Page 213 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Why seek’st thou to possess me with these fears?
Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur’s death?
Thy hand hath murd’red him: I had a mighty cause [205]
To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.

HUBERT
No had, my lord! why, did you not provoke me?

KING JOHN
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, [210]
And on the winking of authority

To understand a law, to know the meaning
Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns
More upon humour than advis’d respect.

HUBERT
Here is your hand and seal for what I did. [215]

KING JOHN
O, when the last accompt ’twixt heaven and earth

Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal
Witness against us to damnation!
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by, [220]

A fellow by the hand of nature mark’d,
Quoted and sign’d to do a deed of shame,
This murther had not come into my mind;
But taking note of thy abhorr’d aspect,

Finding thee fit for bloody villainy, [225]
Apt, liable to be employ’d in danger,
I faintly broke with thee of Arthur’s death;
And thou, to be endeared to a king,

Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.

HUBERT