Your uncle must not know but you are dead: 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. The same. A Room of State in the Palace. Enter King JOHN, crowned; PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other Lords. The King takes his State. K. John. Here once again we sit, once again crown'd, And look'd upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes. Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before, 5 To guard a title that was rich before, Go closely in with me.] i. e. secretly, privately. To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, 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 It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about; Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected, 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; 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 breath'd our counsel: but it pleas'd your high ness To overbear it; and we are all well pleas'd; K. John. Some reasons of this double coronation They do confound their skill in covetousness:] i. e. not by their avarice, but in an eager emulation, an intense desire of excelling. Pem. Then I, (as one that am the tongue of To sound the purposes of all their hearts,) K. John. Let it be so; I do commit his youth Enter HUBERT. To your direction.-Hubert, what news with you? The image of a wicked heinous fault To sound the purposes-] To declare, to publish the desires of all those. - good exercise?] In the middle ages, the whole education of princes and noble youths consisted in martial exercises, &c. These could not be easily had in a prison, where mental improvements might have been afforded as well as any where else; but this sort of education never entered into the thoughts of our active, warlike, but illiterate nobility. PERCY. Does show the mood of a much-troubled breast; 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. Good lords, although my will to give is living, 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: This must be answer'd, either here, or hence. K. John. Why do you bend such solemn brows on me? Think you, I bear the shears of destiny? Sal. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis shame, Pem. Stay yet, lord Salisbury; I'll go with thee, That blood, which ow'd the breath of all this isle, Three foot of it doth hold; Bad world the while! 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; Enter a Messenger. A fearful eye thou hast; Where is that blood, So foul a sky clears not without a storm: Pour down thy weather:-How goes all in France? Mess. 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 learn'd by them; K. John. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk? Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care? 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 occa sion! O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd That thou for truth giv'st out, are landed here? How wildly then walks my estate in France!] i. e. how ill my affairs go in France!-The verb, to walk, is used with great license by old writers. |