King John

King John
France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?
Say, shall the current of our right roam on,
Whose passage, vexed with thy impediment,
Shall leave his native channel and o’erswell
With course disturbed even thy confining shores,
Unless thou let his silver water keep
A peaceful progress to the ocean?
King Philip
England,
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By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,
And stand securely on their battlements
As in a theater, whence they gape and point
At your industrious scenes and acts of death.
Your royal presences, be ruled by me:
Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,
Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend
Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town.
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Mad world, mad kings, mad composition!
John, to stop Arthur’s title in the whole,
Hath willingly departed with a part;

Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice but beggary.

And France,
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Constance, to Salisbury
Gone to be married? Gone to swear a peace?
False blood to false blood joined? Gone to be friends?
Shall Louis have Blanche and Blanche those provinces?
It is not so. Thou hast misspoke, misheard.
Be well advised; tell o’er thy tale again.

It cannot be; thou dost but say ’tis so.
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Constance
If thou that bidd’st me be content wert grim,
Ugly, and sland’rous to thy mother’s womb,
Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,
Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,
Patched with foul moles and eye-offending marks,
I would not care; I then would be content,
For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou
Become thy great birth,
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King Philip, to Blanche
‘Tis true, fair daughter, and this blessèd day
Ever in France shall be kept festival.
To solemnize this day the glorious sun
Stays in his course and plays the alchemist,
Turning with splendor of his precious eye
The meager cloddy earth to glittering gold.
The yearly course that brings this day about
Shall never see it but a holy day.
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Austria
Lady Constance, peace.
Constance
War, war, no peace! Peace is to me a war.
O Limoges, O Austria, thou dost shame
That bloody spoil. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward,
Thou little valiant, great in villainy,
Thou ever strong upon the stronger side,
Thou Fortune’s champion, that dost never fight
But when her humorous Ladyship is by
To teach thee safety.
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King Philip
Good reverend father, make my person yours,
And tell me how you would bestow yourself.
This royal hand and mine are newly knit,
And the conjunction of our inward souls
Married, in league, coupled, and linked together
With all religious strength of sacred vows.
The latest breath that gave the sound of words
Was deep-sworn faith,
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Blanche, rising
The sun’s o’ercast with blood. Fair day, adieu.
Which is the side that I must go withal?
I am with both, each army hath a hand,
And in their rage, I having hold of both,
They whirl asunder and dismember me.
Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win.—
Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose.—
Father,
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King John, to Bastard  
Cousin, away for England! Haste before,
And ere our coining see thou shake the bags
Of hoarding abbots; imprisoned angels
Set at liberty. The fat ribs of peace
Must by the hungry now be fed upon.
Use our commission in his utmost force.
Bastard
Bell, book,
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