Ninth Scene
Same as Eighth Scene. Early light. Guenevere is discovered with a young Novice.
Guenevere
What hour is it?
First Novice
Madam, struck six.
Guenevere
Still rumour,
And never the one certain thing. Two hours
Since any word came how the battle goes.
Yet all night long
Have our replenished torches flamed to guide
The bearers of the wounded to our gates.
First Novice
Cloister and ante-chapel both are filled;
And still they bring them in, dying and dead.
Never was seen such slaughter in the world.
Guenevere
Still no news of the King!
(A pause.)
Enter Second Novice.
Second Novice
News, Madam!
Guenevere
Speak.
Second Novice
There came a rider spurring from the West;
His head was badged with blood. He implored speech
Passionately, as heavy with his news,
Of the Sister Lynned. She has quit the task
That keeps her with those wounded ones, and gone
To the gate to meet him. He is named, they say,
Sir Bedivere.
Guenevere
The King’s friend. He will bring
News of the King.
First Novice
Madam, the Sister comes.
Enter Lynned.
Lynned
Our Reverend Mother Abbess needs more hands
To bind those many wounds up. Go to her.
[The Novices go out, leaving Guenevere and Lynned facing each other.
Guenevere
There’s tidings on your face. The King is dead!
Lynned
The King is dead. The flower of Kings is fallen.
(A pause.)
Lucan is dead, Pelleas and Sagramore,
Lamorak, Meliot, Pellenore, Ozanna;
That famous fellowship of knights is dust.
Guenevere
Who shall let leap his bright sword in the air?
In what cause? There is no cause any more.
What tidings brought Sir Bedivere? Tell all.
Lynned
The rebel power is broken, and he that raised it
Dead. Woe on us that the King died with him!
Upon a field all mounded with the slain,
The bloodiest harvest Time did ever reap,
He and the traitor Mordred met their last
And smote each other, even to the death.
From a seashore that seemed the end of earth
(So tells Sir Bedivere, like a ghost himself)
Men fled into the tumble of the tides
And the waves choked them falling; the salt spray
Stung them: but “Never saw I fire,” said he,
“Of such an indignation fill the King
Seeking for Mordred. At the last he spied him
Among the heaped dead, leaning on his sword,
And cried aloud and smote him; and that traitor,
Even as he gasped his bitter soul out, struck
On our anointed.”
Guenevere
Arthur, Arthur!
Lynned
Yet
Not there he died, though hurt to death: in his arms
Sir Bedivere upbore him to a mere
Deep in the hills. There the King bade him ride