KING JOHN. A sudden darkness hath defaced the sky, The winds are crept into their caves for fear, The leaves move not, the world is hushed and still, The birds cease singing, and the wandering brooks Murmur no wonted greeting to their shores; Silence attends some wonder and expecteth That heaven should pronounce some prophesy: Where, or from whom, proceeds this silence, Charles? CHARLES. Our men, with open mouths and staring eyes, Look on each other, as they did attend Each other’s words, and yet no creature speaks; A tongue-tied fear hath made a midnight hour, And speeches sleep through all the waking regions. KING JOHN. But now the pompous Sun, in all his pride, Looked through his golden coach upon the world, And, on a sudden, hath he hid himself, That now the under earth is as a grave, Dark, deadly, silent, and uncomfortable. [A clamor of ravens.] Hark, what a deadly outery do I hear? CHARLES. Here comes my brother Phillip. KING JOHN. All dismayed: [Enter Phillip.] What fearful words are those thy looks presage? PHILLIP. A flight, a flight! KING JOHN. Coward, what flight? thou liest, there needs no flight. PHILLIP. A flight. KING JOHN. Awake thy craven powers, and tell on The substance of that very fear in deed, Which is so ghastly printed in thy face: What is the matter? PHILLIP. A flight of ugly ravens Do croak and hover o’er our soldiers’ heads, And keep in triangles and cornered squares, Right as our forces are embattled; With their approach there came this sudden fog, Which now hath hid the airy floor of heaven And made at noon a night unnatural Upon the quaking and dismayed world: In brief, our soldiers have let fall their arms, And stand like metamorphosed images, Bloodless and pale, one gazing on another. KING JOHN. Aye, now I call to mind the prophesy, But I must give no entrance to a fear.— Return, and hearten up these yielding souls: Tell them, the ravens, seeing them in arms, So many fair against a famished few, Come but to dine upon their handy work And prey upon the carrion that they kill: For when we see a horse laid down to die, Although he be not dead, the ravenous birds Sit watching the departure of his life; Even so these ravens for the carcasses Of those poor English, that are marked to die, Hover about, and, if they cry to us, Tis but for meat that we must kill for them. Away, and comfort up my soldiers, And sound the trumpets, and at once dispatch This little business of a silly fraud. [Exit Phillip.] [Another noise. Salisbury brought in by a French Captain.] CAPTAIN. Behold, my liege, this knight and forty mo’, Of whom the better part are slain and fled, With all endeavor sought to break our ranks, And make their way to the encompassed prince: Dispose of him as please your majesty. KING JOHN. Go, & the next bough, soldier, that thou seest, Disgrace it with his body presently; For I do hold a tree in France too good To be the gallows of an English thief.