King John - William Shakespeare (ebook reader web TXT) 📗

hazard of new fortunes here:
In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits
Than now the English bottoms have waft o’er
Did nearer float upon the swelling tide,
To do offence and scath 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 prepared.

Enter King John, Elinor, Blanch, the Bastard, Lords, and forces. 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,
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:
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?

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 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.

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 burthen 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 Lewis, determine what we shall do straight. Lewis

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 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.

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

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, plague 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 canker’d 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 certain Citizens upon the walls. First Citizen Who is it that hath warn’d us to the