Wilfred Campbell

A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS.

FOUNDED ON THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND
OF
SIR THOMAS MALORY.

(This Drama was written in July and August, 1893.)

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Arthur, King of Britain.

Mordred, Illegitimate Son of Arthur.

Sir Launcelot.

Merlin.

Sir Gwaine.

King Leodegrance, Father to Guinevere.

Sir Agravaine.

Sir Mador.

Sir Bedivere.

Dagonet, the king’s jester.

A Hermit.

Guinevere, Queen of Britain.

Vivien.

Elaine, a maiden who loves Launcelot.

Unid, a lady in waiting on the Queen.

Knights, gentlemen, ladies, soldiers, herdsmen, messengers and pages.

MORDRED.

---

ACT. I.

SCENE I.—A Hermitage in the Woods.

Enter Arthur, Launcelot and other Knights.

Launcelot. Here is a place of prayer, we will alight,

And rest a space and think us of our sins.

Arthur. Launcelot, and were I shrived and clean

Half hell itself were loosened of its pains.

Launcelot. Arthur, friend and lover of my youth,

Could’st thou but throw this black mood from thee now,

And get a sweeter hope into thy soul,

Drive out the horrid phantoms of the past,

And it were hope for Britain. Well thou knowest

Men look to thee to succor this poor land

Enrent by inward brawls and foreign hordes,

Whose fields untilled, and vanished the smoke of homes.

It hath been said that thou would’st raise once more

Out of these ruins a kingdom whose great fame

Would ring for ages down the days of earth,

And be a glory in men’s hearts forever.

[Passes to the left.

Arthur. Launcelot, well know I thy love for Arthur.

’Tis thy sweet, manly kinship of the heart,

Opening thy spirit’s windows toward the sun,

Hath made my dark days lighter. Would that I

Had kept me holy, innocent as thee.

I might in kinder fate have made this land

A place where holiness and peace might dwell,

And such a white and lofty honor held

Before men’s eyes, that all the world would come

And worship manhood’s beauty freed from sin.

Such dreams have haunted me from my first youth,

In fitful slumbers or long marching hours.

These lonesome lofty vigils of the heart

Have made men deem me colder. ’Tis my sin!

Oh Launcelot I am blacker than thou knowest!

[Exit Launcelot.

Enter Hermit.

Hermit. And comest thou, my son, for Church’s grace?

Arthur. I come here, Father, for to have me shrived.

[Kneels.

Hermit. Then thou art shriven, such a noble face

Could never harbor evil in its grace.

[Lifts his hands in blessing.

Arthur. Stay holy Hermit, fair trees rot at heart,

And I am evil if this world holds ill.

I would lay bare my soul of its foul sin,

And if there be white shrift for such as me

In Heaven’s mercy, I would crave it now;

Though little of hope have I, if thou dost hear.

Hermit. Wouldst thou confess, my son, the church hath power

To white the blackest sinner crawling foul

From earth’s most sensuous cesspool, doth he but

Come in the earnest sorrow of his heart

And lay his sins within her holy keeping.

But well I know that thou art that great Arthur,

The hope of all for succor to this realm:—

For other man hath never worn such grace

And nobleness of bearing as thou wearest.

Fear not my son, whatever be the sin

Of thy hot youth, the past will be forgiven,

And holy Church will freely pardon one

And all the evil deeds that thou hast done.

Arthur. Father, my life is haunted with one thought

That comes between me and my sweetest hopes.

In battle’s clamor only will it pass,

But in my lonelier moments it comes in;—

The awful memory of one heinous sin.

Hermit. Of truth thou hast suffered over much, my son.

What is thy sin?

Arthur. One deed beyond all others of my youth.

Mad passionate and wild to savagery,

I violated a maid’s sanctuary,

And afterwards, I found,—O Christ forgive me!

Hermit. Say on!

Arthur. She was my sister!

Hermit. Sancta Maria—Ora pro nobis!

Arthur. It will not out. The evil of that night

When I, unknowing, did that awful deed,

Hath blackened all my future like a web.

And when men look up to me as their sun,

It makes my life seem like some whited tower,

Where all is foul and hideous hid within.

Hermit. Thou sayest truth, my son, thy sin be heavy.

[Crossing himself.

Arthur. Oh swart, incestuous night whose bat-like wings

O’er-spread my life like thunder-gathering cloud,

When will thy dawn break glimmering on my soul?

Or wilt thou drag thy weary length along

And spell thy moments out in hopeless years

Until thy black o’er-laps the black of death

In that dread journeying where all men go,

When all my dreams are spent and smouldered down

Like some far ruined sunset at life’s ebb,

And hope deferred fades out in endless sleep?

O holy man forgive mine impious presence,

Thy blessed office naught availeth me.

Hermit. Nay son grieve not as one who hath no hope.

Though awsome be this youthful sin of thine,

Whose memory blurs thy loftier, holier dreams,

Let not this one sin lead thee to blaspheme

Thus ignorantly holy Church’s power.

Thy very sorrow half absolveth thee.

In name of Him who blessed the dying thief,

I bid thee look no longer at thy past.

Which eateth like some canker at thy heart,

Redeem thy past in deeds of future good;

Deem’st thy high dreams were given thee for nought?

There is a noble doom about thy face,

A writing writ of God that telleth me

That thou art not a common ordered man,

But one ordained as holy ones of old

For some great lofty cause. Lift up thy heart,

Earth hath a need of thee, thy people call,

Wrongs long unrighted, evils long unplucked,

All cry to thee for judgment. Palsy not

The strength of thy great future brooding on

An indiscretion of thy savage past.

Arthur. And is it of God, Oh! Father, thinkest thou?

Hermit. Yea my son;

As are all hope and sunshine. What is life—

But spring unmindful of bleak winter-time,

Joying in living, mindless of old death;

Youth dead to sorrow, age to coming night.

Look up, forget thine evil, drink new faith

From this glad parable of the awakening year.

The church’s arms are round thee, build new hope

In this poor Kingdom as the quickening year

Hath made this wrinkled earth forget old sorrows;

Be this but thine to do, and thou art pardoned.

Arthur. Oh! blessed be thy counsel, even now

I feel new joys run riot in my heart.

Old hopes long faded built on my high dreams!

The old dread sorrow lightens, it is gone,

And I go forth a shrived soul even now.

Yea, hear me Father, now I consecrate

This my poor life to this great kingdom’s weal,

And be my God but with me, I will raise

This head of sorrows out of clouds of ill,

And build a splendor of my chastened will.

Thy blessing Father!

Hermit. (Raises his hand in blessing.) Go forth from hence

Great Arthur keeper of thy people’s peace.

Go forth to right all wrong and guard all right,

In home and mart, in castle and in cot,

Meting the same to high and lowly lot.

Go forth in name of God to build a realm

Built up on chastity and noble deeds,

Where womanhood is gentle and austere,

And manhood strong in its great innocence.

Go, blessed of God and all thy fellow men,

Go in the strength of thy most high resolve,

Thou wondrous soul unto thy wondrous work,

The glory of all the after days to be.

Arthur. Amen! Amen!!

---

Enter Merlin and Mordred, a hunchback, the King’s illegitimate son. Outside a great clamor of voices is heard of “Arthur! Long live King Arthur.”

Merlin. Now tarry here aside while I prepare

The king for this thy filial audience.

Mordred. O mighty Merlin, I fear me all thine arts

That compass ocean, air, and deepest mine,

And have command of subtlest sciences,

Have never found the power to brew a charm,

A Sovereign draught of distillation rare,

To warm a Father’s heart toward such as me.

Merlin. Thou much mistakest Mordred, he is noble.

This too-long thought on thine infirmity,

Hath made thy mind, which is as clear as glass,

Ensickly all things that it looks upon.

When Arthur, thy great father, knows his son,

His nobleness of heart will plead with him,

And when he sees what I have seen in thee,

A subtle greatness of the inner spirit,

Greater than even I, wise Merlin, have,

That prophesies a power for good or ill

Such as is rare mid men in this our age,

He will forget that outward lack of mould

In the strong, god-like, nobleness within.

Mordred. Ah Merlin, would my spirit thou wert right,

And I would show him such a son’s true love,

And consecrate this subtlety within me,

To build a fence of safety round his glory.

But something tells me, some weird, evil doom,

That sits about my heart by day and night,

An awful presence that will never flit,

That he will never love me, yea, that more,

Of all things hateful to him on this earth,

My presence the most hateful. Oh great Mage,

I know that thou art skilful in thine age,

And subtle in all knowledges of lore,

But there lies in recesses of the heart,

That hath known bitter sorrow such as mine,

A deeper wisdom intuition breeds,

That thou hast never sounded in thy lore.

Merlin. Hast thou ever seen this presence whereof thou speakest?

Mordred. Yea, only as a look that haunteth faces.

Merlin. Faces?

Mordred. I never saw it in my poor dog’s face,

When he hath climbed my knees to lick my hand.

I never saw it in the mirrored peace

That brims the beauty of a forest pool;—

Nor in the wise regard of mighty nature.

But in the face of man I oft have seen it.

Merlin. What hast thou seen, this wisdom would I know?

Mordred. I never saw it in thy look, O Mage,

But something sweeter, much akin, called pity,

But once I woke a flower-eyed little maid,

Who slumbered ’mid the daisies by a stream;

She seemed the summer day incarnate there

With her sweet, innocent, unconscious face,

So like a flower herself amid the flowers;

And I were lonely there in all that vast,

And thinking, (’twas only but a boy’s light thought,

With some deep, other thought beyond mine age,)

To wake this human summer-morn to life,

And know this June-day conscious of its joy:

But when I bent and touched her on the arm,

I only woke a living terror there

Of eyes and limbs that fled from my amaze.

I saw it once within the Priestman’s face

The only and the last time I was shriven.

I have no need for shriving priestmen since.

My spirit tells me if they hold no power

To conjure out that devil in themselves,

That darting horror that offends mine eyes,

They ne’er can cast the devils from this life,

And all their vaunts but jugglers’ juggling lies.

Merlin. Oh sad, warped youth, aged before thy time,

With that worst, saddest of wisdoms on this earth,

The knowledge of thine own deformity!

[Trumpets without.

Back Mordred! here cometh the king!

Enter Arthur in his state robes.

Arthur. And now wise Merlin, wisest of this earth,

Here cometh thine Arthur decked in his first glory,

So great hath been the splendor of this day

That all my heart brims with the wine of it.

Merlin. Yea King, thy horn of glory doth enlarge,

Thy sun of splendor toppeth the future’s marge,

May all bright auspices attend its setting.

Arthur. And now wise Mage, what hath thy will with me?

I am thine Arthur even being King,

For thou hast made me, next to that weird fate

That sat about the mystery of my getting,

And the sweet fostership of Holy Church,

Which hath forgiven my great youthful sin

And set her seal of favor on my deeds.

All present splendors thou hast prophesied,

And made the people take me for their king,

Hast pointed out my fitness for this office,

And lifted Arthur from a cloud of sorrows

Unto the golden glories of a throne.

To-day the fealty of an hundred Earls

Which thou hast garnered to my new-made kingdom

Hath honored me and made me thrice a King.

Yea, well say Merlin that my horn is full

To plenty with the blessed hopes of earth,

And all of this I owe unto thy favor.

My thunder-clouds are past, my future clear

As yon, blue summer sky. No evil lurks

In secret for to strike at this my glory,

Unless a bolt fell from yon dazzling blue!

[Thunder heard in the distance—Arthur staggers back

A portent! A portent!

Merlin. ’Tis nought, O King, but gathering thunderheads

About the thick, close heatings of the west,

The muttered portent of a summer shower.

’Tis but a blackness that will quickly pass

And leave a blessing on the fields and woods.

Fear not such signs as nature’s seeming anger.

I come to thee upon a graver matter.

Arthur. Yea Merlin! speak on.

Merlin. Arthur, I speak now to no puling youth,

No mere sin-pricked conscience in a human form,

But bring a kingly matter to a king,

Whereof that he may do the kingliest deed

That he may hap on in the unknown lease

Of all his kingship. I have kept this matter,

The deepest and the dreadest concerning thee

And all the workings of thy coming fate,

Until the hour when thou didst feel thee king

In more than seeming outward human choice,

And thou wert at thy greatest, even that I,

In all his power, might see the King I made,

Not in all the glory of his court,

His people’s laudings sounding in his ears,

Not in all the shout of battle victory;

But in that dread and secret solemn hour,

When some strange doom uplifts its sombre face,

And man must show his kingship of himself.

Arthur. Yea Merlin! say on Merlin, say on!

Merlin. For this same reason I have hid till now

The secret from thee that thou hast a son.

Arthur. A son!

Merlin. Yea, a son, by thine own sister.

Arthur. Oh cruel! Oh cruel! Oh cruel!

Merlin. Yea more, for knowing all the warm desire

That thou hast unto things of beauteous shape,

And lovest chiefly what is glad and fair

To look upon in nature or human form,

Which showest in thy love for Launcelot,—

Arthur. Yea, Launcelot! Would a Launcelot were my son.

Mordred. (aside) Ah, me!

Merlin. But knowing further that a deeper feeling,

That holdeth rule in every human heart,

That knoweth greatness, would uppermost in thee,

At knowledge of the fate of thy poor son,

Who madeth not himself but bore thy sin

In outward simile in his whole life’s being,

As Christ did bear men’s sins upon the tree;

Who knowing all the ill that thou had’st done him,

Still had sufficient sense of inward greatness

To love the father who begat him thus;

I feel if thou art that great Arthur dreamed

Of me these many years of toil and care

That I have worked to make thee what thou art;

That knowing this son of thine, distorted, wry,

Diminutive in outward human shape,

And void of all those graces thou hast loved

To group about thy visions of thy court,

Hath such a soul within him like a jewel

In some enchanted casket, that were rare

In all the lore and wisdom of this age,

That thou wouldst love him only all the more

For that poor, wry, misshapen shell of his.

Arthur. Oh cruel! cruel! cruel!

Merlin. Mordred come forth.

[Enter Mordred who kneels and tries to cover himself with his cloak.

Arthur. (Starts.) What be this?

Merlin. Thy son Mordred, the heir to thy realm!

Arthur. Oh black angered Heaven! (Falls heavily to the ground.)

Mordred. Father! my father! Merlin thou has killed my father.

Oh Merlin thou wert over-cruel!

Merlin. Better that he were dead a thousand deaths

Than this had happened. He is not a king

In more than vulgar fancy. In mine eyes

With all thy wry, distorted body there,

Thou art a thousand times more kingly now

Than he or any like him in this realm.

And thou wilt be a king yet ere thou diest.

Oh Arthur, thou great Arthur of my dreams,

Why didst thou thus unthrone thee, showing bare

A thing of clay, where all seemed whitest marble?

Mordred. Ha! now he revives. Father!

Arthur. (Rises and staggers.) Ha! yea, yea, that cloud; that cloud about mine eyes!

My crown! My crown! Methought I had a crown!

Merlin. Yea of a truth thou hadst one.

Arthur. And where be it, good father?

Merlin. Stumbling on sudden to the precipice of a golden opportunity,

Thou loosedst thy kingship and straightway it toppled over.

Arthur. And might we not make search, Father?

Might we not take lights, lights, and go find it?

Merlin. Not all the lights that light this glowing world

Might light thee to it.

Arthur. And who art thou that mocketh at me thus?

Merlin. A shadow.

Arthur. And what be I?

Merlin. In truth a shadow.

Arthur. And that, that blackness?

[Pointing at Mordred.

Merlin. A shadow also, yea we all be shadows.

Arthur. And is there nothing real, nothing tangible in all this mist?

Merlin. Nay, nothing, save the visions we have lost,

The autumn mornings with their frosty prime,

The dreams of youth like bells at eventime

Ringing their golden longings down the mist.

Arthur. And be we dead, Father?

Merlin. Yea, I am dead to one great hope I had,

And thou art dead to what thou mightst have been,

And he is dead to what is best of all,

The holiest blossom on life’s golden tree.

Arthur. And what be that, Father?

Merlin. Love! Love!

Arthur. Then he be greatest?

Merlin. Yea greater, far, though we completed greatness,

Than either thou or I could ever be.

Arthur. Then what be he?

Merlin. He is that rare great blossom of this life

Which mortals call a man.

Arthur. A man!

Merlin. Yea, a man.

Arthur. Why he is wry, distorted, short of shape,

Like some poor twisted root in human form.

And I am tall and fair, placed like a king.

And yet you make him greater, how be that?

Merlin. Didst thou but own Goliath’s mighty shape,

And wert a Balder in thy face and form,

With all of heaven’s lightnings in thy gaze,

Still would his greatness dwarf thee.

Arthur. Then what be I?

Merlin. The wreck of my poor hopes.

Arthur. The what?

Merlin. The shadow of a king.

Arthur. And where may be the king, if I be but the shadow?

Merlin. Gone! Gone!

He went out in his glory one bright morn,

In all the summer splendors long ago,

And there by well-heads of my youth’s bright dreams,

Be-like he’s walking yet.

Mordred. Oh! Merlin wake him! Thou art over cruel

To play thus on his fancy with thine arts.

Merlin. And dost thou love him still?

Mordred. Yea, love is not a thing so lightly placed,

That it may perish easy. Thou mayst kill

The king in him, thou canst not kill the father.

Though thou mightst make me bitter to conspire

And topple his great kingdom round his head,

Yet I would ever love him ’neath it all.

The Arthur of thine ambitions may be dead,

But not the Arthur of my childhood’s longing,

Though this poor King who hunteth his lost crown

Be but the walking shape of all those dreams.

And temptest thou me, thou Merlin, thus to hate?

Merlin. Yea, Mordred, I am cruel, I am fate.

I tempt thee but to live, and dost thou live,

Enalienate from all this love of earth,

And they but crumble this phantom round their heads.

Thou art the key by which I may unlock

The lock that I have made with mine own hands.

And if thou ever want’st an instrument,

A dagger wherewith to stab this paltry realm,

Use Vivien.

Mordred. Vivien!

Merlin. Yea Vivien. There is naught on all this earth

That cuts so sharp the thews of love and hate

And those poor brittle thongs that bind men up

In that strange bundle called society,

Like the sharp acids nature hath distilled

From out the foiled hates of an evil woman.

(To the king.) Ho! ho! Arthur! Great King

Arthur. Knowest thou me, Merlin?

Arthur. Yea, Merlin it is thou, and I the King,

Waking it seemeth from an evil dream.

Merlin. Yea, king we have all awakened.

Arthur. Ha! where is my crown?

Mordred. You dropped it when you fainted sire,

[Kneels and presents it.

Here is thy crown, Father.

Arthur. Father! yea all, I know all now. It cometh back.

And this my son? Oh Merlin, had I known

That thou didst hate me and wouldst use me thus!

Merlin. I hate thee not, King Arthur, nor do I love.

I loved an Arthur once, a phantom king,

Whom I did build on pinnacles of glory.

But he hath now long vanished, and I go,

Like many another who hath wrecked his hopes

On some false shore of human delusiveness,

To bury my pinch-beck jewels in that pit

That men call black oblivion. No, proud Arthur,

I am much over old for loves or hates,

My days are past, my mission done on earth,

I leave thee one here though, whose love or hate

Is more to thee than mine could ever be.

Twixt thee and him there are such subtle webs

Of destiny, it needeth no magician

To prophesy the running of those threads

That weave the warp of your two destinies.

Farewell Arthur! Mordred, fare thee well.

Arthur. Stay, Stay, Merlin! I have much need of thee.

[Exit Merlin.

---

Enter Dagonet the King’s fool.

Dagonet. Meseems this King is like an April week.

But yestermorn he was all smiles and sun,

And now he skulks and prowls and scowls and mopes,

As though existence were all a draggled pond

In dirty weather.

Enter Vivien.

Vivien. And thou fool, but a wry toad on its edge.

Dagonet. And thou the snake’s head lifted in the sedge,

Aye, sweet Vivien.

Vivien. Why snakest thou me fool? Methought that thou favoredst me?

Dagonet. Aye, so I do. Thou coilest round my heart,

The sweetest, wisest serpent in this world.

Thou charmest me with those dazzling eyes o’ thine.

And though the blessed bread were yet in mouth,

I’d go to Hell to do a deed for thee.

And yet thou art a snake, as well thou knowest.

Is it not so, sweet Vivien?

Vivien. Can’st thou be wise for once Dagonet?

Yea let me teach thee.

Dagonet. And what is it to be wise?

Vivien. To leave aside that mummer’s lightsome talk,

And show a front of silent dignity.

Dagonet. Like the King?

Vivien. Aye, like the King.

Dagonet. Then to be wise is to be like the king,

To be a cup of summer wine to-day,

Anon a dish of lonesome woe to-morrow.

I love not much this wisdom thou dost teach,

These high come-ups and downs they like me not.

I am too much a fool to learn thy lesson. (Sings.)

Vivien. Aye Dagonet, thou art indeed a happy fool.

Wilt thou shew me how to make love?

Dagonet. (Kneels in mock humility) Sweet Vivien, I am thy knight.

Vivien. Is it all thou canst say?

Dagonet. What would’st thou have more?

Vivien. Oh lover’s talk.

Dagonet. Thou meanest as lovers speak?

Vivien. Yea.

Dagonet. After wedding or afore, sweet Vivien?

Vivien. Afore, of course, stupid fool.

Dagonet. (Folds his hands and recites solemnly.)

Vivien. And now thou art the fool in earnest.

Dagonet. Yea, and the better lover.

Vivien. And what after wedding, thou wise fool?

Dagonet. What saith the pot to the egg that is boiled therein,

The floor to the mop that hath scrubbed it,

The rain to the moist earth,

And the bird’s nest to the empty shell?

Learn, and thou shalt find it.

Vivien. And had’st thou never a lover’s longing, Fool?

Dagonet. Yea, but I cured me.

Vivien. Wilt thou give me that receipt, Dagonet?

Dagonet. I filled my mouth wi’ honey, and my couch wi’ prickles,

And went asleep on’t.

(Vivien laughs and retires behind the curtain.)

Dagonet. Yea woe is me, is me, poor Dagonet!

I hate myself and yet I fain must smile

And play the thistle-down and dandy-puff,

The foolish froth at edge of flagonets;

And all the while see me a tortured torrent

Winding down in the darks of its own sorrow.

Yea, Dagonet, thou art too much of fool,

Like the great King and all other fools,

To be the thistle-down thou fain wouldst seem.

For thou art also anchored by the heels

To some sore, eating iron of thy desire.

Enter King Arthur.

Arthur. Well fool, what mummeries now?

Dagonet. I be holding a black Friday service, Sir King.

Arthur. And what sayest thou in thy supplications?

Dagonet. I think on thee Sir King, and I think on poor Dagonet.

And I say, Lord have mercy upon us!

Arthur. A pious wish, Sir fool, but why pitiest thou me?

Dagonet. For thy poverty, Sire?

Arthur. Why poverty, fool?

Dagonet. Yea King, thou hast a crown, thou hast wealth,

And power and lands, and yet thou lackest

The cheapest commodity i’ the whole world.

Arthur. And what be that, fool?

Dagonet. (Going out.) Sunshine, Sir King, that be the cheapest commodity.

Enter Launcelot.

Launcelot. Sire!

Arthur. Launcelot sit here and let’s forget

That I am king and thou the greatest knight

In this most mighty realm. Let us deem

Me but the Arthur of old days, and thou

The sunny Launcelot who was fain to shrive

His sorrowful Arthur from his darker moods,

And make a glow about the future’s countenance.

Launcelot. Yea King, but methought thou sentest for me with most urgent commands.

Arthur. Yea, most urgent.

Launcelot. The knights and men-at-arms await below,

And all the splendid cortege thou hast ordered,

With retinue befitting thy commands.

God’s benison go with thee, great Arthur,

This most auspicious day thou goest forth

To meet the high and beauteous Guinevere,

Thy chosen mate and queen of this fair realm.

Arthur. I go not forth!

Launcelot. Thou goest not, and why?

Arthur. Deem it not strange my Launcelot that I sit

Here thus disconsolate my betrothal morn,

Nor over eager for to play the lover,

And decked in splendor go to meet the queen.

Launcelot thine Arthur hath a sorrow.

Hast seen my son Mordred?

Launcelot. Yea Arthur, I have seen this Mordred.

Yea, mine Arthur, thou hast indeed a sorrow,

And could thy Launcelot but help thee bear it!

Arthur. What thinkest thou of this Mordred, this my son?

Likest thou him not?

Launcelot. He is so strange, so small, so queer of limb,

At first I marvelled, then I pitied, then——

Arthur. Yea, and what?

Launcelot. I met his eyes, and straightway I forgot

The manner of man he was, save that a soul

Of wondrous scorn and mystery met mine;

That froze the present, made the future dread,

With strange forbodings. While I mused he passed,

But left that chill behind him in my blood.

And yet he seemeth a soul, Sire, to be pitied.

Arthur. Yea, all but pity, Arthur’s son should claim.

Launcelot. ’Tis thy cross Arthur, as a king thou’lt bear it.

And we all seeing shall say our king, like Christ,

Beareth his cross i’ the sunlight i’ the shadow,

And take pattern from thy greatness.

Arthur. I bear it not, Launcelot, it beareth me down,

Down into black depths, aye and blacker.

He cometh betwixt my spirit and the sun.

Canst thou not help thy king?

I seem like one who walketh in dreams where all are shadows

Till I seem but a shadow-king walking in a realm of shadows.

Launcelot. Take courage to thee Arthur, it will off,

Go in thy kingship’s strength and meet thy queen.

Her beauty and her kindliness will cure thee

Of this distemper.

Arthur. Nay, Launcelot, this is the very matter,

As thou well knowest she hath never seen me,

And for the very reverence I bear her,

A maiden princess, I would hold as snow

In each thing that regardeth purity.

By all the love that I would bear to her,

I would not have her meet me in this mood.

But I would have her meet her Arthur when

In kingly grace he is himself a king.

Yea, Launcelot for this I sent for thee.

’Tis mine intent that I should tarry here

And in the joustings cure me of this fit,

While thou dost go forth in my place and bring

The Princess Guinevere to Camelot.

Launcelot. Nay Sire, not I! Not Launcelot!

Arthur. By thy love for me, thou wilt do it,

Whom else in all this kingdom wide but thee

Could I send on a mission such as this.

I honor all thy love in sending thee,

The one true knight, the glory of my realm.

In this, Oh Launcelot, thou canst help thy king,

And show abroad the love that ’twixt us lies.

Till men will say: “So much of love there lies

Betwixt King Arthur and great Launcelot,

That when the king stayed ill at Camelot

He sent forth Launcelot to fetch the Queen.”

And what more fitting messenger to send

Than thee in all thy strong and splendid youth,

The flower and sun of all my chivalry,

Launcelot the young and pure-in-heart.

Thou wilt do this and crown thy love for me.

Launcelot. Nay, mine own Arthur, men will rather say:

Why stayed the king, unkingly, thus at home,

And sent forth Launcelot to meet his bride?

Oh Arthur, by my love, go forth thyself.

Rather thou sentest me sack a hundred cities

Than do this deed that will un-king thee so.

Arthur. Launcelot, I would rather die than go.

Launcelot. Yea Arthur, I would rather die than go.

Arthur. Launcelot lovest thou thine Arthur?

Launcelot. Yea Arthur, well thou knowest.

Arthur. Wilt thou honor me as a king?

Launcelot. Yea to the death.

Arthur. Then the king commands that thou goest for the love thou bearest Arthur.

Launcelot. Yea Sire, I go. (Aside) And all fears go with me.

[Curtain.

Enter Leodegrance and Pages.

Leo. Now is the day auspicious to my house

When Guinevere will wed the mighty Arthur.

Golden the mornings, happy speed the nights,

With constellations soft and wooing hours

That speed the bride and bridegroom to their bowers.

Splendid be my prime and soft mine age,

Who am a father to this mighty realm.

Ho there, without!

[Trumpets heard, enter pages.

Page. Mighty Sire, with trumpet and with drum,

The lofty Arthur with his host hath come.

A world of spears and pennons fill the town,

And all the burghers feast their eyes with seeing.

[A clatter of arms without. Enter Launcelot who kneels.

Launcelot. Sir King!

Leo. Where tarries the great Prince Arthur?

Launcelot. He cometh not, my lord.

Leo. And why?

Launcelot. The king on sudden sick at Camelot

Hath sent me with his heart to Camelard

To plead his absence with thee and the Princess,

And guard her glad way forth to Camelot.

I am that Launcelot, that knight-at-arms,

Who loveth Arthur more than maid or king.

Perchance if thou wilt trust her to my care,—

Here is great Arthur’s order.

[Presents a ring.

Leo. Welcome to Camelard, most noble knight,

Well ken we of thy name and nobleness.

It grieves us much great Arthur could not come,

And guest of our poor hospitality,

Receive our noble daughter at our hearth,

And lead her home from out our very doors.

This much perforce had willed a father’s pride.

This much had satisfied a father’s love.

But seeing Chance hath given us none of it,

We must be gracious to her messenger

And thank her for the safety she hath sent.

Tomorrow’s dawn we give into thy hands

The maiden daughter of our kingly love,

To guard in safety to great Arthur’s court,

There to be wedded as his faithful queen.

Meanwhile receive our hospitality.

This castle and this town are thine to-night

In honor of the Princess and the King.

Launcelot. We thank thee Sire for this thy hospitality.

Leo. Yea one thing further, knowing our daughter’s nature,

And fearing a maiden’s pride might feel a hurt,

At the King’s absence, we would therefore advise

That this be kept a secret till tomorrow,

When we will break it softly to Her Highness;

Though she hath never seen him, as thou knowest,

She now half loves him for his kingly virtues,

And being her father’s daughter thinks it well

To act a daughter’s just obedience.

She hath a wayward nature, ’tis a pride

We have in common, therefore we defer

This matter till tomorrow. ’Twould not do

To let her sleep on such sharp disappointment.

Launcelot. As you will, noble lord.

[Curtain.

Guinevere. Now Unid I have seen this noble Arthur.

I spied him from my turret as he rode,

And all my heart went out in love to him,

The knight incarnate of my girlhood’s dreams.

Did’st thou notice his bearing Unid?

Unid. Yea my lady, and fairer man and nobler knight

Eye hath not seen.

Guin. His face was like the gardens when the sun

Lifts up his crimson splendor after dawn,

His bearing as the bearing of a god,

And yet as one who would be kind and loving.

Unid. Yea, my lady, he seemed glad and fair,

And fit to be the lord to thee, my Princess.

Guin. Come Unid take my hand and we wilt sit

And speak of this great Arthur. Well thou knowest

My maiden fears regarding this same marriage.

I honored this Arthur as a noble king,

The mighty monarch and the splendid warrior.

And yet I fear him for reputed coldness.

Thou knowest me a princess warm in blood,

Brim with fire and sweetness of this life,

Not fitted to be wedded to a statue,

A marble, though that marble be a king.

For something stirred my life-springs long ago,

And whispered, Guinevere were made for love

And love alone would rule her destiny.

And when I looked and saw him enter there,

And knew my lord, and felt him gaze my way,

Knowing his errand to my father’s hall,

I blushed me till mine inmost being burned.

And all the roses whispered, “Arthur”! “Arthur”!

And “Arthur”! “Arthur”! rang through all the halls.

I wonder much if he will love me Unid?

Unid. In sooth he must, my lady, be he noble.

Though he never saw thee, who but heard

Of all thy charms, my Princess Guinevere,

Could help but love thee when he seeth thy face?

Guin. ’Tis in my mind to sound his manner, Unid.

To take him treacherous and unawares.

I like not much this way of wedding maids,

In cruel blindness of their coming fate.

This marriage savoreth much of state affairs,

Even o’er much to please my noble fancy.

I would me much to see this royal lover,

And know with mine own senses if he loves

With that intense delight and warmth of feeling,

With which poor Darby freely weddeth Joan.

Though I be all a queen I be a woman,

With all the thoughts and instincts of a woman.

Unid. What would’st thou do, my lady?

Guin. That I this even meet him in the garden.

Unid. On what pretence, my lady? ’Twere a risky business.

Guin. Thou wilt be veiled and take this golden ring,

Cozen his squire, and say, this for the knight

Who rode within the castle walls to-day.

Leave thou him word, a lady in distress,

Who needeth a knight to aid her in her sorrow,

Would meet him in the garden walls at sunset.

Unid. I will do it my lady, but what if he come not?

Guin. No danger of his not coming if he be

The man I worshipped from my tower this morning.

He’d come were yon rose-plot enchanted ground,

And gated by a thousand belching fiends.

He’d come, my king! Oh Unid, how I love him!

Enter Launcelot.

Launcelot. This is a sunset bower for lovers made.

The air seems faint with pale and ruddy bloom,

The red for rosy dreams, the white for pure

And holy maiden thoughts all unexpressed.

There hangs fatality upon this place.

I cannot shake its ague from my heart.

I would I were safe back in Camelot,

With this fair Guinevere, great Arthur’s glory.

I’d rather meet the mad kerls of the Isles,

Than come again on such a quest as this.

This Guinevere they say is proud and cold,

Not such a woman as Launcelot would love.

Yea love, what doth it mean, and this strange maiden,

What can she want of me? Aye, here she comes.

Enter Guinevere, veiled.

Guin. My lord forgive this meeting in this place.

(Aside) O, if he like it not!

Launcelot. Wouldst thou ask mine aid?

Guin. Yea, wouldst thou aid a maiden in distress?

Launcelot. Lady, all maidens have a right to a true knight’s help.

Guin. My lord hast thou ever loved?

Laun. Many fair women have I seen, but none to love as thou meanest.

Why askest thou me this?

Guin. Wouldst thou fight for one like me?

[Throwing aside her cloak.

Laun. (Starts and stands as one in a dream.) Fair lady!

(Aside.) Kind heaven what be this?

In all my dreams I never saw such beauty

Of woman’s face or of a woman’s form.

She fills my heart like combs of golden honey.

Guin. My lord, thou hast lost thy tongue.

(Aside) I had not dreamed this.

Laun. Fair lady, forgive my sudden lack of speech,

But never in my existence have I seen

Such loveliness and maiden grace as thine.

Yea, I would call it benison, could I stand,

And gaze upon thee as thou art, forever.

There’s some fatality that draws me to thee,

Like I had known thee somewhere long ago.

Guin. My lord!

Laun. Thou art all glory, all that this life is,

And all before but one poor pallid dream

Of this real living. Now I see thy face,

I know what heaven is and all delights

That erring mortals lost in Paradise.

Guin. My lord! (Aside) Sweet heaven this be too blessed.

Laun. Fair maiden, Princess, lady, what thou art

Is what I’d die for. In mine inmost heart

Thou art inshrined. It seems some blessed dream.

Thou art too beautiful for mortal maid,

And yet I feel thou art not all unkind,

Might I dare read love’s missal in thine eyes.

Guin. Most noble lord, I came here for this purpose

To render my heart’s being up to thee.

Deem not this act unmaidenly in one

Whose whole life’s currents to thy being run.

My lord!

Laun. It seems that we were never strangers.

[Folds her in his arms and kisses her.

Guin. All life hath been but shaping up to this.

Laun. Oh could this sunset be but gold forever.

Guin. My lord Arthur!

Laun. (Starts back.) Great God!

Guin. Kiss me. Why Great God?

Thou art my God when thy lips are so sweet.

Laun. Why calledst thou me Arthur?

Guin. And art thou not?

Laun. Oh, who art thou that callest Arthur, lord?

Guin. As thou art Arthur, I am Guinevere.

[Launcelot starts back in horror.

Laun. Guinevere! Oh hell make thick your murky curtains.

Day wake no more! stars shrink your eye-hole lights,

And let this damned earth shrivel.

Guin. (Clutching his arm.) And art thou not great Arthur?

Who art thou? O God! who art thou?

Laun. Not Arthur, no! but that damned Launcelot,

Who twixt his hell and Arthur’s heaven hath got.

Guin. Then am I a doomed maid.

[Swoons.

Laun. Black, murky fiend of hell! come in thy form

Most monstrous, give me age on ages here.

And I will clang with thee and all thine imps.

Bind me in blackness under hell’s foul night,

And it were nothing, after dream like this.

Guin. (Rising up.) Oh mercy! damned or not, I love thee still.

Laun. Why doth not nature crack and groan?

Guin. (Crawls to his feet.) Oh be thou fiend or imp or Launcelot.

Thy kisses burn me even through this mist.

Laun. Yea, thou dost move me as never woman hath moved.

Oh would to God that we had never loved.

Then thou wouldst have been Guinevere, and I Launcelot.

Guin. What be we now?

Laun. Damned souls.

Guin. Then sweet, my love, it were thus to be damned.

Laun. Oh thou must go, proud Guinevere, tomorrow

Unto great Arthur’s court and be his bride,

And I will be that olden Launcelot

In shape and seeming, though I hold a devil.

Oh never more, mine Arthur, will I look

With peace and frankness on thy noble face.

’Twixt thee and me a wall is builded up

Of hideous evil. Guinevere, my love,

We were damned long ago, and this be hell.

Guin. Oh most unfortunate me, thou art not Arthur,

And I am Guinevere and I have loved.

Though I go morrow morn to Camelot

And place my hand in his and pledge him mine,

Not all the clamor of glad abbey-bells,

Or heavenward incense, may kill out the fever

Of thy hot kisses on my burning lips.

I am not Arthur’s. He is but a name,

A ringing doom that haunts me round the world.

Launcelot, we were wedded long ago

Before this life in some old Venus garden,

And this brief meeting but re-memory

Awakening from some cursed doze of life

Unto this present glory of our love.

Thou wilt not leave me Launcelot, loveless lorn?

Laun. Aye, this be hell!

Guin. Aye, hell to me to be divorced from thee.

Laun. Thou art betrothed to our great lord high Arthur,

And I that Arthur’s trusted bosom friend.

And yet I’d kiss again thy honied lips,

Though Arthur’s shadow flaming stood between.

I’m not an Adam to be driven out

With flaming brand from thy sweet paradise.

I’d hold thee Guinevere in these mine arms,

Though on each side, asquare, a “shalt not” stood.

I’d fight ’gainst all, aye Arthur, mine old self.

Oh Guinevere, this love hath made me mad.

Oh were’t that all were changed in nature’s course.

That I were not myself but some rude shape.

That thou wert not so sweet to look upon,

But sour and crabbed and old for Arthur’s sake,

So that all might have gone the olden way.

Guin. Oh that this night might never pass away,

We and this garden here forever stay,

Yon rising moon forever hold her crest

Above the fringÉd peace of yonder West,

These roses ever perfumed petals cast,

So that our love in its glad youth might last;

No bleak to-morrows with their Arthurs come,

With evil waking to a sombre doom;

No age, like autumn, wrinkling to decays,

Filled with sad hauntings of gone yesterdays.

[Curtain.

Enter Merlin and Vivien.

Merlin. Tarry we here, for I am fain for rest.

[sinks down.

Enter Vivien disguised as a strange maiden, followed by men bearing a great stone with a sword thrust in it.

Arthur. Whence comest thou unto our Court, strange Maiden?

And on what quest art thou sent?

Vivien. Nine days are past and gone, most noble King,

Since thou didst advertise throughout the land

The kingdom be opened for tests at Camelot

And marvellous feats might here performed be.

Wherefore I, knowing of that noble pride

With which you hold the flower of your great Court

For manhood’s purity, woman’s chastity,

Have deigned to show before the world, great King,

The truth whereof thou boastest.

Arthur. It is bold indeed, but Arthur keeps his word.

What be the tests?

Vivien. First, here, to test thy knighthood’s purity,

We bring a sword sunk fast in yonder stone

By magic’s force, and he who plucks it forth

Must be a knight who hath not known a woman,

Save in the lawful mode of marriage bed.

(To Launcelot.) Wouldst try, pure Knight?

Laun. Yea, I would, doth great Arthur will,

Though all the fiends of hell clutched nether end.

Do other knights but make the trial first.

(A number of knights come forward, try to pull the sword out of the stone but fail.

Launcelot then places his feet on the stone and grasps the sword and pulls with all his might, but the sword remains fixed.)

Arthur. It is in sooth a marvel!

Laun. It seemeth grown therein,

Yea, I will bend and strain until it comes.

It will not! (Stands to take a breath.)

Guin. It is enough!

Vivien. Wouldst thou try again pure Knight?

Laun. Yea I will try till I die, if it come not.

(Tries again, bends his whole strength, then staggers to his feet.) Methought the earth’s roots hung thereon.

I am shamed!

Arthur. ’Tis enough!

Vivien. Wilt not try again, pure Knight?

Laun. (With set face.) Yea, now for Camelot’s glory.

Launcelot’s manhood pulls on this side, Hell on that.

(Braces himself and gives one terrible tug, then falls back fainting.)

Elaine. ’Tis he! (Rushes out and falls fainting on his breast. The Queen’s women lift her and bear her out.)

Guin. Great Heaven!

Arthur. ’Tis enough! away with it, Maiden, thy magic hath outdone our noblest worth.

Vivien. (Scornfully.) Is there no pure man will make trial?

Gwaine. (Emerges from the throng still dressed in scullions dress.)

Yea, I will try, although I rend the stone.

(Leaps on to the stone and plucks the sword out with both hands, with a great pull, and waves it aloft with an exultant shout. The throng starts back.)

How now, mighty King?

Arthur. ’Tis a great marvel!

Laun. (Steps forth.) The man that hath done that must face Launcelot to the death,—to the death! (Faces Gwaine and draws.)

Guin. My God! (Her maids support her, she hides her face in her mantle.)

Gwaine. I would not slay thee.

Laun. Thou can’st not!—Keep you! (They fight. Knights try to separate them.)

Arthur. Nay, back, more room! give them more room.

(Continue fighting, each draws blood, but neither gives way.)

Guin. (Aside to the maids.) Be he slain?

A Maid. Neither be slain, Madam.

Arthur. Enough! I say enough!

Laun. Sire!

Gwaine. Must we stop the exercise?

Arthur. It is enough, you are both brave knights.

Laun. Gwaine, thou art better than I.

Gwaine. Thou art the best I have met.

Wilt thou take the hand of Gwaine?

Laun. Yea I will, though it hath pressed me hard.

Arthur. Clear the Court. (Trumpets blow and the throng falls back.)

Laun. Madam!

(Guinevere draws back coldly.)

Laun. Madam, what means this coldness?

Thou wert not ever wont to meet me thus?

Guin. Where hast thou left the maid of Astolat?

Laun. Maid of Astolat!

Guin. Yea that frail pink-and-white that pillowed thy breast,

What time thou did’st faint, some slim cowslip miss

Such as do flatter you strong men by their weakness.

Go flippant knight and seek your skim-milk love.

Guinevere would hate thee but for scorn.

God curse the day I ever let thee love!

Laun. Madam each word thou utterest, like a dagger,

Doth stab with cruel agonies my heart.

If Launcelot hath sinned in loving thee,

That love is maiden unto all save thee.

Yea I am damnÈd daily for thy face,

And even thou dost scorn me.

Guin. A truce of words, I saw with mine own eyes,

What all the Court and all the world doth know.

Launcelot’s Love, the Maid of Astolat,

Is mouthed by all fool’s lips in all men’s ears,

Till Guinevere is even Mordred’s scorn.

I’d slay thee, were I only but a man.

Laun. Madam! by my love!—

Guin. By thy love, a flimsy foresworn thing,

A toylet of a moment! Such as thou!

And I! I gave—, By Heaven! I pluck thee out,

And thrust thee from me, thou false handsome face!

Thou devil-eyed to lead hearts on to ruin!

Laun. Madam, wilt thou not hear?

Guin. Nay, nay, begone! I scorn thee, yea, I hate!

Laun. (Sadly.) Yea Guinevere I go, to come no more.

It is well seen that thou hast tired of me.

Thou hast driven Launcelot mad! mad!

The world reels round me, I am all alone.

All else the visions of a noisome dream.

I am mad, mad, Guinevere!

And dost thou smile? here’s for the lonely dark!

Ho! ho! the world’s one hideous mockery.

(Leaps from the casement.)

Guin. Nay, nay, Launcelot! Launcelot!

Come back! I love thee, I forgive thee all!

(Falls on her face.) Oh Heaven! I have driven him away,

Nevermore, Oh, never to return.

O Love! O Love! my maddened heart will break.

O foolish stars! why smile on this grim night

Lighting the heartless heaven with your eyes?

O foolish birds, why pipe across the dark,

Calling the rosy morn, the false-faced morn,

While hearts are breaking here amid the dark?

Launcelot! Launcelot! Hark! he returns.

Nay, ’tis the foolish wind wooing the silly trees.

He never will return, nor will forgive.

O poor white hand! he nevermore will clasp,

O wayward lips! he nevermore will kiss.

O heart, break! break!

(Enter a maid.) Madam, here cometh the King.

(Guin. Rises.)

Arthur. Madam, watchest thou alone the splendor of the night?

Guin. Yea, there is a burden in the distant sea,

And a soft sadness from the far-off night

Of ghost-winds footing under the haunted dark.

It groweth chill, my Lord.

Arthur. We will go within. (Exit both.)

Enter Gwaine and Dagonet.

Gwaine. Yea, mad! mad! stark raving mad, you say?

Dagonet. Yea, mad. His eyes were like balls ’o fire.

An’ his face fixed like he followed a vision,

Or walked ’i his sleep.

An’ his hands did beat the air the while he shouted a war song.

It hath frighted me out of a week’s sleep.

Gwaine. Yea, he is indeed mad. ’Tis this crazy love.

And he such a man, the best ’i the world.

I will take horse and follow him.

Drop that lanthorn, Fool, and help me wi’ this buskin,

’Tis new to me. The best ’i the world, damn this love!

Fool, wert thou ever in love?

Dagonet. Yea, thou knowest I be a fool.

Gwaine. Then be wise like Gwaine, Fool, and scorn love;

’Tis but a mad fever ’o the head and marrow.

It creepeth in by the eyes and spoileth a good man.

It killeth sleep and maketh a mock at feeding.

It heateth the blood and routeth caution.

’Ware of love, Fool, an’ thou would’st be wise.

Dagonet. Yea, thy words be like what the wind said to the wall.

Gwaine. And what be that?

Dagonet. Stand up while I blow thee down!

Art thou off now?

Gwaine. Yea, till I find him.

Tell the King Gwaine hath ta’en French leave, but he will come again when he bringeth the best man ’i the Kingdom.

Ho! without there! Fool, go ahead with that lanthorn.

[Curtain.

Vivien. Prince, and do you weaken now again?

Mordred. Yea, Vivien, I have only half a heart

For this damned business.

Vivien. ’Tis but a lack of manhood in thy blood,

That runs to water dwelling on puerile things,

Like parent-love and other sickly longings,

Forgotten with forgetting of the paps.

Now me, my memory knows no parentage

Save circumstance and mine own nimble wits.

’Tis but our acts that build the bridge of fate

Across this perilous river men call life.

Some kneel and pray, trust some fond deity,

And build in fancy safety for themselves,

Then soon are churning ’mid the ravening flood.

Others do build them piers of solid stone,

Or use men’s bodies for to tread upon.

These get the surest over.—Hast seen the Queen?

Mordred. Ha, that one name hath more to conjure with

Than all your sophistries, to my dark soul.

Yea, how I hate that woman! I am but

The hideous toad that poisons on her sight.

Though I may sense the glories of this earth

With all its wealth, the heaven o’er-bridged with stars,

And know love’s heights and depths, and pity’s well,

Brimming with pearls of tears and woman’s eyes;

I am but hideous Mordred after all.

Vivien. Yea, in her eyes art hideous, not in mine.

Mordred. Woman, thou liest! It were natural

To love the perfect shape and noble form,

The sunny face and splendid laughing eye;

But canst thou love the wry and gnarlÉd shape

And beetle-browed, night-shaded soul like mine?

I am a toad, a bat, a gnarlÉd stump.

These hideous in nature are my kin.

Woman, thou liest, when thou speakest of love!

Vivien. Nay, Mordred, do not scorn me! Thou’rt a man

In more than mere out-seeming, ’tis thy fate

Thy whole grim spirit Vivien pitieth.

Would’st thou but love me, Vivien would be

Thy queen, thy slave, the ’venger of thy wrongs,

That call to heaven.

Mordred. Nay, nay, it cannot be, thou wastest words.

I like thee least in this strange mood of thine.

Love is no word for Mordred, rather hate,

And thou wert made for plottings, not for joys.

Yea, we will marry in compact of ill,

And will beget as child, black, black revenge.

This is my mood.

Vivien. Now thou art natural, there is much to do.

Our schemes o’er-reached, proud Arthur’s jealousy

As yet untouched, and Launcelot fled the Court

In some queer madness. How likest the conditions?

Mordred. He must come back, I am a devil at root.

We’ll seethe him in the Queen’s despairs and sorrows.

I have a plan,—she giveth soon a feast

Of autumn fruits unto her favorite knights,

And I will go, although she hates my face,

For I misdoubt she fears me even now.

There is a joy to know, if thou art not loved,

That thou canst wield an influence over those

Who otherwise would pass thee by in scorn.

Well I do know a poison, subtle, sharp,

That when it bites it is the tooth of death.

This will I get inserted in some fruit,

And manage that one knight will eat of it,

Sir Patrise, brother unto that Sir Mador;

Who hates the Queen for that she scorned his love

And not being present will call for loud revenge

Upon his brother’s death ’gainst Guinevere

Proud Arthur, then, will call upon some knight

To prove her innocence upon the sword,

And her extremity makes Launcelot sane.

He will return, then I will trap him with her,

Set Arthur and Launcelot at bitter war,

And wrest the kingdom from their weakened hands.

This is my plot, now for the working of it.

Down all compunction! Mount all dark resolves!

Let me be Mordred inward as well as out,

All inky poison of soul, even that I,

Who’d trample others, must crush out myself.

Vivien. Yea, Prince, indeed, ’tis seen thou hast a mind

Of subtle working fit to rule a King.

Thou wilt be greater than great Arthur yet,

When thou sittest in his place.

Mordred. Nay woman, tantalize me not with hopes.

’Tis not the splendid end that leads me on.

’Tis but the getting there that Mordred loves.

The mood of one who’d trample on the flowers

In some fair garden whence he is excluded.

Here is the poison. That will be thy part

To get it hidden in the special fruit,

And get it fed unto the special man,

Whose snuffing out will pander to our end.

Vivien. Give me the poison!

Mordred. Here it is, this small pill,

So petty, but powerful.

’Tis wondrous that this tiny polished globe,

Could hide betwixt the finger and the thumb,

Hath power to open the gateways of this world,

And in a sudden sleep dislodge a soul.

Hast thou an agent for to do this work?

Vivien. Yea, that I have.

Mordred. Not the fool again?

Vivien. Yea, the fool!

Mordred. See he doth this better than the last. ’Tis the more perilous. Thinkest he will undertake it?

Vivien. Yea, he will.

Mordred. By what compulsion?

Vivien. By that most powerful of all most powerful compulsions. He loveth me.

Mordred. And thou wilt use him, put him on the rack,

Which is thine influence?

Vivien. See my little finger, he is as the yarn

That I may wind around it.

Mordred. Thou art a Devil! Ho! Ho! Mordred hath mirth!

And this be life! Mordred hath mirth, yea, Vivien, mirth!

See woman that thou failest not,

Mordred is roused, it must be.

[Exit Mordred.

Vivien. Ho! Ho! Thou art travelling my road at last.

I must haste from hence and find Dagonet.

Dagonet. I’m but the ghost of mine old former self,

Who once a jester, am now but the jest

Of some outrageous fortune. Sleep hath fled,

My meat hath no more taste unto my mouth.

The wine but heavy lees within the cup.

I am so held in love for Vivien,

That I must end this foolish spark o’ life.

My heart leaps up for joy to see her face,

A silly joy, such as a child might have,

Loving some star for plaything, out of reach.

Oh what would I not do to even dare

To press the velvet of her dainty hand!

Back, down, poor foolish dreams! Now I must play

The frothy merriment of a world that’s grey.

(Sings.)

Enter Vivien, Dagonet starts.

Vivien. Thou growest grewsome, Dagonet; where hast lost thy mirth?

Dagonet. I know not, Vivien, I know not, belike I am a fool indeed. Poor Dagonet is no more himself.

Vivien. Poor Dagonet.

Dagonet. Why not call me fool, dost thou pity me?

Vivien. Yea, I do.

Dagonet. And since when?

Vivien. Since I knew that thou wert a man.

Dagonet. Dagonet, the fool, a man?

Vivien. Yea since I knew as thou couldst love indeed.

Dagonet. That I love, Vivien, what knowest thou?

Vivien. Yea, that thou hast a heart under thy mask. Yea, more, for whom thou hast this feeling. Wouldst thou win her grace?

Dagonet. (Falls on his knees.) Yea, yea, Vivien, for one look, one smile. Oh Vivien, well thou knowest I am thy slave.

Vivien. What would’st thou do for my love?

Dagonet. Thou hast my heart bare in thy sight. Write on it what characters thou likest, for I am thine. I tell thee I am thy dog, thy slave.

Vivien. Not dog, nor slave, but lover. (Vivien holds out her hand, Dagonet crawls near and takes it.)

Dagonet. Oh Vivien, dost thou mean this?

Vivien. Yea, in sooth I will try thy love. Would’st thou win my love Dagonet?

Dagonet. Dost thou mock me?

Vivien. Nay. (Takes a little box from her girdle and opens it.) Dost see this pill? (Leans near and whispers in his ear. Dagonet starts back!) Nay! nay! not that!

Vivien. That or nought!

Dagonet. Wouldst thou use me thus?

Vivien. Thou art the man who’d win my love! I tell thee so must all who’d love Vivien.

Dagonet. Nay, nay, I must think. This is indeed death, death.

Vivien. Yea, death or nought! I thought thou wert a man?

Dagonet. For that reason am I now in hell.

Vivien. (Takes his hand.) Dagonet, dost thou love me?

Dagonet. Oh God! Yea Vivien, give me the pill, I am not myself any more. I am thine, I will do it. Vivien, thou wilt not fail me?

Vivien. See that thou dost not fail me, and be sure that thou doest this well.

Dagonet. I will.

[Exit Vivien

Enter the Queen in great trouble.

Enter Knights bringing in a dead body and crying Treason! Treason!

(The Queen takes her State.)

Arthur. Who would accuse the Queen?

Sir Mador. ’Tis I, my Liege.

Arthur. What be the substance of thine accusation?

Sir Mador. Murder! Sire, murder! most foul and treacherous!

Other Knights. Yea, murder, foul and treacherous!

Arthur. On whom?

Sir Mador. On the body of this knight, my brother, Sir Patrise, whom thou knowest to have been a courteous knight of much steadfastness to thee and the Court.

Arthur. It is most strange. Relate the circumstances.

Sir Mador. ’Twas at the banquet, Sir King, where we all invited of thy Queen, the Madam Guinevere, who sitteth there, and after meat, she with much courtesy of seeming, did press on us to partake of some fruit, the which on partaking of, my brother, this dead knight, did fall in agony so extreme and mortal, that his soul went out, and now he lieth as thou see’st him.

Other Knights. Yea, ’tis true, ’tis as he saith, a most foul and damnable murder.

Arthur. (Turns to the queen.) Madam, what sayest thou to this accusation?

Guin. ’Tis a false foul lie. I am innocent of this deed.

Dagonet. (Aside.) Yea, ’tis true!

Arthur. Thou see’st this dead knight here and these witnesses, as I am King I must see justice, even against thee.

Hast thou no other defence to offer?

Guin. Nay, my lord, as I am the Queen, ’tis a most damnable lie. ’Fore Heaven, I am innocent of this strange murder.

Dagonet. (Aside.) Now is my soul in flames!

Sir Mador. According to our ancient laws, when a guest dies in this most suspicious manner, where proof of grievous intent is present, the accused is condemned to be burnt at the stake.

Guin. Great Heaven!

Arthur. ’Tis a foul punishment.

Sir Mador. But for a foul crime.

Other Knights. Yea, ’tis but justice.

Arthur. There is also a trial.

Mordred. Yea, Sire, the accused being a woman must have a knight to prove her innocence by his body on the body of the accuser ere the time of death be accomplished.

Arthur. Then be it so. The law must follow on the weight of these many witnesses. (Turning to the Queen.) Guinevere, Queen of Britain, I believe thee guiltless of the crime whereof thou art accused, as thou hast said. As King I am not free to prove thine innocence with my body, but as the King, unless thou procurest a knight to assoil thee ere the time appointed, I here condemn thee to be taken hence to a place of public note and there be burnt to death, as the law requireth.

Guin. Oh Great Heaven! (Falls in a swoon.)

Arthur. Sir knight, art thou satisfied?

Sir Mador. Yea, on my body.

Arthur. Then clear the Court.

[Exit Knights.

Arthur. Would I had not done this! Heaven this hour

Be kind to this poor king, suspend thy wrath.

For my past frailties judge me not too heavy.

Oh, were it dawning! Nay if it be shame,

Night roll for ever round your shrouding glooms,

Hide Arthur’s woe in your convenient black.

Rise not, O, pitiless Day with searching white,

Showing abroad catastrophe and doom.

Hark ’tis the messenger. Now my royal soul,

Is it black or white, is it death or life to thee?

(Enter Messenger.) Sire!

Arthur. Speak! Is it calamity?

Mess. Yea, Sire, it is calamity, Sir Launcelot ta’en,—

Arthur. In the Queen’s chamber?

Mess. Yea, Sire.

Arthur. Then sable Night shut out the morning now.

O, Blackness, bury Arthur in thy shroud!

O, Calamities pelt, pelt your fire!

Sink now, proud Arthur, sink to rise no more.

Enter Mordred and two Knights.

Mordred. We bring you evil news in sorry haste.

Launcelot ta’en by us in the Queen’s apartments,

When we, hailing him traitor, would bring him out,

Then he mad with a devil did issue forth,

And slay the most of us, so that we are scarce fled with our lives,

As these two knights do witness.

Knights. ’Tis true, King.

Arthur. Murder and Treason walk abroad this night.

Adultery and Incest leave their graves.

Arthur, Arthur thou art a king no more!

Mordred. We would arrest the Queen, did we know thy will.

Arthur. O, Night! Night! Night!

Mordred. ’Tis not an hour for grief and memories, Sire,

But action, instant action, is the word,

If thou wouldst keep thy kingdom. Sir Launcelot knoweth

That thou wert privy to this heavy matter,

And swearing direst vengeance on us all,

Buildeth a party for to help the Queen,

And oust thee from thy royalty.

Arthur. Dost thou not know I loved this Launcelot.

And had I chosen a brother or a son

It had been Launcelot! Oh thou cruel World!

Thou hast no cloud of evils brooding dire,

So much hath rained. Mordred take my crown,

To illegitimacy pass my glory now.

Mordred. Nay Sire! but be a king until thou takest

A King’s dread vengeance on thine enemies.

Arthur. Enemies thou sayest. Who so low,

To stoop to hate this cuckold, shamÉd king.

I am a king no more, my Table Round

Is but a stall-yard where the swine of men

Will rend and snarl and tear my glory down.

Enter Gwaine.

Gwaine. This is a bad and foolish matter, King,

And thou wert fool to fetch it to an issue.

But now thou makest bad worse. Didst thou send out

For Launcelot’s arrest and the Queen’s murder?

Mordred. The order hath gone out in the King’s name.

’Tis gone too far for compromises now.

Gwaine. ’Tis thou hast done all this, thou Plotter!

Mordred. Thou liest! ’Tis but the natural end of circumstance that worked its issue. I tell thee, the King ordered this.

Gwaine. King, didst thou give these orders?

Arthur. Gwaine thy words were ever over-blunt,

But now they’re fitting. None need show me reverence.

Gwaine. Know I not reverence, but I would of facts.

Didst thou proclaim that Guinevere should die

Being found of treason foul against thy person,

And doom her to the stake tomorrow noon?

Arthur. The Queen! the queen! thou sayest, I’ll have no queens!

If there be a Queen tomorrow in this land,

She shall die the death! ’tis the King’s word!

Mordred. Now thou hast thine answer.

Gwaine. Then fear Sir Launcelot’s hate and split this kingdom,

Topple yonder King and bring him down,

As thou wouldst love to. Gwaine will none o’ this.

The Pope shall hear it! What’s a woman worth!

That truth, or untruth, she should wreck a kingdom?

Enter a Messenger in haste.

Mordred. Speak!

Mess. Sir Launcelot and many Knights have rescued the Queen and have taken her to Joyeous Guarde, and in the quick struggle Sir Gareth, and Sir Lynnette were slain.

Arthur. More woes! More woes! Where will this end?

Mordred. (To Sir Gwaine.) Now art thou satisfied?

Gwaine. (To Mess.) What! Thou liest! tell me my brothers be slain?

Mess. ’Tis true, Master, mine own eyes saw them dead.

Gwaine. Hell! who did the deed?

Mess. Sir Launcelot himself. He rode quick i’ the Court And lighted and hacked without looking at whom he met, to reach the Queen, whom bearing to horse, he stayed not to see who were dead or wounded but straight rode away.

Gwaine. This world or the next, he will answer me!

Hell! mine own two brothers, and all for a damned wench!

Queen or no, King, thou shalt answer here.

Yea, all shall answer for this damnÈd business.

Mordred. Yea, I will help thee. ’Twas most unnatural,

Who never harmed him, he should serve them so.

Gwaine. Launcelot, Launcelot, now I cast thee out,

One world won’t hold us!

Mordred. This works my way. O World, thou art moulding swift

To my poor vengeance!

(To Arthur.) Sire what wilt thou do?

Arthur. To arms, to arms, we’ll siege him in his hold.

’Tis death that cures dishonor. He will reap

The swift dread harvest of Heaven’s retribution.

Gwaine. Would Launcelot were but two men, I’d slay him twice.

’Twould suit my feelings.

[Curtain.

Enter two Gentlemen.

1st Gent. Were I the weaker kind, I’d trickle tears

For this poor kingdom. Hast thou seen the Pope’s bull?

2nd Gent. Yea, forbidding the carrying on of this strange war,

And commanding Arthur to take back his Queen,

And give Sir Launcelot passage from the Kingdom.

He be a wondrous Knight, this Launcelot.

’Tis pity this love o’ercame him.

Both pass out. Enter Vivien and Mordred.

Vivien. My heart grows hot to bring things to an issue.

Mordred. Patience! and thou wilt see the issue come.

Launcelot banished, Arthur follows after,

With blustering Gwaine, both ravening for war.

Arthur will leave me regent, then’s mine hour.

(Both pass on.) (Rise inner curtain.) (Enter Arthur, takes his state. Knights and Ladies. Trumpets blow without. Enter Launcelot with the Queen draped in black, with her Ladies. Launcelot leads the Queen, who stands. Launcelot kneels. Arthur averts his face. Launcelot speaks.)

Laun. Sire! by order of the Pope of Rome

And your most royal promise, here I bring

Unto your keeping Guinevere the Queen,

And dares one knight within these royal precincts

Impugn her chastity or queenliness,

I meet him with my body.

Arthur. Madam, I acknowledge you as Queen.

It is the will of Heaven. I submit.

But loving wife thou art no more to me.

Not Pope nor Prince can white thy black in this.

(Guinevere takes her state.)

Guin. Arthur of Britain, I answer thee, the King,

I am no more thy wife nor ever was,

Nor am I shamed as Queen to own the love

I’ve borne for Launcelot. In the coming world

He will be mine, as I am truly his.

I wronged thee not great Arthur, but ’twas thou

And hellish circumstance have wrecked my days.

’Tis the Queen’s answer, she will speak no more.

Arthur. Sir Launcelot Du Lake, arise! (Launcelot stands.)

Launcelot Du Lake, thou traitor knight,

Sinner against the honor of this realm,

I banish thee for ever from this kingdom,

On pain of foulest death, dost thou return.

Laun. Sire, I accept the issue.

Mordred. ’Tis but a gentle majesty that leans

To mercy such as this, were I thy king—

Gwaine. Yea, get thee quick. Fast as thou nearest France

We sail the faster. Thou shalt meet with Gwaine,

And pay his brothers’ spirits thou hast slain,

Thou foul lewd traitor!

Laun. Lord Arthur, thou hast reason to scorn me now,

And all thine anger stabs mine inward soul;

But now ’tis open I must tell thee true,

I love Queen Guinevere as mine own body,

And her alone will love unto my death,

As to none other. For this woeful love,

I’ll answer to my God who put it there,

And not to man, nor even to thee, proud King.

And yet I say it, yea with breaking heart,

I love thee, King, as doth no other man,

And did no hideous fate come in between

I had been thy Launcelot still.

Arthur. (Aside.) Great God! Now my heart breaketh.

(To Launcelot.) Begone, false Knight. ’Tis enough.

Laun. Yea yet a little, Sire, it is the end.

If Gwaine would hearken I would answer him

For his two brothers.

Gwaine. Nay, nay I’ll not hearken.

Laun. ’Tis ended then, but I would say to thee,

That nothing next to this most heavy matter,

The most dread, sorrowful matter in this poor world,

Hath grieved me so as that I did that deed.

All blinded with my sorrow for the Queen,

I knew not ’twas your brothers that I slew.

Gwaine. Nay, nay, blood, blood alone will answer.

Laun. (To the Queen.)

And thou sad Guinevere, thou Queen of women,

Sweetest of soul and form upon this earth,

I’ll look upon thy beauteous face no more.

Let womanhood blossom the days to come,

There never-more will be one like to thee.

(Bends and kisses her hand.) (Guinevere goes toward him.)

Guin. Launcelot, take me with thee, I am thine.

Arthur. And thou the Queen?

Guin. I am no Queen of realm save this man’s heart.

And where he treads, that land to me alone

Beloved of the kingdoms of this earth.

Oh! take me Launcelot, my Lord! my King!

Arthur. Ladies, the Queen to her apartments!

Laun. I would not shame thy kindness, Guinevere.

We were each others ere this world began,

And we together, unshamed yet will go

To meet our God, sweet Love farewell, farewell.

(Hurries out. The Queen borne slowly to her apartments weeping.)

Arthur. Oh, black brute Evil, why was Arthur born?

Now is all loveliness gone out from life.

Yea, I will sink. Nay, I am Arthur still.

The Kingly still, defying Hell and Fate.

To arms! to arms! Red battle is my mood.

Mordred. Yea, battle!

Gwaine. Yea, blood, for blood! my brothers’ spirits call.

Arthur. My heart awakens! Mordred, as my regent,

I leave thee filial keeper of my crown,

My queen and kingdom, while I wed with war,

And bring as issue, yon foul Launcelot’s doom.

Make my forces ready. France! is the word.

All. (Draw swords and shout.) Yea, battle!

[Curtain.

1st Gent. Hast heard the news? Mordred’s usurped the kingdom, hath seized the Queen, and backed by half the realm doth challenge Arthur to a warm homecoming. ’Tis said he hath plotted this long time and now hath proved his chances. How stand you in this most bitter struggle?

2nd Gent. I’m for Arthur and now for Dover and France this coming night.

1st Gent. Then I am with you. May we bring these shores

New peace from this usurper when we come.

[Exit both.

Arthur. I would I were on British soil again

This leaguer goes but feebly. I am sick

Of losing battles to this Launcelot,

Whose strength and prowess in far kinder days,

Was my heart’s pride. Arthur thy star grows dark.

Thou canst not keep the love of woman. Nay,

Men’s friendships turn to traitor on the lips.

Oh, Merlin; couldst thou now but see thine Arthur.

Enter Messenger.

Arthur. Well!

Mess. Sir Launcelot met Sir Gwaine beneath the wall.

And of all the bloody fights betwixt them two,

Which have enhorrored this ensanguined war,

This was the bloodiest.

Arthur. Speak on!

Mess. Sir Gwaine be mortal wounded, so it seemeth.

Arthur. Nay!

Mess. He even fought on after he was down,

Till his blade fell from out his palsied hand.

Arthur. This time maketh thrice that he hath been defeated,

And surely this will cool his fiery blood.

He is the strongest hater I have known

In all my royalty. He would as lief go

To Hell, so that his foe might forfeit Heaven.

Enter Gwaine, borne by Squires and Attendants.

Gwaine. Let me forth—forth, I say! Hell! catiffs, I be better now.

I would at him. Oh!

Attendants. Sire, if he rest not he will die.

The blood runneth from him in streams

So we cannot quench it, do he not lie still.

Gwaine. King, I be a shamed man. Damn this world!

I will shut it out o’ my knowledge. I be in pieces.

Arthur. Thou hast had enough, temper thy hates.

And do thy brothers more they lodge in Hell.

I am for England.

Gwaine. Nay, King, let me but once more.

Arthur. Thou canst scarce utter, thou wilt die.

Gwaine. Nay, I will stand his front so long as I may hold a blade, and shake it at him!

Enter a Messenger in great haste.

Arthur. Whence come you?

Mess. From England. Mordred hath made him King.

Arthur. Nay! nay!

Mess. ’Tis true, and seized the Queen.

Arthur. Great Heaven!

Mess. Even now he sitteth robed in thy late state,

And wieldeth puissance.

Gwaine. The damned hunchback!

Arthur. Oh World, would I were gone! My Queen untrue,

My heart’s best brother traitor, even my son,

Mine ill-got son doth rend me. Who would now

Hold fate with sunken Arthur?

(To the Messenger.) Be there more?

Mess. Nay, Sire, I came in haste at the first news,

Though it is said that he would wed the Queen.

Arthur. A thousand devils take him!—Nay, not that

Not that most foul completion!

Ho! Sir Hake, Sir Mark. Ho Knights without!

Enter Knights.

Arthur. Mordred’s usurped the kingdom. We must haste to England now. The siege is raised. Yea I will blot him out or make an end righting mine old glory.

Gwaine. (Borne out.) Now are my chances gone. Gwaine is disgraced. This is a world of woe. I’ll fight no more. But one more bout, and my sword might ha’ done it.

[Curtain.

1st Sol. Ho, without there!

2nd Sol. What news?

1st Sol. Arthur is back for England with all his forces, and the King hath sent an army to withstand his landing, and himself leaveth to-night to follow them.

2nd Sol. He be a rare King this Hunchback. He hath a marvellous power. His Knights be feared of him, but ’tis said he’s just.

1st Sol. He be not lawful got, ’tis said, but none can say his rule be foul.

2nd Sol. ’Tis said that the new Queen be a witch an’ hath holpen him wi’ her deviltries.

1st Sol. God save us if it be true! Yet it is safe to say; God save the King an’ Queen. ’Tis better to cry a witch Queen than to be split i’ the gullet.

2nd Sol. Yea wi’ plenty ale i’ the pewter and meat o’ the spit, no matter who queens or kings it, so says I. I’m for Mordred an’ the Witch.

1st Sol. So be I till the next change comes.

[Exit both.

Arthur. Ho! there without. (Enter a Page.) Send me Sir Bedivere.

[Exit Page.

Enter Sir Bedivere.

Arthur. Is all safe i’ the camp?

Sir B. Yea, Sire, the sentries are set and watch fires ablaze. And all ready for battle i’ the first dawn.

Arthur. What of the enemy?

Sir B. They be the same, Sire, all seemeth quiet i’ the camp.

Arthur. Remember all watchfulness, so there be no surprise. Thou canst go Bedivere, I would fain sleep.

Sir B. Yea, I go, Sire, and God keep thee this night.

Arthur. Stay, Knight, Arthur of England is a lonely man,

Betrayed of those who should have loved him best.

To-night perchance he fronts the brink of death,

In bloody battle for his rightful kingdom.

Take this ring, Knight, in memory of thy King,

(Gives him a ring.) Survive he not the morrow.

Sir B. God keep thee, Sire!

[Exit Sir Bedivere.