The Tragedy of Etarre - Act One
SCENE: A wild upland open to the sky. Hill-slopes with scattered firs. The ground is
covered with gorse-bushes; knee-high, in golden bloom. The last shreds of fog drift off over the
moors to the left and vanish, reevaeling far-away the gleaming towers of the Castle of ETARRE.
Full morning. AVRAN, BALARIN, and MARIS stand above the helpless body of PELLEAS.

AVRAN
Enough of drudge and drag: here let him lie.
The pricking gorse has played an eager bride
And clapped him welcome in her unwelcome arms.

BALARIN
A weary work fulfilling punishment!
Too often in the scourger's thankless toil
The swinging lash flies back, and with shrewd blow
Assails th' inflicting hand: so is't with us,
Who strain against yon living weight of mail
With bloodless fingers, and with stumbling feet
Through country-side accurst scarce feel our way;
Small glory have we got us therewithal.
This is our fame: to counter with a knight
Who will not lift his spear against our shields,
A mad-cap creature in whose brain there sits
The bird of folly. Truth, a mighty task.
AVRAN
And here, within the growing heat of morn,
We come like serfs in secret burial,
Dragging a living corpse beneath the sky.
Enough, enough! this is no food for knights;
Our very horses would revolt the taste
And eye their masters with a keen disdain.

MARIS
There is a feast which no knight may refuse
If he be bid to a table; all that owe
Allegiance to an overlord must eat
The meat of service, drink the willing wine
Of fealty, whereby true knighthood lives.
You know from whom you draw your honour's strength;
She laid upon us bond of her commands
And bade us from the belly of his steed
Unbind this knight and over briar and thorn
Drag out his body till the breath be faint:
So should his courage vanish like a dream,
And that mad frequency of his desire
Be staid to abstinence. Up! drag him on.

AVRAN
Then snare the sun and strangle out its heat.
Go, draw cool shadows out of distant trees
And wake the winds that sleep upon the hills.
Call back our bodies' breath that's taken flight
At sight of labour, like a bonded wretch.
MARIS
Then let him lie, and heaven rest his soul.

BALARIN
The mighty Pelleas, the rumoured knight
Well proven in the midmost toil of war,
How fares he now, the hero of the lance,
The champion such as men have never seen?

AVRAN
In curious wise beneath the open sun
He dreams of battle, while the springing gorse
Grows up unheard around his silent helm.

BALARIN
But when his bruisèd limbs have found the balm
Of first recovery, he'll rise and seek
To draw the shattered ships of his emprise
To greater battles over windier deeps.

AVRAN
'Twere well to slay him here and quench his soul.
Else will the spirit that indwells his breast
Grow wings once more and fly above our heads
Like loosened hawk against the fleeing hare.
MARIS
We may not slay him, tho' 'twere mercy's hand
Which dealt that stroke.

AVRAN
Then will he, like a midge,
In vast persistence make our lives a curse
Of tiny wounds and quick annoyances.

MARIS
'Twill prove him small avail to prick and sting:
The midge, if he return too often, learns
That wings so small can yet be clipped and crushed
And tiny body caught and buffeted.

AVRAN
'Twere well to hold it longer to its cage;
Yet here it has its freedom and the world
Wherein to fly abroad, and lo, it lies
Ungrateful, without sign of thanks or praise.
Fly warrior, we salute thee! Noisy gnat,
Midge of the marshes, fare thee well!

BALARIN
All hail,
Chit-sparrow; sit i' the bush and braggart sing;
O valiant bird! O wren with eagle's soul!
An owl that flies in daytime without eyes.
[BALARIN and AVRAN depart across the hill. MARIS
follows, but hesitates and turns back.]

MARIS [standing above the body of PELLEAS]
Too many times, far, far too many times
In this same outcome of the selfsame deed
Have we prevailed above you, dragged you off,
Railed over you and spoken out our curse
Of bitterness against your foolish ways
And ears forever thirsting for abuse.
Too many times our lips have brewed this draught
And mixed the gall of laughter with farewell,
A honeyed mead in truth, a stirrup cup
To speed you in your folly. Change your ways!
But if you fall once more within our hands,
Expect no better fare from us, nor yet
From her that sent us, whom your seeking eyes
Shall never look upon again.
[PELLEAS moves slightly.]
PELLEAS
Etarre!

MARIS
Yes, 'tis Etarre! the one sweet word forlorn
That lies upon your lips like magic seal,
Like stroke of sorcery and mystic spell
Awak'ning fever in your blood and brain
That iron may not chill, nor dungeon tame!
[He goes off. Silence.]

PELLEAS [moaning]
O world! O disillusion!
[In a sudden passionate outburst]
Black despair,
Come, cover me with all the shrouds of night!
[Silence. FERGUS, attendant on Pelleas, comes over the hill to the right.]

FERGUS
I marked them how they stood upon this hill
In final converse of an evil deed,
Here, here upon these trackless, silent slopes
Within the yellow reaches of the gorse
Lies Pelleas on prison-bed of thorns,
Bound with the glowing fetters of the sun.
O misery, that in his mind should dwell
Submission unto knaves, the lowered shaft,
The sunken sword, the battle void and thin.
Alas the name that rang in other days!
The knight whose deeds dwelt ever on the lips
Of others' praises -- how with single hand
He smote the robbers of the woods and hills
With keen destruction -- how within the lists
His spear was fire, a gathered shaft of light,
His battle-cry the voices of the storm.
And now his name is overset with growth
Of dark abuse and shameful calumny,
And those that should have reeled and sunk to earth
In red disaster and dark swoon of sense,
These, even these, mean varlets, thieves, and rogues,
Drag Pelleas through upland gorse and way
And throw him like a carcase for the birds!
[He casts about him in the gorse.]
In vain: in vain. Oh, would that eyes were made
To pierce the barriers which hide their goal,
Or cleave like lightning in a darkened sky,
Bringing their own fierce strength wherewith to see.
Here, somewhere here, he lies in bitterness
With broken mail and battered helmet thrown,
A useless tool discarded from the hands
Of little workers fashioning misdeeds.
Etarre! Etarre! accursèd beauteous face
That shines like fire of madness in his eyes
And makes his courage falter like a flame;
Etarre! Etarre! from heaven's utmost height
May God's unfailing anger strike you down
And burn that body like a blackened tree!
May you be fire engulfed with water-floods,
May you be embers smouldered into death,
May you be ashes blown across the air!
I hate you! who are poison in my lips;
Within my mouth your name runs like a curse,
A thing to rail against with tongue and teeth.
[He comes upon PELLEAS.]
O mighty master -- fallen, fallen, fallen,
See, I am here, your servant, nigh at hand
To raise you up, to loose your helm and mail
And with fresh water lave your sunken eyes
And wet your thirsty lips and cheeks and hair.
[PELLEAS moves slightly, groaning.]
Midway between the waking sense he swoons.
Ah, master, fallen master, turn and speak!

PELLEAS
Leave me. Depart. I have no wish for you.
Go, bring me death to minister my needs.

FERGUS
Death's a false friend, a thief within your tents;
He'll stab you in your slumber. Cast him out!
[FERGUS has been busy stooping above Pelleas. He
busies himself in loosening the armour while he
speaks.]

PELLEAS
I'll have no other servant: bring me death.

FERGUS [loosening the helmet]
Death's a grim army laying endless siege
Against the living fortress of the soul.
Endure, endure; beat back the pressing foe,
Lift up again your shield above the walls
In stern defiance. See, I raise you up.

PELLEAS [in FERGUS' arms]
Leave me, ah, leave me here. My broken strength
Is fainter than a sunset wind, my mind
Is dry and empty. -- Do not make me live,
But leave me, leave me here; Etarre --
I saw her not, nor heard her voice, nor felt
Her anger go across me like a rain.
God knows, such rain were welcome to my lips!
Her anger is more sweet than other's praise,
Her voice is like a wind within the grain,
A moving swell of wave-like melody.

FERGUS [raising PELLEAS to his feet]
Her voice is like the winter moon half seen
Across the other shoulder, magical -- a curse!

PELLEAS
Have you come hither mocking at my grief,
To cry before me words against Etarre
And prick my sorrow into festered rage?
No, leave me, leave me: what avails your heed?
I may not look upon her eyes again!
She will not see me, will not grant me speech;
Her wretched knights perform her word afar,
And cast me from her. Oh, world, world,
What cruelty there lies within your breast
To poison all the milk whereat we suck!
We are the children of your hate, conceived
In some dark moment of false passion, born
In anguish of repentance, things accursed
For whom you have no mother-love, no care,
No joy if we be happy, no regret
If we be clothed in sorrow and in grief.

FERGUS
Each man, if he be strong, can take the world
Within the grasping hollows of his hand
And shape anew the image of his will.
There is no knight of all this country wide
Can sit his steed unshaken in the lists
Against your onset, none that can maintain
A helm unshorn, and armour unassailed.
What runes are carven by an evil hand
Within the iron of your spirit? Wake,
Throw off the clutch of sleep, the grasp of dreams,
And blow the wraith of magic into mist
Of idle vapour. Ah, if I were you,
My lance should smite the laughter of your foes,
My wrath should strike them like an angry sea,
My vengeance scatter them like autumn leaves!
Ride, ride against them! Snap their strength in twain!
Go like a curse across this evil land
And leave behind you weeping in the halls
And wail of women seeking 'mid the slain
For their departed lords: and she, the shining snake
That sits enfolded in your changèd heart,
She, even she, whose castle holds these lands,
Etarre, the witch of evil, let her die.

PELLEAS
What, is your service changed to blackest gall?
Is all your heart tormented like your speech
With envious canker? O ungrateful task
To lift from earth the children of the dust
And give the toiling creatures of the plough
High freedom in a servitude of love.
Nay, who shall give the oxen of the field
The battle-steed's high temper, who shall place
A soul within the body of a slave,
And waken knighthood stifled in the serf?

FERGUS
With no sweet ointment of forgiving love
Will I anoint the heads of those that feed
Their starving wits on hatred and foul thoughts.
To them that do you wrong I bear one love,
The love to see their naked bodies hang
From windy branches, and their vulture necks
Engirdled with the swaying, clinging noose.

PELLEAS
God grant you never set your feet within
The holy circle of knighthood! -- Take me hence.
For I will wait until my body's harm
Be grown to match my soul's serenity,
The high security of my resolve.
Then shall I find me other ways to seek
My lady's favour, win her angry heart
To softer mood of loving.

FERGUS
Yet your words
Are greater than your strength. How would you walk
Through upland gorse and rough unlevelled way?
I cannot bear you far, tho' I am fain
My back would seek the burden.

PELLEAS
Search and say
If with your eyes you mark my loosened steed
Among the heather ranging; for they came
And bore me bound thereto. You see him not?
Go, search the distance with quick feet and bring
Him hither straight; he has not wandered far.

FERGUS
Rest here in quiet till I come again
And wait in patience for my sure return.
[He departs.]
[PELLEAS stands staring before him in silence.]

PELLEAS
I would I were as changeless as the sun
Who sinks each day into the nether-mist
And on the morrow mounts above the dawn
In light undimmed; but I with shaken soul
Survey the darkness, and with faltering step
Go down into the countries of the night,
Not knowing if within another East
My eyes shall look upon the risen day.
All, all is dark: the hell-pits of despair
Gape ever at my feet. Where leads the way
That brings me to the daylight of her eyes,
The dawn which is her presence, and the world
Which is her body's grace, her beauty's orb
Of circled wonder? Barred and double barred!
There is no oaken shaft can break this port,
No twisted hook to catch the bolt aside.
[Silence.]
O sérene sun, alone and pitiless,
How mocking is the glitter of thy beams!
Meseems thou art the laughter of the world
Made visible, contemptuous disdain
Wherewith all nature frames the race of man.
O shadow stretched before me on the ground,
What thing art thou, with what fidelity
Art thou my steadfast comrade? Is't thy wish
That binds thee, or a dread necessity?
Art thou my soul, an unsubstantial thing
Knit to me while the sun of life shall last?
The sun's a mockery, and life a lure!
Go! I release thee from thy servitude;
Thou canst not love me who am no man's friend.
Here in the world I stand alone. Go forth,
My soul, my shadow; seek a happier land
And leave this wretched body to fulfil
Unequal combat with a grudging fate
And so go down to death, all purposeless.
[He becomes aware of GAWAINE approaching.]
What knight is this that stands upon the hill?
Is this some foe to plague my restless life,
Some novel torment wrought against my love?
He moves alone, an armoured knight, afoot
Within these reaches of untrodden wild.
How came he here? Why moves he without steed
In painful toil beneath his armour's press?
[GAWAINE enters.]

GAWAINE
Long have I sought you, wayfaring alone.
In visionary speech with three, I gained
Strange knowledge and strange biddings to fulfil.

PELLEAS
Knight, if on wrathful deed your steps be turned,
Let not your pride so wander from its ways
That it o'erstride itself and seek the dark
Of high self-confidence and vaunting word.
Fulfil your bidding, add your little stroke
Of evil action, yet at heart know well
By no necessity of fallen strength
I yield my honour to your lesser sword.

GAWAINE
You shall not find the hungry bird of hate
Upon my shield engraven, with fierce claws
Tearing the world asunder.

PELLEAS
Are you not
Of them that loathe me at my lady's will
And their own coward hearts' high jealousy?

GAWAINE
I am of Arthur's court. I come in need
To succour knighthood, as our king enjoins
Upon the glorious order of his knights.
I know not who you are nor with what wrong
Pent up by men's ill-will and jealous hate.
Yet three there were who spoke in visioned speech
And by their power on heaven's high elements
Conveyed my hither.

PELLEAS
O belovèd sound,
The speech of knighthood in this wretched land,
The light of honour risen in the dark
Of shameless men and unrepentant deeds!
Pelleas I am: my spear has held the prize
In many tourneys made in many lands.
Much have I heard and loved your noble king.
The name of Arthur is a silver star
Of truth and equity; in faultless strength
The sword of chivalry gleams there aloft,
A vision unto men, a creed for faith.

GAWAINE
And I am Gawaine, of the king's high court,
Come hither from the walls of Camelot.
The fame of Pelleas has pierced the dark
Of distance, with the light of far renown
For tourney's wreath, and battle's blameless meed.
Our noble order knows no nobler knight.
What fateful force of men iniquitous
Or deed self-willed has brought you, armed and lone,
To stand upon the broom's flower-gilded heights
And gaze across the stretch of wind and sun
On warring wastes where no man's hand is set
Compulsive o'er the unwilling growth of fields?

PELLEAS
Alas, this tale runs back among the years
And far beyond the present sight attains
Its first awakening.

GAWAINE
Yet would I hear.
I seek adventure and I strive to bring
Knighthood's redemption into creedless lands.

PELLEAS
On word there is, which shuts and opens wide
The doors of all my deeds and all my thoughts:
It is a sign wherewith to clothe my soul
In courage linked from bright security;
It is a charmèd ring, a circled rune,
A treasure-stone of wizardry -- Etarre!

GAWAINE
The name I know not, but am fain to hear
This mystic potency, enfolded deep
Within a word's soft-sounding innocence.

PELLEAS
If you would hear, and track the winding speech
Through courts of men and castles set anigh,
I have no need to hide on lying lips
The truth wherefrom my knighthood gets its shame.
So hearken: -- in the eager days long since,
I know not how far back, for memory stands
In helpless failure at the count of time
So wretched and so slow to drag away,
Perhaps ten years are flown, enough to fill
A stripling youth's advance to manly state, --
Long time, long time, how long ago it seems --

GAWAINE
Nay, well I know the adverse wind of fate
Clouds all the backward years and hides the sun
Of memory in a grey forgetfulness;
The past becomes a lost and distant land
Where once we moved and shall not move again.
But for your story. -- Speak, and tell the tale.

PELLEAS
Magic of forge and steel and crucible
Had wrought a sword; by whose hand, no one knew;
'Twas thought the workers of the hills had steeped
Their fires in incantation and had made
This sword to be a gift to mortal child,
A king's son of the western isles, who died.
Golden the hilt, alight with ruddy glow;
Thereon engraved, in token of its gift,
"The son of Ork. Be strong and hold me fast."
Now, when the king's son died, his father called
A mighty tourney in the land and set
This sword as guerdon to the winning arm.
And many came and made their name be cried
Within the tourney, and King Arthur's knights
Were gathered, ten or twelve, and Kay was there
(Him whom they call the Seneschal), Sir Tor,
And many others. So the joust was made.
Great ladies, queens and nobly born, beheld;
And one there was whose eyes were like a fire
Within my heart, and ever as I strove
Her beauty shone about me like a star,
And in mine ears I heard a crying voice,
And felt a throbbing of unmeasured strength
Which of my body made its minister
To triumph in the tourney. So I fought,
And over all prevailed.

GAWAINE
Then you are grown
A giant from the strength of lesser men;
The hard-wrought prowess of each vanquished name
Like hound that changes master comes to you
To aid you in the quest for fame, and swell
The cry of hunting.

PELLEAS
In my hands they set
The tourney's meed, the gleaming hilt of gold
That clasped the flash of steel; upon my head
The golden circlet clung. And I, forthwith,
Rode down the lists, and passed with heedless eyes
The rangèd queens, and at the shining feet
Of one more fair than kingly daughter cast
The golden circle, royal crown of love
And adoration; but with mocking hands
She flung it from her, high above the heads
Of those who sat about her, that it fell
Within the dust and turmoil of the lists.
And many there cried out with jealous speech
And wrought her shame, until I made be known
That I would prove her every act and word
Against their gathered spears: thereat they ceased.

GAWAINE
Strange tale it is, yet not too hard to read.
She loved a lesser knight and with sure strength
Spurned proffered homage of his vanquisher.

PELLEAS
Nay, in that quiet heart of hers there beats
No blood of passion. Dark indifference
With sluggish stream mounts ever in her veins.

GAWAINE
What came of this?

PELLEAS
Into her rightful land
I followed her; and there I still abide.
Against the sky of my desires and deeds
There stands, with distant battlements agleam,
The castle of Etarre, undimmed, unchanged,
While over me the seasons spend their wrath
And men work out their hate; yet I prevail.

GAWAINE
What brought you here alone and without steed?

PELLEAS
The hands of men across the thorny wild.

GAWAINE
In anger, or by your own spoken wish?

PELLEAS
In anger done, yet by another's will.

GAWAINE
Why seek to hide the need? Within a glass
I saw a knight whom other three unbound
From belly of a steed, and with rude strength
Dragged far across the barren fields of gold.

PELLEAS
Ah, I am shamed forever in your sight.

GAWAINE
True knighthood never sleeps with naked shame,
And though he share her hovel leaves therein
No children of ill fame. Your courage shines
Through all the shrouds of dark ignóminy.
Pure spirits cannot err.

PELLEAS
O noble creed,
That brings the eye to witness, not to judge
Ask what you will.

GAWAINE
I ask your present need,
And give you service of my sword and spear.

PELLEAS
Strength will not ease the tightened cord of hate,
'Tis drawn too high above an earthly reach.

GAWAINE
The sword of courage and the spear of truth
May yet avail. Who were these wretched three
And by what order moved?

PELLEAS
The self-same word:
It is a light for knowledge.

GAWAINE
Speak! Etarre?
And is it she who brings you into wrong?

PELLEAS
Because I may not live sans sight of her
I ride against her knights in mimic fray
And suffer them to make me prisoner
That I may come before my lady's eyes
To look upon her countenance and hear
The wonder of her speech. In wrath alway
She cries against me and commands her knights
To cast me into dungeon or to set
The brand of shame across my fallen shield

GAWAINE
Were those her men that wrought you this despite?

PELLEAS
Her will through others moving, cast me here.
And now the last sweet flower of hope is dead,
Trod under by her foot. The autumn grows
And winter creeps along the leafless cold,
With mortal fingers plucking branch and twig
And blowing harsh against the feeble strength
Which is the life of man and beast and flower.
My hope is dead; I shall not see it more.

GAWAINE
If hope through snow and chill of winter love
Has ever blossomed in your heart, and spread
Its balm of perfume through your wounded soul,
'Twill reach its flower once more against the sky
To catch the sunlight in its chaliced cup
And nurture trustless sorrow into confidence.

PELLEAS
This is the last; beyond this utmost bound
Nought further lies: love, life, all, all at end!
She will not suffer me her presence' grace,
But strikes me from afar with other hands.
To-day, I saw her not; her worthless knaves
Fulfilled her final anger, bringing word
More bitter than their curses and their blows.
"O fool," they said, "our lady whom we serve
Bids us to tell you that until she die
She will not look upon your loathèd form
Nor hear your wretched pleading." So they spoke,
And dragged me hither with full jest and jeer.
Accurst be all the forces in me pent
That out of shattered nody, darkened brain,
Build up anew the empery of life,
The realm with I must rule, unwilling king
Of citizens that hold me prisoner
Within the palace of my self. Have end,
O dreadful powers working in the dark;
Have end, and let me die!

GAWAINE
Nay, live, and love!
Or if you may not love, then hate; but live!
Life is a present moment, a shifting point
That moves from nothing into nothing; where it is,
There is the world, the beating pulsing world
With all its marvel of a felt design.
Stretch out your hand and snare the fleeting point;
Then have you all the world within your grasp.
Live, live, and I will aid you in your quest.

PELLEAS
What can you do? For many a month and year
I dreamed that love would waken in her breast.
A fool, I dreamed that mortal will could guide
Love the immortal, Love the uncompelled, --
From impious effort gaining due reward,
Sadness of heart, bruised limbs, and shattered faith.

GAWAINE
Is there no gentler word which I may speak?
May I not plead before her, win her heart
To softer ways and kindlier moods?

PELLEAS
In vain.

GAWAINE
May I not say she has misjudged, has scorned
That which no queen may purchase with her crown,
A lover's worship, gift of gifts?

PELLEAS
In vain.

GAWAINE
Then let us find some subtler web to catch
Her fleeting love and bring it to your lips.
If she be mortal, she shall yet be yours;
If pity stir within her, let us make
A staff of pity; if within her dwell
A woman's worship of high deeds and thoughts,
Then let us make high thoughts and deeds our scrip
To help us in our quest; if fear of death
Live in her body, death shall be our shoon
Wherewith to walk; if dreams of love
E'er stir the curtains of her sleep, then love
Shall be a cloak and clothe us from the rain.
Pity, high deeds, and love, and fear of death,
Shall be to us cloak, shoon, and scrip, and staff,
And from her we'll get alms.

PELLEAS
In vain! in vain!
You would with naked strength and covered wiles
Beget from hatred tears, from loathing love.
I tell you, not with open pomp and power
Love enters in. There is a world unseen
Wherein our passions live, and come and go
When no eye marks them. In the world of sense
Our words and deeds have puissance, and the earth
Trembles before our coming; blown with pride
We stretch our sceptres toward that other world
And lo, the wand whereat earth's kingdoms shook
Stands idle in our hand, a gilded stem.

GAWAINE
And yet Etarre shall love you; grief and fear
Are masters of the soul, and work their will.
Love is their servant; they but clap their hands
And he appears. Give me your knighthood's trust
And by my knighthood's faith I swear to you,
Etarre shall love you.

PELLEAS
O mistaken creed!
Is love a hound that walks within the leash?
Too long, too long in folly I maintained,
Seeking to win her love. Love comes not thus.
We know not when nor wherefore, we have seen
No shadow fall across our steps, nor heard
His mystic footfall; yet we raise our eyes
And lo, he stands before us, garbed in white,
Triumphant, with a light upon his brows.

GAWAINE
Nay, call him and he'll come, a willing slave.
God gave him unto men, that men might be.
Hearken and heed: your shield and helm and sword
Shall change with mine. So armed, and with a steed,
Will I approach the castle where Etarre
Holds state aloof.

PELLEAS
What then? She'll love me more
Because you hold my arms?

GAWAINE
Nay, hate you less.
Death breaks in twain the stubborn plant of wrath
And treads to earth its growth and jealous fruit;
He lays his finger on the lips of hate,
And anger stands with saddened eyes downcast
Before his presence. In the camps of war
He binds proud nations with a chain of tears,
And with a mound of earth builds emperies.
Etarre shall hear my words of bitter weal
And think you dead. Thereat her brow will change
And all her nature be suffused with grief;
Th' unshaken headland of her wrath shall sink
Within a sea of tears. With sudden ray
Illumined, she shall see life's large expanse
Move like a landless ocean, vast and void.
So will her heart be caught with sudden love
And she shall hate me, and against my name
Cry murderer. Her body's burning light
Shall languish in the sable cloth of grief,
Affliction's gloomy cloak; her cheeck shall pale
With wan reflection, like the moon that broods
Too much upon the splendour of the sun.
Then will I cry her pardon of my fault,
Confess you living, till the glad blood leap
Through all her veins and mantle in her brow.
She shall give thanks to Heaven's holy power
That held you safe; to all, she shall proclaim
You loved and dear; and she shall bid me go
To seek you out and bring you to her arms.

PELLEAS
So, with the breath of falsehood you would blow
Love, like a wooden vane that points the wind?
The gust of truth will veer it straight once more!

GAWAINE
The winds must change; the north must yield to south,
The breath of snow be melted by the spring,
And hate must falter at undoubting love.
Give me your shield and sword, and let me fare.

PELLEAS
Shall love's high course be furthered by deceit,
Blessed by false words and hastened by false wiles,
And crooked path lead straighter to the goal?

GAWAINE
Yet paths that cannot scale a naked cliff
May find soft slopes to guide a sure ascent
On other sides. What matter for the turn?
Give me your shield and sword, and let me fare.

PELLEAS
I will not. 'Tis by other ways I seek
To win her pure truth and faultless love.

GAWAINE
Are you a fisher who with straining net
Enmeshes ocean prey, and at the last
When silver fishes struggle in his grasp
Throws back his booty to the waiting sea?
The years with eyes of pity have looked down
Upon you, and in restless flight o'erhead
Paused for a moment with a prophecy
Of other years to come.

PELLEAS
And now?

GAWAINE
And now
The time is here with open-handed gift,
And you would spurn it! Oh, how vain are thoughts!
They have no more reality than mist
Which sunlight scatters: 'tis the deed that is.
Three days, and you shall lie within the clasp
Of golden arms and hear from burning lips
Love's true confessional, the marriage night.
Will you then doubt she loves you? Will you smite
Her mouth and call her lips a liar's tool
And cast her from you? What shall matter then
The means whereby we strove and wrought, and gained
This loved reality, this goal of all your thoughts?
If she be brought to love you, then she loves,
And on it there's no doubt.

PELLEAS
But in my heart
Doubt raises tumult like an angry sea.

GAWAINE
A stormless sky shall lay its waves at rest.
Etarre shall love you, by my word and truth!

PELLEAS
O fond belief, that wings the heart
As feather to a bird new-born
Wherewith to leave the nest of pain
And seek the lands of gold!
Give me your oath of knightly faith
That you are herald in this act,
Not wooer.

GAWAINE
For that jealous word
I give you pardon.
[He stretches out his hands and touches PELLEAS'
sword.]
Hilt and bar and blade
Be record of my oath; sunlight and wind
Maintain it; honour keep it fast. I swear
By Arthur's knighthood shining in the skies
Of false enchantment and black cowardice,
If I be found unfaithful, changeful, false,
May my bare through feel this unsheathèd blade,
May I be cast for ever from the light!

PELLEAS
Across despair's black-vaulted firmament
Your words have moved refulgent like a star
Which angels hurl from heaven to guide men's steps
On stormy nights through treacherous foul ways.
Words lie too lightly on the lips of man
That I with words could thank you.
[He loosens his helm.]
Take my helm,
And here my shield.

GAWAINE
The sword--?

PELLEAS
I cannot give.
"Be strong and hold me fast," so runs the rune.
Through dungeon keep, through false defeat, foul hands,
And knaves' dark roguery, the rhyme has wrought;
Unharmed the sword abides. Take shield and helm,
Therefrom the tale has evidence enough.
[FERGUS appears over the hill.]
And here at time's full flood my servant comes,
Called by the present need, -- and yet, alone;
Wherein our need is desolate. He went
To seek a mount, yet comes with empty zeal.
[FERGUS at sight of GAWAINE stops, alarmed. Reassured
by GAWAINE'S attitude and bearing, he advances.]

GAWAINE
Armed and afoot, I cannot far proceed.
Yon castle on the deep horizon's rim
Beckons and nods with greeting from afar
In vain civility. Stands nowhere nigh
Some hermitage whence I may find a steed?

PELLEAS
My man-at-arms knows well this waste of land.
He shall inform us.   [To FERGUS] So, in idle quest
You sought?

FERGUS
Sir Pelleas, the steed I found.
He waits beyond the slant of yonder rise.

PELLEAS
What mock of service have you hid herein?
I bade you lead him hither.

FERGUS
How? with wings?
He cannot mount the sudden sheer ascent;
But thither I can bear you, where he waits.

PELLEAS
Then thither lead Sir Gawaine.

FERGUS
Shall he ride
And you remain?

GAWAINE
Shall squires-at-arms protest
When knights hold counsel?

FERGUS
Good sir knight, oft time
The fool's hid wisdom guides the king aright,
The jester's bells sit steadier than the crown.
I guard my lord and master from deceit.

PELLEAS
I pray you pardon him, a faithful servant,
Who errs too much in serving and in faith.
[To FERGUS]
Sir Gawaine goes to plead before Etarre,
And win me favour.

FERGUS
Favour in love's cause
Is not a ring to slip on other's hand.
The pleader pleads but for himself.

GAWAINE
O vile,
O base earth-born, were you my serving man
Red stripes should leap across your quivering back;
The dogs should laugh at you and loll their tongues
To see you lower fallen than themselves!

PELLEAS
Sir Gawaine, pardon. Much adversity,
On me descended, has made dark his mind.
He probes forever in suspicious depths,
And where he thinks to find an enemy,
His very soul drips poison and his words
Are but the distillations of his thoughts,
The gathered fumes and acids of his brain.
He shall repent and serve you loyally.

GAWAINE
Then let me go forthwith and seek the steed,
And so depart. My helm and shield I leave
In pledged exchange. When twice the sun has set
And twice arisen, messenger shall come
And big you to the castle of Etarre.
Till then, farewell.

PELLEAS
God speed the ventured aim.

FERGUS
And you, O master, what of you alone,
Wearied and hungered on the shadeless hills?

PELLEAS
Go seek for me from distant hermitage
Another steed. By sun-down be returned
And bear my hence at last.

GAWAINE
Farewell.

PELLEAS
Farewell.
[FERGUS and GAWAINE depart.]

PELLEAS
[alone, watching the two move across the brow of the hill]
So fare, my heart's adventure, so fare well.

CURTAIN