SCENE I.England.KING JOHN'S palace
Enter KING JOHN,CARDINAL PANDULPH,and Attendants KING JOHN Thus have I yielded up into your hand The circle of my glory.
Giving the crown CARDINAL PANDULPH Take again From this my hand,as holding of the pope Your sovereign greatness and authority.KING JOHN Now keep your holy word:go meet the French,And from his holiness use all your power To stop their marches 'fore we are inflamed.
Our discontented counties do revolt;
Our people quarrel with obedience,Swearing allegiance and the love of soul To stranger blood,to foreign royalty.
This inundation of mistemper'd humour Rests by you only to be qualified:
Then pause not;for the present time's so sick,That present medicine must be minister'd,Or overthrow incurable ensues.CARDINAL PANDULPH It was my breath that blew this tempest up,Upon your stubborn usage of the pope;But since you are a gentle convertite,My tongue shall hush again this storm of war And make fair weather in your blustering land.
On this Ascension-day,remember well,Upon your oath of service to the pope,Go I to make the French lay down their arms.
Exit KING JOHN Is this Ascension-day?Did not the prophet Say that before Ascension-day at noon My crown I should give off?Even so I have:
I did suppose it should be on constraint:
But,heaven be thank'd,it is but voluntary.
Enter the BASTARD BASTARD All Kent hath yielded;nothing there holds out But Dover castle:London hath received,Like a kind host,the Dauphin and his powers:
Your nobles will not hear you,but are gone To offer service to your enemy,And wild amazement hurries up and down The little number of your doubtful friends.KING JOHN Would not my lords return to me again,After they heard young Arthur was alive?BASTARD They found him dead and cast into the streets,An empty casket,where the jewel of life By some damn'd hand was robb'd and ta'en away.KING JOHN That villain Hubert told me he did live.BASTARD So,on my soul,he did,for aught he knew.
But wherefore do you droop?why look you sad?
Be great in act,as you have been in thought;Let not the world see fear and sad distrust Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time;be fire with fire;
Threaten the threatener and outface the brow Of bragging horror:so shall inferior eyes,That borrow their behaviors from the great,Grow great by your example and put on The dauntless spirit of resolution.
Away,and glister like the god of war,When he intendeth to become the field:
Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
What,shall they seek the lion in his den,And fright him there?and make him tremble there?
O,let it not be said:forage,and run To meet displeasure farther from the doors,And grapple with him ere he comes 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 promised to dismiss the powers Led by the Dauphin.BASTARD O inglorious league!
Shall we,upon the footing of our land,Send fair-play orders and make compromise,Insinuation,parley and base truce To arms invasive?shall a beardless boy,A cocker'd silken wanton,brave our fields,And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,Mocking the air with colours idly spread,And find no cheque?Let us,my liege,to arms:
Perchance the cardinal cannot make your peace;Or if he do,let it at least be said 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,Iknow,Our party may well meet a prouder foe.Exeunt
SCENE II.England.
The DAUPHIN'S camp at Saint Edmundsbury
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,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 Dauphin,albeit we swear A voluntary zeal and an unurged faith 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,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,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,Were 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,--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,And grapple 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;And great affections wrestling 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,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,Startles mine eyes,and makes me more amazed Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven Figured quite o'er with burning meteors.