_K. John._ The legate of the pope hath been with me, And I have made a happy peace with him; And he hath promised to dismiss the powers Led by the Dauphin.
_Bast._ O inglorious league! 65 Shall we, upon the footing of our land, Send fair-play orders and make compromise,[570] Insinuation, parley and base truce To arms invasive? shall a beardless boy, A cocker'd silken wanton, brave our fields, 70 And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil, Mocking the air with colours idly spread,[571] And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms: Perchance the cardinal cannot make your peace;[572] Or if he do, let it at least be said 75 They saw we had a purpose of defence.
_K. John._ Have thou the ordering of this present time.
_Bast._ Away, then, with good courage! yet, I know, Our party may well meet a prouder foe. [_Exeunt._
SCENE II. _The_ DAUPHIN'S _Camp at St Edmundsbury_.
_Enter, in arms_, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, _and_ Soldiers.[573]
_Lew._ My Lord Melun, let this be copied out, And keep it safe for our remembrance: Return the precedent to these lords again; That, having our fair order written down, Both they and we, perusing o'er these notes, 5 May know wherefore we took the sacrament And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.
_Sal._ Upon our sides it never shall be broken. And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear A voluntary zeal and an unurged faith[574] 10 To your proceedings; yet believe me, prince, I am not glad that such a sore of time Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,[575] And heal the inveterate canker of one wound By making many. O, it grieves my soul, 15 That I must draw this metal from my side To be a widow-maker! O, and there Where honourable rescue and defence Cries out upon the name of Salisbury![576] But such is the infection of the time, 20 That, for the health and physic of our right, We cannot deal but with the very hand Of stern injustice and confused wrong. And is't not pity, O my grieved friends, That we, the sons and children of this isle, 25 Were born to see so sad an hour as this;[577] Wherein we step after a stranger march[578] Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up Her enemies' ranks,--I must withdraw and weep Upon the spot of this enforced cause,--[579] 30 To grace the gentry of a land remote, And follow unacquainted colours here? What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove! That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about, Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself,[580] 35 And grapple thee unto a pagan shore;[581] Where these two Christian armies might combine The blood of malice in a vein of league,[582] And not to spend it so unneighbourly![583]