University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

—Cameliard. The Palace of Leodegrance. A chamber hung with rich embroideries. At the centre a wide entrance with heavy curtains, which conceal a corridor. At the

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upper right corner a window opening on a balcony which overlooks the sea. Guenevere is seated before this window with a harp.
Guenevere.
[Sings].

[While Guenevere sings, Morgause has entered, unperceived.]
Morgause.
It is a sad song for a bride to sing.

Guenevere.
I did not know that anyone was near.

Morgause.
I did not mean to be an eavesdropper,
But as I entered I was charmed to silence
And could not break in on so sweet a sound
Before the singer ceased.

Guenevere.
I thank you, madam;
I am not in the mood for compliments to-day.

Morgause.
Not to-day of all days in the year,
In which the sun shines on you as a bride?
Fair weather weddings make fair weather lives.

Guenevere.
I care not much for omens.

Morgause.
Come, sweetheart,
There is a time to mask and to unmask,
And on a wedding morn the light of joy
Should frolic on the face as in the heart.
The courtiers will set up a silly tale
That this alliance is against your will.

Guenevere.
But I do nothing, save of my free will;
Let the vain gossips babble as they please.

Morgause.
I have just come from the Great Hall. You'll have
A royal ritual, sweetheart,—such a retinue
Of dames and damosels, barons and knights,
As Cæsar's self could hardly muster in
Imperial Rome.

Guenevere.
Is Peredure without?

Morgause.
Gods, hear this woman! I tell her of her wedding;
She answers me—“Is Peredure without?”
Ha, ha, ha, ha! Now what would Arthur say
To find himself so hindward in your thoughts?

Guenevere.
Peredure is not like my other brothers,
Wolf-eyed, thick-bearded, fond of dealing blows.
There's something of the woman in his nature
That makes his manliness a finer thing.
He has the courage of a gentle heart—

Morgause.
And he writes the prettiest rhymes that ever were
About some marvellous woman that he loves
But whom he dare not woo. Poor boy, when he
Is older, he will find the woman lives not
Too virtuous to be flattered by a conquest.
I left him in the throng about the throne
With such a woful look upon his face,
As if the rhymes of his last virelay
Were all at loggerheads.

Guenevere.
Does he not go
With us to Camelot?

Morgause.
'T is so determined.
I marvel that Sir Launcelot is not here.
A month ago, ere I left Camelot
To seek a friend where I must find a sister,
It was supposed that Launcelot would be
The chief of Arthur's groomsmen. Arthur and he
Are like two almonds in a single shell
That silly maids make matron wishes on.

Guenevere.
I had a strange dream yesternight. Methought
An unknown knight stood by my bed, and as
I lay spell-bound in dim bewilderment,
Cried “I am Launcelot!”—and I awoke.

Morgause.
He came,then, in a dream. I thought he would not
Be so discourteous as to keep away
Entirely.

Guenevere.
Why talk ye all of Launcelot?
His fame spreads westward over Wales like dawn.

Morgause.
He has the reputation of all virtue.

Guenevere.
And does his reputation top himself?

Morgause.
Sometimes a bonfire imitates the dawn.

Guenevere.
Sometimes, too, dawn is taken for a bonfire;—
I care not. Dawn or bonfire, it is nothing
To me.

Morgause.
Nor to me neither, but I chafe
To hear the gabble that they make about him.
Why, child, the world is gone mad at his heels!
They tell of valor that despises odds,
And courtesy that throws prudence to the drains—
Such tales they tell of him! And as for women,
There is not maid nor wife in Camelot
Whose heart is not a spaniel at his feet.
And yet they say he takes no fruit of it
But is as spotless as Saint Dorothy—
With such a tittle-tattle of his purity!—
Bah, when the King and he are in one cry!

Guenevere
[rises].
What do you mean?

Morgause.
Oh, nothing—I mean nothing.
Your husband is no worse than other men.
The Lady Lionors has a little boy,
But, though he certainly looks like the King—

Guenevere.
Why do you tell me this?

Morgause.
You must know some time
What you had better learn from friends than foes.
You are leaving now the world of fairy tales,
Where all the men are true of heart and chaste
And all the women chaste and true of heart.
You enter now the world in which we live;
You'll find it peopled in another fashion.
Here comes a very wise philosopher—
Ask him.

[Enter Dagonet.]
Guenevere.

How now, sir? You look soberly.

Dagonet.

I? I am as merry as a skull, and that is always grinning, as you would see if you could but look beneath the skin.

Guenevere.

A grim jest, sirrah.

Dagonet.

Ay, it is ill jesting at a wedding. Aristophanes himself, who first wore motley, would go hang for lack of a laugh. For your good unctuous jest must have a soil of light hearts or it will not grow; and there is a predisposition at weddings to solemnity.

Guenevere.

Nay, now you are out; for a wedding is a joyous matter.

Dagonet.

But no laughing matter, my lady. For various wise philosophers have observed that in moments of most exquisite pleasure the expression

of the face is solemn. What signifies a wedding? Harmony. Now the essence of a jest is contradiction, but that comes after the wedding. So no more jests from me, my lady, till you have done with eating green cheese, which is excellent diet for the moonstruck—but I prefer Stilton.

Morgause.

Tell us, then, good Dagonet, what is the most pregnant occasion of jesting.

Dagonet.

A funeral, for the long faces of the company provoke the merry devil in the brain as inevitably as a Puritan calls out mockery from the reprobate. I have known an accidental rasp on a viol to set all the mourners—except the paid ones— in a titter.

[Sings.]

Guenevere.

Make jests at my funeral, I prithee, Dagonet.

Dagonet.

Death himself is the greatest jester. He is the farce that follows all tragedies. For is it not supremely ridiculous that I myself, about whom to-day the universe revolves, may to-morrow be reduced to the level of Alexander or any common dead body?

Morgause.

Do you make yourself greater than Alexander, Fool?

Dagonet.

Ay, or any other corpse, for I am alive and “a dead lion”—But the worms have eaten that, too. But here come the King and Queen. I was sent to announce them, but these lofty matters have made me forget my duty. Philosophy will undo me yet.

[Enter Leodegrance, Camalduna, Pyrideri, Merlin, Galahault, and Attendants.]
Merlin.
May Britain find its peace in you, my child.
I have given my life to make a State. I found
The Saxons ravaging our fields, our King
The traitor Vortigern, within ourselves
Each petty lord in arms against his neighbor,
And man to man belligerent. But I
Shall leave my country one, victorious,
Organic and at peace. And in the top
Of this great arch of empire you are set
A keystone, that it may not fall, when Arthur
And I take our supporting hands away.
Your destiny is glorious, to be
Mother of kings and mother of a realm.

Guenevere.
And mother of my people, sir, I trust.

Galahault.
The homage duty soon must pay my queen,
Beauty compels beforehand to the woman.

Guenevere.
You use fair words at Camelot, my lord;
Our mountain courtiers have a blunter speech.

Merlin
[to Morgause].
Still where the quarry is the falcons fly.

Morgause.
This riddle has no key. Why do you speak,
If you desire not to be understood?

Merlin.
I wish and I wish not to be divined,
And you divine me and divine me not.
For you are not so subtle as you think
Nor half so simple as you would be thought.

[Returns to the King. Guenevere, Morgause, Galahault, and Dagonet walk apart and after a little go out upon the balcony.]
Leodegrance.
Why interchange you with the Queen of Orkney
These hostile brows?

Merlin.
Though she be Arthur's sister,
Near is too near, unless—

Leodegrance.
I understand you.
Happy the man in whose own household lurks
No secret enemy to undermine
His purpose and his joy. But she will make
No mischief here. My girl feels honor keenly
And will not stoop to listen to intrigue.

Merlin.
I doubt it not. The very waywardness
That rumor speaks of her, shows a great soul,
That feels too prisoned even upon a throne.

Camalduna.
Indeed, she is not like a common girl,
And I could never make her do as others.

Leodegrance.
Wild as the sea-mew, restless of restraint,
She roams the jutting capes of Cameliard,
Like some strange dweller of the mountain winds,
Half kelpie and half woman. The highlander,
Chasing the roe o'er cliff and chasm, has often
Seen her lithe form rise from the treeless crag
Like smoke from a hunter's fire, and crossed himself,
Thinking he saw a creature not of earth.

Merlin.
I know her kind. It is a temperament
That suffers and achieves.

Camalduna.
A little girl,
She frighted the nurses more with her strange thoughts
Than ever they her with bogles. I remember
Her creeping from her bed once in midwinter
To ask if moonbuds only bloomed at night
That dead men, when they leave their graves to walk,
Might have their flowers also like the living.

Pryderi.
As the young limbs enlarge, the bones will ache;
Our oldwives call such ailments “growing pains.”
What our young princess needs is that her thoughts
Be drawn away from looking on herself.
The duties and responsibilities
That push us from our dreams and make us sane
By contact with the solid stuff of life,
These things a woman finds in household cares.
The wife and mother has no time to break
The wings of girlish thoughts with idle beating
Against the bars of Fate. Our princess, too,
Must bear the dignity of greater burdens,
Which for a soul imperious is good fortune.
Therefore, as a physician, who must watch
Both mind and body as they interact,
I have prescribed this marriage as a medicine.

Leodegrance.
This counsel of our wise and learned leech
Inclined us much to urge on Guenevere
A speedy yes to Arthur's suit. At first
She was, indeed, rebellious to our wish
And marriage thoughts were wormwood to her will.
Nathless I was unwilling to assert
My power as King and father to compel
Her course; for still I find the easy yoke
The popular. Yet, short of straight command,
The Queen and Pryderi,—and I myself,—
Have day and night reiterated words,
Soliciting with cogent argument,
Till she consented. She herself now chooses
The man of all men I would have her lord.
For I have not forgotten how King Arthur
With Ban and Bors routed my enemies
And with their triple armies saved my crown.—
Go, call the princess hither. Yet in sooth,
What should an old man say to a young maid?
The Queen shall speak to her. Madam, we shall
Withdraw and leave her to your tutelage.

Guenevere.
You called me, sire.

Leodegrance.
To say farewell, my child,
Before I yield thee to thy bridegroom's arms.
Our Lady Mary keep thee! Come, my lords.

Merlin.
I wish you greatness, lady.

Morgause.
And I goodness.

Pryderi.
I health and length of days.

Galahault.
I happiness.

[Exeunt Leodegrance, Merlin, Pryderi, Morgause, and Galahault.]
Dagonet.

And I a light heart and an easy palfrey that the way may seem short to Camelot.

[Sings.]

[Exit.]
Camalduna.
So far, my daughter, you have walked your way,
Self-willed, imperious, like a wanton child
That will not let her parents hold her hand,
Yet knows them near to save her if she fall.
Now they will not be near, and you may find
That freedom lays a weight upon our souls
That often we would like to shift to others.
I fear that counsel is poured out on you
Like an effectless wind; yet hear my words.
Take you no woman in your confidence,
But seem to do so. Each has her own ends,
And would betray you seventy times over,
And yet, repulsed, her selfishness through pique
May aggravate to active enmity.
Speak freely, but say little. Do not strive
Too far to outshine the ladies of the court
In jewelled ornaments and regal garb;
They'll hate you for it. Be profuse of favors;
They cost you little and will buy you hearts.
Yet do not play the braggart with your bounty—
Scorn lies beneath too much magnificence—
But always give as if the gifts were trifles
To eyes that see to whom the gifts are given.
All women are your natural enemies;
Think your end gained if they refrain from hate,
But seek your friends among the other sex.
Men have no quarrel with your eminence;
Your glory with their glory does not war,
But each may gain some splendor from the other.
Therefore, they may be faithful; but admit them
Only to the antechamber of your thoughts,
That their imagination may have scope
To fashion a dream-Guenevere to serve.
Not what we are but what men deem of us,
Is the true prince. Be faithful to your husband,
Yet not so servient as to jade his fondness.
Let him be often foreign to your life
That he may feel your lack and woo you over.
Be not too common to him. Hold him off
That you may bind him to you. For in him
Your domination lies. See that he has
No friend that is not yours, no counsellor
Whose secret thoughts are not your interests.
Be chaste as snow in heart as well as deed;
One spark of love may light a fire to burn
The edifice of your greatness to an ash.
Nor be contented with the innocent fact
But make your seeming lock the lips of slander.
And yet you may have lovers if you will;
The more the better, so you love not them.
For till we yield we are our lovers' tyrants,
But afterward their slaves. Remember this.

Guenevere.
Pray you, a little space alone, good mother.
[Camalduna kisses Guenevere, and then goes out.]
Why, what a thing is woman! She is brought
Into the world unwelcome. The mother weeps
That she has born a daughter to endure
A woman's fate. The father knits his brows
And mutters “Pish, 't is but a girl!” A boy
The very hounds had bayed for with delight.
Her childhood is a petty tyranny.
Her brothers cross her; she must not resist,—
Her father laughs to see the little men
So masterful already. Even the mother
Looks on her truculent sons with pride and bids
Her yield, not thwart them—“You are but a girl.”
A girl!—and must give way! She must be quiet,
Demure—not have her freedom with the boys.
While they are running on the battlements,
Playing at war or at the chase, she sits
Eating her heart out at embroidery frames
Among old dames that chatter of a world
Where women are put up as merchandise.
—Oh, I have slipped away a thousand times
Into the garden close and scaled the wall
And fled from them to freedom and the hills.
And I have passed the women in the fields,
With stupid faces dulled by long constraint,
Bowing their backs beneath the double burden
Of labor and unkindness—all alike,
Princess and peasant, bondslaves, by their sex!
Ah, the gray crags up whose sheer precipices
I have so often toiled, to throw myself
Panting upon their crests at last and lie
For whole long afternoons upon the hard
Delicious rock in that sweet weariness
That follows effort, with a silent joy
In obstacles that I could overcome.
They never called me girl, those mighty peaks!
They knew no sex,—they took me to their hearts
As if I were a boy. Oh, the wild thrill
That tingled in the veins, when the strong winds
Came howling like a pack of hungry wolves
That make the wintry forests terrible
Beneath the Norland moon! “Shriek on,” I cried,
“Rave, howl, roar, bellow, till you split your throats!
You cannot mar the pinnacled repose
Of these huge mountain-tops. They are not women!”
Why, what an idle rage is this! Am I
The Guenevere those still grand mountains know?
This is a bridal garment that I wear.
I am another Guenevere, a thing—
I know not what. I go to a new life.
I have ordered a new pair of manacles.
Arthur? As well Arthur as another—
I care not. If I must, I must. To live
The old life is no longer tolerable.
[Enter Peredure.]
My brother! You have come to see my gown.
Is it not beautiful? And see, this diadem
To show I—

Peredure.
Guenevere! How is it with you?

Guenevere.
Why, as it should be with a bride. It seems
You ask strange questions, brother. I had thought
I should be greeted with felicitations.
They say, a maid upon her wedding morn
Is timorous, fluttered, casts regretful eyes
—Or so she fancies—on her maidenhood,
And yet is glad withal. Seem I not so,
My brother? Am I—?

Peredure.
All's not well with you.
You seem as one that in a waking dream
Does—what, she knows not—with mechanic limbs.
My sister, dost thou act of thy free will?

Guenevere.
Who acts so? Life and custom close us in
Between such granite walls of circumstance
That, when we choose, it is not as we would
But between courses where each likes us not.
No, Peredure, it is not by constraint,
Save of the iron skies, I meet my lot.
I have not chosen it, but I accept it.

Peredure.
Think well. Once done, this cannot be undone.
You love not Arthur. This is not the face
Of one that hastens to her lover's arms.
Think you that you will ever love him?

Guenevere.
Love?
I have heard of it. Poets sing of it.
It must be a strange thing, this love.

Peredure.
Alas,
If thou shouldst learn what thing it is too late!
Girl, knowest thou what marriage means? Oh, if
When once the fatal ring is on thy finger,
Thou shouldst encounter some one who should kindle
Thy latent heart to flame. To be caressed
When thou art cold—this is a bitter thing.
But to be fondled by an unloved hand,
When all the soul is in another's arms—
That were a horror and a sacrilege.

Guenevere.
I shall not love. But sometime I must wed.
It is the law for women that they marry;
Else they endure a scorned inactive fate,
Unwelcome hangers-on at others' tables.
Besides, a girl's life is a cabined one;
A married woman has a wider scope.
She, too, is chained but with a longer tether;
She moves in the great world, and by that craft
God gives to creatures that have little strength,
May leave her impress on it. As for Arthur,
He is a very princely gentleman,
One whom at least I never shall despise.

Peredure.
Men say he is the crown of chivalry,
The pattern of the virtues of a knight.
But should he cloud the clear sky of thy life,
I ne'er should pardon him.

Guenevere.
My brother!

Peredure.
Dear,
I fear that Arthur ne'er will know as I
The gentleness of this imperious spirit.
I have asked Morgause much—

Guenevere.
I hate that woman.

Peredure.
Oh, say not so, she is so fair! O sister,
I did not think to tell thee of my sorrows
At such a season. When I spoke of love
And pleaded with thee to have fear of it,
I had good reason for my earnestness.
I know myself too well the hopeless woe
Of love debarred, against which Fate is set.
I love Morgause—

Guenevere.
Morgause? The Queen of Orkney?
The wife of Lot?

Peredure.
Ay, Guenevere, even so—
I love her. I would give my hopes of heaven
To press my lips against that flower-like mouth
And call her mine! Ay, I would die to feel
Once on my cheek the swan-soft touch of hers!
But I must make a dungeon of my heart
To hide my love in like a malefactor,—
Or like some hapless prisoner of state
Who ne'er did wrong but must be shut from the sun
For the realm's safety and in some dark cell
Is numbered with the dead. Oh, think of this
And do not build a prison for thyself
From whose barred windows thou may'st sometime see
Love beckoning to thee when thou canst not come!
There is no sorrow like a love denied
Nor any joy like love that has its will.
Oh, keep thy feet unbound to follow Love
When he shall come to lead thee to his rest!
Keep thy hands free to take his proffered gifts,
Thy heart unbound by barriers that prevent
The joy he would, but for our blindness, bring
To make a rapture and a song of life!
Believe—

Guenevere.
You talk of songs and raptures! Go
Back to your poetry, you child of dream!
Life is to be supported, not enjoyed.

Peredure.
Oh, no! it is to be enjoyed. Why else
Should God have made the world so beautiful?
And yet for me the glory of the hills,
The beauty of the sky's dissolving blue,
And all the woven magic of the grass
Have dulled their loveliness, and all their splendor
Cannot arouse again the ancient thrill.
There is a grayness over all the world.
Love is not to be mocked at, Guenevere.
Take heed! Look in thy heart, and be assured
That thou hast read it rightly. If a doubt,
If but the faint foreboding of a scruple
Be there, delay, break off this rash—

Guenevere.
Too late!
[The curtains at the centre are drawn apart, revealing a company of ladies in festal attire, with garlands, etc. A distant sound of chanting.]
See where my bridesmaids wait with wreaths of roses
To lead me to the altar and the prince.

Peredure.
Is it a triumph or a sacrifice?

Guenevere.
God knows! For me, I have chosen to go this course,
And I will keep to it till the event

Exit with bridesmaids.]
Curtain.