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I will reward thee with some higher place.

But first, to try thee, fetch the constable.

Yet stay awhile. They would suspect the truth.

I'll have thee, when thou seest me gone away,

beat these two beggars hence and teach them how

they shall hereafter choose a meaner son.

Wilt thou be trusty, wilt thou cudgel them?

STITCH: Never take care for that; I'll beat them, they ...

were never better beaten since they were born.

EDRICUS: Aye, do so, Stitch, I prithee beat them well,

hark ye, and see them whipped out of the town,

and if they speak or prattle, curse or rave,

for every word give them ten blows, sweet slave.

EDRICK: Oh son, son, stay!

STITCH: Son, son, with a pestilence. You are much like to be his

father and you his mother. You brought me hither --

EDRICK: Aye.

STITCH: -- and I must beat you hence, and if you desire ...

to know why, you must hereafter learn to find

a meaner man for your son than my lord is.

[He beats them about the stage.]

WIFE: He is my son. Oh! Oh! Oh good Stitch, hold thy hand!. [Exeunt.]

Scene II.3

[Enter Canutus, Archbishop, Edricus, Uskataulf, Swetho.]

CANUTUS: Then are they gone, 'tis certain they are fled?

Turkillus and Leofric: who would have thought it?

Did I not use them well, gave them good words,

rewarded their endeavors, and besides

graced them as much as any person here?

EDRICUS: You used them but too well, and let me say

your lenity did cause them run away.

CANUTUS: Have we not pledges of their loyalty?

EDRICUS: Ye have, my lord.

CANUTUS: ~~~ Their eldest sons, I think? ...

EDRICUS: True, but they know you are too merciful.

CANUTUS: They are deceived, for since they have disturbed

the settled solace of our marriage day

and daunted our determined merriments

with causeless flight, to plague their fathers' fact,

I'll lay the treason on their children's back

and make their guiltless shoulders bear the burthen.

Fetch me the pledges, Swetho, and with them

some bloody varlet from the Danish host,

and let him bring an axe, a block and knife ...

along with him, but do it quickly, Swetho,

and come again as fast.

EDRICUS: What doth your grace intend to do with them?

CANUTUS: I'll cut their hands and noses off.

EDRICUS: Your judgment doth not far enough extend

unto the height of runaways' desert.

Death is too light a punishment for traitors,

and loss of hands and nose is less than death.

USKATAULF: If an honest man had said so, I would

have liked it never the worse. ...

CANUTUS: This punishment is worse than loss of life,

for it is a stinging corsive to their souls

as often as they do behold themselves

lopped and bereft of those two ornaments

which necessary use doth daily crave.

Again, it giveth others daily cause

to think how traitors should be handled,

whereas the memory of present death

is quickly buried in oblivion,

doing no good but whilst it is in doing. ...

A traitor may be likened to a tree,

which being shred and topped when it is green,

doth for one twig which from the same was cut

yield twenty arms, yea twenty arms for one,

but being hacked and mangled with an axe,

the root dies and piecemeal rots away.

Even so with traitors. Cut me off their heads,

still more out of the self-same stock will sprout,

but plague them with the loss of needful members

as eyes, nose, hands, ears, feet or any such; ...

oh these are cutting cards unto their souls,

earmark to know a traitorous villain by,

even as a brand is to descry a thief.

These desperate persons for example's sake,

these ruffians, these all-daring lusty bloods,

these court appendixes, these madcap lads,

these nothing-fearing hotspurs that attend

our royal court -- tell them of hanging cheer,

they'll say it is a trick or two above ground;

tell them of quartering or the heading axe, ...

they'll swear beheading is a gallant death,

and he is a dastard that doth fear to die;

but say to them, you shall be branded

or your hands cut off, or your nostrils slit;

then shallow fear makes their