King John by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 4
The same. KING PHILIP’S tent.
King Phillip : So, by a roaring tempest on the flood,
[p]A whole armado of convicted
sail
[p]Is scatter'd and disjoin'd from fellowship.
Cardinal Pandulph : Courage and comfort! all shall yet go well.
King Phillip : What can go well, when we have run so ill?
[p]Are we not beaten? Is
not Angiers lost?
[p]Arthur ta'en prisoner? divers dear friends
slain?
[p]And bloody England into England gone,
[p]O'erbearing
interruption, spite of France?
Lewis : What he hath won, that hath he fortified:
[p]So hot a speed with such
advice disposed,
[p]Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,
[p]Doth
want example: who hath read or heard
[p]Of any kindred action like to
this?
King Phillip : Well could I bear that England had this praise,
[p]So we could find
some pattern of our shame.
[p][Enter CONSTANCE]
[p]Look, who comes
here! a grave unto a soul;
[p]Holding the eternal spirit against her
will,
[p]In the vile prison of afflicted breath.
[p]I prithee, lady,
go away with me.
Constance : Lo, now I now see the issue of your peace.
King Phillip : Patience, good lady! comfort, gentle Constance!
Constance : No, I defy all counsel, all redress,
[p]But that which ends all
counsel, true redress,
[p]Death, death; O amiable lovely
death!
[p]Thou odouriferous stench! sound rottenness!
[p]Arise forth
from the couch of lasting night,
[p]Thou hate and terror to
prosperity,
[p]And I will kiss thy detestable bones
[p]And put my
eyeballs in thy vaulty brows
[p]And ring these fingers with thy
household worms
[p]And stop this gap of breath with fulsome
dust
[p]And be a carrion monster like thyself:
[p]Come, grin on me,
and I will think thou smilest
[p]And buss thee as thy wife. Misery's
love,
[p]O, come to me!
King Phillip : O fair affliction, peace!
Constance : No, no, I will not, having breath to cry:
[p]O, that my tongue were in
the thunder's mouth!
[p]Then with a passion would I shake the
world;
[p]And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy
[p]Which cannot hear
a lady's feeble voice,
[p]Which scorns a modern invocation.
Cardinal Pandulph : Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.
Constance : Thou art not holy to belie me so;
[p]I am not mad: this hair I tear is
mine;
[p]My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;
[p]Young Arthur
is my son, and he is lost:
[p]I am not mad: I would to heaven I
were!
[p]For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
[p]O, if I could,
what grief should I forget!
[p]Preach some philosophy to make me
mad,
[p]And thou shalt be canonized, cardinal;
[p]For being not mad
but sensible of grief,
[p]My reasonable part produces reason
[p]How I
may be deliver'd of these woes,
[p]And teaches me to kill or hang
myself:
[p]If I were mad, I should forget my son,
[p]Or madly think a
babe of clouts were he:
[p]I am not mad; too well, too well I
feel
[p]The different plague of each calamity.
King Phillip : Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note
[p]In the fair multitude of
those her hairs!
[p]Where but by chance a silver drop hath
fallen,
[p]Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends
[p]Do glue
themselves in sociable grief,
[p]Like true, inseparable, faithful
loves,
[p]Sticking together in calamity.
Constance : To England, if you will.
King Phillip : Bind up your hairs.
Constance : Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?
[p]I tore them from
their bonds and cried aloud
[p]'O that these hands could so redeem my
son,
[p]As they have given these hairs their liberty!'
[p]But now I
envy at their liberty,
[p]And will again commit them to their
bonds,
[p]Because my poor child is a prisoner.
[p]And, father
cardinal, I have heard you say
[p]That we shall see and know our
friends in heaven:
[p]If that be true, I shall see my boy
again;
[p]For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
[p]To him
that did but yesterday suspire,
[p]There was not such a gracious
creature born.
[p]But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud
[p]And chase
the native beauty from his cheek
[p]And he will look as hollow as a
ghost,
[p]As dim and meagre as an ague's fit,
[p]And so he'll die;
and, rising so again,
[p]When I shall meet him in the court of
heaven
[p]I shall not know him: therefore never, never
[p]Must I
behold my pretty Arthur more.
Cardinal Pandulph : You hold too heinous a respect of grief.
Constance : He talks to me that never had a son.
King Phillip : You are as fond of grief as of your child.
Constance : Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
[p]Lies in his bed, walks
up and down with me,
[p]Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his
words,
[p]Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
[p]Stuffs out his
vacant garments with his form;
[p]Then, have I reason to be fond of
grief?
[p]Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,
[p]I could give
better comfort than you do.
[p]I will not keep this form upon my
head,
[p]When there is such disorder in my wit.
[p]O Lord! my boy, my
Arthur, my fair son!
[p]My life, my joy, my food, my all the
world!
[p]My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!
King Phillip : I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her.
Lewis : There's nothing in this world can make me joy:
[p]Life is as tedious
as a twice-told tale
[p]Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;
[p]And
bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste
[p]That it yields
nought but shame and bitterness.
Cardinal Pandulph : Before the curing of a strong disease,
[p]Even in the instant of
repair and health,
[p]The fit is strongest; evils that take
leave,
[p]On their departure most of all show evil:
[p]What have you
lost by losing of this day?
Lewis : All days of glory, joy and happiness.
Cardinal Pandulph : If you had won it, certainly you had.
[p]No, no; when Fortune means to
men most good,
[p]She looks upon them with a threatening eye.
[p]'Tis
strange to think how much King John hath lost
[p]In this which he
accounts so clearly won:
[p]Are not you grieved that Arthur is his
prisoner?
Lewis : As heartily as he is glad he hath him.
Cardinal Pandulph : Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.
[p]Now hear me speak with
a prophetic spirit;
[p]For even the breath of what I mean to
speak
[p]Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,
[p]Out of
the path which shall directly lead
[p]Thy foot to England's throne;
and therefore mark.
[p]John hath seized Arthur; and it cannot
be
[p]That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,
[p]The
misplaced John should entertain an hour,
[p]One minute, nay, one quiet
breath of rest.
[p]A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand
[p]Must be
as boisterously maintain'd as gain'd;
[p]And he that stands upon a
slippery place
[p]Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up:
[p]That
John may stand, then Arthur needs must fall;
[p]So be it, for it
cannot be but so.
Lewis : But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall?
Cardinal Pandulph : You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,
[p]May then make all the
claim that Arthur did.
Lewis : And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.
Cardinal Pandulph : How green you are and fresh in this old world!
[p]John lays you plots;
the times conspire with you;
[p]For he that steeps his safety in true
blood
[p]Shall find but bloody safety and untrue.
[p]This act so
evilly born shall cool the hearts
[p]Of all his people and freeze up
their zeal,
[p]That none so small advantage shall step forth
[p]To
cheque his reign, but they will cherish it;
[p]No natural exhalation
in the sky,
[p]No scope of nature, no distemper'd day,
[p]No common
wind, no customed event,
[p]But they will pluck away his natural
cause
[p]And call them meteors, prodigies and signs,
[p]Abortives,
presages and tongues of heaven,
[p]Plainly denouncing vengeance upon
John.
Lewis : May be he will not touch young Arthur's life,
[p]But hold himself safe
in his prisonment.
Cardinal Pandulph : O, sir, when he shall hear of your approach,
[p]If that young Arthur
be not gone already,
[p]Even at that news he dies; and then the
hearts
[p]Of all his people shall revolt from him
[p]And kiss the lips
of unacquainted change
[p]And pick strong matter of revolt and
wrath
[p]Out of the bloody fingers' ends of John.
[p]Methinks I see
this hurly all on foot:
[p]And, O, what better matter breeds for
you
[p]Than I have named! The bastard Faulconbridge
[p]Is now in
England, ransacking the church,
[p]Offending charity: if but a dozen
French
[p]Were there in arms, they would be as a call
[p]To train ten
thousand English to their side,
[p]Or as a little snow, tumbled
about,
[p]Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin,
[p]Go with me to
the king: 'tis wonderful
[p]What may be wrought out of their
discontent,
[p]Now that their souls are topful of offence.
[p]For
England go: I will whet on the king.
Lewis : Strong reasons make strong actions: let us go:
[p]If you say ay, the
king will not say no.
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Next: Act 4 - Scene 1
