This must be answer'd either here or hence.KING JOHN Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?
Think you I bear the shears of destiny?
Have I commandment on the pulse of life?SALISBURY It is apparent foul play;and 'tis shame That greatness should so grossly offer it:
So thrive it in your game!and so,farewell.PEMBROKE Stay yet,Lord Salisbury;I'll go with thee,And find the inheritance of this poor child,His little kingdom of a forced grave.
That blood which owed the breadth of all this isle,Three foot of it doth hold:bad world the while!
This must not be thus borne:this will break out To all our sorrows,and ere long I doubt.
Exeunt Lords KING JOHN They burn in indignation.I repent:
There is no sure foundation set on blood,No certain life achieved 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?Messenger 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 arrived.KING JOHN O,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?Messenger 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.KING JOHN Withhold thy speed,dreadful occasion!
O,make a league with me,till I have pleased My discontented peers!What!mother dead!
How wildly then walks my estate in France!