Sir Robert could not do it;

We know his handiwork. Therefore, good mother,

To whom am I beholding for these limbs?

Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.

LADY F.

Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,

That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honor?

What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?

BAST.

Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like.

What, I am dubb'd! I have it on my shoulder.

But, mother, I am not Sir Robert's son,

I have disclaim'd Sir Robert and my land,

Legitimation, name, and all is gone;

Then, good my mother, let me know my father;

Some proper man, I hope. Who was it, mother?

LADY F.

Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge?

BAST.

As faithfully as I deny the devil.

LADY F.

King Richard Cordelion was thy father.

By long and vehement suit I was seduc'd

To make room for him in my husband's bed.

Heaven! lay not my transgression to my charge,

That art the issue of my dear offense,

Which was so strongly urg'd past my defense.

BAST.

Now by this light, were I to get again,

Madam, I would not wish a better father.

Some sins do bear their privilege on earth,

And so doth yours: your fault was not your folly;

Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,

Subjected tribute to commanding love,

Against whose fury and unmatched force

The aweless lion could not wage the fight,

Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand.

He that perforce robs lions of their hearts

May easily win a woman's. Ay, my mother,

With all my heart I thank thee for my father!

Who lives and dares but say thou didst not well

When I was got, I'll send his soul to hell.

Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin,

And they shall say, when Richard me begot,

If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin.

Who says it was, he lies, I say 'twas not.

 

Exeunt.

 

 

[Act II,]

Scene [I]

Enter, before Angiers, Philip, King of France, Lewis [the] Dolphin, Constance, Arthur, [with forces, at one door; at the other,] Austria [with forces].

 

[K. PHI.]

Before Angiers well met, brave Austria.

Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood,

Richard, that robb'd the lion of his heart,

And fought the holy wars in Palestine,

By this brave duke came early to his grave;

And for amends to his posterity,

At our importance hither is he come

To spread his colors, boy, in thy behalf,

And to rebuke the usurpation

Of thy unnatural uncle, English John.

Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.

ARTH.

God shall forgive you Cordelion's death

The rather that you give his offspring life,

Shadowing their right under your wings of war.

I give you welcome with a powerless hand.

But with a heart full of unstained love.

Welcome before the gates of Angiers, Duke.

[K. PHI.]

A noble boy! Who would not do thee right?

AUST.

Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss

As seal to this indenture of my love:

That to my home I will no more return

Till Angiers, and the right thou hast in France,

Together with that pale, that white-fac'd shore,

Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides

And coops from other lands her islanders,

Even till that England, hedg'd in with the main,

That water-walled bulwark, still secure

And confident from foreign purposes,

Even till that utmost corner of the west

Salute thee for her king; till then, fair boy,

Will I not think of home, but follow arms.

CONST.

O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks,

Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength

To make a more requital to your love!

AUST.

The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords

In such a just and charitable war.

K. PHI.

Well, then to work! Our cannon shall be bent

Against the brows of this resisting town.

Call for our chiefest men of discipline

To cull the plots of best advantages.

We'll lay before this town our royal bones,

Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's blood,

But we will make it subject to this boy.

CONST.

Stay for an answer to your embassy,

Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood.

My Lord Chatillion may from England bring

That right in peace which here we urge in war,

And then we shall repent each drop of blood

That hot rash haste so indirectly shed.

 

Enter Chatillion.

 

K. PHI.

A wonder, lady! Lo upon thy wish

Our messenger Chatillion is arriv'd!

What England says, say briefly, gentle lord,

We coldly pause for thee; Chatillion, speak.

CHAT.

Then turn your forces from this paltry siege,

And stir them up against a mightier task.

England, impatient of your just demands,

Hath put himself in arms. The adverse winds,

Whose leisure I have stay'd, have given him time

To land his legions all as soon as I;

His marches are expedient to this town,

His forces strong, his soldiers confident.

With him along is come the mother-queen,

An [Ate,] stirring him to blood and strife;

With her her niece, the Lady Blanch of Spain;

With them a bastard of the king's deceas'd,

And all th' unsettled humors of the land,

Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,

With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens,

Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,

Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,

To make a hazard of new fortunes here.

In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits

Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er

Did never float upon the swelling tide

To do offense and scathe in Christendom.

The interruption of their churlish drums

Cuts off more circumstance. They are at hand,

 

Drum beats.

 

To parley or to fight, therefore prepare.

K. PHI.

How much unlook'd for is this expedition!

AUST.

By how much unexpected, by so much

We must awake endeavor for defense,

For courage mounteth with occasion.

Let them be welcome then, we are prepar'd.

Enter [John,] King of England, Bastard, Queen [Elinor], Blanch, Pembroke, and others.

 

K. JOHN.

Peace be to France – if France in peace permit

Our just and lineal entrance to our own;

If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven,

Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct

Their proud contempt that beats his peace to heaven.

K. PHI.

Peace be to England, if that war return

From France to England, there to live in peace.

England we love, and for that England's sake

With burden of our armor here we sweat.

This toil of ours should be a work of thine;

But thou from loving England art so far

That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king,

Cut off the sequence of posterity,

Outfaced infant state, and done a rape

Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.

Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face:

These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his;

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'ermasterest?

K. JOHN.

From whom hast thou this great commission, France,

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.

EL.

Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?

CONST.

Let me make answer: thy usurping son.

EL.

Out, insolent, thy bastard shall be king

That thou mayst be a queen, and check the world!

CONST.

My bed was ever to thy son as true

As thine was to thy husband, and this boy

Liker in feature to his father Geffrey

Than thou and John in manners, being as like

As rain to water, or devil to his dam.

My boy a bastard? By my soul I think

His father never was so true begot –

It cannot be, and if thou wert his mother.

EL.

There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.

CONST.

There's a good grandame, boy, that would blot thee.

AUST.

Peace!

BAST.

Hear the crier.

AUST.

What the devil art thou?

BAST.

One that will play the devil, sir, with you,

And 'a may catch your hide and you alone.

You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,

Whose valor plucks dead lions by the beard;

I'll smoke your skin-coat and I catch you right.

Sirrah, look to't, i' faith I will, i' faith.

BLANCH.

O, well did he become that lion's robe,

That did disrobe the lion of that robe!

BAST.

It lies as sightly on the back of him

As great Alcides' [shows] upon an ass.

But, ass, I'll take that burthen from your back,

Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.

AUST.

What cracker is this same that deafs our ears

With this abundance of superfluous breath?

King [Philip], determine what we shall do straight.

[K. PHI.]

Women and fools, break off your conference.

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 Britain, 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.

EL.

Come to thy grandame, child.

CONST.

Do, child, go to it grandame, child,

Give grandame kingdom, and it grandame will

Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.

There's a good grandame.

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.

EL.

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

CONST.

Now shame upon you, whe'er she does or no!

His grandame's wrongs, and not his mother's shames,

Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,

Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee;

Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib'd

To do him justice, and revenge on you.

EL.

Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!

CONST.

Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth,

Call not me slanderer! Thou and thine usurp

The dominations, royalties, and rights

Of this oppressed boy. This is thy eldest son's son,

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 plague

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!

EL.

Thou unadvised scold, I can produce

A will that bars the title of thy son.

CONST.

Ay, who doubts that? A will! a wicked will,

A woman's will, a cank'red grandam's will!

K. PHI.

Peace, lady, pause, or be more 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 [Hubert and other Citizens] upon the walls.

 

[HUB.]

Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls?

K. PHI.

'Tis France, for England.