And stronger in your regency of soul;
It may be you do well to bear me hard,
And I do ill who think to counsel you;
’Tis no great matter; for in no great while
My weakness will be medicine to itself
And end as I do: no default of mine
But must by dying be curable; and God knows
I little think to live.
DARNLEY.
Why, have no fear;
You see I stand ‘twixt you and all such threat.
QUEEN.
Nay, I see not; but though you be my friend,
How far soever you stand out for me,
There is one threat that no man’s help in the world
Can bring to nothing; here it speaks in me
Mortal; I know the word inevitable
That without breath or sound has called me dead;
I would not plead against it.
DARNLEY.
Nay, you dream;
You jest or dream.
QUEEN.
I do not; I am dead;
What, have you slain in jest, or in a dream
Have I seen death and felt him in my flesh,
Felt my blood turn and my veins fill with death
And the pang pass and leave me as I am,
Dead? for my state is pangless, and my pain
Perished; I have no life to bring forth pain,
Or painful fruit of life; I think in pity
God willed one stroke of sheer mortality
Should kill all possible pain and fear in me,
All after chance of ill; I cannot die
Twice, and can live not with my dead self here
Violently slain; I am sure I have no child;
I would but pray, if I had breath to pray,
For mere shame’s sake and pity’s, I might have
My women with me; and was not born to want
What our most poor bare natural womanhood
Seeks not in vain of meanest people; more
I seek of no man’s mercy.
DARNLEY.
You shall have it;
But this is fear and shaken heart in you -
I trust not very danger.
QUEEN.
I that know
Must bear the peril and the sense alike
And patiently can bear, so but I have
Hope of your heart made soft towards me; sir,
Howe’er I have been untoward and confident
In my blind state and sovereign folly, now
God knows me if I have not need of love
Who have so much of pardon.
DARNLEY.
Is this sure,
Such instant and such perilous press of time -
Or but your thought it may be?
QUEEN.
Nay, my thought!
Is it my thought I am stricken to my death?
Is it my thought you have no pity of me?
Is it my thought I had looked at other time
For other joy of childbed, and such pangs
As bring glad women honour? not this death
That sunders me from fruit of mine own years
And youth and comfort, and mere natural hope,
And love that looks on many a worse than me?
Is it my thought that for small fault of mine,
And little lack of love and duteousness,
I am brought to shame and mortal chastisement?
Is it my thought love is not dead in me
For all this chastening? and my penitence
Wherewith I weep on my least wrong-doings past,
And faith wherewith I look for pardon yet,
For grace of you - is all this but my thought?
DARNLEY.
By heaven, I will not have you wronged of them.
You shall live safe and honourably.
QUEEN.
My lord,
Who lives in such times honourably or safe,
When change of will and violence mutable
Makes all state loose and rootless? Think you, men
Who have dipped their hands in this red act with you
Will, as they wash them, so wash off their hearts
The burning spot of raw malignity
And fire and hunger of ambition made
So proud and full of meat, so rank in strength,
So grossly fed and fattened with fresh blood?
Is it for love of your name more than mine
These men that fought against my love of you,
And made rebellious wars on my free choice,
Smite now my very head and crown of state
In this night’s hot and present stroke? Be sure
It is the throne, the name, the power in us
That here is stabbed and bleeds from such a wound
As draws out life of you no less than me
If you be part of majesty indeed.
Yea, howsoe’er you be now borne in hand,
They will but use you as an axe to smite,
A brand to set on fire the house of state
And in the doing be burnt up of itself.
Why, do but think with now more temperate blood
What are they that have helped you to this deed?
What friends to you? what faith toward royalty,
And what goodwill and surety of sound mind,
Have you found in them? or how put in proof?
What bond have their loves given you to confirm
Their hearts toward you stable? Nay, if this
Be all my pledge for honour and safe life,
They slide upon a slippery ground indeed.
DARNLEY.
The pledge is mine, not theirs; you have my word;
No warrant of their giving, but of me;
What ails you to go yet in fear of them?
QUEEN.
Alas, I know not whom I need yet fear.
What men were they who helped you to this deed?
Yet it avails not me to know. I think
The fierce first root of violence was not set
Of you nor of your uncles, though I know
They of your mother’s kinship love me not;
But though their hearts, albeit one blood with yours,
Be bitter toward me, yet being of your blood
I would fain think them not so hard; and yet
It was no gentle sight I had of them,
Nor usage; I can see their eyes burn still,
And their brows meet against me. Such a sight
Again might wind all suffering up in me
And give it full release.
DARNLEY.
It was their plot;
That is, for love of me they felt the offence
Eat at their hearts; I did not set them on;
But wrath and shame’s suspicion for my sake
Edged and envenomed; then your policies too,
And injuries done the popular weal, the state
So far mishandled; this was all men’s talk,
Mine uncle’s chiefly, Ruthven’s, and his word
Was hot in the ear of Maitland and Argyle,
Showing the wrong done and the further fear,
More wide in issue and large in likelihood
Than all wrong done already; nay, and plain;
You would have given the state up to strange hands,
And for strange ends; no dreaming doubt of mine,
But very vision, proof; they held it so;
And, by my faith, I with them.
QUEEN.
Morton too?
Was not his wit part of your wisdom?
DARNLEY.
Ay;
Why, all heads highest, all subtlest, could not choose
But be one judgment and one counsel here,
In such a biting need; yea, common fools,
Poor senseless knaves might see it
QUEEN.
Yea, visibly.
&nb
sp; The sharpest wits and hands put armour on
To go forth strong against me; little doubt
But fools and ignorance and the common mouth,
The very dust o’ the street, the dross of man,
Must needs take fire with blowing of such wind
And stir at such men’s passage: their mere feet
Moving would raise me up such enemies
From the bare ground. Ruthven - you said his breath
Was first to heat men’s hearing with strange words
And set their hearts on edge - and at his touch
The quick-eyed Maitland and loose-souled Argyle,
Keen to catch fire or fear from other men’s -
And the full-counselled Morton - by my life,
(That’s but a little oath now) I think strange
To be at all alive, and have such men
So sore unfriends and secret, and their wits
So sharp to set upon so slight a thing.
How grew this up amongst you?
DARNLEY.
Why, you see it;
No need to set men on; their swords were made
Of your own follies; yet have comfort; I,
That was so little made of, so less worth,
In your late judgment, will alone be guard
And buckler of you; come what counsel may,
It shall not hold against you with my will,
And cannot work without.
QUEEN.
Nay, that were hard.
I thank you; but what counsel will they take,
Think you, which way to deal with me? my soul
Is womanly distempered and distract
With doubts of them - no fear of your good mind,
Of your firm love and fruitful - but, alas,
I am no strong man as you my guard, and ache
With new faint fear of their fresh angers: then,
This watch on me, my ways and rooms barred up,
No help nor issue, shakes and sickens me
With pangs for every stroke in the hour, that says
I am so much more time prisoner.
DARNLEY.
For your guard,
It must be later taken off; the rest
I will find mean of help for. They are now
In council with your brother, new brought home
With seal from me of pardon to reverse
Your fresh and rash attainder, in my name
Now cancelled and made strengthless; and I think
There must three judgments be debated of;
Whether for hurt done to the common state
And treason to succession you must bear
Penance of death or life’s imprisonment,
Which fear not I will have them put in form
Nor see it pass upon you; the third mean
Is for some season that you be in ward
In Stirling Castle, till your warrant given
And free consent to this late justice done,
And to the new faith stablished in the realm
By right and rule of law, religiously,
And to mine own investiture as king.
Now for no fear at all or doubt of them
But very love and good desire toward you
I will go plead your part and take them sign
Of seasonable submission; with which word
I doubt not but to reconcile their thoughts
And bring their loves back bounden to your feet.
QUEEN.
Neither do I doubt. Let them draw this bond,
I will set hand to what they will of me;
To seal you king needs now no grace of mine,
Hardly my leave; and for their faith, it has
Too firm a foot for my poor power to shake,
Had I the will now molten in me strong
As ere the fire of fierce necessity
Had made it soft and edgeless; for their deed,
Say, if they hold my word of pardon worth
More than mere scorn, I am bound to thank them, being
Masters of me and of my wrath or will,
And needing show me no such courtesy;
And if it please them take mine oath and hand
To sign them safe and mark them from all charge
Sackless and scatheless, let them take it; alas,
I thought well they might rather take my life,
And yet I think well they would take indeed
But for your safeguard of me; would they not
Slay me? nay, by your honour tell me - nay,
I know they would, had I no guard in you,
Slay me defenceless.
DARNLEY.
Have no fear; I have sworn
They shall not touch you roughly.
QUEEN.
Swear again,
That I may quite rest confident; and yet
Swear not; I would not seem to hold you fast
To your own peril; better were I dead
Than you fell in their danger for my sake.
Ah, and I know not, I may hardly think
I have you surely on my side.
DARNLEY.
By heaven,
You shall want nothing of my help or love.
QUEEN.
How had you heart to go so near my death?
DARNLEY.
I had no mind to hurt you.
QUEEN.
None? well, none -
I will not think it; yet I was nigh dead.
You saw my very death here at my breast
Where your child is not yet - I did not think
To feel instead there murder’s iron lips
For his soft suckling mouth.
DARNLEY.
Come, think not of it.
QUEEN.
I had not time to think of it indeed.
But I think now you will have hardly power
To match your will to save me, if their will
Shall yet be mortal to me; then I saw
You had not power or had not will; and now
I know not which you have yet.
DARNLEY.
They shall find
I have power enough and will to turn them.
QUEEN.
Well -
I lean then on your hand. If you were mine,
Though they were subtler and more strong in hate,
They should not hold me here in peril.
DARNLEY.
How?
QUEEN.
No matter, so their guard were less on me.
DARNLEY.
You would take flight then?
QUEEN.
Ay, with you for wing
To lift me out of prison.
DARNLEY.
Whither?
QUEEN.
Nay,
I am but the fool of your keen flattering wit,
Who let you see my little hope that lives
To see my some day sunnier: yet God knows
Without light of you it were lustreless.
I can look forth not or heave up my hand
But with your help to stay me.
DARNLEY.
Surely no,
As you stand now you cannot; and I were
A faithless fool to mine own fortune, if
I loosed you out of sight for wantonness,
Who have you now in hand: but for all this
It may be flight were no such unwise mean
To assure our free and mutual power on them
And show them simply subject; as it is,
They have some show of hold on us which makes
Our reign and freedom questionable and slight:
I see some reason in it.
QUEEN.
Why, do you think
That you being here their gaoler in their eye
Can be their king too, or not rather they
Lords both of gaol and warder? they will hold you
But as the minister of their power o
n me,
Of no more office than a door-keeper
Nor honour than their headsman: but fled hence
You are very king indeed, by your own hand,
Lord of the life you give and majesty,
By no man’s furtherance and no grant of theirs
Made pensioner and proxy for their reign
Who should bear rule and you the semblance, worn
As mask of all their faces, glove of hands,
And hollow trumpet blown of all their mouths,
But mine and all their free and sovereign king.
DARNLEY.
Why, so I say; they must be borne in hand;
Look you, we must not set their fears on edge,
They shall suspect not: I will take them word,
And bring them to you for your bond.
QUEEN.
Meantime,
I will but walk an hour here hand in hand
With my good brother; let me speak to him
While they shall draw the schedule.
DARNLEY.
I will bid him
Attend you, and your women; but be sure
You take him not to counsel: he is wise,
And full of malice: let him not be part
Of our new mind.
QUEEN.
He shall not.
DARNLEY.
But you smile -
What should he do to know it?
QUEEN.
He shall not know.
DARNLEY.
Well, you shall see him, and they take off your guard;
I will make sure: but when and by what means
Think you to fly?
QUEEN.
To-night.
DARNLEY.
God help your wit!
To-night?
QUEEN.
Before the change of watch; I have said;
Weak as I stand, and burdened, and soul-spent,
I will be hence. Mistrust me not for strength;
My soul shall make my body like itself,
A servant armed to wait upon my thought
And page my purpose as its minister
Till the end be held in hand. This guard removed,
I will find ways out to win forth to-night,
Fear not, and servants. Go now to the lords
With all submissive mild report of me,
And bring them to receive my word and hand
To confirmation of what bond they please
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 207