Rack me no more! Day and night, night and day, The image of your eyes and voice and hair Burns me; you are twisted in my heart strings, I have sought To cut love from my bosom, but I cannot, I cannot; and because it saps, divides, Undoes this realm, and wrongs the King I love-- Never can I enough repent that wrong---- GUENEVERE Ah, false and faithless, you will go to her. (_At the height of this scene, suddenly from the right a barge appears with the body of_ ELAINE _upon it. It is steered by a very old dumb servant. It glides very slowly to the steps which lead down to the river._ LAUNCELOT _alone sees it first_.) GUENEVERE What comes into your eyes and sends you pale? LAUNCELOT Is it a vision? GUENEVERE (_to the steersman_) Whom do you bring, cold on her bier, so strangely? (_To_ LAUNCELOT) Why does he speak no word? LAUNCELOT What need of words? GUENEVERE Is it she? LAUNCELOT Yes. GUENEVERE What have you done to her? LAUNCELOT Speak! Can you answer nothing? (_The steersman signs that he is deaf and dumb_) He is dumb. (_The steersman points to the letter_) GUENEVERE There is a folded paper in her hand. (LAUNCELOT _steps into the barge, and unties the letter and reads it_.) LAUNCELOT “Most noble Launcelot, I was your lover, though you would not love me. You could not love me, and therefore I can endure no longer. I was called the Fair Maid of Astolat, and yet I was not loved. So I make my lament to all fair ladies, and to the Queen Guenevere. Sir Launcelot, since you would not come to me, now come I to you. Bury this my body that is dead for love of you. This is the last thing that I ask of you who would not love me. And, Sir Launcelot, as you are a knight peerless, pray for my soul.” ARTHUR _appears, entering slowly_ ARTHUR What wonder’s here? LAUNCELOT The wonder of a death; The wonder and the beauty and the sorrow. ARTHUR Who is this maid? LAUNCELOT One that loved overmuch; It is Elaine. ARTHUR The maid of Astolat That healed your wound? How comes she dead? LAUNCELOT Read here. (ARTHUR _reads the letter to himself_.) GUENEVERE (_Gliding away with bowed head_) Pardon, pardon, pardon! ARTHUR Is love so terrible? I did not know. I would that you had married her. LAUNCELOT I could not. ARTHUR Why, Launcelot? LAUNCELOT I could not, Love cannot be constrained. Love must be free. Where love is bound, it breaks free. ARTHUR