University of Virginia Library

IV.

Ante-Chapel at Shene. Choir-music from within. In the passage outside, Arthur, a boy of the choir, reading.
Enter Sir Robert de Bouchard.
Bouchard.
She spares me time to think of it; well, so
I pull this tumbled matter square with God,
What sting can men's mouths hurt me with? What harm
Because the savour of undieted sense
Palates not me? the taste and smell of love
Sickens me, being so fed with its keen use
That delicate divisions of soft touch
Feel gross to me as dullest accident?
That way of will most men take pleasure in
It tires my feet to walk. Then for the harder game—
Joust where the steel swings, fight that clears up blood,
I want the relish too; being no such sinewed ape,
Blunder of brawn and jolted muscle-work,
As beats and bleeds about his iron years,
Anoints his hide with stupid lust and sleep,
Fattens to mould and dies; rubs sides with dust,
Ending his riddle. I have seen time enough,
Struck blows and tricked and paid and won and wrought,
I know not well why wrought. A monk, now—there's right work;
Dull work or wise, body and head keep up;
I should have pulled in scapular and alb
To shut my head up and its work, who knows?

Arthur
(outside).
(He repeats.)

Bouch.
So comes mine answer in; I thank you, Lord;
I'll none of this. Give men clean work and sleep,
And baby bodies this priest's blessed way.
But, being so set between the time's big jaws
To dodge and keep me from the shut o'the teeth,
Shuffle from lip to lip, a shell with priest
For kernel in the husk and rind of knight,—
No chink bit in me, but nigh swallowed whole—
Who says my trick that, played on either, makes
Music for me and sets my head on work,
Is devil's lesson? Pity that lives by milk
Suckles not me; I see no reason set
To keep me from the general use of things
Which no more holds the great regard of man
Than children spoiling flies. Respect and habit
Find no such tongue against me; I but wear
The raiment of my proper purpose, not
The threadworn coat of use. Even who keeps on
Such garments for the reputation's want,
Wears them unseamed inside. The boy there now—

Arth.
Yea, I loathe Hugh. Peter he beat, and me—
Me twice, because that day the queen came in
I twisted back my head to thrust well through
The carved work's double lattice to get sight
Of a tall woman with gold clothes and hair
That shone beyond her clothes; so sharp he smote,
The grim beast Hugh with boarish teeth and hair
All his chin long and where no hair should be!
And Peter pinched and pushed all vespers through
To get my turn and see her. How she went
Holding her throat up, with her round neck out
Curdwhite, no clot in it not smooth to stroke—
All night I shook in sleep for that one thing,
Stirred with my feet and pulled about awry.
I think too she kept smiling with her mouth
(Her wonderful red quiet mouth) and prayed
All to herself. Now that men call a mouth—
And Hugh's begrimed big lips you call the same
That make a thick smile up with all their fat
Never but when he gets one by the nape
To make him sprawl and weep. How all the hair
Drew the hard shining of the candle-fires
And shone back harder with a flare in it
Through all the plaits and bands. Then Hugh said—“Look,
You Arthur, that white woman with such eyes
Is worse in hell than any devil that seethes;
She keeps the colour of it in her hair
That shakes like flame so. Wait till I get in
And teach the beast's will in your female flesh
With some red slits in it, to get out loose
In such dog's ways.” But Hugh lied hard, I think;
For he said after in his damned side-room
What fierce account God made of such a name
And how the golden king that made God songs
Chid at their ways and called them this and that;
And he loved many queens with just such hair
And such good eyes, and had more scores of them
Than I have stripes since last red week on me.
So I can see Hugh lied. For no Jew's wife
Looked ever so, or found such ways to hold
Her sweet straight body.—But my next—that's hard.

(Reads.)
Bouch.
Yea, there the snake's head blinks? yea, doth it there?
O this sweet thorn that worries the kind flesh!
Yea, but the devil's seedling side-graft, Lord,
That pinches out the sap.—I'll talk to him.

Enter from the Chapel Queen Eleanor.
Qu. El.
Ah, you here, Bouchard? is it well with you
When you hear music? I am hot i'the face;
Kiss me now, Robert, where the red begins,
And tell me, does no music hurt you? Ah—
Will no man stop them?

Bouch.
Speak me lower then;
No time to kiss bad words out on the mouth
As one treads flame out with the heel. Well were it,
That you should keep the purpose in your lips
From knowledge of your eyes; let none partake,
No inquisition of the air get out
One secret, or the imperious sun compel
One word of you. Wisdom doth sheath her hand
To smite the fool behind.

Qu. El.
I pray you, sir,
Let be your sentence; O, I am sick to death,
Could lie down here and bruise my head with stone,
Cover up hands and feet and die at once.
Nathless I will not have her eyes and hair
Crown-circled, and her breasts embraced with gold,
When the grave catches me. It is mere time,
The mere sick fault of age I limp with; yea,
Time was I had put such fierce occasion on
Like a new scented glove; but now this thing
Tastes harsh as if I drank that blood indeed
Which I'll not even have spilled in dust; it clings,
Under the lip, makes foul the sense—ha, there,
I knew that noise was close upon my head.

Arthur
(outside).
Matrem pater, fratrem frater, iste condemnabit eum;
Erit nemo quem postremo tu non incusabis reum;
Nihil tactum quod non fractum; fulgor ibit ante Deum;
Mea caro prodest rarò; non est laudi caput meum.

Qu. El.
Say now you love me, Robert; I fear God,
Fear is more bitter than a hurt worm's tooth,
But if God lets one love me this side heaven
And puts his breath not out, then shall I laugh
I'the eyes of him for mere delight, pluck off
Fear that ties man to patience, white regret,
All mixture of diseasèd purpose, made
To cut the hand at wrist; remorse and doubt
Shall die of want in me.

Bouch.
Too much of this;
Get your eyes back. Think how some ten days gone
He drew loose hair into his either hand
And how the speech got room between their mouths
Only to breathe in and go out; at times,
How she said “Eleanor” to try the name,
Found not so sweet as Rosamond to say;
Perhaps too, “Love, the Frenchwoman gets thin,
Her mouth is something older than her hair;
Count by these petals, pluck them three and three,
What months it takes to rid the sun of her,
And make some grave-grass wealthier;” will you bear
This?

Qu. El.
Do men tie the sword this way, or that?
Were I a knight now I would gird it on
Strained hard upon the clasp, would feel the hilt
Bruise my side blue and work the stamp therein
Deep as blood hides i'the flesh. I love pain well to feel;
As to wring in one's fingers—the least pain;
It kills the hard impatience of the soul,
Cools heat of head, makes bearable all shame
That finds a work to do; yea, very sense
Tastes it for comfort, gets assured with it,
Being strong to smite the flesh, and wear pain well.
She must hate pain, that woman; it should jar
Her thin soft sense through, tear it up like silk;
What, if worms eat me that sweet flesh in time?

Arthur
(outside).
Motu mentis quasi ventis facit maria levari;
Ex avenâ flatu plenâ facit dulcem sonum dari;
Tument colles quasi folles quia jussit exsufflari,
Et quœ deplet manu replet labra calicis amari.

Qu. El.
Ay, bitter; for it bites and burns one through
As the sharp sting of wine curdles the mouth.
He would not wed her if I died? I know—
A laugh with all his teeth in it, the beard
So twisted from the underlip about—
Eh, said he that he would not marry her?

Bouch.
Nay, but who deemed else? no man certainly.
When the weak lust falls dead and eyeless flesh
Is as a beast asleep and sick of meat,
What marvel if no spirit there holds out?
No appetite, that like the unchilded sea
(In whose unprofitable and various womb
Fair ships lie sidelong with a fisher's buoy
Miles down in water) hungers for such orts
As riot spares lean want, is yet so wide,
So vast of ravin or so blind in scope,
As can abide the chewed and perished meats
That relish died upon. Fill famine to the lips,
The word of bread shall turn his throat awry;
So doth the sense of love all love put out,
And kiss it from that very place o'the soul
Mere wish made sweet indeed.

Qu. El.
I am sorry for you;
This foolish poison in your tongue forgets
All better things to say.

Bouch.
It is dull truth;
This gift found in me should much profit you.

Qu. El.
I care not for you; I could wish you hanged
But for some love that sticks here in my head,
Some stupid trick caught up—like play with straws,
Tune-burden twisted over in sick ears
That keeps up time with fever; so habit fools me
To use you like a friend.

Bouch.
It is a piteous thing
When honesty grown grey has hairs plucked out
By such unreverent fingers. Come, let be;
I marvel what lewd matter jars your talk
So much past tune.

Qu. El.
'Tis better talk than do
Where doing means actual harm. Perchance this thing
Shall trap our souls indeed,—eh?

Bouch.
Doubt me not;
I think so truly. Prithee let us in,
Wash hands and weep.

Qu. El.
You have marred my will to prayer.
God is right gracious, maybe he shall help,
As we do honourably. I will not go.

Arthur
(outside).
Multo fletu non expletu facit teneras pupillas;
Dente tangi, manu frangi jubet nitidas mamillas;
Quum amœnœ parum genœ nudas exhibent maxillas,
Fiet gravis odor suavis si quis osculabit illas.

Qu. El.
Who made that hymn?

Bouch.
Aloys of Blois.

Qu. El.
Ah priest!
You should be priest, my Bouchard, scalp and mouth,
You have such monk's ways. If she be foul to God
And her sweet breath ill savour in his lip,
Then shall her blood-spilling be sacrifice
And cleanse us in the blow. I do thank God,
I praise the wording of his prayer, will make
Fast and sweet words and thereto thanksgiving,
Be married to his love, my purpose making
Such even wing and way with his.

Bouch.
Yea, first
Show me the perfect fashion of her death.

Qu. El.
What fashion? feel this flasket next my waist,
Full to the wicked lips, crammed up and full
With drugs and scents that touch you in the mouth
And burn you all up, face and eyes at once—
They say so; they may lie, who knows? but kill
The thing does really; do you kiss me now?

Bouch.
Some Frenchman gave my queen the thing to keep?

Qu. El.
I wot well England would not give a queen
Six grains of salt she paid in salt of tears.
France makes good blood, made Becqueval and me;
I bade him get me for love's sake—years gone—
Such mortal matter. Ah, poor Becqueval,
A good time had we in that pleasance-walk;
I with few dames about the white pear-trees—
Spring was it? yea, for green sprang thick as flame
And the birds bit the blossom and sang hard—
Now sat and tore up flowers to waste, wet strips
Of hyacinth, rain-sodden bells—then stood
To make them braid my running hair well back,
Pluck out the broken plait of March-lilies,
Lest one should mutter—“Ha, the queen comes late,
Her hair unwoven and cheeks red as though
Fingers and lips had kissed and fondled them—
Ay, pity of her!” so for that—what words
I choke with saying!

Bouch.
Weak in words indeed;
See how I shut them back upon the mouth.
The king comes here to chapel; let us hence.

Qu. El.
I am very ready. Nay, this turn it is;
I am so free and pleasant of my mood,
I can scarce go for simple joyousness.

[Exeunt.
Arthur
(outside).
Pater, e me mendas deme, fac ut cingar prece suavi;
Pater, e me vinum preme, fac ut purgar fœce gravi;
Tu me bonis imple donis ut implentur melle favi,
Tu me rege tuâ lege, quia mundum non amavi.