I cannot say it—I cannot strive to say.

ROSAMUND.

ROSAMUND.

Thou shalt. Are all we not fast bound in love— My lord and thine, my maiden and her queen, A fourfold chain of faith twice linked of love? Speak: let not shame find place where shame is none.

HILDEGARD.

HILDEGARD.

I will not. King and queen and God shall hear. I love him as our songs of old time say Men have been loved of women akin to gods By blood as they by spirit, albeit in me Nought lives that woman or man or God could say Were worth his love, if mine by grace of love Be found not all unworthy. Mine am I No more: mine own in no wise now, but his To save or slay, to cherish or cast out, Crown and discrown, abase and comfort. Shame Were more to me than honour if his will It were that shame should clothe me round, and life Were the only death left fearful if he bade me Die. Could his love be turned from me, and set On one less loving but more fair than I, A thrall more base than treason or a queen Too high for shame to brand her shameful, even Though sin had stamped and signed her foul as fraud And loathsome as a masked adulterous lie, Hers would I make him if I might, and yield To her the hatefullest of hell-born things The man found lovelier by my love than heaven.

ROSAMUND.

ROSAMUND.

Great love is this to brag of: great and strange.

HILDEGARD.

HILDEGARD.

Love is no braggart: lust and fraud and hate Vaunt their vile strength when shame unveils them: love Vaunts not itself. I spake not uncompelled, And blushed not out the avowal.

ALBOVINE.

ALBOVINE.

Boy, I held And hold thee noblest of my lords of war, And worthier than thine elders born and tried Ere battle found thee ripe and glad at heart To stem and swim the tide of spears: but this I know not if thou be or any man Be worthy of.

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