Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 288
It was I.
ALMACHILDES.
Does the sun stand in heaven? Or stands it fast
As when God bade it halt on high? My life
Is broken in me.
ROSAMUND.
Nay, fair sir, not yet.
Thy life is now mine — as the ring I wear
That seals my hand a wife’s. Die thou shalt not,
But slay, and live.
ALMACHILDES.
Slay whom?
ROSAMUND.
Thy lord and mine.
ALMACHILDES.
I had rather go down quick to hell.
ROSAMUND.
I know it.
I leave thee not the choice. Keep thou thy hand
Bloodless, and Hildegard, whom yet I love,
Dies, and in fire, the harlot’s death of shame.
Last night she lured thee hither. Hate of me,
Because of late I smote her, being in wrath
Forgetful of her noble maidenhood,
Stung her for shame’s sake to take hands with shame.
This if I swear, may she unswear it? Thou
Canst not but say she bade thee seek her. She
Lives while I will, as Albovine and thou
Live by my grace and mercy. Live, or die.
But live thou shalt not longer than her death,
Her death by burning, if thou slay not him.
I see my death shine in thine eyes: I see
My present death inflame them. That were not
Her surety, Almachildes. Thou shouldst know me
Now. Though thou slay me, this may save not her.
My lines are laid about her life, and may not
By breach of mine be broken.
ALMACHILDES.
God must be
Dead. Such a thing as thou could never else
Live.
ROSAMUND.
That concerns not thee nor me. Be thou
Sure that my will and power to serve it live.
Lift now thine eyes to look upon thy lord.
Re-enter ALBOVINE.
ALBOVINE.
By this time hath he thanked thee not enough?
ROSAMUND.
More hath he given than thanks.
ALBOVINE.
What more may be?
ROSAMUND.
His plighted faith to heal the wrong he wrought
Faithfully.
ALBOVINE.
Boy, strike then thy hand in mine.
Thou art loyal as I knew thee.
ALMACHILDES.
King, I may not
Touch hands with thee.
ALBOVINE.
Thou art false, then, ha? Thou hast lied?
ALMACHILDES.
King, till the wrong I have wrought be wreaked or healed
I clasp not hands with honour. Nay, and then
Perchance I may not.
ALBOVINE.
Boy I called thee: child
I call thee now. But, boy, the child thou art
Is noble as our sires.
ALMACHILDES.
Would God it were!
[Exit.
ALBOVINE.
What ails him?
ROSAMUND.
Love and shame.
ALBOVINE.
No more than these?
ROSAMUND.
Enough are they to darken death and life.
ALBOVINE.
Thou art less than gentle towards his love and him.
ROSAMUND.
I would not speak ungently. Her I love,
Poor child, and him I hate not.
ALBOVINE.
Thou shalt live
To love him too.
ROSAMUND.
This heaviness of heat
Kills love and hate and life in me. I know not
Aught lovesome save the sweet brief death of sleep.
ALBOVINE.
I am weary as thou. Good night we may not say -
Good noon I bid thee. Sleep shall heal us.
ROSAMUND.
Ay;
No healing and no help for life on earth
Hath God or man found out save death and sleep.
[Exeunt.
ACT IV
The same Scene.
Enter ALMACHILDES and HILDEGARD.
HILDEGARD.
Hast thou forgiven me?
ALMACHILDES.
I have not forgiven
God.
HILDEGARD.
Wilt thou slay thy soul and mine?
ALMACHILDES.
Wilt thou
Madden me? God hath given us up to her
Who is deadlier than the fiery fang of death -
Us, innocent and loyal.
HILDEGARD.
Nay, if I
Forgive her love of thee — though this be hard,
Canst thou forgive not?
ALMACHILDES.
Sweet, for thee and me
Remains no rescue save by death or flight
From worse than flight or death is.
HILDEGARD.
Worse is nought
But shame: and how may shame take hold on us,
On us who have sinned not? Me she bound to play thee
False, and betray thee to her arms: I might not
Choose, though my heart should rend itself in twain
And cleave with ravenous anguish: yet I live.
Vex not thy soul too sorely: me, not her,
Thy spirit embraced, thine arms and lips made thine
Me, not my darkling wraith, my changeling foe,
My thief of love, our traitress. This I bid thee,
Forget thy fear and shame to have wronged me: night
Breeds treacherous dreams that can but poison day
If thought be found so base a fool as dares
Fear. Did I doubt thy love of me, I durst not
Live or look back upon thee.
ALMACHILDES.
Wilt thou then
Fly?
HILDEGARD.
Dost thou know what flight means — thou?
It means
Fear. And is fear a new-born friend of thine?
ALMACHILDES.
God help us! if he live, and hate not man -
If Satan be not God. We will not fly.
Enter ALBOVINE and ROSAMUND.
ALBOVINE.
Fly? What should love at height of happiness
Or youth at height of honour fear and fly?
Would ye take wing for heaven? take shame on earth
To wed in peace and honour?
ALMACHILDES.
No, my king.
No, surely.
ROSAMUND.
Weep not, maiden. Dost not thou,
Man, that we thought her bridegroom sealed of love,
Love her?
ALMACHILDES.
No saint loved ever God as I
Her.
ROSAMUND.
And betray her to shame thou wouldst not?
See,
My lord, the silent answer flash aloud
From cheek and eye a goodly witness. Thou,
My maiden, dost thou love not him? Nay, speak.
HILDEGARD.
I cannot say it — I cannot strive to say.
ROSAMUND.
Thou shalt. Are all we not fast bound in love -
My lord and thine, my maiden and her queen,
A fourfold chain of faith twice linked of love?
Speak: let not shame find place where shame is none.
HILDEGARD.
I will not. King and queen and God shall hear.
I love him as our songs of old time say
Men have been loved of women akin to gods
By blood as they by spirit, albeit in me
Nought lives that woman or man or God could say
Were worth his love, if mine by grace of love
Be found not all unworthy. Mine am I
No more: mine own in no w
ise now, but his
To save or slay, to cherish or cast out,
Crown and discrown, abase and comfort. Shame
Were more to me than honour if his will
It were that shame should clothe me round, and life
Were the only death left fearful if he bade me
Die. Could his love be turned from me, and set
On one less loving but more fair than I,
A thrall more base than treason or a queen
Too high for shame to brand her shameful, even
Though sin had stamped and signed her foul as fraud
And loathsome as a masked adulterous lie,
Hers would I make him if I might, and yield
To her the hatefullest of hell-born things
The man found lovelier by my love than heaven.
ROSAMUND.
Great love is this to brag of: great and strange.
HILDEGARD.
Love is no braggart: lust and fraud and hate
Vaunt their vile strength when shame unveils them: love
Vaunts not itself. I spake not uncompelled,
And blushed not out the avowal.
ALBOVINE.
Boy, I held
And hold thee noblest of my lords of war,
And worthier than thine elders born and tried
Ere battle found thee ripe and glad at heart
To stem and swim the tide of spears: but this
I know not if thou be or any man
Be worthy of.
ALMACHILDES.
Of all men born on earth
I am most unworthy of it. None might be
Worthy.
ROSAMUND.
He weeps: thy boy is humble.
ALMACHILDES.
Queen,
I weep not. Shamed with no ignoble shame
Thou seest me: but I weep not. Yea, God knows,
Humbled I am, and humble; not to thee.
ALBOVINE.
Chafe not: and thou, queen though thou be, and mine,
Tempt not a true man’s wrath with words that bear
Fangs keener than thou knowest of.
ROSAMUND.
King, henceforth,
Being warned, I will not. Dangerous as the sea
A true man’s wrath is — and a true man’s love:
A woman’s hath no peril in it: her tears
Wash wrath and peril away.
ALBOVINE.
I have never seen thee
Weep.
ROSAMUND.
How should I weep — I, thy wife?
ALBOVINE.
I have heard thee
Laugh; and thy smiles were always bright as fire.
ROSAMUND.
Well were it with me — ay, and reason found
For me to live and do the living world
Some service — could my husband warm thereat
His heart as winter-stricken hands in frost
Are warmed at winter fires.
ALBOVINE.
No need, no need:
The sun thou art warms all our year with love,
And leaves no chill on winter.
ROSAMUND.
Albovine,
Love now secludes us not from sight of man -
From sight of this my maiden and the man
Who shines but as the battle’s boy for thee
But lives for me my maiden’s lover — true
As truth is — Almachildes.
ALBOVINE.
How thy lips
Hang lingering on his name as though ‘twere thou
That loved him! Thou shouldst love thy maiden well.
ROSAMUND.
As she loves me I love her. Hildegard,
Leave us. Thou knowest I love thee.
HILDEGARD.
Queen, I know. [Exit.
ALBOVINE.
What ails the boy? what rapturous agony
Torments and glorifies his glance at her
As with delight in torture? Cheer thee, man:
Thou art not thus all unworthy.
ROSAMUND.
Spare him, king.
A king may guess not how a man’s heart yearns
With all unkingly sense of love and shame
Not all unmanly.
ALBOVINE.
Shame is none to be
Loved, and to deem that love exceeds our due
Who may not well deserve it. Sick at heart
He seems, and should be gladder than the sea
When wind and sun strike life in it.
ALMACHILDES.
I am not
So stricken, king. I thank thy care of me.
ALBOVINE.
Heart-stricken or shame-stricken art thou?
ROSAMUND.
King,
Spare him. Thou knowest not love like his. It burns
And rends and wrings the spirit.
ALBOVINE.
No. And thou,
Dost thou then?
ROSAMUND.
Eyes and heart and sense are mine
As weak and strong as woman’s can but be;
As weak in strength and strong in weakness. Men,
Being wise, and mightier than their mates on earth,
Need no such knowledge born of inborn pain
As quickens all the spirit of sense in us.
Worms know what eagles know not.
ALBOVINE.
Like enough.
Rede me no redes and riddles. Never yet
I have loved thee more, and yet I have loved thee well,
Than now that loving-kindness borne toward love
Makes thee so gracious, pleading for it.
ROSAMUND.
Love
Sees all things lovely: thine, if praise there be,
Not mine the praise is: thee, not me, these twain
Must love and worship as their lord of love.
ALBOVINE.
Well, God be good to them and thee and me!
I would this fierce Italian June were dead,
So hard it weighs upon me.
ROSAMUND.
Now not long
Shall we sustain or sink aswoon from it:
It has but left a day or two to die.
ALBOVINE.
And well were that, if summer died with June.
Two red months more must set on sense and soul
The branding-iron stamped of summer: nay,
The sea is here no sea to cherish man:
It brings no choral comfort back with tides
That surge and sink and swell and chime and change
And lighten life with music where the breath
Dies and revives of night and day.
ROSAMUND.
Be thou
Content: a God hath driven us hither.
ALBOVINE.
Yea:
A God of death and fire and strife, whose hand
Is heavy on my spirit. Be not ye
Troubled, if peace be with you.
ROSAMUND.
Peace to thee.
[Exit ALBOVINE.
Now follow: smite him now: thou art strong, but yet
Thy king is stronger — mightier thewed than thou.
Thou couldst not slay him in fight.
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot slay him
Thus.
ROSAMUND.
Canst thou slay thy bride by fire? He dies,
Or she dies, bound against the stake. His death
Were the easier. Follow him: save her: strike but once.
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot. God requite thee this! I will. [Exit.
ROSAMUND.
And I will see it. And, father, thou shalt see.
[Exit.
ACT V
The Banqueting-hall.
Enter ALBOVINE and ROSAMUND.
ALBOVINE.
This June makes babes of men; last night I deemed
When thou hadst wished me peace as I pas
sed forth
A footfall pressed behind me soft and fast,
And turning toward it I beheld nought: thee
I saw, and Almachildes hard at hand
Turned back toward thee: nought stranger: yet my heart
Sprang, and sank back. I laughed against myself,
That manhood should be girlish, when the heat
Burns life half out within us. Even thine eyes,
Like stars before the wind that brings the cloud,
Look fainter. Ere they fill the banquet full
And bid the guests about us where we sit,
Tell me if aught be worse than well with thee.
ROSAMUND.
Nought.
ALBOVINE.
Wilt thou swear it, sweet?
ROSAMUND.
By what thou wilt -
By God and man — by hell and earth and heaven.
I know what ails thy loyal heart of love
And binds thy tongue for fear to bid me know.
The cup we drank of when we feasted last
Tastes bitter on it yet. Thou wilt not bid me
Pledge thee therein again. If I bid thee,
Pledge me thou shalt — and seal thy pardon.
ALBOVINE.
Be not
Too sweet for woman.
ROSAMUND.
Cross me not in this.
ALBOVINE.
Mine old fast friend Narsetes hath my word
Plighted. All funeral reverence shall inter
The royal relic, and all thought therewith
Of strife between thy father’s child and me
Or less than love and honour.
ROSAMUND.
Nay, my lord,
Let the dead thing live as a lifelong sign
Of perfect plight in love and union. This