King John/Source

DRAMATIS PERSONAE (Persons Represented):


 * KING JOHN.
 * PRINCE HENRY, his son; afterwards KING HENRY III.
 * ARTHUR, Duke of Brittany, son to Geoffrey, late Duke of Brittany,
 * the elder brother to King John.
 * WILLIAM MARSHALL, Earl of Pembroke.
 * GEOFFREY FITZ-PETER, Earl of Essex, Chief Justiciary of England.
 * WILLIAM LONGSWORD, Earl of Salisbury.
 * ROBERT BIGOT, Earl of Norfolk.
 * HUBERT DE BURGH, Chamberlain to the King.
 * ROBERT FALCONBRIDGE, son to Sir Robert Falconbridge.
 * BASTARD, Philip Falconbridge, his half-brother, natural
 * natural son to King Richard I.
 * JAMES GURNEY, servant to Lady Falconbridge.
 * PETER OF POMFRET, a prophet


 * PHILIP, King of France.
 * LOUIS, the Dauphin.
 * ARCHDUKE OF AUSTRIA.
 * CARDINAL PANDULPH, the Pope's legate.
 * MELUN, a French lord.
 * CHATILLON, Ambassador from France to King John.


 * ELEANOR, Widow of King Henry II and Mother to King John.
 * CONSTANCE, Mother to Arthur.
 * BLANCH OF SPAIN, Daughter to Alphonso, King of Castile, and Niece
 * to King John.
 * LADY FALCONBRIDGE, Mother to the Bastard and Robert Falconbridge.


 * Lords, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers,
 * Messengers, Attendants, and other Attendants.

SCENE: Sometimes in England, and sometimes in France.

SCENE 1. Northampton. A Room of State in the Palace.
[Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELEANOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others, with CHATILLON.]

KING JOHN.
 * Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?

CHATILLON.
 * Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France,
 * In my behaviour, to the majesty,
 * The borrow'd majesty of England here.

ELEANOR.
 * A strange beginning:—borrow'd majesty!

KING JOHN.
 * Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.

CHATILLON.
 * Philip of France, in right and true behalf
 * Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,
 * Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
 * To this fair island and the territories,—
 * To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine;
 * Desiring thee to lay aside the sword
 * Which sways usurpingly these several titles,
 * And put the same into young Arthur's hand,
 * Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.

KING JOHN.
 * What follows if we disallow of this?

CHATILLON.
 * The proud control of fierce and bloody war,
 * To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.

KING JOHN.
 * Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,
 * Controlment for controlment;—so answer France.

CHATILLON.
 * Then take my king's defiance from my mouth,
 * The farthest limit of my embassy.

KING JOHN.
 * Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace:
 * Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
 * For ere thou canst report I will be there,
 * The thunder of my cannon shall be heard:
 * So, hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,
 * And sullen presage of your own decay.—
 * An honourable conduct let him have:—
 * Pembroke, look to 't. Farewell, Chatillon.

[Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE.]

ELEANOR.
 * What now, my son! Have I not ever said
 * How that ambitious Constance would not cease
 * Till she had kindled France and all the world
 * Upon the right and party of her son?
 * This might have been prevented and made whole
 * With very easy arguments of love;
 * Which now the manage of two kingdoms must
 * With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

KING JOHN.
 * Our strong possession and our right for us.

ELEANOR.
 * Your strong possession much more than your right,
 * Or else it must go wrong with you and me:
 * So much my conscience whispers in your ear,
 * Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear.

[Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers to Essex.]

ESSEX.
 * My liege, here is the strangest controversy,
 * Come from the country to be judg'd by you,
 * That e'er I heard: shall I produce the men?

KING JOHN.
 * Let them approach.—

[Exit SHERIFF.]


 * Our abbeys and our priories shall pay
 * This expedition's charge.

[Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE and PHILIP, his bastard Brother.]


 * What men are you?

BASTARD.
 * Your faithful subject I, a gentleman
 * Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,
 * As I suppose, to Robert Falconbridge,—
 * A soldier by the honour-giving hand
 * Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.

KING JOHN.
 * What art thou?

ROBERT.
 * The son and heir to that same Falconbridge.

KING JOHN.
 * Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?
 * You came not of one mother then, it seems.

BASTARD.
 * Most certain of one mother, mighty king,—
 * That is well known; and, as I think, one father:
 * But for the certain knowledge of that truth
 * I put you o'er to heaven and to my mother:—
 * Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.

ELEANOR.
 * Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother,
 * And wound her honour with this diffidence.

BASTARD.
 * I, madam? no, I have no reason for it,—
 * That is my brother's plea, and none of mine;
 * The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out
 * At least from fair five hundred pound a-year:
 * Heaven guard my mother's honour and my land!

KING JOHN.
 * A good blunt fellow.—Why, being younger born,
 * Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?

BASTARD.
 * I know not why, except to get the land.
 * But once he slander'd me with bastardy:
 * But whe'er I be as true begot or no,
 * That still I lay upon my mother's head;
 * But that I am as well begot, my liege,—
 * Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!—
 * Compare our faces and be judge yourself.
 * If old Sir Robert did beget us both,
 * And were our father, and this son like him,—
 * O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee
 * I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!

KING JOHN.
 * Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!

ELEANOR.
 * He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;
 * The accent of his tongue affecteth him:
 * Do you not read some tokens of my son
 * In the large composition of this man?

KING JOHN.
 * Mine eye hath well examined his parts,
 * And finds them perfect Richard.—Sirrah, speak,
 * What doth move you to claim your brother's land?

BASTARD.
 * Because he hath a half-face, like my father;
 * With half that face would he have all my land:
 * A half-fac'd groat five hundred pound a-year!

ROBERT.
 * My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,
 * Your brother did employ my father much,—

BASTARD.
 * Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:
 * Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother.

ROBERT.
 * And once despatch'd him in an embassy
 * To Germany, there with the emperor
 * To treat of high affairs touching that time.
 * The advantage of his absence took the King,
 * And in the meantime sojourn'd at my father's;
 * Where how he did prevail I shame to speak,—
 * But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores
 * Between my father and my mother lay,—
 * As I have heard my father speak himself,—
 * When this same lusty gentleman was got.
 * Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd
 * His lands to me; and took it, on his death,
 * That this, my mother's son, was none of his;
 * And if he were, he came into the world
 * Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.
 * Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,
 * My father's land, as was my father's will.

KING JOHN.
 * Sirrah, your brother is legitimate;
 * Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him;
 * And if she did play false, the fault was hers;
 * Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands
 * That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,
 * Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,
 * Had of your father claim'd this son for his?
 * In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept
 * This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;
 * In sooth, he might; then, if he were my brother's,
 * My brother might not claim him; nor your father,
 * Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes,—
 * My mother's son did get your father's heir;
 * Your father's heir must have your father's land.

ROBERT.
 * Shall then my father's will be of no force
 * To dispossess that child which is not his?

BASTARD.
 * Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,
 * Than was his will to get me, as I think.

ELEANOR.
 * Whether hadst thou rather be a Falconbridge,
 * And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,
 * Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,
 * Lord of thy presence and no land beside?

BASTARD.
 * Madam, an if my brother had my shape
 * And I had his, Sir Robert's his, like him;
 * And if my legs were two such riding-rods,
 * My arms such eel-skins stuff'd, my face so thin
 * That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose
 * Lest men should say 'Look where three-farthings goes!'
 * And, to his shape, were heir to all this land,
 * Would I might never stir from off this place,
 * I would give it every foot to have this face;
 * I would not be Sir Nob in any case.

ELEANOR.
 * I like thee well: wilt thou forsake thy fortune,
 * Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me?
 * I am a soldier, and now bound to France.

BASTARD.
 * Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance:
 * Your face hath got five hundred pound a-year;
 * Yet sell your face for fivepence and 'tis dear.—
 * Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.

ELEANOR.
 * Nay, I would have you go before me thither.

BASTARD.
 * Our country manners give our betters way.

KING JOHN.
 * What is thy name?

BASTARD.
 * Philip, my liege, so is my name begun;
 * Philip, good old Sir Robert's wife's eldest son.

KING JOHN.
 * From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bear'st:
 * Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great,—
 * Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet.

BASTARD.
 * Brother by the mother's side, give me your hand:
 * My father gave me honour, yours gave land.—
 * Now blessed be the hour, by night or day,
 * When I was got, Sir Robert was away!

ELEANOR.
 * The very spirit of Plantagenet!—
 * I am thy grandam, Richard; call me so.

BASTARD.
 * Madam, by chance, but not by truth; what though?
 * Something about, a little from the right,
 * In at the window, or else o'er the hatch;
 * Who dares not stir by day must walk by night;
 * And have is have, however men do catch:
 * Near or far off, well won is still well shot;
 * And I am I, howe'er I was begot.

KING JOHN.
 * Go, Falconbridge; now hast thou thy desire:
 * A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.—
 * Come, madam,—and come, Richard; we must speed
 * For France, for France, for it is more than need.

BASTARD.
 * Brother, adieu. Good fortune come to thee!
 * For thou wast got i' th' way of honesty.

[Exeunt all but the BASTARD.]


 * A foot of honour better than I was;
 * But many a many foot of land the worse.
 * Well, now can I make any Joan a lady:—
 * 'Good den, Sir Richard:'—'God-a-mercy, fellow:'—
 * And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter:
 * For new-made honour doth forget men's names:
 * 'Tis too respective and too sociable
 * For your conversion. Now your traveller,—
 * He and his toothpick at my worship's mess;—
 * And when my knightly stomach is suffic'd,
 * Why then I suck my teeth, and catechize
 * My picked man of countries:—'My dear sir,'—
 * Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin,—
 * 'I shall beseech you'—that is question now;
 * And then comes answer like an ABC-book:—
 * 'O sir,' says answer 'at your best command;
 * At your employment; at your service, sir:'—
 * 'No, sir,' says question 'I, sweet sir, at yours:
 * And so, ere answer knows what question would,—
 * Saving in dialogue of compliment,
 * And talking of the Alps and Apennines,
 * The Pyrenean and the river Po,—
 * It draws toward supper in conclusion so.
 * But this is worshipful society,
 * And fits the mounting spirit like myself:
 * For he is but a bastard to the time,
 * That doth not smack of observation,—
 * And so am I, whether I smack or no;
 * And not alone in habit and device,
 * Exterior form, outward accoutrement,
 * But from the inward motion to deliver
 * Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth;
 * Which, though I will not practise to deceive,
 * Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;
 * For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.—
 * But who comes in such haste in riding-robes?
 * What woman-post is this? hath she no husband
 * That will take pains to blow a horn before her?

[Enter LADY FALCONBRIDGE, and JAMES GURNEY.]


 * O me, 'tis my mother!—w now, good lady!
 * What brings you here to court so hastily?

LADY FALCONBRIDGE.
 * Where is that slave, thy brother? where is he
 * That holds in chase mine honour up and down?

BASTARD.
 * My brother Robert? old Sir Robert's son?
 * Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?
 * Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so?

LADY FALCONBRIDGE.
 * Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,
 * Sir Robert's son: why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert?
 * He is Sir Robert's son, and so art thou.

BASTARD.
 * James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile?

GURNEY.
 * Good leave, good Philip.

BASTARD.
 * Philip—sparrow!—James,
 * There's toys abroad:—anon I'll tell thee more.

[Exit GURNEY.]


 * Madam, I was not old Sir Robert's son;
 * Sir Robert might have eat his part in me
 * Upon Good-Friday, and ne'er broke his fast.
 * Sir Robert could do well: marry, to confess,
 * Could not get me; Sir Robert could not do it,—
 * We know his handiwork:—therefore, good mother,
 * To whom am I beholding for these limbs?
 * Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.

LADY FALCONBRIDGE.
 * Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,
 * That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour?
 * What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?

BASTARD.
 * Knight, knight, good mother,—Basilisco-like;
 * What! I am dubb'd; I have it on my shoulder.
 * But, mother, I am not Sir Robert's son:
 * I have disclaim'd Sir Robert and my land;
 * Legitimation, name, and all is gone:
 * Then, good my mother, let me know my father,—
 * Some proper man, I hope: who was it, mother?

LADY FalcoNBRIDGE.
 * Hast thou denied thyself a Falconbridge?

BASTARD.
 * As faithfully as I deny the devil.

LADY FALCONBRIDGE.
 * King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father:
 * By long and vehement suit I was seduc'd
 * To make room for him in my husband's bed:—
 * Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge!—
 * Thou art the issue of my dear offence,
 * Which was so strongly urg'd, past my defence.

BASTARD.
 * Now, by this light, were I to get again,
 * Madam, I would not wish a better father.
 * Some sins do bear their privilege on earth,
 * And so doth yours; your fault was not your folly:
 * Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,—
 * Subjected tribute to commanding love,—
 * Against whose fury and unmatched force
 * The aweless lion could not wage the fight
 * Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand:
 * He that perforce robs lions of their hearts
 * May easily win a woman's. Ay, my mother,
 * With all my heart I thank thee for my father!
 * Who lives and dares but say, thou didst not well
 * When I was got, I'll send his soul to hell.
 * Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin;
 * And they shall say when Richard me begot,
 * If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin:
 * Who says it was, he lies; I say 'twas not.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 1. France. Before the walls of Angiers.
[Enter, on one side, the ARCHDUKE OF AUSTRIA and Forces; on the other, PHILIP, King of France, LOUIS, CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and Forces.]

KING PHILIP.
 * Before Angiers well met, brave Austria.—
 * Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood,
 * Richard, that robb'd the lion of his heart,
 * And fought the holy wars in Palestine,
 * By this brave duke came early to his grave:
 * And, for amends to his posterity,
 * At our importance hither is he come
 * To spread his colours, boy, in thy behalf;
 * And to rebuke the usurpation
 * Of thy unnatural uncle, English John:
 * Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.

ARTHUR.
 * God shall forgive you Coeur-de-lion's death
 * The rather that you give his offspring life,
 * Shadowing their right under your wings of war:
 * I give you welcome with a powerless hand,
 * But with a heart full of unstained love,—
 * Welcome before the gates of Angiers, duke.

LOUIS.
 * A noble boy! Who would not do thee right?

AUSTRIA.
 * Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss,
 * As seal to this indenture of my love,—
 * That to my home I will no more return,
 * Till Angiers, and the right thou hast in France,
 * Together with that pale, that white-fac'd shore,
 * Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides,
 * And coops from other lands her islanders,—
 * Even till that England, hedg'd in with the main,
 * That water-walled bulwark, still secure
 * And confident from foreign purposes,—
 * Even till that utmost corner of the west
 * Salute thee for her king: till then, fair boy,
 * Will I not think of home, but follow arms.

CONSTANCE.
 * O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks,
 * Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength
 * To make a more requital to your love!

AUSTRIA.
 * The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords
 * In such a just and charitable war.

KING PHILIP.
 * Well then, to work: our cannon shall be bent
 * Against the brows of this resisting town.—
 * Call for our chiefest men of discipline,
 * To cull the plots of best advantages:
 * We'll lay before this town our royal bones,
 * Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's blood,
 * But we will make it subject to this boy.

CONSTANCE.
 * Stay for an answer to your embassy,
 * Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood:
 * My Lord Chatillon may from England bring
 * That right in peace which here we urge in war;
 * And then we shall repent each drop of blood
 * That hot rash haste so indirectly shed.

KING PHILIP.
 * A wonder, lady!—lo, upon thy wish,
 * Our messenger Chatillon is arriv'd.

[Enter CHATILLON.]


 * What England says, say briefly, gentle lord;
 * We coldly pause for thee; Chatillon, speak.

CHATILLON.
 * Then turn your forces from this paltry siege,
 * And stir them up against a mightier task.
 * England, impatient of your just demands,
 * Hath put himself in arms: the adverse winds,
 * Whose leisure I have stay'd, have given him time
 * To land his legions all as soon as I;
 * His marches are expedient to this town,
 * His forces strong, his soldiers confident.
 * With him along is come the mother-queen,
 * An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife;
 * With her her neice, the Lady Blanch of Spain;
 * With them a bastard of the king's deceas'd:
 * And all the unsettled humours of the land,—
 * Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,
 * With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens,—
 * Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,
 * Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,
 * To make a hazard of new fortunes here.
 * In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits
 * Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er
 * Did never float upon the swelling tide
 * To do offence and scathe in Christendom.

[Drums beat within.]


 * The interruption of their churlish drums
 * Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand;
 * To parley or to fight: therefore prepare.

KING PHILIP.
 * How much unlook'd-for is this expedition!

AUSTRIA.
 * By how much unexpected, by so much
 * We must awake endeavour for defence;
 * For courage mounteth with occasion:
 * Let them be welcome, then; we are prepar'd.

[Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the BASTARD, PEMBROKE, Lords, and Forces.]

KING JOHN.
 * Peace be to France, if France in peace permit
 * Our just and lineal entrance to our own!
 * If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven,
 * Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct
 * Their proud contempt that beats his peace to heaven!

KING PHILIP.
 * Peace be to England, if that war return
 * From France to England, there to live in peace!
 * England we love; and for that England's sake
 * With burden of our armour here we sweat.
 * This toil of ours should be a work of thine;
 * But thou from loving England art so far
 * That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king,
 * Cut off the sequence of posterity,
 * Outfaced infant state, and done a rape
 * Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.
 * Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face:—
 * These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his:
 * This little abstract doth contain that large
 * Which died in Geffrey; and the hand of time
 * Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume.
 * That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,
 * And this his son; England was Geffrey's right,
 * And this is Geffrey's: in the name of God,
 * How comes it then, that thou art call'd a king,
 * When living blood doth in these temples beat,
 * Which owe the crown that thou o'er-masterest?

KING JOHN.
 * From whom hast thou this great commission, France,
 * To draw my answer from thy articles?

KING PHILIP.
 * From that supernal judge that stirs good thoughts
 * In any breast of strong authority,
 * To look into the blots and stains of right.
 * That judge hath made me guardian to this boy:
 * Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong;
 * And by whose help I mean to chastise it.

KING JOHN.
 * Alack, thou dost usurp authority.

KING PHILIP.
 * Excus,—it is to beat usurping down.

ELINOR.
 * Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?

CONSTANCE.
 * Let me make answer;—thy usurping son.

ELINOR.
 * Out, insolent! thy bastard shall be king,
 * That thou mayst be a queen, and check the world!

CONSTANCE.
 * My bed was ever to thy son as true
 * As thine was to thy husband; and this boy
 * Liker in feature to his father Geffrey
 * Than thou and John in manners,—being as like
 * As rain to water, or devil to his dam.
 * My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think
 * His father never was so true begot:
 * It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.

ELINOR.
 * There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.

CONSTANCE.
 * There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee.

AUSTRIA.
 * Peace!

BASTARD.
 * Hear the crier.

AUSTRIA.
 * What the devil art thou?

BASTARD.
 * One that will play the devil, sir, with you,
 * An 'a may catch your hide and you alone.
 * You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
 * Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard:
 * I'll smoke your skin-coat an I catch you right;
 * Sirrah, look to 't; i' faith I will, i' faith.

BLANCH.
 * O, well did he become that lion's robe
 * That did disrobe the lion of that robe!

BASTARD.
 * It lies as sightly on the back of him
 * As great Alcides' shows upon an ass:—
 * But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back,
 * Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.

AUSTRIA.
 * What cracker is this same that deafs our ears
 * With this abundance of superfluous breath?

KING PHILIP.
 * Louis, determine what we shall do straight.

LOUIS.
 * Women and fools, break off your conference.—
 * King John, this is the very sum of all,—
 * England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
 * In right of Arthur, do I claim of thee:
 * Wilt thou resign them, and lay down thy arms?

KING JOHN.
 * My life as soon:—I do defy thee, France.
 * Arthur of Bretagne, yield thee to my hand;
 * And out of my dear love, I'll give thee more
 * Than e'er the coward hand of France can win:
 * Submit thee, boy.

ELINOR.
 * Come to thy grandam, child.

CONSTANCE.
 * Do, child, go to it' grandam, child;
 * Give grandam kingdom, and it' grandam will
 * Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.
 * There's a good grandam!

ARTHUR.
 * Good my mother, peace!
 * I would that I were low laid in my grave:
 * I am not worth this coil that's made for me.

ELINOR.
 * His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.

CONSTANCE.
 * Now, shame upon you, whe'er she does or no!
 * His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shames,
 * Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,
 * Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee:
 * Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib'd
 * To do him justice, and revenge on you.

ELINOR.
 * Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!

CONSTANCE.
 * Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth!
 * Call not me slanderer: thou and thine usurp
 * The dominations, royalties, and rights,
 * Of this oppressed boy: this is thy eldest son's son,
 * Infortunate in nothing but in thee:
 * Thy sins are visited in this poor child;
 * The canon of the law is laid on him,
 * Being but the second generation
 * Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.

KING JOHN.
 * Bedlam, have done.

CONSTANCE.
 * I have but this to say,—
 * That he is not only plagued for her sin,
 * But God hath made her sin and her the plague
 * On this removed issue, plagu'd for her
 * And with her plague, her sin; his injury
 * Her injury,—the beadle to her sin;
 * All punish'd in the person of this child,
 * And all for her: a plague upon her!

ELINOR.
 * Thou unadvised scold, I can produce
 * A will that bars the title of thy son.

CONSTANCE.
 * Ay, who doubts that? a will, a wicked will;
 * A woman's will; a canker'd grandam's will!

KING PHILIP.
 * Peace, lady! pause, or be more temperate:
 * It ill beseems this presence to cry aim
 * To these ill-tuned repetitions.—
 * Some trumpet summon hither to the walls
 * These men of Angiers: let us hear them speak
 * Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's.

[Trumpet sounds. Enter citizens upon the walls.]

FIRST CITIZEN.
 * Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls?

KING PHILIP.
 * 'Tis France, for England.

KING JOHN.
 * England for itself:—
 * You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects,—

KING PHILIP.
 * You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects,
 * Our trumpet call'd you to this gentle parle.

KING JOHN.
 * For our advantage; therefore hear us first.
 * These flags of France, that are advanced here
 * Before the eye and prospect of your town,
 * Have hither march'd to your endamagement;

The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,
 * And ready mounted are they to spit forth
 * Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls:
 * All preparation for a bloody siege
 * And merciless proceeding by these French
 * Confronts your city's eyes, your winking gates;
 * And, but for our approach, those sleeping stones
 * That as a waist doth girdle you about,
 * By the compulsion of their ordinance
 * By this time from their fixed beds of lime
 * Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made
 * For bloody power to rush upon your peace.
 * But, on the sight of us, your lawful king,—
 * Who, painfully, with much expedient march,
 * Have brought a countercheck before your gates,
 * To save unscratch'd your city's threatn'd cheeks,—
 * Behold, the French, amaz'd, vouchsafe a parle;
 * And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire,
 * To make a shaking fever in your walls,
 * They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke,
 * To make a faithless error in your ears:
 * Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,
 * And let us in, your king; whose labour'd spirits,
 * Forwearied in this action of swift speed,
 * Craves harbourage within your city-walls.

KING PHILIP.
 * When I have said, make answer to us both.
 * Lo, in this right hand, whose protection
 * Is most divinely vow'd upon the right
 * Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,
 * Son to the elder brother of this man,
 * And king o'er him and all that he enjoys:
 * For this down-trodden equity we tread
 * In war-like march these greens before your town;
 * Being no further enemy to you
 * Than the constraint of hospitable zeal
 * In the relief of this oppressed child
 * Religiously provokes. Be pleased then
 * To pay that duty which you truly owe
 * To him that owes it, namely, this young prince:
 * And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear,
 * Save in aspect, hath all offence seal'd up;
 * Our cannons' malice vainly shall be spent
 * Against the invulnerable clouds of heaven;
 * And with a blessed and unvex'd retire,
 * With unhack'd swords and helmets all unbruis'd,
 * We will bear home that lusty blood again
 * Which here we came to spout against your town,
 * And leave your children, wives, and you, in peace.
 * But if you fondly pass our proffer'd offer,
 * 'Tis not the roundure of your old-fac'd walls
 * Can hide you from our messengers of war,
 * Though all these English, and their discipline,
 * Were harbour'd in their rude circumference.
 * Then, tell us, shall your city call us lord
 * In that behalf which we have challeng'd it?
 * Or shall we give the signal to our rage,
 * And stalk in blood to our possession?

FIRST CITIZEN.
 * In brief: we are the King of England's subjects:
 * For him, and in his right, we hold this town.

KING JOHN.
 * Acknowledge then the king, and let me in.

CITIZEN.
 * That can we not; but he that proves the king,
 * To him will we prove loyal: till that time
 * Have we ramm'd up our gates against the world.

KING JOHN.
 * Doth not the crown of England prove the king?
 * And if not that, I bring you witnesses,
 * Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's breed,—

BASTARD.
 * Bastards, and else.

KING JOHN.
 * To verify our title with their lives.

KING PHILIP.
 * As many and as well-born bloods as those,—

BASTARD.
 * Some bastards too.

KING PHILIP.
 * Stand in his face, to contradict his claim.

FIRST CITIZEN.
 * Till you compound whose right is worthiest,
 * We for the worthiest hold the right from both.

KING JOHN.
 * Then God forgive the sin of all those souls
 * That to their everlasting residence,
 * Before the dew of evening fall, shall fleet,
 * In dreadful trial of our kingdom's king!

KING PHILIP.
 * Amen, Amen!—Mount, chevaliers; to arms!

BASTARD.
 * Saint George, that swinged the dragon, and e'er since
 * Sits on his horse' back at mine hostess' door,
 * Teach us some fence!—Sirrah [To AUSTRIA.], were I at home,
 * At your den, sirrah, with your lioness,
 * I would set an ox-head to your lion's hide,
 * And make a monster of you.

AUSTRIA.
 * Peace! no more.

BASTARD.
 * O, tremble, for you hear the lion roar.

KING JOHN.
 * Up higher to the plain; where we'll set forth
 * In best appointment all our regiments.

BASTARD.
 * Speed, then, to take advantage of the field.

KING PHILIP.
 * It shall be so;—[To LOUIS.] and at the other hill
 * Command the rest to stand.—God and our right!

[Exeunt severally.]

[After excursions, enter a French Herald, with trumpets, to the gates.]

FRENCH HERALD.
 * You men of Angiers, open wide your gates
 * And let young Arthur, Duke of Bretagne, in,
 * Who, by the hand of France, this day hath made
 * Much work for tears in many an English mother,
 * Whose sons lie scatter'd on the bleeding ground;
 * Many a widow's husband grovelling lies,
 * Coldly embracing the discolour'd earth;
 * And victory, with little loss, doth play
 * Upon the dancing banners of the French,
 * Who are at hand, triumphantly display'd,
 * To enter conquerors, and to proclaim
 * Arthur of Bretagne England's king and yours.

[Enter an ENGLISH HERALD, with trumpets.]

ENGLISH HERALD.
 * Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells:
 * King John, your king and England's, doth approach,
 * Commander of this hot malicious day:
 * Their armours, that march'd hence so silver-bright,
 * Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood;
 * There stuck no plume in any English crest
 * That is removed by a staff of France,
 * Our colours do return in those same hands
 * That did display them when we first march'd forth;
 * And, like a jolly troop of huntsmen, come
 * Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,
 * Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes:
 * Open your gates and give the victors way.

FIRST CITIZEN.
 * Heralds, from off our towers, we might behold,
 * From first to last, the onset and retire
 * Of both your armies; whose equality
 * By our best eyes cannot be censured:
 * Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answer'd blows;
 * Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted power:
 * Both are alike, and both alike we like.
 * One must prove greatest: while they weigh so even,
 * We hold our town for neither; yet for both.

[Enter, on one side, KING JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the BASTARD, and Forces; at the other, KING PHILIP, LOUIS, AUSTRIA, and Forces.]

KING JOHN.
 * France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?
 * Say, shall the current of our right run on?
 * Whose passage, vex'd with thy impediment,
 * Shall leave his native channel, and o'erswell
 * With course disturb'd even thy confining shores,
 * Unless thou let his silver water keep
 * A peaceful progress to the ocean.

KING PHILIP.
 * England, thou hast not sav'd one drop of blood
 * In this hot trial, more than we of France;
 * Rather, lost more: and by this hand I swear,
 * That sways the earth this climate overlooks,
 * Before we will lay down our just-borne arms,
 * We'll put thee down, 'gainst whom these arms we bear,
 * Or add a royal number to the dead,
 * Gracing the scroll that tells of this war's loss
 * With slaughter coupled to the name of kings.

BASTARD.
 * Ha, majesty! how high thy glory towers
 * When the rich blood of kings is set on fire!
 * O, now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel;
 * The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs;
 * And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men,
 * In undetermin'd differences of kings.—
 * Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus?
 * Cry, havoc, kings! back to the stained field,
 * You equal potents, fiery-kindled spirits!
 * Then let confusion of one part confirm
 * The other's peace: till then, blows, blood, and death!

KING JOHN.
 * Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?

KING PHILIP.
 * Speak, citizens, for England; who's your king?

FIRST CITIZEN.
 * The King of England, when we know the king.

KING PHILIP.
 * Know him in us, that here hold up his right.

KING JOHN.
 * In us, that are our own great deputy,
 * And bear possession of our person here;
 * Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.

FIRST CITIZEN.
 * A greater power than we denies all this;
 * And till it be undoubted, we do lock
 * Our former scruple in our strong-barr'd gates;
 * King'd of our fears, until our fears, resolv'd,
 * Be by some certain king purg'd and depos'd.

BASTARD.
 * By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,
 * And stand securely on their battlements
 * As in a theatre, whence they gape and point
 * At your industrious scenes and acts of death.
 * Your royal presences be rul'd by me:—
 * Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,
 * Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend
 * Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town:
 * By east and west let France and England mount
 * Their battering cannon, charged to the mouths,
 * Till their soul-fearing clamours have brawl'd down
 * The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city:
 * I'd play incessantly upon these jades,
 * Even till unfenced desolation
 * Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.
 * That done, dissever your united strengths,
 * And part your mingled colours once again:
 * Turn face to face, and bloody point to point;
 * Then, in a moment, fortune shall cull forth
 * Out of one side her happy minion,
 * To whom in favour she shall give the day,
 * And kiss him with a glorious victory.
 * How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?
 * Smacks it not something of the policy?

KING JOHN.
 * Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads,
 * I like it well.—France, shall we knit our powers,
 * And lay this Angiers even with the ground;
 * Then, after, fight who shall be king of it?

BASTARD.
 * An if thou hast the mettle of a king,—
 * Being wrong'd, as we are, by this peevish town,—
 * Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,
 * As we will ours, against these saucy walls;
 * And when that we have dash'd them to the ground,
 * Why then defy each other, and, pell-mell,
 * Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell!

KING PHILIP.
 * Let it be so.—Say, where will you assault?

KING JOHN.
 * We from the west will send destruction
 * Into this city's bosom.

AUSTRIA.
 * I from the north.

KING PHILIP.
 * Our thunder from the south
 * Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.

BASTARD.
 * O prudent discipline! From north to south,—
 * Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth:
 * I'll stir them to it.[Aside.]—Come, away, away!

FIRST CITIZEN.
 * Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay,
 * And I shall show you peace and fair-fac'd league;
 * Win you this city without stroke or wound;
 * Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds
 * That here come sacrifices for the field:
 * Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.

KING JOHN.
 * Speak on with favour; we are bent to hear.

FIRST CITIZEN.
 * That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,
 * Is niece to England:—look upon the years
 * Of Louis the Dauphin and that lovely maid:
 * If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,
 * Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?
 * If zealous love should go in search of virtue,
 * Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?
 * If love ambitious sought a match of birth,
 * Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch?
 * Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,
 * Is the young Dauphin every way complete,—
 * If not complete of, say he is not she;
 * And she again wants nothing, to name want,
 * If want it be not, that she is not he:
 * He is the half part of a blessed man,
 * Left to be finished by such a she;
 * And she a fair divided excellence,
 * Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.
 * O, two such silver currents, when they join
 * Do glorify the banks that bound them in;
 * And two such shores to two such streams made one,
 * Two such controlling bounds, shall you be, kings,
 * To these two princes, if you marry them.
 * This union shall do more than battery can
 * To our fast-closed gates; for at this match,
 * With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,
 * The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope,
 * And give you entrance; but without this match,
 * The sea enraged is not half so deaf,
 * Lions more confident, mountains and rocks
 * More free from motion; no, not Death himself
 * In mortal fury half so peremptory
 * As we to keep this city.

BASTARD.
 * Here's a stay
 * That shakes the rotten carcase of old Death
 * Out of his rags! Here's a large mouth, indeed,
 * That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas;
 * Talks as familiarly of roaring lions
 * As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!
 * What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?
 * He speaks plain cannon,—fire and smoke and bounce;
 * He gives the bastinado with his tongue;
 * Our ears are cudgell'd; not a word of his
 * But buffets better than a fist of France.
 * Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words
 * Since I first call'd my brother's father dad.

ELINOR.
 * Son, list to this conjunction, make this match;
 * Give with our niece a dowry large enough;
 * For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie
 * Thy now unsur'd assurance to the crown,
 * That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe
 * The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.
 * I see a yielding in the looks of France;
 * Mark how they whisper: urge them while their souls
 * Are capable of this ambition,
 * Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath
 * Of soft petitions, pity, and remorse,
 * Cool and congeal again to what it was.

FIRST CITIZEN.
 * Why answer not the double majesties
 * This friendly treaty of our threaten'd town?

KING PHILIP.
 * Speak England first, that hath been forward first
 * To speak unto this city: what say you?

KING JOHN.
 * If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son,
 * Can in this book of beauty read 'I love,'
 * Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen;
 * For Anjou, and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers,
 * And all that we upon this side the sea,—
 * Except this city now by us besieg'd,—
 * Find liable to our crown and dignity,
 * Shall gild her bridal bed; and make her rich
 * In titles, honours, and promotions,
 * As she in beauty, education, blood,
 * Holds hand with any princess of the world.

KING PHILIP.
 * What say'st thou, boy? look in the lady's face.

LOUIS.
 * I do, my lord, and in her eye I find
 * A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,
 * The shadow of myself form'd in her eye;
 * Which, being but the shadow of your son,
 * Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow:
 * I do protest I never lov'd myself
 * Till now infixed I beheld myself
 * Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.

[Whispers with BLANCH.]

BASTARD.
 * [Aside.] Drawn in the flattering table of her eye!—
 * Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow,
 * And quarter'd in her heart!—he doth espy
 * Himself love's traitor! This is pity now,
 * That, hang'd, and drawn, and quarter'd, there should be
 * In such a love so vile a lout as he.

BLANCH.
 * My uncle's will in this respect is mine.
 * If he see aught in you that makes him like,
 * That anything he sees, which moves his liking
 * I can with ease translate it to my will;
 * Or if you will, to speak more properly,
 * I will enforce it easily to my love.
 * Further, I will not flatter you, my lord,
 * That all I see in you is worthy love,
 * Than this,—that nothing do I see in you,
 * Though churlish thoughts themselves should be your judge,—
 * That I can find should merit any hate.

KING JOHN.
 * What say these young ones?—What say you, my niece?

BLANCH.
 * That she is bound in honour still to do
 * What you in wisdom still vouchsafe to say.

KING JOHN.
 * Speak then, Prince Dauphin; can you love this lady?

LOUIS.
 * Nay, ask me if I can refrain from love;
 * For I do love her most unfeignedly.

KING JOHN.
 * Then do I give Volquessen, Touraine, Maine,
 * Poictiers, and Anjou, these five provinces,
 * With her to thee; and this addition more,
 * Full thirty thousand marks of English coin.—
 * Philip of France, if thou be pleas'd withal,
 * Command thy son and daughter to join hands.

KING PHILIP.
 * It likes us well.—Young princes, close your hands.

AUSTRIA.
 * And your lips too; for I am well assur'd
 * That I did so when I was first assur'd.

KING PHILIP.
 * Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates,
 * Let in that amity which you have made;
 * For at Saint Mary's chapel presently
 * The rites of marriage shall be solemniz'd.—
 * Is not the Lady Constance in this troop?
 * I know she is not; for this match made up
 * Her presence would have interrupted much:
 * Where is she and her son? tell me, who knows.

LOUIS.
 * She is sad and passionate at your highness' tent.

KING PHILIP.
 * And, by my faith, this league that we have made
 * Will give her sadness very little cure.—
 * Brother of England, how may we content
 * This widow lady? In her right we came;
 * Which we, God knows, have turn'd another way,
 * To our own vantage.

KING JOHN.
 * We will heal up all;
 * For we'll create young Arthur Duke of Bretagne,
 * And Earl of Richmond; and this rich fair town
 * We make him lord of.—Call the Lady Constance:
 * Some speedy messenger bid her repair
 * To our solemnity:—I trust we shall,
 * If not fill up the measure of her will,
 * Yet in some measure satisfy her so
 * That we shall stop her exclamation.
 * Go we, as well as haste will suffer us,
 * To this unlook'd-for, unprepared pomp.

[Exeunt all but the BASTARD. The Citizens retire from the Walls.]

BASTARD.
 * Mad world! mad kings! mad composition!
 * John, to stop Arthur's title in the whole,
 * Hath willingly departed with a part;
 * And France,—whose armour conscience buckled on,
 * Whom zeal and charity brought to the field
 * As God's own soldier,—rounded in the ear
 * With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil;
 * That broker, that still breaks the pate of faith;
 * That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,
 * Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,—
 * Who having no external thing to lose
 * But the word maid, cheats the poor maid of that;
 * That smooth-fac'd gentleman, tickling commodity,—
 * Commodity, the bias of the world;
 * The world, who of itself is peised well,
 * Made to run even upon even ground,
 * Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,
 * This sway of motion, this commodity,
 * Makes it take head from all indifferency,
 * From all direction, purpose, course, intent:
 * And this same bias, this commodity,
 * This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,
 * Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,
 * Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid,
 * From a resolv'd and honourable war,
 * To a most base and vile-concluded peace.—
 * And why rail I on this commodity?
 * But for because he hath not woo'd me yet:
 * Not that I have the power to clutch my hand
 * When his fair angels would salute my palm;
 * But for my hand, as unattempted yet,
 * Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich.
 * Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail,
 * And say, There is no sin but to be rich;
 * And being rich, my virtue then shall be,
 * To say, There is no vice but beggary:
 * Since kings break faith upon commodity,
 * Gain, be my lord!—for I will worship thee.

[Exit.]

SCENE 1. France. The FRENCH KING'S tent.
[Enter CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and SALISBURY.]

CONSTANCE.
 * Gone to be married! gone to swear a peace!
 * False blood to false blood join'd! gone to be friends!
 * Shall Louis have Blanch? and Blanch those provinces?
 * It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard;
 * Be well advis'd, tell o'er thy tale again:
 * It cannot be; thou dost but say 'tis so;
 * I trust I may not trust thee; for thy word
 * Is but the vain breath of a common man:
 * Believe me, I do not believe thee, man;
 * I have a king's oath to the contrary.
 * Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me,
 * For I am sick and capable of fears;
 * Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears;
 * A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;
 * A woman, naturally born to fears;
 * And though thou now confess thou didst but jest,
 * With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce,
 * But they will quake and tremble all this day.
 * What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?
 * Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?
 * What means that hand upon that breast of thine?
 * Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,
 * Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?
 * Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?
 * Then speak again,—not all thy former tale,
 * But this one word, whether thy tale be true.

SALISBURY.
 * As true as I believe you think them false
 * That give you cause to prove my saying true.

CONSTANCE.
 * O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,
 * Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die;
 * And let belief and life encounter so
 * As doth the fury of two desperate men,
 * Which in the very meeting fall and die!—
 * Louis marry Blanch! O boy, then where art thou?
 * France friend with England! what becomes of me?—
 * Fellow, be gone: I cannot brook thy sight;
 * This news hath made thee a most ugly man.

SALISBURY.
 * What other harm have I, good lady, done,
 * But spoke the harm that is by others done?

CONSTANCE.
 * Which harm within itself so heinous is,
 * As it makes harmful all that speak of it.

ARTHUR.
 * I do beseech you, madam, be content.

CONSTANCE.
 * If thou, that bid'st me be content, wert grim,
 * Ugly, and slanderous to thy mother's womb,
 * Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,
 * Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,
 * Patch'd with foul moles and eye-offending marks,
 * I would not care, I then would be content;
 * For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou
 * Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.
 * But thou art fair; and at thy birth, dear boy,
 * Nature and fortune join'd to make thee great:
 * Of nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,
 * And with the half-blown rose; but Fortune, O!
 * She is corrupted, chang'd, and won from thee;
 * She adulterates hourly with thine uncle John;
 * And with her golden hand hath pluck'd on France
 * To tread down fair respect of sovereignty,
 * And made his majesty the bawd to theirs.
 * France is a bawd to Fortune and king John—
 * That strumpet Fortune, that usurping John!—
 * Tell me, thou fellow, is not France forsworn?
 * Envenom him with words; or get thee gone,
 * And leave those woes alone, which I alone
 * Am bound to under-bear.

SALISBURY.
 * Pardon me, madam,
 * I may not go without you to the kings.

CONSTANCE.
 * Thou mayst, thou shalt; I will not go with thee:
 * I will instruct my sorrows to be proud;
 * For grief is proud, and makes his owner stout.
 * To me, and to the state of my great grief,
 * Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great
 * That no supporter but the huge firm earth
 * Can hold it up: here I and sorrows sit;
 * Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.

[Seats herself on the ground.]

[Enter KING JOHN, KING PHILIP, LOUIS, BLANCH, ELINOR, BASTARD, AUSTRIA, and attendants.]

KING PHILIP.
 * 'Tis true, fair daughter; and this blessed day
 * Ever in France shall be kept festival:
 * To solemnize this day the glorious sun
 * Stays in his course and plays the alchemist,
 * Turning, with splendour of his precious eye,
 * The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold:
 * The yearly course that brings this day about
 * Shall never see it but a holiday.

CONSTANCE.
 * [Rising.] A wicked day, and not a holy day!
 * What hath this day deserv'd? what hath it done
 * That it in golden letters should be set
 * Among the high tides in the calendar?
 * Nay, rather turn this day out of the week,
 * This day of shame, oppression, perjury:
 * Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child
 * Pray that their burdens may not fall this day,
 * Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd:
 * But on this day let seamen fear no wreck;
 * No bargains break that are not this day made:
 * This day, all things begun come to ill end,—
 * Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!

KING PHILIP.
 * By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause
 * To curse the fair proceedings of this day.
 * Have I not pawn'd to you my majesty?

CONSTANCE.
 * You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit
 * Resembling majesty; which, being touch'd and tried,
 * Proves valueless; you are forsworn, forsworn:
 * You came in arms to spill mine enemies' blood,
 * But now in arms you strengthen it with yours:
 * The grappling vigour and rough frown of war
 * Is cold in amity and painted peace,
 * And our oppression hath made up this league.—
 * Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjur'd kings!
 * A widow cries: be husband to me, heavens!
 * Let not the hours of this ungodly day
 * Wear out the day in peace; but, ere sunset,
 * Set armed discord 'twixt these perjur'd kings!
 * Hear me, O, hear me!

AUSTRIA.
 * Lady Constance, peace!

CONSTANCE.
 * War! war! no peace! peace is to me a war.
 * O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shame
 * That bloody spoil: thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!
 * Thou little valiant, great in villainy!
 * Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!
 * Thou Fortune's champion that dost never fight
 * But when her humorous ladyship is by
 * To teach thee safety!—thou art perjur'd too,
 * And sooth'st up greatness. What a fool art thou,
 * A ramping fool, to brag, and stamp. and swear
 * Upon my party! Thou cold-blooded slave,
 * Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side?
 * Been sworn my soldier? bidding me depend
 * Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength?
 * And dost thou now fall over to my foes?
 * Thou wear a lion's hide! doff it for shame,
 * And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs!

AUSTRIA.
 * O that a man should speak those words to me!

BASTARD.
 * And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.

AUSTRIA.
 * Thou dar'st not say so, villain, for thy life.

BASTARD.
 * And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.

KING JOHN.
 * We like not this: thou dost forget thyself.

KING PHILIP.
 * Here comes the holy legate of the Pope.

[Enter PANDULPH.]

PANDULPH.
 * Hail, you anointed deputies of heaven!—
 * To thee, King John, my holy errand is.
 * I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal,
 * And from Pope Innocent the legate here,
 * Do in his name religiously demand
 * Why thou against the church, our holy mother,
 * So wilfully dost spurn; and, force perforce
 * Keep Stephen Langton, chosen Archbishop
 * Of Canterbury, from that holy see?
 * This, in our foresaid holy father's name,
 * Pope Innocent, I do demand of thee.

KING JOHN.
 * What earthly name to interrogatories
 * Can task the free breath of a sacred king?
 * Thou canst not, cardinal, devise a name
 * So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous,
 * To charge me to an answer, as the pope.
 * Tell him this tale; and from the mouth of England
 * Add thus much more,—that no Italian priest
 * Shall tithe or toll in our dominions:
 * But as we under heaven are supreme head,
 * So, under him, that great supremacy,
 * Where we do reign, we will alone uphold,
 * Without the assistance of a mortal hand:
 * So tell the pope, all reverence set apart
 * To him and his usurp'd authority.

KING PHILIP.
 * Brother of England, you blaspheme in this.

KING JOHN.
 * Though you and all the kings of Christendom
 * Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,
 * Dreading the curse that money may buy out;
 * And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust,
 * Purchase corrupted pardon of a man,
 * Who in that sale sells pardon from himself;
 * Though you and all the rest, so grossly led,
 * This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish;
 * Yet I, alone, alone do me oppose
 * Against the pope, and count his friends my foes.

PANDULPH.
 * Then by the lawful power that I have,
 * Thou shalt stand curs'd and excommunicate:
 * And blessed shall he be that doth revolt
 * From his allegiance to an heretic;
 * And meritorious shall that hand be call'd,
 * Canonized, and worshipp'd as a saint,
 * That takes away by any secret course
 * Thy hateful life.

CONSTANCE.
 * O, lawful let it be
 * That I have room with Rome to curse awhile!
 * Good father Cardinal, cry thou amen
 * To my keen curses: for without my wrong
 * There is no tongue hath power to curse him right.

PANDULPH.
 * There's law and warrant, lady, for my curse.

CONSTANCE.
 * And for mine too: when law can do no right,
 * Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong:
 * Law cannot give my child his kingdom here;
 * For he that holds his kingdom holds the law:
 * Therefore, since law itself is perfect wrong,
 * How can the law forbid my tongue to curse?

PANDULPH.
 * Philip of France, on peril of a curse,
 * Let go the hand of that arch-heretic,
 * And raise the power of France upon his head,
 * Unless he do submit himself to Rome.

ELINOR.
 * Look'st thou pale, France; do not let go thy hand.

CONSTANCE
 * Look to that, devil; lest that France repent
 * And, by disjoining hands, hell lose a soul.

AUSTRIA.
 * King Philip, listen to the cardinal.

BASTARD.
 * And hang a calf's-skin on his recreant limbs.

AUSTRIA.
 * Well, ruffian, I must pocket up these wrongs,
 * Because—

BASTARD.
 * Your breeches best may carry them.

KING JOHN.
 * Philip, what say'st thou to the cardinal?

CONSTANCE.
 * What should he say, but as the cardinal?

LOUIS.
 * Bethink you, father; for the difference
 * Is, purchase of a heavy curse from Rome,
 * Or the light loss of England for a friend:
 * Forgo the easier.

BLANCH.
 * That's the curse of Rome.

CONSTANCE.
 * O Louis, stand fast! The devil tempts thee here
 * In likeness of a new uptrimmed bride.

BLANCH.
 * The Lady Constance speaks not from her faith,
 * But from her need.

CONSTANCE.
 * O, if thou grant my need,
 * Which only lives but by the death of faith,
 * That need must needs infer this principle,—
 * That faith would live again by death of need!
 * O then, tread down my need, and faith mounts up;
 * Keep my need up, and faith is trodden down!

KING JOHN.
 * The king is mov'd, and answers not to this.

CONSTANCE.
 * O be remov'd from him, and answer well!

AUSTRIA.
 * Do so, King Philip; hang no more in doubt.

BASTARD.
 * Hang nothing but a calf's-skin, most sweet lout.

KING PHILIP.
 * I am perplex'd, and know not what to say.

PANDULPH.
 * What canst thou say, but will perplex thee more,
 * If thou stand excommunicate and curs'd?

KING PHILIP.
 * Good reverend father, make my person yours,
 * And tell me how you would bestow yourself.
 * This royal hand and mine are newly knit,
 * And the conjunction of our inward souls
 * Married in league, coupled and link'd together
 * With all religious strength of sacred vows;
 * The latest breath that gave the sound of words
 * Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love,
 * Between our kingdoms and our royal selves;
 * And even before this truce, but new before,—
 * No longer than we well could wash our hands,
 * To clap this royal bargain up of peace,—
 * Heaven knows, they were besmear'd and overstain'd
 * With slaughter's pencil, where revenge did paint
 * The fearful difference of incensed kings:
 * And shall these hands, so lately purg'd of blood,
 * So newly join'd in love, so strong in both,
 * Unyoke this seizure and this kind regreet?
 * Play fast and loose with faith? so jest with heaven,
 * Make such unconstant children of ourselves,
 * As now again to snatch our palm from palm;
 * Unswear faith sworn; and on the marriage-bed
 * Of smiling peace to march a bloody host,
 * And make a riot on the gentle brow
 * Of true sincerity? O, holy sir.
 * My reverend father, let it not be so!
 * Out of your grace, devise, ordain, impose,
 * Some gentle order; and then we shall be bless'd
 * To do your pleasure, and continue friends.

PANDULPH.
 * All form is formless, order orderless,
 * Save what is opposite to England's love.
 * Therefore, to arms! be champion of our church,
 * Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse,—
 * A mother's curse,—on her revolting son.
 * France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue,
 * A chafed lion by the mortal paw,
 * A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,
 * Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.

KING PHILIP.
 * I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith.

PANDULPH.
 * So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith;
 * And, like a civil war, sett'st oath to oath,
 * Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow
 * First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform'd,—
 * That is, to be the champion of our church.
 * What since thou swor'st is sworn against thyself
 * And may not be performed by thyself:
 * For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss
 * Is not amiss when it is truly done;
 * And being not done, where doing tends to ill,
 * The truth is then most done not doing it:
 * The better act of purposes mistook
 * Is to mistake again; though indirect,
 * Yet indirection thereby grows direct,
 * And falsehood falsehood cures, as fire cools fire
 * Within the scorched veins of one new-burn'd.
 * It is religion that doth make vows kept;
 * But thou hast sworn against religion,
 * By what thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st;
 * And mak'st an oath the surety for thy truth
 * Against an oath: the truth thou art unsure
 * To swear, swears only not to be forsworn;
 * Else what a mockery should it be to swear!
 * But thou dost swear only to be forsworn;
 * And most forsworn, to keep what thou dost swear.
 * Therefore thy latter vows against thy first
 * Is in thyself rebellion to thyself;
 * And better conquest never canst thou make
 * Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts
 * Against these giddy loose suggestions:
 * Upon which better part our prayers come in,
 * If thou vouchsafe them; but if not, then know
 * The peril of our curses fight on thee,
 * So heavy as thou shalt not shake them off,
 * But in despair die under the black weight.

AUSTRIA.
 * Rebellion, flat rebellion!

BASTARD.
 * Will't not be?
 * Will not a calf's-skin stop that mouth of thine?

LOUIS.
 * Father, to arms!

BLANCH.
 * Upon thy wedding-day?
 * Against the blood that thou hast married?
 * What, shall our feast be kept with slaughter'd men?
 * Shall braying trumpets and loud churlish drums,—
 * Clamours of hell,—be measures to our pomp?
 * O husband, hear me!—ay, alack, how new
 * Is husband in my mouth!—even for that name,
 * Which till this time my tongue did ne'er pronounce,
 * Upon my knee I beg, go not to arms
 * Against mine uncle.

CONSTANCE.
 * O, upon my knee,
 * Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee,
 * Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom
 * Forethought by heaven.

BLANCH.
 * Now shall I see thy love: what motive may
 * Be stronger with thee than the name of wife?

CONSTANCE.
 * That which upholdeth him that thee upholds,
 * His honour:—O, thine honour, Louis, thine honour!

LOUIS.
 * I muse your majesty doth seem so cold,
 * When such profound respects do pull you on.

PANDULPH.
 * I will denounce a curse upon his head.

KING PHILIP.
 * Thou shalt not need.—England, I will fall from thee.

CONSTANCE.
 * O fair return of banish'd majesty!

ELINOR.
 * O foul revolt of French inconstancy!

KING JOHN.
 * France, thou shalt rue this hour within this hour.

BASTARD.
 * Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton Time,
 * Is it as he will? well, then, France shall rue.

BLANCH.
 * The sun's o'ercast with blood: fair day, adieu!
 * Which is the side that I must go withal?
 * I am with both: each army hath a hand;
 * And in their rage, I having hold of both,
 * They whirl asunder and dismember me.
 * Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win;
 * Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose;
 * Father, I may not wish the fortune thine;
 * Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive:
 * Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose;
 * Assured loss before the match be play'd.

LOUIS.
 * Lady, with me: with me thy fortune lies.

BLANCH.
 * There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.

KING JOHN.
 * Cousin, go draw our puissance together.—

[Exit BASTARD.]


 * France, I am burn'd up with inflaming wrath;
 * A rage whose heat hath this condition,
 * That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,—
 * The blood, and dearest-valu'd blood of France.

KING PHILIP.
 * Thy rage shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn
 * To ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire:
 * Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy.

KING JOHN.
 * No more than he that threats.—To arms let's hie!

[Exeunt severally.]

SCENE 2. The same. Plains near Angiers
[Alarums. Excursions. Enter the BASTARD with AUSTRIA'S head.]

BASTARD.
 * Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;
 * Some airy devil hovers in the sky
 * And pours down mischief.—Austria's head lie there,
 * While Philip breathes.

[Enter KING JOHN, ARTHUR, and HUBERT.]

KING JOHN.
 * Hubert, keep this boy.—Philip, make up:
 * My mother is assailed in our tent,
 * And ta'en, I fear.

BASTARD.
 * My lord, I rescu'd her;
 * Her highness is in safety, fear you not:
 * But on, my liege; for very little pains
 * Will bring this labour to an happy end.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 3. The same.
[Alarums, Excursions, Retreat. Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR, the BASTARD, HUBERT, and LORDS.]

KING JOHN.
 * [To ELINOR] So shall it be; your grace shall stay behind,
 * So strongly guarded.—
 * [To ARTHUR] Cousin, look not sad;
 * Thy grandam loves thee, and thy uncle will
 * As dear be to thee as thy father was.

ARTHUR.
 * O, this will make my mother die with grief!

KING JOHN.
 * Cousin [To the BASTARD], away for England; haste before:
 * And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags
 * Of hoarding abbots; imprison'd angels
 * Set at liberty: the fat ribs of peace
 * Must by the hungry now be fed upon:
 * Use our commission in his utmost force.

BASTARD.
 * Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back,
 * When gold and silver becks me to come on.
 * I leave your highness.—Grandam, I will pray,—
 * If ever I remember to be holy,—
 * For your fair safety; so, I kiss your hand.

ELINOR.
 * Farewell, gentle cousin.

KING JOHN.
 * Coz, farewell.

[Exit BASTARD.]

ELINOR.
 * Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.

[She takes Arthur aside.]

KING JOHN.
 * Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,
 * We owe thee much! within this wall of flesh
 * There is a soul counts thee her creditor,
 * And with advantage means to pay thy love:
 * And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
 * Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.
 * Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say,—
 * But I will fit it with some better time.
 * By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham'd
 * To say what good respect I have of thee.

HUBERT.
 * I am much bounden to your majesty.

KING JOHN.
 * Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet:
 * But thou shalt have; and creep time ne'er so slow,
 * Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.
 * I had a thing to say,—but let it go:
 * The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,
 * Attended with the pleasures of the world,
 * Is all too wanton and too full of gawds
 * To give me audience:—if the midnight bell
 * Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth,
 * Sound on into the drowsy race of night;
 * If this same were a churchyard where we stand,
 * And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;
 * Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,
 * Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy-thick,
 * Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,
 * Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes,
 * And strain their cheeks to idle merriment—
 * A passion hateful to my purposes;—
 * Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,
 * Hear me without thine ears, and make reply
 * Without a tongue, using conceit alone,
 * Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words,—
 * Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,
 * I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts:
 * But, ah, I will not!—yet I love thee well;
 * And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well.

HUBERT.
 * So well that what you bid me undertake,
 * Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
 * By heaven, I would do it.

KING JOHN.
 * Do not I know thou wouldst?
 * Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
 * On yon young boy: I'll tell thee what, my friend,
 * He is a very serpent in my way;
 * And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,
 * He lies before me: dost thou understand me?
 * Thou art his keeper.

HUBERT.
 * And I'll keep him so
 * That he shall not offend your majesty.

KING JOHN.
 * Death.

HUBERT.
 * My lord?

KING JOHN.
 * A grave.

HUBERT.
 * He shall not live.

KING JOHN.
 * Enough!—
 * I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee;
 * Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee:
 * Remember.—Madam, fare you well:
 * I'll send those powers o'er to your majesty.

ELINOR.
 * My blessing go with thee!

KING JOHN.
 * For England, cousin, go:
 * Hubert shall be your man, attend on you
 * With all true duty.—On toward Calais, ho!

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 4. The same. The FRENCH KING's tent.
[Enter KING PHILIP, LOUIS, PANDULPH, and Attendants.]

KING PHILIP.
 * So, by a roaring tempest on the flood
 * A whole armado of convicted sail
 * Is scattered and disjoin'd from fellowship.

PANDULPH.
 * Courage and comfort! all shall yet go well.

KING PHILIP.
 * What can go well, when we have run so ill.
 * Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?
 * Arthur ta'en prisoner? divers dear friends slain?
 * And bloody England into England gone,
 * O'erbearing interruption, spite of France?

LOUIS.
 * What he hath won, that hath he fortified:
 * So hot a speed with such advice dispos'd,
 * Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,
 * Doth want example: who hath read or heard
 * Of any kindred action like to this?

KING PHILIP.
 * Well could I bear that England had this praise,
 * So we could find some pattern of our shame.—
 * Look who comes here! a grave unto a soul;
 * Holding the eternal spirit, against her will,
 * In the vile prison of afflicted breath.

[Enter CONSTANCE.]


 * I pr'ythee, lady, go away with me.

CONSTANCE.
 * Lo, now! now see the issue of your peace!

KING PHILIP.
 * Patience, good lady! comfort, gentle Constance!

CONSTANCE.
 * No, I defy all counsel, all redress,
 * But that which ends all counsel, true redress,
 * Death, death:—O amiable lovely death!
 * Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!
 * Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,
 * Thou hate and terror to prosperity,
 * And I will kiss thy detestable bones;
 * And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows;
 * And ring these fingers with thy household worms;
 * And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,
 * And be a carrion monster like thyself:
 * Come, grin on me; and I will think thou smil'st,
 * And buss thee as thy wife! Misery's love,
 * O, come to me!

KING PHILIP.
 * O fair affliction, peace!

CONSTANCE.
 * No, no, I will not, having breath to cry:—
 * O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!
 * Then with a passion would I shake the world;
 * And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy
 * Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice,
 * Which scorns a modern invocation.

PANDULPH.
 * Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.

CONSTANCE.
 * Thou art not holy to belie me so;
 * I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;
 * My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;
 * Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost:
 * I am not mad:—I would to heaven I were!
 * For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
 * O, if I could, what grief should I forget!—
 * Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
 * And thou shalt be canoniz'd, cardinal;
 * For, being not mad, but sensible of grief,
 * My reasonable part produces reason
 * How I may be deliver'd of these woes,
 * And teaches me to kill or hang myself:
 * If I were mad I should forget my son,
 * Or madly think a babe of clouts were he:
 * I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
 * The different plague of each calamity.

KING PHILIP.
 * Bind up those tresses.—O, what love I note
 * In the fair multitude of those her hairs!
 * Where but by a chance a silver drop hath fallen,
 * Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends
 * Do glue themselves in sociable grief;
 * Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,
 * Sticking together in calamity.

CONSTANCE.
 * To England, if you will.

KING PHILIP.
 * Bind up your hairs.

CONSTANCE.
 * Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?
 * I tore them from their bonds, and cried aloud,
 * 'O that these hands could so redeem my son,
 * As they have given these hairs their liberty!'
 * But now I envy at their liberty,
 * And will again commit them to their bonds,
 * Because my poor child is a prisoner.—
 * And, father cardinal, I have heard you say
 * That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:
 * If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
 * For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
 * To him that did but yesterday suspire,
 * There was not such a gracious creature born.
 * But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
 * And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
 * And he will look as hollow as a ghost,
 * As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;
 * And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
 * When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
 * I shall not know him: therefore never, never
 * Must I behold my pretty Arthur more!

PANDULPH.
 * You hold too heinous a respect of grief.

CONSTANCE.
 * He talks to me that never had a son.

KING PHILIP.
 * You are as fond of grief as of your child.

CONSTANCE.
 * Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
 * Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
 * Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
 * Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
 * Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
 * Then have I reason to be fond of grief.
 * Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,
 * I could give better comfort than you do.—
 * I will not keep this form upon my head,

[Tearing off her head-dress.]


 * When there is such disorder in my wit.
 * O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
 * My life, my joy, my food, my ail the world!
 * My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!

[Exit.]

KING PHILIP.
 * I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her.

[Exit.]

LOUIS.
 * There's nothing in this world can make me joy:
 * Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
 * Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;
 * And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste,
 * That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.

PANDULPH.
 * Before the curing of a strong disease,
 * Even in the instant of repair and health,
 * The fit is strongest; evils that take leave
 * On their departure most of all show evil;
 * What have you lost by losing of this day?

LOUIS.
 * All days of glory, joy, and happiness.

PANDULPH.
 * If you had won it, certainly you had.
 * No, no; when Fortune means to men most good,
 * She looks upon them with a threatening eye.
 * 'Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost
 * In this which he accounts so clearly won.
 * Are not you griev'd that Arthur is his prisoner?

LouIS.
 * As heartily as he is glad he hath him.

PANDULPH.
 * Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.
 * Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit;
 * For even the breath of what I mean to speak
 * Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,
 * Out of the path which shall directly lead
 * Thy foot to England's throne; and therefore mark.
 * John hath seiz'd Arthur; and it cannot be
 * That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,
 * The misplac'd John should entertain an hour,
 * One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest:
 * A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand
 * Must be boisterously maintain'd as gain'd:
 * And he that stands upon a slippery place
 * Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up:
 * That John may stand then, Arthur needs must fall:
 * So be it, for it cannot be but so.

LOUIS.
 * But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall?

PANDULPH.
 * You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,
 * May then make all the claim that Arthur did.

LOUIS.
 * And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.

PANDULPH.
 * How green you are, and fresh in this old world!
 * John lays you plots; the times conspire with you;
 * For he that steeps his safety in true blood
 * Shall find but bloody safety and untrue.
 * This act, so evilly borne, shall cool the hearts
 * Of all his people, and freeze up their zeal,
 * That none so small advantage shall step forth
 * To check his reign, but they will cherish it;
 * No natural exhalation in the sky,
 * No scope of nature, no distemper'd day,
 * No common wind, no customed event,
 * But they will pluck away his natural cause
 * And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs,
 * Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven,
 * Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.

LOUIS.
 * May be he will not touch young Arthur's life,
 * But hold himself safe in his prisonment.

PANDULPH.
 * O, sir, when he shall hear of your approach,
 * If that young Arthur be not gone already,
 * Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts
 * Of all his people shall revolt from him,
 * And kiss the lips of unacquainted change;
 * And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath
 * Out of the bloody fingers' ends of john.
 * Methinks I see this hurly all on foot:
 * And, O, what better matter breeds for you
 * Than I have nam'd!—The bastard Falconbridge
 * Is now in England, ransacking the church,
 * Offending charity: if but a dozen French
 * Were there in arms, they would be as a call
 * To train ten thousand English to their side:
 * Or as a little snow, tumbled about
 * Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin,
 * Go with me to the king:—'tis wonderful
 * What may be wrought out of their discontent,
 * Now that their souls are topful of offence:
 * For England go:—I will whet on the king.

LOUIS.
 * Strong reasons makes strong actions: let us go:
 * If you say ay, the king will not say no.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 1. Northampton. A Room in the Castle.
[Enter HUBERT and two Attendants.]

HUBERT.
 * Heat me these irons hot; and look thou stand
 * Within the arras: when I strike my foot
 * Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth
 * And bind the boy which you shall find with me
 * Fast to the chair: be heedful: hence, and watch.

FIRST ATTENDANT.
 * I hope your warrant will bear out the deed.

HUBERT.
 * Uncleanly scruples! Fear not you; look to't.—


 * [Exeunt ATTENDANTS.]


 * Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you.

[Enter ARTHUR.]

ARTHUR.
 * Good morrow, Hubert.

HUBERT.
 * Good morrow, little prince.

ARTHUR.
 * As little prince, having so great a tide
 * To be more prince, as may be.—You are sad.

HUBERT.
 * Indeed I have been merrier.

ARTHUR.
 * Mercy on me!
 * Methinks no body should be sad but I:
 * Yet, I remember, when I was in France,
 * Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,
 * Only for wantonness. By my christendom,
 * So I were out of prison, and kept sheep,
 * I should be as merry as the day is long;
 * And so I would be here, but that I doubt
 * My uncle practises more harm to me:
 * He is afraid of me, and I of him:
 * Is it my fault that I was Geffrey's son?
 * No, indeed, is't not; and I would to heaven
 * I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.

HUBERT.
 * [Aside.] If I talk to him, with his innocent prate
 * He will awake my mercy, which lies dead:
 * Therefore I will be sudden and despatch.

ARTHUR.
 * Are you sick, Hubert? you look pale to-day:
 * In sooth, I would you were a little sick,
 * That I might sit all night and watch with you:
 * I warrant I love you more than you do me.

HUBERT.
 * [Aside.] His words do take possession of my bosom.—
 * Read here, young Arthur.

[Showing a paper.]

[Aside.] How now, foolish rheum!
 * Turning dispiteous torture out of door!
 * I must be brief, lest resolution drop
 * Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.—
 * Can you not read it? is it not fair writ?

ARTHUR.
 * Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect.
 * Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?

HUBERT.
 * Young boy, I must.

ARTHUR.
 * And will you?

HUBERT.
 * And I will.

ARTHUR.
 * Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,
 * I knit my handkerchief about your brows,—
 * The best I had, a princess wrought it me,—
 * And I did never ask it you again;
 * And with my hand at midnight held your head;
 * And, like the watchful minutes to the hour,
 * Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time,
 * Saying 'What lack you?' and 'Where lies your grief?'
 * Or 'What good love may I perform for you?'
 * Many a poor man's son would have lien still,
 * And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you;
 * But you at your sick service had a prince.
 * Nay, you may think my love was crafty love,
 * And call it cunning.—do, an if you will:
 * If heaven be pleas'd that you must use me ill,
 * Why, then you must.—Will you put out mine eyes,
 * These eyes that never did nor never shall
 * So much as frown on you?

HUBERT.
 * I have sworn to do it!
 * And with hot irons must I burn them out.

ARTHUR.
 * Ah, none but in this iron age would do it!
 * The iron of itself, though heat red-hot,
 * Approaching near these eyes would drink my tears,
 * And quench his fiery indignation,
 * Even in the matter of mine innocence;
 * Nay, after that, consume away in rust,
 * But for containing fire to harm mine eye.
 * Are you more stubborn-hard than hammer'd iron?
 * An if an angel should have come to me
 * And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes,
 * I would not have believ'd him,—no tongue but Hubert's.

HUBERT.
 * [Stamps.] Come forth.

[Re-enter Attendants, with cords, irons, &c.]


 * Do as I bid you do.

ARTHUR.
 * O, save me, Hubert, save me! my eyes are out
 * Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.

HUBERT.
 * Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here.

ARTHUR.
 * Alas, what need you be so boist'rous rough?
 * I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still.
 * For heaven sake, Hubert, let me not be bound!
 * Nay, hear me, Hubert!—drive these men away,
 * And I will sit as quiet as a lamb;
 * I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word,
 * Nor look upon the iron angerly:
 * Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you,
 * Whatever torment you do put me to.

HUBERT.
 * Go, stand within; let me alone with him.

FIRST ATTENDANT.
 * I am best pleas'd to be from such a deed.

[Exeunt Attendants.]

ARTHUR.
 * Alas, I then have chid away my friend!
 * He hath a stern look but a gentle heart:—
 * Let him come back, that his compassion may
 * Give life to yours.

HUBERT.
 * Come, boy, prepare yourself.

ARTHUR.
 * Is there no remedy?

HUBERT.
 * None, but to lose your eyes.

ARTHUR.
 * O heaven!—that there were but a mote in yours,
 * A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,
 * Any annoyance in that precious sense!
 * Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there,
 * Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.

HUBERT.
 * Is this your promise? go to, hold your tongue.

ARTHUR.
 * Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues
 * Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes:
 * Let me not hold my tongue,—let me not, Hubert;
 * Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue,
 * So I may keep mine eyes: O, spare mine eyes,
 * Though to no use but still to look on you!—
 * Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold
 * And would not harm me.

HUBERT.
 * I can heat it, boy.

ARTHUR.
 * No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief,
 * Being create for comfort, to be us'd
 * In undeserv'd extremes: see else yourself;
 * There is no malice in this burning coal;
 * The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out,
 * And strew'd repentant ashes on his head.

HUBERT.
 * But with my breath I can revive it, boy.

ARTHUR.
 * An if you do, you will but make it blush,
 * And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert.
 * Nay, it, perchance will sparkle in your eyes;
 * And, like a dog that is compell'd to fight,
 * Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on.
 * All things that you should use to do me wrong,
 * Deny their office: only you do lack
 * That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends,
 * Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses.

HUBERT.
 * Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eye
 * For all the treasure that thine uncle owes:
 * Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy,
 * With this same very iron to burn them out.

ARTHUR.
 * O, now you look like Hubert! all this while
 * You were disguised.

HUBERT.
 * Peace; no more. Adieu!
 * Your uncle must not know but you are dead;
 * I'll fill these dogged spies with false reports:
 * And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure
 * That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world,
 * Will not offend thee.

ARTHUR.
 * O heaven! I thank you, Hubert.

HUBERT.
 * Silence; no more: go closely in with me:
 * Much danger do I undergo for thee.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 2.The same. A Room of State in the Palace.
[Enter KING JOHN, crowned, PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other LORDS. The KING takes his State.]

KING JOHN.
 * Here once again we sit, once again crown'd,
 * And look'd upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.

PEMBROKE.
 * This once again, but that your highness pleas'd,
 * Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before,
 * And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off;
 * The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt;
 * Fresh expectation troubled not the land
 * With any long'd-for change or better state.

SALISBURY.
 * Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
 * To guard a title that was rich before,
 * To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
 * To throw a perfume on the violet,
 * To smooth the ice, or add another hue
 * Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
 * To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
 * Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

PEMBROKE.
 * But that your royal pleasure must be done,
 * This act is as an ancient tale new told;
 * And, in the last repeating troublesome,
 * Being urged at a time unseasonable.

SALISBURY.
 * In this, the antique and well-noted face
 * Of plain old form is much disfigured;
 * And, like a shifted wind unto a sail,
 * It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about;
 * Startles and frights consideration;
 * Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected,
 * For putting on so new a fashion'd robe.

PEMBROKE.
 * When workmen strive to do better than well,
 * They do confound their skill in covetousness;
 * And oftentimes excusing of a fault
 * Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse,—
 * As patches set upon a little breach
 * Discredit more in hiding of the fault
 * Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.

SALISBURY.
 * To this effect, before you were new-crown'd,
 * We breath'd our counsel: but it pleas'd your highness
 * To overbear it; and we are all well pleas'd,
 * Since all and every part of what we would
 * Doth make a stand at what your highness will.

KING JOHN.
 * Some reasons of this double coronation
 * I have possess'd you with, and think them strong;
 * And more, more strong, when lesser is my fear,
 * I shall indue you with: meantime but ask
 * What you would have reform'd that is not well,
 * And well shall you perceive how willingly
 * I will both hear and grant you your requests.

PEMBROKE.
 * Then I,—as one that am the tongue of these,
 * To sound the purposes of all their hearts,—
 * Both for myself and them,—but, chief of all,
 * Your safety, for the which myself and them
 * Bend their best studies,—heartily request
 * The enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint
 * Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent
 * To break into this dangerous argument,—
 * If what in rest you have in right you hold,
 * Why then your fears,—which, as they say, attend
 * The steps of wrong,—should move you to mew up
 * Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days
 * With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth
 * The rich advantage of good exercise?
 * That the time's enemies may not have this
 * To grace occasions, let it be our suit
 * That you have bid us ask his liberty;
 * Which for our goods we do no further ask
 * Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
 * Counts it your weal he have his liberty.

KING JOHN.
 * Let it be so: I do commit his youth
 * To your direction.

[Enter HUBERT.]


 * Hubert, what news with you?

PEMBROKE.
 * This is the man should do the bloody deed;
 * He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine:
 * The image of a wicked heinous fault
 * Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his
 * Doth show the mood of a much-troubled breast;
 * And I do fearfully believe 'tis done
 * What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.

SALISBURY.
 * The colour of the king doth come and go
 * Between his purpose and his conscience,
 * Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set.
 * His passion is so ripe it needs must break.

PEMBROKE.
 * And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence
 * The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.

KING JOHN.
 * We cannot hold mortality's strong hand:—
 * Good lords, although my will to give is living,
 * The suit which you demand is gone and dead:
 * He tells us Arthur is deceas'd to-night.

SALISBURY.
 * Indeed, we fear'd his sickness was past cure.

PEMBROKE.
 * Indeed, we heard how near his death he was,
 * Before the child himself felt he was sick:
 * This must be answer'd either here or hence.

KING JOHN.
 * Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?
 * Think you I bear the shears of destiny?
 * Have I commandment on the pulse of life?

SALISBURY.
 * It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis shame
 * That greatness should so grossly offer it:
 * So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell.

PEMBROKE.
 * Stay yet, Lord Salisbury, I'll go with thee
 * And find th' inheritance of this poor child,
 * His little kingdom of a forced grave.
 * That blood which ow'd the breadth of all this isle
 * Three foot of it doth hold:—bad world the while!
 * This must not be thus borne: this will break out
 * To all our sorrows, and ere long, I doubt.

[Exeunt LORDS.]

KING JOHN.
 * They burn in indignation. I repent:
 * There is no sure foundation set on blood;
 * No certain life achiev'd by others' death.—

[Enter a MESSENGER.]


 * A fearful eye thou hast: where is that blood
 * That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?
 * So foul a sky clears not without a storm:
 * Pour down thy weather:—how goes all in France?

MESSENGER.
 * From France to England.—Never such a power
 * For any foreign preparation
 * Was levied in the body of a land.
 * The copy of your speed is learn'd by them;
 * For when you should be told they do prepare,
 * The tidings comes that they are all arriv'd.

KING JOHN.
 * O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?
 * Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care,
 * That such an army could be drawn in France,
 * And she not hear of it?

MESSENGER.
 * My liege, her ear
 * Is stopp'd with dust; the first of April died
 * Your noble mother; and as I hear, my lord,
 * The Lady Constance in a frenzy died
 * Three days before; but this from rumour's tongue
 * I idly heard,—if true or false I know not.

KING JOHN.
 * Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion!
 * O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd
 * My discontented peers!—What! mother dead!
 * How wildly, then, walks my estate in France!—
 * Under whose conduct came those powers of France
 * That thou for truth giv'st out are landed here?

MESSENGER.
 * Under the Dauphin.

KING JOHN.
 * Thou hast made me giddy
 * With these in tidings.

[Enter the BASTARD and PETER OF POMFRET.]


 * Now! What says the world
 * To your proceedings? do not seek to stuff
 * My head with more ill news, for it is full.

BASTARD.
 * But if you be afear'd to hear the worst,
 * Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.

KING JOHN.
 * Bear with me, cousin, for I was amaz'd
 * Under the tide: but now I breathe again
 * Aloft the flood; and can give audience
 * To any tongue, speak it of what it will.

BASTARD.
 * How I have sped among the clergymen,
 * The sums I have collected shall express.
 * But as I travell'd hither through the land,
 * I find the people strangely fantasied;
 * Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams.
 * Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear;
 * And here's a prophet that I brought with me
 * From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found
 * With many hundreds treading on his heels;
 * To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,
 * That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon,
 * Your highness should deliver up your crown.

KING JOHN.
 * Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?

PETER.
 * Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.

KING JOHN.
 * Hubert, away with him; imprison him;
 * And on that day at noon, whereon he says
 * I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd.
 * Deliver him to safety; and return,
 * For I must use thee.

[Exit HUBERT with PETER.]


 * O my gentle cousin,
 * Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd?

BASTARD.
 * The French, my lord; men's mouths are full of it;
 * Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury,—
 * With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,
 * And others more, going to seek the grave
 * Of Arthur, whom they say is kill'd to-night
 * On your suggestion.

KING JOHN.
 * Gentle kinsman, go
 * And thrust thyself into their companies:
 * I have a way to will their loves again:
 * Bring them before me.

BASTARD.
 * I will seek them out.

KING JOHN.
 * Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.
 * O, let me have no subject enemies
 * When adverse foreigners affright my towns
 * With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!
 * Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels,
 * And fly like thought from them to me again.

BASTARD.
 * The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.

KING JOHN.
 * Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman!

[Exit BASTARD.]


 * Go after him; for he perhaps shall need
 * Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;
 * And be thou he.

MESSENGER.
 * With all my heart, my liege.

[Exit.]

KING JOHN.
 * My mother dead!

[Re-enter HUBERT.]

HUBERT.
 * My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night;
 * Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about
 * The other four in wondrous motion.

KING JOHN.
 * Five moons!

HUBERT.
 * Old men and beldams in the streets
 * Do prophesy upon it dangerously:
 * Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths:
 * And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
 * And whisper one another in the ear;
 * And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist;
 * Whilst he that hears makes fearful action
 * With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
 * I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
 * The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
 * With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
 * Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
 * Standing on slippers,—which his nimble haste
 * Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,—
 * Told of a many thousand warlike French
 * That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent.
 * Another lean unwash'd artificer
 * Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.

KING JOHN.
 * Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?
 * Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?
 * Thy hand hath murder'd him: I had a mighty cause
 * To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.

HUBERT.
 * No had, my lord! why, did you not provoke me?

KING JOHN.
 * It is the curse of kings to be attended
 * By slaves that take their humours for a warrant
 * To break within the bloody house of life;
 * And, on the winking of authority,
 * To understand a law; to know the meaning
 * Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns
 * More upon humour than advis'd respect.

HUBERT.
 * Here is your hand and seal for what I did.

KING JOHN.
 * O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earth
 * Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal
 * Witness against us to damnation!
 * How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
 * Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,
 * A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,
 * Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame,
 * This murder had not come into my mind:
 * But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect,
 * Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,
 * Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger,
 * I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;
 * And thou, to be endeared to a king,
 * Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.

HUBERT.
 * My lord,—

KING JOHN.
 * Hadst thou but shook thy head or made pause,
 * When I spake darkly what I purpos'd,
 * Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,
 * As bid me tell my tale in express words,
 * Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,
 * And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me:
 * But thou didst understand me by my signs,
 * And didst in signs again parley with sin;
 * Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,
 * And consequently thy rude hand to act
 * The deed which both our tongues held vile to name.—
 * Out of my sight, and never see me more!
 * My nobles leave me; and my state is brav'd,
 * Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers;
 * Nay, in the body of the fleshly land,
 * This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,
 * Hostility and civil tumult reigns
 * Between my conscience and my cousin's death.

HUBERT.
 * Arm you against your other enemies,
 * I'll make a peace between your soul and you.
 * Young Arthur is alive: this hand of mine
 * Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
 * Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.
 * Within this bosom never enter'd yet
 * The dreadful motion of a murderous thought;
 * And you have slander'd nature in my form,—
 * Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,
 * Is yet the cover of a fairer mind
 * Than to be butcher of an innocent child.

KING JOHN.
 * Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers,
 * Throw this report on their incensed rage,
 * And make them tame to their obedience!
 * Forgive the comment that my passion made
 * Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind,
 * And foul imaginary eyes of blood
 * Presented thee more hideous than thou art.
 * O, answer not; but to my closet bring
 * The angry lords with all expedient haste:
 * I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 3. The same. Before the castle.
[Enter ARTHUR, on the Walls.]

ARTHUR.
 * The wall is high, and yet will I leap down:—
 * Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not!—
 * There's few or none do know me: if they did,
 * This ship-boy's semblance hath disguis'd me quite.
 * I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.
 * If I get down, and do not break my limbs,
 * I'll find a thousand shifts to get away:
 * As good to die and go, as die and stay.

[Leaps down.]


 * O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones:—
 * Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!

[Dies.]

[Enter PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and BIGOT.]

SALISBURY.
 * Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmunds-Bury;
 * It is our safety, and we must embrace
 * This gentle offer of the perilous time.

PEMBROKE.
 * Who brought that letter from the cardinal?

SALISBURY.
 * The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,
 * Whose private with me of the Dauphin's love
 * Is much more general than these lines import.

BIGOT.
 * To-morrow morning let us meet him then.

SALISBURY.
 * Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be
 * Two long days' journey, lords, or e'er we meet.

[Enter the BASTARD.]

BASTARD.
 * Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords!
 * The king by me requests your presence straight.

SALISBURY.
 * The King hath dispossess'd himself of us.
 * We will not line his thin bestained cloak
 * With our pure honours, nor attend the foot
 * That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.
 * Return and tell him so: we know the worst.

BASTARD.
 * Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.

SALISBURY.
 * Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.

BASTARD.
 * But there is little reason in your grief;
 * Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now.

PEMBROKE.
 * Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.

BASTARD.
 * 'Tis true,—to hurt his master, no man else.

SALISBURY.
 * This is the prison:—what is he lies here?

[Seeing Arthur.]

PEMBROKE.
 * O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
 * The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.

SALISBURY.
 * Murder, as hating what himself hath done,
 * Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.

BIGOT.
 * Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,
 * Found it too precious-princely for a grave.

SALISBURY.
 * Sir Richard, what think you? Have you beheld,
 * Or have you read or heard, or could you think?
 * Or do you almost think, although you see,
 * That you do see? could thought, without this object,
 * Form such another? This is the very top,
 * The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,
 * Of murder's arms: this is the bloodiest shame,
 * The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,
 * That ever wall-ey'd wrath or staring rage
 * Presented to the tears of soft remorse.

PEMBROKE.
 * All murders past do stand excus'd in this;
 * And this, so sole and so unmatchable,
 * Shall give a holiness, a purity,
 * To the yet unbegotten sin of times;
 * And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,
 * Exampled by this heinous spectacle.

BASTARD.
 * It is a damned and a bloody work;
 * The graceless action of a heavy hand,—
 * If that it be the work of any hand.

SALISBURY.
 * If that it be the work of any hand?—
 * We had a kind of light what would ensue.
 * It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand;
 * The practice and the purpose of the king:—
 * From whose obedience I forbid my soul,
 * Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,
 * And breathing to his breathless excellence
 * The incense of a vow, a holy vow,
 * Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
 * Never to be infected with delight,
 * Nor conversant with ease and idleness,
 * Till I have set a glory to this hand,
 * By giving it the worship of revenge.

PEMBROKE. and BIGOT.
 * Our souls religiously confirm thy words.

[Enter HUBERT.]

HUBERT.
 * Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you:
 * Arthur doth live; the king hath sent for you.

SALISBURY.
 * O, he is bold, and blushes not at death:—
 * Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!

HUBERT.
 * I am no villain.

SALISBURY.
 * Must I rob the law?

[Drawing his sword.]

BASTARD.
 * Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.

SALISBURY.
 * Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin.

HUBERT.
 * Stand back, Lord Salisbury,—stand back, I say;
 * By heaven, I think my sword's as sharp as yours:
 * I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,
 * Nor tempt the danger of my true defence;
 * Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget
 * Your worth, your greatness, and nobility.

BIGOT.
 * Out, dunghill! dar'st thou brave a nobleman?

HUBERT.
 * Not for my life: but yet I dare defend
 * My innocent life against an emperor.

SALISBURY.
 * Thou art a murderer.

HUBERT.
 * Do not prove me so;
 * Yet I am none: whose tongue soe'er speaks false,
 * Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.

PEMBROKE.
 * Cut him to pieces.

BASTARD.
 * Keep the peace, I say.

SALISBURY.
 * Stand by, or I shall gall you, Falconbridge.

BASTARD.
 * Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury:
 * If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,
 * Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,
 * I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime:
 * Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron
 * That you shall think the devil is come from hell.

BIGOT.
 * What wilt thou do, renowned Falconbridge?
 * Second a villain and a murderer?

HUBERT.
 * Lord Bigot, I am none.

BIGOT.
 * Who kill'd this prince?

HUBERT.
 * 'Tis not an hour since I left him well:
 * I honour'd him, I lov'd him, and will weep
 * My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.

SALISBURY.
 * Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,
 * For villainy is not without such rheum;
 * And he, long traded in it, makes it seem
 * Like rivers of remorse and innocency.
 * Away with me, all you whose souls abhor
 * Th' uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house;
 * For I am stifled with this smell of sin.

BIGOT.
 * Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!

PEMBROKE.
 * There tell the king he may inquire us out.

[Exeunt LORDS.]

BASTARD.
 * Here's a good world!—Knew you of this fair work?
 * Beyond the infinite and boundless reach
 * Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,
 * Art thou damn'd, Hubert.

HUBERT.
 * Do but hear me, sir.

BASTARD.
 * Ha! I'll tell thee what;
 * Thou'rt damn'd as black—nay, nothing is so black;
 * Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer:
 * There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell
 * As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.

HUBERT.
 * Upon my soul,—

BASTARD.
 * If thou didst but consent
 * To this most cruel act, do but despair;
 * And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread
 * That ever spider twisted from her womb
 * Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam
 * To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,
 * Put but a little water in a spoon
 * And it shall be as all the ocean,
 * Enough to stifle such a villain up.
 * I do suspect thee very grievously.

HUBERT.
 * If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,
 * Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath
 * Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,
 * Let hell want pains enough to torture me!
 * I left him well.

BASTARD.
 * Go, bear him in thine arms.—
 * I am amaz'd, methinks, and lose my way
 * Among the thorns and dangers of this world.—
 * How easy dost thou take all England up!
 * From forth this morsel of dead royalty,
 * The life, the right, and truth of all this realm
 * Is fled to heaven; and England now is left
 * To tug and scamble, and to part by the teeth
 * The unow'd interest of proud-swelling state.
 * Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty
 * Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest,
 * And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace:
 * Now powers from home and discontents at home
 * Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,
 * As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast,
 * The imminent decay of wrested pomp.
 * Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can
 * Hold out this tempest.—Bear away that child,
 * And follow me with speed: I'll to the king;
 * A thousand businesses are brief in hand,
 * And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 1. Northampton. A Room in the Palace.
[Enter KING JOHN, PANDULPH with the crown, and Attendants.]

KING JOHN.
 * Thus have I yielded up into your hand
 * The circle of my glory.

PANDULPH. [Give KING JOHN the crown.]
 * Take again
 * From this my hand, as holding of the pope,
 * Your sovereign greatness and authority.

KING JOHN.
 * Now keep your holy word: go meet the French;
 * And from his holiness use all your power
 * To stop their marches 'fore we are inflam'd.
 * Our discontented counties do revolt;
 * Our people quarrel with obedience;
 * Swearing allegiance and the love of soul
 * To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.
 * This inundation of mistemper'd humour
 * Rests by you only to be qualified.
 * Then pause not; for the present time's so sick
 * That present medicine must be ministr'd
 * Or overthrow incurable ensues.

PANDULPH.
 * It was my breath that blew this tempest up,
 * Upon your stubborn usage of the pope:
 * But since you are a gentle convertite,
 * My tongue shall hush again this storm of war
 * And make fair weather in your blustering land.
 * On this Ascension-day, remember well,
 * Upon your oath of service to the pope,
 * Go I to make the French lay down their arms.

[Exit.]

KING JOHN.
 * Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet
 * Say that before Ascension-day at noon
 * My crown I should give off? Even so I have:
 * I did suppose it should be on constraint;
 * But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.

[Enter the BASTARD.]

BASTARD.
 * All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out
 * But Dover Castle: London hath receiv'd,
 * Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers:
 * Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone
 * To offer service to your enemy;
 * And wild amazement hurries up and down
 * The little number of your doubtful friends.

KING JOHN.
 * Would not my lords return to me again
 * After they heard young Arthur was alive?

BASTARD.
 * They found him dead, and cast into the streets;
 * An empty casket, where the jewel of life
 * By some damn'd hand was robb'd and ta'en away.

KING JOHN.
 * That villain Hubert told me he did live.

BASTARD.
 * So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.
 * But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
 * Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
 * Let not the world see fear and sad distrust
 * Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
 * Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
 * Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow
 * Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
 * That borrow their behaviours from the great,
 * Grow great by your example, and put on
 * The dauntless spirit of resolution.
 * Away, and glister like the god of war
 * When he intendeth to become the field:
 * Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
 * What, shall they seek the lion in his den,
 * And fright him there? and make him tremble there?
 * O, let it not be said!—Forage, and run
 * To meet displeasure farther from the doors,
 * And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.

KING JOHN.
 * The legate of the pope hath been with me,
 * And I have made a happy peace with him;
 * And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers
 * Led by the Dauphin.

BASTARD.
 * O inglorious league!
 * Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
 * Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,
 * Insinuation, parley, and base truce,
 * To arms invasive? shall a beardless boy,
 * A cocker'd silken wanton, brave our fields,
 * And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
 * Mocking the air with colours idly spread,
 * And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms;
 * Perchance the cardinal cannot make your peace;
 * Or, if he do, let it at least be said
 * They saw we had a purpose of defence.

KING JOHN.
 * Have thou the ordering of this present time.

BASTARD.
 * Away, then, with good courage! yet, I know
 * Our party may well meet a prouder foe.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 2. Near Saint Edmunds-bury. The French Camp.
[Enter, in arms, LOUIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and soldiers.]

LOUIS.
 * My Lord Melun, let this be copied out
 * And keep it safe for our remembrance:
 * Return the precedent to these lords again;
 * That, having our fair order written down,
 * Both they and we, perusing o'er these notes,
 * May know wherefore we took the sacrament,
 * And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.

SALISBURY.
 * Upon our sides it never shall be broken.
 * And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear
 * A voluntary zeal and an unurg'd faith
 * To your proceedings; yet, believe me, prince,
 * I am not glad that such a sore of time
 * Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,
 * And heal the inveterate canker of one wound
 * By making many. O, it grieves my soul
 * That I must draw this metal from my side
 * To be a widow-maker! O, and there
 * Where honourable rescue and defence
 * Cries out upon the name of Salisbury!
 * But such is the infection of the time,
 * That, for the health and physic of our right,
 * We cannot deal but with the very hand
 * Of stern injustice and confused wrong.—
 * And is't not pity, O my grieved friends!
 * That we, the sons and children of this isle,
 * Were born to see so sad an hour as this;
 * Wherein we step after a stranger-march
 * Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up
 * Her enemies' ranks—I must withdraw and weep
 * Upon the spot of this enforc'd cause—
 * To grace the gentry of a land remote,
 * And follow unacquainted colours here?
 * What, here?—O nation, that thou couldst remove!
 * That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,
 * Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself,
 * And grapple thee unto a pagan shore,
 * Where these two Christian armies might combine
 * The blood of malice in a vein of league,
 * And not to spend it so unneighbourly!

LOUIS.
 * A noble temper dost thou show in this;
 * And great affections wrestling in thy bosom
 * Doth make an earthquake of nobility.
 * O, what a noble combat hast thou fought
 * Between compulsion and a brave respect!
 * Let me wipe off this honourable dew
 * That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks:
 * My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,
 * Being an ordinary inundation;
 * But this effusion of such manly drops,
 * This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul,
 * Startles mine eyes and makes me more amaz'd
 * Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven
 * Figur'd quite o'er with burning meteors.
 * Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,
 * And with a great heart heave away this storm:
 * Commend these waters to those baby eyes
 * That never saw the giant world enrag'd,
 * Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,
 * Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossiping.
 * Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep
 * Into the purse of rich prosperity
 * As Louis himself:—so, nobles, shall you all,
 * That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.—
 * And even there, methinks, an angel spake:
 * Look, where the holy legate comes apace,
 * To give us warrant from the hand of heaven
 * And on our actions set the name of right
 * With holy breath.

[Enter PANDULPH, attended.]

PANDULPH.
 * Hail, noble prince of France!
 * The next is this,—King John hath reconcil'd
 * Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,
 * That so stood out against the holy church,
 * The great metropolis and see of Rome:
 * Therefore thy threatening colours now wind up,
 * And tame the savage spirit of wild war,
 * That, like a lion foster'd up at hand,
 * It may lie gently at the foot of peace
 * And be no further harmful than in show.

LOUIS.
 * Your grace shall pardon me, I will not back:
 * I am too high-born to be propertied,
 * To be a secondary at control,
 * Or useful serving-man and instrument
 * To any sovereign state throughout the world.
 * Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars
 * Between this chastis'd kingdom and myself,
 * And brought in matter that should feed this fire;
 * And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out
 * With that same weak wind which enkindled it.
 * You taught me how to know the face of right,
 * Acquainted me with interest to this land,
 * Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;
 * And come ye now to tell me John hath made
 * His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?
 * I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,
 * After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;
 * And, now it is half-conquer'd, must I back
 * Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?
 * Am I Rome's slave? What penny hath Rome borne,
 * What men provided, what munition sent,
 * To underprop this action? Is't not I
 * That undergo this charge? Who else but I,
 * And such as to my claim are liable,
 * Sweat in this business and maintain this war?
 * Have I not heard these islanders shout out,
 * 'Vive le roi!' as I have bank'd their towns?
 * Have I not here the best cards for the game,
 * To will this easy match, play'd for a crown?
 * And shall I now give o'er the yielded set?
 * No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.

PANDULPH.
 * You look but on the outside of this work.

LOUIS.
 * Outside or inside, I will not return
 * Till my attempt so much be glorified
 * As to my ample hope was promised
 * Before I drew this gallant head of war,
 * And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world,
 * To outlook conquest, and to will renown
 * Even in the jaws of danger and of death.—

[Trumpet sounds.]


 * What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?

[Enter the BASTARD, attended.]

BASTARD.
 * According to the fair play of the world,
 * Let me have audience; I am sent to speak:—
 * My holy lord of Milan, from the king
 * I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;
 * And, as you answer, I do know the scope
 * And warrant limited unto my tongue.

PANDULPH.
 * The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,
 * And will not temporize with my entreaties;
 * He flatly says he'll not lay down his arms.

BASTARD.
 * By all the blood that ever fury breath'd,
 * The youth says well.—Now hear our English king;
 * For thus his royalty doth speak in me.
 * He is prepar'd; and reason too he should:
 * This apish and unmannerly approach,
 * This harness'd masque and unadvised revel
 * This unhair'd sauciness and boyish troops,
 * The king doth smile at; and is well prepar'd
 * To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms,
 * From out the circle of his territories.
 * That hand which had the strength, even at your door,
 * To cudgel you, and make you take the hatch;
 * To dive, like buckets, in concealed wells;
 * To crouch in litter of your stable planks;
 * To lie, like pawns, lock'd up in chests and trunks;
 * To hug with swine; to seek sweet safety out
 * In vaults and prisons; and to thrill and shake
 * Even at the crying of your nation's crow,
 * Thinking this voice an armed Englishman;—
 * Shall that victorious hand be feebled here
 * That in your chambers gave you chastisement?
 * No: know the gallant monarch is in arms
 * And like an eagle o'er his aery towers
 * To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.—
 * And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,
 * You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb
 * Of your dear mother England, blush for shame;
 * For your own ladies and pale-visag'd maids,
 * Like Amazons, come tripping after drums,—
 * Their thimbles into armed gauntlets chang'd,
 * Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts
 * To fierce and bloody inclination.

LOUIS.
 * There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;
 * We grant thou canst outscold us: fare thee well;
 * We hold our time too precious to be spent
 * With such a brabbler.

PANDULPH.
 * Give me leave to speak.

BASTARD.
 * No, I will speak.

LOUIS.
 * We will attend to neither.—
 * Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war,
 * Plead for our interest and our being here.

BASTARD.
 * Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out;
 * And so shall you, being beaten: do but start
 * And echo with the clamour of thy drum,
 * And even at hand a drum is ready brac'd
 * That shall reverberate all as loud as thine:
 * Sound but another, and another shall,
 * As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear,
 * And mock the deep-mouth'd thunder: for at hand,—
 * Not trusting to this halting legate here,
 * Whom he hath us'd rather for sport than need,—
 * Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits
 * A bare-ribb'd death, whose office is this day
 * To feast upon whole thousands of the French.

LOUIS.
 * Strike up our drums, to find this danger out.

BASTARD.
 * And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 3. The same. The Field of Battle.
[Alarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT.]

KING JOHN.
 * How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert.

HUBERT.
 * Badly, I fear. How fares your majesty?

KING JOHN.
 * This fever that hath troubled me so long
 * Lies heavy on me;—O, my heart is sick!

[Enter a MESSENGER.]

MESSENGER.
 * My lord, your valiant kinsman, Falconbridge,
 * Desires your majesty to leave the field
 * And send him word by me which way you go.

KING JOHN.
 * Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there.

MESSENGER.
 * Be of good comfort; for the great supply
 * That was expected by the Dauphin here
 * Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin Sands.
 * This news was brought to Richard but even now:
 * The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.

KING JOHN.
 * Ay me! this tyrant fever burns me up
 * And will not let me welcome this good news.—
 * Set on toward Swinstead: to my litter straight;
 * Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 4. The same. Another part of the same.
[Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, and others.]

SALISBURY.
 * I did not think the king so stor'd with friends.

PEMBROKE.
 * Up once again; put spirit in the French;
 * If they miscarry, we miscarry too.

SALISBURY.
 * That misbegotten devil, Falconbridge,
 * In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.

PEMBROKE.
 * They say King John, sore sick, hath left the field.

[Enter MELUN wounded, and led by Soldiers.]

MELUN.
 * Lead me to the revolts of England here.

SALISBURY.
 * When we were happy we had other names.

PEMBROKE.
 * It is the Count Melun.

SALISBURY.
 * Wounded to death.

MELUN.
 * Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold;
 * Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,
 * And welcome home again discarded faith.
 * Seek out King John, and fall before his feet;
 * For if the French be lords of this loud day,
 * He means to recompense the pains you take
 * By cutting off your heads: thus hath he sworn,
 * And I with him, and many more with me,
 * Upon the altar at Saint Edmunds-bury;
 * Even on that altar where we swore to you
 * Dear amity and everlasting love.

SALISBURY.
 * May this be possible? may this be true?

MELUN.
 * Have I not hideous death within my view,
 * Retaining but a quantity of life,
 * Which bleeds away even as a form of wax
 * Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?
 * What in the world should make me now deceive,
 * Since I must lose the use of all deceit?
 * Why should I then be false, since it is true
 * That I must die here, and live hence by truth?
 * I say again, if Louis do will the day,
 * He is forsworn if e'er those eyes of yours
 * Behold another day break in the east:
 * But even this night,—whose black contagious breath
 * Already smokes about the burning crest
 * Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun,—
 * Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire;
 * Paying the fine of rated treachery
 * Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives,
 * If Louis by your assistance win the day.
 * Commend me to one Hubert, with your king;
 * The love of him,—and this respect besides,
 * For that my grandsire was an Englishman,—
 * Awakes my conscience to confess all this.
 * In lieu whereof, I pray you, bear me hence
 * From forth the noise and rumour of the field,
 * Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts
 * In peace, and part this body and my soul
 * With contemplation and devout desires.

SALISBURY.
 * We do believe thee:—and beshrew my soul
 * But I do love the favour and the form
 * Of this most fair occasion, by the which
 * We will untread the steps of damned flight;
 * And like a bated and retired flood,
 * Leaving our rankness and irregular course,
 * Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd,
 * And calmly run on in obedience
 * Even to our ocean, to our great King John.—
 * My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence;
 * For I do see the cruel pangs of death
 * Right in thine eye.—Away, my friends! New flight,
 * And happy newness, that intends old right.

[Exeunt, leading off MELUN.]

SCENE 5. The same. The French camp.
[Enter LEWIS and his train.]

LOUIS.
 * The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set,
 * But stay'd, and made the western welkin blush,
 * When the English measur'd backward their own ground
 * In faint retire. O, bravely came we off,
 * When with a volley of our needless shot,
 * After such bloody toil, we bid good night;
 * And wound our tattrring colours clearly up,
 * Last in the field, and almost lords of it!

[Enter a MESSENGER.]

MESSENGER.
 * Where is my prince, the Dauphin?

LOUIS.
 * Here:—what news?

MESSENGER.
 * The Count Melun is slain; the English lords
 * By his persuasion are again falln off:
 * And your supply, which you have wish'd so long,
 * Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.

LOUIS.
 * Ah, foul shrewd news!—beshrew thy very heart!—
 * I did not think to be so sad to-night
 * As this hath made me.—Who was he that said
 * King John did fly an hour or two before
 * The stumbling night did part our weary powers?

MESSENGER.
 * Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.

LOUIS.
 * Keep good quarter and good care to-night;
 * The day shall not be up so soon as I,
 * To try the fair adventure of to-morrow.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 6. An open place in the neighborhood of Swinstead Abbey.
[Enter the BASTARD and HUBERT, meeting.]

HUBERT.
 * Who's there? speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot.

BASTARD.
 * A friend.—What art thou?

HUBERT.
 * Of the part of England.

BASTARD.
 * Whither dost thou go?

HUBERT.
 * What's that to thee? Why may I not demand
 * Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine?

BASTARD.
 * Hubert, I think.

HUBERT.
 * Thou hast a perfect thought:
 * I will, upon all hazards, well believe
 * Thou art my friend that know'st my tongue so well.
 * Who art thou?

BASTARD.
 * Who thou wilt: and if thou please,
 * Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think
 * I come one way of the Plantagenets.

HUBERT.
 * Unkind remembrance! thou and eyeless night
 * Have done me shame:—brave soldier, pardon me,
 * That any accent breaking from thy tongue
 * Should scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.

BASTARD.
 * Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?

HUBERT.
 * Why, here walk I, in the black brow of night,
 * To find you out.

BASTARD.
 * Brief, then; and what's the news?

HUBERT.
 * O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,
 * Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.

BASTARD.
 * Show me the very wound of this ill news;
 * I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.

HUBERT.
 * The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk:
 * I left him almost speechless and broke out
 * To acquaint you with this evil, that you might
 * The better arm you to the sudden time,
 * Than if you had at leisure known of this.

BASTARD.
 * How did he take it; who did taste to him?

HUBERT.
 * A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain,
 * Whose bowels suddenly burst out: the king
 * Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.

BASTARD.
 * Who didst thou leave to tend his majesty?

HUBERT.
 * Why, know you not? The lords are all come back,
 * And brought Prince Henry in their company;
 * At whose request the king hath pardon'd them,
 * And they are all about his majesty.

BASTARD.
 * Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven,
 * And tempt us not to bear above our power!—
 * I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,
 * Passing these flats, are taken by the tide,—
 * These Lincoln washes have devoured them;
 * Myself, well-mounted, hardly have escap'd.
 * Away, before! conduct me to the king;
 * I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 7. The orchard of Swinstead Abbey.
[Enter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT.]

PRINCE HENRY.
 * It is too late: the life of all his blood
 * Is touch'd corruptibly, and his pure brain,—
 * Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house,—
 * Doth, by the idle comments that it makes,
 * Foretell the ending of mortality.

[Enter PEMBROKE.]

PEMBROKE.
 * His Highness yet doth speak; and holds belief
 * That, being brought into the open air,
 * It would allay the burning quality
 * Of that fell poison which assaileth him.

PRINCE HENRY.
 * Let him be brought into the orchard here.—
 * Doth he still rage?

[Exit BIGOT.]

PEMBROKE.
 * He is more patient
 * Than when you left him; even now he sung.

PRINCE HENRY.
 * O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes
 * In their continuance will not feel themselves.
 * Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,
 * Leaves them invisible; and his siege is now
 * Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds
 * With many legions of strange fantasies,
 * Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,
 * Confound themselves. 'Tis strange that death should sing.—
 * I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
 * Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death;
 * And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
 * His soul and body to their lasting rest.

SALISBURY.
 * Be of good comfort, prince; for you are born
 * To set a form upon that indigest
 * Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.

[Re-enter BIGOT and Attendants, who bring in KING JOHN in a chair.]

KING JOHN.
 * Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room;
 * It would not out at windows nor at doors.
 * There is so hot a summer in my bosom
 * That all my bowels crumble up to dust;
 * I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen,
 * Upon a parchment; and against this fire
 * Do I shrink up.

PRINCE HENRY.
 * How fares your majesty?

KING JOHN.
 * Poison'd,—ill-fare;—dead, forsook, cast off;
 * And none of you will bid the winter come,
 * To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;
 * Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
 * Through my burn'd bosom; nor entreat the north
 * To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips,
 * And comfort me with cold:—I do not ask you much;
 * I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,
 * And so ingrateful, you deny me that.

PRINCE HENRY.
 * O, that there were some virtue in my tears,
 * That might relieve you!

KING JOHN.
 * The salt in them is hot.—
 * Within me is a hell; and there the poison
 * Is, as a fiend, confin'd to tyrannize
 * On unreprievable condemned blood.

[Enter the BASTARD.]

BASTARD.
 * O, I am scalded with my violent motion
 * And spleen of speed to see your majesty!

KING JOHN.
 * O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye:
 * The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd;
 * And all the shrouds, wherewith my life should sail,
 * Are turned to one thread, one little hair:
 * My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
 * Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
 * And then all this thou seest is but a clod,
 * And module of confounded royalty.

BASTARD.
 * The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,
 * Where heaven he knows how we shall answer him;
 * For in a night the best part of my power,
 * As I upon advantage did remove,
 * Were in the washes all unwarily
 * Devoured by the unexpected flood.

[The KING dies.]

SALISBURY.
 * You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.
 * My liege! my lord!—But now a king,—now thus.

PRINCE HENRY.
 * Even so must I run on, and even so stop.
 * What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
 * When this was now a king, and now is clay?

BASTARD.
 * Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind
 * To do the office for thee of revenge,
 * And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,
 * As it on earth hath been thy servant still.—
 * Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,
 * Where be your powers? Show now your mended faiths;
 * And instantly return with me again,
 * To push destruction and perpetual shame
 * Out of the weak door of our fainting land.
 * Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought;
 * The Dauphin rages at our very heels.

SALISBURY.
 * It seems you know not, then, so much as we:
 * The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
 * Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,
 * And brings from him such offers of our peace
 * As we with honour and respect may take,
 * With purpose presently to leave this war.

BASTARD.
 * He will the rather do it when he sees
 * Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.

SALISBURY.
 * Nay, 'tis in a manner done already;
 * For many carriages he hath despatch'd
 * To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel
 * To the disposing of the cardinal:
 * With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,
 * If you think meet, this afternoon will post
 * To consummate this business happily.

BASTARD.
 * Let it be so:—And you, my noble prince,
 * With other princes that may best be spar'd,
 * Shall wait upon your father's funeral.

PRINCE HENRY.
 * At Worcester must his body be interr'd;
 * For so he will'd it.

BASTARD.
 * Thither shall it, then:
 * And happily may your sweet self put on
 * The lineal state and glory of the land!
 * To whom, with all submission, on my knee,
 * I do bequeath my faithful services
 * And true subjection everlastingly.

SALISBURY.
 * And the like tender of our love we make,
 * To rest without a spot for evermore.

PRINCE HENRY.
 * I have a kind soul that would give you thanks,
 * And knows not how to do it but with tears.

BASTARD.
 * O, let us pay the time but needful woe,
 * Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.—
 * This England never did, nor never shall,
 * Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
 * But when it first did help to wound itself.
 * Now these her princes are come home again,
 * Come the three corners of the world in arms,
 * And we shall shock them: nought shall make us rue,
 * If England to itself do rest but true.

[Exeunt.]