King John (1899)
Dora Tulloch: Prince Henry
Photos
Quotes
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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 straight/ And so ungrateful, you deny me that.
Prince Henry : Oh that there were some virtue in my tears,/ That may relieve you.
King John : The salt in them is hot./ Within me is a hell, and there the poison/ Is, as a fiend, confin'fd to tyrannize,/ On unreprievable condemned blood.
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Philip Faulconbridge : Oh I am scalded with my violent motion/ And spleen of speed, to see your Majesty.
King John : Oh Cousin, thou art come to set mine eye:/ The tackle of my heart, is crack'd and burnt,/ 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 sees, is but a clod,/ And module of confounded royalty.
Philip Faulconbridge : The Dolphin 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]
Earl of Salisbury : You breath these dead news in as dead an ear/ My Leige, 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?