Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 219
QUEEN.
Ah! my heart -
It wrings me here in passing; pardon me.
BOTHWELL.
God’s lightning burn them! will they mar me now?
Aside, and exit.
DARNLEY.
Heard you no noise?
ARGYLE.
Where?
QUEEN.
Some one stirred below;
A chair thrown down or such-like.
DARNLEY.
Nay, I caught
A rush and rattle as -
CASSILIS.
Of pebble-stones?
DARNLEY.
Where is my lord gone forth?
QUEEN.
Why are you moved?
DARNLEY.
I am not moved; I am no fearful fool
To shake and whiten as a winter tree
With no more wind than this is.
QUEEN.
Do you think
It is your counsellor come back in wrath
To warn again and threaten?
DARNLEY.
Nay, for him
I think he hath learnt a lesson of my rede
To vex his soul and trouble me no more.
Re-enter Bothwell
QUEEN.
What deadly news now of what danger, sir?
BOTHWELL.
Some fellow bearing faggots for the fire
Slipt at the threshold: I have admonished him
What din his knaveship made even in our ears
As if he had the devil there in his hands.
QUEEN aside.
It was of them?
BOTHWELL aside.
Ay, hell take hold on them,
It was their din, God thank them for it with fire,
Our careful helpers; but I have made them safe:
The train is wellnigh laid now: what remains
To strew I have charged them shed without more sound
Than where the snow strikes.
DARNLEY.
Must you part indeed?
QUEEN.
They look for us ere long.
DARNLEY.
Now know I not
What I would give to hold you here a night,
Even half my life I think, and know not why.
QUEEN.
That were too much. I slept here yesterday;
Were you the better for me?
DARNLEY.
Ay, and no;
I deemed I was the better till I slept,
And then -
QUEEN.
Why, did my being here break your sleep?
It shall not break to-night then.
Enter Paris, and stands at the door
BOTHWELL aside to Argyle.
Time is come;
Touch him, and give the sign.
DARNLEY.
The air turns sharp;
There came a wind as chill as from the pit.
Why do you fix your eyes so fast on me?
QUEEN.
Not out of mind to mar your sleep again.
DARNLEY.
I will not sleep alone.
QUEEN.
Ay, will you not?
The town looks like a smoke whose flame is out,
Deformed of night, defaced and featureless,
Dull as the dead fume of a fallen fire.
There starts out of the cloud a climbing star,
And there is caught and slain.
DARNLEY.
Why gaze you so?
QUEEN.
I looked to see if there should rise again
Out of its timeless grave the mounting light
That so was overtaken. We must part;
Keep with this kiss this ring again for me
Till I shall ask it of you; and good night.
DARNLEY.
A good night it may be to folk that feast;
I see not how it shall be good to me.
QUEEN.
It may be better. I must be some hour
Again among the masquers: you that sleep
Shall hear no noise and see no company.
Enter Nelson
For this one night here comes your chamberlain:
Good rest with you. ’Twas just this time last year
David was slain.
DARNLEY.
Why tell you me of that?
QUEEN.
This very time as now. Good night, my lord.
Exeunt all but Darnley and Nelson.
DARNLEY.
What folk remain by me?
NELSON.
Sir, four of us:
Myself and Seymour, Taylor and his boy.
DARNLEY.
Let Taylor sleep here in my room to-night,
You three in the south gallery.
NELSON.
Well, my lord.
DARNLEY.
I am left here very lonely. She was kind,
Most kind she was; but what should make her speak
Of David’s slaying?
NELSON.
A word that shot by chance;
A shaft of thought that grazed her and flew by.
DARNLEY.
Why should she tell me of it? My heart runs low;
As if my blood beat out of tune with life,
I feel the veins shuddering shrink in, and all
My body seems a burden to my soul.
Come, I will think not that way.
Re-enter Paris
PARIS.
Sir, the queen,
Having forgot for haste in parting hence
Her outer cloak of fur, hath sent me for it,
Lest this night’s weather strike her blood acold.
DARNLEY.
Take it and go.
(Exit Paris.)
I do not like their eyes,
These foreign folk’s that serve her. Is it cold?
I feel cold here.
NELSON.
A fair sharp night, my lord;
And the air less cumbered than it was with cloud.
DARNLEY.
I find no night of all nights fair to me;
I am sick here at my heart all the dark hours.
Give me the book there. Ay, my book of psalms?
What day is this?
NELSON.
The ninth of February.
DARNLEY.
How says it of God’s foes, they were afraid
Where no fear was? That am not I: my fear
Dies without food. I am not as were these.
I prithee tell me, of thine honest heart,
Think’st thou I have no cause to feed my fear,
Or keep the bitter life in it alive?
NELSON.
I know not, sir; but what you give it of food
Is so much taken from your health of heart
That goes to starve your spirit of likely life.
DARNLEY.
Why then I will not feed it with false thoughts.
Call here my chamber-fellow. If the heart
Enter Taylor
Be but the servant of chance cold and heat,
And the brain bear not rule upon the blood,
We are beasts who call us men. Thomas, good night.
Exit Nelson.
What, shall we watch awhile?
TAYLOR.
So please your grace.
DARNLEY.
I have more mind to sleep than power to sleep;
Some unrest in me fights against my rest.
Come hither, Will. Of all thy fellows here
I think thou lov’st me; fain am I to think;
I would not live unloved of all men born;
I hope I shall not. Dost thou feel to-night
Thy living blood and spirit at ease in thee?
TAYLOR.
Surely, my lord.
DARNLEY.
I would thy lord did too.
This is a bitter writing where he saith
How in his prayer he mourns, and hath his heart
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Disquieted within him; and again,
The fear of death is fallen upon him, see,
And fearfulness and trembling, as is writ,
Are come upon him, and an horrible dread
Hath him o’erwhelmed: O that I had, saith he,
Wings like a dove! then would I flee away,
And be at rest; would get me then far off
And bide within the wilderness, it saith,
I would make haste to escape. Lo, here am I,
That bide as in a wilderness indeed
And have not wings to bear me forth of fear.
Nor is it an open enemy, he saith,
Hath done me this dishonour: (what hath put
This deadly scripture in mine eye to-night?)
For then I could have borne it; but it was
Even thou, mine own familiar friend, with whom
I took sweet counsel; in the house of God
We walked as friends. Ay, in God’s house it was
That we joined hands, even she, my wife and I,
Who took but now sweet counsel mouth to mouth
And kissed as friends together. Wouldst thou think,
She set this ring at parting on my hand
And to my lips her lips? and then she spake
Words of that last year’s slaughter. O God, God,
I know not if it be not of thy will
My heart begins to pass into her heart,
Mine eye to read within her eye, and find
Therein a deadlier scripture. Must it be
That I so late should waken, and so young
Die? for I wake as out of sleep to death.
Is there no hand or heart on earth to help?
Mother! my mother! hast thou heart nor hand
To save thy son, to take me hence away,
Far off, and hide me? But I was thy son,
That lay between thy breasts and drank of thee,
And I thy son it is they seek to slay.
My God, my God, how shall they murder me?
TAYLOR.
I pray you, comfort your own heart, my lord;
Your passion drives your manhood out of you.
DARNLEY.
I know it doth; I am hare-hearted, for
The hunters are upon me. There - and there -
I hear them questing. I shall die, man - die,
And never see the sun more; ay, this hour
Will they come in and slay me. O great God,
Sweet Jesus, will you have me die this death,
Such death as never man before has died?
See how they will not let me pray to you
To take my soul out of their fangs and hell -
Will you not make the sun rise for my sake
That I may see you in the dawn and live
And know the grace that God hath ere I die?
TAYLOR.
Sir, for God’s love -
DARNLEY.
I say I hear their feet —
Thou hast no ears - God hath no ears for me
Nor eyes to look upon me - hands he hath,
Their bloody hands to smite with, and her heart
Is his toward me to slay me. Let them come;
How do men die? but I so trapped alive -
O, I shall die a dog’s death and no man’s.
Mary, by Christ whose mother’s was your name,
Slay me not! God, turn off from me that heart -
Out of her hands, God, God, deliver me!
Dramatis Personæ
Mary Stuart.
Mary Beaton.
Mary Seyton.
Mary Carmichael.
Jane Gordon, Countess of Bothwell.
Janet Stuart, Countess of Argyle.
Margaret Lady Douglas of Lochleven.
Lady Reres.
Henry Lord Darnley, King Consorts
James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell.
James Stuart, Earl of Murray.
James Douglas, Earl of Morton.
William Maitland of Lethington, Secretary of State.
John Knox.
David Rizzio.
The Earls of Huntley, Argyle, Caithness, Rothes, Cassilis, Athol, and Mar.
Lords Herries, Lindsay, Ruthven, Fleming, Seyton, Boyd, Ochiltree, Hume,
Arbroath, and Maxwell.
The younger Ruthven.
The Master of Ochiltree, son to Lord Ochiltree.
The Master of Maxwell, son to Lord Herries.
Sir James Melville.
Sir Robert Melville.
Sir George Douglas, uncle to Darnley.
Sir William Douglas of Lochleven.
George Douglas, his brother.
Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange.
Lord Robert Stuart, Abbot of St. Cross.
Du Croc, Ambassador from France.
Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, Ambassador from England.
John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrew’s.
John Leslie, Bishop of Ross.
Arthur Erskine, Captain of the Guard.
Anthony Standen and Stuart of Traquair, Equerries.
John Erskine of Dun.
Andrew Ker of Fauldonside.
Henry Drummond of Ricarton.
Archibald Beaton.
John Hepburn of Bolton, Ormiston, Hay of Talla, Conspirators with Bothwell.
Crawford, Nelson, Taylor, servants to Darnley.
Nicholas Hubert, surnamed Paris, servant to Bothwell.
The Provost of Edinburgh.
Robert Cunningham, steward to the Earl of Lennox.
Page and Girl attending on Lady Lochleven.
Burgesses, Citizens, Soldiers, Attendants, etc.
Time - March 9, 1566, to May 16, 1568
ACT III
Jane Gordon
Time: from February 10 to June 11, 1567
Scene I. Bothwell’s Apartment in Holyrood
Bothwell, Ormiston, Hepburn of Bolton, and other Gentlemen
BOTHWELL.
Is my knave sent for to me from the queen?
HEPBURN.
Ay, my good lord.
BOTHWELL.
I had happier thoughts of him
Who served us but unhappily last night:
This Paris had been faithful, and his tongue
That might have struck a sting into my fame
Had done me loyal service, and let fly
No word to bring me in disgrace of men
When I stood friendless; for which cause ye know
I gave him place with the queen’s chamberlains
And promise of more furtherance; but this thing
Has turned his six years’ service into dust
And made his faith as running water slip
Between my hands that held it for a staff;
For since I first brake with him of the deed
He hath been for fear besotted like a beast.
ORMISTON.
‘Faith, he was heavy enough of cheer last night,
When you came forth, and the queen parted thence
And hither to the bridal.
BOTHWELL.
By this hand,
I came upon him glooming and withdrawn
Up in a nook with face as of one hanged,
And asked what ailed him to put on that gloom
Or make such countenance there before the queen?
And I would handle him in such sort, I said,
As he was never in his life; by God,
I had the mind to do it; and he, My lord,
I care not what thing now ye do to me,
And craved he might get thence to bed, as sick,
But that I would not: then as ye twain saw
When came the wind and thunder of the blast
That blew the fool forth who took wing for death,
Down my knave drops me flatlong, with his hair
Aghast as hedgehogs’ prickles, and Alas,
My lord, what thing is this? and He had seen
Great e
nterprises, marry, and many of them,
But never one that scared him so as this;
And such a thing would never have good end,
And I should see it; by God I had a will
To have set my dagger here into him, but yet
I drew it not forth.
ORMISTON.
I doubt you did not well;
’Tis of such stuff that time makes talebearers.
BOTHWELL.
I would not strike him for old service’ sake,
Were he more dangerous to me; but, God help,
What hurt here can he do us? I tell you, sirs,
I think my star that was not swift to rise
But hung this long time strangled in dead cloud
Is even by this a fire in heaven, and hath
The heat and light in it of this dead man’s
That it hath drunk up as a dew-drop drawn
Into the red mid heat of its own heart;
And ye that walk by light of it shall stand
With morning on the footless mountain-tops
Crowned.
HEPBURN.
There are crags yet slippery to be clomb
And scaurs to rend their knees and feet who rise.
BOTHWELL.
I have my hand here on the throat of time,
And hold mine hour of fortune by the hair.