For I do see the cruel pangs of death Right in thine eye.-Away my friends! New flight; [Exeunt, leading off MELUN. SCENE V.-The same. The French Camp. Enter LEWIS and his Train. Lew. The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set; Enter a MESSENGER. Mess. Where is my prince the Dauphin ? Lew. Here:-What news? Mess. The count Melun is slain; the English lords, By his persuasion, are again fallen off: And your supply, which you have wish'd so long, Are cast away, and sunk, on Goodwin sands. Lew. Ah, foul shrewd news!-Beshrew thy very heart! I did not think to be so sad to-night, As this hath made me.-Who was he, that said, King John did fly, an hour or two before The stumbling night did part our weary powers? Mess. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord. Lew. Well; keep good quarter,* and good care to-night; The day shall not be up so soon as I, To try the fair adventure of to-morrow. [Exeunt. SCENE VI.-An open Place in the Neighbourhood of Swinshead Abbey. Enter the BASTARD and HUBERT, meeting. Hub. Who's there? speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot. Hub. Of the part of England. Bast. Whither dost thou go ? Hub. What's that to thee? Why may not I demand Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine? Bast. Hubert, I think. Hub. Thou hast a perfect thought: I will upon all hazards, well believe Thou art my friend, that know'st my tongue so well: In your posts. Bast. Who thou wilt: an 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? 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. 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: To acquaint you with this evil: that you might Than if you had at leisure known of this. Bast. How did he take it? who did taste to him? 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 they are all about his majesty. Bast. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven, [Exeunt. SCENE VII.-The Orchard of Swinshead 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? 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; and his siege is now Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds With many legions of strange fantasies; [Exit BIGOT. Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, 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. 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 and Attendants, who bring in KING JOHN in a Chair. K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room; 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, 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. K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye: * Narrow, avaricious. The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd; My heart hath one poor string to stay it by, Bast. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward; Where, heaven he knows, how we shall answer him: As I upon advantage did remove, Were in the washes, all unwarily, [The King dies. Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.- Bast. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind, And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven, 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: The cardinal Pandulph is within at rest, Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin; Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already; With whom yourself, myself, and other lords, To cónsummate this business happily. Bast. Let it be so;- -And you, my noble prince, With other princes that may best be spared, P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd; Bast. Thither shall it then, And happily may your sweet self put on * Model. The lineal state and glory of the land! To whom, with all submission, on my knee, 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 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 before-hand with our griefs.- But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, And we shall shock them: Nought shall make us rue, [Exeunt. |