QUEEN ELEANOR.
Come to thy grandam, child.
CONSTANCE.
Do, child, go to it grandam, child.
Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.
There’s a good grandam.
ARTHUR.
Good my mother, peace!
I would that I were low laid in my grave.
I am not worth this coil that’s made for me.
QUEEN ELEANOR.
His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.
CONSTANCE.
Now, shame upon you, whe’er she does or no!
His grandam’s wrongs, and not his mother’s shames,
Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,
Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee.
Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib’d
To do him justice, and revenge on you.
QUEEN ELEANOR.
Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!
CONSTANCE.
Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth!
Call not me slanderer. Thou and thine usurp
The dominations, royalties, and rights
Of this oppressed boy. This is thy eldest son’s son,
Infortunate in nothing but in thee.
Thy sins are visited in this poor child;
The canon of the law is laid on him,
Being but the second generation
Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.
KING JOHN.
Bedlam, have done.
CONSTANCE.
I have but this to say,
That he is not only plagued for her sin,
But God hath made her sin and her the plague
On this removed issue, plagued for her
And with her plague; her sin his injury
Her injury the beadle to her sin,
All punish’d in the person of this child,
And all for her. A plague upon her!
QUEEN ELEANOR.
Thou unadvised scold, I can produce
A will that bars the title of thy son.