BECKET.
Follow us, my son, and we will find it for thee--
Or something manlier.
[_Exeunt_ BECKET, ROSAMUND, _and_ GEOFFREY.
ELEANOR.
The world hath trick'd her--that's the King; if so,
There was the farce, the feint--not mine. And yet
I am all but sure my dagger was a feint
Till the worm turn'd--not life shot up in blood,
But death drawn in;--_(looking at the vial) this_ was no feint then?
no.
But can I swear to that, had she but given
Plain answer to plain query? nay, methinks
Had she but bow'd herself to meet the wave
Of humiliation, worshipt whom she loathed,
I should have let her be, scorn'd her too much
To harm her. Henry--Becket tells him this--
To take my life might lose him Aquitaine.
Too politic for that. Imprison me?
No, for it came to nothing--only a feint.
Did she not tell me I was playing on her?
I'll swear to mine own self it was a feint.
Why should I swear, Eleanor, who am, or was,
A sovereign power? The King plucks out their eyes
Who anger him, and shall not I, the Queen,
Tear out her heart--kill, kill with knife or venom
One of his slanderous harlots? 'None of such?'
I love her none the more.
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