| ACT IV SCENE III | Before the castle. | |
| | Enter ARTHUR, on the walls. | |
| ARTHUR | 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. | 5 |
| | 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. | |
| | Leaps down | |
| | O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones: | 10 |
| | Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones! | |
| | Dies | |
| | Enter PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and BIGOT. | |
| SALISBURY | Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury: | |
| | It is our safety, and we must embrace | |
| | This gentle offer of the perilous time. | |
| PEMBROKE | Who brought that letter from the cardinal? | 15 |
| SALISBURY | The Count Melun, a noble lord of France, | |
| | Whose private with me of the Dauphin's love | |
| | Is much more general than these lines import. | |
| BIGOT | To-morrow morning let us meet him then. | |
| SALISBURY | Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be | 20 |
| | Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet. | |
| | Enter the BASTARD | |
| BASTARD | Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords! | |
| | The king by me requests your presence straight. | |
| SALISBURY | The king hath dispossess'd himself of us: | |
| | We will not line his thin bestained cloak | 25 |
| | With our pure honours, nor attend the foot | |
| | That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks. | |
| | Return and tell him so: we know the worst. | |
| BASTARD | Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best. | |
| SALISBURY | Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now. | 30 |
| BASTARD | But there is little reason in your grief; | |
| | Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now. | |
| PEMBROKE | Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege. | |
| BASTARD | 'Tis true, to hurt his master, no man else. | |
| SALISBURY | This is the prison. What is he lies here? | 35 |
| | Seeing ARTHUR | |
| PEMBROKE | O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty! | |
| | The earth had not a hole to hide this deed. | |
| SALISBURY | Murder, as hating what himself hath done, | |
| | Doth lay it open to urge on revenge. | |
| BIGOT | Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave, | 40 |
| | Found it too precious-princely for a grave. | |
| SALISBURY | Sir Richard, what think you? have you beheld, | |
| | Or have you read or heard? or could you think? | |
| | Or do you almost think, although you see, | |
| | That you do see? could thought, without this object, | 45 |
| | Form such another? This is the very top, | |
| | The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest, | |
| | Of murder's arms: this is the bloodiest shame, | |
| | The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke, | |
| | That ever wall-eyed wrath or staring rage | 50 |
| | Presented to the tears of soft remorse. | |
| PEMBROKE | All murders past do stand excused in this: | |
| | And this, so sole and so unmatchable, | |
| | Shall give a holiness, a purity, | |
| | To the yet unbegotten sin of times; | 55 |
| | And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest, | |
| | Exampled by this heinous spectacle. | |
| BASTARD | It is a damned and a bloody work; | |
| | The graceless action of a heavy hand, | |
| | If that it be the work of any hand. | 60 |
| SALISBURY | If that it be the work of any hand! | |
| | We had a kind of light what would ensue: | |
| | It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand; | |
| | The practise and the purpose of the king: | |
| | From whose obedience I forbid my soul, | 65 |
| | Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life, | |
| | And breathing to his breathless excellence | |
| | The incense of a vow, a holy vow, | |
| | Never to taste the pleasures of the world, | |
| | Never to be infected with delight, | 70 |
| | Nor conversant with ease and idleness, | |
| | Till I have set a glory to this hand, | |
| | By giving it the worship of revenge. | |
| PEMBROKE | | | |
| | | Our souls religiously confirm thy words. | 75 |
| BIGOT | | | |
| | Enter HUBERT | |
| HUBERT | Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you: | |
| | Arthur doth live; the king hath sent for you. | |
| SALISBURY | O, he is old and blushes not at death. | |
| | Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone! | 80 |
| HUBERT | I am no villain. | |
| SALISBURY | Must I rob the law? | |
| | Drawing his sword | |
| BASTARD | Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again. | |
| SALISBURY | Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin. | |
| HUBERT | Stand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say; | 85 |
| | By heaven, I think my sword's as sharp as yours: | |
| | I would not have you, lord, forget yourself, | |
| | Nor tempt the danger of my true defence; | |
| | Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget | |
| | Your worth, your greatness and nobility. | 90 |
| BIGOT | Out, dunghill! darest thou brave a nobleman? | |
| HUBERT | Not for my life: but yet I dare defend | |
| | My innocent life against an emperor. | |
| SALISBURY | Thou art a murderer. | |
| HUBERT | Do not prove me so; | 95 |
| | Yet I am none: whose tongue soe'er speaks false, | |
| |
Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies. | |
| PEMBROKE | Cut him to pieces. | |
| BASTARD | Keep the peace, I say. | |
| SALISBURY | Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge. | 100 |
| BASTARD | Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury: | |
| | If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot, | |
| | Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame, | |
| | I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime; | |
| | Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron, | 105 |
| | That you shall think the devil is come from hell. | |
| BIGOT | What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge? | |
| | Second a villain and a murderer? | |
| HUBERT | Lord Bigot, I am none. | |
| BIGOT | Who kill'd this prince? | 110 |
| HUBERT | 'Tis not an hour since I left him well: | |
| | I honour'd him, I loved him, and will weep | |
| | My date of life out for his sweet life's loss. | |
| SALISBURY | Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes, | |
| | For villany is not without such rheum; | 115 |
| | And he, long traded in it, makes it seem | |
| | Like rivers of remorse and innocency. | |
| | Away with me, all you whose souls abhor | |
| | The uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house; | |
| | For I am stifled with this smell of sin. | 120 |
| BIGOT | Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there! | |
| PEMBROKE | There tell the king he may inquire us out. | |
| | Exeunt Lords | |
| BASTARD | Here's a good world! Knew you of this fair work? | |
| | Beyond the infinite and boundless reach | |
| | Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death, | 125 |
| | Art thou damn'd, Hubert. | |
| HUBERT | Do but hear me, sir. | |
| BASTARD | Ha! I'll tell thee what; | |
| | Thou'rt damn'd as black--nay, nothing is so black; | |
| | Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer: | 130 |
| | There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell | |
| | As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child. | |
| HUBERT | Upon my soul-- | |
| BASTARD | If thou didst but consent | |
| | To this most cruel act, do but despair; | 135 |
| | And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread | |
| | That ever spider twisted from her womb | |
| | Will serve to strangle thee, a rush will be a beam | |
| | To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself, | |
| | Put but a little water in a spoon, | 140 |
| | And it shall be as all the ocean, | |
| | Enough to stifle such a villain up. | |
| | I do suspect thee very grievously. | |
| HUBERT | If I in act, consent, or sin of thought, | |
| | Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath | 145 |
| | Which was embounded in this beauteous clay, | |
| | Let hell want pains enough to torture me. | |
| | I left him well. | |
| BASTARD | Go, bear him in thine arms. | |
| | I am amazed, methinks, and lose my way | 150 |
| | Among the thorns and dangers of this world. | |
| | How easy dost thou take all England up! | |
| | From forth this morsel of dead royalty, | |
| | The life, the right and truth of all this realm | |
| | Is fled to heaven; and England now is left | 155 |
| | To tug and scamble and to part by the teeth | |
| | The unowed interest of proud-swelling state. | |
| | Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty | |
| | Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest | |
| | And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace: | 160 |
| | Now powers from home and discontents at home | |
| | Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits, | |
| | As doth a raven on a sick-fall'n beast, | |
| | The imminent decay of wrested pomp. | |
| | Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can | 165 |
| | Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child | |
| | And follow me with speed: I'll to the king: | |
| | A thousand businesses are brief in hand, | |
| | And heaven itself doth frown upon the land. | |
| | Exeunt | |
