ARTHUR A TRAGEDY
ARTHUR A TRAGEDY
BY LAURENCE BINYON
BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1923 By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (Incorporated)
Printed in the United States of America
THE MURRAY PRINTING COMPANY CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
BINDING BY THE BOSTON BOOKBINDING COMPANY CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
TO SIR JOHN AND LADY MARTIN HARVEY
With what names should I inscribe this play but with yours? Yet what right have I to dedicate to you what is already so much your own? Memory goes back to that June day, now long ago, when first I undertook to write for you a play out of Malory’s pages on a theme long pondered by you both. And many days come back to me, in London or by the sunny Channel, when time was forgotten in ardent work and interchange of ideas; in thinking out and talking over crucial situations; in rejecting and recasting; in the search for essential structure. How much the play owes to you, both in framework and in detail, none knows so well as I. Give me leave, therefore, to write these words in grateful acknowledgment of that initial trust, of much fruitful suggestion and inspiriting counsel, and of all I have learnt from you of the playwright’s patient craft.
LAURENCE BINYON.
CONTENTS
CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
A banner-bearer, priests, esquires, men-at-arms, soldiers, ladies of the Court, etc.
ARTHUR A TRAGEDY
FIRST SCENE
Sir Bernard’s castle at Astolat. A room with a window at the back. Sir Bernard alone, seated; he is old and grey-bearded. Lavaine enters in a hurry of excitement.
Lavaine
Father, the King’s at London gates!
Sir Bernard
Returned?
Lavaine
Victorious. He has overthrown and scattered
Those rebels in the North.
Sir Bernard
Praise God for that!
How heard you this, Lavaine?
Lavaine
From a King’s herald
That rode through Astolat. I spoke with him.
