Chapter: SCENE 4.

The same. Another part of the same.

[Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, and others.]

SALISBURY.
I did not think the king so stor'd with friends.

PEMBROKE.
Up once again; put spirit in the French;
If they miscarry, we miscarry too.

SALISBURY.
That misbegotten devil, Falconbridge,
In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.

PEMBROKE.
They say King John, sore sick, hath left the field.

[Enter MELUN wounded, and led by Soldiers.]

MELUN.
Lead me to the revolts of England here.

SALISBURY.
When we were happy we had other names.

PEMBROKE.
It is the Count Melun.

SALISBURY.
Wounded to death.

MELUN.
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 Saint Edmunds-bury;
Even on that altar where we swore to you
Dear amity and everlasting love.

SALISBURY.
May this be possible? may this be true?

MELUN.
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 Louis do will 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
Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives,
If Louis 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
In peace, and part this body and my soul
With contemplation and devout desires.

SALISBURY.
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;
And 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 5.

The same. The French camp.

[Enter LEWIS and his train.]

LOUIS.
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 tattrring colours clearly up,
Last in the field, and almost lords of it!

[Enter a MESSENGER.]

MESSENGER.
Where is my prince, the Dauphin?

LOUIS.
Here:--what news?

MESSENGER.
The Count Melun is slain; the English lords
By his persuasion are again falln off:
And your supply, which you have wish'd so long,
Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.

LOUIS.
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?

MESSENGER.
Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.

LOUIS.
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 6.

An open place in the neighborhood of Swinstead Abbey.

[Enter the BASTARD and HUBERT, meeting.]

HUBERT.
Who's there? speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot.

BASTARD.
A friend.--What art thou?

HUBERT.
Of the part of England.

BASTARD.
Whither dost thou go?

HUBERT.
What's that to thee? Why may I not demand
Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine?

BASTARD.
Hubert, I think.

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

BASTARD.
Who thou wilt: and if thou please,
Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think
I come one way of the Plantagenets.

HUBERT.
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.

BASTARD.
Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?

HUBERT.
Why, here walk I, in the black brow of night,
To find you out.

BASTARD.
Brief, then; and what's the news?

HUBERT.
O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,
Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.

BASTARD.
Show me the very wound of this ill news;
I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.

HUBERT.
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.

BASTARD.
How did he take it; who did taste to him?

HUBERT.
A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain,
Whose bowels suddenly burst out: the king
Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.

BASTARD.
Who didst thou leave to tend his majesty?

HUBERT.
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.

BASTARD.
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 7.

The orchard of Swinstead Abbey.

[Enter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT.]

PRINCE HENRY.
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-house,--
Doth, by the idle comments that it makes,
Foretell the ending of mortality.

[Enter PEMBROKE.]

PEMBROKE.
His Highness 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.

PRINCE HENRY.
Let him be brought into the orchard here.--
Doth he still rage?

[Exit BIGOT.]

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

PRINCE HENRY.
O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes
In their continuance will not feel themselves.
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. '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.

SALISBURY.
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.]

KING 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.

PRINCE HENRY.
How fares your majesty?

KING 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.

PRINCE HENRY.
O, that there were some virtue in my tears,
That might relieve you!

KING 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.]

BASTARD.
O, I am scalded with my violent motion
And spleen of speed to see your majesty!

KING 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 seest is but a clod,
And module of confounded royalty.

BASTARD.
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.

[The KING dies.]

SALISBURY.
You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.
My liege! my lord!--But now a king,--now thus.

PRINCE HENRY.
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?

BASTARD.
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,
Where be your powers? Show 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.

SALISBURY.
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.

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

SALISBURY.
Nay, 'tis 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.

BASTARD.
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.

PRINCE HENRY.
At Worcester must his body be interr'd;
For so he will'd it.

BASTARD.
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.

SALISBURY.
And the like tender of our love we make,
To rest without a spot for evermore.

PRINCE HENRY.
I have a kind soul that would give you thanks,
And knows not how to do it but with tears.

BASTARD.
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 us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.

[Exeunt.]

 Salisbury, Pembroke, and Bigot meet on the field, astonished that King John's forces have proven to be so powerful. Count Melun, a French nobleman, enters; he is wounded, and he urges the English lords to turn back from the path of their rebellion and seek out John to plead for his mercy. Melun reports that if the French win that day, Louis has ordered the English lords to be beheaded. The English are astonished, but Melun insists that he is telling the truth; he will die soon and has no reason to deceive them. Salisbury believes Melun and thanks him. He urges his companions to return to John. Louis enters, remarking on the strength of the English army. A messenger arrives to report the death of Melun, the departure of the English lords, and the sinking of his army of reinforcements. Louis is dismayed at the news; with his reinforcements annihilated, his chances of victory are now very slim indeed. Hubert and the Bastard encounter each other in the darkness. Hubert reports that the king has been poisoned by a monk. He adds that the English lords have returned to John, bringing his son Prince Henry. The Bastard replies that he has lost his men, who were drowned in the rising tide on the flatlands that night. He asks Hubert to escort him to the king's side. Prince Henry discusses his father's health with Salisbury and Bigot. Pembroke reports that John can still speak. Henry mourns the fact that his father's mind has been destroyed by the sickness, even while his body still seems in good health. John is brought in, babbling. He tells Henry that he has been poisoned. The Bastard arrives, and he reports that Louis approaches unimpeded because the Bastard's forces have drowned. King John dies. Henry marvels at the transitive nature of the world, where what was once a king can become a meaningless pile of dust. The Bastard swears to avenge the king's death, and turning to the lords, orders them to assemble their forces to help repel the French from their land. Salisbury reports that Pandolf recently visited them with an offer of peace from the Dauphin. The Bastard wants to attack anyway, but Salisbury says the peace has been agreed upon. They discuss John's burial, and the Bastard swears to serve Henry. The other lords follow suit. The Bastard speaks of the suffering they have endured and comments that England has never been in danger of being conquered, except when it was divided against itself. Now that the lords have returned to the allegiance of their English king, England is strong again. Nothing can weaken England if its citizens remain loyal, he says.

