The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [157]
Or Duke of Africa.
CUMBRIA
Or Prince of Wales.
ARTHUR
What sense is here?
CUMBRIA
There is no prince, no heir.
ARTHUR
The queen is bursting ripe with coming child.
CUMBRIA
The queen has lost two breathless bloody heirs,
And may yet many false conceptions40 shed.
This Mordred knows. In change for his sworn arms,
Entail41 to him your throne upon your death,
Conditionally42 no natural heir is born
By this or any queen your highness takes.
CORNWALL
Or any? Cumbria, I’ll snap thy bones.
Cod up thy will43 and tame thy serpent’s tongue.
ARTHUR
Thy care of queen is brotherly, my earl,
But hear with no more passion than a luce44
What wisdom here conceiveth: Mordred sure
Doth take me as my family’s dockèd tail.45
If for some mouth-made46 words he takes our part,
And after is my heir safe-born, what harm?
Thereafter I shall act my father’s rate47
And ready me eternally for war.
Go, smooth your sister’s mind of what we do.
It is a devil’s chance to play a kingdom
On th’unproofed vigor48 of an unborn prince!
Bold Cumbria, raise up what force we have,
And Gloucester, send our word to Mordred’s court.
Invite our momentary49 son and heir
To ride with us most lovingly to war.
Exeunt
[ACT IV,] SCENE II
[Location: The Queen’s Chamber, London]
Queen solus [very pregnant]
GUENHERA
Is no one waiting?
Enter Nurse
NURSE
Majesty, you called?
GUENHERA
Is there no word from Linmouth? Of the king?
NURSE
There’s nothing, madam. Have you any wish?
The pain’s come? Will you I should call the wife?1
GUENHERA
I have no word of my own battleground,
No more than aught we learn of Saxon wars.
Come, press my back.
NURSE
Aye, sit.
GUENHERA
Nay, standing’s best.
NURSE
As comfort bids you, that’s the way.
GUENHERA
O! O!
I cannot stand with ease.
NURSE
As lief2 you’d sit.
GUENHERA
Perhaps upon my side.
NURSE
So then, your side.
GUENHERA
Is there then nothing for it?
NURSE
Nothing now.
You yielded comfort nine full moons ago.
There, there, sit quiet now. You jar3 the prince.
But sit now! You do move and move, my queen,
As yet I washed your younger muddied cheeks.
Is’t here you ache?
GUENHERA
Just there, that’s well. Thou’rt kind.—
What ancient sage first wond’ring marked that line
Of moons ’twixt lover’s smile and labor’s cries?
NURSE
’Twas known when Adam first leered eyes at Eve.
GUENHERA
The king did riddle me afore he rode
And put to me this question wrapped in smiles:
“What burden is’t that cannot still be borne,
My queen, that day when it will no more bear?”
Quoth I, “My king, you riddle at your pleasure.”
Came he, “Nay, at my burden.” Mark’st thou, nurse?
It is a wife, a wife. He kissed me then,
And rode to war, and called me his own Guen.
NURSE
And left your prince to start on his own ride.
Doth he yet kick and spur his heels at you?
GUENHERA
He hath been still within an hour.4
As under-ocean spouts do lend their breath
To beasts below the waves,5 find air, my prince,
Come out and fill my hungry ears and arms
And fill the king with pride of you.—No word?
How is’t that we have nothing yet of him?
Would he not send to us? Not think on us,
Not wake6 that we do think on him in broil?7
Conceiveth he that we have no concern
In victory or death? But who hath more?
NURSE
Now back you go, my girl, sit still and calm.
GUENHERA
If Arthur lives, he makes of me a bargain
With strange a king from strange a northern land.
They wrangle8 over my own bursting womb!
The king has luck, my boy’s in lusty health,
And cries out first for milk and then for scepter.
If th’child doth die, the other thanks his fortune.
Can such men be, that would raise kingdoms up
Upon a chrisom’s9 grave?
NURSE
Hush, hush, go to.
GUENHERA
If Arthur dies, then so too dies his heir,
For Mordred will not stop at its small breaths
To puff him from the throne.10—I’ll fly with him
In peasant weeds11 and kerchief.—Arthur lives,
And child doth die, what then remains of me?
For heirs must rise or kingdoms surely fall,
And no king born can bear a barren queen.
NURSE
You drop