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Thou art a married man in this distress,
But danger woos me as a blushing maid:
Teach me an answer to this perilous time.
AUDLEY.
To die is all as common as to live:
The one ince-wise, the other holds in chase;
For, from the instant we begin to live,
We do pursue and hunt the time to die:
First bud we, then we blow, and after seed,
Then, presently, we fall; and, as a shade
Follows the body, so we follow death.
If, then, we hunt for death, why do we fear it?
If we fear it, why do we follow it?
If we do fear, how can we shun it?
If we do fear, with fear we do but aide
The thing we fear to seize on us the sooner:
If we fear not, then no resolved proffer
Can overthrow the limit of our fate;
For, whether ripe or rotten, drop we shall,
As we do draw the lottery of our doom.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Ah, good old man, a thousand thousand armors
These words of thine have buckled on my back:
Ah, what an idiot hast thou made of life,
To seek the thing it fears! and how disgraced
The imperial victory of murdering death,
Since all the lives his conquering arrows strike
Seek him, and he not them, to shame his glory!
I will not give a penny for a life,
Nor half a halfpenny to shun grim death,
Since for to live is but to seek to die,
And dying but beginning of new life.
Let come the hour when he that rules it will!
To live or die I hold indifferent.
[Exeunt.]
ACT IV. SCENE V. The same. The French Camp.
[Enter King John and Charles.]
KING JOHN.
A sudden darkness hath defaced the sky,
The winds are crept into their caves for fear,
The leaves move not, the world is hushed and still,
The birds cease singing, and the wandering brooks
Murmur no wonted greeting to their shores;
Silence attends some wonder and expecteth
That heaven should pronounce some prophesy:
Where, or from whom, proceeds this silence, Charles?
CHARLES.
Our men, with open mouths and staring eyes,
Look on each other, as they did attend
Each other's words, and yet no creature speaks;
A tongue-tied fear hath made a midnight hour,
And speeches sleep through all the waking regions.
KING JOHN.
But now the pompous Sun, in all his pride,
Looked through his golden coach upon the world,
And, on a sudden, hath he hid himself,
That now the under earth is as a grave,
Dark, deadly, silent, and uncomfortable.
[A clamor of ravens.]
Hark, what a deadly outery do I hear?
CHARLES.
Here comes my brother Phillip.
KING JOHN.
All dismayed:
[Enter Phillip.]
What fearful words are those thy looks presage?
PHILLIP.
A flight, a flight!
KING JOHN.
Coward, what flight? thou liest, there needs no flight.
PHILLIP.
A flight.
KING JOHN.
Awake thy craven powers, and tell on
The substance of that very fear in deed,
Which is so ghastly printed in thy face:
What is the matter?
PHILLIP.
A flight of ugly ravens
Do croak and hover o'er our soldiers' heads,
And keep in triangles and cornered squares,
Right as our forces are embattled;
With their approach there came this sudden fog,
Which now hath hid the airy floor of heaven
And made at noon a night unnatural
Upon the quaking and dismayed world:
In brief, our soldiers have let fall their arms,
And stand like metamorphosed images,
Bloodless and pale, one gazing on another.
KING JOHN.
Aye, now I call to mind the prophesy,
But I must give no entrance to a fear.--
Return, and hearten up these yielding souls:
Tell them, the ravens, seeing them in arms,
So many fair against a famished few,
Come but to dine upon their handy work
And prey upon the carrion that they kill:
For when we see a horse laid down to die,
Although he be not dead, the ravenous birds
Sit watching the departure of his life;
Even so these ravens for the carcasses
Of those poor English, that are marked to die,
Hover about, and, if they cry to us,
Tis but for meat that we must kill for them.
Away, and comfort up my soldiers,
And sound the trumpets, and at once dispatch
This little business of a silly fraud.
[Exit Phillip.]
[Another noise. Salisbury brought in by a French Captain.]
CAPTAIN.
Behold, my liege, this knight and forty mo',
Of whom the better part are slain and fled,
With all endeavor sought to break our ranks,
And make their way to the encompassed prince:
Dispose of him as please your majesty.
KING JOHN.
Go, & the next bough, soldier, that thou seest,
Disgrace it with his body presently;
For I do hold a tree in France too good
To be the gallows of an English thief.
SALISBURY.
My Lord of Normandy, I have your pass
And warrant for my safety through this land.
CHARLES.
Villiers procured it for thee, did he not?
SALISBURY.
He did.
CHARLES.
And it is current; thou shalt freely pass.
KING JOHN.
Aye, freely to the gallows to be hanged,
Without denial or impediment.
Away with him!
CHARLES.
I hope your highness will not so disgrace me,
And dash the virtue of my seal at arms:
He hath my never broken name to shew,
Charactered with this princely hand of mine:
And rather let me leave to be a prince
Than break the stable verdict of a prince:
I do beseech you, let him pass in quiet.
KING JOHN.
Thou and thy word lie both in my command;
What canst thou promise that I cannot break?
Which of these twain is greater infamy,
To disobey thy father or thy self?
Thy word, nor no mans, may exceed his power;
Nor that same man doth never break his word,
That keeps it to the utmost of his power.
The breach of faith dwells in the soul's consent:
Which if thy self without consent do break,
Thou art not charged with the breach of faith.
Go, hang him: for thy license lies in me,
And my constraint stands the excuse for thee.
CHARLES.
What, am I not a soldier in my word?
Then, arms, adieu, and let them fight that list!
Shall I not give my girdle from my waste,
But with a gardion I shall be controlled,
To say I may not give my things away?
Upon my soul, had Edward, prince of Wales,
Engaged his word, writ down his noble hand
For all your knights to pass his father's land,
The royal king, to grace his warlike son,
Would not alone safe conduct give to them,
But with all bounty feasted them and theirs.
KING JOHN.
Dwelst thou on precedents? Then be it so!
Say, Englishman, of what degree thou art.
SALISBURY.
An Earl in England, though a prisoner here,
And those that know me, call me Salisbury.
KING JOHN.
Then, Salisbury, say whether thou art bound.
SALISBURY.
To Callice, where my liege, king Edward, is.
KING JOHN.
To Callice, Salisbury? Then, to Callice pack,
And bid the king prepare a noble grave,
To put his princely son, black Edward, in.
And as thou travelst westward from this place,
Some two leagues hence there is a lofty hill,
Whose top seems topless, for the embracing sky
Doth hide his high head in her azure bosom;
Upon whose tall top when thy foot attains,
Look back upon the humble vale beneath--
Humble of late, but now made proud with arms--
And thence behold the wretched prince of Wales,
Hooped with a bond of iron round about.
After which sight, to Callice spur amain,
And say, the prince was smothered and not slain:
And tell the king this is not all his ill;
For I will greet him, ere he thinks I will.
Away, be gone; the smoke but of our shot
Will choke our foes, though bullets hit them not.
[Exit.]
ACT IV. SCENE VI. The same. A Part of the Field
of Battle.
[Alarum. Enter prince Edward and Artois.]
ARTOIS.
How fares your grace? are you not shot, my Lord?
PRINCE EDWARD.
No, dear Artois; but choked with dust and smoke,
And stepped aside for breath and fresher air.
ARTOIS.
Breath, then, and to it again: the amazed French
Are quite distract with gazing on the crows;
And, were our quivers full of shafts again,
Your grace should see a glorious day of this:--
O, for more arrows, Lord; that's our want.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Courage, Artois! a fig for feathered shafts,
When feathered fowls do bandy on our side!
What need we fight, and sweat, and keep a coil,
When railing crows outscold our adversaries?
Up, up, Artois! the ground it self is armed
With Fire containing flint; command our bows
To hurl away their pretty colored Ew,
And to it with stones: away, Artois, away!
My soul doth prophecy we win the day.
[Exeunt.]
ACT IV. SCENE VII. The same. Another Part of
the Field of Battle.
[Alarum. Enter King John.]
KING JOHN.
Our multitudes are in themselves confounded,
Dismayed, and distraught; swift starting fear
Hath buzzed a cold dismay through all our army,
And every petty disadvantage prompts
The fear possessed abject soul to fly.
My self, whose spirit is steel to their dull lead,
What with recalling of the prophecy,
And that our native stones from English arms
Rebel against us, find myself attainted
With strong surprise of weak and yielding fear.
[Enter Charles.]
CHARLES.
Fly, father, fly! the French do kill the French,
Some that would stand let drive at some that fly;
Our drums strike nothing but discouragement,
Our trumpets sound dishonor and retire;
The spirit of fear, that feareth nought but death,
Cowardly works confusion on it self.
[Enter Phillip.]
PHILLIP.
Pluck out your eyes, and see not this day's shame!
An arm hath beat an army; one poor David
Hath with a stone foiled twenty stout Goliahs;
Some twenty naked starvelings with small flints,
Hath driven back a puissant host of men,
Arrayed and fenced in all accomplements.
KING JOHN.
Mordieu, they quait at us, and kill us up;
No less than forty thousand wicked elders
Have forty lean slaves this day stoned to death.
CHARLES.
O, that I were some other countryman!
This day hath set derision on the French,
And all the world will blurt and scorn at us.
KING JOHN.
What, is there no hope left?
PHILLIP.
No hope, but death, to bury up our shame.
KING JOHN.
Make up once more with me; the twentieth part
Of those that live, are men inow to quail
The feeble handful on the adverse part.
CHARLES.
Then charge again: if heaven be not opposed,
We cannot lose the day.
KING JOHN.
On, away!
[Exeunt.]
ACT IV. SCENE VIII. The same. Another Part of
the Field of Battle.
[Enter Audley, wounded, & rescued by two squires.]
ESQUIRE.
How fares my Lord?
AUDLEY.
Even as a man may do,
That dines at such a bloody feast as this.
ESQUIRE.
I hope, my Lord, that is no mortal scar.
AUDLEY.
No matter, if it be; the count is cast,
And, in the worst, ends but a mortal man.
Good friends, convey me to the princely Edward,
That in the crimson bravery of my blood
I may become him with saluting him.
I'll smile, and tell him, that this open scar
Doth end the harvest of his Audley's war.
[Exeunt.]
ACT IV. SCENE IX. The same. The English Camp.
[Enter prince Edward, King John, Charles, and all,
with Ensigns spread.]
PRINCE EDWARD.
Now, John in France, & lately John of France,
Thy bloody Ensigns are my captive colours;
And you, high vaunting Charles of Normandy,
That once to day sent me a horse to fly,
Are now the subjects of my clemency.
Fie, Lords, is it not a shame that English boys,
Whose early days are yet not worth a beard,
Should in the bosom of your kingdom thus,
One against twenty, beat you up together?
KING JOHN.
Thy fortune, not thy force, hath conquered us.
PRINCE EDWARD.
An argument that heaven aides the right.
[Enter Artois with Phillip.]
See, see, Artois doth bring with him along
The late good counsel giver to my soul.
Welcome, Artois; and welcome, Phillip, too:
Who now of you or I have need to pray?
Now is the proverb verified in you,
'Too bright a morning breeds a louring day.'
[Sound Trumpets. Enter Audley.]
But say, what grim discouragement comes here!
Alas, what thousand armed men of France
Have writ that note of death in Audley's face?
Speak, thou that wooest death with thy careless smile,
And lookst so merrily upon thy grave,
As if thou were enamored on thine end:
What hungry sword hath so bereaved thy face,
And lopped a true friend from my loving soul?
AUDLEY.
O Prince, thy sweet bemoaning speech to me
Is as a mournful knell to one dead sick.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Dear Audley, if my tongue ring out thy end,
My arms shall be thy grave: what may I do
To win thy life, or to revenge thy death?
If thou wilt drink the blood of captive kings,
Or that it were restorative, command
A Health of kings' blood, and I'll drink to thee;
If honor may dispense for thee with death,
The never dying honor of this day
Share wholly, Audley, to thy self, and live.
AUDLEY.
Victorious Prince,--that thou art so, behold
A Caesar's fame in king's captivity--
If I could hold him death but at a bay,
Till I did see my liege thy royal father,
My soul should yield this Castle of my flesh,
This mangled tribute, with all willingness,
To darkness, consummation, dust, and Worms.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Cheerily, bold man, thy soul is all too proud
To yield her City for one little breach;
Should be divorced from her earthly spouse
By the soft temper of a French man's sword?
Lo, to repair thy life, I give to thee
Three thousand Marks a year in English land.
AUDLEY.
I take thy gift, to pay the debts I owe:
These two poor Esquires redeemed me from the French
With lusty & dear hazard of their lives:
What thou hast given me, I give to them;
And, as thou lovest me, prince, lay thy consent
To this bequeath in my last testament.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Renowned Audley, live, and have from me
This gift twice doubled to these Esquires and thee:
But live or die, what thou hast given away
To these and theirs shall lasting freedom stay.
Come, gentlemen, I will see my friend bestowed
With in an easy Litter; then we'll march
Proudly toward Callis, with triumphant pace,
Unto my royal father, and there bring
The tribute of my wars, fair France his king.
[Exit.]
ACT V. SCENE I. Picardy. The English Camp before
Calais.
[Enter King Edward, Queen Phillip, Derby, soldiers.]
KING EDWARD.
No more, Queen Phillip, pacify your self;
Copland, except he can excuse his fault,
Shall find displeasure written in our looks.
And now unto this proud resisting town!
Soldiers, assault: I will no longer stay,
To be deluded by their false delays;
Put all to sword, and make the spoil your own.
[Enter six Citizens in their Shirts, bare foot, with
halters about their necks.]
ALL.
Mercy, king Edward, mercy, gracious Lord!
KING EDWARD.
Contemptuous villains, call ye now for truce?
Mine ears are stopped against your bootless cries:--
Sound, drums alarum; draw threatening swords!
FIRST CITIZEN.
Ah, noble Prince, take pity on this town,
And hear us, mighty king:
We claim the promise that your highness made;
The two days' respite is not yet expired,
And we are come with willingness to bear
What torturing death or punishment you please,
So that the trembling multitude be saved.
KING EDWARD.
My promise? Well, I do confess as much:
But I do require the chiefest Citizens
And men of most account that should submit;
You, peradventure, are but servile grooms,
Or some felonious robbers on the Sea,
Whom, apprehended, law would execute,
Albeit severity lay dead in us:
No, no, ye cannot overreach us thus.
SECOND CITIZEN.
The Sun, dread Lord, that in the western fall
Beholds us now low brought through misery,
Did in the Orient purple of the morn
Salute our coming forth, when we were known;
Or may our portion be with damned fiends.
KING EDWARD.
If it be so, then let our covenant stand:
We take possession of the town in peace,
But, for your selves, look you for no remorse;
But, as imperial justice hath decreed,
Your bodies shall be dragged about these walls,
And after feel the stroke of quartering steel:
This is your doom;--go, soldiers, see it done.
QUEEN PHILLIP.
Ah, be more mild unto these yielding men!
It is a glorious thing to stablish peace,
And kings approach the nearest unto God
By giving life and safety unto men:
As thou intendest to be king of France,
So let her people live to call thee king;
For what the sword cuts down or fire hath spoiled,
Is held in reputation none of ours.
KING EDWARD.
Although experience teach us this is true,
That peaceful quietness brings most delight,
When most of all abuses are controlled;
Yet, insomuch it shall be known that we
As well can master our affections
As conquer other by the dint of sword,
Phillip, prevail; we yield to thy request:
These men shall live to boast of clemency,
And, tyranny, strike terror to thy self.
SECOND CITIZEN.
Long live your highness! happy be your reign!
KING EDWARD.
Go, get you hence, return unto the town,
And if this kindness hath deserved your love,
Learn then to reverence Edward as your king.--
[Exeunt Citizens.]
Now, might we hear of our affairs abroad,
We would, till gloomy Winter were o'er spent,
Dispose our men in garrison a while.
But who comes here?
[Enter Copland and King David.]
DERBY.
Copland, my Lord, and David, King of Scots.
KING EDWARD.
Is this the proud presumptuous Esquire of the North,
That would not yield his prisoner to my Queen?
COPLAND.
I am, my liege, a Northern Esquire indeed,
But neither proud nor insolent, I trust.
KING EDWARD.
What moved thee, then, to be so obstinate
To contradict our royal Queen's desire?
COPLAND.
No wilful disobedience, mighty Lord,
But my desert and public law at arms:
I took the king my self in single fight,
And, like a soldiers, would be loath to lose
The least pre-eminence that I had won.
And Copland straight upon your highness' charge
Is come to France, and with a lowly mind
Doth vale the bonnet of his victory:
Receive, dread Lord, the custom of my fraught,
The wealthy tribute of my laboring hands,
Which should long since have been surrendered up,
Had but your gracious self been there in place.
QUEEN PHILLIP.
But, Copland, thou didst scorn the king's command,
Neglecting our commission in his name.
COPLAND.
His name I reverence, but his person more;
His name shall keep me in allegiance still,
But to his person I will bend my knee.
KING EDWARD.
I pray thee, Phillip, let displeasure pass;
This man doth please me, and I like his words:
For what is he that will attempt great deeds,
And lose the glory that ensues the same?
All rivers have recourse unto the Sea,
And Copland's faith relation to his king.
Kneel, therefore, down: now rise, king Edward's knight;
And, to maintain thy state, I freely give
Five hundred marks a year to thee and thine.
[Enter Salisbury.]
Welcome, Lord Salisbury: what news from Brittain?
SALISBURY.
This, mighty king: the Country we have won,
And John de Mountford, regent of that place,
Presents your highness with this Coronet,
Protesting true allegiance to your Grace.
KING EDWARD.
We thank thee for thy service, valiant Earl;
Challenge our favour, for we owe it thee.
SALISBURY.
But now, my Lord, as this is joyful news,
So must my voice be tragical again,
And I must sing of doleful accidents.
KING EDWARD.
What, have our men the overthrow at Poitiers?
Or is our son beset with too much odds?
SALISBURY.
He was, my Lord: and as my worthless self
With forty other serviceable knights,
Under safe conduct of the Dauphin's seal,
Did travail that way, finding him distressed,
A troop of Lances met us on the way,
Surprised, and brought us prisoners to the king,
Who, proud of this, and eager of revenge,
Commanded straight to cut off all our heads:
And surely we had died, but that the Duke,
More full of honor than his angry sire,
Procured our quick deliverance from thence;
But, ere we went, 'Salute your king', quoth he,
'Bid him provide a funeral for his son:
To day our sword shall cut his thread of life;
And, sooner than he thinks, we'll be with him,
To quittance those displeasures he hath done.'
This said, we past, not daring to reply;
Our hearts were dead, our looks diffused and wan.
Wandering, at last we climed unto a hill,
>From whence, although our grief were much before,
Yet now to see the occasion with our eyes
Did thrice so much increase our heaviness:
For there, my Lord, oh, there we did descry
Down in a valley how both armies lay.
The French had cast their trenches like a ring,
And every Barricado's open front
Was thick embossed with brazen ordinance;
Here stood a battaile of ten thousand horse,
There twice as many pikes in quadrant wise,
Here Crossbows, and deadly wounding darts:
And in the midst, like to a slender point
Within the compass of the horizon,
As twere a rising bubble in the sea,
A Hasle wand amidst a wood of Pines,
Or as a bear fast chained unto a stake,
Stood famous Edward, still expecting when
Those dogs of France would fasten on his flesh.
Anon the death procuring knell begins:
Off go the Cannons, that with trembling noise
Did shake the very Mountain where they stood;
Then sound the Trumpets' clangor in the air,
The battles join: and, when we could no more
Discern the difference twixt the friend and foe,
So intricate the dark confusion was,
Away we turned our watery eyes with sighs,
As black as powder fuming into smoke.
And thus, I fear, unhappy have I told
The most untimely tale of Edward's fall.
QUEEN PHILLIP.
Ah me, is this my welcome into France?
Is this the comfort that I looked to have,
When I should meet with my beloved son?
Sweet Ned, I would thy mother in the sea
Had been prevented of this mortal grief!
KING EDWARD.
Content thee, Phillip; tis not tears will serve
To call him back, if he be taken hence:
Comfort thy self, as I do, gentle Queen,
With hope of sharp, unheard of, dire revenge.--
He bids me to provide his funeral,
And so I will; but all the Peers in France
Shall mourners be, and weep out bloody tears,
Until their empty veins be dry and sere:
The pillars of his hearse shall be his bones;
The mould that covers him, their City ashes;
His knell, the groaning cries of dying men;
And, in the stead of tapers on his tomb,
An hundred fifty towers shall burning blaze,
While we bewail our valiant son's decease.
[After a flourish, sounded within, enter an herald.]
HERALD.
Rejoice, my Lord; ascend the imperial throne!
The mighty and redoubted prince of Wales,
Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms,
The French man's terror, and his country's fame,
Triumphant rideth like a Roman peer,
And, lowly at his stirrup, comes afoot
King John of France, together with his son,
In captive bonds; whose diadem he brings
To crown thee with, and to proclaim thee king.
KING EDWARD.
Away with mourning, Phillip, wipe thine eyes;--
Sound, Trumpets, welcome in Plantagenet!
[Enter Prince Edward, king John, Phillip, Audley, Artois.]
As things long lost, when they are found again,
So doth my son rejoice his father's heart,
For whom even now my soul was much perplexed.
QUEEN PHILLIP.
Be this a token to express my joy,
[Kisses him.]
For inward passion will not let me speak.
PRINCE EDWARD.
My gracious father, here receive the gift.
[Presenting him with King John's crown.]
This wreath of conquest and reward of war,
Got with as mickle peril of our lives,
As ere was thing of price before this day;
Install your highness in your proper right:
And, herewithall, I render to your hands
These prisoners, chief occasion of our strife.
KING EDWARD.
So, John of France, I see you keep your word:
You promised to be sooner with our self
Than we did think for, and tis so in deed:
But, had you done at first as now you do,
How many civil towns had stood untouched,
That now are turned to ragged heaps of stones!
How many people's lives mightst thou have saved,
That are untimely sunk into their graves!
KING JOHN.
Edward, recount not things irrevocable;
Tell me what ransom thou requirest to have.
KING EDWARD.
Thy ransom, John, hereafter shall be known:
But first to England thou must cross the seas,
To see what entertainment it affords;
How ere it falls, it cannot be so bad,
As ours hath been since we arrived in France.
KING JOHN.
Accursed man! of this I was foretold,
But did misconster what the prophet told.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Now, father, this petition Edward makes
To thee, whose grace hath been his strongest shield,
That, as thy pleasure chose me for the man
To be the instrument to shew thy power,
So thou wilt grant that many princes more,
Bred and brought up within that little Isle,
May still be famous for like victories!
And, for my part, the bloody scars I bear,
And weary nights that I have watched in field,
The dangerous conflicts I have often had,
The fearful menaces were proffered me,
The heat and cold and what else might displease:
I wish were now redoubled twenty fold,
So that hereafter ages, when they read
The painful traffic of my tender youth,
Might thereby be inflamed with such resolve,
As not the territories of France alone,
But likewise Spain, Turkey, and what countries else
That justly would provoke fair England's ire,
Might, at their presence, tremble and retire.
KING EDWARD.
Here, English Lords, we do proclaim a rest,
An intercession of our painful arms:
Sheath up your swords, refresh your weary limbs,
Peruse your spoils; and, after we have breathed
A day or two within this haven town,
God willing, then for England we'll be shipped;
Where, in a happy hour, I trust, we shall
Arrive, three kings, two princes, and a queen.
FINIS.
But danger woos me as a blushing maid:
Teach me an answer to this perilous time.
AUDLEY.
To die is all as common as to live:
The one ince-wise, the other holds in chase;
For, from the instant we begin to live,
We do pursue and hunt the time to die:
First bud we, then we blow, and after seed,
Then, presently, we fall; and, as a shade
Follows the body, so we follow death.
If, then, we hunt for death, why do we fear it?
If we fear it, why do we follow it?
If we do fear, how can we shun it?
If we do fear, with fear we do but aide
The thing we fear to seize on us the sooner:
If we fear not, then no resolved proffer
Can overthrow the limit of our fate;
For, whether ripe or rotten, drop we shall,
As we do draw the lottery of our doom.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Ah, good old man, a thousand thousand armors
These words of thine have buckled on my back:
Ah, what an idiot hast thou made of life,
To seek the thing it fears! and how disgraced
The imperial victory of murdering death,
Since all the lives his conquering arrows strike
Seek him, and he not them, to shame his glory!
I will not give a penny for a life,
Nor half a halfpenny to shun grim death,
Since for to live is but to seek to die,
And dying but beginning of new life.
Let come the hour when he that rules it will!
To live or die I hold indifferent.
[Exeunt.]
ACT IV. SCENE V. The same. The French Camp.
[Enter King John and Charles.]
KING JOHN.
A sudden darkness hath defaced the sky,
The winds are crept into their caves for fear,
The leaves move not, the world is hushed and still,
The birds cease singing, and the wandering brooks
Murmur no wonted greeting to their shores;
Silence attends some wonder and expecteth
That heaven should pronounce some prophesy:
Where, or from whom, proceeds this silence, Charles?
CHARLES.
Our men, with open mouths and staring eyes,
Look on each other, as they did attend
Each other's words, and yet no creature speaks;
A tongue-tied fear hath made a midnight hour,
And speeches sleep through all the waking regions.
KING JOHN.
But now the pompous Sun, in all his pride,
Looked through his golden coach upon the world,
And, on a sudden, hath he hid himself,
That now the under earth is as a grave,
Dark, deadly, silent, and uncomfortable.
[A clamor of ravens.]
Hark, what a deadly outery do I hear?
CHARLES.
Here comes my brother Phillip.
KING JOHN.
All dismayed:
[Enter Phillip.]
What fearful words are those thy looks presage?
PHILLIP.
A flight, a flight!
KING JOHN.
Coward, what flight? thou liest, there needs no flight.
PHILLIP.
A flight.
KING JOHN.
Awake thy craven powers, and tell on
The substance of that very fear in deed,
Which is so ghastly printed in thy face:
What is the matter?
PHILLIP.
A flight of ugly ravens
Do croak and hover o'er our soldiers' heads,
And keep in triangles and cornered squares,
Right as our forces are embattled;
With their approach there came this sudden fog,
Which now hath hid the airy floor of heaven
And made at noon a night unnatural
Upon the quaking and dismayed world:
In brief, our soldiers have let fall their arms,
And stand like metamorphosed images,
Bloodless and pale, one gazing on another.
KING JOHN.
Aye, now I call to mind the prophesy,
But I must give no entrance to a fear.--
Return, and hearten up these yielding souls:
Tell them, the ravens, seeing them in arms,
So many fair against a famished few,
Come but to dine upon their handy work
And prey upon the carrion that they kill:
For when we see a horse laid down to die,
Although he be not dead, the ravenous birds
Sit watching the departure of his life;
Even so these ravens for the carcasses
Of those poor English, that are marked to die,
Hover about, and, if they cry to us,
Tis but for meat that we must kill for them.
Away, and comfort up my soldiers,
And sound the trumpets, and at once dispatch
This little business of a silly fraud.
[Exit Phillip.]
[Another noise. Salisbury brought in by a French Captain.]
CAPTAIN.
Behold, my liege, this knight and forty mo',
Of whom the better part are slain and fled,
With all endeavor sought to break our ranks,
And make their way to the encompassed prince:
Dispose of him as please your majesty.
KING JOHN.
Go, & the next bough, soldier, that thou seest,
Disgrace it with his body presently;
For I do hold a tree in France too good
To be the gallows of an English thief.
SALISBURY.
My Lord of Normandy, I have your pass
And warrant for my safety through this land.
CHARLES.
Villiers procured it for thee, did he not?
SALISBURY.
He did.
CHARLES.
And it is current; thou shalt freely pass.
KING JOHN.
Aye, freely to the gallows to be hanged,
Without denial or impediment.
Away with him!
CHARLES.
I hope your highness will not so disgrace me,
And dash the virtue of my seal at arms:
He hath my never broken name to shew,
Charactered with this princely hand of mine:
And rather let me leave to be a prince
Than break the stable verdict of a prince:
I do beseech you, let him pass in quiet.
KING JOHN.
Thou and thy word lie both in my command;
What canst thou promise that I cannot break?
Which of these twain is greater infamy,
To disobey thy father or thy self?
Thy word, nor no mans, may exceed his power;
Nor that same man doth never break his word,
That keeps it to the utmost of his power.
The breach of faith dwells in the soul's consent:
Which if thy self without consent do break,
Thou art not charged with the breach of faith.
Go, hang him: for thy license lies in me,
And my constraint stands the excuse for thee.
CHARLES.
What, am I not a soldier in my word?
Then, arms, adieu, and let them fight that list!
Shall I not give my girdle from my waste,
But with a gardion I shall be controlled,
To say I may not give my things away?
Upon my soul, had Edward, prince of Wales,
Engaged his word, writ down his noble hand
For all your knights to pass his father's land,
The royal king, to grace his warlike son,
Would not alone safe conduct give to them,
But with all bounty feasted them and theirs.
KING JOHN.
Dwelst thou on precedents? Then be it so!
Say, Englishman, of what degree thou art.
SALISBURY.
An Earl in England, though a prisoner here,
And those that know me, call me Salisbury.
KING JOHN.
Then, Salisbury, say whether thou art bound.
SALISBURY.
To Callice, where my liege, king Edward, is.
KING JOHN.
To Callice, Salisbury? Then, to Callice pack,
And bid the king prepare a noble grave,
To put his princely son, black Edward, in.
And as thou travelst westward from this place,
Some two leagues hence there is a lofty hill,
Whose top seems topless, for the embracing sky
Doth hide his high head in her azure bosom;
Upon whose tall top when thy foot attains,
Look back upon the humble vale beneath--
Humble of late, but now made proud with arms--
And thence behold the wretched prince of Wales,
Hooped with a bond of iron round about.
After which sight, to Callice spur amain,
And say, the prince was smothered and not slain:
And tell the king this is not all his ill;
For I will greet him, ere he thinks I will.
Away, be gone; the smoke but of our shot
Will choke our foes, though bullets hit them not.
[Exit.]
ACT IV. SCENE VI. The same. A Part of the Field
of Battle.
[Alarum. Enter prince Edward and Artois.]
ARTOIS.
How fares your grace? are you not shot, my Lord?
PRINCE EDWARD.
No, dear Artois; but choked with dust and smoke,
And stepped aside for breath and fresher air.
ARTOIS.
Breath, then, and to it again: the amazed French
Are quite distract with gazing on the crows;
And, were our quivers full of shafts again,
Your grace should see a glorious day of this:--
O, for more arrows, Lord; that's our want.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Courage, Artois! a fig for feathered shafts,
When feathered fowls do bandy on our side!
What need we fight, and sweat, and keep a coil,
When railing crows outscold our adversaries?
Up, up, Artois! the ground it self is armed
With Fire containing flint; command our bows
To hurl away their pretty colored Ew,
And to it with stones: away, Artois, away!
My soul doth prophecy we win the day.
[Exeunt.]
ACT IV. SCENE VII. The same. Another Part of
the Field of Battle.
[Alarum. Enter King John.]
KING JOHN.
Our multitudes are in themselves confounded,
Dismayed, and distraught; swift starting fear
Hath buzzed a cold dismay through all our army,
And every petty disadvantage prompts
The fear possessed abject soul to fly.
My self, whose spirit is steel to their dull lead,
What with recalling of the prophecy,
And that our native stones from English arms
Rebel against us, find myself attainted
With strong surprise of weak and yielding fear.
[Enter Charles.]
CHARLES.
Fly, father, fly! the French do kill the French,
Some that would stand let drive at some that fly;
Our drums strike nothing but discouragement,
Our trumpets sound dishonor and retire;
The spirit of fear, that feareth nought but death,
Cowardly works confusion on it self.
[Enter Phillip.]
PHILLIP.
Pluck out your eyes, and see not this day's shame!
An arm hath beat an army; one poor David
Hath with a stone foiled twenty stout Goliahs;
Some twenty naked starvelings with small flints,
Hath driven back a puissant host of men,
Arrayed and fenced in all accomplements.
KING JOHN.
Mordieu, they quait at us, and kill us up;
No less than forty thousand wicked elders
Have forty lean slaves this day stoned to death.
CHARLES.
O, that I were some other countryman!
This day hath set derision on the French,
And all the world will blurt and scorn at us.
KING JOHN.
What, is there no hope left?
PHILLIP.
No hope, but death, to bury up our shame.
KING JOHN.
Make up once more with me; the twentieth part
Of those that live, are men inow to quail
The feeble handful on the adverse part.
CHARLES.
Then charge again: if heaven be not opposed,
We cannot lose the day.
KING JOHN.
On, away!
[Exeunt.]
ACT IV. SCENE VIII. The same. Another Part of
the Field of Battle.
[Enter Audley, wounded, & rescued by two squires.]
ESQUIRE.
How fares my Lord?
AUDLEY.
Even as a man may do,
That dines at such a bloody feast as this.
ESQUIRE.
I hope, my Lord, that is no mortal scar.
AUDLEY.
No matter, if it be; the count is cast,
And, in the worst, ends but a mortal man.
Good friends, convey me to the princely Edward,
That in the crimson bravery of my blood
I may become him with saluting him.
I'll smile, and tell him, that this open scar
Doth end the harvest of his Audley's war.
[Exeunt.]
ACT IV. SCENE IX. The same. The English Camp.
[Enter prince Edward, King John, Charles, and all,
with Ensigns spread.]
PRINCE EDWARD.
Now, John in France, & lately John of France,
Thy bloody Ensigns are my captive colours;
And you, high vaunting Charles of Normandy,
That once to day sent me a horse to fly,
Are now the subjects of my clemency.
Fie, Lords, is it not a shame that English boys,
Whose early days are yet not worth a beard,
Should in the bosom of your kingdom thus,
One against twenty, beat you up together?
KING JOHN.
Thy fortune, not thy force, hath conquered us.
PRINCE EDWARD.
An argument that heaven aides the right.
[Enter Artois with Phillip.]
See, see, Artois doth bring with him along
The late good counsel giver to my soul.
Welcome, Artois; and welcome, Phillip, too:
Who now of you or I have need to pray?
Now is the proverb verified in you,
'Too bright a morning breeds a louring day.'
[Sound Trumpets. Enter Audley.]
But say, what grim discouragement comes here!
Alas, what thousand armed men of France
Have writ that note of death in Audley's face?
Speak, thou that wooest death with thy careless smile,
And lookst so merrily upon thy grave,
As if thou were enamored on thine end:
What hungry sword hath so bereaved thy face,
And lopped a true friend from my loving soul?
AUDLEY.
O Prince, thy sweet bemoaning speech to me
Is as a mournful knell to one dead sick.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Dear Audley, if my tongue ring out thy end,
My arms shall be thy grave: what may I do
To win thy life, or to revenge thy death?
If thou wilt drink the blood of captive kings,
Or that it were restorative, command
A Health of kings' blood, and I'll drink to thee;
If honor may dispense for thee with death,
The never dying honor of this day
Share wholly, Audley, to thy self, and live.
AUDLEY.
Victorious Prince,--that thou art so, behold
A Caesar's fame in king's captivity--
If I could hold him death but at a bay,
Till I did see my liege thy royal father,
My soul should yield this Castle of my flesh,
This mangled tribute, with all willingness,
To darkness, consummation, dust, and Worms.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Cheerily, bold man, thy soul is all too proud
To yield her City for one little breach;
Should be divorced from her earthly spouse
By the soft temper of a French man's sword?
Lo, to repair thy life, I give to thee
Three thousand Marks a year in English land.
AUDLEY.
I take thy gift, to pay the debts I owe:
These two poor Esquires redeemed me from the French
With lusty & dear hazard of their lives:
What thou hast given me, I give to them;
And, as thou lovest me, prince, lay thy consent
To this bequeath in my last testament.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Renowned Audley, live, and have from me
This gift twice doubled to these Esquires and thee:
But live or die, what thou hast given away
To these and theirs shall lasting freedom stay.
Come, gentlemen, I will see my friend bestowed
With in an easy Litter; then we'll march
Proudly toward Callis, with triumphant pace,
Unto my royal father, and there bring
The tribute of my wars, fair France his king.
[Exit.]
ACT V. SCENE I. Picardy. The English Camp before
Calais.
[Enter King Edward, Queen Phillip, Derby, soldiers.]
KING EDWARD.
No more, Queen Phillip, pacify your self;
Copland, except he can excuse his fault,
Shall find displeasure written in our looks.
And now unto this proud resisting town!
Soldiers, assault: I will no longer stay,
To be deluded by their false delays;
Put all to sword, and make the spoil your own.
[Enter six Citizens in their Shirts, bare foot, with
halters about their necks.]
ALL.
Mercy, king Edward, mercy, gracious Lord!
KING EDWARD.
Contemptuous villains, call ye now for truce?
Mine ears are stopped against your bootless cries:--
Sound, drums alarum; draw threatening swords!
FIRST CITIZEN.
Ah, noble Prince, take pity on this town,
And hear us, mighty king:
We claim the promise that your highness made;
The two days' respite is not yet expired,
And we are come with willingness to bear
What torturing death or punishment you please,
So that the trembling multitude be saved.
KING EDWARD.
My promise? Well, I do confess as much:
But I do require the chiefest Citizens
And men of most account that should submit;
You, peradventure, are but servile grooms,
Or some felonious robbers on the Sea,
Whom, apprehended, law would execute,
Albeit severity lay dead in us:
No, no, ye cannot overreach us thus.
SECOND CITIZEN.
The Sun, dread Lord, that in the western fall
Beholds us now low brought through misery,
Did in the Orient purple of the morn
Salute our coming forth, when we were known;
Or may our portion be with damned fiends.
KING EDWARD.
If it be so, then let our covenant stand:
We take possession of the town in peace,
But, for your selves, look you for no remorse;
But, as imperial justice hath decreed,
Your bodies shall be dragged about these walls,
And after feel the stroke of quartering steel:
This is your doom;--go, soldiers, see it done.
QUEEN PHILLIP.
Ah, be more mild unto these yielding men!
It is a glorious thing to stablish peace,
And kings approach the nearest unto God
By giving life and safety unto men:
As thou intendest to be king of France,
So let her people live to call thee king;
For what the sword cuts down or fire hath spoiled,
Is held in reputation none of ours.
KING EDWARD.
Although experience teach us this is true,
That peaceful quietness brings most delight,
When most of all abuses are controlled;
Yet, insomuch it shall be known that we
As well can master our affections
As conquer other by the dint of sword,
Phillip, prevail; we yield to thy request:
These men shall live to boast of clemency,
And, tyranny, strike terror to thy self.
SECOND CITIZEN.
Long live your highness! happy be your reign!
KING EDWARD.
Go, get you hence, return unto the town,
And if this kindness hath deserved your love,
Learn then to reverence Edward as your king.--
[Exeunt Citizens.]
Now, might we hear of our affairs abroad,
We would, till gloomy Winter were o'er spent,
Dispose our men in garrison a while.
But who comes here?
[Enter Copland and King David.]
DERBY.
Copland, my Lord, and David, King of Scots.
KING EDWARD.
Is this the proud presumptuous Esquire of the North,
That would not yield his prisoner to my Queen?
COPLAND.
I am, my liege, a Northern Esquire indeed,
But neither proud nor insolent, I trust.
KING EDWARD.
What moved thee, then, to be so obstinate
To contradict our royal Queen's desire?
COPLAND.
No wilful disobedience, mighty Lord,
But my desert and public law at arms:
I took the king my self in single fight,
And, like a soldiers, would be loath to lose
The least pre-eminence that I had won.
And Copland straight upon your highness' charge
Is come to France, and with a lowly mind
Doth vale the bonnet of his victory:
Receive, dread Lord, the custom of my fraught,
The wealthy tribute of my laboring hands,
Which should long since have been surrendered up,
Had but your gracious self been there in place.
QUEEN PHILLIP.
But, Copland, thou didst scorn the king's command,
Neglecting our commission in his name.
COPLAND.
His name I reverence, but his person more;
His name shall keep me in allegiance still,
But to his person I will bend my knee.
KING EDWARD.
I pray thee, Phillip, let displeasure pass;
This man doth please me, and I like his words:
For what is he that will attempt great deeds,
And lose the glory that ensues the same?
All rivers have recourse unto the Sea,
And Copland's faith relation to his king.
Kneel, therefore, down: now rise, king Edward's knight;
And, to maintain thy state, I freely give
Five hundred marks a year to thee and thine.
[Enter Salisbury.]
Welcome, Lord Salisbury: what news from Brittain?
SALISBURY.
This, mighty king: the Country we have won,
And John de Mountford, regent of that place,
Presents your highness with this Coronet,
Protesting true allegiance to your Grace.
KING EDWARD.
We thank thee for thy service, valiant Earl;
Challenge our favour, for we owe it thee.
SALISBURY.
But now, my Lord, as this is joyful news,
So must my voice be tragical again,
And I must sing of doleful accidents.
KING EDWARD.
What, have our men the overthrow at Poitiers?
Or is our son beset with too much odds?
SALISBURY.
He was, my Lord: and as my worthless self
With forty other serviceable knights,
Under safe conduct of the Dauphin's seal,
Did travail that way, finding him distressed,
A troop of Lances met us on the way,
Surprised, and brought us prisoners to the king,
Who, proud of this, and eager of revenge,
Commanded straight to cut off all our heads:
And surely we had died, but that the Duke,
More full of honor than his angry sire,
Procured our quick deliverance from thence;
But, ere we went, 'Salute your king', quoth he,
'Bid him provide a funeral for his son:
To day our sword shall cut his thread of life;
And, sooner than he thinks, we'll be with him,
To quittance those displeasures he hath done.'
This said, we past, not daring to reply;
Our hearts were dead, our looks diffused and wan.
Wandering, at last we climed unto a hill,
>From whence, although our grief were much before,
Yet now to see the occasion with our eyes
Did thrice so much increase our heaviness:
For there, my Lord, oh, there we did descry
Down in a valley how both armies lay.
The French had cast their trenches like a ring,
And every Barricado's open front
Was thick embossed with brazen ordinance;
Here stood a battaile of ten thousand horse,
There twice as many pikes in quadrant wise,
Here Crossbows, and deadly wounding darts:
And in the midst, like to a slender point
Within the compass of the horizon,
As twere a rising bubble in the sea,
A Hasle wand amidst a wood of Pines,
Or as a bear fast chained unto a stake,
Stood famous Edward, still expecting when
Those dogs of France would fasten on his flesh.
Anon the death procuring knell begins:
Off go the Cannons, that with trembling noise
Did shake the very Mountain where they stood;
Then sound the Trumpets' clangor in the air,
The battles join: and, when we could no more
Discern the difference twixt the friend and foe,
So intricate the dark confusion was,
Away we turned our watery eyes with sighs,
As black as powder fuming into smoke.
And thus, I fear, unhappy have I told
The most untimely tale of Edward's fall.
QUEEN PHILLIP.
Ah me, is this my welcome into France?
Is this the comfort that I looked to have,
When I should meet with my beloved son?
Sweet Ned, I would thy mother in the sea
Had been prevented of this mortal grief!
KING EDWARD.
Content thee, Phillip; tis not tears will serve
To call him back, if he be taken hence:
Comfort thy self, as I do, gentle Queen,
With hope of sharp, unheard of, dire revenge.--
He bids me to provide his funeral,
And so I will; but all the Peers in France
Shall mourners be, and weep out bloody tears,
Until their empty veins be dry and sere:
The pillars of his hearse shall be his bones;
The mould that covers him, their City ashes;
His knell, the groaning cries of dying men;
And, in the stead of tapers on his tomb,
An hundred fifty towers shall burning blaze,
While we bewail our valiant son's decease.
[After a flourish, sounded within, enter an herald.]
HERALD.
Rejoice, my Lord; ascend the imperial throne!
The mighty and redoubted prince of Wales,
Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms,
The French man's terror, and his country's fame,
Triumphant rideth like a Roman peer,
And, lowly at his stirrup, comes afoot
King John of France, together with his son,
In captive bonds; whose diadem he brings
To crown thee with, and to proclaim thee king.
KING EDWARD.
Away with mourning, Phillip, wipe thine eyes;--
Sound, Trumpets, welcome in Plantagenet!
[Enter Prince Edward, king John, Phillip, Audley, Artois.]
As things long lost, when they are found again,
So doth my son rejoice his father's heart,
For whom even now my soul was much perplexed.
QUEEN PHILLIP.
Be this a token to express my joy,
[Kisses him.]
For inward passion will not let me speak.
PRINCE EDWARD.
My gracious father, here receive the gift.
[Presenting him with King John's crown.]
This wreath of conquest and reward of war,
Got with as mickle peril of our lives,
As ere was thing of price before this day;
Install your highness in your proper right:
And, herewithall, I render to your hands
These prisoners, chief occasion of our strife.
KING EDWARD.
So, John of France, I see you keep your word:
You promised to be sooner with our self
Than we did think for, and tis so in deed:
But, had you done at first as now you do,
How many civil towns had stood untouched,
That now are turned to ragged heaps of stones!
How many people's lives mightst thou have saved,
That are untimely sunk into their graves!
KING JOHN.
Edward, recount not things irrevocable;
Tell me what ransom thou requirest to have.
KING EDWARD.
Thy ransom, John, hereafter shall be known:
But first to England thou must cross the seas,
To see what entertainment it affords;
How ere it falls, it cannot be so bad,
As ours hath been since we arrived in France.
KING JOHN.
Accursed man! of this I was foretold,
But did misconster what the prophet told.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Now, father, this petition Edward makes
To thee, whose grace hath been his strongest shield,
That, as thy pleasure chose me for the man
To be the instrument to shew thy power,
So thou wilt grant that many princes more,
Bred and brought up within that little Isle,
May still be famous for like victories!
And, for my part, the bloody scars I bear,
And weary nights that I have watched in field,
The dangerous conflicts I have often had,
The fearful menaces were proffered me,
The heat and cold and what else might displease:
I wish were now redoubled twenty fold,
So that hereafter ages, when they read
The painful traffic of my tender youth,
Might thereby be inflamed with such resolve,
As not the territories of France alone,
But likewise Spain, Turkey, and what countries else
That justly would provoke fair England's ire,
Might, at their presence, tremble and retire.
KING EDWARD.
Here, English Lords, we do proclaim a rest,
An intercession of our painful arms:
Sheath up your swords, refresh your weary limbs,
Peruse your spoils; and, after we have breathed
A day or two within this haven town,
God willing, then for England we'll be shipped;
Where, in a happy hour, I trust, we shall
Arrive, three kings, two princes, and a queen.
FINIS.