Arth. O, save me, Hubert, save me! my eyes are out, For heaven's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound! I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word, Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you, Hub. Go, stand within; let me alone with him. 1 Atten. I am best pleas'd to be from such a deed. [Exeunt Attendants. Arth. Alas, I then have chid away my friend; He hath a stern look, but a gentle heart :Let him come back, that his compassion may Give life to yours. Hub. Come, boy, prepare yourself. Arth. Is there no remedy? None, but to lose your eyes. Arth. O heaven!-that there were but a mote in yours, A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wand'ring hair, Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there, Hub. Is this your promise? go to, hold your tongue. Arth. Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes: Let me not hold my tongue; let me not, Hubert! Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue, So I may keep mine eyes; O, spare mine eyes; Though to no use, but still to look on you! Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold, And would not harm me. Arth. No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief, Being create for comfort, to be us'd In undeserv'd extremes: See else yourself; Hub. But with my breath I can revive it, boy. Hub. Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eyes Hub. Arth. SCENE II-The same. A Room of State in the Pal- Was once superfluous: You were crown'd before, Sal. Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp, Pemb. But that your royal pleasure must be done, Sal. In this, the antique and well-noted face It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about; Pemb. When workmen strive to do better than well, Sal. To this effect, before you were new-crown'd We breath'd our counsel: but it pleas'd your highness To over-bear 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: Mean time, 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. Pemb. 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 enfranchisement 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 choak 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; Which for our goods we do no further ask, Than whereupon our weal, on you depending Counts it your weal, he have his liberty. K. John. Let it be so; I do commit his youth Enter Hubert. To your direction.-Hubert, what news with you? Sal. The colour of the king doth come and go, K. Jahn. 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. Pemb. 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 hear the shears of destiny? Sal. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis shame, That blood, which ow'd the breath of all this isle, 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? Mers. 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 rumour's tongue 1 idly heard; if true, or false, I know not. K. John. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion! 9, 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 conduet 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. Fore-knowing 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, K. John. Hub. Old men, and beldams, in the streets And he, that speaks, doth gripe the fearer's wrist; 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 K. John. It is the curse of kings, to be attended To understand a law; to know the meaning Hub. Here is your hand and seal for what I did. Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds, Made it no conscience to destroy a prince. 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 off, The deed, which both our tongues held vile to name.- Hub. Arm you against your other enemies, Young Arthur is alive: This hand of mine 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, I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-The same. Before the Castle. 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. Enter Pembroke, Salisbury, and Bigot. 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. 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 prinedly beauty! The earth had not a hole to hide this deed. Big. Or, when he doom'd this beauty to the grave Found it too precious-princely for a grave. Sal. Sir Richard, what think you? Have you beheld, That you do see? could thought, without this object, 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, Bast. It is a damned and a bloody work; Sal. If that it be the work of any hand ?- Never to taste the pleasures of the world, Hub. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you: 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 nobleman? 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; Yet, I am none: Whose tongue soe'er speaks false, Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies. Pem. Cut him to pieces. Bast. Keep the peace, I say. Sal. Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge. Bast. Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury: If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot, Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame, I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime; Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron, That you shall think the devil is come from hell. Big. What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge? Second a villain, and a murderer? Hub. Lord Bigot, I am none. I honour'd him, I lov'd him; and will weep Big. Away, toward Bury, to the dauphin there! Pem. There, tell the king, he may inquire us out. [Exeunt Lords. Bast. Here's a good world!-Knew you of this fair work? Beyond the infinite and boundless reach Ha! I'll tell thee what; Thou art damn'd as black-nay, nothing is so black; Thou art more deep damn'd than prince Lucifer: There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child. If thou didst but consent A beam to hang thee on; or would'st thou drown thy◄ self, Put but a little water in a spoon, And it shall be as all the occan, I do suspect thee very grievously. Hub. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought Bast. Go, bear him in thine arms. I am amaz'd, methinks; and lose my way Among the thorus and dangers of this world.How easy dost thou take all England up! From forth this morsel of dead royalty, The life, the right, and truth of all this realm Is fled to heaven; and England now is left To tug and scamble, and to part by the teeth The unowed interest of proud-swelling state. Now, for the bare pick'd bone of majesty, Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest, And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace: Now powers from home, and discontents at home, Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits (As doth a raven on a sick-fallen bcast) The imminent decay of wrested pomp. Now happy he, whose cloak and cincture can Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child, And follow me with speed; I'll to the king: A thousand businesses are brief in hand, And heaven itself doth frown upon the land. ACT V. [Exe. SCENE 1.-The same. A Room in the Palace. En. ter King John, Pandulph with the Crown, and Attendants. King John. THUS have I yielded up into your hand, French; And from his holiness use all your power Then pause not; for the present time's so sick, Pand. It was my breath that blew this tempest up, Go I to make the French lay down their arms. [Exit. My crown I should give off? Even so I have: But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary. Enter the Bastard. Shall we, upon the footing of our land, They saw we had a purpose of defence. K. John. Have thou the ordering of this present time. Bast. Away then, with good courage; yet, I know, Our party may well meet a prouder foe. [Exeunt. SCENE II-A Plain near St. Edmund's-Bury. Enter in arms, Lewis, Salisbury, Melun, Pembroke, Bi got, and Soldiers. Lew. My lord Melun, let this be copied out, Sal. Upon our sides it never shall be broken. To your proceedings; yet believe me, prince, I am not glad that such a sore of time Bast. All Kent bath yielded; nothing there holds By making many! O, it grieves my soul, out, But Dover castle: London hath receiv'd, K. John. Would not my lords return to me again, After they heard young Arthur was alive? Bast. They found him dead, and cast into the streets; And fright him there? and make him tremble there? K. John. The legate of the pope hath been with me That I must draw this metal from my side Her enemies' ranks, (I must withdraw and weep Lew. A noble temper dost thou show in this; |