Page 210 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

BASTARD

But if you be afeard to hear the worst, [135]
Then let the worst unheard fall on your head.

KING JOHN
Bear with me, cousin; for I was amaz’d
Under the tide: but now I breathe again

Aloft the flood, and can give audience
To any tongue, speak it of what it will. [140]

BASTARD
How I have sped among the clergymen
The sums I have collected shall express.
But as I travaill’d hither through the land

I find the people strangely fantasied;
Possess’d with rumours, full of idle dreams, [145]
Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear.

And here’s a prophet, that I brought with me
From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found
With many hundreds treading on his heels;
To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes, [150]
That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon,

Your highness should deliver up your crown.

KING JOHN
Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?

PETER
Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.

KING JOHN
Hubert, away with him; imprison him: [155]
And on that day at noon, whereon he says

I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang’d.
Deliver him to safety, and return,
For I must use thee.
[Exit Hubert with Peter.]

O my gentle cousin,