K. JOHN. They burn in indignation. I repent. Enter a Messenger. A fearful eye thou hast. Where is that blood, So foul a sky clears not without a storm: Pour down thy weather :-How goes all in France? MESS. From France to England.-Never such a power, For any foreign preparation, Was levied in the body of a land! The copy of your speed is learn'd by them; Is stopp'd with dust; the first of April, died Three days before: but this from rumour's tougue K. JOHN. Enter the Bastard and PETER of Pomfret. 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. Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head. BAST. How I have sped among the clergymen, Your highness should deliver up your crown. K. JOHN. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so? I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd: [Exit HUBERT, with PETER. For I must use thee.-O my gentle cousin, K. JOHN. Nay, but make haste: the better foot before. O, let me have no subject enemies, When adverse foreigners affright my towns And fly, like thought, from them to me again. [Exit. MESS. With all my heart, my liege. K. JOHN. My mother dead! [Exit. Re-enter HUBERT. HUB. My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night: The other four, in wondrous motion.* K. JOHN. Five moons? HUB. Old men, and beldams, in the streets Do prophesy upon it dangerously: Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths: And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist; Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death. K. JOHN. Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears? Thy hand hath murther'd him: I had a mighty cause 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 HUB. Here is your hand and seal for what I did. K. 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 Contrary feet. The fashion of Shakspere's time is now well understood through a similar fashion in our own;-but half a century ago this passage was adjudged to be one of the many proofs of Shakspere's ignorance or carelessness. b None had. The original gives no had. The common reading is had none. Makes ill deeds donea! Hadst not thou been by, I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death; Made it no conscience to destroy a prince. HUB. My lord, K. JOHN. Hadst thou but shook thy head, or made a pause, 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 brav'd, Between my conscience and my cousin's death. I'll make a peace between your soul and you. The dreadful motion of a murtherous thought; 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, • We have ventured upon a transposition. The original is "makes deeds ill done;"-but this might apply to good deeds unskilfully performed. And make them tame to their obedience! SCENE III.-The same. Before the Castle. Enter ARTHUR, on the Walls. ARTH. The wall is high; and yet will I leap down: 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. O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones : Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones! Enter PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and BIGOT. SAL. Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmund's-Bury; This gentle offer of the perilous time. PEM. Who brought that letter from the cardinal? Whose private with me, of the dauphin's love, Two long days' journey, lords, or e'er we meet ". Enter the Bastard. BAST. Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords! SAL. The king hath dispossess'd himself of us. We will not line his thin bestained cloak [Exeunt. [Leaps down. [Dies. • Or e'er we meet-before we meet. So in Ecclesiastes, "or ever the silver cord be loosed." |