King John
Act V, Scene 7
The orchard at Swinstead Abbey.
Costume design for Prince Henry
From Charles Kean's scrapbook
19th century
- Enter Prince Henry, Salisbury, and Bigot.
Prince Henry
1 - 5- 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.
Earl of Pembroke
6 - 9- 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
10 - 11- Let him be brought into the orchard here.
- Doth he still rage?
- Exit Bigot.
Earl of Pembroke
12 - 13- He is more patient
- Than when you left him; even now he sung.
Prince Henry
14 - 25- O vanity of sickness! Fierce extremes
- 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 chaunts a doleful hymn to his own death,
- And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
- His soul and body to their lasting rest.
Earl of Salisbury
26 - 28- 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 brought in.
King John
29 - 35- 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
36- How fares your Majesty?
King John
37 - 45- 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
46 - 47- O that there were some virtue in my tears,
- That might relieve you!
King John
48 - 51- 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 Bastard.
Bastard
52 - 53- O, I am scalded with my violent motion
- And spleen of speed to see your Majesty!
King John
54 - 61- 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
62 - 67- The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,
- Where God he knows how we shall answer him;
- For in a night the best part of my pow’r,
- As I upon advantage did remove,
- Were in the Washes all unwarily
- Devoured by the unexpected flood.
- The King dies.
Byam Shaw, 1901
Earl of Salisbury
68 - 69- You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.
- My liege, my lord! But now a king, now thus.
Prince Henry
70 - 72- 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
73 - 83- 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 pow’rs? 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.
Earl of Salisbury
84 - 89- 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 honor and respect may take,
- With purpose presently to leave this war.
Bastard
90 - 91- He will the rather do it when he sees
- Ourselves well sinewed to our defense.
Earl of Salisbury
92 - 98- Nay, ’tis 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.
Bastard
99 - 101- 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.
Prince Henry
102 - 103- At Worcester must his body be interr’d,
- For so he will’d it.
Bastard
104 - 109- Thither shall it then;
- 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.
Earl of Salisbury
110 - 111- And the like tender of our love we make,
- To rest without a spot forevermore.
Prince Henry
112 - 113- I have a kind soul that would give thanks,
- And knows not how to do it but with tears.
Bastard
114 - 122- 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.
