King John by William Shakespeare
Act 5 - Scene 2
LEWIS’s camp at St. Edmundsbury.
Lewis : My Lord Melun, let this be copied out,
[p]And keep it safe for our
remembrance:
[p]Return the precedent to these lords again;
[p]That,
having our fair order written down,
[p]Both they and we, perusing o'er
these notes,
[p]May know wherefore we took the sacrament
[p]And keep
our faiths firm and inviolable.
Salisbury : Upon our sides it never shall be broken.
[p]And, noble Dauphin, albeit
we swear
[p]A voluntary zeal and an unurged faith
[p]To your
proceedings; yet believe me, prince,
[p]I am not glad that such a sore
of time
[p]Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,
[p]And heal the
inveterate canker of one wound
[p]By making many. O, it grieves my
soul,
[p]That I must draw this metal from my side
[p]To be a
widow-maker! O, and there
[p]Where honourable rescue and
defence
[p]Cries out upon the name of Salisbury!
[p]But such is the
infection of the time,
[p]That, for the health and physic of our
right,
[p]We cannot deal but with the very hand
[p]Of stern injustice
and confused wrong.
[p]And is't not pity, O my grieved
friends,
[p]That we, the sons and children of this isle,
[p]Were born
to see so sad an hour as this;
[p]Wherein we step after a stranger
march
[p]Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up
[p]Her enemies' ranks,--I
must withdraw and weep
[p]Upon the spot of this enforced
cause,--
[p]To grace the gentry of a land remote,
[p]And follow
unacquainted colours here?
[p]What, here? O nation, that thou couldst
remove!
[p]That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,
[p]Would bear
thee from the knowledge of thyself,
[p]And grapple thee unto a pagan
shore;
[p]Where these two Christian armies might combine
[p]The blood
of malice in a vein of league,
[p]And not to spend it so
unneighbourly!
Lewis : A noble temper dost thou show in this;
[p]And great affections
wrestling in thy bosom
[p]Doth make an earthquake of nobility.
[p]O,
what a noble combat hast thou fought
[p]Between compulsion and a brave
respect!
[p]Let me wipe off this honourable dew,
[p]That silverly doth
progress on thy cheeks:
[p]My heart hath melted at a lady's
tears,
[p]Being an ordinary inundation;
[p]But this effusion of such
manly drops,
[p]This shower, blown up by tempest of the
soul,
[p]Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amazed
[p]Than had I
seen the vaulty top of heaven
[p]Figured quite o'er with burning
meteors.
[p]Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,
[p]And with a great
heart heave away the storm:
[p]Commend these waters to those baby
eyes
[p]That never saw the giant world enraged;
[p]Nor met with
fortune other than at feasts,
[p]Full of warm blood, of mirth, of
gossiping.
[p]Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as
deep
[p]Into the purse of rich prosperity
[p]As Lewis himself: so,
nobles, shall you all,
[p]That knit your sinews to the strength of
mine.
[p]And even there, methinks, an angel spake:
[p][Enter CARDINAL
PANDULPH]
[p]Look, where the holy legate comes apace,
[p]To give us
warrant from the hand of heaven
[p]And on our actions set the name of
right
[p]With holy breath.
Cardinal Pandulph : Hail, noble prince of France!
[p]The next is this, King John hath
reconciled
[p]Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,
[p]That so stood
out against the holy church,
[p]The great metropolis and see of
Rome:
[p]Therefore thy threatening colours now wind up;
[p]And tame
the savage spirit of wild war,
[p]That like a lion foster'd up at
hand,
[p]It may lie gently at the foot of peace,
[p]And be no further
harmful than in show.
Lewis : Your grace shall pardon me, I will not back:
[p]I am too high-born to
be propertied,
[p]To be a secondary at control,
[p]Or useful
serving-man and instrument,
[p]To any sovereign state throughout the
world.
[p]Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars
[p]Between
this chastised kingdom and myself,
[p]And brought in matter that
should feed this fire;
[p]And now 'tis far too huge to be blown
out
[p]With that same weak wind which enkindled it.
[p]You taught me
how to know the face of right,
[p]Acquainted me with interest to this
land,
[p]Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;
[p]And come ye now
to tell me John hath made
[p]His peace with Rome? What is that peace
to me?
[p]I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,
[p]After young Arthur,
claim this land for mine;
[p]And, now it is half-conquer'd, must I
back
[p]Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?
[p]Am I
Rome's slave? What penny hath Rome borne,
[p]What men provided, what
munition sent,
[p]To underprop this action? Is't not I
[p]That undergo
this charge? who else but I,
[p]And such as to my claim are
liable,
[p]Sweat in this business and maintain this war?
[p]Have I not
heard these islanders shout out
[p]'Vive le roi!' as I have bank'd
their towns?
[p]Have I not here the best cards for the game,
[p]To win
this easy match play'd for a crown?
[p]And shall I now give o'er the
yielded set?
[p]No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.
Cardinal Pandulph : You look but on the outside of this work.
Lewis : Outside or inside, I will not return
[p]Till my attempt so much be
glorified
[p]As to my ample hope was promised
[p]Before I drew this
gallant head of war,
[p]And cull'd these fiery spirits from the
world,
[p]To outlook conquest and to win renown
[p]Even in the jaws of
danger and of death.
[p][Trumpet sounds]
[p]What lusty trumpet thus
doth summon us?
Philip the Bastard : According to the fair play of the world,
[p]Let me have audience; I am
sent to speak:
[p]My holy lord of Milan, from the king
[p]I come, to
learn how you have dealt for him;
[p]And, as you answer, I do know the
scope
[p]And warrant limited unto my tongue.
Cardinal Pandulph : The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,
[p]And will not temporize with my
entreaties;
[p]He flatly says he'll not lay down his arms.
Philip the Bastard : By all the blood that ever fury breathed,
[p]The youth says well. Now
hear our English king;
[p]For thus his royalty doth speak in me.
[p]He
is prepared, and reason too he should:
[p]This apish and unmannerly
approach,
[p]This harness'd masque and unadvised revel,
[p]This
unhair'd sauciness and boyish troops,
[p]The king doth smile at; and
is well prepared
[p]To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy
arms,
[p]From out the circle of his territories.
[p]That hand which
had the strength, even at your door,
[p]To cudgel you and make you
take the hatch,
[p]To dive like buckets in concealed wells,
[p]To
crouch in litter of your stable planks,
[p]To lie like pawns lock'd up
in chests and trunks,
[p]To hug with swine, to seek sweet safety
out
[p]In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake
[p]Even at the
crying of your nation's crow,
[p]Thinking his voice an armed
Englishman;
[p]Shall that victorious hand be feebled here,
[p]That in
your chambers gave you chastisement?
[p]No: know the gallant monarch
is in arms
[p]And like an eagle o'er his aery towers,
[p]To souse
annoyance that comes near his nest.
[p]And you degenerate, you ingrate
revolts,
[p]You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb
[p]Of your dear
mother England, blush for shame;
[p]For your own ladies and
pale-visaged maids
[p]Like Amazons come tripping after drums,
[p]Their
thimbles into armed gauntlets change,
[p]Their needles to lances, and
their gentle hearts
[p]To fierce and bloody inclination.
Lewis : There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;
[p]We grant thou
canst outscold us: fare thee well;
[p]We hold our time too precious to
be spent
[p]With such a brabbler.
Cardinal Pandulph : Give me leave to speak.
Philip the Bastard : No, I will speak.
Lewis : We will attend to neither.
[p]Strike up the drums; and let the tongue
of war
[p]Plead for our interest and our being here.
Philip the Bastard : Indeed your drums, being beaten, will cry out;
[p]And so shall you,
being beaten: do but start
[p]An echo with the clamour of thy
drum,
[p]And even at hand a drum is ready braced
[p]That shall
reverberate all as loud as thine;
[p]Sound but another, and another
shall
[p]As loud as thine rattle the welkin's ear
[p]And mock the
deep-mouth'd thunder: for at hand,
[p]Not trusting to this halting
legate here,
[p]Whom he hath used rather for sport than need
[p]Is
warlike John; and in his forehead sits
[p]A bare-ribb'd death, whose
office is this day
[p]To feast upon whole thousands of the French.
Lewis : Strike up our drums, to find this danger out.
Philip the Bastard : And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt.
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Next: Act 5 - Scene 3
