Thou art my friend, that know'st my tongue so

well.

Who art thou?
Bast.
Who thou wilt: and if thou please,
Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think
I come one way of the Plantagenets.

Hub. Unkind remembrance! thou and eyeless night

Have done me shame: brave soldier, pardon me, That any accent breaking from thy tongue Should 'scape the true acquaintance of mine ear. Bast. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?

Hub. Why, here walk I in the black brow of night,

To find you out.

Bast.

Brief, then; and what's the news? Hub. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,

Black, fearful, comfortless and horrible.

20

Bast. Show me the very wound of this ill

news:

I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.

Hub. The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk: I left him almost speechless; and broke out To acquaint you with this evil, that you might The better arm you to the sudden time, Than if you had at leisure known of this.

Bast. How did he take it? who did taste to him?

30

Hub. A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain, Whose bowels suddenly burst out: the king Yet speaks and peradventure may recover. Bast. Who didst thou leave to tend his majesty?

Hub. Why, know you not? the lords are all come back,

And brought Prince Henry in their company;
At whose request the king hath pardon'd them,
And they are all about his majesty.

Bast. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven,

And tempt us not to bear above our power!

Forces.

I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power* this night,
Passing these flats, are taken by the tide;
These Lincoln Washes have devoured them;
Myself, well mounted, hardly have escaped.
Away before: conduct me to the king;
I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.

41

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII. The orchard in Swinstead Abbey. Enter PRINCE Henry, SalISBURY, and BIGOT.

P. Hen. It is too late: the life of all his blood

Is touch'd corruptibly, and his pure brain,
Which some, suppose the soul's frail dwelling-
house,

Doth by the idle comments that it makes
Foretell the ending of mortality.

Enter PEMBROKE.

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?

ΙΟ

[Exit Bigot.

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 invisible, and his siege is now Against the mind, the which he pricks and

wounds

With many legions of strange fantasies,

Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, Confound themselves. 'Tis strange that death should sing.

I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.

20

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.
Enter Attendants, and BIGOT, carrying KING
JOHN in a chair.

K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow

room;

It would not out at windows nor at doors.
There is so hot a summer in my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble up to dust:
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment, and against this fire
Do I shrink up.

P. Hen.

How fares your majesty?

30

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
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips 40
And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you
much,

I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait

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 confined to tyrannize

On unreprievable condemned blood.

Enter the BASTARD.

Bast. O, I am scalded with my violent motion, And spleen of speed to see your majesty!

50

K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine

eye:

The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd,
And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail
Are turned to one thread, one little hair:

My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
And then all this thou seest is but a clod
And module* of confounded royalty.

*Model.

Bast. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward, Where heaven He knows 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.

60

[The king 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.

70

Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,

Where be your powers? show now your mended faiths,

And instantly return with me again,

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;
The Dauphin rages at our very heels.

80

Sal. It seems you know not, then, so much

as we:

The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,
And brings from him such offers of our peace
As we with honour and respect may take,
With purpose presently to leave this war.
Bast. He will the rather do it when he sees
Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already;

For many carriages he hath dispatch'd

To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel
To the disposing of the cardinal:

With whom yourself, myself and other lords,
If you think meet, this afternoon will post

To consummate this business happily.

Bast. Let it be so: and you, my noble prince, With other princes that may best be spared, Shall wait upon your father's funeral.

90

P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd;

For so he will'd it.

Bast.

Thither shall it then:
And happily may your sweet self put on
The lineal state and glory of the land!

To whom, with all submission, on my knee
I do bequeath my faithful services

And true subjection everlastingly.

100

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 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. 111 This England never did, nor never shall,

Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

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. Nought shall make

us rue,

If England to itself do rest but true.

[Exeunt.