K. John. Have thou the ordering of this present time. Bast. Away then, with good courage; yet, I know, Enter in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, Lew. My lord Melun, let this be copied out, Sal. Upon our sides it never shall be broken. To your proceedings; yet, believe me, prince, Her enemies' ranks, (I must withdraw and weep What, here?-O, nation, that thou could'st remove! Lew. A noble temper dost thou shew in this; But this effusion of such manly drops, As Lewis himself:-so, nobles, shall you all, Enter PANDULPH, attended. Pand. Hail, noble prince of France! It may lie gently at the foot of peace, Lew. Your grace shall pardon me, I will not back; Or useful serving-man, and instrument, To underprop this action? is't not I, Pand. You look but on the outside of this work. Till my attempt so much be glorified [Trumpet sound's What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us? I come, to learn how you have dealt for him; Pan. The dauphin is too wilful opposite, Bast. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd, He is prepar'd; and reason too, he should: This apish and unmannerly approach, ; That hand, which had the strength, even at your door, Lew. There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace; 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; SCENE III.-The same. A Field of Battle. K. John How goes the day with us? O, tell me, 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, FaulconDesires your majesty to leave the field; [bridge, 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'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. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. The sume. 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. [field. Sal. That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge, In spite of spite, alone upholds the day. Pem. They say, king John, sore sick, hath left the Enter MELUN, wounded, and led by Soldiers. Mel. Lead me to the revolts of England here. Sal. When we were happy, we had other names. Pem. It is the count Melun. Sal. Wounded to death. Mel. Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold; Unthread the rude eye of rebellion, And welcome home again discarded faith. 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 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 Sul. We do believe thee,-And beshrew my scul Even to our ocean, to our great king John.- For I do see the cruel pangs of death SCENE V.-The same. The French Camp. Enter LEWIS and his Train. Lew. The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set; But stay'd, and made the western welkin blush, Mes. Where is my prince, the dauphin? [heart! Lew. Ah, foul shrewd news!-Beshrew thy very 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 toThe day shall not be up so soon as I, [night; 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? Of the part of England. 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 may'st 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 poison'd by a monk : Bast. How did he take it? who did taste to him? Hub. A monk, I tell you; a resolved 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 And brought prince Henry in their company; [back, At whose request the king hath pardon'd 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 iny power this night, 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. [Exeunt. SCENE VII.-The Orchard of Swinstead Abbey. Enter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT. P. 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 dwelling-house,) Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, Foretel the ending of mortality. Enter PEMBROKE. Pem. 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. P. Hen. Let him be brought into the orchard here.Doth he still rage? [Exit BIGOT. Pem. He is more patient Than when you left him; even now he sung. In their continuance, will not feel themselves. P. Hen. O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes, Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts, Leaves them insensible; and his siege is now With many legions of strange fantasies; Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, Confound themselves. 'Tis strange, that death should Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death; I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, [sing. 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 Re-enter BIGOT and Attendants, who bring in K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room; P. Hen. O, that there were some virtue in my tears, That might relieve you! K. John. The salt in them is hot. Within me is a hell; and there the poison Enter the BASTARD. Bast. O, I am scalded with my violent motion, And spleen of speed to see your majesty. 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 utter'd; And then all this thou see'st 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, Devour'd 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 push destruction, and perpetual shame, Sal. It seems, you know not then so much as we: The cardinal Pandulph is within at rest, Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already; With whom yourself, myself, and other lords, Bast. Let it be so:-And you, my noble prince, P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd; For so he will'd it. Bast. Thither shall it then. Sal. And the like tender of our love we make, P. Hen. I have a kind soul, that would give you And knows not how to do it, but with tears. [thanks, 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, And we shall shock them: Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true. [Exeunt. The tragedy of King John, though not written with the utmost power of Shakspeare, is varied with a very pleasing interchange of incidents and characters. The lady's grief is very affecting; and the character of the Bastard contains that mixture of greatness and levity which this author delighted to exhibit.-JOHN SON. To these remarks of Dr. Johnson, it may be added, that the grief of Constance for the loss of Arthur, is probably indebted for much of its characteristic truth to the calamity which Shakspeare had himself sustained by the death of his only son, who had attained the age of twelve, and died the year this play was produced. ' THIS play, which Mr. Malone supposes to have been written in 1593, was published in quarto no less than five several times during our author's life. The first edition was in 1597, without the scene of deposing Richard, which was first inserted in the edition of 1608. It has been supposed by Dr. Farmer, that there was a play on the subject anterior to that of Shakspeare, because he found in Lord Bacon, in the arraignments of Cuffe and Merick, vol. iv. p. 320, of Mallet's edition, that," The afternoon before the rebellion, Merick, with a great number of others, that afterwards were all in the action, had procured to be played before them the play of deposing King Richard the Second; -when it was told him by one of the players, that the play 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 LanHast thou, according to thy oath and band, [caster, 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, On some known ground of treachery in him? Gaunt. As near as I could sift him on that arguOn some apparent danger seen in him, [ment, Aim'd at your highness, no inveterate malice. was old, and they should have loss in playing it, because few would come to it, there was forty shillings extraordinary given to play, and so thereupon played it was.' This passage does not, however, necessarily refer to a drama older than Shakspeare's. In the year 1601, the actors would be very naturally inclined to consider a play as out of date, which had been produced in 1593, and performed till the curiosity of the town had become exhausted. The action of this play comprises little more than two years. It begins with Bolingbroke's appealing the duke of Norfolk, on the accusation of high-treason, which occurred in 1398, and closes with the death of King Richard, which took place in the end of the year 1400. Re-enter Attendants, with BOLINGBROKE and Boling. Many years of happy days befal K. Rich. We thank you both: yet one but flatters us, Tendering the precious safety of my prince, prove. 'Tis not the trial of a woman's war, |