The Same. The French King’s Tent. | |
| |
Enter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH, and Attendants. | |
| K. Phi. So, by a roaring tempest on the flood, | |
| A whole armado of convicted sail | 4 |
| Is scatter’d and disjoin’d from fellowship. | |
| Pand. Courage and comfort! all shall yet go well. | |
| K. Phi. What can go well when we have run so ill? | |
| Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost? | 8 |
| Arthur ta’en prisoner? divers dear friends slain? | |
| And bloody England into England gone, | |
| O’erbearing interruption, spite of France? | |
| Lew. What he hath won that hath he fortified: | 12 |
| So hot a speed with such advice dispos’d, | |
| Such temperate order in so fierce a cause, | |
| Doth want example: who hath read or heard | |
| Of any kindred action like to this? | 16 |
| K. Phi. Well could I bear that England had this praise, | |
| So we could find some pattern of our shame. | |
| |
Enter CONSTANCE. | |
| Look, who comes here! a grave unto a soul; | 20 |
| Holding the eternal spirit, against her will, | |
| In the vile prison of afflicted breath. | |
| I prithee lady, go away with me. | |
| Const Lo now! now see the issue of your peace. | 24 |
| K. Phi. Patience, good lady! comfort, gentle Constance! | |
| Const. No, I defy all counsel, all redress, | |
| But that which ends all counsel, true redress, | |
| Death, death: O, amiable lovely death! | 28 |
| Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness! | |
| Arise forth from the couch of lasting night, | |
| Thou hate and terror to prosperity, | |
| And I will kiss thy detestable bones, | 32 |
| And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows, | |
| And ring these fingers with thy household worms, | |
| And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust, | |
| And be a carrion monster like thyself: | 36 |
| Come, grin on me; and I will think thou smil’st | |
| And buss thee as thy wife! Misery’s love, | |
| O! come to me. | |
| K. Phi. O fair affliction, peace! | 40 |
| Const. 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 | 44 |
| Which cannot hear a lady’s feeble voice, | |
| Which scorns a modern invocation. | |
| Pand. Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow. | |
| Const. Thou art not holy to belie me so; | 48 |
| I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine; | |
| My name is Constance; I was Geffrey’s wife; | |
| Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost! | |
| I am not mad: I would to heaven I were! | 52 |
| For then ’tis like I should forget myself: | |
| O! if I could, what grief should I forget. | |
| Preach some philosophy to make me mad, | |
| And thou shalt be canoniz’d, cardinal; | 56 |
| 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: | 60 |
| If I were mad, I should forget my son, | |
| Or madly think a babe of clouts were he. | |
| I am not mad: too well, too well I feel | |
| The different plague of each calamity. | 64 |
| K. Phi. Bind up those tresses. O! what love I note | |
| In the fair multitude of those her hairs: | |
| Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen, | |
| Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends | 68 |
| Do glue themselves in sociable grief; | |
| Like true, inseparable, faithful loves, | |
| Sticking together in calamity. | |
| Const. To England, if you will. | 72 |
| K. Phi. Bind up your hairs. | |
| Const. Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it? | |
| I tore them from their bonds, and cried aloud | |
| ‘O! that these hands could so redeem my son, | 76 |
| As they have given these hairs their liberty!’ | |
| But now I envy at their liberty, | |
| And will again commit them to their bonds, | |
| Because my poor child is a prisoner. | 80 |
| And, father cardinal, I have heard you say | |
| That we shall see and know our friends in heaven. | |
| If that be true, I shall see my boy again; | |
| For since the birth of Cain, the first male child, | 84 |
| To him that did but yesterday suspire, | |
| There was not such a gracious creature born. | |
| But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud | |
| And chase the native beauty from his cheek, | 88 |
| And he will look as hollow as a ghost, | |
| As dim and meagre as an ague’s fit, | |
| And so he’ll die; and, rising so again, | |
| When I shall meet him in the court of heaven | 92 |
| I shall not know him: therefore never, never | |
| Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. | |
| Pand. You hold too heinous a respect of grief. | |
| Const. He talks to me, that never had a son. | 96 |
| K. Phi. You are as fond of grief as of your child. | |
| Const. Grief fills the room up of my absent child, | |
| Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, | |
| Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, | 100 |
| Remembers me of all his gracious parts, | |
| Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form: | |
| Then have I reason to be fond of grief. | |
| Fare you well: had you such a loss as I, | 104 |
| I could give better comfort than you do. | |
| I will not keep this form upon my head | |
| When there is such disorder in my wit. | |
| O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son! | 108 |
| My life, my joy, my food, my all the world! | |
| My widow-comfort, and my sorrows’ cure! [Exit. | |
| K. Phi. I fear some outrage, and I’ll follow her. [Exit. | |
| Lew. There’s nothing in this world can make me joy: | 112 |
| Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, | |
| Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man; | |
| And bitter shame hath spoil’d the sweet world’s taste, | |
| That it yields nought but shame and bitterness. | 116 |
| Pand. Before the curing of a strong disease, | |
| Even in the instant of repair and health, | |
| The fit is strongest: evils that take leave, | |
| On their departure most of all show evil. | 120 |
| What have you lost by losing of this day? | |
| Lew. All days of glory, joy, and happiness. | |
| Pand. If you had won it, certainly you had. | |
| No, no; when Fortune means to men most good, | 124 |
| She looks upon them with a threatening eye, | |
| ’Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost | |
| In this which he accounts so clearly won. | |
| Are not you griev’d that Arthur is his prisoner? | 128 |
| Lew. As heartily as he is glad he hath him. | |
| Pand. Your mind is all as youthful as your blood. | |
| Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit; | |
| For even the breath of what I mean to speak | 132 |
| 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. | |
| John hath seiz’d Arthur; and it cannot be, | 136 |
| That whiles warm life plays in that infant’s veins | |
| The misplac’d John should entertain an hour, | |
| One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest. | |
| A sceptre snatch’d with an unruly hand | 140 |
| Must be as boisterously maintain’d as gain’d; | |
| And he that stands upon a slippery place | |
| Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up: | |
| That John may stand, then Arthur needs must fall; | 144 |
| So be it, for it cannot be but so. | |
| Lew. But what shall I gain by young Arthur’s fall? | |
| Pand. You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife, | |
| May then make all the claim that Arthur did. | 148 |
| Lew. And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did. | |
| Pand. How green you are and fresh in this old world! | |
| John lays you plots; the times conspire with you; | |
| For he that steeps his safety in true blood | 152 |
| Shall find but bloody safety and untrue. | |
| This act so evilly borne shall cool the hearts | |
| Of all his people and freeze up their zeal, | |
| That none so small advantage shall step forth | 156 |
| To check his reign, but they will cherish it; | |
| No natural exhalation in the sky, | |
| No scope of nature, no distemper’d day, | |
| No common wind, no customed event, | 160 |
| But they will pluck away his natural cause | |
| And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs, | |
| Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven, | |
| Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John. | 164 |
| Lew. May be he will not touch young Arthur’s life, | |
| But hold himself safe in his prisonment. | |
| Pand. O! sir, when he shall hear of your approach, | |
| If that young Arthur be not gone already, | 168 |
| Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts | |
| Of all his people shall revolt from him | |
| And kiss the lips of unacquainted change, | |
| And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath | 172 |
| Out of the bloody fingers’ ends of John. | |
| Methinks I see this hurly all on foot: | |
| And, O! what better matter breeds for you | |
| Than I have nam’d. The bastard Faulconbridge | 176 |
| Is now in England ransacking the church, | |
| Offending charity: if but a dozen French | |
| Were there in arms, they would be as a call | |
| To train ten thousand English to their side; | 180 |
| Or as a little snow, tumbled about, | |
| Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin! | |
| Go with me to the king. ’Tis wonderful | |
| What may be wrought out of their discontent | 184 |
| Now that their souls are topful of offence. | |
| For England go; I will whet on the king. | |
| Lew. Strong reasons make strong actions. Let us go: | |
| If you say ay, the king will not say no. [Exeunt. | 188 |