University of Virginia Library

SCENE IV.

Another Room in the Palace. Enter King Henry and Jane Seymour.
King Henry.
Poh! 't is too late for pity.

Jane Seymour.
Pity, sir!
I feel no pity for her wantonness:
'T is for yourself, so wickedly abused,
So unsuspecting till the common voice
Thrust its belief in your reluctant ears.
The hand of justice is in everything:
How strange it was our budding love put forth
Just as her impious crimes had reached their full!
Showing how Heaven may visit secret guilt
In an avenging form of innocence,
That sadly marvels at its own result.

King H.
Yes, very strange.

Jane S.
What proof can be produced?
A mind so subtle in committing sin,
Must be adept in masking stratagems.

King H.
That 's Norfolk's part. His grace has pledged himself
To bring more evidence before the court—
Uncircumstantial, downright, stubborn proof—
Than it will hear. And let him look to it:
For if his charge prove slander to our queen,
And she escape, untainted in her fame,
I'll hang him like a thief—by Heaven, I will!

Jane S.
Sweet hypocrite! (Aside.)
But if his charge be proved?

King H.
Our realm has laws; too much we honor them,
To stand between the culprit and their doom.
Talk not of this.

Jane S.
Here comes the noble duke,
Sending a smile before his onward path
To ask a welcome.

(Enter Duke of Norfolk.)
Norfolk.
All looks fair, my liege.

King H.
Looks foul, I say! Cannot I teach you, sir,
That this discovered treachery of the queen
Irks me to credit? Is it not enough
That the dear honor of my father's throne
Is sullied in the eyes of Christendom,
And I am made the laughing-stock of time,
Without this giggling at my sorry plight?

Nor.
A virtuous mood! (Aside.)
Pardon the clownish haste
That has disturbed your majesty's deep grief.
You set me to pursue a wily chase;
And if I feel the huntsman's eager flush—
More from pursuit than wish to strike my game—
The heat of triumph should excuse my air.

King H.
Well, well, what news?

Nor.
So ho! king weathercock!
[Aside.]
I fear 't is too much for your majesty
To hear the worst confirmed.

King H.
Ha! say you so?
For to drift on upon a level sea
Of settled woe, is better than to toss
Between the heights of my delusive hopes
And the deep gulfs of bottomless despair.
Rest, Norfolk, rest from my o'erwhelming thoughts,
Even in a port of quiet wretchedness,
Would be a pleasure to this storm-tossed soul.

Nor.
I 'd give a barony for one free laugh.
[Aside.]
There is not a circumstance nor shade of proof,
By law demanded to convict the queen,
But I can summon to outface her tongue.
This is blunt truth, ungarbled by a phrase
To smooth its meaning in a dainty ear;
And though you shrink, your royal dignity
Calls out for vengeance on her traitorous head.

King H.
Be well prepared: your life hangs by a thread.

Nor.
I see your snares, sceptred duplicity;
I am fairly entered, far beyond retreat;
I know the issue is her death or mine.
Thank Heaven, I do not need fear's ragged spur
To drive me onward in my willing course.
[Aside.]
Trust to my zeal; I hold my sovereign's honor
Above the selfish dread of common death.

King H.
What of this spinnet-player?

Nor.
Ah! the knave!
He wavered sadly since his first confession:
Now he 'd confirm the paper which he signed,
And now he 'd suffer death ere swear to it.
When strict imprisonment had cowed his mind,
I by persuasion won him to my wish.

King H.
By what persuasion? Make no promises;
The wretch shall hang.

Nor.
O! merely by the rack.

King H.
Most delicate inducement!

Nor.
Yes, my liege,
It oft unclasps the rigid jaws of guilt.
The pangs of death have many a time disclosed
The murderer's secret; and the rack can bring
A dying anguish, without fear of death.
'T is a most potent questioner.

Jane S.
My liege,
Pray come away; for I am sick at heart,
Hearing details so awful. Please, your grace,
To keep such horrors for your private thoughts.
Come, Henry, come!

King H.
To please you, love. Adieu,
Good Norfolk; slack not in your zealous care.

Nor.
Heaven keep your majesties!

Jane S.
Pshaw! trifler.

[Exeunt King Henry and Jane Seymour.]
Nor.
“Pshaw!”
But did I tickle you, my demi-queen?
So delicate, so royal in your tastes!
Cannot endure the thoughts of brutal racks;
And yet would kill a queen to wear her shoes!
'Sdeath! when you are crowned, our manly swords must rust,
Butchers lose traffic, and your tender court
Browse, like Assyria's king, on bloodless weeds;—
Ay, but our daggers shall be kept on edge,
To stab our kind! Well, you are happily matched:
A squeamish king who circumvents two lives,
To urge his purpose to its bloody end,
Vowing that justice shall have one of them,
And a meek queen who shudders at the means,
Yet at the end grapples with furies' claws.
You crocodiles can blubber o'er your prey,
If a stray infant should fall overboard,
And cry that drowning is a sorry thing,
Ere you together gorge it! What a life,
So comforting to conscience, you may lead
When Hymen yokes you!—Damn hypocrisy!

(Enter Thomas Wyatt.)
Wyatt.
So say I too, under your grace's oath.

Nor.
Ha! ha! Sir Poet, 't was a pious oath.

Wyatt.
Of sure fulfilment.

Nor.
Pray what brings you here?

Wyatt.
A moth to light, a poet to a prince;
Thus is it ever. I would see the king.

Nor.
He just retired.

Wyatt.
'T is but a small affair;
I'll come again.

Nor.
Can I not aid you, sir?

Wyatt.
I merely wished to see a prisoned rogue—
One fellow Smeaton, caged for stealing geese,
Or some such matter. Has your grace a pass?
The careless knave had my last madrigal,
To set for music. 'T is my only copy;
And if he is hanged, my immortality
Loses a hope. Now, Reynard, play the fool!

[Aside.]
Nor.
So, ho! my railer at hypocrisy,
How smooth we lie! (Aside.)
Confound this gosling thief!
The king has ordered—why, I cannot say—
That none, except the Council, shall have leave
To see the fellow.

Wyatt.
Well, there is little lost.

Nor.
O, much, much, much! I honor poesy;
And vow to succor your brave madrigal.—
I'll make especial business of this matter.

Wyatt.
As deep as hell! (Aside.)
Nay, trouble not yourself;
Perchance the knave, among his prison griefs,
Has lost remembrance of my trifling song.

Nor.
I will refresh him. 'T would amaze you, sir,
To know how much I reverence your art.
Each genuine poet, in each poem, forms
What neither he nor any other man,
Though he were equal in capacity,
Can shape again. The moods of poets' minds
Are, like the colors of chameleons,
Seen in the same particulars but once.
That combination of your shifting thoughts,
Which you have pictured in a madrigal,
Should make its due impression on our time.
I would not see your chaplet lose a leaf:—
Believe me, 't is a duty.

Wyatt.
Shrewd dissembler,
With what a relish he pursues intrigues!
[Aside.]
I thank your grace, in poesy's sweet name,
For this regard. Pray, can you tell me, sir,
Upon what charge my friend, Sir Henry Norris,
Will be arraigned?

Nor.
On many many, sir.
The gravest, I believe, is robbing goose-ponds:—
He is involved with Smeaton.

Wyatt.
Ah! indeed?
'T is an odd charge! But I observe of late
How our good king takes the most famous geese,
This realm produces, 'neath his royal wing.
Adieu! your grace.

[Going.]
Nor.
Ho! scion of the muse!
I have a little scandal for your ear.

Wyatt.
For mine, your grace?

[Returns.]
Nor.
Yes; 't is a trifling thing,—
No greater in my eyes than songs in yours.
They say you read too many madrigals
In the attentive hearing of the queen.
Look to it, sir: his majesty is loth
His royal consort should give up her time
To so much poetry.

Wyatt.
The sneering wretch!
I dare not brave him, for her highness' sake.
[Aside.]
An idle rumor.

Nor.
But it put your songs
In fearful jeopardy. The king nigh swore
To hang all future poems by the neck,
In your good person. He hates poesy.
The royal opposition on this point
Is stranger than the patronage of geese.

Wyatt.
'Sblood! I must burst, if I remain to hear
This cynic's gibes. (Aside.)
Farewell! once more.

Nor.
Remember,
No private readings to her majesty
Of the lost madrigal, when I restore it.

Wyatt.
God shield the queen! for human aid is vain. [Aside.]


[Exeunt severally.]