And stand securely on their battlements,
As in a theatre, whence they gape and point
At your industrious scenes and acts of death.
Your royal presences be rul'd by me;
Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,

Be friends a while, and both conjointly bend
Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town:
By east and west let France and England mount
Their battering cannon, charged to the mouths;
Till their soul-fearing clamours have brawl'd down
The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city:

I'd play incessantly upon these jades,
Even till unfenced desolation

Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.
That done, dissever your united strengths,
And part your mingled colours once again;
Turn face to face, and bloody point to point:
Then, in a moment, fortune shall cull forth
Out of one side her happy minion;

To whom in favour she shall give the day,
And kiss him with a glorious victory.

How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?
Smacks it not something of the policy?

K. John. Now, by the sky that hangs above our

heads,

I like it well;-France, shall we knit our powers,

And lay this Angiers even with the ground;

Then, after, fight who shall be king of it?

Bast. An if thou hast the mettle of a king,

Being wrong'd, as we are, by this peevish town,

Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,

As we will ours, against these saucy walls :
And when that we have dash'd them to the ground,
Why, then defy each other; and, pell-mell,
Make work upon ourselves, for heaven, or hell.

K. Phi. Let it be so:-Say, where will you assault?

K. John. We from the west will send destruction Into this city's bosom.

Aust. I from the north.

K. Phi.

Our thunder from the south,

Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.

Bast. O prudent discipline! From north to south; Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth:

I'll stir them to it :-Come, away, away!

[Aside.

1 Cit. Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe a while to

stay,

And I shall show you peace, and fair-faced league:
Win you this city without stroke, or wound:
Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds,
That here come sacrifices for the field:
Perséver not, but hear me, mighty kings.

K. John. Speak on, with favour; we are bent to

hear.

1 Cit. That daughter there of Spain, the lady

Blanch,

Is near to England; Look upon the years

Of Lewis the Dauphin, and that lovely maid:

If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,

Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?
If zealous love should go in search of virtue,
Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?
If love ambitious sought a match of birth,
Whose veins bound richer blood than lady Blanch?
Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,

Is the young Dauphin every way complete:
If not complete, O say, he is not she;
And she again wants nothing, to name want,
If want it be not, that she is not he :
He is the half part of a blessed man,
Left to be finished by such a she;
And she a fair divided excellence,
Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.

O, two such silver currents, when they join,

Do glorify the banks that bound them in:

And two such shores to two such streams made one,
Two such controlling bounds shall you be, kings,

To these two princes, if you marry them.
This union shall do more than battery can,
To our fast-closed gates; for, at this match,
With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,
The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope,
And give you entrance; but, without this match,
The sea enraged is not half so deaf,

Lions more confident, mountains and rocks

More free from motion; no, not death himself
In mortal fury half so peremptory,

As we to keep this city.

Bast.

Here's a stay,

That shakes the rotten carcase of old death

Out of his rags 20! Here's a large mouth, indeed,
That spits forth death, and mountains, rocks, and seas;
Talks as familiarly of roaring lions,

As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!

What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?

He speaks plain cannon, fire, and smoke, and bounce; He gives the bastinado with his tongue;

Our ears are cudgel'd; not a word of his,

But buffets better than a fist of France:
Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words,
Since I first call'd my brother's father, dad.

Eli. Son, list to this conjunction, make this match;
Give with our niece a dowry large enough :
For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie
Thy now unsur'd assurance to the crown,
That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe
The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.

I see a yielding in the looks of France;

Mark, how they whisper: urge them, while their souls

Are capable of this ambition:

Lest zeal, now melted, by the windy breath
Of soft petitions, pity, and remorse,

Cool and congeal again to what it was.

1 Cit. Why answer not the double majesties

This friendly treaty of our threaten'd town?

K. Phi. Speak England first, that hath been forward first

To speak unto this city: What say you?

K. John. If that the Dauphin there, thy princely

son,

Can in this book of beauty read, I love,

Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen :

For Anjou, and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers,
And all that we upon this side the sea
(Except this city now by us besieg'd,)
Find liable to our crown and dignity,
Shall gild her bridal bed; and make her rich
In titles, honours, and promotions,

As she in beauty, education, blood,

Holds hand with any princess of the world.

K. Phi. What say'st thou, boy? look in the lady's

face.

Lew. I do, my lord, and in her eye I find

A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,

The shadow of myself form'd in her eye;

Which, being but the shadow of your son,

Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow :
I do protest, I never lov'd myself,

Till now infixed I beheld myself,

Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.

[Whispers with Blanch.

Bast. Drawn in the flattering table of her eye!Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow!—

And quarter'd in her heart!—he doth espy

Himself love's traitor: This is pity now,

That hang'd, and drawn, and quarter'd, there should

be,

In such a love, so vile a lout as he.