| ACT II. SCENE I. Three months elapse between Acts I and II. THE MIDDLE WORLD. Lanval is sleeping. Triamour rises and watches certain shadows passing across the stage. A low sound of horns goes with them. |
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| Triamour |
Go! Speed you, shadows! Come not near to us, For we are ringed with virtues, and your ends Call not to them. Sweet dusk of dreams be close, Let no red thinking thread our pleasant hours With strands of riot. |
| Lanval |
Triamour. |
| Triamour |
(Turning to him.) Be still; The clouds are passing. |
| Lanval |
Aye, it seems to me The light has changed. |
| Triamour |
Is there a difference Already? |
| Lanval |
Surely this harsh colouring Fashions a change from the grey, silvered state Wherein I entered! |
| Triamour |
Has it changed my face? Or form? |
| Lanval |
I thought you once a wondrous flower, White in the darkness of moon-mocking woods; But now the flush of suns unknown to me Has made you strange. |
| Triamour |
Think not of it. This state Is flamed and tinctured by the mind of man, Who sees it not. Gross motion makes us storms, Blue, hanging thunder and swart shadowing: And gentle peace breeds us a gentler moon. We have our nights when reeling man goes down To savagery: then from the striving birth Comes amber dawn. |
| Lanval |
But now the skies are filled With bronze and golden harness, like the breasts Of kings in war. |
| Triamour |
A sun is setting now. Man has his seasons as the natural earth, High-hearted springs, calm, open summer times, Wherein he weaves his kingdoms and his thoughts, And hopeless autumn, when his fabrics fall Before the onset of the wolfish winds. Then shrinking days die out in such a glare As we can see. |
| Lanval |
We watch an autumn, then? |
| Triamour |
Rome was its summer. These reflected fires Foretell a winter. |
| Lanval |
And we watch? |
| Triamour |
In peace We'll mark the season of man's brute despair, And see its beauty. From the tumbled shreds And rotting squalor of enfeebled years, We'll patiently await the wondrous birth Of a new spring. |
| Lanval |
I cannot understand. What is this place? |
| Triamour |
This is the quiet land: The ever-restful pleasaunce of sweet ghosts, The lawn and arbour of the gentle folk, It needs no knowledge. |
| Lanval |
Wherefore? |
| Triamour |
Here all space Is but a dream; all life a vision; time, A thing unknown. |
| Lanval |
How can I think of it? |
| Triamour |
Here thought needs not expression for its use, And souls rend not their substance in the war They wage with silence, but exist in peace. Here sleep the old ambitions and lost loves, And from the wrack of lives in anguish spent, Souls spring like flowers; for here is nothing gross, The very essence and material Of this existence are in phantasies. For there is nothing coarser than a dream In all the regions of the middle world. |
| Lanval |
But I have flesh and garb of man. |
| Triamour |
In such a shape I chose thee from the world. I would not change it. |
| Lanval |
Were I worthier I should not be ashamed. |
| Triamour |
Am I so much That I am feared? |
| Lanval |
All exaltations here, Vision, whose fashion is nobility, Purged splendour of a sloven world, Why hast thou brought me to the place of gods? I am but man. |
| Triamour |
O love of mine, be still. Man grows from man: in time from man shall grow The gods again. Meantime, is there a state Of greater pleasure and content contrived In the dull broodings of the fettered earth Than this we look on? |
| Lanval |
It is fair indeed. |
| Triamour |
Here, like the gods, shall we immortal watch Eternal change: see the free spirits stride To vaster issues, and conception breed Fairness on fairness; we shall view the souls Who rest in patience rising like the mists When as God's trumpets cry the call to life. Will you not thank me? I have striven much To do thy pleasure. |
| Lanval |
I am sick at heart. |
| Triamour |
Why so? |
| Lanval |
Thy sweetness is so much to me That I am withered in my impotence. I cannot match thee. Had I been a man As I am not — |
| Triamour |
Nay — Lanval — |
| Lanval |
Hear me out. Had I been something, something even slight, One that great nature sets apart and fits To certain purpose, I were not ashamed. But I'm a callow 'prentice unto life As yet, a clumsy handler of my soul, Lacking the gifts of knowledge, strength and age. Dearest, canst thou believe me faithful and yet know I hold thy love to be but patronage? Affection squandered on a thing unproved — |
| Triamour |
And my poor judgment — is it nothing worth? I, who have tested, tricked and played with man, Have I no wisdom? |
| Lanval |
Thou art overwise. |
| Triamour |
And yet I drew thee from a million shapes And forms of being. I am satisfied. |
| Lanval |
But I am not. I have myself to please — The hardest master of censorious thoughts That one could wish for. |
| Triamour |
Dost thou not serve me And my commandments? |
| Lanval |
In all faith. |
| Triamour |
Why then Misdoubt my judgment? |
| Lanval |
I have kept my pride. I'll be no peasant spying on the gods, No trancèd servant of a common lust, But a clean being from all bondage free, From crippling custom and base prejudice, Wherein the folly of the world is held. I cannot love thee; as a thing of us, The mere companion of the films of earth, I worship thine existence, and will stand Equal or nothing. |
| Triamour |
Here's a flame indeed, For one who lately did abjure the world, I think, for me! |
| Lanval |
God help me! I forswear My recent oaths. I have not only loved, But set my being to a hopeless end, Namely, to match what I have not deserved, And force my substance to strange attributes. |
| Triamour |
Tired so soon? Do I then weary thee? It is my presence brings this restlessness. Well, I'll be kindly, and for remedy Of this distraction leave you to yourself. |
| Lanval |
Nay, Triamour. You take my words amiss. |
| Triamour |
Thou dost not love me. |
| Lanval |
How can I do more Than swear myself unto thy services? Would hotter words prove greater faith in me? If protestations measure of one's truth, I am o'erthrown. The stumbling syllables Which I can utter mock what I can feel; But yet believe me. |
| Triamour |
So I will. Be frank. What troubles thee? |
| Lanval |
Thought, only thought. |
| Triamour |
Have the cold phantoms of the foolish world Still hold on thee? Come! these are but the pangs And fearful wonder of strange happenings. Soon thou shalt slough the vesture of thy form As doth the snake in spring. Such little things Are wrapped like rags about all little souls, That the vile texture of their garment makes Beggars of men. But we'll be free of this, And in affection watch while circling years Drift like the vultures. Empires are to us But huge flushed clouds, and manners but the change From sleet to sunlight. Here is happiness, And peace, untinctured of perverted thoughts That bring contrition. |
| Lanval |
Watch, always to watch! I want no freedom, yet I would be free. I have an envy of this god-like state, And am not of it. |
| Triamour |
I will bring to thee Spirits of every fashion, and strange souls In whose communion discontent shall die, Since I am not enough. |
| Lanval |
Nay, Triamour, I would not others. |
| Triamour |
Lanval, tell me, then, What is this sickness? |
| Lanval |
Give me a little time. My withered hopes have had no space to fall, But hang about me as the crispèd leaves In mournful autumn. It is hard to tell — But I do love thee; and affection should, Like the grim father of the early gods, Swallow all other offspring of the mind. Yet it does not. For in this place of dreams A dream has trapped me. Ay, I am forsworn. I, who should have no glamour but thine eyes; I, who should hear no music but thy words, Heed other motions. |
| Triamour |
What is this? |
| Lanval |
The while I was half sleeping, there was borne to me A faint far clamour, like the distant call Of hunters in the forest, and I saw Long, lordly lines of very noble forms Passing beyond me; then my pleasure passed, Our dalliance was forgotten, and I heard, In place of our sweet music, the foul clang Of brass in action, and the dance of steel On shields opponent, and into my ears Stole the sweet thunder of a thousand hooves, The hissing of the arrows, and the shrill Keen note of the wind-cutting spears. Again I saw the light on lance-heads in the dawn; Long legions creeping from the morning mists; The death-haze standing on embattled ranks; The shaft of sunset on the armoured slain, And breathless victors leaning on red swords. There is no music like the tread of hosts, Nor any glamour that can match the sight Of set battalions meeting in the field. I have confessed. (a pause) So silent! Is my fault Beyond forgiveness? |
| Triamour |
Listen, there's no fault In anything except in ignorance. The fault was mine. Nay, hear me; thou hast heard The horns of action, and beheld the souls That God has fettered. |
| Lanval |
What are they? |
| Triamour |
Such souls As have been clasped too firm in earthly bonds; Strange lives that sprang in unauspicious days, And being baulked of their short-lived desire, Do restless surge against their impotence. They scorn the favour of this subtle world; Death quenched their fire and not experience, And so encircled of their own dead aims, They wander waiting for new times to dawn. |
| Lanval |
What's this to me? |
| Triamour |
The call of life; for none Can feel this presence who is not enforced To like attainment. |
| Lanval |
Am I called to them? |
| Triamour |
Aye! mine's the fault! I took a shallow grief, A sulking sorrow, for full man's despair; Baulked vanity, for clean disheartened pride; And a child hindered, for a tortured soul. |
| Lanval |
If I am slight it's not from lack of will, Nor have I boasted my poor strength to be More than it is. If I have shamed your choice, Blame not my poverty. |
| Triamour |
I blame thee not, Naught but myself. Now, Lanval, arm and go! Go hence! The impulse of thy life is strong; Go out from fairness, peace, and gentle love, Into the clouded passion of the earth; The sombre struggle of fate-ridden hours, The grey injustice and the thousand shapes, Wherein the brute shows like a beggar wrapped In rags of soul. |
| Lanval |
But, Triamour! |
| Triamour |
Go now, And swiftly. (She turns away.) |
| Lanval |
(Arms himself slowly.) Surely I have much to learn. I was led hither for some mockery, But it was needless. For on earth the skies Cry scorn on all; the very heedless stars Look down on us, as some cold audience Might watch the striving and the end of man. One can bear all when there is no escape. (He buckles on his belt.) Twas not ill thought to tempt me with a dream, And add relation to one's misery, (half drawing his sword) For here's a mistress that at least will hurt More than myself. |
| Triamour turns to him. |
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| Triamour |
Wilt thou not understand? Can I, a daughter of the middle world, Brook rivalry? Nay, I am not for one Who has not found the saltness of desire; But for a being who has much endured, Has rent the garment of his vanity, Made ashes of ambition, and come free Of common striving. But I blame thee not. Go to the world, and I will watch on thee, And bring thee honour and accomplishment, With this condition, that thou speak no word Of me or of our meeting. Swear to me Thou wilt remember. |
| The shadows are seen again at the back of the stage. |
|
| Lanval |
God give strength to me, The pledge I gave of my whole self endures. Drive me not forth! |
| Triamour |
See how they envy thee, Whom thou hast envied. Nay, it must be so; None live within this strange environment But those whose purpose serves some single end, Whose souls acknowledge some plain mastery. |
| The stage grows dark. |
|
| Lanval |
The constant dusk is deepening into night; Give me thy hand, I can no longer see, These mysteries are faint. |
| Triamour |
Remember this, Our meeting is more sacred than belief, And evil fortune will attend the day Thou speakest of it. |
| Lanval |
I'll remember. God! What is this gloom? |
| Triamour |
The sullen grasp of earth. |
| The stage darkens until only Triamour is visible. |
|
| Triamour |
Pass now and swiftly, for my heart is wrung. If Powers may hear me, let thy ways be fair! Swart phantoms, clad in habit of cold pride, Who drive men's souls relentless to dark ends, How strange are ye! Out of accomplishment Can come but grief, out of endeavour pain. Closed be these gates. Earth comes to earth again. |
| Darkness. The scene changes to the Forest. |