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, SALIS BURY, and other Lords. The King takes his crown'd, And look'd upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes. Pem. This once again, but that your highness pleas’d, pomp, 4 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, Sal. In this, the antique and well-noted face well, Sal. To this effect, before you were new-crown'd, We breath'd our counsel: bút it pleas'd your high ness To overbear it; and we are all well pleas'd; K. John. Some reasons of this double coronation 6 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 these, To sound the purposes? of all their hearts,) Both for myself and them, (but, chief of all, Your safety, for the which inyself 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 ? 8 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, Counts it your weal, he have his liberty. K. John. Let it be so; I do commit his youth Enter HUBERT. To your direction.-Hubert, what news with you? 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 ? 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; go, thence The foul corruption of a sweet child's death. K. John. We cannot hold mortality's strong haud :- 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? Sal. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis shame, Pem. Stay yet, lord Salisbury; I'll go with thee, [Exeunt Lords. K. John. They burn in indignation; I repent; There is no sure foundation set on blood; No certain life achiev'd 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: 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; For, when you should be told they do prepare, The tidings come, that they are all arriv'd. K. John. 0, 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 occa sion! France, Mess. Under the Dauphin. . 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. |