 | The Father's Tragedy |  |
Scene I.
—Stirling. A Courtyard. Enter King Robert and Allan.King Robert.
A sunny day!
Allan.
Rain will be dew to-night.
King Robert.
A prophet with a voice blows no man good!
How sweet the sunshine presses on my brow,
Gently rebuking wrinkles! There's the warmth
Of a young hand in 't. Here is company—
My brother!
[Enter Albany, Prior, Councillors. Allan withdraws.]
Albany.
Grant us private audience.
King Robert.
I think I hear your words within your face,
It says displeasure plainly. Some new lapse
O' the reckless boy?
Albany.
Would he had ne'er been born
To pay dishonour as the price of life
He drew from regal loins. His folly grows
To sinful ripeness.
1st Councillor.
Which we cannot check.
King Robert.
You who are strong and wise!
2nd Councillor.
In vain, my liege,
Are strength and wisdom; for the prince whose charge
And government you laid upon our love,
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Against our slightest check; mocks at the vow
That pledged him to our guidance; in our sight
Is boldly riotous and full of jest,
Railing derision, scorn unsuitable.
No pow'r on earth can bend him to the grace
Of honest manners and sobriety.
Prior.
No pow'r on earth! True, true! But from the heavens
Stream counsel and a strength ineffable;
These have been uninvoked. My gracious liege,
Your son is left unfostered by the Church,
A heathen and a heretic.
King Robert.
Your words
Astound my conscience, prior; on my soul,
He goes with me to chapel oft and oft.
Prior.
To mock his God with wandering eyes and lips
That whisper Belial's accents, or the sneers
Of anti-Christ. His thoughts are deadly, vile
With most pernicious modern heresy.
King Robert.
I cannot take his thoughts upon my soul;
His deeds too much afflict it. I must speak
At every moment words of reprimand
That shake my courage; I must ever dread
Some new occasion for my wearied blame;
Oppose reproof to laughter; beat my ease
To hateful effort; tear from off mine eyes
The hood that Love hath made to darken them
From sight of his offence. I cannot take
The other burden of his lawless mind.
Prior.
You are unworthy then to bear the name
That ties the young man's fate upon your care.
You put his education in the hands
Of these strong barons and grave councillors,
Because you fear'd the weakness of your love
Might prove his ruin. Ill you thought; for fear
Prepares not for calamity. These men,
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And rigid will, confess their discipline
Is brought to scorn, and wherefore? O my liege,
You gave away the office and command
That's natural to your paternity
Through dread, which brought as its accomplishment
The very harm you imaged; for your son
No longer bows to that revered control
Which is the father's blest prerogative.
King Robert.
Was I to blame? His wild, defiant youth
Was motherless, and I, bereft of wife,—
I could not draw stern prompting from her grave
Who loved him with a sacred gentleness
That won his wayward years to her sweet rule.
Our children are her monument, the sign
That once she lived, her epitaph that's writ
On the fair living tablets that she wrought,
My love's memorial and effigy.
Prior.
Keep pure from stain of schism and of sin
These relics—these inscriptions to your love.
King Robert.
I have, I have!
Prior.
But duty, like the sea,
Flows not away, but ever back returns,
Set to the same attempt.
King Robert.
I would the boy
Were like his brother!
Albany.
Pooh, that does not help.
King Robert.
We call our children ours—yet in my son
There's something of a stranger, and 'tis hard
To play the host; he is so much unlike
All that I ever was. I think you spoke.
Albany.
My duty speaks his folly and offence,
Else were I gladly silent.
King Robert.
Albany,
I knew it; 'twas your love and vigilance
That roused my tardy fears.
Albany.
You have an eye
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To see where carrion stinks; less fortunate,
There's eagle in my ken.
King Robert.
Ah, when you spoke,
I found I knew my son but in a mist.
What's to be done, unless we put his case
Into fair hands?
Albany.
Ha?
King Robert.
Then you've never thought
Of marriage?
Albany.
No.
King Robert.
'Tis thither that I look
With confidence for help, and I am bent
On seizing all within the realm of Hope.
You doubt a last success?
Albany.
I do. Ah, well!
You've found the woman?
King Robert.
No; I lack advice.
Albany.
Leave me to choose; I have a keener sight
For that in human beings over which
Flow action and expression like a stream—
The veiled and solid stuff.
King Robert.
Let's go within—
The sun is hot!—and talk of this at length.
David is so unlike me!
[Noise without.
Albany.
There's his laugh!
Oh, every fool has bells within his mouth!
[Exeunt.
[Enter Rothsay, Ramorgny, Walter, Ralph, Randolph, and others; Huntsmen carrying a stag before them.]
Rothsay.
I'm hungry. Let us dine!
Bear forward to the cook, mine honest friends.
I'll lie upon this golden cloth of light
The sun has thrown upon the ground, and wait
Your festal summons.
[Exeunt Huntsmen.
Walter, couch you here.
Ramorgny here—for every one a place.
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The friend of every element? Old age
Faints under heat, and trembles in the blast,
Withers with cold, and aches with rainy air;
But sun and wind and ice and storm to us
Are Nature's boon companions. While I think
Of other blessings, Walter, do you praise
King Youth with opening buds about his crown.
Walter
[sings].
Who hath ever given
Cupid's head white hair,
Or hath put our roses
Under the snow's care?
If such fool there be,
We'll cry him God's mercie!
Ralph.
Bravo!
Rothsay.
Good Walt, thy merry voice is dry—
A stream that suffers drought. Let's have a stoup;
We need not wait for dinner.
Randolph.
Nay, I'll go.
[Exit.
Ramorgny.
Ha, ha! Now speak your praise.
Rothsay.
Right joyfully,
For everything is joyful when we're young,
Immediately, fully. To old men
There's no direct and steadfast joyousness
In flow'rs o' spring; they ever see them fade,
Not sharing with them, as we do, the time,
The freshness, the astonishment. In vain
The tide of vintage strives to loose and float
Their moor'd and creaky passions; emulous,
We dip elastic prows in seas far off.
Their bond of friendship is grey Memory;
But ours is golden Hope, which gathers up
A large companionship among ourselves,
And all things in the world, which be it night
Or winter have assurance of the day
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And dispraise Nature with their melancholy.
[Re-enter Randolph with wine.]
Ramorgny.
Here come the beakers!
Rothsay.
Let us drink to Youth!
We're mortal in this world when it is gone,
Immortal Youth!
Walter.
I pledge your dark hair and I pledge your light;
Down with the parti-colour'd and the white!
Rothsay.
Here's to your hairless chin!
Ramorgny.
To yours, and yours!
[They drink.
Randolph.
We've magpies in yon elm that tops the wall;
One!
Walter.
That's ill-luck, my stars!
One, two,—no, three!
Ralph.
A marriage! that's of merrier import.
Ramorgny.
Ugh! there's a fourth!
Mercy! a burial!
[Re-enter Albany.]
Rothsay.
Ha, ha, ha!
Walter.
Ho, ho!
Albany.
What are you doing?
Rothsay.
Sitting i' the sun.
Who'll be a dog to lend my uncle eyes?
It seems he hath infirmity of sight.
Albany.
'Tis that way lies your weakness. You I see
Couch'd here amid a litter of low churls,
Swilling untimely wine, whose place is set
Scarce lower than the throne by Scotland's voice
Calling you Regent, and endowing you
With pow'r unnatural to thwart the will
Of your anointed king and natural sire.
A senseless boy, you think to drive the steeds
Of sovereignty and never hold a rein;
Nor will you listen to the words of those
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That will not work its lessons by our lips.
Rothsay.
Now look you here, friends, and I'll tell you this,—
Poor Youth was never yet judged by its peers;
Such have no judgment, and its case is left
To elders, who once shared its thoughtlessness,
But now look on with sharp intolerance,
And brand it to the world. 'Tis true enough
That summer recks not of the winter's cold.
But winter's store would ne'er be harvested
Save for the fiery sunshine of past days.
And so with your experience, wise-head!
Albany.
Hum!
Float to destruction! I have done my part,
Nor can be pilot to unyielded bark;
Run on the reefs I know and breast the waves
That draw you to a whirlpool in my chart!
I've done with you.
Rothsay.
Dismissal to us, lads!
You 're strangely still—
Come, let me hear your lips; come, make a noise,
And raise the cur's-tail droop about your heads!
His tongue will lash no more. Get up! There's Meg
Calls us to venison and smoking cheer.
Lass, I must meet these heralds.
[Kisses her.
To the feast!
[Exeunt.
Albany.
And such a bubble of humanity
Must keep me from the throne and float between
Me and the Regency! He lives a life
Blown out of pleasure's mouth and woven all
Of ardent feebleness—the chosen stuff
On which the senses paint their fickle will
In colours of the rainbow. I've a storm
Within could burst this gay impediment
Should it but reach him. Time will settle that.
Now to the point! He must be married—so!
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Before I see him husband. Many lords
Would buy his hand for daughters of their house
With offers of much gold. Who offers most
Shall have the worthless goods.
[Enter the Earl of March.]
Greeting! You're brief,
And conversation is an enemy
For sword-cuts of your tongue. I'm not a man
Who loves a marshall'd troop of many words,
Hence will I strike the very eye of aim.
The king—this know I from his private speech—
Seeks for his son a bride; but since his chests
Are ebbing in their golden property,
He cannot deck a marriage with due pomp
And suitable festivity. I pray
Your counsel in this matter.
Earl of March.
'Twould be worth
Some paltry gold to have a future king
For son-in-law. I'd give it.
Albany.
No, you jest.
Earl of March.
I'd give two thousand pounds.
Albany.
Well, well!
Earl of March.
You mark?
Two thousand pounds to heap the treasury.
You understand me?
Albany.
Yes. We need no words.
Lady Elizabeth is queen to be,
As I am Albany and she your child.
[Exeunt.
| The Father's Tragedy | |