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A CHORUS OF WOMEN OF CANTERBURY
THREE PRIESTS OF THE CATHEDRAL
A MESSENGER
ARCHBISHOP THOMAS BECKET
FOUR TEMPTERS
ATTENDANTS
The Scene is the Archbishop's Hall,
on December 2nd, 1170
CHORUS
Here let us stand, close by the cathedral. Here let us wait.
Are we drawn by danger? Is it the knowledge of safety, that draws our feet
Towards the cathedral? What danger can be
For us, the poor, the poor women of Canterbury? what tribulation
With which we are not already familiar? There is no danger
For us, and there is no safety in the cathedral. Some presage of an act
Which our eyes are compelled to witness, has forced our feet
Towards the cathedral. We are forced to bear witness.
Since golden October declined into sombre November
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And the apples were gathered and stored, and the land became brown sharp points of death in a waste of water and mud,
The New Year waits, breathes, waits, whispers in darkness.
While the labourer kicks off a muddy boot and stretches his hand to the fire,
The New Year waits, destiny waits for the coming.
Who has stretched out his hand to the fire and remembered the Saints at All Hallows,
Remembered the martyrs and saints who wait? and who shall
Stretch out his hand to the fire, and deny his master? who shall be warm
By the fire, and deny his master?
Seven years and the summer is over
Seven years since the Archbishop left us,
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He who was always kind to his people.
But it would not be well if he should return.
King rules or barons rule;
We have suffered various oppression,
But mostly we are left to our own devices,
And we are content if we are left alone.
We try to keep our households in order;
The merchant, shy and cautious, tries to compile a little fortune,
And the labourer bends to his piece of earth, earth-colour, his own colour.
Preferring to pass unobserved.
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Now I fear disturbance of the quiet seasons:
Winter shall come bringing death from the sea,
Ruinous spring shall beat at our doors,
Root and shoot shall eat our eyes and our ears,
Disastrous summer burn up the beds of our streams
And the poor shall wait for another decaying October.
Why should the summer bring consolation
For autumn fires and winter fogs?
What shall we do in the heat of summer
But wait in barren orchards for another October?
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Some malady is coming upon us. We wait, we wait,
And the saints and martyrs wait, for those who shall be martyrs and saints.
Destiny waits in the hand of God, shaping the still unshapen:
I have seen these things in a shaft of sunlight.
Destiny waits in the hand of God, not in the hands of statesmen
Who do, some well, some ill, planning and guessing,
Having their aims which turn in their hands in the pattern of time.
Come, happy December, who shall observe you, who shall preserve you?
Shall the Son of Man be born again in the litter of scorn?
For us, the poor, there is no action,
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But only to wait and to witness.
[Enter PRIESTS.]
FIRST PRIEST
Seven years and the summer is over.
Seven years since the Archbishop left us.
SECOND PRIEST
What does the Archbishop do, and our Sovereign Lord the Pope
With the stubborn King and the French King
In ceaseless intrigue, combinations,
In conference, meetings accepted, meetings refused,
Meetings unended or endless
At one place or another in France?
THIRD PRIEST
I see nothing quite conclusive in the art of temporal government,
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But violence, duplicity and frequent malversation.
King rules or barons rule:
The strong man strongly and the weak man by caprice.
They have but one law, to seize the power and keep it,
And the steadfast can manipulate the greed and lust of others,
The feeble is devoured by his own.
FIRST PRIEST
Shall these things not end
Until the poor at the gate
Have forgotten their friend, their Father in God, have forgotten
That they had a friend?
[Enter MESSENGER.]
MESSENGER
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Servants of God, and watchers of the temple,
I am here to inform you, without circumlocution:
The Archbishop is in England, and is close outside the city.
I was sent before in haste
To give you notice of his coming, as much as was possible,
That you may prepare to meet him.
FIRST PRIEST
What, is the exile ended, is our Lord Archbishop
Reunited with the King? what reconciliation
Of two proud men?
THIRD PRIEST
What peace can be found
To grow between the hammer and the anvil?
SECOND PRIEST
Tell us,
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Are the old disputes at an end, is the wall of pride cast down
That divided them? Is it peace or war?
FIRST PRIEST
Does he come
In full assurance, or only secure
In the power of Rome, the spiritual rule,
The assurance of right, and the love of the people?
MESSENGER
You are right to express a certain incredulity.
He comes in pride and sorrow, affirming all his claims,
Assured, beyond doubt, of the devotion of the people,
Who receive him with scenes of frenzied enthusiasm,
Lining the road and throwing down their capes,
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Strewing the way with leaves and late flowers of the season.
The streets of the city will be packed to suffocation,
And I think that his horse will be deprived of its tail,
A single hair of which becomes a precious relic.
He is at one with the Pope, and with the King of France,
Who indeed would have liked to detain him in his kingdom:
But as for our King, that is another matter.
FIRST PRIEST
But again, is it war or peace?
MESSENGER
Peace, but not the kiss of peace.
A patched up affair, if you ask my opinion.
And if you ask me, I think the Lord Archbishop
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Is not the man to cherish any illusions,
Or yet to diminish the least of his pretensions.
If you ask my opinion, I think that this peace
Is nothing like an end, or like a beginning.
It is common knowledge that when the Archbishop
Parted from the King, he said to the King,
My Lord, he said, I leave you as a man
Whom in this life I shall not see again.
I have this, I assure you, on the highest authority;
There are several opinions as to what he meant,
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no one considers it a happy prognostic.
[Exit.]
FIRST PRIEST
I fear for the Archbishop, I fear for the Church,
I know that the pride bred of sudden prosperity
Was but confirmed by a bitter adversity.
I saw him as Chancellor, flattered by the King,
Liked or feared by courtiers, in their overbearing fashion,
Despised and despising, always isolated,
Never one among them, always insecure;
His pride always feeding upon his own virtues,
Pride drawing sustenance from impartiality,
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Pride drawing sustenance from generosity,
Loathing power given by temporal devolution,
Wishing subjection to God alone.
Had the King been greater, or had he been weaker
Things had perhaps been different for Thomas.
SECOND PRIEST
Yet our lord is returned. Our lord has come back to his own again.
We have had enough of waiting, from December to dismal December.
The Archbishop shall be at our head, dispelling dismay and doubt.
He will tell us what we are to do, he will give us our orders, instruct us.
Our Lord is at one with the Pope, and also the King of France.
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We can lean on a rock, we can feel a firm foothold
Against the perpetual wash of tides of balance of forces of barons and landholders.
The rock of God is beneath our feet. Let us meet the Archbishop with cordial thanks giving:
Our lord, our Archbishop returns. And when the Archbishop returns
Our doubts are dispelled. Let us therefore rejoice,
I say rejoice, and show a glad face for his welcome.
I am the Archbishop's man. Let us give the Archbishop welcome!
THIRD PRIEST
For good or ill, let the wheel turn.
The wheel has been still, these seven years, and no good.
For ill or good, let the wheel turn.
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For who knows the end of good or evil?
Until the grinders cease
And the door shall be shut in the street,
And all the daughters of music shall be brought low.
CHORUS
Here is no continuing city, here is no abiding stay.
Ill the wind, ill the time, uncertain the profit, certain the danger.
O late late late, late is the time, late too late, and rotten the year;
Evil the wind, and bitter the sea, and grey the sky, grey grey grey.
O Thomas, return, Archbishop; return, return to France.
Return. Quickly. Quietly. Leave us to perish in quiet.
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You come with applause, you come with rejoicing, but you come bringing death into Canterbury:
A doom on the house, a doom on yourself, a doom on the world.
We do not wish anything to happen.
Seven years we have lived quietly.
Succeeded in avoiding notice,
Living and partly living.
There have been oppression and luxury,
There have been poverty and licence,
There has been minor injustice,
Yet we have gone on living,
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Living and partly living.
Sometimes the corn has failed us,
Sometimes the harvest is good,
One year is a year of rain,
Another a year of dryness,
One year the apples are abundant,
Another year the plums are lacking.
Yet we have gone on living,
Living and partly living.
We have kept the feasts, heard the masses,
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We have brewed beer and cyder,
Gathered wood against the winter,
Talked at the corner of the fire,
Talked at the corners of streets,
Talked not always in whispers,
Living and partly living.
We have seen births, deaths and marriages,
We have had various scandals,
We have been afflicted with taxes,
We have had laughter and gossip,
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Several girls have disappeared
Unaccountably, and some not able to.
We have all had our private terrors,
Our particular shadows, our secret fears.
But now a great fear is upon us, a fear not of one but of many,
A fear like birth and death, when we see birth and death alone
In a void apart. We
Are afraid in a fear which we cannot know, which we cannot face, which none understands,
And our hearts are torn from us, our brains unskinned like the layers of an onion, our selves are lost lost
In a final fear which none understands. O Thomas Archbishop,
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O Thomas our Lord, leave us and leave us be, in our humble and tarnished frame of existence, leave us; do not ask us
To stand to the doom on the house, the doom on the Archbishop, the doom on the world.
Archbishop, secure and assured of your fate, unaffrayed among the shades, do you realise what you ask, do you realise what it means
To the small folk drawn into the pattern of fate, the small folk who live among small things,
The strain on the brain of the small folk who stand to the doom of the house, the doom of their lord, the doom of the world?
O Thomas, Archbishop, leave us, leave us, leave sullen Dover, and set sail for France. Thomas our Archbishop still our Archbishop even in France. Thomas Archbishop, set the white sail between the grey sky and the bitter sea, leave us, leave us for France.
SECOND PRIEST
What a way to talk at such a juncture!
You are foolish, immodest and babbling women.
Do you not know that the good Archbishop
Is likely to arrive at any moment?
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The crowds in the streets will be cheering and cheering,
You go on croaking like frogs in the treetops:
But frogs at least can be cooked and eaten.
Whatever you are afraid of, in your craven apprehension,
Let me ask you at the least to put on pleasant faces,
And give a hearty welcome to our good Archbishop.
[Enter THOMAS.]
THOMAS
Peace. And let them be, in their exaltation.
They speak better than they know, and beyond your understanding.
They know and do not know, what it is to act or suffer.
They know and do not know, that action is suffering
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And suffering is action. Neither does the agent suffer
Nor the patient act. But both are fixed
In an eternal action, an eternal patience
To which all must consent that it may be willed
And which all must suffer that they may will it,
That the pattern may subsist, for the pattern is the action
And the suffering, that the wheel may turn and still
Be forever still.
SECOND PRIEST
O my Lord, forgive me, I did not see you coming,
Engrossed by the chatter of these foolish women.
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Forgive us, my Lord, you would have had a better welcome
If we had been sooner prepared for the event.
But your Lordship knows that seven years of waiting,
Seven years of prayer, seven years of emptiness,
Have better prepared our hearts for your coming,
Than seven days could make ready Canterbury.
However, I will have fires laid in all your rooms
To take the chill off our English December,
Your Lordship now being used to a better climate.
Your Lordship will find your rooms in order as you left them.
THOMAS
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And will try to leave them in order as I find them.
I am more than grateful for all your kind attentions.
These are small matters. Little rest in Canterbury
With eager enemies restless about us.
Rebellious bishops, York, London, Salisbury,
Would have intercepted our letters,
Filled the coast with spies and sent to meet me
Some who hold me in bitterest hate.
By God's grace aware of their prevision
I sent my letters on another day,
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Had fair crossing, found at Sandwich
Broc, Warenne, and the Sheriff of Kent,
Those who had sworn to have my head from me
Only John, the Dean of Salisbury,
Fearing for the King's name, warning against treason,
Made them hold their hands. So for the time
We are unmolested.
FIRST PRIEST
But do they follow after?
THOMAS
For a little time the hungry hawk
Will only soar and hover, circling lower,
Waiting excuse, pretence, opportunity.
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End will be simple, sudden, God-given.
Meanwhile the substance of our first act
Will be shadows, and the strife with shadows.
Heavier the interval than the consummation.
All things prepare the event. Watch.
[Enter FIRST TEMPTER.]
FIRST TEMPTER
You see, my Lord, I do not wait upon ceremony:
Here I have come, forgetting all acrimony,
Hoping that your present gravity
Will find excuse for my humble levity
Remembering all the good time past.
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Your Lordship won't despise an old friend out of favour?
Old Tom, gay Tom, Becket of London,
Your Lordship won't forget that evening on the river
When the King and you and I were all friends together?
Friendship should be more than biting Time can sever.
What, my Lord, now that you recover
Favour with the King, shall we say that summer's over
Or that the good time cannot last?
Fluting in the meadows, viols in the hall,
Laughter and apple-blossom floating on the water,
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Singing at nightfall, whispering in chambers,
Fires devouring the winter season,
Eating up the darkness, with wit and wine and wisdom!
Now that the King and you are in amity,
Clergy and laity may return to gaiety,
Mirth and sportfulness need not walk warily.
THOMAS
You talk of seasons that are past. I remember:
Not worth forgetting.
TEMPTER
And of the new season.
Spring has come in winter. Snow in the branches
Shall float as sweet as blossoms. Ice along the ditches
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Mirror the sunlight. Love in the orchard
Send the sap shooting. Mirth matches melancholy.
THOMAS
We do not know very much of the future
Except that from generation to generation
The same things happen again and again.
Men learn little from others' experience.
But in the life of one man, never
The same time returns. Sever
The cord, shed the scale. Only
The fool, fixed in his folly, may think
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He can turn the wheel on which he turns.
TEMPTER
My Lord, a nod is as good as a wink.
A man will often love what he spurns.
For the good times past, that are come again
I am your man.
THOMAS
Not in this train.
Look to your behaviour. You were safer
Think of penitence and follow your master.
TEMPTER
Not at this gait!
If you go so fast, others may go faster.
Your Lordship is too proud!
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The safest beast is not the one that roars most loud.
This was not the way of the King our master!
You were not used to be so hard upon sinners
When they were your friends. Be easy, man!
The easy man lives to eat the best dinners.
Take a friend's advice. Leave well alone,
Or your goose may be cooked and eaten to the bone.
THOMAS
You come twenty years too late.
TEMPTER
Then I leave you to your fate.
I leave you to the pleasures of your higher vices,
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Which will have to be paid for at higher prices.
Farewell, my Lord, I do not wait upon ceremony,
I leave as I came, forgetting all acrimony,
Hoping that your present gravity
Will find excuse for my humble levity.
If you will remember me, my Lord, at your prayers,
I'll remember you at kissing-time below the stairs.
THOMAS
Leave-well-alone, the springtime fancy,
So one thought goes whistling down the wind.
The impossible is still temptation.
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The impossible, the undersirable,
Voices under sleep, waking a dead world,
So that the mind may not be whole in the present.
[Enter SECOND TEMPTER.]
SECOND TEMPTER
Your Lordship has forgotten me, perhaps. I will remind you.
We met at Clarendon, at Northampton,
And last at Montmirail, in Maine. Now that I have recalled them,
Let us but set these not too pleasant memories
In balance against each other, earlier
And weightier ones: those of the Chancellorship.
See how the late ones rise! You, master of policy
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Whom all acknowledged, should guide the state again.
THOMAS
Your meaning?
TEMPTER
The Chancellorship that you resigned
When you were made Archbishop-that was a mistake
On your part-still may be regained. Think, my Lord,
Power obtained grows to glory,
Life lasting, a permanent possession.
A templed tomb, monument of marble.
Rule over men reckon no madness.
THOMAS
To the man of God what gladness?
TEMPTER
Sadness
Only to those giving love to God alone.
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Shall he who held the solid substance
Wander waking with deceitful shadows?
Power is present. Holiness hereafter.
THOMAS
Who then?
TEMPTER
The Chancellor. King and Chancellor.
King commands. Chancellor richly rules.
This is a sentence not taught in the schools.
To set down the great, protect the poor,
Beneath the throne of God can man do more?
Disarm the ruffian, strengthen the laws,
Rule for the good of the better cause,
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Dispensing justice make all even,
Is thrive on earth, and perhaps in heaven.
THOMAS
What means?
TEMPTER
Real power
Is purchased at price of a certain submission.
Your spiritual power is earthly perdition.
Power is present, for him who will wield.
THOMAS
Who shall have it?
TEMPTER
He who will come.
THOMAS
What shall be the month?
TEMPTER
The last from the first.
THOMAS
What shall we give for it?
TEMPTER
Pretence of priestly power.
THOMAS
Why should we give it?
TEMPTER
For the power and the glory.
THOMAS
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No!
TEMPTER
Yes! Or bravery will be broken,
Cabined in Canterbury, realmless ruler,
Self-bound servant of a powerless Pope,
The old stag, circled with hounds.
THOMAS
No!
TEMPTER
Yes! men must man?uvre. Monarchs also,
Waging war abroad, need fast friends at home.
Private policy is a public profit;
Dignity still shall be dressed with decorum.
THOMAS
You forget the bishops
Whom I have laid under excommunication.
TEMPTER
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Hungry hatred
Will not strive against intelligent self-interest.
THOMAS
You forget the barons. Who will not forget
Constant curbing of petty privilege.
TEMPTER
Against the barons
Is King's cause, churl's cause, Chancellor's cause.
THOMAS
No! shall I, who keep the keys
Of heaven and hell, supreme alone in England,
Who bind and loose, with power from the Pope,
Descend to desire a punier power?
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Delegate to deal the doom of damnation,
To condemn kings, not serve among their servants,
Is my open office. No! Go.
TEMPTER
Then I leave you to your fate.
Your sin soars sunward, covering kings' falcons.
THOMAS
Temporal power, to build a good world,
To keep order, as the world knows order.
Those who put their faith in worldly order
Not controlled by the order of God,
In confident ignorance, but arrest disorder,
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Make it fast, breed fatal disease,
Degrade what they exalt. Power with the King-
I was the King, his arm, his better reason.
But what was once exaltation
Would now only be mean descent.
[Enter THIRD TEMPTER.]
THIRD TEMPTER
I am an unexpected visitor.
THOMAS
I expected you.
TEMPTER
But not in this guise, or for my present purpose.
THOMAS
No purpose brings surprise.
TEMPTER
Well, my Lord
I am no trifler, and no politician.
To idle or intrigue at court
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I have no skill. I am no courtier.
I know a horse, a dog, a wench;
I know how to hold my estates in order,
A country-keeping lord who minds his own business.
It is we country lords who know the country
And we who know what the country needs.
It is our country. We care for the country.
We are the backbone of the nation.
We, not the plotting parasites
About the King. Excuse my bluntness:
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I am a rough straightforward Englishman.
THOMAS
Proceed straight forward.
TEMPTER
Purpose is plain.
Endurance of friendship does not depend
Upon ourselves, but upon circumstance.
But circumstance is not undetermined.
Unreal friendship may turn to real
But real friendship, once ended, cannot be mended.
Sooner shall enmity turn to alliance.
The enmity that never knew friendship
Can sooner know accord.
THOMAS
For a countryman
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You wrap your meaning in as dark generality
As any courtier.
TEMPTER
This is the simple fact!
You have no hope of reconciliation
With Henry the King. You look only
To blind assertion in isolation.
That is a mistake.
THOMAS
O Henry, O my King!
TEMPTER
Other friends
May be found in the present situation.
King in England is not all-powerful;
King is in France, squabbling in Anjou;
Round him waiting hungry sons.
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We are for England. We are in England.
You and I, my Lord, are Normans.
England is a land for Norman
Sovereignty. Let the Angevin
Destroy himself, fighting in Anjou.
He does not understand us, the English barons.
We are the people.
THOMAS
To what does this lead?
TEMPTER
To a happy coalition
Of intelligent interests.
THOMAS
But what have you-
If you do speak for barons-
TEMPTER
For a powerful party
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Which has turned its eyes in your direction-
To gain from you, your Lordship asks.
For us, Church favour would be an advantage,
Blessing of Pope powerful protection
In the fight for liberty. You, my Lord,
In being with us, would fight a good stroke
At once, for England and for Rome,
Ending the tyrannous jurisdiction
Of king's court over bishop's court,
Of king's court over baron's court.
THOMAS
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Which I helped to found.
TEMPTER
Which you helped to found.
But time past is time forgotten.
We expect the rise of a new constellation.
THOMAS
And if the Archbishop cannot trust the King,
How can he trust those who work for King's undoing?
TEMPTER
Kings will allow no power but their own;
Church and people have good cause against the throne.
THOMAS
If the Archbishop cannot trust the Throne,
He has good cause to trust none but God alone.
I ruled once as Chancellor
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And men like you were glad to wait at my door.
Not only in the court, but in the field
And in the tilt-yard I made many yield.
Shall I who ruled like an eagle over doves
Now take the shape of a wolf among wolves?
Pursue your treacheries as you have done before:
No one shall say that I betrayed a king.
TEMPTER
Then, my Lord, I shall not wait at your door.
And I well hope, before another spring
The King will show his regard for your loyalty.
THOMAS
