Guinevere, part 2 of 4

¶“No light: so late! and dark and chill the night! O let us in, that we may find the light! Too late, too late: ye cannot enter now.

¶“Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet? O let us in, though late, to kiss his feet! No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now.”

¶So sang the novice, while full passionately, Her head upon her hands, remembering Her thought when first she came, wept the sad Queen. Then said the little novice prattling to her, “O pray you, noble lady, weep no more; But let my words, the words of one so small, Who knowing nothing knows but to obey, And if I do not there is penance given— Comfort your sorrows; for they do not flow From evil done; right sure am I of that, Who see your tender grace and stateliness. But weigh your sorrows with our lord the King’s, And weighing find them less; for gone is he To wage grim war against Sir Lancelot there, Round that strong castle where he holds the Queen; And Modred whom he left in charge of all, The traitor—Ah sweet lady, the King’s grief For his own self, and his own Queen, and realm, Must needs be thrice as great as any of ours. For me, I thank the saints, I am not great. For if there ever come a grief to me I cry my cry in silence, and have done. None knows it, and my tears have brought me good: But even were the griefs of little ones As great as those of great ones, yet this grief Is added to the griefs the great must bear, That howsoever much they may desire Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud: As even here they talk at Almesbury About the good King and his wicked Queen, And were I such a King with such a Queen, Well might I wish to veil her wickedness, But were I such a King, it could not be.”

¶Then to her own sad heart muttered the Queen, “Will the child kill me with her innocent talk?” But openly she answered, “Must not I, If this false traitor have displaced his lord, Grieve with the common grief of all the realm?”

¶“Yea,” said the maid, “this is all woman’s grief, That she is woman, whose disloyal life Hath wrought confusion in the Table Round Which good King Arthur founded, years ago, With signs and miracles and wonders, there At Camelot, ere the coming of the Queen.”

¶Then thought the Queen within herself again, “Will the child kill me with her foolish prate?” But openly she spake and said to her, “O little maid, shut in by nunnery walls, What canst thou know of Kings and Tables Round, Or what of signs and wonders, but the signs And simple miracles of thy nunnery?”

¶To whom the little novice garrulously, “Yea, but I know: the land was full of signs And wonders ere the coming of the Queen. So said my father, and himself was knight Of the great Table—at the founding of it; And rode thereto from Lyonnesse, and he said That as he rode, an hour or maybe twain After the sunset, down the coast, he heard Strange music, and he paused, and turning—there, All down the lonely coast of Lyonnesse, Each with a beacon-star upon his head, And with a wild sea-light about his feet, He saw them—headland after headland flame Far on into the rich heart of the west: And in the light the white mermaiden swam, And strong man-breasted things stood from the sea, And sent a deep sea-voice through all the land, To which the little elves of chasm and cleft Made answer, sounding like a distant horn. So said my father—yea, and furthermore, Next morning, while he past the dim-lit woods, Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower, That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed: And still at evenings on before his horse The flickering fairy-circle wheeled and broke Flying, and linked again, and wheeled and broke Flying, for all the land was full of life. And when at last he came to Camelot, A wreath of airy dancers hand-in-hand Swung round the lighted lantern of the hall; And in the hall itself was such a feast As never man had dreamed; for every knight Had whatsoever meat he longed for served By hands unseen; and even as he said Down in the cellars merry bloated things Shouldered the spigot, straddling on the butts While the wine ran: so glad were spirits and men Before the coming of the sinful Queen.”

¶Then spake the Queen and somewhat bitterly, “Were they so glad? ill prophets were they all, Spirits and men: could none of them foresee, Not even thy wise father with his signs And wonders, what has fallen upon the realm?”

¶To whom the novice garrulously again, “Yea, one, a bard; of whom my father said, Full many a noble war-song had he sung, Even in the presence of an enemy’s fleet, Between the steep cliff and the coming wave; And many a mystic lay of life and death Had chanted on the smoky mountain-tops, When round him bent the spirits of the hills With all their dewy hair blown back like flame: So said my father—and that night the bard Sang Arthur’s glorious wars, and sang the King As wellnigh more than man, and railed at those Who called him the false son of Gorlois: For there was no man knew from whence he came; But after tempest, when the long wave broke All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos, There came a day as still as heaven, and then They found a naked child upon the sands Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea; And that was Arthur; and they fostered him Till he by miracle was approven King: And that his grave should be a mystery From all men, like his birth; and could he find A woman in her womanhood as great As he was in his manhood, then, he sang, The twain together well might change the world. But even in the middle of his song He faltered, and his hand fell from the harp, And pale he turned, and reeled, and would have fallen, But that they stayed him up; nor would he tell His vision; but what doubt that he foresaw This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen?”

¶Then thought the Queen, “Lo! they have set her on, Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns, To play upon me,” and bowed her head nor spake. Whereat the novice crying, with clasped hands, Shame on her own garrulity garrulously, Said the good nuns would check her gadding tongue Full often, “and, sweet lady, if I seem To vex an ear too sad to listen to me, Unmannerly, with prattling and the tales Which my good father told me, check me too Nor let me shame my father’s memory, one Of noblest manners, though himself would say Sir Lancelot had the noblest; and he died, Killed in a tilt, come next, five summers back, And left me; but of others who remain, And of the two first-famed for courtesy— And pray you check me if I ask amiss— But pray you, which had noblest, while you moved Among them, Lancelot or our lord the King?”

¶Then the pale Queen looked up and answered her, “Sir Lancelot, as became a noble knight, Was gracious to all ladies, and the same In open battle or the tilting-field Forbore his own advantage, and the King In open battle or the tilting-field Forbore his own advantage, and these two Were the most nobly-mannered men of all; For manners are not idle, but the fruit Of loyal nature, and of noble mind.”

¶“Yea,” said the maid, “be manners such fair fruit?” Then Lancelot’s needs must be a thousand-fold Less noble, being, as all rumour runs, The most disloyal friend in all the world.”

¶To which a mournful answer made the Queen: “O closed about by narrowing nunnery-walls, What knowest thou of the world, and all its lights And shadows, all the wealth and all the woe? If ever Lancelot, that most noble knight, Were for one hour less noble than himself, Pray for him that he scape the doom of fire, And weep for her that drew him to his doom.”