40

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. 45

Within me is a hell; and there the poison

Is as a fiend confined to tyrannize

On unreprieveable condemned blood.

Bast.

Enter the BASTARD.

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

50

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 seest is but a clod

And module of confounded royalty.

55

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

61

Devoured by the unexpected flood.

[The king dies.