The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 273

by William Shakespeare


  10

  Are wrack’d three nights ago on Goodwin Sands.

  This news was brought to Richard but even now:

  The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.

  KING JOHN Ay me! this tyrant fever burns me up,

  And will not let me welcome this good news.

  15

  Set on toward Swinstead; to my litter straight:

  Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint. Exeunt.

  5.4 Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE and BIGOT.

  SALISBURY

  I did not think the king so stor’d with friends.

  PEMBROKE Up once again; put spirit in the French:

  If they miscarry, we miscarry too.

  SALISBURY That misbegotten divel, Faulconbridge,

  In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.

  5

  PEMBROKE

  They say King John sore sick hath left the field.

  Enter MELUN, wounded.

  MELUN Lead me to the revolts of England here.

  SALISBURY When we were happy we had other names.

  PEMBROKE It is the Count Melun.

  SALISBURY Wounded to death.

  MELUN Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold;

  10

  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

  Lewis means to recompense the pains you take

  15

  By cutting off your heads: thus hath he sworn

  And I with him, and many moe with me,

  Upon the altar at Saint Edmundsbury;

  Even on that altar where we swore to you

  Dear amity and everlasting love.

  20

  SALISBURY May this be possible? may this be true?

  MELUN Have I not hideous death within my view,

  Retaining but a quantity of life,

  Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax

  Resolveth from his figure ’gainst the fire?

  25

  What in the world should make me now deceive,

  Since I must lose the use of all deceit?

  Why should I then be false, since it is true

  That I must die here and live hence by truth?

  I say again, if Lewis do win the day,

  30

  He is forsworn if e’er those eyes of yours

  Behold another day break in the east:

  But even this night, whose black contagious breath

  Already smokes about the burning crest

  Of the old, feeble and day-wearied sun,

  35

  Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire,

  Paying the fine of rated treachery

  Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives,

  If Lewis by your assistance win the day.

  Commend me to one Hubert with your king:

  40

  The love of him, and this respect besides,

  For that my grandsire was an Englishman,

  Awakes my conscience to confess all this.

  In lieu whereof, I pray you, bear me hence

  From forth the noise and rumour of the field,

  45

  Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts

  In peace, and part this body and my soul

  With contemplation and devout desires.

  SALISBURY We do believe thee; and beshrew my soul

  But I do love the favour and the form

  50

  Of this most fair occasion, by the which

  We will untread the steps of damned flight,

  And like a bated and retired flood,

  Leaving our rankness and irregular course,

  Stoop low within those bounds we have o’erlook’d,

  55

  And calmly run on in obedience

  Even to our ocean, to our great King John.

  My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence;

  For I do see the cruel pangs of death

  Right in thine eye. Away, my friends! New flight;

  60

  And happy newness, that intends old right!

  Exeunt, leading off Melun.

  5.5 Enter LEWIS and his train.

  LEWIS The sun of heaven methought was loath to set,

  But stay’d and made the western welkin blush,

  When English measure backward their own ground

  In faint retire. O, bravely came we off,

  When with a volley of our needless shot,

  5

  After such bloody toil, we bid good-night,

  And wound our tott’ring colours clearly up,

  Last in the field, and almost lords of it!

  Enter a Messenger.

  MESSENGER Where is my prince, the Dolphin?

  LEWIS Here: what news?

  MESSENGER

  The Count Melun is slain; the English lords

  10

  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

  15

  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:

  20

  The day shall not be up so soon as I,

  To try the fair adventure of to-morrow. Exeunt.

  5.6 Enter the BASTARD and HUBERT, severally.

  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? [pause] Why, may not I demand

  Of thine affairs as well as thou of mine?

  5

  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: and if thou please

  Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think

  10

  I come one way of the Plantagenets.

  HUBERT

  Unkind remembrance! thou and endless night

  Have done me shame: brave soldier, pardon me,

  That any accent breaking from thy tongue

  Should ’scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.

  15

  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.

  20

  BASTARD Show me the very wound of this ill news:

  I am no woman, I’ll not swound 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

  25

  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

  30

  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,

  35

  And they are all about his majesty.

  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;

  40

  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.

  5.7 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.

  5

  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.

  10

  Doth he still rage? Exit Bigot.

  PEMBROKE He is more patient

  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,

  15

  Leaves them invisible, 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.

  20

  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

  25

  To set a form upon that indigest

  Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.

  Enter attendants and BIGOT, bringing 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,

  30

  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:

  35

  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

  40

  And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much,

  I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,

  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.

  45

  Within me is a hell; and there the poison

  Is 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!

  50

  KING 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;

  My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,

  55

  Which holds but till thy news be uttered;

  And then all this thou seest is but a clod

  And module of confounded royalty.

  BASTARD The Dolphin is preparing hitherward,

  Where God He knows how we shall answer him;

  60

  For in a night the best part of my power,

  As I upon advantage did remove,

  Were in the Washes all unwarily

 

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