Enter ⌜King⌝ John, Pembroke, Salisbury, and other
Lords. ⌜King John ascends the throne.⌝KING JOHN Here once again we sit, once ⌜again⌝ crowned And looked upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.PEMBROKE This “once again,” but that your Highness pleased,
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Was once superfluous. You were crowned before,5 And that high royalty was ne’er plucked off, The faiths of men ne’er stainèd with revolt; Fresh expectation troubled not the land With any longed-for change or better state.SALISBURY Therefore, to be possessed with double pomp,10 To guard a title that was rich before, To gild refinèd gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light15 To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.PEMBROKE But that your royal pleasure must be done, This act is as an ancient tale new told, And, in the last repeating, troublesome,20 Being urgèd at a time unseasonable.SALISBURY In this the antique and well-noted face Of plain old form is much disfigurèd, And like a shifted wind unto a sail, It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about,25 Startles and frights consideration, Makes sound opinion sick and truth suspected For putting on so new a fashioned robe.PEMBROKE When workmen strive to do better than well, They do confound their skill in covetousness,30 And oftentimes excusing of a fault Doth make the fault the worse by th’ excuse, As patches set upon a little breach Discredit more in hiding of the fault Than did the fault before it was so patched.
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SALISBURY 35 To this effect, before you were new-crowned, We breathed our counsel; but it pleased your Highness To overbear it, and we are all well pleased, Since all and every part of what we would40 Doth make a stand at what your Highness will.KING JOHN Some reasons of this double coronation I have possessed you with, and think them strong; And more, more strong, ⌜when⌝ lesser is my fear, I shall endue you with. Meantime, but ask45 What you would have reformed that is not well, And well shall you perceive how willingly I will both hear and grant you your requests.PEMBROKE Then I, as one that am the tongue of these To sound the purposes of all their hearts,50 Both for myself and them, but chief of all Your safety, for the which myself and them Bend their best studies, heartily request Th’ enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent55 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 choke his days60 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,65 Which for our goods we do no further ask Than whereupon our weal, on you depending, Counts it your weal he have his liberty.
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KING JOHN Let it be so. I do commit his youth To your direction.Enter Hubert.70 Hubert, what news with you?⌜King John and Hubert talk aside.⌝PEMBROKE This is the man should do the bloody deed. He showed his warrant to a friend of mine. The image of a wicked heinous fault Lives in his eye. That close aspect of his75 ⌜Doth⌝ show the mood of a much troubled breast, And I do fearfully believe ’tis done What we so feared he had a charge to do.SALISBURY The color of the King doth come and go Between his purpose and his conscience,80 Like heralds ’twixt two dreadful battles set. His passion is so ripe it needs must break.PEMBROKE And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence The foul corruption of a sweet child’s death.KING JOHN, ⌜coming forward with Hubert⌝ We cannot hold mortality’s strong hand.—85 Good lords, although my will to give is living, The suit which you demand is gone and dead. He tells us Arthur is deceased tonight.SALISBURY Indeed, we feared his sickness was past cure.PEMBROKE Indeed, we heard how near his death he was90 Before the child himself felt he was sick. This must be answered either here or hence.KING JOHN Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?
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Think you I bear the shears of destiny? Have I commandment on the pulse of life?SALISBURY 95 It is apparent foul play, and ’tis shame That greatness should so grossly offer it. So thrive it in your game, and so farewell.PEMBROKE Stay yet, Lord Salisbury. I’ll go with thee And find th’ inheritance of this poor child,100 His little kingdom of a forcèd grave. That blood which owed the breadth of all this isle, Three foot of it doth hold. Bad world the while! This must not be thus borne; this will break out To all our sorrows, and ere long, I doubt.⌜Pembroke, Salisbury, and other Lords⌝ exit.KING JOHN 105 They burn in indignation. I repent. There is no sure foundation set on blood, No certain life achieved by others’ death.Enter Messenger. A fearful eye thou hast. Where is that blood That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?110 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 For any foreign preparation Was levied in the body of a land.115 The copy of your speed is learned by them, For when you should be told they do prepare, The tidings comes that they are all arrived.KING JOHN O, where hath our intelligence been drunk? Where hath it slept? Where is my mother’s care,
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120 That such an army could be drawn in France And she not hear of it?MESSENGER My liege, her ear Is stopped with dust. The first of April died Your noble mother. And as I hear, my lord,125 The Lady Constance in a frenzy died Three days before. But this from rumor’s tongue I idly heard. If true or false, I know not.KING JOHN, ⌜aside⌝ Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion! O, make a league with me till I have pleased130 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?MESSENGER Under the Dauphin.KING JOHN 135 Thou hast made me giddy With these ill tidings.Enter Bastard and Peter of Pomfret.⌜To Bastard.⌝ Now, what says the world To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff My head with more ill news, for it is full.BASTARD 140 But if you be afeard to hear the worst, Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.KING JOHN Bear with me, cousin, for I was amazed Under the tide, but now I breathe again Aloft the flood and can give audience145 To any tongue, speak it of what it will.BASTARD How I have sped among the clergymen The sums I have collected shall express.
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But as I traveled hither through the land, I find the people strangely fantasied,150 Possessed with rumors, 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,155 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, ⌜to Peter⌝ Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?PETER Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.KING JOHN 160 Hubert, away with him! Imprison him. And on that day at noon, whereon he says I shall yield up my crown, let him be hanged. Deliver him to safety and return, For I must use thee.⌜Hubert and Peter exit.⌝165 O my gentle cousin, Hear’st thou the news abroad, who are arrived?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,170 And others more, going to seek the grave Of Arthur, whom they say is killed tonight On your suggestion.KING JOHN Gentle kinsman, go And thrust thyself into their companies.175 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!
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O, let me have no subject enemies180 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.He exits.KING JOHN 185 Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman. ⌜To Messenger.⌝ Go after him, for he perhaps shall need Some messenger betwixt me and the peers, And be thou he.MESSENGER 190 With all my heart, my liege.⌜Messenger exits.⌝KING JOHN My mother dead!Enter Hubert.HUBERT My lord, they say five moons were seen tonight— Four fixèd, and the fifth did whirl about The other four in wondrous motion.KING JOHN 195 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 heads200 And whisper one another in the ear, And he that speaks doth grip 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,205 The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
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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,210 Told of a many thousand warlike French That were embattlèd and ranked in Kent. Another lean, unwashed artificer Cuts off his tale and talks of Arthur’s death.KING JOHN Why seek’st thou to possess me with these fears?215 Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur’s death? Thy hand hath murdered 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 attended220 By slaves that take their humors 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 frowns225 More upon humor than advised respect.HUBERT, ⌜showing a paper⌝ Here is your hand and seal for what I did.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!230 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 marked, Quoted, and signed to do a deed of shame, This murder had not come into my mind.235 But taking note of thy abhorred aspect,
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Finding thee fit for bloody villainy, Apt, liable to be employed in danger, I faintly broke with thee of Arthur’s death; And thou, to be endearèd to a king,240 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 purposèd, Or turned an eye of doubt upon my face,245 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 signs250 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.255 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 reigns260 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,265 Not painted with the crimson spots of blood. Within this bosom never entered yet The dreadful motion of a murderous thought, And you have slandered nature in my form,
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Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,270 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 incensèd rage, And make them tame to their obedience.275 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 bring280 The angry lords with all expedient haste. I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.They exit.
