LADY MORE.
Troth, son, I know not what; I am not sick,
And yet I am not well. I would be merry;
But somewhat lies so heavy on heart,
I cannot choose but sigh. You are a scholar;
I pray ye, tell me, may one credit dreams?
ROPER.
Why ask you that, dear madame?
LADY MORE.
Because tonight I had the strangest dream
That ere my sleep was troubled with. Me thought twas night,
And that the king and queen went on the Thames
In barges to hear music: my lord and I
Were in a little boat me thought,—Lord, Lord,
What strange things live in slumbers!—and, being near,
We grappled to the barge that bare the king.
But after many pleasing voices spent
In that still moving music house, me though
The violence of the stream did sever us
Quite from the golden fleet, and hurried us
Unto the bridge, which with unused horror
We entered at full tide: thence some slight shoot
Being carried by the waves, our boat stood still
Just opposite the Tower, and there it turned
And turned about, as when a whirl-pool sucks
The circled waters: me thought that we both cried,
Till that we sunk: where arm in arm we died.
ROPER.
Give no respect, dear madame, to fond dreams:
They are but slight illusions of the blood.
LADY MORE.
Tell me not all are so; for often dreams
Are true diviners, either of good or ill:
I cannot be in quiet till I hear
How my lord fares.
ROPER.
[aside.] No it.—Come hither, wife:
I will not fright thy mother, to interpret
The nature of a dream; but trust me, sweet,
This night I have been troubled with thy father
Beyond all thought.
ROPER’S WIFE.
Truly, and so have I:
Methought I saw him here in Chelsea Church,
Standing upon the roodloft, now defac’d;
And whilst he kneeled and prayed before the image,
It fell with him into the upper-choir,
Where my poor father lay all stained in blood.
ROPER.
Our dreams all meet in one conclusion,
Fatal, I fear.
LADY MORE.
What’s that you talk? I pray ye, let me know it.
ROPER’S WIFE.
Nothing, good mother.