Chapter V: KING LEAR'S WIFE. (1911-13.) Published in "Georgian (3)

GUNNAR, _laughing._
Fierce woman, teach me to be brave in age,
And let us see if it is safe for you.

_He leads RANNVEIG out, his hand on her shoulder; the hound goes with them._

STEINVOR.
Mistress, my heart is big with mutinies
For your proud sake: does not your heart mount up?
He is an outlaw now and could not hold you
If you should choose to leave him. Is it not law?
Is it not law that you could loose this marriage--
Nay, that he loosed it shamefully years ago
By a hard blow that bruised your innocent cheek,
Dishonouring you to lesser women and chiefs?
See, it burns up again at the stroke of thought.
Come, leave him, mistress; we will go with you.
There is no woman in the country now
Whose name can kindle men as yours can do--
Ay, many would pile for you the silks he grudges;
And if you did withdraw your potent presence
Fire would not spare this house so reverently.

HALLGERD.
Am I a wandering flame that sears and passes?
We must bide here, good Steinvor, and be quiet.
Without a man a woman cannot rule,
Nor kill without a knife; and where's the man
That I shall put before this goodly Gunnar?
I will not be made less by a less man.
There is no man so great as my man Gunnar:
I have set men at him to show forth his might;
I have planned thefts and breakings of his word
When my pent heart grew sore with fermentation
Of malice too long undone, yet could not stir him.
O, I will make a battle of the Thing,
Where men vow holy peace, to magnify him.
Is it not rare to sit and wait o' nights,
Knowing that murderousness may even now
Be coming down outside like second darkness
Because my man is greater?

STEINVOR, _shuddering._ Is it not rare.

HALLGERD.
That blow upon the face
So long ago is best not spoken of.
I drave a thrall to steal and burn at Otkell's
Who would not sell to us in famine time
But denied Gunnar as if he were suppliant:
Then at our feast when men rode from the Thing
I spread the stolen food and Gunnar knew.
He smote me upon the face ... indeed he smote me....
O, Gunnar smote me and had shame of me
And said he'd not partake with any thief;
Although I stole to injure his despiser....
But if he had abandoned me as well
'Tis I who should have been unmated now;
For many men would soon have judged me thief
And shut me from this land until I died--
And then I should have lost him.... Yet he smote me....

ASTRID.
He kept you his--yes, and maybe saved you
From a debasement that could madden or kill,
For women thieves ere now have felt a knife
Severing ear or nose. And yet the feud
You sowed with Otkell's house shall murder Gunnar.
Otkell was slain: then Gunnar's enviers,
Who could not crush him under his own horse
At the big horse-fight, stirred up Otkell's son
To avenge his father; for should he be slain
Two in one stock would prove old Njal's fore-telling,
And Gunnar's place be emptied either way
For those high helpless men who cannot fill it.
O, mistress, you have hurt us all in this:
You have cut off your strength, you have maimed yourself,
You are losing power and worship and men's trust.
When Gunnar dies no other man dare take you.

HALLGERD.
You gather poison in your mouth for me.
A high-born woman may handle what she fancies
Without being ear-pruned like a pilfering beggar.
Look to your ears if you touch ought of mine:
Ay, you shall join the mumping sisterhood
And tramp and learn your difference from me.
_She turns from_ ASTRID.
Steinvor, I have remembered the great veil,
The woven cloud, the tissue of gold and garlands,
That Gunnar took from some outlandish ship
And deemed a thing from Greekland or from Hind:
Fetch it from the ambry in the bower.

_STEINVOR goes out by the dais door._

ASTRID.
Mistress, indeed you are a cherished woman.
That veil is worth a lifetime's weight of coifs:
I have heard a queen offered her daughter for it,
But Gunnar said it should come home and wait--
And then gave it to you. The half of Iceland
Tells fabulous legends of a fabulous thing,
Yet never saw it: I know they never saw it,
For ere it reached the ambry I came on it
Tumbled in the loft with ragged kirtles.

HALLGERD.
What, are you there again? Let Gunnar alone.

_STEINVOR enters with the veil folded. HALLGERD takes it with one hand and shakes it into a heap._

This is the cloth. He brought it out at night,
In the first hour that we were left together,
And begged of me to wear it at high feasts
And more outshine all women of my time:
He shaped it to my head with my gold circlet,
Saying my hair smouldered like Rhine-fire through,
He let it fall about my neck and fall
About my shoulders, mingle with my skirts
And billow in the draught along the floor.

_She rises and holds the veil behind her head._

I know I dazzled as if I entered in
And walked upon a windy sunset and drank it,
Yet must I stammer at such strange uncouthness
And tear it from me, tangling my arms in it--
I could not so befool myself and seem
A laughable bundle in each woman's eyes,
Wearing such things as no one ever wore,
Useless ... no head-cloth ... too unlike my fellows.
Yet he turns miser for a tiny coif.
It would cut into many golden coifs
And dim some women in their Irish clouts--
But no; I'll shape and stitch it into shifts,
Smirch it like linen, patch it with rags, to watch
His silent anger when he sees my answer.
Give me thy shears, girl Oddny.

ODDNY. You'll not part it?

HALLGERD.
I'll shorten it.

ODDNY. I have no shears with me.

HALLGERD.
No matter; I can start it with my teeth
And tear it down the folds. So. So. So. So.
Here's a fine shift for summer: and another.
I'll find my shears and chop out waists and neck-holes.
Ay, Gunnar, Gunnar!

_She throws the tissue on the ground, and goes out by the dais door._

ODDNY, _lifting one of the pieces._
O me! A wonder has vanished.

STEINVOR.
What is a wonder less? She has done finely,
Setting her worth above dead marvels and shows....

_The deep menacing baying of the hound is heard near at hand. A woman's cry follows it._

They come, they come! Let us flee by the bower!

_Starting up, she stumbles in the tissue and sinks upon it. The others rise._

You are leaving me--will you not wait for me--
Take, take me with you....

_Mingled cries of women are heard._

GUNNAR, _outside._ Samm, it is well: be still.
Women, be quiet; loose me; get from my feet,
Or I will set the hound to wipe me clear....

STEINVOR, _recovering herself._
Women are sent to spy.

_The sound of a door being opened is heard. GUNNAR enters from the left, followed by three beggar-women, BIARTEY, JOFRID, and GUDFINN. They hobble and limp, and are swathed in shapeless nameless rags which trail about their feet; BIARTEY'S left sleeve is torn completely away, leaving her arm bare and mud-smeared; the others' skirts are torn, and JOFRID'S gown at the neck; GUDFINN wears a felt hood buttoned under her chin, the others' faces are almost hid in falling tangles of grey hair. Their faces are shrivelled and weather-beaten, and BIARTEY'S mouth is distorted by two front teeth that project like tusks._

GUNNAR. Get in to the light.
Yea has he mouthed ye? ... What men send ye here?
Who are ye? Whence come ye? What do ye seek?
I think no mother ever suckled you:
You must have dragged your roots up in waste places
One foot at once, or heaved a shoulder up--

BIARTEY, _interrupting him._
Out of the bosoms of cairns and standing stones.
I am Biartey: she is Jofrid: she is Gudfinn:
We are lone women known to no man now.
We are not sent: we come.

GUNNAR. Well, you come.
You appear by night, rising under my eyes
Like marshy breath or shadows on the wall;
Yet the hound scented you like any evil
That feels upon the night for a way out.
And do you, then, indeed wend alone?
Came you from the West or the sky-covering North,
Yet saw no thin steel moving in the dark?

BIARTEY.
Not West, not North: we slept upon the East,
Arising in the East where no men dwell.
We have abided in the mountain places,
Chanted our woes among the black rocks crouching;

_GUDFINN joins her in a sing-song utterance._

From the East, from the East we drove and the wind waved us,
Over the heaths, over the barren ashes.
We are old, our eyes are old, and the light hurts us,
We have skins on our eyes that part alone to the star-light.
We stumble about the night, the rocks tremble
Beneath our trembling feet; black sky thickens,
Breaks into clots, and lets the moon upon us.

_JOFRID joins her voice to the voices of the other two._

Far from the men who fear us, men who stone us,
Hiding, hiding, flying whene'er they slumber,
High on the crags we pause, over the moon-gulfs;
Black clouds fall and leave us up in the moon-depths
Where wind flaps our hair and cloaks like fin-webs,
Ay, and our sleeves that toss with our arms and the cadence
Of quavering crying among the threatening echoes.
Then we spread our cloaks and leap down the rock-stairs,
Sweeping the heaths with our skirts, greying the dew-bloom,
Until we feel a pool on the wide dew stretches
Stilled by the moon or ruffling like breast-feathers,
And, with grey sleeves cheating the sleepy herons,
Squat among them, pillow us there and sleep.
But in the harder wastes we stand upright,
Like splintered rain-worn boulders set to the wind
In old confederacy, and rest and sleep.

_HALLGERD'S women are huddled together and clasping each other._

ODDNY.
What can these women be who sleep like horses,
Standing up in the darkness.... What will they do....

GUNNAR.
Ye wail like ravens and have no human thoughts.
What do ye seek? What will ye here with us?

BIARTEY, _as all three cower suddenly._
Succour upon this terrible journeying.
We have a message for a man in the West,
Sent by an old man sitting in the East.
We are spent, our feet are moving wounds, our bodies
Dream of themselves and seem to trail behind us
Because we went unfed down in the mountains.
Feed us and shelter us beneath your roof,
And put us over the Markfleet, over the channels.
We are weak old women: we are beseeching you.

GUNNAR.
You may bide here this night, but on the morrow
You shall go over, for tramping shameless women
Carry too many tales from stead to stead--
And sometimes heavier gear than breath and lies.
These women will tell the mistress all I grant you;
Get to the fire until she shall return.

BIARTEY.
Thou art a merciful man and we shall thank thee.

GUNNAR _goes out again to the left._

_The old women approach the young ones gradually._

Little ones, do not doubt us. Could we hurt you?
Because we are ugly must we be bewitched?

STEINVOR.
Nay, but bewitch us.

BIARTEY. Not in a litten house:
Not ere the hour when night turns on itself
And shakes the silence: not while ye wake together.
Sweet voice, tell us, was that verily Gunnar?

STEINVOR.
Arrh--do not touch me, unclean flyer-by-night:
Have ye birds' feet to match such bat-webbed fingers?

BIARTEY.
I am only a cowed curst woman who walks with death;
I will crouch here. Tell us, was it Gunnar?

ODDNY.
Yea, Gunnar surely. Is he not big enough
To fit the songs about him?

BIARTEY. He is a man.
Why will his manhood urge him to be dead?
We walk about the whole old land at night,
We enter many dales and many halls:
And everywhere is talk of Gunnar's greatness,
His slayings and his fate outside the law.
The last ship has not gone: why will he tarry?

ODDNY.
He chose a ship, but men who rode with him
Say that his horse threw him upon the shore,
His face toward the Lithe and his own fields;
As he arose he trembled at what he gazed on
(Although those men saw nothing pass or meet them)
And said.... What said he, girls?

ASTRID. "Fair is the Lithe:
So fair I never thought it was so fair.
Its corn is white, its meadows green after mowing.
I will ride home again and never leave it."

ODDNY.
'Tis an unlikely tale: he never said it.
No one could mind such things in such an hour.
Plainly he saw his fetch come down the sands,
And knew he need not seek another country
And take that with him to walk upon the deck
In night and storm.

GUDFINN. He he he! No man speaks thus.

JOFRID.
No man, no man: he must be doomed somewhere.

BIARTEY.
Doomed and fey, my sisters.... We are too old,
Yet I'd not marvel if we outlasted him.
Sisters, that is a fair fierce girl who spins....
My fair fierce girl, you could fight--but can you ride?
Would you not shout to be riding in a storm?
Ah ... h, girls learnt riding well when I was a girl,
And foam rides on the breakers as I was taught....
My fair fierce girl, tell me your noble name.

ODDNY.
My name is Oddny.

BIARTEY. Oddny, when you are old
Would you not be proud to be no man's purse-string,
But wild and wandering and friends with the earth?
Wander with us and learn to be old yet living.
We'd win fine food with you to beg for us.

STEINVOR.
Despised, cast out, unclean, and loose men's night-bird.

ODDNY.
When I am old I shall be some man's friend,
And hold him when the darkness comes....

BIARTEY.
And mumble by the fire and blink....
Good Oddny, let me spin for you awhile,
That Gunnar's house may profit by his guesting:
Come, trust me with your distaff....

ODDNY. Are there spells
Wrought on a distaff?

STEINVOR. Only by the Norns,
And they'll not sit with human folk to-night.

ODDNY.
Then you may spin all night for what I care;
But let the yarn run clean from knots and snarls,
Or I shall have the blame when you are gone.

BIARTEY, _taking the distaff._
Trust well the aged knowledge of my hands;
Thin and thin do I spin, and the thread draws finer.

_She sings as she spins._

They go by three,
And the moon shivers;
The tired waves flee,
The hidden rivers
Also flee.

I take three strands;
There is one for her,
One for my hands,
And one to stir
For another's hands.

I twine them thinner,
The dead wool doubts;
The outer is inner,
The core slips out....

_HALLGERD re-enters by the dais door, holding a pair of shears._

HALLGERD.
What are these women, Oddny? Who let them in?

BIARTEY, _who spins through all that follows._
Lady, the man of fame who is your man
Gave us his peace to-night, and that of his house.
We are blown beggars tramping about the land,
Denied a home for our evil and vagrant hearts;
We sought this shelter when the first dew soaked us,
And should have perished by the giant hound
But Gunnar fought it with his eyes and saved us.
That is a strange hound, with a man's mind in it.

HALLGERD, _seating herself in the high-seat._
It is an Irish hound, from that strange soil
Where men by day walk with unearthly eyes
And cross the veils of the air, and are not men
But fierce abstractions eating their own hearts
Impatiently and seeing too much to be joyful....
If Gunnar welcomed ye, ye may remain.

BIARTEY.
She is a fair free lady, is she not?
But that was to be looked for in a high one
Who counts among her fathers the bright Sigurd,
The bane of Fafnir the Worm, the end of the god-kings;
Among her mothers Brynhild, the lass of Odin,
The maddener of swords, the night-clouds' rider.
She has kept sweet that father's lore of bird-speech,
She wears that mother's power to cheat a god.
Sisters, she does well to be proud....

JOFRID AND GUDFINN. Ay, Well....

HALLGERD, _shaping the tissue with her shears._
I need no witch to tell I am of rare seed,
Nor measure my pride nor praise it. Do I not know?
Old women, ye are welcomed: sit with us,
And while we stitch tell us what gossip runs--
But if strife might be warmed by spreading it.

BIARTEY.
Lady, we are hungered; we were lost
All night among the mountains of the East;
Clouds of the cliffs come down my eyes again....
I pray you let some thrall bring us to food.

HALLGERD.
Ye get nought here. The supper is long over;
The women shall not let ye know the food-house,
Or ye'll be thieving in the night. Ye are idle,
Ye suck a man's house bare and seek another.
'Tis bed-time; get to sleep--that stills much hunger.

BIARTEY.
Now it is easy to be seeing what spoils you.
You were not grasping or ought but over warm
When Sigmund, Gunnar's kinsman, guested here.
You followed him, you were too kind with him,
You lavished Gunnar's treasure and gear on him
To draw him on, and did not call that thieving.
Ay, Sigmund took your feuds on him and died
As Gunnar shall. Men have much harm by you.

HALLGERD.
Now have I gashed the golden cloth awry:
'Tis ended--a ruin of clouts--the worth of the gift--
Bridal dish-clouts--nay, a bundle of flame.
I'll burn it to a breath of its old queen's ashes:
Fire, O fire, drink up....

_She throws the shreds of the veil on the glowing embers: they waft to ashes with a brief high flare. She goes to JOFRID._

There's one of you
That holds her head in a bird's sideways fashion:
I know that reach o' the chin.... What's under thy hair?--

_She fixes JOFRID with her knee, and lifts her hair._

Pfui, 'tis not hair, but sopped and rotting moss--
A thief, a thief indeed.... And twice a thief....
She has no ears. Keep thy hooked fingers still
While thou art here, for if I miss a mouthful
Thou shalt miss all thy nose. Get up, get up;
I'll lodge ye with the mares....

JOFRID, _starting up._ Three men, three men,
Three men have wived you, and for all you gave them
Paid with three blows upon a cheek once kissed--
To every man a blow--and the last blow
All the land knows was won by thieving food....
Yea, Gunnar is ended by the theft and the thief.
Is it not told that when you first grew tall,
A false rare girl, Hrut your own kinsman said
"I know not whence thief's eyes entered our blood."
You have more ears, yet are you not my sister?
Our evil vagrant heart is deeper in you.

HALLGERD, _snatching the distaff from Biartey._
Out and be gone, be gone. Lie with the mountains,
Smother among the thunder; stale dew mould you.
Outstrip the hound, or he shall so embrace you....

BIARTEY.
Now is all done ... all done ... and all your deed!
She broke the thread, and it shall not join again.
Spindle, spindle, the coiling weft shall dwindle;
Leap on the fire and burn, for all is done....

_She casts the spindle upon the fire, and stretches her hands toward it._

HALLGERD, _attacking them with the distaff._
Into the night.... Dissolve....

BIARTEY, _as the three rush toward the door._
Sisters, away:
Leave the woman to her smouldering beauty,
Leave the fire that's kinder than the woman,
Leave the roof-tree ere it falls. It falls.

_GUDFINN joins her. Each time Hallgerd flags they turn as they chant, and point at her._

We shall cry no more in the high rock-places,
We are gone from the night, the winds and the clouds are empty:
Soon the man in the West shall receive our message.

_JOFRID'S voice joins the other voices._

Men reject us, yet their house is unstable....
The slayers' hands are warm--the sound of their riding
Reached us down the ages, ever approaching.

HALLGERD, _at the same time, her voice high over theirs._
Pack, ye rag-heaps--or I'll unravel you.

THE THREE, _continuously._
House that spurns us, woe shall come upon you:
Death shall hollow you. Now we curse the woman--
May all the woes smite her till she can feel them.
Shall we not roost in her bower yet? Woe! Woe!

_The distaff breaks, and Hallgerd drives them out with her hands. Their voices continue for a moment outside, dying away._

Call to the owl-friends.... Woe! Woe! Woe!

ASTRID.
Whence came these mounds of dread to haunt the night?
It doubles this disquiet to have them near us.

ODDNY.
They must be witches--and it was my distaff--
Will fire eat through me....

STEINVOR. Or the Norns themselves.

HALLGERD.
Or bad old women used to govern by fear.
To bed, to bed--we are all up too late.

STEINVOR, _as she turns with_ ASTRID _and_ ODDNY
_to the dais._
If beds are made for sleep we might sit long.
_They go out by the dais door._

GUNNAR, _as he enters hastily from the left._
Where are those women? There's some secret in them:
I have heard such others crying down to them.

HALLGERD.
They turned foul-mouthed, they beckoned evil toward us--
I drove them forth a breath ago.

GUNNAR. Forth? Whence?

HALLGERD.
By the great door: they cried about the night.

_RANNVEIG follows GUNNAR in._

GUNNAR.
Nay but I entered there and passed them not.
Mother, where are the women?

RANNVEIG. I saw none come.

GUNNAR.
They have not come, they have gone.

RANNVEIG. I crossed the yard,
Hearing a noise, but a big bird dropped past,
Beating my eyes; and then the yard was clear.
_The deep baying of the hound is heard
again._

GUNNAR.
They must be spies: yonder is news of them.
The wise hound knew them, and knew them again.
_The baying is succeeded by one wild howl._
Nay, nay!
Men treat thee sorely, Samm my fosterling:
Even by death thou warnest--but it is meant
That our two deaths will not be far apart.

RANNVEIG.
Think you that men are yonder?

GUNNAR. Men are yonder.

RANNVEIG.
My son, my son, get on the rattling war-woof,
The old grey shift of Odin, the hide of steel.
Handle the snake with edges, the fang of the rings.

GUNNAR, _going to the weapons by the high-seat._
There are not enough moments to get under
That heavy fleece: an iron hat must serve....

HALLGERD.
O brave! O brave!--he'll dare them with no shield.

GUNNAR, _lifting down the great bill from the wall._
Let me but reach this haft, I shall get hold
Of steel enough to fence me all about.

_He shakes the bill above his head: a deep resonant humming follows. The dais door is thrown open, and ODDNY, ASTRID, and STEINVOR stream through in their night-clothes._

STEINVOR. The bill!

ODDNY. The bill is singing!

ASTRID. The bill sings!

GUNNAR, _shaking the bill again._
Ay, brain-biter, waken ... Awake and whisper
Out of the throat of dread thy one brief burden.
Blind art thou, and thy kiss will do no choosing:
Worn art thou to a hair's grey edge, a nothing
That slips through all it finds, seeking more nothing.
There is a time, brain-biter, a time that comes
When there shall be much quietness for thee:
Men will be still about thee. I shall know.
It is not yet: the wind shall hiss at thee first.
Ahui! Leap up, brain-biter; sing again.
Sing! Sing thy verse of anger and feel my hands.

RANNVEIG.
Stand thou, my Gunnar, in the porch to meet them,
And the great door shall keep thy back for thee.

GUNNAR.
I had a brother there. Brother, where are you....

HALLGERD.
Nay nay. Get thou, my Gunnar, to the loft,
Stand at the casement, watch them how they come.
Arrows maybe could drop on them from there.

RANNVEIG.
'Tis good: the woman's cunning for once is faithful.

GUNNAR, _turning again to the weapons._
'Tis good, for now I hear a foot that stumbles
Along the stable-roof against the hall.
My bow--where is my bow? Here with its arrows....
Go in again, you women on the dais,
And listen at the casement of the bower
For men who cross the yard, and for their words.

ASTRID.
O, Gunnar, we shall serve you.

_ASTRID, ODDNY, and STEINVOR go out by the dais door._

RANNVEIG. Hallgerd, come;
We must shut fast the door, bar the great door,
Or they'll be in on us and murder him.

HALLGERD.
Not I: I'd rather set the door wide open
And watch my Gunnar kindling at the peril,
Keeping them back--shaming men for ever
Who could not enter at a gaping door.

RANNVEIG.
Bar the great door, I say, or I will bar it--
Door of the house you rule.... Son, son, command it.

GUNNAR, _as he ascends to the loft._
O, spendthrift fire, do you waft up again?
Hallgerd, what riot of ruinous chance will sate you?...
Let the door stand, my mother: it is her way.
_He looks out of the casement._
Here's a red kirtle on the lower roof.
_He thrusts with the bill through the casement._

A MAN'S VOICE, _far off._ Is Gunnar within?

_THORGRIM THE EASTERLING'S VOICE, near the casement._

Find that out for yourselves:
I am only sure his bill is yet within.
_A noise of falling is heard._

GUNNAR.
The Easterling from Sandgil might be dying--
He has gone down the roof, yet no feet helped him.

_A shouting of many men is heard: GUNNAR starts back from the casement as several arrows fly in._

Now there are black flies biting before a storm.
I see men gathering beneath the cart-shed:
Gizur the White and Geir the priest are there,
And a lean whispering shape that should be Mord.
I have a sting for some one--
_He looses an arrow: a distant cry follows._
Valgard's voice....
A shaft of theirs is lying on the roof:
I'll send it back, for if it should take root
A hurt from their own spent and worthless weapon
Would put a scorn upon their tale for ever.
_He leans out for the arrow._

RANNVEIG.
Do not, my son: rouse them not up again
When they are slackening in their attack.

HALLGERD.
Shoot, shoot it out, and I'll come up to mock them.

GUNNAR, _loosing the arrow._
Hoia! Swerve down upon them, little hawk.
_A shout follows._
Now they run all together round one man:
Now they murmur....

A VOICE. Close in, lift bows again:
He has no shafts, for this is one of ours.
_Arrows fly in at the casement._

GUNNAR.
Wife, here is something in my arm at last:
The head is twisted--I must cut it clear.

_STEINVOR throws open the dais door and rushes through with a high shriek._

STEINVOR.
Woman, let us out--help us out--
The burning comes--they are calling out for fire.

_She shrieks again. ODDNY and ASTRID, who have come behind her, muffle her head in a kirtle and lift her._

ASTRID, _turning as they bear her out._
Fire suffuses only her cloudy brain:
The flare she walks in is on the other side
Of her shot eyes. We heard a passionate voice,
A shrill unwomanish voice that must be Mord,
With "Let us burn him--burn him house and all."
And then a grave and trembling voice replied
"Although my life hung on it, it shall not be."
Again the cunning fanatic voice went on
"I say the house must burn above his head."
And the unlifted voice "Why wilt thou speak
Of what none wishes: it shall never be."

_ASTRID and ODDNY disappear with STEINVOR._

GUNNAR.
To fight with honest men is worth much friendship:
I'll strive with them again.

_He lifts his bow and loosens arrows at intervals while HALLGERD and RANNVEIG speak._

_HALLGERD, in an undertone to RANNVEIG, looking out meanwhile to the left._

Mother, come here--
Come here and hearken. Is there not a foot,
A stealthy step, a fumbling on the latch
Of the great door? They come, they come, old mother:
Are you not blithe and thirsty, knowing they come
And cannot be held back? Watch and be secret,
To feel things pass that cannot be undone.

RANNVEIG.
It is the latch. Cry out, cry out for Gunnar,
And bring him from the loft.

HALLGERD. O, never:
For then they'd swarm upon him from the roof.
Leave him up there and he can bay both armies,
While the whole dance goes merrily before us
And we can warm our hearts at such a flare.

_RANNVEIG, turning both ways, while HALLGERD watches her gleefully._

Gunnar, my son, my son! What shall I do....

_ORMILD enters from the left, white and with her hand to her side, and walking as if she is sick._

HALLGERD.
Bah--here's a bleached assault....

RANNVEIG. O, lonesome thing,
To be forgot and left in such a night.
What is there now--are terrors surging still?

ORMILD.
I know not what has gone: when the men came
I hid in the far cowhouse. I think I swooned....
And then I followed the shadow. Who is dead?

RANNVEIG.
Go to the bower: the women will care for you.

_ORMILD totters up the hall from pillar to pillar._

ASTRID, _entering by the dais door._
Now they have found the weather-ropes and lashed them
Over the carven ends of the beams outside:
They bear on them, they tighten them with levers,
And soon they'll tear the high roof off the hall.

GUNNAR.
Get back and bolt the women into the bower.

_ASTRID takes ORMILD, who has just reached her, and goes out with her by the dais door, which closes after them._

Hallgerd, go in: I shall be here thereafter.

HALLGERD.
I will not stir. Your mother had best go in.

RANNVEIG.
How shall I stir?

VOICES, _outside and gathering volume._
Ai ... Ai ... Reach harder ... Ai ...

GUNNAR.
Stand clear, stand clear--it moves.

THE VOICES. It moves ... Ai, ai ...

_The whole roof slides down rumblingly, disappearing with a crash behind the wall of the house. All is dark above. Fine snow sifts down now and then to the end of the play._

GUNNAR, _handling his bow._
The wind has changed: 'tis coming on to snow.
The harvesters will hurry in to-morrow.

THORBRAND THORLEIKSSON _appears above the wall-top a little past_ GUNNAR, _and, reaching noiselessly with a sword, cuts_ GUNNAR'S _bowstring._

GUNNAR, _dropping the bow and seizing his bill._
Ay, Thorbrand, is it thou? That's a rare blade,
To shear through hemp and gut.... Let your wife have it
For snipping needle-yarn; or try it again.

THORBRAND, _raising his sword._
I must be getting back ere the snow thickens:
So here's my message to the end--or farther.
Gunnar, this night it is time to start your journey
And get you out of Iceland....

GUNNAR, _thrusting at_ THORBRAND _with the bill._
I think it is:
So you shall go before me in the dark.
Wait for me when you find a quiet shelter.

THORBRAND _sinks backward from the wall and is heard to fall farther. Immediately_ ASBRAND THORLEIKSSON _starts up in his place._

ASBRAND, _striking repeatedly with a sword._
O, down, down, down!

GUNNAR, _parrying the blows with the bill._
Ay, Asbrand, thou as well?
Thy brother Thorbrand was up here but now:
He has gone back the other way, maybe--
Be hasty, or you'll not come up with him.

_He thrusts with the bill: ASBRAND lifts a shield before the blow._

Here's the first shield that I have seen to-night.

_The bill pierces the shield: ASBRAND disappears and is heard to fall. GUNNAR turns from the casement._

Hallgerd, my harp that had but one long string,
But one low song, but one brief wingy flight,
Is voiceless, for my bowstring is cut off.
Sever two locks of hair for my sake now,
Spoil those bright coils of power, give me your hair,
And with my mother twist those locks together
Into a bowstring for me. Fierce small head,
Thy stinging tresses shall scourge men forth by me.

HALLGERD.
Does ought lie on it?

GUNNAR. Nought but my life lies on it;
For they will never dare to close on me
If I can keep my bow bended and singing.

HALLGERD, _tossing back her hair._
Then now I call to your mind that bygone blow
You gave my face; and never a whit do I care
If you hold out a long time or a short.

GUNNAR.
Every man who has trod a war-ship's deck,
And borne a weapon of pride, has a proud heart
And asks not twice for any little thing.
Hallgerd, I'll ask no more from you, no more.

RANNVEIG, _tearing off her wimple._
She will not mar her honour of widowhood.
O, widows' manes are priceless.... Off, mean wimple--
I am a finished widow, why do you hide me?
Son, son who knew my bosom before hers,
Look down and curse for an unreverend thing
An old bald woman who is no use at last.
These bleachy threads, these tufts of death's first combing,
And loosening heart-strings twisted up together
Would not make half a bowstring. Son, forgive me....

GUNNAR.
A grasping woman's gold upon her head
Is made for hoarding, like all other gold:
A spendthrift woman's gold upon her head
Is made for spending on herself. Let be--
She goes her heart's way, and I go to earth.

AUNUND'S _head rises above the wall near_ GUNNAR.

What, are you there?

AUNUND. Yes, Gunnar, we are here.

GUNNAR, _thrusting with the bill._
Then bide you there.

AUNUND'S _head sinks:_ THORGEIR'S _rises in the same place._

How many heads have you?

THORGEIR.
But half as many as the feet we grow on.

GUNNAR.
And I've not yet used up (_thrusting again_) all my hands.

_As he thrusts another man rises a little farther back, and leaps past him into the loft. Others follow, and GUNNAR is soon surrounded by many armed men, so that only the rising and falling of his bill is seen._

The threshing-floor is full.... Up, up, brain-biter!
We work too late to-night--up, open the husks.

O, smite and pulse
On their anvil heads:
The smithy is full,
There are shoes to be made
For the hoofs of the steeds
Of the Valkyr girls....

FIRST MAN.
Hack through the shaft....

SECOND MAN.
Receive the blade
In the breast of a shield,
And wrench it round....

GUNNAR.
For the hoofs of the steeds
Of the Valkyr girls
Who race up the night
To be first at our feast,
First in the play
With immortal spears
In deadly holes....

THIRD MAN.
Try at his back....

MANY VOICES, _shouting in confusion._

Have him down.... Heels on the bill.... Ahui, ahui....

_The bill does not rise._

HROALD, _with the breaking voice of a young man,
high over all._
Father.... It is my blow.... It is I who kill him....

_The crowd parts, suddenly silent, showing GUNNAR fallen._

_RANNVEIG covers her face with her hands._

HALLGERD, _laughing as she leans forward and
holds her breasts in her hands._
O, clear sweet laughter of my heart, flow out!
It is so mighty and beautiful and blithe
To watch a man dying--to hover and watch.

RANNVEIG.
Cease: are you not immortal in shame already?

HALLGERD.
Heroes, what deeds ye compass, what great deeds--
One man has held ye from an open door:
Heroes, heroes, are ye undefeated?

GIZUR, _an old white-bearded man, to the other riders._
We have laid low to earth a mighty chief:
We have laboured harder than on greater deeds,
And maybe won remembrance by the deeds
Of Gunnar when no deed of ours should live;
For this defence of his shall outlast kingdoms
And gather him fame till there are no more men.

MORD.
Come down and splinter those old birds his gods
That perch upon the carven high-seat pillars;
Wreck every place his shadow fell upon,
Rive out his gear, drive off his forfeit beasts.

SECOND MAN.
It shall not be.

MANY MEN. Never.

GIZUR. We'll never do it:
Let no man lift a blade or finger a clout--
Is not this Gunnar, Gunnar, whom we have slain?
Home, home, before the dawn shows all our deed.

_The riders go down quickly over the wall-top, and disappear._

HALLGERD.
Now I shall close his nostrils and his eyes,
And thereby take his blood-feud into my hands.

RANNVEIG.
If you do stir I'll choke you with your hair.
I will not let your murderous mind be near him
When he no more can choose and does not know.

HALLGERD.
His wife I was, and yet he never judged me:
He did not set your motherhood between us.
Let me alone--I stand here for my sons.

RANNVEIG.
The wolf, the carrion bird, and the fair woman
Hurry upon a corpse, as if they think
That all is left for them the grey gods need not.

_She twines her hands in HALLGERD'S hair and draws her down to the floor._

O, I will comb your hair with bones and thumbs,
Array these locks in my right widow's way,
And deck you like the bed-mate of the dead.
Lie down upon the earth as Gunnar lies,
Or I can never match him in your looks
And whiten you and make your heart as cold.

HALLGERD.
Mother, what will you do? Unloose me now--
Your eyes would not look so at me alone.

RANNVEIG.
Be still, my daughter....

HALLGERD. And then?

RANNVEIG. Ah, do not fear--
I see a peril nigh and all its blitheness.
Order your limbs--stretch out your length of beauty,
Let down your hands and close those deepening eyes,
Or you can never stiffen as you should.
A murdered man should have a murdered wife
When all his fate is treasured in her mouth.
This wifely hair-pin will be sharp enough.

HALLGERD, _starting up as_ RANNVEIG _half loosens her to take a hair-pin from her own head._

She is mad, mad.... O, the bower is barred--
Hallgerd, come out, let mountains cover you....
_She rushes out to the left._

RANNVEIG, _following her._
The night take you indeed....

_GIZUR enters from the left._

GIZUR. Ay, drive her out;
For no man's house was ever better by her.

RANNVEIG.
Is an old woman's life desired as well?

GIZUR.
We ask that you will grant us earth hereby
Of Gunnar's earth, for two men dead to-night
To lie beneath a cairn that we shall raise.

RANNVEIG.
Only for two? Take it: ask more of me.
I wish the measure were for all of you.

GIZUR.
Your words must be forgiven you, old mother,
For none has had a greater loss than yours.
Why would he set himself against us all....
_He goes out._

RANNVEIG.
Gunnar, my son, we are alone again.

_She goes up the hall, mounts to the loft and stoops beside him._

O, they have hurt you ... but that is forgot.
Boy, it is bedtime; though I am too changed,
And cannot lift you up and lay you in,
You shall go warm to bed--I'll put you there.
There is no comfort in my breast to-night:
But close your eyes beneath my fingers' touch,
Slip your feet down, and let me smooth your hands;
Then sleep and sleep. Ay, all the world's asleep;
But some will waken. _She rises._
You had a rare toy when you were awake--
I'll wipe it with my hair ... Nay, keep it so,
The colour on it now has gladdened you.
It shall lie near you.
_She raises the bill: the deep hum follows._
No; it remembers him,
And other men shall fall by it through Gunnar:
The bill, the bill is singing.... The bill sings!

_She kisses the weapon, then shakes it on high._

CURTAIN.

MIDSUMMER EVE

_TO CLINTON BALMER
AND THE DEAR MEMORY OF
JAMES HAMILTON HAY
FOR THE SUMMER OF 1900
AT CARTMEL_

_IN the lost Valley all is still
To-day: upon the stony hill
The heat of the late afternoon
Settles in coppery haze: and soon
A voice not known to me will call
Silent obedient cows to stall,
In the same immemorial cry
From century to century
Changing but by the uttering voice.
And in a while a little noise
(Hou! Hou!) far off near Newton Head
Will tell that at another stead
The browsing cattle pause and turn
Unwilling heads to seem to learn
That which they know, and move in train
Now milking-time has come again.

In Well Knowe garden now, I know,
Where the pale larkspur used to grow
In the far nook, a sound is heard
(If any is there to hear save bird
And field-mouse in the strawberries
Stirring like a local breeze--
Here, there--the low leaves soundlessly);
A glistening slender wasp-like fly
Is using will and wing to stand
Upon the air as though it spanned
A chasm with trembling outstretched arms,
And in the silence of heat-stilled farms
And heat-veiled wood that seems to shake
Dim clotted leaves yet does not break
By sigh or rustle the hush so dear
Its tiny sting of sound sings clear._

_Oft have I heard that elfin horn
Sound suddenly, as cobweb torn
Must sound in startled elfin ears
Pricked and on edge with elfin fears;
And as I upward watched those spare
Twin shreds of silver like slit air,
Beating and shining, straight and tense,
Simulating impotence
Of motion, enviously I thought
"Had my half useless flesh been caught,
Upborn, and for all limit bound
Between such gossamers of sound,
Not thus, not thus would I deny
My spirit's reach and endlessly
Use all conception and all force
To limit my short vital course.
Had I such wings of urgent light
Insistent not alone on height
But stretched for sweep and latitude
I would not evade flight, I would
Employ my heat and power and sense
In realising difference,
And see my world's variety,
Restricted but by energy."_

_But Well Knowe garden only shines
In memory now, and its dear signs
Only persist and gleam again
In a shut chamber of my brain:
While in a distant place I brood
Upon lost things, and in a mood
Of longing and remembrance feel
The wisdom of that immobile
And senseless mote, and think "Were I
Carnate in a slim glistening fly,
I would flash back upon that fair
Laurel-walled rood, then drop in air
Till no translucent nerve should stir
From strained precision, nor wing should whir
But to maintain one changeless height,
Nor move nor waver from that sight;
And think the years have not gone by
When James and Clinton harboured nigh
And, working in another art
Than mine, yet peopled for my heart
The Valley with the very core
Of vital beauty for evermore--
So that when the air is still
I hear below the meadow-rill
Clinton singing softlier still
Entranced by his own moving brush
Among the stream-side bracken and rush--
Or James repeats with his long hand
The distant line of hills that stand
Between the Valley and the lake
And yet seem lovelier for his sake."_

_How many generations past
Should I be dead had I been cast
In that small rapid shape of light?
Though wings may stand, years move in flight;
And, while I dream, I know, I know
That it is useless I should go
To Well Knowe garden again to see
Things that cannot return to me--
James dead and Clinton gone away,
And one whose name I cannot say
Who built in Cyclopean sound
Other magic heights around
That little place, then turned apart,
Untrue to friendship and to art,
A man of nothing--vanished things,
Dead friends, dead hopes, that must remain
In a shut chamber of my brain;
While only Clinton far away
Will in these verses and this play
See that country of our youth
And our dead friend and our old troth
Of friendship fixed in amber light,
A timeless hour that holds no night._

Summer 1921--Spring 1922.

PERSONS:

NAN }
BET }
URSEL } Kitchen and Dairy Girls.
MAUDLIN }
LIB }
ROGER, a Carter.
MEASE, a Cowherd.

MIDSUMMER EVE

_The scene is the interior of an old barn on a knoll, a long time ago. At the back the barn's doors are opened widely; outside, a road rises slightly from left to right in front of the barn; beyond this the knoll sinks softly yet swiftly to a great meadow, and thence to a wide rich valley of more meadows and ever more meadows with ancient large cherry and crab and sloe and bullace and damson trees in their hedges whence the white and pink thorn-blossom clots are not quite gone, and of pastures shaded by tall clustering trees. Afar the valley ceases in low, densely wooded hills._

_A late June twilight is deepening; a faint moist heat-haze hides nothing, only distinguishing the planes of the distant trees with a cloudy delicacy. There is no wind, nor any movement; one blackbird sings somewhere for a little while, then it ceases and there is no sound in the fields._

_The whole prospect is of a solitary, fruitfully overgrown valley shut in from everywhere._

_Within the barn, to the left, is a high hay-mow with a ladder leaning against it; much hay has been tumbled at its foot in forking from the carts. To the right is a space of floor where the corn is to be heaped in the ending of summer: as yet, however, it is empty, save for a wooden plough, a homely rough wooden roller, wooden harrows, an uptilted, pleasantly shaped cart whence the hay-shelvings have not yet been removed. In the far corner of the bare walls of undressed stone at this side is an open door leading into a mistal. Presently a cow is heard moaning sickly beyond this door._

_The barn is still more dim than the land, so that a stretch of soft brown darkness is all that is known of the far-off roof. Nearing footfalls are heard in the road, and a woman's singing grows clearer._

"HOU, Hou," went the neatherd moaning
Down along by the pasture's side;
He turned the cows at the midden-yard loaning,
The loitering cows in the brown owl-tide:
Pale rose the last one, munching, droning,
With wet grass stains on her udder and hide.

My lantern's rings to the low balks floated
As Whitey's tail shook the mistal-sneck;
When I laid my cheek to her belly spotted
I felt her honey-strong breath i' my neck,
For she turns her head does the curd-dark throated
To watch my mouth start her teats with a peck.

_NAN, BET and URSEL ascend the road to the left and enter the barn as NAN ceases singing._

_They are white-hooded, clumsily shod, gownless; in the right hand NAN carries a willow frail, the others stoneware greybeards; each holds several hay-rakes on her left shoulder._

URSEL.
September, O, September's in the song--
I will not have September in my heart,
The ending of so much deliciousness,
The year's sad luscious over-ripening.
Yet here's the haysel done with: how it hurt
To rake behind the last dim cart; and now
My soul creeps in me like the low pale night-mist
To know that in a moment past this moment
We shall not hear it slowly any more
Down in the lane where, wisping the close trees,
It follows us like a mournful sound of change.
Although the Summer is but newly kindled,
Tiptoe I over-reach the joy of it
(Ah, little perfect weeks of fruitfulness)
Because I tremble lest it be slipping past me
Before my eagerness will let me feel it.
Must joy for me be ever in things gone?...

NAN, _as they set down their burdens to lean
the rakes against the wall, where four flails are
hung, on the left of the door._
Nay, there is comfort in the rainy nights,
The long moist twilights of the cider time
When girls hold fitful talk sat in the press-spot
Among the hid sweet apple heaps that gleam
In firelight to a humming out of doors
Of soddening water oozing down the soil;
And there is comfort too at Candlemas
From looking through the casement in the dark,
The last thing ere you chafe your toes in bed,
On the crisp quiet of the woods and fields,
Wondering if 'tis snow or all the moonlight,
Peering so anxiously along the wall
That shades still ewes and whiter first-dropped lambs....
Ay, but I'm tired, lasses, tired now
Because the haysel's over and 'twas fair
And the land's savour wears me with delight.
I'm for indoors and resting--and, beside,
I'm fainest of my supper o' baking days.

BET.
Let all times slip to haste the barley week,
For then our nearest dancing-time will ripen ...
But I'm for bed to get me doffed and stripped
To pick much grass seed from my smock and coats.

URSEL.
Listen, Bet; no cool sheets are yours to-night.
The milk-eyed goodies with grey loose-skinned throats,
Who maunder of rarer girlhoods none can prove,
Tell that at midnight on Midsummer-Eves
They waked in some lone shade far from all sleepers
To feel which should be wedded within the year;
For the year's unknown husbands' images
Come then like swoons from some where ... ay, from some where....
Thoughts shaping for their women's heedless souls,
And if a maid will watch she sees her own
And knows her own, seeing her own alone,
Peering unseen as breath is in June nights.
Surely such dainties rilled no cow-slow eyes;
But Nan and I mean watching and have bid
Maudlin at Grassgarth, Lib at Appletoft
Under our breath, and hither they steal this eve.
We knew we must not tell you ere the hour,
Or ... or ... too many hinds might creep to be
Their own drowsed leering loutish prophecies.

BET.
Am I so old or wistful to be ringed
That I must feign to be content with one?
Where is this moon-swayed peeping, then, to be,
This blest eavesdropping on a mood of fate?

NAN.
Here in the barn, where we may crouch un-thought-of
By moon-estranged eyes in gradual darkness.
And lest we startle at o'er-expected footfalls
Or with night-carried voices rouse the farm,
Maudlin and Lib will warn us by dove-cooings--
Sometimes I hear a cooing up warm nights
From dove pairs far too wise to be asleep,
But mistress bides awake for no such music.

BET.
Dove-cooing Lib will be a thing to brood on--
I'll miss nought here, although you count me least.

NAN.
All works with us; for at the forenoon drinking
I heard dame Stir-Wench mutter "These kesh-pithed lasses
Shall sleep no longer three-a-bed beneath
The dark damp closeness of the garret thatch,
That nigh their heads leans low upon the floor,
Until this heat is past; or they will grow
Yet more slob-cheeked and sodden and dough-limbed
I never saw maids look more like green sickness."
And then she bade Giles carry our gear and bedding
Into the empty meal-webbed granary.
Nought could have fallen better; now we have
No moaning ladder's and open doors' groped passing,
No stocking feet need pad the dairy flags;
Only a silverly weathered latchless board
Keeps out the bats that flap toward pale shapes,
And waits to let us into the large night
Throughout the holiest of the mothering year.

BET.
She said green sickness but she meant green apples.
The codlin tree that o'er each moonset stretches
A creeping spider-shadow on the gable
Fills out its fruit weeks earlier this year,
And the one bough with apples onion-roped
Is one the mended ladder will not reach;
It is weight-arched against our garret window,
So that the curled leaves finger on the panes
When midnight winds are sturdy enough to lift it;
Mam Pantry knows and fears bare orchard-shelves
And herds us to an outhouse. Girls, those apples
Will all be basketed before their time,
Ere threshing heaps the granary once more
And sharp nights make her yield our loft again
Because she finds us cuddled on its threshold.

URSEL.
Mam Patch-Waist counts more eggs than four--she knows
Spring wenches' whifts let loose to sniff the night;
So straightway to the granary Mease she sped
To oil the lock and drive a staple in.
Small is our chance of watching now....

NAN. Quick-Pattens
Even ere she rounded must have been a likely,
A very likely maid for her to know
Our scapemell moods howe'er we prim our mouths.

BET.
Mease for two kisses left the staple loose.

URSEL, _laughing with_ NAN.
Ay, Bet's the market woman, to be sure.

BET.
Mouths, even as eyes, were made to earn our wills.

NAN.
But how came Bet near Mease up in the corn-spot?
And if she knows the need o' the staple loose
Why will she care to watch with us to-night?

BET.
To learn which one it is, Nanikin sly.