The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [165]
Enter Cumbria
CUMBRIA
O King! The frenzied Pict doth waste the field
And hazards with his soul to win a crown:
He murdered Philip and your Guenhera.
ARTHUR
Say no, say no! Can death so envy me?
Englutting3 all my loves before my eyes
Yet scorning my own life, that I must stay
To roam such hell as this, to flay my heart?
O, Father! Doth this end now prove my birth?
O, bloody ghost, I am become thee.
For this I hid those years in Gloucester’s woods?
For this I lived my seasons all at war?
I rescued York and Lincoln in my youth4
And asked for my own pleasure not a whit
Save for a queen I loved beyond all else.
E’en this is more than any king deserve.
CUMBRIA
There is no flight, my king, but only on.
Red Humber washes off the country’s sons,
And limbs like branches float upon its waves.
But crush the scattered foe! Now rise, my king!
Enter Cornwall
CORNWALL
Dear brother, friend, and Britain’s hero, stand!
The day can yet be ours for all our grief!
Alarums. Exeunt [Cornwall and Cumbria]
ARTHUR
To be some other man than what I am!
O, God, but free me from this rising mud
And give me sign how this unworthy king
Can do your will.
Enter Mordred and Soldier
I thank thee, God. Come, knave!
MORDRED
O, weeping king! Poor bastard boy, death’s fool,
Lift up thy knitting-stick, thou sobbing dame,
And strike at me! [To Soldier] You cut him from behind!
They fight. Arthur is wounded then kills Mordred [and Soldier]
ARTHUR
May all my blood make rich this British soil
To strengthen it ’gainst pox of rival kings.
Alarum. Enter Constantine [Cornwall] and British nobility
CORNWALL
O King!
ARTHUR
Good Constantine, here cradle up
This frail and draining shape and from my head
Lift this oppressive weight to rest on thee.
[Cornwall takes crown]
On rightful brow it shines and will but float.
CORNWALL
Farewell, sweet king, sweet friend, my brother lost.
Arthur dies
Sound drum and trumpet up to heaven’s ear
In intermingled notes of thanks and sorrow.
Full thirty thousand men did die today
To win our victory at Humberside,
With loving king who joined with them in death
To pledge with blood his kingdom’s lasting peace.
Inter their mortal shapes as each deserves.
May Britain now and ever more be blessed,
And ne’er be torn asunder by such strife
As plagued this realm and stole from Arthur life.
May heaven grant this prayer and yield this gift:
That peace may buckle fast this island’s rifts.
Raise sepulchres for both great queen and king
And for their souls, and ours, raise voice and sing.
Exeunt
Notes
Act I, Scene I
1. bolts crossbow arrows.
2. plate armor. Dogs were commonly armored for boar hunts, men less often, but it did occur. [Roland Verre]
3. prate to chatter pointlessly.
4. cates delicacies.
5. savor (passim) One of the ironies of this project is that the first modern edition of Shakespeare’s lost play is published with American spellings! [RV]
6. young liege a double-stressed (spondee) opening. Gloucester is trying to get the prince to pay attention. It is by such subtle clues of meter that Shakespeare communicated to his actors (and to actors to this day), directing them without overt stage directions. [RV]
7. stream of gold the crown.
8. strain a melody or song.
9. murder sleep cf Macbeth, II ii.43. [RV]
10. courser warhorse.
11. fardle bundle.
12. swathed swaddled.
13. clouts swaddling clothes.
14. Orient red the color of dawn (which occurs in the east, or Orient).
15. shrift the hearing of confession.
16. Sexual double-entendre, spear as phallus, and mutton as slang for vagina. [RV]
17. Again, a sexual pun: conscience of a nothing an erection for a vagina. [RV]
18. stone testicle.
19. chaps jaws. [And, with truffling, a double entendre: the boar can find truffles, but truffles were also thought to promote chastity and cool off sexual ardor, which would surely be the result if its tusks or chaps were to cost the prince a stone. —RV]
20. droops nods with tiredness.
21. swain a shepherd or rustic lover.
22. Mab the fairy queen who causes wishful