And wound our tatter'd colours clearly up,
Last in the field, and almost lords of it!

Enter a MESSENGER.

Messenger. Where is my prince, the Dauphin?

Lewis.

Here:-What news?

Messenger. The count Melun is slain; the English lords,

By his persuasion, are again fall'n off:

And your supply, which you have wish'd so long,
Are cast away, and sunk, on Goodwin sands.

Lewis. 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?
Messenger. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.
Lewis. 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 SWINSTEAD ABBEY.

Enter the BASTARD and HUBERT meeting.

Hubert. Who's there? speak, ho! speak quickly, or I

shoot.

Bastard. A friend :-What art thou?

Hubert

Of the part of England.

Bastard. Whither dost thou go?

Hubert. What's that to thee? Why may not I

demand

Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine?

Bastard. Hubert, I think.

Hubert.

Thou hast a perfect thought:

I will upon all hazards, well believe

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

Who art thou?
Bastard.

Who thou wilt: an if thou please,

Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think

I come one way of the Plantagenets.

Hubert. Unkind remembrance! thou, and eyeless night,

Have done me shame:-Brave soldier, pardou me,
That any accent, breaking from thy tongue,
Should 'scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.

Bastard. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?

Hubert. Why, here walk I, in the black brow of night, To find you out.

Bastard.

Brief, then; and what's the news? Hubert. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night, Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.

Bastard. Show me the very wound of this ill news; I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.

Hubert. 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.

Bastard. How did he take it? who did taste to him? Hubert. A monk, I tell you: a resolved villain, Whose bowels suddenly burst out: the king Yet speaks, and, peradventure, may recover.

Bastard. Who didst thou leave to tend his majesty? Hubert. 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.

J

Bastard. 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,

2 Without.

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 e'er I come.

Exeunt

SCENE VII.- The Orchard of SWINSTEAD ABBEY.

Enter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT. Prince Henry. 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.

Pembroke. 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.

Prince Henry. Let him be brought into the orchard

here.

Doth he still rage?

Pembroke.

He is more patient

[Exit BIGOT.

Than when you left him; even now he sung.

Prince Henry. 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;

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

Salisbury. 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.

King 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.

Prince Henry. How fares your majesty?

King 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,
And comfort me with cold:-I do not ask you much,
I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait3

And so ingrateful, you deny me that.

Prince Henry. O, that there were some virtue in my tears,

That might relieve you!

King John. The salt in them is hot.

Within me is a hell; and there the poison

ls, as a fiend, confin'd to tyrannize

On unreprievable condemned blood.

Enter the BASTARD.

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

King John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye:

Narrow, avaricious.

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 see'st, is but a clod,
And module of confounded royalty.

Bastard. 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.

[The KING dies.

Salisbury. You breathe these dead news in as dead

an ear.

My liege! my lord!--But now a king,-now thus. Prince Henry. 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!

Bastard. 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.

Salisbury. It seems, you know not then so much as we:

The cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,

Who halt 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.

Bastard. He will the rather do it, when he sees
Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.

Model.