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Complete Plays, The

Page 148

by William Shakespeare


  No more infected with my country’s love

  Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting

  Under your great command. You are to know

  That prosperously I have attempted and

  With bloody passage led your wars even to

  The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home

  Do more than counterpoise a full third part

  The charges of the action. We have made peace

  With no less honour to the Antiates

  Than shame to the Romans: and we here deliver,

  Subscribed by the consuls and patricians,

  Together with the seal o’ the senate, what

  We have compounded on.

  Aufidius

  Read it not, noble lords;

  But tell the traitor, in the high’st degree

  He hath abused your powers.

  Coriolanus

  Traitor! how now!

  Aufidius

  Ay, traitor, Marcius!

  Coriolanus

  Marcius!

  Aufidius

  Ay, Marcius, Caius Marcius: dost thou think

  I’ll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol’n name

  Coriolanus in Corioli?

  You lords and heads o’ the state, perfidiously

  He has betray’d your business, and given up,

  For certain drops of salt, your city Rome,

  I say ‘your city,’ to his wife and mother;

  Breaking his oath and resolution like

  A twist of rotten silk, never admitting

  Counsel o’ the war, but at his nurse’s tears

  He whined and roar’d away your victory,

  That pages blush’d at him and men of heart

  Look’d wondering each at other.

  Coriolanus

  Hear’st thou, Mars?

  Aufidius

  Name not the god, thou boy of tears!

  Coriolanus

  Ha!

  Aufidius

  No more.

  Coriolanus

  Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart

  Too great for what contains it. Boy! O slave!

  Pardon me, lords, ’tis the first time that ever

  I was forced to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords,

  Must give this cur the lie: and his own notion —

  Who wears my stripes impress’d upon him; that

  Must bear my beating to his grave — shall join

  To thrust the lie unto him.

  First Lord

  Peace, both, and hear me speak.

  Coriolanus

  Cut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads,

  Stain all your edges on me. Boy! false hound!

  If you have writ your annals true, ’tis there,

  That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I

  Flutter’d your Volscians in Corioli:

  Alone I did it. Boy!

  Aufidius

  Why, noble lords,

  Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune,

  Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart,

  ’Fore your own eyes and ears?

  All Conspirators

  Let him die for’t.

  All The People

  ‘Tear him to pieces.’ ‘Do it presently.’ ‘He kill’d my son.’ ‘My daughter.’ ‘He killed my cousin Marcus.’ ‘He killed my father.’

  Second Lord

  Peace, ho! no outrage: peace!

  The man is noble and his fame folds-in

  This orb o’ the earth. His last offences to us

  Shall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,

  And trouble not the peace.

  Coriolanus

  O that I had him,

  With six Aufidiuses, or more, his tribe,

  To use my lawful sword!

  Aufidius

  Insolent villain!

  All Conspirators

  Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!

  The Conspirators draw, and kill Coriolanus: Aufidius stands on his body

  Lords

  Hold, hold, hold, hold!

  Aufidius

  My noble masters, hear me speak.

  First Lord

  O Tullus,—

  Second Lord

  Thou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep.

  Third Lord

  Tread not upon him. Masters all, be quiet;

  Put up your swords.

  Aufidius

  My lords, when you shall know — as in this rage,

  Provoked by him, you cannot — the great danger

  Which this man’s life did owe you, you’ll rejoice

  That he is thus cut off. Please it your honours

  To call me to your senate, I’ll deliver

  Myself your loyal servant, or endure

  Your heaviest censure.

  First Lord

  Bear from hence his body;

  And mourn you for him: let him be regarded

  As the most noble corse that ever herald

  Did follow to his urn.

  Second Lord

  His own impatience

  Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.

  Let’s make the best of it.

  Aufidius

  My rage is gone;

  And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.

  Help, three o’ the chiefest soldiers; I’ll be one.

  Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully:

  Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he

  Hath widow’d and unchilded many a one,

  Which to this hour bewail the injury,

  Yet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.

  Exeunt, bearing the body of Coriolanus. A dead march sounded

  The Complete Histories

  By

  William Shakespeare

  THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN

  THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RICHARD THE SECOND

  THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

  THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

  THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH

  THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

  THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

  THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

  THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE EIGHTH

  THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RICHARD THE THIRD

  The Life and Death of King John

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY

  ACT I

  SCENE I. KING JOHN’S PALACE.

  ACT II

  SCENE I. FRANCE. BEFORE ANGIERS.

  ACT III

  SCENE I. THE FRENCH KING’S PAVILION.

  SCENE II. THE SAME. PLAINS NEAR ANGIERS.

  SCENE III. THE SAME.

  SCENE IV. THE SAME. KING PHILIP’S TENT.

  ACT IV

  SCENE I. A ROOM IN A CASTLE.

  SCENE II. KING JOHN’S PALACE.

  SCENE III. BEFORE THE CASTLE.

  ACT V

  SCENE I. KING JOHN’S PALACE.

  SCENE II. LEWIS’S CAMP AT ST. EDMUNDSBURY.

  SCENE III. THE FIELD OF BATTLE.

  SCENE IV. ANOTHER PART OF THE FIELD.

  SCENE V. THE FRENCH CAMP.

  SCENE VI. AN OPEN PLACE IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF SWINSTEAD ABBEY.

  SCENE VII. THE ORCHARD IN SWINSTEAD ABBEY.

  CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY

  Arthur,

  Austria,

  Bastard,

  Bigot,

  Blanch,

  Cardinal Pandulph,

  Chatillon,

  Constance,

  Elinor,

  English Herald,

  Essex,

  First Citizen,

  First Executioner,

  French Herald,

  Gurney,

  Hubert,

  King John,

  King Philip,

  Lady Faulconbridge,

  Lewis,

  Melun,

  Messenger,

  Pembroke,<
br />
  Peter,

  Prince Henry,

  Queen Elinor,

  Robert,

  Salisbury,

  ACT I

  SCENE I. KING JOHN’S PALACE.

  Enter King John, Queen Elinor, Pembroke, Essex, Salisbury, and others, with Chatillon

  King John

  Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?

  Chatillon

  Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France

  In my behavior to the majesty,

  The borrow’d majesty, of England here.

  Queen Elinor

  A strange beginning: ‘borrow’d majesty!’

  King John

  Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.

  Chatillon

  Philip of France, in right and true behalf

  Of thy deceased brother Geffrey’s son,

  Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim

  To this fair island and the territories,

  To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,

  Desiring thee to lay aside the sword

  Which sways usurpingly these several titles,

  And put these same into young Arthur’s hand,

  Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.

  King John

  What follows if we disallow of this?

  Chatillon

  The proud control of fierce and bloody war,

  To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.

  King John

  Here have we war for war and blood for blood,

  Controlment for controlment: so answer France.

  Chatillon

  Then take my king’s defiance from my mouth,

  The farthest limit of my embassy.

  King John

  Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace:

  Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;

  For ere thou canst report I will be there,

  The thunder of my cannon shall be heard:

  So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath

  And sullen presage of your own decay.

  An honourable conduct let him have:

  Pembroke, look to ’t. Farewell, Chatillon.

  Exeunt Chatillon and Pembroke

  Queen Elinor

  What now, my son! have I not ever said

  How that ambitious Constance would not cease

  Till she had kindled France and all the world,

  Upon the right and party of her son?

  This might have been prevented and made whole

  With very easy arguments of love,

  Which now the manage of two kingdoms must

  With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

  King John

  Our strong possession and our right for us.

  Queen Elinor

  Your strong possession much more than your right,

  Or else it must go wrong with you and me:

  So much my conscience whispers in your ear,

  Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear.

  Enter a Sheriff

  Essex

  My liege, here is the strangest controversy

  Come from country to be judged by you,

  That e’er I heard: shall I produce the men?

  King John

  Let them approach.

  Our abbeys and our priories shall pay

  This expedition’s charge.

  Enter Robert and the Bastard

  What men are you?

  Bastard

  Your faithful subject I, a gentleman

  Born in Northamptonshire and eldest son,

  As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge,

  A soldier, by the honour-giving hand

  Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.

  King John

  What art thou?

  Robert

  The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.

  King John

  Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?

  You came not of one mother then, it seems.

  Bastard

  Most certain of one mother, mighty king;

  That is well known; and, as I think, one father:

  But for the certain knowledge of that truth

  I put you o’er to heaven and to my mother:

  Of that I doubt, as all men’s children may.

  Queen Elinor

  Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother

  And wound her honour with this diffidence.

  Bastard

  I, madam? no, I have no reason for it;

  That is my brother’s plea and none of mine;

  The which if he can prove, a’ pops me out

  At least from fair five hundred pound a year:

  Heaven guard my mother’s honour and my land!

  King John

  A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,

  Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?

  Bastard

  I know not why, except to get the land.

  But once he slander’d me with bastardy:

  But whether I be as true begot or no,

  That still I lay upon my mother’s head,

  But that I am as well begot, my liege,—

  Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!—

  Compare our faces and be judge yourself.

  If old sir Robert did beget us both

  And were our father and this son like him,

  O old sir Robert, father, on my knee

  I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!

  King John

  Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!

  Queen Elinor

  He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion’s face;

  The accent of his tongue affecteth him.

  Do you not read some tokens of my son

  In the large composition of this man?

  King John

  Mine eye hath well examined his parts

  And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,

  What doth move you to claim your brother’s land?

  Bastard

  Because he hath a half-face, like my father.

  With half that face would he have all my land:

  A half-faced groat five hundred pound a year!

  Robert

  My gracious liege, when that my father lived,

  Your brother did employ my father much,—

  Bastard

  Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:

  Your tale must be how he employ’d my mother.

  Robert

  And once dispatch’d him in an embassy

  To Germany, there with the emperor

  To treat of high affairs touching that time.

  The advantage of his absence took the king

  And in the mean time sojourn’d at my father’s;

  Where how he did prevail I shame to speak,

  But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores

  Between my father and my mother lay,

  As I have heard my father speak himself,

  When this same lusty gentleman was got.

  Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath’d

  His lands to me, and took it on his death

  That this my mother’s son was none of his;

  And if he were, he came into the world

  Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.

  Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,

  My father’s land, as was my father’s will.

  King John

  Sirrah, your brother is legitimate;

  Your father’s wife did after wedlock bear him,

  And if she did play false, the fault was hers;

  Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands

  That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,

  Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,

  Had of your father claim’d this son for his?

  In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept

  This
calf bred from his cow from all the world;

  In sooth he might; then, if he were my brother’s,

  My brother might not claim him; nor your father,

  Being none of his, refuse him: this concludes;

  My mother’s son did get your father’s heir;

  Your father’s heir must have your father’s land.

  Robert

  Shall then my father’s will be of no force

  To dispossess that child which is not his?

  Bastard

  Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,

  Than was his will to get me, as I think.

  Queen Elinor

  Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge

  And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,

  Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,

  Lord of thy presence and no land beside?

  Bastard

  Madam, an if my brother had my shape,

  And I had his, sir Robert’s his, like him;

  And if my legs were two such riding-rods,

  My arms such eel-skins stuff’d, my face so thin

  That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose

  Lest men should say ‘Look, where three-farthings goes!’

  And, to his shape, were heir to all this land,

  Would I might never stir from off this place,

  I would give it every foot to have this face;

  I would not be sir Nob in any case.

  Queen Elinor

  I like thee well: wilt thou forsake thy fortune,

  Bequeath thy land to him and follow me?

  I am a soldier and now bound to France.

  Bastard

  Brother, take you my land, I’ll take my chance.

  Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,

  Yet sell your face for five pence and ’tis dear.

  Madam, I’ll follow you unto the death.

  Queen Elinor

  Nay, I would have you go before me thither.

  Bastard

  Our country manners give our betters way.

  King John

  What is thy name?

  Bastard

  Philip, my liege, so is my name begun,

  Philip, good old sir Robert’s wife’s eldest son.

  King John

  From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bear’st:

  Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great,

  Arise sir Richard and Plantagenet.

  Bastard

  Brother by the mother’s side, give me your hand:

  My father gave me honour, yours gave land.

  Now blessed by the hour, by night or day,

  When I was got, sir Robert was away!

  Queen Elinor

  The very spirit of Plantagenet!

  I am thy grandam, Richard; call me so.

  Bastard

  Madam, by chance but not by truth; what though?

  Something about, a little from the right,

  In at the window, or else o’er the hatch:

 

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