Locrine - A Tragedy [12]
to hear them.
LOCRINE.
Hast not thou
Held counsel--played the talebearer whose tales
Bear plague abroad and poison, knowing not how -
Not with my wife nor brother?
DEBON.
Nought avails
Falsehood: and truth it is, the king of Wales
So plied me, sir, with force of craft and threat -
LOCRINE.
That thou, whose faith swerves never, flags nor fails
Nor falters, being as stars are loyal, yet
Wast found as those that fall from heaven, forget
Their station, shoot and shudder down to death
Deep as the pit of hell? What snares were set
To take thy soul--what mist of treasonous breath
Made blind in thee the sense that quickeneth
In true men's inward eyesight, when they know
And know not how they know the word it saith,
The warning word that whispers loud or low -
I ask not: be it enough these things are so.
Thou hast played me false.
DEBON.
Nay, now this long time since
We have seen the queen's face wan with wrath and woe -
Have seen her lip writhe and her eyelid wince
To take men's homage--proof that might convince
Of grief inexpiable and insatiate shame
Her spirit in all men's judgment.
LOCRINE.
But the prince -
My brother, whom thou knowest by proof, not fame,
A coward whose heart is all a flickering flame
That fain would burn and dares not--whence had he
The poison that he gave her? Speak: this came
By chance--mishap--most haplessly for thee
Who hadst my heart in thine, and madest of me
No more than might for folly's sake or fear's
Be bared for even such eyes as his to see?
Old friend that wast, I would not see thy tears.
God comfort thy dishonour!
DEBON.
All these years
Have I not served thee?
LOCRINE.
Yea. So cheer thee now.
DEBON.
Cheered be the traitor, whom the true man cheers?
Nay, smite me: God can be not such as thou,
And will not damn me with forgiveness. How
Hast thou such heart, to comfort such as me?
God's thunder were less fearful than the brow
That frowns not on thy friend found false to thee.
Thy friend--thou said'st--thy friend. Strange friends are we.
Nay, slay me then--nay, slay me rather.
LOCRINE.
Friend,
Take comfort. God's wide-reaching will shall be
Here as of old accomplished, though it blend
All good with ill that none may mar or mend.
Thy works and mine are ripples on the sea.
Take heart, I say: we know not yet their end.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II.--Gardens of the Palace.
Enter CAMBER and MADAN.
CAMBER.
Hath no man seen thee?
MADAN.
Had he seen, and spoken,
His head should lose its tongue. I am far away
In Cornwall.
CAMBER.
Where the front of war is broken
By the onset of thy force--the rebel fray
Shattered. Had no man--canst thou surely say? -
Knowledge betimes, to give us knowledge here -
Us babblers, tongues made quick with fraud and fear -
That thou wast bound from Cornwall hither?
MADAN.
None,
I think, who knowing of steel and fire and cord
That they can smite and burn and strangle one
Would loose without leave of his parting lord
The tongue that else were sharper than a sword
To cut the throat it sprang from.
CAMBER.
Nephew mine,
I have ever loved thee--not thy sire Locrine
More--and for very and only love of thee
Have I desired, or ever even thy mother
Beheld thee, here to know of thee and me
Which loves her best--her and thy sire my brother.
MADAN.
He being away, far hence--and so none other -
Not he--should share the knowledge?
CAMBER.
Surely not
He. Knowest thou whither hence he went?
MADAN.
God wot,
No: haply toward some hidden paramour.
CAMBER.
And that should set not, for thy mother's sake,
And thine, the heart in thee on fire?
MADAN.
An hour
Is less than even the time wherein we take
Breath to let loose the word that fain would break,
And cannot, even for passion,--if we set
An hour against the length of life: and yet
Less in account of life should be those hours -
Should be? should be not, live not, be not known,
Not thought of, not remembered even as ours, -
Whereon the flesh or fancy
LOCRINE.
Hast not thou
Held counsel--played the talebearer whose tales
Bear plague abroad and poison, knowing not how -
Not with my wife nor brother?
DEBON.
Nought avails
Falsehood: and truth it is, the king of Wales
So plied me, sir, with force of craft and threat -
LOCRINE.
That thou, whose faith swerves never, flags nor fails
Nor falters, being as stars are loyal, yet
Wast found as those that fall from heaven, forget
Their station, shoot and shudder down to death
Deep as the pit of hell? What snares were set
To take thy soul--what mist of treasonous breath
Made blind in thee the sense that quickeneth
In true men's inward eyesight, when they know
And know not how they know the word it saith,
The warning word that whispers loud or low -
I ask not: be it enough these things are so.
Thou hast played me false.
DEBON.
Nay, now this long time since
We have seen the queen's face wan with wrath and woe -
Have seen her lip writhe and her eyelid wince
To take men's homage--proof that might convince
Of grief inexpiable and insatiate shame
Her spirit in all men's judgment.
LOCRINE.
But the prince -
My brother, whom thou knowest by proof, not fame,
A coward whose heart is all a flickering flame
That fain would burn and dares not--whence had he
The poison that he gave her? Speak: this came
By chance--mishap--most haplessly for thee
Who hadst my heart in thine, and madest of me
No more than might for folly's sake or fear's
Be bared for even such eyes as his to see?
Old friend that wast, I would not see thy tears.
God comfort thy dishonour!
DEBON.
All these years
Have I not served thee?
LOCRINE.
Yea. So cheer thee now.
DEBON.
Cheered be the traitor, whom the true man cheers?
Nay, smite me: God can be not such as thou,
And will not damn me with forgiveness. How
Hast thou such heart, to comfort such as me?
God's thunder were less fearful than the brow
That frowns not on thy friend found false to thee.
Thy friend--thou said'st--thy friend. Strange friends are we.
Nay, slay me then--nay, slay me rather.
LOCRINE.
Friend,
Take comfort. God's wide-reaching will shall be
Here as of old accomplished, though it blend
All good with ill that none may mar or mend.
Thy works and mine are ripples on the sea.
Take heart, I say: we know not yet their end.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II.--Gardens of the Palace.
Enter CAMBER and MADAN.
CAMBER.
Hath no man seen thee?
MADAN.
Had he seen, and spoken,
His head should lose its tongue. I am far away
In Cornwall.
CAMBER.
Where the front of war is broken
By the onset of thy force--the rebel fray
Shattered. Had no man--canst thou surely say? -
Knowledge betimes, to give us knowledge here -
Us babblers, tongues made quick with fraud and fear -
That thou wast bound from Cornwall hither?
MADAN.
None,
I think, who knowing of steel and fire and cord
That they can smite and burn and strangle one
Would loose without leave of his parting lord
The tongue that else were sharper than a sword
To cut the throat it sprang from.
CAMBER.
Nephew mine,
I have ever loved thee--not thy sire Locrine
More--and for very and only love of thee
Have I desired, or ever even thy mother
Beheld thee, here to know of thee and me
Which loves her best--her and thy sire my brother.
MADAN.
He being away, far hence--and so none other -
Not he--should share the knowledge?
CAMBER.
Surely not
He. Knowest thou whither hence he went?
MADAN.
God wot,
No: haply toward some hidden paramour.
CAMBER.
And that should set not, for thy mother's sake,
And thine, the heart in thee on fire?
MADAN.
An hour
Is less than even the time wherein we take
Breath to let loose the word that fain would break,
And cannot, even for passion,--if we set
An hour against the length of life: and yet
Less in account of life should be those hours -
Should be? should be not, live not, be not known,
Not thought of, not remembered even as ours, -
Whereon the flesh or fancy