Hubert, meeting.
Hub.
Who's there? speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot.
Bas.
A friend: What art thou?
Hub.
Of the part of England.
Bas.
Whither dost thou go?
Hub.
What's that to thee? Why may not I demand
Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine?
-- 85 --
Bas.
Hubert, I think.
Hub.
Thou hast a perfect thought:
I will, upon all hazards, well believe
Thou art my friend, that know'st my tongue so well:
Who art thou?
Bas.
Who thou wilt: an if thou please,
Thou may'st befriend me so much, as to think
I come one way of the Plantagenets.
Hub.
Unkind remembrance! thou, and eyeless note night,
Have done me shame:—Brave soldier, pardon me,
That any accent, breaking from thy tongue,
Should scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.
Bas.
Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?
Hub.
Why, here walk I, in the black brow of night,
To find you out.
Bas.
Brief, then; and what's the news?
Hub.
O my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,
Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.
Bas.
Shew me the very wound of this ill news;
I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.
Hub.
The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk:
I left him almost speechless, and broke out
To acquaint you with this evil; that you might
The better arm you to the sudden time,
Than if you14Q0570 had at leisure known of this.
Bas.
How did he take it? who did taste to him?
Hub.
A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain,
Whose bowels suddenly burst out: the king
Yet speaks, and, peradventure, may recover.
Bas.
Who 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;
-- 86 --
At whose request the king hath pardon'd them,
And they are all about his majesty.
Bas.
With-hold thine indignation, mighty heaven,
And tempt us not to bear above our power!—
I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,
Passing these flats, are taken by the tide,
These Lincoln washes have devoured them;
Myself, well mounted, hardly note have escap'd.
Away before! conduct me to the king;
I doubt, he will be dead, or ere I come.
[Exeunt.
Edward Capell [1767], Mr William Shakespeare his comedies, histories, and tragedies, set out by himself in quarto, or by the Players his Fellows in folio, and now faithfully republish'd from those Editions in ten Volumes octavo; with an introduction: Whereunto will be added, in some other Volumes, notes, critical and explanatory, and a Body of Various Readings entire (Printed by Dryden Leach, for J. and R. Tonson [etc.], London) [word count] [S10601].
