King Henry VIII
| ACT III SCENE I | London. QUEEN KATHARINE’s apartments. | |
| [Enter QUEEN KATHARINE and her Women, as at work] | ||
| QUEEN KATHARINE | Take thy lute, wench: my soul grows sad with troubles; | |
| Sing, and disperse ’em, if thou canst: leave working. | ||
| [SONG] | ||
| Orpheus with his lute made trees, | ||
| And the mountain tops that freeze, | ||
| Bow themselves when he did sing: | 5 | |
| To his music plants and flowers | ||
| Ever sprung; as sun and showers | ||
| There had made a lasting spring. | ||
| Every thing that heard him play, | ||
| Even the billows of the sea, | 10 | |
| Hung their heads, and then lay by. | ||
| In sweet music is such art, | ||
| Killing care and grief of heart | ||
| Fall asleep, or hearing, die. | ||
| [Enter a Gentleman] | ||
| QUEEN KATHARINE | How now! | 15 |
| Gentleman | An’t please your grace, the two great cardinals | |
| Wait in the presence. | ||
| QUEEN KATHARINE | Would they speak with me? | |
| Gentleman | They will’d me say so, madam. | |
| QUEEN KATHARINE | Pray their graces | 20 |
| To come near. | ||
| [Exit Gentleman] | ||
| What can be their business | ||
| With me, a poor weak woman, fall’n from favour? | ||
| I do not like their coming. Now I think on’t, | ||
| They should be good men; their affairs as righteous: | 25 | |
| But all hoods make not monks. | ||
| [Enter CARDINAL WOLSEY and CARDINAL CAMPEIUS] | ||
| CARDINAL WOLSEY | Peace to your highness! | |
| QUEEN KATHARINE | Your graces find me here part of a housewife, | |
| I would be all, against the worst may happen. | ||
| What are your pleasures with me, reverend lords? | 30 | |
| CARDINAL WOLSEY | May it please you noble madam, to withdraw | |
| Into your private chamber, we shall give you | ||
| The full cause of our coming. | ||
| QUEEN KATHARINE | Speak it here: | |
| There’s nothing I have done yet, o’ my conscience, | 35 | |
| Deserves a corner: would all other women | ||
| Could speak this with as free a soul as I do! | ||
| My lords, I care not, so much I am happy | ||
| Above a number, if my actions | ||
| Were tried by every tongue, every eye saw ’em, | 40 | |
| Envy and base opinion set against ’em, | ||
| I know my life so even. If your business | ||
| Seek me out, and that way I am wife in, | ||
| Out with it boldly: truth loves open dealing. | ||
| CARDINAL WOLSEY | Tanta est erga te mentis integritas, regina | 45 |
| serenissima,– | ||
| QUEEN KATHARINE | O, good my lord, no Latin; | |
| I am not such a truant since my coming, | ||
| As not to know the language I have lived in: | ||
| A strange tongue makes my cause more strange, | 50 | |
| suspicious; | ||
| Pray, speak in English: here are some will thank you, | ||
| If you speak truth, for their poor mistress’ sake; | ||
| Believe me, she has had much wrong: lord cardinal, | ||
| The willing’st sin I ever yet committed | 55 | |
| May be absolved in English. | ||
| CARDINAL WOLSEY | Noble lady, | |
| I am sorry my integrity should breed, | ||
| And service to his majesty and you, | ||
| So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant. | 60 | |
| We come not by the way of accusation, | ||
| To taint that honour every good tongue blesses, | ||
| Nor to betray you any way to sorrow, | ||
| You have too much, good lady; but to know | ||
| How you stand minded in the weighty difference | 65 | |
| Between the king and you; and to deliver, | ||
| Like free and honest men, our just opinions | ||
| And comforts to your cause. | ||
| CARDINAL CAMPEIUS | Most honour’d madam, | |
| My Lord of York, out of his noble nature, | 70 | |
| Zeal and obedience he still bore your grace, | ||
| Forgetting, like a good man your late censure | ||
| Both of his truth and him, which was too far, | ||
| Offers, as I do, in a sign of peace, | ||
| His service and his counsel. | 75 | |
| QUEEN KATHARINE | [Aside] To betray me.– | |
| My lords, I thank you both for your good wills; | ||
| Ye speak like honest men; pray God, ye prove so! | ||
| But how to make ye suddenly an answer, | ||
| In such a point of weight, so near mine honour,– | 80 | |
| More near my life, I fear,–with my weak wit, | ||
| And to such men of gravity and learning, | ||
| In truth, I know not. I was set at work | ||
| Among my maids: full little, God knows, looking | ||
| Either for such men or such business. | 85 | |
| For her sake that I have been,–for I feel | ||
| The last fit of my greatness,–good your graces, | ||
| Let me have time and counsel for my cause: | ||
| Alas, I am a woman, friendless, hopeless! | ||
| CARDINAL WOLSEY | Madam, you wrong the king’s love with these fears: | 90 |
| Your hopes and friends are infinite. | ||
| QUEEN KATHARINE | In England | |
| But little for my profit: can you think, lords, | ||
| That any Englishman dare give me counsel? | ||
| Or be a known friend, ‘gainst his highness’ pleasure, | 95 | |
| Though he be grown so desperate to be honest, | ||
| And live a subject? Nay, forsooth, my friends, | ||
| They that must weigh out my afflictions, | ||
| They that my trust must grow to, live not here: | ||
| They are, as all my other comforts, far hence | 100 | |
| In mine own country, lords. | ||
| CARDINAL CAMPEIUS | I would your grace | |
| Would leave your griefs, and take my counsel. | ||
| QUEEN KATHARINE | How, sir? | |
| CARDINAL CAMPEIUS | Put your main cause into the king’s protection; | 105 |
| He’s loving and most gracious: ’twill be much | ||
| Both for your honour better and your cause; | ||
| For if the trial of the law o’ertake ye, | ||
| You’ll part away disgraced. | ||
| CARDINAL WOLSEY | He tells you rightly. | 110 |
| QUEEN KATHARINE | Ye tell me what ye wish for both,–my ruin: | |
| Is this your Christian counsel? out upon ye! | ||
| Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge | ||
| That no king can corrupt. | ||
| CARDINAL CAMPEIUS | Your rage mistakes us. | 115 |
| QUEEN KATHARINE | The more shame for ye: holy men I thought ye, | |
| Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues; | ||
| But cardinal sins and hollow hearts I fear ye: | ||
| Mend ’em, for shame, my lords. Is this your comfort? | ||
| The cordial that ye bring a wretched lady, | 120 | |
| A woman lost among ye, laugh’d at, scorn’d? | ||
| I will not wish ye half my miseries; | ||
| I have more charity: but say, I warn’d ye; | ||
| Take heed, for heaven’s sake, take heed, lest at once | ||
| The burthen of my sorrows fall upon ye. | 125 | |
| CARDINAL WOLSEY | Madam, this is a mere distraction; | |
| You turn the good we offer into envy. | ||
| QUEEN KATHARINE | Ye turn me into nothing: woe upon ye | |
| And all such false professors! would you have me– | ||
| If you have any justice, any pity; | 130 | |
| If ye be any thing but churchmen’s habits– | ||
| Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me? | ||
| Alas, has banish’d me his bed already, | ||
| His love, too long ago! I am old, my lords, | ||
| And all the fellowship I hold now with him | 135 | |
| Is only my obedience. What can happen | ||
| To me above this wretchedness? all your studies | ||
| Make me a curse like this. | ||
| CARDINAL CAMPEIUS | Your fears are worse. | |
| QUEEN KATHARINE | Have I lived thus long–let me speak myself, | 140 |
| Since virtue finds no friends–a wife, a true one? | ||
| A woman, I dare say without vain-glory, | ||
| Never yet branded with suspicion? | ||
| Have I with all my full affections | ||
| Still met the king? loved him next heaven? | 145 | |
| obey’d him? | ||
| Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him? | ||
| Almost forgot my prayers to content him? | ||
| And am I thus rewarded? ’tis not well, lords. | ||
| Bring me a constant woman to her husband, | 150 | |
| One that ne’er dream’d a joy beyond his pleasure; | ||
| And to that woman, when she has done most, | ||
| Yet will I add an honour, a great patience. | ||
| CARDINAL WOLSEY | Madam, you wander from the good we aim at. | |
| QUEEN KATHARINE | My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty, | 155 |
| To give up willingly that noble title | ||
| Your master wed me to: nothing but death | ||
| Shall e’er divorce my dignities. | ||
| CARDINAL WOLSEY | Pray, hear me. | |
| QUEEN KATHARINE | Would I had never trod this English earth, | 160 |
| Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it! | ||
| Ye have angels’ faces, but heaven knows your hearts. | ||
| What will become of me now, wretched lady! | ||
| I am the most unhappy woman living. | ||
| Alas, poor wenches, where are now your fortunes! | 165 | |
| Shipwreck’d upon a kingdom, where no pity, | ||
| No friend, no hope; no kindred weep for me; | ||
| Almost no grave allow’d me: like the lily, | ||
| That once was mistress of the field and flourish’d, | ||
| I’ll hang my head and perish. | 170 | |
| CARDINAL WOLSEY | If your grace | |
| Could but be brought to know our ends are honest, | ||
| You’ld feel more comfort: why should we, good lady, | ||
| Upon what cause, wrong you? alas, our places, | ||
| The way of our profession is against it: | 175 | |
| We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow ’em. | ||
| For goodness’ sake, consider what you do; | ||
| How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly | ||
| Grow from the king’s acquaintance, by this carriage. | ||
| The hearts of princes kiss obedience, | 180 | |
| So much they love it; but to stubborn spirits | ||
| They swell, and grow as terrible as storms. | ||
| I know you have a gentle, noble temper, | ||
| A soul as even as a calm: pray, think us | ||
| Those we profess, peace-makers, friends, and servants. | 185 | |
| CARDINAL CAMPEIUS | Madam, you’ll find it so. You wrong your virtues | |
| With these weak women’s fears: a noble spirit, | ||
| As yours was put into you, ever casts | ||
| Such doubts, as false coin, from it. The king loves you; | ||
| Beware you lose it not: for us, if you please | 190 | |
| To trust us in your business, we are ready | ||
| To use our utmost studies in your service. | ||
| QUEEN KATHARINE | Do what ye will, my lords: and, pray, forgive me, | |
| If I have used myself unmannerly; | ||
| You know I am a woman, lacking wit | 195 | |
| To make a seemly answer to such persons. | ||
| Pray, do my service to his majesty: | ||
| He has my heart yet; and shall have my prayers | ||
| While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers, | ||
| Bestow your counsels on me: she now begs, | 200 | |
| That little thought, when she set footing here, | ||
| She should have bought her dignities so dear. | ||
| [Exeunt] | ||
Continue to Henry VIII, Act 3, Scene 2