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_ ACT I - SCENE I
SCENE I. A.D. 1220
[The Doorway of a closed Chapel in the Wartburg.
Elizabeth sitting on the Steps.]
Eliz.
Baby Jesus, who dost lie
Far above that stormy sky,
In Thy mother's pure caress,
Stoop and save the motherless.
Happy birds! whom Jesus leaves
Underneath His sheltering eaves;
There they go to play and sleep,
May not I go in to weep?
All without is mean and small,
All within is vast and tall;
All without is harsh and shrill,
All within is hushed and still.
Jesus, let me enter in,
Wrap me safe from noise and sin.
Let me list the angels' songs,
See the picture of Thy wrongs;
Let me kiss Thy wounded feet,
Drink Thine incense, faint and sweet,
While the clear bells call Thee down
From Thine everlasting throne.
At thy door-step low I bend,
Who have neither kin nor friend;
Let me here a shelter find,
Shield the shorn lamb from the wind.
Jesu, Lord, my heart will break:
Save me for Thy great love's sake!
[Enter Isentrudis.]
Isen.
Aha! I had missed my little bird from the nest,
And judged that she was here. What's this? fie, tears?
Eliz.
Go! you despise me like the rest.
Isen.
Despise you?
What's here? King Andrew's child? St. John's sworn maid?
Who dares despise you? Out upon these Saxons!
They sang another note when I was younger,
When from the rich East came my queenly pearl,
Lapt on this fluttering heart, while mighty heroes
Rode by her side, and far behind us stretched
The barbs and sumpter mules, a royal train,
Laden with silks and furs, and priceless gems,
Wedges of gold, and furniture of silver,
Fit for my princess.
Eliz.
Hush now, I've heard all, nurse,
A thousand times.
Isen.
Oh, how their hungry mouths
Did water at the booty! Such a prize,
Since the three Kings came wandering into Coln,
They ne'er saw, nor their fathers;--well they knew it!
Oh, how they fawned on us! 'Great Isentrudis!'
'Sweet babe!' The Landgravine did thank her saints
As if you, or your silks, had fallen from heaven;
And now she wears your furs, and calls us gipsies.
Come tell your nurse your griefs; we'll weep together,
Strangers in this strange land.
Eliz.
I am most friendless.
The Landgravine and Agnes--you may see them
Begrudge the food I eat, and call me friend
Of knaves and serving-maids; the burly knights
Freeze me with cold blue eyes: no saucy page
But points and whispers, 'There goes our pet nun;
Would but her saintship leave her gold behind,
We'd give herself her furlough.' Save me! save me!
All here are ghastly dreams; dead masks of stone,
And you and I, and Guta, only live:
Your eyes alone have souls. I shall go mad!
Oh that they would but leave me all alone
To teach poor girls, and work within my chamber,
With mine own thoughts, and all the gentle angels
Which glance about my dreams at morning-tide!
Then I should be as happy as the birds
Which sing at my bower window. Once I longed
To be beloved,--now would they but forget me!
Most vile I must be, or they could not hate me!
Isen.
They are of this world, thou art not, poor child,
Therefore they hate thee, as they did thy betters.
Eliz.
But, Lewis, nurse?
Isen.
He, child? he is thy knight;
Espoused from childhood: thou hast a claim upon him.
One that thou'lt need, alas!--though, I remember--
'Tis fifteen years agone--when in one cradle
We laid two fair babes for a marriage token;
And when your lips met, then you smiled, and twined
Your little limbs together.--Pray the Saints
That token stand!--He calls thee love and sister,
And brings thee gew-gaws from the wars: that's much!
At least he's thine if thou love him.
Eliz.
If I love him?
What is this love? Why, is he not my brother
And I his sister? Till these weary wars,
The one of us without the other never
Did weep or laugh: what is't should change us now?
You shake your head and smile.
Isen. Go to; the chafe
Comes not by wearing chains, but feeling them.
Eliz.
Alas! here comes a knight across the court;
Oh, hide me, nurse! What's here? this door is fast.
Isen.
Nay, 'tis a friend: he brought my princess hither,
Walter of Varila; I feared him once--
He used to mock our state, and say, good wine
Should want no bush, and that the cage was gay,
But that the bird must sing before he praised it.
Yet he's a kind heart, while his bitter tongue
Awes these court popinjays at times to manners.
He will smile sadly too, when he meets my maiden;
And once he said, he was your liegeman sworn,
Since my lost mistress, weeping, to his charge
Trusted the babe she saw no more.--God help us!
Eliz.
How did my mother die, nurse?
Isen.
She died, my child.
Eliz.
But how? Why turn away?
Too long I've guessed at some dread mystery
I may not hear: and in my restless dreams,
Night after night, sweeps by a frantic rout
Of grinning fiends, fierce horses, bodiless hands,
Which clutch at one to whom my spirit yearns
As to a mother. There's some fearful tie
Between me and that spirit-world, which God
Brands with his terrors on my troubled mind.
Speak! tell me, nurse! is she in heaven or hell?
Isen.
God knows, my child: there are masses for her soul
Each day in every Zingar minster sung.
Eliz.
But was she holy?--Died she in the Lord?
Isen
[weeps].
O God! my child! And if I told thee all,
How couldst thou mend it?
Eliz.
Mend it? O my Saviour!
I'd die a saint!
Win heaven for her by prayers, and build great minsters,
Chantries, and hospitals for her; wipe out
By mighty deeds our race's guilt and shame--
But thus, poor witless orphan!
[Weeps.]
[Count Walter enters.]
Wal.
Ah! my princess! accept your liegeman's knee;
Down, down, rheumatic flesh!
Eliz.
Ah! Count Walter!
You are too tall to kneel to little girls.
Wal.
What? shall two hundredweight of hypocrisy bow down
to his four-inch wooden saint, and the same weight
of honesty not worship his four-foot live one?
And I have a jest for you, shall make my
small queen merry and wise.
Isen.
You shall jest long before she's merry.
Wal.
Ah! dowers and dowagers again!
The money--root of all evil.
What comes here?
[A Page enters.]
A long-winged grasshopper, all gold, green, and gauze?
How these young pea-chicks must needs
ape the grown peacock's frippery!
Prithee, now, how many such butterflies
as you suck here together on the thistle-head of royalty?
Page.
Some twelve gentlemen of us, Sir--apostles of the blind
archer, Love--owning no divinity but almighty beauty--
no faith, no hope, no charity, but those which are
kindled at her eyes.
Wal.
Saints! what's all this?
Page.
Ah, Sir! none but countrymen swear by the saints nowadays:
no oaths but allegorical ones, Sir, at the high table;
as thus,--'By the sleeve of beauty, Madam;' or again,
'By Love his martyrdoms, Sir Count;' or to a potentate,
'As Jove's imperial mercy shall hear my vows,
High Mightiness.'
Wal.
Where did the evil one set you on
finding all this heathenry?
Page.
Oh, we are all barristers of Love's court, Sir;
We have Ovid's gay science conned, Sir, ad unguentum,
as they say, out of the French book.
Wal.
So? There are those come from Rome then will whip you
and Ovid out with the same rod which the dandies of
Provence felt lately to their sorrow. Oh, what blinkards
are we gentlemen, to train any dumb beasts more
carefully than we do Christians! that a man shall
keep his dog-breakers, and his horse-breakers, and his
hawk-breakers, and never hire him a boy-breaker or two!
that we should live without a qualm at dangling such a
flock of mimicking parroquets at our heels a while, and
then, when they are well infected, well perfumed with
the wind of our vices, dropping them off, as tadpoles
do their tails, joint by joint into the mud! to strain
at such gnats as an ill-mouthed colt or a riotous puppy,
and swallow that camel of camels, a page!
Page.
Do you call me a camel, Sir?
Wal.
What's your business?
Page.
My errand is to the Princess here.
Eliz.
To me?
Page.
Yes; the Landgravine expects you at high mass;
so go in, and mind you clean yourself; for every
one is not as fond as you of beggars' brats, and
what their clothes leave behind them.
Isen
[strikes him].
Monkey! To whom are you speaking?
Eliz.
Oh, peace, peace, peace! I'll go with him.
Page.
Then be quick, my music-master's waiting.
Corpo di Bacco! as if our elders did not teach
us to whom we ought to be rude!
[Ex. Eliz. and Page.]
Isen.
See here, Sir Saxon, how this pearl of price
Is faring in your hands! The peerless image,
To whom this court is but the tawdry frame,--
The speck of light amid its murky baseness,--
The salt which keeps it all from rotting,--cast
To be the common fool,--the laughing stock
For every beardless knave to whet his wit on!
Tar-blooded Germans!--Here's another of them.
[A young Knight enters.]
Knight.
Heigh! Count! What? learning to sing psalms?
They are waiting For you in the manage-school,
To give your judgment on that new Norman mare.
Wal.
Tell them I'm busy.
Knight.
Busy? St. Martin! Knitting stockings, eh?
To clothe the poor withal? Is that your business?
I passed that canting baby on the stairs;
Would heaven that she had tripped,
and broke her goose-neck,
And left us heirs de facto. So, farewell.
[Exit.]
Wal.
A very pretty quarrel! matter enough
To spoil a waggon-load of ash-staves on,
And break a dozen fools' backs across their cantlets.
What's Lewis doing?
Isen.
Oh--befooled,--
Bewitched with dogs and horses, like an idiot
Clutching his bauble, while a priceless jewel
Sticks at his miry heels.
Wal.
The boy's no fool,--
As good a heart as hers, but somewhat given
To hunt the nearest butterfly, and light
The fire of fancy without hanging o'er it
The porridge-pot of practice. He shall hear or--
Isen.
And quickly, for there's treason in the wind.
They'll keep her dower, and send her home with shame
Before the year's out.
Wal.
Humph! Some are rogues enough for't.
As it falls out, I ride with him to-day.
Isen.
Upon what business?
Wal.
Some shaveling has been telling him that there are
heretics on his land: Stadings, worshippers of black
cats, baby-eaters, and such like. He consulted me;
I told him it would be time enough to see to the
heretics when all the good Christians had been well
looked after. I suppose the novelty of the thing smit
him, for now nothing will serve but I must ride with
him round half a dozen hamlets, where, with God's help,
I will show him a mansty or two, that shall astonish
his delicate chivalry.
Isen.
Oh, here's your time! Speak to him, noble Walter.
Stun his dull ears with praises of her grace;
Prick his dull heart with shame at his own coldness.
Oh right us, Count.
Wal.
I will, I will: go in
And dry your eyes.
[Exeunt separately.] _
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