Queen Mary and Harold eBook

GURTH (calling).  Harold, Harold!

HAROLD.  The voice of Gurth! (Enter GURTH.)
                            Good even, my good brother!

GURTH.  Good even, gentle Edith.

EDITH.  Good even, Gurth.

GURTH.  Ill news hath come!  Our hapless brother, Tostig—­
He, and the giant King of Norway, Harold
Hardrada—­Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Orkney,
Are landed North of Humber, and in a field
So packt with carnage that the dykes and brooks
Were bridged and damm’d with dead, have overthrown
Morcar and Edwin.

HAROLD.  Well then, we must fight. 
How blows the wind?

GURTH.  Against St. Valery
And William.

HAROLD.  Well then, we will to the North.

GURTH.  Ay, but worse news:  this William sent to Rome,
Swearing thou swarest falsely by his Saints: 
The Pope and that Archdeacon Hildebrand
His master, heard him, and have sent him back
A holy gonfanon, and a blessed hair
Of Peter, and all France, all Burgundy,
Poitou, all Christendom is raised against thee;
He hath cursed thee, and all those who fight for thee,
And given thy realm of England to the bastard.

HAROLD.  Ha! ha!

EDITH.  Oh! laugh not!...  Strange and ghastly in the gloom
And shadowing of this double thunder-cloud
That lours on England—­laughter!

HAROLD.  No, not strange! 
This was old human laughter in old Rome
Before a Pope was born, when that which reign’d
Call’d itself God.—­A kindly rendering
Of ‘Render unto Caesar.’ ...  The Good Shepherd! 
Take this, and render that.

GURTH.  They have taken York.

HAROLD.  The Lord was God and came as man—­the Pope
Is man and comes as God.—­York taken?

GURTH.  Yea,
Tostig hath taken York!

HAROLD.  To York then.  Edith,
Hadst thou been braver, I had better braved
All—­but I love thee and thou me—­and that
Remains beyond all chances and all churches,
And that thou knowest.

EDITH.  Ay, but take back thy ring. 
It burns my hand—­a curse to thee and me. 
I dare not wear it.
            [Proffers HAROLD the ring, which he takes.

HAROLD.  But I dare.  God with thee!

[Exeunt HAROLD and GURTH.

EDITH.  The King hath cursed him, if he marry me;
The Pope hath cursed him, marry me or no! 
God help me!  I know nothing—­can but pray
For Harold—­pray, pray, pray—­no help but prayer,
A breath that fleets beyond this iron world,
And touches Him that made it.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.—­IN NORTHUMBRIA.

ARCHBISHOP ALDRED, MORCAR, EDWIN, and FORCES. Enter HAROLD. The standard of the golden Dragon of Wessex preceding him.