Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin;
And they shall say, when Richard me begot,
If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin.
Who says it was, he lies; I say, 'twas not.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. France. Before the Walls of Angiers.

Enter, on one side, the Archduke of Austria,1 and Forces; on the other, PHILIP, King of France, and Forces; LEWIS, CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and Attend

ants.

Lew. Before Angiers well met, brave Austria.—
Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood,
Richard, that robbed the lion of his heart,
And fought the holy wars in Palestine,
By this brave duke came early to his grave;
And, for amends to his posterity,
At our importance,2 hither is he come,
To spread his colors, boy, in thy behalf;
And to rebuke the usurpation

Of thy unnatural uncle, English John.

Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.

Arth. God shall forgive you Coeur-de-lion's death, The rather, that you give his offspring life, Shadowing their right under your wings of war. I give you welcome with a powerless hand,

1 Leopold, duke of Austria, by whom Richard had been thrown into prison in 1193, died in consequence of a fall from his horse, 1195, some years before the date of the events upon which this play turns. The cause of the enmity between Richard and the duke of Austria is variously related by the old chroniclers. Shakspeare has been led into this anachronism by the old play of King John.

2 Importunity.

But with a heart full of unstained love.

Welcome before the gates of Angiers, duke.

Lew. A noble boy! who would not do thee right? Aust. Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss, As seal to this indenture of my love; That to my home I will no more return, Till Angiers, and the right thou hast in France, Together with that pale, that white-faced shore, Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides, And coops from other lands her islanders,Even till that England, hedged in with the main, That water-walled bulwark, still secure And confident from foreign purposes,― Even till that utmost corner of the west Salute thee for her king. Till then, fair boy, Will I not think of home, but follow arms.

Const. O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's

thanks,

Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength, To make a more requital to your love.

1

Aust. The peace of heaven is theirs, that lift their swords

In such a just and charitable war.

K. Phi. Well, then, to work; our cannon shall be bent

Against the brows of this resisting town.
Call for our chiefest men of discipline,
To cull the plots of best advantages.2—
We'll lay before this town our royal bones,
Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's blood,
But we will make it subject to this boy.

Const. Stay for an answer to your embassy,
Lest unadvised you stain your swords with blood.
My lord Chatillon may from England bring
That right in peace, which here we urge in war;
And then we shall repent each drop of blood,
That hot, rash haste so indirectly shed.

1 i. e. greater.

2 To mark the best stations to overawe the town.

Enter CHATILLON.

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

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 expedient1 to this town,
His forces strong, his soldiers confident.
With him along is come the mother-queen,
An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife;
With her her niece, the lady Blanch of Spain ;
With them a bastard of the king's deceased;
And all the unsettled humors 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 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. Phi. How much unlooked for is this expedition! Aust. By how much unexpected, by so much

We must awake endeavor for defence;

For courage mounteth with occasion.

Let them be welcome then; we are prepared.

1 Immediate, expeditious.

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 armor 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 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 brief 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 called a king,
When living blood doth in these temples beat,
Which owe the crown that thou o'ermasterest?
K. John. From whom hast thou this great commis-
sion, France,

To draw my answer from thy articles?

K. Phi. From that supernal 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;

1 Undermined.

2 A short writing, abstract, or description.

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.1
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.2

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.

What the devil art thou? Bast. One that will play the devil, sir, with you, An 'a may catch your hide and you alone.3 You are the hare of whom the proverb goes, Whose valor plucks dead lions by the beard;"

4

1 "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."

2 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 Henry II. of England.

3 Austria, who had imprisoned 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.

4 The proverb alluded to is "Mortuo leoni et lepores insultant."-Erasmi Adagia.

VOL. III.

36