BECKET The first proofs of the play were printed in 1879, but it was not published until December, 1884. See prefatory note to 'Queen Mary,' and the Memoir,' vol. ii. pp. 193-199. In 1879 Irving refused the play, but in 1891 he asked leave to produce it, and it proved very successful on the stage, both in England and in America. TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR, THE RIGHT HONORABLE EARL OF SELBORNE. MY DEAR SELBORNE, — To you, the honored Chancellor of our own day, I dedicate this dramatic memorial of your great predecessor; — which, altho' not intended in its present form to meet the exigencies of our modern theatre, has nevertheless you have assured me won your approbation. Ever yours, for so TENNYSON. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ HENRY II. (son of the Earl of Anjou). THOMAS BECKET, Chancellor of England, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. WALTER MAP, reputed author of ' Golias,' Latin poems against the priesthood. GEOFFREY, son of Rosamund and Henry. GRIM, a monk of Cambridge. SIR WILLIAM DE TRACY the four knights of the king's household, enemies of Becket. DE BROC OF SALTWOOD CASTLE. LORD LEICESTER. PHILIP DE ELEEMOSYNA. TWO KNIGHT TEMPLARS. JOHN OF OXFORD (called the Swearer). ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE, Queen of England (divorced from Louis of France). No, nor archbishop, nor my confessor yet. I would to God thou wert, for I should find An easy father confessor in thee. Becket. Saint Denis, that thou shouldst not. I should beat Thy kingship as my bishop hath beaten it. Henry. Hell take thy bishop then, and my kingship too! Come, come, I love thee and I know thee, A doter on white pheasant-flesh at feasts, Becket. That palate is insane which cannot tell A good dish from a bad, new wine from old. Henry. Well, who loves wine loves wo Over! the sweet summer closes, And never a flower at the close; And winter again and the snows. That was not the way I ended it firstbut unsymmetrically, preposterously, illogically, out of passion, 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; Not over and gone with the rose. 198 True, one rose will outblossom the rest, one rose in a bower. I speak after my fancies, for I am a Troubadour, you know, and won the violet at Toulouse; but my voice is harsh here, not in tune, a nightingale out of season; for marriage, rose or no rose, has killed the golden violet. Becket. Madam, you do ill to scorn wedded love. 207 Eleanor. So I do. Louis of France loved me, and I dreamed that I loved Louis of France: and I loved Henry of England, and Henry of England dreamed that he loved me; but the marriage-garland withers even with the putting on, the bright link rusts with the breath of the first after-marriage kiss, the harvest moon is the ripening of the harvest, and the |