My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.
Sal. Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,
For villany is not without such rheum;
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.
Big. Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!
Pem. There tell the king he may inquire us out.

ΙΙΟ

[Exeunt Lords. Bast. 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,
Art thou damn'd, Hubert.

Hub.
Bast. Ha! I'll tell thee what;

Do but hear me, sir.

120

Thou 'rt damn'd as black-nay, nothing is so black;
Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer:

There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell

As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.

Hub. Upon my soul

Bast.

If thou didst but consent

To this most cruel act, do but despair;

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,
And it shall be as all the ocean,
Enough to stifle such a villain up.
I do suspect thee very grievously.

Hub. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,

Bast.

Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath
Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,
Let hell want pains enough to torture me.
I left him well.

Go, bear him in thine arms.
I am amazed, methinks, and lose my way
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
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:
Now powers from home and discontents at home
Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,
As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast,
The imminent decay of wrested pomp.
Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can
Hold out this tempest. Bear away that chile
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.

140

150

[Exeunt.

ACT FIFTH.

Scene I.

King John's palace.

Enter King John, Pandulph, and Attendants.

K. John. Thus have I yielded up into your hand.
The circle of my glory.

Pand.

[Giving the crown.

Take again

From this my hand, as holding of the pope

Your sovereign greatness and authority.

K. John. Now keep your holy word: go meet the French,
And from his holiness use all your power

To stop their marches 'fore we are inflamed.
Our discontented counties do revolt;
Our people quarrel with obedience,
Swearing allegiance and the love of soul
To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.
This inundation of mistempered humour
Rests by you only to be qualified:

Then pause not; for the present time's so sick,
That present medicine must be minister'd,
Or overthrow incurable ensues.

Pand. It was my breath that blew this tempest up,
Upon your stubborn usage of the pope;

But since you are a gentle convertite,
My tongue shall hush again this storm of war,
And make fair weather in your blustering land.
On this Ascension-day, remember well,
Upon your oath of service to the pope,

Go I to make the French lay down their arms.

ΙΟ

20

[Exit.