Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1091 page)

You stifle speech in me, or I’d have launched,

Ere this, the tidings rife. See him no more

Shall I, or you. He’s gone. Death darkens him!

K. Mark (starting)

So much the better, if true — for us and him!

{She weeps.)

But no. He has died too many many times

For that report to hold! In tilts, in frays,

Through slits and loops, louvres and battlements,

Has he been pierced and arrowed to the heart,

Then risen up again to trouble me!

Sir Andret told, ere Tristram shunned Tintagel,

How he espied you dallying — you and he —

Near the shot-window southward. And I went

With glaive in hand to smite him. Would I had!

Yea, and I should have, had I been sustained.

But not one knight was nigh. — Where are they now?

Whence comes this quietude? — I’ll call a council:

What’s best to do with him I’ll learn thereat,

And then we’ll keep a feast. A council! Ho!

Exit
King Mark.

SCENE VI

Queen Iseult and Chanters. The Queen sits in dejection.

Chanters: Men

Why did Heaven warrant, in its whim, A twain mismated should bedim The courts of their encompassment With bleeding loves and discontent! Who would not feel God favoured them, Past wish, in throne and diadem? And that for all His plaisance they would praise

Him upon earth throughout their deeds and days!

Chanters: Women

Instead, see King and Queen more curst Than beggars upon hoit or hurst: — A queen! One who each night and morn Sighs for Sir Tristram; him, gloom-born In his mother’s death, and reared mid vows Of poison by a later spouse:

In love Fate-haunted, doomed to drink Charmed philtres, melting every link Of purposed faith! Why wedded he King Howel’s lass of Brittany? Why should the wave have washed him to

her shore — Him, prone to love our Queen here more and more ?

Chanters: M. and W.

In last misfortune did he well-nigh slay Unknowingly in battle Arthur! Ay, Our stainless Over-king of Counties — he Made Dux Bellorum for his valiancy! — If now, indeed, Tristram be chilled in death, Will she, the Queen, care aught for further breath?

Q. Iseult (
musing)

How little he knows, does Mark! And yet,

how much? Can there be any groundage for his thought That Tristram’s not a ghost? O, no such hope!

My Tristram, yet not mine! Could it be deemed

Thou shouldst have loved me less in many years

Hadst thou enjoyed them? If in Christland now

Do you look down on her most, or on me?

Why should the King have grudged so fleet a life

Its pleasure, grinned with gall at its renown,

Yapped you away for too great love of me,

Spied on thee through his myrmidons — aye, encloaked

And peeped to frustrate thee, and sent the word

To kill thee who should meet thee? O sweet Lord,

Thou hast made him hated; yet he still has life;

While Tristram. . . . Why said Mark he doubtless lived?

— But he was ever a mocker, was King Mark,

And not far from a coward.

Enter
Brangwain.

SCENE VII

Queen Iseult, Brangwain, and Chanters.

Q. Iseult (distractedly)

Brangwain, he hard denies I did not see him!

But he is dead! . . . Perhaps not. . . . Can it be?

Brangwain

Who doth deny, my Queen? Who is not dead?

Your words are blank to me; your manner strange.

Q. Iseult

One bleeds no more on earth for a full- fledged sin

Than for a callow! The King has found out now

My sailing the south water in his absence,

And weens the worst. Forsooth, it’s always so!

He will not credit I’d no cause to land For the black reason — it is no excuse — That Tristram, knight, had died! — Landed had I,

Aye, fifty times, could he have still been there, Even there with her. — My Love, my own lost Love!            {She bends down.)

Brangwain You did not land in Brittany, O Queen?

Q. Iseult

I did not land, Brangwain, although so near.

{She pauses.)

— He had been long with his White-handed one,

And had fallen sick of fever nigh to death; Till she grew fearful for him; sent for me, Yea, choicelessly, at his light-headed calls And midnight repetitions of my name. Yes, sent for me in a despairing hope To save him at all cost.

Brangwain

She must, methinks,

Have loved him much!

Q. Iseult [impatiently)

Don’t speak, Brangwain, but hear me.

Yes: women are so. . . . For me, I could not bear

To lose him thus. Love, others’ somewhile dainty,

Is my starved, all-day meal! And favouring chance,

That of the King’s apt absence, tempted me;

And hence I sailed, despite the storm-strid air.

What did I care about myself, or aught?

— She’d told the mariner her messenger

To hoist his canvas white if he bore me

On the backward journey, black if he did not,

That, so, heart-ease should reach the knight full quick —

Even ere 1 landed — quick as I hove in sight.

Yes, in his peril so profound, she sent

The message, though against her. Women are so!

Brangwain

Some are, my lady Queen: some may not be.

Q. Iseult

While we were yet a two-hours’ toss from port

I bade them show the sheet, as had been asked,

The which they did. But when we touched the quay

She ran down thither, beating both her hands,

And saying Tristram died an hour before.

Brangwain

But O, dear Queen, didst fully credit her?

Q. Iseult

Aye! Sudden - shaken souls guess not at guile. —

I fell into a faint at the very words. —

Thereon they lifted me into the cabin,

Saying: “ She shall not foot this deadly land! “

When I again knew life I was distraught,

And sick with the rough writhing of the bark. —

They had determined they would steer me home,

Had turned the prow, and toiled a long league back;

Strange that, no sooner had they put about,

The weather worsed, as if they’d angered God

By doing what they had done to sever me

Even from my Love’s dead limbs! No gleam glowed more,

And the seas sloped like houseroofs all the way.

We were blown north along the shore to Wales,

Where they made port and nursed me, till, next day,

The blinding gale abated: we returned,

And reached by shifts at last the cove below.

The King, whose queries I had feared so much,

Had not come back; came only at my heels;

Yet he has learnt, somewise, that I’ve been missed,

And doubtless I shall suffer — he’s begun it!

Much I lament I put about so soon.

I should have landed, and have gained his corpse.

Brangwain

She is his wife, and you could not have claimed it.

Q. Iseult

But could I not have seen him? How know you?

Brangwain

Nay: she might not have let you even see him:

He is her own, dear Queen, and in her land You had no sway to make her cede him up. I doubt his death. You took her word for it, And she was desperate at the sight of you. Sick unto death he may have been. But — dead?   (Shakes her head.)

Corpses are many: man lives half-amort; But rumour makes them more when they run short!

Q. Iseult

If he be not! O I would even condone His bringing her, would he not come without; I’ve said it ever since I’ve known of her. Could he but live: yes, could he live for me!

Q. Iseult sings sadly to herself, Brangwain having gone to the back of the hall’. Could he but live for me A day, yea, even an hour, Its petty span would be Steeped in felicity Passing the price of Heaven’s held-dearest dower:

Could he but live, could he But live for me!

Exit
Q. Iseult,
followed by
Brangwain.

Chanters: Women

Maybe, indeed, he did not die! Our sex, shame on’t, is over prone To ill conceits that amplify. Maybe he did not die — that one, The Whitepalmed, may in strategy Have but avowed it! Weak are we, And foil and fence have oft to seek, Aye, even by guile, if fear so speak!

Chanters: Men

Wounded in Ireland, life he fetched, In charge of the King’s daughter there, Who healed him, loved him, primed him fair For the great tournament, when he stretched Sir Palomides low.

Chanters: Women Yet slight

Was King Mark’s love for him, despite! Mark sent him thither as to gain Iseult, but, truly, to be slain!

Chanters: Men

Quite else her father, who on sight Was fain for Tristram as his son,

Not Mark. But woe, his word was won!

Alas, should wrong vow stand as right?

Chanters: Women

And what Dame Brangwain did to mend,

Enlarged the mischief! Best have penned

That love-drink close, since ‘twas to be

Iseult should wed where promised: wretched she!

Chanters: M. and W.

Yet, haply, Tristram lives. Quick heals are his!

He rose revived from that: why not from this?

Watchman (without)

One comes with tidings! — (to the comer) Bear them to the hall.

Enter a Messenger (at back), -pausing and looking round. Queen Iseult, attended, re-enters (at front) and seats herself.

SCENE VIII

Queen Iseult, Attendant-Ladies, Messenger, and Chanters.

Messenger (comingforward) Where is Iseult the Queen?

Q. Iseult

Here, churl. I’m she.

Messenger

I’m sent here to deliver tidings, Queen, To your high ear alone.

Exeunt Attendants.

Q. Iseult (in strung-up tones)

Then voice them forth. A halter for thee if I find them false!

Messenger

Knight Tristram of the sorry birth is yet

Enrolled among the living, having crept

Out of the very vaults of death and doom!

— His heavy ails bedimmed him numb as night,

And men conceived him wrapt in wakeless rest;

But he strove back. Hither, on swifter keel

Lie has followed you; and even now is nigh.

(Queen Iseult leans back and covers her eyes.)

Iseult the Pale-palmed, in her jealousy,

With false deliverance feigned your sail was black,

And made him pray for death in his extreme,

Till sank he to a drowse: grey death they thought it,

And bells were bidden toll the churches through,

And thereupon you came. Scared at her crime

She deemed that it had dealt him death indeed,

And knew her not at fault till you had gone.

— When he aroused, and learnt she had sent you back,

It angered him to hot extremity, And brings him here upon my very stern, If he, forsooth, have haleness for the adventure.