King John by William Shakespeare
Act 4 - Scene 3
Before the castle.
Arthur : The wall is high, and yet will I leap down:
[p]Good ground, be pitiful
and hurt me not!
[p]There's few or none do know me: if they
did,
[p]This ship-boy's semblance hath disguised me quite.
[p]I am
afraid; and yet I'll venture it.
[p]If I get down, and do not break my
limbs,
[p]I'll find a thousand shifts to get away:
[p]As good to die
and go, as die and stay.
[p][Leaps down]
[p]O me! my uncle's spirit is
in these stones:
[p]Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!
Salisbury : Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury:
[p]It is our safety, and
we must embrace
[p]This gentle offer of the perilous time.
Pembroke : Who brought that letter from the cardinal?
Salisbury : The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,
[p]Whose private with me of
the Dauphin's love
[p]Is much more general than these lines import.
Lord Bigot : To-morrow morning let us meet him then.
Salisbury : Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be
[p]Two long days' journey,
lords, or ere we meet.
Philip the Bastard : Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords!
[p]The king by me
requests your presence straight.
Salisbury : The king hath dispossess'd himself of us:
[p]We will not line his thin
bestained cloak
[p]With our pure honours, nor attend the foot
[p]That
leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.
[p]Return and tell him
so: we know the worst.
Philip the Bastard : Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.
Salisbury : Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.
Philip the Bastard : But there is little reason in your grief;
[p]Therefore 'twere reason
you had manners now.
Pembroke : Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.
Philip the Bastard : 'Tis true, to hurt his master, no man else.
Salisbury : This is the prison. What is he lies here?
Pembroke : O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
[p]The earth had
not a hole to hide this deed.
Salisbury : Murder, as hating what himself hath done,
[p]Doth lay it open to urge
on revenge.
Lord Bigot : Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,
[p]Found it too
precious-princely for a grave.
Salisbury : Sir Richard, what think you? have you beheld,
[p]Or have you read or
heard? or could you think?
[p]Or do you almost think, although you
see,
[p]That you do see? could thought, without this object,
[p]Form
such another? This is the very top,
[p]The height, the crest, or crest
unto the crest,
[p]Of murder's arms: this is the bloodiest
shame,
[p]The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,
[p]That ever
wall-eyed wrath or staring rage
[p]Presented to the tears of soft
remorse.
Pembroke : All murders past do stand excused in this:
[p]And this, so sole and so
unmatchable,
[p]Shall give a holiness, a purity,
[p]To the yet
unbegotten sin of times;
[p]And prove a deadly bloodshed but a
jest,
[p]Exampled by this heinous spectacle.
Philip the Bastard : It is a damned and a bloody work;
[p]The graceless action of a heavy
hand,
[p]If that it be the work of any hand.
Salisbury : If that it be the work of any hand!
[p]We had a kind of light what
would ensue:
[p]It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand;
[p]The
practise and the purpose of the king:
[p]From whose obedience I forbid
my soul,
[p]Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,
[p]And breathing
to his breathless excellence
[p]The incense of a vow, a holy
vow,
[p]Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
[p]Never to be
infected with delight,
[p]Nor conversant with ease and
idleness,
[p]Till I have set a glory to this hand,
[p]By giving it the
worship of revenge.
Pembroke : [with Bigot] Our souls religiously confirm thy words.
Hubert de Burgh : Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you:
[p]Arthur doth live; the
king hath sent for you.
Salisbury : O, he is old and blushes not at death.
[p]Avaunt, thou hateful
villain, get thee gone!
Hubert de Burgh : I am no villain.
Salisbury : Must I rob the law?
Philip the Bastard : Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.
Salisbury : Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin.
Hubert de Burgh : Stand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say;
[p]By heaven, I think
my sword's as sharp as yours:
[p]I would not have you, lord, forget
yourself,
[p]Nor tempt the danger of my true defence;
[p]Lest I, by
marking of your rage, forget
[p]Your worth, your greatness and
nobility.
Lord Bigot : Out, dunghill! darest thou brave a nobleman?
Hubert de Burgh : Not for my life: but yet I dare defend
[p]My innocent life against an
emperor.
Salisbury : Thou art a murderer.
Hubert de Burgh : Do not prove me so;
[p]Yet I am none: whose tongue soe'er speaks
false,
[p]Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.
Pembroke : Cut him to pieces.
Philip the Bastard : Keep the peace, I say.
Salisbury : Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge.
Philip the Bastard : Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury:
[p]If thou but frown on
me, or stir thy foot,
[p]Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me
shame,
[p]I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime;
[p]Or I'll
so maul you and your toasting-iron,
[p]That you shall think the devil
is come from hell.
Lord Bigot : What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge?
[p]Second a villain and a
murderer?
Hubert de Burgh : Lord Bigot, I am none.
Lord Bigot : Who kill'd this prince?
Hubert de Burgh : 'Tis not an hour since I left him well:
[p]I honour'd him, I loved
him, and will weep
[p]My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.
Salisbury : Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,
[p]For villany is not
without such rheum;
[p]And he, long traded in it, makes it
seem
[p]Like rivers of remorse and innocency.
[p]Away with me, all you
whose souls abhor
[p]The uncleanly savours of a
slaughter-house;
[p]For I am stifled with this smell of sin.
Lord Bigot : Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!
Pembroke : There tell the king he may inquire us out.
Philip the Bastard : Here's a good world! Knew you of this fair work?
[p]Beyond the
infinite and boundless reach
[p]Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of
death,
[p]Art thou damn'd, Hubert.
Hubert de Burgh : Do but hear me, sir.
Philip the Bastard : Ha! I'll tell thee what;
[p]Thou'rt damn'd as black--nay, nothing is
so black;
[p]Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer:
[p]There
is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell
[p]As thou shalt be, if thou didst
kill this child.
Hubert de Burgh : Upon my soul--
Philip the Bastard : If thou didst but consent
[p]To this most cruel act, do but
despair;
[p]And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread
[p]That
ever spider twisted from her womb
[p]Will serve to strangle thee, a
rush will be a beam
[p]To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown
thyself,
[p]Put but a little water in a spoon,
[p]And it shall be as
all the ocean,
[p]Enough to stifle such a villain up.
[p]I do suspect
thee very grievously.
Hubert de Burgh : If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,
[p]Be guilty of the stealing
that sweet breath
[p]Which was embounded in this beauteous
clay,
[p]Let hell want pains enough to torture me.
[p]I left him
well.
Philip the Bastard : Go, bear him in thine arms.
[p]I am amazed, methinks, and lose my
way
[p]Among the thorns and dangers of this world.
[p]How easy dost
thou take all England up!
[p]From forth this morsel of dead
royalty,
[p]The life, the right and truth of all this realm
[p]Is fled
to heaven; and England now is left
[p]To tug and scamble and to part
by the teeth
[p]The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.
[p]Now
for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty
[p]Doth dogged war bristle his
angry crest
[p]And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace:
[p]Now powers
from home and discontents at home
[p]Meet in one line; and vast
confusion waits,
[p]As doth a raven on a sick-fall'n beast,
[p]The
imminent decay of wrested pomp.
[p]Now happy he whose cloak and
cincture can
[p]Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child
[p]And
follow me with speed: I'll to the king:
[p]A thousand businesses are
brief in hand,
[p]And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.
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Next: Act 5 - Scene 1
