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An open Place in the neighbourhood of Swinstead Abbey. | |
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Enter the BASTARD and HUBERT, severally. | |
| Hub. Who’s there? speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot. | |
| Bast. A friend. What art thou? | |
| Hub. Of the part of England. | 5 |
| Bast. Whither dost thou go? | |
| Hub. What’s that to thee? Why may not I demand | |
| Of thine affairs as well as thou of mine? | |
| Bast. Hubert, I think? | |
| Hub. Thou hast a perfect thought: | 10 |
| I will upon all hazards well believe | |
| Thou art my friend, that know’st my tongue so well. | |
| Who art thou? | |
| Bast. Who thou wilt: and if thou please, | |
| Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think | 15 |
| I come one way of the Plantagenets. | |
| Hub. Unkind remembrance! thou and eyeless night | |
| Have done me shame: brave soldier, pardon me, | |
| That any accent breaking from thy tongue | |
| Should ’scape the true acquaintance of mine ear. | 20 |
| Bast. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad? | |
| Hub. Why, here walk I in the black brow of night, | |
| To find you out. | |
| Bast Brief, then; and what’s the news? | |
| Hub. O! my sweet sir, news fitting to the night, | 25 |
| Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible. | |
| Bast. Show me the very wound of this ill news: | |
| I am no woman; I’ll not swound at it. | |
| Hub. The king, I fear, is poison’d by a monk: | |
| I left him almost speechless; and broke out | 30 |
| 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, | 35 |
| Whose bowels suddenly burst out: the king | |
| Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover. | |
| Bast. Whom didst thou leave to tend his majesty? | |
| Hub. Why, know you not? the lords are all come back, | |
| And brought Prince Henry in their company; | 40 |
| 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, | 45 |
| 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. | 50 |
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