MORE.
Son Roper, welcome;—welcome, wife, and girls.
Why do you weep? because I live at ease?
Did you not see, when I was Chancellor,
I was so clogged with suitors every hour,
I could not sleep, nor dine, nor sup in quiet?
Here’s none of this; here I can sit and talk
With my honest keeper half a day together,
Laugh and be merry: why, then, should you weep?
ROPER.
These tears, my lord, for this your long restraint
Hope had dried up, with comfort that we yet,
Although imprisoned, might have had your life.
MORE.
To live in prison, what a life were that!
The king (I thank him) loves me more then so.
Tomorrow I shall be at liberty
To go even whether I can,
After I have dispatched my business.
LADY MORE.
Ah, husband, husband, yet submit yourself!
Have care of your poor wife and children.
MORE.
Wife, so I have; and I do leave you all
To his protection hath the power to keep you
Safer than I can,—
The father of the widow and the orphans.
ROPER.
The world, my lord, hath ever held you wise;
And ’t shall be no distaste unto your wisdom,
To yield to the opinion of the state.
MORE.
I have deceived myself, I must acknowledge;
And, as you say, son Roper, to confess the same,
It will be no disparagement at all.
LADY MORE.
His highness shall be certified thereof
Immediately.
[Offering to depart.]
MORE.
Nay, hear me, wife; first let me tell ye how:
I thought to have had a barber for my beard;
Now, I remember, that were labour lost,
The headsman now shall cut off head and all.