The Tragedy of Arthur: A Novel (52 page)

No mockery but of my wordless self:

No poet, Guen, no orator at all,

I am untongued when most I want new words

To lock your beauty in my longest thoughts.

I spent too soon the language I did know,

Like to an actor hoarse from preparation,

Or a traveller of the Afric coast,

Who lights with wonder on an unknown bank,

But finds he’s burnt his words on duller lands.

What can I say that was not elsewhere false?

And more above, I’d verse upon these sights,

But sure you are the matter’s wisest scholar,

Thrice-schooled in science of your beauty’s paths.

At glass you have learnt all the fields and hills:

I cannot win you with geography

Of your own kingdom’s sparkling coasts and leas.

So I am Vanity in your conceit?
²⁹

No saint there is who could resist that sin

Were every glass so richly laid with like

Temptation to’t. Say that you love me still.

O! Kings speak love when love is politic!

Was’t Gloucester or my brother Constantine

Impressed
³⁰
your words to move sad Guenhera,

Revive her young days’ camomilèd
³¹
hopes?

A king must wed where stratagem decides,

Where blind boy’s
³²
arrows, shot with policy,

Do prick the heart but slightly if at all.

What promised they I’d furnish Britain’s king?

Do I bear land or gold or men at arms?

Though caution urge me hide the case, here ’tis:

I was but now set down to study love

And think how kings, though men, must sacrifice

Their own desires to commonweal’s demands.

Much wind was blown today to ope mine eyes

That Britain’s new-made master must ally

More closely now to—

Cornwall?

France, Guen, France.

Already are we Cornwall’s sovereign lord.

There is no policy in Guenhera

Being Arthur’s empress, yet I stand in gyves.
³³

I of a sudden am again a boy

But granted better wisdom of my years.

My younger sight now sharper with new wit

I mark in you far more than Cornwall’s cliffs.

Thy father, too, did love a Cornish girl.

But not so gently. Sure I am not he.

Were’t not for Uter’s special
³⁴
appetite

My brother would not hold his watery earldom,

And I would not appear to royal eyes.

We entertain conjecture such as this

And I do end the worse: unborn, unkinged.

I’d not be here and hammering the flint
³⁵

To kindle your extincted love for me.

Extincted? Said I this? I do not know.

That’s tying hope an inch above the reach.

To taunt a king with sour-sweet painful words

Is sure a crime that stains thy crystal name.

How swift from love thou sayest I am stained!

As none dare foil thee in thy every bliss,

See thou art unaccustomed to be thwarted.

Like other Pendragons, thou’lt seize perforce
³⁶

What all thy words have failed to win with ease.

Dear Guen, I say again I am not him.

The proof is in my mild and soft reply.

Though thou mayst roughly chain me to a stake,

And fill the yard, and arr
³⁷
and tear at me,

While cries for blood from every groundling
³⁸
rise,

I will but roll upon my back and sigh.

But, noble bear,
³⁹
when I, a lovesick girl,

Did love that Arthur, all the world knew him

Bound in
⁴⁰
with dowsabels
⁴¹
and ev’ry Joan.

No fury then, ’tis true: his smile sufficed

To win him what he would.

While silent Guen

Did sadly mind his dog-star
⁴²
scrabbling
⁴³
days.

One’s heart gone forth is hardly whistled home,

Not when it leaves behind true-weeping love.

I would a kiss could drive away that pain.

Thy lips, O King, are like Achilles’ spear,
⁴⁴

Such weapons that do wound and also heal?

Might I not heal myself while healing thee?

O fie! What pain ails thee, luxurious
⁴⁵
king?

Regret
⁴⁶
can scratch a man so rough as thorns.

Invention pains as well. Reports of love

That touched my ears stung worse than what I spied.

Oh, yes, I spied from in the tickling gorse.
⁴⁷

I spied you woo them, win them, weave their crowns

Of yellow buds that opened for the sun.

’Twas nothing but some twisted celandine.
⁴⁸

My nurse did use to grind it when in need

And made from it a certain private paste.
⁴⁹

So nothing that thou spied should bring thee grief.

I spied them weep, my eyes salt-ripe
⁵⁰
as theirs.

I do suspect that now, regretful king,

’Tis more convenient you should give each girl

Full half your face engraved upon a coin,

Thus binding up rememberance and pay.

For all the sorrow that boy moved in thee,

I strong rebuke him and on his account

Requit with crown that I have by my hand,

No crown of weeds that will not live a day

But that becomes thy beauty and thy state,

And may yet cure the harm to thee and me.

O smooth, smooth king, what sayest thou to me

Thou hast not sworn an hundred times before?

Unjust, fair Guenhera, and here’s the proof:

For half the month has Gloucester filled my ears

With policy, alliances, and leagues,

And all my flaws from when I was a babe.

One hour ago, by his sharp reasoning,

I thought to yield the day and bow my head,

To play a kingly lover, winning us

Some foreign fields and rights to levy tax.

But now I am as mute as any boy

Who never yet has touched a lover’s lips.

I’m dry. Wouldst have a king before thee kneel?

I kneel. Wouldst have a king forsake demesnes?

Adieu to France attending in the hall.

An if it were reversed, not thou but I

Who left behind to weep discarded loves,

Wouldst thy new faith in my new bond be strong?

Couldst thou forgive and take me as thy queen?

Return with me to woods in Gloucestershire,

Begin anew upon our proper path.

Thy hand. Thy hand, and in the oakshot
⁵¹
sun

Come walk thy ways with me, o’er roots and earth.

Soft, kiss me, Guen, half-close thy lovely eyne
⁵²

And in this wispen
⁵³
dawn of gold-flecked mist

We catch our breath and hear the lark’s first song.

Soft, kiss me, Guen, and take this flowered crown

[
He crowns her
]

And sit with me in shade and kiss me, Guen.

[
He kisses her
]

Need call we now the courtiers?

Anon.

Exeunt

He fought his bit of war, yes, but that’s all done now.

And see if it were not what I augured.
¹
He sends his

his army home, the most of ’em, to fields and

traffics.
²
Those uncles of thine, home again, both

arms about ’em. The earth gives up its foison,
³
the

markets are loud with cries, roads all teem with

wheels. The queen is round with young.
⁴
The court’s

a court of music all the day. The king’s that boy again

I loved. He came again last night, d’ye know, and

called me friend, and stood at this gate here and

stepped up to the bar to reach within, and he did

watch the hounds an hour yet. Asked all their names

and stepped right in, dropped to his knees and had

them in his arms, suffered them to wet his royal face

and stroked the velvet of their ears. Said he thought

Hamish was of Edgar’s line, noble shoulder, noble

brow and muzzle, he said, the color minded him of

Edgar. He has the eye for blood. And now the queen

ripe to bring a prince, that prince will come to us,

mark it, see, and learn the dogs as well. Both be

here.