Bast. Indeed, your drums, being beaten,
will cry out;

And so shall you, being beaten : do but start
An echo with the clamour of thy drum,
And even at hand a drum is ready brac'd,
That shall reverberate all as loud as thine;
Sound but another, and another shall,
As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear,
And mock the deep-mouth'd thunder: for at
(Not trusting to this halting legate here, [hand
Whom he hath us'd rather for sport than need)
Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits
A bare-ribb'd death, whose office is this day
To feast upon whole thousands of the French.
Lew. Strike up your drums, to find this dan-
ger out.

Bast. And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do
not doubt.
[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-Near St. Edmund's-Bury.
A Field of Battle.

Alarums. Enter King John and Hubert.
K. John. How goes the day with us?
Hubert.

O,

ma

tell me. Hub. Badly, I fear. How fares your jesty? [so long, K. John. This fever, that hath troubled me Lies heavy on me ;-O, my heart is sick! Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My lord, your valiant kinsman,

conbridge,

Mel. Fly, noble English, you are bought and
Unthread the rude eye of rebellion, [sold:
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,
He means to recompense the pains you take,
By cutting off your heads: thus hath he sworn,
And I with him, and many more with me,
Upon the altar at St. Edmund's-Bury;
Even on that altar, where we swore to you
Dear amity and everlasting love.

Sal. May this be possible? may this be true?
Mel. Have I not hideous death within my
Retaining but a quantity of life,
[view
Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax
Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?
What in the world should make me now de-
Since I must lose the use of all deceit ? [ceive,
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,

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,—
Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire,
Paying the fine of rated treachery,
Faul-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:
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;
Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts
[now: In peace, and part this body and my soul
With contemplation and devout desires.

Desires your majesty to leave the field,
And send him word by me which way you go.
K. John. Tell him, toward Swinstead, to
the abbey there.
[supply,
Mess. Be of good comfort; for the great
That was expected by the Dauphin here,
Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin
sands.

This news was brought to Richard but even
The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.
K. John. Ah me! this tyrant fever burns me

SCENE IV.-Near St. Edmund's-Bury.
Another Part of the Field.
Enter Salisbury, Pembroke, Bigot, and others.
Sal. I did not think the king so stor'd with
friends.

Pem. Up once again; put spirit in the
If they miscarry, we miscarry too. [French:
Sal. That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge,
In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.

Pem. They say, king John sore sick hath
left the field.

Enter Melun, wounded, and led by Soldiers.
Mel. Lead me to the revolts of England here.

Sal. We do believe thee :-and beshrew my
But I do love the favour and the form [soul,
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'er-
And calmly run on in obedience, [look'd,
Even to our ocean, to our great king John.-
My arm shall give thee help to bear thee
For I do see the cruel pangs of death [hence;
Right in thine eye.--Away, my friends! New
flight,

And happy newness, that intends old right.
[Exeunt, leading off Melun.
SCENE V.-Near St. Edmund's-Bury. The
French Camp.

Enter Lewis and his train.
Lew. The sun of heaven, methought, was
loath to set,

Sal. When we were happy we had other But stay'd, and made the western welkin blush, Pem. It is the count Melun. [names. When the English measur'd backward their Wounded to death.

Sal.

own ground,

In faint retire. O, bravely came we off,
When with a volley of our needless shot,
After such bloody toil, we bid good night;
And wound our tottering colours clearly up,
Last in the field, and almost lords of it!
Enter a Messenger.

Than if you had at leisure known of this. [him? Bast. How did he take it? who did taste to Hub. A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain, Whose bowels suddenly burst out: the king Yet speaks, and, peradventure, may recover. Bast. Whom didst thou leave to tend his majesty? [all come back, Hub. Why, know you not? the lords are Mess. The count Melun is slain: the Eng-And brought prince Henry in their company;

Mess. Where is my prince, the Dauphin?
Lew.
Here: what news?

lish lords,

By his persuasion, are again fallen off; [long,
And your supply, which you have wish'd so
Are cast away, and sunk, on Goodwin sands.
Lew. Ah, foul shrewd news!-Beshrew thy
very heart!-

I did not think to be so sad to-night, [said,
As this hath made me.-Who was he, that
King John did fly an hour or two before
The stumbling night did part our weary
powers?

Mess. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.
Lew. Well; keep good quarter, and good
care to-night:

The day shall not be up so soon as I,
To try the fair adventure of to-morrow.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII.-The Orchard of Swinstead
Abbey.

Enter Prince Henry, Salisbury, and Bigot.
P. Hen. It is too late: the life of all his
blood

SCENE VI.-An open Place in the Neighbour-Is touch'd corruptibly; and his pure brain (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling

hood of Swinstead Abbey.

Thou hast a perfect thought:
I will, upon all hazards, well believe
Thou art my friend, that knowest my tongue so
Who art thou?
well.

Bast. Who thou wilt: an if thou please,
Thou mayest befriend me so much as to think
I come one way of the Plantagenets.

house)

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, [hold,
Which, in their throng and press to that last
Confound themselves. 'Tis strange that death
should sing.

Hub. Unkind remembrance! thou, and eyeless night, [me, Have done me shame :-brave soldier, pardon That any accent breaking from thy tongue Should 'scape the true acquaintance of mine [news abroad? Bast. Come, come; sans compliment, what Hub. Why, here walk I, in the black brow I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, To find you out. 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.

ear.

[of night, 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 I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it. [news: Hub. 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 The better arm you to the sudden time,

Sal. Be of good comfort, prince; for you To set a form upon that indigest, [are born 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. Poison'd,-ill-fare; - dead, sook, cast off;

for

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,
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.

P. Hen, O, that there were some virtue in
That might relieve you!
[my tears,
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 moAnd spleen of speed to see your majesty. [tion, 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
Are turned to one thread, one little hair : [sail,
My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
And then all this thou seest is but a clod,
And model of confounded royalty.

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

For, in a night, the best part of my power,
As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the washes, all unwarily,
Devoured by the unexpected flood.

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,
[mended faiths;
Where be your powers? Show now your
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. [as we:
Sal. It seems you know not, then, so much
The cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
Who half an hour since came from the Dau-
phin,

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 despatch'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. [prince,
Bast. Let it be so and you, my noble
With other princes that may best be spar'd,
Shall wait upon your father's funeral.
P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be in-
For so he will'd it.
[terr'd;

Bast.
Thither shall it, then;
And happily may your sweet self put on
The lineal state and glory of the land!
To whom, with all submission, on my knee,
I do bequeath my faithful services,
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.-
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these, her princes, are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them: nought shall make

[The King dies. Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.[thus. My liege my lord!-But now a king,-now P. Hen. Even so must I run on, and even so stop. [stay, What surety of the world, what hope, what When this was now a king, and now is clay? Bast. Art thou gone so? I do but stay beTo do the office for thee of revenge [hind If England to itself do rest but true. [Exeunt.

us rue,