ACT III
Rhodope’s chamber. Hero and other slave-girls occupied in arranging the room. Enter Rhodope.
Rhodope.
Why are these mirrors round the walls unveiled?
Hero.
The mirrors, Queen?
Rhod.
The mirrors. And these doors
So wide ajar—whose work is this?
Hero.
You love
To have your outlook towards the sunlit morning
And draw into your lungs its freshening breath.
Rhod.
Who tells you that? Enough—To with their bolts!
Turn every mirror round!
[Hero shuts the doors and turns round the mirrors.
My soul, ’tis true!
Vain, vain the salve of flattering persuasion
That I have duped my senses. Turn thee, Night,
And pall me in the dunnest of thy veils!
I am defiled as never yet was woman.
Hero.
This rose at least you will not all despise;
Ere the sun’s self had risen I plucked it for you,
Rhod.
Away! Too soon it withers at my touch!
Hero.
My name is Hero and not Lesbia.
[She retires with her companions.
Rhod.
Eternal gods, could this thing come to pass?
How many a time has my pure infant-hand
Yielded your due of pious sacrifice!
For you the first lock fell from off my head
Ere yet I guessed the source of every blessing
That prospers men was held within your hand.
Nor was the virgin ever slow to tend
Your service; rarely sent her altar-flame
A twinned desire toward your lofty seat,
Nay, every wish that threatened rise she strove
To crush in shame and anguish to the depths
Beneath her conscious thought; for she would win
Only your benison and not your bounty,
She would but thank, naught would she supplicate.
The Woman, too, needed no ghostly dream
Like that which smote the Tyndarid with horror,
To monish her of duty’s holy bond;
She came herself and decked the altar round
And yet—why dedicates a mortal man
To you the choicest part of all his goods
If ye show not the gracious will to shield
When he himself no more has power to shield?
A man repels the lion with his sword
When, by the goad of rage or hunger driven,
He flashes rampant at the midday heat;
No brave man calls on Zeus to hurl his bolts,
But ward against the base snake’s crept surprisal
When he is steeped in calm war-weary slumber;
There is your work; to you belongs the night.
And I—and I—rests then a curse on me,
A curse from ancient time that holds your power
Bounden in Styx, that god-affront so heinous
There’s none would even dare it on a slave-girl
The meanest of my train, falls on myself
Sanctioned by you like a god-fearing deed?
[Enter Hero.
Hero.
The King!
Rhod.
So soon? ’Tis death that comes with him!
Then good; it palls me in the night of nights
Whereof the earthly night is but a shade.
Why tremble, then? It was my very wish.
[Enter Kandaules.
Kan.
Do you forgive?
Rhod.
Sire, you can do no other,
The appointed hour is now. Why this much asking?
Kan.
I understand you not.
Rhod.
Be open, King!
You find me ready.
Kan.
Ready! To what end?
Rhod.
I know your duty and I give you thanks
You’re bent on swift fulfilment; of a truth
It must be mine were you of tardy will.
You’ve searched, tracked down, and taken instant vengeance,
It breaks out from your looks—now comes my turn!
Kan.
Where do your strayed wits tend?
Rhod.
Are you not come
For vengeance hither?
Kan.
No, by all the gods!
Rhod.
And all have life that yesterday had life?
Kan.
Why not?
Rhod.
There’s many may have done foul crime.
Kan.
I know of none.
Rhod.
And what then brings you here?
Kan.
Should yesternight absolve my right of coming?
Have you then changed? Did you not e’en refuse
The solitary kiss for which I begged
As though you sat, the lily in your hand,
Beneath the plane as in the olden time?
Rhod.
You’ll live to thank me for it.
Kan.
Nay, but fear not.
True, I was drawn to you as on the morning
After our wedding; but a hint, a wave
Of hand, and I am gone even as I came.
Ay, swifter from your presence would I hasten
Than if in search of drink I neared a fountain
With noiseless tread, and in the very act
Espied a shrinking Naiad leave her bath.
Rhod.
Remain!
Kan.
No—not a breathing-span’s delay,
If it distress you; and it does distress,
I feel it deep. This is the hour for that
Which has been christened in your lovely phrase
Your “inmost self-communing.” I will not
Sully its sanctitude. Though Aphrodite,
Kind-smiling on this oversoon approach,
Threw me for your delight the golden girdle
She never gives away and scarcely lends,
I’d come some other time and hand it you.
Rhod.
No more. That sounds too sweet and gives me fear;
For aye my nurse would tell me, “When a man
Draws near his wife with over-fond approach
Be sure he’s done her feelings secret hurt.”
Kan.
There too I’m touched. I’ve done your feelings hurt.
I know your nature and as well I know
You cannot change your ways. Your father rules
Where Greek and Indian manners are immingled;
Your veil’s a portion of your Being’s self,
Yet must I ever pull and pluck at it
And would have wrenched it bodily yesterday.
Come then, I rue it, and I swear to you—
This drove me here—’twill not be done again.
[Rhodope laughs.
For ne’er I longed as now that I might ward
Not just the grief that burrows to the bone
And leaves its scars to sharp the after-sting,
Nay, but to scare the tiniest shadow hence
That might o’ercast your soul with its annoy,
Though such a shadow’s source should be myself.
I will watch o’er you as the trusty lashes
Watch o’er your eye; down comes their latch and bars
Not only sand-grains but the sunny beam
When over-ardent and too swiftly come.
Rhod.
Too late! Too late!
Kan.
What is too late, dear wife?
Rhod.
I—No, I will not say it—I cannot say it;
Mayhap he’ll guess it, and if he should guess,
I’ll seek my knees, dumb, stripped of speech before him,
Pointing upon his sword-blade and my breast.
Kan.
Some dream has given you fright?
Rhod.
A dream? Oh no!
None was to waste on me; warning was lost
On my poor worth. The stone in crashing fall
May have its shadow for the eye to mark,
The sudden sword its flash, but on my head—
Kandaules, speak! I see—you wish a question!
Then question and be done!
Kan.
I? Yes—why, yes!
But more than all—your hand!
Rhod.
Withhold your touch! No water rids you of the ’filing
spot.
Kan.
O Gyges!—Come, since thus your hand’s refused me—
(And without that your cheek tells tale enough).
You’re hot with fever; but the goodliest leech
Stands at the door. Why is it barred and bolted
When such a morn as all the trooping hours
Lade with their sweets, beggar-like knocks outside?
Quick, fling it back, and on the act you’re healed!
[Kandaules is about to open it.
Rhod.
Halt! Ope more readily a charnel-vault!
Not darklier-browed the stainless god o’ the sun
Averts his face from shattered urns of death
Than from the woman you have named your own.
Kan.
Unhappy one!
Rhod.
Speak! Was there in the chamber—
Speak at all costs——!
Kan.
A murderer? No, why, no!
Come, ask yourself now, would I not have slain him?
Rhod.
Ay, if you saw him.
Kan.
And I must have seen him.
The lamp had scarce been lit a moment since
And brightly burned.
Rhod.
’Twould seem so—yet I heard
A many various stirrings. Not from you
Nor yet from me they came.
Kan.
The night is rife
With echoes and with startling curious noises
And sleepless ears hear much.
Rhod.
There was a rustling.
Kan.
A worm i’ the wall!
Rhod.
A clink as of a sword
Grazing on something.
Kan.
Maybe. Where’s the tone
That Nature, in a fit of mimic fun,
Has not embodied in some drollish beast
To serve a voice’s turn? If you’ll but tear
Your robe in two and mark the sound, I’ll tell
What insect-buzz it is to the very life.
Rhod.
I heard a sighing, too.
Kan.
What, sighs from murderers?
Rhod.
No, no! And there’s the rub.
Kan.
’Twas the cool night-wind.
About your cheeks and mouth it would be playing
And sighed at breaking only on the walls.
I tell you there are trees that, like the stone
Which drinks the light of day and waits for darkness
To give it back, steep them in sounds and echoes,
And thus they babble, sing, and moan at night.
Rhod.
You take it so? But wait—I’ve lost a dainty——
Kan.
A precious stone perhaps? A diamond?
This one?
Rhod.
You have it—You?
Kan.
Who else? See there!
Rhod.
Thanks, everlasting thanks, ye gods! Forgive
The doubting of a heart whose innocence
Misdeemed her trod and torn. Oh, ye are near
As light and air!
Kan.
Erinnyes, down, you hounds!
There! (giving her the jewel).
Rhod.
Take it to the temple-hoard! I owe
The gracious gods thank-offering opulent,
And chiefly Her, All-Linker of earth’s love.
From golden baskets shall her doves be given,
To-day and ever, softest grains for picking;
From marble beakers shall they quench their thirst;
And you, Kandaules, you——
Kan.
The youth will kiss,
When thinking of his maiden, his own hand
She pressed for greeting ere she took farewell;
The man needs something more.
Rhod.
O happy day!
You hold your wife so dear? Ah, then I beg you
Forgive my close-hugged wrong. I inly fretted
’Twas pride in the possession more than love
Lay in the feeling that enchains you to me,
And your heart’s leaning flame must have the grudge
Of others, if it be not wholly quenched.
I fear that now no more.
Kan.
And nevermore
Shall come that fear on you. I know what thing
Set canker at your heart. You thought your sway
Trenched on by Gyges, and ’tis true enough
I passed full many a day with him for comrade,
And nigh turned huntsman since himself is one.
Yet that touched not your privilege’s pale,
For that whereby the man and man are bonded
Is null for woman, needed at her side
As little as the war-mood for a kiss.
Yet though I could but name your fear a folly
I spare no means to bring you speedy healing,
For, hear my word—my favourite, Gyges, goes!
Rhod.
What?
Kan.
And to-day.
Rhod.
Impossible!
Kan.
Would that
Mislike you now? You seemed to wish it else.
Rhod.
O fool, that this, in drunken rush of joy,
I could forget!
Kan.
Why, what?
Rhod.
Show me your hand!
’Twas he. He sudden stood before my eyes
As though his outline, fiery-limned in air,
Remained to trace him. Oh how terrible
The tallying proof! Your hand! He has the ring.
Kan.
It is my very own.
Rhod.
Speak, have you not
At some time laid it by since you have worn it?
Lost it or missed the thing some other way?
Kan.
Unhappy soul! Why make flesh quail with shadows?
Rhod.
He shirks my test! You’re sending Gyges forth,
And on the instant like a miscreant?
And why?
Kan.
I said not that. He goes himself.
Rhod.
He goes himself? What drives him from among us?
Kan.
I do not know, nor have I questioned him.
Rhod.
You do not know? I’ll tell you then the wherefore,
He’s done you viler shame than e’er was plotted
And you must punish as you ne’er have punished.
Kan.
Fie on those words, Rhodope! Past all doubt
He’s noblest of the noble.
Rhod.
Is he so?
How can you let him go without a tremor?
Kan.
For this, that even the goodliest, all unwilling,
May spread in place of blessing secret curse.
Rhod.
Is that his case? And has himself then felt it?
Kan.
Well, if not that—his heart looks high, he aims
At large emprise, ay, and he dares the venture.
Rhod.
You think that?
Kan.
There’s no throne too high for him,
And if he goes and keeps his reasons hid—
But mark me, crown in hand he’ll be returning,
And tell us with a smile:—“This drove me forth.”
Rhod.
Even so?
Kan.
Dear wife, the night’s unnerved your mind,
The fright——
Rhod.
Maybe.
Kan.
You heard this here, that there——
Rhod.
And naught to hear! Myself gives half belief,
For, now I mind me, sight as well was false.
You have not doffed the ring since wearing it,
You have not lost it, did not find it gone—
Yet still I had the thought—my glance was keen,
And it was morning and I saw all else,
’Twas missing from your hand. So it would seem
Sense tallies here with sense. The blinded eye
Bears out the blunted ear. Then pardon me
For giving you such hurt of heart, and grant
An hour alone to balance my tossed mind.
[KANDAULES is about to speak.
’Tis good, ay good! Forgive me, Sire, and go!
[Exit Kandaules.
Rhod.
None other ’tis than Gyges—that is clear,
And he has had the ring—that is still clearer,
The King suspects, must do so—that is clearest!
He’s bound the appalling deed appallingly
T’avenge on him, yet suffers him escape.
Thereby one riddle needs another riddle
To solve it; and ’tis like to mad my brain
If it be kept in shroud. A husband sees
His wife defiled—defiled? Speak roundly—murdered!
Murdered! Nay more, condemned herself to murder
If this God-mocker pay not answering blood.
The husband is a monarch, bears the sword
Of Diké, nor need crave from the Erinnyes
Her borrowed dagger; knows ’tis holy duty
The hideous sin to punish, even if love
Spur not revenge; is bound before the gods
To yield their victim, if to me denied.
And yet this husband, yet this monarch draws
No sword, no dagger—lets the accursed fly!
But that shall have its thwart; not more than he
I lack for trusty servants; not as slave-girl,
As royal daughter came I in this house,
Ay, and my following was a royal one!
I’ll summon them, old hearts of staunchest faith,
And bid them baulk the runagate of flight;
Then to Kandaules thus:— “Lo, here am I;
There is the favourite! Make your choice. This dagger
Will pierce myself unless your sword pierce him!”
[Enter Lesbia.
Lesbia.
O Queen, do you forgive?
Rhod.
Why, what, my child?
Your coming back to me? Do you, O you
Forgive me that I could have let you from me.
I seemed—myself I knew not what I did,
And yet I seem to think the King had told me
You went not loath; and ah, I had been forced
That night, that night to make him such denial
I’d not the heart to say another “no”!
Lesbia.
Ah, then I’m free no more, and yet again
May count myself among your waiting-maidens?
Rhod.
Nay, nay! As sister lay you on my breast!
Lesbia.
Why, what has passed? So moved I ne’er have seen you.
Rhod.
A hideous thing, a thing that has no name,
For when I come to name it, lo ’tis altered
And looks a deathlier horror than before!
Yea, Spawn of Night, that grins upon my eyes,
Your first-shown face methinks I could have kissed
Now that your second’s bared in doubtful dark.
Lesbia.