 | Launcelot and Guenevere |  |
Scene I.
A Garden in Lyonesse. Beds of the earlier vegetables, such as lettuce, cabbages, young onions, and radishes, mingled with primroses and daffodils, and other early flowers. Some of the beds covered with straw, which Dame Brisen and Dagonet are busy removing, to expose them to the warmth of the sunny spring morning. The garden walks lead back to a doorway in a small castle, where a plum-tree in full blossom is trained against the castle walls. In another part, a shrine, with an image of the Virgin. The garden is encompassed by a wall, parts of which are in view; and through a gate in this wall the ocean is seen in the distance. On the other side of the gate from the castle, a turret with a spiral stair is built against the wall, overtopping it and looking on the sea.Dame Brisen
(crooning).
Old and bent and a bag of bones!
Kisses for maidens, kicks for crones!
But never so bonny and brisk a bride
In the dark of the moon when the demons ride!
“Demons” and “the dark of the
moon”—Oh, Lord! Let 's think of something cheerful.
(Sings.)
Burned his mouth because he was hasty—
[Breaks off and looks at Dame Brisen quissically.]
Dame Brisen
(crooning).
Mandrake and martagan!
A goodly brew
For the—
[The rest is lost in a mutter.]
Dagonet.
Ugh! Who would think she was but gathering herbs for a pottage? ... Dame Brisen, the country folk say you are a witch.
Dame Brisen.
Witch enough to bewilder them, Dagonet. Gather you your strawberries, and meddle not with an old woman's whims. Weed the patch as you go.
Dagonet.
That ever I should come to be a puller of weeds!
Dame Brisen.
You are wrong to say so. Would you have a common kern here, to be a partaker of the Queen's secret?
[Dagonet drops his basket, springs lightly up into the turret, glances rapidly over the wall, and up and down the road, and lightly leaps back into the garden.]
Dagonet.
The Queen has no secret,—with a wall
Dame Brisen.
Well, well.
Dagonet.
Besides, if we keep up the trick to each other, we shall lie with the better grace to the world. We shall have no superfluous habit of the truth to forget. So let it be your lady, the Princess Ylen, even between us, and no word of secrets or the Queen! Old Merlin has a nose like an elephant, and can smell a thought from here to Camelot, before you have spoken it.
Dame Brisen.
Nay, you can tell me naught of Merlin. In the old days—But the sap 's out o' that long ago ...
Dagonet.
When will the child be born?
Dame Brisen.
Under the next moon.
Dagonet.
And when did the Princess' husband die? When a man is to have a posthumous heir, he can't be too careful of the date of his death.
Dame Brisen.
It was nigh on Michaelmas of last year the Prince died.
Dagonet
(counting on his fingers).
Oh, that I had given myself in my youth to the mathematics!
Dame Brisen.
Tangle your brains no more about it. The child will pass for his ... I cannot keep from thinking of the Queen and the Princess in their childhood. You remember them.
Dagonet.
As well as I remember my first top. I spun it and they spun me. ... Oh, the Virgin!
What now?
Dagonet.
I have put all the weeds into the basket with the strawberries. God never meant me to be a clodhopper.
[Runs up again into the turret, where he sits twirling his bauble, and looking out idly over the wall.]
Dame Brisen.
I saw them both born. They are within three months of an age. The kingdoms of their fathers lay side by side; that was before King Arthur had made all the kingdoms into one. There were Druids still in the fastnesses in those days.
Dagonet.
Yonder 's a horseman far down the road. He rides too fast for a clown.
Dame Brisen.
By the mistletoe, but they were a pair of madcap little queenlets! Untamed as young hawks—
Dagonet.
And inseparable as bread and butter.
Dame Brisen.
When the lady Guenevere was not at the court of our good King Pelles, then was the lady Ylen with your mistress at Cameliard. They would have it no other way. And it was ever Guenevere that led in the adventure, and it was ever Ylen that led in the escape.
Enter Ylen. She stands for an instant in the doorway, and then comes slowly down the walks, plucking primroses. She pays no heed to the others, and they do not perceive her.
Dagonet.
Yonder horseman wears the King's livery; perhaps he brings news from the armies.
Nay, but that would gladden the heart of Guenevere. Day long she frets for tidings of the war.
Dagonet.
Not the war so much as the warrior.
Dame Brisen.
Since the King crossed the waters with his knights, you would say the sea rolled between her and her peace.
Dagonet.
He'll never keep up that pace when he gets to the foot of the hill. I'll down to meet him.
[Leaps over the wall and disappears.]
Dame Brisen.
And leave me to finish your work for you, vagabond.
[As she rises and turns, with her basket in one hand and Dagonet's in the other, she meets Ylen.]Good morrow, my lady.
Ylen.
Good morrow, Brisen. What a day of spring!
The wind comes with a touch so like a kiss
I almost blush and startle; and the knit sense
Opens like a flower in the warm air.
Go call the Queen; this will revive her more
Than all the service of a score of us.
Dame Brisen.
Ay, madam, she stifles, shut indoor.
Ylen.
What chiefly
Lays waste her spirit is the barren longing
To look on Launcelot. But to hear his name,
She will hang upon your words like a great bee.
One hour ere she set out to join him.
Dame Brisen.
Well,
She has not so long to wait as she has waited.
Ylen.
Will it be boy or girl.
In the old glad way,
I should smile and take his hand.
What were there to say?
And my soul would be
Like the peace of summer noons
Beside the sea.
Enter Guenevere, from the castle. A pause.
Guenevere.
My heart is with the sailors on that bark,
Far out to sea, whose sails shine like a star,
Bound for the south—oh, to be free! to stab
This turnkey Policy, break prison, flee,
Untrammelled, fearless, irresponsible—
And let tongues wag that will!
Ylen.
The place is pleasant.
Since needs must we be prisoners, methinks
Our jail no hardship.
Oh, were Launcelot here,
I could content me, were 't a hermitage,
And think myself the mistress of a world.
Ylen.
And I, whose lord and lover bivouacs
By camp-fires whence no tidings ever come,
With the unreturning armies of the dead,
What bird of all the heaven could lend me wings
Would serve me? So I grow content, perhaps,
With all too little, seeing that what I would
Is more than mortal can.
Guenevere.
Forgive me!
My loss is loud and fretful, and forgets
Your deeper, dumb, irrevocable grief.
You are my savior: you have all been kind,
Gentle and true, Sir Tristram when he lent
This bower to us, and your Brisen, too,
And Dagonet—a good world, after all,
That has such hearts in it! Oh, Ylen, Ylen!
I think there never was so good a woman—
Ylen
(sings).
“We two have wandered on the hills
And braved the winds together.”
Oh, dear my Guenevere, is it so much
That we should just be friends? And what's a friend
That does not feel a joy that friendship needs
The will made deed to lean on?
Guenevere.
Such a friend
Is oftener dreamed than real.
Ylen.
Nor is this
Something to love—nay, were it but a bird.
My lord is not; you grow away from me
In the great world I have no heart to enter;
My father dreams of Graals and mystic visions,
And nears the end. I never had a child.
And I begin to long for yours as if
I were indeed its mother.
Guenevere.
Ah, but ...
You do not know the mystery of it all;
A life within your life—a part of you
And yet not you—a soul—think, Ylen, think—
A soul, a spark struck from divinity,
And caught in you as tow to smoulder in
Until the free air fan it to a flame—
Shut, as the Host is in the tabernacle,
Within you—Oh, it makes a sanctuary
Of every inch of you, a temple where
The soul is priest and may not leave the altar
One instant! The whole earth is hushed and chancelled.
Out of the shadow of the brooding presence
No escape anywhere—ocean, sky, air, filled
With the universal awe. I live in awe.
I am become a wonder to myself,
A place inhabited by secret powers,
A wilderness wherein I wander, lost,
Among dim, alien shapes, forgotten gods,
That work out their uncomprehended aims
And ask no leave of me.
(without).
Ho, there! News!
Guenevere.
What now?
Ylen.
It is the fool.
Enter Dagonet and a Messenger.
Dagonet.
A messenger from the Court, your Majesty.
Guenevere.
What news?
Dagonet.
A caskful at the least. Broach, broach! We are all dry as Saracens. I could drink the stalest small beer of court gossip with a relish. A mad jest would be sack to me. Any old news! We that live in the country—
Guenevere.
Peace, Fool; it is his cue.
Messenger.
First, madam, Merlin
Greets you with health and loyal salutation.
Bidding you have no care of things of state,
Seeing the matters of your regency,
Whereof he is the minister, continue
Smoothly and fair. What else imports you know
With more detail, you may at your good leisure
O'erread in these. [Giving packet.]
Guenevere.
No tidings of the wars?
Messenger.
A post from France brings word the King has met
The Romans at the Loire and vanquished them;
The happy issue of the day being due
Chiefly to Launcelot.
Guenevere.
Ay, what of him?
Messenger.
He was the first knight in the world before,
Should tell his deeds, not I, who have no language
To parallel his action. His appearance
Made the ranks break before him; they that stayed,
Like stubborn oaks, were blasted with the shock
Of his great battle-axe, which played like lightning,
Here, there, now at the centre, now the flanks,
Cracking the cloud of war.
Guenevere.
Methinks I see him!—
Ylen.
Madam, be calm ... What of the others?
Messenger.
Alas!
Sir Godmar, the Lord Marshal, that old soldier,
Who hath commanded since King Uther's time,
Is slain. At that the field was almost lost,
And had been, but for Launcelot, whose coming
Made them whose courage failed at Godmar's fall
Take heart again and conquer. Save for this,
No loss of note except Sir Dinadan
Who is made prisoner.
Ylen.
What, Dinadan?
The merry Dinadan? A sorry jest.
Messenger.
The Romans have retreated to the Rhone,
Whither our armies follow. For his prowess
The King has named Sir Launcelot general
In Godmar's place.
Guenevere.
Why, then, he has command
Of all the armies!
Messenger.
Ay, madam, next the King.
You bring good news. But we forget your journey. Dagonet, look you to his entertainment.
Dagonet.
Now it's my turn ... Shall we go in? ... What's the last mad prank on the Severn? Who has made Sir Kaye ridiculous? Or no, God made him that. Which of the maids of honor—now the cat 's away the—
Messenger.
One more commission. Merlin prays the Queen
To read this scroll.
[Bows and exit with Dagonet.]
Guenevere.
Oh! ...
Fate waits upon his will. No enterprise
So hopeless, be it in peace or be it in war,
But his adhesion sureties its success!
Ylen.
Holá! Holá!
Guenevere.
But to be fellows with him
Makes lesser men invincible.
Ylen.
How Tristram
Will chafe that he must rest inglorious here
While such brave deeds are doing!
Guenevere.
Launcelot
Holds him his only peer; but the heavens fight
With Launcelot!
Ylen.
And to Tristram they are dark;
As now when he must stay and serve King Mark.
Guenevere.
The more is Launcelot's glory that alone
He is sufficient. Oh, it is strange
Should be so mighty and so terrible.
Ylen.
What is more gentle than the delicate air?
And yet its storms uproot the rugged oak.
And what is softer than the yielding wave?
Yet floods and tempests lurk there. What more kindly
Than the warm fire, which, being unleashed, devours
A city or a forest in a night? ...
I pray you, read the scroll that Merlin sent.
I am curious.
Guenevere.
What mystery is this?
A riddle—for the harp.
Ylen.
Nay, read it out.
Guenevere
(reads).
The flight of a gull in the mist,
A trail in running water,
And the secret of a woman.
The rise of the tide,
The courses of the stars,
And the thought in the heart of a woman.
The might of the sea in storm,
The silences of the night,
And the birth of a child.
But one thing have I not seen,
That taking counsel prevailed against days or doom
Or the desire of a woman.
The leaves rustled with knowledge,
The air trembled with tidings;
I was aware of a dream in the darkness.
He that is wiser than his father, yet not so wise;
He that is holier than his father, yet not so holy;
Such an one stood before me in the night.
It is white and a maiden,
Its odors are elfin music in the garden,
But no fruit comes of it.”
Ylen.
How can he know?
Guenevere.
He knows, he knows.
Ylen.
Nay, perhaps he but spreads a snare for you.
Guenevere.
He has strange power to see men's hidden souls.
His look can make your thoughts startle and shrink
Like naked things.
Ylen.
Let me look at the scroll ...
It's partly pat and partly in the air;
Words, words; or I am dull.
Guenevere.
No, no; he clouds
His meaning in a mystery. That's his way ...
The worst is, to do nothing ... What he knows
He knows. What he will do, he will do. And there's
No help but silence and to wait the event.
[The scene closes.
| Launcelot and Guenevere | |