Act 2, Scene 3

An ante-chamber of the Queen's apartments.

[Enter Anne Bullen and an Old Lady.]
Anne Bullen
1125 Not for that neither. Here's the pang that pinches:
1126 His Highness having liv'd so long with her, and she
1127 So good a lady that no tongue could ever
1128 Pronounce dishonour of her,—by my life,
1129 She never knew harm-doing—O, now, after
1130 So many courses of the sun enthroned,
1131 Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the which
1132 To leave a thousand-fold more bitter than
1133 'Tis sweet at first to acquire,—after this process,
1134 To give her the avaunt, it is a pity
1135 Would move a monster.
Old Lady
1136 Hearts of most hard temper
1137 Melt and lament for her.
Anne Bullen
1138 O, God's will, much better
1139 She ne'er had known pomp! Though't be temporal,
1140 Yet, if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce
1141 It from the bearer, 'tis a sufferance panging
1142 As soul and body's severing.
Old Lady
1143 Alas, poor lady!
1144 She's a stranger now again.
Anne Bullen
1145 So much the more
1146 Must pity drop upon her. Verily,
1147 I swear, 'tis better to be lowly born
1148 And range with humble livers in content,
1149 Than to be perk'd up in a glist'ring grief,
1150 And wear a golden sorrow.
Old Lady
1151 Our content
1152 Is our best having.
Anne Bullen
1153 By my troth and maidenhead,
1154 I would not be a queen.
Old Lady
1155 Beshrew me, I would,
1156 And venture maidenhead for't; and so would you,
1157 For all this spice of your hypocrisy.
1158 You, that have so fair parts of woman on you,
1159 Have too a woman's heart, which ever yet
1160 Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty;
1161 Which, to say sooth, are blessings; and which gifts,
1162 Saving your mincing, the capacity
1163 Of your soft cheveril conscience would receive,
1164 If you might please to stretch it.
Anne Bullen
1165 Nay, good troth.
Old Lady
1166 Yes, troth and troth. You would not be a queen?
Anne Bullen
1167 No, not for all the riches under heaven.
Old Lady
1168 'Tis strange. A three-pence bow'd would hire me,
1169 Old as I am, to queen it. But, I pray you,
1170 What think you of a duchess? Have you limbs
1171 To bear that load of title?
Anne Bullen
1172 No, in truth.
Old Lady
1173 Then you are weakly made; pluck off a little.
1174 I would not be a young count in your way,
1175 For more than blushing comes to. If your back
1176 Cannot vouchsafe this burden, 'tis too weak
1177 Ever to get a boy.
Anne Bullen
1178 How you do talk!
1179 I swear again I would not be a queen
1180 For all the world.
Old Lady
1181 In faith, for little England
1182 You'd venture an emballing. I myself
1183 Would for Carnarvonshire, although there long'd
1184 No more to the crown but that. Lo, who comes here?
[Enter the Lord Chamberlain.]
Lord Chamberlain
1185 Good morrow, ladies. What were't worth to know
1186 The secret of your conference?
Anne Bullen
1187 My good lord,
1188 Not your demand; it values not your asking.
1189 Our mistress' sorrows we were pitying.
Lord Chamberlain
1190 It was a gentle business, and becoming
1191 The action of good women. There is hope
1192 All will be well.
Anne Bullen
1193 Now, I pray God, amen!
Lord Chamberlain
1194 You bear a gentle mind, and heavenly blessings
1195 Follow such creatures. That you may, fair lady,
1196 Perceive I speak sincerely, and high note's
1197 Ta'en of your many virtues, the King's Majesty
1198 Commends his good opinion of you, and
1199 Does purpose honour to you no less flowing
1200 Than Marchioness of Pembroke; to which title
1201 A thousand pound a year, annual support,
1202 Out of his grace he adds.
Anne Bullen
1203 I do not know
1204 What kind of my obedience I should tender.
1205 More than my all is nothing; nor my prayers
1206 Are not words duly hallowed, nor my wishes
1207 More worth than empty vanities; yet prayers and wishes
1208 Are all I can return. Beseech your lordship,
1209 Vouchsafe to speak my thanks and my obedience,
1210 As from a blushing handmaid, to his Highness;
1211 Whose health and royalty I pray for.
Lord Chamberlain
1212 Lady,
1213 I shall not fail to approve the fair conceit
1214 The King hath of you.
[Aside.]
Lord Chamberlain
1215 I have perus'd her well.
1216 Beauty and honour in her are so mingled
1217 That they have caught the King; and who knows yet
1218 But from this lady may proceed a gem
1219 To lighten all this isle? I'll to the King,
1220 And say I spoke with you.
[Exit Lord Chamberlain.]
Anne Bullen
1221 My honour'd lord.
Old Lady
1222 Why, this it is: see, see!
1223 I have been begging sixteen years in court,
1224 Am yet a courtier beggarly, nor could
1225 Come pat betwixt too early and too late
1226 For any suit of pounds; and you, O fate!
1227 A very fresh-fish here—fie, fie, fie upon
1228 This compell'd fortune!—have your mouth fill'd up
1229 Before you open it.
Anne Bullen
1230 This is strange to me.
Old Lady
1231 How tastes it? Is it bitter? Forty pence, no.
1232 There was a lady once, 'tis an old story,
1233 That would not be a queen, that would she not,
1234 For all the mud in Egypt. Have you heard it?
Anne Bullen
1235 Come, you are pleasant.
Old Lady
1236 With your theme, I could
1237 O'ermount the lark. The Marchioness of Pembroke!
1238 A thousand pounds a year for pure respect!
1239 No other obligation! By my life,
1240 That promises moe thousands; Honour's train
1241 Is longer than his foreskirt. By this time
1242 I know your back will bear a duchess. Say,
1243 Are you not stronger than you were?
Anne Bullen
1244 Good lady,
1245 Make yourself mirth with your particular fancy,
1246 And leave me out on't. Would I had no being,
1247 If this salute my blood a jot. It faints me,
1248 To think what follows.
1249 The Queen is comfortless, and we forgetful
1250 In our long absence. Pray, do not deliver
1251 What here you've heard to her.
Old Lady
1252 What do you think me?
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1125archaic vocab
“Here's the pang that pinches”
'Pang' means a sharp, sudden pain; 'pinches' here means bites or stings acutely. Anne is saying: here is the particular anguish that torments me — the thought of Katherine's suffering after a long, honoured reign.
TLN 1130archaic vocab
“So many courses of the sun enthroned”
'Courses of the sun' means years — each circuit the sun makes around the earth was one year. Anne is reckoning how long Katherine has been queen: Henry married her in 1509, making their union roughly twenty years old by the time of the play's action (c. 1529).
TLN 1134archaic vocab
“give her the avaunt”
'Give her the avaunt' means to dismiss her, send her away, cast her off. 'Avaunt!' was an order to be gone; 'giving' someone the avaunt is treating them as something to be expelled. Anne means: to throw Katherine out of her position after all this time.
TLN 1140rhetorical device
“if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce It from the bearer”
Anne personifies Fortune as a quarrelling party who can forcibly 'divorce' — separate — a person from their wealth, pomp, or power. The word 'divorce' is pointed: the scene's whole context is Katherine's impending divorce, so Anne casts Fortune's ordinary wheel-turning as a kind of legal or violent severance, and the loss of earthly greatness feels like a death ('As soul and body's severing').
classical Fortune and her wheel
TLN 1147rhetorical device
“'tis better to be lowly born And range with humble livers in content, Than to be perk'd up in a glist'ring grief”
Anne voices a moral commonplace — that humble contentment beats dazzling misery — in the very scene where the king is about to make her a marchioness on the way to the crown. 'Range with humble livers' means to live among plain, ordinary people. 'Perk'd up' means propped up, raised high (as a bird preens its feathers); 'glist'ring grief' is an oxymoron — sorrow dressed in glittering finery. The contrast between her words and her imminent elevation gives the speech a double edge.
TLN 1163wordplay
“your soft cheveril conscience would receive, If you might please to stretch it”
Cheveril (also 'chevrille') is kid leather — soft goatskin that stretches easily. The Old Lady accuses Anne of having a conscience as pliant as kid-leather gloves: it can be pulled wide enough to accommodate any ambition she claims to disavow. 'Stretch' carries both the leather sense and the moral sense of bending one's principles.
TLN 1168archaic vocab
“A three-pence bow'd would hire me, Old as I am, to queen it”
A 'bow'd' (bent) threepenny coin was a worthless piece: the Old Lady jokes that even a bent, below-value coin would be enough to tempt her to become queen, old as she is. 'Queen it' means to act the queen, play at queenship — a contemptuous diminutive suggesting the role is something anyone might perform given the prize. The joke underlines how absurd Anne's refusals seem to her worldly companion.
TLN 1200historical topical
“Marchioness of Pembroke; to which title A thousand pound a year, annual support”
Henry's conferral of the title Marchioness of Pembroke on Anne Bullen is a documented historical fact: on 1 September 1532 Henry personally invested Anne as Marchioness of Pembroke, with an income of a thousand pounds a year — a remarkable elevation for a woman who was not yet queen. The title made her a peeress in her own right, independent of any husband, and signalled Henry's intention clearly.
historical The King's Great Matter (Henry's divorce)
TLN 1213archaic vocab
“I shall not fail to approve the fair conceit The King hath of you”
'Conceit' here means opinion or estimation — not vanity or imagination. The Lord Chamberlain promises he will faithfully convey ('approve' = confirm, make evident) the good opinion the king has formed of Anne. The word 'approve' meant to demonstrate or prove, not simply to give consent.
TLN 1218historical topical
“from this lady may proceed a gem To lighten all this isle”
The Lord Chamberlain's aside predicts, in veiled terms, what the audience knows happened: Anne Bullen's daughter Elizabeth I, who became one of England's greatest rulers. The 'gem' is the child yet to be born; 'lighten all this isle' means to illuminate the whole of England. The dramatic irony is sharp — this guarded hope, spoken in a private aside, is the play's first hint of its providential destination.
historical Cranmer's prophecy over the infant Elizabeth
TLN 1236rhetorical device
“With your theme, I could O'ermount the lark”
The lark was proverbially the highest-flying of birds, its soaring song associated with the most extravagant praise. The Old Lady boasts that with Anne's story as her subject she could out-soar even the lark — meaning she could sing or speak praise beyond any limit. It is a hyperbole of mock-panegyric, since what follows is not praise but gleeful mockery of Anne's new title.
TLN 1240rhetorical device
“Honour's train Is longer than his foreskirt”
The Old Lady uses a clothing metaphor: a robe's 'train' is the fabric that trails behind (the longer, the grander), while the 'foreskirt' is the shorter front hem. She means that honour, once it begins flowing to a person, brings a longer tail of rewards behind it than what was initially on offer — a thousand pounds is just the leading edge; the queenship itself is the train behind. It is her prediction that Anne's fortune will grow far beyond the marquisate.