The Complete Histories / History Plays of William Shakespeare (eBook)

SCENE 2. The same. Plains near Angiers

[Alarums. Excursions. Enter the BASTARD with AUSTRIA’S head.]

BASTARD.
Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;
Some airy devil hovers in the sky
And pours down mischief.—Austria’s head lie there,
While Philip breathes.
[Enter KING JOHN, ARTHUR, and HUBERT.]

KING JOHN.
Hubert, keep this boy.—Philip, make up:
My mother is assailed in our tent,
And ta’en, I fear.
BASTARD.
My lord, I rescu’d her;
Her highness is in safety, fear you not:
But on, my liege; for very little pains
Will bring this labour to an happy end.
[Exeunt.]

SCENE 3. The same.

[Alarums, Excursions, Retreat. Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR, the BASTARD, HUBERT, and LORDS.]

KING JOHN.
[To ELINOR] So shall it be; your grace shall stay behind,
So strongly guarded.—
[To ARTHUR] Cousin, look not sad;
Thy grandam loves thee, and thy uncle will
As dear be to thee as thy father was.
ARTHUR.
O, this will make my mother die with grief!
KING JOHN.
Cousin [To the BASTARD], away for England; haste before:
And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags
Of hoarding abbots; imprison’d angels
Set at liberty: the fat ribs of peace
Must by the hungry now be fed upon:
Use our commission in his utmost force.
BASTARD.
Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back,
When gold and silver becks me to come on.
I leave your highness.—Grandam, I will pray,—
If ever I remember to be holy,—
For your fair safety; so, I kiss your hand.
ELINOR.
Farewell, gentle cousin.
KING JOHN.
Coz, farewell.
[Exit BASTARD.]

ELINOR.
Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.
[She takes Arthur aside.]

KING JOHN.
Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,
We owe thee much! within this wall of flesh
There is a soul counts thee her creditor,
And with advantage means to pay thy love:
And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.
Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say,—
But I will fit it with some better time.
By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham’d
To say what good respect I have of thee.
HUBERT.
I am much bounden to your majesty.
KING JOHN.
Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet:
But thou shalt have; and creep time ne’er so slow,
Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.
I had a thing to say,—but let it go:
The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,
Attended with the pleasures of the world,
Is all too wanton and too full of gawds
To give me audience:—if the midnight bell
Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth,
Sound on into the drowsy race of night;
If this same were a churchyard where we stand,
And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;
Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,
Had bak’d thy blood and made it heavy-thick,
Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,
Making that idiot, laughter, keep men’s eyes,
And strain their cheeks to idle merriment—
A passion hateful to my purposes;—
Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,
Hear me without thine ears, and make reply
Without a tongue, using conceit alone,
Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words,—
Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,
I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts:
But, ah, I will not!—yet I love thee well;
And, by my troth, I think thou lov’st me well.
HUBERT.
So well that what you bid me undertake,
Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
By heaven, I would do it.
KING JOHN.
Do not I know thou wouldst?
Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
On yon young boy: I’ll tell thee what, my friend,
He is a very serpent in my way;
And wheresoe’er this foot of mine doth tread,
He lies before me: dost thou understand me?
Thou art his keeper.
HUBERT.
And I’ll keep him so
That he shall not offend your majesty.
KING JOHN.
Death.
HUBERT.
My lord?
KING JOHN.
A grave.
HUBERT.
He shall not live.
KING JOHN.
Enough!—
I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee;
Well, I’ll not say what I intend for thee:
Remember.—Madam, fare you well:
I’ll send those powers o’er to your majesty.
ELINOR.
My blessing go with thee!
KING JOHN.
For England, cousin, go:
Hubert shall be your man, attend on you
With all true duty.—On toward Calais, ho!
[Exeunt.]

SCENE 4. The same. The FRENCH KING’s tent.

[Enter KING PHILIP, LOUIS, PANDULPH, and Attendants.]

KING PHILIP.
So, by a roaring tempest on the flood
A whole armado of convicted sail
Is scattered and disjoin’d from fellowship.
PANDULPH.
Courage and comfort! all shall yet go well.
KING PHILIP.
What can go well, when we have run so ill.
Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?
Arthur ta’en prisoner? divers dear friends slain?
And bloody England into England gone,
O’erbearing interruption, spite of France?
LOUIS.
What he hath won, that hath he fortified:
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?
KING PHILIP.
Well could I bear that England had this praise,
So we could find some pattern of our shame.—
Look who comes here! a grave unto a soul;
Holding the eternal spirit, against her will,
In the vile prison of afflicted breath.
[Enter CONSTANCE.]

I pr’ythee, lady, go away with me.

CONSTANCE.
Lo, now! now see the issue of your peace!
KING PHILIP.
Patience, good lady! comfort, gentle Constance!
CONSTANCE.
No, I defy all counsel, all redress,
But that which ends all counsel, true redress,
Death, death:—O amiable lovely death!
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;
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:
Come, grin on me; and I will think thou smil’st,
And buss thee as thy wife! Misery’s love,
O, come to me!
KING PHILIP.
O fair affliction, peace!
CONSTANCE.
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
Which cannot hear a lady’s feeble voice,
Which scorns a modern invocation.
PANDULPH.
Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.
CONSTANCE.
Thou art not holy to belie me so;
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!
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;
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:
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.
KING PHILIP.
Bind up those tresses.—O, what love I note
In the fair multitude of those her hairs!
Where but by a chance a silver drop hath fallen,
Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends
Do glue themselves in sociable grief;
Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,
Sticking together in calamity.
CONSTANCE.
To England, if you will.
KING PHILIP.
Bind up your hairs.
CONSTANCE.
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,
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.—
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,
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,
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
I shall not know him:...