Scene II.

KING JOHN.

SCENE II.-The same. A room of state in the Which for our goods we do no further ask,
palace. Enter King John, crowned; Pembroke, Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
Salisbury, and other lords. The king takes his Counts it your weal, he have his liberty.
state.

K. John. Here once again we sit, once again
crown'd,

And look'd upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.
Pem. This once again, but that your highness
pleas'd,

Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before,
And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off;
The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt;
Fresh expectation troubled not the land,
With any long'd-for change, or better state.

Sal. Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
To guard' a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,'
To throw a perfume on the violet,

To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,2
Is wasteful, and ridiculous excess.

Pem. But that your royal pleasure must be done,
This act is as an ancient tale new told;
And, in the last repeating, troublesome,
Being urged at a time unseasonable.

Sal. In this, the antique and well-noted face
Of plain old form is much disfigured:
And, like a shifted wind unto a sail,

It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about;
Startles and frights consideration;
Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected,
For putting on so new a fashion'd robe.

Pem. When workmen strive to do better than
well,

They do confound their skill in covetousness:3
And, oftentimes, excusing of a fault,

Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse;
As patches, set upon a little breach,
Discredit more in hiding of the fault,
Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.
Sal. To this effect, before you were new-crown'd,
We breath'd our counsel: but it pleas'd your high-

ness

To overbear it; and we are all well pleas'd;
Since all and every part of what we would,
Doth make a stand at what your highness will.

K. John. Some reasons of this double coronation
I have possess'd you with, and think them strong;
And more, more strong (when lesser is my fear,)
I shall indue you with: Meantime, but ask
What you would have reform'd, that is not well;
And well shall you perceive, how willingly
I will both hear and grant you your requests.

Pem. Then I, (as one that am the tongue of these,
To sound the purposes of all their hearts,)
Both for myself, and them, (but, chief of all,
Your safety, for the which myself and them
Bend their best studies,) heartily request
The enfranchisements of Arthur; whose restraint
Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent,
To break into this dangerous argument,
If, what in rest you have, in right you hold,
Why then your fears (which, as they say, attend
The steps of wrong,) should move you to mew up
Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days
With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth
The rich advantage of good exercise?
That the time's enemies may not have this
To grace occasions, let it be our suit,
That you have bid us ask his liberty;

(2) Decorate.
(1) Lace.
(3) Desire of excelling.

(4) Publish.

K. John. Let it be so; I do commit his youth

Enter Hubert.

To your direction.-Hubert, what news with you?
Pem. This is the man should do the bloody deed;
He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine:
The image of a wicked heinous fault
Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his
Does show the mood of a much-troubled breast;
And I do fearfully believe, 'tis done,
What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.

Sal. The colour of the king doth come and go,
Between his purpose and his conscience,
Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set:
His passion is so ripe, it needs must break.
Pem. And, when it breaks, I fear, will issue
thence

The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.
K. John. We cannot hold mortality's strong
hand:-
:-

Good lords, although my will to give is living,
The suit which you demand is gone and dead:
He tells us, Arthur is deceas'd to-night.

Sal. Indeed, we fear'd, his sickness was past cure.
Pem. Indeed we heard how near his death he was,
Before the child himself felt he was sick :
This must be answer'd, either here, or hence.
K. John. Why do you bend such solemn brows

on me?

Think you, I bear the shears of destiny?
Have I commandment on the pulse of life?

Sal. It is apparent foul play; and 'tis shame,
That greatness should so grossly offer it:
So thrive it in your game! and so farewell!

Pem. Stay yet, lord Salisbury; I'll go with thee,
And find the inheritance of this poor child,
His little kingdom of a forced grave.
That blood, which ow'd the breath of all this isle,
Three foot of it doth hold; Bad world the while!
This must not be thus borne: this will break out
To all our sorrows, and ere long, I doubt.

[Exeunt Lords.
K. John. They burn in indignation; I repent;
There is no sure foundation set on blood;
No certain life achiev'd by others' death.-
Enter a Messenger.

A fearful eye thou hast; Where is that blood,
That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?

So foul a sky clears not without a storm:
Pour down thy weather:-How goes all in France?
Mess. From France to England.-Never such a
power"

For any foreign preparation,
Was levied in the body of a land!

The copy of your speed is learn'd by them;
For, when you should be told they do prepare,
The tidings come, that they are all arriv'd.

K. John. O, where hath our intelligence been

drunk?

Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care;
That such an army could be drawn in France,
And she not hear of it?

My liege, her ear
Mess.
Is stopp'd with dust; the first of April, died
Your noble mother: And, as I hear, my lord,
The lady Constance in a frenzy died

Three days before: but this from rumour's tongue
I idly heard; if true, or false, I know not.

K. John. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion!
O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd
My discontented peers!-What! mother dead?
How wildly then walks my estate in France !-
Under whose conduct came those powers of France,
That thou for truth giv'st out, are landed here?
Mess. Under the dauphin.

Enter the Bastard, and Peter of Pomfret.
K. John.
Thou hast made me giddy
With these ill tidings.-Now, what says the world
To your proceedings? do not seek to stuff
My head with more ill news, for it is full.

Bast. But, if you be afeard to hear the worst,
Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head."
K. John. Bear with me, cousin; for I was amaz'd'
Under the tide but now I breathe again
Aloft the flood; and can give audience
To any tongue, speak it of what it will.

Bast. How I have sped among the clergymen,
The sums I have collected shall express.
But, as I travelled hither through the land,
I find the people strangely fantasied;
Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams;
Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear:
And here's a prophet, that I brought with me
From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found
With many hundreds treading on his heels;
To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,
That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon,
Your highness should deliver up your crown.
K. John. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst

thou so?

Peter. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.
K. John. Hubert, away with him; imprison him;
And on that day, at noon, whereon he says
I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd:
Deliver him to safety, and return,
For I must use thee.-O my gentle cousin,
[Exit Hubert with Peter.
Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd ?
Bast. The French, my lord; men's mouths are
full of it:

Besides, I met lord Bigot, and lord Salisbury,
(With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,)
And others more, going to seek the grave
Of Arthur, who, they say, is kill'd to-night
On your suggestion.

K. John.

Gentle kinsman, go,
And thrust thyself into their companies:
I have a way to win their loves again;
Bring them before me.

Bast.

I will seek them out.

K. John. Nay, but make haste; the better foot
before.

O, let me have no subject enemies,
When adverse foreigners affright my towns
With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!
Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels;
And fly, like thought, from them to me again.
Bast. The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.
K. John. Spoke like a sprightful noble gentle-
[Exit.

man.

Go after him; for he, perhaps, shall need
Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;
And be thou he.
Mess. With all my heart, my liege. [Exit.
K. John. My mother dead!

Re-enter Hubert.

Hub. My lord, they say, five moons were seen to-night:

(1) Sturmed, confounded.

Act IV.

Old men, and bedlams,

Do prophesy upon it dangerously:
Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths:
And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
And he, that speaks, doth gripe the hearer's wrist;
And whisper one another in the ear;
Whilst he, that hears, makes fearful action,
With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling

eves.

I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
Standing on slippers (which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contráry feet,)
Told of a many thousand warlike French,
That were embattled, and rank'd in Kent:
Another lean unwash'd artificer

Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.

K. John. Why seek'st thou to possess me with
these fears?

Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?
Thy hand hath murder'd him: I had mighty cause
To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.
Hub. Had none, my lord! why, did you not pro-

voke me?

By slaves that take their humours for a warrant
K. John. It is the curse of kings, to be attended
And, on the winking of authority,
To break within the bloody house of life:

To understand a law; to know the meaning
Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns
More upon humour than advis'd respect.3

Hub. Here is your hand and seal for what I
did.

K. John. O, when the last account 'twixt heaven
and earth

Is to be made, then shall this hand and scal
Witness against us to damnation!
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds,
Makes deeds ill done! Hadest not thou been by,
A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,
Quoted, and sign'd, to do a deed of shame,
This murder had not come into my mind:
But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspéct,
Finding thee fit for bloody villany,
Apt, liable, to be employ'd in danger,

I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;
And thou, to be endeared to a king,

Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.
Hub. My lord,-

K. John. Hadst thou but shook thy head, or
made a pause,

When I spake darkly what I purposed;
Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,
Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break
As bid me tell my tale in express words;
And those thy fears might have wrought fears in
off,

me:

But thou didst understand me by my signs,
And didst in signs again parley with sin;
And, consequently, thy rude hand to act
Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,

The deed, which both our tongues held vile to

name.

Out of my sight, and never see me more!
My nobles leave me; and my state is brav'd,

(2) Custody.

Scene III.

KING JOHN.

Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers:
Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,

This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,
Hostility and civil tumult reigns

Between my conscience, and my cousin's death.
Hub. Arm you against your other enemies,
I'll make a peace between your soul and you.
Young Arthur is alive: This hand of mine
Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.
Within this bosom never enter'd yet

The dreadful motion of a murd'rous thought,
And you have slander'd nature in my form;
Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,

Is yet the cover of a fairer mind

Than to be butcher of an innocent child.

Pem. Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.
Bast. 'Tis true; to hurt his master, no man else.
Sal. This is the prison: What is he lies here?
[Seeing Arthur.

Pem. O death, made proud with pure and prince

ly beauty!

The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.
Sal. Murder, as hating what himself hath done,
Doth lay it open, to urge on revenge.

Big. Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,
Found it too precious-princely for a grave.

Sal. Sir Richard, what think you? Have you
beheld,

Or have you read, or heard? or could you think?
Or do you almost think, although you see,
That you do see? could thought, without this object,

K. John. Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to Form such another? This is the very top,

the peers,

Throw this report on their incensed rage,
And make them tame to their obedience!
Forgive the comment that my passion made
Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind,
And foul imaginary eyes of blood

Presented thee more hideous than thou art.
0, answer not; but to my closet bring
The angry lords, with all expedient haste:
I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.
SCENE III.-The same. Before the castle.
ter Arthur, on the walls.

Arth. The wall is high; and yet will I
down:-

[Exe.

En

leap

Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not!-
There's few, or none, do know me; if they did,
This ship-boy's semblance hath disguis'd me quite.
I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.
If I get down, and do not break my limbs,
I'll find a thousand shifts to get away:
As good to die, and go, as die, and stay.

[Leaps down. O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones:Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones! [Dies.

Enter Pembroke, Salisbury, and Bigot.
Sal. Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmund's-
bury;

It is our safety, and we must embrace
This gentle offer of the perilous time.

Pem. Who brought that letter from the cardinal?
Sal. The Count Melun, a noble lord of France;
Whose private with me, of the dauphin's love,
Is much more general than these lines import.

Big. To-morrow morning let us meet him then.
Sal. Or, rather then set forward: for 'twill be
Two long days' journey, lords, or e'er we meet.
Enter the Bastard.

Bast. Once more to-day well met, distemper'd
lords!

The king, by me, requests your presence straight.
Sal. The king hath dispossess'd himself of us;
We will not line his thin bestained cloak
With our pure honours, nor attend the foot
That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks:
Return, and tell him so; we know the worst.
Bast. Whate'er you think, good words, I think,
were best.

Sal. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.
Bast. But there is little reason in your grief;
Therefore, 'twere reason, you had manners now.

(1) His own body.
(3) Private account:
(5) Pity.

(2) Expeditious.
(4) Out of humour.

The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,
Of murder's arms: this is the bloodiest shame,
The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,
That ever wall-ey'd wrath, or staring rage,
Presented to the ears of soft remorse."

Pem. All murders past do stand excus'd in this:
And this, so sole, and so unmatchable,
Shall give a holiness, a purity,

To the yet-unbegotten sin of time;
And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,
Exampled by this heinous spectacle.

Bast. It is a damned and a bloody work;
The graceless action of a heavy hand,
If that it be the work of any hand.

Sal. If that it be the work of any hand?-
We had a kind of light, what would ensue :
It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand;
The practice, and the purpose, of the king:-
From whose obedience I forbid my soul,
Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,
And breathing to his breathless excellence,
The incense of a vow, a holy vow;
Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
Never to be infected with delight,
Nor conversant with ease and idleness,
Till I have set a glory to this hand,"
By giving it the worship of revenge.
Pem. Big. Our souls religiously confirm thy
words.

Enter Hubert.

Hub. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you:
you.
Arthur doth live; the king hath sent for
Sal. O, he is bold, and blushes not at death:-
Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!
Hub. I am no villain.

Sal.

Must I rob the law?
[Drawing his sword.
Bast. Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.
Sal. Not till I sheath it in a murderer's skin.
Hub. Stand back, lord Salisbury, stand back, I

say;

By heaven, I think, my sword's as sharp as yours:
I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,
Nor tempt the danger of my true" defence;
Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget
Your worth, your greatness, and nobility,
Big. Out, dunghill! dar'st thou brave a noble

man?

Hub. Not for my life: but yet I dare defend
My innocent life against an emperor.
Sal. Thou art a murderer.
Hub.

Do not prove me so ;3

(6) Hand should be head: a glory is the circle of rays which surrounds the heads of saints in pictures. (7) Honest. (8) By compelling me to kill you.

Let not the world see fear, and sad distrust,
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviours from the great,
Grow great by your example, and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.
Away; and glister like the god of war,
When he intendeth to become the field:
Show boldness, and aspiring confidence.
What, shall they seek the lion in his den,
And fright him there? and make him tremble there?
O, let it not be said!-Forage, and run
To meet displeasure further from the doors;
And grapple with him, ere he come so nigh.
K. John. The legate of the pope hath
with me,

And I have made a happy peace with him;
And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers'
Led by the dauphin.

been

O, inglorious league!
Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,
Insinuation, parley, and base truce,
To arms invasive? shall a beardless boy,
A cocker'd2 silken wanton, brave our fields,
And fesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
Mocking the air with colours idly spread,
And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms:
Perchance, the cardinal cannot make your peace;
Or if he do, let it at least be said,

They saw we had a purpose of defence.

K. John. Have you the ordering of this present time.

Bast. Away then, with good courage; yet, I know, Look, where the holy legate comes apace, And even there, methinks, an angel spake : Our party may well meet a prouder foe. [Exeunt. To give us warrant from the hand of heaven; SCENE II-A plain, near St. Edmund's-Bury. And on our actions set the name of right, Enter, in arms, Lewis, Salisbury, Melun, Pem- With holy breath. broke, Bigot, and soldiers.