University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

—Ghent.—The platform at the top of the steeple of St. Nicholas' Church.—Time daybreak.
Artevelde.
There lies a sleeping city. God of dreams!
What an unreal and fantastic world
Is going on below!
Within the sweep of yon encircling wall
How many a large creation of the night,
Wide wilderness and mountain, rock and sea,
Peopled with busy transitory groups,
Finds room to rise, and never feels the crowd!
If when the shows had left the dreamers' eyes
They should float upward visibly to mine,
How thick with apparitions were that void!
But now the blank and blind profundity
Turns my brain giddy with a sick recoil.
—I have not slept. I am to blame for that.
Long vigils join'd with scant and meagre food
Must needs impair that promptitude of mind
And cheerfulness of spirit which, in him
Who leads a multitude, is past all price.
I think I could redeem an hour's repose
Out of the night that I have squander'd, yet.
The breezes on their early voyage launched
Play with a pleasing freshness on my face.
Lie there, my cloak, not seldom now my bed,
And lying on thee I shall front them—so—
[He lies down.
If this were over—blessed be the calm
That comes to me at last! A friend in need
Is Nature to us, that when all is spent,
Brings slumber—bountifully—whereupon
We give her sleepy welcome—if all this
Were honourably over—Adriana—
[Falls asleep, but starts up almost instantly.
I heard a hoof—I hear it now, I swear,
Upon the road from Bruges,—or did I dream?
No! 'tis the gallop of a horse at speed.

Van den Bosch
(without).
What ho! Van Artevelde!

Artevelde.
Who calls?

Van den Bosch.
(entering)
'Tis I.
Thou art an early riser like myself;
Or is it that thou hast not been to bed?

Artevelde.
What are thy tidings?

Van den Bosch.
Nay, what can they be?
A page from pestilence and famine's day-book;
So many to the pest-house carried in,
So many to the dead-house carried out.
The same dull, dismal, damnable old story.

Artevelde.
Be quiet; listen to the westerly wind,
And tell me if it bring thee nothing new.

Van den Bosch.
Nought to my ear, save howl of hungry dog
That hears the house is stirring—nothing else.

Artevelde.
No,—now—I hear it not myself—no—nothing.
The city's hum is up—but ere you came
'Twas audible enough.

Van den Bosch.
In God's name, what?

Artevelde.
A horseman's tramp upon the road from Bruges.

Van den Bosch.
Why then be certain 'tis a flag of truce!
If once he reach the city we are lost.
Nay, if he be but seen our danger's great.
What terms so bad but they would gulp them now?
Let's send some trusty varlets forth at once
To cross his way.

Artevelde.
And send him back to Bruges?

Van den Bosch.
Send him to Hell—and that's a better place.

Artevelde.
Nay, softly, Van den Bosch; let war be war,
But let us keep its ordinances.

Van den Bosch.
Tush!
I say, but let them see him from afar
And in an hour shall we, bound hand and foot,
Be on our way to Bruges.

Artevelde.
Not so, not so.
My rule of governance hath not been such
As e'er to end so foully.

Van den Bosch.
Cockadoodle!
Think'st thou a hundred thousand citizens
Shall stay the fury of their empty maws
Because thou'st ruled them justly?

Artevelde.
It may be
That such a hope is mine.

Van den Bosch.
(going).
Then thou art mad,
And I must take this matter on myself.

Artevelde.
Hold, Van den Bosch! I say this shall not be.
I must be madder than I think I am
Ere I shall yield up my authority,
Which I abuse not to be used by thee.

Van den Bosch.
This comes of lifting dreamers into power.
I tell thee, in this strait and stress of dearth,
The people, but to pave the way for peace,
Would send our noddles in a bag to Bruges.
Once and again I warn thee that thy life
Hangs by a thread.

Artevedle.
Why, know I not it does?
What hath it hung by else since Utas'eve?
Did I not by mine own advised choice
Place it in jeopardy for certain ends?
And what think'st thou were these? To prop thy state?
To float thee o'er a reef, and, that performed,
See to our joint security? Indeed?
No verily, not such my towering aim.
I bent my thoughts on yonder city's weal;
I look'd to give it victory and freedom;
And working to that end, by consequence
From one great peril did deliver thee—
Not for the love of thee or of thy life,
Which I regard not, but the city's service;
And if for that same service it seem good,
I will expose thy life to equal hazard.

Van den Bosch.
Thou wilt?

Artevelde.
I will.

Van den Bosch.
Oh, Lord! to hear him talk!
What a most mighty emperor of puppets
Is this that I have brought upon the board!
But how if he that made it should unmake?

Artevelde.
Unto His sovereignty who truly made me
With infinite humility I bow.
Both, both of us are puppets, Van den Bosch;
Part of the curious clock-work of this world
We scold and squeak and crack each other's crowns,
And if by twitches moved from wires not seen
I were to toss thee from this steeple's top,
I should be but the instrument, no more,
The tool of that chastising Power above
Which still exalts the lowly to abase
The violent and proud. But let me hope
There's no such task appointed me to-day.
Thou passest in the world for worldly wise:
Then, seeing each with each must sink or swim,
What can it profit thee in this extreme
Of our distress to wrangle with me thus
For my supremacy and rule? Thy fate,
As of necessity bound up with mine,
Must needs partake my cares: let that suffice
To put thy pride to rest till better days:
Contest—more reasonably wrong—a prize
More precious than the ordering of a wreck.

Van den Bosch.
Tush, tush! Van Artevelde, thou talk'st and talk'st,
And honest burghers think it wondrous fine;
But thou might'st easilier with that tongue of thine
Persuade yon smoke to fly i' the face o' the wind
Than talk away my wit and understanding.
I say, yon herald shall not enter here.

Artevelde.
I know, Sir, no man better, where my talk
Is serviceable singly, where it needs
To be by acts enforced. I say, beware,
And brave not mine authority too far.

Van den Bosch.
Hast thou authority to take my life?
What is it else to let yon herald in
To bargain for our blood?

Artevelde.
Thy life again!
Why, what a very slave of life art thou!
Look round about on this once populous town;
Not one of these innumerous house-tops
But hides some spectral form of want and woe,
Some peevish pining child and moaning mother,
Some aged man that in his do tage scolds
Not knowing why he hungers, some cold corse
That lies unstraightened where the spirit left it.
Look round and answer what thy life can be
To tell for more than dust upon the scales.
I too would live—I have a love for life—
But rather than to live to charge my soul
With one hour's lengthening out of ills like these,
I'd leap this parapet with as free a bound
As e'er was schoolboy's o'er a garden wall.

Van den Bosch.
I'd like to see thee do it.

Artevelde.
I know thou would'st;
But for the present be content to see
My less precipitate descent; for lo!
[Exit.
There comes the herald o'er the hill.

Van den Bosch.
Beshrew thee!
Thou shalt not have the start of me in this.