SCENE IV. The same. The French King's Tent.

Enter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH, and Attendants.

K. Phi. So, by a roaring tempest on the flood, A whole armado of convicted 2 sail

Is scattered and disjoined from fellowship.

Pand. Courage and comfort! all shall yet go well. K. Phi. 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?

Lew. What he hath won, that hath he fortified.
So hot a speed with such advice disposed,
Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,3
Doth want example. Who hath read, or heard,
Of any kindred action like to this?

K. Phi. Well could I bear that England had this praise,

So we could find some pattern of our shame.

Enter CONSTANCE.

Look, who comes here! a grave unto a soul;
Holding the eternal spirit, against her will,
In the vile prison of afflicted breath.^—

I pr'ythee, lady, go away with me.

Const. Lo, now! now see the issue of your peace! K. Phi. Patience, good lady! comfort, gentle Con

stance!

1 Armado is a fleet of war; the word is adopted from the Spanish, and the recent defeat of the Spanish armado had made it familiar.

2 Convicted is vanquished, overcome. To convince and convict were synonymous.

3 A fierce cause is a cause conducted with precipitation.

4 66. the vile prison of afflicted breath" is the body; the same vile prison in which the breath is confined.

Const. No, I defy1 all counsel, all redress, But that which ends all counsel, true redress, 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 détestable bones; And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows; And ring these fingers with thy household worms;

1

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,
And buss thee as thy wife! Misery's love,
O, come to me!

K. Phi.

O, fair affliction, peace.

Const. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry.—
O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!
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 3 invocation.

Pand. Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.
Const. Thou art not holy to belie me so.

I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;
My name is Constance: I was Geffrey's wife;
Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost.

I am not mad;-I would to Heaven I were!
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,
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;

1 To defy formerly signified to refuse, to reject.
"I do defy thy commiseration."-Romeo and Juliet.
2 i. e. this mouth.
3 i. e. common.

Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.
I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity.

K. Phi. 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 fallen,
Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends
Do glue themselves in sociable grief;

Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,
Sticking together in calamity.

Const. To England, if you will.1
K. Phi.

Bind up your hairs.

Const. 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!
But now I envy at their liberty,

And will again commit them to their bonds,
Because my poor child is a prisoner.

And, father cardinal, I have heard you say,
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven.
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 3 creature born.
But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost;
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;

And so he'll die; and, rising so again,

When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him. Therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.

Pand. You hold too heinous a respect of grief.
Const. He talks to me, that never had a son.

1 Probably Constance, in despair, means to apostrophize the absent

king John: "Take my son to England if you will."

2 To suspire, Shakspeare uses for to breathe.

3 Gracious is used by Shakspeare often in the sense of beautiful, comely, graceful.

K. Phi. You are as fond of grief, as of your child. Const. 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; 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.— I will not keep this form upon my head,

[Tearing off her head-dress.

When there is such disorder in my wit.
O Lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's cure!

[Exit.

K. Phi. I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her.

[Exit.

Lew. There's nothing in this world can make me joy; 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's1 taste,
That it yields nought, but shame, and bitterness.
Pand. 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?

Lew. All days of glory, joy, and happiness.
Pand. If you had won it, certainly, you had.
No, no; when fortune means to men most good,
She looks upon them with a threatening eye.
'Tis strange, to think how much king John hath lost
In this which he accounts so clearly won.
Are not you grieved that Arthur is his prisoner?
Lew. As heartily as he is glad he hath him.
Pand. Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.
Now hear me speak, with a prophetic spirit;

1 The old copy reads word's. The alteration was made by Pope. Malone thinks that it is unnecessary; and that by the sweet word, life is meant. Steevens prefers Pope's emendation.

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 be,
That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,
The misplaced John should entertain an hour,
One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest.
A sceptre, snatched with an unruly hand,
Must be as boisterously maintained as gained;
And he that stands upon a slippery 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.

Lew. But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall? Pand. You, in the right of lady Blanch, your wife, May then make all the claim that Arthur did.

Lew. And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did. Pand. How green are you, and fresh in this old world! John lays you plots; the times conspire with you; For he that steeps his safety in true blood, Shall find but bloody safety, and untrue. This act, so evilly born, shall cool the hearts Of all his people, and freeze up their zeal ; That none so small advantage shall step forth, To check his reign, but they will cherish it ; No natural exhalation in the sky, No scape of nature, no distempered day, No common wind, no customed event, But they will pluck away his natural cause, And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs, Abortives, presages, and tongues of Heaven, Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.

Lew. May be, he will not touch young Arthur's life, But hold himself safe in his prisonment.

Pand. O, sir, when he shall hear of your approach,

1 "John lays you plots." A similar phrase occurs in the First Part of King Henry VI.:

"He writes, me here."

2 The old copy reads scope. The emendation is Pope's.