The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 272
And grapple with him ere he come so nigh!
KING JOHN The legate of the pope hath been with me,
And I have made a happy peace with him;
And he hath promis’d to dismiss the powers
Led by the Dolphin.
BASTARD O inglorious league!
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Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
Send fair-play orders and make comprimise,
Insinuation, parley and base truce
To arms invasive? shall a beardless boy,
A cock’red silken wanton, brave our fields,
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And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
Mocking the air with colours idlely spread,
And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms!
Perchance the cardinal cannot make your peace;
Or if he do, let it at least be said
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They saw we had a purpose of defence.
KING JOHN
Have thou the ordering of this present time.
BASTARD Away, then, with good courage! yet, I know,
Our party may well meet a prouder foe. Exeunt.
5.2 Enter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT and soldiers.
LEWIS My Lord Melun, let this be copied out,
And keep it safe for our remembrance:
Return the precedent to these lords again;
That, having our fair order written down,
Both they and we, perusing o’er these notes,
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May know wherefore we took the sacrament
And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.
SALISBURY Upon our sides it never shall be broken.
And, noble Dolphin, albeit we swear
A voluntary zeal and an unurg’d faith
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To your proceedings; yet believe me, prince,
I am not glad that such a sore of time
Should seek a plaster by contemn’d revolt,
And heal the inveterate canker of one wound
By making many. O, it grieves my soul,
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That I must draw this metal from my side
To be a widow-maker! O, and there
Where honourable rescue and defence
Cries out upon the name of Salisbury!
But such is the infection of the time,
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That, for the health and physic of our right,
We cannot deal but with the very hand
Of stern injustice and confused wrong.
And is’t not pity, O my grieved friends,
That we, the sons and children of this isle,
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Was born to see so sad an hour as this;
Wherein we step after a stranger, march
Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up
Her enemies’ ranks – I must withdraw and weep
Upon the spot of this enforced cause –
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To grace the gentry of a land remote,
And follow unacquainted colours here?
What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove!
That Neptune’s arms, who clippeth thee about,
Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself –
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And cripple thee – unto a pagan shore,
Where these two Christian armies might combine
The blood of malice in a vein of league,
And not to spend it so unneighbourly!
LEWIS A noble temper dost thou show in this;
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And great affections wrastling in thy bosom
Doth make an earthquake of nobility.
O, what a noble combat hast thou fought
Between compulsion and a brave respect!
Let me wipe off this honourable dew,
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That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks:
My heart hath melted at a lady’s tears,
Being an ordinary inundation;
But this effusion of such manly drops,
This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul,
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Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amaz’d
Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven
Figur’d quite o’er with burning meteors.
Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,
And with a great heart heave away this storm:
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Commend these waters to those baby eyes
That never saw the giant world enrag’d,
Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,
Full warm of blood, of mirth, of gossiping.
Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep
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Into the purse of rich prosperity
As Lewis himself: so, nobles, shall you all,
That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.
Enter PANDULPH.
And even there, methinks, an angel spake:
Look, where the holy legate comes apace,
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To give us warrant from the hand of heaven,
And on our actions set the name of right
With holy breath.
PANDULPH Hail, noble prince of France!
The next is this: King John hath reconcil’d
Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,
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That so stood out against the holy church,
The great metropolis and see of Rome.
Therefore thy threat’ning colours now wind up,
And tame the savage spirit of wild war,
That, like a lion foster’d up at hand,
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It may lie gently at the foot of peace,
And be no further harmful than in show.
LEWIS Your grace shall pardon me, I will not back:
I am too high-born to be propertied,
To be a secondary at control,
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Or useful serving-man and instrument
To any sovereign state throughout the world.
Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars
Between this chastis’d kingdom and myself,
And brought in matter that should feed this fire;
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And now ’tis far too huge to be blown out
With that same weak wind which enkindled it.
You taught me how to know the face of right,
Acquainted me with interest to this land,
Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;
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And come ye now to tell me John hath made
His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?
I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,
After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;
And, now it is half-conquer’d, must I back
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Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?
Am I Rome’s slave? What penny hath Rome borne,
What men provided, what munition sent,
To underprop this action? Is’t not I
That undergo this charge? who else but I,
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And such as to my claim are liable,
Sweat in this business and maintain this war?
Have I not heard these islanders shout out
‘Vive le roi!’ as I have bank’d their towns?
Have I not here the best cards for the game
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To win this easy match play’d for a crown?
And shall I now give o’er the yielded set?
No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.
PANDULPH You look but on the outside of this work.
LEWIS Outside or inside, I will not return
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Till my attempt so much be glorified
As to my ample hope was promised
Before I drew this gallant head of war,
And cull’d these fiery spirits from the world,
To outlook conquest and to win ren
own
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Even in the jaws of danger and of death.
[Trumpet sounds.]
What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?
Enter the Bastard, attended.
BASTARD According to the fair-play of the world,
Let me have audience; I am sent to speak:
My holy lord of Milan, from the king
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I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;
And, as you answer, I do know the scope
And warrant limited unto my tongue.
PANDULPH The Dolphin is too wilful-opposite,
And will not temporize with my entreaties;
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He flatly says he’ll not lay down his arms.
BASTARD By all the blood that ever fury breath’d,
The youth says well. Now hear our English king,
For thus his royalty doth speak in me:
He is prepar’d, and reason too he should –
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This apish and unmannerly approach,
This harness’d masque and unadvised revel,
This unhair’d sauciness and boyish troops,
The king doth smile at; and is well prepar’d
To whip this dwarfish war, this pigmy arms,
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From out the circle of his territories. –
That hand which had the strength, even at your door,
To cudgel you and make you take the hatch,
To dive like buckets in concealed wells,
To crouch in litter of your stable planks,
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To lie like pawns lock’d up in chests and trunks,
To hug with swine, to seek sweet safety out
In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake
Even at the crying of your nation’s crow,
Thinking this voice an armed Englishman;
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Shall that victorious hand be feebled here,
That in your chambers gave you chastisement?
No: know the gallant monarch is in arms
And like an eagle o’er his aery towers,
To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.
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And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,
You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb
Of your dear mother England, blush for shame:
For your own ladies and pale-visag’d maids
Like Amazons come tripping after drums,
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Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,
Their needl’s to lances, and their gentle hearts
To fierce and bloody inclination.
LEWIS
There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;
We grant thou canst outscold us: fare thee well;
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We hold our time too precious to be spent
With such a brabbler.
PANDULPH Give me leave to speak.
BASTARD No, I will speak.
LEWIS We will attend to neither.
Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war
Plead for our interest and our being here.
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BASTARD
Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out;
And so shall you, being beaten: do but start
An echo with the clamour of thy drum,
And even at hand a drum is ready brac’d
That shall reverberate all, as loud as thine:
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Sound but another, and another shall
As loud as thine rattle the welkin’s ear
And mock the deep-mouth’d thunder: for at hand –
Not trusting to this halting legate here,
Whom he hath us’d rather for sport than need –
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Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits
A bare-ribb’d death, whose office is this day
To feast upon whole thousands of the French.
LEWIS Strike up our drums, to find this danger out.
BASTARD
And thou shalt find it, Dolphin, do not doubt.
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Exeunt.
5.3 Alarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT.
KING JOHN
How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert.
HUBERT Badly, I fear. How fares your majesty?
KING JOHN This fever, that hath troubled me so long,
Lies heavy on me; O, my heart is sick!
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER
My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge,
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Desires your majesty to leave the field
And send him word by me which way you go.
KING JOHN
Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there.
MESSENGER Be of good comfort; for the great supply
That was expected by the Dolphin here,