The Marriage of Geraint

The brave Geraint, a knight of Arthur’s court,A tributary prince of Devon, oneOf that great Order of the Table Round,Had married Enid, Yniol’s only child,And loved her, as he loved the light of Heaven.And as the light of Heaven varies, nowAt sunrise, now at sunset, now by nightWith moon and trembling stars, so loved GeraintTo make her beauty vary day by day,In crimsons and in purples and in gems.And Enid, but to please her husband’s eye,Who first had found and loved her in a stateOf broken fortunes, daily fronted himIn some fresh splendour; and the Queen herself,Grateful to Prince Geraint for service done,Loved her, and often with her own white handsArrayed and decked her, as the loveliest,Next after her own self, in all the court.And Enid loved the Queen, and with true heartAdored her, as the stateliest and the bestAnd loveliest of all women upon earth.And seeing them so tender and so close,Long in their common love rejoiced Geraint.But when a rumour rose about the Queen,Touching her guilty love for Lancelot,Though yet there lived no proof, nor yet was heardThe world’s loud whisper breaking into storm,Not less Geraint believed it; and there fellA horror on him, lest his gentle wife,Through that great tenderness for Guinevere,Had suffered, or should suffer any taintIn nature: wherefore going to the King,He made this pretext, that his princedom layClose on the borders of a territory,Wherein were bandit earls, and caitiff knights,Assassins, and all flyers from the handOf Justice, and whatever loathes a law:And therefore, till the King himself should pleaseTo cleanse this common sewer of all his realm,He craved a fair permission to depart,And there defend his marches; and the KingMused for a little on his plea, but, last,Allowing it, the Prince and Enid rode,And fifty knights rode with them, to the shoresOf Severn, and they past to their own land;Where, thinking, that if ever yet was wifeTrue to her lord, mine shall be so to me,He compassed her with sweet observancesAnd worship, never leaving her, and grewForgetful of his promise to the King,Forgetful of the falcon and the hunt,Forgetful of the tilt and tournament,Forgetful of his glory and his name,Forgetful of his princedom and its cares.And this forgetfulness was hateful to her.And by and by the people, when they metIn twos and threes, or fuller companies,Began to scoff and jeer and babble of himAs of a prince whose manhood was all gone,And molten down in mere uxoriousness.And this she gathered from the people’s eyes:This too the women who attired her head,To please her, dwelling on his boundless love,Told Enid, and they saddened her the more:And day by day she thought to tell Geraint,But could not out of bashful delicacy;While he that watched her sadden, was the moreSuspicious that her nature had a taint.

At last, it chanced that on a summer morn(They sleeping each by either) the new sunBeat through the blindless casement of the room,And heated the strong warrior in his dreams;Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside,And bared the knotted column of his throat,The massive square of his heroic breast,And arms on which the standing muscle sloped,As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,Running too vehemently to break upon it.And Enid woke and sat beside the couch,Admiring him, and thought within herself,Was ever man so grandly made as he?Then, like a shadow, past the people’s talkAnd accusation of uxoriousnessAcross her mind, and bowing over him,Low to her own heart piteously she said:

“O noble breast and all-puissant arms,Am I the cause, I the poor cause that menReproach you, saying all your force is gone?I am the cause, because I dare not speakAnd tell him what I think and what they say.And yet I hate that he should linger here;I cannot love my lord and not his name.Far liefer had I gird his harness on him,And ride with him to battle and stand by,And watch his mightful hand striking great blowsAt caitiffs and at wrongers of the world.Far better were I laid in the dark earth,Not hearing any more his noble voice,Not to be folded more in these dear arms,And darkened from the high light in his eyes,Than that my lord through me should suffer shame.Am I so bold, and could I so stand by,And see my dear lord wounded in the strife,And maybe pierced to death before mine eyes,And yet not dare to tell him what I think,And how men slur him, saying all his forceIs melted into mere effeminacy?O me, I fear that I am no true wife.”

Half inwardly, half audibly she spoke,And the strong passion in her made her weepTrue tears upon his broad and naked breast,And these awoke him, and by great mischanceHe heard but fragments of her later words,And that she feared she was not a true wife.And then he thought, “In spite of all my care,For all my pains, poor man, for all my pains,She is not faithful to me, and I see herWeeping for some gay knight in Arthur’s hall.”Then though he loved and reverenced her too muchTo dream she could be guilty of foul act,Right through his manful breast darted the pangThat makes a man, in the sweet face of herWhom he loves most, lonely and miserable.At this he hurled his huge limbs out of bed,And shook his drowsy squire awake and cried,“My charger and her palfrey;” then to her,“I will ride forth into the wilderness;For though it seems my spurs are yet to win,I have not fallen so low as some would wish.And thou, put on thy worst and meanest dressAnd ride with me.” And Enid asked, amazed,“If Enid errs, let Enid learn her fault.”But he, “I charge thee, ask not, but obey.”Then she bethought her of a faded silk,A faded mantle and a faded veil,And moving toward a cedarn cabinet,Wherein she kept them folded reverentlyWith sprigs of summer laid between the folds,She took them, and arrayed herself therein,Remembering when first he came on herDrest in that dress, and how he loved her in it,And all her foolish fears about the dress,And all his journey to her, as himselfHad told her, and their coming to the court.

For Arthur on the Whitsuntide beforeHeld court at old Caerleon upon Usk.There on a day, he sitting high in hall,Before him came a forester of Dean,Wet from the woods, with notice of a hartTaller than all his fellows, milky-white,First seen that day: these things he told the King.Then the good King gave order to let blowHis horns for hunting on the morrow morn.And when the King petitioned for his leaveTo see the hunt, allowed it easily.So with the morning all the court were gone.But Guinevere lay late into the morn,Lost in sweet dreams, and dreaming of her loveFor Lancelot, and forgetful of the hunt;But rose at last, a single maiden with her,Took horse, and forded Usk, and gained the wood;There, on a little knoll beside it, stayedWaiting to hear the hounds; but heard insteadA sudden sound of hoofs, for Prince Geraint,Late also, wearing neither hunting-dressNor weapon, save a golden-hilted brand,Came quickly flashing through the shallow fordBehind them, and so galloped up the knoll.A purple scarf, at either end whereofThere swung an apple of the purest gold,Swayed round about him, as he galloped upTo join them, glancing like a dragon-flyIn summer suit and silks of holiday.Low bowed the tributary Prince, and she,Sweet and statelily, and with all graceOf womanhood and queenhood, answered him:“Late, late, Sir Prince,” she said, “later than we!”“Yea, noble Queen,” he answered, “and so lateThat I but come like you to see the hunt,Not join it.” “Therefore wait with me,” she said;“For on this little knoll, if anywhere,There is good chance that we shall hear the hounds:Here often they break covert at our feet.”

And while they listened for the distant hunt,And chiefly for the baying of Cavall,King Arthur’s hound of deepest mouth, there rodeFull slowly by a knight, lady, and dwarf;Whereof the dwarf lagged latest, and the knightHad vizor up, and showed a youthful face,Imperious, and of haughtiest lineaments.And Guinevere, not mindful of his faceIn the King’s hall, desired his name, and sentHer maiden to demand it of the dwarf;Who being vicious, old and irritable,And doubling all his master’s vice of pride,Made answer sharply that she should not know.“Then will I ask it of himself,” she said.“Nay, by my faith, thou shalt not,” cried the dwarf;“Thou art not worthy even to speak of him;”And when she put her horse toward the knight,Struck at her with his whip, and she returnedIndignant to the Queen; whereat GeraintExclaiming, “Surely I will learn the name,”Made sharply to the dwarf, and asked it of him,Who answered as before; and when the PrinceHad put his horse in motion toward the knight,Struck at him with his whip, and cut his cheek.The Prince’s blood spirted upon the scarf,Dyeing it; and his quick, instinctive handCaught at the hilt, as to abolish him:But he, from his exceeding manfulnessAnd pure nobility of temperament,Wroth to be wroth at such a worm, refrainedFrom even a word, and so returning said:

“I will avenge this insult, noble Queen,Done in your maiden’s person to yourself:And I will track this vermin to their earths:For though I ride unarmed, I do not doubtTo find, at some place I shall come at, armsOn loan, or else for pledge; and, being found,Then will I fight him, and will break his pride,And on the third day will again be here,So that I be not fallen in fight. Farewell.”

“Farewell, fair Prince,” answered the stately Queen.“Be prosperous in this journey, as in all;And may you light on all things that you love,And live to wed with her whom first you love:But ere you wed with any, bring your bride,And I, were she the daughter of a king,Yea, though she were a beggar from the hedge,Will clothe her for her bridals like the sun.”

And Prince Geraint, now thinking that he heardThe noble hart at bay, now the far horn,A little vext at losing of the hunt,A little at the vile occasion, rode,By ups and downs, through many a grassy gladeAnd valley, with fixt eye following the three.At last they issued from the world of wood,And climbed upon a fair and even ridge,And showed themselves against the sky, and sank.And thither there came Geraint, and underneathBeheld the long street of a little townIn a long valley, on one side whereof,White from the mason’s hand, a fortress rose;And on one side a castle in decay,Beyond a bridge that spanned a dry ravine:And out of town and valley came a noiseAs of a broad brook o’er a shingly bedBrawling, or like a clamour of the rooksAt distance, ere they settle for the night.

And onward to the fortress rode the three,And entered, and were lost behind the walls.“So,” thought Geraint, “I have tracked him to his earth.”And down the long street riding wearily,Found every hostel full, and everywhereWas hammer laid to hoof, and the hot hissAnd bustling whistle of the youth who scouredHis master’s armour; and of such a oneHe asked, “What means the tumult in the town?”Who told him, scouring still, “The sparrow-hawk!”Then riding close behind an ancient churl,Who, smitten by the dusty sloping beam,Went sweating underneath a sack of corn,Asked yet once more what meant the hubbub here?Who answered gruffly, “Ugh! the sparrow-hawk.”Then riding further past an armourer’s,Who, with back turned, and bowed above his work,Sat riveting a helmet on his knee,He put the self-same query, but the manNot turning round, nor looking at him, said:“Friend, he that labours for the sparrow-hawkHas little time for idle questioners.”Whereat Geraint flashed into sudden spleen:“A thousand pips eat up your sparrow-hawk!Tits, wrens, and all winged nothings peck him dead!Ye think the rustic cackle of your bourgThe murmur of the world! What is it to me?O wretched set of sparrows, one and all,Who pipe of nothing but of sparrow-hawks!Speak, if ye be not like the rest, hawk-mad,Where can I get me harbourage for the night?And arms, arms, arms to fight my enemy? Speak!”Whereat the armourer turning all amazedAnd seeing one so gay in purple silks,Came forward with the helmet yet in handAnd answered, “Pardon me, O stranger knight;We hold a tourney here tomorrow morn,And there is scantly time for half the work.Arms? truth! I know not: all are wanted here.Harbourage? truth, good truth, I know not, save,It may be, at Earl Yniol’s, o’er the bridgeYonder.” He spoke and fell to work again.

Then rode Geraint, a little spleenful yet,Across the bridge that spanned the dry ravine.There musing sat the hoary-headed Earl,(His dress a suit of frayed magnificence,Once fit for feasts of ceremony) and said:“Whither, fair son?” to whom Geraint replied,“O friend, I seek a harbourage for the night.”Then Yniol, “Enter therefore and partakeThe slender entertainment of a houseOnce rich, now poor, but ever open-doored.”“Thanks, venerable friend,” replied Geraint;“So that ye do not serve me sparrow-hawksFor supper, I will enter, I will eatWith all the passion of a twelve hours’ fast.”Then sighed and smiled the hoary-headed Earl,And answered, “Graver cause than yours is mineTo curse this hedgerow thief, the sparrow-hawk:But in, go in; for save yourself desire it,We will not touch upon him even in jest.”

Then rode Geraint into the castle court,His charger trampling many a prickly starOf sprouted thistle on the broken stones.He looked and saw that all was ruinous.Here stood a shattered archway plumed with fern;And here had fallen a great part of a tower,Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff,And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers:And high above a piece of turret stair,Worn by the feet that now were silent, woundBare to the sun, and monstrous ivy-stemsClaspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms,And sucked the joining of the stones, and lookedA knot, beneath, of snakes, aloft, a grove.

And while he waited in the castle court,The voice of Enid, Yniol’s daughter, rangClear through the open casement of the hall,Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird,Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,Moves him to think what kind of bird it isThat sings so delicately clear, and makeConjecture of the plumage and the form;So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint;And made him like a man abroad at mornWhen first the liquid note beloved of menComes flying over many a windy waveTo Britain, and in April suddenlyBreaks from a coppice gemmed with green and red,And he suspends his converse with a friend,Or it may be the labour of his hands,To think or say, “There is the nightingale;”So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said,“Here, by God’s grace, is the one voice for me.”

It chanced the song that Enid sang was oneOf Fortune and her wheel, and Enid sang:

“Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud;Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud;Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

“Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;With that wild wheel we go not up or down;Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.

“Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands;Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands;For man is man and master of his fate.

“Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd;Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud;Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.”

“Hark, by the bird’s song ye may learn the nest,”Said Yniol; “enter quickly.” Entering then,Right o’er a mount of newly-fallen stones,The dusky-raftered many-cobwebbed hall,He found an ancient dame in dim brocade;And near her, like a blossom vermeil-white,That lightly breaks a faded flower-sheath,Moved the fair Enid, all in faded silk,Her daughter. In a moment thought Geraint,“Here by God’s rood is the one maid for me.”But none spake word except the hoary Earl:“Enid, the good knight’s horse stands in the court;Take him to stall, and give him corn, and thenGo to the town and buy us flesh and wine;And we will make us merry as we may.Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.”

He spake: the Prince, as Enid past him, fainTo follow, strode a stride, but Yniol caughtHis purple scarf, and held, and said, “Forbear!Rest! the good house, though ruined, O my son,Endures not that her guest should serve himself.”And reverencing the custom of the houseGeraint, from utter courtesy, forbore.

So Enid took his charger to the stall;And after went her way across the bridge,And reached the town, and while the Prince and EarlYet spoke together, came again with one,A youth, that following with a costrel boreThe means of goodly welcome, flesh and wine.And Enid brought sweet cakes to make them cheer,And in her veil enfolded, manchet bread.And then, because their hall must also serveFor kitchen, boiled the flesh, and spread the board,And stood behind, and waited on the three.And seeing her so sweet and serviceable,Geraint had longing in him evermoreTo stoop and kiss the tender little thumb,That crost the trencher as she laid it down:But after all had eaten, then Geraint,For now the wine made summer in his veins,Let his eye rove in following, or restOn Enid at her lowly handmaid-work,Now here, now there, about the dusky hall;Then suddenly addrest the hoary Earl:

“Fair Host and Earl, I pray your courtesy;This sparrow-hawk, what is he? tell me of him.His name? but no, good faith, I will not have it:For if he be the knight whom late I sawRide into that new fortress by your town,White from the mason’s hand, then have I swornFrom his own lips to have it—I am GeraintOf Devon—for this morning when the QueenSent her own maiden to demand the name,His dwarf, a vicious under-shapen thing,Struck at her with his whip, and she returnedIndignant to the Queen; and then I sworeThat I would track this caitiff to his hold,And fight and break his pride, and have it of him.And all unarmed I rode, and thought to findArms in your town, where all the men are mad;They take the rustic murmur of their bourgFor the great wave that echoes round the world;They would not hear me speak: but if ye knowWhere I can light on arms, or if yourselfShould have them, tell me, seeing I have swornThat I will break his pride and learn his name,Avenging this great insult done the Queen.”

Then cried Earl Yniol, “Art thou he indeed,Geraint, a name far-sounded among menFor noble deeds? and truly I, when firstI saw you moving by me on the bridge,Felt ye were somewhat, yea, and by your stateAnd presence might have guessed you one of thoseThat eat in Arthur’s hall in Camelot.Nor speak I now from foolish flattery;For this dear child hath often heard me praiseYour feats of arms, and often when I pausedHath asked again, and ever loved to hear;So grateful is the noise of noble deedsTo noble hearts who see but acts of wrong:O never yet had woman such a pairOf suitors as this maiden: first Limours,A creature wholly given to brawls and wine,Drunk even when he wooed; and be he deadI know not, but he past to the wild land.The second was your foe, the sparrow-hawk,My curse, my nephew—I will not let his nameSlip from my lips if I can help it—he,When that I knew him fierce and turbulentRefused her to him, then his pride awoke;And since the proud man often is the mean,He sowed a slander in the common ear,Affirming that his father left him gold,And in my charge, which was not rendered to him;Bribed with large promises the men who servedAbout my person, the more easilyBecause my means were somewhat broken intoThrough open doors and hospitality;Raised my own town against me in the nightBefore my Enid’s birthday, sacked my house;From mine own earldom foully ousted me;Built that new fort to overawe my friends,For truly there are those who love me yet;And keeps me in this ruinous castle here,Where doubtless he would put me soon to death,But that his pride too much despises me:And I myself sometimes despise myself;For I have let men be, and have their way;Am much too gentle, have not used my power:Nor know I whether I be very baseOr very manful, whether very wiseOr very foolish; only this I know,That whatsoever evil happen to me,I seem to suffer nothing heart or limb,But can endure it all most patiently.”

“Well said, true heart,” replied Geraint, “but arms,That if the sparrow-hawk, this nephew, fightIn next day’s tourney I may break his pride.”

And Yniol answered, “Arms, indeed, but oldAnd rusty, old and rusty, Prince Geraint,Are mine, and therefore at thy asking, thine.But in this tournament can no man tilt,Except the lady he loves best be there.Two forks are fixt into the meadow ground,And over these is placed a silver wand,And over that a golden sparrow-hawk,The prize of beauty for the fairest there.And this, what knight soever be in fieldLays claim to for the lady at his side,And tilts with my good nephew thereupon,Who being apt at arms and big of boneHas ever won it for the lady with him,And toppling over all antagonismHas earned himself the name of sparrow-hawk.”But thou, that hast no lady, canst not fight.”

To whom Geraint with eyes all bright replied,Leaning a little toward him, “Thy leave!Let me lay lance in rest, O noble host,For this dear child, because I never saw,Though having seen all beauties of our time,Nor can see elsewhere, anything so fair.And if I fall her name will yet remainUntarnished as before; but if I live,So aid me Heaven when at mine uttermost,As I will make her truly my true wife.”

Then, howsoever patient, Yniol’s heartDanced in his bosom, seeing better days,And looking round he saw not Enid there,(Who hearing her own name had stolen away)But that old dame, to whom full tenderlyAnd folding all her hand in his he said,“Mother, a maiden is a tender thing,And best by her that bore her understood.Go thou to rest, but ere thou go to restTell her, and prove her heart toward the Prince.”

So spake the kindly-hearted Earl, and sheWith frequent smile and nod departing found,Half disarrayed as to her rest, the girl;Whom first she kissed on either cheek, and thenOn either shining shoulder laid a hand,And kept her off and gazed upon her face,And told them all their converse in the hall,Proving her heart: but never light and shadeCoursed one another more on open groundBeneath a troubled heaven, than red and paleAcross the face of Enid hearing her;While slowly falling as a scale that falls,When weight is added only grain by grain,Sank her sweet head upon her gentle breast;Nor did she lift an eye nor speak a word,Rapt in the fear and in the wonder of it;So moving without answer to her restShe found no rest, and ever failed to drawThe quiet night into her blood, but layContemplating her own unworthiness;And when the pale and bloodless east beganTo quicken to the sun, arose, and raisedHer mother too, and hand in hand they movedDown to the meadow where the jousts were held,And waited there for Yniol and Geraint.

And thither came the twain, and when GeraintBeheld her first in field, awaiting him,He felt, were she the prize of bodily force,Himself beyond the rest pushing could moveThe chair of Idris. Yniol’s rusted armsWere on his princely person, but through thesePrincelike his bearing shone; and errant knightsAnd ladies came, and by and by the townFlowed in, and settling circled all the lists.And there they fixt the forks into the ground,And over these they placed the silver wand,And over that the golden sparrow-hawk.Then Yniol’s nephew, after trumpet blown,Spake to the lady with him and proclaimed,“Advance and take, as fairest of the fair,What I these two years past have won for thee,The prize of beauty.” Loudly spake the Prince,“Forbear: there is a worthier,” and the knightWith some surprise and thrice as much disdainTurned, and beheld the four, and all his faceGlowed like the heart of a great fire at Yule,So burnt he was with passion, crying out,“Do battle for it then,” no more; and thriceThey clashed together, and thrice they brake their spears.Then each, dishorsed and drawing, lashed at eachSo often and with such blows, that all the crowdWondered, and now and then from distant wallsThere came a clapping as of phantom hands.So twice they fought, and twice they breathed, and stillThe dew of their great labour, and the bloodOf their strong bodies, flowing, drained their force.But either’s force was matched till Yniol’s cry,“Remember that great insult done the Queen,”Increased Geraint’s, who heaved his blade aloft,And cracked the helmet through, and bit the bone,And felled him, and set foot upon his breast,And said, “Thy name?” To whom the fallen manMade answer, groaning, “Edyrn, son of Nudd!Ashamed am I that I should tell it thee.My pride is broken: men have seen my fall.”“Then, Edyrn, son of Nudd,” replied Geraint,“These two things shalt thou do, or else thou diest.First, thou thyself, with damsel and with dwarf,Shalt ride to Arthur’s court, and coming there,Crave pardon for that insult done the Queen,And shalt abide her judgment on it; next,Thou shalt give back their earldom to thy kin.These two things shalt thou do, or thou shalt die.”And Edyrn answered, “These things will I do,For I have never yet been overthrown,And thou hast overthrown me, and my prideIs broken down, for Enid sees my fall!”And rising up, he rode to Arthur’s court,And there the Queen forgave him easily.And being young, he changed and came to loatheHis crime of traitor, slowly drew himselfBright from his old dark life, and fell at lastIn the great battle fighting for the King.

But when the third day from the hunting-mornMade a low splendour in the world, and wingsMoved in her ivy, Enid, for she layWith her fair head in the dim-yellow light,Among the dancing shadows of the birds,Woke and bethought her of her promise givenNo later than last eve to Prince Geraint—So bent he seemed on going the third day,He would not leave her, till her promise given—To ride with him this morning to the court,And there be made known to the stately Queen,And there be wedded with all ceremony.At this she cast her eyes upon her dress,And thought it never yet had looked so mean.For as a leaf in mid-November isTo what it is in mid-October, seemedThe dress that now she looked on to the dressShe looked on ere the coming of Geraint.And still she looked, and still the terror grewOf that strange bright and dreadful thing, a court,All staring at her in her faded silk:And softly to her own sweet heart she said:

“This noble prince who won our earldom back,So splendid in his acts and his attire,Sweet heaven, how much I shall discredit him!Would he could tarry with us here awhile,But being so beholden to the Prince,It were but little grace in any of us,Bent as he seemed on going this third day,To seek a second favour at his hands.Yet if he could but tarry a day or two,Myself would work eye dim, and finger lame,Far liefer than so much discredit him.”

And Enid fell in longing for a dressAll branched and flowered with gold, a costly giftOf her good mother, given her on the nightBefore her birthday, three sad years ago,That night of fire, when Edyrn sacked their house,And scattered all they had to all the winds:For while the mother showed it, and the twoWere turning and admiring it, the workTo both appeared so costly, rose a cryThat Edyrn’s men were on them, and they fledWith little save the jewels they had on,Which being sold and sold had bought them bread:And Edyrn’s men had caught them in their flight,And placed them in this ruin; and she wishedThe Prince had found her in her ancient home;Then let her fancy flit across the past,And roam the goodly places that she knew;And last bethought her how she used to watch,Near that old home, a pool of golden carp;And one was patched and blurred and lustrelessAmong his burnished brethren of the pool;And half asleep she made comparisonOf that and these to her own faded selfAnd the gay court, and fell asleep again;And dreamt herself was such a faded formAmong her burnished sisters of the pool;But this was in the garden of a king;And though she lay dark in the pool, she knewThat all was bright; that all about were birdsOf sunny plume in gilded trellis-work;That all the turf was rich in plots that lookedEach like a garnet or a turkis in it;And lords and ladies of the high court wentIn silver tissue talking things of state;And children of the King in cloth of goldGlanced at the doors or gamboled down the walks;And while she thought “They will not see me,” cameA stately queen whose name was Guinevere,And all the children in their cloth of goldRan to her, crying, “If we have fish at allLet them be gold; and charge the gardeners nowTo pick the faded creature from the pool,And cast it on the mixen that it die.”And therewithal one came and seized on her,And Enid started waking, with her heartAll overshadowed by the foolish dream,And lo! it was her mother grasping herTo get her well awake; and in her handA suit of bright apparel, which she laidFlat on the couch, and spoke exultingly:

“See here, my child, how fresh the colours look,How fast they hold like colours of a shellThat keeps the wear and polish of the wave.Why not? It never yet was worn, I trow:Look on it, child, and tell me if ye know it.”

And Enid looked, but all confused at first,Could scarce divide it from her foolish dream:Then suddenly she knew it and rejoiced,And answered, “Yea, I know it; your good gift,So sadly lost on that unhappy night;Your own good gift!” “Yea, surely,” said the dame,“And gladly given again this happy morn.For when the jousts were ended yesterday,Went Yniol through the town, and everywhereHe found the sack and plunder of our houseAll scattered through the houses of the town;And gave command that all which once was oursShould now be ours again: and yester-eve,While ye were talking sweetly with your Prince,Came one with this and laid it in my hand,For love or fear, or seeking favour of us,Because we have our earldom back again.And yester-eve I would not tell you of it,But kept it for a sweet surprise at morn.Yea, truly is it not a sweet surprise?For I myself unwillingly have wornMy faded suit, as you, my child, have yours,And howsoever patient, Yniol his.Ah, dear, he took me from a goodly house,With store of rich apparel, sumptuous fare,And page, and maid, and squire, and seneschal,And pastime both of hawk and hound, and allThat appertains to noble maintenance.Yea, and he brought me to a goodly house;But since our fortune swerved from sun to shade,And all through that young traitor, cruel needConstrained us, but a better time has come;So clothe yourself in this, that better fitsOur mended fortunes and a Prince’s bride:For though ye won the prize of fairest fair,And though I heard him call you fairest fair,Let never maiden think, however fair,She is not fairer in new clothes than old.And should some great court-lady say, the PrinceHath picked a ragged-robin from the hedge,And like a madman brought her to the court,Then were ye shamed, and, worse, might shame the PrinceTo whom we are beholden; but I know,That when my dear child is set forth at her best,That neither court nor country, though they soughtThrough all the provinces like those of oldThat lighted on Queen Esther, has her match.”

Here ceased the kindly mother out of breath;And Enid listened brightening as she lay;Then, as the white and glittering star of mornParts from a bank of snow, and by and bySlips into golden cloud, the maiden rose,And left her maiden couch, and robed herself,Helped by the mother’s careful hand and eye,Without a mirror, in the gorgeous gown;Who, after, turned her daughter round, and said,She never yet had seen her half so fair;And called her like that maiden in the tale,Whom Gwydion made by glamour out of flowersAnd sweeter than the bride of Cassivelaun,Flur, for whose love the Roman Caesar firstInvaded Britain, “But we beat him back,As this great Prince invaded us, and we,Not beat him back, but welcomed him with joyAnd I can scarcely ride with you to court,For old am I, and rough the ways and wild;But Yniol goes, and I full oft shall dreamI see my princess as I see her now,Clothed with my gift, and gay among the gay.”

But while the women thus rejoiced, GeraintWoke where he slept in the high hall, and calledFor Enid, and when Yniol made reportOf that good mother making Enid gayIn such apparel as might well beseemHis princess, or indeed the stately Queen,He answered: “Earl, entreat her by my love,Albeit I give no reason but my wish,That she ride with me in her faded silk.”Yniol with that hard message went; it fellLike flaws in summer laying lusty corn:For Enid, all abashed she knew not why,Dared not to glance at her good mother’s face,But silently, in all obedience,Her mother silent too, nor helping her,Laid from her limbs the costly-broidered gift,And robed them in her ancient suit again,And so descended. Never man rejoicedMore than Geraint to greet her thus attired;And glancing all at once as keenly at herAs careful robins eye the delver’s toil,Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall,But rested with her sweet face satisfied;Then seeing cloud upon the mother’s brow,Her by both hands she caught, and sweetly said,

“O my new mother, be not wroth or grievedAt thy new son, for my petition to her.When late I left Caerleon, our great Queen,In words whose echo lasts, they were so sweet,Made promise, that whatever bride I brought,Herself would clothe her like the sun in Heaven.Thereafter, when I reached this ruined hall,Beholding one so bright in dark estate,I vowed that could I gain her, our fair Queen,No hand but hers, should make your Enid burstSunlike from cloud—and likewise thought perhaps,That service done so graciously would bindThe two together; fain I would the twoShould love each other: how can Enid findA nobler friend? Another thought was mine;I came among you here so suddenly,That though her gentle presence at the listsMight well have served for proof that I was loved,I doubted whether daughter’s tenderness,Or easy nature, might not let itselfBe moulded by your wishes for her weal;Or whether some false sense in her own selfOf my contrasting brightness, overboreHer fancy dwelling in this dusky hall;And such a sense might make her long for courtAnd all its perilous glories: and I thought,That could I someway prove such force in herLinked with such love for me, that at a word(No reason given her) she could cast asideA splendour dear to women, new to her,And therefore dearer; or if not so new,Yet therefore tenfold dearer by the powerOf intermitted usage; then I feltThat I could rest, a rock in ebbs and flows,Fixt on her faith. Now, therefore, I do rest,A prophet certain of my prophecy,That never shadow of mistrust can crossBetween us. Grant me pardon for my thoughts:And for my strange petition I will makeAmends hereafter by some gaudy-day,When your fair child shall wear your costly giftBeside your own warm hearth, with, on her knees,Who knows? another gift of the high God,Which, maybe, shall have learned to lisp you thanks.”

He spoke: the mother smiled, but half in tears,Then brought a mantle down and wrapt her in it,And claspt and kissed her, and they rode away.

Now thrice that morning Guinevere had climbedThe giant tower, from whose high crest, they say,Men saw the goodly hills of Somerset,And white sails flying on the yellow sea;But not to goodly hill or yellow seaLooked the fair Queen, but up the vale of Usk,By the flat meadow, till she saw them come;And then descending met them at the gates,Embraced her with all welcome as a friend,And did her honour as the Prince’s bride,And clothed her for her bridals like the sun;And all that week was old Caerleon gay,For by the hands of Dubric, the high saint,They twain were wedded with all ceremony.

And this was on the last year’s Whitsuntide.But Enid ever kept the faded silk,Remembering how first he came on her,Drest in that dress, and how he loved her in it,And all her foolish fears about the dress,And all his journey toward her, as himselfHad told her, and their coming to the court.

And now this morning when he said to her,“Put on your worst and meanest dress,” she foundAnd took it, and arrayed herself therein.