The Life And Death Of King John

1 Enter King Philip, Louis, Pandulph and Attendants.
2 KING PHILIP.
3 So, by a roaring tempest on the flood
4 A whole armado of convicted sail
5 Is scattered and disjoin’d from fellowship.
6 PANDULPH.
7 Courage and comfort! All shall yet go well.
8 KING PHILIP.
9 What can go well, when we have run so ill.
10 Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?
11 Arthur ta’en prisoner? Divers dear friends slain?
12 And bloody England into England gone,
13 O’erbearing interruption, spite of France?
14 LOUIS.
15 What he hath won, that hath he fortified.
16 So hot a speed with such advice dispos’d,
17 Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,
18 Doth want example. Who hath read or heard
19 Of any kindred action like to this?
20 KING PHILIP.
21 Well could I bear that England had this praise,
22 So we could find some pattern of our shame.
23 Enter Constance.
24 Look who comes here! A grave unto a soul;
25 Holding th’ eternal spirit, against her will,
26 In the vile prison of afflicted breath.
27 I prithee, lady, go away with me.
28 CONSTANCE.
29 Lo, now, now see the issue of your peace!
30 KING PHILIP.
31 Patience, good lady! Comfort, gentle Constance!
32 CONSTANCE.
33 No, I defy all counsel, all redress,
34 But that which ends all counsel, true redress,
35 Death, death, O amiable, lovely death!
36 Thou odoriferous stench, sound rottenness!
37 Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,
38 Thou hate and terror to prosperity,
39 And I will kiss thy detestable bones
40 And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows,
41 And ring these fingers with thy household worms,
42 And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,
43 And be a carrion monster like thyself.
44 Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil’st,
45 And buss thee as thy wife. Misery’s love,
46 O, come to me!
47 KING PHILIP.
48 O fair affliction, peace!
49 CONSTANCE.
50 No, no, I will not, having breath to cry.
51 O, that my tongue were in the thunder’s mouth!
52 Then with a passion would I shake the world;
53 And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy
54 Which cannot hear a lady’s feeble voice,
55 Which scorns a modern invocation.
56 PANDULPH.
57 Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.
58 CONSTANCE.
59 Thou art not holy to belie me so.
60 I am not mad. This hair I tear is mine;
61 My name is Constance; I was Geoffrey’s wife;
62 Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost.
63 I am not mad; I would to heaven I were!
64 For then ’tis like I should forget myself.
65 O, if I could, what grief should I forget!
66 Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
67 And thou shalt be canoniz’d, cardinal;
68 For, being not mad but sensible of grief,
69 My reasonable part produces reason
70 How I may be deliver’d of these woes,
71 And teaches me to kill or hang myself.
72 If I were mad, I should forget my son,
73 Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.
74 I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
75 The different plague of each calamity.
76 KING PHILIP.
77 Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note
78 In the fair multitude of those her hairs!
79 Where but by a chance a silver drop hath fall’n,
80 Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends
81 Do glue themselves in sociable grief,
82 Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,
83 Sticking together in calamity.
84 CONSTANCE.
85 To England, if you will.
86 KING PHILIP.
87 Bind up your hairs.
88 CONSTANCE.
89 Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?
90 I tore them from their bonds and cried aloud,
91 “O that these hands could so redeem my son,
92 As they have given these hairs their liberty!”
93 But now I envy at their liberty,
94 And will again commit them to their bonds,
95 Because my poor child is a prisoner.
96 And, father cardinal, I have heard you say
97 That we shall see and know our friends in heaven.
98 If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
99 For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
100 To him that did but yesterday suspire,
101 There was not such a gracious creature born.
102 But now will canker sorrow eat my bud
103 And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
104 And he will look as hollow as a ghost,
105 As dim and meagre as an ague’s fit,
106 And so he’ll die; and, rising so again,
107 When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
108 I shall not know him. Therefore never, never
109 Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.
110 PANDULPH.
111 You hold too heinous a respect of grief.
112 CONSTANCE.
113 He talks to me that never had a son.
114 KING PHILIP.
115 You are as fond of grief as of your child.
116 CONSTANCE.
117 Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
118 Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
119 Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
120 Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
121 Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
122 Then have I reason to be fond of grief?
123 Fare you well. Had you such a loss as I,
124 I could give better comfort than you do.
125 I will not keep this form upon my head,
126 [_She unbinds her hair._]
127 When there is such disorder in my wit.
128 O Lord! My boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
129 My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
130 My widow-comfort, and my sorrows’ cure!
131 [_Exit._]
132 KING PHILIP.
133 I fear some outrage, and I’ll follow her.
134 [_Exit._]
135 LOUIS.
136 There’s nothing in this world can make me joy.
137 Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
138 Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;
139 And bitter shame hath spoil’d the sweet world’s taste,
140 That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.
141 PANDULPH.
142 Before the curing of a strong disease,
143 Even in the instant of repair and health,
144 The fit is strongest; evils that take leave
145 On their departure most of all show evil.
146 What have you lost by losing of this day?
147 LOUIS.
148 All days of glory, joy, and happiness.
149 PANDULPH.
150 If you had won it, certainly you had.
151 No, no; when Fortune means to men most good,
152 She looks upon them with a threat’ning eye.
153 ’Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost
154 In this which he accounts so clearly won.
155 Are not you griev’d that Arthur is his prisoner?
156 LOUIS.
157 As heartily as he is glad he hath him.
158 PANDULPH.
159 Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.
160 Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit;
161 For even the breath of what I mean to speak
162 Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,
163 Out of the path which shall directly lead
164 Thy foot to England’s throne; and therefore mark.
165 John hath seiz’d Arthur; and it cannot be
166 That, whiles warm life plays in that infant’s veins,
167 The misplac’d John should entertain an hour,
168 One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest.
169 A sceptre snatch’d with an unruly hand
170 Must be boisterously maintain’d as gain’d.
171 And he that stands upon a slipp’ry place
172 Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up.
173 That John may stand, then, Arthur needs must fall.
174 So be it, for it cannot be but so.
175 LOUIS.
176 But what shall I gain by young Arthur’s fall?
177 PANDULPH.
178 You, in the right of Lady Blanche your wife,
179 May then make all the claim that Arthur did.
180 LOUIS.
181 And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.
182 PANDULPH.
183 How green you are and fresh in this old world!
184 John lays you plots; the times conspire with you;
185 For he that steeps his safety in true blood
186 Shall find but bloody safety and untrue.
187 This act so evilly borne shall cool the hearts
188 Of all his people, and freeze up their zeal,
189 That none so small advantage shall step forth
190 To check his reign, but they will cherish it;
191 No natural exhalation in the sky,
192 No scope of nature, no distemper’d day,
193 No common wind, no customed event,
194 But they will pluck away his natural cause
195 And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs,
196 Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven,
197 Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.
198 LOUIS.
199 Maybe he will not touch young Arthur’s life,
200 But hold himself safe in his prisonment.
201 PANDULPH.
202 O, sir, when he shall hear of your approach,
203 If that young Arthur be not gone already,
204 Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts
205 Of all his people shall revolt from him,
206 And kiss the lips of unacquainted change,
207 And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath
208 Out of the bloody fingers’ ends of John.
209 Methinks I see this hurly all on foot;
210 And, O, what better matter breeds for you
211 Than I have nam’d! The bastard Faulconbridge
212 Is now in England ransacking the church,
213 Offending charity. If but a dozen French
214 Were there in arms, they would be as a call
215 To train ten thousand English to their side,
216 Or as a little snow, tumbled about,
217 Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin,
218 Go with me to the King. ’Tis wonderful
219 What may be wrought out of their discontent,
220 Now that their souls are topful of offence.
221 For England go. I will whet on the King.
222 LOUIS.
223 Strong reasons makes strong actions. Let us go.
224 If you say ay, the King will not say no.
225 [_Exeunt._]