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 undetermin’d differences of kings.—
Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus?
Cry, havoc, kings! back to the stained field,
You equal potents, fiery-kindled spirits!
Then let confusion of one part confirm
The other’s peace: till then, blows, blood, and death!
KING JOHN.
Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?
KING PHILIP.
Speak, citizens, for England; who’s your king?
FIRST CITIZEN.
The King of England, when we know the king.
KING PHILIP.
Know him in us, that here hold up his right.
KING JOHN.
In us, that are our own great deputy,
And bear possession of our person here;
Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.
FIRST CITIZEN.
A greater power than we denies all this;
And till it be undoubted, we do lock
Our former scruple in our strong-barr’d gates;
King’d of our fears, until our fears, resolv’d,
Be by some certain king purg’d and depos’d.
BASTARD.
By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,
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 rul’d by me:—
Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,
Be friends awhile, 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 clamours have brawl’d down
The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city:
I’d play incessantly upon these jades,
Even till unfenced desolation
Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.
That done, dissever your united strengths,
And part your mingled colours 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 favour 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?
KING 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?
BASTARD.
An if thou hast the mettle of a king,—
Being wrong’d, 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 dash’d them to the ground,
Why then defy each other, and, pellmell,
Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell!
KING PHILIP.
Let it be so.—Say, where will you assault?
KING JOHN.
We from the west will send destruction
Into this city’s bosom.
AUSTRIA.
I from the north.
KING PHILIP.
Our thunder from the south
Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.
BASTARD.
O prudent discipline! From north to south,—
Austria and France shoot in each other’s mouth:
I’ll stir them to it.[Aside.]—Come, away, away!
FIRST CITIZEN.
Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay,
And I shall show you peace and fair-fac’d 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.
KING JOHN.
Speak on with favour; we are bent to hear.
FIRST CITIZEN.
That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,
Is niece to England:—look upon the years
Of Louis 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 of, 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.
This union shall do more than battery can
To our fast-closed gates; for at this match,
With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,
The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope,
And give you entrance; but without this match,
The sea enraged is not half so deaf,
Lions more confident, mountains and rocks
More free from motion; no, not Death himself
In mortal fury half so peremptory