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;