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

30

Yet speaks and peradventure may recover.

Bust. 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.

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 escap'd.
Away before conduct me to the King;
I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.

SCENE VII. The orchard in 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

Foretell 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?

Pem.

He is more patient

Than when you left him; even now he sung.

P. Hen. O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes
In their continuance will not feel themselves.
Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,
Leaves them insensible; 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,

40

[Exeunt.

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,

20

2

pure brain. The blood was corrupted; the brain, although untainted, was enfeebled.

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.

Enter Attendants, and BIGOT, carrying KING JOHN in a chair.
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.

P. Hen.

How fares your majesty?

K. John. Poison'd,

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 burn'd bosom, nor entreat the north
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.

Within me is a hell; and there the poison

Is as a fiend confin'd to tyrannize

On unreprievable condemned blood.

Enter the BASTARD.

Bast. O, I am scalded with my violent motion,

And spleen of speed to see your majesty!

30

40

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.

Bast. The Dolphin is preparing hitherward,

Where heaven He knows how we shall answer him;

60

For in a night the best part of my power,

20 indigest

42 so strait

B8 module

form, outward show.

chaotic. Plainly here a remembrance of "rudis indigestaque moles." so niggard, close, “ near."

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 views 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? 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 Dolphin 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 Dolphin,
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 sinewed to our defence.

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already;
For many carriages he hath despatch'd
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 consummate this business happily.

Bust. Let it be so: and you, my noble prince, With other princes that may best be spar'd,

Shall wait upon your father's funeral.

P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd;

For SO he will'd it.

And happily may your sweet self put on
The lineal state and glory of the land!
To whom, with all submission, on my knee
I do bequeath my faithful services
And true subjection everlastingly.

104 bequeath: loosely used for offer, make over.

70

So

90

100

Sal. And the like tender of our love we make,

To rest without a spot for evermore.

P. Hen. I have a kind soul that would give you thanks And knows not how to do it but with tears.

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,

ΠΙΟ

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 it self do rest but true.

[Exeunt

KING RICHARD THE SECOND.

INTRODUCTION.

SHAKESPEARE, producing his plays merely to please his public, naturally chose subjects which he thought would be of general interest; and it so happened that toward the end of the sixteenth century the deposition of Richard II. was much in the minds of Englishmen. For the deposition of Queen Elizabeth was then desired by not a few of her subjects, and thought possible by many. She herself was sensitive to any allusion to this only precedent for the formal dethroning of an English sovereign. Two plays, if not more, in which Richard II.'s fate was the principal incident, had been produced before Shakespeare wrote this one. But, contrary to his custom in such cases, he seems to have made no use of the work of his predecessors. He went for the substance of his drama to Holinshed's Chronicles. The incidents which he found recorded there he used at his pleasure, and with a single eye to dramatic effect. He was entirely indifferent as to chronological consistency or even historical accuracy. Indeed, he was probably as ignorant upon some of the points as to which he erred in these respects as most of his audience were. For example, the Queen, whom he represents as such a lovely and loving young matron, was only nine years old at the time of Bolingbroke's banishment. What matter? Who but an historical pedant would sacrifice his queen to historical accuracy? The true Duchess of York was not the mother of Aumerle; but what has that to do with our enjoyment of the spirit of her action and her manifestation of maternal love in the fifth act? Four editions of this play were published in quarto during Shakespeare's life; the first in 1597. The third, published in 1608, is of special interest, as it had, according to its title-page, "new additions of the Parliament sceane, and the deposing of King Richard." This scene manifestly had been omitted in the representation, and in previous editions, for fear of offending Elizabeth, who died in 1603. There is internal evidence, of indisputable character (which cannot be here set forth), that it existed in the play as originally written. The date of the production of the play is quite surely 1594-5. Its text has come to us in a perplexing state; and indeed it seems to have been written with a strange mixture of heedlessness and care. Some parts of it are perfect in their beauty and their strength; others are deformed by irregularity of metre, lines too long, lines too short, confusion of epithet and perversion of language, the attempt to correct which in most cases would be unwarrantable presumption.