King John - Уильям Шекспир 3 стр.

  FRENCH HERALD. You men of Angiers, open wide your gates
    And let young Arthur, Duke of Britaine, in,
    Who by the hand of France this day hath made
    Much work for tears in many an English mother,
    Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground;
    Many a widow's husband grovelling lies,
    Coldly embracing the discoloured earth;
    And victory with little loss doth play
    Upon the dancing banners of the French,
    Who are at hand, triumphantly displayed,
    To enter conquerors, and to proclaim
    Arthur of Britaine England's King and yours.

  ENGLISH HERALD. Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells:
    King John, your king and England's, doth approach,
    Commander of this hot malicious day.
    Their armours that march'd hence so silver-bright
    Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood.
    There stuck no plume in any English crest
    That is removed by a staff of France;
    Our colours do return in those same hands
    That did display them when we first march'd forth;
    And like a jolly troop of huntsmen come
    Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,
    Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes.
    Open your gates and give the victors way.
  CITIZEN. Heralds, from off our tow'rs we might behold
    From first to last the onset and retire
    Of both your armies, whose equality
    By our best eyes cannot be censured.
    Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answer'd blows;
    Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted power;
    Both are alike, and both alike we like.
    One must prove greatest. While they weigh so even,
    We hold our town for neither, yet for both.

  KING JOHN. France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?
    Say, shall the current of our right run on?
    Whose passage, vex'd with thy impediment,
    Shall leave his native channel and o'erswell
    With course disturb'd even thy confining shores,
    Unless thou let his silver water keep
    A peaceful progress to the ocean.
  KING PHILIP. England, thou hast not sav'd one drop of blood
    In this hot trial more than we of France;
    Rather, lost more. And by this hand I swear,
    That sways the earth this climate overlooks,
    Before we will lay down our just-borne arms,
    We'll put thee down, 'gainst whom these arms we bear,
    Or add a royal number to the dead,
    Gracing the scroll that tells of this war's loss
    With slaughter coupled to the name of kings.
  BASTARD. Ha, majesty! how high thy glory tow'rs
    When the rich blood of kings is set on fire!
    O, now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel;
    The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs;

  KING JOHN. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?
  CHATILLON. Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France
    In my behaviour to the majesty,
    The borrowed majesty, of England here.
  ELINOR. A strange beginning- 'borrowed majesty'!
  KING JOHN. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.
  CHATILLON. Philip of France, in right and true behalf
    Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,
    Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
    To this fair island and the territories,
    To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
    Desiring thee to lay aside the sword
    Which sways usurpingly these several titles,
    And put the same into young Arthur's hand,
    Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.
  KING JOHN. What follows if we disallow of this?
  CHATILLON. The proud control of fierce and bloody war,
    To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.
  KING JOHN. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,
    Controlment for controlment- so answer France.
  CHATILLON. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth-
    The farthest limit of my embassy.
  KING JOHN. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace;
    Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
    For ere thou canst report I will be there,
    The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.
    So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath
    And sullen presage of your own decay.
    An honourable conduct let him have-
    Pembroke, look to 't. Farewell, Chatillon.

  ELINOR. What now, my son! Have I not ever said
    How that ambitious Constance would not cease
    Till she had kindled France and all the world
    Upon the right and party of her son?
    This might have been prevented and made whole
    With very easy arguments of love,
    Which now the manage of two kingdoms must
    With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.
  KING JOHN. Our strong possession and our right for us!
  ELINOR. Your strong possession much more than your right,
    Or else it must go wrong with you and me;
    So much my conscience whispers in your ear,
    Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear.

  ESSEX. My liege, here is the strangest controversy
    Come from the country to be judg'd by you
    That e'er I heard. Shall I produce the men?
  KING JOHN. Let them approach. Exit
SHERIFF
    Our abbeys and our priories shall pay
    This expedition's charge.

    What men are you?
  BASTARD. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman
    Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,
    As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge-
    A soldier by the honour-giving hand
    Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.
  KING JOHN. What art thou?
  ROBERT. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.
  KING JOHN. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?
    You came not of one mother then, it seems.
  BASTARD. Most certain of one mother, mighty king-
    That is well known- and, as I think, one father;
    But for the certain knowledge of that truth
    I put you o'er to heaven and to my mother.
    Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.
  ELINOR. Out on thee, rude man! Thou dost shame thy mother,
    And wound her honour with this diffidence.
  BASTARD. I, madam? No, I have no reason for it-
    That is my brother's plea, and none of mine;
    The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out
    At least from fair five hundred pound a year.
    Heaven guard my mother's honour and my land!
  KING JOHN. A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,
    Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?
  BASTARD. I know not why, except to get the land.
    But once he slander'd me with bastardy;
    But whe'er I be as true begot or no,
    That still I lay upon my mother's head;
    But that I am as well begot, my liege-
    Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me! -
    Compare our faces and be judge yourself.
    If old Sir Robert did beget us both
    And were our father, and this son like him-
    O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee
    I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!
  KING JOHN. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!
  ELINOR. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;
    The accent of his tongue affecteth him.
    Do you not read some tokens of my son
    In the large composition of this man?
  KING JOHN. Mine eye hath well examined his parts
    And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,
    What doth move you to claim your brother's land?
  BASTARD. Because he hath a half-face, like my father.
    With half that face would he have all my land:
    A half-fac'd groat five hundred pound a year!
  ROBERT. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,
    Your brother did employ my father much-
  BASTARD. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:
    Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother.
  ROBERT. And once dispatch'd him in an embassy
    To Germany, there with the Emperor
    To treat of high affairs touching that time.
    Th' advantage of his absence took the King,
    And in the meantime sojourn'd at my father's;
    Where how he did prevail I shame to speak-
    But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores
    Between my father and my mother lay,
    As I have heard my father speak himself,
    When this same lusty gentleman was got.
    Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd
    His lands to me, and took it on his death
    That this my mother's son was none of his;
    And if he were, he came into the world
    Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.
    Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,
    My father's land, as was my father's will.
  KING JOHN. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate:
    Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him,
    And if she did play false, the fault was hers;
    Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands
    That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,
    Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,
    Had of your father claim'd this son for his?
    In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept
    This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;
    In sooth, he might; then, if he were my brother's,
    My brother might not claim him; nor your father,
    Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes:
    My mother's son did get your father's heir;
    Your father's heir must have your father's land.
  ROBERT. Shall then my father's will be of no force
    To dispossess that child which is not his?
  BASTARD. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,
    Than was his will to get me, as I think.
  ELINOR. Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge,
    And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,
    Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,
    Lord of thy presence and no land beside?
  BASTARD. Madam, an if my brother had my shape
    And I had his, Sir Robert's his, like him;
    And if my legs were two such riding-rods,
    My arms such eel-skins stuff'd, my face so thin
    That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose
    Lest men should say 'Look where three-farthings goes!'
    And, to his shape, were heir to all this land-
    Would I might never stir from off this place,
    I would give it every foot to have this face!
    I would not be Sir Nob in any case.
  ELINOR. I like thee well. Wilt thou forsake thy fortune,
    Bequeath thy land to him and follow me?
    I am a soldier and now bound to France.
  BASTARD. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance.
    Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,
    Yet sell your face for fivepence and 'tis dear.
    Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.
  ELINOR. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.
  BASTARD. Our country manners give our betters way.
  KING JOHN. What is thy name?
  BASTARD. Philip, my liege, so is my name begun:
    Philip, good old Sir Robert's wife's eldest son.
  KING JOHN. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou
bearest:
    Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great-
    Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet.
  BASTARD. Brother by th' mother's side, give me your hand;
    My father gave me honour, yours gave land.
    Now blessed be the hour, by night or day,
    When I was got, Sir Robert was away!
  ELINOR. The very spirit of Plantagenet!
    I am thy grandam, Richard: call me so.
  BASTARD. Madam, by chance, but not by truth; what though?
    Something about, a little from the right,
    In at the window, or else o'er the hatch;
    Who dares not stir by day must walk by night;
    And have is have, however men do catch.
    Near or far off, well won is still well shot;
    And I am I, howe'er I was begot.
  KING JOHN. Go, Faulconbridge; now hast thou thy desire:
    A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.
    Come, madam, and come, Richard, we must speed
    For France, for France, for it is more than need.
  BASTARD. Brother, adieu. Good fortune come to thee!
    For thou wast got i' th' way of honesty.

    A foot of honour better than I was;
    But many a many foot of land the worse.
    Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.
    'Good den, Sir Richard!'-'God-a-mercy, fellow!'
    And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter;
    For new-made honour doth forget men's names:
    'Tis too respective and too sociable
    For your conversion. Now your traveller,
    He and his toothpick at my worship's mess-
    And when my knightly stomach is suffic'd,
    Why then I suck my teeth and catechize
    My picked man of countries: 'My dear sir,'
    Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin
    'I shall beseech you'-That is question now;
    And then comes answer like an Absey book:
    'O sir,' says answer 'at your best command,
    At your employment, at your service, sir!'
    'No, sir,' says question 'I, sweet sir, at yours.'
    And so, ere answer knows what question would,
    Saving in dialogue of compliment,
    And talking of the Alps and Apennines,
    The Pyrenean and the river Po-
    It draws toward supper in conclusion so.
    But this is worshipful society,
    And fits the mounting spirit like myself;
    For he is but a bastard to the time
    That doth not smack of observation-
    And so am I, whether I smack or no;
    And not alone in habit and device,
    Exterior form, outward accoutrement,
    But from the inward motion to deliver
    Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth;
    Which, though I will not practise to deceive,
    Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;
    For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.
    But who comes in such haste in riding-robes?
    What woman-post is this? Hath she no husband
    That will take pains to blow a horn before her?