The Tragedy of Arthur: A Novel

by Arthur Phillips

boat!

  DENTON

  I like thee now thy fire’s cooled from time thou wert

  glory’s bawcock.5

  BELL

  I am not afraid.

  DENTON

  Then thou art no man. The noise is there to fear.

  BELL

  I am not fearing. Not much. I only would stop. My

  guts do dance.

  SUMNER

  And half the men’s step live to dance with thine.

  There’s a devil’s fever aboard our merry squiff,6 and

  and we will set to land with fewer hands than took to

  took to Ireland.

  BELL

  I will not number nor make plaint of the count nor any

  mischance yet to come, if we but greet the land.

  [VOICES OFF]

  Humber’s mouth! Humber’s mouth!—Strike her!7

  DENTON

  Then here is land for thee and I wish thee every joy

  awaiting, Bell. Here’s land as thou wouldst wish, but

  thou’lt soon call back the ship, for up there is

  nought but the cannon’s jaws set to prattling.

  BELL

  I’ll up, beshrew the cannon, beshrew the rain.

  DENTON

  The cold-forged nails.

  BELL

  Aye, the nails, beshrew the nails, I’ll be gladly wet in

  the first boat that drops and points toward the green.

  SUMNER

  And we behind you, lad. Lead on.

  Exeunt

  ACT V, SCENE III

  [Location: The English camp on the Humber River]

  Enter Arthur

  ARTHUR

  Our backs are pressed to th’raging Humber’s waves;

  There is no way but forward, as in life.

  Our feet are pulled into this water-turf,

  So eager is some fate to see us earthed.

  What chronicle will soon be writ of us

  In this so yielding and unyielding ooze?

  Is this the promised end to such a realm

  As I had built upon my father’s wars?

  If Arthur’s story ends in quaggy1 field,

  How will it play and how best fill a stage?

  Some sermoner2 for epilogue intones:

  “Deserving nought of fortune’s gifts to him,

  He squandered them in rage and lust and haste.”

  It is not right for right:3 the stain of birth

  Was ne’er forgot nor ne’er forgave in me,

  No matter I upraised a gloried realm.

  No vantage e’er was granted me but I

  Must front4 battalions of others’ wills:

  The rival kings and discontented lords!

  I could have fled to France, or shepherd’s life,

  And this gray night be lost with Guenhera.

  ’Twere offered me anew, I would abjure.

  Abjuring, I would choose to live in peace.

  In peace, I might escape this grip of shame,

  A shame that I have failed to be myself,

  And yet that self can only be a king,

  So abjuration is forbidden me.

  I am no author of my history.

  What man knows aught of his own chronicle?

  Or kens5 what ill tomorrow hides for him?

  So let us greet headlong—if mud allows—

  Such end as heaven will: I will not wait.

  Enter Gloucester, Cumbria, Cornwall, etc.

  My lords, well met this night for promenade!

  I was but now considering my joy

  To find myself again with you beside.

  How shall we to the queen, by foot or boat,

  Or dangling each from tercel-gentle’s6 talons?

  CORNWALL

  My king, our pikes stand recklessly enranked.

  We yield all vantage an we fight from here.

  GLOUCESTER

  Nor hoof nor boot might hope to leave this field:

  Advance in mud or else retire in waves.

  CUMBRIA

  We want for arrows and our carriages

  Of culverin are sunken to their caps.7

  ARTHUR

  I would a fletcher8 and a gardener,

  Good friends, appear from air, or heaven’s car9

  Might tumble from above to scorch this mud.

  But Constantine, my queen, thy sister, weeps

  For thee and me an arrow’s weak flight hence.

  If any here do quail at mud, then go

  With love and venge my death another day.

  Come dawn—if sun can pierce these Yorkish clouds—

  I will alone trudge through this birdlime muck,

  Encouched up to the chest if God desire,

  To fetch my queen and heir, and give the fico10

  To these o’ertopping11 dung-breathed caterans.12—

  Enter Ambassadors

  Be brief, good men, you interrupt our work

  Wherein we plot your havoc and despair.

  FIRST AMB.

  You brave good humor, King, despite of war,

  And we from Mordred bring yet more relief.

  Aware that you most dangerously are placed,

  And wishing in his love for you no ill,

  He offers you your bastard and your queen.

  ARTHUR

  ’Tis well: he yields to us. We do accept.

  Go set them free and we will spare your lives.

  SECOND AMB.

  Nay: interchangeably, you abdicate.

  You must forsake your child, and he his rights,

  The queen forsake her rights, and any birth.

  All this does Mordred grant you in your peril.

  FIRST AMB.

  Else menaces most pitiless fell war,

  The end of which you will not live to see,

  And ere the first blow’s struck, the queen will die.

  ARTHUR

  I abdicate or Mordred slaughters her?

  Is’t he who whets his blade against her throat?

  And you will gladly serve such king as this?

  What men are you that speak a tyrant’s words?

  You will pay forfeit of your embassy.

  GLOUCESTER

  But hesitate to anger, King, and know

  We are o’ermanned13 and fever gnaws our ranks.

  ARTHUR

  Must I unqueen the queen to buy her life,

  Unking the king, depose myself for Picts?

  CUMBRIA

  A kingdom for a queen? In chess perhaps.

  I give no faith in this that if we yield,

  The queen will live or we will leave this field.

  ’Tis sure there be more queens to woo and wed

  And other heirs that you can litter out.

  CORNWALL

  Nay, Mordred dare not spill such holy blood.—

  [To Ambassadors] Go tell your king I’ll front him brow to brow

  And singly14 fight with him by lance or sword,

  With queen and all this island at the prize.

  ARTHUR

  Good Constantine, enough: we are engirt.15

  Content ourselves, my brothers, this must be.

  I would lose kingdoms, e’en my own, for her,

  And ne’er would kill her in my wilful pride.—

  [To Ambassadors] He must grant terms protecting all my men.

  SECOND AMB.

  To all who yield he swears his clemency.

  Enter scout

  CUMBRIA

  But, lo, here’s panting word that wants for ear.

  SCOUT

  Your Majesty, the enemy’s abroach16

  In two large wings that hawk-like spread themselves

  And will in rapid minutes close us up.

  ARTHUR

  Speak that again: doth Mordred now attack

  While we do entertain his embassies?

  GLOUCESTER

  The night’s too black to see with certainty,

  And mud gives no pref
erment to the Pict.

  No stratagem of men can sweep with haste

  Across this hellish fog and bubbling mire.

  Tell slower now what thine own eyes did spy.

  CUMBRIA

  By dark night’s coverture they creep at us

  While embassies do talk us to our beds!

  This crime doth disannul civility.

  FIRST AMB.

  Good king, I swear, we know of this no word.

  No action can begin ere we return.

  CUMBRIA

  They lie. Within these bags of flesh and wind

  Intelligence does nook17 and it must flow.

  Large secrets want large outlets to escape

  So we must loosely pierce and vent their hides.

  SECOND AMB.

  I vow, fair majesty, this cannot be.

  ARTHUR

  I fain18 had given kingdoms to the wolf,

  But now I’ll send you on your way to hell.

  [He kills Ambassadors]

  FIRST AMB.

  No! No! Unjust!

  SECOND AMB.

  O, villainy! I die!

  GLOUCESTER

  What crazèdness! In haste you slay the queen

  And slay us all!

  ARTHUR

  You are a woman, Duke!

  Now thundering into this mud and bog

  We march ere Mordred’s slavering jaws do lock.

  To arms! To arms! And arm yourselves with hate!

  Hot rage now wing us o’er this drowning field!

  Let fly the mangonels!19 Swing, trebuchets!20

  Belch fire, cannon, lift us on your breath

  And speed us to the queen or to our death!

  Exeunt with charges

  [ACT V,] SCENE IV

  [Location: The Pictish camp]

  Enter Mordred, Guenhera, Philip, Pictish soldiers

  MORDRED

  What noise is this? What motion is begun?

  Wherefore are not my embassies sped home?

  FIRST SOLDIER

  Th’usurper’s massed battalia shoulder through

  The swamp and murk of night with mighty speed.

  Our wings are far advanced but close on air.1

  MORDRED

  He spurns our embassy and hies to fight?

  He offers nothing for these ransomed lives

  But values them beneath his throne and glory?—

  [To Guen. or Philip] Your king doth sooner laugh and greet your corpse

  Than change his crown for safe exile with you.

  ’Tis his command and he who chooseth now.—

  These two are proofed unvalued currency.2

  They serve no further use that I can see.

  Though sure I will require this day a queen

  She’ll not be this unstaid3 and misproud4 stale.5

  [To Soldier] I would thou trad’st6 upon them now. I go.

  FIRST SOLDIER

  The child beside its mother dies the same?

  MORDRED

  ’Tis sure the poison’s thickest in the young.7

  Exit Mordred

  PHILIP

  This cannot be. Call back these fearful words.

  GUENHERA

  What is your name, O gentle knight?

  FIRST SOLDIER

  But choose.

  GUENHERA

  I would choose one who’s spoken of in verse,

  Whom poets praise for courtesy and grace,

  A name befitting one who nobly fights

  And never would do harm to innocents.

  FIRST SOLDIER

  Then choose such name for me. That is no matter.

  Prepare yourself howe’er you will: time’s brief.

  GUENHERA

  I am prepared. Art thou? Thine act’s thine own.

  FIRST SOLDIER

  I would not have it any other wise.

  PHILIP

  In killing me you disobey your king.

  Your king would have you cut off Arthur’s line,

  But I am not of Arthur’s blood or seed

  Nor am no heir nor can endanger you.

  GUENHERA

  The boy speaks plainsong,8 sooth, and ought be freed.

  FIRST SOLDIER

  And you are not the queen, nor that the sky,

  For queens reside in London not in mud,

  The sky, being often blue, cannot be black,

  And all these things being other than they are,

  It’s best we think no more, or never act.

  GUENHERA

  To slay anointed queen gives thee no pause,

  Then contemplate before this foolish boy:

  His face and mad outrageous circumstance

  Must pluck forth pity e’en from blackest heart.

  FIRST SOLDIER

  How often do I hear of pity spake,

  Yet glean no sense of what the word must be.

  It seems a kind of shriek or bootless prayer.

  GUENHERA