HAROLD. Where they eat dead men's flesh, and drink their blood.
PAGE. My lord--
HAROLD. I know your Norman cookery is so spiced,
It masks all this.
PAGE. My lord! thou art white as death.
HAROLD. With looking on the dead. Am I so white?
Thy Duke will seem the darker. Hence, I follow.
[_Exeunt_.
ACT III.
SCENE I.--THE KING'S PALACE. LONDON.
KING EDWARD _dying on a couch, and by him standing the_ QUEEN, HAROLD,
ARCHBISHOP STIGAND, GURTH, LEOFWIN, ARCHBISHOP ALDRED, ALDWYTH, _and_
EDITH.
STIGAND. Sleeping or dying there? If this be death,
Then our great Council wait to crown thee King--
Come hither, I have a power; [_To_ HAROLD.
They call me near, for I am close to thee
And England--I, old shrivell'd Stigand, I,
Dry as an old wood-fungus on a dead tree,
I have a power!
See here this little key about my neck!
There lies a treasure buried down in Ely:
If e'er the Norman grow too hard for thee,
Ask me for this at thy most need, son Harold,
At thy most need--not sooner.
HAROLD. So I will.
STIGAND. Red gold--a hundred purses--yea, and more!
If thou canst make a wholesome use of these
To chink against the Norman, I do believe
My old crook'd spine would bud out two young wings
To fly to heaven straight with.
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