Enter ⌜King Philip of⌝ France,⌜Louis the⌝ Dauphin,
Pandulph, Attendants.KING PHILIP So, by a roaring tempest on the flood, A whole armada of convicted sail Is scattered and disjoined from fellowship.PANDULPH Courage and comfort. All shall yet go well.KING PHILIP 5 What can go well when we have run so ill? Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost? Arthur ta’en prisoner? Divers dear friends slain? And bloody England into England gone, O’erbearing interruption, spite of France?DAUPHIN 10 What he hath won, that hath he fortified. So hot a speed, with such advice disposed, Such temperate order in so fierce a cause, Doth want example. Who hath read or heard Of any kindred action like to this?KING PHILIP 15 Well could I bear that England had this praise, So we could find some pattern of our shame.Enter Constance, ⌜with her hair unbound.⌝
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Look who comes here! A grave unto a soul, Holding th’ eternal spirit against her will In the vile prison of afflicted breath.—20 I prithee, lady, go away with me.CONSTANCE Lo, now, now see the issue of your peace!KING PHILIP Patience, good lady. Comfort, gentle Constance.CONSTANCE No, I defy all counsel, all redress, But that which ends all counsel, true redress.25 Death, death, O amiable, lovely death, Thou odoriferous stench, sound rottenness, Arise forth from the couch of lasting night, Thou hate and terror to prosperity, And I will kiss thy detestable bones30 And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows, And ring these fingers with thy household worms, And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust, And be a carrion monster like thyself. Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil’st,35 And buss thee as thy wife. Misery’s love, O, come to me!KING PHILIP O fair affliction, peace!CONSTANCE No, no, I will not, having breath to cry. O, that my tongue were in the thunder’s mouth!40 Then with a passion would I shake the world And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy Which cannot hear a lady’s feeble voice, Which scorns a modern invocation.PANDULPH Lady, you utter madness and not sorrow.CONSTANCE 45 Thou art ⌜not⌝ holy to belie me so. I am not mad. This hair I tear is mine;
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My name is Constance; I was Geoffrey’s wife; Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost. I am not mad; I would to heaven I were,50 For then ’tis like I should forget myself. O, if I could, what grief should I forget! Preach some philosophy to make me mad, And thou shalt be canonized, cardinal. For, being not mad but sensible of grief,55 My reasonable part produces reason How I may be delivered of these woes, And teaches me to kill or hang myself. If I were mad, I should forget my son, Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.60 I am not mad. Too well, too well I feel The different plague of each calamity.KING PHILIP Bind up those tresses.—O, what love I note In the fair multitude of those her hairs; Where but by chance a silver drop hath fall’n,65 Even to that drop ten thousand wiry ⌜friends⌝ Do glue themselves in sociable grief, Like true, inseparable, faithful loves, Sticking together in calamity.CONSTANCE To England, if you will.KING PHILIP 70 Bind up your hairs.CONSTANCE Yes, that I will. And wherefore will I do it? I tore them from their bonds and cried aloud “O, that these hands could so redeem my son, As they have given these hairs their liberty!”75 But now I envy at their liberty, And will again commit them to their bonds, Because my poor child is a prisoner.⌜She binds up her hair.⌝
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And father cardinal, I have heard you say That we shall see and know our friends in heaven.80 If that be true, I shall see my boy again; For since the birth of Cain, the first male child, To him that did but yesterday suspire, There was not such a gracious creature born. But now will canker sorrow eat my bud85 And chase the native beauty from his cheek, And he will look as hollow as a ghost, As dim and meager as an ague’s fit, And so he’ll die; and, rising so again, When I shall meet him in the court of heaven90 I shall not know him. Therefore never, never Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.PANDULPH You hold too heinous a respect of grief.CONSTANCE He talks to me that never had a son.KING PHILIP You are as fond of grief as of your child.CONSTANCE 95 Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;100 Then, have I reason to be fond of grief? Fare you well. Had you such a loss as I, I could give better comfort than you do.⌜She unbinds her hair.⌝ I will not keep this form upon my head When there is such disorder in my wit.105 O Lord! My boy, my Arthur, my fair son, My life, my joy, my food, my all the world, My widow-comfort and my sorrows’ cure!She exits.
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KING PHILIP I fear some outrage, and I’ll follow her.He exits, ⌜with Attendants.⌝DAUPHIN There’s nothing in this world can make me joy.110 Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man; And bitter shame hath spoiled the sweet ⌜world’s⌝ taste, That it yields naught but shame and bitterness.PANDULPH 115 Before the curing of a strong disease, Even in the instant of repair and health, The fit is strongest. Evils that take leave On their departure most of all show evil. What have you lost by losing of this day?DAUPHIN 120 All days of glory, joy, and happiness.PANDULPH If you had won it, certainly you had. No, no. When Fortune means to men most good, She looks upon them with a threat’ning eye. ’Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost125 In this which he accounts so clearly won. Are not you grieved that Arthur is his prisoner?DAUPHIN As heartily as he is glad he hath him.PANDULPH Your mind is all as youthful as your blood. Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit.130 For even the breath of what I mean to speak Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub, Out of the path which shall directly lead Thy foot to England’s throne. And therefore mark: John hath seized Arthur, and it cannot be135 That, whiles warm life plays in that infant’s veins,
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The misplaced John should entertain an hour, One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest. A scepter snatched with an unruly hand Must be as boisterously maintained as gained.140 And he that stands upon a slipp’ry place Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up. That John may stand, then Arthur needs must fall. So be it, for it cannot be but so.DAUPHIN But what shall I gain by young Arthur’s fall?PANDULPH 145 You, in the right of Lady Blanche your wife, May then make all the claim that Arthur did.DAUPHIN And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.PANDULPH How green you are and fresh in this old world! John lays you plots. The times conspire with you,150 For he that steeps his safety in true blood Shall find but bloody safety, and untrue. This act so evilly borne shall cool the hearts Of all his people and freeze up their zeal, That none so small advantage shall step forth155 To check his reign but they will cherish it. No natural exhalation in the sky, No scope of nature, no distempered day, No common wind, no customèd event, But they will pluck away his natural cause160 And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs, Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven, Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.DAUPHIN Maybe he will not touch young Arthur’s life, But hold himself safe in his prisonment.PANDULPH 165 O, sir, when he shall hear of your approach,
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If that young Arthur be not gone already, Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts Of all his people shall revolt from him And kiss the lips of unacquainted change,170 And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath Out of the bloody fingers’ ends of John. Methinks I see this hurly all on foot; And, O, what better matter breeds for you Than I have named! The bastard Faulconbridge175 Is now in England ransacking the Church, Offending charity. If but a dozen French Were there in arms, they would be as a call To train ten thousand English to their side, Or as a little snow, tumbled about,180 Anon becomes a mountain. O noble dauphin, Go with me to the King. ’Tis wonderful What may be wrought out of their discontent, Now that their souls are topful of offense. For England, go. I will whet on the King.DAUPHIN 185 Strong reasons makes strange actions. Let us go. If you say ay, the King will not say no.They exit.
King John
