Complete Plays, The (188 page)

Constance

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

Austria

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

King Philip

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

Constance

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

Enter Chatillon

King Philip

A wonder, lady! lo, upon thy wish,
Our messenger Chatillon is arrived!
What England says, say briefly, gentle lord;
We coldly pause for thee; Chatillon, speak.

Chatillon

Then turn your forces from this paltry siege
And stir them up against a mightier task.
England, impatient of your just demands,
Hath put himself in arms: the adverse winds,
Whose leisure I have stay’d, have given him time
To land his legions all as soon as I;
His marches are expedient to this town,
His forces strong, his soldiers confident.
With him along is come the mother-queen,
An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife;
With her her niece, the Lady Blanch of Spain;
With them a bastard of the king’s deceased,
And all the unsettled humours of the land,
Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,
With ladies’ faces and fierce dragons’ spleens,
Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,
Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,
To make hazard of new fortunes here:
In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits
Than now the English bottoms have waft o’er
Did nearer float upon the swelling tide,
To do offence and scath in Christendom.

Drum beats

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

King Philip

How much unlook’d for is this expedition!

Austria

By how much unexpected, by so much
We must awake endavour for defence;
For courage mounteth with occasion:
Let them be welcome then: we are prepared.

Enter King John, Queen Elinor, Blanch, the Bastard, Lords, and forces

King John

Peace be to France, if France in peace permit
Our just and lineal entrance to our own;
If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven,
Whiles we, God’s wrathful agent, do correct
Their proud contempt that beats His peace to heaven.

King Philip

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

King John

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

King Philip

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

King John

Alack, thou dost usurp authority.

King Philip

Excuse; it is to beat usurping down.

Queen Elinor

Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?

Constance

Let me make answer; thy usurping son.

Queen Elinor

Out, insolent! thy bastard shall be king,
That thou mayst be a queen, and cheque the world!

Constance

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

Queen Elinor

There’s a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.

Constance

There’s a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee.

Austria

Peace!

Bastard

 
Hear the crier.

Austria

What the devil art thou?

Bastard

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

Blanch

O, well did he become that lion’s robe
That did disrobe the lion of that robe!

Bastard

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

Austria

What craker is this same that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?

King Philip

Lewis, determine what we shall do straight.

Lewis

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

King John

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

Queen Elinor

 
Come to thy grandam, child.

Constance

Do, child, go to it grandam, child:
Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig:
There’s a good grandam.

Arthur

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

Queen Elinor

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

Constance

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

Queen Elinor

Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!

Constance

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

King John

Bedlam, have done.

Constance

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

Queen Elinor

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

Constance

Ay, who doubts that? a will! a wicked will:
A woman’s will; a canker’d grandam’s will!

King Philip

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

Trumpet sounds. Enter certain Citizens upon the walls

First Citizen

Who is it that hath warn’d us to the walls?

King Philip

’Tis France, for England.

King John

England, for itself.
You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects —

King Philip

You loving men of Angiers, Arthur’s subjects,
Our trumpet call’d you to this gentle parle —

King John

For our advantage; therefore hear us first.
These flags of France, that are advanced here
Before the eye and prospect of your town,
Have hither march’d to your endamagement:
The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,
And ready mounted are they to spit forth
Their iron indignation ’gainst your walls:
All preparation for a bloody siege
All merciless proceeding by these French
Confronts your city’s eyes, your winking gates;
And but for our approach those sleeping stones,
That as a waist doth girdle you about,
By the compulsion of their ordinance
By this time from their fixed beds of lime
Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made
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 countercheque before your gates,
To save unscratch’d your city’s threatened cheeks,
Behold, the French amazed vouchsafe a parle;
And now, instead of bullets wrapp’d in fire,
To make a shaking fever in your walls,
They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke,
To make a faithless error in your ears:
Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,
And let us in, your king, whose labour’d spirits,
Forwearied in this action of swift speed,
Crave harbourage within your city walls.

King Philip

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

First Citizen

In brief, we are the king of England’s subjects:
For him, and in his right, we hold this town.

King John

Acknowledge then the king, and let me in.

First Citizen

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

King John

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

Bastard

Bastards, and else.

King John

To verify our title with their lives.

King Philip

As many and as well-born bloods as those,—

Bastard

Some bastards too.

King Philip

Stand in his face to contradict his claim.

First Citizen

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

King John

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

King Philip

Amen, amen! Mount, chevaliers! to arms!

Bastard

Saint George, that swinged the dragon, and e’er since
Sits on his 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

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.