The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 270

by William Shakespeare


  This must be answer’d, either here or hence.

  KING JOHN

  Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?

  90

  Think you I bear the shears of destiny?

  Have I commandment on the pulse of life?

  SALISBURY It is apparent foul-play; and ’tis shame

  That greatness should so grossly offer it:

  So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell.

  95

  PEMBROKE Stay yet, Lord Salisbury; I’ll go with thee,

  And find th’ inheritance of this poor child,

  His little kingdom of a forced grave.

  That blood which ow’d the breadth of all this isle

  Three foot of it doth hold: bad world the while!

  100

  This must not be thus borne: this will break out

  To all our sorrows, and ere long I doubt.

  Exeunt Lords.

  KING JOHN They burn in indignation.

  Enter a Messenger.

  I repent:

  There is no sure foundation set on blood,

  No certain life achiev’d by others’ death.

  105

  [to the 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?

  MESSENGER

  From France to England. Never such a power

  110

  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.

  115

  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

  120

  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!

  125

  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?

  130

  MESSENGER Under the Dolphin.

  Enter the Bastard and PETER of Pomfret.

  KING 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.

  BASTARD But if you be afeard to hear the worst,

  135

  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.

  140

  BASTARD How I have sped among the clergymen

  The sums I have collected shall express.

  But as I travaill’d hither through the land

  I find the people strangely fantasied;

  Possess’d with rumours, full of idle dreams,

  145

  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,

  150

  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:

  155

  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?

  160

  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

  165

  On your suggestion.

  KING JOHN Gentle kinsman, go,

  And thrust thyself into their companies.

  I have a way to win their loves again;

  Bring them before me.

  BASTARD I will seek them out.

  KING JOHN Nay, but make haste: the better foot before!

  170

  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.

  175

  BASTARD The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.

  Exit.

  KING 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.

  MESSENGER With all my heart, my liege. Exit.

  180

  KING JOHN My mother dead!

  Re-enter HUBERT.

  HUBERT

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

  Four fixed, and the fift did whirl about

  The other four in wondrous motion.

  KING JOHN Five moons?

  HUBERT Old men and beldams in the streets

  185

  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,

  190

  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;

  195

  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:

  200

  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

  205

  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,

  210

  An
d 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.

  215

  KING 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,

  220

  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,

  225

  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 –

  230

  KING 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,

  235

  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

  240

  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 brav’d,

  Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers:

  Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,

  245

  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.

  250

  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;

  255

  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,

  260

  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

  265

  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.

  4.3 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.

  5

  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.

  [He leaps, and lies momentarily in a trance.]

  O me! my uncle’s spirit is in these stones:

  Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!

  10

  [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;

  15

  Whose private with me of the Dolphin’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

 

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