King John

A sceptre snatch’d with an unruly hand Must be as boisterously maintain’d as gain’d; And he that stands upon a slipp’ry place Makes nice of no vild hold to stay him up

And I shall show you peace and fair-fac’d league; Win you this city without stroke or wound, Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds, That here come sacrifices for the field.

And if an angel should have come to me And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes, I would not have believ’d him—no tongue but Hubert’s.

And if you do, you will but make it blush And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert. Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes; And, like a dog that is compell’d to fight, Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on.

And let young Arthur Duke of Britain 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.

And like a jolly troop of huntsmen come Our lusty English, all with purpled hands, Dy’d in the dying slaughter of their foes. Open your gates and give the victors way.

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;

And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear, Save in aspect, hath all offense seal’d up; Our cannons’ malice vainly shall be spent Against th’ invulnerable clouds of heaven, And with a blessed and unvex’d retire, With unhack’d swords, and helmets all unbruis’d,

And why rail I on this commodity? But for because he hath not woo’d me yet: Not that I have the power to clutch my hand When his fair angels would salute my palm, But for my hand, as unattempted yet, Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich.

And you have slander’d nature in my form, Which howsoever rude exteriorly, Is yet the cover of a fairer mind Than to be butcher of an innocent child.

As true as I believe you think them false That give you cause to prove my saying true.

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.

Because he hath a half-face like my father! With half that face would he have all my land— A half-fac’d groat five hundred pound a year

Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answer’d blows; Strength match’d with strength, and power confronted power: Both are alike, and both alike we like.

Brother, adieu, good fortune come to thee! For thou wast got i’ th’ way of honesty. Exeunt all but Bastard. A foot of honor better than I was, But many a many foot of land the worse.

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.

but without this match, The sea enraged 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.

By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause To curse the fair proceedings of this day.

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.

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?

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.

Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold! Unthread the rude eye of rebellion, And welcome home again discarded faith.

From that supernal judge that stirs good thoughts In any breast of strong authority, To look into the blots and stains of right.

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. LEW. Strong reasons makes strange actions. Let us go; If you say ay, the King will not say no.

God shall forgive you Coeur de Lion’s death The rather that you give his offspring life, Shadowing their right under your wings of war. I give you welcome with a powerless hand. But with a heart full of unstained love.

Ha, majesty! How high thy glory tow’rs 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 undetermin’d differences of kings.

Have I not heard these islanders shout out “Vive le roi!” as I have bank’d their towns? Have I not here the best cards for the game, To win this easy match play’d for a crown? And shall I now give o’er the yielded set? No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.

He is the half part of a blessed man, Left to be finished by such as she, And she a fair divided excellence, Whose fullness of perfection lies in him.

Here have we war for war and blood for blood, Controlment for controlment: so answer France.

His grandame’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 brib’d To do him justice, and revenge on you.

I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen Upon a parchment, and against this fire Do I shrink up.

I am not glad that such a sore of time Should seek a plaster by contemn’d revolt, And heal the inveterate canker of one wound By making many.

I do protest I never lov’d myself Till now infixed I beheld myself Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.

I say again, if Lewis do win the day, He is forsworn if e’er those eyes of yours Behold another day break in the east;

If lusty love should go in quest of beauty, Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch? If zealous love should go in search of virtue, Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?

If not fill up the measure of her will, Yet in some measure satisfy her so That we shall stop her exclamation. Go we, as well as haste will suffer us, To this unlook’d-for, unprepared pomp.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In us, that are our own great deputy, And bear possession of our person here, Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.

It is a damned and a bloody work, The graceless action of a heavy hand— If that it be the work of any hand.

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

K. JOHN. France, thou shalt rue this hour within this hour. BAST. Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton Time! Is it as he will? Well then, France shall rue.

K. JOHN. Silence, good mother, hear the embassy. CHAT.

Let not the hours of this ungodly day Wear out the day in peace; but ere sunset, Set armed discord ’twixt these perjur’d kings!

Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury, And with a great heart heave away this storm. Commend these waters to those baby eyes That never saw the giant world enrag’d, Nor met with fortune other than at feasts, Full warm of blood, of mirth, of gossiping.

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.

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.

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.

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 father gave me honor, yours gave land. Now blessed be the hour by night or day When I was got, Sir Robert was away!

Nay, ask me if I can refrain from love, For I do love her most unfeignedly.

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

(Not trusting to this halting legate here, Whom he hath us’d rather for sport than need) Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits A bare-ribb’d death, whose office is this day To feast upon whole thousands of the French.

Now by this light, were I to get again, Madam, I would not wish a better father. Some sins do bear their privilege on earth, And so doth yours: your fault was not your folly;

Now happy he whose cloak and center 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.

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:

Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true.

Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads, I like it well. France, shall we knit our pow’rs, And lay this Angiers even with the ground, Then after fight who shall be king of it?

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, 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.

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!

O, upon my knee, Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee, Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom Forethought by heaven!

One that will play the devil, sir, with you, And ’a may catch your hide and you alone. You are the hare of whom the proverb goes, Whose valor plucks dead lions by the beard; I’ll smoke your skin-coat and I catch you right.

Or if that surly spirit, melancholy, Had bak’d 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;

Our colors do return in those same hands That did display them when we first march’d forth;

Our discontented counties do revolt; Our people quarrel with obedience, Swearing allegiance and the love of soul To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.

Outside or inside, I will not return Till my attempt so much be glorified As to my ample hope was promised Before I drew this gallant head of war, And cull’d these fiery spirits from the world, To outlook conquest and to win renown Even in the jaws of danger and of death.

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.

Peace, lady, pause, or be more temperate. It ill beseems this presence to cry aim To these ill-tuned repetitions.

Preach some philosophy to make me mad, And thou shalt be canoniz’d, Cardinal; For, being not mad, but sensible of grief, My reasonable part produces reason How I may be deliver’d of these woes, And teaches me to kill or hang myself.

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.

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

Shall then my father’s will be of no force To dispossess that child which is not his? BAST. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir, Than was his will to get me, as I think.

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.

Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought; The Dauphin rages at our very heels.

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.

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.

That misbegotten devil Faulconbridge, In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.

The King hath dispossess’d himself of us. We will not line his thin bestained cloak With our pure honors, nor attend the foot That leaves the print of blood where e’er it walks.

The cannons have their bowels full of wrath, And ready mounted are they to spit forth Their iron indignation ’gainst your walls;

The latest breath that gave the sound of words Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love Between our kingdoms and our royal selves,

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

The salt in them is hot. Within me is a hell, and there the poison Is as a fiend confin’d to tyrannize On unreprievable condemned blood.

The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set, But stay’d and made the western welkin blush, When English measure backward their own ground In faint retire.

The world, who of itself is peized 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—

The yearly course that brings this day about Shall never see it but a holy day.

Then tell us, shall your city call us lord, In that behalf which we have challeng’d it? Or shall we give the signal to our rage, And stalk in blood to our possession?

Then, have I reason to be fond of grief? Fare you well! Had you such a loss as I, I could give better comfort than you do. I will not keep this form upon my head Tearing her hair. When there is such disorder in my wit.

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.

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.

This royal hand and mine are newly knit, And the conjunction of our inward souls Married in league, coupled, and link’d together With all religious strength of sacred vows.

Thou wear a lion’s hide! Doff it for shame, And hang a calve’s-skin on those recreant limbs.

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.

To solemnize this day the glorious sun Stays in his course and plays the alchymist, Turning with splendor of his precious eye The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold.

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.

Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss As seal to this indenture of my love:

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 damned flight,

Well could I bear that England had this praise, So we could find some pattern of our shame.

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.

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

What hath this day deserv’d? What hath it done, That it in golden letters should be set Among the high tides in the calendar?

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?

What other harm have I, good lady, done, But spoke the harm that is by others done? CONST. Which harm within itself so heinous is As it makes harmful all that speak of it.

What’s that to thee? Why may not I demand Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine?

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.

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.

Your royal presences be rul’d 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 charged to the mouths, Till their soul-fearing clamors have brawl’d down The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city.

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 heaven, and you, and I, shall hear.