1    So, by a roaring tempest on the flood,
2    A whole armado of convicted sail
3    Is scatter'd and disjoin'd from fellowship.

4    Courage and comfort! all shall yet go well.

5    What can go well, when we have run so ill?
6    Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?
7    Arthur ta'en prisoner? divers dear friends slain?
8    And bloody England into England gone,
9    O'erbearing interruption, spite of France?

10   What he hath won, that hath he fortified:
11   So hot a speed with such advice disposed,
12   Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,
13   Doth want example: who hath read or heard
14   Of any kindred action like to this?

15   Well could I bear that England had this praise,
16   So we could find some pattern of our shame.
Enter CONSTANCE
17   Look, who comes here! a grave unto a soul;
18   Holding the eternal spirit against her will,
19   In the vile prison of afflicted breath.
20   I prithee, lady, go away with me.

21   Lo, now I now see the issue of your peace.

22   Patience, good lady! comfort, gentle Constance!

23   No, I defy all counsel, all redress,
24   But that which ends all counsel, true redress,
25   Death, death; O amiable lovely death!
26   Thou odouriferous stench! sound rottenness!
27   Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,
28   Thou hate and terror to prosperity,
29   And I will kiss thy detestable bones
30   And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows
31   And ring these fingers with thy household worms
32   And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust
33   And be a carrion monster like thyself:
34   Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smilest
35   And buss thee as thy wife. Misery's love,
36   O, come to me!

37   O fair affliction, peace!

38   No, no, I will not, having breath to cry:
39   O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!
40   Then with a passion would I shake the world;
41   And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy
42   Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice,
43   Which scorns a modern invocation.

44   Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.

45   Thou art not holy to belie me so;
46   I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;
47   My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;
48   Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost:
49   I am not mad: I would to heaven I were!
50   For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
51   O, if I could, what grief should I forget!
52   Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
53   And thou shalt be canonized, cardinal;
54   For being not mad but sensible of grief,
55   My reasonable part produces reason
56   How I may be deliver'd of these woes,
57   And teaches me to kill or hang myself:
58   If I were mad, I should forget my son,
59   Or madly think a babe of clouts were he:
60   I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
61   The different plague of each calamity.

62   Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note
63   In the fair multitude of those her hairs!
64   Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen,
65   Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends
66   Do glue themselves in sociable grief,
67   Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,
68   Sticking together in calamity.

69   To England, if you will.

70   Bind up your hairs.

71   Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?
72   I tore them from their bonds and cried aloud
73   'O that these hands could so redeem my son,
74   As they have given these hairs their liberty!'
75   But now I envy at their liberty,
76   And will again commit them to their bonds,
77   Because my poor child is a prisoner.
78   And, father cardinal, I have heard you say
79   That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:
80   If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
81   For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
82   To him that did but yesterday suspire,
83   There was not such a gracious creature born.
84   But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud
85   And chase the native beauty from his cheek
86   And he will look as hollow as a ghost,
87   As dim and meagre as an ague's fit,
88   And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
89   When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
90   I shall not know him: therefore never, never
91   Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.

92   You hold too heinous a respect of grief.

93   He talks to me that never had a son.

94   You are as fond of grief as of your child.

95   Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
96   Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
97   Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
98   Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
99   Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
100  Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?
101  Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,
102  I could give better comfort than you do.
103  I will not keep this form upon my head,
104  When there is such disorder in my wit.
105  O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
106  My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
107  My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!

108  I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her.

109  There's nothing in this world can make me joy:
110  Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
111  Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;
112  And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste
113  That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.

114  Before the curing of a strong disease,
115  Even in the instant of repair and health,
116  The fit is strongest; evils that take leave,
117  On their departure most of all show evil:
118  What have you lost by losing of this day?

119  All days of glory, joy and happiness.

120  If you had won it, certainly you had.
121  No, no; when Fortune means to men most good,
122  She looks upon them with a threatening eye.
123  'Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost
124  In this which he accounts so clearly won:
125  Are not you grieved that Arthur is his prisoner?

126  As heartily as he is glad he hath him.

127  Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.
128  Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit;
129  For even the breath of what I mean to speak
130  Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,
131  Out of the path which shall directly lead
132  Thy foot to England's throne; and therefore mark.
133  John hath seized Arthur; and it cannot be
134  That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,
135  The misplaced John should entertain an hour,
136  One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest.
137  A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand
138  Must be as boisterously maintain'd as gain'd;
139  And he that stands upon a slippery place
140  Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up:
141  That John may stand, then Arthur needs must fall;
142  So be it, for it cannot be but so.

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

144  You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,
145  May then make all the claim that Arthur did.

146  And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.

147  How green you are and fresh in this old world!
148  John lays you plots; the times conspire with you;
149  For he that steeps his safety in true blood
150  Shall find but bloody safety and untrue.
151  This act so evilly born shall cool the hearts
152  Of all his people and freeze up their zeal,
153  That none so small advantage shall step forth
154  To cheque his reign, but they will cherish it;
155  No natural exhalation in the sky,
156  No scope of nature, no distemper'd day,
157  No common wind, no customed event,
158  But they will pluck away his natural cause
159  And call them meteors, prodigies and signs,
160  Abortives, presages and tongues of heaven,
161  Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.

162  May be he will not touch young Arthur's life,
163  But hold himself safe in his prisonment.

164  O, sir, when he shall hear of your approach,
165  If that young Arthur be not gone already,
166  Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts
167  Of all his people shall revolt from him
168  And kiss the lips of unacquainted change
169  And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath
170  Out of the bloody fingers' ends of John.
171  Methinks I see this hurly all on foot:
172  And, O, what better matter breeds for you
173  Than I have named! The bastard Faulconbridge
174  Is now in England, ransacking the church,
175  Offending charity: if but a dozen French
176  Were there in arms, they would be as a call
177  To train ten thousand English to their side,
178  Or as a little snow, tumbled about,
179  Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin,
180  Go with me to the king: 'tis wonderful
181  What may be wrought out of their discontent,
182  Now that their souls are topful of offence.
183  For England go: I will whet on the king.

184  Strong reasons make strong actions: let us go:
185  If you say ay, the king will not say no.