University of Virginia Library

[ANTHONY]

On board ship off the coast of Norway: Anthony, Wulfstan the Shipmaster, and Sailors.
SHIPMASTER
Well, master merchant, you slept late this morn
Despite our drawing nigh our journey's end—
Well, you did well perchance being among friends:
For one day at the least a steady wind,
A cloudless sky and all things going well.

ANTHONY
Why, but to hear you things go not so well
Since now I go ashore—among unfriends
You seem to say. Yet was your word before
That this Lord Rolf the Red was a good lord
To those who dealt in peaceful wise with him;
And in no warlike wise I come, meseems.

SHIPMASTER
There now again I note you—looking round
As though to find a man or two to smite—
That's still your way, and sooth it seems to me
The nigher you come to land the hotter grows
Your blood. I warn you this good lord withal
His sword-blade nowise grows unto its sheath
And he is one of many, lord or thrall
Tis much the same—life is cheap enow
And one man's blow is like another's still.
A second warning: try your mocks on them,
They will not laugh belike or say a word
Though the hall roars around them: you shall think
Them dull and go on piling jeer and jeer;
But two hours thence, two hours or days or months,
As time serves, you shall find they understood.
Warning the third: some things here shall be bought—
Most things—a sword, a house, a horse, a wife:
You may want all these things except the last,
And certes you are rich enough to deal.
—Take this by the way that they may well deal thus,
Sell you a sword and thrust you through therewith,
Sell you a house and burn it o'er your head,
Sell you a horse and steal it the next morn,
Sell you a wife and bid her loose her tongue
Until you make a red mark on her face—
And then the district-court and her tall kin
And point and edge, or clink of the King's sweet face
Outside your purse—Well all that by the way,
But this I mean by the third: all women here—
Yea how you start—are marked and known and named
Daughter of this goodman, sister of that
Nor will gold buy them save in open wise,
As wives I mean—though you indeed may deal
In wares that please them, if to help your face,
Your song, your story of old time, your dance,
You therewithal could play well with the sword,
Or throw your hair back in the face of death
To show your cheeks no paler for the sight—
Eh! do I make too long a tale; you scowl:
Why don't you ask me then to make an end?
Turn round and look, we've weathered the last ness.
Off half a point, you helmsman! There it is
The stead we were to bring you to—though why
You were so eager after this man's fame
I know not. Does it like you well or ill?

ANTHONY
A place to be forgotten in, it seems
The hill-sides like a wall, the deep green sea
The pine-trees all above it—so there dwells
The man who tears his gold from out the fire.

SHIPMASTER
Yea, fire full hot enow—lo there the hall
Big enough for a king, the water deep
Up to the garth-gate; there on the round hill
Thor's temple—may Christ curse it! the ship-stocks,
One, two, three cutters, one great merchant-ship
Just newly pitched—the long-ships neither there;
If I had not a sort of name of friend
With him and his, that would not like me well;
I would not care to meet him in the main.

ANTHONY
What then, the lord is gone away belike?

SHIPMASTER
Most like, but since the winter comes apace
Tis but a matter of ten days at most
Ere he come back unless his fiends, his Gods
Have got his soul at last.

ANTHONY
Nay, God forbid!

SHIPMASTER
Why art thou eager? wouldst thou see him live?

ANTHONY
Nay by the saints, but I would see him die—
Tell him my name first!

SHIPMASTER
There it all comes out.
I doubted this, fair merchant, God to aid
Thou hadst a look of Jonah in the face
E'en from the first; well, full certainly
There gapes the whale for thee stranded ashore,
But a dark cavern of ill hap.

ANTHONY
Good sooth,
Ill luck enow is still on my tongue's end
And in the corners of my eyes; what need
To say bewray me not, thou knowst not much—

SHIPMASTER
Why, [had] I said to Rolf thou wishedst him dead
He would laugh somewhat—drink nightlong with thee
And call thee to the ring of hazel wands
Wherein they fight next morn and then—

ANTHONY
What then?

SHIPMASTER
Is thy neck iron, he could cut it through,
E'en so I think; is thy sword as swift
As July lightning, three swords seem aloft
When his sword leaves the scabbard and he plays;
So say his own men, and our English folk
Have e'en such tales to tell of him at York
And Scarborough and Dunwich.

ANTHONY

The Hall at Earlscrag. Thora, Margaret, Bower Maidens.
THORA

[MAIDEN]
But ill,
Goodwife; they said they deemed the shoal
Had shifted and the sea was e'en too deep.

THORA
Thou sittest silent, Margaret, car'st not
For hate or love of mine?

MARGARET
Nay, if I could
Well would I love thee, if I needs must speak—
What say I? for I love thee well indeed
As slaves durst love: and thou art worthy love.

THORA
A many loves 'twixt a few common words,
And no man by to take one of them all.
But hearken, as for thee, I think, I fear
Thy smooth soft speech, thy voice so seldom raised
That dealeth not with great words, thy great eyes
That fall asleep and dream of far off things
E'en midst thy speech—thou shalt be dangerous
In love belike unto thyself and all
Who come across thee.

MARGARET
Lady, fear me not.
I do thy will—thou hast been kind to me,
And for the rest day comes and day goes by
And leaves me with nought done and nought to hope
And nought to fear even when all is said
That I have said e'en now.

THORA

Enter a Servant.
SERVANT
Mistress, Wulfstan the English ship-master
Has anchored in the haven, and is here
Some six in company and prayeth thee
For harbourage for him and his awhile.

THORA
Enter Wulfstan the Shipmaster, Anthony and Shipmen.

WULFSTAN
None the worse
We think to fare at thy hands than at his:
Be merry, for two gifts I bring today,
A bale of English linen for thy beds
And a fair winter-guest to make thy board
The merriest in Norway. Greet him well
For he is worthy of it, a rich man
Of noble Southland kin and yet withal
A merchant of all merchants—and thou, friend,
Behold a woman noble as she seems,
Kind, wise and open-handed, craving still
For honour and for knowledge: greet her well.

THORA
Nay Wulfstan, we shall get to verses soon;
Content thee, man, two Icelanders we have
To set the big words going. Verily
I am right glad to see thee and thy friend;
The winter shall be merrier for his words
I doubt me not. Thou lookest round, fair Sir
As if thou wonderest whither thou art come.
Thou hast seen Southland kings and all their state
And deemest us of small account belike,
Yet are we merry at whiles.

ANTHONY
Hail, most fair dame!
Kings' courts hold men and women gaily clad,
Soft words of priests and bitter lies and change,
But few names more redoubted than thy lord's,
And few—no eyes methinks as bright as thine.
Yea, this fair hall should be a happy place.
Aside. The Welshman lied not: she is changed indeed
From the slim joyous maiden of twelve years
And looks my mother of fifteen summers back
Come from the dead to gaze with mournful eyes
Upon the ashes of her house. Yet strange
She doth not seem to know me—Would that I
Had come upon this torment of the seas,
Whose death is my desire, amid his men
Flushed with his wealth and wine; for certainly
Peace seems about the place: these red-lipped girls,
Shock-headed herds not all too full of work,
That song without, the smiles here, that soft hand
And ready welcome—Would that we were gone
And they at peace as now.

THORA
And yet, fair Sir,
Your soft speech well said, merely on the ground
Your eyes are fixed. Well, some unburied grief
Perchance you left behind you in your land
And think you are a long way off from it,
And deem our coming winter but a sign
Of mortal separation from all love,
As I have done at whiles.

ANTHONY
In kindly wise
Thou speakest to me. Thirty-five years past
I first saw light, and in our land God wot
That is a long time to be free from grief—
But all shall go well now. Aside. A kind soft place
For me to ruin like my father's house
The soft-winged owl will through to-night!

WULFSTAN
Well lady, if you could turn to me
From this fair Southlander, then might your ears
Hear tidings from the West that touch on you.

THORA
What tidings?

WULFSTAN
These, that Sigurd your young earl,
My lord Rolf's fosterson, when spring comes round
Saileth for home bearing the good word
Of all men, and great fame that shall endure
And gold enow for anyone but him
Who deems himself Lord God to give away
Whate'er he has, yet never to grow less.

THORA
Great tidings, Wulfstan. Aside. How the bondmaid stares
Upon the guest! a fine man but a proud;
He looks as though he somewhat hated me
Already—Who shall love me? O fair Sir
Sawest thou Earl Sigurd at the English King's?

ANTHONY
Nay, lady.

WULFSTAN
Now by all the saints of heaven
Thy wits are gathering wool upon the downs!
When first I saw thee thou didst stand three feet
From the Earl's nose, wert telling him long tales
Of Sicily and the isles, the day I came
To pray for his good word in Norway here.

THORA
Well, if [thou] wakedst then, fair guest, say now
How thou deemest of him?

ANTHONY
A tall man was he,
Bright cheeked and fair haired, glib enow of speech;
Men called him a good swordsman.

WULFSTAN
O my merchant-friend,
No need to cheapen him so eagerly,
We sell no earls here.

THORA
Friends and guests, come forth
Unto the great hall, for the boards by now
Should be well laid. Yea now the horns blow up;
Come, whatso things tomorrow's sun may bring,
Tonight at least shall see us somewhat glad
Drinking the grave-ales of our joys bygone,
Our hopes too bright to bear three noonday suns.

A Wood near the House. Anthony, Margaret.
MARGARET
Thanks to the beech-boughs we are deep enough
Amongst them now to turn eyes each to each—
O brother with the eyes of the old days
Kiss me and bring the old hope back again
And half forgotten scents of Southland things!

ANTHONY
Or bring thou back unto the lonely man
Foiled, unloved and unloveable, that tide
A month belike or our last parting day,
That morning of the South wherein we sat
Anigh the tideless sea beneath the wall
Whereon the rose-laurel grew.

MARGARET
I was twelve then,
I had known no sorrow—yet as children use
To be saddened by the sound of bells or song
And try to shake from them the first sweet pain,
That as time wears is all the joy belike
That they may hope for, so there hung on me
A vague disquiet that day long ago.

ANTHONY
It showed not in thee, rather joy in life,
Sweet, healthful, strong, burned in thee as I deemed,
The gift we waste, the seed of the longings vain
That poison all when at the last we know
That God has made each one of us as lone
As he himself sits, crying out for love
Through mouths of loveless prophets, unwed priests,
Through all his judgments on the dreadful word,
Yet if we meet in hell 'tis good to meet—
Thou lookest hard: a vile sour face it is,
Thy brother's face, but shows not all the worst.
Yet I am glad thou lovest me.

MARGARET
No face
Here have I seen as dear a long, long while;
Help in a helpless place it bringeth me.
Thou art great-hearted.

ANTHONY
Ah, if it were so
And the world might go its ways while I abode
Embraced by some great love, not heeding pain
Or fearing change. With thee it might be so.
Thou art grown wondrous fair, calm are thine eyes,
Strong seemest thou all grief well to endure
And grow the fairer—

MARGARET
Brother, let us talk
Of how the world goes, and thou first, and all
That thou hast dealt with since our parting day.

ANTHONY
Nay first of thee, since a free [man] thou seest me
And rich, while thou—while thou—
How shall I say it? art a bondmaid here.
Tell me about thy life.

MARGARET
Little to tell
After that first time when my young heart found
The misery undreamed of and I saw
As in a picture of the very hell
The red flame blazing strong against the sky,
The cloudless sunny sky, and all about
Betwixt the hot deck and the flapping sail
The great-limbed fearful sailors stained with blood,
Redfaced hoarse-voiced and restless, mad with blood
And gain of gold and joy of their lives gained
After the battle, deeming the earth made
For them alone. Small wonder that the men
The Duke sent for our father's guard and help
Shrank back before them, being what well you know,
Door-keepers, varlets, full-fed, purblind knaves
Taking their ease as the world takes sunrise,
A thing that God has made once to endure;
These rather were like dreadful Gods—the fight?
I saw it not; a lad of fifteen years
With a great axe all bloody dragged us down,
Me and my nurse, into the Castle-yard—
O what a dreadful place it seemed that day
Filled with the clamour of the barbarous tongue
And clash of arms and crash of things thrown down
From out the windows, groans of dying men
And sobs and wails, and now and then a scream
Of sudden pain. By their chief there lay
A dead man well nigh covered with a cloth,
But from beneath it was a hand thrust forth,
The dead hand of my father; on the ground,
Without a wound but with their hands bound, sat
Some thirty men, the Duke's folk, waiting death
Or so they thought, and calm enow indeed
Now no more was to do. The women stood
Huddled together each in her own way,
As I belike, deeming that now she knew
What the world will be on that day of days
When o'er hushed town, and useless fruitful fields
The Judge's face shows dreadful—Well, the chief
When I was brought before him stared a while
Into my wan face, then in grave voice said,
“A great man's child; had there been twenty such
As she and he a nobler tune belike
Our fiddles might have played.” Then he cried out,
“Eric the skald, good skill thou deemst thou hast
In ways of women, choose thou ten of these
That like thee best besides this noble may.”
Then forth there stood a huge red-headed man
And grinning went up to the trembling band
And drew forth nine of all the fairest there,
But therewithal a palsied withered crone
Our porter's grand-dame. Then a huge laugh burst
From out the seafarers who stood round, and the chief
Said, “Tell us, Eric, why must we bear forth
This great-mouthed toothless porridge-eater then?”
“Nay,” said he, “I have chosen her for thee,
For she looked old and wise to teach thee well
How big a fool thou art to give such choice
Unto another.” Midst the laugh I heard
The lord say: “Nay, for this Valkyria here
Shall be my darling some four summers hence