Chapter III: Part 3

Now, as between us both, let God, that brings
This end and mystery of returning light
After the thunder round us, and that sees
Our spirits without mask and unexcused,
Judge and have mercy. Tho’ peace be now ordained
Between us both, yet from our realm for ever
You are banished to your own lands whence you came,
To Brittany beyond the seas. Alas!
I never thought with such a word to close
Our book of friendship, wherein men shall read
How, many a time, Launcelot saved his King
And brought this kingdom glory. It is not I
That shall forget that friendship or those deeds.
And truly, for your fault, do I commend you
Where is that understanding of our hearts
Which is beyond men’s fathom. God be with you.

LAUNCELOT

Now, must I speak
That narrow word which, like a little spring
Of water, swells to a dividing flood:
_Farewell_. O royal Guenevere, farewell.
Dear isle, sweet Britain, where I won renown--
All other lands are darkness to your light
Which I must leave behind me. Keep my name
As one that loved, as one that.... There’s no more!
Launcelot passes from this fellowship,
This the most noble fellowship of the world,
For ever, and the little noise we made
In the dull ear of Time so gloriously
The streams of silence take.
Lord Arthur, though all else be cancelled, yet
I keep my oath of fealty; leave me that:
And I shall never fail you, heart or hand,
While breath is in me. Call me in your need,
My sword, my life, are yours.

[LAUNCELOT _passes out with his Knights. The_ KING’S
_followers withdraw aside_.

ARTHUR

Do you not weep to have lost him, Guenevere?
He did to me the wrong that least is pardoned,
Yet almost I forget my manhood now.

GUENEVERE

I am past tears. All I have done and been,
Been and endured, I see from far away,
As if another in my shape were there
Moving through storm and fire.--Have you no word,
No reproach for me?

ARTHUR

All my thoughts are stript.
As trees after the tempest, and life’s bare
As winter to the homeless.

GUENEVERE

This my heart
Did never forge sweet pardons for itself.
There is no absolution among men:
Give me leave, therefore, to renounce the world
And choose the cloister.

ARTHUR

Will you take those vows?
I doubt not you are guided where you go.
What’s broken God may there amend, not we.

GUENEVERE

There is a nunnery at Amesbury: once
I entered there, and found strange peace within.
I did not know such peace could be on earth.
Suffer me, my lord, to go to Amesbury.

ARTHUR

So be it.

GUENEVERE

Put remembrance under stone
Where the dead lie and feet pass over them.
She that so wronged you has no more a name.

ARTHUR

Bedivere, take you twenty of my knights
And ride to Amesbury. Guard you well the Queen;
Let no least harm befall her on the way,
No trouble: bear her company till you find
Those doors that she will enter. For she vows
Her days to the nun’s cloister and small cell,
And to that peace which the world gives not.

BEDIVERE

Sir,
We are honoured having so noble a charge laid on us.
We shall do all your bidding.

ARTHUR

Set you forth.
Farewell, until the last farewell of all!

(GUENEVERE _passes out, escorted by_ BEDIVERE _and
Knights_. ARTHUR _is left alone standing in the solemn
light of sunset. He breaks out into a cry._)

Launcelot, Launcelot! Guenevere, Guenevere!

EIGHTH SCENE

_The Nunnery at Amesbury._ GUENEVERE _is discovered lying prostrate on the stone steps_. _A nun_, LYNNED, _enters and lifts her up as she speaks to her_.

LYNNED

Queen, the day calls us; cling not to the night,
The stone, the silence. There is flesh and blood
Of your own people, threatened and afraid,
That calls on you. Though you have cast the robe
Of royalty for this (_touching her nun’s garment_), the queenly heart
Has room for other sorrow than its own--
So cold, my sister? Feel within my arms,
Feel in my bosom the warm running blood
That neighbours yours.

GUENEVERE

I am wearied, wearied out.
I would forget, and cannot. My heart’s numbed
With aching like my body.
I thought that in these walls there should be peace.
Tell me, for you have eyes that understand
And seem to suffer, tell me the truth, Sister.
I know that it is sinful to remember,
And yet, is it not treason to forget?

LYNNED

Grief can grow dear--do I not know it?--grief
Can grow too dear. The heart that loses all
Must still give all.

GUENEVERE

Take not my grief from me,
Or there is nothing left to me on earth.

LYNNED

Nay, grief shall change and grow beyond itself.
There’s one now at the gate must speak with you.

GUENEVERE

Send him away.

LYNNED

I cannot.

GUENEVERE

Who is he
That seeks me? There was one who used to come
To me, always, before he rode to battle.
His name was Launcelot. That was long ago.
I was a Queen then. I have died since then.
It is not Launcelot! Leave me then in peace.

LYNNED

Alas, even here within this cloister wall
Is no peace any longer, but all round
Imminent tempest, ripe to burst on us,
Sir Mordred with his host in rebel arms,
Thrice swollen in number, threatens ever nearer.
Out of the West he thrusts. This very day
May see the issue. Never did the swarm
Of Saxon heathen press the King so hard.

GUENEVERE

Who else could seek me now? Is it the King?

LYNNED

It is the King.

GUENEVERE

I cannot see him.

LYNNED

Think!
He is in deadly danger: it may be
This is the last time you may look on him.

GUENEVERE

I cannot.

LYNNED

Sister, I, too, once denied
One who had loved me, when he sought me out
For my forgiveness. Gawaine was his name.
They had told an evil tale of me, and he
Believed it in his sudden wrath, and then
Repented, and he came to see me, and I
Denied him. Now he is dead, that stormy heart----

GUENEVERE

Sir Gawaine, dead?

LYNNED

Dead of that wound he got
By Joyous Gard. The news came even now.
I shall not see him now, never again;
I, that had all his pardon brimming here.
And have no pardon for myself.

GUENEVERE

You, too?

LYNNED

We are all kneaded of one flesh; wild earth,
Yet heavenly seed can spring in it, and peace
That comes in the end, but comes not without cost.
It is ill shrinking from our sorrow, Queen.
Will you not see the King?

GUENEVERE

How looked he? Tell me.

LYNNED

I saw him in the ghostly morning mist
Clad in his armour, sitting on his horse.
He rides to battle. Almost like a spirit
He seemed, and greater than himself.
When he spoke,
His voice was gentle, yet withal commanded.
And there was such a shining in his eyes
As never yet I saw in any man’s
Upon this earth.

GUENEVERE

Go, tell him----

(ARTHUR _appears at the back, as a shadow among the
shadows, emerging into the light till he stands near_
GUENEVERE.)

LYNNED

He is here.

(LYNNED _glides away as the King appears. He has an
exalted, strange, and almost transfigured air._)

ARTHUR

Guenevere!

GUENEVERE

Why do you bring me back that ache
And the sharp memory of all I thirst
To have forgotten?
Do you come now to forgive me?
Standing apart, to pardon?
Only the truth is worthy of what we are.
I have wept tears that scald the soul, and yet
I do my heart of hearts wrong, if I say
That I repent of all.

ARTHUR

If I were he
You knew in other time, if I were he
Who had no eyes but for his distant goal,
And saw not the things nearest to his heart--
But he is passed.

GUENEVERE

You speak with a new voice.
But I am as the dead who cannot change:
Burnt out. I feel not, only see, from far,
The unending desolation I have made.

ARTHUR

I too, I too see, Guenevere. I see
Your spirit, and my spirit, and that one
Who stands between us; and I see the realm,
I dreamed to make one flawless crystal, cracked
To fragments; and the loss, the waste. But now
I am come, through anguish and against my will,
Into a light that shows me what I am,
And where I go, and what endures beyond.
Were it not for the pain, I had not known.
In ignorance we tear each other’s hearts.
Know you, Gawaine is gone, dead of his wound?

GUENEVERE

I know it.

ARTHUR

Know you, the great heart in him
Turned once again to Launcelot at the last?
The old love flooded over that dark hate:
He knew that Launcelot loved him to the end
From the beginning. Guenevere, my light
Came then: I knew that Launcelot loved me
Not less, but more, because he did me wrong;
And I began to understand that love,
Which knows not good or evil, but gives all,
Because it turns as flowers do to the sun
And goes like stream to sea.

GUENEVERE

I did the wrong.
Through me the young have perished, the young men
Have fallen in their blood.
From me a woe goes welling through the world
Like waves in the black night.

ARTHUR

From me, from me!
In the beginning was my fault. I feel
The end upon me, like the air of dawn,
And see in light that is not of the earth
What we have done to each other, and left undone.
I in my far dream of that perfect realm,
Clouded in cares of policy and state,
Saw not what burning soul was at my side,
Wanting the love that sees through human eyes
And by love understands. I was blind. Now
I am borne beyond Time’s wisdom and that fear
Which moulds men’s justice. What am I, to speak
Pardon or condemnation? I am come
To humbleness that cries, “Father, forgive!
We know not what we did.” It is I that say,
“My Queen, forgive me.” Speak not any word.
Your eyes have spoken. Guenevere, I go
To battle. Give me your farewell.

GUENEVERE

To battle!
Never an end of battle!

ARTHUR

Mordred stands,
Ready to strike; and men, that I have made
From nothing, now are Mordred’s. That name sucks
All secret poison to itself. Yonder
He waits me. I shall overthrow him--this
Is a fight to put my soul in--yet a voice
Within my heart assures me that I go
To the last of all my battles.

GUENEVERE

To the last?

ARTHUR

I feel the wizard sword Excalibur
Like an impatient spirit within my hand,
As if he heard voices recalling me
Out of this ended world. But I am freed;
I am forgiven; the dark load is off.
Say me farewell, Guenevere.

GUENEVERE

Now you go
Into your mortal peril, and go alone,
Maimed of your strong right hand,
Of Launcelot, that loved you. Woe on me!
The very meanest of your serving men
That bears a weapon has the better right
Than she who was your Queen to follow you
Even with her prayers.

ARTHUR

Give me your prayers, I ask them.
Christ, that loved men and women, comfort you.

GUENEVERE

God keep my lord. I have no words any more.

ARTHUR

The day goes to the night,
And I to darkness, with my toil undone.
Yet something, surely, something shall remain.
A seed is sown in Britain, Guenevere;
And whether men wait for a hundred years
Or for a thousand, they shall find it flower
In youth unborn. The young have gone before me,
The maid Elaine, Gareth, and Gaheris--hearts
Without a price, poured out. But now I know
The tender and passionate spirit that burned in them
To dare all and endure all, lives and moves,
And though the dark comes down upon our waste,
Lives ever, like the sun above all storms;
This old world shall behold it shine again
To prove what splendour men have power to shape
From mere mortality.
Farewell! That peace
Which can remember, and yet hope, because
Love makes us greater than we know, come to you,
Guenevere!

[_He disappears into the shadows, and the scene closes in._

NINTH SCENE

_Same as Eighth Scene. Early light._ GUENEVERE _is discovered with a young_ NOVICE.

GUENEVERE

What hour is it?

FIRST NOVICE

Madam, struck six.

GUENEVERE

Still rumour,
And never the one certain thing. Two hours
Since any word came how the battle goes.
Yet all night long
Have our replenished torches flamed to guide
The bearers of the wounded to our gates.

FIRST NOVICE

Cloister and ante-chapel both are filled;
And still they bring them in, dying and dead.
Never was seen such slaughter in the world.

GUENEVERE

Still no news of the King!

(_A pause._)

_Enter_ SECOND NOVICE.

SECOND NOVICE

News, Madam!

GUENEVERE

Speak.

SECOND NOVICE

There came a rider spurring from the West;
His head was badged with blood. He implored speech
Passionately, as heavy with his news,
Of the Sister Lynned. She has quit the task
That keeps her with those wounded ones, and gone
To the gate to meet him. He is named, they say,
Sir Bedivere.

GUENEVERE

The King’s friend. He will bring
News of the King.

FIRST NOVICE

Madam, the Sister comes.

_Enter_ LYNNED.

LYNNED

Our Reverend Mother Abbess needs more hands
To bind those many wounds up. Go to her.

[_The_ NOVICES _go out, leaving_ GUENEVERE _and_ LYNNED
_facing each other._

GUENEVERE

There’s tidings on your face. The King is dead!

LYNNED

The King is dead. The flower of Kings is fallen.

(_A pause._)

Lucan is dead, Pelleas and Sagramore,
Lamorak, Meliot, Pellenore, Ozanna;
That famous fellowship of knights is dust.

GUENEVERE

Who shall let leap his bright sword in the air?
In what cause? There is no cause any more.
What tidings brought Sir Bedivere? Tell all.

LYNNED

The rebel power is broken, and he that raised it
Dead. Woe on us that the King died with him!
Upon a field all mounded with the slain,
The bloodiest harvest Time did ever reap,
He and the traitor Mordred met their last
And smote each other, even to the death.
From a seashore that seemed the end of earth
(So tells Sir Bedivere, like a ghost himself)
Men fled into the tumble of the tides
And the waves choked them falling; the salt spray
Stung them: but “Never saw I fire,” said he,
“Of such an indignation fill the King
Seeking for Mordred. At the last he spied him
Among the heaped dead, leaning on his sword,
And cried aloud and smote him; and that traitor,
Even as he gasped his bitter soul out, struck
On our anointed.”

GUENEVERE

Arthur, Arthur!

LYNNED

Yet
Not there he died, though hurt to death: in his arms
Sir Bedivere upbore him to a mere
Deep in the hills. There the King bade him ride
To Amesbury--ride swift and tell the Queen,
How, ere he died, he had sent words of love,
Of old, long love to Launcelot overseas;
With his life’s blood his secret heart gushed out
In love for Launcelot and his Queen. With that
Sir Bedivere departed; but so loth
That soon he came again, and lo! the King
Was no more there, but in the place was sound
He knew not whether of water or in the air,
A music new to mortals, and the smell
As of flowers floating through the dark, as if
The passing of that spirit sweetened earth.
And he remembered how it was foretold
That three sad Queens should fetch King Arthur home
Across the water of Avalon to his rest.

(_A chant is faintly heard in the distance during this last
speech._)

GUENEVERE

I am the cost. They are fallen, those famous ones
Who made this kingdom glorious, they are fallen
About their King; they have yielded up their strength
And beauty and valour.

(_The convent bell begins to toll._)

The grieving bell begins,
As if it were the mouth and voice of Death
Emptying the earth of honour and renown.
I was the cost of all.

LYNNED

Lift up your heart!
Out of such pain the immortal part of us
Is tempered. The King passes: even now
He is ferried over that lamenting mere,
And voices from the starred air sing him home.
But for us, tarriers in this wounded world,
Love, only love, that knows no measure, love
That understands all sorrows and all sins,
Love that alone changes the hearts of men,
And gives to the last heart-beat, only love
Suffices. Come we apart and pray awhile
For the noble and great spirits passed from us.

(_The chant is heard nearer, and rises louder as the
scene closes in darkness. After a pause the gloom melts,
gradually revealing a wide distance of moonlit water, over
which glides a barge, bearing_ KING ARTHUR, _and the three
Queens sorrowing over him, to the island of Avalon._)

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_.