Fairy of the Lake, The - Scene 2
SCENE II. A hanging Wood on the borders of a little Stream.
Enter Incubus , Shaking his fingers and rubbing his hands. Who-o-o-o! what a poor undone devil am I! When I am freezing and dangling on the eves of Hela's palace, I do nothing but sigh and pray that my nechromantic mistress, here, or some other of my terrestrial employers would be kind enough to stand in need of my assistance, and give me a blind-man's holiday, in this warmer atmosphere; yet here have I been wandering only two or three hours, and the frost in my joints is converted into so horrible a hot-ache, that I begin to wish my icicleship held remained undisturbed, in the pure state of subterranean congelation, where The Giants of Frost had fixed me. But the worst is, the night is almost spent, and my task not completed. A precious cataplasm will be clapped to my sores, I'll warrant, if I descend to Nislheim again with an imperfect account of my mission.
A plague o'that drunken desperado, Tristram! one by one, I have nabbed all the rest; and laid the whole Round Table (knights, squires, and all) as quiet as Mead and Wassail ever laid them at high festival: but Lok himself (the father of all mischief) cannot get that dragon-eater out of the reach of Arthur's enchanted sword: to hazard the vengeance of which requires a little more of the fool-valiant than belongs to any devil of my kidney. — But hold! — — — A plague on all blunderers! How came I not to think of that before? What sort of an angler, for a devil, must I be, when a Welchman was to be caught, not to think of Cwrw? — — — Cwrw!! Cwrw!!! — — — Cwrw!!!!!! — — — But here they come. Bo-peep's the word, and then to my last shift.
Enter A RTHUR ; and T RISTRAM , drunk, with a cag.
Arthur. Distraction! furies! whether do we rove?
On what enchanted region have we trod,
Beset with hellish fiends? Mine eyes deceive —
This is not Lunvey. These are not the groves
Where once, with songs prophetic, o'er my head
The ministering fairies danc'd, touching my lips
With charm of sweetest numbers, and my limbs
(Yet in their infant swathes) with iron force
Nerving resistless. Or, if such it be,
The Saxon Demons o'er the Isle prevail,
And our Good Spirits leave us.
Tristram (turning up his cag.) Spirits! O, yes, your honour's highness! — our spirits are all gone; that's certain. Here it is, your honour's highness! Round and sleek: — just the same big belly it set out with. But it's delivered your honour's highness! fairly delivered; and so there's an end to our deliverance.
Hollow! hollow! (knocking against it with his knuckles) — Hollow as a false friend, who preaches and moralises when Necessity is at the door: and then he rings, just like this — all his swelling words being nothing but emptiness!
Ar. Oh! Guenever! Guenever! At such a time!
They could not all desert me. Dastards all!
Chieftains renown'd for hardiest enterprise
Turn dastards on the spur? — — — I'll not believe it.
Trist. No, your honour's highness! nor little. Tristram neither: any more than he'll believe that his costrel is a perpetual spring: and that it is not, there is heavy proof in all this lightness. (Throwing it up and catching it.) Light! light! — Light as a Courtier's promise — or a Court Lady's morals. — O that a light costrel and a dark destiny should go thus together. — (As he is tossing the Costrel about he tumbles.) Seated your honour's highness! — Seated! — But what signifies seating now? The round table (placing the cag before him) — ah! your honour's highness! The round table is quite empty.
Ar. Significant drunkard! dost thou make a scoff
And jest of my afflictions?
Trist. O Lord! your honour's highness! quite the contrary. Moralising, your honour — moralising. Inspired! — spiritualised! — What were good liquor good for, if it did not put good thoughts into one's head?
Ar. It is enchantment all. Demoniac spells
Have snar'd their feet, and Hell's suborned fiends
Have with incestuous Vortigern conspir'd
To mock my high-rais'd hopes: Oh! sacred wax!
Grav'd with the sweetest words, by fairest hands —
And yet how terrible! — — — Dear, direful proof
Of chastest constancy! — — — This night — this night —
With such a cause to charm them to their oaths
Could they have fled, like recreants?
Trist. Fl-e-ed! O yes, your honour's highness; flown, I'll answer for them: but it was at second hand, as they trot when they ride o' cockhorse. I'll swear by a full costrel — (for it would be but an empty oath to swear by a costrel that was not full — and would shew me, as it were, to be but a 'squire of hollow faith) I saw the Devil fly away with half a dozen of them. I suppose if it had not been for my Guardian Spirit (lifting up the cag) I should have known myself what sort of a poney His Devilship is. And then — ha! ha! ha! ha!
Ar. Peace, babbling Jester! Art thou too possest?
Trist. Ho! ho! ho! I beg pardon, your honour's highness — but i'faith I can't help laughing, to think — ha! ha! ha! if the Devil had laid hold of me, what a figure I should have made, charioteering between a pair of sooty wings, with two great horns in my hands, by way of reins, and a huge pair of saucer eyes before me, for lanthorns. — Ho! ho! ho! — What a dash!
Ar. (still grasping The Tablets, and gazing upon them with encreased emotion.) This night — this night —
The last permitted to the anxious calm
Of Innocence unviolate! — This Night
That, midst the curtain'd silence, still shall talk
Of its successor's horrors — of the hour
When the foul father lover (so decreed)
Flush'd from the riotous banquet — lust enflam'd! —
Inebriate to incest! — — — Hell is there! —
" This night, this night! — all means of death remov'd,
" (The last poor respite tears and prayers could gain)
" I give to thoughts of Thee, and to those vows
" Of chastest love inviolate we pledg'd
" On Usk's remember'd banks. This night (yet pure)
" I dare to think I am Arthur's. All beyond —
" All if Gwrtheyrnion's walls — — — But haste and save!
" Haste with thy Warrior Knights — Oh! that this breath,
" That never flows but to wing prayers to Heaven
" For thee and for thy safety — that this breath — — —
" But worse impends — Worse to thy heart — to mine!
" — To mine! — Oh! persecuting Heaven! that aught
" Than Arthur's safety — Arthur's sacred life
" Can be more precious to the shuddering heart
" Of his disastrous. Guenever! "
Despair! — — —
" But haste and save! Haste with thy warrior knights! "
Alas! where are they? Ho! ye recreants, ho! — — —
Follow me. Once again, with hopeless search,
Thro the night-thickened labyrinths let us wind,
Wakening the sullen Echoes; if perforce,
With their reverberate aid, our shouts may reach
The chance-bewilder'd straglers — — — if but Chance,
Not Hell, or souler Treachery, have sapt
Their faith till now undoubted. — Ho! what ho!
My Guenever! — disastrous Guenever!
Trist. Oh! my Costrel! — — — my sweet, lovely — — — poor, miserable, empty Costrel!
Aye — There's the Devil! But for that, the adventure would not yet be desperate. There would still be three of us — the redoubtable Tristram, the puissant Arthur, and the all-conquering Cwrw: and what could stand before us? — Caer Gwrtheyrnion? — Pho! — nor all the Cares in the universe. Why we should'n't care for Pandemonium itself. We'd storm old Belzebub in his grand keep; and make a rareeshow of all his family.
Send us, ye Guardian Angels! send us but a costrel of Cwrw! of C — W — R — W. Fal de rol de rol, de ra ra, lol lol!
Bawh! What have we here? Ho! ho! a cask! a cask. — The prayers of the drunken shall be heard; for they pray in The Spirit. But what is this? — Some magical inscription I suppose. O thou universal lamplightress, — thou that see'st many a thing that thy elder brother, the Sun, never dreamt of! — lend me thy spectacles awhile, that I may spell. C — W — R — W — Cwrw! ! — Spell, indeed — What are your Runic Rhymes, your Riddles, your Pharmaceutrias — your Cabals, your Abracadaberas, to the magical combination of C — W — R — W?
Of spells you may talk,
Writ in ink, blood, or chalk,
With which Wizzard and Witch have to do;
But each Welchman can tell
That there never was spell
Like C — W — R — W! Fal de rol. &c.
With this spell, I'll be bound
To make Nature spin round,
As our boys with their whip-tops can do;
And the world all so scurvy
I'd turn topsyturvy
With C — W — R — W. Fal de rol! &c.
Inspir'd — Inspir'd! If it be but as potent to valour as to verse, the business is done. — And where's the doubt? What but Cwrw was it, that produced so many famous heroes of antiquity, from Nimrod to Jack the Giant Killer.
O, ye heroes renown'd
Who fought all the world round —
O! ye Caesars, and fam'd Alexanders!
Pray how had ye thriv'd,
If of Cwrw depriv'd?
Faith you'ad been just as valiant as ganders.
Fal de rol! &c.
If a second you want,
Then, each foeman to daunt,
Then, I'll tell you, my boy, what to do;
Never fear to depend
On the Welchman's best friend,
On C — W — R — W. Fal de rol! &c.
Bravo! bravo, little Tristram! One draught of this genuine water of the muses, and thou wilt eclipse all the Knights of the Round Table, and bear away the prize, in the bardic circles, from Taliessin himself. But how to get at it? Oh! A spile! — A spile! — I'll answer for it then it shall not be spoiled. (Pulls out the spile, and the ale begins to run.) Genuine! genuine! entire! I'll be sworn. A choice drop out of the celestial cellar; brewed by my Guardian Angel for his own private drinking. Let me take it devoutly. (Kneeling) Now, now shall I be famous, or the devil is in it.
Inc. Aye, and in it he is: little as you might expect it.
Trist. (Shivering.) Who-o-o-who are you, and be-e hanged to you?
Inc. A devil.
Trist. The-e-e devil you are. Wha-a-at the devil makes my teeth chatter so then? In such hands, I should have expected to be frying in my own grease.
Inc. Aye, that's because you don't know what sort of devil you have to deal with, my little Tristram. I am none of your bon-fire devils come to entertain you with squibs and crackers, and birth-day rockets and illuminations: but a good thorough icicle devil, from the regions of Hela: where I have been freezing, under the North Pole, for more than half a century.
Trist. Fre-e-e-ezing with a ve-e-e-engeance! Zounds I am fro-o-o-o-ozen too. I-i-i-i- — can't get to my sw-o-o-o-ord.
Ar-r-r r-Arthur! Inc.
Vainly you for Arthur call:
Your very words are frozen all:
They shall never reach his ear. Trist.
Ar-r-r-r Arthur! Arthur! co-o-o-ome away.
I am lo-o o-o-lost if yo-u-u-u delay. Inc.
Trust me he shall never hear.
Your words are frozen. Trist.
So-o-o-o I — — — fear. Inc.
Thus upon my prey I seize. Trist.
I freeze — I freeze — I fre-e-eze!
Ar-r-r Arthur! — Ar-r-r Arthur. Inc.
'Tis in vain. Your lungs you strain. Trist.
I-i-i-i — I see it plain. Inc.
Vassal hind! Your voice I bind — Trist.
S o-o-o-o I find — Inc.
In Vindsualer's icy chain Trist.
W-w-w-w-wind! wind swallow!
Cold and hollow! Inc.
Grim Vindsualer! Winter's sire! Trist.
Ar-r-r-r Arthur! Arthur! O-o-o-oh! a fire! Inc.
'Tis in vain; Fruitless pain; Thus to strain.
Arthur, Arthur cannot hear. Trist.
So-o-o-o-o I fear. Inc. It is clear.
So, little Tristram? come you here.
My potent mistress thus to please,
Upon my shivering prey I seize. Trist.
I fre-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-eze!
Re-enter A RTHUR .
Tristram! Tristram! — Art thou also gone?
Vanish'd thro air? or swallow'd by the earth?
The last of all my host! Infernal fiends!
Are there no means to reach ye? Out good sword!
Whose tenfold temper, steep'd in mystic dews
By the fair regent of Savadan's lake,
No goblin spell resists. On stocks and stones,
And each ambiguous thing my eyes shall meet,
I'll try its force. If chance some lurking fiend
Start up reveal'd; ere now this arm, unstaid,
Hath tam'd such foes, and to their hostile hell
Dismiss'd them howling. Nerve it now, ye powers
Who smile on virgin innocence. I strike
In Nature's cause; for love and Guenever!
Enter Incubus , Shaking his fingers and rubbing his hands. Who-o-o-o! what a poor undone devil am I! When I am freezing and dangling on the eves of Hela's palace, I do nothing but sigh and pray that my nechromantic mistress, here, or some other of my terrestrial employers would be kind enough to stand in need of my assistance, and give me a blind-man's holiday, in this warmer atmosphere; yet here have I been wandering only two or three hours, and the frost in my joints is converted into so horrible a hot-ache, that I begin to wish my icicleship held remained undisturbed, in the pure state of subterranean congelation, where The Giants of Frost had fixed me. But the worst is, the night is almost spent, and my task not completed. A precious cataplasm will be clapped to my sores, I'll warrant, if I descend to Nislheim again with an imperfect account of my mission.
A plague o'that drunken desperado, Tristram! one by one, I have nabbed all the rest; and laid the whole Round Table (knights, squires, and all) as quiet as Mead and Wassail ever laid them at high festival: but Lok himself (the father of all mischief) cannot get that dragon-eater out of the reach of Arthur's enchanted sword: to hazard the vengeance of which requires a little more of the fool-valiant than belongs to any devil of my kidney. — But hold! — — — A plague on all blunderers! How came I not to think of that before? What sort of an angler, for a devil, must I be, when a Welchman was to be caught, not to think of Cwrw? — — — Cwrw!! Cwrw!!! — — — Cwrw!!!!!! — — — But here they come. Bo-peep's the word, and then to my last shift.
Enter A RTHUR ; and T RISTRAM , drunk, with a cag.
Arthur. Distraction! furies! whether do we rove?
On what enchanted region have we trod,
Beset with hellish fiends? Mine eyes deceive —
This is not Lunvey. These are not the groves
Where once, with songs prophetic, o'er my head
The ministering fairies danc'd, touching my lips
With charm of sweetest numbers, and my limbs
(Yet in their infant swathes) with iron force
Nerving resistless. Or, if such it be,
The Saxon Demons o'er the Isle prevail,
And our Good Spirits leave us.
Tristram (turning up his cag.) Spirits! O, yes, your honour's highness! — our spirits are all gone; that's certain. Here it is, your honour's highness! Round and sleek: — just the same big belly it set out with. But it's delivered your honour's highness! fairly delivered; and so there's an end to our deliverance.
Hollow! hollow! (knocking against it with his knuckles) — Hollow as a false friend, who preaches and moralises when Necessity is at the door: and then he rings, just like this — all his swelling words being nothing but emptiness!
Ar. Oh! Guenever! Guenever! At such a time!
They could not all desert me. Dastards all!
Chieftains renown'd for hardiest enterprise
Turn dastards on the spur? — — — I'll not believe it.
Trist. No, your honour's highness! nor little. Tristram neither: any more than he'll believe that his costrel is a perpetual spring: and that it is not, there is heavy proof in all this lightness. (Throwing it up and catching it.) Light! light! — Light as a Courtier's promise — or a Court Lady's morals. — O that a light costrel and a dark destiny should go thus together. — (As he is tossing the Costrel about he tumbles.) Seated your honour's highness! — Seated! — But what signifies seating now? The round table (placing the cag before him) — ah! your honour's highness! The round table is quite empty.
Ar. Significant drunkard! dost thou make a scoff
And jest of my afflictions?
Trist. O Lord! your honour's highness! quite the contrary. Moralising, your honour — moralising. Inspired! — spiritualised! — What were good liquor good for, if it did not put good thoughts into one's head?
Ar. It is enchantment all. Demoniac spells
Have snar'd their feet, and Hell's suborned fiends
Have with incestuous Vortigern conspir'd
To mock my high-rais'd hopes: Oh! sacred wax!
Grav'd with the sweetest words, by fairest hands —
And yet how terrible! — — — Dear, direful proof
Of chastest constancy! — — — This night — this night —
With such a cause to charm them to their oaths
Could they have fled, like recreants?
Trist. Fl-e-ed! O yes, your honour's highness; flown, I'll answer for them: but it was at second hand, as they trot when they ride o' cockhorse. I'll swear by a full costrel — (for it would be but an empty oath to swear by a costrel that was not full — and would shew me, as it were, to be but a 'squire of hollow faith) I saw the Devil fly away with half a dozen of them. I suppose if it had not been for my Guardian Spirit (lifting up the cag) I should have known myself what sort of a poney His Devilship is. And then — ha! ha! ha! ha!
Ar. Peace, babbling Jester! Art thou too possest?
Trist. Ho! ho! ho! I beg pardon, your honour's highness — but i'faith I can't help laughing, to think — ha! ha! ha! if the Devil had laid hold of me, what a figure I should have made, charioteering between a pair of sooty wings, with two great horns in my hands, by way of reins, and a huge pair of saucer eyes before me, for lanthorns. — Ho! ho! ho! — What a dash!
Ar. (still grasping The Tablets, and gazing upon them with encreased emotion.) This night — this night —
The last permitted to the anxious calm
Of Innocence unviolate! — This Night
That, midst the curtain'd silence, still shall talk
Of its successor's horrors — of the hour
When the foul father lover (so decreed)
Flush'd from the riotous banquet — lust enflam'd! —
Inebriate to incest! — — — Hell is there! —
" This night, this night! — all means of death remov'd,
" (The last poor respite tears and prayers could gain)
" I give to thoughts of Thee, and to those vows
" Of chastest love inviolate we pledg'd
" On Usk's remember'd banks. This night (yet pure)
" I dare to think I am Arthur's. All beyond —
" All if Gwrtheyrnion's walls — — — But haste and save!
" Haste with thy Warrior Knights — Oh! that this breath,
" That never flows but to wing prayers to Heaven
" For thee and for thy safety — that this breath — — —
" But worse impends — Worse to thy heart — to mine!
" — To mine! — Oh! persecuting Heaven! that aught
" Than Arthur's safety — Arthur's sacred life
" Can be more precious to the shuddering heart
" Of his disastrous. Guenever! "
Despair! — — —
" But haste and save! Haste with thy warrior knights! "
Alas! where are they? Ho! ye recreants, ho! — — —
Follow me. Once again, with hopeless search,
Thro the night-thickened labyrinths let us wind,
Wakening the sullen Echoes; if perforce,
With their reverberate aid, our shouts may reach
The chance-bewilder'd straglers — — — if but Chance,
Not Hell, or souler Treachery, have sapt
Their faith till now undoubted. — Ho! what ho!
My Guenever! — disastrous Guenever!
Trist. Oh! my Costrel! — — — my sweet, lovely — — — poor, miserable, empty Costrel!
Aye — There's the Devil! But for that, the adventure would not yet be desperate. There would still be three of us — the redoubtable Tristram, the puissant Arthur, and the all-conquering Cwrw: and what could stand before us? — Caer Gwrtheyrnion? — Pho! — nor all the Cares in the universe. Why we should'n't care for Pandemonium itself. We'd storm old Belzebub in his grand keep; and make a rareeshow of all his family.
Send us, ye Guardian Angels! send us but a costrel of Cwrw! of C — W — R — W. Fal de rol de rol, de ra ra, lol lol!
Bawh! What have we here? Ho! ho! a cask! a cask. — The prayers of the drunken shall be heard; for they pray in The Spirit. But what is this? — Some magical inscription I suppose. O thou universal lamplightress, — thou that see'st many a thing that thy elder brother, the Sun, never dreamt of! — lend me thy spectacles awhile, that I may spell. C — W — R — W — Cwrw! ! — Spell, indeed — What are your Runic Rhymes, your Riddles, your Pharmaceutrias — your Cabals, your Abracadaberas, to the magical combination of C — W — R — W?
Of spells you may talk,
Writ in ink, blood, or chalk,
With which Wizzard and Witch have to do;
But each Welchman can tell
That there never was spell
Like C — W — R — W! Fal de rol. &c.
With this spell, I'll be bound
To make Nature spin round,
As our boys with their whip-tops can do;
And the world all so scurvy
I'd turn topsyturvy
With C — W — R — W. Fal de rol! &c.
Inspir'd — Inspir'd! If it be but as potent to valour as to verse, the business is done. — And where's the doubt? What but Cwrw was it, that produced so many famous heroes of antiquity, from Nimrod to Jack the Giant Killer.
O, ye heroes renown'd
Who fought all the world round —
O! ye Caesars, and fam'd Alexanders!
Pray how had ye thriv'd,
If of Cwrw depriv'd?
Faith you'ad been just as valiant as ganders.
Fal de rol! &c.
If a second you want,
Then, each foeman to daunt,
Then, I'll tell you, my boy, what to do;
Never fear to depend
On the Welchman's best friend,
On C — W — R — W. Fal de rol! &c.
Bravo! bravo, little Tristram! One draught of this genuine water of the muses, and thou wilt eclipse all the Knights of the Round Table, and bear away the prize, in the bardic circles, from Taliessin himself. But how to get at it? Oh! A spile! — A spile! — I'll answer for it then it shall not be spoiled. (Pulls out the spile, and the ale begins to run.) Genuine! genuine! entire! I'll be sworn. A choice drop out of the celestial cellar; brewed by my Guardian Angel for his own private drinking. Let me take it devoutly. (Kneeling) Now, now shall I be famous, or the devil is in it.
Inc. Aye, and in it he is: little as you might expect it.
Trist. (Shivering.) Who-o-o-who are you, and be-e hanged to you?
Inc. A devil.
Trist. The-e-e devil you are. Wha-a-at the devil makes my teeth chatter so then? In such hands, I should have expected to be frying in my own grease.
Inc. Aye, that's because you don't know what sort of devil you have to deal with, my little Tristram. I am none of your bon-fire devils come to entertain you with squibs and crackers, and birth-day rockets and illuminations: but a good thorough icicle devil, from the regions of Hela: where I have been freezing, under the North Pole, for more than half a century.
Trist. Fre-e-e-ezing with a ve-e-e-engeance! Zounds I am fro-o-o-o-ozen too. I-i-i-i- — can't get to my sw-o-o-o-ord.
Ar-r-r r-Arthur! Inc.
Vainly you for Arthur call:
Your very words are frozen all:
They shall never reach his ear. Trist.
Ar-r-r-r Arthur! Arthur! co-o-o-ome away.
I am lo-o o-o-lost if yo-u-u-u delay. Inc.
Trust me he shall never hear.
Your words are frozen. Trist.
So-o-o-o I — — — fear. Inc.
Thus upon my prey I seize. Trist.
I freeze — I freeze — I fre-e-eze!
Ar-r-r Arthur! — Ar-r-r Arthur. Inc.
'Tis in vain. Your lungs you strain. Trist.
I-i-i-i — I see it plain. Inc.
Vassal hind! Your voice I bind — Trist.
S o-o-o-o I find — Inc.
In Vindsualer's icy chain Trist.
W-w-w-w-wind! wind swallow!
Cold and hollow! Inc.
Grim Vindsualer! Winter's sire! Trist.
Ar-r-r-r Arthur! Arthur! O-o-o-oh! a fire! Inc.
'Tis in vain; Fruitless pain; Thus to strain.
Arthur, Arthur cannot hear. Trist.
So-o-o-o-o I fear. Inc. It is clear.
So, little Tristram? come you here.
My potent mistress thus to please,
Upon my shivering prey I seize. Trist.
I fre-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-eze!
Re-enter A RTHUR .
Tristram! Tristram! — Art thou also gone?
Vanish'd thro air? or swallow'd by the earth?
The last of all my host! Infernal fiends!
Are there no means to reach ye? Out good sword!
Whose tenfold temper, steep'd in mystic dews
By the fair regent of Savadan's lake,
No goblin spell resists. On stocks and stones,
And each ambiguous thing my eyes shall meet,
I'll try its force. If chance some lurking fiend
Start up reveal'd; ere now this arm, unstaid,
Hath tam'd such foes, and to their hostile hell
Dismiss'd them howling. Nerve it now, ye powers
Who smile on virgin innocence. I strike
In Nature's cause; for love and Guenever!
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