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_ ACT IV - SCENE II
[Open space in a suburb of Marpurg, near Elizabeth's Hut.
Count Walter and Count Pama of Hungary entering.]
C. Pama.
I have prepared my nerves for a shock.
C. Wal.
You are wise, for the world's upside down here. The last
gateway brought us out of Christendom into the New Jerusalem, the
fifth Monarchy, where the Saints possess the earth. Not a beggar
here but has his pockets full of fair ladies' tokens: not a
barefooted friar but rules a princess.
C. Pama.
Creeping, I opine, into widows' houses, and for a pretence
making long prayers.
C. Wal.
Don't quote Scripture here, sir, especially in that gross
literal way! The new lights here have taught us that Scripture's
saying one thing, is a certain proof that it means another. Except,
by the bye, in one text.
C. Pama.
What's that?
C. Wal.
'Ask, and it shall be given you.'
C. Pama.
Ah! So we are to take nothing literally, that they may
take literally everything themselves?
C. Wal.
Humph! As for your text, see if they do not saddle it on
us before the day is out, as glibly as ever you laid it on them.
Here comes the lady's tyrant, of whom I told you.
[Conrad advances from the Hut.]
Con.
And what may Count Walter's valour want here?
[Count Walter turns his back.]
C. Pama.
I come, Sir Priest, from Andreas, king renowned
Of Hungary, ambassador unworthy
Unto the Landgravine, his saintly daughter;
And fain would be directed to her presence.
Con.
That is as I shall choose. But I'll not stop you.
I do not build with straw. I'll trust my pupils
To worldlings' honeyed tongues, who make long prayers,
And enter widows' houses for pretence.
There dwells the lady, who has chosen too long
The better part, to have it taken from her.
Besides that with strange dreams and revelations
She has of late been edified.
C. Wal.
Bah! but they will serve your turn--and hers.
Con.
What do you mean?
C. Wal.
When you have cut her off from child and friend, and even
Isentrudis and Guta, as I hear, are thrust out by you to starve, and
she sits there, shut up like a bear in a hole, to feed on her own
substance; if she has not some of these visions to look at, how is
she, or any other of your poor self-gorged prisoners, to help
fancying herself the only creature on earth?
Con.
How now? Who more than she, in faith and practice, a living
member of the Communion of Saints? Did she not lately publicly
dispense in charity in a single day five hundred marks and more? Is
it not my continual labour to keep her from utter penury through her
extravagance in almsgiving? For whom does she take thought but for
the poor, on whom, day and night, she spends her strength? Does she
not tend them from the cradle, nurse them, kiss their sores, feed
them, bathe them, with her own hands, clothe them, living and dead,
with garments, the produce of her own labour? Did she not of late
take into her own house a paralytic boy, whose loathsomeness had
driven away every one else? And now that we have removed that
charge, has she not with her a leprous boy, to whose necessities she
ministers hourly, by day and night? What valley but blesses her for
some school, some chapel, some convent, built by her munificence?
Are not the hospices, which she has founded in divers towns, the
wonder of Germany?--wherein she daily feeds and houses a multitude
of the infirm poor of Christ? Is she not followed at every step by
the blessings of the poor? Are not her hourly intercessions for the
souls and bodies of all around incessant, world-famous, mighty to
save? While she lives only for the Church of Christ, will you
accuse her of selfish isolation?
C. Wal.
I tell you, monk, if she were not healthier by God's making
than ever she will be by yours, her charity would be by this time
double-distilled selfishness; the mouths she fed, cupboards to store
good works in; the backs she warmed, clothes-horses to hang out her
wares before God; her alms not given, but fairly paid, a halfpenny
for every halfpenny-worth of eternal life; earth her chess-board,
and the men and women on it merely pawns for her to play a winning
game--puppets and horn-books to teach her unit holiness--a private
workshop in which to work out her own salvation. Out upon such
charity!
Con.
God hath appointed that our virtuous deeds
Each merit their rewards.
C. Wal.
Go to--go to. I have watched you and your crew, how you
preach up selfish ambition for divine charity and call prurient
longings celestial love, while you blaspheme that very marriage from
whose mysteries you borrow all your cant. The day will come when
every husband and father will hunt you down like vermin; and may I
live to see it.
Con.
Out on thee, heretic!
C. Wal.
[drawing].
Liar! At last?
C. Pama.
In God's name, sir, what if the Princess find us?
C. Wal.
Ay--for her sake. But put that name on me again, as you do
on every good Catholic who will not be your slave and puppet,
and if thou goest home with ears and nose, there is no
hot blood in Germany.
[They move towards the cottage.]
Con.
[alone].
Were I as once I was, I could revenge:
But now all private grudges wane like mist
In the keen sunlight of my full intent;
And this man counts but for some sullen bull
Who paws and mutters at unheeding pilgrims
His empty wrath: yet let him bar my path,
Or stay me but one hour in my life-purpose,
And I will fell him as a savage beast,
God's foe, not mine. Beware thyself, Sir Count!
[Exit. The Counts return from the Cottage.]
C. Pama.
Shortly she will return; here to expect her
Is duty both, and honour. Pardon me--
Her humours are well known here? Passers by
Will guess who 'tis we visit?
C. Wal.
Very likely.
C. Pama.
Well, travellers see strange things--and do them too.
Hem! this turf-smoke affects my breath: we might
Draw back a space.
C. Wal.
Certie, we were in luck,
Or both our noses would have been snapped off
By those two she-dragons; how their sainthoods squealed
To see a brace of beards peep in! Poor child!
Two sweet companions for her loneliness!
C. Pama.
But ah! what lodging! 'Tis at that my heart bleeds!
That hut, whose rough and smoke-embrowned spars
Dip to the cold clay floor on either side!
Her seats bare deal!--her only furniture
Some earthen crock or two! Why, sir, a dungeon
Were scarce more frightful: such a choice must argue
Aberrant senses, or degenerate blood!
C. Wal.
What? Were things foul?
C. Pama.
I marked not, sir.
C. Wal.
I did.
You might have eat your dinner off the floor.
C. Pama.
Off any spot, sir, which a princess' foot
Had hallowed by its touch.
C. Wal.
Most courtierly.
Keep, keep those sweet saws for the lady's self.
[Aside]
Unless that shock of the nerves shall send them flying.
C. Pama.
Yet whence this depth of poverty? I thought
You and her champions had recovered for her
Her lands and titles.
C. Wal.
Ay; that coward Henry
Gave them all back as lightly as he took them:
Certie, we were four gentle applicants--
And Rudolph told him some unwelcome truths--
Would God that all of us might hear our sins,
As Henry heard that day!
C. Pama.
Then she refused them?
C. Wal.
'It ill befits,' quoth she, 'my royal blood,
To take extorted gifts; I tender back
By you to him, for this his mortal life,
That which he thinks by treason cheaply bought;
To which my son shall, in his father's right,
By God's good will, succeed. For that dread height
May Christ by many woes prepare his youth!'
C. Pama.
Humph!
C. Wal.
Why here--no, 't cannot be--
C. Pama.
What hither comes
Forth from the hospital, where, as they told us,
The Princess labours in her holy duties?
A parti-coloured ghost that stalks for penance?
Ah! a good head of hair, if she had kept it
A thought less lank; a handsome face too, trust me,
But worn to fiddle-strings; well, we'll be knightly--
[As Elizabeth meets him.]
Stop, my fair queen of rags and patches, turn
Those solemn eyes a moment from your distaff,
And say, what tidings your magnificence
Can bring us of the Princess?
Eliz.
I am she.
[Count Pama crosses himself and falls on his knees.]
C. Pama.
O blessed saints and martyrs! Open, earth!
And hide my recreant knighthood in thy gulf!
Yet, mercy, Madam! for till this strange day
Who e'er saw spinning wool, like village-maid,
A royal scion?
C. Wal.
[kneeling].
My beloved mistress!
Eliz.
Ah! faithful friend! Rise, gentles, rise, for shame;
Nay, blush not, gallant sir. You have seen, ere now,
Kings' daughters do worse things than spinning wool,
Yet never reddened. Speak your errand out.
C. Pama.
I from your father, Madam--
Eliz.
Oh! I divine;
And grieve that you so far have journeyed, sir,
Upon a bootless quest.
C. Pama.
But hear me, Madam--
If you return with me (o'erwhelming honour!
For such mean bodyguard too precious treasure)
Your father offers to you half his wealth;
And countless hosts, whose swift and loyal blades
From traitorous grasp shall vindicate your crown.
Eliz.
Wealth? I have proved it, and have tossed it from me:
I will not stoop again to load with clay.
War? I have proved that too: should I turn loose
On these poor sheep the wolf whose fangs have gored me,
God's bolt would smite me dead.
C. Pama.
Madam, by his gray hairs he doth entreat you.
Eliz.
Alas! small comfort would they find in me!
I am a stricken and most luckless deer,
Whose bleeding track but draws the hounds of wrath
Where'er I pause a moment. He has children
Bred at his side, to nurse him in his age--
While I am but an alien and a changeling,
Whom, ere my plastic sense could impress take
Either of his feature or his voice, he lost.
C. Pama.
Is it so? Then pardon, Madam, but your father
Must by a father's right command--
Eliz.
Command! Ay, that's the phrase of the world:
well--tell him,
But tell him gently too--that child and father
Are names, whose earthly sense I have forsworn,
And know no more: I have a heavenly spouse,
Whose service doth all other claims annul.
C. Wal.
Ah, lady, dearest lady, be but ruled!
Your Saviour will be there as near as here.
Eliz.
What? Thou too, friend? Dost thou not know me better?
Wouldst have me leave undone what I begin?
[To Count Pama] My father took the cross, sir: so did I:
As he would die at his post, so will I die:
He is a warrior: ask him, should I leave
This my safe fort, and well-proved vantage-ground,
To roam on this world's flat and fenceless steppes?
C. Pama.
Pardon me, Madam, if my grosser wit
Fail to conceive your sense.
Eliz.
It is not needed.
Be but the mouthpiece to my father, sir;
And tell him--for I would not anger him--
Tell him, I am content--say, happy--tell him
I prove my kin by prayers for him, and masses
For her who bore me. We shall meet on high.
And say, his daughter is a mighty tree,
From whose wide roots a thousand sapling suckers,
Drink half their life; she dare not snap the threads,
And let her offshoots wither. So farewell.
Within the convent there, as mine own guests,
You shall be fitly lodged. Come here no more.
C. Wal. C. Pama.
Farewell, sweet Saint!
[Exeunt.]
Eliz.
May God go with you both.
No! I will win for him a nobler name,
Than captive crescents, piles of turbaned heads,
Or towns retaken from the Tartar, give.
In me he shall be greatest; my report
Shall through the ages win the quires of heaven
To love and honour him; and hinds, who bless
The poor man's patron saint, shall not forget
How she was fathered with a worthy sire.
[Exit.] _
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