I will, upon all hazards, well believe
Thou art my friend, that know'st my tongue

so well: Who art thou ?

Bast. Who thou wilt: an if thou please, Thou may'st befriend me so much, as to think I come one way of the Plantagenets. Hub. Unkind remembrance! thou, and eyeless

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

Bast. Come, come; sans compliment, what

7

me,

news abroad?

1

Hub. Why, here walk I, in the black brow

of night; 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. Shew me the very wound of this ill

news; I am no woman, I'll not śwoon at it.

Hub. The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk: I left him almost speechlels, 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. 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,

And brought prince Henry in their company;
At whose request the king bath pardon'd thein,
And they are all about his majesty.
Bast. Withbold thine indignation , mighty

heaven,
Apd tempt us not to hear above our power!
I'll tell thee, Hubert, half '

my power this night, Passing these flats, are taken by the tide, These Lincoln washes have devoured them; Myself, well-mounted, hardly have escap'd. Away, befo el conduct me to the king, I doubt, he will be dead; or ere I come.

(Excunt.)

The Orchard of Swinstead - 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

in house)
Doth, by the idle comments that it makes,
Foretell the ending of mortality.

Enter PEMBROKE.
Pemb. His bighness 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.

(Exit Bigot.] Doth he still rage?

Pemb. He is more patient
Than when you left him; even now he sung.

P. Hen. O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes,

rest.

In their continuance, will not feel themselves: 1 Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts, 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. T'is strange, that death

should sing. I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death; Andy from the orgán-pipe of frailty, sings His soul and body to their lasting Sala 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 Bloot, and Attendants, who bring in King

John in a chair.. K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul bath elbow.

5 1 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 Upona parchment; and against this fire" 1 Do I shrink

up. P. Hen. How fares your majesty? K. John. Poisond, ill fare; dead, for

sook, cast off : And none iof

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 bobom; nor intreat the north To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lipsi And comfort me with cold:

I do not ask you much,

??

I bog cold comfort; and you are so strait, ,
And so ingrateful, you deny me that.
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, confin'd 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: 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.

Bast. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward; Where, heaven he knows, how we shall answer

him:

For, in a nigbt, the best

part

of

my power,
As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the washes, all unwarily,
Deyqured by the unexpected flood.

[The king dies.) Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead

an ear.

now

My liege! my lord! - But now a king,

thus. P. Hen. Even so must I run on, and even 80

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 bath been thy servant still. Now, now, you stars , that move in your right

spheres, Where be your powers ? Shew 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. Sal. It seems, you kuow not then so much

as we; The cardinal Pandulph is within at rest, Who half 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.

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

Sal... Nay, it is in a manner done already; For many carriages he hath dispatch'd To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel To the disposing of the cardinal: With whom yourself, myself, and other lords, If you

think meet, this afternoon will post To consummate this business happily. Bast. Let it be so : And you, my noble

prince, With other princes that may best be spar'd, Shall wait upon your father's funeral.

P. Hen. At Worcester must bis body be interr'd; For so he will'd it.

Bast, Tbither shall it then,