Page 242 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2
P. 242
The salt in them is hot. [45]
Within me is a hell; and there the poison
Is as a fiend confin’d 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! [50]
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, [55]
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 Dolphin is preparing hitherward,
Where God He knows how we shall answer him; [60]
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. [65]
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?
