University of Virginia Library

ACT III.

Scene I.

The Camp. Ethel's Tent.
Ethel and Cornelius.
Eth.
And now, Cornelius,
Let's drop our mask of business, and be friends.
Welcome again. I missed your talk o' nights,
For through these tents the cold wind whistles lonely.
How stands my loved Violenzia in the court?
Uneasily, I fear. She's well, you say?

Cor.
Strange we should say, “he's well,” and mean thereby
The least part of him! Ay, as men speak, she's well.

Eth.
And ill, as who speak?

Cor.
Alas! why, as the angels.

Eth.
She is not dead!

Cor.
Not dead.

Eth.
Not dying? Oh,
You waste me! Speak!

Cor.
Untouched she lives in body and in spirits.

Eth.
In spirits? Then not troubled by the King?

Cor.
Oh, no! not troubled.

Eth.
Healthful and in peace;
Why, then, I think there's nothing in the world
Can shake me far. Nay, clear your brow, Cornelius;
Give it a voice, and you shall find me bold,
With such endurance as becomes a man,
To bear the strokes of fortune.

Cor.
Well I know you
For one whom no light touch of outward things
Can stir from wonted temperance. Yet I fear you;
For I do know you too for one whose heart
Beats deeply in his bosom, and who leads
In those he loves a more essential life
Than in himself takes root.

Eth.
Those I love best,
Herself, yourself, her brothers,
Sit in the house of safety. Speak, Cornelius.

Cor.
O forward spirits of men! whose airy hopes
See fortune rising ere a crimson cloud
Break in the east; but when the thick clouds gather,
Forego their prescience;—only the lightning wakes them.
Violenzia's false! Do you smile?

Eth.
And is this all?
Of how great weight have you unbosomed me!
Bring me no ill news lined with greater truth,
I'll never style you raven.

Cor.
Why, what's this?
You'll not believe it, then?

Eth.
Why, no, Cornelius.
And though I laughed, I'll ask you yet in earnest,
How you came to believe it. Trust me, an answer
Not showing some excuse for't will go far
To scar our friendship.

Cor.
False with the King, I say!

Eth.
Say it no more, I charge you, by my love.

Cor.
What! must I stretch you on particulars,
And rack you with the items? When I gave her
Your letter, she, being private then with the King,
“Secretly, good Cornelius,” she cried,
Her finger on her lips; and when she saw
The King marked all, she played her part aside;
In her false bosom feigning to conceal it,
She let it drop to the ground. Oh, not an act—
No word—no gesture—but did o'er-confirm,
Beyond the power of doubting, that was true
Which the court buzzed with;—the warm King had won her
To all his wishes aimed at.

Eth.
Look, Cornelius:
If I should say you lied in what you tell me,
What would you put against it?

Cor.
Your close friendship,
And knowledge of my truth.

Eth.
Why, so I do.
Therefore I say not, in your facts you lie,
But in the consequents you idly draw,
And base suspicions. Yet, if thus far I trust you,
How much upon the faith of my beloved
Shall I not more be bold, and to more knowledge
Accord an answering confidence! Go, Cornelius!
I never thought to find a cause to say
You were so much unworthy. You that knew her,—
Cornelius, whom she called her friend! Nay, go!
And till your slanderous thoughts be burnt away,
Look not upon my face to call me friend.

Cor.
You do me wrong. I'll go, not to return.
I seek no love of one who dares discredit me
Even a hair's breadth. [Exit.
[A storm; heavy rain.


Eth.
How the wind rushes, and the gusty rain
Comes pattering in the pauses of the blast!
Cornelius will soon repent of this.
Meanwhile Violenzia lives at ease in the court;
And when these tardy-footed wars are past
I'll knit her mine for ever. What a spirit
Of undisturbed peace makes visit here;
And in my soul a calm delight keeps house,
Ranging its chambers like a white-stoled babe:
As if no jarring of the ill-fitting world,
Or tyranny of petty circumstance,
Could ever more invade me; and those thoughts
Brooding imagination doth invent,
Of perfect harmony and bliss unstained,
Were real, and the dusty time-worn world
Hidden in second spring-time! Can it be
That these soft spirits may make apes of us,
And, while we nourish sweet content at home,
Calamity strike abroad? As I have heard—
What's that? Is't true that spirits ride the wind?
Most melancholy ones, then. Hark, again!
The sound of weeping, making awful pauses
Of the short hushes of the storm. Who sighs
Against my threshold? My warm blood runs cold,
And gathers at my heart. What, am I mad?
Let's see what may be seen.
[Goes out, and returns.
The empty dark,
Wherein no star doth pierce the thick eclipse,
But all is shrouded in a watery veil.
Again! again! That's human! who goes there?

[Exit. Returns, carrying Violenzia. She throws herself on her face before him.
Eth.
Violenzia!

Vio.
Oh, hide me! Oh, my misery!

Eth.
What art thou, that thus bred of sudden night
Shakest my knees with sobbing? Stand! stand up!

Vio.
Lay not thy hand upon me.

Eth.
In my breast
Strange thoughts take substance, and begin to shake
My soul's foundation. Thou—thou—art not?—speak!

Vio.
I am! I am!—The King!—

Eth.
Away! away!
Hell hath no words for it.

Vio.
Alas! alas! alas!

Eth.
By heaven, 'tis midnight, and the lunatic moon
Peeps through my tent-holes.
Art thou the thing that thou pretend'st to be,
Or some accursed midnight wandering ghost
Come to afflict me? With my bright sword's point
I'll try thy substance.

Vio.
Mercy! oh, have mercy!

Eth.
Where's mercy, since she hath forsook the heavens?
Who guides—who guides the terrible machine?
O Violenzia, take back thy words,
And make me subject to a false alarm,
Or with my sword I'll break these gates of life
That shut in living death.

[Pointing his sword against himself.
Vio.
Alas! alas!

Eth.
I dream! I dream! It is not yet near day.

[A long pause.
Vio.
Speak, speak to me!

Eth.
Say'st thou? Stand up, I say!
Why beat'st thou with thy forehead on the ground?
This is no shame; this is our misery.
Lift up again that streaming face of thine,
Wet with unutterable woe. Look up!

Vio.
Touch me not, Ethel! Oh, your touch is fire,
And burns my abhorred miserable flesh!
How shall I break these walls, or how get free?
I am cased in such pollution as makes sick
My soul within me. Oh, that these my tears
Could quite dissolve my substance, and the ground
Soak up my detested being. Would I were dead!
Would I were dead! were dead!

Eth.
Peace, shaken child!
Control the greatness of your agony.
Alas, I cannot! My perturbed soul,
Like an imprisoned mist, doth shake and wave,
And I perceive no light.

Vio.
To doubt my truth!
Oh, it was base in you! Nay, to make surety
So strong that you dare call me vile! Ay, now,
Now call me vile,—it suits,—now call me stained!
Heap epithets upon me, none so foul
As can express my misery: but then—
I was as clear as daylight.

Eth.
Alas! what mean you?

Vio.
Your letter! oh, your letter! Did you not write it?—
O most egregious fool! he did not write it.

Eth.
Nothing but love; what did you get from me?

Vio.
O me, I nothing know; only I think
The heaven above's unroofed, and there's no bar
Against the powers of evil.

Eth.
Oh, be patient!
Go in with me. I hear friends.

Vio.
Where? oh, where?
Hide me, sweet Ethel; let me not be seen.

[Exit Ethel and Violenzia into an inner room.
Enter Olave and Cornelius.
Ol.
Do you believe it? why, man, let me tell you,
I, that did never more than once enjoy
The touch of her frank hand,—that in such courtesy
As one, till then a stranger, might exact;
And never more than once looked on her face,
A garden where the flowers of beauty sprang,
Troubling the sense with richness; never but once
Took through the dazzled windows of my soul
Her proud and innocent gaze; I, that not knew her,
And of her musical speech heard no more tones
Than go to make a greeting,—I'll believe
Rather the diamond should fade and rot
Than she be turned to folly.

Cor.
Be it so.
And were it otherwise, I was a fool
To seek to make him think so. But this message
Puts it beyond dispute—whether by force,
Or slipped by inclination, she is ruined.
This he must know that all the world now knows.

Ol.
Ay, or he'll hear it coarsely.

Enter Ethel.
Ol.
Look! he knows it!

Eth.
Good morrow, friends. Give me your hands
Let's see—
This should be Olave, this Cornelius.
Hath any deadly mischief come to you?
You shake your heads. No plague-star stands i' the sky,
And rains disease? I know it is not so;
No earthquake gapes. I know—I know it, I.
Open the door. The jolly sun mounts up;
Why should he stain his glittering cheeks with tears?
O dewy grass! O voice of birds! O friends!
Look, I can smile too; but within me here,
Ay, in my heart, there's fire—there's fire—there's fire!

Cor.
O piteous voice!

Ol.
Will you not cut his heart out?

Eth.
Revenge—revenge—they say that word's not lawful,
And sweet Religion weeps at it. Dark, dark,
O God! I know whom Thou afflict'st with griefs
Thou look'st for great things from him. If my acts
Must grow up to the measure of my woe,
I shall amaze the world.

Ol.
Ay, with revenge!
Whose fiery wing shall overtake your shame,
And blind the eyes of them that look on it.

Eth.
Who plagues me with revenge? Am I not mad enough?
Have I no devil here? Cornelius!
Is it not said we must forgive our foes?

Cor.
So it is said.

Ol.
For priests! for priests! not men.

Eth.
For mine own wrongs, I could as soon forgive them
As dip my hand in water; but that she—
O most accursed monster! why, the sun
Would not too boldly look on her. Foul thoughts
Did from her presence and fair virgin eyes,
Like ghosts from daylight, fly ashamed. Alas!
Was there no way to strike me singly—none?
But for my sins must needs another soul,
And in myself a dearer nobler self,
My life's life—my heart's blood—my air—my centre—
Must that for me be shattered? Oh, yes! yes!
I had no crown to lose but my heart's crown;
No wealth but my heart's wealth—unpriceable;
Rich reputation none; no mother's eyes,
But my love's eyes did ever look upon me;
Here was I graffed, here grew, and since the stock
Is blasted, here must wither!

Ol.
Will you bear it?
I would you were dead sooner! Have you heard?
He sends to seek the lady,—ay, sends here
To you and to her brothers, threatening death
To any that detains her. Is't enough?

Eth.
Did my brothers hear this? Robert and Arthur both?

Ol.
Ay, and so heard as if the shameful words
Were javelins in two angry lions' sides,
And gnashed their teeth, and could not speak for rage.
But you'll forgive,—you'll bear it?

Eth.
What I shall do,
As yet I know not. This I will not do,—
Now, when my soul is mad, and I perceive not
The right from wrong, let my blind rage take wing,
And the great tasks and terrible purposes,
With which Heaven sets my soul and martyrs me,
Mix in confusion irretrievable.
Yet not the less, for this my slow delay,
Will I be swift in execution,
Steadfast, and frightful to the guilty soul
Of him that did this thing. Leave me, good friends.
[Exeunt Olave and Cornelius.
Why so.
Oh, horrible! detestable! I'll not think of it.
Oh, pitiful! oh, wondrous pitiful!
I shall go mad if I do think of it.
What's to be done? Back, back, you wandering thoughts,
That like whipt hounds hang with reverted eyes,
Back to the carcass of my grief! O villain!
Away! It is some devil whispers me.
What! no revenge? Young, young too, and a soldier.
No noble rage? Must we endure like clods,
Under the heavy tread of tyranny?
Whereto, then, had we this quick fiery spirit,
That starts at injury? the bruised worm turns;
And man, framed delicate and sensitive,
On whose fine soul injustice drops like fire,—
Must he bear all? Stay there, Ethel of Felborg.
Art thou so personal? affects it thee?
Such deeds strike deeper. This is not a thing
The impulsive moods of angry men may mix in,—
No, nor admits a passionate remedy;
But an occasion when, men standing amazed,
The visible hand of awful judgment should
Crush up iniquity, and retribution
Divine walk on the earth. No; no revenge.
Teach me, O terrible God!
I do believe—witness these swift hot tears—
I do believe Thou lov'st me even in this;
And therefore now thy sovran hand put forth,
And my dejected desultory soul
Bind up to thy great meaning. I believe.
I'll go and seek my brothers.

[Exit.

Scene II.

Robert's Tent.
Robert and Arthur.
Robt.
Ay, when he's dead I will be calm.
Enter Olave and Cornelius.
Where's Ethel?

Ol.
He takes it coldly.

Robt.
By my father's blood,
Thou liest, man!

[Olave makes a show of anger, half drawing his sword.
Cor.
Have patience! he is mad.

Robt.
Saddle my horse! Plague take these loiterers!
Who rides with me? Death! I'll endure no more
These slow delays; each moment that goes by
Puts daggers in my breast. Arthur, go with me;
Upon our foaming blood-embathed steeds
Up to his throne we'll ride, through all his rout
Of scattered courtiers. Come down, thou King!
I think I see his face upon the floor
Crying for mercy. Mercy!—Ha! ha! ha!—
What is it, gentlemen? Saw you never yet
A man made infamous? Well, well! I look
To see my sword peep through his back.

Arth.
For shame!
Forget yourself not out of reason thus.

Robt.
Are you ice-tempered too? I shall go mad!

Arth.
I nurse as fierce a temper as you do;
But such a rash unsteady course will mar
Certainty of completion. My revenge
Shall step as sure as life-blood through my veins,
And to a certainty as dead as death.
We'll run no risks; take all advantages;
Gather our chances with as strict a hand
As sureties; cherish our meanest hopes,
And knit the poorest opportunities
All to one end: so that no loop remain
For failure to slip through.

Robt.
Ay, but be swift;
For time lets in a thousand obstacles
Worse than the worst foreseen.

Arth.
Both swift and sure.

Robt.
Ay, but be swift. For all the air about me
Is heavy with ancestral countenances,
Looking to me for blood with frowning brows;
A thousand whispers of the shame-stirred dead
Cry in my ears, Revenge! Enter Ethel.

Ha! welcome, Ethel!
Ay! such a countenance becomes a man
So wronged as you are. We shall have it now;
A most sufficing vengeance.

Eth.
Oh, not vengeance.

Robt.
Is there another name more terrible?

Eth.
I will not have it so.

Robt.
What, will you not?

Arth.
Listen to me. This is our safest course.
You are the general, Robert, and beloved
Of all your soldiers. Take them over with you—
All the whole army. Who dares stay behind?
Make one with the enemy, on the sole condition
That they march straight unto our common end,
And seize the King; resistance he can make none,
More than a straw against fire. Once in our hands,
But for the time that I can stretch my arm,
Then I'll be swift!

Robt.
And I'll be careful then!
Most wisely planned.

Eth.
Oh, monstrous! what will you do?
Have you forgot all virtue? Will you bring in
Strange conquerors upon your native land,
Let bloody war and ravage feed themselves
Upon the bodies of your countrymen;
And, to avenge a wrong done to yourselves,—
But how much more to mighty throned justice!—
Let in a thousand wrongs as terrible,
And give injustice scope?
Is this a cure? Tears and the sighs of orphans,
The shrieks of women, groans of ruined men,—
Will these heal wrongs, or rather make of you
Ten times the nurses of that wickedness
You thus avenge in others?

Robt.
Now, I swear!
Although the eyes of dead unburied men
Should stare the bright stars out of countenance,
And tears of children be so plentiful
That their warm rain would melt the ponderous ice,
And set the winter-frozen Baltic free;
More women groan their bitter souls away
Than would make populous the empty air
With weeping ghosts; ay, though this native land
Become a dish for horror and despair
To glut themselves to overfulness on,—
I care not, so I drive along with it
Unto my end.

Arth.
Well spoken, brother Robert!

Eth.
I say this shall not be!

Robt.
Thou say'st!—thou! thou!
Art thou the pander to these love-tricks—thou?

Eth.
Peace, you passionate insolent!

Arth.
Robert, be calm.—
Ethel, if you are that tame-spirited thing,
That colder than the lizard, that you feel not
The greatness of your injury, be it so.
We that are not so natured will do that
Which shall suffice for all.

Eth.
I say you shall not!
This wrong is mine a thousand times more deeply
Than it is yours. I do not wink at it,
Nor do I see what other instrument
Can work the great intents of wounded justice
Save this weak spirit of mine; but to that end,
And that I may not stain the holy hand
Of this my mighty mistress, nor let doubt
Check at her just award, I must put off,
Like robes unconsecrated from a priest,
This temper which you nourish. I have controlled it,
And so must you. For this most traitorous plan
You have conceived, think nothing more of it;
I'll fight against it to the death.

Robt.
Fight well, then;
You'll fight alone.

Eth.
Not so. The God of battles
Shall on my side put forth his hand. And fear me.
For I have no compassion in my spirit
For wilful wickedness.

Robt.
Brother, away!
It irks my soul to stand here chaffering
With this dull metal. What, Ethel, whom we thought
Honourable! oh, how much past our apeing!

Arth.
Go with us.

Ol.
Not I. You'll pardon me.

Robt.
You will not? Ha!
Bring me the man that will not go with me;
I'll trail him after at my horse's heels.

Arth.
Peace! you mar all. Think of it, gentlemen.

[Exeunt Robert and Arthur.
Eth.
How say you, Olave and Cornelius,
Will you too join the Swede?

Cor.
I'll fight with you,
Wherever that may be.

Ol.
I'll not take arms
Against my country with the rascal Swede.
Had I your cause, I might.

Eth.
Are you firm now?

Ol.
Ay, I have chosen. There's nobleness moves in you
That takes me, though I be no match for it.

Eth.
Go to the officers of each regiment;
Tell them the objects of the General,
And say, I, in his traitorous default,
Now claim to lead them. Those that would not be traitors,
Let them look to their soldiers, and stand firm.
Bid them assemble in my tent to-night,—
No, in yours, good Cornelius, let it be.

Ol.
Ay, maybe the officers will stand firm enough;
But what boots that, if the men go? About Ingelwald
They'll flock like hiving bees, and where he bids
Follow like sheep. I will not answer even
For my own men.

Eth.
Go to the officers.
If the men mutiny, I'll speak to them;
And Olave, the new levies that are coming,
Stop them at distance. Send a trusty officer;
Let them not mix at all with the other men.
I nothing fear the victory.
[Exit Olave.
Cornelius,
You have a woman waits upon your wife,
And did once on the Countess Ingelwald;
Send her into my tent. You guess at it.
Be silent, good Cornelius.

[Exeunt.

Scene III.

Ethel's Tent.
Violenzia and her Waiting-woman.
W.-wo.
Take comfort.

Vio.
Ay, take comfort! Bid me take
Ice out of fire,—or bid me sleep,—
Or eat,—or die,—what's most impossible
And most to be desired; or bid young peace
On airy winnowing wing visit the earth,
And make her home with me—her sepulchre.
Methinks these eyes should be too eloquent,
And sadder with the saltness of my tears,
Not to persuade you out of that word comfort.
Comfortless comfort!
Will he come back? I do not think he will.
Why, what am I, that any living thing,
And least of all a lover, having power
To move away, should ever turn to me,
Being that thing I am?

W.-wo.
Maybe he'll come again.

Vio.
Maybe! The girl speaks doubtfully.
Base minion! if thou darest even imagine
He will not come again, I'll kill thee.
And yet I wish he would come back again.
I would not ask to touch him—only—only
At his feet to die, that dying I might tell him
How past imagination was my love;
For never once did I in all my life
Tell him how much I loved him.
I love him!
As if a yearning dead man in his grave,
Cold in corruption, should be sensible,
And wish to whisper in a living ear
That yet he loved.
What's this? a sword! Helena,
Whose sword is this?

W.-wo.
Madam, whose should it be,
Unless your lord's?

Vio.
My lord's! Well, well.
Yet once he was my lord. Does the sun shine?

W.-wo.
Ay, madam.

Vio.
Ay, and the moon; grass grows;
Men go about their business, all things move
In the old accustomed circle, and no hinge
Of the great earth creaks; and I!—Oh, the word desolate
Hath lost its meaning in all mouths but mine.
Misery and shame, wretchedness and despair,
Were but the types of that which was to be,
And I, fulfilment. Men shall point at me
In their distresses and their bitterness,
And hug themselves with comfort.

W.-wo.
O my lady!
Such things have been before.

Vio.
I'll not believe it!
Twice such a thing, and the great frame of nature,
Though physical, would have cracked—not borne it.
Ha!
Gone! and his sword left here. That's a shrewd hint.
Is't sharp, Helena?

W.-wo.
'Tis a good sword, I think.

Vio.
Could he have meant it? Prick me, Helena.

W.-wo.
Not I. Indeed I will not.

Vio.
Is it painful?

W.-wo.
No; but blood makes me sick.

Vio.
Sick! I am sick,
Beyond all med'cining but the great physician's,
Death.
O death! O dreams! mortal imaginations,
And spiritual hopes! What things are we,
That, like an infant groping in the dark,
Feel not the edge o' the bed? Bright instrument!
I can unloose with thee the threads which bind me
Unto this mortal state, and go—Oh, whither?
What is the dark that clips us round about,
And the veiled power whose irresistible mood
Plays with our helplessness? What I believed,
Or dreamed I did—the lessons of my childhood—
Are words to me. I stagger and am lost.
Alas! my tongue blasphemes. What shall I do?
I am anchorless, and drift upon the waters.

W.-wo.
What shall I do with it?

Vio.
Give it to me.
I do not think he meant it to that end;
He is compassionate. Oh, if I die,
Shall I behold that face of his again?
Merciful Heaven! be thou pitiful;
I do not say, let me be happy there.
I ask not much, you merciful sweet Heavens;
I have deserved much pain, I will endure.
But only once in many a thousand years
Let me behold his face in bliss serene.
Ah me! ah me!

W.-wo.
Wring not your hands so cruelly,
Unhappy lady.

Vio.
Would I could wring my heart!
Enter Ethel.
He has returned!

Eth.
Have patience, Violenzia.
Go in with me. Dry up these passionate tears.
Great are thy trials, O afflicted child;
But merciful the hand that sent them. Use them
As an obedient infant bitter medicine;
Or the poor dog that yet licks the painful hand
Of his kind surgical master. Shall he have faith,
And we, my Violenzia, that know
Perfect beneficence holds the scales of the world,
Shall we be too much troubled, and forget
It is a Father who thus touches us?
This is not misery, nor any grief
That on the outside lances us is not:
Sin and rebellion, this is misery.

Vio.
I have rebelled, I have rebelled, O Ethel;
But in my passion and my bitterness.
Speak to me, teach me; I will conform my heart—
I will be patient. We, that late were lovers,
May yet be friends; may we not? Say, oh, say,
You do not loathe me.

Eth.
Violenzia!
That honour and that love I have for you,
Deep, deeper than my tongue can signify,
I never will renounce, and when you doubt it,
You wrong yourself and me.

Vio.
Ethel! my Ethel!
These are not bitter tears.

[Exeunt.