CRANMER. Or seek to rescue me. I thank the Council. COLE. Do you lack any money? CRANMER. Nay, why should I? The prison fare is good enough for me. COLE. Ay, but to give the poor. CRANMER. Hand it me, then! I thank you. COLE. For a little space, farewell; Until I see you in St. Mary's Church. [_Exit_ COLE. CRANMER. It is against all precedent to burn One who recants; they mean to pardon me. To give the poor--they give the poor who die. Well, burn me or not burn me I am fixt; It is but a communion, not a mass: A holy supper, not a sacrifice; No man can make his Maker--Villa Garcia. _Enter_ VILLA GARCIA. VILLA GARCIA. Pray you write out this paper for me, Cranmer. CRANMER. Have I not writ enough to satisfy you? VILLA GARCIA. It is the last. CRANMER. Give it me, then. [_He writes_. VILLA GARCIA. Now sign. CRANMER. I have sign'd enough, and I will sign no more. VILLA GARCIA. It is no more than what you have sign'd already, The public form thereof. 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.