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(The battlefield. Enter ARTHUR surrounded by knights.)
ARTHUR. Now where is he, that monster, foul, deformed | |
| In shape and spirit, nature calls my son? | |
(Enter MORDRED) MORDRED. Here! | |
| ARTHUR. Ah, blot on all this sunlight, creature dire, | |
| Spawn of mine incest! There standest thou, my sin, | 5 |
| Incarnate now before me, mine old doom; | |
| Thou that wast stronger in thine influences | |
| To work dread evil in this hideous world | |
| Than all the glory all my good might win. | |
| MORDRED. Father! | 10 |
| ARTHUR. Yea, well say Father! Parent I this ill | |
| That hath enrent my kingdom all in twain. | |
| In that dread night of my licentious youth, | |
| When I in darkness thy foul shape begot, | |
| I worked a web of blackness round my fate | 15 |
| And thine, distorted phantom of my sin, | |
| Not all the tolling of sweet abbey-bells, | |
| And murmur of masses sung these thousand years, | |
| Can sweep from this doomed kingdom. Father! Yea, | |
| There is no truce betwixt us. Thou art death | 20 |
| To all that I hold dearest on this earth. | |
| Thou stood’st betwixt me and my gladder fate, | |
| The one black spot on all my glory’s sun. | |
| In thee once more mine evil blackens in, | |
| Reddens mine eyesight. Have at thee, foul curse! | 25 |
| MORDRED. Father! | |
| ARTHUR. Have at thee! | |
| |
(They fight. ARTHUR wounds MORDRED. He falls.
A knight stabs ARTHUR from behind.) ARTHUR. Ho! all the sunlight blackens! Mordred! Oh! | |
| My glory darkens! Curtain not yon sun! (Dies.) | |
| MORDRED. Yea, this is all, and I were made for this, | 30 |
| To scatter death and desolation round | |
| On this fair kingdom, ruin this sweet land, | |
| And level all the pride of Arthur’s glory, | |
| As men might level some great castle walls, | |
| And sow with salt the fields of his desire, | 35 |
| And make him mock before the eyes of men; | |
| Turn all his great joy into bitterness. | |
| Yea, I his blood, and I were made for this. | |
| Oh, ancient, cruel laws of human life, | |
| Oh, deep, mysterious, unfathomable source | 40 |
| Of man’s poor being; we are ringed about | |
| With such hard rinds of hellish circumstance, | |
| That we can never walk or breathe or hope, | |
| Or eye the sun, or ponder on the green | |
| Of tented plain, or glorious blue of heaven, | 45 |
| Or know love’s joy, or knotted thews of strength, | |
| But imps of evil thoughts creep in between, | |
| Like lizards in the chinks of some fair wall, | |
| And mar life’s splendour and its greatness all. | |
| ’Tis some damned birth-doom blended in the blood, | 50 |
| That prophesies our end in our poor acts. | |
| Oh! we are but blind children of the dark, | |
| Wending a way we neither make nor ken. | |
| Yea, Arthur, I had loved thee sweet and well, | |
| And made mine arm a bulwark to thy realm, | 55 |
| Had I been but as fair as Lancelot. | |
| What evil germ, false quickening of the blood, | |
| Did breed me foul, distorted as I am, | |
| That I should mar this earth and thy great realm | |
| With my wry, knotted sorrows? Lancelot’s love | 60 |
| Was manly, kind and generous as became | |
| A soul encased in such propitious frame. | |
| The kingly trees well turn them to the sun, | |
| And glory in their splendour with the morn. | |
| ’Tis natural that noble souls should dwell | 65 |
| ’Twixt noble features; but the maimèd soul | |
| Should ever be found in the distorted shape. | |
| But I had loved as never man had loved, | |
| Did nature only plant me sweet at first. | |
| (To his knights.) And now I die, and blessed be my death, | 70 |
| More blessed far that I had never breathed. | |
| Murder and Treason were my midwives dire, | |
| Rapine and Carnage, priests that shrive me now. | |
(Enter VIVIEN disguised as a squire.) VIVIEN. Mordred, thou diest! | |
| MORDRED. Who art thou? | 75 |
| VIVIEN. I am Vivien. | |
| MORDRED. Hence, hence, Viper, incarnate Fiend! | |
| Not natural woman, but Ambition framed, | |
| And all lust’s envy. Thou wert unto me | |
| A blacker blackness. Did an angel come | 80 |
| And whisper sweeter counsel in mine ears, | |
| And trumpet hopes that all were not in vain; | |
| And thou wouldst wool mine ears with malice dire, | |
| And play upon the black chords of my heart. | |
| Hence, Devil, hence! Mar not my closing hours! | 85 |
| VIVIEN. Oh, woe, woe! (Steals out.) | |
| MORDRED. (To the knights.) Now bear me slowly to great Arthur’s side, | |
| And let me place my hand upon his breast, | |
| For he was mine own father! Alas! Alas! | |
| So hideous is this nature we endure! | 90 |
(The soldiers place him by Arthur.) How calm he sleeps, Allencthon, as those should | |
| Who die in glorious battle. Dost thou know, | |
| O mighty father, that thine ill-got son, | |
| Ill-got of nature and mysterious night, | |
| To mar thy splendour and enwreck this world, | 95 |
| Now crawls to thy dead body near his death, | |
| As would some wounded dog of faithful days | |
| To lick his master’s hand? Blame not, O King, | |
| If thou somewhere may know what I here feel, | |
| Thy poor, misshapen Mordred. Blame him not | 100 |
| The turbulent, treacherous currents of the blood | |
| Which were a part of thine; nor let one thought | |
| Of his past evil mar thy mighty rest. | |
| He would have loved thee; but remember that. | |
| |
| Now, past is all this splendour; new worlds come; | 105 |
| But never more will Britain know such grace, | |
| Such lofty glory, and such splendid days. | |
| |
| Back of the clang of battle, back of all | |
| The mists of life, the clamour and the fall | |
| Of human kingdoms built on human days; | 110 |
| Arthur! Merlin! mighty Dead! I come! (Springs to his feet!) | |
| Ho! Horse! To horse! My sword! A trumpet calls! | |
| A Mordred! (Dies.) | |
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