 | Fair Rosamund |  |
Scene I.
—Woodstock. Masons raising the Labyrinth. Enter at a distance King Henry and Mavis.1st Mason.
Yonder is the King.
2nd Mason.
He's aged of late.
1st Mason.
Ay, ay! about the face; his fiery hair
Is dimmed as if by smoke; his hollow eye
Is like a haughty general's retreat.
Yet is he stout in body, well-nigh young.
2nd Mason.
Some note he stoops a little i' the back
Since he was whipped in church.
1st Mason.
Dare-devil, peace!
He's straight enough; it is the monks that squint.
2nd Mason.
Mum, mum!
1st Mason.
Why, wherefore?
2nd Mason.
'Cause the sun's come out
That wakens us to labour in the glance
O' Master Mavis' eye.
Mavis.
My gracious liege. . . .
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Thou hast a spider's entrails for thy brain,
To spin me such a web.
Mavis.
Upon that Cretan wonder did I think,
That held the misbegotten Minotaur,
Until—so worked my fancy on its shape—
Abortive circles built I airily,
And founded hoary walls as in a dream.
I entered the dim vistas, saw above
The ribboned sky
Blue as the fillets of a troop of girls.
'Twas magic certainty directed me
To the mid-chamber, straight as arrow takes
The eye o' the target; and Conception stood
Above my dreams, their secret throughly solved.
Sir Topaz.
I take it, Master Mavis, that you are what
they call a genius, for your talk is warm as a summer's
day.
Mavis.
I spoke too freely. Pardon, gracious sire.
There's many a page within the head our tongue
Should skip as reader.
Sir Topaz.
Now I do believe I've touched some quick,
and given some unconjecturable pain. On my faith,
good fellow, I know not what I have done. My apology
is an infant—'tis that innocent.
Mavis.
Oh, nothing, sir. 'Twas I that cut myself
With a knife that's in my mouth.
Sir Topaz.
Pardy, I'm grieved to the heart if I
offended. And 'tis so fair a building—a very rose—you've
carved on the ground.
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A what?
Sir Topaz.
So many curves, circular and broken, I
said, sire, the building was in that respect like a rose.
K. Hen.
Oh, ay! the garden rose, our cultured rose,
That's folded up in crimson like a queen.
Ay, ay! Then, Master Architect, I'd know
How many days before your labour's close?
Mavis.
Five, gracious liege, if every sinew work
From dawn to midnight, spite of curfew's toll
Above the hooded forest; on such terms
Will incompletion yield.
K. Hen.
And such we grant,
Though hard upon your craftsmen and yourself;
Necessity is on her knees to us
That we should use ye harshly.
Mavis.
Be it so.
Sir Topaz.
Ah, ah! He'll be right glad when 'tis
finished.
Mavis.
No; for my toil hath flushed Time's langui cheek.
K. Hen.
I'd have ye mark yon varlets! Make them skip
With energy of blows, and never spare.
Each moment is my prey the dogs should seize;
I will not brook the loss.
Mavis.
Your servant, sire
[Moves towards the masons.
K. Hen.
Sir Topaz. . . .
Sir Topaz.
Sire.
138
I think you never married?
Sir Topaz.
Nay. Nor have I within me that which
could be quickened into the desire.
K. Hen.
So proof against the arrow-headed pangs?
Sir Topaz.
'Tis thus. The woman-child died I loved
as a lad, and my love never grew after. 'Tis a little
thing of her size.
K. Hen.
Oh! then you know Love's root as well as flower;
The hidden cords that darkling bind the heart
With hungry vehemence and never loose.
Oh! they may pluck and smell the joyful red
Of golden-scented blossom, call it love;
But there are fibres down, down in the depths,
That never shall be moved, by which it lives.
Sir Topaz.
Constancy . . .
K. Hen.
I did not speak of that, I spoke of love
When planted in the red soil of the heart;
Of its insatiate girth; of Rosamund,
And how she's everywhere about my soul.
I think I told you once how first we met.
She gathered cherry-blossoms, and I bent
The bough to her; when, lo!—just where they bunched—
Whitest, there hid a little hand more white,
I kissed it, and her upturned face grew white
To swooning, and the breath stood at her lips.
I longed to be a soul from Holy Land,
With shrift won at the Holy Sepulchre;
To touch her flesh made me a penitent;
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To all the wine that filled the stony jar
Of my unusèd past. To her I was
No king of men—only the great Lord Love,
To whom she gave, as she were born to it,
Unthinking loyalty. I've never known
Such homage, only sullen tolerance
And darkest-featured hate.
Sir Topaz.
My dear liege, you have ever made light
of your griefs.
K. Hen.
Because I was a loveless man and blind.
Vain, flippant men have tied round Cupid's eyes
The badge of their own shame; his heavenly orbs
See fairest things where others scarce see fair,
Behold in darkness sooty hells more deep.
Sir Topaz.
Sire, these words afflict me beyond speech.
Is there any service you can put me to, aught you can
trust to an old man's care?
K. Hen.
Yes, yes; my love, the bright gold of my heart,
Be thou its treasurer,—be that which I
Would give my heart to be.
Sir Topaz.
Warden of the labyrinth and guardian of
the lady! With joy, and in all fidelity.
K. Hen.
'Tis well; I shall remember. But to give
This charge unto another is as hard
As to pull life and arrow from the breast
Together. Sooth, I am too heavy-souled
That I should stumble 'gainst thy kindliness
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O honest Topaz, as complete my trust
In thee as is my perfect love to her.
Full well I know thou'lt dragon all my wealth,
That none shall be enriched. Yet solitude
May gyve thy days as iron. Will it? Speak.
Sir Topaz.
Oh, I'll marry Seclusion for the sake of
getting famous progeny—Meditation—Peace.
K. Hen.
Why should I ask? Was it a country lass?
Sir Topaz.
What lass?
K. Hen.
She thou didst . . .
Sir Topaz.
Ay, ay!
K. Hen.
So long ago! and after all at peace!
Come, we must hasten back. Ho, Mavis, there!
Five days!
Mavis.
As said, so be it, gracious liege.
| Fair Rosamund | |