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KING PHILIP
Peace be to England, if that war return
From France to England, there to live in peace.
England we love; and for that England's sake
With burden of our armour here we sweat.
This toil of ours should be a work of thine;
But thou from loving England art so far,
That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king
Cut off the sequence of posterity,
Out-faced infant state and done a rape
Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.
Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face;
These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his:
This little abstract doth contain that large
Which died in Geffrey, and the hand of time
Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume.
That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,
And this his son; England was Geffrey's right
And this is Geffrey's: in the name of God
How comes it then that thou art call'd a king,
When living blood doth in these temples beat,
Which owe the crown that thou o'ermasterest?
KING JOHN
From whom hast thou this great commission, France,
To draw my answer from thy articles?
KING PHILIP
From that supernal judge, that stirs good thoughts
In any breast of strong authority,
To look into the blots and stains of right:
That judge hath made me guardian to this boy:
Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong
And by whose help I mean to chastise it.
KING JOHN
Alack, thou dost usurp authority.
KING PHILIP
Excuse; it is to beat usurping down.
QUEEN ELINOR
Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?
CONSTANCE
Let me make answer; thy usurping son.
QUEEN ELINOR
Out, insolent! thy bastard shall be king,
That thou mayst be a queen, and cheque 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.
QUEEN 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 burthen from your back,
Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.
AUSTRIA
What craker is this same that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?
KING PHILIP
Lewis, determine what we shall do straight.
LEWIS
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.
QUEEN 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.
QUEEN ELINOR
His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.
CONSTANCE
Now shame upon you, whether 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 bribed
To do him justice and revenge on you.
QUEEN 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 eld'st 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, plague 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!
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