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Geraint and Enid

O purblind race of miserable men,

How many among us at this very hour

Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves,

By taking true for false, or false for true;

Here, through the feeble twilight of this world

Groping, how many, until we pass and reach

That other, where we see as we are seen!

So fared it with Geraint, who issuing forth

That morning, when they both had got to horse,

Perhaps because he loved her passionately,

And felt that tempest brooding round his heart,

Which, if he spoke at all, would break perforce

Upon a head so dear in thunder, said:

‘Not at my side. I charge thee ride before,

Ever a good way on before; and this

I charge thee, on thy duty as a wife,

Whatever happens, not to speak to me,

No, not a word!’ and Enid was aghast;

And forth they rode, but scarce three paces on,

When crying out, ‘Effeminate as I am,

I will not fight my way with gilded arms,

All shall be iron;’ he loosed a mighty purse,

Hung at his belt, and hurled it toward the squire.

So the last sight that Enid had of home

Was all the marble threshold flashing, strown

With gold and scattered coinage, and the squire

Chafing his shoulder: then he cried again,

‘To the wilds!’ and Enid leading down the tracks

Through which he bad her lead him on, they past

The marches, and by bandit-haunted holds,

Gray swamps and pools, waste places of the hern,

And wildernesses, perilous paths, they rode:

Round was their pace at first, but slackened soon:

A stranger meeting them had surely thought

They rode so slowly and they looked so pale,

That each had suffered some exceeding wrong.

For he was ever saying to himself,

‘O I that wasted time to tend upon her,

To compass her with sweet observances,

To dress her beautifully and keep her true’—

And there he broke the sentence in his heart

Abruptly, as a man upon his tongue

May break it, when his passion masters him.

And she was ever praying the sweet heavens

To save her dear lord whole from any wound.

And ever in her mind she cast about

For that unnoticed failing in herself,

Which made him look so cloudy and so cold;

Till the great plover’s human whistle amazed

Her heart, and glancing round the waste she feared

In ever wavering brake an ambuscade.

Then thought again, ‘If there be such in me,

I might amend it by the grace of Heaven,

If he would only speak and tell me of it.’

But when the fourth part of the day was gone,

Then Enid was aware of three tall knights

On horseback, wholly armed, behind a rock

In shadow, waiting for them, caitiffs all;

And heard one crying to his fellow, ‘Look,

Here comes a laggard hanging down his head,

Who seems no bolder than a beaten hound;

Come, we will slay him and will have his horse

And armour, and his damsel shall be ours.’

Then Enid pondered in her heart, and said:

‘I will go back a little to my lord,

And I will tell him all their caitiff talk;

For, be he wroth even to slaying me,

Far liefer by his dear hand had I die,

Than that my lord should suffer loss or shame.’

Then she went back some paces of return,

Met his full frown timidly firm, and said;

‘My lord, I saw three bandits by the rock

Waiting to fall on you, and heard them boast

That they would slay you, and possess your horse

And armour, and your damsel should be theirs.’

He made a wrathful answer: ‘Did I wish

Your warning or your silence? one command

I laid upon you, not to speak to me,

And thus ye keep it! Well then, look—for now,

Whether ye wish me victory or defeat,

Long for my life, or hunger for my death,

Yourself shall see my vigour is not lost.’

Then Enid waited pale and sorrowful,

And down upon him bare the bandit three.

And at the midmost charging, Prince Geraint

Drave the long spear a cubit through his breast

And out beyond; and then against his brace

Of comrades, each of whom had broken on him

A lance that splintered like an icicle,

Swung from his brand a windy buffet out

Once, twice, to right, to left, and stunned the twain

Or slew them, and dismounting like a man

That skins the wild beast after slaying him,

Stript from the three dead wolves of woman born

The three gay suits of armour which they wore,

And let the bodies lie, but bound the suits

Of armour on their horses, each on each,

And tied the bridle-reins of all the three

Together, and said to her, ‘Drive them on

Before you;’ and she drove them through the waste.

He followed nearer; ruth began to work

Against his anger in him, while he watched

The being he loved best in all the world,

With difficulty in mild obedience

Driving them on: he fain had spoken to her,

And loosed in words of sudden fire the wrath

And smouldered wrong that burnt him all within;

But evermore it seemed an easier thing

At once without remorse to strike her dead,

Than to cry ‘Halt,’ and to her own bright face

Accuse her of the least immodesty:

And thus tongue-tied, it made him wroth the more

That she COULD speak whom his own ear had heard

Call herself false: and suffering thus he made

Minutes an age: but in scarce longer time

Than at Caerleon the full-tided Usk,

Before he turn to fall seaward again,

Pauses, did Enid, keeping watch, behold

In the first shallow shade of a deep wood,

Before a gloom of stubborn-shafted oaks,

Three other horsemen waiting, wholly armed,

Whereof one seemed far larger than her lord,

And shook her pulses, crying, ‘Look, a prize!

Three horses and three goodly suits of arms,

And all in charge of whom? a girl: set on.’

‘Nay,’ said the second, ‘yonder comes a knight.’

The third, ‘A craven; how he hangs his head.’

The giant answered merrily, ‘Yea, but one?

Wait here, and when he passes fall upon him.’

And Enid pondered in her heart and said,

‘I will abide the coming of my lord,

And I will tell him all their villainy.

My lord is weary with the fight before,

And they will fall upon him unawares.

I needs must disobey him for his good;

How should I dare obey him to his harm?

Needs must I speak, and though he kill me for it,

I save a life dearer to me than mine.’

And she abode his coming, and said to him

With timid firmness, ‘Have I leave to speak?’

He said, ‘Ye take it, speaking,’ and she spoke.

‘There lurk three villains yonder in the wood,

And each of them is wholly armed, and one

Is larger-limbed than you are, and they say

That they will fall upon you while ye pass.’

To which he flung a wrathful answer back:

‘And if there were an hundred in the wood,

And every man were larger-limbed than I,

And all at once should sally out upon me,

I swear it would not ruffle me so much

As you that not obey me. Stand aside,

And if I fall, cleave to the better man.’

And Enid stood aside to wait the event,

Not dare to watch the combat, only breathe

Short fits of prayer, at every stroke a breath.

And he, she dreaded most, bare down upon him.

Aimed at the helm, his lance erred; but Geraint’s,

A little in the late encounter strained,

Struck through the bulky bandit’s corselet home,

And then brake short, and down his enemy rolled,

And there lay still; as he that tells the tale

Saw once a great piece of a promontory,

That had a sapling growing on it, slide

From the long shore-cliff’s windy walls to the beach,

And there lie still, and yet the sapling grew:

So lay the man transfixt. His craven pair

Of comrades making slowlier at the Prince,

When now they saw their bulwark fallen, stood;

On whom the victor, to confound them more,

Spurred with his terrible war-cry; for as one,

That listens near a torrent mountain-brook,

All through the crash of the near cataract hears

The drumming thunder of the huger fall

At distance, were the soldiers wont to hear

His voice in battle, and be kindled by it,

And foemen scared, like that false pair who turned

Flying, but, overtaken, died the death

Themselves had wrought on many an innocent.

Thereon Geraint, dismounting, picked the lance

That pleased him best, and drew from those dead wolves

Their three gay suits of armour, each from each,

And bound them on their horses, each on each,

And tied the bridle-reins of all the three

Together, and said to her, ‘Drive them on

Before you,’ and she drove them through the wood.

He followed nearer still: the pain she had

To keep them in the wild ways of the wood,

Two sets of three laden with jingling arms,

Together, served a little to disedge

The sharpness of that pain about her heart:

And they themselves, like creatures gently born

But into bad hands fallen, and now so long

By bandits groomed, pricked their light ears, and felt

Her low firm voice and tender government.

So through the green gloom of the wood they past,

And issuing under open heavens beheld

A little town with towers, upon a rock,

And close beneath, a meadow gemlike chased

In the brown wild, and mowers mowing in it:

And down a rocky pathway from the place

There came a fair-haired youth, that in his hand

Bare victual for the mowers: and Geraint

Had ruth again on Enid looking pale:

Then, moving downward to the meadow ground,

He, when the fair-haired youth came by him, said,

‘Friend, let her eat; the damsel is so faint.’

‘Yea, willingly,’ replied the youth; ‘and thou,

My lord, eat also, though the fare is coarse,

And only meet for mowers;’ then set down

His basket, and dismounting on the sward

They let the horses graze, and ate themselves.

And Enid took a little delicately,

Less having stomach for it than desire

To close with her lord’s pleasure; but Geraint

Ate all the mowers’ victual unawares,

And when he found all empty, was amazed;

And ‘Boy,’ said he, ‘I have eaten all, but take

A horse and arms for guerdon; choose the best.’

He, reddening in extremity of delight,

‘My lord, you overpay me fifty-fold.’

‘Ye will be all the wealthier,’ cried the Prince.

‘I take it as free gift, then,’ said the boy,

‘Not guerdon; for myself can easily,

While your good damsel rests, return, and fetch

Fresh victual for these mowers of our Earl;

For these are his, and all the field is his,

And I myself am his; and I will tell him

How great a man thou art: he loves to know

When men of mark are in his territory:

And he will have thee to his palace here,

And serve thee costlier than with mowers’ fare.’

Then said Geraint, ‘I wish no better fare:

I never ate with angrier appetite

Than when I left your mowers dinnerless.

And into no Earl’s palace will I go.

I know, God knows, too much of palaces!

And if he want me, let him come to me.

But hire us some fair chamber for the night,

And stalling for the horses, and return

With victual for these men, and let us know.’

‘Yea, my kind lord,’ said the glad youth, and went,

Held his head high, and thought himself a knight,

And up the rocky pathway disappeared,

Leading the horse, and they were left alone.

But when the Prince had brought his errant eyes

Home from the rock, sideways he let them glance

At Enid, where she droopt: his own false doom,

That shadow of mistrust should never cross

Betwixt them, came upon him, and he sighed;

Then with another humorous ruth remarked

The lusty mowers labouring dinnerless,

And watched the sun blaze on the turning scythe,

And after nodded sleepily in the heat.

But she, remembering her old ruined hall,

And all the windy clamour of the daws

About her hollow turret, plucked the grass

There growing longest by the meadow’s edge,

And into many a listless annulet,

Now over, now beneath her marriage ring,

Wove and unwove it, till the boy returned

And told them of a chamber, and they went;

Where, after saying to her, ‘If ye will,

Call for the woman of the house,’ to which

She answered, ‘Thanks, my lord;’ the two remained

Apart by all the chamber’s width, and mute

As two creatures voiceless through the fault of birth,

Or two wild men supporters of a shield,

Painted, who stare at open space, nor glance

The one at other, parted by the shield.

On a sudden, many a voice along the street,

And heel against the pavement echoing, burst

Their drowse; and either started while the door,

Pushed from without, drave backward to the wall,

And midmost of a rout of roisterers,

Femininely fair and dissolutely pale,

Her suitor in old years before Geraint,

Entered, the wild lord of the place, Limours.

He moving up with pliant courtliness,

Greeted Geraint full face, but stealthily,

In the mid-warmth of welcome and graspt hand,

Found Enid with the corner of his eye,

And knew her sitting sad and solitary.

Then cried Geraint for wine and goodly cheer

To feed the sudden guest, and sumptuously

According to his fashion, bad the host

Call in what men soever were his friends,

And feast with these in honour of their Earl;

‘And care not for the cost; the cost is mine.’

And wine and food were brought, and Earl Limours

Drank till he jested with all ease, and told

Free tales, and took the word and played upon it,

And made it of two colours; for his talk,

When wine and free companions kindled him,

Was wont to glance and sparkle like a gem

Of fifty facets; thus he moved the Prince

To laughter and his comrades to applause.

Then, when the Prince was merry, asked Limours,

‘Your leave, my lord, to cross the room, and speak

To your good damsel there who sits apart,

And seems so lonely?’ ‘My free leave,’ he said;

‘Get her to speak: she doth not speak to me.’

Then rose Limours, and looking at his feet,

Like him who tries the bridge he fears may fail,

Crost and came near, lifted adoring eyes,

Bowed at her side and uttered whisperingly:

‘Enid, the pilot star of my lone life,

Enid, my early and my only love,

Enid, the loss of whom hath turned me wild—

What chance is this? how is it I see you here?

Ye are in my power at last, are in my power.

Yet fear me not: I call mine own self wild,

But keep a touch of sweet civility

Here in the heart of waste and wilderness.

I thought, but that your father came between,

In former days you saw me favourably.

And if it were so do not keep it back:

Make me a little happier: let me know it:

Owe you me nothing for a life half-lost?

Yea, yea, the whole dear debt of all you are.

And, Enid, you and he, I see with joy,

Ye sit apart, you do not speak to him,

You come with no attendance, page or maid,

To serve you—doth he love you as of old?

For, call it lovers’ quarrels, yet I know

Though men may bicker with the things they love,

They would not make them laughable in all eyes,

Not while they loved them; and your wretched dress,

A wretched insult on you, dumbly speaks

Your story, that this man loves you no more.

Your beauty is no beauty to him now:

A common chance—right well I know it—palled—

For I know men: nor will ye win him back,

For the man’s love once gone never returns.

But here is one who loves you as of old;

With more exceeding passion than of old:

Good, speak the word: my followers ring him round:

He sits unarmed; I hold a finger up;

They understand: nay; I do not mean blood:

Nor need ye look so scared at what I say:

My malice is no deeper than a moat,

No stronger than a wall: there is the keep;

He shall not cross us more; speak but the word:

Or speak it not; but then by Him that made me

The one true lover whom you ever owned,

I will make use of all the power I have.

O pardon me! the madness of that hour,

When first I parted from thee, moves me yet.’

At this the tender sound of his own voice

And sweet self-pity, or the fancy of it,

Made his eye moist; but Enid feared his eyes,

Moist as they were, wine-heated from the feast;

And answered with such craft as women use,

Guilty or guiltless, to stave off a chance

That breaks upon them perilously, and said:

‘Earl, if you love me as in former years,

And do not practise on me, come with morn,

And snatch me from him as by violence;

Leave me tonight: I am weary to the death.’

Low at leave-taking, with his brandished plume

Brushing his instep, bowed the all-amorous Earl,

And the stout Prince bad him a loud good-night.

He moving homeward babbled to his men,

How Enid never loved a man but him,

Nor cared a broken egg-shell for her lord.

But Enid left alone with Prince Geraint,

Debating his command of silence given,

And that she now perforce must violate it,

Held commune with herself, and while she held

He fell asleep, and Enid had no heart

To wake him, but hung o’er him, wholly pleased

To find him yet unwounded after fight,

And hear him breathing low and equally.

Anon she rose, and stepping lightly, heaped

The pieces of his armour in one place,

All to be there against a sudden need;

Then dozed awhile herself, but overtoiled

By that day’s grief and travel, evermore

Seemed catching at a rootless thorn, and then

Went slipping down horrible precipices,

And strongly striking out her limbs awoke;

Then thought she heard the wild Earl at the door,

With all his rout of random followers,

Sound on a dreadful trumpet, summoning her;

Which was the red cock shouting to the light,

As the gray dawn stole o’er the dewy world,

And glimmered on his armour in the room.

And once again she rose to look at it,

But touched it unawares: jangling, the casque

Fell, and he started up and stared at her.

Then breaking his command of silence given,

She told him all that Earl Limours had said,

Except the passage that he loved her not;

Nor left untold the craft herself had used;

But ended with apology so sweet,

Low-spoken, and of so few words, and seemed

So justified by that necessity,

That though he thought ‘was it for him she wept

In Devon?’ he but gave a wrathful groan,

Saying, ‘Your sweet faces make good fellows fools

And traitors. Call the host and bid him bring

Charger and palfrey.’ So she glided out

Among the heavy breathings of the house,

And like a household Spirit at the walls

Beat, till she woke the sleepers, and returned:

Then tending her rough lord, though all unasked,

In silence, did him service as a squire;

Till issuing armed he found the host and cried,

‘Thy reckoning, friend?’ and ere he learnt it, ‘Take

Five horses and their armours;’ and the host

Suddenly honest, answered in amaze,

‘My lord, I scarce have spent the worth of one!’

‘Ye will be all the wealthier,’ said the Prince,

And then to Enid, ‘Forward! and today

I charge you, Enid, more especially,

What thing soever ye may hear, or see,

Or fancy (though I count it of small use

To charge you) that ye speak not but obey.’

And Enid answered, ‘Yea, my lord, I know

Your wish, and would obey; but riding first,

I hear the violent threats you do not hear,

I see the danger which you cannot see:

Then not to give you warning, that seems hard;

Almost beyond me: yet I would obey.’

‘Yea so,’ said he, ‘do it: be not too wise;

Seeing that ye are wedded to a man,

Not all mismated with a yawning clown,

But one with arms to guard his head and yours,

With eyes to find you out however far,

And ears to hear you even in his dreams.’

With that he turned and looked as keenly at her

As careful robins eye the delver’s toil;

And that within her, which a wanton fool,

Or hasty judger would have called her guilt,

Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall.

And Geraint looked and was not satisfied.

Then forward by a way which, beaten broad,

Led from the territory of false Limours

To the waste earldom of another earl,

Doorm, whom his shaking vassals called the Bull,

Went Enid with her sullen follower on.

Once she looked back, and when she saw him ride

More near by many a rood than yestermorn,

It wellnigh made her cheerful; till Geraint

Waving an angry hand as who should say

‘Ye watch me,’ saddened all her heart again.

But while the sun yet beat a dewy blade,

The sound of many a heavily-galloping hoof

Smote on her ear, and turning round she saw

Dust, and the points of lances bicker in it.

Then not to disobey her lord’s behest,

And yet to give him warning, for he rode

As if he heard not, moving back she held

Her finger up, and pointed to the dust.

At which the warrior in his obstinacy,

Because she kept the letter of his word,

Was in a manner pleased, and turning, stood.

And in the moment after, wild Limours,

Borne on a black horse, like a thunder-cloud

Whose skirts are loosened by the breaking storm,

Half ridden off with by the thing he rode,

And all in passion uttering a dry shriek,

Dashed down on Geraint, who closed with him, and bore

Down by the length of lance and arm beyond

The crupper, and so left him stunned or dead,

And overthrew the next that followed him,

And blindly rushed on all the rout behind.

But at the flash and motion of the man

They vanished panic-stricken, like a shoal

Of darting fish, that on a summer morn

Adown the crystal dykes at Camelot

Come slipping o’er their shadows on the sand,

But if a man who stands upon the brink

But lift a shining hand against the sun,

There is not left the twinkle of a fin

Betwixt the cressy islets white in flower;

So, scared but at the motion of the man,

Fled all the boon companions of the Earl,

And left him lying in the public way;

So vanish friendships only made in wine.

Then like a stormy sunlight smiled Geraint,

Who saw the chargers of the two that fell

Start from their fallen lords, and wildly fly,

Mixt with the flyers. ‘Horse and man,’ he said,

‘All of one mind and all right-honest friends!

Not a hoof left: and I methinks till now

Was honest—paid with horses and with arms;

I cannot steal or plunder, no nor beg:

And so what say ye, shall we strip him there

Your lover? has your palfrey heart enough

To bear his armour? shall we fast, or dine?

No?—then do thou, being right honest, pray

That we may meet the horsemen of Earl Doorm,

I too would still be honest.’ Thus he said:

And sadly gazing on her bridle-reins,

And answering not one word, she led the way.

But as a man to whom a dreadful loss

Falls in a far land and he knows it not,

But coming back he learns it, and the loss

So pains him that he sickens nigh to death;

So fared it with Geraint, who being pricked

In combat with the follower of Limours,