FOURTH SCENE
Westminster. A vast circular banqueting hall with steps to the river in front. The hall is hidden at first with heavy curtains so that only the stairs are seen. Lavaine by the river steps, leaning pensive on the balustrade.
Enter Gareth and Gaheris arm in arm.
Gareth
Who’s yonder?
Gaheris
Our new courtier, young Lavaine.
Gareth
Stolen apart to admire his blushing looks
In the dark water.
Lavaine (turning)
Gaheris! Ah, and Gareth!
Are you for the banquet?
Gareth
Come, Narcissus, come;
And you shall find a mirror more attractive
In ladies’ eyes.
Lavaine
My thoughts strayed up the river to my home.
I wondered when the ripple that I watched
Went by our cowslip meadows. Months it seems
Since I was there.
Gaheris
Soon they will be acclaiming
Your feats and praises in the joust, Lavaine.
Lavaine
I did but follow where Sir Launcelot led.
Gareth
A good road that.
Gaheris
How furiously he fought!
Mordred enters through curtains. He pauses a moment; then goes off at side.
Gareth
There’s one he toppled down.
Lavaine
What prince is that?
Gaheris
Mordred.
Gareth
No friend to Launcelot, nor to us.
Lavaine
Then none to me.
Gareth
Hush! He is dangerous.
Gaheris
There are black bruises under those fine silks,
I’ll swear. How hard Sir Launcelot struck!
Gareth
The Queen
Should have been there to see him.
Gaheris
It is strange:
He wore a lady’s favour, a red sleeve.
Gareth
And never in his life wore such a badge.
Gaheris
None will dare ask his secret.
Lavaine
The red sleeve?
It is my sister’s. She prevailed on him
To wear it for her sake.
Gaheris
Your sister’s? Ah!
(The brothers exchange looks. Mordred reappears with Agravaine.)
Gareth
Mordred again! And Agravaine with him.
Gaheris (to Lavaine)
His brother.
Gareth
And both dangerous.
(Music sounds within.)
Gaheris
Let’s be quit.
Gareth
Hark! There’s the music.
(The young men bow ceremoniously as they pass in to Mordred and Agravaine, who come down to the steps and begin talking hurriedly.)
Agravaine
What do you want of me?
Mordred
A private word
Before the banquet. I have news to-night.
These headstrong rebels chafing in the West
Are grown impatient. If we act not quickly
They’ll doubt my power. I have promised them too much.
Agravaine
Good. Then we strike and kill this Launcelot.
Mordred
Fool,
To glut your appetite, you’d lose the world.
Agravaine
What is the scheme, then, that shall better it?
Mordred
I stake my first throw on this feast to-night.
The Queen is vext and in her stormy mood,
For that she feigned a sickness in excuse
To absent her from the jousts. Now when she’s tinder
To any chance fire—words can strike a spark;
Watch me for that—her secret may be out
Before she know it.
Agravaine
You are too cunning, Mordred.
Mordred
The King will not believe
Without stark proof. But he shall have it. Listen.
I have a fellow, silent as the snow,
Who watches; he is soft on Launcelot’s steps,
And Launcelot’s a moth that cannot choose
But flit to the candle. There’s a secret way
To the Queen’s chamber, cunningly contrived;
Since Launcelot went, I have found it. Soon or late
We trap him; it may be this very night.
Agravaine
Stark proof for the King!
Mordred
Nail that into his soul
Red-hot as searing iron the flesh;
Then what a weapon is a righteous cause!
He will be just. King Arthur is most just.
But when the gall is in him, when he has smelt
The wormwood up into his brain, and dyed
His very dreams black—Launcelot shall be banished,
And half of Arthur’s bravest go with him:
Or Launcelot defies him: either way
The realm’s in pieces; and my hour is come.
Agravaine
Mordred, you are a devil.
Mordred
On the instant we make certain of the King
And Launcelot’s sentence, post we to the West.
There from our vantage we can launch our powers
Ripe to the moment, and the throne is mine.
Agravaine
I’d liefer have my steel in Launcelot’s heart.
Mordred
Calm now; no hot words, and no hasty hand
Flying to the sword-hilt! Watch me and the Queen.
Wine shall be drunk to-night, and with the wine,
It may be, the truth spilt upon the floor!
(Curtains draw back and disclose the Round Table spread for a banquet. The knights are already assembling. Mordred and his brother joins them. Harpists attending.)
Mordred
Good evening to Sir Gawaine!
Gawaine
You are gay,
Sir Mordred.
Mordred
Why not? Bright eyes match a feast.
Have you no smiles?
Gawaine
What have you heard?
Mordred
I? Nothing.
Gawaine
I hear the King sits not at table with us.
Mordred
Indeed? For what cause?
Gawaine
There came news to-night.
Mordred
Ill news?
Gawaine
Who knows? News from the West, Mordred.
Mordred
Is trouble afoot there, too? But all’s secure,
Now we have Launcelot back. Is he not here?
Gawaine
He is with the King.
Mordred
But I see friends of his.
Greeting to you, Sir Bors, and you, Sir Kay.
Agravaine (to Colegrevance)
Colegrevance, be wary.
Colegrevance (going apart with him)
What’s afoot?
Agravaine
(They whisper together.)
Be wary.
Enter Bedivere
Bedivere
I come straight from the King: the Queen to-night
Presides for him. Lucan, array the guests.
The Queen approaches.
(The guests arrange themselves. Harps. The Queen enters attended by her ladies. All are standing.)
Guenevere
Welcome and salutation to you all.
Our banquet loses what it least should lose
On such a day as this; my lord the King
Had thought to celebrate his feast with those
That bore his banners into victory:
But sudden cares absent him. Pray, be seated.
Your Queen is honoured being in his place.
Brave knights, my welcome,
A Queen’s dear welcome. Glad am I, Sir Gawaine,
To greet the legend of the land for valour,
Proud in unchampioned causes;
And you, Sir Mordred, far-seeing in counsel;
Sir Bedivere, our sovereign’s pillar of trust;
Sir Kay, Sir Bors, Sir Agravaine, Sir Lucan,
Sir Colegrevance——Is not Sir Launcelot here?
Sir Kay (to a lady)
Go, tell Sir Launcelot the Queen asks for him.
Guenevere
Welcome to you, Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris.
Never a Queen
Had round her such array of peers renowned
In arms and courtesy.
Gawaine
Most royal Queen!
Mordred
The honour that you do us dumbs our speech.
(The Queen seats herself upon a raised daïs at the back. All take their seats and the banquet begins. Each knight is attended by his squire.)
Guenevere
I grieve my sickness robbed me of yesterday’s
Great jousts: I had thought to glory in them, and joy
In the prowess of antagonists so noble.
Bedivere
Our grief it was, your presence shone not on us.
Bors
Ah, Madam, had you seen Sir Launcelot there!
Kay
He never rode so terrible a course
In all his days.
Bedivere
There was no man could stand
Against the fury of his setting on.
Colegrevance
Why, all men have their lucky day.
Kay
And this
Was not denoted in your stars.
Colegrevance
For me
These jousts are toys.
What comfort’s in a partridge to good hunger?
Give me a pasty royally bastioned, stuffed
For siege, a challenge to the assault; and give me
Battle’s reality, not miming spears.
When the blood’s up and runs hot in the veins
Then you shall see these hands of mine at work,
Not play.
Kay
And yet methought the blood was up,
When Launcelot bore you down.
Mordred
Ah, yesterday
Launcelot was an army, not a man.
Agravaine
It seems he is too weary with his feats
To grace this royal table!
Guenevere
Dear my lords,
I raise a cup to your good fellowship.
If, as may chance, the semblance of division
Or the beginning of an enmity
Set any of you askance at one another,
Let it be melted in this cordial wine.
Shall it not? If a word has flown, forget it,
If any old wound be open, let it close,
And mould to-night your fellowship anew.
Drink with me all: “King Arthur’s fellowship!”
(The knights, rising, respond with a great shout. Deep horns sound a flourish.)
All Knights
“King Arthur’s fellowship.”
Gawaine
You speak to loyal hearts.
Lady (returning)
King Arthur, Madam,
Takes private counsel of Sir Launcelot,
Who prays to be excused.
Guenevere
As the King wills.
Bors
It seems new strife is hatching in the West.
Bedivere
These rats gnaw at our realm on every side.
Gawaine
So we shall soon be horsed——
Gareth
And in the field.
Gaheris
Lavaine, there shall be spurs to win.
Agravaine
These rebels
Renown us not. There’s not a knight among them.
Kay
Enough for Colegrevance to flesh his steel.
(A laugh from Launcelot’s friends)
Mordred
While we go to the wars, ladies lament.
Bors
What, ladies, Mordred?
Mordred
Breaker of hearts, so modest?
I thought Sir Launcelot’s comrades boasted more
Of sighs than trophies. As for me and mine——
Colegrevance
We are blunt men-at-arms.
Mordred
But you, Sir Bors;
If I were not discreeter than the dusk——
(A laugh from Mordred’s followers.)
Guenevere
Friends, of your charity!
Mordred
I say no more.
Guenevere
Your tongues speak trippingly of breaking hearts,
Yet of your courtesy remember this:
A woman has no armour, has no sword;
And absent, how shall she defend herself?
If tongues be sharp with malice,
A woman must be silent. If defamers
Stab at her honour in the dark—why, still
She must be silent. I am a woman, a Queen;
And yet, how can I fight with evil tongues?
I count you all as friends, all of you here;
And if your Queen on any day should need
Armour and sword, she gives to you her honour;
The dearest thing she has she gives to you.
Gawaine
Now may the lightning scorch the lips that made
Our loyal oaths, if we forget. In peace
As in the hour of peril, we are yours
In service absolute; and we will shed
Our bosom’s last blood to defend our Queen.
Do I not speak for all?
Bedivere (raising his cup)
For all! The Queen!
All Knights
We pledge her.
Gawaine
Sword and life!
All Knights
Hail to the Queen!
Bors
To the most gracious lady in the land!
Lucan
To the glory of this isle!
Kay
The Western star!
Mordred
The radiant rose of Britain and the world!
Gawaine
Happily spoken. Mordred hits the mark:
“The radiant rose of Britain and the world.”
All Knights
The radiant rose of Britain and the world.
(A great flourish from the horns.)
Guenevere
Thanks to you all, thanks from my heart that glows
Great in my bosom to be pledged so queenly,
To have such praises like a crown upon me
More golden than this circlet; for I feel
Your voices are like swords upon my side
Flashing about me.
Sir Mordred, specially I thank you, since
Too seldom have we seen you grace our table.
Honour us more!
Mordred
I am honoured past desert.
Let me again pledge that most royal beauty
Dimming the fame of queens dead and renowned.
Drink yet again, knights, to our Queen.
All Knights
Our Queen!
(Another flourish.)
Mordred
Yet something, give me pardon, something lacks
Your feast, Queen Guenevere.
Guenevere
Speak your desire.
I blame my entertainment that it lacks——
Mordred
Sir Launcelot!
Guenevere
I have word the King requires him
In council.
Mordred
A light is wanting by your side
When Launcelot is absent. You have spoken
Of the division that an envy breeds.
Lives one who envies not Sir Launcelot?
If it be fault,
I must confess to it. Fame he has and love,
And therefore stands the envy of the world.
Where is the man’s hand can prevail against him,
Or where the heart of woman?
When in the bright lists Launcelot rode on me
How was I dazzled? Not by him alone;
I marvelled at the red sleeve which he wore,
Beauty’s proud badge. That smote me in the eyes.
My Queen, it was your red sleeve conquered me.
Guenevere
A red sleeve? Launcelot?
Mordred
Knights,
Red wine to the red sleeve! (A pause.)
Does no one drink? Have I said aught amiss?
Guenevere
What does Sir Mordred rave of?
Bedivere
Queen, excuse.
It is but some extravagance of phrase.
Lavaine (shyly)
Sirs,
This red sleeve is my sister’s.
Mordred
Not the Queen’s?
(A pause.)
Colegrevance
Out of the mouth of babes!
Mordred
Oh, pardon me
If in my innocence I have offended.
Guenevere
Sir Launcelot wore a red sleeve yesterday?
And this sleeve was your sister’s?
Lavaine
Yes, my Queen.
She supplicated him to wear it.
Guenevere
She
Has healed him of his wound. For gratitude
He could have done naught else.
Mordred
But this is marvel.
Never did Launcelot take such badge before
Of any lady. More than gratitude
This surely meant.
Gawaine
Mordred, the Queen has spoken.
You slight her word.
Mordred
Nay, for the Queen must joy
With all her knights in so surpassing news.
We shall see Launcelot bring to Court at last
A bride.
Sirs, drink with me to Launcelot and his bride!
Agravaine, Colegrevance, Patrice, and Mador
To Launcelot and his bride!
Guenevere
I also drink to Launcelot’s fair bride.
And now, sirs, I will pray you pardon me.
(To Sir Lucan) Sir Lucan, bid my woman to attend me.
(Pause.)
Gawaine (in a low voice)
Mordred, this marring of the feast is yours.
Mordred
I spoke but praises.
Gawaine
Honey, dropping venom.
Agravaine
Gawaine, you are ever shaping taunts at us.
Bedivere
Sirs, sirs, the Queen!
Mordred
I spoke no word but what should honour her.
Bors
Sir Mordred, we
That are the friends of Launcelot know not you
So fond a lover of his fame; so pardon
If phrases of such fashion seemed to taste ...
I say no more. Yet be assured, if ill
Be meant to Launcelot, rue to him that means it.
Colegrevance
A threat! By Uther’s beard, we’ll not be threatened.
Mordred
Colegrevance, be still.
What said the Queen. Accord old feuds, be friends.
Which of us now shows her obedience?
Kay
Were Launcelot here——
Agravaine
Launcelot, Launcelot!
Must we be ever plagued with Launcelot?
Bors
Yesterday, Agravaine, you had some cause.
(A laugh from Launcelot’s friends.)
Agravaine
I defy you all.
Bedivere
The Queen!
Agravaine
The Queen, it seems,
Has bidden us to be gibed at.
Mordred
Peace, sirs, peace.
The Queen bade us be merry.
I ask your pardon if I spoke amiss,
I marvel that a sleeve, a mere red sleeve——
Gawaine, Bedivere, Bors, Kay
Mordred!
Guenevere (rising in wrath)
Unmannerly dastard!
(Pause and a low laugh from Agravaine.)
Nay, forgive me, sirs;
I am not all recovered from my sickness:
Pardon me if I leave you; stir not. Come.
[Exit with ladies.
Gawaine (after a pause, to Mordred)
What devil pricked your tongue to speak of that?
Mordred
Why should I not?...
Were it not injury to think such thoughts
I would say——
Gawaine
To your meaning, and be done.
Mordred (slowly)
I would say Gawaine hints of some dishonour,
Some secret that must not be told abroad.
Would Gawaine say the Queen
Is jealous because Launcelot——
Gawaine
Slanderer!
Mordred
It was not I that hinted.
Lavaine
The red sleeve,
I tell you again, Sir Mordred, was my sister’s.
For Elaine’s sake and in mere courtesy
Sir Launcelot wore it.
Mordred
Needs the Queen these defenders?
Colegrevance
What fool boy’s talk is this? A paramour
The more, say I.
Agravaine
False to one, false to all.
Lavaine
Liar!
Agravaine
I will have blood for that.
Colegrevance
And I.
Bedivere
For shame! Be silent. Here in the King’s hall!
Agravaine
Off, masks! We have slobbered phrases long enough.
The Queen confessed, you know it by her eye
And cheek of flame that spoke clear as a trumpet
“Launcelot is mine! None else shall have his love
While I have breath and can deceive the King.”
Shall the King be deceived?
Bors
Drag him away!
Agravaine
To the King!
Colegrevance, Mador, Patrice
To the King!
Bedivere, Lucan, Kay, Bors
To the King? No.
Gawaine
Silence! To the King? And shame
The very floor we stand on? To the King,
And with what pitiable pretext? Why,
But that the wine is flown into your brains,
What colour is in this tale? The morning air
Will blow it into nothing.
Agravaine
That we’ll see.
Bedivere
Mordred, you vowed devotion to the Queen.
Mordred
I have said naught against her.
Bors
Hypocrite!
Agravaine
Do you dare insult my brother?
Lucan
Are Britain’s peers
Grown tavern brawlers?
Kay
Launcelot shall hear you
And prove upon your bodies that you lie.
Agravaine
The truth is out, and Launcelot shall die
For all his champions.
Patrice
Come we to the King.
Bedivere
Are knightly vows then turned to drunkards’ oaths?
Kay
Is loyalty in the gutter?
Gawaine
Shame on all
If one word come to the King’s ear of this.
Bedivere
And with this hubbub we affront the Queen
Most shamefully. Remove we all, at once.
(The knights pass out in great turmoil, Mordred lingering last.)
Mordred
I have pulled the sluice. Now let the torrent stream.
[Exit.
Guenevere enters with one of her women.
Guenevere
Sir Launcelot, have you found him?
Woman
He is here.
(Guenevere dismisses the woman with a gesture. Launcelot enters, grave and preoccupied.)
Launcelot
My Queen!
Guenevere
Perjurer! The truth leaps to light at last!
Ah God, Launcelot, that I trusted you,
Loved you with such a love, such a mad love,
So weak! But now my heart turns into hate
And all my blood into one river of scorn.
Oh, that I were the lightning and could strike
To the false heart of you; there, there,
Behind the lips that vowed me endless love
To the false heart that laughed those vows away,
False as the sea, cruel and false with smiles
And sighs and perjured protestation.
Launcelot
Queen!
Guenevere
Who fills your secret bosom, fires your thought?
Who speeds her champion’s onset in the lists?
Not I, but she whose dear red sleeve you wore.
Launcelot
Guenevere, hear me!
Guenevere
A milky-hearted maid,
A tender maid, the maid of Astolat,
She for whose sake you did what never yet
You did for any woman. And you came
Fresh from her clasp, and her cold kiss, to me!
Get to her, haste to her.
Run to that adoration of meek eyes——
Launcelot
Guenevere, Guenevere! you are much deceived.
Guenevere
Deceived indeed! Ah, did you ever love?
Is all that sweetness, ah God, all that seemed
So sweet, it tortures me to think of it,
Ashes and dust? Horrible! Now I know
Why you came sainted and exalted back—
Loyalty and compunction on your lips,
But in your heart a love you dared not own.
It is this girl that’s changed you. Go to her!
Launcelot
I am not changed, my Queen. It is you change.
Guenevere
I?
Launcelot
Has some devil entered into you
That you rave slander?
Speak not, for you shall hear me. You have wronged
One that you know not, and me too you wrong
That never loved any but you, have spent
Blood for you, fought for you, have many times
Been in death’s peril for you, and would to God,
If so I am requited, would to God
That I had never loved.
Guenevere
Ah, you have said it.
Launcelot
I love her not, you know it.
Guenevere
Yet you wore
Her sleeve, her favour.
Launcelot
What I did, I did
For pity, and for the shielding of your name.
I would not wear your favour for that cause.
Guenevere
And yet you never did so much for love.
Launcelot
She had won me back from death. How otherwise
Could I requite her, since I could not love?
So earnestly she asked me for that boon.
Guenevere
It was a token to the world you loved her.
You had no thought of me, never a thought.
Launcelot
Rack me no more! Day and night, night and day,
The image of your eyes and voice and hair
Burns me; you are twisted in my heart strings, I have sought
To cut love from my bosom, but I cannot,
I cannot; and because it saps, divides,
Undoes this realm, and wrongs the King I love—
Never can I enough repent that wrong——
Guenevere
Ah, false and faithless, you will go to her.
(At the height of this scene, suddenly from the right a barge appears with the body of Elaine upon it. It is steered by a very old dumb servant. It glides very slowly to the steps which lead down to the river. Launcelot alone sees it first.)
Guenevere
What comes into your eyes and sends you pale?
Launcelot
Is it a vision?
Guenevere (to the steersman)
Whom do you bring, cold on her bier, so strangely?
(To Launcelot) Why does he speak no word?
Launcelot
What need of words?
Guenevere
Is it she?
Launcelot
Yes.
Guenevere
What have you done to her?
Launcelot
Speak! Can you answer nothing?
(The steersman signs that he is deaf and dumb)
He is dumb.
(The steersman points to the letter)
Guenevere
There is a folded paper in her hand.
(Launcelot steps into the barge, and unties the letter and reads it.)
Launcelot
“Most noble Launcelot, I was your lover, though
you would not love me. You could not love me,
and therefore I can endure no longer. I was
called the Fair Maid of Astolat, and yet I was not
loved. So I make my lament to all fair ladies,
and to the Queen Guenevere. Sir Launcelot,
since you would not come to me, now come I to
you. Bury this my body that is dead for love of
you. This is the last thing that I ask of you
who would not love me. And, Sir Launcelot, as
you are a knight peerless, pray for my soul.”
Arthur appears, entering slowly
Arthur
What wonder’s here?
Launcelot
The wonder of a death;
The wonder and the beauty and the sorrow.
Arthur
Who is this maid?
Launcelot
One that loved overmuch;
It is Elaine.
Arthur
The maid of Astolat
That healed your wound? How comes she dead?
Launcelot
Read here.
(Arthur reads the letter to himself.)
Guenevere (Gliding away with bowed head)
Pardon, pardon, pardon!
Arthur
Is love so terrible? I did not know.
I would that you had married her.
Launcelot
I could not.
Arthur
Why, Launcelot?
Launcelot
I could not,
Love cannot be constrained. Love must be free.
Where love is bound, it breaks free.
Arthur
It breaks free
Where it is bound. Bound, and breaks free! Think you
That other women can love like to this?
Launcelot
Doubt it not.
Arthur
Even to death?
Launcelot
Even to death.
(A pause, each thinking his own thoughts.)
Arthur
It is as if a flame had leapt from her
And stung me in the brain.
Lives such a world of fire in Guenevere
And I have never known it?
She is smiling, yet she suffered even to death.
Heart of a woman! Is a realm so strong,
Armies, or battlements? Is faith? Is justice?
Launcelot
I pray you let me go apart awhile
For I am charged with a burial.
Arthur (with a change of tone)
Be it so,
There’s something hidden from me. Why that clamour
And then the silence when I came among them?
(Going away, he turns) Launcelot, I have trusted you.
Launcelot
My King,
Trust me still.
[Arthur goes out.
There’s no end now but exile, I must hence,
Back with to-morrow’s dawn to my own land,
To Brittany. (He motions to the steersman, and steps into the barge.)
Steer down the stream, and I
Will bring you to that place
Where this must leave the light.
Have mercy, Jesu, on that wounded heart!
Give me a soul so constant, flight so straight!
Some angel of compassion bear her now
Where innocence may haven, far from me!
Steer on!
(The barge passes down stream.)