Puslapio vaizdai
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Doth of pure truth substantiate the essence.

Enough! Come down. The screech-owl from afar

Upbraids thy usurpation. Cease, I say.

GURMO descends.

Await me in the border of the forest,

By Elstan's well.

[Exit GURMO.

A sturdy knave is yon!

He has transacted murder in his time,

Yet will he walk in darkness through the forest
Nothing discomforted nor scared. Who next?
Ha the Queen Mother!

[Enter the QUEEN MOTHER in a Peasant's garb.

Give your Grace good even!

You are a faithful servant of the Church,

And humbler weeds than these would gladly wear,
And wilder solitudes, by night or day,

Would seek to serve her.

THE QUEEN MOTHER.

Father, I am faint,

For a strange terror seized me by the way.

I pray you let me sit.

DUNSTAN,

I say, forbear!

Thou art in a Presence that thou wot'st not of,
Wherein no mortal may presume to sit.

If stand thou canst not, kneel.

[She falls on her knees.

THE QUEEN MOTHER.

Oh, merciful Heaven!

Oh, sinner that I am!

DUNSTAN.

Dismiss thy fears;

Thine errand is acceptable to Him

Who rules the hour, and thou art safer here
Than in thy palace. Quake not, but be calm,
And tell me of the wretched King, thy son.
This black, incestuous, unnatural love
For his blood-relative-yea, worse, a seed
That ever was at enmity with God-
His cousin of the house of Antichrist!
Is it as I surmised?

THE QUEEN MOTHER.

Alas! lost boy!

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This arching umbrage, step aside; look up;

The alphabet of Heaven is o'er thy head,

The starry literal multitude.

To few,

And not in mercy, is it given to read

The mixed celestial cypher. Not in mercy,

Save as a penance merciful in issue,

Doth God impart that mournfullest of gifts

Which pushes farther into future time

The bounds of human foresight. Yonder book,

In mercy to the King and not to me,

Unfolds its tragic page. Is written there

Something that must be, something more that may,

But yet may be prevented.

THE QUEEN MOTHER.

On my knees,

I pray thee, holy Dunstan, read not there

Of ruin to my son.

DUNSTAN.

What there is writ

Needs must I read; and wiselier shouldst thou pray
That reading there of danger, I should read
Lessons of caution likewise, and impart

Means of prevention.

THE QUEEN MOTHER.

In thy holy hands

I place myself; thy bidding will I do

As knowing it is Heaven's.

DUNSTAN.

This wily wench

That profiting by the softness and green sap
Of ignorant youth, doth round her finger twine
The sceptre like a sliver-

THE QUEEN MOTHER.

Insolent jade!

Were it not, father, a good deed in Christ,
To have her in a manner...say...removed?
For truly, truly I may say, my lord,
Yea and in sooth I witness it against her,
That with her witcheries and wanton looks
She hath inveigled and ensnared the King,

Bewitch'd past reason, that he flouts his mother, Forgets his duty-woeful, woeful day!

Says 'Silence,' if I do but say God bless him!'
And all by her procurement and behest,
Scandalous minion! Were it not, I say,

An excellent deed and righteous before God,
To take her from his sight, that she should cease
To vex good men and holy with her wiles?

DUNSTAN.

With thee the cry is ever " Kill and Kill.”
I tell thee once again, my soul abhors
This vulture's appetite, not more foul in act
Than gross in apprehension. Look we round:
In Wessex Athulf more prevails than we;
Leolf in Sussex; which of us is first
In Hampshire, hard to say. I tell thee, no;
It must not be.

THE QUEEN MOTHER.

Or but to mew her up...

DUNSTAN.

Nay, worse and worse; it were but to inflame

By opposition the boy's passionate will.

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