K. John.
Peace be to France, if France in peace permit
Our just and lineal entrance to our own:
If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heav'n.
Whilst we, God's wrathful agent, do correct
Their proud contempt that beats his peace to heav'n.

K. Philip.
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 burthen 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 its lawful King;
Cut off the sequence of posterity;
Out-faced infant state; 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 dy'd in Geffrey; and the hand of time
Shall draw this brief into as large 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 call'd a King,
When living blood doth in these temples beat,
Which own the crown that thou o'er-masterest?

K. John.
From whom hast thou this great commission, France,
To draw my answer to thy articles?

K. Philip.
From that supernal judge, that stirs good thoughts
In any breast of strong authority,
To look into the bolts and stains of right.
That judge hath made me guardian to this boy;
Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong,
And by whose help I mean to chastise it.

K. John.
Alack, thou dost usurp authority.

K. Philip.
Excuse it, 'tis to beat usurping down.

Eli.
Who is't, that thou dost call usurper, France?

Const.
Let me make answer: thy usurping son.—

Eli.
Out, insolent! thy bastard shall be King,
That thou may'st be a Queen, and check the world!

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 grandam, boy, that would blot thee.

Aust.
Peace—

Faulc.
Hear the crier.

Aust.
What the devil art thou?

Faulc.
One that will play the devil, Sir, with you,
An a'may catch your hide and you alone.
You are the hare, of whom the proverb goes,
Whose valour plucks dead Lions by the beard;
I'll smoak your skin-coat, an I catch you right;
Sirrah, look to't; i'faith, I will, i' faith.

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

Faulc.
It lyes as sightly on the back of him,
As great Alcides' ^{1 note}shews upon an ass;
But, ass, I'll take that burthen from your back,
Or lay on that, shall make your shoulders crack.

Aust.
What cracker is this same, that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?
King Philip, determine what we shall do strait.

K. Philip.
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 I do claim of thee:
Wilt thou resign them, and lay down thy arms?

K. John.
My life as soon.—I do defie thee, France.
Arthur of Britain, 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 grandam, child.

Const.
Do, child, go to it grandam, child.
Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig;
There's a good grandam.

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're she does or no!
His grandam's wrong, and not his mother's shames,
Draws those heav'n-moving pearls from his poor eyes,
Which heav'n shall take in nature of a fee:
Ay, with these crystal beads heav'n shall be brib'd
To do him justice, and revenge on you.

Eli.
Thou monstrous slanderer of heav'n and earth!

Const.
Thou monstrous injurer of heav'n and earth!
Call me not slanderer; thou, and thine, usurp
The domination, 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 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 is not only plagued for her sin,
But God hath made her sin and her the plague
On this removed issue, plagu'd for her,
And with her plague her sin; his injury,
Her injury, the beadle to her sin,
All punish'd in the person of this child,
And all for her, a plague upon her!

Eli.
Thou unadvis'd 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 cankred grandam's will.

K. Phil.
Peace, Lady; pause, or be more temperate:
It ill beseems this presence to cry Aim
To these ill-tuned repetitions.
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.

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