The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 264
Have brought a countercheck before your gates,
To save unscratch’d your city’s threat’ned cheeks,
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Behold, the French amaz’d 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:
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Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,
And let us in, your king, whose labour’d spirits
Forwearied in this action of swift speed
Craves harbourage within your city walls.
KING PHILIP
When I have said, make answer to us both.
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Lo, in this right hand, whose protection
Is most divinely vow’d upon the right
Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,
Son to the elder brother of this man,
And king o’er him and all that he enjoys:
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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
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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;
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Our cannons’ malice vainly shall be spent
Against th’ invulnerable clouds of heaven;
And with a blessed and unvex’d retire,
With unhack’d swords and helmets all unbruis’d,
We will bear home that lusty blood again
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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-fac’d walls
Can hide you from our messengers of war,
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Though all these English and their discipline
Were harbour’d in their rude circumference.
Then tell us, shall your city call us lord,
In that behalf which we have challeng’d it?
Or shall we give the signal to our rage
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And stalk in blood to our possession?
HUBERT
In brief, we are the king of England’s subjects:
For him, and in his right, we hold this town.
KING JOHN Acknowledge then the king, and let me in.
HUBERT That can we not; but he that proves the king,
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To him will we prove loyal: till that time
Have we ramm’d up our gates against the world.
KING 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 –
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BASTARD Bastards and else.
KING JOHN To verify our title with their lives.
KING PHILIP
As many and as well-born bloods as those –
BASTARD Some bastards too.
KING PHILIP Stand in his face to contradict his claim.
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HUBERT Till you compound whose right is worthiest,
We for the worthiest hold the right from both.
KING JOHN Then God forgive the sin of all those souls
That to their everlasting residence,
Before the dew of evening fall, shall fleet,
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In dreadful trial of our kingdom’s king!
KING PHILIP Amen, amen! Mount, chevaliers! to arms!
BASTARD
Saint George, that swindg’d the dragon, and e’er since
Sits on’s horse-back at mine hostess’ door,
Teach us some fence!
[to Austria] Sirrah, were I at home,
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At your den, sirrah, with your lioness,
I would set an ox-head to your lion’s hide,
And make a monster of you.
AUSTRIA Peace! no more.
BASTARD O, tremble: for you hear the lion roar!
KING JOHN
Up higher to the plain; where we’ll set forth
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In best appointment all our regiments.
BASTARD Speed then, to take advantage of the field.
KING PHILIP It shall be so; and at the other hill
Command the rest to stand. God and our right!
Exeunt, severally, the English and French kings, etc.
Here, after excursions, enter the Herald of France, with trumpeters, to the gates.
FRENCH HERALD
You men of Angiers, open wide your gates,
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And let young Arthur, Duke of Britain, in,
Who by the hand of France this day hath made
Much work for tears in many an English mother,
Whose sons lie scatter’d on the bleeding ground:
Many a widow’s husband grovelling lies,
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Coldly embracing the discolour’d earth;
And victory, with little loss, doth play
Upon the dancing banners of the French,
Who are at hand, triumphantly display’d,
To enter conquerors, and to proclaim
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Arthur of Britain England’s king, and yours.
Enter English Herald, with trumpeter.
ENGLISH HERALD
Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells;
King John, your king and England’s, doth approach,
Commander of this hot malicious day.
Their armours, that march’d hence so silver-bright,
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Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen’s blood;
There stuck no plume in any English crest
That is removed by a staff of France;
Our colours do return in those same hands
That did display them when we first march’d forth;
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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.
HUBERT
Heralds, from off our towers we might behold,
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From first to last, the onset and retire
Of both your armies; whose equality
By our best eyes cannot be censured:
Blood hath bought blood and blows have answer’d blows;
Strength match’d with strength, and power confronted power:
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Both are alike, and both alike we like.
One must prove greatest: while they weigh so ever
We hold our town for neither, yet for both.
Re-enter, on one side, KING JOHN, ELEANOR, BLANCHE, the BASTARD, lords and forces; on the other, KING PHILIP, LEWIS, AUSTRIA and forces.
KING JOHN
France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?
Say, shall the current of our right roam on?
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Whose passage, vex’d with thy impediment,
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.
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KING PHILIP
England, thou hast not sav’d 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 ea
rth this climate overlooks,
Before we will lay down our just-borne arms,
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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.
BASTARD Ha, majesty! how high thy glory towers
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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 undetermin’d differences of kings.
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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!
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KING JOHN Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?
KING PHILIP
Speak, citizens, for England; who’s your king?
HUBERT The king of England, when we know the king.
KING PHILIP
Know him in us, that here hold up his right.
KING JOHN In us, that are our own great deputy,
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And bear possession of our person here,
Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.
HUBERT A greater power than we denies all this;
And till it be undoubted, we do lock
Our former scruple in our strong-barr’d gates:
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Kings of our fear, until our fears, resolv’d,
Be by some certain king purg’d and depos’d.
BASTARD
By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,
And stand securely on their battlements,
As in a theatre, whence they gape and point
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At your industrious scenes and acts of death.
Your royal presences be rul’d by me:
Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,
Be friends awhile and both conjointly bend
Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town.
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By east and west let France and England mount
Their battering cannon charged to the mouths,
Till their soul-fearing clamours have brawl’d down
The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city:
I’d play incessantly upon these jades,
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Even till unfenced desolation
Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.
That done, dissever your united strengths,
And part your mingled colours once again;
Turn face to face and bloody point to point;
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Then, in a moment, fortune shall cull forth
Out of one side her happy minion,
To whom in favour she shall give the day,
And kiss him with a glorious victory.
How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?
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Smacks it not something of the policy?
KING JOHN
Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads,
I like it well. France, shall we knit our powers
And lay this Angiers even with the ground;
Then after fight who shall be king of it?
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BASTARD And if thou hast the mettle of a king,
Being wrong’d as we are by this peevish town,
Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,
As we will ours, against these saucy walls;
And when that we have dash’d them to the ground,
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Why then defy each other, and pell-mell
Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell.
KING PHILIP Let it be so. Say, where will you assault?
KING JOHN We from the west will send destruction
Into this city’s bosom.
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AUSTRIA I from the north.
KING PHILIP Our thunder from the south
Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.
BASTARD [aside]
O prudent discipline! From north to south
Austria and France shoot in each other’s mouth:
I’ll stir them to it. – Come, away, away!
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HUBERT Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay,
And I shall show you peace and fair-fac’d league;
Win you this city without stroke or wound;
Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds,
That here come sacrifices for the field:
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Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings!
KING JOHN Speak on, with favour; we are bent to hear.
HUBERT