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; Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, [Exit BIGOT. 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. Re-enter BIGOT and Attendants, who bring in KING JOHN in a 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, P. Hen. O, that there were some virtue in my tears, 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; [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, 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; 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. And we shall shock them: Nought shall make us rue, [Exeunt, segé 25 of Lancaster; MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk. BUSHY, Creatures to King BAGOT, GREEN, Richard. EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND. HENRY PERCY, his Son. LORD ROSS. LORD WILLOUGHBY. BISHOP OF CARLISLE. SIR PIERCE of Exton. QUEEN to King Richard. LADY attending on the Queen. LORDS, HERALDS, OFFICERS, SOL- SCENE.-Dispersedly in England and Wales. ACT I. SCENE I-London. A Room in the Palace. Enter KING RICHARD, attended; JOHN of GAUNT, and other Nobles, with him. K. Rich. Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster, Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son; |