Send out your swordsmen, mow the dry bents down,
And make this long death short--we'll never struggle.

All. Bread! Bread!

Eliz. Ay, bread--Where is it, knights and servants?
Why butler, seneschal, this food forthcomes not!

Butler. Alas, we've eaten all ourselves: heaven knows
The pages broke the buttery hatches down--
The boys were starved almost.

Voice below. Ay, she can find enough to feast her minions.

Woman's Voice. How can she know what 'tis, for months and months
To stoop and straddle in the clogging fallows,
Bearing about a living babe within you?
And then at night to fat yourself and it
On fir-bark, madam, and water.

Eliz. My good dame--
That which you bear, I bear: for food, God knows,
I have not tasted food this live-long day--
Nor will till you are served. I sent for wheat
From Koln and from the Rhine-land, days ago:
O God! why comes it not?

[Enter from below, Count Walter, with a Merchant.]

Wal. Stand back; you'll choke me, rascals: