ACT III
ACT III, SCENE I. The French King's pavilion.
[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 Lewis have Blanch, and Blanch those provinces?
- It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard:
- Be well advised, 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.
- Lewis 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, changed 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 stoop.
- 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 PHILLIP, LEWIS, BLANCH,
QUEEN ELINOR, the 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 splendor 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:
- A wicked day, and not a holy day!
-
[Rising]
- What hath this day deserved? 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 burthens 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 beguiled 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 perjured 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 perjured 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 villany!
- 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 perjured too,
- And soothest 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 fores?
- 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 darest not say so, villain, for thy life.
BASTARD:
- And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.
KING PHILIP:
- Here comes the holy legate of the pope.
CARDINAL 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 earthy 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.
CARDINAL PANDULPH:
- Then, by the lawful power that I have,
- Thou shalt stand cursed 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 worshipped 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.
CARDINAL 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?
CARDINAL 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.
QUEEN 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?
LEWIS:
- Bethink you, father; for the difference
- Is purchase of a heavy curse from Rome,
- Or the light loss of England for a friend:
- Forego the easier.
BLANCH:
- That's the curse of Rome.
CONSTANCE:
- O Lewis, stand fast! the devil tempts thee here
- In likeness of a new untrimmed 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 moved, and answers not to this.
CONSTANCE:
- O, be removed 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.
CARDINAL PANDULPH:
- What canst thou say but will perplex thee more,
- If thou stand excommunicate and cursed?
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 linked 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 over-stain'd
- With slaughter's pencil, where revenge did paint
- The fearful difference of incensed kings:
- And shall these hands, so lately purged 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 blest
- To do your pleasure and continue friends.
CARDINAL 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.
CARDINAL PANDULPH:
- So makest thou faith an enemy to faith;
- And like a civil war set'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 sworest 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 makest 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 later 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 light on thee
- So heavy as thou shalt not shake them off,
- But in despair die under their black weight.
AUSTRIA:
- Rebellion, flat rebellion!
BASTARD:
- Will't not be?
- Will not a calfs-skin stop that mouth of thine?
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, Lewis, thine honour!
LEWIS:
- I muse your majesty doth seem so cold,
- When such profound respects do pull you on.
CARDINAL 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!
QUEEN 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 swirl 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 fortunes thrive:
- Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose
- Assured loss before the match be play'd.
LEWIS:
- 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-valued blood, of France.
KING PHILIP:
- Thy rage sham 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]
ACT III, SCENE II. The same. Plains near Angiers.
[Alarums, excursions. Enter the BASTARD, with AUSTRIA'S head]
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 rescued 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]
ACT III, SCENE III. The same.
[Alarums, excursions, retreat. Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR,
ARTHUR, the BASTARD, HUBERT, and Lords]
KING JOHN:
-
[To QUEEN 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:
-
[To the BASTARD]
- Cousin, away for England!
- haste before:
- And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags
- Of hoarding abbots; imprisoned 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 the BASTARD]
QUEEN ELINOR:
- Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.
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 ashamed
- 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 from 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 baked 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 lovest 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 whereso'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.
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]
ACT III, SCENE IV. The same. KING PHILIP'S tent.
[Enter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, CARDINAL PANDULPH, and Attendants]
KING PHILIP:
- So, by a roaring tempest on the flood,
- A whole armado of convicted sail
- Is scatter'd and disjoin'd from fellowship.
CARDINAL 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?
LEWIS:
- What he hath won, that hath he fortified:
- So hot a speed with such advice disposed,
- 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.
-
[Enter CONSTANCE]
- Look, who comes here! a grave unto a soul;
- Holding the eternal spirit against her will,
- In the vile prison of afflicted breath.
- I prithee, lady, go away with me.
CONSTANCE:
- Lo, now I 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 odouriferous 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 smilest
- 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.
CARDINAL 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 canonized, 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 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.
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.
CARDINAL 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,
- When there is such disorder in my wit.
- O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
- My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
- My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!
-
[Exit]
KING PHILIP:
- I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her.
-
[Exit]
LEWIS:
- 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.
CARDINAL 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?
LEWIS:
- All days of glory, joy and happiness.
CARDINAL 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 grieved that Arthur is his prisoner?
LEWIS:
- As heartily as he is glad he hath him.
CARDINAL 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 seized Arthur; and it cannot be
- That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,
- The misplaced John should entertain an hour,
- One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest.
- A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand
- Must be as 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.
LEWIS:
- But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall?
CARDINAL PANDULPH:
- You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,
- May then make all the claim that Arthur did.
LEWIS:
- And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.
CARDINAL 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 born shall cool the hearts
- Of all his people and freeze up their zeal,
- That none so small advantage shall step forth
- To cheque 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.
LEWIS:
- May be he will not touch young Arthur's life,
- But hold himself safe in his prisonment.
CARDINAL 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 named! The bastard Faulconbridge
- 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.
LEWIS:
- Strong reasons make strong actions: let us go:
- If you say ay, the king will not say no.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV
ACT IV, SCENE I. A room in a castle.
[Enter HUBERT and Executioners]
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 Executioner:
- I hope your warrant will bear out the deed.
HUBERT:
- Uncleanly scruples! fear not you: look to't.
-
[Exeunt Executioners]
- 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 title
- 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 dispatch.
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:
- Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,
- I knit my handercher 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 pleased 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 believed him,--no tongue but Hubert's.
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 boisterous-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 Executioner:
- I am best pleased to be from such a deed.
-
[Exeunt Executioners]
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 truth, 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 used
- In undeserved extremes: see else yourself;
- There is no malice in this burning coal;
- The breath of heaven has blown his spirit out
- And strew'd repentent 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 am I 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]
ACT IV, SCENE II. KING JOHN'S palace.
[Enter KING JOHN, PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other Lords]
KING JOHN:
- Here once again we sit, once again crown'd,
- And looked upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.
PEMBROKE:
- This 'once again,' but that your highness pleased,
- 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 breathed our counsel: but it pleased your highness
- To overbear it, and we are all well pleased,
- 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, then 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 purpose 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.
-
[Enter HUBERT]
KING JOHN:
- Let it be so: I do commit his youth
- To your direction. Hubert, what news with you?
-
[Taking him apart]
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
- Does 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 deceased 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 the inheritance of this poor child,
- His little kingdom of a forced grave.
- That blood which owed 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 achieved 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 come that they are all arrived.
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 pleased
- 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 givest out are landed here?
Messenger:
- Under the Dauphin.
BASTARD:
- But if you be afeard to hear the worst,
- Then let the worst unheard fall on your bead.
KING JOHN:
- Bear with me cousin, for I was amazed
- 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 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.
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, who 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 win 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.
-
[Exit]
KING JOHN:
- Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.
- 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.
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 advised 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 villany,
- 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.
KING JOHN:
- Hadst thou but shook thy head or made a pause
- When I spake darkly what I purposed,
- 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 braved,
- Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers:
- Nay, in the body of this 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]
ACT IV, SCENE III. Before the castle.
[Enter ARTHUR, on the walls]
SALISBURY:
- Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury:
- 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 ere 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-eyed wrath or staring rage
- Presented to the tears of soft remorse.
PEMBROKE:
- All murders past do stand excused 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 practise 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 old and blushes not at death.
- Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!
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! darest 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, Faulconbridge.
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 Faulconbridge?
- 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 loved 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 villany 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
- The 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.
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 amazed, 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 unowed 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-fall'n 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]
ACT V
ACT V, SCENE I. KING JOHN'S palace.
[Enter KING JOHN, CARDINAL PANDULPH, and Attendants]
KING JOHN:
- Thus have I yielded up into your hand
- The circle of my glory.
-
[Giving the crown]
CARDINAL PANDULPH:
- 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 inflamed.
- 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 minister'd,
- Or overthrow incurable ensues.
CARDINAL 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 received,
- 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 behaviors 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 comes 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 promised 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 cheque? 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]
ACT V, SCENE II. LEWIS's camp at St. Edmundsbury.
[Enter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and Soldiers]
LEWIS:
- 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 unurged 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 enforced 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!
CARDINAL PANDULPH:
- Hail, noble prince of France!
- The next is this, King John hath reconciled
- 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.
LEWIS:
- 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 chastised 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 win 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.
CARDINAL PANDULPH:
- You look but on the outside of this work.
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.
CARDINAL 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 breathed,
- The youth says well. Now hear our English king;
- For thus his royalty doth speak in me.
- He is prepared, 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 prepared
- 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 his 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-visaged maids
- Like Amazons come tripping after drums,
- Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,
- Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts
- To fierce and bloody inclination.
LEWIS:
- 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.
CARDINAL PANDULPH:
- Give me leave to speak.
BASTARD:
- No, I will speak.
LEWIS:
- 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
- An echo with the clamour of thy drum,
- And even at hand a drum is ready braced
- 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 used 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.
LEWIS:
- Strike up our drums, to find this danger out.
BASTARD:
- And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT V, SCENE III. 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, Faulconbridge,
- 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]
ACT V, SCENE IV. Another part of the field.
[Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, and BIGOT]
SALISBURY:
- I did not think the king so stored with friends.
PEMBROKE:
- Up once again; put spirit in the French:
- If they miscarry, we miscarry too.
SALISBURY:
- That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge,
- In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.
PEMBROKE:
- They say King John sore sick hath left the field.
-
[Enter MELUN, wounded]
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 moe with me,
- Upon the altar at Saint Edmundsbury;
- 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 Lewis do win 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 Lewis 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.
ACT V, SCENE V. The French camp.
[Enter LEWIS and his train]
LEWIS:
- The sun of heaven methought was loath to set,
- But stay'd and made the western welkin blush,
- When English measure 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 tattering colours clearly up,
- Last in the field, and almost lords of it!
-
[Enter a Messenger]
Messenger:
- Where is my prince, the Dauphin?
Messenger:
- The Count Melun is slain; the English lords
- By his persuasion are again fall'n off,
- And your supply, which you have wish'd so long,
- Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.
LEWIS:
- 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.
LEWIS:
- Well; 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]
ACT V, SCENE VI. the neighbourhood of Swinstead Abbey.
[Enter the BASTARD and HUBERT, severally]
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 not I 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 tree, 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 escaped.
- Away before: conduct me to the king;
- I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT V, SCENE VII. The orchard in 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,
- Whi ch, 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.
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 confined 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.
-
[KING JOHN 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, it is in a manner done already;
- For many carriages he hath dispatch'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 spared,
- 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]