Hub. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible. Bast. Show me the very wound of this ill news: Hub. The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk: Than if you had at leisure known of this. Bast. How did he take it? who did taste to him? Bast. Who didst thou leave to tend his majesty? At whose request the king hath pardon'd them, And they are all about his majesty. Bast. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven, SCENE VII. The orchard of Swinstead Abbey. Enter Prince HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT. P. Hen. It is too late: the life of all his blood Foretell the ending of mortality. Enter PEMBROKE. [Exeunt. Pem. His highness yet doth speak; and holds belief That, being brought into the open air, It would allay the burning quality Of that fell poison which assaileth him. P. Hen. Let him be brought into the orchard here.— Doth he still rage? Pem. He is more patient Than when you left him; even now he sung. P. Hen. O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes In their continuance will not feel themselves. Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts, Leaves them insensible ;(141) and's siege is now [Exit Bigot. Against the mind,(142) the which he pricks and wounds Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,. I am the cygnet (143) to this pale faint swan, Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death, His soul and body to their lasting rest. Sal. Be of good comfort, prince; for you are born To set a form upon that indigest Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude. Re-enter BIGOT, with Attendants carrying King JOHN in a chair. There is so hot a summer in my bosom, P. Hen. How fares your majesty? K. John. Poison'd,-ill fare ;-dead, forsook, cast off: And none of you will bid the winter come, To thrust his icy fingers in my maw; Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course Through my burn'd bosom; nor entreat the north. And comfort me with cold :-I do not ask you much,(144) And so ingrateful, you deny me that. P. Hen. O, that there were some virtue in my tears, That might relieve you! K. John. The salt in them is hot. Within me is a hell; and there the poison Is, as a fiend, confin'd to tyrannize Enter the Bastard. Bast. 0, I am scalded with my violent motion, K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye: And model(145) of confounded royalty. Bast. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward, Where heaven he knows(146) how we shall answer him; For in a night the best part of my power, As I upon advantage did remove, Were in the washes all unwarily Devoured by the unexpected flood. [King John dies. Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear. My liege! my lord!--but now a king,-now thus. P. Hen. Even so must I run on, and even so stop. What surety of the world, what hope, what stay, When this was now a king, and now is clay? Bast. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind To do the office for thee of revenge, And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven, As it on earth hath been thy servant still.— Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres, To push destruction and perpetual shame Out of the weak door of our fainting land. Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought; - Sal. It seems you know not, then, so much as we: Bast. He will the rather do it when he sees Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already ; To cónsummate this business happily. Bast. Let it be so :-and you, my noble prince, P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd; Bast. Thither shall it, then: And happily may your sweet self put on To whom, with all submission, on my knee, I do bequeath my faithful services And true subjection everlastingly. Sal. And the like tender of our love we make, To rest without a spot for evermore. P. Hen. I have a kind soul that would give you(148) thanks, And knows not how to do it but with tears. Bast. O, let us pay the time but needful woe, Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.- But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them: naught shall make us rue, [Exeunt. E Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 117) would read "sent." Theobald's correction.-The folio has "With half that face." Here Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. ii. p. 153) would read “An iƒ,”—as Hanmer does. i.e. Sir Robert's.-The folio has "Sir Roberts his;" which several of the earlier editors retain, inserting, with the fourth folio, the apostrophe in the word "Roberts."-Walker (Crit. Exam, &c. vol. iii. p. 117) would read "Sir Robert's, his,"-SEIKTIKŵs.-Mr. W. N. Lettsom (note, ibid.) believes the reading "Sir Robert's his" (a double genitive) to be the right one. The folio has "It."-Corrected in the second folio. |