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.

95

That blood which owed the breadth of all this isle,
Three foot of it doth hold: bad world the while! 100

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 achieved 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:

105

Pour down thy weather: how goes all in France? Mess. From France to England. Never such a power IIO

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 comes that they are all arrived.
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!

115

120

125

O, make a league with me, till I have pleased
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 givest out are landed here? 130
Mess. Under the Dauphin.

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,

135

140

Then let the worst unheard fall on your head. K. John. Bear with me, cousin; for I was amazed 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 clergy-men, 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, 150 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
135. afeard] afraid F 4.

137. amazed] bewildered. Compare the Somerset "mazed," which has exactly the same meaning; and see IV. iii. 140 infra, also Troublesome Raigne, p. 16, line 169: "Nor mad, nor mazde, but well advised."

139. Aloft] This is the only use of this word by Shakespeare as a preposition.

145

155

146. Not knowing... full of fear] We have the same idea in Macbeth, IV. ii. 19, 20:

"And do not know ourselves,
when we hold rumour
From what we fear, yet know
not what we fear."

I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd.

Deliver him to safety; and return,

For I must use thee.

[Exit Hubert with Peter.

O my gentle cousin,

Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arrived? 160 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, whom they say is kill'd to-night
On your suggestion.

165

Gentle kinsman, go,

K. John.

Bast.

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

I will seek them out.

K. John. Nay, but make haste; the better foot before. 170
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.
K. John. Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.
Go after him; for he perhaps shall need

165, 166. Of ... suggestion] Rowe (ed. 2); one line in Ff. ject] F 1; subjects Ff 2, 3, 4.

158. safety] safe custody. 167. companies] See Iv. ii. 6 and 64 for "faiths" and "goods," similar abstract plurals.

170. the better foot before] Probably

175

[Exit.

171. sub

Mess.

Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;
And be thou he.

With all my heart, my liege. [Exit. 180

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.

Old men and beldams in the streets 185
Do prophesy 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, 190
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 contrary feet,
Told of a many thousand warlike French

185. beldams] belle dame meant (i.) a grandmother-compare Lucrece, 953, "To show the beldam daughters of her daughter"; (ii.) an aged woman; (iii.) a hag. Here it may be used in sense (ii.) or (iii.).

193. thus] The actor was left to illustrate the word. Compare Julius Cæsar, IV. iii. 26: "For

195

so much trash as may be grasped thus."

198. Had falsely... contrary feet] Johnson's curious note that "either shoe will equally admit either foot' would never have been written if he had tried to suggest a reason why Shakespeare should have alluded to an obvious impossibility.