Home
This site uses cookies
log out

Henry VIII: Act III, Scene 1

Sign in with Google to add your annotations.

Henry VIII
Act III, Scene 1

Scene 1

London. Queen Katherine’s apartment.

  1. Enter Queen and her Women as at work.

Queen Katherine

1 - 2
  1. Take thy lute, wench, my soul grows sad with troubles.
  2. Sing, and disperse ’em if thou canst. Leave working.

Gentlewoman

3 - 14
  1. Song.
  2. Orpheus with his lute made trees,
  3. And the mountain tops that freeze,
  4. Bow themselves when he did sing.
  5. To his music plants and flowers
  6. Ever sprung, as sun and showers
  7. There had made a lasting spring.
  8. Every thing that heard him play,
  9. Even the billows of the sea,
  10. Hung their heads, and then lay by.
  11. In sweet music is such art,
  12. Killing care and grief of heart
  13. Fall asleep, or hearing, die.
  1. Enter Griffith.

Queen Katherine

15
  1. How now?

Griffith

16 - 17
  1. And’t please your Grace, the two great Cardinals
  2. Wait in the presence.

Queen Katherine

18
  1. Would they speak with me?

Griffith

19
  1. They will’d me say so, madam.

Queen Katherine

20 - 26
  1.                               Pray their Graces
  2. To come near.
  3. Exit Griffith.
  4.               What can be their business
  5. With me, a poor weak woman, fall’n from favor?
  6. I do not like their coming. Now I think on’t,
  7. They should be good men, their affairs as righteous.
  8. But all hoods make not monks.
  1. Enter the two Cardinals, Wolsey and Campeius.

Cardinal Wolsey

27
  1.                               Peace to your Highness!

Queen Katherine

28 - 30
  1. Your Graces find me here part of a huswife
  2. (I would be all) against the worst may happen.
  3. What are your pleasures with me, reverent lords?

Cardinal Wolsey

31 - 33
  1. May it please you, noble madam, to withdraw
  2. Into your private chamber, we shall give you
  3. The full cause of our coming.

Queen Katherine

34 - 44
  1.                               Speak it here;
  2. There’s nothing I have done yet, o’ my conscience,
  3. Deserves a corner. Would all other women
  4. Could speak this with as free a soul as I do!
  5. My lords, I care not (so much I am happy
  6. Above a number) if my actions
  7. Were tried by ev’ry tongue, ev’ry eye saw ’em,
  8. Envy and base opinion set against ’em,
  9. I know my life so even. If your business
  10. Seek me out, and that way I am wife in,
  11. Out with it boldly: truth loves open dealing.

Cardinal Wolsey

45
  1. Tanta est erga te mentis integritas, regina serenissima—

Queen Katherine

46 - 54
  1. O, good my lord, no Latin;
  2. I am not such a truant since my coming,
  3. As not to know the language I have liv’d in.
  4. A strange tongue makes my cause more strange, suspicious;
  5. Pray speak in English. Here are some will thank you,
  6. If you speak truth, for their poor mistress’ sake;
  7. Believe me, she has had much wrong. Lord Cardinal,
  8. The willing’st sin I ever yet committed
  9. May be absolv’d in English.

Ye tell me what ye wish for both—my ruin

John Boydell; John & Josiah Boydell, printmakers; 1803

Cardinal Wolsey

55 - 66
  1.                             Noble lady,
  2. I am sorry my integrity should breed
  3. (And service to his Majesty and you)
  4. So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant.
  5. We come not by the way of accusation
  6. To taint that honor every good tongue blesses,
  7. Nor to betray you any way to sorrow—
  8. You have too much, good lady; but to know
  9. How you stand minded in the weighty difference
  10. Between the King and you, and to deliver
  11. (Like free and honest men) our just opinions
  12. And comforts to your cause.

Campeius

67 - 73
  1.                             Most honor’d madam,
  2. My Lord of York, out of his noble nature,
  3. Zeal and obedience he still bore your Grace,
  4. Forgetting (like a good man) your late censure
  5. Both of his truth and him (which was too far),
  6. Offers, as I do, in a sign of peace,
  7. His service and his counsel.

Queen Katherine

74 - 87
  1. Aside.
  2.                              To betray me.—
  3. My lords, I thank you both for your good wills,
  4. Ye speak like honest men (pray God ye prove so!),
  5. But how to make ye suddenly an answer
  6. In such a point of weight, so near mine honor
  7. (More near my life, I fear), with my weak wit,
  8. And to such men of gravity and learning,
  9. In truth I know not. I was set at work
  10. Among my maids, full little, God knows, looking
  11. Either for such men or such business.
  12. For her sake that I have been—for I feel
  13. The last fit of my greatness—good your Graces,
  14. Let me have time and counsel for my cause.
  15. Alas, I am a woman, friendless, hopeless!

Cardinal Wolsey

88 - 89
  1. Madam, you wrong the King’s love with these fears,
  2. Your hopes and friends are infinite.

Queen Katherine

90 - 99
  1.                                      In England
  2. But little for my profit; can you think, lords,
  3. That any Englishman dare give me counsel?
  4. Or be a known friend, ’gainst his Highness’ pleasure
  5. (Though he be grown so desperate to be honest),
  6. And live a subject? Nay forsooth, my friends,
  7. They that must weigh out my afflictions,
  8. They that my trust must grow to, live not here.
  9. They are (as all my other comforts) far hence
  10. In mine own country, lords.

Campeius

100 - 101
  1.                             I would your Grace
  2. Would leave your griefs, and take my counsel.

Queen Katherine

102
  1.                                               How, sir?
Songs from the Plays of Shakespeare

Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain tops that freeze

From: Songs from the Plays of Shakespeare

Ballantyne, Hanson and Co.; Paul Woodroffe; P. A. Sanderson; Gloria Cardew; 1899

Campeius

103 - 107
  1. Put your main cause into the King’s protection,
  2. He’s loving and most gracious. ’Twill be much
  3. Both for your honor better and your cause;
  4. For if the trial of the law o’ertake ye,
  5. You’ll part away disgrac’d.

Cardinal Wolsey

108
  1.                             He tells you rightly.

Queen Katherine

109 - 112
  1. Ye tell me what ye wish for both—my ruin.
  2. Is this your Christian counsel? Out upon ye!
  3. Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge
  4. That no king can corrupt.

Campeius

113
  1.                           Your rage mistakes us.

Queen Katherine

114 - 123
  1. The more shame for ye! Holy men I thought ye,
  2. Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues;
  3. But cardinal sins and hollow hearts I fear ye.
  4. Mend ’em for shame, my lords! Is this your comfort?
  5. The cordial that ye bring a wretched lady,
  6. A woman lost among ye, laugh’d at, scorn’d?
  7. I will not wish ye half my miseries,
  8. I have more charity. But say I warn’d ye;
  9. Take heed, for heaven’s sake take heed, lest at once
  10. The burden of my sorrows fall upon ye.

Cardinal Wolsey

124 - 125
  1. Madam, this is a mere distraction,
  2. You turn the good we offer into envy.

Queen Katherine

126 - 136
  1. Ye turn me into nothing! Woe upon ye
  2. And all such false professors! Would you have me
  3. (If you have any justice, any pity,
  4. If ye be any thing but churchmen’s habits)
  5. Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me?
  6. Alas, h’as banish’d me his bed already,
  7. His love, too long ago! I am old, my lords,
  8. And all the fellowship I hold now with him
  9. Is only my obedience. What can happen
  10. To me above this wretchedness? All your studies
  11. Make me a curse like this!

Campeius

137
  1.                            Your fears are worse.

Queen Katherine

138 - 150
  1. Have I liv’d thus long (let me speak myself,
  2. Since virtue finds no friends) a wife, a true one?
  3. A woman (I dare say without vainglory)
  4. Never yet branded with suspicion?
  5. Have I with all my full affections
  6. Still met the King? Lov’d him next heav’n? Obey’d him?
  7. Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him?
  8. Almost forgot my pray’rs to content him?
  9. And am I thus rewarded? ’Tis not well, lords.
  10. Bring me a constant woman to her husband,
  11. One that ne’er dream’d a joy beyond his pleasure;
  12. And to that woman (when she has done most)
  13. Yet will I add an honor—a great patience.

Cardinal Wolsey

151
  1. Madam, you wander from the good we aim at.

Queen Katherine

152 - 155
  1. My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty
  2. To give up willingly that noble title
  3. Your master wed me to. Nothing but death
  4. Shall e’er divorce my dignities.
Scene designs for King Henry VIII

Scene designs for King Henry VIII

From Charles Kean's scrapbook

19th century

Cardinal Wolsey

156
  1.                                  Pray hear me.

Queen Katherine

157 - 167
  1. Would I had never trod this English earth,
  2. Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it!
  3. Ye have angels’ faces, but heaven knows your hearts.
  4. What will become of me now, wretched lady?
  5. I am the most unhappy woman living.
  6. Alas, poor wenches, where are now your fortunes?
  7. Shipwrack’d upon a kingdom, where no pity,
  8. No friends, no hope, no kindred weep for me,
  9. Almost no grave allow’d me. Like the lily,
  10. That once was mistress of the field, and flourish’d,
  11. I’ll hang my head and perish.

Cardinal Wolsey

168 - 182
  1.                               If your Grace
  2. Could but be brought to know our ends are honest,
  3. You’ld feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady,
  4. Upon what cause, wrong you? Alas, our places,
  5. The way of our profession is against it;
  6. We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow ’em.
  7. For goodness sake, consider what you do,
  8. How you may hurt yourself—ay, utterly
  9. Grow from the King’s acquaintance, by this carriage.
  10. The hearts of princes kiss obedience,
  11. So much they love it; but to stubborn spirits
  12. They swell and grow, as terrible as storms.
  13. I know you have a gentle, noble temper,
  14. A soul as even as a calm; pray think us
  15. Those we profess, peacemakers, friends, and servants.

Campeius

183 - 189
  1. Madam, you’ll find it so. You wrong your virtues
  2. With these weak women’s fears. A noble spirit
  3. As yours was put into you, ever casts
  4. Such doubts, as false coin, from it. The King loves you,
  5. Beware you lose it not. For us (if you please
  6. To trust us in your business), we are ready
  7. To use our utmost studies in your service.

Queen Katherine

190 - 199
  1. Do what ye will, my lords; and pray forgive me;
  2. If I have us’d myself unmannerly,
  3. You know I am a woman, lacking wit
  4. To make a seemly answer to such persons.
  5. Pray do my service to his Majesty;
  6. He has my heart yet and shall have my prayers
  7. While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers,
  8. Bestow your counsels on me. She now begs
  9. That little thought, when she set footing here,
  10. She should have bought her dignities so dear.
  1. Exeunt.
Songs from the Plays of Shakespeare

From: Songs from the Plays of Shakespeare

1915

© 2021 Unotate.com • contact • privacy policy • Creative Commons text from PlayShakespeare.com • All illustrations are public domain or Creative Commons • Header illustration by Byam Shaw