Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Michael Best
Not Peer Reviewed

King John (Modern)

1995[4.3]
Enter Arthur on the walls [disguised as a ship-boy].
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,
2000This 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.
[He jumps.]
2005O me, my uncle's spirit is in these stones.
Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones.
Dies.
Enter Pembroke, Salisbury [with a letter], and Bigot.
Salisbury
Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmondsbury.
It is our safety, and we must embrace
2010This 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.
Tomorrow 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 today well met, distempered lords,
2020The King by me requests your presence straight.
Salisbury
The King hath dispossessed himself of us,
We will not line his thin bestainèd cloak
With our pure honors, nor attend the foot
That leaves the print of blood where e'er it walks.
2025Return and tell him so. We know the worst.
Bastard
What e'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.
2030Therefore '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.
[He sees Arthur's body.]
What is he lies here?
Pembroke
O, death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
2035The 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.
Or, when he doomed this beauty to a grave,
Found it too precious-princely for a grave.
2040Salisbury
Sir Richard, what think you? You have 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,
2045The 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.
2050Pembroke
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,
2055Exampled by this heinous spectacle.
Bastard
It is a damnèd, 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?
2060We had a kind of light what would ensue.
It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand,
The practice and the purpose of the king,
From whose obedience I forbid my soul, [He kneels.]
Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,
2065And 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,
2070Till I have set a glory to this hand
By giving it the worship of revenge.
Pembroke and Bigot
[They kneel.] Our souls religiously confirm thy words.
Enter Hubert. [The lords rise.]
Hubert
Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you,
2075Arthur doth live; the king hath sent for you.
Salisbury
O, he is bold and blushes not at death. --
Avaunt thou hateful villain, get thee gone!
Hubert
I am no villain.
Salisbury
Must I rob the law?
[He draws his sword.]
Bastard
Your sword is bright sir; put it up again.
2080Salisbury
Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin.
Hubert
[Putting his hand on his sword] 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 defense,
2085Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget
your worth, your greatness, and nobility.
Out dunghill! Dar'st thou brave a nobleman?
Hubert
Not for my life. But yet I dare defend
My innocent life against an emperor.
2090Salisbury
Thou art a murderer.
Hubert
Do not prove me so;
Yet I am none. Whose tongue so e'er speaks false,
Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.
Pembroke
[Drawing his sword] Cut him to pieces.
2095Bastard
[Drawing his sword] Keep the peace, I say.
Salisbury
Stand by, or I shall gall you Faulconbridge.
Bastard
Thou wer't better gall the devil Salisbury.
If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,
Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,
2100I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betimes,
Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron
That you shall think the devil is come from hell.
What wilt thou do, renownèd Faulconbridge?
Second a villain, and a murderer?
Lord Bigot, I am none.
Bigot
[Indicating Arthur's body] Who killed this Prince?
'Tis not an hour since I left him well:
I honored him, I loved him, and will weep
My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.
2110Salisbury
Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,
For villainy 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
2115Th'uncleanly savors of a slaughter-house,
For I am stifled with this smell of sin.
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?
2120Beyond the infinite and boundless reach
Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,
Art thou damned, Hubert.
Do but hear me sir.
Bastard
Ha? I'll tell thee what.
Thou'rt damned as black -- nay nothing is so black --
2125Thou art more deep damned than Prince Lucifer.
There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell
As thou shalt be if thou didst kill this child.
Upon my soul --
Bastard
If thou didst but consent
2130To 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,
2135Put 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.
If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,
2140Be 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.
2145I am amazed methinks, and lose my way
Among the thorns and dangers of this world.
[Hubert takes up Arthur's body.]
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
2150Is fled to heaven, and England now is left
To tug and scamble, and to part by th'teeth
The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.
Now for the bare-picked bone of majesty
Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest
2155And 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.
2160Now 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.
Exeunt [with Hubert carrying Arthur's body].