ght can pleasure you
But patient suffering; nor, by your grace's leave,
Have you such cause to make such hue and cry
After a husband; you have not in good sooth.
Yearly a child! this payment is not bad.
Content, fair queen, and do not think it strange,
That kings do sometimes seek delight in change:
For now and then, I tell you, poor men range.
Sit down a little, I will make you smile.
Though I be now like to the snowy Alps,
I was as hot as Aetna in my youth;
All fire, i' faith, true heart of oak, right steel--
A ruffian, lady. Often for my sport
I to a lodge of mine did make resort,
To view my dear, I said; dear God can tell,
It was my keeper's wife whom I lov'd well.
My countess (God be with her) was a shrow,
As women be, your majesty doth know;
And some odd pick-thank put it in her head,
All was not well: but such a life I led,
And the poor keeper and his smooth-fac'd wife,
That, will I, nill I, there she might not bide.
But for the people I did well provide;
And by God's mother, for my lady's spite,
I trick'd her in her kind, I serv'd her right.
Were she at London, I the country kept;
Come thither, I at London would sojourn;
Came she to court, from court I straightway stepp'd;
Return, I to the court would back return.
So this way, that way, every way she went,
I still was retrograde, sail'd[346] opposite:
Till at the last, by mildness and submission,
We met, kiss'd, joined, and here left all suspicion.

QUEEN. Now out upon you, Vere: I would have thought
The world had not contain'd a chaster man.

OX. Now, by my fay, I will be sworn I am.
In all I tell you I confess no ill,
But that I curb'd a froward woman's will:
Yet had my keeper's wife been of my mind,
There had been cause some fault with us to find;
But I protest her noes and nays were such,
That for my life she ever kept go much.[347]

QUEEN. You would take nay, but our King John says no;
No nay, no answer will suffice his turn:
He, for he cannot tempt true chastity,
Fills all the land with hostile cruelty.
Is it not shame, he that should punish sin,
Defend the righteous, help the innocent,
Carves with his sword the purpose of his will
Upon the guarders of the virtuous,
And hunts admired, spotless maidenhead
With all the darts of desolation,
Because she scorneth to be dissolute?
Me that he leaves, I do not murmur at;
That he loves her, doth no whit me perplex,
If she did love him, or myself did hate:
But this alone is it that doth me vex: