Page 230 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

[Trumpet sounds.]
What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?

Enter the Bastard, attended.

BASTARD
According to the fair-play of the world,
Let me have audience; I am sent to speak:

My holy lord of Milan, from the king [120]
I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;
And, as you answer, I do know the scope
And warrant limited unto my tongue.

PANDULPH
The Dolphin is too wilful-opposite,

And will not temporize with my entreaties; [125]
He flatly says he’ll not lay down his arms.

BASTARD
By all the blood that ever fury breath’d,
The youth says well. Now hear our English king,

For thus his royalty doth speak in me:
He is prepar’d, and reason too he should − [130]
This apish and unmannerly approach,
This harness’d masque and unadvised revel,

This unhair’d sauciness and boyish troops,
The king doth smile at; and is well prepar’d
To whip this dwarfish war, this pigmy arms, [135]
From out the circle of his territories. −

That hand which had the strength, even at your door,
To cudgel you and make you take the hatch,
To dive like buckets in concealed wells,
To crouch in litter of your stable planks, [140]

To lie like pawns lock’d up in chests and trunks,
To hug with swine, to seek sweet safety out
In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake
Even at the crying of your nation’s crow,

Thinking this voice an armed Englishman; [145]