Tristram (Robinson)/Canto 2
Appearance
II
The moon that glimmered cold on BrittanyGlimmered as cold on Cornwall, where King Mark,Only by kingly circumstance endowedWith friends enough to make a festival,On this dim night had married and made Queen—Of all fair women in the world by fateThe most forgotten in her lovelinessTill now—Isolt of Ireland, who had flamedAnd fought so long with love that she called hate,Inimical to Tristram for the strokeThat felled Morhaus her kinsman. Tristram, blindWith angry beauty, or in honor blind,Or in obscure obedience unawakened,Had given his insane promise to his uncleOf intercession with the Irish KingAnd so drawn out of him a slow assent,Not fathoming or distinguishing aright Within himself a passion that was death,Nor gauging with a timely recognitionThe warfare of a woman’s enmityWith love without love’s name. He knew too lateHow one word then would have made arras-ratsFor her of all his uncles, and all kingsThat he might serve with cloudy promises,Not weighed until redeemed. Now there was timeFor him to weigh them, and to weigh them well,To the last scorching ounce of desperation,Searing his wits and flesh like heated mailAmidst the fiery downfall of a palace,Where there was no one left except himselfTo save, and no way out except through fire.
Partly to balk his rage, partly to curseUnhindered an abject ineptitudeThat like a drug had held him and withheld himIn seizing once from love’s imperial gardenThe flower of all things there, now Tristram leanedAlone upon a parapet belowThe lights of high Tintagel, where gay musicHad whipped him as a lash and driven him out Into the misty night, which might have heldA premonition and a probing chillFor one more tranquil and less exigent,And not so much on fire. Down through the gloomHe gazed at nothing, save a moving blurWhere foamed eternally on Cornish rocksThe moan of Cornish water; and he asked,With a malignant inward voice of envy,How many scarred cold things that once had laughedAnd loved and wept and sung, and had been men,Might have been knocked and washed indifferentlyOn that hard shore, and eaten graduallyBy competent quick fishes and large crabsAnd larger birds, not caring a wink whichMight be employed on their spent images,No longer tortured there, if God was good,By memories of the fools and royal pimpsThat once unwittingly they might have been—Like Tristram, who could wish himself as farAs they were from a wearing out of lifeOn a racked length of days. Now and againA louder fanfare of malicious hornsWould sing down from the festival above him, Smiting his angry face like a wet cloutThat some invisible scullion might have swung,Too shadowy and too agile to be seizedAnd flung down on those rocks. Now and againCame over him a cold soul-retching waveOf recognition past reality,Recurrent, vile, and always culminatingIn a forbidden vision thrice unholyOf Mark, his uncle, like a man-shaped goatAppraising with a small salacious eye,And slowly forcing into his gaunt arms,And all now in a few impossible hoursThat were as possible as pain and death,The shuddering unreal miracle of Isolt,Which was as real as torture to the damnedIn hell, or in Cornwall. Before long nowThat music and that wordless murmuringOf distant men and women, who divinedAs much or little as they might, would cease;The mocking lights above him would go out;There would be silence; and the King would holdIsolt—Isolt of the dark eyes—IsoltOf the patrician passionate helplessness— Isolt of the soft waving blue-black hair—Isolt of Ireland—in his vicious armsAnd crush the bloom of her resisting lifeOn his hot, watery mouth, and overcomeThe protest of her suffering silk skinWith his crude senile claws. And it was he,Tristram, the loud-accredited strong warrior,Tristram, the loved of women, the harp-player,Tristram, the learned Nimrod among hunters,Tristram, the most obedient imbecileAnd humble servant of King Mark his uncle,Who had achieved all this. For lack of sightAnd sense of self, and imperturbably,He had achieved all this and might do more,No doubt, if given the time. Whereat he cursedHimself again, and his complacent yearsOf easy blindness. Time had saved for himThe flower that he had not the wit to seizeAnd carry a few leagues across the water,Till when he did so it was his no more,And body and soul were sick to think of it.Why should he not be sick? “Good God in heaven,”He groaned aloud, “why should I not be sick!” “No God will answer you to say why not,”Said one descending heavily but unheard,And slowly, down the stairs. “And one like me,Having seen more seasons out than you have seen,Would say it was tonight your prime intentionTo make yourself the sickest man in Cornwall.”Gouvernail frowned and shivered as he spoke,And waited as a stranger waits in vainOutside a door that none within will open.
“I may be that already,” Tristram said,“But I’m not cold. For I’m a seer tonight,And consequently full of starry thoughts.The stars are not so numerous as they were,But there’s a brotherly white moon up there,Such as it is. Well, Gouvernail, what wordHas my illustrious and most amorousAnd most imperious Uncle Mark preparedFor you to say to me that you come scowlingSo far down here to say it? You are nextTo nearest, not being my father, of all menOf whom I am unworthy. What’s the word?”
“Tristram, I left the King annoyed and anxiousOn your account, and for the nonce not pleased.” “What most annoys my uncle, for the nonce?God knows that I have done for him of lateMore than an army, made of nephews only,Shall ever be fools enough to do again.When tired of feasting and of too much talk,And too much wine and too much happy music,May not his royal nephew have some air,Even though his annoyed uncle be a king?My father is a king, in Lyonesse;And that’s about as much as being a kingIn Cornwall is—or one here now might say so.”
“Forgive me Tristram, but I’m old for this.The King knows well what you have done for him,And owns a gratitude beyond the giftOf utterance for the service of your word.But the King does not know, and cannot know,Your purpose in an act ungenerous,If not unseemly. What shall I say to himIf I go back to him alone? Tristram,There are some treasured moments I rememberWhen you have made me loyal to you alwaysFor saying good words of me, and with no care Whether or not they came back to my ears.Surely, if past attention and tuitionAre not forgotten, you will not forgetThis present emptiness of my confusion.If I go back alone, what shall I say?”
“Say to the King that if the King commandImplacably my presence, I will come.But say as an addition that I’m sick,And that another joyful hour with himThis night might have eventful influences.Nothing could be more courteous, if said well,Or more consistent with infirm allegiance.Say to the King I’m sick. If he doubts that,Or takes it ill, say to the King I’m drunk.His comprehensions and remembrancesWill compass and envisage, peradventure,The last deplorable profundityOf my defection if you say, for me,That in my joy my caution crept awayLike an unfaithful hound and went to sleep.Gouvernail, you are cold.”
Gouvernail sighedAnd fixed an eye calm with experience, And with affection kind, on Tristram, sadly.“Yes, I am cold,” he said. “Here at my heartI feel a blasting chill. Will you not comeWith me to see the King and Queen together?Or must I mumble as I may to them,Alone, this weary jest of your complaint?”
“God’s love, have I not seen the two together!And as for my complaint, mumble or not.Mumble or shriek it; or, as you see fit,Call for my harp and sing it.” Tristram laidHis hands on Gouvernail’s enduring shouldersWhich many a time had carried him for sportIn a far vanished childhood, and looked offWhere patient skill had made of shrubs and rocksTogether a wild garden half way downTo the dusk-hidden shore. “Believe my word,My loyal and observing Gouvernail,”He said, and met the older man’s regardWith all that he could muster of a smile.“Believe my word, and say what I have said,Or something as much better as you may.Believe my word no less that I am sick, And that I’d feed a sick toad to my brotherIf in my place he were not sick without it.”
Gouvernail sighed, and with a deeper sighLooked off across the sea. “Tristram,” he said,“I can see no good coming out of this,But I will give your message as I can,And with as light misgiving as I may.Yet where there is no love, too often I findAs perilous a constriction in our judgmentAs where there is too much.”
Tristram pursuedThe mentor of his childhood and his youthWith no more words, and only made of himIn the returning toil of his departureA climbing silence that would soon be metBy sound and light, and by King Mark again,And by Isolt again. Isolt of Ireland!Isolt, so soon to be the bartered preyOf an unholy sacrifice, by ritesOf Rome made holy. Tristram groaned and wept,And heard once more the changeless moan below Of an insensate ocean on those rocksWhereon he had a mind to throw himself.“My God! If I were dreaming this,” he said,“My sleep would be a penance for a year.But I am neither dead nor dreaming now,I’m living and awake. If this be life,What a soul-healing difference death must be,Being something else . . . Isolt! Isolt of Ireland!”
Gazing at emptiness for a long timeHe looked away from life, and scarcely heard,Coming down slowly towards him from above,A troubling sound of cloth. “Good evening, sir,Perhaps you do not know me, or rememberThat once you gave a lady so much honorAs to acknowledge her obscure existence.From late accounts you are not here to knowYour friends on this especial famous evening.Why do you stay away from historyLike this? Kings are not married every night.”
Perceiving there beside him a slim figureProvisionally cloaked against the cold, He bowed as in a weary deferenceTo childish fate. “Surely I know you, Madam;You are among the creatures of distinctionWhose quality may be seen even in the dark.You are Queen Morgan, a most famous lady,And one that only kings in holy joyCould ask or dream to be their messenger.What new persuasion has the King conceivedBeyond this inspiration of your presence?”
“It is not dark,” she said; “or not so darkBut that a woman sees—if she be carefulNot to fall down these memorable stairsAnd break her necessary little neckAt Tristram’s feet. And you might make of thatOnly another small familiar triumphHardly worth sighing for. Well then, the KingIs vexed and vicious. Your man GouvernailSays you are sick with wine. Was that the bestThat your two heads together could accomplish?Will you not for the King’s sake, or the Queen’s,Be more compliant, and not freeze to death?”
“Madam, say to the King that if the KingCommand me, I will come. Having said that, It would be gracious of you to be merry—Malicious, if you must—and say, also,You found in me a melancholy warningFor all who dim their wits obliviously.Say it as delicately or as directlyAs humors your imperial preference.”
Queen Morgan, coming closer, put a smallAnd cat-like hand on Tristram: “In this worldOf lies, you lay a burden on my virtueWhen you would teach me a new alphabet.I’ll turn my poor wits inside out, of course,Telling an angry king how sick you are—With wine or whatsoever. Though I shall knowThe one right reason why you are not merry,I’ll never scatter it, not for the King’s life—Though I might for the Queen’s. Isolt should live,If only to be sorry she came here—With you—away from Ireland to be marriedTo a man old enough to bury himself.But kings are kings, and by contriving findWays over many walls. This being their fate,It was a clever forethought of the Lord That there should be a woman or two leftWith even Isolt no longer possible.A school of prudence would establish youAmong the many whose hearts have bled and healed.”
“Madam, you are a woman and a queen;Wherefore a man, by force of courtesy,Will hardly choose but listen. No doubt your wordsHave a significance in their disguise;Yet having none for me, they might be utteredAs well in a lost language found on ruinsAs in our northern manner. If kings are kingsIn your report, queens, I perceive, are queens,And have their ways also.”
“A sort of queen.”She laughed, showing her teeth and shining eyes,And shrugged herself a little nearer to him,Having not far to come: “But not the sortThat makes a noise where now there are so many.If silly men pursue me and make songsAbout me, it may be because they’ve heardSome legend that I’m strange. I am not strange—Not half so strange as you are.”
Tristram sawBefore him a white neck and a white bosomBeneath a fair and feline face whereonDemure determination was engravedAs on a piece of moonlit living marble,And could at once have smiled and sighed to seeSo much premeditated danger wastedOn his despair and wrath. “Yes, you are strange,”He said, “and a sagacious peril to men—Wherefore they must pursue you and make songs.You are an altogether perilous lady,And you had best go back now to the King,Saying that I’m not well. I would conserveThe few shreds left of my integrityFrom your displeasure and for wiser vision.Say to the King I feasted over muchIn recognition of his happiness—An error that apology too soonMight qualify too late. Tell the King so,And I am your obedient slave for ever.
A wry twist, all but imperceptibleDisfigured for an instant her small mouth Before she smiled and said: “We are the slaves,Not you. Not even when most we are in powerAre women else than slaves to men they honor.Men worthy of their reverence know this well,And honor them sometimes to humor them.We are their slaves and their impediments,And there is much in us to be forgiven.”
He drew the fringes of her cloak together,Smiling as one who suffers to escapeThrough silence to familiar misery.“Madam, I fear that you are taking cold,”He said. “Say to the King that I’m not well.”She laughed, and having mounted a few stepsPaused and looked down at him inscrutably:“‘An error that apology too soonMay qualify too late?’ Was it like that?England is not so large as the wide skyThat holds the stars, and we may meet again.Good night, Sir Tristram, Prince of Lyonesse.”