KING JOHN. Sidney Lee. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Sidney Lee
Издательство: Bookwire
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Жанр произведения: Языкознание
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9788027236664
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Among the thorns and dangers of this world.—

       How easy dost thou take all England up!

       From forth this morsel of dead royalty,

       The life, the right, and truth of all this realm

       Is fled to heaven; and England now is left

       To tug and scamble, and to part by the teeth

       The unow’d interest of proud-swelling state.

       Now for the bare-pick’d bone of majesty

       Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest,

       And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace:

       Now powers from home and discontents at home

       Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,

       As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast,

       The imminent decay of wrested pomp.

       Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can

       Hold out this tempest.—Bear away that child,

       And follow me with speed: I’ll to the king;

       A thousand businesses are brief in hand,

       And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.

       [Exeunt.]

       Table of Contents

      SCENE 1. Northampton. A Room in the Palace.

       [Enter KING JOHN, PANDULPH with the crown, and Attendants.]

       KING JOHN.

       Thus have I yielded up into your hand

       The circle of my glory.

       PANDULPH.

       [Give KING JOHN the crown.]

       Take again

       From this my hand, as holding of the pope,

       Your sovereign greatness and authority.

       KING JOHN.

       Now keep your holy word: go meet the French;

       And from his holiness use all your power

       To stop their marches ‘fore we are inflam’d.

       Our discontented counties do revolt;

       Our people quarrel with obedience;

       Swearing allegiance and the love of soul

       To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.

       This inundation of mistemper’d humour

       Rests by you only to be qualified.

       Then pause not; for the present time’s so sick

       That present medicine must be ministr’d

       Or overthrow incurable ensues.

       PANDULPH.

       It was my breath that blew this tempest up,

       Upon your stubborn usage of the pope:

       But since you are a gentle convertite,

       My tongue shall hush again this storm of war

       And make fair weather in your blustering land.

       On this Ascension-day, remember well,

       Upon your oath of service to the pope,

       Go I to make the French lay down their arms.

       [Exit.]

       KING JOHN.

       Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet

       Say that before Ascension-day at noon

       My crown I should give off? Even so I have:

       I did suppose it should be on constraint;

       But, heaven be thank’d, it is but voluntary.

       [Enter the BASTARD.]

       BASTARD.

       All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out

       But Dover Castle: London hath receiv’d,

       Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers:

       Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone

       To offer service to your enemy;

       And wild amazement hurries up and down

       The little number of your doubtful friends.

       KING JOHN.

       Would not my lords return to me again

       After they heard young Arthur was alive?

       BASTARD.

       They found him dead, and cast into the streets;

       An empty casket, where the jewel of life

       By some damn’d hand was robb’d and ta’en away.

       KING JOHN.

       That villain Hubert told me he did live.

       BASTARD.

       So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.

       But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?

       Be great in act, as you have been in thought;

       Let not the world see fear and sad distrust

       Govern the motion of a kingly eye:

       Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;

       Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow

       Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,

       That borrow their behaviours from the great,

       Grow great by your example, and put on

       The dauntless spirit of resolution.

       Away, and glister like the god of war

       When he intendeth to become the field:

       Show boldness and aspiring confidence.

       What, shall they seek the lion in his den,

       And fright him there? and make him tremble there?

       O, let it not be said!—Forage, and run

       To meet displeasure farther from the doors,

       And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.

       KING JOHN.

       The legate of the pope hath been with me,

       And I have made a happy peace with him;

       And he hath promis’d to dismiss the powers

       Led by the Dauphin.

       BASTARD.

       O inglorious league!

       Shall we, upon the footing of our land,

       Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,

       Insinuation, parley, and base truce,

       To arms invasive? shall a beardless boy,

       A cocker’d silken wanton, brave our fields,

       And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,

       Mocking the air with colours idly spread,

       And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms;

       Perchance the cardinal cannot make your peace;

       Or, if he do, let it at least be said

       They saw we had a purpose of defence.

       KING JOHN.

       Have thou the ordering of this present time.

       BASTARD.