To any sovereign state throughout the world.
Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars
Between this chástised kingdom and myself,
And brought in matter that should feed this fire:
And now 't is far too huge to be blown out
With that same weak wind which enkindled it.
You taught me how to know the face of right,
Acquainted me with interest to this land,
Yea, thrust this enterprize into my heart:
And come you now to tell me John hath made
His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?
I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,
`After young Arthur, claim this land for mine:
And, now it is half-conquered, must I back
Because that John hath made his peace with
Rome?

Am I Rome's slave? What penny hath Rome borne,

What men provided, what munition sent,
To underprop this action? Is 't not I
That undergo this charge? Who else but I,
And such as to my claim are liable,
Sweat in this business and maintain this war?
Have I not heard these islanders shout out
"Vive le roy!" as I have banked their towns?
Have I not here the best cards for the game,
To win this easy match, played for a crown:
And shall I now give o'er the yielded set?
No, on my soul, it never shall be said.

Pand. You look but on the outside of this work.
Lew. Outside or inside, I will not return
Till my attempt so much be glorified
As to my ample hope was promised
Before I drew this gallant head of war,
And culled these fiery spirits from the world,
To outlook conquest, and to win renown
Even in the jaws of danger and of death.

[Trumpet sounds. What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?

Enter the Bastard, attended.

Bast. According to the fair play of the world, Let me have audience: I am sent to speak.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.

Pan. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,
And will not temporise with my entreaties:
He flatly says he 'll not lay down his arms.

Bast. By all the blood that ever fury breathed, The youth says well!-Now hear our English king:

For thus his royalty doth speak in me.
He is prepared; and reason too he should.
This apish and unmannerly approach,

This harnessed masque and unadvised revel,

This unhaired sauciness and boyish troops, The King doth smile at; and is well prepared 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;
To dive, like buckets, in concealed wells;
To crouch in litter of your stable planks;
To lie, like pawns, locked 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 arméd 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 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-visaged maids,
Like Amazons, come tripping after drums :
Their thimbles into arméd gauntlets change,
Their neelds to lances, and their gentle hearts
To fierce and bloody inclination.

Lew. There end thy brave, and turn thy face

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 braced
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-mouthed thunder: for at
hand

(Not trusting to this halting legate here,
Whom he hath used rather for sport than need)
Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits
A bare-ribbed death, whose office is this day
To feast upon whole thousands of the French.
Lew. Strike up our drums, to find this danger

SCENE III.-The same. A Field of Battle. Alarams. 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 long

Lies heavy on me: O my heart is sick!

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Falconbridge,

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 wrecked three nights ago on Goodwin's sands.
This news was brought to Richard but even now.
The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.

K. John. Ah me! 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.

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
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 Lewis do win 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 Lewis 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.

Sal. 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 damnéd flight;
And, like a bated and retiréd flood,
Leaving our rankness and irregular course,
Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlooked,
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 V.-The same. The French Camp.

Enter LEWIS and his Train.

Lew. The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set;

But stayed, and made the western welkin blush,

When the English measured 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 tattered colours clearly up, Last in the field, and almost lords of it'

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. Where is my prince, the Dauphin?
Lew.
Here. What news?

Mess. The Count Melun is slain: the English lords,

By his persuasion, are again fall'n off:
And your supply, which you have wished so long,
Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin sands.
Lew. Ah, foul shrewd news!-Beshrew thy
very heart!

I did not think to be so sad to-night
As this hath made me.-
e.-Who was he that said
King John did fly an hour or two before
The stumbling night did part our weary powers?
Mess. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.
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. Of the part of England.
Bast. Whither dost thou go?

Hub. What's that to thee? Why may I not

demand

Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine?
Bast. Hubert, I think.

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 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 you out.

Bast. Brief, then; and what s the news? Hub. O my sweet sir, news fitting to the night: Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.

Bast. Shew me the very wound of this ill news: I am no woman; I'll not swoon at it.

Hub. The King, I fear, is poisoned 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.

Bast. How did he take it? who did taste to him? Hub. A monk, I tell you: a resolvéd villain, Whose bowels suddenly burst out. The King Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.

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 pardoned them, And they are all about his majesty.

Bast. 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 escaped.
Away, before conduct me to the King:
I doubt he will be dead or ere I come. [Exeunt.

The tackle of my heart is cracked and burned,
And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail
Are turnéd 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.

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.

My liege, my lord!-But now a king; now thus! P. Hen. 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,

Where be your powers? Shew 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.

Sal. 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 sinewéd to our defence.

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already : For many carriages he hath despatched 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.

Bast. Let it be so.-And you, my noble prince, With other princes that may best be spared, Shall wait upon your father's funeral. P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interred: