Page 173 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

ACT III IT

Scene I IT

[The French King’s Pavilion.]

Enter Constance, Arthur, and Salisbury.

CONSTANCE
Gone to be married! gone to swear a peace!
False blood to false blood join’d! gone to be friends!
Shall Lewis have Blanche, and Blanche those provinces?

It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard;
Be well advis’d, tell o’er thy tale again. [5]
It cannot be; thou dost but say ’tis so.
I trust I may not trust thee, for thy word

Is but the vain breath of a common man;
Believe me, I do not believe thee, man:
I have a king’s oath to the contrary. [10]
Thou shalt be punish’d for thus frighting me,

For I am sick and capable of fears,
Oppress’d with wrongs and therefore full of fears,
A widow, husbandless, subject to fears,
A woman, naturally born to fears; [15]

And though thou now confess thou didst but jest
With my vex’d spirits I cannot take a truce,
But they will quake and tremble all this day.
What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?

Why dost thou look so sadly on my son? [20]
What means that hand upon that breast of thine?
Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,
Like a proud river peering o’er his bounds?

Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?
Then speak again; not all thy former tale, [25]