WOMAN [Sings.]
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.
Everything 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 GRIFFITH.
KATHERINE How now?
15
GRIFFITH
An’t please your grace, the two great Cardinals
Wait in the presence.
KATHERINE Would they speak with me?
GRIFFITH They willed me say so, madam.
KATHERINE Pray their graces
To come near. Exit Griffith.
What can be their business
With me, a poor weak woman, fallen from favour?
20
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.
KATHERINE
Your graces find me here part of a housewife:
I would be all, against the worst may happen.
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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.
KATHERINE Speak it here.
There’s nothing I have done yet, o’my conscience,
30
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,
35
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 –
40
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.
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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 willingest sin I ever yet committed
May be absolved in English.
WOLSEY Noble lady,
50
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,
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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
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And comforts to your cause.
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 –
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Offers, as I do, in a sign of peace,
His service and his counsel.
KATHERINE [aside] To betray me.
[to them] 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
70
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
75
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.
80
WOLSEY
Madam, you wrong the King’s love with these fears:
Your hopes and friends are infinite.
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 –
85
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
90
In mine own country, lords.
CAMPEIUS I would your grace
Would leave your griefs and take my counsel.
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,
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For if the trial of the law o’ertake ye,
You’ll part away disgraced.
WOLSEY He tells you rightly.
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
100
That no king can corrupt.
CAMPEIUS Your rage mistakes us.
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?
105
The cordial that ye bring a wretched lady,
A woman lost among ye, laughed at, scorned?
I will not wish ye half my miseries:
I have more charity. But say I warned ye.
Take heed, for heaven’s sake take heed, lest at once
110
The burden of my sorrows fall upon ye.
WOLSEY Madam, this is a mere distraction.
You turn the good we offer into envy.
KATHERINE Ye turn me into nothing. Woe upon ye,
And all such false professors! Would you have me –
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If you have any justice, any pity,
If ye be anything but churchmen’s habits –
Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me?
Alas, ’has banished me his bed already;
His love, too, long ago. I am old, my lords,
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And all the fellowship I hold now with him
Is only my obedience. What can happen
To me above this wretchedness? All your studies
Make me a curse, like this.
CAMPEIUS Your fears are worse.
KATHERINE
Have I lived thus long – l
et me speak myself,
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Since virtue finds no friends – a wife, a true one –
A woman, I dare say without vainglory,
Never yet branded with suspicion –
Have I with all my full affections
Still met the King, loved him next heaven, obeyed him,
130
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,
One that ne’er dreamed a joy beyond his pleasure,
135
And to that woman, when she has done most,
Yet will I add an honour: a great patience.
WOLSEY
Madam, you wander from the good we aim at.
KATHERINE
My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty
To give up willingly that noble title
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Your master wed me to. Nothing but death
Shall e’er divorce my dignities.
WOLSEY Pray hear me.
KATHERINE Would I had never trod this English earth
Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it.
Ye have angels’ faces, but heaven knows your hearts.
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What will become of me now, wretched lady?
I am the most unhappy woman living.
[to her women] Alas, poor wenches, where are now your fortunes?
Shipwrecked upon a kingdom where no pity,
No friends, no hope, no kindred weep for me,
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Almost no grave allowed me, like the lily
That once was mistress of the field and flourished,
I’ll hang my head and perish.
WOLSEY If your grace
Could but be brought to know our ends are honest,
You’d feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady,
155
Upon what cause, wrong you? Alas, our places,
The way of our profession, is against it.
We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow ’em.
For goodness’ sake, consider what you do,
How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly
160
Grow from the King’s acquaintance, by this carriage.
The hearts of princes kiss obedience,
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,
165
A soul as even as a calm. Pray think us
Those we profess: peacemakers, friends, and servants.
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
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Such doubts as false coin from it. The King loves you:
Beware you lose it not. For us, if you please
To trust us in your business, we are ready
To use our utmost studies in your service.
KATHERINE
Do what ye will, my lords, and pray forgive me
175
If I have used myself unmannerly.
You know I am a woman, lacking wit
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
180
While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers,
Bestow your counsels on me. She now begs
That little thought when she set footing here
She should have bought her dignities so dear.
Exeunt.
3.2 Enter the Duke of NORFOLK, Duke of SUFFOLK, Lord SURREY and Lord CHAMBERLAIN.
NORFOLK If you will now unite in your complaints
And force them with a constancy, the Cardinal
Cannot stand under them. If you omit
The offer of this time, I cannot promise
But that you shall sustain more new disgraces
5
With these you bear already.
SURREY I am joyful
To meet the least occasion that may give me
Remembrance of my father-in-law the Duke,
To be revenged on him.
SUFFOLK Which of the peers
Have uncontemned gone by him, or at least
10
Strangely neglected? When did he regard
The stamp of nobleness in any person
Out of himself?
CHAMBERLAIN My lords, you speak your pleasures.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 253