Original
Modern English
Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake, ’Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?’ Was it not so?
Didn’t you notice what the king said? "Is there no friend who will free me from this living fear?" Wasn’t that what he said?
These were his very words.
Those were his exact words.
’Have I no friend?’ quoth he: he spake it twice, And urged it twice together, did he not?
"Is there no friend?" he said. He said it twice, And insisted on it twice, didn’t he?
He did.
Yes, he did.
And speaking it, he wistly look’d on me, And who should say, ’I would thou wert the man’ That would divorce this terror from my heart;’ Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let’s go: I am the king’s friend, and will rid his foe.
And when he said it, he looked at me intently, And it was as if he were saying, "I wish you were the one" Who would free me from this terror in my heart," Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let’s go: I am the king’s friend, and I will rid him of his enemy.