And didst in signs again parley with sin;

Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,

And consequently thy rude hand to act

The deed which both our tongues held vile to name.

Out of my sight, and never see me more!

My nobles leave me, and my state is braved,

Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers;

Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,

This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,

Hostility and civil tumult reigns

Between my conscience and my cousin’s death.

HUBERT

Arm you against your other enemies;

I’ll make a peace between your soul and you.

Young Arthur is alive. This hand of mine

Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,

Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.

Within this bosom never entered yet

The dreadful motion of a murderous thought;

And you have slandered nature in my form,

Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,

Is yet the cover of a fairer mind

Than to be butcher of an innocent child. 260

KING JOHN

Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers;

Throw this report on their incensed rage,

And make them tame to their obedience.

Forgive the comment that my passion made

Upon thy feature, for my rage was blind, 265

And foul imaginary eyes of blood

Presented thee more hideous than thou art.

O,answer not, but to my closet bring

The angry lords with all expedient haste.

I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.

Exeunt ⌈severally⌉

4.3 Enter Arthur Duke of Brittaine 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,

This 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 leaps down

O me! My uncle’s spirit is in these stones.

Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones! I0

He dies Enter the Earls of Pembroke and Salisbury, and Lord 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

The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,

Who’s private with me of the Dauphin’s love;

’Tis much more general than these lines import.

BIGOT

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. 20

Enter the Bastard

BASTARD

Once more today well met, distempered lords.

The 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 honours, nor attend the foot 25

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

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.

He sees Arthur’s body

What is he lies here?

PEMBROKE

O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!

The earth had not a hole to hide this deed. 36

SALISBURY

Murder, as hating what himself hath done,

Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.

BIGOT

Or when he doomed this beauty to a grave,

Found it too precious-princely fora grave. 40

SALISBURY (to the Bastard)

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,

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

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,

And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest, 55

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

If that it be the work of any hand? 60

We 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,

Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life, 65

And breathing to his breathless excellence