A new strange love or loathing. Fear not this.
ALBOVINE.
From thee can I fear nothing. Now I know
How high thy heart is, and how true to me.
ROSAMUND.
Thou knowest it now.
ALBOVINE.
I know not if I should
Repent me, or repent not, that I tried
A heart so high so sorely — proved so true.
ROSAMUND.
Do not repent. I would not have thee now
Repent.
ALBOVINE.
By Christ, if God forbade it not,
I would have said within mine own fool’s heart,
Of all vile things that fool the soul of man
The vilest and the priestliest hath to name
Repentance. Could it blot one hour’s work out,
A wise thing and a manful thing it were,
And profit were it none for priests to preach.
This will I tell thee: what last night befell
Rejoices not but irks me.
ROSAMUND.
Let it not
Rejoice nor irk thee. Vex thou not thy soul
With any thought thereon, if none may bid thee
Rejoice: and that were harsh and hard of heart.
ALBOVINE.
I will not. Queen and wife, hell durst not say
I do not love thee.
ROSAMUND.
Heaven has heard — and I.
ALBOVINE.
Forget then all this foolishness, and pray
God may forget it.
ROSAMUND.
God forgets as I. [Exit ALBOVINE.
And had repentance helped him? Shall I think
It might have molten in my burning heart
The thrice-retempered iron of resolve?
Yet well it is to know that penitence
Lies further from that frozen heart of his
Than mercy from the tiger’s. Ay, God knows,
I had scorned him too had penitence bowed him down
Before me: now I do but hate. I am not
Abased as wholly, so supremely shamed,
As though I had wedded one as hard as he
Who yet might think to soften down with words
What hardly might be cleansed with tears of blood,
The monumental memory graven on steel
That burns the naked spirit of sense within me
Like the ardent sting of keen-edged ice, which makes
The naked flesh feel fire upon it.
Enter ALMACHILDES.
ALMACHILDES.
Queen,
I come to crave a word of thee.
ROSAMUND.
I hear.
ALMACHILDES.
Thou knowest I love thy noble Hildegard:
And rather would I give my soul to burn
Than wrong in thought her flawless maidenhood.
And now she hath told me what I dare not think
Truth. And I dare not think her lips may lie.
ROSAMUND.
I have heard. And what is this to me? She hath not
Said — hath not told thee, nor wouldst thou believe -
That I have breathed a lie upon her lips
Or taught them shamelessness by lesson?
ALMACHILDES.
No.
But she came forth from thee to me — from thee -
And spake with quivering mouth and quailing eyes
And face whose fire turned ashen, and again
Rekindling from that ashen agony
Flamed, what no heart could think to hear her speak,
Mine least of all, who love her.
ROSAMUND.
Ay?
ALMACHILDES.
Not she,
I know it as sure as night is known from day
And surelier than I know mine own soul’s truth,
Spake what she spake in broken bursts of breath
Out of her own heart and its love for me.
ROSAMUND.
Didst thou so answer her?
ALMACHILDES.
I might not well
Answer at all.
ROSAMUND.
Poor maid, she hath loved amiss.
Belike she thought to find in thee a man’s
Love.
ALMACHILDES.
That she hath found; nought meaner than a man’s;
No wolfish lust of ravenous insolence
To soil and spoil her of her noblest name.
ROSAMUND.
I do not ask thee what she said. I know.
ALMACHILDES.
I knew thou didst.
ROSAMUND.
To make your bridal sure
She bade thee make thy bride of her to-night.
ALMACHILDES.
She bade me as a slave might bid the scourge
Fall.
ROSAMUND.
Such a scourge no slave might shrink from; nay,
No free-born woman, Almachildes.
ALMACHILDES.
Queen,
I crave thy queenly mercy though I say
My maid, my bride that will be, shrank, and showed
In all the rosebright anguish of her face
A shuddering shame that wrung my heart. And thou
Hast surely set thereon that seal of shame.
I know it as thou dost.
ROSAMUND.
Ay, and more she said,
Surely: she said I would not yield her up
To the arms of one my husband loves and holds
Honoured at heart — I hate my husband so,
She told thee — were the need avoidable
Save by her sacrifice to shame.
ALMACHILDES.
Thou knowest
All, as I knew, and lacked not from thy lips
Confession.
ROSAMUND.
Warrior though thou be, and boy
Though my lord call thee, brainless art thou not -
No sword with man’s face carven on the heft
For mockery more than truth or help in fight.
I do not and I durst not play with thee.
Thy bride spake truth: I knew not she might need
So much of truth to tempt thee toward her. Now
Thou knowest, and I know. If this imminent night
Make not thy darkling bride of her, by day
Thy bride she may be never. She hath sworn.
ALMACHILDES.
Why wouldst thou shame her?
ROSAMUND.
Shamed she cannot be
If thou be found not shameless. Plead no more
Against thine own love’s surety. Doubt thou not
I wish thee well, and love her. Make not thou
Out of her shamefast maidenhood and fear
A sword to cleave your happiness in twain.
What if some oath constrain me, sworn in haste,
Infrangible for shame’s sake, sealed in heaven
Inevitable? Ask now no more of me.
Nightfall is here upon us. Nought on earth
May set the season of your bridal back
If thou be true as she must. Wait awhile
Here till a sign be sent thee — till a bell
Strike softly from this chamber here at hand.
I have sworn to her she shall not see thy face,
So sore she prayed she might not: and for thee
I swore that ere the darkling air grew grey
Thou shouldst arise and leave her, and behold
Thy midnight bride but when thou art bidden again
To meet her here to-morrow. Strange it were,
More strange than aught of all, that thou shouldst prove
Dishonourable: and except thou be, these things
Must all be wrought in this wise, lest her oath
And mine, at peril of her soul and life,
By passionate forgetfulness of thine
Disloyally be broken. Swear to us now
Thou
wilt not break our oath and thine, or think
To look to-night upon thy bride.
ALMACHILDES.
I swear.
ROSAMUND.
I take thine oath. I bid not thee take heed
That I or thou or each of us at once,
Couldst thou play false, may die: I bid thee think
Thy bride will die, shamed. Swear me not again
She shall not: all our trust is set on thee.
What eyes and ears are keen about us here
Thou knowest not. Love, my love and thine for her,
Shall deafen and shall blind them. Be but thou
A bridegroom blind and dumb — speak soft as love,
And ask not answer louder than a sigh -
And when to-morrow sets thy bride and thee
Here face to face again, thy soul shall stand
Amazed: thy joy shall turn to wonder. This
Thy queen, whose power may seal her promise fast,
Swears for thine oath again to thee. Good night.
[Exit.
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot think I live. Our Sigurd loved not
Brynhild as I love her, and even this hour
Shall make us great as they. No spell to break,
No fire to pass, divides us. Blind and dumb,
Love knows, would I be ever while I live
For love’s sake rather than forego the joy
That makes one godlike power of spirit and sense,
One godhead born of manhood. God requite
The queen who loves my love and cares for me
Thus! How may man or God requite her? Ah!
[Bell rings softly from without.
There sounds the note that opens heaven on me,
And how should man dare heaven? But love may dare. [Exit.
ACT III
An eastward room in the Palace.
Enter ALBOVINE.
ALBOVINE.
This sun — no sun like ours — burns out my soul.
I would, when June takes hold on us like fire,
The wind could waft and whirl us northward: here
The splendour and the sweetness of the world
Eat out all joy of life or manhood. Earth
Is here too hard on heaven — the Italian air
Too bright to breathe, as fire, its next of kin,
Too keen to handle. God, whoe’er God be,
Keep us from withering as the lords of Rome -
Slackening and sickening toward the imperious end
That wiped them out of empire! Yea, he shall.
Enter HILDEGARD.
HILDEGARD.
The queen would wait upon your majesty.
ALBOVINE.
Bid her come in. And tell her ere she come
I wait upon her will. [Exit HILDEGARD.]
What would she now?
Enter ROSAMUND.
By Christ, how fair thou art! I never saw thee
So like the sun in heaven: no rose on earth
Might think to match thee.
ROSAMUND.
All I am is thine.
ALBOVINE.
Mine? God might come from heaven to worship thee.
Thine eyes outlighten all the stars: thy face
Leaves earth no flower to worship.
ROSAMUND.
How should earth
Worship her children? Nought it is in me,
My lord’s dear love it is, that makes me seem
Fair.
ALBOVINE.
How thou liest thou knowest not. Rosamund,
What hast thou done to be so beautiful?
ROSAMUND.
The sun has left thine eyes half blind.
ALBOVINE.
I dare not
Kiss thee, or stare straight-eyed against the sun.
ROSAMUND.
Kiss me. Who knows how long the lord of life
May spare us time for kissing? Life and love
Are less than change and death.
ALBOVINE.
What ghosts are they?
So sweet thou never wast to me before.
The woman that is God — the God that is
Woman — the sovereign of the soul of man,
Our fathers’ Freia, Venus crowned in Rome,
Has lent my love her girdle; but her lips
Have robbed the red rose of its heart, and left
No glory for the flower beyond all flowers
To bid the spring be glad of.
ROSAMUND.
Summer and spring
May cleanse and heal the heart of man no more
Than winter may, or withering autumn. Sire,
Husband and lord, I have a woful word
To speak against a man beloved of thee,
A man well worth all glory man may give -
Against thine Almachildes.
ALBOVINE.
Has the boy
Transgressed again in awless heat of speech
And kindled wrath in thee against him — thee,
Who stood’st between my wrath and him?
ROSAMUND
I would
His were no more transgression than of speech.
He hath wronged — I bid thee ask of me no more -
A noble maiden. Till her shame be healed,
Her name is dead upon my lips and his,
Who is yet not all ignoble.
ALBOVINE.
He shall die
Except he wed her, and she will to wed.
ROSAMUND.
That surely will she.
ALBOVINE.
Bid him hither.
ROSAMUND.
See,
There strides he through the sunshine toward the shade.
How light and high he steps! He sees thee. Bid him -
Beckon him in.
ALBOVINE.
He knows mine eye. He comes.
ROSAMUND.
Obedient as a hound is.
ALBOVINE.
As a man
That knows the law of loyal manhood.
ROSAMUND.
Ay?
God send it be so.
Enter ALMACHILDES.
ALMACHILDES.
Queen and king, I am here.
What would you?
ALBOVINE.
Truth. Hast thou not borne thyself
Toward any soul on earth disloyally
Ever?
ALMACHILDES.
Never.
ALBOVINE.
I would not say thou liest.
ALMACHILDES.
Do not: the lie should burn thy lips up, king.
ALBOVINE.
Thou hast wrought no wrong toward man or woman?
ALMACHILDES.
None.
ALBOVINE.
Speak thou: thou hast heard him answer me.
ROSAMUND.
I have heard.
No wrong it may be with the serfs of hell
To cast upon a woman for a curse
Shame: to defile the spirit and shrine of love,
Put out the sunlike eyes of maidenhood
And leave the soul dismantled. Has not he
So sinned? — Hast thou wrought no such work as this?
The king has heard thy silence.
ALMACHILDES.
Queen and king,
I have done no wrong, but right. I have chosen my bride,
And made her mine by gentle grace of hers
Lest wrong should come between us. Now no man
May think to unwed us: king nor queen may cross
This wedded love of ours: no thwart or stay
May sunder us till heaven and earth turn hell.
ALBOVINE.
I deemed not thee dishonourable: and thy queen
Now knows thee true as I did. Rosamund,
Forgive and give him back his bride.
ROSAMUND.
I will,
King.
ALBOVINE.
Boy, thy queen hath shown thee grace; be thou
Thankful. I leave thee here to yield her thanks.
[Exit.
ALMACHILDES.
Queen, I would die to serve and thank thee.
ROSAMUND.
Die?
So young and glad and glorious? Thou shalt not
Die. Was thy bride’s face bright to look upon
When last night’s moon and stars illumined it?
ALMACHILDES.
Thou knowest I might not look upon it.
ROSAMUND.
No.
Thou hast never loved before?
ALMACHILDES.
I have loathed, not loved,
The loveless harlots clasped of all the camp:
I have followed wars and visions all my days
Even till my love’s eyes lit and stung to life
The soul within my body. Till I loved,
I knew not woman.
ROSAMUND.
Now thou knowest. This love
Is no good lord — no gentle god — no soft
Saviour. Thou knowest perchance thy bride’s name — hers
Whose body and soul were one but now with thine?
ALMACHILDES.
How should not I? What darkling light is this
That burns and broods and lightens in thine eyes,
Queen?
ROSAMUND.
Hildegard it was not.
ALMACHILDES.
Art not thou -
Or am not I — sun-smitten through the brain
By this mad might of midsummer? Who was it
That slept or slept not with me while the night
Was more than noon and more than heaven? What name
Was hers who made me godlike?
ROSAMUND.
Rosamund.
ALMACHILDES.
Thine? was it thou? It was not.
ROSAMUND.
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 287
