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Scene IV.
—Refectory of the Monastery at Northampton. A Banquet on the Tables.Enter Becket. Becket's Retainers.
1st Retainer.
Do thou speak first.
2nd Retainer.
Nay, thou! Nay, thou! Hast not thou drawn
the short straw?
1st Retainer.
My lord Archbishop, wilt thou permit us—
To speak without stammering and like a free man?
Ay.
1st Retainer.
My lord, permit us then to leave thy service.
Becket.
When?
1st Retainer.
Now.
Becket.
To-night?
1st Retainer.
To-night, my lord.
Becket.
And why?
1st Retainer.
My lord, we leave thee not without tears.
Becket.
Tears? Why not stay with me then?
1st Retainer.
My lord, we cannot yield thee an answer altogether
to thy satisfaction.
I warrant you, or your own either. Shall I find
you one? The King hath frowned upon me.
1st Retainer.
That is not altogether our answer, my lord.
Becket.
No; yet all but all. Go, go! Ye have eaten of
my dish and drunken of my cup for a dozen years.
1st Retainer.
And so we have. We mean thee no wrong. Wilt
thou not say, ‘God bless you,’ ere we go?
Becket.
God bless you all! God redden your pale blood!
But mine is human-red; and when ye shall hear it is
poured out upon earth, and see it mounting to Heaven,
my God bless you, that seems sweet to you now, will
blast and blind you like a curse.
1st Retainer.
We hope not, my lord. Our humblest thanks for
your blessing. Farewell!
Farewell, friends! farewell, swallows! I wrong the
bird; she leaves only the nest she built, they leave the
builder. Why? Am I to be murdered to-night?
Attendant.
Here is a missive left at the gate by one from the
castle.
Becket.
Cornwall's hand or Leicester's: they write marvellously
alike.
‘Fly at once to France, to King Louis of France:
there be those about our King who would have thy
blood.’
Was not my lord of Leicester bidden to our supper?
Attendant.
Ay, my lord, and divers other earls and barons.
But the hour is past, and our brother, Master Cook,
he makes moan that all be a-getting cold.
Becket.
And I make my moan along with him. Cold after
these earls and barons, that clung to me, frosted off
me by the first cold frown of the King. Cold, but
look how the table steams, like a heathen altar; nay,
like the altar at Jerusalem. Shall God's good gifts be
wasted? None of them here! Call in the poor from
the streets, and let them feast.
Herbert.
That is the parable of our blessed Lord.
Becket.
And why should not the parable of our blessed
Lord be acted again? Call in the poor! The Church
is ever at variance with the kings, and ever at one with
the poor. I marked a group of lazars in the marketplace—half-rag,
half-sore—beggars, poor rogues
(Heaven bless 'em) who never saw nor dreamed of
such a banquet. I will amaze them. Call them in,
I say. They shall henceforward be my earls and
barons—our lords and masters in Christ Jesus.
If the King hold his purpose, I am myself a beggar.
Forty thousand marks! forty thousand devils—and
these craven bishops!
My lord Archbishop, may I come in with my poor
friend, my dog? The King's verdurer caught him ahunting
in the forest, and cut off his paws. The dog
followed his calling, my lord. I ha' carried him ever
so many miles in my arms, and he licks my face and
moans and cries out against the King.
Becket.
Better thy dog than thee. The King's courts
would use thee worse than thy dog—they are too
bloody. Were the Church king, it would be otherwise.
Poor beast! poor beast! set him down. I will
bind up his wounds with my napkin. Give him a
bone, give him a bone! Who misuses a dog would
misuse a child—they cannot speak for themselves.
Past help! his paws are past help. God help him!
Enter the Beggars (and seat themselves at the Tables). Becket and Herbert wait upon them.
1st Beggar.
Swine, sheep, ox—here's a French supper. When
thieves fall out, honest men—
2nd Beggar.
Is the Archbishop a thief who gives thee thy supper?
Well, then, how does it go? When honest men
fall out, thieves—no, it can't be that.
2nd Beggar.
Who stole the widow's one sitting hen o' Sunday,
when she was at mass?
1st Beggar.
Come, come! thou hadst thy share on her. Sitting
hen! Our Lord Becket's our great sitting-hen cock,
and we shouldn't ha' been sitting here if the barons
and bishops hadn't been a-sitting on the Archbishop.
Becket.
Ay, the princes sat in judgment against me, and
the Lord hath prepared your table—Sederunt principes,
ederunt pauperes.
A Voice.
Becket, beware of the knife!
Becket.
Who spoke?
3rd Beggar.
Nobody, my lord. What's that, my lord?
Venison.
3rd Beggar.
Venison?
Becket.
Buck; deer, as you call it.
3rd Beggar.
King's meat! By the Lord, won't we pray for your
lordship!
Becket.
And, my children, your prayers will do more for
me in the day of peril that dawns darkly and drearily
over the house of God—yea, and in the day of judgment
also, than the swords of the craven sycophants
would have done had they remained true to me whose
bread they have partaken. I must leave you to your
banquet. Feed, feast, and be merry. Herbert, for
the sake of the Church itself, if not for my own, I
must fly to France to-night. Come with me.
3rd Beggar.
Here—all of you—my lord's health
(they drink).
Well—if that isn't goodly wine—
Then there isn't a goodly wench to serve him with
it: they were fighting for her to-day in the street.
3rd Beggar.
Peace!
1st Beggar.
The black sheep baaed to the miller's ewe-lamb,
The miller's away for to-night.
Black sheep, quoth she, too black a sin for me.
And what said the black sheep, my masters?
We can make a black sin white.
3rd Beggar.
Peace!
1st Beggar.
‘Ewe lamb, ewe lamb, I am here by the dam.’
But the miller came home that night,
And so dusted his back with the meal in his sack,
That he made the black sheep white.
3rd Beggar.
Be we not of the family? be we not a-supping with
the head of the family? be we not in my lord's own
refractory? Out from among us; thou art our black
sheep.
Fitzurse.
Sheep, said he? And sheep without the shepherd,
too. Where is my lord Archbishop? Thou the lustiest
and lousiest of this Cain's brotherhood, answer.
3rd Beggar.
With Cain's answer, my lord. Am I his keeper?
Thou shouldst call him Cain, not me.
Fitzurse.
So I do, for he would murder his brother the State.
3rd Beggar
(rising and advancing).
No my lord; but because the Lord hath set his
mark upon him that no man should murder him.
Fitzurse.
Where is he? where is he?
3rd Beggar.
With Cain belike, in the land of Nod, or in the
land of France for aught I know.
Fitzurse.
France! Ha! De Morville, Tracy, Brito—fled is
Remember the Queen!
[The four Knights cross their swords.
De Brito.
They mock us; he is here.
Fitzurse.
Come, you filthy knaves, let us pass.
3rd Beggar.
Nay, my lord, let us pass. We be a-going home
after our supper in all humbleness, my lord; for the
Archbishop loves humbleness, my lord; and though
we be fifty to four, we daren't fight you with our
crutches, my lord. There now, if thou hast not laid
hands upon me! and my fellows know that I am all
one scale like a fish. I pray God I haven't given thee
my leprosy, my lord.
De Brito.
Away, dog!
4th Beggar.
And I was bit by a mad dog o' Friday, an' I be half
cannot bide water, my lord; and I want to bite, I want
to bite, and they do say the very breath catches.
De Brito.
Insolent clown. Shall I smite him with the edge
of the sword?
De Morville.
No, nor with the flat of it either. Smite the
shepherd and the sheep are scattered. Smite the
sheep and the shepherd will excommunicate thee.
De Brito.
Yet my fingers itch to beat him into nothing.
5th Beggar.
So do mine, my lord. I was born with it, and
sulphur won't bring it out o' me. But for all that the
Archbishop washed my feet o' Tuesday. He likes it,
my lord.
6th Beggar.
And see here, my lord, this rag fro' the gangrene
i' my leg. It's humbling—it smells o' human natur'.
Wilt thou smell it, my lord? for the Archbishop likes
the smell on it, my lord; for I be his lord and master
i' Christ, my lord.
Faugh! we shall all be poisoned. Let us go.
7th Beggar.
My lord, I ha' three sisters a-dying at home o' the
sweating sickness. They be dead while I be a-supping.
8th Beggar.
And I ha' nine darters i' the spital that be dead ten
times o'er i' one day wi' the putrid fever; and I bring
the taint on it along wi' me, for the Archbishop likes
it, my lord.
3rd Beggar.
Crutches, and itches, and leprosies, and ulcers, and
gangrenes, and running sores, praise ye the Lord, for
to-night ye have saved our Archbishop!
1st Beggar.
I'll go back again. I hain't half done yet.
Herbert of Bosham
(entering).
My friends, the Archbishop bids you good-night.
of his life, he hath made his bed between the altars,
from whence he sends me to bid you this night pray
for him who hath fed you in the wilderness.
3rd Beggar.
So we will—so we will, I warrant thee. Becket
shall be king, and the Holy Father shall be king, and
the world shall live by the King's venison and the
bread o' the Lord, and there shall be no more poor
for ever. Hurrah! Vive le Roy! That's the English
of it.
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