Enter Alardo, Guido, Martha, Onesta, and Mayers, with Cinthio and
Faustine, guarded.
Eulalie. Mother, what do you here?
Martha. You'll see anon.
Onesta [to Faustine]. O, my lady, you must not blame me! I could not
help it. My lord your father——
Guido. Peace, well-named hypocrite! [Aside to Alardo.] This is your
son,
With that low maid on whom he would devolve
The varied riches of his royal blood.
Alardo. Refer to his decree your daughter's case,
Thereby to see how far his judgment's warped.
[To Conrad.] Reveal not yet your parentage, I pray.
Rupert. Why, how now, Guido? Sir, what mean you thus
With all this mob to break upon us here?
Guido. My gracious prince, these two but now confessed—
What fear of torture from my daughter's maid
Had riven ours already—that to-night,
Faustine, having 'scaped by practices most vile,
Meant with this silly shepherd to elope,
He having stolen her heart from me, her sire;
Though by what means they interchanged their loves,
How spake, how saw each other, passes skill:
And both with fixed intent to rob your land
Of their two bodies and hidden wealth of issue,
In that same ship, whose captain is Sebastian
(Riders we have despatched to fetch him here),
Purposed themselves to carry off—fine caskets
Of so high value and unpriced contents,
All to your grace, and all to Belmarie,
And a fair moiety to me, belonging.
This knowing, and that, until time should serve
They here did hide, thinking the wood more safe
Than our exposed and pirate-haunted shores,
I, with these lords, came hither. On the way
We trained along with us these unbid Mayers,
Who must excuse themselves if they offend;
Though for their help in finding out this haunt,
Subserving thus the law, they might be shrived.
A strange and most sweet music led us on;
And we supposed to find the minstrels here,
And know from them of those love-guided truants.
In perpetration of their triple crime
We caught our night-errant lovers. Upon them
Immediate justice I do here demand
In your name, mine, and in that of the land.
Rupert. Which thou and it and they shall surely have.
Stand from the shade, ye social rebels. What!
My Cinthio! thou should'st have trusted me.—
This is the final doom that I decree.
Guido, take thou thy daughter in one hand,
Her lover in the other. Mother mine,
Here is my hand and here is Eulalie's.
Lord Guido, thou next best blood to the throne,
Surrender here into this shepherd's arms
Thy well-beloved and only daughter, Faustine.
Good Martha, of the very lowliest stock,
On me, King Rupert, thy sweet child bestow.
I now revoke my first decree, and take
That title, which is mine, to make this right;
For kings are higher than all laws but love.
Do as we bid, lord Guido; join their hands,
As Martha now unites my love's and mine.
Do it, I say; or else by Hymen's torch
I'll marry thee to Martha, and so make
Three marriages, by which a king becomes
A peasant's husband, and a subject's son;
Obtains a mother—a poor fisher's widow—
Who brings with her a lordly father-in-law,
A gentle sister, and a simple brother:
Thus I, a king, beget more new affection
Than love, which not incites this my election.
Alardo. Rash boy, forbear.
Rupert. My father!
Alardo. Yes, Rupert.
No ghost, in health, and likely long to live.
Leave go her hand; and you, girl, let his go.
Woman, be you more careful of your child.
We wait to be obeyed.
Rupert. I'll not obey:
I owe no duty, know no king, but love.
Eulalie. Farewell, dear Rupert. Rupert and farewell
I say now finally: yet kiss me once.
My dream dispels before your father's frown:
Those fairies which we saw we did not see;
I am still half asleep: when I awake
My cheated eyes will weep their own deceit,
Viewing my chamber's walls so falsely real.
Go to your father, prince; I'll to my mother.
Faustine. I have no father, and I have no king
Save thee, my Cinthio, and my dearest love.
I see her heart is almost split in twain;
But if they rive my body from thine arms,
My heart entire will stay there: I shall die.
Alardo. I had forgot: you two need not to part;
Conrad will speak the barrier away.
Cinthio. I do remember now two soothsayers.
Rupert. I see them in my father and this lord.
Conrad. You see aright. Shepherd, thou art my son.
I here have watched thee with a lynx's eyes,
And noted every motion of thy limbs,
Thy heart's each flutter and thy tongue's each word,
And every act; and in thy very sighs,
Thine eye's upturning, there is limned past doubt
A faithful copy of thy heaven-homed mother.
But let me see the chain that's round thy neck.
Thou art my son!
Cinthio. My father!
Guido. Go, Faustine,
Go to him. Royal sir, my word is proved,
That women are but governed by their bloods.
Alardo. And dogs, and men, and angels I presume.—
But what to do with my sad son I know not.
Martha. I'm going to disown thee, Eulalie.
Please it your gracious highness and fair prince,
This gentle lady is no child of mine.
Her parents both were noble: how they died,
And she, an infant, of her heritage
Was cozened by an uncle, I'll make plain
By names, dates, papers, birth-marks, jewellery.
I reared her as my own in low content,
And meant not to destroy her happiness
By telling her of her nobility,
Till she might claim her land with power to take.
Alardo. Prove what thou sayest, and they may wed to-morrow.
Rupert. Thanks, gracious father. It is true, I know.
What, Eulalie! hast thou no energy?
Art thou struck dumb? Wilt thou not spring to me?
How! Would'st thou have me woo thee o'er again?
A high delight! Then high-born maid, be coy.
Eulalie. O no, I need no wooing; but I fear
Thou'lt love me in a manner different.
A lady I would be to marry thee;
But with thy former love, pray love me still.
Rupert. With that, and every kind of love, I will.
Thou art—O what thou art I cannot say!
I love thee, nor can tell how lovingly.
Ivy. I'll make a ballad of this, a proper ballad—a ballad that would
draw tears from a frog in the heart of a rock. By Hecate, I will!
Enter Officers with Sebastian.
Officer. This is the captain we were sent to take.
Alardo. Canst thou say aught by way of an excuse?
Sebastian. King, I behold such happy faces here,
Glowing like stars in the grey morning air,
That I have little fear to say, I cannot.
It seems indeed that every star of heaven
With most auspicious aspect earthward turns.
I bring such tidings as will raise your brows
Much more than this new amity I see
Constrains surprise in me. Your appetites
Shall, when they have fed full of wonderment,
Fall to a second feast of happiness,
Admiring, welcoming and hearing told
The ships, their crews, and unconceived escapes.
Alardo. What ships, crews, 'scapes?
Sebastian. Those galleys four, ornate,
With all the gallant, living human freight
That sailed forth in the five, with wealth untold
Of bullion, spices, silks, and rarities,
Gathered in many lands and many seas,
Are in the harbour safe arrived but now.
Alardo. I cannot speak. Kind Heaven, my knees I bow.
Mayers. Long live the King! Long live Prince Rupert! Long live our
May-Queen!
Green. Let us to the shore.
Ivy. Ay, that's the word! Come, lads and lasses! There shall we have
sight of ships we thought never to see, and shake hands that we thought
death had shaken, and hear voices that we thought were singing with
mermaids. O, there will be kissing and embarrassment, and sobbing and
lacrimony! I will end my ballad with it.
Cinthio. Sebastian, all our voyaging is past.
Sebastian. And paradise attained at home at last.
Ivy. Good captain, lead us on.
Sebastian. I pray you, wait.
Ivy. Sir, we have waited a year and a month, and can tarry no longer.
Come.
Mayers. Away, away!
[Green, Ivy, Sebastian, and Mayers go out.
Alardo. Behold, the blinking dawn with sleepy eyes
Peers from her cloudy lattice in the skies,
Early astir to see if it be time
For Phoebus to awake and make day's prime.
Be glorious in thy rising, day-god bright,
For thou wilt usher us to that delight
We hardly dared to pray for: mark this day
With thy most splendid, most benignant ray;
For fate has blessed it, and time seems to make
A new departure—yea of life to take
A fresh lease: so, henceforth, our years shall date.—
Follow us lovers linked in hands and hearts
Like true love-knots that strength or skill ne'er starts.
[Alardo, Conrad, and Guido go out.
Martha. Eulalie!
Eulalie. Dear mother!
Rupert. And mine too.
Cinthio. Now, let us wash our faces in the dew.
Rupert. O, I forgot th' observance of the day.
All hail my mistress and my Queen of May!
Eulalie. I am afraid that all our joys but seem,
And I shall yet awake out of a dream.
Rupert. Have no such fear, my love.—Behold us, then,
Two happy maidens and two happy men.
Lo, wakened by the lark, his bellman true,
Armed with a torch that merrily doth shine,
Arrayed in saffron of the deepest hue,
The sun, like Hymen, comes with smile benign!
As long as his resplendent light shall burn,
May our love-tides increase, but never turn.
A ROMANTIC FARCE
(Edinburgh, 1878)
PERSONS
Earl Edmund.
Sir James Montgomery.
Antinous.
Clown.
Captain Mercer.
Ringan Deane, a boy.
Lady Montgomery.
May Montgomery.
Mary-Jane.
Bellona.
Herminia.
Annie Smith, a girl.