CARDINAL
Yet when I stung
Your conscience with remembrance of the act
Your ears were deaf to counsel.
KING
I confess it.
CARDINAL
Now to untie the knot with your new Queen
Would shake your crown half from your head.
KING
Even Troy, though she has wept her eyes out,
Would find tears to wail my kingdom's ruins.
CARDINAL
What will you do then?
KING
She has that contract written, sealed by you,
And other churchmen witnesses unto it.
A kingdom should be given for that paper.
CARDINAL
I would not, for what lies beneath the moon,
Be made a wicked engine to break in pieces
That holy contract.
KING
'Tis my soul's aim
To tie it upon a faster knot.
CARDINAL
I do not see
How you can with safe conscience get it from her.
KING
Oh I know
I wrestle with a lioness. To imprison her
And force her to it, I dare not. Death! What King
Did ever say 'I dare not'? I must have it;
A bastard have I by her, and that cock
Will have, I fear, sharp spurs, if he crow after
Him that trod for him. Something must be done
Both to the hen and the chicken. Haste you therefore
To sad Onaelia, tell her I'm resolved
To give my new hawk bells, and let her fly.
My Queen, I'm weary of, and her will marry.
To this, our text, add you what gloss you please;
The secret drifts of kings are depthless seas.