Hildegard monologue (Act 4) — Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards: A Tragedy

I will not. King and queen and God shall hear. I love him as our songs of old time say Men have been loved of women akin to gods By blood as they by spirit, albeit in me Nought lives that woman or man or God could say Were worth his love, if mine by grace of love Be found not all unworthy. Mine am I No more: mine own in no wise now, but his To save or slay, to cherish or cast out, Crown and discrown, abase and comfort. Shame Were more to me than honour if his will It were that shame should clothe me round, and life Were the only death left fearful if he bade me Die. Could his love be turned from me, and set On one less loving but more fair than I, A thrall more base than treason or a queen Too high for shame to brand her shameful, even Though sin had stamped and signed her foul as fraud And loathsome as a masked adulterous lie, Hers would I make him if I might, and yield To her the hatefullest of hell-born things The man found lovelier by my love than heaven.