PRINCE EDWARD

  What news with thee?

  2 HERALD

  The Duke of Normandy, my lord and master,

  90 Pitying thy youth is so engirt with peril,

  By me hath sent a nimble-jointed jennet,

  As swift as ever yet thou didst bestride,

  And therewithal he counsels thee to fly,

  Else Death himself hath sworn that thou shalt die.

  PRINCE EDWARD

  95 Back with the beast unto the beast that sent him:

  Tell him I cannot sit a coward’s horse.

  Bid him today bestride the jade himself,

  For I will stain my horse quite o’er with blood

  And double-gild my spurs but I will catch him.

  100 So tell the capering boy, and get thee gone.

  [Exit 2 Herald.]

  Enter another [Herald, from Philip].

  3 HERALD

  Edward of Wales, Philip, the second son

  To the most mighty Christian King of France,

  Seeing thy body’s living date expired,

  All full of charity and Christian love,

  105 Commends this book, full-fraught with prayers,

  To thy fair hand, and for thy hour of life

  Entreats thee that thou meditate therein

  And arm thy soul for her long journey towards.

  [Gives book to Prince Edward.]

  Thus have I done his bidding and return. [Offers to go.]

  PRINCE EDWARD

  110 Herald of Philip, greet thy lord from me:

  All good that he can send I can receive.

  But think’st thou not the unadvised boy

  Hath wronged himself in thus far tendering me?

  Haply he cannot pray without the book –

  115 I think him no divine extemporal.

  Then render back this commonplace of prayer

  [Returns book to Herald.]

  To do himself good in adversity.

  Besides, he knows not my sins’ quality

  And therefore knows no prayers for my avail.

  120 Ere night his prayer may be to pray to God

  To put it in my heart to hear his prayer.

  So tell the courtly wanton, and be gone.

  3 HERALD

  I go. [Exit.]

  PRINCE EDWARD

  How confident their strength and number makes them.

  125 Now, Audley, sound those silver wings of thine

  And let those milk-white messengers of Time

  Show thy time’s learning in this dangerous time.

  Thyself art bruised and bit with many broils,

  And stratagems forepast with iron pens

  130 Are texted in thine honourable face;

  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,

  135 The one in choice 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

  140 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 follow it, how can we shun it?

  If we do fear, with fear we do but aid

  145 The thing we fear to seize on us the sooner;

  If we fear not, yet 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

  150 Ah, good old man, a thousand thousand armours

  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,

  155 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

  160 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.

  [

  Sc. 13 ] Enter KING JOHN and CHARLES. [4.5]

  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

  5 Murmur no wonted greeting to their shores.

  Silence attends some wonder and expecteth

  That heaven should pronounce some prophecy.

  Whence, or from whom, proceeds this silence,

  Charles?

  CHARLES

  Our men with open mouths and staring eyes

  10 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

  15 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 clamour of ravens

  Hark, what a deadly outcry do I hear!

  [Enter PHILIP.]

  CHARLES

  Here comes my brother Philip.

  20 KING JOHN All dismayed. –

  What fearful words are those thy looks presage?

  PHILIP

  A flight, a flight –

  KING JOHN

  Coward, what flight? Thou liest, there needs no flight.

  PHILIP

  A flight –

  KING JOHN

  25 Awake thy craven powers, and tell on

  The substance of that very fear indeed

  Which is so ghastly printed in thy face.

  What is the matter?

  PHILIP A flight of ugly ravens

  Do croak and hover o’er our soldiers’ heads

  30 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 flower of heaven

  And made at noon a night unnatural

  35 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 [aside]

  Ay, now I call to mind the prophecy,

  40 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 handiwork

  45 And prey upon the carrion that they kill,

  For when we see a horse laid down to die,

  Although not dead, the ravenous birds

  Sit watching the departure of his life;

  Even so these ravens for the carcasses

  50 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,

  54 And sound the trumpets and at once dispatch

  This little business of a silly fraud. Exit Philip.

  Another noise. SALISBURY brought in by a French Captain.

  CAPTAIN

  Behold, my liege, this knight and forty moe,

  Of whom the better part are slain and fled,

  With all endeavour sought to break our ranks

  And make their way to the encompassed Prince.

  60 Dispose of him as please your majesty.

  KING JOHN

  Go, and 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

  65 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

  70 Ay, 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.

  75 He hath my never-broken name to show,

  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

  80 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 thyself?

  Thy word nor no man’s may exceed his power,

  85 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 thyself without consent do break

  Thou art not charged with the breach of faith.

  90 Go, hang him, for thy licence 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 waist

  95 But with a guardian 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,

  100 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

  Dwell’st thou on precedents? Then be it so.

  Say, Englishman, of what degree thou art.

  SALISBURY

  105 An earl in England though a prisoner here,

  And those that know me call me Salisbury.

  KING JOHN

  Then, Salisbury, say whither thou art bound.

  SALISBURY

  To Calais, where my liege, King Edward, is.

  KING JOHN

  To Calais, Salisbury? Then to Calais pack

  110 And bid the King prepare a noble grave

  To put his princely son, black Edward, in.

  And as thou travell’st westward from this place,

  Some two leagues hence there is a lofty hill –

  Whose top seems topless, for the embracing sky

  115 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,

  120 Hooped with a bond of iron round about.

  After which sight, to Calais 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.

  125 Away, be gone. The smoke but of our shot

  Will choke our foes, though bullets hit them not. Exeunt.

  [Sc. 14] Alarum. Enter PRINCE EDWARD [4.6]

  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

  Breathe, then, and to it again. The amazed French

  5 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 is our want.

  PRINCE EDWARD

  Courage, Artois, a fig for feathered shafts

  10 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 itself is armed.

  Fire-containing flint! Command our bows

  15 To hurl away their parti-coloured yew

  And to it with stones. Away, Artois, away!

  My soul doth prophesy we win the day. Exeunt.

  [Sc. 15] Alarum. Enter KING JOHN. [4.7]

  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

  5 The fear-possessed, abject soul to fly.

  Myself, 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

  10 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 dishonour and retire;

  15 The spirit of fear, that feareth naught but death,

  Cowardly works confusion on itself.

  Enter PHILIP.

  PHILIP

  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 Goliaths.

  20 Some twenty naked starvelings with small flints

  Hath driven back a puissant host of men,

  Arrayed and fenced in all accomplements.

  KING JOHN

  Mort Dieu, they quoit at us and kill us up!

  No less than forty thousand wicked elders

  25 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?

  PHILIP

  30 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 enow to quail

  The feeble handful on the adverse part.

  CHARLES

  Then charge again; if heaven be not opposed,

  35 We cannot lose the day.

  KING JOHN

  On, away. Exeunt.

  [Sc. 16] Enter AUDLEY wounded, [4.8]

  and rescued by two Squires.

  1 SQUIRE

  How fares my lord?

  AUDLEY Even as a man may do

  That dines at such a bloody feast as this.

  1 SQUIRE

  I hope, my lord, that is no mortal scar.

  AUDLEY

  No matter if it be; the count is cast,

  5 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.

  9 I’ll smile and tell him that this open scar

  Doth end the harvest of his Audley’s war. Exeunt.

  [Sc. 17] Enter PRINCE EDWARD, KING JOHN, [4.9]

  CHARLES and all, with ensigns spread.

  Retreat sounded.

  PRINCE EDWARD

  Now, John in France, and lately John of France,

  Thy bloody ensigns are my captive colours;

  And you, high-vaunting Charles of Normandy,

  That once today sent me a horse to fly,

  5 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

  10 Thy fortune not thy force hath conquered us.

  PRINCE EDWARD

  An argument that heaven aids the right.

  [Enter ARTOIS, with PHILIP.]

  See, see, Artois doth bring with him along

  The late good-counsel giver to my soul.

  Welcome, Artois, and welcome, Philip, too.

  15 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[, supported

  by the two Squires].

  But say, what grim discouragement comes here?

  Alas, what thousand armed men of France

  20 Have writ that note of death in Audley’s face?

  Speak, thou that woo’st death with thy careless

  smile

  And look’st so merrily upon thy grave

  As if thou wert enamoured on thine end,

  What hungry sword hath so bereaved thy face

  25 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

  30 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 honour may dispense for thee with death,

  35 The never-dying honour of this day