Turn me away; and let the foul'st contempt
Shut door upon me, and so give me up

To the sharpest kind of justice. Please you, sir,
The king, your father, was reputed for
A prince most prudent, of an excellent
And unmatch'd wit and judgment: Ferdinand,
My father, king of Spain, was reckon❜d one
The wisest prince, that there had reign'd by many
A year before: It is not to be question'd
That they had gather'd a wise council to them
Of every realm, that did debate this business,
Who deem'd our marriage lawful: Wherefore I
humbly

Beseech you, sir, to spare me, till I may

Be by my friends in Spain advis'd; whose counsel
I will implore: if not; i'the name of God,
Your pleasure be fulfill'd!

after duty. Mr. M. Mason has justly observed that, with such a punctuation, the sense requires-Towards your sacred person. A comma being placed at duty, the construction is-If you can report and prove aught against mine honour, my love and duty, or aught against your sacred person, &c. but I doubt whether this was our author's intention; for such an arrangement seems to make a breach of her honour and matrimonial bond to be something distinct from an offence against the king's person, which is not the case. Perhaps, however, by the latter words Shakspeare meant, against your life. MALONE.

·against my honour aught,

My bond to wedlock, or my love and duty

Against your sacred person, &c.] The meaning of this passage is sufficiently clear, but the construction of it has puzzled us all. It is evidently erroneous, but may be amended by merely removing the word or from the middle of the second line to the end of it. It will then run thus

against my honour aught,

My bond to wedlock,-my love and duty,—or
Against your sacred person, &c.

This slight alteration makes it grammatical, as well as intelligible. M. MASON.

-WOL.

You have here, lady,

(And of your choice,) these reverend fathers; men Of singular integrity and learning,

Yea, the elect of the land, who are assembled
To plead your cause: It shall be therefore bootless,
That longer you desire the court;3 as well
For your own quiet, as to rectify

What is unsettled in the king.

CAM.

His grace

Hath spoken well, and justly: Therefore, madam, It's fit this royal session do proceed;

And that, without delay, their arguments

Be now produc'd, and heard.

I am about to weep; but, thinking that
We are a queen, (or long have dream'd so,) certain,
The daughter of a king, my drops of tears

I'll turn to sparks of fire.

WOL.

Be patient yet.

* That longer you desire the court;] That you desire to protract the business of the court; that you solicit a more distant session and trial. To pray for a longer day, i. e. a more distant one, when the trial or execution of criminals is agitated, is yet the language of the bar.-In the fourth folio, and all the modern editions, defer is substituted for desire. MALONE.

I am about to weep; &c.] Shakspeare has given almost a similar sentiment to Hermione, in The Winter's Tale, on an almost similar occasion:

"I am not prone to weeping, as our sex

"Commonly are, &c.-but I have

"That honourable grief lodg'd here, which burns

"Worse than tears drown;" &c. STEEVEns.

Q. KATH. I will, when you are humble; nay,

before,

Or God will punish me. I do believe,
Induc'd by potent circumstances, that

You are mine enemy; and make my challenge,
You shall not be my judge:5 for it is you
Have blown this coal betwixt my lord and me,-
Which God's dewquench! Therefore, I say again,

I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul,

Refuse you for my judge;

whom, yet once more, I hold my most malicious foe, and think not At all a friend to truth.

WOL.

I do profess,

You speak not like yourself; who ever yet Have stood to charity, and display'd the effects Of disposition gentle, and of wisdom

O'ertopping woman's power. Madam, you do me wrong:

I have no spleen against you; nor injustice
For you, or any: how far I have proceeded,
Or how far further shall, is warranted
By a commission from the consistory,

Yea, the whole consistory of Rome. You charge me,
That I have blown this coal: I do deny it:

3

—and make my challenge,

You shall not be my judge:] Challenge is here a verbum juris, a law term. The criminal, when he refuses a juryman, says I challenge him. JOHNSON.

• I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul

Refuse you for my judge:] These are not mere words of passion, but technical terms in the canon law.

Detestor and Recuso. The former, in the language of canonists, signifies no more, than I protest against. BLACKSTone.

The words are Holinshed's: "and therefore openly protested that she did utterly abhor, refuse, and forsake such a judge." MALone.

8

The king is present: if it be known to him,
That I gainsay" my deed, how may he wound,
And worthily, my falsehood? yea, as much
As you have done my truth. But if he know
That I am free of your report, he knows,
I am not of your wrong. Therefore in him
It lies, to cure me: and the cure is, to
Remove these thoughts from you: The which before
His highness shall speak in, I do beseech

You, gracious madam, to unthink your speaking,
And to say so no more.

Q. KATH.

My lord, my lord, I am a simple woman, much too weak

To oppose your cunning. You are meek, and humble-mouth'd;

You sign your place and calling, in full seeming,
With meekness and humility: but your heart
Is cramm'd with arrogancy, spleen, and pride.
You have, by fortune, and his highness' favours,
Gone slightly o'er low steps; and now are mounted
Where powers are your retainers: and your words,

7

? — gainsay-] i. e. deny. So, in Lord Surrey's translation of the fourth Book of the Eneid:

"I hold thee not, nor yet gainsay thy words."

STEEVENS.

But if] The conjunction-But, which is wanting in the old copy, was supplied, for the sake of measure, by Sir T. Hanmer. STEEVENS.

• You sign your place and calling,] Sign, for answer.

WARBURTON.

I think, to sign, must here be to show, to denote. By your outward meekness and humility, you show that you are of an holy order, but, &c. JOHNSON.

So, with a kindred sense, in Julius Cæsar:

"Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy lethe."

STEEVENS.

you,

Domesticks to you, serve your will,' as't please
Yourself pronounce their office. I must tell
You tender more your person's honour, than
Your high profession spiritual: That again
I do refuse you for my judge; and here,
Before you all, appeal unto the pope,

1 Where powers are your retainers: and your words,

Domesticks to you, serve your will,] You have now got power at your beck, following in your retinue; and words therefore are degraded to the servile state of performing any office which you shall give them. In humbler and more common terms: Having now got power, you do not regard your word.

JOHNSON.

The word power, when used in the plural and applied to one person only, will not bear the meaning that Dr. Johnson wishes to give it.

By powers are meant the Emperor and the King of France, in the pay of one or the other of whom Wolsey was constantly retained; and it is well known that Wolsey entertained some of the nobility of England among his domesticks, and had an absolute power over the rest. M. MASON.

Whoever were pointed at by the word powers, Shakspeare, surely, does not mean to say that Wolsey was retained by them, but that they were retainers, or subservient, to Wolsey.

MALONE.

I believe that powers, in the present instance, are used merely to express persons in whom power is lodged. The Queen would insinuate that Wolsey had rendered the highest officers of state subservient to his will. STEEVENS.

I believe we should read:

Where powers are your retainers, and your wards,
Domesticks to you, &c.

The Queen rises naturally in her description. She paints the powers of government depending upon Wolsey under three images; as his retainers, his wards, his domestick servants.

TYRWHITT. So, in Storer's Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal, a poem, 1599:

"I must have notice where their wards must dwell;

"I car'd not for the gentry, for I had

Young nobles of the land," &c. STEEVENS.