University of Virginia Library

ACT IV.

Scene. Night. A wild part of the Campagna. Enter Publius, Bursa, Galahault, Guenevere and Soldiers. Publius and Bursa somewhat apart from the others.
Bursa.
Halt!

An Officer.
Halt!

Bursa.
This is the place.

Publius.
Is there some shelter
Near by?

Bursa.
A sort of cavern.

Publius.
Let the Queen
And Galahault be conveyed there.

Bursa.
They will be
As well under the stars; 't is a rough place.

Publius.
Let them be made as easeful as may be;
But we should be alone when Launcelot comes.

Bursa.
I hardly credit that he comes alone.

Publius.
At first he would not, but at last consented
On Varro's safeguard.

Bursa.
Varro's!

Publius.
There 's some oath
Of brother-in-arms between them.

Bursa.
How is that?

Publius.
Some friendship that began when Launcelot
Held Varro prisoner.

Bursa.
He takes his word?
Why,—what prevents us?—we might hold him captive,
And—think of it—he ...

Publius.
No; Varro might, not we.
The soldiers are all his. Besides, he has
A special and unlimited commission
From Cæsar, making his command to-night
An independent service, that reports
Direct to Cæsar and to him alone.

Bursa.
Not even to me?

Publius.
No; you are here, as I am
An envoy, not a general.

Bursa.
Has Cæsar
Put such a slight upon me? Not command
My officer? Had I been told of this,
I had seen all your politics in hell
Ere I had come!

Publius.
It has all been conceived,
Planned, executed in so short a time
There was no chance to tell you. Only thus
Would Varro pledge his word; and Launcelot
Would have no other surety. Be not angry.
Consider, 't is but for a night; and then,
The exigence. Why stand upon a scruple,
If it turns the scale; ... but rather than lose all,
Be somewhat blind to what you cannot help.

Bursa.
I like it not.

Publius.
Nor I; but failure less.

Guenevere.
Why have you brought us to this lonely place?

Publius.
Madam, we serve the Emperor's desires ...
But, in this case, believe me, yours as well.

Guenevere.
The Emperor's desires will be ill served
If you serve mine indeed! (Continuing as if to herself.)
They were served well
If some strange sudden evil fell on him ...

Publius.
Madam, you mistake me—and the Emperor.
That Cæsar loves you, I can no wise doubt,
When I look on you; I should wonder rather
That there were any one who loved you not,
Being great enough to dare. But divine Cæsar,
Who is as God over men's earthly fates,
Ordains not for himself but for their weal
Whom Heaven commits to his authority.
See now how you misjudge him; we are here
For your sake, madam ... to bring to you a friend ...
Sir Launcelot. ...

Guenevere.
It will rejoice me much
To see a knightly face of mine own court ...
But what does godlike Cæsar's omniprescience
Discern in this “for those whom Heaven commits
To his authority”? Some general good,
Doubtless, beyond the pleasure of a queen.

Publius.
It were a general good the war should cease;
And were that general good so brought to pass
That the same means that wrought it wrought as well
Some courtesy particular to one
To whom the general good itself might yield
A little and the world yet be no loser,—

Guenevere.
Why, what a mouse of compliment is this
The mountain labors with! Come, sir, your point.
I have no will to end the war—what then?

Publius.
But if it end for Cæsar's good and yours?

Guenevere.
How can my good and Cæsar's be the same?

Publius.
By nothing that is not your heart's desire.
You'll say so when you know ...

Bursa.
Hark!

Publius.
Are they coming?

Bursa.
It is their horses' hoofs upon the rocks.

Publius.
Madam, and you, most noble Galahault,
Pray you, withdraw a little ... Officer! ...
(To Guenevere.)
This will all clear itself. (To Galahault.)
That which I spoke of
Is sudden ripe; he meets us here to-night.

Galahault.
Sir Launcelot?

Publius.
Ay; you were thus much wrong,—
Perhaps in the rest, too.

Galahault.
Never believe it; he will not.

Publius.
Well, we shall see. You hold with us if he does—
[Exeunt Guenevere, Galahault and Soldiers.]
And if he does not, there's no faith in reason ...
What, sullen still? Why, look you, man, we tremble
Upon the dizzy edge of ruin. Fail
To win this lover-warrior, Launcelot—
I hope we shall not—but if we should fail,
What 's left to us but death, or loss of all
That makes life life,—place, pride, power, riches, all
Blown to the winds like dust from Stromboli!
Be not deceived that Galahault is taken.
The empire's lost; Rome only still is ours,
And no hope save division in the foe.
At such a time fits not to stand on forms.
Come, man, your help.

Bursa.
Why, such help as I can;
But I've no stomach for it.

Enter Varro and Launcelot.
Varro.
Yonder they stand.
I'll wait apart here where the soldiers are.

Launcelot.
My friend!

Varro.
Well, well, no words.

[They clasp hands and exit Varro.]
Publius.
You know each other?

Launcelot.
Well, in the field.

Publius.
We are both knowing to this;
Speak, therefore, to us both.

Launcelot.
You say you have
A certain letter. What's your price for it?

Publius.
Oh, sir, you gallop.

Launcelot.
I am not come here,
Leaving my camp with this night-muffled haste,
For smirk and roundabout of envoy phrase.
You say you have a letter; I reply,
Let me look on it. If it be what you
Report it,—take the ransom of a king. ...

Publius.
You rate it highly ... but I highlier.
I would not barter it for aught so gross
As gold; in fine, the thing is priceless, sir.
But what I would not sell my enemy,
I'd give my friend.

Launcelot.
Give? Is it possible!

Publius.
Ay, to my friend.

Launcelot.
Friend? What mean you by that?

Bursa.
Pledge us your friendship, noble Launcelot,
And we will send your letter back with gifts.

Launcelot.
You seem to speak me fair and honorable;
But yet your pardon, sirs, if I mistrust
The sudden friendship of an ancient foe. ...
Friendship? You cannot mean that comrade love
That knits men closer than the clasp of kin.
That is not born of compact nor discretion,
Nor ripened in a night.

Publius.
May 't grow to that!
But there must be a friendship to begin with.

Launcelot.
You say well; and indeed I must be friends
With those who friend me. I were ingrate else.

Bursa.
Here 's my hand on it. I loved you for a foe,
And fought you as a man might clip his mistress;
But side by side instead of face to face,
We'll rout the very thunder.

Launcelot.
Side by side ...
Side by side ...

Publius
(hastily).
You shall be king in Britain,
And Guenevere your queen.

Launcelot.
Treason!

Publius.
No treason;
Treason is to the State, and that is Cæsar,
To whom your king and you alike owe fealty.

Launcelot.
That is our quarrel; I'll not argue it.
Treason or no treason to the State, it is
Black treason to my friend and to my cause.

Publius.
Are you so slow to treason to your friend?
Oh, sir, you cannot be both true and false
At once. I know you loyalty itself,
Saving to Arthur—who could blame you that?—
But true to him you are not. Then be true
At least to your own course and to yourself.
Play not the hypocrite to your own soul
To lull yourself with loyalty by halves.
Being against him, oh be wholly so—
No secret enemy, but an open one!
And since a fate is on you to be false,
Be bravely false and reap the fruits of it.

Launcelot.
I am no hypocrite; I love the King,
Howe'er my life bely it.

Publius.
Love him? Why?
What loves he, think you? Not the Queen. Not you.
Not anything but his ambition. What!
Would he not sacrifice you both to-day
For what he calls the welfare of the State,
Which is his own? Put he not under foot
His early loves, to make a stairway of
To mount the throne? ...

Launcelot.
You understand him not.
'T is no defect of heart in him, but rather
That his great heart has room for all the world,
And for that million-throated need endures
His friends' denial as his own. Were we
Not willing, we should not be worthy of him.

Bursa.
And call you this cold-blooded mask a friend?

Publius.
If the world take him for its Cæsar, ware;
King Stork may make King Log a world's regret.
The rigor of his rule already 'gins
To gall the people. The army chafes at it.
Even the leaders are rebellion-ripe
And wait but to be plucked. 'T is love of you
More than the King that keeps them faithful now.
You'll not believe me; but yourself shall hear
The lips of Galahault himself declare it.
(To Bursa.)
Summon him.

Bursa.
Officer!

[The Officer appears, speaks with Bursa and retires. Meanwhile:]
Publius.
You shall be king,
And the war-wearied world again have peace.

Launcelot.
I laid aside a crown to follow him.

Publius.
And Guenevere your queen. ... (Pause.)


Launcelot.
There spoke the Devil!

Publius.
You yet shall say I am your better angel. ...
Enter Galahault.
Sir Launcelot would be assured 't is true
That, were he reconciled with Cæsar, half
Your armies would come with him. So I told him;
So you told me; forsooth, his modesty
Will not believe it without confirmation.

Galahault.
Do not believe that ever I believed
You would be aught but Launcelot,—a name
That knighthood knows not from itself.

Publius.
Hold, hold!
You gave me reason—

Galahault.
And for my own ends
I did so—

Bursa.
We are tricked.

Publius.
Not wholly. Sir,
You'll not deny that it is Launcelot,
Not Arthur, that the army loves. For him
They throw their caps up; and to follow him
They would not scruple, lead he where he may.

Galahault.
All this is true.

Publius.
They 'd follow him?

Galahault.
Doubtless.
They 'd follow him.

Publius.
You 'd follow him yourself?

Galahault.
He knows my love for him. No fault, no crime
Could make me leave him. Could he be a traitor,—
As he will not,—I'd know that it must be
From truth to a higher cause. ...

Publius.
But should that be?

Galahault.
I have said all I will.

Publius
(aside to Bursa).
Take him away;
And let him not be near the Queen.
[Exeunt Bursa and Galahault.]
You see,
You are the leader; but where'er you lead,
He means to follow. With a nice reserve
He waits your index, will not speed nor hamper
By hint nor shadow of his inner thought
The gathering of your true untold desire
Into decision,—be it what it may.
He leaves you free ... not his to watch the stars,
Nor change the helm ... but once your course is set,
That's his course, that's the course of the best half
Of Arthur's army. Where they'd shrink themselves,
With you they would not question; where they'd fear,
With you they'd dare damnations, face the unknown,
March blindly into darkness, leaving the quarrel
Of what they do and why, to you. It is
The leader, not the cause, that men believe in;
Save now and then a mind—and that's a leader.

Launcelot.
So much the more must he whom accident
Makes leader, try the honor of his deeds,
Lest he debase the mint of many hearts.

Publius.
It is is honor's name I call upon you.
I have spoken to you of power; but do not think
I hold you one of those who to be crowned
Would stoop to be unworthy of a crown ...
Yet to be king is good, if worthily ...
I have spoken to you of unfettered love;
But do not think I hold you such an one
As for his pleasure would ride down the rights
Of even the poorest peasant in the way.
Yet if a great necessity decree
We pluck out honor from a fiery shame
And pleasure follow for an overplus,
What god shall bid us put away that joy?
Joy is not in itself an evil thing,
But only to make joy our chief concern,
Usurping honor's kingship in our hearts.

Launcelot.
Where is there honor in foul treachery?

Publius.
Love hath its honor, too. Is there no treason
But to your king? Do you owe no allegiance
To her of whom the earldoms of your soul
Are held by homage? Do you owe no faith
To her whom you have put in jeopardy—
Even by your love of her—so great that now,
Even now, at mere imagination of it,
I wonder how your breath can come and go
So steadily? Can you condemn the Queen,
With this impassive face, to wrong and shame,—
Yield that proud spirit to the bitterness
Of contumely,—let the scavenger crows
Of court and camp perch upon her fair name
And pick the white bones of her murdered honor?
Why, after that the body's death were nought;
And yet that she should die in agonies,
That supreme miracle of flesh be given
To the red flames to scar and shrivel and blacken
Into a mummied horror, while the slow nerves,
Shrieking with dilatory pangs—

Launcelot.
What mean you?

Publius.
Burned at the stake,—so reads your Briton law,
For the high treason of adultery
In queens. The annals of your country tell
That Goneril, the wife of Calader,
Endured that punishment. It is the law.
You know well that King Arthur, even if he
Were judge of his own sons as Brutus was,
Holds the integrity of the ordered state
So high above the individual life
He would not flinch one comma of the law.
Burned at the stake—will he do violence
To the law, his god, to save her?

Launcelot.
He is just.

Publius.
And pitiless. He would not, though he loved her.
And will he love her, when he knows the truth?
Worse in his eyes than faithless to himself,
The insulter of his crown! ... Or will he spare her
For your sake, who betrayed him with a kiss? ...
There is a justice so implacable
Wrong is not so unjust. Will you leave her
To the mercy of that justice? Sir, her safety
Is at your will. If you betray her, what
Remains? No hope ... unless in the protection
Of Cæsar.

Launcelot.
Cæsar?

Publius.
Cæsar ... and Cæsar's love!
She is within our lines, a prisoner;
For, knowing of her coming from her letter,
The Emperor had an ambush set and seized her.
He will defend her, but he will ask payment,—
Her love ... or else your sword. What, do you still
Hesitate? If the Emperor should fall,
After the Queen were made his concubine,
And she should fall again in Arthur's hands? ...
Her beauty hath so wrought on Cæsar's eyes
That only for the great respect he bears you
And for the hope that he may win your sword
Does he delay his pleasure. Scorn our friendship,
You give her proud fame to be spat upon,
Her body to the fire ... or Cæsar's arms ...
Or both perhaps, if Arthur conquer Cæsar. ...
Are you a man, and can hear this unmoved?
I'll not believe it. I myself am stirred
Almost to tears for pity of her lot.
If you are not to passion, then, poor lady,
She is indeed forsaken. You forget,
Perhaps, the empire of her loveliness,
And time and distance have made dull your love.
But when you see her rise into your sight,
Supreme and radiant as Orion, when
The silent horror of her beauty pleads
Against her doom, then, then each word of mine
Will, like the dragon's teeth that Cadmus sowed,
Crop armed invasion in your soul and peal
Her cause with trumpets.—Ho, there! Bring forth the Queen! ...
Why, now you start. Ay, sir, the Queen is here.
I'll leave you with her. When you look on her,
Think of the fire ... and think of Cæsar's love ...
Think of the smell of burning flesh ... and then
The silken scented luxury ... the hush
Of secret dusky chambers ... and the glare
Of flame upon the faces of the crowd. ...

Enter Guenevere. Exit Publius.
Launcelot.
Guenevere!

Guenevere.
Launcelot!

Launcelot.
Thou art more beautiful even than my dreams of thee.

Guenevere.
I am more glad of thee than even my heart foreknew.

Launcelot.
Man is not God enough that his weak dreams,
Even from thy shadow in his memory,
Should mould so beautiful a world as thou.

Guenevere.
Thou standest tall between me and the sky,
Most like a spirit. Art thou real, love?

Launcelot.
As real as the gleam of thee that plays
Across the night like starlight on a pool,
Swift witchery and the dark deeps underneath.

Guenevere.
My heart is deep with calm and light with joy.

Launcelot.
Thou art a night of mystery and stars. [Pause.]


Guenevere.
I think the whole world is a song of love;
I think the whole world swims with lyric joy.

Launcelot.
Thy voice is like a still star sped across the hush.

Guenevere.
There is another voice that cools out of the night.

Launcelot.
The angel of our love ... It has been long ...
How great a mystery you seem to me
I cannot tell. You seem to have become
One with the tides and night and the unknown ...
My child ... your child ... whence come?—by what strange forge
Wrought of ourselves and dreams and the great deep
Into a life? I feel as if I stood
Where God had passed by, leaving all the place
Aflame with him.

Guenevere.
How tell the secrets of
His coming—the weird vibrance of the room,
As if the chords of ghostly violins
Thrilled into looming dreams where'er you came.
From the beginning, ere he was conceived,
The air was quick with him.

Launcelot.
The strangeness is
That I, who have not borne him, am aware,
I too, of intimacy with his soul.
It is as I were just awaked from sleep
And one should tell me of events that passed
While I was sleeping, and I knew them not;
Yet at each word confused memories
Stir somewhere deeper than the waking mind,
And I am conscious that I was a part
Of things I knew not of.

Guenevere.
He is watched over;
Where he is, one is brushed by the unseen,
And the air thickens with the hush of shadows.

Launcelot.
What will he be? My thought leaps to the future
And pictures him a thousand different ways,
But always something starred above his fellows.

Guenevere.
Oh, do not haste the heavy-footed years.
Let him live out his pudgy dimpled life—
Dear baby—without fret of what's to be.
Other lives ... boyhood, manhood ... in their turn!
I want him as he is. What will make up
For those ten little aimless fingers? Who
Will ever give me back his helplessness?

Launcelot.
His babyhood is not so real to me
As he is. You have seen him. Is he like you?

Guenevere.
He is like you.

Launcelot.
I think he is like you;
And you forget to look for it in him,
Losing remembrance of yourself in me,
I have not seen him.

Guenevere.
I may never see him ...

Launcelot.
Your face is beautiful as one who thinks
Of death, with seaward eyes.

Guenevere.
It is worth all.
I know the rapture now the martyrs had,
When this was Nero's and Domitian's Rome.
I would not yield a pang of any woe
That I have suffered, so wrought into one
The pain is with the vision and the joy,
The peace and all the wonder of your soul.

Launcelot.
We are more far off from the world of ills
Than Vega or Arcturus from our feet.
I feel as if it were some other I
That captains Arthur's army, moves, speaks, thinks,—
Some machine curiously made half alive,
Whose very feelings are mechanical.
But when what somehow seems to be indeed
I, lifts its head above the waves, I know
That all that turmoil does not rive nor jar
The bases of my soul.

[A bugle, far off, faintly.]
Guenevere.
Oh, how alone
We are, as if the stars and only we
Watched in the darkness!

[Pause.]
Launcelot.
What is it that gleams
Like a coil of wan light in your eddying hair?

Guenevere.
A silver serpent. Ylen gave it me
In Lyonesse.

Launcelot.
You used to wear a dagger.

Guenevere.
They took it from me.

Launcelot.
Oh, your hair, your hair!
It is like dark water in a little light. ...
Oh, your beautiful hair, Guenevere!
I let my fingers drown in it ... Oh,
I let my soul drown in it, Guenevere.

[A noise without, as of a shield that clangs falling to the ground.]
Guenevere.
Oh, what was that?

Launcelot.
A soldier's shield that fell.

Guenevere.
I thought it was a summons to my soul.

Launcelot.
The whole night seems unearthly and remote,
And every common thing a prodigy.

Guenevere.
The earth and air are tense and augural,
And tremulous with the unseen. I think
It is our souls that thus compel the night.

Launcelot.
Oh, your beautiful hands, Guenevere!
They are like moonlight lying on my arm.

[Kisses her hands; and then her cheek and throat, passionately. A wind rises, and stirs gustily in the trees.]
Guenevere.
Oh, the wind, the wind! It blows against my face
As if the night were waking.

Launcelot.
Look at me!
I want to look deep down into your eyes.
I want to find your soul down in your eyes.
I want to find your kisses in your soul.

Guenevere.
Oh, you are like the passion of the morning
When all the kissed earth wakens into life.

Launcelot.
I worship you, I worship you, I worship you,—
As a saint worships heaven I worship you;
You ray the darkness like the starry heaven,
And like the raptured woods I worship you ...

Guenevere.
No ... somewhere deeper than all me and thee ...

Launcelot.
Oh, your beautiful soul, Guenevere! ...

Varro
(without).
Sir Launcelot!

Guenevere.
Who calls!

Launcelot.
Ha! It is Varro's voice.

Enter Varro.
Varro.
The morning wind arises and the east
Is faintly gray. My duty that you be
Safely within your lines before the dawn
Narrows the time. When will it please you start?

Launcelot.
Why, now. [Exit Varro].
There is no time but is both well
And ill.

[Kisses her; then detaches his dagger and passes it to her silently. She conceals it.]
Enter Publius; and Varro, Bursa, Galahault, and Soldiers in the background. A pause.
Publius.
Well, are you friends with Cæsar?

Launcelot.
No.

Curtain.