ROSAMUND.
How dared you? Know you not this bower is secret,
Of and belonging to the King of England,
More sacred than his forests for the chase?
Nay, nay, Heaven help you; get you hence in haste
Lest worse befall you.
ELEANOR.
Child,
I am mine own self
Of and belonging to the King. The King
Hath divers ofs and ons, ofs and belongings,
Almost as many as your true Mussulman—
Belongings, paramours, whom it pleases him
To call his wives; but so it chances, child,
That I am his main paramour, his sultana.
But since the fondest pair of doves will jar,
Ev’n in a cage of gold, we had words of late,
And thereupon he call’d my children bastards.
Do you believe that you are married to him?
ROSAMUND,
I should believe it.
ELEANOR.
You
must not believe it,
Because I have a wholesome medicine here
Puts that belief asleep. Your answer, beauty!
Do you believe that you are married to him?
ROSAMUND.
Geoffrey, my boy, I saw the ball you lost in the fork
of the great
willow over the brook. Go. See that you
do not fall in. Go.
GEOFFREY. And leave you alone with the good
fairy. She calls you beauty, but I don’t
like her looks. Well, you bid me go, and I’ll
have my ball anyhow. Shall I find you asleep
when I come back?
ROSAMUND.
Go. [Exit GEOFFREY.
He is easily found again. Do you believe it?
I pray you then to take my sleeping-draught;
But if you should not care to take it—see!
[Draws
a dagger.
What! have I scared the red rose from your face
Into your heart. But this will find it there,
And dig it from the root for ever.
ROSAMUND.
Help!
help!
ELEANOR.
They say that walls have ears; but these, it seems,
Have none! and I have none—to pity thee.
ROSAMUND.
I do beseech you—my child is so young,
So backward too; I cannot leave him yet.
I am not so happy I could not die myself,
But the child is so young. You have children—his;
And mine is the King’s child; so, if you love
him—
Nay, if you love him, there is great wrong done
Somehow; but if you do not—there are those
Who say you do not love him—let me go
With my young boy, and I will hide my face,
Blacken and gipsyfy it; none shall know me;
The King shall never hear of me again,
But I will beg my bread along the world
With my young boy, and God will be our guide.
I never meant you harm in any way.
See, I can say no more.
ELEANOR.
Will you not say you are not married to him?
ROSAMUND.
Ay, Madam, I can say it, if you will.
