LEI.  Are you a mother? were you England’s queen? 
Were Henry, Richard, Geoffery, your sons? 
All sons but Richard—­sun of all those sons
And can you let this little meteor,
This ignis fatuus, this same wandering fire,
This goblin of the night, this brand, this spark,
Seem through a lanthorn greater than he is? 
By heaven, you do not well:  by earth, you do not? 
Chester, nor you, nor you, Earl Salisbury;
Ye do not, no, ye do not what ye should.

QUEEN.  Were this bear loose, how he would tear our maws.

CHES.  Pale death and vengeance dwell within his jaws.

SAL.  But we can muzzle him, and bind his paws: 
If King John say we shall, we will indeed.

JOHN.  Do, if you can.

LEI.  It’s well thou hast some fear. 
No, curs! ye have no teeth to bait this bear.[220]
I will not bid mine ensign-bearer wave
My tattered colours in this worthless air,
Which your vile breaths vilely contaminate. 
Bearer,[221] thou’st been my ancient-bearer long,
And borne up Leicester’s bear in foreign lands;
Yet now resign these colours to my hands,
For I am full of grief and full of rage. 
John, look upon me:  thus did Richard take
The coward Austria’s colours in his hand,
And thus he cast them under Acon walls,
And thus he trod them underneath his feet. 
Rich colours, how I wrong ye by this wrong! 
But I will right ye.  Bear[er], take them again,
And keep them ever, ever them maintain: 
We shall have use for them, I hope, ere long.

JOHN.  Dar’st thou attempt this proudly in our sight?

LEI.  What is’t a subject dares, that I dare not?

SAL.  Dare subjects dare, their sovereign being by?

LEI.  O God, that my true sovereign were nigh!

QUEEN.  Leicester, he is.

LEI.  Madam, by God, you lie.

CHES.  Unmanner’d man.

LEI.  A plague of reverence,
Where no regard is had of excellence. [Sound drum. 
But you will quite[222] me now:  I hear your drums: 
Your principality hath stirr’d up men,
And now you think to muzzle up this bear. 
Still they come nearer, but are not the near.

JOHN.  What drums are these?

SAL.  I think, some friends of yours
Prepare a power to resist this wrong.

LEI.  Let them prepare, for Leicester is prepar’d,
And thus he wooes his willing men to fight. 
Soldiers,[223] ye see King Richard’s open wrong;
Richard, that led ye to the glorious East,
And made ye tread upon the blessed land,
Where he, that brought all Christians blessedness,
Was born, lived, wrought his miracles, and died,
From death arose, and then to heaven ascended;
Whose true religious faith ye have defended. 
Ye fought, and Richard taught ye how to fight
Against profane men, following Mahomet;
But, if ye note, they did their kings their right: 
These more than heathen sacrilegious men,
Professing Christ, banish Christ’s champion hence,
Their lawful lord, their home-born sovereign,
With petty quarrels and with slight pretence.