Henry VIII by William Shakespeare (icecream ebook reader .txt) 📕

our queen, before the primest creature
That’s paragon’d o’ the world. Campeius

So please your highness,
The queen being absent, ’tis a needful fitness
That we adjourn this court till further day:
Meanwhile must be an earnest motion
Made to the queen, to call back her appeal
She intends unto his holiness.

King

Aside. I may perceive
These cardinals trifle with me: I abhor
This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome.
My learn’d and well-beloved servant, Cranmer,
Prithee, return: with thy approach, I know,
My comfort comes along. Break up the court:
I say, set on. Exeunt in manner as they entered.

Act III Scene I

London. The Queen’s apartments.

Enter the Queen and her Women, as at work. Queen Katherine

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:
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,
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 Katherine How now! Gentleman

An’t please your grace, the two great cardinals
Wait in the presence.

Queen Katherine Would they speak with me? Gentleman They will’d me say so, madam. Queen Katherine

Pray their graces
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:
But all hoods make not monks.

Enter the two Cardinals, Wolsey and Campeius. Wolsey Peace to your highness! Queen Katherine

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?

Wolsey

May it please you noble madam, to withdraw
Into your private chamber, we shall give you
The full cause of our coming.

Queen Katherine

Speak it here:
There’s nothing I have done yet, o’ my conscience,
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,
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.

Wolsey Tanta est erga te mentis integritas, regina serenissima⁠— Queen Katherine

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, 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
May be absolved in English.

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.
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
Between the king and you; and to deliver,
Like free and honest men, our just opinions
And comforts to your cause.

Campeius

Most honour’d madam,
My Lord of York, out of his noble nature,
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.

Queen Katherine

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—
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.
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!

Wolsey

Madam, you wrong the king’s love with these fears:
Your hopes and friends are infinite.

Queen Katherine

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,
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
In mine own country, lords.

Campeius

I would your grace
Would leave your griefs, and take my counsel.

Queen Katherine How, sir? Campeius

Put your main cause into the king’s protection;
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.

Wolsey He tells you rightly. Queen Katherine

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.

Campeius Your rage mistakes us. Queen Katherine

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,
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.

Wolsey

Madam, this is a mere distraction;
You turn the good we offer into envy.

Queen Katherine

Ye