KING JOHN
Page: 17

Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell!

KING PHILIP.
Let it be so.--Say, where will you assault?

KING JOHN.
We from the west will send destruction
Into this city's bosom.

AUSTRIA.
I from the north.

KING PHILIP.
Our thunder from the south
Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.

BASTARD.
O prudent discipline! From north to south,--
Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth:
I'll stir them to it.[Aside.]--Come, away, away!

FIRST CITIZEN.
Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay,
And I shall show you peace and fair-fac'd league;
Win you this city without stroke or wound;
Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds
That here come sacrifices for the field:
Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.

KING JOHN.
Speak on with favour; we are bent to hear.

FIRST CITIZEN.
That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,
Is niece to England:--look upon the years
Of Louis 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 of, 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