KING JOHN. Sidney Lee

no, on my soul, it never shall be said.

       PANDULPH.

       You look but on the outside of this work.

       LOUIS.

       Outside or inside, I will not return

       Till my attempt so much be glorified

       As to my ample hope was promised

       Before I drew this gallant head of war,

       And cull’d these fiery spirits from the world,

       To outlook conquest, and to will renown

       Even in the jaws of danger and of death.—

       [Trumpet sounds.]

       What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?

       [Enter the BASTARD, attended.]

       BASTARD.

       According to the fair play of the world,

       Let me have audience; I am sent to speak:—

       My holy lord of Milan, from the king

       I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;

       And, as you answer, I do know the scope

       And warrant limited unto my tongue.

       PANDULPH.

       The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,

       And will not temporize with my entreaties;

       He flatly says he’ll not lay down his arms.

       BASTARD.

       By all the blood that ever fury breath’d,

       The youth says well.—Now hear our English king;

       For thus his royalty doth speak in me.

       He is prepar’d; and reason too he should:

       This apish and unmannerly approach,

       This harness’d masque and unadvised revel

       This unhair’d sauciness and boyish troops,

       The king doth smile at; and is well prepar’d

       To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms,

       From out the circle of his territories.

       That hand which had the strength, even at your door,

       To cudgel you, and make you take the hatch;

       To dive, like buckets, in concealed wells;

       To crouch in litter of your stable planks;

       To lie, like pawns, lock’d up in chests and trunks;

       To hug with swine; to seek sweet safety out

       In vaults and prisons; and to thrill and shake

       Even at the crying of your nation’s crow,

       Thinking this voice an armed Englishman;—

       Shall that victorious hand be feebled here

       That in your chambers gave you chastisement?

       No: know the gallant monarch is in arms

       And like an eagle o’er his aery towers

       To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.—

       And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,

       You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb

       Of your dear mother England, blush for shame;

       For your own ladies and pale-visag’d maids,

       Like Amazons, come tripping after drums,—

       Their thimbles into armed gauntlets chang’d,

       Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts

       To fierce and bloody inclination.

       LOUIS.

       There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;

       We grant thou canst outscold us: fare thee well;

       We hold our time too precious to be spent

       With such a brabbler.

       PANDULPH.

       Give me leave to speak.

       BASTARD.

       No, I will speak.

       LOUIS.

       We will attend to neither.—

       Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war,

       Plead for our interest and our being here.

       BASTARD.

       Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out;

       And so shall you, being beaten: do but start

       And echo with the clamour of thy drum,

       And even at hand a drum is ready brac’d

       That shall reverberate all as loud as thine:

       Sound but another, and another shall,

       As loud as thine, rattle the welkin’s ear,

       And mock the deep-mouth’d thunder: for at hand,—

       Not trusting to this halting legate here,

       Whom he hath us’d rather for sport than need,—

       Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits

       A bare-ribb’d death, whose office is this day

       To feast upon whole thousands of the French.

       LOUIS.

       Strike up our drums, to find this danger out.

       BASTARD.

       And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt.

       [Exeunt.]

      SCENE 3. The same. The Field of Battle.

       [Alarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT.]

       KING JOHN.

       How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert.

       HUBERT.

       Badly, I fear. How fares your majesty?

       KING JOHN.

       This fever that hath troubled me so long

       Lies heavy on me;—O, my heart is sick!

       [Enter a MESSENGER.]

       MESSENGER.

       My lord, your valiant kinsman, Falconbridge,

       Desires your majesty to leave the field

       And send him word by me which way you go.

       KING JOHN.

       Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there.

       MESSENGER.

       Be of good comfort; for the great supply

       That was expected by the Dauphin here

       Are wreck’d three nights ago on Goodwin Sands.

       This news was brought to Richard but even now:

       The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.

       KING JOHN.

       Ay me! this tyrant fever burns me up

       And will not let me welcome this good news.—

       Set on toward Swinstead: to my litter straight;

       Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint.

       [Exeunt.]

      SCENE 4. The same. Another part of the same.

       [Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, and others.]

       SALISBURY.

       I did not think the king so stor’d with friends.

       PEMBROKE.

       Up once again;