my brother, who now alone in my penitence stands by my side: he strove
manfully and openly; I blamed him not: but Beorn, my cousin, desired
my earldom; and he strove against me, wilily and in secret,--to my
face kind, behind my back despiteful. I detected his falsehood, and
meant to detain, but not to slay him. He lay bound in my ship; he
reviled and he taunted me in the hour of my gloom; and when the blood
of the sea-kings flowed in fire through my veins. And I lifted my axe
in ire; and my men lifted theirs, and so,--and so!--Again I say--
Deadly was my sin! Think not that I seek now to make less my guilt,
as I sought when I deemed that life was yet long, and power was yet
sweet. Since then I have known worldly evil, and worldly good,--the
storm and the shine of life; I have swept the seas, a sea-king; I have
battled with the Dane in his native land; I have almost grasped in my
right hand, as I grasped in my dreams, the crown of my kinsman,
Canute;--again, I have been a fugitive and an exile;--again, I have
been inlawed, and Earl of all the lands from Isis to the Wye [91].
And whether in state or in penury,--whether in war or in peace, I have
seen the pale face of the nun betrayed, and the gory wounds of the
murdered man. Wherefore I come not here to plead for a pardon, which
would console me not, but formally to dissever my kinsmen's cause from
mine, which alone sullies and degrades it;--I come here to say, that,
coveting not your acquittal, fearing not your judgment, I pronounce
mine own doom. Cap of noble, and axe of warrior, I lay aside for
ever; barefooted, and alone, I go hence to the Holy Sepulchre; there
to assoil my soul, and implore that grace which cannot come from man!
Harold, step forth in the place of Sweyn the first-born! And ye
prelates and peers, milites and ministers, proceed to adjudge the
living! To you, and to England, he who now quits you is the dead!"

He gathered his robe of state over his breast as a monk his gown, and