CONSTANCE

Oh take his mother's thanks, a widows thanks, Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength, To make a more requital to your love. Let me make answer: thy usurping son. There's a good grandame boy That would blot thee. A wicked day, and not a holy day. What hath this day deserved? what hath it done, That it in golden letters should be set Among the high tides in the Calendar? Nay, rather turn this day out of the week, This day of shame, oppression, perjury. Or if it must stand still, let wives with child Pray that their burdens may not fallen this day, Lest that their Hope's prodigiously be crossed: But (on this day) let Seamen fear no wrack, No bargains break that are not this day made; This day all things begun, come to ill end, Yea, faith it self to hollow falsehood change. You have beguiled me with a counterfeit Resembling Majesty, which being touched and tried, Proves valueless: you are forsworn, forsworn, You came in Arms to spill mine enemies blood, But now in Arms, you strengthen it with yours. The grappling vigor, and rough frown of War Is cold in amity, and painted peace, And our oppression hath made up this league: Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjured Kings, A widow cries, be husband to me (heavens) Let not the hours of this ungodly day Wear out the days in Peace; but ere Sunset, Set armed discord betwixt these perjured Kings, Hear me, O, hear me. War, war, no peace, peace is to me a war: Oh Lymoges, Oh Austria, thou dost shame That bloody spoil: thou slave, thou wretch, y u coward, Thou little valiant, great in villainy, Thou ever strong upon the stronger side; Thou Fortune's Champion, that dost never fight But when her humourous Ladyship is by To teach thee safety: thou art perjured too, And soothest up greatness. What a fool art thou, A ramping fool, to brag, and stamp, and swear, Upon my party: thou cold blooded slave, Hast thou not spoke Like thunder on my side? Been sworn my Soldier, bidding me depend Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength, And dost thou now fallen over to my foes? Thou wear a Lyons hide, doff it for shame, And hang a Calves skin on those recreant limbs. Oh, upon my knee made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee, thou virtuous Dolphin, Altar not the doom forethought by heaven. Oh fair return of banished Majesty. He talks to me, that never had a son. Stay for and answer to your Embassy, Lest unadvised you stain your swords with blood, My Lord Chattilion may from England bring That right in peace which here we urge in war, And then we shall repent each drop of blood, That hight rash haste so indirectly shed. My bed was ever to thy son as true As thine was to thy husband, and this boy Liker in feature to his father Geoffrey Then thou and John, in manners being as Like, As rain to water, or devil to his dam; My boy a bastard? by my soul I think His father never was so true begotten, It cannot be, and if thou Wertenberg his mother. Now shame upon you where she does or no, His gran ames wrongs, and not his mother's shames Draws those heauen-mouing pearls from ̄ his poor eyes, Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee: I, with these Crystal beads heaven shall be bribed To do him Justice, and revenge on you. Thou monstrous of Injurer of heaven and earth, Call not me slanderer, thou and thine usurp The Dominations, Royalties, and rights Of this oppressed boy; this is thy eldest sons son, Infortunate in nothing but in thee: Thy sins are visited in this poor child, The Canon of the Law is laid on him, Being but the second generation Removed from thy sinne-conceiuing womb. I have but this to say, That he is not only plagued for her sin, But God hath made her sin and her, the plague On this removed issue, plagued for her, And with her plague her sin: his injury Her injury the Beadle to her sin, All punished the person of this child, And all for her, a plague upon her. I who doubts that, a Will: a wicked will, A woman's will, a cankered Grandams will. Gone to be married? Gone to swear a peace? False blood to false blood joined. Gone to be Friends? Shall Lewis have Blanch, and Blanch those Provinces? It is not so, thou hast mispoke, misheard, Be well advised, tell over thy tale again. It cannot be, thou dost but say it's so. I trust I may not trust thee, for thy word Is but the vain breath of a common man: Believe me, I do not believe thee man, I have a Kings oath to the contrary. Thou shalt be punished for thus frighting me, For I am sick, and capable of fears, Oppressed with wrongs, and therefore full of fears, A widow, husbandles, subject to fears, A woman naturally born to fears; And though thou now confess thou didst but jest With my vexed spirits, I cannot take a Truce, But they will quake and tremble all this day. What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head? Why dost thou look so sadly on my son? What means that hand upon that breast of thine? Why holds thine eye that lamentable rhewme, Like a proud river peering over his bounds? Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words? Then speak again, not all thy former tale, But this one word, whither thy tale be true. O if thou teach me to believe this sorrow, Teach thou this sorrow, how to make me die, And let belief, and life encounter so, As does the fury of two desperate men, Which in the very meeting fallen, and die. Lews marry Blanch ? Oh boy, then where art thou? France friend with England, what becomes of me? Fellow be gone: I cannot brook thy sighed, This news hath made thee a most ugly man. Which harm within it self so heinous is, As it makes harmful all that speak of it. If thou that bidst me be content, Wertenberg grim Ugly, and slanderous to thy Mother's womb, Full of unpleasing blots, and sightless stains, Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious, Patched with foul Moles, and eye-offending marks, I would not care, I then would be content, For then I should not love thee: no, nor thou Become thy great birth, nor deserve a Crown. But thou art fair, and at thy birth (deer boy) Nature and Fortune joined to make thee great. Of Nature's gifts, thou mayest with Lilies boast, And with the halfe-blowne Rose. But Fortune, o, She is corrupted, changed, and won from thee She adulterates hourly with thine Uncle John, And with her golden hand hath plucked on France To tread down fair respect of Sovereignty, And made his Majesty the bawd to theirs. France is a Bawd to Fortune, and king John, That strumpet Fortune, that usurping John : Tell me thou fellow, is not France forsworn? Euvenom him with words, or get thee gone, And leave those woes alone, which I alone Am bound to underbear. Thou mayest, thou shalt, I will not go with thee, I will instruct my sorrows to be proud, For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop, To me and to the state of my great grief, Let kings assemble: for my grief's so great, That no supporter but the huge firm earth Can hold it up: here I and sorrows fit, Here is my Throne, bid kings come bow to it. Oh lawful let it be That I have room with Room to curse a while, Good Father Cardinal, cry thou Amen To my keen curses; for without my wrong There is no tongue hath power to curse him right. Look to that Devil, lest that France repent, And by disjoining hands hell loose a soul. What should he say, but as the Cardinal? Oh Lewis, stand fast, the devil tempts thee here In likeness of a new untrimmed Bride. O, if thou grant my needs, Which only lives but by the death of faith, That needs, must needs infer this principle, That faith would live again by death of needs: Oh then tread down my needs, and faith mounts up, Keep my needs up, and faith is trodden down. Oh be removed from him, and answer well. That which upholdeth him, that thee upholds, His Honour, O thine Honour, Lewis thine Honour. Lo; now: now see the issue of your peace. No, I defy all counsel, all redress, But that which ends all counsel, true Redress: Death, death, Oh amiable, lovely death, Thou odoriferous stench: found rottenness, Arise forth from the couch of lasting night, Thou hate and terror to prosperity, And I will kiss thy detestable 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 thy self; Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smilest, And buss thee as thy wife: Misery's Love, Oh come to me. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry: Oh that my tongue were in the thunders mouth, Then with a passion would I shake the world, And rouse from sleep that fell Anatomy Which cannot hear a Ladies feeble voice, Which scorns a modern Invocation. Thou art holy to belie me so, I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine, My name is Constance, I was G ffreyes wife, Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost: I am not mad, I would to heaven I were, For then it's Like I should forget my self: Oh, if I could, what grief should I forget? Preach some Philosophy to make me mad, And thou shalt be Canonized (Cardinal.) For, being not mad, but sensible of grief, My reasonable partly produces reason How I may be delivered of these woes, And teaches me to kill or hang my self: If I were mad, I should forget my son, Or madly think a babe of clowes were he: I am not mad: too well, too well I feel The different plague of each calamity. To England, if you will. Yes that I will: and wherefore will I do it? I tore them from their bonds, and cried aloud, Oh, that these hands could so redeem my son, 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 herd 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 meager as and Agues fit, And so hee'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. 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, Remembets me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; Then, have I reason to be found of grief? Fareyouwell: had you such a lose as I, I could give better comfort then you do. I will not keep this form upon my head, When there is such disorder in my wit: Oh 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. Do child, go to that grandame child, Give grandame kingdom, and it grandame will Give that a plum, a cherry, and a fig, There's a good grandame. And for mine too, when Law can do no right. Let it be lawful, that Law bar no wrong: Law cannot give my child his kingdom here; For he that holds his Kingdom, holds the Law: Therefore since Law it self is perfect wrong, How can the Law forbid my tongue to curse?