Pelleas and Ettarre, part 3 of 4

¶Then Pelleas lent his horse and all his arms, Saving the goodly sword, his prize, and took Gawain’s, and said, “Betray me not, but help— Art thou not he whom men call light-of-love?”

¶“Ay,” said Gawain, “for women be so light.” Then bounded forward to the castle walls, And raised a bugle hanging from his neck, And winded it, and that so musically That all the old echoes hidden in the wall Rang out like hollow woods at hunting-tide.

¶Up ran a score of damsels to the tower; “Avaunt,” they cried, “our lady loves thee not.” But Gawain lifting up his vizor said, “Gawain am I, Gawain of Arthur’s court, And I have slain this Pelleas whom ye hate: Behold his horse and armour. Open gates, And I will make you merry.”

¶And down they ran, Her damsels, crying to their lady, “Lo! Pelleas is dead—he told us—he that hath His horse and armour: will ye let him in? He slew him! Gawain, Gawain of the court, Sir Gawain—there he waits below the wall, Blowing his bugle as who should say him nay.”

¶And so, leave given, straight on through open door Rode Gawain, whom she greeted courteously. “Dead, is it so?” she asked. “Ay, ay,” said he, “And oft in dying cried upon your name.” “Pity on him,” she answered, “a good knight, But never let me bide one hour at peace.” “Ay,” thought Gawain, “and you be fair enow: But I to your dead man have given my troth, That whom ye loathe, him will I make you love.”

¶So those three days, aimless about the land, Lost in a doubt, Pelleas wandering Waited, until the third night brought a moon With promise of large light on woods and ways.

¶Hot was the night and silent; but a sound Of Gawain ever coming, and this lay— Which Pelleas had heard sung before the Queen, And seen her sadden listening—vext his heart, And marred his rest—“A worm within the rose.”

¶“A rose, but one, none other rose had I, A rose, one rose, and this was wondrous fair, One rose, a rose that gladdened earth and sky, One rose, my rose, that sweetened all mine air— I cared not for the thorns; the thorns were there.

¶“One rose, a rose to gather by and by, One rose, a rose, to gather and to wear, No rose but one—what other rose had I? One rose, my rose; a rose that will not die,— He dies who loves it,—if the worm be there.”

¶This tender rhyme, and evermore the doubt, “Why lingers Gawain with his golden news?” So shook him that he could not rest, but rode Ere midnight to her walls, and bound his horse Hard by the gates. Wide open were the gates, And no watch kept; and in through these he past, And heard but his own steps, and his own heart Beating, for nothing moved but his own self, And his own shadow. Then he crost the court, And spied not any light in hall or bower, But saw the postern portal also wide Yawning; and up a slope of garden, all Of roses white and red, and brambles mixt And overgrowing them, went on, and found, Here too, all hushed below the mellow moon, Save that one rivulet from a tiny cave Came lightening downward, and so spilt itself Among the roses, and was lost again.

¶Then was he ware of three pavilions reared Above the bushes, gilden-peakt: in one, Red after revel, droned her lurdane knights Slumbering, and their three squires across their feet: In one, their malice on the placid lip Frozen by sweet sleep, four of her damsels lay: And in the third, the circlet of the jousts Bound on her brow, were Gawain and Ettarre.

¶Back, as a hand that pushes through the leaf To find a nest and feels a snake, he drew: Back, as a coward slinks from what he fears To cope with, or a traitor proven, or hound Beaten, did Pelleas in an utter shame Creep with his shadow through the court again, Fingering at his sword-handle until he stood There on the castle-bridge once more, and thought, “I will go back, and slay them where they lie.”

¶And so went back, and seeing them yet in sleep Said, “Ye, that so dishallow the holy sleep, Your sleep is death,” and drew the sword, and thought, “What! slay a sleeping knight? the King hath bound And sworn me to this brotherhood;” again, “Alas that ever a knight should be so false.” Then turned, and so returned, and groaning laid The naked sword athwart their naked throats, There left it, and them sleeping; and she lay, The circlet of her tourney round her brows, And the sword of the tourney across her throat.

¶And forth he past, and mounting on his horse Stared at her towers that, larger than themselves In their own darkness, thronged into the moon. Then crushed the saddle with his thighs, and clenched His hands, and maddened with himself and moaned:

¶“Would they have risen against me in their blood At the last day? I might have answered them Even before high God. O towers so strong, Huge, solid, would that even while I gaze The crack of earthquake shivering to your base Split you, and Hell burst up your harlot roofs Bellowing, and charred you through and through within, Black as the harlot’s heart—hollow as a skull! Let the fierce east scream through your eyelet-holes, And whirl the dust of harlots round and round In dung and nettles! hiss, snake—I saw him there— Let the fox bark, let the wolf yell. Who yells Here in the still sweet summer night, but I— I, the poor Pelleas whom she called her fool? Fool, beast—he, she, or I? myself most fool; Beast too, as lacking human wit—disgraced, Dishonoured all for trial of true love— Love?—we be all alike: only the King Hath made us fools and liars. O noble vows! O great and sane and simple race of brutes That own no lust because they have no law! For why should I have loved her to my shame? I loathe her, as I loved her to my shame. I never loved her, I but lusted for her— Away—” He dashed the rowel into his horse, And bounded forth and vanished through the night.

¶Then she, that felt the cold touch on her throat, Awaking knew the sword, and turned herself To Gawain: “Liar, for thou hast not slain This Pelleas! here he stood, and might have slain Me and thyself.” And he that tells the tale Says that her ever-veering fancy turned To Pelleas, as the one true knight on earth, And only lover; and through her love her life Wasted and pined, desiring him in vain.

¶But he by wild and way, for half the night, And over hard and soft, striking the sod From out the soft, the spark from off the hard, Rode till the star above the wakening sun, Beside that tower where Percivale was cowled, Glanced from the rosy forehead of the dawn. For so the words were flashed into his heart He knew not whence or wherefore: “O sweet star, Pure on the virgin forehead of the dawn!” And there he would have wept, but felt his eyes Harder and drier than a fountain bed In summer: thither came the village girls And lingered talking, and they come no more Till the sweet heavens have filled it from the heights Again with living waters in the change Of seasons: hard his eyes; harder his heart Seemed; but so weary were his limbs, that he, Gasping, “Of Arthur’s hall am I, but here, Here let me rest and die,” cast himself down, And gulfed his griefs in inmost sleep; so lay, Till shaken by a dream, that Gawain fired The hall of Merlin, and the morning star Reeled in the smoke, brake into flame, and fell.

¶He woke, and being ware of some one nigh, Sent hands upon him, as to tear him, crying, “False! and I held thee pure as Guinevere.”

¶But Percivale stood near him and replied, “Am I but false as Guinevere is pure? Or art thou mazed with dreams? or being one Of our free-spoken Table hast not heard That Lancelot”—there he checked himself and paused.

¶Then fared it with Sir Pelleas as with one Who gets a wound in battle, and the sword That made it plunges through the wound again, And pricks it deeper: and he shrank and wailed, “Is the Queen false?” and Percivale was mute. “Have any of our Round Table held their vows?” And Percivale made answer not a word. “Is the King true?” “The King!” said Percivale. “Why then let men couple at once with wolves. What! art thou mad?”