Act III - Page 2

HAROLD. May be so! I think it so, I think I am a fool To think it can be otherwise than so.

STIGAND. Tut, tut, I have absolved thee: dost thou scorn me, Because I had my Canterbury pallium, From one whom they dispoped?

HAROLD. No, Stigand, no!

STIGAND. Is naked truth actable in true life? I have heard a saying of thy father Godwin, That, were a man of state nakedly true, Men would but take him for the craftier liar.

LEOFWIN. Be men less delicate than the Devil himself? I thought that naked Truth would shame the Devil, The Devil is so modest.

GURTH. He never said it!

LEOFWIN. Be thou not stupid-honest, brother Gurth!

HAROLD. Better to be a liar's dog, and hold My master honest, than believe that lying And ruling men are fatal twins that cannot Move one without the other. Edward wakes!-- Dazed--he hath seen a vision.

EDWARD. The green tree! Then a great Angel past along the highest Crying 'the doom of England,' and at once He stood beside me, in his grasp a sword Of lightnings, wherewithal he cleft the tree From off the bearing trunk, and hurl'd it from him Three fields away, and then he dash'd and drench'd, He dyed, he soak'd the trunk with human blood, And brought the sunder'd tree again, and set it Straight on the trunk, that thus baptized in blood Grew ever high and higher, beyond my seeing, And shot out sidelong boughs across the deep That dropt themselves, and rooted in far isles Beyond my seeing: and the great Angel rose And past again along the highest crying 'The doom of England!'--Tostig, raise my head! [Falls back senseless.

HAROLD (raising him). Let Harold serve for Tostig!

QUEEN. Harold served Tostig so ill, he cannot serve for Tostig! Ay, raise his head, for thou hast laid it low! The sickness of our saintly king, for whom My prayers go up as fast as my tears fall, I well believe, hath mainly drawn itself From lack of Tostig--thou hast banish'd him.

HAROLD. Nay--but the council, and the king himself.

QUEEN. Thou hatest him, hatest him.

HAROLD (coldly). Ay--Stigand, unriddle This vision, canst thou?

STIGAND. Dotage!

EDWARD (starting up). It is finish'd. I have built the Lord a house--the Lord hath dwelt In darkness. I have built the Lord a house-- Palms, flowers, pomegranates, golden cherubim With twenty-cubit wings from wall to wall-- I have built the Lord a house--sing, Asaph! clash The cymbal, Heman! blow the trumpet, priest! Fall, cloud, and fill the house--lo! my two pillars, Jachin and Boaz!-- [Seeing HAROLD and GURTH. Harold, Gurth,--where am I? Where is the charter of our Westminster?

STIGAND. It lies beside thee, king, upon thy bed.

EDWARD. Sign, sign at once--take, sign it, Stigand, Aldred! Sign it, my good son Harold, Gurth, and Leofwin, Sign it, my queen!

ALL. We have sign'd it.

EDWARD. It is finish'd! The kingliest Abbey