Chapter: SCENE 3.

The same.

[Alarums, Excursions, Retreat. Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR,
the BASTARD, HUBERT, and LORDS.]

KING JOHN.
[To ELINOR] So shall it be; your grace shall stay behind,
So strongly guarded.--
[To ARTHUR] Cousin, look not sad;
Thy grandam loves thee, and thy uncle will
As dear be to thee as thy father was.

ARTHUR.
O, this will make my mother die with grief!

KING JOHN.
Cousin [To the BASTARD], away for England; haste before:
And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags
Of hoarding abbots; imprison'd angels
Set at liberty: the fat ribs of peace
Must by the hungry now be fed upon:
Use our commission in his utmost force.

BASTARD.
Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back,
When gold and silver becks me to come on.
I leave your highness.--Grandam, I will pray,--
If ever I remember to be holy,--
For your fair safety; so, I kiss your hand.

ELINOR.
Farewell, gentle cousin.

KING JOHN.
Coz, farewell.

[Exit BASTARD.]

ELINOR.
Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.

[She takes Arthur aside.]

KING JOHN.
Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,
We owe thee much! within this wall of flesh
There is a soul counts thee her creditor,
And with advantage means to pay thy love:
And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.
Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say,--
But I will fit it with some better time.
By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham'd
To say what good respect I have of thee.

HUBERT.
I am much bounden to your majesty.

KING JOHN.
Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet:
But thou shalt have; and creep time ne'er so slow,
Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.
I had a thing to say,--but let it go:
The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,
Attended with the pleasures of the world,
Is all too wanton and too full of gawds
To give me audience:--if the midnight bell
Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth,
Sound on into the drowsy race of night;
If this same were a churchyard where we stand,
And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;
Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,
Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy-thick,
Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,
Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes,
And strain their cheeks to idle merriment--
A passion hateful to my purposes;--
Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,
Hear me without thine ears, and make reply
Without a tongue, using conceit alone,
Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words,--
Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,
I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts:
But, ah, I will not!--yet I love thee well;
And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well.

HUBERT.
So well that what you bid me undertake,
Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
By heaven, I would do it.

KING JOHN.
Do not I know thou wouldst?
Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
On yon young boy: I'll tell thee what, my friend,
He is a very serpent in my way;
And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,
He lies before me: dost thou understand me?
Thou art his keeper.

HUBERT.
And I'll keep him so
That he shall not offend your majesty.

KING JOHN.
Death.

HUBERT.
My lord?

KING JOHN.
A grave.

HUBERT.
He shall not live.

KING JOHN.
Enough!--
I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee;
Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee:
Remember.--Madam, fare you well:
I'll send those powers o'er to your majesty.

ELINOR.
My blessing go with thee!

KING JOHN.
For England, cousin, go:
Hubert shall be your man, attend on you
With all true duty.--On toward Calais, ho!

[Exeunt.]




SCENE 4.

The same. The FRENCH KING's tent.

[Enter KING PHILIP, LOUIS, PANDULPH, and Attendants.]

KING PHILIP.
So, by a roaring tempest on the flood
A whole armado of convicted sail
Is scattered and disjoin'd from fellowship.

PANDULPH.
Courage and comfort! all shall yet go well.

KING PHILIP.
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?

LOUIS.
What he hath won, that hath he fortified:
So hot a speed with such advice dispos'd,
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.
Well could I bear that England had this praise,
So we could find some pattern of our shame.--
Look who comes here! a grave unto a soul;
Holding the eternal spirit, against her will,
In the vile prison of afflicted breath.

[Enter CONSTANCE.]

I pr'ythee, 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,
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 bones;
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,
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!
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.
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 canoniz'd, cardinal;
For, being not mad, but sensible of grief,
My reasonable part produces reason
How I may be deliver'd 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:
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 a 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.

CONSTANCE.
To England, if you will.

KING PHILIP.
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!'
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 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!

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.
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 ail the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!

[Exit.]

KING PHILIP.
I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her.

[Exit.]

LOUIS.
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 spoil'd the sweet world's taste,
That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.

PANDULPH.
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?

LOUIS.
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 threatening eye.
'Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost
In this which he accounts so clearly won.
Are not you griev'd that Arthur is his prisoner?

LouIS.
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;
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 seiz'd Arthur; and it cannot be
That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,
The misplac'd John should entertain an hour,
One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest:
A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand
Must be boisterously maintain'd as gain'd:
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.

LOUIS.
But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall?

PANDULPH.
You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,
May then make all the claim that Arthur did.

LOUIS.
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;
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 forth
To check his reign, but they will cherish it;
No natural exhalation in the sky,
No scope of nature, no distemper'd 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.

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

PANDULPH.
O, sir, when he shall hear of your approach,
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;
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 nam'd!--The bastard Falconbridge
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
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 offence:
For England go:--I will whet on the king.

LOUIS.
Strong reasons makes strong actions: let us go:
If you say ay, the king will not say no.

[Exeunt.]

 John enters the battle scene with Eleanor, Arthur, the Bastard, and Hubert. John instructs Eleanor to stay behind in France to look after the English territories there. He assures Arthur that he will be in good company on a return to France, but he is sure his mother will grieve. John sends the Bastard before his party in order to collect the wealth of the monasteries. John takes Hubert aside and thanks him for his loyal service. John says he wants to ask Hubert to do something, but says he changed his mind. Then he tries to ask him again and stops himself. Hubert assures the king that he loves him well enough to do anything he asks. John points out Arthur, saying he is a serpent who stands in his way. John reminds Hubert is Arthur's keeper. Hubert says he will keep him out of the king's way, but John suggests sending him to his grave might work best toward that end. Hubert says Arthur will not live. John is pleased, bids farewell to his mother, and sets off for England. Philip enters with Louis and Pandolf. Philip remarks on a storm, saying that it has destroyed his entire fleet. Pandolf encourages him, but Philip insists that he has lost; Angers has been lost, Arthur has been captured, and the English have returned to England. Constance enters with wild hair and a distracted appearance. She remarks on the unfortunate end of Philip's peace with John, and calls mournfully for death. Philip tries to soothe her, but she continues. Pandolf says she suffers from madness, not sorrow, but Constance disagrees. She was wife and mother to heirs to the English throne, she declares, and yet her son is now lost. She says she wishes she were mad so she could forget her son; being left in command of her reason, she can only imagine suicide as an end to her woes. Philip urges her to pull herself together, which she begins to do as she speaks to Pandolf about seeing her son again in heaven. As she remembers her son, she despairs, and exits, followed by Philip. Louis now expresses his own woe, saying nothing in the world can bring him joy again. Pandolf urges him to consider the losses of the day as a mere bad symptom on the way to health. Pandolf prophecies discord in England; John may have Arthur, but he won't have civic peace, and he will have to continue to defend his kingdom. He predicts that John will have to kill Arthur. Louis asks how he may benefit from Arthur's death, and Pandolf reminds him that with Blanche as his wife, he can make the same claim to the throne that Arthur had. Louis continues to despair. Pandolf remarks that when John kills Arthur, his citizens will be appalled and will turn against John, welcoming a change in ruler in the person of Louis. Louis is unconvinced, so Pandolf adds that the people will be enraged at reports of the Bastard stealing from monasteries. Pandolf is delighted with the opportunities provided by unrest in England and urges Louis to go to Philip and plan an assault.

