My holy lord of Milan, from the king I come, to learn how you have dealt for him; And, as you answer, I do know the scope And warrant limited unto my tongue. Pand. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite, And will not temporize with my entreaties; He flatly says, he'll not lay down his arms. Bast. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd, The youth says well:-Now hear our English king; For thus his royalty doth speak in me. He is prepar'd; and reason too, he should: This apish and unmannerly approach, This harness'd masque, and unadvised revel, This unhair'd sauciness, and boyish troops, The king doth smile at; and is well prepar'd To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms, From out the circle of his territories. That hand, which had the strength, even at your door, To cudgel you, and make you take the hatch;1 To hug with swine; to seek sweet safety out Lew.There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace; Wegrant, thou canst outscold us: fare thee well; We hold our time too precious to be spent With such a brabbler.5 Pand. Give me leave to speak. And so shall you, being beaten: Do but start L. Strike up our drums to find this danger out. Bast. And thou shall find it, Dauphin, do not doubt. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-A FIELD OF BATTLE. Alarums. Enter King John and Hubert. K. John. How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert. Hub, Badly, I fear: How fares your majesty? K. John. This fever, that hath troubled me so Lies heavy on me; 0, my heart is sick! [long, Enter a Messenger. Mess. My lord, your valiant kinsınan, Faulconbridge, Desires your majesty to leave the field; abbey there. Mess. Be of good comfort; for the great supply That was expected by the Dauphin here, Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin sands. This news was brought to Richard but even now: The French fight coldly, and retire themselves. K.John. Ahme! this tyrant fever burns me up, And will not let me welcome this good news.Set on toward Swinstead: to my litter straight: Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-ANOTHER PART OF THE SAME. 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 French; If they miscarry, we miscarry too. 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. When we were happy, we had other Pem. It is the Count Melun. [names. Sal. Wounded to death. 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, He1 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 view, Retaining but a quantity of life; Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax That I must die here, and live hence by truth? And calmly run on in obedience, Bast. Who thou wilt: an if thou please, Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think I come one way of the Plantagenets. [night, Hub. Unkind remembrance! thou, and eyeless Have done me shame:--Brave soldier, pardon me, That any accent, breaking from thy tonuge, o'er-Should 'scape the true acquaintance of mine ear. Bast. Come, come; sans 1 compliment, what news abroad? Even to our ocean, to our great king John. SCENE V.-THE FRENCH CAMP. Enter Lewis and his Train. Lew. The sun of heaven, methought, was loth to set; But stay'd and made the western welkin blush, When the English measur'd backward their own ground, In faint retire: O, bravely came we off, Enter a Messenger. 1 Innovation. [heart! Hub. Why, here walk I in the black brow of To find you out. [night, Bast. Brief, then; and what's the news? Hub. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night, 11 Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible. Bast. Show me the very wound of this ill news; I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it. 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 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. B. 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 hath pardon'd them, And they are all about his majesty. B. 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, These Lincoln washes have devoured them; Myself, well mounted, hardly have escaped. Away, before, conduct me to the king; I doubt, he will be dead, or e'er I come. SCENE VII. [Exeunt (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwellingDoth by the idle comments that it makes, [house), Foretell the ending of mortality. Enter Pembroke. P. His highness yet doth speak; and holds I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, K.J. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room; P. Hen. How fares your majesty? K. John, Poison'd:-ill-fare;-dead, forsook, cast off; And none of you will bid the winter come, I beg cold comfort, and you are so strait1 P. Hen. O, that there were some virtue in my That might relieve you! [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 motion, And spleen of speed to see your majesty. K. J. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye: The tackle of mine 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; 1 Niggardly. And then all this thou see'st, is but a clod, Bast. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward; [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. H. 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, [faiths Where be your powers? Show now your mended 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 i The Dauphin rages at our very heels. [sought; S. 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; 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 cónsummate this business happily. B. 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. H. At Worcester must his body be interr'd; For so he will'd it. Bast. Thither shall it then. 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, [rue, And we shall shock them: Nought shall make us If England to itself do rest but true. [Exeunt. 1 Model. Act First. As well appeareth by the cause you come; Namely, to appeal each other of high treason. SCENE I.-LONDON. A ROOM IN THE PALACE. Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object Enter King Richard, attended; John of Gaunt, Against the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray? and other Nobles, with him. K. Rich. Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster, Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,1 Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son; Here to make good the boisterous late appeal, Which then our leisure would not let us hear, Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray? Gaunt. I have, my liege. K. Rich. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him, If he appeal the duke on ancient malice; And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear Re-enter Attendants, with Bolingbroke Boling. May many years of happy days befal My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege! Nor. Each day still better other's happiness: Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap, Add an immortal title to your crown! K. Rich. We thank you both: yet one but flatters us, 1 Bond B. First, (heaven be the record to my speech!) In the devotion of a subject's love, Tendering the precious safety of my prince, And free from other misbegotten hate, Come I appellant to this princely presence. Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee, And mark my greeting well; for what I speak, My body shall make good upon this earth, Or my divine soul answer it in heaven. Thou art a traitor, and a miscreant; Too good to be so, and too bad to live: Since, the more fair and crystal is the sky, The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly. Once more, the more to aggravate the note With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat! And wish, (so please my sovereign,) ere I move What my tongue speaks, my right-drawn sword may prove. N. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal: "Tis not the trial of a woman's war, The bitter clamour of two eager tongues, Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain: The blood is hot, that must be cool'd for this, Yet can Inot of such tame patience boast, As to be hush'd, and nought at all to say: [me First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs From giving reins and spurs to my free speech: Which else would post, until it had return'd These terms of treason doubled down his throat, Setting aside his high blood's royalty, And let him be no kinsman to my liege, I do defy him, and I spit at him; Call him-a slanderous coward, and a villain: Which to maintain, I would allow him odds, And meet him, were I tied to run a-foot Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps, Or any other ground inhabitable,1 K. R. How high a pitch his resolution soars! Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir, Nor. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart, 1 Uninhabitable. Upon remainder of a dear account, death, I slew him not; but to my own disgrace, Gau. To be a make-peace shall become my age: N. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot: My life thou shalt command, but not my shame: The one my duty owes; but my fair name, (Despite of death, that lives upon my grave,) To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have. I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here; Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear; The which no balm can cure, but his heart-blood Which breath'd this poison. K. Rich. Rage must be withstood; Give me his gage:Lions make leopards tame. Nor. Yea, but not change their spots: take but my shame, And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord, A Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; Take honour from me, and my life is done: Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try; In that I live, and for that will I die. [begin, K. Ri. Cousin, throw down your gage; do you Bol. O, God defend my soul from such foul sin! Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight? Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height Before this outdar'd dastard? Ere my tongue Shall wound mine honourwith such feeblewrong, 1 Advantage in delay. |