Now fare you well; I've sorrow at my heart,
To think your majesty hath reckon'd thus
Upon my nature. I was poor before,
Therefore I can be poor again without
Regret, so I lose not mine own esteem.
* * * * *
FRANCIS.
Excellent.
Oh, ye are precious wooers, all of ye.
I marvel how ye ever ope your lips
Unto, or look upon that fearful thing,
A lovely woman.
CLEMENT.
And I marvel, sir,
At those who do not feel the majesty,--
By heaven, I'd almost said the holiness,--
That circles round a fair and virtuous woman:
There is a gentle purity that breathes
In such a one, mingled with chaste respect,
And modest pride of her own excellence,--
A shrinking nature, that is so adverse
To aught unseemly, that I could as soon
Forget the sacred love I owe to heav'n,
As dare, with impure thoughts, to taint the air
Inhal'd by such a being: than whom, my liege,
Heaven cannot look on anything more holy,
Or earth be proud of anything more fair. [_Exit_.
Gonzales, the monk, is despatched by the Queen to Bourbon in prison. At
the door he meets Margaret, who had bribed her way to her lover, and was
returning after ineffectual attempts to soothe him into submission,
shame-struck at the exposure of her mother's guilt.
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