MESSENGER.
Under the Dauphin.
KING JOHN.
Thou hast made me giddy
With these in 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 afear’d to hear the worst,
Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.
KING JOHN.
Bear with me, cousin, for I was amaz’d
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’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.
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.
[Exit HUBERT with PETER.]
O my gentle cousin,
Hear’st thou the news abroad, who are arriv’d?
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, whom they say is kill’d tonight
On your suggestion.
KING JOHN.
Gentle kinsman, go
And thrust thyself into their companies:
I have a way to will 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.
KING JOHN.
Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman!
[Exit BASTARD.]
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 tonight;
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 advis’d 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