Would God no Argo e'er had winged the seas

To Colchis through the blue Symplegades:

No shaft of riven pine in Pelion's glen

Shaped that first oar-blade in the hands of men

Valiant, who won, to save King Pelias' vow,

The fleece All-golden! Never then, I trow,

Mine own princess, her spirit wounded sore

With love of Jason, to the encastled shore

Had sailed of old Iolcos: never wrought

The daughters of King Pelias, knowing not,

To spill their father's life: nor fled in fear,

Hunted for that fierce sin, to Corinth here

With Jason and her babes. This folk at need

Stood friend to her, and she in word and deed

Served alway Jason. Surely this doth bind,

Through all ill days, the hurts of humankind,

When man and woman in one music move.

But now, the world is angry, and true love

Sick as with poison. Jason doth forsake

My mistress and his own two sons, to make

His couch in a king's chamber. He must wed:

Wed with this Creon's child, who now is head

And chief of Corinth. Wherefore sore betrayed

Medea calleth up the oath they made,

They two, and wakes the clasped hands again,

The troth surpassing speech, and cries amain

On God in heaven to mark the end, and how

Jason hath paid his debt.

All fasting now

And cold, her body yielded up to pain,

Her days a waste of weeping, she hath lain,

Since first she knew that he was false. Her eyes

Are lifted not; and all her visage lies

In the dust. If friends will speak, she hears no more

Than some dead rock or wave that beats the shore:

Only the white throat in a sudden shame

May writhe, and all alone she moans the name

Of father, and land, and home, forsook that day

For this man's sake, who casteth her away.

Not to be quite shut out from home… alas,

She knoweth now how rare a thing that was!

Methinks she hath a dread, not joy, to see

Her children near. 'Tis this that maketh me

Most tremble, lest she do I know not what.

Her heart is no light thing, and useth not

To brook much wrong. I know that woman, aye,

And dread her! Will she creep alone to die

Bleeding in that old room, where still is laid

Lord Jason's bed? She hath for that a blade

Made keen. Or slay the bridegroom and the king,

And win herself God knows what direr thing?

'Tis a fell spirit. Few, I ween, shall stir

Her hate unscathed, or lightly humble her.

Ha! 'Tis the children from their games again,

Rested and gay; and all their mother's pain

Forgotten! Young lives ever turn from gloom!

Thou ancient treasure of my lady's room,

What mak'st thou here before the gates alone,

And alway turning on thy lips some moan

Of old mischances? Will our mistress be

Content, this long time to be left by thee?

Grey guard of Jason's children, a good thrall

Hath his own grief, if any hurt befall

His masters. Aye, it holds one's heart!…

Meseems

I have strayed out so deep in evil dreams,

I longed to rest me here alone, and cry

Medea's wrongs to this still Earth and Sky.

How? Are the tears yet running in her eyes?

'Twere good to be like thee!… Her sorrow lies

Scarce wakened yet, not half its perils wrought.

Mad spirit!.. if a man may speak his thought

Of masters mad. – And nothing in her ears

Hath sounded yet of her last cause for tears!

What cause, old man?… Nay, grudge me not one word.

'Tis nothing. Best forget what thou hast heard.

Nay, housemate, by thy beard! Hold it not hid

From me… I will keep silence if thou bid.

I heard an old man talking, where he sate

At draughts in the sun, beside the fountain gate,

And never thought of me, there standing still

Beside him. And he said, 'Twas Creon's will,

Being lord of all this land, that she be sent,

And with her her two sons, to banishment.

Maybe 'tis all false. For myself, I know

No further, and I would it were not so.

Jason will never bear it-his own sons

Banished, – however hot his anger runs

Against their mother!

Old love burneth low

When new love wakes, men say. He is not now

Husband nor father here, nor any kin.

But this is ruin! New waves breaking in

To wreck us, ere we are righted from the old!

Well, hold thy peace. Our mistress will be told

All in good time. Speak thou no word hereof.

My babes! What think ye of your father's love?

God curse him not, he is my master still:

But, oh, to them that loved him, 'tis an ill

Friend…

And what man on earth is different? How?

Hast thou lived all these years, and learned but now

That every man more loveth his own head

Than other men's? He dreameth of the bed

Of this new bride, and thinks not of his sons.

Go: run into the house, my little ones:

All will end happily!.. Keep them apart:

Let not their mother meet them while her heart

Is darkened. Yester night I saw a flame

Stand in her eye, as though she hated them,

And would I know not what. For sure her wrath

Will never turn nor slumber, till she hath…

Go: and if some must suffer, may it be

Not we who love her, but some enemy!

Oh shame and pain: O woe is me!

Would I could die in my misery!

Ah, children, hark! She moves again

Her frozen heart, her sleeping wrath.

In, quick! And never cross her path,

Nor rouse that dark eye in its pain;

That fell sea-spirit, and the dire

Spring of a will untaught, unbowed.

Quick, now! – Methinks this weeping cloud

Hath in its heart some thunder-fire,

Slow gathering, that must flash ere long.

I know not how, for ill or well,

It turns, this uncontrollable

Tempestuous spirit, blind with wrong.

Have I not suffered? Doth it call

No tears?.. Ha, ye beside the wall

Unfathered children, God hate you

As I am hated, and him, too,

That gat you, and this house and all!

For pity! What have they to do,

Babes, with their father's sin? Why call

Thy curse on these?… Ah, children, all

These days my bosom bleeds for you.

Rude are the wills of princes: yea,

Prevailing alway, seldom crossed,

On fitful winds their moods are tossed:

'Tis best men tread the equal way.

Aye, not with glory but with peace

May the long summers find me crowned:

For gentleness-her very sound

Is magic, and her usages.

All wholesome: but the fiercely great

Hath little music on his road,

And falleth, when the hand of God

Shall move, most deep and desolate.

I heard a voice and a moan,

A voice of the eastern seas:

Hath she found not yet her ease?

Speak, O aged one.

For I stood afar at the gate,

And there came from within a cry,

And wailing desolate.

Ah, no more joy have I,

For the griefs this house doth see,

And the love it hath wrought in me.

There is no house! 'Tis gone. The lord

Seeketh a prouder bed: and she

Wastes in her chamber, not one word

Will hear of care or charity.

O Zeus, O Earth, O Light,

Will the fire not stab my brain?

What profiteth living? Oh,

Shall I not lift the slow

Yoke, and let Life go,

As a beast out in the night,

To lie, and be rid of pain?

"O Zeus, O Earth, O Light:"

The cry of a bride forlorn

Heard ye, and wailing born

Of lost delight?

Why weariest thou this day,

Wild heart, for the bed abhorred,

The cold bed in the clay?

Death cometh though no man pray,

Ungarlanded, un-adored.

Call him not thou.

If another's arms be now

Where thine have been,

On his head be the sin:

Rend not thy brow!

All that thou sufferest,

God seeth: Oh, not so sore

Waste nor weep for the breast

That was thine of yore.

Virgin of Righteousness,

Virgin of hallowed Troth,

Ye marked me when with an oath

I bound him; mark no less

That oath's end. Give me to see

Him and his bride, who sought

My grief when I wronged her not,

Broken in misery,

And all her house… O God,

My mother's home, and the dim

Shore that I left for him,

And the voice of my brother's blood.

Oh, wild words! Did ye hear her cry

To them that guard man's faith forsworn,

Themis and Zeus?… This wrath new-born

Shall make mad workings ere it die.

Would she but come to seek

Our faces, that love her well,

And take to her heart the spell

Of words that speak?

Alas for the heavy hate

And anger that burneth ever!

Would it but now abate,

Ah God, I love her yet.

And surely my love's endeavour

Shall fail not here.

Go: from that chamber drear

Forth to the day

Lead her, and say, Oh, say

That we love her dear.

Go, lest her hand be hard

On the innocent: Ah, let be!

For her grief moves hitherward,

Like an angry sea.

That will I: though what words of mine

Or love shall move her? Let them lie

With the old lost labours!… Yet her eye-

Know ye the eyes of the wild kine,

The lion flash that guards their brood?

So looks she now if any thrall

Speak comfort, or draw near at all

My mistress in her evil mood.

Alas, the bold blithe bards of old

That all for joy their music made,

For feasts and dancing manifold,

That Life might listen and be glad.

But all the darkness and the wrong,

Quick deaths and dim heart-aching things,

Would no man ease them with a song

Or music of a thousand strings?

Then song had served us in our need.

What profit, o'er the banquet's swell

That lingering cry that none may heed?

The feast hath filled them: all is well!

I heard a song, but it comes no more.

Where the tears ran over:

A keen cry but tired, tired:

A woman's cry for her heart's desired,

For a traitor's kiss and a lost lover.

But a prayer, methinks, yet riseth sore

To God, to Faith, God's ancient daughter-

The Faith that over sundering seas

Drew her to Hellas, and the breeze

Of midnight shivered, and the door

Closed of the salt unsounded water.

Women of Corinth, I am come to show

My face, lest ye despise me. For I know

Some heads stand high and fail not, even at night

Alone-far less like this, in all men's sight:

And we, who study not our wayfarings

But feel and cry-Oh we are drifting things,

And evil! For what truth is in men's eyes,

Which search no heart, but in a flash despise

A strange face, shuddering back from one that ne'er

Hath wronged them?… Sure, far-comers anywhere,

I know, must bow them and be gentle. Nay,

A Greek himself men praise not, who alway

Should seek his own will recking not… But I-

This thing undreamed of, sudden from on high,

Hath sapped my soul: I dazzle where I stand,

The cup of all life shattered in my hand,

Longing to die-O friends! He, even he,

Whom to know well was all the world to me,

The man I loved, hath proved most evil. – Oh,

Of all things upon earth that bleed and grow,

A herb most bruised is woman. We must pay

Our store of gold, hoarded for that one day,

To buy us some man's love; and lo, they bring

A master of our flesh! There comes the sting

Of the whole shame. And then the jeopardy,

For good or ill, what shall that master be;

Reject she cannot: and if he but stays

His suit, 'tis shame on all that woman's days.

So thrown amid new laws, new places, why,

'Tis magic she must have, or prophecy-

Home never taught her that-how best to guide

Toward peace this thing that sleepeth at her side.

And she who, labouring long, shall find some way

Whereby her lord may bear with her, nor fray

His yoke too fiercely, blessed is the breath

That woman draws! Else, let her pray for death.

Her lord, if he be wearied of the face

Withindoors, gets him forth; some merrier place

Will ease his heart: but she waits on, her whole

Vision enchained on a single soul.

And then, forsooth, 'tis they that face the call

Of war, while we sit sheltered, hid from all

Peril! – False mocking! Sooner would I stand

Three times to face their battles, shield in hand,

Than bear one child.

But peace! There cannot be

Ever the same tale told of thee and me.

Thou hast this city, and thy father's home,

And joy of friends, and hope in days to come:

But I, being citiless, am cast aside

By him that wedded me, a savage bride

Won in far seas and left-no mother near,

No brother, not one kinsman anywhere

For harbour in this storm. Therefore of thee

I ask one thing. If chance yet ope to me

Some path, if even now my hand can win

Strength to requite this Jason for his sin,

Betray me not! Oh, in all things but this,

I know how full of fears a woman is,

And faint at need, and shrinking from the light

Of battle: but once spoil her of her right

In man's love, and there moves, I warn thee well,

No bloodier spirit between heaven and hell.

I will betray thee not. It is but just,

Thou smite him. – And that weeping in the dust

And stormy tears, how should I blame them?..

'Tis Creon, lord of Corinth, makes his way

Hither, and bears, methinks, some word of weight.

Thou woman sullen-eyed and hot with hate

Against thy lord, Medea, I here command

That thou and thy two children from this land

Go forth to banishment. Make no delay:

Seeing ourselves, the King, are come this day

To see our charge fulfilled; nor shall again

Look homeward ere we have led thy children twain

And thee beyond our realm's last boundary.

Lost! Lost!

Mine haters at the helm with sail flung free

Pursuing; and for us no beach nor shore

In the endless waters!… Yet, though stricken sore,

I still will ask thee, for what crime, what thing

Unlawful, wilt thou cast me out, O King?

What crime? I fear thee, woman-little need

To cloak my reasons-lest thou work some deed

Of darkness on my child. And in that fear

Reasons enough have part. Thou comest here

A wise-woman confessed, and full of lore

In unknown ways of evil. Thou art sore

In heart, being parted from thy lover's arms.

And more, thou hast made menace… so the alarms

But now have reached mine ear… on bride and groom,

And him who gave the bride, to work thy doom

Of vengeance. Which, ere yet it be too late,

I sweep aside. I choose to earn thine hate

Of set will now, not palter with the mood

Of mercy, and hereafter weep in blood.

'Tis not the first nor second time, O King,

That fame hath hurt me, and come nigh to bring

My ruin… How can any man, whose eyes

Are wholesome, seek to rear his children wise

Beyond men's wont? Much helplessness in arts

Of common life, and in their townsmen's hearts

Envy deep-set… so much their learning brings!

Come unto fools with knowledge of new things,

They deem it vanity, not knowledge. Aye,

And men that erst for wisdom were held high,

Feel thee a thorn to fret them, privily

Held higher than they. So hath it been with me.

A wise-woman I am; and for that sin

To divers ill names men would pen me in;

A seed of strife; an eastern dreamer; one

Of brand not theirs; one hard to play upon…

Ah, I am not so wondrous wise! – And now,

To thee, I am terrible! What fearest thou?

What dire deed? Do I tread so proud a path-

Fear me not thou! – that I should brave the wrath

Of princes? Thou: what has thou ever done

To wrong me? Granted thine own child to one

Whom thy soul chose. – Ah, him out of my heart

I hate; but thou, meseems, hast done thy part

Not ill. And for thine houses' happiness

I hold no grudge. Go: marry, and God bless

Your issues. Only suffer me to rest

Somewhere within this land. Though sore oppressed,

I will be still, knowing mine own defeat.

Thy words be gentle: but I fear me yet

Lest even now there creep some wickedness

Deep hid within thee. And for that the less

I trust thee now than ere these words began.

A woman quick of wrath, aye, or a man,

Is easier watching than the cold and still.

Up, straight, and find thy road! Mock not my will

With words. This doom is passed beyond recall;

Nor all thy crafts shall help thee, being withal

My manifest foe, to linger at my side.

Oh, by thy knees! By that new-wedded bride…

'Tis waste of words. Thou shalt not weaken me.

Wilt hunt me? Spurn me when I kneel to thee?

'Tis mine own house that kneels to me, not thou.

Home, my lost home, how I desire thee now!

And I mine, and my child, beyond all things.

O Loves of man, what curse is on your wings!

Blessing or curse, 'tis as their chances flow.

Remember, Zeus, the cause of all this woe!

Oh, rid me of my pains! Up, get thee gone!

What would I with thy pains? I have mine own.

Up: or, 'fore God, my soldiers here shall fling…

Not that! Not that!.. I do but pray, O King…

Thou wilt not? I must face the harsher task?

I accept mine exile. 'Tis not that I ask.

Why then so wild? Why clinging to mine hand?

For one day only leave me in thy land

At peace, to find some counsel, ere the strain

Of exile fall, some comfort for these twain,

Mine innocents; since others take no thought,

It seems, to save the babes that they begot.

Ah! Thou wilt pity them! Thou also art

A father: thou hast somewhere still a heart

That feels… I reck not of myself: 'tis they

That break me, fallen upon so dire a day.

Mine is no tyrant's mood. Aye, many a time

Ere this my tenderness hath marred the chime

Of wisest counsels. And I know that now

I do mere folly. But so be it! Thou

Shalt have this grace… But this I warn thee clear,

If once the morrow's sunlight find thee here

Within my borders, thee or child of thine,

Thou diest!… Of this judgment not a line

Shall waver nor abate. So linger on,

If thou needs must, till the next risen sun;

No further… In one day there scarce can be

Those perils wrought whose dread yet haunteth me.

O woman, woman of sorrow,

Where wilt thou turn and flee?

What town shall be thine to-morrow,

What land of all lands that be,

What door of a strange man's home?

Yea, God hath hunted thee,

Medea, forth to the foam

Of a trackless sea.

Defeat on every side; what else? – But Oh,

Not here the end is: think it not! I know

For bride and groom one battle yet untried,

And goodly pains for him that gave the bride.

Dost dream I would have grovelled to this man,

Save that I won mine end, and shaped my plan

For merry deeds? My lips had never deigned

Speak word with him: my flesh been never stained

With touching… Fool, Oh, triple fool! It lay

So plain for him to kill my whole essay

By exile swift: and, lo, he sets me free

This one long day: wherein mine haters three

Shall lie here dead, the father and the bride

And husband-mine, not hers! Oh, I have tried

So many thoughts of murder to my turn,

I know not which best likes me. Shall I burn

Their house with fire? Or stealing past unseen

To Jason's bed-I have a blade made keen

For that-stab, breast to breast, that wedded pair?

Good, but for one thing. When I am taken there,

And killed, they will laugh loud who hate me…

Nay,

I love the old way best, the simple way

Of poison, where we too are strong as men.

Ah me!

And they being dead-what place shall hold me then?

What friend shall rise, with land inviolate

And trusty doors, to shelter from their hate

This flesh?… None anywhere!… A little more

I needs must wait: and, if there ope some door

Of refuge, some strong tower to shield me, good:

In craft and darkness I will hunt this blood.

Else, if mine hour be come and no hope nigh,

Then sword in hand, full-willed and sure to die,

I yet will live to slay them. I will wend

Man-like, their road of daring to the end.

So help me She who of all Gods hath been

The best to me, of all my chosen queen

And helpmate, Hecate, who dwells apart,

The flame of flame, in my fire's inmost heart:

For all their strength, they shall not stab my soul

And laugh thereafter! Dark and full of dole

Their bridal feast shall be, most dark the day

They joined their hands, and hunted me away.

Awake thee now, Medea! Whatso plot

Thou hast, or cunning, strive and falter not.

On to the peril-point! Now comes the strain

Of daring. Shall they trample thee again?

How? And with Hellas laughing o'er thy fall

While this Thief's daughter weds, and weds withal

Jason?… A true king was thy father, yea,

And born of the ancient Sun!… Thou know'st the way;

And God hath made thee woman, things most vain

For help, but wondrous in the paths of pain.

Back streams the wave on the ever running river:

Life, life is changed and the laws of it o'ertrod.

Man shall be the slave, the affrighted, the low-liver!

Man hath forgotten God.

And woman, yea, woman, shall be terrible in story:

The tales too, meseemeth, shall be other than of yore.

For a fear there is that cometh out of Woman and a glory,

And the hard hating voices shall encompass her no more!

The old bards shall cease, and their memory that lingers

Of frail brides and faithless, shall be shrivelled as with fire.

For they loved us not, nor knew us: and our lips were dumb, our fingers

Could wake not the secret of the lyre.

Else, else, O God the Singer, I had sung amid their rages

A long tale of Man and his deeds for good and ill.

But the old World knoweth-'tis the speech of all his ages-

Man's wrong and ours: he knoweth and is still.

Forth from thy father's home

Thou camest, O heart of fire,

To the Dark Blue Rocks, to the clashing foam,

To the seas of thy desire:

Till the Dark Blue Bar was crossed;

And, lo, by an alien river

Standing, thy lover lost,

Void-armed for ever,

Forth yet again, O lowest

Of landless women, a ranger

Of desolate ways, thou goest,

From the walls of the stranger.

And the great Oath waxeth weak;

And Ruth, as a thing outstriven,

Is fled, fled, from the shores of the Greek,

Away on the winds of heaven.

Dark is the house afar,

Where an old king called thee daughter;

All that was once thy star

In stormy water,

Dark: and, lo, in the nearer

House that was sworn to love thee,

Another, queenlier, dearer,

Is throned above thee.

Oft have I seen, in other days than these,

How a dark temper maketh maladies

No friend can heal. 'Twas easy to have kept

Both land and home. It needed but to accept

Unstrivingly the pleasure of our lords.

But thou, for mere delight in stormy words,

Wilt lose all!… Now thy speech provokes not me.

Rail on. Of all mankind let Jason be

Most evil; none shall check thee. But for these

Dark threats cast out against the majesties

Of Corinth, count as veriest gain thy path

Of exile. I myself, when princely wrath

Was hot against thee, strove with all good will

To appease the wrath, and wished to keep thee still

Beside me. But thy mouth would never stay

From vanity, blaspheming night and day

Our masters. Therefore thou shalt fly the land.

Yet, even so, I will not hold my hand

From succouring mine own people. Here am I

To help thee, woman, pondering heedfully

Thy new state. For I would not have thee flung

Provisionless away-aye, and the young

Children as well; nor lacking aught that will

Of mine can bring thee. Many a lesser ill

Hangs on the heels of exile… Aye, and though

Thou hate me, dream not that my heart can know

Or fashion aught of angry will to thee.

Evil, most evil!… since thou grantest me

That comfort, the worst weapon left me now

To smite a coward… Thou comest to me, thou,

Mine enemy!

Oh, say, how call ye this,

To face, and smile, the comrade whom his kiss

Betrayed? Scorn? Insult? Courage? None of these:

'Tis but of all man's inward sicknesses

The vilest, that he knoweth not of shame

Nor pity! Yet I praise him that he came…

To me it shall bring comfort, once to clear

My heart on thee, and thou shalt wince to hear.

I will begin with that, 'twixt me and thee,

That first befell. I saved thee. I saved thee-

Let thine own Greeks be witness, every one

That sailed on Argo-saved thee, sent alone

To yoke with yokes the bulls of fiery breath,

And sow that Acre of the Lords of Death;

And mine own ancient Serpent, who did keep

The Golden Fleece, the eyes that knew not sleep,

And shining coils, him also did I smite

Dead for thy sake, and lifted up the light

That bade thee live. Myself, uncounselled,

Stole forth from father and from home, and fled

Where dark Iolcos under Pelion lies,

With thee-Oh, single-hearted more than wise!

I murdered Pelias, yea, in agony,

By his own daughters' hands, for sake of thee;

I swept their house like War. – And hast thou then

Accepted all-O evil yet again!-

And cast me off and taken thee for bride

Another? And with children at thy side!

One could forgive a childless man. But no:

I have borne thee children…

Is sworn faith so low

And weak a thing? I understand it not.

Are the old gods dead? Are the old laws forgot,

And new laws made? Since not my passioning,

But thine own heart, doth cry thee for a thing

Forsworn.

She catches sight of her own hand which she has thrown out to denounce him.

Poor, poor right hand of mine, whom he

Did cling to, and these knees, so cravingly,

We are unclean, thou and I; we have caught the stain

Of bad men's flesh… and dreamed our dreams in vain.

Thou comest to befriend me? Give me, then,

Thy counsel. 'Tis not that I dream again

For good from thee: but, questioned, thou wilt show

The viler. Say: now whither shall I go?

Back to my father? Him I did betray,

And all his land, when we two fled away.

To those poor Peliad maids? For them 'twere good

To take me in, who spilled their father's blood…

Aye, so my whole life stands! There were at home

Who loved me well: to them I am become

A curse. And the first friends who sheltered me,

Whom most I should have spared, to pleasure thee

I have turned to foes. Oh, therefore hast thou laid

My crown upon me, blest of many a maid

In Hellas, now I have won what all did crave,

Thee, the world-wondered lover and the brave;

Who this day looks and sees me banished, thrown

Away with these two babes, all, all, alone…

Oh, merry mocking when the lamps are red:

"Where go the bridegroom's babes to beg their bread

In exile, and the woman who gave all

To save him?"

O great God, shall gold withal

Bear thy clear mark, to sift the base and fine,

And o'er man's living visage runs no sign

To show the lie within, ere all too late?

Dire and beyond all healing is the hate

When hearts that loved are turned to enmity.

In speech at least, meseemeth, I must be

Not evil; but, as some old pilot goes

Furled to his sail's last edge, when danger blows

Too fiery, run before the wind and swell,

Woman, of thy loud storms. – And thus I tell

My tale. Since thou wilt build so wondrous high

Thy deeds of service in my jeopardy,

To all my crew and quest I know but one

Saviour, of Gods or mortals one alone,

The Cyprian. Oh, thou hast both brain and wit,

Yet underneath… nay, all the tale of it

Were graceless telling; how sheer love, a fire

Of poison-shafts, compelled thee with desire

To save me. But enough. I will not score

That count too close. 'Twas good help: and therefor

I give thee thanks, howe'er the help was wrought.

Howbeit, in my deliverance, thou hast got

Far more than given. A good Greek land hath been

Thy lasting home, not barbary. Thou hast seen

Our ordered life, and justice, and the long

Still grasp of law not changing with the strong

Man's pleasure. Then, all Hellas far and near

Hath learned thy wisdom, and in every ear

Thy fame is. Had thy days run by unseen

On that last edge of the world, where then had been

The story of great Medea? Thou and I…

What worth to us were treasures heaped high

In rich kings' rooms; what worth a voice of gold

More sweet than ever rang from Orpheus old,

Unless our deeds have glory?

Speak I so,

Touching the Quest I wrought, thyself did throw

The challenge down. Next for thy cavilling

Of wrath at mine alliance with a king,

Here thou shalt see I both was wise, and free

From touch of passion, and a friend to thee

Most potent, and my children… Nay, be still!

When first I stood in Corinth, clogged with ill

From many a desperate mischance, what bliss

Could I that day have dreamed of, like to this,

To wed with a king's daughter, I exiled

And beggared? Not-what makes thy passion wild-

From loathing of thy bed; not over-fraught

With love for this new bride; not that I sought

To upbuild mine house with offspring: 'tis enough,

What thou hast borne: I make no word thereof:

But, first and greatest, that we all might dwell

In a fair house and want not, knowing well

That poor men have no friends, but far and near

Shunning and silence. Next, I sought to rear

Our sons in nurture worthy of my race,

And, raising brethren to them, in one place

Join both my houses, and be all from now

Prince-like and happy. What more need hast thou

Of children? And for me, it serves my star

To link in strength the children that now are

With those that shall be.

Have I counselled ill?

Not thine own self would say it, couldst thou still

One hour thy jealous flesh. – 'Tis ever so!

Who looks for more in women? When the flow

Of love runs plain, why, all the world is fair:

But, once there fall some ill chance anywhere

To baulk that thirst, down in swift hate are trod

Men's dearest aims and noblest. Would to God

We mortals by some other seed could raise

Our fruits, and no blind women block our ways!

Then had there been no curse to wreck mankind.

Lord Jason, very subtly hast thou twined

Thy speech: but yet, though all athwart thy will

I speak, this is not well thou dost, but ill,

Betraying her who loved thee and was true.

Surely I have my thoughts, and not a few

Have held me strange. To me it seemeth, when

A crafty tongue is given to evil men

'Tis like to wreck, not help them. Their own brain

Tempts them with lies to dare and dare again,

Till… no man hath enough of subtlety.

As thou-be not so seeming-fair to me

Nor deft of speech. One word will make thee fall.

Wert thou not false, 'twas thine to tell me all,

And charge me help thy marriage path, as I

Did love thee; not befool me with a lie.

An easy task had that been! Aye, and thou

A loving aid, who canst not, even now,

Still that loud heart that surges like the tide!

That moved thee not. Thine old barbarian bride,

The dog out of the east who loved thee sore,

She grew grey-haired, she served thy pride no more.

Now understand for once! The girl to me

Is nothing, in this web of sovranty

I hold. I do but seek to save, even yet,

Thee: and for brethren to our sons beget

Young kings, to prosper all our lives again.

God shelter me from prosperous days of pain,

And wealth that maketh wounds about my heart.

Wilt change that prayer, and choose a wiser part?

Pray not to hold true sense for pain, nor rate

Thyself unhappy, being too fortunate.

Aye, mock me; thou hast where to lay thine head,

But I go naked to mine exile.

Tread

Thine own path! Thou hast made it all to be.

How? By seducing and forsaking thee?

By those vile curses on the royal halls

Let loose…

On thy house also, as chance falls,

I am a living curse.

Oh, peace! Enough

Of these vain wars: I will no more thereof.

If thou wilt take from all that I possess

Aid for these babes and thine own helplessness

Of exile, speak thy bidding. Here I stand

Full-willed to succour thee with stintless hand,

And send my signet to old friends that dwell

On foreign shores, who will entreat thee well.

Refuse, and thou shalt do a deed most vain.

But cast thy rage away, and thou shalt gain

Much, and lose little for thine anger's sake.

I will not seek thy friends. I will not take

Thy givings. Give them not. Fruits of a stem

Unholy bring no blessing after them.

Now God in heaven be witness, all my heart

Is willing, in all ways, to do its part

For thee and for thy babes. But nothing good

Can please thee. In sheer savageness of mood

Thou drivest from thee every friend. Wherefore

I warrant thee, thy pains shall be the more.

He goes slowly away.

Go: thou art weary for the new delight

Thou wooest, so long tarrying out of sight

Of her sweet chamber. Go, fulfil thy pride,

O bridegroom! For it may be, such a bride

Shall wait thee, – yea, God heareth me in this-

As thine own heart shall sicken ere it kiss.

Alas, the Love that falleth like a flood,

Strong-winged and transitory:

Why praise ye him? What beareth he of good

To man, or glory?

Yet Love there is that moves in gentleness,

Heart-filling, sweetest of all powers that bless.

Loose not on me, O Holder of man's heart,

Thy golden quiver,

Nor steep in poison of desire the dart

That heals not ever.

The pent hate of the word that cavilleth,

The strife that hath no fill,

Where once was fondness; and the mad heart's breath

For strange love panting still:

O Cyprian, cast me not on these; but sift,

Keen-eyed, of love the good and evil gift.

Make Innocence my friend, God's fairest star,

Yea, and abate not

The rare sweet beat of bosoms without war,

That love, and hate not.

Home of my heart, land of my own,

Cast me not, nay, for pity,

Out on my ways, helpless, alone,

Where the feet fail in the mire and stone,

A woman without a city.

Ah, not that! Better the end:

The green grave cover me rather,

If a break must come in the days I know,

And the skies be changed and the earth below;

For the weariest road that man may wend

Is forth from the home of his father.

Lo, we have seen: 'tis not a song

Sung, nor learned of another.

For whom hast thou in thy direst wrong

For comfort? Never a city strong

To hide thee, never a brother.

Ah, but the man-cursed be he,

Cursed beyond recover,

Who openeth, shattering, seal by seal,

A friend's clean heart, then turns his heel,

Deaf unto love: never in me

Friend shall he know nor lover.

Have joy, Medea! 'Tis the homeliest

Word that old friends can greet with, and the best.

Oh, joy on thee, too, Aegeus, gentle king

Of Athens! – But whence com'st thou journeying?

From Delphi now and the old encaverned stair…

Where Earth's heart speaks in song? What mad'st thou there?

Prayed heaven for children-the same search alway.

Children? Ah God! Art childless to this day?

So God hath willed. Childless and desolate.

What word did Phoebus speak, to change thy fate?

Riddles, too hard for mortal man to read.

Which I may hear?

Assuredly: they need

A rarer wit.

How said he?

Not to spill

Life's wine, nor seek for more…

Until?

Until

I tread the hearth-stone of my sires of yore.

And what should bring thee here, by Creon's shore?

One Pittheus know'st thou, high lord of Trozen?

Aye, Pelops' son, a man most pure of sin.

Him I would ask, touching Apollo's will.

Much use in God's ways hath he, and much skill.

And, long years back he was my battle-friend,

The truest e'er man had.

Well, may God send

Good hap to thee, and grant all thy desire.

But thou…? Thy frame is wasted, and the fire

Dead in thine eyes.

Aegeus, my husband is

The falsest man in the world.

What word is this?

Say clearly what thus makes thy visage dim?

He is false to me, who never injured him.

What hath he done? Show all, that I may see.

Ta'en him a wife; a wife, set over me

To rule his house.

He hath not dared to do,

Jason, a thing so shameful?

Aye, 'tis true:

And those he loved of yore have no place now.

Some passion sweepeth him? Or is it thou

He turns from?

Passion, passion to betray

His dearest!

Shame be his, so fallen away

From honour!

Passion to be near a throne,

A king's heir!

How, who gives the bride? Say on.

Creon, who o'er all Corinth standeth chief.

Woman, thou hast indeed much cause for grief.

'Tis ruin. – And they have cast me out as well.

Who? 'Tis a new wrong this, and terrible.

Creon the king, from every land and shore…

And Jason suffers him? Oh, 'tis too sore!

He loveth to bear bravely ills like these!

But, Aegeus, by thy beard, oh, by thy knees,

I pray thee, and I give me for thine own,

Thy suppliant, pity me! Oh, pity one

So miserable. Thou never wilt stand there

And see me cast out friendless to despair.

Give me a home in Athens… by the fire

Of thine own hearth! Oh, so may thy desire

Of children be fulfilled of God, and thou

Die happy!… Thou canst know not; even now

Thy prize is won! I, I will make of thee

A childless man no more. The seed shall be,

I swear it, sown. Such magic herbs I know.

Woman, indeed my heart goes forth to show

This help to thee, first for religion's sake,

Then for thy promised hope, to heal my ache

Of childlessness. 'Tis this hath made mine whole

Life as a shadow, and starved out my soul.

But thus it stands with me. Once make thy way

To Attic earth, I, as in law I may,

Will keep thee and befriend. But in this land,

Where Creon rules, I may not raise my hand

To shelter thee. Move of thine own essay

To seek my house, there thou shalt alway stay,

Inviolate, never to be seized again.

But come thyself from Corinth. I would fain

Even in foreign eyes be alway just.

'Tis well. Give me an oath wherein to trust

And all that man could ask thou hast granted me.

Dost trust me not? Or what thing troubleth thee?

I trust thee. But so many, far and near,

Do hate me-all King Pelias' house, and here

Creon. Once bound by oaths and sanctities

Thou canst not yield me up for such as these

To drag from Athens. But a spoken word,

No more, to bind thee, which no God hath heard…

The embassies, methinks, would come and go:

They all are friends to thee… Ah me, I know

Thou wilt not list to me! So weak am I,

And they full-filled with gold and majesty.

Methinks 'tis a far foresight, this thine oath.

Still, if thou so wilt have it, nothing loath

Am I to serve thee. Mine own hand is so

The stronger, if I have this plea to show

Thy persecutors: and for thee withal

The bond more sure. – On what God shall I call?

Swear by the Earth thou treadest, by the Sun,

Sire of my sires, and all the gods as one…

To do what thing or not do? Make all plain.

Never thyself to cast me out again.

Nor let another, whatsoe'er his plea,

Take me, while thou yet livest and art free.

Never: so hear me, Earth, and the great star

Of daylight, and all other gods that are!

'Tis well: and if thou falter from thy vow…?

God's judgment on the godless break my brow!

Go! Go thy ways rejoicing. – All is bright

And clear before me. Go: and ere the night

Myself will follow, when the deed is done

I purpose, and the end I thirst for won.

Farewell: and Maia's guiding Son

Back lead thee to thy hearth and fire,

Aegeus; and all the long desire

That wasteth thee, at last be won:

Our eyes have seen thee as thou art,

A gentle and a righteous heart.

God, and God's Justice, and ye blinding Skies!

At last the victory dawneth! Yea, mine eyes

See, and my foot is on the mountain's brow.

Mine enemies! Mine enemies, oh, now

Atonement cometh! Here at my worst hour

A friend is found, a very port of power

To save my shipwreck. Here will I make fast

Mine anchor, and escape them at the last

In Athens' walled hill. – But ere the end

'Tis meet I show thee all my counsel, friend:

Take it, no tale to make men laugh withal!

Straightway to Jason I will send some thrall

To entreat him to my presence. Comes he here,

Then with soft reasons will I feed his ear,

How his will now is my will, how all things

Are well, touching this marriage-bed of kings

For which I am betrayed-all wise and rare

And profitable! Yet will I make one prayer,

That my two children be no more exiled

But stay… Oh, not that I would leave a child

Here upon angry shores till those have laughed

Who hate me: 'tis that I will slay by craft

The king's daughter. With gifts they shall be sent,

Gifts to the bride to spare their banishment,

Fine robings and a carcanet of gold.

Which raiment let her once but take, and fold

About her, a foul death that girl shall die

And all who touch her in her agony.

Such poison shall they drink, my robe and wreath!

Howbeit, of that no more. I gnash my teeth

Thinking on what a path my feet must tread

Thereafter. I shall lay those children dead-

Mine, whom no hand shall steal from me away!

Then, leaving Jason childless, and the day

As night above him, I will go my road

To exile, flying, flying from the blood

Of these my best-beloved, and having wrought

All horror, so but one thing reach me not,

The laugh of them that hate us.

Let it come!

What profits life to me? I have no home,

No country now, nor shield from any wrong.

That was my evil hour, when down the long

Halls of my father out I stole, my will

Chained by a Greek man's voice, who still, oh, still,

If God yet live, shall all requited be.

For never child of mine shall Jason see

Hereafter living, never child beget

From his new bride, who this day, desolate

Even as she made me desolate, shall die

Shrieking amid my poisons… Names have I

Among your folk? One light? One weak of hand?

An eastern dreamer? – Nay, but with the brand

Of strange suns burnt, my hate, by God above,

A perilous thing, and passing sweet my love!

For these it is that make life glorious.

Since thou has bared thy fell intent to us

I, loving thee, and helping in their need

Man's laws, adjure thee, dream not of this deed!

There is no other way. – I pardon thee

Thy littleness, who art not wronged like me.

Thou canst not kill the fruit thy body bore!

Yes: if the man I hate be pained the more.

And thou made miserable, most miserable?

Oh, let it come! All words of good or ill

Are wasted now.

Ho, woman; get thee gone

And lead lord Jason hither… There is none

Like thee, to work me these high services.

But speak no word of what my purpose is,

As thou art faithful, thou, and bold to try

All succours, and a woman even as I!

The sons of Erechtheus, the olden,

Whom high gods planted of yore

In an old land of heaven upholden,

A proud land untrodden of war:

They are hungered, and, lo, their desire

With wisdom is fed as with meat:

In their skies is a shining of fire,

A joy in the fall of their feet:

And thither, with manifold dowers,

From the North, from the hills, from the morn,

The Muses did gather their powers,

That a child of the Nine should be born;

And Harmony, sown as the flowers,

Grew gold in the acres of corn.

And Cephisus, the fair-flowing river-

The Cyprian dipping her hand

Hath drawn of his dew, and the shiver

Of her touch is as joy in the land.

For her breathing in fragrance is written,

And in music her path as she goes,

And the cloud of her hair, it is litten

With stars of the wind-woven rose.

So fareth she ever and ever,

And forth of her bosom is blown,

As dews on the winds of the river,

An hunger of passions unknown.

Strong Loves of all godlike endeavour,

Whom Wisdom shall throne on her throne.

But Cephisus the fair-flowing,

Will he bear thee on his shore?

Shall the land that succours all, succour thee,

Who art foul among thy kind,

With the tears of children blind?

Dost thou see the red gash growing,

Thine own burden dost thou see?

Every side, Every way,

Lo, we kneel to thee and pray:

By thy knees, by thy soul, O woman wild!

One at least thou canst not slay,

Not thy child!

Hast thou ice that thou shalt bind it

To thy breast, and make thee dead

To thy children, to thine own spirit's pain?

When the hand knows what it dares,

When thine eyes look into theirs,

Shalt thou keep by tears unblinded

Thy dividing of the slain?

These be deeds Not for thee:

These be things that cannot be!

Thy babes-though thine hardihood be fell,

When they cling about thy knee,

'Twill be well!

I answer to thy call. Though full of hate

Thou be, I yet will not so far abate

My kindness for thee, nor refuse mine ear.

Say in what new desire thou hast called me here.

Jason, I pray thee, for my words but now

Spoken, forgive me. My bad moods… Oh, thou

At least wilt strive to bear with them! There be

Many old deeds of love 'twixt me and thee.

Lo, I have reasoned with myself apart

And chidden: "Why must I be mad, O heart

Of mine: and raging against one whose word

Is wisdom: making me a thing abhorred

To them that rule the land, and to mine own

Husband, who doth but that which, being done,

Will help us all-to wed a queen, and get

Young kings for brethren to my sons? And yet

I rage alone, and cannot quit my rage-

What aileth me? – when God sends harbourage

So simple? Have I not my children? Know

I not we are but exiles, and must go

Beggared and friendless else?" Thought upon thought

So pressed me, till I knew myself full-fraught

With bitterness of heart and blinded eyes.

So now-I give thee thanks: and hold thee wise

To have caught this anchor for our aid. The fool

Was I; who should have been thy friend, thy tool;

Gone wooing with thee, stood at thy bed-side

Serving, and welcomed duteously thy bride.

But, as we are, we are-I will not say

Mere evil-women! Why must thou to-day

Turn strange, and make thee like some evil thing,

Childish, to meet my childish passioning?

See, I surrender: and confess that then

I had bad thoughts, but now have turned again

And found my wiser mind.

She claps her hands.

Ho, children! Run

Quickly! Come hither, out into the sun,

And greet your father. Welcome him with us,

And throw quite, quite away, as mother does,

Your anger against one so dear. Our peace

Is made, and all the old bad war shall cease

For ever. – Go, and take his hand…

Ah me,

I am full of hidden horrors!… Shall it be

A long time more, my children, that ye live

To reach to me those dear, dear arms?… Forgive!

I am so ready with my tears to-day,

And full of dread… I sought to smooth away

The long strife with your father, and, lo, now

I have all drowned with tears this little brow!

She wipes the child's face.

O'er mine eyes too there stealeth a pale tear:

Let the evil rest, O God, let it rest here!

Woman, indeed I praise thee now, nor say

Ill of thine other hour. 'Tis nature's way,

A woman needs must stir herself to wrath,

When work of marriage by so strange a path

Crosseth her lord. But thou, thine heart doth wend

The happier road. Thou hast seen, ere quite the end,

What choice must needs be stronger: which to do

Shows a wise-minded woman… And for you,

Children; your father never has forgot

Your needs. If God but help him, he hath wrought

A strong deliverance for your weakness. Yea,

I think you, with your brethren, yet one day

Shall be the mightiest voices in this land.

Do you grow tall and strong. Your father's hand

Guideth all else, and whatso power divine

Hath alway helped him… Ah, may it be mine

To see you yet in manhood, stern of brow,

Strong-armed, set high o'er those that hate me…

How?

Woman, thy face is turned. Thy cheek is swept

With pallor of strange tears. Dost not accept

Gladly and of good will my benisons?

MEDEA

'Tis nothing. Thinking of these little ones…

Take heart, then. I will guard them from all ill.

I do take heart. Thy word I never will

Mistrust. Alas, a woman's bosom bears

But woman's courage, a thing born for tears.

What ails thee? – All too sore thou weepest there.

I was their mother! When I heard thy prayer

Of long life for them, there swept over me

A horror, wondering how these things shall be.

But for the matter of my need that thou

Should speak with me, part I have said, and now

Will finish. – Seeing it is the king's behest

To cast me out from Corinth… aye, and best,

Far best, for me-I know it-not to stay

Longer to trouble thee and those who sway

The realm, being held to all their house a foe…

Behold, I spread my sails, and meekly go

To exile. But our children… Could this land

Be still their home awhile: could thine own hand

But guide their boyhood… Seek the king, and pray

His pity, that he bid thy children stay!

JASON

He is hard to move. Yet surely 'twere well done.

Bid her-for thy sake, for a daughters boon…

Well thought! Her I can fashion to my mind.

Surely. She is a woman like her kind…

Yet I will aid thee in thy labour; I

Will send her gifts, the fairest gifts that lie

In the hands of men, things of the days of old,

Fine robings and a carcanet of gold,

By the boys' hands. – Go, quick, some handmaiden,

And fetch the raiment.

A handmaid goes into the house.

Ah, her cup shall then

Be filled indeed! What more should woman crave,

Being wed with thee, the bravest of the brave,

And girt with raiment which of old the sire

Of all my house, the Sun, gave, steeped in fire,

To his own fiery race?

The handmaid has returned bearing the Gifts.

Come, children, lift

With heed these caskets. Bear them as your gift

To her, being bride and princess and of right

Blessed! – I think she will not hold them light.

Fond woman, why wilt empty thus thine hand

Of treasure? Doth King Creon's castle stand

In stint of raiment, or in stint of gold?

Keep these, and make no gift. For if she hold

Jason of any worth at all, I swear

Chattels like these will not weigh more with her.

Ah, chide me not! 'Tis written, gifts persuade

The gods in heaven; and gold is stronger made

Than words innumerable to bend men's ways.

Fortune is hers. God maketh great her days:

Young and a crowned queen! And banishment

For those two babes… I would not gold were spent,

But life's blood, ere that come.

My children, go

Forth into those rich halls, and, bowing low,

Beseech your father's bride, whom I obey,

Ye be not, of her mercy, cast away

Exiled: and give the caskets-above all

Mark this! – to none but her, to hold withal

And keep… Go quick! And let your mother know

Soon the good tiding that she longs for… Go!

Now I have no hope more of the children's living;

No hope more. They are gone forth unto death.

The bride, she taketh the poison of their giving:

She taketh the bounden gold and openeth;

And the crown, the crown, she lifteth about her brow,

Where the light brown curls are clustering. No hope now!

O sweet and cloudy gleam of the garments golden!

The robe, it hath clasped her breast and the crown her head.

Then, then, she decketh the bride, as a bride of olden

Story, that goeth pale to the kiss of the dead.

For the ring hath closed, and the portion of death is there;

And she flieth not, but perisheth unaware.

O bridegroom, bridegroom of the kiss so cold,

Art thou wed with princes, art thou girt with gold,

Who know'st not, suing

For thy child's undoing,

And, on her thou lovest, for a doom untold?

How art thou fallen from thy place of old!

O Mother, Mother, what hast thou to reap,

When the harvest cometh, between wake and sleep?

For a heart unslaken,

For a troth forsaken,

Lo, babes that call thee from a bloody deep:

And thy love returns not. Get thee forth and weep!

Mistress, these children from their banishment

Are spared. The royal bride hath mildly bent

Her hand to accept thy gifts, and all is now

Peace for the children. – Ha, why standest thou

Confounded, when good fortune draweth near?

Ah God!

This chimes not with the news I bear.

O God, have mercy!

Is some word of wrath

Here hidden that I knew not of? And hath

My hope to give thee joy so cheated me?

Thou givest what thou givest: I blame not thee.

Thy brows are all o'ercast: thine eyes are filled…

For bitter need, Old Man! The gods have willed,

And my own evil mind, that this should come.

Take heart! Thy sons one day will bring thee home.

Home?… I have others to send home. Woe's me!

Be patient. Many a mother before thee

Hath parted from her children. We poor things

Of men must needs endure what fortune brings.

I will endure. – Go thou within, and lay

All ready that my sons may need to-day.

O children, children mine: and you have found

A land and home, where, leaving me discrowned

And desolate, forever you will stay,

Motherless children! And I go my way

To other lands, an exile, ere you bring

Your fruits home, ere I see you prospering

Or know your brides, or deck the bridal bed,

All flowers, and lift your torches overhead.

Oh cursed be mine own hard heart! 'Twas all

In vain, then, that I reared you up, so tall

And fair; in vain I bore you, and was torn

With those long pitiless pains, when you were born.

Ah, wondrous hopes my poor heart had in you,

How you would tend me in mine age, and do

The shroud about me with your own dear hands,

When I lay cold, blessed in all the lands

That knew us. And that gentle thought is dead!

You go, and I live on, to eat the bread

Of long years, to myself most full of pain.

And never your dear eyes, never again,

Shall see your mother, far away being thrown

To other shapes of life… My babes, my own,

Why gaze ye so? – What is it that ye see?-

And laugh with that last laughter?… Woe is me,

What shall I do?

Women, my strength is gone,

Gone like a dream, since once I looked upon

Those shining faces… I can do it not.

Good-bye to all the thoughts that burned so hot

Aforetime! I will take and hide them far,

Far, from men's eyes. Why should I seek a war

So blind: by these babes' wounds to sting again

Their father's heart, and win myself a pain

Twice deeper? Never, never! I forget

Henceforward all I laboured for.

And yet,

What is it with me? Would I be a thing

Mocked at, and leave mine enemies to sting

Unsmitten? It must be. O coward heart,

Ever to harbour such soft words! – Depart

Out of my sight, ye twain.

The CHILDREN go in.

And they whose eyes

Shall hold it sin to share my sacrifice,

On their heads be it! My hand shall swerve not now.

Ah, Ah, thou Wrath within me! Do not thou,

Do not… Down, down, thou tortured thing, and spare

My children! They will dwell with us, aye, there

Far off, and give thee peace.

Too late, too late!

By all Hell's living agonies of hate,

They shall not take my little ones alive

To make their mock with! Howsoe'er I strive

The thing is doomed; it shall not escape now

From being. Aye, the crown is on the brow,

And the robe girt, and in the robe that high

Queen dying.

I know all. Yet… seeing that I

Must go so long a journey, and these twain

A longer yet and darker, I would fain

Speak with them, ere I go.

Come, children; stand

A little from me. There. Reach out your hand,

Your right hand-so-to mother: and good-bye!

Oh, darling hand! Oh, darling mouth, and eye,

And royal mien, and bright brave faces clear,

May you be blessed, but not here! What here

Was yours, your father stole… Ah God, the glow

Of cheek on cheek, the tender touch; and Oh,

Sweet scent of childhood… Go! Go!… Am I blind?…

Mine eyes can see not, when I look to find

Their places. I am broken by the wings

Of evil… Yea, I know to what bad things

I go, but louder than all thought doth cry

Anger, which maketh man's worst misery.

My thoughts have roamed a cloudy land,

And heard a fierier music fall

Than woman's heart should stir withal:

And yet some Muse majestical,

Unknown, hath hold of woman's hand,

Seeking for Wisdom-not in all:

A feeble seed, a scattered band,

Thou yet shalt find in lonely places,

Not dead amongst us, nor our faces

Turned alway from the Muses' call.

And thus my thought would speak: that she

Who ne'er hath borne a child nor known

Is nearer to felicity:

Unlit she goeth and alone,

With little understanding what

A child's touch means of joy or woe,

And many toils she beareth not.

But they within whose garden fair

That gentle plant hath blown, they go

Deep-written all their days with care-

To rear the children, to make fast

Their hold, to win them wealth; and then

Much darkness, if the seed at last

Bear fruit in good or evil men!

And one thing at the end of all

Abideth, that which all men dread:

The wealth is won, the limbs are bred

To manhood, and the heart withal

Honest: and, lo, where Fortune smiled,

Some change, and what hath fallen? Hark!

'Tis death slow winging to the dark,

And in his arms what was thy child.

What therefore doth it bring of gain

To man, whose cup stood full before,

That God should send this one thing more

Of hunger and of dread, a door

Set wide to every wind of pain?

Friends, this long hour I wait on Fortune's eyes,

And strain my senses in a hot surmise

What passeth on that hill. – Ha! even now

There comes… 'tis one of Jason's men, I trow.

His wild-perturbed breath doth warrant me

The tidings of some strange calamity.

O dire and ghastly deed! Get thee away,

Medea! Fly! Nor let behind thee stay

One chariot's wing, one keel that sweeps the seas…

And what hath chanced, to cause such flights as these?

The maiden princess lieth – and her sire,

The king-both murdered by thy poison-fire.

Most happy tiding! Which thy name prefers

Henceforth among my friends and well-wishers.

What say'st thou? Woman, is thy mind within

Clear, and not raving? Thou art found in sin

Most bloody wrought against the king's high head,

And laughest at the tale, and hast no dread?

I have words also that could answer well

Thy word. But take thine ease, good friend, and tell,

How died they? Hath it been a very foul

Death, prithee? That were comfort to my soul.

When thy two children, hand in hand entwined,

Came with their father, and passed on to find

The new-made bridal rooms, Oh, we were glad,

We thralls, who ever loved thee well, and had

Grief in thy grief. And straight there passed a word

From ear to ear, that thou and thy false lord

Had poured peace offering upon wrath foregone.

A right glad welcome gave we them, and one

Kissed the small hand, and one the shining hair:

Myself, for very joy, I followed where

The women's rooms are. There our mistress… she

Whom now we name so… thinking not to see

Thy little pair, with glad and eager brow

Sate waiting Jason. Then she saw, and slow

Shrouded her eyes, and backward turned again,

Sick that thy children should come near her. Then

Thy husband quick went forward, to entreat

The young maid's fitful wrath. "Thou will not meet

Love's coming with unkindness? Nay, refrain

Thy suddenness, and turn thy face again,

Holding as friends all that to me are dear,

Thine husband. And accept these robes they bear

As gifts: and beg thy father to unmake

His doom of exile on them-for my sake."

When once she saw the raiment, she could still

Her joy no more, but gave him all his will.

And almost ere the father and the two

Children were gone from out the room, she drew

The flowered garments forth, and sate her down

To her arraying: bound the golden crown

Through her long curls, and in a mirror fair

Arranged their separate clusters, smiling there

At the dead self that faced her. Then aside

She pushed her seat, and paced those chambers wide

Alone, her white foot poising delicately-

So passing joyful in those gifts was she!-

And many a time would pause, straight-limbed, and wheel

Her head to watch the long fold to her heel

Sweeping. And then came something strange. Her cheek

Seemed pale, and back with crooked steps and weak

Groping of arms she walked, and scarcely found

Her old seat, that she fell not to the ground.

Among the handmaids was a woman old

And grey, who deemed, I think, that Pan had hold

Upon her, or some spirit, and raised a keen

Awakening shout; till through her lips was seen

A white foam crawling, and her eyeballs back

Twisted, and all her face dead pale for lack

Of life: and while that old dame called, the cry

Turned strangely to its opposite, to die

Sobbing. Oh, swiftly then one woman flew

To seek her father's rooms, one for the new

Bridegroom, to tell the tale. And all the place

Was loud with hurrying feet.

So long a space

As a swift walker on a measured way

Would pace a furlong's course in, there she lay

Speechless, with veiled lids. Then wide her eyes

She oped, and wildly, as she strove to rise,

Shrieked: for two diverse waves upon her rolled

Of stabbing death. The carcanet of gold

That gripped her brow was molten in a dire

And wondrous river of devouring fire.

And those fine robes, the gift thy children gave-

God's mercy! – everywhere did lap and lave

The delicate flesh; till up she sprang, and fled,

A fiery pillar, shaking locks and head

This way and that, seeking to cast the crown

Somewhere away. But like a thing nailed down

The burning gold held fast the anadem,

And through her locks, the more she scattered them,

Came fire the fiercer, till to earth she fell

A thing-save to her sire-scarce nameable,

And strove no more. That cheek of royal mien,

Where was it-or the place where eyes had been?

Only from crown and temples came faint blood

Shot through with fire. The very flesh, it stood

Out from the bones, as from a wounded pine

The gum starts, where those gnawing poisons fine

Bit in the dark-a ghastly sight! And touch

The dead we durst not. We had seen too much.

But that poor father, knowing not, had sped,

Swift to his daughter's room, and there the dead

Lay at his feet. He knelt, and groaning low,

Folded her in his arms, and kissed her: "Oh,

Unhappy child, what thing unnatural hath

So hideously undone thee? Or what wrath

Of gods, to make this old grey sepulchre

Childless of thee? Would God but lay me there

To die with thee, my daughter!" So he cried.

But after, when he stayed from tears, and tried

To uplift his old bent frame, lo, in the folds

Of those fine robes it held, as ivy holds

Strangling among your laurel boughs. Oh, then

A ghastly struggle came! Again, again,

Up on his knee he writhed; but that dead breast

Clung still to his: till, wild, like one possessed,

He dragged himself half free; and, lo, the live

Flesh parted; and he laid him down to strive

No more with death, but perish; for the deep

Had risen above his soul. And there they sleep,

At last, the old proud father and the bride,

Even as his tears had craved it, side by side.

For thee-Oh, no word more! Thyself will know

How best to baffle vengeance… Long ago

I looked upon man's days, and found a grey

Shadow. And this thing more I surely say,

That those of all men who are counted wise,

Strong wits, devisers of great policies,

Do pay the bitterest toll. Since life began,

Hath there in God's eye stood one happy man?

Fair days roll on, and bear more gifts or less

Of fortune, but to no man happiness.

Wrath upon wrath, meseems, this day shall fall

From God on Jason! He hath earned it all.

O miserable maiden, all my heart

Is torn for thee, so sudden to depart

From thy king's chambers and the light above

To darkness, all for sake of Jason's love!

Women, my mind is clear. I go to slay

My children with all speed, and then, away

From hence; not wait yet longer till they stand

Beneath another and an angrier hand

To die. Yea, howsoe'er I shield them, die

They must. And, seeing that they must, 'tis I

Shall slay them, I their mother, touched of none

Beside. Oh, up and get thine armour on,

My heart! Why longer tarry we to win

Our crown of dire inevitable sin?

Take up thy sword, O poor right hand of mine,

Thy sword: then onward to the thin-drawn line

Where life turns agony. Let there be naught

Of softness now: and keep thee from that thought,

'Born of thy flesh,' 'thine own beloved.' Now,

For one brief day, forget thy children: thou

Shalt weep hereafter. Though thou slay them, yet

Sweet were they… I am sore unfortunate.

She goes into the house.

O Earth, our mother; and thou

All-seer, arrowy crown

Of Sunlight, manward now

Look down, Oh, look down!

Look upon one accurst,

Ere yet in blood she twine

Red hands-blood that is thine!

O Sun, save her first!

She is thy daughter still,

Of thine own golden line;

Save her! Or shall man spill

The life divine?

Give peace, O Fire that diest not! Send thy spell

To stay her yet, to lift her afar, afar-

A torture-changed spirit, a voice of Hell

Wrought of old wrongs and war!

Alas for the mother's pain

Wasted! Alas the dear

Life that was born in vain!

Woman, what mak'st thou here,

Thou from beyond the Gate

Where dim Symplegades

Clash in the dark blue seas,

The shores where death doth wait?

Why hast thou taken on thee,

To make us desolate,

This anger of misery

And guilt of hate?

For fierce are the smitings back of blood once shed

Where love hath been: God's wrath upon them that kill,

And an anguished earth, and the wonder of the dead

Haunting as music still…

A cry is heard within.

Hark! Did ye hear? Heard ye the children's cry?

O miserable woman! O abhorred!

What shall I do? What is it? Keep me fast

From mother!

I know nothing. Brother! Oh,

I think she means to kill us.

Let me go!

I will-Help! Help! – and save them at the last.

Yes, in God's name! Help quickly ere we die!

She has almost caught me now. She has a sword.

Thou stone, thou thing of iron! Wilt verily

Spill with thine hand that life, the vintage stored

Of thine own agony?

A Mother slew her babes in days of yore,

One, only one, from dawn to eventide,

Ino, god-maddened, whom the Queen of Heaven

Set frenzied, flying to the dark: and she

Cast her for sorrow to the wide salt sea,

Forth from those rooms of murder unforgiven,

Wild-footed from a white crag of the shore,

And clasping still her children twain, she died.

O Love of Woman, charged with sorrow sore,

What hast thou wrought upon us? What beside

Resteth to tremble for?

Ye women by this doorway clustering

Speak, is the doer of the ghastly thing

Yet here, or fled? What hopeth she of flight?

Shall the deep yawn to shield her? Shall the height

Send wings, and hide her in the vaulted sky

To work red murder on her lords, and fly

Unrecompensed? But let her go! My care

Is but to save my children, not for her.

Let them she wronged requite her as they may.

I care not. 'Tis my sons I must some way

Save, ere the kinsmen of the dead can win

From them the payment of their mother's sin.

Unhappy man, indeed thou knowest not

What dark place thou art come to! Else, God wot,

Jason, no word like these could fall from thee.

What is it? – Ha! The woman would kill me?

Thy sons are dead, slain by their mother's hand.

How? Not the children… I scarce understand…

O God, thou hast broken me!

Think of those twain

As things once fair, that ne'er shall bloom again.

Where did she murder them? In that old room?

Open, and thou shalt see thy children's doom.

Ho, thralls! Unloose me yonder bars! Make more

Of speed! Wrench out the jointing of the door.

And show my two-edged curse, the children dead,

The woman… Oh, this sword upon her head…

What make ye at my gates? Why batter ye

With brazen bars, seeking the dead and me

Who slew them? Peace!… And thou, if aught of mine

Thou needest, speak, though never touch of thine

Shall scathe me more. Out of his firmament

My fathers' father, the high Sun, hath sent

This, that shall save me from mine enemies' rage.

Thou living hate! Thou wife in every age

Abhorred, blood-red mother, who didst kill

My sons, and make me as the dead: and still

Canst take the sunshine to thine eyes, and smell

The green earth, reeking from thy deed of hell;

I curse thee! Now, Oh, now mine eyes can see,

That then were blinded, when from savagery

Of eastern chambers, from a cruel land,

To Greece and home I gathered in mine hand

Thee, thou incarnate curse: one that betrayed

Her home, her father, her… Oh, God hath laid

Thy sins on me! – I knew, I knew, there lay

A brother murdered on thy hearth that day

When thy first footstep fell on Argo's hull…

Argo, my own, my swift and beautiful

That was her first beginning. Then a wife

I made her in my house. She bore to life

Children: and now for love, for chambering

And men's arms, she hath murdered them! A thing

Not one of all the maids of Greece, not one,

Had dreamed of; whom I spurned, and for mine own

Chose thee, a bride of hate to me and death,

Tigress, not woman, beast of wilder breath

Than Skylla shrieking o'er the Tuscan sea.

Enough! No scorn of mine can reach to thee,

Such iron is o'er thine eyes. Out from my road,

Thou crime-begetter, blind with children's blood!

And let me weep alone the bitter tide

That sweepeth Jason's days, no gentle bride

To speak with more, no child to look upon

Whom once I reared… all, all for ever gone!

An easy answer had I to this swell

Of speech, but Zeus our father knoweth well,

All I for thee have wrought, and thou for me.

So let it rest. This thing was not to be,

That thou shouldst live a merry life, my bed

Forgotten and my heart uncomforted,

Thou nor thy princess: nor the king that planned

Thy marriage drive Medea from his land,

And suffer not. Call me what thing thou please,

Tigress or Skylla from the Tuscan seas:

My claws have gripped thine heart, and all things shine.

Thou too hast grief. Thy pain is fierce as mine.

I love the pain, so thou shalt laugh no more.

Oh, what a womb of sin my children bore!

Sons, did ye perish for your father's shame?

How? It was not my hand that murdered them.

'Twas thy false wooings, 'twas thy trampling pride.

Thou hast said it! For thy lust of love they died.

And love to women a slight thing should be?

To women pure! – All thy vile life to thee!

Think of thy torment. They are dead, they are dead!

No: quick, great God; quick curses round thy head!

The Gods know who began this work of woe.

Thy heart and all its loathliness they know.

Loathe on… But, Oh, thy voice. It hurts me sore.

Aye, and thine me. Wouldst hear me then no more?

How? Show me but the way. 'Tis this I crave.

Give me the dead to weep, and make their grave.

Never! Myself will lay them in a still

Green sepulchre, where Hera by the Hill

Hath precinct holy, that no angry men

May break their graves and cast them forth again

To evil. So I lay on all this shore

Of Corinth a high feast for evermore

And rite, to purge them yearly of the stain

Of this poor blood. And I, to Pallas' plain

I go, to dwell beside Pandion's son,

Aegeus. – For thee, behold, death draweth on,

Evil and lonely, like thine heart: the hands

Of thine old Argo, rotting where she stands,

Shall smite thine head in twain, and bitter be

To the last end thy memories of me.

She rises on the chariot and is slowly borne away.

May They that hear the weeping child

Blast thee, and They that walk in blood!

Thy broken vows, thy friends beguiled

Have shut for thee the ears of God.

Go, thou art wet with children's tears!

Go thou, and lay thy bride to sleep.

Childless, I go, to weep and weep.

Not yet! Age cometh and long years.

My sons, mine own!

Not thine, but mine…

…Who slew them!

Yes: to torture thee.

Once let me kiss their lips, once twine

Mine arms and touch… Ah, woe is me!

Wouldst love them and entreat? But now

They were as nothing.

At the last,

O God, to touch that tender brow!

Thy words upon the wind are cast.

Thou, Zeus, wilt hear me. All is said

For naught. I am but spurned away

And trampled by this tigress, red

With children's blood. Yet, come what may,

So far as thou hast granted, yea,

So far as yet my strength may stand,

I weep upon these dead, and say

Their last farewell, and raise my hand

To all the daemons of the air

In witness of these things; how she

Who slew them, will not suffer me

To gather up my babes, nor bear

To earth their bodies; whom, O stone

Of women, would I ne'er had known

Nor gotten, to be slain by thee!

He casts himself upon the earth.

Great treasure halls hath Zeus in heaven,

From whence to man strange dooms be given,

Past hope or fear.

And the end men looked for cometh not,

And a path is there where no man thought:

So hath it fallen here.

Ismene, sister of my blood and heart,

See'st thou how Zeus would in our lives fulfill

The weird of Oedipus, a world of woes!

For what of pain, affliction, outrage, shame,

Is lacking in our fortunes, thine and mine?

And now this proclamation of today

Made by our Captain-General to the State,

What can its purport be? Didst hear and heed,

Or art thou deaf when friends are banned as foes?

To me, Antigone, no word of friends

Has come, or glad or grievous, since we twain

Were reft of our two brethren in one day

By double fratricide; and since i' the night

Our Argive leaguers fled, no later news

Has reached me, to inspirit or deject.

I know 'twas so, and therefore summoned thee

Beyond the gates to breathe it in thine ear.

What is it? Some dark secret stirs thy breast.

What but the thought of our two brothers dead,

The one by Creon graced with funeral rites,

The other disappointed? Eteocles

He hath consigned to earth (as fame reports)

With obsequies that use and wont ordain,

So gracing him among the dead below.

But Polyneices, a dishonored corse,

(So by report the royal edict runs)

No man may bury him or make lament-

Must leave him tombless and unwept, a feast

For kites to scent afar and swoop upon.

Such is the edict (if report speak true)

Of Creon, our most noble Creon, aimed

At thee and me, aye me too; and anon

He will be here to promulgate, for such

As have not heard, his mandate; 'tis in sooth

No passing humor, for the edict says

Whoe'er transgresses shall be stoned to death.

So stands it with us; now 'tis thine to show

If thou art worthy of thy blood or base.

But how, my rash, fond sister, in such case

Can I do anything to make or mar?

Say, wilt thou aid me and abet? Decide.

In what bold venture? What is in thy thought?

Lend me a hand to bear the corpse away.

What, bury him despite the interdict?

My brother, and, though thou deny him, thine

No man shall say that I betrayed a brother.

Wilt thou persist, though Creon has forbid?

What right has he to keep me from my own?

Bethink thee, sister, of our father's fate,

Abhorred, dishonored, self-convinced of sin,

Blinded, himself his executioner.

Think of his mother-wife (ill sorted names)

Done by a noose herself had twined to death

And last, our hapless brethren in one day,

Both in a mutual destiny involved,

Self-slaughtered, both the slayer and the slain.

Bethink thee, sister, we are left alone;

Shall we not perish wretchedest of all,

If in defiance of the law we cross

A monarch's will?-weak women, think of that,

Not framed by nature to contend with men.

Remember this too that the stronger rules;

We must obey his orders, these or worse.

Therefore I plead compulsion and entreat

The dead to pardon. I perforce obey

The powers that be. 'Tis foolishness, I ween,

To overstep in aught the golden mean.

I urge no more; nay, wert thou willing still,

I would not welcome such a fellowship.

Go thine own way; myself will bury him.

How sweet to die in such employ, to rest,-

Sister and brother linked in love's embrace-

A sinless sinner, banned awhile on earth,

But by the dead commended; and with them

I shall abide for ever. As for thee,

Scorn, if thou wilt, the eternal laws of Heaven.

I scorn them not, but to defy the State

Or break her ordinance I have no skill.

A specious pretext. I will go alone

To lap my dearest brother in the grave.

My poor, fond sister, how I fear for thee!

O waste no fears on me; look to thyself.

At least let no man know of thine intent,

But keep it close and secret, as will I.

O tell it, sister; I shall hate thee more

If thou proclaim it not to all the town.

Thou hast a fiery soul for numbing work.

I pleasure those whom I would liefest please.

If thou succeed; but thou art doomed to fail.

When strength shall fail me, yes, but not before.

But, if the venture's hopeless, why essay?

Sister, forbear, or I shall hate thee soon,

And the dead man will hate thee too, with cause.

Say I am mad and give my madness rein

To wreck itself; the worst that can befall

Is but to die an honorable death.

Have thine own way then; 'tis a mad endeavor,

Yet to thy lovers thou art dear as ever.

Sunbeam, of all that ever dawn upon

Our seven-gated Thebes the brightest ray,

O eye of golden day,

How fair thy light o'er Dirce's fountain shone,

Speeding upon their headlong homeward course,

Far quicker than they came, the Argive force;

Putting to flight

The argent shields, the host with scutcheons white.

Against our land the proud invader came

To vindicate fell Polyneices' claim.

Like to an eagle swooping low,

On pinions white as new fall'n snow.

With clanging scream, a horsetail plume his crest,

The aspiring lord of Argos onward pressed.

Hovering around our city walls he waits,

His spearmen raven at our seven gates.

But ere a torch our crown of towers could burn,

Ere they had tasted of our blood, they turn

Forced by the Dragon; in their rear

The din of Ares panic-struck they hear.

For Zeus who hates the braggart's boast

Beheld that gold-bespangled host;

As at the goal the paean they upraise,

He struck them with his forked lightning blaze.

To earthy from earth rebounding, down he crashed;

The fire-brand from his impious hand was dashed,

As like a Bacchic reveler on he came,

Outbreathing hate and flame,

And tottered. Elsewhere in the field,

Here, there, great Area like a war-horse wheeled;

Beneath his car down thrust

Our foemen bit the dust.

Seven captains at our seven gates

Thundered; for each a champion waits,

Each left behind his armor bright,

Trophy for Zeus who turns the fight;

Save two alone, that ill-starred pair

One mother to one father bare,

Who lance in rest, one 'gainst the other

Drave, and both perished, brother slain by brother.

Now Victory to Thebes returns again

And smiles upon her chariot-circled plain.

Now let feast and festal should

Memories of war blot out.

Let us to the temples throng,

Dance and sing the live night long.

God of Thebes, lead thou the round.

Bacchus, shaker of the ground!

Let us end our revels here;

Lo! Creon our new lord draws near,

Crowned by this strange chance, our king.

What, I marvel, pondering?

Why this summons? Wherefore call

Us, his elders, one and all,

Bidding us with him debate,

On some grave concern of State?

Elders, the gods have righted one again

Our storm-tossed ship of state, now safe in port.

But you by special summons I convened

As my most trusted councilors; first, because

I knew you loyal to Laius of old;

Again, when Oedipus restored our State,

Both while he ruled and when his rule was o'er,

Ye still were constant to the royal line.

Now that his two sons perished in one day,

Brother by brother murderously slain,

By right of kinship to the Princes dead,

I claim and hold the throne and sovereignty.

Yet 'tis no easy matter to discern

The temper of a man, his mind and will,

Till he be proved by exercise of power;

And in my case, if one who reigns supreme

Swerve from the highest policy, tongue-tied

By fear of consequence, that man I hold,

And ever held, the basest of the base.

And I contemn the man who sets his friend

Before his country. For myself, I call

To witness Zeus, whose eyes are everywhere,

If I perceive some mischievous design

To sap the State, I will not hold my tongue;

Nor would I reckon as my private friend

A public foe, well knowing that the State

Is the good ship that holds our fortunes all:

Farewell to friendship, if she suffers wreck.

Such is the policy by which I seek

To serve the Commons and conformably

I have proclaimed an edict as concerns

The sons of Oedipus; Eteocles

Who in his country's battle fought and fell,

The foremost champion-duly bury him

With all observances and ceremonies

That are the guerdon of the heroic dead.

But for the miscreant exile who returned

Minded in flames and ashes to blot out

His father's city and his father's gods,

And glut his vengeance with his kinsmen's blood,

Or drag them captive at his chariot wheels-

For Polyneices 'tis ordained that none

Shall give him burial or make mourn for him,

But leave his corpse unburied, to be meat

For dogs and carrion crows, a ghastly sight.

So am I purposed; never by my will

Shall miscreants take precedence of true men,

But all good patriots, alive or dead,

Shall be by me preferred and honored.

Son of Menoeceus, thus thou will'st to deal

With him who loathed and him who loved our State.

Thy word is law; thou canst dispose of us

The living, as thou will'st, as of the dead.

See then ye execute what I ordain.

On younger shoulders lay this grievous charge.

Fear not, I've posted guards to watch the corpse.

What further duty would'st thou lay on us?

Not to connive at disobedience.

No man is mad enough to court his death.

The penalty is death: yet hope of gain

Hath lured men to their ruin oftentimes.

My lord, I will not make pretense to pant

And puff as some light-footed messenger.

In sooth my soul beneath its pack of thought

Made many a halt and turned and turned again;

For conscience plied her spur and curb by turns.

"Why hurry headlong to thy fate, poor fool?"

She whispered. Then again, "If Creon learn

This from another, thou wilt rue it worse."

Thus leisurely I hastened on my road;

Much thought extends a furlong to a league.

But in the end the forward voice prevailed,

To face thee. I will speak though I say nothing.

For plucking courage from despair methought,

'Let the worst hap, thou canst but meet thy fate.'

What is thy news? Why this despondency?

Let me premise a word about myself?

I neither did the deed nor saw it done,

Nor were it just that I should come to harm.

Thou art good at parry, and canst fence about

Some matter of grave import, as is plain.

The bearer of dread tidings needs must quake.

Then, sirrah, shoot thy bolt and get thee gone.

Well, it must out; the corpse is buried; someone

E'en now besprinkled it with thirsty dust,

Performed the proper ritual-and was gone.

What say'st thou? Who hath dared to do this thing?

I cannot tell, for there was ne'er a trace

Of pick or mattock-hard unbroken ground,

Without a scratch or rut of chariot wheels,

No sign that human hands had been at work.

When the first sentry of the morning watch

Gave the alarm, we all were terror-stricken.

The corpse had vanished, not interred in earth,

But strewn with dust, as if by one who sought

To avert the curse that haunts the unburied dead:

Of hound or ravening jackal, not a sign.

Thereat arose an angry war of words;

Guard railed at guard and blows were like to end it,

For none was there to part us, each in turn

Suspected, but the guilt brought home to none,

From lack of evidence. We challenged each

The ordeal, or to handle red-hot iron,

Or pass through fire, affirming on our oath

Our innocence-we neither did the deed

Ourselves, nor know who did or compassed it.

Our quest was at a standstill, when one spake

And bowed us all to earth like quivering reeds,

For there was no gainsaying him nor way

To escape perdition: Yeareboundtotell

TheKing,yecannothideit; so he spake.

And he convinced us all; so lots were cast,

And I, unlucky scapegoat, drew the prize.

So here I am unwilling and withal

Unwelcome; no man cares to hear ill news.

I had misgivings from the first, my liege,

Of something more than natural at work.

O cease, you vex me with your babblement;

I am like to think you dote in your old age.

Is it not arrant folly to pretend

That gods would have a thought for this dead man?

Did they forsooth award him special grace,

And as some benefactor bury him,

Who came to fire their hallowed sanctuaries,

To sack their shrines, to desolate their land,

And scout their ordinances? Or perchance

The gods bestow their favors on the bad.

No! no! I have long noted malcontents

Who wagged their heads, and kicked against the yoke,

Misliking these my orders, and my rule.

'Tis they, I warrant, who suborned my guards

By bribes. Of evils current upon earth

The worst is money. Money 'tis that sacks

Cities, and drives men forth from hearth and home;

Warps and seduces native innocence,

And breeds a habit of dishonesty.

But they who sold themselves shall find their greed

Out-shot the mark, and rue it soon or late.

Yea, as I still revere the dread of Zeus,

By Zeus I swear, except ye find and bring

Before my presence here the very man

Who carried out this lawless burial,

Death for your punishment shall not suffice.

Hanged on a cross, alive ye first shall make

Confession of this outrage. This will teach you

What practices are like to serve your turn.

There are some villainies that bring no gain.

For by dishonesty the few may thrive,

The many come to ruin and disgrace.

May I not speak, or must I turn and go

Without a word?-

Begone! canst thou not see

That e'en this question irks me?

Where, my lord?

Is it thy ears that suffer, or thy heart?

Why seek to probe and find the seat of pain?

I gall thine ears-this miscreant thy mind.

What an inveterate babbler! get thee gone!

Babbler perchance, but innocent of the crime.

Twice guilty, having sold thy soul for gain.

Alas! how sad when reasoners reason wrong.

Go, quibble with thy reason. If thou fail'st

To find these malefactors, thou shalt own

The wages of ill-gotten gains is death.

I pray he may be found. But caught or not

(And fortune must determine that) thou never

Shalt see me here returning; that is sure.

For past all hope or thought I have escaped,

And for my safety owe the gods much thanks.

Many wonders there be, but naught more wondrous than man;

Over the surging sea, with a whitening south wind wan,

Through the foam of the firth, man makes his perilous way;

And the eldest of deities Earth that knows not toil nor decay

Ever he furrows and scores, as his team, year in year out,

With breed of the yoked horse, the ploughshare turneth about.

The light-witted birds of the air, the beasts of the weald and the wood

He traps with his woven snare, and the brood of the briny flood.

Master of cunning he: the savage bull, and the hart

Who roams the mountain free, are tamed by his infinite art;

And the shaggy rough-maned steed is broken to bear the bit.

Speech and the wind-swift speed of counsel and civic wit,

He hath learnt for himself all these; and the arrowy rain to fly

And the nipping airs that freeze, 'neath the open winter sky.

He hath provision for all: fell plague he hath learnt to endure;

Safe whate'er may befall: yet for death he hath found no cure.

Passing the wildest flight thought are the cunning and skill,

That guide man now to the light, but now to counsels of ill.

If he honors the laws of the land, and reveres the Gods of the State

Proudly his city shall stand; but a cityless outcast I rate

Whoso bold in his pride from the path of right doth depart;

Ne'er may I sit by his side, or share the thoughts of his heart.

What strange vision meets my eyes,

Fills me with a wild surprise?

Sure I know her, sure 'tis she,

The maid Antigone.

Hapless child of hapless sire,

Didst thou recklessly conspire,

Madly brave the King's decree?

Therefore are they haling thee?

Here is the culprit taken in the act

Of giving burial. But where's the King?

There from the palace he returns in time.

Why is my presence timely? What has chanced?

No man, my lord, should make a vow, for if

He ever swears he will not do a thing,

His afterthoughts belie his first resolve.

When from the hail-storm of thy threats I fled

I sware thou wouldst not see me here again;

But the wild rapture of a glad surprise

Intoxicates, and so I'm here forsworn.

And here's my prisoner, caught in the very act,

Decking the grave. No lottery this time;

This prize is mine by right of treasure-trove.

So take her, judge her, rack her, if thou wilt.

She's thine, my liege; but I may rightly claim

Hence to depart well quit of all these ills.

Say, how didst thou arrest the maid, and where?

Burying the man. There's nothing more to tell.

Hast thou thy wits? Or know'st thou what thou say'st?

I saw this woman burying the corpse

Against thy orders. Is that clear and plain?

But how was she surprised and caught in the act?

It happened thus. No sooner had we come,

Driven from thy presence by those awful threats,

Than straight we swept away all trace of dust,

And bared the clammy body. Then we sat

High on the ridge to windward of the stench,

While each man kept he fellow alert and rated

Roundly the sluggard if he chanced to nap.

So all night long we watched, until the sun

Stood high in heaven, and his blazing beams

Smote us. A sudden whirlwind then upraised

A cloud of dust that blotted out the sky,

And swept the plain, and stripped the woodlands bare,

And shook the firmament. We closed our eyes

And waited till the heaven-sent plague should pass.

At last it ceased, and lo! there stood this maid.

A piercing cry she uttered, sad and shrill,

As when the mother bird beholds her nest

Robbed of its nestlings; even so the maid

Wailed as she saw the body stripped and bare,

And cursed the ruffians who had done this deed.

Anon she gathered handfuls of dry dust,

Then, holding high a well-wrought brazen urn,

Thrice on the dead she poured a lustral stream.

We at the sight swooped down on her and seized

Our quarry. Undismayed she stood, and when

We taxed her with the former crime and this,

She disowned nothing. I was glad-and grieved;

For 'tis most sweet to 'scape oneself scot-free,

And yet to bring disaster to a friend

Is grievous. Take it all in all, I deem

A man's first duty is to serve himself.

Speak, girl, with head bent low and downcast eyes,

Does thou plead guilty or deny the deed?

Guilty. I did it, I deny it not.

Thy luck that thou hast 'scaped a heavy charge.

Now answer this plain question, yes or no,

Wast thou acquainted with the interdict?

I knew, all knew; how should I fail to know?

And yet wert bold enough to break the law?

Yea, for these laws were not ordained of Zeus,

And she who sits enthroned with gods below,

Justice, enacted not these human laws.

Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man,

Could'st by a breath annul and override

The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven.

They were not born today nor yesterday;

They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang.

I was not like, who feared no mortal's frown,

To disobey these laws and so provoke

The wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die,

E'en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death

Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain.

For death is gain to him whose life, like mine,

Is full of misery. Thus my lot appears

Not sad, but blissful; for had I endured

To leave my mother's son unburied there,

I should have grieved with reason, but not now.

And if in this thou judgest me a fool,

Methinks the judge of folly's not acquit.

A stubborn daughter of a stubborn sire,

This ill-starred maiden kicks against the pricks.

Well, let her know the stubbornest of wills

Are soonest bended, as the hardest iron,

O'er-heated in the fire to brittleness,

Flies soonest into fragments, shivered through.

A snaffle curbs the fieriest steed, and he

Who in subjection lives must needs be meek.

But this proud girl, in insolence well-schooled,

First overstepped the established law, and then-

A second and worse act of insolence-

She boasts and glories in her wickedness.

Now if she thus can flout authority

Unpunished, I am woman, she the man.

But though she be my sister's child or nearer

Of kin than all who worship at my hearth,

Nor she nor yet her sister shall escape

The utmost penalty, for both I hold,

As arch-conspirators, of equal guilt.

Bring forth the older; even now I saw her

Within the palace, frenzied and distraught.

The workings of the mind discover oft

Dark deeds in darkness schemed, before the act.

More hateful still the miscreant who seeks

When caught, to make a virtue of a crime.

Would'st thou do more than slay thy prisoner?

Not I, thy life is mine, and that's enough.

Why dally then? To me no word of thine

Is pleasant: God forbid it e'er should please;

Nor am I more acceptable to thee.

And yet how otherwise had I achieved

A name so glorious as by burying

A brother? so my townsmen all would say,

Where they not gagged by terror, Manifold

A king's prerogatives, and not the least

That all his acts and all his words are law.

Of all these Thebans none so deems but thou.

These think as I, but bate their breath to thee.

Hast thou no shame to differ from all these?

To reverence kith and kin can bring no shame.

Was his dead foeman not thy kinsman too?

One mother bare them and the self-same sire.

Why cast a slur on one by honoring one?

The dead man will not bear thee out in this.

Surely, if good and evil fare alive.

The slain man was no villain but a brother.

The patriot perished by the outlaw's brand.

Nathless the realms below these rites require.

Not that the base should fare as do the brave.

Who knows if this world's crimes are virtues there?

Not even death can make a foe a friend.

My nature is for mutual love, not hate.

Die then, and love the dead if thou must;

No woman shall be the master while I live.

Lo from out the palace gate,

Weeping o'er her sister's fate,

Comes Ismene; see her brow,

Once serene, beclouded now,

See her beauteous face o'erspread

With a flush of angry red.

Woman, who like a viper unperceived

Didst harbor in my house and drain my blood,

Two plagues I nurtured blindly, so it proved,

To sap my throne. Say, didst thou too abet

This crime, or dost abjure all privity?

I did the deed, if she will have it so,

And with my sister claim to share the guilt.

That were unjust. Thou would'st not act with me

At first, and I refused thy partnership.

But now thy bark is stranded, I am bold

To claim my share as partner in the loss.

Who did the deed the under-world knows well:

A friend in word is never friend of mine.

O sister, scorn me not, let me but share

Thy work of piety, and with thee die.

Claim not a work in which thou hadst no hand;

One death sufficeth. Wherefore should'st thou die?

What would life profit me bereft of thee?

Ask Creon, he's thy kinsman and best friend.

Why taunt me? Find'st thou pleasure in these gibes?

'Tis a sad mockery, if indeed I mock.

O say if I can help thee even now.

Is e'en this boon denied, to share thy lot?

Yea, for thou chosed'st life, and I to die.

Thou canst not say that I did not protest.

Well, some approved thy wisdom, others mine.

But now we stand convicted, both alike.

Fear not; thou livest, I died long ago

Then when I gave my life to save the dead.

Both maids, methinks, are crazed. One suddenly

Has lost her wits, the other was born mad.

Yea, so it falls, sire, when misfortune comes,

The wisest even lose their mother wit.

I' faith thy wit forsook thee when thou mad'st

Thy choice with evil-doers to do ill.

What life for me without my sister here?

Say not thy sister here: thy sister's dead.

What, wilt thou slay thy own son's plighted bride?

Aye, let him raise him seed from other fields.

No new espousal can be like the old.

A plague on trulls who court and woo our sons.

O Haemon, how thy sire dishonors thee!

A plague on thee and thy accursed bride!

What, wilt thou rob thine own son of his bride?

'Tis death that bars this marriage, not his sire.

So her death-warrant, it would seem, is sealed.

By you, as first by me; off with them, guards,

And keep them close. Henceforward let them learn

To live as women use, not roam at large.

For e'en the bravest spirits run away

When they perceive death pressing on life's heels.

Thrice blest are they who never tasted pain!

If once the curse of Heaven attaint a race,

The infection lingers on and speeds apace,

Age after age, and each the cup must drain.

So when Etesian blasts from Thrace downpour

Sweep o'er the blackening main and whirl to land

From Ocean's cavernous depths his ooze and sand,

Billow on billow thunders on the shore.

On the Labdacidae I see descending

Woe upon woe; from days of old some god

Laid on the race a malison, and his rod

Scourges each age with sorrows never ending.

The light that dawned upon its last born son

Is vanished, and the bloody axe of Fate

Has felled the goodly tree that blossomed late.

O Oedipus, by reckless pride undone!

Thy might, O Zeus, what mortal power can quell?

Not sleep that lays all else beneath its spell,

Nor moons that never tire: untouched by Time,

Throned in the dazzling light

That crowns Olympus' height,

Thou reignest King, omnipotent, sublime.

Past, present, and to be,

All bow to thy decree,

All that exceeds the mean by Fate

Is punished, Love or Hate.

Hope flits about never-wearying wings;

Profit to some, to some light loves she brings,

But no man knoweth how her gifts may turn,

Till 'neath his feet the treacherous ashes burn.

Sure 'twas a sage inspired that spake this word;

If evil good appear

To any, Fate is near;

And brief the respite from her flaming sword.

Hither comes in angry mood

Haemon, latest of thy brood;

Is it for his bride he's grieved,

Or her marriage-bed deceived,

Doth he make his mourn for thee,

Maid forlorn, Antigone?

Soon shall we know, better than seer can tell.

Learning may fixed decree anent thy bride,

Thou mean'st not, son, to rave against thy sire?

Know'st not whate'er we do is done in love?

O father, I am thine, and I will take

Thy wisdom as the helm to steer withal.

Therefore no wedlock shall by me be held

More precious than thy loving goverance.

Well spoken: so right-minded sons should feel,

In all deferring to a father's will.

For 'tis the hope of parents they may rear

A brood of sons submissive, keen to avenge

Their father's wrongs, and count his friends their own.

But who begets unprofitable sons,

He verily breeds trouble for himself,

And for his foes much laughter. Son, be warned

And let no woman fool away thy wits.

Ill fares the husband mated with a shrew,

And her embraces very soon wax cold.

For what can wound so surely to the quick

As a false friend? So spue and cast her off,

Bid her go find a husband with the dead.

For since I caught her openly rebelling,

Of all my subjects the one malcontent,

I will not prove a traitor to the State.

She surely dies. Go, let her, if she will,

Appeal to Zeus the God of Kindred, for

If thus I nurse rebellion in my house,

Shall not I foster mutiny without?

For whoso rules his household worthily,

Will prove in civic matters no less wise.

But he who overbears the laws, or thinks

To overrule his rulers, such as one

I never will allow. Whome'er the State

Appoints must be obeyed in everything,

But small and great, just and unjust alike.

I warrant such a one in either case

Would shine, as King or subject; such a man

Would in the storm of battle stand his ground,

A comrade leal and true; but Anarchy-

What evils are not wrought by Anarchy!

She ruins States, and overthrows the home,

She dissipates and routs the embattled host;

While discipline preserves the ordered ranks.

Therefore we must maintain authority

And yield to title to a woman's will.

Better, if needs be, men should cast us out

Than hear it said, a woman proved his match.

To me, unless old age have dulled wits,

Thy words appear both reasonable and wise.

Father, the gods implant in mortal men

Reason, the choicest gift bestowed by heaven.

'Tis not for me to say thou errest, nor

Would I arraign thy wisdom, if I could;

And yet wise thoughts may come to other men

And, as thy son, it falls to me to mark

The acts, the words, the comments of the crowd.

The commons stand in terror of thy frown,

And dare not utter aught that might offend,

But I can overhear their muttered plaints,

Know how the people mourn this maiden doomed

For noblest deeds to die the worst of deaths.

When her own brother slain in battle lay

Unsepulchered, she suffered not his corse

To lie for carrion birds and dogs to maul:

Should not her name (they cry) be writ in gold?

Such the low murmurings that reach my ear.

O father, nothing is by me more prized

Than thy well-being, for what higher good

Can children covet than their sire's fair fame,

As fathers too take pride in glorious sons?

Therefore, my father, cling not to one mood,

And deemed not thou art right, all others wrong.

For whoso thinks that wisdom dwells with him,

That he alone can speak or think aright,

Such oracles are empty breath when tried.

The wisest man will let himself be swayed

By others' wisdom and relax in time.

See how the trees beside a stream in flood

Save, if they yield to force, each spray unharmed,

But by resisting perish root and branch.

The mariner who keeps his mainsheet taut,

And will not slacken in the gale, is like

To sail with thwarts reversed, keel uppermost.

Relent then and repent thee of thy wrath;

For, if one young in years may claim some sense,

I'll say 'tis best of all to be endowed

With absolute wisdom; but, if that's denied,

(And nature takes not readily that ply)

Next wise is he who lists to sage advice.

If he says aught in season, heed him, King.

Heed thou thy sire too; both have spoken well.

What, would you have us at our age be schooled,

Lessoned in prudence by a beardless boy?

I plead for justice, father, nothing more.

Weigh me upon my merit, not my years.

Strange merit this to sanction lawlessness!

For evil-doers I would urge no plea.

Is not this maid an arrant law-breaker?

The Theban commons with one voice say, No.

What, shall the mob dictate my policy?

'Tis thou, methinks, who speakest like a boy.

Am I to rule for others, or myself?

A State for one man is no State at all.

The State is his who rules it, so 'tis held.

As monarch of a desert thou wouldst shine.

This boy, methinks, maintains the woman's cause.

If thou be'st woman, yes. My thought's for thee.

O reprobate, would'st wrangle with thy sire?

Because I see thee wrongfully perverse.

And am I wrong, if I maintain my rights?

Talk not of rights; thou spurn'st the due of Heaven

O heart corrupt, a woman's minion thou!

Slave to dishonor thou wilt never find me.

Thy speech at least was all a plea for her.

And thee and me, and for the gods below.

Living the maid shall never be thy bride.

So she shall die, but one will die with her.

Hast come to such a pass as threaten me?

What threat is this, vain counsels to reprove?

Vain fool to instruct thy betters; thou shall rue it.

Wert not my father, I had said thou err'st.

Play not the spaniel, thou a woman's slave.

When thou dost speak, must no man make reply?

This passes bounds. By heaven, thou shalt not rate

And jeer and flout me with impunity.

Off with the hateful thing that she may die

At once, beside her bridegroom, in his sight.

Think not that in my sight the maid shall die,

Or by my side; never shalt thou again

Behold my face hereafter. Go, consort

With friends who like a madman for their mate.

Thy son has gone, my liege, in angry haste.

Fell is the wrath of youth beneath a smart.

Let him go vent his fury like a fiend:

These sisters twain he shall not save from death.

Surely, thou meanest not to slay them both?

I stand corrected; only her who touched

The body.

And what death is she to die?

She shall be taken to some desert place

By man untrod, and in a rock-hewn cave,

With food no more than to avoid the taint

That homicide might bring on all the State,

Buried alive. There let her call in aid

The King of Death, the one god she reveres,

Or learn too late a lesson learnt at last:

'Tis labor lost, to reverence the dead.

Love resistless in fight, all yield at a glance of thine eye,

Love who pillowed all night on a maiden's cheek dost lie,

Over the upland holds. Shall mortals not yield to thee?

Mad are thy subjects all, and even the wisest heart

Straight to folly will fall, at a touch of thy poisoned dart.

Thou didst kindle the strife, this feud of kinsman with kin,

By the eyes of a winsome wife, and the yearning her heart to win.

For as her consort still, enthroned with Justice above,

Thou bendest man to thy will, O all invincible Love.

Lo I myself am borne aside,

From Justice, as I view this bride.

(O sight an eye in tears to drown)

Antigone, so young, so fair,

Thus hurried down

Death's bower with the dead to share.

Friends, countrymen, my last farewell I make;

My journey's done.

One last fond, lingering, longing look I take

At the bright sun.

For Death who puts to sleep both young and old

Hales my young life,

And beckons me to Acheron's dark fold,

An unwed wife.

No youths have sung the marriage song for me,

My bridal bed

No maids have strewn with flowers from the lea,

'Tis Death I wed.

But bethink thee, thou art sped,

Great and glorious, to the dead.

Thou the sword's edge hast not tasted,

No disease thy frame hath wasted.

Freely thou alone shalt go

Living to the dead below.

Nay, but the piteous tale I've heard men tell

Of Tantalus' doomed child,

Chained upon Siphylus' high rocky fell,

That clung like ivy wild,

Drenched by the pelting rain and whirling snow,

Left there to pine,

While on her frozen breast the tears aye flow-

Her fate is mine.

She was sprung of gods, divine,

Mortals we of mortal line.

Like renown with gods to gain

Recompenses all thy pain.

Take this solace to thy tomb

Hers in life and death thy doom.

Alack, alack! Ye mock me. Is it meet

Thus to insult me living, to my face?

Cease, by our country's altars I entreat,

Ye lordly rulers of a lordly race.

O fount of Dirce, wood-embowered plain

Where Theban chariots to victory speed,

Mark ye the cruel laws that now have wrought my bane,

The friends who show no pity in my need!

Was ever fate like mine? O monstrous doom,

Within a rock-built prison sepulchered,

To fade and wither in a living tomb,

And alien midst the living and the dead.

In thy boldness over-rash

Madly thou thy foot didst dash

'Gainst high Justice' altar stair.

Thou a father's guild dost bear.

At this thou touchest my most poignant pain,

My ill-starred father's piteous disgrace,

The taint of blood, the hereditary stain,

That clings to all of Labdacus' famed race.

Woe worth the monstrous marriage-bed where lay

A mother with the son her womb had borne,

Therein I was conceived, woe worth the day,

Fruit of incestuous sheets, a maid forlorn,

And now I pass, accursed and unwed,

To meet them as an alien there below;

And thee, O brother, in marriage ill-bestead,

'Twas thy dead hand that dealt me this death-blow.

Religion has her chains, 'tis true,

Let rite be paid when rites are due.

Yet is it ill to disobey

The powers who hold by might the sway.

Thou hast withstood authority,

A self-willed rebel, thou must die.

Unwept, unwed, unfriended, hence I go,

No longer may I see the day's bright eye;

Not one friend left to share my bitter woe,

And o'er my ashes heave one passing sigh.

If wail and lamentation aught availed

To stave off death, I trow they'd never end.

Away with her, and having walled her up

In a rock-vaulted tomb, as I ordained,

Leave her alone at liberty to die,

Or, if she choose, to live in solitude,

The tomb her dwelling. We in either case

Are guiltless as concerns this maiden's blood,

Only on earth no lodging shall she find.

O grave, O bridal bower, O prison house

Hewn from the rock, my everlasting home,

Whither I go to join the mighty host

Of kinsfolk, Persephassa's guests long dead,

The last of all, of all more miserable,

I pass, my destined span of years cut short.

And yet good hope is mine that I shall find

A welcome from my sire, a welcome too,

From thee, my mother, and my brother dear;

From with these hands, I laved and decked your limbs

In death, and poured libations on your grave.

And last, my Polyneices, unto thee

I paid due rites, and this my recompense!

Yet am I justified in wisdom's eyes.

For even had it been some child of mine,

Or husband mouldering in death's decay,

I had not wrought this deed despite the State.

What is the law I call in aid? 'Tis thus

I argue. Had it been a husband dead

I might have wed another, and have borne

Another child, to take the dead child's place.

But, now my sire and mother both are dead,

No second brother can be born for me.

Thus by the law of conscience I was led

To honor thee, dear brother, and was judged

By Creon guilty of a heinous crime.

And now he drags me like a criminal,

A bride unwed, amerced of marriage-song

And marriage-bed and joys of motherhood,

By friends deserted to a living grave.

What ordinance of heaven have I transgressed?

Hereafter can I look to any god

For succor, call on any man for help?

Alas, my piety is impious deemed.

Well, if such justice is approved of heaven,

I shall be taught by suffering my sin;

But if the sin is theirs, O may they suffer

No worse ills than the wrongs they do to me.

The same ungovernable will

Drives like a gale the maiden still.

Therefore, my guards who let her stay

Shall smart full sore for their delay.

Ah, woe is me! This word I hear

Brings death most near.

I have no comfort. What he saith,

Portends no other thing than death.

My fatherland, city of Thebes divine,

Ye gods of Thebes whence sprang my line,

Look, puissant lords of Thebes, on me;

The last of all your royal house ye see.

Martyred by men of sin, undone.

Such meed my piety hath won.

Like to thee that maiden bright,

Danae, in her brass-bound tower,

Once exchanged the glad sunlight

For a cell, her bridal bower.

And yet she sprang of royal line,

My child, like thine,

And nursed the seed

By her conceived

Of Zeus descending in a golden shower.

Strange are the ways of Fate, her power

Nor wealth, nor arms withstand, nor tower;

Nor brass-prowed ships, that breast the sea

From Fate can flee.

Thus Dryas' child, the rash Edonian King,

For words of high disdain

Did Bacchus to a rocky dungeon bring,

To cool the madness of a fevered brain.

His frenzy passed,

He learnt at last

'Twas madness gibes against a god to fling.

For once he fain had quenched the Maenad's fire;

And of the tuneful Nine provoked the ire.

By the Iron Rocks that guard the double main,

On Bosporus' lone strand,

Where stretcheth Salmydessus' plain

In the wild Thracian land,

There on his borders Ares witnessed

The vengeance by a jealous step-dame ta'en

The gore that trickled from a spindle red,

The sightless orbits of her step-sons twain.

Wasting away they mourned their piteous doom,

The blasted issue of their mother's womb.

But she her lineage could trace

To great Erecththeus' race;

Daughter of Boreas in her sire's vast caves

Reared, where the tempest raves,

Swift as his horses o'er the hills she sped;

A child of gods; yet she, my child, like thee,

By Destiny

That knows not death nor age-she too was vanquished.

Princes of Thebes, two wayfarers as one,

Having betwixt us eyes for one, we are here.

The blind man cannot move without a guide.

Why tidings, old Teiresias?

I will tell thee;

And when thou hearest thou must heed the seer.

Thus far I ne'er have disobeyed thy rede.

So hast thou steered the ship of State aright.

I know it, and I gladly own my debt.

Bethink thee that thou treadest once again

The razor edge of peril.

What is this?

Thy words inspire a dread presentiment.

The divination of my arts shall tell.

Sitting upon my throne of augury,

As is my wont, where every fowl of heaven

Find harborage, upon mine ears was borne

A jargon strange of twitterings, hoots, and screams;

So knew I that each bird at the other tare

With bloody talons, for the whirr of wings

Could signify naught else. Perturbed in soul,

I straight essayed the sacrifice by fire

On blazing altars, but the God of Fire

Came not in flame, and from the thigh bones dripped

And sputtered in the ashes a foul ooze;

Gall-bladders cracked and spurted up: the fat

Melted and fell and left the thigh bones bare.

Such are the signs, taught by this lad, I read-

As I guide others, so the boy guides me-

The frustrate signs of oracles grown dumb.

O King, thy willful temper ails the State,

For all our shrines and altars are profaned

By what has filled the maw of dogs and crows,

The flesh of Oedipus' unburied son.

Therefore the angry gods abominate

Our litanies and our burnt offerings;

Therefore no birds trill out a happy note,

Gorged with the carnival of human gore.

O ponder this, my son. To err is common

To all men, but the man who having erred

Hugs not his errors, but repents and seeks

The cure, is not a wastrel nor unwise.

No fool, the saw goes, like the obstinate fool.

Let death disarm thy vengeance. O forbear

To vex the dead. What glory wilt thou win

By slaying twice the slain? I mean thee well;

Counsel's most welcome if I promise gain.

Old man, ye all let fly at me your shafts

Like anchors at a target; yea, ye set

Your soothsayer on me. Peddlers are ye all

And I the merchandise ye buy and sell.

Go to, and make your profit where ye will,

Silver of Sardis change for gold of Ind;

Ye will not purchase this man's burial,

Not though the winged ministers of Zeus

Should bear him in their talons to his throne;

Not e'en in awe of prodigy so dire

Would I permit his burial, for I know

No human soilure can assail the gods;

This too I know, Teiresias, dire's the fall

Of craft and cunning when it tries to gloss

Foul treachery with fair words for filthy gain.

Alas! doth any know and lay to heart-

Is this the prelude to some hackneyed saw?

How far good counsel is the best of goods?

True, as unwisdom is the worst of ills.

Thou art infected with that ill thyself.

I will not bandy insults with thee, seer.

And yet thou say'st my prophesies are frauds.

Prophets are all a money-getting tribe.

And kings are all a lucre-loving race.

Dost know at whom thou glancest, me thy lord?

Lord of the State and savior, thanks to me.

Skilled prophet art thou, but to wrong inclined.

Take heed, thou wilt provoke me to reveal

The mystery deep hidden in my breast.

Say on, but see it be not said for gain.

Such thou, methinks, till now hast judged my words.

Be sure thou wilt not traffic on my wits.

Know then for sure, the coursers of the sun

Not many times shall run their race, before

Thou shalt have given the fruit of thine own loins

In quittance of thy murder, life for life;

For that thou hast entombed a living soul,

And sent below a denizen of earth,

And wronged the nether gods by leaving here

A corpse unlaved, unwept, unsepulchered.

Herein thou hast no part, nor e'en the gods

In heaven; and thou usurp'st a power not thine.

For this the avenging spirits of Heaven and Hell

Who dog the steps of sin are on thy trail:

What these have suffered thou shalt suffer too.

And now, consider whether bought by gold

I prophesy. For, yet a little while,

And sound of lamentation shall be heard,

Of men and women through thy desolate halls;

And all thy neighbor States are leagues to avenge

Their mangled warriors who have found a grave

I' the maw of wolf or hound, or winged bird

That flying homewards taints their city's air.

These are the shafts, that like a bowman I

Provoked to anger, loosen at thy breast,

Unerring, and their smart thou shalt not shun.

Boy, lead me home, that he may vent his spleen

On younger men, and learn to curb his tongue

With gentler manners than his present mood.

My liege, that man hath gone, foretelling woe.

And, O believe me, since these grizzled locks

Were like the raven, never have I known

The prophet's warning to the State to fail.

I know it too, and it perplexes me.

To yield is grievous, but the obstinate soul

That fights with Fate, is smitten grievously.

Son of Menoeceus, list to good advice.

What should I do. Advise me. I will heed.

Go, free the maiden from her rocky cell;

And for the unburied outlaw build a tomb.

Is that your counsel? You would have me yield?

Yea, king, this instant. Vengeance of the gods

Is swift to overtake the impenitent.

Ah! what a wrench it is to sacrifice

My heart's resolve; but Fate is ill to fight.

Go, trust not others. Do it quick thyself.

I go hot-foot. Bestir ye one and all,

My henchmen! Get ye axes! Speed away

To yonder eminence! I too will go,

For all my resolution this way sways.

'Twas I that bound, I too will set her free.

Almost I am persuaded it is best

To keep through life the law ordained of old.

Thou by many names adored,

Child of Zeus the God of thunder,

Of a Theban bride the wonder,

Fair Italia's guardian lord;

In the deep-embosomed glades

Of the Eleusinian Queen

Haunt of revelers, men and maids,

Dionysus, thou art seen.

Where Ismenus rolls his waters,

Where the Dragon's teeth were sown,

Where the Bacchanals thy daughters

Round thee roam,

There thy home;

Thebes, O Bacchus, is thine own.

Thee on the two-crested rock

Lurid-flaming torches see;

Where Corisian maidens flock,

Thee the springs of Castaly.

By Nysa's bastion ivy-clad,

By shores with clustered vineyards glad,

There to thee the hymn rings out,

And through our streets we Thebans shout,

All hall to thee

Evoe, Evoe!

Oh, as thou lov'st this city best of all,

To thee, and to thy Mother levin-stricken,

In our dire need we call;

Thou see'st with what a plague our townsfolk sicken.

Thy ready help we crave,

Whether adown Parnassian heights descending,

Or o'er the roaring straits thy swift was wending,

Save us, O save!

Brightest of all the orbs that breathe forth light,

Authentic son of Zeus, immortal king,

Leader of all the voices of the night,

Come, and thy train of Thyiads with thee bring,

Thy maddened rout

Who dance before thee all night long, and shout,

Thy handmaids we,

Evoe, Evoe!

Attend all ye who dwell beside the halls

Of Cadmus and Amphion. No man's life

As of one tenor would I praise or blame,

For Fortune with a constant ebb and rise

Casts down and raises high and low alike,

And none can read a mortal's horoscope.

Take Creon; he, methought, if any man,

Was enviable. He had saved this land

Of Cadmus from our enemies and attained

A monarch's powers and ruled the state supreme,

While a right noble issue crowned his bliss.

Now all is gone and wasted, for a life

Without life's joys I count a living death.

You'll tell me he has ample store of wealth,

The pomp and circumstance of kings; but if

These give no pleasure, all the rest I count

The shadow of a shade, nor would I weigh

His wealth and power 'gainst a dram of joy.

What fresh woes bring'st thou to the royal house?

Both dead, and they who live deserve to die.

Who is the slayer, who the victim? speak.

Haemon; his blood shed by no stranger hand.

What mean ye? by his father's or his own?

His own; in anger for his father's crime.

O prophet, what thou spakest comes to pass.

So stands the case; now 'tis for you to act.

Lo! from the palace gates I see approaching

Creon's unhappy wife, Eurydice.

Comes she by chance or learning her son's fate?

Ye men of Thebes, I overheard your talk.

As I passed out to offer up my prayer

To Pallas, and was drawing back the bar

To open wide the door, upon my ears

There broke a wail that told of household woe

Stricken with terror in my handmaids' arms

I fell and fainted. But repeat your tale

To one not unacquaint with misery.

Dear mistress, I was there and will relate

The perfect truth, omitting not one word.

Why should we gloze and flatter, to be proved

Liars hereafter? Truth is ever best.

Well, in attendance on my liege, your lord,

I crossed the plain to its utmost margin, where

The corse of Polyneices, gnawn and mauled,

Was lying yet. We offered first a prayer

To Pluto and the goddess of cross-ways,

With contrite hearts, to deprecate their ire.

Then laved with lustral waves the mangled corse,

Laid it on fresh-lopped branches, lit a pyre,

And to his memory piled a mighty mound

Of mother earth. Then to the caverned rock,

The bridal chamber of the maid and Death,

We sped, about to enter. But a guard

Heard from that godless shrine a far shrill wail,

And ran back to our lord to tell the news.

But as he nearer drew a hollow sound

Of lamentation to the King was borne.

He groaned and uttered then this bitter plaint:

"Am I a prophet? miserable me!

Is this the saddest path I ever trod?

'Tis my son's voice that calls me. On press on,

My henchmen, haste with double speed to the tomb

Where rocks down-torn have made a gap, look in

And tell me if in truth I recognize

The voice of Haemon or am heaven-deceived."

So at the bidding of our distraught lord

We looked, and in the craven's vaulted gloom

I saw the maiden lying strangled there,

A noose of linen twined about her neck;

And hard beside her, clasping her cold form,

Her lover lay bewailing his dead bride

Death-wedded, and his father's cruelty.

When the King saw him, with a terrible groan

He moved towards him, crying, "O my son

What hast thou done? What ailed thee? What mischance

Has reft thee of thy reason? O come forth,

Come forth, my son; thy father supplicates."

But the son glared at him with tiger eyes,

Spat in his face, and then, without a word,

Drew his two-hilted sword and smote, but missed

His father flying backwards. Then the boy,

Wroth with himself, poor wretch, incontinent

Fell on his sword and drove it through his side

Home, but yet breathing clasped in his lax arms

The maid, her pallid cheek incarnadined

With his expiring gasps. So there they lay

Two corpses, one in death. His marriage rites

Are consummated in the halls of Death:

A witness that of ills whate'er befall

Mortals' unwisdom is the worst of all.

What makest thou of this? The Queen has gone

Without a word importing good or ill.

I marvel too, but entertain good hope.

'Tis that she shrinks in public to lament

Her son's sad ending, and in privacy

Would with her maidens mourn a private loss.

Trust me, she is discreet and will not err.

I know not, but strained silence, so I deem,

Is no less ominous than excessive grief.

Well, let us to the house and solve our doubts,

Whether the tumult of her heart conceals

Some fell design. It may be thou art right:

Unnatural silence signifies no good.

Lo! the King himself appears.

Evidence he with him bears

'Gainst himself (ah me! I quake

'Gainst a king such charge to make)

But all must own,

The guilt is his and his alone.

Woe for sin of minds perverse,

Deadly fraught with mortal curse.

Behold us slain and slayers, all akin.

Woe for my counsel dire, conceived in sin.

Alas, my son,

Life scarce begun,

Thou wast undone.

The fault was mine, mine only, O my son!

Too late thou seemest to perceive the truth.

By sorrow schooled. Heavy the hand of God,

Thorny and rough the paths my feet have trod,

Humbled my pride, my pleasure turned to pain;

Poor mortals, how we labor all in vain!

Sorrows are thine, my lord, and more to come,

One lying at thy feet, another yet

More grievous waits thee, when thou comest home.

What woe is lacking to my tale of woes?

Thy wife, the mother of thy dead son here,

Lies stricken by a fresh inflicted blow.

How bottomless the pit!

Does claim me too, O Death?

What is this word he saith,

This woeful messenger? Say, is it fit

To slay anew a man already slain?

Is Death at work again,

Stroke upon stroke, first son, then mother slain?

Look for thyself. She lies for all to view.

Alas! another added woe I see.

What more remains to crown my agony?

A minute past I clasped a lifeless son,

And now another victim Death hath won.

Unhappy mother, most unhappy son!

Beside the altar on a keen-edged sword

She fell and closed her eyes in night, but erst

She mourned for Megareus who nobly died

Long since, then for her son; with her last breath

She cursed thee, the slayer of her child.

I shudder with affright

O for a two-edged sword to slay outright

A wretch like me,

Made one with misery.

'Tis true that thou wert charged by the dead Queen

As author of both deaths, hers and her son's.

In what wise was her self-destruction wrought?

Hearing the loud lament above her son

With her own hand she stabbed herself to the heart.

I am the guilty cause. I did the deed,

Thy murderer. Yea, I guilty plead.

My henchmen, lead me hence, away, away,

A cipher, less than nothing; no delay!

Well said, if in disaster aught is well

His past endure demand the speediest cure.

Come, Fate, a friend at need,

Come with all speed!

Come, my best friend,

And speed my end!

Away, away!

Let me not look upon another day!

This for the morrow; to us are present needs

That they whom it concerns must take in hand.

I join your prayer that echoes my desire.

O pray not, prayers are idle; from the doom

Of fate for mortals refuge is there none.

Away with me, a worthless wretch who slew

Unwitting thee, my son, thy mother too.

Whither to turn I know now; every way

Leads but astray,

And on my head I feel the heavy weight

Of crushing Fate.

Of happiness the chiefest part

Is a wise heart:

And to defraud the gods in aught

With peril's fraught.

Swelling words of high-flown might

Mightily the gods do smite.

Chastisement for errors past

Wisdom brings to age at last.

I pray the gods to quit me of my toils,

To close the watch I keep, this livelong year;

For as a watch-dog lying, not at rest,

Propped on one arm, upon the palace-roof

Of Atreus' race, too long, too well I know

The starry conclave of the midnight sky,

Too well, the splendours of the firmament,

The lords of light, whose kingly aspect shows-

What time they set or climb the sky in turn-

The year's divisions, bringing frost or fire.

And now, as ever, am I set to mark

When shall stream up the glow of signal-flame,

The bale-fire bright, and tell its Trojan tale-

Troy town is ta'en: such issue holds in hope

She in whose woman's breast beats heart of man.

Thus upon mine unrestful couch I lie,

Bathed with the dews of night, unvisited

By dreams-ah me!-for in the place of sleep

Stands Fear as my familiar, and repels

The soft repose that would mine eyelids seal.

And if at whiles, for the lost balm of sleep,

I medicine my soul with melody

Of trill or song-anon to tears I turn,

Wailing the woe that broods upon this home,

Not now by honour guided as of old-

But now at last fair fall the welcome hour

That sets me free, whene'er the thick night glow

With beacon-fire of hope deferred no more.

All hail! (A beacon-light is seen reddening the distant sky.)

Fire of the night, that brings my spirit day,

Shedding on Argos light, and dance, and song,

Greetings to fortune, hail!

Let my loud summons ring within the ears

Of AGAMEMNON's queen, that she anon

Start from her couch and with a shrill voice cry

A joyous welcome to the beacon-blaze,

For Ilion's fall; such fiery message gleams

From yon high flame; and I, before the rest,

Will foot the lightsome measure of our joy;

For I can say, My master's dice fell fair-

Behold! the triple sice, the lucky flame!

Now be my lot to clasp, in loyal love,

The hand of him restored, who rules our home:

Home-but I say no more: upon my tongue

Treads hard the ox o' the adage.

Had it voice,

The home itself might soothliest tell its tale;

I, of set will, speak words the wise may learn,

To others, nought remember nor discern.

Ten livelong years have rolled away,

Since the twin lords of sceptred sway,

By Zeus endowed with pride of place,

The doughty chiefs of Atreus' race,

Went forth of yore,

To plead with Priam, face to face,

Before the judgment-seat of War!

A thousand ships from Argive land

Put forth to bear the martial band,

That with a spirit stern and strong

Went out to right the kingdom's wrong-

Pealed, as they went, the battle-song,

Wild as the vultures' cry;

When o'er the eyrie, soaring high,

In wild bereaved agony,

Around, around, in airy rings,

They wheel with oarage of their wings,

But not the eyas-brood behold,

That called them to the nest of old;

But let Apollo from the sky,

Or Pan, or Zeus, but hear the cry,

The exile cry, the wail forlorn,

Of birds from whom their home is torn-

On those who wrought the rapine fell,

Heaven sends the vengeful fiends of hell.

Even so doth Zeus, the jealous lord

And guardian of the hearth and board,

Speed Atreus' sons, in vengeful ire,

'Gainst Paris-sends them forth on fire,

Her to buy back, in war and blood,

Whom one did wed but many woo'd!

And many, many, by his will,

The last embrace of foes shall feel,

And many a knee in dust be bowed,

And splintered spears on shields ring loud,

Of Trojan and of Greek, before

That iron bridal-feast be o'er!

But as he willed 'tis ordered all,

And woes, by heaven ordained, must fall-

Unsoothed by tears or spilth of wine

Poured forth too late, the wrath divine

Glares vengeance on the flameless shrine.

And we in grey dishonoured eld,

Feeble of frame, unfit were held

To join the warrior array

That then went forth unto the fray:

And here at home we tarry, fain

Our feeble footsteps to sustain,

Each on his staff-so strength doth wane,

And turns to childishness again.

For while the sap of youth is green,

And, yet unripened, leaps within,

The young are weakly as the old,

And each alike unmeet to hold

The vantage post of war!

And ah! when flower and fruit are o'er,

And on life's tree the leaves are sere,

Age wendeth propped its journey drear,

As forceless as a child, as light

And fleeting as a dream of night

Lost in the garish day!

But thou, O child of Tyndareus,

Queen CLYTEMNESTRA, speak! and say

What messenger of joy to-day

Hath won thine ear? what welcome news,

That thus in sacrificial wise

E'en to the city's boundaries

Thou biddest altar-fires arise?

Each god who doth our city guard,

And keeps o'er Argos watch and ward

From heaven above, from earth below-

The mighty lords who rule the skies,

The market's lesser deities,

To each and all the altars glow,

Piled for the sacrifice!

And here and there, anear, afar,

Streams skyward many a beacon-star,

Conjur'd and charm'd and kindled well

By pure oil's soft and guileless spell,

Hid now no more

Within the palace' secret store.

O queen, we pray thee, whatsoe'er,

Known unto thee, were well revealed,

That thou wilt trust it to our ear,

And bid our anxious heart be healed!

That waneth now unto despair-

Now, waxing to a presage fair,

Dawns, from the altar, to scare

From our rent hearts the vulture Care.

List! for the power is mine, to chant on high

The chiefs' emprise, the strength that omens gave!

List! on my soul breathes yet a harmony,

From realms of ageless powers, and strong to save!

How brother kings, twin lords of one command,

Led forth the youth of Hellas in their flower,

Urged on their way, with vengeful spear and brand,

By warrior-birds, that watched the parting hour.

Go forth to Troy, the eagles seemed to cry-

And the sea-kings obeyed the sky-kings' word,

When on the right they soared across the sky,

And one was black, one bore a white tail barred.

High o'er the palace were they seen to soar,

Then lit in sight of all, and rent and tare,

Far from the fields that she should range no more,

Big with her unborn brood, a mother-hare.

Ah woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!

And one beheld, the soldier-prophet true,

And the two chiefs, unlike of soul and will,

In the twy-coloured eagles straight he knew,

And spake the omen forth, for good and in.

Go forth, he cried, and Priam's town shall fall.

Yet long the time shall be; and flock and herd,

The people's wealth, that roam before the wall,

Shall force hew down, when Fate shall give the word,

But O beware! lest wrath in Heaven abide,

To dim the glowing battle-forge once more,

And mar the mighty curb of Trojan pride,

The steel of vengeance, welded as for war!

For virgin Artemis bears jealous hate

Against the royal house, the eagle-pair,

Who rend the unborn brood, insatiate-

Yea, loathes their banquet on the quivering hare.

Ah woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!

For well she loves-the goddess kind and mild-

The tender new-born cubs of lions bold,

Too weak to range-and well the sucking child

Of every beast that roams by wood and wold.

So to the Lord of Heaven she prayeth still,

"Nay, if it must be, be the omen true!

Yet do the visioned eagles presage ill;

The end be well, but crossed with evil too!"

Healer Apollo! be her wrath controll'd

Nor weave the long delay of thwarting gales,

To war against the Danaans and withhold

From the free ocean-waves their eager sails!

She craves, alas! to see a second life

Shed forth, a curst unhallowed sacrifice-

'Twixt wedded souls, artificer of strife,

And hate that knows not fear, and fell device.

At home there tarries like a lurking snake,

Biding its time, a wrath unreconciled,

A wily watcher, passionate to slake,

In blood, resentment for a murdered child.

Such was the mighty warning, pealed of yore-

Amid good tidings, such the word of fear,

What time the fateful eagles hovered o'er

The kings, and Calchas read the omen clear.

In strains like his, once more,

Sing woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!

Zeus-if to The Unknown

That name of many names seem good-

Zeus, upon Thee I call.

Thro' the mind's every road

I passed, but vain are all,

Save that which names thee Zeus, the Highest One,

Were it but mine to cast away the load,

The weary load, that weighs my spirit down.

He that was Lord of old,

In full-blown pride of place and valour bold,

Hath fallen and is gone, even as an old tale told:

And he that next held sway,

By stronger grasp o'erthrown

Hath pass'd away!

And whoso now shall bid the triumph-chant arise

To Zeus, and Zeus alone,

He shall be found the truly wise.

'Tis Zeus alone who shows the perfect way

Of knowledge: He hath ruled,

Men shall learn wisdom, by affliction schooled.

In visions of the night, like dropping rain,

Descend the many memories of pain

Before the spirit's sight: through tears and dole

Comes wisdom o'er the unwilling soul-

A boon, I wot, of all Divinity,

That holds its sacred throne in strength, above the sky!

And then the elder chief, at whose command

The fleet of Greece was manned,

Cast on the seer no word of hate,

But veered before the sudden breath of Fate-

Ah, weary while! for, ere they put forth sail,

Did every store, each minish'd vessel, fail,

While all the Achaean host

At Aulis anchored lay,

Looking across to Chalcis and the coast

Where refluent waters welter, rock, and sway;

And rife with ill delay

From northern Strymon blew the thwarting blast-

Mother of famine fell,

That holds men wand'ring still

Far from the haven where they fain would be!-

And pitiless did waste

Each ship and cable, rotting on the sea,

And, doubling with delay each weary hour,

Withered with hope deferred th' Achaeans' warlike flower.

But when, for bitter storm, a deadlier relief,

And heavier with ill to either chief,

Pleading the ire of Artemis, the seer avowed,

The two Atreidae smote their sceptres on the plain,

And, striving hard, could not their tears restrain!

And then the elder monarch spake aloud-

Ill lot were mine, to disobey!

And ill, to smite my child, my household's love and pride!

To stain with virgin blood a father's hands, and slay

My daughter, by the altar's side!

'Twixt woe and woe I dwell-

I dare not like a recreant fly,

And leave the league of ships, and fail each true ally;

For rightfully they crave, with eager fiery mind,

The virgin's blood, shed forth to lull the adverse wind-

God send the deed be well!

Thus on his neck he took

Fate's hard compelling yoke;

Then, in the counter-gale of will abhorr'd, accursed,

To recklessness his shifting spirit veered-

Alas! that Frenzy, first of ills and worst,

With evil craft men's souls to sin hath ever stirred!

And so he steeled his heart-ah, well-a-day-

Aiding a war for one false woman's sake,

His child to slay,

And with her spilt blood make

An offering, to speed the ships upon their way!

Lusting for war, the bloody arbiters

Closed heart and ears, and would nor hear nor heed

The girl-voice plead,

Pity me, Father! nor her prayers,

Nor tender, virgin years.

So, when the chant of sacrifice was done,

Her father bade the youthful priestly train

Raise her, like some poor kid, above the altar-stone,

From where amid her robes she lay

Sunk all in swoon away-

Bade them, as with the bit that mutely tames the steed,

Her fair lips' speech refrain,

Lest she should speak a curse on Atreus' home and seed,

So, trailing on the earth her robe of saffron dye,

With one last piteous dart from her beseeching eye.

Those that should smite she smote

Fair, silent, as a pictur'd form, but fain

To plead, Is all forgot?

How oft those halls of old,

Wherein my sire high feast did hold,

Rang to the virginal soft strain,

When I, a stainless child,

Sang from pure lips and undefiled,

Sang of my sire, and all

His honoured life, and how on him should fall

Heaven's highest gift and gain!

And then-but I beheld not, nor can tell,

What further fate befell:

But this is sure, that Calchas' boding strain

Can ne'er be void or vain.

This wage from justice' hand do sufferers earn,

The future to discern:

And yet-farewell, O secret of To-morrow!

Fore-knowledge is fore-sorrow.

Clear with the clear beams of the morrow's sun,

The future presseth on.

Now, let the house's tale, how dark soe'er,

Find yet an issue fair!-

So prays the loyal, solitary band

That guards the Apian land.

O queen, I come in reverence of thy sway-

For, while the ruler's kingly seat is void,

The loyal heart before his consort bends.

Now-be it sure and certain news of good,

Or the fair tidings of a flatt'ring hope,

That bids thee spread the light from shrine to shrine,

I, fain to hear, yet grudge not if thou hide.

As saith the adage, From the womb of Night

Spring forth, with promise fair, the young child Light.

Ay-fairer even than all hope my news-

By Grecian hands is Priam's city ta'en!

What say'st thou? doubtful heart makes treach'rous ear.

Hear then again, and plainly-Troy is ours!

Thrills thro' heart such joy as wakens tears.

Ay, thro' those tears thine eye looks loyalty.

But hast thou proof, to make assurance sure?

Go to; I have-unless the god has lied.

Hath some night-vision won thee to belief?

Out on all presage of a slumb'rous soul!

But wert thou cheered by Rumour's wingless word?

Peace-thou dost chide me as a credulous girl.

Say then, how long ago the city fell?

Even in this night that now brings forth the dawn.

Yet who so swift could speed the message here?

From Ida's top Hephaestus, lord of fire,

Sent forth his sign; and on, and ever on,

Beacon to beacon sped the courier-flame.

From Ida to the crag, that Hermes loves,

Of Lemnos; thence unto the steep sublime

Of Athos, throne of Zeus, the broad blaze flared.

Thence, raised aloft to shoot across the sea,

The moving light, rejoicing in its strength,

Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way,

In golden glory, like some strange new sun,

Onward, and reached Macistus' watching heights.

There, with no dull delay nor heedless sleep,

The watcher sped the tidings on in turn,

Until the guard upon Messapius' peak

Saw the far flame gleam on Euripus' tide,

And from the high-piled heap of withered furze

Lit the new sign and bade the message on.

Then the strong light, far-flown and yet undimmed,

Shot thro' the sky above Asopus' plain,

Bright as the moon, and on Cithaeron's crag

Aroused another watch of flying fire.

And there the sentinels no whit disowned,

But sent redoubled on, the hest of flame

Swift shot the light, above Gorgopis' bay,

To Aegiplanctus' mount, and bade the peak

Fail not the onward ordinance of fire.

And like a long beard streaming in the wind,

Full-fed with fuel, roared and rose the blaze,

And onward flaring, gleamed above the cape,

Beneath which shimmers the Saronic bay,

And thence leapt light unto Arachne's peak,

The mountain watch that looks upon our town.

Thence to th' Atreides' roof-in lineage fair,

A bright posterity of Ida's fire.

So sped from stage to stage, fulfilled in turn,

Flame after flame, along the course ordained,

And lo! the last to speed upon its way

Sights the end first, and glows unto the goal.

And Troy is ta'en, and by this sign my lord

Tells me the tale, and ye have learned my word.

To heaven, O queen, will I upraise new song:

But, wouldst thou speak once more, I fain would hear

From first to last the marvel of the tale.

Think you-this very morn-the Greeks in Troy,

And loud therein the voice of utter wail!

Within one cup pour vinegar and oil,

And look! unblent, unreconciled, they war.

So in the twofold issue of the strife

Mingle the victor's shout, the captives' moan.

For all the conquered whom the sword has spared

Cling weeping-some unto a brother slain,

Some childlike to a nursing father's form,

And wail the loved and lost, the while their neck

Bows down already 'neath the captive's chain.

And lo! the victors, now the fight is done,

Goaded by restless hunger, far and wide

Range all disordered thro' the town, to snatch

Such victual and such rest as chance may give

Within the captive halls that once were Troy-

Joyful to rid them of the frost and dew,

Wherein they couched upon the plain of old-

Joyful to sleep the gracious night all through,

Unsummoned of the watching sentinel.

Yet let them reverence well the city's gods,

The lords of Troy, tho' fallen, and her shrines;

So shall the spoilers not in turn be spoiled.

Yea, let no craving for forbidden gain

Bid conquerors yield before the darts of greed.

For we need yet, before the race be won,

Homewards, unharmed, to round the course once more.

For should the host wax wanton ere it come,

Then, tho'the sudden blow of fate be spared,

Yet in the sight of gods shall rise once more

The great wrong of the slain, to claim revenge.

Now, hearing from this woman's mouth of mine,

The tale and eke its warning, pray with me,

Luck sway the scale, with no uncertain poise,

For my fair hopes are changed to fairer joys.

A gracious word thy woman's lips have told,

Worthy a wise man's utterance, O my queen;

Now with clear trust in thy convincing tale

I set me to salute the gods with song,

Who bring us bliss to counterpoise our pain.

Zeus, Lord of heaven! and welcome night

Of victory, that hast our might

With all the glories crowned!

On towers of Ilion, free no more,

Hast flung the mighty mesh of war,

And closely girt them round,

Till neither warrior may 'scape,

Nor stripling lightly overleap

The trammels as they close, and close,

Till with the grip of doom our foes

In slavery's coil are bound!

Zeus, Lord of hospitality,

In grateful awe I bend to thee-

'Tis thou hast struck the blow!

At Alexander, long ago,

We marked thee bend thy vengeful bow,

But long and warily withhold

The eager shaft, which, uncontrolled

And loosed too soon or launched too high,

Had wandered bloodless through the sky.

Zeus, the high God!-whate'er be dim in doubt,

This can our thought track out-

The blow that fells the sinner is of God,

And as he wills, the rod

Of vengeance smiteth sore. One said of old,

The gods list not to hold

A reckoning with him whose feet oppress

The grace of holiness-

An impious word! for whenso'er the sire

Breathed forth rebellious fire-

What time his household overflowed the measure

Of bliss and health and treasure-

His children's children read the reckoning plain,

At last, in tears and pain.

On me let weal that brings no woe be sent,

And therewithal, content!

Who spurns the shrine of Right, nor wealth nor power

Shall be to him a tower,

To guard him from the gulf: there lies his lot,

Where all things are forgot.

Lust drives him on-lust, desperate and wild,

Fate's sin-contriving child-

And cure is none; beyond concealment clear,

Kindles sin's baleful glare.

As an ill coin beneath the wearing touch

Betrays by stain and smutch

Its metal false-such is the sinful wight.

Before, on pinions light,

Fair Pleasure flits, and lures him childlike on,

While home and kin make moan

Beneath the grinding burden of his crime;

Till, in the end of time,

Cast down of heaven, he pours forth fruitless prayer

To powers that will not hear.

And such did Paris come

Unto Atreides' home,

And thence, with sin and shame his welcome to repay,

Ravished the wife away-

And she, unto her country and her kin

Leaving the clash of shields and spears and arming ships,

And bearing unto Troy destruction for a dower,

And overbold in sin,

Went fleetly thro' the gates, at midnight hour.

Oft from the prophets' lips

Moaned out the warning and the wail-Ah woe!

Woe for the home, the home! and for the chieftains, woe!

Woe for the bride-bed, warm

Yet from the lovely limbs, the impress of the form

Of her who loved her lord, awhile ago

And woe! for him who stands

Shamed, silent, unreproachful, stretching hands

That find her not, and sees, yet will not see,

That she is far away!

And his sad fancy, yearning o'er the sea,

Shall summon and recall

Her wraith, once more to queen it in his hall.

And sad with many memories,

The fair cold beauty of each sculptured face-

And all to hatefulness is turned their grace,

Seen blankly by forlorn and hungering eyes!

And when the night is deep,