University of Virginia Library

CABESTAING

A TRAGEDY

PERSONS IN THE PLAY

• Guillaume de Cabestaing, a Troubadour.
• Raymond, Seigneur of Castel-Roussillon.
• Margherita, Wife of Raymond.
• Robert of Tarascon.
• Agnes, Sister of Margherita and Wife of Robert.
• Aubert, Chevalier of Castel-Roussillon.
• Malamort, Chevalier of Castel-Roussillon.
• Giraud, Chevalier of Castel-Roussillon.
• Ermengard, Lady of Castel-Roussillon.
• Beatrix, Lady of Castel-Roussillon.
• A Page
• Ladies, chevaliers, pages, falconers, attendants, etc.

Scene is laid at Castel-Roussillon in the seigneury of Roussillon, in the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees, towards the end of the twelfth century. The action of the Play is supposed to occupy about twenty-four hours.

ACT I

Scene I

Late afternoon deepening gradually into dusk. A walled and terraced garden of Castel-Roussillon, with statues, a fountain, a dial, urns, and marble-benches. Enter Aubert, Malamort and Giraud returned from hawking: attendants, carrying hawks, hooded, belled and brailed upon their wrists, enter with them and pass out of the garden through a Gothic gate to the right. A stair, centre, stone-urned and balustraded, leads to another entrance, more imposing, towards which the chevaliers advance.
Malamort:
A fair day's hawking, chevaliers. My hawk,
A tiercel-peregrine, struck down three herons.

Aubert.
And mine two hares. A fine gerfalcon that.
No eyrie in the Pyrenees breeds better.

Giraud:
I had no luck. My falcon was an eyas;
And burst her brails and with her jingling
And dangling jesses winged adown the wind
My falconer too clumsily let slip
Her hood, and so I lost a hare and falcon.

Malamort:
Thy usual luck with hawks as well as women.
Something is ever at fault with both.

Aubert:
Not so.
One lady here, I think, he hath in brails.
And not so far away now either.—See!
Here comes the stately Ermengard, whose eyes
Are wells of crystal darkness, glinting ice,
Where men may drown their souls for love.

Giraud:
'T is true.
And with her one, the Lady Beatrix,
Whose gaze is soulful as if she could claim
Kinship with Heaven.—Falcons are they both
Rending the hearts of men from their high station.

[Enter, from the gateway above, the Ladies Ermengard and Beatrix, talking and laughing.
Malamort:
Ay: yet shall both find masters. Whistle them
And they will come to call and take the hood
And sit upon thy wrist like any goshawk.
—Ladies, we greet you. We have had good luck.

Aubert:
Ay: here are feathers for your fancy, see.
And fur for caps. Fair luck. Some pretty strikes.—
Three herons and two rabbits.—Like you that?

Ermengard:
By Heaven! they strut like folk who 've done great deeds,
Killed dragons and not rabbits; and what praise—
What say'st thou? shall we praise them, Beatrix?

Beatrix:
Not I, in sooth. I keep my praise for hunters.—
What is there here to brag on?—Ay; three herons?—
I see but one (looking at Aubert)
and he's much like a crane,
Long-shanked, long-nosed.

Aubert:
A heron for thy hunting.

Beatrix:
I hunt not herons, neither hawk for hares.
The noble hart alone is worth the hunting.
Him only would I slay; baying him there
Deep in the antlered forest.—Oh, the joy,
Oh, the wild joy of it!

Malamort:
Come, slay me now.
With thy blue-arrowed eyes. I am thy hart,
Long-bayed, and lean with running from thy shafts.

Ermengard:
Now then, have at thy hart! thou hast him bayed.
Have at him!—Look; he dares thee to the fray.—
Art thou turned hind, and fleest from thy hart?

Beatrix:
Not mine, in sooth: I am for better beasts.

Aubert:
Thou meanest better fowl—that singing bird
The Baron Raymond loves.

Malamort:
Ay; Cabestaing.

Giraud:
Troubadour and gentleman-usher to our Lady.
[With a significant smile.
Our Lord is sure of Margherita's love,
Else had he never placed this singing-bird
In her rich cage to sing her heart away.

Beatrix:
I hate him as I hate the songs he sings,
Because they're beautiful and he—is proud,
And neither 's for my asking. Would that I
Were the wild hawk to strike this sparrow down!

Malamort:
Thou art the hawk to strike him. I will wear
Thee, wild one, on my wrist and whistle thee
The way to fly.

Beatrix:
If thou wilt train me to it,
And make the quarry good, then I am thine.

Aubert:
A haggard thou, that stoops to no man's lure.

Giraud
(suddenly illuminated):
Oh! lies the wind in that direction?

Ermengard:
Nay.—
Let Cabestaing but ballade her, by Heaven!
Haggard she were no more, but on his wrist.

Beatrix:
Not I! i' faith!—Perhaps I love another.
[Glancing provocatively at Malamort and Aubert.

Aubert:
Me now or Malamort?

Beatrix:
I speak no names.
Be thou as wise when thou hast come to love.

Ermengard:
Giraud, thou hearest: When Experience speaks
Innocence must listen.—Gossip links our names.—
An thou wouldst have me love thee, let my name
Go free of thine. I am no quarry for
Thy nets and bird-lime. Nay; I still am free.
No man shall cage my wildness, no man tame.

Giraud:
I am a merlin that shall have thee yet,
Thou bird of paradise with rebel plumes.

Ermengard:
Rebellious?—ay!—My cause is Liberty.

Malamort:
My quarry lies not that way. It is here.

[Regarding Beatrix.
Giraud:
Alas! I fear my hunting days are over.

Beatrix:
And thou but thirty!—Why, a man 's no man
Until he reaches thirty. Then his arm
Is what it should be: he can face the world
With woman on it. And his mind, that mawked
And moped in love, hath freed itself of webs,
And all the dead dry insects of its youth,
And shows a clean room, where was trash before,
To the one woman who hath learned to love.

Aubert:
No hope for me then!—I am twenty-five.—
My heart is full of—

Malamort
(mockingly):
Songs, like Cabestaing's?

Aubert
(regarding Beatrix smilingly):
Indifference, say—
Toward her fair sex, such as she hath for him,
Our troubadour, Guillaume de Cabestaing.

Beatrix
(flaring up):
Am I a badger that thou hound'st me so
With Cabestaing?

Giraud
(with a subtle smile):
Oh, how she hates him!—Look!
Here comes thy Cabestaing.

Ermengard:
Deep drowned in thought.
[Cabestang appears above and slowly descends the terrace stair sunk in thought. Ermengard, exaggeratedly, continues:
What! is thy Muse insistent?—Worrisome wench!—
She should be punished with neglect.—What now?
Doth she divide thy mind against thy heart,
Intending one thing and thy heart another,
Lining thy brow with care, deep as thy rhymes?—
Or is it that she hesitates between
Aubade and chanson? Or, divided now
'Twixt love and war, perplexed which way to turn,
Sits in the lists of Fancy; tournaments,
Where bugled Pasquinades ride cap-a-pie
Before the eyes of Beauty and her Court.
Or where, Love's roses in his hair, Sir Sonnet,
On an adoring knee, in Passion's garden,
Lutes it before the Queen of Loveliness.

Cabestaing
(smiling):
I am no poet to reply to that.
I see I have a rival.—Thou hast asked.—
My Muse is never prompt to make reply
On any occasion. Now she owns defeat,
And bows surrender to superior forces.
The standard of thy question is so high,
I have no metaphors to make reply.

Beatrix:
Still thou canst speak in rhyme. But modesty
Becomes all greatness; most of all a poet.

Ermengard:
I am not answered yet.—Come, tell us now
On what grave dirge thou thinkest. Is Love dead?
Or Beauty buried?—Why dost blot and blur
The clear, glad writing of thy brow with trouble?
Leave such to jongleurs and to wandering gleemen.
Thou art too young to bother yet with sorrow.
Thou art Love's troubadour, therefore—be glad:
For love means gladness.

Cabestaing
(seriously):
Nay. Thou hast not loved.—
In Provence, as all know, Love holds his Court
Among his Ladies, Knights and Troubadours.
'T was there I learned that Love is oftener sad
Than glad; yea, given up to melancholy.
The Minnesingers of the Rhine, they say,
Triumph in sadness, and they sing of love.
Love is not love unless 't is touched with sadness.

Malamort:
That argues thee in love, for thou art sad.

Cabestaing:
What troubadour was ever not in love?
'T is their existence. Love is Song's own food.
Without it we should perish, and our songs
Die ere we died, for lack of audience.
The world can do without its songs of war
But not without its love-songs.

Giraud:
That is true.—
Dost thou believe it, Lady Ermengard?

Ermengard:
I shall believe it when I am in love.—
'T is but a troubadour fancy. He but speaks
According to his calling. 'T is his business
To be in love, or to pretend it till
He thinks he is. He were no poet else.
Pretension makes in some ways for belief;
And he who still pretends a thing, at last
Comes to believe the thing that he pretends.

Cabestaing:
There spoke the woman that is all pretence,
Pretending she believes what is pretence.
Not in the Courts of Love hast thou been judge.
Hadst thou been learn'd in love, quite otherwise
Hadst thou then spoken. Love is no light thing.

Beatrix
(casting up her eyes, mock-tragically):
Deeper than ocean; higher than the stars.

Aubert
(smilingly):
Just deep as is the fountain of thy wit;
Not higher than thy heart.

Beatrix
(caustically):
A fountain, Sir,
Too deep for thee to wade; a heart, too high
For thee to ever reach with love of thine.

Ermengard:
Have done with badinage.
Be serious now.
(Addressing Cabestaing):
We have a message for thee.

Malamort
(pretending disappointment):
Not for us?—
I flattered me, you made such honied buzzings,
That we (with a comprehensive sweep of his hand towards Aubert and Giraud)
here were the flowers, you the bees
That sought us for our nectar.

Beatrix
(with laughing scorn):
God forbid!
The nectar you would give hath poison in it:
'T is death to virtue.—No! we are no fools.

Cabestaing
(with brightening aspect):
Whom do you messenger?—My Lord or Lady?

Giraud:
And he can ask that.

Ermengard
(sharply):
Surely he can ask,
And I can answer.—Lady Margherita
Bade Beatrix and me to seek thee out;
Command thee to her presence.

Malamort
(contemptuously):
'T is a ballad,
A song, to sing to-night for her at table,
Beyond a doubt. She hath thought out the subject,
And he shall now elaborate it.

Cabestaing
(calmly):
Ay?—
But what she thinks needs no elaboration:
'T is perfect from beginning—like herself.

Ermengard
(laughingly to Malamort):
A rapier hit, and underneath thy guard.

Beatrix
(sarcastically to Cabestaing):
Thou saidst but now thou wert not apt at answer.—
If with thy sword art ready as thy wit,—
Thou need'st not fear whoever draws against thee.

[Cabestaing, Ermengard, and Beatrix pass up the terrace stair and into the castle.
Malamort
(annoyed):
Well spoken. But a fool as lovers go.
She 'd have him near her always—Margherita.
Jealous of every moment he 's away.—
Raymond is blind, or so wrapped up in love,—
In her, who holds him utterly, that he
Can see no farther than her mouth and eyes,
That say and look the love they have not for him.—
This fellow left her but a second ago,
And on the heels of his departure, lo,
Treads her command that he straightway return.

Aubert:
What think you now our Lady wants with him?
'T is something very urgent—some great favour.

Giraud:
She'd give, or take?—What say'st thou Malamort?

Malamort:
A rose, perhaps. I saw he wore a rose.

Giraud:
Or maybe 't was a word. A happy rhyme.

Aubert:
A word that rhymes with bliss or, say, with dove.

Malamort
(sneeringly):
Or with the new-moon, like her eyebrow; or
With eve's first stars, like her romantic eyes;
Or with the rossignols, whose throats are sweet
As her sweet throat: Any or all of these,—
Metaphors no Poet would disdain to use.

[A bugle is heard outside the gates of the castle.
Aubert:
Visitors?—'T is good. The bugle-note was strange.
I know Lord Raymond's. This was none of his

Giraud:
God grant that Ladies, kindlier than our two,
Be of their train. I care not who they are.

Malamort:
Let 's to the mews and watch the falcons feed
Until our Lord returns.—We might suggest
Some better prey now to the falconer
To make the young hawks fiercer. Thine, Giraud,
Thy eyas needs such, with its unimped wings.

Aubert:
The heart of Lady Beatrix would serve.
No fiercer morsel in the world I know.

Malamort:
Or Cabestaing's now.

Giraud:
His would never do.
'T would gentle them too much.

Aubert:
It would conform
Their natures to its own and make them sing,
Changing our peregrines to nightingales.

Malamort
(disgustedly):
Bah! nightingales! Women are caught with them.

[They pass into the castle by way of the balustraded stair. As they disappear, enter, from opposite side of stage, Raymond of Roussillon, Robert of Tarascon, his wife, Agnes, and several

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attendants. The latter, dusty and tired as from a long journey, pass out through the Gothic gateway to right.
Robert:
Already I feel rested, though arrived
A moment since. The air breathes appetite.—
Without a stop we rode all day.—I count not
That half hour at the vilest inn I know,
Five leagues from here, where Hunger was our host,
And the four winds of Heaven were all he served us.—
The wine—by God!—the wine he tendered us
Was iron and acid, worse than vinegar.

Raymond
(darkly):
That inn is bad. I have a mind to burn it,
And hang its keeper.

Robert
(smilingly):
He deserves it. Ay.
'T were better though to choke him with his brew;
Poison him with his wine. By God! 't were just.

Raymond
(with a grim smile):
I will think on it. I have heard complaints.—
[Brightening, with a more cordial manner, but still morosely:
'T is good to have you here with us again.—
How like you now the prospect?

Agnes
(with a glance around):
Beautiful.
Thou shouldst be happy, Raymond, with thy wife
And these surroundings.

Raymond:
Happiness, my sister,
Is of the mind, not of environment.
A peasant in his hut is happier,
With but his wench and brats and naught to eat,
Than is the Lord of Castel-Roussillon.

Robert
(astonished; then sympathisingly):
What curse is on thee?—True; thou hast no son
To occupy ambitions of thy age.—
Thou shouldst have married earlier. Margherita
Is younger now than Agnes.—It is strange
Thou hast no children. We have three.—'T is strange.

Agnes
(explainingly):
One son and two fair daughters, as thou knowest.—
But, Robert, thou art but a blunderer
At consolation.—If 't is lack of children
That grieves Lord Raymond—

Raymond
(peevishly):
How can I explain?—
It is not lack of children overclouds me.—
Though children compensate for many ills.—
'T is something back here; burns me; in my brain,—
Or in my heart;—a sullen, wolfish passion,
Glowering and snarling in its labyrinth,
Like some old, wounded beast within its cave
Brooding on vengeance nursed for one unknown.

Robert
(with emphatic conviction):
Thy conscience, man, needs cleansing. To the priest.—
Or, if thou wilt, enter the new crusades,
And wash thy conscience clear in heathen blood.
There 's nothing like the fanfare of the trumpets,
And the wild hurl of arms in Christian battle
To make a man forget an ancient wrong.

Raymond
(gloomily):
No wrong or sin is mine. I know not what
This basilisk is. But for some three months now
A gloom hath dogged me with the feet of doom:
An old foreboding of approaching ill.—
I am no young man.

Agnes
(with a conciliatory smile):
Dost imply by that
Thy wife is young?—Is that a cause for gloom?
Thy Margherita married thee for love.
Thou art not old to her: nor art thou old.
No man is old at forty-five!—Good Saints!—
Look at my Robert there—past fifty years!—
He is not old as hearts go; but is younger,
Ay, stronger too than the young fools that fancy
Grey hairs and wrinkles make for what is old.

Raymond
(despondently):
Younger than I by many happy years.

Robert:
I have seen life, 't is true, and have been happy.
Thou too hast seen some happy years, I know.
Thou art cast down now for no certain reason.—
I have grown stout on happiness, thou seest.
My wife and children make me comfortable.
Comfort it is that counts for happiness.

Raymond:
I am provided for in many ways.
I have some comfort here, as thou canst see:
A beautiful wife; some friends; a troubadour—
[Brightening suddenly.
Guillaume de Cabestaing.—To-night shalt hear him.

Robert
(dubiously):
I care not much for troubadours. They sing
The devil into women.—None of them
Has ever crossed my drawbridge.—But, perhaps,—
Returning to this settled melancholy,—
'T is action which thou needest: some distraction
Of camp or court.—Why not don spur for Paris?—
Life should not be all abstinence: excess
Should not possess it, either, utterly:
Observe the happy middle course, say I,
And time will ne'er prove tedious.

Raymond:
That is true.—
The crusades, as thou sayest, now might aid.
There might I find employment for my sword,
And fling this mood aside as now this cloak.
[Removing at the same time his cloak from his shoulders and flinging it over his arm.
Meanwhile I wait and brood; and from myself
Attempt escape in knightly exercises,
The chase or tournament.—Be kind now: tell me,
If in thy journey hither anything,
Rumoured or ascertained, thou heardst or saw'st
Of moment: prospect of some savage thing,
Be it a beast or man, to hunt: or anywhere
Report of any tournament, where I,—
If but for one glad day,—might find escape
From my own self in the fierce rush of strife.

Robert:
No tournament I know of: but a beast,
One worthy of thy metal, is reported:
A wild-boar of the Pyrenees, that spreads
Destruction 'mid the peasantry. Our way
Was marked with bloody mile-stones of its havoc
In fearful tales each peasant had to tell.

Agnes:
My heart was in my eyes and ears the while
We passed the forest where the monster lairs,
Some three leagues to the north.—Thank Heaven we 're here!

Robert:
And so say I.—A good meal now, by God!
Will top me with content.—As for thy cook,
Thy old Pierre,—I know there is no better
In all Provence.—Good cheer, good cheer, my Lord,
Will end thy melancholy. Dost not eat enough.
Trust me to know.

Raymond:
Pierre and Cabestaing,—
They are two artists I depend upon:
One feeds the physical, one the mental, man.
I eat enough, good Robert, have no fear,
But music helps me more than any food:
It is a great physician for the soul.

Robert:
A doctor, Raymond, I could do without.
Song is not necessary to my stomach—
But good food is.—Deliver me from fasting!—

Agnes
(mischievously):
Thou wilt grow lean with eating. Look at him!—
Raymond, he cannot mount his horse for fat
Without a groom to help him. And he puffs,
Between complaints of how his body tires,
If he but walk between his mews and kennels.
Feed him on music while we are with you;
There is no better diet now for love,
And he 's in love. Feed him on song, say I.

Raymond
(responding to her spirit):
There is no telling where he would end then—
As bow, perhaps, to some stringed instrument
That sighs of love continually.—Well,
What dost thou say, Sir Robert? we are serious.

Robert
(phlegmatically):
God send me still a healthy appetite!—
As for the rest—I care not.—Where 's thy wife?

Raymond:
Shall we go in and greet her and my friends?—
She will be entertained to know you 're here.

Robert
(as they ascend the terrace stair towards the entrance):
Cast off thy gloom, man. We will find a way
To make thee happy yet.

Raymond
(despondently):
I do not know.
The black disease, I fear, hath gone too far.

[They pass into the castle.

Scene II

Dusk. The garden as before. Enter Lady Margherita from the terrace above. She seats herself on a stone bench at the foot of the stair, and loses herself in thought.
Margherita:
I must confess or perish with denying
This in my heart which still refutes denial.
How many months now hath it tortured me?—
The time seems limitless to love that waits
Fruition; but to me where sweet its fruit
Ripened long months ago,—when first we met,—
The tree of promise ages with restraint
And dies of drought, its golden fruit upon it.
Had I not loved the troubadour in him
When first we met, my heart, without a word,
Had instantly surrendered to the man;
The man, so gentle, gallant, so superior.—
Now he must know—must know. This long delay
Must have an end in understanding. He,
In some way, by a look or word, must learn
What I have hid here in my heart so long.
All hesitancy must be put aside;
Passion must speak, the eloquent of tongue,
And what men name immodesty when woman
Confesses love to him who has not asked.—
The distance that the world of men has placed
Between his heart and mine has kept him silent.
The world of Love obliterates that distance,
And face to face now shall our spirits speak.
Long have I seen the love that waits on me
Homing within his eyes: and all his songs,
Between the lines, cry heartbreak things to me.—
Queens have revealed themselves to those they loved,
However low their station, and been happy.—
But he is nobler in his soul than all
That man holds noble, though a beggar born.—
Modesty, till now, has held me. It must go.—
I bade him write a poem. Such an one
As he would fashion for his heart's own mate,
And bring it here and read it me at dusk.
[A lute is heard approaching through the shrubbery of the upper terrace, to the left of the castle entrance.
He comes.—My heart, oh, let him hear and heed!—
Be eloquent, my soul, and let confession
Look from the casements of thine eyes, and speak
The heart's consent love hath no words to say.
[Cabestaing enters above, strumming a lute. Seeing the Lady Margherita seated on the lower terrace, he comes swiftly down the terrace stair, seizes both her hands impetuously in his and kisses

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them. Margherita continues, ecstatically:
What ministers of beauty walk with thee?
Surprise and Passion and pale Inspiration.—
Would that one thought of me were of their train!

Cabestaing:
Without that thought of thee they could not be,
Lady, by whom I live. There is no song,
Sung or unsung, of mine that draws not music
From thy high loveliness.

Margherita:
Thou art a poet:
Needs must thou speak thus when a Countess asks.
What says thy heart now?—Put thy art aside
And let the man speak. I would hear thy heart.

Cabestaing:
The artist is a portion of his art,
And what it speaks inevitably is part
Of what the man is.

Margherita:
Then convince me now.—
Hast thou a song in which the man 's submerged?
Which evidences the authority
Of that within the soul, naught can deny,
The truth, eternal, which shall win belief?

Cabestaing:
The song thou bad'st me write I have with me.

Margherita:
[Cabestaing seats himself at her side and, striking a few preliminary chords, he sings:

Margherita:
There is no passion in thy song: no throb
Of revelation that reveals.—Removed,
Remote, and unconvincing.—Oh, that thou
Couldst speak as I would have thee! As my heart
Makes eloquent with ecstasy my soul,
That urges to possession—Oh, that I
Should tell thee this!—But 't was thy song that prompted.
Thy song—thou might'st have sung to any Lady:
Me, Beatrix, or Ermengard. It lacks
Distinction, point. If thou wouldst win for aye
The heart of any woman, then put fire
And passion of possession in thy song.
The voice of Love should rise insistent; flame
With fierce compulsion; and its music burn.
I know this, for I love, and would be loved.

Cabestaing:
Ah, not by me! not by thy troubadour?

Margherita:
And wherefore not by him, my troubadour?
Look in mine eyes, thy hand upon thy heart,
And tell me what thou readest in mine eyes. ...
My soul has called thee wearily, night and day,
But thine hath never heard, being enthralled
With other fancies, bloodless, of thy mind.

Cabestaing:
I read thy secret many moons ago,
But curbed the longing here within my heart,
The deep response of passion to possess.
I would not let my tongue speak as my heart
Prompted and, frequently, almost compelled.
Lord Raymond towered, like despair, between
The gateway of thy loveliness and me.
Oh, could I fling his benefactions by,
And stand up free, unburdened of his gifts,
A man like other men, and with the right
To claim the one thing that, above all others,
My soul desires, this rose of Paradise,
That I would wear for ever on my heart;
Then could I sing as thou wouldst have me sing,
And say the words that halt now on my lips
For adequate utterance, and cry to Fate,—
“Do what thou wilt with me! do what thou wilt!
I have the one desire of my soul,
And nothing more can matter in the world!”

Margherita:
At last! at last!—Long have I yearned to hear
Words like these words: and read within thy face
Corroboration of their poetry.
This is the mightiest chanson thou hast sung.
Yet greater shalt thou sing: for Love shall charge
Thy words with moment such as none hath known,
Till every thought becomes a testament
Of beauty sure of immortality.—
How long hast loved me?

[His lute has fallen by his side. Both her hands are in his, and they gaze into each other's eyes.
Cabestaing:
From the very day
I met thee here at Roussillon, and Raymond
Made me thy gentleman-usher, and thou smil'dst
Upon my lute's endeavours in thy praise.
Not gradual was its growth, my rose of Love:
Sudden 't was there, full blown and breathing fire,
With all the rapture of existence in it.
Then in my soul were opened springs of light;
The fountain of my being ran with beauty,
Drawn from the inspiration of my love.
Why, ev'n my words took on the attributes,
It seemed, of my desire; and when I sang
Before my Lord and thee, surely, I thought,
I have betrayed myself; 't is manifest
To all how high my love is, how 't is she,
The unattainable.—At last attained.
[They kiss passionately.
Now let Fate send whatever it will send!
We 've had this moment that can never die. ...

Margherita:
Thou wilt sing many songs in praise of Love,
But none so poignant with eternity
As this one instant.—See; the stars and moon,
The fountain and the marble and the flowers
Have taken on a loveliness not of earth.
The rossignol hath taken fire of love
From our wild words and kisses, and pours forth
A strain more passionate than it ever poured.—
Older than all we dream is Love; and yet,
'T is young and fresh as this dew-heavy rose.—
[Plucking a rose.
Take it and wear it on thy heart of hearts:
It is the badge of my possession, love,
And marks thee mine as I am thine.

Cabestaing:
This kiss
Shall seal our love. (Kissing her, and plucking a rose and placing it in her hair.)

This rose be pledge to thee
Of constancy.—I feel the god within me
Burn as he never burned before. What light
Of majesty is round me! Bright of hair
And eyes and lips I feel it touch me now,
Possessing and compelling. Night is filled
With cosmic music, archangelic song,
And on its tide our souls, inseparably,
Are swept beyond the stars of circumstance.

Margherita:
Come with me now. We must not linger here.
I shall be missed. Perhaps these trees have eyes,
These flowers ears, they look and listen so.
In Hall they are at table. Raymond fumes
When I'm away.—He hath been moody of late.—
No one must speak of seeing us together.—
We must be careful.—He must never know—
Oh, God! must never know!—The beast, that sleeps,
Would put forth claws to rend thee, rend and tear.
[Possessed as it were with a dread of some approaching calamity she leans staring

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193

before her, her hands dejectedly clasped between her knees, while she repeats in a voice scarcely above a whisper:
Raymond must never know! must never know!

Cabestaing
(rising with a determined gesture):
For thy sake he must not; but not for mine.
I care not for myself if he should know.
I am a man, too, and I long to stand,
Bare sword to sword, before this man of men,
And wrest possession from him at a stroke.
I would proclaim it with exultant tongue
Were it not for thy honour, thy high name.
I am Lord Raymond's equal now. My soul
Stands loftier in the sight of Love and God,
Seigneured of thee, thy love, whose kiss but now
Has accoladed me thy knight of knights;
And badged me with nobility above
That of a king.—Wild words! wild words are mine.
And, as thou sayest, Raymond must not know.—
I'll guard my eyes and tongue.

Margherita:
Oh, suzerain
And overlord of all my heart's demesne,
Thou stirr'st my soul as nothing has before.
One kiss, and yet again, before we part.—
See, where the moon climbs o'er the donjon-tower!

Cabestaing:
Moon of my world of dreams, my moon of women!
Into the donjon of a soul thou shinest
Upon a prisoner there—Love, thou sett'st free. ...

[She passes up the terrace stair, while he remains below by the stone bench. She turns at the head of the stair for one parting look, then disappears swiftly into the castle. He remains, his eyes fixed on the entrance where she disappeared. Slow curtain.

ACT II

Scene I

Night. A great Hall in Castel-Roussillon, hung with armour and weapons of war and the chase. A huge stone fireplace, in which the fire has died out, centre, at back of Hall. On either side of it a lofty entrance, Gothic in character, supporting on their lintels of stone the carven arms of the Barons of Roussillon. To the left an embayed casement opening upon a small balcony of stone overlooking the mountain precipice which forms a portion of the foundation of the castle. Torches in sconces of iron light the Hall. A carven table of massy oak in the centre is spread as for a banquet. Raymond of Roussillon, Robert of Tarascon, Aubert, Malamort, and Giraud and Agnes, the wife of Robert of

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196

Tarascon, with the Ladies of Roussillon, Ermengard and Beatrix, are just seating themselves as the curtain rises. Pages and retainers attending. Enter Margherita.
Raymond:
Why are we thus kept waiting?

Margherita:
Grant me pardon.
The twilight and the full moon and the mountains,
The roses and the nightingales, the garden,
Set me to dreaming. I forgot the hour.
This is my poor excuse. Will it suffice?—
I did not dream it was so late.
[Seats herself beside Raymond. Attendants bring in and set upon the table various dishes. All are served. Margherita puts a pleading hand on Raymond's arm.
Am I forgiven?

Raymond
(unmollified; sullenly):
Here are arrived thy sister and her husband
Upon their way to Tarascon: they stay
The night with us. Thou wast not here to greet them.

Robert
(hastily, in fear of a marital outburst):
I shall forgive her if her sister will.

Agnes
(pleasantly smiling):
I know the garden; it is wrapped in spells.—
Witchcraft, whose name is Springtime, held my sister:
It wove old sorceries of the moon and flowers,
And the wild music of the rossignols.—
Raymond, thou must forgive her.—Say thou wilt.

Raymond
(sombrely):
Too much she muses mid the nightingales.

Malamort
(laughing lightly):
There is one nightingale that sings there whom
Our Ladies all have given their fancy to.
My Lord, he holds their fickle hearts in fee.

Raymond
(with grim humour):
A nightingale? I'll have his tongue. They say
Their tongues were much desired by the Cæsars.—
Their hearts, I think, were better eating, eh?
What say'st thou, Robert, to a dish of them?
A golden platter served with golden music?

Robert
(soberly):
I am for solid meat. No nightingales' hearts
Would stay my appetite. As for the music—
It would disturb digestion; hag-ride sleep.—
Only the horns of war or of the hunt
Can hold me with their charm.

Margherita
(to Raymond with a rebuking smile):
Oh, thou art cruel.
Speak not so brutally of things that sing.—
The nightingales and full moon kept me long,
'T is true, but here is our own rossignol
To sing thee into humour.

[As Cabestaing enters.
Agnes
(to Margherita, aside):
If he would,
I 'd have him write a song for my own lute;
One full of fire of youth, as is his face.

Margherita
(aside):
Many of such he has; I'll ask one for thee.

Malamort
(aside to Beatrix):
Here comes the only nightingale she loves.

Beatrix
(caustically):
Oh! dost thou envy him?

Raymond
(with rough enthusiasm):
Our Cabestaing?—
Ay, there 's a troubadour, by God and Mary!
[As Cabestaing comes into the line of his vision; Raymond not having raised his eyes or turned his head at the entrance of the troubadour or the remark of Margherita, being absorbed as it were with his own thoughts and the wine before him.
Robert, all Provence and the Courts of Love
Envy our dear possession. Hast thou heard
The chanson he composed in praise of Beauty?—
Bring wine. And when our Cabestaing hath drunken
Then let him sing.

[A goblet of wine is brought by a page.
Robert
(patronisingly):
Thou hast no equal, eh?
The Ladies, so I hear, make much of thee.

Cabestaing
(deliberately drinking and returning the goblet to the page):
Not of the man but of his song, my Lord

Robert
(unimpressed by the carelessness of the reply):
The singer only, eh?—I heard a song,—
'T was only yesterday,—that Agnes had
Of some mad jongleur. Eh?—He said t' was thine—
And written to some Lady—not so far—

Agnes
(with smiling but hurried interruption):
As we are from the moon!—The song 's a song,
And being a good song is to be commended.
I would I had inspired it myself.

Robert
(with stolid astonishment):
How canst thou say it?—'T is as full of fire
As Ætna is of flame. (Addressing himself to Cabestaing):
Now were it Agnes,
To whom thou sang'st in such consuming rhymes,
I'd bleed thee for a fever.

Raymond
(laughing loudly):
By God and Mary!
Blood-letting is not for my troubadour.—
His art 's his art. And only in a song,
Chanson or ballad or the high aubade,
Doth burn his passion. He is winter-cold
At heart, I hear. Why, I could tell thee tales
Of many slights he hath put on great dames,
And damsels, too, who would be in his fancy.
I never saw him look at any woman,
Significantly, save above his lute,
And only as accompaniment to his song.—
Is it not so, my troubadour?

Cabestaing:
My Lord,
I know not how to answer you. I love,
Whene'er I sing of love. Each maid I see
Hath some perfection, excellence of wit,
Or form, or face, that takes me by the heart
Compelling for the moment. Love, my Lord,
Is necessary to the poet's art:
And he, to sing so men will hark his song
And hold it true, must be in love alway:
It matters not with whom, or one or many:
Love is the first requirement of a poet.

Malamort
(with a courteous sneer):
Reason and thought are only secondary.

Robert
(unimpressed):
Thou plead'st thy cause quite badly—for the Ladies;—
Or the one Lady whom thy heart holds dear.
One must there be to hold thy singing true.
[Turning to Raymond.
Too many loves, like cooks—eh? eh? my Lord?

Raymond
(with humour):
There is an old saw that I heard somewhere
That says too many are better than none at all.

Robert:
But 't is against all reason. Look you now—

Agnes
(interrupting him):
Enough! Too much thou hast already said.
Thou hast confused him.—See, his face is pale.
Let him love whom he will. Thou dost not stint
Thyself in loving other women than me.
Let him love whom he will; and if he love
Well as he sings—his mistress hath my envy.

Raymond:
'T is rightly said. All men must have their loves,
And women too. 'T is only justice. So!
The battle 's ended. Turning to Cabestaing):
Let thy music now
Be balm to all our wounds. Sing us thy song,
The cause of this discussion.

Margherita
(anxiously):
Yea; is it new?

Cabestaing:
'T is nothing. You will smile at it, I fear.
It hath no height of passion and no depth.
'T is the mere froth of feeling from the sea
Of song beneath the surface of my love.
(He addresses a page):
Boy, fetch me here my lute.

Robert:
As Captains wear their swords
So shouldst thou wear thy lute. 'T is thy great weapon
To mow down hearts of women. (Laughing.)


Cabestaing
(coldly):
My lute 's my lute;
My sword, as thou canst see, is like to thine.
I am a chevalier, Sir, and a poet.

Raymond:
He speaks the truth, his sire was noble as mine.

Robert:
Then I 've no more to say. Here comes thy lute.
[The page returns with his lute which he hands to him. Cabestaing seats himself so as to face the Lady Margherita. As he sings he gazes steadily into her eyes.

Margherita
(rising in agitation):
Well hast thou sung. Thy song is worth a heart;
The heart of any woman.

Raymond:
'T is full of fire.
A song to win a woman.

Robert:
Ay; perhaps
Win two or three.

Margherita
(standing, uncertain what to say or do):
I am right weary.

Agnes:
Well;
We will retire: I am weary too.
We rode all day, Fatigue was of our train
From morning.

Robert
(significantly):
Raymond, I would speak with thee
On private matters. There is much to say.—
And, as thou knowest, we depart at dawn.

Raymond
(good-humouredly):
Business should wait till pleasure have an end,
And should, in brief, be brief, whatever it is.
But as our wives are fearful of offending,
And will not leave without us (he speaks with irony),
being weary,
There's nothing left us but to be excused.
[Rising, he proceeds to Cabestaing who rises as do all the others. Raymond lets

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206

his hand fall heavily upon Cabestaing's shoulder as he speaks.
By Mary! thou shalt sing for us again.
Such songs as thine are heard once in a lifetime.
Be careful of thy lute as of thy heart.

Cabestaing
(smiling softly, and gazing steadily before him):
Both heart and lute are sound, my Lord, and safe.

[Raymond and Robert leave with attendants by doorway left.
Margherita
(imperiously):
Come, Cabestaing, attend us to our rooms.

Cabestaing:
I am thy servant. (Aside)
Dost thou think me bold?

Margherita
(aside):
Come to the window with the balcony,
That looks upon the upper terrace: there
I will await thee. (Aloud)
Agnes, shall we go?

Agnes
(who has been conversing with the others):
The Ladies, Ermengard and Beatrix
Have talked my weariness away.

Beatrix
(laughing):
Not I.
'T was Malamort, with his civilities.

[Margherita, Agnes, and Cabestaing go out through doorway to the right.
Beatrix
(eagerly, as soon as the door has closed upon them):
Didst mark his eyes?

Ermengard:
Canst ask?—They were two stars
Shaping the destiny of two who love.

Malamort:
They were two tarns whereover tempest drives,
And in whose deeps enchantment sleeps for ever.

Aubert:
And hers were wild lights on the mountain heights,
Whose fires proclaim rebellion. They are lost.

Giraud:
His eyes looked into hers as no man's look
Into a woman's whom he doth not love.

Ermengard:
Sir Matter-of-Fact! thou putt'st it in blunt words.—
He looked at her, therefore she needs must look,
From courtesy, at him.

Beatrix
(scornfully):
She could not help it?—
No more could I.

Ermengard
(sharply):
His eyes were not for thee,
Nor any woman, except the one he loves.

Malamort
(provokingly):
Into her eyes he poured his soul in music.

Beatrix
(in a rage):
Her eyes! his eyes!—The Devil take their eyes!—
Why, I'll turn jongleur just to sing of eyes.—
His eyes! her eyes!—God send them both a squint!

Ermengard:
Now thou art angry:

Beatrix:
Nay. A little weary.

Aubert:
Wilt come into the garden with me?

Beatrix:
No!
I care not for the nightingale and moon.

Ermengard
(to Aubert):
I'll go with thee if our wise friend, Giraud,
Will make our company three.

Giraud
(hesitating):
I am not wanted;
That 's plain. But thou hast asked me, so, 't is plain,
I'll go where I am asked. Bid you goodnight.

[Ermengard, Aubert, and Giraud go out.
Malamort
(confidently):
The loveliest woman, worthiest of his song,
Is she into whose eyes I'm looking now.

Beatrix
(incredulously; laughing scornfully):
Rank flattery!—Thy speech is full of words
That poison women's souls. I am no fool.

Malamort:
I know what beauty is.

Beatrix
(sarcastically):
A connoisseur?

Malamort:
I'll prove my point by a comparison:
Now take thy mouth and Margherita's mouth:—
The Cupid-bow perfection of thy lips,
The rosebud redness—hath hers aught of these?
Her hand now: true, 't is long, and white and shapely;
But plumpness, smallness, take my heart by storm—
And thine is plump and small.—Come, let me hold it.—
[Takes her hand which she yields reluctantly.
Not cold like Margherita's. And thy cheek—
Thou hast a dimple there: a darling pit-fall
To catch men's hearts in. A sweet trap for kisses.

[Kisses her deliberately. She disengages herself swiftly, starting back with pretended fury.
Beatrix:
Why didst thou that?—Had I a dagger now
I'd mark upon thy evil face the beast
That is thy soul, so never woman more
Would look on thee and be beguiled.

Malamort
(coolly):
I love thee.
I love thee. Dost thou doubt it? Look at me.
I am no troubadour to sing thy praise,
Or curve my eyebrows at thee o'er a lute.
I am a man, a knight, a chevalier,
Who loves thee better than he loves his life.

Beatrix
(yieldingly):
Rhymers are not for me, but warriors are.—
When thou hast fought a battle for me, then
Come to me and demand—what I can give.

Malamort:
Bid me to battle now. I fain would fight.

Beatrix
(impetuously):
I hate this Cabestaing. I'd have him die.—
He had my love once—thou should'st know it.

Malamort
(slowly, gazing steadily at her):
Yea.
I knew of it. He cast thy love aside.

Beatrix
(fiercely):
Like a great gentleman.—The wretched pauper!
I was not good enough for him.—I hate him!
Hate him! Oh, God in Heaven, how I hate him now!—
[Lowering her voice and speaking with malignancy.
Look thou!—Go to the Baron: tell him all
Thou knowest; all, and more thou dost not know,
Of what is seen and said of Cabestaing
And Margherita.—Leave no thing unsaid.
Tell it with smiles and shrugs as something vile,
Notorious, in his castle. Look such things
As shall imply more than the words thou say'st.
Put poison in his heart's security.
Thou are a trusted servant; 't will be easy.
When thou hast done this, and thy words bear fruit,
Then come to me and ask—whatever thou wilt.

Malamort
(with conviction):
By God! thou lov'st this Cabestaing!

Beatrix
(with intensity):
I hate him.
And he must die, so that my soul have peace.

Malamort
(taking her by the arms and looking steadily into her eyes):
Thou 'lt keep thy word?

Beatrix
(unflinchingly):
I never break my word.

[Malamort goes out left, facing towards Beatrix, who stands a moment as if transfixed in thought and then goes out slowly through door to right.

Scene II

The same as the preceding. Only the table has been removed from centre and the chairs arranged differently, showing skins of various wild beasts here and there about the floor. Enter Raymond and Robert of Tarascon.
Raymond
(angrily):
Thou art her sister's husband. Wherefore now
Thou sayest such things to me at such a time
Escapes my understanding.

Robert:
Thy eyes are seeled,
Like some wild haggard's in thy mews. My Lord,
Thy troubadour needs watching. As I said,
The weather-vane o' his heart points Margherita,
As did his eyes and song a moment ago. ...
There was direction and a fire in them
Most unmistakable.

Raymond:
I drank my wine,
And thought my thoughts. What cared I where he looked!—
I mark not every glance cast at my wife.—
God's blood! I should be busy.—Cabestaing
I 'd trust as men trust children—as my son.
There is no harm in him; he is a poet:
Why, Margherita loves me; would not lift
Her eyes to his except in innocence.
I know them both; they are a pair of children.

Robert
(bitterly):
A pair of children! Child thou art to say so!—
Thou knowest nothing of the hearts of men—
Or women. Bah! the thing is evident.
Look to it ere thou lose thy Margherita.—
I trust no troubadour with any woman.

Raymond:
Blind fool I may be; but, by God and Mary!
Suspicion never harboured in my heart
Of any smile, or glance, between these two.
Thou mak'st me think now.—But why wake a snake
To gnaw me here?

Robert:
I would not have thee whispered
And spoken as a cuckold.—I, thy brother,
Would guard the good name of thy House, whereto
My honour appertains. I like not scandal.

Raymond:
Where could he look but at her? All men look
At Margherita. Nay; 't was courtesy:
I say 't was courtesy.—But I'll look to 't
As thou advisest; and, if true, God help,
Assoil him and the woman I call wife!—
Your words have waked a devil in my heart,
This heart on which she oft hath lain and dreamed.

Robert:
No troubadour do I trust. Seduction leers
From all their songs at every maid and woman.
[Enter Malamort smiling sinisterly.
Here comes Sir Malamort. His face portends
Some news of moment.

Raymond:
How now, Malamort?
What means thy smile? What evil lies behind it?—
Thou stealest in like Midnight with a dagger.
Whom wilt thou stab?

Malamort
(mysteriously):
A song-bird in the garden.
That is to say, a man beneath a window:
A sighing lover with a tinkling lute.

Robert
(with a quizzical smile at Raymond):
Not thy good troubadour, my Lord?

Malamort
(darkly):
Perhaps.

Raymond
(with suppressed fury):
Whose window? Speak!—And who was at the window?

Malamort
(with assumed perplexity):
I can not say, my Lord. So many windows
Look out upon that terrace.

Raymond
(with concentrated purpose):
Was it one
That's balconied? a casement railed with stone,
That faces towards the terrace with the fountain?

Malamort
(without hesitation):
The same, my Lord. And from the balcony
A lady leaned. A scarf concealed her face.—
The stone whereon she leaned, warmed into white,
Took on a new effulgence from her breast.
I seemed to hear the beating of her heart,—
And feel the ardor of her passionate eyes.

Robert
(with emphasised interest):
Was it the Lady Agnes? Like as not!—
She has a scarf of silk.—Her window 's railed,
And overlooks the fountain. By my sword!—
She too hath hankerings for these nightingales!
'T is in the blood of women.

Raymond
(with absolute conviction):
Tarascon,
'T was not thy Agnes but my Margherita.—
Blind have I been! Oh, what a purblind fool!—
If this be true, I'll act; and instantly.

Robert
(in a conciliatory tone):
Yea; swiftly. Send the fellow off to-night.—
As I have said, I would not have them round me,
These makers of bad rhymes. For, look you, women
Are three fourths fool at any and all times;
And when rhyme knocks and music jingles, why,
Farewell discretion!—kiss the rest good-bye,
A poet is bell-wether to their natures,
That flock to follow, like a lot of sheep,—
Be it to pasture or a precipice,
Whene'er he tinkles.—Would their heads were one,—
I mean the poets',—so one blow might end them!

Raymond
(to Malamort):
Under the balcony?—And didst thou hear
The words they said?

Malamort:
My Lord, I was not near.
I heard a lute, a sigh. The bird took fright
Whenas he saw me coming. Disappeared,—
Like a great cockchafer a foot disturbs,—
Among the roses underneath the wall.
The Lady glimmered moth-like and was gone.

Raymond
(black with rage):
Thy eyes must to the doctor! what, by Heaven!
Sent thee to me then with thy devil's smile?—
Thou slay'st my soul with thy dark words and hints
Of what thou heard'st and heard'st not, saw'st and saw'st not!—
Proof must I have! yea, proof!—These eyes must see!
These ears must hear! visible and audible proof!—
Come with me. Come; I'll search the walks and garden.
If he be there, innocent or guilty, he
Shall give account to this (touching his sword)
my good Toledo!

Robert
(with satisfaction as they turn to go out):
Thou hast been blind. How couldst thou be so fooled?
Make good use of thine eyes now. It is night,
And in the night are many hiding places.

[Raymond, Robert, and Malamort pass out right. After an interval enter on the left Margherita and Agnes.
Agnes
(fearfully):
He loves thee. Oh, I saw; and others saw.
And thou, thou lovest him. I saw that too.
Oh, be thou careful of this!—Men are beasts
When jealousy puts poison in their veins.
No serpent spawned of Hell is fiercer. Trust me!
I am thy sister, let me counsel thee.—
Contrive some good excuse and send this singer,
Before it is too late and Raymond knows,
To Avignon, or Paris; anywhere.

Margherita
(calmly):
I could not live without him: would not live.
Existence lies for me in him alone.—
Thou canst not understand—thou dost not know!—
His life is mine as mine is his.—No, no!
Thou wouldst not have me separate soul and body?
He is my soul. I can not part from him.

Agnes:
If this be so, God help you both!

Margherita:
Amen!—
He loves me.—Countess that I am, and wife
Of Raymond, Lord of Roussillon, I 'd cast
Nobility aside, as one casts gauds,
And follow Cabestaing through all the world,
And be his glee-girl, live the vagabond life
Of crusts and kisses, if he ask it me.
Life hath naught greater than his love to give.

Agnes:
I never loved like that. Propriety
With stately steps, trailing a stiff brocade,
Hath ever kept my house; yet she shall shield
Thee and thy lover when there comes the need.
No man, except my husband, have I loved,
Or dreamed of loving. Though some have besieged
My heart with vows, its stalwart battlements
They never won above. (Meditatively):
I will not say
A troubadour tongue, like that of Cabestaing's,
Might not win o'er its fortress if it tried,
So full of irresistible assault
Are all his songs—and song is sweet to me.

Margherita:
All that I am is his. I feel no shame
When in his arms, his kisses on my lips.
I know I sin. My soul, perhaps, is lost.
But Heaven hath naught of happiness to give
Greater than this. If punishment must come
Hereafter, I, at least, a little while
Have been in Paradise.

Agnes:
May Heaven be thine!—
But dost thou have no dread of what may come
Of this too evident passion?

Margherita:
My one fear
Is for his safety. His.—What harm may come
To me I care not. Never think of it.

Agnes:
But thou shouldst think of it. Just now he stood
Openly within the moonlight, on the terrace,
Beneath thy balcony that neighbours mine.
I heard his words.—Therefore I came to thee,
And brought thee hither, for, scarce had he gone,
When shadows searched the place with weapons drawn.
Thy husband and another, I divine.—
Had they come sooner, caught thy song-bird there,
Sighing to thee, such strains of passionate love,
I shudder now to think what had befallen.

Margherita
(surprised and agitated):
Raymond out there?—I deemed him closeted
With thy good Robert, on some weighty matter.
I would breathe easier were my husband gone.—
Canst thou contrive some plan to take him hence,
But for a day?—better for three days, though.
I would have one day free of fear to think,
To dream some plan out with the one I love.

Agnes
(thoughtfully):
I can devise no way.—There is a boar,
So runs report among the peasantry,—
We heard it but to-day when riding hither,—
A wild boar, that has harried half the hills,
And filled the roads with terror. An excuse
To bid him to the hunting.

Margherita
(musingly):
That may do.—
Thou say'st the boar is savage?

Agnes:
As the hills.
And tusked like Satan.—Why, 't is said six men,
Who went to slay him, he hath slain.

Margherita
(with resolution):
'T would do.—
Six men? and Raymond's one, and hunts alone.—
What if the monster took him by surprise?

Agnes:
Why speak'st thou thus? Why starest thou at naught?—
He would not need confessor then!—but thou—
Thou surely wouldst.—Come; leave dark thoughts like these,
That lead to dreadful cellars of the soul.—
I must retire.—Thou wilt not still remain?

Margherita
(abstractedly):
I'll follow soon. I would remain awhile.
I but await the coming here of Raymond;
I would consult with him about this boar—
It must be slain, abolished.—
[Agnes gazes at her sadly and retires.
Huge and wild.—
Now could I play upon his pride and courage
So he would hunt this monster without hounds,
And by himself!—and, say, upon a wager!
The beast is more than any one man's match,
Though that man, Raymond, Lord of Roussillon;
Then might there be an end to all this fear,
That, like a dagger, threatens everywhere,
Pointed from every corner at my heart,
And Cabestaing's—

[Cabestaing enters silently.
Cabestaing:
A spirit spoke my name!—
Oh, it is thou! (embracing her)
and lost in meditation!
I thought the castle slept; all had retired.

Margherita:
My happiness, importunate as a page,
Kept knocking at my heart's door, and I rose.—
Only we two and our deep love awake.—
What led thy wild heart here at such an hour?

Cabestaing:
I wandered restless till a vision called,
That had thy voice, and to this Hall I came
To sing a new song to the spirit of beauty,
And the imagined presence of my love,—
That walks here nightly with the moon and stars
Attendant on my fancy.

Margherita:
I am glad.
I have not heard thy voice, it seems, for days.
Albeit but an hour ago thou stood'st
Speaking beneath my balcony.—Take care.—
The garden hath assassins, so I hear,
Who watch my windows; watch with daggers drawn.

Cabestaing
(smiling):
I saw them. I was hidden where the yews
Cast a deep shadow on a world of roses.
I should have faced them—with my sword? or lute?—
[Laughing.
Which, dost thou think?—It was not brave of me.
But there I lay. And they passed through the postern,
Searching the mews and kennels I suppose.—
I waited their return. They did not come.
But while I waited petals of the rose
Rained on my hair and eyes: a nightingale
Lit near me, nearer than thou standest there,
And sang its song of triumph. 'T was a sign
That Love had me in ward. Naught now could harm me,
Or thee, belovéd. So I set my thought
To the wild music of the nightingale,
And made a song for thee. I have it here;
[Striking his brow with the palm of his hand.
And came to try it in the silent Hall—
And find an audience.

Margherita
(gazing at him with fascinated eyes):
Meaning Love and me.
Yea, we be fain to hear how this same bird
Inspired thy soul.

Cabestaing
(taking both her hands in his and kissing them):
I have no memory
For all the songs I make to thee. No book
Would hold them. They are like the birds that sing
And fly and sing again. Ever within me is
The throbbing of their happiness, like wings;
And all their words are music made of thee.
They utter all that moonlight says to flowers,
That fragrance syllables to dusk and dew,
And starlight to still waters: all, and more:
Such things as find expression in the soul,
Impossible to language, say in words.
Inadequate is speech when Love would speak
Praise of its object, of the one beloved.
Therefore the song I made there can portray
A moiety only of the thing I felt.
Authentic words should flow. Each stop should be
A heart-beat set to music.

Margherita
(rapturously):
Let me judge.—
A little would I learn of what is writ
In flame within the great book of thy heart.
[While they have been speaking the torches in the sconces have gradually died down or expired, until the great Hall is almost lost in shadow, save for the light of the moon that streams through the arches of the balconied casement overbrowing the precipice. Margherita seats herself on a carven chair in the moonlight. Cabestaing, lute in hand, reclines on a wolf-skin at her feet. As he sings, accompanying

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himself on the lute, the door to the right, farthest from them, slowly opens, and Lord Raymond, unobserved of them, enters and stands listening until the end of the song; only making his presence known when it is completed.

Cabestaing
(sings):

Margherita
(starting up, utterly bewildered, as she perceives Raymond):
Thy song has other audience than I.
The Lord of Roussillon is here to judge.

Cabestaing
(concealing his confusion under a stately demeanour):
Not wrongly, let us hope, though he have cause—
Seeing the setting we have given our piece:
Moonlight and shadow and an empty Hall.

Raymond
(grimly, striding forward and standing lowering before them):
Thou art an artist in more ways than one.
Methinks thou sing'st too often and too well.

Cabestaing
(haughtily):
Being the troubadour of Roussillon,
I could not be a miser of my art
Or sing less well, my Lord.

Raymond
(smiling fiercely):
Thou art too prompt
With haughty answers. Praise has made thee proud,
And evermore thy fustian struts in velvet
Fingering a sword. Strip from it now its mask
Of courtier speech, and tell me in plain words
To whom this song was written.

Cabestaing
(pale with suppressed emotion):
If my Lady
Command me tell thee—I shall speak plain words.

Margherita
(hastily interrupting, having recovered herself completely):
Plain words, my Lord?—Here is no barrister
To tell thee plainly what thy wife can tell:
The song is for my sister, Agnes. She
Requested it of Cabestaing through me
To-night, at table: 't is a simple love-song,
A ballad for her lute, that she loves well,
As surely thou dost know who often here,
And there at Tarascon, hast heard her play.
Why, many a troubadour has made her rhymes;
These are the first that Cabestaing hath made.

Raymond
(harshly):
If these be made for her, I'll say no more.
Her husband shall correct them. (Smiling grimly, he goes to the door, left, and calls loudly):
Ho! a page!
[Enter a page and attendants with torches with which they replenish the sconces.
Go thou and bid the Lord of Tarascon
And Lady Agnes hither. If retired,
Bid them arise and robe and come to me.
The matter now in hand brooks no delay.
[Page bows and goes out followed by attendants.
If it be true he made this song for her,
Why does he sing it thee? And here, when sleep
Woos every eyelid in these towers? Ay, here,
In darkness and alone?

Margherita
(rapidly, in scornful explanation):
He'd have me hear it,
Ere Agnes heard, for fear of any flaws.
My ear is quick for such, or so he thinks.
And for the place and time—What other place
Within the castle is more public?—Here
Upon its various duties at all hours
Attendance goes. Thou camest even as I,
Or Cabestaing, or any person else.
As for the darkness, why, we quenched no torch.
'T is darker in the rose-walks of the garden.—
Ah, hadst thou found him singing to me there,
Wilt not confess Suspicion then had sprung
Snake-headed in thy heart, even more than now,
And hissed thee to some deed thou wouldst regret?
Yet in the garden, often, as thou knowest,
This man has sung to me, 't is true, thou by,
At later hours than this.—By God in Heaven!
Thou wouldst not have me have him to my chamber
To sing it me?

Raymond
(gazing steadily at her with suspicious eyes):
Thou hast a lawyer's wit.
Well may it serve thee when there comes a time.
[Turning to Cabestaing
Thou singest often in the garden, eh?
Beneath a certain balcony and window.

Cabestaing
(with quiet candour):
Yea; in the garden often do I sing.
There is a bench of marble 'neath a window,
That hath a balcony, if I remember,
On which I sit and muse and sing. It looks
Upon the fountain from the upper terrace.
The prospect has endeared itself to me:
'T is quiet and most perfect.

Raymond
(with sarcastic rage):
Quiet and perfect?—Ay!
As is the woman in the room above
Who hearkens to thy singing.—I have heard.

[Enter Robert and Agnes preceded by the page, who retires.
Robert:
What means thy message, Roussillon!—Art ill?—
God's life! I was retired! Why have me up!—

Raymond
(with irony):
I had thee out of bed to hear a song.

Robert
(with ludicrous astonishment):
What! art thou crazy?—Song?—The man is mad.—
Mad! mad! completely. So these troubadours
Have crazed thy mind at last?

Agnes:
What does this mean?

Raymond
(with dark directness):
I am not mad, though you might deem me so
By what appears to you unreasonable.
My action seems preposterous I know,
But you will understand when I explain.—
This, as you know, is Cabestaing; and this,
[With a sweeping gesture
Countess of Roussillon, the Lady Margherita.
I find them here, when all the castle sleeps,
Rehearsing love-songs written, so they say,
For thy true wife, Lord Robert. (With a sneer):
Wouldst thou hear
The song that panged the darkness here awhile
Before I summoned you? For true effect
The torches should be quenched; the two alone.

Robert
(with amazement):
A love-song to my wife?—I'll have his heart!

Raymond
(interfering as Robert makes a movement towards Cabestaing):
Thou hast no sword. (Laughing bitterly):
'T is, haply, in thy chamber.—
Let Agnes speak.—What hast thou then to say?
My wife hath told me thou didst order a song
Of Cabestaing, to sing upon a lute.

Agnes
(somewhat bewildered but grasping the situation. Naïvely to Cabestaing):
Oh, thou hast written it? 'T was kind of thee.
When I have heard it I am sure to love—

Robert
(violently):
The song or singer?—
Speak more plainly, madame.

Agnes
(with asperity):
The song, my Lord.—What else? (Turning smilingly to

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236

Cabestaing):
Thou'lt write it out
And with the music give it me to-morrow?
We ride betimes. Lie not too late abed.
I'll learn it while we travel. Robert here
Shall praise it—though he is a crusty critic.

Robert:
When aught of his wins praise of mine may Deafness
Make fast the portals of my ears and Dumbness
Tie up my tongue.

Cabestaing
(imperturbably to Agnes):
I'll have the music ready,
And give it in thy hand at break of day.

Robert
(with disgust to Raymond):
And thou didst have us out of bed for this!

Raymond
(significantly):
If, as thy wife has said, the song was writ
At her request, I have no more to say
To thee or her. I beg your good indulgence.
You may retire. Robert, look to thy wife.

Robert:
She shall not hoodwink me. Have thou no fear.
Come, madame, we'll to bed.

Agnes
(taking the hands of Margherita

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impulsively into her own):
'T was good of thee. (Then whispering asidebefore she and Robert go):

I did the best I knew. Oh, have a care.
[Agnes and Robert go out.

Margherita
(fiercely to Raymond):
Art satisfied?

Raymond:
Perplexed, not satisfied.
Suspicion holds me still. That song, 't is certain,
Was never written for thy sister Agnes,
Albeit she took it; acting well her part.
I'll have no intrigues here (with imperative intensity):
I'd have thee travel,
Sir Cabestaing. The air of Roussillon
Breeds pestilence for poets. Take thy steed,
Thy lute, and thy apparel and ride forth,
At daybreak, with Lord Robert if thou will,
Or if he will permit thee. Never again
Let me behold thy face. Thy songs work sickness
Among my household. Plagues should be destroyed.

Cabestaing
(with emotion):
You leave me naught to say. Appearances
Debauch your judgment. I have no defence.
After these years, through which Affection went
Glad side by side with you and me, unheard
You send me forth. Oh, bitterly you wrong
Your excellent Lady here, yourself, and me,
With vile suspicions.—May they ride away
With me at dawn.—God send you comfort, Sir.—
To thee, my Lady, I will say farewell.

[Bows low to Raymond and Margherita and goes out.
Raymond:
My jealousy go with him!—Tell me now,
Did I not well to rid me of a doubt?
A green suspicion that was gnawing here?—
When he is gone then will I live again.

Margherita
(wildly):
This will I say: Thou hast cast out delight,
Poetry and music for a childish whim!
These ride away with him to-morrow's dawn—
But not thy old Suspicion; that remains.
Discord shall jar the jangled chords of wedlock,
And in this House, where harmony dwelt before,
Contention, Hell's own hag, shall make her home.

Raymond:
Thy words are wild. Thou speakest as one speaks
Who loses great possessions—Is it true,
The large estate of all thou lov'st is wrack,
And Desolation in the House of Song
Sits wailing to the moon?—Woman, take care,
Lest, with this thing, thou damn thy soul and—mine.

Margherita:
Thou puttedst happiness away from us
When thou didst cast out Song. Thou let'st in wrongs
Old as the heart is, and their hate distils
Poison through all thy veins. There is no cure.

[She goes out looking darkly.
Raymond:
I would not cast her off: but I would slay
Deliberately, as men slay beasts of prey,
Her and this Cabestaing, if I were sure.—
'T is well he rides away to-morrow morn.—
Once he was in my heart; ay; as a son;
Since I had raised him up from poverty.
Though born a beggar, noble is his blood:
His sire, a spendthrift, squandered his estate,
And left his young son beggared. It was I
Who took him in and made a chevalier.—
He rhymed and twittered even as a page.
I sent him then to the high Courts of Love
At Arles and Avignon, where he was learned
In love as well as song—to my regret now.
When he returned he found my Margherita,
The fairest flower in France, transplanted here,
Won, after many battles and despairs,
From many suitors in the Lists of Love,
By me, Count Raymond, scarred with wars and years.
I could not help contrasting his fresh looks
With my grey beard. And then he had a voice,
Gentle yet manly that appealed to women.—
'T was like a flame set to a tinder-faggot,
Their liking was so swift—to my regret now.—
Their minds were mated. Hers and mine were not.
I knew it from the first.—They oft would sit,—
And strange! that I should never once suspect!—
Upon the terrace with myself and others,
Discoursing on the sonnet or the tenzon,
Sirvente or sixtine and what else, God knows!
A learnéd disquisition upon nothing,
Filled full of metaphors of euphuism—
Mere nonsense!—But in time, when I had made,—
Because he had my admiration,—(fool!—
Oh, twenty times the fool that I have been!)—
And Margherita asked it—(I was blind!)—
Made him her gentleman-usher, even then
I could not see the wrong I 'd done myself.
But others saw it. Many a hint I spurned.
But something I must see. I saw—blind fool!—
She was his inspiration, as they said.
And when a woman 's that—it means she loves,
And is beloved of him who is inspired.
The truth is said at last.—I see it all.—
Blind have I been to open evidence,
And wake too late for my heart's happiness.
She loves him; ay, she loves him. It is death
For me to think on it. Why, even now
They may be kissing in the garden there.—
Oh, that I 'd slain them here!—'T is farewell now—
Farewell forever to my mind's old peace!—
[Solemnly.
This is the last night they shall meet on earth.—
And if in some dark alley of the flowers
Out there, within the garden, they be parting,
[Drawing his poniard
This asp shall find them and its fang strike home.

[He has been slowly approaching door to the right while speaking. As he says the last words, with poniard drawn, he swiftly passes out, the door closing after him. Quick Curtain.

ACT III

Scene I

Midnight. A part of Castel-Roussillon showing a terrace beneath à balconied window on whose railing of stone the Lady Margherita leans speaking to Cabestaing, booted, spurred, and cloaked for travel.
Cabestaing:
I must be gone now. Soon it will be dawn.
Dawn! and the new life far away from thee.—
God grant me strength now, double strength to do,
To wrest from Fate the happiness we demand.
I will be brave; and be thou, sweet, the same.
Shed no more tears.—Look where the star of promise,
Bright in the east, climbs upward heralding dawn.—
The night is old. I must be far ere morn.

Margherita:
Thou wilt return not later than a sennight.
I will find means of ingress. In some way
I will contrive it. Love, when lovers will,
Can overbear all obstacles. The days
Will pass on iron feet until the night
When thou art here again.—Farewell, my troubadour.
I kiss thy mouth and eyes. Farewell again.

Cabestaing:
My heart is as a lute beneath thy eyes,
Responding each emotion of thy soul.
Removed from thee, dejection shall untune
Its chords and all its golden music fail.
I would not leave thee yet! But I must go.
I fear some harm may come to thee tomorrow,
And I would be here as thy true protector.—
'T is cockcrow.—Hark!—Oh grief that I must go!

Margherita:
Harm would come to thee by remaining here.
No greater grief than that could happen me.—
Yea, we must part now. There's no other way.

Cabestaing:
My songs, like prayers, shall ascend for thee,
And reach the shrine of Him who hath in care
The hearts of lovers.—I will write to thee.
God guard thee always.

Margherita:
And be kind to thee.—
Farewell again.

Cabestaing:
Farewell, my Margherita.

[Margherita retires slowly from the balcony. Cabestaing wraps his cloak about him and remains a moment watching the window where she disappeared. Then reluctantly turns to retrace his way through the garden when from behind a clump of roses steps the Baron of Roussillon.
Raymond
(hoarsely):
Dogs should be killed like dogs! (Plunges a poniard into the breast of Cabestaing.)
Thou didst not know a snake
Lay listening mid the roses, and would strike.

Cabestaing
(as he falls):
This is thy way then!—Oh, thou vile assassin!

Raymond
(with a snarl-like smile):
What? didst thou think that, sword to duelling sword,
I would seek satisfaction of a dog?—
Oh, no! my vengeance would be swift and sure
As is the lightning.—But thou liv'st too long!

[Stabs him again.
Cabestaing
(as by a supreme effort rising and leaning on one arm):
Warm from her arms I go to meet my God,
Her kisses on my lips!—To slay thy peace—
Let—that—thought—stab—thy—soul!—

[Dies.
Raymond:
Her kisses?—yea!—
May they turn fire to burn thee there in Hell!—
Thou liest still at last thy last song sung!—
Go! sing thy wild songs there, now, with thy fellows
Among the devils of Hell! (Spurns the body with his foot.)
Sing, carrion, sing!—
What! canst thou not?—What will Seduction say,—
To whom thou strung'st thy lute-strings,—when it learns
Its bard's hot heart is cold!
[Kneels and listens at Cabestaing's breast.
Yea; it is hushed.
I thought it would be singing—but 't is still.—
So full of song thy heart was, songs of love,
I feared that such a little thing as this,
A sliver of steel, could never still it.—So!—
[Rising and gazing down upon the body as he sheathes his poniard.
It sings no more, no more!—Where are they now
Those soaring strains? that mounting spirit of song?
That fluttered like a lark and nightingale
Around the yearning heaven of her soul ...
O thou once-singing heart that sang her well,
Thou shalt lie near her! closer to her breast
Than ever heart before.—I will be kind!—
To both of you be kind!—But she must never
Divine it till the last.—We will retire.—
Her balcony views this spot.—I 've work to do. ...

[Exit dragging the body of Cabestaing.

Scene II

Late Morning. The Banqueting Hall as in Act Second, Scene First. Margherita, Beatrix, Ermengard, Malamort, Aubert, and Giraud at table. Attendants and pages waiting.
Beatrix:
My Lord lies late.

Margherita:
He was an early riser,
So says Sir Malamort, who saw him ride
Forth from the castle, saddled for the chase.

Ermengard:
Haply he goes to hunt the boar I hear
Hath wasted half the County.

Malamort:
Nay: he hunts no boar.
It is a hart he hunts: a mighty stag
That haunts the forests round of Roussillon.

Margherita:
We will be served. He may not come till eve.

[Pages and attendants bring in various dishes.
Aubert
(to Beatrix):
As for the boar thou spokest of just now—
Would that our Lord would have the boarhounds out.
We have grown stale here for amusement.

Beatrix
(laughing):
Why,
Thou 'rt gallant to us Ladies!—Hunt thy boar;
I'll hawk for herons—or for hares like thee.

Giraud
(with enthusiasm):
A boar-hunt, Ladies! nothing could be better.

Margherita
(with decision):
Raymond shall have the honor of its slaying!
He hath grown strange of late; and I will wager
He hunts this monster without men or dogs.

Ermengard:
'T were death to any man.

Margherita:
But not to Raymond.
I'll wager that he hunt the beast alone,
And bring its head back to adorn our Hall.

Malamort:
I take thy wager, Lady Margherita.
A hundred ducats.

Aubert:
I will add to that
A hundred more.

Giraud:
And not to be alone
Out of this Danaë shower, whose gold shall make
A god of Raymond, I will wage a hundred.

Margherita:
Three hundred ducats then. The wager stands.

[Enter Raymond, pale, and cloaked and booted as if just returned from the hunt. All rise as he enters.
Raymond:
Be seated.

[They seat themselves again while Raymond remains standing.
Margherita
(looking at him intently):
Thou art tired and disturbed.—
But, that aside, we have a wager here,
These Chevaliers and I.

Raymond
(mechanically):
A wager?—Well:
Take care lest thou shouldst lose it.

Margherita
(laughing incredulously):
Nay; not I.
I know my Lord too well.—'T is of a boar,
A devastating beast which thou shalt hunt,—
[With slow, deep-measured emphasis.
Alone, with neither men nor dogs to aid thee.

Beatrix:
'T is a huge monster, Roussillon, that holds
The neighbouring peasantry in terror. Ay!
A child it hath devoured, and hath slain
Six stalwart men, they say, who went to slay it.

Malamort
(laughing):
And countless dogs its mighty tusks have ripped
Sending them howling to the Heaven of Dogs.

Raymond
(who has remained darkly silent):
Ay? is it so?—And thou hast wagered now
That I shall hunt, unmanned, undogged, this beast
That hath slain several men and many dogs?

[He stares steadily into the eyes of Margherita and slowly seats himself without removing his gaze from her face.
Margherita
(sneering):
Thou wilt not hunt it, and I lose my wager!
I see thou wilt not, for thy face is pale—
[Scornfully
With fear.—I lose my wager, Chevaliers.

Raymond
(smiling darkly):
Nay; nay; not yet. When monsters make me fear
Let dead men laugh.—Yea; I will hunt this boar;
Sans men, sans dogs; and, if thou ask it, too,
Sans arms and horse—But, I will hunt this boar.

Margherita
(eagerly):
Thy dagger must thou have, for thou must bring
Its huge head to us, as a proof 't is slain.

Raymond:
This poniard then (touching the dagger at his girdle)
shall do the bloody work—
Or shall it be a spear?

Margherita:
Either, I care not.
Dagger or spear, it matters not to me.

Beatrix
(aside to Ermengard):
She sends him forth to certain death, by Heaven!

Ermengard
(aside):
He knows it. But what purpose lies behind?

Beatrix
(aside):
Canst thou not see 't is Cabestaing?

Raymond
(hearing Cabestaing's name; solemnly):
He rose
Betimes, like any lark, our troubadour,
And bade me bid you all a long adieu.
I saw him off. He rode to Avignon—
Or so I think—to seek his fortune there
With other troubadours at the Court of Love.
Lord Robert and his Lady left with him.
He will beguile their way, I have no doubt,
And breach the fortress of my Lady's heart,
Ere they arrive, with chanson or a sonnet.—
But are you served?—

Margherita:
We are, my Lord.

Raymond:
'T is well.—
I have a dainty for thee. 'T is prepared.
Let it be served.

[Motioning a page who retires.
Margherita:
Is 't fish or fowl, my Lord?

Raymond:
'T is neither fowl nor fish; but most sweet flesh.
It is a heart—of which thou art right fond.

Margherita
(smiling):
Yea, I am fond of hearts. Let it be served.

[A heart on a golden platter is brought in by the page and placed before Margherita.
Raymond:
This is a delicate morsel. Good Pierre,
Our excellent cook, prepared it only now
According to a recipe I had
Of that stout epicure, my brother Robert.

Margherita:
'T is served in state; on gold; and must be royal.

Raymond
(significantly):
Ay; royal was it when it throbbed with life.

Margherita:
A stag's, perhaps.—A stag's, thou hast just slain?

Raymond:
A noble stag's. The heart of a great stag I slew this morning.
[Margherita tastes of the heart. Raymond never removes his eyes from her face. Then perceiving that, under the intensity of his gaze, she hesitates:
Yea; wilt thou not eat?—
There is no heart like this in the whole world.

Margherita
(a look of fear gradually coming into her face):
The heart! (shuddering)
—its savour is most strange! most sweet!—
I never tasted flesh like this before.—
I can not, can not!—
(recoiling from Raymond's

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256

eyes):
Why dost thou glare so
With thy fierce eyes?— (terror in her voice):
Tell me, what thing was this,
Whose heart thou 'dst have me eat?

Raymond
(producing the head of Cabestaing from beneath his hunting-cloak here he has held it concealed during all this time):
This was the stag,
Whose heart was served thee now.—Wilt thou refuse it?

Malamort
(starting up from the table with the others):
'T is Cabestaing! The head of Cabestaing!

[Cries of Cabestaing! throughout the Hall, which quickly empties itself of guests indiscriminately mingled with pages and attendants. Margherita sits staring at the head which Raymond has placed on the table immediately facing her. Then, rising like an automaton, with her eyes fixed upon the ghastly countenance of Cabestaing, she speaks in a voice that seems to come from

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257

an immeasurable distance, thin, strained and full of unspeakable horror.
Margherita:
The heart of him I love?—Of Cabestaing?—
Oh, no, no, no!—It is some horrible jest!—
No man that lives could do a thing like this!—
A demon's deed like this!— (maddening at his silence and the intensity of his gaze):
Say thou hast jested!—
Say it, thou fiend!—Say that this heart,
Which thou hast served here, is not his!—It is
Some fawn's!—some animal's of the woods!—a dog's!—

Raymond
(mercilessly):
A dog's!—Ay! 't was a dog's!—A dog that fawned
And licked my hand and looked with lecherous eyes
Upon my wife, who loved the hound too well!—
The dead dog Cabestaing's!—

Margherita
(tottering; with closed eyes; her voice almost inarticulate with horror and anguish):
O God! O God!—
'T is true! 't is true!—He speaks the truth.—The head
Is Cabestaing's! the heart—my God!—was his!—
[Opening her eyes, that seek Raymond's face.
Never was crime like this before!—I see
The demon in his eyes that did this deed,
Exultingly, as devils torture souls.—
O God! O God!— (blazing into fury):
Unutterable beast!
Since this is true (speaking low and with strained intensity):
that I have eaten of
The heart of love and song,—know now—for fear
That I may ever lose the taste of flesh
So sweet, so poignant sweet—as long as life
Homes in this wretched body that I loathe,
No other food shall pass these lips.—May God
Have mercy on my soul!—

Raymond
(infuriated):
Magnificent harlot!—
Not to thy God, but Hell, commend thy soul!
Go meet thy lover there!—This steel, (drawing his dagger)
that drank
The life of Cabestaing, thirsts now for thine.
I should have sent you shrieking there last night
When here I found you, hungering face to face.

[He approaches her slowly from the end of the table. She retreats, facing towards him, till she reaches the casement opening on the stone balcony at the farther end of the Hall that overlooks the bastioned precipice of the castle's foundations.
Margherita:
Clean of thy touch my soul shall meet his soul!

[Leaps into the abyss.
Raymond:
That way was best.—Now I will hunt my boar!

Curtain