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Enter HUBERT.

To your direction.-Hubert, what news with you?

[HUBERT talks apart with the King.

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 'tis 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 you, I bear the shears of destiny?
Have I commandment on the pulse of life?

Sal. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis 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 th' inheritance of this poor child,
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.

[Exeunt Lords.

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

'That blood which ow'D] To "owe" is of course to own. See also p. 177, and other places where we have deemed a note unnecessary.

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 learn'd by them;

For, when you should be told they do prepare,

The tidings come 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 pleas'd
My discontented peers. - What! mother dead?
How wildly, then, walks my estate in France!-
Under whose conduct come 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 amaz'd Under the tide; but now I breathe again

* Under whose conduct COME those powers of France,] It is came in the old copies, but clearly misprinted and set right in the corr. fo. 1632. John is speaking of present danger from a present leader.

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, 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. O my gentle cousin !

[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, who, 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.

Bast.

I will seek them out.

K. John. Nay, but make haste; the better foot before. O! let me have no subject enemies,

9 And here's a prophet,) "This man," says Douce, "was a hermit in great repute with the common people. Notwithstanding the event is said to have fallen out as he had prophesied, the poor fellow was inhumanly dragged at horses' tails through the streets of Warham, and, together with his son, who appears to have been even more innocent than his father, hanged afterwards upon a gibbet." See "Holinshed's Chronicle," under the year 1213. In the old "King John," there is a scene between the prophet and the people, but otherwise altogether undeserving of notice.

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 spriteful, noble gentleman.

Go after him; for he, perhaps, shall need

Some messenger betwixt me and the peers,

[blocks in formation]

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

Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about

The other four in wonderous motion.

K. John. Five moons?

Hub.

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.

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.

1

five moons were seen to-night;] In the old "King John," the five moons were in some way made visible to the audience: the stage-direction is, "There the five moons appear."

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.

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! Had'st 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 villainy,
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.

Hub. My lord,

K. 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 sign ';

2 No had, my lord!) Hubert expresses his surprise at John's statement in a form of speech which was not uncommon in the time of Shakespeare. See Vol. ii. p. 368, where "No hath not?" occurs in just the same way.

3 Makes ill deeds done!] It is "deeds ill done" in the folios, a very intelligible form of speaking; but as the corr. fo. 1632 reverses the order of the words, we may conclude that the placing of the adjective after the substantive was merely an error of the press. Two lines below "quoted" means noted or distinguished.

4 As bid me tell my tale] i. e. "Turned such an eye of doubt, &c. as bade or did bid me tell my tale." Malone and others read And for "As." The corr. fo. 1632 has it "Or bid me tell my tale," but the change is needless.

And didst in signs again parley with SIGN;] So the corr. fo. 1632, and there can be no reasonable doubt that "sign" was the poet's word, and not sin as in the

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