Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood: That right in peace, which here we urge in war; Enter CHATILLON. K. Phil. A wonder, lady !—lo, upon thy wish, Chat. Then turn your forces from this paltry siege, His marches are expedient to this town,9 To do offence and scath in Christendom. The interruption of their churlish drums [Drums beat. Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand, To parley, or to fight; therefore, prepare. K. Phil. How much unlook'd for is this expedition ! Aus. By how much unexpected, by so much We must awake endeavour for defence; For courage mounteth with occasion: [9] Immediate, expeditious. [:] Scath-Destruction, harm. JOHNS, Enter King JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the Bastard, PEMBROKE, and Forces. K. John. Peace be to France; if France in peace permit Our just and lineal entrance to our own! If not; bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven! Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face ; These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his : To draw my answer from thy articles? K. Phil. From that surpernal judge, that stirs good thoughts In any breast of strong authority, To look into the blots and stains of right. That judge hath made me guardian to this boy : K. John. Alack, thou dost usurp authority. [2] A brief is a short writing, abstract, or description. STEEV. Const. Let me make answer;-thy usurping son. Eli. Out, insolent! thy bastard shall be king; That thou may'st be a queen, and check the world! Const. My bed was ever to thy son as true, As thine was to thy husband and this boy Liker in feature to his father Geffrey, Than thou and John in manners; being as like, My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think, It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother. 3 Eli. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father. Con. There's a good grandam,boy,that would blot thee. Aust. Peace! Bast. Hear the crier. Aust. What the devil art thou? Bast. One that will play the devil, sir, with you, Blanch. O, well did he become that lion's robe, Bast. It lies as sightly on the back of him, As great Alcides' shoes upon an ass : But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back; Or lay on that, shall make your shoulders crack.4 Aust. What cracker is this same, that deafs our ears With this abundance of superfluous breath? K. Phil. Lewis, determine what we shall do straight. Lew. Women and fools, break off your conference.King John, this is the very sum of all, [3] Constance alludes to Elinor's infidelity to her husband, Lewis the Seventh, when they were in the Holy Land; on account of which he was divorced from her. She afterwards (1151) married our King Henry II. MALONE. [4] The ground of the quarrel of the Bastard to Austria is no where specified in the present play. But the story is, that Austria, who killed King Richard Caur-de-lien, wore, as the spoil of that prince, a lion's hide which had belonged to him. This circumstance renders the anger of the Bastard very natural, and ought not to have been omitted. POPE. The omission of this incident was natural. Shakspeare having familiarized the story to his own imagination, forgot that it was obscure to his audience or, what is equally probable, the story was then so popular, that a hint was sufficient, at that time, to bring it to mind; and these plays were written with very little care for the approbation of posterity. JOHNS. England, and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine, Wilt thou resign them, and lay down thy arms? K. John. My life as soon :-I do defy thee, France. Arthur of Bretagne, yield thee to my hand; And, out of my dear love, I'll give thee more Eli. Come to thy grandam, child. Const. Do, child, go it' grandam, child; Arth. Good my mother, peace I would, that I were low laid in my grave; Eli. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps. Const. Now shame upon you, whe'r she does, or no !5 His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shames, Draw those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes, Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee; Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib'd Eli. Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth! Const. Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth! Call not me slanderer; thou, and thine, usurp The dominations, royalties, and rights, Of this oppressed boy: This is thy eldest son's son, Thy sins are visited in this poor child; The canon of the law is laid on him, Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb. That he's not only plagued for her sin, But God hath made her sin and her the plague 6 On this removed issue, plagu’d for her, [5] Read:he'r he does, or no-i. e. whether he weeps, or not. Constance, so far from admitting, expressly denies that she shames him. RITSON. [6] The key to these words is contained in the last speech of Constance, where she alludes to the denunciation of the second commandment, of "visiting the iniquities of the parents upon the children, unto the third and fourth HENLEY. generation," &c. And with her plague, her sin; his injury Eli. Thou unadvised scold, I can produce A will, that bars the title of thy son. Const. Ay, who doubts that? a will! a wicked will; A woman's will; a canker'd grandam's will! K. Phil. Peace, lady; pause, or be more temperate : It ill beseems this presence, to cry aim To these ill-tuned repetitions.— Some trumpet summon hither to the walls These men of Angiers; let us hear them speak, Trumpets sound. Enter Citizens upon the walls. 1 Cit. Who is it, that hath warn'd us to the walls? K. Phil. 'Tis France, for England. K. John. England, for itself: You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects, K.Phil. You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects, Our trumpet call'd you to this gentle parle. K.John. For our advantage ;-Therefore,hear us first. Before the eye and prospect of your town, And merciless proceeding by these French, By the compulsion of their ordnance By this time from their fixed beds of lime [7] . e. gates hastily closed from an apprehension of danger. MALONE. |