University of Virginia Library

ACT II.

Scene I.

—Dusk: a windy cleared place. Harold's body bleaching on a gallows: near it Beowulf.
Beowulf.
I feel it's here; I have no need to see.
I'm glad they murdered him, not made him dark;
For now he's dead the Earth will think on him
As she unweaves his body bit by bit.
She'll have time like the women-folk at work
To turn all over in her mind, and get
His wrongs by heart. He never trusted her;
He thought her slow ... she's old,
It's true; and no ambition for herself:
When the corpse lies where she has given suck
The lusty days stir in her. [Enter Wilfrith.]
Who is here?

Wilfrith.
Wilfrith! I often come to pray for him;
I loved him; it's like standing by the cross,
The thief's—and he my brother! As a child
He pushed me from him; I was timorous.
I have more reason now to be afraid—
He died impenitent. [Aloud.]
O grandfather,
Let us go home; we can pray better there!

Beowulf.
Pray! pray! Are you a wench to chatter so?
Does not your tongue grow rigid in your head,
A corpse to bear that silence company?
Have you no death in you? Oh, say your prayers;
I will keep mourning in my ruined ears
The passing of his voice.

Wilfrith.
But, father, think!
We're praying for his soul, that it may rest.

Beowulf.
Is it a monk? Do we all take to cells
In our walled coffins?

Wilfrith.
Rumour's in the air
King Harold lingers still a penitent
At Chester, wailing sore his people's pride,
Whose uncurbed spirit still refuses peace
With William, the true heritor.

Beowulf.
How like
This sounds to the king's voice—in woman's clothes!
Trickle your puny lies.

Wilfrith.
It may be true.
They say he frees us from our loyalty;
And bids us tend the land in quietness,
Yielding the Church her dues.

Beowulf.
The land, O God,
The soil! ... The people's common earth
They trench and furrow for their sustenance,
Let fall their sweat in, put away their dead
For the cool dark of ... [Enter Purkis.]
But I hear a step.—
I'll have your lying words put to the sword.

Purkis.
Why, grand-dad, whew! find you in company
Of our young priest to keep the devils off
My poor lad's corse? [Aside.]
He'd better keep the crows.
Oh, it's insufferable the way he snuffs
This carrion. I'm his father; I have eyes.
Harold, my boy, we're hidden in the womb
When we're a-making. Faugh, these processes
Infamous in exposure! [Aloud.]
Come away,
And if I catch you sneaking here—

Beowulf.
You'll swear
King Harold lies at Waltham.

Purkis
[aside].
He's confused
Betwixt the great King Harold and my son.
He's growing childish with his long confine
I' the constant dark; new trouble 'mazes him.
[Aloud.]
Come off, I can't stay here; there's pestilence.

Wilfrith
[in an undertone].
Speak to him, father; he can't see it right,
And if I argue, he's so terrible,
My mind is laid like corn; we shall be lost
If thus we break the fences of the law,
And harm the unoffending gentlefolk.
The sight of him [pointing to Beowulf, who walks apart]
unsettles all our youth.
We lost our Harold through his vengefulness;
He cuts our lads off faster than the king
Fulfils his dreadful threats; we're perishing,
The Normans gaining ground.

Purkis.
Oh, never fear,
We will be masters; there's the stuff in us;
We're used to the pace of Nature and keep step;
Our habits are not conquered; like the fowls
We flap our wings at eventide and roost;
Breed, too, uncommon fast. We'll grow anon
A forest of stout youngsters for the old
Plantations they have put the hatchet to;
And force the king protect them tenderly
As the pleasure-trees now filling into wood.
He will not have a choice.

Wilfrith
[pointing to Beowulf].
His sinful soul!

Purkis.
He's damning daily as men reap the corn
By armfuls, if a monk should measure him.
Heaven clothes itself in our infirmities;
And I, who am his son, make bold to hope
That God will take upon Himself those eyes
[Turning to Beowulf.
To look upon his faults;—He's merciful.
But hold you off awhile; he's mumbling now;
His tottering lips are haply setting out
In age for holy land.

Beowulf
[aside].
I breathe the air;
The tongues of free men should inhabit it;
It is infested by the shackled speech
Of base petitioners.

Wilfrith
[to Purkis].
But, Harold, think!
He died without God's body; all our lives
We must say masses for him fearfully.
There is a King in heaven we must serve,
Or die as traitors.

Beowulf.
Is God called a King?
I'll never, never trust Him.

Purkis
[to Wilfrith].
Tut, my lad,
You're over-anxious; as I take it now,
Our souls were never private property
A man might call his own;—I rather hold
Our duty's simply a stupendous fief
Our Overlord lets out to us in bits
To plod at peaceful, putting armour on
When His old quarrel with the devil needs
Sword-settling; but the more part of our days
It's produce He requires, not skirmishing.
These sins of ours
Let's put 'em in as muck about our roots,
Not fling to waste. Those early Norman years
I had a murderous heart; I plucked it out,
Flung to the refuse; now it's rotted down
To just a sturdy holding to my rights.
If you will put away your baser parts,
You'll grow a slender crop. Feed full the field
If you desire the hundred-fold increase,
I say ... but you, religious, cannot learn
The right use of your sins. It's wasting breath
To speak to you.
[Exit Wilfrith.]
[Looking at Beowulf.]
Can't say it's growing dark;
[Aloud.]
Why stars are all a-throbbing overhead;
Now we may sleep, and safe: Heaven's sentinel.

Beowulf.
Send off the youngster to his rushes. Hark!
It has been pouring on my brain; they found
A corpse, a counterfeit; they buried it
I' the Norman Minster: he is on the beach
Where the waves join in battle; in the cairn
Of England's stones the treasure of his heart.
The winds blow over him; he hears them pass
Fresh from this gibbet, and the mound's aheave ...
He's under the great Standard! ...

Purkis
[aside].
Prophecy
Is just a leak o' the spirit, drains the head
O' the angry, bubbling waters that would lash
The afflicted lunatic: he's merry now
For come two hours,—a-chuckling at his dreams.—
Ay, dad, we'll gather round the Fighting Man.

[Exeunt.

Scene II.

—A Monastery near Gloucester. Anselm and Eadmer.
Anselm.
God gives His bread to children who are sweet
With golden faith; to thinkers and to men
Of striving reason He presents a stone,
That they should toil and find the heav'nly food
The sinews of the brain have strength to win.
O Edmer, when my thought was weak and glad
As a young bird that only knows the nest;
When as a child of Italy I lay
Asleep, the mountains lifted round my home,
My spirit wandered from my little bed,
And walked upon the heights; 'twas harvest-time,
And maidens paused above the plenteous sheaves.
Methought I'd climb to Heaven and complain
How slowly they were binding the red corn.
I reached the hall of Heaven—it was still;
The Lord and His good butler keeping house,
But all the angels were a-harvesting.
A childish tire was plaintive in my voice
That told Him of His servants' negligence;
He smiled, and bread was brought; He stooped and put
A silver-bleachèd morsel to my lips;
'Neath His kind brows I ate, and never yet
Have lost the strong renewal of that meat.

Eadmer.
The sweetest story I have ever heard.
My pen shall keep it for all future days
To learn how Heav'n dealeth with the child.

Anselm.
How glorious its dealing with the man!
It gives not, that his reason may attain,
And like a casket in possession hard
Close round the gem of absolute belief.
Faith is the child's gift, and Philosophy
The man's achievement. Blessèd toil, to walk
Where babes are carried past on angel-wings;
To compass Mystery, to conquer Space,
Subjugate cunning Time, Eternity's
Protean shapes, and changes to illude
Man's recognition: in our mind to clutch
The veritable Being, force it yield
And re-assume itself.

Eadmer.
Too high your thoughts.
I cannot reach the level of your joy.

Anselm.
Nay, Edmer, hark! It is Philosophy
That knocks at Heaven's gate; Faith finds the door
Wide open—'tis the hand of Thought that calls
St. Peter to his charge; he opens wide;
And the mind enters with the awful tread
Of deep assurance that vast home sublime
Of the Supreme Idea, and beholds
Th' ineffable Existence. I have toiled
And fasted, in the midnight watches cried,
Consumed the light within me nigh to ash,
And desolated human frailty 'neath
The march and stress of battling Intellect,
To reach that certain knowledge of my God,
Clothed in perfection of reality.

Eadmer.
O rare and mighty thinker, and withal
A holy, loving saint, I can but write
The chronicle of your loved destiny,
That walks along the earth; when you aspire
To God, your pen is sole historian
Of beatific life beyond mine eyes.

Anselm.
Dear English Edmer, thy meek, fervent soul
Hath often rested where I toil to stand.
My life's disciple, we will never part,
Till Death give promise we shall ever join
In bond that no mortality assails.
The King of England holds me in his realm;
But when he grants me passage to my home
At streamy, wooded Bec, thou too shalt come,
And write the tale of Man for men to be;
And I will follow to its virgin source
The soul that makes his being's sacred worth.
So will we work in cloister'd peace, no storm
Of outward passion piercing our still days.

[Enter Monks with a Messenger.]
1st Monk.
Most holy father—

2nd Monk.
Blessed Anselm, hear!

1st Monk.
This man is from the king, who lieth sick
Well-nigh to death.

Messenger.
He groans and cries for help
As he were drowning in the fear of death.

Anselm.
I cannot go.

Messenger.
A cruel word to pass
From lips reputed kind. He sobs for aid
Against the demons mocking at his soul.

Anselm.
I cannot go; a fear I may not name
Stands in the path you show me. There are men
Of comfortable spirit nigh the king.
Why will you pierce my heart with augury
Of doom to all my hopes?

Messenger.
Nay, never fear
He'll give us our archbishop: there he's stiff
As yew, and fatal to his people's pray'r.

Anselm
[aside].
The peace, the wooded monastery. Oh!
My books, my problems, and the lonely strife
With mystery, the joyous blessing won!—
Seek for another comforter. My fate
Is sealed with condemnation if I go.

Messenger.
No other man can save our lord the king
From anguish such as makes his dying hour
The vestibule to Hell.

1st Monk.
Oh, pity him.

2nd Monk.
Have mercy on his wicked panting soul.

Anselm.
I cannot go—yet, Edmer, think of it!
No soothing, no access of grateful peace
As herald of Death's perfect silencing;
All conflict, insurrection, and affright,
That put to shame the calm invincible
Whose presence stills the threshold. I must go,
To shed some dew before the coming night,
And make its shade more gentle.

Eadmer.
He is won.
The stricken king will feel upon the air
The benediction of his gracious age.

Anselm.
The poor aghasted soul.

1st Monk.
Ay, think of it;
The terrible, black exit.

2nd Monk.
And the lone,
Fire-beaconed journey.

Eadmer.
And the final death.—
Tears make his eyes more precious. He is won.

Anselm.
The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, draws
My feet to carry its sweet messages.
I come.—Eadmer, how the future hangs
Its chains upon my calling, which is thought
And meditation on eternal truth.
Thus could I freely serve, and yet my God,
I know, will bind my lot to slavery.

[Exeunt.

Scene III.

—The King's sick-room at Gloucester. Round the bed, William of St. Calais, Bishop Walkelin, Bishop Gundulf, Bishop John de Villula, Flambard, Bishops, Nobles, and many Attendants.
Rufus.
He has me down; He's bending over me
To give my soul the death-grip; but I yield.—
Good Villula, fling that vile potion down,
And pray for me. Your king is perishing
Th' eternal way.

De Villula.
Imagination
Conjures the devil; 'tis a fatal case.

Rufus.
Fie, fie, the devil! I could fling him off;
God's overpressing me ... and I confess.
I sore repent my many grievous sins.
Oh, oh! the sickness strangles me at heart.
I will amend.—This cold is damning me.

De Villula.
Put yonder skins about his feet. My lord,
This little potion hath a kindly heat,
Is cheery against shivers in the blood.

Rufus.
Plague strike you! you are for the gallipot;
There is no bishop in you. Oh these br—r—ri—bes. ...

Gundulf.
God strikes him in the mouth.

Walkelin.
His blasphemy
Brought on this stuttering.

Gundulf.
To seal your groans
As those of penitence, dismiss your sins
By righteous reparation for all wrong.
Set free the captives, with death-chainèd hand
Undo the living fetters.

Meulan.
And forgive
The debtor.

Gundulf.
Yield her pastors to the Church.

Rufus.
I'll do all this. Good souls, deliver me.

Gundulf.
To God belongs deliverance, my king.
But dare you lose His mercy by the sin
Of keeping in a wailing bondage drear
The Church of Churches, Christ's most holy Church
Of Canterb'ry?

Rufus.
I never sold—

De Villula.
Forbear.
The pulse is flapping like to dying wings;
And what an eagle perishes!—But see,
Here comes the doctor to the stricken soul,
The good physician, who with holy words
Can heal the spirit's ulcer, and refresh
With draughts celestial. Holy Anselm, peace
And benediction!

[Enter Anselm, Eadmer, Eustace, and Baldwin of Tournay.]
Anselm.
Doth the king still live?

Gundulf.
In penitence he toils to breathe his last.

Anselm.
What counsel have ye dropped into his ear,
How made its chest the treasury of grace?
How have ye moved him?

Gundulf.
'Tis the might of God
Hath cleft his stubbornness; our feeble lips
Have urged confession, reparation, all
The duties of the dying penitent.

Anselm.
'Tis well.

Walkelin.
Our lips are weak, but thine are strong.
Urge thou the only hope, the only means.

Gundulf.
Lord Anselm, holy father, speak to him.
He lies with sickened cheeks and haunted eyes.
Speak.

Walkelin.
We beseech thee, speak.

Flambard.
Nay, comfort him;
A cup of good red wine.

De Villula.
Inflammat'ry!
Damnation! not a drop. Lord Anselm, speak:
He sees you.

Anselm.
Peace be to the penitent.
My king, I have strange hope that you will live
And leave this lowly bed of languishing,
If with a hearty will you turn from sin,
And rule your people with mild righteousness.
Will your soul promise this?

Rufus.
All, all.

Anselm.
To rule
With justice and with mercy, to unbind
The links of bondage, pardon every debt,
Restore its shepherd to each mourning Church,
So help you God.

Rufus.
So help me God, I will.
Renew this promise made in His dread Name
To God before the altar. Bishops, go.

Anselm.
Let the clerks write a proclamation, sealed,
Lord Chancellor, by you, to tell the land
That deeds will flow from promise unto God.

Gundulf.
There is one other sin upon his soul:
He gives the Church no primate.

Walkelin.
Fill the See.

St. Calais
[aside].
Perchance my time hath come.

Gundulf.
Receive our pray'r.

Rufus.
So do I purpose.

St. Calais.
Ha!

Walkelin.
He will.

Flambard.
Attend.

Gundulf.
Laus Deo! Let our lord the king make known
Whom he deems worthy.

St. Calais.
See, he tries to rise!

De Villula.
'Tis perilous.

Rufus.
I choose this holy man,
Anselm.

The Nobles.
O joy!

The Bishops.
A blessed word! Praise, praise!
Joy, joy to England! Bring the past'ral staff.
Hail, our Archbishop, hail!

Eadmer.
How wan he grows,
And shivers like a tree against the axe.

Anselm
[aside].
'Tis on me! I am victim of this hour.
Cover me from the conflict! Clear as sight—
The silent cloister, and my brazen lamp,
The vaulting that I look to in my thought,
The seven ribs that cross it! [Aloud.]
No, no, no!
I am not your Archbishop. Peace!—No more
Would meditation visit me.—No pow'r
Shall make me your Archbishop.—And the care
And conflict.—I am old, unworthy, weak.

Walkelin.
Lay hands upon him.

Meulan.
Drag him to the bed.

Anselm.
I am the subject of another realm;
I owe allegiance to his Grace the Duke;
To mine Archbishop all obedience.

Walkelin.
Fight not the will of God, nor cast aside
His choice; a work is ready to your hands.
Abominations breed and multiply;
Christ's holy faith is well-nigh dead and gone
From English shores.

Gundulf
[aside].
By that man's tyranny
We, and the Churches that we ought to rule,
Fall into danger of eternal death.
[Aloud.]
Wilt thou, when thou canst help us, scorn our pray'r?

Anselm.
I may not grant it—never.

Walkelin.
Cruel saint,
The mother Church of Canterbury kneels.
Wilt thou not raise her up?

Anselm.
I am unused
To worldly business. Let me lead the life
And keep the peaceful calling that I love.

Gundulf.
Show us the way of God, and pray for us—
Discharge of business be our humble trust.

Anselm.
All that ye do and purpose is but naught.

Walkelin.
Our lord the king, the abbot is self-willed
And obstinate. We pray you speak to him.

Rufus.
O Anselm, you condemn me to the flames.
Recall your faithful friendship to my sire
And mother. By that friendship, save their son;
Save, I adjure thee, soul and body. Death
For ever will confound me if I die
Still holding the archbishopric. O help,
Then help me, lord and father!

Anselm.
Would to God
That I might die! Good brothers, help me, help!

Baldwin.
If 'tis the will of God that so it be,
Who shall withstand His will?

Rufus.
Kneel, bishops, kneel.

Bishops
[to Anselm].
You scant his dying breath, fulfil with gall
His moments' strait enclosure. All the sins,
Oppressions in the land will heap the door
Of your most ruthless, closed, and barrèd heart.
Our knees are round its threshold.

Anselm.
Lo, I fall
Before you in my soul's extremity.
You are a bitter crowd to force my mind
Against its inborn judgment that my life
Was meant to be a temple to God's thought,
A shrine for Truth, who seeks her worshippers
Where silence is as marble round the air.
I am a still old man. Upon my knees
I pray you break not on God's solitude
That's reared about my brain.

Gundulf.
He fights with God.
The king holds out the staff.

Walkelin.
Which he shall take,
Tho' clenched his hand.

Meulan.
Raise his forefinger. So!

[They force the staff into his hand.
All.
Long live the Bishop!

Walkelin.
Take him to the church.

Anselm.
Ye act in ignorance. The king will live.
Why will ye yoke an old and feeble sheep
With a young bull untameable and fierce?
Your joy will sink to sorrow. I shall fall
A victim, and the king will trample you
Beneath his unchecked feet. Alas, alas!

[Exeunt, dragging Anselm and chanting Te Deums.
De Villula.
The pulse is firmer and the breath more sure.

Scene IV.

—Hastings. A Street. Enter Bishop Gundulf, Eadmer, and Baldwin.
Gundulf.
Alas! the dew of penitence is dry,
And parched the healèd soul. Once more the blood
Swells through the kingly veins with shining red;
But in its triumph grace is overthrown.
The king is hard and healthy, and his strength,
New-knit by God, is braced to threat the sky
In horrible revenge. With him I strove,
And prayed him cherish in his days of sun
His roughly-scattered, precious, winter seed.
His visage fired and deepened till the gem
Of darkest blood within his crown was pale
To the swart blush of fury as he swore:
“A good man God shall never find in me;
I have too deeply suffered at His hands.”
With that he sent to bind about the limbs,
Slack with sweet-breathing freedom, the close chains;
His gifts were straight recalled; each debt was held
Due as of old, and all that he had sworn
Undone in doing.

Eadmer.
Save the heavy grant
To our dear master, who hath borne hard days
And looks for no relief.

Gundulf.
How suffers he?

Eadmer.
The king is bent against the Norman duke,
And hath much need of money. To his feet
Cometh our master with the ready gold,
Which, sweetly tendered, is received with grace.
But afterward, thro' lust of wealth, the gift
Is scorned as small and sent unkindly back.
But he who is a father to the poor,
A most sweet mother to the sick and pinched,
Would take no further from his lacking churls;
But poured the spurned gold in the beggar's lap
Compassionate. This moved the king to wrath,
Which still sits cloudy on his thankless brow.
Here by the sleepy verge of this green strait
The ships await the rising of the wind,
And holy Anselm stays to bless the fleet.

Baldwin.
The breeze will sleep, while the Court reeks with sin,
Monstrous and strange. Our dear Archbishop grieves,
Resentful, with armed looks.

Eadmer.
A seraph's zeal
Is sworded in his eyes; his stainless brow
Is Faith's own shield.

Gundulf.
The people love him well.

Eadmer.
He is their blissful advocate. Our race
Ties round his heart its locks of flaxen hair
As once they bound the Roman Gregory.

Baldwin.
Methinks your king's damnation pains his soul;
Eadmer says that he will seek his side
With moving low entreaty.

Gundulf.
Let us hence,
And see how looks the ocean's sterile plain
That with our fair fleet should be forested.

Baldwin.
A wind! Methinks a tiny brook of air
Steals down the parchèd channels of this calm.

Gundulf.
Too fond a hope! Let's to the water side.

[Exeunt.

Scene V.

—Hastings: a Room. The King moodily pacing to and fro, and from time to time flinging his head out of the window to feel the wind.
Rufus.
Curse the still winds, as huswives they keep close
And dare not stalk abroad to work my will.
They are for Robert: were they tangible,
I would uneye and mutilate the knaves.
I must take ship for Normandy; subserve,
Ye elements; it will be worse for you
If now ye palter with me. I will rule
O'er England, Normandy, the stubborn sea,
And you, ye lurking cravens. To mine aid
Or, by the Heavenly Feet—

[Looks out, cursing wildly.
[Enter Anselm.]
Anselm.
Belovèd son.

Rufus.
Father, you caught me in profanity.
This calm—

Anselm.
On Saturday you were at prayers.
I would hold counsel with you: let us sit
Together, while I tell you all my heart.
[They sit together.]
You go to war; it is an enterprise
On which you need God's blessing, and He looks
Upon a realm that through your wickedness
Is left unfenced to Satan. Dare you ask
For favourable winds from Him you mock
And in each action of your life blaspheme?

Rufus.
How sayest thou? Did I not hear the mass
At Battle Minster? Showed I impious?

Anselm.
Nay, for in heart you trembled at the thought
Of your great sire whose will you reverenced
Rearing a church that should confirm his praise
For Senlac's fight victorious. I marked
The struggle in you; for the wailing souls
We prayed, who on Calixta's awful day,
Passed unabsolved to Christ. More bitterly,
As one who hath long fasted for your sake,
Importunate as widow to the judge
Slow in reprisal, I laid hold on God,
Firm not to loose Him from the bond of prayer,
Till He had blessed me with your penitence.
The tears you dropped men said were for your sire;
I, looking up, beheld the angels' eyes
Dewy with joy; and knew the weeping king
Was praying for the servant's hire in place
Of the lost rank and nearness of a son.

Rufus.
Lost, lost, yea damned! If there were any hope
I dare not curse. God has a memory
For old offences, and they spring up fresh
With every vicious phrensy of the blood.
Mend me? I am incorrigible. Speak!
What remedy is in your conscience?

Anselm.
Let me hold synod ere the council part.
We will denounce the sins effeminate
That spread corruption on this English ground;
And scourge with spiritual whips the slaves
Bartering their manhood's birthright-liberty.
Help me to stay this curse; and for your soul—
I'd part with all the riches of my faith
So I might offer it a precious pearl
To Christ the treasure-seeker. Cleanse yourself,
Bow in the dust; then peaceful as a child
That waits in patience the authority
That honours him with business or command,
Pause for the favouring wind.

Rufus.
And did I choose
Stir in the matter, what would come of it
For you, Archbishop?

Anselm.
Nothing: but for God
Much, and for you. [Enter Eadmer.]
Edmer! He brings some news
Of import, thus to break our privacy.
[To Eadmer].
Seek'st thou the king?

Eadmer
[to the King].
Oh pardon, that I thus
Present the mariners' impatient prayer
For instant embarkation. All's astir;
The sails already flutter as 'twere March,
And the sea wrinkles.

Rufus.
Jolly messenger!
I was about to get me to my prayers,
But find my royal menaces suffice
To earn the traitor-winds' submission.
I stood and cursed them at the casement there,
And now they throng with halters round their necks,
Craving my pardon, humble to fulfil
My instant order;—'tis Embark for France.
I'm with you. [To Anselm.]
Good Archbishop, do not stay
To bless our sail at Hastings. We are safe
Under the Devil who walks to and fro
About the earth, and snorts out mighty winds.
Farewell!

[Rushes out.
Anselm.
My Edmer, we will quit the court
With speed, and [looking after the King]
henceforth leave him to his will.

[Exeunt.