Enter a Messenger. A fearful eye thou hast; Where is that blood, 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; K. John. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk? Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care? Mess. Three days before: but this from rumour's tongue K. John. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion! O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd That thou for truth giv'st out, are landed here? 9 How wildly then walks my estate in France!] i. e. how ill my affairs go in France!-The verb, to walk, is used with great license by old writers. 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, 1 I was amaz'd -] i. e. stunned, confounded. 2 And here's a prophet,] This man was a hermit in great repute with the common people. Notwithstanding the event is said to have fallen out as he had prophesied, the poor fellow was inhumanly dragged at horses' tails through the streets of Warham, and, together with his son, who appears to have been even more innocent than his father, hanged afterwards upon a gibbet. See Holinshed's Chronicle, under the year 1213. I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd: 3 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, K. John. Gentle kinsman, go, And thrust thyself into their companies: 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, Go after him; for he, perhaps, shall need Mess. With all my heart, my liege. K. John. My mother dead! [Exit. Deliver him to safety,] That is, Give him into safe custody. Re-enter Hubert. Hub. My lord, they say, five moons were seen to-night:* Four fixed; and the fifth did whirl about The other four, in wond'rous motion. K. John. Five moons? Hub. in the streets Old men, and beldams, Do prophecy upon it dangerously: Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths: And he, that speaks, doth gripe the hearer's wrist; - five moons were seen to-night: &c.] This incident is mentioned by few of our historians. I have met with it no where but in Matthew of Westminster and Polydore Virgil, with a small alteration. These kind of appearances were more common about that time than either before or since. GREY. Had falsely thrust upon contráry feet,)] Dr. Johnson says, “I know not how the commentators understand this important passage, which, in Dr. Warburton's edition, is marked as eminently beautiful, and, on the whole, not without justice. But Shakspeare seems to have confounded the man's shoes with his gloves. He that is frighted or hurried may put his hand into the wrong glove, but either shoe will equally admit either foot. The author seems to be disturbed by the disorder which he describes." But Dr. Johnson forgets that ancient slippers might possibly be very different from modern ones, and the commentators have produced many passages to prove the shoe, boot, &c. were right and left legged. Told of a many thousand warlike French, Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death. Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death? voke me? K. John. It is the curse of kings, to be attended By slaves, that take their humours 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 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 seal How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds, 8 Quoted, and sign'd, to do a deed of shame, 6 It is the curse of kings, &c.] This plainly hints at Davison's case, in the affair of Mary Queen of Scots. 7 8 advis'd respect. i. e. deliberate consideration. Quoted,] i. e. observed, distinguished. |