To break into this dangerous argument,

If, what in rest you have, in right you hold,
Why then your fears, (which, as they say, attend
The steps of wrong,) should move you to mew up
Your tender kinsman, an to choke his days
With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth
The rich advantage of good exercise?
That the time's enemies may not have this
To grace occasions, let it be our suit,
That you have bid us ask his liberty;

Which for our goods we do no further ask,
Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
Counts it your weal, he have his liberty.
K. John. Let it be so; I do commit his youth

To

Enter HUBERT,

your direction.-Hubert, what news with you. Pem. This is the man should do the bloody deed; He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine:

The image of a wicked heinous fault
Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his

Does show the mood of a much-troubled breast;
And I do fearfully believe, 'tis done,

What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.

Sal. The colour of the king doth come and go, Between his purpose and his conscience,

Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set:
His passion is so ripe, it needs must break.

Pem. And, when it breaks, I fear, will issue thence The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.

K. John. We cannot hold mortality's strong hand :Good lords, although my will to give is living,

The suit which you demand is gone

and dead:

He tells us, Arthur is deceas'd to night.

Sal. Indeed, we fear'd, his sickness was past cure. Pem, Indeed we heard how near his death he was, Before the child himself felt he was sick :

This must be answer'd, either here, or hence.

K. John. Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?

Think you, I bear the shears of destiny?
Have I commandment on the pulse of life?
Sal. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis shame,
That greatness should so grossly offer it :
So thrive it in your game! and so farewell.
Pem. Stay yet, lord Salisbury; I'll go with thee,
And find the inheritance of this poor child,
His little kingdom of a forced grave.

That blood, which ow'd" the breath of all this isle,
Three foot of it doth hold; Bad world the while!
This must not be thus borne: this will break out
To all our sorrows, and ere long, I doubt.

[Exeunt Lords. K. John. They burn in indignation; I repent;

There is no sure foundation set on blood;
No certain life achiev'd by others' death.-

Enter a Messenger,

A fearful eye thou hast; Where is that blood,
That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?

So foul a sky clears not without a storm:

Pour down thy weather:--How goes all in France? Mess. From France to England.-Never such a power7

For any foreign preparation,

Was levied in the body of a land!

The copy of your speed is learn'd by them;
For, when you should be told they do prepare,
The tidings come, that they are all arriv'd.

K. John. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?

Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care? That such an army could be drawn in France,

And she not hear of it?

Mess.

My liege, her ear
Is stopp'd with dust; the first of April, died
Your noble mother: And, as I hear, my lord,
The lady Constance in a frenzy died

Three days before: but this from rumour's tongue
I idly heard; if true, or false, I know not.

K. John. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion! O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd My discontented peers!-What! mother dead? How wildly then walks my estate in France!— Under whose conduct came those powers of France, That thou for truth giv'st out, are landed here? Mess. Under the Dauphin.

Enter the Bastard and PETER of POMFRET. K. John. Thou hast made me giddy With these ill tidings.-Now, what says the world To your proceedings? do not seek to stuff

My head with more ill news, for it is full.

Bast. But, if you be afeard to hear the worst, Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head. K.John. Bear with me, cousin; for I was amaz'd3

8 Stunned, confounded.

Under the tide: but now I breathe again
Aloft the flood; and can give audience
To any tongue, speak it of what it will.

Bast. 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; Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams; Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear: And here's a prophet, that I brought with mè 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, Your highness should deliver up your crown.

K. John. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?

Peter. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so. K. John. Hubert, away with him; imprison him; And on that day at noon, whereon, he says, I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd: Deliver him to safety, and return,

For I must use thee.-O my gentle cousin,

[Exit HUBERT, with PETER.

Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd?

Bast. 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, who, they say, is kill'd to-night

9 Custody.

On your suggestion.

K. John.

Gentle kinsman, go,

And thrust thyself into their companies :
I have a way to win their loves again;
Bring them before me.

Bast.

I will seek them out.

K. 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.
Bast. The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.

[Exit.
K. John. Spoke like a spriteful noble gentleman.-
Go after him; for he, perhaps, shall need
Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;
And be thou he.

Mess.

With all my heart, my liege.

[Exit.

K. John. My mother dead!

Re-enter HUBERT.

Hub. My lord, they say, five moons were seen to

night:

Four fixed; and the fifth did whirl about

The other four, in wondrous motion.

K. John. Five moons?

Hub.

in the streets

Old men,
and beldams,

Do prephecy upon it dangerously: