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 dive like buckets, in concealed wells;
To crouch in litter of your stable planks;
To lie, like pawns, lock'd up in chests and
trunks;

To hug with swine; to seek sweet safety out
In vaults and prisons; and to thrill and shake,
Even at the crying of your nation's crow,
Thinking his voice an armed Englishman;
Shall that victorious hand be feebled here,
That in your chambers gave you chastisement?
No: Know the gallant monarch is in arms;
And like an eagle o'er his aiery towers,
To souse 2 annoyance that comes near his nest.-
And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,
You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb
Of your dear mother England, blush for shame:
For your own ladies, and pale-visag'd maids,
Like Amazons, come tripping after drums;
Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,
Their neelds to lances, and their gentle hearts
To fierce and bloody inclination.

Lew. There end thy brave, 4 and turn thy face in
peace;

We grant, 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.
Bast. No, I will speak.
Lew.
We will attend to neither:--
Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war
Plead for our interest, and our being here.
Bast. Indeed, your drums being beaten, will
cry out;

And so shall you, being beaten: Do but start
An echo with the clamour of thy drum,
And even at hand a drum is ready brac'd,
That shall reverberate all as loud as thine;
Sound but another, and another shall,
As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear,
And mock the deep-mouth'd thunder; for at hand
(Nor trusting to this halting legate here,
Whom he hath us'd rather for sport than need,)
Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits
A bare-ribb'd death, whose office is this day
To feast upon whole thousands of the French.

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; O, my heart is sick! [long, 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. 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 Resolved 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 1 Lewis. 2 Alluding to the images made by witcher

(Which some suppose the soul's frail dwellingDoth by the idle comments that it makes, [house), Foretell the ending of mortality.

Enter Pembroke. 2

P. His highness yet doth speak; and holds
That, being brought into the open air, [belief,
It would allay the burning quality
Of that fell poison which assaileth him. [here.-
P. Hen. Let him be brought into the orchard
Doth he still rage?
[Exit Bigot.
Pem.
He is more patient
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, thewhich 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. J. 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.

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 strait1
And so ingrateful, you deny me that.

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,
And module1 of confounded royalty.

Bast. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward
Where heaven he knows how we shall answer
For, in a night, the best part of my power, [him:
As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the washes, all unwarily,
Devoured by the unexpected flood.

an ear.

[The King dies. Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead [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 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.
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.

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

P. Ilen, 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.

SCENE I.-LONDON. A ROOM IN THE PALACE. Enter King Richard, attended; John of Gaunt, 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;
Or worthily as a good subject should,

face

On some known ground of treachery in him?
G. As near as I could sift him on that argu-
On some apparent danger seen in him, [ment,-
Aim'd at your highness; no inveterate malice.
K. Rich. Then call them to our presence;
to face,
And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
The accuser, and the accused, freely speak:
[Exeunt some Attendants.
High-stomach'd are they both, and full of ire,
In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

Re-enter Attendants, with Bolingbroke
and Norfolk.

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

As well appeareth by the cause you come; Namely, to appeal each other of high treason. Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object Against the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?

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 nush'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.