Complete Plays, The

by William Shakespeare

  First Citizen

  Who is it that hath warn’d us to the walls?

  King Philip

  ’Tis France, for England.

  King John

  England, for itself.

  You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects —

  King Philip

  You loving men of Angiers, Arthur’s subjects,

  Our trumpet call’d you to this gentle parle —

  King John

  For our advantage; therefore hear us first.

  These flags of France, that are advanced here

  Before the eye and prospect of your town,

  Have hither march’d to your endamagement:

  The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,

  And ready mounted are they to spit forth

  Their iron indignation ’gainst your walls:

  All preparation for a bloody siege

  All merciless proceeding by these French

  Confronts your city’s eyes, your winking gates;

  And but for our approach those sleeping stones,

  That as a waist doth girdle you about,

  By the compulsion of their ordinance

  By this time from their fixed beds of lime

  Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made

  For bloody power to rush upon your peace.

  But on the sight of us your lawful king,

  Who painfully with much expedient march

  Have brought a countercheque before your gates,

  To save unscratch’d your city’s threatened cheeks,

  Behold, the French amazed 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:

  Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,

  And let us in, your king, whose labour’d spirits,

  Forwearied in this action of swift speed,

  Crave harbourage within your city walls.

  King Philip

  When I have said, make answer to us both.

  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:

  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

  Religiously provokes. Be pleased then

  To pay that duty which you truly owe

  To 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;

  Our cannons’ malice vainly shall be spent

  Against the invulnerable clouds of heaven;

  And with a blessed and unvex’d retire,

  With unhack’d swords and helmets all unbruised,

  We will bear home that lusty blood again

  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-faced walls

  Can hide you from our messengers of war,

  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 challenged it?

  Or shall we give the signal to our rage

  And stalk in blood to our possession?

  First Citizen

  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.

  First Citizen

  That can we not; but he that proves the king,

  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,—

  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.

  First Citizen

  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,

  In dreadful trial of our kingdom’s king!

  King Philip

  Amen, amen! Mount, chevaliers! to arms!

  Bastard

  Saint George, that swinged the dragon, and e’er since

  Sits on his horseback at mine hostess’ door,

  Teach us some fence!

  To Austria

  Sirrah, were I at home,

  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

  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

  Here after excursions, enter the Herald of France, with trumpets, to the gates

  French Herald

  You men of Angiers, open wide your gates,

  And let young Arthur, Duke of Bretagne, in,

  Who by the hand of France this day hath made

  Much work for tears in many an English mother,

  Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground;

  Many a widow’s husband grovelling lies,

  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

  Arthur of Bretagne England’s king and yours.

  Enter English Herald, with trumpet

  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,

  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;

  And, like a troop of jolly huntsmen, come

  Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,

  Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes:

  Open your gates and gives the victors way.

  First Citizen

  Heralds, from off our towers we might behold,

  From first to last, the onset and retire

  Of both your armies; whose equality

&
nbsp; By our best eyes cannot be censured:

  Blood hath bought blood and blows have answered blows;

  Strength match’d with strength, and power confronted power:

  Both are alike; and both alike we like.

  One must prove greatest: while they weigh so even,

  We hold our town for neither, yet for both.

  Re-enter King John and King Philip, with their powers, severally

  King John

  France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?

  Say, shall the current of our right run on?

  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.

  King Philip

  England, thou hast not saved 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 earth this climate overlooks,

  Before we will lay down our just-borne arms,

  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,

  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 undetermined differences of kings.

  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!

  King John

  Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?

  King Philip

  Speak, citizens, for England; who’s your king?

  First Citizen

  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

  And bear possession of our person here,

  Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.

  First Citizen

  A greater power then we denies all this;

  And till it be undoubted, we do lock

  Our former scruple in our strong-barr’d gates;

  King’d of our fears, until our fears, resolved,

  Be by some certain king purged and deposed.

  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

  At your industrious scenes and acts of death.

  Your royal presences be ruled by me:

  Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,

  Be friends awhile and both conjointly bend

  Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town:

  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’ld play incessantly upon these jades,

  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;

  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?

  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 to the ground;

  Then after fight who shall be king of it?

  Bastard

  An if thou hast the mettle of a king,

  Being wronged 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,

  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.

  Austria

  I from the north.

  King Philip

  Our thunder from the south

  Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.

  Bastard

  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!

  First Citizen

  Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay,

  And I shall show you peace and fair-faced league;

  Win you this city without stroke or wound;

  Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds,

  That here come sacrifices for the field:

  Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.

  King John

  Speak on with favour; we are bent to hear.

  First Citizen

  That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,

  Is niece to England: look upon the years

  Of Lewis the Dauphin and that lovely maid:

  If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,

  Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?

  If zealous love should go in search of virtue,

  Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?

  If love ambitious sought a match of birth,

  Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch?

  Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,

  Is the young Dauphin every way complete:

  If not complete of, say he is not she;

  And she again wants nothing, to name want,

  If want it be not that she is not he:

  He is the half part of a blessed man,

  Left to be finished by such as she;

  And she a fair divided excellence,

  Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.

  O, two such silver currents, when they join,

  Do glorify the banks that bound them in;

  And two such shores to two such streams made one,

  Two such controlling bounds shall you be, kings,

  To these two princes, if you marry them.

  This union shall do more than battery can

  To our fast-closed gates; for at this match,

  With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,

  The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope,

  And give you entrance: but without this match,

  The sea enraged is not half so deaf,

  Lions more confident, mountains and rocks

  More free from motion, no, not Death himself

  In moral fury half so peremptory,

  As we to keep this city.

  Bastard

  Here’s a stay

  That shakes the rotten carcass of old Death

  Out of his rags! Here’s a large mouth, indeed,

  That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas,

  Talks as familiarly of roaring lions


  As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!

  What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?

  He speaks plain cannon fire, and smoke and bounce;

  He gives the bastinado with his tongue:

  Our ears are cudgell’d; not a word of his

  But buffets better than a fist of France:

  Zounds! I was never so bethump’d with words

  Since I first call’d my brother’s father dad.

  Queen Elinor

  Son, list to this conjunction, make this match;

  Give with our niece a dowry large enough:

  For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie

  Thy now unsured assurance to the crown,

  That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe

  The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.

  I see a yielding in the looks of France;

  Mark, how they whisper: urge them while their souls

  Are capable of this ambition,

  Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath

  Of soft petitions, pity and remorse,

  Cool and congeal again to what it was.

  First Citizen

  Why answer not the double majesties

  This friendly treaty of our threaten’d town?

  King Philip

  Speak England first, that hath been forward first

  To speak unto this city: what say you?

  King John

  If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son,

  Can in this book of beauty read ‘I love,’

  Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen:

  For Anjou and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers,

  And all that we upon this side the sea,

  Except this city now by us besieged,

  Find liable to our crown and dignity,

  Shall gild her bridal bed and make her rich

  In titles, honours and promotions,

  As she in beauty, education, blood,

  Holds hand with any princess of the world.

  King Philip

  What say’st thou, boy? look in the lady’s face.

  Lewis

  I do, my lord; and in her eye I find

  A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,

  The shadow of myself form’d in her eye:

  Which being but the shadow of your son,

  Becomes a sun and makes your son a shadow:

  I do protest I never loved myself

  Till now infixed I beheld myself

  Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.

  Whispers with Blanch

  Bastard

  Drawn in the flattering table of her eye!

  Hang’d in the frowning wrinkle of her brow!

  And quarter’d in her heart! he doth espy

  Himself love’s traitor: this is pity now,

  That hang’d and drawn and quartered, there should be

  In such a love so vile a lout as he.

  Blanch

  My uncle’s will in this respect is mine:

  If he see aught in you that makes him like,

  That any thing he sees, which moves his liking,