below? they stunned me. Did they descend all of them together; or did
they split into fragments on hitting the pavement?
_Gaunt._ Truly, I was not looking that way: they came, I must believe,
while you were speaking.
_Joanna._ Aside, aside! further back! disregard _me_! Look! that last
arrow sticks half its head deep in the wainscot. It shook so violently
I did not see the feather at first.
No, no, Lancaster! I will not permit it. Take your shield up again;
and keep it all before you. Now step aside: I am resolved to prove
whether the people will hear me.
_Gaunt._ Then, madam, by your leave----
_Joanna._ Hold!
_Gaunt._ Villains! take back to your kitchens those spits and skewers
that you, forsooth, would fain call swords and arrows; and keep your
bricks and stones for your graves!
_Joanna._ Imprudent man! who can save you? I shall be frightened: I
must speak at once.
O good kind people! ye who so greatly loved me, when I am sure I had
done nothing to deserve it, have I (unhappy me!) no merit with you
now, when I would assuage your anger, protect your fair fame, and send
you home contented with yourselves and me? Who is he, worthy citizens,
whom ye would drag to slaughter?
True, indeed, he did revile someone. Neither I nor you can say
whom--some feaster and rioter, it seems, who had little right (he
thought) to carry sword or bow, and who, to show it, hath slunk away.
And then another raised his anger: he was indignant that, under his
roof, a woman should be exposed to stoning. Which of you would not be
as choleric in a like affront? In the house of which among you should
I not be protected as resolutely?
No, no: I never can believe those angry cries. Let none ever tell me
again he is the enemy of my son, of his king, your darling child,
Richard. Are your fears more lively than a poor weak female's? than a
mother's? yours, whom he hath so often led to victory, and praised to
his father, naming each--he, John of Gaunt, the defender of the
helpless, the comforter of the desolate, the rallying signal of the
desperately brave!
Retire, Duke of Lancaster! This is no time----
_Gaunt._ Madam, I obey; but not through terror of that puddle at the
house door, which my handful of dust would dry up. Deign to command
me!
_Joanna._ In the name of my son, then, retire!
_Gaunt._ Angelic goodness! I must fairly win it.
_Joanna._ I think I know his voice that crieth out: 'Who will answer
for him?' An honest and loyal man's, one who would counsel and save me
in any difficulty and danger. With what pleasure and satisfaction,
with what perfect joy and confidence, do I answer our right-trusty and
well-judging friend!
'Let Lancaster bring his sureties,' say you, 'and we separate.' A
moment yet before we separate; if I might delay you so long, to
receive your sanction of those securities: for, in such grave matters,
it would ill become us to be over-hasty. I could bring fifty, I could
bring a hundred, not from among soldiers, not from among courtiers;
but selected from yourselves, were it equitable and fair to show such
partialities, or decorous in the parent and guardian of a king to
offer any other than herself.
Raised by the hand of the Almighty from amidst you, but still one of
you, if the mother of a family is a part of it, here I stand surety
for John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, for his loyalty and allegiance.
_Gaunt._ [_Running back toward Joanna._] Are the rioters, then,
bursting into the chamber through the windows?
_Joanna._ The windows and doors of this solid edifice rattled and
shook at the people's acclamation. My word is given for you: this was
theirs in return. Lancaster! what a voice have the people when they
speak out! It shakes me with astonishment, almost with consternation,
while it establishes the throne: what must it be when it is lifted up
in vengeance!
_Gaunt._ Wind; vapour----
_Joanna._ Which none can wield nor hold. Need I say this to my cousin
of Lancaster?
_Gaunt._ Rather say, madam, that there is always one star above which
can tranquillize and control them.
_Joanna._ Go, cousin! another time more sincerity!
_Gaunt._ You have this day saved my life from the people; for I now
see my danger better, when it is no longer close before me. My Christ!
if ever I forget----
_Joanna._ Swear not: every man in England hath sworn what you would
swear. But if you abandon my Richard, my brave and beautiful child,
may--Oh! I could never curse, nor wish an evil; but, if you desert him
in the hour of need, you will think of those who have not deserted
you, and your own great heart will lie heavy on you, Lancaster!
Am I graver than I ought to be, that you look dejected? Come, then,
gentle cousin, lead me to my horse, and accompany me home. Richard
will embrace us tenderly. Every one is dear to every other upon rising
out fresh from peril; affectionately then will he look, sweet boy,
upon his mother and his uncle! Never mind how many questions he may
ask you, nor how strange ones. His only displeasure, if he has any,
will be that he stood not against the rioters or among them.
_Gaunt._ Older than he have been as fond of mischief, and as fickle in
the choice of a party.
I shall tell him that, coming to blows, the assailant is often in the
right; that the assailed is always.
LEOFRIC AND GODIVA
_Godiva._ There is a dearth in the land, my sweet Leofric! Remember
how many weeks of drought we have had, even in the deep pastures of
Leicestershire; and how many Sundays we have heard the same prayers
for rain, and supplications that it would please the Lord in His mercy
to turn aside His anger from the poor, pining cattle. You, my dear
husband, have imprisoned more than one malefactor for leaving his dead
ox in the public way; and other hinds have fled before you out of the
traces, in which they, and their sons and their daughters, and haply
their old fathers and mothers, were dragging the abandoned wain
homeward. Although we were accompanied by many brave spearmen and
skilful archers, it was perilous to pass the creatures which the
farmyard dogs, driven from the hearth by the poverty of their masters,
were tearing and devouring; while others, bitten and lamed, filled the
air either with long and deep howls or sharp and quick barkings, as
they struggled with hunger and feebleness, or were exasperated by heat
and pain. Nor could the thyme from the heath, nor the bruised branches
of the fir-tree, extinguish or abate the foul odour.
_Leofric._ And now, Godiva, my darling, thou art afraid we should be
eaten up before we enter the gates of Coventry; or perchance that in
the gardens there are no roses to greet thee, no sweet herbs for thy
mat and pillow.
_Godiva._ Leofric, I have no such fears. This is the month of roses: I
find them everywhere since my blessed marriage. They, and all other
sweet herbs, I know not why, seem to greet me wherever I look at them,
as though they knew and expected me. Surely they cannot feel that I am
fond of them.
_Leofric._ O light, laughing simpleton! But what wouldst thou? I came
not hither to pray; and yet if praying would satisfy thee, or remove
the drought, I would ride up straightway to Saint Michael's and pray
until morning.
_Godiva._ I would do the same, O Leofric! but God hath turned away His
ear from holier lips than mine. Would my own dear husband hear me, if
I implored him for what is easier to accomplish--what he can do like
God?
_Leofric._ How! what is it?
_Godiva._ I would not, in the first hurry of your wrath, appeal to
you, my loving lord, on behalf of these unhappy men who have offended
you.
_Leofric._ Unhappy! is that all?
_Godiva._ Unhappy they must surely be, to have offended you so
grievously. What a soft air breathes over us! how quiet and serene and
still an evening! how calm are the heavens and the earth! Shall none
enjoy them; not even we, my Leofric? The sun is ready to set: let it
never set, O Leofric, on your anger. These are not my words: they are
better than mine. Should they lose their virtue from my unworthiness
in uttering them?
_Leofric._ Godiva, wouldst thou plead to me for rebels?
_Godiva._ They have, then, drawn the sword against you? Indeed, I knew
it not.
_Leofric._ They have omitted to send me my dues, established by my
ancestors, well knowing of our nuptials, and of the charges and
festivities they require, and that in a season of such scarcity my own
lands are insufficient.
_Godiva._ If they were starving, as they said they were----
_Leofric._ Must I starve too? Is it not enough to lose my vassals?
_Godiva._ Enough! O God! too much! too much! May you never lose them!
Give them life, peace, comfort, contentment. There are those among
them who kissed me in my infancy, and who blessed me at the baptismal
font. Leofric, Leofric! the first old man I meet I shall think is one
of those; and I shall think on the blessing he gave, and (ah me!) on
the blessing I bring back to him. My heart will bleed, will burst; and
he will weep at it! he will weep, poor soul, for the wife of a cruel
lord who denounces vengeance on him, who carries death into his
family!
_Leofric._ We must hold solemn festivals.
_Godiva._ We must, indeed.
_Leofric._ Well, then?
_Godiva._ Is the clamorousness that succeeds the death of God's dumb
creatures, are crowded halls, are slaughtered cattle festivals?--are
maddening songs, and giddy dances, and hireling praises from
parti-coloured coats? Can the voice of a minstrel tell us better
things of ourselves than our own internal one might tell us; or can
his breath make our breath softer in sleep? O my beloved! let
everything be a joyance to us: it will, if we will. Sad is the day,
and worse must follow, when we hear the blackbird in the garden, and
do not throb with joy. But, Leofric, the high festival is strown by
the servant of God upon the heart of man. It is gladness, it is
thanksgiving; it is the orphan, the starveling, pressed to the bosom,
and bidden as its first commandment to remember its benefactor. We
will hold this festival; the guests are ready: we may keep it up for
weeks, and months, and years together, and always be the happier and
the richer for it. The beverage of this feast, O Leofric, is sweeter
than bee or flower or vine can give us: it flows from heaven; and in
heaven will it abundantly be poured out again to him who pours it out
here abundantly.
_Leofric._ Thou art wild.
_Godiva._ I have, indeed, lost myself. Some Power, some good kind
Power, melts me (body and soul and voice) into tenderness and love. O
my husband, we must obey it. Look upon me! look upon me! lift your
sweet eyes from the ground! I will not cease to supplicate; I dare
not.
_Leofric._ We may think upon it.
_Godiva._ Oh, never say that! What! think upon goodness when you can
be good? Let not the infants cry for sustenance! The Mother of Our
Blessed Lord will hear them; us never, never afterward.
_Leofric._ Here comes the bishop: we are but one mile from the walls.
Why dismountest thou? no bishop can expect this. Godiva! my honour and
rank among men are humbled by this. Earl Godwin will hear of it. Up!
up! the bishop hath seen it: he urgeth his horse onward. Dost thou not
hear him now upon the solid turf behind thee?
_Godiva._ Never, no, never will I rise, O Leofric, until you remit
this most impious task--this tax on hard labour, on hard life.
_Leofric._ Turn round: look how the fat nag canters, as to the tune of
a sinner's psalm, slow and hard-breathing. What reason or right can
the people have to complain, while their bishop's steed is so sleek
and well caparisoned? Inclination to change, desire to abolish old
usages. Up! up! for shame! They shall smart for it, idlers! Sir
Bishop, I must blush for my young bride.
_Godiva._ My husband, my husband! will you pardon the city?
_Leofric._ Sir Bishop! I could think you would have seen her in this
plight. Will I pardon? Yea, Godiva, by the holy rood, will I pardon
the city, when thou ridest naked at noontide through the streets!
_Godiva._ O my dear, cruel Leofric, where is the heart you gave me? It
was not so: can mine have hardened it?
_Bishop._ Earl, thou abashest thy spouse; she turneth pale, and
weepeth. Lady Godiva, peace be with thee.
_Godiva._ Thanks, holy man! peace will be with me when peace is with
your city. Did you hear my lord's cruel word?
_Bishop._ I did, lady.
_Godiva._ Will you remember it, and pray against it?
_Bishop._ Wilt _thou_ forget it, daughter?
_Godiva._ I am not offended.
_Bishop._ Angel of peace and purity!
_Godiva._ But treasure it up in your heart: deem it an incense, good
only when it is consumed and spent, ascending with prayer and
sacrifice. And, now, what was it?
_Bishop._ Christ save us! that He will pardon the city when thou
ridest naked through the streets at noon.
_Godiva._ Did he swear an oath?
_Bishop._ He sware by the holy rood.
_Godiva._ My Redeemer, Thou hast heard it! save the city!
_Leofric._ We are now upon the beginning of the pavement: these are
the suburbs. Let us think of feasting: we may pray afterward;
to-morrow we shall rest.
_Godiva._ No judgments, then, to-morrow, Leofric?
_Leofric._ None: we will carouse.
_Godiva._ The saints of heaven have given me strength and confidence;
my prayers are heard; the heart of my beloved is now softened.
_Leofric._ Ay, ay.
_Godiva._ Say, dearest Leofric, is there indeed no other hope, no
other mediation?
_Leofric._ I have sworn. Beside, thou hast made me redden and turn my
face away from thee, and all the knaves have seen it: this adds to the
city's crime.
_Godiva._ I have blushed, too, Leofric, and was not rash nor obdurate.
_Leofric._ But thou, my sweetest, art given to blushing: there is no
conquering it in thee. I wish thou hadst not alighted so hastily and
roughly: it hath shaken down a sheaf of thy hair. Take heed thou sit
not upon it, lest it anguish thee. Well done! it mingleth now sweetly
with the cloth of gold upon the saddle, running here and there, as if
it had life and faculties and business, and were working thereupon
some newer and cunninger device. O my beauteous Eve! there is a
Paradise about thee! the world is refreshed as thou movest and
breathest on it. I cannot see or think of evil where thou art. I could
throw my arms even here about thee. No signs for me! no shaking of
sunbeams! no reproof or frown of wonderment.--I _will_ say it--now,
then, for worse--I could close with my kisses thy half-open lips, ay,
and those lovely and loving eyes, before the people.
_Godiva._ To-morrow you shall kiss me, and they shall bless you for
it. I shall be very pale, for to-night I must fast and pray.
_Leofric._ I do not hear thee; the voices of the folk are so loud
under this archway.
_Godiva._ [_To herself._] God help them! good kind souls! I hope they
will not crowd about me so to-morrow. O Leofric! could my name be
forgotten, and yours alone remembered! But perhaps my innocence may
save me from reproach; and how many as innocent are in fear and
famine! No eye will open on me but fresh from tears. What a young
mother for so large a family! Shall my youth harm me? Under God's hand
it gives me courage. Ah! when will the morning come? Ah! when will the
noon be over?
The story of Godiva, at one of whose festivals or
fairs I was present in my boyhood, has always much
interested me; and I wrote a poem on it, sitting, I
remember, by the _square pool_ at Rugby. When I showed
it to the friend in whom I had most confidence, he
began to scoff at the subject; and, on his reaching
the last line, his laughter was loud and immoderate.
This conversation has brought both laughter and stanza
back to me, and the earnestness with which I entreated
and implored my friend _not to tell the lads_, so
heart-strickenly and desperately was I ashamed. The
verses are these, if any one else should wish another
laugh at me:
'In every hour, in every mood,
O lady, it is sweet and good
To bathe the soul in prayer;
And, at the close of such a day,
When we have ceased to bless and pray,
To dream on thy long hair.'
May the peppermint be still growing on the bank in
that place!
ESSEX AND SPENSER
_Essex._ Instantly on hearing of thy arrival from Ireland, I sent a
message to thee, good Edmund, that I might learn, from one so
judicious and dispassionate as thou art, the real state of things in
that distracted country; it having pleased the queen's Majesty to
think of appointing me her deputy, in order to bring the rebellious to
submission.
_Spenser._ Wisely and well considered; but more worthily of her
judgment than her affection. May your lordship overcome, as you have
ever done, the difficulties and dangers you foresee.
_Essex._ We grow weak by striking at random; and knowing that I must
strike, and strike heavily, I would fain see exactly where the stroke
shall fall.
Now what tale have you for us?
_Spenser._ Interrogate me, my lord, that I may answer each question
distinctly, my mind being in sad confusion at what I have seen and
undergone.
_Essex._ Give me thy account and opinion of these very affairs as thou
leftest them; for I would rather know one part well than all
imperfectly; and the violences of which I have heard within the day
surpass belief.
Why weepest thou, my gentle Spenser? Have the rebels sacked thy house?
_Spenser._ They have plundered and utterly destroyed it.
_Essex._ I grieve for thee, and will see thee righted.
_Spenser._ In this they have little harmed me.
_Essex._ How! I have heard it reported that thy grounds are fertile,
and thy mansion large and pleasant.
_Spenser._ If river and lake and meadow-ground and mountain could
render any place the abode of pleasantness, pleasant was mine, indeed!
On the lovely banks of Mulla I found deep contentment. Under the dark
alders did I muse and meditate. Innocent hopes were my gravest cares,
and my playfullest fancy was with kindly wishes. Ah! surely of all
cruelties the worst is to extinguish our kindness. Mine is gone: I
love the people and the land no longer. My lord, ask me not about
them: I may speak injuriously.
_Essex._ Think rather, then, of thy happier hours and busier
occupations; these likewise may instruct me.
_Spenser._ The first seeds I sowed in the garden, ere the old castle
was made habitable for my lovely bride, were acorns from Penshurst. I
planted a little oak before my mansion at the birth of each child. My
sons, I said to myself, shall often play in the shade of them when I
am gone; and every year shall they take the measure of their growth,
as fondly as I take theirs.
_Essex._ Well, well; but let not this thought make thee weep so
bitterly.
_Spenser._ Poison may ooze from beautiful plants; deadly grief from
dearest reminiscences. I _must_ grieve, I _must_ weep: it seems the
law of God, and the only one that men are not disposed to contravene.
In the performance of this alone do they effectually aid one another.
_Essex._ Spenser! I wish I had at hand any arguments or persuasions of
force sufficient to remove thy sorrow; but, really, I am not in the
habit of seeing men grieve at anything except the loss of favour at
court, or of a hawk, or of a buck-hound. And were I to swear out
condolences to a man of thy discernment, in the same round, roll-call
phrases we employ with one another upon these occasions, I should be
guilty, not of insincerity, but of insolence. True grief hath ever
something sacred in it; and, when it visiteth a wise man and a brave
one, is most holy.
Nay, kiss not my hand: he whom God smiteth hath God with him. In His
presence what am I?
_Spenser._ Never so great, my lord, as at this hour, when you see
aright who is greater. May He guide your counsels, and preserve your
life and glory!
_Essex._ Where are thy friends? Are they with thee?
_Spenser._ Ah, where, indeed! Generous, true-hearted Philip! where art
thou, whose presence was unto me peace and safety; whose smile was
contentment, and whose praise renown? My lord! I cannot but think of
him among still heavier losses: he was my earliest friend, and would
have taught me wisdom.
_Essex._ Pastoral poetry, my dear Spenser, doth not require tears and
lamentations. Dry thine eyes; rebuild thine house: the queen and
council, I venture to promise thee, will make ample amends for every
evil thou hast sustained. What! does that enforce thee to wail still
louder?
_Spenser._ Pardon me, bear with me, most noble heart! I have lost what
no council, no queen, no Essex, can restore.
_Essex._ We will see that. There are other swords, and other arms to
yield them, beside a Leicester's and a Raleigh's. Others can crush
their enemies, and serve their friends.
_Spenser._ O my sweet child! And of many so powerful, many so wise and
so beneficent, was there none to save thee? None, none!
_Essex._ I now perceive that thou lamentest what almost every father
is destined to lament. Happiness must be bought, although the payment
may be delayed. Consider: the same calamity might have befallen thee
here in London. Neither the houses of ambassadors, nor the palaces of
kings, nor the altars of God Himself, are asylums against death. How
do I know but under this very roof there may sleep some latent
calamity, that in an instant shall cover with gloom every inmate of
the house, and every far dependent?
_Spenser._ God avert it!
_Essex._ Every day, every hour of the year, do hundreds mourn what
thou mournest.
_Spenser._ Oh, no, no, no! Calamities there are around us; calamities
there are all over the earth; calamities there are in all seasons: but
none in any season, none in any place, like mine.
_Essex._ So say all fathers, so say all husbands. Look at any old
mansion-house, and let the sun shine as gloriously as it may on the
golden vanes, or the arms recently quartered over the gateway or the
embayed window, and on the happy pair that haply is toying at it:
nevertheless, thou mayest say that of a certainty the same fabric hath
seen much sorrow within its chambers, and heard many wailings; and
each time this was the heaviest stroke of all. Funerals have passed
along through the stout-hearted knights upon the wainscot, and amid
the laughing nymphs upon the arras. Old servants have shaken their
heads, as if somebody had deceived them, when they found that beauty
and nobility could perish.
Edmund! the things that are too true pass by us as if they were not
true at all; and when they have singled us out, then only do they
strike us. Thou and I must go too. Perhaps the next year may blow us
away with its fallen leaves.
_Spenser._ For you, my lord, many years (I trust) are waiting: I never
shall see those fallen leaves. No leaf, no bud, will spring upon the
earth before I sink into her breast for ever.
_Essex._ Thou, who art wiser than most men, shouldst bear with
patience, equanimity, and courage what is common to all.
_Spenser._ Enough, enough, enough! Have all men seen their infant
burnt to ashes before their eyes?
_Essex._ Gracious God! Merciful Father! what is this?
_Spenser._ Burnt alive! burnt to ashes! burnt to ashes! The flames
dart their serpent tongues through the nursery window. I cannot quit
thee, my Elizabeth! I cannot lay down our Edmund! Oh, these flames!
They persecute, they enthral me; they curl round my temples; they hiss
upon my brain; they taunt me with their fierce, foul voices; they carp
at me, they wither me, they consume me, throwing back to me a little
of life to roll and suffer in, with their fangs upon me. Ask me, my
lord, the things you wish to know from me: I may answer them; I am now
composed again. Command me, my gracious lord! I would yet serve you:
soon I shall be unable. You have stooped to raise me up; you have
borne with me; you have pitied me, even like one not powerful. You
have brought comfort, and will leave it with me, for gratitude is
comfort.
Oh! my memory stands all a-tiptoe on one burning point: when it drops
from it, then it perishes. Spare me: ask me nothing; let me weep
before you in peace--the kindest act of greatness.
_Essex._ I should rather have dared to mount into the midst of the
conflagration than I now dare entreat thee not to weep. The tears that
overflow thy heart, my Spenser, will staunch and heal it in their
sacred stream; but not without hope in God.