SCENE IV
The Nave of Bamberg Cathedral. A procession entering the West Door, headed by Elizabeth and the Bishop, Nobles, etc. Religious bearing the coffin which encloses Lewis’s bones.
1st Lady. See! the procession comes—the mob streams in
At every door. Hark! how the steeples thunder
Their solemn bass above the wailing choir.
2d Lady. They will stop at the screen.
Knight. And there, as I hear, open the coffin. Push forward, ladies, to that pillar: thence you will see all.
1st Peas. Oh dear! oh dear! If any man had told me that I should ride forty miles on this errand, to see him that went out flesh come home grass, like the flower of the field!
2d Peas. We have changed him, but not mended him, say I, friend.
1st Peas. Never we. He knew where a yeoman’s heart lay! One that would clap a man on the back when his cow died, and behave like a gentleman to him—that never met you after a hailstorm without lightening himself of a few pocket-burners.
2d Peas. Ay, that’s your poor-man’s plaster: that’s your right grease for this world’s creaking wheels.
1st Peas. Nay, that’s your rich man’s plaster too, and covers the multitude of sins. That’s your big pike’s swimming-bladder, that keeps him atop and feeding: that’s his calling and election, his oil of anointing, his salvum fac regem, his yeoman of the wardrobe, who keeps the velvet-piled side of this world uppermost, lest his delicate eyes should see the warp that holds it.