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 travelled hither through the land,

I find the people strangely fantasied,

Possessed 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 151

Your highness should deliver up your crown.

KING JOHN

Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?

PETER OF POMFRET

Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.

KING JOHN

Hubert, away with him! Imprison him,155

And on that day, at noon, whereon he says

I shall yield up my crown, let him be hanged.

Deliver him to safety, and return,

For I must use thee.

Exeunt Hubert and Peter of Pomfret

O my gentle cousin,

Hear’st thou the news abroad, who are arrived? 160

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 killed tonight

On your suggestion.

KING JOHN Gentle kinsman, go

And thrust thyself into their companies.

I have away 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. 175

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. 180

MESSENGER With all my heart, my liege. Exit

KING JOHN My mother dead!

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; 190

And he that speaks doth grip 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 200

That were embattailèd and ranked in Kent.

Another lean unwashed 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 murdered 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.

He shows a paper

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 220

Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,

A fellow by the hand of nature marked,

Quoted, and signed to do a deed of shame,

This murder had not come into my mind.

But taking note of thy abhorred aspect,

Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,

Apt, liable to be employed 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 turned 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,