Detects a want of valour in himself.
He fondly fights that fights with such a foe,
Where ’twere a shame to lose, no praise to win;
But with a famous foe succeed what will,
To win is great renown, to lose less foil.
His conquests, were they more, dismay me not:
The oft’ner they have been, the more they threat:
No danger can be thought both safe and oft;
And who hath oft’ner waged wars than he?
Escapes secure him not: he owes the price:
Whom chance hath often miss’d, chance hits at length;
Or if that chance have furthered his success,
So may she mine, for chance hath made me king.
GAWIN. As chance hath made you king, so chance may change.
Provide for peace: that’s it the highest peers,
No state except, even conquerors, ought to seek.
Remember Arthur’s strength, his conquests late,
His fiery mind, his high-aspiring heart.
Mark then the odds: he expert, you untried;
He ripe, you green. Yield you, whiles yet you may;
He will not yield: he wins his peace with wars.
MORDRED. If chance may change, his chance was last to win;
The likelier now to lose. His haughty heart
And mind I know: I feel mine own no less.
As for his strength and skill, I leave to hap:
Where many meet, it lies not all in one.
What though he vanquish’d have the Roman troops,
That boots him not: himself is vanquish’d here.
Then weigh your words again: if conquerors ought
To seek for peace, the conquered must perforce.
But he’ll not yield; he’ll purchase peace with wars.
Well, yield that will; I neither will nor can.
Come peace, come wars, choose him; my danger’s his,
His safety mine: our states do stand alike.
If peace be good, as good for him as me;
If wars be good, as good for me as him.
GAWIN. What cursed wars (alas) were those, wherein
Both son and sire should so oppose themselves!
Him whom you now, unhappy man, pursue,
If you should win, yourself would first bewail.
Give him his crown: to keep it peril breeds.
MORDRED. The crown I’ll keep myself, ensue what will.
Death must be once; how soon, I least respect.
He best provides that can beware in time,
Not why nor when, but whence and where he falls.
What fool, to live a year or twain in rest,
Would lose the state and honour of a crown?
GAWIN. Consider then your father’s grief and want,
Whom you bereave of kingdom, realm, and crown,
MORDRED. Trust me, a huge and mighty kingdom ’tis
To bear the want of kingdom, realm, and crown.
GAWIN. A common want, which works each worlding’s woe:
That many have too much, but none enough.
It were his praise could he be so content,
Which makes you guilty of the greater wrong.
Wherefore think on the doubtful state of wars.
Where Mars hath sway, he keeps no certain course:
Sometimes he lets the weaker to prevail,
Sometimes the stronger troops: hope, fear, and rage
With eyeless lot rules all uncertain good,
Most certain harms be his assured haps.
No luck can last; now here, now there it lights:
No state alike, chance blindly snatcheth all,
And fortune maketh guilty whom she lists.
MORDRED. Since therefore fear and hope, and hap in wars,
Be all obscure, till their success be seen,
Your speech doth rather drive me on to try,
And trust them all, mine only refuge now.
GAWIN. And fear you not so strange and uncouth wars?
MORDRED. No, were they wars that grew from out the ground!
GAWIN. Nor yet your sire so huge, yourself so small?
MORDRED. The smallest axe may fell the hugest oak.
GAWIN. Nor that, in felling him, yourself may fall?
MORDRED. He falleth well, that falling fells his foe.
GAWIN. Nor common chance, whereto each man is thrall?
MORDRED. Small manhood were to turn my back to chance.
GAWIN. Nor that, if chance afflict, kings brook it not?
MORDRED. I bear no breast so unprepar’d for harms.
Even that I hold the kingliest point of all,
To brook afflictions well: and by how much
The more his state and tottering empire sags,
To fix so much the faster foot on ground.
No fear but doth forejudge, and many fall
Into their fate, whiles they do fear their fate.
Where courage quails, the fear exceeds the harm:
Yea, worse than war itself is fear of war.[267]
GAWIN. War seemeth sweet to such as have not tried;[268]
But wisdom wills we should forecast the worse.
The end allows the act: that plot is wise,
That knows his means, and least relies on chance.
Eschew the course where error lurks; there grows
But grief where pain is spent, no hope to speed.
Strive not above your strength; for where your force
Is overmatch’d with your attempts, it faints,
And fruitless leaves what bootless it began.
MORDRED. All things are rul’d in constant course: no fate
But is foreset: the first day leads the last.
No wisdom then, but difference in conceit,
Which works in many men as many minds.
You love the mean, and follow virtue’s race:
I like the top, and aim at greater bliss.
You rest content: my mind aspires to more.
In brief, you fear, I hope; you doubt, I dare.
Since, then, the sagest counsels are but strifes,
Where equal wits may wrest each side alike,
Let counsel go: my purpose must proceed.
Each likes his course, mine own doth like me best.
Wherefore, ere Arthur breathe or gather strength,
Assault we him, lest he assault us first.
He either must destroy, or be destroy’d:
The mischief’s in the midst; catch he that can.
GAWIN. But will no reason rule that desperate mind?
MORDRED. A fickle mind that every reason rules!
I rest resolv’d, and to my sire say thus:--
If here he stay but three days to an end,
And not forthwith discharge his band and host,
’Tis Mordred’s oath, assure himself to die.
But if he find his courage so to serve,
As for to stand to his defence with force,
In Cornwall, if he dare, I’ll try it out.
GAWIN. O strange contempt! like as the craggy rock
Resists the streams and flings the waltering waves
Aloof, so he rejects and scorns my words.
[_Exit._[269]
THE FOURTH SCENE.
MORDRED, GILLA, GILLAMOR, CHELDRICHUS,
DUX PICTORUM, CONAN.
MORDRED. Lo, where (as they decreed) my faithful friends
Have kept their time. Be all your powers repair’d?
GILLA. They be, and all with ardent minds: to Mars
They cry for wars, and longing for th’ alarm,
Even now they wish t’ encounter with their foes.
MORDRED. What could be wish’d for more? puissant king,
For your great help and valiant Irish force,
If I obtain the conquest in these wars,
Whereas my father claims a tribute due
Out of your realm; I here renounce it quite:
And if assistance need in doubtful times,
I will not fail to aid you with the like.
GILLA. It doth suffice me to discharge my realm,
Or at the least to wreak me on my foes.
I rather like to live your friend and peer,
Than rest in Arthur’s homage and disgrace.
MORDRED. Right noble duke, through whom the Saxons vow
Their lives with mine, for my defence in wars,
If we prevail and may subdue our foes,
I will, in lieu of your so high desserts,
Give you and yours all British lands that lie
Between the flood of Humber and the Scots:
Besides as much in Kent as Horsa and
Hengistus had, when Vortigern was king.
CHELDRICHUS. Your gracious proffers I accept with thanks;
Not for the gain, but for the good desire
I have henceforth to be your subject here
May thereby take effect; which I esteem
More than the rule I bear in Saxon soil.
MORDRED. Renowned lord, for your right hardy Picts
And chosen warriors to maintain my cause,
If our attempts receive a good success,
The Alban crown I give to you and yours.
DUX PICTORUM. Your highness’ bounty in so high degree,
Were cause enough to move me to my best:
But sure yourself, without regard of meed,
Should find both me and mine at your command.
MORDRED. Lord Gilla, if my hope may take success,
And that I be thereby undoubted king,
The Cornish dukedom I allot to you.
GILLA. My liege, to further your desir’d attempts,
I joyfully shall spend my dearest blood:
The rather that I found the king your sire
So heavy lord to me and all my stock.
MORDRED. Since then our rest is on’t, and we agreed,
To war it out, what resteth now but blows?
Drive dest’nies on with swords, Mars frames the means!
Henceforth what Mordred may, now lies in you.
Ere long, if Mars ensue with good success,
Look, whatso’er it be that Arthur claims
By right or wrong, or conquests gain’d with blood
In Britain or abroad, is mine to give:--
To show, I would have said: I cannot give
What every hand must give unto itself.
Whereof who lists to purchase any share,
Now let him seek and win it with his sword:
The fates have laid it open in the field.
What stars (O heavens) or poles, or powers divine,
Do grant so great rewards for those that win!
Since then our common good, and each man’s care
Requires our joint assistance in these toils,
Shall we not hazard our extremest hap,
And rather spend our fates, than spare our foes?
The cause I care for most is chiefly yours:
This hand and heart shall make mine own secure.
That man shall see me foiled by myself,
Whate’er he be, that sees my foe unfoil’d.
Fear not the field, because of Mordred’s faults,
Nor shrink one jot the more for Arthur’s right.
Full safely fortune guideth many a guilt,
And fates have none but wretches whom they wrench.
Wherefore make speed to cheer your soldiers’ hearts.
That to their fires ye yet may add more flames.
The side that seeks to win in civil wars
Must not content itself with wonted heat.
[_Exeunt omnes præter_ MORDRED _and_ CONAN.
CONAN. Would God your highness had been more advised,
Ere too much will had drawn your wits too far!
Then had no wars endanger’d you nor yours,
Nor Mordred’s cause required foreign care.
[_Exit._
MORDRED. A troubled head: my mind revolts to fear,
And bears my body back. I inwards feel my fall:
My thoughts misgive me much. Down, terror! I
Perceive mine end, and desperate though I must
Despise despair, and somewhat hopeless hope,
The more I doubt the more I dare: by fear
I find the fact is fittest for my frame.
What though I be a ruin to the realm,
And fall myself therewith? no better end:
His last mishaps do make a man secure.
Such was King Priam’s end who, when he died,
Clos’d and wrapp’d up his kingdom in his death.
A solemn pomp, and fit for Mordred’s mind,
To be a grave and tomb to all his realm.
[_Exit_.
CHORUS.
1.
Ye princely peers, extoll’d to seats of state,
Seek not the fair that soon will turn to foul:
Oft is the fall of high and hovering fate,
And rare the room which time doth not control.
The safest seat is not on highest hill,
Where winds and storms and thunders thump their ill:
Far safer were to follow sound advice,
Than for such pride to pay so dear a price.
2.
The mounting mind that climbs the haughty cliffs,
And soaring seeks the tip of lofty type,
Intoxicates the brain with giddy drifts,
Then rolls and reels and falls at length plum-ripe.
Lo, heaving high is of so small forecast,
To totter first, and tumble down at last.
Yet Pegasus still rears himself on high,
And coltishly doth kick the clouds in sky.
3.
Who saw the grief engraven in a crown,
Or knew the bad and bane, whereto it’s bound,
Would never stick to throw and fling it down,
Nor once vouchsafe to heave it from the ground.
Such is the sweet of this ambitious power,
No sooner had, than turns oftsoons to sour,
Achiev’d with envy, exercis’d with hate,
Guarded with fear, supported with debate.
4.
O restless race of high-aspiring head!
O worthless rule both pitied and envied!
How many millions to their loss you lead,
With love and lure of kingdoms’ bliss untried!
So things untasted cause a quenchless thirst,
Which, were they known, would be refused first:
Yea, oft we see, yet seeing cannot shun
The fact we find as fondly dar’d as done.
_The Argument of the Third Act._
1. In the first scene Cador and Howell incite and exhort Arthur unto
war: who, moved with fatherly affection towards his son,
notwithstanding their persuasions, resolveth upon peace.
2. In the second scene an herald is sent from Mordred to command
Arthur to discharge his armies under pain of death, or otherwise,
if he dare, to try it by battle.
3. In the third scene Arthur calleth his assistants and soldiers
together, whom he exhorteth to pursue their foes.
4. In the fourth scene Arthur, between grief and despair, resolveth to
war.
_The Argument and Manner of the Third Dumb-Show._
During the music after the second act, there came upon the stage two
gentlemen attired in a peaceable manner, which brought with them a
table, carpet and cloth: and then having covered the table they
furnish it with incense on the one end and banquetting dishes on the
other end. Next there came two gentlemen apparelled like soldiers,
with two naked swords in their hands, the which they laid across upon
the table. Then there came two sumptuously attired and warlike who,
spying this preparation, smelled the incense and tasted the banquet.
During the which there came a messenger and delivered certain letters
to those that fed on the dainties: who, after they had well viewed and
perused the letters, furiously flung the banquet under feet, and
violently snatching the swords unto them, they hastily went their way.
By the two first that brought in the banquet was meant the servants of
peace: by the second two were meant the servants of war: by the two
last were meant Arthur and Cador. By the Messenger and his letters was
meant the defiance from Mordred.
THE THIRD ACT AND FIRST[270] SCENE.
ARTHUR, CADOR, HOWELL.
ARTHUR. Is this the welcome that my realm prepares?
Be these the thanks I win for all my wars?
Thus to forbid me land? to slay my friends?
To make their blood distain my country shores?
My son (belike), lest that our force should faint
For want of wars, prepar’d us wars himself.
He thought (perhaps) it mought impair our fame,
If none rebell’d, whose foil might praise our power.
Is this the fruit of Mordred’s forward youth
And tender age, discreet beyond his years?
O false and guileful life! O crafty world!
How cunningly convey’st thou fraud unseen!
Th’ ambitious seemeth meek, the wanton chaste;
Disguised vice for virtue vaunts itself.
Thus (Arthur), thus hath fortune play’d her part,
Blind for thy weal, clear-sighted for thy woe.
Thy kingdom’s gone, thy sphere affords no faith:
Thy son rebels: of all thy wonted pomp
No jot is left, and fortune hides her face.
No place is left for prosperous plight: mishaps
Have room and ways to run and walk at will.
Lo (Cador) both our states, your daughter’s trust,
My son’s respect, our hopes repos’d in both!
CADOR. The time, [O] puissant Prince, permits not now
To moan our wrongs, or search each several sore.
Since Arthur thus hath ransack’d all abroad,
What marvel is ’t, if Mordred rave at home?
When far and near your wars had worn the world,
What wars were left for him but civil wars?
All which requires revenge with sword and fire,
And to pursue your foes with present[271] force.
In just attempts Mars gives a rightful doom.
ARTHUR. Nay, rather (Cador) let them run their race,
And leave the heavens revengers of my wrong.
Since Britain’s prosperous state is thus debas’d
In servile sort to Mordred’s cursed pride,
Let me be thrall, and lead a private life:
None can refuse the yoke his country bears.
But as for wars, in sooth, my flesh abhors
To bid the battle to my proper blood.
Great is the love which nature doth inforce
From kin to kin, but most from sire to son.
HOWELL. The noble neck disdains the servile yoke:
Where rule hath pleas’d, subjection seemeth strange.
A king ought always to prefer his realm
Before the love he bears to kin or son.
Your realm destroy’d is ne’er restor’d again,
But time may send you kin and sons enough.
ARTHUR. How hard it is to rule th’ aspiring mind,
And what a kingly point it seems to those,
Whose lordly hands the stately sceptre sways,
Still to pursue the drift they first decreed,
My wonted mind and kingdom lets me know.
Think not but, if you drive this hazard on,
He desperate will resolve to win or die:
Whereof who knows which were the greater guilt,
The sire to slay the son, or son the sire?
CADOR. If bloody Mars do so extremely sway,
That either son or sire must needs be slain,
Give law the choice: let him die that deserves.
Each impotent affection notes a want.
No worse a vice than lenity in kings:
Remiss indulgence soon undoes a realm.
He teacheth how to sin that winks at sins,
And bids offend that suffereth an offence.
The only hope of leave increaseth crimes,
And he that pardoneth one, embold’neth all
To break the laws. Each patience fostereth wrong.
But vice severely punish’d faints at foot,
And creeps no further off than where it falls.
One sour example will prevent more vice
Than all the best persuasions in the world.
Rough rigour looks out right, and still prevails:
Smooth mildness looks too many ways to thrive.
Wherefore, since Mordred’s crimes have wrong’d the laws
In so extreme a sort, as is too strange,
Let right and justice rule with rigour’s aid,
And work his wrack at length, although too late;
That damning laws, so damned by the laws,
He may receive his deep deserved doom.
So let it fare with all that dare the like:
Let sword, let fire, let torments be their end.
Severity upholds both realm and rule.
ARTHUR. Ah too severe! far from a father’s mind.
Compassion is as fit for kings as wrath.
Laws must not low’r; rule oft admitteth ruth.
So hate, as if there were yet cause to love:
Take not their lives as foes which may be friends.
To spoil my son were to despoil myself:
Oft, whiles we seek our foes, we seek our foils.
Let’s rather seek how to allure his mind
With good deserts: deserts may win the worst.
HOWELL. Where Cato first had saved a thief from death,
And after was himself condemn’d to die,
When else not one would execute the doom,
Who but the thief did undertake the task?
If too much bounty work so bad effects
In thankless friends, what for a ruthless foe?
Let laws have still their course: the ill-dispos’d
Grudge at their lives to whom they owe too much.
ARTHUR. But yet where men with reconciled minds
Renew their love with recontinued grace,
Atonement frames them friends of former foes,
And makes the moods of swelling wrath to ’suage.
No faster friendship than that grows from grief,
When melting minds with mutual ruth relent.
How close the severed skin unites again,
When salves have smoothly heal’d the former hurts!
CADOR. I never yet saw heart so smoothly heal’d,
But that the scar bewray’d the former wound:
Yea, where the salve did soonest close the skin,
The sore was oft’ner covered up than cur’d:
Which festering deep and fill’d within, at last
With sudden breach grew greater than at first.
What then for minds which have revenging moods,
And ne’er forget the cross they forced bear?
Whereto if reconcilement come, it makes
The t’one secure, whiles t’other works his will.
Atonement seld defeats, but oft defers
Revenge: beware a reconciled foe.
ARTHUR. Well, what avails to linger in this life,
Which fortune but reserves for greater grief?
This breath draws on but matter of mishap:
Death only frees the guiltless from annoys.
Who so hath felt the force of greedy fates,
And ’dur’d the last decree of grisly death,
Shall never yield his captive arms to chains,
Nor drawn in triumph deck the victor’s pomp.
HOWELL. What mean these words? Is Arthur forc’d to fear?
Is this the fruit of your continual wars,
Even from the first remembrance of your youth?
ARTHUR. My youth (I grant) and prime of budding years,
Puff’d up with pride and fond desire of praise,
Foreweening nought what perils might ensue,
Adventured all and raught to will the reins:[272]
But now this age requires a sager course,
And will, advis’d by harms, to wisdom yields.
Those swelling spirits, the self-same cause which first
Set them on gog, even fortune’s favours quail’d,
And now mine oft’nest scapes do scare me most.
I fear the trap whereat I oft have tripp’d:
Experience tells me plain that chance is frail,
And oft the better past, the worse to come.
CADOR. Resist these doubts: ’tis ill to yield to harms.
’Tis safest then to dare, when most you fear.
ARTHUR. As safe sometimes to fear, when most we dare:
A causeless courage gives repentance place.
HOWELL. If fortune fawn.
ARTHUR. Each way on me she frowns;
For win I, lose I, both procure my grief.
CADOR. Put case you win, what grief?
ARTHUR. Admit I do, what joy?
CADOR. Then may you rule.
ARTHUR. When I may die.
CADOR. To rule is much.
ARTHUR. Small, if we covet nought.
CADOR. Who covets not a crown?
ARTHUR. He that discerns the sword aloft.
CADOR. That hangeth fast.
ARTHUR. But by a hair.
CADOR. Right holds it up.
ARTHUR. Wrong pulls it down.
CADOR. The Commons help the king.
ARTHUR. They sometimes hurt.
CADOR. At least the Peers.
ARTHUR. Seld, if allegiance want.
CADOR. Yet sovereignty.
ARTHUR. Not if subjection[273] fail.
CADOR. Doubt not: the realm is yours.
ARTHUR. ’Twas mine ’till now.
CADOR. And shall be still.
ARTHUR. If Mordred list.
CADOR. ’Twere well your crown were won.
ARTHUR. Perhaps ’tis better lost.
HOWELL. The name of rule should move a princely mind.
ARTHUR. Trust me, bad things have often glorious names.
HOWELL. The greatest food that fortune can afford.
ARTHUR. A dangerous good, that wisdom would eschew.
HOWELL. Yet weigh the hearsay of the old renown.
And fame, the wonderer of the former age,
Which still extols the facts of worthiest wights,
Preferring no deserts before your deeds.
Even she exhorts you to this new attempt,
Which left untried your winnings be but loss.
ARTHUR. Small credit will be given of matters past
To Fame, the flatterer of the former age.
Were all believ’d which antique bruit imports,
Yet wisdom weighs the peril join’d to praise.
Rare is the fame (mark well all ages gone)
Which hath not hurt the house it most enhanc’d.
Besides, fame’s but a blast that sounds awhile,
And quickly stints, and then is quite forgot.
Look, whatsoe’er our virtues have achiev’d,
The chaos vast and greedy time devours.
To-day all Europe rings with Arthur’s praise:
’Twill be as hush’d as if I ne’er had been.
What boots it then to venture life or limb
For that which needs ere long we leave or lose?
CADOR. Can blind affection so much blear the wise,
Or love of graceless son so witch the sire,
That what concerns the honour of a prince,
With country’s good and subject’s just request,
Should lightly be contemned by a king?
When Lucius sent but for his tribute due,
You went with thirteen kings to root him out.
Have Romans, for requiring but their own,
Abode your nine years’ brunts? Shall Mordred ’scape,
That wrong’d you thus in honour, queen, and realm?
Were this no cause to stir a king to wrath,
Yet should your conquests, late achiev’d ’gainst Rome,
Inflame your mind with thirst of full revenge.
ARTHUR. Indeed, continual wars have chaf’d our minds,
And good success hath bred impatient moods.
Rome puffs us up, and makes us too--too fierce.
There, Britons, there we stand, whence Rome did fall.
Thou, Lucius, mak’st me proud, thou heav’st my mind:
But what? shall I esteem a crown ought else
Than as a gorgeous crest of easeless helm,
Or as some brittle mould of glorious pomp,
Or glittering glass which, while it shines, it breaks?
All this a sudden chance may dash, and not
Perhaps with thirteen kings, or in nine years:
All may not find so slow and ling’ring fates.
What that my country cries for due remorse,
And some relief for long-sustained toils?
By seas and lands I daily wrought her wrack,
And spareless spent her life on every foe.
Each where my soldiers perish’d, whilest I won:
Throughout the world my conquest was their spoil.
A fair reward for all their deaths, for all
Their wars abroad, to give them civil wars!
What boots it then, reserv’d from foreign foils,
To die at home? what end of ruthless rage?
At least let age and nature, worn to nought,
Provide at length their graves with wished groans.
Pity their hoary hairs, their feeble fists,
Their withered limbs, their strengths consum’d in camp!
Must they still end their lives amongst the blades?
Rests there no other fate, whilst Arthur reigns?
What deem you me? A fury fed with blood,
Or some Cyclopian, born and bred for brawls?
Think on the mind that Arthur bears to peace:
Can Arthur please you nowhere but in wars?
Be witness, heavens, how far ’tis from my mind
Therewith to spoil or sack my native soil.
I cannot yield; it brooks not in my breast
To seek her ruin whom I erst have rul’d,
What relics now soe’er both civil broils
And foreign wars have left, let those remain:
Th’ are few enough, and Britons fall too fast.
THE SECOND SCENE.
_An_ HERALD _from_ MORDRED.
HOWELL. Lo, here an herald sent from Mordred’s camp:
A froward message, if I read aright.
We mought not stir his wrath; perhaps this may:
Persuasions cannot move a Briton’s mood,
And yet none sooner stung with present wrong. [_Aside._]