Page 1618 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Distinctly his full function.

BUCKINGHAM
Who did guide − [45]
I mean, who set the body and the limbs
Of this great sport together, as you guess?

NORFOLK
One, certes, that promises no element

In such a business.

BUCKINGHAM
I pray you, who, my lord?

NORFOLK
All this was ordered by the good discretion [50]
Of the right reverend Cardinal of York.

BUCKINGHAM
The devil speed him: no man’s pie is freed

From his ambitious finger. What had he
To do in these fierce vanities? I wonder
That such a keech can with his very bulk [55]
Take up the rays o’th’beneficial sun,
And keep it from the earth.

NORFOLK
Surely, sir,
There’s in him stuff that puts him to these ends;
For, being not propped by ancestry, whose grace
Chalks successors their way, nor called upon [60]

For high feats done to th’crown, neither allied
To eminent assistants, but spider-like,
Out of his self-drawing web, ’a gives us note,
The force of his own merit makes his way −

A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys [65]
A place next to the King.