Excus,—it is to beat usurping down.
ELINOR.
Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?
CONSTANCE.
Let me make answer;—thy usurping son.
ELINOR.
Out, insolent! thy bastard shall be king,
That thou mayst be a queen, and check the world!
CONSTANCE.
My bed was ever to thy son as true
As thine was to thy husband; and this boy
Liker in feature to his father Geffrey
Than thou and John in manners,—being as like
As rain to water, or devil to his dam.
My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think
His father never was so true begot:
It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.
ELINOR.
There’s a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.
CONSTANCE.
There’s a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee.
AUSTRIA.
Peace!
BASTARD.
Hear the crier.
AUSTRIA.
What the devil art thou?
BASTARD.
One that will play the devil, sir, with you,
An ‘a may catch your hide and you alone.
You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard:
I’ll smoke your skin-coat an I catch you right;
Sirrah, look to ‘t; i’ faith I will, i’ faith.
BLANCH.
O, well did he become that lion’s robe
That did disrobe the lion of that robe!
BASTARD.
It lies as sightly on the back of him
As great Alcides’ shows upon an ass:—
But, ass, I’ll take that burden from your back,
Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.
AUSTRIA.
What cracker is this same that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?
KING PHILIP.
Louis, determine what we shall do straight.
LOUIS.
Women and fools, break off your conference.—
King John, this is the very sum of all,—
England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
In right of Arthur, do I claim of thee:
Wilt thou resign them, and lay down thy arms?
KING JOHN.
My life as soon:—I do defy thee, France.
Arthur of Bretagne, yield thee to my hand;
And out of my dear love, I’ll give thee more
Than e’er the coward hand of France can win:
Submit thee, boy.
ELINOR.
Come to thy grandam, child.
CONSTANCE.
Do, child, go to it’ grandam, child;
Give grandam kingdom, and it’ grandam will
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.
There’s a good grandam!
ARTHUR.
Good my mother, peace!
I would that I were low laid in my grave:
I am not worth this coil that’s made for me.
ELINOR.
His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.
CONSTANCE.
Now, shame upon you, whe’er she does or no!
His grandam’s wrongs, and not his mother’s shames,
Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,
Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee:
Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib’d
To do him justice, and revenge on you.
ELINOR.
Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!
CONSTANCE.
Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth!
Call not me slanderer: thou and thine usurp
The dominations, royalties, and rights,
Of this oppressed boy: this is thy eldest son’s son,
Infortunate in nothing but in thee:
Thy sins are visited in this poor child;
The canon of the law is laid on him,
Being but the second generation
Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.
KING JOHN.
Bedlam, have done.
CONSTANCE.
I have but this to say,—
That he is not only plagued for her sin,
But God hath made her sin and her the plague
On this removed issue, plagu’d for her
And with her plague, her sin; his injury
Her injury,—the beadle to her sin;
All punish’d in the person of this child,
And all for her: a plague upon her!
ELINOR.
Thou unadvised scold, I can produce
A will that bars the title of thy son.
CONSTANCE.
Ay, who doubts that? a will, a wicked will;
A woman’s will; a canker’d grandam’s will!
KING PHILIP.
Peace, lady! pause, or be more temperate:
It ill beseems this presence to cry aim
To these ill-tuned repetitions.—
Some trumpet summon hither to the walls
These men of Angiers: let us hear them speak
Whose title they admit, Arthur’s or John’s.
[Trumpet sounds. Enter citizens upon the walls.]
FIRST CITIZEN.
Who is it that hath warn’d us to the walls?
KING PHILIP.
‘Tis France, for England.
KING JOHN.
England for itself:—
You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects,—
KING PHILIP.
You loving men of Angiers, Arthur’s subjects,
Our trumpet call’d you to this gentle parle.
KING JOHN.
For our advantage; therefore hear us first.
These flags of France, that are advanced here
Before the eye and prospect