King John by William Shakespeare

Act 2 - Scene 1

France. Before Angiers.

Lewis : Before Angiers well met, brave Austria. [p]Arthur, that great
forerunner of thy blood, [p]Richard, that robb'd the lion of his
heart [p]And fought the holy wars in Palestine, [p]By this brave duke
came early to his grave: [p]And for amends to his posterity, [p]At our
importance hither is he come, [p]To spread his colours, boy, in thy
behalf, [p]And to rebuke the usurpation [p]Of thy unnatural uncle,
English John: [p]Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.

Arthur : God shall forgive you Coeur-de-lion's death [p]The rather that you
give his offspring life, [p]Shadowing their right under your wings of
war: [p]I give you welcome with a powerless hand, [p]But with a heart
full of unstained love: [p]Welcome before the gates of Angiers, duke.

Lewis : A noble boy! Who would not do thee right?

Lymoges : Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss, [p]As seal to this indenture
of my love, [p]That to my home I will no more return, [p]Till Angiers
and the right thou hast in France, [p]Together with that pale, that
white-faced shore, [p]Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring
tides [p]And coops from other lands her islanders, [p]Even till that
England, hedged in with the main, [p]That water-walled bulwark, still
secure [p]And confident from foreign purposes, [p]Even till that
utmost corner of the west [p]Salute thee for her king: till then, fair
boy, [p]Will I not think of home, but follow arms.

Constance : O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks, [p]Till your strong
hand shall help to give him strength [p]To make a more requital to
your love!

Lymoges : The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords [p]In such a just
and charitable war.

King Phillip : Well then, to work: our cannon shall be bent [p]Against the brows of
this resisting town. [p]Call for our chiefest men of discipline, [p]To
cull the plots of best advantages: [p]We'll lay before this town our
royal bones, [p]Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's blood, [p]But
we will make it subject to this boy.

Constance : Stay for an answer to your embassy, [p]Lest unadvised you stain your
swords with blood: [p]My Lord Chatillon may from England
bring, [p]That right in peace which here we urge in war, [p]And then
we shall repent each drop of blood [p]That hot rash haste so
indirectly shed.

King Phillip : A wonder, lady! lo, upon thy wish, [p]Our messenger Chatillon is
arrived! [p]What England says, say briefly, gentle lord; [p]We coldly
pause for thee; Chatillon, speak.

Chatillon : Then turn your forces from this paltry siege [p]And stir them up
against a mightier task. [p]England, impatient of your just
demands, [p]Hath put himself in arms: the adverse winds, [p]Whose
leisure I have stay'd, have given him time [p]To land his legions all
as soon as I; [p]His marches are expedient to this town, [p]His forces
strong, his soldiers confident. [p]With him along is come the
mother-queen, [p]An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife; [p]With her
her niece, the Lady Blanch of Spain; [p]With them a bastard of the
king's deceased, [p]And all the unsettled humours of the
land, [p]Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries, [p]With ladies' faces
and fierce dragons' spleens, [p]Have sold their fortunes at their
native homes, [p]Bearing their birthrights proudly on their
backs, [p]To make hazard of new fortunes here: [p]In brief, a braver
choice of dauntless spirits [p]Than now the English bottoms have waft
o'er [p]Did nearer float upon the swelling tide, [p]To do offence and
scath in Christendom. [p][Drum beats] [p]The interruption of their
churlish drums [p]Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand, [p]To
parley or to fight; therefore prepare.

King Phillip : How much unlook'd for is this expedition!

Lymoges : By how much unexpected, by so much [p]We must awake endavour for
defence; [p]For courage mounteth with occasion: [p]Let them be welcome
then: we are prepared. [p][Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, BLANCH, the
BASTARD,] [p]Lords, and forces]

King John : Peace be to France, if France in peace permit [p]Our just and lineal
entrance to our own; [p]If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to
heaven, [p]Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct [p]Their proud
contempt that beats His peace to heaven.

King Phillip : Peace be to England, if that war return [p]From France to England,
there to live in peace. [p]England we love; and for that England's
sake [p]With burden of our armour here we sweat. [p]This toil of ours
should be a work of thine; [p]But thou from loving England art so
far, [p]That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king [p]Cut off the
sequence of posterity, [p]Out-faced infant state and done a
rape [p]Upon the maiden virtue of the crown. [p]Look here upon thy
brother Geffrey's face; [p]These eyes, these brows, were moulded out
of his: [p]This little abstract doth contain that large [p]Which died
in Geffrey, and the hand of time [p]Shall draw this brief into as huge
a volume. [p]That Geffrey was thy elder brother born, [p]And this his
son; England was Geffrey's right [p]And this is Geffrey's: in the name
of God [p]How comes it then that thou art call'd a king, [p]When
living blood doth in these temples beat, [p]Which owe the crown that
thou o'ermasterest?

King John : From whom hast thou this great commission, France, [p]To draw my
answer from thy articles?

King Phillip : From that supernal judge, that stirs good thoughts [p]In any breast of
strong authority, [p]To look into the blots and stains of
right: [p]That judge hath made me guardian to this boy: [p]Under whose
warrant I impeach thy wrong [p]And by whose help I mean to chastise
it.

King John : Alack, thou dost usurp authority.

King Phillip : Excuse; it is to beat usurping down.

Queen Elinor : Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?

Constance : Let me make answer; thy usurping son.

Queen Elinor : Out, insolent! thy bastard shall be king, [p]That thou mayst be a
queen, and cheque the world!

Constance : My bed was ever to thy son as true [p]As thine was to thy husband; and
this boy [p]Liker in feature to his father Geffrey [p]Than thou and
John in manners; being as like [p]As rain to water, or devil to his
dam. [p]My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think [p]His father never was
so true begot: [p]It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.

Queen Elinor : There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.

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

Lymoges : Peace!

Philip the Bastard : Hear the crier.

Lymoges : What the devil art thou?

Philip the Bastard : One that will play the devil, sir, with you, [p]An a' may catch your
hide and you alone: [p]You are the hare of whom the proverb
goes, [p]Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard; [p]I'll smoke
your skin-coat, an I catch you right; [p]Sirrah, look to't; i' faith,
I will, i' faith.

Blanch : O, well did he become that lion's robe [p]That did disrobe the lion of
that robe!

Philip the Bastard : It lies as sightly on the back of him [p]As great Alcides' shows upon
an ass: [p]But, ass, I'll take that burthen from your back, [p]Or lay
on that shall make your shoulders crack.

Lymoges : What craker is this same that deafs our ears [p]With this abundance of
superfluous breath?

King Phillip : Lewis, determine what we shall do straight.

Lewis : Women and fools, break off your conference. [p]King John, this is the
very sum of all; [p]England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine, [p]In
right of Arthur do I claim of thee: [p]Wilt thou resign them and lay
down thy arms?

King John : My life as soon: I do defy thee, France. [p]Arthur of Bretagne, yield
thee to my hand; [p]And out of my dear love I'll give thee
more [p]Than e'er the coward hand of France can win: [p]Submit thee,
boy.

Queen Elinor : Come to thy grandam, child.

Constance : Do, child, go to it grandam, child: [p]Give grandam kingdom, and it
grandam will [p]Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig: [p]There's a good
grandam.

Arthur : Good my mother, peace! [p]I would that I were low laid in my
grave: [p]I am not worth this coil that's made for me.

Queen Elinor : His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.

Constance : Now shame upon you, whether she does or no! [p]His grandam's wrongs,
and not his mother's shames, [p]Draws those heaven-moving pearls from
his poor eyes, [p]Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee; [p]Ay,
with these crystal beads heaven shall be bribed [p]To do him justice
and revenge on you.

Queen Elinor : Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!

Constance : Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth! [p]Call not me slanderer;
thou and thine usurp [p]The dominations, royalties and rights [p]Of
this oppressed boy: this is thy eld'st son's son, [p]Infortunate in
nothing but in thee: [p]Thy sins are visited in this poor
child; [p]The canon of the law is laid on him, [p]Being but the second
generation [p]Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.

King John : Bedlam, have done.

Constance : I have but this to say, [p]That he is not only plagued for her
sin, [p]But God hath made her sin and her the plague [p]On this
removed issue, plague for her [p]And with her plague; her sin his
injury, [p]Her injury the beadle to her sin, [p]All punish'd in the
person of this child, [p]And all for her; a plague upon her!

Queen Elinor : Thou unadvised scold, I can produce [p]A will that bars the title of
thy son.

Constance : Ay, who doubts that? a will! a wicked will: [p]A woman's will; a
canker'd grandam's will!

King Phillip : Peace, lady! pause, or be more temperate: [p]It ill beseems this
presence to cry aim [p]To these ill-tuned repetitions. [p]Some trumpet
summon hither to the walls [p]These men of Angiers: let us hear them
speak [p]Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's.

First Citizen : Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls?

King Phillip : 'Tis France, for England.

King John : England, for itself. [p]You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects--

King Phillip : You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects, [p]Our trumpet call'd
you to this gentle parle--

King John : For our advantage; therefore hear us first. [p]These flags of France,
that are advanced here [p]Before the eye and prospect of your
town, [p]Have hither march'd to your endamagement: [p]The cannons have
their bowels full of wrath, [p]And ready mounted are they to spit
forth [p]Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls: [p]All preparation
for a bloody siege [p]All merciless proceeding by these
French [p]Confronts your city's eyes, your winking gates; [p]And but
for our approach those sleeping stones, [p]That as a waist doth girdle
you about, [p]By the compulsion of their ordinance [p]By this time
from their fixed beds of lime [p]Had been dishabited, and wide havoc
made [p]For bloody power to rush upon your peace. [p]But on the sight
of us your lawful king, [p]Who painfully with much expedient
march [p]Have brought a countercheque before your gates, [p]To save
unscratch'd your city's threatened cheeks, [p]Behold, the French
amazed vouchsafe a parle; [p]And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in
fire, [p]To make a shaking fever in your walls, [p]They shoot but calm
words folded up in smoke, [p]To make a faithless error in your
ears: [p]Which trust accordingly, kind citizens, [p]And let us in,
your king, whose labour'd spirits, [p]Forwearied in this action of
swift speed, [p]Crave harbourage within your city walls.

King Phillip : When I have said, make answer to us both. [p]Lo, in this right hand,
whose protection [p]Is most divinely vow'd upon the right [p]Of him it
holds, stands young Plantagenet, [p]Son to the elder brother of this
man, [p]And king o'er him and all that he enjoys: [p]For this
down-trodden equity, we tread [p]In warlike march these greens before
your town, [p]Being no further enemy to you [p]Than the constraint of
hospitable zeal [p]In the relief of this oppressed
child [p]Religiously provokes. Be pleased then [p]To pay that duty
which you truly owe [p]To that owes it, namely this young
prince: [p]And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear, [p]Save in
aspect, hath all offence seal'd up; [p]Our cannons' malice vainly
shall be spent [p]Against the invulnerable clouds of heaven; [p]And
with a blessed and unvex'd retire, [p]With unhack'd swords and helmets
all unbruised, [p]We will bear home that lusty blood again [p]Which
here we came to spout against your town, [p]And leave your children,
wives and you in peace. [p]But if you fondly pass our proffer'd
offer, [p]'Tis not the roundure of your old-faced walls [p]Can hide
you from our messengers of war, [p]Though all these English and their
discipline [p]Were harbour'd in their rude circumference. [p]Then tell
us, shall your city call us lord, [p]In that behalf which we have
challenged it? [p]Or shall we give the signal to our rage [p]And stalk
in blood to our possession?

First Citizen : In brief, we are the king of England's subjects: [p]For him, and in
his right, we hold this town.

King John : Acknowledge then the king, and let me in.

First Citizen : That can we not; but he that proves the king, [p]To him will we prove
loyal: till that time [p]Have we ramm'd up our gates against the
world.

King John : Doth not the crown of England prove the king? [p]And if not that, I
bring you witnesses, [p]Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's
breed,--

Philip the Bastard : Bastards, and else.

King John : To verify our title with their lives.

King Phillip : As many and as well-born bloods as those,--

Philip the Bastard : Some bastards too.

King Phillip : Stand in his face to contradict his claim.

First Citizen : Till you compound whose right is worthiest, [p]We for the worthiest
hold the right from both.

King John : Then God forgive the sin of all those souls [p]That to their
everlasting residence, [p]Before the dew of evening fall, shall
fleet, [p]In dreadful trial of our kingdom's king!

King Phillip : Amen, amen! Mount, chevaliers! to arms!

Philip the Bastard : Saint George, that swinged the dragon, and e'er since [p]Sits on his
horseback at mine hostess' door, [p]Teach us some fence! [p][To
AUSTRIA] [p]Sirrah, were I at home, [p]At your den, sirrah, with your
lioness [p]I would set an ox-head to your lion's hide, [p]And make a
monster of you.

Lymoges : Peace! no more.

Philip the Bastard : O tremble, for you hear the lion roar.

King John : Up higher to the plain; where we'll set forth [p]In best appointment
all our regiments.

Philip the Bastard : Speed then, to take advantage of the field.

King Phillip : It shall be so; and at the other hill [p]Command the rest to stand.
God and our right! [p][Exeunt] [p][Here after excursions, enter the
Herald of France,] [p]with trumpets, to the gates]

French Herald : You men of Angiers, open wide your gates, [p]And let young Arthur,
Duke of Bretagne, in, [p]Who by the hand of France this day hath
made [p]Much work for tears in many an English mother, [p]Whose sons
lie scattered on the bleeding ground; [p]Many a widow's husband
grovelling lies, [p]Coldly embracing the discolour'd earth; [p]And
victory, with little loss, doth play [p]Upon the dancing banners of
the French, [p]Who are at hand, triumphantly display'd, [p]To enter
conquerors and to proclaim [p]Arthur of Bretagne England's king and
yours.

English Herald : Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells: [p]King John, your king
and England's doth approach, [p]Commander of this hot malicious
day: [p]Their armours, that march'd hence so silver-bright, [p]Hither
return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood; [p]There stuck no plume in any
English crest [p]That is removed by a staff of France; [p]Our colours
do return in those same hands [p]That did display them when we first
march'd forth; [p]And, like a troop of jolly huntsmen, come [p]Our
lusty English, all with purpled hands, [p]Dyed in the dying slaughter
of their foes: [p]Open your gates and gives the victors way.

First Citizen : Heralds, from off our towers we might behold, [p]From first to last,
the onset and retire [p]Of both your armies; whose equality [p]By our
best eyes cannot be censured: [p]Blood hath bought blood and blows
have answered blows; [p]Strength match'd with strength, and power
confronted power: [p]Both are alike; and both alike we like. [p]One
must prove greatest: while they weigh so even, [p]We hold our town for
neither, yet for both. [p][Re-enter KING JOHN and KING PHILIP, with
their] [p]powers, severally]

King John : France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away? [p]Say, shall the
current of our right run on? [p]Whose passage, vex'd with thy
impediment, [p]Shall leave his native channel and o'erswell [p]With
course disturb'd even thy confining shores, [p]Unless thou let his
silver water keep [p]A peaceful progress to the ocean.

King Phillip : England, thou hast not saved one drop of blood, [p]In this hot trial,
more than we of France; [p]Rather, lost more. And by this hand I
swear, [p]That sways the earth this climate overlooks, [p]Before we
will lay down our just-borne arms, [p]We'll put thee down, 'gainst
whom these arms we bear, [p]Or add a royal number to the
dead, [p]Gracing the scroll that tells of this war's loss [p]With
slaughter coupled to the name of kings.

Philip the Bastard : Ha, majesty! how high thy glory towers, [p]When the rich blood of
kings is set on fire! [p]O, now doth Death line his dead chaps with
steel; [p]The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs; [p]And now
he feasts, mousing the flesh of men, [p]In undetermined differences of
kings. [p]Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus? [p]Cry, 'havoc!'
kings; back to the stained field, [p]You equal potents, fiery kindled
spirits! [p]Then let confusion of one part confirm [p]The other's
peace: till then, blows, blood and death!

King John : Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?

King Phillip : Speak, citizens, for England; who's your king?

First Citizen : The king of England; when we know the king.

King Phillip : Know him in us, that here hold up his right.

King John : In us, that are our own great deputy [p]And bear possession of our
person here, [p]Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.

First Citizen : A greater power then we denies all this; [p]And till it be undoubted,
we do lock [p]Our former scruple in our strong-barr'd gates; [p]King'd
of our fears, until our fears, resolved, [p]Be by some certain king
purged and deposed.

Philip the Bastard : By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings, [p]And stand
securely on their battlements, [p]As in a theatre, whence they gape
and point [p]At your industrious scenes and acts of death. [p]Your
royal presences be ruled by me: [p]Do like the mutines of
Jerusalem, [p]Be friends awhile and both conjointly bend [p]Your
sharpest deeds of malice on this town: [p]By east and west let France
and England mount [p]Their battering cannon charged to the
mouths, [p]Till their soul-fearing clamours have brawl'd down [p]The
flinty ribs of this contemptuous city: [p]I'ld play incessantly upon
these jades, [p]Even till unfenced desolation [p]Leave them as naked
as the vulgar air. [p]That done, dissever your united
strengths, [p]And part your mingled colours once again; [p]Turn face
to face and bloody point to point; [p]Then, in a moment, Fortune shall
cull forth [p]Out of one side her happy minion, [p]To whom in favour
she shall give the day, [p]And kiss him with a glorious
victory. [p]How like you this wild counsel, mighty states? [p]Smacks
it not something of the policy?

King John : Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads, [p]I like it well. France,
shall we knit our powers [p]And lay this Angiers even to the
ground; [p]Then after fight who shall be king of it?

Philip the Bastard : An if thou hast the mettle of a king, [p]Being wronged as we are by
this peevish town, [p]Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery, [p]As we
will ours, against these saucy walls; [p]And when that we have dash'd
them to the ground, [p]Why then defy each other and pell-mell [p]Make
work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell.

King Phillip : Let it be so. Say, where will you assault?

King John : We from the west will send destruction [p]Into this city's bosom.

Lymoges : I from the north.

King Phillip : Our thunder from the south [p]Shall rain their drift of bullets on
this town.

Philip the Bastard : O prudent discipline! From north to south: [p]Austria and France shoot
in each other's mouth: [p]I'll stir them to it. Come, away, away!

First Citizen : Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay, [p]And I shall show
you peace and fair-faced league; [p]Win you this city without stroke
or wound; [p]Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds, [p]That here
come sacrifices for the field: [p]Persever not, but hear me, mighty
kings.

King John : Speak on with favour; we are bent to hear.

First Citizen : That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch, [p]Is niece to England:
look upon the years [p]Of Lewis the Dauphin and that lovely
maid: [p]If lusty love should go in quest of beauty, [p]Where should
he find it fairer than in Blanch? [p]If zealous love should go in
search of virtue, [p]Where should he find it purer than in
Blanch? [p]If love ambitious sought a match of birth, [p]Whose veins
bound richer blood than Lady Blanch? [p]Such as she is, in beauty,
virtue, birth, [p]Is the young Dauphin every way complete: [p]If not
complete of, say he is not she; [p]And she again wants nothing, to
name want, [p]If want it be not that she is not he: [p]He is the half
part of a blessed man, [p]Left to be finished by such as she; [p]And
she a fair divided excellence, [p]Whose fulness of perfection lies in
him. [p]O, two such silver currents, when they join, [p]Do glorify the
banks that bound them in; [p]And two such shores to two such streams
made one, [p]Two such controlling bounds shall you be, kings, [p]To
these two princes, if you marry them. [p]This union shall do more than
battery can [p]To our fast-closed gates; for at this match, [p]With
swifter spleen than powder can enforce, [p]The mouth of passage shall
we fling wide ope, [p]And give you entrance: but without this
match, [p]The sea enraged is not half so deaf, [p]Lions more
confident, mountains and rocks [p]More free from motion, no, not Death
himself [p]In moral fury half so peremptory, [p]As we to keep this
city.

Philip the Bastard : Here's a stay [p]That shakes the rotten carcass of old Death [p]Out of
his rags! Here's a large mouth, indeed, [p]That spits forth death and
mountains, rocks and seas, [p]Talks as familiarly of roaring
lions [p]As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs! [p]What cannoneer
begot this lusty blood? [p]He speaks plain cannon fire, and smoke and
bounce; [p]He gives the bastinado with his tongue: [p]Our ears are
cudgell'd; not a word of his [p]But buffets better than a fist of
France: [p]Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words [p]Since I
first call'd my brother's father dad.

Queen Elinor : Son, list to this conjunction, make this match; [p]Give with our niece
a dowry large enough: [p]For by this knot thou shalt so surely
tie [p]Thy now unsured assurance to the crown, [p]That yon green boy
shall have no sun to ripe [p]The bloom that promiseth a mighty
fruit. [p]I see a yielding in the looks of France; [p]Mark, how they
whisper: urge them while their souls [p]Are capable of this
ambition, [p]Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath [p]Of soft
petitions, pity and remorse, [p]Cool and congeal again to what it
was.

First Citizen : Why answer not the double majesties [p]This friendly treaty of our
threaten'd town?

King Phillip : Speak England first, that hath been forward first [p]To speak unto
this city: what say you?

King John : If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son, [p]Can in this book of
beauty read 'I love,' [p]Her dowry shall weigh equal with a
queen: [p]For Anjou and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers, [p]And all
that we upon this side the sea, [p]Except this city now by us
besieged, [p]Find liable to our crown and dignity, [p]Shall gild her
bridal bed and make her rich [p]In titles, honours and
promotions, [p]As she in beauty, education, blood, [p]Holds hand with
any princess of the world.

King Phillip : What say'st thou, boy? look in the lady's face.

Lewis : I do, my lord; and in her eye I find [p]A wonder, or a wondrous
miracle, [p]The shadow of myself form'd in her eye: [p]Which being but
the shadow of your son, [p]Becomes a sun and makes your son a
shadow: [p]I do protest I never loved myself [p]Till now infixed I
beheld myself [p]Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.

Philip the Bastard : Drawn in the flattering table of her eye! [p]Hang'd in the frowning
wrinkle of her brow! [p]And quarter'd in her heart! he doth
espy [p]Himself love's traitor: this is pity now, [p]That hang'd and
drawn and quartered, there should be [p]In such a love so vile a lout
as he.

Blanch : My uncle's will in this respect is mine: [p]If he see aught in you
that makes him like, [p]That any thing he sees, which moves his
liking, [p]I can with ease translate it to my will; [p]Or if you will,
to speak more properly, [p]I will enforce it easily to my
love. [p]Further I will not flatter you, my lord, [p]That all I see in
you is worthy love, [p]Than this; that nothing do I see in
you, [p]Though churlish thoughts themselves should be your
judge, [p]That I can find should merit any hate.

King John : What say these young ones? What say you my niece?

Blanch : That she is bound in honour still to do [p]What you in wisdom still
vouchsafe to say.

King John : Speak then, prince Dauphin; can you love this lady?

Lewis : Nay, ask me if I can refrain from love; [p]For I do love her most
unfeignedly.

King John : Then do I give Volquessen, Touraine, Maine, [p]Poictiers and Anjou,
these five provinces, [p]With her to thee; and this addition
more, [p]Full thirty thousand marks of English coin. [p]Philip of
France, if thou be pleased withal, [p]Command thy son and daughter to
join hands.

King Phillip : It likes us well; young princes, close your hands.

Lymoges : And your lips too; for I am well assured [p]That I did so when I was
first assured.

King Phillip : Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates, [p]Let in that amity which
you have made; [p]For at Saint Mary's chapel presently [p]The rites of
marriage shall be solemnized. [p]Is not the Lady Constance in this
troop? [p]I know she is not, for this match made up [p]Her presence
would have interrupted much: [p]Where is she and her son? tell me, who
knows.

Lewis : She is sad and passionate at your highness' tent.

King Phillip : And, by my faith, this league that we have made [p]Will give her
sadness very little cure. [p]Brother of England, how may we
content [p]This widow lady? In her right we came; [p]Which we, God
knows, have turn'd another way, [p]To our own vantage.

King John : We will heal up all; [p]For we'll create young Arthur Duke of
Bretagne [p]And Earl of Richmond; and this rich fair town [p]We make
him lord of. Call the Lady Constance; [p]Some speedy messenger bid her
repair [p]To our solemnity: I trust we shall, [p]If not fill up the
measure of her will, [p]Yet in some measure satisfy her so [p]That we
shall stop her exclamation. [p]Go we, as well as haste will suffer
us, [p]To this unlook'd for, unprepared pomp.

Philip the Bastard : Mad world! mad kings! mad composition! [p]John, to stop Arthur's title
in the whole, [p]Hath willingly departed with a part, [p]And France,
whose armour conscience buckled on, [p]Whom zeal and charity brought
to the field [p]As God's own soldier, rounded in the ear [p]With that
same purpose-changer, that sly devil, [p]That broker, that still
breaks the pate of faith, [p]That daily break-vow, he that wins of
all, [p]Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids, [p]Who,
having no external thing to lose [p]But the word 'maid,' cheats the
poor maid of that, [p]That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling
Commodity, [p]Commodity, the bias of the world, [p]The world, who of
itself is peised well, [p]Made to run even upon even ground, [p]Till
this advantage, this vile-drawing bias, [p]This sway of motion, this
Commodity, [p]Makes it take head from all indifferency, [p]From all
direction, purpose, course, intent: [p]And this same bias, this
Commodity, [p]This bawd, this broker, this all-changing
word, [p]Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France, [p]Hath drawn
him from his own determined aid, [p]From a resolved and honourable
war, [p]To a most base and vile-concluded peace. [p]And why rail I on
this Commodity? [p]But for because he hath not woo'd me yet: [p]Not
that I have the power to clutch my hand, [p]When his fair angels would
salute my palm; [p]But for my hand, as unattempted yet, [p]Like a poor
beggar, raileth on the rich. [p]Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will
rail [p]And say there is no sin but to be rich; [p]And being rich, my
virtue then shall be [p]To say there is no vice but beggary. [p]Since
kings break faith upon commodity, [p]Gain, be my lord, for I will
worship thee.

Previous: Act 1 - Scene 1

Next: Act 3 - Scene 1

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