Idylls of the King
Page 18
755 Then paced for coolness in the chapel-yard;
Where one of Satan’s shepherdesses caught
And meant to stamp him with her master’s mark;
And that he sinn’d is not believable;
For, look upon his face! – but if he sinn’d,
760 The sin that practice burns into the blood,
And not the one dark hour which brings remorse,
Will brand us, after, of whose fold we be:
Or else were he, the holy king, whose hymns
Are chanted in the minster, worse than all.
765 But is your spleen froth’d out, or have ye more?’
And Vivien answer’d frowning yet in wrath:
‘O ay; what say ye to Sir Lancelot, friend
Traitor or true? that commerce with the Queen,
I ask you, is it clamour’d by the child,
770 Or whisper’d in the corner? do ye know it?’
To which he answer’d sadly, ‘Yea, I know it.
Sir Lancelot went ambassador, at first,
To fetch her, and she watch’d him from her walls.
A rumour runs, she took him for the King,
775 So fixt her fancy on him: let them be.
But have ye no one word of loyal praise
For Arthur, blameless King and stainless man?’
She answer’d with a low and chuckling laugh:
‘Man! is he man at all, who knows and winks?
780 Sees what his fair bride is and does, and winks?
By which the good King means to blind himself,
And blinds himself and all the Table Round
To all the foulness that they work. Myself
Could call him (were it not for womanhood)
785 The pretty, popular name such manhood earns,
Could call him the main cause of all their crime;
Yea, were he not crown’d King, coward, and fool.’
Then Merlin to his own heart, loathing, said:
‘O true and tender! O my liege and King!
790 O selfless man and stainless gentleman,
Who wouldst against thine own eye-witness fain
Have all men true and leal, all women pure;
How, in the mouths of base interpreters,
From over-fineness not intelligible
795 To things with every sense as false and foul
As the poach’d filth that floods the middle street,
Is thy white blamelessness accounted blame!’
But Vivien, deeming Merlin overborne
By instance, recommenced, and let her tongue
800 Rage like a fire among the noblest names,
Polluting, and imputing her whole self,
Defaming and defacing, till she left
Not even Lancelot brave, nor Galahad clean.
Her words had issue other than she will’d.
805 He dragg’d his eyebrow bushes down, and made
A snowy penthouse for his hollow eyes,
And mutter’d in himself, ‘Tell her the charm!
So, if she had it, would she rail on me
To snare the next, and if she have it not
810 So will she rail. What did the wanton say?
“Not mount as high;” we scarce can sink as low:
For men at most differ as Heaven and earth,
But women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.
I know the Table Round, my friends of old;
815 All brave, and many generous, and some chaste.
She cloaks the scar of some repulse with lies;
I well believe she tempted them and fail’d,
Being so bitter: for fine plots may fail,
Tho’ harlots paint their talk as well as face
820 With colours of the heart that are not theirs.
I will not let her know: nine tithes of times
Face-flatterer and backbiter are the same.
And they, sweet soul, that most impute a crime
Are pronest to it, and impute themselves,
825 Wanting the mental range; or low desire
Not to feel lowest makes them level all;
Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain,
To leave an equal baseness; and in this
Are harlots like the crowd, that if they find
830 Some stain or blemish in a name of note,
Not grieving that their greatest are so small,
Inflate themselves with some insane delight,
And judge all nature from her feet of clay,
Without the will to lift their eyes, and see
835 Her godlike head crown’d with spiritual fire,
And touching other worlds. I am weary of her.’
He spoke in words part heard, in whispers part,
Half-suffobcated in the hoary fell
And many-winter’d fleece of throat and chin.
840 But Vivien, gathering somewhat of his mood,
And hearing ‘harlot’ mutter’d twice or thrice,
Leapt from her session on his lap, and stood
Stiff as a viper frozen; loathsome sight,
How from the rosy lips of life and love,
845 Flash’d the bare-grinning skeleton of death!
White was her cheek; sharp breaths of anger puff’d
Her fairy nostril out; her hand half-clench’d
Went faltering sideways downward to her belt,
And feeling; had she found a dagger there
850 (For in a wink the false love turns to hate)
She would have stabb’d him; but she found it not:
His eye was calm, and suddenly she took
To bitter weeping like a beaten child,
A long, long weeping, not consolable.
855 Then her false voice made way, broken with sobs:
‘O crueller than was ever told in tale,
Or sung in song! O vainly lavish’d love!
O cruel, there was nothing wild or strange,
Or seeming shameful – for what shame in love,
860 So love be true, and not as yours is – nothing
Poor Vivien had not done to win his trust
Who call’d her what he call’d her – all her crime,
All – all – the wish to prove him wholly hers.’
She mused a little, and then clapt her hands
865 Together with a wailing shriek, and said:
‘Stabb’d through the heart’s affections to the heart!
Seethed like the kid in its own mother’s milk!
Kill’d with a word worse than a life of blows!
I thought that he was gentle, being great:
870 O God, that I had loved a smaller man!
I should have found in him a greater heart.
O, I, that flattering my true passion, saw
The knights, the court, the King, dark in your light,
Who loved to make men darker than they are,
875 Because of that high pleasure which I had
To seat you sole upon my pedestal
Of worship — I am answer’d, and henceforth
The course of life that seem’d so flowery to me
With you for guide and master, only you,
880 Becomes the sea-cliff pathway broken short,
And ending in a ruin – nothing left,
But into some low cave to crawl, and there,
If the wolf spare me, weep my life away,
Kill’d with inutterable unkindliness.’
885 She paused, she turn’d away, she hung her head,
The snake of gold slid from her hair, the braid
Slipt and uncoil’d itself, she wept afresh,
And the dark wood grew darker toward the storm
In silence, while his anger slowly died
890 Within him, till he let his wisdom go
For ease of heart, and half believed her true:
Call’d her to shelter in the hollow oak,
‘Come from the storm,’ and having
no reply,
Gazed at the heaving shoulder, and the face
895 Hand-hidden, as for utmost grief or shame;
Then thrice essay’d, by tenderest-touching terms,
To sleek her ruffled peace of mind, in vain.
At last she let herself be conquer’d by him,
And as the cageling newly flown returns,
900 The seeming-injured simple-hearted thing
Came to her old perch back, and settled there.
There while she sat, half-falling from his knees,
Half-nestled at his heart, and since he saw
The slow tear creep from her closed eyelid yet,
905 About her, more in kindness than in love,
The gentle wizard cast a shielding arm.
But she dislink’d herself at once and rose,
Her arms upon her breast across, and stood,
A virtuous gentlewoman deeply wrong’d,
910 Upright and flush’d before him: then she said:
‘There must be now no passages of love
Betwixt us twain henceforward evermore;
Since, if I be what I am grossly call’d,
What should be granted which your own gross heart
915 Would reckon worth the taking? I will go.
In truth, but one thing now – better have died.
Thrice than have ask’d it once – could make me stay –
That proof of trust – so often ask’d in vain!
How justly, after that vile term of yours,
920 I find with grief! I might believe you then,
Who knows? once more. Lo! what was once to me
Mere matter of the fancy, now hath grown
The vast necessity of heart and life.
Farewell; think gently of me, for I fear
925 My fate or folly, passing gayer youth
For one so old, must be to love thee still.
But ere I leave thee let me swear once more
That if I schemed against thy peace in this,
May yon just heaven, that darkens o’er me, send
930 One flash, that, missing all things else, may make
My scheming brain a cinder, if I lie.’
Scarce had she ceased, when out of heaven a bolt
(For now the storm was close above them) struck,
Furrowing a giant oak, and javelining
935 With darted spikes and splinters of the wood
The dark earth round. He raised his eyes and saw
The tree that shone white-listed thro’ the gloom.
But Vivien, fearing heaven had heard her oath,
And dazzled by the livid-flickering fork,
940 And deafen’d with the stammering cracks and claps
That follow’d, flying back and crying out,
‘O Merlin, tho’ you do not love me, save,
Yet save me!’ clung to him and hugg’d him close;
And call’d him dear protector in her fright,
945 Nor yet forgot her practice in her fright,
But wrought upon his mood and hugg’d him close.
The pale blood of the wizard at her touch
Took gayer colours, like an opal warm’d.
She blamed herself for telling hearsay tales:
950 She shook from fear, and for her fault she wept
Of petulancy; she call’d him lord and liege,
Her seer, her bard, her silver star of eve,
Her God, her Merlin, the one passionate love
Of her whole life; and ever overhead
955 Bellow’d the tempest, and the rotten branch
Snapt in the rushing of the river-rain
Above them; and in change of glare and gloom
Her eyes and neck glittering went and came;
Till now the storm, its burst of passion spent,
960 Moaning and calling out of other lands,
Had left the ravaged woodland yet once more
To peace; and what should not have been had been,
For Merlin, overtalk’d and overworn,
Had yielded, told her all the charm, and slept.
965 Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm
Of woven paces and of waving hands,
And in the hollow oak he lay as dead,
And lost to life and use and name and fame.
Then crying ‘I have made his glory mine,’
970 And shrieking out ‘O fool!’ the harlot leapt
Adown the forest, and the thicket closed
Behind her, and the forest echo’d ‘fool.’
Lancelot and Elaine
Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the east
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;
5 Which first she placed where morning’s earliest ray
Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam;
Then fearing rust or soilure fashion’d for it
A case of silk, and braided thereupon
All the devices blazon’d on the shield
10 In their own tinct, and added, of her wit,
A border fantasy of branch and flower,
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest.
Nor rested thus content, but day by day,
Leaving her household and good father, climb’d
15 That eastern tower, and entering barr’d her door,
Stript off the case, and read the naked shield,
Now guess’d a hidden meaning in his arms,
Now made a pretty history to herself
Of every dint a sword had beaten in it,
20 And every scratch a lance had made upon it,
Conjecturing when and where: this cut is fresh;
That ten years back; this dealt him at Caerlyle;
That at Caerleon; this at Camelot:
And ah God’s mercy, what a stroke was there!
25 And here a thrust that might have kill’d, but God
Broke the strong lance, and roll’d his enemy down,
And saved him: so she lived in fantasy.
How came the lily maid by that good shield
Of Lancelot, she that knew not ev’n his name?
30 He left it with her, when he rode to tilt
For the great diamond in the diamond jousts,
Which Arthur had ordain’d, and by that name
Had named them, since a diamond was the prize.
For Arthur, long before they crown’d him King,
35 Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse,
Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn.
A horror lived about the tarn, and clave
Like its own mists to all the mountain side:
For here two brothers, one a king, had met
40 And fought together; but their names were lost;
And each had slain his brother at a blow;
And down they fell and made the glen abhorr’d:
And there they lay till all their bones were bleach’d,
And lichen’d into colour with the crags:
45 And he, that once was king, had on a crown
Of diamonds, one in front, and four aside.
And Arthur came, and labouring up the pass,
All in a misty moonshine, unawares
Had trodden that crown’d skeleton, and the skull
50 Brake from the nape, and from the skull the crown
Roll’d into light, and turning on its rims
Fled like a glittering rivulet to the tarn;
And down the shingly scaur he plunged, and caught,
And set it on his head, and in his heart
55 Heard murmurs, ‘Lo, thou likewise shalt be King.’
Thereafter, when a King, he had the gems
Pluck’d from the crown, and show’d them to his knights,
Saying, ‘These jewels, whereupon I chanced
Divinely, are the kingdom’s, not the King’s –
&nbs
p; 60 For public use: henceforward let there be,
Once every year, a joust for one of these:
For so by nine years’ proof we needs must learn
Which is our mightiest, and ourselves shall grow
In use of arms and manhood, till we drive
65 The heathen, who, some say, shall rule the land
Hereafter, which God hinder.’ Thus he spoke:
And eight years past, eight jousts had been, and still
Had Lancelot won the diamond of the year,
With purpose to present them to the Queen,
70 When all were won; but meaning all at once
To snare her royal fancy with a boon
Worth half her realm, had never spoken word.
Now for the central diamond and the last
And largest, Arthur, holding then his court
75 Hard on the river nigh the place which now
Is this world’s hugest, let proclaim a joust
At Camelot, and when the time drew nigh
Spake (for she had been sick) to Guinevere,
‘Are you so sick, my Queen, you cannot move
80 To these fair jousts?’ ‘Yea, lord,’ she said, ‘ye know it.’
‘Then will ye miss,’ he answer’d, ‘the great deeds
Of Lancelot, and his prowess in the lists,
A sight ye love to look on.’ And the Queen
Lifted her eyes, and they dwelt languidly
85 On Lancelot, where he stood beside the King.
He thinking that he read her meaning there,
‘Stay with me, I am sick; my love is more
Than many diamonds,’ yielded; and a heart
Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen
90 (However much he yearn’d to make complete
The tale of diamonds for his destined boon)
Urged him to speak against the truth, and say,
‘Sir King, mine ancient wound is hardly whole,
And lets me from the saddle;’ and the King
95 Glanced first at him, then her, and went his way.
No sooner gone than suddenly she began:
‘To blame, my lord Sir Lancelot, much to blame!
Why go ye not to these fair jousts? the knights
Are half of them our enemies, and the crowd
100 Will murmur, “Lo the shameless ones, who take
Their pastime now the trustful King is gone!” ’
Then Lancelot vext at having lied in vain:
‘Are ye so wise? ye were not once so wise,
My Queen, that summer, when ye loved me first.
105 Then of the crowd ye took no more account
Than of the myriad cricket of the mead,
When its own voice clings to each blade of grass,