Made dim with factions; only majesty
With light of bared and kindled brows and eyes
Can face them to consume; do you but show
Your soul as high as is your crown, and power
As plain as is your cause, you shall enforce
By resolution and a forthright will
The obedience and the allowance of these men
That would constrain you by the fear of them
Within the limit of their leave. I say,
Proclaim at once the fore-ordained divorce
Between his sometime lady and my lord
And hard thereon your marriage, as compelled
By perilous instance of necessity
At once to assure you of a husband’s help
And present strength in this your need, who stand
Fenceless and forceless with no man for stay,
And could desire none truer and worthier trust
Than him whose service done and valiant name
May warrant your remission of such fault
As men lay on him for the seeming force
With which unwillingly he stood constrained
To save you even for love’s sake from their hands
Whence had not he redeemed you as by might
They had done you worse wrong than he seemed to do.
This shall excuse the speed that you put on
And leave their hands no time to rise that would
Prevent you, being unmarried; and your own,
Forestalling them, shall take again and steer
The helm of this land’s general weal, else left
To their cross guidance and false pilotage.
BOTHWELL.
By God, well said and counselled.
QUEEN.
All is well,
Or shall, if but one thing be; and in you
That lies alone of all men. Nay, you know it;
Wrong me not now to ask.
BOTHWELL.
Wrong you not me,
To cross my wit with riddles, which you know
From no man’s lips I love.
QUEEN.
I know not yet
If there be nought on any lips that live
Save mine that you love better: I can tell
Too little of your likings.
BOTHWELL.
Be not wroth
That thus much of them I desire you learn,
And set your heart to it, once being schooled - fair queen,
These are no chambering times, nor sit we here
To sing love’s catches counter-changed with words
That cross and break in kisses: what you will,
Be swift to speak, or silent.
QUEEN.
What I will?
I will be sure there hangs about your heart
No thought that bound it once to one cut off
And yet may feed it with desire to share
What is my treasure and my right to have
With her most undeserving; which in you
Were more than Jason’s falsehood was, that gave
To his new wife such vantage of his old
As you give her of me, whose narrower heart
Holds not a third part of the faith and love
That my obedience bears you, though she wear
Against my will such vantage in your sight,
By my hard hap; yet would I think not so,
Nor liken you to such a trustless man
And miserable as he was, nor myself
To one so wronged a woman, and being wronged
In suffering so unpitiful as she.
Yet you put in me somewhat of her kind
That makes me like unto her in anything
That touches you or may preserve you mine
To whom alone you appertain, if that
May be called mine by right appropriated
Which should be won through faithful travail, yea,
Through only loving of you as God knows
I do and shall do all my days of life
For pain or evil that can come thereof:
In recompense of which and all those ills
You have been cause of to me, and must think
That I esteem no evils for your sake,
Let not this woman with her heartless tears
Nor piteous passion thrust me out of door
Who should sit sole and secret in your heart.
What hath she borne or I not borne for you,
And would not bear again? or by what gift
Have I set store or spared it that might go
To buy your heart’s love to me? have I found
Empire or love of friends or pride or peace
Or honour or safe life or innocence
Too good things to put from me, or men’s wrath,
Terror or shame or hatred of mine own,
Or breach of friends, or kingdom’s wreck, or sin,
Too fearful things to embrace and make them mine
With as good will and joyous height of heart
As hers who takes love in her prosperous arms
And has delight to bridegroom? Have I not
Loved all these for your sake, and those good things,
Have I not all abhorred them? Would I keep
One comfort or one harbour or one hope,
One ransom, one resource, one resting-place,
That might divide me from your danger, save
This head whose crown is humbled at your foot
From storm that smote on yours? Would I sleep warm
Out of the wind’s way when your sail was set
By night against the sea-breach? Would I wait
As might your wife to hear of you, how went
The day that saw your battle, and hold off
Till the cry came of fallen or conquering men
To bid me mourn or triumph? Hath my heart
Place for one good thought bred not of your good
Or ill thought not depending on your ill?
What hath she done that yours hath place for her
Or time or thought or pity?
BOTHWELL.
What have I,
That yours should fix on her untimely? Nay,
Last year she was my wife and moved you not,
And now she is turned forth naked of that name
And stripped as ‘twere to clothe you, comes this heat,
And fear takes fire lest she turn back or I
To thrust you forth instead: you are fair and fool
Beyond all queens and women.
QUEEN.
There spake truth,
For then you said, most loving. But indeed
This irks me yet, this galls with doubt and fear,
That even her plea to be divorced from you
On some forepast adulterous charge, which proved
She wins her asking, leaves your hand not loose
By law to wed again, but your same deed
Frees her from you and fetters you from me;
Then stand we shamed and profitless; meseems
God’s very hand can loose not us and join,
Who binds and looses; though Buccleuch make oath
She was contracted to you first, and this
No righteous marriage; though she plight her soul
As she made proffer for our hope’s sake; yea,
Though you should bring a hundred loves to swear
They had the firstlings of your faith, who kept
No faith with any, nor will keep with me,
God knows, and I, that have no warrant yet
In my lord’s word here which unweds you, being
Matched with your cousin in the fourth degree,
And no proof published if the Church’s grace
Were granted for it, or sought; no help of this,
If your love give not warrant; and therein
If she hath half or I have less than all,
Then have I nothing of you. Speak to him;
Bid him not break his faith, not this now mine;
Plead for me with him, father, lest he lie
And I too lose him; God shall pardon, say,
What sin we do for love, or what for wrath,
Or to defend us from the danger of men,
But to me, me, say, if he be forsworn,
That God shall not forgive it him nor I.
ARCHBISHOP.
Be not too careful to confound yourself;
These bonds are broken by God’s leave and law;
Make no fresh bonds of your own fears, to do
What harm these do no more; he hath put her off:
Rest there content.
QUEEN.
Nay, why should I then trust
He shall not put off me in heart for her?
BOTHWELL.
Why, have your choice then, and mistrust; God’s death!
I had deemed I had learnt of women’s witlessness
Some little learning, yet I thought no more
Than that it was but light as air, snow, foam,
And all things light, not lighter. I would know
What men hold foolish yet that hold you wise,
If not your fear.
QUEEN.
Doth she not love you?
BOTHWELL.
Ay.
QUEEN.
Hath she not cause to hate, and doth not hate,
Who sues to be put from you, for your fault
Craves leave to be cut off, as I crave leave
To take you from her hands, her gift?
BOTHWELL.
God knows;
She may love, hate, or hate not neither love,
Or both alike; I know not.
QUEEN.
But I know
That you can love not. Nay, then help me, God!
If I did know this I would kill myself.
Yet to more proof I would I had put your heart
Ere I gave up to it all the might of mine -
Which is but feebleness. Well, we will go;
There is no better counsel. Pardon me
If my fear seem to wrangle with my faith;
They are parts but of my love, that with itself
Strives to be master of its grief and joy
Lest either overbear it, and therewith
Put out my life. Come; all things shall be well.
Scene X. Holyrood
Enter Herries and Sir James Melville
HERRIES.
Is the work done?
MELVILLE.
They are wedded fast; and now
I think would one of them to free herself
Give the right hand she hath given him.
HERRIES.
What, so soon?
Came she as loth into the council-hall
Or were her answers as compelled and strange?
MELVILLE.
I have not seen for any chance till now
So changed a woman in the face as she,
Saving with extreme sickness. She was wed
In her old mourning habits, and her face
As deadly as were they; the soft warm joy
That laughed in its fair feature, and put heart
In the eyes and gracious lips as to salute
All others’ eyes with sweet regardfulness,
Looked as when winds have worn the white-rose leaf;
No fire between her eyelids, and no flower
In the April of her cheeks; their spring acold,
And but for want of very heart to weep
They had been rainier than they were forlorn.
HERRIES.
And his new grace of Orkney?
MELVILLE.
The good duke
Was dumb while Adam Bothwell with grave lips
Set forth the scandal of his lewd life past
And fair faith of his present penitence,
Whose days to come being higher than his past place
Should expiate those gone by, and their good works
Atone those evil; hardly twitched his eye
Or twinkled half his thick lip’s curve of hair,
Listening; but when the bishop made indeed
His large hard hand with hers so flowerlike fast,
He seemed as ‘twere for pride and mighty heart
To swell and shine with passion, and his eye
To take into the fire of its red look
All dangers and all adverse things that might
Rise out of days unrisen, to burn them up
With its great heat of triumph; and the hand
Fastening on hers so griped it that her lips
Trembled, and turned to catch the smile from his,
As though her spirit had put its own life off
And sense of joy or property of pain
To close with his alone; but this twin smile
Was briefer than a flash or gust that strikes
And is not; for the next word was not said
Ere her face waned again to winter-ward
As a moon smitten, and her answer came
As words from dead men wickedly wrung forth
By craft of wizards, forged and forceful breath
Which hangs on lips that loath it.
HERRIES.
Will you think
This was not haply but for show, to wear
The likeness as of one not all constrained
Nor all consenting, willingly enforced
To do her will as of necessity?
That she might seem no part yet of his plot,
But as compelled by counsel of those lords
Who since her coming have subscribed by name
The paper of advice that in his cause
Declares what force of friends has Bothwell here
In Lothian and on all the border’s march
To keep good order, and how well it were
She should for surety wed him whom she needs
Must wed for honour or perforce live shamed
By violence done upon her.
MELVILLE.
No; there hung
Too much of fear and passion on her face
To be put off when time shall be to unmask;
The fire that moved her and the mounting will
While danger was and battle was to be,
Now she hath leapt into the pit alive
To win and wear the diamond, are no more;
Hope feels the wounds upon its hands and feet
That clomb and clung, now halting since the hour
That should have crowned has bruised it. No, ’tis truth;
She is heart-struck now, and labours with herself,
As one that loves and trusts not but the man
Who makes so little of men’s hate may make
Of women’s love as little; with this doubt
New-born within her, fears that slept awake,
And shame’s eyes open that were shut for love,
To see on earth all pity hurt to death
By her own hand, and no man’s face her friend
If his be none for whom she casts them off
And finds no strength against him in their hands.
HERRIES.
Small strength indeed or help of craft or force
Must she now look for of them; and shall find,
I fear, no stay against men’s spirits and tongues
Nor shelter in the observance of their will
That she puts on, submitting her own faith
To the outward face of theirs, as in this act
Of marriage, and the judgment now enforced
Against the allowance of the mass, albeit
With a bruised heart and loathing did she bow
That royal head and hand imperious once
To give so much of her soul’s trust away;
And little shall it stead her.
MELVILLE.
So fear I;
/>
’Tis not the warrant of an act affirmed
Against the remnants of her faith, nor form
Of this strange wedlock, shall renew to her
Men’s outworn love and service; nay, and strife
Lies closer to her than fears from outward; these
Whose swords and souls attend on her new lord,
Both now for fault of pay grown mutinous,
From flat revolt they hardly have redeemed
With the queen’s jewels and that English gift
Of the gold font sent hither for the prince
That served him not for christening, melted now
To feed base hands with gold and stop loud throats,
Whose strength alone and clamour put such heart
In Bothwell that he swore to hang the man
Who would not speak their banns at first, and now
But utters them with lips that yet protest
Of innocent blood and of adulterous bonds
By force proclaimed, and fraudful; and this Craig
The townsmen love, and heed not that for craft
Each day will Bothwell hear men preach, and show
To them that speak all favour, and will sit
A guest at burghers’ boards unsummoned; yet
Men’s hate more swells against him, to behold
How by the queen he rides unbonneted
And she rebukes his too much courtesy;
So that their world within doors and without
Swells round them doubtfully toward storm, and sees
This hot-brained helmsman in his own conceit
Even here in port, who drifts indeed at sea.
HERRIES.
Short time will wind this up: the secretary,
Whose blood the queen would see not shed of him,
Is slipped away for Stirling, there to join
With Lindsay and the lords ere this combined,
From whom I may not now divide myself,
On the child’s party. Not a hand will stay
Nor heart upon this side; the Hamiltons,
For their own ends that set this marriage on,
Will for those ends with no sad hearts behold
At others’ hands her imminent overthrow.
MELVILLE.
This was the archbishop’s counsel, that annulled
Last year’s true marriage to procure the queen’s
And even therein betray her. God mend all!
But I misdoubt me lest the sun be set
That looked upon the last of her good days.
Scene XI. The same
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 226