Did sadly mind his dog-star42 scrabbling43 days.
GUENHERA
One’s heart gone forth is hardly whistled home,
Not when it leaves behind true-weeping love.
ARTHUR
I would a kiss could drive away that pain.
GUENHERA
Thy lips, O King, are like Achilles’ spear,44
Such weapons that do wound and also heal?
ARTHUR
Might I not heal myself while healing thee?
GUENHERA
O fie! What pain ails thee, luxurious45 king?
ARTHUR
Regret46 can scratch a man so rough as thorns.
GUENHERA
Invention pains as well. Reports of love
That touched my ears stung worse than what I spied.
Oh, yes, I spied from in the tickling gorse.47
I spied you woo them, win them, weave their crowns
Of yellow buds that opened for the sun.
ARTHUR
’Twas nothing but some twisted celandine.48
My nurse did use to grind it when in need
And made from it a certain private paste.49
So nothing that thou spied should bring thee grief.
GUENHERA
I spied them weep, my eyes salt-ripe50 as theirs.
I do suspect that now, regretful king,
’Tis more convenient you should give each girl
Full half your face engraved upon a coin,
Thus binding up rememberance and pay.
ARTHUR
For all the sorrow that boy moved in thee,
I strong rebuke him and on his account
Requit with crown that I have by my hand,
No crown of weeds that will not live a day
But that becomes thy beauty and thy state,
And may yet cure the harm to thee and me.
GUENHERA
O smooth, smooth king, what sayest thou to me
Thou hast not sworn an hundred times before?
ARTHUR
Unjust, fair Guenhera, and here’s the proof:
For half the month has Gloucester filled my ears
With policy, alliances, and leagues,
And all my flaws from when I was a babe.
One hour ago, by his sharp reasoning,
I thought to yield the day and bow my head,
To play a kingly lover, winning us
Some foreign fields and rights to levy tax.
But now I am as mute as any boy
Who never yet has touched a lover’s lips.
I’m dry. Wouldst have a king before thee kneel?
I kneel. Wouldst have a king forsake demesnes?
Adieu to France attending in the hall.
GUENHERA
An if it were reversed, not thou but I
Who left behind to weep discarded loves,
Wouldst thy new faith in my new bond be strong?
Couldst thou forgive and take me as thy queen?
ARTHUR
Return with me to woods in Gloucestershire,
Begin anew upon our proper path.
Thy hand. Thy hand, and in the oakshot51 sun
Come walk thy ways with me, o’er roots and earth.
Soft, kiss me, Guen, half-close thy lovely eyne52
And in this wispen53 dawn of gold-flecked mist
We catch our breath and hear the lark’s first song.
Soft, kiss me, Guen, and take this flowered crown
[He crowns her]
And sit with me in shade and kiss me, Guen.
[He kisses her]
GUENHERA
Need call we now the courtiers?
ARTHUR
Anon.
Exeunt
[ACT III, SCENE II]
[Location: The Royal Kennels]
Enter the Houndmaster and his Boy
MASTER
He fought his bit of war, yes, but that’s all done now.
And see if it were not what I augured.1 He sends his
his army home, the most of ’em, to fields and
traffics.2 Those uncles of thine, home again, both
arms about ’em. The earth gives up its foison,3 the
markets are loud with cries, roads all teem with
wheels. The queen is round with young.4 The court’s
a court of music all the day. The king’s that boy again
I loved. He came again last night, d’ye know, and
called me friend, and stood at this gate here and
stepped up to the bar to reach within, and he did
watch the hounds an hour yet. Asked all their names
and stepped right in, dropped to his knees and had
them in his arms, suffered them to wet his royal face
and stroked the velvet of their ears. Said he thought
Hamish was of Edgar’s line, noble shoulder, noble
brow and muzzle, he said, the color minded him of
Edgar. He has the eye for blood. And now the queen
ripe to bring a prince, that prince will come to us,
mark it, see, and learn the dogs as well. Both be
here.
BOY
If she whelps5 a prince, what’s that make for Tom, the
boy of Joan? And Phoebe’s boy? Not princes are
they, sure?
MASTER
With beagles, ’tis no matter, sith, by law, the sire’s
good qualities hold strong into the pups. A bad dam
makes no harm upon the litter. Good sire means good
pups: good head, hard tooth, strong croup,6 there’s
thy father, there’s thy pup. People: ’tis not so. Take
Tom, thou sayest, and mark: his dam found that
Silvius7,8 to wed her, so Tom’s no prince, or is no
more, if he were. And, mark his face and colors, he’s
more to his dam or even Silvius than he do
resemble—thou know’st the word.9 Though Silvius is
fat and gross enough in breadth to stick a cross-
passage10 while that Tom be slender as—11 ’tis not for
us. Now Phoebe’s got no husband, so the church says
her boy’s an orphan.
BOY
She calls him her own prince, says he’ll have a
kingdom in the sky.
MASTER
She’d be kinder yet to handle him as a good dog and
not talk such. Mark Agnes there. Does she spend her
days in thinking on what heaven holds for her? Does
she think on yesterday’s meat or tomorrow’s rain? And
d’ye know one so content to sleep and bark? Peace,
boy. The king has made us peace, we leave him his in
turn.
BOY
The sun is almost lifted up.
MASTER
Come then, couple ’em, show me thou knowest which
hound suits each huntsman’s will. Not Argos,
though. Give him yet another day to lick that leg.
Exeunt
[ACT III, SCENE III]
[Location: A hall of the court, London]
Enter Cumbria and Norfolk
CUMBRIA
These months in court have emptied me of heart.
We are now imbecile1 and womanish.
I counsel thee, O Norfolk, fear what comes,
How haughty proud is Arthur of his court.
Immortal glories he proclaims and scorns
His father’s attributes as barbarous.
’Tis fools who hope their world will never end,
That only ancient kingdoms durst2 expire.
But search dull tomes of crumbled nations past,
And learn that soon before each empire’s death
Was manly virtue banished from within.
Now Arthur sets us all to scholarship
Of kingdoms and their ruin: England’s next.
NORFOLK
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Great Cumbria lends voice to all my fears.
CUMBRIA
Each folly doth insist it is first-born
And nothing owes to madness gone before:
Our court’s decay3 is nothing like to Rome’s,
’Tis true, yet still will lead us to our end.
NORFOLK
I doubted4 Arthur’s realm would slave to lust,
But not to see this meacock5 court of wives.
His youthful passions are reversed left-right,
So lust remains, yet only for the queen.
The queen is all. Her crotchets6 are his toil.
CUMBRIA
He shapes each man of us into his like.
We are no men but play at manliness.
From inside we are hollowed empty armor.
The court abounds of players and of tales.
Once mighty battle ranks reform to dance.
Now fablers win his love; all deeds are thought.
This dandled7 king was ne’er a martial lord,
His brows do frown on those who counsel arms.
He longs for heaven’s peace brought down to earth,
And does beguile himself to credit too
That England’s enemies should find delight
To sit and mazèd8 wonder at his arts,
Whilst all our forces till and sell and sleep,
And will in battle’s heat abrook9 no pains.
NORFOLK
The queen had but a single holy task:
She tarried long at it, then bore no heir.
King Arthur yet forgives her useless womb.
Whilst each10 her bloody mischance cheers our foes
He claps her words, proclaims each one conceitful.11
Were I King Mordred, great, at least, in hate,12
Or Childebert, whose daughter we did scorn,
I would rain plague and war upon this land.
CUMBRIA
Doth Gloucester not advise the king our foes
Admire13 at us, wide-lipped14 as rav’ning15 dogs?
There will be death upon our kingdom’s gates.
This minstrels’ court will run with English blood.
NORFOLK
O, Arthur’s queen and Gloucester is his maid:
He wants but clout16 and tire17 to serve this hive.
CUMBRIA
Unjust to bees who know of war.18
What duty can we owe to folly’s prince?
NORFOLK
But soft, my earl. Be chary of such thought.
Our fealty’s19 not chosen, nor can be
Withdrawn when grievance burns our gorge with bile.
This king is king by God’s own will, not ours.
CUMBRIA
Let contemplation wander on a path
Where action need not follow wingèd thought.
I speak not of King Arthur’s case today,
But of the gen’ral, philosophical.
If any king doth die, by loving hand,
And kingdom thence be saved ere sands run out,
Then violence diverts no will of God
But acts it forth, as if one were His hand.
NORFOLK
But, Cumbria, this is no end of it.
That next king, stern and measured to your taste,
Must every moment fear another blade
From one erroneously reading signs
And thus misprising20 all of God’s desires.
There is no end to contemplation’s path.
Assassins breed assassins swift as hares.
We must bear under folly and dispose
The ends of kings t’the king of all our ends.
I pray you, Earl, to let such thinkings go.
CUMBRIA
Your learning suits a university.
NORFOLK
Our virtue will prevail by fearless words
And force of great example. Now, farewell.
CUMBRIA
Farewell, my friend. I will take heed of this.
Exit Norfolk.
To see the conflagration in the spark,
But, from some conscience-words of little heft,
Not dare prevent the scorching of our realm,
Would tear my heart from me as with a hook.
I want nor crown nor vulgar admiration,
And could in innocence play regicide
As shallow Arthur has too long played king.
Come, hand, couldst thou perform this hellish act?
But think upon’t. In mind’s eye perceive
The moment when: the start of fear, the cry,
The stream of blood, the man betrayed who looks
Into your eye in want of answers there,
The sacrifice of your eternal soul
Which you do willing give to devil’s clutch