A Blot in the ‘Scutcheon
Category: Verse
Genres: Tragedy
Level 9 1:16 h
A Blot in the 'Scutcheon is a tragedy in blank verse by Robert Browning, published in 1843 and acted in the same year.

A Blot in the ‘Scutcheon

A Tragedy

by
Robert Browning


Preface

This play was written in 1843 at the request of Macready, and very rapidly, in four or five days. A misunderstanding with Macready, fully related in Mrs. Orr’s Life and Letters of Robert Browning, I. 168-184, and in Mr. Gosse’s Personalia, led to a breach between the two friends.

The play was received with great applause, but circumstances prevented it from being kept on the boards. It has, however, been reproduced both in England and in America, near the close of Browning’s life and after his death. Helen Faucit, afterward Lady Martin, took the part of Mildred. The play was printed shortly after it first appeared, as No. V. of Bells and Pomegranates.

PERSONS

Mildred Tresham.
Guendolen Tresham.
Thorold, Earl Tresham.
Austin Tresham.
Henry, Earl Mertoun.
Gerard, and other Retainers of Lord Tresham.

Time, 17 —


Act I

Scene I. The interior of a lodge in Lord Tresham’s park. Many Retainers crowded at the window, supposed to command a view of the entrance to his mansion. Gerard, the Warrener, his back to a table on which are flagons, etc.

1st Retainer. Ay, do! push, friends, and then you’ll push down me!
— What for? Does any hear a runner’s foot
Or a steed’s trample or a coach-wheel’s cry?
Is the Earl come or his least poursuivant?
But there’s no breeding in a man of you
Save Gerard yonder: here’s a half-place yet,
Old Gerard!

Gerard. Save your courtesies, my friend.
Here is my place.

2nd Ret. Now, Gerard, out with it!
What makes you sullen, this of all the days
I’ the year? To-day that young rich bountiful
Handsome Earl Mertoun, whom alone they match
With our Lord Tresham through the countryside,
Is coming here in utmost bravery
To ask our master’s sister’s hand?

Ger. What then?

2nd Ret. What then? Why, you, she speaks to, if she meets
Your worship, smiles on as you hold apart
The boughs to let her through her forest walks,
You, always favorite for your no-deserts,
You’ve heard, these three days, how Earl Mertoun sues
To lay his heart and house and broad lands too
At Lady Mildred’s feet: and while we squeeze
Ourselves into a mousehole lest we miss
One congee of the least page in his train,
You sit o’ one side — “there’s the Earl,” say I —
“What then?” say you!

3rd Ret. I’ll wager he has let
Both swans he tamed for Lady Mildred swim
Over the falls and gain the river!

Ger. Ralph,
Is not to-morrow my inspecting-day
For you and for your hawks?

4th Ret. Let Gerard be!
He’s coarse-grained, like his carved black cross-bow stock.
Ha, look now, while we squabble with him, look!
Well done, now — is not this beginning, now,
To purpose?

1st Ret. Our retainers look as fine —
That’s comfort. Lord, how Richard holds himself
With his white staff! Will not a knave behind
Prick him upright?

4th Ret. He’s only bowing, fool!
The Earl’s man bent us lower by this much.

1st Ret. That’s comfort. Here’s a very cavalcade!

3rd Ret. I don’t see wherefore Richard, and his troop
Of silk and silver varlets there, should find
Their perfumed selves so indispensable
On high days, holidays! Would it so disgrace
Our family, if I, for instance, stood —
In my right hand a cast of Swedish hawks,
A leash of greyhounds in my left? —

Ger. — With Hugh
The logman for supporter, in his right
The bill-hook, in his left the brushwood-shears!

3rd Ret. Out on you, crab! What next, what next? The Earl!

1st Ret. Oh Walter, groom, our horses, do they match
The Earl’s? Alas, that first pair of the six —
They paw the ground — Ah, Walter! and that brute
Just on his haunches by the wheel!

6th Ret. Ay — Ay!
You, Philip, are a special hand, I hear,
At soups and sauces: what’s a horse to you?
D’ye mark that beast they’ve slid into the midst
So cunningly? — then, Philip, mark this further;
No leg has he to stand on!

1st Ret. No? That’s comfort.

2nd Ret. Peace, Cook!The Earl descends. — Well, Gerard, see
The Earl at least! Come, there’s a proper man,
I hope! Why, Ralph, no falcon, Pole or Swede,
Has got a starrier eye.

3rd Ret. His eyes are blue —
But leave my hawks alone!

4th Ret. So young, and yet
So tall and shapely!

5th Ret. Here’s Lord Tresham’s self!
There now — there’s what a nobleman should be!
He’s older, graver, loftier, he’s more like
A House’s head!

2nd Ret. But you’d not have a boy
— And what’s the Earl beside? — possess too soon
That stateliness?

1st Ret. Our master takes his hand —
Richard and his white staff are on the move —
Back fall our people — (tsh! — there s Timothy
Sure to get tangled in his ribbon-ties,
And Peter’s cursed rosette’s a-coming off!)
— At last I see our lord’s back and his friend’s;
And the whole beautiful bright company
Close round them: in they go! [Jumping down from the window-bench, and making
for
the table and its jugs.] Good health, long life
Great joy to our Lord Tresham and his House!

6th Ret. My father drove his father first to court,
After his marriage-day — ay, did he!

2nd Ret. God bless
Lord Tresham, Lady Mildred, and the Earl!
Here, Gerard, reach your beaker!

Ger. Drink, my boys!
Don’t mind me — all’s not right about me — drink!

2nd Ret. [Aside.] He’s vexed, now, that he let the show escape!
[To Ger.] Remember that the Earl returns this way.

Ger. That way?

2nd Ret. Just so.

Ger. Then my way’s here.
[Goes.

2nd Ret. Old Gerard
Will die soon — mind, I said it! He was used
To care about the pitifullest thing
That touched the House’s honor, not an eye
But his could see wherein: and on a cause
Of scarce a quarter this importance, Gerard
Fairly had fretted flesh and bone away
In cares that this was right, nor that was wrong,
Such point decorous, and such square by rule —
He knew such niceties, no herald more:
And now — you see his humor: die he will!

2nd Ret. God help him! Who’s for the great servants’-hall
To hear what’s going on inside? They’d follow
Lord Tresham into the saloon.

3rd Ret. I! —

4th Ret. I! —
Leave Frank alone for catching, at the door,
Some hint of how the parley goes inside!
Prosperity to the great House once more!
Here’s the last drop!

1st Ret. Have at you! Boys, hurrah!


Scene II. A Saloon in the Mansion

Enter Lord Tresham, Lord Mertoun, Austin, and Guendolen.

Tresham. I welcome you, Lord Mertoun, yet once more,
To this ancestral roof of mine. Your name
— Noble among the noblest in itself,
Yet taking in your person, fame avers,
New price and lustre, — (as that gem you wear,
Transmitted from a hundred knightly breasts,
Fresh chased and set and fixed by its last lord,
Seems to rekindle at the core) — your name
Would win you welcome!

Mertoun. Thanks!

Tresh. — But add to that,
The worthiness and grace and dignity
Of your proposal for uniting both
Our Houses even closer than respect
Unites them now — add these, and you must grant
One favor more, nor that the least, — to think
The welcome I should give; — ‘t is given! My lord,
My only brother, Austin — he’s the king’s.
Our cousin, Lady Guendolen — betrothed
To Austin: all are yours.

Mer. I thank you — less
For the expressed commendings which your seal,
And only that, authenticates — forbids
My putting from me ... to my heart I take
Your praise ... but praise less claims my gratitude,
Than the indulgent insight it implies
Of what must needs be uppermost with one
Who comes, like me, with the bare leave to ask,
In weighed and measured unimpassioned words,
A gift, which, if as calmly ‘t is denied,
He must withdraw, content upon his cheek,
Despair within his soul. That I dare ask
Firmly, near boldly, near with confidence
That gift, I have to thank you. Yes, Lord Tresham,
I love your sister — as you’d have one love
That lady ... oh more, more I love her! Wealth,
Rank, all the world thinks me, they’re yours, you know,
To hold or part with, at your choice — but grant
My true self, me without a rood of land,
A piece of gold, a name of yesterday,
Grant me that lady, and you ... Death or life?

Guendolen. [Apart to Aus.] Why, this is loving, Austin!

Austin. He’s so young!

Guen. Young? Old enough, I think, to half surmise
He never had obtained an entrance here,
Were all this fear and trembling needed.

Aus. Hush!
He reddens.

Guen. Mark him, Austin; that’s true love!
Ours must begin again.

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