The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (book suggestions TXT) 📖

That to my home I will no more return Till Angiers and the right thou hast in France, Together with that pale, that white-fac’d shore, Whose foot spurns back the ocean’s roaring tides And coops from other lands her islanders-Even till that England, hedg’d in with the main, That water-walled bulwark, still secure And confident from foreign purposes-Even till that utmost corner of the west Salute thee for her king. Till then, fair boy, 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 unadvis’d 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 arriv’d.

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 the Lady Blanch of Spain;

With them a bastard of the king’s deceas’d; And all th’ 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 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 offence 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 unlook’d for is this expedition!

AUSTRIA. By how much unexpected, by so much We must awake endeavour for defence,

For courage mounteth with occasion.

Let them be welcome then; we are prepar’d.

 

Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the BASTARD, 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 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,

Outfaced 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’er-masterest?

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.

ELINOR. Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?

CONSTANCE. Let me make answer: thy usurping son.

ELINOR. Out, insolent! Thy bastard shall be king, That thou mayst be a queen and check the world!

CONSTANCE. My bed was ever to thy son as true As thine was to thy husband; and this boy Liker in feature to his father Geffrey Than thou and John in manners-being as Eke 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.

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 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, determine what we shall do straight.

KING PHILIP. 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 Britaine, 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.

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.

ELINOR. 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 brib’d To do him justice and revenge on you.

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 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

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, plagued 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!

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 cank’red 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 citizens upon the walls 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

And merciless proceeding by these French Confront 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 countercheck before your gates, To save unscratch’d your city’s threat’ned cheeks-Behold, the French amaz’d 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 cars; Which trust accordingly, kind citizens, And let us in-your King, whose labour’d spirits, Forwearied in this action of swift speed, Craves 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 him 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 th’ invulnerable clouds of heaven; And with a blessed and unvex’d retire, With unhack’d swords and helmets all unbruis’d, 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-fac’d 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 challeng’d 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