Home
This site uses cookies
log out

Sir Thomas More: Act V, Scene 3

Sign in with Google to add your annotations.

Sir Thomas More
Act V, Scene 3

The Tower.

  1. Enter Sir Thomas More, the Lieutenant, and a Servant
  2. attending, as in his chamber in the Tower.

More

1 - 2
  1. Master Lieutenant, is the warrant come?
  2. If it be so, a God’s name, let us know it.

Lieutenant

3
  1. My lord, it is.

More

4 - 5
  1.                 ’Tis welcome, sir, to me
  2. With all my heart. His blessed will be done!

Lieutenant

6 - 10
  1. Your wisdom, sir, hath been so well approved,
  2. And your fair patience in imprisonment
  3. Hath ever shewn such constancy of mind
  4. And Christian resolution in all troubles,
  5. As warrant us you are not unprepared.

More

11 - 15
  1. No, Master Lieutenant;
  2. I thank my God, I have peace of conscience,
  3. Though the world and I are at a little odds:
  4. But we’ll be even now, I hope, ere long.
  5. When is the execution of your warrant?

Lieutenant

16
  1. Tomorrow morning.

More

17 - 22
  1.                   So, sir, I thank ye;
  2. I have not lived so ill, I fear to die.
  3. Master Lieutenant,
  4. I have had a sore fit of the stone tonight;
  5. But the King hath sent me such a rare receipt,
  6. I thank him, as I shall not need to fear it much.

Lieutenant

23
  1. In life and death still merry Sir Thomas More.

More

24 - 28
  1. Sirrah fellow, reach me the urinal:
  2. He gives it him.
  3. Ha! Let me see (there’s) gravel in the water;
  4. (And yet I see no grave danger in that)
  5. The man were likely to live long enough,
  6. So pleased the king. Here, fellow, take it.

Servant to More

29
  1. Shall I go with it to the doctor, sir?

More

30 - 33
  1. No, save thy labor; we’ll cozen him of a fee:
  2. Thou shalt see me take a dram tomorrow morning,
  3. Shall cure the stone, I warrant; doubt it not.
  4. Master Lieutenant, what news of my Lord of Rochester?

Lieutenant

34
  1. Yesterday morning was he put to death.

More

35 - 37
  1. The peace of soul sleep with him!
  2. He was a learned and a reverend prelate,
  3. And a rich man, believe me.

Lieutenant

38 - 39
  1. If he were rich, what is Sir Thomas More,
  2. That all this while hath been Lord Chancellor?

More

40 - 42
  1. Say ye so, Master Lieutenant? What do ye think
  2. A man, that with my time had held my place,
  3. Might purchase?

Lieutenant

43
  1. Perhaps, my lord, two thousand pound a year.

More

44 - 49
  1. Master Lieutenant, I protest to you,
  2. I never had the means in all my life
  3. To purchase one poor hundred pound a year:
  4. I think I am the poorest Chancellor
  5. That ever was in England, though I could wish,
  6. For credit of the place, that my estate were better.

Lieutenant

50
  1. It’s very strange.

More

51 - 54
  1.                    It will be found as true.
  2. I think, sir, that with most part of my coin
  3. I have purchased as strange commodities
  4. As ever you heard tell of in your life.

Lieutenant

55 - 56
  1. Commodities, my lord!
  2. Might I (without offense) inquire of them?

More

57 - 66
  1. Croutches, Master Lieutenant, and bare cloaks;
  2. For halting soldiers and poor needy scholars
  3. Have had my gettings in the Chancery:
  4. To think but what a cheat the crown shall have
  5. By my attainder! I prithee, if thou be’est a gentleman,
  6. Get but a copy of my inventory.
  7. That part of poet that was given me
  8. Made me a very unthrift;
  9. For this is the disease attends us all,
  10. Poets were never thrifty, never shall.
  1. Enter Lady More mourning, Daughters, Master Roper.

Lieutenant

67 - 68
  1. Oh, noble More!—
  2. My lord, your wife, your son-in-law, and daughters.

More

69 - 76
  1. Son Roper, welcome;—welcome, wife, and girls.
  2. Why do you weep? Because I live at ease?
  3. Did you not see, when I was Chancellor,
  4. I was so clogged with suitors every hour,
  5. I could not sleep, nor dine, nor sup in quiet?
  6. Here’s none of this; here I can sit and talk
  7. With my honest keeper half a day together,
  8. Laugh and be merry. Why, then, should you weep?

Roper

77 - 79
  1. These tears, my lord, for this your long restraint
  2. Hope had dried up, with comfort that we yet,
  3. Although imprisoned, might have had your life.

More

80 - 84
  1. To live in prison, what a life were that!
  2. The king (I thank him) loves me more then so.
  3. Tomorrow I shall be at liberty
  4. To go even whether I can,
  5. After I have dispatched my business.

Lady More

85 - 86
  1. Ah, husband, husband, yet submit yourself!
  2. Have care of your poor wife and children.

More

87 - 90
  1. Wife, so I have; and I do leave you all
  2. To his protection hath the power to keep you
  3. Safer than I can,—
  4. The father of the widow and the orphans.

Roper

91 - 93
  1. The world, my lord, hath ever held you wise;
  2. And ’t shall be no distaste unto your wisdom,
  3. To yield to the opinion of the state.

More

94 - 96
  1. I have deceived myself, I must acknowledge;
  2. And, as you say, son Roper, to confess the same,
  3. It will be no disparagement at all.

Lady More

97 - 98
  1. His highness shall be certified thereof
  2. Immediately.
  1. Offering to depart.

More

99 - 102
  1. Nay, hear me, wife; first let me tell ye how:
  2. I thought to have had a barber for my beard;
  3. Now, I remember, that were labor lost,
  4. The headsman now shall cut off head and all.

Roper’s Wife

103 - 105
  1. Father, his majesty, upon your meek submission,
  2. Will yet (they say) receive you to his grace
  3. In as great credit as you were before.

More

106 - 110
  1. Has appointed me to do a little business.
  2. If that were past, my girl, thou then shouldst see
  3. What I would say to him about that matter;
  4. But I shall be so busy until then,
  5. I shall not tend it.

Daughter to More

111
  1. Ah, my dear father!

Lady More

112
  1.                     Dear lord and husband!

More

113 - 125
  1. Be comforted, good wife, to live and love my children;
  2. For with thee leave I all my care of them.
  3. Son Roper, for my sake that have loved thee well,
  4. And for her virtue’s sake, cherish my child.
  5. Girl, be not proud, but of thy husband’s love;
  6. Ever retain thy virtuous modesty;
  7. That modesty is such a comely garment
  8. As it is never out of fashion, sits as fair
  9. Upon the meaner woman as the empress;
  10. No stuff that gold can buy is half so rich,
  11. Nor ornament that so becomes a woman.
  12. Live all and love together, and thereby
  13. You give your father a rich obsequy.

Both Daughters

126
  1. Your blessing, dear father.

More

127 - 128
  1. I must be gone—God bless you!—
  2. To talk with God, who now doth call.

Lady More

129
  1. Aye, my dear husband!

More

130 - 131
  1.                       Sweet wife, good night, good night:
  2. God send us all his everlasting light!

Roper

132 - 133
  1. I think, before this hour,
  2. More heavy hearts ne’er parted in the Tower.
  1. Exeunt.
© 2021 Unotate.com • contact • privacy policy • Creative Commons text from PlayShakespeare.com • All illustrations are public domain or Creative Commons