Here's the pang that pinches;
His highness having liv'd so long with her, and she
So good a lady, that no tongue could ever
Pronounce dishonor of her,—by my life
She never knew harm-doing. O now, after
So many courses of the sun enthron'd,
Still growing in a majesty and pomp,—the which
To leave is a thousand-fold more bitter, than
'Tis sweet at first to acquire,—after this process,
To give her the avaunt! it is a pity
Would move a monster.
OLD LADY.
Hearts of most hard temper
Melt and lament for her.
ANNE.
O, God's will! much better
She ne'er had known pomp: though it be temporal,
Yet if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce
It from the bearer, 'tis a sufferance, panging
As soul and body's severing.
OLD LADY.
Alas, poor lady!
She's a stranger now again.
ANNE.
So much the more
Must pity drop upon her. Verily,
I swear 'tis better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.
How completely, in the few passages appropriated to Anna Bullen, is her character portrayed! with what a delicate and yet luxuriant grace is she sketched off, with her gayety and her beauty, her levity, her extreme mobility, her sweetness of disposition, her tenderness of heart, and, in short, all her femalities! How nobly has Shakspeare done justice to the two women, and heightened our interest in both, by placing the praises of Katherine in the mouth of Anna Bullen! and how characteristic of the latter, that she should first express unbounded pity for her mistress, insisting chiefly on her fall from her regal state and worldly pomp, thus betraying her own disposition:—