Though now bereft of crown and former rule.
Vouchsafe me leave my message to impart,
No jot enforc’d, but as your son affords.
If here you stay but three days to an end,
And not forthwith discharge your bands and host,
’Tis Mordred’s oath: assure yourself to die.
But if you find your courage so to serve,
As for to stand to your defence with force,
In Cornwall (if you dare) he’ll try it out.
ARTHUR. Is this the choice my son doth send his sire?
And must I die, or try it, if I dare?
To die were ill, thus to be dar’d is worse.
Display my standard forth! let trump and drum
Call soldiers near to hear their sovereign’s hest.
THE THIRD SCENE.
GAWIN _King of Albany_, ASCHILLUS _King of Denmark_,
KING OF NORWAY. _A number of Soldiers._
ARTHUR. O friends, and fellows of my weariest toils,
Which have borne out with me so many brunts,
And desperate storms of wars and brainsick Mars!
Lo now the hundreth month, wherein we win!
Hath all the blood we spent in foreign coasts,
The wounds and deaths, and winters bode abroad,
Deserved thus to be disgraced at home?
All Britain rings of wars: no town nor field
But swarms with armed troops: the mustering trains
Stop up the streets: no less a tumult’s rais’d,
Than when Hengistus fell, and Horsa, fierce
With treacherous truce, did overrun the realm.
Each corner threateneth death: both far and near
Is Arthur vex’d. What, if my force had fail’d
And standard fall’n, and ensigns all been torn,
And Roman troops pursu’d me at the heels,
With luckless wars assay’d in foreign soils?
Now that our fortune heaves us up thus high,
And heavens themselves renew our old renown,
Must we be dar’d? Nay, let that princock come,
That knows not yet himself, nor Arthur’s force;
That ne’er yet waged wars; that’s yet to learn
To give the charge: yea, let that princock come,
With sudden soldiers pamper’d up in peace,
And gowned troops and wantons worn with ease;
With sluggish Saxons’ crew and Irish kerns,
And Scottish aid, and false redshanked Picts,
Whose slaughters yet must teach their former foil.
They shall perceive with sorrow, ere they part,
When all their toils be told, that nothing works
So great a waste and ruin in this age,
As do my wars. O Mordred, blessed son!
No doubt these market-mates, so highly hir’d,
Must be the stay of thy usurped state.
And lest my head, inclining now to years,
Should joy the rest, which yet it never reap’d,
The traitor Gilla, train’d in treacherous jars,
Is chief in arms to reave me of my realm.
What corner (ah), for all my wars, shall shroud
My bloodless age? what seat for due deserts?
What town or field for ancient soldiers’ rest?
What house? what roof? what walls for wearied limbs?
Stretch out again, stretch out your conquering hands!
Still we must use the force so often us’d.
To those that will pursue a wrong with wreak
He giveth all, that once denies the right.
Thou soil, which erst Diana did ordain
The certain seat and bow’r of wand’ring Brute:
Thou realm, which aye I reverence as my saint,
Thou stately Britain, th’ ancient type of Troy,
Bear with my forced wrongs! I am not he,
That willing would impeach thy peace with wars!
Lo, here both far and wide I conqueror stand:
Arthur, each where thine own, thy liege, thy king.
Condemn not mine attempts; he, only he,
Is sole in fault that makes me thus thy foe.
Here I renounce all leagues and treats of truce:
Thou, fortune, henceforth art my guard and guide!
Hence, peace! on wars run fates: let Mars be judge;
I erst did trust to right, but now to rage.
Go, tell the boy that Arthur fears no brags:
In vain he seeks to brave it with his sire.
I come (Mordred), I come, but to thy pain.
Yea, tell the boy his angry father comes
To teach a novice both to die and dare.
[_Herald exit._
HOWELL. If we without offence (O greatest guide
Of British name) may pour our just complaints,
We most mislike that your too mild a mood
Hath thus withheld our hands and swords from strokes.
For what? were we behind in any help?
Or without cause did you misdoubt our force,
Or truth so often tried with good success?
Go to: conduct your army to the field;
Place man to man, oppose us to our foes:
As much we need to work, as wish your weal.
CADOR. Seems it so sour to win by civil wars?
Were it to gore with pike my father’s breast;
Were it to rive and cleave my brother’s head;
Were it to tear peacemeal my dearest child,
I would enforce my grudging hands to help.
I cannot term that place my native soil,
Whereto your trumpets send their warlike sounds.
If case requir’d to batter down the tow’rs
Of any town that Arthur would destroy,
Yea, were ’t of Britain’s self, which most I reed,
Her bulwarks, fortress, rampiers, walls and fence,
These arms should rear the rams to run them down.
Wherefore, ye princes, and the rest, my mates,
If what I have averr’d in all your names,
Be likewise such as stands to your content,
Let all your yeas avow my premise[274] true.
SOLDIERS. Yea, yea, &c.
ASCHILLUS. Wherein, renowmed king, myself or mine,
My life, my kingdom, and all Denmark’s pow’r,
May serve your turn: account them all your own.
KING OF NORWAY. And whatsoe’er my force, or Norway aid,
May help in your attempts, I vow it here.
GAWIN. As heretofore I always serv’d your hest.
So let this day be judge of Gawin’s trust.
Either my brother Mordred dies the death
By mine assault, or I at least by his.
ARTHUR. Since thus (my faithful mates) with vows alike
And equal love to Arthur’s cause you join
In common care to wreak my private wrongs,
Lift up your ensigns efts, stretch out your strengths;
Pursue your fates; perform your hopes to Mars.
Lo, here the last and outmost work for blades!
This is the time that all our valour craves:
This time by due desert restores again
Our goods, our lands, our lives, our weal and all.
This time declares by fates whose cause is best;
This, this condemns the vanquish’d side of guilt.
Wherefore, if for my sake you scorn yourselves,
And spare no sword nor fire in my defence,
Then, whiles my censure justifies your cause,
Fight, fight amain, and clear your blades from crime:
The judge once chang’d, no wars are free from guilt.
The better cause gives us the greater hope
Of prosperous wars; wherein, if once I hap
To spy the wonted signs, that never fail’d
Their guide--your threatening looks, your fiery eyes,
And bustling bodies prest to present spoil,
The field is won! Even then, methinks, I see
The wonted wastes and scattered heads of foes,
The Irish carcass kick’d, and Picts oppress’d,
And Saxons slain to swim in streams of blood.
I quake with hope. I can assure you all,
We never had a greater match in hand.
March on! Delay no fates, whilst fortune fawns;
The greatest praise of war consists in speed.
[_Exeunt Reges et Cohors._
THE FOURTH SCENE.
CADOR, ARTHUR.
CADOR. Since thus (victorious king) your peers allies,
Your lords, and all your powers be ready prest,
For good, for bad, for whatsoe’er shall hap,
To spend both limb and life in your defence,
Cast off all doubts and rest yourself on Mars:
A hopeless fear forbids a happy fate.
ARTHUR. In sooth (good Cador), so our fortune fares,
As needs we must return to wonted force.
To wars we must; but such unhappy wars,
As leave no hope for right or wrong to ’scape.
Myself foresees the fate; it cannot fall
Without our dearest blood: much may the mind
Of pensive sire presage, whose son so sins.
All truth, all trust, all blood, all bands be broke!
The seeds are sown that spring to future spoil.
My son, my nephew, yea, each side myself,
Nearer than all (woe’s me), too near, my foe!
Well, ’tis my plague for life so lewdly led.
The price of guilt is still a heavier guilt;
For were it light, that ev’n by birth myself
Was bad, I made my sister bad: nay, were
That also light, I have begot as bad,
Yea, worse, an heir assign’d to all our sins.
Such was his birth: what base, what vulgar vice,
Could once be look’d for of so noble blood?
The deeper guilt descends, the more it roots:
The younger imps effect the huger crimes.
[_Exeunt._
CHORUS.
1.
When many men assent to civil wars
And yield a suffrage to enforce the fates,
No man bethinks him of his own mishap,
But turns that luck unto another’s share.
Whereas if fear did first forewarn each foil,
Such love to fight would breed no Briton’s bane.
And better were still to preserve our peace,
Than thus to vent for peace through waging wars.
What folly to forego such certain haps,
And in their stead to feed uncertain hopes!
Such hopes as oft have puff’d up many a realm,
Till cross-success hath press’d it down as deep:
Whiles blind affection, fetch’d from private cause,
Misguiding wit hath mask’d in wisdom’s veil,
Pretending what in purpose it abhorr’d.
2.
Peace hath three foes encamped in our breasts;
Ambition, wrath and envy, which subdu’d,
We should not fail to find eternal peace.
’Tis in our pow’r to joy it all at will,
And few there be, but if they will, they may:
But yet even those, who like the name of peace,
Through fond desire repine at peace itself,
Between the hope whereof and it itself
A thousand things may fall, that further wars.
The very speech sometimes and treats of truce
Is slash’d and cut asunder with the sword.
Nor seld the name of peace doth edge our minds,
And sharpeneth on our fury, till we fight;
So that the mention made of love and rest
Is oft a whetstone to our hate and rage.
3.
Lo, here the end that kingly pomp imparts:
The quiet rest that princely palace plights!
Care upon care, and every day anew
Fresh rising tempest tires the tossed minds.
Who strives to stand in pomp of princely port,
On giddy top and culm of slippery court,
Finds oft a heavy fate; whiles too much known
To all, he falls unknown unto himself.[275]
Let whoso else that list affect the name,
But let me seem a potentate to none:
My slender bark shall creep[276] anenst the shore,
And shun the winds that sweep the waltering waves.
Proud fortune overslips[277] the safest roads,
And seeks amidst the surging seas those keels,
Whose lofty tops and tacklings touch the clouds.
4.
O base, yet happy boors! O gifts of gods
Scant yet perceiv’d! when powd’red ermine robes
With secret sighs, mistrusting their extremes,
In baleful breast forecast their foultring[278] fates,
And stir, and strive, and storm, and all in vain;
Behold the peasant poor with tattered coat,
Whose eyes a meaner fortune feeds with sleep,
How safe and sound the careless snudge doth snore.
Low-roofed lurks the house of slender hap,
Costless, not gay without, scant clean within;
Yet safe, and oft’ner shrouds the hoary hairs,
Than haughty turrets, rear’d with curious art,
To harbour heads that wield the golden crest.
With endless cark in glorious courts and towns,
The troubled hopes and trembling fears do dwell.
_The Argument of the Fourth Act._
1. In the first scene Gildas and Conan confer of the state of Britain.
2. In the second scene Nuntius maketh report of the whole battle, with
the death of Mordred, and Arthur’s and Cador’s deadly wound.
3. In the third scene Gildas and Conan lament the unfortunate state of
the country.
_The Argument and Manner of the Fourth Dumb Show._
During the music appointed after the third act, there came in a Lady
courtly attired with a counterfeit child in her arms, who walked
softly on the stage. From another place there came a king crowned, who
likewise walked on another part of the stage. From a third place there
came four soldiers all armed who, spying this Lady and King, upon a
sudden pursued the Lady, from whom they violently took her child, and
flung it against the walls; she, in mournful sort wringing her hands,
passed her way. Then in like manner they set on the king, tearing his
crown from his head, and casting it in pieces under feet, drave him by
force away, and so passed themselves over the stage. By this was meant
the fruit of war, which spareth neither man, woman, nor child, with
the end of Mordred’s usurped crown.
THE FOURTH ACT AND FIRST SCENE.
GILDAS, CONAN.
GILDAS. Lord Conan, though I know how hard a thing
It is for minds train’d up in princely thrones,
To hear of ought against their humour’s course,
Yet, sithence who forbiddeth not offence,
If well he may, is cause of such offence,
I could have wish’d (and blame me not, my lord)
Your place and countenance both with son and sire
Had more prevail’d on either side, than thus
T’ have left a crown in danger for a crown
Through civil wars, our country’s wonted woe:
Whereby the kingdom’s wound, still fest’ring deep,
Sucks up the mischievous[279] humour to the heart.
The staggering state of Britain’s troubled brains,
Headsick and sore encumbered in her crown,
With giddy steps runs on a headlong race.
Whereto this tempest tends, or where this storm
Will break, who knows? but gods avert the worst!
CONAN. Now surely (Gildas) as my duty stood
Indifferent for the best to son and sire,
So (I protest), since these occasions grew,
That in the depth of my desire to please,
I more esteem’d what honest faith requir’d
In matters meet for their estates and place,
Than how to feed each fond affection, prone
To bad effects, whence their disgrace mought grow.
And as for Mordred’s desperate and disloyal plots,
They had been none, or fewer at the least,
Had I prevail’d, which Arthur knows right well.
But even as counters go sometimes for one,
Sometimes for thousands more, sometimes for none:
So men in greatest countenance with their king
Can work by fit persuasion sometimes much;
But sometimes less, and sometimes nought at all.
GILDAS. Well, we that have not spent our time in wars,
But bent our course at peace and country’s weal,
May rather now expect what strange event
And chance ensues of these so rare attempts,
Than enter to discourse upon their cause,
And err as wide in words, as they in deeds.
CONAN. And lo, to satisfy your wish therein,
Where comes a soldier sweating from the camp.
THE SECOND SCENE.
NUNCIUS.
NUNCIUS. Thou echo shrill, that haunt’st the hollow hills,
Leave off, that wont to snatch the latter word.
Howl on a whole discourse of our distress:
Clip off no clause; sound out a perfect sense.
GILDAS. What fresh mishap (alas), what new annoy
Removes our pensive minds from wonted woes,
And yet requires a new lamenting mood,
Declare! we joy to handle all our harms:
Our many griefs have taught us still to mourn.
NUNCIUS. But (ah) my tongue denies my speech his aid:
Great force doth drive it forth; a greater keeps
It in. I rue, surpris’d with wontless woes.
CONAN. Speak on what grief soe’er our fates afford.
NUNCIUS. Small griefs can speak, the great astonish’d stand.[280]
GILDAS. What greater sin could hap, than what be pass’d?
What mischiefs could be meant, more than were wrought?
NUNCIUS. And think you there’s to be an end to sins?
No; crime proceeds: those made but one degree.
What mischiefs erst were done, term sacred deeds:
Call nothing sin but what hath since ensu’d.
A greater grief requires your tears. Behold
These fresh annoys: your last mishaps be stale.
CONAN. Tell on (my friend): suspend our minds no more.
Hath Arthur lost? hath Mordred won the field?
NUNCIUS. O, nothing less! would, gods, it were but so!
Arthur hath won, but we have lost the field.
The field? Nay, all the realm and Britain’s bounds.
GILDAS. How so? If Arthur won, what could we lose?
You speak in clouds, and cast perplexed words.
Unfold at large, and sort our sorrows out.
NUNCIUS. Then list awhile: this instant shall unwrap
Those acts, those wars, those hard events, that all
The future age shall ever have cause to curse--
Now that the time drew on, when both the camps
Should meet in Cornwall fields, th’ appointed place.
The reckless troops, whom fates forbad to live
Till noon or night, did storm and rave for wars.
They swarm’d about their guides, and clust’ring call’d
For signs to fight; and fierce with uproars fell,
They onwards hal’d the hasting hours of death.
A direful frenzy rose: each man his own
And public fates all heedless headlong flung.
On Mordred’s side were sixty thousand men;
Some borrowed powers, some Britons bred at home.
The Saxons, Irish, Normans, Picts and Scots
Were first in place: the Britons followed last.
On Arthur’s side there were as many more:
Islandians, Goths, Norwegians, Albans, Danes,
Were foreign aids which Arthur brought from France;
A trusty troop and tried at many a trench.
That now the day was come, wherein our state
For aye should fall, whenceforth might men inquire
What Britain was, these wars thus near bewray’d.
Nor could the heavens no longer hide these harms,
But by prodigious signs portend our plagues.
For lo, ere both the camps encountering cop’d,
The skies and poles opposed themselves with storms:
Both east and west with tempests dark were dimm’d,
And showers of hail and rain outrageous pour’d.
The heavens were rent, each side the lightnings flash’d,
And clouds with hideous claps did thundering roar.
The armies, all aghast, did senseless stand,
Mistrusting much both force, and foes, and fates;
’Twas hard to say which of the two appall’d
Them most, the monstrous air or too much fear.
When Arthur spied his soldiers thus amaz’d,
And hope extinct, and deadly dread drawn on:
My mates (quoth he) the gods do scour the skies,
The fates contend to work some strange event,
And fortune seeks by storms in heavens and earth,
What pageants[281] she may play for my behoof:
Of whom she knows she then deserves not well,
When (ling’ring ought) she comes not at the first.
Thus said, rejoicing at his dauntless mind,
They all reviv’d and former fear recoil’d,
By that the light of Titan’s troubled beams
Had piercing scattered down the drooping fogs,
And greeted both the camps with mutual view.
Their choler swells, whiles fell-disposed minds
Bounce in their breasts, and stir uncertain storms.
Then paleness wan and stern, with cheerless change,
Possessing bleak their lips and bloodless cheeks,
With troublous trembling, shows their death is near.
When Mordred saw the danger thus approach’d,
And boist’rous throngs of warriors threat’ning blood,
His instant ruin gave a nod at fates,
And mind, though prone to Mars, yet daunted paus’d.
The heart which promis’d erst a sure success,
Now throbs in doubts, nor can his own attempts
Afford him fear, nor Arthur’s yield him hope.
This passion lasts not long: he soon recalls
His ancient guise, and wonted rage returns.
He loathes delays, and scorch’d with sceptre’s lust,
The time and place, wherein he oft had wish’d
To hazard all upon extremest chance,
He offer’d spies, and spied pursues with speed.
Then both the armies met with equal might,
This stirr’d with wrath, that with desire to rule,
And equal prowess was a spur to both.
The Irish king whirl’d out a poisoned dart,
That lighting pierced deep in Howell’s brains,
A peerless prince and near of Arthur’s blood.
Hereat the air with uproar loud resounds,
Which efts on mountains rough rebounding rears.
The trumpets hoarse their trembling tunes do tear,
And thund’ring drums their dreadful larums ring.
The standards broad are blown and ensigns spread,
And every nation bends his wonted wars.
Some near their foes, some further off do wound,
With dart or sword, or shaft, or pike, or spear;
The weapons hide the heavens; a night compos’d
Of warlike engines overshades the field.
From every side these fatal signs are sent,
And boist’rous bangs with thumping thwacks fall thick.
Had both these camps been of usurping kings,
Had every man thereof a Mordred been,
No fiercelier had they fought for all their crowns.
The murthers meanless wax’d, no art in fight,
Nor way to ward nor try each other’s skill.
But thence the blade, and hence the blood ensues.
CONAN. But what! did Mordred’s eyes endure this sight?
NUNCIUS. They did; and he himself, the spur of fiends
And Gorgons all, lest any part of his
Scap’d free from guilt, enflam’d their minds to wrath,
And with a valour, more than virtue yields,
He cheer’d them all, and at their back with long
Outreached spear stirr’d up each ling’ring hand.
All fury-like, frounc’d up with frantic frets,
He bids them leave and shun the meaner sort,
He shows the kings and Britain’s noblest peers.
GILDAS. He was not now to seek what blood to draw:
He knew what juice refresh’d his fainting crown,
Too much of Arthur’s heart. O, had he wist,
How great a vice such virtue was as then,
In civil wars, in rooting up his realm!
O frantic fury, far from valour’s praise!
NUNCIUS. There fell Aschillus stout, of Denmark king;
There valiant Gawin, Arthur’s nephew dear,
And late by Augel’s death made Alban king,
By Mordred’s hand hath lost both life and crown.
There Gilla wounded Cador, Cornish duke,
In hope to win the dukedom for his meed.
The Norway king, the Saxon’s duke, and Picts,
In woeful sort fell grovelling to the ground.
There prince and peasant both lay hurl’d on heaps:
Mars frown’d on Arthur’s mates: the fates wax’d fierce,
And jointly ran this race with Mordred’s rage.
CONAN. But with what joy (alas) shall he return,
That thus returns the happier for this field?