The most convenient place that I can think of
For such receipt of learning is Blackfriars.
There ye shall meet about this weighty business.
My Wolsey, see it furnished. O, my lord,
Would it not grieve an able man to leave
So sweet a bedfellow? But, conscience, conscience!
O, ’tis a tender place, and I must leave her.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. An ante-chamber of the Queen’s apartments.
Enter Anne Bullen and an Old Lady.
ANNE.
Not for that neither. Here’s the pang that pinches:
His Highness having lived so long with her, and she
So good a lady that no tongue could ever
Pronounce dishonour of her—by my life,
She never knew harm-doing—O, now, after
So many courses of the sun enthroned,
Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the which
To leave a thousandfold more bitter than
’Tis sweet at first t’ 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’t 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 perked up in a glist’ring grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.
OLD LADY.
Our content
Is our best having.