Page 166 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

HUBERT

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: [420]
Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings!

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

HUBERT
That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanche,
Is near to England: look upon the years

Of Lewis the Dolphin and that lovely maid: [425]
If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,
Where should he find it fairer than in Blanche?

If zealous love should go in search of virtue,
Where should he find it purer than in Blanche?
If love ambitious sought a match of birth, [430]
Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanche?
Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,

Is the young Dolphin every way complete:
If not complete of, say he is not she;
And she again wants nothing, to name want, [435]

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 as she;
And she a fair divided excellence,
Whose fulness of perfection lies in him. [440]

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. [445]
This union shall do more than battery can
To our fast-closed gates; for at this match,
With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,