Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:
Your tale must be how he employ’d my mother.
ROBERT.
And once despatch’d him in an embassy
To Germany, there with the emperor
To treat of high affairs touching that time.
The advantage of his absence took the King,
And in the meantime sojourn’d at my father’s;
Where how he did prevail I shame to speak,—
But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores
Between my father and my mother lay,—
As I have heard my father speak himself,—
When this same lusty gentleman was got.
Upon his deathbed he by will bequeath’d
His lands to me; and took it, on his death,
That this, my mother’s son, was none of his;
And if he were, he came into the world
Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.
Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,
My father’s land, as was my father’s will.
KING JOHN.
Sirrah, your brother is legitimate;
Your father’s wife did after wedlock bear him;
And if she did play false, the fault was hers;
Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands
That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,
Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,
Had of your father claim’d this son for his?
In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept
This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;
In sooth, he might; then, if he were my brother’s,
My brother might not claim him; nor your father,
Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes,—
My mother’s son did get your father’s heir;
Your father’s heir must have your father’s land.
ROBERT.
Shall then my father’s will be of no force
To dispossess that child which is not his?
BASTARD.
Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,
Than was his will to get me, as I think.
ELINOR.
Whether hadst thou rather be a Falconbridge,
And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,
Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,
Lord of thy presence and no land beside?
BASTARD.
Madam, an if my brother had my shape
And I had his, Sir Robert’s his, like him;
And if my legs were two such riding-rods,
My arms such eel-skins stuff’d, my face so thin
That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose
Lest men should say ‘Look where three-farthings goes!’
And, to his shape, were heir to all this land,
Would I might never stir from off this place,
I would give it every foot to have this face;
I would not be Sir Nob in any case.
ELINOR.
I like thee well: wilt thou forsake thy fortune,
Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me?
I am a soldier, and now bound to France.
BASTARD.
Brother, take you my land, I’ll take my chance:
Your face hath got five hundred pound a-year;
Yet sell your face for fivepence and ‘tis dear.—
Madam, I’ll follow you unto the death.
ELINOR.
Nay, I would have you go before me thither.
BASTARD.
Our country manners give our betters way.
KING JOHN.
What is thy name?
BASTARD.
Philip, my liege, so is my name begun;
Philip, good old Sir Robert’s wife’s eldest son.
KING JOHN.
From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bear’st:
Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great,—
Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet.
BASTARD.
Brother by the mother’s side, give me your hand:
My father gave me honour, yours gave land.—
Now blessed be the hour, by night or day,
When I was got, Sir Robert was away!
ELINOR.
The very spirit of Plantagenet!—
I am thy grandam, Richard; call me so.
BASTARD.
Madam, by chance, but not by truth; what though?
Something about, a little from the right,
In at the window, or else o’er the hatch;
Who dares not stir by day must walk by night;
And have is have, however men do catch:
Near or far off, well won is still well shot;
And I am I, howe’er I was begot.
KING JOHN.
Go, Falconbridge; now hast thou thy desire:
A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.—
Come, madam,—and come, Richard; we must speed
For France, for France, for it is more than need.
BASTARD.
Brother, adieu. Good fortune come to thee!
For thou wast got i’ th’ way of honesty.
[Exeunt all but the BASTARD.]
A foot of honour better than I was;
But many a many foot of land the worse.
Well, now can I make any Joan a lady:—
‘Good den, Sir Richard:’—‘God-a-mercy, fellow:’—
And if his name be George, I’ll call him Peter:
For new-made honour doth forget men’s names:
‘Tis too respective and too sociable
For your conversion. Now your traveller,—
He and his toothpick at my worship’s mess;—
And when my knightly stomach is suffic’d,
Why then I suck my teeth, and catechize
My picked man of countries:—‘My dear sir,’—
Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin,—
‘I shall beseech you’—that is question now;
And then comes answer like an ABC-book:—
‘O sir,’ says answer