1    Here once again we sit, once again crown'd,
2    And looked upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.

3    This 'once again,' but that your highness pleased,
4    Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before,
5    And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off,
6    The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt;
7    Fresh expectation troubled not the land
8    With any long'd-for change or better state.

9    Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
10   To guard a title that was rich before,
11   To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
12   To throw a perfume on the violet,
13   To smooth the ice, or add another hue
14   Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
15   To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
16   Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

17   But that your royal pleasure must be done,
18   This act is as an ancient tale new told,
19   And in the last repeating troublesome,
20   Being urged at a time unseasonable.

21   In this the antique and well noted face
22   Of plain old form is much disfigured;
23   And, like a shifted wind unto a sail,
24   It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about,
25   Startles and frights consideration,
26   Makes sound opinion sick and truth suspected,
27   For putting on so new a fashion'd robe.

28   When workmen strive to do better than well,
29   They do confound their skill in covetousness;
30   And oftentimes excusing of a fault
31   Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse,
32   As patches set upon a little breach
33   Discredit more in hiding of the fault
34   Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.

35   To this effect, before you were new crown'd,
36   We breathed our counsel: but it pleased your highness
37   To overbear it, and we are all well pleased,
38   Since all and every part of what we would
39   Doth make a stand at what your highness will.

40   Some reasons of this double coronation
41   I have possess'd you with and think them strong;
42   And more, more strong, then lesser is my fear,
43   I shall indue you with: meantime but ask
44   What you would have reform'd that is not well,
45   And well shall you perceive how willingly
46   I will both hear and grant you your requests.

47   Then I, as one that am the tongue of these,
48   To sound the purpose of all their hearts,
49   Both for myself and them, but, chief of all,
50   Your safety, for the which myself and them
51   Bend their best studies, heartily request
52   The enfranchisement of Arthur; whose restraint
53   Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent
54   To break into this dangerous argument,--
55   If what in rest you have in right you hold,
56   Why then your fears, which, as they say, attend
57   The steps of wrong, should move you to mew up
58   Your tender kinsman and to choke his days
59   With barbarous ignorance and deny his youth
60   The rich advantage of good exercise?
61   That the time's enemies may not have this
62   To grace occasions, let it be our suit
63   That you have bid us ask his liberty;
64   Which for our goods we do no further ask
65   Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
66   Counts it your weal he have his liberty.

67   Let it be so: I do commit his youth
68   To your direction. Hubert, what news with you?

69   This is the man should do the bloody deed;
70   He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine:
71   The image of a wicked heinous fault
72   Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his
73   Does show the mood of a much troubled breast;
74   And I do fearfully believe 'tis done,
75   What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.

76   The colour of the king doth come and go
77   Between his purpose and his conscience,
78   Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set:
79   His passion is so ripe, it needs must break.

80   And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence
81   The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.

82   We cannot hold mortality's strong hand:
83   Good lords, although my will to give is living,
84   The suit which you demand is gone and dead:
85   He tells us Arthur is deceased to-night.

86   Indeed we fear'd his sickness was past cure.

87   Indeed we heard how near his death he was
88   Before the child himself felt he was sick:
89   This must be answer'd either here or hence.

90   Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?
91   Think you I bear the shears of destiny?
92   Have I commandment on the pulse of life?

93   It is apparent foul play; and 'tis shame
94   That greatness should so grossly offer it:
95   So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell.

96   Stay yet, Lord Salisbury; I'll go with thee,
97   And find the inheritance of this poor child,
98   His little kingdom of a forced grave.
99   That blood which owed the breadth of all this isle,
100  Three foot of it doth hold: bad world the while!
101  This must not be thus borne: this will break out
102  To all our sorrows, and ere long I doubt.

103  They burn in indignation. I repent:
104  There is no sure foundation set on blood,
105  No certain life achieved by others' death.
Enter a Messenger
106  A fearful eye thou hast: where is that blood
107  That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?
108  So foul a sky clears not without a storm:
109  Pour down thy weather: how goes all in France?

110  From France to England. Never such a power
111  For any foreign preparation
112  Was levied in the body of a land.
113  The copy of your speed is learn'd by them;
114  For when you should be told they do prepare,
115  The tidings come that they are all arrived.

116  O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?
117  Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care,
118  That such an army could be drawn in France,
119  And she not hear of it?

120  My liege, her ear
121  Is stopp'd with dust; the first of April died
122  Your noble mother: and, as I hear, my lord,
123  The Lady Constance in a frenzy died
124  Three days before: but this from rumour's tongue
125  I idly heard; if true or false I know not.

126  Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion!
127  O, make a league with me, till I have pleased
128  My discontented peers! What! mother dead!
129  How wildly then walks my estate in France!
130  Under whose conduct came those powers of France
131  That thou for truth givest out are landed here?

132  Under the Dauphin.

133  Thou hast made me giddy
134  With these ill tidings.
Enter the BASTARD and PETER of Pomfret
135  Now, what says the world
136  To your proceedings? do not seek to stuff
137  My head with more ill news, for it is full.

138  But if you be afeard to hear the worst,
139  Then let the worst unheard fall on your bead.

140  Bear with me cousin, for I was amazed
141  Under the tide: but now I breathe again
142  Aloft the flood, and can give audience
143  To any tongue, speak it of what it will.

144  How I have sped among the clergymen,
145  The sums I have collected shall express.
146  But as I travell'd hither through the land,
147  I find the people strangely fantasied;
148  Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams,
149  Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear:
150  And here a prophet, that I brought with me
151  From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found
152  With many hundreds treading on his heels;
153  To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,
154  That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon,
155  Your highness should deliver up your crown.

156  Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?

157  Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.

158  Hubert, away with him; imprison him;
159  And on that day at noon whereon he says
160  I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd.
161  Deliver him to safety; and return,
162  For I must use thee.
Exeunt HUBERT with PETER
163  O my gentle cousin,
164  Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arrived?

165  The French, my lord; men's mouths are full of it:
166  Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury,
167  With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,
168  And others more, going to seek the grave
169  Of Arthur, who they say is kill'd to-night
170  On your suggestion.

171  Gentle kinsman, go,
172  And thrust thyself into their companies:
173  I have a way to win their loves again;
174  Bring them before me.

175  I will seek them out.

176  Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.
177  O, let me have no subject enemies,
178  When adverse foreigners affright my towns
179  With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!
180  Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels,
181  And fly like thought from them to me again.

182  The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.

183  Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.
184  Go after him; for he perhaps shall need
185  Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;
186  And be thou he.

187  With all my heart, my liege.

188  My mother dead!

189  My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night;
190  Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about
191  The other four in wondrous motion.

192  Five moons!

193  Old men and beldams in the streets
194  Do prophesy upon it dangerously:
195  Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths:
196  And when they talk of him, they shake their heads
197  And whisper one another in the ear;
198  And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist,
199  Whilst he that hears makes fearful action,
200  With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
201  I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
202  The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
203  With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
204  Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
205  Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste
206  Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,
207  Told of a many thousand warlike French
208  That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent:
209  Another lean unwash'd artificer
210  Cuts off his tale and talks of Arthur's death.

211  Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?
212  Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?
213  Thy hand hath murder'd him: I had a mighty cause
214  To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.

215  No had, my lord! why, did you not provoke me?

216  It is the curse of kings to be attended
217  By slaves that take their humours for a warrant
218  To break within the bloody house of life,
219  And on the winking of authority
220  To understand a law, to know the meaning
221  Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns
222  More upon humour than advised respect.

223  Here is your hand and seal for what I did.

224  O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earth
225  Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal
226  Witness against us to damnation!
227  How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
228  Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,
229  A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,
230  Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame,
231  This murder had not come into my mind:
232  But taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect,
233  Finding thee fit for bloody villany,
234  Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger,
235  I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;
236  And thou, to be endeared to a king,
237  Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.

238  My lord--

239  Hadst thou but shook thy head or made a pause
240  When I spake darkly what I purposed,
241  Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,
242  As bid me tell my tale in express words,
243  Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,
244  And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me:
245  But thou didst understand me by my signs
246  And didst in signs again parley with sin;
247  Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,
248  And consequently thy rude hand to act
249  The deed, which both our tongues held vile to name.
250  Out of my sight, and never see me more!
251  My nobles leave me; and my state is braved,
252  Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers:
253  Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,
254  This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,
255  Hostility and civil tumult reigns
256  Between my conscience and my cousin's death.

257  Arm you against your other enemies,
258  I'll make a peace between your soul and you.
259  Young Arthur is alive: this hand of mine
260  Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
261  Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.
262  Within this bosom never enter'd yet
263  The dreadful motion of a murderous thought;
264  And you have slander'd nature in my form,
265  Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,
266  Is yet the cover of a fairer mind
267  Than to be butcher of an innocent child.

268  Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers,
269  Throw this report on their incensed rage,
270  And make them tame to their obedience!
271  Forgive the comment that my passion made
272  Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind,
273  And foul imaginary eyes of blood
274  Presented thee more hideous than thou art.
275  O, answer not, but to my closet bring
276  The angry lords with all expedient haste.
277  I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.