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
Makes 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 miad:
But taking note of thy abhorred aspéct,
Finding thee fit for bloody villany,
Apt, liable, to be employed in danger,

I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death:
And thou, to be endearéd to a king,
Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.
Hub. My lord,-

K. John. Hadst thou but shook thy head, or
made a pause,

When I spake darkly what I purposed;
Or turned 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.
Hub. 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 entered yet
The dreadful motion of a murderous thought:
And you have slandered nature in my form;
Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,

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;
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.-The same. Before the Castle.

Enter ARTHUR on the walls.

Arth. 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. Sal. Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmund'sbury.

It is our safety, and we must embrace
This gentle offer of the perilous time.

Pem.Who brought that letter from the cardinal? Sal. 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.

Big. To-morrow morning let us meet him, then. Sal. Or rather, then set forward: for 't will be Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet.

Enter the Bastard.

Bast. Once more to-day well met, distempered lords.

The King, by me, requests your presence straight.

Sal. The King hath dispossessed 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.

Bast. Whate'er you think, good words I think were best.

Sal. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason

now.

Bast. But there is little reason in your grief: Therefore 't were reason you had manners now. Pem. Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege. Bast. "T is true: to hurt his master; no man else. Sal. This is the prison. What is he lies here! [Seeing ARTHUR.

princely beauty!

The earth hath not a hole to hide this deed. Sal. Murder, as hating what himself hoth done,

Doth lay it open, to urge on revenge.

Big. Or, when he doomed this beauty to a grave,

Found it too precious-princely for a grave.
Sal. Sir Richard, what think you? Have you

beheld,

Or have you read or heard, or could you think,
Or do you almost think, although you see,
That you do see? Could thought, without this
object,

Form such another ?-This is the very top,
The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,
Of murder's arms: this is the bloodiest shame,
The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,
That ever wall-eyed wrath or staring rage
Presented to the tears of soft remorse!

Pem. All murders past do stand excused in

this:

Shall give a holiness, a purity.
To the yet-unbegotten sin of times;
And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,
Exampled by this heinous spectacle!

Bast. It is a damnéd and a bloody work:
The graceless action of a heavy hand,-
If that it be the work of any hand.

Sal. If that it be the work of any hand ?We had a kind of light what would ensue. It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand; The practice and the purpose of the King: From whose obedience I forbid my soul, Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life, And breathing to his breathless excellence The incense of a vow, a holy vow, Never to taste the pleasures of the world, Never to be infected with delight, Nor conversant with ease and idleness, Till I have set a glory to this hand, By giving it the worship of revenge.

Our souls religiously confirm thy

words.

Enter HUBERT.

Ilub. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you. Arthur doth live: the King hath sent for you. Sal. O, he is bold, and blushes not at death.Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!

Hub. I am no villain.

Sal. Must I rob the law? [Drawing his sword.
Bast. Your sword is bright, sir: put it up again.
Sal. Not till I sheath it in a murderer's skin.
Hub. Stand back, Lord Salisbury; stand back,
I say:

By heaven, I think my sword's as sharp as yours.
I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,
Nor tempt the danger of my true defence;
Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget
Your worth, your greatness, and nobility.
Big. Out, dunghill! dar'st thou brave a noble-
man?

Hub. Not for my life: but yet I dare defend My innocent life against an emperor.

Sal. Thou art a murderer.

Hub.

Do not prove me so:

Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe'er speaks false, Not truly speaks: who speaks not truly, lies. Pem. Cut him to pieces.

Bast. Keep the peace, I say.

Sal. Stand by, or I shall gall you, Falconbridge. Bast. Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury: If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot, Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame, I'll strike thee dead! Put up thy sword betime; Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron, That you shall think the devil is come from hell. Big. What wilt thou do, renowned Falconbridge?

Second a villain and a murderer?

Hub. Lord Bigot, I am none.
Big.

Who killed this prince?

Hub. "T is not an hour since I left him well. I honoured him; I loved him; and will weep My date of life out, for his sweet life's loss.

Sal. Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes. For villany is not without such rheum; And he, long traded in it, makes it seem Like rivers of remorse and innocency.— Away, with me, all you whose souls abhor The uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house : For I am stifled with this smell of sin.

Big. Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there! Pem. There, tell the King, he may inquire us [Exeunt Lords.

out.

এ

Bast. Ha! I'll tell thee what: Thou art damned as black-nay, nothing is so black:

Thou art more deep damned than Prince Lucifer.
There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell

As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.
Hub. Upon my soul,—

Bast.

If thou didst but consent To this most cruel act, do but despair, And, if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread That ever spider twisted from her womb Will serve to strangle thee: a rush will be A beam to hang thee on: or, wouldst thou drown thyself,

Put but a little water in a spoon,

And it shall be as all the ocean,
Enough to stifle such a villain up!—

I do suspect thee very grievously.

Hub. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought, Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath Which was imbounded in this beauteous clay, Let hell want pains enough to torture me! I left him well. Bast.

Go, bear him in thine arms.I am amazed, methinks, and lose my way Among the thorns and dangers of this world.How easy dost thou take all England up! From forth this morsel of dead royalty, The life, the right, and truth of all this realm Is fled to heaven; and England now is left To tug and scramble, and to part by th' teeth The unowed interest of proud-swelling state. Now, for the bare-picked bone of majesty, Doth doggéd war bristle his angry crest, And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace. Now powers from home, and discontents at home, Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits (As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast) The imminent decay of wrested pomp. Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can Hold out this tempest.-Bear away that child, And follow me with speed: I'll to the King. A thousand businesses are brief in hand, And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.

[Exeunt.