What! you would make his coronation void
By cursing those who crown'd him. Out upon you!
BECKET.
Reginald, all men know I loved the Prince.
His father gave him to my care, and I
Became his second father: he had his faults,
For which I would have laid mine own life down
To help him from them, since indeed I loved him,
And love him next after my lord his father.
Rather than dim the splendour of his crown
I fain would treble and quadruple it
With revenues, realms, and golden provinces
So that were done in equity.
FITZURSE.
You have broken
Your bond of peace, your treaty with the King--
Wakening such brawls and loud disturbances
In England, that he calls you oversea
To answer for it in his Norman courts.
BECKET.
Prate not of bonds, for never, oh, never again
Shall the waste voice of the bond-breaking sea
Divide me from the mother church of England,
My Canterbury. Loud disturbances!
Oh, ay--the bells rang out even to deafening,
Organ and pipe, and dulcimer, chants and hymns
In all the churches, trumpets in the halls,
Sobs, laughter, cries: they spread their raiment down
Before me--would have made my pathway flowers,
Save that it was mid-winter in the street,
But full mid-summer in those honest hearts.
Pages:
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141