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 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;9
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! 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 escap'd. Away, before! conduct me to the king; I doubt, he will be dead, or ere I come.

[Exeunt.

fence, poison'd a cup of ale, and having brought it to his ma jesty, drank some of it himself to induce the king to taste it, and soon afterwards expired. Thomas Wykes is the first who relates it in his Chronicle, as a report. According to the best accounts John died at Newark, of a fever. Malone.

8 that you might

The better arm you to the sudden time,

Than if you had at leisure known of this.] That you might be able to prepare instantly for the sudden revolution in affairs which the king's death will occasion, in a better manner than you could have done, if you had not known of it till the event had actually happened, and the kingdom was reduced to a state of composure and quiet. Malone.

It appears to me, that at leisure means less speedily, after some delay.

I do not clearly comprehend Mr. Malone's explanation. The death of the king was not likely to produce a state of composure and quiet, while there was a hostile army in the heart of the kingdom. M. Mason.

9 Why, know you not? the lords &c.] Perhaps we ought to point thus:

1

Why know you not, the lords are all come back,
And brought prince Henry in their company? Malone.

SCENE VII.

The Orchard of Swinstead-Abbey.

Enter Prince HENRY,' SALISBURY, and BIGOT. P. Hert. It is too late; the life of all his blood Is touch'd corruptibly;2 and his pure brain (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house) Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, Foretel 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.

[Exit BIGOT. He is more patient Than when you left him; even now he sung. P. Hen. O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes, In their continuance,3 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

1

4

Prince Henry,] This prince was only nine years old when his father died. Steevens.

2 Is touch'd corruptibly;] i. e. corruptively. Such was the phraseology of Shakspeare's age. So, in his Rape of Lucrece : "The Romans plausibly did give consent

i. e. with acclamations. Here we should now say-plausively.

Malone.

3 In their continuance,] I suspect our author wrote-In thy continuance. In his Sonnets the two words are frequently confounded. If the text be right, continuance means continuity. Bacon uses the word in that sense. Malone.

4 Leaves them insensible; and his siege is now

Against the mind,] The old copy reads-invisible Steevens. As the word invisible has no sense in this passage, I have no doubt but the modern editors are right in reading insensible, which agrees with the two preceding lines:

fierce extremes,

In their continuance, will not feel themselves,
Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,
Leaves them insensible: his siege is now
Against the mind, &c.

The last lines are evidently intended as a paraphrase, and confirmation of the two first. M. Mason.

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.

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.7

Re-enter BIGOT and Attendants, who bring in 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?

K. John. Poison'd,-ill-fare; 8-dead, forsook, cast off:

5 With many legions of strange fantasies;

Which in their throng and press to that last hold,

Confound themselves.] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece "Much like a press of people at a door,

Throng his inventions, which shall go before." Malone. in their throng and press to that last hold,] In their tumult and hurry of resorting to the last tenable part. Johnson. 6 I am the cygnet-] Old copy Symet. Corrected by Mr. Pope. Malone.

To set a form upon that indigest

Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.] A description of the Chaos almost in the very words of Ovid:

"Quem dixere Chaos, rudis indigestaque moles." Met. I.

-:

Whalley.

"Which Chaos hight, a huge rude heap, "No sunne as yet with lightsome beames the shapeless world did view." Golding's Translation, 1587. Malone. 8 Poison'd,-ill-fare;] Mr. Malone supposes fare to be here used as a dissyllable, like fire, hour, &c. But as this word has not concurring vowels in it, like hour, or fair, nor was ever dis syllabically spelt (like fier) faer; I had rather suppose the present line imperfect, than complete it by such unprecedented

means. Steevens.

"And none of you will bid the winter come, To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;1

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,
And comfort me with cold:-I do not ask you much,
I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,3
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

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: 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;

? This scene has been imitated by Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Wife for a Month, Act IV Steevens.

1 To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;] Decker, in The Gul's Hornbook, 1609, has the same thought: "- the morning waxing

cold, thrust his frosty fingers into thy bosome."

Again, in a pamphlet entitled The Great Frost, Cold Doings, c. in London, 1608: "The cold hand of winter is thrust into our bosoms."

Steevens.

There is so strong a resemblance, not only in the thought, but in the expression, between the passage before us and the following lines in one of Marlowe's plays, that we may fairly suppose them to have been in our author's thoughts:

"O, I am dull, and the cold hand of sleep
"Hath thrust his icy fingers in my breast

"And made a frost within me." Lust's Dominion.

Lust's Dominion, like many of the plays of that time, remained unpublished for a great number of years, and was first printed in 1657, by Francis Kirkman, a bookseller. It must, however, have been written before 1593, in which year Marlowe died. Malone. I do not ask you much,] We should read, for the sake of metre, with Sir T. Hanmer-Ï ask not much. Steevens.

2

3

so strait,] i. e. narrow, avaricious; an unusual sense of the word. Steevens.

My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
And then all this thou see'st, is but a clod,
And module of confounded royalty.4

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, 5

[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.

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.

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

4 And module of confounded royalty.] Module and model, it has been already observed, were, in our author's time, only different modes of spelling the same word. Model signified not an archetype after which something was to be formed, but the thing formed after an archetype; and hence it is used by Shakspeare and his contemporaries for a representation. So, in The London Prodigal, 1605:

"Dear copy of my husband! O let me kiss thee!
Kissing a picture.

"How like him is this model?" Malone.

5 Were in the washes, all unwarily, &c.] This untoward accident really happened to King John himself. As he passed from Lynn to Lincolnshire, he lost by an inundation all his treasure, carriages, baggage, and regalia. Malone.