University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

—The Flemish Camp on the Eastern Bank of the Lis, between Disselghem and Rosebecque.— Artevelde's Pavilion.
Artevelde and Elena.
Elena.
What is it that disturbs you?

Artevelde.
Nothing, nothing;
I am not disturb'd.

Elena.
You are not like yourself.
What took you from your bed ere break of day?
Where have you been? I know there's something wrong.
Tell me now, what has happen'd?

Artevelde.
Be at rest.
No accident, save of the world within;
Occurrences of thought; 'tis nothing more.

Elena.
It is of such that love most needs to know.
The loud transactions of the outlying world
Tell to your masculine friends; tell me your thoughts.

Artevelde.
They stumbled in the dusk 'twixt night and day.
I dream'd distressfully, and waking knew
How an old sorrow had stolen upon my sleep,
Molesting midnight and that short repose
Which industry had earn'd, so to stir up
About my heart remembrances of pain
Least sleeping when I sleep, least sleeping then
When reason and the voluntary powers
That turn and govern thought are laid to rest.
Those powers by this nocturnal inroad wild
Surprised and broken, vainly I essay'd
To rally, and the mind unsubjugate
Took its direction from a driftless dream.
Then pass'd I forth.

Elena.
You stole away so softly
I knew it not, and wonder'd when I woke.

Artevelde.
The gibbous moon was in a wan decline,
And all was silent as a sick man's chamber.
Mixing its small beginnings with the dregs
Of the pale moonshine and a few faint stars
The cold uncomfortable daylight dawned,
And the white tents, topping a low ground-fog,
Show'd like a fleet becalmed. I wander'd far,
Till reaching to the bridge I sate me down
Upon the parapet. Much mused I there,
Revolving many a passage of my life
And the strange destiny that lifted me
To be the leader of a mighty host
And terrible to Kings. What follow'd then
I hardly may relate; for you would smile,
And say I might have dreamed as well a-bed
As gone abroad to dream.

Elena.
I shall not smile;
And if I did, you would not grudge my lips
So rare a visitation. But the cause,
Whate'er it be, that casts a shadow here,
[Kissing his brow.
How can it make me smile? What follow'd, say,
After your meditations on the bridge?

Artevelde.
I'll tell it, but I bid you not believe it;
For I am scarce so credulous myself
As to believe that was, which mine eyes saw—
A visual not an actual existence.

Elena.
What was it like? Wore it a human form?

Artevelde.
That such existences there are, I know;
For whether by the corporal organ framed
Or painted by a brainish fantasy
Upon the inner sense, not once nor twice,
But sundry times have I beheld such things
Since my tenth year, and most in this the last.

Elena.
What was it you beheld?

Artevelde.
To-day?

Elena.
Last night—This morning—when you sate upon the bridge?

Artevelde.
Twas a fantastic sight.

Elena.
What sort of sight?

Artevelde
(after a pause).
Once in my sad and philosophic youth—
For very philosophic in my dawn
And twilight of intelligence was I—
Once at this cock-crow of philosophy,
Much tired with rest and with the stable earth,
I launch'd my little bark and put to sea
Errant for geste and enterprise of wit
Through all this circumnavigable globe.
I cavill'd at the elements—What is earth?
A vast congestion of unmethodised matter
With but a skin of life—a solid huge,
Which Nature, prodigal of space, provides
For superficial uses: and what air?
A motion and a pressure: fire, a change;
And light the language of the things call'd dumb.

Elena.
I have been told the studies of your youth
Were strangely thought of, but I'm well assured
They never were unlawful.

Artevelde.
You are right:
My meditations in their outset wore
The braveries of ignorance and youth,
But cast them, and were innocent thenceforth,
For they were follow'd with a humble heart,
Though an inquisitive, and humbler still
In spirit wax'd they as they further went.
The elements I left to contemplate.
Then I considered life in all its forms,
From sentient to percipient—small advance—
Next to intelligent, to rational next,
So to half-spiritual human kind,
And what is more, is more than man may know.
Last came the troublesome question—what am I?
A blade, a seedling of this growth of life
Wherewith the outside of the earth is cover'd:
A comprehensive atom, all the world
In act of thought embracing, in the world
A grain scarce filling a particular place.
Thus travell'd I the region up and down
Wherein the soul is circumscribed below;
And unto what conclusion?

Elena.
Nay, your promise;
Tell what you saw; I must not be denied
After a promise given; tell me of that?

Artevelde.
I say to what conclusion came I then
These winding links to fasten?

Elena.
I surmise
To none; such ramblings end where they begin.

Artevelde.
Conclusions inconclusive, that I own;
Yet, I would say, not vain, not nothing worth.
This circulating principle of life
That vivifies the outside of the earth
And permeates the sea; that here and there
Awakening up a particle of matter,
Informs it, organizes, gives it power
To gather and associate to itself,
Transmute, incorporate other, for a term
Sustains the congruous fabric and then quits it;
This vagrant principle so multiform,
Ebullient here and undetected there,
Is not unauthorized nor increate,
Though indestructible; life never dies:
Matter dies off it and it lives elsewhere
Or elsehow circumstanced and shaped; it goes;
At every instant we may say 'tis gone,
But never it hath ceased; the type is changed,
Is ever in transition; for life's law
To its eternal essence hath prescribed
Eternal mutability: and thus
To say I live—says, I partake of that
Which never dies; but here begins, not ends,
The spiritual Unit's quest of what concerns
Its integral self: and here doth reason meet
Her more than match.

Elena.
Philosophy, I know,
Darkened your dawn of youth; but surely day
Divulged the light divine.

Artevelde.
I saw it soon:
Philosophy's shortcomings I discerned,
And in man's instinct knew the voice of God.
Man's immortality that voice declared
Even from the first; but what of him should die
Was for God's other and his after voice
Left to be told; and then but told in part,
Lest faith should sicken by satiety
And lose its titles to reward. Much dies,
More lives, is all we know.

Elena.
Love is immortal;
Whatever dies, that lives in Death's despite.
But, Artevelde, you shall not lead me off
Through by-ways. Tell me of this sight you saw,
Or dreamt you saw.

Artevelde.
This eye-creation;—yes,
What is it to surprise us? Here we are
Engender'd out of nothing cognizable.
If this be not a wonder, nothing is;
If this be wonderful, then all is so.
Man's grosser attributes can generate
What is not and has never been at all;
What should forbid his fancy to restore
A being passed away? The wonder lies
In the mind merely of the wondering man.
As for this creature of mine eyes—

Elena.
What was it?
The semblance of a human creature?

Artevelde.
Yes.

Elena.
Like any you had known in life?

Artevelde.
Most like;
Or more than like; it was the very same.
It was the image of my wife.

Elena.
Of her!
The Lady Adriana!

Artevelde.
My dead wife.

Elena.
Oh God! how strange!

Artevelde.
And wherefore?—wherefore strange?
Why should not fancy summon to its presence
This shape as soon as any?

Elena.
Artevelde!
Felt you no fear at such a sight?

Artevelde.
No, none.
Dejected I had been before: that sight
Inspired a deeper sadness but no fear.
Nor had it struck that sadness to my soul
But for the dismal cheer the thing put on
And the unsightly points of circumstance
That sullied its appearance and departure.

Elena.
For how long saw you it?

Artevelde.
I cannot tell.
I did not mark.

Elena.
And what was that you saw
So saddening and unsightly?

Artevelde.
She appear'd
In white, as when I saw her last, laid out
After her death; suspended in the air
She seemed, and o'er her breast her arms were crossed;
Her feet were drawn together pointing down,
And rigid was her form and motionless.
From near her heart, as if the source were there,
A stain of blood went wavering to her feet.
So she remain'd inflexible as stone
And I as fixedly regarding her.
Then suddenly, and in a line oblique,
Thy figure darted past her, whereupon,
Though rigid still and straight, she downward moved,
And as she pierced the river with her feet
Descending steadily, the streak of blood
Peel'd off upon the water, which, as she vanish'd,
Appear'd all blood, and swell'd and welter'd sore,
And midmost in the eddy and the whirl
My own face saw I, which was pale and calm
As death could make it:—then the vision pass'd,
And I perceived the river and the bridge,
The mottled sky and horizontal moon,
The distant camp, and all things as they were.

Elena.
If you are not afraid to see such things,
I am to hear them. Go not near that bridge;—
You said that something happened there before—
Oh, cross it not again.

Artevelde.
Not cross the bridge?
The river cannot otherwise be passed.

Elena.
Oh, cross it not!

Artevelde.
A strange resolve were that,
And to the French most acceptable: yes,
You will be held of counsel with King Charles,
Opposing thus my passage. Enter Vauclaire and Van Ryk.

Sirs, good day!
You're soon astir for men that watch'd so late.

Vauclaire.
And you, my Lord.

Artevelde.
For me, these eyes of mine
Almost forget they once could close in sleep.
Have any scouts come in?

Van Ryk.
Yes, two, my Lord.

Artevelde.
Ah! and with tidings? Nothing good I know,
But let me hear.

Vauclaire.
In truth it is not good.
They say that Popperinguen, Rousselaere,
And Thorout have declared for France.

Artevelde.
Three more!
That is a heavy falling-off, my friends,
And arrantly ill-timed. Despatch! despatch!
The cure for these defections must be found
At any hazard. Forward must we press
And try our fortune ere another town
Can find occasion to play foul.

Vauclaire.
To-night,
If I mistake not, they would reach us here;
And better were it, in my mind, the stream
Should be betwixt us than as much dry land.

Artevelde.
We will to Council, and consider there
What may be best. If they be here to-night,
We may abide them. Whither away, Vauclaire?

Vauclaire.
You'll wish, my Lord, to have the scouts and spies
Before you in the Council.

Artevelde.
It were well.
[Exit Vauclaire.
And thou, Van Ryk, go round, and gather in
The Captains of the host.
[Exit Van Ryk.
This troubles me.
Three towns, and two before!—Two leaks and three—
The vessel sinks: I vainly climb the mast.

Elena.
Oh, say not so; when once they know you're near
The towns will all hold out—all will be well;
Your presence ever righted your affairs
Whatever was amiss.

Artevelde.
Two months ago
My presence was a spell omnipotent
That seem'd of power to win me all the world.
But fortune wears a faded beauty now;
And as some dame, her hour of conquest past,
Repairs her ravaged charms, and here a tooth
Replaces where the flesh had else fallen in
Making a wrinkle in the rounded cheek,
And there the nevermore redundant locks
Replenishes, so do I waste my pains
In patching fortunes which are past their prime.
All, all is vain endeavour, labour lost.
So soon as my advance made Courtray sure,
Thence sent I with all speed to Rousselaere
My best of Chatelains, Walraven. Nay!
Toiling and striving, watching and warding, all
Null, fruitless, fond!

Elena.
Too anxious, Artevelde,
And too impatient are you grown of late.
You used to be so even and so calm
That nothing ruffled you.

Artevelde.
I stand reproved.
'Tis time and circumstance that tries us all;
And they that temperately take their start
And keep their souls indifferently sedate
Through much of good and evil, at the last
May find the weakness of their hearts thus tried.
My cause appears more precious than it did
In its triumphant days.

Elena.
You prize it more
The more it is endanger'd.

Artevelde.
Even so.
A mother dotes upon the reckling child
More than the strong: solicitous cares, sad watchings,
Rallies, reverses, all vicissitudes,
Give the affection exercise and growth.
So is it in the nursing a sick hope.

Enter Vauclaire's Lieutenant.
Lieutenant.
The Captains are in Council met, my Lord,
And wait upon your leisure.

Artevelde.
So; I come.

Lieutenant.
My master, Sir, has heard, he bade me say,
That Cassel has revolted.

Artevelde.
What of that?

Lieutenant.
He wish'd that you should know it first, my Lord,
And judge if it were fit to be disclosed
Before the Council.

Artevelde.
Fit to be disclosed!
Pooh! Tell the Council I am coming. No;
I'll have no secrets. And for this, forsooth,
What is it but that we are in the moult
And here's a feather fallen? Say I come.
[Exit Lieutenant.
Another stab, and in a vital part!
For Cassel's defalcation is no less.
'Twere hard to keep a secret that is shared
By yonder ape; my nose took note of that,
Admonish'd by the musk upon his beard
As up and down his salutations tost it,
Like a hen drinking. Well, it matters not.
The battle now is all, and that to win
Were to win back my losses; that to lose
Were to make all that I had lost before
Into one sum of loss.

Elena.
I feel assured
That you will win the day.

Artevelde.
You choose to say so.
Elena, think not that I stand in need
Of false encouragement. I have my strength,
Which, though it lie not in the sanguine mood,
Will answer my occasions. To yourself,
Though to none other, I at times present
The gloomiest thoughts that gloomy truths inspire,
Because I love you. But I need no prop;
Nor could I find it in a tinsel show
Of prosperous surmise. Before the world
I wear a cheerful aspect, not so false
As for my solace you would fain put on;
Nor in my closet does the oil run low
Or the light flicker.

Elena.
Lo now! you are angry
Because I try to cheer you.

Artevelde.
Angry? no—
Not angry; that I never was with you;
But as I deal not falsely with my own,
So would I wish the heart of her I love
To be both true and brave; nor self-beguiled,
Nor putting on disguises for my sake,
As though I falter'd. I have anxious hours,
As who in like extremities hath not?
But I have something stable here within
Which bears their strain.
Enter Van Ryk.
I make the Council wait;
Here comes Van Ryk to tell me so.

Elena.
'Twas I,
Master Van Ryk, that stay'd him; 'tis my fault,
And lest I make it more, I'll take me hence.

[Exit.
Van Ryk.
The Council can abide your time, my Lord.
There waits without a stranger just arrived
Whom it were well you speak with ere you go.
He will not lift his beaver save to you,
But boldly calls himself an arrant traitor
That left the French last night, and seeks your camp
To tell you what he knows.

Artevelde.
Desert to me!
I thought desertion look'd the other way.
What is he like?

Van Ryk.
I think he is of rank;
In his deportment knightly eyes might see
What they would gladly imitate.

Artevelde.
Of rank!
The very madness of desertion this!
Go, fetch him in.
[Exit Van Ryk.
Thorout and Popperinguen!
Cassel and Rousselaere! And who, I wist,
Can keep a town's allegiance on its legs
If not Walraven?
Re-enter Van Ryk, conducting Sir Fleureant of Heurlée, in armour, with his vizor closed.
Give us leave, Van Ryk.
[Exit Van Ryk.
Well, Sir! your pleasure? and say first by whom
My camp is honour'd thus.

Sir Fleureant.
By one, my Lord,
Known to your host by all reproachful names
Of miscreant, perfidious traitor, knave,
Caitiff and cur.

Artevelde.
These, Sir, are shrewd additions,
And not, I hope, deserved.

Sir Fleureant.
They have been so:
Had not contrition wash'd desert with tears,
They were so still. I am that perjured Knight
Fleureant of Heurlée.

Artevelde.
Art thou he indeed?
What brings thee hither?

Sir Fleureant.
That which brings the proud
To crave a low equality with dust;
Which arms the lover lorn, the suitor cast, the sinner caught,
The courtier supplanted, with the knife,
Or bowl or halter—for their several griefs
The sovereign cures. My Lord, what brings me here
Is of that grain—a loathing of my life;
And, to come closer, such a sort of grief
As wrung Iscariot's heart when forth he went
And hung himself upon the field of blood
Has made me thus (in my Aceldama
The sin of self-destruction partly spared)
To run upon your sword.

Artevelde.
I am not bound
To find thee in a hangman. Go thy ways!
Thou art a slight, inconstant, violent man.

Sir Fleureant.
My Lord, I come prepared for your disdain,
And slender were I in my penitence
If I should not confess it well bestow'd.
But light and fickle as you deem me, still
To one fix'd purpose am I wedded now
For better and for worse—'tis to repair
The wrong that I have done you, and to die.

Artevelde.
Sir, you may live or die as likes you best;
It is your own affair; to me all's one.
The hurt your treachery has done to me
Can neither be repeated nor repair'd.
No further harm can follow from your life
Save in the sundering of my time and thoughts
From matters of more moment.

Sir Fleureant.
Pause, my Lord,
Ere you pronounce me as inept for good
As I am harmless. Slight me as you may,
You cannot cast me in mine own esteem
More low than where I lie; I scorn myself
With such a bitterness as bars all taste
Of other's scorn. But from this bitter tree
Good fruitage, if so please you, you may pluck.
I have been well esteem'd for soldiership,
And none can better know your enemy's host,
Where soft, where hard, where rotten, and where sound,
Their hopes and fears, the order of their march,
Their councils and intents. If all I know,
With what small service I by deeds might render,
May be accepted as a sacrifice
My conscience to appease, I die content.

Artevelde.
Methinks I barely comprehend your conscience;
For sicken'd with one treasonable poison,
'Twould seem to seek another for a cure.
What says your conscience on your King's behalf?

Sir Fleureant.
It says that there all claims are cancell'd; yea,
All ties dissolved; for never was a Knight
Of prowess known, more thanklessly repaid,
More scurvily entreated, than by him
And by his ingrate uncles and his court
Was Fleureant of Heurlée.

Artevelde.
Are you there!
Ah! now I understand you. Come this way.
My Council is awaiting me. Ere night
I will speak further with you. Until when—