Complete Plays, The
Page 148
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: