William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition

3.1 Enter Queen Katherine 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.

GENTLEWOMAN (sings)

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.

Everything 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 ⌈Griffith,⌉ a gentleman

QUEEN KATHERINE How now?

⌈GRIFFITH⌉

An’t please your grace, the two great cardinals

Wait in the presence.

QUEEN KATHERINE

Would they speak with me?

⌈GRIFFITH⌉

They willed me say so, madam.

QUEEN KATHERINE

Pray their graces

To come near.

⌈Exit Griffith⌉

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, ⌈ushered by Griffith⌉

CARDINAL 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?

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 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 ev’ry tongue, ev’ry 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.

CARDINAL 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.

CARDINAL WOLSEY

Noble lady,

I am sorry my integrity should breed—so

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.

CARDINAL CAMPEIUS

Most honoured 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.

(Aloud) 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.

CARDINAL 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.

CARDINAL CAMPEIUS