The Saint's Tragedy. Charles Kingsley
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wipe out By mighty deeds our race’s guilt and shame— But thus, poor witless orphan! [Weeps.]
[Count Walter enters.]
Wal. Ah! my princess! accept your liegeman’s knee; Down, down, rheumatic flesh!
Eliz. Ah! Count Walter! you are too tall to kneel to little girls.
Wal. What? shall two hundredweight of hypocrisy bow down to his four-inch wooden saint, and the same weight of honesty not worship his four-foot live one? And I have a jest for you, shall make my small queen merry and wise.
Isen. You shall jest long before she’s merry.
Wal. Ah! dowers and dowagers again! The money—root of all evil. What comes here? [A Page enters.] A long-winged grasshopper, all gold, green, and gauze? How these young pea-chicks must needs ape the grown peacock’s frippery! Prithee, now, how many such butterflies as you suck here together on the thistle-head of royalty?
Page. Some twelve gentlemen of us, Sir—apostles of the blind archer, Love—owning no divinity but almighty beauty—no faith, no hope, no charity, but those which are kindled at her eyes.
Wal. Saints! what’s all this?
Page. Ah, Sir! none but countrymen swear by the saints nowadays: no oaths but allegorical ones, Sir, at the high table; as thus—‘By the sleeve of beauty, Madam;’ or again, ‘By Love his martyrdoms, Sir Count;’ or to a potentate, ‘As Jove’s imperial mercy shall hear my vows, High Mightiness.’
Wal. Where did the evil one set you on finding all this heathenry?
Page. Oh, we are all barristers of Love’s court, Sir; we have Ovid’s gay science conned, Sir, ad unguentum, as they say, out of the French book.
Wal. So? There are those come from Rome then will whip you and Ovid out with the same rod which the dandies of Provence felt lately to their sorrow. Oh, what blinkards are we gentlemen, to train any dumb beasts more carefully than we do Christians! that a man shall keep his dog-breakers, and his horse-breakers, and his hawk-breakers, and never hire him a boy-breaker or two! that we should live without a qualm at dangling such a flock of mimicking parroquets at our heels a while, and then, when they are well infected, well perfumed with the wind of our vices, dropping them off, as tadpoles do their tails, joint by joint into the mud! to strain at such gnats as an ill-mouthed colt or a riotous puppy, and swallow that camel of camels, a page!
Page. Do you call me a camel, Sir?
Wal. What’s your business?
Page. My errand is to the Princess here.
Eliz. To me?
Page. Yes; the Landgravine expects you at high mass; so go in, and mind you clean yourself; for every one is not as fond as you of beggars’ brats, and what their clothes leave behind them.
Isen [strikes him]. Monkey! To whom are you speaking?
Eliz. Oh, peace, peace, peace! I’ll go with him.
Page. Then be quick, my music-master’s waiting. Corpo di Bacco! as if our elders did not teach us to whom we ought to be rude! [Ex. Eliz. and Page.]
Isen. See here, Sir Saxon, how this pearl of price Is faring in your hands! The peerless image, To whom this court is but the tawdry frame— The speck of light amid its murky baseness— The salt which keeps it all from rotting—cast To be the common fool—the laughing stock For every beardless knave to whet his wit on! Tar-blooded Germans!—Here’s another of them.
[A young Knight enters.]
Knight. Heigh! Count! What? learning to sing psalms? They are waiting For you in the manage-school, to give your judgment On that new Norman mare.
Wal. Tell them I’m busy.
Knight. Busy? St. Martin! Knitting stockings, eh? To clothe the poor withal? Is that your business? I passed that canting baby on the stairs; Would heaven that she had tripped, and broke her goose-neck, And left us heirs de facto. So, farewell. [Exit.]
Wal. A very pretty quarrel! matter enough To spoil a waggon-load of ash-staves on, And break a dozen fools’ backs across their cantlets. What’s Lewis doing?
Isen. Oh—befooled— Bewitched with dogs and horses, like an idiot Clutching his bauble, while a priceless jewel Sticks at his miry heels.
Wal. The boy’s no fool— As good a heart as hers, but somewhat given To hunt the nearest butterfly, and light The fire of fancy without hanging o’er it The porridge-pot of practice. He shall hear or—
Isen. And quickly, for there’s treason in the wind. They’ll keep her dower, and send her home with shame Before the year’s out.
Wal. Humph! Some are rogues enough for’t. As it falls out, I ride with him to-day.
Isen. Upon what business?
Wal. Some shaveling has been telling him that there are heretics on his land: Stadings, worshippers of black cats, baby-eaters, and such like. He consulted me; I told him it would be time enough to see to the heretics when all the good Christians had been well looked after. I suppose the novelty of the thing smit him, for now nothing will serve but I must ride with him round half a dozen hamlets, where, with God’s help, I will show him a mansty or two, that shall astonish his delicate chivalry.
Isen. Oh, here’s your time! Speak to him, noble Walter. Stun his dull ears with praises of her grace; Prick his dull heart with shame at his own coldness. Oh right us, Count.
Wal. I will, I will: go in And dry your eyes. [Exeunt separately.]
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