Act 4, Scene 2

The same. A Room of State in the Palace.

[Enter KING JOHN, crowned, PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other LORDS. The KING takes his State.]
King John
1670 Here once again we sit, once again crown'd,
1671 And look'd upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.
Earl of Pembroke
1672 This once again, but that your highness pleas'd,
1673 Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before,
1674 And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off;
1675 The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt;
1676 Fresh expectation troubled not the land
1677 With any long'd-for change or better state.
Earl of Salisbury
1678 Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
1679 To guard a title that was rich before,
1680 To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
1681 To throw a perfume on the violet,
1682 To smooth the ice, or add another hue
1683 Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
1684 To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
1685 Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
Earl of Pembroke
1686 But that your royal pleasure must be done,
1687 This act is as an ancient tale new told;
1688 And, in the last repeating troublesome,
1689 Being urged at a time unseasonable.
Earl of Salisbury
1690 In this, the antique and well-noted face
1691 Of plain old form is much disfigured;
1692 And, like a shifted wind unto a sail,
1693 It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about;
1694 Startles and frights consideration;
1695 Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected,
1696 For putting on so new a fashion'd robe.
Earl of Pembroke
1697 When workmen strive to do better than well,
1698 They do confound their skill in covetousness;
1699 And oftentimes excusing of a fault
1700 Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse,—
1701 As patches set upon a little breach
1702 Discredit more in hiding of the fault
1703 Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.
Earl of Salisbury
1704 To this effect, before you were new-crown'd,
1705 We breath'd our counsel: but it pleas'd your highness
1706 To overbear it; and we are all well pleas'd,
1707 Since all and every part of what we would
1708 Doth make a stand at what your highness will.
King John
1709 Some reasons of this double coronation
1710 I have possess'd you with, and think them strong;
1711 And more, more strong, when lesser is my fear,
1712 I shall indue you with: meantime but ask
1713 What you would have reform'd that is not well,
1714 And well shall you perceive how willingly
1715 I will both hear and grant you your requests.
Earl of Pembroke
1716 Then I,—as one that am the tongue of these,
1717 To sound the purposes of all their hearts,—
1718 Both for myself and them,—but, chief of all,
1719 Your safety, for the which myself and them
1720 Bend their best studies,—heartily request
1721 The enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint
1722 Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent
1723 To break into this dangerous argument,—
1724 If what in rest you have in right you hold,
1725 Why then your fears,—which, as they say, attend
1726 The steps of wrong,—should move you to mew up
1727 Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days
1728 With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth
1729 The rich advantage of good exercise?
1730 That the time's enemies may not have this
1731 To grace occasions, let it be our suit
1732 That you have bid us ask his liberty;
1733 Which for our goods we do no further ask
1734 Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
1735 Counts it your weal he have his liberty.
King John
1736 Let it be so: I do commit his youth
1737 To your direction.
[Enter HUBERT.]
King John
1738 Hubert, what news with you?
Earl of Pembroke
1739 This is the man should do the bloody deed;
1740 He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine:
1741 The image of a wicked heinous fault
1742 Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his
1743 Doth show the mood of a much-troubled breast;
1744 And I do fearfully believe 'tis done
1745 What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.
Earl of Salisbury
1746 The colour of the king doth come and go
1747 Between his purpose and his conscience,
1748 Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set.
1749 His passion is so ripe it needs must break.
Earl of Pembroke
1750 And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence
1751 The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.
King John
1752 We cannot hold mortality's strong hand:—
1753 Good lords, although my will to give is living,
1754 The suit which you demand is gone and dead:
1755 He tells us Arthur is deceas'd to-night.
Earl of Salisbury
1756 Indeed, we fear'd his sickness was past cure.
Earl of Pembroke
1757 Indeed, we heard how near his death he was,
1758 Before the child himself felt he was sick:
1759 This must be answer'd either here or hence.
King John
1760 Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?
1761 Think you I bear the shears of destiny?
1762 Have I commandment on the pulse of life?
Earl of Salisbury
1763 It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis shame
1764 That greatness should so grossly offer it:
1765 So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell.
Earl of Pembroke
1766 Stay yet, Lord Salisbury, I'll go with thee
1767 And find th' inheritance of this poor child,
1768 His little kingdom of a forced grave.
1769 That blood which ow'd the breadth of all this isle
1770 Three foot of it doth hold:—bad world the while!
1771 This must not be thus borne: this will break out
1772 To all our sorrows, and ere long, I doubt.
[Exeunt LORDS.]
King John
1773 They burn in indignation. I repent:
1774 There is no sure foundation set on blood;
1775 No certain life achiev'd by others' death.—
[Enter a MESSENGER.]
King John
1776 A fearful eye thou hast: where is that blood
1777 That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?
1778 So foul a sky clears not without a storm:
1779 Pour down thy weather:—how goes all in France?
Messenger
1780 From France to England.—Never such a power
1781 For any foreign preparation
1782 Was levied in the body of a land.
1783 The copy of your speed is learn'd by them;
1784 For when you should be told they do prepare,
1785 The tidings comes that they are all arriv'd.
King John
1786 O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?
1787 Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care,
1788 That such an army could be drawn in France,
1789 And she not hear of it?
Messenger
1790 My liege, her ear
1791 Is stopp'd with dust; the first of April died
1792 Your noble mother; and as I hear, my lord,
1793 The Lady Constance in a frenzy died
1794 Three days before; but this from rumour's tongue
1795 I idly heard,—if true or false I know not.
King John
1796 Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion!
1797 O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd
1798 My discontented peers!—What! mother dead!
1799 How wildly, then, walks my estate in France!—
1800 Under whose conduct came those powers of France
1801 That thou for truth giv'st out are landed here?
Messenger
1802 Under the Dauphin.
King John
1803 Thou hast made me giddy
1804 With these in tidings.
[Enter the BASTARD and PETER OF POMFRET.]
King John
1805 Now! What says the world
1806 To your proceedings? do not seek to stuff
1807 My head with more ill news, for it is full.
Philip the Bastard (Faulconbridge)
1808 But if you be afear'd to hear the worst,
1809 Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.
King John
1810 Bear with me, cousin, for I was amaz'd
1811 Under the tide: but now I breathe again
1812 Aloft the flood; and can give audience
1813 To any tongue, speak it of what it will.
Philip the Bastard (Faulconbridge)
1814 How I have sped among the clergymen,
1815 The sums I have collected shall express.
1816 But as I travell'd hither through the land,
1817 I find the people strangely fantasied;
1818 Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams.
1819 Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear;
1820 And here's a prophet that I brought with me
1821 From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found
1822 With many hundreds treading on his heels;
1823 To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,
1824 That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon,
1825 Your highness should deliver up your crown.
King John
1826 Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?
Peter of Pomfret
1827 Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.
King John
1828 Hubert, away with him; imprison him;
1829 And on that day at noon, whereon he says
1830 I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd.
1831 Deliver him to safety; and return,
1832 For I must use thee.
[Exit HUBERT with PETER.]
King John
1833 O my gentle cousin,
1834 Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd?
Philip the Bastard (Faulconbridge)
1835 The French, my lord; men's mouths are full of it;
1836 Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury,—
1837 With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,
1838 And others more, going to seek the grave
1839 Of Arthur, whom they say is kill'd to-night
1840 On your suggestion.
King John
1841 Gentle kinsman, go
1842 And thrust thyself into their companies:
1843 I have a way to will their loves again:
1844 Bring them before me.
Philip the Bastard (Faulconbridge)
1845 I will seek them out.
King John
1846 Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.
1847 O, let me have no subject enemies
1848 When adverse foreigners affright my towns
1849 With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!
1850 Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels,
1851 And fly like thought from them to me again.
Philip the Bastard (Faulconbridge)
1852 The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.
King John
1853 Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman!
[Exit BASTARD.]
King John
1854 Go after him; for he perhaps shall need
1855 Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;
1856 And be thou he.
Messenger
1857 With all my heart, my liege.
[Exit.]
King John
1858 My mother dead!
[Re-enter HUBERT.]
Hubert de Burgh
1859 My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night;
1860 Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about
1861 The other four in wondrous motion.
King John
1862 Five moons!
Hubert de Burgh
1863 Old men and beldams in the streets
1864 Do prophesy upon it dangerously:
1865 Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths:
1866 And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
1867 And whisper one another in the ear;
1868 And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist;
1869 Whilst he that hears makes fearful action
1870 With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
1871 I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
1872 The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
1873 With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
1874 Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
1875 Standing on slippers,—which his nimble haste
1876 Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,—
1877 Told of a many thousand warlike French
1878 That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent.
1879 Another lean unwash'd artificer
1880 Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.
King John
1881 Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?
1882 Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?
1883 Thy hand hath murder'd him: I had a mighty cause
1884 To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.
Hubert de Burgh
1885 No had, my lord! why, did you not provoke me?
King John
1886 It is the curse of kings to be attended
1887 By slaves that take their humours for a warrant
1888 To break within the bloody house of life;
1889 And, on the winking of authority,
1890 To understand a law; to know the meaning
1891 Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns
1892 More upon humour than advis'd respect.
Hubert de Burgh
1893 Here is your hand and seal for what I did.
King John
1894 O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earth
1895 Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal
1896 Witness against us to damnation!
1897 How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
1898 Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,
1899 A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,
1900 Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame,
1901 This murder had not come into my mind:
1902 But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect,
1903 Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,
1904 Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger,
1905 I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;
1906 And thou, to be endeared to a king,
1907 Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.
Hubert de Burgh
1908 My lord,—
King John
1909 Hadst thou but shook thy head or made pause,
1910 When I spake darkly what I purpos'd,
1911 Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,
1912 As bid me tell my tale in express words,
1913 Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,
1914 And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me:
1915 But thou didst understand me by my signs,
1916 And didst in signs again parley with sin;
1917 Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,
1918 And consequently thy rude hand to act
1919 The deed which both our tongues held vile to name.—
1920 Out of my sight, and never see me more!
1921 My nobles leave me; and my state is brav'd,
1922 Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers;
1923 Nay, in the body of the fleshly land,
1924 This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,
1925 Hostility and civil tumult reigns
1926 Between my conscience and my cousin's death.
Hubert de Burgh
1927 Arm you against your other enemies,
1928 I'll make a peace between your soul and you.
1929 Young Arthur is alive: this hand of mine
1930 Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
1931 Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.
1932 Within this bosom never enter'd yet
1933 The dreadful motion of a murderous thought;
1934 And you have slander'd nature in my form,—
1935 Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,
1936 Is yet the cover of a fairer mind
1937 Than to be butcher of an innocent child.
King John
1938 Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers,
1939 Throw this report on their incensed rage,
1940 And make them tame to their obedience!
1941 Forgive the comment that my passion made
1942 Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind,
1943 And foul imaginary eyes of blood
1944 Presented thee more hideous than thou art.
1945 O, answer not; but to my closet bring
1946 The angry lords with all expedient haste:
1947 I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1670historical topical
“once again we sit, once again crown'd”
John is holding a second coronation ceremony — an unusual and politically revealing act. Having lost control of much of his French territory and faced rebellion at home, he staged a 're-coronation' in 1201 to reassert his authority. The lords read it as a sign of insecurity rather than strength.
historical The Angevin succession and Arthur's claim
TLN 1680rhetorical device
“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily”
Salisbury heaps up a series of deliberately absurd images for pointless excess: gilding gold that is already pure, painting a lily that is already beautiful, perfuming a violet, smoothing ice, adding color to a rainbow, decorating the sun. Each example escalates the ridiculousness of re-crowning a king who was already legitimately crowned. 'Paint the lily' entered English as a proverbial phrase for useless embellishment.
TLN 1690archaic vocab
“the antique and well-noted face Of plain old form”
'Antique' means ancient and well-established, not merely old-fashioned. 'Well-noted' means universally recognized and respected. 'Plain old form' is the familiar, unadorned ceremony of a single coronation. Salisbury argues that the second coronation disfigures ('disfigured') what everyone already knew and trusted — like a familiar face suddenly changed.
TLN 1692rhetorical device
“like a shifted wind unto a sail, It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about”
Salisbury compares the second coronation to a sudden wind-shift that forces a sailing ship to change course ('fetch about' is a nautical term: to tack, reversing direction). Just as an unexpected wind unsettles a vessel, the redundant ceremony startles loyal subjects and makes them question what they had taken for granted.
TLN 1721archaic vocab
“The enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent”
'Enfranchisement' means release from captivity or imprisonment. 'Restraint' means the same thing — being held in confinement. Pembroke is asking John to free Arthur, his imprisoned nephew, whose captivity is stirring dangerous talk among the English lords ('murmuring lips of discontent'). Arthur, the rightful king by the senior hereditary line, is being held prisoner at John's order.
historical The Angevin succession and Arthur's claim
TLN 1724syntax grammar
“If what in rest you have in right you hold, Why then your fears”
The construction is compressed: 'If what you hold quietly in possession you also hold by right, then you should have no fear that moves you to imprison a child.' Pembroke is pointing to a contradiction: an innocent, rightful king needs no captive rivals, but a king who imprisons his nephew reveals that he knows his title is insecure. 'In rest' means in quiet possession; 'in right' means by legitimate title.
TLN 1726archaic vocab
“should move you to mew up Your tender kinsman”
'Mew up' means to confine, cage, or lock away — literally from 'mew,' the cage in which a hawk was kept when molting. To 'mew up' a person is to imprison them like a caged bird. 'Tender kinsman' means young relative — Arthur is a small child, John's nephew.
TLN 1741cultural context
“The image of a wicked heinous fault Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his”
Pembroke reads guilt in Hubert's face — a common Elizabethan belief that inner guilt writes itself visibly on the face. 'Close aspect' means secretive, guarded look. 'The image of a wicked heinous fault / Lives in his eye' means the evidence of a terrible crime can be seen in his expression. The lords read Hubert's manner as a confession before any news is spoken.
TLN 1746rhetorical device
“The colour of the king doth come and go Between his purpose and his conscience, Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set”
Salisbury compares John's flushing and paling to heralds — official messengers — shuttling between two armies drawn up for battle. John's face alternates between pale (guilt, conscience) and flushed (resolve, purpose), as though two forces inside him are at war. Heralds traditionally passed between opposed armies under truce to carry terms; here they carry the conflict of John's divided self.
TLN 1752historical topical
“We cannot hold mortality's strong hand”
John's first response to Arthur's death is an evasion dressed as philosophy: 'We cannot resist death.' 'Mortality' means death itself. He is trying to present Arthur's death as a natural event he could not prevent, when Pembroke has just made clear the lords suspect it was murder on John's orders. The cliche is a lie — or at best a half-truth John hides behind.
TLN 1761classical allusion
“Think you I bear the shears of destiny? Have I commandment on the pulse of life?”
The 'shears of destiny' refers to the three Fates of classical mythology — the Moirai in Greek, the Parcae in Latin — one of whom, Atropos, cut the thread of a person's life with her shears, ending it. John asks: do you think I am a power of death who controls who lives and dies? The allusion is meant to deflect the lords' suspicion that he ordered Arthur killed.
TLN 1767rhetorical device
“find th' inheritance of this poor child, His little kingdom of a forced grave”
Pembroke bitterly redefines 'inheritance': the only kingdom Arthur will inherit is the three feet of earth of his grave. 'Forced' means violent, unnatural — a grave forced on a child before his time. The blood 'that ow'd the breadth of all this isle' (that owned the right to all of England) is now confined to a three-foot plot of earth. The irony is crushing: Arthur's rightful inheritance was England; what he gets is a hole in the ground.
historical The fall of princes (de casibus tragedy)
TLN 1774historical topical
“There is no sure foundation set on blood; No certain life achiev'd by others' death”
John speaks a moment of genuine self-knowledge: a kingdom built on murder has no stable foundation, and a life secured by killing someone else is not truly safe. This couplet is the play's central moral statement — and it applies not only to Arthur's death but to John's entire situation, since his crown was taken from his nephew rather than inherited cleanly.
historical The Angevin succession and Arthur's claim
TLN 1786archaic vocab
“where hath our intelligence been drunk? Where hath it slept?”
'Intelligence' here means information, spy-reports, or secret news — a government's network of informers and scouts. John is furious that the French army was assembled and landed without his knowing. 'Drunk' and 'slept' personify the intelligence service as a negligent official who was stupefied when he should have been alert.
TLN 1791historical topical
“the first of April died Your noble mother; and as I hear, my lord, The Lady Constance in a frenzy died”
The Messenger reports two deaths in quick succession: Eleanor of Aquitaine (John's mother and his strongest political adviser) died on 1 April 1204, and Constance of Brittany (Arthur's mother) died shortly before. Historically both deaths occurred around the same period, removing the two most powerful women in the drama. John loses his chief prop at the moment he most needs counsel.
TLN 1817archaic vocab
“I find the people strangely fantasied; Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams”
'Fantasied' means possessed by fantasies, seized by irrational fears and imaginings. 'Idle dreams' are baseless, self-generated anxieties. The Bastard reports that ordinary people across England are in a state of groundless but paralyzing fear — unsettled by the political crisis and ready to believe almost anything. The Bastard's blunt survey contrasts with the courtly hedging of the nobles.
TLN 1824cultural context
“ere the next Ascension-day at noon, Your highness should deliver up your crown”
Ascension Day is the Christian feast celebrating Christ's ascent into heaven, observed forty days after Easter. It was a major holy day in the medieval English calendar, and its association with a heavenly king 'ascending' and leaving his earthly kingdom gave it obvious political resonance. Peter of Pomfret's prophecy that John will 'deliver up his crown' on Ascension Day is historically accurate in a way the characters cannot know: John did submit his crown to the papal legate Pandulph in 1213 on or near Ascension Day.
historical King John, the Pope, and the Interdict
TLN 1850classical allusion
“Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels, And fly like thought from them to me again”
John tells the Bastard to move as fast as Mercury, the messenger-god of Roman myth, who wore winged sandals and could travel between worlds in an instant. 'Feathers to thy heels' is a direct image of Mercury's winged sandals. 'Fly like thought' adds another image of instantaneous speed — thought being the fastest thing imaginable to an Elizabethan audience.
TLN 1859cultural context
“five moons were seen to-night; Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about The other four in wondrous motion”
A report of five moons in the sky — four stationary and one circling the others — is an omen. In medieval and Elizabethan thought, unusual celestial phenomena (eclipses, comets, irregular planetary behavior) were signs of disorder in the natural order, often presaging political catastrophe, the death of kings, or civil war. The normal number of moons is one; five signals a world gone wrong.
TLN 1871cultural context
“I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus, The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool, With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news”
Hubert describes a scene from a real English street: a blacksmith has stopped in mid-stroke, his hot iron cooling on the anvil, to stand open-mouthed listening to a tailor's gossip. The tailor is so excited he has put his slippers on the wrong feet. These tradesman vignettes — the smith, the tailor, the 'lean unwash'd artificer' — convey popular panic without courtly rhetoric. Ordinary working men cannot do their jobs for fear and rumor.
TLN 1886historical topical
“It is the curse of kings to be attended By slaves that take their humours for a warrant To break within the bloody house of life”
John tries to shift responsibility for Arthur's death entirely onto Hubert: it is a 'curse of kings' that servants mistake a royal mood ('humour') for an official order and commit crimes without explicit command. 'Bloody house of life' is the body — to 'break within' it means to kill. John is arguing that he never gave a direct order and that Hubert acted on a misreading of his feelings.
historical The king's two bodies
TLN 1894biblical allusion
“when the last account 'twixt heaven and earth Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal Witness against us to damnation”
John invokes the Last Judgment — the final reckoning between God and humanity that Christian doctrine placed at the end of time. The 'last account 'twixt heaven and earth' is the Day of Judgment described in Matthew 25 and Revelation 20, when every deed will be exposed and judged. John says that the very paper he signed ordering Arthur's death will be the evidence that condemns him to hell.
TLN 1899cultural context
“A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd, Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame”
'Mark'd by the hand of nature' means Hubert's physical appearance was taken as a sign of his character — his face, bearing, or manner seemed to John to broadcast that he was the kind of man who could carry out a dark commission. 'Quoted' means noted, observed (from 'quote' in its obsolete sense of 'take note of'). 'Sign'd' is similarly to be marked out, designated. John is claiming he recognized in Hubert a man whose outward form advertised his capacity for violence.
TLN 1921archaic vocab
“my state is brav'd, Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers”
'Brav'd' means defied or insulted — to 'brave' someone is to face them down with open contempt. John is saying his royal power is being challenged and mocked to his face: the French army is at his borders ('gates'), his own nobles have defected, and his moral authority is collapsed. The word carries both the military and the personal insult — John is being dared to respond.