University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

—Winchester: a room within the Palace. Enter Queen Elinor and the Princes Henry and Richard.
Queen Elinor.
Upon the yellow ground of Africa
Young lions tear each other; so these sons,
Whom I, above all women, in my pride,
May proudly claim my offspring, wage a strife
Each against each. I care not. 'Tis the blood
Insurgent of their equal parentage.

P. Henry
[to Richard].
Ud's death! Thou wilt defy me to my face,
Deny my birthright and my crown's right too,
Because, forsooth, we're brothers—you who crawled
Behind me into light, who took the path
Which I discovered, in that very act
Sealing yourself my follower—bound to keep
A year's step lower in the court of Time;
You to whose brow no golden circle gave
It's pledge of loyalty; you, you to brag!—

Q. Elin.
Urged like my own young monarch.

P. Rich.
Glorious fool!
That cannot match a thunderstorm in noise
For all thy clapping lungs! I'll sing you still.
My blood is wine that ran from the same press
As your bright liquor; and the vessel!—see,
I'm broad and tall as you! Ay, mother?

Q. Elin.
Yes.
My thumb's nail taller.

P. Rich.
Holding so much more
Of the blue juice of royalty. Nay, nay;
Ennoble not your heels—those labourers
O' the soil. It were a shame.

P. Hen.
I'll make yours fly.

P. Rich.
Why then my knees would stand.

Q. Elin.
The lion-heart!

P. Rich.
Yea, get me prone, my spirit still would rise
Erect before you, spite of the false show.
Kill me—I'd face you as a spectre tall
With chin that topped your mouth.

Q. Elin.
Divinely bold!

P. Rich.
I'll never yield in heaven, on earth, in hell.

P. Hen.
Thou shalt by everything immovable,
The throne of God and Satan's iron roof!
I swear thou shalt.

P. Rich.
By all that never yields,
The punishment of fiends and sinners' dole,
I swear I never will.

P. Henry.
I've sworn.

P. Rich.
But I
Swore many days ago. Ha, ha, my oath
Is first-born and the heir of Fate.

Q. Elin.
Well put,
My own young warrior.

P. Hen.
I'll turn the edge
Of thy own sword against thee, as I live.
In Aquitaine
Bertram de Born, the troubadour, is mad
Beneath thy scorpion rule. I'll use his rage—

P. Rich.
Offal!

P. Hen.
Then shalt thou eat of it.

P. Rich.
Sweet cook!

Q. Elin.
Ha, ha!

P. Hen.
S'death, I will waste no further threats—
No comets of my passion—but thou'lt know
Destruction and remember how they flared.
I'll to De Born.

P. Rich.
And I to Aquitaine.

P. Hen.
[shaking his fist].
My sign of parting.

P. Rich.
Mine.

Q. Elin.
Now here's a cheek
For each—and kiss me both together—so,
My mouth is herald 'tween the lips arrayed
In double line of battle on each side.
Farewell—Farewell! Thank God you have repaid
My flesh and blood in you with usury.

P. Hen.
I'll force his homage.

P. Rich.
I'll bring down his pride

Q. Elin.
They feed my heart!

[Exeunt severally.
[Enter Beatrix.]
Beatrix.
Your majesty.

Q. Elin.
Oh pray
For motherhood; it is the golden thread
On which are strung the ages—

Beat.
Gracious Queen!

Q. Elin.
Time works within our wombs as in the depths
Of earth the miner. There are found the gems
He wears before the light, and there the dross
That makes the dull pile of oblivion.—
Well?

Beat.
I am bidden ask your instant leave
To hear De Lacy speak—

Q. Elin.
You velvet moth,
Of you? I will not listen to his suit.
He only lures with flame to drown in oil
Of dull neglect. Man's lamp of love is set
Ever to such low issues.

Beat.
Not of me—
Of matter fitting but your private ear
He chafes to speak. My dearest sovereign, you
Should hold so stout a liegeman in regard,
Your service is his very stuff of life,
The yarn of all his time. He would be nothing
Without your favour. The King loves him not.

Q. Elin.
Oh, the King loves none.

Beat.
I fear he's deep in love.

Q. Elin.
The King in love! It was my hope that morn—
You rode the spotted palfrey—I the grey—
My bridegroom with the bright half-rubied hair—
Woman, you must remember how we saw
Our lover on the knoll, above the bend
O' the road, ere he was 'ware of us. Ah me!
You bring me news my Henry is in love?
His youngest lad
Is in his teens—in love?

Beat.
Then shall I call
Sir Wilfred?

Q. Elin.
Call him? Ay; he has a throat
[Exit Beatrix.
That's loud, and shame must have a trumpeter,
Or never march at all.
[Re-enter Beatrix with Wilfred.]
[To Wilfred.]
The Kings's in love—
With you or me?

Wil.
Nay, 'tis a snooded girl
Down i' the country, coloured like a rose.
I burn as hell to speak it—how they kissed
And hung together—

Beat.
Mercy!

Wil.
In a wood—
He pressed her to his heart with panting voice
That out-ran language.

Beat.
And the little wretch?

Wil.
Was eager as a devil.

Beat.
Fie, I'm sick
Of horror and disgust.

Q. Elin.
Thank God for boys!
To have reared a treasonous brood from his own blood,
To have it at my call! John laughs in 's face;
'Tis a fierce pup
My first; he'll fasten where I bid, relax
When Death or I cry Loose; Oh, I am glad
To have the record of those ancient moods
Writ clear
In my boys' faces. That first ecstasy
Of anger, then the weak drift of despair
In puling Godfrey. From a fire of tears
Leapt out my Lion-heart!
When I again conceived, my flesh was cold,
I bred a coward!
[To Wilfred.]
Come, a covenant;
Join hands! . . . My Beatrix,
I toss her, a bright posy from my breast,
The day, the very hour, I've smoothed her limbs.
This . . . Let me loose on her! . . .
Speak fast! Direct me! I have sown i' my sons
The whirlwind of my nature; he will reap.
This doe of the forest—my peculiar prey—
With silver-arrow'd death she must be pierced;
The wrongèd Dian must behold her bleed!
I have not shared the King's love o' the chase;
It 'gins to stir in me.
[Enter Henry.]
My lord, these twain
Have kept me all the morning with their loves.
Will you not bless them?

K. Hen.
Love alone can bless:
Not kings.—Sir knight,
Be merry. Of twain studies one must be
For ease, one for attainment. You'll pass days
Too strenuous at task with life and love.
Love therefore as a pastime,—this fair dame
Your mistress of the revels. Joy to each!

[Exeunt Beatrix and Wilfred.
Q. Elin.
A pastime! From experience you speak?

K. Hen.
I never have concerned myself with love.
Where's John?

Q. Elin.
Why with his retinue of fools.
Best set an ape
Before base things, since whatso'er he sees
Must fall a prey
To the antics of his visage. Do you need
One to make mock of majesty?

K. Hen.
The boy,
Where is he? Tell me where. O Elinor,
Consider: you have Henry, the young king,
To dote on; grant this favour to mine age,
Let be our youngest boy—leave the soft wax
Of's heart unimpressed by your virulence.
He calls me “father,”—I who bear an old
Usurper's aspect to your fiery three,
Plant not your poison in him.

Q. Elin.
With my milk
He sucked it. The soft-browed deceptive lad
You munch with kissing dogs his brothers' heels
And licks allegiance to them. You're disgraced
Suing for love as humbly on your knees
As once for pardon at your Becket's tomb.
A piteous whine!—“Love me, my little son,
Or heart will burst”—a sorry spectacle!
I have a king to dote on—a young king!
I tell you to your face, that boy of ours
Crowned Henry has my love, because he has
My bridegroom's eyes;—but for the rest, my lord,
You're old to think of love: when you were young
You thought not of it.

K. Hen.
I embraced your lands,
Not you.

Q. Elin.
Plantagenet, you wronged yourself
As you had made the day and night your foe,
And roused
The violated seasons to confer
Each his peculiar catastrophe
Of death or pestilence—Embraced my lands!
I'll shatter you
As Nature shatters—you, as impotent
As the uprooted tree to lash the earth
That flings its griping roots out to the air.
And plants it burgeoned summits in the soil.
Embraced my lands!—Ah, I forget myself—
The loveless are insensate to presage;—
'Tis in calamity's harsh stubble-field,
They learn to suffer. I'll be harvester,
And sickle your ripe joys. Embraced my lands!
Had you embraced me, I had borne you fruit
Of soft-fleshed children. Hug the progeny
Of your stony lust, and curse me!

[Exit.
K. Hen.
She forgets—
When she is gone,—dear bliss!—the thought of her
Lies not a stinking corpse about my heart.
The loved or loathed may haunt us. Who oppress,
Are mortal in remembrance: being past
As sultry day that kept the air in bond,
I can breathe free. How beautiful
To have the mind a solitude for love!
Mine's clamorous as a camp—one silken tent
Close-curtained, secret . . . Rosamond!

[Enter Courtier.
Cour.
A man
Would see you, sire,—a haggard, bright-eyed knave,
With rapid tongue.

K. Hen.
I know him. Bring him in.
[Exit Courtier.
The architect
[Re-enter Courtier with Mavis.
We would be private. Go.

[Exit Courtier.
Mavis.
'Tis done, and this the eve of the fifth day.
All ready.

K. Hen.
Come within. Yon door hath ears
Of human shape. Be dumb! This very night
I'll ride with Topaz to the Oxford woods.
Come, follow! thou dost pant; I'll give thee wine.

[Exeunt within.