And surely we had died,but that the Duke,More full of honor than his angry sire,Procured 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 past,not daring to reply;
Our hearts were dead,our looks diffused and wan.
Wandering,at last we climed 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,oh,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 embossed with brazen ordinance;Here stood a battaile of ten thousand horse,There twice as many pikes in quadrant wise,Here Crossbows,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 Hasle wand amidst a wood of Pines,Or as a bear fast chained 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'clangor 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 turned our watery 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.
QUEEN PHILLIP.
Ah me,is this my welcome into France?
Is this the comfort that I looked 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!
KING EDWARD.
Content thee,Phillip;tis not tears will serve To call him back,if he be taken hence:
Comfort thy self,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 City 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.
[After a flourish,sounded within,enter an herald.]
HERALD.
Rejoice,my Lord;ascend the imperial throne!
The mighty and redoubted prince of Wales,Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms,The French man'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.
KING EDWARD.
Away with mourning,Phillip,wipe thine eyes;--Sound,Trumpets,welcome in Plantagenet!
[Enter Prince Edward,king John,Phillip,Audley,Artois.]
As 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 perplexed.
QUEEN PHILLIP.
Be this a token to express my joy,[Kisses him.]
For inward passion will not let me speak.
PRINCE EDWARD.
My 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 ere was thing of price before this day;Install your highness in your proper right:
And,herewithall,I render to your hands These prisoners,chief occasion of our strife.
KING EDWARD.
So,John of France,I see you keep your word:
You promised to be sooner with our self Than we did think for,and tis so in deed:
But,had you done at first as now you do,How many civil towns had stood untouched,That now are turned to ragged heaps of stones!
How many people's lives mightst thou have saved,That are untimely sunk into their graves!
KING JOHN.
Edward,recount not things irrevocable;
Tell me what ransom thou requirest to have.
KING EDWARD.
Thy ransom,John,hereafter shall be known:
But first to England thou must cross the seas,To see what entertainment it affords;How ere it falls,it cannot be so bad,As ours hath been since we arrived in France.
KING JOHN.
Accursed man!of this I was foretold,But did misconster what the prophet told.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Now,father,this petition Edward makes To thee,whose grace hath been his strongest shield,That,as thy pleasure chose me for the man To be the instrument to shew 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 watched in field,The dangerous conflicts I have often had,The fearful menaces were proffered 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.
KING EDWARD.
Here,English Lords,we do proclaim a rest,An intercession of our painful arms:
Sheath up your swords,refresh your weary limbs,Peruse your spoils;and,after we have breathed A day or two within this haven town,God willing,then for England we'll be shipped;Where,in a happy hour,I trust,we shall Arrive,three kings,two princes,and a queen.
FINIS.