Salute thee for her king: till then, fair boy,
Will I not think of home, but follow arms.

30

Const. 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!

Aust. The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords

In such a just and charitable war.

K. Phi. Well then, to work: our cannon shall be bent

40

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.

Const. 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.

K. Phi. 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.

51

Chat. 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, *Swift. 60
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,† †Volunteers.
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 scath‡ in Christendom.

71

Injury.

[Drum beats.

The interruption of their churlish drums
Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand,
To parley or to fight; therefore prepare. Argument.
K. Phi. How much unlook'd for is this expe
dition!

81

Aust. 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 prepared.

Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the
Bastard, Lords, and forces.

K. 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.

K. Phi. 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 91
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:

ΙΟΙ

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?
K. John. From whom hast thou this great
commission, France,

To draw my answer from thy articles?

ΙΙΟ

K. Phi. 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.

K. John. Alack, thou dost usurp authority.
K. Phi. Excuse; it is to beat usurping down.
Eli. Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?
Const. Let me make answer; thy usurping son.
Eli. Out, insolent! thy bastard shall be king,
That thou mayst be a queen, and check the
world!

Const. 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.

130

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

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

Aust. Peace!

Bast.

Aust.

Hear the crier.

What the devil art thou?

Bast. 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.

140

Blanch. O, well did he become that lion's robe That did disrobe the lion of that robe!

Bast. 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. Aust. What cracker* is this same that deafs

our ears

*Boaster.

With this abundance of superfluous breath? K. Phi. Lewis, determine what we shall do straight.

Lew. 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:

150

Wilt thou resign them and lay down thy arms?
K. 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.

Eli.

Come to thy grandam, child. Const. Do, child, go to it grandam, child; 160. Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will

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

There's a good grandam.

Arth.

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. *Stir. Eli. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he

weeps.

Const. 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; 170 Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be bribed

To do him justice and revenge on you.

Eli. Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!

Const. 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.
K. John. Bedlam, have done.
Const.

180

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!

Eli. Thou unadvised scold, I can produce

A will that bars the title of thy son.

190

Const. Ay, who doubts that? a will! a wicked will;

A woman's will; a canker'd grandam's will!

K. Phi. Peace, lady! pause, or be more temperate:

It ill beseems this presence to cry aim*
To these ill-tuned repetitions.

*To encourage.

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.

200

First Cit. Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls?

K. Phi. 'Tis France, for England.

K. John.

England, for itself.