King John

    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?  MESSENGER. From France to England. Never such a pow'r    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 comes that they are all arriv'd.  KING 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?  MESSENGER. 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    I idly heard-if true or false I know not.  KING 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?  MESSENGER. Under the Dauphin.  KING JOHN. Thou hast made me giddy    With these in tidings.

Enter the BASTARD and PETER OF POMFRET

    Now! What says the world    To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff    My head with more ill news, for it is fun.  BASTARD. But if you be afear'd to hear the worst,    Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.  KING 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.  BASTARD. 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 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.  KING JOHN. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?  PETER. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.  KING 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?  BASTARD. 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.  KING JOHN. Gentle kinsman, go    And thrust thyself into their companies.    I have a way to will their loves again;    Bring them before me.  BASTARD. I Will seek them out.  KING 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.  BASTARD. The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.  KING JOHN. Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.Exit BASTARD    Go after him; for he perhaps shall need    Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;    And be thou he.  MESSENGER. With all my heart, my liege.

Exit

  KING JOHN. My mother dead!

Re-enter HUBERT

  HUBERT. My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night;    Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about    The other four in wondrous motion.  KING JOHN. Five moons!  HUBERT. Old men and beldams 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.  KING 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.  HUBERT. No had, my lord! Why, did you not provoke me?  KING 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    Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns    More upon humour than advis'd respect.  HUBERT. Here is your hand and seal for what I did.  KING JOHN. O, when the last account '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 murder 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.  HUBERT. My lord-  KING JOHN. Hadst thou but shook thy head or made 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 vile 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 the fleshly land,    This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,    Hostility and civil tumult reigns    Between my conscience and my cousin's death.  HUBERT. 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.  KING 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 3

England. Before the castle

Enter ARTHUR, on the walls

  ARTHUR. 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. [Leapsdown]    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

  SALISBURY. Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury;    It is our safety, and we must embrace    This gentle offer of the perilous time.  PEMBROKE. Who brought that letter from the Cardinal?  SALISBURY. 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.  BIGOT. To-morrow morning let us meet him then.  SALISBURY. Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be    Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet.

Enter the BASTARD

  BASTARD. Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords!    The King by me requests your presence straight.  SALISBURY. 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.  BASTARD. Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.  SALISBURY. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.  BASTARD. But there is little reason in your grief;    Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now.  PEMBROKE. Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.  BASTARD. 'Tis true-to hurt his master, no man else.  SALISBURY. This is the prison. What is he lies here?  PEMBROKE. O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!    The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.  SALISBURY. Murder, as hating what himself hath done,    Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.  BIGOT. Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,    Found it too precious-princely for a grave.  SALISBURY. 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 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 tears of soft remorse.  PEMBROKE. 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 times,    And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,    Exampled by this heinous spectacle.  BASTARD. It is a damned and a bloody work;    The graceless action of a heavy hand,    If that it be the work of any hand.  SALISBURY. 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.  PEMBROKE. and BIGOT. Our souls religiously confirm thy words.

Enter HUBERT

  HUBERT. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you.    Arthur doth live; the King hath sent for you.  SALISBURY. O, he is bold, and blushes not at death!    Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!  HUBERT. I am no villain.  SALISBURY. Must I rob the law? [Drawing hissword]  BASTARD. Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.  SALISBURY. Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin.  HUBERT. 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.  BIGOT. Out, dunghill! Dar'st thou brave a nobleman?  HUBERT. Not for my life; but yet I dare defend    My innocent life against an emperor.  SALISBURY. Thou art a murderer.  HUBERT. Do not prove me so.    Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe'er speaks false,    Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.  PEMBROKE. Cut him to pieces.  BASTARD. Keep the peace, I say.  SALISBURY. Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge.  BASTARD. 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.  BIGOT. What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge?    Second a villain and a murderer?  HUBERT. Lord Bigot, I am none.  BIGOT. Who kill'd this prince?  HUBERT. 'Tis not an hour since I left him well.    I honour'd him, I lov'd him, and will weep    My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.  SALISBURY. Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,    For villainy is not without such rheum;    And he, long traded in it, makes it seem    Like rivers of remorse and innocency.    Away with me, all you whose souls abhor    Th' uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house;    For I am stifled with this smell of sin.  BIGOT. Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!  PEMBROKE. There tell the King he may inquire us out.Exeunt LORDS  BASTARD. Here's a good world! Knew you of this fair work?    Beyond the infinite and boundless reach    Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,    Art thou damn'd, Hubert.  HUBERT. Do but hear me, sir.  BASTARD. Ha! I'll tell thee what:    Thou'rt 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.  HUBERT. Upon my soul-  BASTARD. If thou didst but consent    To this most cruel act, do but despair;    And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread    That ever spider twisted from her womb    Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam    To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,    Put but a little water in a spoon    And it shall be as all the ocean,    Enough to stifle such a villain up    I do suspect thee very grievously.  HUBERT. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,    Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath    Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,    Let hell want pains enough to torture me!    I left him well.  BASTARD. Go, bear him in thine arms.    I am amaz'd, methinks, and lose my way    Among the thorns 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 th' 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-fall'n beast,    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.

Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1. England. KING JOHN'S palace

Enter KING JOHN, PANDULPH, and attendants

  KING JOHN. Thus have I yielded up into your hand    The circle of my glory.  PANDULPH. [Gives back the crown] Take again    From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,    Your sovereign greatness and authority.  KING JOHN. Now keep your holy word; go meet the French;    And from his Holiness use all your power    To stop their marches fore we are inflam'd.    Our discontented counties do revolt;    Our people quarrel with obedience,    Swearing allegiance and the love of soul    To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.    This inundation of mistemp'red humour    Rests by you only to be qualified.    Then pause not; for the present time's so sick    That present med'cine must be minist'red    Or overthrow incurable ensues.  PANDULPH. It was my breath that blew this tempest up,    Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope;    But since you are a gentle convertite,    My tongue shall hush again this storm of war    And make fair weather in your blust'ring land.    On this Ascension-day, remember well,    Upon your oath of service to the Pope,    Go I to make the French lay down their arms.

Exit

  KING JOHN. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet    Say that before Ascension-day at noon    My crown I should give off? Even so I have.    I did suppose it should be on constraint;    But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.

Enter the BASTARD

  BASTARD. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out    But Dover Castle. London hath receiv'd,    Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers.    Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone    To offer service to your enemy;    And wild amazement hurries up and down    The little number of your doubtful friends.  KING JOHN. Would not my lords return to me again    After they heard young Arthur was alive?    BASTARD. They found him dead, and cast into the streets,    An empty casket, where the jewel of life    By some damn'd hand was robbed and ta'en away.  KING JOHN. That villain Hubert told me he did live.  BASTARD. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.    But wherefore do you droop? Why look you sad?    Be great in act, as you have been in thought;    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 farther from the doors    And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.  KING JOHN. The legate of the Pope hath been with me,    And I have made a happy peace with him;    And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers    Led by the Dauphin.  BASTARD. 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 cock'red silken wanton, brave our fields    And flesh 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.  KING JOHN. Have thou the ordering of this present time.  BASTARD. Away, then, with good courage!    Yet, I know    Our party may well meet a prouder foe.

Exeunt

SCENE 2. England. The DAUPHIN'S camp at Saint Edmundsbury

Enter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and soldiers

  LEWIS. My Lord Melun, let this be copied out    And keep it safe for our remembrance;    Return the precedent to these lords again,    That, having our fair order written down,    Both they and we, perusing o'er these notes,    May know wherefore we took the sacrament,    And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.  SALISBURY. Upon our sides it never shall be broken.    And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear    A voluntary zeal and an unurg'd faith    To your proceedings; yet, believe me, Prince,    I am not glad that such a sore of time    Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,    And heal the inveterate canker of one wound    By making many. O, it grieves my soul    That I must draw this metal from my side    To be a widow-maker! O, and there    Where honourable rescue and defence    Cries out upon the name of Salisbury!    But such is the infection of the time    That, for the health and physic of our right,    We cannot deal but with the very hand    Of stern injustice and confused wrong.    And is't not pity, O my grieved friends!    That we, the sons and children of this isle,    Were born to see so sad an hour as this;    Wherein we step after a stranger-march    Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up    Her enemies' ranks-I must withdraw and weep    Upon the spot of this enforced cause-    To grace the gentry of a land remote    And follow unacquainted colours here?    What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove!    That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,    Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself    And grapple thee unto a pagan shore,    Where these two Christian armies might combine    The blood of malice in a vein of league,    And not to spend it so unneighbourly!  LEWIS. A noble temper dost thou show in this;    And great affections wrestling in thy bosom    Doth make an earthquake of nobility.    O, what a noble combat hast thou fought    Between compulsion and a brave respect!    Let me wipe off this honourable dew    That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.    My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,    Being an ordinary inundation;    But this effusion of such manly drops,    This show'r, blown up by tempest of the soul,    Startles mine eyes and makes me more amaz'd    Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven    Figur'd quite o'er with burning meteors.    Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,    And with a great heart heave away this storm;    Commend these waters to those baby eyes    That never saw the giant world enrag'd,    Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,    Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossiping.    Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep    Into the purse of rich prosperity    As Lewis himself. So, nobles, shall you all,    That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.

Enter PANDULPH

    And even there, methinks, an angel spake:    Look where the holy legate comes apace,    To give us warrant from the hand of heaven    And on our actions set the name of right    With holy breath.  PANDULPH. Hail, noble prince of France!    The next is this: King John hath reconcil'd    Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,    That so stood out against the holy Church,    The great metropolis and see of Rome.    Therefore thy threat'ning colours now wind up    And tame the savage spirit of wild war,    That, like a lion fostered up at hand,    It may lie gently at the foot of peace    And be no further harmful than in show.  LEWIS. Your Grace shall pardon me, I will not back:    I am too high-born to be propertied,    To be a secondary at control,    Or useful serving-man and instrument    To any sovereign state throughout the world.    Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars    Between this chastis'd kingdom and myself    And brought in matter that should feed this fire;    And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out    With that same weak wind which enkindled it.    You taught me how to know the face of right,    Acquainted me with interest to this land,    Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;    And come ye now to tell me John hath made    His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?    I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,    After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;    And, now it is half-conquer'd, must I back    Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?    Am I Rome's slave? What penny hath Rome borne,    What men provided, what munition sent,    To underprop this action? Is 't not I    That undergo this charge? Who else but I,    And such as to my claim are liable,    Sweat in this business and maintain this war?    Have I not heard these islanders shout out    'Vive le roi!' as I have bank'd their towns?    Have I not here the best cards for the game    To will this easy match, play'd for a crown?    And shall I now give o'er the yielded set?    No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.  PANDULPH. You look but on the outside of this work.  LEWIS. Outside or inside, I will not return    Till my attempt so much be glorified    As to my ample hope was promised    Before I drew this gallant head of war,    And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world    To outlook conquest, and to will renown    Even in the jaws of danger and of death.                                                     [Trumpetsounds]    What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?

Enter the BASTARD, attended