MORDRED
. . and . .
HILDEBRAND.

A BOOK OF TRAGEDIES

BY

WILLIAM WILFRED CAMPBELL,

(Author of “The Dread Voyage,” “Lake Lyrics.”)

OTTAWA:
J. DURIE & SON
1895.

TO MY FRIENDS.
THE HONOURABLE J. C. PATTERSON,
— AND —
THE HONOURABLE A. R. DICKEY,
THIS BOOK OF TRAGEDIES
IS DEDICATED.

Entered according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, by William Wilfred Campbell, Ottawa, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture, at Ottawa.

PRINTED BY
Paynter & Abbott,
48 Rideau St.

MORDRED.

A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS.

FOUNDED ON THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND
OF
SIR THOMAS MALORY.

(This Drama was written in July and August, 1893.)

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

MORDRED.

ACT. I.

SCENE I.—A Hermitage in the Woods.

Enter Arthur, Launcelot and other Knights.

Launcelot. Here is a place of prayer, we will alight,

And rest a space and think us of our sins.

Arthur. Launcelot, and were I shrived and clean

Half hell itself were loosened of its pains.

Launcelot. Arthur, friend and lover of my youth,

Could’st thou but throw this black mood from thee now,

And get a sweeter hope into thy soul,

Drive out the horrid phantoms of the past,

And it were hope for Britain. Well thou knowest

Men look to thee to succor this poor land

Enrent by inward brawls and foreign hordes,

Whose fields untilled, and vanished the smoke of homes.

It hath been said that thou would’st raise once more

Out of these ruins a kingdom whose great fame

Would ring for ages down the days of earth,

And be a glory in men’s hearts forever.

[Passes to the left.

Arthur. Launcelot, well know I thy love for Arthur.

’Tis thy sweet, manly kinship of the heart,

Opening thy spirit’s windows toward the sun,

Hath made my dark days lighter. Would that I

Had kept me holy, innocent as thee.

I might in kinder fate have made this land

A place where holiness and peace might dwell,

And such a white and lofty honor held

Before men’s eyes, that all the world would come

And worship manhood’s beauty freed from sin.

Such dreams have haunted me from my first youth,

In fitful slumbers or long marching hours.

These lonesome lofty vigils of the heart

Have made men deem me colder. ’Tis my sin!

Oh Launcelot I am blacker than thou knowest!

[Exit Launcelot.

Enter Hermit.

Hermit. And comest thou, my son, for Church’s grace?

Arthur. I come here, Father, for to have me shrived.

[Kneels.

Hermit. Then thou art shriven, such a noble face

Could never harbor evil in its grace.

[Lifts his hands in blessing.

Arthur. Stay holy Hermit, fair trees rot at heart,

And I am evil if this world holds ill.

I would lay bare my soul of its foul sin,

And if there be white shrift for such as me

In Heaven’s mercy, I would crave it now;

Though little of hope have I, if thou dost hear.

Hermit. Wouldst thou confess, my son, the church hath power

To white the blackest sinner crawling foul

From earth’s most sensuous cesspool, doth he but

Come in the earnest sorrow of his heart

And lay his sins within her holy keeping.

But well I know that thou art that great Arthur,

The hope of all for succor to this realm:—

For other man hath never worn such grace

And nobleness of bearing as thou wearest.

Fear not my son, whatever be the sin

Of thy hot youth, the past will be forgiven,

And holy Church will freely pardon one

And all the evil deeds that thou hast done.

Arthur. Father, my life is haunted with one thought

That comes between me and my sweetest hopes.

In battle’s clamor only will it pass,

But in my lonelier moments it comes in;—

The awful memory of one heinous sin.

Hermit. Of truth thou hast suffered over much, my son.

What is thy sin?

Arthur. One deed beyond all others of my youth.

Mad passionate and wild to savagery,

I violated a maid’s sanctuary,

And afterwards, I found,—O Christ forgive me!

Hermit. Say on!

Arthur. She was my sister!

Hermit. Sancta Maria—Ora pro nobis!

Arthur. It will not out. The evil of that night

When I, unknowing, did that awful deed,

Hath blackened all my future like a web.

And when men look up to me as their sun,

It makes my life seem like some whited tower,

Where all is foul and hideous hid within.

Hermit. Thou sayest truth, my son, thy sin be heavy.

[Crossing himself.

Arthur. Oh swart, incestuous night whose bat-like wings

O’er-spread my life like thunder-gathering cloud,

When will thy dawn break glimmering on my soul?

Or wilt thou drag thy weary length along

And spell thy moments out in hopeless years

Until thy black o’er-laps the black of death

In that dread journeying where all men go,

When all my dreams are spent and smouldered down

Like some far ruined sunset at life’s ebb,

And hope deferred fades out in endless sleep?

O holy man forgive mine impious presence,

Thy blessed office naught availeth me.

Hermit. Nay son grieve not as one who hath no hope.

Though awsome be this youthful sin of thine,

Whose memory blurs thy loftier, holier dreams,

Let not this one sin lead thee to blaspheme

Thus ignorantly holy Church’s power.

Thy very sorrow half absolveth thee.

In name of Him who blessed the dying thief,

I bid thee look no longer at thy past.

Which eateth like some canker at thy heart,

Redeem thy past in deeds of future good;

Deem’st thy high dreams were given thee for nought?

There is a noble doom about thy face,

A writing writ of God that telleth me

That thou art not a common ordered man,

But one ordained as holy ones of old

For some great lofty cause. Lift up thy heart,

Earth hath a need of thee, thy people call,

Wrongs long unrighted, evils long unplucked,

All cry to thee for judgment. Palsy not

The strength of thy great future brooding on

An indiscretion of thy savage past.

Arthur. And is it of God, Oh! Father, thinkest thou?

Hermit. Yea my son;

As are all hope and sunshine. What is life—

But spring unmindful of bleak winter-time,

Joying in living, mindless of old death;

Youth dead to sorrow, age to coming night.

Look up, forget thine evil, drink new faith

From this glad parable of the awakening year.

The church’s arms are round thee, build new hope

In this poor Kingdom as the quickening year

Hath made this wrinkled earth forget old sorrows;

Be this but thine to do, and thou art pardoned.

Arthur. Oh! blessed be thy counsel, even now

I feel new joys run riot in my heart.

Old hopes long faded built on my high dreams!

The old dread sorrow lightens, it is gone,

And I go forth a shrived soul even now.

Yea, hear me Father, now I consecrate

This my poor life to this great kingdom’s weal,

And be my God but with me, I will raise

This head of sorrows out of clouds of ill,

And build a splendor of my chastened will.

Thy blessing Father!

Hermit. (Raises his hand in blessing.) Go forth from hence

Great Arthur keeper of thy people’s peace.

Go forth to right all wrong and guard all right,

In home and mart, in castle and in cot,

Meting the same to high and lowly lot.

Go forth in name of God to build a realm

Built up on chastity and noble deeds,

Where womanhood is gentle and austere,

And manhood strong in its great innocence.

Go, blessed of God and all thy fellow men,

Go in the strength of thy most high resolve,

Thou wondrous soul unto thy wondrous work,

The glory of all the after days to be.

Arthur. Amen! Amen!!

SCENE II.—Camelot. (Arthur crowned king.)

Enter Merlin and Mordred, a hunchback, the King’s illegitimate son. Outside a great clamor of voices is heard of “Arthur! Long live King Arthur.”

Merlin. Now tarry here aside while I prepare

The king for this thy filial audience.

Mordred. O mighty Merlin, I fear me all thine arts

That compass ocean, air, and deepest mine,

And have command of subtlest sciences,

Have never found the power to brew a charm,

A Sovereign draught of distillation rare,

To warm a Father’s heart toward such as me.

Merlin. Thou much mistakest Mordred, he is noble.

This too-long thought on thine infirmity,

Hath made thy mind, which is as clear as glass,

Ensickly all things that it looks upon.

When Arthur, thy great father, knows his son,

His nobleness of heart will plead with him,

And when he sees what I have seen in thee,

A subtle greatness of the inner spirit,

Greater than even I, wise Merlin, have,

That prophesies a power for good or ill

Such as is rare mid men in this our age,

He will forget that outward lack of mould

In the strong, god-like, nobleness within.

Mordred. Ah Merlin, would my spirit thou wert right,

And I would show him such a son’s true love,

And consecrate this subtlety within me,

To build a fence of safety round his glory.

But something tells me, some weird, evil doom,

That sits about my heart by day and night,

An awful presence that will never flit,

That he will never love me, yea, that more,

Of all things hateful to him on this earth,

My presence the most hateful. Oh great Mage,

I know that thou art skilful in thine age,

And subtle in all knowledges of lore,

But there lies in recesses of the heart,

That hath known bitter sorrow such as mine,

A deeper wisdom intuition breeds,

That thou hast never sounded in thy lore.

Merlin. Hast thou ever seen this presence whereof thou speakest?

Mordred. Yea, only as a look that haunteth faces.

Merlin. Faces?

Mordred. I never saw it in my poor dog’s face,

When he hath climbed my knees to lick my hand.

I never saw it in the mirrored peace

That brims the beauty of a forest pool;—

Nor in the wise regard of mighty nature.

But in the face of man I oft have seen it.

Merlin. What hast thou seen, this wisdom would I know?

Mordred. I never saw it in thy look, O Mage,

But something sweeter, much akin, called pity,

But once I woke a flower-eyed little maid,

Who slumbered ’mid the daisies by a stream;

She seemed the summer day incarnate there

With her sweet, innocent, unconscious face,

So like a flower herself amid the flowers;

And I were lonely there in all that vast,

And thinking, (’twas only but a boy’s light thought,

With some deep, other thought beyond mine age,)

To wake this human summer-morn to life,

And know this June-day conscious of its joy:

But when I bent and touched her on the arm,

I only woke a living terror there

Of eyes and limbs that fled from my amaze.

I saw it once within the Priestman’s face

The only and the last time I was shriven.

I have no need for shriving priestmen since.

My spirit tells me if they hold no power

To conjure out that devil in themselves,

That darting horror that offends mine eyes,

They ne’er can cast the devils from this life,

And all their vaunts but jugglers’ juggling lies.

Merlin. Oh sad, warped youth, aged before thy time,

With that worst, saddest of wisdoms on this earth,

The knowledge of thine own deformity!

[Trumpets without.

Back Mordred! here cometh the king!

Enter Arthur in his state robes.

Arthur. And now wise Merlin, wisest of this earth,

Here cometh thine Arthur decked in his first glory,

So great hath been the splendor of this day

That all my heart brims with the wine of it.

Merlin. Yea King, thy horn of glory doth enlarge,

Thy sun of splendor toppeth the future’s marge,

May all bright auspices attend its setting.

Arthur. And now wise Mage, what hath thy will with me?

I am thine Arthur even being King,

For thou hast made me, next to that weird fate

That sat about the mystery of my getting,

And the sweet fostership of Holy Church,

Which hath forgiven my great youthful sin

And set her seal of favor on my deeds.

All present splendors thou hast prophesied,

And made the people take me for their king,

Hast pointed out my fitness for this office,

And lifted Arthur from a cloud of sorrows

Unto the golden glories of a throne.

To-day the fealty of an hundred Earls

Which thou hast garnered to my new-made kingdom

Hath honored me and made me thrice a King.

Yea, well say Merlin that my horn is full

To plenty with the blessed hopes of earth,

And all of this I owe unto thy favor.

My thunder-clouds are past, my future clear

As yon, blue summer sky. No evil lurks

In secret for to strike at this my glory,

Unless a bolt fell from yon dazzling blue!

[Thunder heard in the distance—Arthur staggers back

A portent! A portent!

Merlin. ’Tis nought, O King, but gathering thunderheads

About the thick, close heatings of the west,

The muttered portent of a summer shower.

’Tis but a blackness that will quickly pass

And leave a blessing on the fields and woods.

Fear not such signs as nature’s seeming anger.

I come to thee upon a graver matter.

Arthur. Yea Merlin! speak on.

Merlin. Arthur, I speak now to no puling youth,

No mere sin-pricked conscience in a human form,

But bring a kingly matter to a king,

Whereof that he may do the kingliest deed

That he may hap on in the unknown lease

Of all his kingship. I have kept this matter,

The deepest and the dreadest concerning thee

And all the workings of thy coming fate,

Until the hour when thou didst feel thee king

In more than seeming outward human choice,

And thou wert at thy greatest, even that I,

In all his power, might see the King I made,

Not in all the glory of his court,

His people’s laudings sounding in his ears,

Not in all the shout of battle victory;

But in that dread and secret solemn hour,

When some strange doom uplifts its sombre face,

And man must show his kingship of himself.

Arthur. Yea Merlin! say on Merlin, say on!

Merlin. For this same reason I have hid till now

The secret from thee that thou hast a son.

Arthur. A son!

Merlin. Yea, a son, by thine own sister.

Arthur. Oh cruel! Oh cruel! Oh cruel!

Merlin. Yea more, for knowing all the warm desire

That thou hast unto things of beauteous shape,

And lovest chiefly what is glad and fair

To look upon in nature or human form,

Which showest in thy love for Launcelot,—

Arthur. Yea, Launcelot! Would a Launcelot were my son.

Mordred. (aside) Ah, me!

Merlin. But knowing further that a deeper feeling,

That holdeth rule in every human heart,

That knoweth greatness, would uppermost in thee,

At knowledge of the fate of thy poor son,

Who madeth not himself but bore thy sin

In outward simile in his whole life’s being,

As Christ did bear men’s sins upon the tree;

Who knowing all the ill that thou had’st done him,

Still had sufficient sense of inward greatness

To love the father who begat him thus;

I feel if thou art that great Arthur dreamed

Of me these many years of toil and care

That I have worked to make thee what thou art;

That knowing this son of thine, distorted, wry,

Diminutive in outward human shape,

And void of all those graces thou hast loved

To group about thy visions of thy court,

Hath such a soul within him like a jewel

In some enchanted casket, that were rare

In all the lore and wisdom of this age,

That thou wouldst love him only all the more

For that poor, wry, misshapen shell of his.

Arthur. Oh cruel! cruel! cruel!

Merlin. Mordred come forth.

[Enter Mordred who kneels and tries to cover himself with his cloak.

Arthur. (Starts.) What be this?

Merlin. Thy son Mordred, the heir to thy realm!

Arthur. Oh black angered Heaven! (Falls heavily to the ground.)

Mordred. Father! my father! Merlin thou has killed my father.

Oh Merlin thou wert over-cruel!

Merlin. Better that he were dead a thousand deaths

Than this had happened. He is not a king

In more than vulgar fancy. In mine eyes

With all thy wry, distorted body there,

Thou art a thousand times more kingly now

Than he or any like him in this realm.

And thou wilt be a king yet ere thou diest.

Oh Arthur, thou great Arthur of my dreams,

Why didst thou thus unthrone thee, showing bare

A thing of clay, where all seemed whitest marble?

Mordred. Ha! now he revives. Father!

Arthur. (Rises and staggers.) Ha! yea, yea, that cloud; that cloud about mine eyes!

My crown! My crown! Methought I had a crown!

Merlin. Yea of a truth thou hadst one.

Arthur. And where be it, good father?

Merlin. Stumbling on sudden to the precipice of a golden opportunity,

Thou loosedst thy kingship and straightway it toppled over.

Arthur. And might we not make search, Father?

Might we not take lights, lights, and go find it?

Merlin. Not all the lights that light this glowing world

Might light thee to it.

Arthur. And who art thou that mocketh at me thus?

Merlin. A shadow.

Arthur. And what be I?

Merlin. In truth a shadow.

Arthur. And that, that blackness?

[Pointing at Mordred.

Merlin. A shadow also, yea we all be shadows.

Arthur. And is there nothing real, nothing tangible in all this mist?

Merlin. Nay, nothing, save the visions we have lost,

The autumn mornings with their frosty prime,

The dreams of youth like bells at eventime

Ringing their golden longings down the mist.

Arthur. And be we dead, Father?

Merlin. Yea, I am dead to one great hope I had,

And thou art dead to what thou mightst have been,

And he is dead to what is best of all,

The holiest blossom on life’s golden tree.

Arthur. And what be that, Father?

Merlin. Love! Love!

Arthur. Then he be greatest?

Merlin. Yea greater, far, though we completed greatness,

Than either thou or I could ever be.

Arthur. Then what be he?

Merlin. He is that rare great blossom of this life

Which mortals call a man.

Arthur. A man!

Merlin. Yea, a man.

Arthur. Why he is wry, distorted, short of shape,

Like some poor twisted root in human form.

And I am tall and fair, placed like a king.

And yet you make him greater, how be that?

Merlin. Didst thou but own Goliath’s mighty shape,

And wert a Balder in thy face and form,

With all of heaven’s lightnings in thy gaze,

Still would his greatness dwarf thee.

Arthur. Then what be I?

Merlin. The wreck of my poor hopes.

Arthur. The what?

Merlin. The shadow of a king.

Arthur. And where may be the king, if I be but the shadow?

Merlin. Gone! Gone!

He went out in his glory one bright morn,

In all the summer splendors long ago,

And there by well-heads of my youth’s bright dreams,

Be-like he’s walking yet.

Mordred. Oh! Merlin wake him! Thou art over cruel

To play thus on his fancy with thine arts.

Merlin. And dost thou love him still?

Mordred. Yea, love is not a thing so lightly placed,

That it may perish easy. Thou mayst kill

The king in him, thou canst not kill the father.

Though thou mightst make me bitter to conspire

And topple his great kingdom round his head,

Yet I would ever love him ’neath it all.

The Arthur of thine ambitions may be dead,

But not the Arthur of my childhood’s longing,

Though this poor King who hunteth his lost crown

Be but the walking shape of all those dreams.

And temptest thou me, thou Merlin, thus to hate?

Merlin. Yea, Mordred, I am cruel, I am fate.

I tempt thee but to live, and dost thou live,

Enalienate from all this love of earth,

And they but crumble this phantom round their heads.

Thou art the key by which I may unlock

The lock that I have made with mine own hands.

And if thou ever want’st an instrument,

A dagger wherewith to stab this paltry realm,

Use Vivien.

Mordred. Vivien!

Merlin. Yea Vivien. There is naught on all this earth

That cuts so sharp the thews of love and hate

And those poor brittle thongs that bind men up

In that strange bundle called society,

Like the sharp acids nature hath distilled

From out the foiled hates of an evil woman.

(To the king.) Ho! ho! Arthur! Great King

Arthur. Knowest thou me, Merlin?

Arthur. Yea, Merlin it is thou, and I the King,

Waking it seemeth from an evil dream.

Merlin. Yea, king we have all awakened.

Arthur. Ha! where is my crown?

Mordred. You dropped it when you fainted sire,

[Kneels and presents it.

Here is thy crown, Father.

Arthur. Father! yea all, I know all now. It cometh back.

And this my son? Oh Merlin, had I known

That thou didst hate me and wouldst use me thus!

Merlin. I hate thee not, King Arthur, nor do I love.

I loved an Arthur once, a phantom king,

Whom I did build on pinnacles of glory.

But he hath now long vanished, and I go,

Like many another who hath wrecked his hopes

On some false shore of human delusiveness,

To bury my pinch-beck jewels in that pit

That men call black oblivion. No, proud Arthur,

I am much over old for loves or hates,

My days are past, my mission done on earth,

I leave thee one here though, whose love or hate

Is more to thee than mine could ever be.

Twixt thee and him there are such subtle webs

Of destiny, it needeth no magician

To prophesy the running of those threads

That weave the warp of your two destinies.

Farewell Arthur! Mordred, fare thee well.

Arthur. Stay, Stay, Merlin! I have much need of thee.

[Exit Merlin.

SCENE III.

Enter Dagonet the King’s fool.

Dagonet. Meseems this King is like an April week.

But yestermorn he was all smiles and sun,

And now he skulks and prowls and scowls and mopes,

As though existence were all a draggled pond

In dirty weather.

Enter Vivien.

Vivien. And thou fool, but a wry toad on its edge.

Dagonet. And thou the snake’s head lifted in the sedge,

Aye, sweet Vivien.

Vivien. Why snakest thou me fool? Methought that thou favoredst me?

Dagonet. Aye, so I do. Thou coilest round my heart,

The sweetest, wisest serpent in this world.

Thou charmest me with those dazzling eyes o’ thine.

And though the blessed bread were yet in mouth,

I’d go to Hell to do a deed for thee.

And yet thou art a snake, as well thou knowest.

Is it not so, sweet Vivien?

Vivien. Can’st thou be wise for once Dagonet?

Yea let me teach thee.

Dagonet. And what is it to be wise?

Vivien. To leave aside that mummer’s lightsome talk,

And show a front of silent dignity.

Dagonet. Like the King?

Vivien. Aye, like the King.

Dagonet. Then to be wise is to be like the king,

To be a cup of summer wine to-day,

Anon a dish of lonesome woe to-morrow.

I love not much this wisdom thou dost teach,

These high come-ups and downs they like me not.

I am too much a fool to learn thy lesson. (Sings.)

And who’d be wise
And full of sighs,
And care and evil borrow;
When to be a fool
Is to go to school
To Happy-go-luck-to-morrow?

Who’d tread the road,
And feel the goad,
And bear the sweatsome burden:
When loves are light,
And paths are bright
Of folly’s pleasant guerdon?

Sigh while we may,
We cannot stay
The sun, nor hold its shining.
So joy the nonce,
We live but once,
And die for all our pining.

Who’d be a king
And wear a ring
And age his youth with sorrow;
When to be a fool
Is to go to school
To Happy-go-luck-to-morrow?

Vivien. Aye Dagonet, thou art indeed a happy fool.

Wilt thou shew me how to make love?

Dagonet. (Kneels in mock humility) Sweet Vivien, I am thy knight.

Vivien. Is it all thou canst say?

Dagonet. What would’st thou have more?

Vivien. Oh lover’s talk.

Dagonet. Thou meanest as lovers speak?

Vivien. Yea.

Dagonet. After wedding or afore, sweet Vivien?

Vivien. Afore, of course, stupid fool.

Dagonet. (Folds his hands and recites solemnly.)

Butter frups and mumble rings,
Whirligigs and winter-greens,
Turnip-tops and other things, I love thee!
Spindle-spouts and turtles’ eggs,
Mutton-chops and milk-stools’ legs,
Heigh ho! I love thee!

Vivien. And now thou art the fool in earnest.

Dagonet. Yea, and the better lover.

Vivien. And what after wedding, thou wise fool?

Dagonet. What saith the pot to the egg that is boiled therein,

The floor to the mop that hath scrubbed it,

The rain to the moist earth,

And the bird’s nest to the empty shell?

Learn, and thou shalt find it.

Vivien. And had’st thou never a lover’s longing, Fool?

Dagonet. Yea, but I cured me.

Vivien. Wilt thou give me that receipt, Dagonet?

Dagonet. I filled my mouth wi’ honey, and my couch wi’ prickles,

And went asleep on’t.

(Vivien laughs and retires behind the curtain.)

Dagonet. Yea woe is me, is me, poor Dagonet!

I hate myself and yet I fain must smile

And play the thistle-down and dandy-puff,

The foolish froth at edge of flagonets;

And all the while see me a tortured torrent

Winding down in the darks of its own sorrow.

Yea, Dagonet, thou art too much of fool,

Like the great King and all other fools,

To be the thistle-down thou fain wouldst seem.

For thou art also anchored by the heels

To some sore, eating iron of thy desire.

Enter King Arthur.

Arthur. Well fool, what mummeries now?

Dagonet. I be holding a black Friday service, Sir King.

Arthur. And what sayest thou in thy supplications?

Dagonet. I think on thee Sir King, and I think on poor Dagonet.

And I say, Lord have mercy upon us!

Arthur. A pious wish, Sir fool, but why pitiest thou me?

Dagonet. For thy poverty, Sire?

Arthur. Why poverty, fool?

Dagonet. Yea King, thou hast a crown, thou hast wealth,

And power and lands, and yet thou lackest

The cheapest commodity i’ the whole world.

Arthur. And what be that, fool?

Dagonet. (Going out.) Sunshine, Sir King, that be the cheapest commodity.

Enter Launcelot.

Launcelot. Sire!

Arthur. Launcelot sit here and let’s forget

That I am king and thou the greatest knight

In this most mighty realm. Let us deem

Me but the Arthur of old days, and thou

The sunny Launcelot who was fain to shrive

His sorrowful Arthur from his darker moods,

And make a glow about the future’s countenance.

Launcelot. Yea King, but methought thou sentest for me with most urgent commands.

Arthur. Yea, most urgent.

Launcelot. The knights and men-at-arms await below,

And all the splendid cortege thou hast ordered,

With retinue befitting thy commands.

God’s benison go with thee, great Arthur,

This most auspicious day thou goest forth

To meet the high and beauteous Guinevere,

Thy chosen mate and queen of this fair realm.

Arthur. I go not forth!

Launcelot. Thou goest not, and why?

Arthur. Deem it not strange my Launcelot that I sit

Here thus disconsolate my betrothal morn,

Nor over eager for to play the lover,

And decked in splendor go to meet the queen.

Launcelot thine Arthur hath a sorrow.

Hast seen my son Mordred?

Launcelot. Yea Arthur, I have seen this Mordred.

Yea, mine Arthur, thou hast indeed a sorrow,

And could thy Launcelot but help thee bear it!

Arthur. What thinkest thou of this Mordred, this my son?

Likest thou him not?

Launcelot. He is so strange, so small, so queer of limb,

At first I marvelled, then I pitied, then——

Arthur. Yea, and what?

Launcelot. I met his eyes, and straightway I forgot

The manner of man he was, save that a soul

Of wondrous scorn and mystery met mine;

That froze the present, made the future dread,

With strange forbodings. While I mused he passed,

But left that chill behind him in my blood.

And yet he seemeth a soul, Sire, to be pitied.

Arthur. Yea, all but pity, Arthur’s son should claim.

Launcelot. ’Tis thy cross Arthur, as a king thou’lt bear it.

And we all seeing shall say our king, like Christ,

Beareth his cross i’ the sunlight i’ the shadow,

And take pattern from thy greatness.

Arthur. I bear it not, Launcelot, it beareth me down,

Down into black depths, aye and blacker.

He cometh betwixt my spirit and the sun.

Canst thou not help thy king?

I seem like one who walketh in dreams where all are shadows

Till I seem but a shadow-king walking in a realm of shadows.

Launcelot. Take courage to thee Arthur, it will off,

Go in thy kingship’s strength and meet thy queen.

Her beauty and her kindliness will cure thee

Of this distemper.

Arthur. Nay, Launcelot, this is the very matter,

As thou well knowest she hath never seen me,

And for the very reverence I bear her,

A maiden princess, I would hold as snow

In each thing that regardeth purity.

By all the love that I would bear to her,

I would not have her meet me in this mood.

But I would have her meet her Arthur when

In kingly grace he is himself a king.

Yea, Launcelot for this I sent for thee.

’Tis mine intent that I should tarry here

And in the joustings cure me of this fit,

While thou dost go forth in my place and bring

The Princess Guinevere to Camelot.

Launcelot. Nay Sire, not I! Not Launcelot!

Arthur. By thy love for me, thou wilt do it,

Whom else in all this kingdom wide but thee

Could I send on a mission such as this.

I honor all thy love in sending thee,

The one true knight, the glory of my realm.

In this, Oh Launcelot, thou canst help thy king,

And show abroad the love that ’twixt us lies.

Till men will say: “So much of love there lies

Betwixt King Arthur and great Launcelot,

That when the king stayed ill at Camelot

He sent forth Launcelot to fetch the Queen.”

And what more fitting messenger to send

Than thee in all thy strong and splendid youth,

The flower and sun of all my chivalry,

Launcelot the young and pure-in-heart.

Thou wilt do this and crown thy love for me.

Launcelot. Nay, mine own Arthur, men will rather say:

Why stayed the king, unkingly, thus at home,

And sent forth Launcelot to meet his bride?

Oh Arthur, by my love, go forth thyself.

Rather thou sentest me sack a hundred cities

Than do this deed that will un-king thee so.

Arthur. Launcelot, I would rather die than go.

Launcelot. Yea Arthur, I would rather die than go.

Arthur. Launcelot lovest thou thine Arthur?

Launcelot. Yea Arthur, well thou knowest.

Arthur. Wilt thou honor me as a king?

Launcelot. Yea to the death.

Arthur. Then the king commands that thou goest for the love thou bearest Arthur.

Launcelot. Yea Sire, I go. (Aside) And all fears go with me.

[Curtain.

SCENE IV.—Leodegrance’s Castle at Camelard.

Enter Leodegrance and Pages.

Leo. Now is the day auspicious to my house

When Guinevere will wed the mighty Arthur.

Golden the mornings, happy speed the nights,

With constellations soft and wooing hours

That speed the bride and bridegroom to their bowers.

Splendid be my prime and soft mine age,

Who am a father to this mighty realm.

Ho there, without!

[Trumpets heard, enter pages.

Page. Mighty Sire, with trumpet and with drum,

The lofty Arthur with his host hath come.

A world of spears and pennons fill the town,

And all the burghers feast their eyes with seeing.

[A clatter of arms without. Enter Launcelot who kneels.

Launcelot. Sir King!

Leo. Where tarries the great Prince Arthur?

Launcelot. He cometh not, my lord.

Leo. And why?

Launcelot. The king on sudden sick at Camelot

Hath sent me with his heart to Camelard

To plead his absence with thee and the Princess,

And guard her glad way forth to Camelot.

I am that Launcelot, that knight-at-arms,

Who loveth Arthur more than maid or king.

Perchance if thou wilt trust her to my care,—

Here is great Arthur’s order.

[Presents a ring.

Leo. Welcome to Camelard, most noble knight,

Well ken we of thy name and nobleness.

It grieves us much great Arthur could not come,

And guest of our poor hospitality,

Receive our noble daughter at our hearth,

And lead her home from out our very doors.

This much perforce had willed a father’s pride.

This much had satisfied a father’s love.

But seeing Chance hath given us none of it,

We must be gracious to her messenger

And thank her for the safety she hath sent.

Tomorrow’s dawn we give into thy hands

The maiden daughter of our kingly love,

To guard in safety to great Arthur’s court,

There to be wedded as his faithful queen.

Meanwhile receive our hospitality.

This castle and this town are thine to-night

In honor of the Princess and the King.

Launcelot. We thank thee Sire for this thy hospitality.

Leo. Yea one thing further, knowing our daughter’s nature,

And fearing a maiden’s pride might feel a hurt,

At the King’s absence, we would therefore advise

That this be kept a secret till tomorrow,

When we will break it softly to Her Highness;

Though she hath never seen him, as thou knowest,

She now half loves him for his kingly virtues,

And being her father’s daughter thinks it well

To act a daughter’s just obedience.

She hath a wayward nature, ’tis a pride

We have in common, therefore we defer

This matter till tomorrow. ’Twould not do

To let her sleep on such sharp disappointment.

Launcelot. As you will, noble lord.

[Curtain.

SCENE V.—The apartment of Guinevere—Guinevere and a lady attendant.

Guinevere. Now Unid I have seen this noble Arthur.

I spied him from my turret as he rode,

And all my heart went out in love to him,

The knight incarnate of my girlhood’s dreams.

Did’st thou notice his bearing Unid?

Unid. Yea my lady, and fairer man and nobler knight

Eye hath not seen.

Guin. His face was like the gardens when the sun

Lifts up his crimson splendor after dawn,

His bearing as the bearing of a god,

And yet as one who would be kind and loving.

Unid. Yea, my lady, he seemed glad and fair,

And fit to be the lord to thee, my Princess.

Guin. Come Unid take my hand and we wilt sit

And speak of this great Arthur. Well thou knowest

My maiden fears regarding this same marriage.

I honored this Arthur as a noble king,

The mighty monarch and the splendid warrior.

And yet I fear him for reputed coldness.

Thou knowest me a princess warm in blood,

Brim with fire and sweetness of this life,

Not fitted to be wedded to a statue,

A marble, though that marble be a king.

For something stirred my life-springs long ago,

And whispered, Guinevere were made for love

And love alone would rule her destiny.

And when I looked and saw him enter there,

And knew my lord, and felt him gaze my way,

Knowing his errand to my father’s hall,

I blushed me till mine inmost being burned.

And all the roses whispered, “Arthur”! “Arthur”!

And “Arthur”! “Arthur”! rang through all the halls.

I wonder much if he will love me Unid?

Unid. In sooth he must, my lady, be he noble.

Though he never saw thee, who but heard

Of all thy charms, my Princess Guinevere,

Could help but love thee when he seeth thy face?

Guin. ’Tis in my mind to sound his manner, Unid.

To take him treacherous and unawares.

I like not much this way of wedding maids,

In cruel blindness of their coming fate.

This marriage savoreth much of state affairs,

Even o’er much to please my noble fancy.

I would me much to see this royal lover,

And know with mine own senses if he loves

With that intense delight and warmth of feeling,

With which poor Darby freely weddeth Joan.

Though I be all a queen I be a woman,

With all the thoughts and instincts of a woman.

Unid. What would’st thou do, my lady?

Guin. That I this even meet him in the garden.

Unid. On what pretence, my lady? ’Twere a risky business.

Guin. Thou wilt be veiled and take this golden ring,

Cozen his squire, and say, this for the knight

Who rode within the castle walls to-day.

Leave thou him word, a lady in distress,

Who needeth a knight to aid her in her sorrow,

Would meet him in the garden walls at sunset.

Unid. I will do it my lady, but what if he come not?

Guin. No danger of his not coming if he be

The man I worshipped from my tower this morning.

He’d come were yon rose-plot enchanted ground,

And gated by a thousand belching fiends.

He’d come, my king! Oh Unid, how I love him!

SCENE VI.—A rose garden adjoining the Castle.

Enter Launcelot.

Launcelot. This is a sunset bower for lovers made.

The air seems faint with pale and ruddy bloom,

The red for rosy dreams, the white for pure

And holy maiden thoughts all unexpressed.

There hangs fatality upon this place.

I cannot shake its ague from my heart.

I would I were safe back in Camelot,

With this fair Guinevere, great Arthur’s glory.

I’d rather meet the mad kerls of the Isles,

Than come again on such a quest as this.

This Guinevere they say is proud and cold,

Not such a woman as Launcelot would love.

Yea love, what doth it mean, and this strange maiden,

What can she want of me? Aye, here she comes.

Enter Guinevere, veiled.

Guin. My lord forgive this meeting in this place.

(Aside) O, if he like it not!

Launcelot. Wouldst thou ask mine aid?

Guin. Yea, wouldst thou aid a maiden in distress?

Launcelot. Lady, all maidens have a right to a true knight’s help.

Guin. My lord hast thou ever loved?

Laun. Many fair women have I seen, but none to love as thou meanest.

Why askest thou me this?

Guin. Wouldst thou fight for one like me?

[Throwing aside her cloak.

Laun. (Starts and stands as one in a dream.) Fair lady!

(Aside.) Kind heaven what be this?

In all my dreams I never saw such beauty

Of woman’s face or of a woman’s form.

She fills my heart like combs of golden honey.

Guin. My lord, thou hast lost thy tongue.

(Aside) I had not dreamed this.

Laun. Fair lady, forgive my sudden lack of speech,

But never in my existence have I seen

Such loveliness and maiden grace as thine.

Yea, I would call it benison, could I stand,

And gaze upon thee as thou art, forever.

There’s some fatality that draws me to thee,

Like I had known thee somewhere long ago.

Guin. My lord!

Laun. Thou art all glory, all that this life is,

And all before but one poor pallid dream

Of this real living. Now I see thy face,

I know what heaven is and all delights

That erring mortals lost in Paradise.

Guin. My lord! (Aside) Sweet heaven this be too blessed.

Laun. Fair maiden, Princess, lady, what thou art

Is what I’d die for. In mine inmost heart

Thou art inshrined. It seems some blessed dream.

Thou art too beautiful for mortal maid,

And yet I feel thou art not all unkind,

Might I dare read love’s missal in thine eyes.

Guin. Most noble lord, I came here for this purpose

To render my heart’s being up to thee.

Deem not this act unmaidenly in one

Whose whole life’s currents to thy being run.

My lord!

Laun. It seems that we were never strangers.

[Folds her in his arms and kisses her.

Guin. All life hath been but shaping up to this.

Laun. Oh could this sunset be but gold forever.

Guin. My lord Arthur!

Laun. (Starts back.) Great God!

Guin. Kiss me. Why Great God?

Thou art my God when thy lips are so sweet.

Laun. Why calledst thou me Arthur?

Guin. And art thou not?

Laun. Oh, who art thou that callest Arthur, lord?

Guin. As thou art Arthur, I am Guinevere.

[Launcelot starts back in horror.

Laun. Guinevere! Oh hell make thick your murky curtains.

Day wake no more! stars shrink your eye-hole lights,

And let this damned earth shrivel.

Guin. (Clutching his arm.) And art thou not great Arthur?

Who art thou? O God! who art thou?

Laun. Not Arthur, no! but that damned Launcelot,

Who twixt his hell and Arthur’s heaven hath got.

Guin. Then am I a doomed maid.

[Swoons.

Laun. Black, murky fiend of hell! come in thy form

Most monstrous, give me age on ages here.

And I will clang with thee and all thine imps.

Bind me in blackness under hell’s foul night,

And it were nothing, after dream like this.

Guin. (Rising up.) Oh mercy! damned or not, I love thee still.

Laun. Why doth not nature crack and groan?

Guin. (Crawls to his feet.) Oh be thou fiend or imp or Launcelot.

Thy kisses burn me even through this mist.

Laun. Yea, thou dost move me as never woman hath moved.

Oh would to God that we had never loved.

Then thou wouldst have been Guinevere, and I Launcelot.

Guin. What be we now?

Laun. Damned souls.

Guin. Then sweet, my love, it were thus to be damned.

Laun. Oh thou must go, proud Guinevere, tomorrow

Unto great Arthur’s court and be his bride,

And I will be that olden Launcelot

In shape and seeming, though I hold a devil.

Oh never more, mine Arthur, will I look

With peace and frankness on thy noble face.

’Twixt thee and me a wall is builded up

Of hideous evil. Guinevere, my love,

We were damned long ago, and this be hell.

Guin. Oh most unfortunate me, thou art not Arthur,

And I am Guinevere and I have loved.

Though I go morrow morn to Camelot

And place my hand in his and pledge him mine,

Not all the clamor of glad abbey-bells,

Or heavenward incense, may kill out the fever

Of thy hot kisses on my burning lips.

I am not Arthur’s. He is but a name,

A ringing doom that haunts me round the world.

Launcelot, we were wedded long ago

Before this life in some old Venus garden,

And this brief meeting but re-memory

Awakening from some cursed doze of life

Unto this present glory of our love.

Thou wilt not leave me Launcelot, loveless lorn?

Laun. Aye, this be hell!

Guin. Aye, hell to me to be divorced from thee.

Laun. Thou art betrothed to our great lord high Arthur,

And I that Arthur’s trusted bosom friend.

And yet I’d kiss again thy honied lips,

Though Arthur’s shadow flaming stood between.

I’m not an Adam to be driven out

With flaming brand from thy sweet paradise.

I’d hold thee Guinevere in these mine arms,

Though on each side, asquare, a “shalt not” stood.

I’d fight ’gainst all, aye Arthur, mine old self.

Oh Guinevere, this love hath made me mad.

Oh were’t that all were changed in nature’s course.

That I were not myself but some rude shape.

That thou wert not so sweet to look upon,

But sour and crabbed and old for Arthur’s sake,

So that all might have gone the olden way.

Guin. Oh that this night might never pass away,

We and this garden here forever stay,

Yon rising moon forever hold her crest

Above the fringéd peace of yonder West,

These roses ever perfumed petals cast,

So that our love in its glad youth might last;

No bleak to-morrows with their Arthurs come,

With evil waking to a sombre doom;

No age, like autumn, wrinkling to decays,

Filled with sad hauntings of gone yesterdays.

[Curtain.

ACT II.

SCENE I.—The forest of Bracliande.

Enter Merlin and Vivien.

Merlin. Tarry we here, for I am fain for rest.

[sinks down.

Oh mighty Slumber, sweet Oblivion,

Make this day night and seal my sleep-ward eyes;

And bear me in thy light and feathery bark

For I am over-weary of this world.

Vivien. Give me the book of charms wherein is written

The power whereof that I may guard thy rest.

[Merlin gives her the book.

Merlin. Thou hast poor Merlin on the weaker side.

[He sleeps.

[Vivien mutters the charm.

Vivien. Sleep! Sleep!

[Merlin tries to awaken.

Merlin. Ho! Ho! a mountain lieth on me. Take off this mountain!

Ha! Ha! mine olden power, and thou art gone at last!

[Tries to rise.

Vivien. (Mutters charm.) Sleep! Sleep!

Merlin. Methought it thundered, and a drop of rain

Fell on my forehead.

Vivien. Sleep! Sleep!

Spirit of slumber, rise from thy dark caves!

[The spirit of sleep rises up as a grey mist and looms about.

Wrap him in thy shadowy embrace