The Life And Death Of King John

1 Enter Prince Henry, Salisbury and Bigot.
2 PRINCE HENRY.
3 It is too late. The life of all his blood
4 Is touch’d corruptibly, and his pure brain,
5 Which some suppose the soul’s frail dwelling-house,
6 Doth, by the idle comments that it makes,
7 Foretell the ending of mortality.
8 Enter Pembroke.
9 PEMBROKE.
10 His Highness yet doth speak, and holds belief
11 That, being brought into the open air,
12 It would allay the burning quality
13 Of that fell poison which assaileth him.
14 PRINCE HENRY.
15 Let him be brought into the orchard here.
16 Doth he still rage?
17 [_Exit Bigot._]
18 PEMBROKE.
19 He is more patient
20 Than when you left him; even now he sung.
21 PRINCE HENRY.
22 O vanity of sickness! Fierce extremes
23 In their continuance will not feel themselves.
24 Death, having prey’d upon the outward parts,
25 Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now
26 Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds
27 With many legions of strange fantasies,
28 Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,
29 Confound themselves. ’Tis strange that death should sing.
30 I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
31 Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death
32 And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
33 His soul and body to their lasting rest.
34 SALISBURY.
35 Be of good comfort, prince; for you are born
36 To set a form upon that indigest
37 Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.
38 Enter Bigot and Attendants, who bring in King John in a chair.
39 KING JOHN.
40 Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room
41 It would not out at windows nor at doors.
42 There is so hot a summer in my bosom
43 That all my bowels crumble up to dust.
44 I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
45 Upon a parchment, and against this fire
46 Do I shrink up.
47 PRINCE HENRY.
48 How fares your majesty?
49 KING JOHN.
50 Poison’d, ill fare; dead, forsook, cast off,
51 And none of you will bid the winter come
52 To thrust his icy fingers in my maw,
53 Nor let my kingdom’s rivers take their course
54 Through my burn’d bosom, nor entreat the north
55 To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips
56 And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much,
57 I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,
58 And so ingrateful, you deny me that.
59 PRINCE HENRY.
60 O, that there were some virtue in my tears
61 That might relieve you!
62 KING JOHN.
63 The salt in them is hot.
64 Within me is a hell; and there the poison
65 Is, as a fiend, confin’d to tyrannize
66 On unreprievable condemned blood.
67 Enter the Bastard.
68 BASTARD.
69 O, I am scalded with my violent motion
70 And spleen of speed to see your majesty!
71 KING JOHN.
72 O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye.
73 The tackle of my heart is crack’d and burn’d,
74 And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail
75 Are turned to one thread, one little hair.
76 My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
77 Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
78 And then all this thou seest is but a clod
79 And module of confounded royalty.
80 BASTARD.
81 The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,
82 Where God He knows how we shall answer him;
83 For in a night the best part of my power,
84 As I upon advantage did remove,
85 Were in the Washes all unwarily
86 Devoured by the unexpected flood.
87 [_The King dies._]
88 SALISBURY.
89 You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.
90 My liege! My lord!—But now a king, now thus.
91 PRINCE HENRY.
92 Even so must I run on, and even so stop.
93 What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
94 When this was now a king, and now is clay?
95 BASTARD.
96 Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind
97 To do the office for thee of revenge,
98 And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,
99 As it on earth hath been thy servant still.
100 Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,
101 Where be your powers? Show now your mended faiths,
102 And instantly return with me again,
103 To push destruction and perpetual shame
104 Out of the weak door of our fainting land.
105 Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought;
106 The Dauphin rages at our very heels.
107 SALISBURY.
108 It seems you know not, then, so much as we.
109 The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
110 Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,
111 And brings from him such offers of our peace
112 As we with honour and respect may take,
113 With purpose presently to leave this war.
114 BASTARD.
115 He will the rather do it when he sees
116 Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.
117 SALISBURY.
118 Nay, ’tis in a manner done already,
119 For many carriages he hath dispatch’d
120 To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel
121 To the disposing of the cardinal,
122 With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,
123 If you think meet, this afternoon will post
124 To consummate this business happily.
125 BASTARD.
126 Let it be so. And you, my noble prince,
127 With other princes that may best be spar’d,
128 Shall wait upon your father’s funeral.
129 PRINCE HENRY.
130 At Worcester must his body be interr’d;
131 For so he will’d it.
132 BASTARD.
133 Thither shall it, then,
134 And happily may your sweet self put on
135 The lineal state and glory of the land!
136 To whom, with all submission, on my knee,
137 I do bequeath my faithful services
138 And true subjection everlastingly.
139 SALISBURY.
140 And the like tender of our love we make,
141 To rest without a spot for evermore.
142 PRINCE HENRY.
143 I have a kind soul that would give you thanks
144 And knows not how to do it but with tears.
145 BASTARD.
146 O, let us pay the time but needful woe,
147 Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.
148 This England never did, nor never shall,
149 Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
150 But when it first did help to wound itself.
151 Now these her princes are come home again,
152 Come the three corners of the world in arms
153 And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
154 If England to itself do rest but true.
155 [_Exeunt._]