The Complete Historical Plays of William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare
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.
[Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers to Essex.]
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.
[Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE and PHILIP, his bastard Brother.]
What men are you?
BASTARD.
Your faithful subject I, a gentleman
Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,
As I suppose, to Robert Falconbridge,—
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 Falconbridge.
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 despatch’d him in an embassy
To Germany, there with the emperor
To treat of high affairs touching that time.
The 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 deathbed 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 Falconbridge,
And like thy brother,