Idylls of the King · The Marriage of Geraint (3/3)

And Enid looked, but all confused at first,

Could scarce divide it from her foolish dream:

Then suddenly she knew it and rejoiced,

And answered, “Yea, I know it; your good gift,

So sadly lost on that unhappy night;

Your own good gift!” “Yea, surely,” said the dame,

“And gladly given again this happy morn.

For when the jousts were ended yesterday,

Went Yniol through the town, and everywhere

He found the sack and plunder of our house

All scattered through the houses of the town;

And gave command that all which once was ours

Should now be ours again: and yester-eve,

While ye were talking sweetly with your Prince,

Came one with this and laid it in my hand,

For love or fear, or seeking favour of us,

Because we have our earldom back again.

And yester-eve I would not tell you of it,

But kept it for a sweet surprise at morn.

Yea, truly is it not a sweet surprise?

For I myself unwillingly have worn

My faded suit, as you, my child, have yours,

And howsoever patient, Yniol his.

Ah, dear, he took me from a goodly house,

With store of rich apparel, sumptuous fare,

And page, and maid, and squire, and seneschal,

And pastime both of hawk and hound, and all

That appertains to noble maintenance.

Yea, and he brought me to a goodly house;

But since our fortune swerved from sun to shade,

And all through that young traitor, cruel need

Constrained us, but a better time has come;

So clothe yourself in this, that better fits

Our mended fortunes and a Prince’s bride:

For though ye won the prize of fairest fair,

And though I heard him call you fairest fair,

Let never maiden think, however fair,

She is not fairer in new clothes than old.

And should some great court-lady say, the Prince

Hath picked a ragged-robin from the hedge,

And like a madman brought her to the court,

Then were ye shamed, and, worse, might shame the Prince

To whom we are beholden; but I know,

That when my dear child is set forth at her best,

That neither court nor country, though they sought

Through all the provinces like those of old

That lighted on Queen Esther, has her match.”

Here ceased the kindly mother out of breath;

And Enid listened brightening as she lay;

Then, as the white and glittering star of morn

Parts from a bank of snow, and by and by

Slips into golden cloud, the maiden rose,

And left her maiden couch, and robed herself,

Helped by the mother’s careful hand and eye,

Without a mirror, in the gorgeous gown;

Who, after, turned her daughter round, and said,

She never yet had seen her half so fair;

And called her like that maiden in the tale,

Whom Gwydion made by glamour out of flowers

And sweeter than the bride of Cassivelaun,

Flur, for whose love the Roman Caesar first

Invaded Britain, “But we beat him back,

As this great Prince invaded us, and we,

Not beat him back, but welcomed him with joy

And I can scarcely ride with you to court,

For old am I, and rough the ways and wild;

But Yniol goes, and I full oft shall dream

I see my princess as I see her now,

Clothed with my gift, and gay among the gay.”

But while the women thus rejoiced, Geraint

Woke where he slept in the high hall, and called

For Enid, and when Yniol made report

Of that good mother making Enid gay

In such apparel as might well beseem

His princess, or indeed the stately Queen,

He answered: “Earl, entreat her by my love,

Albeit I give no reason but my wish,

That she ride with me in her faded silk.”

Yniol with that hard message went; it fell

Like flaws in summer laying lusty corn:

For Enid, all abashed she knew not why,

Dared not to glance at her good mother’s face,

But silently, in all obedience,

Her mother silent too, nor helping her,

Laid from her limbs the costly-broidered gift,

And robed them in her ancient suit again,

And so descended. Never man rejoiced

More than Geraint to greet her thus attired;

And glancing all at once as keenly at her

As careful robins eye the delver’s toil,

Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall,

But rested with her sweet face satisfied;

Then seeing cloud upon the mother’s brow,

Her by both hands she caught, and sweetly said,

“O my new mother, be not wroth or grieved

At thy new son, for my petition to her.

When late I left Caerleon, our great Queen,

In words whose echo lasts, they were so sweet,

Made promise, that whatever bride I brought,

Herself would clothe her like the sun in Heaven.

Thereafter, when I reached this ruined hall,

Beholding one so bright in dark estate,

I vowed that could I gain her, our fair Queen,

No hand but hers, should make your Enid burst

Sunlike from cloud⁠—and likewise thought perhaps,

That service done so graciously would bind

The two together; fain I would the two

Should love each other: how can Enid find

A nobler friend? Another thought was mine;

I came among you here so suddenly,

That though her gentle presence at the lists

Might well have served for proof that I was loved,

I doubted whether daughter’s tenderness,

Or easy nature, might not let itself

Be moulded by your wishes for her weal;

Or whether some false sense in her own self

Of my contrasting brightness, overbore

Her fancy dwelling in this dusky hall;

And such a sense might make her long for court

And all its perilous glories: and I thought,

That could I someway prove such force in her

Linked with such love for me, that at a word

(No reason given her) she could cast aside

A splendour dear to women, new to her,

And therefore dearer; or if not so new,

Yet therefore tenfold dearer by the power

Of intermitted usage; then I felt

That I could rest, a rock in ebbs and flows,

Fixt on her faith. Now, therefore, I do rest,

A prophet certain of my prophecy,

That never shadow of mistrust can cross

Between us. Grant me pardon for my thoughts:

And for my strange petition I will make

Amends hereafter by some gaudy-day,

When your fair child shall wear your costly gift

Beside your own warm hearth, with, on her knees,

Who knows? another gift of the high God,

Which, maybe, shall have learned to lisp you thanks.”

He spoke: the mother smiled, but half in tears,

Then brought a mantle down and wrapt her in it,

And claspt and kissed her, and they rode away.

Now thrice that morning Guinevere had climbed

The giant tower, from whose high crest, they say,

Men saw the goodly hills of Somerset,

And white sails flying on the yellow sea;

But not to goodly hill or yellow sea

Looked the fair Queen, but up the vale of Usk,

By the flat meadow, till she saw them come;

And then descending met them at the gates,

Embraced her with all welcome as a friend,

And did her honour as the Prince’s bride,

And clothed her for her bridals like the sun;

And all that week was old Caerleon gay,

For by the hands of Dubric, the high saint,

They twain were wedded with all ceremony.

And this was on the last year’s Whitsuntide.

But Enid ever kept the faded silk,

Remembering how first he came on her,

Drest in that dress, and how he loved her in it,

And all her foolish fears about the dress,

And all his journey toward her, as himself

Had told her, and their coming to the court.

And now this morning when he said to her,

“Put on your worst and meanest dress,” she found

And took it, and arrayed herself therein.