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- $Unique_ID{SSP00552}
- $Title{King John: Act II, Scene I}
- $Author{Shakespeare, William}
- $Subject{}
- $Log{Dramatis Personae*00550.txt}
-
- Portions copyright (c) CMC ReSearch, Inc., 1989
-
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
-
- KING JOHN
-
-
- ACT II
- ................................................................................
-
-
- SCENE I: France. Before Angiers.
- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-
- {Enter AUSTRIA and forces, drums, etc. on one side:
- on the other KING PHILIP and his power; LEWIS,
- ARTHUR, CONSTANCE and attendants.}
-
- LEWIS: 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 colors, boy, in thy behalf,
- And to rebuke the usurpation
- Of thy unnatural uncle, English John: 10
- 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.
-
- LEWIS: 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, 20
- That to my home I will no more return,
- Till Angiers and the right thou hast in France,
- Together with that pale, that white-faced shore,
- Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides
- And coops from other lands her islanders,
- Even till that England, hedged 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, 30
- 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: 40
- 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 unadvised 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.
-
- {Enter CHATILLON.}
-
- KING PHILIP: A wonder, lady! lo, upon thy wish, 50
- Our messenger Chatillon is arrived!
- 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, 60
- 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 niece, the Lady Blanch of Spain;
- With them a bastard of the king's deceased,
- And all the unsettled humors 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, 70
- To make hazard of new fortunes here:
- In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits
- Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er
- Did nearer float upon the swelling tide,
- To do offence and scath in Christendom.
-
- [Drum beats.]
-
- 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 80
- We must awake endeavor for defence;
- For courage mounteth with occasion:
- Let them be welcome then: we are prepared.
-
- {Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, BLANCH, the BASTARD,
- 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. 90
- England we love; and for that England's sake
- With burden of our armor 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,
- Out-faced 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: 100
- 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'ermasterest?
-
- KING JOHN: From whom hast thou this great commission, France, 110
- 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: Excuse; it is to beat usurping down.
-
- QUEEN ELINOR: Who is it thou dost call usurper, France? 120
-
- CONSTANCE: Let me make answer; thy usurping son.
-
- QUEEN 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: 130
- It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.
-
- QUEEN 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 valor 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. 140
-
- 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 burthen from your back,
- Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.
-
- AUSTRIA: What craker is this same that deafs our ears
- With this abundance of superfluous breath?
-
- KING PHILIP: Lewis, determine what we shall do straight.
-
- LEWIS: Women and fools, break off your conference. 150
- 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.
-
- QUEEN ELINOR: Come to thy grandam, child.
-
- CONSTANCE: Do, child, go to it grandam, child: 160
- 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.
-
- QUEEN ELINOR: His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.
-
- CONSTANCE: Now shame upon you, whether 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; 170
- Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be bribed
- To do him justice and revenge on you.
-
- QUEEN 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 eld'st 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, 180
- 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, plague 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! 190
-
- QUEEN 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. 200
-
- {Trumpet sounds. Enter certain 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, 210
- And ready mounted are they to spit forth
- Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls:
- All preparation for a bloody siege
- All 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 220
- 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 threatened cheeks,
- Behold, the French amazed 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: 230
- Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,
- And let us in, your king, whose labor'd spirits,
- Forwearied in this action of swift speed,
- Crave harborage 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: 240
- For this down-trodden equity, we tread
- In warlike 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 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; 250
- 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 unbruised,
- 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-faced walls
- Can hide you from our messengers of war, 260
- Though all these English and their discipline
- Were harbor'd in their rude circumference.
- Then tell us, shall your city call us lord,
- In that behalf which we have challenged 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.
-
- First Citizen: That can we not; but he that proves the king, 270
- 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. 280
-
- 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 horseback at mine hostess' door,
- Teach us some fence!
-
- [To AUSTRIA.]
-
- Sirrah, were I at home, 290
- 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; and at the other hill
- Command the rest to stand. God and our right!
-
- [Exeunt.]
-
- {Here after excursions, enter the Herald of France,
- with trumpets, to the gates.}
-
- French Herald: You men of Angiers, open wide your gates, 300
- 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 scattered on the bleeding ground;
- Many a widow's husband grovelling lies,
- Coldly embracing the discolor'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 310
- Arthur of Bretagne England's king and yours.
-
- {Enter English Herald, with trumpet.}
-
- 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 armors, 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 colors do return in those same hands
- That did display them when we first march'd forth; 320
- And, like a troop of jolly huntsmen, come
- Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,
- Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes:
- Open your gates and gives 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 answered
- blows;
- Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted
- power: 330
- 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.
-
- {Re-enter KING JOHN and KING PHILIP, with their
- powers, severally.}
-
- 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. 340
-
- KING PHILIP: England, thou hast not saved 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, 350
- 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 undetermined 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! 360
-
- 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 then we denies all this;
- And till it be undoubted, we do lock
- Our former scruple in our strong-barr'd gates; 370
- King'd of our fears, until our fears, resolved,
- Be by some certain king purged and deposed.
-
- 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 ruled by me:
- Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,
- Be friends awhile and both conjointly bend
- Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town: 380
- By east and west let France and England mount
- Their battering cannon charged to the mouths,
- Till their soul-fearing clamors have brawl'd down
- The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city:
- I'ld 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 colors once again;
- Turn face to face and bloody point to point; 390
- Then, in a moment, Fortune shall cull forth
- Out of one side her happy minion,
- To whom in favor 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 to the ground;
- Then after fight who shall be king of it? 400
-
- BASTARD: An if thou hast the mettle of a king,
- Being wronged 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. 410
-
- 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. Come, away, away!
-
- First Citizen: Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay,
- And I shall show you peace and fair-faced league;
- Win you this city without stroke or wound;
- Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds,
- That here come sacrifices for the field: 420
- Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.
-
- KING JOHN: Speak on with favor; we are bent to hear.
-
- First Citizen: That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,
- Is niece to England: look upon the years
- Of Lewis 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, 430
- 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 as she;
- And she a fair divided excellence,
- Whose fulness of perfection lies in him. 440
- 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, 450
- The sea enraged is not half so deaf,
- Lions more confident, mountains and rocks
- More free from motion, no, not Death himself
- In moral fury half so peremptory,
- As we to keep this city.
-
- BASTARD: Here's a stay
- That shakes the rotten carcass 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! 460
- 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.
-
- QUEEN 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 470
- Thy now unsured 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 480
- 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 besieged,
- Find liable to our crown and dignity, 490
- Shall gild her bridal bed and make her rich
- In titles, honors 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.
-
- LEWIS: 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: 500
- I do protest I never loved myself
- Till now infixed I beheld myself
- Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.
-
- [Whispers with BLANCH.]
-
- BASTARD: 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 quartered, there should be
- In such a love so vile a lout as he.
-
- BLANCH: My uncle's will in this respect is mine: 510
- If he see aught in you that makes him like,
- That any thing 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. 520
-
- KING JOHN: What say these young ones? What say you my niece?
-
- BLANCH: That she is bound in honor still to do
- What you in wisdom still vouchsafe to say.
-
- KING JOHN: Speak then, prince Dauphin; can you love this lady?
-
- LEWIS: 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. 530
- Philip of France, if thou be pleased 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 assured
- That I did so when I was first assured.
-
- 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 solemnized.
- Is not the Lady Constance in this troop? 540
- 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.
-
- LEWIS: 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; 550
- 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. 560
-
- [Exeunt all but the BASTARD.]
-
- 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 armor 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, 570
- Who, having no external thing to lose
- But the word 'maid,' cheats the poor maid of that,
- That smooth-faced 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: 580
- 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 determined aid,
- From a resolved and honorable 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; 590
- 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.]
-