word.

HILDEGARD.

My Christ,
Help me!

ROSAMUND.

No God can break thine oath in twain
And leave thee less than perjured.  Thou must bid him
Make thee to-night his bride.

HILDEGARD.

I could not say it.

ROSAMUND.

Thou shalt, or God shall smite thee down to hell.
What, art thou godless?

HILDEGARD.

Art not thou?

ROSAMUND.

Not I.
I find him just and gracious, girl: he gives me
My right by might set fast on thine and thee.

HILDEGARD.

For love of mercy, queen—for honour’s sake,
Bid me not shame myself before a man—
The man I love—who gives me back at least
Honour, if love he gives not.

ROSAMUND.

Ay, my maid?
And yet he loves thee, or thy maiden thought
Errs with no gracious error, more than thou
Him?

HILDEGARD.

Art thou woman born, to cast me back
My maiden shame for shame upon my face?
I would not say I loved him more than man
Loved ever woman since the light of love
Lit them alive together.  Let us be.

ROSAMUND.

I will not.  Mine are both by God’s own gift.
I will not cast it from me.  Ye may live
Hereafter happy: never now shall I.

HILDEGARD.

Have mercy.  Nay, I cannot do it.  And thou,
Albeit thine heart be hot with hate as hell,
Couldst say not, nor fold round with fairer speech,
Those foul three words the Egyptian woman said
Who tempted and could tempt not Joseph.

ROSAMUND.

No.
He would not hearken.  Joseph loved not her
More than thine Almachildes me.  But thou
Shalt.  Now no more may I debate with thee.
Go.

HILDEGARD.

God requite thee!

ROSAMUND.

That shall he and I,
Not thou, make proof of.  If I plead with him,
I crave of God but wrong’s requital.  Go.

[Exit Hildegard.

And yet, God help me!  Can I do it?  God’s will
May no man thwart, or leave his righteousness
Baffled.  I would not say, ‘My will be done,’
Were God’s will not for righteousness as mine,
If right be righteous, wrong be wrong, must be.
How else may God work wrong’s requital?  I
Must be or none may be his minister.
And yet what righteousness is his to cast
Athwart my way toward right this wrong to me,
A sin against the soul and honour?  Why
Must this vile word of yet cross all my thought
Always, a drifting doom or doubt that still
Strikes up and floats against my purpose?  God,
Help me to know it!  This weapon chosen of me,
This Almachildes, were his face not fair,
Were not his fame bright—were his aspect foul,
His name dishonourable, his line through life
A loathing and a spitting-stock for scorn,
Could I do this?  Am I then even as they
Who queened it once in Rome’s abhorrent face
An empress each, and each by right of sin
Prostitute?  All the life I have lived or loved
Hath been, if snows or seas or wellsprings be,
Pure as the spirit of love toward heaven is—chaste
As children’s eyes or mothers’.  Though I sinned
As yet my soul hath sinned not, Albovine
Must bear, if God abhor unrighteousness,
The weight of penance heaviest laid on sin,
Shame.  Not on me may shame be set, though hell
Take hold upon me dying.  I would the deed
Were done, the wreak of wrath were wroken, and I
Dead.

Enter Albovine.

ALBOVINE.

Art thou sick at heart to see me?

ROSAMUND.

No.

ALBOVINE.

Thou art sweet and wise as ever God hath made
Woman.  I would not turn thine heart from me
Or set thy spirit against the sense of mine
For more than Rome’s old empire.

ROSAMUND.

That, albeit
Thou wouldst, be sure thou canst not.  God nor man
Could wake within me toward my lord the king
A new strange love or loathing.  Fear not this.

ALBOVINE.

From thee can I fear nothing.  Now I know
How high thy heart is, and how true to me.

ROSAMUND.

Thou knowest it now.

ALBOVINE.

I know not if I should
Repent me, or repent not, that I tried
A heart so high so sorely—proved so true.

ROSAMUND.

Do not repent.  I would not have thee now
Repent.

ALBOVINE.

By Christ, if God forbade it not,
I would have said within mine own fool’s heart,
Of all vile things that fool the soul of man
The vilest and the priestliest hath to name
Repentance.  Could it blot one hour’s work out,
A wise thing and a manful thing it were,
And profit were it none for priests to preach.
This will I tell thee: what last night befell
Rejoices not but irks me.

ROSAMUND.

Let it not
Rejoice nor irk thee.  Vex thou not thy soul
With any thought thereon, if none may bid thee
Rejoice: and that were harsh and hard of heart.

ALBOVINE.

I will not.  Queen and wife, hell durst not say
I do not love thee.

ROSAMUND.

Heaven has heard—and I.

ALBOVINE.

Forget then all this foolishness, and pray
God may forget it.

ROSAMUND.

God forgets as I.

[Exit Albovine.

And had repentance helped him?  Shall I think
It might have molten in my burning heart
The thrice-retempered iron of resolve?
Yet well it is to know that penitence
Lies further from that frozen heart of his
Than mercy from the tiger’s.  Ay, God knows,
I had scorned him too had penitence bowed him down
Before me: now I do but hate.  I am not
Abased as wholly, so supremely shamed,
As though I had wedded one as hard as he
Who yet might think to soften down with words
What hardly might be cleansed with tears of blood,
The monumental memory graven on steel
That burns the naked spirit of sense within me
Like the ardent sting of keen-edged ice, which makes
The naked flesh feel fire upon it.

Enter Almachildes.

ALMACHILDES.

Queen,
I come to crave a word of thee.

ROSAMUND.