| ACT III SCENE IV | The same. KING PHILIP'S tent. | |
| | Enter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, CARDINAL PANDULPH, and Attendants. | |
| KING PHILIP | So, by a roaring tempest on the flood, | |
| | A whole armado of convicted sail | |
| | Is scatter'd and disjoin'd from fellowship. | |
| CARDINAL PANDULPH | Courage and comfort! all shall yet go well. | 5 |
| KING PHILIP | What can go well, when we have run so ill? | |
| | Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost? | |
| | Arthur ta'en prisoner? divers dear friends slain? | |
| | And bloody England into England gone, | |
| | O'erbearing interruption, spite of France? | 10 |
| LEWIS | What he hath won, that hath he fortified: | |
| | So hot a speed with such advice disposed, | |
| | Such temperate order in so fierce a cause, | |
| | Doth want example: who hath read or heard | |
| | Of any kindred action like to this? | 15 |
| KING PHILIP | Well could I bear that England had this praise, | |
| | So we could find some pattern of our shame. | |
| | Enter CONSTANCE | |
| | Look, who comes here! a grave unto a soul; | |
| | Holding the eternal spirit against her will, | |
| | In the vile prison of afflicted breath. | 20 |
| | I prithee, lady, go away with me. | |
| CONSTANCE | Lo, now I now see the issue of your peace. | |
| KING PHILIP | Patience, good lady! comfort, gentle Constance! | |
| CONSTANCE | No, I defy all counsel, all redress, | |
| | But that which ends all counsel, true redress, | 25 |
| | Death, death; O amiable lovely death! | |
| | Thou odouriferous stench! sound rottenness! | |
| | Arise forth from the couch of lasting night, | |
| | Thou hate and terror to prosperity, | |
| | And I will kiss thy detestable bones | 30 |
| | And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows | |
| | And ring these fingers with thy household worms | |
| | And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust | |
| | And be a carrion monster like thyself: | |
| | Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smilest | 35 |
| | And buss thee as thy wife. Misery's love, | |
| | O, come to me! | |
| KING PHILIP | O fair affliction, peace! | |
| CONSTANCE | No, no, I will not, having breath to cry: | |
| | O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth! | 40 |
| | Then with a passion would I shake the world; | |
| | And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy | |
| | Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice, | |
| | Which scorns a modern invocation. | |
| CARDINAL PANDULPH | Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow. | 45 |
| CONSTANCE | Thou art not holy to belie me so; | |
| | I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine; | |
| | My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife; | |
| | Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost: | |
| | I am not mad: I would to heaven I were! | 50 |
| | For then, 'tis like I should forget myself: | |
| | O, if I could, what grief should I forget! | |
| | Preach some philosophy to make me mad, | |
| | And thou shalt be canonized, cardinal; | |
| | For being not mad but sensible of grief, | 55 |
| | My reasonable part produces reason | |
| | How I may be deliver'd of these woes, | |
| | And teaches me to kill or hang myself: | |
| | If I were mad, I should forget my son, | |
| | Or madly think a babe of clouts were he: | 60 |
| | I am not mad; too well, too well I feel | |
| | The different plague of each calamity. | |
| KING PHILIP | Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note | |
| | In the fair multitude of those her hairs! | |
| | Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen, | 65 |
| | Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends | |
| | Do glue themselves in sociable grief, | |
| | Like true, inseparable, faithful loves, | |
| | Sticking together in calamity. | |
| CONSTANCE | To England, if you will. | 70 |
| KING PHILIP | Bind up your hairs. | |
| CONSTANCE | Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it? | |
| | I tore them from their bonds and cried aloud | |
| | 'O that these hands could so redeem my son, | |
| | As they have given these hairs their liberty!' | 75 |
| | But now I envy at their liberty, | |
| | And will again commit them to their bonds, | |
| | Because my poor child is a prisoner. | |
| | And, father cardinal, I have heard you say | |
| | That we shall see and know our friends in heaven: | 80 |
| | If that be true, I shall see my boy again; | |
| | For since the birth of Cain, the first male child, | |
| | To him that did but yesterday suspire, | |
| | There was not such a gracious creature born. | |
| | But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud | 85 |
| | And chase the native beauty from his cheek | |
| | And he will look as hollow as a ghost, | |
| | As dim and meagre as an ague's fit, | |
| | And so he'll die; and, rising so again, | |
| | When I shall meet him in the court of heaven | 90 |
| | I shall not know him: therefore never, never | |
| | Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. | |
| CARDINAL PANDULPH | You hold too heinous a respect of grief. | |
| CONSTANCE | He talks to me that never had a son. | |
| KING PHILIP | You are as fond of grief as of your child. | 95 |
| CONSTANCE | Grief fills the room up of my absent child, | |
| | Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, | |
| | Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, | |
| | Remembers me of all his gracious parts, | |
| | Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; | 100 |
| | Then, have I reason to be fond of grief? | |
| | Fare you well: had you such a loss as I, | |
| | I could give better comfort than you do. | |
| | I will not keep this form upon my head, | |
| | When there is such disorder in my wit. | 105 |
| | O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son! | |
| | My life, my joy, my food, my all the world! | |
| | My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure! | |
| | Exit | |
| KING PHILIP | I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her. | |
| | Exit | |
| LEWIS | There's nothing in this world can make me joy: | 110 |
| | Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale | |
| | Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man; | |
| | And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste | |
| | That it yields nought but shame and bitterness. | |
| CARDINAL PANDULPH | Before the curing of a strong disease, | 115 |
| | Even in the instant of repair and health, | |
| | The fit is strongest; evils that take leave, | |
| | On their departure most of all show evil: | |
| | What have you lost by losing of this day? | |
| LEWIS | All days of glory, joy and happiness. | 120 |
| CARDINAL PANDULPH | If you had won it, certainly you had. | |
| | No, no; when Fortune means to men most good, | |
| | She looks upon them with a threatening eye. | |
| | 'Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost | |
| | In this which he accounts so clearly won: | 125 |
| | Are not you grieved that Arthur is his prisoner? | |
| LEWIS | As heartily as he is glad he hath him. | |
| CARDINAL PANDULPH | Your mind is all as youthful as your blood. | |
| | Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit; | |
| | For even the breath of what I mean to speak | 130 |
| | Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub, | |
| | Out of the path which shall directly lead | |
| | Thy foot to England's throne; and therefore mark. | |
| | John hath seized Arthur; and it cannot be | |
| | That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins, | 135 |
| | The misplaced John should entertain an hour, | |
| | One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest. | |
| | A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand | |
| | Must be as boisterously maintain'd as gain'd; | |
| | And he that stands upon a slippery place | 140 |
| | Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up: | |
| | That John may stand, then Arthur needs must fall; | |
| | So be it, for it cannot be but so. | |
| LEWIS | But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall? | |
| CARDINAL PANDULPH | You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife, | 145 |
| | May then make all the claim that Arthur did. | |
| LEWIS | And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did. | |
| CARDINAL PANDULPH | How green you are and fresh in this old world! | |
| | John lays you plots; the times conspire with you; | |
| | For he that steeps his safety in true blood | 150 |
| | Shall find but bloody safety and untrue. | |
| | This act so evilly born shall cool the hearts | |
| | Of all his people and freeze up their zeal, | |
| | That none so small advantage shall step forth | |
| | To cheque his reign, but they will cherish it; | 155 |
| | No natural exhalation in the sky, | |
| | No scope of nature, no distemper'd day, | |
| | No common wind, no customed event, | |
| | But they will pluck away his natural cause | |
| | And call them meteors, prodigies and signs, | 160 |
| | Abortives, presages and tongues of heaven, | |
| | Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John. | |
| LEWIS | May be he will not touch young Arthur's life, | |
| | But hold himself safe in his prisonment. | |
| CARDINAL PANDULPH | O, sir, when he shall hear of your approach, | 165 |
| | If that young Arthur be not gone already, | |
| | Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts | |
| | Of all his people shall revolt from him | |
| | And kiss the lips of unacquainted change | |
| | And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath | 170 |
| | Out of the bloody fingers' ends of John. | |
| | Methinks I see this hurly all on foot: | |
| | And, O, what better matter breeds for you | |
| | Than I have named! The bastard Faulconbridge | |
| | Is now in England, ransacking the church, | 175 |
| | Offending charity: if but a dozen French | |
| | Were there in arms, they would be as a call | |
| | To train ten thousand English to their side, | |
| | Or as a little snow, tumbled about, | |
| | Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin, | 180 |
| | Go with me to the king: 'tis wonderful | |
| | What may be wrought out of their discontent, | |
| | Now that their souls are topful of offence. | |
| | For England go: I will whet on the king. | |
| LEWIS | Strong reasons make strong actions: let us go: | 185 |
| | If you say ay, the king will not say no. | |
| | Exeunt | |
