Project Gutenberg's Chastelard, a Tragedy, by Algernon Charles Swinburne

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Chastelard, a Tragedy

Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne

Posting Date: February 27, 2010 [EBook #2379] Release Date: November, 2000

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHASTELARD, A TRAGEDY ***

Produced by Tony Adam

Chastelard, a tragedy.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Boston: E.P. Dutton, 1866.

(author's edition)

PERSONS.

MARY STUART. MARY BEATON. MARY SEYTON. MARY CARMICHAEL. MARY HAMILTON. PIERRE DE BOSCOSEL DE CHASTELARD. DARNLEY. MURRAY. RANDOLPH. MORTON. LINDSAY. FATHER BLACK.

Guards, Burgesses, a Preacher, Citizens, &c.

Another Yle is there toward the Northe, in the See Occean, where that ben fulle cruele and ful evele Wommen of Nature: and thei han precious Stones in hire Eyen; and their ben of that kynde, that zif they beholden ony man, thei slen him anon with the beholdynge, as dothe the Basilisk.

MAUNDEVILE'S Voiage and Travaile, Ch. xxviii.

I DEDICATE THIS PLAY, AS A PARTIAL EXPRESSION OF REVERENCE AND GRATITUDE, TO THE CHIEF OF LIVING POETS; TO THE FIRST DRAMATIST OF HIS AGE; TO THE GREATEST EXILE, AND THEREFORE TO THE GREATEST MAN OF FRANCE; TO VICTOR HUGO.

ACT I.

MARY BEATON.

SCENE I.—The Upper Chamber in Holyrood.

The four MARIES.

MARY BEATON (sings):—

  1.
  Le navire
  Est a l'eau;
  Entends rire
  Ce gros flot
  Que fait luire
  Et bruire
  Le vieux sire
  Aquilo.

  2.
  Dans l'espace
  Du grand air
  Le vent passe
  Comme un fer;
  Siffle et sonne,
  Tombe et tonne,
  Prend et donne
  A la mer.

  3.
  Vois, la brise
  Tourne au nord,
  Et la bise
  Souffle et mord
  Sur ta pure
  Chevelure
  Qui murmure
  Et se tord.

MARY HAMILTON.
  You never sing now but it makes you sad;
  Why do you sing?

MARY BEATON.
  I hardly know well why;
  It makes me sad to sing, and very sad
  To hold my peace.

MARY CARMICHAEL.
  I know what saddens you.

MARY BEATON.
  Prithee, what? what?

MARY CARMICHAEL.
  Why, since we came from France,
  You have no lover to make stuff for songs.

MARY BEATON.
  You are wise; for there my pain begins indeed,
  Because I have no lovers out of France.

MARY SEYTON.
  I mind me of one Olivier de Pesme,
  (You knew him, sweet,) a pale man with short hair,
  Wore tied at sleeve the Beaton color.

MARY CARMICHAEL.
  Blue—
  I know, blue scarfs. I never liked that knight.

MARY HAMILTON.
  Me? I know him? I hardly knew his name.
  Black, was his hair? no, brown.

MARY SEYTON.
  Light pleases you:
  I have seen the time brown served you well enough.

MARY CARMICHAEL.
  Lord Darnley's is a mere maid's yellow.

MARY HAMILTON.
  No,
  A man's, good color.

MARY SEYTON.
  Ah, does that burn your blood?
  Why, what a bitter color is this read
  That fills your face! if you be not in love,
  I am no maiden.

MARY HAMILTON.
  Nay, God help true hearts!
  I must be stabbed with love then, to the bone,
  Yea to the spirit, past cure.

MARY SEYTON.
  What were you saying?
  I see some jest run up and down your lips.

MARY CARMICHAEL.
  Finish your song; I know you have more of it;
  Good sweet, I pray you do.

MARY BEATON.
  I am too sad.

MARY CARMICHAEL.
  This will not sadden you to sing; your song
  Tastes sharp of sea and the sea's bitterness,
  But small pain sticks on it.

MARY BEATON.
  Nay, it is sad;
  For either sorrow with the beaten lips
  Sings not at all, or if it does get breath
  Sings quick and sharp like a hard sort of mirth:
  And so this song does; or I would it did,
  That it might please me better than it does.

MARY SEYTON.
  Well, as you choose then. What a sort of men
  Crowd all about the squares!

MARY CARMICHAEL.
  Ay, hateful men;
  For look how many talking mouths be there,
  So many angers show their teeth at us.
  Which one is that, stooped somewhat in the neck,
  That walks so with his chin against the wind,
  Lips sideways shut? a keen-faced man—lo there,
  He that walks midmost.

MARY SEYTON.
  That is Master Knox.
  He carries all these folk within his skin,
  Bound up as 't were between the brows of him
  Like a bad thought; their hearts beat inside his;
  They gather at his lips like flies in the sun,
  Thrust sides to catch his face.

MARY CARMICHAEL.
  Look forth; so—push
  The window—further—see you anything?

MARY HAMILTON.
  They are well gone; but pull the lattice in,
  The wind is like a blade aslant. Would God
  I could get back one day I think upon:
  The day we four and some six after us
  Sat in that Louvre garden and plucked fruits
  To cast love-lots with in the gathered grapes;
  This way: you shut your eyes and reach and pluck,
  And catch a lover for each grape you get.
  I got but one, a green one, and it broke
  Between my fingers and it ran down through them.

MARY SEYTON.
  Ay, and the queen fell in a little wrath
  Because she got so many, and tore off
  Some of them she had plucked unwittingly—
  She said, against her will. What fell to you?

MARY BEATON.
  Me? nothing but the stalk of a stripped bunch
  With clammy grape-juice leavings at the tip.

MARY CARMICHAEL.
  Ay, true, the queen came first and she won all;
  It was her bunch we took to cheat you with.
  What, will you weep for that now? for you seem
  As one that means to weep. God pardon me!
  I think your throat is choking up with tears.
  You are not well, sweet, for a lying jest
  To shake you thus much.

MARY