SCENE II. KING JOHN'S palace. The Life and Death of King John  Shakespeare homepage  |  King John  | Act 4, Scene 2 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE II. KING JOHN'S palace. 

 Enter KING JOHN, PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other Lords  KING JOHN  Here once again we sit, once again crown'd, 

 And looked upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes. 

 PEMBROKE  This 'once again,' but that your highness pleased, 

 Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before, 

 And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off, 

 The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt; 

 Fresh expectation troubled not the land 

 With any long'd-for change or better state. 

 SALISBURY  Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp, 

 To guard a title that was rich before, 

 To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 

 To throw a perfume on the violet, 

 To smooth the ice, or add another hue 

 Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light 

 To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, 

 Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. 

 PEMBROKE  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. 

 SALISBURY  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. 

 PEMBROKE  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. 

 SALISBURY  To this effect, before you were new crown'd, 

 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. 

 KING JOHN  Some reasons of this double coronation 

 I have possess'd you with and think them strong; 

 And more, more strong, then 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. 

 PEMBROKE  Then I, as one that am the tongue of these, 

 To sound the purpose 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. 



 Enter HUBERT  KING JOHN  Let it be so: I do commit his youth 

 To your direction. Hubert, what news with you? 



 Taking him apart  PEMBROKE  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 'tis done, 

 What we so fear'd he had a charge to do. 

 SALISBURY  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. 

 PEMBROKE  And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence 

 The foul corruption of a sweet child's death. 

 KING 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. 

 SALISBURY  Indeed we fear'd his sickness was past cure. 

 PEMBROKE  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. 

 KING 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? 

 SALISBURY  It is apparent foul play; and 'tis shame 

 That greatness should so grossly offer it: 

 So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell. 

 PEMBROKE  Stay yet, Lord Salisbury; I'll go with thee, 

 And find the inheritance of this poor child, 

 His little kingdom of a forced 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  KING JOHN  They burn in indignation. I repent: 

 There is no sure foundation set on 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? 

 Messenger  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 learn'd by them; 

 For when you should be told they do prepare, 

 The tidings come that they are all arrived. 

 KING 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? 

 Messenger  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. 

 KING 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 givest out are landed here? 

 Messenger  Under the Dauphin. 

 KING JOHN  Thou hast made me giddy 

 With these ill tidings. 



 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. 

 BASTARD  But if you be afeard to hear the worst, 

 Then let the worst unheard fall on your bead. 

 KING 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. 

 BASTARD  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 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. 

 KING JOHN  Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so? 

 PETER  Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so. 

 KING 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 hang'd. 

 Deliver him to safety; and return, 

 For I must use thee. 



 Exeunt HUBERT with PETER  O my gentle cousin, 

 Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arrived? 

 BASTARD  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 kill'd to-night 

 On your suggestion. 

 KING JOHN  Gentle kinsman, go, 

 And thrust thyself into their companies: 

 I have a way to win their loves again; 

 Bring them before me. 

 BASTARD  I will seek them out. 

 KING JOHN  Nay, but make haste; the better foot before. 

 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. 

 BASTARD  The spirit of the time shall teach me speed. 



 Exit  KING 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. 

 Messenger  With all my heart, my liege. 



 Exit  KING JOHN  My mother dead! 



 Re-enter HUBERT  HUBERT  My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night; 

 Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about 

 The other four in wondrous motion. 

 KING JOHN  Five moons! 

 HUBERT  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. 

 KING 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. 

 HUBERT  No had, my lord! why, did you not provoke me? 

 KING 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. 

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

 KING 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 

 Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by, 

 A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd, 

 Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame, 

 This murder had not come into my mind: 

 But taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect, 

 Finding thee fit for bloody villany, 

 Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger, 

 I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death; 

 And thou, to be endeared to a king, 

 Made it no conscience to destroy a prince. 

 HUBERT  My lord-- 

 KING JOHN  Hadst thou but shook thy head or made a pause 

 When I spake darkly what I purposed, 

 Or turn'd 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. 

 HUBERT  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 enter'd yet 

 The dreadful motion of a murderous thought; 

 And you have slander'd nature in my form, 

 Which, howsoever rude exteriorly, 

 Is yet the cover of a fairer mind 

 Than to be butcher of an innocent child. 

 KING 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. 



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