister of War is to have thine ear
This very morn, Majesty.
King George. How then shall we hear him?
Sir Lupus and Lord Richard. Very pretty Majesty!
King George. Wherefore is't pretty?
Lord Richard. T'was prettily phrasèd your highness.
King George. Was it? We think we thought so.
Bring our Minister before us then.
We shall ourselves amuse with his
Appalachian.
Colinwood. (Aside) My wits dissolve!
Enter THE MARQUIS OF RUMME
King George. What rum proposal bringeth thou today?
Sir Lupus and Lord Richard. Very pretty Majesty!
The Marquis of Rumme. Majesty, my Lords,
I have within this satchel a page
That truly limns a plot to turn the tide
Of our positions in Araby.
The foe is many, but we are one.
Since in simplicity the one bests the many,
We shall be the ones to have won.
How shall victr'y be snatched
From the gaping jaws of those that aren't us?
We shall the Truth speak, amplified by our arms,
And when the speaking has ended,
The alarum of Freedom shall sound,
And into the bosoms of our purses
Shall the hearts of their minds run.
King George. Strongly does this counsel appeal!
What thinkest my father would do?
Colinwood. Which one, Highness?
King George. The one whose name and phrase I share.
Colinwood. Milord, he hath torn that same page asunder,
When presented it by these same claws.
King George. And he is no longer King, is he?
This vouchsafes the rummy plot.
Too long have we now chewed on this cud.
The time to strike in Araby is now.
Sir Lupus and Lord Richard. Very true Majesty!
Colinwood. Sire, it ill befits us to scurry.
Ought we not take time in our deliberations?
King George. Parley me not of time, thou knavish sage!
If We, and Wolf-man and Chain-master and Rum-runner…
Knowest thou the mind of the Sinora?
Lord Richard. She is of our mind, Sire.
King George. ...And Paella are for, and Thinshanks is not,
Are we not five for and one naught?
Sir Lupus. Arithmetick most compelling, Highness!
Thou surely knoweth the score.
King George. Then so it shall be.
We shall rise in the West like the sun.
Colinwood. The East, Sire.
King George. Art thou surely in the right, sirrah?
Colinwood. Methinks, Sire
(Aside) Though 'tis a right that drives me to the left.
So that all that's left is the right to be thus wronged.
[Exeunt all except COLINWOOD.
Colinwood. So long have I fought on fields afar,
To be undone by an ill-dreamt war!