 | Launcelot and Guenevere |  |
Scene III.
—Merlin's Tower. Merlin. Enter Dagonet, unperceived.Merlin.
Burn, burn, ye leaping flames! And yet in vain.
Ye cannot burn away the prison-bars
That gaol my soul from knowledge. Yet burn on;
A little and a little still I learn.
Yet all the knowledge man can win avails
But to avoid the shock of mighty forces
Which he can neither deviate nor control.
I look out on the rushing of the world
As one who sees the gloom of swirling waters
In the abyss of midnight. On they sweep,
Fatal, resistless, plunging as one mass
From turbulence to booming turbulence.
Whence? Whither? Ye occult unconscious Powers!
How shall I call upon you? By what names?
What incantations?—Fool, what do you here?
Father Merlin, when will the devils appear?
Merlin.
What mean you, Fool?
Dagonet.
Were you not conjuring? I cry you mercy, I thought it was an invocation to Flibbertigibbet. Sir Kaye says that Asmodeus was your father, but the Devil himself will be saved ere his wits stop leaking.
Merlin.
I do not take that. How should his wits leak?
Dagonet.
Marry, I am sure his brain's cracked. He put me in the pillory the other day for making a jest that passed his understanding, but he will be pilloried with my jest long after I have ceased jesting with his pillory.
Merlin.
What, were you in the pillory, Dagonet?
Dagonet.
Long enough to feel an imaginary ruff about my neck still. But by the intercession of the Queen, I was delivered. I hope her issue may be nobler.
Merlin.
Her issue? Where is the sequence in this?
Dagonet.
That if her issue be no nobler than
Merlin.
Why, Fool?
Dagonet.
The Prince of Cameliard is bewitched; he does nothing but sigh.
Merlin.
Why, you should be the physician to heal him of that ailment. For what purpose else does the King keep you?
Dagonet.
Nay, the jester is a physician that heals none but the well. The sick will have none of him, neither the sick in body nor in wit nor in heart; for the sick in their bodies desire the sympathy of long faces; and the sick in their wits think they are mocked, because they do not understand what is said; and the sick in their hearts speak another language—laughter is bitterness to them and their recreation is in groans. And Prince Peredure is in the third of these categories,—he is in love. Indeed, Father Merlin, he is past my medicining, and I would you would cure him.
Merlin.
Would you have me cure youth of love?
Then I were a magician indeed.
And I would counsel you, good Dagonet,
To have an eye upon the Queen of Orkney.
She works with devious indirections, and
This love of Peredure may be to her
A point to rest the lever on, wherewith
She pries at greater matters. Come with me;
I have employment for you. 'T works so, does 't?
Fate lays on her a bitter-hearted life;
Even as long ago I prophesied
That woe should whelm her past all woman's woe
And woe past woman's from her heart should flow
To whelm the world—and Time unwinds it so.
[Exeunt.]
| Launcelot and Guenevere | |