I, by the honour of my marriage-bed, What men provided, what munition sent, Sweat in this business, and maintain this war? [Trumpet sounds. What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us? Enter the Bastard, attended. Bast. According to the fair play of the world, Pand. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite, Bast. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd, The youth says well.-Now, hear our English king; For thus his royalty doth speak in me. He is prepar'd; and reason too, he should: That hand, which had the strength, even at your door, To cudgel you, and make you take the hatch; And so shall you, being beaten: do but start Lew. Strike up your drums, to find this danger out. Bast. And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-Near ST EDMUND'S-BURY. A Field of Battle. Alarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT. K. John. How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert. Hub. Badly, I fear. How fares your majesty? K. John. This fever, that hath troubled me so long, Lies heavy on me;-O, my heart is sick! Enter a Messenger. Mess. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge, Desires your majesty to leave the field, Mess. Be of good comfort; for the great supply, K. John. Ah me! this tyrant fever burns me up, And will not let me welcome this good news. Set on toward Swinstead: to my litter straight; Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-Near ST EDMUND'S-BURY. Another Part of the Field. Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and others. Sal. I did not think the king so stor'd with friends. Pem. Up once again; put spirit in the French: If they miscarry, we miscarry too. Sal. Wounded to death. Mel. Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold Unthread the rude eye of rebellion, And welcome home again discarded faith. Seek out king John, and fall before his feet; For if the French be lords of this loud day, He means to recompense the pains you take, By cutting off your heads: thus hath he sworn, And I with him, and many more with me, Upon the altar at Saint Edmund's-Bury; Even on that altar, where we swore to you Dear amity and everlasting love. Sal. May this be possible? may this be true? Mel. Have I not hideous death within my view, Retaining but a quantity of life, Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax What in the world should make me now deceive, He is forsworn, if e'er those eyes of yours But even this night,-whose black contagious breath Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives, Sal. We do believe thee:-and beshrew my soul, But I do love the favour and the form Of this most fair occasion, by the which Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd, Even to our ocean, to our great king John.- Right in thine eye.-Away, my friends! New flight, SCENE V.-Near ST EDMUND'S-BURY. The French Camp. Enter LEWIS and his train. Lew. The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set, But stay'd, and made the western welkin blush, When th' English measur'd backward their own ground, In faint retire. O, bravely came we off, Mess. Where is my prince, the Dauphin? I did not think to be so sad to-night, As this hath made me.-Who was he, that said, The stumbling night did part our weary powers? The day shall not be up so soon as I, [Exeunt. SCENE VI.-An open Place in the Neighbourhood of SWINSTEAD-ABBEY. Enter the Bastard and HUBERT, meeting. Hub. Who's there? speak, ho! speak quickly, or Bast. A friend.-What art thou? Of the part of England. Thou hast a perfect thought: I will, upon all hazards, well believe Thou art my friend, that know'st my tongue so wel. Who art thou? 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 accent breaking from my tongue any 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. 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! Hub. A monk, I tell you; a resolvèd villain, Whose bowels suddenly burst out: the king And brought prince Henry in their company; Bast. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven, [Exeunt. 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 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, Of that fell poison which assaileth him. P. Hen. Let him be brought into the orchard here.. [Exit BIGOT. Doth he still rage? Pem. He is more patient Than when you left him; even now he sung. P. Hen. Ó, 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, 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, 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 The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd; Bast. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward, Devoured by the unexpected flood. [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, And instantly return with me again, To push destruction, and perpetual shame, 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; With whom yourself, myself, and other lords, Bast. Let it be so:-and you, my noble prince, P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd; For so he will'd it. ACT I. SCENE I.-LONDON. A Room in the Palace. Enter KING RICHARD, attended: JOHN OF GAUNT, and other Nobles. K. Rich. Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster, Hast thou, according to thy oath and band, Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son, Here to make good the boisterous late appeal Which then our leisure would not let us hear; Against the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray? Gaunt. I have, my liege. [him, K. Rich. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear Re-enter Attendants with BOLINGBROKE and NORFOLK. K. Rich. We thank you both: yet one but flatters us, As well appeareth by the cause you come; Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object Against the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray? Boling. First, (heaven be the record to my In the devotion of a subject's love, [speech!) Tendering the precious safety of my prince, And free from other misbegotten hate, Come I appellant to this princely presence.Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee, And mark my greeting well; for what I speak, My body shall make good upon this earth, Or my divine soul answer it in heaven. Thou art a traitor and a miscreant, Too good to be so, and too bad to live,-Since the more fair and crystal is the sky, The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly. Once more, the more to aggravate the note, With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat; And wish, (so please my sovereign,) ere I move, What my tongue speaks, my right-drawn sword may prove. Nor. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal: 'Tis not the trial of a woman's war, The bitter clamour of two eager tongues, I do defy him, and I spit at him; Call him a sland'rous coward, and a villain: |