Idylls of the King · Lancelot and Elaine (4/5)

But when Sir Lancelot’s deadly hurt was whole,

To Astolat returning rode the three.

There morn by morn, arraying her sweet self

In that wherein she deemed she looked her best,

She came before Sir Lancelot, for she thought

“If I be loved, these are my festal robes,

If not, the victim’s flowers before he fall.”

And Lancelot ever prest upon the maid

That she should ask some goodly gift of him

For her own self or hers; “and do not shun

To speak the wish most near to your true heart;

Such service have ye done me, that I make

My will of yours, and Prince and Lord am I

In mine own land, and what I will I can.”

Then like a ghost she lifted up her face,

But like a ghost without the power to speak.

And Lancelot saw that she withheld her wish,

And bode among them yet a little space

Till he should learn it; and one morn it chanced

He found her in among the garden yews,

And said, “Delay no longer, speak your wish,

Seeing I go today:” then out she brake:

“Going? and we shall never see you more.

And I must die for want of one bold word.”

“Speak: that I live to hear,” he said, “is yours.”

Then suddenly and passionately she spoke:

“I have gone mad. I love you: let me die.”

“Ah, sister,” answered Lancelot, “what is this?”

And innocently extending her white arms,

“Your love,” she said, “your love⁠—to be your wife.”

And Lancelot answered, “Had I chosen to wed,

I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine:

But now there never will be wife of mine.”

“No, no,” she cried, “I care not to be wife,

But to be with you still, to see your face,

To serve you, and to follow you through the world.”

And Lancelot answered, “Nay, the world, the world,

All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart

To interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue

To blare its own interpretation⁠—nay,

Full ill then should I quit your brother’s love,

And your good father’s kindness.” And she said,

“Not to be with you, not to see your face⁠—

Alas for me then, my good days are done.”

“Nay, noble maid,” he answered, “ten times nay!

This is not love: but love’s first flash in youth,

Most common: yea, I know it of mine own self:

And you yourself will smile at your own self

Hereafter, when you yield your flower of life

To one more fitly yours, not thrice your age:

And then will I, for true you are and sweet

Beyond mine old belief in womanhood,

More specially should your good knight be poor,

Endow you with broad land and territory

Even to the half my realm beyond the seas,

So that would make you happy: furthermore,

Even to the death, as though ye were my blood,

In all your quarrels will I be your knight.

This I will do, dear damsel, for your sake,

And more than this I cannot.”

While he spoke

She neither blushed nor shook, but deathly-pale

Stood grasping what was nearest, then replied:

“Of all this will I nothing;” and so fell,

And thus they bore her swooning to her tower.

Then spake, to whom through those black walls of yew

Their talk had pierced, her father: “Ay, a flash,

I fear me, that will strike my blossom dead.

Too courteous are ye, fair Lord Lancelot.

I pray you, use some rough discourtesy

To blunt or break her passion.”

Lancelot said,

“That were against me: what I can I will;”

And there that day remained, and toward even

Sent for his shield: full meekly rose the maid,

Stript off the case, and gave the naked shield;

Then, when she heard his horse upon the stones,

Unclasping flung the casement back, and looked

Down on his helm, from which her sleeve had gone.

And Lancelot knew the little clinking sound;

And she by tact of love was well aware

That Lancelot knew that she was looking at him.

And yet he glanced not up, nor waved his hand,

Nor bad farewell, but sadly rode away.

This was the one discourtesy that he used.

So in her tower alone the maiden sat:

His very shield was gone; only the case,

Her own poor work, her empty labour, left.

But still she heard him, still his picture formed

And grew between her and the pictured wall.

Then came her father, saying in low tones,

“Have comfort,” whom she greeted quietly.

Then came her brethren saying, “Peace to thee,

Sweet sister,” whom she answered with all calm.

But when they left her to herself again,

Death, like a friend’s voice from a distant field

Approaching through the darkness, called; the owls

Wailing had power upon her, and she mixt

Her fancies with the sallow-rifted glooms

Of evening, and the moanings of the wind.

And in those days she made a little song,

And called her song “The Song of Love and Death,”

And sang it: sweetly could she make and sing.

“Sweet is true love though given in vain, in vain;

And sweet is death who puts an end to pain:

I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.

“Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be:

Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me.

O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die.

“Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away,

Sweet death, that seems to make us loveless clay,

I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.

“I fain would follow love, if that could be;

I needs must follow death, who calls for me;

Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.”

High with the last line scaled her voice, and this,

All in a fiery dawning wild with wind

That shook her tower, the brothers heard, and thought

With shuddering, “Hark the Phantom of the house

That ever shrieks before a death,” and called

The father, and all three in hurry and fear

Ran to her, and lo! the blood-red light of dawn

Flared on her face, she shrilling, “Let me die!”

As when we dwell upon a word we know,

Repeating, till the word we know so well

Becomes a wonder, and we know not why,

So dwelt the father on her face, and thought

“Is this Elaine?” till back the maiden fell,

Then gave a languid hand to each, and lay,

Speaking a still goodmorrow with her eyes.

At last she said, “Sweet brothers, yesternight

I seemed a curious little maid again,

As happy as when we dwelt among the woods,

And when ye used to take me with the flood

Up the great river in the boatman’s boat.

Only ye would not pass beyond the cape

That has the poplar on it: there ye fixt

Your limit, oft returning with the tide.

And yet I cried because ye would not pass

Beyond it, and far up the shining flood

Until we found the palace of the King.

And yet ye would not; but this night I dreamed

That I was all alone upon the flood,

And then I said, ‘Now shall I have my will:’

And there I woke, but still the wish remained.

So let me hence that I may pass at last

Beyond the poplar and far up the flood,

Until I find the palace of the King.

There will I enter in among them all,

And no man there will dare to mock at me;

But there the fine Gawain will wonder at me,

And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at me;

Gawain, who bad a thousand farewells to me,

Lancelot, who coldly went, nor bad me one:

And there the King will know me and my love,

And there the Queen herself will pity me,

And all the gentle court will welcome me,

And after my long voyage I shall rest!”

“Peace,” said her father, “O my child, ye seem

Light-headed, for what force is yours to go

So far, being sick? and wherefore would ye look

On this proud fellow again, who scorns us all?”

Then the rough Torre began to heave and move,

And bluster into stormy sobs and say,

“I never loved him: an I meet with him,

I care not howsoever great he be,

Then will I strike at him and strike him down,

Give me good fortune, I will strike him dead,

For this discomfort he hath done the house.”

To whom the gentle sister made reply,

“Fret not yourself, dear brother, nor be wroth,

Seeing it is no more Sir Lancelot’s fault

Not to love me, than it is mine to love

Him of all men who seems to me the highest.”

“Highest?” the father answered, echoing “highest?”

(He meant to break the passion in her) “nay,

Daughter, I know not what you call the highest;

But this I know, for all the people know it,

He loves the Queen, and in an open shame:

And she returns his love in open shame;

If this be high, what is it to be low?”

Then spake the lily maid of Astolat:

“Sweet father, all too faint and sick am I

For anger: these are slanders: never yet

Was noble man but made ignoble talk.

He makes no friend who never made a foe.

But now it is my glory to have loved

One peerless, without stain: so let me pass,

My father, howsoe’er I seem to you,

Not all unhappy, having loved God’s best

And greatest, though my love had no return:

Yet, seeing you desire your child to live,

Thanks, but you work against your own desire;

For if I could believe the things you say

I should but die the sooner; wherefore cease,

Sweet father, and bid call the ghostly man

Hither, and let me shrive me clean, and die.”

So when the ghostly man had come and gone,

She with a face, bright as for sin forgiven,

Besought Lavaine to write as she devised

A letter, word for word; and when he asked

“Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord?

Then will I bear it gladly;” she replied,

“For Lancelot and the Queen and all the world,

But I myself must bear it.” Then he wrote

The letter she devised; which being writ

And folded, “O sweet father, tender and true,

Deny me not,” she said⁠—“ye never yet

Denied my fancies⁠—this, however strange,

My latest: lay the letter in my hand

A little ere I die, and close the hand

Upon it; I shall guard it even in death.

And when the heat is gone from out my heart,

Then take the little bed on which I died

For Lancelot’s love, and deck it like the Queen’s

For richness, and me also like the Queen

In all I have of rich, and lay me on it.

And let there be prepared a chariot-bier

To take me to the river, and a barge

Be ready on the river, clothed in black.

I go in state to court, to meet the Queen.

There surely I shall speak for mine own self,

And none of you can speak for me so well.

And therefore let our dumb old man alone

Go with me, he can steer and row, and he

Will guide me to that palace, to the doors.”

She ceased: her father promised; whereupon

She grew so cheerful that they deemed her death

Was rather in the fantasy than the blood.

But ten slow mornings past, and on the eleventh

Her father laid the letter in her hand,

And closed the hand upon it, and she died.

So that day there was dole in Astolat.

But when the next sun brake from underground,

Then, those two brethren slowly with bent brows

Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier

Past like a shadow through the field, that shone

Full-summer, to that stream whereon the barge,

Palled all its length in blackest samite, lay.

There sat the life-long creature of the house,

Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck,

Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face.

So those two brethren from the chariot took

And on the black decks laid her in her bed,

Set in her hand a lily, o’er her hung

The silken case with braided blazonings,

And kissed her quiet brows, and saying to her

“Sister, farewell forever,” and again

“Farewell, sweet sister,” parted all in tears.

Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead,

Oared by the dumb, went upward with the flood⁠—

In her right hand the lily, in her left

The letter⁠—all her bright hair streaming down⁠—

And all the coverlid was cloth of gold

Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white

All but her face, and that clear-featured face

Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead,

But fast asleep, and lay as though she smiled.

That day Sir Lancelot at the palace craved

Audience of Guinevere, to give at last,

The price of half a realm, his costly gift,

Hard-won and hardly won with bruise and blow,

With deaths of others, and almost his own,

The nine-years-fought-for diamonds: for he saw

One of her house, and sent him to the Queen

Bearing his wish, whereto the Queen agreed

With such and so unmoved a majesty

She might have seemed her statue, but that he,

Low-drooping till he wellnigh kissed her feet

For loyal awe, saw with a sidelong eye

The shadow of some piece of pointed lace,

In the Queen’s shadow, vibrate on the walls,

And parted, laughing in his courtly heart.

All in an oriel on the summer side,

Vine-clad, of Arthur’s palace toward the stream,

They met, and Lancelot kneeling uttered, “Queen,

Lady, my liege, in whom I have my joy,

Take, what I had not won except for you,

These jewels, and make me happy, making them

An armlet for the roundest arm on earth,

Or necklace for a neck to which the swan’s

Is tawnier than her cygnet’s: these are words:

Your beauty is your beauty, and I sin

In speaking, yet O grant my worship of it

Words, as we grant grief tears. Such sin in words

Perchance, we both can pardon: but, my Queen,

I hear of rumours flying through your court.

Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife,

Should have in it an absoluter trust

To make up that defect: let rumours be:

When did not rumours fly? these, as I trust

That you trust me in your own nobleness,

I may not well believe that you believe.”

While thus he spoke, half turned away, the Queen

Brake from the vast oriel-embowering vine

Leaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off,

Till all the place whereon she stood was green;

Then, when he ceased, in one cold passive hand

Received at once and laid aside the gems

There on a table near her, and replied:

“It may be, I am quicker of belief

Than you believe me, Lancelot of the Lake.

Our bond is not the bond of man and wife.

This good is in it, whatsoe’er of ill,

It can be broken easier. I for you

This many a year have done despite and wrong

To one whom ever in my heart of hearts

I did acknowledge nobler. What are these?

Diamonds for me! they had been thrice their worth

Being your gift, had you not lost your own.

To loyal hearts the value of all gifts

Must vary as the giver’s. Not for me!

For her! for your new fancy. Only this

Grant me, I pray you: have your joys apart.

I doubt not that however changed, you keep

So much of what is graceful: and myself

Would shun to break those bounds of courtesy

In which as Arthur’s Queen I move and rule:

So cannot speak my mind. An end to this!

A strange one! yet I take it with Amen.

So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls;

Deck her with these; tell her, she shines me down:

An armlet for an arm to which the Queen’s

Is haggard, or a necklace for a neck

O as much fairer⁠—as a faith once fair

Was richer than these diamonds⁠—hers not mine⁠—

Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself,

Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will⁠—

She shall not have them.”

Saying which she seized,

And, through the casement standing wide for heat,

Flung them, and down they flashed, and smote the stream.

Then from the smitten surface flashed, as it were,

Diamonds to meet them, and they past away.

Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disdain

At love, life, all things, on the window ledge,

Close underneath his eyes, and right across

Where these had fallen, slowly past the barge.

Whereon the lily maid of Astolat

Lay smiling, like a star in blackest night.