University of Virginia Library

Scene I

—The Dule-Chamber in Edinburgh Castle; the Queen and Mary Livingstone
Queen
Put out the candles, let the sunshine in;
Mine eyes ache in this painful, petty light.
O Mary, there is spring-tide out of doors,
The hawthorn-buds are breaking. I have glanced
Down from my chamber casement on the moat
Deep, deep below, and there was shining green,
And turfy glimmer on the cold, grey rocks.
It must be blithe without.

Mary Livingstone
Round Holyrood
An angry people gathers. Dear my mistress,
Let the black hangings canopy your bed
As lowering thunder-clouds . . .

Queen
You cruel girl,
Through the long, sombre record of the night
Did we not kneel? Altho' I fear the touch
Of the stone-tombs, did I make shortened prayer
For his unhouselled soul? Was I not broken
By the great dirge that rose for him?

Mary Livingstone
Ay, madam,
The dawn was white about us when we left
The Royal Chapel. You may put religion
Aside, and study vengeance.

Queen
For the dead
We will not cease to pray, and they shall never
Be absent from our thoughts. Give me the air;
I swoon again. It is captivity
To breathe in this close darkness.

(She faints)
Mary Livingstone
Let the light
Flood in on her!

Enter Lady Lethington and Mary Seton
Mary Seton
Alack, what little health
My lady has!

Lady Lethington
She must have heard the cries.

Mary Livingstone
Unpack your gossip.

Lady Lethington
Girls, there is a cartel
Set up, a wicked writing. Peace, she stirs.

Mary Livingstone
Stoop nearer.

Mary Seton
They have dared to name her name
With Bothwell's and the lady of Buccleuch's.

Queen
(Opening her eyes)
It is a dream. Yet tell me everything.
You all look reticent.

Mary Seton
But you will fall
Back into swoon for comfort.

Queen
Let me hear!
I shall not build on faintness for my help;
Rather on God, my Truth.

Mary Seton
In slanderous night
You were writ up . . .

Queen
A murderess. Make my pillow,
Now she has loosed the shutters. We shall need
Time to prepare our nerve. How firm the city
Holds to the land in sunlight! I am firm;
I shall not slip back into faint or drowse,
For anything they say within the street.
Fetch me his miniature.

Mary Livingstone
The king's?

Queen
I laid it
Beneath my psalter.

Mary Livingstone
Madam, here it is.

(They gather round the Queen as she gazes at it)
Queen
His eyes are touchstones: I have thrown mine wide;
They blench not from his portrait any more
Than from his white, blind body. As I stood
Below the feet, my grief was turned by death
To stone of wonder: it was marvellous
I saw what once embraced me, spoke my name,
Wronged me, and wept me back. That awful hand—
Impossible to think of!—wedded me;
On that small piece of sculpture, once his mouth,
I had expended kisses. . . . Then the past
Grew void; I could not weep:
Yet be my witnesses I meet his eyes.
How dead you lie about me! Take the picture.
You say the Earl of Bothwell is accused
Of helping in this deed?

Lady Lethington
’Tis said he wrought
The very murder.

Queen
(Rising).
Girls, there have been days
On which the king, my husband, spoke such insult
I could have plucked the sky down on his head:
Lord Bothwell never hated him, no cause
Of quarrel lay between them, no distrust,
No memories, and no shame.—A throstle, hark!
Sing, sing, keen bird! Oh, I forget myself;
My anger is an impulse at my throat
As piercing as your love!—Can punishment
Take aim, when the Lord Admiral and I
Are found in fault? I recollect the eve
Of David Riccio's murder as a point
From which my new suspicions dart on those
Who hide behind detraction. What strange spell
Is fixing me to gaze on Kirk o' Fields,
On that black, hollow spot? The noon has altered;
Close up the shutters. I have never seen
A world so sullen . . . and you say my name
Is on the Tolbooth? If I bend my ear
I catch hoarse cries; I could not suffer hate;
That buzzing frenzies me.—Of all this evil
There is no fraction in my soul. It seems
As if I stood amid a roaring crowd,
Till to my deafened senses the vile tumult
Seems to arise within. Am I a ghost
To pace yon uninhabitable rooms,
Where I put on my silver-broidered gown
Hardly a week ago, and trimmed my hair
The newest fashion, softly brushing it
Clear from the temples? I must leave this haunt
For Seton.

Lady Lethington
With Lord Bothwell?

Queen
He shall mind
My boy; all people shall have knowledge how
I rate their libel—the one, honest man,
Who in his eagerness to do me service
Almost waylays my thoughts. Argyle and Huntly,
With Lethington, shall give me private escort
To my deep country home, where I can live
Retired, and watch the willows' glinting buds.
I have a captive's instincts, and already
Anticipate small pleasures with a passion
Intemperately ardent.
(Looking out)
Who is that
Rides hither from the High Street? Shame! The earl,
Guarded by fifty men; his hand is moving
Above his hilt. Close up the shutters—darkness!