ACT III. SCENE I. The same. The French King's Tent. Enter CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and SALISBURY. Const. Gone to be married! gone to swear a peace! False blood to false blood joined! gone to be friends! Shall Lewis have Blanch? and Blanch those provinces? It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard; Oppressed with wrongs, and therefore full of fears; A woman, naturally born to fears; And though thou now confess, thou didst but jest, Sal. As true, as, I believe, you think them false, Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die; As doth the fury of two desperate men, Lewis marry Blanch! O, boy, then where art thou? Const. Which harm within itself so heinous is, Arth. I do beseech you, madam, be content. Const. If thou that bidd'st me be content, wert grim, 2 Ugly, and slanderous to thy mother's womb, 1 Unsightly. 2 Swart is dark, dusky. Prodigious is portentous, so deformed as to be taken for a foretoken of evil. Sal. Pardon me, madam, I may not go without you to the kings. Const. Thou mayst, thou shalt; I will not go with thee. I will instruct my sorrows to be proud; [She throws herself on the ground. Enter KING JOHN, KING PHILIP, LEWIS, BLANCH, ELINOR, Bastard, AUSTRIA, and Attendants. K. Phi. 'Tis true, fair daughter; and this blessed day, Ever in France shall be kept festival. Const. A wicked day, and not a holyday!— [Rising. What hath this day deserved? What hath it done; That it in golden letters should be set Among the high tides,2 in the calendar? Nay, rather, turn this day out of the week; This day of shame, oppression, perjury: Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child Pray, that their burdens may not fall this day, Lest that their hopes prodigiously be crossed;3 1 The old copy reads, “makes its owner stoop." The emendation is sir T. Hanmer's. 2 Solemn seasons, times to be observed above others. 3 i. e. be disappointed by the production of a prodigy, a monster. But' on this day, let seamen fear no wreck; K. Phi. By Heaven, lady, you shall have no cause To curse the fair proceedings of this day. Have I not pawned to you my majesty? Const. You have beguiled me with a counterfeit, And our oppression hath made up this league.— Let not the hours of this ungodly day Wear out the day in peace; but, ere sunset, Aust. Lady Constance, peace. Const. War! war! no peace! peace is to me a war. O Lymoges! O Austria ! thou dost shame That bloody spoil. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward, Thou little valiant, great in villany! Thou ever strong upon the stronger side! Thou fortune's champion, that dost never fight But when her humorous ladyship is by 1 But for unless; its exceptive sense of be out. In the ancient almanacs, the days supposed to be favorable or unfavorable to bargains, are distinguished, among a number of particulars of the like importance. 2 Shakspeare, in the person of Austria, has conjoined the two wellknown enemies of Richard Coeur-de-lion. Leopold, duke of Austria, threw him into prison in a former expedition (in 1193); but the castle of Chaluz, before which he fell (in 1199), belonged to Vidomar, viscount of Limoges. The archer who pierced his shoulder with an arrow (of which wound he died) was Bertrand de Gourdon. Austria, in the old play, is called Lymoges, the Austrich duke. Holinshed says, "The same year Philip, bastard sonne to King Richard, to whom his father had given the castell and honour of Coniacke, killed the viscount of Lymoges in revenge of his father's death," &c. To teach thee safety! Thou art perjured, too, Bast. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs. K. John. We like not this; thou dost forget thyself. Enter PANDUlph. K. Phi. Here comes the holy legate of the pope. Pand. Hail, you anointed deputies of Heaven.To thee, king John, my holy errand is. I, Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal, And from pope Innocent the legate here, Do, in his name, religiously demand, Why thou against the church, our holy mother, So wilfully dost spurn; and, force perforce, 1 Pope inserted the following lines from the old play here, which he thought necessary "to explain the ground of the Bastard's quarrel with Austria: " "Aust. Methinks that Richard's pride, and Richard's fall, Should be a precedent to fright you all. Faulc. What words are these? How do my sinews shake! |