DUNSTAN.
It is, my gracious lord, and this is Ethenwald,
That lays his breast wide open to your grace,
If so it please your grace to pardon him.
KING.
Yes, Dunstan, I am well content to pardon him.
Ethenwald, stand up, and rise up, Alfrida,
For Edgar now gives pardon to you both.
DUNSTAN.
Astoroth, away! [Aside.]
My gracious lord, Dunstan will not forget
This unknown favour shown Earl Ethenwald;
For which account my nephew and myself
Do yield both lives and goods at your dispose.
KING.
Thanks, Dunstan, for thy honourable love:
And thou deserv'st to be a councillor,
For he deserves not other to command,
That hath no power to master his desire;
For Locrine, being the eldest son of Brute,
Did doat so far upon an Almain maid,
And was so ravished with her pleasing sight,
That full seven years he kept her under earth,
Even in the lifetime of fair Gwendolin:
Which made the Cornish men to rise in arms,
And never left, till Locrine was slain.
And now, though late, at last I call to mind
What wretched ends fell to adulterers.
DUNSTAN.
And if your grace call Abram's tale to mind,
When that Egyptian Pharaoh crav'd his wife,
You will, no doubt, forgive my nephew's guilt;
Who by the merry jest he showed your grace,
Did save your honour and her chastity.
KING.
We take it so; and for amends, Ethenwald,
Give me thy hand and we are friends;
And love thy wife, and live together long,
For Edgar hath forgot all former wrong.
ETHENWALD.
Thanks, gracious king, and here upon my knee
I rest to be disposed, as you please.
KING.
Enough, Ethenwald. But who comes here?
Enter HONESTY.
HONESTY.
Why, I think I have taken in hand an endless task,
To smell a knave: 'tis more than a dog can do.
I have disguised myself of purpose to find
A couple of knaves, which are yet behind.
The next knave is a priest, call'd John the precise,
That with counterfeit holiness blinds the people's eyes.
This is one of them, that will say it is a shame
For men to swear and blaspheme God's holy name;
Yet if a make a good sermon but once in a year,
A will be forty times in a tavern making good cheer:
Yet in the church he will read with such sobriety,
That you would think him very precise and of great honesty. [Aside.]