Sir, I desire you, do me right and justice;
And to bestow your pity on me: for
I am a most poor woman, and a stranger,
Born out of your dominions; having here
No judge indifferent, nor no more assurance
Of equal friendship and proceeding.
Wrest once the law to your authority:
To do a great right, do a little wrong.
If I shall be condemn'd
Upon surmises; all proofs sleeping else,
But what your jealousies await; I tell you;
'Tis rigour, and not law.
O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell,
But that I did proceed upon just grounds
To this extremity!
Kent, in the commentaries Cæsar writ,
Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle:
Sweet is the country, because full of riches;
The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy.
What would you have? your gentleness shall force, More than your force move us to gentleness.
Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile,
Then hew to 't with thy sword.
With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere
With spur we heat an acre.
Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,
Shall win my love.
And tell them, that, to ease them of their griefs,
Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses,
Their pangs of love, with other incident throes
That nature's fragil vessel doth sustain
In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them.
Those that do teach young babes,
Do it with gentle means, and easy tasks:
He might have chid me so; for, in good faith,
I am a child to chiding.
When your head did but ache,
I knit my handkerchief about your brows,
(The best I had, a princess wrought it me,)
And I did never ask it you again :
And with my hand at midnight held your
And, like the watchful minutes to the hour,
Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time;
Saying, What lack you? and, Where lies your grief?
Nor lose the good advantage of his grace,
By seeming cold, or careless of his will,
For he is gracious if he be observ'd.
His temper, therefore, must be well observ'd: Chide him for faults, and do it reverently, When you perceive his blood inclin❜d to mirth; But, being moody, give him line and scope, Till that his passions, like a Whale on ground, Confound themselves with working.
Shall the figure of God's Majesty,
His Captain, Steward, Deputy elect,
Anointed, crown'd, and planted many years,
Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath?
Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
What's near it, with it: it is a massy wheel,
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The safety and the health of the whole state;
And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd
Unto the voice and yielding of that body,
Whereof he is the head.
The presence of a king engenders love
Amongst his subjects, and his royal friends.
There is such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.
Why, our battalia trebles that account:
Besides, the king's name is a tower of strength,
Which they upon the adverse faction want.
Awake, thou coward Majesty! thou sleepest:
Is not the king's name forty thousand names?
O Majesty !
When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
Like a rich armour worn in heat of day,
Within the hollow crown,
That round the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps Death his Court, and their the Antick sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Where brass impregnable: and, humour'd thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin,
Bores through his castle-walls, and farewell King!
The king-becoming graces,
As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
I have no relish of them; but abound
In the division of each several crime,
Acting it many ways.
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn rev'rence; throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while :
I live on bread like you, feel want like you,
Taste grief, need friends, like you: subjected thus,
How can you say to me-I am a King?
Let us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been depos'd, some slain in war : Some haunted by the ghosts they dispossess'd: Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd: All murder'd.
Or, I'll be bury'd in the King's highway;
Some way of common tread, where subjects' feet
May hourly trample on their Sovereign's head,
For on my heart they tread, now whilst I live;
And, buried once, why not upon my head?
A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch;
Past speaking of in a king!
You are too much mistaken in this king:
Question your Grace the late ambassadors,—
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble counsellors,
How modest in exception, and, withal,
How terrible in constant resolution.
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr.
The hearts of princes kiss obedience,
So much they love it; but to subborn spirits,
They swell, and grow as terrible as storms.
Come hither, England's hope: If secret powers
Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,
This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss.
His looks are full of peaceful majesty;
His head by nature fram'd to wear a crown,
His hand to wield a sceptre and himself
Likely, in time, to bless a regal throne.
When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs,
We are denied access unto his person,
Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
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