Enter ARTHUR, on the walls

ARTHUR	The wall is high, and yet will I leap down:
	Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not!
	There's few or none do know me: if they did,
	This ship-boy's semblance hath disguised me quite.
	I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.
	If I get down, and do not break my limbs,
	I'll find a thousand shifts to get away:
	As good to die and go, as die and stay.

	Leaps down

	O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones:
	Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!

	Dies

	Enter PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and BIGOT

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

PEMBROKE	Who brought that letter from the cardinal?

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

BIGOT	To-morrow morning let us meet him then.

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

	Enter the BASTARD

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

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

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

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

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

PEMBROKE	Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.

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

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

	Seeing ARTHUR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


PEMBROKE	|
	|  Our souls religiously confirm thy words.
BIGOT	|


	Enter HUBERT

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

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

HUBERT	I am no villain.

SALISBURY	                  Must I rob the law?

	Drawing his sword

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

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

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

BIGOT	Out, dunghill! darest thou brave a nobleman?

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

SALISBURY	Thou art a murderer.

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

PEMBROKE	Cut him to pieces.

BASTARD	                  Keep the peace, I say.

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

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

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

HUBERT	Lord Bigot, I am none.

BIGOT	Who kill'd this prince?

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

SALISBURY	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.

BIGOT	Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!

PEMBROKE	There tell the king he may inquire us out.

	Exeunt Lords

BASTARD	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.

HUBERT	Do but hear me, sir.

BASTARD	Ha! I'll tell thee what;
	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.

HUBERT	Upon my soul--

BASTARD	                  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.

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

BASTARD	                  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-fall'n beast,
	The imminent decay of wrested pomp.
	Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can
	Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child
	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.

	Exeunt