Wol. Tanta est ergà te mentis integritas, regina serenissima, Q. Kath. O, good my lord, no Latin ;9 I am not such a truant since my coming, As not to know the language I have liv'd in: A strange tongue makes my cause more strange, suspicious; Pray, speak in English: here are some will thank you, Wol. Noble lady, I am sorry, my integrity should breed, To taint that honour every good tongue blesses; You have too much, good lady: but to know Like free and honest men, our just opinions, Cam. Most honour'd madam, My lord of York,-out of his noble nature, His service and his counsel. Q. Kath. To betray me. [Aside. 90 good my lord, no Latin;] So, Holinshed, p. 908: "Then began the cardinall to speake to her in Latine. Naie good my lord (quoth she) speake to me in English." Steevens. 1 (And service to his majesty and you)] This line stands so very aukwardly, that I am inclined to think it out of its place. The author perhaps wrote, as Mr. Edwards has suggested: "I am sorry my integrity should breed "So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant, 2 -to your cause.] Old copy. -our cause. editor of the second folio. Malone. Malone. Corrected by the My lords, I thank you both for your good wills, In such a point of weight, so near mine honour, Wol. Madam, you wrong the king's love with these fears; Your hopes and friends are infinite. Q. Kath. Or be a known friend, 'gainst his highness' pleasure, Cam. I would, your grace How, sir? Cam. Put your main cause into the king's protection; 3 For her sake that I have been, &c.] For the sake of that royalty which I have heretofore possessed. Malone. 4(Though he be grown so desperate to be honest)] Do you think that any Englishman dare advise me; or, if any man should venture to advise with honesty, that he could live? Johnson. 5 weigh out my afflictions.] This phrase is obscure. To. weigh out, is, in modern language, to deliver by weight; but this sense cannot be here admitted. To weigh is likewise to deliberate upon, to consider with due attention. This may, perhaps, be meant. Or the phrase, to weigh out, may signify to counterbalance, to counteract with equal force. Johnson. To weigh out is the same as to outweigh. In Macbeth, Shakspeare. has overcome for come over. Steevens. He's loving, and most gracious: 'twill be much You'll part away disgrac❜d. Wol. He tells you rightly. Q. Kath. 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 Cam. Your rage mistakes us. Q. Kath. 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: 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 burden of my sorrows fall upon ye. Wol. Madam, this is a mere distraction; You turn the good we offer into envy. Q. Kath. Ye turn me into nothing: Woe upon ye, If ye be any thing but churchmen's habits,) Cam. Your fears are worse. Q. Kath. Have I liv'd thus long-(let me speak my self, Since virtue finds no friends,)—a wife, a true one? • The more shame for ye;] If I mistake you, it is by your fault, not mine; for I thought you good. The distress of Katharine might have kept her from the quibble to which she is irresistibly tempted by the word cardinal. Johnson. A woman (I dare say, without vain-glory,) Never yet branded with suspicion? Have I with all my full affections Still met the king? lov'd him next heaven? obey'd him? Wol. Madam, you wander from the good we aim at. Q. Kath. My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty, To give up willingly that noble title Your master wed me to: nothing but death Wol. 'Pray, hear me. Q. Kath. 'Would I had never trod this English earth, Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it! Ye have angels' faces, 8 but heaven knows your hearts. What will become of me now, wretched lady? 7 superstitious to him?] That is, served him with superstitious attention; done more than was required. Johnson. & Ye have angels' faces,] She may perhaps allude to the old jingle of Angli and Angeli. Johnson. I find this jingle in The Arraygnment of Paris, 1584. The goddesses refer the dispute about the golden apple to the decision of Diana, who setting aside their respective claims, awards it to Queen Elizabeth; and adds: "Her people are ycleped angeli, "Or if I miss a letter, is the most " In this pastoral, as it is called, the Queen herself may be almost said to have been a performer, for at the conclusion of it, Diana gives the golden apple into her hands, and the Fates deposit their insignia at her feet. It was presented before her Majesty by the children of her chapel. It appears, from the following passage in The Spanish Masquerado, by Greene, 1585, that this quibble was originally the quibble of a saint: "England, a little island, where, as saint Augustin saith, there be people with angel faces, so the inhabitants have the courage and hearts of lyons." Steevens. See also Nashe's Anatomie of Absurditie, 1589: "For my part I meane to suspend my sentence, and let an author of late memorie be my speaker; who affirmeth that they carry angels in their faces, and devils in their devices." Malone. I am the most unhappy woman living.— 9 Wol. If your grace Could but be brought to know, our ends are honest, You'd feel more comfort: why should we, good lady, 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 them. For goodness' sake, consider what you do; Grow from the king's acquaintance, by this carriage. So much they love it; but, to stubborn spirits, A soul as even as a calm; Pray, think us Those we profess, peace-makers, friends, and servants. Cam. Madam, you'll find it so. You wrong your vir tues 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 To trust us in your business, we are ready That once was mistress of the field,] So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, Book II, c. vi, st. 16: "The lily, lady of the flow'ring field." H. White. 1 The hearts of princes kiss obedience, So much they love it; but, to stubborn spirits, They swell, and grow as terrible as storms.] It was one of the charges brought against Lord Essex, in the year before this play was probably written, by his ungrateful kinsman, Sir Francis Bacon, when that nobleman, to the disgrace of humanity, was obliged, by a junto of his enemies, to kneel at the end of the council-table for several hours, that in a letter written during his retirement, in 1598, to the Lord Keeper, he had said, "There is no tempest to the passionate indignation of a prince." Malone. |