Act IV

The same Scene.

Enter ALMACHILDES and HILDEGARD.

HILDEGARD.

Hast thou forgiven me?

ALMACHILDES.

I have not forgivenGod.

HILDEGARD.

Wilt thou slay thy soul and mine?

ALMACHILDES.

Wilt thou Madden me? God hath given us up to her Who is deadlier than the fiery fang of death - Us, innocent and loyal.

HILDEGARD.

Nay, if I Forgive her love of thee—though this be hard, Canst thou forgive not?

ALMACHILDES.

Sweet, for thee and me Remains no rescue save by death or flight From worse than flight or death is.

HILDEGARD.

Worse is nought But shame: and how may shame take hold on us, On us who have sinned not? Me she bound to play thee False, and betray thee to her arms: I might not Choose, though my heart should rend itself in twain And cleave with ravenous anguish: yet I live. Vex not thy soul too sorely: me, not her, Thy spirit embraced, thine arms and lips made thine Me, not my darkling wraith, my changeling foe, My thief of love, our traitress. This I bid thee, Forget thy fear and shame to have wronged me: night Breeds treacherous dreams that can but poison day If thought be found so base a fool as dares Fear. Did I doubt thy love of me, I durst not Live or look back upon thee.

ALMACHILDES.

Wilt thou then Fly?

HILDEGARD.

Dost thou know what flight means—thou? It means Fear. And is fear a new-born friend of thine?

ALMACHILDES.

God help us! if he live, and hate not man - If Satan be not God. We will not fly.

Enter ALBOVINE and ROSAMUND.

ALBOVINE.

Fly? What should love at height of happiness Or youth at height of honour fear and fly? Would ye take wing for heaven? take shame on earth To wed in peace and honour?

ALMACHILDES.

No, my king. No, surely.

ROSAMUND.

Weep not, maiden. Dost not thou, Man, that we thought her bridegroom sealed of love, Love her?

ALMACHILDES.

No saint loved ever God as I Her.

ROSAMUND.

And betray her to shame thou wouldst not? See, My lord, the silent answer flash aloud From cheek and eye a goodly witness. Thou, My maiden, dost thou love not him? Nay, speak.

HILDEGARD.

I cannot say it—I cannot strive to say.

ROSAMUND.

Thou shalt. Are all we not fast bound in love - My lord and thine, my maiden and her queen, A fourfold chain of faith twice linked of love? Speak: let not shame find place where shame is none.

HILDEGARD.

I will not. King and queen and God shall hear. I love him as our songs of old time say Men have been loved of women akin to gods By blood as they by spirit, albeit in me Nought lives that woman or man or God could say Were worth his love, if mine by grace of love Be found not all unworthy. Mine am I No more: mine own in no wise now, but his To save or slay, to cherish or cast out, Crown and discrown, abase and comfort. Shame Were more to me than honour if his will It were that shame should clothe me round, and life Were the only death left fearful if he bade me Die. Could his love be turned from me, and set On one less loving but more fair than I, A thrall more base than treason or a queen Too high for shame to brand her shameful, even Though sin had stamped and signed her foul as fraud And loathsome as a masked adulterous lie, Hers would I make him if I might, and yield To her the hatefullest of hell-born things The man found lovelier by my love than heaven.

ROSAMUND.

Great love is this to brag of: great and strange.

HILDEGARD.

Love is no braggart: lust and fraud and hate Vaunt their vile strength when shame unveils them: love Vaunts not itself. I spake not uncompelled, And blushed not out the avowal.

ALBOVINE.

Boy, I held And hold thee noblest of my lords of war, And worthier than thine elders born and tried Ere battle found thee ripe and glad at heart To stem and swim the tide of spears: but this I know not if thou be or any man Be worthy of.

ALMACHILDES.

Of all men born on earth I am most unworthy of it. None might be Worthy.

ROSAMUND.

He weeps: thy boy is humble.

ALMACHILDES.

Queen, I weep not. Shamed with no ignoble shame Thou seest me: but I weep not. Yea, God knows, Humbled I am, and humble; not to thee.

ALBOVINE.

Chafe not: and thou, queen though thou be, and mine, Tempt not a true man’s wrath with words that bear Fangs keener than thou knowest of.

ROSAMUND.

King, henceforth, Being warned, I will not. Dangerous as the sea A true man’s wrath is—and a true man’s love: A woman’s hath no peril in it: her tears Wash wrath and peril away.

ALBOVINE.

I have never seen theeWeep.

ROSAMUND.

How should I weep—I, thy wife?

ALBOVINE.

I have heard thee Laugh; and thy smiles were always bright as fire.

ROSAMUND.

Well were it with me—ay, and reason found For me to live and do the living world Some service—could my husband warm thereat His heart as winter-stricken hands in frost Are warmed at winter fires.

ALBOVINE.

No need, no need: The sun thou art warms all our year with love, And leaves no chill on winter.

ROSAMUND.

Albovine, Love now secludes us not from sight of man - From sight of this my maiden and the man Who shines but as the battle’s boy for thee But lives for me my maiden’s lover—true As truth is—Almachildes.

ALBOVINE.

How thy lips Hang lingering on his name as though ’twere thou That loved him! Thou shouldst love thy maiden well.

ROSAMUND.

As she loves me I love her. Hildegard, Leave us. Thou knowest I love thee.

HILDEGARD.

Queen, I know. [Exit.

ALBOVINE.

What ails the boy? what rapturous agony Torments and glorifies his glance at her As with delight in torture? Cheer thee, man: Thou art not thus all unworthy.

ROSAMUND.

Spare him, king. A king may guess not how a man’s heart yearns With all unkingly sense of love and shame Not all unmanly.

ALBOVINE.

Shame is none to be Loved, and to deem that love exceeds our due Who may not well deserve it. Sick at heart He seems, and should be gladder than the sea When wind and sun strike life in it.

ALMACHILDES.

I am not So stricken, king. I thank thy care of me.

ALBOVINE.

Heart-stricken or shame-stricken art thou?

ROSAMUND.

King, Spare him. Thou knowest not love like his. It burns And rends and wrings the spirit.

ALBOVINE.

No. And thou, Dost thou then?

ROSAMUND.

Eyes and heart and sense are mine As weak and strong as woman’s can but be; As weak in strength and strong in weakness. Men, Being wise, and mightier than their mates on earth, Need no such knowledge born of inborn pain As quickens all the spirit of sense in us. Worms know what eagles know not.

ALBOVINE.

Like enough. Rede me no redes and riddles. Never yet I have loved thee more, and yet I have loved thee well, Than now that loving-kindness borne toward love Makes thee so gracious, pleading for it.

ROSAMUND.

Love Sees all things lovely: thine, if praise there be, Not mine the praise is: thee, not me, these twain Must love and worship as their lord of love.

ALBOVINE.

Well, God be good to them and thee and me! I would this fierce Italian June were dead, So hard it weighs upon me.

ROSAMUND.

Now not long Shall we sustain or sink aswoon from it: It has but left a day or two to die.

ALBOVINE.

And well were that, if summer died with June. Two red months more must set on sense and soul The branding-iron stamped of summer: nay, The sea is here no sea to cherish man: It brings no choral comfort back with tides That surge and sink and swell and chime and change And lighten life with music where the breath Dies and revives of night and day.

ROSAMUND.

Be thou Content: a God hath driven us hither.

ALBOVINE.

Yea: A God of death and fire and strife, whose hand Is heavy on my spirit. Be not ye Troubled, if peace be with you.

ROSAMUND.

Peace to thee.

[Exit ALBOVINE.

Now follow: smite him now: thou art strong, but yet Thy king is stronger—mightier thewed than thou. Thou couldst not slay him in fight.

ALMACHILDES.

I cannot slay himThus.

ROSAMUND.

Canst thou slay thy bride by fire? He dies, Or she dies, bound against the stake. His death Were the easier. Follow him: save her: strike but once.

ALMACHILDES.

I cannot. God requite thee this! I will. [Exit.

ROSAMUND.

And I will see it. And, father, thou shalt see. [Exit.