Collected Plays and Stories

 

CONTENTS

 

Pre-content

 

PLAYS

THE VIZIERS OF BASSORA

 

Rodogune

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II  

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

 

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

 

 

Perseus the Deliverer

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

 

Eric

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

 

Vasavadutta

 

Incomplete and Fragmentary Plays

The Witch of Ilni

Act One

 

Act Two

 

Act Three

SCENE I

SCENE II

 

SCENE I

 

 SCENE I

SCENE II

 

The House of Brut

Act  twO

 

SCENE I

 

The Maid in the Mill

Act One

 

 

 

Act Two

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE Iii

SCENE Iv

SCENE v

 

 

 

SCENE I

 

The Prince of Edur

The Prince of Mathura

Act  One

SCENE I

 

The Birth of Sin

Act ONE

 

Fragment of a Play

Act  One

SCENE I

 

STORIES

Occult Idylls

The Phantom Hour

 The Door at Abelard

 

Incomplete and Fragmentary Stories

Fictional Jottings

Fragment of a Story

The Devil's Mastiff

The Golden Bird

 

 

Act IV

 

Swegn's fastness in the hills.

 

Scene 1

 

Swegn, Hardicnut, with soldiers.

 

SWEGN

Fight on, fight always, till the Gods are tired.

In all this dwindling remnant of the past

Desires one man to rest from virtue, cease

From desperate freedom?

 

HARDICNUT

No man wavers here.

 

SWEGN

Let him depart unhurt who so desires.

 

HARDICNUT

Why should he go and whither? To Eric's sword

That never pardoned? If our hearts were vile,

Unworthily impatient of defeat,

Serving not harassed right but chance and gain,

Eric himself would keep them true.

 

SWEGN

Not thine,

My second soul. Yet could I pardon him

Who faltered, for the blow transcends! And were

King Eric not in Yara where he dwells,

Page – 595


I would have seen his hand in this defeat,

Whose stroke is like the lightning's, silent, straight,

Not to be parried.

 

HARDICNUT

Sigurd smote, perhaps,

But Eric's brain was master of his stroke.

 

SWEGN

The traitor Sigurd! For young Eric's part

In Olaf's death, he did a warrior's act

Avenging Yarislaf and Hacon slain,

And Fate, not Eric slew. But he who, trusted, lured

Into death's ambush, when the rebel seas

Rejoicing trampled down the royal head

They once obeyed, him I will some day have

At my sword's mercy.

(to Ragnar who enters)

Ragnar, does it come,

The last assault, death's trumpets?

 

RAGNAR

Rather peace,

If thou prefer it, Swegn. An envoy comes

From Eric's army.

 

SWEGN

Ragnar, bring him in.

Ragnar goes out.

He treats victorious? When his kingdom shook,

His party faltered, then he did not treat

Nor used another envoy than his sword.

(to Gunthar who enters, escorted by Ragnar)

Earl Gunthar, welcome, —  welcome more wert thou

When loyal.

Page – 596


GUNTHAR

Ragnar, Swegn and Hardicnut,

Revolting Earls, I come from Norway's King

With peace, not menace.

 

SWEGN

Where then all these days

Behind you lurked the Northerner?

 

GUNTHAR

Thou art

In his dread shadow and in your mountain lair

Eric surrounds you.

 

SWEGN (contemptuously)

I will hear his words.

 

GUNTHAR

Eric, the King, the son of Yarislaf,

To Swegn, the Earl of Trondhjem. "I have known

The causes and the griefs that raise thee still

Against my monarchy. Thou knowest mine

That raised me against thy father, —  Hacon's death,

My mother's brother, butchered shamefully

And Yarislaf by secret sentence slain.

Elected by our peers I seized his throne.

But thou, against thy country's ancient laws

Rebelling, hast preferred for judge the sword.

Respect then the tribunal of thy choice

And its decision. Why electest thou

In thy drear fastness on the wintry hills

To perish? Trondhjem's earldom shall be thine,

And honours and wealth and state, if thou accept

The offer of thy lenient gods. Consider,

O Swegn, thy country's wounds, perceive at last

Thy good and ours, prolong thy father's house."

I expect thy answer.

 

Page – 597


SWEGN

I return to him

His proffered mercy. Let him keep it safe

For his own later use.

 

GUNTHAR

Thou speakest high.

What help hast thou? what hope? what god concealed?

 

SWEGN

I have the snow for friend and, if it fails,

The arms of death are broad enough for Swegn,

But not subjection.

 

GUNTHAR

For their sake thou lov'st,

Thy wife's and sister's, yield.

 

RAGNAR

Thou art not wise.

This was much better left unsaid.

 

SWEGN

It seems

Your pastime to insult the seed of Kings. Yet why

Am I astonished if triumphant mud

Conceives that the pure heavens are of its stuff

And nature? To the upstart I shall yield,

The fortune-fed adventurer, the boy

Favoured by the ironic Gods? Since fell

By Sigurd's treachery and Eric's fate

In resonant battle on the narrow seas

Olaf, his children had convinced the world,

I thought, of their great origin. Men have said,

"Their very women have souls too great to cry

For mercy even from the Gods." His Fates

Are strong indeed when they compel our race

Page – 598


To hear such terms from his! Go, tell thy King,

Swegn of the ancient house rejects his boons.

Not terms between us stand, but wrath, but blood.

I would have flayed him on a golden cross

And kept his women for my household thralls,

Had I prevailed. Can he not do as much

That he must chaffer and market Norway's crown?

These are the ways of Kings, strong, terrible

And arrogant, full of sovereignty and might.

Force in a King's his warrant from the Gods.

By force and not by bribes and managements

Empires are founded! But your chief was born

Of huckstering earls who lived by prudent gains.

How should he imitate a royal flight

Or learn the leap of Kings upon their prey?

 

GUNTHAR

Swegn Olafson, thou speakest fatal words.

Where lodge thy wife and sister? Dost thou know?

 

HARDICNUT

Too far for Eric's reach.

 

GUNTHAR

Earl, art thou sure?

 

SWEGN

What means this question?

 

GUNTHAR

That the Gods are strong

Whom thou in vain despisest, that they have dragged

From Sweden into Eric's dangerous hands

Hertha and Aslaug, that the evil thou speakst

Was fatally by hostile Powers inspired.

 

Page – 599


SWEGN

Thou liest! They are safe and with the Swede.

 

GUNTHAR

I pardon thy alarm the violent word.

Earl Swegn, canst thou not see the dreadful Gods

Have chosen earth's mightiest man to do their will?

What is that will but Norway's unity

And Norway's greatness? Canst thou do the work?

Look round on Norway by a boy subdued,

The steed that even Olaf could not tame

See turn obedient to an unripe hand.

Behold him with a single petty pace

Possessing Sweden. Sweden once subdued,

Thinkst thou the ships that crowd the Northern seas

Will stay there? Shall not Britain shake, Erin

Pray loudly that the tempest rather choose

The fields of Gaul? Scythia shall own our yoke,

The Volga's frozen waves endure our march,

Unless the young god's fancy rose-ensnared

To Italian joys attracted amorously

Should long for sunnier realms or lead his high

Exultant mind to lord in eastern Rome.

What art thou but a pebble in his march?

Consider, then, and change thy fierce response.

 

HARDICNUT

Deceives the lie they tell, thy reason, Swegn?

Earl Gunthar may believe, who even can think

That Yarislaf begot a god!

 

SWEGN

Gunthar,

I have my fortune, thou thy answer. Go.

 

GUNTHAR

I pity, Swegn, thy rash and obstinate soul.

He goes out.

Page – 600


SWEGN

Aslaug would scorn me yielding, even now

And even for her. He has unnerved my will,

The subtle tyrant! O, if this be true,

My Fate has wandered into Eric's camp,

My soul is made his prisoner. Friends, prepare

Resistance; he's the thunderbolt that strikes

And threatens only afterwards. It is

Our ultimate battle.

 

HARDICNUT

On the difficult rocks

We will oppose King Eric and his gods.

Page – 601


Scene 2

 

Swegn with his earls and followers in flight.

 

SWEGN

Swift, swift into the higher snows, where Winter

Eternal can alone of universal things

Take courage against Eric to defend

His enemies. O you little remnant left

Of many heroes, save yourselves for Fate.

She yet may need you when she finds the man

She lifts perpetually, too great at last

Even for her handling.

 

HARDICNUT

Ragnar, go with him,

While I stand here to hinder the pursuit

Or warn in time. Fear not for me, assailed.

Leave, Ragnar, leave me; I am tired at last.

All go out upward except Hardicnut.

Here then you reach me on these snows. O if my death

Could yet persuade indignant Heaven to change

[Scene incomplete]

Page – 602