KING JOHN. Sidney Lee

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.

       [The KING 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.—

       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 Dauphin rages at our very heels.

       SALISBURY.

       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.

       BASTARD.

       He will the rather do it when he sees

       Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.

       SALISBURY.

       Nay, ‘tis in a manner done already;

       For many carriages he hath despatch’d

       To the seaside, 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.

       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.

       At Worcester must his body be interr’d;

       For so he will’d it.

       BASTARD.

       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.

       SALISBURY.

       And the like tender of our love we make,

       To rest without a spot for evermore.

       PRINCE HENRY.

       I have a kind soul that would give you thanks,

       And knows not how to do it but with tears.

       BASTARD.

       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 END