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

5.7 Enter Prince Henry, the Earl of Salisbury, and Lord Bigot

PRINCE HENRY

It is too late. The life of all his blood

Is touched corruptibly, and his pure brain,

Which some suppose the soul’s frail dwelling-house,

Doth by the idle comments that it makes

Foretell the ending of mortality.

Enter the Earl of Pembroke

PEMBROKE

His highness yet doth speak, and holds belief

That being brought into the open air,

It would allay the burning quality

Of that fell poison which assaileth him.

PRINCE HENRY

Let him be brought into the orchard here.—

⌈Exit Lord Bigot⌉

Doth he still rage?

PEMBROKE He is more patient

Than when you left him. Even now, he sung.

PRINCE HENRY

O, vanity of sickness! Fierce extremes

In their continuance will not feel themselves.

Death, having preyed upon the outward parts,

Leaves them invincible, and his siege is now

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.

SALISBURY

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 is brought in, ⌈with Lord Bigot attending⌉

KING 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.

PRINCE HENRY How fares your majesty?

KING JOHN

Poisoned, 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 burned bosom, nor entreat the north

To make his bleak winds kiss my parchèd lips 40

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.

PRINCE HENRY

O, that there were some virtue in my tears

That might relieve you!

KING JOHN The salt in them is hot.

Within me is a hell, and there the poison

Is, as a fiend, confined to tyrannize

On unreprievable condemned blood.

Enter the Bastard

BASTARD

O, I am scalded with my violent motion

And spleen of speed to see your majesty!

KING JOHN

O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye.

The tackle of my heart is cracked and burnt,

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.

BASTARD

The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,

Where God 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.

King John dies

SALISBURY

You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.

(To King John) My liege, my lord!—But now a king,

now thus.

PRINCE HENRY

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?

BASTARD (to King John)

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.

(To the lords) Now, now, you stars that move in your

right spheres,

Where be your powers? Show 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.

SALISBURY

It seems you know not, then, so much as we.

The Cardinal Pandolf 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.

BASTARD

He will the rather do it when he sees

Ourselves well-sinewed to our own defence.