But thou, Sir Lancelot, sitting in my place
Enchair’d to-morrow, arbitrate the field;
105 For wherefore shouldst thou care to mingle with it,
Only to yield my Queen her own again?
Speak, Lancelot, thou art silent: is it well?’
Thereto Sir Lancelot answer’d, ‘It is well:
Yet better if the King abide, and leave
110 The leading of his younger knights to me.
Else, for the King has will’d it, it is well.’
Then Arthur rose and Lancelot follow’d him,
And while they stood without the doors, the King
Turn’d to him saying, ‘Is it then so well?
115 Or mine the blame that oft I seem as he
Of whom was written, “A sound is in his ears”?
The foot that loiters, bidden go, – the glance
That only seems half-loyal to command, –
A manner somewhat fall’n from reverence –
120 Or have I dream’d the bearing of our knights
Tells of a manhood ever less and lower?
Or whence the fear lest this my realm, uprear’d,
By noble deeds at one with noble vows,
From flat confusion and brute violences,
125 Reel back into the beast, and be no more?’
He spoke, and taking all his younger knights,
Down the slope city rode, and sharply turn’d
North by the gate. In her high bower the Queen,
Working a tapestry, lifted up her head,
130 Watch’d her lord pass, and knew not that she sigh’d.
Then ran across her memory the strange rhyme
Of bygone Merlin, ‘Where is he who knows?
From the great deep to the great deep he goes.’
But when the morning of a tournament,
135 By these in earnest those in mockery call’d
The Tournament of the Dead Innocence,
Brake with a wet wind blowing, Lancelot,
Round whose sick head all night, like birds of prey,
The words of Arthur flying shriek’d, arose,
140 And down a streetway hung with folds of pure
White samite, and by fountains running wine,
Where children sat in white with cups of gold,
Moved to the lists, and there, with slow sad steps
Ascending, fill’d his double-dragon’d chair.
145 He glanced and saw the stately galleries,
Dame, damsel, each thro’ worship of their Queen
White-robed in honour of the stainless child,
And some with scatter’d jewels, like a bank
of maiden snow mingled with sparks of fire.
150 He look’d but once, and vail’d his eyes again.
The sudden trumpet sounded as in a dream
To ears but half-awaked, then one low roll
Of Autumn thunder, and the jousts began:
And ever the wind blew, and yellowing leaf
155 And gloom and gleam, and shower and shorn plume
Went down it. Sighing weariedly, as one
Who sits and gazes on a faded fire,
When all the goodlier guests are past away,
Sat their great umpire, looking o’er the lists.
160 He saw the laws that ruled the tournament
Broken, but spake not; once, a knight cast down
Before his throne of arbitration cursed
The dead babe and the follies of the King;
And once the laces of a helmet crack’d,
165 And show’d him, like a vermin in its hole,
Modred, a narrow face: anon he heard
The voice that billow’d round the barriers roar
An ocean-sounding welcome to one knight,
But newly-enter’d, taller than the rest,
170 And armour’d all in forest green, whereon
There tript a hundred tiny silver deer,
And wearing but a holly-spray for crest,
With ever-scattering berries, and on shield
A spear, a harp, a bugle – Tristram – late
175 From overseas in Brittany return’d,
And marriage with a princess of that realm,
Isolt the White – Sir Tristram of the Woods –
Whom Lancelot knew, had held sometime with pain
His own against him, and now yearn’d to shake
180 The burthen off his heart in one full shock
With Tristram ev’n to death: his strong hands gript
And dinted the gilt dragons right and left,
Until he groan’d for wrath – so many of those,
185 Drew from before Sir Tristram to the bounds,
And there with gibes and flickering mockeries
Stood, while he mutter’d, ‘Craven crests! O shame!
What faith have these in whom they sware to love?
The glory of our Round Table is no more.’
190 So Tristram won, and Lancelot gave, the gems,
Not speaking other word than ‘Hast thou won?
Art thou the purest, brother? See, the hand
Wherewith thou takest this, is red!’ to whom
Tristram, half plagued by Lancelot’s languorous mood,
195 Made answer, ‘Ay, but wherefore toss me this
Like a dry bone cast to some hungry hound?
Let be thy fair Queen’s fantasy. Strength of heart
And might of limb, but mainly use and skill,
Are winners in this pastime of our King.
200 My hand – belike the lance hath dript upon it –
No blood of mine, I trow; but O chief knight,
Right arm of Arthur in the battlefield,
Great brother, thou nor I have made the world;
Be happy in thy fair Queen as I in mine.’
205 And Tristram round the gallery made his horse
Caracole; then bow’d his homage, bluntly saying,
‘Fair damsels, each to him who worships each
Sole Queen of Beauty and of love, behold
This day my Queen of Beauty is not here.’
210 And most of these were mute, some anger’d, one
Murmuring, ‘All courtesy is dead,’ and one,
‘The glory of our Round Table is no more.’
Then fell thick rain, plume droopt and mantle clung,
And pettish cries awoke, and the wan day
215 Went glooming down in wet and weariness:
But under her black brows a swarthy one
Laugh’d shrilly, crying, ‘Praise the patient saints,
Our one white day of Innocence hath past,
Tho’ somewhat draggled at the skirt. So be it.
220 The snowdrop only, flowering thro’ the year,
Would make the world as blank as Winter-tide.
Come – let us gladden their sad eyes, our Queen’s
And Lancelot’s, at this night’s solemnity
With all the kindlier colours of the field.’
225 So dame and damsel glitter’d at the feast
Variously gay: for he that tells the tale
Liken’d them, saying, as when an hour of cold
Falls on the mountain in midsummer snows,
And all the purple slopes of mountain flowers
230 Pass under white, till the warm hour returns
With veer of wind, and all are flowers again;
So dame and damsel cast the simple white,
And glowing in all colours, the live grass,
Rose-campion, bluebell, kingcup, poppy, glanced
235 About the revels, and with mirth so loud
Beyond all use, that, half-amazed, the Queen,
And wroth at Tristram and the lawless jousts,
Brake up their sports, then slowly to her bower
Parted, and in her bosom pain was lord.
240 And little Dagonet on t
he morrow morn,
High over all the yellowing Autumn-tide,
Danced like a wither’d leaf before the hall.
Then Tristram saying, ‘Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?’
Wheel’d round on either heel, Dagonet replied,
245 ’Belike for lack of wiser company;
Or being fool, and seeing too much wit
Makes the world rotten, why, belike I skip
To know myself the wisest knight of all.’
‘Ay, fool,’ said Tristram, ‘but ‘tis eating dry
250 To dance without a catch, a roundelay
To dance to.’ Then he twangled on his harp,
And while he twangled little Dagonet stood
Quiet as any water-sodden log
Stay’d in the wandering warble of a brook;
255 But when the twangling ended, skipt again;
And being ask’d, ‘Why skipt ye not, Sir Fool?’
Made answer, ‘I had liefer twenty years
Skip to the broken music of my brains
Than any broken music thou canst make.’
260 Then Tristram, waiting for the quip to come,
‘Good now, what music have I broken, fool?’
And little Dagonet, skipping, ‘Arthur, the King’s;
For when thou playest that air with Queen Isolt,
Thou makest broken music with thy bride,
265 Her daintier namesake down in Brittany –
And so thou breakest Arthur’s music too.’
‘Save for that broken music in thy brains,
Sir Fool,’ said Tristram, ‘I would break thy head.
Fool, I came late, the heathen wars were o’er,
270 The life had flown, we sware but by the shell –
I am but a fool to reason with a fool –
Come, thou art crabb’d and sour: but lean me down,
Sir Dagonet, one of thy long asses’ ears,
And harken if my music be not true.
275 ‘ “Free love – free field – we love but while we may:
The woods are hush’d, their music is no more:
The leaf is dead, the yearning past away:
New leaf, new life – the days of frost are o’er:
New life, new love, to suit the newer day:
280 New loves are sweet as those that went before:
Free love — free field — we love but while we may.”
‘Ye might have moved slow measure to my tune,
Not stood stockstill. I made it in the woods,
And heard it ring as true as tested gold.’
285 But Dagonet with one foot poised in his hand,
‘Friend, did ye mark that fountain yesterday
Made to run wine? – but this had run itself
All out like a long life to a sour end –
And them that round it sat with golden cups
290 To hand the wine to whosoever came –
The twelve small damosels white as Innocence,
In honour of poor Innocence the babe,
Who left the gems which Innocence the Queen
Lent to the King, and Innocence the King
295 Gave for a prize – and one of those white slips
Handed her cup and piped, the pretty one,
“Drink, drink, Sir Fool,” and thereupon I drank,
Spat – pish – the cup was gold, the draught was mud.’
And Tristram, ‘Was it muddier than thy gibes?
300 Is all the laughter gone dead out of thee? –
Not marking how the knighthood mock thee, fool –
“Fear God: honour the King – his one true knight –
Sole follower of the vows” – for here be they
Who knew thee swine enow before I came,
305 Smuttier than blasted grain: but when the King
Had made thee fool, thy vanity so shot up
It frighted all free fool from out thy heart;
Which left thee less than fool, and less than swine,
A naked aught – yet swine I hold thee still,
310 For I have flung thee pearls and find thee swine.’
And little Dagonet mincing with his feet,
‘Knight, an ye fling those rubies round my neck
In lieu of hers, I’ll hold thou hast some touch
Of music, since I care not for thy pearls.
315 Swine? I have wallow’d, I have wash’d – the world
Is flesh and shadow – I have had my day.
The dirty nurse, Experience, in her kind
Hath foul’d me – an I wallow’d, then I wash’d –
I have had my day and my philosophies –
320 And thank the Lord I am King Arthur’s fool.
Swine, say ye? swine, goats, asses, rams and geese
Troop’d round a Paynim harper once, who thrumm’d
On such a wire as musically as thou
Some such fine song – but never a king’s fool.’
325 And Tristram, ‘Then were swine, goats, asses, geese
The wiser fools, seeing thy Paynim bard
Had such a mastery of his mystery
That he could harp his wife up out of hell.’
Then Dagonet, turning on the ball of his foot,
330 ‘And whither harp’st thou thine? down! and thyself
Down! and two more: a helpful harper thou,
That harpest downward! Dost thou know the star
We call the harp of Arthur up in heaven?’
And Tristram, ‘Ay, Sir Fool, for when our King
335 Was victor wellnigh day by day, the knights,
Glorying in each new glory, set his name
High on all hills, and in the signs of heaven.’
And Dagonet answer’d, ‘Ay, and when the land
Was freed, and the Queen false, ye set yourself
340 To babble about him, all to show your wit –
And whether he were King by courtesy,
Or King by right – and so went harping down
The black king’s highway, got so far, and grew
So witty that ye play’d at ducks and drakes
345 With Arthur’s vows on the great lake of fire:
Tuwhoo! do ye see it? do ye see the star?’
‘Nay, fool,’ said Tristram, ‘not in open day.’
And Dagonet, ‘Nay, nor will: I see it and hear.
It makes a silent music up in heaven,
350 And I, and Arthur and the angels hear,
And then we skip.’ ‘Lo, fool,’ he said, ‘ye talk
Fool’s treason: is the King thy brother fool?’
Then little Dagonet clapt his hands and shrill’d,
‘Ay, ay, my brother fool, the king of fools!
355 Conceits himself as God that he can make
Figs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milk
From burning spurge, honey from hornet-combs,
And men from beasts – Long live the king of fools!’
And down the city Dagonet danced away;
360 But thro’ the slowly-mellowing avenues
And solitary passes of the wood
Rode Tristram toward Lyonnesse and the west.
Before him fled the face of Queen Isolt
With ruby-circled neck, but evermore
365 Past, as a rustle or twitter in the wood
Made dull his inner, keen his outer eye
For all that walk’d, or crept, or perch’d, or flew.
Anon the face, as, when a gust hath blown,
Unruflling waters re-collect the shape
370 Of one that in them sees himself, return’d;
But at the slot or fewmets of a deer,
Or ev’n a fall’n feather, vanish’d again.
So on for all that day from lawn to lawn
Thro’ many a league-long bower he rode. At length
375 A lodge of intertwisted beechen-boughs
Furze-cramm’d, and bracken-rooft, the which himself
Buil
t for a summer day with Queen Isolt
Against a shower, dark in the golden grove
Appearing, sent his fancy back to where
380 She lived a moon in that low lodge with him:
Till Mark her lord had past, the Cornish King,
With six or seven, when Tristram was away,
And snatch’d her thence; yet dreading worse than shame
Her warrior Tristram, spake not any word,
385 But bode his hour, devising wretchedness.
And now that desert lodge to Tristram lookt
So sweet, that halting in he past, and sank
Down on a drift of foliage random-blown;
But could not rest for musing how to smoothe
390 And sleek his marriage over to the Queen.
Perchance in lone Tintagil far from all
The tonguesters of the court she had not heard.
But then what folly had sent him overseas
After she left him lonely here? a name?
395 Was it the name of one in Brittany,
Isolt, the daughter of the King? ‘Isolt
Of the white hands’ they call’d her: the sweet name
Allured him first, and then the maid herself,
Who served him well with those white hands of hers,
400 And loved him well, until himself had thought
He loved her also, wedded easily,
But left her all as easily, and return’d.
The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes
Had drawn him home – what marvel? then he laid
405 His brows upon the drifted leaf and dream’d.
He seem’d to pace the strand of Brittany
Between Isolt of Britain and his bride,
And show’d them both the ruby-chain, and both
Began to struggle for it, till his Queen
410 Graspt it so hard, that all her hand was red.
Then cried the Breton, ‘Look, her hand is red!
These be no rubies, this is frozen blood,
And melts within her hand – her hand is hot
With ill desires, but this I gave thee, look,
415 Is all as cool and white as any flower.’
Follow’d a rush of eagle’s wings, and then
A whimpering of the spirit of the child,
Because the twain had spoil’d her carcanet.
He dream’d; but Arthur with a hundred spears
420 Rode far, till o’er the illimitable reed,
And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle,
The wide-wing’d sunset of the misty marsh
Glared on a huge machicolated tower
425 That stood with open doors, whereout was roll’d