ACT 1

Scene 1

Enter King John, Queen Eleanor, Pembroke, Essex, and

Salisbury, with the Chatillion of France.

KING JOHN

Now say, Chatillion, what would France with us?

CHATILLION

Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France

In my behavior to the majesty,

The borrowed majesty, of England here.

QUEEN ELEANOR

A strange beginning:

borrowed majesty!

KING JOHN

Silence, good mother. Hear the embassy.

CHATILLION

Philip of France, in right and true behalf

Of thy deceasèd brother Geoffrey’s son,

Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim

To this fair island and the territories,

To Ireland, Poitiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,

Desiring thee to lay aside the sword

Which sways usurpingly these several titles,

And put the same into young Arthur’s hand,

Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.

KING JOHN

What follows if we disallow of this?

CHATILLION

The proud control of fierce and bloody war,

To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.

KING JOHN

Here have we war for war and blood for blood,

Controlment for controlment: so answer France.

CHATILLION

Then take my king’s defiance from my mouth,

The farthest limit of my embassy.

KING JOHN

Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace.

Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France,

For ere thou canst report, I will be there;

The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.

So, hence. Be thou the trumpet of our wrath

And sullen presage of your own decay.—

An honorable conduct let him have.

Pembroke, look to ’t.—Farewell, Chatillion.

Chatillion and Pembroke exit.

QUEEN ELEANOR

, aside to King John

What now, my son! Have I not ever said

How that ambitious Constance would not cease

Till she had kindled France and all the world

Upon the right and party of her son?

This might have been prevented and made whole

With very easy arguments of love,

Which now the manage of two kingdoms must

With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

KING JOHN

, aside to Queen Eleanor

Our strong possession and our right for us.

QUEEN ELEANOR

, aside to King John

Your strong possession much more than your right,

Or else it must go wrong with you and me—

So much my conscience whispers in your ear,

Which none but God and you and I shall hear.

Enter a Sheriff,

who speaks aside to Essex.

ESSEX

My liege, here is the strangest controversy

Come from the country to be judged by you

That e’er I heard. Shall I produce the men?

KING JOHN

Let them approach.

Sheriff exits.

Our abbeys and our priories shall pay

This expedition’s charge.

Enter Robert Faulconbridge and Philip Faulconbridge.

What men are you?

PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE

Your faithful subject I, a gentleman,

Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,

As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge,

A soldier, by the honor-giving hand

Of Coeur de Lion knighted in the field.

KING JOHN

, to Robert Faulconbridge

What art thou?

ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE

The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.

KING JOHN

Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?

You came not of one mother then, it seems.

PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE

Most certain of one mother, mighty king—

That is well known—and, as I think, one father.

But for the certain knowledge of that truth

I put you o’er to heaven and to my mother.

Of that I doubt, as all men’s children may.

QUEEN ELEANOR

Out on thee, rude man! Thou dost shame thy

mother

And wound her honor with this diffidence.

PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE

I, madam? No, I have no reason for it.

That is my brother’s plea, and none of mine,

The which if he can prove, he pops me out

At least from fair five hundred pound a year.

Heaven guard my mother’s honor and my land!

KING JOHN

A good blunt fellow.—Why, being younger born,

Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?

PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE

I know not why, except to get the land.

But once he slandered me with bastardy.

But whe’er I be as true begot or no,

That still I lay upon my mother’s head.

But that I am as well begot, my liege—

Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!—

Compare our faces and be judge yourself.

If old Sir Robert did beget us both

And were our father, and this son like him,

O, old Sir Robert, father, on my knee

I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!

KING JOHN

Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!

QUEEN ELEANOR

, aside to King John

He hath a trick of Coeur de Lion’s face;

The accent of his tongue affecteth him.

Do you not read some tokens of my son

In the large composition of this man?

KING JOHN

, aside to Queen Eleanor

Mine eye hath well examinèd his parts

And finds them perfect Richard.

To Robert

Faulconbridge

Sirrah, speak.

What doth move you to claim your brother’s land?

PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE

Because he hath a half-face, like my father.

With half that face would he have all my land—

A half-faced groat five hundred pound a year!

ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE

My gracious liege, when that my father lived,

Your brother did employ my father much—

PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE

Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land.

Your tale must be how he employed my mother.

ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE

And once dispatched him in an embassy

To Germany, there with the Emperor

To treat of high affairs touching that time.

Th’ advantage of his absence took the King

And in the meantime sojourned at my father’s;

Where how he did prevail I shame to speak.

But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores

Between my father and my mother lay,

As I have heard my father speak himself,

When this same lusty gentleman was got.

Upon his deathbed he by will bequeathed

His lands to me, and took it on his death

That this my mother’s son was none of his;

An if he were, he came into the world

Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.

Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,

My father’s land, as was my father’s will.

KING JOHN

Sirrah, your brother is legitimate.

Your father’s wife did after wedlock bear him,

An if she did play false, the fault was hers,

Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands

That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,

Who as you say took pains to get this son,

Had of your father claimed this son for his?

In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept

This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;

In sooth he might. Then if he were my brother’s,

My brother might not claim him, nor your father,

Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes:

My mother’s son did get your father’s heir;

Your father’s heir must have your father’s land.

ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE

Shall then my father’s will be of no force

To dispossess that child which is not his?

PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE

Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,

Than was his will to get me, as I think.

QUEEN ELEANOR

Whether hadst thou rather: be a Faulconbridge

And, like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,

Or the reputed son of Coeur de Lion,

Lord of thy presence, and no land besides?

BASTARD

Madam, an if my brother had my shape

And I had his, Sir Robert’s his like him,

And if my legs were two such riding-rods,

My arms such eel-skins stuffed, my face so thin

That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose,

Lest men should say

Look where three-farthings

goes,

And, to his shape, were heir to all this land,

Would I might never stir from off this place,

I would give it every foot to have this face.

I would not be Sir Nob in any case.

QUEEN ELEANOR

I like thee well. Wilt thou forsake thy fortune,

Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me?

I am a soldier and now bound to France.

BASTARD

Brother, take you my land. I’ll take my chance.

Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,

Yet sell your face for five pence and ’tis dear.—

Madam, I’ll follow you unto the death.

QUEEN ELEANOR

Nay, I would have you go before me thither.

BASTARD

Our country manners give our betters way.

KING JOHN

What is thy name?

BASTARD

Philip, my liege, so is my name begun,

Philip, good old Sir Robert’s wife’s eldest son.

KING JOHN

From henceforth bear his name whose form thou

bearest.

Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great.

Philip kneels. King John dubs him a knight,

tapping him on the shoulder with his sword.

Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet.

BASTARD

,

rising,

to Robert Faulconbridge

Brother by th’ mother’s side, give me your hand.

My father gave me honor, yours gave land.

Now blessèd be the hour, by night or day,

When I was got, Sir Robert was away!

QUEEN ELEANOR

The very spirit of Plantagenet!

I am thy grandam, Richard. Call me so.

BASTARD

Madam, by chance but not by truth. What though?

Something about, a little from the right,

In at the window, or else o’er the hatch.

Who dares not stir by day must walk by night,

And have is have, however men do catch.

Near or far off, well won is still well shot,

And I am I, howe’er I was begot.

KING JOHN

, to Robert Faulconbridge

Go, Faulconbridge, now hast thou thy desire.

A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.—

Come, madam,—and come, Richard. We must

speed

For France, for France, for it is more than need.

BASTARD

Brother, adieu, good fortune come to thee,

For thou wast got i’ th’ way of honesty.

All but Bastard exit.

A foot of honor better than I was,

But many a many foot of land the worse.

Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.

Good den, Sir Richard!

God-a-mercy, fellow!

An if his name be George, I’ll call him

Peter,

For new-made honor doth forget men’s names;

’Tis too respective and too sociable

For your conversion. Now your traveler,

He and his toothpick at my Worship’s mess,

And when my knightly stomach is sufficed,

Why then I suck my teeth and catechize

My pickèd man of countries:

My dear sir,

Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin,

I shall beseech you—that is Question now,

And then comes Answer like an absey-book:

O, sir, says Answer,

at your best command,

At your employment, at your service, sir.

No, sir, says Question,

I, sweet sir, at yours.

And so, ere Answer knows what Question would,

Saving in dialogue of compliment

And talking of the Alps and Apennines,

The Pyrenean and the river Po,

It draws toward supper in conclusion so.

But this is worshipful society

And fits the mounting spirit like myself;

For he is but a bastard to the time

That doth not smack of observation,

And so am I whether I smack or no;

And not alone in habit and device,

Exterior form, outward accouterment,

But from the inward motion to deliver

Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age’s tooth,

Which though I will not practice to deceive,

Yet to avoid deceit I mean to learn,

For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.

Enter Lady Faulconbridge and James Gurney.

But who comes in such haste in riding robes?

What woman post is this? Hath she no husband

That will take pains to blow a horn before her?

O me, ’tis my mother.—How now, good lady?

What brings you here to court so hastily?

LADY FAULCONBRIDGE

Where is that slave thy brother? Where is he

That holds in chase mine honor up and down?

BASTARD

My brother Robert, old Sir Robert’s son?

Colbrand the Giant, that same mighty man?

Is it Sir Robert’s son that you seek so?

LADY FAULCONBRIDGE

Sir Robert’s son? Ay, thou unreverent boy,

Sir Robert’s son. Why scorn’st thou at Sir Robert?

He is Sir Robert’s son, and so art thou.

BASTARD

James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile?

GURNEY

Good leave, good Philip.

BASTARD

Philip Sparrow, James.

There’s toys abroad. Anon I’ll tell thee more.

James Gurney exits.

Madam, I was not old Sir Robert’s son.

Sir Robert might have eat his part in me

Upon Good Friday and ne’er broke his fast.

Sir Robert could do well—marry, to confess—

Could he get me. Sir Robert could not do it;

We know his handiwork. Therefore, good mother,

To whom am I beholding for these limbs?

Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.

LADY FAULCONBRIDGE

Hast thou conspirèd with thy brother too,

That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine

honor?

What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?

BASTARD

Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like.

What, I am dubbed! I have it on my shoulder.

But, mother, I am not Sir Robert’s son.

I have disclaimed Sir Robert and my land.

Legitimation, name, and all is gone.

Then, good my mother, let me know my father—

Some proper man, I hope. Who was it, mother?

LADY FAULCONBRIDGE

Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge?

BASTARD

As faithfully as I deny the devil.

LADY FAULCONBRIDGE

King Richard Coeur de Lion was thy father.

By long and vehement suit I was seduced

To make room for him in my husband’s bed.

Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge!

Thou art the issue of my dear offense,

Which was so strongly urged past my defense.

BASTARD

Now, by this light, were I to get again,

Madam, I would not wish a better father.

Some sins do bear their privilege on Earthearth,

And so doth yours. Your fault was not your folly.

Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,

Subjected tribute to commanding love,

Against whose fury and unmatchèd force

The aweless lion could not wage the fight,

Nor keep his princely heart from Richard’s hand.

He that perforce robs lions of their hearts

May easily win a woman’s. Ay, my mother,

With all my heart I thank thee for my father.

Who lives and dares but say thou didst not well

When I was got, I’ll send his soul to hell.

Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin,

And they shall say when Richard me begot,

If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin.

Who says it was, he lies. I say ’twas not.

They exit.

ACT 2

Scene 1

Enter, before Angiers, at one side, with Forces, Philip

King of France, Louis the Dauphin, Constance, Arthur,

and Attendants; at the other side, with Forces, Austria,

wearing a lion’s skin.

DAUPHIN

Before Angiers well met, brave Austria.—

Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood,

Richard, that robbed 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.

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 unstainèd love.

Welcome before the gates of Angiers, duke.

DAUPHIN

A noble boy. Who would not do thee right?

AUSTRIA

, to Arthur

Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss

As seal to this indenture of my love:

That to my home I will no more return

Till Angiers and the right thou hast in France,

Together with that pale, that white-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-wallèd bulwark, still secure

And confident from foreign purposes,

Even till that utmost corner of the West

Salute thee for her king. Till then, fair boy,

Will I not think of home, but follow arms.

CONSTANCE

O, take his mother’s thanks, a widow’s thanks,

Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength

To make a more requital to your love.

AUSTRIA

The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords

In such a just and charitable war.

KING PHILIP

Well, then, to work. Our cannon shall be bent

Against the brows of this resisting town.

Call for our chiefest men of discipline

To cull the plots of best advantages.

We’ll lay before this town our royal bones,

Wade to the marketplace 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 Chatillion 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 Chatillion.

KING PHILIP

A wonder, lady! Lo, upon thy wish

Our messenger Chatillion is arrived.—

What England says say briefly, gentle lord.

We coldly pause for thee. Chatillion, speak.

CHATILLION

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 stayed, have given him time

To land his legions all as soon as I.

His marches are expedient to this town,

His forces strong, his soldiers confident.

With him along is come the Mother Queen,

An Ate stirring him to blood and strife;

With her her niece, the Lady Blanche of Spain;

With them a bastard of the King’s deceased.

And all th’ 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,

To make a hazard of new fortunes here.

In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits

Than now the English bottoms have waft o’er

Did never float upon the swelling tide

To do offense and scathe 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 unlooked-for is this expedition.

AUSTRIA

By how much unexpected, by so much

We must awake endeavor for defense,

For courage mounteth with occasion.

Let them be welcome, then. We are prepared.

Enter King John of England, Bastard, Queen

Eleanor, Blanche, Salisbury, Pembroke, and others.

KING JOHN

Peace be to France, if France in peace permit

Our just and lineal entrance to our own.

If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven,

Whiles we, God’s wrathful agent, do correct

Their proud contempt that beats his peace to heaven.

KING PHILIP

Peace be to England, if that war return

From France to England, there to live in peace.

England we love, and for that England’s sake

With burden of our 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 underwrought his lawful king,

Cut off the sequence of posterity,

Outfacèd infant state, and done a rape

Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.

Look here upon thy brother Geoffrey’s face.

He points to Arthur.

These eyes, these brows, were molded out of his;

This little abstract doth contain that large

Which died in Geoffrey, and the hand of time

Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume.

That Geoffrey was thy elder brother born,

And this his son. England was Geoffrey’s right,

And this is Geoffrey’s. In the name of God,

How comes it then that thou art called 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,

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 ELEANOR

Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?

CONSTANCE

Let me make answer: thy usurping son.

QUEEN ELEANOR

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 Geoffrey

Than thou and John, in manners being as like

As rain to water or devil to his dam.

My boy a bastard? By my soul, I think

His father never was so true begot.

It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.

QUEEN ELEANOR

, to Arthur

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 he 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!

BLANCHE

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’ shoes upon an ass.—

But, ass, I’ll take that burden from your back

Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.

AUSTRIA

What cracker is this same that deafs our ears

With this abundance of superfluous breath?

KING PHILIP

Louis, determine what we shall do straight.

DAUPHIN

Women and fools, break off your conference.—

King John, this is the very sum of all:

England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,

In right of Arthur do I claim of thee.

Wilt thou resign them and lay down thy arms?

KING JOHN

My life as soon! I do defy thee, France.—

Arthur of Brittany, 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 ELEANOR

Come to thy grandam, child.

CONSTANCE

Do, child, go to it grandam, child.

Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will

Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.

There’s a good grandam.

ARTHUR

, weeping

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 ELEANOR

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

CONSTANCE

Now shame upon you whe’er she does or no!

His grandam’s wrongs, and not his mother’s

shames,

Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his poor

eyes,

Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee.

Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be bribed

To do him justice and revenge on you.

QUEEN ELEANOR

Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and Earthearth!

CONSTANCE

Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and Earthearth,

Call not me slanderer. Thou and thine usurp

The dominations, royalties, and rights

Of this oppressèd boy. This is thy eldest son’s son,

Infortunate in nothing but in thee.

Thy sins are visited in this poor child.

The canon of the law is laid on him,

Being but the second generation

Removèd from thy sin-conceiving womb.

KING JOHN

Bedlam, have done.

CONSTANCE

I have but this to say,

That he is not only plaguèd for her sin,

But God hath made her sin and her the plague

On this removèd issue, plagued for her,

And with her plague; her sin his injury,

Her injury the beadle to her sin,

All punished in the person of this child

And all for her. A plague upon her!

QUEEN ELEANOR

Thou unadvisèd 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 cankered grandam’s will.

KING PHILIP

Peace, lady. Pause, or be more temperate.

It ill beseems this presence to cry aim

To these ill-tunèd repetitions.—

Some trumpet summon hither to the walls

These men of Angiers. Let us hear them speak

Whose title they admit, Arthur’s or John’s.

Trumpet sounds.

Enter Citizens upon the walls.

CITIZEN

Who is it that hath warned 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 called you to this gentle parle—

KING JOHN

For our advantage. Therefore hear us first.

These flags of France that are advancèd here

Before the eye and prospect of your town,

Have hither marched to your endamagement.

The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,

And ready mounted are they to spit forth

Their iron indignation ’gainst your walls.

All preparation for a bloody siege

And merciless proceeding by these French

Confronts your city’s eyes, your winking gates,

And, but for our approach, those sleeping stones,

That as a waist doth girdle you about,

By the compulsion of their ordinance

By this time from their fixèd beds of lime

Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made

For bloody power to rush upon your peace.

But on the sight of us your lawful king,

Who painfully with much expedient march

Have brought a countercheck before your gates

To save unscratched your city’s threatened cheeks,

Behold, the French, amazed, vouchsafe a parle.

And now, instead of bullets wrapped in fire

To make a shaking fever in your walls,

They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke

To make a faithless error in your ears,

Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,

And let us in. Your king, whose labored spirits

Forwearied in this action of swift speed,

Craves harborage within your city walls.

KING PHILIP

When I have said, make answer to us both.

He takes Arthur by the hand.

Lo, in this right hand, whose protection

Is most divinely vowed upon the right

Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,

Son to the elder brother of this man,

And king o’er him and all that he enjoys.

For this downtrodden 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 oppressèd child

Religiously provokes. Be pleasèd then

To pay that duty which you truly owe

To him that owes it, namely, this young prince,

And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear

Save in aspect, hath all offense sealed up.

Our cannons’ malice vainly shall be spent

Against th’ invulnerable clouds of heaven,

And with a blessèd and unvexed retire,

With unbacked 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 proffered offer,

’Tis not the roundure of your old-faced walls

Can hide you from our messengers of war,

Though all these English and their discipline

Were harbored 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?

CITIZEN

In brief, we are the King of England’s subjects.

For him, and in his right, we hold this town.

KING JOHN

Acknowledge then the King and let me in.

CITIZEN

That can we not. But he that proves the King,

To him will we prove loyal. Till that time

Have we rammed 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 wellborn bloods as those—

BASTARD

Some bastards too.

KING PHILIP

Stand in his face to contradict his claim.

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 ’s horseback at mine hostess’ door,

Teach us some fence!

To Austria. Sirrah, were I at

home

At your den, sirrah, with your lioness,

I would set an ox head to your lion’s hide

And make a monster of you.

AUSTRIA

Peace! No more.

BASTARD

O, tremble, for you hear the lion roar.

KING JOHN

, to his officers

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

, to his officers

It shall be so, and at the other hill

Command the rest to stand. God and our right!

They exit. Citizens remain, above.

Here, after excursions,

enter the Herald of France, with

Trumpets, to the gates.

FRENCH HERALD

You men of Angiers, open wide your gates,

And let young Arthur, Duke of Brittany, 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 groveling lies

Coldly embracing the discolored earth,

And victory with little loss doth play

Upon the dancing banners of the French,

Who are at hand, triumphantly displayed,

To enter conquerors and to proclaim

Arthur of Brittany 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 marched hence so silver bright,

Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen’s blood.

There stuck no plume in any English crest

That is removèd by a staff of France.

Our colors do return in those same hands

That did display them when we first marched forth,

And like a jolly troop of huntsmen come

Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,

Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes.

Open your gates, and give the victors way.

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 censurèd.

Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answered

blows,

Strength matched with strength, and power

confronted power.

Both are alike, and both alike we like.

One must prove greatest. While they weigh so even,

We hold our town for neither, yet for both.

Enter the two Kings with their Powers (including the

Bastard, Queen Eleanor, Blanche, and Salisbury;

Austria, and Louis the Dauphin), at several doors.

KING JOHN

France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?

Say, shall the current of our right roam on,

Whose passage, vexed with thy impediment,

Shall leave his native channel and o’erswell

With course disturbed even thy confining shores,

Unless thou let his silver water keep

A peaceful progress to the ocean?

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

, aside

Ha, majesty! How high thy glory towers

When the rich blood of kings is set on fire!

O, now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel,

The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs,

And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men

In undetermined differences of kings.

Why stand these royal fronts amazèd thus?

Cry havoc, kings! Back to the stainèd field,

You equal potents, fiery-kindled spirits.

Then let confusion of one part confirm

The other’s peace. Till then, blows, blood, and

death!

KING JOHN

Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?

KING PHILIP

Speak, citizens, for England. Who’s your king?

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.

CITIZEN

A greater power than we denies all this,

And till it be undoubted, we do lock

Our former scruple in our strong-barred gates,

Kings of our fear, 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 theater, 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.

By east and west let France and England mount

Their battering cannon chargèd to the mouths,

Till their soul-fearing clamors have brawled down

The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city.

I’d play incessantly upon these jades,

Even till unfencèd 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.

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 with the ground,

Then after fight who shall be king of it?

BASTARD

, to King Philip

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 dashed them to the ground,

Why, then, defy each other and pell-mell

Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell.

KING PHILIP

Let it be so. Say, where will you assault?

KING JOHN

We from the west will send destruction

Into this city’s bosom.

AUSTRIA

I from the north.

KING PHILIP

Our thunder from the south

Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.

BASTARD

, aside

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!

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.

Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.

KING JOHN

Speak on with favor. We are bent to hear.

CITIZEN

That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanche,

Is near to England. Look upon the years

Of Louis the Dauphin and that lovely maid.

If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,

Where should he find it fairer than in Blanche?

If zealous love should go in search of virtue,

Where should he find it purer than in Blanche?

If love ambitious sought a match of birth,

Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady

Blanche?

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 blessèd man,

Left to be finishèd by such as she,

And she a fair divided excellence,

Whose fullness of perfection lies in him.

O, two such silver currents when they join

Do glorify the banks that bound them in,

And two such shores to two such streams made one,

Two such controlling bounds shall you be, kings,

To these two princes, if you marry them.

This union shall do more than battery can

To our fast-closèd gates, for at this match,

With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,

The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope

And give you entrance. But without this match,

The sea enragèd is not half so deaf,

Lions more confident, mountains and rocks

More free from motion, no, not Death himself

In mortal fury half so peremptory

As we to keep this city.

King Philip and Louis the Dauphin

walk aside and talk.

BASTARD

, aside

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.

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 cudgeled. Not a word of his

But buffets better than a fist of France.

Zounds, I was never so bethumped with words

Since I first called my brother’s father Dad.

QUEEN ELEANOR

, aside to King John

Son, list to this conjunction; make this match.

Give with our niece a dowry large enough,

For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie

Thy now 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.

CITIZEN

Why answer not the double majesties

This friendly treaty of our threatened 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, Poitiers,

And all that we upon this side the sea—

Except this city now by us besieged—

Find liable to our crown and dignity,

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 sayst thou, boy? Look in the lady’s face.

DAUPHIN

I do, my lord, and in her eye I find

A wonder or a wondrous miracle,

The shadow of myself formed in her eye,

Which, being but the shadow of your son,

Becomes a sun and makes your son a shadow.

I do protest I never loved myself

Till now infixèd I beheld myself

Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.

He whispers with Blanche.

BASTARD

, aside

Drawn in the flattering table of her eye?

Hanged in the frowning wrinkle of her brow

And quartered in her heart! He doth espy

Himself love’s traitor. This is pity now,

That hanged and drawn and quartered there should

be

In such a love so vile a lout as he.

BLANCHE

, aside to Dauphin

My uncle’s will in this respect is mine.

If he see aught in you that makes him like,

That anything he sees which moves his liking

I can with ease translate it to my will.

Or if you will, to speak more properly,

I will enforce it eas’ly to my love.

Further I will not flatter you, my lord,

That all I see in you is worthy love,

Than this: that nothing do I see in you,

Though churlish thoughts themselves should be

your judge,

That I can find should merit any hate.

KING JOHN

What say these young ones? What say you, my

niece?

BLANCHE

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?

DAUPHIN

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,

Poitiers and Anjou, these five provinces

With her to thee, and this addition more:

Full thirty thousand marks of English coin.—

Philip of France, if thou be 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.

Dauphin and Blanche join hands and kiss.

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?

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.

DAUPHIN

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 turned another way

To our own vantage.

KING JOHN

We will heal up all,

For we’ll create young Arthur Duke of Brittany

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.

Salisbury exits. 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 unlooked-for, unpreparèd pomp.

All but the Bastard exit.

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—

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 peisèd well,

Made to run even upon even ground,

Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,

This sway of motion, this Commodity,

Makes it take head from all indifferency,

From all direction, purpose, course, intent.

And this same bias, this Commodity,

This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,

Clapped 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 wooed me yet.

Not that I have the power to clutch my hand

When his fair angels would salute my palm,

But for my hand, as unattempted yet,

Like a poor beggar raileth on the rich.

Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail

And say there is no sin but to be rich;

And being rich, my virtue then shall be

To say there is no vice but beggary.

Since kings break faith upon Commodity,

Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee!

He exits.

ACT 3

Scene 1

Enter Constance, Arthur, and Salisbury.

CONSTANCE

, to Salisbury

Gone to be married? Gone to swear a peace?

False blood to false blood joined? Gone to be friends?

Shall Louis have Blanche and Blanche 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 punished for thus flighting me,

For I am sick and capable of fears,

Oppressed 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 vexed spirits I cannot take a truce,

But they will quake and tremble all this day.

What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?

Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?

What means that hand upon that breast of thine?

Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,

Like a proud river peering o’er his bounds?

Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?

Then speak again—not all thy former tale,

But this one word, whether thy tale be true.

SALISBURY

As true as I believe you think them false

That give you cause to prove my saying true.

CONSTANCE

O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,

Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die,

And let belief and life encounter so

As doth the fury of two desperate men

Which in the very meeting fall and die.

Louis marry Blanche?—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 bidd’st me be content wert grim,

Ugly, and sland’rous to thy mother’s womb,

Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,

Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,

Patched 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 joined 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;

Sh’ adulterates hourly with thine Uncle John,

And with her golden hand hath plucked 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 underbear.

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.

She sits down.

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 Earthearth

Can hold it up. Here I and sorrows sit.

Here is my throne; bid kings come bow to it.

Enter King John, hand in hand with King Philip of

France, Louis the Dauphin, Blanche, Queen Eleanor,

Bastard, Austria, and Attendants.

KING PHILIP

, to Blanche

’Tis true, fair daughter, and this blessèd 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 meager cloddy earth to glittering gold.

The yearly course that brings this day about

Shall never see it but a holy day.

CONSTANCE

, rising

A wicked day, and not a holy day!

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 burdens may not fall this day,

Lest that their hopes prodigiously be crossed.

But on this day let seamen fear no wrack;

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 pawned to you my majesty?

CONSTANCE

You have beguiled me with a counterfeit

Resembling majesty, which, being touched 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 vigor 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, God!

Let not the hours of this ungodly day

Wear out the days in peace, but ere sunset

Set armèd 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 Limoges, O Austria, thou dost shame

That bloody spoil. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou

coward,

Thou little valiant, great in villainy,

Thou ever strong upon the stronger side,

Thou Fortune’s champion, that dost never fight

But when her humorous Ladyshipladyship is by

To teach thee safety. Thou art perjured too,

And sooth’st up greatness. What a fool art thou,

A ramping fool, to brag and stamp and swear

Upon my party. Thou cold-blooded slave,

Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side?

Been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend

Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength?

And dost thou now fall over to my foes?

Thou wear a lion’s hide! Doff it for shame,

And hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs.

AUSTRIA

O, that a man should speak those words to me!

BASTARD

And hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs.

AUSTRIA

Thou dar’st not say so, villain, for thy life!

BASTARD

And hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs.

KING JOHN

We like not this. Thou dost forget thyself.

Enter Pandulph.

KING PHILIP

Here comes the holy legate of the Pope.

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 willfully 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 God are supreme head,

So, under Him, that great supremacy

Where we do reign we will alone uphold

Without th’ assistance of a mortal hand.

So tell the Pope, all reverence set apart

To him and his usurped authority.

KING PHILIP

Brother of England, you blaspheme in this.

KING JOHN

Though you and all the kings of Christendom

Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,

Dreading the curse that money may buy out,

And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust,

Purchase corrupted pardon of a man

Who in that sale sells pardon from himself,

Though you and all the rest, so grossly led,

This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish,

Yet I alone, alone do me oppose

Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes.

PANDULPH

Then, by the lawful power that I have,

Thou shalt stand cursed and excommunicate;

And blessèd shall he be that doth revolt

From his allegiance to an heretic;

And meritorious shall that hand be called,

Canonizèd and worshiped as a saint,

That takes away by any secret course

Thy hateful life.

CONSTANCE

O, lawful let it be

That I have room with Rome to curse awhile!

Good father cardinal, cry thou

Amen

To my keen curses, for without my wrong

There is no tongue hath power to curse him right.

PANDULPH

There’s law and warrant, lady, for my curse.

CONSTANCE

And for mine, too. When law can do no right,

Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.

Law cannot give my child his kingdom here,

For he that holds his kingdom holds the law.

Therefore, since law itself is perfect wrong,

How can the law forbid my tongue to curse?

PANDULPH

Philip of France, on peril of a curse,

Let go the hand of that arch-heretic,

And raise the power of France upon his head

Unless he do submit himself to Rome.

QUEEN ELEANOR

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 calfskin 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 sayst thou to the Cardinal?

CONSTANCE

What should he say, but as the Cardinal?

DAUPHIN

Bethink you, father, for the difference

Is purchase of a heavy curse from Rome,

Or the light loss of England for a friend.

Forgo the easier.

BLANCHE

That’s the curse of Rome.

CONSTANCE

O Louis, stand fast! The devil tempts thee here

In likeness of a new untrimmèd bride.

BLANCHE

The Lady Constance speaks not from her faith,

But from her need.

CONSTANCE

, to King Philip

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

, to King Philip

O, be removed from him, and answer well!

AUSTRIA

Do so, King Philip. Hang no more in doubt.

BASTARD

Hang nothing but a calfskin, most sweet lout.

KING PHILIP

I am perplexed and know not what to say.

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,

God knows they were besmeared and overstained

With slaughter’s pencil, where revenge did paint

The fearful difference of incensèd kings.

And shall these hands, so lately purged of blood,

So newly joined 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.

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 chafèd lion by the mortal paw,

A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,

Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.

KING PHILIP

I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith.

PANDULPH

So mak’st thou faith an enemy to faith,

And like a civil war sett’st oath to oath,

Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow

First made to God, first be to God performed,

That is, to be the champion of our Church!

What since thou swor’st is sworn against thyself

And may not be performèd 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 scorchèd veins of one new-burned.

It is religion that doth make vows kept,

But thou hast sworn against religion

By what thou swear’st against the thing thou

swear’st,

And mak’st an oath the surety for thy truth

Against an oath. The truth thou art unsure

To swear swears only not to be forsworn,

Else what a mockery should it be to swear?

But thou dost swear only to be forsworn,

And most forsworn to keep what thou dost swear.

Therefore thy 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 calfskin stop that mouth of thine?

DAUPHIN

Father, to arms!

BLANCHE

Upon thy wedding day?

Against the blood that thou hast marrièd?

What, shall our feast be kept with slaughtered men?

Shall braying trumpets and loud churlish drums,

Clamors of hell, be measures to our pomp?

She kneels.

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

, kneeling

O, upon my knee

Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee,

Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom

Forethought by heaven!

BLANCHE

, to Dauphin

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 honor.—O, thine honor, Louis, thine honor!

DAUPHIN

, to King Philip

I muse your Majesty doth seem so cold,

When such profound respects do pull you on.

PANDULPH

I will denounce a curse upon his head.

KING PHILIP

, dropping King John’s hand

Thou shalt not need.—England, I will fall from

thee.

CONSTANCE

, rising

O, fair return of banished majesty!

QUEEN ELEANOR

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.

BLANCHE

, rising

The sun’s o’ercast with blood. Fair day, adieu.

Which is the side that I must go withal?

I am with both, each army hath a hand,

And in their rage, I having hold of both,

They whirl asunder and dismember me.

Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win.—

Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose.—

Father, I may not wish the fortune thine.—

Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive.

Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose.

Assurèd loss before the match be played.

DAUPHIN

Lady, with me, with me thy fortune lies.

BLANCHE

There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.

KING JOHN

, to Bastard

Cousin, go draw our puissance together.

Bastard exits.

France, I am burned 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 shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn

To ashes ere our blood shall quench that fire.

Look to thyself. Thou art in jeopardy.

KING JOHN

No more than he that threats.—To arms let’s hie!

They exit.

Scene 2

Alarums, excursions.

Enter Bastard with Austria’s head.

BASTARD

Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot.

Some airy devil hovers in the sky

And pours down mischief. Austria’s head lie there,

While Philip breathes.

Enter King John, Arthur, Hubert.

KING JOHN

Hubert, keep this boy.—Philip, make up.

My mother is assailèd 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 labor to an happy end.

They exit.

Scene 3

Alarums, excursions,

retreat.

Enter King John, Queen Eleanor, Arthur, Bastard,

Hubert, Lords.

KING JOHN

, to Queen Eleanor

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 Bastard

Cousin, away for England! Haste before,

And ere our coining 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.

QUEEN ELEANOR

Farewell, gentle cousin.

KING JOHN

Coz, farewell.

Bastard exits.

QUEEN ELEANOR

, to Arthur

Come hither, little kinsman. Hark, a word.

They walk aside.

KING JOHN

Come hither, Hubert.

He takes Hubert aside.

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 cherishèd.

Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say,

But I will fit it with some better tune.

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 for me to do thee good.

I had a thing to say—but let it go.

The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,

Attended with the pleasures of the world,

Is all too wanton and too full of gauds

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 possessèd 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 lov’st me well.

HUBERT

So well that what you bid me undertake,

Though that my death were adjunct to my act,

By heaven, I would do it.

KING JOHN

Do not I know thou wouldst?

Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye

On yon young boy. I’ll tell thee what, my friend,

He is a very serpent in my way,

And wheresoe’er this foot of mine doth tread,

He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?

Thou art his keeper.

HUBERT

And I’ll keep him so

That he shall not offend your Majesty.

KING JOHN

Death.

HUBERT

My lord?

KING JOHN

A grave.

HUBERT

He shall not live.

KING JOHN

Enough.

I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee.

Well, I’ll not say what I intend for thee.

Remember.

He turns to Queen Eleanor. Madam, fare

you well.

I’ll send those powers o’er to your Majesty.

QUEEN ELEANOR

My blessing go with thee.

KING JOHN

, to Arthur

For England, cousin, go.

Hubert shall be your man, attend on you

With all true duty.—On toward Calais, ho!

They exit.

Scene 4

Enter King Philip of France,Louis the Dauphin,

Pandulph, Attendants.

KING PHILIP

So, by a roaring tempest on the flood,

A whole armada of convicted sail

Is scattered and disjoined from fellowship.

PANDULPH

Courage and comfort. All shall yet go well.

KING PHILIP

What can go well when we have run so ill?

Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?

Arthur ta’en prisoner? Divers dear friends slain?

And bloody England into England gone,

O’erbearing interruption, spite of France?

DAUPHIN

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, with her hair unbound.

Look who comes here! A grave unto a soul,

Holding th’ eternal spirit against her will

In the vile prison of afflicted breath.—

I prithee, lady, go away with me.

CONSTANCE

Lo, now, now see the issue of your peace!

KING PHILIP

Patience, good lady. Comfort, gentle Constance.

CONSTANCE

No, I defy all counsel, all redress,

But that which ends all counsel, true redress.

Death, death, O amiable, lovely death,

Thou odoriferous stench, sound rottenness,

Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,

Thou hate and terror to prosperity,

And I will kiss thy detestable bones

And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows,

And ring these fingers with thy household worms,

And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,

And be a carrion monster like thyself.

Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil’st,

And buss thee as thy wife. Misery’s love,

O, come to me!

KING PHILIP

O fair affliction, peace!

CONSTANCE

No, no, I will not, having breath to cry.

O, that my tongue were in the thunder’s mouth!

Then with a passion would I shake the world

And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy

Which cannot hear a lady’s feeble voice,

Which scorns a modern invocation.

PANDULPH

Lady, you utter madness and not sorrow.

CONSTANCE

Thou art not holy to belie me so.

I am not mad. This hair I tear is mine;

My name is Constance; I was Geoffrey’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 delivered 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 fall’n,

Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends

Do glue themselves in sociable grief,

Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,

Sticking together in calamity.

CONSTANCE

To England, if you will.

KING PHILIP

Bind up your hairs.

CONSTANCE

Yes, that I will. And wherefore will I do it?

I tore them from their bonds and cried aloud

O, that these hands could so redeem my son,

As they have given these hairs their liberty!

But now I envy at their liberty,

And will again commit them to their bonds,

Because my poor child is a prisoner.

She binds up her hair.

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 meager as an ague’s fit,

And so he’ll die; and, rising so again,

When I shall meet him in the court of heaven

I shall not know him. Therefore never, never

Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.

PANDULPH

You hold too heinous a respect of grief.

CONSTANCE

He talks to me that never had a son.

KING PHILIP

You are as fond of grief as of your child.

CONSTANCE

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;

Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?

Fare you well. Had you such a loss as I,

I could give better comfort than you do.

She unbinds her hair.

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!

She exits.

KING PHILIP

I fear some outrage, and I’ll follow her.

He exits, with Attendants.

DAUPHIN

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 spoiled the sweet world’s

taste,

That it yields naught but shame and bitterness.

PANDULPH

Before the curing of a strong disease,

Even in the instant of repair and health,

The fit is strongest. Evils that take leave

On their departure most of all show evil.

What have you lost by losing of this day?

DAUPHIN

All days of glory, joy, and happiness.

PANDULPH

If you had won it, certainly you had.

No, no. When Fortune means to men most good,

She looks upon them with a threat’ning 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?

DAUPHIN

As heartily as he is glad he hath him.

PANDULPH

Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.

Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit.

For even the breath of what I mean to speak

Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,

Out of the path which shall directly lead

Thy foot to England’s throne. And therefore mark:

John hath 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 scepter snatched with an unruly hand

Must be as boisterously maintained as gained.

And he that stands upon a slipp’ry 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.

DAUPHIN

But what shall I gain by young Arthur’s fall?

PANDULPH

You, in the right of Lady Blanche your wife,

May then make all the claim that Arthur did.

DAUPHIN

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

PANDULPH

How green you are and fresh in this old world!

John lays you plots. The times conspire with you,

For he that steeps his safety in true blood

Shall find but bloody safety, and untrue.

This act so evilly borne shall cool the hearts

Of all his people and freeze up their zeal,

That none so small advantage shall step forth

To check his reign but they will cherish it.

No natural exhalation in the sky,

No scope of nature, no distempered day,

No common wind, no customèd 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.

DAUPHIN

Maybe he will not touch young Arthur’s life,

But hold himself safe in his prisonment.

PANDULPH

O, sir, when he shall hear of your approach,

If that young Arthur be not gone already,

Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts

Of all his people shall revolt from him

And kiss the lips of unacquainted change,

And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath

Out of the bloody fingers’ ends of John.

Methinks I see this hurly all on foot;

And, O, what better matter breeds for you

Than I have 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 offense.

For England, go. I will whet on the King.

DAUPHIN

Strong reasons makes strange actions. Let us go.

If you say ay, the King will not say no.

They exit.

ACT 4

Scene 1

Enter Hubert and Executioners, with irons and rope.

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.

EXECUTIONER

I hope your warrant will bear out the deed.

HUBERT

Uncleanly scruples fear not you. Look to ’t.

Executioners exit.

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 nobody 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 practices more harm to me.

He is afraid of me, and I of him.

Is it my fault that I was Geoffrey’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 today.

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.

He shows Arthur a paper.

Read here, young Arthur.

(Aside.) How now,

foolish rheum?

Turning dispiteous torture out of door?

I must be brief lest resolution drop

Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.—

Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ?

ARTHUR

Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect.

Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?

HUBERT

Young boy, I must.

ARTHUR

And will you?

HUBERT

And I will.

ARTHUR

Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,

I knit my handkercher 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 cheered 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 this 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 hammered 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.

HUBERT

stamps his foot and calls

Come forth.

Enter Executioners with ropes, a heated iron, and a

brazier of burning coals.

Do as I bid you do.

ARTHUR

O, save me, Hubert, save me! My eyes are out

Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.

HUBERT

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

He takes the iron.

ARTHUR

Alas, what need you be so boist’rous-rough?

I will not struggle; I will stand stone-still.

For God’s 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

, to Executioners

Go stand within. Let me alone with him.

EXECUTIONER

I am best pleased to be from such a deed.

Executioners exit.

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 God, 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.

He seizes the iron.

Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold,

And would not harm me.

HUBERT

, taking back the iron

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 hath blown his spirit out

And strewed repentant ashes on his head.

HUBERT

But with my breath I can revive it, boy.

ARTHUR

An if you do, you will but make it blush

And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert.

Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes,

And, like a dog that is compelled to fight,

Snatch at his master that doth tar 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 disguisèd.

HUBERT

Peace. No more. Adieu.

Your uncle must not know but you are dead.

I’ll fill these doggèd 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.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter King John, Pembroke, Salisbury, and other

Lords. King John ascends the throne.

KING JOHN

Here once again we sit, once again crowned

And looked upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.

PEMBROKE

This

once again, but that your Highness pleased,

Was once superfluous. You were crowned before,

And that high royalty was ne’er plucked off,

The faiths of men ne’er stainèd with revolt;

Fresh expectation troubled not the land

With any longed-for change or better state.

SALISBURY

Therefore, to be possessed with double pomp,

To guard a title that was rich before,

To gild refinèd 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 urgèd at a time unseasonable.

SALISBURY

In this the antique and well-noted face

Of plain old form is much disfigurèd,

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 fashioned 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 th’ excuse,

As patches set upon a little breach

Discredit more in hiding of the fault

Than did the fault before it was so patched.

SALISBURY

To this effect, before you were new-crowned,

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 possessed you with, and think them strong;

And more, more strong, when lesser is my fear,

I shall endue you with. Meantime, but ask

What you would have reformed that is not well,

And well shall you perceive how willingly

I will both hear and grant you your requests.

PEMBROKE

Then I, as one that am the tongue of these

To sound the purposes of all their hearts,

Both for myself and them, but chief of all

Your safety, for the which myself and them

Bend their best studies, heartily request

Th’ enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint

Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent

To break into this dangerous argument:

If what in rest you have in right you hold,

Why then your fears, which, as they say, attend

The steps of wrong, should move you to mew up

Your tender kinsman and to choke his days

With barbarous ignorance and deny his youth

The rich advantage of good exercise.

That the time’s enemies may not have this

To grace occasions, let it be our suit

That you have bid us ask, his liberty,

Which for our goods we do no further ask

Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,

Counts it your weal he have his liberty.

KING JOHN

Let it be so. I do commit his youth

To your direction.

Enter Hubert.

Hubert, what news with you?

King John and Hubert talk aside.

PEMBROKE

This is the man should do the bloody deed.

He showed his warrant to a friend of mine.

The image of a wicked heinous fault

Lives in his eye. That close aspect of his

Doth show the mood of a much troubled breast,

And I do fearfully believe ’tis done

What we so feared he had a charge to do.

SALISBURY

The color 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

, coming forward with Hubert

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 tonight.

SALISBURY

Indeed, we feared 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 answered either here or hence.

KING JOHN

Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?

Think you I bear the shears of destiny?

Have I commandment on the pulse of life?

SALISBURY

It is apparent foul play, and ’tis shame

That greatness should so grossly offer it.

So thrive it in your game, and so farewell.

PEMBROKE

Stay yet, Lord Salisbury. I’ll go with thee

And find th’ inheritance of this poor child,

His little kingdom of a forcèd 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.

Pembroke, Salisbury, and other Lords exit.

KING JOHN

They burn in indignation. I repent.

There is no sure foundation set on blood,

No certain life achieved by others’ death.

Enter 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 learned by them,

For when you should be told they do prepare,

The tidings comes 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 stopped 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 rumor’s tongue

I idly heard. If true or false, I know not.

KING JOHN

, aside

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 giv’st out are landed here?

MESSENGER

Under the Dauphin.

KING JOHN

Thou hast made me giddy

With these ill tidings.

Enter Bastard and Peter of Pomfret.

To Bastard.

Now, what says the world

To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff

My head with more ill news, for it is full.

BASTARD

But if you be afeard to hear the worst,

Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.

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 traveled hither through the land,

I find the people strangely fantasied,

Possessed with rumors, full of idle dreams,

Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear.

And here’s a prophet that I brought with me

From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found

With many hundreds treading on his heels,

To whom he sung in rude harsh-sounding rhymes

That ere the next Ascension Day at noon,

Your Highness should deliver up your crown.

KING JOHN

, to Peter

Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?

PETER

Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.

KING JOHN

Hubert, away with him! Imprison him.

And on that day at noon, whereon he says

I shall yield up my crown, let him be hanged.

Deliver him to safety and return,

For I must use thee.

Hubert and Peter exit.

O my gentle cousin,

Hear’st thou the news abroad, who are arrived?

BASTARD

The French, my lord. Men’s mouths are full of it.

Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury

With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,

And others more, going to seek the grave

Of Arthur, whom they say is killed tonight

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.

He exits.

KING JOHN

Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.

To Messenger. 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.

Messenger exits.

KING JOHN

My mother dead!

Enter Hubert.

HUBERT

My lord, they say five moons were seen tonight—

Four fixèd, and the fifth did whirl about

The other four in wondrous motion.

KING JOHN

Five moons!

HUBERT

Old men and beldams in the streets

Do prophesy upon it dangerously.

Young Arthur’s death is common in their mouths,

And when they talk of him, they shake their heads

And whisper one another in the ear,

And he that speaks doth grip 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 embattlèd and ranked in Kent.

Another lean, unwashed 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 murdered 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 humors 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 humor than advised respect.

HUBERT

, showing a paper

Here is your hand and seal for what I did.

KING JOHN

O, when the last accompt twixt heaven and Earthearth

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 marked,

Quoted, and signed to do a deed of shame,

This murder had not come into my mind.

But taking note of thy abhorred aspect,

Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,

Apt, liable to be employed in danger,

I faintly broke with thee of Arthur’s death;

And thou, to be endearèd to a king,

Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.

HUBERT

My lord—

KING JOHN

Hadst thou but shook thy head or made a pause

When I spake darkly what I purposèd,

Or turned 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 entered yet

The dreadful motion of a murderous thought,

And you have slandered 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 incensèd 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.

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Arthur on the walls, dressed as a shipboy.

ARTHUR

The wall is high, and yet will I leap down.

Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not.

There’s few or none do know me. If they did,

This shipboy’s semblance hath disguised me quite.

I am afraid, and yet I’ll venture it.

If I get down and do not break my limbs,

I’ll find a thousand shifts to get away.

As good to die and go as die and stay.

He jumps.

O me, my uncle’s spirit is in these stones.

Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones.

He dies.

Enter Pembroke, Salisbury with a letter, and Bigot.

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

Tomorrow 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 Bastard.

BASTARD

Once more today well met, distempered lords.

The King by me requests your presence straight.

SALISBURY

The King hath dispossessed himself of us.

We will not line his thin bestainèd cloak

With our pure honors, 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’s else.

SALISBURY

This is the prison.

He sees Arthur’s body.

What is he lies here?

PEMBROKE

O Death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!

The Earthearth 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 doomed this beauty to a grave,

Found it too precious-princely for a grave.

SALISBURY

, to Bastard

Sir Richard, what think you? You have 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 damnèd and a bloody work,

The graceless action of a heavy hand,

If that it be the work of any hand.

SALISBURY

If that it be the work of any hand?

We had a kind of light what would ensue.

It is the shameful work of Hubert’s hand,

The practice and the purpose of the King,

From whose obedience I forbid my soul,

Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life

He kneels.

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, BIGOT

, kneeling

Our souls religiously confirm thy words.

They rise.

Enter Hubert.

HUBERT

Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you.

Arthur doth live; the King hath sent for you.

SALISBURY

O, he is bold and blushes not at death!—

Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!

HUBERT

I am no villain.

SALISBURY

, drawing his sword

Must I rob the law?

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.

He puts his hand on his sword.

I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,

Nor tempt the danger of my true defense,

Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget

Your worth, your greatness, and nobility.

BIGOT

Out, dunghill! Dar’st thou brave a nobleman?

HUBERT

Not for my life. But yet I dare defend

My innocent life against an emperor.

SALISBURY

Thou art a murderer.

HUBERT

Do not prove me so.

Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe’er speaks false,

Not truly speaks. Who speaks not truly, lies.

PEMBROKE

, drawing his sword

Cut him to pieces.

BASTARD

, drawing his sword

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, renownèd Faulconbridge?

Second a villain and a murderer?

HUBERT

Lord Bigot, I am none.

BIGOT

Who killed this prince?

HUBERT

’Tis not an hour since I left him well.

I honored him, I loved him, and will weep

My date of life out for his sweet life’s loss.

He weeps.

SALISBURY

Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,

For villainy is not without such rheum,

And he, long traded in it, makes it seem

like rivers of remorse and innocency.

Away with me, all you whose souls abhor

Th’ uncleanly savors of a slaughterhouse,

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.

Lords exit.

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 damned, Hubert.

HUBERT

Do but hear me, sir.

BASTARD

Ha! I’ll tell thee what.

Thou ’rt damned as black—nay, nothing is so black—

Thou art more deep damned than Prince Lucifer.

There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell

As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.

HUBERT

Upon my soul—

BASTARD

If thou didst but consent

To this most cruel act, do but despair,

And if thou want’st a cord, the smallest thread

That ever spider twisted from her womb

Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam

To hang thee on. Or wouldst thou drown thyself,

Put but a little water in a spoon

And it shall be as all the ocean,

Enough to stifle such a villain up.

I do suspect thee very grievously.

HUBERT

If I in act, consent, or sin of thought

Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath

Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,

Let hell want pains enough to torture me.

I left him well.

BASTARD

Go, bear him in thine arms.

I am amazed, methinks, and lose my way

Among the thorns and dangers of this world.

Hubert takes up Arthur’s body.

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 th’ teeth

The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.

Now for the bare-picked bone of majesty

Doth doggèd 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.

They exit, with Hubert carrying Arthur’s body.

ACT 5

Scene 1

Enter King John and Pandulph with the crown, and

their Attendants.

KING JOHN

Thus have I yielded up into your hand

The circle of my glory.

PANDULPH

, handing John the crown

Take again

From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,

Your sovereign greatness and authority.

KING JOHN

Now keep your holy word. Go meet the French,

And from his Holiness use all your power

To stop their marches ’fore we are 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 mistempered humor

Rests by you only to be qualified.

Then pause not, for the present time’s so sick

That present med’cine must be ministered,

Or overthrow incurable ensues.

PANDULPH

It was my breath that blew this tempest up,

Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope;

But since you are a gentle convertite,

My tongue shall hush again this storm of war

And make fair weather in your blust’ring 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.

He exits, with Attendants.

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, God be thanked, it is but voluntary.

Enter 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 damned hand was robbed 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 threat’ner, 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 come so nigh.

KING JOHN

The legate of the Pope hath been with me,

And I have made a happy peace with him,

And he hath 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 cockered silken wanton, brave our fields

And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,

Mocking the air with colors idly spread,

And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms!

Perchance the Cardinal cannot make your peace;

Or if he do, let it at least be said

They saw we had a purpose of defense.

KING JOHN

Have thou the ordering of this present time.

BASTARD

Away, then, with good courage!

(Aside.) Yet I

know

Our party may well meet a prouder foe.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter, in arms, Louis the Dauphin, Salisbury, Melun,

Pembroke, Bigot, and French and English Soldiers.

DAUPHIN

, handing a paper to Melun

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 unurged faith

To your proceedings, yet believe me, prince,

I am not glad that such a sore of time

Should seek a plaster by contemned 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 honorable rescue and defense

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 confusèd wrong.

And is ’t not pity, O my grievèd friends,

That we, the sons and children of this isle,

Was 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 enforcèd cause,

To grace the gentry of a land remote,

And follow unacquainted colors 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 unneighborly.

He weeps.

DAUPHIN

A noble temper dost thou show in this,

And great affections wrestling in thy bosom

Doth make an earthquake of nobility.

O, what a noble combat hast thou fought

Between compulsion and a brave respect!

Let me wipe off this honorable dew

That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.

My heart hath melted at a lady’s tears,

Being an ordinary inundation,

But this effusion of such manly drops,

This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul,

Startles mine eyes and makes me more amazed

Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven

Figured quite o’er with burning meteors.

Lift up thy brow, renownèd Salisbury,

And with a great heart heave away this storm.

Commend these waters to those baby eyes

That never saw the giant world enraged,

Nor met with fortune other than at feasts

Full warm of blood, of mirth, of gossiping.

Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep

Into the purse of rich prosperity

As Louis himself.—So, nobles, shall you all,

That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.

And even there, methinks, an angel spake.

Enter Pandulph.

Look where the holy legate comes apace

To give us warrant from the hand of God,

And on our actions set the name of right

With holy breath.

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 threat’ning colors now wind up,

And tame the savage spirit of wild war

That, like a lion fostered up at hand,

It may lie gently at the foot of peace

And be no further harmful than in show.

DAUPHIN

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 servingman 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 you now to tell me John hath made

His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?

I, by the honor of my marriage bed,

After young Arthur claim this land for mine.

And now it is half conquered, 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 banked their towns?

Have I not here the best cards for the game

To win this easy match played for a crown?

And shall I now give o’er the yielded set?

No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.

PANDULPH

You look but on the outside of this work.

DAUPHIN

Outside or inside, I will not return

Till my attempt so much be glorified

As to my ample hope was promisèd

Before I drew this gallant head of war

And culled these fiery spirits from the world

To outlook conquest and to win renown

Even in the jaws of danger and of death.

A trumpet sounds.

What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?

Enter Bastard.

BASTARD

According to the fair play of the world,

Let me have audience. I am sent to speak,

My holy lord of Milan, from the King.

I come to learn how you have dealt for him,

And, as you answer, I do know the scope

And warrant limited unto my tongue.

PANDULPH

The Dauphin is too willful-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 harnessed masque and unadvisèd revel,

This unheard 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 concealèd wells,

To crouch in litter of your stable planks,

To lie like pawns locked up in chests and trunks,

To hug with swine, to seek sweet safety out

In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake

Even at the crying of your nation’s crow,

Thinking this voice an armèd 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 aerie 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 armèd gauntlets change,

Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts

To fierce and bloody inclination.

DAUPHIN

There end thy brave and turn thy face in peace.

We grant thou canst outscold us. Fare thee well.

We hold our time too precious to be spent

With such a brabbler.

PANDULPH

Give me leave to speak.

BASTARD

No, I will speak.

DAUPHIN

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 clamor 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-mouthed 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-ribbed Death, whose office is this day

To feast upon whole thousands of the French.

DAUPHIN

Strike up our drums to find this danger out.

BASTARD

And thou shalt find it, dauphin, do not doubt.

They exit.

Scene 3

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 wracked 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.

They exit.

Scene 4

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, led by a Soldier.

MELUN

Lead me to the revolts of England here.

SALISBURY

When we were happy, we had other names.

PEMBROKE

It is the Count Melun.

SALISBURY

Wounded to death.

MELUN

Fly, noble English; you are bought and sold.

Unthread the rude eye of rebellion

And welcome home again discarded faith.

Seek out King John and fall before his feet,

For if the French be lords of this loud day,

He means to recompense the pains you take

By cutting off your heads. Thus hath he sworn,

And I with him, and many more with me,

Upon the altar at Saint 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 Louis do win the day,

He is forsworn if e’er those eyes of yours

Behold another daybreak in the East.

But even this night, whose black contagious breath

Already smokes about the burning crest

Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun,

Even this ill night your breathing shall expire,

Paying the fine of rated treachery

Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives,

If Louis by your assistance win the day.

Commend me to one Hubert with your king;

The love of him, and this respect besides,

For that my grandsire was an Englishman,

Awakes my conscience to confess all this.

In lieu whereof, I pray you bear me hence

From forth the noise and rumor of the field,

Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts

In peace, and part this body and my soul

With contemplation and devout desires.

SALISBURY

We do believe thee, and beshrew my soul

But I do love the favor and the form

Of this most fair occasion, by the which

We will untread the steps of damnèd flight,

And like a bated and retirèd flood,

Leaving our rankness and irregular course,

Stoop low within those bounds we have o’erlooked

And calmly run on in obedience

Even to our ocean, to our great King John.

My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence,

For I do see the cruel pangs of death

Right in thine eye.—Away, my friends! New flight,

And happy newness, that intends old right.

They exit, assisting Melun.

Scene 5

Enter Louis, the Dauphin and his train.

DAUPHIN

The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set,

But stayed and made the western welkin blush,

When English measured 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 tott’ring colors clearly up,

Last in the field and almost lords of it.

Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER

Where is my prince, the Dauphin?

DAUPHIN

Here. What news?

MESSENGER

The Count Melun is slain. The English lords,

By his persuasion, are again fall’n off,

And your supply, which you have wished so long,

Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.

DAUPHIN

Ah, foul, shrewd news. Beshrew thy very heart!

I did not think to be so sad tonight

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.

DAUPHIN

Well, keep good quarter and good care tonight.

The day shall not be up so soon as I

To try the fair adventure of tomorrow.

They exit.

Scene 6

Enter 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?

BASTARD

Why may not I demand of thine affairs

As well as thou of mine? 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. An if thou please,

Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think

I come one way of the Plantagenets.

HUBERT

Unkind remembrance! Thou and endless 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 poisoned 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 resolvèd 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 pardoned them,

And they are all about his Majesty.

BASTARD

Withhold thine indignation, mighty God,

And tempt us not to bear above our power.

I’ll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,

Passing these flats, are taken by the tide.

These Lincoln Washes have devourèd them.

Myself, well mounted, hardly have escaped.

Away before. Conduct me to the King.

I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.

They exit.

Scene 7

Enter Prince Henry, Salisbury, and Bigot.

PRINCE HENRY

It is too late. The life of all his blood

Is touched 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.

Bigot exits.

Doth he still rage?

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 preyed upon the outward parts,

Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now

Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds

With many legions of strange fantasies,

Which in their throng and press to that last hold

Confound themselves. ’Tis strange that Death should

sing.

I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,

Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,

And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings

His soul and body to their lasting rest.

SALISBURY

Be of good comfort, prince, for you are born

To set a form upon that indigest

Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.

King John brought in, attended by Bigot.

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

Poisoned—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 burned bosom, nor entreat the North

To make his bleak winds kiss my parchèd 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, condemnèd blood.

Enter 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 cracked and burnt,

And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail

Are turnèd to one thread, one little hair.

My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,

Which holds but till thy news be utterèd,

And then all this thou seest is but a clod

And module of confounded royalty.

BASTARD

The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,

Where God 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

Devourèd 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 Earthearth 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 honor and respect may take,

With purpose presently to leave this war.

BASTARD

He will the rather do it when he sees

Ourselves well-sinewèd to our defense.

SALISBURY

Nay, ’tis in a manner done already,

For many carriages he hath dispatched

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 interred,

For so he willed 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.

He kneels.

SALISBURY

And the like tender of our love we make

To rest without a spot forevermore.

Salisbury, Pembroke, and Bigot kneel.

PRINCE HENRY

I have a kind soul that would give you thanks

And knows not how to do it but with tears.

They rise.

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. Naught shall make us rue,