Enter Attendants,and BIGOT,carrying KING JOHN in a chair 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 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.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 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.BASTARD 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 Devoured by the unexpected flood.
KING JOHN dies SALISBURY You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.
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 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.