ROSAMUND,

QUEEN OF THE LOMBARDS

A TRAGEDY

BY
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1899

PERSONS REPRESENTED

Albovine, King of the Lombards.

almachildes, a young Lombard warrior.

Narsetes, an old leader and counsellor.

Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards.

Hildegard, a noble Lombard maiden.

Scene, VERONA.

Time, June 573

ACT I.

A hall in the Palace: a curtain drawn midway across it.

Enter Albovine and Narsetes.

ALBOVINE.

This is no matter of the wars: in war
Thy king, old friend, is less than king of thine,
And comrade less than follower.  Hast thou loved
Ever—loved woman, not as chance may love,
But as thou hast loved thy sword or friend—or me?
Thou hast shewn me love more stout of heart than death.
Death quailed before thee when thou gav’st me life,
Borne down in battle.

NARSETES.

Woman?  As I love
Flowers in their season.  A rose is but a rose.

ALBOVINE.

Dost thou know rose from thistle or bindweed?  Man,
Speak as our north wind speaks, if harsh and hard—
Truth.

NARSETES.

White I know from red, and dark from bright,
And milk from blood in hawthorn-flowers: but not
Woman from woman.

ALBOVINE.

How should God our Lord,
Except his eye see further than his world?
For women ever make themselves anew,
Meseems, to match and mock the maker.  Friend,
If ever I were friend of thine in fight,
Speak, and I bid thee not speak truth: I know
Thy tongue knows nought but truth or silence.

NARSETES.

Is it
A king’s or friend’s part, king, to bid his friend
Speak what he knows not?  Speak then thou, that I
May find thy will and answer it.

ALBOVINE.

I am fain
And loth to tell thee how it wrings my heart
That now this hard-eyed heavy southern sun
Hath wrought its will upon us all a year
And yet I know not if my wife be mine.

NARSETES.

Thy meanest man at arms had known ere dawn
Blinked on his bridal birthday.

ALBOVINE.

Did I bid thee
Mock, and forget me for thy friend—I say not,
King?  Is thy heart so light and lean a thing,
So loose in faith and faint in love?  I bade thee
Stand to me, help me, hold my hand in thine
And give my heart back answer.  This it is,
Old friend and fool, that gnaws my life in twain—
The worm that writhes and feeds about my heart—
The devil and God are crying in either ear
One murderous word for ever, night and day,
Dark day and deadly night and deadly day,
Can she love thee who slewest her father?  I
Love her.

NARSETES.

Thy wife should love thee as thy sire’s
Loved him.  Thou art worth a woman—heart for heart.

ALBOVINE.

My sire’s wife loved him?  Hers he had not slain.
Would God I might but die and burn in hell
And know my love had loved me!

NARSETES.

Is thy name
Babe?  Sweet are babes as flowers that wed the sun,
But man may be not born a babe again,
And less than man may woman.  Rosamund
Stands radiant now in royal pride of place
As wife of thine and queen of Lombards—not
Cunimund’s daughter.  Hadst thou slain her sire
Shamefully, shame were thine to have sought her hand
And shame were hers to love thee: but he died
Manfully, by thy mightier hand than his
Manfully mastered.  War, born blind as fire,
Fed not as fire upon her: many a maid
As royal dies disrobed of all but shame
And even to death burnt up for shame’s sake: she
Lives, by thy grace, imperial.

ALBOVINE.

He or I,
Her lord or sire, which hath most part in her,
This hour shall try between us.

Enter Rosamund.

ROSAMUND.

Royal lord,
Thy wedded handmaid craves of thee a grace.

ALBOVINE.

My sovereign bids her bondman what she will.

ROSAMUND.

I bid thee mock me not: I may ask thee
Aught, and be heard of any save my lord.

ALBOVINE.

Go, friend.

[Exit Narsetes.]

Speak now.  Say first what ails thee?

ROSAMUND.

Me?

ALBOVINE.

Thy voice was honey-hearted music, sweet
As wine and glad as clarions: not in battle
Might man have more of joy than I to hear it
And feel delight dance in my heart and laugh
Too loud for hearing save its own.  Thou rose,
Why did God give thee more than all thy kin
Whose pride is perfume only and colour, this?
Music?  No rose but mine sings, and the birds
Hush all their hearts to hearken.  Dost thou hear not
How heavy sounds her note now?

ROSAMUND.

Sire, not I.
But sire I should not call thee.

ALBOVINE.

Surely, no.
I bade thee speak: I did not bid thee sing:
Thou canst not speak and sing not.

ROSAMUND.

Albovine,
I had at heart a simple thing to crave
And thought not on thy flatteries—as I think not
Now.  Knowest thou not my handmaid Hildegard
Free-born, a noble maiden?

ALBOVINE.

And a fair
As ever shone like sundawn on the snows.

ROSAMUND.

I had at heart to plead for her with thee.

ALBOVINE.

Plead? hast thou found her noble maidenhood
Ignobly turned unmaidenlike?  I may not
Lightly believe it.

ROSAMUND.

Believe it not at all.
Wouldst thou think shame of me—lightly?  She loves
As might a maid whose kin were northern gods
The fairest-faced of warriors Lombard born,
Thine Almachildes.