King John - William Shakespeare (romantic story to read .TXT) 📗

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 will renown
Even in the jaws of danger and of death. -

[Trumpet sounds.]

What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?

[Enter the BASTARD, attended.]

BASTARD.
According to the fair play of the world,
Let me have audience; I am sent to speak: -
My holy lord of Milan, from the king
I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;
And, as you answer, I do know the scope
And warrant limited unto my tongue.

PANDULPH.
The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,
And will not temporize with my entreaties;
He flatly says he'll not lay down his arms.

BASTARD.
By all the blood that ever fury breath'd,
The youth says well. - Now hear our English king;
For thus his royalty doth speak in me.
He is prepar'd; and reason too he should:
This apish and unmannerly approach,
This harness'd masque and unadvised revel
This unhair'd sauciness and boyish troops,
The king doth smile at; and is well prepar'd
To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms,
From out the circle of his territories.
That hand which had the strength, even at your door,
To cudgel you, and make you take the hatch;
To dive, like buckets, in concealed wells;
To crouch in litter of your stable planks;
To lie, like pawns, lock'd up in chests and trunks;
To hug with swine; to seek sweet safety out
In vaults and prisons; and to thrill and shake
Even at the crying of your nation's crow,
Thinking this voice an armed Englishman; -
Shall that victorious hand be feebled here
That in your chambers gave you chastisement?
No: know the gallant monarch is in arms
And like an eagle o'er his aery towers
To souse annoyance that comes near his nest. -
And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,
You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb
Of your dear mother England, blush for shame;
For your own ladies and pale-visag'd maids,
Like Amazons, come tripping after drums, -
Their thimbles into armed gauntlets chang'd,
Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts
To fierce and bloody inclination.

LOUIS.
There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;
We grant thou canst outscold us: fare thee well;
We hold our time too precious to be spent
With such a brabbler.

PANDULPH.
Give me leave to speak.

BASTARD.
No, I will speak.

LOUIS.
We will attend to neither. -
Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war,
Plead for our interest and our being here.

BASTARD.
Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out;
And so shall you, being beaten: do but start
And echo with the clamour of thy drum,
And even at hand a drum is ready brac'd
That shall reverberate all as loud as thine:
Sound but another, and another shall,
As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear,
And mock the deep-mouth'd thunder: for at hand, -
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.

LOUIS.
Strike up our drums, to find this danger out.

BASTARD.
And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE 3. The same. The Field of Battle.

[Alarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT.]

KING JOHN.
How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert.

HUBERT.
Badly, I fear. How fares your majesty?

KING JOHN.
This fever that hath troubled me so long
Lies heavy on me; - O, my heart is sick!

[Enter a MESSENGER.]

MESSENGER.
My lord, your valiant kinsman, Falconbridge,
Desires your majesty to leave the field
And send him word by me which way you go.

KING JOHN.
Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there.

MESSENGER.
Be of good comfort; for the great supply
That was expected by the Dauphin here
Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin Sands.
This news was brought to Richard but even now:
The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.

KING JOHN.
Ay me! this tyrant fever burns me up
And will not let me welcome this good news. -
Set on toward Swinstead: to my litter straight;
Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE 4. The same. Another part of the same.

[Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, and others.]

SALISBURY.
I did not think the king so stor'd with friends.

PEMBROKE.
Up once again; put spirit in the French;
If they miscarry, we miscarry too.

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

PEMBROKE.
They say King John, sore sick, hath left the field.

[Enter MELUN wounded, and led by Soldiers.]

MELUN.
Lead me to the revolts of England here.

SALISBURY.
When we were happy we had other names.

PEMBROKE.
It is the Count Melun.

SALISBURY.
Wounded to death.

MELUN.
Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold;
Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,
And welcome home again discarded faith.
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
By cutting off your heads: thus hath he sworn,
And I with him, and many more with me,
Upon the altar at Saint Edmunds-bury;
Even on that altar where we swore to you
Dear amity and everlasting love.

SALISBURY.
May this be possible? may this be true?

MELUN.
Have I not hideous death within my view,
Retaining but a quantity of life,
Which bleeds away even as a form of wax
Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?
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?
I say again, if Louis do will the day,
He is forsworn if e'er those eyes of yours
Behold another day break in the east:
But even this night, - whose black contagious breath
Already smokes about the burning crest
Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun, -
Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire;
Paying the fine of rated treachery
Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives,
If Louis by your assistance win the day.
Commend me to one Hubert, with your king;
The love of him, - and this respect besides,
For that my grandsire was an Englishman, -
Awakes my conscience to confess all this.
In lieu whereof, I pray you, bear me hence
From forth the noise and rumour 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.

SALISBURY.
We do believe thee: - and beshrew my soul
But I do love the favour and the form
Of this most fair occasion, by the which
We will untread the steps of damned flight;
And like a bated and retired flood,
Leaving our rankness and irregular course,
Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd,
And calmly run on in obedience
Even to our ocean, to our great King John. -
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.

[Exeunt, leading off MELUN.]


SCENE 5. The same. The French camp.

[Enter LEWIS and his train.]

LOUIS.
The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set,
But stay'd, and made the western welkin blush,
When the English measur'd backward their own ground
In faint retire. O, bravely came we off,
When with a volley of our needless shot,
After such bloody toil, we bid good night;
And wound our tattrring colours clearly up,
Last in the field, and almost lords of it!

[Enter a MESSENGER.]

MESSENGER.
Where is my prince, the Dauphin?

LOUIS.
Here: - what news?

MESSENGER.
The Count Melun is slain; the English lords
By his persuasion are again falln off:
And your supply, which you have wish'd so long,
Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.

LOUIS.
Ah, foul shrewd news! - beshrew thy very heart! -
I did not think to be so sad to-night
As this hath made me. - Who was he that said
King John did fly an hour or two before
The stumbling night did part our weary powers?

MESSENGER.
Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.

LOUIS.
Keep good quarter and good care to-night;
The day shall not be up so soon as I,
To try the fair adventure of to-morrow.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE 6. An open place in the neighborhood of Swinstead Abbey.

[Enter the BASTARD and HUBERT, meeting.]

HUBERT.
Who's there? speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot.

BASTARD.
A friend. - What art thou?

HUBERT.
Of the part of England.

BASTARD.
Whither dost thou go?

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

BASTARD.
Hubert, I think.

HUBERT.
Thou hast a perfect thought:
I will, upon all hazards, well believe
Thou art my friend that know'st my tongue so well.
Who art thou?

BASTARD.
Who thou wilt: and if thou please,
Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think
I come one way of the Plantagenets.

HUBERT.
Unkind remembrance! thou and eyeless night
Have done me shame: - brave soldier, pardon me,
That any accent breaking from thy tongue
Should scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.

BASTARD.
Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?

HUBERT.
Why, here walk I, in the black brow of night,
To find you out.

BASTARD.
Brief, then; and what's the news?

HUBERT.
O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,
Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.

BASTARD.
Show me the very wound of this ill news;
I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.

HUBERT.
The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk:
I left him almost speechless and broke out
To acquaint you with this evil, that you might
The better arm you to the sudden time,
Than if you had at leisure known of this.

BASTARD.
How did he take it; who did taste to him?

HUBERT.
A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain,
Whose bowels suddenly burst out: the king
Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.

BASTARD.
Who didst thou leave to tend his majesty?

HUBERT.
Why, know you not? The lords are all come back,
And brought Prince Henry in their company;
At whose request the king hath pardon'd them,
And they are all about his majesty.

BASTARD.
Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven,
And tempt us not to bear above our power! -
I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,
Passing these flats, are taken by the tide, -
These Lincoln washes have devoured them;
Myself, well-mounted, hardly have escap'd.
Away, before! conduct me to the king;
I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE 7. The orchard of Swinstead Abbey.

[Enter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT.]

PRINCE HENRY.
It is too late: the life of all his blood
Is touch'd corruptibly, and his pure brain,