ARKCODEX
Act V, Scene 1
1Picardy. The English camp before Calais.
2Enter King Edward, with Philippa his Queen, and Derby; Officers, Soldiers, etc.
3King EdwardNo more, Queen Philip, pacify yourself;
Copland, except he can excuse his fault,
Shall find displeasure written in our looks.—
And now unto this proud resisting town:
Soldiers, assault; I will no longer stay,
To be deluded by their false delays;
Put all to sword, and make the spoil your own.
4Trumpets sound to arms. Enter, from the town, six Citizens, in their shirts, and barefoot, with halters about their necks.
5CitizensMercy, King Edward! mercy, gracious lord!
6King EdwardContemptuous villains! call ye now for truce?
Mine ears are stopp’d against your bootless cries:—
Sound, drums; alarum draw, threat’ning swords!
7First CitizenAh, noble prince, take pity on this town,
And hear us, mighty king!
We claim the promise that your highness made;
The two days’ respite is not yet expir’d,
And we are come with willingness to bear
What torturing death or punishment you please,
So that the trembling multitude be sav’d.
8King EdwardMy promise? Well, I do confess as much:
But I do require the chiefest citizens
And men of most account that should submit;
You, peradventure, are but servile grooms,
Or some felonious robbers on the sea,
Whom, apprehended, law would execute,
Albeit severity lay dead in us:
No, no, ye cannot overreach us thus.
9Second CitizenThe sun, dread lord, that in the western fall
Beholds us now low brought through misery,
Did in the orient purple of the morn
Salute our coming forth, when we were known;
Or may our portion be with damned fiends.
10King EdwardIf it be so, then let our covenant stand,
We take possession of the town in peace:
But, for yourselves, look you for no remorse;
But, as imperial justice hath decreed,
Your bodies shall be dragg’d about these walls
And after feel the stroke of quartering steel:
This is your doom;—go, soldiers, see it done.
11QueenAh, be more mild unto these yielding men!
It is a glorious thing, to stablish peace;
And kings approach the nearest unto God,
By giving life and safety unto men.
As thou intendest to be King of France,
So let her people live to call thee king;
For what the sword cuts down or fire hath spoil’d
Is held in reputation none of ours.
12King EdwardAlthough experience teach us this is true,
That peaceful quietness brings most delight
When most of all abuses are controll’d,
Yet, insomuch it shall be known that we
As well can master our affections
As conquer other by the dint of sword,
Philip, prevail; we yield to thy request;
These men shall live to boast of clemency—
And, tyranny, strike terror to thyself.
13CitizensLong live your highness! happy be your reign!
14King EdwardGo, get you hence, return unto the town,
And if this kindness hath deserved your love,
Learn then to reverence Edward as your king.—Exeunt Citizens.
Now, might we hear of our affairs abroad,
We would, till gloomy winter were o’er-spent,
Dispose our men in garrison a while.
But who comes here?
15Enter Copland and King David.
16DerbyCopland, my lord, and David King of Scots.
17King EdwardIs this the proud presumptuous squire o’ the north
That would not yield his prisoner to my queen?
18CoplandI am, my liege, a northern squire, indeed,
But neither proud nor insolent, I trust.
19King EdwardWhat moved thee then to be so obstinate
To contradict our royal queen’s desire?
20CoplandNo wilful disobedience, mighty lord,
But my desert and public law of arms:
I took the king myself in single fight;
And, like a soldier, would be loath to lose
The least pre-eminence that I had won:
And Copland straight upon your highness’ charge
Is come to France, and with a lowly mind
Doth vail the bonnet of his victory.
Receive, dread lord, the custom of my fraught,
The wealthy tribute of my labouring hands;
Which should long since have been surrender’d up,
Had but your gracious self been there in place.
21QueenBut, Copland, thou didst scorn the king’s command,
Neglecting our commission in his name.
22CoplandHis name I reverence, but his person more;
His name shall keep me in allegiance still,
But to his person I will bend my knee.
23King EdwardI pray thee, Philip, let displeasure pass;
This man doth please me and I like his words:
For what is he that will attempt great deeds
And lose the glory that ensues the same?
All rivers have recourse unto the sea;
And Copland’s faith, relation to his king.—
Kneel therefore down; now rise, king Edward’s knight:
And, to maintain thy state, I freely give
Five hundred marks a year to thee and thine.—
24Enter Salisbury.
25Welcome, Lord Salisbury: what news from Britain?
26SalisburyThis, mighty king: the country we have won;
And John de Mountford, regent of that place,
Presents your highness with this coronet,
Protesting true allegiance to your grace.
27King EdwardWe thank thee for thy service, valiant earl;
Challenge our favour, for we owe it thee.
28SalisburyBut now, my lord, as this is joyful news,
So must my voice be tragical again
And I must sing of doleful accidents.
29King EdwardWhat, have our men the overthrow at Poitiers?
Or is our son beset with too much odds?
30SalisburyHe was, my lord: and as my worthless self,
With forty other serviceable knights,
Under safe-conduct of the Dauphin’s seal
Did travel that way, finding him distress’d,
A troop of lances met us on the way,
Surpris’d, and brought us prisoners to the king;
Who, proud of this and eager of revenge,
Commanded straight to cut off all our heads:
And surely we had died, but that the duke,
More full of honour than his angry sire,
Procur’d our quick deliverance from thence:
But, ere we went, “Salute your king,” quoth he,
“Bid him provide a funeral for his son,
To-day our sword shall cut his thread of life;
And, sooner than he thinks, we’ll be with him,
To quittance those displeasures he hath done”:
This said, we passed, not daring to reply;
Our hearts were dead, our looks diffus’d and wan.
Wand’ring, at last we climb’d unto a hill;
From whence, although our grief were much before,
Yet now to see the occasion with our eyes
Did thrice so much increase our heaviness:
For there, my lord, O, there we did descry
Down in a valley how both armies lay.
The French had cast their trenches like a ring;
And every barricado’s open front
Was thick emboss’d with brazen ordinance.
Here stood a battaile of ten thousand horse;
There twice as many pikes, in quadrant-wise:
Here cross-bows and deadly-wounding darts:
And in the midst, like to a slender point
Within the compass of the horizon—
As ’twere a rising bubble in the sea,
A hazel-wand amidst a wood of pines,
Or as a bear fast chain’d unto a stake—
Stood famous Edward, still expecting when
Those dogs of France would fasten on his flesh.
Anon, the death-procuring knell begins:
Off go the cannons, that, with trembling noise,
Did shake the very mountain where they stood;
Then sound the trumpets’ clangour in the air,
The battles join: and, when we could no more
Discern the difference ’twixt the friend and foe,
(So intricate the dark confusion was)
Away we turn’d our wat’ry eyes, with sighs
As black as powder fuming into smoke.
And thus, I fear, unhappy have I told
The most untimely tale of Edward’s fall.
31QueenAh me! is this my welcome into France?
Is this the comfort that I look’d to have
When I should meet with my beloved son?
Sweet Ned, I would thy mother in the sea
Had been prevented of this mortal grief!
32King EdwardContent thee, Philip; ’tis not tears will serve
To call him back if he be taken hence:
Comfort thyself, as I do, gentle queen,
With hope of sharp, unheard-of, dire revenge.—
He bids me to provide his funeral;
And so I will: but all the peers in France
Shall mourners be and weep out bloody tears
Until their empty veins be dry and sere:
The pillars of his hearse shall be his bones;
The mould that covers him, their cities’ ashes;
His knell, the groaning cries of dying men;
And, in the stead of tapers on his tomb,
An hundred fifty towers shall burning blaze,
While we bewail our valiant son’s decease.
33Flourish of Trumpets within. Enter a Herald.
34HeraldRejoice, my lord; ascend the imperial throne!
The mighty and redoubted Prince of Wales,
Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms,
The Frenchman’s terror and his country’s fame,
Triumphant rideth like a Roman peer:
And, lowly at his stirrup, comes afoot
King John of France together with his son
In captive bonds; whose diadem he brings
To crown thee with and to proclaim thee king.
35King EdwardAway with mourning, Philip, wipe thine eyes;—
Sound, trumpets, welcome in Plantagenet!
36A loud flourish. Enter Prince Edward, Audley, Artois, with King John and Philip.
37As things long lost, when they are found again,
So doth my son rejoice his father’s heart,
For whom, even now, my soul was much perplex’d! Embracing the Prince.
38QueenBe this a token to express my joy, Kisses him.
For inward passion will not let me speak.
39Prince EdwardMy gracious father, here receive the gift, Presenting him with King John’s crown.
This wreath of conquest and reward of war,
Got with as mickle peril of our lives
As e’er was thing of price before this day;
Install your highness in your proper right:
And, herewithal, I render to your hands
These prisoners, chief occasion of our strife.
40King EdwardSo, John of France, I see you keep your word.
You promis’d to be sooner with ourself
Than we did think for, and ’tis so indeed:
But, had you done at first as now you do,
How many civil towns had stood untouch’d
That now are turn’d to ragged heaps of stones?
How many people’s lives might’st thou have sav’d
That are untimely sunk into their graves?
41King JohnEdward, recount not things irrevocable;
Tell me what ransom thou requir’st to have.
42King EdwardThy ransom, John, hereafter shall be known.
But first to England thou must cross the seas
To see what entertainment it affords;
Howe’er it falls, it cannot be so bad
As ours hath been since we arriv’d in France.
43King JohnAccursed man! of this I was foretold,
But did misconster what the prophet told.
44Prince EdwardNow, father, this petition Edward makes—
To thee, kneels whose grace hath been his strongest shield,
That, as thy pleasure chose me for the man
To be the instrument to show thy power,
So thou wilt grant, that many princes more,
Bred and brought up within that little isle,
May still be famous for like victories!—
And, for my part, the bloody scars I bear,
And weary nights that I have watch’d in field,
The dangerous conflicts I have often had,
The fearful menaces were proffer’d me,
The heat and cold and what else might displease,
I wish were now redoubled twenty-fold;
So that hereafter ages, when they read
The painful traffic of my tender youth,
Might thereby be inflamed with such resolve
As not the territories of France alone,
But likewise Spain, Turkey, and what countries else
That justly would provoke fair England’s ire,
Might, at their presence, tremble and retire!
45King EdwardHere, English lords, we do proclaim a rest,
An interceasing of our painful arms:
Sheath up your swords, refresh your weary limbs,
Peruse your spoils; and, after we have breath’d
A day or two within this haven-town,
God willing, then for England we’ll be shipp’d;
Where, in a happy hour, I trust, we shall
Arrive, three kings, two princes, and a queen. Flourish. Exeunt omnes.