The Saint's Tragedy

ACT V

SCENE I.  A.D. 1235.

A Convent at Marpurg.  Cloisters of the infirmary.  Two aged monks sitting.

1st Monk.  So they will publish to-day the Landgravine’s canonisation, and translate her to the new church prepared for her.  Alack, now, that all the world should be out sight-seeing and saint-making, and we laid up here, like two lame jackdaws in a belfry!

2d Monk.  Let be, man—let be.  We have seen sights and saints in our time.  And, truly, this insolatio suits my old bones better than processioning.

1st Monk.  ’Tis pleasant enough in the sun, were it not for the flies.  Look—there’s a lizard.  Come you here, little run-about; here’s game for you.

2d Monk.  A tame fool, and a gay one—Munditiæ mundanis.

1st Monk.  Catch him a fat fly—my hand shaketh.

2d Monk.  If one of your new-lights were here, now, he’d pluck him for a fiend, as Dominic did the live sparrow in chapel.

1st Monk.  There will be precious offerings made to-day, of which our house will get its share.

2d Monk.  Not we; she always favoured the Franciscans most.

1st Monk.  ’Twas but fair—they were her kith and kin.
She lately put on the habit of their third minors.

2d Monk.  So have half the fine gentlemen and ladies in Europe.  There’s one of your new inventions, now, for letting grand folks serve God and mammon at once, and emptying honest monasteries, where men give up all for the Gospel’s sake.  And now these Pharisees of Franciscans will go off with full pockets—

1st Monk.  While we poor publicans—

2d Monk.  Shall not come home all of us justified, I think.

1st Monk.  How?  Is there scandal among us?

2d Monk.  Ask not—ask not.  Even a fool, when he holds his peace, is counted wise.  Of all sins, avoid that same gossiping.

1st Monk.  Nay, tell me now.  Are we not like David and Jonathan?  Have we not worked together, prayed together, journeyed together, and been soundly flogged together, more by token, any time this forty years?  And now is news so plenty, that thou darest to defraud me of a morsel?

2d Monk.  I’ll tell thee—but be secret.  I knew a man hard by the convent [names are dangerous, and a bird of the air shall carry the matter], one that hath a mighty eye for a heretic, if thou knowest him.

1st Monk.  Who carries his poll screwed on over-tight, and sits with his eyes shut in chapel?

2d Monk.  The same.  Such a one to be in evil savour—to have the splendour of the pontifical countenance turned from him, as though he had taken Christians for Amalekites, and slain the people of the Lord.

1st Monk.  How now?

2d Monk.  I only speak as I hear: for my sister’s son is chaplain, for the time being, to a certain Archisacerdos, a foreigner, now lodging where thou knowest.  The young mail being hid, after some knavery, behind the arras, in come our quidam and that prelate.  The quidam, surly and Saxon—the guest, smooth and Italian; his words softer than butter, yet very swords: that this quidam had ‘exceeded the bounds of his commission—launched out into wanton and lawless cruelty—burnt noble ladies unheard, of whose innocence the Holy See had proof—defiled the Catholic faith in the eyes of the weaker sort—and alienated the minds of many nobles and gentlemen’—and finally, that he who thinketh he standeth, were wise to take heed lest he fall.

1st Monk.  And what said Conrad?

2d Monk.  Out upon a man that cannot keep his lips!  Who spake of Conrad?  That quidam, however, answered nought, but—how ‘to his own master he stood or fell’—how ‘he laboured not for the Pope but for the Papacy’; and so forth.

1st Monk.  Here is awful doctrine!  Behold the fruit of your reformers!  This comes of their realised ideas, and centralisations, and organisations, till a monk cannot wink in chapel without being blinded with the lantern, or fall sick on Fridays, for fear of the rod.  Have I not testified?  Have I not foretold?

2d Monk.  Thou hast indeed.  Thou knowest that the old paths are best, and livest in most pious abhorrence of all amendment.

1st Monk.  Do you hear that shout?  There is the procession returning from the tomb.

2d Monk.  Hark to the tramp of the horse-hoofs!  A gallant show, I’ll warrant!

1st Monk.  Time was, now, when we were young bloods together in the world, such a roll as that would have set our hearts beating against their cages!

2d Monk.  Ay, ay.  We have seen sport in our day; we have paraded and curvetted, eh? and heard scabbards jingle?  We know the sly touch of the heel, that set him on his hind legs before the right window.  Vanitas vanitatum—omnia vanitas!  Here comes Gerard, Conrad’s chaplain, with our dinner.

[Gerard enters across the court.]

1st Monk.  A kindly youth and a godly, but—reformation-bitten, like the rest.

2d Monk.  Never care.  Boys must take the reigning madness in religion, as they do the measles—once for all.

1st Monk.  Once too often for him.  His face is too, too like Abel’s in the chapel-window.  Ut sis vitalis metuo, puer!

Ger.  Hail, fathers.  I have asked permission of the prior to minister your refection, and bring you thereby the first news of the pageant.

1st Monk.  Blessings on thee for a good boy.  Give us the trenchers, and open thy mouth while we open ours.

2d Monk.  Most splendid all, no doubt?

Ger.  A garden, sir,
Wherein all rainbowed flowers were heaped together;
A sea of silk and gold, of blazoned banners,
And chargers housed; such glorious press, be sure,
Thuringen-land ne’er saw.

2d Monk.  Just hear the boy!
Who rode beside the bier?

Ger.  Frederic the Kaiser,
Henry the Landgrave, brother of her husband;
The Princesses, too, Agnes, and her mother;
And every noble name, sir, at whose war-cry
The Saxon heart leaps up; with them the prelates
Of Treves, of Cöln, and Maintz—why name them all?
When all were there, whom this our fatherland
Counts worthy of its love.

1st Monk.  ’Twas but her right.
Who spoke the oration?

Ger.  Who but Conrad?

2d Monk.  Well—
That’s honour to our house.

1st Monk.  Come, tell us all.

2d Monk.  In order, boy: thou hast a ready tongue.

Ger.  He raised from off her face the pall, and ‘Lo!’
He cried, ‘that saintly flesh which ye of late
With sacrilegious hands, ere yet entombed,
Had in your superstitious selfishness
Almost torn piecemeal.  Fools!  Gross-hearted fools!
These limbs are God’s, not yours: in life for you
They spent themselves; now till the judgment-day
By virtue of the Spirit embalmed they lie—
Touch them who dare.  No!  Would you find your Saint,
Look up, not down, where even now she prays
Beyond that blazing orb for you and me.
Why hither bring her corpse?  Why hide her clay
In jewelled ark beneath God’s mercy-seat—
A speck of dust among these boundless aisles,
Uprushing pillars, star-bespangled roofs,
Whose colours mimic Heaven’s unmeasured blue,
Save to remind you, how she is not here,
But risen with Him that rose, and by His blaze
Absorbed, lives in the God for whom she died?
Know her no more according to the flesh;
Or only so, to brand upon your thoughts
How she was once a woman—flesh and blood,
Like you—yet how unlike!  Hark while I tell ye.’

2d Monk.  How liked the mob all this?  They hate him sore.

Ger.  Half awed, half sullen, till his golden lips
Entranced all ears with tales so sad and strange,
They seemed one life-long miracle: bliss and woe,
Honour and shame—her daring—Heaven’s stern guidance,
Did each the other so outblaze.

1st Monk.  Great signs
Did wait on her from youth.

2d Monk.  There went a tale
Of one, a Zingar wizard, who, on her birthnight,
He here in Eisenach, she in Presburg lying,
Declared her natal moment, and the glory
Which should befall her by the grace of God.

Ger.  He spoke of that, and many a wonder more,
Melting all hearts to worship—how a robe
Which from her shoulders, at a royal feast,
To some importunate as alms she sent,
By miracle within her bower was hung again:
And how on her own couch the Incarnate Son
In likeness of a leprous serf, she laid:
And many a wondrous tale till now unheard;
Which, from her handmaid’s oath and attestation,
Siegfried of Maintz to far Perugia sent,
And sainted Umbria’s labyrinthine hills,
Even to the holy Council, where the Patriarchs
Of Antioch and Jerusalem, and with them
A host of prelates, magnates, knights, and nobles,
Decreed and canonised her sainthood’s palm.

1st Monk.  Mass, they could do no less.

Ger.  So thought my master—
For ‘Thus,’ quoth he, ‘the primates of the Faith
Have, in the bull which late was read to you,
Most wisely ratified the will of God
Revealed in her life’s splendour; for the next count—
These miracles wherewith since death she shines—
Since ye must have your signs, ere ye believe,
And since without such tests the Roman Father
Allows no saints to take their seats in heaven,
Why, there ye have them; not a friar, I find,
Or old wife in the streets, but counts some dozens
Of blind, deaf, halt, dumb, palsied, and hysterical,
Made whole at this her tomb.  A corpse or two
Was raised, they say, last week: Will that content you?
Will that content her?  Earthworms!  Would ye please the dead,
Bring sinful souls, not limping carcases
To test her power on; which of you hath done that?
Has any glutton learnt from her to fast?
Or oily burgher dealt away his pelf?
Has any painted Jezebel in sackcloth
Repented of her vanities?  Your patron?
Think ye, that spell and flame of intercession,
Melting God’s iron will, which for your sakes
She purchased by long agonies, was but meant
To save your doctors’ bills?  If any soul
Hath been by her made holier, let it speak!’

2d Monk.  Well spoken, Legate!  Easier asked than answered.

Ger.  Not so, for on the moment, from the crowd
Sprang out a gay and gallant gentleman
Well known in fight and tourney, and aloud
With sobs and blushes told, how he long time
Had wallowed deep in mire of fleshly sin,
And loathed, and fell again, and loathed in vain;
Until the story of her saintly grace
Drew him unto her tomb; there long prostrate
With bitter cries he sought her, till at length
The image of her perfect loveliness
Transfigured all his soul, and from his knees
He rose new-born, and, since that blessed day,
In chastest chivalry, a spotless knight,
Maintains the widow’s and the orphan’s cause.

1st Monk.  Well done! and what said Conrad?

Ger.  Oh, he smiled,
As who should say, ‘’Twas but the news I looked for.’
Then, pointing to the banners borne on high,
Where the sad story of her nightly penance
Was all too truly painted—‘Look!’ he cried,
‘’Twas thus she schooled her soft and shuddering flesh
To dare and suffer for you!’  Gay ladies sighed,
And stern knights wept, and growled, and wept again.
And then he told her alms, her mighty labours,
Among God’s poor, the schools wherein she taught;
The babes she brought to the font, the hospitals
Founded from her own penury, where she tended
The leper and the fever-stricken serf
With meanest office; how a dying slave
Who craved in vain for milk she stooped to feed
From her own bosom.  At that crowning tale
Of utter love, the dullest hearts caught fire
Contagious from his lips—the Spirit’s breath
Low to the earth, like dewy-laden corn,
Bowed the ripe harvest of that mighty host;
Knees bent, all heads were bare; rich dames aloud
Bewailed their cushioned sloth; old foes held out
Long parted hands; low murmured vows and prayers
Gained courage, till a shout proclaimed her saint,
And jubilant thunders shook the ringing air,
Till birds dropped stunned, and passing clouds bewept
With crystal drops, like sympathising angels,
Those wasted limbs, whose sainted ivory round
Shed Eden-odours: from his royal head
The Kaiser took his crown, and on the bier
Laid the rich offering; dames tore off their jewels—
Proud nobles heaped with gold and gems her corse
Whom living they despised: I saw no more—
Mine eyes were blinded with a radiant mist—
And I ran here to tell you.

1st Monk.  Oh, fair olive,
Rich with the Spirit’s unction, how thy boughs
Rain balsams on us!

2d Monk.  Thou didst sell thine all—
And bought’st the priceless pearl!

1st Monk.  Thou holocaust of Abel,
By Cain in vain despised!

2d Monk.  Thou angels’ playmate
Of yore, but now their judge!

Ger.  Thou alabaster,
Broken at last, to fill the house of God
With rich celestial fragrance!

[Etc. etc., ad libitum.]

SCENE II

A room in a convent at Mayence.  Conrad alone.

Con.  The work is done!  Diva Elizabeth!
And I have trained one saint before I die!
Yet now ’tis done, is’t well done?  On my lips
Is triumph: but what echo in my heart?
Alas! the inner voice is sad and dull,
Even at the crown and shout of victory.
Oh! I had hugged this purpose to my heart,
Cast by for it all ruth, all pride, all scruples;
Yet now its face, that seemed as pure as crystal,
Shows fleshly, foul, and stained with tears and gore!
We make, and moil, like children in their gardens,
And spoil with dabbled hands, our flowers i’ the planting.
And yet a saint is made!  Alas, those children!
Was there no gentler way?  I know not any:
I plucked the gay moth from the spider’s web;
What if my hasty hand have smirched its feathers?
Sure, if the whole be good, each several part
May for its private blots forgiveness gain,
As in man’s tabernacle, vile elements
Unite to one fair stature.  Who’ll gainsay it?
The whole is good; another saint in heaven;
Another bride within the Bridegroom’s arms;
And she will pray for me!—And yet what matter?
Better that I, this paltry sinful unit,
Fall fighting, crushed into the nether pit,
If my dead corpse may bridge the path to Heaven,
And damn itself, to save the souls of others.
A noble ruin: yet small comfort in it;
In it, or in aught else——
A blank dim cloud before mine inward sense
Dulls all the past: she spoke of such a cloud—
I struck her for’t, and said it was a fiend—
She’s happy now, before the throne of God—
I should be merry; yet my heart’s floor sinks
As on a fast day; sure some evil bodes.
Would it were here, that I might see its eyes!
The future only is unbearable!
We quail before the rising thunderstorm
Which thrills and whispers in the stifled air,
Yet blench not, when it falls.  Would it were here!

[Pause.]

I fain would sleep, yet dare not: all the air
Throngs thick upon me with the pregnant terror
Of life unseen, yet near.  I dare not meet them,
As if I sleep I shall do—I again?
What matter what I feel, or like, or fear?
Come what God sends.  Within there—Brother Gerard!

[Gerard enters.]

Watch here an hour, and pray.—The fiends are busy.
So—hold my hand.  [Crosses himself.]  Come on, I fear you not.  [Sleeps.]

[Gerard sings.]

Qui fugiens rnundi gravia
Contempsit carnis bravia,
Cupidinisque somnia,
Lucratur, perdens, omnia.

Hunc gestant ulnis angeli,
Ne lapis officiat pedi;
Ne luce timor occupet,
Aut nocte pestis incubet.

Huic cœli lilia germinant;
Arrisus sponsi permanent;
Ac nomen in fidelibus
Quam filiorum medius.  [Sleeps.]

. . . . .

Conrad [awaking].  Stay!  Spirits, stay!  Art thou a hell-born phantasm,
Or word too true, sent by the mother of God?
Oh, tell me, queen of Heaven!
O God! if she, the city of the Lord,
Who is the heart, the brain, the ruling soul
Of half the earth; wherein all kingdoms, laws,
Authority, and faith do culminate,
And draw from her their sanction and their use;
The lighthouse founded on the rock of ages,
Whereto the Gentiles look, and still are healed;
The tree whose rootlets drink of every river,
Whose boughs drop Eden fruits on seaward isles;
Christ’s seamless coat, rainbowed with gems and hues
Of all degrees and uses, rend, and tarnish,
And crumble into dust!
Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas!
Oh! to have prayed, and toiled—and lied—for this!
For this to have crushed out the heart of youth,
And sat by calm, while living bodies burned!
How!  Gerard; sleeping!
Couldst thou not watch with me one hour, my son?

Ger. [awaking].  How! have I slept?  Shame on my vaporous brain!
And yet there crept along my hand from thine
A leaden languor, and the drowsy air
Teemed thick with humming wings—I slept perforce.
Forgive me (while for breach of holy rule
Due penance shall seem honour) my neglect.

Con.  I should have beat thee for’t, an hour agone—
Now I judge no man.  What are rules and methods?
I have seen things which make my brain-sphere reel:
My magic teraph-bust, full-packed, and labelled,
With saws, ideas, dogmas, ends, and theories,
Lies shivered into dust.  Pah! we do squint
Each through his loophole, and then dream, broad heaven
Is but the patch we see.  But let none know;
Be silent, Gerard, wary.

Ger.  Nay—I know nought
Of that which moves thee: though I fain would ask—

Con.  I saw our mighty Mother, Holy Church,
Sit like a painted harlot: round her limbs
An oily snake had coiled, who smiled, and smiled,
And lisped the name of Jesus—I’ll not tell thee:
I have seen more than man can see, and live:
God, when He grants the tree of knowledge, bans
The luckless seer from off the tree of life,
Lest he become as gods, and burst with pride;
Or sick at sight of his own nothingness,
Lie down, and be a fiend: my time is near:
Well—I have neither child, nor kin, nor friend,
Save thee, my son; I shall go lightly forth.
Thou knowest we start for Marpurg on the morrow?
Thou wilt go with me?

Ger.  Ay, to death, my master;
Yet boorish heretics, with grounded throats,
Mutter like sullen bulls; the Count of Saym,
And many gentlemen, they say, have sworn
A fearful oath: there’s danger in the wind.

Con.  They have their quarrel; I was keen and hasty:
Gladio qui utitur, peribit gladio.
When Heaven is strong, then Hell is strong: Thou fear’st not?

Ger.  No! though their name were legion!  ’Tis for thee
Alone I quake, lest by some pious boldness
Thou quench the light of Israel.

Con.  Light? my son!
There shall no light be quenched, when I lie dark.
Our path trends outward: we will forth to-morrow.
Now let’s to chapel; matin bells are ringing.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE III

A road between Eisenach and Marpurg.  Peasants waiting by the roadside.  Walter of Varila, the Count of Saym, and other gentlemen entering on horseback.

Gent.  Talk not of honour—Hell’s aflame within me:
Foul water quenches fire as well as fair;
If I do meet him he shall die the death,
Come fair, come foul: I tell you, there are wrongs
The fumbling piecemeal law can never touch,
Which bring of themselves to the injured, right divine,
Straight from the fount of right, above all parchments,
To be their own avengers: dainty lawyers,
If one shall slay the adulterer in the act,
Dare not condemn him: girls have stabbed their tyrants,
And common sense has crowned them saints; yet what—
What were their wrongs to mine?  All gone!  All gone!
My noble boys, whom I had trained, poor fools,
To win their spurs, and ride afield with me!
I could have spared them—but my wife! my lady!
Those dainty limbs, which no eyes but mine—
Before that ruffian mob—Too much for man!
Too much, stern Heaven!—Those eyes, those hands,
Those tender feet, where I have lain and worshipped—
Food for fierce flames!  And on the self-same day—
The day that they were seized—unheard—unargued—
No witness, but one vile convicted thief—
The dog is dead and buried: Well done, henchmen!
They are not buried!  Pah! their ashes flit
About the common air; we pass them—breathe them!
The self-same day!  If I had had one look!
One word—one single tiny spark of word,
Such as two swallows change upon the wing!
She was no heretic: she knelt for ever
Before the blessed rood, and prayed for me.
Art sure he comes this road?

C. Saym.  My messenger
Saw him start forth, and watched him past the crossways.
An hour will bring him here.

C. Wal.  How! ambuscading?
I’ll not sit by, while helpless priests are butchered.
Shame, gentles!

C. Saym.  On my word, I knew not on’t
Until this hour; my quarrel’s not so sharp,
But I may let him pass: my name is righted
Before the Emperor, from all his slanders;
And what’s revenge to me?

Gent.  Ay, ay—forgive and forget—
The vermin’s trapped—and we’ll be gentle-handed,
And lift him out, and bid his master speed him,
Him and his firebrands.  He shall never pass me.

C. Wal.  I will not see it; I’m old, and sick of blood.
She loved him, while she lived; and charged me once,
As her sworn liegeman, not to harm the knave.
I’ll home: yet, knights, if aught untoward happen,
And you should need a shelter, come to me:
My walls are strong.  Home, knaves! we’ll seek our wives,
And beat our swords to ploughshares—when folks let us.

[Exeunt Count Walter and suite.]

C. Saym.  He’s gone, brave heart!—But—sir, you will not dare?
The Pope’s own Legate—think—there’s danger in’t.

Gent.  Look, how athwart yon sullen sleeping flats
That frowning thunder-cloud sails pregnant hither;—
And black against its sheeted gray, one bird
Flags fearful onward—’Tis his cursed soul!
Now thou shalt quake, raven!—The self-same day!—
He cannot ’scape!  The storm is close upon him!
There!  There! the wreathing spouts have swallowed him!
He’s gone! and see, the keen blue spark leaps out
From crag to crag, and every vaporous pillar
Shouts forth his death-doom!  ’Tis a sign, a sign!

[A heretic preacher mounts a stone.  Peasants gather round him.]

These are the starved unlettered hinds, forsooth,
He hunted down like vermin—for a doctrine.
They have their rights, their wrongs; their lawless laws,
Their witless arguings, which unconscious reason
Informs to just conclusions.  We will hear them.

Preacher.  My brethren, I have a message to you: therefore hearken with all your ears—for now is the day of salvation.  It is written, that the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light—and truly: for the children of this world, when they are troubled with vermin, catch them—and hear no more of them.  But you, the children of light, the elect saints, the poor of this world rich in faith, let the vermin eat your lives out, and then fall down and worship them afterwards.  You are all besotted—hag-ridden—drunkards sitting in the stocks, and bowing down to the said stocks, and making a god thereof.  Of part, said the prophet, ye make a god, and part serveth to roast—to roast the flesh of your sons and of your daughters; and then ye cry, ‘Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire;’ and a special fire ye have seen!  The ashes of your wives and of your brothers cleave to your clothes,—Cast them up to Heaven, cry aloud, and quit yourselves like men!

Gent.  He speaks God’s truth!  We are Heaven’s justicers!  Our woes anoint us kings!  Peace—Hark again!—

Preacher.  Therefore, as said before—in the next place—It is written, that there shall be a two-edged sword in the hand of the saints.  But the saints have but two swords—Was there a sword or shield found among ten thousand in Israel?  Then let Israel use his fists, say I, the preacher!  For this man hath shed blood, and by man shall his blood be shed.  Now behold an argument,—This man hath shed blood, even Conrad; ergo, as he saith himself, ye, if ye are men, shall shed his blood.  Doth he not himself say ergo?  Hath he not said ergo to the poor saints, to your sons and your daughters, whom he hath burned in the fire to Moloch?  ‘Ergo, thou art a heretic’—‘Ergo, thou shalt burn.’  Is he not therefore convicted out of his own mouth?  Arise, therefore, be valiant—for this day he is delivered into your hand!

[Chanting heard in the distance.]

Peasant.  Hush! here the psalm-singers come!

[Conrad enters on a mule, chanting the Psalter, Gerard following.]

Con.  My peace with you, my children!

1st Voice.  Psalm us no psalms; bless us no devil’s blessings:
Your balms will break our heads.  [A murmur rises.]

2d Voice.  You are welcome, sir; we are a-waiting for you.

3d Voice.  Has he been shriven to-day?

4th Voice.  Where is your ergo, Master Conrad?  Faugh!
How both the fellows smell of smoke!

5th Voice.  A strange leech he, to suck, and suck, and suck,
And look no fatter for’t!

Old Woman.  Give me back my sons!

Old Man.  Give me back the light of mine eyes,
Mine only daughter!
My only one!  He hurled her over the cliffs!
Avenge me, lads; you are young!

4th Voice.  We will, we will: why smit’st him not, thou with the pole-axe?

3d Voice.  Nay, now, the first blow costs most, and heals last;
Besides, the dog’s a priest at worst.

C. Saym.  Mass!  How the shaveling rascal stands at bay!
There’s not a rogue of them dare face his eye!
True Domini canes!  ’Ware the bloodhound’s teeth, curs!

Preacher.  What!  Are ye afraid?  The huntsman’s here at last
Without his whip!  Down with him, craven hounds!
I’ll help ye to’t.  [Springs from the stone.]

Gent.  Ay, down with him!  Mass, have these yelping boors
More heart than I?  [Spurs his horse forward.]

Mob.  A knight! a champion!

Voice.  He’s not mortal man!
See how his eyes shine!  ’Tis the archangel!
St. Michael come to the rescue!  Ho!  St. Michael!

[He lunges at Conrad.  Gerard turns the lance aside, and throws his arms round Conrad.]

Ger.  My master! my master!  The chariot of Israel and the horses thereof!
Oh call down fire from Heaven!

[A peasant strikes down Gerard.  Conrad, over the body.]

Alas! my son!  This blood shall cry for vengeance
Before the throne of God!

Gent.  And cry in vain!
Follow thy minion!  Join Folquet in hell!

[Bears Conrad down on his lance-point.]

Con.  I am the vicar of the Vicar of Christ:
Who touches me doth touch the Son of God.

[The mob close over him.]

O God!  A martyr’s crown!  Elizabeth!  [Dies.]

NOTES TO ACT 1

The references, unless it be otherwise specified, are to the Eight Books concerning Saint Elizabeth, by Dietrich the Thuringian; in Basnage’s Canisius, Vol. IV. p. 113 (Antwerp; 1725).

Page 21.  Cf. Lib. I. § 3.  Dietrich is eloquent about her youthful inclination for holy places, and church doors, even when shut, and gives many real proofs of her ‘sanctæ indolis,’ from the very cradle.

P. 22.  ‘St. John’s sworn maid.’  Cf. Lib. I. § 4.  ‘She chose by lot for her patron, St. John the protector of virginity.’

Ibid.  ‘Fit for my princess.’  Cf. Lib. I. § 2.  ‘He sent with his daughter vessels of gold, silver baths, jewels, pillows all of silk.  No such things, so precious or so many, were ever seen in Thuringen-land.’

P. 23.  ‘Most friendless.’  Cf. Lib. I. §§ 5, 6.  ‘The courtiers used bitterly to insult her, etc.  Her mother and sister-in-law, given to worldly pomp, differed from her exceedingly;’ and much more concerning ‘the persecutions which she endured patiently in youth.’

Ibid.  ‘In one cradle.’  Cf. Lib. I. § 2.  ‘The princess was laid in the cradle of her boy-spouse,’ and, says another, ‘the infants embraced with smiles, from whence the bystanders drew a joyful omen of their future happiness.’

Ibid.  ‘If thou love him.’  Cf. Lib. I. § 6.  ‘The Lord by His hidden inspiration so inclined towards her the heart of the prince, that in the solitude of secret and mutual love he used to speak sweetly to her heart, with kindness and consolation, and was always wont, on returning home, to honour her with presents, and soothe her with embraces.’  It was their custom, says Dietrich, to the last to call each other in common conversation ‘Brother’ and ‘Sister.’

P. 24.  ‘To his charge.’  Cf. Lib. I. § 7.  ‘Walter of Varila, a good man, who, having been sent by the prince’s father into Hungary, had brought the blessed Elizabeth into Thuringen-land.’

P. 25.  ‘The blind archer, Love.’  For information about the pagan orientalism of the Troubadours, the blasphemous bombast by which they provoked their persecution in Provence, and their influence on the Courts of Europe, see Sismondi, Lit. Southern Europe, Cap. III.-VI.

P. 27.  ‘Stadings.’  The Stadings, according to Fleury, in A.D. 1233, were certain unruly fenmen, who refused to pay tithes, committed great cruelties on religious of both sexes, worshipped, or were said to worship, a black cat, etc., considered the devil as a very ill-used personage, and the rightful lord of themselves and the world, and were of the most profligate morals.  An impartial and philosophic investigation of this and other early continental heresies is much wanted.

P. 37.  ‘All gold.’  Cf. Lib. I. § 7, for Walter’s interference and Lewis’s answer, which I have paraphrased.

P. 38.  ‘Is crowned with thorns.’  Cf. Lib. I. § 5, for this anecdote and her defence, which I have in like manner paraphrased.

P. 39.  ‘Their pardon.’  Cf. Lib. I § 3, for this quaint method of self-humiliation.

Ibid.  ‘You know your place.’  Cf. Lib. I. § 6.  ‘The vassals and relations of her betrothed persecuted her openly, and plotted to send her back to her father divorced. . . .  Sophia also did all she could to place her in a convent. . . .  She delighted in the company of maids and servants, so that Sophia used to say sneeringly to her, “You should have been counted among the slaves who drudge, and not among the princes who rule.”’

P. 41.  ‘Childish laughter.’  Cf. Lib. I. § 7.  ‘The holy maiden, receiving the mirror, showed her joy by delighted laughter;’ and again, II. § 8, “They loved each other in the charity of the Lord, to a degree beyond all belief.’

Ibid.  ‘A crystal clear.’  Cf. Lib. I. § 7.

P. 43.  ‘Our fairest bride.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 8.  ‘No one henceforth dared oppose the marriage by word or plot, . . . and all mouths were stopped.’

NOTES TO ACT II

Pp. 45-49.  Cf. Lib. II. §§ 1, 5, 11, et passim.

Hitherto my notes have been a careful selection of the few grains of characteristic fact which I could find among Dietrich’s lengthy professional reflections; but the chapter on which this scene is founded is remarkable enough to be given whole, and as I have a long-standing friendship for the good old monk, who is full of honest naïveté and deep-hearted sympathy, and have no wish to disgust all my readers with him, I shall give it for the most part untranslated.  In the meantime those who may be shocked at certain expressions in this poem, borrowed from the Romish devotional school, may verify my language at the Romish booksellers, who find just now a rapidly increasing sale for such ware.  And is it not after all a hopeful sign for the age that even the most questionable literary tastes must nowadays ally themselves with religion—that the hotbed imaginations which used to batten on Rousseau and Byron have now risen at least as high as the Vies des Saints and St. François de Sales’ Philothea?  The truth is, that in such a time as this, in the dawn of an age of faith, whose future magnificence we may surely prognosticate from the slowness and complexity of its self-developing process, spiritual ‘Werterism,’ among other strange prolusions, must have its place.  The emotions and the imaginations will assert their just right to be fed—by foul means if not by fair; and even self-torture will have charms after the utter dryness and life-in-death of mere ecclesiastical pedantry.  It is good, mournful though it be, that a few, even by gorging themselves with poison, should indicate the rise of a spiritual hunger—if we do but take their fate as a warning to provide wholesome food before the new craving has extended itself to the many.  It is good that religion should have its Werterism, in order that hereafter Werterism may have its religion.  But to my quotations—wherein the reader will judge how difficult it has been for me to satisfy at once the delicacy of the English mind and that historic truth which the highest art demands.

‘Erat inter eos honorabile connubium, et thorus immaculatus, non in ardore libidmis, sed in conjugalis sanctimoniæ castitate.  For the holy maiden, as soon as she was married, began to macerate her flesh with many watchings, rising every night to pray; her husband sometimes sleeping, sometimes conniving at her, often begging her, in compassion to her delicacy, not to afflict herself indiscreetly, often supporting her with his hand when she prayed.’  (‘And,’ says another of her biographers, ‘being taught by her to pray with her.’)  ‘Great truly, was the devotion of this young girl, who, rising from the bed of her carnal husband, sought Christ, whom she loved as the true husband of her soul.

‘Nor certainly was there less faith in the husband who did not oppose such and so great a wife, but rather favoured her, and tempered her fervour with over-kind prudence.  Affected, therefore, by the sweetness of this modest love, and mutual society, they could not bear to be separated for any length of time or distance.  The lady, therefore, frequently followed her husband through rough roads, and no small distances, and severe wind and weather, led rather by emotions of sincerity than of carnality: for the chaste presence of a modest husband offered no obstacle to that devout spouse in the way of praying, watching, or otherwise doing good.’

Then follows the story of her nurse waking Lewis instead of her, and Lewis’s easy good-nature about this, as about every other event of life.  ‘And so, after these unwearied watchings, it often happened that, praying for an excessive length of time, she fell asleep on a mat beside her husband’s bed, and being reproved for it by her maidens, answered: “Though I cannot always pray, yet I can do violence to my own flesh by tearing myself in the meantime from my couch.”’

‘Fugiebat oblectamenta carnalia, et ideò stratum molliorem, et viri contubernium secretissimum, quantum licuit, declinavit.  Quem quamvis præcordialis amoris affectu deligeret, querulabatur tamen dolens, quod virginalis decorem floris non meruit conservare.  Castigabat etiam plagis multis, et lacerabat diris verberibus carnem puella innocens et pudica.

‘In principio quidem diebus quadragesimæ, sextisque feriis aliis occultas solebat accipere disciplinas, lætam coram hominibus se ostentrans.  Post verò convalescens et proficiens in gratia, deserto dilecti thoro surgens, fecit se in secreto cubiculo per ancillarum manus graviter sæpissime verberari, ad lectumque mariti reversa hilarem se exhibuit et jocundam.

‘Vere felices conjuges, in quorum consortio tanta munditia, in colloquio pudicitia reperta est.  In quibus amor Christi concupiscentiam extinxit, devotio refrenavit petulantiam, fervor spiritûs excussit somnolentiam, oratio tutavit conscientiam, charitas benefaciendi facultatem tribuit et lætitiam!’

P. 58.  ‘In every scruple.’  Cf. Lib. III. § 9, how Lewis ‘consented that Elizabeth his wife should make a vow of obedience and continence at the will of the said Conrad, salvâ jure matrimonii.’

P. 59.  ‘The open street.’  Cf. Lib. II. § 11.  ‘On the Rogation days, when certain persons doing contrary to the decrees of the saints are decorated with precious and luxurious garments, the Princess, dressed in serge and barefooted, used to follow most devoutly the Procession of the Cross and the relics of the Saints, and place herself always at sermon among the poorest women; knowing (says Dietrich) that seeds cast into the valleys spring up into the richest crop of corn.’

P. 60.  ‘The poor of Christ.’  Cf. Lib. II. §§ 6, 11, et passim.  Elizabeth’s labours among the poor are too well known throughout one half at least of Christendom, where she is, par excellence, the patron of the poor, to need quotations.

P. 61.  ‘I’ll be thy pupil.’  Cf. Lib. II § 4.  ‘She used also, by words and examples, to oblige the worldly ladies who came to her to give up the vanity of the world, at least in some one particular.’

P. 62.  ‘Conrad enters.’  Cf. Lib. III. § 9, where this story of the disobeyed message and the punishment inflicted by Conrad for it is told word for word.

P. 66.  ‘Peaceably come by.’  Cf. Lib. II. § 6.

P. 67.  ‘Bond-slaves.’  Cf. Note 11.

P. 69.  ‘Elizabeth passes.’  Cf. Lib. II. § 5.  ‘This most Christian mother, impletis purgationis suæ diebus, used to dress herself in serge, and, taking in her arms her new-born child, used to go forth secretly, barefooted, by the difficult descent from the castle, by a rough and rocky road to a remote church, carrying her infant in her own arms, after the example of the Virgin Mother, and offering him upon the altar to the Lord with a taper’ (and with gold, says another biographer).

P. 71.  ‘Give us bread.’  Cf. Lib. III. § 6.  ‘A.D. 1225, while the Landgrave was gone to Italy to the Emperor, a severe famine arose throughout all Almaine; and lasting for nearly two years, destroyed many with hunger.  Then Elizabeth, moved with compassion for the miserable, collected all the corn from her granaries, and distributed it as alms for the poor.  She also built a hospital at the foot of the Wartburg, wherein she placed all those who could not wait for the general distribution. . . .  She sold her own ornaments to feed the members of Christ. . . .  Cuidam misero lac desideranti, ad mulgendum se præbuit!’—See p. 153.

P 80.  ‘Ladies’ tenderness.’  Cf. Lib. III. § 8.  ‘When the courtiers and stewards complained on his return of the Lady Elizabeth’s too great extravagance in almsgiving, “Let her alone,” quoth he, “to do good, and to give whatever she will for God’s sake, only keep Wartburg and Neuenberg in my hands.”’

P. 87.  ‘A crusader’s cross.’  Cf. Lib. IV. § 1.  ‘In the year 1227 there was a general “Passagium” to the Holy Land, in which Frederick the Emperor also crossed the seas’ (or rather did not cross the seas, says Heinrich Stero, in his annals, but having got as far as Sicily, came back again—miserably disappointing and breaking up the expedition, whereof the greater part died at the various ports—and was excommunicated for so doing); ‘and Lewis, landgrave of the Thuringians, took the cross likewise in the name of Jesus Christ, and . . . did not immediately fix the badge which he had received to his garment, as the matter is, lest his wife, who loved him with the most tender affection, seeing this, should be anxious and disturbed, . . . but she found it while turning over his purse, and fainted, struck down with a wonderful consternation.’

P. 90.  ‘I must be gone.’  Cf. Lib. IV. § 2.  A chapter in which Dietrich rises into a truly noble and pathetic strain.  ‘Coming to Schmalcald,’ he says, ‘Lewis found his dearest friends, whom he had ordered to meet him there, not wishing to depart without taking leave of them.’

Then follows Dietrich’s only poetic attempt, which Basnage calls a ‘carmen ineptum, foolish ballad,’ and most unfairly, as all readers should say, if I had any hope of doing justice in a translation to this genial fragment of an old dramatic ballad, and its simple objectivity, as of a writer so impressed (like all true Teutonic poets in those earnest days) with the pathos and greatness of his subject that he never tries to ‘improve’ it by reflections and preaching at his readers, but thinks it enough just to tell his story, sure that it will speak for itself to all hearts:—

Quibus valefaciens cum mœrore
Commisit suis fratribus natos cum uxore:
Matremque deosculatos filiali more,
Vix eam alloquitur cordis præ dolore,
Illis mota viscera, corda tremuerunt,
Dum alter in alterius colla irruerunt,
Expetentes oscula, quæ vix receperunt
Propter multitudines, quæ eos compresserunt.
Mater tenens filiuin, uxorque maritum,
In diversa pertrahunt, et tenent invitum,
Fratres cum militibus velut compeditum
Stringunt, nec discedere sinunt expeditum.
Erat in exercitu maximus tumultus,
Cum carorum cernerent alternari vultus.
Flebant omnes pariter, senex et adultus,
Turbæ cum militibus, cultus et incultus.
Eja!  Quis non plangeret, cum videret flentes
Tot honestos nobiles, tam diversas gentes,
Cum Thuringis Saxones illuc venientes,
Ut viderent socios suos abscedentes.
Amico luctamine cuncti certavere,
Quis eum diutius posset retinere;
uidam collo brachiis, quidam inhæsere
Vestibus, nec poterat cuiguam respondere,
Tandem se de manibus eximens suorum
Magnatorum socius et peregrinorum,
Admixtus tandem, cætui cruce signatorum
Non visurus amplius terram.  Thuringorum!

Surely there is a heart of flesh in the old monk which, when warmed by a really healthy subject, can toss aside Scripture parodies and professional Stoic sentiment, and describe with such life and pathos, like any eye-witness, a scene which occurred, in fact, two years before his birth.

‘And thus this Prince of Peace, ‘he continues, ‘mounting his horse with many knights, etc. . . . about the end of the month of June, set forth in the name of the Lord, praising him in heart and voice, and weeping and singing were heard side by side.  And close by followed, with saddest heart, that most faithful lady after her sweetest prince, her most loving spouse, never, alas! to behold him more.  And when she was going to return, the force of love and the agony of separation forced her on with him one day’s journey: and yet that did not suffice.  She went on, still unable to bear the parting, another full day’s journey. . . . At last they part, at the exhortations of Rudolph the Cupbearer.  What groans, think you, what sobs, what struggles, and yearnings of the heart must there have been?  Yet they part, and go on their way. . . .  The lord went forth exulting, as a giant to run his course; the lady returned lamenting, as a widow, and tears were on her cheeks.  Then putting off the garments of joy, she took the dress of widowhood.  The mistress of nations, sitting alone, she turned herself utterly to God—to her former good works, adding better ones.’

Their children were ‘Hermann, who became Landgraf; a daughter who married the Duke of Brabant; another, who, remaining in virginity, became a nun of Aldenburg, of which place she is Lady Abbess until this day.’