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 farewel.

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 breadth 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

power

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
Το 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'd
Under the tide: but now I breathe again
Aloft the flood; and can give audience
Το 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 travell'd 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 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, 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
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 gentle

man.

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 wond'rous motion.

K. John. Five moons?

Hub.

in the streets

Old men, and beldams,

Do prophecy 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;

And he, that speaks, doth gripe 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 contráry feet,)
Told of a many thousand warlike French,
That were embatteled and rank'd in Kent:
Another lean unwash'd artificer

Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.

K. John. Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?

Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?
Thy hand hath murder'd him: I had mighty cause
To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him: