The Life And Death Of King John

1 Enter Arthur on the walls.
2 ARTHUR.
3 The wall is high, and yet will I leap down.
4 Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not!
5 There’s few or none do know me, If they did,
6 This ship-boy’s semblance hath disguis’d me quite.
7 I am afraid; and yet I’ll venture it.
8 If I get down, and do not break my limbs,
9 I’ll find a thousand shifts to get away.
10 As good to die and go, as die and stay.
11 [_Leaps down._]
12 O me, my uncle’s spirit is in these stones.
13 Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!
14 [_Dies._]
15 Enter Pembroke, Salisbury and Bigot.
16 SALISBURY.
17 Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury;
18 It is our safety, and we must embrace
19 This gentle offer of the perilous time.
20 PEMBROKE.
21 Who brought that letter from the cardinal?
22 SALISBURY.
23 The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,
24 Whose private with me of the Dauphin’s love
25 Is much more general than these lines import.
26 BIGOT.
27 Tomorrow morning let us meet him then.
28 SALISBURY.
29 Or rather then set forward; for ’twill be
30 Two long days’ journey, lords, or ere we meet.
31 Enter the Bastard.
32 BASTARD.
33 Once more today well met, distemper’d lords!
34 The King by me requests your presence straight.
35 SALISBURY.
36 The King hath dispossess’d himself of us.
37 We will not line his thin bestained cloak
38 With our pure honours, nor attend the foot
39 That leaves the print of blood where’er it walks.
40 Return and tell him so. We know the worst.
41 BASTARD.
42 Whate’er you think, good words, I think, were best.
43 SALISBURY.
44 Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.
45 BASTARD.
46 But there is little reason in your grief;
47 Therefore ’twere reason you had manners now.
48 PEMBROKE.
49 Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.
50 BASTARD.
51 ’Tis true, to hurt his master, no man’s else.
52 SALISBURY.
53 This is the prison. What is he lies here?
54 [_Seeing Arthur._]
55 PEMBROKE.
56 O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
57 The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.
58 SALISBURY.
59 Murder, as hating what himself hath done,
60 Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.
61 BIGOT.
62 Or, when he doom’d this beauty to a grave,
63 Found it too precious-princely for a grave.
64 SALISBURY.
65 Sir Richard, what think you? Have you beheld,
66 Or have you read or heard, or could you think,
67 Or do you almost think, although you see,
68 That you do see? Could thought, without this object,
69 Form such another? This is the very top,
70 The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,
71 Of murder’s arms. This is the bloodiest shame,
72 The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,
73 That ever wall-ey’d wrath or staring rage
74 Presented to the tears of soft remorse.
75 PEMBROKE.
76 All murders past do stand excus’d in this.
77 And this, so sole and so unmatchable,
78 Shall give a holiness, a purity,
79 To the yet unbegotten sin of times;
80 And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,
81 Exampled by this heinous spectacle.
82 BASTARD.
83 It is a damned and a bloody work;
84 The graceless action of a heavy hand,
85 If that it be the work of any hand.
86 SALISBURY.
87 If that it be the work of any hand?
88 We had a kind of light what would ensue.
89 It is the shameful work of Hubert’s hand,
90 The practice and the purpose of the King,
91 From whose obedience I forbid my soul,
92 Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,
93 And breathing to his breathless excellence
94 The incense of a vow, a holy vow,
95 Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
96 Never to be infected with delight,
97 Nor conversant with ease and idleness,
98 Till I have set a glory to this hand,
99 By giving it the worship of revenge.
100 PEMBROKE and BIGOT.
101 Our souls religiously confirm thy words.
102 Enter Hubert.
103 HUBERT.
104 Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you.
105 Arthur doth live; the King hath sent for you.
106 SALISBURY.
107 O, he is bold and blushes not at death.
108 Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!
109 HUBERT.
110 I am no villain.
111 SALISBURY.
112 Must I rob the law?
113 [_Drawing his sword._]
114 BASTARD.
115 Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.
116 SALISBURY.
117 Not till I sheathe it in a murderer’s skin.
118 HUBERT.
119 Stand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say;
120 By heaven, I think my sword’s as sharp as yours.
121 I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,
122 Nor tempt the danger of my true defence;
123 Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget
124 Your worth, your greatness, and nobility.
125 BIGOT.
126 Out, dunghill! Dar’st thou brave a nobleman?
127 HUBERT.
128 Not for my life. But yet I dare defend
129 My innocent life against an emperor.
130 SALISBURY.
131 Thou art a murderer.
132 HUBERT.
133 Do not prove me so.
134 Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe’er speaks false,
135 Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.
136 PEMBROKE.
137 Cut him to pieces.
138 BASTARD.
139 Keep the peace, I say.
140 SALISBURY.
141 Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge.
142 BASTARD.
143 Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury.
144 If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,
145 Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,
146 I’ll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime,
147 Or I’ll so maul you and your toasting-iron
148 That you shall think the devil is come from hell.
149 BIGOT.
150 What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge?
151 Second a villain and a murderer?
152 HUBERT.
153 Lord Bigot, I am none.
154 BIGOT.
155 Who kill’d this prince?
156 HUBERT.
157 ’Tis not an hour since I left him well.
158 I honour’d him, I lov’d him, and will weep
159 My date of life out for his sweet life’s loss.
160 SALISBURY.
161 Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,
162 For villainy is not without such rheum;
163 And he, long traded in it, makes it seem
164 Like rivers of remorse and innocency.
165 Away with me, all you whose souls abhor
166 Th’ uncleanly savours of a slaughterhouse;
167 For I am stifled with this smell of sin.
168 BIGOT.
169 Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!
170 PEMBROKE.
171 There tell the King he may inquire us out.
172 [_Exeunt Lords._]
173 BASTARD.
174 Here’s a good world! Knew you of this fair work?
175 Beyond the infinite and boundless reach
176 Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,
177 Art thou damn’d, Hubert.
178 HUBERT.
179 Do but hear me, sir.
180 BASTARD.
181 Ha! I’ll tell thee what;
182 Thou’rt damn’d as black—nay, nothing is so black;
183 Thou art more deep damn’d than Prince Lucifer.
184 There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell
185 As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.
186 HUBERT.
187 Upon my soul—
188 BASTARD.
189 If thou didst but consent
190 To this most cruel act, do but despair;
191 And if thou want’st a cord, the smallest thread
192 That ever spider twisted from her womb
193 Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam
194 To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,
195 Put but a little water in a spoon
196 And it shall be as all the ocean,
197 Enough to stifle such a villain up.
198 I do suspect thee very grievously.
199 HUBERT.
200 If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,
201 Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath
202 Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,
203 Let hell want pains enough to torture me!
204 I left him well.
205 BASTARD.
206 Go, bear him in thine arms.
207 I am amaz’d, methinks, and lose my way
208 Among the thorns and dangers of this world.
209 How easy dost thou take all England up!
210 From forth this morsel of dead royalty,
211 The life, the right, and truth of all this realm
212 Is fled to heaven; and England now is left
213 To tug and scamble, and to part by th’ teeth
214 The unow’d interest of proud-swelling state.
215 Now for the bare-pick’d bone of majesty
216 Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest
217 And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace.
218 Now powers from home and discontents at home
219 Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,
220 As doth a raven on a sick-fall’n beast,
221 The imminent decay of wrested pomp.
222 Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can
223 Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child,
224 And follow me with speed. I’ll to the King.
225 A thousand businesses are brief in hand,
226 And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.
227 [_Exeunt._]