ACT IV
Time: The next day.
Scene: Before the west front of Canterbury Cathedral, gorgeously decorated with tapestries, hatchments, and cloth of gold. Grouped nearby are temporary booths of venders, gaily trimmed.Many pilgrims are assembled; others keep arriving from different directions, talking, praying, and sight-seeing. At the Cathedral door a Priest blesses, with a sprengel, those who enter.
Scene: Before the west front of Canterbury Cathedral, gorgeously decorated with tapestries, hatchments, and cloth of gold. Grouped nearby are temporary booths of venders, gaily trimmed.
Many pilgrims are assembled; others keep arriving from different directions, talking, praying, and sight-seeing. At the Cathedral door a Priest blesses, with a sprengel, those who enter.
FIRST VENDER
Relics! Souvenirs!
SECOND VENDER
Blood of the blissful martyr!
A BLACK FRIAR
[To Bailey, the Host.]
A guide, Sir Hosteler?
HOST
Be off!
SECOND VENDER
[To the Guild-men.]
Ampulles?
WEAVER
What are they?
SECOND VENDER
Leaden bottles; look!
DYER
What’s in ’em?
SECOND VENDER
Drops from the holy well: St. Thomas’ well,
That turned four times to blood and once to milk;
Good for the humours, gout, and falling-sickness.
WEAVER
[Buys some.]
Here.
SECOND VENDER
Eightpence.
[The Guild-men buy, and arrange the leaden vials in their hats.]
FIRST VENDER
Vernicles! St. Peter’s keys!
CARPENTER
[Examining a purchase.]
What’s written on this brooch, sir?
CLERK
“Caput Thomæ.”
PLOUGHMAN
[Staring at a statue in a niche of the Cathedral.]
Is he alive?
FRANKLIN
Naw; he’s just petrified.
BLACK FRIAR
[To Merchant.]
A guide, sir?
MERCHANT
No.
BLACK FRIAR
Show you the spot, sir, where
The four knights murdered Becket, in the year
Eleven hundred seventy, at dusk,
The twenty-ninth day of December—
A GREY FRIAR
Nay, sir,
I’ll show you the true statue of the Virgin
That talked to holy Thomas when he prayed.
BLACK FRIAR
St. George’s arm, sir! Come; I’ll let you kiss it.
GREY FRIAR
This way; the tomb of Edward the Black Prince.
[Both seize Merchant and tug him.]
MERCHANT
[Struggling.]
Mine host!
HOST
[Coming up.]
Pack off!
PARSON
[To Ploughman.]
What May-day queen comes here?
[Outside, left, are heard girls’ voices singing; enter, dressed richly and gaily,Chaucer,surrounded by a bevy of Canterbury brooch-girls, who have wreathed him with flowers and long ribbons, by which they pull him; plying him with their wares, while he attempts to talk aside with the Man-of-Law, who accompanies him.]
[Outside, left, are heard girls’ voices singing; enter, dressed richly and gaily,Chaucer,surrounded by a bevy of Canterbury brooch-girls, who have wreathed him with flowers and long ribbons, by which they pull him; plying him with their wares, while he attempts to talk aside with the Man-of-Law, who accompanies him.]
CANTERBURY GIRLS
[Sing.]
High and low,Low and high,Be they merry,Be they glum,When they comeTo Canterbury,Canterbury,Canterbury,Some low,Some high,Canterbury brooches buy.
High and low,Low and high,Be they merry,Be they glum,When they comeTo Canterbury,Canterbury,Canterbury,Some low,Some high,Canterbury brooches buy.
High and low,Low and high,Be they merry,Be they glum,When they comeTo Canterbury,Canterbury,Canterbury,Some low,Some high,Canterbury brooches buy.
High and low,
Low and high,
Be they merry,
Be they glum,
When they come
To Canterbury,
Canterbury,
Canterbury,
Some low,
Some high,
Canterbury brooches buy.
CHAUCER
Sweet ladies—nay, sweet Canterbury muses,
Not Hercules amid the Lydian nymphs
Was ravished by more dulcet harmonies.
[To Man-of-Law.]
You sergeants-of-the-law are subtle men.
MAN-OF-LAW
We have a knack—a knack, sir.
A GIRL
Pull his sleeve.
ANOTHER
They say you are a bridegroom. Is it true, sir?
CHAUCER
Your Canterbury skies rain compliments.
[To Man-of-Law.]
Pray!—
MAN-OF-LAW
[Taking money from Chaucer.]
If you insist, my lord.
CHAUCER
Nay, not “my lord.”
How stands the case?
MAN-OF-LAW
You say this wife hath been
Some eight times wedded?
CHAUCER
Five times.
A GIRL
Stop their gossip,
He’s talking business.
ALL THE GIRLS
Brooches! Souvenirs!
CHAUCER
[Examining their wares.]
How much?
A GIRL
This? Two-pence.
MAN-OF-LAW
Five times—five times. Well!
CHAUCER
[To Man-of-Law, giving more money.]
Prithee—
MAN-OF-LAW
If you insist.
A GIRL
[To Chaucer.]
Mine for a penny.
MAN-OF-LAW
Why, then, the case stands thus: By English law,
No woman may be wedded but five times.
By law, sir, a sixth husband is proscribed.
CHAUCER
You’ll vouch for that? By law?
MAN-OF-LAW
Sir, I will quote
You precedents from William Conqueror.
CHAUCER
Alas, my nuptials! And I would have made
So neat a bridegroom!
A GIRL
Come, sir, will you buy?
ANOTHER
Take mine!
ALL THE GIRLS
Mine! Mine! Mine!
CHAUCER
Nay, fresh goddesses,
Your graces are more heavenly souvenirs!
Sell to me your glances
For a poet’s fancies!
[To a girl with yellow hair.]
You, Midas’ daughter, how much for this gold?
THE GIRL
’Tis not for sale, sir.
CHAUCER
[To another.]
How much for that rose?
THE GIRL
What rose?
CHAUCER
Your smile.
THE GIRL
Gratis—for you, sir.
[Enter Alisoun, attired gorgeously as a bride.]
ALL THE GIRLS
Oh-h!
CHAUCER
How much, Olympians, for your nectar’d lips?
ALL THE GIRLS
A kiss! A kiss!
ALISOUN
Hold! Give the bride first licks.
ALL THE GIRLS
The bride!
ALISOUN
[After kissing Chaucer.]
Now, lasses, take your turns.
A GIRL
The shrew!
ALISOUN
Lo! what a pot of honey I have won
To lure the village butterflies. Come, pretties,
Sip, sip, and die o’ jealousy.
A GIRL
[To Chaucer.]
Who is
This woman?
CHAUCER
Nymphs, this is the gentle Thisbe
That wooed and won me. Judge then, goddesses,
How I must weep to lose her.
ALISOUN
Lose me, love?
Nay, honey-pot, I am too stuck on thee.
Thy bosom is my hive, and I queen-bee.
A GIRL
I’d rather lose my heart to a ripe pumpkin.
ANOTHER
Or a green gourd.
[They go off, in piqued laughter.]
ALISOUN
[Calls after them.]
What devil doth it matter
Whether he be a pumpkin or a rose,
So be that he rings sound.—Give me the man
That keeps his old bark grafted with new buds
And lops away the dead wood from his trunk,
And I will hug him like the mistletoe.
Geoffrey, thou art the man.
CHAUCER
[As Alisoun is about to embrace him, turns to the Man-of-Law.]
Cold-blooded knave!
The flower of women and the wit of wives—
Yet I must lose her!
MAN-OF-LAW
Blame not me, sir; blame
The law.
CHAUCER
O heartless knave!
MAN-OF-LAW
By English law,
No woman may be wedded but five times.
ALISOUN
What’s that?
CHAUCER
But is there no exception?
MAN-OF-LAW
None.
By law, sir, a sixth husband is proscribed.
ALISOUN
Hey, what! What devil? Say’t again. I’m deef.
MAN-OF-LAW
By law, dame, a sixth husband is proscribed.
ALISOUN
Prescribed? Ho, then, art thou a doctor?
MAN-OF-LAW
No,
I am a sergeant-of-the-law.—“Proscribed”
Is to say, dame, “inhibited,” “forbidden.”
ALISOUN
How! you forbid me to take Geoffrey here
For my sixth husband?
CHAUCER
Nay, the law forbids it.
ALISOUN
Pish! What’s the fine?
MAN-OF-LAW
To hang, dame, by the neck
Till thou art dead.
ALISOUN
Aye, man, byGeoffrey’sneck.
Get out!
CHAUCER
Canst quote the law?
MAN-OF-LAW
The statute, sir,—
The forty-ninth doom of King Richard—saith:
“One woman to five men sufficeth,” or
“Quid tibi placet mihi placet,” sir.
ALISOUN
Hog-gibberish!
CHAUCER
[Aside.]
Nay, ’tis a man-of-law.
But soft! we’ll bribe him.
ALISOUN
[Aside.]
Do, duck.
CHAUCER
Sergeant—hist!
[Whispers aside and gives him money, as if covertly. Thenaloud.]
This statute, is there no appeal from it?
MAN-OF-LAW
A special dispensation from the king;
That’s all, sir.
ALISOUN
Break his head!
CHAUCER
Nay, Alis, here’s
Good news. The king himself is here to-day
In Canterbury. I will beg him grant
This special dispensation for our marriage.
ALISOUN
Thou—ask the king?
CHAUCER
Why not?
ALISOUN
Give me a vintner
For cheek! Sweet duck, I do believe thou lov’st me.
[Enter the Miller, with the other Swains.]
CHAUCER
I am unworthy, love, to match thy wit.
MILLER
Thou art unworthy, fool, to latch her shoe.
CHAUCER
Even so.
MILLER
Thou likes to play the gentleman;
Come, then; I’ll duel you.
CHAUCER
Good Bob, I love thee.
MILLER
Come: knives or fists?
CHAUCER
Kind Bob, thou shalt this day
Shed tears and vow I love thee.
MILLER
Wilt not fight?
Then—
ALISOUN
[Intercepting a blow at Chaucer.]
Hold there, Robin Sweetheart, art thou jealous?
MILLER
Aye, dame.
ALISOUN
What for?
MILLER
[To Swains.]