The same Scene.
EnterAlmachildesandHildegard.
HILDEGARD.
Hast thou forgiven me?
ALMACHILDES.
I have not forgivenGod.
HILDEGARD.
Wilt thou slay thy soul and mine?
ALMACHILDES.
Wilt thouMadden me? God hath given us up to herWho is deadlier than the fiery fang of death—Us, innocent and loyal.
HILDEGARD.
Nay, if IForgive her love of thee—though this be hard,Canst thou forgive not?
ALMACHILDES.
Sweet, for thee and meRemains no rescue save by death or flightFrom worse than flight or death is.
HILDEGARD.
Worse is noughtBut shame: and how may shame take hold on us,On us who have sinned not? Me she bound to play theeFalse, and betray thee to her arms: I might notChoose, though my heart should rend itself in twainAnd cleave with ravenous anguish: yet I live.Vex not thy soul too sorely: me, not her,Thy spirit embraced, thine arms and lips made thineMe, not my darkling wraith, my changeling foe,My thief of love, our traitress. This I bid thee,Forget thy fear and shame to have wronged me: nightBreeds treacherous dreams that can but poison dayIf thought be found so base a fool as daresFear. Did I doubt thy love of me, I durst notLive or look back upon thee.
ALMACHILDES.
Wilt thou thenFly?
HILDEGARD.
Dost thou know what flight means—thou?It meansFear. And is fear a new-born friend of thine?
ALMACHILDES.
God help us! if he live, and hate not man—If Satan be not God. We will not fly.
EnterAlbovineandRosamund.
ALBOVINE.
Fly? What should love at height of happinessOr youth at height of honour fear and fly?Would ye take wing for heaven? take shame on earthTo wed in peace and honour?
ALMACHILDES.
No, my king.No, surely.
ROSAMUND.
Weep not, maiden. Dost not thou,Man, that we thought her bridegroom sealed of love,Love her?
ALMACHILDES.
No saint loved ever God as IHer.
ROSAMUND.
And betray her to shame thou wouldst not?See,My lord, the silent answer flash aloudFrom cheek and eye a goodly witness. Thou,My maiden, dost thou love not him? Nay, speak.
HILDEGARD.
I cannot say it—I cannot strive to say.
ROSAMUND.
Thou shalt. Are all we not fast bound in love—My lord and thine, my maiden and her queen,A fourfold chain of faith twice linked of love?Speak: let not shame find place where shame is none.
HILDEGARD.
I will not. King and queen and God shall hear.I love him as our songs of old time sayMen have been loved of women akin to godsBy blood as they by spirit, albeit in meNought lives that woman or man or God could sayWere worth his love, if mine by grace of loveBe found not all unworthy. Mine am INo more: mine own in no wise now, but hisTo save or slay, to cherish or cast out,Crown and discrown, abase and comfort. ShameWere more to me than honour if his willIt were that shame should clothe me round, and lifeWere the only death left fearful if he bade meDie. Could his love be turned from me, and setOn one less loving but more fair than I,A thrall more base than treason or a queenToo high for shame to brand her shameful, evenThough sin had stamped and signed her foul as fraudAnd loathsome as a masked adulterous lie,Hers would I make him if I might, and yieldTo her the hatefullest of hell-born thingsThe man found lovelier by my love than heaven.
ROSAMUND.
Great love is this to brag of: great and strange.
HILDEGARD.
Love is no braggart: lust and fraud and hateVaunt their vile strength when shame unveils them: loveVaunts not itself. I spake not uncompelled,And blushed not out the avowal.
ALBOVINE.
Boy, I heldAnd hold thee noblest of my lords of war,And worthier than thine elders born and triedEre battle found thee ripe and glad at heartTo stem and swim the tide of spears: but thisI know not if thou be or any manBe worthy of.
ALMACHILDES.
Of all men born on earthI am most unworthy of it. None might beWorthy.
ROSAMUND.
He weeps: thy boy is humble.
ALMACHILDES.
Queen,I weep not. Shamed with no ignoble shameThou seest me: but I weep not. Yea, God knows,Humbled I am, and humble; not to thee.
ALBOVINE.
Chafe not: and thou, queen though thou be, and mine,Tempt not a true man’s wrath with words that bearFangs keener than thou knowest of.
ROSAMUND.
King, henceforth,Being warned, I will not. Dangerous as the seaA true man’s wrath is—and a true man’s love:A woman’s hath no peril in it: her tearsWash wrath and peril away.
ALBOVINE.
I have never seen theeWeep.
ROSAMUND.
How should I weep—I, thy wife?
ALBOVINE.
I have heard theeLaugh; and thy smiles were always bright as fire.
ROSAMUND.
Well were it with me—ay, and reason foundFor me to live and do the living worldSome service—could my husband warm thereatHis heart as winter-stricken hands in frostAre warmed at winter fires.
ALBOVINE.
No need, no need:The sun thou art warms all our year with love,And leaves no chill on winter.
ROSAMUND.
Albovine,Love now secludes us not from sight of man—From sight of this my maiden and the manWho shines but as the battle’s boy for theeBut lives for me my maiden’s lover—trueAs truth is—Almachildes.
ALBOVINE.
How thy lipsHang lingering on his name as though ’twere thouThat loved him! Thou shouldst love thy maiden well.
ROSAMUND.
As she loves me I love her. Hildegard,Leave us. Thou knowest I love thee.
HILDEGARD.
Queen, I know.
[Exit.
ALBOVINE.
What ails the boy? what rapturous agonyTorments and glorifies his glance at herAs with delight in torture? Cheer thee, man:Thou art not thus all unworthy.
ROSAMUND.
Spare him, king.A king may guess not how a man’s heart yearnsWith all unkingly sense of love and shameNot all unmanly.
ALBOVINE.
Shame is none to beLoved, and to deem that love exceeds our dueWho may not well deserve it. Sick at heartHe seems, and should be gladder than the seaWhen wind and sun strike life in it.
ALMACHILDES.
I am notSo stricken, king. I thank thy care of me.
ALBOVINE.
Heart-stricken or shame-stricken art thou?
ROSAMUND.
King,Spare him. Thou knowest not love like his. It burnsAnd rends and wrings the spirit.
ALBOVINE.
No. And thou,Dost thou then?
ROSAMUND.
Eyes and heart and sense are mineAs weak and strong as woman’s can but be;As weak in strength and strong in weakness. Men,Being wise, and mightier than their mates on earth,Need no such knowledge born of inborn painAs quickens all the spirit of sense in us.Worms know what eagles know not.
ALBOVINE.
Like enough.Rede me no redes and riddles. Never yetI have loved thee more, and yet I have loved thee well,Than now that loving-kindness borne toward loveMakes thee so gracious, pleading for it.
ROSAMUND.
LoveSees all things lovely: thine, if praise there be,Not mine the praise is: thee, not me, these twainMust love and worship as their lord of love.
ALBOVINE.
Well, God be good to them and thee and me!I would this fierce Italian June were dead,So hard it weighs upon me.
ROSAMUND.
Now not longShall we sustain or sink aswoon from it:It has but left a day or two to die.
ALBOVINE.
And well were that, if summer died with June.Two red months more must set on sense and soulThe branding-iron stamped of summer: nay,The sea is here no sea to cherish man:It brings no choral comfort back with tidesThat surge and sink and swell and chime and changeAnd lighten life with music where the breathDies and revives of night and day.
ROSAMUND.
Be thouContent: a God hath driven us hither.
ALBOVINE.
Yea:A God of death and fire and strife, whose handIs heavy on my spirit. Be not yeTroubled, if peace be with you.
ROSAMUND.
Peace to thee.
[ExitAlbovine.
Now follow: smite him now: thou art strong, but yetThy king is stronger—mightier thewed than thou.Thou couldst not slay him in fight.
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot slay himThus.
ROSAMUND.
Canst thou slay thy bride by fire? He dies,Or she dies, bound against the stake. His deathWere the easier. Follow him: save her: strike but once.
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot. God requite thee this! I will.
[Exit.
ROSAMUND.
And I will see it. And, father, thou shalt see.
[Exit.
The Banqueting-hall.
EnterAlbovineandRosamund.
ALBOVINE.
This June makes babes of men; last night I deemedWhen thou hadst wished me peace as I passed forthA footfall pressed behind me soft and fast,And turning toward it I beheld nought: theeI saw, and Almachildes hard at handTurned back toward thee: nought stranger: yet my heartSprang, and sank back. I laughed against myself,That manhood should be girlish, when the heatBurns life half out within us. Even thine eyes,Like stars before the wind that brings the cloud,Look fainter. Ere they fill the banquet fullAnd bid the guests about us where we sit,Tell me if aught be worse than well with thee.
ROSAMUND.
Nought.
ALBOVINE.
Wilt thou swear it, sweet?
ROSAMUND.
By what thou wilt—By God and man—by hell and earth and heaven.I know what ails thy loyal heart of loveAnd binds thy tongue for fear to bid me know.The cup we drank of when we feasted lastTastes bitter on it yet. Thou wilt not bid mePledge thee therein again. If I bid thee,Pledge me thou shalt—and seal thy pardon.
ALBOVINE.
Be notToo sweet for woman.
ROSAMUND.
Cross me not in this.
ALBOVINE.
Mine old fast friend Narsetes hath my wordPlighted. All funeral reverence shall interThe royal relic, and all thought therewithOf strife between thy father’s child and meOr less than love and honour.
ROSAMUND.
Nay, my lord,Let the dead thing live as a lifelong signOf perfect plight in love and union. ThisWere no dishonour done to fatherhoodBut honour shown to wedlock. Here is spreadThe feast, the bride-feast of my love and thine,Whereat the cup of death shall serve our lipsTo drink forgetfulness of all but love.Herein thou shalt not thwart me.
ALBOVINE.
God forbid.
ROSAMUND.
God hath forbidden: and God shall be obeyed.Bid thy Narsetes play the cup-bearer,And I will pour the wine: my hand shall fillThe sacramental draught of love that sealsOur eucharist of wedlock.
ALBOVINE.
Yea, I knowTo drink with thee is even to drink with God.Thou art good as any God was ever.
ROSAMUND.
Ay?We know not till we die.
ALBOVINE.
Thou art wise and trueAs ever maid was born of the oldworld northIn the oldworld years of legend. Bid NarsetesBring thee the chalice: thou shalt mix the draughtWhence we will drink life, if true love be life,Even from the lipless mouth of bone that speaksDeath.
ROSAMUND.
I will mix it well with honey and herbSweet as the mead our fathers drank, and dreamedTheir gods so drank in heaven—draughts deep and strongAs life is strong and death is deep. I goTo bid Narsetes hither.
[Exit.
ALBOVINE.
Nay, by God,Whoever God be, never Christ or ThorBeheld or blessed a nobler wife, whose loveWas found through proof of purity by fireMore like our northern stars and snows and suns,And sane in strong sufficiency of soulAs womanhood by godhead from the wombElected and exalted.
EnterNarsetes.
NARSETES.
King, thy wifeHath given me back thy message given her.
ALBOVINE.
Ay?And thou hast given her back my cup, then?
NARSETES.
King,I have given it. Loth to give it if I were,Ye know: she knows as thou: thou knowest as she.
ALBOVINE.
What ails thee to distaste thy duty? Man,Thou shouldst be glad, being loyal. Knowest thou notHer will it was that we should pledge thereinTo-night, this hour, our lifelong love, and seal itMore surely so than priest or prayer can seal?
NARSETES.
Her will it was, I know, not thine. I wouldThou hadst not yielded up to hers thy will.
ALBOVINE.
Thou liest: I have not yielded it: I have givenLove, willing as the springtide sea gives upHer will to the eastern sea-wind’s.
NARSETES.
Love should giveNo more than love should crave of love: and thisIs such a gift as hate might crave of deathOr priests of God when angered.
ALBOVINE.
Hark thee, man.Thou art old, and when I loved thee first and found theeMy lord and leader down the ways of war,My master born by right of manfulnessAnd steersman through the surf of battle, timeGaped as a gulf between us: sire and sonWe might be: now I bid thee hold thy peace,Lest all these memories perish, and their deathGive life more strong than theirs to wrath, and leave theeShelterless as a waif of the air when stormDrives bird and beast to deathward. What I bade theeI bid thee do, and leave me.
NARSETES.
King, I go.
[Exit.
ALBOVINE.
What, have I played the Berserk with my friend?So should not kings. What meant he? Men wax old,And age eats out the natural sense of loveWhich gives the soul sight of such nobler thingsAs trust may see by grace of truth more fairThan doubt would fear to dream of. RosamundKnows more by might of faith and love than he.And yet I would, and yet I would not, foolAs even in mine own eyes I am, she had notGiven me this proof, desired of me this sign,How clear her soul is toward me save of love,To attest her pardon of me. Would it wereSunrise to-morrow!
EnterAlmachildesandHildegard.
Whence come these, to bringSunrise about me? Nay, I bade you beHere. Does thy memory too not fail thee, boy,Burnt out by stress of summer
ALMACHILDES.
No.
ALBOVINE.
Nor hers?
HILDEGARD.
How might it, king? Thou art good to us.
ALBOVINE.
All things bornSeem good to lovers in their spring of love,And all men should be. Maiden, God doth wellTo give us foresight of the sight of heavenBy looking in such eyes as love like thineKindles and veils for love’s sake. Fain was ITo see my boy’s bride and her bridegroom hereBefore the feast broke in on us, and blessTheir love with mine—if mine be blessing.
HILDEGARD.
Sire,As the earth gives thanks in spring for the April sunI would and cannot yield you thanks for this.
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot thank at all. I cannot thankGod.
ALBOVINE.
Art thou mazed with love? For her thou canst notThank God? What feverish doubt of love or lifeCrazes or cramps thy spirit?
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot say.My heart, if any heart be left in me,Is as it was not thankless: yet, my king,I know not how to thank thee.
ALBOVINE.
Thank me not:I did not bid thee thank me. Love thy love,And God be with you: so may God be foundThankworthier. Keep some heart in thee awhileFor God’s and her sake.
ALMACHILDES.
All I may I will.
Re-enterRosamund,followed byNarsetesand Guests.
ALBOVINE.
Sit, friends and warriors: thou, my boy, next me,And by my wife thy bride. This night, that leavesBut two days more for June to burn and live,Plights with my queen’s troth mine in life and deathThis last one time for ever, in the cupWhence none shall drink hereafter. Not in scorn,Sirs, but in honour now the draught is pledgedBetween us, ere this relic stand enshrinedAnd hallowed as a saint’s on the altar. Queen,I drink to thee.
ROSAMUND.
I thank thee. Good Narsetes,Give him the chalice. Women slain by fireThirst not as I to pledge thee.
[AsAlbovineis about to take the cup,Almachildesrises and stabs him.
ALBOVINE.
Thou, my boy?
[Dies.
ROSAMUND.
I. But he hears not. Now, my warrior guests,I drink to the onward passage of his soulDeath. Had my hand turned coward or played me false,This man that is my hand, and less than IAnd less than he bloodguilty, this my deathHad been my husband’s: now he has left it me.
[Drinks.
How innocent are all but he and INo time is mine to tell you. Truth shall tell.I pardon thee, my husband: pardon me.
[Dies.
NARSETES.
Let none make moan. This doom is none of man’s.