At auguring eclipses; but admit
His apprehensions and demand, what then?
And you shall find you 've turned the blank leaf over. F. John. Still three are left.
Three names, and nothing more. To please the towns that gave them birth they're sent, Not for their merits. Verily, Father John,
I should not willingly invade your leisure,
Or launch you on my now precarious fortunes ;
But I am as a debtor against whom
The writs are out-I'm driven upon my friends;
Say, will you stead me?
F. John.
With my best of service,
Such as it may be. To King Richard's court
I will set forth to-morrow.
Artev.
The faithfullest, as the first of all my friends.
Early to-morrow then we 'll treat in full
The matter of your mission. Now, good night.
F. John. Adieu till then, and peace be with your
[Exit. Artev. Their hour is yet to come. What ho! Van
You're sure, Van Ryk, it has not yet transpired
That I am in the camp?
Artev. Then come with me; we 'll cast a casual eye
On them that keep the watch ;-though sooth to say,
I wish my day's work over,-to forget
This restless world, and slumber like a babe;
For I am very tired-yea, tired at heart.
Van Ryk. Your spirits were wont to bear you up more freshly.
If I might speak, my lord, my humble mind,
You have not, since your honoured lady's death,
In such a sovereignty possessed yourself,
As you were wont to say that all men should.
Your thoughts have been more inwardly directed,
And led by fancies: should I be too bold
And let my duty lag behind my love,
To put you thus in mind, I crave your pardon.
Artev. That was a loss, Van Ryk; that was a loss.
The love betwixt us was not as the flush
And momentary kindling in warm youth;
But marriage and what term of time was given
Brought hourly increase to our common store.
Well-I am now the sport of circumstance,
Driven from my anchorage ;-yet deem not thou
That I my soul surrender to the past
In chains and bondage ;-that it is not so,
Bear witness for me long and busy days,
Which jostling and importunate affairs
So push and elbow, they but seldom leave
Shy midnight uninvaded. No, Van Ryk;
At eve returning wearied to my tent,
If sometimes I may seem to stray in thought,
Seeking what is not there, the mood is brief,
The operative function within call,
Nor know I that for any little hour
The weal of Flanders (if I may presume
To hook it on my hours) is yielded up
To idle thought, or vacant retrospect.
But now this body, exigent of rest,
Will needs put in a claim. One round we'll take,
Your talk is always welcome. There within
You'll find a wardrobe, with some varlets' cloaks
For use at need; take one about yourself,
And meet me with another at the gate.
A serviceable, faithful, thoughtful friend,
Is old Van Ryk,-a man of humble heart,
And yet with faculties and gifts of sense
Which place him justly on no lowly level—
Why should I say a lowlier than my own,
Or otherwise than as an equal use him?
That with familiarity respect
Doth slacken, is a word of common use.
I never found it so.
SCENE I.-The interior of the State Pavilion.
VAN ARTEVELDE seated at the head of his Council, with Attendants. The French Herald and SIR FLEUREANT OF HEURLEE, ARTEVELDE rises to receive the Herald and reseats himself. Artev. France, I perceive, Sir Herald, owns at length
The laws of polity and civil use,
A recognition which I hardly hoped ;
For when the messenger that late I sent
In amity, with friendly missives charged,
Was sent to prison, I deemed some barbarous tribe,
That knew no usages of Christian lands,
Had dispossessed you and usurped the realm.
Sir F. My lord, you have your messenger again.
Artev. Ay sir, but not through courtesy I think,
Nor yet through love.
[To the Herald.
Sir, you have leave to speak.
Herald. My lord, I humbly thank you. I entreat
That in my speech should aught offend your ears,
You from the utterer will remove the fault.
My office I obey and not my will,
Nor is a word that I'm to speak mine own.
Artev. Sir, nothing you can say shall be so gross, Offensive, or unmannerly conceived,
As that it shall not credibly appear
To come from them that sent you; speak, then, freely.
Herald. Philip of Artevelde, sole son of Jacques, Maltster and brewer in the town of Ghent,
The realm of France this unto thee delivers :
That forasmuch as thou, a liegeman born
To the Earl of Flanders, hast rebelled against him,
And with thy manifold treasons and contempts
Of duty and allegiance, hast drawn in
By twenties and by forties his good towns
To rise in fury and forget themselves,-
Thus saith the puissant and mighty lord,
The earl's affectionate kinsman, Charles of France :
Thou from before this town of Oudenarde
With all thy host shalt vanish like a mist;
Thou shalt surrender to their rightful lord
The towns of Ghent, and Ypres, Cassel, Bruges,
Of Thorout, Rousselart, Damme, Sluys, and Bergues,
Of Harlebecque, Poperinguen, Dendermonde,
Alost and Grammont; and with them all towns
Of lesser name, all castles and strong houses,
Shalt thou deliver up before the Feast
Of Corpus Christi coming, which undone
He the said puissant king, Sir Charles of France,
With all attendance of his chivalry,
Will raise his banner and his kingdom's force,
And scattering that vile people which thou lead'st
Will hang thee on a tree and nail thy head
Over the gates of Ghent, the mother of ill
That spawned thee ;-and for these and sundry more
Just reasons and sufficient, thou art warned
To make thy peace betimes, and so God keep thee!
Artev. Sir Herald, thou hast well discharged thyself
Of an ill function. Take these links of gold,
And with the company of words I give thee
Back to the braggart king from whom thou cam'st.
First, of my father :-had he lived to know
His glories, deeds, and dignities postponed
To names of barons, earls, and counts (that here
Are to men's ears importunately common
As chimes to dwellers in the market-place)
He with a silent and a bitter mirth
Had listened to the boast: may he his son
Pardon for in comparison setting forth
With his the name of this disconsolate earl.
How stand they in the title deeds of fame?
What hold and heritage in distant times
Doth each enjoy-what posthumous possession?
The dusty chronicler with painful search,
Long fingering forgotten scrolls, indites
That Louis Mâle was sometime Earl of Flanders,
That Louis Mâle his sometime earldom lost,
Through wrongs by him committed, that he lived
An outcast long in dole not undeserved,
And died dependent: there the history ends,
And who of them that hear it wastes a thought
On the unfriended fate of Louis Mâle ?
But turn the page and look we for the tale
Of Artevelde's renown. What man was this?
He humbly born, he highly gifted rose
By steps of various enterprise, by skill,
By native vigour to wide sway, and took
What his vain rival having could not keep.
His glory shall not cease, though cloth of gold
Wrap him no more, for not of golden cloth,
Nor fur, nor minever, his greatness came,
Whose fortunes were inborn: strip me the two,
This were the humblest, that the noblest, beggar
That ever braved a storm!
Sir F.
My lord, your pardon;
Nothing was uttered in disparagement
Of your famed father, though a longer life
And better would he assuredly have lived,
Had it seemed good to him to follow forth
His former craft, nor turn aside to brew
These frothy insurrections.
Artev.
Sir, your back
Shows me no tabard, nor a sign beside,
Denoting what your office is that asks
A hearing in this presence; nor know I yet
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