University of Virginia Library

Scene IV

—Borthwick; the battlements, with a courtyard below
Enter on to the battlements Blackadder and the Castellan
Blackadder
This flight from Holyrood, because 'twas mooted
The lords were on the march, is argument
To sure disaster.

Castellan
Though the duke is gone
Among the border ridges to collect
An army at Melrose, I have no faith
That he can draw the commons after him;
For her black weeping has estranged men's hearts
Acutely from his service.

Blackadder
She is restless
As any creature that has lost its mate,
Since he has left her side: she does not sleep,
Nor sit, nor feed, nor use her supple hands
In needlework or music, but grows thin
With pacing, and distempered meditation.
Crookstan, this fidget of a woman's soul
Sets me distraught. I cannot understand
The weeping and constraint of her behaviour
At Holyrood, and this sharp pining now.
She hates him or she loves him: but which horn
Of this dilemma she is pitched upon
No son of woman knows.

Castellan
Hold! Here she comes,
Untended 'mid that gaiety of dress
She flaunts in since he took her.

Exit Blackadder
Enter Queen
Queen
Castellan,
Are troops in sight? The twilight thwarts mine eyes.

Castellan
There is a rumour that the earls of Mar,
Morton, Montrose, are pressing to our keep
With Lindsey, Hume.

Queen
(Stamping impatiently)
In answer to my summons?

Castellan
Madam, your proclamation is as waste.

Queen
I look forth on a kingdom that is mine,
Yet stand here helpless as a country-lass.
Peace, peace! Bring me an army. Scan the space;
Is there no moving colour on the verge?

Castellan
I have been out twice to the mound and shouted;
The hills were deaf—it is an evil sign.

(Moving to the other side)
Queen
If I should pray!
Below there is soft frolic in the fields,
Summer and grassy harvest. God, instead
Plant me an army for his marshalling;
Remount his courage, lest the last disdain
Come o'er me, tempting me to fling him off!
Enter the Maries.
How now! What, women, treble voices—tush!
Well, girls, your service? Are there no relays?
You have sharp, shining eyes: look to the west.

Mary Livingstone
Madam, we come to alter your attire;
For if the duke . . .

Queen
O frippery! Your husbands should be grooms;
Break your lords' anger with a string of pearls!
Away with you, you puppets of the court!
There are no pages here to find delight
In your small modes.
Exeunt
The leaflets of this rosebush
Are plucked away; how desperate I am!
Do I not hear his step? My ardours grow
With fear and with despair.

Enter Blackadder
Blackadder
My lord returns,
Is solitary, changed, a very devil.
Leave us to brave him.

Queen
But I never dread
The open air, the vehemence, the storm
Of a man's nature. (Apart)
'Tis his underground
Fidelity of force that holds me down,
As Plutus kept hell-closed Proserpina;
I should enjoy his rage.

Enter Bothwell: he passes the Queen without notice and stares over the country
Blackadder
(To Castellan)
Look there!

(Pointing to Bothwell)
Castellan
My God!

(A deep pause)
Blackadder
(To Castellan)
Is not that movement to the north a band
Of riders?

Castellan
Slip round by the other side;
So let us reach the stair. I may not venture
To question our commander, but I think
Some peril is approaching. Come away.

Blackadder
(Watching the Queen and Bothwell)
They stand against that cloud as still as towers
Stand through the night.

(Blackadder and the Castellan pass round the further battlement, and the Castellan descends; as Blackadder is descending Bothwell turns)
Bothwell
Tell them to make my bed.

Blackadder
Yes, yes, my lord.

Bothwell
Strip all the covers off;
'Tis hot.

Blackadder
My lord, I will.

Exit
Bothwell continues to gaze out, and takes no notice of the Queen
Queen
(Apart)
It is not safe
To guard this solitude. (Aloud)
What, perdu, love—
So weary and dishevelled? You are dumb
And trembling . . . . (Apart)
Still no answer. All the world
Becomes a silence. Stars, stars, break the heat
With some swift declaration; nightingale,
Sing through your gurgling blood to us!

Bothwell
(Suddenly moving to the stair)
I'll go,
I will be off to couch me.

Queen
(As he passes)
Are you ill?

Bothwell
Damned by your love. Ha, ha, I have been king
A month or so, have swayed it in good earnest,
And made my queen my vassal. 'Tis all done!
I have had royal quarters . . . At Melrose
There is no army. I have torn the crown
In haste to seize it, pulled the throne on me;
But when I sit and whistle on my prow . . .

Queen
James, James, you dare not leave me?

Bothwell
Those famed eyes
Have learned to make entreaty to my will.
When I sit whistling on my prow at sea,
Among my buccaneers, I shall make boast—
Of what, my sovereign dame?
(The Queen starts towards the battlements' edge; Bothwell violently pushes her back against the roof)
Oh, you have courage!
Your old trick at Dunbar,—it awed me then.
You cannot give me pleasure any more
With your stained, dripping face. 'Tis over, girl,
This play at kings and queens. Will you not come
Aboard with me? I had a Danish wife,
Whom I left stranded on the Netherlands
When she had served my turn. Your resolution?
Ay, handy-dandy with me, up and down—
I will not be your jailor; you are free:
The lords are gathering for your rescue: open,
Let them burst in and murder me. To-night
I'll sleep—destruction!—sleep with open window,
And let all go to rack.

Exit
Queen
Within my head
There is a clang as if great gates of iron
Shook, and then opened to a breeze. My limbs
Quaver as do the hill-curves in the heat.
Nothing is altered—only he is gone,
Oppressive in his insolence and gross
As manhood is when it descends beneath
A woman's foot. Darnley and Lethington
And Moray—so I have been taught contempt
From note to note: the compass now is reached;
I cannot stretch beyond to-day the limit
Of scorn, for it is full and perfect, striking
This man I reckoned faithful as the seasons,
My horoscope, or death. A loosed possession!
And I am that—cast off with lack of love
By an insensate hand! O God, the light
That pours unblinking inward—and how large
A difference in my heart!

Enter Castellan and Blackadder in the courtyard below
Castellan
(To Blackadder)
Go fetch my lord;
A troop without say they are hunted friends,
And I must open.

Blackadder
He is laid a' bed,
Or just undressing. I shall have a thud
Of passion for my message.

Castellan
Go.

Exit Blackadder
Queen
(Listening)
A tumult
Against the bank!

Re-enter below Bothwell and Blackadder
Blackadder
Your doublet is not on.

Bothwell
Curses! I'll not be touched—Just pull this down—
Where is that madman Crookstan? Blast your wits!
Lock, lock and hold! It is a stratagem.
Fool, must I slumber to be caught alive
For durance through your softness? All is up!
We have no food or arms to meet a siege,
Scarcely a dozen men within the walls
For sortie or repulse.

Cries
(Outside the gates)
Assassin, out!
Butcher, come forth!
(Confused execrations)

Bothwell
I have not one resolve.
(Apart)
The mast is broken, and the striving sail
Falls down it in a heap. There is such rage
Of hopeless circumstance about my ears,
It desolates my force as if I heard
The water-kelpie howl—a sweating panic.
Had I but slept an hour!

Cries
Ha, ha, come forth—
A murderer, a regicide!

Bothwell
Confound
Their vile abuse, dishonourable noise!
Who would have thought this grey and silent hour
Would hoot outrageous titles, and besiege
My sense with clamour?

Castellan
You will never let
Their ribald anger put you out of heart.
My lord, I wait directions.

Cries
Ravisher!

Bothwell
I cannot stay. Crookstan, I know all voices
That reach this earthly life of ours; the shout
Of battle and the predatory din,
Woman's soft-worded breath, the hurling stream
In flood and hate, the sorrow of the wind
When ghosts are in its tide—all, save this cry
Round a defenceless castle, round about
Our unprotected conscience. Send your son
To meet me at the postern.

Castellan
For escape?

Bothwell
For anything, for peace—I cannot stay,
Hedged in by such offence,
Exit Castellan
drawn on to flight
By something voiceful, and by such distraction
As turns all ways to menace me. Ay, yell
Below there in the pit! This midsummer,
Far sky is cavernous above my head,
Huge, full of wondrous passes through the stars:
It looked so from the hole at Lindisfarne
They put me in; and when I choke at night,
Wrung with a nightmare, 'tis not Kirk o' Field
That sets me gasping; but a low, arched room,
With iron trellis and a muffled door,
Where I must hold my breath till they have clamped
His bonds about a captive who begins
A fairy thrall of twenty thousand years!
(More cries)
Howl up your execrations! Guilty, lords,
To every charge.

Cries
Adulteress!

Bothwell
Let alone
That cry, confounding her with my misdeeds.
She shall not hear it—infamy! (Turning in the direction of the execrating lords)
To sweep
Across you as the north wind on the bents,
Clean from the verge to tear you in my transit,
Then boom triumphant of the scath behind!
A regicide, a rex! It bursts again—
Their shriek that whirrs and eddies like the cry
Of sea-fowl at the base.

Cries
Come down to us;
Yield yourself prisoner!

Bothwell
Ay, to be shut up
As a big, precious relic! If these men
Should act my vision on me, I would loose
My thoughts out in a wolfish multitude;
I would betray them.
Re-enter Castellan
Crookstan, muffle me,
Push me along the passage; I am blind—
Your boy there? O the mountains! I am safe!
And yonder the wan water. Let us out.

Exeunt
Queen
(Who has caught snatches of the talk below)
Fidelity! But now he has no claim,
No share in any regal attribute;
He drops to the unsingled multitude
Of craven rebels. And I stand alone,
Full of great, mounting courage; in my veins
The blood that buffets fortune and endures.
I will go wander forth into the night,
And breathe my freedom. I am free as air,
As Dian in the woods. I wedded him
By promises heretical and void
As is his heart who leaves me. Out, away,
I go, I go! The wife of Hepburn slips
Into her boyish hose and doughty cloak
To disappear for ever. In the cots
Are faithful subjects, charitable hands:
My people love their pity-dealing queen,
The daughter of their goodman, whom they called
King o' the Commons merrily. I wish
Bad dreams had all such issue: I am light
As when I danced upon the palace-floors
In dearest France, and irresponsible
As when I strayed at Inchmahome. My youth
Rushes in front of memory; all my pain,
My plight in fresh disguise, are smart as joy;
And there is nature in me that persists
In hoping, loving; for the rain and dew
I cry, for seed-time and the harvest-fields:
The dead, unsightly things that have been cast
By alien forces on me presently
Must disappear. I leap into my realm
Without a thought—God speed me!

Exit