Mess. The count Melun is slain; the English lords, And your supply, which you have wish'd so long, Lew. Ah, foul shrewd news!-Beshrew thy very heart! 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? 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 VI.—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. Bast. A friend.-What art thou? Hub. Bast. Whither dost thou go? Hub. Of the part of England. What's that to thee? Why may I not demand of thine affairs, As well as thou of mine? Hub. 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? Bast. Who thou wilt: an if thou please, Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think I come one way of the Plantagenets. Hub. Unkind remembrance! thou, and eyeless night," Have done me shame :-Brave soldier, pardon me, a Eyeless night. The original reads endless. Shakspere has, in other passages, applied the epithet endless to night, but using night metaphorically. Here, where the meaning is literal, eyeless may be preferred. The emendation was made by Theobald. 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 Bast. you out. Brief, then; and what's the news? Hub. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night, Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible. very Bast. Show me the wound of this ill news; Hub. The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk: Than if you had at leisure known of this. Bast. How did he take it? who did taste to him? Bast. 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. Bast. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven, And tempt us not to bear above our power! [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 Is touch'd corruptibly; and his pure brain Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, Enter PEMBroke. Pem. His highness yet doth speak; and holds belief, Of that fell poison which assaileth him. P. Hen. Let him be brought into the orchard here.Doth he still rage? [Exit BIGOT. Than when you left him; even now he sung. Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, 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,b 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. a Invisible. So the original. The modern editors read insensible. The question occupies four pages of discussion in the commentators. The meaning of invisible is, we take it, unlooked at, disregarded. b Indigest-disordered, indigested, state of affairs. The word is more commonly used as an adjective, as in the Sonnets: "To make of monsters and things indigest, There is so hot a summer in my bosom, P. Hen. How fares your majesty? K. John. Poison'd,-ill fare;-dead, forsook, cast off: Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course 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, K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye : 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. [The KING dies. Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.- P. Hen. Even so must I run on, and even so stop. Bast. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind 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, 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; Sal. It seems you know not then so much as we : Who half an hour since came from the dauphin; Bast. He will the rather do it, when he sees Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already; With whom yourself, myself, and other lords, Bast. Let it be so :-And you, my noble prince, P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd; Bast. Thither shall it then. And happily may your sweet self put on |