by Thomas Hardy
Tristram
‘Tis in your bitterness, My own sweet Queen, that you speak thus and thus!
Enter King Mark with Sir Andret to the Gallery, unperceived.
SCENE XVII
King Mark and Sir Andret (above): Queen Iseult, Tristram, and Chanters.
Sir Andret (to K. Mark)
See, here they are. God’s ‘ounds, sure, then was he
That harper I misdoubted once or twice; Or must have come while we were clinking cups,
No mischief dreaming!
Tristram
But, my best-beloved, Forgo these frets, and think of Joyous Gard!
(Approaches her.)
Q. Iseult (drawing back)
Nay, no more claspings! And if it should be That these new meetings operate on me
(You well know what I am touching on in this)
Mayhap by year’s-end I’ll not be alive, The which I almost pray for —
K. Mark (above)
Then ‘tis so! Their dalliances are in full gush again, Though I had deemed them hindered by his stay,
And vastly talked of ties, in Brittany.
Sir Andret
Such is betokened, certes, by their words, If we but wit them straight.
Tristram
O Queen my Love, Pray sun away this cloud, and shine again; Throw into your ripe voice and burning soul The music that they held in our aforetime: We shall outweather this!
(Enter Damsel with a letter.)
Who jars us now?
SCENE XVIII
Queen Iseult, Tristram, Damsel, King Mark., Sir Andret. and Chanters.
Damsel (‘humbly)
This letter, brought at peril, noble Knight,
King Mark has writ to our great Over- King —
Aye, Arthur — I the bearer. And I said,
“All that I can do for the brave Sir Tristram
That do will I! “ So I unscreen this scroll
(A power that chances through a friendly clerk).
In it he pens that as his baneful foe
He holds Sir Tristram, and will wreak revenge
Thrice through his loins as soon as hap may serve.
King Mark descends from Gallery and stands in the background, Sir Andret remaining above.
Q. Iseult {aside to Tristram with misgivings)
These threats of Mark against you quail my heart,
And daunt my sore resentment at your wounds
And slights of late! O Tristram, save thyself,
And think no more of me!
Tristram
Forget you — never!
(Softly) Rather the sunflower may forget the sun!
(To Damsel) Wimple your face anew, wench: go unseen;
Re-seal the sheet, which I care not to con,
And send it on as bid.
Exit Damsel.
SCENE XIX
Queen Iseult, Tristram, King Mark, Sir Andret, and Chanters.
Tristram
Sure, Mark was drunk When writing such! Late he fed heavily And has, I judge, roved out with his boon knightage
Till evenfall shall bring him in to roost. Q. Iseult
I wonder! . . . [nestling closer) I’ve forebodings, Tristram dear; But, your death’s mine, Love!
Tristram
And yours mine, Sweet Heart!... — Now that the hall is lulled, and none seems near,
I’ll keep up my old minstrel character And sing to you, ere I by stealth depart To wait an hour more opportune for love. —
I could, an if I would, sing jeeringly Of the King; I mean the song Sir Dinadan Made up about him. He was mighty
wroth To hear it.
Q. Iseult
Nay, Love; sadness suits you best . . . Sad, sad are we: we will not jeer at him:
Such darkness overdraws us, it may whelm Us even with him my master! Sing of love.
(Tristram harps a prelude.) I hope he may not heel back home and hear!
Tristram (singing and playing)
Yea, Love, true is it sadness suits me best!
Sad, sad we are; sad, sad shall ever be. What shall deliver us from Love’s unrest, And bonds we did not forecast, did not see!
Q. Iseult
Yea, who will dole us, in these chains that chafe,
Bare pity! — O were ye my King — not he!
(She weeps, and he embraces her awhile.)
Tristram (thoughtfully)
Where is King Mark? I must be soon away!
King Mark, having drawn his dagger, creeps up behind Tristram.
K. Mark (in a thick voice)
He’s in his own house, where he ought to be,
Aye, here! where thou’lt be not much longer, man!
He runs Tristram through the back with his dagger. Queen Iseult shrieks. Tristram falls, Queen Iseult sinking down by him with clasped hands. Sir Andret descends quickly from the gallery.
Tristram (weakly)
From you! — against whom never have I sinned
But under sorcery unwittingly,
By draining deep the love-compelling vial
In my sick thirst, as innocently did she! . . .
This, when of late you sent for me, before
I went to Brittany, to come and help you!
“ Fair nephew,” said you, “ here upswarm our foes;
They are stark at hand, and must be strongly met
Sans tarriance, or they’ll uproot my realm.”
“ My power,” said I, “ is all at your command.”
I came. I neared in night-time to the gate,
Where the hot host of Sessoines clung encamped;
Killed them at th’entrance, and got in to you,
Who welcomed me with joy. I forth’d again,
Again slew more, and saved the stronghold’s fame!
Yet you (weaker) requite me thus! You might — have fought me!
(K. Mark droops his head in silence.)
Sir Andret
O fie upon thee, traitor, pleading thus! It profits naught. To-day here sees thee die!
Tristram
O Andret, Andret; this from thee to me — Thee, whom I onetime held my fastest friend;
Wert thou as I, I would not treat thee so!
(Sir Andret turns aside and looks down) [Weaker) Fair Knights, bethink ye what
I’ve done for Cornwall, — Its fate was on my shoulder — and I saved it! —
Yea, thick in jeopardies I’ve thrust myself To fame your knighthood! — daily stretched
my arm For — the weal — of you — all!
Tristram dies.
Q. Iseult
[springing up, the King standing dazed)
O murderer, husband called! — possest of me Against my nature and my pleading tears, When all my heart was Tristram’s — his past wording,
To your own knowledge. Now this mute red mouth
You’ve gored in my Beloved, bids me act: Act do I then. So out you — follow him!
She snatches King Mark’s dagger from his belt and stabs him with it. King Mark falls and dies. Queen Iseult rushes out. Sir Andret, stooping and finding the King dead, follows after the Queen. A few moments’ pause during which the sea and sky darken, and the wind rises, distant thunder murmuring. Enter W atchman; next Brangwain.
SCENE XX
Watchman and Chanters, with the dead King and Tristram; then Brangwain.
Watchman
She’s glode off like a ghost, with deathy mien;
It seems toward the ledge — yes, she — the Queen.
Brangwain (entering hurriedly)
She’s over the cliff, and Tristram’s brachet with her! . . .
What have we here? ... Sir Tristram’s body? O!
Chanters: Men. (Brangwain standing and gradually drooping during their chant)
Alas, for this wroth day! She’s leapt the ledge and fallen
Into the loud black bay, Whose waters, loosed and swollen, Are spirting into spray!
She’s vanished from the world, Over the blind
rock hurled; And the little hound her friend Has made with hers its end!
Chanters: Women
Alas, for this wroth day! Our Tristram, noble knight, A match for Arthur’s might, Lies here as quaking clay. This is no falsehood fell, But very truth indeed That we too surely read! Would that we had to tell But pleasant truth alway!
Brangwain (arousing and gazing round)
Here’s more of this same stuff of death.
Look down — What see I lying there? King Mark, too, slain?
The sea’s dark noise last night, the sky’s vast yawn
Of hollow bloodshot cloud, meant murder,
then, As I divined!
Enter Iseult the Whitehanded, Queen’s Ladies, Retainers, Bower- women., and others.
SCENE XXI
Iseult the Whitehanded, Brangwain, Queen’s Ladies, etc., and Chanters.
Iseult the White H.
I heard her cry. I saw her leap! How fair She was! What wonder that my brother Kay
Should pine for love of her. . . . O she should not
Have done it to herself! Nor life nor death Is worth a special quest.
(She sees Tristram’s body.) What’s this — my husband? My Tristram dead likewise? He one with her?
(She sinks and clasps Tristram.)
Chanters: M. and W.
Slain by King Mark unseen, in evil vow, Who never loved him! Pierced in the back
— aye, now, By sleight no codes of chivalry allow!
Iseult the White H.
And she beholding! That the cause where- for
She went and took her life? He was not
hers. . . . Yet did she love him true, if wickedly!
Re-enter Sir Andret, with other Knights, Squires, Herald, etc.
SCENE XXII
Iseult the Whitehanded, Brangwain, Sir Andret, etc., and Chanters.
Sir Andret (saturninely)
Nor sight nor sound of her! A Queen.
‘Od’s blood, Her flaws in life get mended by her death,
And she and Tristram sport re-burnished fames!
Iseult the White H. (seeing Mark’s body)
And the King also dead? My Tristram’s slayer?
Yet strange to me. Then even had I not come
Across the southern water recklessly
This would have shaped the same — the very- same.
(Turning again to Tristram.)
Tristram, dear husband! O! . . .
(She rocks herself over him)
What a rare beauteous knight has perished here
By this most cruel craft! Could not King Mark
If wronged, have chid him — minded him of me,
And not done this, done this! Well, well; she’s lost him,
Even as have I. — This stronghold moans with woes,
And jibbering voices join with winds and waves
To make a dolorous din! . . .
(They lift her) Aye, I will rise —
Betake me to my own dear Brittany —
Dearer in that our days there were so sweet,
Before I knew what pended me elsewhere !
These halls are hateful to me! May my
eyes
Meet them no more!
(She turns to go)
Brangwain
I will attend you, Madam.
Exit Iseult the Whitehanded assisted by Brangwain and Bowerwomen. Knights, retainers, etc., lift the bodies and carry them out. A Dirge by the Chanters.
EPILOGUE
Re-enter Merlin
Thus from the past, the throes and themes Whereof I spake — now dead as dreams —
Have been re-shaped and drawn In feinted deed and word, as though Our shadowy and phantasmal show Were very movements to and fro Of forms so far-off gone.
These warriors and dear women, whom I’ve called, as bidden, from the tomb,
May not have failed to raise An antique spell at moments here? — They were, in their long-faded sphere, As you are now who muse thereat; Their mirth, crimes, fear and love begat Your own, though thwart their ways; And may some pleasant thoughts outshape From this my conjuring to undrape Such ghosts of distant days!
The Criticism
A STUDY OF THOMAS HARDY by D.H. Lawrence
This critical work was written in the early months of World War I, and was originally intended to be a short analysis of Hardy’s characters, but then developed into a major statement of Lawrence’s philosophy of art. The introduction to this work shows its relation to Lawrence’s final rewriting of The Rainbow and its place among his continual attempts to express his philosophy in a definitive form.
D.H. Lawrence, the famous novelist and poet, who was greatly influenced by Hardy
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER I
Of Poppies and Phoenixes and the Beginning of the Argument
Man has made such a mighty struggle to feel at home on the face of the earth, without even yet succeeding. Ever since he first discovered himself exposed naked betwixt sky and land, belonging to neither, he has gone on fighting for more food, more clothing, more shelter; and though he has roofed-in the world with houses and though the ground has heaved up massive abundance and excess of nutriment to his hand, still he cannot be appeased, satisfied. He goes on and on. In his anxiety he has evolved nations and tremendous governments to protect his person and his property; his strenuous purpose, unremitting, has brought to pass the whole frantic turmoil of modern industry, that he may have enough, enough to eat and wear, that he may be safe. Even his religion has for the systole of its heart-beat, propitiation of the Unknown God who controls death and the sources of nourishment.
But for the diastole of the heart-beat, there is something more, something else, thank heaven, than this unappeased rage of self- preservation. Even the passion to be rich is not merely the greedy wish to be secure within triple walls of brass, along with a huge barn of plenty. And the history of mankind is not altogether the history of an effort at self-preservation which has at length become over blown and extravagant.
Working in contradiction to the will of self-preservation, from the very first man wasted himself begetting children, colouring himself and dancing and howling,.and sticking feathers in his hair, in scratching pictures on the walls of his cave, and making graven images of his unutterable feelings. So he went on wildly and with gorgeousness taking no thought for the morrow, but, at evening, considering the ruddy lily.
In his sleep, however, it must have come to him early that the lily is a wise and housewifely flower, considerate of herself, laying up secretly her little storehouse and barn, well under the ground, well tucked with supplies. And this providence on the part of the lily, man laid to heart. He went out anxiously at dawn to kill the largest mammoth, so that he should have a huge hill of meat, that he could never eat his way through.
And the old man at the door of the cave, afraid of the coming winter with its scant supplies, watching the young man go forth, told impressive tales to the children of the ant and the grasshopper; and praised the thrift and husbandry of that little red squirrel, and drew a moral from the gaudy, fleeting poppy.
“Don’t, my dear children,” continued the ancient paleolithic man as he sat at the door of his cave, “don’t behave like that reckless, shameless scarlet flower. Ah, my dears, you little know the amount of labour, the careful architecture, all the chemistry, the weaving and the casting of energy, the business of day after day and night after night, yon gaudy wreck has squandered. Pfff! — and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. Now, my dear children, don’t be like that.”
Nevertheless, the old man watched the last poppy coming out, the red flame licking into sight; watched the blaze at the top clinging around a little
tender d-j^t, and he wept, thinking of his youth. Till the red flag fell before him, lay in rags on the earth. Then he did not know whether to pay homage to the void, or to preach.
So he compromised, and made a story about a phoenix. “Yes, my dears, in the waste desert, I know the green and graceful tree where the phoenix has her nest. And there I have seen the eternal phoenix escape away into flame, leaving life behind in her ashes. Suddenly she went up in to red flame, and was gone, leaving life to rise from her ashes.”
“And did it?”
“Oh, yes, it rose up.”
“What did it do then?”
“It grew up, and burst into flame again.”
And the flame was all the story and all triumph. The old man knew this. It was this he praised, in his innermost heart, the red outburst at the top of the poppy that had no fear of winter. Even the latent seeds were secondary, within the fire. No red; and there was just a herb, without name or sign of poppy. But he had seen the flower in all its evanescence and its being.
When his educated grandson told him that the red was there to bring the bees and the flies, he knew well enough that more bees and flies and wasps would come to a sticky smear round his grandson’s mouth, than to yards of poppy-red.
Therefore his grandson began to talk about the excess which al ways accompanies reproduction. And the old man died during this talk, and was put away. But his soul was uneasy, and came back from the shades to have the last word, muttering inaudibly in the cave door, “If there is always excess accompanying reproduction, how can you call it excess? When your mother makes a pie, and has too much paste, then that is excess. So she carves a paste rose with her surplus, and sticks it on the top of the pie. That is the flowering of the excess. And children, if they are young enough, clap their hands at this blossom of pastry. And if the pie bloom not too often with the rose of excess, they eat the paste blossom- shaped lump with reverence. But soon they become sophisticated, and know that the rose is no rose, but only excess, surplus, a counterfeit, a lump, unedifying and unattractive, and they say, ‘No, thank you, mother; no rose.’
