University of Virginia Library

Scene IV.

—A Chamber in the Tower.
Dunstan and Edwin.
Dunstan.
How does your Grace?

Edwin.
What need for you to ask?
Let me remind you of an antique verse:
What sent the messengers to hell
Was asking what they knew full well.
You know that I am ill and very weak.

Dunstan.
You do not answer with a weakened wit.
Is there offence in this my visitation?
If so, I leave you.

Edwin.
Yes, there is offence.
And yet I would not you should go. Offence
Is better than this blank of solitude.
I am so weary of no company,
That I could almost welcome to these walls
The Devil and his Angels. You may stay.

Dunstan.
What makes you weak? Do you not like your food,
Or have you not enough?

Edwin.
Enough is brought;
But he that brings it drops what seems to say
That it is mixed with poison—some slow drug;
So that I scarce dare eat and hunger always.

Dunstan.
Your food is poisoned by your own suspicions.
'Tis your own fault. Though Gurmo's zeal is great,
It is impossible he should so exceed
As to put poison in your food,—I think.
But thus it is with Kings; suspicions haunt
And dangers press around them all their days;
Ambition galls them, luxury corrupts,
And wars and treasons are their talk at table.

Edwin.
This homily you should read to prosperous Kings;
It is not needed for a King like me.

Dunstan.
Who shall read homilies to a prosperous King!
'Twas not long since that thou didst seem to prosper,
And then I warned thee; and with what event
Thou knowest; for thy heart was high in pride.
A hope that, like Salome, danced before thee
Did ask my head. But I reproach thee not.
Much rather would I, seeing thee abased,
Lift up thy mind to wisdom.

Edwin.
Heretofore
It was not in my thoughts to take thy head;
But should I reign again . . . Come, then, this wisdom
That thou wouldst teach me; harmless as the dove
I have been whilom; let me now, though late,
Learn from the serpent.

Dunstan.
To thy credulous ears
The world, or what is to a King the world,
The triflers of thy Court, have imaged me
As cruel and insensible to joy,
Austere and ignorant of all delights
That arts can minister. Far from the truth
They wander who say thus. I but denounce
Loves on a throne and pleasures out of place.
I am not old; not twenty years have fled
Since I was young as thou; and in my youth
I was not by those pleasures unapproached
Which youth converses with.

Edwin.
No! wast thou not?
How came they in thy sight?

Dunstan.
When Satan first
Attempted me, 'twas in a woman's shape;
Such shape as may have erst misled mankind
When Greece or Rome upreared with Pagan rites
Temples to Venus, pictured there or carved
With rounded, polished, and exuberant grace,
And mien whose dimpled changefulness betrayed
Through jocund hues the seriousness of passion.
I was attempted thus, and Satan sang
With female pipe and melodies that thrilled
The softened soul, of mild voluptuous ease
And tender sports that chased the kindling hours
In odorous gardens or on terraces
To music of the fountains and the birds,
Or else in skirting groves by sunshine smitten
Or warm winds kissed, whilst we from shine to shade
Roved unregarded. Yes, 'twas Satan sang,
Because 'twas sung to me, whom God had called
To other pastime and severer joys.
But were it not for this, God's strict behest
Enjoined upon me,—had I not been vowed
To holiest service rigorously required,
I should have owned it for an Angel's voice,
Nor ever could an earthly crown, or toys
And childishness of vain ambition, gauds
And tinsels of the world, have lured my heart
Into the tangle of those mortal cares
That gather round a throne. What call is thine
From God or man, what voice within bids thee
Such pleasures to forego, such cares confront?

Edwin.
What voice? My kingdom's voice—my people's cry,
Whom ye devour—the wail of shepherds true
Over their flocks, those godly, kindly priests
That love my people and love me withal—
Their voice requires me, and the voice of Kings
Who died with honour and who live in me,
The voice of Egbert, Ethelbert, and Alfred.
What wouldst thou more? the voice of Kings unborn
To whom my sceptre and my blood descends—
A thousand voices call me.

Dunstan.
Sir, not so;
The voicesof this people and those Kings
Call on Prince Edgar, not on thee, to reign.
There is a voice calls thee, but not to reign,
The voice of her thou fain wouldst take to wife;
An excommunicated wretch she is
Ev'n now, and if thy lust of kingly power
Outbid thine other lusts, and starken thee
In grasping of that shadow of a sceptre
That still is left thee, 'tis a dying voice.
For know—unless thou by an instant act
Renounce the crown, Elgiva shall not live.
The deed is ready, to which thy name affixed
Discharges from restraint both her and thee.
Say wilt thou sign?

Edwin.
I will not.

Dunstan.
Be advised.
What hast thou to surrender? I look round;
This chamber is thy palace, court, and realm.
I do not see the crown. Where is it hidden?
Is that thy throne? why, 'tis a base joint-stool;
Or this thy sceptre? 'tis an ashen stick
Notched with the days of thy captivity.
Such royalties to abdicate, methinks,
Should hardly hold thee long; nay, I myself,
That love not ladies greatly, would give these
To ransom whom I loved.

Edwin.
If all I have
Be nothing worth, why ask'st thou me to give it?
I trust thee not. I deem myself a King.
But let me go at large, and knowing then
How stands my realm, what's lost and what remains,
I'll answer thee.

Dunstan.
Now, now, I bid thee answer.
Anon I bring the parchment that redeems
Another and thyself, from durance both,
And one from worse. I bid thee be prepared.

[Exit.
Edwin.
Elgiva! for thy ransom, life were little,
A kingdom in itself of no account.
But oh! an abject and unkingly act
Done by a King, and, as his foes will say,
To save himself in his extremity,—
This is a purchase thou thyself wilt scorn,
Although thyself the rescued. Yet, oh! yet . . .
What step is this?

Enter Emma.
Emma.
My Lord, the Abbot comes,
And I am here at peril of my life . . .
This from Earl Leolf . . . it says the Queen is safe . . .
No more or I am lost . . . Earl Athulf . . . nay . . .

[Exit.
Edwin.
Farewell, then, loved Elgiva! I shall die,
As now I may, with honour from mankind,
And no one in thine ear shall dare to breathe
A defamation of my kingly name.
They shall not say but that I died a King,
And like a King in my regalities.

Re-enter Dunstan (holding a scroll).
Dunstan.
Thy signature to this.

Edwin.
I will not sign.

Dunstan.
Thou wilt not! Wilt thou that thy mistress die?

Edwin.
Insulting Abbot! she is not my mistress;
She is my wife, my Queen.

Dunstan.
Predestinate pair!
He knoweth who is the searcher of our hearts
That I was ever backward to take life
Albeit at His command. Still have I striven
To put aside that service, seeking still
All ways and shifts that wit of man could scheme
To spare the cutting off your wretched souls
In unrepented sin. But tendering here
Terms of redemption, it is thou, not I,
The sentence that deliverest.

Edwin.
Our lives
Are in God's hands.

Dunstan.
Sot, liar, miscreant, no!
God puts them into mine! and may my soul
In tortures howl away eternity
If ever again it yield to that false fear
That turned me from the shedding of thy blood!
Thy blood, rash traitor to thy God, thy blood!
Thou delicate Agag, I will spill thy blood!
Ho, Gurmo! . . . I have sinned like Saul . . . What, ho!
Gurmo, I say . . . The sword of Samuel . . . ho!
Enter Gurmo.
Thou knowest thine office. Let me see thee soon.

[Exit.
Gurmo
(falling on his knees).
Mercy, my Lord! Oh, say you grant me life.

Edwin.
Mercy for thee; what mercy canst thou show?
Yet thou art but another's senseless weapon,
And if thou needs must do thy bloody work,
Strike; I forgive thee.

Gurmo.
Gracious Lord, not I.

Edwin.
Then I may have some minutes more to live;
But if thou falter, soon will the Abbot find
A readier hand.

Gurmo.
He knows not what I know.

Edwin.
What dost thou know?

Gurmo.
Hark! hear you not, my Lord?
Trumpets and shouts! Anon they storm the Tower.

Edwin.
'Tis Athulf's cry! the guards are gone! 'Tis he!