The Saint's Tragedy
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SCENE II
A room in a convent at Mayence. Conrad alone.
Con. The work is done! Diva Elizabeth!And I have trained one saint before I die!Yet now ’tis done, is’t well done? On my lipsIs triumph: but what echo in my heart?Alas! the inner voice is sad and dull,Even at the crown and shout of victory.Oh! I had hugged this purpose to my heart,Cast by for it all ruth, all pride, all scruples;Yet now its face, that seemed as pure as crystal,Shows fleshly, foul, and stained with tears and gore!We make, and moil, like children in their gardens,And spoil with dabbled hands, our flowers i’ the planting.And yet a saint is made! Alas, those children!Was there no gentler way? I know not any:I plucked the gay moth from the spider’s web;What if my hasty hand have smirched its feathers?Sure, if the whole be good, each several partMay for its private blots forgiveness gain,As in man’s tabernacle, vile elementsUnite to one fair stature. Who’ll gainsay it?The whole is good; another saint in heaven;Another bride within the Bridegroom’s arms;And she will pray for me!—And yet what matter?Better that I, this paltry sinful unit,Fall fighting, crushed into the nether pit,If my dead corpse may bridge the path to Heaven,And damn itself, to save the souls of others.A noble ruin: yet small comfort in it;In it, or in aught else–A blank dim cloud before mine inward senseDulls all the past: she spoke of such a cloud—I struck her for’t, and said it was a fiend—She’s happy now, before the throne of God—I should be merry; yet my heart’s floor sinksAs on a fast day; sure some evil bodes.Would it were here, that I might see its eyes!The future only is unbearable!We quail before the rising thunderstormWhich thrills and whispers in the stifled air,Yet blench not, when it falls. Would it were here![Pause.]
I fain would sleep, yet dare not: all the airThrongs thick upon me with the pregnant terrorOf life unseen, yet near. I dare not meet them,As if I sleep I shall do—I again?What matter what I feel, or like, or fear?Come what God sends. Within there—Brother Gerard![Gerard enters.]
Watch here an hour, and pray.—The fiends are busy.So—hold my hand. [Crosses himself.] Come on, I fear you not. [Sleeps.][Gerard sings.]
Qui fugiens rnundi graviaContempsit carnis bravia,Cupidinisque somnia,Lucratur, perdens, omnia.Hunc gestant ulnis angeli,Ne lapis officiat pedi;Ne luce timor occupet,Aut nocte pestis incubet.Huic cœli lilia germinant;Arrisus sponsi permanent;Ac nomen in fidelibusQuam filiorum medius. [Sleeps.]. . . . .Conrad [awaking]. Stay! Spirits, stay! Art thou a hell-born phantasm,Or word too true, sent by the mother of God?Oh, tell me, queen of Heaven!O God! if she, the city of the Lord,Who is the heart, the brain, the ruling soulOf half the earth; wherein all kingdoms, laws,Authority, and faith do culminate,And draw from her their sanction and their use;The lighthouse founded on the rock of ages,Whereto the Gentiles look, and still are healed;The tree whose rootlets drink of every river,Whose boughs drop Eden fruits on seaward isles;Christ’s seamless coat, rainbowed with gems and huesOf all degrees and uses, rend, and tarnish,And crumble into dust!Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas!Oh! to have prayed, and toiled—and lied—for this!For this to have crushed out the heart of youth,And sat by calm, while living bodies burned!How! Gerard; sleeping!Couldst thou not watch with me one hour, my son?Ger. [awaking]. How! have I slept? Shame on my vaporous brain!And yet there crept along my hand from thineA leaden languor, and the drowsy airTeemed thick with humming wings—I slept perforce.Forgive me (while for breach of holy ruleDue penance shall seem honour) my neglect.Con. I should have beat thee for’t, an hour agone—Now I judge no man. What are rules and methods?I have seen things which make my brain-sphere reel:My magic teraph-bust, full-packed, and labelled,With saws, ideas, dogmas, ends, and theories,Lies shivered into dust. Pah! we do squintEach through his loophole, and then dream, broad heavenIs but the patch we see. But let none know;Be silent, Gerard, wary.Ger. Nay—I know noughtOf that which moves thee: though I fain would ask—Con. I saw our mighty Mother, Holy Church,Sit like a painted harlot: round her limbsAn oily snake had coiled, who smiled, and smiled,And lisped the name of Jesus—I’ll not tell thee:I have seen more than man can see, and live:God, when He grants the tree of knowledge, bansThe luckless seer from off the tree of life,Lest he become as gods, and burst with pride;Or sick at sight of his own nothingness,Lie down, and be a fiend: my time is near:Well—I have neither child, nor kin, nor friend,Save thee, my son; I shall go lightly forth.Thou knowest we start for Marpurg on the morrow?Thou wilt go with me?Ger. Ay, to death, my master;Yet boorish heretics, with grounded throats,Mutter like sullen bulls; the Count of Saym,And many gentlemen, they say, have swornA fearful oath: there’s danger in the wind.Con. They have their quarrel; I was keen and hasty:Gladio qui utitur, peribit gladio.When Heaven is strong, then Hell is strong: Thou fear’st not?Ger. No! though their name were legion! ’Tis for theeAlone I quake, lest by some pious boldnessThou quench the light of Israel.Con. Light? my son!There shall no light be quenched, when I lie dark.Our path trends outward: we will forth to-morrow.Now let’s to chapel; matin bells are ringing. [Exeunt.]SCENE III
A road between Eisenach and Marpurg. Peasants waiting by the roadside. Walter of Varila, the Count of Saym, and other gentlemen entering on horseback.
Gent. Talk not of honour—Hell’s aflame within me:Foul water quenches fire as well as fair;If I do meet him he shall die the death,Come fair, come foul: I tell you, there are wrongsThe fumbling piecemeal law can never touch,Which bring of themselves to the injured, right divine,Straight from the fount of right, above all parchments,To be their own avengers: dainty lawyers,If one shall slay the adulterer in the act,Dare not condemn him: girls have stabbed their tyrants,And common sense has crowned them saints; yet what—What were their wrongs to mine? All gone! All gone!My noble boys, whom I had trained, poor fools,To win their spurs, and ride afield with me!I could have spared them—but my wife! my lady!Those dainty limbs, which no eyes but mine—Before that ruffian mob—Too much for man!Too much, stern Heaven!—Those eyes, those hands,Those tender feet, where I have lain and worshipped—Food for fierce flames! And on the self-same day—The day that they were seized—unheard—unargued—No witness, but one vile convicted thief—The dog is dead and buried: Well done, henchmen!They are not buried! Pah! their ashes flitAbout the common air; we pass them—breathe them!The self-same day! If I had had one look!One word—one single tiny spark of word,Such as two swallows change upon the wing!She was no heretic: she knelt for everBefore the blessed rood, and prayed for me.Art sure he comes this road?C. Saym. My messengerSaw him start forth, and watched him past the crossways.An hour will bring him here.C. Wal. How! ambuscading?I’ll not sit by, while helpless priests are butchered.Shame, gentles!C. Saym. On my word, I knew not on’tUntil this hour; my quarrel’s not so sharp,But I may let him pass: my name is rightedBefore the Emperor, from all his slanders;And what’s revenge to me?Gent. Ay, ay—forgive and forget—The vermin’s trapped—and we’ll be gentle-handed,And lift him out, and bid his master speed him,Him and his firebrands. He shall never pass me.C. Wal. I will not see it; I’m old, and sick of blood.She loved him, while she lived; and charged me once,As her sworn liegeman, not to harm the knave.I’ll home: yet, knights, if aught untoward happen,And you should need a shelter, come to me:My walls are strong. Home, knaves! we’ll seek our wives,And beat our swords to ploughshares—when folks let us.[Exeunt Count Walter and suite.]
C. Saym. He’s gone, brave heart!—But—sir, you will not dare?The Pope’s own Legate—think—there’s danger in’t.Gent. Look, how athwart yon sullen sleeping flatsThat frowning thunder-cloud sails pregnant hither;—And black against its sheeted gray, one birdFlags fearful onward—’Tis his cursed soul!Now thou shalt quake, raven!—The self-same day!—He cannot ’scape! The storm is close upon him!There! There! the wreathing spouts have swallowed him!He’s gone! and see, the keen blue spark leaps outFrom crag to crag, and every vaporous pillarShouts forth his death-doom! ’Tis a sign, a sign![A heretic preacher mounts a stone. Peasants gather round him.]
These are the starved unlettered hinds, forsooth,He hunted down like vermin—for a doctrine.They have their rights, their wrongs; their lawless laws,Their witless arguings, which unconscious reasonInforms to just conclusions. We will hear them.Preacher. My brethren, I have a message to you: therefore hearken with all your ears—for now is the day of salvation. It is written, that the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light—and truly: for the children of this world, when they are troubled with vermin, catch them—and hear no more of them. But you, the children of light, the elect saints, the poor of this world rich in faith, let the vermin eat your lives out, and then fall down and worship them afterwards. You are all besotted—hag-ridden—drunkards sitting in the stocks, and bowing down to the said stocks, and making a god thereof. Of part, said the prophet, ye make a god, and part serveth to roast—to roast the flesh of your sons and of your daughters; and then ye cry, ‘Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire;’ and a special fire ye have seen! The ashes of your wives and of your brothers cleave to your clothes,—Cast them up to Heaven, cry aloud, and quit yourselves like men!
Gent. He speaks God’s truth! We are Heaven’s justicers! Our woes anoint us kings! Peace—Hark again!—
Preacher. Therefore, as said before—in the next place—It is written, that there shall be a two-edged sword in the hand of the saints. But the saints have but two swords—Was there a sword or shield found among ten thousand in Israel? Then let Israel use his fists, say I, the preacher! For this man hath shed blood, and by man shall his blood be shed. Now behold an argument,—This man hath shed blood, even Conrad; ergo, as he saith himself, ye, if ye are men, shall shed his blood. Doth he not himself say ergo? Hath he not said ergo to the poor saints, to your sons and your daughters, whom he hath burned in the fire to Moloch? ‘Ergo, thou art a heretic’—‘Ergo, thou shalt burn.’ Is he not therefore convicted out of his own mouth? Arise, therefore, be valiant—for this day he is delivered into your hand!
[Chanting heard in the distance.]
Peasant. Hush! here the psalm-singers come![Conrad enters on a mule, chanting the Psalter, Gerard following.]
Con. My peace with you, my children!1st Voice. Psalm us no psalms; bless us no devil’s blessings:Your balms will break our heads. [A murmur rises.]2d Voice. You are welcome, sir; we are a-waiting for you.3d Voice. Has he been shriven to-day?4th Voice. Where is your ergo, Master Conrad? Faugh!How both the fellows smell of smoke!5th Voice. A strange leech he, to suck, and suck, and suck,And look no fatter for’t!Old Woman. Give me back my sons!Old Man. Give me back the light of mine eyes,Mine only daughter!My only one! He hurled her over the cliffs!Avenge me, lads; you are young!4th Voice. We will, we will: why smit’st him not, thou with the pole-axe?3d Voice. Nay, now, the first blow costs most, and heals last;Besides, the dog’s a priest at worst.C. Saym. Mass! How the shaveling rascal stands at bay!There’s not a rogue of them dare face his eye!True Domini canes! ’Ware the bloodhound’s teeth, curs!Preacher. What! Are ye afraid? The huntsman’s here at lastWithout his whip! Down with him, craven hounds!I’ll help ye to’t. [Springs from the stone.]Gent. Ay, down with him! Mass, have these yelping boorsMore heart than I? [Spurs his horse forward.]Mob. A knight! a champion!Voice. He’s not mortal man!See how his eyes shine! ’Tis the archangel!St. Michael come to the rescue! Ho! St. Michael![He lunges at Conrad. Gerard turns the lance aside, and throws his arms round Conrad.]
Ger. My master! my master! The chariot of Israel and the horses thereof!Oh call down fire from Heaven![A peasant strikes down Gerard. Conrad, over the body.]
Alas! my son! This blood shall cry for vengeanceBefore the throne of God!Gent. And cry in vain!Follow thy minion! Join Folquet in hell![Bears Conrad down on his lance-point.]
Con. I am the vicar of the Vicar of Christ:Who touches me doth touch the Son of God.[The mob close over him.]
O God! A martyr’s crown! Elizabeth! [Dies.]NOTES TO ACT 1
The references, unless it be otherwise specified, are to the Eight Books concerning Saint Elizabeth, by Dietrich the Thuringian; in Basnage’s Canisius, Vol. IV. p. 113 (Antwerp; 1725).
Page 21. Cf. Lib. I. § 3. Dietrich is eloquent about her youthful inclination for holy places, and church doors, even when shut, and gives many real proofs of her ‘sanctæ indolis,’ from the very cradle.
P. 22. ‘St. John’s sworn maid.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 4. ‘She chose by lot for her patron, St. John the protector of virginity.’
Ibid. ‘Fit for my princess.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 2. ‘He sent with his daughter vessels of gold, silver baths, jewels, pillows all of silk. No such things, so precious or so many, were ever seen in Thuringen-land.’
P. 23. ‘Most friendless.’ Cf. Lib. I. §§ 5, 6. ‘The courtiers used bitterly to insult her, etc. Her mother and sister-in-law, given to worldly pomp, differed from her exceedingly;’ and much more concerning ‘the persecutions which she endured patiently in youth.’
Ibid. ‘In one cradle.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 2. ‘The princess was laid in the cradle of her boy-spouse,’ and, says another, ‘the infants embraced with smiles, from whence the bystanders drew a joyful omen of their future happiness.’
Ibid. ‘If thou love him.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 6. ‘The Lord by His hidden inspiration so inclined towards her the heart of the prince, that in the solitude of secret and mutual love he used to speak sweetly to her heart, with kindness and consolation, and was always wont, on returning home, to honour her with presents, and soothe her with embraces.’ It was their custom, says Dietrich, to the last to call each other in common conversation ‘Brother’ and ‘Sister.’
P. 24. ‘To his charge.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 7. ‘Walter of Varila, a good man, who, having been sent by the prince’s father into Hungary, had brought the blessed Elizabeth into Thuringen-land.’
P. 25. ‘The blind archer, Love.’ For information about the pagan orientalism of the Troubadours, the blasphemous bombast by which they provoked their persecution in Provence, and their influence on the Courts of Europe, see Sismondi, Lit. Southern Europe, Cap. III.-VI.
P. 27. ‘Stadings.’ The Stadings, according to Fleury, in A.D. 1233, were certain unruly fenmen, who refused to pay tithes, committed great cruelties on religious of both sexes, worshipped, or were said to worship, a black cat, etc., considered the devil as a very ill-used personage, and the rightful lord of themselves and the world, and were of the most profligate morals. An impartial and philosophic investigation of this and other early continental heresies is much wanted.
P. 37. ‘All gold.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 7, for Walter’s interference and Lewis’s answer, which I have paraphrased.
P. 38. ‘Is crowned with thorns.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 5, for this anecdote and her defence, which I have in like manner paraphrased.
P. 39. ‘Their pardon.’ Cf. Lib. I § 3, for this quaint method of self-humiliation.
Ibid. ‘You know your place.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 6. ‘The vassals and relations of her betrothed persecuted her openly, and plotted to send her back to her father divorced. . . . Sophia also did all she could to place her in a convent. . . . She delighted in the company of maids and servants, so that Sophia used to say sneeringly to her, “You should have been counted among the slaves who drudge, and not among the princes who rule.”’
P. 41. ‘Childish laughter.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 7. ‘The holy maiden, receiving the mirror, showed her joy by delighted laughter;’ and again, II. § 8, “They loved each other in the charity of the Lord, to a degree beyond all belief.’
Ibid. ‘A crystal clear.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 7.
P. 43. ‘Our fairest bride.’ Cf. Lib. I. § 8. ‘No one henceforth dared oppose the marriage by word or plot, . . . and all mouths were stopped.’
NOTES TO ACT II
Pp. 45-49. Cf. Lib. II. §§ 1, 5, 11, et passim.
Hitherto my notes have been a careful selection of the few grains of characteristic fact which I could find among Dietrich’s lengthy professional reflections; but the chapter on which this scene is founded is remarkable enough to be given whole, and as I have a long-standing friendship for the good old monk, who is full of honest naïveté and deep-hearted sympathy, and have no wish to disgust all my readers with him, I shall give it for the most part untranslated. In the meantime those who may be shocked at certain expressions in this poem, borrowed from the Romish devotional school, may verify my language at the Romish booksellers, who find just now a rapidly increasing sale for such ware. And is it not after all a hopeful sign for the age that even the most questionable literary tastes must nowadays ally themselves with religion—that the hotbed imaginations which used to batten on Rousseau and Byron have now risen at least as high as the Vies des Saints and St. François de Sales’ Philothea? The truth is, that in such a time as this, in the dawn of an age of faith, whose future magnificence we may surely prognosticate from the slowness and complexity of its self-developing process, spiritual ‘Werterism,’ among other strange prolusions, must have its place. The emotions and the imaginations will assert their just right to be fed—by foul means if not by fair; and even self-torture will have charms after the utter dryness and life-in-death of mere ecclesiastical pedantry. It is good, mournful though it be, that a few, even by gorging themselves with poison, should indicate the rise of a spiritual hunger—if we do but take their fate as a warning to provide wholesome food before the new craving has extended itself to the many. It is good that religion should have its Werterism, in order that hereafter Werterism may have its religion. But to my quotations—wherein the reader will judge how difficult it has been for me to satisfy at once the delicacy of the English mind and that historic truth which the highest art demands.
‘Erat inter eos honorabile connubium, et thorus immaculatus, non in ardore libidmis, sed in conjugalis sanctimoniæ castitate. For the holy maiden, as soon as she was married, began to macerate her flesh with many watchings, rising every night to pray; her husband sometimes sleeping, sometimes conniving at her, often begging her, in compassion to her delicacy, not to afflict herself indiscreetly, often supporting her with his hand when she prayed.’ (‘And,’ says another of her biographers, ‘being taught by her to pray with her.’) ‘Great truly, was the devotion of this young girl, who, rising from the bed of her carnal husband, sought Christ, whom she loved as the true husband of her soul.
‘Nor certainly was there less faith in the husband who did not oppose such and so great a wife, but rather favoured her, and tempered her fervour with over-kind prudence. Affected, therefore, by the sweetness of this modest love, and mutual society, they could not bear to be separated for any length of time or distance. The lady, therefore, frequently followed her husband through rough roads, and no small distances, and severe wind and weather, led rather by emotions of sincerity than of carnality: for the chaste presence of a modest husband offered no obstacle to that devout spouse in the way of praying, watching, or otherwise doing good.’
Then follows the story of her nurse waking Lewis instead of her, and Lewis’s easy good-nature about this, as about every other event of life. ‘And so, after these unwearied watchings, it often happened that, praying for an excessive length of time, she fell asleep on a mat beside her husband’s bed, and being reproved for it by her maidens, answered: “Though I cannot always pray, yet I can do violence to my own flesh by tearing myself in the meantime from my couch.”’
‘Fugiebat oblectamenta carnalia, et ideò stratum molliorem, et viri contubernium secretissimum, quantum licuit, declinavit. Quem quamvis præcordialis amoris affectu deligeret, querulabatur tamen dolens, quod virginalis decorem floris non meruit conservare. Castigabat etiam plagis multis, et lacerabat diris verberibus carnem puella innocens et pudica.
‘In principio quidem diebus quadragesimæ, sextisque feriis aliis occultas solebat accipere disciplinas, lætam coram hominibus se ostentrans. Post verò convalescens et proficiens in gratia, deserto dilecti thoro surgens, fecit se in secreto cubiculo per ancillarum manus graviter sæpissime verberari, ad lectumque mariti reversa hilarem se exhibuit et jocundam.
‘Vere felices conjuges, in quorum consortio tanta munditia, in colloquio pudicitia reperta est. In quibus amor Christi concupiscentiam extinxit, devotio refrenavit petulantiam, fervor spiritûs excussit somnolentiam, oratio tutavit conscientiam, charitas benefaciendi facultatem tribuit et lætitiam!’
P. 58. ‘In every scruple.’ Cf. Lib. III. § 9, how Lewis ‘consented that Elizabeth his wife should make a vow of obedience and continence at the will of the said Conrad, salvâ jure matrimonii.’
P. 59. ‘The open street.’ Cf. Lib. II. § 11. ‘On the Rogation days, when certain persons doing contrary to the decrees of the saints are decorated with precious and luxurious garments, the Princess, dressed in serge and barefooted, used to follow most devoutly the Procession of the Cross and the relics of the Saints, and place herself always at sermon among the poorest women; knowing (says Dietrich) that seeds cast into the valleys spring up into the richest crop of corn.’
P. 60. ‘The poor of Christ.’ Cf. Lib. II. §§ 6, 11, et passim. Elizabeth’s labours among the poor are too well known throughout one half at least of Christendom, where she is, par excellence, the patron of the poor, to need quotations.
P. 61. ‘I’ll be thy pupil.’ Cf. Lib. II § 4. ‘She used also, by words and examples, to oblige the worldly ladies who came to her to give up the vanity of the world, at least in some one particular.’
P. 62. ‘Conrad enters.’ Cf. Lib. III. § 9, where this story of the disobeyed message and the punishment inflicted by Conrad for it is told word for word.
P. 66. ‘Peaceably come by.’ Cf. Lib. II. § 6.
P. 67. ‘Bond-slaves.’ Cf. Note 11.
P. 69. ‘Elizabeth passes.’ Cf. Lib. II. § 5. ‘This most Christian mother, impletis purgationis suæ diebus, used to dress herself in serge, and, taking in her arms her new-born child, used to go forth secretly, barefooted, by the difficult descent from the castle, by a rough and rocky road to a remote church, carrying her infant in her own arms, after the example of the Virgin Mother, and offering him upon the altar to the Lord with a taper’ (and with gold, says another biographer).
P. 71. ‘Give us bread.’ Cf. Lib. III. § 6. ‘A.D. 1225, while the Landgrave was gone to Italy to the Emperor, a severe famine arose throughout all Almaine; and lasting for nearly two years, destroyed many with hunger. Then Elizabeth, moved with compassion for the miserable, collected all the corn from her granaries, and distributed it as alms for the poor. She also built a hospital at the foot of the Wartburg, wherein she placed all those who could not wait for the general distribution. . . . She sold her own ornaments to feed the members of Christ. . . . Cuidam misero lac desideranti, ad mulgendum se præbuit!’—See p. 153.