Rose. Can you divide the body from the soul,
Yet make the body live?
King. Yea, so profound?
I cannot, Rose, but you I must divide.
This fair maid, bridegroom, cannot be your bride.
Are you pleased, Lincoln? Oateley, are you pleased?
Both. Yes, my lord.
King. Then must my heart be eased;
For, credit me, my conscience lives in pain,
Till these whom I divorced, be joined again.
Lacy, give me thy hand; Rose, lend me thine!
Be what you would be! Kiss now! So, that’s fine.
At night, lovers, to bed!—Now, let me see,
Which of you all mislikes this harmony.
L. Mayor. Will you then take from me my child perforce?
King. Why, tell me, Oateley: shines not Lacy’s name
As bright in the world’s eye as the gay beams
Of any citizen?
Lincoln. Yea, but, my gracious lord,
I do mislike the match far more than he;
Her blood is too too base.
King. Lincoln, no more.
Dost thou not know that love respects no blood,
Cares not for difference of birth or state?
The maid is young, well born, fair, virtuous,
A worthy bride for any gentleman.
Besides, your nephew for her sake did stoop
To bare necessity, and, as I hear,
Forgetting honours and all courtly pleasures,
To gain her love, became a shoemaker.
As for the honour which he lost in France,
Thus I redeem it: Lacy, kneel thee down!—
Arise, Sir Rowland Lacy! Tell me now,
Tell me in earnest, Oateley, canst thou chide,
Seeing thy Rose a lady and a bride?
L. Mayor. I am content with what your grace hath done.
Lincoln. And I, my liege, since there’s no remedy.