K. Phi. It shall be so;-[To LEWIS.] and at the

other hill

Command the rest to stand.-God, and our right!

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same.

Alarums and Excursions; then a Retreat.

Enter a French Herald, with trumpets, to the gates.

F. Her. You men of Angiers, open wide your gates, And let young Arthur, duke of Bretagne, in; Who, by the hand of France, this day hath made Much work for tears in many an English mother, Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground. Many a widow's husband groveling lies, Coldly embracing the discolored earth; And victory, with little loss, doth play Upon the dancing banners of the French; Who are at hand, triumphantly displayed, To enter conquerors, and to proclaim Arthur of Bretagne, England's king, and yours.

Enter an English Herald, with trumpets.

E. Her. Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your

bells;

King John, your king and England's, doth approach,
Commander of this hot, malicious day!

Their armors, that marched hence so silver-bright,
Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood.
There stuck no plume in any English crest,

That is removed by a staff of France;

Our colors do return in those same hands

That did display them when we first marched forth; And, like a jolly troop of huntsmen,1 come

Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,

1 It was anciently one of the savage practices of the chase for all to stain their hands in the blood of the deer as a trophy.

Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes.
Open your gates, and give the victors way.

Cit. Heralds, from off our towers we might behold, From first to last, the onset and retire

Of both your armies; whose equality
By our best eyes cannot be censured.

Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answered blows;

Strength matched with strength, and power confronted power:

Both are alike; and both alike we like.

One must prove greatest; while they weigh so even, We hold our town for neither; yet for both.

Enter, at one side, KING JOHN, with his Power; ELINOR, BLANCH, and the Bastard; at the other, King PHILIP, LEWIS, AUSTRIA, and Forces.

K. John. France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?

Say, shall the current of our right run1 on?
Whose passage, vexed with thy impediment,
Shall leave his native channel, and o'erswell,
With course disturbed, even thy confining shores;
Unless thou let his silver water keep

A peaceful progress to the ocean.

K. Phi. England, thou hast not saved one drop of blood,

In this hot trial, more than we of France;
Rather, lost more. And by this hand I swear,
That sways the earth this climate overlooks,-
Before we will lay down our just-borne arms,

We'll put thee down, 'gainst whom these arms we bear,
Or add a royal number to the dead;

Gracing the scroll, that tells of this war's loss,
With slaughter coupled to the name of kings.

Bast. Ha, majesty! how high thy glory towers,
When the rich blood of kings is set on fire!

1 The first folio reads roam: the change was made in the second folio.

O, now doth death line his dead chaps with steel;
The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs;
And now he feasts, mousing' the flesh of men,
In undetermined differences of kings.-
Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus?
Cry, havock, kings! back to the stained field,
You equal potents,2 fiery-kindled spirits!
Then let confusion of one part confirm

The other's peace; till then, blows, blood, and death! K. John. Whose party do the townsmen yet admit? K. Phi. Speak, citizens, for England; who's your king?

1 Cit. The king of England, when we know the

king.

K. Phi. Know him in us, that here hold up his

right.

K. John. In us, that are our own great deputy, And bear possession of our person here;

Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.

1 Cit. A greater power than we, denies all this; And, till it be undoubted, we do lock

Our former scruple in our strong-barred gates;
Kinged of our fears; until our fears, resolved,
Be by some certain king purged and deposed.
Bast. By Heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout
you, kings;

4

And stand securely on their battlements,
As in a theatre, whence they gape and point

At

your industrious scenes and acts of death. Your royal presences, be ruled by me;

1 Mr. Pope changed this to mouthing, and was followed by subsequent editors. "Mousing," says Malone, "is mammocking and devouring eagerly, as a cat devours a mouse." "Whilst Troy was swilling sack and sugar, and mousing fat venison, the mad Greekes made bonfires of their houses."-The Wonderful Year, by Decker, 1603.-Shakspeare often uses familiar terms in his most serious speeches; and Malone has adduced other instances in this play: but in this very speech "his dead chaps" is surely not more elevated than mousing.

2 Potentates.

3 The old copy reads "Kings of our fear," &c. The emendation is Mr. Tyrwhitt's. "Kinged of our fears," i. e. our fears being our kings or

rulers.

Do like the mutines' of Jerusalem,

Be friends a while, and both conjointly bend
Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town.
By east and west let France and England mount
Their battering cannon, charged to the mouths;
Till their soul-fearing clamors have brawled down
The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city;
I'd play incessantly upon these jades,

2

Even till unfenced desolation

Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.
That done, dissever your united strength,
And part your mingled colors once again;
Turn face to face, and bloody point to point:
Then, in a moment, fortune shall cull forth
Out of one side her happy minion;
To whom in favor she shall give the day,
And kiss him with a glorious victory.

How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?

Smacks it not something of the policy?

K. John. Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads,

I like it well.-France, shall we knit our powers,
And lay this Angiers even with the ground;
Then, after, fight who shall be king of it?

Bast. An if thou hast the mettle of a king,—
Being wronged, as we are, by this peevish town,-
Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,

As we will ours, against these saucy walls;

And when that we have dashed them to the ground, Why, then defy each other; and, pell-mell,

Make work upon ourselves, for heaven, or hell.

K. Phi. Let it be so.-Say, where will you assault? K. John. We from the west will send destruction Into this city's bosom.

Aust. I from the north.

K. Phi.

Our thunder, from the south,

Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.

1 The mutines are the mutineers, the seditious.

2 i. e. soul-appalling; from the verb to fear, to make afraid.

Bast. O prudent discipline! from north to south, Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth.

I'll stir them to't.-Come, away, away!

[Aside.

1 Cit. Hear us, great kings! vouchsafe a while

to stay,

And I shall show you peace, and fair-faced league;
Win you this city without stroke or wound;
Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds,
That here come sacrifices for the field.
Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.

K. John. Speak on, with favor; we are bent to hear.

1 Cit. That daughter there of Spain, the lady Blanch,1

Is near to England; look upon the years
Of Lewis the dauphin, and that lovely maid.
If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,
Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?
If zealous love should go in search of virtue,
Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?
If love ambitious sought a match of birth,
Whose veins bound richer blood than lady Blanch?
Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,
Is the young dauphin every way complete.
If not complete, O say, he is not she;

And she again wants nothing, to name want,
If want it be not, that she is not he.
He is the half part of a blessed man,
Left to be finished by such a she;
And she a fair, divided excellence,
Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.

O, two such silver currents, when they join,

Do glorify the banks that bound them in;

And two such shores to two such streams made one, Two such controlling bounds shall you be, kings,

To these two princes, if you marry them.

1 The lady Blanch was daughter to Alphonso, the ninth king of Castile, and was niece to king John by his sister Eleanor.

2 Zealous for pious.