Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,
Doth want example: who hath read or heard
Of any kindred action like to this?

K. Phi. 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.

I prithee, lady, go away with me.

Const. Lo, now! now see the issue of your
peace.

K. Phi. Patience, good lady! comfort, gentle
Constance !

Const. No, I defy all counsel, all redress,
But that which ends all counsel, true redress,
Death, death; O amiable lovely death!
Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!
Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,
Thou hate and terror to prosperity,
And I will kiss thy détestable bones
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,
And buss thee as thy wife. Misery's love,

O, come to me!

K. Phi.

O fair affliction, peace!

Const. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry: O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth! Then with a passion would I shake the world; And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy

40. anatomy, skeleton.

20

4 30

40

Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice,

Which scorns a modern invocation.

;

Pand. Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.
Const. 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!
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 canónized, cardinal;
For being not mad but sensible of grief,
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:
I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity.
K. Phi. Bind up those tresses.

I note

O, what love

In the fair multitude of those her hairs!

Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen,

Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends
Do glue themselves in sociable grief,

Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,

Sticking together in calamity.

Const. To England, if you will.

K. Phi.

Bind up your hairs.

Const. 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,

42. modern, ordinary.
58. a babe of clouts, a doll of

rags.

60. plague, torment.

70

60

50

As they have given these hairs their liberty!'
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:

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
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
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.

Pand. You hold too heinous a respect of grief.

Const. He talks to me that never had a son.
K. Phi. You are as fond of grief as of your
child.

Const. 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;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?
Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,

80. suspire, draw his (first) breath.

85. dim, faded, colourless. 90. You hold too heinous a

80

90

respect of grief, you take a too hateful view of grief, sinfully think too much of it.

96. Remembers, reminds.

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.
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.

K. Phi. I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her. [Exit. Lew. There's nothing in this world can make me joy :

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.
Pand. Before the curing of a strong disease,
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?

Lew. All days of glory, joy and happiness. Pand. 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:
Are not you grieved that Arthur is his prisoner ?
Lew. As heartily as he is glad he hath him.
Pand. 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

101. this form, i.e. the usual arrangement of the hair.

110. world's; Pope's emendation for Ff' words.'

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. 130
John hath seized Arthur; and it cannot be
That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,
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
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.

Lew. But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall?

Pand. You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,

May then make all the claim that Arthur did.

Lew. And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.
Pand. 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

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 check his reign, but they will cherish it;
No natural exhalation in the sky,

No scope of nature, no distemper'd day,
No common wind, no customèd event,

128. rub, obstacle.

138. Makes nice of, scruples

to seize.

153. exhalation, meteor.
154. No scope of nature, no

140

150

effect produced within the limits of nature, no 'natural phenomenon.'

154. distemper'd, troubled, stormy.