University of Virginia Library

SCENE II

[The King's Chamber.]
ETHELNOTH.
Still, Alfred comes not.

PLEGMUND.
He is sure to come
Ere to the socket burns this rushlight down.
He never wantoned with his word, nor now
Will prove untrue to it.

ETHELNOTH.
Not if he live
Nor if he still be free to come. But how
If eyes as searching as his own have stripped
From off his kingly gait the peasant's smock,
And even now within the Danish lines
He dwells a bondman.

ETHELRED.
[Alfred enters.]

[They make obeisance.]
ALFRED.
Yes, I am back, my wistful friends, but not
Ere I have marked where the false Guthrum folds
His savage flock, and whither next he wends,
Seeking fresh pasture; aye, and every track,
Here through the forest, there along the stream,
And clear beyond between the dimpled downs,
That, twisting hither and thither, will lead at length
To covert hollow, whence, with God for guide,
We may upon their present fastness spring,
And send them flying hearthless as the wind,
Over the waste they have made.

ETHELNOTH.
Thank Heaven! you are safe,
Nor for such wayward danger paid with life.

ALFRED.
And if I had! 'Tis not for length of days,
No, but for breadth of days that we should crave.
Life is God's gift for godlike purposes.
'Tis the mere die we play with; that which counts
Is the high stake of honour that we throw for,
And for such worthy gamesters Heaven provides.
Not in safe coffer should we lock our lives,
But put them out to peril, that our sons
May be the richer for the stake we won.
Withal, my shrewd Archbishop, 'tis allowed,
When dangerous duty doth not bid us spend
Life without thought or reckoning, 'tis so short,
Well must it be to use it thriftily;
So for your helpful hands is further work,
To eke out mine, still hampered by the sword.
Aid me; nay, mend me; for my lesser skill
Needs your large craft. Pope Gregory's Pastoral,
We call his Hindbook in our English tongue,
Worcester's good Bishop, Werefrith, will revise.
And I myself must follow, when I may,
Wulfstan and Othere through those norward seas
Whence came our fathers on their flashing oars,
And with their Finnish voyages enrich
The pages of Orosius. Unto you
The harder task, to render faithfully
The Consolations of Philosophy,
Where I have missed what sage Boethius means.
O Plegmund! Plegmund! Sore is it to scan,
As yesternight I did, in Alcuin's verse,
The list of Latin texts once housed in York,
The envy of the Frankish Emperor,
Great Charles himself, now wandering on the winds,
Or fuel for the fire of these rude Danes,
But all of them to be some day replaced
By God's good help and yours, and written plain
In Saxon speech for English boys to read,
And thereby understand, though, unlike me,
They may not journey thither, that which Rome
Did and still does to better man. But now,
The dwindling rushlight in the lanthorn shows
We must unto the Witan. Ethelnoth,
Come to my side, and you too, Ethelred,
Both craftier with the sword than with the pen,
And help me both with presence and with voice
To rouse my people from their peaceful hives,
And make them swarm for battle!