The Tragedy of Arthur: A Novel Read online

  If I were a better version of me, I would not react faster than I think, would not be wounded when no harm was intended, would understand before too much time had passed to forgive, would not—in my clumsy efforts to make amends—so often make things worse. I would not have lived and written such an ugly story, and I would not so resemble this vile picture of me that my father drew, before I was even an adult (or, worse, that Shakespeare drew centuries before I was born).

  Those who know me personally know to a fine degree how much of all this is true, how much an apology (and how sincere), how much a boast or a con job. To the rest of you, it’s a muddle or it’s a thing of beauty. And if it pleased you, and you found in its candor and lies and sobbing cross-dressed confessions some hours’ entertainment, then well and good.

  I will send this off to Random House now, proofread the galleys, give this work all the care Shakespeare could never give his own, then cash my checks and send my winnings from this venture to bank accounts established for my boys, my ex-wife, my mother, and for Petra, Dana, and their little girl, whose birth I was not allowed to attend, whose face I have not yet earned the right to see, whose breath I have not yet smelled, whose cheeks I have not yet touched, whose whole first year I will have squandered, whose name I do not know, and whose gender I learned only from a mutual friend (whose indiscretion was subsequently clarified for him, and whom I can now no longer get to return my calls).

  I did consider, in chiming midnights of pounding self-pity, killing myself. My favorite line in Shakespeare: When the players are all dead, there need none to be blamed. But I’m not the type, and it’s not that kind of story. And my sons are coming for Christmas, or a little after; Jana’s very generous to allow it, just as my mother was with another shabby father named Arthur. I’ve planned a lot for me and the boys to do in frozen Minneapolis. Also, they like detective fiction, and I am starting to think I might write a novel with them as the heroes, twin-brother PIs in Prague. Lots of plot.

  For now I will do as Dana (and RH legal) instructs. I will not lie and say the play is real, not even for her. She didn’t say I had to. I will not say her version of our life is truer than mine. But I will say again that I’m very sorry, for whatever that’s worth.

  What sort of story is this, then? Not quite a tragedy, not for anyone else, anyhow. Not quite a comedy, not for me, anyhow. A problem play, I suppose we could call it. With time we will fit it into some genre or other. Endings are, after all, artificial, until the last one. It all depends on how you like the book. If you think I mean it, it reads a certain way. If you think I don’t, it reads another. Just like the play.

  So. The curtain drops, maybe snags a little on its way down, and stagehands scamper around trying to free it, while this actor in his one-man show stands there staring out into the darkness with a stupid smile and darting eyes as he squints from row to row, trying to find one particular face, to see if she liked it.

  ARTHUR PHILLIPS

  Minneapolis

  November 2010

  THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR

  BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  Lines of succession to the British throne in the story of Arthur, from Holinshed’s Chronicles, Shakespeare’s source material

  LIST OF PARTS

  THE ENGLISH-WELSH COURT

  ARTHUR, Prince of Wales, later King of Britain

  Duke of GLOUCESTER, Arthur’s guardian, later adviser

  Constantine, Earl of CORNWALL, later King of Britain

  GUENHERA, his sister, later Queen of Britain

  Duke of SOMERSET

  Duke of NORFOLK

  Earl of CUMBRIA

  Earl of KENT

  Sir Stephen of DERBY

  Bishop of CAERLEON

  LADY CRIER and other Ladies of the cour

  Guenhera’s NURSE

  THE PICTISH-SCOTTISH COURT

  LOTH, King of Pictland

  MORDRED, Loth’s son, Duke of Rothesay, later King of Pictlan

  CALVAN, Mordred’s brother, Prince of Orkneys

  CONRANUS, King of Scotland

  ALDA, Queen of Scotland, sister-in-law to Loth, aunt to Mordred and Arthur

  Duke of HEBRIDES, son to Conranus ALEXANDER, a messenger

  DOCTOR

  COLGERNE, chief of the Saxons

  SHEPHERDESS

  MASTER of the Hounds

  The Master of the Hounds’ BOY

  DENTON, an English soldier

  SUMNER, an English soldier

  MICHAEL BELL, a young English soldier

  French AMBASSADOR

  PHILIP of York

  PLAYER KING

  PLAYER QUEEN

  Messengers, Servants, Huntsmen, Attendants,

  Trumpeters, Hautboys, Soldiers, Players

  SYNOPSIS

  PROFESSOR ROLAND VERRE

  ACT I: In sixth-century Britain, King Uter Pendragon rapes a noble’s wife. The product of that rape, Arthur, is raised in Gloucestershire, far from his father’s constant wars with the Saxons. When Uter is killed, Arthur inherits the throne, but his right is challenged. Mordred, heir to the crown of Pictland (eastern Scotland), asserts his claim to be king of all Britain (England, Wales, Scotland, and Pictland, as well as Ireland). Mordred’s father, King Loth, refuses to go to war for this title. Mordred decides to provoke a war. The English nobles torture a Pictish ambassador, offering Mordred an excuse to bring Pictland (and Scotland) into the fight.

  ACT II: Arthur leads his men against the Saxons, Picts, and Scots at York, gaining his first victory. Mordred retreats to Lincoln to join hidden Saxon reinforcements. Arthur sends the Duke of Gloucester to lead his army in pursuit, vowing to arrive before any battle. Instead, the Duke of Gloucester, disguised as Arthur, wins a great victory against a surprisingly strong force. Arthur arrives late and allows his enemies to go home on the promise of peace, keeping Mordred’s brother for ransom. The Saxons attack again. Arthur, enraged, kills all prisoners, even the hostage brother. Mordred becomes King of Pictland and vows revenge against Arthur.

  ACT III: Gloucester arranges a valuable marriage for Arthur with a French princess, guaranteeing wealth, allies, and strength to help him achieve his goal of a unified, peaceful, and prosperous Britain. Instead, Arthur marries Guenhera, the sister of a childhood friend, who has loved him since he was a boy. She miscarries twice. Arthur’s nobles complain that he is too solicitous of his wife and has lost interest in military matters, that he has turned the court into a place of effeminate art and recreation. One noble considers assassinating Arthur to save the endangered kingdom.

  ACT IV: Arthur is overly submissive to his queen, who is pregnant again. He allows her to put knights on trial for acts of rudeness or chivalric misbehavior. In the midst of this, the Saxons attack yet again. Arthur realizes that he does not have the means to defend his kingdom and that he has, in his rashness, alienated the French and his nominal vassals, the Picts. Forced to negotiate, he secures Pictish aid by naming Mordred his heir. Mordred accordingly assists in the victory over the Saxons at Linmouth, but he suspects that Arthur is going to renege on his promise.

  ACT V: While Arthur is fighting a rebellion in Ireland, Mordred travels to London and learns that Guenhera has miscarried again but that Arthur has promised the throne to young Philip of York, one of Arthur’s illegitimate children. Humiliated, Mordred kidnaps Guenhera and Philip. Arthur leaves Ireland and makes camp in a muddy field alongside the Humber River to fight Mordred. It is not clear who attacks first, ending the hopes of a diplomatic solution. Mordred then murders Guenhera and kills Gloucester in battle. Arthur, heartbroken and realizing his weakness as a king, sees that his only duty is to kill Mordred, ensuring the end of civil strife in Britain. He does so, dying in the process, and a new king of a unified Britain is crowned.

  ACT I, SCENE I

  [Location: A wood in Gloucestershire]

  Enter Arthur and Gloucester [with spears, hunting boar]

  GLOUCESTER

  Arthur, by noble right your prey now w
aits.

  Yet stay, my prince. Charge not alone in haste.

  Her rump is pressed against an oak’s thick hide.

  And so to left and right command two men

  To kneel, with sharp-toothed bolts1 in ready bows.

  ARTHUR

  Fair gentle Gloucester, keeper of my state,

  I love thee well for all thy tender care.

  But here alone where war doth not intrude,

  Thou art too careful of this Prince of Wales.

  Believest thou she’d strike with will to slay?

  GLOUCESTER

  With carving razor tusk, she’ll pierce your plate2

  As if she cut through velvet pilèd thin.

  ARTHUR

  Her carving tusk?

  GLOUCESTER

  My lord?

  ARTHUR

  We shout beyond

  Each other’s ears. While long thou prat’st3 of boars,

  How is’t, dear friend, thy heart did slip the trap

  Laid sly by that reclining shepherdess?

  GLOUCESTER

  A shepherdess?

  ARTHUR

  An echo keeps my state!

  The shepherdess who there within a grove

  Doth lie and also lies: she feigns to sleep.

  Speak troth, thou marked her not?

  GLOUCESTER

  My prince, I marked

  The boar, your prey.

  ARTHUR

  And thee I pray to tempt

  Me not with tales of bacon in the wood,

  When finer cates4 do savor5 there below.

  GLOUCESTER

  Young liege,6 I know you will leave off to do

  These hot pursuits, which ill beseem a prince.

  I’d bid you study of your Christian soul,

  And chaste again you’ll join with me at hunt.

  ARTHUR

  O, gray old Duke of Gloucester, kindly lord,

  For all thy gifts, sage counsel, and sweet care

  I mean to clip thee to my kingly breast

  When round my temples flows the stream of gold.7

  But be not now nor then a wit-poor prophet,

  Who cloaks his lank advice in piety.

  I would not have my second father’s voice

  Now sing this priestly strain,8 nay, Duke, not you.

  GLOUCESTER

  Do you then call me father, good my prince?

  With love I call you only son, from when

  That night our gate did croak and murder sleep,9

  There came a courser,10 black against the sky,

  And wondrous dispatch from th’embattled king

  Was read to me, great confidence bestowed.

  Then soldiers pushed th’unwilling nurse to me,

  I marked the fardle11 in her weak, old arms,

  All swathed12 were you in clouts13 of Orient red.14

  And she did sob to you, “Farewell, my boy,”

  And would not ope her fists to give thee o’er.

  Then I and my new bride, yet half abed,

  Before we passed scarce one black night’s embrace,

  Did gaze upon a tiny boy’s bare head.

  ARTHUR

  A mother more than my own dam was she,

  Your blessèd wife.

  GLOUCESTER

  Who lived else issueless,

  And loved you as her son unto her grave.

  Cries off

  ARTHUR

  Thy pig attends her shrift15 and final words,

  While I do lay in charge my spear at mutton.16

  GLOUCESTER

  Then have you nothing of a conscience, Prince?

  ARTHUR

  I have a conscience of a nothing, Duke.17

  And ere I float upon remembered days,

  Or lose a stone18 to that hog’s truffling chaps,19

  I’ll take me down the hill to where she droops,20

  And dreams soft or of princes or of swains.21

  Whiche’er Mab22 soweth that I’ll ear.23 Now to her!24

  Exit [Arthur]

  GLOUCESTER

  “In Gloucestershire is Arthur safe from war.”

  Thus read King Uter’s posted words, and Gloucester—

  When time was25 war-like Gloucester—was unmanned.

  Each freshly knighted squire, each new-made earl—

  To hollowed title raised, for lack of pates

  To fill the bloodied casques of warm dead lords—

  Did frown on me, a nurse, far off from war.

  I nothing chose, but did obey my king:

  Not only stand protector for the prince,

  But warrant him the future of the realm,

  Be England’s Mentor26 to the Prince of Wales

  And tend a manly heir to wisely reign

  Then banish war from off our bloodied shores.

  I ne’er had other son, nor wife for long.

  The day I cut that boy a sword of lath27

  And leapt for him and made to die when touched28

  And held him pick-a-back29 near all the day,

  Smacks30 not more distant flown than half a week.

  Yet he was never mine, but only lent.

  Now bounds away this gallant-springing31 man,

  No more a boy mistaking me for Mars,

  But cockered,32 half-made prince ’pon whose slight arm

  Anon must trusting lean all Albion.33

  I am to raise a king or fly with one

  As fate decrees, and vicious Saxon34 arms,

  And Scottish breed-bates’35 whining discontent.

  To lead or to be led. For both he’s bred.

  On me will lie the blame an36 he’s not meet.37

  The censure is on Gloucester’s weary duke

  Who sacrificed his name to make this prince.

  What king forged I? All England will be judge.

  Enter messenger

  Short-winded, boy?

  MESSENGER

  Aye, save your grace. Am I