SCENE III. Before the castle. The Life and Death of King John  Shakespeare homepage  |  King John  | Act 4, Scene 3 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE III. Before the castle. 

 Enter ARTHUR, on the walls  ARTHUR  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  SALISBURY  Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury: 

 It is our safety, and we must embrace 

 This gentle offer of the perilous time. 

 PEMBROKE  Who brought that letter from the cardinal? 

 SALISBURY  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. 

 BIGOT  To-morrow morning let us meet him then. 

 SALISBURY  Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be 

 Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet. 



 Enter the BASTARD  BASTARD  Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords! 

 The king by me requests your presence straight. 

 SALISBURY  The king hath dispossess'd 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. 

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

 SALISBURY  Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now. 

 BASTARD  But there is little reason in your grief; 

 Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now. 

 PEMBROKE  Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege. 

 BASTARD  'Tis true, to hurt his master, no man else. 

 SALISBURY  This is the prison. What is he lies here? 



 Seeing ARTHUR  PEMBROKE  O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty! 

 The earth had not a hole to hide this deed. 

 SALISBURY  Murder, as hating what himself hath done, 

 Doth lay it open to urge on revenge. 

 BIGOT  Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave, 

 Found it too precious-princely for a grave. 

 SALISBURY  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. 

 PEMBROKE  All murders past do stand excused in this: 

 And this, so sole and so unmatchable, 

 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. 

 BASTARD  It is a damned and a bloody work; 

 The graceless action of a heavy hand, 

 If that it be the work of any hand. 

 SALISBURY  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 practise 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. 

 PEMBROKE  BIGOT  Our souls religiously confirm thy words. 



 Enter HUBERT  HUBERT  Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you: 

 Arthur doth live; the king hath sent for you. 

 SALISBURY  O, he is old and blushes not at death. 

 Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone! 

 HUBERT  I am no villain. 

 SALISBURY  Must I rob the law? 



 Drawing his sword  BASTARD  Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again. 

 SALISBURY  Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin. 

 HUBERT  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. 

 BIGOT  Out, dunghill! darest thou brave a nobleman? 

 HUBERT  Not for my life: but yet I dare defend 

 My innocent life against an emperor. 

 SALISBURY  Thou art a murderer. 

 HUBERT  Do not prove me so; 

 Yet I am none: whose tongue soe'er speaks false, 

 Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies. 

 PEMBROKE  Cut him to pieces. 

 BASTARD  Keep the peace, I say. 

 SALISBURY  Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge. 

 BASTARD  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. 

 BIGOT  What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge? 

 Second a villain and a murderer? 

 HUBERT  Lord Bigot, I am none. 

 BIGOT  Who kill'd this prince? 

 HUBERT  'Tis not an hour since I left him well: 

 I honour'd him, I loved him, and will weep 

 My date of life out for his sweet life's loss. 

 SALISBURY  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. 

 BIGOT  Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there! 

 PEMBROKE  There tell the king he may inquire us out. 



 Exeunt Lords  BASTARD  Here's a good world! Knew you of this fair work? 

 Beyond the infinite and boundless reach 

 Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death, 

 Art thou damn'd, Hubert. 

 HUBERT  Do but hear me, sir. 

 BASTARD  Ha! I'll tell thee what; 

 Thou'rt damn'd as black--nay, nothing is so black; 

 Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer: 

 There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell 

 As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child. 

 HUBERT  Upon my soul-- 

 BASTARD  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. 

 HUBERT  If I in act, consent, or sin of thought, 

 Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath 

 Which was embounded in this beauteous clay, 

 Let hell want pains enough to torture me. 

 I left him well. 

 BASTARD  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 scamble and to part by the teeth 

 The unowed interest of proud-swelling state. 

 Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty 

 Doth dogged 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-fall'n 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. 



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