Would Gawaine say the Queen
Is jealous because Launcelot——
Gawaine
Slanderer!
Mordred
It was not I that hinted.
Lavaine
The red sleeve,
I tell you again, Sir Mordred, was my sister’s.
For Elaine’s sake and in mere courtesy
Sir Launcelot wore it.
Mordred
Needs the Queen these defenders?
Colegrevance
What fool boy’s talk is this? A paramour
The more, say I.
Agravaine
False to one, false to all.
Lavaine
Liar!
Agravaine
I will have blood for that.
Colegrevance
And I.
Bedivere
For shame! Be silent. Here in the King’s hall!
Agravaine
Off, masks! We have slobbered phrases long enough.
The Queen confessed, you know it by her eye
And cheek of flame that spoke clear as a trumpet
“Launcelot is mine! None else shall have his love
While I have breath and can deceive the King.”
Shall the King be deceived?
Bors
Drag him away!
Agravaine
To the King!
Colegrevance,Mador,Patrice
To the King!
Bedivere,Lucan,Kay,Bors
To the King? No.
Gawaine
Silence! To the King? And shame
The very floor we stand on? To the King,
And with what pitiable pretext? Why,
But that the wine is flown into your brains,
What colour is in this tale? The morning air
Will blow it into nothing.
Agravaine
That we’ll see.
Bedivere
Mordred, you vowed devotion to the Queen.
Mordred
I have said naught against her.
Bors
Hypocrite!
Agravaine
Do you dare insult my brother?
Lucan
Are Britain’s peers
Grown tavern brawlers?
Kay
Launcelot shall hear you
And prove upon your bodies that you lie.
Agravaine
The truth is out, and Launcelot shall die
For all his champions.
Patrice
Come we to the King.
Bedivere
Are knightly vows then turned to drunkards’ oaths?
Kay
Is loyalty in the gutter?
Gawaine
Shame on all
If one word come to the King’s ear of this.
Bedivere
And with this hubbub we affront the Queen
Most shamefully. Remove we all, at once.
(The knights pass out in great turmoil,Mordredlingering last.)
(The knights pass out in great turmoil,Mordredlingering last.)
Mordred
I have pulled the sluice. Now let the torrent stream.
[Exit.
Guenevereenters with one of her women.
Guenevere
Sir Launcelot, have you found him?
Woman
He is here.
(Gueneveredismisses the woman with a gesture.Launcelotenters, grave and preoccupied.)
(Gueneveredismisses the woman with a gesture.Launcelotenters, grave and preoccupied.)
Launcelot
My Queen!
Guenevere
Perjurer! The truth leaps to light at last!
Ah God, Launcelot, that I trusted you,
Loved you with such a love, such a mad love,
So weak! But now my heart turns into hate
And all my blood into one river of scorn.
Oh, that I were the lightning and could strike
To the false heart of you; there, there,
Behind the lips that vowed me endless love
To the false heart that laughed those vows away,
False as the sea, cruel and false with smiles
And sighs and perjured protestation.
Launcelot
Queen!
Guenevere
Who fills your secret bosom, fires your thought?
Who speeds her champion’s onset in the lists?
Not I, but she whose dear red sleeve you wore.
Launcelot
Guenevere, hear me!
Guenevere
A milky-hearted maid,
A tender maid, the maid of Astolat,
She for whose sake you did what never yet
You did for any woman. And you came
Fresh from her clasp, and her cold kiss, to me!
Get to her, haste to her.
Run to that adoration of meek eyes——
Launcelot
Guenevere, Guenevere! you are much deceived.
Guenevere
Deceived indeed! Ah, did you ever love?
Is all that sweetness, ah God, all that seemed
So sweet, it tortures me to think of it,
Ashes and dust? Horrible! Now I know
Why you came sainted and exalted back—
Loyalty and compunction on your lips,
But in your heart a love you dared not own.
It is this girl that’s changed you. Go to her!
Launcelot
I am not changed, my Queen. It is you change.
Guenevere
I?
Launcelot
Has some devil entered into you
That you rave slander?
Speak not, for you shall hear me. You have wronged
One that you know not, and me too you wrong
That never loved any but you, have spent
Blood for you, fought for you, have many times
Been in death’s peril for you, and would to God,
If so I am requited, would to God
That I had never loved.
Guenevere
Ah, you have said it.
Launcelot
I love her not, you know it.
Guenevere
Yet you wore
Her sleeve, her favour.
Launcelot
What I did, I did
For pity, and for the shielding of your name.
I would not wear your favour for that cause.
Guenevere
And yet you never did so much for love.
Launcelot
She had won me back from death. How otherwise
Could I requite her, since I could not love?
So earnestly she asked me for that boon.
Guenevere
It was a token to the world you loved her.
You had no thought of me, never a thought.
Launcelot
Rack me no more! Day and night, night and day,
The image of your eyes and voice and hair
Burns me; you are twisted in my heart strings, I have sought
To cut love from my bosom, but I cannot,
I cannot; and because it saps, divides,
Undoes this realm, and wrongs the King I love—
Never can I enough repent that wrong——
Guenevere
Ah, false and faithless, you will go to her.
(At the height of this scene, suddenly from the right a barge appears with the body ofElaineupon it. It is steered by a very old dumb servant. It glides very slowly to the steps which lead down to the river.Launcelotalone sees it first.)
(At the height of this scene, suddenly from the right a barge appears with the body ofElaineupon it. It is steered by a very old dumb servant. It glides very slowly to the steps which lead down to the river.Launcelotalone sees it first.)
Guenevere
What comes into your eyes and sends you pale?
Launcelot
Is it a vision?
Guenevere(to the steersman)
Whom do you bring, cold on her bier, so strangely?
(ToLauncelot) Why does he speak no word?
Launcelot
What need of words?
Guenevere
Is it she?
Launcelot
Yes.
Guenevere
What have you done to her?
Launcelot
Speak! Can you answer nothing?
(The steersman signs that he is deaf and dumb)
He is dumb.
(The steersman points to the letter)
Guenevere
There is a folded paper in her hand.
(Launcelotsteps into the barge, and unties the letter and reads it.)
(Launcelotsteps into the barge, and unties the letter and reads it.)
Launcelot
“Most noble Launcelot, I was your lover, though
you would not love me. You could not love me,
and therefore I can endure no longer. I was
called the Fair Maid of Astolat, and yet I was not
loved. So I make my lament to all fair ladies,
and to the Queen Guenevere. Sir Launcelot,
since you would not come to me, now come I to
you. Bury this my body that is dead for love of
you. This is the last thing that I ask of you
who would not love me. And, Sir Launcelot, as
you are a knight peerless, pray for my soul.”
Arthurappears, entering slowly
Arthur
What wonder’s here?
Launcelot
The wonder of a death;
The wonder and the beauty and the sorrow.
Arthur
Who is this maid?
Launcelot
One that loved overmuch;
It is Elaine.
Arthur
The maid of Astolat
That healed your wound? How comes she dead?
Launcelot
Read here.
(Arthurreads the letter to himself.)
Guenevere(Gliding away with bowed head)
Pardon, pardon, pardon!
Arthur
Is love so terrible? I did not know.
I would that you had married her.
Launcelot
I could not.
Arthur
Why, Launcelot?
Launcelot
I could not,
Love cannot be constrained. Love must be free.
Where love is bound, it breaks free.
Arthur
It breaks free
Where it is bound. Bound, and breaks free! Think you
That other women can love like to this?
Launcelot
Doubt it not.
Arthur
Even to death?
Launcelot
Even to death.
(A pause, each thinking his own thoughts.)
Arthur
It is as if a flame had leapt from her
And stung me in the brain.
Lives such a world of fire in Guenevere
And I have never known it?
She is smiling, yet she suffered even to death.
Heart of a woman! Is a realm so strong,
Armies, or battlements? Is faith? Is justice?
Launcelot
I pray you let me go apart awhile
For I am charged with a burial.
Arthur(with a change of tone)
Be it so,
There’s something hidden from me. Why that clamour
And then the silence when I came among them?
(Going away, he turns) Launcelot, I have trusted you.
Launcelot
My King,
Trust me still.
[Arthurgoes out.
There’s no end now but exile, I must hence,
Back with to-morrow’s dawn to my own land,
To Brittany. (He motions to the steersman, and steps into the barge.)
Steer down the stream, and I
Will bring you to that place
Where this must leave the light.
Have mercy, Jesu, on that wounded heart!
Give me a soul so constant, flight so straight!
Some angel of compassion bear her now
Where innocence may haven, far from me!
Steer on!
(The barge passes down stream.)