Part 3 (1/2)

BECKET.

Then for thy barren jest Take thou mine answer in bare commonplace-- _Nolo episcopari_.

HENRY.

Ay, but _Nolo Archiepiscopari_, my good friend, Is quite another matter.

BECKET.

A more awful one.

Make _me_ archbishop! Why, my liege, I know Some three or four poor priests a thousand times Fitter for this grand function. _Me_ archbishop!

G.o.d's favour and king's favour might so clash That thou and I----That were a jest indeed!

HENRY.

Thou angerest me, man: I do not jest.

_Enter_ ELEANOR _and_ SIR REGINALD FITZURSE.

ELEANOR (_singing_).

Over! the sweet summer closes, The reign of the roses is done--

HENRY (_to_ BECKET, _who is going_).

Thou shalt not go. I have not ended with thee.

ELEANOR (_seeing chart on table_).

This chart with the red line! her bower! whose bower?

HENRY.

The chart is not mine, but Becket's: take it, Thomas.

ELEANOR.

Becket! O--ay--and these chessmen on the floor--the king's crown broken! Becket hath beaten thee again--and thou hast kicked down the board. I know thee of old.

HENRY.

True enough, my mind was set upon other matters.

ELEANOR.

What matters? State matters? love matters?

HENRY.

My love for thee, and thine for me.

ELEANOR.

Over! the sweet summer closes, The reign of the roses is done; Over and gone with the roses, And over and gone with the sun.

Here; but our sun in Aquitaine lasts longer. I would I were in Aquitaine again--your north chills me.

Over! the sweet summer closes, And never a flower at the close; Over and gone with the roses, And winter again and the snows.

That was not the way I ended it first--but unsymmetrically, preposterously, illogically, out of pa.s.sion, without art--like a song of the people. Will you have it? The last Parthian shaft of a forlorn Cupid at the King's left breast, and all left-handedness and under-handedness.

And never a flower at the close, Over and gone with the roses, Not over and gone with the rose.