The Complete Works of William Shakespeare · William Shakespeare
SCENE VI. An open place in the neighborhood of Swinstead Abbey.
Enter the Bastard and Hubert, meeting. HUBERT. Who’s there? Speak, ho! Speak quickly, or I shoot. BASTARD. A friend. What art thou? HUBERT. Of the part of England. BASTARD. Whither dost thou go? HUBERT. What’s that to thee? Why may I not demand Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine? BASTARD. Hubert, I think. HUBERT. 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? BASTARD. Who thou wilt. And if thou please, Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think I come one way of the Plantagenets. HUBERT. 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. BASTARD. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad? HUBERT. Why, here walk I in the black brow of night, To find you out. BASTARD. Brief, then; and what’s the news? HUBERT. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night, Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible. BASTARD. Show me the very wound of this ill news. I am no woman, I’ll not swoon at it. HUBERT. 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 you had at leisure known of this.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.