Page:Plays in Prose and Verse (1922).djvu/85

Rh Has put us by the ears. Three days ago I yielded to the outcry of my courtiers— Bishops, Soldiers, and Makers of the Law— Who long had thought it against their dignity For a mere man of words to sit amongst them At the great council of the state and share In their authority. I bade him go, Though at the first with kind and courteous words, But when he pleaded for the poets’ right, Established at the establishment of the world, I said that I was King, and that all rights Had their original fountain in some king, And that it was the men who ruled the world, And not the men who sang to it, who should sit Where there was the most honour. My courtiers— Bishops, Soldiers, and Makers of the Law— Shouted approval; and amid that noise Seanchan went out, and from that hour to this Although there is good food and drink beside him, Has eaten nothing.

. I can breathe again. You have taken a great burden from my mind For that old custom’s not worth dying for.

. Persuade him to eat or drink. Till yesterday I thought that hunger and weakness had been enough;