Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.

Hub. Is this your promise? go to, hold your tongue.

Arth. 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,
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.

Hub.

I can heat it, boy.

Arth. No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief,

Being create for comfort, to be used

In undeserved extremes: see else yourself;
There is no malice in this burning coal;

100

The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out
And strew'd repentant ashes on his head.

Hub. But with my breath I can revive it, boy.

Arth. An 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,
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.

Hub. 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,

99. want pleading, be insufficient to plead.

With this same very iron to burn them out.

Arth. O, now you look like Hubert! all this

while

You were disguised.

Peace: no more.

Adieu.

Hub.
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,
Will not offend thee.

Arth.

O heaven! I thank you, Hubert. Hub. Silence; no more: go closely in with me: Much danger do I undergo for thee.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. KING JOHN's palace.

Enter KING JOHN, PEMBROKE, Salisbury,
and other Lords.

K. John. Here once again we sit, once again
crown'd,

And looked upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.

Pem. This once again,' but that your highness pleased,

Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before,
And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off,
The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt;
Fresh expectation troubled not the land
With any long'd-for change or better state.

Sal. Therefore, to be possess'd with double

pomp,

To guard a title that was rich before,

130

10

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,

130. doubtless and secure, in fearless confidence.

132. offend, harm.

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,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

Pem. 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.

Sal. 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,

Makes sound opinion sick and truth suspected,
For putting on so new a fashion'd robe.

Pem. When workmen strive to do better than
well,

They do confound their skill in covetousness;
And oftentimes excusing of a fault

Doth make the fault the worse by the 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.

Sal. To this effect, before you were new crown'd,

We breathed our counsel: but it pleased your

highness

To overbear it, and we are all well pleased,

Since all and every part of what we would
Doth make a stand at what your highness will.
K. John. Some reasons of this double coro-
nation

I have possess'd you with and think them strong;
24. fetch about, veer round.

20

30

40

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
I will both hear and grant you your requests.
Pem. 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
Bend their best studies, heartily request
The 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,
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?
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

42. more, more strong, than lesser is my fear, more reasons, even stronger than in proportion to my diminished fear; i.e. the superior cogency of his new arguments, far from indicating a greater anxiety, would even exceed the measure of his relief. Ff read then lesser (lesse),' where then' is a common sixteenth-century spelling of Tyrwhitt's when'

'than.'

is very plausible.

48. sound, declare.

4

50. them; for they,' perhaps,

50

60

as Camb. edd. think, through the preceding 'myself' suggesting 'themselves.' Or the compositor's eye may have caught the myself and them' above. 52. enfranchisement, liberation.

60.

exercise, mental and bodily training.

61. the time's enemies, the opponents of the present régime.

62. To grace occasions, to render specious their matters of complaint against you.

64. goods, good, advantage.

G

Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
Counts it your weal he have his liberty.

Enter HUBERT.

K. John. Let it be so: I do commit his youth Το your direction. Hubert, what news with you? [Taking him apart.

Pem. This is the man should do the bloody

deed;

He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine:

The image of a wicked heinous fault

Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his

Does 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.

Sal. 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.
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 deceased 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 :

65. Than whereupon, etc., (we ask his liberty no further) than the commonwealth counts it your advantage. upon' has no distinct meaning;

'Where

70

80

it is apparently suggested by 'depending.'

78. battles, embattled armies. 79. His passion is so ripe, etc.; the image is from a tumour.