KING JOHN.
Thou hast made me giddy
With these in tidings.
Enter the Bastard and Peter of Pomfret.
Now, what says the world
To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff
My head with more ill news, for it is full.
BASTARD.
But if you be afeard to hear the worst,
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.
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,
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,
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 OF POMFRET.
Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.
KING JOHN.
Hubert, away with him; imprison him.
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.]