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; Hub. The king, I fear, is poisoned by a monk. 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, Bast. Withhold thine indignation, mighty Heaven, [Exeunt. SCENE VII. The Orchard of Swinstead Abbey. Enter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT. (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house) 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 [Exit BIGOT. Than when you left him; even now he sung. P. Hen. O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes 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; 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 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. Poisoned,- 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 much; 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, confined to tyrannize On unreprievable, condemned blood. Enter the Bastard. Bast. 0, I am scalded with my violent emotion, And spleen of speed to see your majesty. VOL. II.-21 K. John. O, cousin, thou art come to set mine eye. Bast. The dauphin is preparing hitherward; [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; 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; Bast. He will the rather do it, when he sees Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already; With whom yourself, myself, and other lords, Bast. Let it be so;-and you, my noble prince, With other princes that may best be spared, Shall wait upon your father's funeral. P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interred; For so he willed it. Bast. Thither shall it then. And happily may your sweet self put on 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 beforehand with our griefs.- And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, [Exeunt. |