Act I

SCENE I.--LONDON. THE KING'S PALACE.

(A comet seen through the open window.)

ALDWYTH, GAMEL, COURTIERS talking together.

FIRST COURTIER. Lo! there once more--this is the seventh night! Yon grimly-glaring, treble-brandish'd scourge Of England!

SECOND COURTIER. Horrible!

FIRST COURTIER. Look you, there's a star That dances in it as mad with agony!

THIRD COURTIER. Ay, like a spirit in Hell who skips and flies To right and left, and cannot scape the flame.

SECOND COURTIER. Steam'd upward from the undescendable Abysm.

FIRST COURTIER. Or floated downward from the throne Of God Almighty.

ALDWYTH. Gamel, son of Orm, What thinkest thou this means?

GAMEL. War, my dear lady!

ALDWYTH. Doth this affright thee?

GAMEL. Mightily, my dear lady!

ALDWYTH. Stand by me then, and look upon my face, Not on the comet.

Enter MORCAR.

Brother! why so pale?

MORCAR. It glares in heaven, it flares upon the Thames, The people are as thick as bees below, They hum like bees,--they cannot speak--for awe; Look to the skies, then to the river, strike Their hearts, and hold their babies up to it. I think that they would Molochize them too, To have the heavens clear.

ALDWYTH. They fright not me.

Enter LEOFWIN, after him GURTH.

Ask thou Lord Leofwin what he thinks of this!

MORCAR. Lord Leofwin, dost thou believe, that these Three rods of blood-red fire up yonder mean The doom of England and the wrath of Heaven?

BISHOP OF LONDON (passing). Did ye not cast with bestial violence Our holy Norman bishops down from all Their thrones in England? I alone remain. Why should not Heaven be wroth?

LEOFWIN. With us, or thee?

BISHOP OF LONDON. Did ye not outlaw your archbishop Robert, Robert of Jumieges--well-nigh murder him too? Is there no reason for the wrath of Heaven?

LEOFWIN. Why then the wrath of Heaven hath three tails, The devil only one.

[Exit BISHOP OF LONDON.

Enter ARCHBISHOP STIGAND.

Ask our Archbishop. Stigand should know the purposes of Heaven.

STIGAND. Not I. I cannot read the face of heaven; Perhaps our vines will grow the better for it.

LEOFWIN (laughing). He can but read the king's face on his coins.

STIGAND. Ay, ay, young lord, there the king's face is power.

GURTH. O father, mock not at a public fear, But tell us, is this pendent hell in heaven A harm to England?

STIGAND. Ask it of King Edward! And he may tell thee, I am a harm to England. Old uncanonical Stigand--ask of me Who had my pallium from an Antipope! Not he the man--for in our windy world What's up is faith, what's down is heresy. Our friends, the Normans, holp to shake his chair. I have a Norman fever on me, son, And cannot answer sanely.... What it means? Ask