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Methinks nobody should be sad but I:
Yet I remember, when I was in France,
Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,
Only for wantonness. By my christendom,
So I were out of prison and kept sheep,
I should be as merry as the day is long:
And so I would be here, but that I doubt
My uncle practises more harm to me:
He is afraid of me, and I of him.
Is it my fault that I was Geffrey's son?
No, indeed is 't not: and I would to heaven
I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.

Hub. If I talk to him, with his innocent prate He will awake my mercy, which lies dead: Therefore I will be sudden, and despatch. [.1sile. Arth. Are you sick, Hubert? you look pale

to-day.

In sooth I would you were a little sick,
That I might sit all night and watch with you:
I warrant I love you more than you do me.
Hub. His words do take possession of my
bosom.-

Read here, young Arthur. [Shewing a paper.
How now, foolish rheum! [Aside.
Turning dispiteous torture out of door!

I must be brief; lest resolution drop
Out at mine eyes, in tender womanish tears.-
Can you not read it; is it not fair writ?

Arth. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect! Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes? Hub. Young boy, I must.

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Arth. O save me, Hubert, save me! My eyes

are out

Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.
Hub. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here.
Arth. Alas, what need you be so boisterous-
rough?

I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still.
For heaven's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound!
Nay, hear me, Hubert! drive these men away,
And I will sit as quiet as a lamb :

I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word,
Nor look upon the iron angerly.
Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you,
Whatever torment you do put me to.

Hub. Go, stand within: let me alone with him.
1st Att. I am best pleased to be from such a
deed.
[Exeunt Attendants.

Arth. Alas, I then have chid away my friend! He hath a stern look, but a gentle heart. Let him come back, that his compassion may

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That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends; Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses.

Hub. Well, see to live: I will not touch thine

eyes

For all the treasure that thine uncle owes.
Yet am I sworn, and I did purpose, boy,
With this same very iron to burn them out.
Arth. O now you look like Hubert! all this while
You were disguised.
Peace: no more. Adieu :

Hub.
Your uncle must not know but you are dead :
I'll fill these doggéd spies with false reports.
And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure
That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world,
Will not offend thee.

Arth. O heaven!—I thank you, Hubert. Hub. Silence; no more. Go closely in with me: Much danger do I undergo for thee. [Exeunt,

SCENE II. The same. A Room of State in the Palace.

Enter KING JOHN, crowned; PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other Lords. The King takes his

State.

K. John. Here once again we sit, once again

crowned;

And looked upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes. Pem. This once again, but that your highness

pleased,

Was once superfluous: you were crowned before,
And that high royalty was ne'er plucked off;
The faiths of men ne'er stainéd with revolt;
Fresh expectation troubled not the land,
With any longed-for change, or better state.
Sal. Therefore, to be possessed with double
pomp,

To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refinéd gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,

Arth. No, in good sooth: the fire is dead with To smooth the ice, or add another hue

grief,

Being create for comfort, to be used

In undeserved extremes. See else yourself:
There is no malice in this burning coal:

The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out,
And strewed repentant ashes on his head.

Hub. But with my breath I can revive it, boy. Arth. And if you do, you will but make it b'ush And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert: Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes · And, like a dog that is compelled to fight, Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on. All things that you should use to do me wrong Deny their office: only you do lack

Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

Pem. But that your royal pleasure must be done, This act is as an ancient tale new told; And, in the last repeating, troublesome, Being urged at a time unseasonable.

Sal. In this, the antique and well-noted face
Of plain old form is much disfiguréd:
And, like a shifted wind unto a sail,

It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about;
Startles and frights consideration;
Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected,
For putting on so new a fashioned robe.

Pem. When workmen strive to do better than well,

They do confound their skill in covetousness:
And, oftentimes, excusing of a fault

Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse:
As patches, set upon a little breach,
Discredit more, in hiding of the fault,
Than did the fault before it was so patched.

Sal. 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 would
Doth make a stand at what your highness will.
K. John. Some reasons of this double corona-
tion

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 ask
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. Pem. Then I (as one that am the tongue of these,

To sound the purposes of all their hearts),
Both for myself and them (but, chief of all,
Your safety, for the which myself and them
Bend their best studies), heartily request
The enfranchisement of Arthur; whose restraint
Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent
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 days
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;
Which for our goods we do no further ask
Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
Counts it your weal he have his liberty.

K. John. Let it be so: I do commit his youth

Enter HUBERT.

To your direction.-Hubert, what news with you? Pem. This is the man should do the bloody deed:

He shewed his warrant to a friend of mine.

The image of a wicked heinous fault
Lives in his eye; that close aspéct of his
Does shew the mood of a much-troubled breast;
And I do fearfully believe 't is done,
What we so feared he had a charge to do.

Sal. The colour of the King doth come and go, Between his purpose and his conscience,

Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set:
His passion is so ripe it needs must break.
Pem. And when it breaks, 1 fear will issue
thence

The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.
K. John. We cannot hold mortality's strong
hand.-

Good lords, although my will to give is living, The suit which you demand is gone and dead: He tells us, Arthur is deceased to-night.

Sal. Indeed we feared his sickness was past

cure.

Pem. Indeed we heard how near his death he

was,

Before the child himself felt he was sick.
This must be answered either here or hence.
K. John. Why do you bend such solemn brows

on me?

Think you I bear the shears of destiny?
Have I commandment on the pulse of life?

Sal. It is apparent foul-play; and 't is shame
That greatness should so grossly offer it.
So thrive it in your game: and so farewell.

Pem. Stay yet, Lord Salisbury: I'll go with thee,

And find the inheritance of this poor child,
His little kingdom of a forcéd 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.

[Exeunt Lords.

K. John. They burn in indignation: I repent. There is no sure foundation set in blood; No certain life achieved by others' death.

Enter a 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?
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 learned by them:
For when you should be told they do prepare,
The tidings come that they are all arrived.

K. John. O, where hath our intelligence been

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Three days before: but this from rumour's tongue I idly heard: if true or false I know not.

K.John. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion! O make a league with me till I have pleased 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? Mess. Under the Dauphin.

Enter the Bastard and PETER of Pomfret. K. 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.

Bast. But if you be afeard to hear the worst, Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head. K. John. Bear with me, cousin; for I was amazed

Under the tide but now I breathe again
Aloft the flood, and can give audience
To any tongue, speak it of what it will.

Bast. How I have sped among the clergymen
The sums I have collected shall express.
But, as I travelled hither through the land,
I find the people strangely fantasied;
Possessed with rumours, 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;
To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,
That ere the next Ascension-day, at noon,
Your highness should deliver up your crown.
K. John. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst
thou so?

Peter. Foreknowing that the truth will fall

out so.

K. John. 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.-O my gentle cousin,
[Exit HUBERT with PETER.
Hear st thou the news abroad who are arrived?
Bast. 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, who, they say, is killed to-night
On your suggestion.

K. John. Gentle kinsman, go,
And thrust thyself into their companies.
I have a way to win their loves again:
Bring them before me.

Bust.

I will seek them out.

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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 contráry feet),
Told of a many thousand warlike French
That were embattéled and ranked in Kent.
Another lean unwashed artificer

Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.
K. John. Why seek'st thou to possess me with
these fears?

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. Hub. Had none, my lord! Why, did you not

provoke me?

K. 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.

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