King John - William Shakespeare (ebook reader web TXT) 📗

to me again. 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. 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 murder’d 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 advised 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 villany,
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 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 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 powers:
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.

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 enter’d 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 III

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 disguised 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. 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? Seeing Arthur. Pembroke

O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
The earth had not a hole to hide this