1    The wall is high, and yet will I leap down:
2    Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not!
3    There's few or none do know me: if they did,
4    This ship-boy's semblance hath disguised me quite.
5    I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.
6    If I get down, and do not break my limbs,
7    I'll find a thousand shifts to get away:
8    As good to die and go, as die and stay.
Leaps down
9    O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones:
10   Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!

11   Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury:
12   It is our safety, and we must embrace
13   This gentle offer of the perilous time.

14   Who brought that letter from the cardinal?

15   The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,
16   Whose private with me of the Dauphin's love
17   Is much more general than these lines import.

18   To-morrow morning let us meet him then.

19   Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be
20   Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet.

21   Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords!
22   The king by me requests your presence straight.

23   The king hath dispossess'd himself of us:
24   We will not line his thin bestained cloak
25   With our pure honours, nor attend the foot
26   That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.
27   Return and tell him so: we know the worst.

28   Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.

29   Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.

30   But there is little reason in your grief;
31   Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now.

32   Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.

33   'Tis true, to hurt his master, no man else.

34   This is the prison. What is he lies here?

35   O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
36   The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.

37   Murder, as hating what himself hath done,
38   Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.

39   Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,
40   Found it too precious-princely for a grave.

41   Sir Richard, what think you? have you beheld,
42   Or have you read or heard? or could you think?
43   Or do you almost think, although you see,
44   That you do see? could thought, without this object,
45   Form such another? This is the very top,
46   The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,
47   Of murder's arms: this is the bloodiest shame,
48   The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,
49   That ever wall-eyed wrath or staring rage
50   Presented to the tears of soft remorse.

51   All murders past do stand excused in this:
52   And this, so sole and so unmatchable,
53   Shall give a holiness, a purity,
54   To the yet unbegotten sin of times;
55   And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,
56   Exampled by this heinous spectacle.

57   It is a damned and a bloody work;
58   The graceless action of a heavy hand,
59   If that it be the work of any hand.

60   If that it be the work of any hand!
61   We had a kind of light what would ensue:
62   It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand;
63   The practise and the purpose of the king:
64   From whose obedience I forbid my soul,
65   Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,
66   And breathing to his breathless excellence
67   The incense of a vow, a holy vow,
68   Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
69   Never to be infected with delight,
70   Nor conversant with ease and idleness,
71   Till I have set a glory to this hand,
72   By giving it the worship of revenge.

73   Our souls religiously confirm thy words.

74   Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you:
75   Arthur doth live; the king hath sent for you.

76   O, he is old and blushes not at death.
77   Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!

78   I am no villain.

79   Must I rob the law?

80   Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.

81   Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin.

82   Stand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say;
83   By heaven, I think my sword's as sharp as yours:
84   I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,
85   Nor tempt the danger of my true defence;
86   Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget
87   Your worth, your greatness and nobility.

88   Out, dunghill! darest thou brave a nobleman?

89   Not for my life: but yet I dare defend
90   My innocent life against an emperor.

91   Thou art a murderer.

92   Do not prove me so;
93   Yet I am none: whose tongue soe'er speaks false,
94   Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.

95   Cut him to pieces.

96   Keep the peace, I say.

97   Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge.

98   Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury:
99   If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,
100  Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,
101  I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime;
102  Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron,
103  That you shall think the devil is come from hell.

104  What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge?
105  Second a villain and a murderer?

106  Lord Bigot, I am none.

107  Who kill'd this prince?

108  'Tis not an hour since I left him well:
109  I honour'd him, I loved him, and will weep
110  My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.

111  Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,
112  For villany is not without such rheum;
113  And he, long traded in it, makes it seem
114  Like rivers of remorse and innocency.
115  Away with me, all you whose souls abhor
116  The uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house;
117  For I am stifled with this smell of sin.

118  Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!

119  There tell the king he may inquire us out.

120  Here's a good world! Knew you of this fair work?
121  Beyond the infinite and boundless reach
122  Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,
123  Art thou damn'd, Hubert.

124  Do but hear me, sir.

125  Ha! I'll tell thee what;
126  Thou'rt damn'd as black--nay, nothing is so black;
127  Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer:
128  There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell
129  As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.

130  Upon my soul--

131  If thou didst but consent
132  To this most cruel act, do but despair;
133  And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread
134  That ever spider twisted from her womb
135  Will serve to strangle thee, a rush will be a beam
136  To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,
137  Put but a little water in a spoon,
138  And it shall be as all the ocean,
139  Enough to stifle such a villain up.
140  I do suspect thee very grievously.

141  If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,
142  Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath
143  Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,
144  Let hell want pains enough to torture me.
145  I left him well.

146  Go, bear him in thine arms.
147  I am amazed, methinks, and lose my way
148  Among the thorns and dangers of this world.
149  How easy dost thou take all England up!
150  From forth this morsel of dead royalty,
151  The life, the right and truth of all this realm
152  Is fled to heaven; and England now is left
153  To tug and scamble and to part by the teeth
154  The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.
155  Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty
156  Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest
157  And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace:
158  Now powers from home and discontents at home
159  Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,
160  As doth a raven on a sick-fall'n beast,
161  The imminent decay of wrested pomp.
162  Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can
163  Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child
164  And follow me with speed: I'll to the king:
165  A thousand businesses are brief in hand,
166  And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.