originated in the mind of Owain, who had fed his brooding temper on old
stories of revenge. To him the dreadful logic of the scheme seemed
unanswerable. No power on earth or heaven could help them; either they
must save themselves, or be destroyed, body and soul. He puts his plan
before Shonnin--to lure their father by a light wrongly placed, as he
rows home at night, on to the quicksands at the other side of the
island. But Shonnin, if he has less strength of will than Owain, is more
thoughtful and more sensitive. He is appalled at the proposal. Owain
reminds him of their wrongs; asks him what this monster has done that he
should live to be their ruin. And Shonnin, seeing the issues more
clearly, replies
... Nothing;
But then I have done nothing to deserve
To be made a parricide.
But Nelto has been listening, and hers is a nature of a very different
mettle. Besides, as she has put the alternative to herself, it means but
a choice between two evils; and this plan of Owain's seems at least a
cleaner thing than the existence she had contemplated. She declares that
she will be the instrument of the revenge.
The rest of the play is occupied with the execution of the plan. Scene
IV shows us Nelto going on her way down to the sea at night with the
lantern that is to lead Gwyllim on to the sands. She is trying not to
think; but the very face of nature seems to reflect the horror that is
in her soul--
... Down slips the moon.
NELTO. Broken and tarnished too? Now she hangs motionless
As 'twere amazed, in a silver strait of sky
Between the long black cloud and the long black sea;
The sea crawls like a snake.
The figure of a woman suddenly appears in the path. It is her mother;
she has overheard their plans, and for a moment Nelto is afraid that she
has come to frustrate them. But Mrs Gwyllim has a very different
purpose: she intends to take upon herself the crime that her children
are about to commit--
All's fallen from me now
But naked motherhood. What! Shall a hare
Turn on the red-jawed dogs, being a mother,
The unpitying lioness suckle her whelps
Smeared with her heart's blood, this one law be stamped
For ever on the imperishable stuff
Of our mortality, and I, I only,
Forbidden to obey it?
But Nelto sees that she is too frail and weak for the task; and entreats
her mother to return to the house. Time is slipping, and her father is
waiting for the boat.
MRS. GWYLLIM. Ellen, you are too young;
You should be innocent--
NELTO. Never again
After this night. Come, mother, I am yours;
Make me a wanton or an avenger.
MRS. GWYLLIM. Powers
That set my spirit to swing on such a thread
Over mere blackness, teach me now to guide it!
NELTO. Mother, the moon dips.
MRS. GWYLLIM. Go, my daughter, go!
And let these hands, these miserable hands,
Too weak to avenge my children, let them be
Yet strong enough to pull upon my head
God's everlasting judgment! All that weight
Fall on me only!
We see what follows in the closing scenes as a fulfilment of that
prayer. Nelto takes the boat to meet Gwyllim, intending to row him over
to the false light that she herself has placed. When he has stepped
ashore she is to push off instantly, and leave him either to stride
forward into the quicksand, or to be drowned by the tide. Owain and his
mother peer from their window through the darkness, trying to follow
Nelto's movements by the light on her boat. They have locked Shonnin in
his room that he may not know what they are doing and interfere. But he
manages to awaken a sleeping child in the next room, and is released in
time to discover what is afoot. He seizes another lantern and rushes
down to the bay to signal a warning to his father. Meantime Mrs Gwyllim
and Owain search the opposite shore with a telescope; they see the light
on the boat approach it, stop for just so long as a man would need to
clamber out, and then move away. For a few seconds they distinguish the
swaying light that Gwyllim carries, and then it disappears. To their
strained imagination it seems that they hear his terrible cry as he
reaches the quicksand; and at the same time they are horrified to see
that Nelto's boat is returning to him. She also has heard the cry, and
has gone back to try to save her father. The light moves forward, slowly
at first and then more quickly, as Nelto seems to spring ashore. A
moment afterwards it too goes out.
No other sign comes to the watchers, for when they turn their glasses to
the nearer shore Shonnin also has disappeared. They keep their dreadful
vigil till dawn; and then the mother, pitifully hoping against hope,
goes out to seek her children.--She returns with Nelto's shawl.
MRS. GWYLLIM. Where are my children, if they are not there?
They cannot both be--Owain, where are they?
OWAIN _[Makes a gesture towards the sea]_. Mother,
May God have mercy on us!
MRS. GWYLLIM. No, not both,
Not both! She's somewhere in the house. Come, Ellen!
She is afraid to come. Come, Nelto, Nelto!
Shonnin, my heart's adored, Shonnin, my love,
Do not be angry with me, answer, Shonnin,
Shonnin! Not dead--not dead!
OWAIN. O hush--hush--hush!
In a summary of this kind it is impossible to indicate all the dramatic
values of the work. One cannot show, for instance, how the characters
come to life, and by touches bold or subtle, develop an individuality
out of which the conflict of the drama springs. Even the conflict itself
can hardly be suggested, for an outline of the story gives only the
physical action; whilst there is a spiritual struggle in the minds of at
least two of the characters which is infinitely more tragical. And
neither can one hope to convey any sense of the force with which the
play takes possession of the mind. That is of course, its chief artistic
excellence; and on a moment's consideration it is seen to be a
remarkable achievement. For although the poet is working towards a
catastrophe very remote from ordinary experience, and in a poetic medium
deeply stamped with the marks of an earlier age, she has succeeded in
evoking a powerful illusion of reality. Here and there, indeed, are
signs that the handicap she has imposed upon herself is almost too
great. There is, perhaps, a shade of excess in the portraiture of
Gwyllim; or, to put it in another way, the author has not taken an
opportunity to balance what is extraordinary in this character with the
relief which would have suggested a complete personality. And now and
then there is a hint of incongruity in the use of a rich Elizabethan
diction, even for Owain, who is supposed to be steeped in the literature
of that age.
Those are not radical defects, however, for they do not interrupt the
enjoyment of the drama: they only emerge as an afterthought. If the
incompleteness of Gwyllim disturbed our conviction of his villainy, the
whole plot would be weakened. Whereas we are profoundly convinced that
the wrongs of his family are intolerable, and the revolt a natural
consequence. Similarly, if the exuberant Elizabethan language were
really unfitted to the spirit of the work, I imagine that it would be
barely possible to read the drama through, so irritating would be its
ineptitude. But, as a fact, the language wins upon us somehow as the
right expression for these people. We are probably satisfied,
subconsciously, that human creatures who have been thrust back to an
almost elemental stage of passion and thought, might talk in some such
way. In any case the emotional force of that old style, with its vivid
imagery and metaphor and its copious flow, does somehow suit the
intensity and gloomy grandeur of this play.
I am not sure that it suits _The Princess of Hanover_ quite so
well--which is curious, considering that we have, in the royal theme of
this drama, a subject which might be supposed to require an ornate
style. But in treating the tragic love-story of Sophia of Zell the poet
was bound to reproduce something of the atmosphere of the Hanoverian
Court, with its intrigues and indecencies and absurd conventionality.
And at such points poetry lends too large a dignity. In those scenes,
however, where as in "Wild Justice," the author comes to deal with naked
passion and with turbulent thought that is driving some person of the
drama to disaster, the instrument is admirably fitted to its purpose.
Thus, in the second half of the play, when the unfortunate Princess at
last yields to her lover, Königsmarck, and plots with him to escape from
her sottish husband, there are moments when it seems that no other
medium would serve. There is, for example, the crucial scene in the
second act when the endurance of the Princess finally gives way. The
action turns here directly towards its tragic culmination; for the
Princess, who had hitherto saved her honour at the cost of her love,
suddenly breaks down at an insult from the old Electress. The revulsion
of feeling as she flings restraint away carries her to an ecstatic sense
of liberty. As the Electress goes out and she is left alone with her
lady-in-waiting, she laughs bitterly and declares that she is now free
for ever from the House of Hanover.
LEONORA. Weeping, dear lady,
Will balm our misery better than laughter.
PRINCESS. Misery? I am mad with all the joy
Of all my years, my youth-consuming years'
Hoarded, unspent delight.
Say, Leonora,
Where are my wings? Do they not shoot up radiant,
A splendour of snowy vans, swimming the air
Just ere the rush of rapture?
One might quote a dozen such passages, in which a rush of emotion seems
to overflow most naturally into poetical extravagance. There is the
rhapsody of the Electress--significantly, upon the theme of Queen
Elizabeth. There are the love-scenes, passionate or tender, between
Königsmarck and the Princess; and the fierce moods--of sheer avidity or
hatred or remorse--of the courtesan who contrives their downfall. But
the only other illustration which need be given is taken from the last
scene of the play; and has a further importance which must be noted. I
mean the tragic irony which underlies it, and, running throughout the
scene, closes the play on a note of appalling mockery.
The scene is in the Electoral Palace at night, or rather very early
morning, when the grey light is slowly coming. The Princess and Leonora
have come into the outer hall of their apartments to burn certain papers
in the fireplace there. Their plans are all made for flight with
Königsmarck on the following day; and as they kindle the fire they talk,
the Princess eagerly and Leonora with more caution, about their chances
of escape. But on the very spot where they stand, Königsmarck had been
secretly assassinated less than an hour before. And at this moment,
while they are talking, his body is being hastily bricked into a disused
staircase leading out of the hall. Faint sounds of the work reach the
ears of the ladies as they begin their task; but though Leonora is
disquieted, the Princess will not listen to her fears. She is on the
crest of a mood of exaltation--
PRINCESS. The night is almost over,
Soon will the topmost towers discern the day.
The day! The day! O last of all the days
I have spent in extreme penury of joy,
In garish misery, unhelped wrong,
And in unpardonable dishonour....
.....
Up lingering dawn!
Why dost thou creep so pale, like one afraid?
I want the sun! I want to-morrow!
LEONORA. Madam,
There was a hand on the door. What can these builders
Be doing here at this hour?
PRINCESS. Why, they're building.
What does it matter? Let them build all night,
I warrant they'll not build a wall so high
Love cannot overleap it.
_Bibliography_
LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE
_Interludes and Poems._ John Lane. 1908.
_The Sale of St Thomas._ Published by the Author. (Out of Print.)
1911.
_Emblems of Love._ John Lane. 1912.
_Deborah._ John Lane. 1913.
Contributions to _New Numbers_, February, April, August, December,
1914. (Out of Print.)
EVA GORE BOOTH
_The Three Resurrections and The Triumph of Maeve._ Longmans. 1905.
_The Agate Lamp._ Longmans. 1912.
_The Sorrowful Princess._ Longmans. 1907.
RUPERT BROOKE
_Poems._ Sidgwick & Jackson. 1911.
_1914 and Other Poems._ Sidgwick & Jackson. 1915.
Contributions to _New Numbers_. (See ABERCROMBIE.)
JOSEPH CAMPBELL
_The Mountainy Singer._ Maunsel. 1909.
_Irishry._ Maunsel. 1913.
PADRAIC COLUM
_Wild Earth._ (Out of Print.) 1907.
JAMES COUSINS
_The Quest._ Maunsel. 1906.
_Etain the Beloved._ Maunsel. 1912.
_Straight and Crooked._ Grant Richards. 1915.
WILLIAM H. DAVIES
_The Soul's Destroyer._ Alston Rivers. 1906.
_New Poems._ Elkin Mathews. 1907.
_Nature Poems._ A. C. Fifield. 1908.
_Farewell to Poesy._ A. C. Fifield. 1910.
_Songs of Joy._ A. C. Fifield. 1911.
_Foliage._ Elkin Mathews. 1913.
_The Bird of Paradise._ Methuen. 1914.
WALTER DE LA MARE
_Songs of Childhood._ Longmans. (Out of Print.) 1902.
_Poems._ Murray. 1906.
_The Listeners._ Constable. 1912.
_A Child's Day._ Constable. 1912.
_Peacock Pie._ Constable. 1913.
WILFRED WILSON GIBSON
_Urlyn the Harper_ and _The Queen's Vigil_. Elkin Mathews (Vigo
Cabinet Series). 1900.
_On the Threshold._ Samurai Press. 1907.
_The Stonefolds._ Samurai Press. 1907.
_The Web of Life._ (Out of Print.) 1908.
_Akra the Slave._ Elkin Mathews. 1910.
_Daily Bread._ Elkin Mathews. 1910.
_Womenkind._ David Nutt (Pilgrim Players Series). 1911.
_Fires._ Elkin Mathews. 1912.
_Borderlands._ Elkin Mathews. 1914.
_Thoroughfares._ Elkin Mathews. 1914.
_Battle._ Elkin Mathews. 1915.
RALPH HODGSON
_Eve._ "At the Sign of Flying Fame." (Out of Print.) 1913.
_The Bull._ "At the Sign of Flying Fame." 1913.
_The Mystery._ "At the Sign of Flying Fame." 1913.
_The Song of Honour._ (Out of Print.)
_All the above re-issued by_ The Poetry Bookshop.
FORD MADOX HUEFFER
_Collected Poems._ Max Goschen. 1914.
ROSE MACAULAY
_The Two Blind Countries._ Sidgwick & Jackson. 1914.
JOHN MASEFIELD
_Salt Water Ballads._ Grant Richards. 1902. (Out of Print.)
(Reprinted by Elkin Mathews.) 1913.
_Ballads._ Elkin Mathews. (Out of Print.) 1903.
_Ballads and Poems._ Elkin Mathews. 1910.
_The Everlasting Mercy._ Sidgwick & Jackson. 1911.
_The Widow in the Bye-Street._ Sidgwick & Jackson. 1912.
_Dauber._ Wm. Heinemann. 1913.
_Daffodil Fields._ Wm. Heinemann. 1913.
_Philip the King._ Wm. Heinemann. 1914.
_The Faithful._ Wm. Heinemann. 1915.
ALICE MILLIGAN.
_Hero Lays._ Maunsel. 1908.
SUSAN L. MITCHELL
_The Living Chalice._ Maunsel. 1913.
_Aids to the Immortality of Certain Persons in Ireland._ Maunsel.
1913.
HAROLD MONRO
_Judas._ Sampson Low. 1908.
_Before Dawn._ Constable. 1911.
_Children of Love._ Poetry Bookshop. 1914.
_Trees._ Poetry Bookshop. 1915.
=Sarojini Naidu=
_The Golden Threshold._ Wm. Heinemann. 1905.
_The Bird of Time._ Wm. Heinemann. 1912.
SEUMAS O'SULLIVAN
_Poems._ Maunsel. 1912.
_An Epilogue._ Maunsel. 1914.
"JOHN PRESLAND"
_The Marionettes._ T. Fisher Unwin. 1907.
_Joan of Arc._ Simpkin Marshall. 1909.
_Mary Queen of Scots._ Chatto & Windus. 1910.
_The Deluge._ Chatto & Windus. 1911.
_Manin._ Chatto & Windus. 1911.
_Marcus Aurelius._ Chatto & Windus. 1912.
_Songs of Changing Skies._ Chatto & Windus. 1913.
_Belisarius._ Chatto & Windus. 1913.
James Stephens
_Insurrections._ Maunsel. (Out of Print.) 1909.
_The Hill of Vision._ Maunsel. 1912.
_Songs from the Clay._ Macmillan. 1915.
MRS MARGARET L. WOODS
_Collected Poems._ John Lane. 1914.
ELLA YOUNG
_Poems._ Tower Press Booklets. 1906.
NOTE.--The lists do not, in every case, include all the author's works;
the principal object being to give the books mentioned in the Studies.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious spelling and typographical errors in the prose were
corrected. Only egregious errors were corrected in the poetry.