Becket and other plays | Page 2

No, nor archbishop, nor my confessor yet. I would to God thou wert, for I should find An easy father confessor in thee.
BECKET. St. Denis, that thou shouldst not. I should beat Thy kingship as my bishop hath beaten it.
HENRY. Hell take thy bishop then, and my kingship too! Come, come, I love thee and I know thee, I know thee, A doter on white pheasant-flesh at feasts, A sauce-deviser for thy days of fish, A dish-designer, and most amorous Of good old red sound liberal Gascon wine: Will not thy body rebel, man, if thou flatter it?
BECKET. That palate is insane which cannot tell A good dish from a bad, new wine from old.
HENRY. Well, who loves wine loves woman.
BECKET. So I do. Men are God's trees, and women are God's flowers; And when the Gascon wine mounts to my head, The trees are all the statelier, and the flowers Are all the fairer.
HENRY. And thy thoughts, thy fancies?
BECKET. Good dogs, my liege, well train'd, and easily call'd Off from the game.
HENRY. Save for some once or twice, When they ran down the game and worried it.
BECKET. No, my liege, no!--not once--in God's name, no!
HENRY. Nay, then, I take thee at thy word--believe thee The veriest Galahad of old Arthur's hall. And so this Rosamund, my true heart-wife, Not Eleanor--she whom I love indeed As a woman should be loved--Why dost thou smile So dolorously?
BECKET. My good liege, if a man Wastes himself among women, how should he love A woman, as a woman should be loved?
HENRY. How shouldst thou know that never hast loved one? Come, I would give her to thy care in England When I am out in Normandy or Anjou.
BECKET. My lord, I am your subject, not your--
HENRY. Pander. God's eyes! I know all that--not my purveyor Of pleasures, but to save a life--her life; Ay, and the soul of Eleanor from hell-fire. I have built a secret bower in England, Thomas, A nest in a bush.
BECKET. And where, my liege?
HENRY (_whispers_). Thine ear.
BECKET. That's lone enough.
HENRY (_laying paper on table_). This chart here mark'd '_Her Bower_,' Take, keep it, friend. See, first, a circling wood, A hundred pathways running everyway, And then a brook, a bridge; and after that This labyrinthine brickwork maze in maze, And then another wood, and in the midst A garden and my Rosamund. Look, this line-- The rest you see is colour'd green--but this Draws thro' the chart to her.
BECKET. This blood-red line?
HENRY. Ay! blood, perchance, except thou see to her.
BECKET. And where is she? There in her English nest?
HENRY. Would God she were--no, here within the city. We take her from her secret bower in Anjou And pass her to her secret bower in England. She is ignorant of all but that I love her.
BECKET. My liege, I pray thee let me hence: a widow And orphan child, whom one of thy wild barons--
HENRY. Ay, ay, but swear to see to her in England.
BECKET. Well, well, I swear, but not to please myself.
HENRY. Whatever come between us?
BECKET. What should come Between us, Henry?
HENRY. Nay--I know not, Thomas.
BECKET. What need then? Well--whatever come between us. [Going.
HENRY. A moment! thou didst help me to my throne In Theobald's time, and after by thy wisdom Hast kept it firm from shaking; but now I, For my realm's sake, myself must be the wizard To raise that tempest which will set it trembling Only to base it deeper. I, true son Of Holy Church--no croucher to the Gregories That tread the kings their children underheel-- Must curb her; and the Holy Father, while This Barbarossa butts him from his chair, Will need my help--be facile to my hands. Now is my time. Yet--lest there should be flashes And fulminations from the side of Rome, An interdict on England--I will have My young son Henry crown'd the King of England, That so the Papal bolt may pass by England, As seeming his, not mine, and fall abroad. I'll have it done--and now.
BECKET. Surely too young Even for this shadow of a crown; and tho' I love him heartily, I can spy already A strain of hard and headstrong in him. Say, The Queen should play his kingship against thine!
HENRY. I will not think so, Thomas. Who shall crown him? Canterbury is dying.
BECKET. The next Canterbury.
HENRY. And who shall he be, my friend Thomas? Who?
BECKET. Name him; the Holy Father will confirm him.
HENRY (lays his hand on BECKET'S _shoulder_). Here!
BECKET. Mock me not. I am not even a monk. Thy jest--no more. Why--look--is this a sleeve For an archbishop?
HENRY. But the arm within Is Becket's, who hath beaten down my foes.
BECKET. A soldier's, not a spiritual arm.
HENRY. I lack a spiritual soldier, Thomas-- A man of this world and the next to boot.
BECKET. There's