ACT III.

SCENE I. The same. The French King's Tent.

Enter CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and SALISBURY.

Const. Gone to be married! gone to

peace!

gone to swear a

False blood to false blood joined! gone to be friends! Shall Lewis have Blanch? and Blanch those prov

inces?

It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard;
Be well advised, tell o'er thy tale again.
It cannot be; thou dost but say, 'tis so.
I trust I may not trust thee; for thy word
Is but the vain breath of a common man ;
Believe me, I do not believe thee, man;
I have a king's oath to the contrary.
Thou shalt be punished for thus frighting me,
For I am sick, and capable of fears;

Oppressed with wrongs, and therefore full of fears;
A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;

A woman, naturally born to fears;

And though thou now confess, thou didst but jest,
With my vexed spirits I cannot take a truce,
But they will quake and tremble all this day.
What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?
Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?
What means that hand upon that breast of thine?
Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,
Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?
Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?
Then speak again; not all thy former tale,
But this one word, whether thy tale be true.
Sal. As true, as, I believe, you think them false,
That give you cause to prove my saying true.
Const. O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,

Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die;
And let belief and life encounter so,

As doth the fury of two desperate men,
Which, in the very meeting, fall, and die.—

Lewis marry Blanch! O, boy, then where art thou?
France friend with England! what becomes of me?
Fellow, be gone; I cannot brook thy sight;
This news hath made thee a most ugly man
Sal. What other harm have I, good lady, done,
But spoke the harm that is by others done?

Const. Which harm within itself so heinous is,
As it makes harmful all that speak of it.

Arth. I do beseech you, madam, be content.
Const. If thou that bidd'st me be content, wert
grim,

Ugly, and slanderous to thy mother's womb,
Full of unpleasing blots, and sightless' stains,
Lame, foolish, crooked, swart,2 prodigious,
Patched with foul moles, and eye-offending marks,
I would not care; I then would be content;
For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou
Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.
But thou art fair; and at thy birth, dear boy!
Nature and fortune joined to make thee great.
Of nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,
And with the half-blown rose; but fortune, O!
She is corrupted, changed, and won from thee;
She adulterates hourly with thine uncle John;
And with her golden hand hath plucked on France
To tread down fair respect of sovereignty,
And made his majesty the bawd to theirs.
France is a bawd to fortune, and king John;
That strumpet fortune, that unsurping John.-
Tell me, thou fellow, is not France forsworn?
Envenom him with words; or get thee gone,
And leave those woes alone, which I alone
Am bound to underbear.

1 Unsightly.

2 Swart is dark, dusky. Prodigious is portentous, so deformed as to be taken for a foretoken of evil.

Sal.

Pardon me, madam,

I may not go without you to the kings.

Const. Thou mayst, thou shalt; I will not go with

thee.

I will instruct my sorrows to be proud;
For grief is proud, and makes his owner stout.1
To me, and to the state of my great grief,
Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great,
That no supporter but the huge, firm earth
Can hold it up.
Here I and sorrow sit;

Here is my throne; bid kings come how to it.

[She throws herself on the ground.

Enter KING JOHN, KING PHILIP, LEWIS, BLANCH, ELINOR, Bastard, AUSTRIA, and Attendants.

K. Phi. 'Tis true, fair daughter; and this blessed day,

Ever in France shall be kept festival.

To solemnize this day, the glorious sun
Stays in his course, and plays the alchemist;
Turning, with splendor of his precious eye,
The meagre, cloddy earth to glittering gold.
The yearly course, that brings this day about,
Shall never see it but a holyday.

Const. A wicked day, and not a holyday!

[Rising. What hath this day deserved? What hath it done; That it in golden letters should be set Among the high tides,2 in the calendar? Nay, rather, turn this day out of the week; This day of shame, oppression, perjury: Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child Pray, that their burdens may not fall this day, Lest that their hopes prodigiously be crossed;3

1 The old copy reads, "makes its owner stoop." The emendation is sir T. Hanmer's.

2 Solemn seasons, times to be observed above others.

3 i. e. be disappointed by the production of a prodigy, a monster.

But' on this day, let seamen fear no wreck;
No bargains break, that are not this day made:
This day, all things begun, come to ill end;
Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!

K. Phi. By Heaven, lady, you shall have no cause To curse the fair proceedings of this day. Have I not pawned to you my majesty?

Const. You have beguiled me with a counterfeit,
Resembling majesty; which, being touched, and tried,
Proves valueless. You are forsworn, forsworn;
You came in arms to spill mine enemies' blood,
But now in arms you strengthen it with yours.
The grappling vigor and rough frown of war
Is cold in amity and painted peace,

And our oppression hath made up this league.-
Arm, arm, you Heavens, against these perjured kings!
A widow cries; be husband to me, Heavens!
Let not the hours of this ungodly day

Wear out the day in peace; but, ere sunset,
Set armed discord 'twixt these perjured kings!
Hear me, O, hear me !

Aust.

Lady Constance, peace. Const. War! war! no peace! peace is to me a war. O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shame

That bloody spoil. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward,

Thou little valiant, great in villany!

Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!

Thou fortune's champion, that dost never fight
But when her humorous ladyship is by

1 But for unless; its exceptive sense of be out. In the ancient almanacs, the days supposed to be favorable or unfavorable to bargains, are distinguished, among a number of particulars of the like importance.

2 Shakspeare, in the person of Austria, has conjoined the two wellknown enemies of Richard Coeur-de-lion. Leopold, duke of Austria, threw him into prison in a former expedition (in 1193); but the castle of Chaluz, before which he fell (in 1199), belonged to Vidomar, viscount of Limoges. The archer who pierced his shoulder with an arrow (of which wound he died) was Bertrand de Gourdon. Austria, in the old play, is called Lymoges, the Austrich duke. Holinshed says, "The same year Philip, bastard sonne to King Richard, to whom his father had given the castell and honour of Coniacke, killed the viscount of Lymoges in revenge of his father's death," &c.

To teach thee safety! Thou art perjured, too,
And sooth'st up greatness.
What a fool art thou,
A ramping fool; to brag, and stamp, and swear,
Upon my party! Thou cold-blooded slave,
Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side?
Been sworn my soldier? bidding me depend
Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength?
And dost thou now fall over to my foes?
Thou wear a lion's hide! Doff it for shame,
And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs./
Aust. O, that a man should speak those words to

me!

Bast. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs. Aust. Thou dar'st not say so, villain, for thy life. Bast. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant

limbs.1

K. John. We like not this; thou dost forget thyself.

Enter PANDulph.

K. Phi. Here comes the holy legate of the pope. Pand. Hail, you anointed deputies of Heaven.To thee, king John, my holy errand is.

I, Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal,

And from pope Innocent the legate here,

Do, in his name, religiously demand,

Why thou against the church, our holy mother,

So wilfully dost spurn; and, force perforce,

1 Pope inserted the following lines from the old play here, which he thought necessary "to explain the ground of the Bastard's quarrel with Austria: "

"Aust. Methinks that Richard's pride, and Richard's fall, Should be a precedent to fright you all.

Faulc. What words are these? How do my sinews shake!
My father's foe clad in my father's spoil;
How doth Alecto whisper in my ears,
Delay not, Richard; kill the villain straight;
Disrobe him of the matchless monument,
Thy father's triumph o'er the savages!
Now by his soul I swear, my father's soul,
Twice will I not review the morning's rise,
Till I have torn that trophy from thy back,
And split thy heart for wearing it so long."