Hub. Badly, I fear. How fares your majesty? K. John. This fever, that hath troubled me so long, Lies heavy on me. O, my heart is sick!

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge, 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.

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. Ah me! 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. The same. 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 names. Pem. It is the count Melun.

Sal. Wounded to death.

Mel. Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold; 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, 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 view,
Retaining but a quantity of life,

Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax
Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?
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,

He is forsworn, if e'er those eyes of yours
Behold another day break in the east:

Sal. We do believe thee, and beshrew my soul,
But I do love the favour and the form
Of this most fair occasion, by the which
We will untread the steps of damned flight;
Aud, like a bated and retired flood,
Leaving our rankness and irregular course,
Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd,
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;
And happy newness, that intends old right.

[Exeunt, leading off Melun.

SCENE V. — The same. The French camp.
Enter LEWIS and his Train.
Lew.The sun of heaven,methought, was loath 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,
When with a volley of our needless shot,
After such bloody toil, we bid good night,
And wound our tatter'd colours clearly up,
Last in the field, and almost lords of it!
Enter a Messenger.
Mess. Where is my prince, the Dauphin?

Lew. Here. What news?

Mess. The count Melun is slain; the English lords, 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. Lew. Ah, foul shrewd news! - Beshrew thy very heart!

I did not think to be so sad to-night,

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?
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.
SCENE VI.

[Exeunt.

An open place in the neighbourhood of Swinstead-Abbey.

Enter the Bastard and HUBERT, meeting. Hub. Who's there? speak, ho! speak quickly, or I

shoot.

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,

Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives, If Lewis by your assistance win the day

Thon 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 so think,

I come one way of the Plantagenets.

Hub. Unkind remembrance! thou, and eyeless night,

Have done me shame. Brave soldier, pardon me,
That any accent, breaking from thy tongue,
Should 'scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.
Bast. Come, come! sans compliment! What news
abroad?

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. 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.
Bast. Who did'st 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.

Bast. 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 escap'd. Away, before! conduct me to the king! I doubt he will be dead,or ere I come.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII. — The orchard of Swinstead-Abbey. Enter Prince HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGot. P. Hen. It is too latc; the life of all his blood Is touch'd corruptibly, and his pure brain (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwellinghouse,)

Doth, by the idle comments, that it makes,

Foretell the ending of mortality.

Enter PEMBROKE.

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

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,
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,
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,
And, from the organ-pipe of frailty, sings
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,

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,
Where ever Englishman dare set his foot.
Mean time, let this defend my loyalty:
By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.

gage,

Disclaiming here the kindred of a king,

And lay aside my high blood's royalty,

Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.
If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength,
As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop;
By that, and all the rites of knighthood else,
Will I make good against thee, arm tom,
What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.
Nor. I take it up, and, by that sword I swear,
Which gently lay'd my knighthood on my shoulder,
I'll answer thee in any fair degree,

Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:
And, when I mount, alive may I not light,
If I be traitor, or unjustly fight!

K. Rich. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?

It must be great, that can inherit us
So much as of a thought of ill in him.

Boling. Look, what I speak; my life shall prove it

true:

That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles,
In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers,
The which he hath detain'd for lew'd employments,
Like a false traitor, and injurious villain.
Besides I say, and will in battle prove,

Or here, or elsewhere, to the furthest verge,
That ever was survey'd by English eye,
That all the treasons, for these eighteen years
Complotted and contrived in this land,

Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.
Further I say, and further will maintain
Upon his bad life, to make all this good,
That he did plot the duke of Gloster's death,
Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,
And, consequently, like a traitor coward,

Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood;
Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
To me for justice and rough chastisement;
And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

K. Rich. How high a pitch his resolution soars!
Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?
Nor. O, let my sovereign turn away his face,
And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
Till I have told this slander of his blood,
How God, and good men, hate so foul a liar.

K. Rich. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears:
Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
(As he is but my father's brother's son,)
Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,
Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize
The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.
He is our subject, Mowbray, so art thou;
Free speech, and fearless, I to thee allow.

Nor. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart, Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest! Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais, Disburs'd I duly to his highness' soldiers, The other part reserv'd I by consent; For that my sovereign liege was in my debt, Upon remainder of a dear account,

I did confess it, and exactly begg'd
Your grace's pardon, and, I hope, I had it.
This is my fault. As for the rest appeal'd,
It issues from the rancour of a villain,
A recreant and most degenerate traitor;
Which in myself I boldly will defend
And interchangeably hurl down my gage
Upon this overweening traitor's foot,
To prove myself a loyal gentleman,

Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.
In haste whereof, most heartily I pray

Your highness to assign our trial day.

K. Rich. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me! Let's purge this choler without letting blood! This we prescribe, though no physician; Deep malice makes too deep incision: Forget, forgive, conclude, and be agreed! Our doctors say, this is no time to bleed. Good uncle, let this end where it begun! We'll calm the duke of Norfolk, you your son. Gaunt. To be a make-peace shall become my age. Throw down, my son, the duke of Norfolk's gage! K. Rich. And, Norfolk, throw down his! Gaunt. When, Harry? when?

Obedience bids, I should not bid again.

K. Rich. Norfolk, throw down! we bid; there is no boot.

Nor. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot. My life thou shalt command, but not my shame: The one my duty owes; butr t 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 bailled 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,
The purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
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.

K. Rich. Cousin, throw down your gage! do you begin!

Boling. 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 honour with such feeble wrong, Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear The slavish motive of recanting fear, And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace, Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face. [Exit Gaunt.

K. Rich. We were not born to sue, but to command: Which since we cannot do, to make you friends,