Page 189 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

HUBERT

I am much bounden to your majesty.

KING JOHN
Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet, [30]
But thou shalt have; and creep time ne’er so slow,
Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.

I had a thing to say, but let it go:
The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,
Attended with the pleasures of the world, [35]
Is all too wanton and too full of gauds

To give me audience: if the midnight bell
Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth,
Sound on into the drowsy race of night;
If this same were a churchyard where we stand, [40]

And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;
Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,
Had bak’d thy blood and made it heavy, thick,
Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,

Making that idiot, laughter, keep men’s eyes [45]
And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,
A passion hateful to my purposes;
Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,

Hear me without thine ears, and make reply
Without a tongue, using conceit alone, [50]
Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words;
Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,

I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts:
But, ah, I will not. Yet I love thee well;
And, by my troth, I think thou lov’st me well. [55]

HUBERT
So well, that what you bid me undertake,

Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
By heaven, I would do it.

KING JOHN
Do not I know thou wouldst?