And lopp'd a true friend from my loving soul?
AUD. O prince, thy sweet bemoaning speech to me
Is as a mournful knell to one dead-sick.
PR. ED. Dear Audley, if my tongue ring out thy end.
My arms shall be thy grave: what may I do,
To win thy life, or to revenge thy death?
If thou wilt drink the blood of captive kings
Or that it were restorative, command
A health of king's blood, and I'll drink to thee:
If honour may dispense for thee with death,
The never-dying honour of this day
vii) Share wholly, Audley, to thyself, and live.
AUD. Victorious prince, — that thou art so, behold
A Caesar's fame in king's captivity,
-If I could hold dim death but at a bay,
Till I did see my liege thy royal father,
My soul should yield this castle of my flesh,
This mangled tribute, with all willingness
To darkness, consummation, dust and worms.
PR. ED. Cheerly, bold man! thy soul is all too proud
To yield her city for one little breach
Should be divorced from her earthly spouse
By the soft temper of a Frenchman's sword.
Lo, to repair thy life, I give to thee
Three thousand marks a year in English land.
AUD. I take thy gift, to pay the debts I owe.
These two poor squires redeem'd me from the French,
With lusty and dear hazard of their lives;
What thou hast given me, I give to them;
And, as thou lov'st me, prince, lay thy consent
To this bequeath in my last testament.
PR. ED. Renowned Audley, live, and have from me
This gift twice doubled, to these squires and thee:
But, live or die, what thou hast given away,
To these and theirs shall lasting freedom stay.
-Come, gentlemen, I'll see my friend bestow'd
Within an easy Utter; then we'll march
Proudly toward Calice with triumphant pace
Unto my royal father, and there bring
The tribute of my wars, fair France's king.
ACT V SCENE I
Picardy. The English Camp before Calais.
Enter King Edward, Queen Philippa, Derby, soldiers.
K. ED. No more, Queen Philippe, pacify yourself;
Copland, except he can excuse his fault,
Shall find displeasure written in our looks.
-And now unto this proud resisting town:
Soldiers, assault; I will no longer stay,
To be deluded by their false delays;
Put all to sword, and make the spoil your own.
(V, i) Enter six citizens in their shirts, bare foot, with halters
about their necks.
CIT. Mercy, King Edward! mercy, gracious lord!
K. ED. Contemptuous villains! call ye now for truce?
Mine ears are stopp'd against your boodess cries:
-Sound, drums' alarum; draw, threat'ning swords!
1 CIT. Ah, noble prince, take pity on this town,
And hear us, mighty king!
We claim the promise that your highness made;
The two days' respite is not yet expir'd,
And we are come with willingness to bear
What torturing death or punishment you please,
So that the trembling multitude be sav'd.
K. ED. My promise? well, I do confess as much:
But I require the chiefest citizens,
And men of most account, that should submit.
You peradventure are but servile grooms
Or some felonious robber on the sea,
Whom, apprehended, law would execute,
Albeit severity lay dead in us:
No, no, ye cannot overreach us thus.
2 CIT. The sun, dread lord, that in the western fall
Beholds us now low brought through misery,
Did in the orient purple of the morn
Salute our coming forth, when we were known;
Or may our portion be with damned fiends.
K. ED. If it be so, then let our covenant stand,
We take possession of the town in peace:
But, for yourselves, look you for no remorse;
But, as imperial justice hath decreed,
Your bodies shall be dragg'd about these walls
And after feel the stroke of quartering steel:
This is your doom; - go, soldiers, see it done.
QUEEN. Ah, be more mild unto these yielding men!
It is a glorious thing, to stablish peace;
And kings approach the nearest unto God,
By giving life and safety unto men.
As thou intendest to be King of France,
So let her people live to call thee king;
For what the sword cuts down or fire hath spoil'd
Is held in reputation none of ours.
K. ED. Although experience teach us this is true,
That peaceful quietness brings most delight
When most of all abuses are controll'd,
(V, i) Yet, insomuch it shall be known that we
As well can master our affections
As conquer other by the dint of sword,
Philip, prevail; we yield to thy request;
These men shall live to boast of clemency,
-And, tyranny, strike terror to thyself.
CIT. Long live your highness! happy be your reign!
K. ED. Go, get you hence, return unto the town;
And if this kindness hath deserv'd your love,
Learn then to reverence Edward as your king. -
Exeunt
Now, might we hear of our affairs abroad,
We would, till gloomy winter were o'er-spent,
Dispose our men in garrison a while. But who comes here?
Enter Copland and King David
DER. Copland, my lord, and David King of Scots.
K. ED. Is this the proud presumptious squire o' the north
That would not yield his prisoner to my queen?
COP. I am, my liege, a northern squire, indeed,
But neither proud not insolent, I trust.
K. ED. What moved thee then to be so obstinate
To contradict our royal queen's desire?
COP. NO wilful disobedience, mighty lord,
But my desert and public law of arms:
I took the king myself in single fight;
And, like a soldier, would be loath to lose
The least pre-eminence that I had won:
And Copland straight upon your highness' charge
Is come to France and with a lowly mind
Doth vail the bonnet of his victory.
Receive, dread lord, the custom of my fraught,
The wealthy tribute of my labouring hands;
Which should long since have been surrender'd up,
Had but your gracious self been there in place.
QUEEN. But, Copland, thou didst scorn the king's command,
Neglecting our commission in his name.
COP. His name I reverence, but his person more;
His name shall keep me in allegiance still,
But to his person I will bend my knee.
K. ED. I pray thee, Philip, let displeasure pass;
This man doth please me and I like his words:
For what is he that will attempt great deeds
(V, i) And lose the glory that ensues the same?
All rivers have recourse unto the sea;
And Copland's faith, relation to his king.
-Kneel therefore down; now rise, King Edward's knight:
And, to maintain thy state, I freely give
Five hundred marks a year to thee and thine. -
Enter Salisbury Welcome,
Lord Salisbury: what news from Britain?
SAL. This,
mighty king: the country we have won;
And John de Mountford, regent of that place,
Presents your highness with this coronet,
Protesting true allegiance to your grace.
K. ED. We thank thee for thy service, valiant earl;
Challenge our favour, for we owe it thee.
SAL. But now, my lord, as this is joyful news,
So must my voice be tragical again
And I must sing of doleful accidents.
K. ED. What, have our men the overthrow at Poitiers?
Or is our son beset with too much odds?
SAL. He was, my lord: and as my worthless self,
With forty other serviceable knights,
Under safe-conduct of the Dauphin's seal
Did travel that way, finding him distress'd,
A troop of lances met us on the way,
Surpris'd, and brought us prisoners to the king;
Who, proud of this and eager of revenge,
Commanded straight to cut off all our heads:
And surely we had died, but that the duke,
More full of honour than his angry sire,
Procur'd our quick deliverance from thence;
But, ere we went, 'Salute your king,' quoth he,
Bid him provide a funeral for his son,
To-day our sword shall cut his thread of life;
And, sooner than he thinks, we'll be with him,
To quittance those displeasures he hath done':
This said, we pased, not daring to reply;
Our hearts were dead, our looks diffus'd and wan.
Wand'ring, at last we climb'd unto a hill;
From whence, although our grief were much before,
Yet now to see the occasion with our eyes
Did thrice so much increase our heaviness:
For there, my lord, O, there we did descry
Down in a valley how both armies lay.
(V, i) The French had cast their trenches like a ring;
And every barricado's open front
Was thick emboss'd with brazen ordinance.
Here stood a battle often thousand horse;
There twice as many pikes, in quadrant-wise:
Here cross-bows and deadly-wounding darts:
And in the midst, like to a slender point
Within the compass of the horizon,
-As't were a rising bubble in the sea,
A hazel-wand amidst a wood of pines,
Or as a bear fast chain'd unto a stake, -
Stood famous Edward, still expecting when
Those dogs of France would fasten on his flesh.
Anon, the death-procuring knell begins:
Off go the cannons, that, with trembling noise,
Did shake the very mountain where they stood;
Then sound the trumpets' clangour in the air,
The Battles join: and, when we could no more
Discern the difference 'twixt the friend and foe,
(So intricate the dark confusion was)
Away we turn'd our wat'ry eyes, with sighs
As black as powder fuming into smoke.
And thus, I fear, unhappy have I told
The most untimely tale of Edward's fall.
QUEEN. Ah me! is this my welcome into France?
Is this the comfort that I look'd to have
When I should meet with my beloved son?
Sweet Ned, I would thy mother in the sea
Had been prevented of this mortal grief!
K. ED. Content thee, Philippe: 'tis not tears will serve
To call him back if he be taken hence:
Comfort thyself, as I do, gende queen,
With hope of sharp, unheard-of, dire revenge.
-He bids me to provide his funeral;
And so I will: but all the peers in France
Shall mourners be and weep out bloody tears
Until their empty veins be dry and sere:
The pillars of his hearse shall be their bones;
The mould that covers him, their cities' ashes;
His knell, the groaning cries of dying men;
And, in the stead of tapers on his tomb,
An hundred fifty towers shall burning blaze,
While we bewail our valiant son's decease.
(V, i) After a flourish, sounded within, enter a Herald
HER. Rejoice, my lord; ascend the imperial throne!
The mighty and redoubted Prince of Wales,
Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms,
The Frenchman's terror and his country's fame,
Triumphant rideth like a Roman peer:
And, lowly at his stirrup, comes afoot
King John of France together with his son
In captive bonds; whose diadem he brings
To crown thee with and to proclaim thee king.
K. ED. Away with mourning, Philip, wipe thine eyes;
-Sound, trumpets, welcome in Plantagenet!
Enter Prince Edward, King John, Philip, Audley,
Artois As things, long lost, when they are found again,
So doth my son rejoice his father's heart,
For whom, even now, my soul was much perplex'd!
QUEEN. Be this a token to express my joy,
Kiss
For inward passions will not let me speak.
PR. ED. My gracious father, here receive the gift,
[Presenting him with King John's crown]
This wreath of conquest and reward of war,
Got with as mickle peril of our lives
As e'er was thing of price before this day;
Install your highness in your proper right:
And, herewithal, I render to your hands
These prisoners, chief occasion of our strife.
K. ED. So, John of France, I see you keep your word.
You promis'd to be sooner with ourself
Than we did think for, and 'tis so indeed:
But, had you done at first as now you do,
How many civil towns had stood untouch'd
That now are turn'd to ragged heaps of stones?
How many people's lives might'st thou have sav'd
That are untimely sunk into their graves?
K. JOHN. Edward, recount not things irrevocable;
Tell me what ransom thou requir'st to have.
K. ED. Thy ransom, John, hereafter shall be known.
But first to England thou must cross the seas
To see what entertainment it affords;
Howe'er it falls, it cannot be so bad
As ours hath been since we arriv'd in France.
K. JOHN. Accursed man! of this I was foretold,
(V, i) But did misconster what the prophet told.
PR. ED. Now, father, this petition Edward makes, -
To thee, [kneels] whose grace hath been his strongest shield,
That, as thy pleasure chose me for the man
To be the instrument to show thy power,
So thou wilt grant, that many princes more,
Bred and brought up within that little isle,
May still be famous for like victories! -
And, for my part, the bloody scars I bear,
The weary nights that I have watch'd in field,
The dangerous conflicts I have often had,
The fearful menaces were proffer'd me,
The heat and cold and what else might displease,
I wish were now redoubled twenty-fold;
So that hereafter ages, when they read
The painful traffic of my tender youth,
Might thereby be inflamed with such resolve
As not the territories of France alone,
But likewise Spain, Turkey, and what countries else
That justly would provoke fair England's ire,
Might, at their presence, tremble and retire!
K. ED. Here, English lords, we do proclaim a rest,
An intercession of our painful arms:
Sheathe up your swords, refresh your weary limbs,
Peruse your spoils; and, after we have breath'd
A day or two within this haven-town,
God willing, then for England we'll be shipp'd;
Where, in a happy hour, I trust, we shall
Arrive, three kings, two princes, and a queen.
[Exeunt]
Table of Contents
King Henry IV Part II [1403-1413]
King Henry VI Part I
King Henry VI Part II
King Henry VI Part III
III.ii.103
Shakespeare's Kings Page 49