Rosamond
I.
The Mase at Woodstock
Rosamond, Constance
Constance
Takenot such thought of it.
Rosamond
Nay, I take none;
They cannot put me out of love so much
As to take thought for them; yet I am hurt
And my sense wrung at this a little. See,
If six leaves make a rose, I stay red yet
And the wind nothing ruins me; who says
I am at waste?—Look, since last night!—for me,
I care not though you get through all they said.
All this side dashed with fits of weeping time,
See you, the red struck out; an evil year.
If such times vex me till no sleep feels good,
It is not that I think of such lewd words
With wine still hot in them. Who calls it spring?
Simply this winter plays at red and green.
Clean white no colour for me, did they say?
I never loved white roses much; but see
How the wind drenches the low lime-branches
With shaken silver in the rainiest leaves.
Mere winter, winter. I will love you well,
Sweet Constance, do but say I am not fair;
No need for patience if I be not fair,
For if men really lie to call me fair
He need not come; I pray God keep him close
For fear he come and see I am not fair.
Can you not speak, not say if this be true,
That I may cease? come, am I fair or no?
Speak your pure mind.
Constance
Nay, madam, for you know
Doubtless it was delight to make your face
And rippled soft miraculous gold hair
Over the touched veins of most tender brows
Meant for men’s lips to make them glad of God
Who gives them such to kiss.
Rosamond
Leave off my praise,
It frets me flesh and all as sickness doth
Till the blood wanes; yea, and quaint news to hear,
That I am fair, have hair strung through with gold,
Smooth feet, smooth hands, and eyes worth pain to see!
Why once the king spake of my hair like this,
“As though rain filled and stained a tress of corn
Loose i’the last sheaf of many slackened sheaves;
Or if” (ay, thus) “one blew the yellow dust
That speckles a red lily off both cheeks
Held in the sun, so if in kissing her
I let the wind into her hair, it blows
Thin gold back, shows the redder thread of it,
Burnt saffron-scented;” some faint rhyme of his
Tuned round and coloured after his French wise.
Constance
You learnt such sonnets of him?—A man’s step—
Ah, that girl’s binding the wet tendrils there
Last night blew over.
Rosamond
See, at my hand’s end,
Those apple-flowers beaten on a heap,
So has the heavy weather trod on them.
There are my rhymes all spoilt and blown with wind,
Broken like birds’ wings blown against a wall.
Girl, do you know I lived so quiet once,
Leaning whole days in a warmed side-window
With the chin cushioned up and soft vague feet
Thrust out to sleep, and warm sides couched for ease
Full of soft blood, pulsed slow with happiness
Such fair green seasons through, with dreams that lay
Most blossom-soft between the lids—and love
A little way I thought above my brows,
His finger touching them; yea, for whole months
I was so patient to serve time and have
Love’s mouth at last set suddenly on mine;
Abode and heard the blood that grew in me
More sweet, and the days’ motion in my ears
Touched audibly.
Constance
This was a gracious time.
Rosamond
One song you have, I pray but sing me that,
I taught it you; and yet I like it not;
Trouveres have sweet lips with a bitter heart,
And such a gracious liar, I doubt, wrote this;
But sing it; it shall do no harm to hear.
Constance
Sweet, for God’s love I bid you kiss right close
On mouth and cheek, because you see my rose
Has died that got no kisses of the rain;
So will I sing to sweeten my sweet mouth,
So will I braid my thickest hair to smooth,
And then—I need not call you love again.
I like it well enough.
Rosamond
The sick sweet in it
Taints my mouth through.—Could the heat make me sleep!
My feet ache like my head.—Doth this I say
Tire you so hard you cannot answer me?
Constance
Madam, I would my words were wine to drink
That might heal all your better sense and blood;
But some hurts ache in the bone past oil and wine,
And I do think the words I heard of you
Burn you thus hot only with hate of shame.
Rosamond
Shame? who said shame? am I so sick of love
That shame can hurt me? there’s no shame in the world
Whose wound would hurt more than too hard a kiss
If love kept by the face of blinking shame
To kill the pain with patience. Am I his wife
That it should fret me to be trod by shame?
Ah child, I know that were my lord at right
And shame stood on this left with eager mouth
For some preparèd scorn—I could but turn
Saying—lo, here this hand to cover me,
Lo, this to plait my hair and warm my lips;
I could well pity thee, dull snake, poor fool,
Faint shame, too feeble to discredit me.
Constance
I would I had never come hither.
Rosamond
Are you tired?
But I seem shameful to you, shameworthy,
Contemnable of good women, being so bad,
So bad as I am. Yea, would God, would God,
I had kept my face from this contempt of yours.
Insolent custom would not anger me
So as you do; more clean are you than I,
Sweeter for gathering of the grace of God
To perfume some accomplished work in heaven?
I do not use to scorn, stay pure of hate,
Seeing how myself am scorned unworthily;
But anger here so takes me in the throat
I would speak now for fear it strangle me.
Here, let me feel your hair and hands and face;
I see not flesh is holier than flesh,
Or blood than blood more choicely qualified
That scorn should live between them. Better am I
Than many women; you are not over fair,
Nor delicate with some exceeding good
In the sweet flesh; you have no much tenderer soul
Than love is moulded out of for God’s use
Who wrought our double need; you are not so choice
That in the golden kingdom of your eyes
All coins should melt for service. But I that am
Part of the perfect witness for the world
How good it is; I chosen in God’s eyes
To fill the lean account of under men,
The lank and hunger-bitten ugliness
Of half his people; I who make fair heads
Bow, saying, “though we be in no wise fair
We have touched all beauty with our eyes, we have
Some relish in the hand, and in the lips
Some breath of it,” because they saw me once;
I whose curled hair was as a strong staked net
To take the hunters and the hunt, and bind
Faces and feet and hands; a golden gin
Wherein the tawny-lidded lions fell,
Broken at ankle; I that am yet, ah yet,
And shall be till the worm hath share in me,
Fairer than love or the clean truth of God,
More sweet than sober customs of kind use
That shackle pain and stablish temperance;
I that have roses in my name, and make
All flowers glad to set their colour by;
I that have held a land between twin lips
And turned large England to a little kiss;
God thinks not of me as contemptible,
And that you think me even a smaller thing
Than your own goodness and slight name of good,
Your special, thin, particular repute;
I would some mean could be but clear to me
Not to contemn you.
Constance
Madam, I pray you think
I had no will to whet you to such edge;
I might wish merely to be clear of pain
Such as I have to see you weep—to see
That wasp contempt feed on your coloured rind
Whose kernel is so spiced with change of sweet;
No more, I swear to you by God no more.
Rosamond
I will believe you. But speak truly now
As you are fair, I say you are fair too,
Would you be wiser than I was with him?
A king to kiss the maiden from your lips,
Fill you with fire as water fills the sea,
Hands in your hair and eyes against your face—
Ay, more than this, this need not strike at heart,
But say that love had bound you like a dog,
Leashed your loose thoughts to his uncertain feet,
Then would you be much better than such are
As leave their soul upon two alien lips
Like a chance word of talk they use for breath?
O girl, that hast no bitter touch of love,
No more assurance of it than report
Flaunts in the teeth of blame—I bid you know
Love is much wiser than we twain, more strong
Than men who hold the pard by throat and jaw.
Love’s signet-brand stamps through the gold o’the years,
Severs the gross and chastens out the mould.
God has no plague so perilous as love,
And no such honey for the lips of Christ
To purge them clean of gall and sweet for heaven.
It was to fit the naked limbs of love
He wrought and clothed the world with ordinance.
Yea, let no wiser woman hear me say
I think that whoso shall unclothe his soul
Of all soft raiment coloured custom weaves,
And choose before the cushion-work of looms
Stones rough at edge to stab the tender side,
Put honour off and patience and respect
And veils and relics of remote esteem
To turn quite bare into large arms of love,
God loves him better than those bitter fools
Whom ignorance makes clean, and bloodless use
Keeps colder than their dreams.
Constance
It may be true,
I know not; only to stay maiden-souled
Seems worthier to me.
Rosamond
Doth it so? Ah you
That tie the spirit closer to the flesh
To keep both sweet, it seems again to me
You kill the gracious secret of it, and mar
The wholesome heaven with scent of ruined things
That breed mere flies for issue. Ay, and love
That makes the daily flesh an altar-cup
To carry tears and rarest blood within
And touch pained lips with feast of sacrament—
So sweet it is, God made it sweet! Poor words,
Dull words, I have compassion on them, girl,
Their babble falls so far this side of love
Significance faints in them. This I know,
When first I had his arms across my head
And had his mouth upon my heated hair
And his sharp kisses mixed into my blood,
I hung athirst between his hands, and said
Sweet, and so sweet!for both mine eyes were weak,
Possessed with rigorous prophecy of tears
To drench the lids past sleeping, and both lips
Stark as twain rims of a sweet cup drunk out.
Constance
My first word serves me here; this may be true.
Rosamond
Say this, you have a tender woman’s face,
Do you love children? does it touch your blood
To see God’s word finished in a child’s face
For us to touch and handle? seems it sweet
To have such things in the world to hold and kiss?
Rosamond
Yea? then be most sure of this,
Love doth so well surpass and foil the sense
That makes us pleasure out of children seen,
That I being severed from the lips of mine
Feel never insufficient sight, or loss
Of the sweet natural aim or use in eyes
Because they are not; but for only this;
That seldom in grave passages of time
Such gracious red possesses the full day
As leaves me light to look into his face
Who made me children.
Constance
Doth he love you as well?
Then two such loves were never wrought in flesh
Since the sun moved.
Rosamond
Ah girl, you fail fair truth;
He doth love me, would let me take his name
To soil, his face to set my feet upon;
But love is no such new device we need
Boast over that. Nay, are you dull indeed?
All stories are so lined and sewn with love,
Ravel that gold and broidered thread in them,
You rend across the mid and very seam.
Yea, I am found the woman in all tales,
The face caught always in the story’s face;
I Helen, holding Paris by the lips,
Smote Hector through the head; I Cressida
So kissed men’s mouths that they went sick or mad,
Stung right at brain with me; I Guenevere
Made my queen’s eyes so precious and my hair
Delicate with such gold in its soft ways
And my mouth honied so for Launcelot,
Out of good things he chose his golden soul
To be the pearlwork of my treasuring hands,
And so our love foiled God; I that was these
And am no sweeter now than Rosamond
With most full heart and mirth give my lord up
Body’s due breath and soul’s forefashioned peace
To pay love with; what should I do but this
That am so loved? Ay, you might catch me here
Saying his French wife smites my love across
With soft strange lips; yea, I know too she may
Pluck skirts of afterthought, kiss pity’s feet,
Marry remembrance with a broken ring;
No time so famished, no such idle place
As spares her room next his; a wife, his wife—
If I be no king’s wife, prithee what need
That she should steal the word to dress her name
That suits my name as well? take love, take all;
What shall keep hunger from the word of wife?
What praise, if reputation wear thin shoes,
Shall keep the rain from honoured women’s feet?
Wife, wife—I get no music out of wife;
I see no reason between me and wife
But what breath mars with making; yea, poor fool,
She gets the harsh bran of my corn to eat.
Constance
Men call the queen an adder underfoot,
Dangerous obedience in the trodden head;
I pray you heed your feet in walking here.
Rosamond
Fear is a cushion for the feet of love,
Painted with colours for his ease-taking;
Sweet red, and white with wasted blood, and blue
Most flower-like, and the summer-spousèd green
And sea-betrothed soft purple and burnt black.
All coloured forms of fear, omen and change,
Sick prophecy and rumours lame at heel,
Anticipations and astrologies,
Perilous inscription and recorded note,
All these are covered in the skirt of love
And when he shakes it these are tumbled forth,
Beaten and blown i’the dusty face of the air.
Were she ten queens and every queen his wife,
I could not find out fear. Where shame is hid
I can but guess when patience leaves me sick;
But where the lank bat fear is huddled in
Doth no conjecture smell.
Constance
Mine holds yet out,
Seeing the queen is reconciled: their son
Ties peace between both hands; she will do much
To move him from his care set over you.
Rosamond
I care not; let her bind him heel to head,
So she may keep him, clip and kiss him so.
For me, I will go in; no doubt he shall
Be here to-night; I were best sleep till then
And have the sweet of sleep about my face
To touch his senses with; for he shall come,
I have no doubt of him but he shall come.
Kiss me yet, sweet, I would not anger you.[Exit.
Constance
Yea, I taste through this way of yours; so fair
Her sin may serve as well as holy ways,
Shall not it so? Let the queen make some tale,
A silk clue taken in the king’s spur’s gold,
No fear lest I be taken; and what harm
To catch her feet i’the dragnets of her sin
That is so full of words, eats wicked bread,
Shares portion with shame’s large and common cups,
Feeds at lewd tables, girds loose garments on?
For all this brave breath wasted out of heart,
I doubt this frets her; verily I think
Some such pain only makes her gibe at me—
Fair fool, with her soft shameful mouth! at least
I keep clean hands to do God’s offices
And serve him with my noose upon her neck.[Exit.
II.
The Palace at Shene
Queen Eleanor and Robert de Bouchard
Queen Eleanor
Yea, true for such; but he and I were old
Already, though men say his hair keeps black,
Ay, black-bright hair, touched deep as poppies’ black
They cover up in scarlet; that’s my lord;
Sweet colour, with a thought of black at heart.
Some flowers, they say, if one pluck deep enough,
Bleed as you gather.
Bouchard
That means love, I think;
You gather it and there’s the blood at root.
Queen Eleanor
How much, my Bouchard? let your beard alone;
You could well strike me, I believe at heart;
God help me that am troubled with you so!
Feel both hands now; the blood’s alive there, beats
And flutters in the fingers and the palms.
Bouchard
True, hot enough; what will you do? the king
Comes back to take farewell and hold his way
With some thin train that gathers Londonwards;
Thence ere he take ship shall my lord make way
Among the westward alder-meadows, thrust
Between soft Godstow poplars and warm grass
Right into Woodstock and pleached rose-places;
Shall the queen follow lest he lack a face
For welcome, and sweet words to kiss i’the lip?
I would go with you lest some harm should fall.
Queen Eleanor
No need, for would God let them hurt me? Well,
I would fain see the rose grow, Robert.
Bouchard
Being fair,
A woman is worth pains to see.
Queen Eleanor
Being fair.
Sweet stature hath she and fair eyes, men say;
I am but black, with hair that keeps the braid,
And my face hurt and bitten of the sun
Past medicine of all waters; so his tooth
Bites hard in France, and strikes the brown grape hot,
Makes the wine leap, no skin-room spares for white,—
I know well now; the woman has that white,
His water-weed, his golden girl-flower
With lank sapped stem and green rind moist at core.
Ay, gold! but no crown’s gold to all this hair,
That’s hard, my Robert.
Bouchard
See how men will lie;
They call you hard, this people, sour to bite;
Now I will trust your sweetness, do but say
You will not touch her if I get you through.
Queen Eleanor
I will not hurt her, Bouchard; for God’s love,
Help me; I swear by God I will not hurt,
I will not—Ah, sweet Robert, bear me through,
Do not make smiles and never move your mouth:
When we ride back I will do anything,
Wear man’s dress, take your horse to water—yea,
Kiss clean your feet of any travelling dust—
Yea, what your page has never done I will
For mere love, Robert, for pure love of you;
Nay, if I meant to stab or poison her,
You might so chide me, Bouchard, bid me back,
Not now! I will not hurt her; there again.
Kiss me! I love you as a man loves God!
Be sorry for me!
Bouchard
Ah well, well; no doubt
But my Lord wrought me with a tender hand,
Spoiled half a man in making; there, sit, sit.
I felt your teeth come through that bitter kiss.
Sit now and talk; it is my service, madam,
A man’s good service merely, nothing else,
To ride for you, to ride with you—not more.
Queen Eleanor
I have some help yet of this Bouchard, then?
See now, sir, you are knight and gentleman;
I pray you that your service fail not here.
For wears a man rich office and rich name
Nearer than wife about him? so the king
Wears me; and so I bid you serve him, sir.
I bid you? rather I take prayer to me
And catch your faith with prayer; right meek I am,
Chide with me, Bouchard, if I be not meek;
No child was ever so milk-mouthed, no bird
That picks out seed from scented and pink palms.
To say soft words is seasonable; and good
To think of all men smoothly; else a sin
May sting you suddenly—as him it stung—
Hell’s heat burn through that whorish mouth of hers!
Queen Eleanor
And God that knows I weep!
Bouchard
Keeps count
(The monks’ song says it) of your flitting times,
Seals all your tears up safely, doth he not?
Hark, there’s one singing.
Queen Eleanor
But no monk this time.
Look, in the garden by the red wall’s turn,
The king’s fool under covert, and steals fruit;
Pluck such raw pears and spoil so bad a song,
That breaks my patience; a lewd witch-burden!
One sings outside:—
This was written in God’s name;
The devil kissed me
Mouth on mouth with little shame
Under a big tree.
He fed me full with good meat,
The best there might be;
He gave me black wine and sweet
Red fruit and honey-meal to eat;
Domine, laudamus te.
He made straight the lame
And fat he made me;
So he gat good game,
Kisses three by three.
He was shapen like a carl,
A swine’s foot had he;
Like a dog’s his mouth did snarl,
His hands were foul with loam and marl;
Domine, laudamus te.
Queen Eleanor
Eh, what lewd words so mutter in his teeth?
I hear no good ones; bid them see him whipped.
Outside:—
A bat came out of heaven
That had a flat snout;
A loaf withouten leaven,
Crumbs thereof fell out;
The devil thrust up with his thumb,
Said tho to me,
Lo you, there shall be left no crumb
When I and you in heaven come;
Domine, laudamus te.
There were many leavès thick
Grown well over me;
A big branch of a little stick
Is this greenè tree;
He showed me brave things to wear,
Pleasant things to see;
A good game had we twain there,
The leavès weren broad and fair;
Domine, laudamus te.
Queen Eleanor
Bid the grooms whip him; even a dog like that
Can be a fret to me, a thorn-prick. Ah,
Such beasts as feed about us, and we make
Communion of their breath! I am sick at him.
Why, my sweet friend, I pray you of your love
Do me some service.
Bouchard
Nay, the fool’s no harm;
Let be a little; service was your word?
See now, he creeps by nodding his fool’s head,
With back and shoulders rounded for the sun;
Let the poor beast be; ’tis no worse than dogs
When the rain makes them howl, soaks to the bone
As he is sodden through the wits of him.
Now, sweet, sit closer, talk with me; you said
Service? what service must I do? the king,
It’s the king has me at his heels, a dog
For service; the best work one does for love;
As I do service for my lord the king.
Queen Eleanor
Ay, for you love him; I have learnt you, sir,
Can say my Bouchard through and turn the leaf.
Are you his servant, lackey, chattel, purse,
The sheath where he’s the hilt? you love him; eh?
Bouchard
Service and love make lordship stable; well,
Suppose I love him; there be such about
As would stoop shoulder and fit knee to bear
Worse weight than I do, only for pure love—
Clean love, that washes out so much!
Queen Eleanor
Ah, sir,
They make you laugh, then?
Bouchard
Well, not loud; a brush
That strikes one’s lips with laughter as a fly
Touches a fruit and drops clean off, you see.
Men love so, pay them wages (ah, not gold,
No gold of course, but credit, name, safe room,
Broad space to sun the back and cram the sides
And shake fat elbows and grow longer beards—
There’s all one wants, now) pay them such, I say—
Lo, sir, our friend hath never wrought for that,
That he should take it; love holds otherwhere
Than by the purfled corners of your sleeve,
Eats no such food as keeps your pages warm
Nor wears such raiment.
Queen Eleanor
Ay, my Bouchard, so?
I’ve measure of you somewhere; why serve me?
Why sweat and crawl to get me such a rose
And save my gloves one thorn?
Bouchard
Nay, I know not;
Find some clean reason for a miry foot
Or tell me why God makes the sun get up
Pricked out like a tame beast, I’ll answer you
Why I am pleased to be so serviceable.
But why our friend’s lip tastes a sweet therein
Who serves for honesty? this were more hard to say.
Still the truth stands, he’ll work some three good hours
Outside your hireling; yea, that’s much for him;
And all to get such dog’s wage as a rag
To wrap some naked wound’s unseemliness
Caught serving you, lest the sight turn your blood
And swell your sick throat out at him.
Queen Eleanor
No more?
I doubt you do belie both sides of love.
Bouchard
But ask him rather; there’s Jean Becqueval,
King Louis has him throttled up in steel
That was a strong knight once, and had broad bones
To get the mail shut over, not so tight.
A keen sword, madam, makes blunt work in time,
For this man struck two blows for you or three
Some years back, when your courtiers snarled and spat;
Who might have children beat him on his mouth
And could not shake about the chin for spite
To save their plucking at his beard. Poor fool,
I dare well say he hates you not the least,
Most like would bite now for you with his teeth,
Since both hands could not pull the scabbard straight
Or loose the band o’the visor and not let
The steel snap on his fingers.
Queen Eleanor
If you say truth,
I swear by God’s blood I am shamed in it,
Shamed out of face; but I misdoubt you lie
Your old hard way, lie perfectly. Be good,
Say you did lie.
Bouchard
I have said short of truth.
Nay, now you find this wound in him of yours,
Should you fall weeping? ask our lord so much;
He’ll swear by God’s face, finger his own beard,
And twist a hawk’s foot round or hurt its neck,
And say by God such things are pitiful.
Come, is your friend less pinched for his good will?
You know he would not, set things broadly down,
Sweep this cast up and leave him room to throw,
Change his soiled coat to be set clean in gold;
He would just choose to serve you his best way
Something beyond my warrant. Why, in France
Last March the king’s friend, Guerrat of Sallières,
—A good knight—has that long mouth like a toad’s,
And eats a woman like a grape with it—
(Spits the husk out I mean and strains the core)
Spake thus to me; “Sir Robert, there’s a man
Lies flat with rust upon his lips to chew
Who while your Queen touched Paris with her feet
Would have plucked out his hairs for cushion-stuff
To save her shoes a sprinkle of weak rain—
Burnt out his eyes a-sputter in the head
If she misliked their colour.”
Queen Eleanor
Not Sallières?
Bouchard
It was my question; at which word thrown out
His head went sideways as a big fish flaps
And shoves with head and body, showing white
I’the black oil of sea-water before storm
(You take such off-shore with sides weltering)
And the cheeks got quick twinkles of eased flesh
And the chin laughed; “By Mary’s hand,” he said,
“I think I would not.”
Queen Eleanor
Ah, the fool he was!
Is he grown fat? he must be fat by this.
Bouchard
I held to him; what name and ways and work,
Where the man hid; whereat my Guerrat rolls
And chatters—“By the milk of Pilate’s nurse
And by the sleeve that wiped king Herod’s beard,
I hope the place be something worse than hell,
Or I shall fare the worse next world, by God!”
Queen Eleanor
What noise runs towards us? is the king past Thames
Think you, by this?—Take this one word of me;
Albeit I lay no heavy thought on it
Lest pain unmake me, hold this truth of mine,
Sir Robert, which your swordsmen and blank wits,
I doubt, would feel for half one’s life and miss;
I had sooner fare as doth this Becqueval
Than as I fare; yea, if a man will weep,
Let him weep here. God is no good to me,
Nor any man i’the world; I have no love
And no smooth hour in those twelve pricks of plague
That smite my blood each once a day. Nay, go;
Do me some greeting to my lord. Farewell.
[Exit Bouchard.
I shall find time to hate you; yea, I do
Hate him past speech. Let me just cool my head
And gather in some breath to face the king—
I am quite stilled.
Enter King Henry
Fair days upon my lord.
King Henry
How does the queen?—Three—not four provinces
To shut one’s hand on.—Are you well?—next month
My face at Paris and his hands in mine
Touch service; two, three provinces at most;
I must have more.
Queen Eleanor
I thank you, well enough.
How doth my Paris?—That means ill to me,
That beat of his two fingers on the cheek.
Will Bouchard make no liar, does one know?
King Henry
Fair news; our Louis to the throat in steel,
And cannot clear his saddle at a leap,
But slips and sticks there as he did years back,
Not in the saddle but across a bed
His feet in time drew clear of and made room.
Queen Eleanor
Made room for you to slide between and thrust
Across the pillows with a sideways head
To warm about the corner where his feet
Were thrust out late; so God keep heat for it
To please you always!
King Henry
Ay, not best at swords,
Good Louis; I was eased with swinging steel
In thick fields under lusty months of sun;
He would play blind, wring back my hand in his,
Fall in hard thought. But see now; have I not
A dozen French heads broken through the neck
Hung at my sleeve here, madam, threes and threes?
Guy d’Héricourt and Guerrat of Sallières,
Denis of Gordes, Peter of the March,
I have their tongues shut with gold coins of mine
To seal the lips back; Jacques Becqueval
Shows teeth to nibble; if these fail me quite,
I’ll say we have played at luck with God and lost
By some trick’s foil; being no such fools of his
As chew the lazy purpose with their teeth,
Eat and wax full and laugh till hair falls out;
Why, all the world lives without sleeping-whiles,
God makes and mars and turns not weak one whit,
But we must find some roost to perch and blink
And wag thick chins at the world; I hate all men
That have large faces with dead eyes in them
And good full fronts of fool.
Queen Eleanor
Am I worth words?
King Henry
So quick, so quick! are you true wife to me?
Queen Eleanor
I praise God for it, how loyal I have lived
Your soul shall answer.
King Henry
What, I see the blood
That goes about the heart and makes you hot—
French blood, south blood! I would not tax you far,
But spare my Louis; he did no such wrong
As I did when I let you slip my hand
In a new French glove you had sewn with gold.
Queen Eleanor
This is a courteous holiness of yours
That smites so in my face; have you not heard
Of men whose swervèd feet lie delicate
In common couches, with beds made to them
Where priests shed no fair water? Nay, this breath
You chide me with makes treason to your breath
That was my promise; if I be your wife,
The unclean witness of my well-doing
Is your own sin.
King Henry
This is a fevered will
That you seem drunk withal.
Queen Eleanor
I bond-broken?
You lay your taint my way; blush now a little,
Pay but some blood; do but defend yourself;
It is a double poison in revolt
When it deserts the bare rebellion
To be half honest.
King Henry
You are not wise.
Queen Eleanor
I would not:
For wisdom smites awry, when foolishness
Keeps the clean way.
King Henry
Have you done yet with me?
Queen Eleanor
I thrust your bags out with round cheeks of gold
That were my people’s; thickened with men the sides
Of your sick, lean, and barren enterprise;
Made capable the hunger of your state
With subsidies of mine own fruitfulness;
Enriched the ragged ruin of your plans
With purple patched into the serge and thread
Of your low state; you were my pensioner;
There’s not a taste of England in your breath
But I did pay for.
King Henry
Better I had never seen you
Than wear such words unchallenged. You are my wife;
I would the name were lost with mine to it.
I put no weight upon you of the shame
That is my badge in you; the carriage of it
Pays for your gold.
Queen Eleanor
Ay, you will tax not me,
Being made so whole of your allegiance, you,
Perfect as patience? why, the cause, this cause
(Be it what you say—but saying it you lie,
Are simply liar, my lord!) the shame would prick
A very dog to motion of such blood
As takes revenge for the shame done, the shame
I’the body, in the sufferance of a blow—
But you are patient.
King Henry
I will not find your sense.
Queen Eleanor
Nay, I think so; when you do understand,
Praise me a little then. For this time, sir,
I have no such will to trouble you; and here,
Even here shall leave-taking atone us twain;
Therefore farewell. When I am dead, my lord,
I pray you praise me for my sufferance;
You see I chide not; nay, I say no word;
I will put seals like iron on my mouth
Lest it revolt at me, or any shame
Push some worse phrase in than “God keep you, sir.” [Exit.
King Henry
I am her fool; no word to get her dumb?
I am like the tales of Cornish Mark long since,
To be so baffled. Well, being this way eased,
I need not see her anger twice i’the eyes;
Get me a hawk to ride with presently. [Exit.
III.
At Woodstock
King Henry and Rosamond, seated
Rosamond
Belleest madame, et bien douce en son dire;
Dieu lui fit don de pleurer ou de rire
Plus doucement que femme qui soupire
Et puis oublie.
Bonne est madame, et me baise de grace;
Bien me convient baiser si belle face,
Bien me convient que si doux corps embrasse
Et plus n’oublie.
Blonde est madame, ayant de tristes yeux;
Entre or et roux Dieu fit ses longs cheveux;
Bien mal me fait, si l’en aime bien mieux,
Et moins oublie.
Blanche est madame et gracieuse à voir;
Ne sais si porte en corps azur ou noir;
Que m’a donné sa belle bouche avoir
Jamais n’oublie.
I bade them tell you I was sick; the sun
Pains me. Sit here.
King Henry
There’s no sick show in you.
Sing still, and I will sit against your feet
And see the singing measure in your throat
Moved evenly; the headband leaves your hair
Space to lie soft outside.
Rosamond
Stoop then and touch
That I may bind it on your hands; I would
Fain have such hands to use so royally.
As you are king, sir, tell me without shame
Doth not your queen share praise with you, show best
In all crowned ways even as you do? I have heard
Men praise the state in her and the great shape;
Yet pray you, though you find her sweet enow,
Praise her not over-measure; yet speak truth;
But so I would not have you make her praise
The proper pleasure of your lips, the speech
Found best in them; yet do not scant her so
That I may see you tender of my pain,
Sparing to gall my wits with laud of her.
King Henry
O sweet, what sting is this she makes in you?
A Frenchwoman, black-haired and with grey lips
And fingers like a hawk’s cut claw that nips
One’s wrist to carry—is this so great a thing
As should wring wet out of your lids?
Rosamond
I know
That for my sake you pinch her praises in,
Starve her of right; do not so fearfully;
I shall best love you if you praise her, seeing
I would not have you marry a worse face,
Say, than mine even; therefore be liberal,
Praise her to the full, till you shall see that I
Fall sick upon your words, bid them be pitiful
And bruise not me.
King Henry
I will not praise her to you.
Show me a little golden good of yours,
But some soft piece of gracious habit grown
Common with you, quite new with me and sweet.
It is the smell of roses where you come
That makes my sense faint now; you taste of it,
Walk with it always.
Rosamond
Hark, the rain begins,
Slips like a bird that feels among shut leaves;
One—two; it catches in the rose-branches
Like a word caught. Now, as I shut your eyes,
Show me what sight gets first between the lids,
So covered in to make false witness true.
Speak, and speak faith.
King Henry
I think this first; here once
The hard noon being too strong a weight for us,
We lay against the edges of slant leaves
Facing the grass, our bodies touching them,
Cooled from the sun, and drank cold wine; you had
A straight gown flaked with gold i’the undersleeves;
And in your throat I caught the quick faint red
Drunk down, that ran and stained it out of white,
A long warm thread not coloured like a vein
But wine-coloured; this was a joy to see.
O little throat so tender to show red,
Would you not wear my lips as well, be kissed
To a soft mark if one but touched you so?
I will not touch; only to feel you fast,
Lie down and take your feet inside both hands,
Untie your hair to blind both eyes across—
Yea, there sweet, kiss me now.
Rosamond
Do but stoop yet
And I will put my fingers where the hair
Is mixed upon the great crown’s wearing-place;
Sir, do you think I must fall old indeed
First of us two? look how between my wrists
Even about the purplest beat of them
This lean scant flesh goes in. I am grown past love;
The breath aches each way in my sobbing sides
When I would sing, and tears climb up my throat
In bitter breaks like swellings of round fruit
From the rind inwards, and my pulses go
Like fits of singing when the head gives way
And leaves pure nought to stammer in spoilt lips,
Even for this and my sad patience here
Built up and blinded in with growing green,
Use me not with your eyes untenderly,
But though I tire you, make you sigh at me,
Say no blame overloud; I have flowers only
And foolish ways to get me through the day,
And songs of yours to piece with weeping words
And famish and forget. Pray you go now,
I am the abuse of your compassion.
King Henry
I am gone presently; but for this space
Give me poor leave to love you with mine eyes
And feasted expectation of shut lips.
God help! your hair burns me to see like gold
Burnt to pure heat; your colour seen turns in me
To pain and plague upon the temple-vein
That aches as if the sun’s heat snapt the blood
In hot mid measure; I could cry on you
Like a maid weeping-wise, you are so fair
It hurts me in the head, makes the life sick
Here in my hands, that one may see how beats
Feverous blue upon my finger-tips.
Touch me now gently; I am as he that saith
In the great song sick words and sorrowful
Of love’s hard sweet and hunger of harsh hours;
Your beauty makes me blind and hot, I am
Stabbed in the brows with it.
Rosamond
Yea, God be good,
Am I fair yet? but say that I am fair,
Make me assured, praise me quite perfectly
Lest I doubt God may love me something less
And his hot fear so nip me in the cheek
That I burn through. Nay, but go hence; I would
Even lose the sweet I love, that I may lose
The fear of losing it.
King Henry
I am gone quickly.
You know my life is made a pain to me
With angry work, harsh hands upon my life
That finger in the torn sad sides of it
For the old thorn; touch but my face and feel
How all is thwarted with thick networking
Where your lips found it smooth, clung soft; there, now,
You take some bruise and gall of mine clear out
With a cool kissing mouth.
Rosamond
I had a will
To make some chafing matter with your pride
And laugh at last; ay, also to be eased
Of some small wrath at your harsh tarriance;
But you put sadness softly in my lips
With your marred speech. Look, the rain slackens yet.
King Henry
I will go now that both our hearts are sweet
And lips most peaceable; so shall we sleep
Till the next honey please them, with a touch
Soft in our mouths; sing once and I am gone.
Rosamond
I will sing something heavy in the word
That it may serve us; help me to such words.
The marigolds have put me in my song,
They shine yet redly where you made me it.
Hélas, madame, ayez de moi merci,
Qui porte en coeur triste fleur de souci;
N’est plus de rose, et plus ne vois ici
Que triste fleur.
M’est trop grand deuil, hélas, dans cette vie;
Car vieil espoir me lie et me délie,
Et triste fleur m’est force, ô belle amie,
Porter en coeur.
See the rain! have you care to ride by this?
Yea, kiss me one strong kiss out of your heart,
Do not kiss more; I love you with my lips,
My eyes and heart, your love is in my blood,
I shall die merely if you hold to me.
IV.
Ante-Chapel at Shene. Choir-music from within. In the passage outside, Arthur, a boy of the choir, reading
Enter Sir Robert de Bouchard
Bouchard
Shespares me time to think of it; well, so
I pull this tumbled matter square with God,
What sting can men’s mouths hurt me with? What harm
Because the savour of undieted sense
Palates not me? the taste and smell of love
Sickens me, being so fed with its keen use
That delicate divisions of soft touch
Feel gross to me as dullest accident?
That way of will most men take pleasure in
It tires my feet to walk. Then for the harder game—
Joust where the steel swings, fight that clears up blood,
I want the relish too; being no such sinewed ape,
Blunder of brawn and jolted muscle-work,
As beats and bleeds about his iron years,
Anoints his hide with stupid lust and sleep,
Fattens to mould and dies; rubs sides with dust,
Ending his riddle. I have seen time enough,
Struck blows and tricked and paid and won and wrought,
I know not well why wrought. A monk, now—there’s right work;
Dull work or wise, body and head keep up;
I should have pulled in scapular and alb
To shut my head up and its work, who knows?
Arthur
(outside)
They told me I should see the king come in;
I shall not get the words out clear enough,—
No time, I doubt. I wonder will he wear
Chain-mail or samite-work? I would take mail—
A man fares best in good close joints of mail.
Fautor—I seem to catch it up their way;
This time I’ll come off clear yet. One rhyme sticks—
(He repeats)
Fautor meus, magne Deus, quis adversùm tibi stabit?
Parùm ridet qui te videt; sponsam sponsus accusabit;
Sicut herbam qui superbam flatu gentem dissipabit,
Flectit coelum quasi velum quo personam implicabit.
There, all straight out, clean forthright singing, this;
I’ll see the king in the face and speak out hard
That he shall hear me. Last time all fell wrong;
I had that song about the lily-plants
Growing up goodly in their green of time
With gold heads and gold sprinkles in the neck
And God among them, feeding like a lamb
That takes out sin; so I let slip his name—
Euh! I can touch the prints of the big switch;
One, six, twelve,—ah! the sharp small suckers stung
Like a whole hive loose, as Hugh’s arm swung out.
Good for this king that I shall see to have
Fine padded work and silk seats pillow-puft
Instead of wood to twist on painfully.
Bouchard
So comes mine answer in; I thank you, Lord;
I’ll none of this. Give men clean work and sleep,
And baby bodies this priest’s blessed way.
But, being so set between the time’s big jaws
To dodge and keep me from the shut o’the teeth,
Shuffle from lip to lip, a shell with priest
For kernel in the husk and rind of knight,—
No chink bit in me, but nigh swallowed whole—
Who says my trick that, played on either, makes
Music for me and sets my head on work,
Is devil’s lesson? Pity that lives by milk
Suckles not me; I see no reason set
To keep me from the general use of things
Which no more holds the great regard of man
Than children spoiling flies. Respect and habit
Find no such tongue against me; I but wear
The raiment of my proper purpose, not
The threadworn coat of use. Even who keeps on
Such garments for the reputation’s want,
Wears them unseamed inside. The boy there now—
Arthur
Yea, I loathe Hugh. Peter he beat, and me—
Me twice, because that day the queen came in
I twisted back my head to thrust well through
The carved work’s double lattice to get sight
Of a tall woman with gold clothes and hair
That shone beyond her clothes; so sharp he smote,
The grim beast Hugh with boarish teeth and hair
All his chin long and where no hair should be!
And Peter pinched and pushed all vespers through
To get my turn and see her. How she went
Holding her throat up, with her round neck out
Curdwhite, no clot in it not smooth to stroke—
All night I shook in sleep for that one thing,
Stirred with my feet and pulled about awry.
I think too she kept smiling with her mouth
(Her wonderful red quiet mouth) and prayed
All to herself. Now that men call a mouth—
And Hugh’s begrimed big lips you call the same
That make a thick smile up with all their fat
Never but when he gets one by the nape
To make him sprawl and weep. How all the hair
Drew the hard shining of the candle-fires
And shone back harder with a flare in it
Through all the plaits and bands. Then Hugh said—“Look,
You Arthur, that white woman with such eyes
Is worse in hell than any devil that seethes;
She keeps the colour of it in her hair
That shakes like flame so. Wait till I get in
And teach the beast’s will in your female flesh
With some red slits in it, to get out loose
In such dog’s ways.” But Hugh lied hard, I think;
For he said after in his damned side-room
What fierce account God made of such a name
And how the golden king that made God songs
Chid at their ways and called them this and that;
And he loved many queens with just such hair
And such good eyes, and had more scores of them
Than I have stripes since last red week on me.
So I can see Hugh lied. For no Jew’s wife
Looked ever so, or found such ways to hold
Her sweet straight body.—But my next—that’s hard.
(Reads.)
Bouchard
Yea, there the snake’s head blinks? yea, doth it there?
O this sweet thorn that worries the kind flesh!
Yea, but the devil’s seedling side-graft, Lord,
That pinches out the sap.—I’ll talk to him.
Enter from the Chapel Queen Eleanor
Queen Eleanor
Ah, you here, Bouchard? is it well with you
When you hear music? I am hot i’the face;
Kiss me now, Robert, where the red begins,
And tell me, does no music hurt you? Ah—
Will no man stop them?
Bouchard
Speak me lower then;
No time to kiss bad words out on the mouth
As one treads flame out with the heel. Well were it,
That you should keep the purpose in your lips
From knowledge of your eyes; let none partake,
No inquisition of the air get out
One secret, or the imperious sun compel
One word of you. Wisdom doth sheath her hand
To smite the fool behind.
Queen Eleanor
I pray you, sir,
Let be your sentence; O, I am sick to death,
Could lie down here and bruise my head with stone,
Cover up hands and feet and die at once.
Nathless I will not have her eyes and hair
Crown-circled, and her breasts embraced with gold,
When the grave catches me. It is mere time,
The mere sick fault of age I limp with; yea,
Time was I had put such fierce occasion on
Like a new scented glove; but now this thing
Tastes harsh as if I drank that blood indeed
Which I’ll not even have spilled in dust; it clings,
Under the lip, makes foul the sense—ha, there,
I knew that noise was close upon my head.
Arthur
(outside)
Matrem pater, fratrem frater, iste condemnabit eum;
Erit nemo quem postremo tu non incusabis reum;
Nihil tactum quod non fractum; fulgor ibit ante Deum;
Mea caro prodest rarò; non est laudi caput meum.
Queen Eleanor
Say now you love me, Robert; I fear God,
Fear is more bitter than a hurt worm’s tooth,
But if God lets one love me this side heaven
And puts his breath not out, then shall I laugh
I’the eyes of him for mere delight, pluck off
Fear that ties man to patience, white regret,
All mixture of diseasèd purpose, made
To cut the hand at wrist; remorse and doubt
Shall die of want in me.
Bouchard
Too much of this;
Get your eyes back. Think how some ten days gone
He drew loose hair into his either hand
And how the speech got room between their mouths
Only to breathe in and go out; at times,
How she said “Eleanor” to try the name,
Found not so sweet as Rosamond to say;
Perhaps too, “Love, the Frenchwoman gets thin,
Her mouth is something older than her hair;
Count by these petals, pluck them three and three,
What months it takes to rid the sun of her,
And make some grave-grass wealthier;” will you bear
This?
Queen Eleanor
Do men tie the sword this way, or that?
Were I a knight now I would gird it on
Strained hard upon the clasp, would feel the hilt
Bruise my side blue and work the stamp therein
Deep as blood hides i’the flesh. I love pain well to feel;
As to wring in one’s fingers—the least pain;
It kills the hard impatience of the soul,
Cools heat of head, makes bearable all shame
That finds a work to do; yea, very sense
Tastes it for comfort, gets assured with it,
Being strong to smite the flesh, and wear pain well.
She must hate pain, that woman; it should jar
Her thin soft sense through, tear it up like silk;
What, if worms eat me that sweet flesh in time?
Arthur
(outside)
Motu mentis quasi ventis facit maria levari;
Ex avenâ flatu plenâ facit dulcem sonum dari;
Tument colles quasi folles quia jussit exsufflari,
Et quoe deplet manu replet labra calicis amari.
Queen Eleanor
Ay, bitter; for it bites and burns one through
As the sharp sting of wine curdles the mouth.
He would not wed her if I died? I know—
A laugh with all his teeth in it, the beard
So twisted from the underlip about—
Eh, said he that he would not marry her?
Bouchard
Nay, but who deemed else? no man certainly.
When the weak lust falls dead and eyeless flesh
Is as a beast asleep and sick of meat,
What marvel if no spirit there holds out?
No appetite, that like the unchilded sea
(In whose unprofitable and various womb
Fair ships lie sidelong with a fisher’s buoy
Miles down in water) hungers for such orts
As riot spares lean want, is yet so wide,
So vast of ravin or so blind in scope,
As can abide the chewed and perished meats
That relish died upon. Fill famine to the lips,
The word of bread shall turn his throat awry;
So doth the sense of love all love put out,
And kiss it from that very place o’the soul
Mere wish made sweet indeed.
Queen Eleanor
I am sorry for you;
This foolish poison in your tongue forgets
All better things to say.
Bouchard
It is dull truth;
This gift found in me should much profit you.
Queen Eleanor
I care not for you; I could wish you hanged
But for some love that sticks here in my head,
Some stupid trick caught up—like play with straws,
Tune-burden twisted over in sick ears
That keeps up time with fever; so habit fools me
To use you like a friend.
Bouchard
It is a piteous thing
When honesty grown grey has hairs plucked out
By such unreverent fingers. Come, let be;
I marvel what lewd matter jars your talk
So much past tune.
Queen Eleanor
’Tis better talk than do
Where doing means actual harm. Perchance this thing
Shall trap our souls indeed,—eh?
Bouchard
Doubt me not;
I think so truly. Prithee let us in,
Wash hands and weep.
Queen Eleanor
You have marred my will to prayer.
God is right gracious, maybe he shall help,
As we do honourably. I will not go.
Arthur
(outside)
Multo fletu non expletu facit teneras pupillas;
Dente tangi, manu frangi jubet nitidas mamillas;
Quum amoenoe parum genoe nudas exhibent maxillas,
Fiet gravis odor suavis si quis osculabit illas.
Queen Eleanor
Who made that hymn?
Queen Eleanor
Ah priest!
You should be priest, my Bouchard, scalp and mouth,
You have such monk’s ways. If she be foul to God
And her sweet breath ill savour in his lip,
Then shall her blood-spilling be sacrifice
And cleanse us in the blow. I do thank God,
I praise the wording of his prayer, will make
Fast and sweet words and thereto thanksgiving,
Be married to his love, my purpose making
Such even wing and way with his.
Bouchard
Yea, first
Show me the perfect fashion of her death.
Queen Eleanor
What fashion? feel this flasket next my waist,
Full to the wicked lips, crammed up and full
With drugs and scents that touch you in the mouth
And burn you all up, face and eyes at once—
They say so; they may lie, who knows? but kill
The thing does really; do you kiss me now?
Bouchard
Some Frenchman gave my queen the thing to keep?
Queen Eleanor
I wot well England would not give a queen
Six grains of salt she paid in salt of tears.
France makes good blood, made Becqueval and me;
I bade him get me for love’s sake—years gone—
Such mortal matter. Ah, poor Becqueval,
A good time had we in that pleasance-walk;
I with few dames about the white pear-trees—
Spring was it? yea, for green sprang thick as flame
And the birds bit the blossom and sang hard—
Now sat and tore up flowers to waste, wet strips
Of hyacinth, rain-sodden bells—then stood
To make them braid my running hair well back,
Pluck out the broken plait of March-lilies,
Lest one should mutter—“Ha, the queen comes late,
Her hair unwoven and cheeks red as though
Fingers and lips had kissed and fondled them—
Ay, pity of her!” so for that—what words
I choke with saying!
Bouchard
Weak in words indeed;
See how I shut them back upon the mouth.
The king comes here to chapel; let us hence.
Queen Eleanor
I am very ready. Nay, this turn it is;
I am so free and pleasant of my mood,
I can scarce go for simple joyousness. [Exeunt.
Arthur
(outside)
Pater, e me mendas deme, fac ut cingar prece suavi;
Pater, e me vinum preme, fac ut purgar foece gravi;
Tu me bonis imple donis ut implentur melle favi,
Tu me rege tuâ lege, quia mundum non amavi.
V.
At Woodstock
Rosamond
Latesummer now, but in the fair blue spring
How shall God bear me? Once (men say) Lord Christ
Walked between rivers in his rose-garden
With some old saint who had a wife by him
To feed with apple-pulp and honeycomb,
A wife like Mary in king David’s time
Long after—but a snake so stung his foot
He came back never, being lame at heel.
A story some priest wrote out all in gold,
Painting the leaves green, for a king to read;
But the king burnt it; whom God therefore took
And sold him to some Turk, with eyes thrust out.
Here in my garden, now his feet are healed
From those twin stains where bit the hanging-nails,
He would not come to let me kiss them whole,
Wash them with oil and wet fruits bruised to juice,
Rare waters stained and scented through with rose—
Though my hair be as long as Magdalen’s,
As yellow, maybe. Mine eyes and eyelids ache,
Too thick to see past, weeping swells them blue;
And the veins narrow visibly and waste
Where next the elbow neither hand could span;
The flesh that wore glad colour is gone grey,
And soon the hair will; yea, not milk but blood
Fills my breast through, not good for any child
To lay sweet lips to; I am as a gold cup
With beaten edges and dry mouths of dust,
That tears weep into, and that cunning man
By whose wit I was fashioned lets them run
And lets men break me. If I were well dead,
Then were the tears all spilled over the ground
And I made empty; also I pray God
To get me broken quickly; else, who knows,
If I live long till these years too seem grey
As a flower ruined, then ere sleep at night
I shall be grown too stark and thin to pray,
Nor will God care to set me praying then.
Maids will keep round me, girls with smooth warm hair
When mine is hard, no silk in it to feel,—
Tall girls to dress me, laughing underbreath,
Too low for gold to tighten at the waist.
Eh, the hinge sharpens at the grate across?
Five minutes now to get the green walk through
And turn—the chestnut leaves will take his hair
If he turn quick; or I shall hear some bud
Fall, or some pebble’s clink along the fence
Or stone his heel grinds, or torn lime-blossom
Flung at me from behind; not poppies now
Nor marigolds, but rose and lime-flower.
Enter Queen Eleanor
Queen Eleanor
(to Bouchard within)
Outside—outside—I bade you keep outside;
Look to her people; tell me not of shame;
Look to her women.
Rosamond
Ah God! shall this be so?
Queen Eleanor
I’ll have no man at hand to help her through;
Not till the king be come; tush, tell not me,
No treaties—talk of promises, you talk!
I will not strike her; look to them; Lord God!
I bade you have a heed; there, go now; there!—
Here, golden lady, look me in the face;
Give me both hands, that I may read you through,
See how the blood runs, how the eyes take light,
How the mouth sets when one is beautiful.
Ah sweet, and shall not men praise God for you?
Rosamond
I shall die now. Madam, you are the queen.
Queen Eleanor
Does fear so speak?
Rosamond
Not so; for pain with me
Is a worn garment or that common food
That sleep comes after best; what wrath will do
I make no reckoning with.
Queen Eleanor
What love hath done
I keep the count of; did he not hold this way?
Did you not set both hands behind his head,
And curl your body like a snake’s? not set
Each kiss between the hair of lip and chin,
Cover your face upon his knees, draw down
His hands on you, shut either eye to kiss?
Then it was “Love, a gold band either side,
A gold ring to pull close each knot of hair!”
“Nay, not so; kiss me rather like a bird
That lets his bill cut half the red core through
And rend and bite for pleasure—eh! I felt
What pinched my lips up after;”—was it not?
Did it not sting i’the blood, pluck at the breath
If a bird caught his song up in the leaves?
Eh! this was sweet too, that you called the king
Some girl’s name with no royal note in it
To spoil the chatter—some name like a kiss
The lips might loose and hesitate upon?
He would weave up this yellow skein of yours
To knot and ravel, though his hands might pluck
Some plait a little overmuch; your throat,
Pure pearl, too fair to swell or strain with sobs,
One would not have a rough thing rasp it round,
Not steel to touch it, only soft warm silk.
Will you not sing now, loose your hair well out
For me to hold the gracious weft? Alas,
So white you grow, love; the head drops indeed,
A moan comes out of that kissed mouth of yours!
You harlot, are you sick to look at me?
Though my heel bruise you in the gold snake’s head
I choke to touch you.
Rosamond
I shall die without.
But give me time to speak; wherefore am I
That am made soft in this my body’s strength
And in my soul smooth and affectionate
So taken in your loathing? you do not right
To hate me that am harmless; see my face,
You will not smite me afterwards; this sin
Was not begot of wilfulness in me
To be your pain and a shame burning you;
Yea verily, no evil will or wit
Made me your traitor; there came not in my mind
One thought to gall you past good patience; yea,
If you could see the pained poor heart in me
You would find nothing hateful toward you
In all the soft red record its blood makes.
Queen Eleanor
Thou art more fool than thief; I have not seen
A beaten beast so humble of its mouth,
So shaming me as you; I am ashamed
That such a thing can see me in the eyes.
You do not think that I shall let you go
Being well caught? Ah harlot, have you made
Thief’s japes at me, lewd guesses on my wrath,
Spat towards me? and now God gives me you
I shall play soft and touch you with my gloves,
Nay, make my lips two kissing friends of yours
Because mere love and a sweet fault i’the flesh
Put you to shame? Look, you shall die for that,
Because you sinned not out of hate to me
That have and hate you. Do not shake at it,
I will not strike you yet; what hands are mine
To take such hangman’s matter to their work
And be clean after? but a charm I have
Quick to undo God’s cunning weft of flesh
And mix with deadly waters the glad blood
That hath so pure a sense and subtleness.
This is a gracious death made out for you
And praiseworthy; you shall die no base way,
Seeing what king’s lips have fastened in your neck.
Choose me this edge to try your flesh upon
That feels so precious—like a holy thing
Kissed by some great saint’s mouth, laid afterwards
With taper-flame in middle altar-work,
All over soft as your own lips that fed
Between the king’s eyes—
Rosamond
Madam, be merciful,
You hurt me, pinching in my throat so hard.
Alas, ah God, will not one speak for me?
Queen Eleanor
Yea, then choose this.
Rosamond
I will not choose; God help!
I will not choose; I have no eyes to choose;
I will be blind and save the sight of choice.
So shall my death, not looking on itself,
Fall like a chance.
Queen Eleanor
Put me not past mine oath;
I am sworn deep to lay no stroke on you.
Rosamond
I will not drink; so shall I make defeat
On death’s own bitter will. Do not look hard;
I know you are more sweet at heart than so.
Make me the servant of your meanest house,
And let your girls smite me some thrice a day,
I will bear that; yea, I will serve and be
Stricken for wage and bruised; give me two days
A poor man puts away for idleness,
Lest my soul ache with you—nay, but, sweet God,
Is there no thing will say a word for me,
A little sad word said inside her ears
To make them burn for piteous shame? you see
How I weep, yea, fear wrings my body round;
You know not hardly how afraid I am,
But my throat sickens with pure fear, my blood
Falls marred in me; and God should love you so
Being found his friend and made compassionate—
Queen Eleanor
I have a mind to pluck thee with my hands,
Tear thy hair backward, tread on thee. By God,
I thought no sin so sick and lame a fool
As this lust is.
Rosamond
But I will drink indeed,
I will not yet; give me the sword to see
How that must hurt.
Queen Eleanor
Yea, this way will you see?
Rosamond
I cannot hold it by the edge; it is
Too keen to touch the sides thereof with sight.
Yea then, your drink.
Queen Eleanor
To spill here in the ground?
It were good game to get white iron out
As did God’s priest with a king’s harlot once,
Burn up your hair and brand between your eyes
That I might have you wear me so in red.
Besides to-night the king will look for you,
“Eh, Rosamond? she hides then closer yet,
Maybe for fear of passengers that slip
Between those waters; I shall have her now,
Ha love, have I said right?” would he kiss you,
Spoilt face and all?—You will die simply then?
You do the wiselier.
Rosamond
God be pitiful!
No man in this sharp world to speak for me
Of all that go and talk—why now they laugh,
Chatter of me, base people, say foul things—
Ah God, sweet Lord, that death should be so hard.
Nay, thou fair death, make me not wroth with thee;
Use me the best way found in thee, fair death,
And thou shalt have a pleasure of mine end,
For I will kiss thee with a patient lip
Even on this husk of thine; thou tender death,
Do me none evil and no shame, that am
So soft and have such sufferance of thee
And talk such lovers’ little talk; fair death,
Where thou hast kissed the latest lip of man’s
None shall drink after.
Queen Eleanor
Cease, and be not lewd;
Cease, and make haste. What harlot’s wit hast thou
To play death’s friend this way?
Rosamond
Yea, friends we are;
I have no breath that makes a curse for you,
All goes to fashion prayer that God sow pity
I’the grounds of wrath; you see me that I drink;
So God have patience.
Queen Eleanor
It is done indeed.
Perchance now it should please you to be sure
This were no poison? as it is, it is.
Ha, the lips tighten so across the teeth
They should bite in, show blood; how white she is,
Yea, white! dead green now like a fingered leaf.
Enter King Henry and Bouchard
King Henry
Is it all done? Yea, so, love, come to me,
You are quite safe, held fast; kiss me a little.
Speak, hast thou done?
Queen Eleanor
So, would you praise me now?
It is done well, and as I thought of it.
King Henry
O sweetest thing, you do not bleed with her?
She cannot speak. By God’s own holiness
Each fear put on you shall be as blood wrung
From her most damnèd body. Do but speak.
This is just fear. Ay, come close in and weep.
This is your fear?
Rosamond
Nay, but my present death.
Doth fear so ruin all the blood in one
As this spoils mine? Let me get breath to help;
And yet no matter; I will not speak at all,
I can die without speaking.
King Henry
(to the Queen)
Listen to this—
Thou art worse caught than anything in hell—
To put thy hands upon this body—God,
Curse her for me! I will not slay thee yet,
But damn thee some fine quiet way—O love,
That I might put thee in my heart indeed
To be wept well! thou shalt be healed of her—
Poor sweet; she hath even touched thee in the neck
Thou art so hurt. This is not possible
O God, that I could see what thou wilt do
With her when she is damned! Thou piece of hell,
Is there no way to crawl out of my hate
By saving her? pray God then till I come,
For if my hands had room for thee I would
Hew thy face out of shape.—She will not die.
This heat in her is pure, and the sweet life
With holy colour doth assure itself
In death’s sharp face; she will not die at all.
Thou art all foiled, found fool and laughable
And halt and spat upon and sick—O love,
Make me not mad! if you do so with me
I am but dead.
Rosamond
Do not so cry on me;
I am hurt sore, but shall not die of it.
Be gracious with me, set your face to mine,
Tell me sweet things. I have no pain at all,
I am but woman and make words of pain
Where I am well indeed; only the breath
Catches, for joy to have you close. I would
Sing your song through; yea, I am good you said,
Gracious and good; I cannot sing that out,
But am I good that kiss your lips or no?
That keeps yet sweet; there is not so much pain
As one might weep for; a little makes us weep;
To die grown old were sad, but I die worth
Being kissed of you; leave me some space to breathe—
I have thanks yet. [Dies.
Queen Eleanor
So is the whole played out;
Yea, kiss him. Ah, my Bouchard, you said that?
King Henry
Ay, keep the mouth at ease; shut down the lids;
You see I am not riotously moved,
But peaceable, all heat gone out of me.
This is some trick, some riddle of a dream,
Have you not known such dreams? I bid you stand,
Being king and lord, I make you come and go;
But say I bid my love turn and kiss me,
No more obedience? here at sight of her
The heart of rule is broken. No more obedience?
She hath forgotten this; were I a man,
Even that would slay me; I beseech you, sir,
Take no care of me; I can bid you; see,
I touch her face; the lips begin to stir,
Gather up colour; is there sound or speech,
Or pleasant red under the white of death?
She will speak surely; for dead flesh is grey
And even the goodliest pattern wrought of man
Coldness and change disfigure; what was red
A new disconsolate colour overpaints,
And ever with some ill deformity
The secret riddle and pure sense of flesh
Becomes defeated and the rebel taste
Makes new revolt at it; I pray take note of me,
Here comes no new thing; do you not see her face,
How it hath shut up close like any flower,
With scents of sleep and hesitating sweet
I’the heaviest petal of it? Note her eyes,
They move and alter; and if I touched her lips
(Which lest she wake I will not) they would be
As red as mine; yea that pure cheek of hers
Turn redder.
Queen Eleanor
Will you speak to him?
King Henry
Sir, pardon me, I know she is but dead,
She is not as I am; we have sense and soul;
Who smites me on the mouth or plucks by the hair,
I know what feels it; stab me with a knife,
I can show blood: and when the eyes turn wet,
There’s witness for me and apparent proof
I am no less than man; though in the test
I show so abject and so base a slave
As grooms may snarl at, and your stabled hound
Find place more worth preferment. For the queen,
See how strong laughter takes her by the throat
And plucks her lips! her teeth would bite, no doubt,
But she keeps quiet; she should live indeed;
She hath mere motion, and such life in her
Accuses and impeaches the Lord God,
Who wrought so miserably the shapes of man
With such sad cunning. Lo you, sir, she weeps;
Now see I well how vile a thing it is
To wear the label and the print of life
Being fashioned so unhappily; for we
Share no more sense nor worthier scope of time
Than the live breath that is in swine and apes
As honourable, now she that made us right
In the keen balance and sharp scale of God
Becomes as pasture and gross meat for death,
Whereon the common ravin of his throat
Makes rank invasion. Time was, I could not speak
But she would praise or chide me; now I talk
All this time out, mere baffled waste, to get
That word of her I find not. Tell me, sweet,
Have I done wrong to thee? spoken thee ill?
Nay, for scorn hurts me, Rosamond; be wise,
As I am patient; do but bow your face—
By God she will not! Abide you but awhile
And we shall hear her; for she will not fail.
She will just turn her sweet head quietly
And kiss me peradventure; say no word,
And you shall see her; doubtless she will grow
Sorry to vex me; see now, here are two
She hath made weep, and God would punish her
For hardness, ay though she were thrice as fair,
He would not love her; look, she would fain wake,
It makes her mouth move and her eyelids rise
To feel so near me.—Ay, no wiser yet?
Then will I leave you; maybe she will weep
To have her hands made empty of me; yea,
Lend me your hand to cover close her face,
That she may sleep well till we twain be gone;
Cover the mouth up; come each side of me.
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