by Keats · Cluster: Crown · Pride · Fortune’s Wheel
Abstract
An unfinished verse history play set during the medieval English civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud, depicting battle, defiant valour, the question of a usurper’s legitimacy, and a king’s heroic refusal to yield.
Connections
Topoi: Fortune’s Wheel, Last Stand Archetypes: King, Usurper, Tragic Hero Motifs: Swords and Weapons, Horse, Crown Themes & Concepts: Kingship and Legitimacy, War and its Cost, Heroism, Honour, Pride, Ambition, Fate and Free Will Forms & Genres: Verse Drama, History Play, Fragment, Blank Verse Historical References: Medieval England Settings: Battlefield, Medieval England (2)
Testo integrale / Full text
KING STEPHEN A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT, 1819 CONTENTS SCENE I. SCENE II. SCENE III. SCENE IV.
King Stephen (1092–1154)
SCENE I.
| Chi parla | Battuta |
|---|---|
| (didascalia) | Field of Battle. - |
| (didascalia) | Alarum. Enter King Stephen, Knights, and Soldiers. - |
| STEPHEN | If shame can on a soldier’s vein-swoll’n front Spread deeper crimson than the battle’s toil, Blush in your casing helmets! for see, see! Yonder my chivalry, my pride of war, Wrench’d with an iron hand from firm array, Are routed loose about the plashy meads, Of honour forfeit. O that my known voice Could reach your dastard ears, and fright you more! Fly, cowards, fly! Glocester is at your backs! Throw your slack bridles o’er the flurried manes, Ply well the rowel with faint trembling heels, Scampering to death at last! |
| FIRST KNIGHT | The enemy Bears his flaunt standard close upon their rear. |
| SECOND KNIGHT | Sure of a bloody prey, seeing the fens Will swamp them girth-deep. |
| STEPHEN | Over head and ears, No matter! ’Tis a gallant enemy; How like a comet he goes streaming on. But we must plague him in the flank,- hey, friends. We are well breathed,- follow! - |
| (didascalia) | Enter Earl Baldwin and Soldiers, as defeated. - |
| STEPHEN | De Redvers! What is the monstrous bugbear that can fright Baldwin? |
| BALDWIN | No scare-crow, but the fortunate star Of boisterous Chester, whose fell truncheon now Points level to the goal of victory. This way he comes, and if you would maintain Your person unaffronted by vile odds, Take horse, my Lord. |
| STEPHEN | And which way spur for life? Now I thank Heaven I am in the toils, That soldiers may bear witness how my arm Can burst the meshes. Not the eagle more Loves to beat up against a tyrannous blast, Than I to meet the torrent of my foes. This is a brag,- be’t so,- but if I fall, Carve it upon my ‘scutcheon’d sepulchre. On, fellow soldiers! Earl of Redvers, back! Not twenty Earls of Chester shall brow-beat The diadem. [Exeunt. Alarum. |
SCENE II.
| Chi parla | Battuta |
|---|---|
| (didascalia) | Another part of the Field. - |
| (didascalia) | Trumpets sounding a Victory. Enter Glocester, |
| (didascalia) | Knights, and Forces. - |
| GLOCESTER | Now may we lift our bruised vizors up, And take the flattering freshness of the air, While the wide din of battle dies away Into times past, yet to be echoed sure In the silent pages of our chroniclers. |
| FIRST KNIGHT | Will Stephen’s death be mark’d there, my good Lord, Or that we gave him lodging in yon towers? |
| GLOCESTER | Fain would I know the great usurper’s fate. - |
| (didascalia) | Enter two Captains severally. - |
| FIRST CAPTAIN | My Lord! |
| SECOND CAPTAIN | Most noble Earl! |
| FIRST CAPTAIN | The King- |
| SECOND CAPTAIN | The Empress greets- |
| GLOCESTER | What of the King? |
| FIRST CAPTAIN | He sole and lone maintains A hopeless bustle mid our swarming arms, And with a nimble savageness attacks, Escapes, makes fiercer onset, then anew Eludes death, giving death to most that dare Trespass within the circuit of his sword! He must by this have fallen. Baldwin is taken; And for the Duke of Bretagne, like a stag He flies, for the Welsh beagles to hunt down. God save the Empress! |
| GLOCESTER | Now our dreaded Queen: What message from her Highness? |
| SECOND CAPTAIN | Royal Maud From the throng’d towers of Lincoln hath look’d down, Like Pallas from the walls of Ilion, And seen her enemies havock’d at her feet. She greets most noble Glocester from her heart, Intreating him, his captains, and brave knights, To grace a banquet. The high city gates Are envious which shall see your triumph pass; The streets are full of music. - |
| (didascalia) | Enter Second Knight. - |
| GLOCESTER | Whence come you? |
| SECOND KNIGHT | From Stephen, my good Prince,- Stephen! Stephen! |
| GLOCESTER | Why do you make such echoing of his name? |
| SECOND KNIGHT | Because I think, my lord, he is no man, But a fierce demon, ‘nointed safe from wounds, And misbaptized with a Christian name. |
| GLOCESTER | A mighty soldier!- Does he still hold out? |
| SECOND KNIGHT | He shames our victory. His valour still Keeps elbow-room amid our eager swords, And holds our bladed falchions all aloof- His gleaming battle-axe being slaughter-sick, Smote on the morion of a Flemish knight, Broke short in his hand; upon the which he flung The heft away with such a vengeful force, It paunch’d the Earl of Chester’s horse, who then Spleen-hearted came in full career at him. |
| GLOCESTER | Did no one take him at a vantage then? |
| SECOND KNIGHT | Three then with tiger leap upon him flew, Whom, with his sword swift-drawn and nimbly held, He stung away again, and stood to breathe, |
| Smiling | Anon upon him rush’d once more A throng of foes, and in this renew’d strife, My sword met his and snapp’d off at the hilts. |
| GLOCESTER | Come, lead me to this Mars- and let us move In silence, not insulting his sad doom With clamorous trumpets. To the Empress bear My salutation as befits the time. [Exeunt Glocester and Forces. |
SCENE III.
| Chi parla | Battuta |
|---|---|
| (didascalia) | The Field of Battle. Enter Stephen unarmed. - |
| STEPHEN | Another sword! And what if I could seize One from Bellona’s gleaming armoury, Or choose the fairest of her sheaved spears! Where are my enemies? Here, close at hand, Here come the testy brood. O for a sword! I’m faint- a biting sword! A noble sword! A hedge-stake- or a ponderous stone to hurl With brawny vengeance, like the labourer Cain. Come on! Farewell my kingdom, and all hail Thou superb, plumb’d, and helmeted renown, All hail- I would not truck this brilliant day To rule in Pylos with a Nestor’s beard- Come on! - |
| (didascalia) | Enter De Kaims and Knights, &c. - |
| DE KAIMS | Is’t madness, or a hunger after death, That makes thee thus unarm’d throw taunts at us? Yield, Stephen, or my sword’s point dip in The gloomy current of a traitor’s heart. |
| STEPHEN | Do it, De Kaims, I will not budge an inch. |
| DE KAIMS | Yes, of thy madness thou shalt take the meed. |
| STEPHEN | Darest thou? |
| DE KAIMS | How dare, against a man disarm’d? |
| STEPHEN | What weapons has the lion but himself? Come not near me, De Kaims, for by the price Of all the glory I have won this day, Being a king, I will not yield alive To any but the second man of the realm, Robert of Glocester. |
| DE KAIMS | Thou shalt vail to me. |
| STEPHEN | Shall I, when I have sworn against it, sir? Thou think’st it brave to take a breathing king, That, on a court-day bow’d to haughty Maud The awed presence-chamber may be bold To whisper, there’s the man who took alive Stephen- me- prisoner. Certes, De Kaims, The ambition is a noble one. |
| DE KAIMS | ’Tis true, And, Stephen, I must compass it. |
| STEPHEN | No, no, Do not tempt me to throttle you on the gorge, Or with my gauntlet crush your hollow breast, Just when your knighthood is grown ripe and full For lordship. A SOLDIER. Is an honest yeoman’s spear Of no use at a need? Take that. |
| STEPHEN | Ah, dastard! |
| DE KAIMS | What, you are vulnerable! my prisoner! |
| STEPHEN | No not yet. I disclaim it, and demand Death as a sovereign right unto a king Who ‘sdains to yield to any but his peer, If not in title, yet in noble deeds, The Earl of Glocester. Stab to the hilts, De Kaims, For I will never by mean hands be led From this so famous field. Do ye hear! Be quick! - |
| (didascalia) | Trumpets. |
| (didascalia) | Enter the Earl of Chester and Knights. |