TZ. Of her what would you touch? Touching her flight,
She is fled hence with Robert, her true knight.

JOHN. Robert is outlaw'd, and Matilda free;
Why through his fault should she exiled be?
She is your comfort, your old[194] age's bliss;
Why should your age so great a comfort miss?
She is all England's beauty, all her pride;
In foreign lands why should that beauty bide?
Call her again, Fitzwater, call again
Guiltless Matilda, beauty's sovereign.

FITZ. I grant, Prince John, Matilda was my joy,
And the fair sun that kept old Winter's frost
From griping dead the marrow of my bones;
And she is gone; yet where she is, God wot:
Aged Fitzwater truly guesseth not.
But where she is, there is kind Huntington;
With my fair daughter is my noble son.
If he may never be recall'd again,
To call Matilda back it is in vain.

JOHN. Living with him, she lives in vicious state,
For Huntington is excommunicate;
And till his debts be paid, by Rome's decree
It is agreed absolv'd he cannot be;
And that can never be: so ne'er a[195] wife,
But a loathed[196] adulterous beggar's life,
Must fair Matilda live. This you may amend,
And win Prince John your ever-during friend.

FITZ. As how? as how?

JOHN. Call her from him: bring her to England's court,
Where, like fair Phoebe, she may sit as queen
Over the sacred, honourable maids
That do attend the royal queen, my mother.
There shall she live a prince's Cynthia,
And John will be her true Endymion.

FITZ. By this construction she should be the moon,
And you would be the man within the moon!

JOHN. A pleasant exposition, good Fitzwater:
But if it so fell out that I fell in,
You of my full joys should be chief partaker.

FITZ. John, I defy thee! by my honour's hope,
I will not bear this base indignity!
Take to thy tools! think'st thou a nobleman
Will be a pander to his proper[197] child?
For what intend'st thou else, seeing I know
Earl Chepstow's daughter is thy married wife.
Come, if thou be a right Plantaganet,
Draw and defend thee. O our Lady, help
True English lords from such a tyrant lord!
What, dost thou think I jest? Nay, by the rood,
I'll lose my life, or purge thy lustful blood.

JOHN. What, my old ruffian, lie at your ward?[198]
Have at your froward bosom, old Fitzwater.

[_Fight_: JOHN _falls_.

_Enter_ QUEEN, CHESTER, SALISBURY, _hastily_.

FITZ. O, that thou wert not royal Richard's brother,
Thou shouldst here die in presence o