_A room in the Queen’s apartments_.
_Enter_ ROSAMUND.
ROSAMUND.
I am yet alive to question if I live
And wonder what may ever bid me die.
But live I will, being yet not dead with thee,
Father. Thou knowest in Paradise my heart.
I feel thy kisses breathing on my lips,
Whereto the dead cold relic of thy face
Was pressed at bidding of thy slayer last night,
And yet they were not withered: nay, they are red
As blood is—blood but newly spilt—not thine.
How good thou wast and sweet of spirit—how dear,
Father! None lives that knew thee now save one,
And none loves me but thou nor thee but I,
That was till yesternight thy daughter: now
That very name is tainted, and my tongue
Tastes poison as I speak it. There is nought
Left in the range and record of the world
For me that is not poisoned: even my heart
Is all envenomed in me. Death is life,
Or priesthood lies that swears it: then I give
The man my husband and thy homicide
Life, if I slay him—the life he gave thee.
_Enter_ HILDEGARD.
Girl,
I sent for thee, I think: stand near me. Child,
Thou art fairer than thou knowest, I doubt: thou art fair
As the awless maidenhood of morning: truth
Should live upon thy lips, though truth were dead
On all men’s tongues and women’s born save thine.
Dawn lies not when it laughs on us. Thy queen
I am not now: thy friend I would be. Tell
Thy friend if love sleep or awake in thee
Toward any man. Thou art silent. Tell me this,
Dost thou not think, where thought scarce knows itself—
Think in the subtle sense too deep for thought—
That Almachildes loves thee?
HILDEGARD.
More than I
Love Almachildes.
ROSAMUND.
Thus a maid should speak.
Dost thou love me?
HILDEGARD.
Thou knowest it, queen.
ROSAMUND.
It lies
Now in thy power to show me more of love
Than ever yet hath man or woman. Swear,
If thou dost love me, thou wilt show it.
HILDEGARD.
I swear.
ROSAMUND.
By all our fathers’ great forsaken gods
Who smiled on all their battles, and by him
Who clomb or crept or leapt upon their throne
And signed us Christian, swear it, then.
HILDEGARD.
I swear.
ROSAMUND.
What if I bid thee give thyself to shame—
Yield up thy soul and body—play such parts
As shameless fame records of women crowned
Imperial in the tale of lust and Rome?
HILDEGARD.
Thou couldst not bid me do it.
ROSAMUND.
Thou hast sworn.
HILDEGARD.
I have sworn.
Queen, I would do it, and die.
ROSAMUND.
Thou shalt not. Yet
This must thou do, and live. Thou shalt not be
Shamed. Thou shalt bid thine Almachildes come
And speak with thee by nightfall. Say, the queen
Will give not up the maiden so beloved
—And truth it is, I love thee—willingly
To the arms of one her husband loves: but were it
Shame, utter shame, that he should wed not her,
The shamefast queen could choose not. Then shall he
Plead. Then shalt thou turn gentler than the snow
That softens at the strong sun’s kiss, and yield.
But needs must night be close about your love
And darkness whet your kisses. Light were death.
Hast thou no heart to guess now? Fear not then.
Not thou but I must put on shame. I lack
A hand for mine to grasp and strike with. His
I have chosen.
HILDEGARD.
I see but as by lightning. Queen,
What should I do but warn the king—or him?
ROSAMUND.
Thou hast sworn. I hold thee by thy word.
HILDEGARD.
My Christ,
Help me!
ROSAMUND.
No God can break thine oath in twain
And leave thee less than perjured. Thou must bid him
Make thee to-night his bride.
HILDEGARD.
I could not say it.
ROSAMUND.
Thou shalt, or God shall smite thee down to hell.
What, art thou godless?
HILDEGARD.
Art not thou?
ROSAMUND.
Not I.
I find him just and gracious, girl: he gives me
My right by might set fast on thine and thee.
HILDEGARD.
For love of mercy, queen—for honour’s sake,
Bid me not shame myself before a man—
The man I love—who gives me back at least
Honour, if love he gives not.
ROSAMUND.
Ay, my maid?
And yet he loves thee, or thy maiden thought
Errs with no gracious error, more than thou
Him?
HILDEGARD.
Art thou woman born, to cast me back
My maiden shame for shame upon my face?
I would not say I loved him more than man
Loved ever woman since the light of love
Lit them alive together. Let us be.
ROSAMUND.
I will not. Mine are both by God’s own gift.
I will not cast it from me. Ye may live
Hereafter happy: never now shall I.
HILDEGARD.
Have mercy. Nay, I cannot do it. And thou,
Albeit thine heart be hot with hate as hell,
Couldst say not, nor fold round with fairer speech,
Those foul three words the Egyptian woman said
Who tempted and could tempt not Joseph.
ROSAMUND.
No.
He would not hearken. Joseph loved not her
More than thine Almachildes me. But thou
Shalt. Now no more may I debate with thee.
Go.
HILDEGARD.
God requite thee!
ROSAMUND.
That shall he and I,
Not thou, make proof of. If I plead with him,
I crave of God but wrong’s requital. Go.
[_Exit_ HILDEGARD.
And yet, God help me! Can I do it? God’s will
May no man thwart, or leave his righteousness
Baffled. I would not say, ‘My will be done,’
Were God’s will not for righteousness as mine,
If right be righteous, wrong be wrong, must be.
How else may God work wrong’s requital? I
Must be or none may be his minister.
And yet what righteousness is his to cast
Athwart my way toward right this wrong to me,
A sin against the soul and honour? Why
Must this vile word of _yet_ cross all my thought
Always, a drifting doom or doubt that still
Strikes up and floats against my purpose? God,
Help me to know it! This weapon chosen of me,
This Almachildes, were his face not fair,
Were not his fame bright—were his aspect foul,
His name dishonourable, his line through life
A loathing and a spitting-stock for scorn,
Could I do this? Am I then even as they
Who queened it once in Rome’s abhorrent face
An empress each, and each by right of sin
Prostitute? All the life I have lived or loved
Hath been, if snows or seas or wellsprings be,
Pure as the spirit of love toward heaven is—chaste
As children’s eyes or mothers’. Though I sinned
As yet my soul hath sinned not, Albovine
Must bear, if God abhor unrighteousness,
The weight of penance heaviest laid on sin,
Shame. Not on me may shame be set, though hell
Take hold upon me dying. I would the deed
Were done, the wreak of wrath were wroken, and I
Dead.
_Enter_ ALBOVINE.
ALBOVINE.
Art thou sick at heart to see me?
ROSAMUND.
No.
ALBOVINE.
Thou art sweet and wise as ever God hath made
Woman. I would not turn thine heart from me
Or set thy spirit against the sense of mine
For more than Rome’s old empire.
ROSAMUND.
That, albeit
Thou wouldst, be sure thou canst not. God nor man
Could wake within me toward my lord the king
A new strange love or loathing. Fear not this.
ALBOVINE.
From thee can I fear nothing. Now I know
How high thy heart is, and how true to me.
ROSAMUND.
Thou knowest it now.
ALBOVINE.
I know not if I should
Repent me, or repent not, that I tried
A heart so high so sorely—proved so true.
ROSAMUND.
Do not repent. I would not have thee now
Repent.
ALBOVINE.
By Christ, if God forbade it not,
I would have said within mine own fool’s heart,
Of all vile things that fool the soul of man
The vilest and the priestliest hath to name
Repentance. Could it blot one hour’s work out,
A wise thing and a manful thing it were,
And profit were it none for priests to preach.
This will I tell thee: what last night befell
Rejoices not but irks me.
ROSAMUND.
Let it not
Rejoice nor irk thee. Vex thou not thy soul
With any thought thereon, if none may bid thee
Rejoice: and that were harsh and hard of heart.
ALBOVINE.
I will not. Queen and wife, hell durst not say
I do not love thee.
ROSAMUND.
Heaven has heard—and I.
ALBOVINE.
Forget then all this foolishness, and pray
God may forget it.
ROSAMUND.
God forgets as I.
[_Exit_ ALBOVINE.
And had repentance helped him? Shall I think
It might have molten in my burning heart
The thrice-retempered iron of resolve?
Yet well it is to know that penitence
Lies further from that frozen heart of his
Than mercy from the tiger’s. Ay, God knows,
I had scorned him too had penitence bowed him down
Before me: now I do but hate. I am not
Abased as wholly, so supremely shamed,
As though I had wedded one as hard as he
Who yet might think to soften down with words
What hardly might be cleansed with tears of blood,
The monumental memory graven on steel
That burns the naked spirit of sense within me
Like the ardent sting of keen-edged ice, which makes
The naked flesh feel fire upon it.
_Enter_ ALMACHILDES.
ALMACHILDES.
Queen,
I come to crave a word of thee.
ROSAMUND.
I hear.
ALMACHILDES.
Thou knowest I love thy noble Hildegard:
And rather would I give my soul to burn
Than wrong in thought her flawless maidenhood.
And now she hath told me what I dare not think
Truth. And I dare not think her lips may lie.
ROSAMUND.
I have heard. And what is this to me? She hath not
Said—hath not told thee, nor wouldst thou believe—
That I have breathed a lie upon her lips
Or taught them shamelessness by lesson?
ALMACHILDES.
No.
But she came forth from thee to me—from thee—
And spake with quivering mouth and quailing eyes
And face whose fire turned ashen, and again
Rekindling from that ashen agony
Flamed, what no heart could think to hear her speak,
Mine least of all, who love her.
ROSAMUND.
Ay?
ALMACHILDES.
Not she,
I know it as sure as night is known from day
And surelier than I know mine own soul’s truth,
Spake what she spake in broken bursts of breath
Out of her own heart and its love for me.
ROSAMUND.
Didst thou so answer her?
ALMACHILDES.
I might not well
Answer at all.
ROSAMUND.
Poor maid, she hath loved amiss.
Belike she thought to find in thee a man’s
Love.
ALMACHILDES.
That she hath found; nought meaner than a man’s;
No wolfish lust of ravenous insolence
To soil and spoil her of her noblest name.
ROSAMUND.
I do not ask thee what she said. I know.
ALMACHILDES.
I knew thou didst.
ROSAMUND.
To make your bridal sure
She bade thee make thy bride of her to-night.
ALMACHILDES.
She bade me as a slave might bid the scourge
Fall.
ROSAMUND.
Such a scourge no slave might shrink from; nay,
No free-born woman, Almachildes.
ALMACHILDES.
Queen,
I crave thy queenly mercy though I say
My maid, my bride that will be, shrank, and showed
In all the rosebright anguish of her face
A shuddering shame that wrung my heart. And thou
Hast surely set thereon that seal of shame.
I know it as thou dost.
ROSAMUND.
Ay, and more she said,
Surely: she said I would not yield her up
To the arms of one my husband loves and holds
Honoured at heart—I hate my husband so,
She told thee—were the need avoidable
Save by her sacrifice to shame.
ALMACHILDES.
Thou knowest
All, as I knew, and lacked not from thy lips
Confession.
ROSAMUND.
Warrior though thou be, and boy
Though my lord call thee, brainless art thou not—
No sword with man’s face carven on the heft
For mockery more than truth or help in fight.
I do not and I durst not play with thee.
Thy bride spake truth: I knew not she might need
So much of truth to tempt thee toward her. Now
Thou knowest, and I know. If this imminent night
Make not thy darkling bride of her, by day
Thy bride she may be never. She hath sworn.
ALMACHILDES.
Why wouldst thou shame her?
ROSAMUND.
Shamed she cannot be
If thou be found not shameless. Plead no more
Against thine own love’s surety. Doubt thou not
I wish thee well, and love her. Make not thou
Out of her shamefast maidenhood and fear
A sword to cleave your happiness in twain.
What if some oath constrain me, sworn in haste,
Infrangible for shame’s sake, sealed in heaven
Inevitable? Ask now no more of me.
Nightfall is here upon us. Nought on earth
May set the season of your bridal back
If thou be true as she must. Wait awhile
Here till a sign be sent thee—till a bell
Strike softly from this chamber here at hand.
I have sworn to her she shall not see thy face,
So sore she prayed she might not: and for thee
I swore that ere the darkling air grew grey
Thou shouldst arise and leave her, and behold
Thy midnight bride but when thou art bidden again
To meet her here to-morrow. Strange it were,
More strange than aught of all, that thou shouldst prove
Dishonourable: and except thou be, these things
Must all be wrought in this wise, lest her oath
And mine, at peril of her soul and life,
By passionate forgetfulness of thine
Disloyally be broken. Swear to us now
Thou wilt not break our oath and thine, or think
To look to-night upon thy bride.
ALMACHILDES.
I swear.
ROSAMUND.
I take thine oath. I bid not thee take heed
That I or thou or each of us at once,
Couldst thou play false, may die: I bid thee think
Thy bride will die, shamed. Swear me not again
She shall not: all our trust is set on thee.
What eyes and ears are keen about us here
Thou knowest not. Love, my love and thine for her,
Shall deafen and shall blind them. Be but thou
A bridegroom blind and dumb—speak soft as love,
And ask not answer louder than a sigh—
And when to-morrow sets thy bride and thee
Here face to face again, thy soul shall stand
Amazed: thy joy shall turn to wonder. This
Thy queen, whose power may seal her promise fast,
Swears for thine oath again to thee. Good night.
[_Exit_.
ALMACHILDES.
I cannot think I live. Our Sigurd loved not
Brynhild as I love her, and even this hour
Shall make us great as they. No spell to break,
No fire to pass, divides us. Blind and dumb,
Love knows, would I be ever while I live
For love’s sake rather than forego the joy
That makes one godlike power of spirit and sense,
One godhead born of manhood. God requite
The queen who loves my love and cares for me
Thus! How may man or God requite her? Ah!
[_Bell rings softly from without_.
There sounds the note that opens heaven on me,
And how should man dare heaven? But love may dare.
[_Exit_.