University of Virginia Library

ACT III.

Scene I.

—Troynovant. A Room in the Palace.
Enter Locrine and Debon.
LOCRINE.
Thou knowest not what she knows or dreams of? why
Her face is dark and wan, her lip and eye
Restless and red as fever? Hast thou kept
Faith?

DEBON.
Has my master found my faith a lie
Once all these years through? have I strayed or slept
Once, when he bade me watch? what proof has leapt
At last to light against me?

LOCRINE.
Surely, none.
Weep not.

DEBON.
My lord's grey vassal hath not wept
Once, even since darkness covered from the sun
The woman's face—the sole sweet wifelike one—
Whose memory holds his heart yet fast: but now
Tears, were old age not poor in tears, might run
Free as the words that bid his stricken brow
Burn and bow down to hear them.

LOCRINE.
Hast not thou
Held counsel—played the talebearer whose tales
Bear plague abroad and poison, knowing not how—
Not with my wife nor brother?

DEBON.
Nought avails
Falsehood: and truth it is, the king of Wales
So plied me, sir, with force of craft and threat—

LOCRINE.
That thou, whose faith swerves never, flags nor fails
Nor falters, being as stars are loyal, yet
Wast found as those that fall from heaven, forget
Their station, shoot and shudder down to death
Deep as the pit of hell? What snares were set
To take thy soul—what mist of treasonous breath
Made blind in thee the sense that quickeneth
In true men's inward eyesight, when they know
And know not how they know the word it saith,
The warning word that whispers loud or low—
I ask not: be it enough these things are so.
Thou hast played me false.

DEBON.
Nay, now this long time since
We have seen the queen's face wan with wrath and woe—
Have seen her lip writhe and her eyelid wince
To take men's homage—proof that might convince
Of grief inexpiable and insatiate shame
Her spirit in all men's judgment.

LOCRINE.
But the prince—
My brother, whom thou knowest by proof, not fame,
A coward whose heart is all a flickering flame
That fain would burn and dares not—whence had he
The poison that he gave her? Speak: this came
By chance—mishap—most haplessly for thee
Who hadst my heart in thine, and madest of me
No more than might for folly's sake or fear's
Be bared for even such eyes as his to see?
Old friend that wast, I would not see thy tears.
God comfort thy dishonour!

DEBON.
All these years
Have I not served thee?

LOCRINE.
Yea. So cheer thee now.

DEBON.
Cheered be the traitor, whom the true man cheers?
Nay, smite me: God can be not such as thou,
And will not damn me with forgiveness. How
Hast thou such heart, to comfort such as me?
God's thunder were less fearful than the brow
That frowns not on thy friend found false to thee.
Thy friend—thou said'st—thy friend. Strange friends are we.
Nay, slay me then—nay, slay me rather.

LOCRINE.
Friend,
Take comfort. God's wide-reaching will shall be
Here as of old accomplished, though it blend
All good with ill that none may mar or mend.
Thy works and mine are ripples on the sea.
Take heart, I say: we know not yet their end.

[Exeunt.

Scene II.

—Gardens of the Palace.
Enter Camber and Madan.
CAMBER.
Hath no man seen thee?

MADAN.
Had he seen, and spoken,
His head should lose its tongue. I am far away
In Cornwall.

CAMBER.
Where the front of war is broken
By the onset of thy force—the rebel fray
Shattered. Had no man—canst thou surely say?—
Knowledge betimes, to give us knowledge here—
Us babblers, tongues made quick with fraud and fear—
That thou wast bound from Cornwall hither?

MADAN.
None,
I think, who knowing of steel and fire and cord
That they can smite and burn and strangle one
Would loose without leave of his parting lord
The tongue that else were sharper than a sword
To cut the throat it sprang from.

CAMBER.
Nephew mine,
I have ever loved thee—not thy sire Locrine
More—and for very and only love of thee
Have I desired, or ever even thy mother
Beheld thee, here to know of thee and me
Which loves her best—her and thy sire my brother.

MADAN.
He being away, far hence—and so none other—
Not he—should share the knowledge?

CAMBER.
Surely not
He. Knowest thou whither hence he went?

MADAN.
God wot,
No: haply toward some hidden paramour.

CAMBER.
And that should set not, for thy mother's sake,
And thine, the heart in thee on fire?

MADAN.
An hour
Is less than even the time wherein we take
Breath to let loose the word that fain would break,
And cannot, even for passion,—if we set
An hour against the length of life: and yet
Less in account of life should be those hours—
Should be? should be not, live not, be not known,
Not thought of, not remembered even as ours,—
Whereon the flesh or fancy bears alone
Rule that the soul repudiates for its own,
Rejects and mocks and mourns for, and reclaims
Its nature, none the ignobler for the shames
That were but shadows on it—shed but shade
And perished. If thy brother and king, my sire—

CAMBER.
No king of mine is he—we are equal, weighed
Aright in state, though here his throne stand higher.

MADAN.
So be it. I say, if even some earth-born fire
Have ever lured the loftiest head that earth
Sees royal, toward a charm of baser birth
And force less godlike than the sacred spell
That links with him my mother, what were this
To her or me?

CAMBER.
To her no more than hell
To souls cast forth who hear all hell-fire hiss
All round them, and who feel the red worm's kiss
Shoot mortal poison through the heart that rests
Immortal: serpents suckled at her breasts,
Fire feeding on her limbs, less pain should be
Than sense of pride laid waste and love laid low,
If she be queen or woman: and to thee—

MADAN.
To me that wax not woman though I know
This, what shall hap or hap not?

CAMBER.
Were it so,
It should not irk thee, she being wronged alone;
Thy mother's bed, and not thy father's throne,
Being soiled with usurpation. Ay? but say
That now mine uncle and her sire lies dead
And helpless now to help her, or affray
The heart wherein her ruin and thine were bred,
Not she were cast forth only from his bed,
But thou, loathed issue of a contract loathed
Since first their hands were joined not but betrothed,
Wert cast forth out of kingship? stripped of state,
Unmade his son, unseated, unallowed,
Discrowned, disorbed, discrested—thou, but late
Prince, and of all men's throats acclaimed aloud,
Of all men's hearts accepted and avowed
Prince, now proclaimed for some sweet bastard's sake
Peasant?

MADAN.
Thy sire was sure less man than snake,
Though mine miscall thee brother.

CAMBER.
Coward or mad?
Which might one call thee rather, whose harsh heart
Envenoms so thy tongue toward one that had
No thought less kindly—toward even thee that art
Kindless—than best beseems a kinsman's part?

MADAN.
Lay not on me thine own foul shame, whose tongue
Would turn my blood to poison, while it stung
Thy brother's fame to death. I know my sire
As shame knows thee—and better no man knows
Aught.

CAMBER.
Have thy will, then: take thy full desire:
Drink dry the draught of ruin: bid all blows
Welcome: being harsh with friends, be mild with foes,
And give shame thanks for buffets. Yet I thought—
But how should help avail where heart is nought?

MADAN.
Yet—thou didst think to help me?

CAMBER.
Kinsman, ay.
My hand had held the field beside thine own,
And all wild hills that know my rallying cry
Had poured forth war for heart's pure love alone
To help thee—wouldst thou heed me—to thy throne.

MADAN.
For pure heart's love? what wage holds love in fee?
Might half my kingdom serve? Nay, mock not me,
Fair uncle: should I cleave the crown in twain
And gird thy temples with the goodlier half,
Think'st thou my debt might so be paid again—
Thy sceptre made a more imperial staff
Than sways as now thy hill-folk?

CAMBER.
Dost thou laugh?
Were this too much for kings to give and take?
If warrior Wales do battle for thy sake,
Should I that kept thy crown for thee be held
Worth less than royal guerdon?

MADAN.
Keep thine own,
And let the loud fierce knaves thy brethren quelled
Ward off the wolves whose hides should line thy throne,
Wert thou no coward, no recreant to the bone,
No liar in spirit and soul and heartless heart,
No slave, no traitor—nought of all thou art.
A thing like thee, made big with braggart breath,
Whose tongue shoots fire, whose promise poisons trust,
Would cast a shieldless soldier forth to death
And wreck three realms to sate his rancorous lust
With ruin of them who have weighed and found him dust.
Get thee to Wales: there strut in speech and swell:
And thence betimes God speed thee safe to hell.

[Exeunt severally.