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 disfigured ;
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 fashion'd 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 patch'd.

Sal. To this effect, before you were new crown'd,
We breath'd our counsel: but it pleas'd your highness
To overbear it, and we are all well pleas'd,
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 coronation

I have possess'd you with, and think them strong;
And more, more strong, than lesser is my fear,
I shall indue you with: meantime but ask
What you would have reform'd 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

and we are all, etc. "We are" is to be spoken as one syllable; and perhaps should be printed we 're.

myself and them, etc.: as bad English as it is possible to write; wherefore, perhaps, some editors are justified in reading "and they." But see the next 10 or 20 lines and the next note.

Why then your fears. Correct English, of S.'s time as well as ours, requires the transposition of "then" in this line and "should" in the next. But I do not believe that the text is corrupted, only that we have here one of the countless examples of the heedless way in which S. wrote his plays.

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 we have his liberty.

Enter HUBERT.

K. John. Let it be so: I do commit his youth To your direction. Hubert, what news with you?

60

[Taking him apart.

Pem. This is the man should do the bloody deed;
He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine:
The image of a wicked heinous fault
Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his
Does show the mood of a much troubled breast;
And I do fearfully believe 't is done,

What we so fear'd 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, I 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 deceas'd to-night.

Sal. Indeed we fear'd 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 answer'd either here or hence.

K. John. Why do you bend such solemn brows on me? Think I bear the shears of destiny?

you

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,

70

89

90

64 for our goods: that is, for the good of us all, a blunder not uncommon in S.% time. See 66 or were you both our mothers," All's Well That Ends Well, Act I. Sc. 3 line 145; and line 102 of this scene," to all our sorrows."

His little kingdom of a forced grave.

That blood which ow'd 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.

K. John. They burn in indignation. I repent:
There is no sure foundation set on blood,
No certain life achiev'd 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?

100

[Exeunt Lords.

Mess. From France to England. Never such a power 110

For any foreign preparation

Was levied in the body of a land.

The copy of your speed is learn'd by them;

For when you should be told they do prepare,

The tidings comes that they are all arriv'd.

K. John. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk? Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care,

That such an army could be drawn in France,

And she not hear of it?

Mess.

My liege, her ear

Is stopp'd with dust; the first of April died
Your noble mother: and, as I hear, my lord,
The Lady Constance in a frenzy died

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 Dolphin.

K. John.

With these ill tidings.

Thou hast made me giddy

Enter the BASTARD and PETER of Pomfret.
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 amaz'd
Under the tide: but now I breathe again

120

130

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 travell'd hither through the land,
I find the people strangely fantasied ;

Possess'd 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, whereof he says

I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd.
Deliver him to safety; and return,

For I must use thee.

O my gentle cousin,

140

150

[Exit Hubert with Peter.

Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd?

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, whom they say is kill'd 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.

K. John. Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.

160

170

O, let me have no subject enemies,

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.

Bast. The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.

[Exit.

K. John. Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.

Go after him; for he perhaps shall need

Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;
And be thou he.

174 Mercury, the messenger of the gods, was represented with winged sandals.
177 sprightful spiritful; both forms of the word were pronounced spree ful

179

Mess.

With all my heart, my liege.

K. John. My mother dead!

Re-enter HUBERT.

Hub. My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night ;

Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about

The other four in wondrous motion.

K. John. Five moons!
Hub.

[Exit.

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 heads
And whisper one another in the ear;

And he that speaks doth gripe 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,
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 contrary feet,
Told of a many thousand warlike French
That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent :
Another lean unwash'd artificer

Cuts off his tale and talks of Arthur's death.

190

200

K. John. Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?

Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?

Thy hand hath murder'd him: I had a mighty cause

To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.

Hub. No had, 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 advis'd respect.

Hub. Here is your hand and seal for what I did.

210

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 ill deeds done! Hadst not thou been by,

20 No had be no doubt.

220

had none; a strange idiom, as to the use of which in S.'s day there can

Makes ill deeds done. The folio Make, etc.; and so S. probably wrote, misled by the plural form immediately preceding the verb But to follow him to this extreme violation of English would seem, in this case, literal slavishness.