Enter CHATIllon.

K. Phi. A wonder, lady!-lo, upon thy wish, Our messenger Chatillon is arriv'd.

What England says, say briefly, gentle lord,
We coldly pause for thee; Chatillon, speak.
Chat. Then turn your forces from this paltry siege,
And stir them up against a mightier task.
England, impatient of your just demands,
Hath put himself in arms; the adverse winds,
Whose leisure I have staid, have given him time
To land his legions all as soon as I:

His marches are expedient5 to this town,
His forces strong, his soldiers confident.
With him along is come the mother-queen,
An Até, stirring him to blood and strife:
With her her niece, the Lady Blanch of Spain;
With them a bastard of the king's deceas'd:
And all the unsettled humours of the land,-
Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,
With ladies' faces, and fierce dragons' spleens,-
Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,
Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,
To make a hazard of new fortunes here.
In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits,
Than now, the English bottoms have waft' o'er,
Did never float upon the swelling tide,
To do offence and scath8 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.

5 Immediate, expeditious. 6 The Goddess of Revenge. 7 Waft for wafted. So in another place in this play we have heat for heated :

'The iron of itself though heat red hot,'

8 Damage, harm, hurt.

K. Phi. How much unlook'd for is this expedition! Aust. By how much unexpected, by so much We must awake endeavour for defence; For courage mounteth with occasion: Let them be welcome then, we are prepar❜d.

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!
Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct
Their proud contempt that beat his peace to heaven.

K. Phi. Peace be to England; if that war return
From France to England, there to live in peace!
England we love; and, for that England's sake,
With burden of our armour here we sweat:
This toil of ours should be a work of thine;
But thou from loving England art so far,
That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king,
Cut off the sequence 10 of posterity,

Outfaced infant state, and done a rape

Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.

Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face:—
These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his :
This little abstract doth contain that large,
Which died in Geffrey; and the hand of time
Shall draw this brief11 into as huge a volume.
That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,
And this his son; England was Geffrey's right,
And this is Geffrey's: In the name of God,
How comes it then, that thou art call'd a king,

11 A short writing, abstract, or description.

When living blood doth in these temples beat,
Which owe the crown that thou o'ermasterest?
K. John. From whom hast thou this great com-
mission, France,

To draw my answer from thy articles?

K. Phi. From that supernal 12 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:
Under whose warrant, I impeach thy wrong;
And, by whose help, I mean to chastise it.
K. John. Alack, thou dost usurp authority.
K. Phi. Excuse; it is to beat usurping down.
Eli. Who is it, thou dost call usurper, France?
Const. Let me make answer;-thy usurping son.
Eli. Out, insolent! thy bastard shall be king;
That thou mayst be a queen, and check the world 13!
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,
As rain to water, or devil to his dam.
My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think,
His father never was so true begot;

It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother 14.

12 Celestial.

13 Surely (says Holinshed), Queen Eleanor, the king's mother, was sore against her nephew Arthur, rather moved thereto by envye conceyved against his mother, than upon any just occasion, given in behalfe of the childe; for that she saw, if he were king, how his mother Constance would looke to beare the most rule within the realme of Englande, till her son should come of lawful age to governe of himselfe. So hard a thing it is to bring women to agree in one minde, their natures commonly being so contrary.

14 Constance alludes to Elinor's infidelity to her husband, Louis the VIIth, when they were in the Holy Land; on account of which he was divorced from her. She afterwards, in 1151, married our King Henry II.

Eli. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.

Const. There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee.

Aust. Peace!

Bast.

Aust.

Hear the crier 15.

What the devil art thou?

Bast. One that will play the devil, sir, with you, An 'a may catch your hide and you alone 16. You are the hare of whom the proverb goes, Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard 17; I'll smoke your skin-coat, an I catch you right; Sirrah, look to't; i'faith, I will, i'faith.

Blanch. O, well did he become that lion's robe, That did disrobe the lion of that robe!

Bast. It lies as sightly on the back of him, As great Alcides' shoes 18 upon an ass :— But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back; Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack. Aust. What cracker is this same, that deafs our ears With this abundance of superfluous breath? K. Phi. Lewis, determine what we shall do straight.

Lew. Women and fools, break off your confer

King John, this is the very sum of all,—

15 Alluding to the usual proclamation for silence made by criers in the courts of justice, beginning Oyez, corruptly pronounced O-yes. Austria had just said Peace!

16 Austria, who had killed King Richard Coeur-de-lion, wore, as the spoil of that prince, a lion's hide, which had belonged to him. This was the ground of the Bastard's quarrel.

17 The proverb alluded to is Mortuo leoni et lepores insultant.'-Erasmi Adagia.

18 Theobald thought that we should read Alcides' shows; but Malone has shown that the shoes of Hercules were very frequently introduced in the old comedies on much the same occasions. Theobald supposed that the shoes must be placed on the back of the ass, instead of upon his hoofs, and therefore proposed his alteration.

England, and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
In right of Arthur do I claim of thee:

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
Than e'er the coward hand of France can win:
Submit thee, boy.

Eli.

Come to thy grandam, child.
Const. Do, child, go to it' grandam, child;
Give grandam kingdom, and it' grandam will
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig:

There's a good grandam.
Arth.

Good my mother, peace! I would, that I were low laid in my grave;

I am not worth this coil 19 that's made for me.
Eli. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he

weeps.

Const. Now shame upon you, whe'r 20 she does or no!

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
To do him justice, and revenge on you.

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, Infortunate in nothing but in thee;

Thy sins are visited in this poor child;

The canon of the law is laid on him,

19 Bustle.

20 Whether.

VOL. IV.

H H