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'ermaster-
est ?

K. John. From whom hast thou this great commission, France, 110

To draw my answer from thy articles?

K. Phi. 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.

K. John. Alack, thou dost usurp authority. K. Phi. Excuse; it is to beat usurping down.

Eli. Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?

Const. Let me make answer; thy usurping

Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.

Aust. What craker is this same that deafs

our ears

With this abundance of superfluous breath? K. Phi. Lewis, determine what we shall do straight.

Lew. Women and fools, break off your conference. 150

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?
K. 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.

Eli. Come to thy grandam, child Const. 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.

Arth.

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. Eli. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.

Const. Now shame upon you, whether she does or no! [shames, His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his

18

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.
K. John. Bedlam, have done.
Const.
I have but this to say
That he is not only plagued for her sin,
But God hath made her sin and her the plagu
On this removed issue, plagued 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!

19

Eli. Thou unadvised scold, I can produce A will that bars the title of thy son. Const. Ay, who doubts that ? a will! wicked will;

A woman's will; a canker'd grandam's will K. Phi. Peace, lady! pause, or be mor 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 Cit. Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls? 201 England, for itself.

K. Phi. 'Tis France, for England.
K. John.

You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects,

A. Phi. You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects,

Our trumpet call'd you to this gentle parleK. John. For our advantage; therefore hear us first.

These flags of France, that are advanced here
Before the eye and prospect of your town,
Have hither march'd to your endamnagement:
The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,
And ready mounted are they to spit forth 211
Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls:
All preparation for a bloody siege

And merciless proceeding by these French Confronts your city's eyes, your winking gates;

And but for our approach those sleeping stones,

That as a waist doth girdle you about,
By the compulsion of their ordinance

By this time from their fixed beds of lime 219
Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made
For bloody power to rush upon your peace.
But on the sight of us your lawful king,
Who painfully with much expedient march
Have brought a countercheck before your
gates,

To save unscratch'd your city's threatened cheeks,

230

Behold, the French amazed vouchsafe a parle;
And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire,
To make a shaking fever in your walls,
They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke,
To make a faithless error in your ears:
Which trust accordingly kind citizens,
And let us in, your king, whose labor'd spirits,
Forwearied in this action of swift speed,
Crave harborage within your city walls.

K. Phi. When I have said, make answer
to us both.

Lo, in this right hand, whose protection
Is most divinely vow'd upon the right
Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,
on to the elder brother of this man,

And king o'er him and all that he enjoys: 240
For this down-trodden equity, we tread

In warlike march these greens before your

town,

Being no further enemy to you
Than the constraint of hospitable zeal
In the relief of this oppressed child
Religiously provokes. Be pleased then
To pay that duty which you truly owe

To him that owes it, namely this young prince:
And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear,
Save in aspect, hath all offence seal'd up; 250
Our cannons' malice vainly shall be spent
Against the invulnerable clouds of heaven;
And with a blessed and unvex'd retire,
With unhack'd swords and helmets all un-
bruised,

We will bear home that lusty blood again Which here we came to spout against your town,

And leave your children, wives and you in peace.

But if you fondly pass our proffer'd offer,
'Tis not the roundure of your old-faced walls
Can hide you from our messengers of war, 260
Though all these English and their discipline
Were harbor'd in their rude circumference.
Then tell us, shall your city call us lord,
In that behalf which we have challenged it?
Or shall we give the signal to our rage
And stalk in blood to our possession?

First Cit. In brief, we are the king of England's subjects:

For him, and in his right, we hold this town. K. John. Acknowledge then the king, and let me in.

First Cit. That can we not; but he that

proves the king,

To him will we prove loyal Have we rammi'd up our world.

270

till that time gates against the

K. John. Doth not the crown of England prove the king?

And if not that, I bring you witnesses, Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's breed,

Bast. Bastards, and else.

K. John. To verify our title with their lives.

K. Phi. As many and as well-born bloods as those,-

Bast. Some bastards too.

K. Phi. Stand in his face to contradict his 280

claim.

And, like a jolly troop of huntsmen, come
Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,
Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes:
Open your gates and give the victors way.
First Cit. Heralds, from off our towers we
might behold,

From first to last, the onset and retire
Of both your armies; whose equality
By our best eyes cannot be censured:
Blood hath bonght blood and blows have an-
swer'd blows;

Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted power: 330

Both are alike; and both alike we like.
One must prove greatest: while they weigh

Shall leave his native channel and o'erswell With course disturb'd even thy confining shores,

Unless thou let his silver water keep
A peaceful progress to the ocean.

340

K. Phi. England, thou hast not saved one drop of blood,

In this hot trial, more than we of France;
Rather, lost more. And by this hand I swear,
That sways the earth this climate overlooks,
Before we will lay down our just-borne arms,
We'll put thee down, 'gainst whom these arms
we bear,

Or add a royal number to the dead,
Gracing the scroll that tells of this war's loss
With slaughter coupled to the name of kings.
Bast. Ha, majesty! how high thy glory

towers,

350 When the rich blood of kings is set on fire! O, now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel;

The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs:
And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men,
In undetermined differences of kings.
Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus?
Cry, havoc !' kings; back to the stained
field,

You equal potents, fiery kindled spirits!
Then let confusion of one part confirm
The other's peace: till then, blows, blood and

death!

And stand securely on their battlements,
As in a theatre, whence they gape and point
At your industrious scenes and acts of death
Your roval presences be ruled by me;
Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,
Be friends awhile and both conjointly bend
Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town:
By east and west let France and Englan

mount

Their battering cannon charged to the mouth Till their soul-fearing clamors have brawl down

The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city: I'ld play incessantly upon these jades. Even till unfenced desolation

Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.
That done, dissever your united strengths,
Apart your mingled colors once again; 389
Tem face to face and bloody point to point;
Then, in a moment, Fortune shall cull forth
ofone side her happy minion,

To whom in favor she shall give the day,
And kiss him with a glorious victory.
How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?
Farks it not something of the policy?

K. Jou. Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads,

I like it well. France, shall we knit our pow

ers

440

And she a fair divided excellence,
Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.
O, two such silver currents, when they join,
Do glorify the banks that bound them in;
And two such shores to two such streams made
one,

Two such controlling bounds shall you be, kings,

To these two princes, if you marry them.
This union shall do more than battery can
To our fast-closed gates; for at this match,
With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,
The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope,
And give you entrance: but without this
matchi,

The sea enraged is not half so deaf,

450

Lions more confident, mountains and rocks
More free from motion, no, not Death himself
In moral fury half so peremptory.
As we to keep this city.
Bast.

Here's a stay

He gives the bastinado with his tongue :
Our ears are cudgell'd; not a word of his
But buffets b tter than a fist of France :
Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words
Since I first call'd my brother's father dad.

Eli. Son, list to this conjunction, make this match;

470

Give with our niece a dowry large enough:
For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie
Thy now unsured assurance to the crown,
That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe
The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.
I see a yielding in the looks of France;
Mark, how they whisper: urge them while
their souls

Are capable of this ambition,

Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath
Of soft petitions, pity and remorse,
Cool and congeal again to what it was.

First Cit. Why answer not the double majesties

480

Holds hand with any princess of the world. K. Phi. What say'st thou, boy? look in the lady's face.

Lew. I do, my lord; and in her eye I find A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,

The shadow of myself form'd in her eye:
Which being but the shadow of your son,
Becomes a sun and makes your son a shadow:
I do protest I never loved myself
Till now infixed I beheld myself
Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.

501

[Whispers with Blanch.

Bast. Drawn in the flattering table of her eye! Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow! And quarter'd in her heart! he doth espy

Himself love's traitor: this is pity now, That hang'd and drawn and quarter'd, there should be

In such a love so vile a lout as he.

Blanch. My uncle's will in this respect is mine: 510

If he see aught in you that makes him like,
That any thing he sees, which moves his liking,
I can with ease translate it to my will;
Or if you will, to speak more properly,

I will enforce it easily to my love.
Further I will not flatter you, my lord,
That all I see in you is worthy love,
Than this; that nothing do I see in you,
Though churlish thoughts themselves should

be your judge,

That I can find should merit any hate.

520

K. John. What say these young ones? What say you, my niece ?

Blanch. That she is bound in honor still to do

What you in wisdom still vouchsafe to say. K. John. Speak then, prince Dauphin; can you love this lady ?

Lew. Nay, ask me if I can refrain from love; For I do love her most unfeignedly.

K. John. Then do I give Volquessen, Touraine, Maine,

Poitiers and Anjou, these five provinces, With her to thee; and this addition more, Fall thirty thousand marks of English coin. Philip of France, if thon be pleased withal, Command thy son and daughter to join hands. K. Ph It likes us well; young princes, close your hands.

Aust. And your lips too; for I am well assured

That I did so when I was first assured.

K. Ph. Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates,

540

Let in that amity which you have made;
For at Saint Mary's chapel presently
The rites of marriage shall be solemnized.
Is not the Lady Constance in this troop?
I know she is not, for this match made up
Her presence would have interrupted much :
Where is she and her son? tell me, who knows.
Lew. She is sad and passionate at your
highness' tent.

K. Phi. And, by my faith, this league that we have made

That broker, that still breaks the pate of faith,
That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,
Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men
maids,

570

Who, having no external thing to lose But the word 'maid,' cheats the poor maid of that,

That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling Com modity,

Commodity, the bias of the world,

The world, who of itself is peised well,
Made to run even upon even ground,
Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,
This sway of motion, this Commodity,
Makes it take head from all indifferency,
From all direction, purpose, course, intent :
And this same bias, this Commodity,
This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word
Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,
Hath drawn him from his own determine

aid,

From a resolved and honorable war,
To a most base and vile-concluded peace.
And why rail I on this Cominodity ?
But for because he hath not woo'd me yet:
Not that I have the power to clutch my hand
When his fair angels would salute my palm
But for my hand, as unattempted yet,
Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich.
Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice but beggary.
Since kings break faith upon commodity,
Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee.