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The Same. A Room in the Palace. | |
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Enter KING JOHN, PANDULPH with the crown, and Attendants. | |
| K. John. Thus have I yielded up into your hand | |
| The circle of my glory. | |
| Pand. [Giving JOHN the crown.] Take again | 5 |
| From this my hand, as holding of the pope, | |
| Your sovereign greatness and authority. | |
| K. 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 inflam’d. | 10 |
| 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 mistemper’d humour | 15 |
| Rests by you only to be qualified: | |
| Then pause not; for the present time’s so sick, | |
| That present medicine must be minister’d, | |
| Or overthrow incurable ensues. | |
| Pand. It was my breath that blew this tempest up | 20 |
| 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 blustering land. | |
| On this Ascension-day, remember well, | 25 |
| Upon your oath of service to the pope, | |
| Go I to make the French lay down their arms. [Exit. | |
| K. 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: | 30 |
| I did suppose it should be on constraint; | |
| But, heaven be thank’d, it is but voluntary. | |
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Enter the BASTARD. | |
| Bast. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out | |
| But Dover Castle: London hath receiv’d, | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| K. John. Would not my lords return to me again | |
| After they heard young Arthur was alive? | |
| Bast. They found him dead and cast into the streets, | |
| An empty casket, where the jewel of life | |
| By some damn’d hand was robb’d and ta’en away. | 45 |
| K. John. That villain Hubert told me he did live. | |
| Bast. So, on 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 | 50 |
| Govern the motion of a kingly eye: | |
| Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire; | |
| Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow | |
| Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes, | |
| That borrow their behaviours from the great, | 55 |
| Grow great by your example and put on | |
| The dauntless spirit of resolution. | |
| Away! and glister like the god of war | |
| When he intendeth to become the field: | |
| Show boldness and aspiring confidence. | 60 |
| What! shall they seek the lion in his den | |
| And fright him there? and make him tremble there? | |
| O! let it not be said. Forage, and run | |
| To meet displeasure further from the doors, | |
| And grapple with him ere he comes so nigh. | 65 |
| K. John. The legate of the pope hath been with me, | |
| And I have made a happy peace with him; | |
| And he hath promis’d to dismiss the powers | |
| Led by the Dauphin. | |
| Bast. O inglorious league! | 70 |
| 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 cocker’d silken wanton, brave our fields, | 75 |
| And flesh his spirit in a war-like 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 | 80 |
| They saw we had a purpose of defence. | |
| K. John. Have thou the ordering of this present time. | |
| Bast. Away then, with good courage! yet, I know, | |
| Our party may well meet a prouder foe. [Exeunt. | |
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