 | The Shadow Garden |  |
Scene I
Late afternoon deepening gradually into dusk. A walled and terraced garden of Castel-Roussillon, with statues, a fountain, a dial, urns, and marble-benches. Enter Aubert, Malamort and Giraud returned from hawking: attendants, carrying hawks, hooded, belled and brailed upon their wrists, enter with them and pass out of the garden through a Gothic gate to the right. A stair, centre, stone-urned and balustraded, leads to another entrance, more imposing, towards which the chevaliers advance.Malamort:
A fair day's hawking, chevaliers. My hawk,
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Aubert.
And mine two hares. A fine gerfalcon that.
No eyrie in the Pyrenees breeds better.
Giraud:
I had no luck. My falcon was an eyas;
And burst her brails and with her jingling
And dangling jesses winged adown the wind
My falconer too clumsily let slip
Her hood, and so I lost a hare and falcon.
Malamort:
Thy usual luck with hawks as well as women.
Something is ever at fault with both.
Aubert:
Not so.
One lady here, I think, he hath in brails.
And not so far away now either.—See!
Here comes the stately Ermengard, whose eyes
Are wells of crystal darkness, glinting ice,
Where men may drown their souls for love.
Giraud:
'T is true.
And with her one, the Lady Beatrix,
Whose gaze is soulful as if she could claim
Kinship with Heaven.—Falcons are they both
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[Enter, from the gateway above, the Ladies Ermengard and Beatrix, talking and laughing.
Malamort:
Ay: yet shall both find masters. Whistle them
And they will come to call and take the hood
And sit upon thy wrist like any goshawk.
—Ladies, we greet you. We have had good luck.
Aubert:
Ay: here are feathers for your fancy, see.
And fur for caps. Fair luck. Some pretty strikes.—
Three herons and two rabbits.—Like you that?
Ermengard:
By Heaven! they strut like folk who 've done great deeds,
Killed dragons and not rabbits; and what praise—
What say'st thou? shall we praise them, Beatrix?
Beatrix:
Not I, in sooth. I keep my praise for hunters.—
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I see but one (looking at Aubert)
and he's much like a crane,
Long-shanked, long-nosed.
Aubert:
A heron for thy hunting.
Beatrix:
I hunt not herons, neither hawk for hares.
The noble hart alone is worth the hunting.
Him only would I slay; baying him there
Deep in the antlered forest.—Oh, the joy,
Oh, the wild joy of it!
Malamort:
Come, slay me now.
With thy blue-arrowed eyes. I am thy hart,
Long-bayed, and lean with running from thy shafts.
Ermengard:
Now then, have at thy hart! thou hast him bayed.
Have at him!—Look; he dares thee to the fray.—
Art thou turned hind, and fleest from thy hart?
Beatrix:
Not mine, in sooth: I am for better beasts.
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Thou meanest better fowl—that singing bird
The Baron Raymond loves.
Malamort:
Ay; Cabestaing.
Giraud:
Troubadour and gentleman-usher to our Lady.
[With a significant smile.
Our Lord is sure of Margherita's love,
Else had he never placed this singing-bird
In her rich cage to sing her heart away.
Beatrix:
I hate him as I hate the songs he sings,
Because they're beautiful and he—is proud,
And neither 's for my asking. Would that I
Were the wild hawk to strike this sparrow down!
Malamort:
Thou art the hawk to strike him. I will wear
Thee, wild one, on my wrist and whistle thee
The way to fly.
Beatrix:
If thou wilt train me to it,
And make the quarry good, then I am thine.
Aubert:
A haggard thou, that stoops to no man's lure.
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(suddenly illuminated):
Oh! lies the wind in that direction?
Ermengard:
Nay.—
Let Cabestaing but ballade her, by Heaven!
Haggard she were no more, but on his wrist.
Beatrix:
Not I! i' faith!—Perhaps I love another.
[Glancing provocatively at Malamort and Aubert.
Aubert:
Me now or Malamort?
Beatrix:
I speak no names.
Be thou as wise when thou hast come to love.
Ermengard:
Giraud, thou hearest: When Experience speaks
Innocence must listen.—Gossip links our names.—
An thou wouldst have me love thee, let my name
Go free of thine. I am no quarry for
Thy nets and bird-lime. Nay; I still am free.
No man shall cage my wildness, no man tame.
Giraud:
I am a merlin that shall have thee yet,
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Ermengard:
Rebellious?—ay!—My cause is Liberty.
Malamort:
My quarry lies not that way. It is here.
[Regarding Beatrix.
Giraud:
Alas! I fear my hunting days are over.
Beatrix:
And thou but thirty!—Why, a man 's no man
Until he reaches thirty. Then his arm
Is what it should be: he can face the world
With woman on it. And his mind, that mawked
And moped in love, hath freed itself of webs,
And all the dead dry insects of its youth,
And shows a clean room, where was trash before,
To the one woman who hath learned to love.
Aubert:
No hope for me then!—I am twenty-five.—
My heart is full of—
Malamort
(mockingly):
Songs, like Cabestaing's?
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(regarding Beatrix smilingly):
Indifference, say—
Toward her fair sex, such as she hath for him,
Our troubadour, Guillaume de Cabestaing.
Beatrix
(flaring up):
Am I a badger that thou hound'st me so
With Cabestaing?
Giraud
(with a subtle smile):
Oh, how she hates him!—Look!
Here comes thy Cabestaing.
Ermengard:
Deep drowned in thought.
[Cabestang appears above and slowly descends the terrace stair sunk in thought. Ermengard, exaggeratedly, continues:
What! is thy Muse insistent?—Worrisome wench!—
She should be punished with neglect.—What now?
Doth she divide thy mind against thy heart,
Intending one thing and thy heart another,
Lining thy brow with care, deep as thy rhymes?—
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Aubade and chanson? Or, divided now
'Twixt love and war, perplexed which way to turn,
Sits in the lists of Fancy; tournaments,
Where bugled Pasquinades ride cap-a-pie
Before the eyes of Beauty and her Court.
Or where, Love's roses in his hair, Sir Sonnet,
On an adoring knee, in Passion's garden,
Lutes it before the Queen of Loveliness.
Cabestaing
(smiling):
I am no poet to reply to that.
I see I have a rival.—Thou hast asked.—
My Muse is never prompt to make reply
On any occasion. Now she owns defeat,
And bows surrender to superior forces.
The standard of thy question is so high,
I have no metaphors to make reply.
Beatrix:
Still thou canst speak in rhyme. But modesty
Becomes all greatness; most of all a poet.
Ermengard:
I am not answered yet.—Come, tell us now
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Or Beauty buried?—Why dost blot and blur
The clear, glad writing of thy brow with trouble?
Leave such to jongleurs and to wandering gleemen.
Thou art too young to bother yet with sorrow.
Thou art Love's troubadour, therefore—be glad:
For love means gladness.
Cabestaing
(seriously):
Nay. Thou hast not loved.—
In Provence, as all know, Love holds his Court
Among his Ladies, Knights and Troubadours.
'T was there I learned that Love is oftener sad
Than glad; yea, given up to melancholy.
The Minnesingers of the Rhine, they say,
Triumph in sadness, and they sing of love.
Love is not love unless 't is touched with sadness.
Malamort:
That argues thee in love, for thou art sad.
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What troubadour was ever not in love?
'T is their existence. Love is Song's own food.
Without it we should perish, and our songs
Die ere we died, for lack of audience.
The world can do without its songs of war
But not without its love-songs.
Giraud:
That is true.—
Dost thou believe it, Lady Ermengard?
Ermengard:
I shall believe it when I am in love.—
'T is but a troubadour fancy. He but speaks
According to his calling. 'T is his business
To be in love, or to pretend it till
He thinks he is. He were no poet else.
Pretension makes in some ways for belief;
And he who still pretends a thing, at last
Comes to believe the thing that he pretends.
Cabestaing:
There spoke the woman that is all pretence,
Pretending she believes what is pretence.
Not in the Courts of Love hast thou been judge.
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Hadst thou then spoken. Love is no light thing.
Beatrix
(casting up her eyes, mock-tragically):
Deeper than ocean; higher than the stars.
Aubert
(smilingly):
Just deep as is the fountain of thy wit;
Not higher than thy heart.
Beatrix
(caustically):
A fountain, Sir,
Too deep for thee to wade; a heart, too high
For thee to ever reach with love of thine.
Ermengard:
Have done with badinage.
Be serious now.
(Addressing Cabestaing):
We have a message for thee.
Malamort
(pretending disappointment):
Not for us?—
I flattered me, you made such honied buzzings,
That we (with a comprehensive sweep of his hand towards Aubert and Giraud)
here were the flowers, you the bees
That sought us for our nectar.
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(with laughing scorn):
God forbid!
The nectar you would give hath poison in it:
'T is death to virtue.—No! we are no fools.
Cabestaing
(with brightening aspect):
Whom do you messenger?—My Lord or Lady?
Giraud:
And he can ask that.
Ermengard
(sharply):
Surely he can ask,
And I can answer.—Lady Margherita
Bade Beatrix and me to seek thee out;
Command thee to her presence.
Malamort
(contemptuously):
'T is a ballad,
A song, to sing to-night for her at table,
Beyond a doubt. She hath thought out the subject,
And he shall now elaborate it.
Cabestaing
(calmly):
Ay?—
But what she thinks needs no elaboration:
'T is perfect from beginning—like herself.
Ermengard
(laughingly to Malamort):
A rapier hit, and underneath thy guard.
Beatrix
(sarcastically to Cabestaing):
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If with thy sword art ready as thy wit,—
Thou need'st not fear whoever draws against thee.
[Cabestaing, Ermengard, and Beatrix pass up the terrace stair and into the castle.
Malamort
(annoyed):
Well spoken. But a fool as lovers go.
She 'd have him near her always—Margherita.
Jealous of every moment he 's away.—
Raymond is blind, or so wrapped up in love,—
In her, who holds him utterly, that he
Can see no farther than her mouth and eyes,
That say and look the love they have not for him.—
This fellow left her but a second ago,
And on the heels of his departure, lo,
Treads her command that he straightway return.
Aubert:
What think you now our Lady wants with him?
'T is something very urgent—some great favour.
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She'd give, or take?—What say'st thou Malamort?
Malamort:
A rose, perhaps. I saw he wore a rose.
Giraud:
Or maybe 't was a word. A happy rhyme.
Aubert:
A word that rhymes with bliss or, say, with dove.
Malamort
(sneeringly):
Or with the new-moon, like her eyebrow; or
With eve's first stars, like her romantic eyes;
Or with the rossignols, whose throats are sweet
As her sweet throat: Any or all of these,—
Metaphors no Poet would disdain to use.
[A bugle is heard outside the gates of the castle.
Aubert:
Visitors?—'T is good. The bugle-note was strange.
I know Lord Raymond's. This was none of his
Giraud:
God grant that Ladies, kindlier than our two,
Be of their train. I care not who they are.
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Let 's to the mews and watch the falcons feed
Until our Lord returns.—We might suggest
Some better prey now to the falconer
To make the young hawks fiercer. Thine, Giraud,
Thy eyas needs such, with its unimped wings.
Aubert:
The heart of Lady Beatrix would serve.
No fiercer morsel in the world I know.
Malamort:
Or Cabestaing's now.
Giraud:
His would never do.
'T would gentle them too much.
Aubert:
It would conform
Their natures to its own and make them sing,
Changing our peregrines to nightingales.
Malamort
(disgustedly):
Bah! nightingales! Women are caught with them.
[They pass into the castle by way of the balustraded stair. As they disappear, enter, from opposite side of stage, Raymond of Roussillon, Robert of Tarascon, his wife, Agnes, and several
173
Robert:
Already I feel rested, though arrived
A moment since. The air breathes appetite.—
Without a stop we rode all day.—I count not
That half hour at the vilest inn I know,
Five leagues from here, where Hunger was our host,
And the four winds of Heaven were all he served us.—
The wine—by God!—the wine he tendered us
Was iron and acid, worse than vinegar.
Raymond
(darkly):
That inn is bad. I have a mind to burn it,
And hang its keeper.
Robert
(smilingly):
He deserves it. Ay.
'T were better though to choke him with his brew;
Poison him with his wine. By God! 't were just.
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(with a grim smile):
I will think on it. I have heard complaints.—
[Brightening, with a more cordial manner, but still morosely:
'T is good to have you here with us again.—
How like you now the prospect?
Agnes
(with a glance around):
Beautiful.
Thou shouldst be happy, Raymond, with thy wife
And these surroundings.
Raymond:
Happiness, my sister,
Is of the mind, not of environment.
A peasant in his hut is happier,
With but his wench and brats and naught to eat,
Than is the Lord of Castel-Roussillon.
Robert
(astonished; then sympathisingly):
What curse is on thee?—True; thou hast no son
To occupy ambitions of thy age.—
Thou shouldst have married earlier. Margherita
Is younger now than Agnes.—It is strange
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Agnes
(explainingly):
One son and two fair daughters, as thou knowest.—
But, Robert, thou art but a blunderer
At consolation.—If 't is lack of children
That grieves Lord Raymond—
Raymond
(peevishly):
How can I explain?—
It is not lack of children overclouds me.—
Though children compensate for many ills.—
'T is something back here; burns me; in my brain,—
Or in my heart;—a sullen, wolfish passion,
Glowering and snarling in its labyrinth,
Like some old, wounded beast within its cave
Brooding on vengeance nursed for one unknown.
Robert
(with emphatic conviction):
Thy conscience, man, needs cleansing. To the priest.—
Or, if thou wilt, enter the new crusades,
And wash thy conscience clear in heathen blood.
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And the wild hurl of arms in Christian battle
To make a man forget an ancient wrong.
Raymond
(gloomily):
No wrong or sin is mine. I know not what
This basilisk is. But for some three months now
A gloom hath dogged me with the feet of doom:
An old foreboding of approaching ill.—
I am no young man.
Agnes
(with a conciliatory smile):
Dost imply by that
Thy wife is young?—Is that a cause for gloom?
Thy Margherita married thee for love.
Thou art not old to her: nor art thou old.
No man is old at forty-five!—Good Saints!—
Look at my Robert there—past fifty years!—
He is not old as hearts go; but is younger,
Ay, stronger too than the young fools that fancy
Grey hairs and wrinkles make for what is old.
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(despondently):
Younger than I by many happy years.
Robert:
I have seen life, 't is true, and have been happy.
Thou too hast seen some happy years, I know.
Thou art cast down now for no certain reason.—
I have grown stout on happiness, thou seest.
My wife and children make me comfortable.
Comfort it is that counts for happiness.
Raymond:
I am provided for in many ways.
I have some comfort here, as thou canst see:
A beautiful wife; some friends; a troubadour—
[Brightening suddenly.
Guillaume de Cabestaing.—To-night shalt hear him.
Robert
(dubiously):
I care not much for troubadours. They sing
The devil into women.—None of them
Has ever crossed my drawbridge.—But, perhaps,—
Returning to this settled melancholy,—
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Of camp or court.—Why not don spur for Paris?—
Life should not be all abstinence: excess
Should not possess it, either, utterly:
Observe the happy middle course, say I,
And time will ne'er prove tedious.
Raymond:
That is true.—
The crusades, as thou sayest, now might aid.
There might I find employment for my sword,
And fling this mood aside as now this cloak.
[Removing at the same time his cloak from his shoulders and flinging it over his arm.
Meanwhile I wait and brood; and from myself
Attempt escape in knightly exercises,
The chase or tournament.—Be kind now: tell me,
If in thy journey hither anything,
Rumoured or ascertained, thou heardst or saw'st
Of moment: prospect of some savage thing,
Be it a beast or man, to hunt: or anywhere
Report of any tournament, where I,—
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From my own self in the fierce rush of strife.
Robert:
No tournament I know of: but a beast,
One worthy of thy metal, is reported:
A wild-boar of the Pyrenees, that spreads
Destruction 'mid the peasantry. Our way
Was marked with bloody mile-stones of its havoc
In fearful tales each peasant had to tell.
Agnes:
My heart was in my eyes and ears the while
We passed the forest where the monster lairs,
Some three leagues to the north.—Thank Heaven we 're here!
Robert:
And so say I.—A good meal now, by God!
Will top me with content.—As for thy cook,
Thy old Pierre,—I know there is no better
In all Provence.—Good cheer, good cheer, my Lord,
Will end thy melancholy. Dost not eat enough.
Trust me to know.
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Pierre and Cabestaing,—
They are two artists I depend upon:
One feeds the physical, one the mental, man.
I eat enough, good Robert, have no fear,
But music helps me more than any food:
It is a great physician for the soul.
Robert:
A doctor, Raymond, I could do without.
Song is not necessary to my stomach—
But good food is.—Deliver me from fasting!—
Agnes
(mischievously):
Thou wilt grow lean with eating. Look at him!—
Raymond, he cannot mount his horse for fat
Without a groom to help him. And he puffs,
Between complaints of how his body tires,
If he but walk between his mews and kennels.
Feed him on music while we are with you;
There is no better diet now for love,
And he 's in love. Feed him on song, say I.
Raymond
(responding to her spirit):
There is no telling where he would end then—
As bow, perhaps, to some stringed instrument
That sighs of love continually.—Well,
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Robert
(phlegmatically):
God send me still a healthy appetite!—
As for the rest—I care not.—Where 's thy wife?
Raymond:
Shall we go in and greet her and my friends?—
She will be entertained to know you 're here.
Robert
(as they ascend the terrace stair towards the entrance):
Cast off thy gloom, man. We will find a way
To make thee happy yet.
Raymond
(despondently):
I do not know.
The black disease, I fear, hath gone too far.
[They pass into the castle.
| The Shadow Garden | |