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SCENE VI.

An open Place in the Neighbourhood of SwinsteadAbbey. Enter FAULCONBRIDGE, and HUBERT, severally.

Hub. Who's there? speak, hot speak quickly, or

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

mand

Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine?

Faulc. 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?

Faulc. Who thou wilt: an if thou please, Thou may'st befriend me so much, as to think I come one way of the Plantagenets.

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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.

Faulc.

Faulc. Come, come; sans compliment, what news

abroad?

Hub. Why, here walk I, in the black brow of night,

To find you out.

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

Hub. O my sweet sir, news fitted to the night, Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.

390

Faulc. 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 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.

Faulc. How did he take it? who did taste to

him?

400

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

Faulc. Withhold thine indignation mighty heaven,
And tempt us not to bear above our power!—
I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,
K

Passing

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.

410

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII.

The Orchard in Swinstead-Abbey. Enter Prince HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT.

Hen. 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 dwellinghouse)

Doth, by the idle comments that it makes,

Foretell the ending of mortality.

Enter PEMBROKE.

Pemb. His highness yet doth speak; and holds be

lief,

That being brought into the open air,

It would allay the burning quality

Of that fell poison which assaileth him.

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Hen. O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes, In their continuance, will not feel themselves. Death having prey'd upon the outward parts Leaves them invisible his siege is now,

:

430

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.

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.

King JOHN brought in.

440

K. 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.

Hen. How fares your majesty ?

450.

K. John. Poison'd-ill fare;-dead, forsook, cast

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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 :

much,

-I do not ask you

I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,

And so ingrateful, you deny me that.

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Hen. Oh, that there were some virtue in my tears,

That might relieve you !.

K. John. The salt of 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 FAULCONBRIDGE.

Faulc. Oh, I am scalded with my violent motion, And spleen of speed to see your majesty.

K. John. Oh cousin, thou art come to set mine

eye :

The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burnt;

469

And all the shrowds, 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.

Faulc. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward;

Where,

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