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.

Bast. Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.

Sal. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.
Bast. But there is little reason in your grief;
Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now.
Pem. Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.
Bast. 'Tis true,-to hurt his master, no man else.
Sal. This is the prison :--what is he lies here?

[Seeing ARTHUR. Pem. O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty! The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.

Sal. Murder, as hating what himself hath done,

Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.

Big. Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,

Found it too precious-princely for a grave.

Sal. 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,
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-ey'd wrath or staring rage

Presented to the tears of soft remorse.

Pem. All murders past do stand excus'd in tl is:

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,
Exampled by this heinous spectacle.

Bast. It is a damned and a bloody work;
The graceless action of a heavy hand,-
If that it be the work of any hand.

Sal. 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 practice and the purpose of the king :-
From whose obedience I forbid my soul,
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,
Nor conversant with ease and idleness,
Till I have set a glory to this hand,
By giving it the worship of revenge.

Pem. Big. Our souls religiously confirm thy words.
Enter HUBERT.

Hub. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you:
Arthur doth live; the king hath sent for you.
Sal. O, he is bold, and blushes not at death:-
Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!
Hub. I am no villain.

Sal.

Must I rob the law?

[Drawing his sword.

Bast. Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again. Sal. Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin. Hub. 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 defence;

Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget

Your worth, your greatness, and nobility.

Big. Out, dunghill! dar'st thou brave a noblemen?
Hub. Not for my life: but yet I dare defend

My innocent life against an emperor.

Sal. Thou art a murderer.

Hub.

Do not prove me so;

Yet I am none: whose tongue soe'er speaks false,
Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.
Pem. Cut him to pieces.

Keep the peace, I say.

Bast.
Sal. Stand by, or I shall gall you, Falconbridge.
Bast. Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury:

If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,

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.
Big. What wilt thou do, renowned Falconbridge?
Second a villain and a murderer?

Hub. Lord Bigot, I am none.
Big.
Who kill'd this prince?
Hub. 'Tis not an hour since I left him well:

I honour'd him, I lov'd him; and will weep
My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.
Sal. 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.
Away with me, all you whose souls abhor
The uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house;
For I am stifled with this smell of sin.

Big. Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!
Pem. There, tell the king, he may inquire us out.

[Exeunt Lords. Bast. 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.

Hub.

Do but hear me, sir.

Bast. 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.
Hub. Upon my soul,-

Bast.

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

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.
I do suspect thee very grievously.

Hub. 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!
I left him well.

Bast.
Go, bear him in thine arms.-
I am amaz'd, methinks, and lose my way
Among the thorns and dangers of this world.-
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
Is fled to heaven; and England now is left
To tug and scamble, and to part by the teeth
The unow'd interest of proud-swelling state.
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,
As doth a raven on a sick-fallen 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:
A thousand businesses are brief in hand,
And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.

[Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I.-NORTHAMPTON.

A Room in the Palace.

Enter KING JOHN, PANDULPH with the crown, and

Attendants.

K. John. Thus have I yielded up into your hand The circle of my glory.

Pand.

Take again

[Giving KING JOHN the crown.

From this my hand, as holding of the pope,

Your sovereign greatness and authority.

K. John. Now keep your holy word: go meet the French; And from his holiness use all your power

To stop their marches 'fore we are inflam'd.
Our discontented counties do revolt;
Our people quarrel with obedience;
Swearing allegiance and the love of soul
To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.
This inundation of mistemper'd humour

Rests by you only to be qualified.

Then pause not; for the present time's so sick

That present medicine must be minister'd,

Or overthrow incurable ensues.

Pand. It was my breath that blew this tempest up,

Upon your stubborn usage of the pope:

But since you are a gentle convertite,

My tongue shall hush again this storm of war,

And make fair weather in your blustering land.
On this Ascension-day, remember well,
Upon your oath of service to the pope,

Go I to make the French lay down their arms.

[Exit.

K. John. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet Say that before Ascension-day at noon

My crown I should give off? Even so I have:

I did suppose it should be on constraint;

But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.

Enter the Bastard.

Bast. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out But Dover Castle: London hath receiv'd,

Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers:
Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone

To offer service to your enemy;

And wild amazement hurries up and down
The little number of your doubtful friends.

K. John. Would not my lords return to me again,
After they heard young Arthur was alive?

Bast. They found him dead, and cast into the streets; An empty casket, where the jewel of life

By some damn'd hand was robb'd and ta'en away.
K. John. That villain Hubert told me he did live.
Bast. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.
But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear and sad distrust
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:

Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviours from the great,
Grow great by your example, and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.
Away, and glister like the god of war
When he intendeth to become the field:
Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
What, shall they seek the lion in his den,

And fright him there? and make him tremble there?
O let it not be said!--Forage, and run

To meet displeasure further from the doors,

And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.

K. John. The legate of the pope hath been with me, And I have made a happy peace with him; And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers Led by the Dauphin.

Bast.

O inglorious league!
Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,