King John IV

  [Aside] His words do take possession of my bosom.

  [To Arthur, showing him a paper]

Read here young Arthur. [Aside] How now, foolish rheum?

Turning dispiteous torture out of door?

I must be brief, lest resolution drop

Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.

Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ?

Hubert

Too fairly Hubert, for so foul effect.

Must you with hot irons, burn out both mine eyes?   

Arthur

Have you the heart? …

  … Will you put out mine eyes?

These eyes that never did, nor never shall,

So much as frown on you?

Arthur

I have sworn to do it,

And with hot irons must I burn them out.

Hubert

And if an angel should have come to me

  And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes

  I would not have believed him. No tongue

  But Hubert’s. 

Arthur

Here once again we sit, once again crowned,

  And looked upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.

King John

But that your royal pleasure must be done,

  This act is as an ancient tale new told,

  And, in the last repeating, troublesome,

  Being urged at a time unseasonable.

Pembroke

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 learned by them,

For when you should be told they do prepare,

The tidings comes that they are all arrived.

Messenger

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?

King John

My liege, her ear

Is stopped 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 rumor’s tongue

I idly heard: if true or false I know not. 

Messenger

How I have sped among the clergymen,

The sums I have collected shall express.

But as I traveled hither through the land,

I find the people strangely fantasied,

Possessed with rumors, 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. 

Bastard

Thus have I yielded up into your hand

  The circle of my glory.

King John

 [Returning the crown to King John] Take again

  From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,

  Your sovereign greatness and authority.

Pandulph

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 thanked, it is but voluntary. 

King John

Why seek’st thou to possess me with these fears?

Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur’s death?

Thy hand hath murdered him. I had a mighty cause

To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.

King John

No had, my lord. Why, did you not provoke me?

Hubert

It is the curse of kings to be attended

By slaves that take their humors for a warrant

To break within the bloody house of life,

And on the winking of authority

To understand a law, to know the meaning

Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns

More upon humor than advised respect.

King John

[Showing the warrant] Here is your hand and seal for what I did.   

Hubert

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.

Arthur

O me, my uncle’s spirit is in these stones.

Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones.

Arthur

Thither shall it then,

And happily may your sweet self put on

The lineal state and glory of the land, [He kneels.]

To whom with all submission on my knee,

I do bequeath my faithful services

And true subjection everlastingly.

Bastard

All kneel to Prince Henry.] And the like tender of our love we make

  To rest without a spot for evermore

Salisbury

I have a kind soul that would give thanks,

  And knows not how to do it but with tears.

Prince Henry

[They rise.] Oh let us pay the time but needful woe,

Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.

This England never did, nor never shall

Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror

But when it first did help to wound itself.

Now these her princes are come home again,

Come the three corners of the world in arms

And we shall shock them: naught shall make us rue,

If England to itself, do rest but true. 

Bastard