To lie, like pawns, lock'd up in chests and trunks;

To hug with swine; to seck sweet safety out
In vaults and prisons; and to thrill, and shake,
Even at the crying of your nation's crow,"
Thinking this voice an armed 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 our dear mother England, blush for shame :
For your own ladies, and pale-visag'd maids,
Like Amazons, come tripping after drums;
Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,
Their neelds to lances, and their gentle hearts
To fierce and bloody inclination.

Lew. There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;

We grant thou canst outscold us: fare thee well;

We hold our time too precious to be spent
With such a brabbler.

Bast. No, I will speak. Lew. Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war Plead for our interest, and our being here.

We will attend to neither.

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 brac'd,
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-mouth'd thunder for at
hand

:

SCENE III.-The same. A Field of Battle.
Alarums. 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, Faul-
conbridge,

Desires your majesty to leave the field,
And send him word by me which way you go.
K. John. Tell him, towards Swinstead, to the
abbey there.

Mess. Be of good comfort; for the great supply,

That was expected by the Dauphin here, Are wrack'd three nights ago on Goodwin sands.

This news was brought to Richard but even

Pem. Up once again; put spirit in the French:

If they miscarry, we miscarry too.

Sal. That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge, In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.

Pem. They say, king John, sore sick, hath

left the field.

Enter MELUN, wounded, and led by Soldiers. Mel. Lead me to the revolts of Eugland 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,

Unthread the rude eye. Theobald corrupted this passage into "untread the rude way," he turned, by an easy

And welcome home again discarded faith.
Seek out king John, and fall before his feet;
For, if the French be lord of this loud day,
He means to recompense the pains you take,
By cutting off your heads: Thus hath he sworn,
And I with him, and many more with me,
Upon the altar at Saint Edmund's-Bury ;3
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

process, the poetry into prose. Malone, who agrees in the restoration of the passage, says Shakspere "was evidently th aking of the eye of a needle," and he calls this, therefore, a humble metaphor. Nothing, it appears to us, is humble in poetry that conveys an image forcibly and distinctly; and "the eye of a needle" by the application of the poet may become dignified. But the word thread, perhaps metaphorically, is used to convey the meaning of passing through anything intricate, narrow, difficult.

We will untread the steps of damned flight;
And, like a bated and retired flood,
Leaving our rankness and irregular course,
Stoop low within those bounds we have o'er-
look'd,

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.

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 fallen off:
And your supply, which you have wish'd 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.-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.

a When English measure. So the original. Rowe and Pope altered it to "When th' English measur'd."

b Tottering. Steevens reads tatter'd-Malone tattering. The original tottering was the same as tattering, of which Capell gives an example in his 'School of Shakspere,' p. 54. 63

SCENE VI.-An open Place in the Neighbour

hood 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:

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.

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 ?

Eyeless night. The original reads endless. Shakspere has, in other passages, applied the epithet endless to night, but using night metaphorically. Here, where the meaning is literal, eyeless may be preferred. The emendation was made by Theobald.

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.

[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 brain pure (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwellinghouse,)

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 ex-
tremes,

a

[Exit BIGOT.

In their continuance, will not feel themselves.
Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,
Leaves them invisible; 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.

a Invisible. So the original. Some modern editors read insensible. The question occupies four pages of discussion in the commentators. The meaning of invisible is, we take it, unlooked at, disregarded.

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,-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 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!

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 sinewed to our defence.

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already;
For many carriages he hath dispatch'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.

Bast. 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.

Bast.
Thither shall it then.
And happily may your sweet self put on