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
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 273
