by Thomas Hardy
SCENE IX
Queen Iseult, Brangwain, and Chanters. Then King Mark and Sir Andret.
Brangwain
There stands a strange old harper down below,
Who does not look Sir Tristram, yet recalls him.
King Mark crosses the ward outside the arch.
King Mark (speaking off, and shading his eyes)
What traveller’s that, slow mounting to the wall,
Scanning its strength, with curious halting crawl,
As knowing not Tintagel’s Towers at all?
Watchman (crossing without)
‘Tis but a minstrel from afar, Sir King, Harping around for alms, or anything.
Q. Iseult (starting up)
It must be he!
Sir Tristram’s steps heard approaching. He enters, disguised as a harper.
King Mark (glancing back casually at Sir Tristram in going off)
Dole him his alms in Christ’s name, if ye must,
And irk me not while setting to bowse with these.
Exit King Mark from the outside to the banqueting-hall, followed across the back of the arch by Knights, etc., including Sir Andret.
Sir Andret (to himself as he goes)
That harper struck me oddly! . . . In his gait-
Well: till the beakers have gone round I’ll wait.
Exit behind the others.
SCENE X
Queen Iseult, Tristram, Brangwain, and Chanters.
Tristram
My Queen and best belov’d! At last again!
(He throws off the cloak that disguises him.)
— Know I was duped by her who dons your name;
She swore the bellied sheeting of your ship
Blotted the wind-wafts like a sable swan;
And being so weak from my long lying there
I sank to senselessness at the wisht words —
So contrary to hope! Whilst I was thus
She sallied out, and sent you home forthwith!
Anon I poured my anger on her head,
Till, in high fear of me, she quivered white.
— I mended swiftly, stung by circumstance,
And rose and left her there, and followed you.
Sir Kay lent aidance, and has come with me.
Brangwain
I’ll out and watch the while Sir Tristram’s here.
Exit Brangwain.
SCENE XI
Queen Iseult, Tristram, and Chanters.
Q. Iseult
You’ve come again, you’ve come again, dear Love!
Tristram
To be once more with my Iseult the Fair,
(He embraces the Queen) Though not yet what I was in strength and stay.
Yet told have I been by Sir Launcelot To ware me of King Mark! King Fox he
calls him — Whom I’d have pitied, though he would not yield thee,
Nor let you loose on learning our dire need Of freedom for our bliss, which came to us Not of fore-aim or falseness, but by spell Of love-drink, ministered by hand unseen!
Q. Iseult
Knowing as much, he swore he would not slay thee,
But Launcelot told him no man could believe him,
Whereat he answered: “Anyhow she’s mine! “
Tristram
It’s true, I fear. He cannot be believed.
Q. Iseult
Yet, Tristram, would my husband were but all!
Had you not wedded her my namesake, Oh,
We could have steered around this other rock —
Trust me we could! Why did you do it, why!
Triumph did he when first I learnt of that,
And lewdly laughed to see me shaken so.
Tristram
You have heard the tale of my so mating her
Twice told, and yet anew! Must I again?
It was her sire King Howel brought it round
In brunt of battle, when I saved his lands.
He said to me: “ Thou hast done generously:
I crave to make thee recompense! My daughter.
The last best bloom of Western Monarchy —
Iseult of the White Hand the people call her —
Is thine. I give thee her. O take her then,
The chief of all things priceless unto me!”
Overcome was I by the fiery fray,
Arrested by her name — so kin to yours —
His ardour, zeal. I thought: “Maybe her spouse,
By now, has haled my Iseult’s heart from me,”
And took the other blindly. That is all.
Q. Iseult
A woman’s heart has room for one alone;
A man’s for two or three!
Tristram Sweet; ‘twas but chance!
Q. Iseult (more softly)
Yet there may lie our doom! ... I had nerved myself
To bid you come, and bring your wife with you.
But that I did not mean. It was too
much; And yet I said it! . . .
Tristram
Lean ye down, my Love: I’ll touch to thee my very own old tune. I came in harper-guise, unweeting what The hazardry of our divided days Might have brought forth for us!
He takes the harp. Queen Iseult reclines.
Tristram (singing)
Let’s meet again to-night, my Fair, Let’s meet unseen of all;
The day-god labours to his lair, And then the evenfall!
O living lute, O lily-rose, O form of fantasie,
When torches waste and warders doze Steal to the stars will we!
While nodding knights carouse at meat And shepherds shamble home,
We’ll cleave in close embracements — sweet As honey in the comb!
Till crawls the dawn from Condol’s crown,
And over Neitan’s Kieve, As grimly ghosts we conjure down And hopes still weave and weave!
Watchman (crossing without)
A ship sheers round, and brings up in the bay!
Re-enter Brangwain.
SCENE XII
Queen Iseult, Tristram, Brangwain, and Chanters.
Brangwain
My Queen, the shingle shaves another keel, And who the comer is we fail to guess. Its build bespeaks it from the Breton coasts, And those upon it shape of the Breton sort,
And the figure near the prow is white-attired. Q. Iseult
What manner of farer does the figure show?
Brangwain
My Lady, when I cast eye waterwards From the arrow-loop, just as the keel ground in
Against the popplestones, it seemed a woman’s;
But she was wimpled close.
Q. Iseult
I’ll out and see.
Queen Iseult opens the door to the ban- queting-hall, and stands in the doorway still visible to the audience. Through the door comes the noise of trenchers, platters, cups, drunken voices, songs, etc., from the adjoining apartment, where King Mark is dining with Knights and retainers.
Voice of K. Mark (in liquor)
Queen, whither goest thou? Pray plague me not
While keeping table. Hath the old knave left,
He with his balladry we heard by now Strum up to thee?
Q. Iseult
I go to the pleasance only, Across your feasting-hall for shortness’ sake, Returning hither swift.
Voice of K. Mark
Yea, have thy way,
As women will!
Voice of Sir Andret
Aye, hence the need to spy them!
Exeunt Queen Iseult and Brangwain through banqueting-hall to the outside of the Castle. Noise of cups, trenchers, drunken voices, songs, etc., resumed, till the door shuts, when it is heard in subdued tones.
SCENE XIII
Tristram and Chanters. Then Iseult
the whitehanded.
Tristram (going and looking seaward through arch)
A woman’s shape in white. . . . Can it be she?
Would she in sooth, then, risk to follow me?
Chanters: Men
Chanters: Women
One seised of right to trace thy track Hath crossed the sea to win thee back In love and faith and fear!
Chanters: M. and W.
From this newcomer wis we pain Ere thou canst know sweet spells again, O knight of little cheer!
Enter Iseult the Whitehanded. She has corn-brown hair, and wears a white robe.
Iseult the White H.
I could not help it, O my husband! Yea I have dogged you close; I could not bear your rage;
And Heaven has favoured me! The sea
smiled smooth The whole way over, and the sun shone kind. Your sail was eyesome fair in front of me, And I steered just behind, all stealthfully! — Forgive me that I spoke untruly to you, And then to her, in my bruised brain’s turmoil.
But, in a way of saying, you were dead; You seemed so — in a dead drowse when she came.
And I did send for her at your entreaty; But flesh is frail. Centred is woman’s love, And knows no breadth. I could not let her land,
I could not let her come!
Tristram
Your speech is nought,
evil woman, who didst nearly witch
The death of this Queen, saying such of me!
Iseult the White H.
Forgive me, do forgive, my lord, my husband!
O love, have loved you so imperishably; Not with fleet flame at times, as some do use! Had I once been unfaithful, even perverse,
I would have held some coldness fitly won; But I have ever met your wryest whim With ready-wrought acceptance, matched
your moods, Clasped hands, touched lips, and smiled devotedly;
So how should this have grown up unaware?
Enter Queen Iseult and Brangwain in the Gallery above, unperceived.
SCENE XIV
Queen Iseult, Brangwain, Iseult the Whitehanded, Tristram, and Chanters.
Q. Iseult
What do they say? And who is she,
Brangwain? Not my suspicion hardened into mould Of flesh and blood indeed?
Brangwain
I cannot hear.
Tristram
I have no more to say or do with thee; I’d fade your face to strangeness in my eyes! Your father dealt me lllest turn in this; Your name, too, being the match of hers!
Yea, thus I was coerced. I never more can be Your bed-mate — never again.
Iseult the White H.
How, Tristram mine? What meaning mete you out by that to me?
You only say it, do you? You are not, Cannot be, in true earnest — that I know! I hope you are not in earnest? — Surely I This time as always, do belong to you, And you are going to keep me always yours?
I thought you loved my name for me myself,
Not for another; or at the very least
For sake of some dear sister or mother
dead, And not, not —
(She breaks down.)
Tristram
I spoke too rawly, maybe; mouthed what I Ought only to have mused. But do you dream
I for a leastness longer could abide Such dire disastrous lying? — Back to your ship;
Get into it; return by the aptest wind And mate with another man when thou canst find him,
Never uncovering how you cozened me: His temper might be tried thereby, as mine!
Iseult the White H.
No, no! I won’t be any other’s wife! How can a thing so monstrous ever be?
Tristram
If I had battened in Brittany with thee —
Iseult the White H.
But you don’t mean you’ll live away from me,
Leave me, and henceforth be unknown to me,
O you don’t surely? I could not help
coming;
Don’t send me away — do not, do not, do so!
(Q. Iseult above moves restlessly.) Forgive your Iseult for appearing here, Untoward seem it! For I love you so Your sudden setting out was death to me When I discerned the cause. Your sail smalled down:
0 I should have died had I not followed you. Only, my Tristram, let me be with thee, And see thy face. I do not sue for more!
Q. Iseult {above)
She has no claim to importune like that, And gloss her hardihood in tracking him!
Tristram
Thou canst not haunt another woman’s house!
Iseult the White H.
O yes I can, if there’s no other way!
I have heard she does not mind. I’d
rather be
Her bondwench, if I am not good enough To be your wife, than not stay here at all-
Aye, I, the child of kings and governors, As luminous in ancestral line as she, Say this, so utter my abasement now! — Something will happen if I go away Of import dark to you (no matter what To me); and we two should not greet again!
— Could you but be the woman, I the man, I would not fly from you or banish you For fault so small as mine. O do not think It was so vile a thing. I wish — how much! —
You could have told me twenty such untruths,
That I might then have shown you / would not
Rate them as faults, but be much joyed to have you
In spite of all. If you but through and through
Could spell me, know how staunch I have stood, and am,
You’d love me just the same. Come, say you do,
And let us not be severed so again.
Q. Iseult {above)
I can’t bear this!
Iseult the White H.
All the long hours and days
And heavy gnawing nights, and you not there,
But gone because you hate me! ‘Tis past what
A woman can endure!
Tristram (more gently)
Not hate you, Iseult.
But, hate or love, lodge here you cannot now:
It’s out of thinking.
(Drunken revellers heard.)
Know you, that in that room Just joining this, King Mark is holding feast, And may burst in with all his wassailers, And that the Queen —
Q. Iseult {above)
He’s softening to her. Come! Let us go down, and face this agony!
Queen Iseult and Brangwain descend from the Gallery.
Iseult the White H.
O, I suppose I must not! And I am tired, Tired, tired! And now my once-dear Brittany home Is but a desert to me. (Q. Iseult and Brangwain come forward.)
— Oh, the Queen! Can I — so weak — encounter —
Q. Iseult
Ah — as I thought, Quite as I thought. It is my namesake, sure!
(Iseult the White h.faints. Indecision. Brangwain goes to her.) Take her away. The blow that bruises her
Is her own dealing. Better she had known The self-sown pangs of prying ere she sailed!
Brangwain carries her out, Tristram suddenly assisting at the last moment as far as the door.
Chanters : Men (as she is carried)
Fluttering with fear, Out-tasked her strength has she! Loss of her Dear Threatening too clear, Gone to this length has she! Strain too severe!
SCENE XV
Queen Iseult, Tristram, and Chanters.
Q. Iseult (after restlessly watching Tristram render aid and return)
So, after all, am I to share you, then, With another, Tristram? who, as I count,
comes here To take the Castle as it were her own!
Tristram
Sweet Queen, you said you’d let her come one day!
However, back she’s going to Brittany, Which she should not have left. Think
kindly of her, A weaker one than you!
Q. Iseult
What, Tristram; what! O this from you to me, who have sacrificed
Honour and name for you so long, so long! Why, she and I are oil and water here: Other than disunite we cannot be. She weaker? Nay, I stand in jeopardy This very hour —
(‘Noise of Mark and revellers.) Lis
ten to him within! His peer will pierce your cloak ere long — or would
Were he but sober — and then where am I? Better for us that I do yield you to her, And you depart! Hardly can I do else: In the eyes of men she has all claim to thee
And I have none, yes, she possesses you! — (Turning and speaking in a murmur.) — Th’other Iseult possesses him, indeed; And it was I who set it in his soul To seek her out! — my namesake, whom I felt
A kindness for — alas, I know not why!
(Sobs silently.)
Chanters: Women
White-Hands did this, Desperate to win again Back to her kiss One she would miss! — Yea, from the Queen again Win, for her bliss!
Chanters: M. and W.
Dreams of the Queen Always possessing him Racked her yestreen Cruelly and keen — Him, once professing him
Hers through Life’s scene!
Re-enter Brangwain.
SCENE XVI
Tristram, Queen Iseult, Brangwain, and Chanters.
Brangwain stands silent a few moments, till Q. Iseult turns and looks demandingly at her.
Brangwain The lady from the other coast now mends.
Q. Iseult (haughtily)
Give her good rest. (Bitterly) Yes, yes, in
sooth I said That she might come. Put her in mine own bed:
I’ll sleep upon the floor!
Exit Brangwain.