Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards
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Algernon Charles Swinburne >> Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards
[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.
It was I.
ALMACHILDES.
Does the sun stand in heaven? Or stands it fast
As when God bade it halt on high? My life
Is broken in me.
ROSAMUND.
Nay, fair sir, not yet.
Thy life is now mine--as the ring I wear
That seals my hand a wife's. Die thou shalt not,
But slay, and live.
ALMACHILDES.
Slay whom?
ROSAMUND.
Thy lord and mine.
ALMACHILDES.
I had rather go down quick to hell.
ROSAMUND.
I know it.
I leave thee not the choice. Keep thou thy hand
Bloodless, and Hildegard, whom yet I love,
Dies, and in fire, the harlot's death of shame.
Last night she lured thee hither. Hate of me,
Because of late I smote her, being in wrath
Forgetful of her noble maidenhood,
Stung her for shame's sake to take hands with shame.
This if I swear, may she unswear it? Thou
Canst not but say she bade thee seek her. She
Lives while I will, as Albovine and thou
Live by my grace and mercy. Live, or die.
But live thou shalt not longer than her death,
Her death by burning, if thou slay not him.
I see my death shine in thine eyes: I see
My present death inflame them. That were not
Her surety, Almachildes. Thou shouldst know me
Now. Though thou slay me, this may save not her.
My lines are laid about her life, and may not
By breach of mine be broken.
ALMACHILDES.
God must be
Dead. Such a thing as thou could never else
Live.
ROSAMUND.
That concerns not thee nor me. Be thou
Sure that my will and power to serve it live.
Lift now thine eyes to look upon thy lord.
Re-enter ALBOVINE.
ALBOVINE.
By this time hath he thanked thee not enough?
ROSAMUND.
More hath he given than thanks.
ALBOVINE.
What more may be?
ROSAMUND.
His plighted faith to heal the wrong he wrought
Faithfully.
ALBOVINE.
Boy, strike then thy hand in mine.
Thou art loyal as I knew thee.
ALMACHILDES.
King, I may not
Touch hands with thee.
ALBOVINE.
Thou art false, then, ha? Thou hast lied?
ALMACHILDES.
King, till the wrong I have wrought be wreaked or healed
I clasp not hands with honour. Nay, and then
Perchance I may not.
ALBOVINE.
Boy I called thee: child
I call thee now. But, boy, the child thou art
Is noble as our sires.
ALMACHILDES.
Would God it were!
[Exit.
ALBOVINE.
What ails him?
ROSAMUND.
Love and shame.
ALBOVINE.
No more than these?
ROSAMUND.
Enough are they to darken death and life.
ALBOVINE.
Thou art less than gentle towards his love and him.
ROSAMUND.
I would not speak ungently. Her I love,
Poor child, and him I hate not.
ALBOVINE.
Thou shalt live
To love him too.
ROSAMUND.
This heaviness of heat
Kills love and hate and life in me. I know not
Aught lovesome save the sweet brief death of sleep.
ALBOVINE.
I am weary as thou. Good night we may not say -
Good noon I bid thee. Sleep shall heal us.
ROSAMUND.
Ay;
No healing and no help for life on earth
Hath God or man found out save death and sleep.
[Exeunt.
ACT IV
The same Scene.
Enter ALMACHILDES and HILDEGARD.
HILDEGARD.
Hast thou forgiven me?
ALMACHILDES.
I have not forgiven
God.
HILDEGARD.
Wilt thou slay thy soul and mine?
ALMACHILDES.
Wilt thou
Madden me? God hath given us up to her
Who is deadlier than the fiery fang of death -
Us, innocent and loyal.
HILDEGARD.
Nay, if I
Forgive her love of thee--though this be hard,
Canst thou forgive not?
ALMACHILDES.
Sweet, for thee and me
Remains no rescue save by death or flight
From worse than flight or death is.
HILDEGARD.
Worse is nought
But shame: and how may shame take hold on us,
On us who have sinned not? Me she bound to play thee
False, and betray thee to her arms: I might not
Choose, though my heart should rend itself in twain
And cleave with ravenous anguish: yet I live.
Vex not thy soul too sorely: me, not her,
Thy spirit embraced, thine arms and lips made thine
Me, not my darkling wraith, my changeling foe,
My thief of love, our traitress. This I bid thee,
Forget thy fear and shame to have wronged me: night
Breeds treacherous dreams that can but poison day
If thought be found so base a fool as dares
Fear. Did I doubt thy love of me, I durst not
Live or look back upon thee.
ALMACHILDES.
Wilt thou then
Fly?
HILDEGARD.
Dost thou know what flight means--thou?
It means
Fear. And is fear a new-born friend of thine?
ALMACHILDES.
God help us! if he live, and hate not man -
If Satan be not God. We will not fly.
Enter ALBOVINE and ROSAMUND.
ALBOVINE.
Fly? What should love at height of happiness
Or youth at height of honour fear and fly?
Would ye take wing for heaven? take shame on earth
To wed in peace and honour?
ALMACHILDES.
No, my king.
No, surely.
ROSAMUND.
Weep not, maiden. Dost not thou,
Man, that we thought her bridegroom sealed of love,
Love her?
ALMACHILDES.
No saint loved ever God as I
Her.
ROSAMUND.
And betray her to shame thou wouldst not?
See,
My lord, the silent answer flash aloud
From cheek and eye a goodly witness. Thou,
My maiden, dost thou love not him? Nay, speak.
HILDEGARD.
I cannot say it--I cannot strive to say.
ROSAMUND.
Thou shalt. Are all we not fast bound in love -
My lord and thine, my maiden and her queen,
A fourfold chain of faith twice linked of love?
Speak: let not shame find place where shame is none.
HILDEGARD.
I will not. King and queen and God shall hear.
I love him as our songs of old time say
Men have been loved of women akin to gods
By blood as they by spirit, albeit in me
Nought lives that woman or man or God could say
Were worth his love, if mine by grace of love
Be found not all unworthy. Mine am I
No more: mine own in no wise now, but his
To save or slay, to cherish or cast out,
Crown and discrown, abase and comfort. Shame
Were more to me than honour if his will
It were that shame should clothe me round, and life
Were the only death left fearful if he bade me
Die. Could his love be turned from me, and set
On one less loving but more fair than I,
A thrall more base than treason or a queen
Too high for shame to brand her shameful, even
Though sin had stamped and signed her foul as fraud
And loathsome as a masked adulterous lie,
Hers would I make him if I might, and yield
To her the hatefullest of hell-born things
The man found lovelier by my love than heaven.
ROSAMUND.
Great love is this to brag of: great and strange.
HILDEGARD.
Love is no braggart: lust and fraud and hate
Vaunt their vile strength when shame unveils them: love
Vaunts not itself. I spake not uncompelled,
And blushed not out the avowal.
ALBOVINE.
Boy, I held
And hold thee noblest of my lords of war,
And worthier than thine elders born and tried
Ere battle found thee ripe and glad at heart
To stem and swim the tide of spears: but this
I know not if thou be or any man
Be worthy of.
ALMACHILDES.
Of all men born on earth
I am most unworthy of it. None might be
Worthy.
ROSAMUND.
He weeps: thy boy is humble.
ALMACHILDES.
Queen,
I weep not. Shamed with no ignoble shame
Thou seest me: but I weep not. Yea, God knows,
Humbled I am, and humble; not to thee.
ALBOVINE.
Chafe not: and thou, queen though thou be, and mine,
Tempt not a true man's wrath with words that bear
Fangs keener than thou knowest of.
ROSAMUND.
King, henceforth,
Being warned, I will not. Dangerous as the sea
A true man's wrath is--and a true man's love:
A woman's hath no peril in it: her tears
Wash wrath and peril away.
ALBOVINE.
I have never seen thee
Weep.
ROSAMUND.
How should I weep--I, thy wife?
ALBOVINE.
I have heard thee
Laugh; and thy smiles were always bright as fire.
ROSAMUND.
Well were it with me--ay, and reason found
For me to live and do the living world
Some service--could my husband warm thereat
His heart as winter-stricken hands in frost
Are warmed at winter fires.
ALBOVINE.
No need, no need:
The sun thou art warms all our year with love,
And leaves no chill on winter.
ROSAMUND.
Albovine,
Love now secludes us not from sight of man -
From sight of this my maiden and the man
Who shines but as the battle's boy for thee
But lives for me my maiden's lover--true
As truth is--Almachildes.
ALBOVINE.
How thy lips
Hang lingering on his name as though 'twere thou
That loved him! Thou shouldst love thy maiden well.
ROSAMUND.
As she loves me I love her. Hildegard,
Leave us. Thou knowest I love thee.
HILDEGARD.
Queen, I know. [Exit.
ALBOVINE.
What ails the boy? what rapturous agony
Torments and glorifies his glance at her
As with delight in torture? Cheer thee, man:
Thou art not thus all unworthy.
ROSAMUND.
Spare him, king.
A king may guess not how a man's heart yearns
With all unkingly sense of love and shame
Not all unmanly.
ALBOVINE.
Shame is none to be
Loved, and to deem that love exceeds our due
Who may not well deserve it. Sick at heart
He seems, and should be gladder than the sea
When wind and sun strike life in it.
ALMACHILDES.
I am not
So stricken, king. I thank thy care of me.
ALBOVINE.
Heart-stricken or shame-stricken art thou?
ROSAMUND.
King,
Spare him. Thou knowest not love like his. It burns
And rends and wrings the spirit.
ALBOVINE.
No. And thou,
Dost thou then?
ROSAMUND.
Eyes and heart and sense are mine
As weak and strong as woman's can but be;
As weak in strength and strong in weakness. Men,
Being wise, and mightier than their mates on earth,
Need no such knowledge born of inborn pain
As quickens all the spirit of sense in us.
Worms know what eagles know not.
ALBOVINE.
Like enough.
Rede me no redes and riddles. Never yet
I have loved thee more, and yet I have loved thee well,
Than now that loving-kindness borne toward love
Makes thee so gracious, pleading for it.
ROSAMUND.
Love
Sees all things lovely: thine, if praise there be,
Not mine the praise is: thee, not me, these twain
Must love and worship as their lord of love.
ALBOVINE.
Well, God be good to them and thee and me!
I would this fierce Italian June were dead,
So hard it weighs upon me.
ROSAMUND.
Now not long
Shall we sustain or sink aswoon from it:
It has but left a day or two to die.
ALBOVINE.
And well were that, if summer died with June.
Two red months more must set on sense and soul
The branding-iron stamped of summer: nay,
The sea is here no sea to cherish man:
It brings no choral comfort back with tides
That surge and sink and swell and chime and change
And lighten life with music where the breath
Dies and revives of night and day.
ROSAMUND.
Be thou
Content: a God hath driven us hither.
ALBOVINE.
Yea:
A God of death and fire and strife, whose hand
Is heavy on my spirit. Be not ye
Troubled, if peace be with you.
ROSAMUND.
Peace to thee.
[Exit ALBOVINE.
Now follow: smite him now: thou art strong, but yet
Thy king is stronger--mightier thewed than thou.
Thou couldst not slay him in fight.
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot slay him
Thus.
ROSAMUND.
Canst thou slay thy bride by fire? He dies,
Or she dies, bound against the stake. His death
Were the easier. Follow him: save her: strike but once.
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot. God requite thee this! I will. [Exit.
ROSAMUND.
And I will see it. And, father, thou shalt see.
[Exit.
ACT V
The Banqueting-hall.
Enter ALBOVINE and ROSAMUND.
ALBOVINE.
This June makes babes of men; last night I deemed
When thou hadst wished me peace as I passed forth
A footfall pressed behind me soft and fast,
And turning toward it I beheld nought: thee
I saw, and Almachildes hard at hand
Turned back toward thee: nought stranger: yet my heart
Sprang, and sank back. I laughed against myself,
That manhood should be girlish, when the heat
Burns life half out within us. Even thine eyes,
Like stars before the wind that brings the cloud,
Look fainter. Ere they fill the banquet full
And bid the guests about us where we sit,
Tell me if aught be worse than well with thee.
ROSAMUND.
Nought.
ALBOVINE.
Wilt thou swear it, sweet?
ROSAMUND.
By what thou wilt -
By God and man--by hell and earth and heaven.
I know what ails thy loyal heart of love
And binds thy tongue for fear to bid me know.
The cup we drank of when we feasted last
Tastes bitter on it yet. Thou wilt not bid me
Pledge thee therein again. If I bid thee,
Pledge me thou shalt--and seal thy pardon.
ALBOVINE.
Be not
Too sweet for woman.
ROSAMUND.
Cross me not in this.
ALBOVINE.
Mine old fast friend Narsetes hath my word
Plighted. All funeral reverence shall inter
The royal relic, and all thought therewith
Of strife between thy father's child and me
Or less than love and honour.
ROSAMUND.
Nay, my lord,
Let the dead thing live as a lifelong sign
Of perfect plight in love and union. This
Were no dishonour done to fatherhood
But honour shown to wedlock. Here is spread
The feast, the bride-feast of my love and thine,
Whereat the cup of death shall serve our lips
To drink forgetfulness of all but love.
Herein thou shalt not thwart me.
ALBOVINE.
God forbid.
ROSAMUND.
God hath forbidden: and God shall be obeyed.
Bid thy Narsetes play the cup-bearer,
And I will pour the wine: my hand shall fill
The sacramental draught of love that seals
Our eucharist of wedlock.
ALBOVINE.
Yea, I know
To drink with thee is even to drink with God.
Thou art good as any God was ever.
ROSAMUND.
Ay?
We know not till we die.
ALBOVINE.
Thou art wise and true
As ever maid was born of the oldworld north
In the oldworld years of legend. Bid Narsetes
Bring thee the chalice: thou shalt mix the draught
Whence we will drink life, if true love be life,
Even from the lipless mouth of bone that speaks
Death.
ROSAMUND.
I will mix it well with honey and herb
Sweet as the mead our fathers drank, and dreamed
Their gods so drank in heaven--draughts deep and strong
As life is strong and death is deep. I go
To bid Narsetes hither. [Exit.
ALBOVINE.
Nay, by God,
Whoever God be, never Christ or Thor
Beheld or blessed a nobler wife, whose love
Was found through proof of purity by fire
More like our northern stars and snows and suns,
And sane in strong sufficiency of soul
As womanhood by godhead from the womb
Elected and exalted.
Enter NARSETES.
NARSETES.
King, thy wife
Hath given me back thy message given her.
ALBOVINE.
Ay?
And thou hast given her back my cup, then?
NARSETES.
King,
I have given it. Loth to give it if I were,
Ye know: she knows as thou: thou knowest as she.
ALBOVINE.
What ails thee to distaste thy duty? Man,
Thou shouldst be glad, being loyal. Knowest thou not
Her will it was that we should pledge therein
To-night, this hour, our lifelong love, and seal it
More surely so than priest or prayer can seal?
NARSETES.
Her will it was, I know, not thine. I would
Thou hadst not yielded up to hers thy will.
ALBOVINE.
Thou liest: I have not yielded it: I have given
Love, willing as the springtide sea gives up
Her will to the eastern sea-wind's.
NARSETES.
Love should give
No more than love should crave of love: and this
Is such a gift as hate might crave of death
Or priests of God when angered.
ALBOVINE.
Hark thee, man.
Thou art old, and when I loved thee first and found thee
My lord and leader down the ways of war,
My master born by right of manfulness
And steersman through the surf of battle, time
Gaped as a gulf between us: sire and son
We might be: now I bid thee hold thy peace,
Lest all these memories perish, and their death
Give life more strong than theirs to wrath, and leave thee
Shelterless as a waif of the air when storm
Drives bird and beast to deathward. What I bade thee
I bid thee do, and leave me.
NARSETES.
King, I go. [Exit.
ALBOVINE.
What, have I played the Berserk with my friend?
So should not kings. What meant he? Men wax old,
And age eats out the natural sense of love
Which gives the soul sight of such nobler things
As trust may see by grace of truth more fair
Than doubt would fear to dream of. Rosamund
Knows more by might of faith and love than he.
And yet I would, and yet I would not, fool
As even in mine own eyes I am, she had not
Given me this proof, desired of me this sign,
How clear her soul is toward me save of love,
To attest her pardon of me. Would it were
Sunrise to-morrow!
Enter ALMACHILDES and HILDEGARD.
Whence come these, to bring
Sunrise about me? Nay, I bade you be
Here. Does thy memory too not fail thee, boy,
Burnt out by stress of summer
ALMACHILDES.
No.
ALBOVINE,
Nor hers?
HILDEGARD.
How might it, king? Thou art good to us.
ALBOVINE.
All things born
Seem good to lovers in their spring of love,
And all men should be. Maiden, God doth well
To give us foresight of the sight of heaven
By looking in such eyes as love like thine
Kindles and veils for love's sake. Fain was I
To see my boy's bride and her bridegroom here
Before the feast broke in on us, and bless
Their love with mine--if mine be blessing.
HILDEGARD.
Sire,
As the earth gives thanks in spring for the April sun
I would and cannot yield you thanks for this.
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot thank at all. I cannot thank
God.
ALBOVINE.
Art thou mazed with love? For her thou canst not
Thank God? What feverish doubt of love or life
Crazes or cramps thy spirit?
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot say.
My heart, if any heart be left in me,
Is as it was not thankless: yet, my king,
I know not how to thank thee.
ALBOVINE.
Thank me not:
I did not bid thee thank me. Love thy love,
And God be with you: so may God be found
Thankworthier. Keep some heart in thee awhile
For God's and her sake.
ALMACHILDES.
All I may I will.
Re-enter ROSAMUND, followed by NARSETES and Guests.
ALBOVINE.
Sit, friends and warriors: thou, my boy, next me,
And by my wife thy bride. This night, that leaves
But two days more for June to burn and live,
Plights with my queen's troth mine in life and death
This last one time for ever, in the cup
Whence none shall drink hereafter. Not in scorn,
Sirs, but in honour now the draught is pledged
Between us, ere this relic stand enshrined
And hallowed as a saint's on the altar. Queen,
I drink to thee.
ROSAMUND.
I thank thee. Good Narsetes,
Give him the chalice. Women slain by fire
Thirst not as I to pledge thee.
[As ALBOVINE is about to take the cup,
ALMACHILDES rises and stabs him.
ALBOVINE.
Thou, my boy? [Dies.
ROSAMUND.
I. But he hears not. Now, my warrior guests,
I drink to the onward passage of his soul
Death. Had my hand turned coward or played me false,
This man that is my hand, and less than I
And less than he bloodguilty, this my death
Had been my husband's: now he has left it me.
[Drinks.
How innocent are all but he and I
No time is mine to tell you. Truth shall tell.
I pardon thee, my husband: pardon me. [Dies.
NARSETES.
Let none make moan. This doom is none of man's.