EIGHTH SCENE
The Nunnery at Amesbury.Guenevereis discovered lying prostrate on the stone steps.A nun,Lynned,enters and lifts her up as she speaks to her.
Lynned
Queen, the day calls us; cling not to the night,
The stone, the silence. There is flesh and blood
Of your own people, threatened and afraid,
That calls on you. Though you have cast the robe
Of royalty for this (touching her nun’s garment), the queenly heart
Has room for other sorrow than its own—
So cold, my sister? Feel within my arms,
Feel in my bosom the warm running blood
That neighbours yours.
Guenevere
I am wearied, wearied out.
I would forget, and cannot. My heart’s numbed
With aching like my body.
I thought that in these walls there should be peace.
Tell me, for you have eyes that understand
And seem to suffer, tell me the truth, Sister.
I know that it is sinful to remember,
And yet, is it not treason to forget?
Lynned
Grief can grow dear—do I not know it?—grief
Can grow too dear. The heart that loses all
Must still give all.
Guenevere
Take not my grief from me,
Or there is nothing left to me on earth.
Lynned
Nay, grief shall change and grow beyond itself.
There’s one now at the gate must speak with you.
Guenevere
Send him away.
Lynned
I cannot.
Guenevere
Who is he
That seeks me? There was one who used to come
To me, always, before he rode to battle.
His name was Launcelot. That was long ago.
I was a Queen then. I have died since then.
It is not Launcelot! Leave me then in peace.
Lynned
Alas, even here within this cloister wall
Is no peace any longer, but all round
Imminent tempest, ripe to burst on us,
Sir Mordred with his host in rebel arms,
Thrice swollen in number, threatens ever nearer.
Out of the West he thrusts. This very day
May see the issue. Never did the swarm
Of Saxon heathen press the King so hard.
Guenevere
Who else could seek me now? Is it the King?
Lynned
It is the King.
Guenevere
I cannot see him.
Lynned
Think!
He is in deadly danger: it may be
This is the last time you may look on him.
Guenevere
I cannot.
Lynned
Sister, I, too, once denied
One who had loved me, when he sought me out
For my forgiveness. Gawaine was his name.
They had told an evil tale of me, and he
Believed it in his sudden wrath, and then
Repented, and he came to see me, and I
Denied him. Now he is dead, that stormy heart——
Guenevere
Sir Gawaine, dead?
Lynned
Dead of that wound he got
By Joyous Gard. The news came even now.
I shall not see him now, never again;
I, that had all his pardon brimming here.
And have no pardon for myself.
Guenevere
You, too?
Lynned
We are all kneaded of one flesh; wild earth,
Yet heavenly seed can spring in it, and peace
That comes in the end, but comes not without cost.
It is ill shrinking from our sorrow, Queen.
Will you not see the King?
Guenevere
How looked he? Tell me.
Lynned
I saw him in the ghostly morning mist
Clad in his armour, sitting on his horse.
He rides to battle. Almost like a spirit
He seemed, and greater than himself.
When he spoke,
His voice was gentle, yet withal commanded.
And there was such a shining in his eyes
As never yet I saw in any man’s
Upon this earth.
Guenevere
Go, tell him——
(Arthurappears at the back, as a shadow among the shadows, emerging into the light till he stands nearGuenevere.)
(Arthurappears at the back, as a shadow among the shadows, emerging into the light till he stands nearGuenevere.)
Lynned
He is here.
(Lynnedglides away as the King appears. He has an exalted, strange, and almost transfigured air.)
(Lynnedglides away as the King appears. He has an exalted, strange, and almost transfigured air.)
Arthur
Guenevere!
Guenevere
Why do you bring me back that ache
And the sharp memory of all I thirst
To have forgotten?
Do you come now to forgive me?
Standing apart, to pardon?
Only the truth is worthy of what we are.
I have wept tears that scald the soul, and yet
I do my heart of hearts wrong, if I say
That I repent of all.
Arthur
If I were he
You knew in other time, if I were he
Who had no eyes but for his distant goal,
And saw not the things nearest to his heart—
But he is passed.
Guenevere
You speak with a new voice.
But I am as the dead who cannot change:
Burnt out. I feel not, only see, from far,
The unending desolation I have made.
Arthur
I too, I too see, Guenevere. I see
Your spirit, and my spirit, and that one
Who stands between us; and I see the realm,
I dreamed to make one flawless crystal, cracked
To fragments; and the loss, the waste. But now
I am come, through anguish and against my will,
Into a light that shows me what I am,
And where I go, and what endures beyond.
Were it not for the pain, I had not known.
In ignorance we tear each other’s hearts.
Know you, Gawaine is gone, dead of his wound?
Guenevere
I know it.
Arthur
Know you, the great heart in him
Turned once again to Launcelot at the last?
The old love flooded over that dark hate:
He knew that Launcelot loved him to the end
From the beginning. Guenevere, my light
Came then: I knew that Launcelot loved me
Not less, but more, because he did me wrong;
And I began to understand that love,
Which knows not good or evil, but gives all,
Because it turns as flowers do to the sun
And goes like stream to sea.
Guenevere
I did the wrong.
Through me the young have perished, the young men
Have fallen in their blood.
From me a woe goes welling through the world
Like waves in the black night.
Arthur
From me, from me!
In the beginning was my fault. I feel
The end upon me, like the air of dawn,
And see in light that is not of the earth
What we have done to each other, and left undone.
I in my far dream of that perfect realm,
Clouded in cares of policy and state,
Saw not what burning soul was at my side,
Wanting the love that sees through human eyes
And by love understands. I was blind. Now
I am borne beyond Time’s wisdom and that fear
Which moulds men’s justice. What am I, to speak
Pardon or condemnation? I am come
To humbleness that cries, “Father, forgive!
We know not what we did.” It is I that say,
“My Queen, forgive me.” Speak not any word.
Your eyes have spoken. Guenevere, I go
To battle. Give me your farewell.
Guenevere
To battle!
Never an end of battle!
Arthur
Mordred stands,
Ready to strike; and men, that I have made
From nothing, now are Mordred’s. That name sucks
All secret poison to itself. Yonder
He waits me. I shall overthrow him—this
Is a fight to put my soul in—yet a voice
Within my heart assures me that I go
To the last of all my battles.
Guenevere
To the last?
Arthur
I feel the wizard sword Excalibur
Like an impatient spirit within my hand,
As if he heard voices recalling me
Out of this ended world. But I am freed;
I am forgiven; the dark load is off.
Say me farewell, Guenevere.
Guenevere
Now you go
Into your mortal peril, and go alone,
Maimed of your strong right hand,
Of Launcelot, that loved you. Woe on me!
The very meanest of your serving men
That bears a weapon has the better right
Than she who was your Queen to follow you
Even with her prayers.
Arthur
Give me your prayers, I ask them.
Christ, that loved men and women, comfort you.
Guenevere
God keep my lord. I have no words any more.
Arthur
The day goes to the night,
And I to darkness, with my toil undone.
Yet something, surely, something shall remain.
A seed is sown in Britain, Guenevere;
And whether men wait for a hundred years
Or for a thousand, they shall find it flower
In youth unborn. The young have gone before me,
The maid Elaine, Gareth, and Gaheris—hearts
Without a price, poured out. But now I know
The tender and passionate spirit that burned in them
To dare all and endure all, lives and moves,
And though the dark comes down upon our waste,
Lives ever, like the sun above all storms;
This old world shall behold it shine again
To prove what splendour men have power to shape
From mere mortality.
Farewell! That peace
Which can remember, and yet hope, because
Love makes us greater than we know, come to you,
Guenevere!
[He disappears into the shadows, and the scene closes in.
[He disappears into the shadows, and the scene closes in.