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USKATAULF: List how this flattering mate soothes up the king

and doth abuse his gracious sufferance.

Base, vild, insinuating sycophant,

degenerate bastard, falsely bred,

foul mother-killing Viper, traitor, slave,

the scum of vices, all the ill that may be. ...

Who would excite the king to tyranny

against his countrymen but only he?

I am a Dane, renowned sovereign:

you have experience of my loyalty

and that my counsel is not mercenary.

If I were wise enough to give advice,

you should not prove a tyrant but a king.

A tyrant is abhorred of God and man,

whenas a king loved and honored.

Accomptest thou, Edricus, the Saxons fools ...

or rather hardy, wise and valorous?

Their names discover what their natures are,

more hard than stones, and yet not stones indeed.

In fight, more than stones detesting flight;

in peace, as soft as wax, wise, provident.

Witness the many combats they have fought

Denmark, our country's loss by them and theirs

with many other witnesses of worth.

How often they have driven us to our shifts

and made us take the sea for our defense ...

when we in number have been three to one.

Oh you deceive yourself and eke the king

in wishing him so much against himself.

Recall the former perils we have passed,

whose dear-bought times are freshly yet in mind,

the tyranny your father Sveynus used

in tithing people, killing 9 of 10.

What did ensue? Why loss of many holds,

bloodshed and war, rebellion, sword and fire;

for they are Englishmen, easy to rule ...

with lenity, so they be used like men:

patient of right, impatient of wrong,

brooking no tyranny in any sort,

but hating and revenging it with death;

therefore I counsel you, if it might stand,

to win their hearts, not by severity

but by your favor, love and lenity.

CANUTUS: Good Uskataulf, I allow your speech

and praise your counsel by my own consent.

I will endeavor to suppress my rage ...

and quench the burning choler of my heart,

which sometimes so inflames my inward parts

as I fall out with my best-loved friends.

I will therefore so moderate myself

as Englishmen shall think me English-born.

I will be mild and gentle to my foes

if gentleness can win their stubborn hearts.

But let us hence, my lords, by this the earl

expects us at Southampton; there we'll rest

till we consult if peace or war be best. ...

[Exit omnes. Leofric pulls Turkillus by the sleeve as he is going and stays him.]

LEOFRIC: A word, my lord.

TURKILLUS: ~~~ So you use no blows.

LEOFRIC: I think you noble, virtuous, secret, wise;

else would I not have opened my intent,

which doth so much concern our private good,

to you in private. So it is, my lord.

I have oft noted your discontented gait,

which measured by my own do well declare

the mind that rules your body is not pleased;

and since so sweet a symphony appears ...

betwixt our bodies' discontent, I judge

our mind's disturbance to be only one

caused from the sad neglect of these strange days.

Oh what a grief is it to noble bloods

to see each base-born groom promoted up,

each dunghill brat arreared to dignity,

each flatterer esteemed virtuous,

when the true, noble, virtuous gentlemen

are scorned, disgraced and held in obloquy.

Base Edricus, a traitor to his king, ...

is held in honor: we two trusty subjects

are feared, suspected, and have liberty

only to live, yet not in liberty;

for what is it but prisonment or worse

whenas our children, blood of our own blood,

are kept close prisoners, pledges for our faiths?

King Edmund, who indeed is our true king,

for good regard of merit and desert,

for honor, fame and true nobility,

is rightly termed mirror of majesty. ...

Canutus is a prudent, noble prince

and loves to hear him called so, too, too much

but I will tell you this: as long as we

take part against our sovereign Ironside,

we are but traitors, therefore --

TURKILLUS: Stay, noble Chester, for I spy your drift.

To heap as many titles on your head

as you have poured on mine, were but your due;

yet to cut off such troiting