The Project Gutenberg eBook ofLocrine: A TragedyThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Locrine: A TragedyAuthor: Algernon Charles SwinburneRelease date: July 1, 2002 [eBook #3325]Most recently updated: August 22, 2014Language: EnglishCredits: Transcribed from the 1887 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOCRINE: A TRAGEDY ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Locrine: A TragedyAuthor: Algernon Charles SwinburneRelease date: July 1, 2002 [eBook #3325]Most recently updated: August 22, 2014Language: EnglishCredits: Transcribed from the 1887 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price
Title: Locrine: A Tragedy
Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne
Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne
Release date: July 1, 2002 [eBook #3325]Most recently updated: August 22, 2014
Language: English
Credits: Transcribed from the 1887 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOCRINE: A TRAGEDY ***
Transcribed from the 1887 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
A TRAGEDY
BYALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
LondonCHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY1887
[The right of translation is reserved]
PRINTED BYSPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARELONDON
TO ALICE SWINBURNE.
Thelove that comes and goes like wind or fireHath words and wings wherewith to speak and flee.But love more deep than passion’s deep desire,Clear and inviolable as the unsounded sea,What wings of words may serve to set it free,To lift and lead it homeward? Time and deathAre less than love: or man’s live spirit saithFalse, when he deems his life is more than breath.
No words may utter love; no sovereign songSpeak all it would for love’s sake. Yet would IFain cast in moulded rhymes that do me wrongSome little part of all my love: but whyShould weak and wingless words be fain to fly?For us the years that live not are not dead:Past days and present in our hearts are wed:My song can say no more than love hath said.
Love needs nor song nor speech to say what loveWould speak or sing, were speech and song not weakTo bear the sense-belated soul aboveAnd bid the lips of silence breathe and speak.Nor power nor will has love to find or seekWords indiscoverable, ampler strains of songThan ever hailed him fair or shewed him strong:And less than these should do him worse than wrong.
We who remember not a day whereinWe have not loved each other,—who can seeNo time, since time bade first our days begin,Within the sweep of memory’s wings, when weHave known not what each other’s love must be,—We are well content to know it, and rest on this,And call not words to witness that it is.To love aloud is oft to love amiss.
But if the gracious witness borne of wordsTake not from speechless love the secret graceThat binds it round with silence, and engirdsIts heart with memories fair as heaven’s own face,Let love take courage for a little spaceTo speak and be rebuked not of the soul,Whose utterance, ere the unwitting speech be whole,Rebukes itself, and craves again control.
A ninefold garland wrought of song-flowers nineWound each with each in chance-inwoven accordHere at your feet I lay as on a shrineWhereof the holiest love that lives is lord.With faint strange hues their leaves are freaked and scored:The fable-flowering land wherein they grewHath dreams for stars, and grey romance for dew:Perchance no flower thence plucked may flower anew.
No part have these wan legends in the sunWhose glory lightens Greece and gleams on Rome.Their elders live: but these—their day is done,Their records written of the wind in foamFly down the wind, and darkness takes them home.What Homer saw, what Virgil dreamed, was truth,And dies not, being divine: but whence, in sooth,Might shades that never lived win deathless youth?
The fields of fable, by the feet of faithUntrodden, bloom not where such deep mist drives.Dead fancy’s ghost, not living fancy’s wraith,Is now the storied sorrow that survivesFaith in the record of these lifeless lives.Yet Milton’s sacred feet have lingered there,His lips have made august the fabulous air,His hands have touched and left the wild weeds fair.
So, in some void and thought-untrammelled hour,Let these find grace, my sister, in your sight,Whose glance but cast on casual things hath powerTo do the sun’s work, bidding all be brightWith comfort given of love: for love is light.Were all the world of song made mine to give,The best were yours of all its flowers that live:Though least of all be this my gift, forgive.
July1887.
Locrine,King of Britain.
Camber,King of Wales,brother toLocrine.
Madan,son toLocrineandGuendolen.
Debon,Lord Chamberlain.
Guendolen,Queen of Britain,cousin and wife toLocrine.
Estrild,a German princess,widow of the Scythian kingHumber.
Sabrina,daughter toLocrineandEstrild.
Scene,Britain.
EnterGuendolenandMadan.
GUENDOLEN.
Child, hast thou looked upon thy grandsire dead?
MADAN.
Ay.
GUENDOLEN.
Then thou sawest our Britain’s heart and headDeath-stricken. Seemed not there my sire to theeMore great than thine, or all men living? WeStand shadows of the fathers we survive:Earth bears no more nor sees such births alive.
MADAN.
Why, he was great of thews—and wise, thou say’st:Yet seems my sire to me the fairer-faced—The kinglier and the kindlier.
GUENDOLEN.
Yea, his eyesAre liker seas that feel the summering skiesIn concord of sweet colour—and his browShines gentler than my father’s ever: thou,So seeing, dost well to hold thy sire so dear.
MADAN.
I said not that his love sat yet so nearMy heart as thine doth: rather am I thine,Thou knowest, than his.
GUENDOLEN.
Nay—rather seems LocrineThy sire than I thy mother.
MADAN.
Wherefore?
GUENDOLEN.
Boy,Because of all our sires who fought for TroyMost like thy father and my lord Locrine,I think, was Paris.
MADAN.
How may man divineThy meaning? Blunt am I, thou knowest, of wit;And scarce yet man—men tell me.
GUENDOLEN.
Ask not it.I meant not thou shouldst understand—I spakeAs one that sighs, to ease her heart of ache,And would not clothe in words her cause for sighs—Her naked cause of sorrow.
MADAN.
Wert thou wise,Mother, thy tongue had chosen of two things one—Silence, or speech.
GUENDOLEN.
Speech had I chosen, my son,I had wronged thee—yea, perchance I have wronged thine earsToo far, to say so much.
MADAN.
Nay, these are tearsThat gather toward thine eyelids now. Thou hast brokenSilence—if now thy speech die down unspoken,Thou dost me wrong indeed—but more than mineThe wrong thou dost thyself is.
GUENDOLEN.
And Locrine—Were not thy sire wronged likewise of me?
MADAN.
Yea.
GUENDOLEN.
Yet—I may choose yet—nothing will I sayMore.
MADAN.
Choose, and have thy choice; it galls not me.
GUENDOLEN.
Son, son! thy speech is bitterer than the sea.
MADAN.
Yet, were the gulfs of hell not bitterer, thineMight match thy son’s, who hast called my sire—Locrine—Thy lord, and lord of all this land—the kingWhose name is bright and sweet as earth in spring,Whose love is mixed with Britain’s very lifeAs heaven with earth at sunrise—thou, his wife,Hast called him—and the poison of the wordSet not thy tongue on fire—I lived and heard—Coward.
GUENDOLEN.
Thou liest.
MADAN.
If then thy speech rang true,Why, now it rings not false.
GUENDOLEN.
Thou art treacherous too—His heart, thy father’s very heart is thine—O, well beseems it, meet it is, Locrine,That liar and traitor and changeling he should beWho, though I bare him, was begot by thee.
MADAN.
How have I lied, mother? Was this the lie,That thou didst call my father coward, and IHeard?
GUENDOLEN.
Nay—I did but liken him with oneNot all unlike him; thou, my child, his son,Art more unlike thy father.
MADAN.
Was not then,Of all our fathers, all recorded men,The man whose name, thou sayest, is like his name—Paris—a sign in all men’s mouths of shame?
GUENDOLEN.
Nay, save when heaven would cross him in the fight,He bare him, say the minstrels, as a knight—Yea, like thy father.
MADAN.
Shame then were it noneThough men should liken me to him?
GUENDOLEN.
My son,I had rather see thee—see thy brave bright head,Strong limbs, clear eyes—drop here before me dead.
MADAN.
If he were true man, wherefore?
GUENDOLEN.
False was he;No coward indeed, but faithless, trothless—weHold therefore, as thou sayest, his princely nameUnprincely—dead in honour—quick in shame.
MADAN.
And his to mine thou likenest?
GUENDOLEN.
Thine? to thine?God rather strike thy life as dark as mineThan tarnish thus thine honour! For to meShameful it seems—I know not if it be—For men to lie, and smile, and swear, and lie,And bear the gods of heaven false witness. ICan hold not this but shameful.
MADAN.
Thou dost well.I had liefer cast my soul alive to hellThan play a false man false. But were he trueAnd I the traitor—then what heaven should doI wot not, but myself, being once awakeOut of that treasonous trance, were fain to slakeWith all my blood the fire of shame whereinMy soul should burn me living in my sin.
GUENDOLEN.
Thy soul? Yea, there—how knowest thou, boy, so well?—The fire is lit that feeds the fires of hell.Mine is aflame this long time now—but thine—O, how shall God forgive thee this, Locrine,That thou, for shame of these thy treasons done,Hast rent the soul in sunder of thy son?
MADAN.
My heart is whole yet, though thy speech be fireWhose flame lays hold upon it. Hath my sireWronged thee?
GUENDOLEN.
Nay, child, I lied—I did but rave—I jested—was my face, then, sad and grave,When most I jested with thee? Child, my brainIs wearied, and my heart worn down with pain:I thought awhile, for very sorrow’s sake,To play with sorrow—try thy spirit, and takeComfort—God knows I know not what I said,My father, whom I loved, being newly dead.
MADAN.
I pray thee that thou jest with me no moreThus.
GUENDOLEN.
Dost thou now believe me?
MADAN.
No.
GUENDOLEN.
I boreA brave man when I bore thee.
MADAN.
I desireNo more of laud or leasing. Hath my sireWronged thee?
GUENDOLEN.
Never. But wilt thou trust me now?
MADAN.
As trustful am I, mother of mine, as thou.
EnterLocrine.
LOCRINE.
The gods be good to thee! How farest thou?
GUENDOLEN.
Well.Heaven hath no power to hurt me more: and hellNo fire to fear. The world I dwelt in diedWith my dead father. King, thy world is wideWherein thy soul rejoicingly puts trust:But mine is strait, and built by death of dust.
LOCRINE.
Thy sire, mine uncle, stood the sole man, then,That held thy life up happy? Guendolen,Hast thou nor child nor husband—or are weWorth no remembrance more at all of thee?
GUENDOLEN.
Thy speech is sweet; thine eyes are flowers that shine:If ever siren bare a son, Locrine,To reign in some green island and bear swayOn shores more shining than the front of dayAnd cliffs whose brightness dulls the morning’s brow,That son of sorceries and of seas art thou.
LOCRINE.
Nay, now thy tongue it is that plays on men;And yet no siren’s honey, Guendolen,Is this fair speech, though soft as breathes the south,Which thus I kiss to silence on thy mouth.
GUENDOLEN.
Thy soul is softer than this boy’s of thine:His heart is all toward battle. Was it mineThat put such fire in his? for none that heardThy flatteries—nay, I take not back the word—A flattering lover lives my loving lord—Could guess thine hand so great with spear or sword.
LOCRINE.
What have I done for thee to mock with praiseAnd make the boy’s eyes widen? All my daysAre worth not all a week, if war be all,Of his that loved no bloodless festival—Thy sire, and sire of slaughters: this was oneWho craved no more of comfort from the sunBut light to lighten him toward battle: ILove no such life as bids men kill or die.
GUENDOLEN.
Wert thou not woman more in word than act,Then unrevenged thy brother AlbanactHad given his blood to guard his realm and thine:But he that slew him found thy stroke, Locrine,Strong as thy speech is gentle.
LOCRINE.
God assoilThe dead our friends and foes!
GUENDOLEN.
A goodly spoilWas that thine hand made then by Humber’s banksOf all who swelled the Scythian’s riotous ranksWith storm of inland surf and surge of steel:None there were left, if tongues ring true, to feelThe yoke of days that breathe submissive breathMore bitter than the bitterest edge of death.
LOCRINE.
None.
GUENDOLEN.
This was then a day of blood. I heard,But know not whence I caught the wandering word,Strange women were there of that outland crew,Whom ruthlessly thy soldiers ravening slew.
LOCRINE.
Nay, Scythians then had we been, worse than they.
GUENDOLEN.
These that were taken, then, thou didst not slay?
LOCRINE.
I did not say we spared them.
GUENDOLEN.
Slay nor spare?
LOCRINE.
How if they were not?
GUENDOLEN.
What albeit they were?Small hurt, meseems, my husband, had it beenThough British hands had haled a Scythian queen—If such were found—some woman foul and fierce—To death—or aught we hold for shame’s sake worse.
LOCRINE.
For shame’s own sake the hand that should not fearTo take such monstrous work upon it here,And did not wither from the wrist, should beHewn off ere hanging. Wolves or men are we,That thou shouldst question this?
GUENDOLEN.
Not wolves, but men,Surely: for beasts are loyal.
LOCRINE.
Guendolen,What irks thee?
GUENDOLEN.
Nought save grief and love; Locrine,A grievous love, a loving grief is mine.Here stands my husband: there my father lies:I know not if there live in either’s eyesMore love, more life of comfort. This our sonLoves me: but is there else left living oneThat loves me back as I love?
LOCRINE.
Nay, but howHas this wild question fired thine heart?
GUENDOLEN.
Not thou!No part have I—nay, never had I part—Our child that hears me knows it—in thine heart.Thy sire it was that bade our hands be oneFor love of mine, his brother: thou, his son,Didst give not—no—but yield thy hand to mine,To mine thy lips—not thee to me, Locrine.Thy heart has dwelt far off me all these years;Yet have I never sought with smiles or tearsTo lure or melt it meward. I have borne—I that have borne to thee this boy—thy scorn,Thy gentleness, thy tender words that biteMore deep than shame would, shouldst thou spurn or smiteThese limbs and lips made thine by contract—madeNo wife’s, no queen’s—a servant’s—nay, thy shade.The shadow am I, my lord and king, of thee,Who art spirit and substance, body and soul to me.And now,—nay, speak not—now my sire is deadThou think’st to cast me crownless from thy bedWherein I brought thee forth a son that nowShall perish with me, if thou wilt—and thouShalt live and laugh to think of us—or yetPlay faith more foul—play falser, and forget.
LOCRINE.
Sharp grief has crazed thy brain. Thou knowest of me—
GUENDOLEN.
I know that nought I know, Locrine, of thee.
LOCRINE.
What bids thee then revile me, knowing no cause?
GUENDOLEN.
Strong sorrow knows but sorrow’s lawless laws.
LOCRINE.
Yet these should turn not grief to raging fire.
GUENDOLEN.
They should not, had my heart my heart’s desire.
LOCRINE.
Would God that love, my queen, could give thee this!
GUENDOLEN.
Thou dost not call me wife—nor call’st amiss.
LOCRINE.
What name should serve to stay this fitful strife?
GUENDOLEN.
Thou dost not ill to call me not thy wife.
LOCRINE.
My sister wellnigh wast thou once: and now—
GUENDOLEN.
Thy sister never I: my brother thou.
LOCRINE.
How shall man sound this riddle? Read it me.
GUENDOLEN.
As loves a sister, never loved I thee.
LOCRINE.
Not when we played as twinborn child with child?
GUENDOLEN.
If then thou thought’st it, both were sore beguiled.
LOCRINE.
I thought thee sweeter then than summer doves.
GUENDOLEN.
Yet not like theirs—woe worth it!—were our loves.
LOCRINE.
No—for they meet and flit again apart.
GUENDOLEN.
And we live linked, inseparate—heart in heart.
LOCRINE.
Is this the grief that wrings and vexes thine?
GUENDOLEN.
Thy mother laughed when thou wast born, Locrine.
LOCRINE.
Did she not well? sweet laughter speaks not scorn.
GUENDOLEN.
And thou didst laugh, and wept’st not, to be born.
LOCRINE.
Did I then ill? didst thou, then, weep to be?
GUENDOLEN.
The same star lit not thee to birth and me.
LOCRINE.
Thine eyes took light, then, from the fairer star.
GUENDOLEN.
Nay; thine was nigh the sun, and mine afar.
LOCRINE.
Too bright was thine to need the neighbouring sun.
GUENDOLEN.
Nay, all its life of light was wellnigh done.
LOCRINE.
If all on thee its light and life were shedAnd darkness on thy birthday struck it dead,It died most happy, leaving life and lightMore fair and full in loves more thankful sight.
GUENDOLEN.
Art thou so thankful, king, for love’s kind sake?Would I were worthier thanks like these I take!For thanks I cannot render thee again.
LOCRINE.
Too heavy sits thy sorrow, Guendolen,Upon thy spirit of life: I bid thee notTake comfort while the fire of grief is hotStill at thine heart, and scarce thy last keen tearDried: yet the gods have left thee comfort here.
GUENDOLEN.
Comfort? In thee, fair cousin—or my son?
LOCRINE.
What hast thou done, Madan, or left undone?Toward thee and me thy mother’s mood to-daySeems less than loving.
MADAN.
Sire, I cannot say.
LOCRINE.
Enough: an hour or half an hour is moreThan wrangling words should stuff with barren store.Comfort may’st thou bring to her, if I may none,When all her father quickens in her son.In Cornish warfare if thou win thee praise,Thine shall men liken to thy grandsire’s days.
GUENDOLEN.
To Cornwall must he fare and fight for thee?
LOCRINE.
If heart be his—and if thy will it be.
GUENDOLEN.
What is my will worth more than wind or foam?
LOCRINE.
Why, leave is thine to hold him here at home.
GUENDOLEN.
What power is mine to speed him or to stay?
LOCRINE.
None—should thy child cast love and shame away.
GUENDOLEN.
Most duteous wast thou to thy sire—and mine.
LOCRINE.
Yea, truly—when their bidding sealed me thine.
GUENDOLEN.
Thy smile is as a flame that plays and flits.
LOCRINE.
Yet at my heart thou knowest what fire there sits.
GUENDOLEN.
Not love’s—not love’s—toward me love burns not there.
LOCRINE.
What wouldst thou have me search therein and swear?
GUENDOLEN.
Swear by the faith none seeking there may find—
LOCRINE.
Then—by the faith that lives not in thy kind—
GUENDOLEN.
Ay—women’s faith is water. Then, by men’s—
LOCRINE.
Yea—by Locrine’s, and not by Guendolen’s—
GUENDOLEN.
Swear thou didst never love me more than now.
LOCRINE.
I swear it—not when first we kissed. And thou?
GUENDOLEN.
I cannot give thee back thine oath again.
LOCRINE.
If now love wane within thee, lived it then?
GUENDOLEN.
I said not that it waned. I would not swear—
LOCRINE.
That it was ever more than shadows were?
GUENDOLEN.
—Thy faith and heart were aught but shadow and fire.
LOCRINE.
But thou, meseems, hast loved—thy son and sire.
GUENDOLEN.
And not my lord: I cross and thwart him still.
LOCRINE.
Thy grief it is that wounds me—not thy will.
GUENDOLEN.
Wound? if I would, could I forsooth wound thee?
LOCRINE.
I think thou wouldst not, though thine hands were free.
GUENDOLEN.
These hands, now bound in wedlock fast to thine?
LOCRINE.
Yet were thine heart not then dislinked from mine.
GUENDOLEN.
Nay, life nor death, nor love whose child is hate,May sunder hearts made one but once by fate.Wrath may come down as fire between them—lifeMay bid them yearn for death as man for wife—Grief bid them stoop as son to father—shameBrand them, and memory turn their pulse to flame—Or falsehood change their blood to poisoned wine—Yet all shall rend them not in twain, Locrine.
LOCRINE.
Who knows not this? but rather would I knowWhat thought distempers and distunes thy woe.I came to wed my grief awhile to thineFor love’s sake and for comfort’s—
GUENDOLEN.
Thou, Locrine?Today thou knowest not, nor wilt learn tomorrow,The secret sense of such a word as sorrow.Thy spirit is soft and sweet: I well believeThou wouldst, but well I know thou canst not grieve.The tears like fire, the fire that burns up tears,The blind wild woe that seals up eyes and ears,The sound of raging silence in the brainThat utters things unutterable for pain,The thirst at heart that cries on death for ease,What knows thy soul’s live sense of pangs like these?
LOCRINE.
Is no love left thee then for comfort?
GUENDOLEN.
Thine?
LOCRINE.
Thy son’s may serve thee, though thou mock at mine.
GUENDOLEN.
Ay—when he comes again from Cornwall.
LOCRINE.
Nay;If now his absence irk thee, bid him stay.
GUENDOLEN.
I will not—yea, I would not, though I might.Go, child: God guard and grace thine hand in fight!
MADAN.
My heart shall give it grace to guard my head.
LOCRINE.
Well thought, my son: but scarce of thee well said.
MADAN.
No skill of speech have I: words said or sungHelp me no more than hand is helped of tongue:Yet, would some better wit than mine, I wis,Help mine, I fain would render thanks for this.
GUENDOLEN.
Think not the boy I bare thee too much mine,Though slack of speech and halting: I divineThou shalt not find him faint of heart or hand,Come what may come against him.
LOCRINE.
Nay, this landBears not alive, nor bare it ere we came,Such bloodless hearts as know not fame from shame,Or quail for hope’s sake, or more faithless fear,From truth of single-sighted manhood, hereBorn and bred up to read the word arightThat sunders man from beast as day from night.That red rank Ireland where men burn and slayGirls, old men, children, mothers, sires, and sayThese wolves and swine that skulk and strike do well,As soon might know sweet heaven from ravenous hell.
GUENDOLEN.
Ay: no such coward as crawls and licks the dustTill blood thence licked may slake his murderous lustAnd leave his tongue the suppler shall be bred,I think, in Britain ever—if the deadMay witness for the living. Though my sonGo forth among strange tribes to battle, noneHere shall he meet within our circling seasSo much more vile than vilest men as these.And though the folk be fierce that harbour thereAs once the Scythians driven before thee were,And though some Cornish water change its nameAs Humber then for furtherance of thy fame,And take some dead man’s on it—some dead king’sSlain of our son’s hand—and its waterspringsWax red and radiant from such fire of fightAnd swell as high with blood of hosts in flight—No fiercer foe nor worthier shall he meetThan then fell grovelling at his father’s feet.Nor, though the day run red with blood of menAs that whose hours rang round thy praises then,Shall thy son’s hand be deeper dipped thereinThan his that gat him—and that held it sinTo spill strange blood of barbarous women—wivesOr harlots—things of monstrous names and lives—Fit spoil for swords of harsher-hearted folk;Nor yet, though some that dared and ‘scaped the strokeBe fair as beasts are beauteous,—fit to makeFalse hearts of fools bow down for love’s foul sake,And burn up faith to ashes—shall my sonForsake his father’s ways for such an oneAs whom thy soldiers slew or slew not—thouHast no remembrance of them left thee now.Even therefore may we stand assured of this:What lip soever lure his lip to kiss,Past question—else were he nor mine nor thine—This boy would spurn a Scythian concubine.
LOCRINE.
Such peril scarce may cross or charm our son,Though fairer women earth or heaven sees noneThan those whose breath makes mild our wild south-westWhere now he fares not forth on amorous quest.
GUENDOLEN.
Wilt thou not bless him going, and bid him speed?
LOCRINE.
So be it: yet surely not in word but deedLives all the soul of blessing or of banOr wrought or won by manhood’s might for man.The gods be gracious to thee, boy, and giveThy wish its will!
MADAN.
So shall they, if I live.
[Exeunt.
EnterCamberandDebon.
CAMBER.
Nay, tell not me: no smoke of lies can smotherThe truth which lightens through thy lies: I seeWhose trust it is that makes a liar of thee,And how thy falsehood, man, has faith for mother.What, is not thine the breast wherein my brotherSeals all his heart up? Had he put in meFaith—but his secret has thy tongue for key,And all his counsel opens to none other.Thy tongue, thine eye, thy smile unlocks his trustWho puts no trust in man.
DEBON.
Sir, then were IA traitor found more perfect fool than knaveShould I play false, or turn for gold to dustA gem worth all the gold beneath the sky—The diamond of the flawless faith he gaveWho sealed his trust upon me.
CAMBER.
What art thou?Because thy beard ere mine were black was greyArt thou the prince, and I thy man? I sayThou shalt not keep his counsel from me.
DEBON.
Now,Prince, may thine old born servant lift his browAs from the dust to thine, and answer—Nay.Nor canst thou turn this nay of mine to yeaWith all the lightning of thine eyes, I trow,Nor this my truth to treason.
CAMBER.
God us aid!Art thou not mad? Thou knowest what whispers crawlAbout the court with serpent sound and speed,Made out of fire and falsehood; or if madeNot all of lies—it may be thus—not all—Black yet no less with poison.
DEBON.
Prince, indeedI know the colour of the tongues of fireThat feed on shame to slake the thirst of hate;Hell-black, and hot as hell: nor age nor stateMay pluck the fangs forth of their foul desire:I that was trothplight servant to thy sire,A king more kingly than the front of fateThat bade our lives bow down disconsolateWhen death laid hold on him—for hope nor hire,Prince, would I lie to thee: nay, what availsFalsehood? thou knowest I would not.
CAMBER.
Why, thou art old;To thee could falsehood bear but fruitless fruit—Lean grafts and sour. I think thou wouldst not.
DEBON.
WalesIn such a lord lives happy: young and boldAnd yet not mindless of thy sire King Brute,Who loved his loyal servants even as theyLoved him. Yea, surely, bitter were the fruit,Prince Camber, and the tree rotten at rootThat bare it, whence my tongue should take todayFor thee the taste of poisonous treason.
CAMBER.
Nay,What boots it though thou plight thy word to boot?True servant wast thou to my sire King Brute,And Brute thy king true master to thee.
DEBON.
Yea.Troy, ere her towers dropped hurtling down in flame,Bare not a son more noble than the sireWhose son begat thy father. Shame it wereBeyond all record in the world of shame,If they that hither bore in heart that fireWhich none save men of heavenly heart may bearHad left no sign, though Troy were spoiled and sacked,That heavenly was the seed they saved.
CAMBER.
No sign?Though nought my fame be,—though no praise of mineBe worth men’s tongues for word or thought or act—Shall fame forget my brother Albanact,Or how those Huns who drank his blood for winePoured forth their own for offering to Locrine?Though all the soundless maze of time were tracked,No men should man find nobler.
DEBON.
Surely none.No man loved ever more than I thy brothers,Prince.
CAMBER.
Ay—for them thy love is bright like spring,And colder toward me than the wintering sun.What am I less—what less am I than others,That thus thy tongue discrowns my name of king,Dethrones my title, disanoints my state,And pricks me down but petty prince?
DEBON.
My lord—
CAMBER.
Ay? must my name among their names stand scoredWho keep my brother’s door or guard his gate?A lordling—princeling—one that stands to wait—That lights him back to bed or serves at board.Old man, if yet thy foundering brain recordAught—if thou know that once my sire was great,Then must thou know he left no less to me,His youngest, than to those my brethren born,Kingship.
DEBON.
I know it. Your servant, sire, am I,Who lived so long your sire’s.
CAMBER.
And how had heEndured thy silence or sustained thy scorn?Why must I know not what thou knowest of?
DEBON.
Why?Hast thou not heard, king, that a true man’s trustIs king for him of life and death? LocrineHath sealed with trust my lips—nay, prince, not mine—His are they now.
CAMBER.
Thou art wise as he, and just,And secret. God requite thee! yea, he must,For man shall never. If my sword here shineSunward—God guard that reverend head of thine!
DEBON.
My blood should make thy sword the sooner rust,And rot thy fame for ever. Strike.
CAMBER.
Thou knowestI will not. Am I Scythian born, or Greek,That I should take thy bloodshed on my hand?
DEBON.
Nay—if thou seest me soul to soul, and showestMercy—
CAMBER.
Thou think’st I would have slain thee? Speak.
DEBON.
Nay, then I will, for love of all this land:Lest, if suspicion bring forth strife, and fearHatred, its face be withered with a curse;Lest the eyeless doubt of unseen ill be worseThan very truth of evil. Thou shalt hearSuch truth as falling in a base man’s earShould bring forth evil indeed in hearts perverse;But forth of thine shall truth, once known, disperseDoubt: and dispersed, the cloud shall leave thee clearIn judgment—nor, being young, more merciless,I think, than I toward hearts that erred and yearned,Struck through with love and blind with fire of lifeEnkindled. When the sharp and stormy stressOf Scythian ravin round our borders burnedEastward, and he that faced it first in strife,King Albanact, thy brother, fought and fell,Locrine our lord, and lordliest born of you,—Thy chief, my prince, and mine—against them drewWith all the force our southern strengths might tell,And by the strong mid water’s seaward swellThat sunders half our Britain met and slewThe prince whose blood baptized its fame anewAnd left no record of the name to dwellWhereby men called it ere it wore his name,Humber; and wide on wing the carnage wentAlong the drenched red fields that felt the trampAt once of fliers and slayers with feet like flame:But the king halted, seeing a royal tentReared, with its ensign crowning all the camp,And entered—where no Scythian spoil he found,But one fair face, the Scythian’s sometime prey,A lady’s whom their ships had borne awayBy force of warlike hand from German ground,A bride and queen by violent power fast boundTo the errant helmsman of their fierce array.And her, left lordless by that ended fray,Our lord beholding loved, and hailed, and crownedQueen.
CAMBER.
Queen! and what perchance of Guendolen?Slept she forsooth forgotten?
DEBON.
Nay, my lordKnows that albeit their hands were precontractBy Brute your father dying, no man of menMay fasten hearts with hands in one accord.The love our master knew not that he lackedFulfilled him even as heaven by dawn is filledWith fire and light that burns and blinds and leadsAll men to wise or witless works or deeds,Beholding, ere indeed he wist or willed,Eyes that sent flame through veins that age had chilled.
CAMBER.
Thine—with that grey goat’s fleece on chin, sir? NeedsMust she be fair: thou, wrapt in age’s weeds,Whose blood, if time have touched it not and stilled,The sun’s own fire must once have kindled,—thouSing praise of soft-lipped women? doth not shameSting thee, to sound this minstrel’s note, and gildA girl’s proud face with praises, though her browWere bright as dawn’s? And had her grace no nameFor men to worship by? Her name?
DEBON.
Estrild.
CAMBER.
My brother is a prince of paramours—Eyes coloured like the springtide sea, and hairBright as with fire of sundawn—face as fairAs mine is swart and worn with haggard hours,Though less in years than his—such hap was oursWhen chance drew forth for us the lots that wereHid close in time’s clenched hand: and now I swear,Though his be goodlier than the stars or flowers,I would not change this head of mine, or crownScarce worth a smile of his—thy lord Locrine’s—For that fair head and crown imperial; nay,Not were I cast by force of fortune downLower than the lowest lean serf that prowls and pinesAnd loathes for fear all hours of night and day.
DEBON.
What says my lord? how means he?
CAMBER.
Vex not thouThine old hoar head with care to learn of meThis. Great is time, and what he wills to beIs here or ever proof may bring it: now,Now is the future present. If thy vowConstrain thee not, yet would I know of theeOne thing: this lustrous love-bird, where is she?What nest is hers on what green flowering boughDeep in what wild sweet woodland?
DEBON.
Good my lord,Have I not sinned already—flawed my faith,To lend such ear even to such royal suit?
CAMBER.
Yea, by my kingdom hast thou—by my sword,Yea. Now speak on.
DEBON.
Yet hope—or honour—saithI did not ill to trust the blood of BruteWithin thee. Not prince Hector’s sovereign soul,The light of all thy lineage, more abhorredTreason than all his days did Brute my lord.My trust shall rest not in thee less than whole.
CAMBER.
Speak, then: too long thou falterest nigh the goal.
DEBON.
There is a bower built fast beside a fordIn Essex, held in sure and secret wardOf woods and walls and waters, still and soleAs love could choose for harbourage: there the kingKeeps close from all men now these seven years sinceThe light wherein he lives: and there hath sheBorne him a maiden child more sweet than spring.
CAMBER.
A child her daughter? there now hidden?
DEBON.
Prince,What ails thee?
CAMBER.
Nought. This river’s name?
DEBON.
The Ley.
CAMBER.
Nigh Leytonstone in Essex—called of oldBy men thine elders Durolitum? ThereAre hind and fawn couched close in one green lair?Speak: hast thou not my faith in pawn, to holdFast as my brother’s heart this love, untoldAnd undivined of all men? must I swearTwice—I, to thee?
DEBON.
But if thou set no snare,Why shine thine eyes so sharp? I am overbold:Sir, pardon me.
CAMBER.
My sword shall split thine heartWith pardon if thou palter with me.
DEBON.
Sir,There is the place: but though thy brow be grimAs hell—I knew thee not the man thou art—I will not bring thee to it.
CAMBER.
For love of her?Nay—better shouldst thou know my love of him.
[Exeunt.