VIVIEN.

Were I not woman, I could tell a tale.
But you are man, you well can understand
The shame that cannot be explain’d for shame.
Not one of all the drove should touch me: swine!'

Then answer'd Merlin careless of her words. • You breathe but accusation vast and vague, Spleen-born, I think, and proofless. If you know, Set up the charge you know, to stand or fall!'

And Vivien answer'd frowning wrathfully. 'O ay, what say ye to Sir Valence, him Whose kinsman left him watcher o'er his wife And two fair babes, and went to distant lands; Was one year gone, and on returning found Not two but three: there lay the reckling, one But one hour old! What said the happy sire? A seven months' babe had been a truer gift. Those twelve sweet moons confused his fatherhood.'

Then answer'd Merlin, Nay, I know the tale. Sir Valence wedded with an outland dame: Some cause had kept him sunder'd from his wife: One child they had: it lived with her: she died: His kinsman travelling on his own affair

Was charged by Valence to bring home the child. He brought, not found it therefore: take the truth.'

'O ay,' said Vivien, 'overtrue a tale. What say ye then to sweet Sir Sagramore, That ardent man? "to pluck the flower in season ;” So says the song, "I trow it is no treason. O Master, shall we call him overquick

To

crop his own sweet rose before the hour?'

And Merlin answer'd' Overquick are you To catch a lothly plume fall'n from the wing Of that foul bird of rapine whose whole prey Is man's good name: he never wrong'd his bride.

I know the tale. An angry gust of wind
Puff'd out his torch among the myriad-room'd
And many-corridor'd complexities

Of Arthur's palace: then he found a door
And darkling felt the sculptured ornament
That wreathen round it made it seem his own;
And wearied out made for the couch and slept,
A stainless man beside a stainless maid
And either slept, nor knew of other there;
Till the high dawn piercing the royal rose
In Arthur's casement glimmer'd chastely down,
Blushing upon them blushing, and at once
He rose without a word and parted from her:
But when the thing was blazed about the court,
The brute world howling forced them into bonds,
And as it chanced they are happy, being pure.'

'O ay,' said Vivien, 'that were likely too.
What say ye then to fair Sir Percivale
And of the horrid foulness that he wrought,
The saintly youth, the spotless lamb of Christ,
Or some black wether of St. Satan's fold.
What, in the precincts of the chapel-yard,
Among the knightly brasses of the graves,
And by the cold Hic Jacets of the dead!'

And Merlin answer'd careless of her charge. 'A sober man is Percivale and pure; But once in life was fluster'd with new wine, Then paced for coolness in the chapel-yard; Where one of Satan's shepherdesses caught And meant to stamp him with her master's mark;

And that he sinn'd, is not believable ;

For, look upon his face! - but if he sinn'd,

The sin that practice burns into the blood,

And not the one dark hour which brings remorse, Will brand us, after, of whose fold we be :

Or else were he, the holy king, whose hymns

Are chanted in the minster, worse than all.
But is your spleen froth'd out, or have ye more?'

And Vivien answer'd frowning yet in wrath; O ay; what say ye to Sir Lancelot, friend? Traitor or true? that commerce with the Queen, I ask you, is it clamour'd by the child,

Or whisper'd in the corner? do you know it?'

To which he answer'd sadly, 'Yea, I know it. Sir Lancelot went ambassador, at first, To fetch her, and she took him for the King; So fixt her fancy on him: let him be. But have you no one word of loyal praise For Arthur, blameless King and stainless man?'

She answer'd with a low and chuckling laugh; 'Him? is he man at all, who knows and winks? Sees what his fair bride is and does, and winks? By which the good king means to blind himself, And blinds himself and all the Table Round To all the foulness that they work. Myself Could call him (were it not for womanhood) The pretty, popular name such manhood earns, Could call him the main cause of all their crime; Yea, were he not crown'd king, coward, and fool.'

Then Merlin to his own heart, loathing, said; ' O true and tender! O my liege and king! () selfless man and stainless gentleman, Who would'st against thine own eye-witness fain Have all men true and leal, all women pure; How, in the mouths of base interpreters, From over-fineness not intelligible

To things with every sense as false and foul
As the poach'd filth that floods the middle street,
Is thy white blamelessness accounted blame!'

But Vivien deeming Merlin overborne

By instance, recommenced, and let her tongue Rage like a fire among the noblest names, Polluting, and imputing her whole self, Defaming and defacing, till she left

Not even Lancelot brave, nor Galahad clean.

Her words had issue other than she will'd. He dragg'd his eyebrow bushes down, and made A snowy penthouse for his hollow eyes, And mutter'd in himself, 'tell her the charm! So, if she had it, would she rail on me

To snare the next, and if she have it not,
So will she rail. What did the wanton say?
"Not mount as high; we scarce can sink as low
For men at most differ as Heaven and earth,
But women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.
I know the Table Round, my friends of old;
All brave, and many generous, and some chaste.
I think she cloaks the wounds of loss with lies;
I do believe she tempted them and fail'd,
She is so bitter: for fine plots may fail,
Tho' harlots paint their talk as well as face
With colours of the heart that are not theirs.
I will not let her know: nine tithes of times
Face-flatterers and backbiters are the same.
And they, sweet soul, that most impute a crime
Are pronest to it, and impute themselves,
Wanting the mental range; or low desire
Not to feel lowest makes them level all;
Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain,
To leave an equal baseness; and in this
Are harlots like the crowd, that if they find
Some stain or blemish in a name of note,
Not grieving that their greatest are so small,
Inflate themselves with some insane delight,
And judge all nature from her feet of clay,
Without the will to lift their eyes, and see
Her godlike head crown'd with spiritual fire,
And touching other words. I am weary of her.

He spoke in words part heard, in whispers part, Half-suffocated in the hoary fell

6

And many-winter'd fleece of throat and chin.
But Vivien, gathering somewhat of his mood,
And hearing harlot mutter'd twice or thrice,
Leapt from her session on his lap, and stood
Stiff as a viper frozen; loathsome sight,
How from the rosy lips of life and love,
Flash'd the bare-grinning skeleton of death!
White was her cheek; sharp breaths of anger
puff'd

Her fairy nostril out; her hand half-clench'd
Went faltering sideways downward to her belt,
And feeling; had she found a dagger there
(For in a wink the false love turns to hate)

She would have stabb'd him; but she found it not:
His eye was calm, and suddenly she took
To bitter weeping like a beaten child,
A long, long weeping, not consolable.

Then her false voice made way broken with sobs.

'O crueller than was ever told in tale,
Or sung in song! O vainly lavish'd love!
O cruel, there was nothing wild or strange,
Or seeming shameful, for what shame in love,
So love be true, and not as yours is nothing
Poor Vivien had not done to win his trust

Who call'd her what he call'd her all her crime,
Al all the wish to prove him wholly hers.'

She mused a little, and then clapt her hands Together with a wailing shriek, and said:

abb'd through the heart's affections to the heart! Seeth'd like the kid in its own mother's milk! Kill'd with a word worse than a life of blows! I thought that he was gentle, being great: O God, that I had loved a smaller man! I should have found in him a greater heart. O, I, that flattering my true passion, saw