King Henry The Eighth

1 Enter Queen and her Women, as at work.
2 QUEEN KATHERINE.
3 Take thy lute, wench. My soul grows sad with troubles.
4 Sing, and disperse ’em, if thou canst. Leave working.
5 WOMAN
6 [_sings song._]
7 Orpheus with his lute made trees
8 And the mountain tops that freeze
9 Bow themselves when he did sing.
10 To his music plants and flowers
11 Ever sprung, as sun and showers
12 There had made a lasting spring.
13 Everything that heard him play,
14 Even the billows of the sea,
15 Hung their heads and then lay by.
16 In sweet music is such art,
17 Killing care and grief of heart
18 Fall asleep or, hearing, die.
19 Enter a Gentleman.
20 QUEEN KATHERINE.
21 How now?
22 GENTLEMAN.
23 An’t please your Grace, the two great Cardinals
24 Wait in the presence.
25 QUEEN KATHERINE.
26 Would they speak with me?
27 GENTLEMAN.
28 They willed me say so, madam.
29 QUEEN KATHERINE.
30 Pray their Graces
31 To come near.
32 [_Exit Gentleman._]
33 What can be their business
34 With me, a poor weak woman, fallen from favour?
35 I do not like their coming. Now I think on’t,
36 They should be good men, their affairs as righteous.
37 But all hoods make not monks.
38 Enter the two Cardinals, Wolsey and Campeius.
39 WOLSEY.
40 Peace to your Highness.
41 QUEEN KATHERINE.
42 Your Graces find me here part of housewife;
43 I would be all, against the worst may happen.
44 What are your pleasures with me, reverend lords?
45 WOLSEY.
46 May it please you, noble madam, to withdraw
47 Into your private chamber, we shall give you
48 The full cause of our coming.
49 QUEEN KATHERINE.
50 Speak it here.
51 There’s nothing I have done yet, o’ my conscience,
52 Deserves a corner. Would all other women
53 Could speak this with as free a soul as I do!
54 My lords, I care not, so much I am happy
55 Above a number, if my actions
56 Were tried by every tongue, every eye saw ’em,
57 Envy and base opinion set against ’em,
58 I know my life so even. If your business
59 Seek me out, and that way I am wife in,
60 Out with it boldly. Truth loves open dealing.
61 WOLSEY.
62 _Tanta est erga te mentis integritas, regina serenissima_—
63 QUEEN KATHERINE.
64 O, good my lord, no Latin.
65 I am not such a truant since my coming
66 As not to know the language I have lived in.
67 A strange tongue makes my cause more strange, suspicious.
68 Pray speak in English. Here are some will thank you,
69 If you speak truth, for their poor mistress’ sake.
70 Believe me, she has had much wrong. Lord Cardinal,
71 The willing’st sin I ever yet committed
72 May be absolved in English.
73 WOLSEY.
74 Noble lady,
75 I am sorry my integrity should breed—
76 And service to his Majesty and you—
77 So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant.
78 We come not by the way of accusation,
79 To taint that honour every good tongue blesses,
80 Nor to betray you any way to sorrow—
81 You have too much, good lady—but to know
82 How you stand minded in the weighty difference
83 Between the King and you, and to deliver,
84 Like free and honest men, our just opinions
85 And comforts to your cause.
86 CAMPEIUS.
87 Most honoured madam,
88 My Lord of York, out of his noble nature,
89 Zeal, and obedience he still bore your Grace,
90 Forgetting, like a good man, your late censure
91 Both of his truth and him—which was too far—
92 Offers, as I do, in a sign of peace,
93 His service and his counsel.
94 QUEEN KATHERINE.
95 [_Aside_.] To betray me.
96 My lords, I thank you both for your good wills.
97 Ye speak like honest men; pray God ye prove so.
98 But how to make ye suddenly an answer
99 In such a point of weight, so near mine honour—
100 More near my life, I fear—with my weak wit,
101 And to such men of gravity and learning,
102 In truth I know not. I was set at work
103 Among my maids, full little, God knows, looking
104 Either for such men or such business.
105 For her sake that I have been—for I feel
106 The last fit of my greatness—good your Graces,
107 Let me have time and counsel for my cause.
108 Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless.
109 WOLSEY.
110 Madam, you wrong the King’s love with these fears;
111 Your hopes and friends are infinite.
112 QUEEN KATHERINE.
113 In England
114 But little for my profit. Can you think, lords,
115 That any Englishman dare give me counsel?
116 Or be a known friend, ’gainst his Highness’ pleasure,
117 Though he be grown so desperate to be honest,
118 And live a subject? Nay, forsooth, my friends,
119 They that much weigh out my afflictions,
120 They that my trust must grow to, live not here.
121 They are, as all my other comforts, far hence
122 In mine own country, lords.
123 CAMPEIUS.
124 I would your Grace
125 Would leave your griefs and take my counsel.
126 QUEEN KATHERINE.
127 How, sir?
128 CAMPEIUS.
129 Put your main cause into the King’s protection.
130 He’s loving and most gracious. ’Twill be much
131 Both for your honour better and your cause,
132 For if the trial of the law o’ertake ye,
133 You’ll part away disgraced.
134 WOLSEY.
135 He tells you rightly.
136 QUEEN KATHERINE.
137 Ye tell me what ye wish for both: my ruin.
138 Is this your Christian counsel? Out upon ye!
139 Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge
140 That no king can corrupt.
141 CAMPEIUS.
142 Your rage mistakes us.
143 QUEEN KATHERINE.
144 The more shame for ye! Holy men I thought ye,
145 Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues;
146 But cardinal sins and hollow hearts I fear ye.
147 Mend ’em, for shame, my lords. Is this your comfort,
148 The cordial that ye bring a wretched lady,
149 A woman lost among ye, laughed at, scorned?
150 I will not wish ye half my miseries;
151 I have more charity. But say I warned ye.
152 Take heed, for heaven’s sake, take heed, lest at once
153 The burden of my sorrows fall upon ye.
154 WOLSEY.
155 Madam, this is a mere distraction.
156 You turn the good we offer into envy.
157 QUEEN KATHERINE.
158 Ye turn me into nothing. Woe upon ye
159 And all such false professors! Would you have me—
160 If you have any justice, any pity,
161 If ye be anything but churchmen’s habits—
162 Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me?
163 Alas, ’has banished me his bed already,
164 His love, too, long ago. I am old, my lords,
165 And all the fellowship I hold now with him
166 Is only my obedience. What can happen
167 To me above this wretchedness? All your studies
168 Make me a curse like this.
169 CAMPEIUS.
170 Your fears are worse.
171 QUEEN KATHERINE.
172 Have I lived thus long—let me speak myself,
173 Since virtue finds no friends—a wife, a true one—
174 A woman, I dare say without vainglory,
175 Never yet branded with suspicion—
176 Have I with all my full affections
177 Still met the King, loved him next heav’n, obeyed him,
178 Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him,
179 Almost forgot my prayers to content him,
180 And am I thus rewarded? ’Tis not well, lords.
181 Bring me a constant woman to her husband,
182 One that ne’er dreamed a joy beyond his pleasure,
183 And to that woman, when she has done most,
184 Yet will I add an honour: a great patience.
185 WOLSEY.
186 Madam, you wander from the good we aim at.
187 QUEEN KATHERINE.
188 My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty
189 To give up willingly that noble title
190 Your master wed me to. Nothing but death
191 Shall e’er divorce my dignities.
192 WOLSEY.
193 Pray hear me.
194 QUEEN KATHERINE.
195 Would I had never trod this English earth
196 Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it!
197 Ye have angels’ faces, but heaven knows your hearts.
198 What will become of me now, wretched lady?
199 I am the most unhappy woman living.
200 [_To her Women_.] Alas, poor wenches, where are now your fortunes?
201 Shipwrecked upon a kingdom where no pity,
202 No friends, no hope, no kindred weep for me,
203 Almost no grave allowed me, like the lily
204 That once was mistress of the field and flourished,
205 I’ll hang my head and perish.
206 WOLSEY.
207 If your Grace
208 Could but be brought to know our ends are honest,
209 You’d feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady,
210 Upon what cause, wrong you? Alas, our places,
211 The way of our profession, is against it.
212 We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow ’em.
213 For goodness’ sake, consider what you do,
214 How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly
215 Grow from the King’s acquaintance, by this carriage.
216 The hearts of princes kiss obedience,
217 So much they love it, but to stubborn spirits
218 They swell and grow as terrible as storms.
219 I know you have a gentle, noble temper,
220 A soul as even as a calm. Pray think us
221 Those we profess: peacemakers, friends, and servants.
222 CAMPEIUS.
223 Madam, you’ll find it so. You wrong your virtues
224 With these weak women’s fears. A noble spirit,
225 As yours was put into you, ever casts
226 Such doubts, as false coin, from it. The King loves you;
227 Beware you lose it not. For us, if you please
228 To trust us in your business, we are ready
229 To use our utmost studies in your service.
230 QUEEN KATHERINE.
231 Do what ye will, my lords, and pray forgive me
232 If I have used myself unmannerly.
233 You know I am a woman, lacking wit
234 To make a seemly answer to such persons.
235 Pray do my service to his Majesty.
236 He has my heart yet, and shall have my prayers
237 While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers,
238 Bestow your counsels on me. She now begs
239 That little thought, when she set footing here,
240 She should have bought her dignities so dear.
241 [_Exeunt._]