Shakespeare's Kings (138 page)
queen
. Ah me! is this my welcome into France?
Is this the comfort that I look'd to have
When I should meet with my beloved son?
Sweet Ned, I would thy mother in the sea
Had been prevented of this mortal grief!
k.
ed
. Content thee, Philippe: 'tis not tears will serve
To call him back if he be taken hence:
Comfort thyself, as I do, gende queen,
With hope of sharp, unheard-of, dire revenge.
-He bids me to provide his funeral;
And so I will: but all the peers in France
Shall mourners be and weep out bloody tears
Until their empty veins be dry and sere:
The pillars of his hearse shall be their bones;
The mould that covers him, their cities' ashes;
His knell, the groaning cries of dying men;
And, in the stead of tapers on his tomb,
An hundred fifty towers shall burning blaze,
While we bewail our valiant son's decease.
(V, i)
After a flourish, sounded within, enter a Herald
her
. Rejoice, my lord; ascend the imperial throne!
The mighty and redoubted Prince of Wales,
Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms,
The Frenchman's terror and his country's fame,
Triumphant rideth like a Roman peer:
And, lowly at his stirrup, comes afoot
King John of France together with his son
In captive bonds; whose diadem he brings
To crown thee with and to proclaim thee king.
k. ed
. Away with mourning, Philip, wipe thine eyes;
-Sound, trumpets, welcome in Plantagenet!
Enter Prince Edward, King John, Philip, Audley,
Artois
As things, long lost, when they are found again,
So doth my son rejoice his father's heart,
For whom, even now, my soul was much perplex'd!
queen
. Be this a token to express my joy,
Kiss
For inward passions will not let me speak.
pr. ed
. My gracious father, here receive the gift,
[Presenting him with King John's crown]
This wreath of conquest and reward of war,
Got with as mickle peril of our lives
As e'er was thing of price before this day;
Install your highness in your proper right:
And, herewithal, I render to your hands
These prisoners, chief occasion of our strife.
k. ed
. So, John of France, I see you keep your word.
You promis'd to be sooner with ourself
Than we did think for, and 'tis so indeed:
But, had you done at first as now you do,
How many civil towns had stood untouch'd
That now are turn'd to ragged heaps of stones?
How many people's lives might'st thou have sav'd
That are untimely sunk into their graves?
k. john
. Edward, recount not things irrevocable;
Tell me what ransom thou requir'st to have.
k. ed
. Thy ransom, John, hereafter shall be known.
But first to England thou must cross the seas
To see what entertainment it affords;
Howe'er it falls, it cannot be so bad
As ours hath been since we arriv'd in France.
k. john
. Accursed man! of this I was foretold,
(V, i)
But did misconster what the prophet told.
pr. ed
. Now, father, this petition Edward makes, -
To thee,
[kneels]
whose grace hath been his strongest shield,
That, as thy pleasure chose me for the man
To be the instrument to show thy power,
So thou wilt grant, that many princes more,
Bred and brought up within that
little
isle,
May still be famous for like victories! -
And, for my part, the bloody scars I bear,
The weary nights that I have watch'd in field,
The dangerous conflicts I have often had,
The fearful menaces were proffer'd me,
The heat and cold and what else might displease,
I wish were now redoubled twenty-fold;
So that hereafter ages, when they read
The painful traffic of my tender youth,
Might thereby be inflamed with such resolve
As not the territories of France alone,
But likewise Spain, Turkey, and what countries else
That ju
stly
would provoke fair England's ire,
Might, at their presence, tremble and retire!
k. ed
. Here, English lords, we do proclaim a rest,
An intercession of our painful arms:
Sheathe up your swords, refresh your weary limbs,
Peruse your spoils; and, after we have breath'd
A day or two within this haven-town,
God willing, then for England we'll be shipp'd;
Where, in a happy hour, I trust, we shall
Arrive, three kings, two princes, and a queen.
[Exeunt]