TPTT The Life and Death of King John: ACT IV
Introduction
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
SCENE I. A room in a castle.
SCENE II. KING JOHN'S palace.
SCENE III. Before the castle.
ACT V
About the Play
Feedback
  Search:   
for:

Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More
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.
5     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:
10    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
15    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
20    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
25    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
30    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
35    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,
40    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,
45    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
50    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;
55    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
60    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,
65    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,
70    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:
75    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
80    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,
85    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
90    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
95    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,
100   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?
105   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
110   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.
115   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
120   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
125   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
130   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
135   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.
140   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.
145   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!
150   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.
155   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,
160   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:
165   A thousand businesses are brief in hand,
      And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.
Exeunt
Return to top of page ... or ... Go to next scene