Chapter V: Act II: Scene I. A.d. 1221-27 (2)

C. Wal. Why, if you ask me--I heard a shrewd sermon the other day on that same idleness and immorality text of the Abbot's.--'Twas Conrad, the Princess's director, preached it. And a fashionable cap it is, though it will fit more than will like to wear it. Shall I give it you? Shall I preach?

C. Hugo. A tub for Varila! Stand on the table, now, toss back thy hood like any Franciscan, and preach away.

C. Wal. Idleness, quoth he [Conrad, mind you],--idleness and immorality? Where have they learnt them, but from your nobles? There was a saucy monk for you. But there's worse coming. Religion? said he, how can they respect it, when they see you, 'their betters,' fattening on church lands, neglecting sacraments, defying excommunications, trading in benefices, hiring the clergy for your puppets and flatterers, making the ministry, the episcopate itself, a lumber-room wherein to stow away the idiots and spendthrifts of your families, the confidants of your mistresses, the cast-off pedagogues of your boys?

Omnes. The scoundrel!

C. Wal. Was he not?--But hear again--Immorality? roars he; and who has corrupted them but you? Have you not made every castle a weed- bed, from which the newest corruptions of the Court stick like thistle-down, about the empty heads of stable-boys and serving maids? Have you not kept the poor worse housed than your dogs and your horses, worse fed than your pigs and your sheep? Is there an ancient house among you, again, of which village gossips do not whisper some dark story of lust and oppression, of decrepit debauchery, of hereditary doom?

Omnes. We'll hang this monk.

C. Wal. Hear me out, and you'll burn him. His sermon was like a hailstorm, the tail of the shower the sharpest. Idleness? he asked next of us all: how will they work, when they see you landlords sitting idle above them, in a fool's paradise of luxury and riot, never looking down but to squeeze from them an extra drop of honey-- like sheep-boys stuffing themselves with blackberries while the sheep are licking up flukes in every ditch? And now you wish to leave the poor man in the slough, whither your neglect and your example have betrayed him, and made his too apt scholarship the excuse for your own remorseless greed! As a Christian, I am ashamed of you all; as a Churchman, doubly ashamed of those prelates, hired stalking-horses of the rich, who would fain gloss over their own sloth and cowardice with the wisdom which cometh not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish; aping the artless cant of an aristocracy who made them--use them--and despise them. That was his sermon.

Abbot. Paul and Barnabas! What an outpouring of the spirit!--Were not his hoodship the Pope's legate, now--accidents might happen to him, going home at night; eh, Sir Hugo?

C. Hugo. If he would but come my way! For 'the mule it was slow, and the lane it was dark, When out of the copse leapt a gallant young spark. Says, 'Tis not for nought you've been begging all day: So remember your toll, since you travel our way.'

Abbot. Hush! Here comes the Landgrave.

[Lewis enters.]

Lewis. Good morrow, gentles. Why so warm, Count Walter? Your blessing, Father Abbot: what deep matters Have called our worships to this conference?

C. Hugo [aside]. Up, Count; you are spokesman.

3d Count. Exalted Prince, Whose peerless knighthood, like the remeant sun, After too long a night, regilds our clay, Late silvered by the reflex lunar beams Of your celestial lady's matron graces--

Abbot [aside]. Ut vinum optimum amati mei Dulciter descendens!

3 Count. Think not we mean to praise or disapprove-- The acts of saintly souls must only plead In foro conscientiae: grosser minds, Whose humbler aim is but the public weal, Know of no mesh which holds them: yet, great Prince, Some dare not see their sovereign's strength postponed To private grace, and sigh, that generous hearts, And ladies' tenderness, too oft forgetting That wisdom is the highest charity, Will interfere, in pardonable haste, With heaven's stern providence.

Lewis. We see your drift. Go, sirrah [to a Page]; pray the Princess to illumine Our conclave with her beauties. 'Tis our manner To hear no cause, of gentle or of simple, Unless the accused and the accuser both Meet face to face.

3d Count. Excuse, high-mightiness,-- We bring no accusation; facts, your Highness, Wait for your sentence, not our praejudicium.

Lewis. Give us the facts, then, Sir; in the lady's presence, Her nearness to ourselves--perchance her reasons-- May make them somewhat dazzling.

Abbot. Nay, my Lord; I, as a Churchman, though with these your nobles Both in commission and opinion one, Am yet most loth, my Lord, to set my seal To aught which this harsh world might call complaint Against a princely saint--a chosen vessel-- An argosy celestial--in whom error Is but the young luxuriance of her grace. The Count of Varila, as bound to neither, For both shall speak, and all which late has passed Upon the matter of this famine open.

C. Wal. Why, if I must speak out--then I'll confess To have stood by, and seen the Landgravine Do most strange deeds; and in her generation Show no more wit than other babes of light. First, she has given away, to starving rascals, The stores of grain she might have sold, good lack! For any price she asked; has pawned your jewels, And mortgaged sundry farms, and all for food. Has sunk vast sums in fever-hospitals, For rogues whom famine sickened--almshouses For sluts whose husbands died--schools for their brats. Most sad vagaries! but there's worse to come. The dulness of the Court has ruined trade: The jewellers and clothiers don't come near us; The sempstresses, my lord, and pastrycooks Have quite forgot their craft; she has turned all heads And made the ladies starve, and wear old clothes, And run about with her to nurse the sick, Instead of putting gold in circulation By balls, sham-fights, and dinners; 'tis most sad, sir, But she has swept your treasury out as clean-- As was the widow's cruse, who fed Elijah.

Lewis. Ruined, no doubt! Lo! here the culprit comes.

[Elizabeth enters.]

Come hither, dearest. These, my knights and nobles, Lament your late unthrift (your conscience speaks The causes of their blame); and wish you warned, As wisdom is the highest charity, No more to interfere, from private feeling, With heaven's stern laws, or maim the sovereign's wealth, To save superfluous villains' worthless lives.

Eliz. Lewis!

Lewis. Not I, fair, but my counsellors, In courtesy, need some reply.

Eliz. My Lords; Doubtless, you speak as your duty bids you: I know you love my husband: do you think My love is less than yours? 'Twas for his honour I dare not lose a single silly sheep Of all the flock which God had trusted to him. True, I had hoped by this--No matter what-- Since to your sense it bears a different hue. I keep no logic. For my gifts, thank God, They cannot be recalled; for those poor souls, My pensioners--even for my husband's knightly name, Oh! ask not back that slender loan of comfort My folly has procured them: if, my Lords, My public censure, or disgraceful penance May expiate, and yet confirm my waste, I offer this poor body to the buffets Of sternest justice: when I dared not spare My husband's lands, I dare not spare myself.

Lewis. No! no! My noble sister? What? my Lords! If her love move you not, her wisdom may. She knows a deeper statecraft, Sirs, than you: She will not throw away the substance, Abbot, To save the accident; waste living souls To keep, or hope to keep, the means of life. Our wisdom and our swords may fill our coffers, But will they breed us men, my Lords, or mothers? God blesses in the camp a noble rashness: Then why not in the storehouse? He that lends To Him, need never fear to lose his venture. Spend on, my Queen. You will not sell my castles? Nay, you must leave us Neuburg, love, and Wartburg. Their worn old stones will hardly pay the carriage, And foreign foes may pay untimely visits.

C. Wal. And home foes, too; if these philosophers Put up the curb, my Lord, a half-link tighter, The scythes will be among our horses' legs Before next harvest.

Lewis. Fear not for our welfare: We have a guardian here, well skilled to keep Peace for our seneschal, while angels, stooping To catch the tears she sheds for us in absence, Will sain us from the roaming adversary With scents of Paradise. Farewell, my Lords.

Eliz. Nay,--I must pray your knighthoods--You must honour Our dais and bower as private guests to-day. Thanks for your gentle warning; may my weakness To such a sin be never tempted more!

[Exeunt Elizabeth and Lewis.]

C. Wal. Thus, as if virtue were not its own reward, is it paid over and above with beef and ale? Weep not, tender-hearted Count! Though 'generous hearts,' my Lord, 'and ladies' tenderness, too oft forget'--Truly spoken! Lord Abbot, does not your spiritual eye discern coals of fire on Count Hugo's head?

C. Hugo. Where, and a plague? Where?

C. Wal. Nay, I speak mystically,--there is nought there but what beer will quench before nightfall. Here, peeping rabbit [to a Page at the door], out of your burrow, and show these gentles to their lodgings. We will meet at the gratias. [They go out.]

C. Wal [alone]. Well:--if Hugo is a brute, he at least makes no secret of it. He is an old boar, and honest; he wears his tushes outside, for a warning to all men. But for the rest!--Whited sepulchres! and not one of them but has half persuaded himself of his own benevolence. Of all cruelties, save me from your small pedant,--your closet philosopher, who has just courage enough to bestride his theory, without wit to see whither it will carry him. In experience, a child: in obstinacy, a woman: in nothing a man, but in logic-chopping: instead of God's grace, a few schoolboy saws about benevolence, and industry, and independence--there is his metal. If the world will be mended on his principles, well. If not, poor world!--but principles must be carried out, though through blood and famine: for truly, man was made for theories, not theories for man. A doctrine is these men's God--touch but that shrine, and lo! your simpering philanthropist becomes as ruthless as a Dominican. [Exit.]

SCENE IX

Elizabeth's bower. Elizabeth and Lewis sitting together.

Song

Eliz. Oh that we two were Maying Down the stream of the soft spring breeze; Like children with violets playing In the shade of the whispering trees!

Oh that we two sat dreaming On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down Watching the white mist steaming Over river and mead and town!

Oh that we two lay sleeping In our nest in the churchyard sod, With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast, And our souls at home with God!

Lewis. Ah, turn away those swarthy diamonds' blaze! Mine eyes are dizzy, and my faint sense reels In the rich fragrance of those purple tresses. Oh, to be thus, and thus, day after day! To sleep, and wake, and find it yet no dream-- My atmosphere, my hourly food, such bliss As to have dreamt of, five short years agone, Had seemed a mad conceit.

Eliz. Five years agone?

Lewis. I know not; for upon our marriage-day I slipped from time into eternity; Where each day teems with centuries of life, And centuries were but one wedding morn.

Eliz. Lewis, I am too happy! floating higher Than e'er my will had dared to soar, though able; But circumstance, which is the will of God, Beguiled my cowardice to that, which, darling, I found most natural, when I feared it most. Love would have had no strangeness in mine eyes, Save from the prejudice which others taught me-- They should know best. Yet now this wedlock seems A second infancy's baptismal robe, A heaven, my spirit's antenatal home, Lost in blind pining girlhood--found now, found! [Aside] What have I said? Do I blaspheme? Alas! I neither made these thoughts, nor can unmake them.

Lewis. Ay, marriage is the life-long miracle, The self-begetting wonder, daily fresh; The Eden, where the spirit and the flesh Are one again, and new-born souls walk free, And name in mystic language all things new, Naked, and not ashamed. [Eliz. hides her face.]

Eliz. O God! were that true!

[Clasps him round the neck.]

There, there, no more-- I love thee, and I love thee, and I love thee-- More than rich thoughts can dream, or mad lips speak; But how, or why, whether with soul or body, I will not know. Thou art mine.--Why question further? [Aside] Ay if I fall by loving, I will love, And be degraded!--how? by my own troth-plight? No, but my thinking that I fall.--'Tis written That whatsoe'er is not of faith is sin.-- O Jesu Lord! Hast Thou not made me thus? Mercy! My brain will burst: I cannot leave him!

Lewis. Beloved, if I went away to war--

Eliz. O God! More wars? More partings?

Lewis. Nay, my sister-- My trust but longs to glory in its surety: What would'st thou do?

Eliz. What I have done already. Have I not followed thee, through drought and frost, Through flooded swamps, rough glens, and wasted lands, Even while I panted most with thy dear loan Of double life?

Lewis. My saint! but what if I bid thee To be my seneschal, and here with prayers, With sober thrift, and noble bounty shine, Alone and peerless? And suppose--nay, start not-- I only said suppose--the war was long, Our camps far off, and that some winter, love, Or two, pent back this Eden stream, where now Joys upon joys like sunlit ripples pass, Alike, yet ever new.--What would'st thou do, love?

Eliz. A year? A year! A cold, blank, widowed year! Strange, that mere words should chill my heart with fear-- This is no hall of doom, No impious Soldan's feast of old, Where o'er the madness of the foaming gold, A fleshless hand its woe on tainted walls enrolled. Yet by thy wild words raised, In Love's most careless revel, Looms through the future's fog a shade of evil, And all my heart is glazed.-- Alas! What would I do? I would lie down and weep, and weep, Till the salt current of my tears should sweep My soul, like floating weed, adown a fitful sleep, A lingering half-night through. Then when the mocking bells did wake My hollow eyes to twilight gray, I would address my spiritless limbs to pray, And nerve myself with stripes to meet the weary day, And labour for thy sake. Until by vigils, fasts, and tears, The flesh was grown so spare and light, That I could slip its mesh, and flit by night O'er sleeping sea and land to thee--or Christ--till morning light. Peace! Why these fears? Life is too short for mean anxieties: Soul! thou must work, though blindfold. Come, beloved, I must turn robber.--I have begged of late So soft, I fear to ask.--Give me thy purse.

Lewis. No, not my purse:--stay--Where is all that gold I gave you, when the Jews came here from Koln?

Eliz. Oh, those few coins? I spent them all next day On a new chapel on the Eisenthal; There were no choristers but nightingales-- No teachers there save bees: how long is this? Have you turned niggard?

Lewis. Nay; go ask my steward-- Take what you will--this purse I want myself.

Eliz. Ah! now I guess. You have some trinket for me-- You promised late to buy no more such baubles-- And now you are ashamed.--Nay, I must see--

[Snatches his purse. Lewis hides his face.]

Ah, God! what's here? A new crusader's cross? Whose? Nay, nay--turn not from me; I guess all-- You need not tell me; it is very well-- According to the meed of my deserts: Yes--very well.

Lewis. Ah, love!--look not so calm--

Eliz. Fear not--I shall weep soon. How long is it since you vowed?

Lewis. A week or more.

Eliz. Brave heart! And all that time your tenderness Kept silence, knowing my weak foolish soul. [Weeps.] O love! O life! Late found, and soon, soon lost! A bleak sunrise,--a treacherous morning gleam,-- And now, ere mid-day, all my sky is black With whirling drifts once more! The march is fixed For this day month, is't not?

Lewis. Alas, too true!

Eliz. Oh break not, heart!

[Conrad enters.]

Ah! here my master comes. No weeping before him.

Lewis. Speak to the holy man: He can give strength and comfort, which poor I Need even more than you. Here, saintly master, I leave her to your holy eloquence. Farewell! God help us both! [Exit Lewis.]

Eliz [rising]. You know, Sir, that my husband has taken the cross!

Con. I do; all praise to God!

Eliz. But none to you: Hard-hearted! Am I not enough your slave? Can I obey you more when he is gone Than now I do? Wherein, pray, has he hindered This holiness of mine, for which you make me Old ere my womanhood? [Conrad offers to go.] Stay, Sir, and tell me Is this the outcome of your 'father's care'? Was it not enough to poison all my joys With foulest scruples?--show me nameless sins, Where I, unconscious babe, blessed God for all things, But you must thus intrigue away my knight And plunge me down this gulf of widowhood! And I not twenty yet--a girl--an orphan-- That cannot stand alone! Was I too happy? O God! what lawful bliss do I not buy And balance with the smart of some sharp penance? Hast thou no pity? None? Thou drivest me To fiendish doubts: Thou, Jesus' messenger?

Con. This to your master!

Eliz. This to any one Who dares to part me from my love.

Con. 'Tis well-- In pity to your weakness I must deign To do what ne'er I did--excuse myself. I say, I knew not of your husband's purpose; God's spirit, not I, moved him: perhaps I sinned In that I did not urge it myself.

Eliz. Thou traitor! So thou would'st part us?

Con. Aught that makes thee greater I'll dare. This very outburst proves in thee Passions unsanctified, and carnal leanings Upon the creatures thou would'st fain transcend. Thou badest me cure thy weakness. Lo, God brings thee The tonic cup I feared to mix:--be brave-- Drink it to the lees, and thou shalt find within A pearl of price.

Eliz. 'Tis bitter!

Con. Bitter, truly: Even I, to whom the storm of earthly love Is but a dim remembrance--Courage! Courage! There's glory in't; fulfil thy sacrifice; Give up thy noblest on the noblest service God's sun has looked on, since the chosen twelve Went conquering, and to conquer, forth. If he fall--

Eliz. Oh, spare mine ears!

Con. He falls a blessed martyr, To bid thee welcome through the gates of pearl; And next to his shall thine own guerdon be If thou devote him willing to thy God. Wilt thou?

Eliz. Have mercy!

Con. Wilt thou? Sit not thus Watching the sightless air: no angel in it But asks thee what I ask: the fiend alone Delays thy coward flesh. Wilt thou devote him?

Eliz. I will devote him;--a crusader's wife! I'll glory in it. Thou speakest words from God-- And God shall have him! Go now--good my master; My poor brain swims. [Exit Conrad.] Yes--a crusader's wife! And a crusader's widow!

[Bursts into tears, and dashes herself on the floor.]

SCENE X

A street in the town of Schmalcald. Bodies of Crusading troops defiling past. Lewis and Elizabeth with their suite in the foreground.

Lewis. Alas! the time is near; I must be gone-- There are our liegemen; how you'll welcome us, Returned in triumph, bowed with paynim spoils, Beneath the victor cross, to part no more!

Eliz. Yes--we shall part no more, where next we meet. Enough to have stood here once on such an errand!

Lewis. The bugle calls.--Farewell, my love, my lady, Queen, sister, saint! One last long kiss--Farewell!

Eliz. One kiss--and then another--and another-- Till 'tis too late to go--and so return-- O God! forgive that craven thought! There, take him Since Thou dost need him. I have kept him ever Thine, when most mine; and shall I now deny Thee? Oh! go--yes, go--Thou'lt not forget to pray,

[Lewis goes.]

With me, at our old hour? Alas! he's gone And lost--thank God he hears me not--for ever. Why look'st thou so, poor girl? I say, for ever. The day I found the bitter blessed cross, Something did strike my heart like keen cold steel, Which quarries daily there with dead dull pains-- Whereby I know that we shall meet no more. Come! Home, maids, home! Prepare me widow's weeds-- For he is dead to me, and I must soon Die too to him, and many things; and mark me-- Breathe not his name, lest this love-pampered heart Should sicken to vain yearnings--Lost! lost! lost!

Lady. Oh stay, and watch this pomp.

Eliz. Well said--we'll stay; so this bright enterprise Shall blanch our private clouds, and steep our soul Drunk with the spirit of great Christendom.

CRUSADER CHORUS.

[Men-at-Arms pass, singing.]

The tomb of God before us, Our fatherland behind, Our ships shall leap o'er billows steep, Before a charmed wind.

Above our van great angels Shall fight along the sky; While martyrs pure and crowned saints To God for rescue cry.

The red-cross knights and yeomen Throughout the holy town, In faith and might, on left and right, Shall tread the paynim down.

Till on the Mount Moriah The Pope of Rome shall stand; The Kaiser and the King of France Shall guard him on each hand.

There shall he rule all nations, With crozier and with sword; And pour on all the heathen The wrath of Christ the Lord.

[Women--bystanders.]

Christ is a rock in the bare salt land, To shelter our knights from the sun and sand: Christ the Lord is a summer sun, To ripen the grain while they are gone.

Then you who fight in the bare salt land, And you who work at home, Fight and work for Christ the Lord, Until His kingdom come.

[Old Knights pass.]

Our stormy sun is sinking; Our sands are running low; In one fair fight, before the night, Our hard-worn hearts shall glow.

We cannot pine in cloister; We cannot fast and pray; The sword which built our load of guilt Must wipe that guilt away.

We know the doom before us; The dangers of the road; Have mercy, mercy, Jesu blest, When we lie low in blood.

When we lie gashed and gory, The holy walls within, Sweet Jesu, think upon our end, And wipe away our sin.

[Boy Crusaders pass.]

The Christ-child sits on high: He looks through the merry blue sky; He holds in His hand a bright lily-band, For the boys who for Him die.

On holy Mary's arm, Wrapt safe from terror and harm, Lulled by the breeze in the paradise trees, Their souls sleep soft and warm.

Knight David, young and true, The giant Soldan slew, And our arms so light, for the Christ-child's right, Like noble deeds can do.

[Young Knights pass.]

The rich East blooms fragrant before us; All Fairyland beckons us forth; We must follow the crane in her flight o'er the main, From the frosts and the moors of the North.

Our sires in the youth of the nations Swept westward through plunder and blood, But a holier quest calls us back to the East, We fight for the kingdom of God.

Then shrink not, and sigh not, fair ladies, The red cross which flames on each arm and each shield, Through philtre and spell, and the black charms of hell, Shall shelter our true love in camp and in field.

[Old Monk, looking after them.]

Jerusalem, Jerusalem! The burying place of God! Why gay and bold, in steel and gold, O'er the paths where Christ hath trod?

[The Scene closes.]