Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 170
Yol.
Kind Cino! dost not look to be kissed for this now?
Cino.
Be something modest, prithee: it was never good time
Since the red ran out of the cheeks into the lips.
You are not patient; to see how a good man’s beard
May be worn out among you!
Anne.
Virtuous Cino!
Cino.
Tell me the right way from a fool to a woman,
I’ll tell thee why I eat spiced meat on Fridays.
Yol.
As many feet as take the world twice round, sweet,
Ere the fool come to the woman.
Cino.
I am mocked, verily;
None of these slippers but have lightened heels.
I’ll sit in a hole of the ground, and eat rank berries.
Yol.
Why, Cino?
Cino.
Because I would not have a swine’s mouth
And eat sweetmeats as ye do. It is a wonder in heaven
How women so nice-lipped, discreet of palate,
Should be as easy for a thief to kiss
As for a king’s son; like the common grass
That lets in any sun or rain, and wears
All favours the same way; it is a perfect wonder.
Yol.
A stole for Cino; pray for me, Fra Cino.
Cino.
Vex me not, woman; I renounce the works of thee.
I’ll give the serpent no meat, not my heel,
To sweeten his tooth on. I marvel how your mother
Died of her apple, seeing her own sense was
So more pernicious; the man got but lean parings,
And yet they hang too thick for him to swallow.
Well, for some three or four poor sakes of yours,
I’ll eat no honey.
Anne.
Wherefore no honey, Cino?
One saint ate honey before your head had eyes in it.
Cino.
I would not think of kissing, and it remembers me.
Here are two scraps of Venus’ nibbled meat;
Keep out of the dish, as ye respect me, children,
Let not love broil you on a gold spit for Sundays.
[They retire. Re-enter the King and Denise.
Ch.
Nay, as you will then.
Den.
Not for love indeed,
Not for love only, but your own fair name,
The costliness and very price of it,
I am bold to talk thus with you. The queen, suspicious
And tempered full of seasonable fears,
Does partly work me into this; truth is it,
There’s no such holy secret but she knows
As deep therein as any; all changes, hopes,
Wherewith the seed-time of this year goes heavy,
She holds and governs; and me, as all my fellows,
Has she fed up with shreds and relics thrown
From the full service and the board of time
Where she sits guest, and sees the feast borne through;
I have heard her say, with a sigh shaking her,
There’s none more bound to pray for you than she,
And her you love not; and how sore it seems
To see the poisons mingle in your mouth,
And not to stay them.
Ch.
Will she say that indeed?
Denise, I think if she be wise and kindly,
And mixed of mother’s very milk and love,
She would not say so.
Den.
I have a fear in me
She doubts your timely speed and spur of blood;
She thinks, being young, you shall but tax her care
And liberal grace with practice and weak tricks;
As thus, say, you conceive of me, fair lord,
As one set on and haled by golden will
(Such lust of hire as many souls hath burnt
Who wear no heat outside) to do you wrong,
To scourge and sting your lesser times with speech,
Trailing you over by some tender lies
On the queen’s party; which God doth well believe
To lie as far from me as snow from sun,
Or hence to the round sea.
Ch.
There’s no trick meant me?
Den.
I pray, sir, think if I, so poor in wit
The times rebuke me, and myself could chide
With mine own heaviness of head, be fit
To carry such a plot and spill none over
To show the water’s colour I bear with me?
All I lay care to is but talk of love,
And put love from me I am emptier
Than vessels broken in the use; I am sorry
That where I would fain show some good, work somehow
To suit with reason, I am thrown out merely,
And prove no help; all other women’s praise
Makes part up of my blame, and things of least account
In them are all my praises. God help some!
If women so much loving were kept wise,
It were a world to live in.
Ch.
Poor Denise,
She loves not then so wisely? yea, sweet thing?
Den.
Did I say that? nay, by God’s light, my lord,
It was ill jested — was not — verily,
I see not whether I spake truth or no.
Ch.
Ay, you play both sides on me?
Den.
It may prove so.
I am an ill player, for truly between times
It turns my heart sick.
Ch.
Fear when one plays false, then.
Den.
As good play false when I make play so hardly.
My hand is hurt, sir; I’ll no more with you.
Ch.
Will you so cheat me?
Den.
Even so; God quit you, sir!
But pardon me; and yet no pardon, for
I’ll have no stay to find it: were pardon at my feet,
I would not bow to gather it. Farewell.
[Exit Denise.
Ch.
Even so? but I’ll have reason; eh, sweet mouth?
But I’ll have reason of her, my Denise;
How such can love one! all that pains to talk!
What way ran out that rhyme I spun for her?
To do just good to me, that talk! sweet pains.
Yea, thus it fell:
Dieu dit — yea, so it fell.
Dieu dit; Choisis; tu dois mourir;
Le monde vaut bien une femme.
L’amour passe et fait bien souffrir.
C’est ce que Dieu me dit, madame.
Moi, je dis à Dieu; Je ne veux,
Mon Dieu, que l’avoir dans ma couche,
La baiser dans ses beaux cheveux,
La baiser dans sa belle bouche.
[Exit the King.
Yol.
Now, Cino?
Cino.
I am considering of that apple still;
It hangs in the mouth yet sorely; I would fain know too
Why nettles are not good to eat raw. Come, children,
Come, my sweet scraps; come, painted pieces; come.
Anne.
On after him; he is lean of speech and moody;
Cunning for ill words at such winter-seasons
That come i’ the snow like bitter berries. On.
[Exeunt.
Scene II.
In the Louvre.
Enter King Henry and Margaret.
Mar.
Yea, let him say his will.
Hen.
I will not bear him.
This temperance grows half shame.
Mar.
I doubt God hath
Fashioned our brother of like earth and fire
As mould
s you up; be patient; bear with him
Some inches past your humour’s mark.
Hen.
Bear what?
By God I will have reason: tell me not;
I love you with the soundest nerve i’ the heart,
The cleanest part of blood in it; but him
Even to the sharpest edge and tooth of hate
That blood doth war upon.
Mar.
Keep in this chafe;
Put me in counsel with you.
Hen.
It is no matter.
Mar.
I never saw yet how you love and hate.
Are you turned bitter to me? all old words
Buried past reach for grief to feed upon
As on dead friends? nay, but if this be, too,
Stand you my friend; there is no crown i’ the world
So good as patience; neither is any peace
That God puts in our lips to drink as wine,
More honey-pure, more worthy love’s own praise,
Than that sweet-souled endurance which makes clean
The iron hands of anger. A man being smitten
That washes his abuséd cheek with blood
Purges it nothing, gets no good at all,
But is twice punished, and his insult wears
A double colour; for where but one red was
Another blots it over. Such mere heat
I’ the brain and hand, even for a little stain,
A summer insolence and waspish wound,
Hurts honour to the heart, and makes that rent
That none so gracious medicine made of earth
Can heal and shut like patience. The gentle God
That made us out of pain endurable
And childbirth comforts, willed but mark therein
How life, being perfect, should keep even hand
Between a suffering and a flattered sense,
Not fail for either.
Hen.
You do think sweetly of him;
But on this matter I could preach you out.
For see, God made us weak and marred with shame
Our mixed conception, to this end that we
Should wear remembrance each alike, and carry
Strait equal raiment of humility;
Not bare base cheeks for wrong to spit across,
Nor vex his print in us with such foul colours
As would make bondsmen blush.
Mar.
Let him slip wrong,
So you do reason; if such a half-king’d man
Turn gross or wag lewd lips at you, for that
Must anger strike us fool? ’Tis not the stamp,
The purity and record of true blood,
That makes Christ fair, but piteous humbleness,
Wherein God witnesses for him, no prince
Except a peasant and so poor a man
God gives him painful bread, and for all wine
Doth feed him on sharp salt of simple tears
And bitter fast of blood.
Hen.
Yea, well; yea, well;
And I am patient with you Catholics;
But this was God’s sweet son, nothing like me,
Who have to get my right and wear it through
Unhelped of justice; all do me wrong but I,
And right I’ll make me.
Mar.
But all this wording-time
I am not perfect where this wrong began;
Last night it had no formal face to show,
That’s now full-featured.
Hen.
Ah! no matter, sweet;
Nothing, pure nought.
Mar.
Have you no shame then current
To pay this anger? Nay, as you are my lord,
I’ll pluck it out by the lips.
Hen.
A breath, a threat,
A gesture, garment pulled this way; nothing.
Mar.
You do me wrong, sir, wrong.
Hen.
Well, thus then it fell out;
By God, though, when I turn to think on it,
Shame takes me by the throat again; well, thus.
King Charles, being red up to the eyes with wine,
In the queen’s garden, meeting me — as chance
Took me to walk six paces with some girl,
Some damozel the queen’s choice dwells upon,
Strayed somehow from the broader presence —
Mar.
Well —
Hen.
I swear to you by faith and faith’s pure lip
That I know — that I did not hear her name
Save of his mouth.
Mar.
I did not ask her name.
Hen.
Nor do I well remember it; forgive,
I think it was not —
Mar.
Pass.
Hen.
Alys de Saulx —
Mar.
Marshal Tavannes has no such name akin.
Hen.
There’s Anne de Saulx wears longest hair of all;
A maid with grey grave eyes — a right fair thing;
Not she, I doubt me.
Mar.
Worse for you, my lord.
Hen.
Ay, worse. Diane de Villequier is tall —
Mar.
Are we at riddles? — Agnès de Bacqueville?
Hen.
Some such name, surely; either Châteauroux —
Mar.
Her name? as I am wedded woman, sir,
I know you have it hidden in your mouth
Like sugar; tell me; take it on the lip.
Hen.
There was a D in it that kissed an M.
Mar.
Denise? a white long woman with thick hair,
Gold, where the sun comes?
Hen.
Ay, to the ends clean gold.
Mar.
Yea, not the lightest thing she has, that hair.
Hen.
You hold for true —
Mar.
We have time to come for her.
Keep in your story.
Hen.
Nought, mere nought to tell:
This just; the king comes, pulls her hand from mine —
Mar.
Ah! no more shame?
Hen.
No more in him than that;
Plucked her as hard —
Mar.
As she was glad to go.
Hen.
Not so; she trembled to the feet, went white,
Spoke hardly —
Mar.
Kept one hand of them your way?
Hen.
Charles caught her wrist up, muttered next her ear,
Bade me leave care —
Mar.
Nay, here’s more fool than we.
Enter Cino.
Cino.
The world was a wise man when he lived by bread only;
There be sweet tricks now. How does my worthy sister?
Mar.
Not so much ill as to cease thanks for it.
How does thy cap, fool?
Cino.
Warm, I thank it, warm;
I need not wear it patched as much as faith.
I am fallen sick of heavy head; sad, sad;
I am as sick as Lent.
Mar.
Dull, dull as dust;
Thou hadst some nerve i’ the tongue.
Cino.
Why, I am old;
This white fool three days older in my beard
Than is your wedding. But be not you cast down;
For the mere sting is honourable in wedlock,
And the gall salve: therefore I say, praise God.
Hen.
We do not catch thy sense.
Cino.
Let my sense be;
I say I could weep off mine eye-cases,
But for pity of
some ladies who would run mad then.
Do not you meddle.
Mar.
What wisdom mak’st thou here?
Cino.
Why, a fool’s wisdom, to change wit with blocks.
You were late railing; were she that you did gibe
Clean as her mother made, I tell you verily
The whitest point on you were grime and soil
To her fair footsole.
Mar.
Ay, but she’s none such.
Cino.
I care not what she be; do you not gibe,
I care no whit. Let her take twelve or six,
And waste the wicked’st part of time on them,
She doth outstand you by ten elbow-lengths.
Hen.
Hath love not played the knave with this fool’s eyes?
Cino.
Let that lie shut, and put you thumb to lip;
For kings are bone and blood; put flesh to that,
You have the rind and raiment of a man.
If you be wise, stay wise, even for my sake;
Learn to lie smooth, be piteous and abashed,
And though dirt fall upon your faith and you
Keep your ear sober, chide not with its news,
And use endurance well; so shall he thrive,
That being a king doth crouch, and free doth wive.
Farewell, fair king.
[Exit Cino
Hen.
This fool is wried with wine.
Mar.
French air hath nipped his brains; what ailed my mother
To have him north?
Hen.
You bring her in my mind;
Have you no service on the queen to-day?
Mar.