Becket and Honor: A Trim Reckoning

BEGKET AND HONOR: A TRIM RECKONING What is honor? A word. What is in that word honor? What is that honor? Air. A trim reckoningI ... Honor is a mere scutcheon. FALSTAFF in Henry IV, Part I Honor travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast. ULYSSES in Troilus and Cressida JEAN ANOUlLH USES THE PHRASE "The Honor of God" as the sub-title of his play Becket. In the English translation of the play by Lucienne Hill,l the word "honor" appears more than twenty times, spoken by a variety of characters in a variety of situations.2 It is as if Anouilh were determined to explore the meaning of the word by a sort of comprehensive dramatic demonstration of what is really essential to this abstraction which so many characters in the play use so glibly. The term is first used in the opening scene of the playas King Henry, kneeling before the tomb of Becket to accept the lash as public penance for his part in Becket's murder, evokes in his mind the presence of the murdered man: KING. • •• Don't you think we'd have done better to understand each other? BECKET. Understand each other? It wasn't possible. KING. I said, "In all save the honor of the realm." It was you who taught me that slogan, after all. BECKET. I answered you, "In all save the honor of God." We were like two deaf men talking. (pp. 11-12) Here at the very start of the opening scene in the play, Anouilh defines the conflict which is to be explored, a conflict between two men's concepts of honor. After this opening scene the next reference to "honor" occurs in a conversation in which Becket and Henry discuss Becket's background . Becket reveals that his father, a Saxon, had amassed "a considerable fortune" by collaborating dutifully with the Norman con1 (New York, 1960). All page references are to this edition. 2 A comparison with the French text of the 'Play reveals that in every instance except one, the word "honor" in the Hill translation is a literal rendering of the French honneur. 277 278 MODERN DRAMA December querors. Prodded by Henry, Becket admits his own reasons for collaborating: BECKET. • •• I adore hunting and only the Normans and their / proteges had the right to hunt. I adore luxury and luxury was Norman. I adore life and the Saxons' only birthright was slaughter. I'll add that I adore honor. KING. (With faint surprise) And was honor reconciled with collaboration too? BECKET. (Lightly) I had the right to draw my sword against the first Norman nobleman who tried to lay hands on my sister. I killed him in single combat. It's a detail, but it has its points. (pp. 15-16) Becket's "points" of honor here appear bluntly expedient, for he goes on to explain that, because of his honorable defense of her, his sister is now "respected" by the Norman barons. There is a hint here that she has perhaps been accepted as a mistress by one of the barons, rather than merely lusted after as an object of rape. Such are the wages of Becket's "honor" at this stage. The next reference to honor occurs just after the drunken Henry needles Becket about his concept of morality. Henry has come to demand Becket's mistress, Gwendolyn, in return for having yielded to Becket a young Saxon peasant girl whom he, the King, had impulsively decided to bring to the palace as a concubine. Beckett had intended to leave the girl with her family, but after foreclosing his bargain by taking Gwendolyn, the King produces the Saxon girl to fulfill his part of the agreement. KING. ••• What looks like morality in you is nothing more than esthetics. Is that true or isn't it? BECKET. (Meeting his eyes~ says softly) It's true, my Lord. KING. I'm not cheating if I ask for her, am I? I said "favor for favor" and I asked you for your word of honor. BECKET. (Icily) And I gave it to you. (p. 42) Here Becket's "word of honor" is used...