K. Phi. 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,2 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 called a king,
When living blood doth in these temples beat,
Which owe the crown 4 that thou o'ermasterest?

K. John. From whom hast thou this great commission, France,

To draw my answer from thy articles?

K. Phi. 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:

The sequence.] The succession.

2 Outfaced infant state.] Overborne infant royalty.

Draw.] Extend.

Which owe the crown.] To which temples belongs the crown.

Owe means own,

Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong,
And by whose help I mean to chastise it.

K. John. Alack, thou dost usurp authority.
K. Phi. Excuse-it is to beat usurping down.
Eli. Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?
Const. Let me make answer;-thy usurping son.
Eli. Out, insolent! thy bastard shall be king,
That thou mayst be a queen and check the world !1
Const. 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.

Eli. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father. Const. There's a good grandame, boy, that would blot

Bast. One that will play the devil, sir, with you,
An 'a may catch your hide and you alone.2
You are the hare of whom the proverb3 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.

1 And check the world.] An allusion, as Staunton thinks, to the

Queen of the chess-board.

2 An 'a may catch, &c.] The bastard hates Austria for having caused Coeur-de-Lion's death, and afterwards wearing the lion's hide which had been that monarch's trophy.

* The proverb.]

A hare may tread on a dead lion.'

Blanch. O, well did he become that lion's robe,
That did disrobe the lion of that robe!

Bast. It lies as sightly on the back of him,
As great Alcides' shows upon an ass :1

But, ass, I'll take that burden from your

back;
Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.
Aust. What cracker2 is this same, that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?

King Philip, determine what we shall do straight.

K. Phi. 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?

K. 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.

Eli.

Come to thy grandame, child.

Const. Do, child, go to it grandame,3 child;

Give grandame kingdom, and it grandame will

Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig:

There's a good grandame.

'As great Alcides, &c.] An allusion to the fable of the Ass in the Lion's skin. Hercules wore the skin of the Nemean Lion which he slew. For shows the old text has shoes.

2 Cracker.] A crack, or cracker, was a forward youth.

Go to it grandame.] This is an ironical imitation of the designedly ungrammatical forms often used in coaxing children. Craik in his English of Shakspeare, says, that it was a form of the possessive, as in the compound itself, which he thinks to be analogous to myself and thyself; but itself is analogous to those other pronouns of its own person, himself, herself, themselves, and is objective.

ACTI

Arth.

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.
Eli. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he

weeps.

Const. Now shame upon you, whe'r she does or no !
His grandame's wrongs, and not his mother's shames,
Draw 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.

Eli. Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!
Const. 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 2 is laid on him,
Being but the second generation
Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.
K. John. Bedlam, have done.
Const.

I have but this to say,

That he's not only plagued for her sin,

But God hath made her sin and her3 the plague

On this removed issue ;-plagued for her,

And with her plagued ; 4 her sin his injury,

1

Crystal beads.] There is here an implied reference to prayers as one of the meanings of the word beads.

The canon of the law.] The denunciation in the second commandment of the decalogue.

4

Her sin and her.]

Both her sin and herself.

Plagued for her, &c.] The remainder of Constance's speech is grossly misprinted in the old text. The meaning is-Plagued on her account, and plagued by means of her; her sin being the wrong he suffers, and her wrong-doing being the chastiser of her sin.

Her injury the beadle to her sin;

All punished in the person of this child,
And all for her. A plague upon her!

Eli. Thou unadvised1 scold, I can produce
A will that bars the title of thy son.

Const. Ay, who doubts that? a will! a wicked will, A woman's will, a cankered grandame's will!

K. Phi. Peace, lady; pause, or be more temperate : It ill becomes this presence

to cry

To these ill-tuned repetitions.

aim 2

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.

Cit. Who is it that hath warned us to the walls?
K. Phi. 'Tis France, for England.

K. John.

England, for itself:

You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects—

K. Phi. You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects, Our trumpet called you to this gentle parle—

K. John. For our advantage,—therefore hear us first. These flags of France, that are advanced here Before the eye and prospect of your town, Have hither marched to your endamagement. The cannons have their bowels full of wrath, And ready mounted are they to spit forth Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls: All preparation for a bloody siege,

Unadvised.] Heedless; regardless.

2 To cry aim.] To urge on with encouragement. Aim! was an exclamation of encouragement, addressed to an archer.