Texts
Mordred: A Tragedy in Five Acts, founded on the Arthurian relation of Sir Thomas Malory (Prologue) by William Wilfred Campbell (1895)
The Arthurian story is one of the most remarkable in human history or literature. There is strong reason to believe that modern scholars have been wrong in their attitude toward what is commonly called mythology.
I believe that it will yet be acknowledged that what is now regarded as pure myth is in reality degenerate history, and that what has been considered mere fable and the out-growth of the child-like imagination of primitive peoples is rather the time-dimmed account of great civilizations of the early world.
This is a question which I am dealing with in a work treating of the origin of mankind.
But whether Arthur is regarded as a great historic figure, as the traditions of my own race claim him to be, or as a mythological personage, there is something in the story akin to those themes of the great Greek Tragedies, and of the greater Shakespearean dramas, which associates it with what is subtly mysterious and ethically significant in the history and destiny of mankind. Like the divine literature of the Hebrews, all of these great world-dramas and epics—for in a sense they are both—lift the thought and imagination to a loftier plane, and are concerned only with man’s personality in his relationship to those more sublime and terrible laws of being which mysteriously link him to deity.
Those who may superficially judge this play as gloomy must, for the same reason, condemn Hamlet, Macbeth, Faust, and the Greek Tragedies. The story of Arthur and Mordred, as I give it, is found in Malory’s relation.
I make no pretence to rival so great a word-artist as Tennyson. But when we enter the field of tragedy, literature ceases to be a mere matter of words or mated vowels. The great human problem confronts us. Therefore, with all of its imperfections, I send this play, which was written in 1893, and first published in 1895, forth once more into the world of readers, trusting that it may find a place in the great collection of literature which has grown about the wonderful personality of Arthur.
I believe that it will yet be acknowledged that what is now regarded as pure myth is in reality degenerate history, and that what has been considered mere fable and the out-growth of the child-like imagination of primitive peoples is rather the time-dimmed account of great civilizations of the early world.
This is a question which I am dealing with in a work treating of the origin of mankind.
But whether Arthur is regarded as a great historic figure, as the traditions of my own race claim him to be, or as a mythological personage, there is something in the story akin to those themes of the great Greek Tragedies, and of the greater Shakespearean dramas, which associates it with what is subtly mysterious and ethically significant in the history and destiny of mankind. Like the divine literature of the Hebrews, all of these great world-dramas and epics—for in a sense they are both—lift the thought and imagination to a loftier plane, and are concerned only with man’s personality in his relationship to those more sublime and terrible laws of being which mysteriously link him to deity.
Those who may superficially judge this play as gloomy must, for the same reason, condemn Hamlet, Macbeth, Faust, and the Greek Tragedies. The story of Arthur and Mordred, as I give it, is found in Malory’s relation.
I make no pretence to rival so great a word-artist as Tennyson. But when we enter the field of tragedy, literature ceases to be a mere matter of words or mated vowels. The great human problem confronts us. Therefore, with all of its imperfections, I send this play, which was written in 1893, and first published in 1895, forth once more into the world of readers, trusting that it may find a place in the great collection of literature which has grown about the wonderful personality of Arthur.
Mordred: A Tragedy in Five Acts, founded on the Arthurian relation of Sir Thomas Malory (Act I, Scene 6) by William Wilfred Campbell (1895)
(A rose garden adjoining the castle. Enter LAUNCELOT.)
LAUN.
This is a sunset bower for lovers made.
The air seems faint with pale and ruddy bloom,
The red for rosy dreams, the white for pure
And holy maiden thoughts all unexpressed.
There hangs fatality upon this place;
I cannot shake its ague from my heart.
I would I were safe back in Camelot,
With this fair Guinevere, great Arthur’s glory.
I’d rather meet the mad kerns of the Isles,
Than come again on such a quest as this.
This Guinevere, they say, is proud and cold,
Not such a woman as Launcelot would love.
Yea love, what doth it mean? and this strange maid,
What can she want of me? Aye, here she comes.
(Enter GUINEVERE, veiled.)
GUIN.
My lord, forgive this meeting in this place.
(Aside.) Oh, if he like it not!
LAUN.
Wouldst ask mine aid?
GUIN.
Yea; wouldst thou aid a maiden in distress?
LAUN.
Lady, all maidens command a true knight’s help.
GUIN.
My lord, hast thou ever loved?
LAUN.
Fair women have I seen, but none to love as thou meanest.
Why askest this?
GUIN.
Wouldst thou fight for one like me?
(Throwing aside her cloak.)
LAUN.
(Starts and stands as one in a dream.) Fair lady!
(Aside.) Wondrous Heaven, what be this?
In all my dreams I never saw such beauty
Of woman’s face or of a woman’s form.
She fills my heart like combs of golden honey!
GUIN.
My lord, hast lost thy tongue?
(Aside.) I had not dreamed this.
LAUN.
Fair lady, forgive my sudden lack of speech,
But never in my existence have I seen
Such loveliness and maiden grace as thine.
Yea, I would call it benison, could I stand
And gaze upon thee as thou art, forever.
There’s some fatality that draws me to thee,
Like I had known thee somewhere long ago.
GUIN.
My lord!
LAUN.
Thou art all glory, all that this life is.
And all before but one poor, pallid dream
Of this real living. Now I see thy face,
I know what Heaven is and all delights
That erring mortals lost in Paradise.
GUIN.
My lord! (Aside.) Sweet Heaven, this be too blessed!
LAUN.
Fair maiden, princess, lady, what thou art
Is what I’d die for. In mine inmost heart
Thou art enshrined. It seems some blessed dream.
Thou art too beautiful for mortal maid,
And yet I feel thou art not all unkind,
Might I dare read love’s missal in thine eyes.
GUIN.
Most noble lord, I came here for this purpose,
To render my heart’s being up to thee.
Deem not this act unmaidenly in one
Whose whole life’s currents to thy being run.
My lord!
LAUN.
It seems that we were never strangers.
(Folds her in his arms and kisses her.)
GUIN.
All life hath been but shaping up to this.
LAUN.
Oh, could this sunset be but gold forever
GUIN.
My lord Arthur!
LAUN.
(Starts back.) Great God!
GUIN.
Kiss me. Why Great God?
Thou art my God when thy lips are so sweet.
LAUN.
Why calledst thou me Arthur?
GUIN.
And art thou not?
LAUN.
Oh, who art thou that callest Arthur lord?
GUIN.
As thou art Arthur, I am Guinevere.
(LAUNCELOT starts back in horror.)
LAUN.
Guinevere! Make thick your murky curtains!
Day, wake no more! Stars, shrink your eye-hole lights,
And let this damned earth shrivel!
GUIN.
(Clutching his arm.) And art thou not great Arthur?
Who art thou? O God! who art thou?
LAUN.
Not Arthur, no! But that foul Launcelot,
Who ’twixt his hell and Arthur’s Heaven hath got.
GUIN.
Then am I a doomed maid! (Swoons.)
LAUN.
Black, murky fiend of hell! come in thy form
Most monstrous, give me age on ages here,
And I will clang with thee and all thine imps.
Bind me in blackness under Hell’s foul night,
And it were nothing, after dream like this.
GUIN.
(Rising up.) Oh, mercy! damned or not, I love thee still!
LAUN.
Why doth not nature crack and groan?
GUIN.
(Crawls to his feet.) Oh, be thou fiend or imp or Launcelot,
Thy kisses burn me even through this mist.
LAUN.
Yea, thou dost move me as never woman hath moved.
Oh, would to God that we had never loved!
Then thou wouldst have been Guinevere and I Launcelot.
GUIN.
What be we now?
LAUN.
Damned souls.
GUIN.
Then sweet, my love, it were thus to be damned.
LAUN.
Oh, thou must go, proud Guinevere, to-morrow
Unto great Arthur’s court and be his bride,
And I will be that olden Launcelot
In shape and seeming, though I hold a devil.
Oh, never more, mine Arthur, will I look
With peace and frankness on thy noble face.
’Twixt thee and me a wall is builded up
Of hideous evil. Guinevere, my love,
We were doomed long ago, and this be hell.
GUIN.
Oh, most unfortunate me, thou art not Arthur,
And I am Guinevere and I have loved.
Though I go morrow morn to Camelot
And place my hand in his and pledge him mine,
Not all the clamor of glad abbey-bells,
Or heavenward incense, may kill out the fever
Of thy hot kisses on my burning lips.
I am not Arthur’s. He is but a name,
A ringing doom that haunts me round the world.
Launcelot, we were wedded long ago,
Before this life, in some old Venus garden,
And this brief meeting but re-memory
Awakening from some cursed doze of life
Unto this present glory of our love.
Thou wilt not leave me, Launcelot, loveless, lorn?
LAUN.
Aye, this be hell!
GUIN.
Aye, hell to me to be divorced from thee.
LAUN.
Thou art betrothed to our great lord, high Arthur,
And I that Arthur’s trusted bosom friend,
And yet I’d kiss again thy honied lips,
Though Arthur’s shadow flaming stood between.
I’m not an Adam to be driven out
With flaming brand from thy sweet paradise.
I’d hold thee, Guinevere, in these mine arms,
Though on each side, asquare, a "shalt not" stood.
I'd fight 'gainst all, aye, Arthur, mine old self.
O Guinevere, this love hath made me mad.
Oh, were’t that all were changed in nature’s course,
That I were not myself, but some rude shape;
That thou wert not so sweet to look upon,
But sour and crabbed and old, for Arthur’s sake,
So that all might have gone the olden way.
GUIN.
Oh, that this night might never pass away,
We and this garden here forever stay,
Yon setting moon forever hold her crest
Above the fringèd peace of yonder West,
These roses ever perfumed petals cast,
So that our love in its glad youth might last;
No bleak to-morrows with their Arthurs come,
With evil waking to a sombre doom;
No age, like autumn, wrinkling to decays,
Filled with sad hauntings of gone yesterdays.
LAUN.
This is a sunset bower for lovers made.
The air seems faint with pale and ruddy bloom,
The red for rosy dreams, the white for pure
And holy maiden thoughts all unexpressed.
There hangs fatality upon this place;
I cannot shake its ague from my heart.
I would I were safe back in Camelot,
With this fair Guinevere, great Arthur’s glory.
I’d rather meet the mad kerns of the Isles,
Than come again on such a quest as this.
This Guinevere, they say, is proud and cold,
Not such a woman as Launcelot would love.
Yea love, what doth it mean? and this strange maid,
What can she want of me? Aye, here she comes.
(Enter GUINEVERE, veiled.)
GUIN.
My lord, forgive this meeting in this place.
(Aside.) Oh, if he like it not!
LAUN.
Wouldst ask mine aid?
GUIN.
Yea; wouldst thou aid a maiden in distress?
LAUN.
Lady, all maidens command a true knight’s help.
GUIN.
My lord, hast thou ever loved?
LAUN.
Fair women have I seen, but none to love as thou meanest.
Why askest this?
GUIN.
Wouldst thou fight for one like me?
(Throwing aside her cloak.)
LAUN.
(Starts and stands as one in a dream.) Fair lady!
(Aside.) Wondrous Heaven, what be this?
In all my dreams I never saw such beauty
Of woman’s face or of a woman’s form.
She fills my heart like combs of golden honey!
GUIN.
My lord, hast lost thy tongue?
(Aside.) I had not dreamed this.
LAUN.
Fair lady, forgive my sudden lack of speech,
But never in my existence have I seen
Such loveliness and maiden grace as thine.
Yea, I would call it benison, could I stand
And gaze upon thee as thou art, forever.
There’s some fatality that draws me to thee,
Like I had known thee somewhere long ago.
GUIN.
My lord!
LAUN.
Thou art all glory, all that this life is.
And all before but one poor, pallid dream
Of this real living. Now I see thy face,
I know what Heaven is and all delights
That erring mortals lost in Paradise.
GUIN.
My lord! (Aside.) Sweet Heaven, this be too blessed!
LAUN.
Fair maiden, princess, lady, what thou art
Is what I’d die for. In mine inmost heart
Thou art enshrined. It seems some blessed dream.
Thou art too beautiful for mortal maid,
And yet I feel thou art not all unkind,
Might I dare read love’s missal in thine eyes.
GUIN.
Most noble lord, I came here for this purpose,
To render my heart’s being up to thee.
Deem not this act unmaidenly in one
Whose whole life’s currents to thy being run.
My lord!
LAUN.
It seems that we were never strangers.
(Folds her in his arms and kisses her.)
GUIN.
All life hath been but shaping up to this.
LAUN.
Oh, could this sunset be but gold forever
GUIN.
My lord Arthur!
LAUN.
(Starts back.) Great God!
GUIN.
Kiss me. Why Great God?
Thou art my God when thy lips are so sweet.
LAUN.
Why calledst thou me Arthur?
GUIN.
And art thou not?
LAUN.
Oh, who art thou that callest Arthur lord?
GUIN.
As thou art Arthur, I am Guinevere.
(LAUNCELOT starts back in horror.)
LAUN.
Guinevere! Make thick your murky curtains!
Day, wake no more! Stars, shrink your eye-hole lights,
And let this damned earth shrivel!
GUIN.
(Clutching his arm.) And art thou not great Arthur?
Who art thou? O God! who art thou?
LAUN.
Not Arthur, no! But that foul Launcelot,
Who ’twixt his hell and Arthur’s Heaven hath got.
GUIN.
Then am I a doomed maid! (Swoons.)
LAUN.
Black, murky fiend of hell! come in thy form
Most monstrous, give me age on ages here,
And I will clang with thee and all thine imps.
Bind me in blackness under Hell’s foul night,
And it were nothing, after dream like this.
GUIN.
(Rising up.) Oh, mercy! damned or not, I love thee still!
LAUN.
Why doth not nature crack and groan?
GUIN.
(Crawls to his feet.) Oh, be thou fiend or imp or Launcelot,
Thy kisses burn me even through this mist.
LAUN.
Yea, thou dost move me as never woman hath moved.
Oh, would to God that we had never loved!
Then thou wouldst have been Guinevere and I Launcelot.
GUIN.
What be we now?
LAUN.
Damned souls.
GUIN.
Then sweet, my love, it were thus to be damned.
LAUN.
Oh, thou must go, proud Guinevere, to-morrow
Unto great Arthur’s court and be his bride,
And I will be that olden Launcelot
In shape and seeming, though I hold a devil.
Oh, never more, mine Arthur, will I look
With peace and frankness on thy noble face.
’Twixt thee and me a wall is builded up
Of hideous evil. Guinevere, my love,
We were doomed long ago, and this be hell.
GUIN.
Oh, most unfortunate me, thou art not Arthur,
And I am Guinevere and I have loved.
Though I go morrow morn to Camelot
And place my hand in his and pledge him mine,
Not all the clamor of glad abbey-bells,
Or heavenward incense, may kill out the fever
Of thy hot kisses on my burning lips.
I am not Arthur’s. He is but a name,
A ringing doom that haunts me round the world.
Launcelot, we were wedded long ago,
Before this life, in some old Venus garden,
And this brief meeting but re-memory
Awakening from some cursed doze of life
Unto this present glory of our love.
Thou wilt not leave me, Launcelot, loveless, lorn?
LAUN.
Aye, this be hell!
GUIN.
Aye, hell to me to be divorced from thee.
LAUN.
Thou art betrothed to our great lord, high Arthur,
And I that Arthur’s trusted bosom friend,
And yet I’d kiss again thy honied lips,
Though Arthur’s shadow flaming stood between.
I’m not an Adam to be driven out
With flaming brand from thy sweet paradise.
I’d hold thee, Guinevere, in these mine arms,
Though on each side, asquare, a "shalt not" stood.
I'd fight 'gainst all, aye, Arthur, mine old self.
O Guinevere, this love hath made me mad.
Oh, were’t that all were changed in nature’s course,
That I were not myself, but some rude shape;
That thou wert not so sweet to look upon,
But sour and crabbed and old, for Arthur’s sake,
So that all might have gone the olden way.
GUIN.
Oh, that this night might never pass away,
We and this garden here forever stay,
Yon setting moon forever hold her crest
Above the fringèd peace of yonder West,
These roses ever perfumed petals cast,
So that our love in its glad youth might last;
No bleak to-morrows with their Arthurs come,
With evil waking to a sombre doom;
No age, like autumn, wrinkling to decays,
Filled with sad hauntings of gone yesterdays.
Mordred: A Tragedy in Five Acts, founded on the Arthurian relation of Sir Thomas Malory (Act II, Scene 6) by William Wilfred Campbell (1895)
(An outer room in the castle. GUINEVERE walking back and forth. Enter LAUNCELOT, kneels, would take her hand.)
LAUN.
Madam!
(GUINEVERE draws back coldly.)
LAUN.
Madam, what means this coldness?
Thou wert not ever wont to meet me thus!
GUIN.
Where hast thou left the maid of Astolat?
LAUN.
Maid of Astolat!
GUIN.
Yea, that frail pink-and-white that pillowed thy breast,
What time thou didst faint; some slim cowslip miss
Such as do flatter you strong men by their weakness.
Go, flippant knight, and seek your skim-milk love.
Guinevere would hate thee but for scorn.
God curse the day I ever let thee love!
LAUN.
Madam, each word thou utterest, like a dagger,
Doth stab with cruel agonies my heart.
If Launcelot hath sinned in loving thee,
That love is maiden unto all save thee.
Yea, I am damnèd daily for thy face,
And even thou dost scorn me!
GUIN.
A truce of words; I saw with mine own eyes
What all the Court and all the world doth know.
Launcelot’s Love, the Maid of Astolat,
Is mouthed by all fools’ lips in all men’s ears,
Till Guinevere is even Mordred’s scorn.
I’d slay thee, were I only but a man.
LAUN.
Madam! by my love!--
GUIN.
By thy love, a flimsy, forsworn thing,
A toylet of a moment! Such as thou!
And I! I gave—By Heaven! I pluck thee out,
And thrust thee from me, thou false, handsome face!
Thou devil-eyed to lead hearts on to ruin!
LAUN.
Madam, wilt thou not hear?
GUIN.
Nay, nay, begone! I scorn thee, yea, I hate!
LAUN.
(Sadly.) Yea, Guinevere, I go, to come no more.
It is well seen that thou hast tired of me.
Thou hast driven Launcelot mad! mad!
The world reels round me, I am all alone.
All else the visions of a noisome dream.
I am mad, mad, Guinevere!
And dost thou smile? here’s for the lonely dark!
Ho, ho! the world’s one hideous mockery.
(Leaps from the casement.)
GUIN.
Nay, nay, Launcelot! Launcelot!
Come back! I love thee, I forgive thee all!
(Falls on her face.) O Heaven! I have driven him away,
Nevermore, oh, never to return.
O Love! O Love! my maddened heart will break.
O foolish stars, why smile on this grim night,
Lighting the heartless heaven with your eyes?
O foolish birds, why pipe across the dark,
Calling the rosy morn, the false-faced morn,
While hearts are breaking here amid the dark?
Nay, ‘tis the foolish wind wooing the silly trees.
He never will return, nor will forgive.
O poor white hand! he nevermore will clasp.
O wayward lips! he nevermore will kiss.
O heart, break! break!
LAUN.
Madam!
(GUINEVERE draws back coldly.)
LAUN.
Madam, what means this coldness?
Thou wert not ever wont to meet me thus!
GUIN.
Where hast thou left the maid of Astolat?
LAUN.
Maid of Astolat!
GUIN.
Yea, that frail pink-and-white that pillowed thy breast,
What time thou didst faint; some slim cowslip miss
Such as do flatter you strong men by their weakness.
Go, flippant knight, and seek your skim-milk love.
Guinevere would hate thee but for scorn.
God curse the day I ever let thee love!
LAUN.
Madam, each word thou utterest, like a dagger,
Doth stab with cruel agonies my heart.
If Launcelot hath sinned in loving thee,
That love is maiden unto all save thee.
Yea, I am damnèd daily for thy face,
And even thou dost scorn me!
GUIN.
A truce of words; I saw with mine own eyes
What all the Court and all the world doth know.
Launcelot’s Love, the Maid of Astolat,
Is mouthed by all fools’ lips in all men’s ears,
Till Guinevere is even Mordred’s scorn.
I’d slay thee, were I only but a man.
LAUN.
Madam! by my love!--
GUIN.
By thy love, a flimsy, forsworn thing,
A toylet of a moment! Such as thou!
And I! I gave—By Heaven! I pluck thee out,
And thrust thee from me, thou false, handsome face!
Thou devil-eyed to lead hearts on to ruin!
LAUN.
Madam, wilt thou not hear?
GUIN.
Nay, nay, begone! I scorn thee, yea, I hate!
LAUN.
(Sadly.) Yea, Guinevere, I go, to come no more.
It is well seen that thou hast tired of me.
Thou hast driven Launcelot mad! mad!
The world reels round me, I am all alone.
All else the visions of a noisome dream.
I am mad, mad, Guinevere!
And dost thou smile? here’s for the lonely dark!
Ho, ho! the world’s one hideous mockery.
(Leaps from the casement.)
GUIN.
Nay, nay, Launcelot! Launcelot!
Come back! I love thee, I forgive thee all!
(Falls on her face.) O Heaven! I have driven him away,
Nevermore, oh, never to return.
O Love! O Love! my maddened heart will break.
O foolish stars, why smile on this grim night,
Lighting the heartless heaven with your eyes?
O foolish birds, why pipe across the dark,
Calling the rosy morn, the false-faced morn,
While hearts are breaking here amid the dark?
Nay, ‘tis the foolish wind wooing the silly trees.
He never will return, nor will forgive.
O poor white hand! he nevermore will clasp.
O wayward lips! he nevermore will kiss.
O heart, break! break!
Mordred: A Tragedy in Five Acts, founded on the Arthurian relation of Sir Thomas Malory (Act IV, Scene 1) by William Wilfred Campbell (1895)
(Rise inner curtain. The Queen’s apartment. Enter LAUNCELOT and GUINEVERE.)
LAUN.
I come this night to bid you a long farewell,
Before I leave this kingdom’s shores for ever.
This love doth hold me in a demon’s grasp,
And my heart breaks to feel great Arthur’s love,
And all the time we twain be meeting thus.
GUIN.
Nay, nay, Launcelot, leave me not forlorn,
I cannot live without thee. Thy strong arms
And thy warm kisses are to me the one
Fair garden springing on this drearsome earth.
LAUN.
Lady, I must go. My lands in France,
Tribute to my sword, I’ll make a kingdom,
And pass my days in memories of thee.
GUIN.
Nay, nay, thou wilt not go! And if thou must
My heart will bleed for thee until my death.
UNID.
(Hurrying in.) Madam, there is treason roused without.
Many armèd knights do come this way.
LAUN.
Now is the end come I have long expected,
The grim fatality of all my fears,
The nightmare real at last. Quick, my sweet!
Kiss me your latest now! This is my death!
GUIN.
Launcelot, hasten! save, oh, save thyself!
I will bar them with my body here.
They will but trample a dead, dishonored Queen,
Whom brute fatality made its passing sport.
Quick! that way!
LAUN.
Nay, nay, sweet love, but I will die with thee,
And show great love can make a greater death.
(Draws.) Would to God I had mine armor!
(Loud knocking heard at the door, and the voice of MORDRED heard without.)
MOR.
Come out, thou traitor, Launcelot, and show the world
The face of him who hath dishonored Arthur!
Come out, thou traitor!
GUIN.
Launcelot, save thyself, there is time yet.
LAUN.
Nay, love, I’ll end me here, if be my fate.
Ho! Cowards without! I am a single man,
Devoid of armor, having but my sword;
Yet will I open and give you hell’s glad welcome.
(Unbars the door; SIR AGRAVAINE rushes in.)
LAUN.
Die, hound!
(Brains him. LAUNCELOT drags him aside and bars the door.)
LAUN.
Quick! Help me to this armor!
(Takes the arms from SIR AGRAVAINE’S body and arms himself.)
GUIN.
(Helping him.) Aye, love, if prayers are aught, will mine clothe thee.
VOICES.
Open up, traitor, open up!
GUIN.
Great God, Great God, help this poor Queen who prays!
(LAUNCELOT buckles his armor.)
LAUN.
Now am I ready. Fare thee well, sweet love!
Whatever haps—and we may meet no more
This side of darkness—carry to thy grave,
That Launcelot loved thee, thee, and only thee.
GUIN.
O Launcelot, my heart breaks!
(They embrace. The Queen faints.)
LAUN.
(To the Maids.) Take her back from this, protect her, keep her safe.
This work is not for her sweet presence. Now Heaven help
The man that meeteth Launcelot’s blade this night!
VOICES.
Coward! Traitor! wilt thou open up?
LAUN.
Yea, traitors who forswore the name of knight,
When like some drunken rabble ye polluted
The gentle sacredness of these apartments!
And every man who shamed her ears to-night
(throws open the doors) Shall die! die! die! Come on, ye fiends!
(They rush in and then fall back in surprise.)
LAUN.
Ha! ha! here’s wine that Launcelot’s blade would drink!
(Rushes forward, hacking fiercely with his sword; twelve knights fall one after the other.)
MOR.
God of heaven, let us back! This man be mad!
(Retreats with four knights; LAUNCELOT slays the rest.)
LAUN.
Come on, ye fiends of hell! I’ll back me here!
Launcelot is indeed a man of honor!
LAUN.
I come this night to bid you a long farewell,
Before I leave this kingdom’s shores for ever.
This love doth hold me in a demon’s grasp,
And my heart breaks to feel great Arthur’s love,
And all the time we twain be meeting thus.
GUIN.
Nay, nay, Launcelot, leave me not forlorn,
I cannot live without thee. Thy strong arms
And thy warm kisses are to me the one
Fair garden springing on this drearsome earth.
LAUN.
Lady, I must go. My lands in France,
Tribute to my sword, I’ll make a kingdom,
And pass my days in memories of thee.
GUIN.
Nay, nay, thou wilt not go! And if thou must
My heart will bleed for thee until my death.
UNID.
(Hurrying in.) Madam, there is treason roused without.
Many armèd knights do come this way.
LAUN.
Now is the end come I have long expected,
The grim fatality of all my fears,
The nightmare real at last. Quick, my sweet!
Kiss me your latest now! This is my death!
GUIN.
Launcelot, hasten! save, oh, save thyself!
I will bar them with my body here.
They will but trample a dead, dishonored Queen,
Whom brute fatality made its passing sport.
Quick! that way!
LAUN.
Nay, nay, sweet love, but I will die with thee,
And show great love can make a greater death.
(Draws.) Would to God I had mine armor!
(Loud knocking heard at the door, and the voice of MORDRED heard without.)
MOR.
Come out, thou traitor, Launcelot, and show the world
The face of him who hath dishonored Arthur!
Come out, thou traitor!
GUIN.
Launcelot, save thyself, there is time yet.
LAUN.
Nay, love, I’ll end me here, if be my fate.
Ho! Cowards without! I am a single man,
Devoid of armor, having but my sword;
Yet will I open and give you hell’s glad welcome.
(Unbars the door; SIR AGRAVAINE rushes in.)
LAUN.
Die, hound!
(Brains him. LAUNCELOT drags him aside and bars the door.)
LAUN.
Quick! Help me to this armor!
(Takes the arms from SIR AGRAVAINE’S body and arms himself.)
GUIN.
(Helping him.) Aye, love, if prayers are aught, will mine clothe thee.
VOICES.
Open up, traitor, open up!
GUIN.
Great God, Great God, help this poor Queen who prays!
(LAUNCELOT buckles his armor.)
LAUN.
Now am I ready. Fare thee well, sweet love!
Whatever haps—and we may meet no more
This side of darkness—carry to thy grave,
That Launcelot loved thee, thee, and only thee.
GUIN.
O Launcelot, my heart breaks!
(They embrace. The Queen faints.)
LAUN.
(To the Maids.) Take her back from this, protect her, keep her safe.
This work is not for her sweet presence. Now Heaven help
The man that meeteth Launcelot’s blade this night!
VOICES.
Coward! Traitor! wilt thou open up?
LAUN.
Yea, traitors who forswore the name of knight,
When like some drunken rabble ye polluted
The gentle sacredness of these apartments!
And every man who shamed her ears to-night
(throws open the doors) Shall die! die! die! Come on, ye fiends!
(They rush in and then fall back in surprise.)
LAUN.
Ha! ha! here’s wine that Launcelot’s blade would drink!
(Rushes forward, hacking fiercely with his sword; twelve knights fall one after the other.)
MOR.
God of heaven, let us back! This man be mad!
(Retreats with four knights; LAUNCELOT slays the rest.)
LAUN.
Come on, ye fiends of hell! I’ll back me here!
Launcelot is indeed a man of honor!
