University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

In the Louvre.
Enter King Henry and Margaret.
Mar.
Yea, let him say his will.

Hen.
I will not bear him.
This temperance grows half shame.

Mar.
I doubt God hath
Fashioned our brother of like earth and fire
As moulds you up; be patient; bear with him
Some inches past your humour's mark.

Hen.
Bear what?
By God I will have reason: tell me not;
I love you with the soundest nerve i' the heart,
The cleanest part of blood in it; but him
Even to the sharpest edge and tooth of hate
That blood doth war upon.

Mar.
Keep in this chafe;
Put me in counsel with you.

Hen.
It is no matter.

Mar.
I never saw yet how you love and hate.
Are you turned bitter to me? all old words
Buried past reach for grief to feed upon
As on dead friends? nay, but if this be, too,
Stand you my friend; there is no crown i' the world
So good as patience; neither is any peace
That God puts in our lips to drink as wine,
More honey-pure, more worthy love's own praise,
Than that sweet-souled endurance which makes clean
The iron hands of anger. A man being smitten
That washes his abuséd cheek with blood
Purges it nothing, gets no good at all,
But is twice punished, and his insult wears
A double colour; for where but one red was
Another blots it over. Such mere heat
I' the brain and hand, even for a little stain,
A summer insolence and waspish wound,
Hurts honour to the heart, and makes that rent
That none so gracious medicine made of earth
Can heal and shut like patience. The gentle God
That made us out of pain endurable
And childbirth comforts, willed but mark therein
How life, being perfect, should keep even hand
Between a suffering and a flattered sense,
Not fail for either.

Hen.
You do think sweetly of him;
But on this matter I could preach you out.
For see, God made us weak and marred with shame
Our mixed conception, to this end that we
Should wear remembrance each alike, and carry
Strait equal raiment of humility;
Not bare base cheeks for wrong to spit across,
Nor vex his print in us with such foul colours
As would make bondsmen blush.

Mar.
Let him slip wrong,
So you do reason; if such a half-king'd man
Turn gross or wag lewd lips at you, for that
Must anger strike us fool? 'Tis not the stamp,
The purity and record of true blood,
That makes Christ fair, but piteous humbleness,
Wherein God witnesses for him, no prince
Except a peasant and so poor a man
God gives him painful bread, and for all wine
Doth feed him on sharp salt of simple tears
And bitter fast of blood.

Hen.
Yea, well; yea, well;
And I am patient with you Catholics;
But this was God's sweet son, nothing like me,
Who have to get my right and wear it through
Unhelped of justice; all do me wrong but I,
And right I'll make me.

Mar.
But all this wording-time
I am not perfect where this wrong began;
Last night it had no formal face to show,
That's now full-featured.

Hen.
Ah! no matter, sweet;
Nothing, pure nought.

Mar.
Have you no shame then current
To pay this anger? Nay, as you are my lord,
I'll pluck it out by the lips.

Hen.
A breath, a threat,
A gesture, garment pulled this way; nothing.

Mar.
You do me wrong, sir, wrong.

Hen.
Well, thus then it fell out;
By God, though, when I turn to think on it,
Shame takes me by the throat again; well, thus.
King Charles, being red up to the eyes with wine,
In the queen's garden, meeting me—as chance
Took me to walk six paces with some girl,
Some damozel the queen's choice dwells upon,
Strayed somehow from the broader presence—

Mar.
Well—

Hen.
I swear to you by faith and faith's pure lip
That I know—that I did not hear her name
Save of his mouth.

Mar.
I did not ask her name.

Hen.
Nor do I well remember it; forgive,
I think it was not—

Mar.
Pass.

Hen.
Alys de Saulx—

Mar.
Marshal Tavannes has no such name akin.

Hen.
There's Anne de Saulx wears longest hair of all;
A maid with grey grave eyes—a right fair thing;
Not she, I doubt me.

Mar.
Worse for you, my lord.

Hen.
Ay, worse. Diane de Villequier is tall—

Mar.
Are we at riddles?—Agnès de Bacqueville?

Hen.
Some such name, surely; either Châteauroux—

Mar.
Her name? as I am wedded woman, sir,
I know you have it hidden in your mouth
Like sugar; tell me; take it on the lip.

Hen.
There was a D in it that kissed an M.

Mar.
Denise? a white long woman with thick hair,
Gold, where the sun comes?

Hen.
Ay, to the ends clean gold.

Mar.
Yea, not the lightest thing she has, that hair.

Hen.
You hold for true—

Mar.
We have time to come for her.
Keep in your story.

Hen.
Nought, mere nought to tell:
This just; the king comes, pulls her hand from mine—

Mar.
Ah! no more shame?

Hen.
No more in him than that;
Plucked her as hard—

Mar.
As she was glad to go.

Hen.
Not so; she trembled to the feet, went white,
Spoke hardly—

Mar.
Kept one hand of them your way?

Hen.
Charles caught her wrist up, muttered next her ear,
Bade me leave care—

Mar.
Nay, here's more fool than we.

Enter Cino.
Cino.
The world was a wise man when he lived by bread only;
There be sweet tricks now. How does my worthy sister?

Mar.
Not so much ill as to cease thanks for it.
How does thy cap, fool?

Cino.
Warm, I thank it, warm;
I need not wear it patched as much as faith.
I am fallen sick of heavy head; sad, sad;
I am as sick as Lent.

Mar.
Dull, dull as dust;
Thou hadst some nerve i' the tongue.

Cino.
Why, I am old;
This white fool three days older in my beard
Than is your wedding. But be not you cast down;
For the mere sting is honourable in wedlock,
And the gall salve: therefore I say, praise God.

Hen.
We do not catch thy sense.

Cino.
Let my sense be;
I say I could weep off mine eye-cases,
But for pity of some ladies who would run mad then.
Do not you meddle.

Mar.
What wisdom mak'st thou here?

Cino.
Why, a fool's wisdom, to change wit with blocks.
You were late railing; were she that you did gibe
Clean as her mother made, I tell you verily
The whitest point on you were grime and soil
To her fair footsole.

Mar.
Ay, but she's none such.

Cino.
I care not what she be; do you not gibe,
I care no whit. Let her take twelve or six,
And waste the wicked'st part of time on them,
She doth outstand you by ten elbow-lengths.

Hen.
Hath love not played the knave with this fool's eyes?

Cino.
Let that lie shut, and put you thumb to lip;
For kings are bone and blood; put flesh to that,
You have the rind and raiment of a man.
If you be wise, stay wise, even for my sake;
Learn to lie smooth, be piteous and abashed,
And though dirt fall upon your faith and you
Keep your ear sober, chide not with its news,
And use endurance well; so shall he thrive,
That being a king doth crouch, and free doth wive.
Farewell, fair king.
[Exit Cino

Hen.
This fool is wried with wine.

Mar.
French air hath nipped his brains; what ailed my mother
To have him north?

Hen.
You bring her in my mind;
Have you no service on the queen to-day?

Mar.
I think she would lie privately; she said
She was not well.

Hen.
I pray you then with me.

Mar.
I will not with my lord of Pardaillan;
You shall not break me with the king.

Hen.
Men say
Guise hath some angry matter made with him
That I would learn.

Mar.
I am with you by the way;
I have some tricks to tell you of Denise.

[Exeunt.