The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Dynasts, by Thomas Hardy

ACT FIFTH

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

                 Yea, yea, yea!
                 Thus would the Mover pay
                 The score each puppet owes,
       The Reaper reap what his contrivance sows!
       Why make Life debtor when it did not buy?
       Why wound so keenly Right that it would die?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Nay, blame not! For what judgment can ye blame?—
       In that immense unweeting Mind is shown
       One far above forethinking; processive,
       Yet superconscious; a Clairvoyancy
       That knows not what It knows, yet works therewith.—
       The cognizance ye mourn, Life’s doom to feel,
       If I report it meetly, came unmeant,
       Emerging with blind gropes from impercipience
       By listless sequence—luckless, tragic Chance,
       In your more human tongue.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

                 And hence unneeded
       In the economy of Vitality,
       Which might have ever kept a sealed cognition
       As doth the Will Itself.

CHORUS OF THE YEARS [aerial music]

                 Nay, nay, nay;
                 Your hasty judgments stay,
                 Until the topmost cyme
       Have crowned the last entablature of Time.
       O heap not blame on that in-brooding Will;
       O pause, till all things all their days fulfil!

SCENE V

LONDON. THE GUILDHALL

    [A crowd of citizens has gathered outside to watch the carriages
    as they drive up and deposit guests invited to the Lord Mayor’s
    banquet, for which event the hall is brilliantly lit within. A
    cheer rises when the equipage of any popular personage arrives
    at the door.

FIRST CITIZEN

Well, well! Nelson is the man who ought to have been banqueted
to-night. But he is coming to Town in a coach different from these.!

SECOND CITIZEN

Will they bring his poor splintered body home?

FIRST CITIZEN

Yes. They say he’s to be tombed in marble, at St. Paul’s or
Westminster. We shall see him if he lays in state. It will
make a patriotic spectacle for a fine day.

BOY

How can you see a dead man, father, after so long?

FIRST CITIZEN

They’ll embalm him, my boy, as they did all the great Egyptian
admirals.

BOY

His lady will be handy for that, won’t she?

FIRST CITIZEN

Don’t ye ask awkward questions.

SECOND CITIZEN

Here’s another coming!

FIRST CITIZEN

That’s my Lord Chancellor Eldon. Wot he’ll say, and wot he’ll look!
Mr. Pitt will be here soon.

BOY

I don’t like Billy. He killed Uncle John’s parrot.

SECOND CITIZEN

How may ye make that out, youngster?

BOY

Mr. Pitt made the war, and the war made us want sailors; and Uncle
John went for a walk down Wapping High Street to talk to the pretty
ladies one evening; and there was a press all along the river that
night—a regular hot one—and Uncle John was carried on board a
man-of-war to fight under Nelson; and nobody minded Uncle John’s
parrot, and it talked itself to death. So Mr. Pitt killed Uncle
John’s parrot; see it, sir?

SECOND CITIZEN

You had better have a care of this boy, friend. His brain is too
precious for the common risks of Cheapside. Not but what he might
as well have said Boney killed the parrot when he was about it.
And as for Nelson—who’s now sailing shinier seas than ours, if
they’ve rubbed Her off his slate where he’s gone to,—the French
papers say that our loss in him is greater than our gain in ships;
so that logically the victory is theirs. Gad, sir, it’s almost
true!

[A hurrahing is heard from Cheapside, and the crowd in that
direction begins to hustle and show excitement.]

FIRST CITIZEN

He’s coming, he’s coming! Here, let me lift you up, my boy.— Why,
they have taken out the horses, as I am man alive!

SECOND CITIZEN

Pitt for ever!—Why, here’s a blade opening and shutting his mouth
like the rest, but never a sound does he raise!

THIRD CITIZEN

I’ve not too much breath to carry me through my day’s work, so I
can’t afford to waste it in such luxuries as crying Hurrah to
aristocrats. If ye was ten yards off y’d think I was shouting
as loud as any.

SECOND CITIZEN

It’s a very mean practice of ye to husband yourself at such a time,
and gape in dumbshow like a frog in Plaistow Marshes.

THIRD CITIZEN

No, sir; it’s economy; a very necessary instinct in these days of
ghastly taxations to pay half the armies in Europe! In short, in
the word of the Ancients, it is scarcely compass-mentas to do
otherwise! Somebody must save something, or the country will be
as bankrupt as Mr. Pitt himself is, by all account; though he
don’t look it just now.

    [PITT’s coach passes, drawn by a troop of running men and boy.
    The Prime Minister is seen within, a thin, erect, up-nosed
    figure, with a flush of excitement on his usually pale face.
    The vehicle reached the doorway to the Guildhall and halts with
    a jolt. PITT gets out shakily, and amid cheers enters the
    building.]

FOURTH CITIZEN

Quite a triumphal entry. Such is power;
Now worshipped, now accursed! The overthrow
Of all Pitt’s European policy
When his hired army and his chosen general
Surrendered them at Ulm a month ago,
Is now forgotten! Ay; this Trafalgar
Will botch up many a ragged old repute,
Make Nelson figure as domestic saint
No less than country’s saviour, Pitt exalt
As zenith-star of England’s firmament,
And uncurse all the bogglers of her weal
At this adventurous time.

THIRD CITIZEN

Talk of Pitt being ill. He looks hearty as a buck.

FIRST CITIZEN

It’s the news—no more. His spirits are up like a rocket for the
moment.

BOY

Is it because Trafalgar is near Portugal that he loves Port wine?

SECOND CITIZEN

Ah, as I said, friend; this boy must go home and be carefully put
to bed!

FIRST CITIZEN

Well, whatever William’s faults, it is a triumph for his virtues
to-night!

    [PITT having disappeared, the Guildhall doors are closed, and
    the crowd slowly disperses, till in the course of an hour the
    street shows itself empty and dark, only a few oil lamps burning.

    The SCENE OPENS, revealing the interior of the Guildhall, and
    the brilliant assembly of City magnates, Lords, and Ministers
    seated there, Mr. PITT occupying a chair of honour by the Lord
    Mayor. His health has been proposed as that of the Saviour of
    England, and drunk with acclamations.]

PITT [standing up after repeated calls]

My lords and gentlemen:—You have toasted me
As one who has saved England and her cause.
I thank you, gentlemen, unfeignedly.
But—no man has saved England, let me say:
England has saved herself, by her exertions:
She will, I trust, save Europe by her example!

[Loud applause, during which he sits down, rises, and sits down
again. The scene then shuts, and the night without has place.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Those words of this man Pitt—his last large words,
       As I may prophesy—that ring to-night
       In their first mintage to the feasters here,
       Will spread with ageing, lodge, and crystallize,
       And stand embedded in the English tongue
       Till it grow thin, outworn, and cease to be.—
       So is’t ordained by That Which all ordains;
       For words were never winged with apter grace.
       Or blent with happier choice of time and place,
     To hold the imagination of this strenuous race.

SCENE VI10

AN INN AT RENNES

    [Night. A sleeping-chamber. Two candles are burning near a bed
    in an alcove, and writing-materials are on the table.

    The French admiral, VILLENEUVE, partly undressed, is pacing up
    and down the room.]

VILLENEUVE

These hauntings have at last nigh proved to me
That this thing must be done. Illustrious foe
And teacher, Nelson: blest and over blest
In thy outgoing at the noon of strife
When glory clasped thee round; while wayward Death
Refused my coaxings for the like-timed call!
Yet I did press where thickest missiles fell,
And both by precept and example showed
Where lay the line of duty, patriotism,
And honour, in that combat of despair.

[He see himself in the glass as he passes.]

Unfortunate Villeneuve!—whom fate has marked
To suffer for too firm a faithfulness.—
An Emperor’s chide is a command to die.—
By him accursed, forsaken by my friend,
Awhile stern England’s prisoner, then unloosed
Like some poor dolt unworth captivity,
Time serves me now for ceasing. Why not cease?...
When, as Shades whisper in the chasmal night,
“Better, far better, no percipience here.”—
O happy lack, that I should have no child
To come into my hideous heritage,
And groan beneath the burden of my name!11

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

I’ll speak. His mood is ripe for such a parle.
[Sending a voice into VILLENEUVE’S ear.]

Thou dost divine the hour!

VILLENEUVE

But those stern Nays,
That heretofore were audible to me
At each unhappy time I strove to pass?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Have been annulled. The Will grants exit freely;
Yea, It says “Now.” Therefore make now thy time.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

May his sad sunken soul merge into nought
Meekly and gently as a breeze at eve!

VILLENEUVE

From skies above me and the air around
Those callings which so long have circled me
At last do whisper “Now.” Now it shall be!

    [He seals a letter, and addresses it to his wife; then takes a
    dagger from his accoutrements that are hanging alongside, and,
    lying down upon his back on the bed, stabs himself determinedly
    in many places, leaving the weapon in the last wound.]

Ungrateful master; generous foes; Farewell!

    [VILLENEUVE dies; and the scene darkens.]

SCENE VII

KING GEORGE’S WATERING-PLACE, SOUTH WESSEX

[The interior of the “Old Rooms” Inn. Boatmen and burghers are
sitting on settles round the fire, smoking and drinking.

FIRST BURGHER

So they’ve brought him home at last, hey? And he’s to be solemnized
with a roaring funeral?

FIRST BOATMAN

Yes, thank God.... ’Tis better to lie dry than wet, if canst do it
without stinking on the road gravewards. And they took care that he
shouldn’t.

SECOND BOATMAN

’Tis to be at Paul’s; so they say that know. And the crew of the
“Victory” have to walk in front, and Captain Hardy is to carry his
stars and garters on a great velvet pincushion.

FIRST BURGHER

Where’s the Captain now?

SECOND BOATMAN [nodding in the direction of Captain Hardy’s house]

Down at home here biding with his own folk a bit. I zid en walking
with them on the Esplanade yesterday. He looks ten years older than
he did when he went. Ay—he brought the galliant hero home!

SECOND BURGHER

Now how did they bring him home so that he could lie in state
afterwards to the naked eye!

FIRST BOATMAN

Well, as they always do,—in a cask of sperrits.

SECOND BURGHER

Really, now!

FIRST BOATMAN [lowering his voice]

But what happened was this. They were a long time coming, owing to
contrary winds, and the “Victory” being little more than a wreck.
And grog ran short, because they’d used near all they had to peckle
his body in. So—they broached the Adm’l!

SECOND BURGHER

How?

FIRST BOATMAN

Well; the plain calendar of it is, that when he came to be unhooped,
it was found that the crew had drunk him dry. What was the men to
do? Broke down by the battle, and hardly able to keep afloat, ’twas
a most defendable thing, and it fairly saved their lives. So he was
their salvation after death as he had been in the fight. If he
could have knowed it, ’twould have pleased him down to the ground!
How ’a would have laughed through the spigot-hole: “Draw on, my
hearties! Better I shrivel that you famish.” Ha-ha!

SECOND BURGHER

It may be defendable afloat; but it seems queer ashore.

FIRST BOATMAN

Well, that’s as I had it from one that knows—Bob Loveday of
Overcombe—one of the “Victory” men that’s going to walk in the
funeral. However, let’s touch a livelier string. Peter Green,
strike up that new ballet that they’ve lately had prented here,
and were hawking about town last market-day.

SONG

THE NIGHT OF TRAFALGAR

I

In the wild October night-time, when the wind raved round the land,
And the Back-sea12 met the Front-sea, and our doors were blocked
    with sand,
And we heard the drub of Dead-man’s Bay, where bones of thousands are,
We knew not what the day had done for us at Trafalgar.
                    [All] Had done,
                          Had done,
                    For us at Trafalgar!

II

“Pull hard, and make the Nothe, or down we go!” one says, says he.
We pulled; and bedtime brought the storm; but snug at home slept we.
Yet all the while our gallants after fighting through the day,
Were beating up and down the dark, sou’-west of Cadiz Bay.
                          The dark,
                          The dark,
                    Sou’-west of Cadiz Bay!

III

The victors and the vanquished then the storm it tossed and tore,
As hard they strove, those worn-out men, upon that surly shore;
Dead Nelson and his half-dead crew, his foes from near and far,
Were rolled together on the deep that night at Trafalgar!
                          The deep,
                          The deep,
                    That night at Trafalgar!

    [The Cloud-curtain draws.]

CHORUS OF THE YEARS

       Meanwhile the month moves on to counter-deeds
            Vast as the vainest needs,
       And fiercely the predestined plot proceeds.

ACT FIFTH

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE VI10

SCENE VII