Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series
Page 164
ELEANOR.
And thou thyself a proven wanton?
ROSAMUND. No.
I am none such. I never loved but one.
I have heard of such that range from love to love,
Like the wild beast — if you can call it love.
I have heard of such — yea, even among those
Who sit on thrones — I never saw any such,
Never knew any such, and howsoever
You do misname me, match’d with any such,
I am snow to mud.
ELEANOR.
The more the pity then
That thy true home — the heavens — cry out for thee
Who art too pure for earth.
Enter FITZURSE.
FITZURSE.
Give her to me.
ELEANOR.
The Judas-lover of our passion-play
Hath track’d us hither.
FITZURSE.
Well, why not? I follow’d
You and the child: he babbled all the way.
Give her to me to make my honeymoon.
ELEANOR.
Ay, as the bears love honey. Could you keep her
Indungeon’d from one whisper of the wind,
Dark even from a side glance of the moon,
And oublietted in the centre — No!
I follow out my hate and thy revenge.
FITZURSE.
You bad me take revenge another way —
To bring her to the dust. . . . Come with me, love,
And I will love thee. . . . Madam, let her live.
I have a far-off burrow where the King
Would miss her and for ever.
ELEANOR.
How sayst thou, sweetheart?
Wilt thou go with him? he will marry thee.
ROSAMUND.
Give me the poison; set me free of him!
[ELEANOR offers the vial.
No, no! I will not have it.
ELEANOR.
Then this other,
The wiser choice, because my sleeping-draught
May bloat thy beauty out of shape, and make
Thy body loathsome even to thy child;
While this but leaves thee with a broken heart,
A doll-face blanch’d and bloodless, over which
If pretty Geoffrey do not break his own,
It must be broken for him.
ROSAMUND.
O I see now
Your purpose is to fright me — a troubadour
You play with words. You had never used so many,
Not if you meant it, I am sure. The child. . . .
No. . . . mercy! No! (Kneels.)
ELEANOR.
Play! . . . that bosom never
Heaved under the King’s hand with such true passion
As at this loveless knife that stirs the riot,
Which it will quench in blood! Slave, if he love thee,
Thy life is worth the wrestle for it: arise,
And dash thyself against me that I may slay thee!
The worm! shall I let her go? But ha! what’s here?
By very God, the cross I gave the King!
His village darling in some lewd caress
Has wheedled it off the King’s neck to her own.
By thy leave, beauty. Ay, the same! I warrant
Thou hast sworn on this my cross a hundred times
Never to leave him — and that merits death,
False oath on holy cross — for thou must leave him
To-day, but not quite yet. My good Fitzurse,
The running down the chase is kindlier sport
Ev’n than the death. Who knows but that thy lover
May plead so pitifully, that I may spare thee?
Come hither, man; stand there. (To ROSAMUND)
Take thy one chance;
Catch at the last straw. Kneel to thy lord Fitzurse;
Crouch even because thou hatest him; fawn upon him
For thy life and thy son’s.
ROSAMUND (rising).
I am a Clifford,
My son a Clifford and Plantagenet.
I am to die then, tho’ there stand beside thee
One who might grapple with thy dagger, if he
Had aught of man, or thou of woman; or I
Would bow to such a baseness as would make me
Most worthy of it: both of us will die,
And I will fly with my sweet boy to heaven,
And shriek to all the saints among the stars:
‘Eleanor of Aquitaine, Eleanor of England!
Murder’d by that adulteress Eleanor,
Whose doings are a horror to the east,
A hissing in the west!’ Have we not heard
Raymond of Poitou, thine own uncle — nay,
Geoffrey Plantagenet, thine own husband’s father —
Nay, ev’n the accursed heathen Saladdeen ——
Strike!
I challenge thee to meet me before God.
Answer me there.
ELEANOR (raising the dagger).
This in thy bosom, fool,
And after in thy bastard’s!
Enter BECKET from behind. Catches hold of her arm.
BECKET.
Murderess!
[The dagger falls; they stare at one another. After a pause.
ELEANOR.
My lord, we know you proud of your fine hand,
But having now admired it long enough,
We find that it is mightier than it seems —
At least mine own is frailer: you are laming it.
BECKET.
And lamed and maim’d to dislocation, better
Than raised to take a life which Henry bad me
Guard from the stroke that dooms thee after death
To wail in deathless flame.
ELEANOR.
Nor you, nor I
Have now to learn, my lord, that our good Henry
Says many a thing in sudden heats, which he
Gainsays by next sunrising — often ready
To tear himself for having said as much.
My lord, Fitzurse ——
BECKET.
He too! what dost thou here?
Dares the bear slouch into the lion’s den?
One downward plunge of his paw would rend away
Eyesight and manhood, life itself, from thee.
Go, lest I blast thee with anathema,
And make thee a world’s horror.
FITZURSE. My lord, I shall
Remember this.
BECKET.
I do remember thee;
Lest I remember thee to the lion, go.
[Exit Fitzurse.
Take up your dagger; put it in the sheath.
ELEANOR.
Might not your courtesy stoop to hand it me?
But crowns must bow when mitres sit so high.
Well — well — too costly to be left or lost.
[Picks up the dagger.
I had it from an Arab soldan, who,
When I was there in Antioch, marvell’d at
Our unfamiliar beauties of the west;
But wonder’d more at my much constancy
To the monk-king, Louis, our former burthen,
From whom, as being too kin, you know, my lord,
God’s grace and Holy Church deliver’d us.
I think, time given, I could have talk’d him out of
His ten wives into one. Look at the hilt.
What excellent workmanship. In our poor west
We cannot do it so well.
BECKET.
We can do worse.
Madam, I saw your dagger at her throat;
I heard your savage cry.
ELEANOR.
Well acted, was it?
A comedy meant to seem a tragedy —
A feint, a farce. My honest lord, you are known
Thro’ all the courts of Christendom as one
That mars a cause with over-violence.
You have wrong’d Fitzurse. I speak not of myself.
We thought to scare this minion of the King
Back from her churchless commerce with the King
To the fond arms of her first love, Fitzurse,
Who swore to marry her. You have spoilt the farce.
My savage cry? Why, she — she — when I strove
To work against her license for her good,
Bark’d out at me such monstrous charges, that
The King himself, for love of his own sons,
If hearing, would have spurn’d her; whereupon
I menaced her with this, as when we threaten
A yelper with a stick. Nay, I deny not
That I was somewhat anger’d. Do you hear me?
Believe or no, I care not. You have lost
The ear of the King. I have it. . . . My lord Paramount,
Our great High-priest, will not your Holiness
Vouchsafe a gracious answer to your Queen?
BECKET.
Rosamund hath not answer’d you one word;
Madam, I will not answer you one word.
Daughter, the world hath trick’d thee. Leave it, daughter;
Come thou with me to Godstow nunnery,
And live what may be left thee of a life
Saved as by miracle alone with Him
Who gave it.
Re-enter GEOFFREY.
GEOFFREY.
Mother, you told me a great fib: it wasn’t in the willow.
BECKET.
Follow us, my son, and we will find it for thee —
Or something manlier.
[Exeunt Becket, Rosamund, and Geoffrey.
ELEANOR.
The world hath trick’d her — that’s the King; if so,
There was the farce, the feint — not mine. And yet
I am all but sure my dagger was a feint
Till the worm turn’d — not life shot up in blood,
But death drawn in; — (looking at the vial) this was no feint then? no.
But can I swear to that, had she but given
Plain answer to plain query? nay, methinks
Had she but bow’d herself to meet the wave
Of humiliation, worshipt whom she loathed,
I should have let her be, scorn’d her too much
To harm her. Henry — Becket tells him this —
To take my life might lose him Aquitaine.
Too politic for that. Imprison me?
No, for it came to nothing — only a feint.
Did she not tell me I was playing on her?
I’ll swear to mine own self it was a feint.
Why should I swear, Eleanor, who am, or was,
A sovereign power? The King plucks out their eyes
Who anger him, and shall not I, the Queen,
Tear out her heart — kill, kill with knife or venom
One of his slanderous harlots? ‘None of such?’
I love her none the more. Tut, the chance gone,
She lives — but not for him; one point is gain’d.
O I, that thro’ the Pope divorced King Louis,
Scorning his monkery, — I that wedded Henry,
Honouring his manhood — will he not mock at me
The jealous fool balk’d of her will — with him?
But he and he must never meet again.
Reginald Fitzurse!
Re-enter FITZURSE.
FITZURSE.
Here, Madam, at your pleasure.
ELEANOR.
My pleasure is to have a man about me.
Why did you slink away so like a cur?
FITZURSE.
Madam, I am as much man as the King.
Madam, I fear Church-censures like your King.
ELEANOR.
He grovels to the Church when he’s black-blooded,
But kinglike fought the proud archbishop, — kinglike
Defied the Pope, and, like his kingly sires,
The Normans, striving still to break or bind
The spiritual giant with our island laws
And customs, made me for the moment proud
Ev’n of that stale Church-bond which link’d me with him
To bear him kingly sons. I am not so sure
But that I love him still. Thou as much man!
No more of that; we will to France and be
Beforehand with the King, and brew from out
This Godstow-Becket intermeddling such
A strong hate-philtre as may madden him — madden
Against his priest beyond all hellebore.
Act V
Scene I
Castle in Normandy. King’s Chamber.
HENRY, ROGER OF YORK, FOLIOT, JOCELYN OF SALISBURY.
ROGER OF YORK.
Nay, nay, my liege,
He rides abroad with armed followers,
Hath broken all his promises to thyself,
Cursed and anathematised us right and left,
Stirr’d up a party there against your son —
HENRY.
Roger of York, you always hated him,
Even when you both were boys at Theobald’s.
ROGER OF YORK.
I always hated boundless arrogance.
In mine own cause I strove against him there,
And in thy cause I strive against him now.
HENRY.
I cannot think he moves against my son,
Knowing right well with what a tenderness
He loved my son.
ROGER OF YORK.
Before you made him king.
But Becket ever moves against a king.
The Church is all — the crime to be a king.
We trust your Royal Grace, lord of more land
Than any crown in Europe, will not yield
To lay your neck beneath your citizens’ heel.
HENRY.
Not to a Gregory of my throning! No.
FOLIOT.
My royal liege, in aiming at your love,
It may be sometimes I have overshot
My duties to our Holy Mother Church,
Tho’ all the world allows I fall no inch
Behind this Becket, rather go beyond
In scourgings, macerations, mortifyings,
Fasts, disciplines that clear the spiritual eye,
And break the soul from earth. Let all that be.
I boast not: but you know thro’ all this quarrel
I still have cleaved to the crown, in hope the crown
Would cleave to me that but obey’d the crown,
Crowning your son; for which our loyal service,
And since we likewise swore to obey the customs,
York and myself, and our good Salisbury here,
Are push’d from out communion of the Church.
JOCELYN OF SALISBURY.
Becket hath trodden on us like worms, my liege;
Trodden one half dead; one half, but half-alive,
Cries to the King.
HENRY (aside).
Take care o’ thyself, O King.
JOCELYN OF SALISBURY.
Being so crush’d and so humiliated
We scarcely dare to bless the food we eat
Because of Becket.
HENRY.
What would ye have me do?
ROGER OF YORK.
Summon your barons; take their counsel: yet
I know — could swear — as long as Becket breathes,
Your Grace will never have one quiet hour.
HENRY.
What? . . . Ay . . . but pray you do not work upon me.
I see your drift . . . it may be so . . . and yet
You know me easily anger’d. Will you hence?
He shall absolve you . . . you shall have redress.
I have a dizzying headache. Let me rest.
I’ll call you by and by.
[Exeunt Roger of York, Foliot, and Jocelyn of Salisbury.
Would he were dea
d! I have lost all love for him.
If God would take him in some sudden way —
Would he were dead.
[Lies down.
PAGE (entering).
My liege, the Queen of England.
HENRY.
God’s eyes! [Starting up.
Enter ELEANOR.
ELEANOR.
Of England? Say of Aquitaine.
I am no Queen of England. I had dream’d
I was the bride of England, and a queen.
HENRY.
And, — while you dream’d you were the bride of England, —
Stirring her baby-king against me? ha!
ELEANOR.
The brideless Becket is thy king and mine:
I will go live and die in Aquitaine.
HENRY.
Except I clap thee into prison here,
Lest thou shouldst play the wanton there again.
Ha, you of Aquitaine! O you of Aquitaine!
You were but Aquitaine to Louis — no wife;
You are only Aquitaine to me — no wife.
ELEANOR.
And why, my lord, should I be wife to one
That only wedded me for Aquitaine?
Yet this no wife — her six and thirty sail
Of Provence blew you to your English throne;
And this no wife has born you four brave sons,
And one of them at least is like to prove
Bigger in our small world than thou art.
HENRY. Ay —
Richard, if he be mine — I hope him mine.
But thou art like enough to make him thine.
ELEANOR.
Becket is like enough to make all his.
HENRY.
Methought I had recover’d of the Becket,
That all was planed and bevell’d smooth again,
Save from some hateful cantrip of thine own.
ELEANOR.
I will go live and die in Aquitaine.
I dream’d I was the consort of a king,
Not one whose back his priest has broken.
HENRY. What!
Is the end come? You, will you crown my foe
My victor in mid-battle? I will be
Sole master of my house. The end is mine.
What game, what juggle, what devilry are you playing?
Why do you thrust this Becket on me again?
ELEANOR.
Why? for I am true wife, and have my fears
Lest Becket thrust you even from your throne.
Do you know this cross, my liege?
HENRY (turning his head). Away! Not I.
ELEANOR.
Not ev’n the central diamond, worth, I think,
Half of the Antioch whence I had it.
HENRY. That?
ELEANOR.
I gave it you, and you your paramour;
She sends it back, as being dead to earth,
So dead henceforth to you.
HENRY.
Dead! you have murder’d her,
Found out her secret bower and murder’d her.
ELEANOR.
Your Becket knew the secret of your bower.