Mary Stuart
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
Mary Stuart
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Mary Stuart
A Tragedy
anti men extras glosshs extra
glossa teleisto toypeilomenon
prassoysa dikh megA aytei
anti de plhghs ponias ponian
plhghn tineto drasanti patein,
trigeron mytos tade ponei.
Æsch. Cho. 309-315.
I dedicate this play,
No longer, as the first part of the trilogy
Which it completes was dedicated,
To the greatest exile, but simply
To the greatest man of France:
To the chief of living poets:
To the first dramatist of his age:
To my beloved and revered master
Victor Hugo
Dramatis Personæ
Mary Stuart.
Mary Beaton.
Queen Elizabeth.
Barbara Mowbray.
Lord Burghley.
Sir Francis Walsingham.
William Davison.
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury.
Earl of Kent.
Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon.
Sir Christopher Hatton.
Sir Thomas Bromley, Lord Chancellor.
Popham, Attorney-General.
Egerton, Solicitor-General.
Gawdy, the Queen's Sergeant.
Sir Amyas Paulet.
Sir Drew Drury.
Sir Thomas Gorges.
Sir William Wade.
Sir Andrew Melville.
Robert Beale, Clerk of the Council.
Curle and Nau, Secretaries to the Queen of Scots.
Gorion, her Apothecary.
Father John Ballard,
Anthony Babington,
Chidiock Tichborne,
John Savage,
Charles Tilney,
Edward Abington,
Thomas Salisbury,
Robert Barnwell,
Conspirators.
Thomas Phillipps, Secretary to Walsingham.
M. De Châteauneuf.
M. De Bellièvre.
Commissioners, Privy Councillors, Sheriffs, Citizens, Officers, and Attendants.
Time – From August 14, 1586, to February 18, 1587.
Act I
Anthony Babington
Scene I. Babington's Lodging: A Veiled Picture on the Wall
Enter Babington, Tichborne, Tilney, Abington, Salisbury, and Barnwell.
BABINGTON.
Welcome, good friends, and welcome this good day
That casts out hope and brings in certainty
To turn raw spring to summer. Now not long
The flower that crowns the front of all our faiths
Shall bleach to death in prison; now the trust
That took the night with fire as of a star
Grows red and broad as sunrise in our sight
Who held it dear and desperate once, now sure,
But not more dear, being surer. In my hand
I hold this England and her brood, and all
That time out of the chance of all her fate
Makes hopeful or makes fearful: days and years,
Triumphs and changes bred for praise or shame
From the unborn womb of these unknown, are ours
That stand yet noteless here; ours even as God's
Who puts them in our hand as his, to wield
And shape to service godlike. None of you
But this day strikes out of the scroll of death
And writes apart immortal; what we would,
That have we; what our fathers, brethren, peers,
Bled and beheld not, died and might not win,
That may we see, touch, handle, hold it fast,
May take to bind our brows with. By my life,
I think none ever had such hap alive
As ours upon whose plighted lives are set
The whole good hap and evil of the state
And of the Church of God and world of men
And fortune of all crowns and creeds that hang
Now on the creed and crown of this our land,
To bring forth fruit to our resolve, and bear
What sons to time it please us; whose mere will
Is father of the future.
TILNEY.
Have you said?
BABINGTON.
I cannot say too much of so much good.
TILNEY.
Say nothing then a little, and hear one while:
Your talk struts high and swaggers loud for joy,
And safely may perchance, or may not, here;
But why to-day we know not.
BABINGTON.
No, I swear,
Ye know not yet, no man of us but one,
No man on earth; one woman knows, and I,
I that best know her the best begot of man
And noblest; no king born so kingly-souled,
Nor served of such brave servants.
TICHBORNE.
What, as we?
BABINGTON.
Is there one vein in one of all our hearts
That is not blown aflame as fire with air
With even the thought to serve her? and, by God,
They that would serve had need be bolder found
Than common kings find servants.
SALISBURY.
Well, your cause?
What need or hope has this day's heat brought forth
To blow such fire up in you?
BABINGTON.
Hark you, sirs;
The time is come, ere I shall speak of this,
To set again the seal on our past oaths
And bind their trothplight faster than it is
With one more witness; not for shameful doubt,
But love and perfect honour. Gentlemen,
Whose souls are brethren sealed and sworn to mine,
Friends that have taken on your hearts and hands
The selfsame work and weight of deed as I,
Look on this picture; from its face to-day
Thus I pluck off the muffled mask, and bare
Its likeness and our purpose. Ay, look here;
None of these faces but are friends of each,
None of these lips unsworn to all the rest,
None of these hands unplighted. Know ye not
What these have bound their souls to? and myself,
I that stand midmost painted here of all,
Have I not right to wear of all this ring
The topmost flower of danger? Who but I
Should crown and close this goodly circle up
Of friends I call my followers? There ye stand,
Fashioned all five in likeness of mere life,
Just your own shapes, even all the man but speech,
As in a speckless mirror; Tichborne, thou,
My nearest heart and brother next in deed,
Then Abington, there Salisbury, Tilney there,
And Barnwell, with the brave bright Irish eye
That burns with red remembrance of the blood
Seen drenching those green fields turned brown and grey
Where fire can burn not faith out, nor the sword
That hews the boughs off lop the root there set
To spread in spite of axes. Friends, take heed;
These are not met for nothing here in show
Nor for poor pride set forth and boastful heart
To make dumb brag of the undone deed, and wear
The ghost and mockery of a crown unearned
Before their hands have wrought it for their heads
Out of a golden danger, glorious doubt,
An act incomparable, by all time's mouths
To be more blessed and cursed than all deeds done
In this swift fiery world of ours, that drives
On such hot wheels toward evil goals or good,
And desperate each as other; but that each,
Seeing here himself and knowing why here, may set
His whole heart's might on the instant work, and hence
Pass as a man rechristened, bathed anew
And swordlike tempered from the touch that turns
Dull iron to the two-edged fang of steel
Made keen as fire by water; so, I say,
Let this dead likeness of you wrought with hands
Whereof ye wist not, working for mine end
Even as ye gave them work, unwittingly,
Quicken with life your vows and purposes
To rid the beast that troubles all the world
Out of men's sight and God's. Are ye not sworn
Or stand not ready girt at perilous need
To strike under the cloth of state itself
The very heart we hunt for?
TICHBORNE.
Let not then
Too high a noise of hound and horn give note
How hot the hunt is on it, and ere we shoot
Startle the royal quarry; lest your cry
Give tongue too loud on such a trail, and we
More piteously be rent of our own hounds
Than he that went forth huntsman too, and came
To play the hart he hunted.
BABINGTON.
Ay, but, see,
Your apish poet's-likeness holds not here,
If he that fed his hounds on his changed flesh
Was charmed out of a man and bayed to death
But through pure anger of a perfect maid;
For she that should of huntsmen turn us harts
Is Dian but in mouths of her own knaves,
And in paid eyes hath only godhead on
And light to dazzle none but them to death.
Yet I durst well abide her, and proclaim
As goddess-like as maiden.
BARNWELL.
Why, myself
Was late at court in presence, and her eyes
Fixed somewhile on me full in face; yet, 'faith,
I felt for that no lightning in my blood
Nor blast in mine as of the sun at noon
To blind their balls with godhead; no, ye see,
I walk yet well enough.
ABINGTON.
She gazed at you?
BARNWELL.
Yes, 'faith; yea, surely; take a Puritan oath
To seal my faith for Catholic. What, God help,
Are not mine eyes yet whole then? am I blind
Or maimed or scorched, and know not? by my head,
I find it sit yet none the worse for fear
To be so thunder-blasted.
ABINGTON.
Hear you, sirs?
TICHBORNE.
I was not fain to hear it.
BARNWELL.
Which was he
Spake of one changed into a hart? by God,
There be some hearts here need no charm, I think,
To turn them hares of hunters; or if deer,
Not harts but hinds, and rascal.
BABINGTON.
Peace, man, peace!
Let not at least this noble cry of hounds
Flash fangs against each other. See what verse
I bade write under on the picture here:
These are my comrades, whom the peril's self
Draws to it; how say you? will not all in the end
Prove fellows to me? how should one fall off
Whom danger lures and scares not? Tush, take hands;
It was to keep them fast in all time's sight
I bade my painter set you here, and me
Your loving captain; gave him sight of each
And order of us all in amity.
And if this yet not shame you, or your hearts
Be set as boys' on wrangling, yet, behold,
I pluck as from my heart this witness forth
Taking out a letter.
To what a work we are bound to, even her hand
Whom we must bring from bondage, and again
Be brought of her to honour. This is she,
Mary the queen, sealed of herself and signed
As mine assured good friend for ever. Now,
Am I more worth or Ballard?
TILNEY.
He it was
Bade get her hand and seal to allow of all
That should be practised; he is wise.
BABINGTON.
Ay, wise!
He was in peril too, he said, God wot,
And must have surety of her, he; but I,
'Tis I that have it, and her heart and trust,
See all here else, her trust and her good love
Who knows mine own heart of mine own hand writ
And sent her for assurance.
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