Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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4.3 Enter Arthur Duke of Brittaine on the walls, disguised as a ship-boy

ARTHUR

The wall is high, and yet will I leap down.

Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not.

There’s few or none do know me; if they did,

This ship-boy’s semblance hath disguised me quite.

I am afraid, and yet I’ll venture it.

If I get down and do not break my limbs,

I’ll find a thousand shifts to get away.

As good to die and go, as die and stay.

He leaps down

O me! My uncle’s spirit is in these stones.

Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones! I0

He dies Enter the Earls of Pembroke and Salisbury, and Lord Bigot

SALISBURY

Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury.

It is our safety, and we must embrace

This gentle offer of the perilous time.

PEMBROKE

Who brought that letter from the Cardinal?

SALISBURY

The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,

Who’s private with me of the Dauphin’s love;

’Tis much more general than these lines import.

BIGOT

Tomorrow morning let us meet him then.

SALISBURY

Or rather, then set forward, for ’twill be

Two long days’journey, lords, or ere we meet. 20

Enter the Bastard

BASTARD

Once more today well met, distempered lords.

The King by me requests your presence straight.

SALISBURY

The King hath dispossessed himself of us.

We will not line his thin bestainèd cloak

With our pure honours, nor attend the foot 25

That leaves the print of blood where’er it walks.

Return and tell him so; we know the worst.

BASTARD

Whate’er you think, good words I think were best.

SALISBURY

Our griefs and not our manners reason now.

BASTARD

But there is little reason in your grief.

Therefore ’twere reason you had manners now.

PEMBROKE

Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.

BASTARD

’Tis true—to hurt his master, no man else.

SALISBURY

This is the prison.

He sees Arthur’s body

What is he lies here?

PEMBROKE

O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!

The earth had not a hole to hide this deed. 36

SALISBURY

Murder, as hating what himself hath done,

Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.

BIGOT

Or when he doomed this beauty to a grave,

Found it too precious-princely fora grave. 40

SALISBURY (to the Bastard)

Sir Richard, what think you? You have beheld.

Or have you read or heard; or could you think,

Or do you almost think, although you see,

That you do see? Could thought, without this object,

Form such another? This is the very top,

The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,

Of murder’s arms; this is the bloodiest shame,

The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke

That ever wall-eyed wrath or staring rage

Presented to the tears of soft remorse.

PEMBROKE

All murders past do stand excused in this,

And this, so sole and so unmatchable,

Shall give a holiness, a purity,

To the yet-unbegotten sin of times,

And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest, 55

Exampled by this heinous spectacle.

BASTARD

It is a damned and a bloody work,

The graceless action of a heavy hand—

If that it be the work of any hand.

SALISBURY

If that it be the work of any hand? 60

We had a kind of light what would ensue:

It is the shameful work of Hubert’s hand,

The practice and the purpose of the King;

From whose obedience I forbid my soul,

Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life, 65

And breathing to his breathless excellence

The incense of a vow, a holy vow,

Never to taste the pleasures of the world,

Never to be infected with delight,

Nor conversant with ease and idleness, 70

Till I have set a glory to this hand

By giving it the worship of revenge.

PEMBROKE and BIGOT

Our souls religiously confirm thy words.

Enter Hubert

HUBERT

Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you.

Arthur doth live; the King hath sent for you.

SALISBURY

O,he is bold, and blushes not at death!—

Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone I

HUBERT

I am no villain.

SALISBURY Must I rob the law?

He draws his sword

BASTARD

Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.

SALISBURY

Not till I sheathe it in a murderer’s skin.

HUBERT (drawing his sword)

Stand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say!

By heaven, I think my sword’s as sharp as yours.

I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,

Nor tempt the danger of my true defence,

Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget

Your worth, your greatness and nobility.

BIGOT

Out, dunghill! Dar’st thou brave a nobleman?

HUBERT

Not for my life; but yet I dare defend

My innocent life against an emperor.

SALISBURY

Thou art a murderer.

HUBERT Do not prove me so;

Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe’er speaks false,

Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.

PEMBROKE

Cut him to pieces!

BASTARD (drawing his sword) Keep the peace, I say I

SALISBURY

Stand by, or I shall gall you, Falconbridge.

BASTARD

Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury.

If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,

Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,

I’ll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime,

Or I’ll so maul you and your toasting-iron

That you shall think the devil is come from hell. 100

BIGOT

What wilt thou do, renowned Falconbridge,

Second a villain and a murderer?

HUBERT

Lord Bigot, I am none.

BIGOT Who killed this prince?

HUBERT

’Tis not an hour since I left him well.

I honoured him, I loved him, and will weep

My date of life out for his sweet life’s loss.

SALISBURY

Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,

For villainy is not without such rheum,

And he, long traded in it, makes it seem

Like rivers of remorse and innocency. II0

Away with me, all you whose souls abhor

Th’uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house,

For I am stifled with this smell of sin.

BIGOT

Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there.

PEMBROKE

There, tell the King, he may enquire us out. 115

Exeunt Pembroke, Salisbury, and Bigot

BASTARD

Here’s a good world! Knew you of this fair work?

Beyond the infinite and boundless reach

Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death

Art thou damned, Hubert.

HUBERT Do but hear me, sir.

BASTARD Ha! I’ll tell thee what:

Thou’rt damned as black—nay nothing is so black—

Thou art more deep damned than Prince Lucifer;

There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell

As thou shalt be if thou didst kill this child.

HUBERT

Upon my soul—

BASTARD If thou didst but consent

To this most cruel act, do but despair;

And if thou want’st a cord, the smallest thread

That ever spider twisted from her womb

Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam

To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,

Put but a little water in a spoon

And it shall be, as all the ocean,

Enough to stifle such a villain up.

I do suspect thee very grievously.

HUBERT

If I in act, consent, or sin of thought

Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath

Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,

Let hell want pains enough to torture me.

I left him well.

BASTARD Go bear him in thine arms.

I am amazed, methinks, and lose my way

Among the thorns and dangers of this world.

Hubert takes up Arthur in his arms

How easy dost thou take all England up I

From forth this morsel of dead royalty,

The life, the right, and truth of all this realm

Is fled to heaven, and England now is left

To tug and scramble, and to part by th’ teeth

The unowed interest of proud swelling state.

Now for the bare-picked bone of majesty

Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest,

And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace;

Now powers from home and discontents at home

Meet in one line, and vast confusion waits,

As doth a raven on a sick-fall’n beast,

The imminent decay of wrested pomp. 155

Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can

Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child,

And follow me with speed. I’ll to the King.

A thousand businesses are brief in hand,

And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.

Exeunt ⌈severally⌉

5.1 ⌈Flourish.⌉Enter King John and Cardinal Pandolf, with attendants

KING JOHN ⌈giving Pandolf the crown⌉

Thus have I yielded up into your hand

The circle of my glory.

PANDOLF(giving back the crown)Take again

From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,

Your sovereign greatness and authority.

KING JOHN

Now keep your holy word: go meet the French,

And from his Holiness use all your power

To stop their marches ‘fore we are enflamed.

Our discontented counties do revolt,

Our people quarrel with obedience,

Swearing allegiance and the love of soul

To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.

This inundation of mistempered humour

Rests by you only to be qualified.

Then pause not, for the present time’s so sick

That present med’cine must be ministered,

Or overthrow incurable ensues.

PANDOLF

It was my breath that blew this tempest up,

Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope,

But since you are a gentle convertite,

My tongue shall hush again this storm of war

And make fair weather in your blust’ring land.

On this Ascension Day, remember well,

Upon your oath of service to the Pope,

Go I to make the French lay down their arms.

⌈Exeunt all but King John⌉

KING JOHN

Is this Ascension Day Did not the prophet

Say that before Ascension Day at noon

My crown I should give off? Even so I have.

I did suppose it should be on constraint,

But, heaven be thanked, it is but voluntary.

Enter Bastard

BASTARD

All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out

But Dover Castle. London hath received,

Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers.

Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone

To offer service to your enemy;

And wild amazement hurries up and down

The little number of your doubtful friends.

KING JOHN

Would not my lords return to me again

After they heard young Arthur was alive?

BASTARD

They found him dead and cast into the streets,

An empty casket, where the jewel of life

By some damned hand was robbed and ta’en away.

KING JOHN

That villain Hubert told me he did live.

BASTARD

Soon my soul he did, for aught he knew.

But wherefore do you droop? Why look you sad?

Be great in act as you have been in thought.

Let not the world see fear and sad distrust

Govern the motion of a kingly eye.

Be stirring as the time, be fire with fire;

Threaten the threat’ner, and outface the brow

Of bragging horror. So shall inferior eyes,

That borrow their behaviours from the great,

Grow great by your example, and put on

The dauntless spirit of resolution.

Away, and glisten like the god of war

When he intendeth to become the field.

Show boldness and aspiring confidence.

What, shall they seek the lion in his den

And fright him there, and make him tremble there?

O, let it not be said I Forage, and run

To meet displeasure farther from the doors,

And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.

KING JOHN

The legate of the Pope hath been with me,

And I have made a happy peace with him,

And he hath promised to dismiss the powers

Led by the Dauphin.

BASTARD O inglorious league!

Shall we, upon the footing of our land,

Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,

Insinuation, parley, and base truce

To arms invasive? Shall a beardless boy,

A cockered silken wanton, brave our fields

And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,

Mocking the air with colours idly spread,

And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms!

Perchance the Cardinal cannot make your peace,

Or if he do, let it at least be said

They saw we had a purpose of defence.

KING JOHN

Have thou the ordering of this present time.

BASTARD

Away, then, with good courage! ⌈Aside⌉Yet I know

Our party may well meet a prouder foe. Exeunt

5.2 Enter, ⌈marching⌉ in arms, Louis the Dauphin, the Earl off Salisbury, Count Melun, the Earl of Pembroke, and Lord Bigot, with soldiers

LOUIS THE DAUPHIN

My Lord Melun, let this be copied out,

And keep it safe for our remembrance.

Return the precedent to these lords again,

That having our fair order written down,

Both they and we, perusing o’er these notes,

May know wherefore we took the sacrament

And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.

SALISBURY

Upon our sides it never shall be broken.

And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear

A voluntary zealand an unurgéd faith

To your proceedings, yet believe me, Prince,

I am not glad that such a sore of time

Should seek a plaster by contemned revolt,

And heal the inveterate canker of one wound

By making many. O,it grieves my soul

That I must draw this metal from my side

To be a widow-maker! O, and there

Where honourable rescue and defence

Cries out upon the name of Salisbury I

But such is the infection of the time,

That for the health and physic of our right,

We cannot deal but with the very hand

Of stern injustice and confused wrong.

And is’t not pity, O my grieved friends,

That we the sons and children of this isle

Was born to see so sad an hour as this,

Wherein we step after a stranger, march

Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up

Her enemies’ ranks? I must withdraw and weep

Upon the spot of this enforced cause—

To grace the gentry of a land remote,

And follow unacquainted colours here.

What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove;

That Neptune’s arms who clippeth thee about

Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself

And gripple thee unto a pagan shore,

Where these two Christian armies might combine

The blood of malice in a vein of league,

And not to spend it so unneighbourly.

LOUIS THE DAUPHIN

A noble temper dost thou show in this,

And great affections, wrestling in thy bosom,

Doth make an earthquake of nobility.

O, what a noble combat hast thou fought

Between compulsion and a brave respect!

Let me wipe off this honourable dew

That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.

My heart hath melted at a lady’s tears,

Being an ordinary inundation;

But this effusion of such manly drops,

This shower blown up by tempest of the soul,

Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amazed

Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven

Figured quite o’er with burning meteors.

Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,

And with a great heart heave away this storm; 55

Commend these waters to those baby eyes

That never saw the giant world enraged,

Nor met with Fortune other than at feasts,

Full warm of blood, of mirth, of gossiping.

Come, come, for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep

Into the purse of rich prosperity

As Louis himself. So, nobles, shall you all

That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.

⌈A trumpet sounds⌉

And even there methinks an angel spake!

Enter Cardinal Pandolf

Look where the holy legate comes apace,

To give us warrant from the hand of heaven,

And on our actions set the name of right

With holy breath.

PANDOLF Hail, noble prince of France!

The next is this. King John hath reconciled

Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in

That so stood out against the Holy Church,

The great metropolis and See of Rome;

Therefore thy threat’ning colours now wind up,

And tame the savage spirit of wild war,

That like a lion fostered up at hand

It may lie gently at the foot of peace,

And be no further harmful than in show.

LOUIS THE DAUPHIN

Your grace shall pardon me: I will not back.

I am too high-born to be propertied,

To be a secondary at control,

Or useful serving-man and instrument

To any sovereign state throughout the world.

Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars

Between this chastised kingdom and myself,

And brought in matter that should feed this fire;

And now ‘tis far too huge to be blown out

With that same weak wind which enkindled it.

You taught me how to know the face of right,

Acquainted me with interest to this land,

Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;

And come ye now to tell me John hath made

His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?

I, by the honour of my marriage bed,

After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;

And now it is half conquered, must I back

Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?

Am I Rome’s slave? What penny hath Rome borne,

What men provided, what munition sent

To underprop this action? Is’t not I

That undergo this charge? Who else but I,

And such as to my claim are liable,

Sweat in this business and maintain this war?

Have I not heard these islanders shout out

‘Vive le Roi!’as I have banked their towns?

Have I not here the best cards for the game, 105

To win this easy match played for a crown?

And shall I now give o’er the yielded set?

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

PANDOLF

You look but on the outside of this work.

LOUIS THE DAUPHIN

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 culled these fiery spirits from the world

To outlook conquest and to win renown

Even in the jaws of danger and of death.

A trumpet sounds

What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?

Enter the Bastard

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.

PANDOLF

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 breathed,

The youth says well. Now hear our English king,

For thus his royalty doth speak in me.

He is prepared, and reason too he should.

This apish and unmannerly approach,

This harnessed masque and unadvised revel,

This unhaired sauciness and boyish troops,

The King doth smile at, and is well prepared

To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms, 135

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 locked 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 his 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 eyrie towers

To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.

(To the English lords)

And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,

You bloody Neros, ripping up the womb

Of your dear mother England, blush for shame;

For your own ladies and pale-visaged maids

Like Amazons come tripping after drums;

Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,

Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts

To fierce and bloody inclination.

LOUIS THE DAUPHIN

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

We grant thou canst outscold us. Fare thee well: 160

We hold our time too precious to be spent

With such a brabbler.

PANDOLF Give me leave to speak.

BASTARD

No, I will speak.

LouisTHE DAUPHIN 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

An echo with the clamour of thy drum,

And even at hand a drum is ready braced

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-mouthed thunder; for at hand,

Not trusting to this halting legate here,

Whom he hath used rather for sport than need,

Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits

A bare-ribbed Death, whose office is this day

To feast upon whole thousands of the French.

LOUIS THE DAUPHIN

Strike up our drums to find this danger out.

BASTARD

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

⌈Drums beat.⌉ Exeunt the Bastard Fat onedoor⌉, all the rest, ⌈marching, at another door⌉

5.3 Alarum. Enter King John Fat one door and Hubert ⌈at another door⌉

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 Swineshead, to the abbey there.

MESSENGER

Be of good comfort, for the great supply

That was expected by the Dauphin here

Are wrecked 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 Swineshead. To my litter straight;

Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint. Exeunt