University of Virginia Library

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.