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?

MESS.

My liege, her ear

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 rumor'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 pow'rs of France

That thou for truth giv'st out are landed here?

MESS.

Under the Dolphin.

 

Enter 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 travell'd hither through the land,

I find the people strangely fantasied,

Possess'd with rumors, 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.

 

[Exit Hubert with Peter.]

 

O my gentle cousin,

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, whom 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.

 

Exit.

 

K. JOHN.

Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.

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!

 

Enter Hubert.

 

HUB.

My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night;

Four fixed, and the fift did whirl about

The other four in wondrous motion.

K. JOHN.

Five moons?

HUB.

Old men and beldames in the streets

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 whisper one another in the ear;

And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist,

Whilst he that hears makes fearful action

With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.

I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,

The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,

With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news,

Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,

Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste

Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,

Told of a many thousand warlike French

That were embattailed 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 murd'red him. I had a mighty cause

To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.

HUB.

No had, my lord? Why, did you not provoke me?

K. JOHN.

It is the curse of kings to be attended

By slaves that take their humors for a warrant

To break within the bloody house of life,

And on the winking of authority

To understand a law; to know the meaning

Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns

More upon humor than advis'd respect.

HUB.

Here is your hand and seal for what I did.

K. JOHN.

O, when the last accompt 'twixt heaven and earth

Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal

Witness against us to damnation!

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds

Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,

A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,

Quoted, and sign'd to do a deed of shame,

This murther had not come into my mind;

But taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect,

Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,

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,

As bid me tell my tale in express words,

Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,

And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me.

But thou didst understand me by my signs,

And didst in signs again parley with sin,

Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,

And consequently thy rude hand to act

The deed, which both our tongues held vild to name.

Out of my sight, and never see me more!

My nobles leave me, and my state is braved,

Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign pow'rs;

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 ent'red yet

The dreadful motion of a murderous 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.

K. JOHN.

Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to 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.

O, answer not! but to my closet bring

The angry lords with all expedient haste.

I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.

 

Exeunt.

 

 

Scene III

Enter Arthur on the walls.

 

ARTH.

The wall is high, and yet will I leap down.

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 Edmundsbury.

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 Melune, a noble lord of France,

Whose private with me of the Dolphin'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 ere we meet.

 

Enter 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 honors, nor attend the foot

That leaves the print of blood where e'er it walks.

Return, and tell him so. We know the worst.

BAST.

What e'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.

PEM.

Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.

BAST.

'Tis true – to hurt his master, no [man] else.

SAL.

This is the prison.

 

[Seeing Arthur.]

 

What is he lies here?

PEM.

O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!

The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.

SAL.

Murther, 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,

Form such another? This is the very top,

The heighth, the crest, or crest unto the crest,

Of murther's arms. This is the bloodiest shame,

The wildest savagery, the vildest stroke,

That ever wall-ey'd wrath or staring rage

Presented to the tears of soft remorse.

PEM.

All murthers 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 times;

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.

Arthur doth live, the King hath sent for you.

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 sheathe it in a murtherer'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 defense,

Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget

Your worth, your greatness, and nobility.

BIG.

Out, dunghill! dar'st thou brave a nobleman?

HUB.

Not for my life; but yet I dare defend

My innocent life against an emperor.

SAL.

Thou art a murtherer.

HUB.

Do not prove me so;

Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe'er speaks false,

Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.

PEM.

Cut him to pieces.