Is it my fault that I was Geoffrey’s son?
No, indeed, is’t not; and I would to heaven
I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.
HUBERT [aside] If I talk to him, with his innocent prate
He will awake my mercy, which lies dead:
25
Therefore I will be sudden and dispatch.
ARTHUR Are you sick, Hubert? you look pale to-day.
In sooth, I would you were a little sick,
That I might sit all night and watch with you:
I warrant I love you more than you do me.
30
HUBERT [aside]
His words do take possession of my bosom.
Read here, young Arthur. [showing a paper]
[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. –
35
Can you not read it? is it not fair writ?
ARTHUR Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect:
Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?
HUBERT Young boy, I must.
ARTHUR And will you?
HUBERT And I will.
40
ARTHUR
Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,
I knit my handkercher about your brows,
The best I had, a princess wrought it me,
And I did never ask it you again;
And with my hand at midnight held your head,
45
And, like the watchful minutes to the hour,
Still and anon cheer’d up the heavy time,
Saying, ‘What lack you?’ and ‘Where lies your grief?’
Or ‘What good love may I perform for you?’
Many a poor man’s son would have lien still
50
And ne’er have spoke a loving word to you;
But you at your sick-service had a prince.
Nay, you may think my love was crafty love,
And call it cunning: do, and if you will.
If heaven be pleas’d that you must use me ill,
55
Why then you must. Will you put out mine eyes?
These eyes that never did nor never shall
So much as frown on you.
HUBERT I have sworn to do it;
And with hot irons must I burn them out.
ARTHUR Ah, none but in this iron age would do it!
60
The iron of itself, though heat red-hot,
Approaching near these eyes, would drink my tears
And quench this fiery indignation
Even in the matter of mine innocence;
Nay, after that, consume away in rust,
65
But for containing fire to harm mine eye.
Are you more stubborn-hard than hammer’d iron?
And if an angel should have come to me
And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes,
I would not have believ’d him, – no tongue
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But Hubert’s.
HUBERT Come forth! [Stamps.]
[The Executioners come forth, with a cord, irons, etc.]
Do as I bid you do.
ARTHUR O, save me, Hubert, save me! my eyes are out
Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.
HUBERT Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here.
ARTHUR Alas, what need you be so boist’rous-rough?
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I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still.
For heaven sake, Hubert, let me not be bound!
Nay, hear me, Hubert, drive these men away,
And I will sit as quiet as a lamb;
I will not stir, nor winch, nor speak a word,
80
Nor look upon the iron angerly:
Thrust but these men away, and I’ll forgive you
Whatever torment you do put me to.
HUBERT Go, stand within; let me alone with him.
1 EXECUTIONER
I am best pleas’d to be from such a deed.
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Exeunt Executioners.
ARTHUR Alas, I then have chid away my friend!
He hath a stern look, but a gentle heart:
Let him come back, that his compassion may
Give life to yours.
HUBERT Come, boy, prepare yourself.
ARTHUR Is there no remedy?
HUBERT None, but to lose your eyes.
90
ARTHUR
O heaven, that there were but a mote in yours,
A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,
Any annoyance in that precious sense!
Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there,
Your vild intent must needs seem horrible.
95
HUBERT Is this your promise? go to, hold your tongue.
ARTHUR Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues.
Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes:
Let me not hold my tongue, let me not, Hubert!
Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue,
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So I may keep mine eyes: O, spare mine eyes,
Though to no use but still to look on you!
Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold
And would not harm me.
HUBERT I can heat it, boy.
ARTHUR No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief,
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Being create for comfort, to be us’d
In undeserv’d extremes; see else yourself:
There is no malice in this burning coal;
The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out
And strew’d repentant ashes on his head.
110
HUBERT But with my breath I can revive it, boy.
ARTHUR And if you do, you will but make it blush
And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert:
Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes;
And, like a dog that is compell’d to fight,
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Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on.
All things that you should use to do me wrong
Deny their office: only you do lack
That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends –
Creatures of note for mercy lacking uses!
120
HUBERT Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eye
For all the treasure that thine uncle owes:
Yet am I sworn and I did purpose, boy,
With this same very iron to burn them out.
ARTHUR O, now you look like Hubert! all this while
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You were disguis’d.
HUBERT Peace; no more. Adieu.
Your uncle must not know but you are dead.
I’ll fill these dogged spies with false reports:
And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure
That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world,
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Will not offend thee.
ARTHUR O heaven! I thank you, Hubert.
HUBERT Silence; no more. Go closely in with me:
Much danger do I undergo for thee. Exeunt.
4.2 Enter KING JOHN, PEMBROKE, SALISBURY and other lords.
KING JOHN
Here once again we sit, once again crown’d,
And look’d upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.
PEMBROKE
This ‘once again’, but that your highness pleas’d,
Was once superfluous: you were crown’d before,
And that high royalty was ne’er pluck’d off,
5
The faiths of men ne’er stained with revolt;
Fresh expectation troubled not the land
With any long’d-for change or better state.
SALISBURY
Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
10
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
15
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
PEMBROKE 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.
20
SALISBURY In this the antique and well-noted face
Of plain old form is much disfigured;
And, like a shifted wind unto a sail,
It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about,
Startles and frights consideration,
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Makes sound opinion sick and truth suspected,
For putting on so new a fashion’d robe.
PEMBROKE
When workmen strive to do better than well
They do confound their skill in covetousness;
And oftentimes excusing of a fault
30
Doth make the fault the worse by th’excuse:
As patches set upon a little breach
Discredit more in hiding of the fault
Than did the fault before it was so patch’d.
SALISBURY
To this effect, before you were new crown’d,
35
We breath’d our counsel: but it pleas’d your highness
To overbear it, and we are all well pleas’d,
Since all and every part of what we would
Doth make a stand at what your highness will.
KING JOHN Some reasons of this double coronation
40
I have possess’d you with, and think them strong;
And more, more strong than lesser is my fear,
I shall indue you with: meantime but ask
What you would have reform’d that is not well,
And well shall you perceive how willingly
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I will both hear and grant you your requests.
PEMBROKE Then I, as one that am the tongue of these,
To sound the purposes of all their hearts,
Both for myself and them, but, chief of all,
Your safety, for the which, myself and them,
50
Bend their best studies, heartily request
Th’enfranchisement of Arthur: whose restraint
Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent
To break into this dangerous argument:
If what in rest you have in right you hold,
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Why then your fears, which, as they say, attend
The steps of wrong, should move you to mew up
Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days
With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth
The rich advantage of good exercise?
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That the time’s enemies may not have this
To grace occasions, let it be our suit
That you have bid us ask his liberty;
Which for our goods we do no further ask
Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
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Counts it your weal he have his liberty.
Enter HUBERT.
KING JOHN Let it be so: I do commit his youth
To your direction. Hubert, what news with you?
[taking him apart]
PEMBROKE This is the man should do the bloody deed:
He show’d his warrant to a friend of mine.
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The image of a wicked heinous fault
Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his
Do show the mood of a much troubled breast;
And I do fearfully believe ’tis done,
What we so fear’d he had a charge to do.
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SALISBURY The colour of the king doth come and go
Between his purpose and his conscience,
Like heralds ’twixt two dreadful battles set:
His passion is so ripe, it needs must break.
PEMBROKE And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence
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The foul corruption of a sweet child’s death.
KING 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.
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SALISBURY Indeed we fear’d his sickness was past cure.
PEMBROKE
Indeed we heard how near his death he was,
Before the child himself felt he was sick:
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 269
