No More Learning

CRANMER. It may be so;
I sign it with my presence, if I read it.

VILLA GARCIA. But this is idle of you. Well, sir, well,
You are to beg the people to pray for you;
Exhort them to a pure and virtuous life;
Declare the Queen's right to the throne; confess
Your faith before all hearers; and retract
That Eucharistic doctrine in your book.
Will you not sign it now?

CRANMER. No, Villa Garcia,
I sign no more. Will they have mercy on me?

VILLA GARCIA. Have you good hopes of mercy!
So, farewell.
[_Exit_.

CRANMER. Good hopes, not theirs, have I that I am fixt,
Fixt beyond fall; however, in strange hours,
After the long brain-dazing colloquies,
And thousand-times recurring argument
Of those two friars ever in my prison,
When left alone in my despondency,
Without a friend, a book, my faith would seem
Dead or half-drown'd, or else swam heavily
Against the huge corruptions of the Church,
Monsters of mistradition, old enough
To scare me into dreaming, 'what am I,
Cranmer, against whole ages?
' was it so,
Or am I slandering my most inward friend,
To veil the fault of my most outward foe--
The soft and tremulous coward in the flesh?
O higher, holier, earlier, purer church,
I have found thee and not leave thee any more.
It is but a communion, not a mass--
No sacrifice, but a life-giving feast!
(_Writes_. ) So, so; this will I say--thus will I pray.
[_Puts up the paper_.

_Enter_ BONNER.

BONNER. Good day, old friend; what, you look somewhat worn;
And yet it is a day to test your health
Ev'n at the best: I scarce have spoken with you
Since when? --your degradation. At your trial
Never stood up a bolder man than you;
You would not cap the Pope's commissioner--
Your learning, and your stoutness, and your heresy,
Dumbfounded half of us. So, after that,
We had to dis-archbishop and unlord,
And make you simple Cranmer once again.
The common barber dipt your hair, and I
Scraped from your finger-points the holy oil;
And worse than all, you had to kneel to _me_;
Which was not pleasant for you, Master Cranmer.
Now you, that would not recognise the Pope,
And you, that would not own the Real Presence,
Have found a real presence in the stake,
Which frights you back into the ancient faith:
And so you have recanted to the Pope.
How are the mighty fallen, Master Cranmer!

CRANMER.