From "Henry VIII"-Cardinal Wolsey and Cromwell. Wol. Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness! Enter CROMWELL, amazedly. Why, how now, Cromwell? What, amazed Crom. I have no power to speak, sir. Wol. At my misfortunes? can thy spirit wonder A great man should decline? Nay, an you weep, Why, well; Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell. A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet conscience. The king has cured me, A load would sink a navy, too much honour: Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven. Crom. I am glad your grace has made that right use of it. To endure more miseries, and greater far, Crom. The heaviest, and the worst, God bless him! Is your displeasure with the king. Wol. Crom. The next is, that Sir Thomas More is chosen Lord Chancellor in your place. Wol. That's somewhat sudden: But he's a learned man. May he continue For truth's sake, and his conscience; that his bones, Crom. That Cranmer is returned with welcome, Installed Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Crom. Whom the king hath in secrecy long married, This day was viewed in Last, that the Lady Anne, open, as his queen, Going to chapel; and the voice is now Only about her coronation. Wol. There was the weight that pulled me down. O Cromwell The king has gone beyond me; all my glories In that one woman I have lost for ever: No sun shall ever usher forth mine honours, Or gild again the noble troops that waited Upon my smiles. Go, get thee from me, Cromwell, I am a poor fallen man, unworthy now To be thy lord and master: seek the king; (That sun, I pray, may never set!) I have told him What, and how true thou art: he will advance thee ; (I know his noble nature) not to let Thy hopeful service perish too: good Cromwell, Crom. O my lord, Must I then leave you? must I needs forego So good, so noble, and so true a master? yours. Wol. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, And, prithee, lead me in: There take an inventory of all I have, To the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe, I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell, Othello's Account of his Courtship of Desdemona. Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech, And little of this great world can I speak, In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience, Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, What conjuration, and what mighty magic For such proceeding I am charged withal Her father loved me; oft invited me; I ran it through, e'en from my boyish days, Of moving accidents by flood and field; Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach; And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence, * And portance in my travel's history: Wherein of antres † vast, and deserts idle, Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven, It was my hint to speak,-such was the process;— And of the cannibals that each other eat, The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders. These things to hear Would Desdemona seriously incline; * Conduct, behaviour. † Caves, from Lat, antrum. But still the house affairs would draw her thence ; She gave me for my pains a world of sighs: She swore,-in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful : She wished she had not heard it; yet she wished That Heaven had made her such a man: she thanked me; And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, I should but teach him how to tell my story, And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake: And I loved her that she did pity them. * Among the Greeks the great god of flocks and shepherds. |