Aeschylus, Sophocles & Euripides

THE GREEK PLAYS

Table of Contents

AESCHYLUS

The Persians

The Seven Against Thebes

The Suppliants

Prometheus Bound

Agamemnon (The Oresteia — 1)

The Choephori (The Oresteia — 2)

The Eumenides (The Oresteia — 3)

SOPHOCLES

Oedipus the King

Oedipus at Colonus

Antigone

Ajax

Philoctetes

Electra

The Trachiniae

EURIPIDES

Alcestis

Andromache

The Bacchantes

The Cyclops

Electra

Hecuba

Helen

The Heracleidae

Heracles

Hippolytus

Ion

Iphigenia at Aulis

Iphigenia in Tauris

Medea

Orestes

The Phoenissae

Rhesus

The Suppliants

The Trojan Women

AESCHYLUS

The Persians

Characters in the Play

Atossa, widow of Darius and mother of Xerxes

Messenger

Ghost of Darius

Xerxes

Chorus of Persian Elders, who compose the Persian Council of State

[Scene: Before the Council-Hall of the Persian Kings at Susa. The tomb of Darius the Great is visible. The time is 480 B.C., shortly after the battle of Salamis. The play opens with the Chorus of Persian Elders singing its first choral lyric.]

Chorus

While o’er the fields of Greece the embattled troops

Of Persia march with delegated sway,

We o’er their rich and gold-abounding seats

Hold faithful our firm guard; to this high charge

Xerxes, our royal lord, the imperial son

Of great Darius, chose our honour’d age.

But for the king’s return, and his arm’d host

Blazing with gold, my soul presaging ill

Swells in my tortured breast: for all her force

Hath Asia sent, and for her youth I sigh.

Nor messenger arrives, nor horseman spurs

With tidings to this seat of Persia’s kings.

The gates of Susa and Ecbatana

Pour’d forth their martial trains; and Cissia sees

Her ancient towers forsaken, while her youth,

Some on the bounding steed, the tall bark some

Ascending, some with painful march on foot,

Haste on, to arrange the deep’ning files of war.

Amistres, Artaphernes, and the might

Of great Astaspes, Megabazes bold,

Chieftains of Persia, kings, that, to the power

Of the great king obedient, march with these

Leading their martial thousands; their proud steeds

Prance under them; steel bows and shafts their arms,

Dreadful to see, and terrible in fight,

Deliberate valour breathing in their souls.

Artembares, that in his fiery horse

Delights; Masistress; and Imaeus bold,

Bending with manly strength his stubborn bow;

Pharandaces, and Sosthanes, that drives

With military pomp his rapid steeds.

Others the vast prolific Nile hath sent;

Pegastagon, that from Aegyptus draws

His high birth; Susiscanes; and the chief

That reigns o’er sacred Memphis, great Arsames;

And Ariomardus, that o’er ancient Thebes

Bears the supreme dominion; and with these,

Drawn from their watery marshes, numbers train’d

To the stout oar. Next these the Lycian troops,

Soft sons of luxury; and those that dwell

Amid the inland forests, from the sea

Far distant; these Metragathes commands,

And virtuous Arceus, royal chiefs, that shine

In burnish’d gold, and many a whirling car

Drawn by six generous steeds from Sardis lead,

A glorious and a dreadful spectacle.

And from the foot of Tmolus, sacred mount,

Eager to bind on Greece the servile yoke,

Mardon and Tharybis the massy spear

Grasp with unwearied vigour; the light lance

The Mysians shake. A mingled multitude

Swept from her wide dominions skill’d to draw

The unerring bow, in ships Euphrates sends

From golden Babylon. With falchions arm’d

From all the extent of Asia move the hosts

Obedient to their monarch’s stern command.

Thus march’d the flower of Persia, whose loved youth

The world of Asia nourish’d, and with sighs

Laments their absence; many an anxious look

Their wives, their parents send, count the slow days,

And tremble at the long-protracted time.

[strophe 1]

Already o’er the adverse strand

In arms the monarch’s martial squadrons spread;

The threat’ning ruin shakes the land,

And each tall city bows its tower’d head.

Bark bound to bark, their wondrous way

They bridge across the indignant sea;

The narrow Hellespont’s vex’d waves disdain,

His proud neck taught to wear the chain.

Now has the peopled Asia’s warlike lord,

By land, by sea, with foot, with horse,

Resistless in his rapid course,

O’er all their realms his warring thousands pour’d;

Now his intrepid chiefs surveys,

And glitt’ring like a god his radiant state displays.

[antistrophe 1]

Fierce as the dragon scaled in gold

Through the deep files he darts his glowing eye;

And pleased their order to behold,

His gorgeous standard blazing to the sky,

Rolls onward his Assyrian car,

Directs the thunder of the war,

Bids the wing’d arrows’ iron storm advance

Against the slow and cumbrous lance.

What shall withstand the torrent of his sway

When dreadful o’er the yielding shores

The impetuous tide of battle roars,

And sweeps the weak opposing mounds away?

So Persia, with resistless might,

Rolls her unnumber’d hosts of heroes to the fight.

[strophe 2]

For when misfortune’s fraudful hand

Prepares to pour the vengeance of the sky,

What mortal shall her force withstand?

What rapid speed the impending fury fly?

Gentle at first with flatt’ring smiles

She spreads her soft enchanting wiles,

So to her toils allures her destined prey,

Whence man ne’er breaks unhurt away.

For thus from ancient times the Fates ordain

That Persia’s sons should greatly dare,

Unequall’d in the works of war;

Shake with their thund’ring steeds the ensanguined plain,

Dreadful the hostile walls surround,

And lay their rampired towers in ruins on the ground.

[antistrophe 2]

Taught to behold with fearless eyes

The whitening billows foam beneath the gale,

They bid the naval forests rise,

Mount the slight bark, unfurl the flying sail,

And o’er the angry ocean bear

To distant realms the storm of war.

For this with many a sad and gloomy thought

My tortured breast is fraught:

Ah me! for Persia’s absent sons I sigh;

For while in foreign fields they fight,

Our towns exposed to wild affright

An easy prey to the invader lie:

Where, mighty Susa, where thy powers,

To wield the warrior’s arms, and guard thy regal towers?

[epode]

Crush’d beneath the assailing foe

Her golden head must Cissia bend;

While her pale virgins, frantic with despair,

Through all her streets awake the voice of wo;

And flying with their bosoms bare,

Their purfled stoles in anguish rend:

For all her youth in martial pride,

Like bees that, clust’ring round their king,

Their dark imbodied squadrons bring,

Attend their sceptred monarch’s side,

And stretch across the watery way

From shore to shore their long array.

The Persian dames, with many a tender fear,

In grief’s sad vigils keep the midnight hour;

Shed on the widow’d couch the streaming tear,

And the long absence of their loves deplore.

Each lonely matron feels her pensive breast

Throb with desire, with aching fondness glow,

Since in bright arms her daring warrior dress’d

Left her to languish in her love-lorn wo.

Now, ye grave Persians, that your honour’d seats

Hold in this ancient house, with prudent care

And deep deliberation, so the state

Requires, consult we, pond’ring the event

Of this great war, which our imperial lord,

The mighty Xerxes from Darius sprung,

The stream of whose rich blood flows in our veins,

Leads against Greece; whether his arrowy shower

Shot from the strong-braced bow, or the huge spear

High brandish’d, in the deathful field prevails.

But see, the monarch’s mother: like the gods

Her lustre blazes on our eyes: my queen,

Prostrate I fall before her: all advance

With reverence, and in duteous phrase address her.

[Atossa enters with her retinue. The Elders do their obeisance to her.]

Leader of the chorus

Hail, queen, of Persia’s high-zoned dames supreme,

Age-honour’d mother of the potent Xerxes,

Imperial consort of Darius, hail!

The wife, the mother of the Persians’ god,

If yet our former glories fade not from us.

Atossa

And therefore am I come, leaving my house

That shines with gorgeous ornaments and gold,

Where in past days Darius held with me

His royal residence. With anxious care

My heart is tortured: I will tell you, friends,

My thoughts, not otherwise devoid of fear,

Lest mighty wealth with haughty foot o’erturn

And trample in the dust that happiness,

Which, not unbless’d by Heaven, Darius raised.

For this with double force unquiet thoughts

Past utterance fill my soul; that neither wealth

With all its golden stores, where men are wanting,

Claims reverence; nor the light, that beams from power,

Shines on the man whom wealth disdains to grace.

The golden stores of wealth indeed are ours;

But for the light (such in the house I deem

The presence of its lord) there I have fears.

Advise me then, you whose experienced age

Supports the state of Persia: prudence guides

Your councils, always kind and faithful to me.

Leader

Speak, royal lady, what thy will, assured

We want no second bidding, where our power

In word or deed waits on our zeal: our hearts

In this with honest duty shall obey thee.

Atossa

Oft, since my son hath march’d his mighty host

Against the lonians, warring to subdue

Their country, have my slumbers been disturb’d

With dreams of dread portent; but most last night,

With marks of plainest proof. I’ll tell thee then:

Alethought two women stood before my eyes

Gorgeously vested, one in Persian robes

Adorn’d, the other in the Doric garb.

With more than mortal majesty they moved,

Of peerless beauty; sisters too they seem’d,

Though distant each from each they chanced to dwell,

In Greece the one, on the barbaric coast

The other. ‘Twixt them soon dissension rose:

My son then hasted to compose their strife,

Soothed them to fair accord, beneath his car

Yokes them, and reins their harness’d necks. The one,

Exulting in her rich array, with pride

Arching her stately neck, obey’d the reins;

The other with indignant fury spurn’d

The car, and dash’d it piecemeal, rent the reins,

And tore the yoke asunder; down my son

Fell from the seat, and instant at his side

His father stands, Darius, at his fall

Impress’d with pity: him when Xerxes saw,

Glowing with grief and shame he rends his robes.

This was the dreadful vision of the night.

When I arose, in the sweet-flowing stream

I bathed my hands, and on the incensed altars

Presenting my oblations to the gods

To avert these ills, an eagle I behold

Fly to the altar of the sun; aghast

I stood, my friends, and speechless; when a hawk

With eager speed runs thither, furious cuffs

The eagle with his wings, and with his talons

Unplumes his head; meantime the imperial bird

Cowers to the blows defenceless. Dreadful this

To me that saw it, and to you that hear.

My son, let conquest crown his arms, would shine

With dazzling glory; but should Fortune frown,

The state indeed presumes not to arraign

His sovereignty; yet how, his honour lost,

How shall he sway the sceptre of this land?

Leader

We would not, royal lady, sink thy soul

With fear in the excess, nor raise it high

With confidence. Go then, address the gods;

If thou hast seen aught ill, entreat their power

To avert that ill, and perfect ev’ry good

To thee, thy sons, the state, and all thy friends.

Then to the earth, and to the mighty dead

Behooves thee pour libations; gently cal

Him that was once thy husband, whom thou saw’st

In visions of the night; entreat his shade

From the deep realms beneath to send to light

Triumph to thee and to thy son; whate’er

Bears other import, to inwrap, to hide it

Close in the covering earth’s profoundest gloom.

This, in the presage of my thoughts that flow

Benevolent to thee, have I proposed;

And all, we trust, shall be successful to thee.

Atossa

Thy friendly judgment first hath placed these dreams

In a fair light, confirming the event

Benevolent to my son and to my house.

May all the good be ratified! These rites

Shall, at thy bidding, to the powers of heaven,

And to the manes of our friends, be paid

In order meet, when I return; meanwhile

Indulge me, friends, who wish to be inform’d

Where, in what clime, the towers of Athens rise.

Leader

Far in the west, where sets the imperial sun.

Atossa

Yet my son will’d the conquest of this town.

Leader

May Greece through all her states bend to his power!

Atossa

Send they embattled numbers to the field?

Leader

A force that to the Medes hath wrought much wo.

Atossa

Have they sufficient treasures in their houses?

Leader

Their rich earth yields a copious fount of silver.

Atossa

From the strong bow wing they the barbed shaft?

Leader

They grasp the stout spear, and the massy shield.

Atossa

What monarch reigns, whose power commands their ranks?

Leader

Slaves to no lord, they own no kingly power.

Atossa

How can they then resist the invading foe?

Leader

As to spread havoc through the numerous host,

That round Darius form’d their glitt’ring files.

Atossa

Thy words strike deep, and wound the parent’s breast

Whose sons are march’d to such a dangerous field.

Leader

But, if I judge aright, thou soon shalt hear

Each circumstance; for this way, mark him, speeds

A Persian messenger; he bears, be sure,

Tidings of high import, or good or ill.

[A messenger enters.]

Messenger

Wo to the towns through Asia’s peopled realms!

Wo to the land of Persia, once the port

Of boundless wealth, how is thy glorious state

Vanish’d at once, and all thy spreading honours

Fall’n, lost! Ah me! unhappy is his task

That bears unhappy tidings: but constraint

Compels me to relate this tale of wo.

Persians, the whole barbaric host is fall’n.

Chorus [chanting]

O horror, horror! What a baleful train

Of recent ills! Ah, Persians, as he speaks

Of ruin, let your tears stream to the earth.

Messenger

It is ev’n so, all ruin; and myself,

Beyond all hope returning, view this light.

Chorus [chanting]

How tedious and oppressive is the weight

Of age, reserved to hear these hopeless ills!

Messenger

I speak not from report; but these mine eyes

Beheld the ruin which my tongue would utter.

Chorus [chanting]

Wo, wo is me! Then has the iron storm,

That darken’d from the realms of Asia, pour’d

In vain its arrowy shower on sacred Greece.

Messenger

In heaps the unhappy dead lie on the strand

Of Salamis, and all the neighbouring shores.

Chorus [chanting]

Unhappy friends, sunk, perish’d in the sea;

Their bodies, mid the wreck of shatter’d ships,

Mangled, and rolling on the encumber’d waves!

Messenger

Naught did their bows avail, but all the troops

In the first conflict of the ships were lost.

Chorus [chanting]

Raise the funereal cry, with dismal notes

Wailing the wretched Persians. Oh, how ill

They plann’d their measures, all their army perish’d!

Messenger

O Salamis, how hateful is thy name!

And groans burst from me when I think of Athens.

Chorus [chanting]

How dreadful to her foes! Call to remembrance

How many Persian dames, wedded in vain,

Hath Athens of their noble husbands widow’d?

Atossa

Astonied with these ills, my voice thus long

Hath wanted utterance: griefs like these exceed

The power of speech or question: yet ev’n such,

Inflicted by the gods, must mortal man

Constrain’d by hard necessity endure.

But tell me all, without distraction tell me,

All this calamity, though many a groan

Burst from thy labouring heart. Who is not fallen?

What leader must we wail? What sceptred chief

Dying hath left his troops without a lord?

Messenger

Xerxes himself lives, and beholds the light.

Atossa

That word beams comfort on my house, a ray

That brightens through the melancholy gloom.

Messenger

Artembares, the potent chief that led

Ten thousand horse, lies slaughtered on the rocks

Of rough Sileniae. The great Dadaces,

Beneath whose standard march’d a thousand horse,

Pierced by a spear, fell headlong from the ship.

Tenagon, bravest of the Bactrians, lies

Roll’d on the wave-worn beach of Ajax’ isle.

Lilaeus, Arsames, Argestes, dash

With violence in death against the rocks

Where nest the silver doves. Arcteus, that dwelt

Near to the fountains of the Egyptian Nile,

Adeues, and Pheresba, and Pharnuchus

Fell from one ship. Matallus, Chrysa’s chief,

That led his dark’ning squadrons, thrice ten thousand,

On jet-black steeds, with purple gore distain’d

The yellow of his thick and shaggy beard.

The Magian Arabus, and Artames

From Bactra, mould’ring on the dreary shore

Lie low. Amistris, and Amphistreus there

Grasps his war-wear spear; there prostrate lies

The illustrious Ariomardus; long his los

Shall Sardis weep: thy Mysian Sisames,

And Tharybis, that o’er the burden’d deep

Led five times fifty vessels; Lerna gave

The hero birth, and manly race adorn’d

His pleasing form, but low in death he lies

Unhappy in his fate. Syennesis,

Cilicia’s warlike chief, who dared to front

The foremost dangers, singly to the foes

A terror, there too found a glorious death.

These chieftains to my sad remembrance rise,

Relating but a few of many ills.

Atossa

This is the height of ill, ah me! and shame

To Persia, grief, and lamentation loud.

But tell me this, afresh renew thy tale:

What was the number of the Grecian fleet,

That in fierce conflict their bold barks should dare

Rush to encounter with the Persian hosts.

Messenger

Know then, in numbers the barbaric fleet

Was far superior: in ten squadrons, each

Of thirty ships, Greece plough’d the deep; of these

One held a distant station. Xerxes led

A thousand ships; their number well I know;

Two hundred more, and seven, that swept the seas

With speediest sail: this was their full amount.

And in the engagement seem’d we not secure

Of victory? But unequal fortune sunk

Our scale in fight, discomfiting our host.

Atossa

The gods preserve the city of Minerva.

Messenger

The walls of Athens are impregnable,

Their firmest bulwarks her heroic sons.

Atossa

Which navy first advanced to the attack?

Who led to the onset, tell me; the bold Greeks,

Or, glorying in his numerous fleet, my son?

Messenger

Our evil genius, lady, or some god

Hostile to Persia, led to ev’ry ill.

Forth from the troops of Athens came a Greek,

And thus address’d thy son, the imperial Xerxes:—

“Soon as the shades of night descend, the Grecians

Shall quit their station; rushing to their oars

They mean to separate, and in secret flight

Seek safety.” At these words, the royal chief,

Little conceiving of the wiles of Greece

And gods averse, to all the naval leaders

Gave his high charge:—”Soon as yon sun shall cease

To dart his radiant beams, and dark’ning night

Ascends the temple of the sky, arrange

In three divisions your well-ordered ships,

And guard each pass, each outlet of the seas:

Others enring around this rocky isle

Of Salamis. Should Greece escape her fate,

And work her way by secret flight, your heads

Shall answer the neglect.” This harsh command

He gave, exulting in his mind, nor knew

What Fate design’d. With martial discipline

And prompt obedience, snatching a repast,

Each mariner fix’d well his ready oar.

Soon as the golden sun was set, and night

Advanced, each train’d to ply the dashing oar,

Assumed his seat; in arms each warrior stood,

Troop cheering troop through all the ships of war.

Each to the appointed station steers his course;

And through the night his naval force each chief

Fix’d to secure the passes. Night advanced,

But not by secret flight did Greece attempt

To escape. The morn, all beauteous to behold,

Drawn by white steeds bounds o’er the enlighten’d earth;

At once from ev’ry Greek with glad acclaim

Burst forth the song of war, whose lofty notes

The echo of the island rocks return’d,

Spreading dismay through Persia’s hosts, thus fallen

From their high hopes; no flight this solemn strain

Portended, but deliberate valour bent

On daring battle; while the trumpet’s sound

Kindled the flames of war. But when their oars

The paean ended, with impetuous force

Dash’d the resounding surges, instant all

Rush’d on in view: in orderly array

The squadron on the right first led, behind

Rode their whole fleet; and now distinct we heard

From ev’ry part this voice of exhortation:—

“Advance, ye sons of Greece, from thraldom save

Your country, save your wives, your children save,

The temples of your gods, the sacred tomb

Where rest your honour’d ancestors; this day

The common cause of all demands your valour.”

Meantime from Persia’s hosts the deep’ning shout

Answer’d their shout; no time for cold delay;

But ship ‘gainst ship its brazen beak impell’d.

First to the charge a Grecian galley rush’d;

Ill the Phoenician bore the rough attack,

Its sculptured prow all shatter’d. Each advanced

Daring an opposite. The deep array

Of Persia at the first sustain’d the encounter;

But their throng’d numbers, in the narrow seas

Confined, want room for action; and, deprived

Of mutual aid, beaks clash with beaks, and each

Breaks all the other’s oars: with skill disposed

The Grecian navy circled them around

With fierce assault; and rushing from its height

The inverted vessel sinks: the sea no more

Wears its accustomed aspect, with foul wrecks

And blood disfigured; floating carcasses

Roll on the rocky shores: the poor remains

Of the barbaric armament to flight

Ply every oar inglorious: onward rus

The Greeks amid the ruins of the fleet,

As through a shoal of fish caught in the net,

Spreading destruction: the wide ocean o’er

Wailings are heard, and loud laments, till night

With darkness on her brow brought grateful truce.

Should I recount each circumstance of wo,

Ten times on my unfinished tale the sun

Would set; for be assured that not one day

Could close the ruin of so vast a host.

Atossa

Ah, what a boundless sea of wo hath burst

On Persia, and the whole barbaric race!

Messenger

These are not half, not half our ills; on these

Came an assemblage of calamities,

That sunk us with a double weight of wo.

Atossa

What fortune can be more unfriendly to us

Than this? Say on, what dread calamity

Sunk Persia’s host with greater weight of wo.

Messenger

Whoe’er of Persia’s warriors glow’d in prime

Of vig’rous youth, or felt their generous souls

Expand with courage, or for noble birth

Shone with distinguish’d lustre, or excell’d

In firm and duteous loyalty, all these

Are fall’n, ignobly, miserably fall’n.

Atossa

Alas, their ruthless fate, unhappy friends!

But in what manner, tell me, did they perish?

Messenger

Full against Salamis an isle arises,

Of small circumference, to the anchor’d bark

Unfaithful; on the promontory’s brow,

That overlooks the sea, Pan loves to lead

The dance: to this the monarch sends these chiefs,

That when the Grecians from their shatter’d ships

Should here seek shelter, these might hew them down

An easy conquest, and secure the strand

To their sea-wearied friends; ill judging what

The event: but when the fav’ring god to Greece

Gave the proud glory of this naval fight,

Instant in all their glitt’ring arms they leap’d

From their light ships, and all the island round

Encompass’d, that our bravest stood dismay’d;

While broken rocks, whirl’d with tempestuous force,

And storms of arrows crush’d them; then the Greeks

Rush to the attack at once, and furious spread

The carnage, till each mangled Persian fell.

Deep were the groans of Xerxes when he saw

This havoc; for his seat, a lofty mound

Commanding the wide sea, o’erlook’d his hosts.

With rueful cries he rent his royal robes,

And through his troops embattled on the shore

Gave signal of retreat; then started wild,

And fled disorder’d. To the former ills

These are fresh miseries to awake thy sighs.

Atossa

Invidious Fortune, how thy baleful power

Hath sunk the hopes of Persia! Bitter fruit

My son hath tasted from his purposed vengeance

On Athens, famed for arms; the fatal field

Of Marathon, red with barbaric blood,

Sufficed not; that defeat he thought to avenge,

And pull’d this hideous ruin on his head.

But tell me, if thou canst, where didst thou leave

The ships that happily escaped the wreck?

Messenger

The poor remains of Persia’s scatter’d fleet

Spread ev’ry sail for flight, as the wind drives,

In wild disorder; and on land no less

The ruin’d army; in Boeotia some,

With thirst oppress’d, at Crene’s cheerful rills

Were lost; forespent with breathless speed some pass

The fields of Phocis, some the Doric plain,

And near the gulf of Melia, the rich vale

Through which Sperchius rolls his friendly stream.

Achaea thence and the Thessalian state

Received our famish’d train; the greater part

Through thirst and hunger perish’d there, oppress’d

At once by both: but we our painful steps

Held onwards to Magnesia, and the land

Of Macedonia, o’er the ford of Axius,

And Bolbe’s sedgy marshes, and the heights

Of steep Pangaeos, to the realms of Thrace.

That night, ere yet the season, breathing frore,

Rush’d winter, and with ice incrusted o’er

The flood of sacred Strymon: such as own’d

No god till now, awe-struck, with many a prayer

Adored the earth and sky. When now the troops

Had ceased their invocations to the gods,

O’er the stream’s solid crystal they began

Their march; and we, who took our early way,

Ere the sun darted his warm beams, pass’d safe:

But when this burning orb with fiery rays

Unbound the middle current, down they sunk

Each over other; happiest he who found

The speediest death: the poor remains, that ‘scaped,

With pain through Thrace dragg’d on their toilsome march,

A feeble few, and reach’d their native soil;

That Persia sighs through all her states, and mourns

Her dearest youth. This is no feigned tale:

But many of the ills, that burst upon us

In dreadful vengeance, I refrain to utter.

[The Messenger withdraws.]

Leader of the chorus

O Fortune, heavy with affliction’s load,

How bath thy foot crush’d all the Persian race!

Atossa

Ah me, what sorrows for our ruin’d host

Oppress my soul! Ye visions of the night

Haunting my dreams, how plainly did you show

These ills! You set them in too fair a light.

Yet, since your bidding hath in this prevail’d,

First to the gods wish I to pour my prayers,

Then to the mighty dead present my off ‘rings,

Bringing libations from my house: too late,

I know, to change the past; yet for the future,

If haply better fortune may await it,

Behooves you, on this sad event, to guide

Your friends with faithful counsels. Should my son

Return ere I have finish’d, let your voice

Speak comfort to him; friendly to his house

Attend him, nor let sorrow rise on sorrows.

[Atossa and her retinue go out.]

Chorus [singing]

[strophe]
Awful sovereign of the skies,

When now o’er Persia’s numerous host

Thou badest the storm with ruin rise,

All her proud vaunts of glory lost,

Ecbatana’s imperial head

By thee was wrapp’d in sorrow’s dark’ning shade;

Through Susa’s palaces with loud lament,

By their soft hands their veils all rent,

The copious tear the virgins pour,

That trickles their bare bosoms o’er.

From her sweet couch up starts the widow’d bride,

Her lord’s loved image rushing on her soul,

Throws the rich ornaments of youth aside,

And gives her griefs to flow without control:

Her griefs not causeless; for the mighty slain

Our melting tears demand, and sorrow-soften’d strain

[antistrophe]
Now her wailings wide despair

Pours these exhausted regions o’er:

Xerxes, ill-fated, led the war;

Xerxes, ill-fated, leads no more;

Xerxes sent forth the unwise command,

The crowded ships unpeopled all the land;

That land, o’er which Darius held his reign,

Courting the arts of peace, in vain,

O’er all his grateful realms adored,

The stately Susa’s gentle lord.

Black o’er the waves his burden’d vessels sweep,

For Greece elate the warlike squadrons fly;

Now crush’d, and whelm’d beneath the indignant deep

The shatter’d wrecks and lifeless heroes lie:

While, from the arms of Greece escaped, with toil

The unshelter’d monarch roams o’er Thracia’s dreary soil.

[epode]
The first in battle slain

By Cychrea’s craggy shore

Through sad constraint, ah me! forsaken lie,

All pale and smear’d with gore:—

Raise high the mournful strain,

And let the voice of anguish pierce the sky:—

Or roll beneath the roaring tide,

By monsters rent of touch abhorr’d;

While through the widow’d mansion echoing wide

Sounds the deep groan, and wails its slaughter’d lord:

Pale with his fears the helpless orphan there

Gives the full stream of plaintive grief to flow;

While age its hoary head in deep despair

Bends; list’ning to the shrieks of wo.

With sacred awe

The Persian law

No more shall Asia’s realms revere;

To their lord’s hand

At his command,

No more the exacted tribute bear.

Who now falls prostrate at the monarch’s throne?

His regal greatness is no more.

Now no restraint the wanton tongue shall own,

Free from the golden curb of power;

For on the rocks, wash’d by the beating flood,

His awe commanding nobles lie in blood.

[Atossa returns, clad in the garb of mourning; she carries offerings for the tomb of Darius.]

Atossa

Whoe’er, my friends, in the rough stream of life

Hath struggled with affliction, thence is taught

That, when the flood begins to swell, the heart

Fondly fears all things; when the fav’ring gale

Of Fortune smooths the current, it expands

With unsuspecting confidence, and deems

That gale shall always breathe. So to my eyes

All things now wear a formidable shape,

And threaten from the gods: my ears are pierced

With sounds far other than of song. Such ills

Dismay my sick’ning soul: hence from my house

Nor glitt’ring car attends me, nor the train

Of wonted state, while I return, and bear

Libations soothing to the father’s shade

In the son’s cause; delicious milk, that foams

White from the sacred heifer; liquid honey,

Extract of flowers; and from its virgin fount

The running crystal; this pure draught, that flow’d

From the ancient vine, of power to bathe the spirits

In joy; the yellow olive’s fragrant fruit,

That glories in its leaves’ unfading verdure;

With flowers of various hues, earth’s fairest offspring

Inwreathed. But you, my friends, amid these rites

Raise high your solemn warblings, and invoke

Your lord, divine Darius; I meanwhile

Will pour these off’rings to the infernal gods.

Chorus [chanting]

Yes, royal lady, Persia’s honour’d grace,

To earth’s dark chambers pour thy off’rings: we

With choral hymns will supplicate the powers

That guide the dead, to be propitious to us.

And you, that o’er the realms of night extend

Your sacred sway, thee mighty earth, and the

Hermes; thee chief, tremendous king, whose throne

Awes with supreme dominion, I adjure:

Send, from your gloomy regions, send his shade

Once more to visit this ethereal light;

That he alone, if aught of dread event

He sees yet threat’ning Persia, may disclose

To us poor mortals Fate’s extreme decree.

Hears the honour’d godlike king?

These barbaric notes of wo,

Taught in descant sad to ring,

Hears he in the shades below?

Thou, O Earth, and you, that lead

Through your sable realms the dead,

Guide him as he takes his way,

And give him to the ethereal light of day!

Let the illustrious shade arise

Glorious in his radiant state,

More than blazed before our eyes,

Ere sad Susa mourn’d his fate.

Dear he lived, his tomb is dear,

Shrining virtues we revere:

Send then, monarch of the dead,

Such as Darius was, Darius’ shade.

He in realm-unpeopling war

Wasted not his subjects’ blood,

Godlike in his will to spare,

In his councils wise and good.

Rise then, sovereign lord, to light;

On this mound’s sepulchral height

Lift thy sock in saffron died,

And rear thy rich tiara’s regal pride!

Great and good, Darius, rise:

Lord of Persia’s lord, appear:

Thus involved with thrilling cries

Come, our tale of sorrow hear!

War her Stygian pennons spreads,

Brooding darkness o’er our heads;

For stretch’d along the dreary shore

The flow’r of Asia lies distain’d with gore.

Rise, Darius, awful power;

Long for thee our tears shall flow.

Why thy ruin’d empire o’er

Swells this double flood of wo?

Sweeping o’er the azure tide

Rode thy navy’s gallant pride:

Navy now no more, for all

Beneath the whelming wave —

[While the Chorus Sings, Atossa performs her ritual by the tomb. As the song concludes the Ghost of Darius appears from the tomb.]

Ghost of Darius

Ye faithful Persians, honour’d now in age,

Once the companions of my youth, what ills

Afflict the state? The firm earth groans, it opes,

Disclosing its vast deeps; and near my tomb

I see my wife: this shakes my troubled soul

With fearful apprehensions; yet her off’rings

Pleased I receive. And you around my tomb

Chanting the lofty strain, whose solemn air

Draws forth the dead, with grief-attemper’d notes

Mournfully call me: not with ease the way

Leads to this upper air; and the stern gods,

Prompt to admit, yield not a passage back

But with reluctance: much with them my power

Availing, with no tardy step I come.

Say then, with what new ill doth Persia groan?

Chorus [chanting]

My wonted awe o’ercomes me; in thy presence

I dare not raise my eyes, I dare not speak.

Ghost of Darius

Since from the realms below, by thy sad strains

Adjured, I come, speak; let thy words be brief;

Say whence thy grief, tell me unawed by fear.

I dread to forge a flattering tale, I dread

To grieve thee with a harsh offensive truth.

Since fear hath chained his tongue, high-honour’d dame,

Once my imperial consort, check thy tears,

Thy griefs, and speak distinctly. Mortal man

Must bear his lot of wo; afflictions rise

Many from sea, many from land, if life

Be haply measured through a lengthen’d course.

Atossa

O thou that graced with Fortune’s choicest gifts

Surpassing mortals, while thine eye beheld

Yon sun’s ethereal rays, lived’st like a god

Bless’d amid thy Persians; bless’d I deem thee now

In death, ere sunk in this abyss of ills,

Darius, hear at once our sum of wo;

Ruin through all her states hath crush’d thy Persia.

Ghost of darius

By pestilence, or faction’s furious storms?

Atossa

Not so: near Athens perish’d all our troops.

Ghost of Darius

Say, of my sons, which led the forces thither?

Atossa

The impetuous Xerxes, thinning all the land.

Ghost of Darius

By sea or land dared he this rash attempt?

Atossa

By both: a double front the war presented.

Ghost of Darius

A host so vast what march conducted o’er?

Atossa

From shore to shore he bridged the Hellespont.

Ghost of Darius

What! could he chain the mighty Bosphorus?

Atossa

Ev’n so, some god assisting his design.

Ghost of Darius

Some god of power to cloud his better sense.

Atossa

The event now shows what mischiefs he achieved.

Ghost of Darius

What suffer’d they, for whom your sorrows flow?

Atossa

His navy sunk spreads ruin through the camp.

Ghost of Darius

Fell all his host beneath the slaught’ring spear?

Atossa

Susa, through all her streets, mourns her lost sons.

Ghost of Darius

How vain the succour, the defence of arms?

Atossa

In Bactra age and grief are only left.

Ghost of Darius

Ah, what a train of warlike youth is lost!

Atossa

Xerxes, astonished, desolate, alone —

Ghost of Darius

How will this end? Nay, pause not. Is he safe?

Atossa

Fled o’er the bridge, that join’d the adverse strands.

Ghost of Darius

And reach’d this shore in safety? Is this true?

Atossa

True are thy words, and not to be gainsay’d.

Ghost of Darius

With what a winged course the oracles

Haste their completion! With the lightning’s speed

Jove on my son hath hurled his threaten’d vengeance:

Yet I implored the gods that it might fall

In time’s late process: but when rashness drives

Impetuous on, the scourge of Heaven upraised

Lashes the Fury forward; hence these ills

Pour headlong on my friends. Not weighing this,

My son, with all the fiery pride of youth,

Hath quickened their arrival, while he hoped

To bind the sacred Hellespont, to hold

The raging Bosphorus, like a slave, in chains,

And dared the advent’rous passage, bridging firm

With links of solid iron his wondrous way,

To lead his numerous host; and swell’d with thoughts

Presumptuous, deem’d, vain mortal! that his power

Should rise above the gods, and Neptune’s might.

And was riot this the phrensy of the soul?

But much I fear lest all my treasured wealth

Fall to some daring hand an easy prey.

Atossa

This from too frequent converse with bad men

The impetuous Xerxes learn’d; these caught his ear

With thy great deeds, as winning for thy sons

Vast riches with thy conquering spear, while he

Tim’rous and slothful, never, save in sport,

Lifted his lance, nor added to the wealth

Won by his noble fathers. This reproach

Oft by bad men repeated, urged his soul

To attempt this war, and lead his troops to Greece.

Ghost of Darius

Great deeds have they achieved, and memorable

For ages: never hath this wasted state

Suffer’d such ruin, since heaven’s awful king

Gave to one lord Asia’s extended plains

White with innumerous flocks, and to his hands

Consign’d the imperial sceptre. Her brave hosts

A Mede first led; the virtues of his son

Fix’d firm the empire, for his temperate soul

Breathed prudence. Cyrus next, by fortune graced,

Adorn’d the throne, and bless’d his grateful friends

With peace: he to his mighty monarchy

Join’d Lydia, and the Phrygians; to his power

Ionia bent reluctant; but the gods

His son then wore the regal diadem.

With victory his gentle virtues crown’d

His son then wore the regal diadem.

Next to disgrace his country, and to stain

The splendid glories of this ancient throne,

Rose Mardus: him, with righteous vengeance fired

Artaphernes, and his confederate chiefs

Crush’d in his palace: Maraphis assumed

The sceptre: after him Artaphernes.

Me next to this exalted eminence,

Crowning my great ambition, Fortune raised.

In many a glorious field my glittering spear

Flamed in the van of Persia’s numerous hosts;

But never wrought such ruin to the state.

Xerxes, my son, in all the pride of youth

Listens to youthful counsels, my commands

No more remember’d; hence, my hoary friends,

Not the whole line of Persia’s sceptred lords,

You know it well, so wasted her brave sons.

Leader of the chorus

Why this? To what fair end are these thy words

Directed? Sovereign lord, instruct thy Persians

How, mid this ruin, best to guide their state.

Ghost of Darius

No more ‘gainst Greece lead your embattled hosts;

Not though your deep’ning phalanx spreads the field

Outnumb’ring theirs: their very earth fights for them.

Leader

What may thy words import? How fight for them?

Ghost of Darius

With famine it destroys your cumbrous train.

Leader

Choice levies, prompt for action, will we send.

Ghost of Darius

Those, in the fields of Greece that now remain,

Shall not revisit safe the Persian shore.

Leader

What! shall not all the host of Persia pass

Again from Europe o’er the Hellespont?

Ghost of Darius

Of all their numbers few, if aught avails

The faith of heaven-sent oracles to him

That weighs the past, in their accomplishment

Not partial: hence he left, in faithless hope

Confiding, his selected train of heroes.

These have their station where Asopus flows

Wat’ring the plain, whose grateful currents roll

Diffusing plenty through Boeotia’s fields.

There misery waits to crush them with the load

Of heaviest ills, in vengeance for their proud

And impious daring; for where’er they held

Through Greece their march, they fear’d not to profane

The statues of the gods; their hallow’d shrines

Emblazed, o’erturn’d their altars, and in ruins,

Rent from their firm foundations, to the ground

Levell’d their temples; such their frantic deeds,

Nor less their suff’rings; greater still await them;

For Vengeance hath not wasted all her stores;

The heap yet swells; for in Plataea’s plains

Beneath the Doric spear the clotted mas

Of carnage shall arise, that the high mounds,

Piled o’er the dead, to late posterity

Shall give this silent record to men’s eyes,

That proud aspiring thoughts but ill beseem

Weak mortals: for oppression, when it springs,

Puts forth the blade of vengeance, and its fruit

Yields a ripe harvest of repentant wo.

ehold this vengeance, and remember Greece,

Remember Athens: henceforth let not pride,

Her present state disdaining, strive to grasp

Another’s, and her treasured happiness

Shed on the ground: such insolent attempts

wake the vengeance of offended Jove.

But you, whose age demands more temperate thoughts,

With words of well-placed counsel teach his youth

To curb that pride, which from the gods calls down

Destruction on his head. [To Atossa] And thou, whose age

The miseries of thy Xerxes sink with sorrow,

Go to thy house, thence choose the richest robe,

And meet thy son; for through the rage of grief

is gorgeous vestments from his royal limbs

Are foully rent. With gentlest courtesy

Soothe his affliction; for is duteous ear,

I know, will listen to thy voice alone.

Now to the realms of darkness I descend.

My ancient friends, farewell, and mid these ills

Each day in pleasures battle your drooping spirits,

For treasured riches naught avail the dead.

[The Ghost of Darius vanishes into the tomb.]

Leader

These many present, many future ills

Denounced on Persia, sink my soul with grief.

Atossa

Unhappy fortune, what a tide of ills

Bursts o’er me! Chief this foul disgrace, which shows

My son divested of his rich attire,

His royal robes all rent, distracts my thoughts.

But I will go, choose the most gorgeous vest,

And liaste to meet my son. Ne’er in his woes

Will I forsake whom my soul holds most dear.

[Atossa departs as the Chorus begins its song.]

Chorus

[strophe 1]

Ye powers that rule the skies,

Memory recalls our great, our happy fate,

Our well-appointed state,

The scenes of glory opening to our eyes,

When this vast empire o’er

The good Darius, with each virtue bless’d

That forms a monarch’s breast,

Shielding his subjects with a father’s care

Invincible in war,

Extended like a god his awful power,

Then spread our arms their glory wide,

Guarding to peace her golden reign:

Each tower’d city saw with pride

Safe from the toils of war her homeward-marching train.

[antistrophe 1]

Nor Haly’s shallow strand

He pass’d, nor from his palace moved his state;

He spoke; his word was Fate.

What strong-based cities could his might withstand?

Not those that lift their heads

Where to the sea the floods of Strymon pass,

Leaving the huts of Thrace;

Nor those, that far the extended ocean o’er

Stand girt with many a tower;

Nor where the Hellespont his broad wave spreads;

Nor the firm bastions’ rampired might,

Whose foot the deep Propontis laves;

Nor those, that glorying in their height

Frown o’er the Pontic sea, and shade his darken’d waves.

[strophe 2]

Each sea-girt isle around

Bow’d to this monarch: humbled Lesbos bow’d;

Paros, of its marble proud;

Naxos with vines, with olives Samos crown’d:

Him Myconos adored;

Chios, the seat of beauty; Andros steep,

That stretches o’er the deep

To meet the wat’ry Tenos; him each bay

Bound by the Icarian sea,

Him Melos, Gnidus, Rhodes confess’d their lord;

O’er Cyprus stretch’d his sceptred hand:

Paphos and Solos own’d his power,

And Salamis, whose hostile strand,

The cause of all our wo, is red with Persian gore.

[antistrophe 2]

Ev’n the proud towns, that rear’d

Sublime along the lonian coast their towers,

Where wealth her treasures pours,

Peopled from Greece, his prudent reign revered.

With such unconquer’d might

His hardy warriors shook the embattled fields,

Heroes that Persia yields,

And those from distant realms that took their way,

And wedged in close array

Beneath his glitt’ring banners claim’d the fight.

But now these glories are no more:

Farewell the big war’s plumed pride:

The gods have crush’d this trophied power;

Sunk are our vanquish’d arms beneath the indignant tide.

[Xerxes enters, with a few followers. His royal raiment is torn, The entire closing scene is sung or chanted.]

Xerxes

Ah me, how sudden have the storms of Fate,

Beyond all thought, all apprehension, burst

On my devoted head! O Fortune, Fortune!

With what relentless fury hath thy hand

Hurl’d desolation on the Persian race!

Wo unsupportable! The torturing thought

Of our lost youth comes rushing on my mind,

And sinks me to the ground. O Jove, that

Had died with those brave men that died in fight I

Chorus

O thou afflicted monarch, once the lord

Of marshall’d armies, of the lustre beam’d

From glory’s ray o’er Persia, of her sons

The pride, the grace, whom ruin now hath sunk

In blood! The unpeopled land laments her youth

By Xerxes led to slaughter, till the realms

Of death are gorged with Persians; for the flower

Of all the realm, thousands, whose dreadful bows

With arrowy shower annoy’d the foe, are fall’n.

Xerxes

Your fall, heroic youths, distracts my soul.

Chorus

And Asia sinking on her knee, O king,

Oppress’d, with griefs oppress’d, bends to the earth.

Xerxes

And I, O wretched fortune, I was born

To crush, to desolate my ruin’d country!

Chorus

I have no voice, no swelling harmony,

No descant, save these notes of wo,

Harsh, and responsive to the sullen sigh,

Rude strains, that unmelodious flow,

To welcome thy return.

Xerxes

Then bid them flow, bid the wild measures flow

Hollow, unmusical, the notes of grief;

They suit my fortune, and dejected state.

Chorus

Yes, at thy royal bidding shall the strain

Pour the deep sorrows of my soul;

The suff’rings of my bleeding country plain,

And bid the mournful measures roll.

Again the voice of wild despair

With thrilling shrieks shall pierce the air;

For high the god of war his flaming crest

Raised, with the fleet of Greece surrounded,

The haughty arms of Greece with conquest bless’d,

And Persia’s wither’d force confounded,

Dash’d on the dreary beach her heroes slain,

Or whelm’d them in the darken’d main.

Xerxes

To swell thy griefs ask ev’ry circumstance.

Chorus

Where are thy valiant friends, thy chieftains where?

Pharnaces, Susas, and the might

Of Pelagon, and Dotamas? The spear

Of Agabates bold in fight?

Psammis in mailed cuirass dress’d,

And Susiscanes’ glitt’ring crest?

Xerxes

Dash’d from the Tyrian vessel on the rocks

Of Salamis they sunk, and smear’d with gore

The heroes on the dreary strand are stretch’d.

Chorus

Where is Pharnuchus? Ariomardus where,

With ev’ry gentle virtue graced?

Lilaeus, that from chiefs renown’d in war

His high-descended lineage traced?

Where rears Sebalces his crown-circled head:

Where Tharybis to battles bred,

Artembares, Hystaechmes bold,

Memphis, Masistress sheath’d in gold?

Xerxes

Wretch that I am! These on the abhorred town

Ogygian Athens, roll’d their glowing eyes

Indignant; but at once in the fierce shock

Of battle fell, dash’d breathless on the ground.

Chorus

There does the son of Batanochus lie,

Through whose rich veins the unsullied blood

Of Susamus, down from the lineage high

Of noble Mygabatas flow’d:

Alpistus, who with faithful care

Number’d the deep’ning files of war,

The monarch’s eye; on the ensanguined plain

Low is the mighty warrior laid?

Is great Aebares ‘mong the heroes slain,

And Partheus number’d with the dead? —

Ah me! those bursting groans, deep-charged with wo,

The fate of Persia’s princes show.

Xerxes

To my grieved memory thy mournful voice,

Tuned to the saddest notes of wo, recalls

My brave friends lost; and my rent heart returns

In dreadful symphony the sorrowing strain.

Chorus

Yet once more shall I ask thee, yet once more,

Where is the Mardian Xanthes’ might,

The daring chief, that from the Pontic shore

Led his strong phalanx to the fight?

Anchares where, whose high-raised shield

Flamed foremost in the embattled field?

Where the high leaders of thy mail-clad horse,

Daixis and Arsaces where?

Where Cigdadatas and Lythimnas’ force,

Waving untired his purple spear?

Xerxes

Entomb’d, I saw them in the earth entomb’d;

Nor did the rolling car with solemn state

Attend their rites: I follow’d: low they lie

(Ah me, the once great leaders of my host!

Low in the earth, without their honours lie.)

Chorus

O wo, wo, wo! Unutterable wo

The demons of revenge have spread;

And Ate from her drear abode below

Rises to view the horrid deed.

Xerxes

Dismay, and rout, and ruin, ills that wait

On man’s afflicted fortune, sink us down.

Chorus

Dismay, and rout, and ruin on us wait,

And all the vengeful storms of Fate:

Ill flows on ill, on sorrows sorrows rise;

Misfortune leads her baleful train;

Before the Ionian squadrons Persia flies,

Or sinks ingulf’d beneath the main.

Fall’n, fall’n is her imperial power,

And conquest on her banners waits no more.

Xerxes

At such a fall, such troops of heroes lost,

How can my soul but sink in deep despair!

Cease thy sad strain.

Chorus

Is all thy glory lost?

Xerxes

Seest thou these poor remains of my rent robes?

Chorus

I see, I see.

Xerxes

And this ill-furnish’d quiver?

Chorus

Wherefore preserved?

Xerxes

To store my treasured arrows.

Chorus

Few, very few.

Xerxes

And few my friendly aids.

Chorus

I thought these Grecians shrunk appall’d at arms.

Xerxes

No: they are bold and daring: these sad eyes

Beheld their violent and deathful deeds.

Chorus

The ruin, sayst thou, of thy shattered fleet?

Xerxes

And in the anguish of my soul I rent

My royal robes.

Chorus

Wo, wo!

Xerxes

And more than wo.

Chorus

Redoubled, threefold wo!

Xerxes

Disgrace to me,

But triumph to the foe.

Chorus

Are all thy powers

In ruin crush’d?

Xerxes

No satrap guards me now.

Chorus

Thy faithful friends sunk in the roaring main.

Xerxes

Weep, weep their loss, and lead me to my house;

Answer my grief with grief, an ill return

Of ills for ills. Yet once more raise that strain

Lamenting my misfortunes; beat thy breast,

Strike, heave the groan; awake the Mysian strain

To notes of loudest wo; rend thy rich robes,

Pluck up thy beard, tear off thy hoary locks,

And battle thine eyes in tears: thus through the streets

Solemn and slow with sorrow lead my steps;

Lead to my house, and wail the fate of Persia.

Chorus

Yes, once more at thy bidding shall the strain

Pour the deep sorrows of my soul

The suff’rings of my bleeding untry plain,

And bid the Mysian measures roll.

Again the voice of wild despair

With thrilling shrieks shall pierce the air;

For high the god of war his flaming crest

Raised, with the fleet of Greece surrounded,

The haughty arms of Greece with conquest bless’d,

And Persia’s withered force confounded,

Dash’d on the dreary beach her heroes slain,

Or whelm’d them in the darken’d main.

The Seven Against Thebes

Characters in the Play

Eteocles, son of Oedipus, King of Thebes

A Spy

Chorus of Theban Women

Antigone

Ismene

Sisters of Eteocles

A Herald

[Scene: Within the Citadel of Thebes. There is an altar with the statues of several gods visible. A crowd of citizens are present as Eteocles enters with his attendants.]

Eteocles

Clansmen of Cadmus, at the signal given

By time and season must the ruler speak

Who sets the course and steers the ship of State

With hand upon the tiller, and with eye

Watchful against the treachery of sleep.

For if all go aright, thank Heaven, men say,

But if adversely — which may God forefend! —

One name on many lips, from street to street,

Would bear the bruit and rumour of the time,

Down with Eteocles! — a clamorous curse,

A dirge of ruin. May averting Zeus

Make good his title here, in Cadmus’ hold!

You it beseems now — boys unripened yet

To lusty manhood, men gone past the prime

And increase of the full begetting seed,

And those whom youth and manhood well combined

Array for action — all to rise in aid

Of city, shrines, and altars of all powers

Who guard our land; that ne’er, to end of time,

Be blotted out the sacred service due

To our sweet mother-land and to her brood.

For she it was who to their guest — right called

Your waxing youth, was patient of the toil,

And cherished you on the land’s gracious lap,

Alike to plant the hearth and bear the shield

In loyal service, for an hour like this.

Mark now! until to-day, luck rules our scale;

For we, though long beleaguered, in the main

Have with our sallies struck the foemen hard.

But now the seer, the feeder of the birds

(Whose art unerring and prophetic skill

Of ear and mind divines their utterance

Without the lore of fire interpreted)

Foretelleth, by the mastery of his art,

That now an onset of Achaea’s host

Is by a council of the night designed

To fall in double strength upon our walls.

Up and away, then, to the battlements,

The gates, the bulwarks! don your panoplies,

Array you at the breast-work, take your stand

On the floorings of the towers, and with good heart

Stand firm for sudden sallies at the gates,

Nor hold too heinous a respect for hordes

Sent on you from afar: some god will guard!

I too, for shrewd espial of their camp,

Have sent forth scouts, and confidence is mine

They will not fail nor tremble at their task,

And, with their news, I fear no foeman’s guile.

[A spy enters.]

The spy

Eteocles, high king of Cadmus’ folk,

I stand here with news certified and sure

From Argos’ camp, things by myself descried.

Seven warriors yonder, doughty chiefs of might,

Into the crimsoned concave of a shield

Have shed a bull’s blood, and, with hands immersed

Into the gore of sacrifice, have sworn

By Ares, lord of fight, and by thy name,

Blood-lapping Terror, Let our oath be heard —

Either to raze the walls, make void the hold

Of Cadmus — strive his children as they may —

Or, dying here, to make the foemen’s land

With blood impasted. Then, as memory’s gift

Unto their parents at the far-off home,

Chaplets they hung upon Adrastus’ car,

With eyes tear-dropping, but no word of moan.

For their steeled spirit glowed with high resolve,

As lions pant, with battle in their eyes.

For them, no weak alarm delays the clear

Issues of death or life! I parted thence

Even as they cast the lots, how each should lead,

Against which gate, his serried company.

Rank then thy bravest, with what speed thou may’st,

Hard by the gates, to dash on them, for now,

Full-armed, the onward ranks of Argos come!

The dust whirls up, and from their panting steeds

White foamy flakes like snow bedew the plain.

Thou therefore, chieftain! like a steersman skilled,

Enshield the city’s bulwarks, ere the blast

Of war comes darting on them! hark, the roar

Of the great landstorm with its waves of men

Take Fortune by the forelock! for the rest,

By yonder dawn-light will I scan the field

Clear and aright, and surety of my word

Shall keep thee scatheless of the coming storm.

Eteocles

O Zeus and Earth and city-guarding gods,

And thou, my father’s Curse, of baneful might,

Spare ye at least this town, nor root it up,

By violence of the foemen, stock and stem!

For here, from home and hearth, rings Hellas’ tongue.

Forbid that e’er the yoke of slavery

Should bow this land of freedom, Cadmus’ hold!

Be ye her help! your cause I plead with mine —

A city saved doth honour to her gods!

[Eteocle, his attendants and most of the crowd go out. The Chorus of Theban Women enters. They appear terror-stricken.]

Chorus [singing]

I wail in the stress of my terror,

and shrill is my cry of despair.

The foemen roll forth from their camp as a billow,

and onward they bear!

Their horsemen are swift in the forefront,

the dust rises up to the sky,

A signal, though speechless, of doom,

a herald more clear than a cry!

Hoof-trampled, the land of my love

bears onward the din to mine ears.

As a torrent descending a mountain,

it thunders and echoes and nears!

The doom is unloosened and cometh!

O kings and O queens of high Heaven,

Prevail that it fall not upon us!

the sign for their onset is given —

They stream to the walls from without,

white-shielded and keen for the fray.

The rush of their feet? to what shrine

shall I bow me in terror and pray?

[They rush to pray to the gods.]

O gods high-throned in bliss, we must crouch at the shrines in your home!

Not here must we tarry and wail: shield clashes on shield as they come

And now, even now is the hour for the robes and the chaplets of prayer!

Mine eyes feel the flash of the sword, the clang is instinct with the spear!

Is thy hand set against us, O Ares, in ruin and wrath to o’erwhelm

Thine own immemorial land, O god of the golden helm?

Look down upon us, we beseech thee, on the land that thou lovest of old.

[strophe 1]

And ye, O protecting gods, in pity your people behold!

Yea, save us, the maidenly troop, from the doom and despair of the slave,

For the crests of the foemen come onward, their rush is the rush of a wave

Rolled on by the War-god’s breath! almighty one, hear us and save

From the grasp of the Argives’ might! to the ramparts of Cadmus they crowd,

And, clenched in the teeth of the steeds, the bits clink horror aloud

And seven high chieftains of war, with spear and with panoply bold,

Are set, by the law of the lot, to storm the seven gates of our hold!

[antistrophe 1]

Be near and befriend us, O Pallas, the Zeus-born maiden of might!

O lord of the steed and the sea, be thy trident uplifted to smite

In eager desire of the fray, Poseidon! and Ares come down,

In fatherly presence revealed, to rescue Harmonia’s town!

Thine too, Aphrodite, we are! thou art mother and queen of our race,

To thee we cry out in our need, from thee let thy children have grace!

Ye too, to scare back the foe, be your cry as a wolf’s howl wild,

Thou, O the wolf-lord, and thou, of she-wolf Leto the child!

[strophe 2]

Woe and alack for the sound, for the rattle of cars to the wall,

And the creak of the griding axles! O Hera, to thee is our call!

Artemis, maiden beloved! the air is distraught with the spears,

And whither doth destiny drive us, and where is the goal of our fears?

[antistrophe 2]

The blast of the terrible stones on the ridge of our wall is not stayed,

At the gates is the brazen clash of the bucklers — Apollo to aid!

Thou too, O daughter of Zeus, who guidest the wavering fray

To the holy decision of fate, Athena! be with us to-day!

Come down to the sevenfold gates and harry the foemen away!

[strophe 3]

O gods and O sisters of gods, our bulwark and guard! we beseech

That ye give not our war-worn hold to a rabble of alien speech!

List to the call of the maidens, the hands held up for the right,

[antistrophe 3]

Be near us, protect us, and show that the city is dear in your sight!

Have heed for her sacrifice holy, and thought of her offerings take,

Forget not her love and her worship, be near her and smite for her sake!

[Eteocles and his retinue re-enter.]

Eteocles [addressing the Chorus]

Hark to my question, things detestable!

Is this aright and for the city’s weal,

And helpful to our army thus beset,

That ye before the statues of our gods

Should fling yourselves, and scream and shriek your fears?

Immodest, uncontrolled! Be this my lot —

Never in troublous nor in peaceful days

To dwell with aught that wears a female form!

Where womankind has power, no man can house,

Where womankind feeds panic, ruin rules

Alike in house and city! Look you now —

Your flying feet, and rumour of your fears,

Have spread a soulless panic on our walls,

And they without do go from strength to strength,

And we within make breach upon ourselves!

Such fate it brings, to house with womankind.

Therefore if any shall resist my rule

Or man, or woman, or some sexless thing —

The vote of sentence shall decide their doom,

And stones of execution, past escape,

Shall finish all. Let not a woman’s voice

Be loud in council! for the things without,

A man must care; let women keep within —

Even then is mischief all too probable!

Hear ye? or speak I to unheeding ears?

Chorus [chanting]

Ah, but I shudder, child of Oedipus!

I heard the clash and clang!

The axles rolled and rumbled; woe to us,

Fire-welded bridles rang!

Eteocles

Say — when a ship is strained and deep in brine,

Did eer a seaman mend his chance, who left

The helm, t’ invoke the image at the prow?

Chorus [chanting]

Ah, but I fled to the shrines, I called to our helpers on high,

When the stone-shower roared at the portals!

I sped to the temples aloft, and loud was my call and my cry,

Look down and deliver, Immortals!

Eteocles

Ay, pray amain that stone may vanquish steel!

Where not that grace of gods? ay, ay — methinks,

When cities fall, the gods go forth from them!

Chorus [chanting]

Ah, let me die, or ever I behold

The gods go forth, in conflagration dire!

The foemen’s rush and raid, and all our hold

Wrapt in the burning fire!

Eteocles

Cry not on Heaven, in impotent debate!

What saith the saw? — Good saving Strength, in verity,

Out of Obedience breeds the babe Prosperity.

Chorus (chanting)

‘Tis true: yet stronger is the power divine,

And oft, when man’s estate is overbowed

With bitter pangs, disperses from his eyne

The heavy, hanging cloud!

Eteocles

Let men with sacrifice and augury

Approach the gods, when comes the tug of war:

Alaids must be silent and abide within.

Chorus (chanting)

By grace of the gods we hold it, a city untamed of the spear,

And the battlement wards from the wall the foe and his aspect of fear!

What need of displeasure herein?

Eteocles

Ay, pay thy vows to Heaven; I grudge them not,

But — so thou strike no fear into our men —

Have calm at heart, nor be too much afraid.

Chorus [chanting]

Alack, it is fresh in mine ears, the clamour and crash of the fray,

And up to our holiest height I sped on my timorous way,

Bewildered, beset by the din!

Eteocles

Now, if ye hear the bruit of death or wounds,

Give not yourselves o’ermuch to shriek and scream,

For Ares ravins upon human flesh.

Leader of the chorus

Ah, but the snorting of the steeds I hear!

Eteocles

Then, if thou hearest, hear them not too well

Leader

Hark, the earth rumbles, as they close us round!

Eteocles

Enough if I am here, with plans prepared.

Leader

Alack, the battering at the gates is loud!

Eteocles

Peace! stay your tongue, or else the town may hear!

Leader

O warders of the walls, betray them not!

Eteocles

Beshrew your cries! in silence face your fate.

Leader

Gods of our city, see me not enslaved!

Eteocles

On me, on all, thy cries bring slavery.

Leader

Zeus, strong to smite, turn upon foes thy blow!

Eteocles

Zeus, what a curse are women, wrought by thee!

Leader

Weak wretches, even as men, when cities fall.

What! clasping gods, yet voicing thy despair?

Leader

In the sick heart, fear maketh prey of speech.

Eteocles

Light is the thing I ask thee — do my will!

Leader

Ask swiftly: swiftly shall I know my power.

Eteocles

Silence, weak wretch! nor put thy friends in fear.

Leader

I speak no more: the general fate be mine!

Eteocles

I take that word as wiser than the rest.

Nay, more: these images possess thy will —

Pray, in their strength, that Heaven be on our side!

Then hear my prayers withal, and then ring out

The female triumph-note, thy privilege —

Yea, utter forth the usage Hellas knows,

The cry beside the altars, sounding clear

Encouragement to friends, alarm to foes.

But I unto all gods that guard our walls,

Lords of the plain or warders of the mart

And to Ismenus’ stream and Dirce’s rills,

I swear, if Fortune smiles and saves our town,

That we will make our altars reek with blood

Of sheep and kine, shed forth unto the gods,

And with victorious tokens front our fanes —

Corslets and casques that once our foemen wore,

Spear-shattered now — to deck these holy homes!

Be such thy vows to Heaven — away with sighs,

Away with outcry vain and barbarous,

That shall avail not, in a general doom!

But I will back, and, with six chosen men

Myself the seventh, to confront the foe

In this great aspect of a poised war,

Return and plant them at the sevenfold gates,

Or e’er the prompt and clamorous battle-scouts

Haste to inflame our counsel with the need.

[Eteocles and his retinue go out.]

Chorus [singing]

[strophe 1]

I mark his words, yet, dark and deep,

My heart’s alarm forbiddeth sleep!

Close-clinging cares around my soul

Enkindle fears beyond control,

Presageful of what doom may fall

From the great leaguer of the wall!

So a poor dove is faint with fear

For her weak nestlings, while anew

Glides on the snaky ravisher!

In troop and squadron, hand on hand,

They climb and throng, and hemmed we stand,

While on the warders of our town

The flinty shower comes hurtling down!

Gods born of Zeus! put forth your might

For Cadmus’ city, realm, and right!

[antistrophe 1]

What nobler land shall e’er be yours,

If once ye give to hostile powers

The deep rich soil, and Dirce’s wave,

The nursing stream, Poseidon gave

And Tethys’ children? Up and save!

Cast on the ranks that hem us round

A deadly panic, make them fling

Their arms in terror on the ground,

And die in carnage! thence shall spring

High honour for our clan and king!

Come at our wailing cry, and stand

As throned sentries of our land!

[strophe 2]

For pity and sorrow it were that this immemorial town

Should sink to be slave of the spear, to dust and to ashes gone down,

By the gods of Achaean worship and arms of Achaean might

Sacked and defiled and dishonoured, its women the prize of the fight —

That, haled by the hair as a steed, their mantles dishevelled and torn,

The maiden and matron alike should pass to the wedlock of scorn!

I hear it arise from the city, the manifold wail of despair —

Woe, woe for the doom that shall be — as in grasp of the foeman they fare!

[antistrophe 2]

For a woe and a weeping it is, if the maiden inviolate flower

Is plucked by the foe in his might, not culled in the bridal bower!

Alas for the hate and the horror — how say it? — less hateful by far

Is the doom to be slain by the sword, hewn down in the carnage of war!

For wide, ah! wide is the woe when the foeman has mounted the wall;

There is havoc and terror and flame, and the dark smoke broods over all,

And wild is the war-god’s breath, as in frenzy of conquest he springs,

And pollutes with the blast of his lips the glory of holiest things!

[strophe 3]

Up to the citadel rise clash and din,

The war-net closes in,

The spear is in the heart: with blood imbrued

Young mothers wail aloud,

For children at their breast who scream and die!

And boys and maidens fly,

Yet scape not the pursuer, in his greed

To thrust and grasp and feed!

Robber with robber joins, each calls his mate

Unto the feast of hate —

The banquet, lo! is spread — seize, rend, and tear!

No need to choose or share!

[antistrophe 3]

And all the wealth of earth to waste is poured —

A sight by all abhorred!

The grieving housewives eye it; heaped and blent,

Earth’s boons are spoiled and spent,

And waste to nothingness; and O alas,

Young maids, forlorn ye pass —

Fresh horror at your hearts — beneath the power

Of those who crop the flower!

Ye own the ruffian ravisher for lord,

And night brings rites abhorred!

Woe, woe for you! upon your grief and pain

There comes a fouler stain.

[On one side the spy enters; on the other, Eteocles and the six champions.]

Leader of the first semi-chorus

Look, friends! methinks the scout, who parted hence

To spy upon the foemen, comes with news,

His feet as swift as wafting chariot-wheels.

Leader of the second semi-chorus

Ay, and our king, the son of Oedipus,

Comes prompt to time, to learn the spy’s report —

His heart is fainer than his foot is fast!

The spy

Well have I scanned the foe, and well can say

Unto which chief, by lot, each gate is given.

Tydeus already with his onset-cry

Storms at the gate called Proetides; but him

The seer Amphiaraus holds at halt,

Nor wills that he should cross Ismenus’ ford,

Until the sacrifices promise fair.

But Tydeus, mad with lust of blood and broil,

Like to a cockatrice at noontide hour,

Hisses out wrath and smites with scourge of tongue

The prophet-son of Oecleus — Wise thou art,

Faint against war, and holding back from death!

With such revilings loud upon his lips

He waves the triple plumes that o’er his helm

Float overshadowing, as a courser’s mane;

And at his shield’s rim, terror in their tone,

Clang and reverberate the brazen bells.

And this proud sign, wrought on his shield, he bears —

The vault of heaven, inlaid with blazing stars;

And, for the boss, the bright moon glows at full,

The eye of night, the first and lordliest star.

Thus with high-vaunted armour, madly bold,

He clamours by the stream-bank, wild for war,

As a steed panting grimly on his bit,

Held in and chafing for the trumpet’s bray!

Whom wilt thou set against him? when the gates

Of Proetus yield, who can his rush repel?

Eteocles

To me, no blazon on a foeman’s shield

Shall e’er present a fear! such pointed threats

Are powerless to wound; his plumes and bells,

Without a spear, are snakes without a sting.

Nay, more — that pageant of which thou tellest —

The nightly sky displayed, ablaze with stars,

Upon his shield, palters with double sense

One headstrong fool will find its truth anon!

For, if night fall upon his eyes in death,

Yon vaunting blazon will its own truth prove,

And he is prophet of his folly’s fall.

Mine shall it be, to pit against his power

The loyal son of Astacus, as guard

To hold the gateways — a right valiant soul,

Who has in heed the throne of Modesty

And loathes the speech of Pride, and evermore

Shrinks from the base, but knows no other fear.

He springs by stock from those whom Ares spared,

The men called Sown, a right son of the soil,

And Melanippus styled. Now, what his arm

To-day shall do, rests with the dice of war,

And Ares shall ordain it; but his cause

Hath the true badge of Right, to urge him on

To guard, as son, his motherland from wrong.

[Melanippus goes out.]

Chorus [chanting]

Then may the gods give fortune fair

Unto our chief, sent forth to dare

War’s terrible arbitrament!

But ah! when champions wend away,

I shudder, lest, from out the fray,

Only their blood-stained wrecks be sent!

The spy

Nay, let him pass, and the gods’ help be his!

Next, Capaneus comes on, by lot to lead

The onset at the gates Electran styled:

A giant be, more huge than Tydeus’ self,

And more than human in his arrogance —

May fate forefend his threat against our walls!

God willing, or unwilling — such his vaunt —

I will lay waste this city; Pallas’ self,

Zeus’s warrior maid, although she swoop to earth

And plant her in my path, shall stay me not.

And, for the flashes of the levin-bolt,

He holds them harmless as the noontide rays.

Mark, too, the symbol on his shield — a man

Scornfully weaponless but torch in hand,

And the flame glows witbin his grasp, prepared

For ravin: lo, the legend, wrought in words,

Fire for the city bring I, flares in gold!

Against such wight, send forth — yet whom? what man

Will front that vaunting figure and not fear?

Eteocles

Aha, this profits also, gain on gain!

In sooth, for mortals, the tongue’s utterance

Bewrays unerringly a foolish pride!

Hither stalks Capaneus, with vaunt and threat

Defying god-like powers, equipt to act,

And, mortal though he be, he strains his tongue

In folly’s ecstasy, and casts aloft

High swelling words against the ears of Zeus.

Right well I trust — if justice grants the word —

That, by the might of Zeus, a bolt of flame

In more than semblance shall descend on him.

Against his vaunts, though reckless, I have set,

To make assurance sure, a warrior stern —

Strong Polyphontes, fervid for the fray; —

A sturdy bulwark, he, by grace of Heaven

And favour of his champion Artemis!

Say on, who holdeth the next gate in ward?

[Polyphontes goes out.]

Chorus [chanting]

Perish the wretch whose vaunt affronts our home!

On him the red bolt come,

Ere to the maiden bowers his way he cleave,

To ravage and bereave!

The spy

I will say on. Eteoclus is third —

To him it fell, what time the third lot sprang

O’er the inverted helmet’s brazen rim,

To dash his stormers on Neistae gate.

He wheels his mares, who at their frontlets chafe

And yearn to charge upon the gates amain.

They snort the breath of pride, and, filled therewith,

Their nozzles whistle with barbaric sound.

High too and haughty is his shield’s device —

An armed man who climbs, from rung to rung,

A scaling ladder, up a hostile wall,

Afire to sack and slay; and he too cries

(By letters, full of sound, upon the shield)

Not Ares’ self shall cast me from the wall.

Look to it, send, against this man, a man

Strong to debar the slave’s yoke from our town.

Eteocles [pointing to Megareus]

Send will I— even this man, with luck to aid —

[Megareus departs as soon as he has been marked out.]

By his worth sent already, not by pride

And vain pretence, is he. ‘Tis Megareus,

The child of Creon, of the Earth-sprung born!

He will not shrink from guarding of the gates,

Nor fear the maddened charger’s frenzied neigh,

But, if he dies, will nobly quit the score

For nurture to the land that gave him birth,

Or from the shield-side hew two warriors down —

Eteoclus and the figure that he lifts —

Ay, and the city pictured, all in one,

And deck with spoils the temple of his sire!

Announce the next pair, stint not of thy tongue!

Chorus [chanting]

O thou, the warder of my home,

Grant, unto us, Fate’s favouring tide,

Send on the foemen doom!

They fling forth taunts of frenzied pride,

On them may Zeus with glare of vengeance come

The spy

Lo, next him stands a fourth and shouts amain,

By Pallas Onca’s portal, and displays

A different challenge; ‘tis Hippomedon!

Huge the device that starts up from his targe

In high relief; and, I deny it not,

I shuddered, seeing how, upon the rim,

It made a mighty circle round the shield —

No sorry craftsman he, who wrought that work

And clamped it all around the buckler’s edge!

The form was Typhon: from his glowing throat

Rolled lurid smoke, spark-litten, kin of fire!

The flattened edge-work, circling round the whole,

Made strong support for coiling snakes that grew

Erect above the concave of the shield:

Loud rang the warrior’s voice; inspired for war,

He raves to slay, as doth a Bacchanal,

His very glance a terror! of such wight

Beware the onset! closing on the gates,

He peals his vaunting and appalling cry!

Eteocles

Yet first our Pallas Onca — wardress she,

Planting her foot hard by her gate — shall stand,

The Maid against the ruffian, and repel

His force, as from her brood the mother-bird

Beats back the wintered serpent’s venom’d fang.

And next, by her, is Oenops’ gallant son,

Hyperbius, chosen to confront this foe,

Ready to seek his fate at Fortune’s shrine!

In form, in valour, and in skill of arms,

None shall gainsay him. See how wisely well

Hermes hath set the brave against the strong!

Confronted shall they stand, the shield of each

Bearing the image of opposing gods:

One holds aloft his Typhon breathing fire,

But, on the other’s shield, in symbol sits

Zeus, calm and strong, and fans his bolt to flame —

Zeus, seen of all, yet seen of none to fail!

Howbeit, weak is trust reposed in Heaven —

Yet are we upon Zeus’ victorious side,

The foe, with those he worsted — if in sooth

Zeus against Typhon held the upper hand,

And if Hyperbius (as well may hap

When two such foes such diverse emblems bear)

Have Zeus upon his shield, a saving sign.

[Hyperbius goes out.]

Chorus [chanting]

High faith is mine that he whose shield

Bears, against Zeus, the thing of hate.

The giant Typhon, thus revealed,

A monster loathed of gods eterne

And mortal men — this doom shall earn

A shattered skull, before the gate!

The spy

Heaven send it so! A fifth assailant now

Is set against our fifth, the northern, gate,

Fronting the death-mound where Amphion lies

The child of Zeus. This foeman vows his faith,

Upon a mystic spear-head which he deems

More holy than a godhead and more sure

To find its mark than any glance of eye,

That, will they, nill they, he will storm and sack

The hold of the Cadmeans. Such his oath —

His, the bold warrior, yet of childish years,

A bud of beauty’s foremost flower, the son

Of Zeus and of the mountain maid. I mark

How the soft down is waxing on his cheek,

Thick and close-growing in its tender prime —

In name, not mood, is he a maiden’s child —

Parthenopaeus; large and bright his eyes

But fierce the wrath wherewith he fronts the gate:

Yet not unheralded he takes his stand

Before the portal; on his brazen shield,

The rounded screen and shelter of his form,

I saw him show the ravening Sphinx, the fiend

That shamed our city — how it glared and moved,

Clamped on the buckler, wrought in high relief!

And in its claws did a Cadmean bear —

Nor heretofore, for any single prey,

Sped she aloft, through such a storm of darts

As now awaits her. So our foe is here —

Like, as I deem, to ply no stinted trade

In blood and broil, but traffick as is meet

In fierce exchange for his long wayfaring!

Eteocles

Ah, may they meet the doom they think to bring —

They and their impious vaunts — from those on high!

So should they sink, hurled down to deepest death!

This foe, at least, by thee Arcadian styled,

Is faced by one who bears no braggart sign,

But his hand sees to smite, where blows avail —

Actor, own brother to Hyperbius!

He will not let a boast without a blow

Stream through our gates and nourish our despair,

Nor give him way who on his hostile shield

Bears the brute image of the loathly Sphinx!

Blocked at the gate, she will rebuke the man

Who strives to thrust her forward, when she feels

Thick crash of blows, up to the city wall.

With Heaven’s goodwill, my forecast shall be true.

[Actor goes out.]

Chorus [chanting]

Home to my heart the vaunting goes,

And, quick with terror, on my head

Rises my hair, at sound of those

Who wildly, impiously rave!

If gods there be, to them I plead —

Give them to darkness and the grave.

The spy

Fronting the sixth gate stands another foe,

Wisest of warriors, bravest among seers —

Such must I name Amphiaraus: he,

Set steadfast at the Homoloid gate,

Berates strong Tydeus with reviling words —

The man of blood, the bane of state and home

To Argos, arch-allurer to all ill,

Evoker of the Fury-fiend of hell,

Death’s minister, and counsellor of wrong

Unto Adrastus in this fatal field.

Ay, and with eyes upturned and mien of scorn

He chides thy brother Polyneices to

At his desert, and once and yet again

Dwells hard and meaningly upon his name

Where it saith glory yet importeth feud.

Yea, such thou art in act, and such thy grace

In sight of Heaven, and such in aftertime

Thy fame, for lips and ears of mortal men!

“He strove to sack the city of his sires

And temples of her gods, and brought on her

An alien armament of foreign foes.

The fountain of maternal blood outpoured

What power can staunck? even so, thy fatherland

Once by thine ardent malice stormed and ta’en,

Shall ne’er join force with thee.” For me, I know

It doth remain to let my blood enrich

The border of this land that loves me not —

Blood of a prophet, in a foreign grave!

Now, for the battle! I foreknow my doom,

Yet it shall be with honour. So he spake,

The prophet, holding up his targe of bronze

Wrought without blazon, to the ears of men

Who stood around and heeded not his word.

For on no bruit and rumour of great deeds,

But on their doing, is his spirit set,

And in his heart he reaps a furrow rich,

Wherefrom the foison of good counsel springs.

Against him, send brave heart and hand of might;

For the god-lover is man’s fiercest foe.

Eteocles

Out on the chance that couples mortal men,

Linking the just and impious in one!

In every issue, the one curse is this —

Companionship with men of evil heart!

A baneful harvest, let none gather it!

The field of sin is rank, and brings forth death

At whiles a righteous man who goes aboard

With reckless mates, a horde of villainy,

Dies by one death with that detested crew;

At whiles the just man, joined with citizens

Ruthless to strangers, recking nought of Heaven,

Trapped, against nature, in one net with them,

Dies by God’s thrust and all-including blow.

So will this prophet die, even Oecleus’ child,

Sage, just, and brave, and loyal towards Heaven,

Potent in prophecy, but mated here

With men of sin, too boastful to be wise!

Long is their road, and they return no more,

And, at their taking-off, by hard of Zeus,

The prophet too shall take the downward way.

He will not — so I deem — assail the gate —

Not as through cowardice or feeble will,

But as one knowing to what end shall be

Their struggle in the battle, if indeed

Fruit of fulfilment lie in Loxias’ word.

He speaketh not, unless to speak avails!

Yet, for more surety, we will post a man,

Strong Lasthenes, as warder of the gate,

Stern to the foeman; he hath age’s skill,

Mated with youthful vigour, and an eye

Forward, alert; swift too his hand, to catch

The fenceless interval ‘twixt shield and spear!

Yet man’s good fortune lies in hand of Heaven

[Lasthenes goes out.]

Chorus [chanting]

Unto our loyal cry, ye gods, give ear!

Save, save the city! turn away the spear,

Send on the foemen fear!

Outside the rampart fall they, rent and riven

Beneath the bolt of heaven!

The spy

Last, let me name yon seventh antagonist,

Thy brother’s self, at the seventh portal set —

Hear with what wrath he imprecates our doom,

Vowing to mount the wall, though banished hence,

And peal aloud the wild exulting cry —

The town is ta’en — then clash his sword with thine,

Giving and taking death in close embrace,

Or, if thou ‘scapest, flinging upon thee,

As robber of his honour and his home,

The doom of exile such as he has borne.

So clamours he and so invokes the gods

Who guard his race and home, to hear and heed

The curse that sounds in Polyneices’ name!

He bears a round shield, fresh from forge and fire,

And wrought upon it is a twofold sign —

For lo, a woman leads decorously

The figure of a warrior wrought in gold;

And thus the legend runs — I Justice am,

And I will bring the hero home again,

To hold once more his place within this town,

Once more to pace his sire’s ancestral hall.

Such are the symbols, by our foemen shown —

Now make thine own decision, whom to send

Against this last opponent! I have said —

Nor canst thou in my tidings find a flaw —

Thine is it, now, to steer the course aright.

Eteocles

Ah me, the madman, and the curse of Heaven

And woe for us, the lamentable line

Of Oedipus, and woe that in this house

Our father’s curse must find accomplishment!

But now, a truce to tears and loud lament,

Lest they should breed a still more rueful wail!

As for this Polyneices, named too well,

Soon shall we know how this device shall end —

Whether the gold-wrought symbols on his shield,

In their mad vaunting and bewildered pride,

Shall guide him as a victor to his home!

For had but justice, maiden-child of Zeus,

Stood by his act and thought, it might have been!

Yet never, from the day he reached the light

Out of the darkness of his mother’s womb,

Never in childhood, nor in youthful prime,

Nor when his chin was gathering its beard,

Hath justice hailed or claimed him as her own.

Therefore I deem not that she standeth now

To aid him in this outrage on his home!

Misnamed, in truth, were justice, utterly,

If to impiety she lent her hand.

Sure in this faith, I will myself go forth

And match me with him; who hath fairer claim?

Ruler, against one fain to snatch the rule,

Brother with brother matched, and foe with foe,

Will I confront the issue. To the wall!

Leader of the chorus

O thou true heart, O child of Oedipus,

Be not, in wrath, too like the man whose name

Murmurs an evil omen! ‘Tis enough

That Cadmus’ clan should strive with Arges’ host,

For blood there is that can atone that stain!

But — brother upon brother dealing death —

Not time itself can expiate the sin!

Eteocles

If man find hurt, yet clasp his honour still,

‘Tis well; the dead have honour, nought beside.

Hurt, with dishonour, wins no word of praise!

Chorus [chanting]

Ah, what is thy desire?

Let not the lust and ravin of the sword

Bear thee adown the tide accursed, abhorred!

Fling off thy passion’s rage, thy spirit’s prompting dire!

Eteocles

Nay — since the god is urgent for our doom,

Let Laius’ house, by Phoebus loathed and scorned,

Follow the gale of destiny, and win

Its great inheritance, the gulf of hell!

Chorus [chanting]

Ruthless thy craving is —

Craving for kindred and forbidden blood

To be outpoured — a sacrifice imbrued

With sin, a bitter fruit of murderous enmities!

Eteocles

Yea, my own father’s fateful Curse proclaims —

A ghastly presence, and her eyes are dry —

Strike! honour is the prize, not life prolonged!

Chorus [chanting]

Ah, be not urged of her! for none shall dare

To call thee coward, in thy throned estate!

Will not the Fury in her sable pal

Pass outward from these halls, what time the gods

Welcome a votive offering from our hands?

Eteocles

The gods! long since they hold us in contempt,

Scornful of gifts thus offered by the lost!

Why should we fawn and flinch away from doom?

Chorus [chanting]

Now, when it stands beside thee! for its power

May, with a changing gust of milder mood,

Temper the blast that bloweth wild and rude

And frenzied, in this hour!

Eteocles

Ay, kindled by the curse of Oedipus —

All too prophetic, out of dreamland came

The vision, meting out our sire’s estate!

Leader of the chorus

Heed women’s voices, though thou love them not!

Eteocles

Say aught that may avail, but stint thy words.

Leader

Go not thou forth to guard the seventh gate!

Eteocles

Words shall not blunt the edge of my resolve.

Leader

Yet the god loves to let the weak prevail.

Eteocles

That to a swordsman, is no welcome word!

Leader

Shall thine own brother’s blood be victory’s palm?

Eteocles

Ill which the gods have sent thou canst not shun!

[Eteocles goes out.]

Chorus [singing]

[strophe 1]

I shudder in dread of the power, abhorred by the gods of high heaven,

The ruinous curse of the home till roof-tree and rafter be riven!

Too true are the visions of ill, too true the fulfilment they bring

To the curse that was spoken of old by the frenzy and wrath of the king!

Her will is the doom of the children, and Discord is kindled amain,

[antistrophe 1]

And strange is the Lord of Division, who cleaveth the birthright in twain —

The edged thing, born of the north, the steel that is ruthless and keen,

Dividing in bitter division the lot of the children of teen!

Not the wide lowland around, the realm of their sire, shall they have,

Yet enough for the dead to inherit, the pitiful space of a grave!

[strophe 2]

Ah, but when kin meets kin, when sire and child,

Unknowing, are defiled

By shedding common blood, and when the pit

Of death devoureth it,

Drinking the clotted stain, the gory dye —

Who, who can purify?

Who cleanse pollution, where the ancient bane

Rises and reeks again?

[antistrophe 2]

Whilome in olden days the sin was wrought,

And swift requital brought —

Yea on the children of the child came still

New heritage of ill!

For thrice Apollo spoke this word divine,

From Delphi’s central shrine,

To Laius — Die thou childless! thus alone

Can the land’s weal be won!

[strophe 3]

But vainly with his wife’s desire he strove,

And gave himself to love,

Begetting Oedipus, by whom he died,

The fateful parricide!

The sacred seed-plot, his own mother’s womb,

He sowed, his house’s doom,

A root of blood! by frenzy lured, they came

Unto their wedded shame.

[antistrophe 3]

And now the waxing surge, the wave of fate,

Rolls on them, triply great —

One billow sinks, the next towers, high and dark,

Above our city’s bark —

Only the narrow barrier of the wal

Totters, as soon to fall;

And, if our chieftains in the storm go down,

What chance can save the town?

[strophe 4]

Curses, inherited from long ago,

Bring heavy freight of woe:

Rich stores of merchandise o’erload the deck,

Near, nearer comes the wreck —

And all is lost, cast out upon the wave,

Floating, with none to save!

[antistrophe 4]

Whom did the gods, whom did the chief of men,

Whom did each citizen

In crowded concourse, in such honour hold,

As Oedipus of old,

When the grim fiend, that fed on human prey,

He took from us away?

[strophe 5]

But when, in the fulness of days, he knew of his bridal unblest,

A twofold horror he wrought, in the frenzied despair of his breast —

Debarred from the grace of the banquet, the service of goblets of gold

He flung on his children a curse for the splendour they dared to withhold.

[antistrophe 5]

A curse prophetic and bitter — The glory of wealth and of pride,

With iron, not gold, in your hands, ye shall come, at the last, to divide!

Behold, how a shudder runs through me, lest now, in the fulness of time,

The house-fiend awake and return, to mete out the measure of crime!

[The spy enters.]

The spy

Take heart, ye daughters whom your mothers’ milk

Made milky-hearted! lo, our city stands,

Saved from the yoke of servitude: the vaunts

Of overweening men are silent now,

And the State sails beneath a sky serene,

Nor in the manifold and battering waves

Hath shipped a single surge, and solid stands

The rampart, and the gates are made secure,

Each with a single champion’s trusty guard.

So in the main and at six gates we hold

A victory assured; but, at the seventh,

The god that on the seventh day was born,

Royal Apollo, hath ta’en up his rest

To wreak upon the sons of Oedipus

Their grandsire’s wilfulness of long ago.

Leader of the chorus

What further woefulness besets our home?

The spy

The home stands safe — but ah, the princes twain  —

Leader

Who? what of them? I am distraught with fear.

The spy

Hear now, and mark! the sons of Oedipus  —

Leader

Ah, my prophetic soul! I feel their doom.

The spy

Have done with questions! — with I— with their lives crushed out  —

Leader

Lie they out yonder? the full horror speak!

Did hands meet hands more close than brotherly?

Came fate on each. and in the selfsame hour?

The spy

Yea, blotting out the lineage ill-starred!

Now mix your exultation and your tears,

Over a city saved, the while its lords,

Twin leaders of the fight, have parcelled out

With forged arbitrament of Scythian steel

The full division of their fatherland,

And, as their father’s imprecation bade,

Shall have their due of land, a twofold grave.

So is the city saved; the earth has drunk

Blood of twin princes, by each other slain.

Chorus [chanting]

O mighty Zeus and guardian powers,

The strength and stay of Cadmus’ towers!

Shall I send forth a joyous cry,

Hail to the lord of weal renewed?

Or weep the misbegotten twain,

Born to a fatal destiny

Each numbered now among the slain,

Each dying in ill fortitude,

Each truly named, each child of feud?

O dark and all-prevailing ill,

That broods o’er Oedipus and all his line,

Numbing my heart with mortal chill!

Ah me, this song of mine,

Which, Thyad-like, I woke, now falleth still,

Or only tells of doom,

And echoes round a tomb!

Dead are they, dead! in their own blood they lie

Ill-omened the concent that hails our victory!

The curse a father on his children spake

Hath faltered not, nor failed!

Nought, Laius! thy stubborn choice availed —

First to beget, then, in the after day

And for the city’s sake,

The child to slay!

For nought can blunt nor mar

The speech oracular!

Children of teen! by disbelief ye erred —

Yet in wild weeping came fulfilment of the word!

[Antigone and Ismene approach, with a train of mourners, bearing the bodies of Eteocles and Polyneices.]

Look up, look forth! the doom is plain,

Nor spake the messenger in vain!

A twofold sorrow, twofold strife —

Each brave against a brother’s life!

In double doom hath sorrow come

How shall I speak it? — on the home!

Alas, my sisters! be your sighs the gale,

The smiting of your brows the plash of oars,

Wafting the boat, to Acheron’s dim shores

That passeth ever, with its darkened sail,

On its uncharted voyage and sunless way,

Far from thy beams, Apollo, god of day —

The melancholy bark

Bound for the common bourn, the harbour of the dark!

Look up, look yonder! from the home

Antigone, Ismene come,

On the last, saddest errand bound,

To chant a dirge of doleful sound,

With agony of equal pain

Above their brethren slain!

Their sister-bosoms surely swell,

Heart with rent heart according well

In grief for those who fought and fell!

Yet — ere they utter forth their woe

We must awake the rueful strain

To vengeful powers, in realms below,

And mourn hell’s triumph o’er the slain!

Alas! of all, the breast who bind —

Yea, all the race of womankind —

O maidens, ye are most bereaved!

For you, for you the tear-drops start —

Deem that in truth, and undeceived,

Ye hear the sorrows of my heart!

[To the dead]

Children of bitterness, and sternly brave —

One, proud of heart against persuasion’s voice,

One, against exile proof! ye win your choice —

Each in your fatherland, a separate grave!

Alack, on house and heritage

They brought a baneful doom, and death for wage!

One strove through tottering walls to force his way,

One claimed, in bitter arrogance, the sway,

And both alike, even now and here,

Have closed their suit, with steel for arbiter!

And lo, the Fury-fiend of Oedipus, their sire,

Hath brought his curse to consummation dire

Each in the left side smitten, see them laid —

The children of one womb,

Slain by a mutual doom!

Alas, their fate! the combat murderous,

The horror of the house,

The curse of ancient bloodshed, now repaid!

Yea, deep and to the heart the deathblow fell,

Edged by their feud ineffable —

By the grim curse, their sire did imprecate

Discord and deadly hate!

Hark, how the city and its towers make moan —

How the land mourns that held them for its own!

Fierce greed and fell division did they blend,

Till death made end!

They strove to part the heritage in twain,

Giving to each a gain —

Yet that which struck the balance in the strife,

The arbitrating sword,

By those who loved the twain is held abhorred —

Loathed is the god of death, who sundered each from life!

Here, by the stroke of steel, behold! they lie —

And rightly may we cry

Beside their fathers, let them here be laid —

Iron gave their doom, witk iron their graves be made —

A lack, the slaying sword, alack, th’ entombing spade!

Alas, a piercing shriek, a rending groan,

A cry unfeigned of sorrow felt at heart!

With shuddering of grief, with tears that start,

With wailful escort, let them hither come —

For one or other make divided moan!

No light lament of pity mixed with gladness,

But with true tears, poured from the soul of sadness,

Over the princes dead and their bereaved home

Say we, above these brethren dead,

On citizen, on foreign foe,

Brave was their rush, and stern their blow —

Now, lowly are they laid!

Beyond all women upon earth

Woe, woe for her who gave them birth!

Unknowingly, her son she wed —

The children of that marriage-bed,

Each in the self-same womb, were bred —

Each by a brother’s hand lies dead!

Yea, from one seed they sprang, and by one fate

Their heritage is desolate,

The heart’s division sundered claim from claim,

And, from their feud, death came!

Now is their hate allayed,

Now is their life-stream shed,

Ensanguining the earth with crimson dye —

Lo, from one blood they sprang, and in one blood they lie!

A grievous arbiter was given the twain —

The stranger from the northern main,

The sharp, dividing sword,

Fresh from the forge and fire

The War-god treacherous gave ill award

And brought their father’s curse to a fulfilment dire!

They have their portion — each his lot and doom,

Given from the gods on high!

Yea, the piled wealth of fatherland, for tomb,

Shall underneath them lie!

Alas, alas! with flowers of fame and pride

Your home ye glorified;

But, in the end, the Furies gathered round

With chants of boding sound,

Shrieking, In wild defeat and disarray,

Behold, ye pass away!

The sign of Ruin standeth at the gate,

There, where they strove with Fate —

And the ill power beheld the brothers’ fall,

And triumphed over all!

[Antigone, Ismene, and the Chorus all take part in the following responsive dirge.]

Thou wert smitten, in smiting,

Thou didst slay, and wert slain —

By the spear of each other

Ye lie on the plain,

And ruthless the deed that ye wrought was, and ruthless the death of the twain!

Take voice, O my sorrow!

Flow tear upon tear —

Lay the slain by the slayer,

Made one on the bier!

Our soul in distraction is lost, and we mourn o’er the prey of the spear!

Ah, woe for your ending,

Unbrotherly wrought!

And woe for the issue,

The fray that ye fought,

The doom of a mutual slaughter whereby to the grave ye are brought!

Ah, twofold the sorrow —

The heard and the seen!

And double the tide

Of our tears and our teen,

As we stand by our brothers in death and wail for the love that has been!

O grievous the fate

That attends upon wrong!

Stern ghost of our sire,

Thy vengeance is long!

Dark Fury of hell and of death, the hands of thy kingdom are strong!

O dark were the sorrows

That exile hath known!

He slew, but returned not

Alive to his own!

He struck down a brother, but fell, in the moment of triumph hewn down!

O lineage accurst,

O doom and despair!

Alas, for their quarrel,

The brothers that were!

And woe! for their pitiful end, who once were our love and our care!

O grievous the fate

That attends upon wrong!

Stern ghost of our sire,

Thy vengeance is long!

Dark Fury of hell and of death, the hands of thy kingdom are strong!

By proof have ye learnt it!

At once and as one,

O brothers beloved,

To death ye were, done!

Ye came to the strife of the sword, and behold! ye are both overthrown!

O grievous the tale is,

And grievous their fall,

To the house, to the land,

And to me above all!

Ah, God! for the curse that hath come, the sin and the ruin withal!

O children distraught,

Who in madness have died!

Shall ye rest with old kings

In the place of their pride?

Alas for the wrath of your sire if he findeth you laid by his side!

[A herald enters.]

Herald

I bear command to tell to one and all

What hath approved itself and now is law,

Ruled by the counsellors of Cadmus’ town.

For this Eteocles, it is resolved

To lay him on his earth-bed, in this soil,

Not without care and kindly sepulture.

For why? he hated those who hated us,

And, with all duties blanielessly performed

Unto the sacred ritual of his sires,

He met such end as gains our city’s grace —

With auspices that do ennoble death.

Such words I have in charge to speak of him:

But of his brother Polyneices, this —

Be he cast out unburied, for the dogs

To rend and tear: for he presumed to waste

The land of the Cadmeans, had not Heaven —

Some god of those who aid our fatherland —

Opposed his onset, by his brother’s spear,

To whom, tho’ dead, shall consecration come!

Against him stood this wretch, and brought a horde

Of foreign foemen, to beset our town.

He therefore shall receive his recompense,

Buried ignobly in the maw of kites —

No women-wailers to escort his corpse

Nor pile his tomb nor shrill his dirge anew —

Unhouselled, unattended, cast away

So, for these brothers, doth our State ordain.

Antigone

And I— to those who make such claims of rule

In Cadmus’ town — I, though no other help,

[Pointing to the body of Polyneices]

I, I will bury this my brother’s corse

And risk your wrath and what may come of it!

It shames me not to face the State, and set

Will against power, rebellion resolute:

Deep in my heart is set my sisterhood,

My common birthright with my brothers, born

All of one womb, her children who, for woe,

Brought forth sad offspring to a sire ill-starred.

Therefore, my soul! take thou thy willing share,

In aid of him who now can will no more,

Against this outrage: be a sister true,

While yet thou livest, to a brother dead!

Him never shall the wolves with ravening maw

Rend and devour: I do forbid the thought!

I for him, I— albeit a woman weak —

In place of burial-pit, will give him rest

By this protecting handful of light dust

Which, in the lap of this poor linen robe,

I bear to hallow and bestrew his corpse

With the due covering. Let none gainsay!

Courage and craft shall arm me, this to do.

Herald

I charge thee, not to flout the city’s law!

Antigone

I charge thee, use no useless heralding!

Herald

Stern is a people newly ‘scaped from death.

Antigone

Whet thou their sternness! burial he shall have.

Herald

How? grace of burial, to the city’s foe?

Antigone

God hath not judged him separate in guilt.

Herald

True — till he put this land in jeopardy.

Antigone

His rights usurped, he answered wrong with wrong.

Herald

Nay — but for one man’s sin he smote the State.

Antigone

Contention doth out-talk all other gods!

Prate thou no more — I will to bury him.

Herald

Will, an thou wilt! but I forbid the deed.

[The herald goes out.]

Chorus [singing]

Exulting Fates, who waste the line

And whelm the house of Oedipus!

Fiends, who have slain, in wrath condign,

The father and the children thus!

What now befits it that I do,

What meditate, what undergo?

Can I the funeral rite refrain,

Nor weep for Polyneices slain?

But yet, with fear I shrink and thrill,

Presageful of the city’s will!

Thou, O Eteocles, shalt have

Full rites, and mourners at thy grave,

But he, thy brother slain, shall he,

With none to weep or cry Alas,

To unbefriended burial pass?

Only one sister o’er his bier,

To raise the cry and pour the tear —

Who can obey such stern decree?

Semi-chorus

Let those who hold our city’s sway

Wreak, or forbear to wreak, their will

On those who cry, Ah, well-a-day!

Lamenting Polyneices still!

We will go forth and, side by side

With her, due burial will provide!

Royal he was; to him be paid

Our grief, wherever he be laid!

The crowd may sway, and change, and still

Take its caprice for justice’ will

But we this dead Eteocles,

As Justice wills and Right decrees,

Will bear unto his grave!

For — under those enthroned on high

And Zeus’ eternal royalty —

He unto us salvation gave!

He saved us from a foreign yoke —

A wild assault of outland folk,

A savage, alien wave!

The Suppliants

Characters in the Play

Danaus

The King of Argos

Herald of Aegyptus

Chorus of the Daughters of Danaus

Attendants

[Scene: A sacred precinct near the shore in Argos. Several statues of the gods can be seen, as well as a large altar. As the play opens, Danaus, and his fifty daughters, the maidens who compose the Chorus, enter. Their costumes have an oriental richness about them not characteristic of the strictly Greek. They carry also the wands of suppliants. The Chorus is singing.]

Chorus

Zeus! Lord and guard of suppliant hands

Look down benign on us who crave

Thine aid whom winds and waters drave

From where, through drifting shifting sands,

Pours Nilus to the wave.

From where the green land, god-possest,

Closes and fronts the Syrian waste,

We flee as exiles, yet unbanned

By murder’s sentence from our land;

But since Aegyptus had decreed

His sons should wed his brother’s seed,—

Ourselves we tore from bonds abhorred,

From wedlock not of heart but hand,

Nor brooked to call a kinsman lord!

And Danaus, our sire and guide,

The king of counsel, pond’ring well

The dice of fortune as they fell,

Out of two griefs the kindlier chose,

And bade us fly, with him beside,

Heedless what winds or waves arose,

And o’er the wide sea waters haste,

Until to Argos’ shore at last

Our wandering pinnace came—

Argos, the immemorial home

Of her from whom we boast to come—

Io, the ox-horned maiden, whom,

After long wandering, woe, and scathe,

Zeus with a touch, a mystic breath,

Made mother of our name.

Therefore, of all the lands of earth,

On this most gladly step we forth,

And in our hands aloft we bear—

Sole weapon for a suppliant’s wear—

The olive-shoot, with wool enwound!

City, and land, and waters wan

Of Inachus, and gods most high,

And ye who, deep beneath the ground,

Bring vengeance weird on mortal man,

Powers of the grave, on you we cry!

And unto Zeus the Saviour, guard

Of mortals’ holy purity!

Receive ye us keep watch and ward

Above the suppliant maiden band!

Chaste be the heart of this your land

Towards the weak! but, ere the throng,

The wanton swarm, from Egypt sprung,

Leap forth upon the silted shore,

Thrust back their swift rowed bark again,

Repel them, urge them to the main!

And there, ‘mid storm and lightning’s shine,

And scudding drift and thunder’s roar,

Deep death be theirs, in stormy brine!

Before they foully grasp and win

Us, maiden-children of their kin,

And climb the couch by law denied,

And wrong each weak reluctant bride.

[strophe 1]

And now on her I call,

Mine ancestress, who far on Egypt’s shore

A young cow’s semblance wore,—

A maiden once, by Hera’s malice changed!

And then on him withal,

Who, as amid the flowers the grazing creature ranged,

Was in her by a breath of Zeus conceived;

And, as the hour of birth drew nigh,

By fate fulfilled, unto the light he came;—

And Epaphus for name,

Born from the touch of Zeus, the child received

[antistrophe 1]

On him, on him I cry,

And him for patron hold—

While in this grassy vale I stand,

Where lo roamed of old!

And here, recounting all her toil and pain,

Signs will I show to those who rule the land

That I am child of hers; and all shall understand,

Hearing the doubtful tale of the dim past made plain.

[strophe 2]

And, ere the end shall be,

Each man the truth of what I tell shall see.

And if there dwell hard by

One skilled to read from bird-notes augury,

That man, when through his ears shall thrill our tearful wail,

Shall deem he hears the voice, the plaintive tale

Of her, the piteous spouse of Tereus, lord of guile—

Whom the hawk harries yet, the mourning nightingale.

[antistrophe 2]

She, from her happy home and fair streams scared away,

Wails wild and sad for haunts beloved erewhile.

Yea, and for Itylus—ah, well-a-day!

Slain by her own, his mother’s hand,

Maddened by lustful wrong, the deed by Tereus planned!

[strophe 3]

Like her I wail and wail, in soft lonian tones,

And as she wastes, even so

Wastes my soft cheek, once ripe with Nilus’ suns,

And all my heart dissolves in utter woe.

Sad flowers of grief I cull,

Fleeing from kinsmen’s love unmerciful—

Yea, from the clutching hands, the wanton crowd,

I sped across the waves, from Egypt’s land of cloud.

[antistrophe 3]

Gods of the ancient cradle of my race,

Hear me, just gods! With righteous grace

On me, on me look down!

Grant not to youth its heart’s unchaste desire,

But, swiftly spurning lust’s unholy fire,

Bless only love and willing wedlock’s crown!

The war-worn fliers from the battle’s wrack

Find refuge at the hallowed altar-side,

The sanctuary divine,—

Ye gods! such refuge unto me provide—

Such sanctuary be mine!

[strophe 4]

Though the deep will of Zeus be hard to track,

Yet doth it flame and glance,

A beacon in the dark, ‘mid clouds of chance

That wrap mankind.

[antistrophe 4]

Yea, though the counsel fall, undone it shall not lie,

Whate’er be shaped and fixed within Zeus’ ruling mind—

Dark as a solemn grove, with sombre leafage shaded,

His paths of purpose wind,

A marvel to man’s eye.

[strophe 5]

Smitten by him, from towering hopes degraded,

Mortals lie low and still.—

Tireless and effortless, works forth its will

The arm divine!

God from His holy seat, in calm of unarmed power,

Brings forth the deed, at its appointed hour!

[antistrophe 5]

Let Him look down on mortal wantonness!

Lo! how the youthful stock of Belus’ line

Craves for me, uncontrolled—

With greed and madness bold—

Urged on by passion’s shunless stress—

And, cheated, learns too late the prey has ‘scaped their hold!

[strophe 6]

Ah, listen, listen to my grievous tale,

My sorrow’s words, my shrill and tearful cries!

Ah woe, ah woe!

Loud with lament the accents rise,

And from my living lips my own sad dirges flow!

[refrain 1]

O Apian land of hill and dale,

Thou kennest yet, O land, this faltered foreign wail—

Have mercy, hear my prayer!

Lo, how again, again, rend and tear

My woven raiment, and from off my hair

Cast the Sidonian veil!

[antistrophe 6]

Ah, but if fortune smile, if death be driven away,

Vowed rites, with eager haste, we to the gods will pay!

Alas, alas again!

O whither drift the waves? and who shall loose the pain?

[refrain 1]

O Apian land of hill and dale,

Thou kennest yet, O land, this faltered foreign wail

Have mercy, hear my prayer!

Lo, how again, again, I rend and tear

My woven raiment, and from off my hair

Cast the Sidonian veil!

[strophe 7]

The wafting oar, the bark with woven sail,

From which the sea foamed back,

Sped me, unharmed of storms, along the breeze’s track—

Be it unblamed of me!

But ah, the end, the end of my emprise!

May He, the Father, with all-seeing eyes,

Grant me that end to see!

[refrain 2]

Grant that henceforth unstained as heretofore

I may escape the forced embrace

Of those proud children of the race

That sacred Io bore.

[antistrophe 7]

And thou, O maiden-goddess chaste and pure—

Queen of the inner fane—

Look of thy grace on me, O Artemis,

Thy willing suppliant-thine, thine it is;

Who from the lustful onslaught fled secure,

To grant that I too without stain

The shelter of thy purity may gain!

[refrain 2]

Grant that henceforth unstained as heretofore

I may escape the forced embrace

Of those proud children of the race

That sacred Io bore!

[strophe 8]

Yet if this may not be,

We, the dark race sun-smitten, we

Will speed with suppliant wands

To Zeus who rules below, with hospitable hands

Who welcomes all the dead from all the lands:

Yea, by our own hands strangled, we will go,

Spurned by Olympian gods, unto the gods below!

[refrain 3]

Zeus, hear and save!

The searching, poisonous hate, that Io vexed and drave,

Was of a goddess: well I know

The bitter ire, the wrathful woe

Of Hera, queen of heaven—

A storm, a storm her breath, whereby we yet are driven!

[antistrophe 8]

Bethink thee, what dispraise

Of Zeus himself mankind will raise,

If now he turn his face averted from our cries!

If now, dishonoured and alone

The ox-horned maiden’s race shall be undone,

Children of Epaphus, his own begotten son—

Zeus, listen from on high! —to thee our prayers arise.

[refrain 3]

Zeus, hear and save!

The searching poisonous hate, that lo vexed and drave,

Was of a goddess: well I know

The bitter ire, the wrathful woe

Of Hera, queen of heaven—

A storm, a storm her breath, whereby we yet are driven!

[After the Chorus has finished its song and dance, Danaus comes forward.]

Danaus

Children, be wary — wary he with whom

Ye come, your trusty sire and steersman old:

And that same caution hold I here on land,

And bid you hoard my words, inscribing them

On memory’s tablets. Lo, I see afar

Dust, voiceless herald of a host, arise;

And hark, within their griding sockets ring

Axles of hurrying wheels! I see approach,

Borne in curved cars, by speeding horses drawn,

A speared and shielded band. The chiefs, perchance.

Of this their land are hitherward intent

To look on us, of whom they yet have heard

By messengers alone. But come who may,

And come he peaceful or in ravening wrath

Spurred on his path, ‘twere best, in any case,

Damsels, to cling unto this altar-mound

Made sacred to their gods of festival,—

A shrine is stronger than a tower to save,

A shield that none may cleave. Step swift thereto,

And in your left hands hold with reverence

The white-crowned wands of suppliance, the sign

Beloved of Zeus, compassion’s lord, and speak

To those that question you, words meek and low

And piteous, as beseems your stranger state,

Clearly avowing of this flight of yours

The bloodless cause; and on your utterance

See to it well that modesty attend;

From downcast eyes, from brows of pure control,

Let chastity look forth; nor, when ye speak,

Be voluble nor eager — they that dwell

Within this land are sternly swift to chide.

And be your words submissive: heed this well;

For weak ye are, outcasts on stranger lands,

And froward talk beseems not strengthless hands.

Leader of the chorus

O father, warily to us aware

Thy words are spoken, and thy wisdom’s hest

My mind shall hoard, with Zeus our sire to aid.

Danaus

Even so — with gracious aspect let him aid.

Leader

Fain were I now to seat me by thy side—

Danaus

Now dally not, but put our thought in act.

Leader

Zeus, pity our distress, or e’er we die.

Danaus

If so he will, your toils to joy will turn.

Leader

Lo, on this shrine, the semblance of a bird.

Danaus

Zeus’ bird of dawn it is; invoke the sign.

Leader

Thus I invoke the saving rays of morn.

Danaus

Next, bright Apollo, exiled once from heaven.

Leader

The exiled god will pity our exile.

Danaus

Yea, may he pity, giving grace and aid.

Leader

Whom next invoke I, of these other gods?

Danaus

Lo, here a trident, symbol of a god.

Leader

Who gave sea-safety; may he bless on land!

Danaus

This next is Hermes, carved in Grecian wise.

Leader

Then let him herald help to freedom won.

Danaus

Lastly, adore this altar consecrate

To many lesser gods in one; then crouch

On holy ground, a flock of doves that flee,

Scared by no alien hawks, a kin not kind,

Hateful, and fain of love more hateful still,

Foul is the bird that rends another bird,

And foul the men who hale unwilling maids,

From sire unwilling, to the bridal bed.

Never on earth, nor in the lower world,

Shall lewdness such as theirs escape the ban:

There too, if men say right, a God there is

Who upon dead men turns their sin to doom,

To final doom. Take heed, draw hitherward,

That from this hap your safety ye may win.

[The king of Argos enters, followed by his attendants and soldiers.]

The king of Argos

Speak of what land are ye? No Grecian band

Is this to whom I speak, with Eastern robes

And wrappings richly dight: no Argive maid,

No woman in all Greece such garb doth wear,

This too gives marvel, how unto this land,

Unheralded, unfriended, without guide,

And without fear, ye came? yet wands I see,

True sign of suppliance, by you laid down

On shrines of these our gods of festival.

No land but Greece can rede such signs aright.

Much else there is, conjecture well might guess,

But let words teach the man who stands to hear.

Leader

True is the word thou spakest of my garb;

But speak I unto thee as citizen,

Or Hermes’ wandbearer, or chieftain king?

The king of Argos

For that, take heart and answer without fear.

I am Pelasgus, ruler of this land,

Child of Palaichthon, whom the earth brought forth;

And, rightly named from me, the race who reap

This country’s harvests are Pelasgian called.

And o’er the wide and westward-stretching land,

Through which the lucent wave of Strymon flows,

I rule; Perrhaebia’s land my boundary is

Northward, and Pindus’ further slopes, that watch

Paeonia, and Dodona’s mountain ridge.

West, east, the limit of the washing seas

Restrains my rule — the interspace is mine.

But this whereon we stand is Apian land,

Styled so of old from the great healer’s name;

For Apis, coming from Naupactus’ shore

Beyond the strait, child of Apollo’s self

And like him seer and healer, cleansed this land

From man-devouring monsters, whoin the earth,

Stained with pollution of old bloodshedding,

Brought forth in malice, beasts of ravening jaws,

A grisly throng of serpents manifold.

And healings of their hurt, by knife and charm,

Apis devised, unblamed of Argive men,

And in their prayers found honour, for reward.

—Lo, thou hast heard the tokens that I give:

Speak now thy race, and tell a forthright tale;

In sooth, this people loves not many words.

Leader

Short is my word and clear. Of Argive race

We come, from her, the ox-horned maiden who

Erst bare the sacred child. My word shall give

Whate’er can stablish this my soothfast tale.

The king of Argos

O stranger maids, I may not trust this word,

That ye have share in this our Argive race.

No likeness of our country do ye bear,

But semblance as of Libyan womankind.

Even such a stock by Nilus’ banks might grow;

Yea, and the Cyprian stamp, in female forms,

Shows, to the life, what males impressed the same.

And, furthermore, of roving Indian maids

Whose camping-grounds by Aethiopia lie,

And camels burdened even as mules, and bearing

Riders, as horses bear, mine ears have heard;

And tales of flesh-devouring mateless maids

Called Amazons: to these, if bows ye bare,

I most had deemed you like. Speak further yet,

That of your Argive birth the truth I learn.

Leader

Here in this Argive land —so runs the tale—

Io was priestess once of Hera’s fane.

The king of Argos

Yea, truth it is, and far this word prevails:

Is’t said that Zeus with mortal mingled love?

Leader

Ay, and that Hera that embrace surmised.

The king of Argos

How issued then this strife of those on high?

Leader

By Hera’s will, a heifer she became.

The king of Argos

Held Zeus aloof then from the horned beast?

Leader

‘Tis said, he loved, in semblance of a bull.

The king of Argos

And his stern consort, did she aught thereon?

Leader

One myriad-eyed she set, the heifer’s guard.

The king of Argos

How namest thou this herdsman many-eyed?

Leader

Argus, the child of Earth, whom Hermes slew.

The king of Argos

Still did the goddess vex the beast ill-starred?

Leader

She wrought a gadfly with a goading sting.

The king of Argos

Thus drave she Io hence, to roam afar?

Leader

Yea — this thy word coheres exact with mine.

The king of Argos

Then to Canopus and to Memphis came she?

Leader

And by Zeus’ hand was touched, and bare a child.

The king of Argos

Who vaunts him the Zeus-mated creature’s son?

Leader

Epaphus, named rightly from the saving touch.

The king of Argos

And whom in turn did Epaphus beget?

Leader

Libya, with name of a wide land endowed.

The king of Argos

And who from her was born unto the race?

Leader

Belus: from him two sons, my father one.

The king of Argos

Speak now to me his name, this greybeard wise.

Leader

Danaus; his brother fifty sons begat.

The king of Argos

Grudge not, in telling, his name too to tell.

Leader

Aegyptus: thou my lineage old hast heard—

Strive then to aid a kindred Argive band.

The king of Argos

Yea of a truth, in backward scope of time,

Of Argive race ye seem: but say what chance

Fell on you, goading you from home and land?

Leader

Lord of Pelasgian men, calamity

Is manifold and diverse; as of birds

Feather from feather differs, so of men

The woes are sundry. Who had dared foretell

That this our sudden flight, this hate and fear

Of loathly wedlock, would on Argos’ shore

Set forth a race of kindred lineage?

The king of Argos

What crave ye of these gods of festival,

Holding up newly-plucked white-tufted boughs?

Leader

Ne’er to be slaves unto Aegyptus’ race.

The king of Argos

Doth your own hate, or doth the law forbid?

Leader

Not as our lords, but as unloved, we chide them.

The king of Argos

‘Tis from such wedlock that advancement comes,

Leader

How easy is it, from the weak to turn!

The king of Argos

How then toward you can I be conscience-clear?

Leader

Deny us, though Aegyptus’ race demand.

The king of Argos

A heavy task thou namest, a rash war.

Leader

But Justice champions them who strike for her.

The king of Argos

Yea, if their side was from the outset hers.

Leader

Revere the gods thus crowned, who steer the State.

The king of Argos

Awe thrills me, seeing these shrines with leafage crowned.

[The whole Chorus now sings its responses to the king.]

Chorus

[strophe 1]

Yea, stern the wrath of Zeus, the suppliants’ lord.

Child of Palaichthon, royal chief

Of thy Pelasgians, hear!

Bow down thine heart to my relief—

A fugitive, a suppliant, swift with fear,

A creature whom the wild wolves chase

O’er toppling crags; in piteous case

Aloud, afar she lows,

Calling the herdsman’s trusty arm to save her from her foes!

The king of Argos

Lo, with bowed heads beside our city shrines

Ye sit ‘neath shade of new-plucked olive-boughs.

Our distant kin’s resentment Heaven forefend!

Let not this hap, unhoped and unforeseen,

Bring war on us: for strife we covet not.

Chorus

[antistrophe 1]

Justice, the daughter of right-dealing Zeus,

Justice, the queen of suppliants, look down,

That this our plight no ill may loose

Upon your town!

This word, even from the young, let age and wisdom learn:

If thou to suppliants show grace,

Thou shalt not lack Heaven’s grace in turn,

So long as virtue’s gifts on heavenly shrines have place.

The king of Argos

Not at my private hearth ye sit and sue;

And if the city bear a common stain,

Be it the common toil to cleanse the same:

Therefore no pledge, no promise will I give,

Ere counsel with the commonwealth be held.

Chorus

[strophe 2]

Nay, but the source of sway, the city’s self, art thou,

A power unjudged! thine, only thine,

To rule the right of hearth and shrine!

Before thy throne and sceptre all men bow!

Thou, in all causes lord, beware the curse divine!

The king of Argos

May that curse fall upon mine enemies!

I cannot aid you without risk of scathe,

Nor scorn your prayers — unmerciful it were.

Perplexed, distraught I stand, and fear alike

The twofold chance, to do or not to do.

Chorus

[antistrophe 2]

Have heed of him who looketh from on high,

The guard of woeful mortals, whosoe’er

Unto their fellows cry,

And find no pity, find no justice there.

Abiding in his wrath, the suppliants’ lord

Doth smite, unmoved by cries, unbent by prayerful word.

The king of Argos

But if Aegyptus’ children grasp you here,

Claiming, their country’s right, to hold you theirs

As next of kin, who dares to counter this?

Plead ye your country’s laws, if plead ye may,

That upon you they lay no lawful hand.

Chorus

[strophe 3]

Let me not fall, O nevermore,

A prey into the young men’s hand;

Rather than wed whom I abhor,

By pilot-stars I flee this land;

O king, take justice to thy side,

And with the righteous powers decide!

The king of Argos

Hard is the cause — make me not judge thereof.

Already I have vowed it, to do nought

Save after counsel with my people ta’en,

King though I be; that ne’er in after time,

If ill fate chance, my people then may say—

In aid of strangers thou the State hast slain.

Chorus

[antistrophe 3]

Zeus, lord of kinship, rules at will

The swaying balance, and surveys

Evil and good; to men of ill

Gives evil, and to good men praise,

And thou —since true those scales do sway—

Shalt thou from justice shrink away?

The king of Argos

A deep, a saving counsel here there needs—

An eye that like a diver to the depth

Of dark perplexity can pass and see,

Undizzied, unconfused. First must we care

That to the State and to ourselves this thing

Shall bring no ruin; next, that wrangling hands

Shall grasp you not as prey, nor we ourselves

Betray you thus embracing sacred shrines,

Nor make the avenging all-destroying god,

Who not in hell itself sets dead men free,

A grievous inmate, an abiding bane.

—Spake I not right, of saving counsel’s need?

Chorus

[strophe 4]

Yea, counsel take and stand to aid

At justice’ side and mine.

Betray not me, the timorous maid

Whom far beyond the brine

A godless violence cast forth forlorn.

[antistrophe 4]

O King, wilt thou behold—

Lord of this land, wilt thou behold me torn

From altars manifold?

Bethink thee of the young men’s wrath and lust,

Hold off their evil pride;

[strophe 5]

not thyself to see the suppliant thrust

From hallowed statues’ side,

Haled by the frontlet on my forehead bound,

As steeds are led, and drawn

By hands that drag from shrine and altar-mound

My vesture’s fringed lawn.

[antistrophe 5]

Know thou that whether for Aegyptus’ race

Thou dost their wish fulfil,

Or for the gods and for each holy place—

Be thy choice good or ill,

Blow is with blow requited, grace with grace.

Such is Zeus’ righteous will.

The king of Argos

Yea, I have pondered: from the sea of doubt

Here drives at length the bark of thought ashore;

Landward with screw and windlass haled, and firm,

Clamped to her props, she lies. The need is stern;

With men or gods a mighty strife we strive

Perforce, and either hap in grief concludes.

For, if a house be sacked, new wealth for old

Not hard it is to win if Zeus the lord

Of treasure favour — more than quits the loss,

Enough to pile the store of wealth full high;

Or if a tongue shoot forth untimely speech,

Bitter and strong to goad a man to wrath,

Soft words there be to soothe that wrath away:

But what device shall make the war of kin

Bloodless? that woe, the blood of many beasts,

And victims manifold to many gods,

Alone can cure. Right glad I were to shun

This strife, and am more fain of ignorance

Than of the wisdom of a woe endured.

The gods send better than my soul foretells!

Leader of the chorus

Of many cries for mercy, hear the end.

The king of Argos

Say on, then, for it shall not ‘scape mine ear.

Leader

Girdles we have, and bands that bind our robes.

The king of Argos

Even so; such things beseem a woman’s wear.

Leader

Know, then, with these a fair device there is—

The king of Argos

Speak, then: what utterance doth this foretell?

Leader

Unless to us thou givest pledge secure

The king of Argos

What can thy girdles’ craft achieve for thee?

Leader

Strange votive tablets shall these statues deck.

The king of Argos

Mysterious thy resolve—avow it clear.

Leader

Swiftly to hang me on these sculptured gods!

The king of Argos

Thy word is as a lash to urge my heart.

Leader

Thou seest truth, for I have cleared thine eyes.

The king of Argos

Yea, and woes manifold, invincible,

A crowd of ills, sweep on me torrent-like.

My bark goes forth upon a sea of troubles

Unfathomed, ill to traverse, harbourless.

For if my deed shall match not your demand,

Dire, beyond shot of speech, shall be the bane

Your death’s pollution leaves unto this land.

Yet if against your kin, Aegyptus’ race,

Before our gates I front the doom of war,

Will not the city’s loss be sore? Shall men

For women’s sake incarnadine the ground?

But yet the wrath of Zeus, the suppliants’ lord,

I needs must fear: most awful unto man

The terror of his anger. Thou, old man,

The father of these maidens, gather up

Within your arms these wands of suppliance,

And lay them at the altars manifold

Of all our country’s gods, that all the town

Know, by this sign, that ye come here to sue.

Nor, in thy haste, do thou say aught of me.

Swift is this folk to censure those who rule;

But, if they see these signs of suppliance,

It well may chance that each will pity you,

And loathe the young men’s violent pursuit;

And thus a fairer favour you may find:

For, to the helpless, each man’s heart is kind.

Danaus

To us, beyond gifts manifold it is

To find a champion thus compassionate;

Yet send with me attendants, of thy folk,

Rightly to guide me, that I duly find

Each altar of your city’s gods that stands

Before the fane, each dedicated shrine;

And that in safety through the city’s ways

I may pass onwards: all unlike to yours

The outward semblance that I wear — the race

That Nilus rears is all dissimilar

To that of Inachus. Keep watch and ward

Lest heedlessness bring death: full oft, I ween,

Friend hath slain friend, not knowing whom he slew.

The king of Argos

Go at his side, attendants, — he saith well.

On to the city’s consecrated shrines!

Nor be of many words to those ye meet,

The while this suppliant voyager ye lead.

[Danaus departs with attendants.]

Leader

Let him go forward, thy command obeying.

But me how biddest, how assurest thou?

The king of Argos

Leave there the new-plucked boughs, thy sorrow’s sign.

Leader

Thus beckoned forth, at thy behest I leave them.

The king of Argos

Now to this level precinct turn thyself.

Leader

Unconsecrate it is, and cannot shield me.

The king of Argos

We will not yield thee to those falcons’ greed.

Leader

What help? more fierce they are than serpents fell.

The king of Argos

We spake thee fair — speak thou them fair in turn.

Leader

What marvel that we loathe them, scared in soul?

The king of Argos

Awe towards a king should other fears transcend.

Leader

Thus speak, thus act, and reassure my mind.

The king of Argos

Not long thy sire shall leave thee desolate.

But I will call the country’s indwellers,

And with soft words th’ assembly will persuade,

And warn your sire what pleadings will avail.

Therefore abide ye, and with prayer entreat

The country’s gods to compass your desire;

The while I go, this matter to provide,

Persuasion and fair fortune at my side.

[The king of Argos departs with his retinue. The chorus forms to sing its prayer to Zeus.]

Chorus

[strophe 1]

O King of Kings, among the blest

Thou highest and thou happiest,

Listen and grant our prayer,

And, deeply loathing, thrust

Away from us the young men’s lust,

And deeply drown

In azure waters, down and ever down,

Benches and rowers dark,

The fatal and perfidious bark!

[antistrophe 1]

Unto the maidens turn thy gracious care;

Think yet again upon the tale of fame,

How from the maiden loved of thee there sprung

Mine ancient line, long since in many a legend sung!

Remember, O remember, thou whose hand

Did Io by a touch to human shape reclaim.

For from this Argos erst our mother came

Driven hence to Egypt’s land,

Yet sprung of Zeus we were, and hence our birth we claim.

[strophe 2]

And now have I roamed back

Unto the ancient track

Where Io roamed and pastured among flowers,

Watched o’er by Argus’ eyes,

Through the lush grasses and the meadow bowers.

Thence, by the gadfly maddened, forth she flies

Unto far lands and alien peoples driven

And, following fate, through paths of foam and surge,

Sees, as she goes, the cleaving strait divide

Greece, from the Eastland riven.

[antistrophe 2]

And swift through Asian borders doth she urge

Her course, o’er Phrygian mountains’ sheep-clipt side;

Thence, where the Mysian realm of Teuthras lies,

Towards Lydian lowlands hies,

And o’er Cilician and Pamphylian hills

And ever-flowing rills,

And thence to Aphrodite’s fertile shore,

The land of garnered wheat and wealthy store.

[strophe 3]

And thence, deep-stung by wild unrest,

By the winged fly that goaded her and drave,

Unto the fertile land, the god-possest

(Where, fed from far-off snows,

Life-giving Nilus flows,

Urged on by Typho’s strength, a fertilizing wave),

She roves, in harassed and dishonoured flight,

Scathed by the blasting pangs of Hera’s dread despite.

[antistrophe 3]

And they within the land

With terror shook and wanned,

So strange the sight they saw, and were afraid—

A wild twy-natured thing, half heifer and half maid.

Whose hand was laid at last on Io, thus forlorn,

With many roamings worn?

Who bade the harassed maiden’s peace return?

[strophe 4]

Zeus, lord of time eterne.

Yea, by his breath divine, by his unscathing strength,

She lays aside her bane,

And softened back to womanhood at length

Sheds human tears again.

Then, quickened with Zeus’ veritable seed,

A progeny she bare,

A stainless babe, a child of heavenly breed.

[antistrophe 4]

Of life and fortune fair.

His is the life of life —so all men say,—

His is the seed of Zeus.

Who else had power stern Hera’s craft to stay,

Her vengeful curse to loose?

Yea, all from Zeus befel!

And rightly wouldst thou tell

That we from Epaphus, his child, were born:

Justly his deed was done;

[strophe 5]

Unto what other one,

Of all the gods, should I for justice turn?

From him our race did spring;

Creator he and King,

Ancient of days and wisdom he, and might.

As bark before the wind,

So, wafted by his mind,

Moves every counsel, each device aright.

[antistrophe 5]

Beneath no stronger hand

Holds he a weak command,

No throne doth he abase him to adore;

Swift as a word, his deed

Acts out what stands decreed

In counsels of his heart, for evermore.

[Danaus re-enters.]

Danaus

Take heart, my children: the land’s heart is kind,

And to full issue has their voting come.

Leader of the chorus

All hail, my sire; thy word brings utmost joy.

Say, to what issue is the vote made sure,

And how prevailed the people’s crowding hands?

Danaus

With one assent the Argives spake their will,

And, hearing, my old heart took youthful cheer.

The very sky was thrilled when high in air

The concourse raised right hands and swore their oath:—

Free shall the maidens sojourn in this land.

Unharried, undespoiled by mortal wight:

No native hand, no hand of foreigner

Shall drag them hence; if any man use force—

Whoe’er of all our countrymen shall fail

To come unto their aid, let him go forth,

Beneath the people’s curse, to banishment.

So did the king of this Pelasgian folk

Plead on behalf of us, and bade them heed

That never, in the after-time, this realm

Should feed to fulness the great enmity

Of Zeus, the suppliants’ guard, against itself!

A twofold curse, for wronging stranger-guests

Who are akin withal, confrontingly

Should rise before this city and be shown

A ruthless monster, fed on human doom.

Such things the Argive people heard, and straight,

Without proclaim of herald, gave assent:

Yea, in full conclave, the Pelasgian folk

Heard suasive pleas, and Zeus through them resolved.

[The chorus now sings a prayer of thankfulness.]

Chorus

Arouse we now to chant our prayer

For fair return of service fair

And Argos’ kindly will.

Zeus, lord of guestright, look upon

The grace our stranger lips have won.

In right and truth, as they begun,

Guide them, with favouring hand, until

Thou dost their blameless wish fulfil!

[strophe 1]

Now may the Zeus-born gods on high

Hear us pour forth

A votive prayer for Argos’ clan! —

Never may this Pelasgian earth,

Amid the fire-wrack, shrill the dismal cry

On Ares, ravening lord of fight,

Who in an alien harvest mows down man!

For lo, this land had pity on our plight,

And unto us were merciful and leal,

To us, the piteous flock, who at Zeus’ altar kneel!

[antistrophe 1]

They scorned not the pleas of maidenhood,

Nor with the young men’s will hath their will stood.

They knew right well

Th’ unearthly watching fiend invincible,

The foul avenger — let him not draw near!

For he, on roofs ill-starred,

Defiling and polluting, keeps a ghastly ward!

They knew his vengeance, and took holy heed

To us, the sister suppliants, who cry

To Zeus, the lord of purity:

Therefore with altars pure they shall the gods revere.

Thus, through the boughs that shade our lips, fly forth in air,

[strophe 2]

Fly forth, O eager prayer!

May never pestilence efface

This city’s race,

Nor be the land with corpses strewed,

Nor stained with civic blood!

The stem of youth, unpluckt, to manhood come,

Nor Ares rise from Aphrodite’s bower,

The lord of death and bane, to waste our youthful flower.

[antistrophe 2]

Long may the old

Crowd to the altars kindled to consume

Gifts rich and manifold—

Offered to win from powers divine

A benison on city and on shrine:

Let all the sacred might adore

Of Zeus most high, the lord

Of guestright and the hospitable board,

Whose immemorial law doth rule Fate’s scales aright:

The garners of earth’s store

Be full for evermore,

And grace of Artemis make women’s travail light;

[strophe 3]

No devastating curse of fell disease

This city seize;

No clamour of the State arouse to war

Ares, from whom afar

Shrinketh the lute, by whom the dances fail—

Ares, the lord of wail.

Swarm far aloof from Argos’ citizens

All plague and pestilence

And may the Archer-God our children spare!

[antistrophe 3]

May Zeus with foison and with fruitfulness

The land’s each season bless,

And, quickened with Heaven’s bounty manifold,

Teem grazing flock and fold.

Beside the altars of Heaven’s hallowing

Loud let the minstrels sing,

And from pure lips float forth the harp-led strain in air!

[strophe 4]

And let the people’s voice, the power

That sways the State, in danger’s hour

Be wary, wise for all;

Nor honour in dishonour hold,

But ere the voice of war be bold—

Let them to stranger peoples grant

Fair and unbloody covenant—

Justice and peace withal;

[antistrophe 4]

And to the Argive powers divine

The sacrifice of laurelled kine,

By rite ancestral, pay.

Among three words of power and awe,

Stands this, the third, the mighty law—

Your gods, your fathers deified,

Ye shall adore. Let this abide

For ever and for aye.

Danaus

Dear children, well and wisely have ye prayed;

I bid you now not shudder, though ye hear

New and alarming tidings from your sire.

From this high place beside the suppliants’ shrine

The bark of our pursuers I behold,

By divers tokens recognized too well.

Lo, the spread canvas and the hides that screen

The gunwale; lo, the prow, with painted eyes

That seem her onward pathway to descry,

Heeding too well the rudder at the stern

That rules her, coming for no friendly end.

And look, the seamen-all too plain their race—

Their dark limbs gleam from out their snow-white garb;

Plain too the other barks, a fleet that comes

All swift to aid the purpose of the first,

That now, with furled sail and with pulse of oars

Which smite the wave together, comes aland.

But ye, be calm, and, schooled not scared by fear,

Confront this chance, be mindful of your trust

In these protecting gods. And I will hence,

And champions who shall plead your cause aright

Will bring unto your side. There come perchance

Heralds or envoys, eager to lay hand

And drag you captive hence; yet fear them not;

Foiled shall they be. Yet well it were for you

(If, ere with aid I come, I tarry long)

Not by one step this sanctuary to leave.

Farewell, fear nought: soon shall the hour be born

When he that scorns the gods shall rue his scorn.

Chorus [chanting]

Ah, but I shudder, father! — ah, even now,

Even as I speak, the swift-winged ships draw nigh!

[strophe 1]

I shudder, I shiver, I perish with fear:

Overseas though I fled,

Yet nought it avails; my pursuers are near!

Danaus

Children, take heart; they who decreed to aid

Thy cause will arm for battle, well I ween.

Chorus

But desperate is Aegyptus’ ravening race,

With fight unsated; thou too know’st it well.

[antistrophe 1]

In their wrath they o’ertake us; the prow is deep-dark

In the which they have sped,

And dark is the bench and the crew of the bark!

Danaus

Yea but a crew as stout they here shall find,

And arms well steeled beneath a noon-day sun.

Chorus

Ah yet, O father, leave us not forlorn!

Alone, a maid is nought, a strengthless arm.

[strophe 2]

With guile they pursue me, with counsel malign,

And unholy their soul;

And as ravens they seize me, unheeding the shrine!

Danaus

Fair will befall us, children, in this chance,

If thus in wrath they wrong the gods and you.

Chorus

Alas, nor tridents nor the sanctity

Of shrines will drive them, O my sire, from us!

[antistrophe 2]

Unholy and daring and cursed is their ire,

Nor own they control

Of the gods, but like jackals they glut their desire!

Danaus

Ay, but Come wolf, flee jackal, saith the saw;

Nor can the flax-plant overbear the corn.

Leader of the chorus

Lustful, accursed, monstrous is their will

As of beasts ravening — ware we of their power

Danaus

Look you, not swiftly puts a fleet to sea,

Nor swiftly to its moorings; long it is

Or e’er the saving cables to the shore

Are borne, and long or e’er the steersmen cry,

The good ship swings at anchor — all is well.

Longest of all, the task to come aland

Where haven there is none, when sunset fades

In night. To pilot wise, the adage saith,

Night is a day of wakefulness and pain.

Therefore no force of weaponed men, as yet,

Scatheless can come ashore, before the bark

Lie at her anchorage securely moored.

Bethink thee therefore, nor in panic leave

The shrine of gods whose succour thou hast won.

I go for aid-men shall not blame me long,

Old, but with youth at heart and on my tongue.

[Danaus departs as the chorus sings in terror.]

Chorus

[strophe 1]

O land of hill and dale, O holy land,

What shall befall us? whither shall we flee,

From Apian land to some dark lair of earth?

O would that in vapour of smoke I might rise to the clouds of the sky,

That as dust which flits up without wings I might pass and evanish and die!

[antistrophe 1]

I dare not, I dare not abide: my heart yearns, eager to fly;

And dark is the cast of my thought; I shudder and tremble for fear.

My father looked forth and beheld: I die of the sight that draws near.

And for me be the strangling cord, the halter made ready by Fate,

Before to my body draws nigh the man of my horror and hate.

Nay, ere I will own him as lord, as handmaid to Hades I go!

[strophe 2]

And oh, that aloft in the sky, where the dark clouds are frozen to snow,

A refuge for me might be found, or a mountain-top smooth and too high

For the foot of the goat, where the vulture sits lonely, and none may descry

The pinnacle veiled in the cloud, the highest and sheerest of all,

Ere to wedlock that rendeth my heart, and love that is loveless, I fall!

[antistrophe 2]

Yea, a prey to the dogs and the birds of the mount will I give me to be,—

From wailing and curse and pollution it is death, only death, sets me free:

Let death come upon me before to the ravisher’s bed I am thrust;

What champion, what saviour but death can I find, or what refuge from lust?

[strophe 3]

I will utter my shriek of entreaty, a prayer that shrills up to the sky,

That calleth the gods to compassion, a tuneful, a pitiful cry,

That is loud to invoke the releaser. O father, look down on the fight;

Look down in thy wrath on the wronger, with eyes that are eager for right.

Zeus, thou that art lord of the world, whose kingdom is strong over all,

Have mercy on us! At thine altar for refuge and safety we call.

[antistrophe 3]

For the race of Aegyptus is fierce, with greed and with malice afire;

They cry as the questing hounds, they sweep with the speed of desire.

But thine is the balance of fate, thou rulest the wavering scale,

And without thee no mortal emprise shall have strength to achieve or prevail.

[The chorus rushes to the altar during the final part of the song.]

Alack, alack! the ravisher—

He leaps from boat to beach, he draweth near!

Away, thou plunderer accurst!

Death seize thee first,

Or e’er thou touch me-off! God, hear our cry,

Our maiden agony!

Ah, ah, the touch, the prelude of my shame.

Alas, my maiden fame!

O sister, sister, sister, to the altar cling,

For he that seizeth me,

Grim is his wrath and stern, by land as on the sea.

Guard us, O king!

[The herald of Aegyptus with attendants. The lines in the following scene between the herald and the chorus are sung and are accompanied by a frenzied symbolic dance.]

Herald of Aegyptus

Hence to my barge — step swiftly, tarry not.

Chorus

Alack, he rends — he rends my hair! O wound on wound!

Help! my lopped head will fall, my blood gush o’er the ground!

Herald of Aegyptus

Aboard, ye cursed — with a new curse, go!

Chorus

Would God that on the wand’ring brine

Thou and this braggart tongue of thine

Had sunk beneath the main—

Thy mast and planks, made fast in vain!

Thee would I drive aboard once more,

A slayer and a dastard, from the shore!

Herald of Aegyptus

Be still, thou vain demented soul;

My force thy craving shall control.

Away, aboard! What, clingest to the shrine?

Away! this city’s gods I hold not for divine.

Chorus

Aid me, ye gods, that never, never

I may again behold

The mighty, the life-giving river,

Nilus, the quickener of field and fold!

Alack, O sire, unto the shrine I cling—

Shrine of this land from which mine ancient line did spring!

Herald of Aegyptus

Shrines, shrines, forsooth! — the ship, the ship be shrine

Aboard, perforce and will-ye nill-ye, go!

Or e’er from hands of mine

Ye suffer torments worse and blow on blow.

Chorus

Alack, God grant those hands may strive in vain

With the salt-streaming wave,

When ‘gainst the wide-blown blasts thy bark shall strain

To round Sarpedon’s cape, the sandbank’s treach’rous grave.

Herald of Aegyptus

Shrill ye and shriek unto what gods ye may,

Ye shall not leap from out Aegyptus’ bark,

How bitterly soe’er ye wail your woe.

Chorus

Alack, alack my wrong!

Stern is thy voice, thy vaunting loud and strong.

Thy sire, the mighty Nilus, drive thee hence,

Turning to death and doom thy greedy violence!

Herald of Aegyptus

Swift to the vessel of the double prow,

Go quickly! let none linger, else this hand

Ruthless will hale you by your tresses hence.

Chorus

Alack, O father! from the shrine

Not aid but agony is mine.

As a spider he creeps and he clutches his prey,

And he hales me away.

A spectre of darkness, of darkness. Alas and alas! well-a-day!

O Earth, O my mother! O Zeus, thou king of the earth, and her child!

Turn back, we pray thee, from us his clamour and threatenings wild!

Herald of Aegyptus

Peace! I fear not this country’s deities.

They fostered not my childhood nor mine age.

Chorus

Like a snake that is human he comes, he shudders and crawls to my side:

As an adder that biteth the foot, his clutch on my flesh doth abide.

O Earth, O my mother! O Zeus, thou king of the earth, and her child!

Turn back, we pray thee, from us his clamour and threatenings wild!

Herald of Aegyptus

Swift each unto the ship; repine no more,

Or my hand shall not spare to rend your robe.

Chorus

O chiefs, O leaders, aid me, or I yield!

Herald of Aegyptus

Peace! if ye have not ears to hear my words,

Lo, by these tresses must I hale you hence.

Chorus

Undone we are, O king! all hope is gone.

Herald of Aegyptus

Ay, kings enow ye shall behold anon,

Aegyptus’ sons-Ye shall not want for kings.

[The king of Argos enters with his retinue.]

The king of Argos

Sirrah, what dost thou? in what arrogance

Darest thou thus insult Pelasgia’s realm?

Deemest thou this a woman-hearted town?

Thou art too full of thy barbarian scorn

For us of Grecian blood, and, erring thus,

Thou dost bewray thyself a fool in all!

Herald of Aegyptus

Say thou wherein my deeds transgress my right.

The king of Argos

First, that thou play’st a stranger’s part amiss.

Herald of Aegyptus

Wherein? I do but search and claim mine own.

The king of Argos

To whom of our guest-champions hast appealed?

Herald of Aegyptus

To Hermes, herald’s champion, lord of search.

The king of Argos

Yea, to a god — yet dost thou wrong the gods!

Herald of Aegyptus

The gods that rule by Nilus I revere.

The king of Argos

Hear I aright? our Argive gods are nought?

Herald of Aegyptus

The prey is mine, unless force rend it from me.

The king of Argos

At thine own peril touch them — ware, and soon!

Herald of Aegyptus

I hear thy speech, no hospitable word.

The king of Argos

I am no host for sacrilegious hands.

Herald of Aegyptus

I will go tell this to Aegyptus’ sons.

The king of Argos

Well it I my pride will ponder not thy word.

Herald of Aegyptus

Yet, that I have my message clear to say

(For it behoves that heralds’ words be clear,

Be they or ill or good), how art thou named?

By whom despoiled of this sister-band

Of maidens pass I homeward? — speak and say!

For lo, henceforth in Ares’ court we stand,

Who judges not by witness but by war:

No pledge of silver now can bring the cause

To issue: ere this thing end, there must be

Corpse piled on corpse and many lives gasped forth.

The king of Argos

What skills it that I tell my name to thee?

Thou and thy mates shall learn it ere the end.

Know that if words unstained by violence

Can change these maidens’ choice, then mayest thou,

With full consent of theirs, conduct them hence.

But thus the city with one voice ordained—

No force shall bear away the maiden band.

Firmly this word upon the temple wall

Is by a rivet clenched, and shall abide:

Not upon wax inscribed and delible,

Nor upon parchment sealed and stored away.—

Lo, thou hast heard our free mouths speak their will:

Out from our presence — tarry not, but go!

Herald of Aegyptus

Methinks we stand on some new edge of war:

Be strength and triumph on the young men’s side!

The king of Argos

Nay but here also shall ye find young men,

Unsodden with the juices oozed from grain.

[The herald of Aegyptus and his followers withdraw.]

But ye, O maids, with vour attendants true,

Pass hence with trust into the fenced town,

Ringed with a wide confine of guarding towers.

Therein are many dwellings for such guests

As the State honours; there myself am housed

Within a palace neither scant nor strait.

There dwell ye, if ye will to lodge at ease

In halls well-thronged: yet, if your soul prefer,

Tarry secluded in a separate home.

Choose ye and cull, from these our proffered gifts,

Whiche’er is best and sweetest to your will:

And I and all these citizens whose vote

Stands thus decreed, will your protectors be.

Look not to find elsewhere more loyal guard.

Chorus [singing]

O godlike chief, God grant my prayer:

Fair blessings on thy proffers fair,

Lord of Pelasgia’s race!

Yet, of thy grace, unto our side

Send thou the man of courage tried,

Of counsel deep and prudent thought

Be Danaus to his children brought;

For his it is to guide us well

And warn where it behoves to dwell—

What place shall guard and shelter us

From malice and tongues slanderous:

Swift always are the lips of blame

A stranger-maiden to defame—

But Fortune give us grace!

The king of Argos

A stainless fame, a welcome kind

From all this people shall ye find:

Dwell therefore, damsels, loved of us,

Within our walls, as Danaus

Allots to each, in order due,

Her dower of attendants true.

[Danaus re-enters. A troop of soldiers accompanies him.]

Danaus

High thanks, my children, unto Argos con,

And to this folk, as to Olympian gods,

Give offerings meet of sacrifice and wine;

For saviours are they in good sooth to you.

From me they heard, and bitter was their wrath,

How those your kinsmen strove to work you wrong,

And how of us were thwarted: then to me

This company of spearmen did they grant,

That honoured I might walk, nor unaware

Die by some secret thrust and on this land

Bring down the curse of death, that dieth not.

Such boons they gave me: it behoves me pay

A deeper reverence from a soul sincere.

Ye, to the many words of wariness

Spoken by me your father, add this word,

That, tried by time, our unknown company

Be held for honest: over-swift are tongues

To slander strangers, over-light is speech

To bring pollution on a stranger’s name.

Therefore I rede you, bring no shame on me

Now when man’s eye beholds your maiden prime.

Lovely is beauty’s ripening harvest-field,

But ill to guard; and men and beasts, I wot,

And birds and creeping things make prey of it.

And when the fruit is ripe for love, the voice

Of Aphrodite bruiteth it abroad,

The while she guards the yet unripened growth.

On the fair richness of a maiden’s bloom

Each passer looks, o’ercome with strong desire,

With eyes that waft the wistful dart of love.

Then be not such our hap, whose livelong toil

Did make our pinnace plough the mighty main:

Nor bring we shame upon ourselves, and joy

Unto my foes. Behold, a twofold home—

One of the king’s and one the people’s gift—

Unbought, ‘tis yours to hold, — a gracious boon.

Go but remember ye your sire’s behest,

And hold your life less dear than chastity.

Leader of the chorus

The gods above grant that all else be well.

But fear not thou, O sire, lest aught befall

Of ill unto our ripened maidenhood.

So long as Heaven have no new ill devised,

From its chaste path my spirit shall not swerve.

[The members of the chorus divide into two groups, to sing the final choral lyric responsively.]

Semi-chorus

[strophe 1]

Pass and adore ye the Blessed, the gods of the city who dwell

Around Erasinus, the gush of the swift immemorial tide.

Semi-chorus

Chant ye, O maidens; aloud let the praise of Pelasgia swell;

Hymn we no longer the shores where Nilus to ocean doth glide.

Semi-chorus

[antistrophe 1]

Sing we the bounteous streams that ripple and gush through the city;

Quickening flow they and fertile, the soft new life of the plain.

Semi-chorus

Artemis, maiden most pure, look on us with grace and with pity—

Save us from forced embraces: such love hath no crown but a pain.

Semi-chorus

[strophe 2]

Yet not in scorn we chant, but in honour of Aphrodite;

She truly and Hera alone have power with Zeus and control.

Holy the deeds of her rite, her craft is secret and mighty,

And high is her honour on earth, and subtle her sway of the soul.

Semi-chorus

Yea, and her child is Desire: in the train of his mother he goeth—

Yea and Persuasion soft-lipped, whom none can deny or repel:

Cometh Harmonia too, on whom Aphrodite bestoweth

The whispering parley, the paths of the rapture that lovers love well.

Semi-chorus

[antistrophe 2]

Ah, but I tremble and quake lest again they should sail to reclaim!

Alas for the sorrow to come, the blood and the carnage of war.

Ah, by whose will was it done that o’er the wide ocean they came,

Guided by favouring winds, and wafted by sail and by oar?

Semi-chorus

Peace! for what Fate hath ordained will surely not tarry but come;

Wide is the counsel of Zeus, by no man escaped or withstood:

Only I pray that whate’er, in the end, of this wedlock he doom,

We, as many a maiden of old, may win from the ill to the good.

Semi-chorus

[strophe 3]

Great Zeus, this wedlock turn from me—

Me from the kinsman bridegroom guard!

Semi-chorus

Come what come may, ‘tis Fate’s decree.

Semi-chorus

Soft is thy word — the doom is hard.

Semi-chorus

Thou know’st not what the Fates provide.

Semi-chorus

[antistrophe 3]

How should I scan Zeus’ mighty will,

The depth of counsel undescried?

Semi-chorus

Pray thou no word of omen ill.

Semi-chorus

What timely warning wouldst thou teach?

Semi-chorus

Beware, nor slight the gods in speech.

Semi-chorus

[strophe 4]

Zeus, hold from my body the wedlock detested, the bridegroom abhorred!

It was thou, it was thou didst release

Mine ancestress Io from sorrow: thine healing it was that restored,

The touch of thine hand gave her peace.

Semi-chorus

[antistrophe 4]

Be thy will for the cause of the maidens! of two ills, the lesser I pray—

The exile that leaveth me pure.

May thy justice have heed to my cause, my prayers to thy mercy find way!

For the hands of thy saving are sure.

Prometheus Bound

Characters in the Play

Kratos

Bia

Hephaestus

Prometheus

Chorus of the Oceanides

Oceanus

Io

Hermes

[Scene: Mountainous country, and in the middle of a deep gorge a Rock, towards which Kratos and Bia carry the gigantic form of Prometheus. Hephaestus follows dejectedly with hammer, nails, chains, etc.]

Kratos

Now have we journeyed to a spot of earth

Remote — the Scythian wild, a waste untrod.

And now, Hephaestus, thou must execute

The task our father laid on thee, and fetter

This malefactor to the jagged rocks

In adamantine bonds infrangible;

For thine own blossom of all forging fire

He stole and gave to mortals; trespass grave

For which the Gods have called him to account,

That he may learn to bear Zeus’ tyranny

And cease to play the lover of mankind.

Hephaestus

Kratos and Bia, for ye twain the hest

Of Zeus is done with; nothing lets you further.

But forcibly to bind a brother God,

In chains, in this deep chasm raked by all storms

I have not courage; yet needs must I pluck

Courage from manifest necessity,

For woe worth him that slights the Father’s word.

O high-souled son of them is sage in counsel,

With heavy heart I must make thy heart heavy,

In bonds of brass not easy to be loosed,

Nailing thee to this crag where no wight dwells,

Nor sound of human voice nor shape of man

Shall visit thee; but the sun-blaze shall roast

Thy flesh; thy hue, flower-fair, shall suffer change;

Welcome will Night be when with spangled robe

She hides the light of day; welcome the sun

Returning to disperse the frosts of dawn.

And every hour shall bring its weight of woe

To wear thy heart away; for yet unborn

Is he who shall release Chee from thy pain.

This is thy wage for loving humankind.

For, being a God, thou dared’st the Gods’ ill will,

Preferring, to exceeding honour, Man.

Wherefore thy long watch shall be comfortless,

Stretched on this rock, never to close an eye

Or bend a knee; and vainly shalt thou lift,

With groanings deep and lamentable cries,

Thy voice; for Zeus is hard to be entreated,

As new-born power is ever pitiless.

Kratos

Enough! Why palter? Why wast idle pity?

Is not the God Gods loathe hateful to thee?

Traitor to man of thy prerogative?

Hephaestus

Kindred and fellowship are dreaded names.

Kratos

Questionless; but to slight the Father’s word —

How sayest thou? Is not this fraught with more dread?

Hephaestus

Thy heart was ever hard and overbold.

Kratos

But wailing will not ease him! Waste no pains

Where thy endeavour nothing profiteth.

Hephaestus

Oh execrable work! I handicraft!

Kratos

Why curse thy trade? For what thou hast to do,

Troth, smithcraft is in no wise answerable.

Hephaestus

Would that it were another’s craft, not mine!

Kratos

Why, all things are a burden save to rule

Over the Gods; for none is free but Zeus.

Hephaestus

To that I answer not, knowing it true.

Kratos

Why, then, make haste to cast the chains about him,

Lest glancing down on thee the Father’s eye

Behold a laggard and a loiterer.

Hephaestus

Here are the iron bracelets for his arms.

Kratos

Fasten them round his arms with all thy strength!

Strike with thy hammer! Nail him to the rocks!

Hephaestus

‘Tis done! and would that it were done less well!

Kratos

Harder — I say — strike harder — screw all tight

And be not in the least particular

Remiss, for unto one of his resource

Bars are but instruments of liberty.

Hephaestus

This forearm’s fast: a shackle hard to shift.

Kratos

Now buckle this! and handsomely! Let him learn

Sharp though he be, he’s a dull blade to Zeus.

Hephaestus

None can find fault with this:— save him it tortures.

Kratos

Now take thine iron spike and drive it in,

Until it gnaw clean through the rebel’s breast.

Hephaestus

Woe’s me, Prometheus, for thy weight of woe!

Kratos

Still shirking? still a-groaning for the foes

Of Zeus? Anon thou’lt wail thine own mishap.

Hephaestus

Thou seest what eyes scarce bear to look upon!

Kratos

I see this fellow getting his deserts!

But strap him with a gelt about his ribs.

Hephaestus

I do what I must do: for thee — less words!

Kratos

“Words,” quotha? Aye, and shout ‘em if need be.

Come down and cast a ring-bolt round his legs.

Hephaestus

The thing is featly done; and ‘twas quick work.

Kratos

Now with a sound rap knock the bolt-pins home!

For heavy-handed is thy task-master.

Hephaestus

So villainous a form vile tongue befits.

Kratos

Be thou the heart of wax, but chide not me

That I am gruffish, stubborn and stiff-willed.

Hephaestus

Oh, come away! The tackle holds him fast.

Kratos

Now, where thou hang’st insult Plunder the Gods

For creatures of a day! To thee what gift

Will mortals tender to requite thy pains?

The destinies were out miscalling the

Designer: a designer thou wilt need

From trap so well contrived to twist thee free. [Exeunt.]

Prometheus

O divine air Breezes on swift bird-wings,

Ye river fountains, and of ocean-waves

The multitudinous laughter Mother Earth!

And thou all-seeing circle of the sun,

Behold what I, a God, from Gods endure!

Look down upon my shame,

The cruel wrong that racks my frame,

The grinding anguish that shall waste my strength,

Till time’s ten thousand years have measured out their length!

He hath devised these chains,

The new throned potentate who reigns,

Chief of the chieftains of the Blest. Ah me!

The woe which is and that which yet shall be

I wail; and question make of these wide skies

When shall the star of my deliverance rise.

And yet — and yet — exactly I foresee

All that shall come to pass; no sharp surprise

Of pain shall overtake me; what’s determined

Bear, as I can, I must, knowing the might

Of strong Necessity is unconquerable.

But touching my fate silence and speech alike

Are unsupportable. For boons bestowed

On mortal men I am straitened in these bonds.

I sought the fount of fire in hollow reed

Hid privily, a measureless resource

For man, and mighty teacher of all arts.

This is the crime that I must expiate

Hung here in chains, nailed ‘neath the open sky. Ha! Ha!

What echo, what odour floats by with no sound?

God-wafted or mortal or mingled its strain?

Comes there one to this world’s end, this mountain-girt ground,

To have sight of my torment? Or of what is he fain?

A God ye behold in bondage and pain,

The foe of Zeus and one at feud with all

The deities that find

Submissive entry to the tyrant’s hall;

His fault, too great a love of humankind.

Ah me! Ah me! what wafture nigh at hand,

As of great birds of prey, is this I hear?

The bright air fanned

Whistles and shrills with rapid beat of wings.

There cometh nought but to my spirit brings

Horror and fear.

[The daughters of Oceanus draw near in mid-air in their winged chariot.]

Chorus

Put thou all fear away!

In kindness cometh this array

On wings of speed to mountain lone,

Our sire’s consent not lightly won.

But a fresh breeze our convoy brought,

For loud the din of iron raught

Even to our sea-cave’s cold recess,

And scared away the meek-eyed bashfulness.

I tarried not to tie my sandal shoe

But haste, post haste, through air my winged chariot flew.

Prometheus

Ah me! Ah me!

Fair progeny

That many-childed Tethys brought to birth,

Fathered of Ocean old

Whose sleepless stream is rolled

Round the vast shores of earth

Look on me! Look upon these chains

Wherein I hang fast held

On rocks high-pinnacled,

My dungeon and my tower of dole,

Where o’er the abyss my soul,

Sad warder, her unwearied watch sustains!

Chorus

Prometheus, I am gazing on thee now!

With the cold breath of fear upon my brow,

Not without mist of dimming tears,

While to my sight thy giant stature rears

Its bulk forpined upon these savage rocks

In shameful bonds the linked adamant locks.

For now new steersmen take the helm

Olympian; now with little thought

Of right, on strange, new laws Zeus stablisheth his realm,

Bringing the mighty ones of old to naught.

Prometheus

Oh that he had conveyed me

‘Neath earth, ‘neath hell that swalloweth up the dead;

In Tartarus, illimitably vast

With adamantine fetters bound me fast —

There his fierce anger on me visited,

Where never mocking laughter could upbraid me

Of God or aught beside!

But now a wretch enskied,

A far-seen vane,

All they that hate me triumph in my pain.

Chorus

Who of the Gods is there so pitiless

That he can triumph in thy sore distress?

Who doth not inly groan

With every pang of thine save Zeus alone?

But he is ever wroth, not to be bent

From his resolved intent

The sons of heaven to subjugate;

Nor shall he cease until his heart be satiate,

Or one a way devise

To hurl him from the throne where he doth monarchize.

Prometheus

Yea, of a surety — though he do me wrong,

Loading my limbs with fetters strong —

The president

Of heaven’s high parliament

Shall need me yet to show

What new conspiracy with privy blow

Attempts his sceptre and his kingly seat.

Neither shall words with all persuasion sweet,

Not though his tongue drop honey, cheat

Nor charm my knowledge from me; nor dures

Of menace dire, fear of more grievous pains,

Unseal my lips, till he have loosed these chains,

And granted for these injuries redress.

Chorus

High is the heart of thee,

Thy will no whit by bitter woes unstrung,

And all too free

The licence of thy bold, unshackled tongue.

But fear hath roused my soul with piercing cry!

And for thy fate my heart misgives me! I

Tremble to know when through the breakers’ roar

Thy keel shall touch again the friendly shore;

For not by prayer to Zeus is access won;

An unpersuadable heart hath Cronos’ son.

Prometheus

I know the heart of Zeus is hard, that he hath tied

Justice to his side;

But he shall be full gentle thus assuaged;

And, the implacable wrath wherewith he raged

Smoothed quite away, nor he nor I

Be loth to seal a bond of peace and amity.

Chorus

All that thou hast to tell I pray unfold,

That we may hear at large upon what count

Zeus took thee and with bitter wrong affronts:

Instruct us, if the telling hurt thee not.

Prometheus

These things are sorrowful for me to speak,

Yet silence too is sorrow: all ways woe!

When first the Blessed Ones were filled with wrath

And there arose division in their midst,

These instant to hurl Cronos from his throne

That Zeus might be their king, and these, adverse,

Contending that he ne’er should rule the Gods,

Then I, wise counsel urging to persuade

The Titans, sons of Ouranos and Chthon,

Prevailed not: but, all indirect essays

Despising, they by the strong hand, effortless,

Yet by main force — supposed that they might seize

Supremacy. But me my mother Themis

And Gaia, one form called by many names,

Not once alone with voice oracular

Had prophesied how power should be disposed —

That not by strength neither by violence

The mighty should be mastered, but by guile.

Which things by me set forth at large, they scorned,

Nor graced my motion with the least regard.

Then, of all ways that offered, I judged best,

Taking my mother with me, to support,

No backward friend, the not less cordial Zeus.

And by my politic counsel Tartarus,

The bottomless and black, old Cronos hides

With his confederates. So helped by me,

The tyrant of the Gods, such service rendered

With ignominious chastisement requites.

But ‘tis a common malady of power

Tyrannical never to trust a friend.

And now, what ye inquired, for what arraigned

He shamefully entreats me, ye shall know.

When first upon his high, paternal throne

He took his seat, forthwith to divers Gods

Divers good gifts he gave, and parcelled out

His empire, but of miserable men

Recked not at all; rather it was his wish

To wipe out man and rear another race:

And these designs none contravened but me.

I risked the bord attempt, and saved mankind

From stark destruction and the road to hell.

Therefore with this sore penance am I bowed,

Grievous to suffer, pitiful to see.

But, for compassion shown to man, such fate

I no wise earned; rather in wrath’s despite

Am I to be reformed, and made a show

Of infamy to Zeus.

Chorus

He hath a heart

Of iron, hewn out of unfeeling rock

Is he, Prometheus, whom thy sufferings

Rouse not to wrath. Would I had ne’er beheld them,

For verily the sight hath wrung my heart.

Prometheus

Yea, to my friends a woeful sight am I.

Chorus

Hast not more boldly in aught else transgressed?

Prometheus

I took from man expectancy of death.

Chorus

What medicine found’st thou for this malady?

Prometheus

I planted blind hope in the heart of him.

Chorus

A mighty boon thou gavest there to man.

Prometheus

Moreover, I conferred the gift of fire.

Chorus

And have frail mortals now the flame-bright fire?

Prometheus

Yea, and shall master many arts thereby.

Chorus

And Zeus with such misfeasance charging thee —

Prometheus

Torments me with extremity of woe.

Chorus

And is no end in prospect of thy pains?

Prometheus

None; save when he shall choose to make an end.

Chorus

How should he choose? What hope is thine? Dost thou

Not see that thou hast erred? But how thou erredst

Small pleasure were to me to tell; to the

Exceeding sorrow. Let it go then: rather

Seek thou for some deliverance from thy woes.

Prometheus

He who stands free with an untrammelled foot

Is quick to counsel and exhort a friend

In trouble. But all these things I know well.

Of my free will, my own free will, I erred,

And freely do I here acknowledge it.

Freeing mankind myself have durance found.

Natheless, I looked not for sentence so dread,

High on this precipice to droop and pine,

Having no neighbour but the desolate crags.

And now lament no more the ills I suffer,

But come to earth and an attentive ear

Lend to the things that shall befall hereafter.

Harken, oh harken, suffer as I suffer!

Who knows, who knows, but on some scatheless head,

Another’s yet for the like woes reserved,

The wandering doom will presently alight?

Chorus

Prometheus, we have heard thy call:

Not on deaf cars these awful accents fall.

Lo! lightly leaving at thy words

My flying car

And holy air, the pathway of great birds,

I long to tread this land of peak and scar,

And certify myself by tidings sure

Of all thou hast endured and must endure.

[While the winged chariot of the Oceanides comes to ground their father Oceanus enters, riding on a monster.]

Oceanus

Now have I traversed the unending plain

And unto thee, Prometheus, am I come,

Guiding this winghd monster with no rein,

Nor any bit, but mind’s firm masterdom.

And know that for thy grief my heart is sore;

The bond of kind, methinks, constraineth me;

Nor is there any I would honour more,

Apart from kinship, than I reverence thee.

And thou shalt learn that I speak verity:

Mine is no smooth, false tongue; for do but show

How I can serve thee, grieved and outraged thus,

Thou ne’er shalt say thou hast, come weal, come woe,

A friend more faithful than Oceanus.

Prometheus

How now? Who greets me? What! Art thou too come

To gaze upon my woes? How could’st thou leave

The stream that bears thy name, thine antres arched

With native rock, to visit earth that breeds

The massy iron in her womb? Com’st thou

To be spectator of my evil lot

And fellow sympathizer with my woes?

Behold, a thing indeed to gaze upon

The friend of Zeus, co-stablisher of his rule,

See, by this sentence with what pains I am bowed!

Oceanus

Prometheus, all too plainly I behold:

And for the best would counsel thee: albeit

Thy brain is subtle. Learn to know thy heart,

And, as the times, so let thy manners change,

For by the law of change a new God rules.

But, if these bitter, savage, sharp-set words

Thou ventest, it may be, though he sit throned

Far off and high above thee, Zeus will hear;

And then thy present multitude of ills

Will seem the mild correction of a babe.

Rather, O thou much chastened one, refrain

Thine anger, and from suffering seek release.

Stale, peradventure, seem these words of mine:

Nevertheless, of a too haughty tongue

Such punishment, Prometheus, is the wage.

But thou, not yet brought low by suffering,

To what thou hast of ill would’st add far worse.

Therefore, while thou hast me for schoolmaster,

Thou shalt not kick against the pricks; the more

That an arch-despot who no audit dreads

Rules by his own rough will. And now I leave thee,

To strive with what success I may command

For thy deliv’rance. Keep a quiet mind

And use not over-vehemence of speech —

Knowest thou not, being exceeding wise,

A wanton, idle tongue brings chastisement?

Prometheus

I marvel that thou art not in my case,

Seeing with me thou did’st adventure all.

And now, I do entreat thee, spare thyself.

Thou wilt not move him: he’s not easy moved

Take heed lest thou find trouble by the way.

Oceanus

Thou are a better counsellor to others

Than to thyself: I judge by deeds not words.

Pluck me not back when I would fain set forth.

My oath upon it, Zeus will grant my prayer

And free thee from these pangs.

Prometheus

I tender the

For this my thanks and ever-during praise.

Certes, no backward friend art thou; and yet

Trouble not thyself; for at the best thy labour

Will nothing serve me, if thou mean’st to serve.

Being thyself untrammelled stand fast.

For, not to mitigate my own mischance,

Would I see others hap on evil days.

The thought be far from me. I feel the weight

Of Atlas’ woes, my brother in the west

Shouldering the pillar that props heaven and earth,

No wieldy fardel for his arms to fold.

The giant dweller in Cilician dens

I saw and pitied — a terrific shape,

A hundred-headed monster — when he fell,

Resistless Typhon who withstood the Gods,

With fearsome hiss of beak-mouth horrible,

While lightning from his eyes with Gorgon-glare

Flashed for the ravage of the realm of Zeus.

But on him came the bolt that never sleeps,

Down-crashing thunder, with emitted fire,

Which shattered him and all his towering hopes

Dashed into ruin; smitten through the breast,

His strength as smoking cinder, lightning-charred.

And now a heap, a helpless, sprawling hulk,

He lies stretched out beside the narrow seas,

Pounded and crushed deep under Etna’s roots.

But on the mountain-top Hephaestus sits

Forging the molten iron, whence shall burst

Rivers of fire, with red and ravening jaws

To waste fair-fruited, smooth, Sicilian fields.

Such bilious up-boiling of his ire

Shall Typho vent, with slingstone-showers red-hot,

And unapproachable surge of fiery spray,

Although combusted by the bolt of Zeus.

But thou art not unlearned, nor needest me

To be thy teacher: save thyself the way

Thou knowest and I will fortify my heart

Until the wrathfulness of Zeus abate.

Oceanus

Nay then, Prometheus, art thou ignorant

Words are physicians to a wrath-sick soul?

Prometheus

Yes, if with skill one soften the ripe core,

Not by rough measures make it obdurate.

Oceanus

Seest thou in warm affection detriment

Or aught untoward in adventuring?

Prometheus

A load of toil and a light mind withal.

Oceanus

Then give me leave to call that sickness mine.

Wise men accounted fools attain their ends.

Prometheus

But how if I am galled by thine offence?

Oceanus

There very palpably thou thrustest home.

Prometheus

Beware lest thou through pity come to broils.

Oceanus

With one established in Omnipotence?

Prometheus

Of him take heed lest thou find heaviness.

Oceanus

I am schooled by thy calamity, Prometheus!

Prometheus

Pack then! And, prithee, do not change thy mind!

Oceanus

Thou criest “On” to one in haste to go.

For look, my dragon with impatient wings

Flaps at the broad, smooth road of level air.

Fain would he kneel him down in his own stall.

[Exit Oceanus.]

Chorus [after alighting]

I mourn for thee, Prometheus,

minished and brought low,

Watering my virgin cheeks with these sad drops, that flow

From sorrow’s rainy fount, to fill soft-lidded eyes

With pure libations for thy fortune’s obsequies.

An evil portion that none coveteth hath Zeus

Prepared for thee; by self-made laws established for his use

Disposing all, the elder Gods he purposeth to show

How strong is that right arm wherewith he smites a foe.

There hath gone up a cry from earth, a groaning for the fall

Of things of old renown and shapes majestical,

And for thy passing an exceeding bitter groan;

For thee and for thy brother Gods whose honour was thine own:

These things all they who dwell in Asia’s holy seat,

Time’s minions, mourn and with their groans thy groans repeat.

Yea, and they mourn who dwell beside the Colchian shore,

The hero maids unwedded that delight in war,

And Scythia’s swarming myriads who their dwelling make

Around the borders of the world, the salt Maeotian lake.

Mourns Ares’ stock, that flowers in desert Araby,

And the strong city mourns, the hill-fort planted high,

Near neighbour to huge Caucasus, dread mountaineers

That love the clash of arms, the counter of sharp spears.

Beforetime of all Gods one have I seen in pain,

One only Titan bound with adamantine chain,

Atlas in strength supreme, who groaning stoops, downbent

Under the burthen of the earth and heaven’s broad firmament.

Bellows the main of waters, surge with foam-seethed surge

Clashing tumultuous; for thee the deep seas chant their dirge;

And Hell’s dark under-world a hollow moaning fills;

Thee mourn the sacred streams with all their fountain-rills.

Prometheus

Think not that I for pride and stubbornness

Am silent: rather is my heart the prey

Of gnawing thoughts, both for the past, and now

Seeing myself by vengeance buffeted.

For to these younger Gods their precedence

Who severally determined if not I?

No more of that: I should but weary you

With things ye know; but listen to the tale

Of human sufferings, and how at first

Senseless as beasts I gave men sense, possessed them

Of mind. I speak not in contempt of man;

I do but tell of good gifts I conferred.

In the beginning, seeing they saw amiss,

And hearing heard not, but, like phantoms huddled

In dreams, the perplexed story of their days

Confounded; knowing neither timber-work

Nor brick-built dwellings basking in the light,

But dug for themselves holes, wherein like ants,

That hardly may contend against a breath,

They dwelt in burrows of their unsunned caves.

Neither of winter’s cold had they fixed sign,

Nor of the spring when she comes decked with flowers,

Nor yet of summer’s heat with melting fruits

Sure token: but utterly without knowledge

Moiled, until I the rising of the stars

Showed them, and when they set, though much obscure.

Moreover, number, the most excellent

Of all inventions, I for them devised,

And gave them writing that retaineth all,

The serviceable mother of the Muse.

I was the first that yoked unmanaged beasts,

To serve as slaves with collar and with pack,

And take upon themselves, to man’s relief,

The heaviest labour of his hands: and

Tamed to the rein and drove in wheeled cars

The horse, of sumptuous pride the ornament.

And those sea-wanderers with the wings of cloth,

The shipman’s waggons, none but I contrived.

These manifold inventions for mankind

I perfected, who, out upon’t, have none —

No, not one shift — to rid me of this shame.

Chorus

Thy sufferings have been shameful, and thy mind

Strays at a loss: like to a bad physician

Fallen sick, thou’rt out of heart: nor cans’t prescribe

For thine own case the draught to make thee sound.

Prometheus

But hear the sequel and the more admire

What arts, what aids I cleverly evolved.

The chiefest that, if any man fell sick,

There was no help for him, comestible,

Lotion or potion; but for lack of drugs

They dwindled quite away; until I taught them

To compound draughts and mixtures sanative,

Wherewith they now are armed against disease.

I staked the winding path of divination

And was the first distinguisher of dreams,

The true from false; and voices ominous

Of meaning dark interpreted; and tokens

Seen when men take the road; and augury

By flight of all the greater crook-clawed birds

With nice discrimination I defined;

These by their nature fair and favourable,

Those, flattered with fair name. And of each sort

The habits I described; their mutual feuds

And friendships and the assemblages they hold.

And of the plumpness of the inward parts

What colour is acceptable to the Gods,

The well-streaked liver-lobe and gall-bladder.

Also by roasting limbs well wrapped in fat

And the long chine, I led men on the road

Of dark and riddling knowledge; and I purged

The glancing eye of fire, dim before,

And made its meaning plain. These are my works.

Then, things beneath the earth, aids hid from man,

Brass, iron, silver, gold, who dares to say

He was before me in discovering?

None, I wot well, unless he loves to babble.

And in a single word to sum the whole —

All manner of arts men from Prometheus learned.

Chorus

Shoot not beyond the mark in succouring man

While thou thyself art comfortless: for

Am of good hope that from these bonds escaped

Thou shalt one day be mightier than Zeus.

Prometheus

Fate, that brinks all things to an end, not thus

Apportioneth my lot: ten thousand pangs

Must bow, ten thousand miseries afflict me

Ere from these bonds I freedom find, for Art

Is by much weaker than Necessity.

Chorus

Who is the pilot of Necessity?

Prometheus

The Fates triform, and the unforgetting Furies.

Chorus

So then Zeus is of lesser might than these?

Prometheus

Surely he shall not shun the lot apportioned.

Chorus

What lot for Zeus save world-without-end reign?

Prometheus

Tax me no further with importunate questions.

Chorus

O deep the mystery thou shroudest there

Prometheus

Of aught but this freely thou may’st discourse;

But touching this I charge thee speak no word;

Nay, veil it utterly: for strictly kept

The secret from these bonds shall set me free.

Chorus

May Zeus who all things swayeth

Ne’er wreak the might none stayeth

On wayward will of mine;

May I stint not nor waver

With offerings of sweet savour

And feasts of slaughtered kine;

The holy to the holy,

With frequent feet and lowly

At altar, fane and shrine,

Over the Ocean marches,

The deep that no drought parches,

Draw near to the divine.

My tongue the Gods estrange not;

My firm set purpose change not,

As wax melts in fire-shine.

Sweet is the life that lengthens,

While joyous hope still strengthens,

And glad, bright thoughts sustain;

But shuddering I behold thee,

The sorrows that enfold thee

And all thine endless pain.

For Zeus thou hast despised;

Thy fearless heart misprized

All that his vengeance can,

Thy wayward will obeying,

Excess of honour paying,

Prometheus, unto man.

And, oh, beloved, for this graceless grace

What thanks? What prowess for thy bold essay

Shall champion thee from men of mortal race,

The petty insects of a passing day?

Saw’st not how puny is the strength they spend?

With few, faint steps walking as dreams and blind,

Nor can the utmost of their lore transcend

The harmony of the Eternal Mind.

These things I learned seeing thy glory dimmed,

Prometheus. Ah, not thus on me was shed

The rapture of sweet music, when I hymned

The marriage-song round bath and bridal bed

At thine espousals, and of thy blood-kin,

A bride thou chosest, wooing her to thee

With all good gifts that may a Goddess win,

Thy father’s child, divine Hesione.

[Enter Io, crazed and horned.]

Io

What land is this? What people here abide?

And who is he,

The prisoner of this windswept mountain-side?

Speak, speak to me;

Tell me, poor caitiff, how did’st thou transgress,

Thus buffeted?

Whither am I, half-dead with weariness,

For-wandered?

Ha! Ha!

Again the prick, the stab of gadfly-sting!

O earth, earth, hide,

The hollow shape — Argus — that evil thing —

The hundred-eyed —

Earth-born-herdsman! I see him yet; he stalks

With stealthy pace

And crafty watch not all my poor wit baulks!

From the deep place

Of earth that hath his bones he breaketh bound,

And from the pale

Of Death, the Underworld, a hell-sent hound

On the blood-trail,

Fasting and faint he drives me on before,

With spectral hand,

Along the windings of the wasteful shore,

The salt sea-sand!

List! List! the pipe! how drowzily it shrills!

A cricket-cry!

See! See! the wax-webbed reeds! Oh, to these ills

Ye Gods on high,

Ye blessed Gods, what bourne? O wandering feet

When will ye rest?

O Cronian child, wherein by aught unmeet

Have I transgressed

To be yoke-fellow with Calamity?

My mind unstrung,

A crack-brained lack-wit, frantic mad am I,

By gad-fly stung,

Thy scourge, that tarres me on with buzzing wingl

Plunge me in fire,

Hide me in earth, to deep-sea monsters fling,

But my desire —

Kneeling I pray — grudge not to grant, O King!

Too long a race

Stripped for the course have I run to and fro;

And still I chase

The vanishing goal, the end of all my woe;

Enough have I mourned!

Hear’st thou the lowing of the maid cow-horned?

Prometheus

How should I hear thee not? Thou art the child

Of Inachus, dazed with the dizzying fly.

The heart of Zeus thou hast made hot with love

And Hera’s curse even as a runner stripped

Pursues thee ever on thine endless round.

Io

How dost thou know my father’s name? Impart

To one like thee

A poor, distressful creature, who thou art.

Sorrow with me,

Sorrowful one! Tell me, whose voice proclaims

Things true and sad,

Naming by all their old, unhappy names,

What drove me mad —

Sick! Sick! ye Gods, with suffering ye have sent,

That clings and clings;

Wasting my lamp of life till it be spent!

Crazed with your stings!

Famished I come with trampling and with leaping,

Torment and shame,

To Hera’s cruel wrath, her craft unsleeping,

Captive and tame

Of all wights woe-begone and fortune-crossed,

Oh, in the storm

Of the world’s sorrow is there one so lost?

Speak, godlike form,

And be in this dark world my oracle!

Can’st thou not sift

The things to come? Hast thou no art to tell

What subtle shift,

Or sound of charming song shall make me well?

Hide naught of ill

But — if indeed thou knowest — prophesy —

In words that thrill

Clear-toned through air — what such a wretch as

Must yet abide —

The lost, lost maid that roams earth’s kingdoms wide?

Prometheus

What thou wouldst learn I will make clear to thee,

Not weaving subtleties, but simple sooth

Unfolding as the mouth should speak to friends.

I am Prometheus, giver of fire to mortals.

Io

Oh universal succour of mankind,

Sorrowful Prometheus, why art thou punished thus?

Prometheus

I have but now ceased mourning for my griefs.

Io

Wilt thou not grant me then so small a boon?

Prometheus

What is it thou dost ask? Thou shalt know all.

Io

Declare to me who chained thee in this gorge.

Prometheus

The hest of Zeus, but ‘twas Hephaestus’ hand.

Io

But what transgression dost thou expiate?

Prometheus

Let this suffice thee: thou shalt know no more.

Io

Nay, but the end of my long wandering

When shall it be? This too thou must declare.

Prometheus

That it is better for thee not to know.

Io

Oh hide not from me what I have to suffer!

Prometheus

Poor child! Poor child! I do not grudge the gift.

Io

Why then, art thou so slow to tell me all?

Prometheus

It is not from unkindness; but I fear

‘Twill break thy heart.

Io

Take thou no thought for me

Where thinking thwarteth heart’s desire!

Prometheus

So keen

To know thy sorrows! List I and thou shalt learn.

Chorus

Not till thou hast indulged a wish of mine.

First let us hear the story of her grief

And she herself shall tell the woeful tale.

After, thy wisdom shall impart to her

The conflict yet to come.

Prometheus

So be it, then.

And, Io, thus much courtesy thou owest

These maidens being thine own father’s kin.

For with a moving story of our woes

To win a tear from weeping auditors

In nought demeans the teller.

Io

I know not

How fitly to refuse; and at your wish

All ye desire to know I will in plain,

Round terms set forth. And yet the telling of it

Harrows my soul; this winter’s tale of wrong,

Of angry Gods and brute deformity,

And how and why on me these horrors swooped.

Always there were dreams visiting by night

The woman’s chambers where I slept; and they

With flattering words admonished and cajoled me,

Saying, “O lucky one, so long a maid?

And what a match for thee if thou would’st wed

Why, pretty, here is Zeus as hot as hot —

Love-sick — to have thee! Such a bolt as thou

Hast shot clean through his heart And he won’t rest

Till Cypris help him win thee! Lift not then,

My daughter, a proud foot to spurn the bed

Of Zeus: but get thee gone to meadow deep

By Lerna’s marsh, where are thy father’s flocks

And cattle-folds, that on the eye of Zeus

May fall the balm that shall assuage desire.”

Such dreams oppressed me, troubling all my nights,

Woe’s me! till I plucked courage up to tell

My father of these fears that walked in darkness.

And many times to Pytho and Dodona

He sent his sacred missioners, to inquire

How, or by deed or word, he might conform

To the high will and pleasure of the Gods.

And they returned with slippery oracles,

Nought plain, but all to baffle and perplex —

And then at last to Inachus there raught

A saying that flashed clear; the drift, that

Must be put out from home and country, forced

To be a wanderer at the ends of the earth,

A thing devote and dedicate; and if

I would not, there should fall a thunderbolt

From Zeus, with blinding flash, and utterly

Destroy my race. So spake the oracle

Of Loxias. In sorrow he obeyed,

And from beneath his roof drove forth his child

Grieving as he grieved, and from house and home

Bolted and barred me out. But the high hand

Of Zeus bear hardly on the rein of fate.

And, instantly — even in a moment — mind

And body suffered strange distortion. Horned

Even as ye see me now, and with sharp bite

Of gadfly pricked, with high-flung skip, stark-mad,

I bounded, galloping headlong on, until

I came to the sweet and of the stream

Kerchneian, hard by Lerna’s spring. And thither

Argus, the giant herdsman, fierce and fell

As a strong wine unmixed, with hateful cast

Of all his cunning eyes upon the trail,

Gave chase and tracked me down. And there he perished

By violent and sudden doom surprised.

But I with darting sting — the scorpion whip

Of angry Gods — am lashed from land to land.

Thou hast my story, and, if thou can’st tell

What I have still to suffer, speak; but do not,

Moved by compassion, with a lying tale

Warm my cold heart; no sickness of the soul

Is half so shameful as composed falsehoods.

Chorus

Off! lost one! off! Horror, I cry!

Horror and misery

Was this the traveller’s tale I craved to hear?

Oh, that mine eyes should see

A sight so ill to look upon! Ah me!

Sorrow, defilement, haunting fear,

Fan my blood cold,

Stabbed with a two-edged sting!

O Fate, Fate, Fate, tremblingly I behold

The plight of Io, thine apportioning!

Prometheus

Thou dost lament too soon, and art as one

All fear. Refrain thyself till thou hast heard

What’s yet to be.

Chorus

Speak and be our instructor:

There is a kind of balm to the sick soul

In certain knowledge of the grief to come.

Prometheus

Your former wish I lightly granted ye:

And ye have heard, even as ye desired,

From this maid’s lips the story of her sorrow.

Now hear the sequel, the ensuing woes

The damsel must endure from Hera’s hate.

And thou, O seed of Inachaean loins,

Weigh well my words, that thou may’st understand

Thy journey’s end. First towards the rising sun

Turn hence, and traverse fields that ne’er felt plough

Until thou reach the country of the Scyths,

A race of wanderers handling the long-bow

That shoots afar, and having their habitations

Under the open sky in wattled cotes

That move on wheels. Go not thou nigh to them,

But ever within sound of the breaking waver,

Pass through their land. And on the left of the

The Chalybes, workers in iron, dwell.

Beware of them, for they are savages,

Who suffer not a stranger to come near.

And thou shalt reach the river Hybristes,

Well named. Cross not, for it is ill to cross,

Until thou come even unto Caucasus,

Highest of mountains, where the foaming river

Blows all its volume from the summit ridge

That o’ertops all. And that star-neighboured ridge

Thy feet must climb; and, following the road

That runneth south, thou presently shall reach

The Amazonian hosts that loathe the male,

And shall one day remove from thence and found

Themiscyra hard by Thermodon’s stream,

Where on the craggy Salmadessian coast

Waves gnash their teeth, the maw of mariners

And step-mother of ships. And they shall lead the

Upon thy way, and with a right good will.

Then shalt thou come to the Cimmerian Isthmus,

Even at the pass and portals of the sea,

And leaving it behind thee, stout of heart,

Cross o’er the channel of Maeotis’ lake.

For ever famous among men shall be

The story of thy crossing, and the strait

Be called by a new name, the Bosporus,

In memory of thee. Then having left

Europa’s soil behind thee thou shalt come

To the main land of Asia. What think ye?

Is not the only ruler of the Gods

A complete tyrant, violent to all,

Respecting none? First, being himself a God,

He burneth to enjoy a mortal maid,

And then torments her with these wanderings.

A sorry suitor for thy love, poor girl,

A bitter wooing. Yet having heard so much

Thou art not even in the overture

And prelude of the song.

Io

Alas! Oh! Oh!

Prometheus

Thou dost cryout, fetching again deep groans:

What wilt thou do when thou hast heard in full

The evils yet to come?

Chorus

And wilt thou tell

The maiden something further: some fresh sorrow?

Prometheus

A stormy sea of wrong and ruining.

Io

What does it profit me to live! Oh, why

Do I not throw myself from this rough crag

And in one leap rid me of all my pain?

Better to die at once than live, and all

My days be evil.

Prometheus

Thou would’st find it hard

To bear what I must bear: for unto me

It is not given to die — a dear release

From pain; but now of suffering there is

No end in sight till Zeus shall fall.

Io

And shall

Zeus fall? His power be taken from him?

No matter when if true —

Prometheus

‘Twould make thee happy

Methinks, if thou could’st see calamity

Whelm him.

Io

How should it not when all my woes

Are of his sending?

Prometheus

Well, then, thou may’st learn how

These things shall be.

Io

Oh, who will snatch away

The tyrant’s rod?

Prometheus

Himself by his own vain

And fond imaginings.

Io

But how? Oh, speak,

If the declaring draw no evil down!

Prometheus

A marriage he shall make shall vex him sore.

Io

A marriage? Whether of gods or mortals?

Speak!

If this be utterable!

Prometheus

Why dost thou ask

What I may not declare?

Io

And shall he quit

The throne of all the worlds, by a new spouse

Supplanted?

Prometheus

She will bear to him a child,

And he shall be in might more excellent

Than his progenitor.

Io

And he will find

No way to parry this strong stroke of fate?

Prometheus

None save my own self — when these bonds are loosed.

Io

And who shall loose them if Zeus wills not?

Prometheus

Of thine own seed.

Io

How say’st thou? Shall a child

Of mine release thee?

Prometheus

Son of thine, but son

The thirteenth generation shall beget.

Io

A prophecy oracularly dark.

Prometheus

Then seek not thou to know thine own fate.

Io

Nay,

Tender me not a boon to snatch it from me.

Prometheus

Of two gifts thou hast asked one shall be thine.

Io

What gifts? Pronounce and leave to me the choice.

Prometheus

Nay, thou are free to choose.

Say, therefore, whether

I shall declare to thee thy future woes

Or him who shall be my deliverer.

Chorus

Nay, but let both be granted! Unto her

That which she chooseth, unto me my choice,

That I, too, may have honour from thy lips.

First unto her declare her wanderings,

And unto me him who shall set thee free;

‘Tis that I long to know.

Prometheus

I will resist

No further, but to your importunacy

All things which ye desire to learn reveal.

And, Io, first to thee I will declare

Thy far-driven wanderings; write thou my words

In the retentive tablets of thy heart.

When thou hast crossed the flood that flows between

And is the boundary of two continents,

Turn to the sun’s uprising, where he treads

Printing with fiery steps the eastern sky,

And from the roaring of the Pontic surge

Do thou pass on, until before thee lies

The Gorgonean plain, Kisthene called,

Where dwell the gray-haired three, the Phorcides,

Old, mumbling maids, swan-shaped, having one eye

Betwixt the three, and but a single tooth.

On them the sun with his brightbeams ne’er glanceth

Nor moon that lamps the night. Not far from them

The sisters three, the Gorgons, have their haunt;

Winged forms, with snaky locks, hateful to man,

Whom nothing mortal looking on can live.

Thus much that thou may’st have a care of these.

Now of another portent thou shalt hear.

Beware the dogs of Zeus that ne’er give tongue,

The sharp-beaked gryphons, and the one-eyed horde

Of Arimaspians, riding upon horses,

Who dwell around the river rolling gold,

The ferry and the frith of Pluto’s port.

Go not thou nigh them. After thou shalt come

To a far land, a dark-skinned race, that dwell

Beside the fountains of the sun, whence flows

The river Ethiops: follow its banks

Until thou comest to the steep-down slope

Where from the Bibline mountains Nilus old

Pours the sweet waters of his holy stream.

And thou, the river guiding thee, shalt come

To the three-sided, wedge-shaped land of Nile,

Where for thyself, Io, and for thy children

Long sojourn is appointed. If in aught

My story seems to stammer and to er

From indirectness, ask and ask again

Till all be manifest. I do not lack

For leisure, having more than well contents me

Chorus

If there be aught that she must suffer yet,

Or aught omitted in the narrative

Of her long wanderings, I pray thee speak.

But if thou hast told all, then grant the boon

We asked and doubtless thou wilt call to mind.

Prometheus

Nay, she has heard the last of her long journey.

But, as some warrant for her patient hearing

I will relate her former sufferings

Ere she came hither. Much I will omit

That had detained us else with long discourse

And touch at once her journey’s thus far goal.

When thou wast come to the Molossian plain

That lies about the high top of Dodona,

Where is an oracle and shrine of Zeus

Thesprotian, and — portent past belief —

The talking oaks, the same from whom the word

Flashed clear and nothing questionably hailed the

The destined spouse — ah! do I touch old wounds? —

Of Zeus, honoured above thy sex; stung thence

In torment, where the road runs by the sea,

Thou cam’st to the broad gulf of Rhea, whence

Beat back by a strong wind, thou didst retrace

Most painfully thy course; and it shall be

That times to come in memory of thy passage

Shall call that inlet the Ionian Sea.

Thus much for thee in witness that my mind

Beholdeth more than that which leaps to light.

Now for the things to come; what I shall say

Concerns ye both alike. Return we then

And follow our old track. There is a city

Yclept Canobus, built at the land’s end,

Even at the mouth and mounded silt of Nile,

And there shall Zeus restore to thee thy mind

With touch benign and laying on of hands.

And from that touch thou shalt conceive and bear

Swarth Epaphus, touch-born; and he shall reap

As much of earth as Nilus watereth

With his broad-flowing river. In descent

The fifth from him there shall come back to Argos,

Thine ancient home, but driven by hard hap,

Two score and ten maids, daughters of one house,

Fleeing pollution of unlawful marriage

With their next kin, who winged with wild desire,

As hawks that follow hard on cushat-doves,

Shall harry prey which they should not pursue

And hunt forbidden brides. But God shall be

Exceeding jealous for their chastity;

And old Pelasgia, for the mortal thrust

Of woman’s hands and midnight murder done

Upon their new-wed lords, shall shelter them;

For every wife shall strike her husband down

Dipping a two-edged broadsword in his blood.

Oh, that mine enemies might wed such wivesl

But of the fifty, one alone desire

Shall tame, as with the stroke of charming-wand,

So that she shall not lift her hands to slay

The partner of her bed; yea, melting love

Shall blunt her sharp-set will, and she shall choose

Rather to be called weak and womanly

Than the dark stain of blood; and she shall be

Mother of kings in Argos. ‘Tis a tale

Were’t told in full, would occupy us long.

For, of her sowing, there shall spring to fame

The lion’s whelp, the archer bold, whose bow

Shall set me free. This is the oracle

Themis, my ancient Mother, Titan-born,

Disclosed to me; but how and in what wise

Were long to tell, nor would it profit thee.

Io

Again they come, again

The fury and the pain!

The gangrened wound! The ache of pulses dinned

With raging throes

It beats upon my brain — the burning wind

That madness blows!

It pricks — the barb, the hook not forged with heat,

The gadfly dart!

Against my ribs with thud of trampling feet

Hammers my heart!

And like a bowling wheel mine eyeballs spin,

And I am flung

By fierce winds from my course, nor can rein in

My frantic tongue

That raves I know not what! — a random tide

Of words — a froth

Of muddied waters buffeting the wide,

High-crested, hateful wave of ruin and God’s wrath!

[Exit raving.]

Chorus

I hold him wise who first in his own mind

This canon fixed and taught it to mankind:

True marriage is the union that mates

Equal with equal; not where wealth emasculates,

Or mighty lineage is magnified,

Should he who earns his bread look for a bride.

Therefore, grave mistresses of fate, I pray

That I may never live to see the day

When Zeus takes me for his bedfellow; or

Draw near in love to husband from on high.

For I am full of fear when I behold

Io, the maid no human love may fold,

And her virginity disconsolate,

Homeless and husbandless by Hera’s hate.

For me, when love is level, fear is far.

May none of all the Gods that greater are

Eve me with his unshunnable regard;

Fir in that warfare victory is hard,

And of that plenty cometh emptiness.

What should befall me then I dare not guess;

Nor whither I should flee that I might shun

The craft and subtlety of Cronos’ Son.

Prometheus

I tell thee that the self-willed pride of Zeus

Shall surely be abased; that even now

He plots a marriage that shall hurl him forth

Far out of sight of his imperial throne

And kingly dignity. Then, in that hour,

Shall be fulfilled, nor in one tittle fail,

The curse wherewith his father Cronos cursed him,

What time he fell from his majestic place

Established from of old. And such a stroke

None of the Gods save me could turn aside.

I know these things shall be and on what wise.

Therefore let him secure him in his seat,

And put his trust in airy noise, and swing

His bright, two-handed, blazing thunderbolt,

For these shall nothing stead him, nor avert

Fall insupportable and glory humbled.

A wrestler of such might he maketh ready

For his own ruin; yea, a wonder, strong

In strength unmatchable; and he shall find

Fire that shall set at naught the burning bolt

And blasts more dreadful that o’er-crow the thunder.

The pestilence that scourgeth the deep seas

And shaketh solid earth, the three-pronged mace,

Poseidon’s spear, a mightier shall scatter;

And when he stumbleth striking there his foot,

Fallen on evil days, the tyrant’s pride

Shall measure all the miserable length

That parts rule absolute from servitude.

Chorus

Methinks the wish is father to the thought

And whets thy railing tongue.

Prometheus

Not so: the wish And the accomplishment go hand in hand.

Chorus

Then must we look for one who shall supplant

And reign instead of Zeus?

Far, far more grievous shall bow down his neck.

Chorus

Hast thou no fear venting such blasphemy?

Prometheus

What should I fear who have no part nor lot

In doom of dying?

Chorus

But he might afflict the

With agony more dreadful, pain beyond

These pains.

Prometheus

Why let him if he will

All evils I foreknow.

Chorus

Ah, they are wise

Who do obeisance, prostrate in the dust,

To the implacable, eternal Will.

Prometheus

Go thou and worship; fold thy hands in prayer,

And be the dog that licks the foot of power!

Nothing care I for Zeus; yea, less than naught!

Let him do what he will, and sway the world

His little hour; he has not long to lord it

Among the Gods.

Oh here here runner comes

The upstart tyrant’s lacquey! He’ll bring news,

A message, never doubt it, from his master.

[Enter Hermes.]

Hermes

You, the sophistical rogue, the heart of gall,

The renegade of heaven, to short-lived men

Purveyor of prerogatives and tities,

Fire-thief! Dost hear me? I’ve a word for thee.

Thou’rt to declare — this is the Father’s pleasure

These marriage-feasts of thine, whereof thy tongue

Rattles a-pace, and by the which his greatness

Shall take a fall. And look you rede no riddles,

But tell the truth, in each particular

Exact. I am not to sweat for thee, Prometheus,

Upon a double journey. And thou seest

Zeus by thy dark defiance is not moved.

Prometheus

A very solemn piece of insolence

Spoken like an underling of the Gods! Ye are young!

Ye are young! New come to power And ye suppose

Your towered citadel Calamity

Can never enter! Ah, and have not

Seen from those pinnacles a two-fold fall

Of tyrants? And the third, who his brief “now”

Of lordship arrogates, I shall see yet

By lapse most swift’ most ignominious,

Sink to perdition. And dost thou suppose

I crouch and cower in reverence and awe

To Gods of yesterday? I fail of that

So much, the total all of space and time

Bulks in between. Take thyself hence and count

Thy toiling steps back by the way thou camest,

In nothing wiser for thy questionings.

Hermes

This is that former stubbornness of thine

That brought thee hither to foul anchorage.

Prometheus

Mistake me not; I would not, if I might,

Change my misfortunes for thy vassalage.

Hermes

Oh! better be the vassal of this rock

Than born the trusty messenger of Zeus

Prometheus

I answer insolence, as it deserves,

With insolence. How else should it be answered?

Hermes

Surely; and, being in trouble, it is plain

You revel in your plight.

Prometheus

Revel, forsooth!

I would my enemies might hold such revels

And thou amongst the first.

Hermes

Dost thou blame me

For thy misfortunes?

Prometheus

I hate all the Gods,

Because, having received good at my hands,

They have rewarded me with evil.

Proves thee stark mad!

Hermes

This proves thee stark mad!

Prometheus

Mad as you please, if hating

Your enemies is madness

Hermes

Were all well

With thee, thou’dst be insufferable!

Prometheus

Alas!

Hermes

Alas, that Zeus knows not that word, Alas!

Prometheus

But ageing Time teacheth all knowledge.

Hermes

Time

Hath not yet taught thy rash, imperious will

Over wild impulse to win mastery.

Prometheus

Nay: had Time taught me that, I had not stooped

To bandy words with such a slave as thou.

Hermes

This, then, is all thine answer: thou’lt not

One syllable of what our Father asks.

Prometheus

Oh, that I were a debtor to his kindness!

I would requite him to the uttermost!

Hermes

A cutting speech! You take me for a boy

Whom you may taunt and tease.

Prometheus

Why art thou not

A boy — a very booby — to suppose

Thou wilt get aught from me? There is no wrong

However shameful, nor no shift of malice

Whereby Zeus shall persuade me to unlock

My lips until these shackles be cast loose.

Therefore let lightning leap with smoke and flame,

And all that is be beat and tossed together,

With whirl of feathery snowflakes and loud crack

Of subterranean thunder; none of these

Shall bend my will or force me to disclose

By whom ‘tis fated he shall fall from power.

Hermes

What good can come of this? Think yet again!

Prometheus

I long ago have thought and long ago

Determined.

Hermes

Patience! patience! thou rash fool

Have so much patience as to school thy mind

To a right judgment in thy present troubles.

Prometheus

Lo, I am rockfast, and thy words are wave

That weary me in vain. Let not the thought

Enter thy mind, that I in awe of Zeus

Shall change my nature for a girl’s, or beg

The Loathed beyond all loathing — with my hands

Spread out in woman’s fashion — to cast loose

These bonds; from that I am utterly removed.

Hermes

I have talked much, yet further not my purpose;

For thou art in no whit melted or moved

By my prolonged entreaties: like a colt

New to the harness thou dost back and Plunge.

Snap at thy bit and fight against the rein.

And yet thy confidence is in a straw;

For stubbornness, if one be in the wrong,

Is in itself weaker than naught at all.

See now, if thou wilt not obey my words,

What storm, what triple-crested wave of woe

Unshunnable shall come upon thee. First,

This rocky chasm shall the Father split

With earthquake thunder and his burning bolt,

And he shall hide thy form, and thou shalt hang

Bolt upright, dandled in the rock’s rude arms.

Nor till thou hast completed thy long term

Shalt thou come back into the light; and then

The hound of Zeus, the tawny eagle,

Shall violently fall upon thy flesh

And rend it as ‘twere rags; and every day

And all day long shall thine unbidden guest

Sit at thy table, feasting on thy liver

Till he hath gnawn it black. Look for no term

To such an agony till there stand forth

Among the Gods one who shall take upon him

Thy sufferings and consent to enter hell

Far from the light of Sun, yea, the deep pit

And mirk of Tartarus, for thee. Be advised;

This is not stuffed speech framed to frighten the

But woeful truth. For Zeus knows not to lie

Chorus

To our mind

The words of Hermes fail not of the mark.

For he enjoins thee to let self-will go

And follow after prudent counsels. Him

Harken; for error in the wise is shame.

Prometheus

These are stale tidings I foreknew;

Therefore, since suffering is the due

A foe must pay his foes,

Let curled lightnings clasp and clash

And close upon my limbs: loud crash

The thunder, and fierce throes

Of savage winds convulse calm air:

The embowelled blast earth’s roots uptear

And toss beyond its bars,

The rough surge, till the roaring deep

In one devouring deluge sweep

The pathway of the stars

Finally, let him fling my form

Down whirling gulfs, the central storm

Of being; let me lie

Plunged in the black Tartarean gloom;

Yet — yet — his sentence shall not doom

This deathless self to die!

Hermes

These are the workings of a brain

More than a little touched; the vein

Of voluble ecstasy!

Surely he wandereth from the way,

His reason lost, who thus can pray

A mouthing mad man he!

Therefore, O ye who court his fate,

Rash mourners — ere it be too late

And ye indeed are sad

For vengeance spurring hither fast —

Hence! lest the bellowing thunderblast

Like him should strike you mad!

Chorus

Words which might work persuasion speak

If thou must counsel me; nor seek

Thus, like a stream in spate,

To uproot mine honour. Dost thou dare

Urge me to baseness! I will bear

With him all blows of fate;

For false forsakers I despise;

At treachery my gorge doth rise:

I spew it forth with hate!

Hermes

Only — with ruin on your track —

Rail not at fortune; but look back

And these my words recall;

Neither blame Zeus that he hath sent

Sorrow no warning word forewent!

Ye labour for your fall

With your own hands I Not by surprise

Nor yet by stealth, but with clear eyes,

Knowing the thing ye do,

Ye walk into the yawning net

That for the feet of is set

And Ruin spreads for you. [Exit.]

Prometheus

The time is past for words; earth quakes

Sensibly: hark! pent thunder rakes

The depths, with bellowing din

Of echoes rolling ever nigher:

Lightnings shake out their locks of fire;

The dust cones dance and spin;

The skipping winds, as if possessed

By faction — north, south, east and west,

Puff at each other; sea

And sky are shook together: Lo

The swing and fury of the blow

Wherewith Zeus smiteth me

Sweepeth apace, and, visibly,

To strike my heart with fear. See, see,

Earth, awful Mother! Air,

That shedd’st from the revolving sky

On all the light they see thee by,

What bitter wrongs I bear!

[The scene closes with earthquake and thunder, in the midst of which Prometheus and the daughters of Oceanus sink into the abyss.]

Agamemnon (The Oresteia — 1)

Characters in the Play

Watchman

Chorus of Argive Elders

Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon

A Herald

Agamemnon, King of Argos

Cassandra, daughter of Priam, and slave of Agamemnon

Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, cousin of Agamemnon

Servants, Attendants, Soldiers

[Scene: Before the palace of Agamemnon in Argos. In front of the palace there are statues of the gods, and altars prepared for sacrifice. It is night. On the roof of the palace can be discerned a Watchman.]

Watchman

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.

[He withdraws. The Chorus of Argive Elders enters, each leaning on a staff. During their song Clytemnestra appears in the background, kindling the altars.]

Chorus [singing]

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 nightLost 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.

[strophe 1]

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!)

[antistrophe 1]

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!)

[epode]

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!)

[strophe 2]

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.

[antistrophe 2]

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.

[strophe 3]

‘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!

[antistrophe 3]

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;

[strophe 4]

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!

[antistrophe 4]

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!

[strophe 5]

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!

[antistrophe 5]

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,

[strophe 6]

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!

[antistrophe 6]

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.

[They turn to Clytemnestra, who leaves the altars and comes forward.]

Leader of the Chorus

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.

Clytemnestra

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!

Leader

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

Clytemnestra

Hear then again, and plainly — Troy is ours!

Leader

Thrills thro’ heart such joy as wakens tears.

Clytemnestra

Ay, thro’ those tears thine eye looks loyalty.

Leader

But hast thou proof, to make assurance sure?

Clytemnestra

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

Leader

Hath some night-vision won thee to belief?

Clytemnestra

Out on all presage of a slumb’rous soul!

Leader

But wert thou cheered by Rumour’s wingless word?

Clytemnestra

Peace — thou dost chide me as a credulous girl.

Leader

Say then, how long ago the city fell?

Clytemnestra

Even in this night that now brings forth the dawn.

Leader

Yet who so swift could speed the message here?

Clytemnestra

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.

Leader

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.

Clytemnestra

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.

Leader

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.

[Clytemnestra goes into the palace.]

Chorus [singing]

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.

[strophe 1]

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.

[antistrophe 1]

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 —

[strophe 2]

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!

[antistrophe 2]

And when the night is deep,

Come visions, sweet and sad, and bearing pain

Of hopings vain —

Void, void and vain, for scarce the sleeping sight

Has seen its old delight,

When thro’ the grasps of love that bid it stay

It vanishes away

On silent wings that roam adown the ways of sleep.

Such are the sights, the sorrows fell,

About our hearth — and worse, whereof I may not tell.

But, all the wide town o’er,

Each home that sent its master far away

From Hellas’ shore,

Feels the keen thrill of heart, the pang of loss, to-day.

For, truth to say,

The touch of bitter death is manifold!

Familiar was each face, and dear as life,

That went unto the war,

But thither, whence a warrior went of old,

Doth nought return —

Only a spear and sword, and ashes in an urn!

[strophe 3]

For Ares, lord of strife,

Who doth the swaying scales of battle hold,

War’s money-changer, giving dust for gold,

Sends back, to hearts that held them dear,

Scant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear,

Light to the band, but heavy to the soul;

Yea, fills the light urn full

With what survived the flame —

Death’s dusty measure of a hero’s frame!

Alas! one cries, and yet alas again!

Our chief is gone, the hero of the spear,

And hath not left his peer!

Ah woe! another moans — my spouse is slain,

The death of honour, rolled in dust and blood,

Slain for a woman’s sin, a false wife’s shame!

Such muttered words of bitter mood

Rise against those who went forth to reclaim;

Yea, jealous wrath creeps on against th’ Atreides’ name.

And others, far beneath the Ilian wall,

Sleep their last sleep — the goodly chiefs and tall,

Couched in the foeman’s land, whereon they gave

Their breath, and lords of Troy, each in his Trojan grave.

[antistrophe 3]

Therefore for each and all the city’s breast

Is heavy with a wrath supprest,

As deeply and deadly as a curse more loud

Flung by the common crowd:

And, brooding deeply, doth my soul await

Tidings of coming fate,

Buried as yet in darkness’ womb.

For not forgetful is the high gods’ doom

Against the sons of carnage: all too long

Seems the unjust to prosper and be strong,

Till the dark Furies come,

And smite with stern reversal all his home,

Down into dim obstruction — he is gone,

And help and hope, among the lost, is none!

O’er him who vaunteth an exceeding fame,

Impends a woe condign;

The vengeful bolt upon his eyes doth flame,

Sped from the hand divine.

This bliss be mine, ungrudged of God, to feel —

To tread no city to the dust,

Nor see my own life thrust

Down to a glave’s estate beneath another’s heel!

[epode]

Behold, throughout the city wide

Have the swift feet of Rumour hied,

Roused by the joyful flame:

But is the news they scatter, sooth?

Or haply do they give for truth

Some cheat which heaven doth frame?

A child were he and all unwise,

Who let his heart with joy be stirred

To see the beacon-fires arise,

And then, beneath some thwarting word,

Sicken anon with hope deferred.

The edge of woman’s insight still

Good news from true divideth ill;

Light rumours leap within the bound

Then fences female credence round,

But, lightly born, as lightly dies

The tale that springs of her surmise.

[Several days are assumed to have elapsed.]

Leader of the Chorus

Soon shall we know whereof the bale-fires tell,

The beacons, kindled with transmitted flame;

Whether, as well I deem, their tale is true,

Or whether like some dream delusive came

The welcome blaze but to befool our soul.

For lo! I see a herald from the shore

Draw hither, shadowed with the olive-wreath —

And thirsty dust, twin-brother of the clay,

Speaks plain of travel far and truthful news —

No dumb surmise, nor tongue of flame in smoke,

Fitfully kindled from the mountain pyre;

But plainlier shall his voice say, All is well,

Or — but away, forebodings adverse, now,

And on fair promise fair fulfilment come!

And whoso for the state prays otherwise,

Himself reap harvest of his ill desire!

[A Herald enters. He is an advance messenger from Agamemnon’s forces, which have just landed.]

Herald

O land of Argos, fatherland of mine!

To thee at last, beneath the tenth year’s sun,

My feet return; the bark of my emprise,

Tho’ one by one hope’s anchors broke away,

Held by the last, and now rides safely here.

Long, long my soul despaired to win, in death,

Its longed-for rest within our Argive land:

And now all hail, O earth, and hail to thee,

New-risen sun! and hail our country’s God,

High-ruling Zeus, and thou, the Pythian lord,

Whose arrows smote us once — smite thou no more!

Was not thy wrath wreaked full upon our heads,

O king Apollo, by Scamander’s side?

Turn thou, be turned, be saviour, healer, now

And hail, all gods who rule the street and mart

And Hermes hail! my patron and my pride,

Herald of heaven, and lord of heralds here!

And Heroes, ye who sped us on our way —

To one and all I cry, Receive again

With grace such Argives as the spear has spared.

Ah, home of royalty, beloved halls,

And solemn shrines, and gods that front the morn!

Benign as erst, with sun-flushed aspect greet

The king returning after many days.

For as from night flash out the beams of day,

So out of darkness dawns a light, a king,

On you, on Argos — Agamemnon comes.

Then hail and greet him well I such meed befits

Him whose right hand hewed down the towers of Troy

With the great axe of Zeus who righteth wrong —

And smote the plain, smote down to nothingness

Each altar, every shrine; and far and wide

Dies from the whole land’s face its offspring fair.

Such mighty yoke of fate he set on Troy —

Our lord and monarch, Atreus’ elder son,

And comes at last with blissful honour home;

Highest of all who walk on earth to-day —

Not Paris nor the city’s self that paid

Sin’s price with him, can boast, Whate’er befall,

The guerdon we have won outweighs it all.

But at Fate’s judgment-seat the robber stands

Condemned of rapine, and his prey is torn

Forth from his hands, and by his deed is reaped

A bloody harvest of his home and land

Gone down to death, and for his guilt and lust

His father’s race pays double in the dust.

Leader

Hail, herald of the Greeks, new-come from war.

Herald

All hail! not death itself can fright me now.

Leader

Was thine heart wrung with longing for thy land?

Herald

So that this joy doth brim mine eyes with tears.

Leader

On you too then this sweet distress did fall —

Herald

How say’st thou? make me master of thy word.

Leader

You longed for us who pined for you again.

Herald

Craved the land us who craved it, love for love?

Leader

Yea, till my brooding heart moaned out with pain.

Herald

Whence thy despair, that mars the army’s joy?

Leader

Sole cure of wrong is silence, saith the saw.

Herald

Thy kings afar, couldst thou fear other men?

Leader

Death had been sweet, as thou didst say but now.

Herald

‘Tis true; Fate smiles at last. Throughout our toil,

These many years, some chances issued fair,

And some, I wot, were chequered with a curse.

But who, on earth, hath won the bliss of heaven,

Thro’ time’s whole tenor an unbroken weal?

I could a tale unfold of toiling oars,

Ill rest, scant landings on a shore rock-strewn,

All pains, all sorrows, for our daily doom.

And worse and hatefuller our woes on land;

For where we couched, close by the foeman’s wall,

The river-plain was ever dank with dews,

Dropped from the sky, exuded from the earth,

A curse that clung unto our sodden garb,

And hair as horrent as a wild beast’s fell.

Why tell the woes of winter, when the birds

Lay stark and stiff, so stern was Ida’s snow?

Or summer’s scorch, what time the stirless wave

Sank to its sleep beneath the noon-day sun?

Why mourn old woes? their pain has passed away;

And passed away, from those who fell, all care,

For evermore, to rise and live again.

Why sum the count of death, and render thanks

For life by moaning over fate malign?

Farewell, a long farewell to all our woes!

To us, the remnant of the host of Greece,

Comes weal beyond all counterpoise of woe;

Thus boast we rightfully to yonder sun,

Like him far-fleeted over sea and land.

The Argive host prevailed to conquer Troy,

And in the temples of the gods of Greece

Hung up these spoils, a shining sign to Time.

Let those who learn this legend bless aright

The city and its chieftains, and repay

The meed of gratitude to Zeus who willed

And wrought the deed. So stands the tale fulfilled.

Leader

Thy words o’erbear my doubt: for news of good,

The ear of age hath ever youth enow:

But those within and Clytemnestra’s self

Would fain hear all; glad thou their ears and mine.

[Clytemnestra enters from the palace.]

Clytemnestra

That night, when first the fiery courier came,

In sign that Troy is ta’en and razed to earth,

So wild a cry of joy my lips gave out,

That I was chidden — Hath the beacon watch

Made sure unto thy soul the sack of Troy?

A very woman thou, whose heart leaps light

At wandering rumours! — and with words like these

They showed me how I strayed, misled of hope.

Yet on each shrine I set the sacrifice,

And, in the strain they held for feminine,

Went heralds thro’ the city, to and fro,

With voice of loud proclaim, announcing joy;

And in each fane they lit and quenched with wine

The spicy perfumes fading in the flame.

All is fulfilled: I spare your longer tale —

The king himself anon shall tell me all.

Remains to think what honour best may greet

My lord, the majesty of Argos, home.

What day beams fairer on a woman’s eyes

Than this, whereon she flings the portal wide,

To hail her lord, heaven-shielded, home from war?

This to my husband, that he tarry not,

But turn the city’s longing into joy!

Yea, let him come, and coming may he find

A wife no other than he left her, true

And faithful as a watch-dog to his home,

His foemen’s foe, in all her duties leal,

Trusty to keep for ten long years unmarred

The store whereon he set his master-seal.

Be steel deep-dyed, before ye look to see

Ill joy, ill fame, from other wight, in me!

Herald

‘Tis fairly said: thus speaks a noble dame,

Nor speaks amiss, when truth informs the boast.

[Clytemnestra withdraws again into the palace.]

Leader

So has she spoken — be it yours to learn

By clear interpreters her specious word.

Turn to me, herald — tell me if anon

The second well-loved lord of Argos comes?

Hath Menelaus safely sped with you?

Herald

Alas — brief boon unto my friends it were,

To flatter them, for truth, with falsehoods fair!

Leader

Speak joy, if truth be joy, but truth, at worst —

Too plainly, truth and joy are here divorced.

Herald

The hero and his bark were rapt away

Far from the Grecian fleet; ‘tis truth I say.

Leader

Whether in all men’s sight from Ilion borne,

Or from the fleet by stress of weather torn?

Herald

Full on the mark thy shaft of speech doth light,

And one short word hath told long woes aright.

Leader

But say, what now of him each comrade saith?

What their forebodings, of his life or death?

Herald

Ask me no more: the truth is known to none,

Save the earth-fostering, all-surveying Sun.

Leader

Say, by what doom the fleet of Greece was driven?

How rose, how sank the storm, the wrath of heaven?

Herald

Nay, ill it were to mar with sorrow’s tale

The day of blissful news. The gods demand

Thanksgiving sundered from solicitude.

If one as herald came with rueful face

To say, The curse has fallen, and the host

Gone down to death; and one wide wound has reached

The city’s heart, and out of many homes

Many are cast and consecrate to death,

Beneath the double scourge, that Ares loves,

The bloody pair, the fire and sword of doom —

If such sore burden weighed upon my tongue,

‘Twere fit to speak such words as gladden fiends.

But — coming as he comes who bringeth news

Of safe return from toil, and issues fair,

To men rejoicing in a weal restored —

Dare I to dash good words with ill, and say

For fire and sea, that erst held bitter feud,

Now swore conspiracy and pledged their faith,

Wasting the Argives worn with toil and war.

Night and great horror of the rising wave

Came o’er us, and the blasts that blow from Thrace

Clashed ship with ship, and some with plunging prow

Thro’ scudding drifts of spray and raving storm

Vanished, as strays by some ill shepherd driven.

And when at length the sun rose bright, we saw

Th’ Aegaean sea-field flecked with flowers of death,

Corpses of Grecian men and shattered hulls.

For us indeed, some god, as well I deem,

No human power, laid hand upon our helm,

Snatched us or prayed us from the powers of air,

And brought our bark thro’all, unharmed in hull:

And saving Fortune sat and steered us fair,

So that no surge should gulf us deep in brine,

Nor grind our keel upon a rocky shore.

So ‘scaped we death that lurks beneath the sea,

But, under day’s white light, mistrustful all

Of fortune’s smile, we sat and brooded deep,

Shepherds forlorn of thoughts that wandered wild

O’er this new woe; for smitten was our host,

And lost as ashes scattered from the pyre.

Of whom if any draw his life-breath yet

Be well assured, he deems of us as dead,

As we of him no other fate forebode.

But heaven save all! If Menelaus live,

He will not tarry, but will surely come:

Therefore if anywhere the high sun’s ray

Descries him upon earth, preserved by Zeus,

Who wills not yet to wipe his race away,

Hope still there is that homeward he may wend.

Enough — thou hast the truth unto the end.

[The Herald departs.]

Chorus [singing]

[strophe 1]

Say, from whose lips the presage fell?

Who read the future all too well,

And named her, in her natal hour,

Helen, the bride with war for dower

‘Twas one of the Invisible,

Guiding his tongue with prescient power.

On fleet, and host, and citadel,

War, sprung from her, and death did lour,

When from the bride-bed’s fine-spun veil

She to the Zephyr spread her sail.

Strong blew the breeze — the surge closed oer

The cloven track of keel and oar,

But while she fled, there drove along,

Fast in her wake, a mighty throng —

Athirst for blood, athirst for war,

Forward in fell pursuit they sprung,

Then leapt on Simois’ bank ashore,

The leafy coppices among —

No rangers, they, of wood and field,

But huntsmen of the sword and shield.

[antistrophe 1]

Heaven’s jealousy, that works its will,

Sped thus on Troy its destined ill,

Well named, at once, the Bride and Bane;

And loud rang out the bridal strain;

But they to whom that song befell

Did turn anon to tears again;

Zeus tarries, but avenges still

The husband’s wrong, the household’s stain!

He, the hearth’s lord, brooks not to see

Its outraged hospitality.

Even now, and in far other tone,

Troy chants her dirge of mighty moan,

Woe upon Paris, woe and hate!

Who wooed his country’s doom for mate —

This is the burthen of the groan,

Wherewith she wails disconsolate

The blood, so many of her own

Have poured in vain, to fend her fate;

Troy! thou hast fed and freed to roam

A lion-cub within thy home!

[strophe 2]

A suckling creature, newly ta’en

From mother’s teat, still fully fain

Of nursing care; and oft caressed,

Within the arms, upon the breast,

Even as an infant, has it lain;

Or fawns and licks, by hunger pressed,

The hand that will assuage its pain;

In life’s young dawn, a well-loved guest,

A fondling for the children’s play,

A joy unto the old and grey.

[antistrophe 2]

But waxing time and growth betrays

The blood-thirst of the lion-race,

And, for the house’s fostering care,

Unbidden all, it revels there,

And bloody recompense repays —

Rent flesh of kine, its talons tare:

A mighty beast, that slays, and slays,

And mars with blood the household fair,

A God-sent pest invincible,

A minister of fate and hell.

[strophe 3]

Even so to Ilion’s city came by stealth

A spirit as of windless seas and skies,

A gentle phantom-form of joy and wealth,

With love’s soft arrows speeding from its eyes —

Love’s rose, whose thorn doth pierce the soul in subtle wise.

Ah, well-a-day! the bitter bridal-bed,

When the fair mischief lay by Paris’ side!

What curse on palace and on people sped

With her, the Fury sent on Priam’s pride,

By angered Zeus! what tears of many a widowed bride!

[antistrophe 3]

Long, long ago to mortals this was told,

How sweet security and blissful state

Have curses for their children — so men hold —

And for the man of all-too prosperous fate

Springs from a bitter seed some woe insatiate.

Alone, alone, I deem far otherwise;

Not bliss nor wealth it is, but impious deed,

From which that after-growth of ill doth rise!

Woe springs from wrong, the plant is like the seed —

While Right, in honour’s house, doth its own likeness breed.

[strophe 4]

Some past impiety, some grey old crime,

Breeds the young curse, that wantons in our ill,

Early or late, when haps th’appointed time —

And out of light brings power of darkness still,

A master — fiend, a foe, unseen, invincible;

A pride accursed, that broods upon the race

And home in which dark Ate holds her sway —

Sin’s child and Woe’s, that wears its parents’ face;

[antistrophe 4]

While Right in smoky cribs shines clear as day,

And decks with weal his life, who walks the righteous way.

From gilded halls, that hands polluted raise,

Right turns away with proud averted eyes,

And of the wealth, men stamp amiss with praise,

Heedless, to poorer, holier temples hies,

And to Fate’s goal guides all, in its appointed wise.

[Agamemnon enters, riding in a chariot and accompanied by a great procession. Cassandra follows in another chariot. The Chorus sings its welcome.]

Hail to thee, chief of Atreus’ race,

Returning proud from Troy subdued!

How shall I greet thy conquering face?

How nor a fulsome praise obtrude,

Nor stint the meed of gratitude?

For mortal men who fall to ill

Take little heed of open truth,

But seek unto its semblance still:

The show of weeping and of ruth

To the forlorn will all men pay,

But, of the grief their eyes display,

Nought to the heart doth pierce its way.

And, with the joyous, they beguile

Their lips unto a feigned smile,

And force a joy, unfelt the while;

But he who as a shepherd wise

Doth know his flock, can ne’er misread

Truth in the falsehood of his eyes,

Who veils beneath a kindly guise

A lukewarm love in deed.

And thou, our leader — when of yore

Thou badest Greece go forth to war

For Helen’s sake — I dare avow

That then I held thee not as now;

That to my vision thou didst seem

Dyed in the hues of disesteem.

I held thee for a pilot ill,

And reckless, of thy proper will,

Endowing others doomed to die

With vain and forced audacity!

Now from my heart, ungrudgingly,

To those that wrought, this word be said —

Well fall the labour ye have sped —

Let time and search, O king, declare

What men within thy city’s bound

Were loyal to the kingdom’s care,

And who were faithless found.

Agamemnon [still standing in the chariot]

First, as is meet, a king’s All-hail be said

To Argos, and the gods that guard the land —

Gods who with me availed to speed us home,

With me availed to wring from Priam’s town

The due of justice. In the court of heaven

The gods in conclave sat and judged the cause,

Not from a pleader’s tongue, and at the close,

Unanimous into the urn of doom

This sentence gave, On Ilion and her men,

Death: and where hope drew nigh to pardon’s urn

No hand there was to cast a vote therein.

And still the smoke of fallen Ilion

Rises in sight of all men, and the flame

Of Ate’s hecatomb is living yet,

And where the towers in dusty ashes sink,

Rise the rich fumes of pomp and wealth consumed

For this must all men pay unto the gods

The meed of mindful hearts and gratitude:

For by our hands the meshes of revenge

Closed on the prey, and for one woman’s sake

Troy trodden by the Argive monster lies —

The foal, the shielded band that leapt the wall,

What time with autumn sank the Pleiades.

Yea, o’er the fencing wall a lion sprang

Ravening, and lapped his fill of blood of kings.

Such prelude spoken to the gods in full,

To you I turn, and to the hidden thing

Whereof ye spake but now: and in that thought

I am as you, and what ye say, say I.

For few are they who have such inborn grace,

As to look up with love, and envy not,

When stands another on the height of weal.

Deep in his heart, whom jealousy hath seized,

Her poison lurking doth enhance his load;

For now beneath his proper woes he chafes,

And sighs withal to see another’s weal.

I speak not idly, but from knowledge sure —

There be who vaunt an utter loyalty,

That is but as the ghost of friendship dead,

A shadow in a glass, of faith gone by.

One only — he who went reluctant forth

Across the seas with me — Odysseus — he

Was loyal unto me with strength and will,

A trusty trace-horse bound unto my car.

Thus — be he yet beneath the light of day,

Or dead, as well I fear — I speak his praise.

Lastly, whate’er be due to men or gods,

With joint debate, in public council held,

We will decide, and warily contrive

That all which now is well may so abide:

For that which haply needs the healer’s art,

That will we medicine, discerning well

If cautery or knife befit the time.

Now, to my palace and the shrines of home,

I will pass in, and greet you first and fair,

Ye gods, who bade me forth, and home again —

And long may Victory tarry in my train!

[Clytemnestra enters from the palace, followed by maidens bearing crimson robes.]

Clytemnestra

Old men of Argos, lieges of our realm,

Shame shall not bid me shrink lest ye should see

The love I bear my lord. Such blushing fear

Dies at the last from hearts of human kind.

From mine own soul and from no alien lips,

I know and will reveal the life I bore.

Reluctant, through the lingering livelong years,

The while my lord beleaguered Ilion’s wall.

First, that a wife sat sundered from her lord,

In widowed solitude, was utter woe

And woe, to hear how rumour’s many tongues

All boded evil — woe, when he who came

And he who followed spake of ill on ill,

Keening Lost, lost, all lost! thro’ hall and bower.

Had this my husband met so many wounds,

As by a thousand channels rumour told,

No network e’er was full of holes as he.

Had he been slain, as oft as tidings came

That he was dead, he well might boast him now

A second Geryon of triple frame,

With triple robe of earth above him laid —

For that below, no matter — triply dead,

Dead by one death for every form he bore.

And thus distraught by news of wrath and woe,

Oft for self-slaughter had I slung the noose,

But others wrenched it from my neck away.

Hence haps it that Orestes, thine and mine,

The pledge and symbol of our wedded troth,

Stands not beside us now, as he should stand.

Nor marvel thou at this: he dwells with one

Who guards him loyally; ‘tis Phocis’ king,

Strophius, who warned me erst, Bethink thee, queen,

What woes of doubtful issue well may fall

Thy lord in daily jeopardy at Troy,

While here a populace uncurbed may cry,

“Down witk the council, down!” bethink thee too,

‘Tis the world’s way to set a harder heel

On fallen power.

For thy child’s absence then

Such mine excuse, no wily afterthought.

For me, long since the gushing fount of tears

Is wept away; no drop is left to shed.

Dim are the eyes that ever watched till dawn,

Weeping, the bale-fires, piled for thy return,

Night after night unkindled. If I slept,

Each sound — the tiny humming of a gnat,

Roused me again, again, from fitful dreams

Wherein I felt thee smitten, saw thee slain,

Thrice for each moment of mine hour of sleep.

All this I bore, and now, released from woe,

I hail my lord as watch-dog of a fold,

As saving stay-rope of a storm-tossed ship,

As column stout that holds the roof aloft,

As only child unto a sire bereaved,

As land beheld, past hope, by crews forlorn,

As sunshine fair when tempest’s wrath is past,

As gushing spring to thirsty wayfarer.

So sweet it is to ‘scape the press of pain.

With such salute I bid my husband hail

Nor heaven be wroth therewith! for long and hard

I bore that ire of old.

Sweet lord, step forth,

Step from thy car, I pray — nay, not on earth

Plant the proud foot, O king, that trod down Troy!

Women! why tarry ye, whose task it is

To spread your monarch’s path with tapestry?

Swift, swift, with purple strew his passage fair,

That justice lead him to a home, at last,

He scarcely looked to see.

[The attendant women spread the tapestry.]

For what remains,

Zeal unsubdued by sleep shall nerve my hand

To work as right and as the gods command.

Agamemnon [still in the chariot]

Daughter of Leda, watcher o’er my home,

Thy greeting well befits mine absence long,

For late and hardly has it reached its end.

Know, that the praise which honour bids us crave,

Must come from others’ lips, not from our own:

See too that not in fashion feminine

Thou make a warrior’s pathway delicate;

Not unto me, as to some Eastern lord,

Bowing thyself to earth, make homage loud.

Strew not this purple that shall make each step

An arrogance; such pomp beseems the gods,

Not me. A mortal man to set his foot

On these rich dyes? I hold such pride in fear,

And bid thee honour me as man, not god.

Fear not — such footcloths and all gauds apart,

Loud from the trump of Fame my name is blown;

Best gift of heaven it is, in glory’s hour,

To think thereon with soberness: and thou —

Bethink thee of the adage, Call none blest

Till peaceful death have crowned a life of weal.

‘Tis said: I fain would fare unvexed by fear.

Clytemnestra

Nay, but unsay it — thwart not thou my will!

Agamemnon

Know, I have said, and will not mar my word.

Clytemnestra

Was it fear made this meekness to the gods?

Agamemnon

If cause be cause, ‘tis mine for this resolve.

Clytemnestra

What, think’st thou, in thy place had Priam done?

Agamemnon

He surely would have walked on broidered robes.

Clytemnestra

Then fear not thou the voice of human blame.

Agamemnon

Yet mighty is the murmur of a crowd.

Clytemnestra

Shrink not from envy, appanage of bliss.

Agamemnon

War is not woman’s part, nor war of words.

Clytemnestra

Yet happy victors well may yield therein.

Agamemnon

Dost crave for triumph in this petty strife?

Clytemnestra

Yield; of thy grace permit me to prevail!

Agamemnon

Then, if thou wilt, let some one stoop to loose

Swiftly these sandals, slaves beneath my foot;

And stepping thus upon the sea’s rich dye,

I pray, Let none among the gods look down

With jealous eye on me — reluctant all,

To trample thus and mar a thing of price,

Wasting the wealth of garments silver-worth.

Enough hereof: and, for the stranger maid,

Lead her within, but gently: God on high

Looks graciously on him whom triumph’s hour

Has made not pitiless. None willingly

Wear the slave’s yoke — and she, the prize and flower

Of all we won, comes hither in my train,

Gift of the army to its chief and lord.

— Now, since in this my will bows down to thine,

I will pass in on purples to my home.

[He descends from the chariot, and moves towards the palace.]

Clytemnestra

A Sea there is — and who shall stay its springs?

And deep within its breast, a mighty store,

Precious as silver, of the purple dye,

Whereby the dipped robe doth its tint renew.

Enough of such, O king, within thy halls

There lies, a store that cannot fail; but I—

I would have gladly vowed unto the gods

Cost of a thousand garments trodden thus,

(Had once the oracle such gift required)

Contriving ransom for thy life preserved.

For while the stock is firm the foliage climbs,

Spreading a shade, what time the dog-star glows;

And thou, returning to thine hearth and home,

Art as a genial warmth in winter hours,

Or as a coolness, when the lord of heaven

Mellows the juice within the bitter grape.

Such boons and more doth bring into a home

The present footstep of its proper lord.

Zeus, Zeus, Fulfilment’s lord! my vows fulfil,

And whatsoe’er it be, work forth thy will!

[She follows Agamemnon into the palace.]

Chorus [singing]

[strophe 1]

Wherefore for ever on the wings of fear

Hovers a vision drear

Before my boding heart? a strain,

Unbidden and unwelcome, thrills mine ear,

Oracular of pain.

Not as of old upon my bosom’s throne

Sits Confidence, to spurn

Such fears, like dreams we know not to discern.

Old, old and grey long since the time has grown,

Which saw the linked cables moor

The fleet, when erst it came to Ilion’s sandy shore;

[antistrophe 1]

And now mine eyes and not another’s see

Their safe return.

Yet none the less in me

The inner spirit sings a boding song,

Self-prompted, sings the Furies’ strain —

And seeks, and seeks in vain,

To hope and to be strong!

Ah! to some end of Fate, unseen, unguessed,

Are these wild throbbings of my heart and breast —

Yea, of some doom they tell —

Each pulse, a knell.

Lief, lief I were, that all

To unfulfilment’s hidden realm might fall.

[strophe 2]

Too far, too far our mortal spirits strive,

Grasping at utter weal, unsatisfied —

Till the fell curse, that dwelleth hard beside,

Thrust down the sundering wall. Too fair they blow,

The gales that waft our bark on Fortune’s tide!

Swiftly we sail, the sooner an to drive

Upon the hidden rock, the reef of woe.

Then if the hand of caution warily

Sling forth into the sea

Part of the freight, lest all should sink below,

From the deep death it saves the bark: even so,

Doom-laden though it be, once more may rise

His household, who is timely wise.

How oft the famine-stricken field

Is saved by God’s large gift, the new year’s yield!

[antistrophe 2]

But blood of man once spilled,

Once at his feet shed forth, and darkening the plain —

Nor chant nor charm can call it back again.

So Zeus hath willed:

Else had he spared the leech Asclepius, skilled

To bring man from the dead: the hand divine

Did smite himself with death — a warning and a sign —

Ah me! if Fate, ordained of old,

Held not the will of gods constrained, controlled,

Helpless to us — ward, and apart —

Swifter than speech my heart

Had poured its presage out!

Now, fretting, chafing in the dark of doubt,

‘Tis hopeless to unfold

Truth, from fear’s tangled skein; and, yearning to proclaim

Its thought, my soul is prophecy and flame.

[Clytemnestra comes out of the palace and addresses Cassandra, who has remained motionless in her chariot.]

Clytemnestra

Get thee within thou too, Cassandra, go!

For Zeus to thee in gracious mercy grants

To share the sprinklings of the lustral bowl,

Beside the altar of his guardianship,

Slave among many slaves. What, haughty still?

Step from the car; Alcmena’s son, ‘tis said,

Was sold perforce and bore the yoke of old.

Ay, hard it is, but, if such fate befall,

‘Tis a fair chance to serve within a home

Of ancient wealth and power. An upstart lord,

To whom wealth’s harvest came beyond his hope,

Is as a lion to his slaves, in all

Exceeding fierce, immoderate in sway.

Pass in: thou hearest what our ways will be.

Leader of the Chorus

Clear unto thee, O maid, is her command,

But thou — within the toils of Fate thou art —

If such thy will, I urge thee to obey;

Yet I misdoubt thou dost nor hear nor heed.

Clytemnestra

I wot — unless like swallows she doth use

Some strange barbarian tongue from oversea —

My words must speak persuasion to her soul.

Leader

Obey: there is no gentler way than this.

Step from the car’s high seat and follow her.

Clytemnestra

Truce to this bootless waiting here without!

I will not stay: beside the central shrine

The victims stand, prepared for knife and fire —

Offerings from hearts beyond all hope made glad.

Thou — if thou reckest aught of my command,

‘Twere well done soon: but if thy sense be shut

From these my words, let thy barbarian hand

Fulfil by gesture the default of speech.

Leader

No native is she, thus to read thy words

Unaided: like some wild thing of the wood,

New-trapped, behold! she shrinks and glares on thee.

Clytemnestra

‘Tis madness and the rule of mind distraught,

Since she beheld her city sink in fire,

And hither comes, nor brooks the bit, until

In foam and blood her wrath be champed away.

See ye to her; unqueenly ‘tis for me,

Unheeded thus to cast away my words.

[Clytemnestra enters the palace.]

Leader

But with me pity sits in anger’s place.

Poor maiden, come thou from the car; no way

There is but this — take up thy servitude.

Cassandra [chanting]

Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou

Apollo, Apollo!

Leader

Peace! shriek not to the bright prophetic god,

Who will not brook the suppliance of woe.

Cassandra [chanting]

Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou

Apollo, Apollo!

Leader

Hark, with wild curse she calls anew on him,

Who stands far off and loathes the voice of wail.

Cassandra [chanting]

Apollo, Apollo!

God of all ways, but only Death’s to me,

Once and again, O thou, Destroyer named,

Thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!

Leader

She grows presageful of her woes to come,

Slave tho’ she be, instinct with prophecy.

Cassandra [chanting]

Apollo, Apollo!

God of all ways, but only Death’s to me,

O thou Apollo, thou Destroyer named!

What way hast led me, to what evil home?

Leader

Know’st thou it not? The home of Atreus’ race:

Take these my words for sooth and ask no more.

Cassandra [chanting]

Home cursed of God! Bear witness unto me,

Ye visioned woes within —

The blood-stained hands of them that smite their kin —

The strangling noose, and, spattered o’er

With human blood, the reeking floor!

Leader

How like a sleuth-hound questing on the track,

Keen-scented unto blood and death she hies!

Cassandra [chanting]

Ah! can the ghostly guidance fail,

Whereby my prophet-soul is onwards led?

Look! for their flesh the spectre-children wail,

Their sodden limbs on which their father fed!

Leader

Long since we knew of thy prophetic fame —

But for those deeds we seek no prophet’s tongue —

Cassandra [chanting]

God! ‘tis another crime —

Worse than the storied woe of olden time,

Cureless, abhorred, that one is plotting here —

A shaming death, for those that should be dear

Alas! and far away, in foreign land,

He that should help doth stand!

Leader

I knew th’ old tales, the city rings withal —

But now thy speech is dark, beyond my ken.

Cassandra [chanting]

O wretch, O purpose fell!

Thou for thy wedded lord

The cleansing wave hast poured —

A treacherous welcome!

How the sequel tell?

Too soon ‘twill come, too soon, for now, even now,

She smites him, blow on blow!

Chorus

Riddles beyond my rede — I peer in vain

Thro’ the dim films that screen the prophecy.

Cassandra

God! a new sight! a net, a snare off hell,

Set by her hand — herself a snare more fell!

A wedded wife, she slays her lord,

Helped by another hand!

Ye powers, whose hate

Of Atreus’ home no blood can satiate,

Raise the wild cry above the sacrifice abhorred!

Chorus

Why biddest thou some fiend, I know not whom,

Shriek o’er the house? Thine is no cheering word.

Back to my heart in frozen fear I feel

My waning life-blood run —

The blood that round the wounding steel

Ebbs slow, as sinks life’s parting sun —

Swift, swift and sure, some woe comes pressing on!

Cassandra

Away, away — keep him away —

The monarch of the herd, the pasture’s pride,

Far from his mate! In treach’rous wrath,

Muffling his swarthy horns, with secret scathe

She gores his fenceless side!

Hark! in the brimming bath,

The heavy plash — the dying cry —

Hark — in the laver — hark, he falls by treachery!

Chorus

I read amiss dark sayings such as thine,

Yet something warns me that they tell of ill.

O dark prophetic speech,

Ill tidings dost thou teach

Ever, to mortals here below!

Ever some tale of awe and woe

Thro’ all thy windings manifold

Do we unriddle and unfold!

Cassandra

Ah well-a-day! the cup of agony,

Whereof I chant, foams with a draught for me.

Ah lord, ah leader, thou hast led me here —

Was’t but to die with thee whose doom is near?

Chorus

Distraught thou art, divinely stirred,

And wailest for thyself a tuneless lay,

As piteous as the ceaseless tale

Wherewith the brown melodious bird

Doth ever Itys! Itys! wail,

Deep-bowered in sorrow, all its little lifetime’s day!

Cassandra

Ah for thy fate, O shrill-voiced nightingale!

Some solace for thy woes did heaven afford,

Clothed thee with soft brown plumes, and life apart from wail —

But for my death is edged the double-biting sword!

Chorus

What pangs are these, what fruitless pain,

Sent on thee from on high?

Thou chantest terror’s frantic strain,

Yet in shrill measured melody.

How thus unerring canst thou sweep along

The prophet’s path of boding song?

Cassandra

Woe, Paris, woe on thee! thy bridal joy

Was death and fire upon thy race and Troy!

And woe for thee, Scamander’s flood!

Beside thy banks, O river fair,

I grew in tender nursing care

From childhood unto maidenhood!

Now not by thine, but by Cocytus’ stream

And Acheron’s banks shall ring my boding scream.

Chorus

Too plain is all, too plain!

A child might read aright thy fateful strain.

Deep in my heart their piercing fang

Terror and sorrow set, the while I heard

That piteous, low, tender word,

Yet to mine ear and heart a crushing pang.

Cassandra

Woe for my city, woe for Ilion’s fall!

Father, how oft with sanguine stain

Streamed on thine altar-stone the blood of cattle, slain

That heaven might guard our wall!

But all was shed in vain.

Low lie the shattered towers whereas they fell,

And I— ah burning heart! — shall soon lie low as well.

Chorus

Of sorrow is thy song, of sorrow still!

Alas, what power of ill

Sits heavy on thy heart and bids thee tell

In tears of perfect moan thy deadly tale?

Some woe — I know not what — must close thy piteous wail.

Cassandra

List! for no more the presage of my soul,

Bride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil;

But as the morning wind blows clear the east,

More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,

And as against the low bright line of dawn

Heaves high and higher yet the rolling wave,

So in the clearing skies of prescience

Dawns on my soul a further, deadlier woe,

And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.

Bear witness, ye, and follow at my side —

I scent the trail of blood, shed long ago.

Within this house a choir abidingly

Chants in harsh unison the chant of ill;

Yea, and they drink, for more enhardened joy,

Man’s blood for wine, and revel in the halls,

Departing never, Furies of the home.

They sit within, they chant the primal curse,

Each spitting hatred on that crime of old,

The brother’s couch, the love incestuous

That brought forth hatred to the ravisher.

Say, is my speech or wild and erring now,

Or doth its arrow cleave the mark indeed?

They called me once, The prophetess of lies,

The wandering hag, the pest of every door —

Attest ye now, She knows in very sooth

The house’s curse, the storied infamy.

Chorus

Yet how should oath — how loyally soe’er

I swear it — aught avail thee? In good sooth,

My wonder meets thy claim: I stand amazed

That thou, a maiden born beyond the seas,

Dost as a native know and tell aright

Tales of a city of an alien tongue.

Cassandra

That is my power — a boon Apollo gave.

Chorus

God though he were, yearning for mortal maid?

Cassandra

Ay! what seemed shame of old is shame no more.

Chorus

Such finer sense suits not with slavery.

Cassandra

He strove to win me, panting for my love.

Chorus

Came ye by compact unto bridal joys?

Cassandra

Nay — for I plighted troth, then foiled the god.

Chorus

Wert thou already dowered with prescience?

Cassandra

Yea — prophetess to Troy of all her doom.

Chorus

How left thee then Apollo’s wrath unscathed?

Cassandra

I, false to him, seemed prophet false to all.

Chorus

Not so — to us at least thy words seem sooth.

Cassandra

Woe for me, woe! Again the agony —

Dread pain that sees the future all too well

With ghastly preludes whirls and racks my soul.

Behold ye — yonder on the palace roof

The spectre-children sitting — look, such things

As dreams are made on, phantoms as of babes,

Horrible shadows, that a kinsman’s hand

Hath marked with murder, and their arms as full —

A rueful burden — see, they hold them up,

The entrails upon which their father fed!

For this, for this, I say there plots revenge

A coward lion, couching in the lair —

Guarding the gate against my master’s foot —

My master-mine — I bear the slave’s yoke now,

And he, the lord of ships, who trod down Troy,

Knows not the fawning treachery of tongue

Of this thing false and dog-like — how her speech

Glazes and sleeks her purpose, till she win

By ill fate’s favour the desired chance,

Moving like Ate to a secret end.

O aweless soul! the woman slays her lord —

Woman? what loathsome monster of the earth

Were fit comparison? The double snake —

Or Scylla, where she dwells, the seaman’s bane,

Girt round about with rocks? some hag of hell,

Raving a truceless curse upon her kin?

Hark — even now she cries exultingly

The vengeful cry that tells of battle turned —

How fain, forsooth, to greet her chief restored!

Nay, then, believe me not: what skills belief

Or disbelief? Fate works its will — and thou

Wilt see and say in ruth, Her tale was true.

Chorus

Ah — ‘tis Thyestes’ feast on kindred flesh —

I guess her meaning and with horror thrill,

Hearing no shadow’d hint of th’ o’er — true tale,

But its full hatefulness: yet, for the rest,

Far from the track I roam, and know no more.

Cassandra

‘Tis Agamemnon’s doom thou shalt behold.

Chorus

Peace, hapless woman, to thy boding words!

Cassandra

Far from my speech stands he who sains and saves.

Chorus

Ay — were such doom at hand — which God forbid!

Cassandra

Thou prayest idly — these move swift to slay.

Chorus

What man prepares a deed of such despite?

Cassandra

Fool! thus to read amiss mine oracles.

Chorus

Deviser and device are dark to me.

Cassandra

Dark! all too well I speak the Grecian tongue.

Chorus

Ay — but in thine, as in Apollo’s strains,

Familiar is the tongue, but dark the thought.

Cassandra

Ah ah the fire! it waxes, nears me now —

Woe, woe for me, Apollo of the dawn!

Lo, how the woman-thing, the lioness

Couched with the wolf — her noble mate afar —

Will slay me, slave forlorn! Yea, like some witch,

She drugs the cup of wrath, that slays her lord

With double death — his recompense for me!

Ay, ‘tis for me, the prey he bore from Troy,

That she hath sworn his death, and edged the steel!

Ye wands, ye wreaths that cling around my neck,

Ye showed me prophetess yet scorned of all —

I stamp you into death, or e’er I die —

Down, to destruction!

Thus I stand revenged —

Go, crown some other with a prophet’s woe.

Look! it is he, it is Apollo’s self

Rending from me the prophet-robe he gave.

God! while I wore it yet, thou saw’st me mocked

There at my home by each malicious mouth —

To all and each, an undivided scorn.

The name alike and fate of witch and cheat —

Woe, poverty, and famine — all I bore;

And at this last the god hath brought me here

Into death’s toils, and what his love had made,

His hate unmakes me now: and I shall stand

Not now before the altar of my home,

But me a slaughter-house and block of blood

Shall see hewn down, a reeking sacrifice.

Yet shall the gods have heed of me who die,

For by their will shall one requite my doom.

He, to avenge his father’s blood outpoured,

Shall smite and slay with matricidal hand.

Ay, he shall come — tho’ far away he roam,

A banished wanderer in a stranger’s land —

To crown his kindred’s edifice of ille

Called home to vengeance by his father’s fall:

Thus have the high gods sworn, and shall fulfil.

And now why mourn I, tarrying on earth,

Since first mine Ilion has found its fate

And I beheld, and those who won the wall

Pass to such issue as the gods ordain?

I too will pass and like them dare to die!

[Turns and looks upon the palace door.]

Portal of Hades, thus I bid thee hail!

Grant me one boon — a swift and mortal stroke,

That all unwrong by pain, with ebbing blood

Shed forth in quiet death, I close mine eyes.

Chorus

Maid of mysterious woes, mysterious lore,

Long was thy prophecy: but if aright

Thou readest all thy fate, how, thus unscared,

Dost thou approach the altar of thy doom,

As fronts the knife some victim, heaven-controlled?

Cassandra

Friends, there is no avoidance in delay.

Chorus

Yet who delays the longest, his the gain.

Cassandra

The day is come — flight were small gain to me!

Chorus

O brave endurance of a soul resolved!

Cassandra

That were ill praise, for those of happier doom.

Chorus

All fame is happy, even famous death.

Cassandra

Ah sire, ah brethren, famous once were ye!

[She moves to enter the house, then starts back.]

Chorus

What fear is this that scares thee from the house?

Cassandra

Pah!

Chorus

What is this cry? some dark despair of soul?

Cassandra

Pah! the house fumes with stench and spilth of blood.

Chorus

How? ‘tis the smell of household offerings.

Cassandra

‘Tis rank as charnel-scent from open graves.

Chorus

Thou canst not mean this scented Syrian nard?

Cassandra

Nay, let me pass within to cry aloud

The monarch’s fate and mine — enough of life.

Ah friends!

Bear to me witness, since I fall in death,

That not as birds that shun the bush and scream

I moan in idle terror. This attest

When for my death’s revenge another dies,

A woman for a woman, and a man

Falls, for a man ill-wedded to his curse.

Grant me this boon — the last before I die.

Chorus

Brave to the last! I mourn thy doom foreseen.

Cassandra

Once more one utterance, but not of wail,

Though for my death — and then I speak no more.

Sun! thou whose beam I shall not see again,

To thee I cry, Let those whom vengeance calls

To slay their kindred’s slayers, quit withal

The death of me, the slave, the fenceless prey.

Ah state of mortal man! in time of weal,

A line, a shadow! and if ill fate fall,

One wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away —

And this I deem less piteous, of the twain.

[Exit into the palace.]

Chorus

Too true it is! our mortal state

With bliss is never satiate,

And none, before the palace high

And stately of prosperity,

Cries to us with a voice of fear,

Away! ‘tis ill to enter here!

Lo! this our lord hath trodden down,

By grace of heaven, old Priam’s town,

And praised as god he stands once more

On Argos’ shore!

Yet now — if blood shed long ago

Cries out that other blood shall flow —

His life-blood, his, to pay again

The stern requital of the slain —

Peace to that braggart’s vaunting vain,

Who, having heard the chieftain’s tale,

Yet boasts of bliss untouched by bale!

[A loud cry from within.]

Voice of Agamemnon

O I am sped — a deep, a mortal blow.

Chorus

Listen, listen! who is screaming as in mortal agony?

Voice of Agamemnon

O! O! again, another, another blow!

Chorus

The bloody act is over — I have heard the monarch’s cry —

Let us swiftly take some counsel, lest we too be doomed to die.

One of the Chorus

‘Tis best, I judge, aloud for aid to call,

“Ho! loyal Argives! to the palace, all!”

Another

Better, I deem, ourselves to bear the aid,

And drag the deed to light, while drips the blade.

Another

Such will is mine, and what thou say’st I say:

Swiftly to act! the time brooks no delay.

Another

Ay, for ‘tis plain, this prelude of their song

Foretells its close in tyranny and wrong.

Another

Behold, we tarry — but thy name, Delay,

They spurn, and press with sleepless hand to slay.

Another

I know not what ‘twere well to counsel now —

Who wills to act, ‘tis his to counsel how.

Another

Thy doubt is mine: for when a man is slain,

I have no words to bring his life again.

Another

What? e’en for life’s sake, bow us to obey

These house-defilers and their tyrant sway?

Another

Unmanly doom! ‘twere better far to die —

Death is a gentler lord than tyranny.

Another

Think well — must cry or sign of woe or pain

Fix our conclusion that the chief is slain?

Another

Such talk befits us when the deed we see —

Conjecture dwells afar from certainty.

Leader of the Chorus

I read one will from many a diverse word,

To know aright, how stands it with our lord!

[The central doors of the palace open, disclosing Clytemnestra, who comes forward. She has blood smeared upon her forehead. The body of Agamemnon lies, muffled in a long robe, within a silver-sided laver; the corpse of Cassandra is laid beside him.]

Clytemnestra

Ho, ye who heard me speak so long and oft

The glozing word that led me to my will —

Hear how I shrink not to unsay it all!

How else should one who willeth to requite

Evil for evil to an enemy

Disguised as friend, weave the mesh straitly round him,

Not to be overleaped, a net of doom?

This is the sum and issue of old strife,

Of me deep-pondered and at length fulfilled.

All is avowed, and as I smote I stand

With foot set firm upon a finished thing!

I turn not to denial: thus I wrought

So that he could nor flee nor ward his doom.

Even as the trammel hems the scaly shoal,

I trapped him with inextricable toils,

The ill abundance of a baffling robe;

Then smote him, once, again — and at each wound

He cried aloud, then as in death relaxed

Each limb and sank to earth; and as he lay,

Once more I smote him, with the last third blow,

Sacred to Hades, saviour of the dead.

And thus he fell, and as he passed away,

Spirit with body chafed; each dying breath

Flung from his breast swift bubbling jets of gore,

And the dark sprinklings of the rain of blood

Fell upon me; and I was fain to feel

That dew — not sweeter is the rain of heaven

To cornland, when the green sheath teems with grain.

Elders of Argos — since the thing stands so,

I bid you to rejoice, if such your will:

Rejoice or not, I vaunt and praise the deed,

And well I ween, if seemly it could be,

‘Twere not ill done to pour libations here,

Justly — ay, more than justly — on his corpse

Who filled his home with curses as with wine,

And thus returned to drain the cup he filled.

Chorus

I marvel at thy tongue’s audacity,

To vaunt thus loudly o’er a husband slain.

Clytemnestra

Ye hold me as a woman, weak of will,

And strive to sway me: but my heart is stout,

Nor fears to speak its uttermost to you,

Albeit ye know its message. Praise or blame,

Even as ye list — I reck not of your words.

Lo! at my feet lies Agamemnon slain,

My husband once — and him this hand of mine,

A right contriver, fashioned for his death.

Behold the deed!

Chorus

Woman, what deadly birth,

What venomed essence of the earth

Or dark distilment of the wave,

To thee such passion gave,

Nerving thine hand

To set upon thy brow this burning crown,

The curses of thy land?

Our king by thee cut off, hewn down!

Go forth — they cry — accursed and forlorn,

To hate and scorn!

Clytemnestra

O ye just men, who speak my sentence now,

The city’s hate, the ban of all my realm!

Ye had no voice of old to launch such doom

On him, my husband, when he held as light

My daughter’s life as that of sheep or goat,

One victim from the thronging fleecy fold!

Yea, slew in sacrifice his child and mine,

The well-loved issue of my travail-pangs,

To lull and lay the gales that blew from Thrace.

That deed of his, I say, that stain and shame,

Had rightly been atoned by banishment;

But ye, who then were dumb, are stern to judge

This deed of mine that doth affront your ears.

Storm out your threats, yet knowing this for sooth,

That I am ready, if your hand prevail

As mine now doth, to bow beneath your sway:

If God say nay, it shall be yours to learn

By chastisement a late humility.

Chorus

Bold is thy craft, and proud

Thy confidence, thy vaunting loud;

Thy soul, that chose a murd’ress’ fate,

Is all with blood elate —

Maddened to know

The blood not yet avenged, the damnèd spot

Crimson upon thy brow.

But Fate prepares for thee thy lot —

Smitten as thou didst smite, without a friend,

To meet thine end!

Clytemnestra

Hear then the sanction of the oath I swear —

By the great vengeance for my murdered child,

By Atè, by the Fury unto whom

This man lies sacrificed by hand of mine,

I do not look to tread the hall of Fear,

While in this hearth and home of mine there burns

The light of love —Aegisthus — as of old

Loyal, a stalwart shield of confidence —

As true to me as this slain man was false,

Wronging his wife with paramours at Troy,

Fresh from the kiss of each Chryseis there!

Behold him dead — behold his captive prize,

Seeres and harlot — comfort of his bed,

True prophetess, true paramour — I wot

The sea-bench was not closer to the flesh,

Full oft, of every rower, than was she

See, ill they did, and ill requites them now.

His death ye know: she as a dying swan

Sang her last dirge, and lies, as erst she lay,

Close to his side, and to my couch has left

A sweet new taste of joys that know no fear.

Chorus

Ah woe and well-a-day! I would that Fate —

Not bearing agony too great,

Nor stretching me too long on couch of pain —

Would bid mine eyelids keep

The morningless and unawakening sleep!

For life is weary, now my lord is slain,

The gracious among kings!

Hard fate of old he bore and many grievous things,

And for a woman’s sake, on Ilian land —

Now is his life hewn down, and by a woman’s hand!

O Helen, O infatuate soul,

Who bad’st the tides of battle roll,

O’erwhelming thousands, life on life,

‘Neath Ilion’s wall!

And now lies dead the lord of all.

The blossom of thy storied sin

Bears blood’s inexpiable stain,

O thou that erst, these halls within,

Wert unto all a rock of strife,

A husband’s bane!

Clytemnestra

Peace! pray not thou for death as though

Thine heart was whelmed beneath this woe,

Nor turn thy wrath aside to ban

The name of Helen, nor recall

How she, one bane of many a man,

Sent down to death the Danaan lords,

To sleep at Troy the sleep of swords,

And wrought the woe that shattered all.

Chorus

Fiend of the race! that swoopest fell

Upon the double stock of Tantalus,

Lording it o’er me by a woman’s will,

Stern, manful, and imperious —

A bitter sway to me!

Thy very form I see,

Like some grim raven, perched upon the slain,

Exulting o’er the crime, aloud, in tuneless strain!

Clytemnestra

Right was the word — thou namest well

The brooding race-fiend, triply fell!

From him it is that murder’s thirst,

Blood-lapping, inwardly is nursed —

Ere time the ancient scar can sain,

New blood comes welling forth again.

Chorus

Grim is his wrath and heavy on our home,

That fiend of whom thy voice has cried,

Alas, an omened cry of woe unsatisfied,

An all-devouring doom!

As woe, as Zeus! from Zeus all things befall —

Zeus the high cause and finisher of all! —

Lord of our mortal state, by him are willed

All things, by him fulfilled!

Yet ah my king, my king no more!

What words to say, what tears to pour

Can tell my love for thee?

The spider-web of treachery

She wove and wound, thy life around,

And lo! I see thee lie,

And thro’ a coward, impious wound

Pant forth thy life and die!

A death of shame — ah woe on woe!

A treach’rous hand, a cleaving blow!

Clytemnestra

My guilt thou harpest, o’er and o’er!

I bid thee reckon me no more

As Agamemnon’s spouse.

The old Avenger, stern of mood

For Atreus and his feast of blood,

Hath struck the lord of Atreus’ house,

And in the semblance of his wife

The king hath slain. —

Yea, for the murdered children’s life,

A chieftain’s in requital ta’en.

Chorus

Thou guiltless of this murder, thou!

Who dares such thought avow?

Yet it may be, wroth for the parent’s deed,

The fiend hath holpen thee to slay the son.

Dark Ares, god of death, is pressing on

Thro’ streams of blood by kindred shed,

Exacting the accompt for children dead,

For clotted blood, for flesh on which their sire did feed.

Yet ah my king, my king no more!

What words to say, what tears to pour

Can tell my love for thee?

The spider-web of treachery

She wove and wound, thy life around,

And lo! I see thee lie,

And thro’ a coward, impious wound

Pant forth thy life and die!

A death of shame — ah woe on woe!

A treach’rous hand, a cleaving blow!

Clytemnestra

I deem not that the death he died

Had overmuch of shame:

For this was he who did provide

Foul wrong unto his house and name:

His daughter, blossom of my womb,

He gave unto a deadly doom,

Iphigenia, child of tears!

And as he wrought, even so he fares.

Nor be his vaunt too loud in hell;

For by the sword his sin he wrought,

And by the sword himself is brought

Among the dead to dwell.

Chorus

Ah whither shall I fly?

For all in ruin sinks the kingly hall;

Nor swift device nor shift of thought have I,

To ‘scape its fall.

A little while the gentler raindrops fail;

I stand distraught — a ghastly interval,

Till on the roof-tree rings the bursting hail

Of blood and doom. Even now fate whets the steel

On whetstones new and deadlier than of old,

The steel that smites, in Justice’ hold,

Another death to deal.

O Earth! that I had lain at rest

And lapped for ever in thy breast,

Ere I had seen my chieftain fall

Within the laver’s silver wall,

Low-lying on dishonoured bier!

And who shall give him sepulchre,

And who the wail of sorrow pour?

Woman, ‘tis thine no more!

A graceless gift unto his shade

Such tribute, by his murd’ress paid!

Strive not thus wrongly to atone

The impious deed thy hand hath done.

Ah who above the godlike chief?

Shall weep the tears of loyal grief?

Who speak above his lowly grave

The last sad praises of the brave?

Clytemnestra

Peace! for such task is none of thine.

By me he fell, by me he died,

And now his burial rites be mine!

Yet from these halls no mourners’ train

Shall celebrate his obsequies;

Only by Acheron’s rolling tide

His child shall spring unto his side,

And in a daughter’s loving wise

Shall clasp and kiss him once again!

Chorus

Lo! sin by sin and sorrow dogg’d by sorrow —

And who the end can know?

The slayer of today shall die tomorrow —

The wage of wrong is woe.

While Time shall be, while Zeus in heaven is lord,

His law is fixed and stern;

On him that wrought shall vengeance be outpoured —

The tides of doom return.

The children of the curse abide within

These halls of high estate —

And none can wrench from off the home of sin

The clinging grasp of fate.

Clytemnestra

Now walks thy word aright, to tell

This ancient truth of oracle;

But I with vows of sooth will pray

To him, the power that holdeth sway

O’er all the race of Pleisthenes —

Tho’ dark the deed and deep the guilt,

With this last blood my hands have spilt,

I pray thee let thine anger cease!

I pray thee pass from us away

To some new race in other lands,

There, if thou wilt, to wrong and slay

The lives of men by kindred hands.

For me’tis all sufficient meed,

Tho’ little wealth or power were won,

So I can say, ‘Tis past and done.

The bloody lust and murderous,

The inborn frenzy of our house,

Is ended, by my deed!

[Aegisthus and his armed attendants enter.]

Aegisthus

Dawn of the day of rightful vengeance, hail!

I dare at length aver that gods above

Have care of men and heed of earthly wrongs.

I, I who stand and thus exult to see

This man lie wound in robes the Furies wove,

Slain in requital of his father’s craft.

Take ye the truth, that Atreus, this man’s sire,

The lord and monarch of this land of old,

Held with my sire Thyestes deep dispute,

Brother with brother, for the prize of sway,

And drave him from his home to banishment.

Thereafter, the lorn exile homeward stole

And clung a suppliant to the heart divine,

And for himself won this immunity —

Not with his own blood to defile the land

That gave him birth. But Atreus, godless sire

Of him who here lies dead, this welcome planned —

With zeal that was not love he feigned to hold

In loyal joy a day of festal cheer,

And bade my father to his board, and set

Before him flesh that was his children once.

First, sitting at the upper board alone,

He hid the fingers and the feet, but gave

The rest — and readily Thyestes took

What to his ignorance no semblance wore

Of human flesh, and ate: behold what curse

That eating brought upon our race and name!

For when he knew what all-unhallowed thing

He thus had wrought, with horror’s bitter cry

Back-starting, spewing forth the fragments foul,

On Pelops’ house a deadly curse he spake —

As darkly as I spurn this damned food,

So perish all the race of Pleisthenes!

Thus by that curse fell he whom here ye see,

And I— who else? — this murder wove and planned;

For me, an infant yet in swaddling bands,

Of the three children youngest, Atreus sent

To banishment by my sad father’s side:

But Justice brought me home once more, grown now

To manhood’s years; and stranger tho’ I was,

My right hand reached unto the chieftain’s life,

Plotting and planning all that malice bade.

And death itself were honour now to me,

Beholding him in Justice’ ambush ta’en.

Chorus

Aegisthus, for this insolence of thine

That vaunts itself in evil, take my scorn.

Of thine own will, thou sayest, thou hast slain

The chieftain, by thine own unaided plot

Devised the piteous death: I rede thee well,

Think not thy head shall ‘scape, when right prevails,

The people’s ban, the stones of death and doom.

Aegisthus

This word from thee, this word from one who rows

Low at the oars beneath, what time we rule,

We of the upper tier? Thou’lt know anon,

‘Tis bitter to be taught again in age,

By one so young, submission at the word.

But iron of the chain and hunger’s throes

Can minister unto an o’erswoln pride

Marvellous well, ay, even in the old.

Hast eyes, and seest not this? Peace — kick not thus

Against the pricks, unto thy proper pain!

Chorus

Thou womanish man, waiting till war did cease,

Home-watcher and defiler of the couch,

And arch-deviser of the chieftain’s doom!

Aegisthus

Bold words again! but they shall end in tears.

The very converse, thine, of Orpheus’ tongue:

He roused and led in ecstasy of joy

All things that heard his voice melodious;

But thou as with the futile cry of curs

Wilt draw men wrathfully upon thee. Peace!

Or strong subjection soon shall tame thy tongue.

Chorus

Ay, thou art one to hold an Argive down —

Thou, skilled to plan the murder of the king,

But not with thine own hand to smite the blow!

Aegisthus

That fraudful force was woman’s very part,

Not mine, whom deep suspicion from of old

Would have debarred. Now by his treasure’s aid

My purpose holds to rule the citizens.

But whoso will not bear my guiding hand,

Him for his corn-fed mettle I will drive

Not as a trace-horse, light-caparisoned,

But to the shafts with heaviest harness bound.

Famine, the grim mate of the dungeon dark,

Shall look on him and shall behold him tame.

Chorus

Thou losel soul, was then thy strength too slight

To deal in murder, while a woman’s hand,

Staining and shaming Argos and its gods,

Availed to slay him? Ho, if anywhere

The light of life smite on Orestes’ eyes,

Let him, returning by some guardian fate,

Hew down with force her paramour and her!

Aegisthus

How thy word and act shall issue, thou shalt shortly understand.

Chorus

Up to action, O my comrades! for the fight is hard at hand.

Swift, your right hands to the sword hilt! bare the weapon as for strife —

Aegisthus

Lo! I too am standing ready, hand on hilt for death or life.

Chorus

‘Twas thy word and we accept it: onward to the chance of war!

Clytemnestra

Nay, enough, enough, my champion! we will smite and slay no more.

Already have we reaped enough the harvest-field of guilt:

Enough of wrong and murder, let no other blood be spilt.

Peace, old men! and pass away unto the homes by Fate decreed,

Lest ill valour meet our vengeance —’twas a necessary deed.

But enough of toils and troubles — be the end, if ever, now,

Ere thy talon, O Avenger, deal another deadly blow.

‘Tis a woman’s word of warning, and let who will list thereto.

Aegisthus

But that these should loose and lavish reckless blossoms of the tongue,

And in hazard of their fortune cast upon me words of wrong,

And forget the law of subjects, and revile their ruler’s word —

Chorus

Ruler? but ‘tis not for Argives, thus to own a dastard lord!

Aegisthus

I will follow to chastise thee in my coming days of sway.

Chorus

Not if Fortune guide Orestes safely on his homeward way.

Aegisthus

Ah, well I know how exiles feed on hopes of their return.

Chorus

Fare and batten on pollution of the right, while ‘tis thy turn.

Aegisthus

Thou shalt pay, be well assurèd, heavy quittance for thy pride.

Chorus

Crow and strut, with her to watch thee, like a cock, his mate beside!

Clytemnestra

Heed not thou too highly of them — let the cur-pack growl and yell:

I and thou will rule the palace and will order all things well.

[Aegisthus and Clytemnestra move towards the palace, as the Chorus sullenly withdraws.]

The Choephori (The Oresteia — 2)

Characters in the Play

Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra

Chorus of slave women

Electra, sister of Orestes

A nurse

Clytemnestra

Aegisthus

An attendant

Pylades, friend of Orestes

[Scene: By the tomb of Agamemnon near the palace in Argos. Orestes and Pylades enter, dressed as travellers. Orestes carries two locks of hair in his hand.]

Orestes

Lord of the shades and patron of the realm

That erst my father swayed, list now my prayer,

Hermes, and save me with thine aiding arm,

Me who from banishment returning stand

On this my country; lo, my foot is set

On this grave-mound, and herald-like, as thou,

Once and again, I bid my father hear.

And these twin locks, from mine head shorn, I bring,

And one to Inachus the river-god,

My young life’s nurturer, I dedicate,

And one in sign of mourning unfulfilled

I lay, though late, on this my father’s grave.

For O my father, not beside thy corse

Stood I to wail thy death, nor was my hand

Stretched out to bear thee forth to burial.

What sight is yonder? what this woman-throng

Hitherward coming, by their sable garb

Made manifest as mourners? What hath chanced?

Doth some new sorrow hap within the home?

Or rightly may I deem that they draw near

Bearing libations, such as soothe the ire

Of dead men angered, to my father’s grave?

Nay, such they are indeed; for I descry

Electra mine own sister pacing hither,

In moody grief conspicuous. Grant, O Zeus,

Grant me my father’s murder to avenge —

Be thou my willing champion!

Pylades,

Pass we aside, till rightly I discern

Wherefore these women throng in suppliance.

[Pylades and Orestes withdraw; the chorus enters bearing vessels for libation; Electra follows them; they pace slowly towards the tomb of Agamemnon.]

Chorus [singing]

[strophe 1]

Forth from the royal halls by high command

I bear libations for the dead.

Rings on my smitten breast my smiting hand,

And all my cheek is rent and red,

Fresh-furrowed by my nails, and all my soul

This many a day doth feed on cries of dole.

And trailing tatters of my vest,

In looped and windowed raggedness forlorn,

Hang rent around my breast,

Even as I, by blows of Fate most stern

Saddened and torn.

[antistrophe 1]

Oracular thro’ visions, ghastly clear,

Bearing a blast of wrath from realms below,

And stiffening each rising hair with dread,

Came out of dream-land Fear,

And, loud and awful, bade

The shriek ring out at midnight’s witching hour,

And brooded, stern with woe,

Above the inner house, the woman’s bower

And seers inspired did read the dream on oath,

Chanting aloud In realms below

The dead are wroth;

Against their slayers yet their ire doth glow.

[strophe 2]

Therefore to bear this gift of graceless worth —

O Earth, my nursing mother! —

The woman god-accurs’d doth send me forth

Lest one crime bring another.

Ill is the very word to speak, for none

Can ransom or atone

For blood once shed and darkening the plain.

O hearth of woe and bane,

O state that low doth lie!

Sunless, accursed of men, the shadows brood

Above the home of murdered majesty.

[antistrophe 2]

Rumour of might, unquestioned, unsubdued,

Pervading ears and soul of lesser men,

Is silent now and dead.

Yet rules a viler dread;

For bliss and power, however won,

As gods, and more than gods, dazzle our mortal ken.

Justice doth mark, with scales that swiftly sway,

Some that are yet in light;

Others in interspace of day and night,

Till Fate arouse them, stay;

And some are lapped in night, where all things are undone

[strophe 3]

On the life-giving lap of Earth

Blood hath flowed forth;

And now, the seed of vengeance, clots the plain —

Unmelting, uneffaced the stain.

And Ate tarries long, but at the last

The sinner’s heart is cast

Into pervading, waxing pangs of pain.

[antistrophe 3]

Lo, when man’s force doth ope

The virgin doors, there is nor cure nor hope

For what is lost — even so, I deem,

Though in one channel ran Earth’s every stream,

Laving the hand defiled from murder’s stain,

It were in vain.

[epode]

And upon me — ah me! — the gods have laid

The woe that wrapped round Troy,

What time they led me down from home and kin

Unto a slave’s employ —

The doom to bow the head

And watch our master’s will

Work deeds of good and ill —

To see the headlong sway of force and sin,

And hold restrained the spirit’s bitter hate,

Wailing the monarch’s fruitless fate,

Hiding my face within my robe, and fain

Of tears, and chilled with frost of hidden pain.

Electra

Handmaidens, orderers of the palace-halls,

Since at my side ye come, a suppliant train,

Companions of this offering, counsel me

As best befits the time: for I, who pour

Upon the grave these streams funereal,

With what fair word can I invoke my sire?

Shall I aver, Behold, I bear these gifts

From well-loved wife unto her well-loved lord,

When ‘tis from her, my mother, that they come?

I dare not say it: of all words I fail

Wherewith to consecrate unto my sire

These sacrificial honours on his grave.

Or shall I speak this word, as mortals use —

Give back, to those who send these coronals,

Full recompense — of ills for acts malign?

Or shall I pour this draught for Earth to drink,

Sans word or reverence, as my sire was slain,

And homeward pass with unreverted eyes,

Casting the bowl away, as one who flings

The household cleansings to the common road?

Be art and part, O friends, in this my doubt,

Even as ye are in that one common hate

Whereby we live attended: fear ye not

The wrath of any man, nor hide your word

Within your breast: the day of death and doom

Awaits alike the freeman and the slave.

Speak, then, if aught thou know’st to aid us more.

Leader of the chorus

Thou biddest; I will speak my soul’s thought out,

Revering as a shrine thy father’s grave.

Electra

Say then thy say, as thou his tomb reverest.

Leader

Speak solemn words to them that love, and pour.

Electra

And of his kin whom dare I name as kind?

Leader

Thyself; and next, whoe’er Aegisthus scorns.

Electra

Then ‘tis myself and thou, my prayer must name.

Leader

Whoe’er they be, ‘tis thine to know and name them.

Electra

Is there no other we may claim as ours?

Leader

Think of Orestes, though far-off he be.

Electra

Right well in this too hast thou schooled my thought.

Leader

Mindfully, next, on those who shed the blood —

Electra

Pray on them what? expound, instruct my doubt.

Leader

This: Upon them some god or mortal come —

Electra

As judge or as avenger? speak thy thought.

Leader

Pray in set terms, Who shall the slayer slay.

Electra

Beseemeth it to ask such boon of heaven?

Leader

How not, to wreak a wrong upon a foe?

Electra [praying at the tomb]

O mighty Hermes, warder of the shades,

Herald of upper and of under world,

Proclaim and usher down my prayer’s appeal

Unto the gods below, that they with eyes

Watchful behold these halls. my sire’s of old —

And unto Earth, the mother of all things,

And loster-nurse, and womb that takes their seed.

Lo, I that pour these draughts for men now dead,

Call on my father, who yet holds in ruth

Me and mine own Orestes, Father, speak —

How shall thy children rule thine halls again?

Homeless we are and sold; and she who sold

Is she who bore us; and the price she took

Is he who joined with her to work thy death,

Aegisthus, her new lord. Behold me here

Brought down to slave’s estate, and far away

Wanders Orestes, banished from the wealth

That once was thine, the profit of thy care,

Whereon these revel in a shameful joy.

Father, my prayer is said; ‘tis thine to hear —

Grant that some fair fate bring Orestes home,

And unto me grant these — a purer soul

Than is my mother’s, a more stainless hand.

These be my prayers for us; for thee, O sire,

I cry that one may come to smite thy fops,

And that the slayers may in turn be slain.

Cursed is their prayer, and thus I bar its path,

Praying mine own, a counter-curse on them.

And thou, send up to us the righteous boon

For which we pray; thine aids be heaven and earth,

And justice guide the right to victory.

[To the chorus] Thus have I prayed, and thus I shed these streams,

And follow ye the wont, and as with flowers

Crown ye with many a tear and cry the dirge

Your lips ring out above the dead man’s grave.

[She pours the libations.]

Chorus [chanting]

Woe, woe, woe!

Let the teardrop fall, plashing on the ground

Where our lord lies low:

Fall and cleanse away the cursed libation’s stair.,

Shed on this grave-mound,

Fenced wherein together, gifts of good or bane

From the dead are found.

Lord of Argos, hearken!

Though around thee darken

Mist of death and hell, arise and hear

Hearken and awaken to our cry of woe!

Who with might of spear

Shall our home deliver?

Who like Ares bend until it quiver,

Bend the northern bow?

Who with hand upon the hilt himself will thrust with glaive,

Thrust and slay and save?

Electra

Lo! the earth drinks them, to my sire they pass —

[She notices the locks of Orestes.]

Learn ye with me of this thing new and strange.

Leader of the chorus

Speak thou; my breast doth palpitate with fear.

Electra

I see upon the tomb a curl new shorn.

Leader

Shorn from wnat man or what deep-girded maid?

Electra

That may he, guess who will; the sign is plain.

Leader

Let me learn this of thee; let youth prompt age.

Electra

None is there here but I, to clip such gift.

Leader

For they who thus should mourn him hate him sore.

Electra

And lo! in truth the hair exceeding like —

Leader

Like to what locks and whose? instruct me that.

Electra

Like unto those my father’s children wear.

Leader

Then is this lock Orestes’ secret gift?

Electra

Most like it is unto the curls he wore.

Leader

Yet how dared he to come unto his home?

Electra

He hath but sent it, clipt to mourn his sire.

Leader

It is a sorrow grievous as his death,

That he should live yet never dare return.

Electra

Yea, and my heart o’erflows with gall of grief,

And I am pierced as with a cleaving dart;

Like to the first drops after drought, my tears

Fall down at will, a bitter bursting tide,

As on this lock I gaze; I cannot deem

That any Argive save Orestes’ self

Was ever lord thereof; nor, well I wot,

Hath she, the murd’ress, shorn and laid this lock

To mourn him whom she slew — my mother she,

Bearing no mother’s heart, but to her race

A loathing spirit, loathed itself of heaven!

Yet to affirm, as utterly made sure,

That this adornment cometh of the hand

Of mine Orestes, brother of my soul,

I may not venture, yet hope flatters fair!

Ah well-a-day, that this dumb hair had voice

To glad mine ears, as might a messenger,

Bidding me sway no more ‘twixt fear and hope,

Clearly commanding, Cast me hence away,

Clipped was I from some head thou lovest not;

Or, I am kin to thee, and here, as thou,

I come to weep and deck our father’s grave.

Aid me, ye gods! for well indeed ye know

How in the gale and counter-gale of doubt,

Like to the seaman’s bark, we whirl and stray.

But, if God will our life, how strong shall spring,

From seed how small, the new tree of our home! —

Lo ye, a second sign — these footsteps, looks —

Like to my own, a corresponsive print;

And look, another footmark — this his own,

And that the foot of one who walked with him.

Mark, how the heel and tendons’ print combine,

Measured exact, with mine coincident!

Alas, for doubt and anguish rack my mind.

[Orestes and Pylades enter suddenly.]

Orestes

Pray thou, in gratitude for prayers fulfilled,

Fair fall the rest of what I ask of heaven.

Electra

Wherefore? what win I from the gods by prayer?

Orestes

This, that thine eyes behold thy heart’s desire.

Electra

On whom of mortals know’st thou that I call?

Orestes

I know thy yearning for Orestes deep.

Electra

Say then, wherein event hath crowned my prayer?

Orestes

I, I am he; seek not one more akin.

Electra

Some fraud, O stranger, weavest thou for me?

Orestes

Against myself I weave it, if I weave.

Electra

Ah, thou hast mind to mock me in my woel

Orestes

‘Tis at mine own I mock then, mocking thine.

Electra

Speak I with thee then as Orestes’ self?

Orestes

My very face thou see’st and know’st me not,

And yet but now, when thou didst see the lock

Shorn for my father’s grave, and when thy quest

Was eager on the footprints I had made,

Even I, thy brother, shaped and sized as thou,

Fluttered thy spirit, as at sight of me!

Lay now this ringlet whence ‘twas shorn, and judge,

And look upon this robe, thine own hands’ work,

The shuttle-prints, the creature wrought thereon —

Refrain thyself, nor prudence lose in joy,

For well I wot, our kin are less than kind.

Electra

O thou that art unto our father’s home

Love, grief and hope, for thee the tears ran down,

For thee, the son, the saviour that should be;

Trust thou thine arm and win thy father’s halls!

O aspect sweet of fourfold love to me,

Whom upon thee the heart’s constraint bids cal

As on my father, and the claim of love

From me unto my mother turns to thee,

For she is very hate; to thee too turns

What of my heart went out to her who died

A ruthless death upon the altar-stone;

And for myself I love thee — thee that wast

A brother leal, sole stay of love to me.

Now by thy side be strength and right, and Zeus

Saviour almighty, stand to aid the twain!

Orestes

Zeus, Zeus! look down on our estate and us,

The orphaned brood of him, our eagle-sire,

Whom to his death a fearful serpent brought,

Enwinding him in coils; and we, bereft

And foodless, sink with famine, all too weak

To bear unto the eyrie, as he bore,

Such quarry as he slew. Lo! I and she,

Electra, stand before thee, fatherless,

And each alike cast out and homeless made.

Electra

And if thou leave to death the brood of him

Whose altar blazed for thee, whose reverence

Was thine, all thine — whence, in the after years,

Shall any hand like his adorn thy shrine

With sacrifice of flesh? the eaglets slain,

Thou wouldst not have a messenger to bear

Thine omens, once so clear, to mortal men;

So, if this kingly stock be withered all,

None on high festivals will fend thy shrine.

Stoop thou to raise us! strong the race shall grow,

Though puny now it seem, and fallen low.

Leader

O children, saviours of your father’s home,

Beware ye of your words, lest one should hear

And bear them, for the tongue hath lust to tell,

Unto our masters — whom God grant to me

In pitchy reek of fun’ral flame to seel

Orestes

Nay, mighty is Apollo’s oracle

And shall not fail me, whom it bade to pass

Thro’ all this peril; clear the voice rang out

With many warnings, sternly threatening

To my hot heart the wintry chill of pain,

Unless upon the slayers of my sire

I pressed for vengeance: this the god’s command —

That I, in ire for home and wealth despoiled,

Should with a craft like theirs the slayers slay:

Else with my very life I should atone

This deed undone, in many a ghastly wise.

For he proclaimed unto the ears of men

That offerings, poured to angry powers of death,

Exude again, unless their will be done,

As grim disease on those that poured them forth —

As leprous ulcers mounting on the flesh

And with fell fangs corroding what of old

Wore natural form; and on the brow arise

White poisoned hairs, the crown of this disease.

He spake moreover of assailing fiends

Empowered to quit on me my father’s blood,

Wreaking their wrath on me, what time in night

Beneath shut lids the spirit’s eye sees clear.

The dart that flies in darkness, sped from hell

By spirits of the murdered dead who call

Unto their kin for vengeance, formless fear,

The night-tide’s visitant, and madness’ curse

Should drive and rack me; and my tortured frame

Should be chased forth from man’s community

As with the brazen scorpions of the scourge.

For me and such as me no lustral bowl

Should stand, no spilth of wine be poured to God

For me, and wrath unseen of my dead sire

Should drive me from the shrine; no man should dare

To take me to his hearth, nor dwell with me:

Slow, friendless, cursed of all should be mine end,

And pitiless horror wind me for the grave.

This spake the god — this dare I disobey?

Yea, though I dared, the deed must yet be done;

For to that end diverse desires combine —

The god’s behest, deep grief for him who died,

And last, the grievous blank of wealth despoiled —

All these weigh on me, urge that Argive men,

Minions of valour, who with soul of fire

Did make of fenced Troy a ruinous heap,

Be not left slaves to two and each a woman!

For he, the man, wears woman’s heart; if not,

Soon shall he know, confronted by a man.

[Orestes, Electra, and the chorus gather round the tomb of Agamemnon. The following lines are chanted responsively.]

Chorus

Mighty Fates, on you we call!

Bid the will of Zeus ordain

Power to those, to whom again

Justice turns with hand and aid!

Grievous was the prayer one made

Grievous let the answer fall!

Where the mighty doom is set,

Justice claims aloud her debt.

Who in blood hath dipped the steel,

Deep in blood her meed shall feel

List an immemorial word —

Whosoe’er shall take the sword

Shall perish by the sword.

Orestes

Father, unblest in death, O father mine!

What breath of word or deed

Can I waft on thee from this far confine

Unto thy lowly bed —

Waft upon thee, in midst of darkness lying,

Hope’s counter-gleam of fire?

Yet the loud dirge of praise brings grace undying

Unto each parted sire.

Chorus

O child, the spirit of the dead,

Altho’ upon his flesh have fed

The grim teeth of the flame,

Is quelled not; after many days

The sting of wrath his soul shall raise,

A vengeance to reclaim!

To the dead rings loud our cry —

Plain the living’s treachery —

Swelling, shrilling, urged on high,

The vengeful dirge, for parents slain,

Shall strive and shall attain.

Electra

Hear me too, even me, O father, hear!

Not by one child alone these groans, these tears are shed

Upon thy sepulchre.

Each, each, where thou art lowly laid,

Stands, a suppliant, homeless made:

Ah, and all is full of ill,

Comfort is there none to say!

Strive and wrestle as we may,

Still stands doom invincible.

Chorus

Nay, if so he will, the god

Still our tears to joy can turn.

He can bid a triumph-ode

Drown the dirge beside this urn;

He to kingly halls can greet

The child restored, the homeward-guided feet.

Orestes

Ah my father! hadst thou lain

Under Ilion’s wall,

By some Lycian spearman slain,

Thou hadst left in this thine hall

Honour; thou hadst wrought for us

Fame and life most glorious.

Over-seas if thou hadst died,

Heavily had stood thy tomb,

Heaped on high; but, quenched in pride,

Grief were light unto thy home.

Chorus

Loved and honoured hadst thou lain

By the dead that nobly fell,

In the under-world again,

Where are throned the kings of hell,

Full of sway, adorable

Thou hadst stood at their right hand —

Thou that wert, in mortal land,

By Fate’s ordinance and law,

King of kings who bear the crown

And the staff, to which in awe

Mortal men bow down.

Electra

Nay, O father, I were fain

Other fate had fallen on thee.

Ill it were if thou hadst lain

One among the common slain,

Fallen by Scamander’s side —

Those who slew thee there should be!

Then, untouched by slavery,

We had heard as from afar

Deaths of those who should have died

‘Mid the chance of war.

Chorus

O child, forbear! things all too high thou sayest.

Easy, but vain, thy cry!

A boon above all gold is that thou prayest,

An unreached destiny,

As of the blessed land that far aloof

Beyond the north wind lies;

Yet doth your double prayer ring loud reproof;

A double scourge of sighs

Awakes the dead; th’ avengers rise, though late;

Blood stains the guilty pride

Of the accursed who rule on earth, and Fate

Stands on the children’s side.

Electra

That hath sped thro’ mine ear, like a shaft from a bow!

Zeus, Zeus! it is thou who dost send from below

A doom on the desperate ere long

On a mother a father shall visit his wrong.

Chorus

Be it mine to upraise thro’ the reek of the pyre

The chant of delight, while the funeral fire

Devoureth the corpse of a man that is slain

And a woman laid low!

For who bids me conceal it! out-rending control,

Blows ever the stern blast of hate thro’ my soul,

And before me a vision of wrath and of bane

Flits and waves to and fro.

Orestes

Zeus, thou alone to us art parent now.

Smite with a rending blow

Upon their heads, and bid the land be well:

Set right where wrong hath stood; and thou give ear,

O Earth, unto my prayer —

Yea, hear O mother Earth, and monarchy of hell

Chorus

Nay, the law is sternly set —

Blood-drops shed upon the ground

Plead for other bloodshed yet;

Loud the call of death doth sound,

Calling guilt of olden time,

A Fury, crowning crime with crime.

Electra

Where, where are ye, avenging powers,

Puissant Furies of the slain?

Behold the relics of the race

Of Atreus, thrust from pride of place!

O Zeus, what borne henceforth is ours,

What refuge to attain?

Chorus

Lo, at your wail my heart throbs, wildly stirred;

Now am I lorn with sadness,

Darkened in all my soul, to hear your sorrow’s word

Anon to hope, the seat of strength, I rise —

She, thrusting grief away, lifts up mine eyes

To the new dawn of gladness.

Orestes

Skills it to tell of aught save wrong on wrong,

Wrought by our mother’s deed?

Though now she fawn for pardon, sternly strong

Standeth our wrath, and will nor hear nor heed.

Her children’s soul is wolfish, born from hers,

And softens not by prayers.

Chorus

I dealt upon my breast the blow

That Asian mourning women know;

Wails from my breast the fun’ral cry,

The Cissian weeping melody;

Stretched rendingly forth, to tatter and tear,

My clenched hands wander, here and there,

From head to breast; distraught with blows

Throb dizzily my brows.

Electra

Aweless in hate, O mother, sternly brave!

As in a foeman’s grave

Thou laid’st in earth a king, but to the bier

No citizen drew nears —

Thy husband, thine, yet for his obsequies,

Thou bad’st no wail arise!

Orestes

Alas, the shameful burial thou dost speak!

Yet I the vengeance of his shame will wreak —

That do the gods command!

That shall achieve mine hand!

Grant me to thrust her life away, and

Will dare to die!

Chorus

List thou the deed! Hewn down and foully torn,

He to the tomb was borne;

Yea, by her hand, the deed who wrought,

With like dishonour to the grave was brought,

And by her hand she strove, with strong desire,

Thy life to crush, O child, by murder of thy sire:

Bethink thee, hearing, of the shame, the pain

Wherewith that sire was slain!

Electra

Yea, such was the doom of my sire; well-a-day,

I was thrust from his side —

As a dog from the chamber they thrust me away,

And in place of my laughter rose sobbing and tears,

As in darkness I lay.

O father, if this word can pass to thine ears,

To thy soul let it reach and abide!

Chorus

Let it pass, let it pierce, through the sense of thine ear,

To thy soul, where in silence it waiteth the hour!

The past is accomplished; but rouse thee to hear

What the future prepareth; awake and appear,

Our champion, in wrath and in power!

Orestes

O father, to thy loved ones come in aid.

Electra

With tears I call on thee.

Chorus

Listen and rise to light!

Be thou with us, be thou against the foe!

Swiftly this cry arises — even so

Pray we, the loyal band, as we have prayed!

Orestes

Let their might meet with mine, and their right with my right.

Electra

O ye Gods, it is yours to decree.

Chorus

Ye call unto the dead; I quake to hear.

Fate is ordained of old, and shall fulfil your prayer.

Electra

Alas, the inborn curse that haunts our home,

Of Ate’s bloodstained scourge the tuneless sound!

Alas, the deep insufferable doom,

The stanchless wound!

Orestes

It shall be stanched, the task is ours —

Not by a stranger’s, but by kindred hand,

Shall be chased forth the blood-fiend of our land.

Be this our spoken spell, to call Earth’s nether powers!

Chorus

Lords of a dark eternity,

To you has come the children’s cry,

Send up from hell, fulfil your aid

To them who prayed.

[The chant is concluded.]

Orestes

O father, murdered in unkingly wise,

Fulfil my prayer, grant me thine halls to sway.

Electra

To me, too, grant this boon — dark death to deal

Unto Aegisthus, and to ‘scape my doom.

Orestes

So shall the rightful feasts that mortals pay

Be set for thee; else, not for thee shall rise

The scented reek of altars fed with flesh,

But thou shalt lie dishonoured: hear thou me!

Electra

I too, from my full heritage restored,

Will pour the lustral streams, what time I pass

Forth as a bride from these paternal halls,

And honour first, beyond all graves, thy tomb.

Orestes

Earth, send my sire to fend me in the fight!

Electra

Give fair-faced fortune, O Persephone!

Orestes

Bethink thee, father, in the laver slain —

Electra

Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee!

Orestes

Bonds not of brass ensnared thee, father mine.

Electra

Yea, the ill craft of an enfolding robe.

Orestes

By this our bitter speech arise, O sire!

Electra

Raise thou thine head at love’s last, dearest call!

Orestes

Yea, speed forth Right to aid thy kinsmen’s cause;

Grip for grip, let them grasp the foe, if thou

Willest in triumph to forget thy fall.

Electra

Hear me, O father, once again hear me.

Lo! at thy tomb, two fledglings of thy brood —

A man-child and a maid; hold them in ruth,

Nor wipe them out, the last of Pelops’ line.

For while they live, thou livest from the dead;

Children are memory’s voices, and preserve

The dead from wholly dying: as a net

Is ever by the buoyant corks upheld,

Which save the flax-mesh, in the depth submerged.

Listen, this wail of ours doth rise for thee,

And as thou heedest it thyself art saved.

Leader of the chorus

In sooth, a blameless prayer ye spake at length —

The tomb’s requital for its dirge denied:

Now, for the rest, as thou art fixed to do,

Take fortune by the hand and work thy will.

Orestes

The doom is set; and yet I fain would ask —

Not swerving from the course of my resolve —

Wherefore she sent these offerings, and why

She softens all too late her cureless deed?

An idle boon it was, to send them here

Unto the dead who recks not of such gifts.

I cannot guess her thought, but well I ween

Such gifts are skilless to atone such crime.

Be blood once spilled, an idle strife he strives

Who seeks with other wealth or wine outpoured

To atone the deed. So stands the word, nor fails.

Yet would I know her thought; speak, if thou knowest.

Leader

I know it, son; for at her side I stood.

‘Twas the night-wandering terror of a dream

That flung her shivering from her couch, and bade her —

Her, the accursed of God — these offerings send.

Orestes

Heard ye the dream, to tell it forth aright?

Leader

Yea, from herself; her womb a serpent bare.

Orestes

What then the sum and issue of the tale?

Leader

Even as a swaddled child, she lull’d the thing.

Orestes

What suckling craved the creature, born full-fanged?

Leader

Yet in her dreams she proffered it the breast.

Orestes

How? did the hateful thing not bite her teat?

Leader

Yea, and sucked forth a blood-gout in the milk.

Orestes

Not vain this dream — it bodes a man’s revenge.

Leader

Then out of sleep she started with a cry,

And thro’ the palace for their mistress’ aid

Full many lamps, that erst lay blind with night,

Flared into light; then, even as mourners use,

She sends these offerings, in hope to win

A cure to cleave and sunder sin from doom.

Orestes

Earth and my father’s grave, to you I call —

Give this her dream fulfilment, and thro’ me.

I read it in each part coincident

With what shall be; for mark, that serpent sprang

From the same womb as I, in swaddling bands

By the same hands was swathed, lipped the same breast,

And sucking forth the same sweet mother’s-milk

Infused a clot of blood; and in alarm

She cried upon her wound the cry of pain.

The rede is clear: the thing of dread she nursed,

The death of blood she dies; and I, ‘tis I,

In semblance of a serpent, that must slay her.

Thou art my seer, and thus I read the dream.

Leader

So do; yet ere thou doest, speak to us,

Bidding some act, some, by not acting, aid.

Orestes

Brief my command: I bid my sister pass

In silence to the house, and all I bid

This my design with wariness conceal,

That they who did by craft a chieftain slay

May by like craft and in like noose be talen,

Dying the death which Loxias foretold —

Apollo, king and prophet undisproved.

I with this warrior Pylades will come

In likeness of a stranger, full equipt

As travellers come, and at the palace gates

Will stand, as stranger yet in friendship’s bond

Unto this house allied; and each of us

Will speak the tongue that round Parnassus sounds,

Feigning such speech as Phocian voices use.

And what if none of those that tend the gates

Shall welcome us with gladness, since the house

With ills divine is baunted? If this hap,

We at the gate will bide, till, passing by,

Some townsman make conjecture and proclaim,

How? is Aegisthus here, and knowingly

Keeps suppliants aloof, by bolt and bar?

Then shall I win my way; and if I cross

The threshold of the gate, the palace’ guard,

And find him throned where once my father sat —

Or if he come anon, and face to face

Confronting, drop his eyes from mine — I swear

He shall not utter, Who art thou and whence?

Ere my steel leap, and compassed round with death

Low he shall lie: and thus, full-fed with doom,

The Fury of the house shall drain once more

A deep third draught of rich unmingled blood.

But thou, O sister, look that all within

Be well prepared to give these things event.

And ye — I say ‘twere well to bear a tongue

Full of fair silence and of fitting speech

As each beseems the time; and last, do thou,

Hermes the warder-god, keep watch and ward,

And guide to victory my striving sword.

[Orestes, Pylades, and Electra depart.]

Chorus [singing]

[strophe 1]

Many and marvellous the things of fear

Earth’s breast doth bear;

And the sea’s lap with many monsters teems,

And windy levin-bolts and meteor gleams

Breed many deadly things —

Unknown and flying forms, with fear upon their wings,

And in their tread is death;

And rushing whirlwinds, of whose blasting breath

Man’s tongue can tell.

[antistrophe 1]

But who can tell aright the fiercer thing,

The aweless soul, within man’s breast inhabiting?

Who tell how, passion-fraught and love-distraught,

The woman’s eager, craving thought

Doth wed mankind to woe and ruin fell?

Yea, how the loveless love that doth posses

The woman, even as the lioness,

Doth rend and wrest apart, with eager strife,

The link of wedded life?

[strophe 2]

Let him be the witness, whose thought is not borne on light wings thro’ the air,

But abideth with knowledge, what thing was wrought by Althea’s despair;

For she marr’d the life-grace of her son, with ill counsel rekindled the flame

That was quenched as it glowed on the brand, what time from his mother he came,

With the cry of a new-born child; and the brand from the burning she won,

For the Fates had foretold it coeval, in life and in death, with her son.

[antistrophe 2]

Yea, and man’s hate tells of another, even Scylla of murderous guile,

Who slew for an enemy’s sake her father, won o’er by the wile

And the gifts of Cretan Minos, the gauds of the high-wrought gold;

For she clipped from her father’s head the lock that should never wax old,

As he breathed in the silence of sleep, and knew not her craft and her crime —

But Hermes, the guard of the dead, doth grasp her, in fulness of time.

[strophe 3]

And since of the crimes of the cruel I tell, let my singing record

The bitter wedlock and loveless, the curse on these halls outpoured,

The crafty device of a woman, whereby did a chieftain fall,

A warrior stern in his wrath, the fear of his enemies all —

A song of dishonour, untimely! and cold is the hearth that was warm,

And ruled by the cowardly spear, the woman’s unwomanly arm.

[antistrophe 3]

But the summit and crown of all crimes is that which in Lemnos befell;

A woe and a mourning it is, a shame and a spitting to tell;

And he that in after time doth speak of his deadliest thought,

Doth say, It is like to the deed that of old time in Lemnos was wrought;

And loathed of men were the doers, and perished, they and their seed,

For the gods brought hate upon them; none loveth the impious deed.

[strophe 4]

It is well of these tales to tell; for the sword in the grasp of Right

With a cleaving, a piercing blow to the innermost heart doth smite,

And the deed unlawfully done is not trodden down nor forgot,

When the sinner out-steppeth the law and heedeth the high God not;

[antistrophe 4]

But justice hath planted the anvil, and Destiny forgeth the sword

That shall smite in her chosen time; by her is the child restored;

And, darkly devising, the Fiend of the house, world-cursed, will repay

The price of the blood of the slain, that was shed in the bygone day.

[The scene now is before the palace. Orestes and Pylades enter, still dressed as travellers.]

Orestes [knocking at the palace gate]

What ho! slave, ho! I smite the palace gate

In vain, it seems; what ho, attend within —

Once more, attend; come forth and ope the halls,

If yet Aegisthus holds them hospitable.

Slave [from within]

Anon, anon! [Opens the door]

Speak, from what land art thou, and sent from whom?

Orestes

Go, tell to them who rule the palace-halls,

Since ‘tis to them I come with tidings new —

(Delay not — Night’s dark car is speeding on,

And time is now for wayfarers to cast

Anchor in haven, wheresoe’er a house

Doth welcome strangers) — that there now come forth

Some one who holds authority within —

The queen, or, if some man, more seemly were it;

For when man standeth face to face with man,

No stammering modesty confounds their speech,

But each to each doth tell his meaning clear.

[Clytemnestra comes out of the palace.]

Clytemnestra

Speak on, O strangers: have ye need of aught?

Here is whate’er beseems a house like this —

Warm bath and bed, tired Nature’s soft restorer,

And courteous eyes to greet you; and if aught

Of graver import needeth act as well,

That, as man’s charge, I to a man will tell.

Orestes

A Daulian man am I, from Phocis bound,

And as with mine own travel-scrip self-laden

I went toward Argos, parting hitherward

With travelling foot, there did encounter me

One whom I knew not and who knew not me,

But asked my purposed way nor hid his own,

And, as we talked together, told his name —

Strophius of Phocis; then he said, “Good sir,

Since in all case thou art to Argos bound,

Forget not this my message, heed it well,

Tell to his own, Orestes is no more.

And — whatsoe’er his kinsfolk shall resolve.

Whether to bear his dust unto his home,

Or lay him here, in death as erst in life

Exiled for aye, a child of banishment —

Bring me their hest, upon thy backward road;

For now in brazen compass of an urn

His ashes lie, their dues of weeping paid.”

So much I heard, and so much tell to thee,

Not knowing if I speak unto his kin

Who rule his home; but well, I deem, it were,

Such news should earliest reach a parent’s ear.

Clytemnestra

Ah woe is me! thy word our ruin tells;

From roof-tree unto base are we despoiled. —

O thou whom nevermore we wrestle down,

Thou Fury of this home, how oft and oft

Thou dost descry what far aloof is laid,

Yea, from afar dost bend th’ unerring bow

And rendest from my wretchedness its friends;

As now Orestes — who, a brief while since,

Safe from the mire of death stood warily —

Was the home’s hope to cure th’ exulting wrong;

Now thou ordainest, Let the ill abide.

Orestes

To host and hostess thus with fortune blest,

Lief had I come with better news to bear

Unto your greeting and acquaintanceship;

For what goodwill lies deeper than the bond

Of guest and host? and wrong abhorred it were,

As well I deem, if I, who pledged my faith

To one, and greetings from the other had,

Bore not aright the tidings ‘twixt the twain.

Clytemnestra

Whate’er thy news, thou shalt not welcome lack,

Meet and deserved, nor scant our grace shall be.

Hadst thou thyself not come, such tale to tell,

Another, sure, had borne it to our ears.

But lo! the hour is here when travelling guests,

Fresh from the daylong labour of the road,

Should win their rightful due. [To the slave]

Take him within

To the man-chamber’s hospitable rest —

Him and these fellow-farers at his side;

Give them such guest-right as beseems our halls;

I bid thee do as thou shalt answer for it,

And I unto the prince who rules our home

Will tell the tale, and, since we lack not friends,

With them will counsel how this hap to bear.

[Clytemnestra goes back into the palace. Orestes and Pylades are conducted to the guest quarters.]

Chorus [singing]

So be it done —

Sister-servants, when draws nigh

Time for us aloud to cry

Orestes and his victory?

O holy earth and holy tomb

Over the grave-pit heaped on high,

Where low doth Agamemnon lie,

The king of ships, the army’s lord!

Now is the hour — give ear and come,

For now doth Craft her aid afford,

And Hermes, guard of shades in hell,

Stands o’er their strife, to sentinel

The dooming of the sword.

Leader of the chorus

I wot the stranger worketh woe within —

For lo! I see come forth, suffused with tears,

Orestes’ nurse. [The nurse enters from the palace.]

What ho, Kilissa — thou

Beyond the doors? Where goest thou? Methinks

Some grief unbidden walketh at thy side.

Nurse

My mistress bids me, with what speed I may,

Call in Aegisthus to the stranger guests,

That he may come, and stinding face to face,

A man with men, way thus more clearly learn

This rumour new. Thus speaking, to her slaves

Laughter for what is wrought — to her desire

Too well; but ill, ill, ill besets the house,

Brought by the tale these guests have told so clear.

And he, God wot, will gladden all his heart

Hearing this rumour. Woe and well-a-day!

The bitter mingled cup of ancient woes,

Hard to be borne, that here in Atreus’ house

Befell, was grievous to mine inmost heart,

But never yet did I endure such pain.

All else I bore with set soul patiently;

But now — alack, alack! — Orestes dear,

The day and night-long travail of my soul

Whom from his mother’s womb, a new-born child,

I clasped and cherished! Many a time and oft

Toilsome and profitless my service was,

When his shrill outcry called me from my couch!

For the young child, before the sense is born,

Hath but a dumb thing’s life, must needs be nursed

As its own nature bids. The swaddled thing

Hath nought of speech, whate’er discomfort come —

Hunger or thirst or lower weakling need —

For the babe’s stomach works its own relief.

Which knowing well before, yet oft surprised,

‘Twas mine to cleanse the swaddling clothes — poor

Was nurse to tend and fuller to make white:

Two works in one, two handicrafts I took,

When in mine arms the father laid the boy.

And now he’s dead — alack and well-a-day!

Yet must I go to him whose wrongful power

Pollutes this house — fair tidings these to him!

Leader

Say then, with what array she bids him come?

Nurse

What say’st thou! Speak. more clearly for mine ear.

Leader

Bids she bring henchmen, or to come alone?

Nurse

She bids him bring a spear-armed body-guard.

Nay, tell not that unto our loathed lord,

But speed to him, put on the mien of joy,

Say, Come alone, fear nought, the news is good:

A bearer can tell straight a twisted tale.

Nurse

Does then thy mind in this new tale find joy?

Leader

What if Zeus bid our ill wind veer to fair?

Nurse

And how? the home’s hope with Orestes dies.

Leader

Not yet — a seer, though feeble, this might see.

Nurse

What say’st thou? Know’st thou aught, this tale belying?

Leader

Go, tell the news to him, perform thine hest —

What the gods will, themselves can well provide.

Nurse

Well, I will go, herein obeying thee;

And luck fall fair, with favour sent from heaven.

[She goes out.]

Chorus [singing]

[strophe 1]

Zeus, sire of them who on Olympus dwell,

Hear thou, O hear my prayer!

Grant to my rightful lords to prosper well

Even as their zeal is fair!

For right, for right goes up aloud my cry —

Zeus, aid him, stand anigh!

[refrain 1]

Into his father’s hall he goes

To smite his father’s foes.

Bid him prevail by thee on throne of triumph set,

Twice, yea and thrice with joy shall he acquit the debt.

[antistrophe 1]

Bethink thee, the young steed, the orphan foal

Of sire beloved by thee, unto the car

Of doom is harnessed fast.

Guide him aright, plant firm a lasting goal,

Speed thou his pace — O that no chance may mar

The homeward course, the last!

[strophe 2]

And ye who dwell within the inner chamber

Where shines the stored joy of gold —

Gods of one heart, O hear ye, and remember;

Up and avenge the blood shed forth of old,

With sudden rightful blow;

Then let the old curse die, nor be renewed

With progeny of blood —

Once more, and not again, be latter guilt laid low!

[refrain 2]

O thou who dwell’st in Delphi’s mighty cave,

Grant us to see this home once more restored

Unto its rightful lord!

Let it look forth, from veils of death, with joyous eye

Unto the dawning light of liberty;

[antistrophe 2]

And Hermes, Maia’s child, lend hand to save,

Willing the right, and guide

Our state with Fortune’s breeze adown the favouring tide.

Whate’er in darkness hidden lies,

He utters at his will;

He at his will throws darkness on our eyes,

By night and eke by day inscrutable.

[strophe 3]

Then, then shall wealth atone

The ills that here were done.

Then, then will we unbind,

Fling free on wafting wind

Of joy, the woman’s voice that waileth now

In piercing accents for a chief laid low;

[refrain 3]

And this our song shall be —

Hail to the commonwealth restored!

Hail to the freedom won to me!

All hail! for doom hath passed from him, my well-loved lord!

[antistrophe 3]

And thou, O child, when Time and Chance agree,

Up to the deed that for thy sire is done!

And if she wail unto thee, Spare, O son —

Cry, Aid, O father — and achieve the deed,

The horror of man’s tongue, the gods’ great need!

Hold in thy breast such heart as Perseus had,

The bitter woe work forth,

Appease the summons of the dead,

The wrath of friends on earth;

Yea, set within a sign of blood and doom,

And do to utter death him that polilites thy home.

[Aegisthus enters alone.]

Aegisthus

Hither and not unsummoned have I come;

For a new rumour, borne by stranger men

Arriving hither, hath attained mine ears,

Of hap unwished-for, even Orestes’ death.

This were new sorrow, a blood-bolter’d load

Laid on the house that doth already bow

Beneath a former wound that festers deep.

Dare I opine these words have truth and life?

Or are they tales, of woman’s terror born,

That fly in the void air, and die disproved?

Canst thou tell aught, and prove it to my soul?

Leader of the chorus

What we have heard, we heard; go thou within

Thyself to ask the strangers of their tale.

Strengthless are tidings, thro’ another heard;

Question is his, to whom the tale is brought.

Aegisthus

I too will meet and test the messenger,

Whether himself stood witness of the death,

Or tells it merely from dim rumour learnt:

None shall cheat me, whose soul hath watchful eyes.

[He goes into the palace.]

Chorus [singing]

Zeus, Zeus! what word to me is given?

What cry or prayer, invoking heaven,

Shall first by me be uttered?

What speech of craft — nor all revealing,

Nor all too warily concealing —

Ending my speech, shall aid the deed?

For lo! in readiness is laid

The dark emprise, the rending blade;

Blood-dropping daggers shall achieve

The dateless doom of Atreus’ name,

Or — kindling torch and joyful flame

In sign of new-won liberty —

Once more Orestes shall retrieve

His father’s wealth, and, throned on high,

Shall hold the city’s fealty.

So mighty is the grasp whereby,

Heaven-holpen, he shall trip and throw,

Unseconded, a double foe.

Ho for the victory!

[A loud cry is heard within.]

Voice of Aegisthus

Help, help, alas!

Chorus

Ho there, ho I how is’t within?

Is’t done? is’t over? Stand we here aloof

While it is wrought, that guiltless we may seem

Of this dark deed; with death is strife fulfilled.

[An attendant enters from the palace.]

Attendant

O woe, O woe, my lord is done to death!

Woe, woe, and woe again, Aegisthus gone!

Hasten, fling wide the doors, unloose the bolts

Of the queen’s chamber. O for some young strength

To match the need! but aid availeth nought

To him laid low for ever. Help, help, help

Sure to deaf ears I shout, and call in vain

To slumber ineffectual. What ho!

The queen! how fareth Clytemnestra’s self?

Her neck too, hers, is close upon the steel,

And soon shall sing, hewn thro’ as justice wills.

[Clytemnestra enters.]

Clytemnestra

What ails thee, raising this ado for us?

Attendant

I say the dead are come to slay the living.

Clytemnestra

Alack, I read thy riddles all too clear —

We slew by craft and by like craft shall die.

Swift, bring the axe that slew my lord of old;

I’ll know anon or death or victory —

So stands the curse, so I confront it here.

[Orestes rushes from the palace; his sword dripping with blood. Pylades is with him.]

Orestes

Thee too I seek: for him what’s done will serve.

Clytemnestra

Woe, woe! Aegisthus, spouse and champion, slain!

Orestes

What, lov’st the man? then in his grave lie down,

Be his in death, desert him nevermore!

Clytemnestra

Stay, child, and fear to strike. O son, this breast

Pillowed thine head full oft, while, drowsed with sleep,

Thy toothless mouth drew mother’s milk from me.

Orestes

Can I my mother spare? speak, Pylades.

Pylades

Where then would fall the hest Apollo gave

At Delphi, where the solemn compact sworn?

Choose thou the hate of all men, not of gods.

Orestes

Thou dost prevail; I hold thy counsel good.

[To Clytemnestra] Follow; I will to slay thee at his side.

With him whom in his life thou loved’st more

Than Agamemnon, sleep in death, the meed

For hate where love, and love where hate was due!

Clytemnestra

I nursed thee young; must I forego mine eld?

Orestes

Thou slew’st my father; shalt thou dwell with me?

Clytemnestra

Fate bore a share in these things, O my child.

Orestes

Fate also doth provide this doom for thee.

Clytemnestra

Beware, O child, a parent’s dying curse.

Orestes

A parent who did cast me out to ill!

Clytemnestra

Not cast thee out, but to a friendly home.

Orestes

Born free, I was by twofold bargain sold.

Clytemnestra

Where then the price that I received for thee?

Orestes

The price of shame; I taunt thee not more plainly.

Clytemnestra

Nay, but recount thy father’s lewdness too.

Orestes

Home-keeping, chide not him who toils without.

Clytemnestra

‘Tis hard for wives to live as widows, child.

Orestes

The absent husband toils for them at home.

Clytemnestra

Thou growest fain to slay thy mother, child.

Orestes

Nay, ‘tis thyself wilt slay thyself, not I.

Clytemnestra

Beware thy mother’s vengeful hounds from hell.

Orestes

How shall I ‘scape my father’s, sparing thee?

Clytemnestra

Living, I cry as to a tomb, unheard.

Orestes

My father’s fate ordains this doom for thee.

Clytemnestra

Ah me! this snake it was I bore and nursed.

Orestes

Ay, right prophetic was thy visioned fear.

Shameful thy deed was — die the death of shame!

[He drives her into the house before him.]

Leader of the chorus

Lo, even for these I mourn, a double death:

Yet since Orestes, driven on by doom,

Thus crowns the height of murders manifold,

I say, ‘tis well — that not in night and death

Should sink the eye and light of this our home.

Chorus [singing]

[strophe 1]

There came on Priam’s race and name

A vengeance; though it tarried long,

With heavy doom it came.

Came, too, on Agamemnon’s hall

A lion-pair, twin swordsmen strong.

And last, the heritage doth fall

To him, to whom from Pythian cave

The god his deepest counsel gave.

[refrain 1]

Cry out, rejoice! our kingly hall

Hath ‘scaped from ruin — ne’er again

Its ancient wealth be wasted all

By two usurpers, sin-defiled —

An evil path of woe and bane!

[antistrophe 1]

On him who dealt the dastard blow

Comes Craft, Revenge’s scheming child.

And hand in hand with him doth go,

Eager for fight,

The child of Zeus, whom men below

Call justice, naming her aright.

And on her foes her breath

Is as the blast of death;

[strophe 2]

For her the god who dwells in deep recess

Beneath Parnassus’ brow,

Summons with loud acclaim

To rise, though late and lame,

And come with craft that worketh righteousness.

For even o’er Powers divine this law is strong —

Thou shalt not serve the wrong.

[refrain 2]

To that which ruleth heaven beseems it that we bow

Lo, freedom’s light hath come!

Lo, now is rent away

The grim and curbing bit that held us dumb.

Up to the light, ye halls I this many a day

Too low on earth ye lay.

[antistrophe 2]

And Time, the great Accomplisher,

Shall cross the threshold, whensoe’er

He choose with purging hand to cleanse

The palace, driving all pollution thence.

And fair the cast of Fortune’s die

Before our state’s new lords shall lie,

Not as of old, but bringing fairer doom.

Lo, freedom’s light hath come!

[The central doors of the palace open, disclosing Orestes standing over the corpses of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra; in one hand he holds his sword, in the other the robe in which Agamemnon was entangled and slain.]

Orestes

There lies our country’s twofold tyranny,

My father’s slayers, spoilers of my home.

Erst were they royal, sitting on the throne,

And loving are they yet — their common fate

Tells the tale truly, shows their trothplight firm.

They swore to work mine ill-starred father’s death,

They swore to die together; ‘tis fulfilled.

O ye who stand, this great doom’s witnesses,

Behold this too, the dark device which bound

My sire unhappy to his death — behold

The mesh which trapped his hands, enwound his feet

Stand round, unfold it —’tis the trammel-net

That wrapped a chieftain; hold it that he see,

The father — not my sire, but he whose eye

Is judge of all things, the all-seeing Sun!

Let him behold my mother’s damned deed,

Then let him stand, when need shall be to me,

Witness that justly I have sought and slain

My mother; blameless was Aegisthus’ doom —

He died the death law bids adulterers die.

But she who plotted this accursed thing

To slay her lord, by whom she bare beneath

Her girdle once the burden of her babes,

Beloved erewhile, now turned to hateful foes —

What deem ye of her? or what venomed thing,

Sea-snake or adder, had more power than she

To poison with a touch the flesh unscarred?

So great her daring, such her impious will.

How name her, if I may not speak a curse?

A lion-springe! a laver’s swathing cloth,

Wrapping a dead man, twining round his feet —

A net, a trammel, an entangling robe?

Such were the weapon of some strangling thief,

The terror of the road, a cut-purse hound —

With such device full many might he kill,

Full oft exult in heat of villainy.

Ne’er have my house so cursed an indweller —

Heaven send me, rather, childless to be slain!

Chorus [chanting]

Woe for each desperate deed!

Woe for the queen, with shame of life bereft!

And ah, for him who still is left,

Madness, dark blossom of a bloody seed!

Orestes

Did she the deed or not? this robe gives proof,

Imbrued with blood that bathed Aegisthus’ sword:

Look, how the spurted stain combines with time

To blur the many dyes that once adorned

Its pattern manifold! I now stand here,

Made glad, made sad with blood, exulting, wailing —

Hear, O thou woven web that slew my sire!

I grieve for deed and death and all my home —

Victor, pollution’s damned stain for prize.

Chorus [chanting]

Alas, that none of mortal men

Can pass his life untouched by pain!

Behold, one woe is here —

Another loometh near.

Orestes

Hark ye and learn — for what the end shall be

For me I know not: breaking from the curb

My spirit whirls me off, a conquered prey,

Borne as a charioteer by steeds distraught

Far from the course, and madness in my breast

Burneth to chant its song, and leap, and rave —

Hark ye and learn, friends, ere my reason goes!

I say that rightfully I slew my mother,

A thing God-scorned, that foully slew my sire.

And chiefest wizard of the spell that bound me

Unto this deed I name the Pythian seer

Apollo, who foretold that if I slew,

The guilt of murder done should pass from me;

But if I spared, the fate that should be mine

I dare not blazon forth — the bow of speech

Can reach not to the mark, that doom to tell.

And now behold me, how with branch and crown

I pass, a suppliant made meet to go

Unto Earth’s midmost shrine, the holy ground

Of Loxias, and that renowned light

Of ever-burning fire, to ‘scape the doom

Of kindred murder: to no other shrine

(So Loxias bade) may I for refuge turn.

Bear witness, Argives, in the after time,

How came on me this dread fatality.

Living, I pass a banished wanderer hence,

To leave in death the memory of this cry.

Leader of the chorus

Nay, but the deed is well; link not thy lips

To speech ill-starred, nor vent ill-boding words —

Who hast to Argos her full freedom given,

Lopping two serpents’ heads with timely blow.

Orestes

Look, look, alas!

Handmaidens, see — what Gorgon shapes throng up

Dusky their robes and all their hair enwound —

Snakes coiled with snakes — off, off — I must away!

Leader

Most loyal of all sons unto thy sire,

What visions thus distract thee? Hold, abide;

Great was thy victory, and shalt thou fear?

Orestes

These are no dreams, void shapes of haunting ill,

But clear to sight another’s hell-hounds come!

Leader

Nay, the fresh bloodshed still imbrues thine hands,

And thence distraction sinks into thy soul.

Orestes

O king Apollo — see, they swarm and throng —

Black blood of hatred dripping from their eyes!

Leader

One remedy thou hast; go, touch the shrine

Of Loxias, and rid thee of these woes.

Orestes

Ye can behold them not, but I behold them.

Up and away! I dare abide no more.

[He rushes out.]

Leader

Farewell then as thou mayst — the god thy friend

Guard thee and aid with chances favouring.

Chorus [chanting]

Behold, the storm of woe divine

That raves and beats on Atreus’ line

Its great third blast hath blown.

First was Thyestes’ loathly woe

The rueful feast of long ago,

On children’s flesh, unknown.

And next the kingly chief’s despite,

When he who led the Greeks to fight

Was in the bath hewn down.

And now the offspring of the race

Stands in the third, the saviour’s place,

To save — or to consume?

O whither, ere it be fulfilled,

Ere its fierce blast be hushed and stilled,

Shall blow the wind of doom?

The Eumenides (The Oresteia — 3)

Characters in the Play

The pythian priestess

Apollo

Orestes

The ghost of Clytemnestra

Chorus of furies

Athena

Attendants of Athena

Twelve athenian citizens

[Scene: Before the temple of Apollo at Delphi. The pythian priestess enters and approaches the doors of the temple.]

The pythian priestess

First, in this prayer, of all the gods I name

The prophet-mother Earth; and Themis next,

Second who sat — for so with truth is said —

On this her mother’s shrine oracular.

Then by her grace, who unconstrained allowed,

There sat thereon another child of Earth —

Titanian Phoebe. She, in after time,

Gave o’er the throne, as birthgift to a god,

Phoebus, who in his own bears Phoebe’s name.

He from the lake and ridge of Delos’ isle

Steered to the port of Pallas’ Attic shores,

The home of ships; and thence he passed and came

Unto this land and to Pamassus’ shrine.

And at his side, with awe revering him,

There went the children of Hephaestus’ seed,

The hewers of the sacred way, who tame

The stubborn tract that erst was wilderness.

And all this folk, and Delphos, chieftain-king

Of this their land, with honour gave him home;

And in his breast Zeus set a prophet’s soul,

And gave to him this throne, whereon he sits,

Fourth prophet of the shrine, and, Loxias hight,

Gives voice to that which Zeus his sire decrees.

Such gods I name in my preluding prayer,

And after them, I call with honour due

On Pallas, wardress of the fane, and Nymphs

Who dwell around the rock Corycian,

Where in the hollow cave, the wild birds’ haunt,

Wander the feet of lesser gods; and there,

Right well I know it, Bromian Bacchus dwells,

Since he in godship led his Maenad host,

Devising death for Pentheus, whom they rent

Piecemeal, as hare among the hounds. And last,

I call on Pleistus’ springs, Poseidon’s might,

And Zeus most high, the great Accomplisher.

Then as a seeress to the sacred chair

I pass and sit; and may the powers divine

Make this mine entrance fruitful in response

Beyond each former advent, triply blest.

And if there stand without, from Hellas bound,

Men seeking oracles, let each pass in

In order of the lot, as use allows;

For the god guides whate’er my tongue proclaims.

[She goes into the interior of the temple; after a short interval, she returns in great fear.]

Things fell to speak of, fell for eyes to see,

Have sped me forth again from Loxias’ shrine,

With strength unstrung, moving erect no more,

But aiding with my hands my failing feet,

Unnerved by fear. A beldame’s force is naught —

Is as a child’s, when age and fear combine.

For as I pace towards the inmost fane

Bay-filleted by many a suppliant’s hand,

Lo, at the central altar I descry

One crouching as for refuge — yea, a man

Abhorred of heaven; and from his hands, wherein

A sword new-drawn he holds, blood reeked and fell:

A wand he bears, the olive’s topmost bough,

Twined as of purpose with a deep close tuft

Of whitest wool. This, that I plainly saw,

Plainly I tell. But lo, in front of him,

Crouched on the altar-steps, a grisly band

Of women slumbers — not like women they,

But Gorgons rather; nay, that word is weak,

Nor may I match the Gorgons’ shape with theirs!

Such have I seen in painted semblance erst —

Winged Harpies, snatching food from Phineus’ board —

But these are wingless, black, and all their shape

The eye’s abomination to behold.

Fell is the breath — let none draw nigh to it —

Exude the damned drops of poisonous ire:

And such their garb as none should dare to bring

To statues of the gods or homes of men.

I wot not of the tribe wherefrom can come

So fell a legion, nor in what land Earth

Could rear, unharmed, such creatures, nor avow

That she had travailed and had brought forth death.

But, for the rest, be all these things a carp

Unto the mighty Loxias, the lord

Of this our shrine: healer and prophet he,

Discerner he of portents, and the cleanser

Of other homes — behold, his own to cleanse!

[She goes out. The central doors open, disclosing the interior of the temple. Orestes clings to the central altar; the furies lie slumbering at a little distance; Apollo and Hermes appear from the innermost shrine.]

Apollo [to Orestes]

Lo, I desert thee never: to the end,

Hard at thy side as now, or sundered far,

I am thy guard, and to thine enemies

Implacably oppose me: look on them,

These greedy fiends, beneath my craft subdued I

See, they are fallen on sleep, these beldames old,

Unto whose grim and wizened maidenhood

Nor god nor man nor beast can e’er draw near.

Yea, evil were they born, for evil’s doom,

Evil the dark abyss of Tartarus

Wherein they dwell, and they themselves the hate

Of men on earth, and of Olympian gods.

But thou, flee far and with unfaltering speed;

For they shall hunt thee through the mainland wide

Where’er throughout the tract of travelled earth

Thy foot may roam, and o’er and o’er the seas

And island homes of men. Faint not nor fail,

Too soon and timidly within thy breast

Shepherding thoughts forlorn of this thy toil;

But unto Pallas’ city go, and there

Crouch at her shrine, and in thine arms enfold

Her ancient image: there we well shall find

Meet judges for this cause and suasive pleas,

Skilled to contrive for thee deliverance

For by my hest thou didst thy mother slay.

Orestes

O king Apollo, since right well thou know’st

What justice bids, have heed, fulfil the same —

Thy strength is all-sufficient to achieve.

Apollo

Have thou too heed, nor let thy fear prevail

Above thy will. And do thou guard him, Hermes,

Whose blood is brother unto mine, whose sire

The same high God. Men call thee guide and guard,

Guide therefore thou and guard my suppliant;

For Zeus himself reveres the outlaw’s right,

Boon of fair escort, upon man conferred.

[Apollo, Hermes, and Orestes go out. The ghost of Clytemnestra rises.]

Ghost of Clytemnestra

Sleep on! awake! what skills your sleep to me —

Me, among all the dead by you dishonoured —

Me from whom never, in the world of death,

Dieth this course, ‘Tis she who smote and slew,

And shamed and scorned I roam? Awake, and hear

My plaint of dead men’s hate intolerable.

Me, sternly slain by them that should have loved,

Me doth no god arouse him to avenge,

Hewn down in blood by matricidal hands.

Mark ye these wounds from which the heart’s blood ran,

And by whose hand, bethink ye! for the sense

When shut in sleep hath then the spirit-sight,

But in the day the inward eye is blind.

List, ye who drank so oft with lapping tongue

The wineless draught by me outpoured to soothe

Your vengeful ire! how oft on kindled shrine

I laid the feast of darkness, at the hour

Abhorred of every god but you alone!

Lo, all my service trampled down and scorned!

And he bath baulked your chase, as stag the hounds;

Yea, lightly bounding from the circling toils,

Hath wried his face in scorn, and flieth far.

Awake and hear — for mine own soul I cry —

Awake, ye powers of hell! the wandering ghost

That once was Clytemnestra calls — Arise!

[The furies mutter grimly, as in a dream.]

Mutter and murmur! He hath flown afar —

My kin have gods to guard them, I have none!

[The furies mutter as before.]

O drowsed in sleep too deep to heed my pain!

Orestes flies, who me, his mother, slew.

[The furies give a confused cry.]

Yelping, and drowsed again? Up and be doing

That which alone is yours, the deed of hell!

[The furies give another cry.]

Lo, sleep and toil, the sworn confederates,

Have quelled your dragon — anger, once so fell!

The furies [muttering more fiercely and loudly]

Seize, seize, seize, seize — mark, yonder!

Ghost

In dreams ye chase a prey, and like some hound,

That even in sleep doth ply woodland toil,

Ye bell and bay. What do ye, sleeping here?

Be not o’ercome with toil, nor, sleep — subdued,

Be heedless of my wrong. Up! thrill your heart

With the just chidings of my tongue — Such words

Are as a spur to purpose firmly held.

Blow forth on him the breath of wrath and blood,

Scorch him with reek of fire that burns in you,

Waste him with new pursuit — swift, hound him down!

[The ghost sinks.]

First fury [awaking]

Up! rouse another as I rouse thee; up!

Sleep’st thou? Rise up, and spurning sleep away,

See we if false to us this prelude rang.

Chorus of furies [singing]

[strophe 1]

Alack, alack, O sisters, we have toiled,

O much and vainly have we toiled and borne!

Vainly! and all we wrought the gods have foiled,

And turned us to scorn!

He hath slipped from the net, whom we chased: he hath ‘scaped us who should be our prey —

O’ermastered by slumber we sank, and our quarry hath stolen away!

[antistrophe 1]

Thou, child of the high God Zeus, Apollo, hast robbed us and wronged;

Thou, a youth, hast down-trodden the right that to godship more ancient belonged;

Thou hast cherished thy suppliant man; the slayer, the God — forsaken,

The bane of a parent, by craft from out of our grasp thou hast taken;

A god, thou hast stolen from us the avengers a matricide son —

And who shall consider thy deed and say, It is rightfully done?

[strophe 2]

The sound of chiding scorn

Came from the land of dream;

Deep to mine inmost heart I felt it thrill and burn,

Thrust as a strong-grasped goad, to urge

Onward the chariot’s team.

Thrilled, chilled with bitter inward pain

I stand as one beneath the doomsman’s scourge.

[antistrophe 2]

Shame on the younger gods who tread down right,

Sitting on thrones of might!

Woe on the altar of earth’s central fane!

Clotted on step and shrine,

Behold, the guilt of blood, the ghastly stain!

[strophe 3]

Woe upon thee, Apollo! uncontrolled,

Unbidden, hast thou, prophet-god, imbrued

The pure prophetic shrine with wrongful blood!

For thou too heinous a respect didst hold

Of man, too little heed of powers divine!

And us the Fates, the ancients of the earth,

Didst deem as nothing worth.

[antistrophe 3]

Scornful to me thou art, yet shalt not fend

My wrath from him; though unto hell he flee,

There too are we!

And he the blood-defiled, should feel and rue,

Though I were not, fiend-wrath that shall not end,

Descending on his head who foully slew.

[Apollo enters from the inner shrine.]

Apollo

Out! I command you. Out from this my home —

Haste, tarry not! Out from the mystic shrine,

Lest thy lot be to take into thy breast

The winged bright dart that from my golden string

Speeds hissing as a snake — lest, pierced and thrilled

With agony, thou shouldst spew forth again

Black frothy heart’s-blood, drawn from mortal men,

Belching the gory clots sucked forth from wounds.

These be no halls where such as you can prowl —

Go where men lay on men the doom of blood,

Heads lopped from necks, eyes from their spheres plucked out,

Hacked flesh, the flower of youthful seed crushed out,

Feet hewn away, and hands, and death beneath

The smiting stone, low moans and piteous

Of men impaled — Hark, hear ye for what feast

Ye hanker ever, and the loathing gods

Do spit upon your craving? Lo, your shape

Is all too fitted to your greed; the cave

Where lurks some lion, lapping gore, were home

More meet for you. Avaunt from sacred shrines,

Nor bring pollution by your touch on all

That nears you. Hence! and roam unshepherded —

No god there is to tend such herd as you.

Leader of the chorus

O king Apollo, in our turn hear us.

Thou hast not only part in these ill things,

But art chief cause and doer of the same.

Apollo

How? stretch thy speech to tell this, and have done.

Leader

Thine oracle bade this man slay his mother.

Apollo

I bade him quit his sire’s death — wherefore not?

Leader

Then didst thou aid and guard red-handed crime.

Apollo

Yea, and I bade him to this temple flee.

Leader

And yet forsooth dost chide us following him!,

Apollo

Ay — not for you it is, to near this fane.

Leader

Yet is such office ours, imposed by fate.

Apollo

What office? vaunt the thing ye deem so fair.

Leader

From home to home we chase the matricide.

Apollo

What? to avenge a wife who slays her lord?

Leader

That is not blood outpoured by kindred hands.

Apollo

How darkly ye dishonour and annul

The troth to which the high accomplishers,

Hera and Zeus, do honour. Yea, and thus

Is Aphrodite to dishonour cast,

The queen of rapture unto mortal men.

Know, that above the marriage-bed ordained

For man and woman staddeth Right as guard,

Enhancing sanctity of trothplight sworn;

Therefore, if thou art placable to those

Who have their consort slain, nor will’st to turn

On them the eye of wrath, unjust art thou

In hounding to his doom the man who slew

His mother. Lo, I know thee full of wrath

Against one deed, but all too placable

Unto the other, minishing the crime.

But in this cause shall Pallas guard the right.

Leader

Deem not my quest shall ever quit that man.

Apollo

Follow then, make thee, double toil in vain

Leader

Think not by speech mine office to curtail.

Apollo

None hast thou, that I would accept of thee!

Leader

Yea, high thine honour by the throne of Zeus:

But I, drawn on by scent of mother’s blood,

Seek vengeance on this man and hound him down.

[The chorus goes in pursuit of Orestes.]

Apollo

But I will stand beside him; ‘tis for me

To guard my suppliant: gods and men alike

Do dread the curse of such an one betrayed,

And in me Fear and Will say Leave him not.

[He goes into the temple.]

[The scene changes to Athens. In the foreground is the Temple of Athena on the Acropolis; her statue stands in the centre; Orestes is seen clinging to it.]

Orestes

Look on me, queen Athena; lo, I come

By Loxias’ behest; thou of thy grace

Receive me, driven of avenging powers —

Not now a red-hand slayer unannealed,

But with guilt fading, half-effaced, outworn

On many homes and paths of mortal men.

For to the limit of each land, each sea,

I roamed, obedient to Apollo’s best,

And come at last, O Goddess, to thy fane,

And clinging to thine image, bide my doom.

[The chorus of furies enters, questing like hounds.]

Leader of the chorus

Ho! clear is here the trace of him we seek:

Follow the track of blood, the silent sign!

Like to some hound that hunts a wounded fawn,

We snuff along the scent of dripping gore,

And inwardly we pant, for many a day

Toiling in chase that shall fordo the man;

For o’er and o’er the wide land have I ranged,

And o’er the wide sea, flying without wings,

Swift as a sail I pressed upon his track,

Who now hard by is crouching, well I wot,

For scent of mortal blood allures me here.

Chorus [chanting]

Follow, seek him — round and round

Scent and snuff and scan the ground,

Lest unharmed he slip away,

He who did his mother slay!

Hist — he is there! See him his arms entwine

Around the image of the maid divine —

Thus aided, for the deed he wrought

Unto the judgment wills he to be brought.

It may not be! a mother’s blood, poured forth

Upon the stained earth,

None gathers up: it lies — bear witness, Hell! —

For aye indelible

And thou who sheddest it shalt give thine own

That shedding to atone!

Yea, from thy living limbs I suck it out,

Red, clotted, gout by gout —

A draught abhorred of men and gods; but

Will drain it, suck thee dry;

Yea, I will waste thee living, nerve and vein;

Yea, for thy mother slain,

Will drag thee downward, there where thou shalt dree

The weird of agony!

And thou and whosoe’er of men hath sinned —

Hath wronged or God, or friend,

Or parent — learn ye how to all and each

The arm of doom can reach!

Sternly requiteth, in the world beneath,

The judgment-seat of Death;

Yea, Death, beholding every man’s endeavour,

Recordeth it for ever.

Orestes

I, schooled in many miseries, have learnt

How many refuges of cleansing shrines

And when imposeth silence. Lo, I stand

Fixed now to speak, for he whose word is wise

Commands the same. Look, how the stain of blood

Is dull upon mine hand and wastes away,

And laved and lost therewith is the deep curse

Of matricide; for while the guilt was new,

‘Twas banished from me at Apollo’s hearth,

Atoned and purified by death of swine.

Long were my word if I should sum the tale,

How oft since then among my fellow-men

I stood and brought no curse. Time cleanses all —

Time, the coeval of all things that are.

Now from pure lips, in words of omen fair,

I call Athena, lady of this land,

To come, my champion: so, in aftertime,

She shall not fail of love and service leal,

Not won by war, from me and from my land

And all the folk of Argos, vowed to her.

Now, be she far away in Libyan land

Where flows from Triton’s lake her natal wave —

Stand she with planted feet, or in some hour

Of rest conceal them, champion of her friends

Where’er she be — Or whether o’er the plain

Phlegraean she look forth, as warrior bold —

I cry to her to come, where’er she be,

(And she, as goddess, from afar can hear)

And aid and free me, set among my foes.

Leader of the chorus

Thee not Apollo nor Athena’s strength

Can save from perishing, a castaway

Amid the Lost, where no delight shall meet

Thy soul — a bloodless prey of nether powers,

A shadow among shadows. Answerest thou

Nothing? dost cast away my words with scorn,

Thou, prey prepared and dedicate to me?

Not as a victim slain upon the shrine,

But living shalt thou see thy flesh my food.

Hear now the binding chant that makes thee mine.

Chorus [chanting]

Weave the weird dance — behold the hour

To utter forth the chant of hell,

Our sway among mankind to tell,

The guidance of our power.

Of justice are we ministers,

And whosoe’er of men may stand

Lifting a pure unsullied hand,

That man no doom of ours incurs,

And walks thro’ all his mortal path

Untouched by woe, unharmed by wrath.

But if, as yonder man, he hath

Blood on the hands he strives to hide,

We stand avengers at his side,

Decreeing, Thou hast wronged the dead:

We are doom’s witnesses to thee.

The price of blood, his hands have shed,

We wring from him; in life, in death,

Hard at his side are we!

[strophe 1]

Night, Mother Night, who brought me forth, a torment

To living men and dead,

Hear me, O hear! by Leto’s stripling son

I am dishonoured:

He hath ta’en from me him who cowers in refuge,

To me made consecrates —

A rightful victim, him who slew his mother,

Given o’er to me and fate.

[refrain 1]

Hear the hymn of hell,

O’er the victim sounding —

Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,

Sense and will confounding!

Round the soul entwining

Without lute or lyre —

Soul in madness pining,

Wasting as with fire!

[antistrophe 1]

Fate, all-pervading Fate, this service spun, commanding

That I should bide therein:

Whosoe’er of mortals, made perverse and lawless,

Is stained with blood of kin,

By his side are we, and hunt him ever onward,

Till to the Silent Land,

The realm of death, he cometh; neither yonder

In freedom shall he stand.

[refrain 1]

Hear the hymn of hell,

O’er the victim sounding —

Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,

Sense and will confounding!

Round the soul entwining

Without lute or lyre —

Soul in madness pining,

Wasting as with fire!

[strophe 2]

When from womb of Night we sprang, on us this labour

Was laid and shall abide.

Gods immortal are ye, yet beware ye touch not

That which is our pride!

None may come beside us gathered round the blood-feast —

For us no garments white

Gleam on a festal day; for us a darker fate is,

Another darker rite.

[refrain 2]

That is mine hour when falls an ancient line

When in the household’s heart

The God of blood doth slay by kindred hands —

Then do we bear our part:

On him who slays we sweep with chasing cry:

Though he be triply strong,

We wear and waste him; blood atones for blood,

Yew pain for ancient wrong.

[antistrophe 2]

I hold this task — ‘tis mine, and not another’s.

The very gods on high,

Though they can silence and annul the prayers

Of those who on us cry,

They may not strive with us who stand apart,

A race by Zeus abhorred,

Blood-boltered, held unworthy of the council

And converse of Heaven’s lord.

[strophe 3]

Therefore the more I leap upon my prey;

Upon their head I bound;

My foot is hard; as one that trips a runner

I cast them to the ground;

Yea, to the depth of doom intolerable;

And they who erst were great,

And upon earth held high their pride and glory,

Are brought to low estate.

In underworld they waste and are diminished,

The while around them fleet

Dark wavings of my robes, and, subtly woven,

The paces of my feet.

[antistrophe 3]

Who falls infatuate, he sees not neither knows he

That we are at his side;

So closely round about him, darkly flitting,

The cloud of guilt doth glide.

Heavily ‘tis uttered, how around his hearthstone

The mirk of hell doth rise.

[strophe 4]

Stern and fixed the law is; we have hands t’ achieve it,

Cunning to devise.

Queens are we and mindful of our solemn vengeance.

Not by tear or prayer

Shall a man avert it. In unhonoured darkness,

Far from gods, we fare,

Lit unto our task with torch of sunless regions,

And o’er a deadly way —

Deadly to the living as to those who see not

Life and light of day —

Hunt we and press onward.

[antistrophe 4]

Who of mortals hearing

Doth not quake for awe,

Hearing all that Fate thro’ hand of God hath given us

For ordinance and law?

Yea, this right to us, in dark abysm and backward

Of ages it befell:

None shall wrong mine office, tho’ in nether regions

And sunless dark I dwell.

[Athena enters.]

Athena

Far off I heard the clamour of your cry,

As by Scamander’s side I set my foot

Asserting right upon the land given o’er

To me by those who o’er Achaea’s host

Held sway and leadership: no scanty part

Of all they won by spear and sword, to me

They gave it, land and all that grew thereon,

As chosen heirloom for my Theseus’ clan.

Thence summoned, sped I with a tireless foot —

Hummed on the wind, instead of wings, the fold

Of this mine aegis, by my feet propelled,

As, linked to mettled horses, speeds a car.

And now, beholding here Earth’s nether brood,

I fear it nought, yet are mine eyes amazed

With wonder. Who are ye? of all I ask,

And of this stranger to my statue clinging.

But ye — your shape is like no human form,

Like to no goddess whom the gods behold,

Like to no shape which mortal women wear.

Yet to stand by and chide a monstrous form

Is all unjust — from such words Right revolts.

Leader of the chorus

O child of Zeus, one word shall tell thee all.

We are the children of eternal Night,

And Furies in the underworld are called.

Athena

I know your lineage now and eke your name.

Leader

Yea, and eftsoons indeed my rights shalt know.

Athena

Fain would I learn them; speak them clearly forth,

Leader

We chase from home the murderers of men.

Athena

And where at last can he that slew make pause?

Leader

Where this is law — All joy abandon here.

Athena

Say, do ye bay this man to such a flight?

Leader

Yea, for of choice he did his mother slay.

Athena

Urged by no fear of other wrath and doom?

Leader

What spur can rightly goad to matricide?

Athena

Two stand to plead — one only have I heard.

Leader

He will not swear nor challenge us to oath.

Athena

The form of justice, not its deed, thou willest.

Leader

Prove thou that word; thou art not scant of skill.

Athena

I say that oaths shall not enforce the wrong.

Leader

Then test the cause, judge and award the right.

Athena

Will ye to me then this decision trust?

Leader

Yea, reverencing true child of worthy sire.

Athena (to Orestes)

O man unknown, make thou thy plea in turn.

Speak forth thy land, thy lineage, and thy woes;

Then, if thou canst, avert this bitter blame —

If, as I deem, in confidence of right

Thou sittest hard beside my holy place,

Clasping this statue, as Ixion sat,

A sacred suppliant for Zeus to cleanse —

To all this answer me in words made plain.

Orestes

O queen Athena, first from thy last words

Will I a great solicitude remove.

Not one blood-guilty am I; no foul stain

Clings to thine image from my clinging hand;

Whereof one potent proof I have to tell.

Lo, the law stands — The slayer shall not plead,

Till by the hand of him who cleanses blood

A suckling creature’s blood besprinkle him.

Long since have I this expiation done —

In many a home, slain beasts and running streams

Have cleansed me. Thus I speak away that fear.

Next, of my lineage quickly thou shalt learn:

An Argive am I, and right well thou know’st

My sire, that Agamemnon who arrayed

The fleet and them that went therein to war —

That chief with whom thy hand combined to crush

To an uncitied heap what once was Troy;

That Agamemnon, when he homeward came,

Was brought unto no honourable death,

Slain by the dark-souled wife who brought me forth

To him — enwound and slain in wily nets,

Blazoned with blood that in the laver ran.

And I, returning from an exiled youth,

Slew her, my mother — lo, it stands avowed!

With blood for blood avenging my loved sire;

And in this deed doth Loxias bear part,

Decreeing agonies, to goad my will,

Unless by me the guilty found their doom.

Do thou decide if right or wrong were done —

Thy dooming, whatsoe’er it be, contents me.

Athena

Too mighty is this matter, whosoe’er

Of mortals claims to judge hereof aright.

Yea, me, even me, eternal Right forbids

To judge the issues of blood-guilt, and wrath

That follows swift behind. This too gives pause,

That thou as one with all due rites performed

Dost come, unsinning, pure, unto my shrine.

Whate’er thou art, in this my city’s name,

As uncondemned, I take thee to my side. —

Yet have these foes of thine such dues by fate,

O’erthrown in judgment of the cause, forthwith

Their anger’s poison shall infect the land —

A dropping plague-spot of eternal ill.

Thus stand we with a woe on either hand:

Stay they, or go at my commandment forth,

Perplexity or pain must needs befall.

Yet, as on me Fate hath imposed the cause,

I choose unto me judges that shall be

An ordinance for ever, set to rule

The dues of blood-guilt, upon oath declared.

But ye, call forth your witness and your proof,

Words strong for justice, fortified by oath;

And I, whoe’er are truest in my town,

Them will I choose and bring, and straitly charge,

Look on this cause, discriminating well,

And pledge your oath to utter nought of wrong.

[Athena withdraws.]

Chorus [singing]

[strophe 1]

Now are they all undone, the ancient laws,

If here the slayer’s cause

Prevail; new wrong for ancient right shall be

If matricide go free.

Henceforth a deed like his by all shall stand,

Too ready to the hand:

Too oft shall parents in the aftertime

Rue and lament this crime —

Taught, not in false imagining, to feel

Their children’s thrusting steel:

No more the wrath, that erst on murder fell

From us, the queens of Hell,

Shall fall, no more our watching gaze impend —

Death shall smite unrestrained.

[antistrophe 1]

Henceforth shall one unto another cry

Lo, they are stricken, lo, they fall and die

Around me! and that other answers him,

O thou that lookest that thy woes should cease,

Behold, with dark increase

They throng and press upon thee; yea, and dim

Is all the cure, and every comfort vain!

[strophe 2]

Let none henceforth cry out, when falls the blow

Of sudden-smiting woe,

Cry out in sad reiterated strain

O Justice, aid! aid, O ye thrones of Hell!

So though a father or a mother wail

New-smitten by a son, it shall no more avail,

Since, overthrown by wrong, the fane of justice fell!

[antistrophe 2]

Know, that a throne there is that may not pass away,

And one that sitteth on it — even Fear,

Searching with steadfast eyes man’s inner soul:

Wisdom is child of pain, and born with many a tear;

But who henceforth,

What man of mortal men, what nation upon earth,

That holdeth nought in awe nor in the light

Of inner reverence, shall worship Right

As in the older day?

[strophe 3]

Praise not, O man, the life beyond control,

Nor that which bows unto a tyrant’s sway.

Know that the middle way

Is dearest unto God, and they thereon who wend,

They shall achieve the end;

But they who wander or to left or right

Are sinners in his sight.

Take to thy heart this one, this soothfast word —

Of wantonness impiety is sire;

Only from calm control and sanity unstirred

Cometh true weal, the goal of every man’s desire.

[antistrophe 3]

Yea, whatsoe’er befall, hold thou this word of mine:

Bow down at Justice’ shrine,

Turn thou thine eyes away from earthly lure,

Nor witk a godless foot that altar spurn.

For as thou dost shall Fate do in return,

And the great doom is sure.

Therefore let each adore a parent’s trust,

And each with loyalty revere the guest

That in his halls doth rest.

[strophe 4]

For whoso uncompelled doth follow what is just,

He ne’er shall be unblest;

Yea, never to the gulf of doom

That man shall come.

But he whose will is set against the gods,

Who treads beyond the law with foot impure,

Till o’er the wreck of Right confusion broods —

Know that for him, though now he sail secure,

The day of storm shall be; then shall he strive and fail

Down from the shivered yard to furl the sail.

[antistrophe 4]

And call on Powers, that heed him nought, to save,

And vainly wrestle with the whirling wave.

Hot was his heart with pride —

I shall not fall, he cried.

But him with watching scorn

The god beholds, forlorn,

Tangled in toils of Fate beyond escape,

Hopeless of haven safe beyond the cape —

Till all his wealth and bliss of bygone day

Upon the reef of Rightful Doom is hurled,

And he is rapt away

Unwept, for ever, to the dead forgotten world.

[Athena enters, with twelve athenian citizens. A large crowd follows.]

Athena

O herald, make proclaim, bid all men come.

Then let the shrill blast of the Tyrrhene trump,

Fulfilled with mortal breath, thro’ the wide air

Peal a loud summons, bidding all men heed.

For, till my judges fill this judgment-seat,

Silence behoves — that this whole city learn,

What for all time mine ordinance commands,

And these men, that the cause be judged aright.

[Apollo enters.]

Leader of the chorus

O king Apollo, rule what is thine own,

But in this thing what share pertains to thee?

Apollo

First, as a witness come I, for this man

Is suppliant of mine by sacred right,

Guest of my holy hearth and cleansed by me

Of blood-guilt: then, to set me at his side

And in his cause bear part, as part I bore

Erst in his deed, whereby his mother fell.

Let whoso knoweth now announce the cause.

Athena [to the chorus]

‘Tis I announce the cause — first speech be yours;

For rightfully shall they whose plaint is tried

Tell the tale first and set the matter clear.

Leader

Though we be many, brief shall be our tale.

[To Orestes] Answer thou, setting word to match with word;

And first avow — hast thou thy mother slain?

Orestes

I slew her. I deny no word hereof.

Leader

Three falls decide the wrestle — this is one.

Orestes

Thou vauntest thee — but o’er no final fall.

Leader

Yet must thou tell the manner of thy deed.

Orestes

Drawn sword in hand, I gashed her neck. ‘Tis told.

Leader

But by whose word, whose craft, wert thou impelled?

Orestes

By oracles of him who here attests me.

Leader

The prophet-god bade thee thy mother slay?

Orestes

Yea, and thro’ him less ill I fared, till now.

Leader

If the vote grip thee, thou shalt change that word.

Orestes

Strong is my hope; my buried sire shall aid.

Leader

Go to now, trust the dead, a matricide!

Orestes

Yea, for in her combined two stains of sin.

Leader

How? speak this clearly to the judges’ mind.

Orestes

Slaying her husband, she did slay my sire.

Leader

Therefore thou livest; death assoils her deed.

Orestes

Then while she lived why didst thou hunt her not?

Leader

She was not kin by blood to him she slew.

Orestes

And I, am I by blood my mother’s kin?

Leader

O cursed with murder’s guilt, how else wert thou

The burden of her womb? Dost thou forswear

Thy mother’s kinship, closest bond of love?

Orestes

It is thine hour, Apollo — speak the law,

Averring if this deed were justly done;

For done it is, and clear and undenied.

But if to thee this murder’s cause seem right

Or wrongful, speak — that I to these may tell.

Apollo

To you, Athena’s mighty council-court,

Justly for justice will I plead, even I,

The prophet-god, nor cheat you by one word.

For never spake I from my prophet-seat

One word, of man, of woman, or of state,

Save what the Father of Olympian gods

Commanded unto me. I rede you then,

Bethink you of my plea, how strong it stands,

And follow the decree of Zeus our sire —

For oaths prevail not over Zeus’ command.

Leader

Go to; thou sayest that from Zeus befell

The oracle that this Orestes bade

With vengeance quit the slaying of his sire,

And hold as nought his mother’s right of kin!

Apollo

Yea, for it stands not with a common death,

That he should die, a chieftain and a king

Decked with the sceptre which high heaven confers —

Die, and by female hands, not smitten down

By a far-shooting bow, held stalwartly

By some strong Amazon. Another doom

Was his: O Pallas, hear, and ye who sit

In judgment, to discern this thing aright! —

She with a specious voice of welcome true

Hailed him, returning from the mighty mart

Where war for life gives fame, triumphant home;

Then o’er the laver, as he bathed himself,

She spread from head to foot a covering net,

And in the endless mesh of cunning robes

Enwound and trapped her lord, and smote him down.

Lo, ye have heard what doom this chieftain met,

The majesty of Greece, the fleet’s high lord:

Such as I tell it, let it gall your ears,

Who stand as judges to decide this cause.

Leader

Zeus, as thou sayest, holds a father’s death

As first of crimes — yet he of his own act

Cast into chains his father, Cronus old:

How suits that deed with that which now ye tell?

O ye who judge, I bid ye mark my words!

Apollo

O monsters loathed of all, O scorn of gods,

He that hath bound may loose: a cure there is.

Yea, many a plan that can unbind the chain.

But when the thirsty dust sucks up man’s blood

Once shed in death, he shall arise no more.

No chant nor charm for this my Sire hath wrought.

All else there is, he moulds and shifts at will,

Not scant of strength nor breath, whate’er he do.

Leader

Think yet, for what acquittal thou dost plead:

He who hath shed a mother’s kindred blood,

Shall he in Argos dwell, where dwelt his sire?

How shall he stand before the city’s shrines,

How share the clansmen’s holy lustral bowl?

Apollo

This too I answer; mark a soothfast word

Not the true parent is the woman’s womb

That bears the child; she doth but nurse the seed

New-sown: the male is parent; she for him,

As stranger for a stranger, hoards the germ

Of life, unless the god its promise blight.

And proof hereof before you will I set.

Birth may from fathers, without mothers, be:

See at your side a witness of the same,

Athena, daughter of Olympian Zeus,

Never within the darkness of the womb

Fostered nor fashioned, but a bud more bright

Than any goddess in her breast might bear.

And I, O Pallas, howsoe’er I may,

Henceforth will glorify thy town, thy clan,

And for this end have sent my suppliant here

Unto thy shrine; that he from this time forth

Be loyal unto thee for evermore,

O goddess-queen, and thou unto thy side

Mayst win and hold him faithful, and his line,

And that for aye this pledge and troth remain

To children’s children of Athenian seed.

Athena

Enough is said; I bid the judges now

With pure intent deliver just award.

Leader

We too have shot our every shaft of speech,

And now abide to hear the doom of law.

Athena [to Apollo and Orestes)

Say, how ordaining shall I ‘scape your blame?

Apollo

I spake, ye heard; enough. O stranger men,

Heed well your oath as ye decide the cause.

Athena

O men of Athens, ye who first do judge

The law of bloodshed, hear me now ordain.

Here to all time for Aegeus’ Attic host

Shall stand this council-court of judges sworn,

Here the tribunal, set on Ares’ Hill

Where camped of old the tented Amazons,

What time in hate of Theseus they assailed

Athens, and set against her citadel

A counterwork of new sky-pointing towers,

And there to Ares held their sacrifice,

Where now the rock hath name, even Ares’ Hill.

And hence shall Reverence and her kinsman Fear

Pass to each free man’s heart, by day and night

Enjoining, Thou shalt do no unjust thing,

So long as law stands as it stood of old

Unmarred by civic change. Look you, the spring

Is pure; but foul it once with influx vile

And muddy clay, and none can drink thereof.

Therefore, O citizens, I bid ye bow

In awe to this command, Let no man live,

Uncurbed by law nor curbed by tyranny;

Nor banish ye the monarchy of Awe

Beyond the walls; untouched by fear divine,

No man doth justice in the world of men.

Therefore in purity and holy dread

Stand and revere; so shall ye have and hold

A saving bulwark of the state and land,

Such as no man hath ever elsewhere known,

Nor in far Scythia, nor in Pelops’ realm.

Thus I ordain it now, a council-court

Pure and unsullied by the lust of gain,

Sacred and swift to vengeance, wakeful ever

To champion men who sleep, the country’s guard.

Thus have I spoken, thus to mine own clan

Commended it for ever. Ye who judge,

Arise, take each his vote, mete out the right,

Your oath revering. Lo, my word is said.

[The twelve judges come forward, one by one, to the urns of decision; the first votes; as each of the others follows, the leader and Apollo speak alternately.]

Leader

I rede ye well, beware! nor put to shame,

In aught, this grievous company of hell.

Apollo

I too would warn you, fear mine oracles —

From Zeus they are — nor make them void of fruit.

Leader

Presumptuous is thy claim, blood-guilt to judge,

And false henceforth thine oracles shall be.

Apollo

Failed then the counsels of my sire, when turned

Ixion, first of slayers, to his side?

Leader

These are but words; but I, if justice fail me,

Will haunt this land in grim and deadly deed.

Apollo

Scorn of the younger and the elder gods

Art thou: ‘tis I that shall prevail anon.

Leader

Thus didst thou too of old in Pheres’ halls,

O’erreaching Fate to make a mortal deathless.

Apollo

Was it not well, my worshipper to aid,

Then most of all when hardest was the need?

Leader

I say thou didst annul the lots of life,

Cheating with wine the deities of eld.

Apollo

I say thou shalt anon, thy pleadings foiled,

Spit venom vainly on thine enemies.

Leader

Since this young god o’errides mine ancient right,

I tarry but to claim your law, not knowing

If wrath of mine shall blast your state or spare.

Athena

Mine is the right to add the final vote,

And I award it to Orestes’ cause.

For me no mother bore within her womb,

And, save for wedlock evermore eschewed,

I vouch myself the champion of the man,

Not of the woman, yea, with all my soul —

In heart, as birth, a father’s child alone.

Thus will I not too heinously regard

A woman’s death who did her husband slay,

The guardian of her home; and if the votes

Equal do fall, Orestes shall prevail.

Ye of the judges who are named thereto,

Swiftly shake forth the lots from either urn.

[Two judges come forward, one to each urn.]

Orestes

O bright Apollo, what shall be the end?

Leader

O Night, dark mother mine, dost mark these things?

Orestes

Now shall my doom be life, or strangling cords.

Leader

And mine, lost honour or a wider sway.

Apollo

O stranger judges, sum aright the count

Of votes cast forth, and, parting them, take heed

Ye err not in decision. The default

Of one vote only bringeth ruin deep,

One, cast aright. doth stablish house and home.

Athena

Behold, this man is free from guilt of blood,

For half the votes condemn him, half set free!

Orestes

O Pallas, light and safety of my home,

Thou, thou hast given me back to dwell once more

In that my fatherland, amerced of which

I wandered; now shall Grecian lips say this,

The man is Argive once again, and dwells

Again within kiss father’s wealthy hall,

By Pallas saved, by Loxias, and by Him,

The great third saviour, Zeus omnipotent —

Who thus in pity for my father’s fate

Doth pluck me from my doom, beholding these,

Confederates of my mother. Lo, I pass

To mine own home, but proffering this vow

Unto thy land and people: Nevermore,

Thro’ all the manifold years of Time to be,

Shall any chieftain of mine Argive land

Bear hitherward his spears for fight arrayed.

For we, though lapped in earth we then shall lie,

By thwart adversities will work our will

On them who shall transgress this oath of mine,

Paths of despair and journeyings ill-starred

For them ordaining, till their task they rue.

But if this oath be rightly kept, to them

Will we the dead be full of grace, the while

With loyal league they honour Pallas’ town.

And now farewell, thou and thy city’s folk —

Firm be thine arms’ grasp, closing with thy foes,

And, strong to save, bring victory to thy spear.

[Orestes and Apollo depart.]

Chorus [chanting]

Woe on you, younger gods! the ancient right

Ye have o’erridden, rent it from my hands.

I am dishonoured of you, thrust to scorn!

But heavily my wrath

Shall on this land fling forth the drops that blast and burn,

Venom of vengeance, that shall work such scathe

As I have suffered; where that dew shall fall,

Shall leafless blight arise,

Wasting Earth’s offspring — Justice, hear my call! —

And thorough all the land in deadly wise

Shall scatter venom, to exude again

In pestilence on men.

What cry avails me now, what deed of blood,

Unto this land what dark despite?

Alack, alack, forlorn

Are we, a bitter injury have borne!

Alack, O sisters, O dishonoured brood

Of mother Night!

Athena

Nay, bow ye to my words, chafe not nor moan:

Ye are not worsted nor disgraced; behold,

With balanced vote the cause had issue fair,

Nor in the end did aught dishonour thee.

But thus the will of Zeus shone clearly forth,

And his own prophet-god avouched the same,

Orestes slew: his slaying is atoned.

Therefore I pray you, not upon this land

Shoot forth the dart of vengeance; be appeased,

Nor blast the land with blight, nor loose thereon

Drops of eternal venom, direful darts

Wasting and marring nature’s seed of growth.

For I, the queen of Athens’ sacred right,

Do pledge to you a holy sanctuary

Deep in the heart of this my land, made just

By your indwelling presence, while ye sit

Hard by your sacred shrines that gleam with oil

Of sacrifice, and by this folk adored.

Chorus [chanting]

Woe on you, younger gods! the ancient right

Ye have o’erridden, rent it from my hands.

I am dishonoured of you, thrust to scorn!

But heavily my wrath

Shall on this land fling forth the drops that blast and burn,

Venom of vengeance, that shall work such scathe

As I have suffered; where that dew shall fall,

Shall leafless blight arise,

Wasting Earth’s offspring — justice, hear my call! —

And thorough all the land in deadly wise

Shall scatter venom, to exude again

In pestilence on men.

What cry avails me now, what deed of blood,

Unto this land what dark despite?

Alack, alack, forlorn

Are we, a bitter injury have borne!

Alack, O sisters, O dishonoured brood

Of mother Night!

Athena

Dishonoured are ye not; turn not, I pray,

As goddesses your swelling wrath on men,

Nor make the friendly earth despiteful to them.

I too have Zeus for champion —’tis enough —

I only of all goddesses do know

To ope the chamber where his thunderbolts

Lie stored and sealed; but here is no such need.

Nay, be appeased, nor cast upon the ground

The malice of thy tongue, to blast the world;

Calm thou thy bitter wrath’s black inward surge,

For high shall be thine honour, set beside me

For ever in this land, whose fertile lap

Shall pour its teeming firstfruits unto you,

Gifts for fair childbirth and for wedlock’s crown:

Thus honoured, praise my spoken pledge for aye.

Chorus [chanting]

I, I dishonoured in this earth to dwell —

Ancient of days and wisdom! I breathe forth

Poison and breath of frenzied ire. O Earth,

Woe, woe for thee, for me!

From side to side what pains be these that thrill?

Hearken, O mother Night, my wrath, mine agony!

Whom from mine ancient rights the gods have thrust

And brought me to the dust —

Woe, woe is me! — with craft invincible.

Athena

Older art thou than I, and I will bear

With this thy fury. Know, although thou be

More wise in ancient wisdom, yet have

From Zeus no scanted measure of the same,

Wherefore take heed unto this prophecy —

If to another land of alien men

Ye go, too late shall ye feel longing dreep

For mine. The rolling tides of time bring round

A day of brighter glory for this town;

And thou, enshrined in honour by the halls

Where dwelt Erechtheus, shalt a worship win

From men and from the train of womankind,

Greater than any tribe elsewhere shall pay.

Cast thou not therefore on this soil of mine

Whetstones that sharpen souls to bloodshedding,

The burning goads of youthful hearts, made hot

With frenzy of the spirit, not of wine.

Nor pluck as ‘twere the heart from cocks that strive,

To set it in the breast of citizens

Of mine, a war-god’s spirit, keen for fight,

Made stern against their country and their kin.

The man who grievously doth lust for fame,

War, full, immitigable, let him wage

Against the stranger; but of kindred birds

I hold the challenge hateful. Such the boon

I proffer thee — within this land of lands,

Most loved of gods, with me to show and share

Fair mercy, gratitude and grace as fair.

Chorus [chanting]

I, I dishonoured in this earth to dwell —

Ancient of days and wisdom! I breathe forth

Poison and breath of frenzied ire. O Earth,

Woe, woe for thee, for me!

From side to side what pains be these that thrill?

Hearken, O mother Night, my wrath, mine agony!

Whom from mine ancient rights the gods have thrust

And brought me to the dust —

Woe, woe is me! — with craft invincible.

Athena

I will not weary of soft words to thee,

That never mayst thou say, Behold me spurned,

An elder by a younger deity,

And from this land rejected and forlorn,

Unhonoured by the men who dwell therein.

But, if Persuasion’s grace be sacred to thee,

Soft in the soothing accents of my tongue,

Tarry, I Dray thee, yet, if go thou wilt.

Not rightfully wilt thou on this my town

Sway down the scale that beareth wrath and teen

Or wasting plague uport this folk. ‘Tis thine,

If so thou wilt, inheritress to be

f this my land, its utmost grace to win.

Leader of the chorus

O queen, what refuge dost thou promise me?

Athena

Refuge untouched by bale: take thou my boon.

Leader

What, if I take it, shall mine honour be?

Athena

No house shall prosper without grace of thine.

Leader

Canst thou achieve and grant such power to me?

Athena

Yea, for my hand shall bless thy worshippers.

Leader

And wilt thou pledge me this for time eterne?

Athena

Yea: none can bid me pledge beyond my power.

Leader

Lo, I desist from wrath, appeased by thee.

Athena

Then in the land’s heart shalt thou win thee friends.

Leader

What chant dost bid me raise, to greet the land?

Athena

Such as aspires towards a victory

Unrued by any: chants from breast of earth,

From wave, from sky; and let the wild winds’ breath

Pass with soft sunlight o’er the lap of land —

Strong wax the fruits of earth, fair teem the kine,

Unfailing, for my town’s prosperity,

And constant be the growth of mortal seed.

But more and more root out the impious,

For as a gardener fosters what he sows,

So foster I this race, whom righteousness

Doth fend from sorrow. Such the proffered boon.

But I, if wars must be, and their loud clash

And carnage, for my town, will ne’er endure

That aught but victory shall crown her fame.

Chorus [chanting]

Lo, I accept it; at her very side

Doth Pallas bid me dwell:

I will not wrong the city of her pride,

Which even Almighty Zeus and Ares hold

Heaven’s earthly citadel,

Loved home of Grecian gods, the young, the old,

The sanctuary divine,

The shield of every shrine!

For Athens I say forth a gracious prophecy —

The glory of the sunlight and the skies

Shall bid from earth arise

Warm wavelets of new life and glad prosperity.

Athena [chanting]

Behold, with gracious heart well pleased

I for my citizens do grant

Fulfilment of this covenant:

And here, their wrath at length appeased,

These mighty deities shall stay.

For theirs it is by right to sway

The lot that rules our mortal day,

And he who hath not inly felt

Their stern decree, ere long on him,

Not knowing why and whence, the grim

Life-crushing blow is dealt.

The father’s sin upon the child

Descends, and sin is silent death,

And leads him on the downward path,

By stealth beguiled,

Unto the Furies: though his state

On earth were high, and loud his boast,

Victim of silent ire and hate

He dwells among the Lost.

Chorus [chanting]

To my blessing now give ear. —

Scorching blight nor singed air

Never blast thine olives fair!

Drouth, that wasteth bud and plant,

Keep to thine own place. Avaunt,

Famine fell, and come not hither

Stealthily to waste and wither!

Let the land, in season due,

Twice her waxing fruits renew;

Teem the kine in double measure;

Rich in new god-given treasure;

Here let men the powers adore

For sudden gifts unhoped before!

Athena [chanting]

O hearken, warders of the wall

That guards mine Athens, what a dower

Is unto her ordained and given!

For mighty is the Furies’ power,

And deep-revered in courts of heaven

And realms of hell; and clear to all

They weave thy doom, mortality!

And some in joy and peace shall sing;

But unto other some they bring

Sad life and tear-dimmed eye.

Chorus [chanting]

And far away I ban thee and remove,

Untimely death of youths too soon brought low!

And to each maid, O gods, when time is come for love,

Grant ye a warrior’s heart, a wedded life to know.

Ye too, O Fates, children of mother Night,

Whose children too are we, O goddesses

Of just award, of all by sacred right

Queens, who in time and in eternity

Do rule, a present power for righteousness,

Honoured beyond all Gods, hear ye and grant my cry!

Athena [chanting]

And I too, I with joy am fain,

Hearing your voice this gift ordain

Unto my land. High thanks be thine,

Persuasion, who with eyes divine

Into my tongue didst look thy strength,

To bend and to appease at length

Those who would not be comforted.

Zeus, king of parley, doth prevail,

And ye and I will strive nor fail,

That good may stand in evil’s stead,

And lasting bliss for bale.

Chorus [chanting]

And nevermore these walls within

Shall echo fierce sedition’s din,

Unslaked with blood and crime;

The thirsty dust shall nevermore

Suck up the darkly streaming gore

Of civic broils, shed out in wrath

And vengeance, crying death for death!

But man with man and state with state

Shall vow The pledge of common hate

And common friendship, that for man

Hath oft made blessing, out of ban,

Be ours unto all time.

Athena [chanting]

Skill they, or not, the path to find

Of favouring speech and presage kind?

Yea, even from these, who, grim and stern,

Glared anger upon you of old,

O citizens, ye now shall earn

A recompense right manifold.

Deck them aright, extol them high,

Be loyal to their loyalty,

And ye shall make your town and land

Sure, propped on justice’ saving hand,

And Fame’s eternity.

Chorus [chanting]

Hail ye, all hail! and yet again, all hail,

O Athens, happy in a weal secured!

O ye who sit by Zeus’ right hand, nor fail

Of wisdom set among you and assured,

Loved of the well-loved Goddess–Maid! the King

Of gods doth reverence you, beneath her guarding wing.

Athena [chanting]

All hail unto each honoured guest!

Whom to the chambers of your rest

‘Tis mine to lead, and to provide

The hallowed torch, the guard and guide.

Pass down, the while these altars glow

With sacred fire, to earth below

And your appointed shrine.

There dwelling, from the land restrain

The force of fate, the breath of bane,

But waft on us the gift and gain

Of Victory divine!

And ye, the men of Cranaos’ seed,

I bid you now with reverence lead

These alien Powers that thus are made

Athenian evermore. To you

Fair be their will henceforth, to do

Whate’er may bless and aid!

Chorus [chanting]

Hail to you all! hail yet again,

All who love Athens, gods and men,

Adoring her as Pallas’ home!

And while ye reverence what ye grant —

My sacred shrine and hidden haunt —

Blameless and blissful be your doom!

Athena

Once more I praise the promise of your vows,

And now I bid the golden torches’ glow

Pass down before you to the hidden depth

Of earth, by mine own sacred servants borne,

My loyal guards of statue and of shrine.

Come forth, O flower of Attic land,

O glorious band of children and of wives,

And ye, O train of matrons crowned with eld!

Deck you with festal robes of scarlet dye

In honour of this day: O gleaming torch,

Lead onward, that these gracious powers of earth

Henceforth be seen to bless the life of men.

[Athena leads the procession downwards into the Cave of the furies, now Eumenides, under the Areopagus: as they go, the escort of women and children chant aloud]

Chant

With loyalty we lead you; proudly go,

Night’s childless children, to your home below!

(O citizens, awhile from words forbear!)

To darkness’ deep primeval lair,

Far in Earth’s bosom, downward fare,

Adored with prayer and sacrifice.

(O citizens, forbear your cries!)

Pass hitherward, ye powers of Dread,

With all your former wrath allayed,

Into the heart of this loved land;

With joy unto your temple wend,

The while upon your steps attend

The flames that feed upon the brand —

(Now, now ring out your chant, your joy’s acclaim!)

Behind them, as they downward fare,

Let holy hands libations bear,

And torches’ sacred flame.

All-seeing Zeus and Fate come down

To battle fair for Pallas’ town!

Ring out your chant, ring out your joy’s acclaim!

SOPHOCLES

Oedipus the King

Characters in the Play

Oedipus.

The Priest of Zeus.

Creon.

Chorus of Theban Elders.

Teiresias.

Jocasta.

Messenger.

Herd of Laius.

Second Messenger.

[Scene: Thebes. Before the Palace of Oedipus.]

[Suppliants of all ages are seated round the altar at the palace doors, at their head a Priest OF Zeus. To them enter Oedipus.]

Oedipus

My children, latest born to Cadmus old,
Why sit ye here as suppliants, in your hands
Branches of olive filleted with wool?
What means this reek of incense everywhere,
And everywhere laments and litanies?
Children, it were not meet that I should learn
From others, and am hither come, myself,
I Oedipus, your world-renowned king.
Ho! aged sire, whose venerable locks
Proclaim thee spokesman of this company,
Explain your mood and purport. Is it dread
Of ill that moves you or a boon ye crave?
My zeal in your behalf ye cannot doubt;
Ruthless indeed were I and obdurate
If such petitioners as you I spurned.

Priest

Yea, Oedipus, my sovereign lord and king,
Thou seest how both extremes of age besiege
Thy palace altars — fledglings hardly winged,
and greybeards bowed with years; priests, as am I
of Zeus, and these the flower of our youth.
Meanwhile, the common folk, with wreathed boughs
Crowd our two market-places, or before
Both shrines of Pallas congregate, or where
Ismenus gives his oracles by fire.
For, as thou seest thyself, our ship of State,
Sore buffeted, can no more lift her head,
Foundered beneath a weltering surge of blood.
A blight is on our harvest in the ear,
A blight upon the grazing flocks and herds,
A blight on wives in travail; and withal
Armed with his blazing torch the God of Plague
Hath swooped upon our city emptying
The house of Cadmus, and the murky realm
Of Pluto is full fed with groans and tears.
Therefore, O King, here at thy hearth we sit,
I and these children; not as deeming thee
A new divinity, but the first of men;
First in the common accidents of life,
And first in visitations of the Gods.
Art thou not he who coming to the town
of Cadmus freed us from the tax we paid
To the fell songstress? Nor hadst thou received
Prompting from us or been by others schooled;
No, by a god inspired (so all men deem,
And testify) didst thou renew our life.
And now, O Oedipus, our peerless king,
All we thy votaries beseech thee, find
Some succor, whether by a voice from heaven
Whispered, or haply known by human wit.
Tried counselors, methinks, are aptest found
To furnish for the future pregnant rede.
Upraise, O chief of men, upraise our State!
Look to thy laurels! for thy zeal of yore
Our country’s savior thou art justly hailed:
O never may we thus record thy reign:—
“He raised us up only to cast us down.”
Uplift us, build our city on a rock.
Thy happy star ascendant brought us luck,
O let it not decline! If thou wouldst rule
This land, as now thou reignest, better sure
To rule a peopled than a desert realm.
Nor battlements nor galleys aught avail,
If men to man and guards to guard them tail.

Oedipus

Ah! my poor children, known, ah, known too well,
The quest that brings you hither and your need.
Ye sicken all, well wot I, yet my pain,
How great soever yours, outtops it all.
Your sorrow touches each man severally,
Him and none other, but I grieve at once
Both for the general and myself and you.
Therefore ye rouse no sluggard from day-dreams.
Many, my children, are the tears I’ve wept,
And threaded many a maze of weary thought.
Thus pondering one clue of hope I caught,
And tracked it up; I have sent Menoeceus’ son,
Creon, my consort’s brother, to inquire
Of Pythian Phoebus at his Delphic shrine,
How I might save the State by act or word.
And now I reckon up the tale of days
Since he set forth, and marvel how he fares.
’Tis strange, this endless tarrying, passing strange.
But when he comes, then I were base indeed,
If I perform not all the god declares.

Priest

Thy words are well timed; even as thou speakest
That shouting tells me Creon is at hand.

Oedipus

O King Apollo! may his joyous looks
Be presage of the joyous news he brings!

Priest

As I surmise, ’tis welcome; else his head
Had scarce been crowned with berry-laden bays.

Oedipus

We soon shall know; he’s now in earshot range.

[Enter Creon]

My royal cousin, say, Menoeceus’ child,
What message hast thou brought us from the god?

Creon

Good news, for e’en intolerable ills,
Finding right issue, tend to naught but good.

Oedipus

How runs the oracle? thus far thy words
Give me no ground for confidence or fear.

Creon

If thou wouldst hear my message publicly,
I’ll tell thee straight, or with thee pass within.

Oedipus

Speak before all; the burden that I bear
Is more for these my subjects than myself.

Creon

Let me report then all the god declared.
King Phoebus bids us straitly extirpate
A fell pollution that infests the land,
And no more harbor an inveterate sore.

Oedipus

What expiation means he? What’s amiss?

Creon

Banishment, or the shedding blood for blood.
This stain of blood makes shipwreck of our state.

Oedipus

Whom can he mean, the miscreant thus denounced?

Creon

Before thou didst assume the helm of State,
The sovereign of this land was Laius.

Oedipus

I heard as much, but never saw the man.

Creon

He fell; and now the god’s command is plain:
Punish his takers-off, whoe’er they be.

Oedipus

Where are they? Where in the wide world to find
The far, faint traces of a bygone crime?

Creon

In this land, said the god; “who seeks shall find;
Who sits with folded hands or sleeps is blind.”

Oedipus

Was he within his palace, or afield,
Or traveling, when Laius met his fate?

Creon

Abroad; he started, so he told us, bound
For Delphi, but he never thence returned.

Oedipus

Came there no news, no fellow-traveler
To give some clue that might be followed up?

Creon

But one escape, who flying for dear life,
Could tell of all he saw but one thing sure.

Oedipus

And what was that? One clue might lead us far,
With but a spark of hope to guide our quest.

Creon

Robbers, he told us, not one bandit but
A troop of knaves, attacked and murdered him.

Oedipus

Did any bandit dare so bold a stroke,
Unless indeed he were suborned from Thebes?

Creon

So ’twas surmised, but none was found to avenge
His murder mid the trouble that ensued.

Oedipus

What trouble can have hindered a full quest,
When royalty had fallen thus miserably?

Creon

The riddling Sphinx compelled us to let slide
The dim past and attend to instant needs.

Oedipus

Well, I will start afresh and once again
Make dark things clear. Right worthy the concern
Of Phoebus, worthy thine too, for the dead;
I also, as is meet, will lend my aid
To avenge this wrong to Thebes and to the god.
Not for some far-off kinsman, but myself,
Shall I expel this poison in the blood;
For whoso slew that king might have a mind
To strike me too with his assassin hand.
Therefore in righting him I serve myself.
Up, children, haste ye, quit these altar stairs,
Take hence your suppliant wands, go summon hither
The Theban commons. With the god’s good help
Success is sure; ’tis ruin if we fail.

[Exeunt Oedipus and Creon]

Priest

Come, children, let us hence; these gracious words
Forestall the very purpose of our suit.
And may the god who sent this oracle
Save us withal and rid us of this pest.

[Exeunt Priest and Suppliants]

Chorus

(Str. 1)
Sweet-voiced daughter of Zeus from thy gold-paved Pythian shrine
Wafted to Thebes divine,
What dost thou bring me? My soul is racked and shivers with fear.
(Healer of Delos, hear!)
Hast thou some pain unknown before,
Or with the circling years renewest a penance of yore?
Offspring of golden Hope, thou voice immortal, O tell me.

(Ant. 1)
First on Athene I call; O Zeus-born goddess, defend!
Goddess and sister, befriend,
Artemis, Lady of Thebes, high-throned in the midst of our mart!
Lord of the death-winged dart!
Your threefold aid I crave
From death and ruin our city to save.
If in the days of old when we nigh had perished, ye drave
From our land the fiery plague, be near us now and defend us!

(Str. 2)
Ah me, what countless woes are mine!
All our host is in decline;
Weaponless my spirit lies.
Earth her gracious fruits denies;
Women wail in barren throes;
Life on life downstriken goes,
Swifter than the wind bird’s flight,
Swifter than the Fire-God’s might,
To the westering shores of Night.

(Ant. 2)
Wasted thus by death on death
All our city perisheth.
Corpses spread infection round;
None to tend or mourn is found.
Wailing on the altar stair
Wives and grandams rend the air —
Long-drawn moans and piercing cries
Blent with prayers and litanies.
Golden child of Zeus, O hear
Let thine angel face appear!

(Str. 3)
And grant that Ares whose hot breath I feel,
Though without targe or steel
He stalks, whose voice is as the battle shout,
May turn in sudden rout,
To the unharbored Thracian waters sped,
Or Amphitrite’s bed.
For what night leaves undone,
Smit by the morrow’s sun
Perisheth. Father Zeus, whose hand
Doth wield the lightning brand,
Slay him beneath thy levin bold, we pray,
Slay him, O slay!

(Ant. 3)
O that thine arrows too, Lycean King,
From that taut bow’s gold string,
Might fly abroad, the champions of our rights;
Yea, and the flashing lights
Of Artemis, wherewith the huntress sweeps
Across the Lycian steeps.
Thee too I call with golden-snooded hair,
Whose name our land doth bear,
Bacchus to whom thy Maenads Evoe shout;
Come with thy bright torch, rout,
Blithe god whom we adore,
The god whom gods abhor.

[Enter Oedipus.]

Oedipus

Ye pray; ’tis well, but would ye hear my words
And heed them and apply the remedy,
Ye might perchance find comfort and relief.
Mind you, I speak as one who comes a stranger
To this report, no less than to the crime;
For how unaided could I track it far
Without a clue? Which lacking (for too late
Was I enrolled a citizen of Thebes)
This proclamation I address to all:—
Thebans, if any knows the man by whom
Laius, son of Labdacus, was slain,
I summon him to make clean shrift to me.
And if he shrinks, let him reflect that thus
Confessing he shall ’scape the capital charge;
For the worst penalty that shall befall him
Is banishment — unscathed he shall depart.
But if an alien from a foreign land
Be known to any as the murderer,
Let him who knows speak out, and he shall have
Due recompense from me and thanks to boot.
But if ye still keep silence, if through fear
For self or friends ye disregard my hest,
Hear what I then resolve; I lay my ban
On the assassin whosoe’er he be.
Let no man in this land, whereof I hold
The sovereign rule, harbor or speak to him;
Give him no part in prayer or sacrifice
Or lustral rites, but hound him from your homes.
For this is our defilement, so the god
Hath lately shown to me by oracles.
Thus as their champion I maintain the cause
Both of the god and of the murdered King.
And on the murderer this curse I lay
(On him and all the partners in his guilt):—
Wretch, may he pine in utter wretchedness!
And for myself, if with my privity
He gain admittance to my hearth, I pray
The curse I laid on others fall on me.
See that ye give effect to all my hest,
For my sake and the god’s and for our land,
A desert blasted by the wrath of heaven.
For, let alone the god’s express command,
It were a scandal ye should leave unpurged
The murder of a great man and your king,
Nor track it home. And now that I am lord,
Successor to his throne, his bed, his wife,
(And had he not been frustrate in the hope
Of issue, common children of one womb
Had forced a closer bond twixt him and me,
But Fate swooped down upon him), therefore I
His blood-avenger will maintain his cause
As though he were my sire, and leave no stone
Unturned to track the assassin or avenge
The son of Labdacus, of Polydore,
Of Cadmus, and Agenor first of the race.
And for the disobedient thus I pray:
May the gods send them neither timely fruits
Of earth, nor teeming increase of the womb,
But may they waste and pine, as now they waste,
Aye and worse stricken; but to all of you,
My loyal subjects who approve my acts,
May Justice, our ally, and all the gods
Be gracious and attend you evermore.

Chorus

The oath thou profferest, sire, I take and swear.
I slew him not myself, nor can I name
The slayer. For the quest, ’twere well, methinks
That Phoebus, who proposed the riddle, himself
Should give the answer — who the murderer was.

Oedipus

Well argued; but no living man can hope
To force the gods to speak against their will.

Chorus

May I then say what seems next best to me?

Oedipus

Aye, if there be a third best, tell it too.

Chorus

My liege, if any man sees eye to eye
With our lord Phoebus, ’tis our prophet, lord
Teiresias; he of all men best might guide
A searcher of this matter to the light.

Oedipus

Here too my zeal has nothing lagged, for twice
At Creon’s instance have I sent to fetch him,
And long I marvel why he is not here.

Chorus

I mind me too of rumors long ago —
Mere gossip.

Oedipus

Tell them, I would fain know all.

Chorus

’Twas said he fell by travelers.

Oedipus

So I heard,
But none has seen the man who saw him fall.

Chorus

Well, if he knows what fear is, he will quail
And flee before the terror of thy curse.

Oedipus

Words scare not him who blenches not at deeds.

Chorus

But here is one to arraign him. Lo, at length
They bring the god-inspired seer in whom
Above all other men is truth inborn.

[Enter Teiresias, led by a boy.]

Oedipus

Teiresias, seer who comprehendest all,
Lore of the wise and hidden mysteries,
High things of heaven and low things of the earth,
Thou knowest, though thy blinded eyes see naught,
What plague infects our city; and we turn
To thee, O seer, our one defense and shield.
The purport of the answer that the God
Returned to us who sought his oracle,
The messengers have doubtless told thee — how
One course alone could rid us of the pest,
To find the murderers of Laius,
And slay them or expel them from the land.
Therefore begrudging neither augury
Nor other divination that is thine,
O save thyself, thy country, and thy king,
Save all from this defilement of blood shed.
On thee we rest. This is man’s highest end,
To others’ service all his powers to lend.

Teiresias

Alas, alas, what misery to be wise
When wisdom profits nothing! This old lore
I had forgotten; else I were not here.

Oedipus

What ails thee? Why this melancholy mood?

Teiresias

Let me go home; prevent me not; ’twere best
That thou shouldst bear thy burden and I mine.

Oedipus

For shame! no true-born Theban patriot
Would thus withhold the word of prophecy.

Teiresias

Thy words, O king, are wide of the mark, and I
For fear lest I too trip like thee...

Oedipus

Oh speak,
Withhold not, I adjure thee, if thou know’st,
Thy knowledge. We are all thy suppliants.

Teiresias

Aye, for ye all are witless, but my voice Will ne’er reveal my miseries — or thine.

Oedipus

What then, thou knowest, and yet willst not speak!
Wouldst thou betray us and destroy the State?

Teiresias

I will not vex myself nor thee. Why ask
Thus idly what from me thou shalt not learn?

Oedipus

Monster! thy silence would incense a flint.
Will nothing loose thy tongue? Can nothing melt thee,
Or shake thy dogged taciturnity?

Teiresias

Thou blam’st my mood and seest not thine own
Wherewith thou art mated; no, thou taxest me.

Oedipus

And who could stay his choler when he heard
How insolently thou dost flout the State?

Teiresias

Well, it will come what will, though I be mute.

Oedipus

Since come it must, thy duty is to tell me.

Teiresias

I have no more to say; storm as thou willst,
And give the rein to all thy pent-up rage.

Oedipus

Yea, I am wroth, and will not stint my words,
But speak my whole mind. Thou methinks thou art he,
Who planned the crime, aye, and performed it too,
All save the assassination; and if thou
Hadst not been blind, I had been sworn to boot
That thou alone didst do the bloody deed.

Teiresias

Is it so? Then I charge thee to abide
By thine own proclamation; from this day
Speak not to these or me. Thou art the man,
Thou the accursed polluter of this land.

Oedipus

Vile slanderer, thou blurtest forth these taunts,
And think’st forsooth as seer to go scot free.

Teiresias

Yea, I am free, strong in the strength of truth.

Oedipus

Who was thy teacher? not methinks thy art.

Teiresias

Thou, goading me against my will to speak.

Oedipus

What speech? repeat it and resolve my doubt.

Teiresias

Didst miss my sense wouldst thou goad me on?

Oedipus

I but half caught thy meaning; say it again.

Teiresias

I say thou art the murderer of the man
Whose murderer thou pursuest.

Oedipus

Thou shalt rue it
Twice to repeat so gross a calumny.

Teiresias

Must I say more to aggravate thy rage?

Oedipus

Say all thou wilt; it will be but waste of breath.

Teiresias

I say thou livest with thy nearest kin
In infamy, unwitting in thy shame.

Oedipus

Think’st thou for aye unscathed to wag thy tongue?

Teiresias

Yea, if the might of truth can aught prevail.

Oedipus

With other men, but not with thee, for thou
In ear, wit, eye, in everything art blind.

Teiresias

Poor fool to utter gibes at me which all
Here present will cast back on thee ere long.

Oedipus

Offspring of endless Night, thou hast no power
O’er me or any man who sees the sun.

Teiresias

No, for thy weird is not to fall by me.
I leave to Apollo what concerns the god.

Oedipus

Is this a plot of Creon, or thine own?

Teiresias

Not Creon, thou thyself art thine own bane.

Oedipus

O wealth and empiry and skill by skill
Outwitted in the battlefield of life,
What spite and envy follow in your train!
See, for this crown the State conferred on me.
A gift, a thing I sought not, for this crown
The trusty Creon, my familiar friend,
Hath lain in wait to oust me and suborned
This mountebank, this juggling charlatan,
This tricksy beggar-priest, for gain alone
Keen-eyed, but in his proper art stone-blind.
Say, sirrah, hast thou ever proved thyself
A prophet? When the riddling Sphinx was here
Why hadst thou no deliverance for this folk?
And yet the riddle was not to be solved
By guess-work but required the prophet’s art;
Wherein thou wast found lacking; neither birds
Nor sign from heaven helped thee, but I came,
The simple Oedipus; I stopped her mouth
By mother wit, untaught of auguries.
This is the man whom thou wouldst undermine,
In hope to reign with Creon in my stead.
Methinks that thou and thine abettor soon
Will rue your plot to drive the scapegoat out.
Thank thy grey hairs that thou hast still to learn
What chastisement such arrogance deserves.

Chorus

To us it seems that both the seer and thou,
O Oedipus, have spoken angry words.
This is no time to wrangle but consult
How best we may fulfill the oracle.

Teiresias

King as thou art, free speech at least is mine
To make reply; in this I am thy peer.
I own no lord but Loxias; him I serve
And ne’er can stand enrolled as Creon’s man.
Thus then I answer: since thou hast not spared
To twit me with my blindness — thou hast eyes,
Yet see’st not in what misery thou art fallen,
Nor where thou dwellest nor with whom for mate.
Dost know thy lineage? Nay, thou know’st it not,
And all unwitting art a double foe
To thine own kin, the living and the dead;
Aye and the dogging curse of mother and sire
One day shall drive thee, like a two-edged sword,
Beyond our borders, and the eyes that now
See clear shall henceforward endless night.
Ah whither shall thy bitter cry not reach,
What crag in all Cithaeron but shall then
Reverberate thy wail, when thou hast found
With what a hymeneal thou wast borne
Home, but to no fair haven, on the gale!
Aye, and a flood of ills thou guessest not
Shall set thyself and children in one line.
Flout then both Creon and my words, for none
Of mortals shall be striken worse than thou.

Oedipus

Must I endure this fellow’s insolence?
A murrain on thee! Get thee hence! Begone
Avaunt! and never cross my threshold more.

Teiresias

I ne’er had come hadst thou not bidden me.

Oedipus

I know not thou wouldst utter folly, else
Long hadst thou waited to be summoned here.

Teiresias

Such am I— as it seems to thee a fool,
But to the parents who begat thee, wise.

Oedipus

What sayest thou —"parents"? Who begat me, speak?

Teiresias

This day shall be thy birth-day, and thy grave.

Oedipus

Thou lov’st to speak in riddles and dark words.

Teiresias

In reading riddles who so skilled as thou?

Oedipus

Twit me with that wherein my greatness lies.

Teiresias

And yet this very greatness proved thy bane.

Oedipus

No matter if I saved the commonwealth.

Teiresias

’Tis time I left thee. Come, boy, take me home.

Oedipus

Aye, take him quickly, for his presence irks
And lets me; gone, thou canst not plague me more.

Teiresias

I go, but first will tell thee why I came.
Thy frown I dread not, for thou canst not harm me.
Hear then: this man whom thou hast sought to arrest
With threats and warrants this long while, the wretch
Who murdered Laius — that man is here.
He passes for an alien in the land
But soon shall prove a Theban, native born.
And yet his fortune brings him little joy;
For blind of seeing, clad in beggar’s weeds,
For purple robes, and leaning on his staff,
To a strange land he soon shall grope his way.
And of the children, inmates of his home,
He shall be proved the brother and the sire,
Of her who bare him son and husband both,
Co-partner, and assassin of his sire.
Go in and ponder this, and if thou find
That I have missed the mark, henceforth declare
I have no wit nor skill in prophecy.

[Exeunt Teiresias and Oedipus]

Chorus

(Str. 1)
Who is he by voice immortal named from Pythia’s rocky cell,
Doer of foul deeds of bloodshed, horrors that no tongue can tell?
A foot for flight he needs
Fleeter than storm-swift steeds,
For on his heels doth follow,
Armed with the lightnings of his Sire, Apollo.
Like sleuth-hounds too
The Fates pursue.

(Ant. 1)
Yea, but now flashed forth the summons from Parnassus’ snowy peak,
“Near and far the undiscovered doer of this murder seek!”
Now like a sullen bull he roves
Through forest brakes and upland groves,
And vainly seeks to fly
The doom that ever nigh
Flits o’er his head,
Still by the avenging Phoebus sped,
The voice divine,
From Earth’s mid shrine.
(Str. 2)
Sore perplexed am I by the words of the master seer.
Are they true, are they false? I know not and bridle my tongue for
fear,
Fluttered with vague surmise; nor present nor future is clear.
Quarrel of ancient date or in days still near know I none
Twixt the Labdacidan house and our ruler, Polybus’ son.
Proof is there none: how then can I challenge our King’s good name,
How in a blood-feud join for an untracked deed of shame?

(Ant. 2)
All wise are Zeus and Apollo, and nothing is hid from their ken;
They are gods; and in wits a man may surpass his fellow men;
But that a mortal seer knows more than I know — where
Hath this been proven? Or how without sign assured, can I blame
Him who saved our State when the winged songstress came,
Tested and tried in the light of us all, like gold assayed?
How can I now assent when a crime is on Oedipus laid?

Creon

Friends, countrymen, I learn King Oedipus
Hath laid against me a most grievous charge,
And come to you protesting. If he deems
That I have harmed or injured him in aught
By word or deed in this our present trouble,
I care not to prolong the span of life,
Thus ill-reputed; for the calumny
Hits not a single blot, but blasts my name,
If by the general voice I am denounced
False to the State and false by you my friends.

Chorus

This taunt, it well may be, was blurted out
In petulance, not spoken advisedly.

Creon

Did any dare pretend that it was I
Prompted the seer to utter a forged charge?

Chorus

Such things were said; with what intent I know not.

Creon

Were not his wits and vision all astray
When upon me he fixed this monstrous charge?

Chorus

I know not; to my sovereign’s acts I am blind.
But lo, he comes to answer for himself.

[Enter Oedipus.]

Oedipus

Sirrah, what mak’st thou here? Dost thou presume
To approach my doors, thou brazen-faced rogue,
My murderer and the filcher of my crown?
Come, answer this, didst thou detect in me
Some touch of cowardice or witlessness,
That made thee undertake this enterprise?
I seemed forsooth too simple to perceive
The serpent stealing on me in the dark,
Or else too weak to scotch it when I saw.
This thou art witless seeking to possess
Without a following or friends the crown,
A prize that followers and wealth must win.

Creon

Attend me. Thou hast spoken, ’tis my turn
To make reply. Then having heard me, judge.

Oedipus

Thou art glib of tongue, but I am slow to learn
Of thee; I know too well thy venomous hate.

Creon

First I would argue out this very point.

Oedipus

O argue not that thou art not a rogue.

Creon

If thou dost count a virtue stubbornness,
Unschooled by reason, thou art much astray.

Oedipus

If thou dost hold a kinsman may be wronged,
And no pains follow, thou art much to seek.

Creon

Therein thou judgest rightly, but this wrong
That thou allegest — tell me what it is.

Oedipus

Didst thou or didst thou not advise that I
Should call the priest?

Creon

Yes, and I stand to it.

Oedipus

Tell me how long is it since Laius...

Creon

Since Laius...? I follow not thy drift.

Oedipus

By violent hands was spirited away.

Creon

In the dim past, a many years agone.

Oedipus

Did the same prophet then pursue his craft?

Creon

Yes, skilled as now and in no less repute.

Oedipus

Did he at that time ever glance at me?

Creon

Not to my knowledge, not when I was by.

Oedipus

But was no search and inquisition made?

Creon

Surely full quest was made, but nothing learnt.

Oedipus

Why failed the seer to tell his story then?

Creon

I know not, and not knowing hold my tongue.

Oedipus

This much thou knowest and canst surely tell.

Creon

What’s mean’st thou? All I know I will declare.

Oedipus

But for thy prompting never had the seer
Ascribed to me the death of Laius.

Creon

If so he thou knowest best; but I
Would put thee to the question in my turn.

Oedipus

Question and prove me murderer if thou canst.

Creon

Then let me ask thee, didst thou wed my sister?

Oedipus

A fact so plain I cannot well deny.

Creon

And as thy consort queen she shares the throne?

Oedipus

I grant her freely all her heart desires.

Creon

And with you twain I share the triple rule?

Oedipus

Yea, and it is that proves thee a false friend.

Creon

Not so, if thou wouldst reason with thyself,
As I with myself. First, I bid thee think,
Would any mortal choose a troubled reign
Of terrors rather than secure repose,
If the same power were given him? As for me,
I have no natural craving for the name
Of king, preferring to do kingly deeds,
And so thinks every sober-minded man.
Now all my needs are satisfied through thee,
And I have naught to fear; but were I king,
My acts would oft run counter to my will.
How could a title then have charms for me
Above the sweets of boundless influence?
I am not so infatuate as to grasp
The shadow when I hold the substance fast.
Now all men cry me Godspeed! wish me well,
And every suitor seeks to gain my ear,
If he would hope to win a grace from thee.
Why should I leave the better, choose the worse?
That were sheer madness, and I am not mad.
No such ambition ever tempted me,
Nor would I have a share in such intrigue.
And if thou doubt me, first to Delphi go,
There ascertain if my report was true
Of the god’s answer; next investigate
If with the seer I plotted or conspired,
And if it prove so, sentence me to death,
Not by thy voice alone, but mine and thine.
But O condemn me not, without appeal,
On bare suspicion. ’Tis not right to adjudge
Bad men at random good, or good men bad.
I would as lief a man should cast away
The thing he counts most precious, his own life,
As spurn a true friend. Thou wilt learn in time
The truth, for time alone reveals the just;
A villain is detected in a day.

Chorus

To one who walketh warily his words
Commend themselves; swift counsels are not sure.

Oedipus

When with swift strides the stealthy plotter stalks
I must be quick too with my counterplot.
To wait his onset passively, for him
Is sure success, for me assured defeat.

Creon

What then’s thy will? To banish me the land?

Oedipus

I would not have thee banished, no, but dead,
That men may mark the wages envy reaps.

Creon

I see thou wilt not yield, nor credit me.

Oedipus

[None but a fool would credit such as thou.]

Creon

Thou art not wise.

Oedipus

Wise for myself at least.

Creon

Why not for me too?

Oedipus

Why for such a knave?

Creon

Suppose thou lackest sense.

Oedipus

Yet kings must rule.

Creon

Not if they rule ill.

Oedipus

Oh my Thebans, hear him!

Creon

Thy Thebans? am not I a Theban too?

Chorus

Cease, princes; lo there comes, and none too soon,
Jocasta from the palace. Who so fit
As peacemaker to reconcile your feud?

[Enter Jocasta.]

Jocasta

Misguided princes, why have ye upraised
This wordy wrangle? Are ye not ashamed,
While the whole land lies striken, thus to voice
Your private injuries? Go in, my lord;
Go home, my brother, and forebear to make
A public scandal of a petty grief.

Creon

My royal sister, Oedipus, thy lord,
Hath bid me choose (O dread alternative!)
An outlaw’s exile or a felon’s death.

Oedipus

Yes, lady; I have caught him practicing
Against my royal person his vile arts.

Creon

May I ne’er speed but die accursed, if I
In any way am guilty of this charge.

Jocasta

Believe him, I adjure thee, Oedipus,
First for his solemn oath’s sake, then for mine,
And for thine elders’ sake who wait on thee.

Chorus

(Str. 1)
Hearken, King, reflect, we pray thee, but not stubborn but relent.

Oedipus

Say to what should I consent?

Chorus

Respect a man whose probity and troth
Are known to all and now confirmed by oath.

Oedipus

Dost know what grace thou cravest?

Chorus

Yea, I know.

Oedipus

Declare it then and make thy meaning plain.

Chorus

Brand not a friend whom babbling tongues assail;
Let not suspicion ’gainst his oath prevail.

Oedipus

Bethink you that in seeking this ye seek
In very sooth my death or banishment?

Chorus

No, by the leader of the host divine!
(Str. 2)
Witness, thou Sun, such thought was never mine,
Unblest, unfriended may I perish,
If ever I such wish did cherish!
But O my heart is desolate
Musing on our striken State,
Doubly fall’n should discord grow
Twixt you twain, to crown our woe.

Oedipus

Well, let him go, no matter what it cost me,
Or certain death or shameful banishment,
For your sake I relent, not his; and him,
Where’er he be, my heart shall still abhor.

Creon

Thou art as sullen in thy yielding mood
As in thine anger thou wast truculent.
Such tempers justly plague themselves the most.

Oedipus

Leave me in peace and get thee gone.

Creon

I go,
By thee misjudged, but justified by these.

[Exeunt Creon]

Chorus

(Ant. 1)
Lady, lead indoors thy consort; wherefore longer here delay?

Jocasta

Tell me first how rose the fray.

Chorus

Rumors bred unjust suspicious and injustice rankles sore.

Jocasta

Were both at fault?

Chorus

Both.

Jocasta

What was the tale?

Chorus

Ask me no more. The land is sore distressed;
’Twere better sleeping ills to leave at rest.

Oedipus

Strange counsel, friend! I know thou mean’st me well,
And yet would’st mitigate and blunt my zeal.

Chorus

(Ant. 2)
King, I say it once again,
Witless were I proved, insane,
If I lightly put away
Thee my country’s prop and stay,
Pilot who, in danger sought,
To a quiet haven brought
Our distracted State; and now
Who can guide us right but thou?

Jocasta

Let me too, I adjure thee, know, O king,
What cause has stirred this unrelenting wrath.

Oedipus

I will, for thou art more to me than these.
Lady, the cause is Creon and his plots.

Jocasta

But what provoked the quarrel? make this clear.

Oedipus

He points me out as Laius’ murderer.

Jocasta

Of his own knowledge or upon report?

Oedipus

He is too cunning to commit himself,
And makes a mouthpiece of a knavish seer.

Jocasta

Then thou mayest ease thy conscience on that score.
Listen and I’ll convince thee that no man
Hath scot or lot in the prophetic art.
Here is the proof in brief. An oracle
Once came to Laius (I will not say
’Twas from the Delphic god himself, but from
His ministers) declaring he was doomed
To perish by the hand of his own son,
A child that should be born to him by me.
Now Laius — so at least report affirmed —
Was murdered on a day by highwaymen,
No natives, at a spot where three roads meet.
As for the child, it was but three days old,
When Laius, its ankles pierced and pinned
Together, gave it to be cast away
By others on the trackless mountain side.
So then Apollo brought it not to pass
The child should be his father’s murderer,
Or the dread terror find accomplishment,
And Laius be slain by his own son.
Such was the prophet’s horoscope. O king,
Regard it not. Whate’er the god deems fit
To search, himself unaided will reveal.

Oedipus

What memories, what wild tumult of the soul
Came o’er me, lady, as I heard thee speak!

Jocasta

What mean’st thou? What has shocked and startled thee?

Oedipus

Methought I heard thee say that Laius
Was murdered at the meeting of three roads.

Jocasta

So ran the story that is current still.

Oedipus

Where did this happen? Dost thou know the place?

Jocasta

Phocis the land is called; the spot is where
Branch roads from Delphi and from Daulis meet.

Oedipus

And how long is it since these things befell?

Jocasta

’Twas but a brief while were thou wast proclaimed
Our country’s ruler that the news was brought.

Oedipus

O Zeus, what hast thou willed to do with me!

Jocasta

What is it, Oedipus, that moves thee so?

Oedipus

Ask me not yet; tell me the build and height
Of Laius? Was he still in manhood’s prime?

Jocasta

Tall was he, and his hair was lightly strewn
With silver; and not unlike thee in form.

Oedipus

O woe is me! Mehtinks unwittingly
I laid but now a dread curse on myself.

Jocasta

What say’st thou? When I look upon thee, my king,
I tremble.

Oedipus

’Tis a dread presentiment
That in the end the seer will prove not blind.
One further question to resolve my doubt.

Jocasta

I quail; but ask, and I will answer all.

Oedipus

Had he but few attendants or a train
Of armed retainers with him, like a prince?

Jocasta

They were but five in all, and one of them
A herald; Laius in a mule-car rode.

Oedipus

Alas! ’tis clear as noonday now. But say,
Lady, who carried this report to Thebes?

Jocasta

A serf, the sole survivor who returned.

Oedipus

Haply he is at hand or in the house?

Jocasta

No, for as soon as he returned and found
Thee reigning in the stead of Laius slain,
He clasped my hand and supplicated me
To send him to the alps and pastures, where
He might be farthest from the sight of Thebes.
And so I sent him. ’Twas an honest slave
And well deserved some better recompense.

Oedipus

Fetch him at once. I fain would see the man.

Jocasta

He shall be brought; but wherefore summon him?

Oedipus

Lady, I fear my tongue has overrun
Discretion; therefore I would question him.

Jocasta

Well, he shall come, but may not I too claim
To share the burden of thy heart, my king?

Oedipus

And thou shalt not be frustrate of thy wish.
Now my imaginings have gone so far.
Who has a higher claim that thou to hear
My tale of dire adventures? Listen then.
My sire was Polybus of Corinth, and
My mother Merope, a Dorian;
And I was held the foremost citizen,
Till a strange thing befell me, strange indeed,
Yet scarce deserving all the heat it stirred.
A roisterer at some banquet, flown with wine,
Shouted “Thou art not true son of thy sire.”
It irked me, but I stomached for the nonce
The insult; on the morrow I sought out
My mother and my sire and questioned them.
They were indignant at the random slur
Cast on my parentage and did their best
To comfort me, but still the venomed barb
Rankled, for still the scandal spread and grew.
So privily without their leave I went
To Delphi, and Apollo sent me back
Baulked of the knowledge that I came to seek.
But other grievous things he prophesied,
Woes, lamentations, mourning, portents dire;
To wit I should defile my mother’s bed
And raise up seed too loathsome to behold,
And slay the father from whose loins I sprang.
Then, lady — thou shalt hear the very truth —
As I drew near the triple-branching roads,
A herald met me and a man who sat
In a car drawn by colts — as in thy tale —
The man in front and the old man himself
Threatened to thrust me rudely from the path,
Then jostled by the charioteer in wrath
I struck him, and the old man, seeing this,
Watched till I passed and from his car brought down
Full on my head the double-pointed goad.
Yet was I quits with him and more; one stroke
Of my good staff sufficed to fling him clean
Out of the chariot seat and laid him prone.
And so I slew them every one. But if
Betwixt this stranger there was aught in common
With Laius, who more miserable than I,
What mortal could you find more god-abhorred?
Wretch whom no sojourner, no citizen
May harbor or address, whom all are bound
To harry from their homes. And this same curse
Was laid on me, and laid by none but me.
Yea with these hands all gory I pollute
The bed of him I slew. Say, am I vile?
Am I not utterly unclean, a wretch
Doomed to be banished, and in banishment
Forgo the sight of all my dearest ones,
And never tread again my native earth;
Or else to wed my mother and slay my sire,
Polybus, who begat me and upreared?
If one should say, this is the handiwork
Of some inhuman power, who could blame
His judgment? But, ye pure and awful gods,
Forbid, forbid that I should see that day!
May I be blotted out from living men
Ere such a plague spot set on me its brand!

Chorus

We too, O king, are troubled; but till thou
Hast questioned the survivor, still hope on.

Oedipus

My hope is faint, but still enough survives
To bid me bide the coming of this herd.

Jocasta

Suppose him here, what wouldst thou learn of him?

Oedipus

I’ll tell thee, lady; if his tale agrees
With thine, I shall have ’scaped calamity.

Jocasta

And what of special import did I say?

Oedipus

In thy report of what the herdsman said
Laius was slain by robbers; now if he
Still speaks of robbers, not a robber, I
Slew him not; “one” with “many” cannot square.
But if he says one lonely wayfarer,
The last link wanting to my guilt is forged.

Jocasta

Well, rest assured, his tale ran thus at first,
Nor can he now retract what then he said;
Not I alone but all our townsfolk heard it.
E’en should he vary somewhat in his story,
He cannot make the death of Laius
In any wise jump with the oracle.
For Loxias said expressly he was doomed
To die by my child’s hand, but he, poor babe,
He shed no blood, but perished first himself.
So much for divination. Henceforth I
Will look for signs neither to right nor left.

Oedipus

Thou reasonest well. Still I would have thee send
And fetch the bondsman hither. See to it.

Jocasta

That will I straightway. Come, let us within.
I would do nothing that my lord mislikes.

[Exeunt Oedipus and Jocasta]

Chorus

(Str. 1)
My lot be still to lead
The life of innocence and fly
Irreverence in word or deed,
To follow still those laws ordained on high
Whose birthplace is the bright ethereal sky
No mortal birth they own,
Olympus their progenitor alone:
Ne’er shall they slumber in oblivion cold,
The god in them is strong and grows not old.

(Ant. 1)
Of insolence is bred
The tyrant; insolence full blown,
With empty riches surfeited,
Scales the precipitous height and grasps the throne.
Then topples o’er and lies in ruin prone;
No foothold on that dizzy steep.
But O may Heaven the true patriot keep
Who burns with emulous zeal to serve the State.
God is my help and hope, on him I wait.

(Str. 2)
But the proud sinner, or in word or deed,
That will not Justice heed,
Nor reverence the shrine
Of images divine,
Perdition seize his vain imaginings,
If, urged by greed profane,
He grasps at ill-got gain,
And lays an impious hand on holiest things.
Who when such deeds are done
Can hope heaven’s bolts to shun?
If sin like this to honor can aspire,
Why dance I still and lead the sacred choir?

(Ant. 2)
No more I’ll seek earth’s central oracle,
Or Abae’s hallowed cell,
Nor to Olympia bring
My votive offering.
If before all God’s truth be not bade plain.
O Zeus, reveal thy might,
King, if thou’rt named aright
Omnipotent, all-seeing, as of old;
For Laius is forgot;
His weird, men heed it not;
Apollo is forsook and faith grows cold.

[Enter Jocasta.]

Jocasta

My lords, ye look amazed to see your queen
With wreaths and gifts of incense in her hands.
I had a mind to visit the high shrines,
For Oedipus is overwrought, alarmed
With terrors manifold. He will not use
His past experience, like a man of sense,
To judge the present need, but lends an ear
To any croaker if he augurs ill.
Since then my counsels naught avail, I turn
To thee, our present help in time of trouble,
Apollo, Lord Lycean, and to thee
My prayers and supplications here I bring.
Lighten us, lord, and cleanse us from this curse!
For now we all are cowed like mariners
Who see their helmsman dumbstruck in the storm.

[Enter Corinthian Messenger.]

Messenger

My masters, tell me where the palace is
Of Oedipus; or better, where’s the king.

Chorus

Here is the palace and he bides within;
This is his queen the mother of his children.

Messenger

All happiness attend her and the house,
Blessed is her husband and her marriage-bed.

Jocasta

My greetings to thee, stranger; thy fair words
Deserve a like response. But tell me why
Thou comest — what thy need or what thy news.

Messenger

Good for thy consort and the royal house.

Jocasta

What may it be? Whose messenger art thou?

Messenger

The Isthmian commons have resolved to make
Thy husband king — so ’twas reported there.

Jocasta

What! is not aged Polybus still king?

Messenger

No, verily; he’s dead and in his grave.

Jocasta

What! is he dead, the sire of Oedipus?

Messenger

If I speak falsely, may I die myself.

Jocasta

Quick, maiden, bear these tidings to my lord.
Ye god-sent oracles, where stand ye now!
This is the man whom Oedipus long shunned,
In dread to prove his murderer; and now
He dies in nature’s course, not by his hand.

[Enter Oedipus.]

Oedipus

My wife, my queen, Jocasta, why hast thou
Summoned me from my palace?

Jocasta

Hear this man,
And as thou hearest judge what has become
Of all those awe-inspiring oracles.

Oedipus

Who is this man, and what his news for me?

Jocasta

He comes from Corinth and his message this:
Thy father Polybus hath passed away.

Oedipus

What? let me have it, stranger, from thy mouth.

Messenger

If I must first make plain beyond a doubt
My message, know that Polybus is dead.

Oedipus

By treachery, or by sickness visited?

Messenger

One touch will send an old man to his rest.

Oedipus

So of some malady he died, poor man.

Messenger

Yes, having measured the full span of years.

Oedipus

Out on it, lady! why should one regard
The Pythian hearth or birds that scream i’ the air?
Did they not point at me as doomed to slay
My father? but he’s dead and in his grave
And here am I who ne’er unsheathed a sword;
Unless the longing for his absent son
Killed him and so I slew him in a sense.
But, as they stand, the oracles are dead —
Dust, ashes, nothing, dead as Polybus.

Jocasta

Say, did not I foretell this long ago?

Oedipus

Thou didst: but I was misled by my fear.

Jocasta

Then let I no more weigh upon thy soul.

Oedipus

Must I not fear my mother’s marriage bed.

Jocasta

Why should a mortal man, the sport of chance,
With no assured foreknowledge, be afraid?
Best live a careless life from hand to mouth.
This wedlock with thy mother fear not thou.
How oft it chances that in dreams a man
Has wed his mother! He who least regards
Such brainsick phantasies lives most at ease.

Oedipus

I should have shared in full thy confidence,
Were not my mother living; since she lives
Though half convinced I still must live in dread.

Jocasta

And yet thy sire’s death lights out darkness much.

Oedipus

Much, but my fear is touching her who lives.

Messenger

Who may this woman be whom thus you fear?

Oedipus

Merope, stranger, wife of Polybus.

Messenger

And what of her can cause you any fear?

Oedipus

A heaven-sent oracle of dread import.

Messenger

A mystery, or may a stranger hear it?

Oedipus

Aye, ’tis no secret. Loxias once foretold
That I should mate with mine own mother, and shed
With my own hands the blood of my own sire.
Hence Corinth was for many a year to me
A home distant; and I trove abroad,
But missed the sweetest sight, my parents’ face.

Messenger

Was this the fear that exiled thee from home?

Oedipus

Yea, and the dread of slaying my own sire.

Messenger

Why, since I came to give thee pleasure, King,
Have I not rid thee of this second fear?

Oedipus

Well, thou shalt have due guerdon for thy pains.

Messenger

Well, I confess what chiefly made me come
Was hope to profit by thy coming home.

Oedipus

Nay, I will ne’er go near my parents more.

Messenger

My son, ’tis plain, thou know’st not what thou doest.

Oedipus

How so, old man? For heaven’s sake tell me all.

Messenger

If this is why thou dreadest to return.

Oedipus

Yea, lest the god’s word be fulfilled in me.

Messenger

Lest through thy parents thou shouldst be accursed?

Oedipus

This and none other is my constant dread.

Messenger

Dost thou not know thy fears are baseless all?

Oedipus

How baseless, if I am their very son?

Messenger

Since Polybus was naught to thee in blood.

Oedipus

What say’st thou? was not Polybus my sire?

Messenger

As much thy sire as I am, and no more.

Oedipus

My sire no more to me than one who is naught?

Messenger

Since I begat thee not, no more did he.

Oedipus

What reason had he then to call me son?

Messenger

Know that he took thee from my hands, a gift.

Oedipus

Yet, if no child of his, he loved me well.

Messenger

A childless man till then, he warmed to thee.

Oedipus

A foundling or a purchased slave, this child?

Messenger

I found thee in Cithaeron’s wooded glens.

Oedipus

What led thee to explore those upland glades?

Messenger

My business was to tend the mountain flocks.

Oedipus

A vagrant shepherd journeying for hire?

Messenger

True, but thy savior in that hour, my son.

Oedipus

My savior? from what harm? what ailed me then?

Messenger

Those ankle joints are evidence enow.

Oedipus

Ah, why remind me of that ancient sore?

Messenger

I loosed the pin that riveted thy feet.

Oedipus

Yes, from my cradle that dread brand I bore.

Messenger

Whence thou deriv’st the name that still is thine.

Oedipus

Who did it? I adjure thee, tell me who
Say, was it father, mother?

Messenger

I know not.
The man from whom I had thee may know more.

Oedipus

What, did another find me, not thyself?

Messenger

Not I; another shepherd gave thee me.

Oedipus

Who was he? Would’st thou know again the man?

Messenger

He passed indeed for one of Laius’ house.

Oedipus

The king who ruled the country long ago?

Messenger

The same: he was a herdsman of the king.

Oedipus

And is he living still for me to see him?

Messenger

His fellow-countrymen should best know that.

Oedipus

Doth any bystander among you know
The herd he speaks of, or by seeing him
Afield or in the city? answer straight!
The hour hath come to clear this business up.

Chorus

Methinks he means none other than the hind
Whom thou anon wert fain to see; but that
Our queen Jocasta best of all could tell.

Oedipus

Madam, dost know the man we sent to fetch?
Is the same of whom the stranger speaks?

Jocasta

Who is the man? What matter? Let it be.
’Twere waste of thought to weigh such idle words.

Oedipus

No, with such guiding clues I cannot fail
To bring to light the secret of my birth.

Jocasta

Oh, as thou carest for thy life, give o’er
This quest. Enough the anguish I endure.

Oedipus

Be of good cheer; though I be proved the son
Of a bondwoman, aye, through three descents
Triply a slave, thy honor is unsmirched.

Jocasta

Yet humor me, I pray thee; do not this.

Oedipus

I cannot; I must probe this matter home.

Jocasta

’Tis for thy sake I advise thee for the best.

Oedipus

I grow impatient of this best advice.

Jocasta

Ah mayst thou ne’er discover who thou art!

Oedipus

Go, fetch me here the herd, and leave yon woman
To glory in her pride of ancestry.

Jocasta

O woe is thee, poor wretch! With that last word
I leave thee, henceforth silent evermore.

[Exit Jocasta]

Chorus

Why, Oedipus, why stung with passionate grief
Hath the queen thus departed? Much I fear
From this dead calm will burst a storm of woes.

Oedipus

Let the storm burst, my fixed resolve still holds,
To learn my lineage, be it ne’er so low.
It may be she with all a woman’s pride
Thinks scorn of my base parentage. But I
Who rank myself as Fortune’s favorite child,
The giver of good gifts, shall not be shamed.
She is my mother and the changing moons
My brethren, and with them I wax and wane.
Thus sprung why should I fear to trace my birth?
Nothing can make me other than I am.

Chorus

(Str.)
If my soul prophetic err not, if my wisdom aught avail,
Thee, Cithaeron, I shall hail,
As the nurse and foster-mother of our Oedipus shall greet
Ere tomorrow’s full moon rises, and exalt thee as is meet.
Dance and song shall hymn thy praises, lover of our royal race.
Phoebus, may my words find grace!

(Ant.)
Child, who bare thee, nymph or goddess? sure thy sure was more than
man,
Haply the hill-roamer Pan.
Of did Loxias beget thee, for he haunts the upland wold;
Or Cyllene’s lord, or Bacchus, dweller on the hilltops cold?
Did some Heliconian Oread give him thee, a new-born joy?
Nymphs with whom he love to toy?

Oedipus

Elders, if I, who never yet before
Have met the man, may make a guess, methinks
I see the herdsman who we long have sought;
His time-worn aspect matches with the years
Of yonder aged messenger; besides
I seem to recognize the men who bring him
As servants of my own. But you, perchance,
Having in past days known or seen the herd,
May better by sure knowledge my surmise.

Chorus

I recognize him; one of Laius’ house;
A simple hind, but true as any man.

[Enter Herdsman.]

Oedipus

Corinthian, stranger, I address thee first,
Is this the man thou meanest!

Messenger

This is he.

Oedipus

And now old man, look up and answer all
I ask thee. Wast thou once of Laius’ house?

Herdsman

I was, a thrall, not purchased but home-bred.

Oedipus

What was thy business? how wast thou employed?

Herdsman

The best part of my life I tended sheep.

Oedipus

What were the pastures thou didst most frequent?

Herdsman

Cithaeron and the neighboring alps.

Oedipus

Then there
Thou must have known yon man, at least by fame?

Herdsman

Yon man? in what way? what man dost thou mean?

Oedipus

The man here, having met him in past times...

Herdsman

Off-hand I cannot call him well to mind.

Messenger

No wonder, master. But I will revive
His blunted memories. Sure he can recall
What time together both we drove our flocks,
He two, I one, on the Cithaeron range,
For three long summers; I his mate from spring
Till rose Arcturus; then in winter time
I led mine home, he his to Laius’ folds.
Did these things happen as I say, or no?

Herdsman

’Tis long ago, but all thou say’st is true.

Messenger

Well, thou mast then remember giving me
A child to rear as my own foster-son?

Herdsman

Why dost thou ask this question? What of that?

Messenger

Friend, he that stands before thee was that child.

Herdsman

A plague upon thee! Hold thy wanton tongue!

Oedipus

Softly, old man, rebuke him not; thy words
Are more deserving chastisement than his.

Herdsman

O best of masters, what is my offense?

Oedipus

Not answering what he asks about the child.

Herdsman

He speaks at random, babbles like a fool.

Oedipus

If thou lack’st grace to speak, I’ll loose thy tongue.

Herdsman

For mercy’s sake abuse not an old man.

Oedipus

Arrest the villain, seize and pinion him!

Herdsman

Alack, alack!
What have I done? what wouldst thou further learn?

Oedipus

Didst give this man the child of whom he asks?

Herdsman

I did; and would that I had died that day!

Oedipus

And die thou shalt unless thou tell the truth.

Herdsman

But, if I tell it, I am doubly lost.

Oedipus

The knave methinks will still prevaricate.

Herdsman

Nay, I confessed I gave it long ago.

Oedipus

Whence came it? was it thine, or given to thee?

Herdsman

I had it from another, ’twas not mine.

Oedipus

From whom of these our townsmen, and what house?

Herdsman

Forbear for God’s sake, master, ask no more.

Oedipus

If I must question thee again, thou’rt lost.

Herdsman

Well then — it was a child of Laius’ house.

Oedipus

Slave-born or one of Laius’ own race?

Herdsman

Ah me!
I stand upon the perilous edge of speech.

Oedipus

And I of hearing, but I still must hear.

Herdsman

Know then the child was by repute his own,
But she within, thy consort best could tell.

Oedipus

What! she, she gave it thee?

Herdsman

’Tis so, my king.

Oedipus

With what intent?

Herdsman

To make away with it.

Oedipus

What, she its mother.

Herdsman

Fearing a dread weird.

Oedipus

What weird?

Herdsman

’Twas told that he should slay his sire.

Oedipus

What didst thou give it then to this old man?

Herdsman

Through pity, master, for the babe. I thought
He’d take it to the country whence he came;
But he preserved it for the worst of woes.
For if thou art in sooth what this man saith,
God pity thee! thou wast to misery born.

Oedipus

Ah me! ah me! all brought to pass, all true!
O light, may I behold thee nevermore!
I stand a wretch, in birth, in wedlock cursed,
A parricide, incestuously, triply cursed!

[Exit Oedipus]

Chorus

(Str. 1)
Races of mortal man
Whose life is but a span,
I count ye but the shadow of a shade!
For he who most doth know
Of bliss, hath but the show;
A moment, and the visions pale and fade.
Thy fall, O Oedipus, thy piteous fall
Warns me none born of women blest to call.

(Ant. 1)
For he of marksmen best,
O Zeus, outshot the rest,
And won the prize supreme of wealth and power.
By him the vulture maid
Was quelled, her witchery laid;
He rose our savior and the land’s strong tower.
We hailed thee king and from that day adored
Of mighty Thebes the universal lord.

(Str. 2)
O heavy hand of fate!
Who now more desolate,
Whose tale more sad than thine, whose lot more dire?
O Oedipus, discrowned head,
Thy cradle was thy marriage bed;
One harborage sufficed for son and sire.
How could the soil thy father eared so long
Endure to bear in silence such a wrong?

(Ant. 2)
All-seeing Time hath caught
Guilt, and to justice brought
The son and sire commingled in one bed.
O child of Laius’ ill-starred race
Would I had ne’er beheld thy face;
I raise for thee a dirge as o’er the dead.
Yet, sooth to say, through thee I drew new breath,
And now through thee I feel a second death.

[Enter Second Messenger.]

Second Messenger

Most grave and reverend senators of Thebes,
What Deeds ye soon must hear, what sights behold
How will ye mourn, if, true-born patriots,
Ye reverence still the race of Labdacus!
Not Ister nor all Phasis’ flood, I ween,
Could wash away the blood-stains from this house,
The ills it shrouds or soon will bring to light,
Ills wrought of malice, not unwittingly.
The worst to bear are self-inflicted wounds.

Chorus

Grievous enough for all our tears and groans
Our past calamities; what canst thou add?

Second Messenger

My tale is quickly told and quickly heard.
Our sovereign lady queen Jocasta’s dead.

Chorus

Alas, poor queen! how came she by her death?

Second Messenger

By her own hand. And all the horror of it,
Not having seen, yet cannot comprehend.
Nathless, as far as my poor memory serves,
I will relate the unhappy lady’s woe.
When in her frenzy she had passed inside
The vestibule, she hurried straight to win
The bridal-chamber, clutching at her hair
With both her hands, and, once within the room,
She shut the doors behind her with a crash.
“Laius,” she cried, and called her husband dead
Long, long ago; her thought was of that child
By him begot, the son by whom the sire
Was murdered and the mother left to breed
With her own seed, a monstrous progeny.
Then she bewailed the marriage bed whereon
Poor wretch, she had conceived a double brood,
Husband by husband, children by her child.
What happened after that I cannot tell,
Nor how the end befell, for with a shriek
Burst on us Oedipus; all eyes were fixed
On Oedipus, as up and down he strode,
Nor could we mark her agony to the end.
For stalking to and fro “A sword!” he cried,
“Where is the wife, no wife, the teeming womb
That bore a double harvest, me and mine?”
And in his frenzy some supernal power
(No mortal, surely, none of us who watched him)
Guided his footsteps; with a terrible shriek,
As though one beckoned him, he crashed against
The folding doors, and from their staples forced
The wrenched bolts and hurled himself within.
Then we beheld the woman hanging there,
A running noose entwined about her neck.
But when he saw her, with a maddened roar
He loosed the cord; and when her wretched corpse
Lay stretched on earth, what followed — O ’twas dread!
He tore the golden brooches that upheld
Her queenly robes, upraised them high and smote
Full on his eye-balls, uttering words like these:
“No more shall ye behold such sights of woe,
Deeds I have suffered and myself have wrought;
Henceforward quenched in darkness shall ye see
Those ye should ne’er have seen; now blind to those
Whom, when I saw, I vainly yearned to know.”
Such was the burden of his moan, whereto,
Not once but oft, he struck with his hand uplift
His eyes, and at each stroke the ensanguined orbs
Bedewed his beard, not oozing drop by drop,
But one black gory downpour, thick as hail.
Such evils, issuing from the double source,
Have whelmed them both, confounding man and wife.
Till now the storied fortune of this house
Was fortunate indeed; but from this day
Woe, lamentation, ruin, death, disgrace,
All ills that can be named, all, all are theirs.

Chorus

But hath he still no respite from his pain?

Second Messenger

He cries, “Unbar the doors and let all Thebes
Behold the slayer of his sire, his mother’s —”
That shameful word my lips may not repeat.
He vows to fly self-banished from the land,
Nor stay to bring upon his house the curse
Himself had uttered; but he has no strength
Nor one to guide him, and his torture’s more
Than man can suffer, as yourselves will see.
For lo, the palace portals are unbarred,
And soon ye shall behold a sight so sad
That he who must abhorred would pity it.

[Enter Oedipus blinded.]

Chorus

Woeful sight! more woeful none
These sad eyes have looked upon.
Whence this madness? None can tell
Who did cast on thee his spell,
prowling all thy life around,
Leaping with a demon bound.
Hapless wretch! how can I brook
On thy misery to look?
Though to gaze on thee I yearn,
Much to question, much to learn,
Horror-struck away I turn.

Oedipus

Ah me! ah woe is me!
Ah whither am I borne!
How like a ghost forlorn
My voice flits from me on the air!
On, on the demon goads. The end, ah where?

Chorus

An end too dread to tell, too dark to see.

Oedipus

(Str. 1)
Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud,
Wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud.
Ah me, ah me! What spasms athwart me shoot,
What pangs of agonizing memory?

Chorus

No marvel if in such a plight thou feel’st
The double weight of past and present woes.

Oedipus

(Ant. 1)
Ah friend, still loyal, constant still and kind,
Thou carest for the blind.
I know thee near, and though bereft of eyes,
Thy voice I recognize.

Chorus

O doer of dread deeds, how couldst thou mar
Thy vision thus? What demon goaded thee?

Oedipus

(Str. 2)
Apollo, friend, Apollo, he it was
That brought these ills to pass;
But the right hand that dealt the blow
Was mine, none other. How,
How, could I longer see when sight
Brought no delight?

Chorus

Alas! ’tis as thou sayest.

Oedipus

Say, friends, can any look or voice
Or touch of love henceforth my heart rejoice?
Haste, friends, no fond delay,
Take the twice cursed away
Far from all ken,
The man abhorred of gods, accursed of men.

Chorus

O thy despair well suits thy desperate case.
Would I had never looked upon thy face!

Oedipus

(Ant. 2)
My curse on him whoe’er unrived
The waif’s fell fetters and my life revived!
He meant me well, yet had he left me there,
He had saved my friends and me a world of care.

Chorus

I too had wished it so.

Oedipus

Then had I never come to shed
My father’s blood nor climbed my mother’s bed;
The monstrous offspring of a womb defiled,
Co-mate of him who gendered me, and child.
Was ever man before afflicted thus,
Like Oedipus.

Chorus

I cannot say that thou hast counseled well,
For thou wert better dead than living blind.

Oedipus

What’s done was well done. Thou canst never shake
My firm belief. A truce to argument.
For, had I sight, I know not with what eyes
I could have met my father in the shades,
Or my poor mother, since against the twain
I sinned, a sin no gallows could atone.
Aye, but, ye say, the sight of children joys
A parent’s eyes. What, born as mine were born?
No, such a sight could never bring me joy;
Nor this fair city with its battlements,
Its temples and the statues of its gods,
Sights from which I, now wretchedst of all,
Once ranked the foremost Theban in all Thebes,
By my own sentence am cut off, condemned
By my own proclamation ’gainst the wretch,
The miscreant by heaven itself declared
Unclean — and of the race of Laius.
Thus branded as a felon by myself,
How had I dared to look you in the face?
Nay, had I known a way to choke the springs
Of hearing, I had never shrunk to make
A dungeon of this miserable frame,
Cut off from sight and hearing; for ’tis bliss
to bide in regions sorrow cannot reach.
Why didst thou harbor me, Cithaeron, why
Didst thou not take and slay me? Then I never
Had shown to men the secret of my birth.
O Polybus, O Corinth, O my home,
Home of my ancestors (so wast thou called)
How fair a nursling then I seemed, how foul
The canker that lay festering in the bud!
Now is the blight revealed of root and fruit.
Ye triple high-roads, and thou hidden glen,
Coppice, and pass where meet the three-branched ways,
Ye drank my blood, the life-blood these hands spilt,
My father’s; do ye call to mind perchance
Those deeds of mine ye witnessed and the work
I wrought thereafter when I came to Thebes?
O fatal wedlock, thou didst give me birth,
And, having borne me, sowed again my seed,
Mingling the blood of fathers, brothers, children,
Brides, wives and mothers, an incestuous brood,
All horrors that are wrought beneath the sun,
Horrors so foul to name them were unmeet.
O, I adjure you, hide me anywhere
Far from this land, or slay me straight, or cast me
Down to the depths of ocean out of sight.
Come hither, deign to touch an abject wretch;
Draw near and fear not; I myself must bear
The load of guilt that none but I can share.

[Enter Creon.]

Creon

Lo, here is Creon, the one man to grant
Thy prayer by action or advice, for he
Is left the State’s sole guardian in thy stead.

Oedipus

Ah me! what words to accost him can I find?
What cause has he to trust me? In the past
I have bee proved his rancorous enemy.

Creon

Not in derision, Oedipus, I come
Nor to upbraid thee with thy past misdeeds.
(To Bystanders)
But shame upon you! if ye feel no sense
Of human decencies, at least revere
The Sun whose light beholds and nurtures all.
Leave not thus nakedly for all to gaze at
A horror neither earth nor rain from heaven
Nor light will suffer. Lead him straight within,
For it is seemly that a kinsman’s woes
Be heard by kin and seen by kin alone.

Oedipus

O listen, since thy presence comes to me
A shock of glad surprise — so noble thou,
And I so vile — O grant me one small boon.
I ask it not on my behalf, but thine.

Creon

And what the favor thou wouldst crave of me?

Oedipus

Forth from thy borders thrust me with all speed;
Set me within some vasty desert where
No mortal voice shall greet me any more.

Creon

This had I done already, but I deemed
It first behooved me to consult the god.

Oedipus

His will was set forth fully — to destroy
The parricide, the scoundrel; and I am he.

Creon

Yea, so he spake, but in our present plight
’Twere better to consult the god anew.

Oedipus

Dare ye inquire concerning such a wretch?

Creon

Yea, for thyself wouldst credit now his word.

Oedipus

Aye, and on thee in all humility
I lay this charge: let her who lies within
Receive such burial as thou shalt ordain;
Such rites ’tis thine, as brother, to perform.
But for myself, O never let my Thebes,
The city of my sires, be doomed to bear
The burden of my presence while I live.
No, let me be a dweller on the hills,
On yonder mount Cithaeron, famed as mine,
My tomb predestined for me by my sire
And mother, while they lived, that I may die
Slain as they sought to slay me, when alive.
This much I know full surely, nor disease
Shall end my days, nor any common chance;
For I had ne’er been snatched from death, unless
I was predestined to some awful doom.
So be it. I reck not how Fate deals with me
But my unhappy children — for my sons
Be not concerned, O Creon, they are men,
And for themselves, where’er they be, can fend.
But for my daughters twain, poor innocent maids,
Who ever sat beside me at the board
Sharing my viands, drinking of my cup,
For them, I pray thee, care, and, if thou willst,
O might I feel their touch and make my moan.
Hear me, O prince, my noble-hearted prince!
Could I but blindly touch them with my hands
I’d think they still were mine, as when I saw.

[Antigone and Ismene are led in.]

What say I? can it be my pretty ones
Whose sobs I hear? Has Creon pitied me
And sent me my two darlings? Can this be?

Creon

’Tis true; ’twas I procured thee this delight,
Knowing the joy they were to thee of old.

Oedipus

God speed thee! and as meed for bringing them
May Providence deal with thee kindlier
Than it has dealt with me! O children mine,
Where are ye? Let me clasp you with these hands,
A brother’s hands, a father’s; hands that made
Lack-luster sockets of his once bright eyes;
Hands of a man who blindly, recklessly,
Became your sire by her from whom he sprang.
Though I cannot behold you, I must weep
In thinking of the evil days to come,
The slights and wrongs that men will put upon you.
Where’er ye go to feast or festival,
No merrymaking will it prove for you,
But oft abashed in tears ye will return.
And when ye come to marriageable years,
Where’s the bold wooers who will jeopardize
To take unto himself such disrepute
As to my children’s children still must cling,
For what of infamy is lacking here?
“Their father slew his father, sowed the seed
Where he himself was gendered, and begat
These maidens at the source wherefrom he sprang.”
Such are the gibes that men will cast at you.
Who then will wed you? None, I ween, but ye
Must pine, poor maids, in single barrenness.
O Prince, Menoeceus’ son, to thee, I turn,
With the it rests to father them, for we
Their natural parents, both of us, are lost.
O leave them not to wander poor, unwed,
Thy kin, nor let them share my low estate.
O pity them so young, and but for thee
All destitute. Thy hand upon it, Prince.
To you, my children I had much to say,
Were ye but ripe to hear. Let this suffice:
Pray ye may find some home and live content,
And may your lot prove happier than your sire’s.

Creon

Thou hast had enough of weeping; pass within.

Oedipus

I must obey,
Though ’tis grievous.

Creon

Weep not, everything must have its day.

Oedipus

Well I go, but on conditions.

Creon

What thy terms for going, say.

Oedipus

Send me from the land an exile.

Creon

Ask this of the gods, not me.

Oedipus

But I am the gods’ abhorrence.

Creon

Then they soon will grant thy plea.

Oedipus

Lead me hence, then, I am willing.

Creon

Come, but let thy children go.

Oedipus

Rob me not of these my children!

Creon

Crave not mastery in all,
For the mastery that raised thee was thy bane and wrought thy fall.

Chorus

Look ye, countrymen and Thebans, this is Oedipus the great,
He who knew the Sphinx’s riddle and was mightiest in our state.
Who of all our townsmen gazed not on his fame with envious eyes?
Now, in what a sea of troubles sunk and overwhelmed he lies!
Therefore wait to see life’s ending ere thou count one mortal blest;
Wait till free from pain and sorrow he has gained his final rest.

Oedipus at Colonus

Characters in the Play

Oedipus, banished King of Thebes.

Antigone, his daughter.

Ismene, his daughter.

Theseus, King of Athens.

Creon, brother of Jocasta, now reigning at Thebes.

Polyneices, elder son of Oedipus.

Stranger, a native of Colonus.

Messenger, an attendant of Theseus.

Chorus, citizens of Colonus.

[Scene: In front of the grove of the Eumenides. Enter the blind Oedipus led by his daughter, Antigone.]

Oedipus

Child of an old blind sire, Antigone,
What region, say, whose city have we reached?
Who will provide today with scanted dole
This wanderer? ’Tis little that he craves,
And less obtains — that less enough for me;
For I am taught by suffering to endure,
And the long years that have grown old with me,
And last not least, by true nobility.
My daughter, if thou seest a resting place
On common ground or by some sacred grove,
Stay me and set me down. Let us discover
Where we have come, for strangers must inquire
Of denizens, and do as they are bid.

Antigone

Long-suffering father, Oedipus, the towers
That fence the city still are faint and far;
But where we stand is surely holy ground;
A wilderness of laurel, olive, vine;
Within a choir or songster nightingales
Are warbling. On this native seat of rock
Rest; for an old man thou hast traveled far.

Oedipus

Guide these dark steps and seat me there secure.

Antigone

If time can teach, I need not to be told.

Oedipus

Say, prithee, if thou knowest, where we are.

Antigone

Athens I recognize, but not the spot.

Oedipus

That much we heard from every wayfarer.

Antigone

Shall I go on and ask about the place?

Oedipus

Yes, daughter, if it be inhabited.

Antigone

Sure there are habitations; but no need
To leave thee; yonder is a man hard by.

Oedipus

What, moving hitherward and on his way?

Antigone

Say rather, here already. Ask him straight
The needful questions, for the man is here.

[Enter Stranger]

Oedipus

O stranger, as I learn from her whose eyes
Must serve both her and me, that thou art here
Sent by some happy chance to serve our doubts —

Stranger

First quit that seat, then question me at large:
The spot thou treadest on is holy ground.

Oedipus

What is the site, to what god dedicate?

Stranger

Inviolable, untrod; goddesses,
Dread brood of Earth and Darkness, here abide.

Oedipus

Tell me the awful name I should invoke?

Stranger

The Gracious Ones, All-seeing, so our folk
Call them, but elsewhere other names are rife.

Oedipus

Then may they show their suppliant grace, for I
From this your sanctuary will ne’er depart.

Stranger

What word is this?

Oedipus

The watchword of my fate.

Stranger

Nay, ’tis not mine to bid thee hence without
Due warrant and instruction from the State.

Oedipus

Now in God’s name, O stranger, scorn me not
As a wayfarer; tell me what I crave.

Stranger

Ask; your request shall not be scorned by me.

Oedipus

How call you then the place wherein we bide?

Stranger

Whate’er I know thou too shalt know; the place
Is all to great Poseidon consecrate.
Hard by, the Titan, he who bears the torch,
Prometheus, has his worship; but the spot
Thou treadest, the Brass-footed Threshold named,
Is Athens’ bastion, and the neighboring lands
Claim as their chief and patron yonder knight
Colonus, and in common bear his name.
Such, stranger, is the spot, to fame unknown,
But dear to us its native worshipers.

Oedipus

Thou sayest there are dwellers in these parts?

Stranger

Surely; they bear the name of yonder god.

Oedipus

Ruled by a king or by the general voice?

Stranger

The lord of Athens is our over-lord.

Oedipus

Who is this monarch, great in word and might?

Stranger

Theseus, the son of Aegeus our late king.

Oedipus

Might one be sent from you to summon him?

Stranger

Wherefore? To tell him aught or urge his coming?

Oedipus

Say a slight service may avail him much.

Stranger

How can he profit from a sightless man?

Oedipus

The blind man’s words will be instinct with sight.

Stranger

Heed then; I fain would see thee out of harm;
For by the looks, marred though they be by fate,
I judge thee noble; tarry where thou art,
While I go seek the burghers — those at hand,
Not in the city. They will soon decide
Whether thou art to rest or go thy way.

[Exit Stranger]

Oedipus

Tell me, my daughter, has the stranger gone?

Antigone

Yes, he has gone; now we are all alone,
And thou may’st speak, dear father, without fear.

Oedipus

Stern-visaged queens, since coming to this land
First in your sanctuary I bent the knee,
Frown not on me or Phoebus, who, when erst
He told me all my miseries to come,
Spake of this respite after many years,
Some haven in a far-off land, a rest
Vouchsafed at last by dread divinities.
“There,” said he, “shalt thou round thy weary life,
A blessing to the land wherein thou dwell’st,
But to the land that cast thee forth, a curse.”
And of my weird he promised signs should come,
Earthquake, or thunderclap, or lightning flash.
And now I recognize as yours the sign
That led my wanderings to this your grove;
Else had I never lighted on you first,
A wineless man on your seat of native rock.
O goddesses, fulfill Apollo’s word,
Grant me some consummation of my life,
If haply I appear not all too vile,
A thrall to sorrow worse than any slave.
Hear, gentle daughters of primeval Night,
Hear, namesake of great Pallas; Athens, first
Of cities, pity this dishonored shade,
The ghost of him who once was Oedipus.

Antigone

Hush! for I see some grey-beards on their way,
Their errand to spy out our resting-place.

Oedipus

I will be mute, and thou shalt guide my steps
Into the covert from the public road,
Till I have learned their drift. A prudent man
Will ever shape his course by what he learns.

[Enter Chorus]

Chorus

(Str. 1)
Ha! Where is he? Look around!
Every nook and corner scan!
He the all-presumptuous man,
Whither vanished? search the ground!
A wayfarer, I ween,
A wayfarer, no countryman of ours,
That old man must have been;
Never had native dared to tempt the Powers,
Or enter their demesne,
The Maids in awe of whom each mortal cowers,
Whose name no voice betrays nor cry,
And as we pass them with averted eye,
We move hushed lips in reverent piety.
But now some godless man,
’Tis rumored, here abides;
The precincts through I scan,
Yet wot not where he hides,
The wretch profane!
I search and search in vain.

Oedipus

I am that man; I know you near
Ears to the blind, they say, are eyes.

Chorus

O dread to see and dread to hear!

Oedipus

Oh sirs, I am no outlaw under ban.

Chorus

Who can he be — Zeus save us! — this old man?

Oedipus

No favorite of fate,
That ye should envy his estate,
O, Sirs, would any happy mortal, say,
Grope by the light of other eyes his way,
Or face the storm upon so frail a stay?

Chorus

(Ant. 1)
Wast thou then sightless from thy birth?
Evil, methinks, and long
Thy pilgrimage on earth.
Yet add not curse to curse and wrong to wrong.
I warn thee, trespass not
Within this hallowed spot,
Lest thou shouldst find the silent grassy glade
Where offerings are laid,
Bowls of spring water mingled with sweet mead.
Thou must not stay,
Come, come away,
Tired wanderer, dost thou heed?
(We are far off, but sure our voice can reach.)
If aught thou wouldst beseech,
Speak where ’tis right; till then refrain from speech.

Oedipus

Daughter, what counsel should we now pursue?

Antigone

We must obey and do as here they do.

Oedipus

Thy hand then!

Antigone

Here, O father, is my hand,

Oedipus

O Sirs, if I come forth at your command,
Let me not suffer for my confidence.

Chorus

(Str. 2)
Against thy will no man shall drive thee hence.

Oedipus

Shall I go further?

Chorus

Aye.

Oedipus

What further still?

Chorus

Lead maiden, thou canst guide him where we will.

Antigone

******

Oedipus

******

Antigone

******
Follow with blind steps, father, as I lead.

Oedipus

******

Chorus

In a strange land strange thou art;
To her will incline thy heart;
Honor whatso’er the State
Honors, all she frowns on hate.

Oedipus

Guide me child, where we may range
Safe within the paths of right;
Counsel freely may exchange
Nor with fate and fortune fight.

Chorus

(Ant. 2)
Halt! Go no further than that rocky floor.

Oedipus

Stay where I now am?

Chorus

Yes, advance no more.

Oedipus

May I sit down?

Chorus

Move sideways towards the ledge,
And sit thee crouching on the scarped edge.

Antigone

This is my office, father, O incline —

Oedipus

Ah me! ah me!

Antigone

Thy steps to my steps, lean thine aged frame on mine.

Oedipus

Woe on my fate unblest!

Chorus

Wanderer, now thou art at rest,
Tell me of thy birth and home,
From what far country art thou come,
Led on thy weary way, declare!

Oedipus

Strangers, I have no country. O forbear —

Chorus

What is it, old man, that thou wouldst conceal?

Oedipus

Forbear, nor urge me further to reveal —

Chorus

Why this reluctance?

Oedipus

Dread my lineage.

Chorus

Say!

Oedipus

What must I answer, child, ah welladay!

Chorus

Say of what stock thou comest, what man’s son —

Oedipus

Ah me, my daughter, now we are undone!

Antigone

Speak, for thou standest on the slippery verge.

Oedipus

I will; no plea for silence can I urge.

Chorus

Will neither speak? Come, Sir, why dally thus!

Oedipus

Know’st one of Laius’—

Chorus

Ha? Who!

Oedipus

Seed of Labdacus —

Chorus

Oh Zeus!

Oedipus

The hapless Oedipus.

Chorus

Art he?

Oedipus

Whate’er I utter, have no fear of me.

Chorus

Begone!

Oedipus

O wretched me!

Chorus

Begone!

Oedipus

O daughter, what will hap anon?

Chorus

Forth from our borders speed ye both!

Oedipus

How keep you then your troth?

Chorus

Heaven’s justice never smites
Him who ill with ill requites.
But if guile with guile contend,
Bane, not blessing, is the end.
Arise, begone and take thee hence straightway,
Lest on our land a heavier curse thou lay.

Antigone

O sirs! ye suffered not my father blind,
Albeit gracious and to ruth inclined,
Knowing the deeds he wrought, not innocent,
But with no ill intent;
Yet heed a maiden’s moan
Who pleads for him alone;
My eyes, not reft of sight,
Plead with you as a daughter’s might
You are our providence,
O make us not go hence!
O with a gracious nod
Grant us the nigh despaired-of boon we crave?
Hear us, O hear,
But all that ye hold dear,
Wife, children, homestead, hearth and God!
Where will you find one, search ye ne’er so well.
Who ’scapes perdition if a god impel!

Chorus

Surely we pity thee and him alike
Daughter of Oedipus, for your distress;
But as we reverence the decrees of Heaven
We cannot say aught other than we said.

Oedipus

O what avails renown or fair repute?
Are they not vanity? For, look you, now
Athens is held of States the most devout,
Athens alone gives hospitality
And shelters the vexed stranger, so men say.
Have I found so? I whom ye dislodged
First from my seat of rock and now would drive
Forth from your land, dreading my name alone;
For me you surely dread not, nor my deeds,
Deeds of a man more sinned against than sinning,
As I might well convince you, were it meet
To tell my mother’s story and my sire’s,
The cause of this your fear. Yet am I then
A villain born because in self-defense,
Striken, I struck the striker back again?
E’en had I known, no villainy ’twould prove:
But all unwitting whither I went, I went —
To ruin; my destroyers knew it well,
Wherefore, I pray you, sirs, in Heaven’s name,
Even as ye bade me quit my seat, defend me.
O pay not a lip service to the gods
And wrong them of their dues. Bethink ye well,
The eye of Heaven beholds the just of men,
And the unjust, nor ever in this world
Has one sole godless sinner found escape.
Stand then on Heaven’s side and never blot
Athens’ fair scutcheon by abetting wrong.
I came to you a suppliant, and you pledged
Your honor; O preserve me to the end,
O let not this marred visage do me wrong!
A holy and god-fearing man is here
Whose coming purports comfort for your folk.
And when your chief arrives, whoe’er he be,
Then shall ye have my story and know all.
Meanwhile I pray you do me no despite.

Chorus

The plea thou urgest, needs must give us pause,
Set forth in weighty argument, but we
Must leave the issue with the ruling powers.

Oedipus

Where is he, strangers, he who sways the realm?

Chorus

In his ancestral seat; a messenger,
The same who sent us here, is gone for him.

Oedipus

And think you he will have such care or thought
For the blind stranger as to come himself?

Chorus

Aye, that he will, when once he learns thy name.

Oedipus

But who will bear him word!

Chorus

The way is long,
And many travelers pass to speed the news.
Be sure he’ll hear and hasten, never fear;
So wide and far thy name is noised abroad,
That, were he ne’er so spent and loth to move,
He would bestir him when he hears of thee.

Oedipus

Well, may he come with blessing to his State And me! Who serves his neighbor serves himself.

Antigone

Zeus! What is this? What can I say or think?

Oedipus

What now, Antigone?

Antigone

I see a woman
Riding upon a colt of Aetna’s breed;
She wears for headgear a Thessalian hat
To shade her from the sun. Who can it be?
She or a stranger? Do I wake or dream?
’This she; ’tis not — I cannot tell, alack;
It is no other! Now her bright’ning glance
Greets me with recognition, yes, ’tis she,
Herself, Ismene!

Oedipus

Ha! what say ye, child?

Antigone

That I behold thy daughter and my sister,
And thou wilt know her straightway by her voice.

[Enter Ismene]

Ismene

Father and sister, names to me most sweet,
How hardly have I found you, hardly now
When found at last can see you through my tears!

Oedipus

Art come, my child?

Ismene

O father, sad thy plight!

Oedipus

Child, thou art here?

Ismene

Yes, ’twas a weary way.

Oedipus

Touch me, my child.

Ismene

I give a hand to both.

Oedipus

O children — sisters!

Ismene

O disastrous plight!

Oedipus

Her plight and mine?

Ismene

Aye, and my own no less.

Oedipus

What brought thee, daughter?

Ismene

Father, care for thee.

Oedipus

A daughter’s yearning?

Ismene

Yes, and I had news
I would myself deliver, so I came
With the one thrall who yet is true to me.

Oedipus

Thy valiant brothers, where are they at need?

Ismene

They are — enough, ’tis now their darkest hour.

Oedipus

Out on the twain! The thoughts and actions all
Are framed and modeled on Egyptian ways.
For there the men sit at the loom indoors
While the wives slave abroad for daily bread.
So you, my children — those whom I behooved
To bear the burden, stay at home like girls,
While in their stead my daughters moil and drudge,
Lightening their father’s misery. The one
Since first she grew from girlish feebleness
To womanhood has been the old man’s guide
And shared my weary wandering, roaming oft
Hungry and footsore through wild forest ways,
In drenching rains and under scorching suns,
Careless herself of home and ease, if so
Her sire might have her tender ministry.
And thou, my child, whilom thou wentest forth,
Eluding the Cadmeians’ vigilance,
To bring thy father all the oracles
Concerning Oedipus, and didst make thyself
My faithful lieger, when they banished me.
And now what mission summons thee from home,
What news, Ismene, hast thou for thy father?
This much I know, thou com’st not empty-handed,
Without a warning of some new alarm.

Ismene

The toil and trouble, father, that I bore
To find thy lodging-place and how thou faredst,
I spare thee; surely ’twere a double pain
To suffer, first in act and then in telling;
’Tis the misfortune of thine ill-starred sons
I come to tell thee. At the first they willed
To leave the throne to Creon, minded well
Thus to remove the inveterate curse of old,
A canker that infected all thy race.
But now some god and an infatuate soul
Have stirred betwixt them a mad rivalry
To grasp at sovereignty and kingly power.
Today the hot-branded youth, the younger born,
Is keeping Polyneices from the throne,
His elder, and has thrust him from the land.
The banished brother (so all Thebes reports)
Fled to the vale of Argos, and by help
Of new alliance there and friends in arms,
Swears he will stablish Argos straight as lord
Of the Cadmeian land, or, if he fail,
Exalt the victor to the stars of heaven.
This is no empty tale, but deadly truth,
My father; and how long thy agony,
Ere the gods pity thee, I cannot tell.

Oedipus

Hast thou indeed then entertained a hope
The gods at last will turn and rescue me?

Ismene

Yea, so I read these latest oracles.

Oedipus

What oracles? What hath been uttered, child?

Ismene

Thy country (so it runs) shall yearn in time
To have thee for their weal alive or dead.

Oedipus

And who could gain by such a one as I?

Ismene

On thee, ’tis said, their sovereignty depends.

Oedipus

So, when I cease to be, my worth begins.

Ismene

The gods, who once abased, uplift thee now.

Oedipus

Poor help to raise an old man fallen in youth.

Ismene

Howe’er that be, ’tis for this cause alone
That Creon comes to thee — and comes anon.

Oedipus

With what intent, my daughter? Tell me plainly.

Ismene

To plant thee near the Theban land, and so
Keep thee within their grasp, yet now allow
Thy foot to pass beyond their boundaries.

Oedipus

What gain they, if I lay outside?

Oedipus

Thy tomb,
If disappointed, brings on them a curse.

Oedipus

It needs no god to tell what’s plain to sense.

Ismene

Therefore they fain would have thee close at hand,
Not where thou wouldst be master of thyself.

Oedipus

Mean they to shroud my bones in Theban dust?

Ismene

Nay, father, guilt of kinsman’s blood forbids.

Oedipus

Then never shall they be my masters, never!

Ismene

Thebes, thou shalt rue this bitterly some day!

Oedipus

When what conjunction comes to pass, my child?

Ismene

Thy angry wraith, when at thy tomb they stand.

Oedipus

And who hath told thee what thou tell’st me, child?

Ismene

Envoys who visited the Delphic hearth.

Oedipus

Hath Phoebus spoken thus concerning me?

Ismene

So say the envoys who returned to Thebes.

Oedipus

And can a son of mine have heard of this?

Ismene

Yea, both alike, and know its import well.

Oedipus

They knew it, yet the ignoble greed of rule
Outweighed all longing for their sire’s return.

Ismene

Grievous thy words, yet I must own them true.

Oedipus

Then may the gods ne’er quench their fatal feud,
And mine be the arbitrament of the fight,
For which they now are arming, spear to spear;
That neither he who holds the scepter now
May keep this throne, nor he who fled the realm
Return again. They never raised a hand,
When I their sire was thrust from hearth and home,
When I was banned and banished, what recked they?
Say you ’twas done at my desire, a grace
Which the state, yielding to my wish, allowed?
Not so; for, mark you, on that very day
When in the tempest of my soul I craved
Death, even death by stoning, none appeared
To further that wild longing, but anon,
When time had numbed my anguish and I felt
My wrath had all outrun those errors past,
Then, then it was the city went about
By force to oust me, respited for years;
And then my sons, who should as sons have helped,
Did nothing: and, one little word from them
Was all I needed, and they spoke no word,
But let me wander on for evermore,
A banished man, a beggar. These two maids
Their sisters, girls, gave all their sex could give,
Food and safe harborage and filial care;
While their two brethren sacrificed their sire
For lust of power and sceptred sovereignty.
No! me they ne’er shall win for an ally,
Nor will this Theban kingship bring them gain;
That know I from this maiden’s oracles,
And those old prophecies concerning me,
Which Phoebus now at length has brought to pass.
Come Creon then, come all the mightiest
In Thebes to seek me; for if ye my friends,
Championed by those dread Powers indigenous,
Espouse my cause; then for the State ye gain
A great deliverer, for my foemen bane.

Chorus

Our pity, Oedipus, thou needs must move,
Thou and these maidens; and the stronger plea
Thou urgest, as the savior of our land,
Disposes me to counsel for thy weal.

Oedipus

Aid me, kind sirs; I will do all you bid.

Chorus

First make atonement to the deities,
Whose grove by trespass thou didst first profane.

Oedipus

After what manner, stranger? Teach me, pray.

Chorus

Make a libation first of water fetched
With undefiled hands from living spring.

Oedipus

And after I have gotten this pure draught?

Chorus

Bowls thou wilt find, the carver’s handiwork;
Crown thou the rims and both the handles crown —

Oedipus

With olive shoots or blocks of wool, or how?

Chorus

With wool from fleece of yearling freshly shorn.

Oedipus

What next? how must I end the ritual?

Chorus

Pour thy libation, turning to the dawn.

Oedipus

Pouring it from the urns whereof ye spake?

Chorus

Yea, in three streams; and be the last bowl drained
To the last drop.

Oedipus

And wherewith shall I fill it,
Ere in its place I set it? This too tell.

Chorus

With water and with honey; add no wine.

Oedipus

And when the embowered earth hath drunk thereof?

Chorus

Then lay upon it thrice nine olive sprays
With both thy hands, and offer up this prayer.

Oedipus

I fain would hear it; that imports the most.

Chorus

That, as we call them Gracious, they would deign
To grant the suppliant their saving grace.
So pray thyself or whoso pray for thee,
In whispered accents, not with lifted voice;
Then go and look back. Do as I bid,
And I shall then be bold to stand thy friend;
Else, stranger, I should have my fears for thee.

Oedipus

Hear ye, my daughters, what these strangers say?

Antigone

We listened, and attend thy bidding, father.

Oedipus

I cannot go, disabled as I am
Doubly, by lack of strength and lack of sight;
But one of you may do it in my stead;
For one, I trow, may pay the sacrifice
Of thousands, if his heart be leal and true.
So to your work with speed, but leave me not
Untended; for this frame is all too week
To move without the help of guiding hand.

Ismene

Then I will go perform these rites, but where
To find the spot, this have I yet to learn.

Chorus

Beyond this grove; if thou hast need of aught,
The guardian of the close will lend his aid.

Ismene

I go, and thou, Antigone, meanwhile
Must guard our father. In a parent’s cause
Toil, if there be toil, is of no account.

[Exit Ismene]

Chorus

(Str. 1)
Ill it is, stranger, to awake
Pain that long since has ceased to ache,
And yet I fain would hear —

Oedipus

What thing?

Chorus

Thy tale of cruel suffering
For which no cure was found,
The fate that held thee bound.

Oedipus

O bid me not (as guest I claim
This grace) expose my shame.

Chorus

The tale is bruited far and near,
And echoes still from ear to ear.
The truth, I fain would hear.

Oedipus

Ah me!

Chorus

I prithee yield.

Oedipus

Ah me!

Chorus

Grant my request, I granted all to thee.

Oedipus

(Ant. 1)
Know then I suffered ills most vile, but none
(So help me Heaven!) from acts in malice done.

Chorus

Say how.

Oedipus

The State around
An all unwitting bridegroom bound
An impious marriage chain;
That was my bane.

Chorus

Didst thou in sooth then share
A bed incestuous with her that bare —

Oedipus

It stabs me like a sword,
That two-edged word,
O stranger, but these maids — my own —

Chorus

Say on.

Oedipus

Two daughters, curses twain.

Chorus

Oh God!

Oedipus

Sprang from the wife and mother’s travail-pain.

Chorus

(Str. 2)
What, then thy offspring are at once —

Oedipus

Too true.
Their father’s very sister’s too.

Chorus

Oh horror!

Oedipus

Horrors from the boundless deep
Back on my soul in refluent surges sweep.

Chorus

Thou hast endured —

Oedipus

Intolerable woe.

Chorus

And sinned —

Oedipus

I sinned not.

Chorus

How so?

Oedipus

I served the State; would I had never won
That graceless grace by which I was undone.

Chorus

(Ant. 2)
And next, unhappy man, thou hast shed blood?

Oedipus

Must ye hear more?

Chorus

A father’s?

Oedipus

Flood on flood
Whelms me; that word’s a second mortal blow.

Chorus

Murderer!

Oedipus

Yes, a murderer, but know —

Chorus

What canst thou plead?

Oedipus

A plea of justice.

Chorus

How?

Oedipus

I slew who else would me have slain;
I slew without intent,
A wretch, but innocent
In the law’s eye, I stand, without a stain.

Chorus

Behold our sovereign, Theseus, Aegeus’ son,
Comes at thy summons to perform his part.

[Enter Theseus]

Theseus

Oft had I heard of thee in times gone by —
The bloody mutilation of thine eyes —
And therefore know thee, son of Laius.
All that I lately gathered on the way
Made my conjecture doubly sure; and now
Thy garb and that marred visage prove to me
That thou art he. So pitying thine estate,
Most ill-starred Oedipus, I fain would know
What is the suit ye urge on me and Athens,
Thou and the helpless maiden at thy side.
Declare it; dire indeed must be the tale
Whereat I should recoil. I too was reared,
Like thee, in exile, and in foreign lands
Wrestled with many perils, no man more.
Wherefore no alien in adversity
Shall seek in vain my succor, nor shalt thou;
I know myself a mortal, and my share
In what the morrow brings no more than thine.

Oedipus

Theseus, thy words so apt, so generous
So comfortable, need no long reply
Both who I am and of what lineage sprung,
And from what land I came, thou hast declared.
So without prologue I may utter now
My brief petition, and the tale is told.

Theseus

Say on, and tell me what I fain would learn.

Oedipus

I come to offer thee this woe-worn frame,
A gift not fair to look on; yet its worth
More precious far than any outward show.

Theseus

What profit dost thou proffer to have brought?

Oedipus

Hereafter thou shalt learn, not yet, methinks.

Theseus

When may we hope to reap the benefit?

Oedipus

When I am dead and thou hast buried me.

Theseus

Thou cravest life’s last service; all before —
Is it forgotten or of no account?

Oedipus

Yea, the last boon is warrant for the rest.

Theseus

The grace thou cravest then is small indeed.

Oedipus

Nay, weigh it well; the issue is not slight.

Theseus

Thou meanest that betwixt thy sons and me?

Oedipus

Prince, they would fain convey me back to Thebes.

Theseus

If there be no compulsion, then methinks
To rest in banishment befits not thee.

Oedipus

Nay, when I wished it they would not consent.

Theseus

For shame! such temper misbecomes the faller.

Oedipus

Chide if thou wilt, but first attend my plea.

Theseus

Say on, I wait full knowledge ere I judge.

Oedipus

O Theseus, I have suffered wrongs on wrongs.

Theseus

Wouldst tell the old misfortune of thy race?

Oedipus

No, that has grown a byword throughout Greece.

Theseus

What then can be this more than mortal grief?

Oedipus

My case stands thus; by my own flesh and blood
I was expelled my country, and can ne’er
Thither return again, a parricide.

Theseus

Why fetch thee home if thou must needs obey.

Theseus

What are they threatened by the oracle?

Oedipus

Destruction that awaits them in this land.

Theseus

What can beget ill blood ’twixt them and me?

Oedipus

Dear son of Aegeus, to the gods alone
Is given immunity from eld and death;
But nothing else escapes all-ruinous time.
Earth’s might decays, the might of men decays,
Honor grows cold, dishonor flourishes,
There is no constancy ’twixt friend and friend,
Or city and city; be it soon or late,
Sweet turns to bitter, hate once more to love.
If now ’tis sunshine betwixt Thebes and thee
And not a cloud, Time in his endless course
Gives birth to endless days and nights, wherein
The merest nothing shall suffice to cut
With serried spears your bonds of amity.
Then shall my slumbering and buried corpse
In its cold grave drink their warm life-blood up,
If Zeus be Zeus and Phoebus still speak true.
No more: ’tis ill to tear aside the veil
Of mysteries; let me cease as I began:
Enough if thou wilt keep thy plighted troth,
Then shall thou ne’er complain that Oedipus
Proved an unprofitable and thankless guest,
Except the gods themselves shall play me false.

Chorus

The man, my lord, has from the very first
Declared his power to offer to our land
These and like benefits.

Theseus

Who could reject
The proffered amity of such a friend?
First, he can claim the hospitality
To which by mutual contract we stand pledged:
Next, coming here, a suppliant to the gods,
He pays full tribute to the State and me;
His favors therefore never will I spurn,
But grant him the full rights of citizen;
And, if it suits the stranger here to bide,
I place him in your charge, or if he please
Rather to come with me — choose, Oedipus,
Which of the two thou wilt. Thy choice is mine.

Oedipus

Zeus, may the blessing fall on men like these!

Theseus

What dost thou then decide — to come with me?

Oedipus

Yea, were it lawful — but ’tis rather here —

Theseus

What wouldst thou here? I shall not thwart thy wish.

Oedipus

Here shall I vanquish those who cast me forth.

Theseus

Then were thy presence here a boon indeed.

Oedipus

Such shall it prove, if thou fulfill’st thy pledge.

Theseus

Fear not for me; I shall not play thee false.

Oedipus

No need to back thy promise with an oath.

Theseus

An oath would be no surer than my word.

Oedipus

How wilt thou act then?

Theseus

What is it thou fear’st?

Oedipus

My foes will come —

Theseus

Our friends will look to that.

Oedipus

But if thou leave me?

Theseus

Teach me not my duty.

Oedipus

’Tis fear constrains me.

Theseus

My soul knows no fear!

Oedipus

Thou knowest not what threats —

Theseus

I know that none
Shall hale thee hence in my despite. Such threats
Vented in anger oft, are blusterers,
An idle breath, forgot when sense returns.
And for thy foemen, though their words were brave,
Boasting to bring thee back, they are like to find
The seas between us wide and hard to sail.
Such my firm purpose, but in any case
Take heart, since Phoebus sent thee here. My name,
Though I be distant, warrants thee from harm.

Chorus

(Str. 1)
Thou hast come to a steed-famed land for rest,
O stranger worn with toil,
To a land of all lands the goodliest
Colonus’ glistening soil.
’Tis the haunt of the clear-voiced nightingale,
Who hid in her bower, among
The wine-dark ivy that wreathes the vale,
Trilleth her ceaseless song;
And she loves, where the clustering berries nod
O’er a sunless, windless glade,
The spot by no mortal footstep trod,
The pleasance kept for the Bacchic god,
Where he holds each night his revels wild
With the nymphs who fostered the lusty child.

(Ant. 1)
And fed each morn by the pearly dew
The starred narcissi shine,
And a wreath with the crocus’ golden hue
For the Mother and Daughter twine.
And never the sleepless fountains cease
That feed Cephisus’ stream,
But they swell earth’s bosom with quick increase,
And their wave hath a crystal gleam.
And the Muses’ quire will never disdain
To visit this heaven-favored plain,
Nor the Cyprian queen of the golden rein.

(Str. 2)
And here there grows, unpruned, untamed,
Terror to foemen’s spear,
A tree in Asian soil unnamed,
By Pelops’ Dorian isle unclaimed,
Self-nurtured year by year;
’Tis the grey-leaved olive that feeds our boys;
Nor youth nor withering age destroys
The plant that the Olive Planter tends
And the Grey-eyed Goddess herself defends.

(Ant. 2)
Yet another gift, of all gifts the most
Prized by our fatherland, we boast —
The might of the horse, the might of the sea;
Our fame, Poseidon, we owe to thee,
Son of Kronos, our king divine,
Who in these highways first didst fit
For the mouth of horses the iron bit;
Thou too hast taught us to fashion meet
For the arm of the rower the oar-blade fleet,
Swift as the Nereids’ hundred feet
As they dance along the brine.

Antigone

Oh land extolled above all lands, ’tis now
For thee to make these glorious titles good.

Oedipus

Why this appeal, my daughter?

Antigone

Father, lo!
Creon approaches with his company.

Oedipus

Fear not, it shall be so; if we are old,
This country’s vigor has no touch of age.

[Enter Creon with attendants]

Creon

Burghers, my noble friends, ye take alarm
At my approach (I read it in your eyes),
Fear nothing and refrain from angry words.
I come with no ill purpose; I am old,
And know the city whither I am come,
Without a peer amongst the powers of Greece.
It was by reason of my years that I
Was chosen to persuade your guest and bring
Him back to Thebes; not the delegate
Of one man, but commissioned by the State,
Since of all Thebans I have most bewailed,
Being his kinsman, his most grievous woes.
O listen to me, luckless Oedipus,
Come home! The whole Cadmeian people claim
With right to have thee back, I most of all,
For most of all (else were I vile indeed)
I mourn for thy misfortunes, seeing thee
An aged outcast, wandering on and on,
A beggar with one handmaid for thy stay.
Ah! who had e’er imagined she could fall
To such a depth of misery as this,
To tend in penury thy stricken frame,
A virgin ripe for wedlock, but unwed,
A prey for any wanton ravisher?
Seems it not cruel this reproach I cast
On thee and on myself and all the race?
Aye, but an open shame cannot be hid.
Hide it, O hide it, Oedipus, thou canst.
O, by our fathers’ gods, consent I pray;
Come back to Thebes, come to thy father’s home,
Bid Athens, as is meet, a fond farewell;
Thebes thy old foster-mother claims thee first.

Oedipus

O front of brass, thy subtle tongue would twist
To thy advantage every plea of right
Why try thy arts on me, why spread again
Toils where ’twould gall me sorest to be snared?
In old days when by self-wrought woes distraught,
I yearned for exile as a glad release,
Thy will refused the favor then I craved.
But when my frenzied grief had spent its force,
And I was fain to taste the sweets of home,
Then thou wouldst thrust me from my country, then
These ties of kindred were by thee ignored;
And now again when thou behold’st this State
And all its kindly people welcome me,
Thou seek’st to part us, wrapping in soft words
Hard thoughts. And yet what pleasure canst thou find
In forcing friendship on unwilling foes?
Suppose a man refused to grant some boon
When you importuned him, and afterwards
When you had got your heart’s desire, consented,
Granting a grace from which all grace had fled,
Would not such favor seem an empty boon?
Yet such the boon thou profferest now to me,
Fair in appearance, but when tested false.
Yea, I will proved thee false, that these may hear;
Thou art come to take me, not to take me home,
But plant me on thy borders, that thy State
May so escape annoyance from this land.
That thou shalt never gain, but this instead —
My ghost to haunt thy country without end;
And for my sons, this heritage — no more —
Just room to die in. Have not I more skill
Than thou to draw the horoscope of Thebes?
Are not my teachers surer guides than thine —
Great Phoebus and the sire of Phoebus, Zeus?
Thou art a messenger suborned, thy tongue
Is sharper than a sword’s edge, yet thy speech
Will bring thee more defeats than victories.
Howbeit, I know I waste my words — begone,
And leave me here; whate’er may be my lot,
He lives not ill who lives withal content.

Creon

Which loses in this parley, I o’erthrown
By thee, or thou who overthrow’st thyself?

Oedipus

I shall be well contented if thy suit
Fails with these strangers, as it has with me.

Creon

Unhappy man, will years ne’er make thee wise?
Must thou live on to cast a slur on age?

Oedipus

Thou hast a glib tongue, but no honest man,
Methinks, can argue well on any side.

Creon

’Tis one thing to speak much, another well.

Oedipus

Thy words, forsooth, are few and all well aimed!

Creon

Not for a man indeed with wits like thine.

Oedipus

Depart! I bid thee in these burghers’ name,
And prowl no longer round me to blockade
My destined harbor.

Creon

I protest to these,
Not thee, and for thine answer to thy kin,
If e’er I take thee —

Oedipus

Who against their will
Could take me?

Creon

Though untaken thou shalt smart.

Oedipus

What power hast thou to execute this threat?

Creon

One of thy daughters is already seized,
The other I will carry off anon.

Oedipus

Woe, woe!

Creon

This is but prelude to thy woes.

Oedipus

Hast thou my child?

Creon

And soon shall have the other.

Oedipus

Ho, friends! ye will not surely play me false?
Chase this ungodly villain from your land.

Chorus

Hence, stranger, hence avaunt! Thou doest wrong
In this, and wrong in all that thou hast done.

Creon (to his guards)

’Tis time by force to carry off the girl,
If she refuse of her free will to go.

Antigone

Ah, woe is me! where shall I fly, where find
Succor from gods or men?

Chorus

What would’st thou, stranger?

Creon

I meddle not with him, but her who is mine.

Oedipus

O princes of the land!

Chorus

Sir, thou dost wrong.

Creon

Nay, right.

Chorus

How right?

Creon

I take but what is mine.

Oedipus

Help, Athens!

Chorus

What means this, sirrah? quick unhand her, or
We’ll fight it out.

Creon

Back!

Chorus

Not till thou forbear.

Creon

’Tis war with Thebes if I am touched or harmed.

Oedipus

Did I not warn thee?

Chorus

Quick, unhand the maid!

Creon

Command your minions; I am not your slave.

Chorus

Desist, I bid thee.

Creon (to the guard)

And O bid thee march!

Chorus

To the rescue, one and all!
Rally, neighbors to my call!
See, the foe is at the gate!
Rally to defend the State.

Antigone

Ah, woe is me, they drag me hence, O friends.

Oedipus

Where art thou, daughter?

Antigone

Haled along by force.

Oedipus

Thy hands, my child!

Antigone

They will not let me, father.

Creon

Away with her!

Oedipus

Ah, woe is me, ah woe!

Creon

So those two crutches shall no longer serve thee
For further roaming. Since it pleaseth thee
To triumph o’er thy country and thy friends
Who mandate, though a prince, I here discharge,
Enjoy thy triumph; soon or late thou’lt find
Thou art an enemy to thyself, both now
And in time past, when in despite of friends
Thou gav’st the rein to passion, still thy bane.

Chorus

Hold there, sir stranger!

Creon

Hands off, have a care.

Chorus

Restore the maidens, else thou goest not.

Creon

Then Thebes will take a dearer surety soon;
I will lay hands on more than these two maids.

Chorus

What canst thou further?

Creon

Carry off this man.

Chorus

Brave words!

Creon

And deeds forthwith shall make them good.

Chorus

Unless perchance our sovereign intervene.

Oedipus

O shameless voice! Would’st lay an hand on me?

Creon

Silence, I bid thee!

Oedipus

Goddesses, allow
Thy suppliant to utter yet one curse!
Wretch, now my eyes are gone thou hast torn away
The helpless maiden who was eyes to me;
For these to thee and all thy cursed race
May the great Sun, whose eye is everywhere,
Grant length of days and old age like to mine.

Creon

Listen, O men of Athens, mark ye this?

Oedipus

They mark us both and understand that I
Wronged by the deeds defend myself with words.

Creon

Nothing shall curb my will; though I be old
And single-handed, I will have this man.

Oedipus

O woe is me!

Chorus

Thou art a bold man, stranger, if thou think’st
To execute thy purpose.

Creon

So I do.

Chorus

Then shall I deem this State no more a State.

Creon

With a just quarrel weakness conquers might.

Oedipus

Ye hear his words?

Chorus

Aye words, but not yet deeds,
Zeus knoweth!

Creon

Zeus may haply know, not thou.

Chorus

Insolence!

Creon

Insolence that thou must bear.

Chorus

Haste ye princes, sound the alarm!
Men of Athens, arm ye, arm!
Quickly to the rescue come
Ere the robbers get them home.

[Enter Theseus]

Theseus

Why this outcry? What is forward? wherefore was I called away
From the altar of Poseidon, lord of your Colonus? Say!
On what errand have I hurried hither without stop or stay.

Oedipus

Dear friend — those accents tell me who thou art —
Yon man but now hath done me a foul wrong.

Theseus

What is this wrong and who hath wrought it? Speak.

Oedipus

Creon who stands before thee. He it is
Hath robbed me of my all, my daughters twain.

Theseus

What means this?

Oedipus

Thou hast heard my tale of wrongs.

Theseus

Ho! hasten to the altars, one of you.
Command my liegemen leave the sacrifice
And hurry, foot and horse, with rein unchecked,
To where the paths that packmen use diverge,
Lest the two maidens slip away, and I
Become a mockery to this my guest,
As one despoiled by force. Quick, as I bid.
As for this stranger, had I let my rage,
Justly provoked, have play, he had not ’scaped
Scathless and uncorrected at my hands.
But now the laws to which himself appealed,
These and none others shall adjudicate.
Thou shalt not quit this land, till thou hast fetched
The maidens and produced them in my sight.
Thou hast offended both against myself
And thine own race and country. Having come
Unto a State that champions right and asks
For every action warranty of law,
Thou hast set aside the custom of the land,
And like some freebooter art carrying off
What plunder pleases thee, as if forsooth
Thou thoughtest this a city without men,
Or manned by slaves, and me a thing of naught.
Yet not from Thebes this villainy was learnt;
Thebes is not wont to breed unrighteous sons,
Nor would she praise thee, if she learnt that thou
Wert robbing me — aye and the gods to boot,
Haling by force their suppliants, poor maids.
Were I on Theban soil, to prosecute
The justest claim imaginable, I
Would never wrest by violence my own
Without sanction of your State or King;
I should behave as fits an outlander
Living amongst a foreign folk, but thou
Shamest a city that deserves it not,
Even thine own, and plentitude of years
Have made of thee an old man and a fool.
Therefore again I charge thee as before,
See that the maidens are restored at once,
Unless thou would’st continue here by force
And not by choice a sojourner; so much
I tell thee home and what I say, I mean.

Chorus

Thy case is perilous; though by birth and race
Thou should’st be just, thou plainly doest wrong.

Creon

Not deeming this city void of men
Or counsel, son of Aegeus, as thou say’st
I did what I have done; rather I thought
Your people were not like to set such store
by kin of mine and keep them ’gainst my will.
Nor would they harbor, so I stood assured,
A godless parricide, a reprobate
Convicted of incestuous marriage ties.
For on her native hill of Ares here
(I knew your far-famed Areopagus)
Sits Justice, and permits not vagrant folk
To stay within your borders. In that faith
I hunted down my quarry; and e’en then
I had refrained but for the curses dire
Wherewith he banned my kinsfolk and myself:
Such wrong, methought, had warrant for my act.
Anger has no old age but only death;
The dead alone can feel no touch of spite.
So thou must work thy will; my cause is just
But weak without allies; yet will I try,
Old as I am, to answer deeds with deeds.

Oedipus

O shameless railer, think’st thou this abuse
Defames my grey hairs rather than thine own?
Murder and incest, deeds of horror, all
Thou blurtest forth against me, all I have borne,
No willing sinner; so it pleased the gods
Wrath haply with my sinful race of old,
Since thou could’st find no sin in me myself
For which in retribution I was doomed
To trespass thus against myself and mine.
Answer me now, if by some oracle
My sire was destined to a bloody end
By a son’s hand, can this reflect on me,
Me then unborn, begotten by no sire,
Conceived in no mother’s womb? And if
When born to misery, as born I was,
I met my sire, not knowing whom I met
or what I did, and slew him, how canst thou
With justice blame the all-unconscious hand?
And for my mother, wretch, art not ashamed,
Seeing she was thy sister, to extort
From me the story of her marriage, such
A marriage as I straightway will proclaim.
For I will speak; thy lewd and impious speech
Has broken all the bonds of reticence.
She was, ah woe is me! she was my mother;
I knew it not, nor she; and she my mother
Bare children to the son whom she had borne,
A birth of shame. But this at least I know
Wittingly thou aspersest her and me;
But I unwitting wed, unwilling speak.
Nay neither in this marriage or this deed
Which thou art ever casting in my teeth —
A murdered sire — shall I be held to blame.
Come, answer me one question, if thou canst:
If one should presently attempt thy life,
Would’st thou, O man of justice, first inquire
If the assassin was perchance thy sire,
Or turn upon him? As thou lov’st thy life,
On thy aggressor thou would’st turn, no stay
Debating, if the law would bear thee out.
Such was my case, and such the pass whereto
The gods reduced me; and methinks my sire,
Could he come back to life, would not dissent.
Yet thou, for just thou art not, but a man
Who sticks at nothing, if it serve his plea,
Reproachest me with this before these men.
It serves thy turn to laud great Theseus’ name,
And Athens as a wisely governed State;
Yet in thy flatteries one thing is to seek:
If any land knows how to pay the gods
Their proper rites, ’tis Athens most of all.
This is the land whence thou wast fain to steal
Their aged suppliant and hast carried off
My daughters. Therefore to yon goddesses,
I turn, adjure them and invoke their aid
To champion my cause, that thou mayest learn
What is the breed of men who guard this State.

Chorus

An honest man, my liege, one sore bestead
By fortune, and so worthy our support.

Theseus

Enough of words; the captors speed amain,
While we the victims stand debating here.

Creon

What would’st thou? What can I, a feeble man?

Theseus

Show us the trail, and I’ll attend thee too,
That, if thou hast the maidens hereabouts,
Thou mayest thyself discover them to me;
But if thy guards outstrip us with their spoil,
We may draw rein; for others speed, from whom
They will not ’scape to thank the gods at home.
Lead on, I say, the captor’s caught, and fate
Hath ta’en the fowler in the toils he spread;
So soon are lost gains gotten by deceit.
And look not for allies; I know indeed
Such height of insolence was never reached
Without abettors or accomplices;
Thou hast some backer in thy bold essay,
But I will search this matter home and see
One man doth not prevail against the State.
Dost take my drift, or seem these words as vain
As seemed our warnings when the plot was hatched?

Creon

Nothing thou sayest can I here dispute,
But once at home I too shall act my part.

Theseus

Threaten us and — begone! Thou, Oedipus,
Stay here assured that nothing save my death
Will stay my purpose to restore the maids.

Oedipus

Heaven bless thee, Theseus, for thy nobleness
And all thy loving care in my behalf.

[Exeunt Theseus and Creon]

Chorus

(Str. 1)
O when the flying foe,
Turning at last to bay,
Soon will give blow for blow,
Might I behold the fray;
Hear the loud battle roar
Swell, on the Pythian shore,
Or by the torch-lit bay,
Where the dread Queen and Maid
Cherish the mystic rites,
Rites they to none betray,
Ere on his lips is laid
Secrecy’s golden key
By their own acolytes,
Priestly Eumolpidae.

There I might chance behold
Theseus our captain bold
Meet with the robber band,
Ere they have fled the land,
Rescue by might and main
Maidens, the captives twain.

(Ant. 1)
Haply on swiftest steed,
Or in the flying car,
Now they approach the glen,
West of white Oea’s scaur.
They will be vanquished:
Dread are our warriors, dread
Theseus our chieftain’s men.
Flashes each bridle bright,
Charges each gallant knight,
All that our Queen adore,
Pallas their patron, or
Him whose wide floods enring
Earth, the great Ocean-king
Whom Rhea bore.

(Str. 2)
Fight they or now prepare
To fight? a vision rare
Tells me that soon again
I shall behold the twain
Maidens so ill bestead,
By their kin buffeted.
Today, today Zeus worketh some great thing
This day shall victory bring.
O for the wings, the wings of a dove,
To be borne with the speed of the gale,
Up and still upwards to sail
And gaze on the fray from the clouds above.
(Ant. 2)
All-seeing Zeus, O lord of heaven,
To our guardian host be given
Might triumphant to surprise
Flying foes and win their prize.
Hear us, Zeus, and hear us, child
Of Zeus, Athene undefiled,
Hear, Apollo, hunter, hear,
Huntress, sister of Apollo,
Who the dappled swift-foot deer
O’er the wooded glade dost follow;
Help with your two-fold power
Athens in danger’s hour!
O wayfarer, thou wilt not have to tax
The friends who watch for thee with false presage,
For lo, an escort with the maids draws near.

[Enter Antigone and Ismene with Theseus]

Oedipus

Where, where? what sayest thou?

Antigone

O father, father,
Would that some god might grant thee eyes to see
This best of men who brings us back again.

Oedipus

My child! and are ye back indeed!

Antigone

Yes, saved
By Theseus and his gallant followers.

Oedipus

Come to your father’s arms, O let me feel
A child’s embrace I never hoped for more.

Antigone

Thou askest what is doubly sweet to give.

Oedipus

Where are ye then?

Antigone

We come together both.

Oedipus

My precious nurslings!

Antigone

Fathers aye were fond.

Oedipus

Props of my age!

Antigone

So sorrow sorrow props.

Oedipus

I have my darlings, and if death should come,
Death were not wholly bitter with you near.
Cling to me, press me close on either side,
There rest ye from your dreary wayfaring.
Now tell me of your ventures, but in brief;
Brief speech suffices for young maids like you.

Antigone

Here is our savior; thou should’st hear the tale
From his own lips; so shall my part be brief.

Oedipus

I pray thee do not wonder if the sight
Of children, given o’er for lost, has made
My converse somewhat long and tedious.
Full well I know the joy I have of them
Is due to thee, to thee and no man else;
Thou wast their sole deliverer, none else.
The gods deal with thee after my desire,
With thee and with this land! for fear of heaven
I found above all peoples most with you,
And righteousness and lips that cannot lie.
I speak in gratitude of what I know,
For all I have I owe to thee alone.
Give me thy hand, O Prince, that I may touch it,
And if thou wilt permit me, kiss thy cheek.
What say I? Can I wish that thou should’st touch
One fallen like me to utter wretchedness,
Corrupt and tainted with a thousand ills?
Oh no, I would not let thee if thou would’st.
They only who have known calamity
Can share it. Let me greet thee where thou art,
And still befriend me as thou hast till now.

Theseus

I marvel not if thou hast dallied long
In converse with thy children and preferred
Their speech to mine; I feel no jealousy,
I would be famous more by deeds than words.
Of this, old friend, thou hast had proof; my oath
I have fulfilled and brought thee back the maids
Alive and nothing harmed for all those threats.
And how the fight was won, ’twere waste of words
To boast — thy daughters here will tell thee all.
But of a matter that has lately chanced
On my way hitherward, I fain would have
Thy counsel — slight ’twould seem, yet worthy thought.
A wise man heeds all matters great or small.

Oedipus

What is it, son of Aegeus? Let me hear.
Of what thou askest I myself know naught.

Theseus

’Tis said a man, no countryman of thine,
But of thy kin, hath taken sanctuary
Beside the altar of Poseidon, where
I was at sacrifice when called away.

Oedipus

What is his country? what the suitor’s prayer?

Theseus

I know but one thing; he implores, I am told,
A word with thee — he will not trouble thee.

Oedipus

What seeks he? If a suppliant, something grave.

Theseus

He only waits, they say, to speak with thee,
And then unharmed to go upon his way.

Oedipus

I marvel who is this petitioner.

Theseus

Think if there be not any of thy kin
At Argos who might claim this boon of thee.

Oedipus

Dear friend, forbear, I pray.

Theseus

What ails thee now?

Oedipus

Ask it not of me.

Theseus

Ask not what? explain.

Oedipus

Thy words have told me who the suppliant is.

Theseus

Who can he be that I should frown on him?

Oedipus

My son, O king, my hateful son, whose words
Of all men’s most would jar upon my ears.

Theseus

Thou sure mightest listen. If his suit offend,
No need to grant it. Why so loth to hear him?

Oedipus

That voice, O king, grates on a father’s ears;
I have come to loathe it. Force me not to yield.

Theseus

But he hath found asylum. O beware,
And fail not in due reverence to the god.

Antigone

O heed me, father, though I am young in years.
Let the prince have his will and pay withal
What in his eyes is service to the god;
For our sake also let our brother come.
If what he urges tend not to thy good
He cannot surely wrest perforce thy will.
To hear him then, what harm? By open words
A scheme of villainy is soon bewrayed.
Thou art his father, therefore canst not pay
In kind a son’s most impious outrages.
O listen to him; other men like thee
Have thankless children and are choleric,
But yielding to persuasion’s gentle spell
They let their savage mood be exorcised.
Look thou to the past, forget the present, think
On all the woe thy sire and mother brought thee;
Thence wilt thou draw this lesson without fail,
Of evil passion evil is the end.
Thou hast, alas, to prick thy memory,
Stern monitors, these ever-sightless orbs.
O yield to us; just suitors should not need
To be importunate, nor he that takes
A favor lack the grace to make return.

Oedipus

Grievous to me, my child, the boon ye win
By pleading. Let it be then; have your way
Only if come he must, I beg thee, friend,
Let none have power to dispose of me.

Theseus

No need, Sir, to appeal a second time.
It likes me not to boast, but be assured
Thy life is safe while any god saves mine.

[Exit Theseus]

Chorus

(Str.)
Who craves excess of days,
Scorning the common span
Of life, I judge that man
A giddy wight who walks in folly’s ways.
For the long years heap up a grievous load,
Scant pleasures, heavier pains,
Till not one joy remains
For him who lingers on life’s weary road
And come it slow or fast,
One doom of fate
Doth all await,
For dance and marriage bell,
The dirge and funeral knell.
Death the deliverer freeth all at last.
(Ant.)
Not to be born at all
Is best, far best that can befall,
Next best, when born, with least delay
To trace the backward way.
For when youth passes with its giddy train,
Troubles on troubles follow, toils on toils,
Pain, pain for ever pain;
And none escapes life’s coils.
Envy, sedition, strife,
Carnage and war, make up the tale of life.
Last comes the worst and most abhorred stage
Of unregarded age,
Joyless, companionless and slow,
Of woes the crowning woe.

(Epode)
Such ills not I alone,
He too our guest hath known,
E’en as some headland on an iron-bound shore,
Lashed by the wintry blasts and surge’s roar,
So is he buffeted on every side
By drear misfortune’s whelming tide,
By every wind of heaven o’erborne
Some from the sunset, some from orient morn,
Some from the noonday glow.
Some from Rhipean gloom of everlasting snow.

Antigone

Father, methinks I see the stranger coming,
Alone he comes and weeping plenteous tears.

Oedipus

Who may he be?

Antigone

The same that we surmised.
From the outset — Polyneices. He is here.

[Enter Polyneices]

Polyneices

Ah me, my sisters, shall I first lament
My own afflictions, or my aged sire’s,
Whom here I find a castaway, with you,
In a strange land, an ancient beggar clad
In antic tatters, marring all his frame,
While o’er the sightless orbs his unkept locks
Float in the breeze; and, as it were to match,
He bears a wallet against hunger’s pinch.
All this too late I learn, wretch that I am,
Alas! I own it, and am proved most vile
In my neglect of thee: I scorn myself.
But as almighty Zeus in all he doth
Hath Mercy for co-partner of this throne,
Let Mercy, father, also sit enthroned
In thy heart likewise. For transgressions past
May be amended, cannot be made worse.

Why silent? Father, speak, nor turn away,
Hast thou no word, wilt thou dismiss me then
In mute disdain, nor tell me why thou art wrath?
O ye his daughters, sisters mine, do ye
This sullen, obstinate silence try to move.
Let him not spurn, without a single word
Of answer, me the suppliant of the god.

Antigone

Tell him thyself, unhappy one, thine errand;
For large discourse may send a thrill of joy,
Or stir a chord of wrath or tenderness,
And to the tongue-tied somehow give a tongue.

Polyneices

Well dost thou counsel, and I will speak out.
First will I call in aid the god himself,
Poseidon, from whose altar I was raised,
With warrant from the monarch of this land,
To parley with you, and depart unscathed.
These pledges, strangers, I would see observed
By you and by my sisters and my sire.
Now, father, let me tell thee why I came.
I have been banished from my native land
Because by right of primogeniture
I claimed possession of thy sovereign throne
Wherefrom Etocles, my younger brother,
Ousted me, not by weight of precedent,
Nor by the last arbitrament of war,
But by his popular acts; and the prime cause
Of this I deem the curse that rests on thee.
So likewise hold the soothsayers, for when
I came to Argos in the Dorian land
And took the king Adrastus’ child to wife,
Under my standard I enlisted all
The foremost captains of the Apian isle,
To levy with their aid that sevenfold host
Of spearmen against Thebes, determining
To oust my foes or die in a just cause.
Why then, thou askest, am I here today?
Father, I come a suppliant to thee
Both for myself and my allies who now
With squadrons seven beneath their seven spears
Beleaguer all the plain that circles Thebes.
Foremost the peerless warrior, peerless seer,
Amphiaraiis with his lightning lance;
Next an Aetolian, Tydeus, Oeneus’ son;
Eteoclus of Argive birth the third;
The fourth Hippomedon, sent to the war
By his sire Talaos; Capaneus, the fifth,
Vaunts he will fire and raze the town; the sixth
Parthenopaeus, an Arcadian born
Named of that maid, longtime a maid and late
Espoused, Atalanta’s true-born child;
Last I thy son, or thine at least in name,
If but the bastard of an evil fate,
Lead against Thebes the fearless Argive host.
Thus by thy children and thy life, my sire,
We all adjure thee to remit thy wrath
And favor one who seeks a just revenge
Against a brother who has banned and robbed him.
For victory, if oracles speak true,
Will fall to those who have thee for ally.
So, by our fountains and familiar gods
I pray thee, yield and hear; a beggar I
And exile, thou an exile likewise; both
Involved in one misfortune find a home
As pensioners, while he, the lord of Thebes,
O agony! makes a mock of thee and me.
I’ll scatter with a breath the upstart’s might,
And bring thee home again and stablish thee,
And stablish, having cast him out, myself.
This will thy goodwill I will undertake,
Without it I can scare return alive.

Chorus

For the king’s sake who sent him, Oedipus,
Dismiss him not without a meet reply.

Oedipus

Nay, worthy seniors, but for Theseus’ sake
Who sent him hither to have word of me.
Never again would he have heard my voice;
But now he shall obtain this parting grace,
An answer that will bring him little joy.
O villain, when thou hadst the sovereignty
That now thy brother holdeth in thy stead,
Didst thou not drive me, thine own father, out,
An exile, cityless, and make we wear
This beggar’s garb thou weepest to behold,
Now thou art come thyself to my sad plight?
Nothing is here for tears; it must be borne
By me till death, and I shall think of thee
As of my murderer; thou didst thrust me out;
’Tis thou hast made me conversant with woe,
Through thee I beg my bread in a strange land;
And had not these my daughters tended me
I had been dead for aught of aid from thee.
They tend me, they preserve me, they are men
Not women in true service to their sire;
But ye are bastards, and no sons of mine.
Therefore just Heaven hath an eye on thee;
Howbeit not yet with aspect so austere
As thou shalt soon experience, if indeed
These banded hosts are moving against Thebes.
That city thou canst never storm, but first
Shall fall, thou and thy brother, blood-imbrued.
Such curse I lately launched against you twain,
Such curse I now invoke to fight for me,
That ye may learn to honor those who bear thee
Nor flout a sightless father who begat
Degenerate sons — these maidens did not so.
Therefore my curse is stronger than thy “throne,”
Thy “suppliance,” if by right of laws eterne
Primeval Justice sits enthroned with Zeus.
Begone, abhorred, disowned, no son of mine,
Thou vilest of the vile! and take with thee
This curse I leave thee as my last bequest:—
Never to win by arms thy native land,
No, nor return to Argos in the Vale,
But by a kinsman’s hand to die and slay
Him who expelled thee. So I pray and call
On the ancestral gloom of Tartarus
To snatch thee hence, on these dread goddesses
I call, and Ares who incensed you both
To mortal enmity. Go now proclaim
What thou hast heard to the Cadmeians all,
Thy staunch confederates — this the heritage
that Oedipus divideth to his sons.

Chorus

Thy errand, Polyneices, liked me not
From the beginning; now go back with speed.

Polyneices

Woe worth my journey and my baffled hopes!
Woe worth my comrades! What a desperate end
To that glad march from Argos! Woe is me!
I dare not whisper it to my allies
Or turn them back, but mute must meet my doom.
My sisters, ye his daughters, ye have heard
The prayers of our stern father, if his curse
Should come to pass and ye some day return
To Thebes, O then disown me not, I pray,
But grant me burial and due funeral rites.
So shall the praise your filial care now wins
Be doubled for the service wrought for me.

Antigone

One boon, O Polyneices, let me crave.

Polyneices

What would’st thou, sweet Antigone? Say on.

Antigone

Turn back thy host to Argos with all speed,
And ruin not thyself and Thebes as well.

Polyneices

That cannot be. How could I lead again
An army that had seen their leader quail?

Antigone

But, brother, why shouldst thou be wroth again?
What profit from thy country’s ruin comes?

Polyneices

’Tis shame to live in exile, and shall I
The elder bear a younger brother’s flouts?

Antigone

Wilt thou then bring to pass his prophecies
Who threatens mutual slaughter to you both?

Polyneices

Aye, so he wishes:— but I must not yield.

Antigone

O woe is me! but say, will any dare,
Hearing his prophecy, to follow thee?

Polyneices

I shall not tell it; a good general
Reports successes and conceals mishaps.

Antigone

Misguided youth, thy purpose then stands fast!

Polyneices

’Tis so, and stay me not. The road I choose,
Dogged by my sire and his avenging spirit,
Leads me to ruin; but for you may Zeus
Make your path bright if ye fulfill my hest
When dead; in life ye cannot serve me more.
Now let me go, farewell, a long farewell!
Ye ne’er shall see my living face again.

Antigone

Ah me!

Polyneices

Bewail me not.

Antigone

Who would not mourn
Thee, brother, hurrying to an open pit!

Polyneices

If I must die, I must.

Antigone

Nay, hear me plead.

Polyneices

It may not be; forbear.

Antigone

Then woe is me,
If I must lose thee.

Polyneices

Nay, that rests with fate,
Whether I live or die; but for you both
I pray to heaven ye may escape all ill;
For ye are blameless in the eyes of all.

[Exit Polyneices]

Chorus

(Str. 1)
Ills on ills! no pause or rest!
Come they from our sightless guest?
Or haply now we see fulfilled
What fate long time hath willed?
For ne’er have I proved vain
Aught that the heavenly powers ordain.
Time with never sleeping eye
Watches what is writ on high,
Overthrowing now the great,
Raising now from low estate.
Hark! How the thunder rumbles! Zeus defend us!

Oedipus

Children, my children! will no messenger
Go summon hither Theseus my best friend?

Antigone

And wherefore, father, dost thou summon him?

Oedipus

This winged thunder of the god must bear me
Anon to Hades. Send and tarry not.

Chorus

(Ant. 1)
Hark! with louder, nearer roar
The bolt of Zeus descends once more.
My spirit quails and cowers: my hair
Bristles for fear. Again that flare!
What doth the lightning-flash portend?
Ever it points to issues grave.
Dread powers of air! Save, Zeus, O save!

Oedipus

Daughters, upon me the predestined end
Has come; no turning from it any more.

Antigone

How knowest thou? What sign convinces thee?

Oedipus

I know full well. Let some one with all speed
Go summon hither the Athenian prince.

Chorus

(Str. 2)
Ha! once more the deafening sound
Peals yet louder all around
If thou darkenest our land,
Lightly, lightly lay thy hand;
Grace, not anger, let me win,
If upon a man of sin
I have looked with pitying eye,
Zeus, our king, to thee I cry!

Oedipus

Is the prince coming? Will he when he comes
Find me yet living and my senses clear!

Antigone

What solemn charge would’st thou impress on him?

Oedipus

For all his benefits I would perform
The promise made when I received them first.

Chorus

(Ant. 2)
Hither haste, my son, arise,
Altar leave and sacrifice,
If haply to Poseidon now
In the far glade thou pay’st thy vow.
For our guest to thee would bring
And thy folk and offering,
Thy due guerdon. Haste, O King!

[Enter Theseus]

Theseus

Wherefore again this general din? at once
My people call me and the stranger calls.
Is it a thunderbolt of Zeus or sleet
Of arrowy hail? a storm so fierce as this
Would warrant all surmises of mischance.

Oedipus

Thou com’st much wished for, Prince, and sure some god
Hath bid good luck attend thee on thy way.

Theseus

What, son of Laius, hath chanced of new?

Oedipus

My life hath turned the scale. I would do all
I promised thee and thine before I die.

Theseus

What sign assures thee that thine end is near?

Oedipus

The gods themselves are heralds of my fate;
Of their appointed warnings nothing fails.

Theseus

How sayest thou they signify their will?

Oedipus

This thunder, peal on peal, this lightning hurled
Flash upon flash, from the unconquered hand.

Theseus

I must believe thee, having found thee oft
A prophet true; then speak what must be done.

Oedipus

O son of Aegeus, for this state will I
Unfold a treasure age cannot corrupt.
Myself anon without a guiding hand
Will take thee to the spot where I must end.
This secret ne’er reveal to mortal man,
Neither the spot nor whereabouts it lies,
So shall it ever serve thee for defense
Better than native shields and near allies.
But those dread mysteries speech may not profane
Thyself shalt gather coming there alone;
Since not to any of thy subjects, nor
To my own children, though I love them dearly,
Can I reveal what thou must guard alone,
And whisper to thy chosen heir alone,
So to be handed down from heir to heir.
Thus shalt thou hold this land inviolate
From the dread Dragon’s brood. [4] The justest State
By countless wanton neighbors may be wronged,
For the gods, though they tarry, mark for doom
The godless sinner in his mad career.
Far from thee, son of Aegeus, be such fate!
But to the spot — the god within me goads —
Let us set forth no longer hesitate.
Follow me, daughters, this way. Strange that I
Whom you have led so long should lead you now.
Oh, touch me not, but let me all alone
Find out the sepulcher that destiny
Appoints me in this land. Hither, this way,
For this way Hermes leads, the spirit guide,
And Persephassa, empress of the dead.
O light, no light to me, but mine erewhile,
Now the last time I feel thee palpable,
For I am drawing near the final gloom
Of Hades. Blessing on thee, dearest friend,
On thee and on thy land and followers!
Live prosperous and in your happy state
Still for your welfare think on me, the dead.

[Exit Theseus followed by Antigone and Ismene]

Chorus

(Str.)
If mortal prayers are heard in hell,
Hear, Goddess dread, invisible!
Monarch of the regions drear,
Aidoneus, hear, O hear!
By a gentle, tearless doom
Speed this stranger to the gloom,
Let him enter without pain
The all-shrouding Stygian plain.
Wrongfully in life oppressed,
Be he now by Justice blessed.

(Ant.)
Queen infernal, and thou fell
Watch-dog of the gates of hell,
Who, as legends tell, dost glare,
Gnarling in thy cavernous lair
At all comers, let him go
Scathless to the fields below.
For thy master orders thus,
The son of earth and Tartarus;
In his den the monster keep,
Giver of eternal sleep.

[Enter Messenger]

Messenger

Friends, countrymen, my tidings are in sum
That Oedipus is gone, but the event
Was not so brief, nor can the tale be brief.

Chorus

What, has he gone, the unhappy man?

Messenger

Know well
That he has passed away from life to death.

Chorus

How? By a god-sent, painless doom, poor soul?

Messenger

Thy question hits the marvel of the tale.
How he moved hence, you saw him and must know;
Without a friend to lead the way, himself
Guiding us all. So having reached the abrupt
Earth-rooted Threshold with its brazen stairs,
He paused at one of the converging paths,
Hard by the rocky basin which records
The pact of Theseus and Peirithous.
Betwixt that rift and the Thorician rock,
The hollow pear-tree and the marble tomb,
Midway he sat and loosed his beggar’s weeds;
Then calling to his daughters bade them fetch
Of running water, both to wash withal
And make libation; so they clomb the steep;
And in brief space brought what their father bade,
Then laved and dressed him with observance due.
But when he had his will in everything,
And no desire was left unsatisfied,
It thundered from the netherworld; the maids
Shivered, and crouching at their father’s knees
Wept, beat their breast and uttered a long wail.
He, as he heard their sudden bitter cry,
Folded his arms about them both and said,
“My children, ye will lose your sire today,
For all of me has perished, and no more
Have ye to bear your long, long ministry;
A heavy load, I know, and yet one word
Wipes out all score of tribulations — love.
And love from me ye had — from no man more;
But now must live without me all your days.”
So clinging to each other sobbed and wept
Father and daughters both, but when at last
Their mourning had an end and no wail rose,
A moment there was silence; suddenly
A voice that summoned him; with sudden dread
The hair of all stood up and all were ’mazed;
For the call came, now loud, now low, and oft.
“Oedipus, Oedipus, why tarry we?
Too long, too long thy passing is delayed.”
But when he heard the summons of the god,
He prayed that Theseus might be brought, and when
The Prince came nearer: “O my friend,” he cried,
“Pledge ye my daughters, giving thy right hand —
And, daughters, give him yours — and promise me
Thou never wilt forsake them, but do all
That time and friendship prompt in their behoof.”
And he of his nobility repressed
His tears and swore to be their constant friend.
This promise given, Oedipus put forth
Blind hands and laid them on his children, saying,
“O children, prove your true nobility
And hence depart nor seek to witness sights
Unlawful or to hear unlawful words.
Nay, go with speed; let none but Theseus stay,
Our ruler, to behold what next shall hap.”
So we all heard him speak, and weeping sore
We companied the maidens on their way.
After brief space we looked again, and lo
The man was gone, evanished from our eyes;
Only the king we saw with upraised hand
Shading his eyes as from some awful sight,
That no man might endure to look upon.
A moment later, and we saw him bend
In prayer to Earth and prayer to Heaven at once.
But by what doom the stranger met his end
No man save Theseus knoweth. For there fell
No fiery bold that reft him in that hour,
Nor whirlwind from the sea, but he was taken.
It was a messenger from heaven, or else
Some gentle, painless cleaving of earth’s base;
For without wailing or disease or pain
He passed away — and end most marvelous.
And if to some my tale seems foolishness
I am content that such could count me fool.

Chorus

Where are the maids and their attendant friends?

Messenger

They cannot be far off; the approaching sound
Of lamentation tells they come this way.

[Enter Antigone and Ismene]

Antigone

(Str. 1)
Woe, woe! on this sad day
We sisters of one blasted stock
must bow beneath the shock,
Must weep and weep the curse that lay
On him our sire, for whom
In life, a life-long world of care
’Twas ours to bear,
In death must face the gloom
That wraps his tomb.
What tongue can tell
That sight ineffable?

Chorus

What mean ye, maidens?

Antigone

All is but surmise.

Chorus

Is he then gone?

Antigone

Gone as ye most might wish.
Not in battle or sea storm,
But reft from sight,
By hands invisible borne
To viewless fields of night.
Ah me! on us too night has come,
The night of mourning. Wither roam
O’er land or sea in our distress
Eating the bread of bitterness?

Ismene

I know not. O that Death
Might nip my breath,
And let me share my aged father’s fate.
I cannot live a life thus desolate.

Chorus

Best of daughters, worthy pair,
What heaven brings ye needs must bear,
Fret no more ’gainst Heaven’s will;
Fate hath dealt with you not ill.

Antigone

(Ant. 1)
Love can turn past pain to bliss,
What seemed bitter now is sweet.
Ah me! that happy toil is sweet.
The guidance of those dear blind feet.
Dear father, wrapt for aye in nether gloom,
E’en in the tomb
Never shalt thou lack of love repine,
Her love and mine.

Chorus

His fate —

Antigone

Is even as he planned.

Chorus

How so?

Antigone

He died, so willed he, in a foreign land.
Lapped in kind earth he sleeps his long last sleep,
And o’er his grave friends weep.
How great our lost these streaming eyes can tell,
This sorrow naught can quell.
Thou hadst thy wish ’mid strangers thus to die,
But I, ah me, not by.

Ismene

Alas, my sister, what new fate
******
******
Befalls us orphans desolate?

Chorus

His end was blessed; therefore, children, stay
Your sorrow. Man is born to fate a prey.

Antigone

(Str. 2)
Sister, let us back again.

Ismene

Why return?

Antigone

My soul is fain —

Ismene

Is fain?

Antigone

To see the earthy bed.

Ismene

Sayest thou?

Antigone

Where our sire is laid.

Ismene

Nay, thou can’st not, dost not see —

Antigone

Sister, wherefore wroth with me?

Ismene

Know’st not — beside —

Antigone

More must I hear?

Ismene

Tombless he died, none near.

Antigone

Lead me thither; slay me there.

Ismene

How shall I unhappy fare,
Friendless, helpless, how drag on
A life of misery alone?

Chorus

(Ant. 2)
Fear not, maids —

Antigone

Ah, whither flee?

Chorus

Refuge hath been found.

Antigone

For me?

Chorus

Where thou shalt be safe from harm.

Antigone

I know it.

Chorus

Why then this alarm?

Antigone

How again to get us home
I know not.

Chorus

Why then this roam?

Antigone

Troubles whelm us —

Chorus

As of yore.

Antigone

Worse than what was worse before.

Chorus

Sure ye are driven on the breakers’ surge.

Antigone

Alas! we are.

Chorus

Alas! ’tis so.

Antigone

Ah whither turn, O Zeus? No ray
Of hope to cheer the way
Whereon the fates our desperate voyage urge.

[Enter Theseus]

Theseus

Dry your tears; when grace is shed
On the quick and on the dead
By dark Powers beneficent,
Over-grief they would resent.

Antigone

Aegeus’ child, to thee we pray.

Theseus

What the boon, my children, say.

Antigone

With our own eyes we fain would see
Our father’s tomb.

Theseus

That may not be.

Antigone

What say’st thou, King?

Theseus

My children, he
Charged me straitly that no mortal
Should approach the sacred portal,
Or greet with funeral litanies
The hidden tomb wherein he lies;
Saying, “If thou keep’st my hest
Thou shalt hold thy realm at rest.”
The God of Oaths this promise heard,
And to Zeus I pledged my word.

Antigone

Well, if he would have it so,
We must yield. Then let us go
Back to Thebes, if yet we may
Heal this mortal feud and stay
The self-wrought doom
That drives our brothers to their tomb.

Theseus

Go in peace; nor will I spare
Ought of toil and zealous care,
But on all your needs attend,
Gladdening in his grave my friend.

Chorus

Wail no more, let sorrow rest,
All is ordered for the best.

Antigone

Characters in the Play

Antigone and Ismene, daughters of Oedipus and sisters of Polyneices and Eteocles.

Creon, King of Thebes.

Haemon, Son of Creon, betrothed to Antigone.

Eurydice, wife of Creon.

Teiresias, the prophet.

Chorus, of Theban elders.

A watchman

A messenger

A second Messenger

[Antigone and Ismene before the Palace gates.]

Antigone

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?

Ismene

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.

Antigone

I know ’twas so, and therefore summoned thee
Beyond the gates to breathe it in thine ear.

Ismene

What is it? Some dark secret stirs thy breast.

Antigone

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.

Ismene

But how, my rash, fond sister, in such case
Can I do anything to make or mar?

Antigone

Say, wilt thou aid me and abet? Decide.

Ismene

In what bold venture? What is in thy thought?

Antigone

Lend me a hand to bear the corpse away.

Ismene

What, bury him despite the interdict?

Antigone

My brother, and, though thou deny him, thine
No man shall say that I betrayed a brother.

Ismene

Wilt thou persist, though Creon has forbid?

Antigone

What right has he to keep me from my own?

Ismene

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.

Antigone

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.

Ismene

I scorn them not, but to defy the State
Or break her ordinance I have no skill.

Antigone

A specious pretext. I will go alone
To lap my dearest brother in the grave.

Ismene

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

Antigone

O waste no fears on me; look to thyself.

Ismene

At least let no man know of thine intent,
But keep it close and secret, as will I.

Antigone

O tell it, sister; I shall hate thee more
If thou proclaim it not to all the town.

Ismene

Thou hast a fiery soul for numbing work.

Antigone

I pleasure those whom I would liefest please.

Ismene

If thou succeed; but thou art doomed to fail.

Antigone

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

Ismene

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

Antigone

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.

Ismene

Have thine own way then; ’tis a mad endeavor,
Yet to thy lovers thou art dear as ever.

[Exeunt]

Chorus

(Str. 1)
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.

(Ant. 1)
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.

(Str. 2)
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.

(Ant. 2)
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?

[Enter Creon]

Creon

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.

Chorus

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.

Creon

See then ye execute what I ordain.

Chorus

On younger shoulders lay this grievous charge.

Creon

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

Chorus

What further duty would’st thou lay on us?

Creon

Not to connive at disobedience.

Chorus

No man is mad enough to court his death.

Creon

The penalty is death: yet hope of gain
Hath lured men to their ruin oftentimes.

[Enter Guard]

Guard

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.’

Creon

What is thy news? Why this despondency?

Guard

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.

Creon

Thou art good at parry, and canst fence about
Some matter of grave import, as is plain.

Guard

The bearer of dread tidings needs must quake.

Creon

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

Guard

Well, it must out; the corpse is buried; someone
E’en now besprinkled it with thirsty dust,
Performed the proper ritual — and was gone.

Creon

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

Guard

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: Ye are bound to tell
The King, ye cannot hide it; 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.

Chorus

I had misgivings from the first, my liege,
Of something more than natural at work.

Creon

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.

Guard

May I not speak, or must I turn and go
Without a word? —

Creon

Begone! canst thou not see
That e’en this question irks me?

Guard

Where, my lord?
Is it thy ears that suffer, or thy heart?

Creon

Why seek to probe and find the seat of pain?

Guard

I gall thine ears — this miscreant thy mind.

Creon

What an inveterate babbler! get thee gone!

Guard

Babbler perchance, but innocent of the crime.

Creon

Twice guilty, having sold thy soul for gain.

Guard

Alas! how sad when reasoners reason wrong.

Creon

Go, quibble with thy reason. If thou fail’st
To find these malefactors, thou shalt own
The wages of ill-gotten gains is death.

[Exit Creon]

Guard

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.

Chorus

(Str. 1)
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.

(Ant. 1)
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.

(Str. 2)
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.

(Ant. 2)
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?

[Enter Guard bringing Antigone]

Guard

Here is the culprit taken in the act
Of giving burial. But where’s the King?

Chorus

There from the palace he returns in time.

[Enter Creon]

Creon

Why is my presence timely? What has chanced?

Guard

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.

Creon

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

Guard

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

Creon

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

Guard

I saw this woman burying the corpse
Against thy orders. Is that clear and plain?

Creon

But how was she surprised and caught in the act?

Guard

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.

Creon

Speak, girl, with head bent low and downcast eyes,
Does thou plead guilty or deny the deed?

Antigone

Guilty. I did it, I deny it not.

Creon

(To Guard)

Sirrah, begone whither thou wilt, and thank
Thy luck that thou hast ’scaped a heavy charge.
(To Antigone)
Now answer this plain question, yes or no,
Wast thou acquainted with the interdict?

Antigone

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

Creon

And yet wert bold enough to break the law?

Antigone

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.

Chorus

A stubborn daughter of a stubborn sire,
This ill-starred maiden kicks against the pricks.

Creon

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.

Antigone

Would’st thou do more than slay thy prisoner?

Creon

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

Antigone

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.

Creon

Of all these Thebans none so deems but thou.

Antigone

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

Creon

Hast thou no shame to differ from all these?

Antigone

To reverence kith and kin can bring no shame.

Creon

Was his dead foeman not thy kinsman too?

Antigone

One mother bare them and the self-same sire.

Creon

Why cast a slur on one by honoring one?

Antigone

The dead man will not bear thee out in this.

Creon

Surely, if good and evil fare alive.

Antigone

The slain man was no villain but a brother.

Creon

The patriot perished by the outlaw’s brand.

Antigone

Nathless the realms below these rites require.

Creon

Not that the base should fare as do the brave.

Antigone

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

Creon

Not even death can make a foe a friend.

Antigone

My nature is for mutual love, not hate.

Creon

Die then, and love the dead if thou must;
No woman shall be the master while I live.

[Enter Ismene]

Chorus

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.

Creon

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?

Ismene

I did the deed, if she will have it so,
And with my sister claim to share the guilt.

Antigone

That were unjust. Thou would’st not act with me
At first, and I refused thy partnership.

Ismene

But now thy bark is stranded, I am bold
To claim my share as partner in the loss.

Antigone

Who did the deed the under-world knows well:
A friend in word is never friend of mine.

Ismene

O sister, scorn me not, let me but share
Thy work of piety, and with thee die.

Antigone

Claim not a work in which thou hadst no hand;
One death sufficeth. Wherefore should’st thou die?

Ismene

What would life profit me bereft of thee?

Antigone

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

Ismene

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

Antigone

’Tis a sad mockery, if indeed I mock.

Ismene

O say if I can help thee even now.

Antigone

No, save thyself; I grudge not thy escape.

Ismene

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

Antigone

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

Ismene

Thou canst not say that I did not protest.

Antigone

Well, some approved thy wisdom, others mine.

Ismene

But now we stand convicted, both alike.

Antigone

Fear not; thou livest, I died long ago
Then when I gave my life to save the dead.

Creon

Both maids, methinks, are crazed. One suddenly
Has lost her wits, the other was born mad.

Ismene

Yea, so it falls, sire, when misfortune comes,
The wisest even lose their mother wit.

Creon

I’ faith thy wit forsook thee when thou mad’st
Thy choice with evil-doers to do ill.

Ismene

What life for me without my sister here?

Creon

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

Ismene

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

Creon

Aye, let him raise him seed from other fields.

Ismene

No new espousal can be like the old.

Creon

A plague on trulls who court and woo our sons.

Antigone

O Haemon, how thy sire dishonors thee!

Creon

A plague on thee and thy accursed bride!

Chorus

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

Creon

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

Chorus

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

Creon

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.

Chorus

(Str. 1)
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.

(Ant. 1)
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!

(Str. 2)
Thy might, O Zeus, what mortal power can quell?
Not sleep that lays all else beneath its spell,
Nor moons that never tier: 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.

(Ant. 2)
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?

[Enter Haemon]

Creon

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?

Haemon

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.

Creon

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.

Chorus

To me, unless old age have dulled wits,
Thy words appear both reasonable and wise.

Haemon

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.

Chorus

If he says aught in season, heed him, King.
(To Haemon)
Heed thou thy sire too; both have spoken well.

Creon

What, would you have us at our age be schooled,
Lessoned in prudence by a beardless boy?

Haemon

I plead for justice, father, nothing more.
Weigh me upon my merit, not my years.

Creon

Strange merit this to sanction lawlessness!

Haemon

For evil-doers I would urge no plea.

Creon

Is not this maid an arrant law-breaker?

Haemon

The Theban commons with one voice say, No.

Creon

What, shall the mob dictate my policy?

Haemon

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

Creon

Am I to rule for others, or myself?

Haemon

A State for one man is no State at all.

Creon

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

Haemon

As monarch of a desert thou wouldst shine.

Creon

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

Haemon

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

Creon

O reprobate, would’st wrangle with thy sire?

Haemon

Because I see thee wrongfully perverse.

Creon

And am I wrong, if I maintain my rights?

Haemon

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

Creon

O heart corrupt, a woman’s minion thou!

Haemon

Slave to dishonor thou wilt never find me.

Creon

Thy speech at least was all a plea for her.

Haemon

And thee and me, and for the gods below.

Creon

Living the maid shall never be thy bride.

Haemon

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

Creon

Hast come to such a pass as threaten me?

Haemon

What threat is this, vain counsels to reprove?

Creon

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

Haemon

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

Creon

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

Haemon

When thou dost speak, must no man make reply?

Creon

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.

Haemon

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.

[Exit Haemon]

Chorus

Thy son has gone, my liege, in angry haste.
Fell is the wrath of youth beneath a smart.

Creon

Let him go vent his fury like a fiend:
These sisters twain he shall not save from death.

Chorus

Surely, thou meanest not to slay them both?

Creon

I stand corrected; only her who touched
The body.

Chorus

And what death is she to die?

Creon

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.

Chorus

(Str.)
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?

(Ant).
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.

Antigone

(Str. 1)
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.

Chorus

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.

Antigone

(Ant. 1)
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.

Chorus

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.

Antigone

(Str. 2)
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.

Chorus

(Str. 3)
In thy boldness over-rash
Madly thou thy foot didst dash
’Gainst high Justice’ altar stair.
Thou a father’s guild dost bear.

Antigone

(Ant. 2)
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.

Chorus

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.

Antigone

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.

Creon

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.

Antigone

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.

Chorus

The same ungovernable will
Drives like a gale the maiden still.

Creon

Therefore, my guards who let her stay
Shall smart full sore for their delay.

Antigone

Ah, woe is me! This word I hear
Brings death most near.

Chorus

I have no comfort. What he saith,
Portends no other thing than death.

Antigone

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.

[Exit Antigone]

Chorus

(Str. 1)
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.

(Ant. 1)
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.

(Str. 2)
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.

(Ant. 2)
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.

[Enter Teiresias and BOY]

Teiresias

Princes of Thebes, two wayfarers as one,
Having betwixt us eyes for one, we are here.
The blind man cannot move without a guide.

Creon

Why tidings, old Teiresias?

Teiresias

I will tell thee;
And when thou hearest thou must heed the seer.

Creon

Thus far I ne’er have disobeyed thy rede.

Teiresias

So hast thou steered the ship of State aright.

Creon

I know it, and I gladly own my debt.

Teiresias

Bethink thee that thou treadest once again
The razor edge of peril.

Creon

What is this?
Thy words inspire a dread presentiment.

Teiresias

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.

Creon

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.

Teiresias

Alas! doth any know and lay to heart —

Creon

Is this the prelude to some hackneyed saw?

Teiresias

How far good counsel is the best of goods?

Creon

True, as unwisdom is the worst of ills.

Teiresias

Thou art infected with that ill thyself.

Creon

I will not bandy insults with thee, seer.

Teiresias

And yet thou say’st my prophesies are frauds.

Creon

Prophets are all a money-getting tribe.

Teiresias

And kings are all a lucre-loving race.

Creon

Dost know at whom thou glancest, me thy lord?

Teiresias

Lord of the State and savior, thanks to me.

Creon

Skilled prophet art thou, but to wrong inclined.

Teiresias

Take heed, thou wilt provoke me to reveal
The mystery deep hidden in my breast.

Creon

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

Teiresias

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

Creon

Be sure thou wilt not traffic on my wits.

Teiresias

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.

[Exit Teiresias]

Chorus

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.

Creon

I know it too, and it perplexes me.
To yield is grievous, but the obstinate soul
That fights with Fate, is smitten grievously.

Chorus

Son of Menoeceus, list to good advice.

Chorus

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

Chorus

Go, free the maiden from her rocky cell;
And for the unburied outlaw build a tomb.

Creon

Is that your counsel? You would have me yield?

Chorus

Yea, king, this instant. Vengeance of the gods
Is swift to overtake the impenitent.

Creon

Ah! what a wrench it is to sacrifice
My heart’s resolve; but Fate is ill to fight.

Chorus

Go, trust not others. Do it quick thyself.

Creon

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.

[Exit Creon]

Chorus

(Str. 1)
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.

(Ant. 1)
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!

(Str. 2)
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!

(Ant. 2)
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!

[Enter Messenger]

Messenger

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.

Chorus

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

Messenger

Both dead, and they who live deserve to die.

Chorus

Who is the slayer, who the victim? speak.

Messenger

Haemon; his blood shed by no stranger hand.

Chorus

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

Messenger

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

Chorus

O prophet, what thou spakest comes to pass.

Messenger

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

Chorus

Lo! from the palace gates I see approaching
Creon’s unhappy wife, Eurydice.
Comes she by chance or learning her son’s fate?

[Enter Eurydice]

Eurydice

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.

Messenger

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.

[Exit Eurydice]

Chorus

What makest thou of this? The Queen has gone
Without a word importing good or ill.

Messenger

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.

Chorus

I know not, but strained silence, so I deem,
Is no less ominous than excessive grief.

Messenger

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.

Chorus

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.

Creon

(Str. 1)
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!

Chorus

Too late thou seemest to perceive the truth.

Creon

(Str. 2)
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!

[Enter Second Messenger]

Second Messenger

Sorrows are thine, my lord, and more to come,
One lying at thy feet, another yet
More grievous waits thee, when thou comest home.

Creon

What woe is lacking to my tale of woes?

Second Messenger

Thy wife, the mother of thy dead son here,
Lies stricken by a fresh inflicted blow.

Creon

(Ant. 1)
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?

Chorus

Look for thyself. She lies for all to view.

Creon

(Ant. 2)
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!

Second Messenger

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.

Creon

(Str. 3)
I shudder with affright
O for a two-edged sword to slay outright
A wretch like me,
Made one with misery.

Second Messenger

’Tis true that thou wert charged by the dead Queen
As author of both deaths, hers and her son’s.

Creon

In what wise was her self-destruction wrought?

Second Messenger

Hearing the loud lament above her son
With her own hand she stabbed herself to the heart.

Creon

(Str. 4)
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!

Chorus

Well said, if in disaster aught is well
His past endure demand the speediest cure.

Creon

(Ant. 3)
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!

Chorus

This for the morrow; to us are present needs
That they whom it concerns must take in hand.

Creon

I join your prayer that echoes my desire.

Chorus

O pray not, prayers are idle; from the doom
Of fate for mortals refuge is there none.

Creon

(Ant. 4)
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.

Chorus

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.

Ajax

Characters in the Play

Athena

Odysseus

Ajax

Chorus of Salaminians

Tecmessa, concubine of Ajax

Messenger

Teucer, half-brother of Ajax

Menelaus

Agamemnon

Eurysaces, child of Ajax and Tecmessa

Attendants, Heralds, etc.

[Scene:— Before the tent of Ajax in the Greek camp at Troy. It is dawn. Odysseus is discovered examining the ground before the tent. Athena appears from above.]

Athena

Son of Laertes, ever do I behold thee
Scheming to snatch some vantage o’er thy foes.
And now among the tents that guard the ships
Of Ajax, camped at the army’s outmost verge,
Long have I watched thee hunting in his trail,
And scanning his fresh prints, to learn if now
He be within or forth. Skilled in the chase
Thou seemest, as a keen-nosed Spartan hound.
For the man but now has passed within, his face
And slaughterous hands streaming with sweat and blood.
No further need for thee to peer about
Inside these doors. But say what eager quest
Is thine, that I who know may give thee light.

Odysseus

Voice of Athena, dearest of Gods to me,
How clearly, though thou be invisible,
Do I hear thy call, and seize it with my soul,
As when a bronze-mouthed Tyrrhene trumpet sounds!
Rightly thou judgest that on a foe’s trail,
Broad-shielded Ajax, I range to and fro.
Him, and no other, I have long been tracking.
This very night against us he has wrought
A deed incredible, if in truth ’tis he.
For we know nothing sure, but drift in doubt.
Gladly I assumed the burden of this task.
For not long since we found that our whole spoil
Had been destroyed, both herds and flocks, slaughtered
By some man’s hand, their guardians dead beside them.
Now ’tis on him that all men lay this guilt:
And a scout who had seen him swiftly bounding
Across the plain alone with reeking sword,
Informed me and bore witness. I forthwith,
Darting in hot chase, now pick out his tracks,
But now, bewildered, know not whose they are.
Timely thou comest. As in past days, so
In days to come I am guided by thy hand.

Athena

I know it, Odysseus: so on the path betimes
A sentinel friendly to thy chase I came.

Odysseus

Dear mistress, do I labour to good purpose?

Athena

Know ’twas by yonder man these deeds were wrought.

Odysseus

And why did he so brandish a frenzied hand?

Athena

In grievous wrath for Achilles’ panoply.

Odysseus

Why then upon the flocks did he make this onslaught?

Athena

Your blood he deemed it was that stained his hand.

Odysseus

Was this outrage designed against the Greeks?

Athena

He had achieved it too, but for my vigilance.

Odysseus

What bold scheme could inspire such reckless daring?

Athena

By night he meant to steal on you alone.

Odysseus

Did he come near us? Did he reach his goal?

Athena

He stood already at the two chiefs’ doors.

Odysseus

What then withheld his eager hand from bloodshed?

Athena

’Twas I restrained him, casting on his eyes
O’ermastering notions of that baneful ecstasy,
That turned his rage on flocks and mingled droves
Of booty yet unshared, guarded by herdsmen.
Then plunging amid the thronging horns he slew,
Smiting on all sides; and one while he fancied
The Atreidae were the captives he was slaughtering,
Now ’twas some other chief on whom he fell.
And I, while thus he raved in maniac throes,
Urged him on, drove him into the baleful toils.
Thereafter, when he had wearied of such labours,
He bound with thongs such oxen as yet lived,
With all the sheep, and drove them to his tents,
As though his spoil were men, not horned cattle.
Now lashed together in the hut he tortures them.
But to thee too will I expose this madness,
That seeing thou mayst proclaim it to all the Greeks.
Boldly await him here, nor apprehend
Mischance; for I will turn aside his eyes,
Foiling his vision lest he see thy face.
[She calls to Ajax within the tent.]
Hearken, thou who art pinioning with cords
The wrists of captives; hither, I bid thee, come.
Thou, Ajax, hear me: come to thy tent’s door.

Odysseus

What dost thou, Athena? Do not summon him forth.

Athena

Abide in silence. Earn not the name of coward.

Odysseus

Nay, by the Gods, let him remain within.

Athena

What dost thou dread? Was he not once a man?

Odysseus

Yes, and to me a foeman, and still is.

Athena

To mock foes, is not that the sweetest mockery?

Odysseus

I am content he should remain indoors.

Athena

To look upon a madman art thou afeard?

Odysseus

Had he been sane, no fear had made me shrink.

Athena

Even now he shall not see thee, near as thou art.

Odysseus

How so, if still with the same eyes he sees?

Athena

His orbs will I make dark, though vision is theirs.

Odysseus

Well, all is possible, when ’tis a god contrives.

Athena

Stand then silent, abiding as thou art.

Odysseus

Stay I must; yet I fain would be far hence.

Athena

Ho, Ajax! Once again I summon thee.
So slight is thy regard for thine ally?

[Ajax appears in the tent door, with a blood-stained scourge in his hand.]

Ajax

Oh hail, Athena! Hail thou Zeus-born maid!
Nobly hast thou stood by me. Now will I crown thee
With trophies all of gold for this rich conquest.

Athena

Thy words are welcome. But now tell me this:
Hast thou dyed well thy sword in the Argive host?

Ajax

Such vaunt is mine. I disclaim not that glory.

Athena

Against the Atreidae didst thou arm thy hand?

Ajax

So that Ajax nevermore shall they insult.

Athena

The men are dead, if rightly I take thy meaning.

Ajax

Yes, dead. Now let them rob me of my arms.

Athena

’Tis well. And what then of Laertes’ son?
In what plight does he stand? Or has he escaped thee?

Ajax

Wouldst thou know where is that accursed fox?

Athena

Even so-Odysseus, thine old adversary.

Ajax

Goddess, a most dear captive in my tent
He sits. I do not mean him to die yet.

Athena

Till thou hast done what, gained what further vantage?

Ajax

Till bound fast to a pillar beneath my roof —

Athena

What evil wilt thou inflict on the poor wretch?

Ajax

His back the scourge must crimson ere he dies.

Athena

Nay, do not torture so the wretched man.

Ajax

Athena, in all else will I do thy will;
But his shall be no other doom than this.

Athena

Thou then, since thy delight is to act thus,
Smite, spare not, abate nought of thy intent.

Ajax

To my work I return: and thus I charge thee,
As now, so always fight thou upon my side.

[Ajax goes back into the tent.]

Athena

Seest thou, Odysseus, how great the strength of gods?
Whom couldst thou find more prudent than this man,
Or whom in act more valiant, when need called?

Odysseus

I know none nobler; and I pity him
In his misery, albeit he is my foe,
Since he is yoked fast to an evil doom.
My own lot I regard no less than his.
For I see well, nought else are we but mere
Phantoms, all we that live, mere fleeting shadows.

Athena

Warned therefore by his fate, never do thou
Thyself utter proud words against the gods;
Nor swell with insolence, if thou shouldst vanquish
Some rival by main strength or by wealth’s power.
For a day can bring all mortal greatness low,
And a day can lift it up. But the gods love
The wise of heart, the froward they abhor.

[Athena vanishes and Odysseus departs. The Chorus of Salaminians enters.]

Chorus

[singing]

Son of Telamon, lord of Salamis’ isle,
On its wave-washed throne mid the breaking sea,
I rejoice when fair are thy fortunes:
But whene’er thou art smitten by the stroke of Zeus,
Or the vehement blame of the fierce-tongued Greeks,
Then sore am I grieved, and for fear I quake,
As a fluttering dove with a scared eye.
Even so by rumour murmuring loud
Of the night late-spent our ears are assailed.
’Tis a tale of shame, how thou on the plains
Where the steeds roam wild, didst ruin the Danaan
Flocks and herds,
Our spear-won booty as yet unshared,
With bright sword smiting and slaughtering.
Such now are the slanders Odysseus forges
And whispers abroad into all men’s ears,
Winning easy belief: so specious the tale
He is spreading against thee; and each new hearer
Rejoices more than he who told,
Exulting in thy degradation.
For the shaft that is aimed at the noble of soul
Smites home without fail: but whoe’er should accuse me
Of such misdeeds, no faith would he win.
’Tis the stronger whom creeping jealousy strikes.
Yet small men reft of help from the mighty
Can ill be trusted to guard their walls.
Best prosper the lowly in league with the great;
And the great have need to be served by the less.
But none to the knowledge of such plain truths
May lead minds witless and froward.
Even such are the men who murmur against thee:
And vainly without thine aid, O King,
We strive to repel their accusing hate.
For whene’er they are safe from the scorn of thy glance,
They chatter and screech like bids in a flock:
But smitten with dread of the powerful vulture,
Doubtless at once, should’st thou but appear,
They will cower down dumbly in silence.

strophe

Was it the Tauric Olympian Artemis,
(Oh, the dread rumour of woe,
Parent of my grievous shame!)
Who drove thee forth to slaughter the herds of the people,
In wrath perchance for some unpaid-for victory,
Whether defrauded of glorious spoil, or offerings
Due for a stag that was slain?
Or did the bronze-clad Demon of battle, aggrieved
On him who scorned the might of his succouring spear,
Plot revenge by nightly deception?

antistrophe

Ne’er of itself had thy heart, son of Telamon,
Strayed into folly so far
As to murder flocks and herds.
Escape from heaven-sent madness is none: yet Apollo
And Zeus avert these evil rumours of the Greeks.
But should the story be false, these crafty slanders
Spread by the powerful kings,
And by the child of the infamous Sisyphid line,
No more, my master, thus in the tent by the sea
Hide thy countenance, earning an ill fame.

epode

Nay, but arise from thy seat, where’er so long wrapt in
Brooding pause from the battle thou hast lurked: arise,
Heaven-high kindle the flame of death.
But the insolence of thy foes boldly
Thus wanders abroad in the wind-swept glens.
Meanwhile all men mocking
With venomous tongues taunt thee:
But grief in my heart wanes not.

[Tecmessa enters. The following lines between TECMESSA and the Chorus are chanted responsively.]

Tecmessa

Liegemen of Ajax, ship-companions,
Ye children of earth-sprung Erechthid race,
Lamentation is now our portion, to whom
Dear is the far-off house of Telamon,
Now that the stern and terrible Ajax
Lies whelmed by a storm
Of turbid wildering fury.

Chorus

To what evil change from the day’s woe now
Has night given birth?
Thou daughter of Phrygian Teleutas, speak;
For a constant love has valiant Ajax
Borne thee, his spear-won prisoner bride.
Then hide from us nought that thou knowest.

Tecmessa

How to utter a tale of unspeakable things!
For disastrous as death is the hap you will hear.
In the darkness of night madness has seized
Our glorious Ajax: he is ruined and lost.
Hereof in the tent may proof be seen;
Sword-slain victims in their own blood bathed,
By his hand sacrificially slaughtered.

Chorus

strophe

What tidings of the fiery warrior tellest thou,
Not to be borne, nor yet to be disputed,
Rumoured abroad by the chiefs of the Danaan host,
Mightily still spreading and waxing!
Woe’s me! I dread the horror to come. Yea, to a public death
doomed
Will he die, if in truth his be the hand that wielded
The red sword that in frenzy hath slain the herds and mounted
herdsmen.

Tecmessa

Ah me! Thence was it, thence that he came to me
Leading his captive flock from the pastures!
Thereof in the tent some did he slaughter,
Others hewed he asunder with slashing sword;
Then he caught up amain two white-footed rams,
Sliced off from the one both the head and the tongue,
And flings them away;
But the other upright to a pillar he binds,
Then seizing a heavy horse-harnessing thong
He smites with the whistling doubled lash,
Uttering fierce taunts which an evil fiend
No mere mortal could have taught him.

Chorus

antistrophe

’Tis time that now each with shamefully muffled head
Forth from the camp should creep with stealthy footsteps.
Nay, on the ship let us muster, and benched at the oars
Over the waves launch her in swift flight.
Such angry threats sound in our ears hurled by the brother
princes,
The Atreidae: and I quake, fearing a death by stoning,
The dread portion of all who would share our hapless master’s
ruin.

Tecmessa

Yet hope we: for ceased is the lightning’s flash:
His rage dies down like a fierce south-wind.
But now, grown sane, new misery is his;
For on woes self-wrought he gazes aghast,
Wherein no hand but his own had share;
And with anguish his soul is afflicted.

Leader of the Chorus

Nay, if ’tis ceased, there is good cause to hope.
Once ’tis past, of less moment is his frenzy.

Tecmessa

And which, were the choice thine, wouldst thou prefer,
To afflict thy friends and feel delight thyself,
Or to share sorrow, grieving with their grief?

Leader

The twofold woe, lady, would be the greater.

Tecmessa

Then we, though plagued no more, are undone now.

Leader

What mean thy words? Their sense is dark to me.

Tecmessa

Yonder man, while his spirit was diseased,
Himself had joy in his own evil plight,
Though to us, who were sane, he brought distress.
But now, since he has respite from his plague,
He with sore grief is utterly cast down,
And we likewise, no less than heretofore.
Are there not here two woes instead of one?

Leader

Yes truly. And I fear, from some god came
This stroke; how else? if, now his frenzy is ceased,
His mind has no more ease than when it raged.

Tecmessa

’Tis even as I said, rest well assured.

Leader

But how did this bane first alight upon him?
To us who share thy grief show what befell.

Tecmessa

Thou shalt hear all, as though thou hadst been present.
In the middle of the night, when the evening braziers
No longer flared, he took a two-edged sword,
And fain would sally upon an empty quest.
But I rebuked him, saying: “What doest thou,
Ajax? Why thus uncalled wouldst thou go forth?
No messenger has summoned thee, no trumpet
Roused thee. Nay, the whole camp is sleeping still.”
But curtly he replied in well-worn phrase:
“Woman, silence is the grace of woman.”
Thus schooled, I yielded; and he rushed out alone.
What passed outside the tent, I cannot tell.
But in he came, driving lashed together
Bulls, and shepherd dogs, and fleecy prey.
Some he beheaded, the wrenched-back throats of some
He slit, or cleft their chines; others he bound
And tortured, as though men they were, not beasts.
Last, darting through the doors, as to some phantom
He tossed words, now against the Atreidae, now
Taunting Odysseus, piling up huge jeers
Of how he had gone and wreaked his scorn upon them.
Soon he rushed back within the tent, where slowly
And hardly to his reason he returned.
And gazing round on the room filled with havoc,
He struck his head and cried out; then amidst
The wrecks of slaughtered sheep a wreck he fell,
And sat clutching his hair with tight-clenched nails.
There first for a long while he crouched speechless;
Then did he threaten me with fearful threats,
If I revealed not all that had befallen him,
Asking what meant the plight wherein he lay.
And I, friends, terror-stricken, told him all
That had been done, so far as I had knowledge.
Forthwith he broke forth into bitter wailing,
Such as I ne’er had heard from him before
For always had he held that such laments
Befitted cowards only, and low-souled men:
But uttering no shrill cries, he would express
His grief in low groans, as of a moaning bull.
But now prostrate beneath so great a woe,
Not tasting food nor drink, he sits among
The sword-slain beasts, motionless where he sank.
And plainly he meditates some baleful deed,
For so portend his words and lamentations.
But, O friends! — ’twas for this cause I came forth —
Enter and help, if help at all you can:
For by friends’ words men so bestead are won.

Leader

Child of Teleutas, fearful are thy tidings,
That our prince has been maddened by his griefs.

Ajax

[within]
Alas! Woe, woe!

Tecmessa

Soon, I fear, worse will follow. Heard you not?
’Twas Ajax. Oh, how dreadful was that cry.

Ajax

Alas! Woe, woe!

Leader

He seems either still frenzied, or else grieving
For his past frenzies, now he sees their work.

Ajax

Alas! My son, my son!

Tecmessa

Woe’s me! Eurysaces, ’tis for thee he calls.
What can he purpose?-Where art thou?-Ah, woe!

Ajax

Teucer, come!-Where is Teucer? Will he never
Come back from cattle-raiding?-while I perish!

Leader

He seems in his right mind. But open the doors.
Perhaps even the sight of me may sober him.

[She opens the doors of the tent. Ajax is revealed sitting among the slain beasts.]

Tecmessa

See, I have opened. You may now behold
What he has done, and in what plight he lies.

Ajax

[chanting]
Alas!
My shipmates and friends, you that alone to me
Loyal and true remain, of all friends alone,
Behold how great a billow lately rising from the storm of blood
Surging around engulphs me!

Leader

Ah me, too true, it seems, was thy report.
This sight reveals the work of no sane mind.

Ajax

[chanting]
Alas!
My mates, skilled and tried in brave seamanship,
Ye who embarking drove the wave-cleaving oar,
In you, in you alone I see a help and refuge from despair.
Smite me, and spill my blood too.

Leader

Keep silence from dread words; nor curing ill
By ill, so swell the misery of this curse.

Ajax

[chanting]
Behold now the bold, the man stout of heart,
Who ne’er shrank in fight against foes-behold
How I have spent my rage on beasts that feared no harm!
Ah me, the mockery! To what shame am I brought low

Tecmessa

Ajax, my master, I entreat thee, speak not so.

Ajax

[chanting]
Away hence, I command thee! Take thyself elsewhere.
Aiai! Aiai!

Leader

Oh, by the Gods, we pray thee, yield to wisdom’s voice.

Ajax

[chanting]
Oh, wretch that I was to allow
Those cursed foes to slip from my hands, and assaulting
Horned kine and goodly flocks, madly to spill
Their life in streams of dark blood!

Leader

Why still be afflicted, now the deed is done past cure?
Never can these things be as though they had not been.

Ajax

[chanting]
Thou all-spying knave, of all deeds of shame
The prompt, easy tool, Odysseus the wise!
Villain, of all the camp the most foul and vile!
Huge laughter doubtless shakes thee now for sheer delight.

Leader

As God appoints, so every man laughs or laments.

Ajax

[chanting]
Would I might meet him, crushed and broken though I be.
Alas! Woe, woe!

Leader

Speak no proud words. Seest thou not to what woe thou art sunk?

Ajax

[chanting]
O Zeus, of my fathers the sire,
Might I but kill that hateful and crafty dissembler,
Yea, and those two brother kings, partners in pride,
Then last myself too perish!

Tecmessa

If thus thou prayest, pray therewith for me, that
Die with thee. Why, when thou art dead, should I live on?

Ajax

[chanting]
Alas!
Shadow that art my light!
Erebus, oh to me verily bright as day!
Receive, receive me your habitant.
Receive me now no more worthy to seek help of the gods,
Nor any more from fellow mortal men to claim kindness:
No, but she the strong
Zeus-born deity
Miserably tortures me.
Whither should I then flee?
Whither seek for rest?
Since my former glory is gone, my friends,
With yonder victims, yonder spoils by frenzy won,
Since all the host with swords uplifted
Sternly would slay me,

Tecmessa

Ah, woe is me! from such a noble warrior
To hear such words as once he ne’er had deigned to speak!

Ajax

[chanting]
Alas!
Billowy paths of foam,
Eddying caves, and ye coppices by the shore,
A weary, weary time tarrying here
Beneath the walls of Troy me have you kept, but from this hour
Alive you shall not keep me. Truth I speak: let none doubt it.
O Scamander’s wave,
Stream whose neighbouring flow
Oft have the Argives blest,
Never, nevermore
Me shall you behold,
Me (a proud word will I utter now)
Whose peer in battle Troy has never seen yet come
From Hellas’ land: but now dishonoured
Thus am I prostrate.

Leader

In truth I know not how to restrain thy speech, nor yet
To suffer it; so grievous is thy couch of woe.

Ajax

Aiai! Who ever would have thought my name
Would harmonise so aptly with my woes?
For now well may I wail that sound out twice,
Yea thrice; such woeful destinies are mine,
Whose father from this land of Ida won
Fame’s noblest guerdon over the whole host,
And crowned with praises only sailed back home;
But I, his son, who to the self-same Troy
Came after him, in might no less than he,
Nor rendering meaner service by my deeds,
Dishonoured by the Argives perish thus.
Yet this methinks I know for truth, were now
Achilles living and called on to adjudge
As the award of valour his own arms,
No man’s hand would have grasped them before mine.
But now the Atreidae to a scheming knave
Have dealt them, thrusting by my valiant deeds.
And if these eyes, these wits had not in frenzy
Swerved from my purpose, never would they thus
Pervert judgment against another man.
But the irresistible fierce-eyed goddess, even
As I was arming my right hand to slay them,
Foiled me, smiting me with a maddening plague,
So that I stained my hand butchering these cattle.
Thus my foes mock me, escaped beyond my reach,
Through no goodwill of mine: but if a god
Thwart vengeance, even the base may escape the nobler.
And what should I now do, who manifestly
To Heaven am hateful; whom the Greeks abhor,
Whom every Trojan hates, and this whole land?
Shall I desert the beached ships, and abandoning
The Atreidae, sail home o’er the Aegean sea?
With what face shall I appear before my father
Telamon? How will he find heart to look
On me, stripped of my championship in war,
That mighty crown of fame that once was his?
No, that I dare not. Shall I then assault
Troy’s fortress, and alone against them all
Achieve some glorious exploit and then die?
No, I might gratify the Atreidae thus.
That must not be. Some scheme let me devise
Which may prove to my aged sire that I,
His son, at least by nature am no coward.
For ’tis base for a man to crave long life
Who endures never-varying misery.
What joy can be in day that follows day,
Bringing us close then snatching us from death?
As of no worth would I esteem that man
Who warms himself with unsubstantial hopes.
Nobly to live, or else nobly to die
Befits proud birth. There is no more to say.

Leader

The word thou hast uttered, Ajax, none shall call
Bastard, but the true offspring of thy soul.
Yet pause. Let those who love thee overrule
Thy resolution. Put such thoughts aside.

Tecmessa

O my lord Ajax, of all human ills
Greatest is fortune’s wayward tyranny.
Of a free father was I born the child,
One rich and great as any Phrygian else.
Now am I a slave; for so the gods, or rather
Thy warrior’s hand, would have it. Therefore since
I am thy bedfellow, I wish thee well,
And I entreat thee by domestic Zeus,
And by the embraces that have made me thine,
Doom me not to the cruel taunts of those
Who hate thee, left a bond-slave in strange hands.
For shouldst thou perish and forsake me in death,
That very day assuredly I to
Shall be seized by the Argives, with thy son
To endure henceforth the portion of a slave.
Then one of my new masters with barbed words
Shall wound me scoffing: “See the concubine
Of Ajax, who was mightiest of the host,
What servile tasks are hers who lived so daintily!”
Thus will men speak, embittering my hard lot,
But words of shame for thee and for thy race.
Nay, piety forbid thee to forsake
Thy father in his drear old age-thy mother
With her sad weight of years, who many a time
Prays to the gods that thou come home alive.
And pity, O king, thy son, who without thee
To foster his youth, must live the orphaned ward
Of loveless guardians. Think how great a sorrow
Dying thou wilt bequeath to him and me.
For I have nothing left to look to more
Save thee. By thy spear was my country ravaged;
And by another stroke did fate lay low
My mother and my sire to dwell with Hades.
Without thee then what fatherland were mine?
What wealth? On thee alone rests all my hope.
O take thought for me too. Do we not owe
Remembrance, where we have met with any joy?
For kindness begets kindness evermore
But he who from whose mind fades the memory
Of benefits, noble is he no more.

Leader

Ajax, would that thy soul would feel compassion,
As mine does; so wouldst thou approve her words.

Ajax

Verily my approval shall she win,
If only she find heart to do my bidding.

Tecmessa

Dear Ajax, in all things will I obey.

Ajax

Then bring me here my son, for I would see him.

Tecmessa

Nay, but I sent him from me in my fears.

Ajax

During my late affliction, is that thy meaning?

Tecmessa

Lest by ill chance he should meet thee and so perish.

Ajax

Yes, that would have been worthy of my fate.

Tecmessa

That at least I was watchful to avert.

Ajax

I praise thine act and the foresight thou hast shown.

Tecmessa

Since that is so, what shall I do to serve thee?

Ajax

Let me speak to him and behold his face.

Tecmessa

He is close by in the attendants’ charge.

Ajax

Why is his coming then so long delayed?

Tecmessa

[calling]
My son, thy father calls thee.-Bring him thither
Whichever of you is guiding the child’s steps.

Ajax

Is the man coming? Has he heard thy call?

Tecmessa

See, he is here already with the child.

[An attendant enters, leading the child, Eurysaces.]

Ajax

Lift him up, lift him hither. He will not shrink
In terror at sight of yonder new-spilt blood,
If he be rightly mine, his father’s son.
Early must he be broken to his sire’s
Stern rugged code, and grow like-natured with him.
O son, mayst thou prove happier than thy father,
In all else like him, and thou’lt prove not base.
Yet even now might I envy thee herein,
That of these woes thou hast no sense at all.
For the life that is unconscious is most sweet —
Until we learn what joy and sorrow are.
But that once learnt, then midst thy father’s foes
Thou must show what thou art, and of what breed.
Till then be nurtured on soft airs, cherishing
Thy tender life, and be thy mother’s joy.
None of the Greeks, I know, will do thee wrong
With cruel outrage, even though I be gone.
So trusty a guardian will I leave thee, Teucer,
Who will not stint his loving care, though now
He is gone far away, in chase of foes.
But you, my warriors, comrades in seafaring,
On you too I impose this task of love;
And fail not to announce my will to Teucer,
That to my home he take the child and show him
To Telamon and my mother Eriboea,
That henceforth he may comfort their old age.
And charge him that no game-steward make my arms
A prize for the Greeks-nor he who ruined me.
But this take thou, my son Eurysaces;
Hold it and wield it by its firm-stitched thong,
This sevenfold spear-proof shield, whence comes thy name.
But else with me my arms shall be interred.
[Speaking now to Tecmessa]
Come, take the child hence quickly, and bolt the doors:
And let there be no weeping and lamenting
Before the hut. Women love tears too well.
Close quickly. It is not for a skilful leech
To drone charms o’er a wound that craves the knife.

Leader

I am fearful, listening to this eager mood.
The sharp edge of thy tongue, I like it not.

Tecmessa

O my lord Ajax, what art thou purposing?

Ajax

Question me not. To be discreet is best.

Tecmessa

Ah me, heavy is my heart. Now by thy child,
By the gods, I entreat, forsake us not.

Ajax

Vex me no further. Know’st thou not that I
To the gods owe no duty any more?

Tecmessa

Utter no proud words.

Ajax

Speak to those who listen.

Tecmessa

Wilt thou not heed?

Ajax

Too much thou hast spoken already.

Tecmessa

Yes, through my fears, O king.

Ajax

Close the doors quickly.

Tecmessa

For the gods’ love, relent.

Ajax

’Tis a foolish hope,
If thou shouldst now propose to school my mood.

[The doors are closed upon Ajax. Tecmessa goes out with Eurysaces.]

Chorus

[singing]

strophe 1

O famed Salamis, thou amidst
Breaking surges abidest ever
Blissful, a joy to the eyes of all men.
But I the while long and wearily tarrying
Through countless months still encamped on the fields of Ida
In misery here have made my couch,
By time broken and worn,
In dread waiting the hour
When I shall enter at last the terrible shadow abode of Hades.

antistrophe 1

Now dismays me a new despair,
This incurable frenzy (woe, ah
Woe’s me!) cast by the gods on Ajax,
Whom thou of old sentest forth from thy shores, a strong
And valiant chief; but now, to his friends a sore grief,
Devouring his lonely heart he sits.
His once glorious deeds
Are now fallen and scorned,
Fallen to death without love from the loveless and pitiless sons
of Atreus.

strophe 2

His mother, ’tis most like, burdened with many days,
And whitened with old age, when she shall hear how frenzy
Has smitten his soul to ruin,
Ailinon! ailinon!
Will break forth her despair, not as the nightingale’s
Plaintive, tender lament, no, but in passion’s wailing
Shrill-toned cries; and with fierce strokes
Wildly smiting her bosom,
In grief’s anguish her hands will rend her grey locks.

antistrophe 2

Yea, better Hell should hide one who is sick in soul,
Though there be none than he sprung from a nobler lineage
Of the war-weary Greeks, yet
Strayed from his inbred mood
Now amidst alien thoughts dwells he a stranger.
Hapless father! alas, bitter the tale that waits thee,
Thy son’s grievous affliction.
No life save his alone
Of Aeacid kings such a curse has ever haunted.

[Ajax enters, carrying a sword. As he speaks, Tecmessa also enters.]

Ajax

All things the long and countless lapse of time
Brings forth. displays, then hides once more in gloom.
Nought is too strange to look for; but the event
May mock the sternest oath, the firmest will.
Thus I, who late so strong, so stubborn seemed
Like iron dipped, yet now grow soft with pity
Before this woman, whom I am loath to leave
Midst foes a widow with this orphaned child.
But I will seek the meadows by the shore:
There will I wash and purge these stains, if so
I may appease Athena’s heavy wrath.
Then will I find some lonely place, where I
May hide this sword, beyond all others cursed,
Buried where none may see it, deep in earth.
May night and Hades keep it there below.
For from that hour my hand accepted it,
The gift of Hector, deadliest of my foes,
Nought from the Greeks towards me hath sped well.
So now I find that ancient proverb true,
Foes’ gifts are no gifts: profit bring they none.
Therefore henceforth I study to obey
The Gods, and reverence the sons of Atreus.
Our rulers are they: we must yield. How else?
For to authority yield all things most dread
And mighty. Thus must Winter’s snowy feet
Give place to Summer with her wealth of fruits;
And from her weary round doth Night withdraw,
That Day’s white steeds may kindle heaven with light.
After fierce tempest calm will ever lull
The moaning sea; and Sleep, that masters all,
Binds life awhile, yet loosens soon the bond.
And who am I that I should not learn wisdom?
Of all men I, whom proof hath taught of late
How so far only should we hate our foes
As though we soon might love them, and so far
Do a friend service, as to one most like
Some day to prove our foe; since oftenest men
In friendship but a faithless haven find.
Thus well am I resolved. [To Tecmessa] Thou, woman, pass
Within, and pray the gods that all things so
May be accomplished as my heart desires.
And you, friends, heed my wishes as she doth;
And when he comes, bid Teucer he must guard
My rights at need, and withal stand your friend.
For now I go whither I needs must pass.
Do as I bid. Soon haply you shall hear,
With me, for all this misery, ’tis most well.

[Ajax departs. Tecmessa goes into the tent.]

Chorus

[singing]

strophe

I thrill with rapture, flutter on wings of ecstasy.
Io, Io, Pan, Pan!
O Pan, Pan! from the stony ridge,
Snow-bestrewn of Cyllene’s height
Appear roving across the waters,
O dance-ordering king of gods,
That thou mayst join me in flinging free
Fancy measures of Nysa and of Cnossus.
Yea for the dance I now am eager.
And over the far Icarian billows come, O king Apollo,
From Delos in haste, come thou,
Thy kindly power here in our midst revealing.

antistrophe

Ares hath lifted horror and anguish from our eyes.
Io, Io! Now again,
Now, O Zeus, can the bright and blithe
Glory of happier days return
To our swift-voyaging ships, for now
Hath Ajax wholly forgot his grief,
And all rites due to the gods he now
Fain would meetly perform with loyal worship.
Mighty is time to dwindle all things.
Nought would I call too strange for belief, when Ajax thus beyond
hope
Hath learnt to repent his proud feuds,
And lay aside anger against the Atreidae.

[A Messenger enters.]

Messenger

My friends, these tiding I would tell you first:
Teucer is present, from the Mysian heights
But now returned, and in the central camp
By all the Greeks at once is being reviled.
As he drew near they knew him from afar,
Then gathering around him one and all
With taunts assailed him from this side and that,
Calling him kinsman of that maniac,
That plotter against the host, saying that nought
Should save him; stoned and mangled he must die.
And so they had come to such a pitch that swords
Plucked from their sheaths stood naked in men’s hands.
Yet when the strife ran highest, it was stayed
By words from the elders and so reconciled.
But where is Ajax? I must speak with him.
He whom it most concerns must be told all.

Leader of the Chorus

He is not within, but has just now gone forth
With a new purpose yoked to a new mood.

Messenger

Alas! Alas!
Then too late on this errand was I sped
By him who sent me; or I have proved too slow.

Leader

What urgent need has been neglected here?

Messenger

Teucer forbade that Ajax should go forth
Outside his hut, till he himself should come.

Leader

Well, he is gone. To wisest purpose now
His mind is turned, to appease heaven’s wrath.

Messenger

These words of thine are filled with utter folly,
If there was truth in Calchas’ prophecy.

Leader

What prophecy? And what know you of this thing?

Messenger

Thus much I know, for by chance I was present.
Leaving the circle of consulting chiefs
Where sat the Atreidae, Calchas went aside,
And with kind purpose grasping Teucer’s hand
Enjoined him that by every artifice
He should restrain Ajax within his tents
This whole day, and not leave him to himself,
If he wished ever to behold him alive.
For on this day alone, such were his words,
Would the wrath of divine Athena vex him.
For the overweening and unprofitable
Fall crushed by heaven-sent calamities
(So the seer spoke), whene’er one born a man
Has conceived thoughts too high for man’s estate:
And this man, when he first set forth from home,
Showed himself foolish, when his father spoke to him
Wisely: “My son, seek victory by the spear;
But seek it always with the help of heaven.”
Then boastfully and witlessly he answered:
“Father, with heaven’s help a mere man of nought
Might win victory: but I, albeit without
Their aid, trust to achieve a victor’s glory.”
Such was his proud vaunt. Then a second time
Answering divine Athena, when she urged him
To turn a slaughterous hand upon his foes,
He gave voice to this dire, blasphemous boast:
“Goddess, stand thou beside the other Greeks.
Where I am stationed, no foe shall break through.”
By such words and such thoughts too great for man
Did he provoke Athena’s pitiless wrath.
But if he lives through this one day, perchance,
Should heaven be willing, we may save him yet.
So spoke the seer; and Teucer from his seat
No sooner risen, sent me with this mandate
For you to observe. But if we have been forestalled,
That man lives not, or Calchas is no prophet.

Leader

[calling]
Woful Tecmessa, woman born to sorrow,
Come forth and hear this man who tells of a peril
That grazes us too close for our mind’s ease.

[Tecmessa enters from the tent.]

Tecmessa

Why alas do you break my rest again
After brief respite from relentless woes?

Leader

Give hearing to this messenger, who brings
Tidings that grieve me of how Ajax fares.

Tecmessa

Ah me, what sayest thou, man? Are we undone?

Messenger

I know not of thy fortune; but for Ajax,
If he be gone abroad, my mind misgives.

Tecmessa

Yes, he is gone. I am racked to know thy meaning.

Messenger

Teucer commands you to keep him within doors,
And not to let him leave his tent alone.

Tecmessa

And where is Teucer, and why speaks he thus?

Messenger

He has but now returned, and he forebodes
That this going-forth will prove fatal to Ajax.

Tecmessa

Woe’s me, alas! From whom has he learned this?

Messenger

From the seer, Thestor’s son, this very day,
Which is fraught either with his death or life.

Tecmessa

Ah me, my friends, avert this threatening doom
Speed some of you to hasten Teucer hither:
Others go search the bays, some west, some east,
And track my lord’s ill-omened going-forth.
Yes, now I know I have been deceived by him,
And from his former favour quite cast out.
Alas, child, what shall I do? Sit still I must not:
But far as I have strength I too will go.
Let us start quickly-’tis no time for loitering,
If we would save one who is in haste to die.

Leader

I am ready, as not words alone shall prove,
But speed of act and foot to make words good.

[The Chorus, Tecmessa and Messenger go out. The scene changes to a lonely place by the sea-shore. Bushes and under-brush are in the background. Ajax enters alone.]

Ajax

The slayer stands so that his edge may cleave
Most surely (if there be leisure for such thought),
Being the gift of Hector, of all friends
Most unloved, and most hateful to my sight.
Then it is planted in Troy’s hostile soil,
New-sharpened on the iron-biting whet.
And heedfully have I planted it, that so
With a swift death it prove to me most kind.
Thus have I made all ready. Next be thou
The first, O Zeus, to aid me, as is right.
It is no mighty boon that I shall crave.
Send some announcer of the evil news
To Teucer, that he first may lift me up,
When I have fallen upon this reeking sword,
Lest ere he come some enemy should espy me
And cast me forth to dogs and birds a prey.
This, O Zeus, I entreat thee, and likewise call
On Hermes, guide to the underworld, to lay me
Asleep without a struggle, at one swift bound,
When I have thrust my heart through with this sword.
Next I call on those maidens ever-living
And ever watchful of all human miseries,
The dread swift-striding Erinyes, that they mark
How by the Atreidae I have been destroyed:
And these vile men by a vile doom utterly
May they cut off, even as they see me here.
Come, O ye swift avenging Erinyes,
Spare not, touch with affliction the whole host.
And thou, whose chariot mounts up the steep sky,
Thou Sun, when on the land where I was born
Thou shalt look down, check thy gold-spangled rein,
And announce my disasters and my doom
To my aged sire and her who nurtured me.
She, woful woman, when she hears these tidings
Will wail out a loud dirge through all the town.
But I waste labour with this idle moan.
The act must now be done, and that with speed.
O Death, Death, come now and look upon me. —
No, ’tis there I shall meet and speak to thee.
But thee, bright daylight which I now behold,
And Helios in his chariot I accost
For this last time of all, and then no more.
O sunlight! O thou hallowed soil, my own
Salamis, stablished seat of my sire’s hearth,
And famous Athens, with thy kindred race,
And you, ye springs and streams, and Trojan plains,
Farewell, all ye who have sustained my life.
This is the last word Ajax speaks to you.
All else in Hades to the dead will I say.

[He falls on his sword. His body lies partially concealed by the underbrush. Semi-Chorus 1 enters.]

Semi-Chorus 1

[chanting]
’Tis toil on toil, and toil again.
Where! where!
Where have not my footsteps been?
And still no place reveals the secret of my search.
But hark!
There again I hear a sound.

[Semi-Chorus 2 enters.]

Semi-Chorus 2

[chanting]
’Tis we, the ship-companions of your voyage.

Semi-Chorus 1

[chanting]
Well how now?

Semi-Chorus 2

[chanting]
We have searched the whole coast westward from the ship.

Semi-Chorus 1

[chanting]
You have found nought?

Semi-Chorus 2

[chanting]
A deal of toil, but nothing more to see.

Semi-Chorus 1

[chanting]
Neither has he been found along the path
That leads from the eastern glances of the sun.

Chorus

[singing]

strophe

From whom, oh from whom? what hard son of the waves,
Plying his weary task without thought of sleep,
Or what Olympian nymph of hill or stream that flows
Down to the Bosporus’ shore,
Might I have tidings of my lord
Wandering somewhere seen
Fierce of mood? Grievous it is
When I have toiled so long, and ranged far and wide
Thus to fail, thus to have sought in vain.
Still the afflicted hero nowhere may I find.

[Tecmessa enters and discovers the body.]

Tecmessa

Alas, woe, woe!

Chorus

[chanting]
Whose cry was it that broke from yonder copse?

Tecmessa

Alas, woe is me!

Leader of the Chorus

It is the hapless spear-won bride I see,
Tecmessa, steeped in that wail’s agony.

Tecmessa

I am lost, destroyed, made desolate, my friends.

Leader

What is it? Speak.

Tecmessa

Ajax, our master, newly slaughtered lies
Yonder, a hidden sword sheathed in his body.

Chorus

[chanting]
Woe for my lost hopes of home!
Woe’s me, thou hast slain me, my king,
Me thy shipmate, hapless man!
Woful-souled woman too!

Tecmessa

Since thus it is with him, ’tis mine to wail.

Leader

By whose hand has he wrought this luckless deed?

Tecmessa

By his own hand, ’tis evident. This sword
Whereon he fell, planted in earth, convicts him.

Chorus

[chanting]
Woe for my blind folly! Lone in thy blood thou liest, from friends’ help afar.
And I the wholly witless, the all unwary,
Forbore to watch thee. Where, where
Lieth the fatally named, intractable Ajax?

Tecmessa

None must behold him. I will shroud him wholly
In this enfolding mantle; for no man
Who loved him could endure to see him thus
Through nostrils and through red gash spouting up
The darkened blood from his self-stricken wound.
Ah me, what shall I do? What friend shall lift thee?
Where is Teucer? Timely indeed would he now come,
To compose duly his slain brother’s corpse.
O hapless Ajax, who wast once so great,
Now even thy foes might dare to mourn thy fall.

Chorus

[chanting]

antistrophe

’Twas fate’s will, alas, ’twas fate then for thou
Stubborn of soul at length to work out a dark
Doom of ineffable miseries. Such the dire
Fury of passionate hate
I heard thee utter fierce of mood
Railing at Atreus’ sons
Night by night, day by day.
Verily then it was the sequence of woes
First began, when as the prize of worth
Fatally was proclaimed the golden panoply.

Tecmessa

Alas, woe, woe!

Chorus

[chanting]
A loyal grief pierces thy heart, I know.

Tecmessa

Alas, woe, woe!

Chorus

[chanting]
Woman, I marvel not that thou shouldst wail
And wail again, reft of a friend so dear.

Tecmessa

’Tis thine to surmise, mine to feel, too surely.

Chorus

[chanting]
’Tis even so.

Tecmessa

Ah, my child, to what bondage are we come,
Seeing what cruel taskmasters will be ours.

Chorus

[chanting]
Ah me, at what dost thou hint?
What ruthless, unspeakable wrong
From the Atreidae fearest thou?
But may heaven avert that woe!

Tecmessa

Ne’er had it come to this save by heaven’s will.

Chorus

[chanting]
Yes, too great to be borne this heaven-sent burden.

Tecmessa

Yet such the woe which the dread child of Zeus,
Pallas, has gendered for Odysseus’ sake.

Chorus

[chanting]
Doubtless the much-enduring hero in his dark spy’s soul exults
mockingly,
And laughs with mighty laughter at these agonies
Of a frenzied spirit. Shame! Shame!
Sharers in glee at the tale are the royal Atreidae.

Tecmessa

Well, let them mock and glory in his ruin.
Perchance, though while he lived they wished not for him,
They yet shall wail him dead, when the spear fails them.
Men of ill judgment oft ignore the good
That lies within their hands, till they have lost it.
More to their grief he died than to their joy,
And to his own content. All his desire
He now has won, that death for which he longed.
Why then should they deride him? ’Tis the gods
Must answer for his death, not these men, no.
Then let Odysseus mock him with empty taunts.
Ajax is no more with them; but has gone,
Leaving to me despair and lamentation.

Teucer

[from without]
Alas, woe, woe!

Leader of the Chorus

Keep silence! Is it Teucer’s voice I hear
Lifting a dirge over this tragic sight?

[Teucer enters.]

Teucer

O brother Ajax, to mine eyes most dear,
Can it be thou hast fared as rumour tells?

Leader

Yes, he is dead, Teucer: of that be sure.

Teucer

Alas, how then can I endure my fate!

Leader

Since thus it is...

Teucer

O wretched, wretched me!

Leader

Thou hast cause to moan.

Teucer

O swift and cruel woe!

Leader

Too cruel, Teucer!

Teucer

Woe is me! But say —
His child-where shall I find him? Tell me where.

Leader

Alone within the tent.

Teucer

[to Tecmessa]
Then with all speed
Go, bring him thither, lest some foe should snatch him
Like a whelp from a lioness bereaved.
Away! See it done quickly! All men are wont
To insult over the dead, once they lie low.

[Tecmessa departs.]

Leader

Yes, Teucer, while he lived, did he not charge thee
To guard his son from harm, as now thou dost?

Teucer

O sight most grievous to me of all sights
That ever I have looked on with my eyes!
And hatefullest of all paths to my soul
This path that now has led me to thy side,
O dearest Ajax, when I heard thy fate,
While seeking thee I tracked thy footsteps out.
For a swift rumour, as from some god, ran
Through the Greek host that thou wast dead and gone.
While yet far off I heard it, and groaned deep
In anguish; now I see, and my life dies.
Ay me!
Uncover. Let me behold woe’s very worst.
[The cover is lifted from the body.]
O ghastly sight! victim of ruthless courage!
What miseries hast thou dying sown for me!
Whither, among what people, shall I go,
Who in thy troubles failed to give thee succour?
Oh doubtless Telamon, thy sire and mine,
With kind and gracious face is like to greet me,
Returned without thee: how else?-he who is wont
Even at good news to smile none the sweeter.
What will he keep back? What taunt not hurl forth
Against the bastard of a spear-won slave,
Him who through craven cowardice betrayed
Thee, beloved Ajax-or by guile, that so
I might inherit thy kingdom and thy house.
So will he speak, a passionate man, grown peevish
In old age, quick to wrath without a cause.
Then shall I be cast off, a banished man,
Proclaimed no more a freeman but a slave.
Such is the home that waits me; while at Troy
My foes are many, my well-wishers few.
All this will be my portion through thy death.
Ah me, what shall I do? How draw thee, brother,
From this fell sword, on whose bright murderous point
Thou hast breathed out thy soul? See how at last
Hector, though dead, was fated to destroy thee!
Consider, I pray, the doom of these two men.
Hector, with that same girdle Ajax gave him
Was lashed fast to Achilles’ chariot rail
And mangled till he had gasped forth his life.
And ’twas from him that Ajax had this gift,
The blade by which he perished and lies dead.
Was it not some Erinys forged this sword,
And Hades the grim craftsman wrought that girdle?
I at least would maintain that the gods plan
These things and all things ever for mankind.
But whosoever’s judgment likes not this,
Let him uphold his doctrine as I mine.

Leader

Speak no more, but take counsel how to inter
Our dear lord, and what now it were best to say:
For ’tis a foe I see. Perchance he comes
To mock our misery, villain that he is.

Teucer

What chieftain of the host do you behold?

Leader

Menelaus, for whose sake we voyaged hither.

Teucer

’Tis he. I know him well, now he is near.

[Menelaus enters with his retinue.]

Menelaus

You, Sir, I warn you, raise not yonder corpse
For burial, but leave it as it lies.

Teucer

For what cause do you waste such swelling words?

Menelaus

’Tis my will, and his will who rules the host.

Teucer

Let us know then what pretext you allege.

Menelaus

We hoped that we had brought this man from home
To be a friend and champion for the Greeks:
But a worse than Phrygian foe on trial we found him.
Devising death for the whole host, by night
He sallied forth against us, armed for slaughter.
And had not some god baffled this exploit,
Ours would have been the lot which now is his:
While we lay slain by a most shameful doom,
He would have still been living. But his outrage,
Foiled by a god, has fallen on sheep and herds.
Wherefore there lives no man so powerful
That he shall lay this corpse beneath a tomb;
But cast forth somewhere upon the yellow sands
It shall become food for the sea-shore birds.
Then lift not up your voice in threatening fury.
If while he lived we could not master him,
Yet in death will we rule him, in your despite,
Guiding him with our hands, since in his life
At no time would he hearken to my words.
Yet ’tis a sign of wickedness, when a subject
Deigns not to obey those placed in power above him.
For never can the laws be prosperously
Stablished in cities where awe is not found;
Nor may a camp be providently ruled
Without the shield of dread and reverence.
Yea, though a man be grown to mighty bulk,
Let him look lest some slight mischance o’erthrow him.
He with whom awe and reverence abide,
Doubt not, will flourish in security.
But where outrage and licence are not checked,
Be sure that state, though sped by prosperous winds,
Some day at last will founder in deep seas.
Yes, fear should be established in due season.
Dream not that we can act as we desire,
Yet avoid payment of the price in pain.
Well, fortune goes by turns. This man was fiery
And insolent once: ’tis mine now to exult.
I charge thee, bury him not, lest by that act
Thou thyself shouldst be digging thine own grave,

Leader

Menelaus, do not first lay down wise precepts,
Then thyself offer outrage to the dead.

Teucer

[to the Chorus]
Never, friends, shall I marvel any more,
If one of low birth acts injuriously,
When they who are accounted nobly born
Can utter such injurious calumnies.
[To Menelaus]
Come, once more speak. You say you brought him hither?
Took him to be a champion of the Greeks?
Did he not sail as his own master, freely?
How are you his chieftain? How have you the right
To lord it o’er the folk he brought from home?
As Sparta’s lord you came, not as our master.
In no way was it your prerogative
To rule him, any more than he could you.
As vassal of others you sailed hither, not
As captain of us all, still less of Ajax.
Go, rule those whom you may rule: chastise them
With proud words. But this man, though you forbid me,
Aye, and your fellow-captain, by just right
Will I lay in his grave, scorning your threats.
It was not for the sake of your lost wife
He came to Troy, like your toil-broken serfs,
But for the sake of oaths that he had sworn,
Not for yours. What cared he for nobodies?
Then come again and bring more heralds hither,
And the captain of the host. For such as you
I would not turn my head, for all your bluster.

Leader

Such speech I like not, either, in peril’s midst:
For harsh words rankle, be they ne’er so just.

Menelaus

This bowman, it seems, has pride enough to spare.

Teucer

Yes, ’tis no mean craft I have made my own.

Menelaus

How big would be your boasts, had you a shield!

Teucer

Shieldless, I would outmatch you panoplied.

Menelaus

How terrible a courage dwells within your tongue!

Teucer

He may be bold of heart whose side right favours.

Menelaus

Is it right that my assassin should be honoured?

Teucer

Assassin? How strange, if, though slain, you live!

Menelaus

Heaven saved me: I was slain in his intent.

Teucer

Do not dishonour then the gods who saved you.

Menelaus

What, I rebel against the laws of heaven?

Teucer

Yes, if you come to rob the dead of burial.

Menelaus

My own foes! How could I endure such wrong?

Teucer

Did Ajax ever confront you as your foe?

Menelaus

He loathed me, and I him, as well you know.

Teucer

Because to defraud him you intrigued for votes.

Menelaus

It was the judges cast him, and not I.

Teucer

Much secret villainy you could make seem fair.

Menelaus

That saying will bring someone into trouble.

Teucer

Not greater trouble than we mean to inflict.

Menelaus

My one last word: this man must not have burial.

Teucer

Then hear my answer: burial he shall have.

Menelaus

Once did I see a fellow bold of tongue,
Who had urged a crew to sail in time of storm;
Yet no voice had you found in him, when winds
Began to blow; but hidden beneath his cloak
The mariners might trample on him at will.
And so with you and your fierce railleries,
Perchance a great storm, though from a little cloud
Its breath proceed, shall quench your blatant outcry.

Teucer

And I once saw a fellow filled with folly,
Who gloried scornfully in his neighbour’s woes.
So it came to pass that someone like myself,
And of like mood, beholding him spoke thus.
“Man, act not wickedly towards the dead;
Or, if thou dost, be sure that thou wilt rue it.”
Thus did he monish that infatuate man.
And lo! yonder I see him; and as I think,
He is none else but thou. Do I speak riddles?

Menelaus

I go. It were disgrace should any know
I had fallen to chiding where I might chastise.

Teucer

Begone then. For to me ’twere worst disgrace
That I should listen to a fool’s idle blustering.

[Menelaus and his retinue depart.]

Chorus

[chanting]
Soon mighty and fell will the strife be begun.
But speedily now, Teucer, I pray thee,
Seek some fit place for his hollow grave,
Which men’s memories evermore shall praise,
As he lies there mouldering at rest.

[Tecmessa enters with Eurysaces.]

Teucer

Look yonder, where the child and wife of Ajax
Are hastening hither in good time to tend
The funeral rites of his unhappy corpse.
My child, come hither. Stand near and lay thy hand
As a suppliant on thy father who begat thee.
And kneel imploringly with locks of hair
Held in thy hand-mine, and hers, and last thine —
The suppliant’s treasure. But if any Greek
By violence should tear thee from this corpse,
For that crime from the land may he be cast
Unburied, and his whole race from the root
Cut off, even as I sever this lock.
There, take it, boy, and keep it. Let none seek
To move thee; but still kneel there and cling fast.
And you, like men, no women, by his side
Stand and defend him till I come again,
When I have dug his grave, though all forbid.

[Teucer goes out.]

Chorus

[singing]

strophe 1

When will this agony draw to a close?
When will it cease, the last of our years of exile?
Years that bring me labour accurst of hurtling spears,
Woe that hath no respite or end,
But wide-spread over the plains of Troy
Works sorrow and shame for Hellas’ sons.

antistrophe 1

Would he had vanished away from the earth,
Rapt to the skies, or sunk to devouring Hades,
He who first revealed to the Greeks the use of arms
Leagued in fierce confederate war!
Ah, toils eternally breeding toils!
Yea, he was the fiend who wrought man’s ruin.

strophe 2

The wretch accurst, what were his gifts?
Neither the glad, festival wreath,
Nor the divine, mirth-giving wine-cup;
No music of flutes, soothing and sweet:
Slumber by night, blissful and calm,
None he bequeathed us.
And love’s joys, alas! love did he banish from me.
Here couching alone neglected,
With hair by unceasing dews drenched evermore, we curse
Thy shores, O cruel Ilium.

antistrophe 2

Erewhile against terror by night,
javelin or sword, firm was our trust:
He was our shield, valiant Ajax.
But now a malign demon of fate
Claims him. Alas! When, when again
Shall joy befall me?
Oh once more to stand, where on the wooded headland
The ocean is breaking, under
The shadow of Sunium’s height; thence could I greet from far
The divine city of Athens.

[Teucer enters, followed by Agamemnon and his retinue.]

Teucer

In haste I come; for the captain of the host,
Agamemnon, I have seen hurrying hither.
To a perverse tongue now will he give rein.

Agamemnon

Is it you, they tell me, have dared to stretch your lips
In savage raillery against us, unpunished?
’Tis you I mean, the captive woman’s son.
Verily of well-born mother had you been bred,
Superb had been your boasts and high your strut,
Since you, being nought, have championed one who is nought,
Vowing that no authority is ours
By sea or land to rule the Greeks or you.
Are not these monstrous taunts to hear from slaves?
What was this man whose praise you vaunt so loudly?
Whither went he, or where stood he, where I was not?
Among the Greeks are there no men but he?
In evil hour, it seems, did we proclaim
The contest for Achilles’ panoply,
If come what may Teucer is to call us knaves,
And if you never will consent, though worsted,
To accept the award that seemed just to most judges,
But either must keep pelting us with foul words,
Or stab us craftily in your rage at losing.
Where such discords are customary, never
Could any law be stablished and maintained,
If we should thrust the rightful winners by,
And bring the rearmost to the foremost place.
But such wrong must be checked. ’Tis not the big
Broad-shouldered men on whom we most rely;
No, ’tis the wise who are masters everywhere.
An ox, however large of rib, may yet
Be kept straight on the road by a little whip.
And this corrective, I perceive, will soon
Descend on you, unless you acquire some wisdom,
Who, though this man is dead, a mere shade now,
Can wag your insolent lips so freely and boldly.
Come to your senses: think what you are by birth.
Bring hither someone else, a man born free,
Who in your stead may plead your cause before us.
For when you speak, the sense escapes me quite:
I comprehend not your barbarian tongue.

Leader of the Chorus

Would that you both might learn wisdom and temperance.
There is no better counsel I can give you.

Teucer

Alas! how soon gratitude to the dead
Proves treacherous and vanishes from men’s minds,
If for thee, Ajax, this man has no more
The least word of remembrance, he for whom oft
Toiling in battle thou didst risk thy life.
But all that is forgotten and flung aside.
Thou who but now wast uttering so much folly,
Hast thou no memory left, how in that hour
When, pent within your lines, you were already
No more than men of nought, routed in battle,
He alone stood forth to save you, while the flames
Were blazing round the stern-decks of the ships
Already, and while Hector, leaping high
Across the trench, charged down upon the hulls?
Who checked this ruin? Was it not he, who nowhere
So much as stood beside thee, so thou sayest?
Would you deny he acted nobly there?
Or when again chosen by lot, unbidden,
Alone in single combat he met Hector?
For no runaway’s lot did he cast in,
No lump of clammy earth, but such that first
It should leap lightly from the crested helm?
His were these exploits; and beside him stood
I the slave, the barbarian mother’s son.
Wretch, with what face can you fling forth such taunts?
Know you not that of old your father’s father
Was Pelops, a barbarian, and a Phrygian?
That your sire Atreus set before his brother
A feast most impious of his own children’s flesh?
And from a Cretan mother you were born,
Whom when her father found her with a paramour,
He doomed her for dumb fishes to devour.
Being such, do you reproach me with my lineage?
Telamon is the father who begat me,
Who, as the foremost champion of the Greeks,
Won as his bride my mother, a princes
By birth, Laomedon’s daughter: a chosen spoil
She had been given him by Alcmena’s son.
Thus of two noble parents nobly born,
How should I shame one of my blood, whom now,
Laid low by such calamity, you would thrust
Unburied forth, and feel no shame to say it?
But of this be sure: wheresoever you may cast him,
Us three also with him will you cast forth.
For it beseems me in his cause to die
In sight of all, rather than for the sake
Of your wife-or your brother’s should I say?
Look then not to my interest, but your own.
For if you assail me, you shall soon wish rather
To have been a coward than too bold against me.

[Odysseus enters.]

Leader

In good time, King Odysseus, hast thou come,
If ’tis thy purpose not to embroil but reconcile.

Odysseus

What is it, friends? Far off I heard high words
From the Atreidae over this hero’s corpse.

Agamemnon

Royal Odysseus, but now from this man
We have been listening to most shameful taunts.

Odysseus

How shameful? I could find excuse for one
Who, when reviled, retorts with bitter words.

Agamemnon

Yes, I repaid his vile deeds with reviling.

Odysseus

What has he done thee whereby thou art wronged?

Agamemnon

He says he will not leave yon corpse unhonoured
By sepulture, but will bury it in my spite.

Odysseus

May now a friend speak out the truth, yet still
As ever ply his oar in stroke with thine?

Agamemnon

Speak: I should be witless else; for thee
Of all the Greeks I count the greatest friend.

Odysseus

Then listen. For the gods’ sake venture not
Thus ruthlessly to cast forth this man unburied:
And in no wise let violence compel thee
To such deep hate that thou shouldst tread down justice.
Once for me too this man was my worst foe,
From that hour when I won Achilles’ arms;
Yet, though he was such towards me, I would not so
Repay him with dishonour as to deny
That of all Greeks who came to Troy, no hero
So valiant save Achilles have I seen.
So it is not just thou shouldst dishonour him.
Not him wouldst thou be wronging, but the laws
Of heaven. It is not righteousness to outrage
A brave man dead, not even though thou hate him.

Agamemnon

Thou, Odysseus, champion him thus against me?

Odysseus

Yes; but I hated him while hate was honourable.

Agamemnon

Shouldst thou not also trample on him when dead?

Odysseus

Atreides, glory not in dishonouring triumphs.

Agamemnon

’Tis hard for a king to act with piety.

Odysseus

Yet not hard to respect a friend’s wise counsel.

Agamemnon

A good man should obey those who bear rule.

Odysseus

Relent. ’Tis no defeat to yield to friends.

Agamemnon

Reflect who it is to whom thou dost this grace.

Odysseus

This man was once my foe, yet was he noble.

Agamemnon

Can it be thou wilt reverence a dead foe?

Odysseus

His worth with me far outweighs enmity.

Agamemnon

Unstable of impulse are such men as thou.

Odysseus

Many are friends now and hereafter foes.

Agamemnon

Do you then praise such friends as worth the winning?

Odysseus

I am not wont to praise a stubborn soul.

Agamemnon

Cowards you would have us show ourselves this day.

Odysseus

Not so, but just men before all the Greeks.

Agamemnon

You bid me then permit these funeral rites?

Odysseus

Even so: for I myself shall come to this.

Agamemnon

Alike in all things each works for himself.

Odysseus

And for whom should I work, if not myself?

Agamemnon

Let it be known then as your doing, not mine.

Odysseus

So be it. At least you will have acted nobly.

Agamemnon

Nay, but of this be certain, that to thee
Willingly would I grant a greater boon.
Yet he, in that world as in this, shall be
Most hateful to me. But act as you deem fit.

[Agamemnon and his retinue go out.]

Leader

After such proof, Odysseus, a fool only
Could say that inborn wisdom was not thine.

Odysseus

Let Teucer know that I shall be henceforth
His friend, no less than I was once his foe.
And I will join in burying this dead man,
And share in all due rites, omitting none
Which mortal men to noblest heroes owe.

Teucer

Noble Odysseus, for thy words I praise thee
Without stint. Wholly hast thou belied my fears.
Thou, his worst foe among the Greeks, hast yet
Alone stood by him staunchly, nor thought fit
To glory and exult over the dead,
Like that chief crazed with arrogance, who came,
He and his brother, hoping to cast forth
The dead man shamefully without burial.
May therefore the supreme Olympian Father,
The remembering Fury and fulfilling Justice
Destroy these vile men vilely, even as they
Sought to cast forth this hero unjustly outraged.
But pardon me, thou son of old Laertes,
That I must scruple to allow thine aid
In these rites, lest I so displease the dead.
In all else share our toil; and wouldst thou bring
Any man from the host, we grudge thee not.
What else remains, I will provide. And know
That thou towards us hast acted generously.

Odysseus

It was my wish. But if my help herein
Pleases you not, so be it, I depart.

[Odysseus goes out.]

Teucer

’Tis enough. Too long is the time we have wasted
In talk. Haste some with spades to the grave:
Speedily hollow it. Some set the cauldron
On high amid wreathing flames ready filled
For pious ablution.
Then a third band go, fetch forth from the tent
All the armour he once wore under his shield.
Thou too, child, lovingly lay thy hand
On thy father’s corpse, and with all thy strength
Help me to lift him: for the dark blood-tide
Still upward is streaming warm through the arteries.
All then who openly now would appear
Friends to the dead, come, hasten forwards.
To our valiant lord this labour is due.
We have served none nobler among men.

Chorus

[chanting]
Unto him who has seen may manifold knowledge
Come; but before he sees, no man
May divine what destiny awaits him.

Philoctetes

Characters in the Play

Ulysses, King of Ithaca

Neoptolemus, son of Achilles

Philoctetes, son of Poeas and Companion of Hercules

A Spy

Hercules

Chorus, composed of the companions of Ulysses and Neoptolemus

[Scene:— A lonely region on the shore of Lemnos, before a steep cliff in which is the entrance to Philoctetes’ cave. Ulysses, Neoptolemus and an attendant enter.]

Ulysses

At length, my noble friend, thou bravest son
Of a brave father — father of us all,
The great Achilles — we have reached the shore
Of sea-girt Lemnos, desert and forlorn,
Where never tread of human step is seen,
Or voice of mortal heard, save his alone,
Poor Philoctetes, Poeas’ wretched son,
Whom here I left; for such were my commands
From Grecia’s chiefs, when by his fatal wound
Oppressed, his groans and execrations dreadful
Alarmed our hosts, our sacred rites profaned,
And interrupted holy sacrifice.
But why should I repeat the tale? The time
Admits not of delay. We must not linger,
Lest he discover our arrival here,
And all our purposed fraud to draw him hence
Be ineffectual. Lend me then thy aid.
Surveying round thee, canst thou see a rock
With double entrance — to the sun’s warm rays
In winter open, and in summer’s heat
Giving free passage to the welcome breeze?
A little to the left there is a fountain
Of living water, where, if yet he breathes,
He slakes his thirst. If aught thou seest of this
Inform me; so shall each to each impart
Counsel most fit, and serve our common cause.

Neoptolemus

[leaving Ulysses a little behind him]

If I mistake not, I behold a cave,
E’en such as thou describst.

Ulysses

Dost thou? which way?

Neoptolemus

Yonder it is; but no path leading thither,
Or trace of human footstep.

Ulysses

In his cell
A chance but he hath lain down to rest:
Look if he hath not.

Neoptolemus

[advancing to the cave]

Not a creature there.

Ulysses

Nor food, nor mark of household preparation?

Neoptolemus

A rustic bed of scattered leaves.

Ulysses

What more?

Neoptolemus

A wooden bowl, the work of some rude hand,
With a few sticks for fuel.

Ulysses

This is all
His little treasure here.

Neoptolemus

Unhappy man!
Some linen for his wounds.

Ulysses

This must be then
His place of habitation; far from hence
He cannot roam; distempered as he is,
It were impossible. He is but gone
A little way for needful food, or herb
Of power to ’suage and mitigate his pain,
Wherefore despatch this servant to some place
Of observation, whence he may espy
His every motion, lest he rush upon us.
There’s not a Grecian whom his soul so much
Could wish to crush beneath him as Ulysses.

[He makes a signal to the Attendant. who retires.]

Neoptolemus

He’s gone to guard each avenue; and now,
If thou hast aught of moment to impart
Touching our purpose, say it; I attend.

Ulysses

Son of Achilles, mark me well! Remember,
What we are doing not on strength alone,
Or courage, but oil conduct will depend;
Therefore if aught uncommon be proposed,
Strange to thy ears and adverse to thy nature,
Reflect that ’tis thy duty to comply,
And act conjunctive with me.

Neoptolemus

Well, what is it?

Ulysses

We must deceive this Philoctetes; that
Will be thy task. When he shall ask thee who
And what thou art, Achilles’ son reply —
Thus far within the verge of truth, no more.
Add that resentment fired thee to forsake
The Grecian fleet, and seek thy native soil,
Unkindly used by those who long with vows
Had sought thy aid to humble haughty Troy,
And when thou cam’st, ungrateful as they were.
The arms of great Achilles, thy just right,
Gave to Ulysses. Here thy bitter taunts
And sharp invectives liberally bestow
On me. Say what thou wilt, I shall forgive,
And Greece will not forgive thee if thou dost not;
For against Troy thy efforts are all vain
Without his arrows. Safely thou mayst hold
Friendship and converse with him, but I cannot.
Thou wert not with us when the war began,
Nor bound by solemn oath to join our host,
As I was; me he knows, and if he find
That I am with thee, we are both undone.
They must be ours then, these all-conquering arms;
Remember that. I know thy noble nature
Abhors the thought of treachery or fraud.
But what a glorious prize is victory!
Therefore be bold; we will be just hereafter.
Give to deceit and me a little portion
Of one short day, and for thy future life
Be called the holiest, worthiest, best of men.

Neoptolemus

What but to hear alarms my conscious soul,
Son of Laertes, I shall never practise.
I was not born to flatter or betray;
Nor I, nor he — the voice of fame reports —
Who gave me birth. What open arms can do
Behold me prompt to act, but ne’er to fraud
Will I descend. Sure we can more than match
In strength a foe thus lame and impotent.
I came to be a helpmate to thee, not
A base betrayer; and, O king! believe me,
Rather, much rather would I fall by virtue
Than rise by guilt to certain victory.

Ulysses

O noble youth! and worthy of thy sire!
When I like thee was young, like thee of strength
And courage boastful, little did I deem
Of human policy; but long experience
Hath taught me, son, ’tis not the powerful arm,
But soft enchanting tongue that governs all.

Neoptolemus

And thou wouldst have me tell an odious falsehood?

Ulysses

He must be gained by fraud.

Neoptolemus

By fraud? And why
Not by persuasion?

Ulysses

He’ll not listen to it;
And force were vainer still.

Neoptolemus

What mighty power
Hath he to boast?

Ulysses

His arrows winged with death
Inevitable.

Neoptolemus

Then it were not safe
E’en to approach him.

Ulysses

No; unless by fraud
He be secured.

Neoptolemus

And thinkst thou ’tis not base
To tell a lie then?

Ulysses

Not if on that lie
Depends our safety.

Neoptolemus

Who shall dare to tell it
Without a blush?

Ulysses

We need not blush at aught
That may promote our interest and success.

Neoptolemus

But where’s the interest that should bias me?
Come he or not to Troy, imports it aught
To Neoptolemus?

Ulysses

Troy cannot fall
Without his arrows.

Neoptolemus

Saidst thou not that I
Was destined to destroy her?

Ulysses

Without them
Naught canst thou do, and they without thee nothing.

Neoptolemus

Then I must have them.

Ulysses

When thou hast, remember
A double prize awaits thee.

Neoptolemus

What, Ulysses?

Ulysses

The glorious names of valiant and of wise.

Neoptolemus

Away! I’ll do it. Thoughts of guilt or shame
No more appal me.

Ulysses

Wilt thou do it then?
Wilt thou remember what I told thee of?

Neoptolemus

Depend on ’t; I have promised — that’s sufficient.

Ulysses

Here then remain thou; I must not be seen.
If thou stay long, I’ll send a faithful spy,
Who in a sailor’s habit well disguised
May pass unknown; of him, from time to time,
What best may suit our purpose thou shalt know.
I’ll to the ship. Farewell! and may the god
Who brought us here, the fraudful Mercury,
And great Minerva, guardian of our country,
And ever kind to me, protect us still!

[Ulysses goes out as the Chorus enters. The following lines are chanted responsively between Neoptolemus and the Chorus.]

Chorus

[strophe 1]

Master, instruct us, strangers as we are,
What we may utter, what we must conceal.
Doubtless the man we seek will entertain
Suspicion of us; how are we to act?
To those alone belongs the art to rule
Who bear the sceptre from the hand of Jove;
To thee of right devolves the power supreme,
From thy great ancestors delivered down;
Speak then, our royal lord, and we obey.

Neoptolemus

[systema 1]

If you would penetrate yon deep recess
To seek the cave where Philoctetes lies,
Go forward; but remember to return
When the poor wanderer comes this way, prepared
To aid our purpose here if need require.

Chorus

[antistrophe 1]

O king! we ever meant to fix our eyes
On thee, and wait attentive to thy will;
But, tell us, in what part is he concealed?
’Tis fit we know the place, lest unobserved
He rush upon us. Which way doth it lie?
Seest thou his footsteps leading from the cave,
Or hither bent?

Neoptolemus

[advancing towards the cave]

[systema 2]

Behold the double door
Of his poor dwelling, and the flinty bed.

Chorus

And whither is its wretched master gone?

Neoptolemus

Doubtless in search of food, and not far off,
For such his manner is; accustomed here,
So fame reports, to pierce with winged arrows
His savage prey for daily sustenance,
His wound still painful, and no hope of cure.

Chorus

[strophe 2]

Alas! I pity him. Without a friend,
Without a fellow-sufferer, left alone,
Deprived of all the mutual joys that flow
From sweet society — distempered too!
How can he bear it? O unhappy race
Of mortal man! doomed to an endless round
Of sorrows, and immeasurable woe!

[antistrophe 2]

Second to none in fair nobility
Was Philoctetes, of illustrious race;
Yet here he lies, from every human aid
Far off removed, in dreadful solitude,
And mingles with the wild and savage herd;
With them in famine and in misery
Consumes his days, and weeps their common fate,
Unheeded, save when babbling echo mourns
In bitterest notes responsive to his woe.

Neoptolemus

[systema 3]

And yet I wonder not; for if aright
I judge, from angry heaven the sentence came,
And Chrysa was the cruel source of all;
Nor doth this sad disease inflict him still
Incurable, without assenting gods?
For so they have decreed, lest Troy should fall
Beneath his arrows ere the’ appointed time
Of its destruction come.

Chorus

[strophe 3]

No more, my son!

Neoptolemus

What sayst thou?

Chorus

Sure I heard a dismal groan
Of some afflicted wretch.

Neoptolemus

Which way?

Chorus

E’en now
I hear it, and the sound as of some step
Slow-moving this way. He is not far from us.
His plaints are louder now.

[antistrophe 3]

Prepare, my son!

Neoptolemus

For what?

Chorus

New troubles; for behold he comes!
Not like the shepherd with his rural pipe
And cheerful song, but groaning heavily.
Either his wounded foot against some thorn
Hath struck, and pains him sorely, or perchance
He hath espied from far some ship attempting
To enter this inhospitable port,
And hence his cries to save it from destruction.

[Philoctetes enters, clad in rags. He moves with difficulty and is obviously suffering pain from his injured foot.]

Philoctetes

Say, welcome strangers, what disastrous fate
Led you to this inhospitable shore,
Nor haven safe, nor habitation fit
Affording ever? Of what clime, what race?
Who are ye? Speak! If I may trust that garb,
Familiar once to me, ye are of Greece,
My much-loved country. Let me hear the sound
Of your long wished-for voices. Do not look
With horror on me, but in kind compassion
Pity a wretch deserted and forlorn
In this sad place. Oh! if ye come as friends,
Speak then, and answer — hold some converse with me,
For this at least from man to man is due.

Neoptolemus

Know, stranger, first what most thou seemst to wish;
We are of Greece.

Philoctetes

Oh! happiness to hear!
After so many years of dreadful silence,
How welcome was that sound! Oh! tell me, son,
What chance, what purpose, who conducted thee?
What brought thee thither, what propitious gale?
Who art thou? Tell me all — inform me quickly.

Neoptolemus

Native of Scyros, hither I return;
My name is Neoptolemus, the son
Of brave Achilles. I have told thee all.

Philoctetes

Dear is thy country, and thy father dear
To me, thou darling of old Lycomede;
But tell me in what fleet, and whence thou cam’st.

Neoptolemus

From Troy.

Philoctetes

From Troy? I think thou wert not with us
When first our fleet sailed forth.

Neoptolemus

Wert thou then there?
Or knowst thou aught of that great enterprise?

Philoctetes

Know you not then the man whom you behold?

Neoptolemus

How should I know whom I had never seen?

Philoctetes

Have you ne’er heard of me, nor of my name?
Hath my sad story never reached your ear?

Neoptolemus

Never.

Philoctetes

Alas! how hateful to the gods,
How very poor a wretch must I be then,
That Greece should never hear of woes like mine!
But they who sent me hither, they concealed them,
And smile triumphant, whilst my cruel wounds
Grow deeper still. O, sprung from great Achilles!
Behold before thee Poeas’ wretched son,
With whom, a chance but thou hast heard, remain
The dreadful arrows of renowned Alcides,
E’en the unhappy Philoctetes — him
Whom the Atreidae and the vile Ulysses
Inhuman left, distempered as I was
By the envenomed serpent’s deep-felt wound.
Soon as they saw that, with long toil oppressed,
Sleep had o’ertaken me on the hollow rock,
There did they leave me when from Chrysa’s shore
They bent their fatal course; a little food
And these few rags were all they would bestow.
Such one day be their fate! Alas! my son,
How dreadful, thinkst thou, was that waking to me,
When from my sleep I rose and saw them not!
How did I weep! and mourn my wretched state!
When not a ship remained of all the fleet
That brought me here — no kind companion left
To minister or needful food or balm
To my sad wounds. On every side I looked,
And nothing saw but woe; of that indeed
Measure too full. For day succeeded day,
And still no comfort came; myself alone
Could to myself the means of life afford,
In this poor grotto. On my bow I lived:
The winged dove, which my sharp arrow slew,
With pain I brought into my little hut,
And feasted there; then from the broken ice
I slaked my thirst, or crept into the wood
For useful fuel; from the stricken flint
I drew the latent spark, that warms me still
And still revives. This with my humble roof
Preserve me, son. But, oh! my wounds remain.
Thou seest an island desolate and waste;
No friendly port nor hopes of gain to tempt,
Nor host to welcome in the traveller;
Few seek the wild inhospitable shore.
By adverse winds, sometimes th’ unwilling guests,
As well thou mayst suppose, were hither driven;
But when they came, they only pitied me,
Gave me a little food, or better garb
To shield me from the cold; in vain I prayed
That they would bear me to my native soil,
For none would listen. Here for ten long years
Have I remained, whilst misery and famine
Keep fresh my wounds, and double my misfortune.
This have th’ Atreidae and Ulysses done,
And may the gods with equal woes repay them!

Leader of the Chorus

O, son of Poeas! well might those, who came
And saw thee thus, in kind compassion weep;
I too must pity thee — I can no more.

Neoptolemus

I can bear witness to thee, for I know
By sad experience what th’ Atreidae are,
And what Ulysses.

Philoctetes

Hast thou suffered then?
And dost thou hate them too?

Neoptolemus

Oh! that these hands
Could vindicate my wrongs! Mycenae then
And Sparta should confess that Scyros boasts
Of sons as brave and valiant as their own.

Philoctetes

O noble youth! But wherefore cam’st thou hither?
Whence this resentment?

Neoptolemus

I will tell thee all,
If I can bear to tell it. Know then, soon
As great Achilles died —

Philoctetes

Oh, stay, my son!
Is then Achilles dead?

Neoptolemus

He is, and not
By mortal hand, but by Apollo’s shaft
Fell glorious.

Philoctetes

Oh! most worthy of each other,
The slayer and the slain! Permit me, son,
To mourn his fate, ere I attend to thine.

Neoptolemus

Alas! thou needst not weep for others’ woes,
Thou hast enough already of thy own.

Philoctetes

’Tis very true; and therefore to thy tale.

Neoptolemus

Thus then it was. Soon as Achilles died,
Phoenix, the guardian of his tender years,
Instant sailed forth, and sought me out at Scyros;
With him the wary chief Ulysses came.
They told me then (or true or false I know not),
My father dead, by me, and me alone
Proud Troy must fall. I yielded to their prayers;
I hoped to see at least the dear remains
Of him whom living I had long in vain
Wished to behold. Safe at Sigeum’s port
Soon we arrived. In crowds the numerous host
Thronged to embrace me, called the gods to witness
In me once more they saw their loved Achilles
To life restored; but he, alas! was gone.
I shed the duteous tear, then sought my friends
Th’ Atreidae friends I thought ’em!-claimed the arms
Of my dead father, and what else remained
His late possession: when — O cruel words!
And wretched I to hear them — thus they answered:
“Son of Achilles, thou in vain demandst
Those arms already to Ulysses given;
The rest be thine.” I wept. “And is it thus,”
Indignant I replied, “ye dare to give
My right away?” “Know, boy,” Ulysses cried,
“That right was mine. and therefore they bestowed
The boon on me: me who preserved the arms,
And him who bore them too.” With anger fired
At this proud speech, I threatened all that rage
Could dictate to me if he not returned them.
Stung with my words, yet calm, he answered me:
“Thou wert not with us; thou wert in a place
Where thou shouldst not have been; and since thou meanst
To brave us thus, know, thou shalt never bear
Those arms with thee to Scyros; ’tis resolved.”
Thus injured, thus deprived of all I held
Most precious, by the worst of men, I left
The hateful place, and seek my native soil.
Nor do I blame so much the proud Ulysses
As his base masters — army, city, all
Depend on those who rule. When men grow vile
The guilt is theirs who taught them to be wicked.
I’ve told thee all, and him who hates the Atreidae
I hold a friend to me and to the gods.

Chorus

[singing]

O Earth! thou mother of great Jove,
Embracing all with universal love,
Author benign of every good,
Through whom Pactolus rolls his golden flood!
To thee, whom in thy rapid car
Fierce lions draw, I rose and made my prayer —
To thee I made my sorrows known,
When from Achilles’ injured son
Th’ Atreidae gave the prize, that fatal day
When proud Ulysses bore his arms away.

Philoctetes

I wonder not, my friend, to see you here,
And I believe the tale; for well I know
The man who wronged you, know the base Ulysses
Falsehood and fraud dwell on his lips, and nought
That’s just or good can be expected from him.
But strange it is to me that, Ajax present,
He dare attempt it.

Neoptolemus

Ajax is no more;
Had he been living, I had ne’er been spoiled
Thus of my right.

Philoctetes

Is he then dead?

Neoptolemus

He is.

Philoctetes

Alas! the son of Tydeus, and that slave,
Sold by his father Sisyphus, they live,
Unworthy as they are.

Neoptolemus

Alas! they do,
And flourish still.

Philoctetes

My old and worthy friend
The Pylian sage, how is he? He could see
Their arts, and would have given them better counsels.

Neoptolemus

Weighed down with grief he lives, but most unhappy,
Weeps his lost son, his dear Antilochus.

Philoctetes

O double woe! whom I could most have wished
To live and to be happy, those to perish!
Ulysses to survive! It should not be.

Neoptolemus

Oh! ’tis a subtle foe; but deepest plans
May sometimes fail.

Philoctetes

Where was Patroclus then,
Thy father’s dearest friend?

Neoptolemus

He too was dead.
In war, alas — so fate ordains it ever —
The coward ’scapes, the brave and virtuous fall.

Philoctetes

It is too true; and now thou talkst of cowards,
Where is that worthless wretch, of readiest tongue,
Subtle and voluble?

Neoptolemus

Ulysses?

Philoctetes

No;
Thersites, ever talking, never heard.

Neoptolemus

I have not seen him, but I hear he lives.

Philoctetes

I did not doubt it: evil never dies;
The gods take care of that. If aught there be
Fraudful and vile, ’tis safe; the good and just
Perish unpitied by them. Wherefore is it?
When gods do ill, why should we worship them?

Neoptolemus

Since thus it is, since virtue is oppressed,
And vice triumphant, who deserve to live
Are doomed to perish, and the guilty reign.
Henceforth, O son of Poeas! far from Troy
And the Atreidae will I live remote.
I would not see the man I cannot love.
My barren Scyros shall afford me refuge,
And home — felt joys delight my future days.
So, fare thee well, and may th’ indulgent gods
Heal thy sad wound, and grant thee every wish
Thy soul can form! Once more, farewell! I go,
The first propitious gale.

Philoctetes

What! now, my son?
So soon?

Neoptolemus

Immediately; the time demands
We should be near, and ready to depart.

Philoctetes

Now, by the memory of thy honoured sire,
By thy loved mother, by whate’er remains
On earth most dear to thee, oh! hear me now,
Thy suppliant! Do not, do not thus forsake me,
Alone, oppressed, deserted, as thou seest,
In this sad place. I shall, I know it must, be
A burthen to thee. But, oh! bear it kindly;
For ever doth the noble mind abhor
Th’ ungenerous deed, and loves humanity;
Disgrace attends thee if thou dost forsake me,
If not, immortal fame rewards thy goodness.
Thou mayst convey me safe to Oeta’s shores
In one short day; I’ll trouble you no longer.
Hide me in any part where I may least
Molest you. Hear me! By the guardian god
Of the poor suppliant, all — protecting Jove,
I beg. Behold me at thy feet, infirm,
And wretched as I am, I clasp thy knees.
Leave me not here then, where there is no mark
Of human footstep — take me to thy home!
Or to Euboea’s port, to Oeta, thence
Short is the way to Trachin, or the banks
Of Spercheius’ gentle stream, to meet my father,
If yet he lives; for, oh! I begged him oft
By those who hither came, to fetch me hence —
Or is he dead, or they neglectful bent
Their hasty course to their own native soil.
Be thou my better guide! Pity and save
The poor and wretched. Think, my son, how frail
And full of danger is the state of man —
Now prosperous, now adverse. Who feels no ills
Should therefore fear them; and when fortune smiles
Be doubly cautious, lest destruction come
Remorseless on him, and he fall unpitied.

Chorus

[singing]

Oh, pity him, my lord, for bitterest woes
And trials most severe he hath recounted;
Far be such sad distress from those I love!
Oh! if thou hat’st the base Atreidae, now
Revenge thee on them, serve their deadliest foe;
Bear the poor suppliant to his native soil;
So shalt thou bless thy friend, and ’scape the wrath
Of the just gods, who still protect the wretched.

Neoptolemus

Your proffered kindness, friends, may cost you dear;
When you shall feel his dreadful malady
Oppress you sore, you will repent it.

Leader of the Chorus

Never
Shall that reproach be ours.

Neoptolemus

In generous pity
Of the afflicted thus to be o’ercome
Were most disgraceful to me; he shall go.
May the kind gods speed our departure hence,
And guide our vessels to the wished-for shore!

Philoctetes

O happy hour! O kindest, best of men!
And you my dearest friends! how shall I thank you?
What shall I do to show my grateful heart?
Let us be gone! But, oh! permit me first
To take a last farewell of my poor hut,
Where I so long have lived. Perhaps you’ll say
I must have had a noble mind to bear it.
The very sight to any eyes but mine
Were horrible, but sad necessity
At length prevailed, and made it pleasing to me.

Leader

One from our ship, my lord, and with him comes
A stranger. Stop a moment till we hear
Their business with us.

[The Spy enters, dressed as a merchant. He is accompanied by one of Neoptolemus’men.]

Spy

Son of great Achilles,
Know, chance alone hath brought me hither, driven
By adverse winds to where thy vessels lay,
As home I sailed from Troy. There did I meet
This my companion, who informed me where
Thou mightst be found. Hence to pursue my course
And not to tell thee what concerns thee near
Had been ungenerous, thou perhaps meantime
Of Greece and of her counsels naught suspecting,
Counsels against thee not by threats alone
Or words enforced, but now in execution.

Neoptolemus

Now by my virtue, stranger, for thy news
I am much bound to thee, and will repay
Thy service. Tell me what the Greeks have done.

Spy

A fleet already sails to fetch thee back,
Conducted by old Phoenix, and the sons
Of valiant Theseus.

Neoptolemus

Come they then to force me?
Or am I to be won by their persuasion?

Spy

I know not that; you have what I could learn.

Neoptolemus

And did the’ Atreidae send them?

Spy

Sent they are,
And will be with you soon.

Neoptolemus

But wherefore then
Came not Ulysses? Did his courage fail?

Spy

He, ere I left the camp, with Diomede
On some important embassy sailed forth
In search —

Neoptolemus

Of whom?

Spy

There was a man — but stay,
Who is thy friend here, tell me, but speak softly.

Neoptolemus

[whispering to him]

The famous Philoctetes.

Spy

Ha! begone then!
Ask me no more — away, immediately!

Philoctetes

What do these dark mysterious whispers mean?
Concern they me, my son?

Neoptolemus

I know not what
He means to say, but I would have him speak
Boldly before us all, whate’er it be.

Spy

Do not betray me to the Grecian host,
Nor make me speak what I would fain conceal.
I am but poor — they have befriended me.

Neoptolemus

In me thou seest an enemy confest
To the Atreidae. This is my best friend
Because he hates them too; if thou art mine,
Hide nothing then.

Spy

Consider first.

Neoptolemus

I have.

Spy

The blame will be on you.

Neoptolemus

Why, let it be:
But speak, I charge thee.

Spy

Since I must then, know,
In solemn league combined, the bold Ulysses
And gallant Diomede have sworn by force
Or by persuasion to bring back thy friend:
The Grecians heard Laertes’ son declare
His purpose; far more resolute he seemed
Than Diomede, and surer of success.

Neoptolemus

But why the’ Atreidae, after so long time,
Again should wish to see this wretched exile,
Whence this desire? Came it from th’ angry gods
To punish thus their inhumanity?

Spy

I can inform you; for perhaps from Greece
Of late you have not heard. There was a prophet,
Son of old Priam, Helenus by name,
Hlim, in his midnight walks, the wily chief
Ulysses, curse of every tongue, espied;
Took him. and led him captive. to the Creeks
A welcome spoil. Much he foretold to all,
And added last that Troy should never fall
Till Philoctetes from this isle returned.
Ulysses heard, and instant promise gave
To fetch him hence; he hoped by gentle means
To gain him; those successless, force at last
Could but compel him. He would go, he cried,
And if he failed his head should pay th’ forfeit.
I’ve told thee all, and warn thee to be gone,
Thou and thy friend, if thou wouldst wish to save him.

Philoctetes

And does the traitor think he can persuade me?
As well might he persuade me to return
From death to life, as his base father did.

Spy

Of that know not: I must to my ship.
Farewell, and may the gods protect you both!

[The Spy departs.]

Philoctetes

Lead me — expose me to the Grecian host!
And could the insolent Ulysses hope
With his soft flatteries e’er to conquer me?
No! Sooner would I listen to the voice
Of that fell serpent, whose envenomed tongue
Hath lamed me thus. But what is there he dare not
Or say or do? I know he will be here
E’en now, depend on’t. Therefore, let’s away!
Quick let the sea divide us from Ulysses.
Let us be gone; for well-timed expedition,
The task performed, brings safety and repose.

Neoptolemus

Soon as the wind permits us we embark,
But now ’tis adverse.

Philoctetes

Every wind is fair
When we are flying from misfortune.

Neoptolemus

True;
And ’tis against them too.

Philoctetes

Alas! no storms
Can drive back fraud and rapine from their prey.

Neoptolemus

I’m ready. Take what may be necessary,
And follow me.

Philoctetes

I want not much.

Neoptolemus

Perhaps
My ship will furnish you.

Philoctetes

There is a plant
Which to my wound gives some relief; I must
Have that.

Neoptolemus

Is there aught else?

Philoctetes

Alas! my bow
I had forgot. I must not lose that treasure.

[Philoctetes steps into the cave, and brings out his bow and arrows.]

Neoptolemus

Are these the famous arrows then?

Philoctetes

They are.

Neoptolemus

And may I be permitted to behold,
To touch, to pay my adoration to them?

Philoctetes

In these, my son, in everything that’s mine
Thou hast a right,

Neoptolemus

But if it be a crime,
I would not; otherwise —

Philoctetes

Oh! thou art full
Of piety; in thee it is no crime;
In thee, my friend, by whom alone I look
Once more with pleasure on the radiant sun —
By whom I live — who giv’st me to return
To my dear father, to my friends, my country:
Sunk as I was beneath my foes, once more
I rise to triumph o’er them by thy aid:
Behold them, touch them, but return them to me,
And boast that virtue which on thee alone
Bestowed such honour. Virtue made them mine.
I can deny thee nothing: he, whose heart
Is grateful can alone deserve the name
Of friend, to every treasure far superior.

Neoptolemus

Go in.

Philoctetes

Come with me; for my painful wound
Requires thy friendly hand to help me onward.

[They go into the cave.]

Chorus

[singing]

[strophe 1]

Since proud Ixion, doomed to feel
The tortures of th’ eternal wheel,
Bound by the hand of angry Jove,
Received the due rewards of impious love;
Ne’er was distress so deep or woe so great
As on the wretched Philoctetes wait;
Who ever with the just and good,
Guiltless of fraud and rapine, stood,
And the fair paths of virtue still pursued;
Alone on this inhospitable shore,
Where waves for ever beat and tempests roar,
How could he e’er or hope or comfort know,
Or painful life support beneath such weight of woe?

[antistrophe 1]

Exposed to the inclement skies,
Deserted and forlorn he lies,
No friend or fellow-mourner there
To soothe his sorrows and divide his care,
Or seek the healing plant of power to ’suage
His aching wound and mitigate its rage;
But if perchance, awhile released
From torturing pain, he sinks to rest,
Awakened soon, and by sharp hunger prest,
Compelled to wander forth in search of food,
He crawls in anguish to the neighbouring wood;
Even as the tottering infant in despair
Who mourns an absent mother’s kind supporting care.

[strophe 2]

The teeming earth, who mortals still supplies
With every good, to him her seed denies;
A stranger to the joy that flows
From the kind aid which man on man bestows;
Nor food, alas! to him was given,
Save when his arrows pierced the birds of heaven;
Nor e’er did Bacchus’ heart-expanding bow!
For ten long years relieve his cheerless soul;
But glad was he his eager thirst to slake
In the unwholesome pool, or ever-stagnant lake.

[antistrophe 2]

But now, behold the joyful captive freed;
A fairer fate, and brighter days succeed:
For he at last hath found a friend
Of noblest race, to save and to defend,
To guide him with protecting hand,
And safe restore him to his native land;
On Spercheius’ flowery banks to join the throng
Of Malian nymphs, and lead the choral song
On Oeta’s top, which saw Alcides rise,
And from the flaming pile ascend his native skies.

[Neoptolemus and Philoctetes enter from the cave. Philoctetes is suddenly seized with spasms of pain. He still holds in his hand the bow and arrows.]

Neoptolemus

Come, Philoctetes; why thus silent? Wherefore
This sudden terror on thee?

Philoctetes

Oh!

Neoptolemus

Whence is it?

Philoctetes

Nothing, my son; go on!

Neoptolemus

Is it thy wound
That pains thee thus?

Philoctetes

No; I am better now.
O gods!

Neoptolemus

Why dost thou call thus on the gods?

Philoctetes

To smile propitious, and preserve us — Oh!

Neoptolemus

Thou art in misery. Tell me — wilt thou not?
What is it?

Philoctetes

O my son! I can no longer
Conceal it from thee. Oh! I die, I perish;
By the great gods let me implore thee, now
This moment, if thou hast a sword. oh! strike,
Cut off this painful limb, and end my being!

Neoptolemus

What can this mean, that unexpected thus
It should torment thee?

Philoctetes

Know you not, my son?

Neoptolemus

What is the cause?

Philoctetes

Can you not guess it?

Neoptolemus

No.

Philoctetes

Nor I.

Neoptolemus

That’s stranger still.

Philoctetes

My son, my son

Neoptolemus

This new attack is terrible indeed!

Philoctetes

’Tis inexpressible! Have pity on me!

Neoptolemus

What shall I do?

Philoctetes

Do not be terrified,
And leave me. Its returns are regular,
And like the traveller, when its appetite
Is satisfied, it will depart. Oh! oh!

Neoptolemus

Thou art oppressed with ills on every side.
Give me thy hand. Come, wilt thou lean upon me?

Philoctetes

No; but these arrows take; preserve ’em for me.
A little while, till I grow better. Sleep
Is coming on me, and my pains will cease.
Let me be quiet. If meantime our foes
Surprise thee, let nor force nor artifice
Deprive thee of the great, the precious trust
I have reposed in thee; that were ruin
To thee, and to thy friend.

Neoptolemus

Be not afraid —
No hands but mine shall touch them; give them to me.

Philoctetes

Receive them, son; and let it be thy prayer
They bring not woes on thee, as they have done
To me and to Alcides.

[Philoctetes gives him the bow and arrows.]

Neoptolemus

May the gods
Forbid it ever! May they guide our course
And speed our prosperous sails!

Philoctetes

Alas! my son,
I fear thy vows are vain. Behold my blood
Flows from the wound? Oh how it pains me! Now
It comes, it hastens! Do not, do not leave me!
Oh! that Ulysses felt this racking torture,
E’en to his inmost soul! Again it comes!
O Agamemnon! Menelaus! why
Should not you bear these pangs as I have done?
O death! where art thou, death? so often called,
Wilt thou not listen? wilt thou never come?
Take thou the Lemnian fire, my generous friend,
Do me the same kind office which I did
For my Alcides. These are thy reward;
He gave them to me. Thou alone deservest
The great inheritance. What says my friend?
What says my dear preserver? Oh! where art thou?

Neoptolemus

I mourn thy hapless fate.

Philoctetes

Be of good cheer,
Quick my disorder comes, and goes as soon;
I only beg thee not to leave me here.

Neoptolemus

Depend on ’t, I will stay.

Philoctetes

Wilt thou indeed?

Neoptolemus

Trust me, I will.

Philoctetes

I need not bind thee to it
By oath.

Neoptolemus

Oh, no! ’twere impious to forsake thee.

Philoctetes

Give me thy hand, and pledge thy faith.

Neoptolemus

I do.

Philoctetes

[pointing up to heaven]

Thither, oh, thither lead!

Neoptolemus

What sayst thou? where?

Philoctetes

Above —

Neoptolemus

What, lost again? Why lookst thou thus
On that bright circle?

Philoctetes

Let me, let me go!

Neoptolemus

[lays hold of him]

Where wouldst thou go?

Philoctetes

Loose me.

Neoptolemus

I will not.

Philoctetes

Oh!
You’ll kill me, if you do not.

Neoptolemus

[lets him go]

There, then; now
Is thy mind better?

Philoctetes

Oh! receive me, earth!
Receive a dying man. Here must I lie;
For, oh! my pain’s so great I cannot rise.

[Philoctetes sinks down on the earth near the entrance of the cave.]

Neoptolemus

Sleep hath o’ertaken him. See, his head is lain
On the cold earth; the balmy sweat thick drops
From every limb, and from the broken vein
Flows the warm blood; let us indulge his slumbers.

Chorus

[singing]

Sleep, thou patron of mankind,
Great physician of the mind,
Who dost nor pain nor sorrow know,
Sweetest balm of every woe,
Mildest sovereign, hear us now;
Hear thy wretched suppliant’s vow;
His eyes in gentle slumbers close,
And continue his repose;
Hear thy wretched suppliant’s vow,
Great physician, hear us now.
And now, my son, what best may suit thy purpose
Consider well, and how we are to act.
What more can we expect? The time is come;
For better far is opportunity
Seized at the lucky hour than all the counsels
Which wisdom dictates or which craft inspires.

Neoptolemus

[chanting]

He hears us not. But easy as it is
To gain the prize, it would avail us nothing
Were he not with us. Phoebus hath reserved
For him alone the crown of victory;
But thus to boast of what we could not do,
And break our word, were most disgraceful to us.

Chorus

[singing]

The gods will guide us, fear it not, my son;
But what thou sayst speak soft, for well thou knowst
The sick man’s sleep is short. He may awake
And hear us; therefore let us hide our purpose.
If then thou thinkst as he does — thou knowst whom —
This is the hour. At such a time, my son,
The wisest err. But mark me, the wind’s fair,
And Philoctetes sleeps, void of all help —
Lame, impotent, unable to resist,
He is as one among the dead. E’en now
We’ll take him with us. ’Twere an easy task.
Leave it to me, my son. There is no danger.

Neoptolemus

No more! His eyes are open. See, he moves.

Philoctetes

[awaking]

O fair returning light! beyond my hope;
You too, my kind preservers! O my son!
I could not think thou wouldst have stayed so long
In kind compassion to thy friend. Alas!
The Atreidae never would have acted thus.
But noble is thy nature, and thy birth,
And therefore little did my wretchedness,
Nor from my wounds the noisome stench deter
Thy generous heart. I have a little respite;
Help me, my son I I’ll try to rise; this weakness
Will leave me soon, and then we’ll go together.

Neoptolemus

I little thought to find thee thus restored.
Trust me, I joy to see thee free from pain,
And hear thee speak; the marks of death were on thee,
Raise thyself up; thy friends here, if thou wilt,
Shall carry thee, ’twill be no burthen to them
If we request it.

Philoctetes

No; thy hand alone;
I will not trouble them; ’twill be enough
If they can bear with me and my distemper
When we embark.

Neoptolemus

Well, be it so; but rise.

Philoctetes

[rising]

Oh I never fear; I’ll rise as well as ever.

Neoptolemus

[half to himself]

How shall I act?

Philoctetes

What says my son?

Neoptolemus

Alas!
I know not what to say; my doubtful mind —

Philoctetes

Talked you of doubts? You did not surely.

Neoptolemus

Aye,
That’s my misfortune.

Philoctetes

Is then my distress
The cause at last you will not take me with you?

Neoptolemus

All is distress and misery when we act
Against our nature and consent to ill.

Philoctetes

But sure to help a good man in misfortunes
Is not against thy nature.

Neoptolemus

Men will call me
A villain; that distracts me.

Philoctetes

Not for this;
For what thou meanst to do thou mayst deserve it

Neoptolemus

What shall I do? Direct me, Jove! To hide
What I should speak, and tell a base untruth
Were double guilt.

Philoctetes

He purposes at last,
I fear it much, to leave me.

Neoptolemus

Leave thee! No!
But how to make thee go with pleasure hence,
There I’m distressed.

Philoctetes

I understand thee not;
What means my son?

Neoptolemus

I can no longer hide
The dreadful secret from thee; thou art going
To Troy, e’en to the Greeks, to the Atreidae.

Philoctetes

Alas! what sayest thou?

Neoptolemus

Do not weep, but hear me.

Philoctetes

What must I hear? what wilt thou do with me?

Neoptolemus

First set thee free; then carry thee, my friend,
To conquer Troy.

Philoctetes

Is this indeed thy purpose?

Neoptolemus

This am I bound to do.

Philoctetes

Then am I lost,
Undone, betrayed. Canst thou, my friend, do this?
Give me my arms again.

Neoptolemus

It cannot be.
I must obey the powers who sent me hither;
justice enjoins — the common cause demands it,

Philoctetes

Thou worst of men, thou vile artificer
Of fraud most infamous, what hast thou done?
How have I been deceived? Dost thou not blush
To look upon me, to behold me thus
Beneath thy feet imploring? Base betrayer!
To rob me of my bow, the means of life,
The only means — give ’em, restore ’em to me!
Do not take all Alas Alas! he hears me not,
Nor deigns to speak, but casts an angry look
That says I never shall be free again.
O mountains, rivers, rocks, and savage herds!
To you I speak — to you alone I now
Must breathe my sorrows; you are wont to hear
My sad complaints, and I will tell you all
That I have suffered from Achilles’ son,
Who, bound by solemn oath to bear me hence
To my dear native soil, now sails for Troy.
The perjured wretch first gave his plighted hand,
Then stole the sacred arrows of my friend,
The son of Jove, the great Alcides; those
He means to show the Greeks, to snatch me hence
And boast his prize, as if poor Philoctetes,
This empty shade, were worthy of his arm.
Had I been what I was, he ne’er had thus
Subdued me, and e’en now to fraud alone
He owes the conquest. I have been betrayed!
Give me my arms again, and be thyself
Once more. Oh, speak! Thou wilt not? Then I’m lost.
O my poor hut! again I come to thee
Naked and destitute of food; once more
Receive me, here to die; for now, no longer
Shall my swift arrow reach the flying prey,
Or on the mountains pierce the wandering herd:
I shall myself afford a banquet now
To those I used to feed on — they the hunters,
And I their easy prey; so shall the blood
Which I so oft have shed be paid by mine;
And all this too from him whom once I deemed
Stranger to fraud nor capable of ill;
And yet I will not curse thee till I know
Whether thou still retainst thy horrid purpose,
Or dost repent thee of it; if thou dost not,
Destruction wait thee!

Leader of the Chorus

We attend your pleasure,
My royal lord, we must be gone; determine
To leave, or take him with us.

Neoptolemus

His distress
Doth move me much. Trust me, I long have felt
Compassion for him.

Philoctetes

Oh then by the gods
Pity me now, my son, nor let mankind
Reproach thee for a fraud so base.

Neoptolemus

Alas!
What shall I do? Would I were still at Scyros!
For I am most unhappy.

Philoctetes

O my son!
Thou art not base by nature, but misguided
By those who are, to deeds unworthy of thee.
Turn then thy fraud on them who best deserve it;
Restore my arms, and leave me.

Neoptolemus

Speak, my friends,
What’s to be done?

[Ulysses enters suddenly.]

Ulysses

Ah! dost thou hesitate?
Traitor, be gone! Give me the arms.

Philoctetes

Ah me!
Ulysses here?

Ulysses

Aye! ’tis Ulysses’ self
That stands before thee.

Philoctetes

Then I’m lost, betrayed!
This was the cruel spoiler.

Ulysses

Doubt it not.
’Twas I; I do confess it.

Philoctetes

[to Neoptolemus]

O my son!
Give me them back.

Ulysses

It must not be; with them
Thyself must go, or we shall drag thee hence.

Philoctetes

And will they force me? O thou daring villain!

Ulysses

They will, unless thou dost consent to go.

Philoctetes

Wilt thou, O Lemnos! wilt thou, mighty Vulcan!
With thy all-conquering fire, permit me thus
To be torn from thee?

Ulysses

Know, great Jove himself
Doth here preside. He hath decreed thy fate;
I but perform his will.

Philoctetes

Detested wretch,
Mak’st thou the gods a cover for thy crime?
Do they teach falsehood?

Ulysses

No, they taught me truth,
And therefore, hence — that way thy journey lies.

[Pointing to the sea]

Philoctetes

It doth not.

Ulysses

But I say it must be so.

Philoctetes

And Philoctetes then was born a slave!
I did not know it,

Ulysses

No; I mean to place thee
E’en with the noblest, e’en with those by whom
Proud Troy must perish.

Philoctetes

Never will I go,
Befall what may, whilst this deep cave is open
To bury all my sorrows.

Ulysses

What wouldst do?

Philoctetes

Here throw me down, dash out my desperate brains
Against this rock, and sprinkle it with my blood.

Ulysses

[to the Chorus]

Seize, and prevent him!

[They seize him.]

Philoctetes

Manacled! O hands!
How helpless are you now! those arms, which once
Protected, thus torn from you! [To Ulysses]
Thou abandoned,
Thou shameless wretch! from whom nor truth nor justice,
Naught that becomes the generous mind, can flow,
How hast thou used me! how betrayed! Suborned
This stranger, this poor youth, who, worthier far
To be my friend than thine, was only here
Thy instrument; he knew not what he did,
And now, thou seest, repents him of the crime
Which brought such guilt on him, such woes on me.
But thy foul soul, which from its dark recess
Trembling looks forth, beheld him void of art,
Unwilling as he was, instructed him,
And made him soon a master in deceit.
I am thy prisoner now; e’en now thou meanst
To drag me hence, from this unhappy shore,
Where first thy malice left me, a poor exile,
Deserted, friendless, and though living, dead
To all mankind. Perish the vile betrayer!
Oh! I have cursed thee often, but the gods
Will never bear the prayers of Philoctetes.
Life and its joys are thine, whilst I, unhappy,
Am but the scorn of thee, and the Atreidae,
Thy haughty masters. Fraud and force compelled thee,
Or thou hadst never sailed with them to Troy.
I lent my willing aid; with seven brave ships
I ploughed the main to serve them. In return
They cast me forth, disgraced me, left me here.
Thou sayst they did it; they impute the crime
To thee. And what will you do with me now?
And whither must I go? What end, what purpose
Could urge thee to it? I am nothing, lost
And dead already. Wherefore — tell me, wherefore? —
Am I not still the same detested burthen,
Loathsome and lame? Again must Philoctetes
Disturb your holy rites? If I am with you
How can you make libations? That was once
Your vile pretence for inhumanity.
Oh! may you perish for the deed! The gods
Will grant it sure, if justice be their care
And that it is I know. You had not left
Your native soil to seek a wretch like me
Had not some impulse from the powers above,
Spite of yourselves, ordained it. O my country!
And you, O gods! who look upon this deed,
Punish, in pity to me, punish all
The guilty band! Could I behold them perish,
My wounds were nothing; that would heal them all.

Leader

[to Ulysses]

Observe, my lord, what bitterness of soul
His words express; he bends not to misfortune,
But seems to brave it.

Ulysses

I could answer him,
Were this a time for words; but now, no more
Than this — I act as best befits our purpose.
Where virtue, truth, and justice are required
Ulysses yields to none; I was not born
To be o’ercome, and yet submit to thee.
Let him remain. Thy arrows shall suffice;
We want thee not! Teucer can draw thy bow
As well as thou; myself with equal strength
Can aim the deadly shaft, with equal skill.
What could thy presence do? Let Lemnos keep thee.
Farewell! perhaps the honours once designed
For thee may be reserved to grace Ulysses.

Philoctetes

Alas! shall Greece then see my deadliest foe
Adorned with arms which I alone should bear?

Ulysses

No more! I must be gone.

Philoctetes

[to Neoptolemus]

Son of Achilles,
Thou wilt not leave me too? I must not lose
Thy converse, thy assistance.

Ulysses

[to Neoptolemus]

Look not on him;
Away, I charge thee! ’Twould be fatal to us.

Philoctetes

[to the Chorus]

Will you forsake me, friends? Dwells no compassion
Within your breasts for me?

Leader

[pointing to Neoptolemus]

He is our master;
We speak and act but as his will directs.

Neoptolemus

I know be will upbraid me for this weakness,
But ’tis my nature, and I must consent,
Since Philoctetes asks it. Stay you with him,
Till to the gods our pious prayers we offer,
And all things are prepared for our departure;
Perhaps, meantime, to better thoughts his mind
May turn relenting. We must go. Remember,
When we shall call you, follow instantly.

[Neoptolemus, still with the bow in his hands, goes out with Ulysses. The lines in the following scene between Philoctetes and the Chorus are chanted responsively.]

Philoctetes

O my poor hut! and is it then decreed
Again I come to thee to part no more,
To end my wretched days in this sad cave,
The scene of all my woes? For whither now
Can I betake me? Who will feed, support,
Or cherish Philoctetes? Not a hope
Remains for me. Oh! that th’ impetuous storms
Would bear me with them to some distant clime!
For I must perish here.

Chorus

Unhappy man!
Thou hast provoked thy fate; thyself alone
Art to thyself a foe, to scorn the good,
Which wisdom bids thee take, and choose misfortune.

Philoctetes

Wretch that I am, to perish here alone!
Oh! I shall see the face of man no more,
Nor shall my arrows pierce their winged prey,
And bring me sustenance! Such vile delusions
Used to betray me! Oh! that pains like those
I feel might reach the author of my woes!

Chorus

The gods decreed it; we are not to blame.
Heap not thy curses therefore on the guiltless,
But take our friendship.

Philoctetes

[pointing to the sea-shore]

I behold him there;
E’en now I see him laughing me to scorn
On yonder shore, and in his hands the darts
He waves triumphant, which no arms but these
Had ever borne. O my dear glorious treasure!
Hadst thou a mind to feel th’ indignity,
How wouldst thou grieve to change thy noble master,
The friend of great Alcides, for a wretch
So vile, so base, so impious as Ulysses!

Chorus

Justice will ever rule the good man’s tongue,
Nor from his lips reproach and bitterness
Invidious flow. Ulysses, by the voice
Of Greece appointed, only sought a friend
To join the common cause, and serve his country.

Philoctetes

Hear me, ye winged inhabitants of air,
And you, who on these mountains love to feed,
My savage prey, whom once I could pursue;
Fearful no more of Philoctetes, fly
This hollow rock — I cannot hurt you now;
You need not dread to enter here. Alas!
You now may come, and in your turn regale
On these poor limbs, when I shall be no more.
Where can I hope for food? or who can breathe
This vital air, when life-preserving earth
No longer will assist him?

Chorus

By the gods!
Let me entreat thee, if thou dost regard
Our master, and thy friend, come to him now,
Whilst thou mayst ’scape this sad calamity;
Who but thyself would choose to be unhappy
That could prevent it?

Philoctetes

Oh! you have brought back
Once more the sad remembrance of my griefs;
Why, why, my friends, would you afflict me thus?

Chorus

Afflict thee — how?

Philoctetes

Think you I’ll e’er return
To hateful Troy?

Chorus

We would advise thee to it.

Philoctetes

I’ll hear no more. Go, leave me!

Chorus

That we shall
Most gladly. To the ships, my friends; away! [Going]
Obey your orders.

Philoctetes

[stops them]

By protecting Jove,
Who hears the suppliant’s prayer, do not forsake me!

Chorus

[returning]

Be calm then.

Philoctetes

O my friends! will you then stay?
Do, by the gods I beg you.

Chorus

Why that groan?

Philoctetes

Alas! I die. My wound, my wound! Hereafter
What can I do? You will not leave me! Hear —

Chorus

What canst thou say we do not know already?

Philoctetes

O’erwhelmed by such a storm of griefs as I am,
You should not thus resent a madman’s frenzy.

Chorus

Comply then and be happy.

Philoctetes

Never, never!
Be sure of that. Tho’ thunder-bearing Jove
Should with his lightnings blast me, would I go?
No! Let Troy perish, perish all the host
Who sent me here to die; but, O my friends!
Grant me this last request.

Chorus

What is it? Speak.

Philoctetes

A sword, a dart, some instrument of death.

Chorus

What wouldst thou do?

Philoctetes

I’d hack off every limb.
Death, my soul longs for death.

Chorus

But wherefore is it?

Philoctetes

I’ll seek my father.

Chorus

Whither?

Philoctetes

In the tomb;
There he must be. O Scyros! O my country!
How could I bear to see thee as I am —
I who had left thy sacred shores to aid
The hateful sons of Greece? O misery!

[He goes into the cave.]

Leader of the Chorus

[speaking]

Ere now we should have taken thee to our ships,
But that advancing this way I behold
Ulysses, and with him Achilles’ son.

[Neoptolemus enters still carrying the bow; he is followed closely by Ulysses.]

Ulysses

Why this return? Wherefore this haste?

Neoptolemus

I come
To purge me of my crimes.

Ulysses

Indeed! What crimes?

Neoptolemus

My blind obedience to the Grecian host
And to thy counsels.

Ulysses

Hast thou practised aught
Base or unworthy of thee?

Neoptolemus

Yes; by art
And vile deceit betrayed th’ unhappy.

Ulysses

Whom?
Alas! what mean you?

Neoptolemus

Nothing. But the son
Of Poeas —

Ulysses

Ha! what wouldst thou do? My heart
Misgives me.

Neoptolemus

I have ta’en his arms, and now —

Ulysses

Thou wouldst restore them! Speak! Is that thy purpose?
Almighty Jove!

Neoptolemus

Unjustly should I keep
Another’s right?

Ulysses

Now, by the gods, thou meanest
To mock me! Dost thou not?

Neoptolemus

If to speak truth
Be mockery.

Ulysses

And does Achilles’ son
Say this to me?

Neoptolemus

Why force me to repeat
My words so often to thee?

Ulysses

Once to hear them
Is once indeed too much.

Neoptolemus

Doubt then no more,
For I have told thee all.

Ulysses

There are, remember,
There are who may prevent thee.

Neoptolemus

Who shall dare
To thwart my purpose?

Ulysses

All the Grecian host,
And with them, I.

Neoptolemus

Wise as thou art, Ulysses,
Thou talkst most idly.

Ulysses

Wisdom is not thine
Either in word or deed.

Neoptolemus

Know, to be just
Is better far than to be wise.

Ulysses

But where,
Where is the justice, thus unauthorized,
To give a treasure back thou ow’st to me,
And to my counsels?

Neoptolemus

I have done a wrong,
And I will try to make atonement for it.

Ulysses

Dost thou not fear the power of Greece?

Neoptolemus

I fear
Nor Greece nor thee, when I am doing right.

Ulysses

’Tis not with Troy then we contend. but thee —

Neoptolemus

I know not that.

Ulysses

Seest thou this hand? behold,
It grasps my sword.

Neoptolemus

Mine is alike prepared,
Nor seeks delay.

Ulysses

But I will let thee go;
Greece shall know all thy guilt, and shall revenge it.

[Ulysses departs.]

Neoptolemus

’Twas well determined; always be as wise
As now thou art, and thou mayst live in safety.

[He approaches the cave and calls.]

Ho! son of Poeas! Philoctetes, leave
Thy rocky habitation, and come forth.

Philoctetes

[from the cave]

What noise was that? Who calls on Philoctetes?

[He comes out.]

Alas! what would you, strangers? Are you come
To heap fresh miseries on me?

Neoptolemus

Be of comfort,
And bear the tidings which I bring.

Philoctetes

I dare not;
Thy flattering tongue hath betrayed me.

Neoptolemus

And is there then no room for penitence?

Philoctetes

Such were thy words, when, seemingly sincere,
Yet meaning ill, thou stolst my arms away.

Neoptolemus

But now it is not so. I only came
To know if thou art resolute to stay,
Or sail with us.

Philoctetes

No more of that; ’tis vain
And useless all.

Neoptolemus

Art thou then fixed?

Philoctetes

I am;
It is impossible to say how firmly.

Neoptolemus

I thought I could have moved thee, but I’ve done.

Philoctetes

’Tis well thou hast; thy labour had been vain;
For never could my soul esteem the man
Who robbed me of my dearest, best possession,
And now would have me listen to his counsels —
Unworthy offspring of the best of men!
Perish th’ Atreidae! perish first Ulysses!
Perish thyself!

Neoptolemus

Withhold thy imprecations,
And take thy arrows back.

Philoctetes

A second time
Wouldst thou deceive me?

Neoptolemus

By th’ almighty power
Of sacred Jove I swear.

Philoctetes

O joyful sound!
If thou sayst truly.

Neoptolemus

Let my actions speak.
Stretch forth thy hand, and take thy arms again.

[As Neoptolemus gives the bow and arrows to Philoctetes, Ulysses suddenly enters.]

Ulysses

Witness ye gods! Here, in the name of Greece
And the Atreidae, I forbid it.

Philoctetes

Ha!
What voice is that? Ulysses’?

Ulysses

Aye, ’tis I—
I who perforce will carry thee to Troy
Spite of Achilles’ son.

Philoctetes

[He aims an arrow directly at Ulysses.]

Not if I aim
This shaft aright.

Neoptolemus

[laying hold of him]

Now, by the gods, I beg thee
Stop thy rash hand!

Philoctetes

Let go my arm.

Neoptolemus

I will not.

Philoctetes

Shall I not slay my enemy?

Neoptolemus

Oh, no!
’Twould cast dishonour on us both.

[Ulysses hastily departs.]

Philoctetes

Thou knowst,
These Grecian chiefs are loud pretending boasters,
Brave but in tongue, and cowards in the field.

Neoptolemus

I know it; but remember, I restored
Thy arrows to thee, and thou hast no cause
For rage or for complaint against thy friend.

Philoctetes

I own thy goodness. Thou hast shown thyself
Worthy thy birth; no son of Sisyphus,
But of Achilles, who on earth preserved
A fame unspotted, and amongst the dead
Still shines superior, an illustrious shade.

Neoptolemus

Joyful I thank thee for a father’s praise,
And for my own; but listen to my words,
And mark me well. Misfortunes, which the gods
Inflict on mortals, they perforce must bear:
But when, oppressed by voluntary woes,
They make themselves unhappy, they deserve not
Our pity or our pardon. Such art thou.
Thy savage soul, impatient of advice,
Rejects the wholesome counsel of thy friend,
And treats him like a foe; but I will speak,
Jove be my witness! Therefore hear my words,
And grave them in thy heart. The dire disease
Thou long hast suffered is from angry heaven,
Which thus afflicts thee for thy rash approach
To the fell serpent, which on Chrysa’s shore
Watched o’er the sacred treasures. Know beside,
That whilst the sun in yonder east shall rise,
Or in the west decline, distempered still
Thou ever shalt remain, unless to Troy
Thy willing mind transport thee. There the sons
Of Aesculapius shall restore thee — there
By my assistance shalt thou conquer Troy.
I know it well; for that prophetic sage,
The Trojan captive Helenus, foretold
It should be so. “Proud Troy (he added then)
This very year must fall; if not, my life
Shall answer for the falsehood.” Therefore yield.
Thus to be deemed the first of Grecians, thus
By Poeas’ favourite sons to be restored,
And thus marked out the conqueror of Troy,
Is sure distinguished happiness.

Philoctetes

O life!
Detested, why wilt thou still keep me here?
Why not dismiss me to the tomb! Alas!
What can I do? How can I disbelieve
My generous friend? I must consent, and yet
Can I do this, and look upon the sun?
Can I behold my friends — will they forgive,
Will they associate with me after this?
And you, ye heavenly orbs that roll around me,
How will ye bear to see me linked with those
Who have destroyed me, e’en the sons of Atreus,
E’en with Ulysses, source of all my woes?
My sufferings past I could forget; but oh!
I dread the woes to come; for well I know
When once the mind’s corrupted it brings forth
Unnumbered crimes, and ills to ills succeed.
It moves my wonder much that thou, my friend,
Shouldst thus advise me, whom it ill becomes
To think of Troy. I rather had believed
Thou wouldst have sent me far, far off from those
Who have defrauded thee of thy just right,
And gave thy arms away. Are these the men
Whom thou wouldst serve? whom thou wouldst thus compel me
To save and to defend? It must not be.
Remember, O my son! the solemn oath
Thou gav’st to bear me to my native soil.
Do this, my friend, remain thyself at Scyros,
And leave these wretches to be wretched still.
Thus shalt thou merit double thanks, from me
And from thy father; nor by succour given
To vile betrayers prove thyself as vile.

Neoptolemus

Thou sayst most truly. Yet confide in heaven,
Trust to thy friend, and leave this hated place.

Philoctetes

Leave it! For whom? For Troy and the Atreidae?
These wounds forbid it.

Neoptolemus

They shall all be healed,
Where I will carry thee.

Philoctetes

An idle tale
Thou tellst me. surely; dost thou not?

Neoptolemus

I speak
What best may serve us both.

Philoctetes

But, speaking thus,
Dost thou not fear the’ offended gods?

Neoptolemus

Why fear them?
Can I offend the gods by doing good?

Philoctetes

What good? To whom? To me or to the’ Atreidae?

Neoptolemus

I am thy friend, and therefore would persuade thee.

Philoctetes

And therefore give me to my foes.

Neoptolemus

Alas!
Let not misfortunes thus transport thy soul
To rage and bitterness.

Philoctetes

Thou wouldst destroy me.

Neoptolemus

Thou knowst me not.

Philoctetes

I know th’ Atreidae well,
Who left me here.

Neoptolemus

They did; yet they perhaps,
E’en they, O Philoctetes! may preserve thee.

Philoctetes

I never will to Troy.

Neoptolemus

What’s to be done?
Since I can ne’er persuade thee, I submit;
Live on in misery.

Philoctetes

Then let me suffer;
Suffer I must; but, oh! perform thy promise;
Think on thy plighted faith, and guard me home
Instant, my friend, nor ever call back Troy
To my remembrance; I have felt enough
From Troy already.

Neoptolemus

Let us go; prepare!

Philoctetes

O glorious sound!

Neoptolemus

Bear thyself up.

Philoctetes

I will,
If possible.

Neoptolemus

But how shall I escape
The wrath of Greece?

Philoctetes

Oh! think not of it.

Neoptolemus

What
If they should waste my kingdom?

Philoctetes

I’ll be there.

Neoptolemus

Alas! what canst thou do?

Philoctetes

And with these arrows
Of my Alcides —

Neoptolemus

Ha! What sayst thou?

Philoctetes

Drive
Thy foes before me. Not a Greek shall dare
Approach thy borders.

Neoptolemus

If thou wilt do this,
Salute the earth, and instant hence. Away!

[Hercules appears from above, and speaks as he moves forward.]

Hercules

Stay, son of Poeas! Lo to thee ’tis given
Once more to see and hear thy loved Alcides,
Who for thy sake hath left yon heavenly mansions,
And comes to tell thee the decrees of Jove;
To turn thee from the paths thou meanst to tread,
And guide thy footsteps right. Therefore attend.
Thou knowst what toils, what labours I endured,
Ere I by virtue gained immortal fame;
Thou too like me by toils must rise to glory —
Thou too must suffer, ere thou canst be happy;
Hence with thy friend to Troy, where honour calls,
Where health awaits thee — where, by virtue raised
To highest rank, and leader of the war,
Paris, its hateful author, shalt thou slay,
Lay waste proud Troy, and send thy trophies home,
Thy valour’s due reward, to glad thy sire
On Oeta’s top. The gifts which Greece bestows
Must thou reserve to grace my funeral pile,
And be a monument to after-ages
Of these all-conquering arms. Son of Achilles

[Turning to Neoptolemus]

(For now to thee I speak), remember this,
Without his aid thou canst not conquer Troy,
Nor Philoctetes without thee succeed;
Go then, and, like two lions in the field
Roaming for prey, guard ye each other well;
My Aesculapius will I send e’en now
To heal thy wounds — Then go, and conquer Troy;
But when you lay the vanquished city waste.
Be careful that you venerate the gods;
For far above all other gifts doth Jove,
Th’ almighty father, hold true piety:
Whether we live or die, that still survives
Beyond the reach of fate, and is immortal.

Philoctetes

[chanting]

Once more to let me hear that wished-for voice,
To see thee after so long time, was bliss
I could not hope for. Oh! I will obey
Thy great commands most willingly.

Neoptolemus

[chanting]

And I.

Hercules

[chanting]

Delay not then. For lo! a prosperous wind
Swells in thy sail. The time invites. Adieu!

[Hercules disappears above.]

Philoctetes

[chanting]

I will but pay my salutations here,
And instantly depart. To thee, my cave,
Where I so long have dwelt, I bid farewell!
And you, ye nymphs, who on the watery plains
Deign to reside, farewell! Farewell the noise
Of beating waves, which I so oft have heard
From the rough sea, which by the black winds driven
O’erwhelmed me, shivering. Oft th’ Hermaean mount
Echoed my plaintive voice, by wintry storms
Afflicted, and returned me groan for groan.
Now, ye fresh fountains, each Lycaean spring,
I leave you now. Alas! I little thought
To leave you ever. And thou sea-girt isle,
Lemnos, farewell! Permit me to depart
By thee unblamed, and with a prosperous gale
To go where fate demands, where kindest friends
By counsel urge me, where all-powerful Jove
In his unerring wisdom hath decreed.

Chorus

[chanting]

Let us be gone, and to the ocean nymphs
Our humble prayers prefer, that they would all
Propitious smile, and grant us safe return.

Electra

Characters in the Play

Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra

Electra, Chrysothemis, sisters of Orestes

An Old Man, formerly the Paedagogus or Attendant of Orestes

Clytemnestra

Aegisthus

Chorus of Women of Mycenae

Mute Persons

Pylades, son of Strophius, King of Crisa, the friend Of Orestes.

A handmaid of Clytemnestra. Two attendants of Orestes

[Scene:— At Mycenae, before the palace of the Pelopidae. It is morning and the new-risen sun is bright. The Paedagogus enters on the left of the spectators, accompanied by the two youths, Orestes and Pylades.

Paedagogus

Son of him who led our hosts at Troy of old, son of Agamemnon! — now thou mayest behold with thine eyes all that thy soul hath desired so long. There is the ancient Argos of thy yearning, — that hallowed scene whence the gadfly drove the daughter of Inachus; and there, Orestes, is the Lycean Agora, named from the wolf-slaying god; there, on the left, Hera’s famous temple; and in this place to which we have come, deem that thou seest Mycenae rich in gold, with the house of the Pelopidae there, so often stained with bloodshed; whence I carried thee of yore, from the slaying of thy father, as thy kinswoman, thy sister, charged me; and saved thee, and reared thee up to manhood, to be the avenger of thy murdered sire.

Now, therefore, Orestes, and thou, best of friends, Pylades, our plans must be laid quickly; for lo, already the sun’s bright ray is waking the songs of the birds into clearness, and the dark night of stars is spent. Before, then, anyone comes forth from the house, take counsel; seeing that the time allows not of delay, but is full ripe for deeds.

Orestes

True friend and follower, how well dost thou prove thy loyalty to our house! As a steed of generous race, though old, loses not courage in danger, but pricks his ear, even so thou urgest us forward, and art foremost in our support. I will tell thee, then, what I have determined; listen closely to my words, and correct me, if I miss the mark in aught.

When I went to the Pythian oracle, to learn how I might avenge my father on his murderers, Phoebus gave me the response which thou art now to hear:— that alone, and by stealth, without aid of arms or numbers, I should snatch the righteous vengeance of my hand. Since, then, the god spake to us on this wise, thou must go into yonder house, when opportunity gives thee entrance, and learn all that is passing there, so that thou mayest report to us from sure knowledge. Thine age, and the lapse of time, will prevent them from recognising thee; they will never suspect who thou art, with that silvered hair. Let thy tale be that thou art a Phocian stranger, sent by Phanoteus; for he is the greatest of their allies. Tell them, and confirm it with thine oath, that Orestes hath perished by a fatal chance, — hurled at the Pythian games from his rapid chariot; be that the substance of thy story.

We, meanwhile, will first crown my father’s tomb, as the god enjoined, with drink-offerings and the luxuriant tribute of severed hair; then come back, bearing in our hands an urn of shapely bronze,-now hidden in the brushwood, as I think thou knowest, — so to gladden them with the false tidings that this my body is no more, but has been consumed with fire and turned to ashes. Why should the omen trouble me, when by a feigned death I find life indeed, and win renown? I trow, no word is ill-omened, if fraught with gain. Often ere now have I seen wise men die in vain report; then, when they return home, they are held in more abiding honour: as I trust that from this rumour I also shall emerge in radiant life, and yet shine like a star upon my foes.

O my fatherland, and ye gods of the land, receive me with good fortune in this journey, — and ye also, halls of my fathers, for I come with divine mandate to cleanse you righteously; send me not dishonoured from the land, but grant that I may rule over my possessions, and restore my house!

Enough; — be it now thy care, old man, to go and heed thy task; and we twain will go forth; for so occasion bids, chief ruler of every enterprise for men.

Electra

[within]

Ah me, ah me!

Paedagogus

Hark, my son, — from the doors, methought, came the sound of some handmaid moaning within.

Orestes

Can it be the hapless Electra? Shall we stay here, and listen to her laments?

Paedagogus

No, no: before all else, let us seek to obey the command of Loxias, and thence make a fair beginning, by pouring libations to thy sire; that brings victory within our grasp, and gives us the mastery in all that we do.

[Exeunt Paedagogus on the spectators’ left, Orestes and Pylades the right. — Enter Electra, from the house. She is meanly clad.]

Electra

[chanting]

[systema]

O thou pure sunlight, and thou air, earth’s canopy, how often have ye heard the strains of my lament, the wild blows dealt against this bleeding breast, when dark night fails! And my wretched couch in yonder house of woe knows well, ere now, how I keep the watches of the night, — how often I bewail my hapless sire; to whom deadly Ares gave not of his gifts in a strange land, but my mother, and her mate Aegisthus, cleft his head with murderous axe, as woodmen fell an oak. And for this no plaint bursts from any lip save mine, when thou, my father, hath died a death so cruel and so piteous!

[antisystema]

But never will I cease from dirge and sore lament, while I look on the trembling rays of the bright stars, or on this light of day; but like the nightingale, slayer of her offspring, I will wail without ceasing, and cry aloud to all, here, at the doors of my father.

O home of Hades and Persephone! O Hermes of the shades! potent Curse, and ye, dread daughters of the gods, Erinyes, — Ye who behold when a life is reft by violence, when a bed is dishonoured by stealth, — come, help me, avenge the murder of my sire, — and send to me my brother; for I have no more the strength to bear up alone against the load of grief that weighs me down.

[As Electra finishes her lament, the Chorus of Women of Mycenae enter. The following lines between Electra and the Chorus are chanted responsively.

Chorus

[strophe 1]

Ah, Electra, child of a wretched mother, why art thou ever pining thus in ceaseless lament for Agamemnon, who long ago was wickedly ensnared by thy false mother’s wiles, and betrayed to death by dastardly hand? Perish the author of that deed, if I may utter such prayer!

Electra

Ah, noble-hearted maidens, ye have come to soothe my woes. I know and feel it, it escapes me not; but I cannot leave this task undone, or cease from mourning for my hapless sire. Ah, friends whose love responds to mine in every mood, leave me to rave thus, — Oh leave me, I entreat you!

Chorus

[antistrophe 1]

But never by laments or prayers shalt thou recall thy sire from that lake of Hades to which all must pass. Nay, thine is a fatal course of grief, passing ever from due bounds into a cureless sorrow; wherein there is no deliverance from evils. Say, wherefore art thou enamoured of misery?

Electra

Foolish is the child who forgets a parent’s piteous death. No, dearer to my soul is the mourner that laments for Itys, Itys, evermore, that bird distraught with grief, the messenger of Zeus. Ah, queen of sorrow, Niobe, thee I deem divine, — thee, who evermore weepest in thy rocky tomb!

Chorus

[strophe 2]

Not to thee alone of mortals, my daughter, hath come any sorrow which thou bearest less calmly than those within, thy kinswomen and sisters, Chrysothemis and Iphianassa,I who still live, — as he, too, lives, sorrowing in a secluded youth, yet happy in that this famous realm of Mycenae shall one day welcome him to his heritage, when the kindly guidance of Zeus shall have brought him to this land, Orestes.

Electra

Yes, I wait for him with unwearied longing, as I move on my sad path from day to day, unwed and childless, bathed in tears, bearing that endless doom of woe; but he forgets all that he has suffered and heard. What message comes to me, that is not belied? He is ever yearning to be with us, but, though he yearns, he never resolves.

Chorus

[antistrophe 2]

Courage, my daughter, courage; great still in heaven is Zeus, who sees and governs all: leave thy bitter quarrel to him; forget not thy foes, but refrain from excess of wrath against them; for Time is god who makes rough ways smooth. Not heedless is the son of Agamemnon, who dwells by Crisa’s pastoral shore; not heedless is the god who reigns by Acheron.

Electra

Nay, the best part of life hath passed away from me in hopelessness, and I have no strength left; I, who am pining away without children, — whom no loving champion shields, — but, like some despised alien, I serve in the halls of my father, clad in this mean garb, and standing at a meagre board.

Chorus

[strophe 3]

Piteous was the voice heard at his return, and piteous, as thy sire lay on the festal couch, when the straight, swift blow was dealt him with the blade of bronze. Guile was the plotter, Lust the slayer, dread parents of a dreadful shape; whether it was mortal that wrought therein, or god.

Electra

O that bitter day, bitter beyond all that have come to me; O that night, O the horrors of that unutterable feast, the ruthless deathstrokes that my father saw from the hands of twain, who took my life captive by treachery, who doomed me to woe! May the great god of Olympus give them sufferings in requital, and never may their splendour bring them joy, who have done such deeds!

Chorus

[antistrophe 3]

Be advised to say no more; canst thou not see what conduct it is which already plunges thee so cruelly in self-made miseries? Thou hast greatly aggravated thy troubles, ever breeding wars with thy sullen soul; but such strife should not be pushed to a conflict with the strong.

Electra

I have been forced to it, — forced by dread causes; I know my own passion, it escapes me not; but, seeing that the causes are so dire, will never curb these frenzied plaints, while life is in me. Who indeed, ye kindly sisterhood, who that thinks aright, would deem that any word of solace could avail me? Forbear, forbear, my comforters! Such ills must be numbered with those which have no cure; I can never know a respite from my sorrows, or a limit to this wailing.

Chorus

[epode]

At least it is in love, like a true-hearted mother, that I dissuade thee from adding misery to miseries.

Electra

But what measure is there in my wretchedness? Say, how can it be right to neglect the dead? Was that impiety ever born in mortal? Never may I have praise of such; never when my lot is cast in pleasant places, may I cling to selfish ease, or dishonour my sire by restraining the wings of shrill lamentation!

For if the hapless dead is to lie in dust and nothingness, while the slayers pay not with blood for blood, all regard for man, all fear of heaven, will vanish from the earth.

Leader of the Chorus

I came, my child, in zeal for thy welfare no less than for mine own; but if I speak not well, then be it as thou wilt; for we will follow thee.

Electra

I am ashamed, my friends, if ye deem me too impatient for my oft complaining; but, since a hard constraint forces me to this, bear with me. How indeed could any woman of noble nature refrain, who saw the calamities of a father’s house, as I see them by day and night continually, not fading, but in the summer of their strength? I, who, first, from the mother that bore me have found bitter enmity; next, in mine own home I dwell with my father’s murderers; they rule over me, and with them it rests to give or to withhold what I need.

And then think what manner of days I pass, when I see Aegisthus sitting on my father’s throne, wearing the robes which he wore, and pouring libations at the hearth where he slew my sire; and when I see the outrage that crowns all, the murderer in our father’s bed at our wretched mother’s side, if mother she should be called, who is his wife; but so hardened is she that she lives with that accursed one, fearing no Erinys; nay, as if exulting in her deeds, having found the day on which she treacherously slew my father of old, she keeps it with dance and song, and month by month sacrifices sheep to the gods who have wrought her deliverance.

But I, hapless one, beholding it, weep and pine in the house, and bewail the unholy feast named after my sire, — weep to myself alone; since I may not even indulge my grief to the full measure of my yearning. For this woman, in professions so noble, loudly upbraids me with such taunts as these: ‘Impious and hateful girl, hast thou alone lost a father, and is there no other mourner in the world? An evil doom be thine, and may the gods infernal give thee no riddance from thy present laments.’

Thus she insults; save when any one brings her word that Orestes is coming: then, infuriated, she comes up to me, and cries; — ‘Hast not thou brought this upon me? Is not this deed thine, who didst steal Orestes from my hands, and privily convey him forth? Yet be sure that thou shalt have thy due reward.’ So she shrieks; and, aiding her, the renowned spouse at her side is vehement in the same strain, — that abject dastard, that utter pest, who fights his battles with the help of women. But I, looking ever for Orestes to come and end these woes, languish in my misery. Always intending to strike a blow, he has worn out every hope that I could conceive. In such a case, then, friends, there is no room for moderation or for reverence; in sooth, the stress of ills leaves no choice but to follow evil ways.

Leader

Say, is Aegisthus near while thou speakest thus, or absent from home?

Electra

Absent, certainly; do not think that I should have come to the doors, if he had been near; but just now he is afield.

Leader

Might I converse with thee more freely, if this is so?

Electra

He is not here, so put thy question; what wouldst thou?

Leader

I ask thee, then, what sayest thou of thy brother? Will he come soon, or is he delaying? I fain would know.

Electra

He promises to come; but he never fulfils the promise.

Leader

Yea, a man will pause on the verge of a great work.

Electra

And yet I saved him without pausing.

Leader

Courage; he is too noble to fail his friends.

Electra

I believe it; or I should not have lived so long.

Leader

Say no more now; for I see thy sister coming from the house, Chrysothemis, daughter of the same sire and mother, with sepulchral gifts in her hands, such as are given to those in the world below.

[Chrysothemis enters from the palace. She is richly dressed.]

Chrysothemis

Why, sister, hast thou come forth once more to declaim thus at the public doors? Why wilt thou not learn with any lapse of time to desist from vain indulgence of idle wrath? Yet this I know, — that I myself am — grieved at our plight; indeed, could I find the strength, I would show what love I bear them. But now, in these troubled waters, ’tis best, methinks, to shorten sail; I care not to seem active, without the power to hurt. And would that thine own conduct were the same! Nevertheless, right is on the side of thy choice, not of that which I advise; but if I am to live in freedom, our rulers must be obeyed in all things.

Electra

Strange indeed, that thou, the daughter of such a sire as thine, shouldst forget him, and think only of thy mother! All thy admonitions to me have been taught by her; no word is thine own. Then take thy choice, — to be imprudent; or prudent, but forgetful of thy friends: thou, who hast just said that, couldst thou find the strength, thou wouldst show thy hatred of them; yet, when I am doing my utmost to avenge my sire, thou givest no aid, but seekest to turn thy sister from her deed.

Does not this crown our miseries with cowardice? For tell me, — Or let me tell thee, — what I should gain by ceasing from these laments? Do not live? — miserably, I know, yet well enough for me. And I vex them, thus rendering honour to the dead, if pleasure can be felt in that world. But thou, who tellest me of thy hatred, hatest in word alone, while in deeds thou art with the slayers of thy sire. I, then, would never yield to them, though I were promised the gifts which now make thee proud; thine be the richly-spread table and the life of luxury. For me, be it food enough that I do not wound mine own conscience; I covet not such privilege as thine, — nor wouldst thou, wert thou wise. But now, when thou mightest be called daughter of the noblest father among men, be called the child of thy mother; so shall thy baseness be most widely seen, in betrayal of thy dead sire and of thy kindred.

Leader

No angry word, I entreat! For both of you there is good in what is urged, — if thou, Electra, wouldst learn to profit by her counsel, and she, again, by thine.

Chrysothemis

For my part, friends, I am not wholly unused to her discourse; nor should I have touched upon this theme, had I not heard that she was threatened with a dread doom, which shall restrain her from her long-drawn laments.

Electra

Come, declare it then, this terror! If thou canst tell me of aught worse than my present lot, I will resist no more.

Chrysothemis

Indeed, I will tell thee all that I know. They purpose, if thou wilt not cease from these laments, to send thee where thou shalt never look upon the sunlight, but pass thy days in a dungeon beyond the borders of this land, there to chant thy dreary strain. Bethink thee, then, and do not blame me hereafter, when the blow hath fallen; now is the time to be wise.

Electra

Have they indeed resolved to treat me thus?

Chrysothemis

Assuredly, whenever Aegisthus comes home.

Electra

If that be all, then may he arrive with speed!

Chrysothemis

Misguided one! what dire prayer is this?

Electra

That he may come, if he hath any such intent.

Chrysothemis

That thou mayst suffer — what? Where are thy wits?

Electra

That I may fly as far as may be from you all.

Chrysothemis

But hast thou no care for thy present life?

Electra

Aye, my life is marvellously fair.

Chrysothemis

It might be, couldst thou only learn prudence.

Electra

Do not teach me to betray my friends.

Chrysothemis

I do not, — but to bend before the strong.

Electra

Thine be such flattery: those are not my ways.

Chrysothemis

Tis well, however, not to fall by folly.

Electra

I will fall, if need be, in the cause of my sire.

Chrysothemis

But our father, I know, pardons me for this.

Electra

It is for cowards to find peace in such maxims.

Chrysothemis

So thou wilt not hearken, and take my counsel?

Electra

No, verily; long may be it before I am so foolish.

Chrysothemis

Then I will go forth upon mine errand.

Electra

And whither goest thou? To whom bearest thou these offerings?

Chrysothemis

Our mother sends me with funeral libations for our sire.

Electra

How sayest thou? For her deadliest foe?

Chrysothemis

Slain by her own hand — so thou wouldest say.

Electra

What friend hath persuaded her? Whose wish was this?

Chrysothemis

The cause, I think, was some dread vision of the night.

Electra

Gods of our house! be ye with me — now at last!

Chrysothemis

Dost thou find any encouragement in this terror?

Electra

If thou wouldst tell me the vision, then I could answer.

Chrysothemis

Nay, I can tell but little of the story.

Electra

Tell what thou canst; a little word hath often marred, or made, men’s fortunes.

Chrysothemis

’Tis said that she beheld our sire, restored to the sunlight, at her side once more; then he took the sceptre, — Once his own, but now borne by Aegisthus, — and planted it at the hearth; and thence a fruitful bough sprang upward, wherewith the whole land of Mycenae was overshadowed. Such was the tale that I heard told by one who was present when she declared her dream to the Sun-god. More than this I know not, — save that she sent me by reason of that fear. So by the gods of our house I beseech thee, hearken to me, and be not ruined by folly! For if thou repel me now, thou wilt come back to seek me in thy trouble.

Electra

Nay, dear sister, let none of these things in thy hands touch the tomb; for neither custom nor piety allows thee to dedicate gifts or bring libations to our sire from a hateful wife. No — to the winds with them or bury them deep in the earth, where none of them shall ever come near his place of rest; but, when she dies, let her find these treasures laid up for her below.

And were she not the most hardened of all women, she would never have sought to pour these offerings of enmity on the grave of him whom she slew. Think now if it is likely that the dead in the tomb should take these honours kindly at her hand, who ruthlessly slew him, like a foeman, and mangled him, and, for ablution, wiped off the blood-stains on his head? Canst thou believe that these things which thou bringest will absolve her of the murder?

It is not possible. No, cast these things aside; give him rather a lock cut from thine own tresses, and on my part, hapless that I am,-scant gifts these, but my best, — this hair, not glossy with unguents, and this girdle, decked with no rich ornament. Then fall down and pray that he himself may come in kindness from the world below, to aid us against our foes; and that the young Orestes may live to set his foot upon his foes in victorious might, that henceforth we may crown our father’s tomb with wealthier hands than those which grace it now.

I think, indeed, I think that he also had some part in sending her these appalling dreams; still, sister, do this service, to help thyself, and me, and him, that most beloved of all men, who rests in the realm of Hades, thy sire and mine.

Leader

The maiden counsels piously; and thou, friend, wilt do her bidding, if — thou art wise.

Chrysothemis

I will. When a duty is clear, reason forbids that two voices should contend, and claims the hastening of the deed. Only, when I attempt this task, aid me with your silence, I entreat you, my friends; for, should my mother hear of it, methinks I shall yet have cause to rue my venture.

[Chrysothemis departs, to take the offerings to Agamemnon’s grave.]

Chorus

[singing]

[strophe]

If I am not an erring seer and one who fails in wisdom, justice, that hath sent the presage, will come, triumphant in her righteous strength, — will come ere long, my child, to avenge. There is courage in my heart, through those new tidings of the dream that breathes comfort. Not forgetful is thy sire, the lord of Hellas; not forgetful is the two-edged axe of bronze that struck the blow of old, and slew him with foul cruelty.

[antistrophe]

The Erinys of untiring feet, who is lurking in her dread ambush, will come, as with the march and with the might of a great host. For wicked ones have been fired with passion that hurried them to a forbidden bed, to accursed bridals, to a marriage stained with guilt of blood. Therefore am I sure that the portent will not fail to bring woe upon the partners in crime. Verily mortals cannot read the future in fearful dreams or oracles, if this vision of the night find not due fulfilment.

[epode]

O chariot-race of Pelops long ago, source of many a sorrow, what weary troubles hast thou brought upon this land! For since Myrtilus sank to rest beneath the waves, when a fatal and cruel hand hurled him to destruction out of the golden car, this house was never yet free from misery and violence.

[Clytemnestra enters from the palace.]

Clytemnestra

At large once more, it seems, thou rangest, — for Aegisthus is not here, who always kept thee at least from passing the gates, to shame thy friends. But now, since he is absent, thou takest no heed of me, though thou hast said of me oft-times, and to many, that I am a bold and lawless tyrant, who insults thee and thine. I am guilty of no insolence; I do but return the taunts that I often hear from thee.

Thy father — this is thy constant pretext — was slain by me. Yes, by me — I know it well; it admits of no denial; for justice slew him, and not I alone, — justice, whom it became thee to support, hadst thou been right-minded; seeing that this father of thine, whom thou art ever lamenting, was the one man of the Greeks who had the heart to sacrifice thy sister to the gods — he, the father, who had not shared the mother’s pangs.

Come, tell me now, wherefore, or to please whom, did he sacrifice her? To please the Argives, thou wilt say? Nay, they had no right to slay my daughter. Or if, forsooth, it was to screen his brother Menelaus that he slew my child, was he not to pay me the penalty for that? Had not Menelaus two children, who should in fairness have been taken before my daughter, as sprung from the sire and mother who had caused that voyage? Or had Hades some strange desire to feast on my offspring, rather than on hers? Or had that accursed father lost all tenderness for the children of my womb, while he was tender to the children of Menelaus? Was not that the part of a callous and perverse parent? I think so, though differ from thy judgment; and so would say the dead, if she could speak. For myself, then, I view the past without dismay; but if thou deemest me perverse, see that thine own judgment is just, before thou blame thy neighbour.

Electra

This time thou canst not say that I have done anything to provoke such words from thee. But, if thou wilt give me leave, I fain would declare the truth, in the cause alike of my dead sire and of my sister.

Clytemnestra

Indeed, thou hast my leave; and didst thou always address me in such a tone, thou wouldst be heard without pain.

Electra

Then I will speak. Thou sayest that thou hast slain my father. What word could bring thee deeper shame than that, whether the deed was just or not? But I must tell thee that thy deed was not just; no, thou wert drawn on to it by the wooing of the base man who is now thy spouse.

Ask the huntress Artemis what sin she punished when she stayed the frequent winds at Aulis; or I will tell thee; for we may not learn from her. My father — so I have heard — was once disporting himself in the grove of the goddess, when his footfall startled a dappled and antlered stag; he shot it, and chanced to utter a certain boast concerning its slaughter. Wroth thereat, the daughter of Leto detained the Greeks, that, in quittance for the wild creature’s life, my father should yield up the life of his own child. Thus it befell that she was sacrificed; since the fleet had no other release, homeward or to Troy; and for that cause, under sore constraint and with sore reluctance, at last he slew her — not for the sake of Menelaus.

But grant — for I will take thine own plea — grant that the motive of his deed was to benefit his brother; — was that a reason for his dying by thy hand? Under what law? See that, in making such a law for men, thou make not trouble and remorse for thyself; for, if we are to take blood for blood, thou wouldst be the first to die, didst thou meet with thy desert.

But look if thy pretext is not false. For tell me, if thou wilt, wherefore thou art now doing the most shameless deeds of all, dwelling as wife with that blood-guilty one, who first helped thee to slay my sire, and bearing children to him, while thou hast cast out the earlier-born, the stainless offspring of a stainless marriage. How can I praise these things? Or wilt thou say that this, too, is thy vengeance for thy daughter? Nay, shameful plea, if so thou plead; ’tis not well to wed an enemy for a daughter’s sake.

But indeed I may not even counsel thee, — who shriekest that I revile my mother; and truly I think that to me thou art less a mother than mistress; so wretched is the life that I live, ever beset with miseries by thee and by thy partner. And that other, who scarce escaped thy hand, the hapless Orestes, is wearing out his ill-starred days in exile. Often hast thou charged me with rearing him to punish thy crime; and I would have done so, if I could, thou mayst be sure:— for that matter, denounce me to all, as disloyal, if thou wilt, or petulant, or impudent; for if I am accomplished in such ways, methinks I am no unworthy child of thee.

Leader of the Chorus

I see that she breathes forth anger; but whether justice be with her, for this she seems to care no longer.

Clytemnestra

[to the Chorus]

And what manner of care do I need to use against her, who hath thus insulted a mother, and this at her ripe age? Thinkest thou not that she would go forward to any deed, without shame?

Electra

Now be assured that I do feel shame for this, though thou believe it not; I know that my behaviour is unseemly, and becomes me ill. But then the enmity on thy part, and thy treatment, compel me in mine own despite to do thus; for base deeds are taught by base.

Clytemnestra

Thou brazen one! Truly I and my sayings and my deeds give thee too much matter for words.

Electra

The words are thine, not mine; for thine is the action; and the acts find the utterance.

Clytemnestra

Now by our lady Artemis, thou shalt not fail to pay for this boldness, so soon as Aegisthus returns.

Electra

Lo, thou art transported by anger, after granting me free speech, aid hast no patience to listen.

Clytemnestra

Now wilt thou not hush thy clamour, or even suffer me to sacrifice, when I have permitted thee to speak unchecked?

Electra

I hinder not, — begin thy rites, I pray thee; and blame not my voice, for I shall say no more.

Clytemnestra

Raise then, my handmaid, the offerings of many fruits, that I may uplift my prayers to this our king, for deliverance from my present fears. Lend now a gracious ear, O Phoebus our defender, to my words, though they be dark; for I speak not among friends, nor is it meet to unfold my whole thought to the light, while she stands near me, lest with her malice and her garrulous cry she spread some rash rumour throughout the town: but hear me thus, since on this wise I must speak.

That vision which I saw last night in doubtful dreams — if it hath come for my good, grant, Lycean king, that it be fulfilled; but if for harm, then let it recoil upon my foes. And if any are plotting to hurl me by treachery from the high estate which now is mine, permit them not; rather vouch. safe that, still living thus unscathed, I may bear sway over the house of the Atreidae and this realm, sharing prosperous days with the friends who share them now, and with those of my children from whom no enmity or bitterness pursues me.

O Lycean Apollo, graciously hear these prayers, and grant them to us all, even as we ask! For the rest, though I be silent, I deem that thou, a god, must know it; all things, surely, are seen by the sons of Zeus.

[The Paedagogus enters.]

Paedagogus

Ladies, might a stranger crave to know if this be the palace of the king Aegisthus?

Leader

It is, sir; thou thyself hast guessed aright.

Paedagogus

And am I right in surmising that this lady is his consort? She is of queenly aspect.

Leader

Assuredly; thou art in the presence of the queen.

Paedagogus

Hail, royal lady! I bring glad tidings to thee and to Aegisthus, from friend.

Clytemnestra

I welcome the omen; but I would fain know from thee, first, who may have sent thee.

Paedagogus

Phanoteus the Phocian, on a weighty mission.

Clytemnestra

What is it, sir? Tell me: coming from a friend, thou wilt bring, I know; a kindly message.

Paedagogus

Orestes is dead; that is the sum.

Electra

Oh, miserable that I am! I am lost this day!

Clytemnestra

What sayest thou, friend, what sayest thou? — listen not to her!

Paedagogus

I said, and say again — Orestes is dead.

Electra

I am lost, hapless one, I am undone!

Clytemnestra

[to Electra]

See thou to thine own concerns. — But do thou, sir, tell me exactly,-how did he perish?

Paedagogus

I was sent for that purpose, and will tell thee all. Having gone to the renowned festival, the pride of Greece, for the Delphian games, when he heard the loud summons to the foot-race which was first to be decided, he entered the lists, a brilliant form, a wonder in the eyes of all there; and, having finished his course at the point where it began, he went out with the glorious meed of victory. To speak briefly, where there is much to tell, I know not the man whose deeds and triumphs have matched his; but one thing thou must know; in all the contests that the judges announced, he bore away the prize; and men deemed him happy, as oft as the herald proclaimed him an Argive, by name Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who once gathered the famous armament of Greece.

Thus far, ’twas well; but, when a god sends harm, not even the strong man can escape. For, on another day, when chariots were to try their speed at sunrise, he entered, with many charioteers. One was an Achaean, one from Sparta, two masters of yoked cars were Libyans; Orestes, driving Thessalian mares, came fifth among them; the sixth from Aetolia, with chestnut colts; a Magnesian was the seventh; the eighth, with white horses, was of Aenian stock; the ninth, from Athens, built of gods; there was a Boeotian too, making the tenth chariot.

They took their stations where the appointed umpires placed them by lot and ranged the cars; then, at the sound of the brazen trump, they started. All shouted to their horses, and shook the reins in their hands; the whole course was filled with the noise of rattling chariots; the dust flew upward; and all, in a confused throng, plied their goads unsparingly, each of them striving to pass the wheels and the snorting steeds of his rivals; for alike at their backs and at their rolling wheels the breath of the horses foamed and smote.

Orestes, driving close to the pillar at either end of the course, almost grazed it with his wheel each time, and, giving rein to the trace-horse on the right, checked the horse on the inner side. Hitherto, all the chariots had escaped overthrow; but presently the Aenian’s hard-mouthed colts ran away, and, swerving, as they passed from the sixth into the seventh round, dashed their foreheads against the team of the Barcaean. Other mishaps followed the first, shock on shock and crash on crash, till the whole race-ground of Crisa was strewn with the wreck of the chariots.

Seeing this, the wary charioteer from Athens drew aside and paused, allowing the billow of chariots, surging in mid course, to go by. Orestes was driving last, keeping his horses behind, — for his trust was in the end; but when he saw that the Athenian was alone left in, he sent a shrill cry ringing through the ears of his swift colts, and gave chase. Team was brought level with team, and so they raced,-first one man, then the other. showing his head in front of the chariots.

Hitherto the ill-fated Orestes had passed safely through every round, steadfast in his steadfast car; at last, slackening his left rein while the horse was turning, unawares he struck the edge of the pillar; he broke the axle-box in twain; he was thrown over the chariot-rail; he was caught in the shapely reins; and, as he fell on the ground, his colts were scattered into the middle of the course.

But when the people saw him fallen from the car, a cry of pity went up for the youth, who had done such deeds and was meeting such a doom, — now dashed to earth, now tossed feet uppermost to the sky, — till the charioteers, with difficulty checking the career of his horses, loosed him, so covered with blood that no friend who saw it would have known the hapless corpse. Straightway they burned it on a pyre; and chosen men of Phocis are bringing in a small urn of bronze the sad dust of that mighty form, to find due burial in his fatherland.

Such is my story, — grievous to hear, if words can grieve; but for us, who beheld, the greatest of sorrows that these eyes have seen.

Leader

Alas, alas Now, methinks, the stock of our ancient masters hath utterly perished, root and branch.

Clytemnestra

O Zeus, what shall I call these tidings, — glad tidings? Or dire, but gainful? ’Tis a bitter lot, when mine own calamities make the safety of my life.

Paedagogus

Why art thou so downcast, lady, at this news?

Clytemnestra

There is a strange power in motherhood; a mother may be wronged, but she never learns to hate her child.

Paedagogus

Then it seems that we have come in vain.

Clytemnestra

Nay, not in vain; how canst thou say ‘in vain,’ when thou hast brought an sure proofs of his death? — His, who sprang from mine own life, yet, forsaking me who had suckled and reared him, became an exile and an alien; and, after he went out of this land, he saw me no more; but, charging me with the murder of his sire, he uttered dread threats against me; so that neither by night nor by day could sweet sleep cover mine eyes, but from moment to moment I lived in fear of death. Now, however-since this day I am rid of terror from him, and from this girl, — that worse plague who shared my home, while still she drained my very life-blood,-now, methinks, for aught that she can threaten, I shall pass my days in peace.

Electra

Ah, woe is me! Now, indeed, Orestes, thy fortune may be lamented, when it is thus with thee, and thou art mocked by this thy mother! Is it not well?

Clytemnestra

Not with thee; but his state is well.

Electra

Hear, Nemesis of him who hath lately died!

Clytemnestra

She hath heard who should be heard, and hath ordained well.

Electra

Insult us, for this is the time of thy triumph.

Clytemnestra

Then will not Orestes and thou silence me?

Electra

We are silenced; much less should we silence thee.

Clytemnestra

Thy coming, sir, would deserve large recompense, if thou hast hushed her clamorous tongue.

Paedagogus

Then I may take my leave, if all is well.

Clytemnestra

Not so; thy welcome would then be unworthy of me, and of the ally who sent thee. Nay, come thou in; and leave her without, to make loud lament for herself and for her friends.

[Clytemnestra and the Paedagogus enter the palace.]

Electra

How think ye? Was there not grief and anguish there, wondrous weeping and wailing of that miserable mother, for the son who perished by such a fate? Nay, she left us with a laugh! Ah, woe is me! Dearest Orestes, how is my life quenched by thy death! Thou hast torn away with the from my heart the only hopes which still were mine, — that thou wouldst live to return some day, an avenger of thy sire, and of me unhappy. But now — whither shall I turn? I am alone, bereft of thee, as of my father.

Henceforth I must be a slave again among those whom most I hate, my father’s murderers. Is it not well with me? But never, at least, henceforward, will I enter the house to dwell with them; nay, at these gates I will lay me down, and here, without a friend, my days shall wither. Therefore, if any in the house be wroth, let them slay me; for ’tis a grace, if I die, but if I live, a pain; I desire life no more.

[The following lines between Electra and the Chorus are chanted responsively.

Chorus

[strophe 1]

Where are the thunderbolts of Zeus, or where is the bright Sun, if they look upon these things, and brand them not, but rest?

Electra

Woe, woe, ah me, ah me!

Chorus

O daughter, why weepest thou?

Electra

[with hands outstretched to heaven]

Alas!

Chorus

Utter no rash cry!

Electra

Thou wilt break my heart!

Chorus

How meanest thou?

Electra

If thou suggest a hope concerning those who have surely passed to the realm below, thou wilt trample yet more upon my misery.

Chorus

[antistrophe 1]

Nay, I know how, ensnared by a woman for a chain of gold, the prince Amphiaraus found a grave; and now beneath the earth —

Electra

Ah me, ah me!

Chorus

— he reigns in fulness of force.

Electra

Alas!

Chorus

Alas indeed! for the murderess —

Electra

Was slain.

Chorus

Yea.

Electra

I know it, I know it; for a champion arose to avenge the mourning dead; but to me no champion remains; for he who yet was left hath been snatched away.

Chorus

[strophe 2]

Hapless art thou, and hapless is thy lot!

Electra

Well know I that, too well, — I, whose life is a torrent of woes dread and dark, a torrent that surges through all the months!

Chorus

We have seen the course of thy sorrow.

Electra

Cease, then, to divert me from it, when no more —

Chorus

How sayest thou?

Electra

— when no more can I have the comfort of hope from a brother, the seed of the same noble sire.

Chorus

[antistrophe 2]

For all men it is appointed to die.

Electra

What, to die as that ill-starred one died, amid the tramp of racing steeds, entangled in the reins that dragged him?

Chorus

Cruel was his doom, beyond thought!

Electra

Yea, surely; when in foreign soil, without ministry of my hands, —

Chorus

Alas!

Electra

— he is buried, ungraced by me with sepulture or with tears.

[Chrysothemis enters in excitement.]

Chrysothemis

Joy wings my feet, dear sister, not careful of seemliness, if I come with speed; for I bring joyful news, to relieve thy long sufferings and sorrows.

Electra

And whence couldst thou find help for my woes, whereof no cure can be imagined?

Chrysothemis

Orestes is with us, — know this from my lips, in living presence, as surely as thou seest me here.

Electra

What, art thou mad, poor girl? Art thou laughing at my sorrows, and thine own?

Chrysothemis

Nay, by our father’s hearth, I speak not in mockery; I tell thee that he is with us indeed.

Electra

Ah, woe is me! And from whom hast thou heard this tale, which thou believest so lightly?

Chrysothemis

I believe it on mine own knowledge, not on hearsay; I have seen clear proofs.

Electra

What hast thou seen, poor girl, to warrant thy belief? Whither, wonder hast thou turned thine eyes, that thou art fevered with this baneful fire?

Chrysothemis

Then, for the gods’ love, listen, that thou mayest know my story, before deciding whether I am sane or foolish.

Electra

Speak on, then, if thou findest pleasure in speaking.

Chrysothemis

Well, thou shalt hear all that I have seen. When I came to our father’s ancient tomb, I saw that streams of milk had lately flowed from the top of the mound, and that his sepulchre was encircled with garlands of all flowers that blow. I was astonished at the sight, and peered about, lest haply some one should be close to my side. But when I perceived that all the place was in stillness, I crept nearer to the tomb; and on the mound’s edge I saw a lock of hair, freshly severed.

And the moment that I saw it, ah me, a familiar image rushed upon my soul, telling me that there I beheld a token of him whom most I love, Orestes. Then I took it in my hands, and uttered no ill-omened word, but the tears of joy straightway filled mine eyes. And I know well, as knew then, that this fair tribute has come from none but him. Whose part else was that, save mine and thine? And I did it not, I know, — nor thou; how shouldst thou? — when thou canst not leave this house, even to worship the gods, but at thy peril. Nor, again, does our mother’s heart incline to do such deeds, nor could she have so done without our knowledge.

No, these offerings are from Orestes! Come, dear sister, courage! No mortal life is attended by a changeless fortune. Ours was once gloomy; but this day, perchance, will seal the promise of much good.

Electra

Alas for thy folly! How I have been pitying thee!

Chrysothemis

What, are not my tidings welcome?

Electra

Thou knowest not whither or into what dreams thou wanderest.

Chrysothemis

Should I not know what mine own eyes have seen?

Electra

He is dead, poor girl; and thy hopes in that deliverer are gone: look not to him.

Chrysothemis

Woe, woe is me! From whom hast thou heard this?

Electra

From the man who was present when he perished.

Chrysothemis

And where is he? Wonder steals over my mind.

Electra

He is within, a guest not unpleasing to our mother.

Chrysothemis

Ah, woe is me! Whose, then, can have been those ample offerings to our father’s tomb?

Electra

Most likely, I think, some one brought those gifts in memory of the dead Orestes.

Chrysothemis

Oh, hapless that I am! And I was bringing such news in joyous haste, ignorant, it seems, how dire was our plight; but now that I have come, I find fresh sorrows added to the old!

Electra

So stands thy case; yet, if thou wilt hearken to me, thou wilt lighten the load of our present trouble.

Chrysothemis

Can I ever raise the dead to life?

Electra

I meant not that; I am not so foolish.

Chrysothemis

What biddest thou, then, for which my strength avails?

Electra

That thou be brave in doing what I enjoin.

Chrysothemis

Nay, if any good can be done, I will not refuse,

Electra

Remember, nothing succeeds without toil.

Chrysothemis

I know it, and will share thy burden with all my power.

Electra

Hear, then, how I am resolved to act. As for the support of friends, thou thyself must know that we have none; Hades hath taken our friends away. and we two are left alone. I, so long as I heard that my brother still lived and prospered, had hopes that he would yet come to avenge the murder of our sire. But now that he is no more, I look next to thee, not to flinch from aiding me thy sister to slay our father’s murderer, Aegisthus:— I must have no secret from thee more.

How long art thou to wait inactive? What hope is left standing, to which thine eyes can turn? Thou hast to complain that thou art robbed of thy father’s heritage; thou hast to mourn that thus far thy life is fading without nuptial song or wedded love. Nay, and do not hope that such joys will ever be thine; Aegisthus is not so ill-advised as ever to permit that children should spring from thee or me for his own sure destruction. But if thou wilt follow my counsels, first thou wilt win praise of piety from our dead sire below, and from our brother too; next, thou shalt be called free henceforth, as thou wert born, and shalt find worthy bridals; for noble natures draw the gaze of all.

Then seest thou not what fair fame thou wilt win for thyself and for me, by hearkening to my word? What citizen or stranger, when he sees us, will not greet us with praises such as these? — ‘Behold these two sisters, my friends, who saved their father’s house; who, when their foes were firmly planted of yore, took their lives in their hands and stood forth as avengers of blood! Worthy of love are these twain, worthy of reverence from all; at festivals, and wherever the folk are assembled, let these be honoured of all men for their prowess.’ Thus will every one speak of us, so that in life and in death our glory shall not fail.

Come, dear sister, hearken! Work with thy sire, share the burden of thy brother, win rest from woes for me and for thyself, — mindful of this, that an ignoble life brings shame upon the noble.

Leader of the Chorus

In such case as this, forethought is helpful for those who speak and those who hear.

Chrysothemis

Yea, and before she spake, my friends, were she blest with a sound mind, she would have remembered caution, as she doth not remember it.

Now whither canst thou have turned thine eyes, that thou art arming thyself with such rashness, and calling me to aid thee? Seest thou not, thou art a woman, not a man, and no match for thine adversaries in strength? And their fortune prospers day by day, while ours is ebbing and coming to nought. Who, then, plotting to vanquish a foe so strong, shall escape without suffering deadly scathe? See that we change not our evil plight to worse, if any one hears these words. It brings us no relief or benefit, if, after winning fair fame, we die an ignominious death; for mere death is not the bitterest, but rather when one who wants to die cannot obtain even that boon.

Nay, I beseech thee, before we are utterly destroyed, and leave our house desolate, restrain thy rage! I will take care that thy words remain secret and harmless; and learn thou the prudence, at last though late, of yielding, when so helpless, to thy rulers.

Leader

Hearken; there is no better gain for mortals to win than foresight and a prudent mind.

Electra

Thou hast said nothing unlooked-for; I well knew that thou wouldst reject what I proffered. Well! I must do this deed with mine own hand, and alone; for assuredly I will not leave it void.

Chrysothemis

Alas! Would thou hadst been so purposed on the day of our father’s death! What mightst thou not have wrought?

Electra

My nature was the same then, but my mind less ripe.

Chrysothemis

Strive to keep such a mind through all thy life.

Electra

These counsels mean that thou wilt not share my deed.

Chrysothemis

No; for the venture is likely to bring disaster.

Electra

I admire thy prudence; thy cowardice I hate.

Chrysothemis

I will listen not less calmly when thou praise me.

Electra

Never fear to suffer that from me.

Chrysothemis

Time enough in the future to decide that.

Electra

Begone; there is no power to help in thee.

Chrysothemis

Not so; but in thee, no mind to learn.

Electra

Go, declare all this to thy mother!

Chrysothemis

But, again, I do not hate thee with such a hate.

Electra

Yet know at least to what dishonour thou bringest me.

Chrysothemis

Dishonour, no! I am only thinking of thy good.

Electra

Am I bound, then, to follow thy rule of right?

Chrysothemis

When thou art wise, then thou shalt be our guide.

Electra

Sad, that one who speaks so well should speak amiss!

Chrysothemis

Thou hast well described the fault to which thou cleavest.

Electra

How? Dost thou not think that I speak with justice?

Chrysothemis

But sometimes justice itself is fraught with harm.

Electra

I care not to live by such a law.

Chrysothemis

Well, if thou must do this, thou wilt praise me yet.

Electra

And do it I will, no whit dismayed by thee.

Chrysothemis

Is this so indeed? Wilt thou not change thy counsels?

Electra

No, for nothing is more hateful than bad counsel.

Chrysothemis

Thou seemest to agree with nothing that I urge.

Electra

My resolve is not new, but long since fixed.

Chrysothemis

Then I will go; thou canst not be brought to approve my words, nor to commend thy conduct.

Electra

Nay, go within; never will I follow thee, however much thou mayst desire it; it were great folly even to attempt an idle quest.

Chrysothemis

Nay, if thou art wise in thine own eyes, be such wisdom thine; by and by, when thou standest in evil plight, thou wilt praise my words.

[Chrysothemis goes into the palace.]

Chorus

[singing]

[strophe 1]

When we see the birds of the air, with sure instinct, careful to nourish those who give them life and nurture, why do not we pay these debts in like measure? Nay, by the lightning-flash of Zeus, by Themis throned in heaven, it is not long till sin brings sorrow.

Voice that comest to the dead beneath the earth, send a piteous cry, I pray thee, to the son of Atreus in that world, a joyless message of dishonour;

[antistrophe 1]

Tell him that the fortunes of his house are now distempered; while, among his children, strife of sister with sister hath broken the harmony of loving days. Electra, forsaken, braves the storm alone; she bewails alway, hapless one, her father’s fate, like the nightingale unwearied in lament; she recks not of death, but is ready to leave the sunlight, could she but quell the two Furies of her house. Who shall match such noble child of noble sire?

[strophe 2]

No generous soul deigns, by a base life, to cloud a fair repute, and leave a name inglorious; as thou, too, O my daughter, hast chosen to mourn all thy days with those that mourn, and hast spurned dishonour, that thou mightest win at once a twofold praise, as wise, and as the best of daughters.

[antistrophe 2]

May I yet see thy life raised in might and wealth above thy foes, even as now it is humbled beneath their hand! For I have found thee in no prosperous estate; and yet, for observance of nature’s highest laws, winning the noblest renown, by thy piety towards Zeus.

[Orestes enters, with Pylades and two attendants, one of them carrying a funeral urn.]

Orestes

Ladies, have we been directed aright, and are we on the right path to our goal?

Leader of the Chorus

And what seekest thou? With what desire hast thou come?

Orestes

I have been searching for the home of Aegisthus.

Leader

Well, thou hast found it; and thy guide is blameless.

Orestes

Which of you, then, will tell those within that our company, long desired, hath arrived?

Leader

This maiden, — if the nearest should announce it.

Orestes

I pray thee, mistress, make it known in the house that certain men of Phocis seek Aegisthus.

Electra

Ah, woe is me! Surely ye are not bringing the visible proofs of that rumour which we heard?

Orestes

I know nothing of thy ‘rumour’; but the aged Strophius charged me with tidings of Orestes.

Electra

What are they, sir? Ah, how I thrill with fear!

Orestes

He is dead; and in a small urn, as thou seest, we bring the scanty relics home.

Electra

Ah me unhappy! There, at last, before mine eyes, I see that woful burden in your hands

Orestes

If thy tears are for aught which Orestes hath suffered, know that yonder vessel holds his dust.

Electra

Ah, sir, allow me, then, I implore thee, if this urn indeed contains him, to take it in my hands, — that I may weep and wail, not for these ashes alone, but for myself and for all our house therewith!

Orestes

[to the attendants]

Bring it and give it her, whoe’er she be; for she who begs this boon must be one who wished him no evil, but a friend, or haply a kinswoman in blood.

[The urn is placed in Electra’s hands.]

Electra

Ah, memorial of him whom I loved best on earth! Ah, Orestes, whose life hath no relic left save this, — how far from the hopes with which I sent thee forth is the manner in which I receive thee back! Now I carry thy poor dust in my hands; but thou wert radiant, my child, when I sped the forth from home! Would that I had yielded up my breath, ere, with these hands, I stole thee away, and sent thee to a strange land, and rescued the from death; that so thou mightest have been stricken down on that self-same day, and had thy portion in the tomb of thy sire!

But now, an exile from home and fatherland, thou hast perished miserably, far from thy sister; woe is me, these loving hands have not washed or decked thy corpse, nor taken up, as was meet, their sad burden from the flaming pyre. No! at the hands of strangers, hapless one, thou hast had those rites, and so art come to us, a little dust in a narrow urn.

Ah, woe is me for my nursing long ago, so vain, that I oft bestowed on thee with loving toil I For thou wast never thy mother’s darling so much as mine; nor was any in the house thy nurse but I; and by thee I was ever called ‘sister.’ But now all this hath vanished in a day, with thy death; like a whirlwind, thou hast swept all away with thee. Our father is gone; I am dead in regard to thee; thou thyself hast perished: our foes exult; that mother, who is none, is mad with joy, — she of whom thou didst oft send me secret messages, thy heralds, saying that thou thyself wouldst appear as an avenger. But our evil fortune. thine and mine, hath reft all that away, and hath sent thee forth unto me thus, — no more the form that I loved so well, but ashes and an idle shade.

Ah me, ah me! O piteous dust! Alas, thou dear one, sent on a dire journey, how hast undone me, — undone me indeed, O brother mine!

Therefore take me to this thy home, me who am as nothing, to thy nothingness, that I may dwell with thee henceforth below; for when thou wert on earth, we shared alike; and now I fain would die, that I may not be parted from thee in the grave. For I see that the dead have rest from pain.

Leader

Bethink thee, Electra, thou art the child of mortal sire, and mortal was Orestes; therefore grieve not too much. This is a debt which all of us must pay.

Orestes

Alas, what shall I say? What words can serve me at this pass? I can restrain my lips no longer!

Electra

What hath troubled thee? Why didst thou say that?

Orestes

Is this the form of the illustrious Electra that I behold?

Electra

It is; and very grievous is her plight.

Orestes

Alas, then, for this miserable fortune!

Electra

Surely, sir, thy lament is not for me?

Orestes

O form cruelly, godlessly misused!

Electra

Those ill-omened words, sir, fit no one better than me.

Orestes

Alas for thy life, unwedded and all unblest!

Electra

Why this steadfast gaze, stranger, and these laments?

Orestes

How ignorant was I, then, of mine own sorrows!

Electra

By what that hath been said hast thou perceived this?

Orestes

By seeing thy sufferings, so many and so great.

Electra

And yet thou seest but a few of my woes.

Orestes

Could any be more painful to behold?

Electra

This, that I share the dwelling of the murderers.

Orestes

Whose murderers? Where lies the guilt at which thou hintest?

Electra

My father’s; — and then I am their slave perforce.

Orestes

Who is it that subjects thee to this constraint?

Electra

A mother-in name, but no mother in her deeds.

Orestes

How doth she oppress thee? With violence or with hardship?

Electra

With violence, and hardships, and all manner of ill.

Orestes

And is there none to succour, or to hinder?

Electra

None. I had one; and thou hast shown me his ashes.

Orestes

Hapless girl, how this sight hath stirred my pity!

Electra

Know, then, that thou art the first who ever pitied me.

Orestes

No other visitor hath ever shared thy pain.

Electra

Surely thou art not some unknown kinsman?

Orestes

I would answer, if these were friends who hear us.

Electra

Oh, they are friends; thou canst speak without mistrust.

Orestes

Give up this urn, then, and thou shalt be told all.

Electra

Nay, I beseech thee be not so cruel to me, sir!

Orestes

Do as I say, and never fear to do amiss.

Electra

I conjure thee, rob me not of my chief treasure!

Orestes

Thou must not keep it.

Electra

Ah woe is me for thee, Orestes, if I am not to give thee burial

Orestes

Hush! — no such word! — Thou hast no right to lament.

Electra

No right to lament for my dead brother?

Orestes

It is not meet for thee to speak of him thus.

Electra

Am I so dishonoured of the dead?

Orestes

Dishonoured of none:— but this is not thy part.

Electra

Yes, if these are the ashes of Orestes that I hold.

Orestes

They are not; a fiction dothed them with his name.

[He gently takes the urn from her.]

Electra

And where is that unhappy one’s tomb?

Orestes

There is none; the living have no tomb.

Electra

What sayest thou, boy?

Orestes

Nothing that is not true.

Electra

The man is alive?

Orestes

If there be life in me.

Electra

What? Art thou he?

Orestes

Look at this signet, once our father’s, and judge if I speak truth.

Electra

O blissful day!

Orestes

Blissful, in very deed!

Electra

Is this thy voice?

Orestes

Let no other voice reply.

Electra

Do I hold thee in my arms?

Orestes

As mayest thou hold me always!

Electra

Ah, dear friends and fellow-citizens, behold Orestes here, who was feigned dead, and now, by that feigning hath come safely home!

Leader

We see him, daughter; and for this happy fortune a tear of joy trickles from our eyes.

[The following lines between Orestes and Electra are chanted responsively.]

Electra

[strophe]

Offspring of him whom I loved best, thou hast come even now, thou hast come, and found and seen her whom thy heart desired!

Orestes

I am with thee; — but keep silence for a while.

Electra

What meanest thou?

Orestes

’Tis better to be silent, lest some one within should hear.

Electra

Nay, by ever-virgin Artemis, I will never stoop to fear women, stay-at-homes, vain burdens of the ground!

Orestes

Yet remember that in women, too, dwells the spirit of battle; thou hast had good proof of that, I ween.

Electra

Alas! ah me! Thou hast reminded me of my sorrow, one which, from its nature, cannot be veiled, cannot be done away with, cannot forget!

Orestes

I know this also; but when occasion prompts, then will be the moment to recall those deeds.

Electra

[antistrophe]

Each moment of all time, as it comes, would be meet occasion for these my just complaints; scarcely now have I had my lips set free.

Orestes

I grant it; therefore guard thy freedom.

Electra

What must I do?

Orestes

When the season serves not, do not wish to speak too much.

Electra

Nay, who could fitly exchange speech for such silence, when thou hast appeared? For now I have seen thy face, beyond all thought and hope!

Orestes

Thou sawest it, when the gods moved me to come...

Electra

Thou hast told me of a grace above the first, if a god hath indeed brought thee to our house; I acknowledge therein the work of heaven.

Orestes

I am loth, indeed, to curb thy gladness, but yet this excess of joy moves my fear.

Electra

[epode]

O thou who, after many a year, hast deigned thus to gladden mine eyes by thy return, do not, now that thou hast seen me in all my woe —

Orestes

What is thy prayer?

Electra

— do not rob me of the comfort of thy face; do not force me to forego it!

Orestes

I should be wroth, indeed, if I saw another attempt it.

Electra

My prayer is granted?

Orestes

Canst thou doubt?

Electra

Ah, friends, I heard a voice that I could never have hoped to hear; nor could I have restrained my emotion in silence, and without cry, when I heard it.

Ah me! But now I have thee; thou art come to me with the light of that dear countenance, which never, even in sorrow, could I forget.

[The chant is concluded.]

Orestes

Spare all superfluous words; tell me not of our mother’s wickedness, or how Aegisthus drains the wealth of our father’s house by lavish luxury or aimless waste; for the story would not suffer thee to keep due limit. Tell me rather that which will serve our present need, — where we must show ourselves, or wait in ambush, that this our coming may confound the triumph of our foes.

And look that our mother read not thy secret in thy radiant face, when we twain have advanced into the house, but make lament, as for the feigned disaster; for when we have prospered, then there will be leisure to rejoice and exult in freedom.

Electra

Nay, brother, as it pleases thee, so shall be my conduct also; for all my joy is a gift from thee, and not mine own. Nor would I consent to win great good for myself at the cost of the least pain to thee; for so should I ill serve the divine power that befriends us now.

But thou knowest how matters stand here, I doubt not: thou must have beard that Aegisthus is from home, but our mother within; — and fear not that she will ever see my face lit up with smiles; for mine old hatred of her hath sunk into my heart; and, since I have beheld thee, for very joy I shall never cease to weep. How indeed should I cease, who have seen thee come home this day, first as dead, and then in life? Strangely hast thou wrought on me; so that, if my father should return alive, I should no longer doubt my senses, but should believe that I saw him. Now, therefore, that thou hast come to me so wondrously, command me as thou wilt; for, had I been alone, I should have achieved one of two things, — a noble deliverance, or a noble death.

Orestes

Thou hadst best be silent; for I hear some one within preparing to go forth.

Electra

[to Orestes and Pylades]

Enter, sirs; especially as ye bring that which no one could repulse from these doors, though he receive it without joy.

[The Paedagogus enters from the palace.]

Paedagogus

Foolish and senseless children! Are ye weary of your lives, or was there no wit born in you, that ye see not how ye stand, not on the brink, but in the very midst of deadly perils? Nay, had I not kept watch this long while at these doors, your plans would have been in the house before yourselves; but, as it is, my care shielded you from that. Now have done with this long discourse, these insatiate cries of joy, and pass within; for in such deeds delay is evil, and ’tis well to make an end.

Orestes

What, then, will be my prospects when I enter?

Paedagogus

Good; for thou art secured from recognition.

Orestes

Thou hast reported me, I presume, as dead?

Paedagogus

Know that here thou art numbered with the shades.

Orestes

Do they rejoice, then, at these tidings? Or what say they?

Paedagogus

I will tell thee at the end; meanwhile, all is well for us on their party-even that which is not well.

Electra

Who is this, brother? I pray thee, tell me.

Orestes

Dost thou not perceive?

Electra

I cannot guess.

Orestes

Knowest thou not the man to whose hands thou gavest me once?

Electra

What man? How sayest thou?

Orestes

By whose hands, through thy forethought, I was secretly conveyed forth to Phocian soil.

Electra

Is this he in whom, alone of many, I found a true ally of old, when our sire was slain?

Orestes

’Tis he; question me no further.

Electra

O joyous day! O sole preserver of Agamemnon’s house, how hast thou come? Art thou he indeed, who didst save my brother and myself from many sorrows? O dearest hands; O messenger whose feet were kindly servants! How couldst thou be with me so long, and remain unknown, nor give a ray of light, but afflict me by fables, while possessed of truths most sweet? Hail, father, — for ’tis a father that I seem to behold! All hail, — and know that I have hated thee, and loved thee, in one day, as never man before!

Paedagogus

Enough, methinks; as for the story of the past, many are the circling nights, and days as many, which shall show it thee, Electra, in its fulness. [To Orestes and Pylades] But this is my counsel to you twain, who stand there — now is the time to act; now Clytemnestra is alone, — no man is now within: but, if ye pause, consider that ye will have to fight, not with the inmates alone, but with other foes more numerous and better skilled.

Orestes

Pylades, this our task seems no longer to crave many words, but rather that we should enter the house forthwith, — first adoring the shrines of my father’s gods, who keep these gates.

[Orestes and Pylades enter the Palace, followed by the Paedagogus. — Electra remains outside.]

Electra

O King Apollo! graciously hear them, and hear me besides, who so oft have come before thine altar with such gifts as my devout hand could bring! And now, O Lycean Apollo, with such vows as I can make, I pray thee, I supplicate, I implore, grant us thy benignant aid in these designs, and show men how impiety is rewarded by the gods!

[Electra enters the palace.]

Chorus

[singing]

Behold how Ares moves onward, breathing deadly vengeance, against which none may strive!

Even now the pursuers of dark guilt have passed beneath yon roof, the hounds which none may flee. Therefore the vision of my soul shall not long tarry in suspense.

The champion of the spirits infernal is ushered with stealthy feet into the house, the ancestral palace of his sire, bearing keen-edged death in his hands; and Hermes, son of Maia, who hath shrouded the guile in darkness, leads him forward, even to the end, and delays no more.

[Electra enters from the palace.]

Electra

[strophe]

Ah, dearest friends, in a moment the men will do the deed; — but wait in silence.

Chorus

How is it? — what do they now?

Electra

She is decking the urn for burial, and those two stand close to her

Chorus

And why hast thou sped forth?

Electra

To guard against Aegisthus entering before we are aware.

Clytemnestra

[within]

Alas! Woe for the house forsaken of friends and filled with murderers!

Electra

A cry goes up within:— hear ye not, friends?

Chorus

I heard, ah me, sounds dire to hear, and shuddered!

Clytemnestra

[within]

O hapless that I am! — Aegisthus, where, where art thou?

Electra

Hark, once more a voice resounds I

Clytemnestra

[within]
My son, my son, have pity on thy mother!

Electra

Thou hadst none for him, nor for the father that begat him.

Chorus

Ill-fated realm and race, now the fate that hath pursued thee day by day is dying, — is dying!

Clytemnestra

[within]

Oh, I am smitten!

Electra

Smite, if thou canst, once more!

Clytemnestra

[within]
Ah, woe is me again!

Electra

Would that the woe were for Aegisthus too!

Chorus

The curses are at work; the buried live; blood flows for blood, drained from the slayers by those who died of yore.

[Orestes and Pylades enter from the palace.]

[antistrophe]

Behold, they come! That red hand reeks with sacrifice to Ares; nor can I blame the deed.

Electra

Orestes, how fare ye?

Orestes

All is well within the house, if Apollo’s oracle spake well.

Electra

The guilty one is dead?

Orestes

Fear no more that thy proud mother will ever put thee to dishonour.

Chorus

Cease; for I see Aegisthus full in view.

Electra

Rash boys, back, back!

Orestes

Where see ye the man?

Electra

Yonder, at our mercy, be advances from the suburb, full of joy.

Chorus

Make with all speed for the vestibule; that, as your first task prospered. so this again may prosper now.

Orestes

Fear not, — we will perform it.

Electra

Haste, then, whither thou wouldst.

Orestes

See, I am gone.

Electra

I will look to matters here.

[Orestes and Pylades go back into the palace.]

Chorus

’Twere well to soothe his ear with some few words of seeming gentleness, that he may rush blindly upon the struggle with his doom.

[Aegisthus enters.]

Aegisthus

Which of you can tell me, where are those Phocian strangers, who, ’tis said, have brought us tidings of Orestes slain in the wreck of his chariot? Thee, thee I ask, yes, thee, in former days so bold, — for methinks it touches thee most nearly; thou best must know, and best canst tell.

Electra

I know assuredly; else were I a stranger to the fortune of my nearest kinsfolk.

Aegisthus

Where then may be the strangers? Tell me.

Electra

Within; they have found a way to the heart of their hostess.

Aegisthus

Have they in truth reported him dead?

Electra

Nay, not reported only; they have shown him.

Aegisthus

Can I, then, see the corpse with mine own eyes?

Electra

Thou canst, indeed; and ’tis no enviable sight.

Aegisthus

Indeed, thou hast given me a joyful greeting, beyond thy wont.

Electra

Joy be thine, if in these things thou findest joy.

Aegisthus

Silence, I say, and throw wide the gates, for all Mycenaeans and Argives to behold; that, if any of them were once buoyed on empty hopes from this man, now, seeing him dead, they may receive my curb, instead of waiting till my chastisement make them wise perforce!

Electra

No loyalty is lacking on my part; time hath taught me the prudence of concord with the stronger.

[The central doors of the palace are thrown open and a shrouded corpse is disclosed. Orestes and Pylades stand near it.]

Aegisthus

O Zeus, I behold that which hath not fallen save by the doom of jealous Heaven; but, if Nemesis attend that word, be it unsaid!

Take all the covering from the face, that kinship, at least, may receive the tribute of lament from me also.

Orestes

Lift the veil thyself; not my part this, but thine, to look upon these relics, and to greet them kindly.

Aegisthus

’Tis good counsel, and I will follow it. — [To Electra But thou — call me Clytemnestra, if she is within.

Orestes

Lo, she is near thee: turn not thine eyes elsewhere.

[Aegisthus removes the face-cloth from the corpse.]

Aegisthus

O, what sight is this!

Orestes

Why so scared? Is the face so strange?

Aegisthus

Who are the men into whose mid toils I have fallen, hapless that I am?

Orestes

Nay, hast thou not discovered ere now that the dead, as thou miscallest them, are living?

Aegisthus

Alas, I read the riddle: this can be none but Orestes who speaks to me!

Orestes

And, though so good a prophet, thou wast deceived so long?

Aegisthus

Oh lost, undone! Yet suffer me to say one word...

Electra

In heaven’s name, my brother, suffer him not to speak further, or to plead at length! When mortals are in the meshes of fate, how can such respite avail one who is to die? No, — slay him forthwith, and cast his corpse to the creatures from whom such as he should have burial, far from our sight! To me, nothing but this can make amends for the woes of the past.

Orestes

[to Aegisthus]

Go in, and quickly; the issue here is not of words, but of thy life.

Aegisthus

Why take me into the house? If this deed be fair, what need of darkness? Why is thy hand not prompt to strike?

Orestes

Dictate not, but go where thou didst slay my father, that in the same place thou mayest die.

Aegisthus

Is this dwelling doomed to see all woes of Pelops’ line, now, and in time to come?

Orestes

Thine, at least; trust my prophetic skill so far.

Aegisthus

The skill thou vauntest belonged not to thy sire.

Orestes

Thou bandiest words, and our going is delayed. Move forward!

Aegisthus

Lead thou.

Orestes

Thou must go first.

Aegisthus

Lest I escape thee?

Orestes

No, but that thou mayest not choose how to die; I must not spare thee any bitterness of death. And well it were if this judgment came straight-way upon all who dealt in lawless deeds, even the judgment of the sword: so should not wickedness abound.

[Orestes and Pylades drive Aegisthus into the palace.]

Chorus

[singing]

O house of Atreus, through how many sufferings hast thou come forth at last in freedom, crowned with good by this day’s enterprise!

The Trachiniae

Characters in the Play

Deianeira

Nurse

Hyllus, son of Heracles and Deianeira

Messenger

Lichas, the herald of Heracles

Heracles

An Old Man

Chorus of Trachinian Maidens

[Scene:— At Trachis, before the house of Heracles.

Enter Deianeira from the house, accompanied by the Nurse.]

Deianeira

There is a saying among men, put forth of old, that thou canst not rightly judge whether a mortal’s lot is good or evil, ere he die. But I, even before I have passed to the world of death, know well that my life is sorrowful and bitter; I, who in the house of my father Oeneus, while yet I dwelt at Pleuron, had such fear of bridals as never vexed any maiden of Aetolia. For my wooer was a river-god, Achelous, who in three shapes was ever asking me from my sire, — coming now as a bull in bodily form, now as serpent with sheeny coils, now with trunk of man and front of ox, while from a shaggy beard the streams of fountain-water flowed abroad. With the fear of such a suitor before mine eyes, I was always praying in my wretchedness that I might die, or ever I should come near to such a bed.

But at last, to my joy, came the glorious son of Zeus and Alcmena; who dosed with him in combat, and delivered me. How the fight was waged, I cannot clearly tell, I know not; if there be any one who watched that sight without terror, such might speak: I, as I sat there, was distraught with dread, lest beauty should bring me sorrow at the last. But finally the Zeus of battles ordained well, — if well indeed it be: for since I have been joined to Heracles as his chosen bride, fear after fear hath haunted me on his account; one night brings a trouble, and the next night, in turn, drives it out. And then children were born to us; whom he has seen only as the husbandman sees his distant field, which he visits at seedtime, and once again at harvest. Such was the life that kept him journeying to and fro, in the service of a certain master.

But now, when he hath risen above those trials, — now it is that my anguish is sorest. Ever since he slew the valiant Iphitus, we have been dwelling here in Trachis, exiles from our home, and the guests of stranger; but where he is, no one knows; I only know that he is gone, and hath pierced my heart with cruel pangs for him. I am almost sure that some evil hath befallen him; it is no short space that hath passed, but ten long months, and then five more, — and still no message from him. Yes, there has been some dread mischance; — witness that tablet which he left with me ere he went forth: oft do I pray to the gods that I may not have received it for my sorrow.

Nurse

Deianeira, my mistress, many a time have I marked thy bitter tears and lamentations, as thou bewailedst the going forth of Heracles; but now, — if it be meet to school the free-born with the counsels of a slave, and if I must say what behoves thee, — why, when thou art so rich in sons, dost thou send no one of them to seek thy lord; — Hyllus, before all, who might well go on that errand, if he cared that there should be tidings of his father’s welfare? Lo! there he comes, speeding towards the house with timely step; if, then, thou deemest that I speak in season, thou canst use at once my counsel, and the man.

[Hyllus comes in from the side.]

Deianeira

My child, my son, wise words may fall, it seems, from humble lips; this woman is a slave, but hath spoken in the spirit of the free.

Hyllus

How, mother? Tell me, if it may be told.

Deianeira

It brings thee shame, she saith, that, when thy father hath been so long a stranger, thou hast not sought to learn where he is.

Hyllus

Nay, I know, — if rumour can be trusted.

Deianeira

And in what region, my child, doth rumour place him?

Hyllus

Last year, they say, through all the months, he toiled as bondman to Lydian woman.

Deianeira

If he bore that, then no tidings can surprise.

Hyllus

Well, he has been delivered from that, as I hear.

Deianeira

Where, then, is he reported to be now, — alive or dead?

Hyllus

He is waging or planning a war, they say, upon Euboea, the realm of Eurytus.

Deianeira

Knowest thou, my son, that he hath left with me sure oracles touching that land?

Hyllus

What are they, mother? I know not whereof thou speakest.

Deianeira

That either he shall meet his death, or, having achieved this task, shall have rest thenceforth, for all his days to come.

So, my child, when his fate is thus trembling in the scale, wilt thou not go to succour him? For we are saved, if he find safety, or we perish with him.

Hyllus

Ay, I will go, my mother; and, had I known the import of these prophecies, I had been there long since; but, as it was, my father’s wonted fortune suffered me not to feel fear for him, or to be anxious overmuch. Now that I have the knowledge, I will spare no pains to learn the whole truth in this matter.

Deianeira

Go, then, my son; be the seeker ne’er so late, he is rewarded if he learn tidings of joy.

[Hyllus departs as the Chorus of Trachinian Maidens enters. They are free-born young women of Trachis who are friends and confidantes of Deianeira. She remains during their opening choral song.]

Chorus

[singing]

[strophe 1]

Thou whom Night brings forth at the moment when she is despoiled of her starry crown, and lays to rest in thy splendour, tell me, pray thee, O Sun-god, tell me where abides Alcmena’s son? Thou glorious lord of flashing light, say, is he threading the straits of the sea, or hath he found an abode on either continent? Speak, thou who seest as none else can see!

[antistrophe 1]

For Deianeira, as I hear, hath ever an aching heart; she, the battle-prize of old, is now like some bird lorn of its mate; she can never lull her yearning, nor stay her tears; haunted by a sleepless fear for her absent lord, she pines on her anxious, widowed couch, miserable in her foreboding of mischance.

[strophe 2]

As one may see billow after billow driven over the wide deep by the tireless south-wind or the north, so the trouble of his life, stormy as the Cretan sea, now whirls back the son of Cadmus, now lifts him to honour. But some god ever saves him from the house of death, and suffers him not to fail.

[antistrophe 2]

Lady, I praise not this thy mood; with all reverence will I speak, yet in reproof. Thou dost not well, I say, to kill fair hope by fretting; remember that the son of Cronus himself, the all-disposing king, hath not appointed a painless lot for mortals. Sorrow and joy come round to all, as the Bear moves in his circling paths.

[epode]

Yea, starry night abides not with men, nor tribulation, nor wealth; in a moment it is gone from us, and another hath his turn of gladness, and of bereavement. So would I wish thee also, the Queen, to keep that prospect ever in thy thoughts; for when hath Zeus been found so careless of his children?

Deianeira

Ye have heard of my trouble, I think, and that hath brought you here; but the anguish which consumes my heart — ye are strangers to that; and never may ye learn it by suffering! Yes, the tender plant grows in those sheltered regions of its own! and the Sun-god’s heat vexes it not, nor rain, nor any wind; but it rejoices in its sweet, untroubled being, til such time as the maiden is called a wife, and finds her portion of anxious thoughts in the night, brooding on danger to husband or to children. Such an one could understand the burden of my cares; she could judge them by her own.

Well, I have had many a sorrow to weep for ere now; but I am going to speak of one more grievous than them all.

When Heracles my lord was going from home on his last journey, he left in the house an ancient tablet, inscribed with tokens which he had never brought himself to explain to me before, many as were the ordeals to which he had gone forth. He had always departed as if to conquer, not to die. But now, as if he were a doomed man, he told me what portion of his substance I was to take for my dower, and how he would have his sons share their father’s land amongst them. And he fixed the time; saying that, when a year and three months should have passed since he had left the country, then he was fated to die; or, if he should have survived that term, to live thenceforth an untroubled life.

Such, he said, was the doom ordained by the gods to be accomplished in the toils of Heracles; as the ancient oak at Dodona had spoken of yore, by the mouth of the two Peleiades. And this is the precise moment when the fulfilment of that word becomes due; so that I start up from sweet slumber, my friends, stricken with terror at the thought that I must remain widowed of the noblest among men.

Leader of the Chorus

Hush — no more ill-omened words; I see a man approaching, who wears a wreath, as if for joyous tidings.

[A Messenger enters.]

Messenger

Queen Deianeira, I shall be the first of messengers to free thee from fear. Know that Alcmena’s son lives and triumphs, and from battle brings the first-fruits to the gods of this land.

Deianeira

What news is this, old man, that thou hast told me?

Messenger

That thy lord, admired of all, will soon come to thy house, restored to thee in his victorious might.

Deianeira

What citizen or stranger hath told thee this?

Messenger

In the meadow, summer haunt of oxen, Lichas the herald is proclaiming it to many: from him I heard it, and flew hither, that I might be the first to give thee these tidings, and so might reap some guerdon from thee, and win thy grace.

Deianeira

And why is he not here, if he brings good news?

Messenger

His task, lady, is no easy one; all the Malian folk have thronged around him with questions, and he cannot move forward: each and all are bent on learning what they desire, and will not release him until they are satisfied. Thus their eagerness detains him against his will; but thou shalt presently see him face to face.

Deianeira

O Zeus, who rulest the meads of Oeta, sacred from the scythe, at last, though late, thou hast given us joy! Uplift your voices, ye women within the house and ye beyond our gates, since now we are gladdened by the light of this message, that hath risen on us beyond my hope!

Leader of One Semi-Chorus

[singing]

Let the maidens raise a joyous strain for the house, with songs of triumph at the hearth; and, amidst them, let the shout of the men go up with one accord for Apollo of the bright quiver, our Defender! And at the same time, ye maidens, lift up a paean, cry aloud to his sister, the Ortygian Artemis, smiter of deer, goddess of the twofold torch, and to the Nymphs her neighbours!

Leader of Other Semi-Chorus

My spirit soars; I will not reject the wooing of the flute. — O thou sovereign of my soul! Lo, the ivy’s spell begins to work upon me! Euoe! — even now it moves me to whirl in the swift dance of Bachanals!

Chorus

Praise, praise unto the Healer!

Leader of Whole Chorus

See, dear lady, see! Behold, these tidings are taking shape before thy gaze.

Deianeira

I see it, dear maidens; my watching eyes had not failed to note yon company. [Enter Lichas, followed by Captive Maidens. Conspicuous among them is Iole.] — All hail to the herald, whose coming hath been so long delayed! — if indeed thou bringest aught that can give joy.

Lichas

We are happy in our return, and happy in thy greeting, lady, which befits the deed achieved; for when a man hath fair fortune, he needs must win good welcome.

Deianeira

O best of friends, tell me first what first I would know, — shall I receive Heracles alive?

Lichas

I, certainly, left him alive and well, — in vigorous health, unburdened by disease.

Deianeira

Where, tell me — at home, or on foreign soil?

Lichas

There is a headland of Euboea, where to Cenaean Zeus he consecrates altars, and the tribute of fruitful ground.

Deianeira

In payment of a vow, or at the bidding of an oracle?

Lichas

For a vow, made when he was seeking to conquer and despoil the country of these women who are before thee.

Deianeira

And these — who are they, I pray thee, and whose daughters? They deserve pity, unless their plight deceives me.

Lichas

These are captives whom he chose out for himself and for the gods, when he sacked the city of Eurytus.

Deianeira

Was it the war against that city which kept him away so long, beyond all forecast, past all count of days?

Lichas

Not so: the greater part of the time he was detained in Lydia, — no free man, as he declares, but sold into bondage. No offence should attend on the word, lady, when the deed is found to be of Zeus. So he passed a whole year, as he himself avows, in thraldom to Omphale the barbarian. And so stung was he by that reproach, he bound himself by a solemn oath that he would one day enslave, with wife and child, the man who had brought that calamity upon him. Nor did he speak the word in vain; but, when he bad been purged, gathered an alien host, and went against the city of Eurytus. That man, he said, alone of mortals, had a share in causing his misfortune. For when Heracles, an old friend, came to his house and hearth, Eurytus heaped on him the taunts of a bitter tongue and spiteful soul,- saying, ‘Thou hast unerring arrows in thy hands, and yet my sons surpass thee in the trial of archery’; ‘Thou art a slave,’ he cried, ‘a free man’s broken thrall’: and at a banquet, when his guest was full of wine, he thrust him from his doors.

Wroth thereat, when afterward Iphitus came to the hill of Tiryns, in search for horses that had strayed, Heracles seized a moment when the man’s wandering thoughts went not with his wandering gaze, and hurled him from a tower-like summit. But in anger at that deed, Zeus our lord, Olympian sire of all, sent him forth into bondage, and spared not, because, this once, he had taken a life by guile. Had he wreaked his vengeance openly, Zeus would surely have pardoned him the righteous triumph; for the gods, too, love not insolence.

So those men, who waxed so proud with bitter speech, are themselves in the mansions of the dead, all of them, and their city is enslaved; while the women whom thou beholdest, fallen from happiness to misery, come here to thee; for such was thy lord’s command, which I, his faithful servant, perform. He himself, thou mayest be sure, — so soon as he shall have offered holy sacrifice for his victory to Zeus from whom he sprang, — will be with thee. After all the fair tidings that have been told, this, indeed, is the sweetest word to hear.

Leader of the Chorus

Now, O Queen, thy joy is assured; part is with thee, and thou hast promise of the rest.

Deianeira

Yea, have I not the fullest reason to rejoice at these tidings of my lord’s happy fortune? To such fortune, such joy must needs respond. And yet a prudent mind can see room for misgiving lest he who prospers should one day suffer reverse. A strange pity hath come over me, friends, at the sight of these ill-fated exiles, homeless and fatherless in a foreign land; once the daughters, perchance, of free-born sires, but now doomed to the life of slaves. O Zeus, who turnest the tide of battle, never may I see child of mine thus visited by thy hand; nay, if such visitation is to be, may it not fall while Deianeira lives! Such dread do I feel, beholding these.

[To Iole] Ah, hapless girl, say, who art thou? A maiden, or a mother? To judge by thine aspect, an innocent maiden, and of a noble race. Lichas, whose daughter is this stranger? Who is her mother, who her sire? Speak, I pity her more than all the rest, when I behold her; as she alone shows due feeling for her plight.

Lichas

How should I know? Why should’st thou ask me? Perchance the off, spring of not the meanest in yonder land.

Deianeira

Can she be of royal race? Had Eurytus a daughter?

Lichas

I know not; indeed, I asked not many questions.

Deianeira

And thou hast not heard her name from any of her companions?

Lichas

No, indeed, I went through my task in silence.

Deianeira

Unhappy girl, let me, at least, hear it from thine own mouth. It is indeed distressing not to know thy name.

[Iole maintains her silence.]

Lichas

It will be unlike her former behaviour, then, I can tell thee, if she opens her lips: for she hath not uttered one word, but hath ever been travailing with the burden of her sorrow, and weeping bitterly, poor girl, since she left her wind-swept home. Such a state is grievous for herself, but claims our forbearance.

Deianeira

Then let her be left in peace, and pass under our roof as she wishes; her present woes must not be crowned with fresh pains at my hands; she hath enough already.-Now let us all go in, that thou mayest start speedily on thy journey, while I make all things ready in the house.

[Lichas leads the captives into the house. Deianeira starts to follow them, but the Messenger, who has been present during the entire scene, detains her. He speaks as he moves nearer to her.]

Messenger

Ay, but first tarry here a brief space, that thou mayest learn, apart from yonder folk, whom thou art taking to thy hearth, and mayest gain the needful knowledge of things which have not been told to thee. Of these I am in full possession.

Deianeira

What means this? Why wouldest thou stay my departure?

Messenger

Pause and listen. My former story was worth thy hearing, and so will this one be, methinks.

Deianeira

Shall I call those others back? Or wilt thou speak before me and these maidens?

Messenger

To thee and these I can speak freely; never mind the others.

Deianeira

Well, they are gone; — so thy story can proceed.

Messenger

Yonder man was not speaking the straight-forward truth in aught that he has just told. He has given false tidings now, or else his former report was dishonest.

Deianeira

How sayest thou? Explain thy whole drift clearly; thus far, thy words are riddles to me.

Messenger

I heard this man declare, before many witnesses, that for this maiden’s sake Heracles overthrew Eurytus and the proud towers of Oechalia; Love, alone of the gods, wrought on him to do those deeds of arms, — not the toilsome servitude to Omphale in Lydia, nor the death to which Iphitus was hurled. But now the herald has thrust Love out of sight, and tells different tale.

Well, when he could not persuade her sire to give him the maiden for his paramour, he devised some petty complaint as a pretext, and made war upon her land, — that in which, as he said, this Eurytus bore sway, — and slew the prince her father, and sacked her city. And now, as thou seest, he comes sending her to this house not in careless fashion, lady, nor like slave:— no, dream not of that, — it is not likely, if his heart is kindled with desire.

I resolved, therefore, O Queen, to tell thee all that I had heard from yonder man. Many others were listening to it, as I was, in the public place where the Trachinians were assembled; and they can convict him. If my words are unwelcome, I am grieved; but nevertheless I have spoken out the truth.

Deianeira

Ah me unhappy! In what plight do I stand? What secret bane have received beneath my roof? Hapless that I am! Is she nameless, then, as her convoy sware?

Messenger

Nay, illustrious by name as by birth; she is the daughter of Eurytus, and was once called Iole; she of whose parentage Lichas could say nothing, because, forsooth, he asked no questions.

Leader of the Chorus

Accursed, above other evil-doers, be the man whom deeds of treachery dishonour!

Deianeira

Ah, maidens, what am I to do? These latest tidings have bewildered me!

Leader

Go and inquire from Lichas; perchance he will tell the truth, if thou constrain him to answer.

Deianeira

Well, I will go; thy counsel is not amiss.

Messenger

And I, shall I wait here? Or what is thy pleasure?

Deianeira

Remain; — here he comes from the house of his own accord, without summons from me.

[Enter Lichas]

Lichas

Lady, what message shall I bear to Heracles? Give me thy commands, for, as thou seest, I am going.

Deianeira

How hastily thou art rushing away, when thy visit had been so long delayed, — before we have had time for further talk.

Lichas

Nay, if there be aught that thou would’st ask, I am at thy service.

Deianeira

Wilt thou indeed give me the honest truth?

Lichas

Yes, be great Zeus my witness, — in anything that I know,

Deianeira

Who is the woman, then, whom thou hast brought?

Lichas

She is Euboean; but of what birth, I cannot say.

Messenger

Sirrah, look at me:— to whom art thou speaking, think’st thou?

Lichas

And thou — what dost thou mean by such a question?

Messenger

Deign to answer me, if thou comprehendest.

Lichas

To the royal Deianeira, unless mine eyes deceive me, — daughter of Oeneus, wife of Heracles, and my queen.

Messenger

The very word that I wished to hear from thee:— thou sayest that she is thy queen?

Lichas

Yes, as in duty bound.

Messenger

Well, then, what art thou prepared to suffer, if found guilty of failing in that duty?

Lichas

Failing in duty? What dark saying is this?

Messenger

’Tis none; the darkest words are thine own.

Lichas

I will go, I was foolish to hear thee so long.

Messenger

No, not till thou hast answered a brief question.

Lichas

Ask what thou wilt; thou art not taciturn.

Messenger

That captive, whom thou hast brought home — thou knowest whom mean?

Lichas

Yes; but why dost thou ask?

Messenger

Well, saidst thou not that thy prisoner — she, on whom thy gaze now turns so vacantly — was Iole, daughter of Eurytus?

Lichas

Said it to whom? Who and where is the man that will be thy witness to hearing this from me?

Messenger

To many of our own folk thou saidst it: in the public gathering of Trachinians, a great crowd heard thus much from thee.

Lichas

Ay — said they heard-but ’tis one thing to report a fancy, and another to make the story good.

Messenger

A fancy! Didst thou not say on thine oath that thou wast bringing her as a bride for Heracles?

Lichas

I? bringing a bride? — In the name of the gods, dear mistress, tell me who this stranger may be?

Messenger

One who heard from thine own lips that the conquest of the whole city was due to love for this girl: the Lydian woman was not its destroyer, but the passion which this maid has kindled.

Lichas

Lady, let this fellow withdraw: to prate with the brainsick befits not sane man.

Deianeira

Nay, I implore thee by Zeus whose lightnings go forth over the high glens of Oeta, do not cheat me of the truth! For she to whom thou wilt speak is not ungenerous, nor hath she yet to learn that the human heart is inconstant to its joys. They are not wise, then, who stand forth to buffet against Love; for Love rules the gods as he will, and me; and why not another woman, such as I am? So I am mad indeed, if I blame my husband, because that distemper hath seized him; or this woman, his partner in a thing which is no shame to them, and no wrong to me. Impossible! No; if he taught thee to speak falsely, ’tis not a noble lesson that thou art learning; or if thou art thine own teacher in this, thou wilt be found cruel when it is thy wish to prove kind. Nay, tell me the whole truth. To a free-born man, the name of liar cleaves as a deadly brand. If thy hope is to escape detection, that, too, is vain; there are many to whom thou hast spoken, who will tell me.

And if thou art afraid, thy fear is mistaken. Not to learn the truth,-that, indeed, would pain me; but to know it — what is there terrible in that? Hath not Heracles wedded others ere now, — ay, more than living man, — and no one of them hath bad harsh word or taunt from me; nor shall this girl, though her whole being should be absorbed in her passion; for indeed I felt a profound pity when I beheld her, because her beauty hath wrecked her life, and she, hapless one, all innocent, hath brought her fatherland to ruin and to bondage.

Well, those things must go with wind and stream. — To thee I say,-deceive whom thou wilt, but ever speak the truth to me.

Leader

Hearken to her good counsel, and hereafter thou shalt have no cause to complain of this lady; our thanks, too, will be thine.

Lichas

Nay, then, dear mistress, — since I see that thou thinkest as mortals should think, and canst allow for weakness, — I will tell thee the whole truth, and hide it not. Yes, it is even as yon man saith. This girl inspired that overmastering love which long ago smote through the soul of Heracles; for this girl’s sake the desolate Oechalia, her home, was made the prey of his spear. And he, — it is just to him to say so, — never denied this, — never told me to conceal it. But I, lady, fearing to wound thy heart by such tidings, have sinned, if thou count this in any sort a sin.

Now, however, that thou knowest the whole story, for both your sakes, — for his, and not less for thine own, — bear with the woman, and be content that the words which thou hast spoken regarding her should bind thee still. For he, whose strength is victorious in all else, hath been utterly vanquished by his passion for this girl.

Deianeira

Indeed, mine own thoughts move me to act thus. Trust me, I will not add a new affliction to my burdens by waging a fruitless fight against the gods.

But let us go into the house, that thou mayest receive my messages; and, since gifts should be meetly recompensed with gifts,- that thou mayest take these also. It is not right that thou shouldest go back with empty hands, after coming with such a goodly train.

[Exit Messenger, as Lichas and Deianeira go into the house.]

Chorus

[singing]

[strophe]

Great and mighty is the victory which the Cyprian queen ever bears away. I stay not now to speak of the gods; I spare to tell how she beguiled the son of Cronus, and Hades, the lord of darkness, or Poseidon, shaker of the earth.

But, when this bride was to be won, who were the valiant rivals that entered the contest for her hand? Who went forth to the ordeal of battle, to the fierce blows and the blinding dust?

[antistrophe]

One was a mighty river-god, the dread form of a horned and four-legged bull, Achelous, from Oeniadae: the other came from Thebe, dear to Bacchus, with curved bow, and spears, and brandished club, the son of Zeus: who then met in combat, fain to win a bride: and the Cyprian goddess of nuptial joy was there with them, sole umpire of their strife.

[epode]

Then was there clatter of fists and clang of bow, and the noise of bull’s horns therewith; then were there close-locked grapplings, and deadly blows from the forehead, and loud deep cries from both.

Meanwhile, she, in her delicate beauty, sat on the side of a hill that could be seen afar, awaiting the husband that should be hers.

So the battle rages, as I have told; but the fair bride who is the prize of the strife abides the end in piteous anguish. And suddenly she is parted from her mother, as when a heifer is taken from its dam.

[Deianeira enters from the house alone, carrying in her arms a casket containing a robe.]

Deianeira

Dear friends, while our visitor is saying his farewell to the captive girls in the house, I have stolen forth to you, — partly to tell you what these hands have devised, and partly to crave your sympathy with my sorrow.

A maiden, — or, methinks, no longer a maiden, but a mistress, — hath found her way into my house, as a freight comes to a mariner, — a merchandise to make shipwreck of my peace. And now we twain are to share the same marriage-bed, the same embrace. Such is the reward that Heracles hath sent me, — he whom I called true and loyal, — for guarding his home through all that weary time. I have no thought of anger against him, often as he is vexed with this distemper. But then to live with her, sharing the same union — what woman could endure it? For I see that the flower of her age is blossoming, while mine is fading; and the eyes of men love to cull the bloom of youth, but they turn aside from the old. This, then, is my fear, — lest Heracles, in name my spouse, should be the younger’s mate.

But, as I said, anger ill beseems a woman of understanding. I will tell you, friends, the way by which I hope to find deliverance and relief. I had a gift, given to me long ago by a monster of olden time, aid stored in an urn of bronze; a gift which, while yet a girl, I took up from the shaggy-breasted Nessus, — from his life-blood, as he lay dying; Nessus, who used to carry men in his arms across the deep waters of the Evenus, using no oar to waft them, nor sail of ship.

I, too, was carried on his shoulders, — when, by my father’s sending, first went forth with Heracles as his wife; and when I was in mid-stream, he touched me with wanton hands. I shrieked; the son of Zeus turned quickly round, and shot a feathered arrow; it whizzed through his breast to the lungs; and, in his mortal faintness, thus much the Centaur spake:—

‘Child of aged Oeneus, thou shalt have at least this profit of my ferrying, — if thou wilt hearken,-because thou wast the last whom I conveyed. If thou gatherest with thy hands the blood clotted round my wound, at the place where the Hydra, Lerna’s monstrous growth, hath tinged the arrow with black gall, — this shall be to thee a charm for the soul of Heracles, so that he shall never look upon any woman to love her more than thee.’

I bethought me of this, my friends — for, after his death, I had kept it carefully locked up in a secret place; and I have anointed this robe, doing everything to it as he enjoined while he lived. The work is finished. May deeds of wicked daring be ever far from my thoughts, and from my knowledge, — as I abhor the women who attempt them! But if in any wise I may prevail against this girl by love-spells and charms used on Heracles, the means to that end are ready;-unless, indeed, I seem to be acting rashly: if so, I will desist forthwith.

Leader

Nay, if these measures give any ground of confidence, we think that thy design is not amiss.

Deianeira

Well, the ground stands thus, — there is a fair promise; but I have not yet essayed the proof.

Leader

Nay, knowledge must come through action; thou canst have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial.

Deianeira

Well, we shall know presently:— for there I see the man already at the doors; and he will soon be going. — Only may my secret be well kept by you! While thy deeds are hidden, even though they be not seemly, thou wilt never be brought to shame.

[Lichas enters from the house.]

Lichas

What are thy commands? Give me my charge, daughter of Oeneus; for already I have tarried over long.

Deianeira

Indeed, I have just been seeing to this for thee, Lichas, while thou wast speaking to the stranger maidens in the house; — that thou shouldest take for me this long robe, woven by mine own hand, a gift to mine absent lord.

And when thou givest it, charge him that he, and no other, shall be the first to wear it; that it shall not be seen by the light of the sun, nor by the sacred precinct, nor by the fire at the hearth, until he stand forth, conspicuous before all eyes, and show it to the gods on a day when bulls are slain.

For thus had I vowed, — that if I should ever see or hear that he had come safely home, I would duly clothe him in this robe, and so present him to the gods, newly radiant at their altar in new garb.

As proof, thou shalt carry a token, which he will quickly recognise within the circle of this seal.

Now go thy way; and, first, remember the rule that messengers should not be meddlers; next, so bear thee that my thanks may be joined to his doubling the grace which thou shalt win.

Lichas

Nay, if I ply this herald-craft of Hermes with any sureness, I will never trip in doing thine errand: I will not fail to deliver this casket as it is, and to add thy words in attestation of thy gift.

Deianeira

Thou mayest be going now; for thou knowest well how things are with us in the house.

Lichas

I know, and will report, that all hath prospered.

Deianeira

And then thou hast seen the greeting given to the stranger maiden-thou knowest how I welcomed her?

Lichas

So that my heart was filled with wondering joy.

Deianeira

What more, then, is there for thee to tell? I am afraid that it would be too soon to speak of the longing on my part, before we know if I am longed for there.

[Lichas departs with the casket and Deianeira retires into the house.]

Chorus

[Singing]

[strophe 1]

O ye who dwell by the warm springs between haven and crag, and by Oeta’s heights; O dwellers by the land-locked waters of the Malian sea, on the shore sacred to the virgin-goddess of the golden shafts, where the Greeks meet in famous council at the Gates;

[antistrophe 1]

Soon shall the glorious voice of the flute go up for you again, resounding with no harsh strain of grief, but with such music as the lyre maketh to the gods! For the son whom Alcmena bore to Zeus is hastening homeward, with the trophies of all prowess.

[strophe 2]

He was lost utterly to our land, a wanderer over sea, while we waited through twelve long months, and knew nothing; and his loving wife, sad dweller with sad thoughts, was ever pining amid her tears. But now the War-god, roused to fury, hath delivered her from the days of her mourning.

[antistrophe 2]

May he come, may he come! Pause not the many-oared ship that carries him, till he shall have reached this town, leaving the island altar where, as rumour saith, he is sacrificing! Thence may he come, full of desire, steeped in love by the specious device of the robe, on which Persuasion hath spread her sovereign charm!

[Deianeira comes out of the house in agitation.]

Deianeira

Friends, how I fear that I may have gone too far in all that I have been doing just now!

Leader

What hath happened, Deianeira, daughter of Oeneus?

Deianeira

I know not; but feel a misgiving that I shall presently be found to have wrought a great mischief, the issue of a fair hope.

Leader

It is nothing, surely, that concerns thy gift to Heracles?

Deianeira

Yea, even so. And henceforth I would say to all, act not with zeal, if ye act without light.

Leader

Tell us the cause of thy fear, if it may be told.

Deianeira

A thing hath come to pass, my friends, such that, if I declare it, ye will hear a marvel whereof none could have dreamed.

That with which I was lately anointing the festal robe, — a white tuft of fleecy sheep’s wool, — hath disappeared, — not consumed by anything in the house, but self-devoured and self-destroyed, as it crumbled down from the surface of a stone. But I must tell the story More at length, that thou mayest know exactly how this thing befell.

I neglected no part of the precepts which the savage Centaur gave me, when the bitter barb was rankling in his side: they were in my memory, like the graven words which no hand may wash from a tablet of bronze. Now these were his orders, and I obeyed them:— to keep this unguent in secret place, always remote from fire and from the sun’s warm ray, until I should apply it, newly spread, where I wished. So had I done. And now, when the moment for action had come, I performed the anointing privily in the house, with a tuft of soft wool which I had plucked from a sheep of our home-flock; then I folded up my gift, and laid it, unvisited by sunlight, within its casket, as ye saw.

But as I was going back into the house, I beheld a thing too wondrous for words, and passing the wit of man to understand. I happened to have thrown the shred of wool, with which I bad been preparing the robe, into the full blaze of the sunshine. As it grew warm, it shrivelled all away, and quickly crumbled to powder on the ground, like nothing so much as the dust shed from a saw’s teeth where men work timber. In such a state it lies as it fell. And from the earth, where it was strewn, clots of foam seethed up, as when the rich juice of the blue fruit from the vine of Bacchus is poured upon the ground.

So I know not, hapless one, whither to turn my thoughts; I only see that I have done a fearful deed. Why or wherefore should the monster, in his death-throes, have shown good will to me, on whose account he was dying? Impossible! No, he was cajoling me, in order to slay the man who had smitten him: and I gain the knowledge of this too late, when it avails no more. Yes, I alone — unless my foreboding prove false — I, wretched one, must destroy him! For I know that the arrow which made the wound did scathe even to the god Cheiron; and it kills all beasts that it touches. And since ’tis this same black venom in the blood that hath passed out through the wound of Nessus, must it not kill my lord also? I ween it must.

Howbeit, I am resolved that, if he is to fall, at the same time I also shall be swept from life; for no woman could bear to live with an evil name, if she rejoices that her nature is not evil.

Leader

Mischief must needs be feared; but it is not well to doom our hope before the event.

Deianeira

Unwise counsels leave no room even for a hope which can lend courage.

Leader

Yet towards those who have erred unwittingly, men’s anger is softened; and so it should be towards thee.

Deianeira

Nay, such words are not for one who has borne a part in the ill deed, but only for him who has no trouble at his own door.

Leader

’Twere well to refrain from further speech, unless thou would’st tell aught to thine own son; for he is at hand, who went erewhile to seek his sire.

[Enter Hyllus]

Hyllus

O mother, would that one of three things had befallen thee! Would that thou wert dead, — or, if living, no mother of mine, — or that some new and better spirit had passed into thy bosom.

Deianeira

Ah, my son, what cause have I given thee to abhor me?

Hyllus

I tell thee that thy husband — yea, my sire-bath been done to death by thee this day

Deianeira

Oh, what word hath passed thy lips, my child!

Hyllus

A word that shall not fail of fulfilment; for who may undo that which bath come to pass?

Deianeira

What saidst thou, my son? Who is thy warranty for charging me with a deed so terrible?

Hyllus

I have seen my father’s grievous fate with mine own eyes; I speak not from hearsay.

Deianeira

And where didst thou find him, — where didst thou stand at his side?

Hyllus

If thou art to hear it, then must all be told.

After sacking the famous town of Eurytus, he went his way with the trophies and first-fruits of victory. There is a sea-washed headland of Euboea, Cape Cenaeum, where he dedicated altars and a sacred grove to the Zeus of his fathers; and there I first beheld him, with the joy of yearning love.

He was about to celebrate a great sacrifice, when his own herald, Lichas, came to him from home, bearing thy gift, the deadly robe; which he put on, according to thy precept; and then began his offering with twelve bulls, free from blemish, the firstlings of the spoil; but altogether he brought a hundred victims, great or small, to the altar.

At first, hapless one, he prayed with serene soul, rejoicing in his comely garb. But when the blood-fed flame began to blaze from the holy offerings and from the resinous pine, a sweat broke forth upon his flesh, and the tunic clung to his sides, at every joint, close-glued, as if by a craftsman’s hand; there came a biting pain that racked his bones; and then the venom, as of some deadly, cruel viper, began to devour him.

Thereupon he shouted for the unhappy Lichas, — in no wise to blame for thy crime, — asking what treason had moved him to bring that robe; but he, all-unknowing, hapless one, said that he had brought the gift from thee alone, as it had been sent. When his master heard it, as a piercing spasm clutched his lungs, he caught him by the foot, where the ankle turns in the socket, and hurled him at a surf-beaten rock in the sea; and he made the white brain to ooze from the hair, as the skull was dashed to splinters, and blood scattered therewith.

But all the people lifted up a cry of awe-struck grief, seeing that one was frenzied, and the other slain; and no one dared to come before the man. For the pain dragged him to earth, or made him leap into the air, with yells and shrieks, till the cliffs rang around, steep headlands of Locris, and Euboean capes.

But when he was spent with oft throwing himself on the ground in his anguish, and oft making loud lament, — cursing his fatal marriage with thee, the vile one, and his alliance with Oeneus, — saying how he had found in it the ruin of his life, — then from out of the shrouding altar-smoke, he lifted up his wildly-rolling eyes, and saw me in the great crowd, weeping. He turned his gaze on me, and called me: ‘O son, draw near; do not fly from my trouble, even though thou must share my death. Come, bear me forth, and set me, if thou canst, in a place where no man shall see me; or, if thy pity forbids that, at least convey me with all speed out of this land, and let me not die where I am.’

That command sufficed; we laid him in mid-ship, and brought him-but hardly brought him — to this shore, moaning in his torments. And ye shall presently behold him, alive, or lately dead.

Such, mother, are the designs and deeds against my sire whereof thou hast been found guilty. May avenging justice and the Erinys visit thee for them! Yes, if it be right, that is my prayer: and right it is, — for I have seen thee trample on the right, by slaying the noblest man in all the world, whose like thou shalt see nevermore!

[Deianeira moves towards the house.]

Leader

[to Deianeira]

Why dost thou depart in silence? Knowest thou not that such silence pleads for thine accuser?

[Deianeira goes in the house.]

Hyllus

Let her depart. A fair wind speed her far from my sight! Why should the name of mother bring her a semblance of respect, when she is all unlike a mother in her deeds? No, let her go, — farewell to her; and may such joy as she gives my sire become her own!

[Exit Hyllus, into the house.]

Chorus

[singing]

[strophe 1]

See, maidens, how suddenly the divine word of the old prophecy hath come upon us, which said that, when the twelfth year should have run through its full tale of months, it should end the series of toils for the true-born son of Zeus! And that promise is wafted surely to its fulfilment. For how shall he who beholds not the light have toilsome servitude any more beyond the grave?

[antistrophe 1]

If a cloud of death is around him, and the doom wrought by the Centaur’s craft is stinging his sides, where cleaves the venom which Thanatos begat and the gleaming serpent nourished, how can he look upon tomorrow’s sun, — when that appalling Hydra-shape holds him in its grip, and those murderous goads, prepared by the wily words of black-haired Nessus, have started into fury, vexing him with tumultuous pain?

[strophe 2]

Of such things this hapless lady had no foreboding; but she saw great mischief swiftly coming on her home from the new marriage. Her own hand applied the remedy; but for the issues of a stranger’s counsel, given at a fatal meeting, — for these, I ween, she makes despairing lament, shedding the tender dew of plenteous tears. And the coming fate foreshadows a great misfortune, contrived by guile.

[antistrophe 2]

Our streaming tears break forth: alas, a plague is upon him more piteous than any suffering that foemen ever brought upon that glorious hero.

Ah, thou dark steel of the spear foremost in battle, by whose might yonder bride was lately borne so swiftly from Oechalia’s heights! But the Cyprian goddess, ministering in silence, hath been plainly proved the doer of these deeds.

Leader of One Semi-Chorus

Is it fancy, or do I hear some cry of grief just passing through the house? What is this?

Leader of Other Semi-Chorus

No uncertain sound, but a wail of anguish from within: the house hath some new trouble.

Leader of Whole Chorus

And mark how sadly, with what a cloud upon her brow, that aged woman approaches, to give us tidings.

[Enter Nurse, from the house.]

Nurse

Ah, my daughters, great, indeed, were the sorrows that we were to reap from the gift sent to Heracles!

Leader

Aged woman, what new mischance hast thou to tell?

Nurse

Deianeira hath departed on the last of all her journeys, departed without stirring foot.

Leader

Thou speakest not of death?

Nurse

My tale is told.

Leader

Dead, hapless one?

Nurse

Again thou hearest it.

Chorus

Hapless, lost one! Say, what was the manner of her death?

Nurse

Oh, a cruel deed was there!

Chorus

Speak, woman, how hath she met her doom?

Nurse

By her own hand hath she died.

Chorus

What fury, what pangs of frenzy have cut her off by the edge of a dire weapon? How contrived she this death, following death, — all wrought by her alone?

Nurse

By the stroke of the sword that makes sorrow.

Chorus

Sawest thou that violent deed, poor helpless one?

Nurse

I saw it; yea, I was standing near.

Chorus

Whence came it? How was it done? Oh, speak

Nurse

’Twas the work of her own mind and her own hand.

Chorus

What dost thou tell us?

Nurse

The sure truth.

Chorus

The first-born, the first-born of that new bride is a dread Erinys for this house!

Nurse

Too true; and, hadst thou been an eye-witness of the action, verily thy pity would have been yet deeper.

Leader

And could a woman’s hand dare to do such deeds?

Nurse

Yea, with dread daring; thou shalt hear, and then thou wilt bear me witness.

When she came alone into the house, and saw her son preparing a deep litter in the court, that he might go back with it to meet his sire, then she hid herself where none might see; and, falling before the altars, she wailed aloud that they were left desolate; and, when she touched any-household thing that she had been wont to use, poor lady, in the past, her tears would flow; or when, roaming hither and thither through the house, she beheld the form of any well-loved servant, she wept, hapless one, at that sight, crying aloud upon her own fate, and that of the household which would thenceforth be in the power of others.

But when she ceased from this, suddenly I beheld her rush into the chamber of Heracles. From a secret place of espial, I watched her; and saw her spreading coverings on the couch of her lord. When she had done this, she sprang thereon, and sat in the middle of the bed; her tears burst forth in burning streams, and thus she spake: ‘Ah, bridal bed and bridal chamber mine, farewell now and for ever; never more shall ye receive me to rest upon this couch.’ She said no more, but with a vehement hand loosed her robe, where the gold-wrought brooch lay above her breast, baring all her left side and arm. Then I ran with all my strength, and warned her son of her intent. But lo, in the space between my going and our return, she had driven a two-edged sword through her side to the heart.

At that sight, her son uttered a great cry; for he knew, alas, that in his anger he had driven her to that deed; and he had learned, too late, from the servants in the house that she had acted without knowledge, by the prompting of the Centaur. And now the youth, in his misery, bewailed her with all passionate lament; he knelt, and showered kisses on her lips; he threw himself at her side upon the ground, bitterly crying that he had rashly smitten her with a slander, — weeping that he must now live bereaved of both alike, — of mother and of sire.

Such are the fortunes of this house. Rash indeed, is he who reckons on the morrow, or haply on days beyond it; for to-morrow is not, until to-day is safely past.

Chorus

[singing]

[strophe 1]

Which woe shall I bewail first, which misery is the greater? Alas, ’tis hard for me to tell.

[antistrophe 1]

One sorrow may be seen in the house; for one we wait with foreboding: and suspense hath a kinship with pain.

[strophe 2]

Oh that some strong breeze might come with wafting power unto our hearth, to bear me far from this land, lest I die of terror, when look but once upon the mighty son of Zeus!

For they say that he is approaching the house in torments from which there is no deliverance, a wonder of unutterable woe.

[antistrophe 2]

Ah, it was not far off, but close to us, that woe of which my lament gave warning, like the nightingale’s piercing note!

Men of an alien race are coming yonder. And how, then, are they bringing him? In sorrow, as for some loved one, they move on their mournful, noiseless march.

Alas, he is brought in silence! What are we to think; that he is dead, or sleeping?

[Enter Hyllus and an Old Man, with attendants, bearing Heracles upon a litter.]

Hyllus

Woe is me for thee, my father, woe is me for thee, wretched that I am! Whither shall I turn? What can I do? Ah me!

Old Man

[whispering]

Hush, my son! Rouse not the cruel pain that infuriates thy sire! He lives, though prostrated. Oh, put a stern restraint upon thy lips!

Hyllus

How sayest thou, old man — is he alive?

Old Man

[whispering]

Thou must not awake the slumberer! Thou must not rouse and revive the dread frenzy that visits him, my son!

Hyllus

Nay, I am crushed with this weight of misery — there is madness in my heart!

Heracles

[awaking]
O Zeus, to what land have I come? Who are these among whom I lie, tortured with unending agonies? Wretched, wretched that I am! Oh, that dire pest is gnawing me once more!

Old Man

[to Hyllus]

Knew I not how much better it was that thou shouldest keep silence, instead of scaring slumber from his brain and eyes?

Hyllus

Nay, I cannot be patient when I behold this misery.

Heracles

O thou Cenaean rock whereon mine altars rose, what a cruel reward hast thou won me for those fair offerings, — be Zeus my witness! Ah, to what ruin hast thou brought me, to what ruin! Would that I had never beheld thee for thy sorrow! Then had I never come face to face with this fiery madness, which no spell can soothe! Where is the charmer, where is the cunning healer, save Zeus alone, that shall lull this plague to rest? I should marvel, if he ever came within my ken!

[strophe 1]

Ah!

Leave me, hapless one, to my rest — leave me to my last rest!

[strophe 2]

Where art thou touching me? Whither wouldst thou turn me? Thou wilt kill me, thou wilt kill me! If there be any pang that slumbers, thou hast aroused it!

It hath seized me, — oh, the pest comes again! — Whence are ye, most ungrateful of all the Greeks? I wore out my troublous days in ridding Greece of pests, on the deep and in all forests; and now, when I am stricken, will no man succour me with merciful fire of sword?

[antistrophe 1]

Oh, will no one come and sever the head, at one fierce stroke, from this wretched body? Woe, woe is me!

Old Man

Son of Heracles, this task exceeds my strength, — help thou, — for strength is at thy command, too largely to need my aid in his relief.

Hyllus

My hands are helping; but no resource, in myself or from another, avails me to make his life forget its anguish:— such is the doom appointed by Zeus!

Heracles

[strophe 3]

O my son, where art thou? Raise me, — take hold of me, — thus thus! Alas, my destiny!

[antistrophe 2]

Again, again the cruel pest leaps forth to rend me, the fierce plague with which none may cope!

O Pallas, Pallas, it tortures me again! Alas, my son, pity thy sire, — draw a blameless sword, and smite beneath my collar-bone, and heal this pain wherewith thy godless mother hath made me wild! So may I see her fall, — thus, even thus, as she hath destroyed me!

[antistrophe 3]

Sweet Hades, brother of Zeus, give me rest, give me rest, — end my woe by a swiftly-sped doom!

Leader of the Chorus

I shudder, friends, to hear these sorrows of our lord; what a man is here, and what torments afflict him!

Heracles

Ah, fierce full oft, and grievous not in name alone, have been the labours of these hands, the burdens borne upon these shoulders! But no toil ever laid on me by the wife of Zeus or by the hateful Eurystheus was like unto this thing which the daughter of Oeneus, fair and false, hath fastened upon my back, — this woven net of the Furies, in which I perish! Glued to my sides, it hath eaten my flesh to the inmost parts; it is ever with me, sucking the channels of my breath; already it hath drained my fresh lifeblood, and my whole body is wasted, a captive to these unutterable bonds.

Not the warrior on the battle-field, not the Giants’ earth-born host, nor the might of savage beasts, hath ever done unto me thus,- not Hellas, nor the land of the alien, nor any land to which I have come as a deliverer: no, a woman, a weak woman, born not to the strength of man, all alone hath vanquished me, without stroke of sword

Son, show thyself my son indeed, and do not honour a mother’s name above a sire’s: bring forth the woman that bare thee, and give her with thine own hands into my hand, that I may know of a truth which sight grieves thee most, — my tortured frame, or hers, when she suffers her righteous doom!

Go, my son, shrink not — and show thy pity for me, whom many might deem pitiful, — for me, moaning and weeping like a girl; — and the man lives not who can say that he ever saw me do thus before; no, without complaining I still went whither mine evil fortune led. But now, alas, the strong man hath been found a woman.

Approach, stand near thy sire, and see what a fate it is that hath brought me to this pass; for I will lift the veil. Behold! Look, all of you, on this miserable body; see how wretched, how piteous is my plight!

Ah, woe is me!

The burning throe of torment is there anew, it darts through my sides — I must wrestle once more with that cruel, devouring plague!

O thou lord of the dark realm, receive me! Smite me, O fire of Zeus! Hurl down thy thunderbolt, O King, send it, O father, upon my head! For again the pest is consuming me; it hath blazed forth, it hath started into fury! O hands, my hands, O shoulders and breast and trusty arms, ye, now in this plight, are the same whose force of old subdued the dweller in Nemea, the scourge of herdsmen, the lion, a creature that no man might approach or confront; ye tamed the Lernaean Hydra, and that monstrous host of double form, man joined to steed, a race with whom none may commune, violent, lawless, of surpassing might; ye tamed the Erymanthian beast, and the three-headed whelp of Hades underground, a resistless terror, offspring of the dread Echidna; ye tamed the dragon that guarded the golden fruit in the utmost places of the earth.

These toils and countless others have I proved, nor hath any man vaunted a triumph over my prowess. But now, with joints unhinged and with flesh torn to shreds, I have become the miserable prey of an unseen destroyer, — I, who am called the son of noblest mother, — I, whose reputed sire is Zeus, lord of the starry sky.

But ye may be sure of one thing:— though I am as nought, though I cannot move a step, yet she who hath done this deed shall feel my heavy hand even now: let her but come, and she shall learn to proclaim this message unto all, that in my death, as in my life, I chastised the wicked!

Leader

Ah, hapless Greece, what mourning do I forsee for her, if she must lose this man

Hyllus

Father, since thy pause permits an answer, hear me, afflicted though thou art. I will ask thee for no more than is my due. Accept my counsels, in a calmer mood than that to which this anger stings thee: else thou canst not learn how vain is thy desire for vengeance, and how causeless thy resentment.

Heracles

Say what thou wilt, and cease; in this my pain I understand nought of all thy riddling words.

Hyllus

I come to tell thee of my mother, — how it is now with her, and how she sinned unwittingly.

Heracles

Villain! What — hast thou dared to breathe her name again in my hearing, — the name of the mother who hath slain thy sire?

Hyllus

Yea, such is her state that silence is unmeet.

Heracles

Unmeet, truly, in view of her past crimes.

Hyllus

And also of her deeds this day, — as thou wilt own.

Heracles

Speak, — but give heed that thou be not found a traitor.

Hyllus

These are my tidings. She is dead, lately slain.

Heracles

By whose hand? A wondrous message, from a prophet of ill-omened voice!

Hyllus

By her own hand, and no stranger’s.

Heracles

Alas, ere she died by mine, as she deserved!

Hyllus

Even thy wrath would be turned, couldst thou hear all.

Heracles

A strange preamble; but unfold thy meaning.

Hyllus

The sum is this; — she erred, with a good intent.

Heracles

Is it a good deed, thou wretch, to have slain thy sire?

Hyllus

Nay, she thought to use a love-charm for thy heart, when she saw the new bride in the house; but missed her aim.

Heracles

And what Trachinian deals in spells so potent?

Hyllus

Nessus the Centaur persuaded her of old to inflame thy desire with such a charm.

Heracles

Alas, alas, miserable that I am! Woe is me, I am lost, — undone, undone! No more for me the light of day! Alas, now I see in what a plight stand! Go, my son, — for thy father’s end hath come, — summon, I pray thee, all thy brethren; summon, too, the hapless Alcmena, in vain the bride of Zeus, — that ye may learn from my dying lips what oracles know.

Hyllus

Nay, thy mother is not here; as it chances, she hath her abode at Tiryns by the sea. Some of thy children she hath taken to live with her there, and others, thou wilt find, are dwelling in Thebe’s town. But we who are with thee, my father, will render all service that is needed, at thy bidding.

Heracles

Hear, then, thy task: now is the time to show what stuff is in thee, who art called my son.

It was foreshown to me by my Sire of old that I should perish by no creature that had the breath of life, but by one that had passed to dwell with Hades. So I have been slain by this savage Centaur, the living by the dead, even as the divine will had been foretold.

And I will show thee how later oracles tally therewith, confirming the old prophecy. I wrote them down in the grove of the Selli, dwellers on the hills, whose couch is on the ground; they were given by my Father’s oak of many tongues; which said that, at the time which liveth and now is, my release from the toils laid upon me should be accomplished. And I looked for prosperous days; but the meaning, it seems, was only that should die; for toil comes no more to the dead.

Since, then, my son, those words are clearly finding their fulfilment, thou, on thy part, must lend me thine aid. Thou must not delay, and so provoke me to bitter speech: thou must consent and help with a good grace, as one who hath learned that best of laws, obedience to a sire.

Hyllus

Yea, father, — though I fear the issue to which our talk hath brought me, — I will do thy good pleasure.

Heracles

First of all, lay thy right hand in mine.

Hyllus

For what purpose dost thou insist upon his pledge?

Heracles

Give thy hand at once — disobey me not!

Hyllus

Lo, there it is: thou shalt not be gainsaid.

Heracles

Now, swear by the head of Zeus my sire!

Hyllus

To do what deed? May this also be told?

Heracles

To perform for me the task that I shall enjoin.

Hyllus

I swear it, with Zeus for witness of the oath.

Heracles

And pray that, if thou break this oath, thou mayest suffer.

Hyllus

I shall not suffer, for I shall keep it:— yet so I pray.

Heracles

Well, thou knowest the summit of Oeta, sacred to Zeus?

Hyllus

Ay; I have often stood at his altar on that height.

Heracles

Thither, then, thou must carry me up with thine own hands, aided by what friends thou wilt; thou shalt lop many a branch from the deep-rooted oak, and hew many a faggot also from the sturdy stock of the wild-olive; thou shalt lay my body thereupon, and kindle it with flaming pine-torch.

And let no tear of mourning be seen there; no, do this without lament and without weeping, if thou art indeed my son. But if thou do it not, even from the world below my curse and my wrath shall wait on thee for ever.

Hyllus

Alas, my father, what hast thou spoken? How hast thou dealt with me!

Heracles

I have spoken that which thou must perform; if thou wilt not, then get thee some other sire, and be called my son no more!

Hyllus

Woe, woe is me! What a deed dost thou require of me, my father,-that I should become thy murderer, guilty of thy blood!

Heracles

Not so, in truth, but healer of my sufferings, sole physician of my pain!

Hyllus

And how, by enkindling thy body, shall I heal it?

Heracles

Nay, if that thought dismay thee, at least perform the rest.

Hyllus

The service of carrying thee shall not be refused.

Heracles

And the heaping of the pyre, as I have bidden?

Hyllus

Yea, save that I will not touch it with mine own hand. All else will I do, and thou shalt have no hindrance on my part.

Heracles

Well, so much shall be enough. — But add one small boon to thy large benefits.

Hyllus

Be the boon never so large, it shall be granted.

Heracles

Knowest thou, then, the girl whose sire was Eurytus?

Hyllus

It is of Iole that thou speakest, if I mistake not.

Heracles

Even so. This, in brief, is the charge that I give thee, my son. When am dead, if thou wouldest show a pious remembrance of thine oath unto thy father, disobey me not, but take this woman to be thy wife. Let no other espouse her who hath lain at my side, but do thou, O my son, make that marriage-bond thine own. Consent: after loyalty in great matters, to rebel in less is to cancel the grace that bad been won.

Hyllus

Ah me, it is not well to be angry with a sick man: but who could bear to see him in such a mind?

Heracles

Thy words show no desire to do my bidding.

Hyllus

What! When she alone is to blame for my mother’s death, and for thy present plight besides? Lives there the man who would make such choice, unless he were maddened by avenging fiends?

Better were it, father, that I too should die, rather than live united to the worst of our foes!

Heracles

He will render no reverence, it seems, to my dying prayer. — Nay, be sure that the curse of the gods will attend thee for disobedience to my voice.

Hyllus

Ah, thou wilt soon show, methinks, how distempered thou art!

Heracles

Yea, for thou art breaking the slumber of my plague.

Hyllus

Hapless that I am! What perplexities surround me!

Heracles

Yea, since thou deignest not to hear thy sire.

Hyllus

But must I learn, then, to be impious, my father?

Heracles

’Tis not impiety, if thou shalt gladden my heart.

Hyllus

Dost thou command me, then, to do this deed, as a clear duty?

Heracles

I command thee, — the gods bear me witness!

Hyllus

Then will I do it, and refuse not, — calling upon the gods to witness thy deed. I can never be condemned for loyalty to thee, my father.

Heracles

Thou endest well; and to these words, my son, quickly add the gracious deed, that thou mayest lay me on the pyre before any pain returns to rend or sting me.

Come, make haste and lift me! This, in truth, is rest from troubles; this is the end, the last end, of Heracles!

Hyllus

Nothing, indeed, hinders the fulfilment of thy wish, since thy command constrains us, my father.

Heracles

[chanting]
Come, then, ere thou arouse this plague, O my stubborn soul, give me a curb as of steel on lips set like stone to stone, and let no cry escape them; seeing that the deed which thou art to do, though done perforce, is yet worthy of thy joy!

Hyllus

[chanting]
Lift him, followers! And grant me full forgiveness for this; but mark the great cruelty of the gods in the deeds that are being done. They beget children, they are hailed as fathers, and yet they can look upon such sufferings.

[The attendants raise Heracles on the litter and move slowly off, as Hyllus chants to the Chorus in the closing lines.]

No man foresees the future; but the present is fraught with mourning for us, and with shame for the powers above, and verily with anguish beyond compare for him who endures this doom.

Maidens, come ye also, nor linger at the house; ye who have lately seen a dread death, with sorrows manifold and strange: and in all this there is nought but Zeus.

EURIPIDES

Alcestis

Characters in the Play

Apollo
Death
Chorus of old men

A woman servant

Alcestis, the Queen, wife Of Admetus

Admetus, King of Thessaly

Eumelus, their child

Heracles

Pheres, father of Admetus

A man servant

[Scene: At Pherae, outside the Palace of Admetus, King of Thessaly. The centre of the scene represents a portico with columns and a large double-door. To the left are the women’s quarters, to the right the guest rooms. The centre doors of the Palace slowly open inwards, and Apollo comes out. In his left hand he carries a large unstrung golden bow. He moves slowly and majestically, turns, and raises his right hand in salutation to the Palace.]

Apollo

Dwelling of Admetus, wherein I, a God, deigned to accept the food of serfs!

The cause was Zeus. He struck Asclepius, my son, full in the breast with a bolt of thunder, and laid him dead. Then in wild rage I slew the Cyclopes who forge the fire of Zeus. To atone for this my Father forced me to labour as a hireling for a mortal man; and I came to this country, and tended oxen for my host. To this hour I have protected him and his. I, who am just, chanced on the son of Pheres, a just man, whom I have saved from Death by tricking the Fates. The Goddesses pledged me their faith Admetus should escape immediate death if, in exchange, another corpse were given to the Under-Gods.

One by one he tested all his friends, and even his father and the old mother who bad brought him forth — and found none that would die for him and never more behold the light of day, save only his wife. Now, her spirit waiting to break loose, she droops upon his arm within the house; this is the day when she must die and render up her life.

But I must leave this Palace’s dear roof, for fear pollution soil me in the house.

See! Death, Lord of All the Dead, now comes to lead her to the house of Hades! Most punctually he comes! How well he marked the day she had to die!

[From the right comes Death, with a drawn sword in his hand. He moves stealthily towards the Palace; then sees Apollo and halts abruptly. The two Deities confront each other.]

Death

Ha! Phoebus! You! Before this Palace! Lawlessly would you grasp, abolish the rights of the Lower Gods! Did you not beguile the Fates and snatch Admetus from the grave? Does not that suffice? Now, once again, you have armed your hand with the bow, to guard the daughter of Pelias who must die in her husband’s stead!

Apollo

Fear not! I hold for right, and proffer you just words.

Death

If you hold for right, why then your bow?

Apollo

My custom is ever to carry it.

Death

Yes! And you use it unjustly to aid this house!

Apollo

I grieve for a friend’s woe.

Death

So you would rob me of a second body?

Apollo

Not by force I won the other.

Death

Why, then, is he in the world and not below the ground?

Apollo

In his stead he gives his wife — whom you have come to take.

Death

And shall take — to the Underworld below the earth!

Apollo

Take her, and go! I know not if I can persuade you ...

Death

Not to kill her I must kill? I am appointed to that task.

Apollo

No, no! But to delay death for those about to die.

Death

I hear your words and guess your wish!

Apollo

May not Alcestis live to old age?

Death

No! I also prize my rights!

Apollo

Yet at most you win one life.

Death

They who die young yield me a greater prize.

Apollo

If she dies old, the burial will be richer.

Death

Phoebus, that argument favours the rich.

Apollo

What! Are you witty unawares?

Death

The rich would gladly pay to die old.

Apollo

So you will not grant me this favour?

Death

Not I! You know my nature.

Apollo

Yes! Hateful to men and a horror to the gods!

Death

You cannot always have more than your due.

Apollo

Yet you shall change, most cruel though you are! For a man comes to the dwelling of Pheres, sent by Eurystheus to fetch a horse-drawn chariot from the harsh-wintered lands of Thrace; and he shall be a guest in the house of Admetus, and by force shall he tear this woman from you. Thus shall you gain no thanks from us, and yet you shall do this thing — and my hatred be upon you.

[Apollo goes out. Death gazes after him derisively.]

Death

Talk all you will, you get no more of me! The woman shall go down to the dwelling of Hades. Now must I go to consecrate her for the sacrifice with this sword; for when once this blade has shorn the victim’s hair, then he is sacred to the Lower Gods!

[Death enters the Palace by the open main door. The chorus enters from the right. They are the Elders or Notables of the city, and, therefore move slowly, leaning upon their staffs.]

Leader of the chorus [chanting]

Why is there no sound outside the Palace? Why is the dwelling of Admetus silent? Not a friend here to tell me if I must weep for a dead Queen or whether she lives and looks upon the light, Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, whom among all women I hold the best wife to her spouse!

Chorus [singing]

Is a sob to be heard?

Or the beating of hands

In the house?

The lament for her end?

Not one,

Not one of her servants

Stands at the gate!

Ah! to roll back the wave of our woe,

O Healer,

Appear!

First semi-chorus

Were she dead

They had not been silent.

Second semi-chorus

She is but a dead body!

First semi-chorus

Yet she has not departed the house.

Second semi-chorus

Ah! Let me not boast!

Why do you cling to hope?

First semi-chorus

Would Admetus bury her solitary,

Make a grave alone for a wife so dear?

Chorus

At the gate I see not

The lustral water from the spring

Which stands at the gates of the dead!

No shorn tress in the portal

Laid in lament for the dead!

The young women beat not their hands!

Second semi-chorus

Yet to-day is the day appointed....

First semi-chorus

Ah! What have you said?

Second semi-chorus

When she must descend under earth

First semi-chorus

You have pierced my soul!

You have pierced my mind!

Second semi-chorus

He that for long

Has been held in esteem

Must weep when the good are destroyed.

Chorus

No!

There is no place on earth

To send forth a suppliant ship —

Not to Lycia,

Not to Ammon’s waterless shrine —

To save her from death!

The dreadful doom is at hand.

To what laden altar of what God

Shall I turn my steps?

He alone —

If the light yet shone for his eye —

Asclepius, Phoebus’s son,

Could have led her back

From the land of shadows,

From the gates of Hades,

For he raised the dead

Ere the Zeus-driven shaft

Slew him with thunder fire....

But now

What hope can I hold for her life?

Leader [chanting]

The King has fulfilled

Every rite;

The altars of all the Gods

Drip with the blood of slain beasts:

Nothing, nothing avails.

[From the women’s quarters in the left wing of the Palace comes a woman in tears. She is not a slave, but one of the personal attendants on the Queen.]

But now from the house comes one of her women servants, all in tears. What now shall I learn? [To the weeping Servant] It is well to weep when our lords are in sorrow — but tell us, we would know, is she alive, is she dead?

Servant

You may say she is both alive and dead.

Leader

How can the same man be dead and yet behold the light?

Servant

She gasps, she is on the verge of death.

Leader

Ah, unhappy man! For such a husband what loss is such a wife!

Servant

The King will not know his loss until he suffers it.

Leader

Then there is no hope that her life may be saved?

Servant

The fated day constrains her.

Leader

Are all things befitting prepared for her?

Servant

The robes in which her lord will bury her are ready.

Leader

Then let her know that she dies gloriously, the best of women beneath the sun by far!

Servant

How should she not be the best! Who shall deny it? What should the best among women be? How better might a woman hold faith to her lord than gladly to die for him? This the whole city knows, but you will marvel when you hear what she has done within the house. When she knew that the last of her days was come she bathed her white body in river water, she took garments and gems from her rooms of cedar wood, and clad herself nobly; then, standing before the hearth-shrine, she uttered this prayer:

‘O Goddess, since now I must descend beneath the earth, for the last time I make supplication to you: and entreat you to protect my motherless children. Wed my son to a fair bride, and my daughter to a noble husband. Let not my children die untimely, as I their mother am destroyed, but grant that they live out happy lives with good fortune in their own land!’

To every altar in Admetus’s house she went, hung them with garlands. offered prayer, cut myrtle boughs — unweeping, unlamenting; nor did the coming doom change the bright colour of her face.

Then to her marriage-room she went, flung herself down upon her bed, and wept, and said:

‘O my marriage-bed, wherein I loosed my virgin girdle to him for whom I die! Farewell! I have no hatred for you. Only me you lose. Because I held my faith to you and to my lord — I must die. Another woman shall possess you, not more chaste indeed than I, more fortunate perhaps.’

She fell upon her knees and kissed it, and all the bed was damp with the, tide of tears which flooded to her eyes. And when she was fulfilled of many tears, drooping she rose from her bed and made as if to go, and many times she turned to go and many times turned back, and flung herself once more upon the bed.

Her children clung to their mother’s dress, and wept; and she clasped them in her arms and kissed them turn by turn, as a dying woman.

All the servants in the house wept with compassion for their Queen, But she held out her hand to each, and there was none so base to whom she did not speak, and who did not reply again.

Such is the misery in Admetus’s house. If he had died, he would be nothing now; and, having escaped, he suffers an agony he will never forget.

Leader

And does Admetus lament this woe — since he must be robbed of so noble a woman?

Servant

He weeps, and clasps in his arms his dear bedfellow, and cries to her not to abandon him, asking impossible things. For she pines, and is wasted by sickness. She falls away, a frail burden on his arm; and yet, though faintly, she still breathes, still strives to look upon the sunlight, which she shall never see hereafter — since now for the last time she looks upon the orb and splendour of the sun!

I go, and shall announce that you are here; for all men are not so well-minded to their lords as loyally to stand near them in misfortunes, but you for long have been a friend to both my lords.

[She goes back into the women’s quarters of the Palace. The chorus now begins to sing.]

First semi-chorus

O Zeus,

What end to these woes?

What escape from the Fate

Which oppresses our lords?

Second semi-chorus

Will none come forth?

Must I shear my hair?

Must we wrap ourselves

In black mourning folds?

First semi-chorus

It is certain, O friends, it is certain?

But still let us cry to the Gods;

Very great is the power of the Gods.

Chorus

O King, O Healer,

Seek out appeasement

To Admetus’s agony!

Grant this, Oh, grant it!

Once before did you find it;

Now once more

Be the Releaser from death.

The Restrainer of blood-drenched Hades!

Second semi-chorus

Alas!

O son of Pheres.

What ills shall you suffer

Being robbed of your spouse!

First semi-chorus

At sight of such woes

Shall we cut our throats?

Shall we slip

A dangling noose round our necks?

Chorus

See! See!

She comes

From the house with her lord!

Cry out, Oh, lament.

O land of Pherae,

For the best of women

Fades away in her doom

Under the earth,

To dark Hades!

[From the central door of the Palace comes a splendid but tragical procession. Preceded by the royal guards, Admetus enters, supporting Alcestis. The two children, a boy and a girl, cling to their mother’s dress. There is a train of attendants and waiting women, who bring a low throne for the fainting Alcestis.]

Leader of the chorus [chanting]

Never shall I say that we ought to rejoice in marriage, but rather weep; this have I seen from of old and now I look upon the fate of the King, who loses the best of wives, and henceforth until the end his life shall be intolerable.

Alcestis [chanting]

Sun, and you, light of day,

Vast whirlings of swift cloud!

Admetus

The sun looks upon you and me, both of us miserable, who have wrought nothing against the Gods to deserve death.

Alcestis [chanting]

O Earth, O roof-tree of my home,

Bridal-bed of my country, Iolcus!

Admetus

Rouse up, O unhappy one, and, do not leave me! Call upon the mighty Gods to pity!

Alcestis [starting up and gazing wildly in terror, chanting]

I see the two-oared boat,

I see the boat on the lake!

And Charon,

Ferryman of the Dead,

Calls to me, his hand on the oar:

‘Why linger? Hasten! You delay me!’

Angrily he urges me.

Admetus

Alas! How bitter to me is that ferrying of which you speak! O my unhappy one, how we suffer!

Alcestis [chanting]

He drags me, he drags me away —

Do you not see? —

To the House of the Dead,

The Winged One

Glaring under dark brows,

Hades! —

What is it you do?

Set me free! —

What a path must I travel,

O most hapless of women!

Admetus

O piteous to those that love you, above all to me and to these children who sorrow in this common grief!

Alcestis [chanting]

Loose me, Oh, loose me now;

Lay me down;

All strength is gone from my feet. [She falls back in the throne.]

Hades draws near!

Dark night falls on my eyes,

My children, my children,

Never more, Oh, never more

Shall your mother be yours!

O children, farewell,

Live happy in the light of day!

Admetus [chanting]

Alas! I hear this unhappy speech, and for me it is worse than all death. Ah! By the Gods, do not abandon me! Ah! By our children, whom you leave motherless, take heart! If you die, I become as nothing; in you we have our life and death; we revere your love.

Alcestis [recovering herself]

Admetus, you see the things I suffer; and now before I die I mean to tell you what I wish.

To show you honour and — at the cost of my life — that you may still behold the light, I die; and yet I might have lived and wedded any in Thessaly I chose, and dwelt with happiness in a royal home. But, torn from you, I would not live with fatherless children, nor have I hoarded up those gifts of youth in which I found delight. Yet he who begot you, she who brought you forth, abandoned you when it had been beautiful in them to die, beautiful to die with dignity to save their son! They had no child but you, no hope if you were dead that other children might be born to them. Thus I should have lived my life out, and you too, and you would not lament as now, made solitary from your wife, that you must rear our children motherless!

But these things are a God’s doing and are thus.

Well! Do not forget this gift, for I shall ask — not a recompense, since nothing is more precious than life, but — only what is just, as you yourself will say, since if you have not lost your senses you must love these children no less than I. Let them be masters in my house; marry not again, and set a stepmother over them, a woman harsher than I, who in her jealousy will lift her hand against my children and yours. Ah! not this, let not this be, I entreat you! The new stepmother hates the first wife’s children, the viper itself is not more cruel. The son indeed finds a strong rampart in his father — but you, my daughter, how shall you live your virgin life out in happiness? How will you fare with your father’s new wife? Ah! Let her not cast evil report upon you and thus wreck your marriage in the height of your youth! You will have no mother, O my child, to give you in marriage, to comfort you in childbed when none is tenderer than a mother!

And I must die. Not to-morrow. nor to-morrow’s morrow comes this misfortune on me, but even now I shall be named with those that are no more. Farewell! Live happy! You, my husband, may boast you had the best of wives; and you, my children, that you lost the best of mothers!

[She falls back.]

Leader

Take heart! I do not hesitate to speak for him. This he will do, unless he has lost his senses.

Admetus

It shall be so, it shall be! Have no fear! And since I held you living as my wife, so, when dead, you only shall be called my wife, and in your place no bride of Thessaly shall salute me hers; no other woman is noble enough for that, no other indeed so beautiful of face. My children shall suffice me; I pray the Gods I may enjoy them, since you we have not enjoyed.

I shall wear mourning for you, O my wife, not for one year but all my days, abhorring the woman who bore me, hating my father — for they loved me in words, not deeds. But you — to save my life you give the dearest thing you have! Should I not weep then, losing such a wife as you?

I shall make an end of merry drinking parties, and of flower-crowned feasts and of the music which possessed my house. Never again shall I touch the lyre, never again shall I raise my spirits to sing to the Libyan flute — for you have taken from me all my joy. Your image, carven by the skilled hands of artists, shall be laid in our marriage-bed; I shall clasp it, and my hands shall cling to it and I shall speak your name and so, not having you, shall think I have my dear wife in my arms — a cold delight, I know, but it will lighten the burden of my days. Often you will gladden me, appearing in my dreams; for sweet it is to look on those we love in dreams, however brief the night.

Ah! If I had the tongue and song of Orpheus so that I might charm Demeter’s Daughter or her Lord, and snatch you back from Hades, would go down to hell; and neither Pluto’s dog nor Charon, Leader of the Dead, should hinder me until I had brought your life back to the light!

At least await me there whenever I shall die, and prepare the house where you will dwell with me. I shall lay a solemn charge upon these children to stretch me in the same cedar shroud with you, and lay my side against your side; for even in death let me not be separate from you, you who alone were faithful to me!

Leader [to Admetus]

And I also will keep this sad mourning with you, as a friend with a friend; for she is worthy of it.

Alcestis

O my children, you have heard your father say that never will he set another wife over you and never thus insult me.

Admetus

Again I say it, and will perform it too!

Alcestis [placing the children’s hands in his]

Then take these children from my hand.

Admetus

I take them — dear gifts from a dear hand.

Alcestis

Now you must be the mother for me to my children.

Admetus

It must be so, since they are robbed of you.

Alcestis

O children, I should have lived my life out — and I go to the Underworld.

Admetus

Alas! What shall I do, left alone by you?

Alcestis

Time will console you. The dead are nothing.

Admetus

Take me with you, by the Gods! Take me to the Underworld!

Alcestis

It is enough that I should die — for you.

Admetus

O Fate, what a wife you steal from me!

Alcestis [growing faint]

My dimmed eyes are heavily oppressed.

Admetus

O woman, I am lost if you leave me!

Alcestis

You may say of me that I am nothing.

Admetus

Lift up your head! Do not abandon your children!

Alcestis

Ah! Indeed it is unwillingly — but, farewell, my children!

Admetus

Look at them, look....

Alcestis

I am nothing.

Admetus

What are you doing? Are you leaving me?

Alcestis [falling back dead]

Farewell.

Admetus [staring at the body]

Wretch that I am, I am lost!

Leader

She is gone! The wife of Admetus is no more.

Eumelus [chanting]

Ah! Misery!

Mother has gone,

Gone to the Underworld!

She lives no more,

O my Father,

In the sunlight.

O sad one,

You have left us

To live motherless!

See, Oh, see her eyelids

And her drooping hands!

Mother, Mother,

Hearken to me, listen,

I beseech you!

I-I-Mother! —

I am calling to you,

Your little bird fallen upon your face!

Admetus

She hears not, she sees not. You and I are smitten by a dread calamity.

Eumelus [chanting]

Father, I am a child,

And I am left

Like a lonely ship

By the mother I loved.

Oh! The cruel things I suffer!

And you, little sister,

Suffer with me.

O my Father,

Vain, vain was your wedding,

You did not walk with her

To the end of old age.

She died first;

And your death, O Mother,

Destroys our house.

Leader

Admetus, you must endure this calamity. You are not the first and will not be the last to lose a noble wife. We all are doomed to die.

Admetus

I know it.

Not unawares did this woe swoop down on me; for long it has gnawed at me.

But, since I shall ordain the funeral rites for this dead body, you must be there, and meanwhile let a threnody re-echo to the implacable God of the Underworld. And all you men of Thessaly whom I rule — I order you to share the mourning for this woman with severed hair and black-robed garb. You who yoke the four-horsed chariot and the swift single horses, cut the mane from their necks with your steel.

Let there be no noise of flutes or lyre within the city until twelve moons are fulfilled. Never shall I bury another body so dear to me, never one that has loved me better. From me she deserves all honour, since she alone would die for me!

[The body of Alcestis is carried solemnly into the Palace, followed by Admetus, With bowed head, holding one of his children by each hand. When all have entered, the great doors are quietly shut.]

Chorus [singing]

[strophe 1]

O Daughter of Pelias,

Hail to you in the house of Hades,

In the sunless home where you shall dwell!

Let Hades, the dark-haired God,

Let the old man, Leader of the Dead,

Who sits at the oar and helm,

Know you:

Far, far off is the best of women

Borne beyond the flood of Acheron

In the two-oared boat!

[antistrophe 1]

Often shall the Muses’ servants

Sing of you to the seven-toned

Lyre-shell of the mountain-tortoise,

And praise you with mourning songs at Sparta

When the circling season

Brings back the month Carneius

Under the nightlong upraised moon,

And in bright glad Athens.

Such a theme do you leave by your death

For the music of singers!

[strophe 2]

Ah! That I had the power

To bring you back to the light

From the dark halls of Hades,

And from the waves of Cocytus

With the oar of the river of hell

Oh, you only,

O dearest of women,

You only dared give your life

For the life of your lord in Hades!

Light rest the earth above you,

O woman.

If your lord choose another bridal-bed

He shall be hateful to me

As to your own children.

[antistrophe 2]

When his mother

And the old father that begot him

Would not give their bodies to the earth

For their son’s sake,

They dared not deliver him — O cruel!

Though their heads were grey.

But you,

In your lively youth,

Died for him, and are gone from the light!

Ah! might I be joined

With a wife so dear!

But in life such fortune is rare.

How happy were my days with her!

[From the left Heracles enters. He is black-bearded and of great physical strength; he wears a lion-skin over his shoulders and carries a large club.]

Heracles [with a gesture of salutation]

Friends, dwellers in the lands of Pherae, do I find Admetus in his home?

Leader of the chorus

The son of Pheres is in his home, O Heracles. But, tell us, what brings you to the land of Thessaly and to the city of Pherae?

Heracles

I have a task I must achieve for Eurystheus of Tiryns.

Leader

Where do you go? To what quest are you yoked?

Heracles

The quest of the four-horsed chariot of Diomedes, the Thracian.

Leader

But how will you achieve it? Do you know this stranger?

Heracles

No, I have never been to the land of the Bistones.

Leader

You cannot obtain the horses without a struggle.

Heracles

I cannot renounce my labours.

Leader

You must kill to return, or you will remain there dead.

Heracles

It will not be the first contest I have risked.

Leader

And if you conquer the King will you gain anything?

Heracles

I shall bring back his foals to the lord of Tiryns.

Leader

It is not easy to thrust the bit into their jaws.

Heracles

Only if they breathe fire from their nostrils!

Leader

But they tear men with their swift jaws.

Heracles

You speak of the food of wild mountain beasts, not of horses.

Leader

You may see their mangers foul with blood.

Heracles

Of what father does the breeder boast himself the son?

Leader

Of Ares, the lord of the gold-rich shield of Thrace!

Heracles

In this task once more you remind me of my fate, which is ever upon harsh steep ways, since I must join battle with the sons of Ares — first with Lycaon, then with Cycnus, and now in this third contest I am come to match myself with these steeds and their master!

Leader

But see, the lord of this land, Admetus himself, comes from the house!

[The central doors of the Palace have opened, and Admetus comes slowly on the Stage, preceded and followed by guards and attendants. The King has put off all symbols of royalty, and is dressed in black. His tong hair is clipped close to his head. Admetus dissembles his grief throughout this scene, in obedience to the laws of hospitality, which were particularly reverenced in Thessaly.]

Admetus

Hail Son of Zeus and of the blood of Perseus!

Heracles

And hail to you, Admetus, lord of the Thessalians

Admetus

May it be so! I know your friendship well.

Heracles

What means this shorn hair, this mourning robe?

Admetus

To-day I must bury a dead body.

Heracles

May a God avert harm from your children!

Admetus

The children I have begotten are alive in the house.

Heracles

Your father was ripe for death — if it is he has gone?

Admetus

He lives — and she who brought me forth, O Heracles.

Heracles

Your wife — Alcestis — she is not dead?

Admetus [evasively]

Of her I might make a double answer.

Heracles

Do you mean that she is dead or alive?

Admetus [ambiguously]

She is and is not — and for this I grieve.

Heracles [perplexed]

I am no wiser — you speak obscurely.

Admetus

Did you not know the fate which must befall her?

Heracles

I know she submitted to die for you.

Admetus

How then can she be alive, having consented to this?

Heracles

Ah! Do not weep for your wife till that time comes.

Admetus

Those who are about to die are dead, and the dead are nothing.

Heracles

Men hold that to be and not to be are different things.

Admetus

You hold for one, Heracles, and I for the other.

Heracles

Whom, then, do you mourn? Which of your friends is dead?

Admetus

A woman. We spoke of her just now.

Heracles [mistaking his meaning]

A stranger? Or one born of your kin?

Admetus

A stranger, but one related to this house.

Heracles

But how, then, did she chance to die in your house?

Admetus

When her father died she was sheltered here.

Heracles

Alas! Would I had not found you in this grief, Admetus!

Admetus

What plan are you weaving with those words?

Heracles

I shall go to the hearth of another friend.

Admetus

Not so, O King! This wrong must not be.

Heracles [hesitating]

The coming of a guest is troublesome to those who mourn.

Admetus [decisively]

The dead are dead. Enter my house.

Heracles

But it is shameful to feast among weeping friends.

Admetus

We shall put you in the guest-rooms, which are far apart.

Heracles

Let me go, and I will give you a thousand thanks.

Admetus

No, you shall not go to another man’s hearth. [To a servant] Guide him, and open for him the guest-rooms apart from the house. [Heracles enters the Palace by the guests’ door; when he has gone in, Admetus turns to the other servants] Close the inner door of the courtyard; it is unseemly that guests rejoicing at table should hear lamentations, and be saddened.

[The attendants go into the Palace.]

Leader

What are you about? When such a calamity has fallen upon you, Admetus, have you the heart to entertain a guest? Are you mad?

Admetus

And if I had driven away a guest who came to my house and city, would you have praised me more? No, indeed! My misfortune would have been no less, and I inhospitable. One more ill would have been added to those I have if my house were called inhospitable. I myself find him the best of hosts when I enter the thirsty land of Argos.

Leader

But why did you hide from him the fate that has befallen, if the man came as a friend, as you say?

Admetus

Never would he have entered my house if he had guessed my misfortune.

To some, I know, I shall appear senseless in doing this, and they will blame me; but my roof knows not to reject or insult a guest.

[He goes into the Palace, as the chorus begins its song.]

Chorus [singing]

[strophe 1]

O house of a bountiful lord,

Ever open to many guests,

The God of Pytho,

Apollo of the beautiful lyre,

Deigned to dwell in you

And to live a shepherd in your lands!

On the slope of the hillsides

He played melodies of mating

On the Pipes of Pan to his herds.

[antistrophe 1]

And the dappled lynxes fed with them

In joy at your singing;

From the wooded vale of Orthrys

Came a yellow troop of lions;

To the sound of your lyre, O Phoebus,

Danced the dappled fawn

Moving on light feet

Beyond the high-crested pines,

Charmed by your sweet singing.

[strophe 2]

He dwells in a home most rich in flocks

By the lovely moving Boebian lake.

At the dark stabling-place of the Sun

He takes the sky of the Molossians

As a bourne to his ploughing of fields,

To the soils of his plains;

He bears sway

As far as the harbourless

Coast of the Aegean Sea,

As far as Pelion.

[antistrophe 2]

Even to-day he opened his house

And received a guest,

Though his eyelids were wet

With tears wept by the corpse

Of a dear bedfellow dead in the house.

For the noble spirit is proclaimed by honour;

All wisdom lies with the good.

I admire him:

And in my soul I know

The devout man shall have joy.

[The funeral procession of Alcestis enters from the door of the women’s quarters. The body, carried on a bier by men servants, is followed by Admetus and his two children. Behind them comes a train of attendants and servants carrying the funeral offerings. All are in mourning. Admetus addresses the chorus.]

Admetus

O friendly presence of you men of Pherae! Now that the body is prepared, and the servants bear it on high to the tomb and the fire, do you, as is fitting, salute the dead as she goes forth on her last journey.

[Pheres, the father of Admetus, enters, followed by attendants bearing funeral offerings.]

Leader of the chorus

But I see your father, tottering with an old man’s walk, and his followers bearing in their hands for your wife garments as an offering to the dead.

Pheres

My son, I have come to share your sorrow, for the wife you have lost was indeed noble and virtuous — none can deny it. But these things must be endured, however intolerable they may be.

Take these garments, and let her descend under the earth. Her body must be honoured, for she died to save your life, my son; she has not made me childless, nor left me to be destroyed without you in my hapless old age; and she has given glorious fame to all women by daring so noble a deed! [He lifts his hand in salutation to the body of Alcestis.] O woman, who saved my son, who raised me up when I had fallen, hail! Be happy in the halls of Hades! I declare it — such marriages are profitable to mankind; otherwise, it is foolish to marry.

Admetus [furiously]

It was not my wish that you should come to this burial, and I deny that your presence is that of a friend! She shall never wear these garments of yours; she needs not your gifts for her burial. You should have grieved when I was, about to die; but you stood aside, and now do you come to wail over a corpse when you, an old man, allowed a young woman to die?

Were you in very truth father of this body of mine? Did she, who claims to be and is called my mother, bring me forth? Or was I bred of a slave’s seed and secretly brought to your wife’s breast? You have proved what you are when it comes to the test, and therefore I am not your begotten son; or you surpass all men in cowardice, for, being at the very verge and end of life, you had neither courage nor will to die for your son. But this you left to a woman, a stranger, whom alone I hold as my father and my mother!

Yet it had been a beautiful deed in you to die for your son, and short indeed was the time left you to live. She and I would have lived out our lives, and I should not now be here alone lamenting my misery.

You enjoyed all that a happy man can enjoy — you passed the flower of your age as a king, and in me your son you had an heir to your dominion; you would not have died childless, leaving an orphaned house to be plundered by strangers. You will not say that you abandoned me to death because I dishonoured your old age, for above all I was respectful to you — and this is the gratitude I have from you and my mother!

Beget more sons, and quickly, to cherish your old age and wrap you in a shroud when dead and lay your body out in state! This hand of mine shall not inter you. I am dead to you. I look upon the light of day because another saved me — I say I am her son, and will cherish her old age!

Vainly do old men pray for death, regretting their age and the long span of life. If death draws near, none wants to die, and age is no more a burden to him.

Leader

Admetus! The present misfortune is enough. Do not provoke your father’s spirit.

[Admetus turns angrily to depart, but Pheres prevents him.]

Pheres

My son, do you think you are pursuing some hireling Lydian or Phrygian with your taunts? Do you know I am a Thessalian, a free man lawfully begotten by a Thessalian father? You are over-insolent, and you shall not leave thus, after wounding me with your boyish insults. I indeed begot you, and bred you up to be lord of this land, but I am not bound to die for you. It is not a law of our ancestors or of Hellas that the fathers should die for the children! You were born to live your own life, whether miserable or fortunate; and what is due to you from me you have. You rule over many men, and I shall leave you many wide fields even as received them from my own father. How, then, have I wronged you? Of what have I robbed you? Do not die for me, any more than I die for you. You love to look upon the light of day — do you think your father hates it? I tell myself that we are a long time underground and that life is short, but sweet.

But you — you strove shamelessly not to die, and you are alive, you shirked your fate by killing her! And you call me a coward, you, the worst of cowards, surpassed by a woman who died for you, pretty boy? And now you insult those who should be dear to you, when they refuse to die for a coward like you!

Be silent! Learn that if you love your life, so do others. If you utter insults, you shall hear many, and true ones too!

Leader

These insults and those that went before suffice. Old man, cease to revile your son.

Admetus [to Pheres]

Speak on! I shall refute you. If the truth wounds you when you hear it you should not have wronged me.

Pheres

I should have wronged you far more if I had died for you.

Admetus

It is the same then to die an old man and in the flower of life?

Pheres

We should live one life, not two.

Admetus

May you live longer than God!

Pheres

Do you curse your parents when they have done you no wrong?

Admetus

I see you are in love with long life.

Pheres

But you are not carrying her dead body in place of your own?

Admetus

It is the proof of your cowardice, O worst of men.

Pheres

You cannot say she died for me!

Admetus

Alas! May you one day need my help.

Pheres

Woo many women, so that more may die for you.

Admetus

To your shame be it — you who dared not die.

Pheres

Sweet is the daylight of the Gods, very sweet.

Admetus

Your spirit is mean, not a man’s.

Pheres

Would you laugh to carry an old man’s body to the grave?

Admetus

You will die infamous, whenever you die.

Pheres

It will matter little enough to me to hear ill of myself when I am dead!

Admetus

Alas! Alas! full of impudence. is old age!

Pheres

She was not impudent, but foolish,

Admetus

Go! Leave me to bury her body.

Pheres [turning away]

I go. You, her murderer, will bury her — but soon you must render an account to her relatives. Acastus is not a man if he fails to avenge his sister’s blood on you!

[Pheres goes out by the way he entered, followed by his attendants. Admetus gazes angrily after him.]

Admetus

Go with a curse, you, and she who dwells with you! Grow old, as you ought, childless though you have a child. You shall never return to this house. And if I could renounce your hearth as my father’s by heralds, I would do it. But we — since this sorrow must be endured — let us go, and set her body on the funeral pyre.

[The Procession moves slowly along the stage, and is joined by the chorus. As they pass, the leader salutes the body of Alcestis.]

Leader [chanting]

Alas! Alas! You who suffer for your courage, O noblest and best of women, hail! May Hermes of the Dead, may Hades, greet you kindly. If there are rewards for the dead, may you share them as you sit by the bride of the Lord of the Dead!

[The Procession has filed out. A servant in mourning hurries out from the guests’ quarters.]

Servant

Many guests from every land, I know, have come to the Palace of Admetus, and I have set food before them, but never one worse than this guest have I welcomed to the hearth.

First, though he saw our Lord was in mourning, he entered, and dared to pass through the gates. Then, knowing our misfortune, he did not soberly accept what was offered him, but if anything was not served to him he ordered us to bring it. In both hands he took a cup of ivy-wood, and drank the unmixed wine of the dark grape-mother, until he was encompassed and heated with the flame of wine. He crowned his head with myrtle sprays, howling discordant songs. There was he caring nothing for Admetus’s misery, and we servants weeping for our Queen; and yet we hid our tear-laden eyes from the guest, for so Admetus had commanded.

And now in the Palace I must entertain this stranger, some villainous thief and brigand, while she, the Queen I mourn, has gone from the house unfollowed, unsaluted, she who was as a mother to me and all us servants, for she sheltered us from a myriad troubles by softening her husband’s wrath.

Am I not right, then, to hate this stranger, who came to us in the midst of sorrow?

[Heracles comes from the Palace. He is drunkenly merry, with a myrtle wreath on his head, and a large cup and wine-skin in his hands. He staggers a little.]

Heracles

Hey, you! Why so solemn and anxious? A servant should not be sullen with guests, but greet them with a cheerful heart.

You see before you a man who is your lord’s friend, and you greet him with a gloomy, frowning face, because of your zeal about a strange woman’s death. Come here, and let me make you a little wiser!

[With drunken gravity] Know the nature of human life? Don’t think you do. You couldn’t. Listen to me. All mortals must die. Isn’t one who knows if he’ll be alive to-morrow morning. Who knows where Fortune will lead? Nobody can teach it. Nobody learn it by rules. So, rejoice in what you hear, and learn from me! Count each day as it comes as Life — and leave the rest to Fortune. Above all, honour the Love Goddess, sweetest of all the Gods to mortal men, a kindly goddess! Put all the rest aside. Trust in what I say, if you think I speak truth — as I believe. Get rid of this gloom, rise superior to Fortune. Crown yourself with flowers and drink with me, won’t you? I know the regular clink of the wine-cup will row you from darkness and gloom to another haven. Mortals should think mortal thoughts. To all solemn and frowning men, life I say is not life, but a disaster.

Servant

We know all that, but what we endure here to-day is far indeed from gladness and laughter.

Heracles

But the dead woman was a stranger. Lament not overmuch, then, for the Lords of this Palace are still alive.

Servant

How, alive? Do you not know the misery of this house?

Heracles

Your lord did not lie to me?

Servant

He goes too far in hospitality!

Heracles

But why should I suffer for a stranger’s death?

Servant

It touches this house only too nearly.

Heracles

Did he hide some misfortune from me?

Servant

Go in peace! The miseries of our lords concern us.

Heracles

That speech does not imply mourning for a stranger!

Servant

No, or I should not have been disgusted to see you drinking.

Heracles

Have I then been basely treated by my host?

Servant

You did not come to this house at a welcome hour. We are in mourning. You see my head is shaved and the black garments I wear.

Heracles

But who, then, is dead? One of the children? The old father?

Servant

O stranger, Admetus no longer has a wife.

Heracles

What! And yet I was received in this way?

Servant

He was ashamed to send you away from his house.

Heracles

O hapless one! What a wife you have lost!

Servant

Not she alone, but all of us are lost.

Heracles [now completely sobered]

I felt there was something when I saw his tear-wet eyes, his shaven head, his distracted look. But he persuaded me he was taking the body of a stranger to the grave. Against my will I entered these ates, and drank in the home of this generous man — and he in such grief! And shall I drink at such a time with garlands of flowers on my head? You, why did you not tell me that such misery had come upon this house? Where is he burying her? Where shall I find him?

Servant

Beside the straight road which leads to Larissa you will see a tomb of polished stone outside the walls.

[Returns to the servants’ quarters]

Heracles

O heart of me, much-enduring heart, O right arm, now indeed must you show what son was born to Zeus by Alcmena, the Tirynthian, daughter of Electryon! For I must save this dead woman, and bring back Alcestis to this house as a grace to Admetus.

I shall watch for Death, the black-robed Lord of the Dead, and I know I shall find him near the tomb, drinking the blood of the sacrifices. If can leap upon him from an ambush, seize him, grasp him in my arms, no power in the world shall tear his bruised sides from me until he has yielded up this woman. If I miss my prey, if he does not come near the bleeding sacrifice, I will go down to Kore and her lord in their sunless dwelling, and I will make my entreaty to them, and I know they will give me Alcestis to bring back to the hands of the host who welcomed me, who did not repulse me from his house, though he was smitten with heavy woe which most nobly he hid from me! Where would be a warmer welcome in Thessaly or in all the dwellings of Hellas?

He shall not say he was generous to an ingrate!

[Heracles goes out. Presently Admetus and his attendants, followed by the chorus, return from the burial of Alcestis.]

Admetus [chanting]

Alas!

Hateful approach, hateful sight of my widowed house! Oh me! Oh me! Alas! Whither shall I go? Where rest? What can I say? What refrain from saying? Why can I not die? Indeed my mother bore me for a hapless fate. I envy the dead, I long to be with them, theirs are the dwellings where I would be. Without pleasure I look upon the light of day and set my feet upon the earth — so precious a hostage has Death taken from me to deliver unto Hades!

Chorus [chanting responsively with Admetus]

Go forward,

Enter your house.

Admetus

Alas!

Chorus

Your grief deserves our tears.

Admetus

O Gods!

Chorus

I know you have entered into sorrow.

Admetus

Woe! Woe!

Chorus

Yet you bring no aid to the dead.

Admetus

Oh me! Oh me!

Chorus

Heavy shall it be for you

Never to look again

On the face of the woman you love.

Admetus

You bring to my mind the grief that breaks my heart. What sorrow is worse for a man than the loss of such a woman? I would I had never married, never shared my house with her. I envy the wifeless and the childless. They live but one life — what is suffering to them? But the sickness of children, bridal-beds ravished by Death — dreadful! when we might be wifeless and childless to the end.

Chorus

Chance, dreadful Chance, has stricken you.

Admetus

Alas!

Chorus

But you set no limit to your grief.

Admetus

Ah! Gods!

Chorus

A heavy burden to bear, and yet ...

Admetus

Woe! Woe!

Chorus

Courage! You are not the first to lose ...

Admetus

Oh me! Oh me!

Chorus

A wife.

Different men

Fate crushes with different blows.

Admetus

O long grief and mourning for those beloved under the earth!

Why did you stay me from casting myself into the hollow grave to lie down for ever in death by the best of women? Two lives, not one, had then been seized by Hades, most faithful one to the other; and together we should have crossed the lake of the Underworld.

Chorus

A son most worthy of tears

Was lost to one of my house,

Yet, childless, he suffered with courage,

Though the white was thick in his hair

And his days were far-spent!

Admetus

O visage of my house! How shall I enter you? How shall I dwell in you, now that Fate has turned its face from me? How great is the change! Once, of old, I entered my house with marriage-songs and the torches of Pelion, holding a loved woman by the hand, followed by a merry crowd shouting good wishes to her who is dead and to me, because we had joined our lives, being both noble and born of noble lines. Today, in place of marriage-songs are lamentations; instead of white garments I am clad in mourning, to return to my house and a solitary bed.

Chorus

Grief has fallen upon you

In the midst of a happy life

Untouched by misfortune.

But your life and your spirit are safe.

She is dead,

She has left your love.

Is this so new?

Ere now many men

Death has severed from wives.

Admetus [speaking]

O friends, whatsoever may be thought by others, to me it seems that my wife’s fate is happier than mine. Now, no pain ever shall touch her again; she has reached the noble end of all her sufferings. But I, I who should have died, I have escaped my fate, only to drag out a wretched life. Only now do I perceive it.

How shall I summon strength to enter this house? Whom shall I greet? Who will greet me in joy at my coming? Whither shall I turn my steps? I shall be driven forth by solitude when I see my bed widowed of my wife, empty the chairs on which she sat, a dusty floor beneath my roof, my children falling at my knees and calling for their mother, and the servants lamenting for the noble lady lost from the house!

Such will be my life within the house. Without, I shall be driven from marriage-feasts and gatherings of the women of Thessaly. I shall not endure to look upon my wife’s friends. Those who hate me will say: ‘See how he lives in shame, the man who dared not die, the coward who gave his wife to Hades in his stead! Is that a man? He hates his parents, yet he himself refused to die!’

This evil fame I have added to my other sorrows. O my friends, what then avails it that I live, if I must live in misery and shame?

[He covers his head with his robe, and crouches in abject misery on the steps of his Palace.]

Chorus [singing]

[strophe 1]

I have lived with the Muses

And on lofty heights:

Many doctrines have I learned;

But Fate is above us all.

Nothing avails against Fate

Neither the Thracian tablets

Marked with Orphic symbols,

Nor the herbs given by Phoebus

To the children of Asclepius

To heal men of their sickness.

[antistrophe 1]

None can come near to her altars,

None worship her statues;

She regards not our sacrifice.

O sacred goddess,

Bear no more hardly upon me

Than in days overpast!

With a gesture Zeus judges,

But the sentence is yours.

Hard iron yields to your strength;

Your fierce will knows not gentleness.

[strophe 2]

And the Goddess has bound you

Ineluctably in the gyves of her hands.

Yield.

Can your tears give life to the dead?

For the sons of the Gods

Swoon in the shadow of Death.

Dear was she in our midst,

Dear still among the dead,

For the noblest of women was she

Who lay in your bed.

[antistrophe 2]

Ah!

Let the grave of your spouse

Be no more counted as a tomb,

But revered as the Gods,

And greeted by all who pass by!

The wanderer shall turn from his path,

Saying: ‘She died for her lord;

A blessed spirit she is now.

Hail, O sacred lady, be our friend!’

Thus shall men speak of her.

[Admetus is still crouched on the Palace steps, when Heracles enters from the side, leading a veiled woman.]

Leader of the chorus

But see! The son of Alcmena, as I think, comes to your house.

[Admetus uncovers his head, and faces the newcomer.]

Heracles

Admetus, a man should speak freely to his friends, and not keep reproaches silent in his heart. Since I was near you in your misfortune, should have wished to show myself your friend. But you did not tell me the dead body was your wife’s, and you took me into your house as if you were in mourning only for a stranger. And I put a garland of flowers upon my head, and poured wine-offerings to the Gods, when your house was filled with lamentation. I blame you, yes, I blame you for this — but I will not upbraid you in your misfortune.

Why I turned back and am here, I shall tell you. Take and keep this woman for me until I have slain the King of the Bistones and return here with the horses of Thrace. If ill happens to me — may I return safely! — I give her to you to serve in your house.

With much striving I won her to my hands. On my way I found public games, worthy of athletes, and I have brought back this woman whom I won as the prize of victory. The winners of the easy tests had horses; heads of cattle were given to those who won in boxing and wrestling. Then came a woman as a prize. Since I was present, it would have been shameful for me to miss this glorious gain. Therefore, as I said, you must take care of this woman, whom I bring to you, not as one stolen but as the prize of my efforts. Perhaps in time you will approve of what I do.

Admetus

Not from disdain, nor to treat you as a foe, did I conceal my wife’s fate from you. But if you had turned aside to another man’s hearth, one more grief had been added to my sorrow. It was enough that I should weep my woe.

This woman — O King, I beg it may be thus — enjoin some other Thessalian, one who is not in sorrow, to guard her. In Pherae there are many to welcome you. Do not remind me of my grief. Seeing her in my house, I could not restrain my tears. Add not a further anguish to my pain, for what I suffer is too great. And then — where could I harbour a young woman in my house? For she is young — I see by her clothes and jewels. Could she live with the men under my roof? How, then, could she remain chaste, if she moved to and fro among the young men? Heracles, it is not easy to restrain the young.... I am thinking of your interests.... Must I take her to my dead wife’s room? How could I endure her to enter that bed? I fear a double reproach — from my people, who would accuse me of betraying my saviour to slip into another woman’s bed, and from my dead wife, who deserves my respect, for which I must take care.

O woman, whosoever you may be, you have the form of Alcestis, and your body is like hers.

Ah! By all the Gods, take her from my sight! Do not insult a broken man. When I look upon her — she seems my wife — my heart is torn asunder-tears flow from my eyes. Miserable creature that I am, now taste the bitterness of my sorrow.

Leader

I do not praise this meeting; but, whatever happens, we must accept the gifts of the Gods.

Heracles

Oh, that I might bring your wife back into the light of day from the dwelling of the Under-Gods, as a gift of grace to you!

Admetus

I know you would wish this — but to what end? The dead cannot return to the light of day.

Heracles

Do not exaggerate, but bear this with decorum.

Admetus

Easier to advise than bear the test.

Heracles

How will it aid you to lament for ever?

Admetus

I know — but my love whirls me away.

Heracles

Love for the dead leads us to tears.

Admetus

I am overwhelmed beyond words.

Heracles

You have lost a good wife — who denies it?

Admetus

So that for me there is no more pleasure in life.

Heracles

Time will heal this open wound.

Admetus

You might say Time, if Time were death!

Heracles

Another woman, a new marriage, shall console you.

Admetus

Oh, hush! What have you said? A thing unbelievable!

Heracles

What! You will not marry? Your bed will remain widowed?

Admetus

No other woman shall ever lie at my side.

Heracles

Do you think that avails the dead?

Admetus

Wherever she may be, I must do her honour.

Heracles

I praise you — but men will call you mad.

Admetus

Yet never more shall I be called a bridegroom.

Heracles

I praise your faithful love to your wife —

Admetus

May I die if I betray her even when dead!

Heracles [offering him the veiled woman’s hand.]

Receive her then into your noble house.

Admetus

No, by Zeus who begot you, no!

Heracles

Yet you will do wrong if you do not take her.

Admetus

If I do it, remorse will tear my heart.

Heracles

Yield — perhaps it will be a good thing for you.

Admetus

Ah! If only you had not won her in the contest!

Heracles

But I conquered — and you conquered with me.

Admetus

It is true — but let the woman go hence.

Heracles

She shall go, if she must. But first — ought she to go?

Admetus

She must — unless it would anger you.

Heracles

There is good reason for my zeal.

Admetus

You have conquered then — but not for my pleasure.

Heracles

One day you will praise me for it — be persuaded.

Admetus [to his attendants]

Lead her in, since she must be received in this house.

Heracles

No, I cannot leave such a woman to servants.

Admetus

Then lead her in yourself, if you wish.

Heracles

I must leave her in your hands.

Admetus

I must not touch her — let her go into the house.

Heracles

I trust only in your right hand.

Admetus

O King, you force me to this against my will.

Heracles

Put forth your hand and take this woman.

Admetus [turning aside his head]

It is held out.

Heracles

As if you were cutting off a Gorgon’s head! Do you hold her?

Admetus

Yes.

Heracles

Then keep her. You shall not deny that the son of Zeus is a grateful guest. [Takes off the veil and shows Alcestis.] Look at her, and see if she is not like your wife. And may joy put an end to all your sorrow!

Admetus [drops her hand and starts back]

O Gods! What am I to say? Unhoped — for wonder! Do I really look upon my wife? Or I am snared in the mockery of a God?

Heracles

No you look upon your wife indeed.

Admetus

Beware! May it not be some phantom from the Underworld?

Heracles

Do not think your guest a sorcerer.

Admetus

But do I indeed look upon the wife I buried?

Heracles

Yes — but I do not wonder at your mistrust.

Admetus

Can I touch, speak to her, as my living wife?

Heracles

Speak to her — you have all you desired.

Admetus [taking Alcestis in his arms]

O face and body of the dearest of women! I have you once more, when I thought I should never see you again!

Heracles

You have her — may the envy of the Gods be averted from you!

Admetus

O noble son of greatest Zeus, fortune be yours, and may your Father guard you! But how did you bring her back from the Underworld to the light of day?

Heracles

By fighting with the spirit who was her master.

Admetus

Then did you contend with Death?

Heracles

I hid by the tomb and leaped upon him.

Admetus

But why is she speechless?

Heracles

You may not hear her voice until she is purified from her consecration to the Lower Gods, and until the third dawn has risen. Lead her in.

And you, Admetus, show as ever a good man’s welcome to your guests.

Farewell! I go to fulfil the task set me by the King, the son of Sthenelus.

Admetus

Stay with us, and share our hearth.

Heracles

That may be hereafter, but now I must be gone in haste.

[Heracles departs.]

Admetus [gazing after him]

Good fortune to you, and come back here! [To the chorus] In all the city and in the four quarters of Thessaly let there be choruses to rejoice at this good fortune, and let the altars smoke with the flesh of oxen in sacrifice! To-day we have changed the past for a better life. I am happy.

[He leads Alcestis into the Palace.]

Chorus [singing]

Spirits have many shapes,

Many strange things are performed by the Gods.

The expected does not always happen,

And God makes a way for the unexpected.

So ends this action.

Andromache

Characters in the Play

Andromache

Maid of Andromache

Chorus of Phthian Women

Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and wife of Neoptolemus

Menelaus, King of Sparta

Molossus, son of Andromache and Neoptolemus

Peleus, father of Achilles

Nurse of Hermione

Orestes, son of Agamemnon

Messenger

Thetis, the goddess, wife of Peleus

Various attendants

[Scene: Before the temple of Thetis in Thessaly. Andromache, dressed as a suppliant, is clinging to the altar in front of the temple. The palace of Achilles is nearby.]

Andromache

O city of Thebes, glory of Asia, whence on a day I came to Priam’s princely home with many a rich and costly thing in my dower, affianced unto Hector to be the mother of his children, I Andromache, envied name in days of yore, but now of all women that have been or yet shall be the most unfortunate; for I have lived to see my husband Hector slain by Achilles, and the babe Astyanax, whom I bore my lord, hurled from the towering battlements, when the Hellenes sacked our Trojan home; and I myself am come to Hellas as a slave, though I was esteemed a daughter of a race most free, given to Neoptolemus that island-prince, and set apart for him as his special prize from the spoils of Troy. And here I dwell upon the boundaries of Phthia and Pharsalia’s town, where Thetis erst, the goddess of the sea, abode with Peleus apart from the world, avoiding the throng of men; wherefore the folk of Thessaly call it the sacred place of Thetis, in honour of the goddess’s marriage. Here dwells the son of Achilles and suffers Peleus still to rule Pharsalia, not wishing to assume the sceptre while the old man lives. Within these halls have borne a boy to the son of Achilles, my master. Now aforetime for all my misery I ever had a hope to lead me on, that, if my child were safe, I might find some help and protection from my woes; but since my lord in scorn of his bondmaid’s charms hath wedded that Spartan Hermione, I am tormented by her most cruelly; for she saith that I by secret enchantment am making her barren and distasteful to her husband, and that I design to take her place in this house, ousting her the rightful mistress by force; whereas I at first submitted against my will and now have resigned my place; be almighty Zeus my witness that it was not of my own free will I became her rival!

But I cannot convince her, and she longs to kill me, and her father Menelaus is an accomplice in this. E’en now is he within, arrived from Sparta for this very purpose, while I in terror am come to take up position here in the shrine of Thetis adjoining the house, if haply it may save me from death; for Peleus and his descendants hold it in honour as symbol of his marriage with the Nereid. My only son am I secretly conveying to a neighbour’s house in fear for his life. For his sire stands not by my side to lend his aid and cannot avail his child at all, being absent in the land of Delphi, where he is offering recompense to Loxias for the madness he committed, when on a day he went to Pytho and demanded of Phoebus satisfaction for his father’s death, if haply his prayer might avert those past sins and win for him the god’s goodwill hereafter.

[The Maid of Andromache enters.]

Maid

Mistress mine, be sure I do not hesitate to call thee by that name, seeing that I thought it thy right in thine own house also, when we dwelt in Troy-land; as I was ever thy friend and thy husband’s while yet he was alive, so now have I come with strange tidings, in terror lest any of our masters learn hereof but still out of pity for thee; for Menelaus and his daughter are forming dire plots against thee, whereof thou must beware.

Andromache

Ah! kind companion of my bondage, for such thou art to her, who, erst thy queen, is now sunk in misery; what are they doing? What new schemes are they devising in their eagerness to take away my wretched life?

Maid

Alas! poor lady, they intend to slay thy son, whom thou hast privily conveyed from out the house.

Andromache

Ah me! Has she heard that my babe was put out of her reach? Who told her? Woe is me! how utterly undone!

Maid

I know not, but thus much of their schemes I heard myself; and Menelaus has left the house to fetch him.

Andromache

Then am I lost; ah, my child! those vultures twain will take and slay thee; while he who is called thy father lingers still in Delphi.

Maid

True, for had he been here thou wouldst not have fared so hardly, am sure; but, as it is, thou art friendless.

Andromache

Have no tidings come that Peleus may arrive?

Maid

He is too old to help thee if he came.

Andromache

And yet I sent for him more than once.

Maid

Surely thou dost not suppose that any of thy messengers heed thee?

Andromache

Why should they? Wilt thou then go for me?

Maid

How shall I explain my long absence from the house?

Andromache

Thou art a woman; thou canst invent a hundred ways.

Maid

There is a risk, for Hermione keeps no careless guard.

Andromache

Dost look to that? Thou art disowning thy friends in distress.

Maid

Not so; never taunt me with that. I will go, for of a truth a woman and a slave is not of much account, e’en if aught befall me.

[The Maid withdraws.]

Andromache

Go then, while I will tell to heaven the lengthy tale of lamentation, mourning, and weeping, that has ever been my hard lot; for ‘tis woman’s way to delight in present misfortunes even to keeping them always on her tongue and lips. But I have many reasons, not merely one for tears — my city’s fall, my Hector’s death, the hardness of the lot to which I am bound, since I fell on slavery’s evil days undeservedly. ‘Tis never right to call a son of man happy, till thou hast seen his end, to judge from the way he passes it how he will descend to that other world.

[She begins to chant.] ‘Twas no bride Paris took with him to the towers of Ilium, but curse to his bed when he brought Helen to her bower. For her sake, Troy, did eager warriors, sailing from Hellas in a thousand ships, capture and make thee a prey to fire and sword; and the son of sea-born Thetis mounted on his chariot dragged my husband Hector round the walls, ah woe is me! while I was hurried from my chamber to the beach, with slavery’s hateful pall upon me. And many tear I shed as I left my city, my bridal bower, and my husband in the dust. Woe, woe is me! why should I prolong my life, to serve Hermione? Her cruelty it is that drives me hither to the image of the goddess to throw my suppliant arms about it, melting to tears as doth a spring that gushes from the rock.

[The Chorus of Phthian Women enters.]

Chorus [singing]

Lady, thus keeping thy weary station without pause upon the floor of Thetis’ shrine, Phthian though I am, to thee a daughter of Asia I come, to see if I can devise some remedy for these perplexing troubles, which have involved thee and Hermione in fell discord, because to thy sorrow thou sharest with her the love of Achilles’ son.

Recognize thy position, weigh the present evil into the which thou art come. Thou art a Trojan captive; thy rival is thy mistress, a true-born daughter of Sparta. Leave then this home of sacrifice, the shrine of our sea-goddess. How can it avail thee to waste thy comeliness and disfigure it by weeping by reason of a mistress’s harsh usage? Might will prevail against thee; why vainly toil in thy feebleness?

Come, quit the bright sanctuary of the Nereid divine. Recognize that thou art in bondage on a foreign soil, in a strange city, where thou seest none of all thy friends, luckless lady, cast on evil days.

Yea, I did pity thee most truly, Trojan dame, when thou camest to this house; but from fear of my mistress I hold my peace, albeit I sympathize with thee, lest she, whom Zeus’s daughter bore, discover my good will toward thee.

[Hermione enters, in complete royal regalia.]

Hermione

With a crown of golden workmanship upon my head and about my body this embroidered robe am I come hither; no presents these I wear from the palace of Achilles or Peleus, but gifts my father Menelaus gave me together with a sumptuous dower from Sparta in Laconia, to insure me freedom of speech. Such is my answer to you [to the Chorus]; but as for thee, slave and captive, thou wouldst fain oust me and secure this palace for thyself, and thanks to thy enchantment I am hated by my husband; thou it is that hast made my womb barren and cheated my hopes; for Asia’s daughters have clever heads for such villainy; yet will I check thee therefrom, nor shall this temple of the Nereid avail thee aught, no! neither its altar or shrine, but thou shalt die. But if or god or man should haply wish to save thee, thou must atone for thy proud thoughts of happier days now past by humbling thyself and crouching prostrate at my knees, by sweeping out my halls, and by learning, as thou sprinklest water from a golden ewer, where thou now art. Here is no Hector, no Priam with his gold, but a city of Hellas. Yet thou, miserable woman, hast gone so far in wantonness that thou canst lay thee down with the son of the very man that slew thy husband, and bear children to the murderer. Such is all the race of barbarians; father and daughter, mother and son, sister and brother mate together; the nearest and dearest stain their path with each other’s blood, and no law restrains such horrors. Bring not these crimes amongst us, for here we count it shame that one man should have the control of two wives, and men are content to turn to one lawful love, that is, all who care to live an honourable life.

Leader of the Chorus

Women are by nature somewhat jealous, and do ever show the keenest hate to rivals in their love.

Andromache

Ah! well-a-day! Youth is a bane to mortals, in every case, that is, where a man embraces injustice in his early days. Now I am afraid that my being a slave will prevent thee listening to me in spite of many a just plea, or if I win my case, I fear I may be damaged on this very ground, for the high and mighty cannot brook refuting arguments from their inferiors; still I will not be convicted of betraying my own cause. Tell me, proud young wife, what assurance can make me confident of wresting from thee thy lawful lord? Is it that Laconia’s capital yields to Phrygia? is it that my fortune outstrips thine? or that in me thou seest a free woman? Am I so elated by my youth, my full healthy figure, the extent of my city, the number of my friends that I wish to supplant thee in thy home? Is my purpose to take thy place and rear myself a race of slaves, mere appendages to my misery? or, supposing thou bear no children, will any one endure that sons of mine should rule o’er Phthia? Ah no! there is the love that Hellas bears me, both for Hector’s sake and for my own humble rank forsooth, that never knew a queen’s estate in Troy. ‘Tis not my sorcery that makes thy husband hate thee, nay, but thy own failure to prove thyself his help-meet. Herein lies love’s only charm; ‘tis not beauty, lady, but virtuous acts that win our husbands’ hearts. And though it gall thee to be told so, albeit thy city in Laconia is no doubt mighty fact, yet thou findest no place for his Scyros, displaying wealth ‘midst poverty and setting Menelaus above Achilles: and that is what alienates thy lord. Take heed; for a woman, though bestowed upon worthless husband, must be with him content, and ne’er advance presumptuous claims. Suppose thou hadst wedded a prince of Thrace, the land of flood and melting snow, where one lord shares his affections with a host of wives, wouldst thou have slain them? If so, thou wouldst have set a stigma of insatiate lust on all our sex. A shameful charge! And yet herein we suffer more than men, though we make a good stand against it. Ah! my dear lord Hector, for thy sake would I e’en brook a rival, if ever Cypris led thee astray, and oft in days gone by I held thy bastard babes to my own breast, to spare thee any cause for grief. By this course I bound my husband to me by virtue’s chains, whereas thou wilt never so much as let the drops of dew from heaven above settle on thy lord, in thy jealous fear. Oh! seek not to surpass thy mother in hankering after men, for ‘tis well that all wise children should avoid the habits of such evil mothers.

Leader

Mistress mine, be persuaded to come to terms with her, as far as readily comes within thy power.

Hermione

Why this haughty tone, this bandying of words, as if, forsooth, thou, not I, wert the virtuous wife?

Andromache

Thy present claims at any rate give thee small title thereto.

Hermione

Woman, may my bosom never harbour such ideas as thine!

Andromache

Thou art young to speak on such a theme as this.

Hermione

As for thee, thou dost not speak thereof, but, as thou canst, dost put it into action against me.

Andromache

Canst thou not conceal thy pangs of jealousy?

Hermione

What! doth not every woman put this first of all?

Andromache

Yes, if her experiences are happy; otherwise, there is no honour in speaking of them.

Hermione

Barbarians’ laws are not a standard for our city.

Andromache

Alike in Asia and in Hellas infamy attends base actions.

Hermione

Clever, clever quibbler! yet die thou must and shalt.

Andromache

Dost see the image of Thetis with her eye upon thee?

Hermione

A bitter foe to thy country because of the death of Achilles.

Andromache

‘Twas not I that slew him, but Helen that mother of thine.

Hermione

Pray, is it thy intention to probe my wounds yet deeper?

Andromache

Behold, I am dumb, my lips are closed.

Hermione

Tell me that which was my only reason for coming hither.

Andromache

No! all I tell thee is, thou hast less wisdom than thou needest.

Hermione

Wilt thou leave these hallowed precincts of the sea-goddess?

Andromache

Yes, if I am not to die for it; otherwise, I never will.

Hermione

Since that is thy resolve, I shall not even wait my lord’s return.

Andromache

Nor yet will I, at any rate ere that, surrender to thee.

Hermione

I will bring fire to bear on thee, and pay no heed to thy entreaties.

Andromache

Kindle thy blaze then; the gods will witness it.

Hermione

And make thy flesh to writhe by cruel wounds.

Andromache

Begin thy butchery, stain the altar of the goddess with blood, for she will visit thy iniquity.

Hermione

Barbarian creature, hardened in impudence, wilt thou brave death itself? Still will I find speedy means to make these quit this seat of thy free will; such a bait have I to lure thee with. But I will hide my meaning, which the event itself shall soon declare. Yes, keep thy seat, for I will make thee rise, though molten lead is holding thee there, before Achilles’ son, thy trusted champion, arrive.

[Hermione departs.]

Andromache

My trusted champion, yes! how strange it is, that though some god hath devised cures for mortals against the venom of reptiles, no man ever yet hath discovered aught to cure a woman’s venom, which is far worse than viper’s sting or scorching flame; so terrible a curse are we to mankind.

Chorus [singing]

Ah! what sorrows did the son of Zeus and Maia herald, in the day he came to Ida’s glen, guiding that fair young trio of goddesses, all girded for the fray in bitter rivalry about their beauty, to the shepherd’s fold where dwelt the youthful herdsman all alone by the hearth of his lonely hut.

Soon as they reached the wooded glen, in gushing mountain springs they bathed their dazzling skin, then sought the son of Priam, comparing their rival charms in more than rancorous phrase. But Cypris won the day by her deceitful promises, sweet-sounding words, but fraught with ruthless overthrow to Phrygia’s hapless town and Ilium’s towers.

Would God his mother had smitten him a cruel death-blow on the head before he made his home on Ida’s slopes, in the hour Cassandra, standing by the holy bay-tree, cried out, “Slay him, for he will bring most grievous bane on Priam’s town.” To every prince she went, to every elder sued for the babe’s destruction.

Ah! had they listened, Ilium’s daughters neer had felt the yoke of slavery, and thou, lady, hadst been established in the royal palace; and Hellas had been freed of all the anguish she suffered during those ten long years her sons went wandering, spear in hand, around the walls of Troy; brides had never been left desolate, nor hoary fathers childless.

[Menelaus and his retinue enter. He is leading Molossus by the hand.]

Menelaus

Behold I bring thy son with me, whom thou didst steal away to a neighbour’s house without my daughter’s knowledge. Thou wert so sure this image of the goddess would protect thee and those who hid him, but thou hast not proved clever enough for Menelaus. And so if thou refuse to leave thy station here, he shall be slain instead of thee. Wherefore weigh it well: wilt die thyself, or see him slain for the sin whereof thou art guilty against me and my daughter?

Andromache

O fame, fame! full many a man ere now of no account hast thou to high estate exalted. Those, indeed, who truly have a fair repute, I count blest; but those who get it by false pretences, I will never allow have aught but the accidental appearance of wisdom. Thou for instance, caitiff that thou art, didst thou ever wrest Troy from Priam with thy picked troops of Hellenes? thou that hast raised such a storm, at the word of thy daughter, a mere child, and hast entered the lists with a poor captive; unworthy I count thee of Troy’s capture, and Troy still more disgraced by thy victory. Those who only in appearance are men of sense make an outward show, but inwardly resemble the common herd, save it be in wealth, which is their chiefest strength.

Come now, Menelaus, let us carry through this argument. Suppose I am slain by thy daughter, and she work her will on me, yet can she never escape the pollution of murder, and public opinion will make thee too an accomplice in this deed of blood, for thy share in the business must needs implicate thee. But even supposing I escape death myself, will ye kill my child? Even then, how will his father brook the murder of his child? Troy has no such coward’s tale to tell of him; nay, he will follow duty’s call; his actions will prove him a worthy scion of Peleus and Achilles. Thy daughter will be thrust forth from his house; and what wilt thou say when seeking to betroth her to another? wilt say her virtue made her leave a worthless lord? Nay, that will be false. Who then will wed her? wilt thou keep her without a husband in thy halls, grown grey in widowhood? Unhappy wretch! dost not see the flood-gates of trouble opening wide for thee? How many a wrong against a wife wouldst thou prefer thy daughter to have found to suffering what I now describe? We ought not on trifling grounds to promote great ills; nor should men, if we women are so deadly a curse, bring their nature down to our level. No! if, as thy daughter asserts, I am practising sorcery against her and making her barren, right willingly will I, without any crouching at altars, submit in my own person to the penalty that lies in her husband’s hands, seeing that I am no less chargeable with injuring him if I make him childless. This is my case; but for thee, there is one thing I fear in thy disposition; it was a quarrel for a woman that really induced thee to destroy poor Ilium’s town.

Leader of the Chorus

Thou hast said too much for a woman speaking to men; that discretion hath shot away its last shaft from thy soul’s quiver.

Menelaus

Women, these are petty matters, unworthy, as thou sayest, of my despotic sway, unworthy too of Hellas. Yet mark this well; his special fancy of the hour is of more moment to a man than Troy’s capture. I then have set myself to help my daughter because I consider her loss of wife’s rights most grave; for whatever else a woman suffers is second to this; if she loses her husband’s love she loses her life therewith. Now, as it is right Neoptolemus should rule my slaves, so my friends and I should have control of his; for friends, if they be really friends, keep nothing to themselves, but have all in common. So if I wait for the absent instead of making the best arrangement I can at once of my affairs, I show weakness, not wisdom. Arise then, leave the goddess’s shrine, for by thy death this child escapeth his, whereas, if thou refuse to die, I will slay him; for one of you twain must perish.

Andromache

Ah me! ‘tis a bitter lot thou art offering about my life; whether I take it or not I am equally unfortunate. Attend to me, thou who for a trifling cause art committing an awful crime. Why art thou bent on slaying me? What reason hast thou? What city have I betrayed? Which of thy children was ever slain by me? What house have I fired? I was forced to be my master’s concubine; and spite of that wilt thou slay me, not him who is to blame, passing by the cause and hurrying to the inevitable result? Ah me! my sorrows! Woe for my hapless country! How cruel my fate! Why had I to be a mother too and take upon me a double load of suffering? Yet why do I mourn the past, and o’er the present never shed a tear or compute its griefs? I that saw Hector butchered and dragged behind the chariot, and Ilium, piteous sight! one sheet of flame, while I was baled away by the hair of my head to the Argive ships in slavery, and on my arrival in Phthia was given to Hector’s murderer as his mistress. What pleasure then has life for me? Whither am I to turn my gaze? to the present or the past? My babe alone was left me, the light of my life, and him these ministers of death would slay. No! they shall not, if my poor life can save him; for if he be saved, hope in him lives on, while to me ‘twere shame to refuse to die for my son. Lo! here I leave the altar and give myself into your hands, to cut or stab, to bind or hang. Ah! my child, to Hades now thy mother passes to save thy dear life. Yet if thou escape thy doom, remember me, my sufferings and my death, and tell thy father how I fared, with fond caress and streaming eye and arms thrown round his neck. Ah! yes, his children are to every man as his own soul; and whoso sneers at this through inexperience, though he suffers less anguish, yet tastes the bitter in his cup of bliss.

Leader

Thy tale with pity fills me; for every man alike, stranger though he be, feels pity for another’s distress. Menelaus, ‘tis thy duty to reconcile thy daughter and this captive, giving her a respite from sorrow.

Menelaus

Ho! sirrahs, seize this woman [His attendants swiftly carry out the order]; hold her fast; for ‘tis no welcome story she will have to hear. It was to make thee leave the holy altar of the goddess that I held thy child’s death before thy eyes, and so induced thee to give thyself up to me to die. So stands thy case, be well assured; but as for this child, my daughter shall decide whether she will slay him or no. Get thee hence into the house, and there learn to bridle thy insolence in speaking to the free, slave that thou art.

Andromache

Alas! thou hast by treachery beguiled me; I was deceived.

Menelaus

Proclaim it to the world; I do not deny it.

Andromache

Is this counted cleverness amongst you who dwell by the Eurotas?

Menelaus

Yes, and amongst Trojans too, that those who suffer should retaliate.

Andromache

Thinkest thou God’s hand is shortened, and that thou wilt not be punished?

Menelaus

Whene’er that comes, I am ready to bear it. But thy life will I have.

Andromache

Wilt likewise slay this tender chick, whom thou hast snatched from ‘neath my wing?

Menelaus

Not I, but I will give him to my daughter to slay if she will.

Andromache

Ah me! why not begin my mourning then for thee, my child?

Menelaus

Of a truth ‘tis no very sure hope that he has left.

Andromache

O citizens of Sparta, the bane of all the race of men, schemers of guile, and masters in lying, devisers of evil plots, with crooked minds and tortuous methods and ne’er one honest thought, ‘tis wrong that ye should thrive in Hellas. What crime is wanting in your list? How rife is murder with you! How covetous ye are! One word upon your lips, another in your heart, this is what men always find with you. Perdition catch ye! Still death is not so grievous, as thou thinkest, to me. No! for my life ended in the day that hapless Troy was destroyed with my lord, that glorious warrior, whose spear oft made a coward like thee quit the field and seek thy ship. But now against a woman hast thou displayed the terrors of thy panoply, my would-be murderer. Strike then! for this my tongue shall never flatter thee or that daughter of thine. For though thou wert of great account in Sparta, why so was I in Troy. And if I am now in sorry plight, presume not thou on this; thou too mayst be so yet.

[Menelaus and his guards lead Andromache out.]

Chorus [singing]

Never, oh! never will I commend rival wives or sons of different mothers, a cause of strife, of bitterness, and grief in every house. would have a husband content with one wife whose rights he shareth with no other.

Not even in states is dual monarchy better to bear than undivided rule; it only doubles burdens and causes faction amongst the citizens. Often too will the Muse sow strife ‘twixt rivals in the art of minstrelsy.

Again, when strong winds are drifting mariners, the divided counsel of the wise does not best avail for steering, and their collective wisdom has less weight than the inferior mind of the single man who has sole authority; for this is the essence of power alike in house and state, whene’er men care to find the proper moment.

This Spartan, the daughter of the great chief Menelaus, proves this; for she hath kindled hot fury against a rival, and is bent on slaying the hapless Trojan maid and her child to further her bitter quarrel. ‘Tis a murder gods and laws and kindness all forbid. Ah! lady, retribution for this deed will yet visit thee.

But lo! before the house I see those two united souls, condemned to die. Alas! for thee, poor lady, and for thee, unhappy child, who art dying on account of thy mother’s marriage, though thou hast no share therein and canst not be blamed by the royal house.

[Andromache enters, her arms bound. Her son clings to her. Menelaus and the guards follow, intent on accomplishing the murder. The following lines are chanted responsively.]

Andromache

Behold me journeying on the downward path, my hands so tightly bound with cords that they bleed.

Molossus

O mother, mother mine! I too share thy downward path, nestling ‘neath thy wing.

Andromache

A cruel sacrifice! ye rulers of Phthia!

Molossus

Come, father! succour those thou lovest.

Andromache

Rest there, my babe, my darling! on thy mother’s bosom, e’en in death and in the grave.

Molossus

Ah, woe is me! what will become of me and thee too, mother mine?

Menelaus

Away, to the world below! from hostile towers ye came, the pair of you; two different causes necessitate your deaths; my sentence takes away thy life, and my daughter Hermione’s requires his; for it would be the height of folly to leave our foemen’s sons, when we might kill them and remove the danger from our house.

Andromache

O husband mine! I would I had thy strong arm and spear to aid me, son of Priam.

Molossus

Ah, woe is me! what spell can I now find to turn death’s stroke aside?

Andromache

Embrace thy master’s knees, my child, and pray to him.

Molossus

Spare, O spare my life, kind master!

Andromache

Mine eyes are wet with tears, which trickle down my cheeks, as doth a sunless spring from a smooth rock. Ah me!

Molossus

What remedy, alas! can I provide me ‘gainst my ills?

Menelaus

Why fall at my knees in supplication? hard as the rock and deaf as the wave am I. My own friends have I helped, but for thee have no tie of affection; for verily it cost me a great part of my life to capture Troy and thy mother; so thou shalt reap the fruit thereof and into Hades’ halls descend.

Leader of the Chorus

Behold! I see Peleus drawing nigh; with aged step he hasteth hither.

[Peleus enters with an attendant.]

Peleus [calling out as he comes in sight]

What means this? I ask you and your executioner; why is the palace in an uproar? give a reason; what mean your lawless machinations? Menelaus, hold thy hand. Seek not to outrun justice. [To his attendant] Forward! faster, faster! for this matter, methinks, admits of no delay; now if ever would I fain resume the vigour of my youth. First however will breathe new life into this captive, being to her as the breeze that blows a ship before the wind. Tell me, by what right have they pinioned thine arms and are dragging thee and thy child away? Like a ewe with her lamb art thou led to the slaughter, while I and thy lord were far away.

Andromache

Behold them that are haling me and my child to death, e’en as thou seest, aged prince. Why should I tell thee? For not by one urgent summons alone but by countless messengers have I sent for thee. No doubt thou knowest by hearsay of the strife in this house with this man’s daughter, and the reason of my ruin. So now they have torn and are dragging me from the altar of Thetis, the goddess of thy chiefest adoration and the mother of thy gallant son, without any proper trial, yea, and without waiting for my absent master; because, forsooth, they knew my defencelessness and my child’s, whom they mean to slay with me his hapless mother, though he has done no harm. But to thee, O sire, I make my supplication, prostrate at thy knees, though my hand cannot touch thy friendly beard; save me, I adjure thee, reverend sir, or to thy shame and my sorrow shall we be slain.

Peleus

Loose her bonds, I say, ere some one rue it; untie her folded hands.

Menelaus

I forbid it, for besides being a match for thee, I have a far better right to her.

Peleus

What! art thou come hither to set my house in order? Art not content with ruling thy Spartans?

Menelaus

She is my captive; I took her from Troy.

Peleus

Aye, but my son’s son received her as his prize.

Menelaus

Is not all I have his, and all his mine?

Peleus

For good, but not evil ends; and surely not for murderous violence.

Menelaus

Never shalt thou wrest her from my grasp.

Peleus

With this good staff I’ll stain thy head with blood!

Menelaus

Just touch me and see! Approach one step!

Peleus

What! shalt thou rank with men? chief of cowards, son of cowards! What right hast thou to any place ‘mongst men? Thou who didst let Phrygian rob thee of thy wife, leaving thy home without bolt or guard, as if forsooth the cursed woman thou hadst there was a model of virtue. No! a Spartan maid could not be chaste, e’en if she would, who leaves her home and bares her limbs and lets her robe float free, to share with youths their races and their sports — customs I cannot away with. Is it any wonder then that ye fail to educate your women in virtue? Helen might have asked thee this, seeing that she said goodbye to thy affection and tripped off with her young gallant to a foreign land. And yet for her sake thou didst marshal all the hosts of Hellas and lead them to Ilium, whereas thou shouldst have shown thy loathing for her by refusing to stir a spear, once thou hadst found her false; yea, thou shouldst have let her stay there, and even paid a price to save ever having her back again. But that was not at all the way thy thoughts were turned; wherefore many a brave life hast thou ended, and many an aged mother hast thou left childless in her home, and grey-haired sires of gallant sons hast reft. Of that sad band am I member, seeing in thee Achilles’ murderer like a malignant fiend; for thou and thou alone hast returned from Troy without a scratch, bringing back thy splendid weapons in their splendid cases just as they went. As for me, I ever told that amorous boy to form no alliance with thee nor take unto his home an evil mother’s child; for daughters bear the marks of their mothers’ ill-repute into their new homes. Wherefore, ye wooers, take heed to this my warning: “Choose the daughter of a good mother.” And more than this, with what wanton insult didst thou treat thy brother, bidding him sacrifice his daughter in his simpleness! So fearful wast thou of losing thy worthless wife. Then after capturing Troy — for thither too will I accompany thee — thou didst not slay that woman, when she was in thy power; but as soon as thine eyes caught sight of her breast, thy sword was dropped and thou didst take her kisses, fondling the shameless traitress, too weak to stem thy hot desire, thou caitiff wretch! Yet spite of all thou art the man to come and work havoc in my grandson’s halls when he is absent, seeking to slay with all indignity a poor weak woman and her babe: but that babe shall one day make thee and thy daughter in thy home rue it, e’en though his birth be trebly base. Yea, for oft ere now hath seed, sown on barren soil, prevailed o’er rich deep tilth, and many bastard has proved a better man than children better born. Take thy daughter hence with thee! Far better is it for mortals to have a poor honest man either as married kin or friend than a wealthy knave; but as for thee, thou art a thing of naught.

Leader

The tongue from trifling causes contrives to breed great strife ‘mongst men; wherefore are the wise most careful not to bring about a quarrel with their friends.

Menelaus

Why, pray, should one call these old men wise, or those who once had a reputation in Hellas for being so? when thou, the great Peleus, son of famous father, kin to me through marriage, employest language disgraceful to thyself and abusive of me because of a barbarian woman, though thou shouldst have banished her far beyond the streams of Nile or Phasis, and ever encouraged me; seeing that she comes from Asia’s continent where fell so many of the sons of Hellas, victims to the spear; and likewise because she shared in the spilling of thy son’s blood; for Paris who slew thy son Achilles, was brother to Hector, whose wife she was. And dost thou enter the same abode with her, and deign to let her share thy board, and suffer her to rear her brood of vipers in thy house? But I, after all this foresight for thee, old man, and myself, am to have her torn from my clutches for wishing to slay her. Yet come now, for ‘tis no disgrace to argue; suppose my daughter has no child, while this woman’s sons grow up, wilt thou set them up to rule the land of Phthia, barbarians born and bred to lord it over Hellenes? Am I then so void of sense because I hate injustice, and thou so full of cleverness? Consider yet another point; say thou hadst given a daughter of thine to some citizen, and hadst then seen her thus treated, wouldst thou have sat looking on in silence? I trow not. Dost thou then for a foreigner rail thus at thy nearest friends? Again, thou mayst say, husband and wife have an equally strong case if she is wronged by him, and similarly if he find her guilty of indiscretion in his house; yet while he has ample powers in his own hands, she depends on parents and friends for her case. Surely then I am right in helping my own kin! Thou art in thy dotage; for thou wilt do me more good by speaking of my generalship than by concealing it. Helen’s trouble was not of her own choosing, but sent by heaven, and it proved a great benefit to Hellas; her sons, till then untried in war or arms, turned to deeds of prowess, and it is experience which teaches man all he knows. I showed my wisdom in refraining from slaying my wife, directly I caught sight of her. Would that thou too hadst ne’er slain Phocus! All this I bring before thee in pure good-will, not from anger. But if thou resent it, thy tongue may wag till it ache, yet shall I gain by prudent forethought.

Leader

Cease now from idle words, ‘twere better far, for fear ye both alike go wrong.

Peleus

Alas! what evil customs now prevail in Hellas! Whene’er the host sets up a trophy o’er the foe, men no more consider this the work of those who really toiled, but the general gets the credit for it. Now he was but one among ten thousand others to brandish his spear; he only did the work of one; but yet he wins more praise than they. Again, as magistrates in all the grandeur of office they scorn the common folk, though they are naught themselves; whereas those others are ten thousand times more wise than they, if daring combine with judgment. Even so thou and thy brother, exalted by the toilsome efforts of others, now take your seats in all the swollen pride of Trojan fame and Trojan generalship. But I will teach thee henceforth to consider Idaean Paris a foe less terrible than Peleus, unless forthwith thou pack from this roof, thou and thy childless daughter too, whom my own true son will hale through his halls by the hair of her head; for her barrenness will not let her endure fruitfulness in others, because she has no children herself. Still if misfortune prevents her bearing offspring, is that a reason why we should be left childless? Begone! ye varlets, let her go! I will soon see if anyone will hinder me from loosing her hands. [to Andromache] Arise; these trembling hands of mine will untie the twisted thongs that bind thee. Out on thee, coward! is this how thou hast galled her wrists? Didst think thou wert lashing up a lion or bull? or wert afraid she would snatch a sword and defend herself against thee? Come, child, nestle to thy mother’s arms; help me loose her bonds; I will yet rear thee in Phthia to be their bitter foe. If your reputation for prowess and the battles ye have fought were taken from you Spartans, in all else, be very sure, you have not your inferiors.

Leader

The race of old men practises no restraint; and their testiness makes it hard to check them.

Menelaus

Thou art only too ready to rush into abuse; while, as for me, I came to Phthia by constraint and have therefore no intention either of doing or suffering anything mean. Now must I return home, for I have no time to waste; for there is a city not so very far from Sparta, which aforetime was friendly but now is hostile; against her will I march with my army and bring her into subjection. And when I have arranged that matter as I wish, I will return; and face to face with my son-in-law I will give my version of the story and hear his. And if he punish her, and for the future she exercise self-control, she shall find me do the like; but if he storm, I’ll storm as well; and every act of mine shall be a reflex of his own. As for thy babbling, I can bear it easily; for, like to a shadow as thou art, thy voice is all thou hast, and thou art powerless to do aught but talk.

[Menelaus and his retinue withdraw.]

Peleus

Lead on, my child, safe beneath my sheltering wing, and thou too, poor lady; for thou art come into a quiet haven after the rude storm.

Andromache

Heaven reward thee and all thy race, old sire, for having saved my child and me his hapless mother! Only beware lest they fall upon us twain in some lonely spot upon the road and force me from thee, when they see thy age, my weakness, and this child’s tender years; take heed to this, that we be not a second time made captive, after escaping now.

Peleus

Forbear such words, prompted by a woman’s cowardice. Go on thy way; who will lay a finger on you? Methinks he will do it to his cost, For by heaven’s grace I rule o’er many a knight and spearman bold in my kingdom of Phthia; yea, and myself can still stand straight, no bent old man as thou dost think; such a fellow as that a mere look from me will put to flight in spite of my years. For e’en an old man, be he brave, is worth a host of raw youths; for what avails a fine figure if a man is coward?

[Peleus, Andromache, and Molossus go out.]

Chorus [singing]

Oh! to have never been born, or sprung from noble sires, the heir to mansions richly stored; for if aught untoward e’er befall, there is no lack of champions for sons of noble parents, and there is honour and glory for them when they are proclaimed scions of illustrious lines; time detracts not from the legacy these good men leave, but the light of their goodness still burns on when they are dead.

Better is it not to win a discreditable victory, than to make justice miscarry by an invidious exercise of power; for such a victory, though men think it sweet for the moment, grows barren in time and comes near being a stain on a house. This is the life I commend, this the life I set before me as my ideal, to exercise no authority beyond what is right either in the marriage-chamber or in the state. epode

O aged son of Aeacus! now am I sure that thou wert with the Lapithae, wielding thy famous spear, when they fought the Centaurs; and on Argo’s deck didst pass the cheerless strait beyond the sea-beat Symplegades on her voyage famed; and when in days long gone the son of Zeus spread slaughter round Troy’s famous town, thou too didst share his triumphant return to Europe.

[The Nurse of Hermione enters.]

Nurse

Alas! good friends, what a succession of troubles is to-day provided us! My mistress Hermione within the house, deserted by her father and in remorse for her monstrous deed in plotting the death of Andromache and her child, is bent on dying; for she is afraid her husband will in requital for this expel her with dishonour from his house or put her to death, because she tried to slay the innocent. And the servants that watch her can scarce restrain her efforts to hang herself, scarce catch the sword and wrest it from her hand. So bitter is her anguish, and she hath recognized the villainy of her former deeds. As for me, friends, I am weary of keeping my mistress from the fatal noose; do ye go in and try to save her life; for if strangers come, they prove more persuasive than the friends of every day.

Leader of the Chorus

Ah yes! I hear an outcry in the house amongst the servants, confirming the news thou hast brought. Poor sufferer! she seems about to show lively grief for her grave crimes; for she has escaped her servants’ hands and is rushing from the house, eager to end her life.

[Hermione enters, in agitation. She is carrying a sword which the Nurse wrests from her.]

Hermione [chanting]

Woe, woe is me! I will rend my hair and tear cruel furrows in my cheeks.

Nurse

My child, what wilt thou do? Wilt thou disfigure thyself?

Hermione [chanting]

Ah me! ah me! Begone, thou fine-spun veil! float from my head away!

Nurse

Daughter, cover up thy bosom, fasten thy robe.

Hermione [chanting]

Why should I cover it? My crimes against my lord are manifest and clear, they cannot be hidden.

Nurse

Art so grieved at having devised thy rival’s death?

Hermione [chanting]

Yea, I deeply mourn my fatal deeds of daring; alas! I am now accursed in all men’s eyes!

Nurse

Thy husband will pardon thee this error.

Hermione [chanting]

Oh! why didst thou hunt me to snatch away my sword? Give, oh! give it back, dear nurse, that I may thrust it through my heart Why dost thou prevent me hanging myself?

Nurse

What! was I to let thy madness lead thee on to death?

Hermione [chanting]

Ah me, my destiny! Where can I find some friendly fire? To what rocky height can I climb above the sea or ‘mid some wooded mountain glen, there to die and trouble but the dead?

Nurse

Why vex thyself thus? on all of us sooner or later heaven’s visitation comes.

Hermione [chanting]

Thou hast left me, O my father, left me like a stranded bark, all alone, without an oar. My lord will surely slay me; no home is mine henceforth beneath my husband’s roof. What god is there to whose statue I can as a suppliant haste? or shall I throw myself in slavish wise at slavish knees? Would I could speed away from Phthia’s land on bird’s dark pinion, or like that pine-built ship, the first that ever sailed betwixt the rocks Cyanean!

Nurse

My child, I can as little praise thy previous sinful excesses, committed against the Trojan captive, as thy present exaggerated terror. Thy husband will never listen to a barbarian’s weak pleading and reject his marriage with thee for this. For thou wast no captive from Troy whom he wedded, but the daughter of a gallant sire, with a rich dower, from a city too of no mean prosperity. Nor will thy father forsake thee, as thou dreadest, and allow thee to be cast out from this house. Nay, enter now, nor show thyself before the palace, lest the sight of thee there bring reproach upon thee, my daughter.

[The Nurse departs as Orestes and his attendants enter.]

Leader

Lo! a stranger of foreign appearance from some other land comes hurrying towards us.

Orestes

Women of this foreign land! is this the home, the palace of Achilles’ son?

Leader

Thou hast it; but who art thou to ask such a question?

Orestes

The son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, by name Orestes, on ply way to the oracle of Zeus at Dodona. But now that I am come to Phthia, I am resolved to inquire about my kinswoman, Hermione of Sparta; is she alive and well? for though she dwells in a land far from my own, I love her none the less.

Hermione

Son of Agamemnon, thy appearing is as a haven from the storm to sailors; by thy knees I pray, have pity on me in my distress, on me of whose fortunes thou art inquiring. About thy knees I twine my arms with all the force of sacred fillets.

Orestes

Ha! what is this? Am I mistaken or do I really see before me the queen of this palace, the daughter of Menelaus?

Hermione

The same, that only child whom Helen, daughter of Tyndareus, bore my father in his halls; never doubt that.

Orestes

O saviour Phoebus, grant us respite from our woe! But what is the matter? art thou afflicted by gods or men?

Hermione

Partly by myself, partly by the man who wedded me, and partly by some god. On every side I see ruin.

Orestes

Why, what misfortune could happen to a woman as yet childless, unless her honour is concerned?

Hermione

My very ill! Thou hast hit my case exactly.

Orestes

On whom has thy husband set his affections in thy stead?

Hermione

On his captive, Hector’s wife.

Orestes

An evil case indeed, for a man to have two wives!

Hermione

‘Tis even thus. So I resented it.

Orestes

Didst thou with woman’s craft devise a plot against thy rival?

Hermione

Yes, to slay her and her bastard child.

Orestes

And didst thou slay them, or did something happen to rescue them from thee?

Hermione

It was old Peleus, who showed regard to the weaker side.

Orestes

Hadst thou any accomplice in this attempted murder?

Hermione

My father came from Sparta for this very purpose.

Orestes

And was he after all defeated by that old man’s prowess?

Hermione

Oh no! but by shame; and he hath gone and left me all alone.

Orestes

I understand; thou art afraid of thy husband for what thou hast done.

Hermione

Thou hast guessed it; for he will have a right to slay me. What can say for myself? Yet I beseech thee by Zeus the god of our family, send me to a land as far as possible from this, or to my father’s house; for these very walls seem to cry out “Begone!” and all the land of Phthia hates me. But if my lord return ere that from the oracle of Phoebus, he will put me to death on a shameful charge, or enslave me to his mistress, whom ruled before. Maybe some one will say, “How was it thou didst go thus astray?” I was ruined by evil women who came to me and puffed me up with words like these: “Wait! wilt thou suffer that vile captive, a mere bondmaid, to dwell within thy house and share thy wedded rights? By Heaven’s queen! if it were my house she should not live to reap my marriage-harvest!” And I listened to the words of these Sirens, the cunning, knavish, subtle praters, and was filled with silly thoughts. What need had I to care about my lord? I had all I wanted, wealth in plenty, a house in which I was mistress, and as for children, mine would be born in wedlock, while hers would be bastards, half-slaves to mine. Oh! never, never — this truth will I repeat — should men of sense, who have wives, allow women-folk to visit them in their homes, for they teach them evil; one, to gain some private end, helps to corrupt their honour; another, having made a slip herself, wants a companion in misfortune, while many are wantons; and hence it is men’s houses are tainted. Wherefore keep strict guard upon the portals of your houses with bolts and bars; for these visits of strange women lead to no good result, but a world of ill.

Leader

Thou hast given thy tongue too free a rein regarding thy own sex. I can pardon thee in this case, but still women ought to smooth over their sisters’ weaknesses.

Orestes

‘Twas sage counsel he gave who taught men to hear the arguments on both sides. I, for instance, though aware of the confusion in this house, the quarrel between thee and Hector’s wife, waited awhile and watched to see whether thou wouldst stay here or from fear of that captive art minded to quit these halls. Now it was not so much regard for thy message that brought me thither, as the intention of carrying thee away from this house, if, as now, thou shouldst grant me a chance of saying so. For thou wert mine formerly, but art now living with thy present husband through thy father’s baseness; since he, before invading Troy’s domains, betrothed thee to me, and then afterwards promised thee to thy present lord, provided he captured the city of Troy.

So, as soon as Achilles’ son returned hither, I forgave thy father, but entreated the bridegroom to forego his marriage with thee, telling him all I had endured and my present misfortune; I might get a wife, I said, from amongst friends, but outside their circle ‘twas no easy task for one exiled like myself from home. Thereat he grew abusive, taunting me with my mother’s murder and those blood-boltered fiends. And I was humbled by the fortunes of my house, and though ‘tis true, I grieved, yet did I bear my sorrow, and reluctantly departed, robbed of thy promised hand. Now therefore, since thou findest thy fortune so abruptly changed and art fallen thus on evil days and hast no help, I will take thee hence and place thee in thy father’s hands. For kinship hath strong claims, and in adversity there is naught better than a kinsman’s kindly aid.

Hermione

As for my marriage, my father must look to it; ‘tis not for me to decide. Yes, take me hence as soon as may be, lest my husband come back to his house before I am gone, or Peleus hear that I am deserting his son’s abode and pursue me with his swift steeds.

Orestes

Rest easy about the old man’s power; and, as for Achilles’ son with all his insolence to me, never fear him; such a crafty net this hand hath woven and set for his death with knots that none can loose; whereof I will not speak before the time, but, when my plot begins to work, Delphi’s rock will witness it. If but my allies in the Pythian land abide by their oaths, this same murderer of his mother will show that no one else shall marry thee my rightful bride. To his cost will he demand satisfaction of King Phoebus for his father’s blood; nor shall his repentance avail him though he is now submitting to the god. No! he shall perish miserably by Apollo’s hand and my false accusations; so shall he find out my enmity. For the deity upsets the fortune of them that hate him, and suffers them not to be high-minded.

[Orestes and Hermione depart.]

Chorus [singing]

O Phoebus! who didst fence the hill of Ilium with a fair coronal of towers, and thou, ocean-god! coursing o’er the main with thy dark steeds, wherefore did ye hand over in dishonour your own handiwork to the war-god, master of the spear, abandoning Troy to wretchedness?

Many a well-horsed car ye yoked on the banks of Simois, and many a bloody tournament did ye ordain with never a prize to win; and Ilium’s princes are dead and gone; no longer in Troy is seen the blaze of fire on altars of the gods with the smoke of incense.

The son of Atreus is no more, slain by the hand of his wife, and she herself hath paid the debt of blood by death, and from her children’s hands received her doom. The god’s own bidding from his oracle was levelled against her, in the day that Agamemnon’s son set forth from Argos and visited his shrine; so he slew her, aye, spilt his own mother’s blood. O Phoebus, O thou power divine, how can I believe the story?

Anon wherever Hellenes gather, was heard the voice of lamentation, mothers weeping o’er their children’s fate, as they left their homes to mate with strangers. Ah! thou art not the only one, nor thy dear ones either, on whom the cloud of grief hath fallen. Hellas had to bear the visitation, and thence the scourge crossed to Phrygia’s fruitful fields, raining the bloody drops the death-god loves.

[Peleus enters in haste.]

Peleus

Ye dames of Phthia, answer my questions. I heard a vague rumour that the daughter of Menelaus had left these halls and fled; so now I am come in hot haste to learn if this be true; for it is the duty of those who are at home to labour in the interests of their absent friends.

Leader of the Chorus

Thou hast heard aright, O Peleus; ill would it become me to hide the evil case in which I now find myself; our queen has fled and left these halls.

Peleus

What did she fear? explain that to me.

Leader

She was afraid her lord would cast her out.

Peleus

In return for plotting his child’s death? surely not?

Leader

Yea, and she was afraid of yon captive.

Peleus

With whom did she leave the house? with her father?

Leader

The son of Agamemnon came and took her hence.

Peleus

What view hath he to further thereby? Will he marry her?

Leader

Yes, and he is plotting thy grandson’s death.

Peleus

From an ambuscade, or meeting him fairly face to face?

Leader

In the holy place of Loxias, leagued with Delphians.

Peleus

God help us. This is a present danger. Hasten one of you with all speed to the Pythian altar and tell our friends there what has happened here, ere Achilles’ son be slain by his enemies.

[A Messenger enters.]

Messenger

Woe worth the day! what evil tidings have I brought for thee, old sire, and for all who love my master! woe is me!

Peleus

Alas! my prophetic soul hath a presentiment.

Messenger

Aged Peleus, hearken! Thy grandson is no more; so grievously is he smitten by the men of Delphi and the stranger from Mycenae.

Leader

Ah! what wilt thou do, old man? Fall not; uplift thyself.

Peleus

I am a thing of naught; death is come upon me. My voice is choked, my limbs droop beneath me.

Messenger

Hearken; if thou art eager also to avenge thy friends, lift up thyself and hear what happened.

Peleus

Ah, destiny! how tightly hast thou caught me in thy toils, a poor old man at life’s extremest verge! But tell me how he was taken from me, my one son’s only child; unwelcome as such news is, I fain would hear it.

Messenger

As soon as we reached the famous soil of Phoebus, for three whole days were we feasting our eyes with the sight. And this, it seems, caused suspicion; for the folk, who dwell near the god’s shrine, began to collect in groups, while Agamemnon’s son, going to and fro through the town, would whisper in each man’s ear malignant hints: “Do ye see yon fellow, going in and out of the god’s treasure-chambers, which are full of the gold stored there by all mankind? He is come hither a second time on the same mission as before, eager to sack the temple of Phoebus.” Thereon there ran an angry murmur through the city, and the magistrates flocked to their council-chamber, while those, who have charge of the god’s treasures, had a guard privately placed amongst the colonnades. But we, knowing naught as yet of this, took sheep fed in the pastures of Parnassus, and went our way and stationed ourselves at the altars with vouchers and Pythian seers. And one said: “What prayer, young warrior, wouldst thou have us offer to the god? Wherefore art thou come?” And he answered: “I wish to make atonement to Phoebus for my past transgression; for once I claimed from him satisfaction for my father’s blood.” Thereupon the rumour, spread by Orestes, proved to have great weight, suggesting that my master was lying and had come on a shameful errand. But he crosses the threshold of the temple to pray to Phoebus before his oracle, and was busy with his burnt-offering; when a body of men armed with swords set themselves in ambush against him in the cover of the bay-trees, and Clytemnestra’s son, that had contrived the whole plot was one of them. There stood the young man praying to the god in sight of all, when lo! with their sharp swords they stabbed Achilles’ unprotected son from behind. But he stepped back, for it was not a mortal wound he had received, and drew his sword, and snatching armour from the pegs where it hung on a pillar, took his stand upon the altar-steps, the picture of a warrior grim; then cried he to the sons of Delphi, and asked them: “Why seek to slay me when I am come on a holy mission? What cause is there why I should die? But of all that throng of bystanders, no man answered him a word, but they set to hurling stones. Then he, though bruised and battered by the showers of missiles from all sides, covered himself behind his mail and tried to ward off the attack, holding his shield first here, then there, at arm’s length, but all of no avail; for a storm of darts, arrows and javelins, hurtling spits with double points, and butchers’ knives for slaying steers, came flying at his feet; and terrible was the war-dance thou hadst then seen thy grandson dance to avoid their marksmanship. At last, when they were hemming him in on all sides, allowing him no breathing space, he left the shelter of the altar, the hearth where victims are placed, and with one bound was on them as on the Trojans of yore; and they turned and fled like doves when they see the hawk. Many fell in the confusion: some wounded, and others trodden down by one another along the narrow passages; and in that hushed holy house uprose unholy din and echoed back from the rocks. Calm and still my master stood there in his gleaming harness like a flash of light, till from the inmost shrine there came a voice of thrilling horror, stirring the crowd to make a stand. Then fell Achilles’ son, smitten through the flank by some Delphian’s biting blade, some fellow that slew him with a host to help; and as he fell, there was not one that did not stab him, or cast a rock and batter his corpse. So his whole body, once so fair, was marred with savage wounds. At last they cast the lifeless clay, Iying near the altar, forth from the fragrant fane. And we gathered up his remains forthwith and are bringing them to thee, old prince, to mourn and weep and honour with a deep-dug tomb.

This is how that prince who vouchsafeth oracles to others, that judge of what is right for all the world, hath revenged himself on Achilles’ son, remembering his ancient quarrel as a wicked man would. How then can he be wise?

[The Messenger withdraws as the body of Neoptolemus is carried in on a bier. The following lines between Peleus and the Chorus are chanted responsively.]

Chorus

Lo! e’en now our prince is being carried on a bier from Delphi’s land unto his home. Woe for him and his sad fate, and woe for thee, old sire! for this is not the welcome thou wouldst give Achilles’ son, the lion’s whelp; thyself too by this sad mischance dost share his evil lot.

Peleus

Ah! woe is me! here is a sad sight for me to see and take unto my halls! Ah me! ah me! I am undone, thou city of Thessaly! My line now ends; I have no children left me in my home. Oh! the sorrows seem born to endure! What friend can I look to for relief? Ah, dear lips, and cheeks, and hands! Would thy destiny had slain the ‘neath Ilium’s walls beside the banks of Simois!

Chorus

Had he so died, my aged lord, he had won him honour thereby, and thine had been the happier lot.

Peleus

O marriage, marriage, woe to thee! thou bane of my home, thou destroyer of my city! Ah my child, my boy, would that the honour of wedding thee, fraught with evil as it was to my children and house, had not thrown o’er thee, my son, Hermione’s deadly net! that the thunderbolt had slain her sooner! and that thou, rash mortal, hadst never charged the great god Phoebus with aiming that murderous shaft that spilt thy hero-father’s blood!

Chorus

Woe! woe! alas! With due observance of funeral rites will I begin the mourning for my dead master.

Peleus

Alack and well-a-day! I take up the tearful dirge, ah me! old and wretched as I am.

Chorus

‘Tis Heaven’s decree; God willed this heavy stroke.

Peleus

O darling child, thou hast left me all alone in my halls, old and childless by thy loss.

Chorus

Thou shouldst have died, old sire, before thy children.

Peleus

Shall I not tear my hair, and smite upon my head with grievous blows? O city! of both my children hath Phoebus robbed me.

Chorus

What evils thou hast suffered, what sorrows thou hast seen, thou poor old man! what shall be thy life hereafter?

Peleus

Childless, desolate, with no limit to my grief, I must drain the cup of woe, until I die.

Chorus

‘Twas all in vain the gods wished thee joy on thy wedding day.

Peleus

All my hopes have flown away, fallen short of my high boasts.

Chorus

A lonely dweller in a lonely home art thou.

Peleus

I have no city any longer; there! on the ground my sceptre do cast; and thou, daughter of Nereus, ‘neath thy dim grotto, shalt see me grovelling in the dust, a ruined king.

Chorus

Look, look! [A dim form of divine appearance is seen hovering mid air.] What is that moving? what influence divine am I conscious of? Look, maidens, mark it well; see, yonder is some deity, wafted through the lustrous air and alighting on the plains of Phthia, home of steeds.

Thetis [from above]

O Peleus! because of my wedded days with thee now long agone, I Thetis am come from the halls of Nereus. And first I counsel thee not to grieve to excess in thy present distress, for I too who need ne’er have borne children to my sorrow, have lost the child of our love, Achilles swift of foot, foremost of the sons of Hellas. Next will I declare why I am come, and do thou give ear. Carry yonder corpse, Achilles’ son, to the Pythian altar and there bury it, a reproach to Delphi, that his tomb may proclaim the violent death he met at the hand of Orestes. And for his captive wife Andromache — she must dwell in the Molossian land, united in honourable wedlock with Helenus, and with her this babe, the sole survivor as he is of all the line of Aeacus, for from him a succession of prosperous kings of Molossia is to go on unbroken; for the race that springs from thee and me, my aged lord, must not thus be brought to naught; no! nor Troy’s line either; for her fate too is cared for by the gods, albeit her fall was due to the eager wish of Pallas. Thee too, that thou mayst know the saving grace of wedding me, will I, a goddess born and daughter of a god, release from all the ills that flesh is heir to and make a deity to know not death nor decay. From henceforth in the halls of Nereus shalt thou dwell with me, god and goddess together; thence shalt thou rise dry-shod from out the main and see Achilles, our dear son, settled in his island-home by the strand of Leuce, that is girdled by the Euxine sea. But get thee to Delphi’s god-built town, carrying this corpse with thee, and, after thou hast buried him, return and settle in the cave which time hath hollowed in the Sepian rock and there abide, till from the sea I come with choir of fifty Nereids to be thy escort thence; for fate’s decree thou must fulfil; such is the pleasure of Zeus. Cease then to mourn the dead; this is the lot which heaven assigns to all, and all must pay their debt to death.

Peleus

Great queen, my honoured wife, from Nereus sprung, all hail! thou art acting herein as befits thyself and thy children. So I will stay my grief at thy bidding, goddess, and, when I have buried the dead, will seek the glens of Pelion, even the place where I took thy beauteous form to my embrace. Surely after this every prudent man will seek to marry a wife of noble stock and give his daughter to a husband good and true, never setting his heart on a worthless woman, not even though she bring a sumptuous dowry to his house. So would men ne’er suffer ill at heaven’s hand.

[Thetis vanishes.]

Chorus [chanting]

Many are the shapes of Heaven’s denizens, and many a thing they bring to pass contrary to our expectation; that which we thought would be is not accomplished, while for the unexpected God finds out a way. E’en such hath been the issue of this matter.

The Bacchantes

Characters in the Play

Dionysus

Cadmus

Pentheus

Agave

Teiresias

First Messenger

Second Messenger

Servant

Chorus of Bacchantes

[Before the Palace of Pentheus at Thebes. Enter Dionysus.]

Dionysus

Lo! I am come to this land of Thebes, Dionysus, the son of Zeus, of whom on a day Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, was delivered by a flash of lightning. I have put off the god and taken human shape, and so present myself at Dirce’s springs and the waters of Ismenus. Yonder I see my mother’s monument where the bolt slew her nigh her house, and there are the ruins of her home smouldering with the heavenly flame that blazeth still-Hera’s deathless outrage on my mother. To Cadmus all praise I offer, because he keeps this spot hallowed, his daughter’s precinct, which my own hands have shaded round about with the vine’s clustering foliage.

Lydia’s glebes, where gold abounds, and Phrygia have I left behind; o’er Persia’s sun-baked plains, by Bactria’s walled towns and Media’s wintry clime have I advanced through Arabia, land of promise; and Asia’s length and breadth, outstretched along the brackish sea, with many a fair walled town, peopled with mingled race of Hellenes and barbarians; and this is the first city in Hellas I have reached. There too have I ordained dances and established my rites, that I might manifest my godhead to men; but Thebes is the first city in the land of Hellas that I have made ring with shouts of joy, girt in a fawn-skin, with a thyrsus, my ivy-bound spear, in my hand; since my mother’s sisters, who least of all should have done it, denied that Dionysus was the son of Zeus, saying that Semele, when she became a mother by some mortal lover, tried to foist her sin on Zeus — a clever ruse of Cadmus, which, they boldly asserted, caused Zeus to slay her for the falsehood about the marriage. Wherefore these are they whom I have driven frenzied from their homes, and they are dwelling on the hills with mind distraught; and I have forced them to assume the dress worn in my orgies, and all the women-folk of Cadmus’ stock have I driven raving from their homes, one and all alike; and there they sit upon the roofless rocks beneath the green pine-trees, mingling amongst the sons of Thebes. For this city must learn, however loth, seeing that it is not initiated in my Bacchic rites, and I must take up my mother’s defence, by showing to mortals that the child she bore to Zeus is a deity. Now Cadmus gave his sceptre and its privileges to Pentheus, his daughter’s child, who wages war ‘gainst my divinity, thrusting me away from his drink-offerings, and making no mention of me in his prayers. Therefore will I prove to him and all the race of Cadmus that I am a god. And when I have set all in order here, I will pass hence to a fresh country, manifesting myself; but if the city of Thebes in fury takes up arms and seeks to drive my votaries from the mountain, I will meet them at the head of my frantic rout. This is why I have assumed a mortal form, and put off my godhead to take man’s nature.

O ye who left Tmolus, the bulwark of Lydia, ye women, my revel rout! whom I brought from your foreign homes to be ever by my side and bear me company, uplift the cymbals native to your Phrygian home, that were by me and the great mother Rhea first devised, and march around the royal halls of Pentheus smiting them, that the city of Cadmus may see you; while I will seek Cithaeron’s glens, there with my Bacchanals to join the dance.

[Exit Dionysus.]

[Enter Chorus.]

Chorus

From Asia o’er the holy ridge of Tmolus hasten to a pleasant task, a toil that brings no weariness, for Bromius’ sake, in honour of the Bacchic god. Who loiters in the road? who lingers ‘neath the roof? Avaunt! I say, and let every lip be hushed in solemn silence; for I will raise a hymn to Dionysus, as custom aye ordains. O happy he! who to his joy is initiated in heavenly mysteries and leads a holy life, joining heart and soul in Bacchic revelry upon the hills, purified from every sin; observing the rites of Cybele, the mighty mother, and brandishing the thyrsus, with ivy-wreathed head, he worships Dionysus. Go forth, go forth, ye Bacchanals, bring home the Bromian god Dionysus, child of a god, from the mountains of Phrygia to the spacious streets of Hellas, bring home the Bromian god! whom on a day his mother in her sore travail brought forth untimely, yielding up her life beneath the lightning stroke of Zeus’ winged bolt; but forthwith Zeus, the son of Cronos, found for him another womb wherein to rest, for he hid him in his thigh and fastened it with golden pins to conceal him from Hera. And when the Fates had fully formed the horned god, he brought him forth and crowned him with a coronal of snakes, whence it is the thyrsus-bearing Maenads hunt the snake to twine about their hair. O Thebes, nurse of Semele! crown thyself with ivy; burst forth, burst forth with blossoms fair of green convolvulus, and with the boughs of oak and pine join in the Bacchic revelry; don thy coat of dappled fawn-skin, decking it with tufts of silvered hair; with reverent hand the sportive wand now wield. Anon shall the whole land be dancing, when Bromius leads his revellers to the hills, to the hills away! where wait him groups of maidens from loom and shuttle roused in frantic haste by Dionysus. O hidden cave of the Curetes! O hallowed haunts in Crete, that saw Zeus born, where Corybantes with crested helms devised for me in their grotto the rounded timbrel of ox-hide, mingling Bacchic minstrelsy with the shrill sweet accents of the Phrygian flute, a gift bestowed by them on mother Rhea, to add its crash of music to the Bacchantes’ shouts of joy; but frantic satyrs won it from the mother-goddess for their own, and added it to their dances in festivals, which gladden the heart of Dionysus, each third recurrent year. Oh! happy that votary, when from the hurrying revel-rout he sinks to earth, in his holy robe of fawnskin, chasing the goat to drink its blood, a banquet sweet of flesh uncooked, as he hastes to Phrygia’s or to Libya’s hills; while in the van the Bromian god exults with cries of Evoe. With milk and wine and streams of luscious honey flows the earth, and Syrian incense smokes. While the Bacchante holding in his hand a blazing torch of pine uplifted on his wand waves it, as he speeds along, rousing wandering votaries, and as he waves it cries aloud with wanton tresses tossing in the breeze; and thus to crown the revelry, he raises loud his voice, “On, on, ye Bacchanals, pride of Tmolus with its rills of gold! to the sound of the booming drum, chanting in joyous strains the praises of your joyous god with Phrygian accents lifted high, what time the holy lute with sweet complaining note invites you to your hallowed sport, according well with feet that hurry wildly to the hills; like a colt that gambols at its mother’s side in the pasture, with gladsome heart each Bacchante bounds along.”

[Enter Teiresias.]

Teiresias

What loiterer at the gates will call Cadmus from the house, Agenor’s son, who left the city of Sidon and founded here the town of Thebes? Go one of you, announce to him that Teiresias is seeking him; he knows himself the reason of my coming and the compact I and he have made in our old age to bind the thyrsus with leaves and don the fawnskin, crowning our heads the while with ivy-sprays.

[Enter Cadmus.]

Cadmus

Best of friends! I was in the house when I heard thy voice, wise as its owner. I come prepared, dressed in the livery of the god. For ‘tis but right I should magnify with all my might my own daughter’s son, Dionysus, who hath shown his godhead unto men. Where are we to join the dance? where plant the foot and shake the hoary head? Do thou, Teiresias, be my guide, age leading age, for thou art wise. Never shall I weary, night or day, of beating the earth with my thyrsus. What joy to forget our years?

Teiresias

Why, then thou art as I am. For I too am young again, and will essay the dance.

Cadmus

We will drive then in our chariot to the hill.

Teiresias

Nay, thus would the god not have an equal honour paid.

Cadmus

Well, I will lead thee, age leading age.

Teiresias

The god will guide us both thither without toil.

Cadmus

Shall we alone of all the city dance in Bacchus’ honour?

Teiresias

Yea, for we alone are wise, the rest are mad.

Cadmus

We stay too long; come, take my hand.

Teiresias

There link thy hand in my firm grip.

Cadmus

Mortal that I am, I scorn not the gods.

Teiresias

No subtleties do I indulge about the powers of heaven. The faith we inherited from our fathers, old as time itself, no reasoning shall cast down; no! though it were the subtlest invention of wits refined. Maybe some one will say, I have no respect for my grey hair in going to dance with ivy round my head; not so, for the god did not define whether old or young should dance, but from all alike he claims a universal homage, and scorns nice calculations in his worship.

Cadmus

Teiresias, since thou art blind, I must prompt thee what to say. Pentheus is coming hither to the house in haste, Echion’s son, to whom I resign the government. How scared he looks! what strange tidings will he tell?

[Enter Pentheus.]

Pentheus

I had left my kingdom for awhile, when tidings of strange mischief in this city reached me; I hear that our women-folk have left their homes on pretence of Bacchic rites, and on the wooded hills rush wildly to and fro, honouring in the dance this new god Dionysus, whoe’er he is; and in the midst of each revel-rout the brimming wine-bowl stands, and one by one they steal away to lonely spots to gratify their lust, pretending forsooth that they are Maenads bent on sacrifice, though it is Aphrodite they are placing before the Bacchic god. As many as I caught, my gaolers are keeping safe in the public prison fast bound; and all who are gone forth, will I chase from the hills, Ino and Agave too who bore me to Echion, and Actaeon’s mother Autonoe. In fetters of iron will I bind them and soon put an end to these outrageous Bacchic rites. They say there came a stranger hither, a trickster and a sorcerer, from Lydia’s land, with golden hair and perfumed locks, the flush of wine upon his face, and in his eyes each grace that Aphrodite gives; by day and night he lingers in our maidens’ company on the plea of teaching Bacchic mysteries. Once let me catch him within these walls, and I will put an end to his thyrsus-beating and his waving of his tresses, for I will cut his head from his body. This is the fellow who says that Dionysus is a god, says that he was once stitched up in the thigh of Zeus — that child who with his mother was blasted by the lightning flash, because the woman falsely said her marriage was with Zeus. Is not this enough to deserve the awful penalty of hanging, this stranger’s wanton insolence, whoe’er he be?

But lo! another marvel. I see Teiresias, our diviner, dressed in dappled fawn-skins, and my mother’s father too, wildly waving the Bacchic wand; droll sight enough! Father, it grieves me to see you two old men so void of sense. Oh! shake that ivy from thee! Let fall the thyrsus from thy hand, my mother’s sire! Was it thou, Teiresias, urged him on to this? Art bent on introducing this fellow as another new deity amongst men, that thou mayst then observe the fowls of the air and make a gain from fiery divination? Were it not that thy grey hairs protected thee, thou shouldst sit in chains amid the Bacchanals, for introducing knavish mysteries; for where the gladsome grape is found at women’s feasts, I deny that their rites have any longer good results.

Chorus

What impiety! Hast thou no reverence, sir stranger, for the gods or for Cadmus who sowed the crop of earth-born warriors? Son of Echion as thou art, thou dost shame thy birth.

Teiresias

Whenso a man of wisdom finds a good topic for argument, it is no difficult matter to speak well; but thou, though possessing a glib tongue as if endowed with sense, art yet devoid thereof in all thou sayest. A headstrong man, if he have influence and a capacity for speaking, makes a bad citizen because he lacks sense. This new deity, whom thou deridest, will rise to power I cannot say how great, throughout Hellas. Two things there are, young prince, that hold first rank among men, the goddess Demeter, that is, the earth, call her which name thou please; she it is that feedeth men with solid food; and as her counterpart came this god, the son of Semele, who discovered the juice of the grape and introduced it to mankind, stilling thereby each grief that mortals suffer from, soon as e’er they are filled with the juice of the vine; and sleep also he giveth, sleep that brings forgetfulness of daily ills, the sovereign charm for all our woe. God though he is, he serves all other gods for libations, so that through him mankind is blest. He it is whom thou dost mock, because he was sewn up in the thigh of Zeus. But I will show thee this fair mystery. When Zeus had snatched him from the lightning’s blaze, and to Olympus borne the tender babe, Hera would have cast him forth from heaven, but Zeus, as such a god well might, devised a counterplot. He broke off a fragment of the ether which surrounds the world, and made thereof a hostage against Hera’s bitterness, while he gave out Dionysus into other hands; hence, in time, men said that he was reared in the thigh of Zeus, having changed the word and invented a legend, because the god was once a hostage to the goddess Hera. This god too hath prophetic power, for there is no small prophecy inspired by Bacchic frenzy; for whenever the god in his full might enters the human frame, he makes his frantic votaries foretell the future. Likewise he hath some share in Ares’ rights; for oft, or ever a weapon is touched, a panic seizes an army when it is marshalled in array; and this too is a frenzy sent by Dionysus. Yet shalt thou behold him e’en on Delphi’s rocks leaping o’er the cloven height, torch in hand, waving and brandishing the branch by Bacchus loved, yea, and through the length and breadth of Hellas. Hearken to me, Pentheus; never boast that might alone doth sway the world, nor if thou think so, unsound as thy opinion is, credit thyself with any wisdom; but receive the god into thy realm, pour out libations, join the revel rout, and crown thy head. It is not Dionysus that will force chastity on women in their love; but this is what we should consider, whether chastity is part of their nature for good and all; for if it is, no really modest maid will ever fall ‘mid Bacchic mysteries. Mark this: thou thyself art glad when thousands throng thy gates, and citizens extol the name of Pentheus; he too, I trow, delights in being honoured. Wherefore I and Cadmus, whom thou jeerest so, will wreath our brows with ivy and join the dance; pair of grey beards though we be, still must we take part therein; never will I for any words of thine fight against heaven. Most grievous is thy madness, nor canst thou find a charm to cure thee, albeit charms have caused thy malady.

Chorus

Old sir, thy words do not discredit Phoebus, and thou art wise in honouring Bromius, potent deity.

Cadmus

My son, Teiresias hath given thee sound advice; dwell with us, but o’erstep not the threshold of custom; for now thou art soaring aloft, and thy wisdom is no wisdom. E’en though he be no god, as thou assertest, still say he is; be guilty of a splendid fraud, declaring him the son of Semele, that she may be thought the mother of a god, and we and all our race gain honour. Dost thou mark the awful fate of Actaeon? whom savage hounds of his own rearing rent in pieces in the meadows, because he boasted himself a better hunter than Artemis. Lest thy fate be the same, come let me crown thy head with ivy; join us in rendering homage to the god.

Pentheus

Touch me not away to thy Bacchic rites thyself! never try to infect me with thy foolery! Vengeance will I have on the fellow who teaches thee such senselessness. Away one of you without delay! seek yonder seat where he observes his birds, wrench it from its base with levers, turn it upside down, o’erthrowing it in utter confusion, and toss his garlands to the tempest’s blast. For by so doing shall I wound him most deeply. Others of you range the city and hunt down this girl-faced stranger, who is introducing a new complaint amongst our women, and doing outrage to the marriage tie. And if haply ye catch him, bring him hither to me in chains, to be stoned to death, a bitter ending to his revelry in Thebes.

[Exit Pentheus.]

Teiresias

Unhappy wretch! thou little knowest what thou art saying. Now art thou become a raving madman, even before unsound in mind. Let us away, Cadmus, and pray earnestly for him, spite of his savage temper, and likewise for the city, that the god inflict not a signal vengeance. Come, follow me with thy ivy-wreathed staff; try to support my tottering frame as I do thine, for it is unseemly that two old men should fall; but let that pass. For we must serve the Bacchic god, the son of Zeus. Only, Cadmus, beware lest Pentheus bring sorrow to thy house; it is not my prophetic art, but circumstances that lead me to say this; for the words of a fool are folly.

[Exeunt Cadmus and Teiresias.]

Chorus

O holiness, queen amongst the gods, sweeping on golden pinion o’er the earth! dost hear the words of Pentheus, dost hear his proud blaspheming Bromius, the son of Semele; first of all the blessed gods at every merry festival? His it is to rouse the revellers to dance, to laugh away dull care, and wake the flute, whene’er at banquets of the gods the luscious grape appears, or when the winecup in the feast sheds sleep on men who wear the ivy-spray. The end of all unbridled speech and lawless senselessness is misery; but the life of calm repose and the rule of reason abide unshaken and support the home; for far away in heaven though they dwell, the powers divine behold man’s state. Sophistry is not wisdom, and to indulge in thoughts beyond man’s ken is to shorten life; and if a man on such poor terms should aim too high, he may miss the pleasures in his reach. These, to my mind, are the ways of madmen and idiots. Oh! to make my way to Cyprus, isle of Aphrodite, where dwell the love-gods strong to soothe man’s soul, or to Paphos, which that foreign river, never fed by rain, enriches with its hundred mouths! Oh! lead me, Bromian god, celestial guide of Bacchic pilgrims, to the hallowed slopes of Olympus, where Pierian Muses have their haunt most fair. There dwell the Graces; there is soft desire; there thy votaries may hold their revels freely. The joy of our god, the son of Zeus, is in banquets, his delight is in peace, that giver of riches and nurse divine of youth. Both to rich and poor alike hath he granted the delight of wine, that makes all pain to cease; hateful to him is every one who careth not to live the life of bliss, that lasts through days and nights of joy. True wisdom is to keep the heart and soul aloof from over-subtle wits. That which the less enlightened crowd approves and practises, will I accept.

[Re-enter Pentheus. Enter Servant bringing Dionysus bound.]

Servant

We are come, Pentheus, having hunted down this prey, for which thou didst send us forth; not in vain hath been our quest. We found our quarry tame; he did not fly from us, but yielded himself without a struggle; his cheek ne’er blanched, nor did his ruddy colour change, but with a smile he bade me bind and lead him away, and he waited, making my task an easy one. For very shame I said to him, “Against my will, sir stranger, do I lead thee hence, but Pentheus ordered it, who sent me hither.” As for his votaries whom thou thyself didst check, seizing and binding them hand and foot in the public gaol, all these have loosed their bonds and fled into the meadows where they now are sporting, calling aloud on the Bromian god. Their chains fell off their feet of their own accord, and doors flew open without man’s hand to help. Many a marvel hath this stranger brought with him to our city of Thebes; what yet remains must be thy care.

Pentheus

Loose his hands; for now that I have him in the net he is scarce swift enough to elude me. So, sir stranger, thou art not ill-favoured from a woman’s point of view, which was thy real object in coming to Thebes; thy hair is long because thou hast never been a wrestler, flowing right down thy cheeks most wantonly; thy skin is white to help thee gain thy end, not tanned by ray of sun, but kept within the shade, as thou goest in quest of love with beauty’s bait. Come, tell me first of thy race.

Dionysus

That needs no braggart’s tongue, ‘tis easily told; maybe thou knowest Tmolus by hearsay.

Pentheus

I know it, the range that rings the city of Sardis round.

Dionysus

Thence I come, Lydia is my native home.

Pentheus

What makes thee bring these mysteries to Hellas?

Dionysus

Dionysus, the son of Zeus, initiated me.

Pentheus

Is there a Zeus in Lydia, who begets new gods?

Dionysus

No, but Zeus who married Semele in Hellas.

Pentheus

Was it by night or in the face of day that he constrained thee?

Dionysus

‘Twas face to face he intrusted his mysteries to me.

Pentheus

Pray, what special feature stamps thy rites?

Dionysus

That is a secret to be hidden from the uninitiated.

Pentheus

What profit bring they to their votaries?

Dionysus

Thou must not be told, though ‘tis well worth knowing.

Pentheus

A pretty piece of trickery, to excite my curiosity!

Dionysus

A man of godless life is an abomination to the rites of the god.

Pentheus

Thou sayest thou didst see the god clearly; what was he like?

Dionysus

What his fancy chose; I was not there to order this.

Pentheus

Another clever twist and turn of thine, without a word of answer.

Dionysus

He were a fool, methinks, who would utter wisdom to a fool.

Pentheus

Hast thou come hither first with this deity?

Dionysus

All foreigners already celebrate these mysteries with dances.

Pentheus

The reason being, they are far behind Hellenes in wisdom.

Dionysus

In this at least far in advance, though their customs differ.

Pentheus

Is it by night or day thou performest these devotions?

Dionysus

By night mostly; darkness lends solemnity.

Pentheus

Calculated to entrap and corrupt women.

Dionysus

Day too for that matter may discover shame.

Pentheus

This vile quibbling settles thy punishment.

Dionysus

Brutish ignorance and godlessness will settle thine.

Pentheus

How bold our Bacchanal is growing! a very master in this wordy strife!

Dionysus

Tell me what I am to suffer; what is the grievous doom thou wilt inflict upon me?

Pentheus

First will I shear off thy dainty tresses.

Dionysus

My locks are sacred; for the god I let them grow.

Pentheus

Next surrender that thyrsus.

Dionysus

Take it from me thyself; ‘tis the wand of Dionysus I am bearing.

Pentheus

In dungeon deep thy body will I guard.

Dionysus

The god himself will set me free, whene’er I list.

Pentheus

Perhaps he may, when thou standest amid thy Bacchanals and callest on his name.

Dionysus

Even now he is near me and witnesses my treatment.

Pentheus

Why, where is he? To my eyes he is invisible.

Dionysus

He is by my side; thou art a godless man and therefore dost not see him.

Pentheus

Seize him! the fellow scorns me and Thebes too.

Dionysus

I bid you bind me not, reason addressing madness.

Pentheus

But I say “bind!” with better right than thou.

Dionysus

Thou hast no knowledge of the life thou art leading; thy very existence is now a mystery to thee.

Pentheus

I am Pentheus, son of Agave and Echion.

Dionysus

Well-named to be misfortune’s mate!

Pentheus

Avaunt! Ho! shut him up within the horses’ stalls hard by, that for light he may have pitchy gloom. Do thy dancing there, and these women whom thou bringest with thee to share thy villainies I will either sell as slaves or make their hands cease from this noisy beating of drums, and set them to work at the loom as servants of my own.

Dionysus

I will go; for that which fate forbids, can never befall me. For this thy mockery be sure Dionysus will exact a recompense of thee — even the god whose existence thou deniest; for thou art injuring him by haling me to prison.

[Exit Dionysus, guarded, and Pentheus.]

Chorus

Hail to thee, Dirce, happy maid, daughter revered of Achelous! within thy founts thou didst receive in days gone by the babe of Zeus, what time his father caught him up into his thigh from out the deathless flame, while thus he cried: “Go rest, my Dithyrambus, there within thy father’s womb; by this name, O Bacchic god, I now proclaim thee to Thebes.” But thou, blest Dirce, thrustest me aside, when in thy midst I strive to hold my revels graced with crowns. Why dost thou scorn me? Why avoid me? By the clustered charm that Dionysus sheds o’er the vintage I vow there yet shall come a time when thou wilt turn thy thoughts to Bromius. What furious rage the earth-born race displays, even Pentheus sprung of a dragon of old, himself the son of earth-born Echion, a savage monster in his very mien, not made in human mould, but like some murderous giant pitted against heaven; for he means to bind me, the handmaid of Bromius, in cords forthwith, and e’en now he keeps my fellow-reveller pent within his palace, plunged in a gloomy dungeon. Dost thou mark this, O Dionysus, son of Zeus, thy prophets struggling ‘gainst resistless might? Come, O king, brandishing thy golden thyrsus along the slopes of Olympus; restrain the pride of this bloodthirsty wretch! Oh! where in Nysa, haunt of beasts, or on the peaks of Corycus art thou, Dionysus, marshalling with thy wand the revellers? or haply in the thick forest depths of Olympus, where erst Orpheus with his lute gathered trees to his minstrelsy, and beasts that range the fields. Ah blest Pieria! Evius honours thee, to thee will he come with his Bacchic rites to lead the dance, and thither will he lead the circling Maenads, crossing the swift current of Axius and the Lydias, that giveth wealth and happiness to man, yea, and the father of rivers, which, as I have heard, enriches with his waters fair a land of steeds.

Dionysus [within]

What ho! my Bacchantes, ho! hear my call, oh! hear.

Chorus I

Who art thou? what Evian cry is this that calls me? whence comes it?

Dionysus

What ho! once more I call, I the son of Semele, the child of Zeus.

Chorus II

My master, O my master, hail!

Chorus III

Come to our revel-band, O Bromian god.

Chorus IV

Thou solid earth!

Chorus V

Most awful shock!

Chorus VI

O horror! soon will the palace of Pentheus totter and fall.

Chorus VII

Dionysus is within this house.

Chorus VIII

Do homage to him.

Chorus IX

We do! I do!

Chorus X

Did ye mark yon architrave of stone upon the columns start asunder?

Chorus XI

Within these walls the triumph-shout of Bromius himself will rise.

Dionysus

Kindle the blazing torch with lightning’s fire, abandon to the flames the halls of Pentheus.

Chorus XII

Ha! dost not see the flame, dost not clearly mark it at the sacred tomb of Semele, the lightning flame which long ago the hurler of the bolt left there?

Chorus XIII

Your trembling limbs prostrate, ye Maenads, low upon the ground.

Chorus XIV

Yea, for our king, the son of Zeus, is assailing and utterly confounding this house.

[Enter Dionysus.]

Dionysus

Are ye so stricken with terror that ye have fallen to the earth, O foreign dames? Ye saw then, it would seem, how the Bacchic god made Pentheus’ halls to quake; but arise, be of good heart, compose your trembling limbs.

Chorus

O chiefest splendour of our gladsome Bacchic sport, with what joy I see thee in my loneliness!

Dionysus

Were ye cast down when I was led into the house, to be plunged into the gloomy dungeons of Pentheus?

Chorus

Indeed I was. Who was to protect me, if thou shouldst meet with mishap? But how wert thou set free from the clutches of this godless wretch?

Dionysus

My own hands worked out my own salvation, easily and without trouble.

Chorus

But did he not lash fast thy hands with cords?

Dionysus

There too I mocked him; he thinks he bound me, whereas he never touched or caught hold of me, but fed himself on fancy. For at the stall, to which he brought me for a gaol, he found a bull, whose legs and hoofs he straightly tied, breathing out fury the while, the sweat trickling from his body, and he biting his lips; but I from near at hand sat calmly looking on. Meantime came the Bacchic god and made the house quake, and at his mother’s tomb relit the fire; but Pentheus, seeing this, thought his palace was ablaze, and hither and thither he rushed, bidding his servants bring water; but all in vain was every servant’s busy toil. Thereon he let this labour be awhile, and, thinking maybe that I had escaped, rushed into the palace with his murderous sword unsheathed. Then did Bromius — so at least it seemed to me; I only tell you what I thought — made a phantom in the hall, and he rushed after it in headlong haste, and stabbed the lustrous air, thinking he wounded me. Further the Bacchic god did other outrage to him; he dashed the building to the ground, and there it lies a mass of ruin, a sight to make him rue most bitterly my bonds. At last from sheer fatigue he dropped his sword and fell fainting; for he a mortal frail, dared to wage war upon a god; but I meantime quietly left the house and am come to you, with never a thought of Pentheus. But methinks he will soon appear before the house; at least there is a sound of steps within. What will he say, I wonder, after this? Well, be his fury never so great, I will lightly bear it; for ‘tis a wise man’s way to school his temper into due control.

[Enter Pentheus.]

Pentheus

Shamefully have I been treated; that stranger, whom but now I made so fast in prison, hath escaped me. Ha! there is the man! What means this? How didst thou come forth, to appear thus in front of my palace?

Dionysus

Stay where thou art; and moderate thy fury.

Pentheus

How is it thou hast escaped thy fetters and art at large?

Dionysus

Did I not say, or didst thou not hear me, “There is one will loose me.”

Pentheus

Who was it? there is always something strange in what thou sayest.

Dionysus

He who makes the clustering vine to grow for man.

Pentheus

I scorn him and his vines!

Dionysus

A fine taunt indeed thou hurlest here at Dionysus!

Pentheus [To his servants]

Bar every tower that hems us in, I order you.

Dionysus

What use? Cannot gods pass even over walls?

Pentheus

How wise thou art, except where thy wisdom is needed!

Dionysus

Where most ‘tis needed, there am I most wise. But first listen to yonder messenger and hear what he says; he comes from the hills with tidings for thee; and I will await thy pleasure, nor seek to fly.

[Enter the Messenger.]

Messenger

Pentheus, ruler of this realm of Thebes! I am come from Cithaeron, where the dazzling flakes of pure white snow ne’er cease to fall.

Pentheus

What urgent news dost bring me?

Messenger

I have seen, O king, those frantic Bacchanals, who darted in frenzy from this land with bare white feet, and I am come to tell thee and the city the wondrous deeds they do, deeds passing strange. But I fain would hear, whether I am freely to tell all I saw there, or shorten my story; for I fear thy hasty temper, sire, thy sudden bursts of wrath and more than princely rage.

Pentheus

Say on, for thou shalt go unpunished by me in all respects; for to be angered with the upright is wrong. The direr thy tale about the Bacchantes, the heavier punishment will I inflict on this fellow who brought his secret arts amongst our women.

Messenger

I was just driving the herds of kine to a ridge of the hill as I fed them, as the sun shot forth his rays and made the earth grow warm; when lo! I see three revel-bands of women; Autonoe was chief of one, thy mother Agave of the second, while Ino’s was the third. There they lay asleep, all tired out; some were resting on branches of the pine, others had laid their heads in careless ease on oak-leaves piled upon the ground, observing all modesty; not, as thou sayest, seeking to gratify their lusts alone amid the woods, by wine and soft flute-music maddened.

Anon in their midst thy mother uprose and cried aloud to wake them from their sleep, when she heard the lowing of my horned kine. And up they started to their feet, brushing from their eyes sleep’s quickening dew, a wondrous sight of grace and modesty, young and old and maidens yet unwed. First o’er their shoulders they let stream their hair; then all did gird their fawn-skins up, who hitherto had left the fastenings loose, girdling the dappled hides with snakes that licked their cheeks. Others fondled in their arms gazelles or savage whelps of wolves, and suckled them — young mothers these with babes at home, whose breasts were still full of milk; crowns they wore of ivy or of oak or blossoming convolvulus. And one took her thyrsus and struck it into the earth, and forth there gushed a limpid spring; and another plunged her wand into the lap of earth and there the god sent up a fount of wine; and all who wished for draughts of milk had but to scratch the soil with their finger-tips and there they had it in abundance, while from every ivy-wreathed staff sweet rills of honey trickled.

Hadst thou been there and seen this, thou wouldst have turned to pray to the god, whom now thou dost disparage. Anon we herdsmen and shepherds met to discuss their strange and wondrous doings; then one, who wandereth oft to town and hath a trick of speech, made harangue in the midst, “O ye who dwell upon the hallowed mountain-terraces! shall we chase Agave, mother of Pentheus, from her Bacchic rites, and thereby do our prince a service?” We liked his speech, and placed ourselves in hidden ambush among the leafy thickets; they at the appointed time began to wave the thyrsus for their Bacchic rites, calling on Iacchus, the Bromian god, the son of Zeus, in united chorus, and the whole mount and the wild creatures re-echoed their cry; all nature stirred as they rushed on. Now Agave chanced to come springing near me, so up I leapt from out my ambush where I lay concealed, meaning to seize her. But she cried out, “What ho! my nimble hounds, here are men upon our track; but follow me, ay, follow, with the thyrsus in your hand for weapon.” Thereat we fled, to escape being torn in pieces by the Bacchantes; but they, with hands that bore no weapon of steel, attacked our cattle as they browsed. Then wouldst thou have seen Agave mastering some sleek lowing calf, while others rent the heifers limb from limb. Before thy eyes there would have been hurling of ribs and hoofs this way and that; and strips of flesh, all blood-bedabbled, dripped as they hung from the pine-branches. Wild bulls, that glared but now with rage along their horns, found themselves tripped up, dragged down to earth by countless maidens’ hands. The flesh upon their limbs was stripped therefrom quicker than thou couldst have closed thy royal eye-lids. Then off they sped, like birds that skim the air, to the plains beneath the hills, which bear a fruitful harvest for Thebes beside the waters of Asopus; to Hysiae and Erythrae, hamlets ‘neath Cithaeron’s peak, with fell intent, swooping on everything and scattering all pellmell; and they would snatch children from their homes; but all that they placed upon their shoulders, abode there firmly without being tied, and fell not to the dusky earth, not even brass or iron; and on their hair they carried fire and it burnt them not; but the country-folk rushed to arms, furious at being pillaged by Bacchanals; whereon ensued, O king, this wondrous spectacle. For though the ironshod dart would draw no blood from them, they with the thyrsus, which they hurled, caused many a wound and put their foes to utter rout, women chasing men, by some god’s intervention. Then they returned to the place whence they had started, even to the springs the god had made to spout for them; and there washed off the blood, while serpents with their tongues were licking clean each gout from their cheeks. Wherefore, my lord and master, receive this deity, whoe’er he be, within the city; for, great as he is in all else, I have likewise heard men say, ‘twas he that gave the vine to man, sorrow’s antidote. Take wine away and Cypris flies, and every other human joy is dead.

Chorus

Though I fear to speak my mind with freedom in the presence of my king, still must I utter this; Dionysus yields to no deity in might.

Pentheus

Already, look you! the presumption of these Bacchantes is upon us, swift as fire, a sad disgrace in the eyes of all Hellas. No time for hesitation now! away to the Electra gate! order a muster of all my men-at-arms, of those that mount fleet steeds, of all who brandish light bucklers, of archers too that make the bowstring twang; for I will march against the Bacchanals. By Heaven! this passes all, if we are to be thus treated by women.

[Exit Messenger.]

Dionysus

Still obdurate, O Pentheus, after hearing my words! In spite of all the evil treatment I am enduring from thee, still I warn thee of the sin of bearing arms against a god, and bid thee cease; for Bromius will not endure thy driving his votaries from the mountains where they revel.

Pentheus

A truce to thy preaching to me! thou hast escaped thy bonds, preserve thy liberty; else will I renew thy punishment.

Dionysus

I would rather do him sacrifice than in a fury kick against the pricks; thou a mortal, he a god.

Pentheus

Sacrifice! that will I, by setting afoot a wholesale slaughter of women ‘mid Cithaeron’s glens, as they deserve.

Dionysus

Ye will all be put to flight — a shameful thing that they with the Bacchic thyrsus should rout your mail-clad warriors.

Pentheus

I find this stranger a troublesome foe to encounter; doing or suffering he is alike irrepressible.

Dionysus

Friend, there is still a way to compose this bitterness.

Pentheus

Say how; am I to serve my own servants?

Dionysus

I will bring the women hither without weapons.

Pentheus

Ha! ha! this is some crafty scheme of thine against me.

Dionysus

What kind of scheme, if by my craft I purpose to save thee?

Pentheus

You have combined with them to form this plot, that your revels may go on for ever.

Dionysus

Nay, but this is the compact I made with the god; be sure of that.

Pentheus [Preparing to start forth]

Bring forth my arms. Not another word from thee!

Dionysus

Ha! wouldst thou see them seated on the hills?

Pentheus

Of all things, yes! I would give untold sums for that.

Dionysus

Why this sudden, strong desire?

Pentheus

‘Twill be a bitter sight, if I find them drunk with wine.

Dionysus

And would that be a pleasant sight which will prove bitter to thee?

Pentheus

Believe me, yes! beneath the fir-trees as I sit in silence.

Dionysus

Nay, they will track thee, though thou come secretly.

Pentheus

Well, I will go openly; thou wert right to say so.

Dionysus

Am I to be thy guide? wilt thou essay the road?

Pentheus

Lead on with all speed, I grudge thee all delay.

Dionysus

Array thee then in robes of fine linen.

Pentheus

Why so? Am I to enlist among women after being a man?

Dionysus

They may kill thee, if thou show thy manhood there.

Pentheus

Well said! Thou hast given me a taste of thy wit already.

Dionysus

Dionysus schooled me in this lore.

Pentheus

How am I to carry out thy wholesome advice?

Dionysus

Myself will enter thy palace and robe thee.

Pentheus

What is the robe to be? a woman’s? Nay, I am ashamed.

Dionysus

Thy eagerness to see the Maenads goes no further.

Pentheus

But what dress dost say thou wilt robe me in?

Dionysus

Upon thy head will I make thy hair grow long.

Pentheus

Describe my costume further.

Dionysus

Thou wilt wear a robe reaching to thy feet; and on thy head shall be a snood.

Pentheus

Wilt add aught else to my attire?

Dionysus

A thyrsus in thy hand, and a dappled fawnskin.

Pentheus

I can never put on woman’s dress.

Dionysus

Then wilt thou cause bloodshed by coming to blows with the Bacchanals.

Pentheus

Thou art right. Best go spy upon them first.

Dionysus

Well, e’en that is wiser than by evil means to follow evil ends.

Pentheus

But how shall I pass through the city of the Cadmeans unseen?

Dionysus

We will go by unfrequented paths. I will lead the way.

Pentheus

Anything rather than that the Bacchantes should laugh at me.

Dionysus

We will enter the palace and consider the proper steps.

Pentheus

Thou hast my leave. I am all readiness. I will enter, prepared to set out either sword in hand or following thy advice.

[Exit Pentheus.]

Dionysus

Women! our prize is nearly in the net. Soon shall he reach the Bacchanals, and there pay forfeit with his life. O Dionysus! now ‘tis thine to act, for thou art not far away; let us take vengeance on him. First drive him mad by fixing in his soul a wayward frenzy; for never, whilst his senses are his own, will he consent to don a woman’s dress; but when his mind is gone astray he will put it on. And fain would I make him a laughing-stock to Thebes as he is led in woman’s dress through the city, after those threats with which he menaced me before. But I will go to array Pentheus in those robes which he shall wear when he sets out for Hades’ halls, a victim to his own mother’s fury; so shall he recognize Dionysus, the son of Zeus, who proves himself at last a god most terrible, for all his gentleness to man.

[Exit Dionysus.]

Chorus

Will this white foot e’er join the night-long dance? what time in Bacchic ecstasy I toss my neck to heaven’s dewy breath, like a fawn, that gambols ‘mid the meadow’s green delights, when she hath escaped the fearful chase, clear of the watchers, o’er the woven nets; while the huntsman, with loud halloo, harks on his hounds’ full cry, and she with laboured breath at lightning speed bounds o’er the level water-meadows, glad to be far from man amid the foliage of the bosky grove. What is true wisdom, or what fairer boon has heaven placed in mortals’ reach, than to gain the mastery o’er a fallen foe? What is fair is dear for aye. Though slow be its advance, yet surely moves the power of the gods, correcting those mortal wights, that court a senseless pride, or, in the madness of their fancy, disregard the gods. Subtly they lie in wait, through the long march of time, and so hunt down the godless man. For it is never right in theory or in practice to o’erride the law of custom. This is a maxim cheaply bought: whatever comes of God, or in time’s long annals, has grown into a law upon a natural basis, this is sovereign. What is true wisdom, or what fairer boon has heaven placed in mortals’ reach, than to gain the mastery o’er a fallen foe? What is fair is dear for aye. Happy is he who hath escaped the wave from out the sea, and reached the haven; and happy he who hath triumphed o’er his troubles; though one surpasses another in wealth and power; yet there be myriad hopes for all the myriad minds; some end in happiness for man, and others come to naught; but him, whose life from day to day is blest, I deem a happy man.

[Enter Dionysus.]

Dionysus

Ho! Pentheus, thou that art so eager to see what is forbidden, and to show thy zeal in an unworthy cause, come forth before the palace, let me see thee clad as a woman in frenzied Bacchante’s dress, to spy upon thy own mother and her company. [Enter Pentheus.] Yes, thou resemblest closely a daughter of Cadmus.

Pentheus

Of a truth I seem to see two suns, and two towns of Thebes, our seven-gated city; and thou, methinks, art a bull going before to guide me, and on thy head a pair of horns have grown. Wert thou really once a brute beast? Thou hast at any rate the appearance of a bull.

Dionysus

The god attends us, ungracious heretofore, but now our sworn friend; and now thine eyes behold the things they should.

Pentheus

Pray, what do I resemble? Is not mine the carriage of Ino, or Agave my own mother?

Dionysus

In seeing thee, I seem to see them in person. But this tress is straying from its place, no longer as I bound it ‘neath the snood.

Pentheus

I disarranged it from its place as I tossed it to and fro within my chamber, in Bacchic ecstasy.

Dionysus

Well, I will rearrange it, since to tend thee is my care; hold up thy head.

Pentheus

Come, put it straight; for on thee do I depend.

Dionysus

Thy girdle is loose, and the folds of thy dress do not hang evenly below thy ankles.

Pentheus

I agree to that as regards the right side, but on the other my dress hangs straight with my foot.

Dionysus

Surely thou wilt rank me first among thy friends, when contrary to thy expectation thou findest the Bacchantes virtuous.

Pentheus

Shall I hold the thyrsus in the right or left hand to look most like a Bacchanal?

Dionysus

Hold it in thy right hand, and step out with thy right foot; thy change of mind compels thy praise.

Pentheus

Shall I be able to carry on my shoulders Cithaeron’s glens, the Bacchanals and all?

Dionysus

Yes, if so thou wilt; for though thy mind was erst diseased, ‘tis now just as it should be.

Pentheus

Shall we take levers, or with my hands can I uproot it, thrusting arm or shoulder ‘neath its peaks?

Dionysus

No, no! destroy not the seats of the Nymphs and the haunts of Pan, the place of his piping.

Pentheus

Well said! Women must not be mastered by brute force; amid the pines will I conceal myself.

Dionysus

Thou shalt hide thee in the place that fate appoints, coming by stealth to spy upon the Bacchanals.

Pentheus

Why, methinks they are already caught in the pleasant snares of dalliance, like birds amid the brakes.

Dionysus

Set out with watchful heed then for this very purpose; maybe thou wilt catch them, if thou be not first caught thyself.

Pentheus

Conduct me through the very heart of Thebes, for I am the only man among them bold enough to do this deed.

Dionysus

Thou alone bearest thy country’s burden, thou and none other; wherefore there await thee such struggles as needs must. Follow me, for I will guide thee safely thither; another shall bring thee thence.

Pentheus

My mother maybe.

Dionysus

For every eye to see.

Pentheus

My very purpose in going.

Dionysus

Thou shalt be carried back,

Pentheus

What luxury

Dionysus

In thy mother’s arms.

Pentheus

Thou wilt e’en force me into luxury.

Dionysus

Yes, to luxury such as this.

Pentheus

Truly, the task I am undertaking deserves it.

[Exit Pentheus.]

Dionysus

Strange, ah! strange is thy career, leading to scenes of woe so strange, that thou shalt achieve a fame that towers to heaven. Stretch forth thy hands, Agave, and ye her sisters, daughters of Cadmus; mighty is the strife to which I am bringing the youthful king, and the victory shall rest with me and Bromius; all else the event will show.

[Exit Dionysus.]

Chorus

To the hills! to the hills! fleet hounds of madness, where the daughters of Cadmus hold their revels, goad them into wild fury against the man disguised in woman’s dress, a frenzied spy upon the Maenads. First shall his mother mark him as he peers from some smooth rock or riven tree, and thus to the Maenads she will call, “Who is this of Cadmus’ sons comes hasting to the mount, to the mountain away, to spy on us, my Bacchanals? Whose child can he be? For he was never born of woman’s blood; but from some lioness maybe or Libyan Gorgon is he sprung.” Let justice appear and show herself, sword in hand, to plunge it through and through the throat of the godless, lawless, impious son of Echion, earth’s monstrous child! who with wicked heart and lawless rage, with mad intent and frantic purpose, sets out to meddle with thy holy rites, and with thy mother’s, Bacchic god, thinking with his weak arm to master might as masterless as thine. This is the life that saves all pain, if a man confine his thoughts to human themes, as is his mortal nature, making no pretence where heaven is concerned. I envy not deep subtleties; far other joys have I, in tracking out great truths writ clear from all eternity, that a man should live his life by day and night in purity and holiness, striving toward a noble goal, and should honour the gods by casting from him each ordinance that lies outside the pale of right. Let justice show herself, advancing sword in hand to plunge it through and through the throat of Echion’s son, that godless, lawless, and abandoned child of earth! Appear, O Bacchus, to our eyes as a bull or serpent with a hundred heads, or take the shape of a lion breathing flame! Oh! come, and with a mocking smile cast the deadly noose about the hunter of thy Bacchanals, e’en as he swoops upon the Maenads gathered yonder.

[Enter Second Messenger.]

Second messenger

O house, so prosperous once through Hellas long ago, home of the old Sidonian prince, who sowed the serpent’s crop of earth-born men, how do I mourn thee! slave though I be, yet still the sorrows of his master touch a good slave’s heart.

Chorus

How now? Hast thou fresh tidings of the Bacchantes?

Second messenger

Pentheus, Echion’s son is dead.

Chorus

Bromius, my king! now art thou appearing in thy might divine.

Second messenger

Ha! what is it thou sayest? art thou glad, woman, at my master’s misfortunes?

Chorus

A stranger I, and in foreign tongue I express my joy, for now no more do I cower in terror of the chain.

Second messenger

Dost think Thebes so poor in men? {*probably the whole of one iambic line with part of another is here lost.}

Chorus

‘Tis Dionysus, Dionysus, not Thebes that lords it over me.

Second messenger

All can I pardon thee save this; to exult o’er hopeless suffering is sorry conduct, dames.

Chorus

Tell me, oh! tell me how he died, that villain scheming villainy!

Second messenger

Soon as we had left the homesteads of this Theban land and had crossed the streams of Asopus, we began to breast Cithaeron’s heights, Pentheus and I, for I went with my master, and the stranger too, who was to guide us to the scene. First then we sat us down in a grassy glen, carefully silencing each footfall and whispered breath, to see without being seen. Now there was a dell walled in by rocks, with rills to water it, and shady pines o’erhead; there were the Maenads seated, busied with joyous toils. Some were wreathing afresh the drooping thyrsus with curling ivy-sprays; others, like colts let loose from the carved chariot-yoke, were answering each other in hymns of Bacchic rapture. But Pentheus, son of sorrow, seeing not the women gathered there, exclaimed, “Sir stranger, from where I stand, I cannot clearly see the mock Bacchantes; but I will climb a hillock or a soaring pine whence to see clearly the shameful doings of the Bacchanals.” Then and there I saw the stranger work a miracle; for catching a lofty fir-branch by the very end he drew it downward to the dusky earth, lower yet and ever lower; and like a bow it bent, or rounded wheel, whose curving circle grows complete, as chalk and line describe it; e’en so the stranger drew down the mountain-branch between his hands, bending it to earth, by more than human agency. And when he had seated Pentheus aloft on the pine branches, he let them slip through his hands gently, careful not to shake him from his seat. Up soared the branch straight into the air above, with my master perched thereon, seen by the Maenads better far than he saw them; for scarce was he beheld upon his lofty throne, when the stranger disappeared, while from the sky there came a voice, ‘twould seem, by Dionysus uttered —

“Maidens, I bring the man who tried to mock you and me and my mystic rites; take vengeance on him.” And as he spake he raised ‘twixt heaven and earth a dazzling column of awful flame. Hushed grew the sky, and still hung each leaf throughout the grassy glen, nor couldst thou have heard one creature cry. But they, not sure of the voice they heard, sprang up and peered all round; then once again his bidding came; and when the daughters of Cadmus knew it was the Bacchic god in very truth that called, swift as doves they dirted off in eager haste, his mother Agave and her sisters dear and all the Bacchanals; through torrent glen, o’er boulders huge they bounded on, inspired with madness by the god. Soon as they saw my master perched upon the fir, they set to hurling stones at him with all their might, mounting a commanding eminence, and with pine-branches he was pelted as with darts; and others shot their wands through the air at Pentheus, their hapless target, but all to no purpose. For there he sat beyond the reach of their hot endeavours, a helpless, hopeless victim. At last they rent off limbs from oaks and were for prising up the roots with levers not of iron. But when they still could make no end to all their toil, Agave cried: “Come stand around, and grip the sapling trunk, my Bacchanals! that we may catch the beast that sits thereon, lest he divulge the secrets of our god’s religion.”

Then were a thousand hands laid on the fir, and from the ground they tore it up, while he from his seat aloft came tumbling to the ground with lamentations long and loud, e’en Pentheus; for well he knew his hour was come. His mother first, a priestess for the nonce, began the bloody deed and fell upon him; whereon he tore the snood from off his hair, that hapless Agave might recognize and spare him, crying as he touched her cheek, “O mother! it is I, thy own son Pentheus, the child thou didst bear in Echion’s halls; have pity on me, mother dear! oh! do not for any sin of mine slay thy own son.”

But she, the while, with foaming mouth and wildly rolling eyes, bereft of reason as she was, heeded him not; for the god possessed her. And she caught his left hand in her grip, and planting her foot upon her victim’s trunk she tore the shoulder from its socket, not of her own strength, but the god made it an easy task to her hands; and Ino set to work upon the other side, rending the flesh with Autonoe and all the eager host of Bacchanals; and one united cry arose, the victim’s groans while yet he breathed, and their triumphant shouts. One would make an arm her prey, another a foot with the sandal on it; and his ribs were stripped of flesh by their rending nails; and each one with blood-dabbled hands was tossing Pentheus’ limbs about. Scattered lies his corpse, part beneath the rugged rocks, and part amid the deep dark woods, no easy task to find; but his poor head hath his mother made her own, and fixing it upon the point of a thyrsus, as it had been a mountain lion’s, she bears it through the midst of Cithaeron, having left her sisters with the Maenads at their rites. And she is entering these walls exulting in her hunting fraught with woe, calling on the Bacchic god her fellow-hunter who had helped her to triumph in a chase, where her only prize was tears.

But I will get me hence, away from this piteous scene, before Agave reach the palace. To my mind self-restraint and reverence for the things of God point alike the best and wisest course for all mortals who pursue them.

[Exit Second Messenger.]

Chorus

Come, let us exalt our Bacchic god in choral strain, let us loudly chant the fall of Pentheus from the serpent sprung, who assumed a woman’s dress and took the fair Bacchic wand, sure pledge of death, with a bull to guide him to his doom. O ye Bacchanals of Thebes! glorious is the triumph ye have achieved, ending in sorrow and tears. ‘Tis a noble enterprise to dabble the hand in the blood of a son till it drips. But hist! I see Agave, the mother of Pentheus, with wild rolling eye hasting to the house; welcome the revellers of the Bacchic god.

[Enter AGAVE.]

Agave

Ye Bacchanals from Asia

Chorus

Why dost thou rouse me? why?

Agave

From the hills I am bringing to my home a tendril freshly-culled, glad guerdon of the chase.

Chorus

I see it, and I will welcome thee unto our revels. All hail!

Agave

I caught him with never a snare, this lion’s whelp, as ye may see.

Chorus

From what desert lair?

Agave

Cithaeron —

Chorus

Yes, Cithaeron?

Agave

Was his death.

Chorus

Who was it gave the first blow?

Agave

Mine that privilege; “Happy Agave!” they call me ‘mid our revellers.

Chorus

Who did the rest?

Agave

Cadmus —

Chorus

What of him?

Agave

His daughters struck the monster after me; yes, after me.

Chorus

Fortune smiled upon thy hunting here.

Agave

Come, share the banquet.

Chorus

Share? ah! what?

Agave

‘Tis but a tender whelp, the down just sprouting on its cheek beneath a crest of failing hair.

Chorus

The hair is like some wild creature’s .

Agave

The Bacchic god, a hunter skilled, roused his Maenads to pursue this quarry skilfully.

Chorus

Yea, our king is a hunter indeed.

Agave

Dost approve?

Chorus

Of course I do.

Agave

Soon shall the race of Cadmus —

Chorus

And Pentheus, her own son, shall to his mother —

Agave

Offer praise for this her quarry of the lion’s brood.

Chorus

Quarry strange!

Agave

And strangely caught.

Chorus

Dost thou exult?

Agave

Right glad am I to have achieved a great and glorious triumph for my land that all can see.

Chorus

Alas for thee! show to the folk the booty thou hast won and art bringing hither.

Agave

All ye who dwell in fair fenced Thebes, draw near that ye may see the fierce wild beast that we daughters of Cadmus made our prey, not with the thong-thrown darts of Thessaly, nor yet with snares, but with our fingers fair. Ought men idly to boast and get them armourers’ weapons? when we with these our hands have caught this prey and torn the monster limb from limb? Where is my aged sire? let him approach. And where is Pentheus, my son? Let him bring a ladder and raise it against the house to nail up on the gables this lion’s head, my booty from the chase.

[Enter Cadmus.]

Cadmus

Follow me, servants to the palace-front, with your sad burden in your arms, ay, follow, with the corpse of Pentheus, which after long weary search I found, as ye see it, torn to pieces amid Cithaeron’s glens, and am bringing hither; no two pieces did I find together, as they lay scattered through the trackless wood. For I heard what awful deeds one of my daughters had done, just as I entered the city-walls with old Teiresias returning from the Bacchanals; so I turned again unto the hill and bring from thence my son who was slain by Maenads. There I saw Autonoe, that bare Actaeon on a day to Aristaeus, and Ino with her, still ranging the oak-groves in their unhappy frenzy; but one told me that that other, Agave, was rushing wildly hither, nor was it idly said, for there I see her, sight of woe!

Agave

Father, loudly mayst thou boast, that the daughters thou hast begotten are far the best of mortal race; of one and all I speak, though chiefly of myself, who left my shuttle at the loom for nobler enterprise, even to hunt savage beasts with my hands; and in my arms I bring my prize, as thou seest, that it may be nailed up on thy palace-wall; take it, father, in thy hands, and proud of my hunting, call thy friends to a banquet; for blest art thou, ah! doubly blest in these our gallant exploits.

Cadmus

O grief that has no bounds, too cruel for mortal eye! ‘tis murder ye have done with your hapless hands. Fair is the victim thou hast offered to the gods, inviting me and my Thebans to the feast! Ah, woe is me! first for thy sorrows, then for mine. What ruin the god, the Bromian king, hath brought on us, just maybe, but too severe, seeing he is our kinsman!

Agave

How peevish old age makes men! what sullen looks! Oh, may my son follow in his mother’s footsteps and be as lucky in his hunting, when he goes in quest of game in company with Theban youths! But he can do naught but wage war with gods. Father, ‘tis thy duty to warn him. Who will summon him hither to my sight to witness my happiness?

Cadmus

Alas for you! alas! Terrible will be your grief when ye are conscious of your deeds; could ye remain forever till life’s close in your present state, ye would not, spite of ruined bliss, appear so cursed with woe.

Agave

Why? what is faulty here? what here for sorrow?

Cadmus

First let thine eye look up to heaven.

Agave

See! I do so. Why dost thou suggest my looking thereupon?

Cadmus

Is it still the same, or dost think there’s any change?

Agave

‘Tis brighter than it was, and clearer too.

Cadmus

Is there still that wild unrest within thy soul?

Agave

I know not what thou sayest now; yet methinks my brain is clearing, and my former frenzy passed away.

Cadmus

Canst understand, and give distinct replies?

Agave

Father, how completely I forget all we said before!

Cadmus

To what house wert thou brought with marriage-hymns?

Agave

Thou didst give me to earthborn Echion, as men call him.

Cadmus

What child was born thy husband in his halls?

Agave

Pentheus, of my union with his father.

Cadmus

What head is that thou barest in thy arms?

Agave

A lion’s; at least they said so, who hunted it.

Cadmus

Consider it aright; ‘tis no great task to look at it.

Agave

Ah! what do I see? what is this I am carrying in my hands?

Cadmus

Look closely at it; make thy knowledge more certain.

Agave

Ah, ‘woe is me! O sight of awful sorrow!

Cadmus

Dost think it like a lion’s head?

Agave

Ah no! ‘tis Pentheus’ head which I his unhappy mother hold.

Cadmus

Bemoaned by me, or ever thou didst recognize him.

Agave

Who slew him? How came he into my hands?

Cadmus

O piteous truth! how ill-timed thy presence here!

Agave

Speak; my bosom throbs at this suspense.

Cadmus

‘Twas thou didst slay him, thou and thy sisters.

Agave

Where died he? in the house or where?

Cadmus

On the very spot where hounds of yore rent Actaeon in pieces.

Agave

Why went he, wretched youth! to Cithaeron?

Cadmus

He would go and mock the god and thy Bacchic rites.

Agave

But how was it we had journeyed thither?

Cadmus

Ye were distraught; the whole city had the Bacchic frenzy.

Agave

‘Twas Dionysus proved our ruin; now I see it all.

Cadmus

Yes, for the slight he suffered; ye would not believe in his godhead.

Agave

Father, where is my dear child’s corpse?

Cadmus

With toil I searched it out and am bringing it myself.

Agave

Is it all fitted limb to limb in seemly wise?

Cadmus {*}

{*one line, or maybe more, is missing}

Agave

But what had Pentheus to do with folly of mine?

Cadmus

He was like you in refusing homage to the god, who, therefore, hath involved you all in one common ruin, you and him alike, to destroy this house and me, forasmuch as I, that had no sons, behold this youth, the fruit of thy womb, unhappy mother! foully and most shamefully slain. To thee, my child, our house looked up, to thee my daughter’s son, the stay of my palace, inspiring the city with awe; none caring to flout the old king when he saw thee by, for he would get his deserts. But now shall I be cast out dishonoured from my halls, Cadmus the great, who sowed the crop of Theban seed and reaped that goodly harvest. O beloved child! dead though thou art, thou still shalt be counted by me amongst my own dear children; no more wilt thou lay thy hand upon my chin in fond embrace, my child, and calling on thy mother’s sire demand, “Who wrongs thee or dishonours thee, old sire? who vexes thy heart, a thorn within thy side? Speak, that I may punish thy oppressor, father mine!”

But now am I in sorrow plunged, and woe is thee, and woe thy mother and her suffering sisters too! Ah! if there be any man that scorns the gods, let him well mark this prince’s death and then believe in them.

Chorus

Cadmus, I am sorry for thy fate; for though thy daughter’s child hath met but his deserts, ‘tis bitter grief to thee.

Agave

O father, thou seest how sadly my fortune is changed.{*}

{*after this a very large lacuna occurs in the MS.}

Dionysus

Thou shalt be changed into a serpent; and thy wife Harmonia, Ares’ child, whom thou in thy human life didst wed, shall change her nature for a snake’s, and take its form. With her shalt thou, as leader of barbarian tribes, drive thy team of steers, so saith an oracle of Zeus; and many a city shalt thou sack with an army numberless; but in the day they plunder the oracle of Loxias, shall they rue their homeward march; but thee and Harmonia will Ares rescue, and set thee to live henceforth in the land of the blessed. This do I declare, I Dionysus, son of no mortal father but of Zeus. Had ye learnt wisdom when ye would not, ye would now be happy with the son of Zeus for your ally.

Agave

O Dionysus! we have sinned; thy pardon we implore.

Dionysus

Too late have ye learnt to know me; ye knew me not at the proper time.

Agave

We recognize our error; but thou art too revengeful.

Dionysus

Yea, for I, though a god, was slighted by you.

Agave

Gods should not let their passion sink to man’s level.

Dionysus

Long ago my father Zeus ordained it thus.

Agave

Alas! my aged sire, our doom is fixed; ‘tis woful exile.

Dionysus

Why then delay the inevitable? Exit.

Cadmus

Daughter, to what an awful pass are we now come, thou too, poor child, and thy sisters, while I alas! in my old age must seek barbarian shores, to sojourn there; but the oracle declares that I shall yet lead an army, half-barbarian, half-Hellene, to Hellas; and in serpent’s shape shall I carry my wife Harmonia, the daughter of Ares, transformed like me to a savage snake, against the altars and tombs of Hellas at the head of my troops; nor shall I ever cease from my woes, ah me! nor ever cross the downward stream of Acheron and be at rest.

Agave

Father, I shall be parted from thee and exiled.

Cadmus

Alas! my child, why fling thy arms around me, as a snowy cygnet folds its wings about the frail old swan?

Agave

Whither can I turn, an exile from my country?

Cadmus

I know not, my daughter; small help is thy father now.

Agave

Farewell, my home! farewell, my native city! with sorrow I am leaving thee, an exile from my bridal bower.

Cadmus

Go, daughter, to the house of Aristaeus,{*}

{*another large lacuna follows.}

Agave

Father, I mourn for thee.

Cadmus

And I for thee, my child; for thy sisters too I shed a tear.

Agave

Ah! terribly was king Dionysus bringing this outrage on thy house.

Cadmus

Yea, for he suffered insults dire from you, his name receiving no meed of honour in Thebes.

Agave

Farewell, father mine!

Cadmus

Farewell, my hapless daughter and yet thou scarce canst reach that bourn.

Agave

Oh! lead me, guide me to the place where I shall find my sisters, sharers in my exile to their sorrow! Oh! to reach a spot where cursed Cithaeron ne’er shall see me more nor I Cithaeron with mine eyes; where no memorial of the thyrsus is set up! Be they to other Bacchantes dear!

Chorus

Many are the forms the heavenly will assumes, and many a thing the gods fulfil contrary to all hope; that which was expected is not brought to pass, while for the unlooked — for Heaven finds out a way. E’en such hath been the issue here.

[Exeunt omnes.]

The Cyclops

Characters in the Play

Silenus, old servant of the Cyclops

Chorus of satyrs

Odysseus

The Cyclops

Companions of Odysseus

[Scene: Before the great cave of the Cyclops at the foot of Mount Aetna. Silenus enters. He has a rake with him, with which he cleans up the ground in front of the cave as he soliloquizes.]

Silenus

O Bromius, unnumbered are the toils I bear because of thee, no less now than when I was young and hale; first, when thou wert driven mad by Hera and didst leave the mountain nymphs, thy nurses; next, when in battle with earth-born spearmen I stood beside thee on the right as squire, and slew Enceladus, smiting him full in the middle of his targe with my spear. Come, though, let me see; must I confess ‘twas all a dream? No, by Zeus! since I really showed his spoils to the Bacchic god. And now am I enduring to the full a toil still worse than those. For when Hera sent forth a race of Tyrrhene pirates against thee, that thou mightest be smuggled far away, I, as soon as the news reached me, sailed in quest of thee with my children; and, taking the helm myself, I stood on the end of the stern and steered our trim craft; and my sons, sitting at the oars, made the grey billows froth and foam as they sought thee, my liege. But just as we had come nigh Malea in our course, an east wind blew upon the ship and drove us hither to the rock of Aetna, where in lonely caverns dwell the one-eyed children of ocean’s god, the murdering Cyclopes. Captured by one of them we are slaves in his house; Polyphemus they call him whom we serve; and instead of Bacchic revelry we are herding a godless Cyclops’s flocks; and so it is my children, striplings as they are, tend the young thereof on the edge of the downs; while my appointed task is to stay here and fill the troughs and sweep out the cave, or wait upon the ungodly Cyclops at his impious feasts. His orders now compel obedience; I have to scrape out his house with the rake you see, so as to receive the Cyclops, my absent master, and his sheep in clean caverns.

But already I see my children driving their browsing flocks towards me.

What means this? is the beat of feet in the Sicinnis dance the same to you now as when ye attended the Bacchic god in his revelries and made your way with dainty steps to the music of lyres to the halls of Althaea?

[The chorus of satyrs enters, driving a flock of goats and sheep. Servants follow them.]

Chorus [singing]

Offspring of well-bred sires and dams, pray whither wilt thou be gone from me to the rocks? Hast thou not here a gentle breeze, and grass to browse, and water from the eddying stream set near the cave in troughs? and are not thy young ones bleating for thee? Pst! pst! wilt thou not browse here, here on the dewy slope? Ho! ho ere long will I cast a stone at thee. Away, away! O horned one, to the fold-keeper of the Cyclops, the country-ranging shepherd.

Loosen thy bursting udder; welcome to thy teats the kids, whom thou leavest in the lambkins’ pens. Those little bleating kids, asleep the livelong day, miss thee; wilt then leave at last the rich grass pastures on the peaks of Aetna and enter the fold? ...

Here we have no Bromian god; no dances here, or Bacchantes thyrsus-bearing; no roll of drums, or drops of sparkling wine by gurgling founts; nor is it now with Nymphs in Nysa I sing a song of Bacchus, Bacchus! to the queen of love, in quest of whom I once sped on with Bacchantes, white of foot. Dear friend, dear Bacchic god, whither art roaming alone, waving thy auburn locks, while I, thy minister, do service to the one-eyed Cyclops, a slave and wanderer I, clad in this wretched goat-skin dress, severed from thy love?

Silenus

Hush, children! and bid our servants fold the flocks in the rock-roofed cavern.

Leader of the chorus [to Servants]

Away! [To Silenus] But prithee, why such haste, father?

Silenus

I see the hull of a ship from Hellas at the shore, and men, that wield the oar, on their way to this cave with some chieftain. About their necks they carry empty vessels and pitchers for water; they are in want of food. Luckless strangers! who can they be? They know not what manner of man our master Polyphemus is, to have set foot here in his cheerless abode and come to the jaws of the cannibal Cyclops in an evil hour. But hold ye your peace, that we may inquire whence they come to the peak of Sicilian Aetna.

[Odysseus and his companions enter. They carry baskets for provisions and water jars.]

Odysseus

Pray tell us, sirs, of some river-spring whence we might draw a draught to slake our thirst, or of someone willing to sell victuals to mariners in need.

Why, what is this? We seem to have chanced upon a city of the Bromian god; here by the caves I see a group of Satyrs. To the eldest first I bid “All hail!”

Silenus

All hail, sir! tell me who thou art, and name thy country.

Odysseus

Odysseus of Ithaca, king of the Cephallenians’ land.

Silenus

I know him for a prating knave, one of Sisyphus’ shrewd offspring.

Odysseus

I am the man; abuse me not.

Silenus

Whence hast thou sailed hither to Sicily?

Odysseus

From Ilium and the toils of Troy.

Silenus

How was that? didst thou not know the passage to thy native land?

Odysseus

Tempestuous winds drove me hither against my will.

Silenus

God wot! thou art in the same plight as I am.

Odysseus

Why, wert thou too drifted hither against thy will?

Silenus

I was, as I pursued the pirates who carried Bromius off.

Odysseus

What land is this and who are its inhabitants?

Silenus

This is mount Aetna, the highest point in Sicily.

Odysseus

But where are the city-walls and ramparts?

Silenus

There are none; the headlands, sir, are void of men.

Odysseus

Who then possess the land? the race of wild creatures?

Silenus

The Cyclopes, who have caves, not roofed houses.

Odysseus

Obedient unto whom? or is the power in the people’s hands?

Silenus

They are rovers; no man obeys another in anything.

Odysseus

Do they sow Demeter’s grain, or on what do they live?

Silenus

On milk and cheese and flesh of sheep.

Odysseus

Have they the drink of Bromius, the juice of the vine?

Silenus

No indeed! and thus it is a joyless land they dwell in.

Odysseus

Are they hospitable and reverent towards strangers?

Silenus

Strangers, they say, supply the daintiest meat.

Odysseus

What, do they delight in killing men and eating them?

Silenus

No one has ever arrived here without being butchered.

Odysseus

Where is the Cyclops himself? inside his dwelling?

Silenus

He is gone hunting wild beasts with hounds on Aetna.

Odysseus

Dost know then what to do, that we may be gone from the land?

Silenus

Not I, Odysseus; but I would do anything for thee.

Odysseus

Sell us food, of which we are in need.

Silenus

There is nothing but flesh, as I said.

Odysseus

Well, even that is a pleasant preventive of hunger.

Silenus

And there is cheese curdled with fig-juice, and the milk of kine.

Odysseus

Bring them out; a man should see his purchases.

Silenus

But tell me, how much gold wilt thou give me in exchange?

Odysseus

No gold bring I, but Dionysus’ drink.

Silenus [joyfully]

Most welcome words! I have long been wanting that.

Odysseus

Yes, it was Maron, the god’s son, who gave me a draught.

Silenus

What! Maron whom once I dandled in these arms?

Odysseus

The son of the Bacchic god, that thou mayst learn more certainly.

Silenus

Is it inside the ship, or hast thou it with thee?

Odysseus

This, as thou seest, is the skin that holds it, old sir.

Silenus

Why, that would not give me so much as a mouthful.

Odysseus

This, and twice as much again as will run from the skin.

Silenus

Fair the rill thou speakest of, delicious to me.

Odysseus

Shall I let thee taste the wine unmixed, to start with?

Silenus

A reasonable offer; for of a truth a taste invites the purchase.

Odysseus

Well, I haul about a cup as well as the skin.

Silenus

Come, let it gurgle in, that I may revive my memory by a pull at it.

Odysseus [pouring]

There then!

Silenus [smelling it]

Ye gods! what a delicious scent it has!

Odysseus

What! didst thou see it?

Silenus

No, i’ faith, but I smell it.

Odysseus

Taste it then, that thy approval may not stop at words.

Silenus [taking a drink]

Zounds! Bacchus is inviting me to dance; ha! ha!

Odysseus

Did it not gurgle finely down thy throttle?

Silenus

Aye that it did, to the ends of my fingers.

Odysseus

Well, we will give thee money besides.

Silenus

Only undo the skin, and never mind the money.

Odysseus

Bring out the cheeses then and lambs.

Silenus

I will do so, with small thought of any master. For let me have a single cup of that and I would turn madman, giving in exchange for it the flocks of every Cyclops and then throwing myself into the sea from the Leucadian rock, once I have been well drunk and smoothed out my wrinkled brow. For if a man rejoice not in his drinking, he is mad; for in drinking it’s possible for this to stand up straight, and then to fondle breasts, and to caress well tended locks, and there is dancing withal, and oblivion of woe. Shall not I then purchase so rare a drink, bidding the senseless Cyclops and his central eye go hang?

[Silenus goes into the cave.]

Leader

Hearken, Odysseus, let us hold some converse with thee.

Odysseus

Well, do so; ours is a meeting of friends.

Leader

Did you take Troy and capture the famous Helen?

Odysseus

Aye, and we destroyed the whole family of Priam.

Leader

After capturing your blooming prize, were all of you in turn her lovers? for she likes variety in husbands; the traitress! the sight of a man with embroidered breeches on his legs and a golden chain about his neck so fluttered her, that she left Menelaus, her excellent little husband. Would there had never been a race of women born into the world at all, unless it were for me alone!

Silenus [reappearing with food]

Lo! I bring you fat food from the flocks, king Odysseus, the young of bleating sheep and cheeses of curdled milk without stint. Carry them away with you and begone from the cave at once, after giving me a drink of merry grape-juice in exchange.

Leader

Alack! yonder comes the Cyclops; what shall we do?

Odysseus

Then truly are we lost, old sir! whither must we fly?

Silenus

Inside this rock, for there ye may conceal yourselves.

Odysseus

Dangerous advice of thine, to run into the net!

Silenus

No danger; there are ways of escape in plenty in the rock.

Odysseus

No, never that; for surely Troy will groan and loudly too, if we flee from a single man, when I have oft withstood with my shield a countless host of Phrygians. Nay, if die we must, we will die a noble death; or, if we live, we will maintain our old renown at least with credit.

[The Cyclops enters as Silenus goes into the cave. The Cyclops, not noticing Odysseus and his companions, addresses the chorus in anger.]

Cyclops

A light here! hold it up! what is this? what means this idleness, your Bacchic revelry? Here have we no Dionysus, nor clash of brass, nor roll of drums. Pray, how is it with my newly-born lambs in the caves? are they at the teat, running close to the side of their dams? Is the full amount of milk for cheeses milked out in baskets of rushes? How now? what say you? One of ye will soon be shedding tears from the weight of my club; look up, not down.

Leader

There! my head is bent back till I see Zeus himself; I behold both the stars and Orion.

Cyclops

Is my breakfast quite ready?

Leader

‘Tis laid; be thy throat only ready.

Cyclops

Are the bowls too full of milk?

Leader

Aye, so that thou canst swill off a whole hogshead, so it please thee.

Cyclops

Sheep’s milk or cows’ milk or a mixture of both?

Leader

Whichever thou wilt; don’t swallow me, that’s all.

Cyclops

Not I; for you would start kicking in the pit of my stomach and kill me by your antics. [Catching sight of Odysseus and his followers] Ha! what is this crowd I see near the folds? Some pirates or robbers have put in here. [Silenus comes out of the cave. He has made himself appear as though he had just suffered a terrible beating.] Yes, I really see the lambs from my caves tied up there with twisted osiers, cheese-presses scattered about, and old Silenus with his bald pate all swollen with blows.

Silenus

Oh! oh! poor wretch that I am, pounded to a fever.

Cyclops

By whom? who has been pounding thy head, old sirrah?

Silenus

These are the culprits, Cyclops, all because I refused to let them plunder thee.

Cyclops

Did they not know I was a god and sprung from gods?

Silenus

That was what I told them, but they persisted in plundering thy goods, and, in spite of my efforts, they actually began to eat the cheese and carry off the lambs; and they said they would tie thee in a three-cubit pillory and tear out thy bowels by force at thy navel, and flay thy back thoroughly with the scourge; and then, after binding thee, fling thy carcase down among the benches of their ship to sell to someone for heaving up stones, or else throw thee into a mill.

Cyclops

Oh, indeed! Be off then and sharpen my cleavers at once; heap high the faggots and light them; for they shall be slain forthwith and fill this maw of mine, what time I pick my feast hot from the coals, waiting not for carvers, and fish up the rest from the cauldron boiled and sodden; for I have had my fill of mountain-fare and sated myself with banquets of lions and stags, but ‘tis long I have been without human flesh.

Silenus

Truly, master, a change like this is all the sweeter after everyday fare; for just of late there have been no fresh arrivals of strangers at these caves.

Odysseus

Hear the strangers too in turn, Cyclops. We had come near the cave from our ship, wishing to procure provisions by purchase, when this fellow sold us the lambs and handed them over for a stoup of wine to drink himself, a voluntary act on both sides, there was no violence employed at all. No, there is not a particle of truth in the story he tells; now that he has been caught selling thy property behind thy back.

Silenus

I? Perdition catch thee!

Odysseus

If I am lying, yes.

Silenus [in agitation]

O Cyclops, by thy sire Poseidon, by mighty Triton and Nereus, by Calypso and the daughters of Nereus, by the sacred billows and all the race of fishes! I swear to thee, most noble sir, dear little Cyclops, master mine, it is not I who sell thy goods to strangers, else may these children, dearly as I love them, come to an evil end.

Leader

Keep that for thyself; with my own eyes I saw thee sell the goods to the strangers; and if I lie, perdition catch my sire! but injure not the strangers.

Cyclops

Ye lie; for my part I put more faith in him than Rhadamanthus, declaring him more just. But I have some questions to ask. Whence sailed ye, strangers? of what country are you? what city was it nursed your childhood?

Odysseus

We are Ithacans by birth, and have been driven from our course by the winds of the sea on our way from Ilium, after sacking its citadel.

Cyclops

Are ye the men who visited on Ilium, that bordereth on Scamander’s wave, the rape of Helen, worst of women?

Odysseus

We are; that was the fearful labour we endured.

Cyclops

A sorry expedition yours, to have sailed to the land of Phrygia for the sake of one woman

Odysseus

It was a god’s doing; blame not any son of man. But thee do we implore, most noble son of Ocean’s god, speaking as free-born men; be not so cruel as to slay thy friends on their coming to thy cave, nor regard us as food for thy jaws, an impious meal; for we preserved thy sire, O king, in possession of his temple-seats deep in the nooks of Hellas; and the sacred port of Taenarus and Malea’s furthest coves remain unharmed; and Sunium’s rock, the silver-veined, sacred to Zeus-born Athena, still is safe, and Geraestus, the harbour of refuge; and we did not permit Phrygians to put such an intolerable reproach on Hellas. Now in these things thou too hast a share, for thou dwellest in a corner of the land of Hellas beneath Aetna’s fire-streaming rock; and although thou turn from arguments, still it is a custom amongst mortal men to receive shipwrecked sailors as their suppliants and show them hospitality and help them with raiment; not that these should fill thy jaws and belly, their limbs transfixed with spits for piercing ox-flesh. The land of Priam hath emptied Hellas quite enough, drinking the blood of many whom the spear laid low, with the ruin it has brought on widowed wives, on aged childless dames, and hoary-headed sires; and if thou roast and consume the remnant, — a meal thou wilt rue, — why, where shall one turn? Nay, be persuaded by me, Cyclops; forego thy ravenous greed and choose piety rather than wickedness; for on many a man ere now unrighteous gains have brought down retribution.

Silenus

I will give thee a word of advice! as for his flesh, leave not a morsel of it, and if thou eat his tongue, Cyclops, thou wilt become a monstrous clever talker.

Cyclops

Wealth, manikin, is the god for the wise; all else is mere vaunting and fine words. Plague take the headlands by the sea, on which my father seats himself! Why hast thou put forward these arguments? I shudder not at Zeus’s thunder, nor know I wherein Zeus is a mightier god than I, stranger; what is more, I reck not of him; my reasons hear. When he pours down the rain from above, here in this rock in quarters snug, feasting on roast calf’s flesh or some wild game and moistening well my up-turned paunch with deep draughts from a tub of milk, I rival the thunder-claps of Zeus with my artillery; and when the north wind blows from Thrace and sheddeth snow, I wrap my carcase in the hides of beasts and light a fire, and what care I for snow? The earth perforce, whether she like it or not, produces grass and fattens my flocks, which I sacrifice to no one save myself and this belly, the greatest of deities; but to the gods, not I! For surely to eat and drink one’s fill from day to day and give oneself no grief at all, this is the king of gods for your wise man, but lawgivers go hang, chequering, as they do, the life of man! And so I will not cease from indulging myself by devouring thee; and thou shalt receive this stranger’s gift, that I may be free of blame, — fire and my father’s element yonder, and a cauldron to hold thy flesh and boil it nicely in collops. So in with you, that ye may feast me well, standing round the altar to honour the cavern’s god.

[The Cyclops goes into his cave, driving Odysseus’ men before him.]

Odysseus

Alas! escaped from the troubles of Troy and the sea, my barque now strands upon the whim and forbidding heart of this savage. O Pallas, mistress mine, goddess-daughter of Zeus, help me, help me now; for I am come to toils and depths of peril worse than all at Ilium; and thou, O Zeus, the stranger’s god, who hast thy dwelling ‘mid the radiant stars, behold these things; for, if thou regard them not, in vain art thou esteemed the great god Zeus, though but a thing of naught.

[He follows the Cyclops reluctantly. Silenus also goes in.]

Chorus [singing]

Ope wide the portal of thy gaping throat, Cyclops; for strangers’ limbs, both boiled and grilled, are ready from off the coals for thee to gnaw and tear and mince up small, reclining in thy shaggy goat-skin coat.

Relinquish not thy meal for me; keep that boat for thyself alone. Avaunt this cave! avaunt the burnt-offerings, which the godless Cyclops offers on Aetna’s altars, exulting in meals on strangers’ flesh!

Oh! the ruthless monster! to sacrifice his guests at his own hearth, the suppliants of his halls, cleaving and tearing and serving up to his loathsome teeth a feast of human flesh, hot from the coals.

Odysseus [reappearing with a look of horror]

O Zeus! what can I say after the hideous sights I have seen inside the cave, things past belief, resembling more the tales men tell than aught they do?

Leader of the chorus

What news, Odysseus? has the Cyclops, most godless monster, been feasting on thy dear comrades?

Odysseus

Aye, he singled out a pair, on whom the flesh was fattest and in best condition, and took them up in his hand to weigh.

Leader

How went it with you then, poor wretch?

Odysseus

When we had entered yonder rocky abode, he lighted first a fire, throwing logs of towering oak upon his spacious hearth, enough for three wagons to carry as their load; next, close by the blazing flame, he placed his couch of pine-boughs laid upon the floor, and filled a bowl of some ten firkins, pouring white milk thereinto, after he had milked his kine; and by his side he put a can of ivy-wood, whose breadth was three cubits and its depth four maybe; next he set his brazen pot a-boiling on the fire, spits too he set beside him, fashioned of the branches of thorn, their points hardened in the fire and the rest of them trimmed with the hatchet, and the blood-bowls of Aetna for the axe’s edge. Now when that hell-cook, god-detested, had everything quite ready, he caught up a pair of my companions and proceeded deliberately to cut the throat of one of them over the yawning brazen pot; but the other he clutched by the tendon of his heel, and, striking him against a sharp point of rocky stone, dashed out his brains; then, after hacking the fleshy parts with glutton cleaver, he set to grilling them, but the limbs he threw into his cauldron to seethe. And I, poor wretch, drew near with streaming eyes and waited on the Cyclops; but the others kept cowering like frightened birds in crannies of the rock, and the blood forsook their skin. Anon, when he had gorged himself upon my comrades’ flesh and had fallen on his back, breathing heavily, there came a sudden inspiration to me. I filled a cup of this Maronian wine and offered him a draught, saying, “Cyclops, son of Ocean’s god, see here what heavenly drink the grapes of Hellas yield, glad gift of Dionysus.” He, glutted with his shameless meal, took and drained it at one draught, and, lifting up his hand, he thanked me thus “Dearest to me of all my guests! fair the drink thou givest me to crown so fair a feast.” Now when I saw his delight, I gave him another cup, knowing the wine would make him rue it, and he would soon be paying the penalty. Then he set to singing; but I kept filling bumper after bumper and heating him with drink. So there he is singing discordantly amid the weeping of my fellow-sailors, and the cave re-echoes; but I have made my way out quietly and would fain save thee and myself, if thou wilt. Tell me then, is it your wish, or is it not, to fly from this unsocial wretch and take up your abode with Naiad nymphs in the halls of the Bacchic god? Thy father within approves this scheme; but there! he is powerless, getting all he can out of his liquor; his wings are snared by the cup as if he had flown against bird-lime, and he is fuddled; but thou art young and lusty; so save thyself with my help and regain thy old friend Dionysus, so little like the Cyclops.

Leader

Best of friends, would we might see that day, escaping the godless Cyclops!

Odysseus

Hear then how I will requite this vile monster and rescue you from thraldom.

Leader

Tell me how; no note of Asiatic lyre would sound more sweetly in our ears than news of the Cyclops’ death.

Odysseus

Delighted with this liquor of the Bacchic god, he fain would go a-reveling with his brethren.

Leader

I understand; thy purpose is to seize and slay him in the thickets when alone, or push him down a precipice.

Odysseus

Not at all; my plan is fraught with subtlety.

Leader

What then? Truly we have long heard of thy cleverness.

Odysseus

I mean to keep him from this revel, saying he must not give this drink to his brethren but keep it for himself alone and lead a happy life. Then when he falls asleep, o’ermastered by the Bacchic god, I will put a point with this sword of mine to an olive-branch I saw lying in the cave, and will set it on fire; and when I see it well alight, I will lift the heated brand, and, thrusting it full in the Cyclops’ eye, melt out his sight with its blaze; and, as when a man in fitting the timbers of a ship makes his auger spin to and fro with a double strap, so will I make the brand revolve in the eye, that gives the Cyclops light and will scorch up the pupil thereof.

Leader

Ho! ho! how glad I feel! wild with joy at the contrivance!

Odysseus

That done, I will embark thee and those thou lovest with old Silenus in the deep hold of my black ship, my ship with double banks of oars, and carry you away from this land.

Leader

Well, can I too lay hold of the blinding brand, as though the god’s libation had been poured? for I would fain have a share in this offering of blood.

Odysseus

Indeed thou must, for the brand is large, and thou must help hold it.

Leader

How lightly would I lift the load of e’en a hundred wains, if that will help us to grub out the eye of the doomed Cyclops, like a wasp’s nest.

Odysseus

Hush! for now thou knowest my plot in full, and when I bid you, obey the author of it; for I am not the man to desert my friends inside the cave and save myself alone. And yet I might escape; I am clear of the cavern’s depths already; but no! to desert the friends with whom I journeyed hither and only save myself is not a righteous course.

[He re-enters the cave.]

First semi-chorus [singing]

Come, who will be the first and who the next to him upon the list to grip the handle of the brand, and, thrusting it into the Cyclops’ eye, gouge out the light thereof?

Second semi-chorus [singing]

Hush! hush! Behold the drunkard leaves his rocky home, trolling loud some hideous lay, a clumsy tuneless clown, whom tears await. Come, let us give this boor a lesson in revelry. Ere long will he be blind at any rate.

First semi-chorus [singing]

Happy he who plays the Bacchanal amid the precious streams distilled from grapes, stretched at full length for a revel, his arm around the friend he loves, and some fair dainty damsel on his couch, his hair perfumed with nard and glossy, the while he calls, “Oh! who will ope the door for me?”

[The Cyclops enters. He is obviously drunk.]

Cyclops [singing]

Ha! ha! full of wine and merry with a feast’s good cheer am I, my hold freighted like a merchant-ship up to my belly’s very top. This turf graciously invites me to seek my brother Cyclopes for revel in the spring-tide. Come, stranger, bring the wine-skin hither and hand it over to me.

Second semi-chorus [singing]

Forth from the house its fair lord comes, casting his fair glance round him. We have someone to befriend us. A hostile brand is awaiting thee, no tender bride in dewy grot. No single colour will those garlands have, that soon shall cling so close about thy brow.

Odysseus [returning with the wine-skin. He is followed by Silenus, who is also drunk.]

Hearken, Cyclops; for I am well versed in the ways of Bacchus, whom I have given thee to drink.

Cyclops

And who is Bacchus? some reputed god?

Odysseus

The greatest god men know to cheer their life.

Cyclops

I like his after-taste at any rate.

Odysseus

This is the kind of god he is; he harmeth no man.

Cyclops

But how does a god like being housed in a wine-skin?

Odysseus

Put him where one may, he is content there.

Cyclops

It is not right that gods should be clad in leather.

Odysseus

What of that, provided he please thee? does the leather hurt thee?

Cyclops

I hate the wine-skin, but the liquor we have here I love.

Odysseus

Stay, then, Cyclops; drink and be merry.

Cyclops

Must I not give my brethren a share in this liquor?

Odysseus

No, keep it thyself and thou wilt appear of more honour.

Cyclops

Give it my friends and I shall appear of more use.

Odysseus

Revelling is apt to end in blows, abuse, and strife.

Cyclops

I may be drunk, but no man will lay hands on me for all that.

Odysseus

Better stay at home, my friend, after a carouse.

Cyclops

Who loves not revelling then is but a simpleton.

Odysseus

But whoso stays at home, when drunk, is wise.

Cyclops

What shall we do, Silenus? art minded to stay?

Silenus

That I am; for what need have we of others to share our drink, Cyclops?

Cyclops

Well, truly the turf is soft as down with its fresh flowering plants.

Silenus [seating himself]

Aye, and ‘tis pleasant drinking in the warm sunshine. Come, let me see thee stretch thy carcase on the ground.

Cyclops [sitting down]

There then Why art thou putting the mixing-bowl behind me?

Silenus

That no one passing by may upset it.

Cyclops

Nay, but thy purpose is to drink upon the sly; set it between us. [To Odysseus] Now tell me, stranger, by what name to call thee.

[Silenus is drinking steadily and stealthily.]

Odysseus

Noman. What boon shall I receive of thee to earn my thanks?

Cyclops

I will feast on thee last, after all thy comrades.

Odysseus

Fair indeed the honour thou bestowest on thy guest, sir Cyclops!

Cyclops [turning suddenly to Silenus]

Ho, sirrah! what art thou about? taking a stealthy pull at the wine?

Silenus

No, but it kissed me for my good looks.

Cyclops

Thou shalt smart, if thou kiss the wine when it kisses not thee.

Silenus

Oh! but it did, for it says it is in love with my handsome face.

Cyclops [holding out his cup]

Pour in; only give me my cup full.

Silenus

H’m! how is it mixed? just let me make sure.

[Takes another pull.]

Cyclops

Perdition! give it me at once.

Silenus

Oh, no! I really cannot, till I see thee with a crown on, and have another taste myself.

Cyclops

My cup-bearer is a cheat.

Silenus

No really, but the wine is so luscious. Thou must wipe thy lips, though, to get a draught.

Cyclops

There! my lips and beard are clean now.

Silenus

Bend thine elbow gracefully, and then quaff thy cup, as thou seest me do, and as now thou seest me not. [Burying his face in his cup]

Cyclops

Aha! what next?

Silenus

I drunk it off at a draught with much pleasure.

Cyclops

Stranger, take the skin thyself and be my cup-bearer.

Odysseus

Well, at any rate the grape is no stranger to my hand.

Cyclops

Come, pour it in.

Odysseus

In it goes! keep silence, that is all.

Cyclops

A difficult task when a man is deep in his cups.

Odysseus

Here, take and drink it off; leave none. Thou must be silent and only give in when the liquor does.

Cyclops

God wot! it is a clever stock that bears the grape.

Odysseus

Aye, and if thou but swallow plenty of it after a plentiful meal, moistening thy belly till its thirst is gone, it will throw thee into slumber; but if thou leave aught behind, the Bacchic god will parch thee for it.

Cyclops

Ha! ha! what a trouble it was getting out! This is pleasure unalloyed; earth and sky seem whirling round together; I see the throne of Zeus and all the godhead’s majesty. Kiss thee! no! There are the Graces trying to tempt me. I shall rest well enough with my Ganymede here; yea, by the Graces, right fairly; for I like lads better than the wenches.

Silenus

What! Cyclops, am I Ganymede, Zeus’s minion?

Cyclops [attempting to carry him into the cave]

To be sure, Ganymede whom I am carrying off from the halls of Dardanus.

Silenus

I am undone, my children; outrageous treatment waits me.

Leader of the chorus

Dost find fault with thy lover? dost scorn him in his cups?

Silenus

Woe is me! most bitter shall I find the wine ere long. [Silenus is dragged into the cave by the Cyclops.]

Odysseus

Up now, children of Dionysus, sons of a noble sire, soon will yon creature in the cave, relaxed in slumber as ye see him, spew from his shameless maw the meat. Already the brand inside his lair is vomiting cloud of smoke; and the only reason we prepared it was to burn the Cyclops’ eye; so mind thou quit thee like a man.

Leader

I will have a spirit as of rock or adamant; but go inside, before my father suffers any shameful treatment; for here thou hast things ready.

Odysseus

O Hephaestus, lord of Aetna, rid thyself for once and all of a troublesome neighbour by burning his bright eye out. Come, Sleep, as well, offspring of sable Night, come with all thy power on the monster god-detested; and never after Troy’s most glorious toils destroy Odysseus and his crew by the hands of one who recketh naught of God or man; else must we reckon Chance a goddess, and Heaven’s will inferior to hers.

[Odysseus re-enters the cave.]

Chorus [singing]

Tightly the pincers shall grip the neck of him who feasts upon his guests; for soon will he lose the light of his eye by fire; already the brand, a tree’s huge limb, lurks amid the embers charred. Oh! come ye then and work his doom, pluck out the maddened Cyclops’ eye, that he may rue his drinking. And I too fain would leave the Cyclops’ lonely land and see king Bromius, ivy-crowned, the god I sorely miss. Ah! shall I ever come to that?

Odysseus [leaving the cave cautiously]

Silence, ye cattle! I adjure you; close your lips; make not a sound! I’ll not let a man of you so much as breathe or wink or clear his throat, that yon pest awake not, until the sight in the Cyclops’ eye has passed through the fiery ordeal.

Leader of the chorus

Silent we stand with bated breath.

Odysseus

In then, and mind your fingers grip the brand, for it is splendidly red-hot.

Leader

Thyself ordain who first must seize the blazing bar and burn the Cyclops’ eye out, that we may share alike whate’er betides.

First semi-chorus

Standing where I am before the door, I am too far off to thrust the fire into his eye.

Second semi-chorus

I have just gone lame.

First semi-chorus

Why, then, thou art in the same plight as I; for somehow or other I sprained my ankle, standing still.

Odysseus

Sprained thy ankle, standing still?

Second semi-chorus

Yes, and my eyes are full of dust or ashes from somewhere or other.

Odysseus

These are sorry fellows, worthless as allies.

Leader

Because I feel for my back and spine, and express no wish to have my teeth knocked out, I am a coward, am I? Well, but I know a spell of Orpheus, a most excellent one, to make the brand enter his skull of its own accord, and set alight the one-eyed son of Earth.

Odysseus

Long since I knew thou wert by nature such an one, and now I know it better; I must employ my own friends; but, though thou bring no active aid, cheer us on at any rate, that I may find my friends emboldened by thy encouragement.

[Odysseus goes back into the cave.]

Leader

That will I do; the Carian shall run the risk for us; and as far as encouragement goes, let the Cyclops smoulder.

Chorus [singing]

What ho! my gallants, thrust away, make haste and burn his eyebrow off, the monster’s guest-devouring. Oh! singe and scorch the shepherd of Aetna; twirl the brand and drag it round and be careful lest in his agony he treat thee to some wantonness.

Cyclops [bellowing in the cave]

Oh! oh! my once bright eye is burnt to cinders now.

Leader of the chorus

Sweet indeed the triumph-song; pray sing it to us, Cyclops.

Cyclops [from within]

Oh! oh! once more; what outrage on me and what ruin! But never shall ye escape this rocky cave unpunished, ye worthless creatures; for I will stand in the entrance of the cleft and fit my hands into it thus.

[Staggering to the entrance]

Leader

Why dost thou cry out, Cyclops?

Cyclops

I am undone.

Leader

Thou art indeed a sorry sight.

Cyclops

Aye, and a sad one, too.

Leader

Didst fall among the coals in a drunken fit?

Cyclops

Noman has undone me.

Leader

Then there is no one hurting thee after all.

Cyclops

Noman is blinding me.

Leader

Then thou art not blind.

Cyclops

As blind as thou, forsooth.

Leader

How, pray, could no man have made thee blind?

Cyclops

Thou mockest me; but where is this Noman?

Leader

Nowhere, Cyclops.

Cyclops

It was the stranger, vile wretch! who proved my ruin, that thou mayst understand rightly, by swilling me with the liquor he gave me.

Leader

Ah! wine is a terrible foe, hard to wrestle with.

Cyclops

Tell me, I adjure thee, have they escaped or are they still within?

[During the following lines, Odysseus and his men slip by the Cyclops, despite his efforts to stop them.]

Leader

Here they are ranged in silence, taking the rock to screen them.

Cyclops

On which side?

Leader

On thy right.

Cyclops

Where?

Leader

Close against the rock. Hast caught them?

Cyclops

Trouble on trouble! I have run my skull against the rock and cracked it.

Leader

Aye, and they are escaping thee.

Cyclops

This way, was it not? ‘Twas this way thou saidst.

Leader

No, not this way.

Cyclops

Which then?

Leader

They are getting around thee on the left.

Cyclops

Alas! I am being mocked; ye jeer me in my evil plight.

Leader

They are no longer there; but facing thee that stranger stands.

Cyclops

Master of villainy, where, oh! where art thou?

Odysseus

Some way from thee I am keeping careful guard over the person of Odysseus.

Cyclops

What, a new name? hast changed thine?

Odysseus

Yes, Odysseus, the name my father gave me. But thou wert doomed to pay for thy unholy feast; for I should have seen Troy burned to but sorry purpose, unless I had avenged on thee the slaughter of my comrades.

Cyclops

Woe is me! ‘tis an old oracle coming true; yes, it said I should have my eye put out by thee on thy way home from Troy; but it likewise foretold that thou wouldst surely pay for this, tossing on the sea for many a day.

Odysseus

Go hang! E’en as I say, so have I done. And now will I get me to the beach and start my hollow ship across the sea of Sicily to the land of my fathers.

Cyclops

Thou shalt not; I will break a boulder off this rock and crush thee, crew and all, beneath my throw. Blind though I be, I will climb the hill, mounting through yonder tunnel.

Leader

As for us, henceforth will we be the servants of Bacchus, sharing the voyage of this hero Odysseus.

Electra

Characters in the Play

A peasant of Mycenae, husband of Electra

Electra, daughter of Agamemnon

Orestes, son of Agamemnon

Pylades, friend of Orestes

Chorus of Argive country-women

Clytemnestra, widow of Agamemnon

Old man, formerly servant of Agamemnon

Messenger

The Dioscuri

Attendants

[Scene: Before the hut of the peasant, in the country on the borders of Argolis. It is just before sunrise. The peasant is discovered alone.]

Peasant

O Argos, ancient land, and streams of Inachus, whence on a day king Agamemnon sailed to the realm of Troy, carrying his warriors aboard a thousand ships; and after he had slain Priam who was reigning in Ilium and captured the famous city of Dardanus, he came hither to Argos and has set up high on the temple-walls many a trophy, spoil of the barbarians. Though all went well with him in Troy, yet was he slain in his own palace by the guile of his wife Clytemnestra and the hand of Aegisthus, son of Thyestes. So he died and left behind him the ancient sceptre of Tantalus, and Aegisthus reigns in his stead, with the daughter of Tyndareus, Agamemnon’s queen, to wife. Now as for those whom he left in his halls, when he sailed to Troy, his son Orestes and his tender daughter Electra, — the boy Orestes, as he was like to be slain by Aegisthus, his sire’s old foster-father secretly removed to the land of Phocis and gave to Strophius to bring up, but the maid Electra abode in her father’s house, and soon as she had budded into maidenhood, came all the princes of Hellas asking her hand in marriage. But Aegisthus kept her at home for fear she might bear a son to some chieftain who would avenge Agamemnon, nor would he betroth her unto any. But when e’en thus there seemed some room for fear that she might bear some noble lord a child by stealth and Aegisthus was minded to slay her, her mother, though she had a cruel heart, yet rescued the maiden from his hand. For she could find excuses for having slain her husband, but she feared the hatred she would incur for her children’s murder. Wherefore Aegisthus devised this scheme; on Agamemnon’s son who had escaped his realm by flight he set a price to be paid to any who should slay him, while he gave Electra to me in marriage, whose ancestors were citizens of Mycenae. It is not that I blame myself for; my family was noble enough, though certainly impoverished, and so my good birth suffers. By making for her this weak alliance he thought he would have little to fear. For if some man of high position had married her, he might have revived the vengeance for Agamemnon’s murder, which now is sleeping; in which case Aegisthus would have paid the penalty. But Cypris is my witness that I have ever respected her maidenhood; she is still as though unwed. Unworthy as I am, honour forbids that I should so affront the daughter of a better man. Yea, and I am sorry for Orestes, hapless youth, who is called my kinsman, to think that he should ever return to Argos and behold his sister’s wretched marriage. And whoso counts me but a fool for leaving a tender maid untouched when I have her in my house, to him I say, he measures purity by the vicious standard of his own soul, a standard like himself.

[Electra enters from the hut, carrying a water pitcher on her head. She is meanly clad.]

Electra

O sable night, nurse of the golden stars! beneath thy pall I go to fetch water from the brook with my pitcher poised upon my head, not indeed because I am forced to this necessity, but that to the gods I may display the affronts Aegisthus puts upon me, and to the wide firmament pour out my lamentation for my sire. For my own mother, the baleful daughter of Tyndareus, hath cast me forth from her house to gratify her lord; for since she hath borne other children to Aegisthus she puts me and Orestes on one side at home.

Peasant

Oh! why, poor maiden, dost thou toil so hard on my behalf, thou that aforetime wert reared so daintily? why canst thou not forego thy labour, as I bid thee?

Electra

As a god’s I count thy kindness to me, for in my distress thou hast never made a mock at me. ‘Tis rare fortune when mortals find such healing balm for their cruel wounds as ‘tis my lot to find in thee. Wherefore I ought, though thou forbid me, to lighten thy labours, as far as my strength allows, and share all burdens with thee to ease thy load. Thou hast enough to do abroad; ‘tis only right that I should keep thy house in order. For when the toiler cometh to his home from the field, it is pleasant to find all comfortable in the house.

Peasant

If such thy pleasure, go thy way; for, after all, the spring is no great distance from my house. And at break of day I will drive my steers to my glebe and sow my crop. For no idler, though he has the gods’ names ever on his lips, can gather a livelihood without hard work.

[Electra and the Peasant go out. A moment later Orestes and Pylades enter.]

Orestes

Ah Pylades, I put thee first ‘mongst men for thy love, thy loyalty and friendliness to me; for thou alone of all my friends wouldst still honour poor Orestes, in spite of the grievous plight whereto I am reduced by Aegisthus, who with my accursed mother’s aid slew my sire. I am come from Apollo’s mystic shrine to the soil of Argos, without the knowledge of any, to avenge my father’s death upon his murderers. Last night went unto his tomb and wept thereon, cutting off my hair as an offering and pouring o’er the grave the blood of a sheep for sacrifice, unmarked by those who lord it o’er this land. And now though I enter not the walled town, yet by coming to the borders of the land I combine two objects; I can escape to another country if any spy me out and recognize me, and at the same time seek my sister, for I am told she is a maid no longer but is married and living here, that I may meet her, and, after enlisting her aid in the deed of blood, learn for certain what is happening in the town. Let us now, since dawn is uplifting her radiant eye, step aside from this path. For maybe some labouring man or serving maid will come in sight, of whom we may inquire whether it is here that my sister hath her home. Lo! yonder I see a servant bearing a full pitcher of water on her shaven head; let us sit down and make inquiry of this bond-maid, if haply we may glean some tidings of the matter which brought us hither, Pylades.

[They retire a little, as Electra returns from the spring.]

Electra [chanting]

Bestir thy lagging feet, ‘tis high time; on, on o’er thy path of tears! ah misery! I am Agamemnon’s daughter, she whom Clytemnestra, hateful child of Tyndareus, bare; hapless Electra is the name my countrymen call me. Ah me! for my cruel lot, my hateful existence! O my father Agamemnon! in Hades art thou laid, butchered by thy wife and Aegisthus. Come, raise with me that dirge once more; uplift the woful strain that brings relief.

On, on o’er thy path of tears! ah misery! And thou, poor brother, in what city and house art thou a slave, leaving thy suffering sister behind in the halls of our fathers to drain the cup of bitterness? Oh! come, great Zeus, to set me free from this life of sorrow, and to avenge my sire in the blood of his foes, bringing the wanderer home to Argos.

Take this pitcher from my head, put it down, that I may wake betimes, while it is yet night, my lamentation for my sire, my doleful chant, my dirge of death, for thee, my father in thy grave, which day by day I do rehearse, rending my skin with my nails, and smiting on my shaven head in mourning for thy death. Woe, woe! rend the cheek; like a swan with clear loud note beside the brimming river calling to its parent dear that lies a-dying in the meshes of the crafty net, so I bewail thee, my hapless sire,

After that last fatal bath of thine laid out most piteously in death. Oh I the horror of that axe which hacked thee so cruelly, my sire I oh! the bitter thought that prompted thy return from Troy! With no garlands or victor’s crowns did thy wife welcome thee, but with his two-edged sword she made thee the sad sport of Aegisthus and kept her treacherous paramour.

[The chorus of Argive country-women enter. The following lines between Electra and the chorus are sung responsively.]

Chorus

O Electra, daughter of Agamemnon, to thy rustic cot I come, for a messenger hath arrived, a highlander from Mycenae, one who lives on milk, announcing that the Argives are proclaiming a sacrifice for the third day from now, and all our maidens are to go to Hera’s temple.

Electra

Kind friends, my heart is not set on festivity, nor do necklaces of gold cause any flutter in my sorrowing bosom, nor will I stand up with the maidens of Argos to beat my foot in the mazy dance. Tears have been my meat day and night; ah misery! See my unkempt hair, my tattered dress; are they fit for a princess, a daughter of Agamemnon, or for Troy which once thought of my father as its captor?

Chorus

Mighty is the goddess; so come, and borrow of me broidered robes for apparel and jewels of gold that add a further grace to beauty’s charms. Dost think to triumph o’er thy foes by tears, if thou honour not the gods? ‘Tis not by lamentation but by pious prayers to heaved that thou, my daughter, wilt make fortune smile on thee.

Electra

No god hearkens to the voice of lost Electra, or heeds the sacrifices offered by my father long ago. Ah woe for the dead! woe for the living wanderer, who dwelleth in some foreign land, an outcast and vagabond at a menial board, sprung though he is of a famous sire! Myself, too, in a poor man’s hut do dwell, wasting my soul with grief, an exile from my father’s halls, here by the scarred hill-side; while my mother is wedded to a new husband in a marriage stained by blood.

Leader of the chorus

Many a woe to Hellas and thy house did Helen, thy mother’s sister, cause.

Electra [catching sight of Orestes and Pylades]

Ha! Friends, I break off my lament; yonder are strangers just leaving the place of ambush where they were couching, and making for the house. We must seek to escape the villains by flying, thou along the path and I into my cottage.

Orestes

Stay, poor maid; fear no violence from me.

Electra

O Phoebus Apollo I beseech thee spare my life.

Orestes

Give me the lives of others more my foes than thou!

Electra

Begone! touch me not! thou hast no right to.

Orestes

There is none I have a better right to touch.

Electra

How is it then thou waylayest me, sword in hand, near my house?

Orestes

Wait and hear, and thou wilt soon agree with me

Electra

Here I stand; I am in thy power in any case, since thou art the stronger.

Orestes

I am come to thee with news of thy brother.

Electra

O best of friends! is he alive or dead?

Orestes

Alive; I would fain give thee my good news first.

Electra

God bless thee! in return for thy welcome tidings.

Orestes

I am prepared to share that blessing between us.

Electra

In what land is my poor brother spending his dreary exile?

Orestes

His ruined life does not conform to the customs of any one city.

Electra

Surely he does not want for daily bread?

Orestes

Bread he has, but an exile is a helpless man at best.

Electra

What is this message thou hast brought from him?

Orestes

He asks, “Art thou alive? and if so, How art thou faring?”

Electra

Well, first thou seest how haggard I am grown.

Orestes

So wasted with sorrow that I weep for thee.

Electra

Next mark my head, shorn and shaven like a Scythian’s.

Orestes

Thy brother’s fate and father’s death no doubt disturb thee.

Electra

Yes, alas! for what have I more dear than these?

Orestes

Ah! and what dost thou suppose is dearer to thy brother?

Electra

He is far away, not here to show his love to me.

Orestes

Wherefore art thou living here far from the city?

Electra

I am wedded, sir; a fatal match!

Orestes

Alas! for thy brother; I pity him. Is thy husband of Mycenae?

Electra

He is not the man to whom my father ever thought of betrothing me.

Orestes

Tell me all, that I may report it to thy brother.

Electra

I live apart from my husband in this house.

Orestes

The only fit inmate would be a hind or herd.

Electra

Poor he is, yet he displays a generous consideration for me.

Orestes

Why, what is this consideration that attaches to thy husband?

Electra

He has never presumed to claim from me a husband’s rights.

Orestes

Is he under a vow of chastity? or does he disdain thee?

Electra

He thought he had no right to flout my ancestry.

Orestes

How was it he was not overjoyed at winning such a bride?

Electra

He does not recognize the right of him who disposed of my hand.

Orestes

I understand; he was afraid of the vengeance of Orestes hereafter.

Electra

There was that fear, but he was a virtuous man as well.

Orestes

Ah! a noble nature this! He deserves kind treatment.

Electra

Yes, if ever the wanderer return.

Orestes

But did thy own mother give in to this?

Electra

‘Tis her husband, not her children that a woman loves, sir stranger.

Orestes

Wherefore did Aegisthus put this affront on thee?

Electra

His design in giving me to such a husband was to weaken my offspring

Orestes

To prevent thee bearing sons, I suppose, who should punish him?

Electra

That was his plan; God grant I may avenge me on him for it!

Orestes

Does thy mother’s husband know that thou art yet a maid?

Electra

He does not; our silence robs him of that knowledge.

Orestes

Are these women friends of thine, who overhear our talk?

Electra

They are, and they will keep our conversation perfectly secret.

Orestes

What could Orestes do in this matter, if he did return?

Electra

Canst thou ask? Shame on thee for that! Is not this the time for action?

Orestes

But suppose he comes, how could he slay his father’s murderers?

Electra

By boldly meting out the same fate that his father had meted out to him by his foes.

Orestes

Wouldst thou be brave enough to help him slay his mother?

Electra

Aye, with the self-same axe that drank my father’s blood.

Orestes

Am I to tell him this, and that thy purpose firmly holds?

Electra

Once I have shed my mother’s blood o’er his, then welcome death!

Orestes

Ah! would Orestes were standing near to hear that!

Electra

I should not know him, sir, if I saw him.

Orestes

No wonder; you were both children when you parted.

Electra

There is only one of my friends would recognize him.

Orestes

The man maybe who is said to have snatched him away from being murdered?

Electra

Yes, the old servant who tended my father’s childhood long ago.

Orestes

Did thy father’s corpse obtain burial?

Electra

Such burial as it was, after his body had been flung forth from the palace.

Orestes

O God! how awful is thy story! Yes, there is a feeling, arising even from another’s distress, that wrings the human heart. Say on, that when know the loveless tale, which yet I needs must hear, I may carry it to thy brother. For pity, though it has no place in ignorant natures, is inborn in the wise; still it may cause trouble to find excessive cleverness amongst the wise.

Leader

I too am stirred by the same desire as the stranger. For dwelling so far from the city I know nothing of its ills, and I should like to hear about them now myself.

Electra

I will tell you, if I may; and surely I may tell a friend about my own and my father’s grievous misfortunes. Now since thou movest me to speak, I entreat thee, sir, tell Orestes of our sorrows; first, describe the dress I wear, the load of squalor that oppresses me, the hovel I inhabit after my royal home; tell him how hard I have to work at weaving clothes myself or else go barely clad and do without; how I carry home on my head water from the brook; no part have I in holy festival, no place amid the dance; a maiden still I turn from married dames and from Castor too, to whom they betrothed me before he joined the heavenly host, for I was his kinswoman. Meantime my mother, ‘mid the spoils of Troy, is seated on her throne, and at her foot-stool slaves from Asia stand and wait, captives of my father’s spear, whose Trojan robes are fastened with brooches of gold. And there on the wall my father’s blood still leaves a deep dark stain, while his murderer mounts the dead man’s car and fareth forth, proudly grasping in his blood-stained hands the sceptre with which Agamemnon would marshal the sons of Hellas. Dishonoured lies his grave; naught as yet hath it received of drink outpoured or myrtle-spray, but bare of ornament his tomb is left. Yea, and ‘tis said that noble hero who is wedded to my mother, in his drunken fits, doth leap upon the grave, and pelt with stones my father’s monument, boldly gibing at us on this wise, “Where is thy son Orestes? Is he ever coming in his glory to defend thy tomb?” Thus is Orestes flouted behind his back. Oh! tell him this, kind sir, I pray thee. And there be many calling him to come, — I am but their mouthpiece, — these suppliant hands, this tongue, my broken heart, my shaven head, and his own father too. For ‘tis shameful that the sire should have destroyed Troy’s race and the son yet prove too weak to pit himself against one foe unto the death, albeit he has youth and better blood as well.

Leader

Lo! here is thy husband hurrying homeward, his labour done.

Peasant [entering and catching sight of strangers talking to Electra]

Ha! who are these strangers I see at my door? And why are they come hither to my rustic gate? can they want my help? for ‘tis unseemly for a woman to stand talking with young men.

Electra

Dear husband, be not suspicious of me. For thou shalt hear the truth; these strangers have come to bring me news of Orestes. Good sirs, pardon him those words.

Peasant

What say they? is that hero yet alive and in the light of day?

Electra

He is; at least they say so, and I believe them.

Peasant

Surely then he hath some memory of his father and thy wrongs?

Electra

These are things to hope for; a man in exile is helpless.

Peasant

What message have they brought from Orestes?

Electra

He sent them to spy out my evil case.

Peasant

Well, they only see a part of it, though maybe thou art telling them the rest.

Electra

They know all; there is nothing further they need ask.

Peasant

Long ere this then shouldst thou have thrown open our doors to them. Enter, sirs; for in return for your good tidings, shall ye find such cheer as my house affords. Ho! servants, take their baggage within; make no excuses, for ye are friends sent by one I love; and poor though I am, yet will I never show meanness in my habits.

Orestes

‘Fore heaven! is this the man who is helping thee to frustrate thy marriage, because he will not shame Orestes?

Electra

This is he whom they call my husband, woe is me!

Orestes Ah! there is no sure mark to recognize a man’s worth; for human nature hath in it an element of confusion. For I have seen ere now the son of noble sire prove himself a worthless knave, and virtuous children sprung from evil parents; likewise dearth in a rich man’s spirit, and in a poor man’s frame a mighty soul. By what standard then shall we rightly judge these things? By wealth? An evil test to use. By poverty then? Nay, poverty suffers from this, that it teaches a man to play the villain from necessity. To martial prowess must I turn? But who could pronounce who is the valiant man merely from the look of his spear? Better is it to leave these matters to themselves without troubling. For here is a man of no account in Argos, with no family reputation to boast, one of the common herd, proved a very hero. A truce to your folly! ye self-deceivers, swollen with idle fancies; learn to judge men by their converse, and by their habits decide who are noble. Such are they who rule aright both states and families; while those forms of flesh, devoid of intellect, are but figure-heads in the market-place. The strong arm, again, no more than the weak awaits the battle-shock, for this depends on natural courage. Well! absent or present, Agamemnon’s son, whose business brings us here, deserves this of us, so let us accept a lodging in this house. [Calling to his servants] Ho! sirrahs, go within. A humble host, who does his best, in preference to a wealthy man for me! And so I thankfully accept this peasant’s proffered welcome, though I could have preferred that thy brother were conducting me to share his fortune in his halls. Maybe he yet will come; for the oracies of Loxias are sure, but to man’s divining “Farewell” say I.

[Orestes, Pylades and their attendants go into the hut.]

Leader

Electra, I feel a warmer glow of joy suffuse my heart than ever heretofore; perchance our fortune, moving on at last, will find a happy resting-place.

Electra

O reckless man, why didst thou welcome strangers like these, so far beyond thy station, knowing the poverty of thy house?

Peasant

Why? if they are really as noble as they seem, surely they will be equally content with rich or humble fare.

Electra

Well. since thou hast made this error, poor man as thou art, go to my father’s kind old foster-sire; on the bank of the river Tanaus, the boundary ‘twixt Argos and the land of Sparta, he tends his flocks, an outcast from the city; bid him come hither to our house and some provision for the strangers’ entertainment. Glad will he be, and will offer thanks to heaven to hear that the child, whom once he saved, is yet alive. I shall get nothing from my mother from my ancestral halls; for we should rue our message, were she to learn, unnatural wretch! that Orestes liveth.

Peasant

I will take this message to the old man, if it seem good to thee; but get thee in at once and there make ready. A woman, when she chooses, can find dainties in plenty to garnish a feast. Besides, there is quite enough in the house to satisfy them with food for one day at least. ‘Tis in such cases, when I come to muse thereon, that I discern the mighty power of wealth, whether to give to strangers, or to expend in curing the body when it falls sick; but our daily food is a small matter; for all of us, rich as well as poor, are in like case, as soon as we are satisfied.

[The Peasant departs as Electra enters the hut.]

Chorus [singing]

Ye famous ships, that on a day were brought to land at Troy by those countless oars, what time ye led the Nereids’ dance, where the dolphin music-loving rolled and gambolled round your dusky prows, escorting Achilles, nimble son of Thetis, when he went with Agamemnon to the banks of Trojan Simois;

When Nereids left Euboea’s strand, bringing from Hephaestus’ golden forge the harness he had fashioned for that warrior’s use; him long they sought o’er Pelion and Ossa’s spurs, ranging the sacred glens and the peaks of Nymphaea, where his knightly sire was training up a light for Hellas, even the sea-born son of Thetis, a warrior swift to help the sons of Atreus.

One that came from Ilium, and set foot in the haven of Nauplia, told me that on the circle of thy far-famed targe, O son of Thetis, was wrought this blazon, a terror to the Phrygians; on the rim of the buckler Perseus with winged sandals, was bearing in his hand across the main the Gorgon’s head, just severed by the aid of Hermes, the messenger of Zeus, that rural god whom Maia bore;

While in the centre of the shield the sun’s bright orb flashed light on the backs of his winged coursers; there too was the heavenly choir of stars, Pleiades and Hyades, to dazzle Hector’s eyes and make him flee; and upon his gold-forged helm were sphinxes, bearing in their talons the prey of which the minstrels sing; on his breast-plate was lioness breathing flame, her eye upon Peirene’s steed, in eagerness to rend it.

There too in murderous fray four-footed steeds were prancing, while oer their backs uprose dark clouds of dust. But he who led these warriors stout, was slain by wedding thee, malignant child of Tyndareus! Wherefore shall the gods of heaven one day send thee to thy doom, and I shall yet live to see the sword at thy throat, drinking its crimson tide.

[The old man, the former servant of Agamemnon, enters. Electra presently appears at the door of the hut.]

Old man

Where is the young princess, my mistress, Agamemnon’s daughter, whom I nursed in days gone by? Oh! how steep is the approach to this house, a hard climb for these old wasted feet of mine! Still, to reach such friends as these, I must drag my bent old back and tottering knees up it. Ah, daughter! — for I see thee now at thy door, — lo! I have brought the this tender lamb from my own flock, having taken it from its dam, with garlands too and cheese straight from the press, and this flask of choice old wine with fragrant bouquet; ‘tis small perhaps, but pour a cup thereof into some weaker drink, and it is a luscious draught. Let some one carry these gifts into the house for the guests; for I would fain wipe from my eyes the rising tears on this tattered cloak.

Electra

Why stands the tear-drop in thine eye, old friend? Is it that my sorrows have been recalled to thee after an interval? or art thou bewailing the sad exile of Orestes, and my father’s fate, whom thou didst once fondle in thy arms, in vain, alas! for thee and for thy friends?

Old man

Ah yes! in vain; but still I could not bear to leave him thus; and so I added this to my journey that I sought his grave, and, falling thereupon, wept o’er its desolation; then did I open the wine-skin, my gift to thy guests, and poured a libation, and set myrtle-sprigs round the tomb. And lo! upon the grave itself I saw a black ram had been offered, and there was blood, not long poured forth, and severed locks of auburn hair. Much I wondered, my daughter, who had dared approach the tomb; certainly ‘twas no Argive. Nay, thy brother may perchance have come by stealth, and going thither have done honour to his father’s wretched grave. Look at the hair, compare it with thy own, to see if the colour of these cut locks is the same; for children in whose veins runs the same father’s blood have a close resemblance in many features.

Electra

Old sir, thy words are unworthy of a wise man, if thou thinkest my own brave brother would have come to this land by stealth for fear of Aegisthus. In the next place, how should our hair correspond? His is the hair of a gallant youth trained up in manly sports, mine a woman’s curled and combed; nay, that is a hopeless clue. Besides, thou couldst find many, whose hair is of the same colour, albeit not sprung from the same blood. No, maybe ‘twas some stranger cut off his hair in pity at his tomb, or one that came to spy this land privily.

Old man

Put thy foot in the print of his shoe and mark whether it correspond with thine, my child.

Electra

How should the foot make any impression on stony ground? and if it did, the foot of brother and sister would not be the same in size, for man’s is the larger.

Old man

Hast thou no mark, in case thy brother should come, whereby to recognize the weaving of thy loom, the robe wherein I snatched him from death that day?

Electra

Dost thou forget I was still a babe when Orestes left the country? and even if I had woven him a robe, how should he, a mere child then, be wearing the same now, unless our clothes and bodies grow together?

Old man

Where are these guests? I fain would question them face to face about thy brother.

[As he speaks, Orestes and Pylades come out of the hut.]

Electra

There they are, in haste to leave the house.

Old man

Well born, it seems, but that may be a sham; for there be plenty such prove knaves. Still I give them greeting.

Orestes

All hail, father! To which of thy friends, Electra, does this old relic of mortality belong?

Electra

This is he who nursed my sire, sir stranger.

Orestes

What! do I behold him who removed thy brother out of harm’s way?

Electra

Behold the man who saved his life; if, that is, he liveth still.

Orestes

Ha! why does he look so hard at me, as if he were examining the bright device on silver coin? Is he finding in me a likeness to some other?

Electra

Maybe he is glad to see in thee a companion of Orestes.

Orestes

A man I love full well. But why is he walking round me?

Electra

I, too, am watching his movements with amaze, sir stranger.

Old man

My honoured mistress, my daughter Electra, return thanks to heaven, —

Electra

For past or present favours? which?

Old man

That thou hast found a treasured prize, which God is now revealing.

Electra

Hear me invoke the gods. But what dost thou mean, old man?

Old man

Behold before thee, my child, thy nearest and dearest.

Electra

I have long feared thou wert not in thy sound senses

Old man

Not in my sound senses, because I see thy brother?

Electra

What mean’st thou, aged friend, by these astounding words?

Old man

That I see Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, before me.

Electra

What mark dost see that I can trust?

Old man

A scar along his brow, where he fell and cut himself one day in his father’s home when chasing a fawn with thee.

Electra

Is it possible? True; I see the mark of the fall.

Old man

Dost hesitate then to embrace thy own dear brother?

Electra

No! not any longer, old friend; for my soul is convinced by the tokens thou showest. O my brother, thou art come at last, and I embrace thee, little as I ever thought to.

Orestes

And thee to my bosom at last I press.

Electra

I never thought that it would happen.

Orestes

All hope in me was also dead.

Electra

Art thou really he?

Orestes

Aye, thy one and only champion, if I can but safely draw to shore the cast I mean to throw; and I feel sure I shall; else must we cease to believe in gods, if wrong is to triumph o’er right.

Chorus [singing]

At last, at last appears thy radiant dawn, O happy day! and as beacon to the city hast thou revealed the wanderer, who, long ago, poor boy! was exiled from his father’s halls. Now, lady, comes our turn for victory, ushered in by some god. Raise hand and voice in prayer, beseech the gods that good fortune may attend thy brother’s entry to the city.

Orestes

Enough! sweet though the rapture of this greeting be, I must wait and return it hereafter. Do thou, old friend so timely met, tell me how I am to avenge me on my father’s murderer, and on my mother, the partner in his guilty marriage. Have I still in Argos any band of kindly friends? or am I, like my fortunes, bankrupt altogether? With whom am I to league myself? by night or day shall I advance? point out a road for me to take against these foes of mine.

Old man

My son, thou hast no friend now in thy hour of adversity. No! that is a piece of rare good luck, to find another share thy fortunes alike for better and for worse. Thou art of every friend completely reft, all hope is gone from thee; be sure of what I tell thee; on thy own arm and fortune art thou wholly thrown to win thy father’s home and thy city.

Orestes

What must I do to compass this result?

Old man

Slay Thyestes’ son and thy mother.

Orestes

I came to win that victor’s crown, but how can I attain it?

Old man

Thou wouldst never achieve it if thou didst enter the walls.

Orestes

Are they manned with guards and armed sentinels?

Old man

Aye truly; for he is afraid of thee, and cannot sleep secure.

Orestes

Well then, do thou next propose a scheme, old friend.

Old man

Hear me a moment; an idea has just occurred to me.

Orestes

May thy counsel prove good, and my perception keen!

Old man

I saw Aegisthus, as I was slowly pacing hither —

Orestes

I welcome thy words. Where was he?

Old man

Not far from these fields, at his stables.

Orestes

What was he doing? I see a gleam of hope after our helplessness.

Old man

I thought he was preparing a feast for the Nymphs.

Orestes

In return for the bringing up of children or in anticipation of a birth?

Old man

All I know is this, he was preparing to sacrifice oxen.

Orestes

How many were with him? or was he alone with his servants?

Old man

There was no Argive there; only a band of his own followers.

Orestes

Is it possible that any of them will recognize me, old man?

Old man

They are only servants, and they have never even seen thee.

Orestes

Will they support me, if I prevail?

Old man

Yes, that is the way of slaves, luckily for thee.

Orestes

On what pretext can I approach him?

Old man

Go to some place where he will see thee as he sacrifices.

Orestes

His estate is close to the road then, I suppose.

Old man

Yes, and when he sees thee there, he will invite thee to the feast.

Orestes

So help me God! He shall rue his invitation.

Old man

After that, form thy own plan according to circumstances.

Orestes

Good advice! But my mother, where is she?

Old man

At Argos; but she will yet join her husband for the feast.

Orestes

Why did she not come forth with him?

Old man

From fear of the citizens’ reproach she stayed behind.

Orestes

I understand; she knows that the city suspects her.

Old man

Just so; her wickedness makes her hated.

Orestes

How shall I slay her and him together?

Electra

Mine be the preparation of my mother’s slaying!

Orestes

Well, as for the other, fortune will favour us.

Electra

Our old friend here must help us both.

Old man

Aye, that will I; but wnat is thy scheme for slaying thy mother?

Electra

Go, old man, and tell Clytemnestra from me that I have given birth to a son.

Old man

Some time ago, or quite recently?

Electra

Ten days ago, which are the days of my purification.

Old man

Suppose it done; but how doth this help towards slaying thy mother?

Electra

She will come, when she hears of my confinement.

Old man

What! dost think she cares aught for thee, my child?

Electra

Oh yes! she will weep no doubt over my child’s low rank.

Old man

Perhaps she may; but go back again to the point.

Electra

Her death is certain, if she comes.

Old man

In that case, let her come right up to the door of the house.

Electra

Why then it were a little thing to turn her steps into the road to Hades’ halls.

Old man

Oh! to see this one day, then die!

Electra

First of all, old friend, act as my brother’s guide.

Old man

To the place where Aegisthus is now sacrificing to the gods?

Electra

Then go, find my mother and give her my message.

Old man

Aye, that I will, so that she shall think the very words are thine.

Electra [to Orestes]

Thy work begins at once; thou hast drawn the first lot in the tragedy.

Orestes

I will go, if some one will show me the way.

Old man

I will myself conduct thee nothing loth.

Orestes

O Zeus, god of my fathers, vanquisher of my foes, have pity on us, for a piteous lot has ours been.

Electra

Oh! have pity on thy own descendants.

Orestes

O Hera, mistress of Mycenae’s altars, grant us the victory, if we are asking what is right.

Electra

Yes, grant us vengeance on them for our father’s death.

Orestes

Thou too, my father, sent to the land of shades by wicked hands, and Earth, the queen of all, to whom I spread my suppliant palms, up and champion thy dear children. Come with all the dead to aid, all they who helped thee break the Phrygians’ power, and all who hate ungodly crime. Dost hear me, father, victim of my mother’s rage?

Electra

Sure am I he heareth all; but ‘tis time to part. For this cause too I bid thee strike Aegisthus down, because, if thou fall in the struggle and perish, I also die; no longer number me amongst the living; for I will stab myself with a two-edged sword. And now will I go indoors and make all ready there, for, if there come good news from thee, my house shall ring with women’s cries of joy; but, if thou art slain, a different scene must then ensue. These are my instructions to thee.

Orestes

I know my lesson well.

[Orestes, Pylades, the old man, and attendants, depart.]

Electra

Then show thyself a man. And you, my friends, signal to me by cries the certain issue of this fray. Myself will keep the sword ready in my grasp, for I will never accept defeat, and yield my body to my enemies to insult.

[Electra goes into the hut.]

Chorus [singing]

Still the story finds a place in time-honoured legends, how on day Pan, the steward of husbandry, came breathing dulcet music on his jointed pipe, and brought with him from its tender dam on Argive hills, a beauteous lamb with fleece of gold; then stood a herald high upon the rock and cried aloud, “Away to the place of assembly, ye folk of Mycenae! to behold the strange and awful sight vouchsafed to our blest rulers.” Anon the dancers did obeisance to the family of Atreus;

The altar-steps of beaten gold were draped; and through that Argive town the altars blazed with fire; sweetly rose the lute’s clear note, the handmaid of the Muse’s song; and ballads fair were written on the golden lamb, saying that Thyestes had the luck; for he won the guilty love of the wife of Atreus, and carried off to his house the strange creature, and then coming before the assembled folk he declared to them that he had in his house that horned beast with fleece of gold.

In the self-same hour it was that Zeus changed the radiant courses of the stars, the light of the sun, and the joyous face of dawn, and drave his car athwart the western sky with fervent heat from heaven’s fires, while northward fled the rain-clouds, and Ammon’s strand grew parched and faint and void of dew, when it was robbed of heaven’s genial showers.

‘Tis said, though I can scarce believe it, the sun turned round his glowing throne of gold, to vex the sons of men by this change because of the quarrel amongst them. Still, tales of horror have their use in making men regard the gods; of whom thou hadst no thought, when thou slewest thy husband, thou mother of this noble pair.

Leader of the chorus

Hark! my friends, did ye hear that noise, like to the rumbling of an earthquake, or am I the dupe of idle fancy? Hark! hark! once more that wind-borne sound swells loudly on mine ear. Electra! mistress mine! come forth from the house!

Electra [rushing out]

What is it, good friends? how goes the day with us?

Leader

I hear the cries of dying men; no more I know.

Electra

I heard them too, far off, but still distinct.

Leader

Yes, the sound came stealing from afar, but yet ‘twas clear.

Electra

Was it the groan of an Argive, or of my friends?

Leader

I know not; for the cries are all confused.

Electra

That word of thine is my death-warrant; why do I delay?

Leader

Stay, till thou learn thy fate for certain.

Electra

No, no; we are vanquished; where are our messengers?

Leader

They will come in time; to slay a king is no light task.

[A messenger enters in haste.]

Messenger

All hail! ye victors, maidens of Mycenae, to all Orestes’ friends his triumph I announce; Aegisthus, the murderer of Agamemnon, lies weltering where he fell; return thanks to heaven.

Electra

Who art thou? What proof dost thou give of this?

Messenger

Look at me, dost thou not recognize thy brother’s servant?

Electra

O best of friends! ‘twas fear that prevented me from recognizing thee; now I know thee well. What sayst thou? Is my father’s hateful murderer slain?

Messenger

He is; I repeat it since it is thy wish.

Leader

Ye gods, and justice, whose eye is on all, at last art thou come.

Electra

I fain would learn the way and means my brother took to slay Thyestes’ son.

Messenger

After we had set out from this house, we struck into the broad highroad, and came to the place where was the far-famed King of Mycenae. Now he was walking in a garden well-watered, culling a wreath of tender myrtle-sprays for his head, and when he saw us, he called out, “All hail! strangers; who are ye? whence come ye? from what country?” To him Orestes answered, “We are from Thessaly, on our way to Alpheus’ banks to sacrifice to Olympian Zeus.” When Aegisthus heard that, he said, “Ye must be my guests to-day, and share the feast, for I am even now sacrificing to the Nymphs; and by rising with tomorrow’s light ye will be just as far upon your journey; now let us go within.” Therewith he caught us by the hand and led us by the way; refuse we could not; and when we were come to the house, he gave command: “Bring water for my guests to wash forthwith, that they may stand around the altar near the laver.” But Orestes answered, “‘Twas but now we purified ourselves and washed us clean in water from the river. So if we strangers are to join your citizens in sacrifice, we are ready, King Aegisthus, and will not refuse.” So ended they their private conference. Meantime the servants, that composed their master’s bodyguard, laid aside their weapons, and one and all were busied at their tasks. Some brought the bowl to catch the blood, others took up baskets, while others kindled fire and set cauldrons round about the altars, and the whole house rang. Then did thy mother’s husband take the barley for sprinkling, and began casting it upon the hearth with these words, “Ye Nymphs, who dwell among the rocks, grant that I may often sacrifice with my wife, the daughter of Tyndareus, within my halls, as happily as now, and ruin seize my foes!” (whereby he meant Orestes and thyself). But my master, lowering his voice, offered a different prayer, that he might regain his father’s house. Next Aegisthus took from basket a long straight knife, and cutting off some of the calf’s hair, laid it with his right hand on the sacred fire, and then cut its throat when the servants had lifted it upon their shoulders, and thus addressed thy brother; “Men declare that amongst the Thessalians this is counted honourable, to cut up a bull neatly and to manage steeds. So take the knife, sir stranger, and show us if rumour speaks true about the Thessalians.” Thereon Orestes seized the Dorian knife of tempered steel and cast from his shoulders his graceful buckled robe; then choosing Pylades to help him in his task, he made the servants withdraw, and catching the calf by the hoof, proceeded to lay bare its white flesh, with arm outstretched, and he flayed the hide quicker than a runner ever finishes the two laps of the horses’ race-course; next he laid the belly open, and Aegisthus took the entrails in his hands and carefully examined them. Now the liver had no lobe, while the portal vein leading to the gall-bladder portended dangerous attack on him who was observing it. Dark grows Aegisthus’ brow, but my master asks, “Why so despondent, good sir?” Said he, “I fear treachery from a stranger. Agamemnon’s son of all men most I hate, and he hates my house.” But Orestes cried, “What! fear treachery from an exile! thou the ruler of the city? Ho! take this Dorian knife away and bring me a Thessalian cleaver, that we by sacrificial feast may learn the will of heaven; let me cleave the breast-bone.” And he took the axe and cut it through. Now Aegisthus was examining the entrails, separating them in his hands, and as he was bending down, thy brother rose on tiptoe and smote him on the spine, severing the bones of his back; and his body gave one convulsive shudder from head to foot and writhed in the death-agony. No sooner did his servants see it, than they rushed to arms, a host to fight with two; yet did Pylades and Orestes of their valiancy meet them with brandished spears. Then cried Orestes, “I am no foe that come against this city and my own servants, but I have avenged me on the murderer of my sire, I, ill-starred Orestes. Slay me not, my father’s former thralls!” They, when they heard him speak, restrained their spears, and an old man, who had been in the family many a long year, recognized him. Forthwith they crown thy brother with a wreath, and utter shouts of joy. And lo! he is coming to show thee the head, not the Gorgon’s, but the head of thy hated foe Aegisthus; his death today has paid in blood a bitter debt of blood.

Chorus [singing]

Dear mistress, now with step as light as fawn join in the dance; lift high the nimble foot and be glad. Victory crowns thy brother; he hath won a fairer wreath than ever victor gained beside the streams of Alpheus; so raise a fair hymn to victory, the while I dance.

Electra

O light of day! O bright careering sun! O earth! and night erewhile my only day; now may I open my eyes in freedom, for Aegisthus is dead, my father’s murderer. Come friends, let me bring out whate’er my house contains to deck his head and wreath with crowns my conquering brother’s brow.

Chorus [singing]

Bring forth thy garlands for his head, and we will lead the dance the Muses love. Now shall the royal line, dear to us in days gone by, resume its sway o’er the realm, having laid low the usurper as he deserves. So let the shout go up, whose notes are those of joy.

[Orestes and Pylades enter, followed by attendants who are bearing the body of Aegisthus.]

Electra

Hail! glorious victor, Orestes, son of a sire who won the day ‘neath Ilium’s walls, accept this wreath to bind about the tresses of thy hair. Not in vain hast thou run thy course unto the goal and reached thy home again; no! but thou hast slain thy foe, Aegisthus, the murderer of our father. Thou too, O Pylades, trusty squire, whose training shows thy father’s sterling worth, receive a garland from my hand, for thou no less than he hast a share in this emprise; and so I pray, good luck be thine for ever!

Orestes

First recognize the gods, Electra, as being the authors of our fortune, and then praise me their minister and fate’s. Yea, I come from having slain Aegisthus in very deed, no mere pretence; and to make thee the more certain of this, I am bringing thee his corpse, which, if thou wilt, expose for beasts to rend, or set it upon a stake for birds, the children of the air, to prey upon; for now is he thy slave, once called thy lord and master.

Electra

I am ashamed to utter my wishes.

Orestes

What is it? speak out, for thou art through the gates of fear.

Electra

I am ashamed to flout the dead, for fear some spite assail me.

Orestes

No one would blame thee for this.

Electra

Our folk are hard to please, and love to blame.

Orestes

Speak all thy mind, sister; for we entered on this feud with him on terms admitting not of truce.

Electra

Enough! [Turning to the corpse of Aegisthus] With which of thy iniquities shall I begin my recital? With which shall I end it? To which allot a middle place? And yet I never ceased, as each day dawned, to rehearse the story I would tell thee to thy face, if ever I were freed from my old terrors; and now I am; so I will pay thee back with the abuse I fain had uttered to thee when alive. Thou wert my ruin, making me and my brother orphans, though we had never injured thee, and thou didst make a shameful marriage with my mother, having slain her lord who led the host of Hellas, though thyself didst never go to Troy. Such was thy folly, thou didst never dream that my mother would prove thy curse when thou didst marry her, though thou wert wronging my father’s honour. Know this; whoso defiles his neighbour’s wife, and afterward is forced to take her to himself, is a wretched wight, if he supposes she will be chaste as his wife, though she sinned against her former lord. Thine was a life most miserable, though thou didst pretend ‘twas otherwise; well thou knewest how guilty thy marriage was, and my mother knew she had a villain for husband. Sinners both ye took each other’s lot, she thy fortune, thou her curse. While everywhere in Argos thou-wouldst hear such phrases as, “that woman’s husband,” never “that man’s wife.” Yet ‘tis shameful for the wife and not the man to rule the house; wherefore I loathe those children, who are called in the city not the sons of the man, their father, but of their mother. For if a man makes a great match above his rank, there is no talk of the husband but only of the wife. Herein lay thy grievous error, due to ignorance; thou thoughtest thyself some one, relying on thy wealth, but this is naught save to stay with us a space. ‘Tis nature that stands fast, not wealth. For it, if it abide unchanged, exalts man’s horn; but riches dishonestly acquired and in the hands of fools, soon take their flight, their blossom quickly shed. As for thy sins with women, I pass them by, ‘tis not for maiden’s lips to mention them, but I will shrewdly hint thereat. And then thy arrogance! because forsooth thou hadst a palace and some looks to boast. May I never have a husband with a girl’s face, but one that bears him like a man! For the children of these latter cling to a life of arms, while those, who are so fair to see, do only serve to grace the dance. Away from me!

[Spurning the corpse with her foot] Time has shown thy villainy, little as thou reckest of the forfeit thou hast paid for it. Let none suppose, though he have run the first stage of his course with joy, that he will get the better of justice, till he have reached the goal and ended his career.

Leader of the chorus

Terrible alike his crime and your revenge; for mighty is the power of justice.

Orestes

‘Tis well. Carry his body within the house and hide it, sirrahs, that when my mother comes, she may not see his corpse before she is smitten herself.

[Pylades and the attendants take the body into the hut.]

Electra

Hold! let us strike out another scheme.

Orestes

How now? Are those allies from Mycenae whom I see?

Electra

No, ‘tis my mother, that bare me.

Orestes

Full into the net she is rushing, oh, bravely!

Electra

See how proudly she rides in her chariot and fine robes!

Orestes

What must we do to our mother? Slay her?

Electra

What! has pity seized thee at sight of her?

Orestes

O God! how can I slay her that bare and suckled me?

Electra

Slay her as she slew thy father and mine.

Orestes

O Phoebus, how foolish was thy oracle —

Electra

Where Apollo errs, who shall be wise?

Orestes

In bidding me commit this crime — my mother’s murder!

Electra

How canst thou be hurt by avenging thy father?

Orestes

Though pure before, I now shall carry into exile the stain of a mother’s blood.

Electra

Still, if thou avenge not thy father, thou wilt fail in thy duty.

Orestes

And if I slay my mother, I must pay the penalty to her.

Electra

And so must thou to him, if thou resign the avenging of our father.

Orestes

Surely it was a fiend in the likeness of the god that ordered this!

Electra

Seated on the holy tripod? I think not so.

Orestes

I cannot believe this oracle was meant.

Electra

Turn not coward! Cast not thy manliness away!

Orestes

Am I to devise the same crafty scheme for her?

Electra

The self-same death thou didst mete out to her lord Aegisthus.

Orestes

I will go in; ‘tis an awful task I undertake; an awful deed I have to do; still if it is Heaven’s will, be it so; I loathe and yet I love the enterprise.

[As Orestes withdraws into the hut, Clytemnestra enters in a chariot. Her attendants are hand-maidens attired in gorgeous apparel.]

Chorus [singing]

Hail! Queen of Argos, daughter of Tyndareus, sister of those two noble sons of Zeus, who dwell in the flame-lit firmament amid the stars, whose guerdon high it is to save the sailor tossing on the sea. All hail! because of thy wealth and high prosperity, I do thee homage as I do the blessed gods. Now is the time, great queen, for us to pay our court unto thy fortunes.

Clytemnestra

Alight from the car, ye Trojan maids, and take my hand that I may step down from the chariot. With Trojan spoils the temples of the gods are decked, but I have obtained these maidens as a special gift from Troy, in return for my lost daughter, a trifling boon no doubt, but still an ornament to my house.

Electra

And may not I, mother, take that highly-favoured hand of thine? I am a slave like them, an exile from my father’s halls in this miserable abode.

Clytemnestra

See, my servants are here; trouble not on my account.

Electra

Why, thou didst make me thy prisoner by robbing me of my home; like these I became a captive when my home was taken, an orphan all forlorn.

Clytemnestra

True; but thy father plotted so wickedly against those of his own kin whom least of all he should have treated so. Speak I must; albeit, when woman gets an evil reputation, there is a feeling of bitterness against all she says; unfairly indeed in my case, for it were only fair to hate after learning the circumstances, and seeing if the object deserves it; otherwise, why hate at all? Now Tyndareus bestowed me on thy father not that I or any children I might bear should be slain. Yet he went and took my daughter from our house to the fleet at Aulis, persuading me that Achilles was to wed her; and there he held her o’er the pyre, and cut Iphigenia’s snowy throat. Had he slain her to save his city from capture, or to benefit his house, or to preserve his other children, a sacrifice of one for many, could have pardoned him. But, as it was, his reasons for murdering my child were these: the wantonness of Helen and her husband’s folly in not punishing the traitress. Still, wronged as I was, my rage had not burst forth for this, nor would I have slain my lord, had he not returned to me with that frenzied maiden and made her his mistress, keeping at once two brides beneath the same roof. Women maybe are given to folly, I do not deny it; this granted, when a husband goes astray and sets aside his own true wife, she fain will follow his example and find another love; and then in our case hot abuse is heard, while the men, who are to blame for this, escape without a word. Again, suppose Menelaus had been secretly snatched from his home, should I have had to kill Orestes to save Menelaus, my sister’s husband? How would thy father have endured this? Was he then to escape death for slaying what was mine, while I was to suffer at his hands? I slew him, turning, as my only course, to his enemies. For which of all thy father’s friends would have joined me in his murder? Speak all that is in thy heart, and prove against me with all free speech, that thy father’s death was not deserved.

Electra

Justly urged! but thy justice is not free from shame; for in all things should every woman of sense yield to her husband. Whoso thinketh otherwise comes not within the scope of what I say. Remember, mother, those last words of thine, allowing me free utterance before thee.

Clytemnestra

Daughter, far from refusing it, I grant it again.

Electra

Thou wilt not, when thou hearest, wreak thy vengeance on me?

Clytemnestra

No, indeed; I shall welcome thy opinion.

Electra

Then will I speak, and this shall be the prelude of my speech: Ah, mother mine! would thou hadst had a better heart; for though thy beauty and Helen’s win you praises well deserved, yet are ye akin in nature, pair of wantons, unworthy of Castor. She was carried off, ‘tis true, but her fall was voluntary: and thou hast slain the bravest soul in Hellas, excusing thyself on the ground that thou didst kill a husband to avenge a daughter; the world does not know thee so well as I do, thou who before ever thy daughter’s death was decided, yea, soon as thy lord had started from his home, wert combing thy golden tresses at thy mirror. That wife who, when her lord is gone from home, sets to beautifying herself, strike off from virtue’s list; for she has no need to carry her beauty abroad, save she is seeking some mischief. Of all the wives in Hellas thou wert the only one I know who wert overjoyed when Troy’s star was in the ascendant, while, if it set, thy brow was clouded, since thou hadst no wish that Agamemnon should return from Troy. And yet thou couldst have played a virtuous part to thy own glory. The husband thou hadst was no whit inferior to Aegisthus, for he it was whom Hellas chose to be her captain. And when thy sister Helen wrought that deed of shame, thou couldst have won thyself great glory, for vice is a warning and calls attention to virtue. If, as thou allegest, my father slew thy daughter, what is the wrong I and my brother have done thee? How was it thou didst not bestow on us our father’s halls after thy husband’s death, instead of bartering them to buy a paramour? Again, thy husband is not exiled for thy son’s sake, nor is he slain to avenge my death, although by him this life is quenched twice as much as e’er my sister’s was; so if murder is to succeed murder in requital, I and thy son Orestes must slay thee to avenge our father; if that was just, why so is this. Whoso fixes his gaze on wealth or noble birth and weds a wicked woman, is a fool; better is a humble partner in his home, if she be virtuous, than a proud one.

Leader of the chorus

Chance rules the marriages of women; some I see turn out well, others ill amongst mankind.

Clytemnestra

Daughter, ‘twas ever thy nature to love thy father. This too one finds; some sons cling to their father, others have a deeper affection for their mother. I will forgive thee, for myself am not so exceeding glad at the deed that I have done, my child. But thou, — why thus unwashed and clad in foul attire, now that the days of thy lying-in are accomplished? Ah me, for my sorry schemes! I have goaded my husband into anger more than e’er I should have done.

Electra

Thy sorrow comes too late; the hour of remedy has gone from thee; my father is dead. Yet why not recall that exile, thy own wandering son?

Clytemnestra

I am afraid; ‘tis my interest, not his that I regard. For they say he is wroth for his father’s murder.

Electra

Why, then, dost thou encourage thy husband’s bitterness against us?

Clytemnestra

‘Tis his way; thou too hast a stubborn nature.

Electra

Because I am grieved; yet will I check my spirit.

Clytemnestra

I promise then he shall no longer oppress thee.

Electra

From living in my home he grows too proud.

Clytemnestra

Now there! ‘tis thou that art fanning the quarrel into new life.

Electra

I say no more; my dread of him is even what it is.

Clytemnestra

Peace! Enough of this. Why didst thou summon me, my child?

Electra

Thou hast heard, I suppose, of my confinement; for this I pray thee, since I know not how, offer the customary sacrifice on the tenth day after birth, for I am a novice herein, never having had a child before.

Clytemnestra

This is work for another, even for her who delivered thee.

Electra

I was all alone in my travail and at the babe’s birth.

Clytemnestra

Dost live so far from neighbours?

Electra

No one cares to make the poor his friends.

Clytemnestra

Well, I will go to offer to the gods a sacrifice for the child’s completion of the days; and when I have done thee this service, I will seek the field where my husband is sacrificing to the Nymphs. Take this chariot hence, my servants, and tie the horses to the stalls; and when ye think that I have finished my offering to the gods, attend me, for I must likewise pleasure my lord.

[She goes into the hut.]

Electra

Enter our humble cottage; but, prithee, take care that my smoke grimed walls soil not thy robes; now wilt thou offer to the gods a fitting sacrifice. There stands the basket ready, and the knife is sharpened, the same that slew the bull, by whose side thou soon wilt lie a corpse; and thou shalt be his bride in Hades’ halls whose wife thou wast on earth. This is the boon I will grant thee, while thou shalt pay me for my father’s blood.

[Electra follows her into the hut.]

Chorus [chanting]

Misery is changing sides; the breeze veers round, and now blows fair upon my house. The day is past when my chief fell murdered in his bath, and the roof and the very stones of the walls rang with this his cry: “O cruel wife, why art thou murdering me on my return to my dear country after ten long years?”

The tide is turning, and justice that pursues the faithless wife is drawing within its grasp the murderess, who slew her hapless lord, when he came home at last to these towering Cyclopean walls, — aye, with her own hand she smote him with the sharpened steel, herself the axe uplifting. Unhappy husband! whate’er the curse that possessed that wretched woman. Like a lioness of the hills that rangeth through the woodland for her prey, she wrought the deed.

Clytemnestra [within]

O my children, by Heaven I pray ye spare your mother.

Chorus [chanting]

Dost hear her cries within the house?

Clytemnestra

O God! ah me!

Chorus [chanting]

I too bewail thee, dying by thy children’s hands. God deals out His justice in His good time. A cruel fate is thine, unhappy one; yet didst thou sin in murdering thy lord.

[Orestes and Electra come out of the hut, followed by attendants who are carrying the two corpses. The following lines between Electra, Orestes and the chorus are chanted.]

But lo! from the house they come, dabbled in their mother’s fresh-spilt gore, their triumph proving the piteous butchery. There is not nor ever has been a race more wretched than the line of Tantalus.

Orestes

O Earth, and Zeus whose eye is over all! behold this foul deed of blood, these two corpses lying here that I have slain in vengeance for my sufferings.

Electra

Tears are all too weak for this, brother; and I am the guilty cause. Ah, woe is me! How hot my fury burned against the mother that bare me!

Orestes

Alas! for thy lot, O mother mine! A piteous, piteous doom, aye, worse than that, hast thou incurred at children’s hands! Yet justly hast thou paid forfeit for our father’s blood. Ah, Phoebus! thine was the voice that praised this vengeance; thou it is that hast brought these hideous scenes to light, and caused this deed of blood. To what city can I go henceforth? what friend, what man of any piety will bear the sight of a mother’s murderer like me?

Electra

Ah me! alas! and whither can I go? What share have I henceforth in dance or marriage rite? What husband will accept me as his bride?

Orestes

Again thy fancy changes with the wind; for now thou thinkest aright, though not so formerly; an awful deed didst thou urge thy brother against his will to commit, dear sister. Oh! didst thou see how the poor victim threw open her robe and showed her bosom as smote her, sinking on her knees, poor wretch? And her hair I —

Electra

Full well I know the agony through which thou didst pass at hearing thy own mother’s bitter cry.

Orestes

Ah yes! she laid her band upon my chin, and cried aloud, “My child, I entreat thee!” and she clung about my neck, so that I let fall the sword.

Electra

O my poor mother! How didst thou endure to see her breathe her last before thy eyes?

Orestes

I threw my mantle o’er them and began the sacrifice by plunging the sword into my mother’s throat.

Electra

Yet ‘twas I that urged thee on, yea, and likewise grasped the steel. Oh! I have done an awful deed.

Orestes

Oh! take and hide our mother’s corpse beneath a pall, and close her gaping wound. [Turning to the corpse] Ah! thy murderers were thine own children.

Electra [covering the corpse]

There! thou corpse both loved and loathed; still o’er thee I cast robe, to end the grievous troubles of our house.

Chorus

See! where o’er the roof-top spirits are appearing, or gods maybe from heaven, for this is not a road that mortals tread. Why come they thus where mortal eyes can see them clearly?

[The Dioscuri appear from above.]

Dioscuri

Hearken, son of Agamemnon. We, the twin sons of Zeus, thy mother’s sisters, call thee, even Castor and his brother Polydeuces. ‘Tis but now we have reached Argos after stilling the fury of the sea for mariners, having seen the slaying of our sister, thy mother. She hath received her just reward, but thine is no righteous act, and Phoebus — but no! he is my king, my lips are sealed — is Phoebus still, albeit the oracle he gave thee was no great proof of his wsdom. But we must acquiesce herein. Henceforth must thou follow what Zeus and destiny ordain for thee. On Pylades bestow Electra for his wife to take unto his home; do thou leave Argos, for after thy mother’s murder thou mayst not set foot in the city. And those grim goddesses of doom, that glare like savage hounds, will drive thee mad and chase thee to and fro; but go thou to Athens and make thy prayer to the holy image of Pallas, for she will close their fierce serpents’ mouths, so that they touch thee not, holding o’er thy head her aegis with the Gorgon’s head. A hill there is, to Ares sacred, where first the gods in conclave sat to decide the law of blood, in the day that savage Ares slew Halirrothius, son of the ocean-king, in anger for the violence he offered to his daughter’s honour; from that time all decisions given there are most holy and have heaven’s sanction. There must thou have this murder tried; and if equal votes are given, they shall save thee from death in the decision, for Loxias will take the blame upon himself, since it was his oracle that advised thy mother’s murder. And this shall be the law for all posterity; in every trial the accused shall win his case if the votes are equal. Then shall those dread goddesses, stricken with grief at this, vanish into a cleft of the earth close to the hill, revered by men henceforth as a place for holy oracles; whilst thou must settle in a city of Arcadia on the banks of the river Alpheus near the shrine of Lycaean Apollo, and the city shall be called after thy name. To thee, I say this. As for the corpse of Aegisthus, the citizens of Argos must give it burial; but Menelaus, who has just arrived at Nauplia from the sack of Troy, shall bury thy mother, Helen helping him; for she hath come from her sojourn in Egypt in the halls of Proteus, and hath never been to Troy; but Zeus, to stir up strife and bloodshed in the world, sent forth a phantom of Helen to Ilium. Now let Pylades take his maiden wife and bear her to his home in Achaea; also he must conduct thy so-called kinsman to the land of Phocis, and there reward him well. But go thyself along the narrow Isthmus, and seek Cecropia’s happy home. For once thou hast fulfilled the doom appointed for this murder, thou shalt be blest and free from all thy troubles.

[The remaining lines of the play are chanted.]

Chorus

Ye sone of Zeus, may we draw near to speak with you?

Dioscuri

Ye may, since ye are not polluted by this murder.

Orestes

May I too share your converse, sons of Tyndareus?

Dioscuri

Thou too! for to Phoebus will I ascribe this deed of blood.

Chorus

How was it that ye, the brothers of the murdered woman, gods too, did not ward the doom-goddesses from her roof?

Dioscuri

‘Twas fate that brought resistless doom to her, and that thoughless oracle that Phoebus gave.

Electra

But why did the god, and wherefore did his oracles make me my mother’s murderer?

Dioscuri

A share in the deed, a share in its doom; one ancestral curse hath ruined both of you.

Orestes

Ah, sister mine! at last I see thee again only to be robbed in a moment of thy dear love; I must leave thee, and by thee be left.

Dioscuri

Hers are a husband and a home; her only suffering this, that she is quitting Argos.

Orestes

Yet what could call forth deeper grief than exile from one’s fatherland? I must leave my father’s house, and at a stranger’s bar be sentenced for my mother’s blood.

Dioscuri

Be of good cheer; go to the holy town of Pallas; keep a stout heart only.

Electra

O my brother, best and dearest! clasp me to thy breast; for now is the curse of our mother’s blood cutting us off from the home of our fathers.

Orestes

Throw thy arms in close embrace about me. Oh! weep as o’er my grace when I am dead.

Dioscuri

Ah me! that bitter cry makes even gods shudder to hear. Yea, for in my breast and in every heavenly being’s dwells pity for the sorrows of mankind.

Orestes

Never to see thee more!

Electra

Never again to stand within thy sight!

Orestes

This is my last good-bye to thee.

Electra

Farewell, farewell, my city! and ye my fellow-countrywomen, a long farewell to you!

Orestes

Art thou going already, truest of thy sex?

Electra

I go, the tear-drop dimming my tender eyes.

Orestes

Go, Pylades, and be happy; take and wed Electra.

Dioscuri

Their only thoughts will be their marriage; but haste thee to Athens, seeking to escape these hounds of hell, for they are on thy track in fearful wise, swart monsters, with snakes for hands, who reap a harvest of man’s agony. But we twain must make haste away o’er the Sicilian main to save the seaman’s ship. Yet as we fly through heaven’s expanse we help not the wicked; but whoso in his life loves piety and justice, all such we free from troublous toils and save. Wherefore let no man be minded to act unjustly, or with men foresworn set sail; such the warning I, a god, to mortals give.

[The Dioscuri vanish.]

Chorus

Farewell! truly that mortal’s is a happy lot, who can thus fare, unafflicted by any woe.

Hecuba

Characters in the Play

The ghost of Polydorus, son of Hecuba and Priam, King of Troy

Hecuba, wife of Priam

Chorus of captive Trojan women

Polyxena, daughter of Hecuba and Priam

Odysseus

Talthybius, herald of Agamemnon

Maid of Hecuba

Agamemnon

Polymestor, King of the Thracian Chersonese

Children Of Polymestor, Attendants, and guards

[Scene: Before Agamemnon’S tent in the Greek camp upon the shore of the Thracian Chersonese. The ghost of Polydorus appears.]

Ghost

Lo! I am come from out the charnel-house and gates of gloom, where Hades dwells apart from gods, I Polydorus, a son of Hecuba the daughter of Cisseus and of Priam. Now my father, when Phrygia’s capital was threatened with destruction by the spear of Hellas, took alarm and conveyed me secretly from the land of Troy unto Polymestor’s house, his friend in Thrace, who sows these fruitful plains of Chersonese, curbing by his might a nation delighting in horses. And with me my father sent great store of gold by stealth, that, if ever Ilium’s walls should fall, his children that survived might not want for means to live. I was the youngest of Priam’s sons; and this it was that caused my stealthy removal from the land; for my childish arm availed not to carry weapons or to wield the spear. So long then as the bulwarks of our land stood firm, and Troy’s battlements abode unshaken, and my brother Hector prospered in his warring, I, poor child, grew up and flourished, like some vigorous shoot, at the court of the Thracian, my father’s friend. But when Troy fell and Hector lost his life and my father’s hearth was rooted up, and himself fell butchered at the god-built altar by the hands of Achilles’ murderous son; then did my father’s friend slay me his helpless guest for the sake of the gold, and thereafter cast me into the swell of the sea, to keep the gold for himself in his house. And there I lie one time upon the strand, another in the salt sea’s surge, drifting ever up and down upon the billows, unwept, unburied; but now am I hovering o’er the head of my dear mother Hecuba, a disembodied spirit, keeping my airy station these three days, ever since my poor mother came from Troy to linger here in Chersonese. Meantime all the Achaeans sit idly here in their ships at the shores of Thrace; for the son of Peleus, even Achilles, appeared above his tomb and stayed the whole host of Hellas, as they were making straight for home across the sea, demanding to have my sister Polyxena offered at his tomb, and to receive his guerdon. And he will obtain this prize, nor will they that are his friends refuse the gift; and on this very day is fate leading my sister to her doom. So will my mother see two children dead at once, me and that ill-fated maid. For I, to win a grave, ah me! will appear amid the rippling waves before her bond-maid’s feet. Yes! I have won this boon from the powers below, that I should find tomb and fall into my mother’s hands; so shall I get my heart’s desire; wherefore I will go and waylay aged Hecuba, for yonder she passeth on her way from the shelter of Agamemnon’s tent, terrified at my spectre. Woe is thee! ah, mother mine! from a palace dragged to face a life of slavery! how sad thy lot, as sad as once ‘twas blest! Some god is now destroying thee, setting this in the balance to outweigh thy former bliss.

[The ghost vanishes. Hecuba enters from the tent of Agamemnon, supported by her attendants, captive Trojan women.]

Hecuba [chanting]

Guide these aged steps, my servants, forth before the house; support your fellow-slave, your queen of yore, ye maids of Troy. Take hold upon my aged hand, support me, guide me, lift me up; and I will lean upon your bended arm as on a staff and quicken my halting footsteps onwards. O dazzling light of Zeus! O gloom of night! why am I thus scared by fearful visions of the night? O earth, dread queen, mother of dreams that flit on sable wings! I am seeking to avert the vision of the night, the sight of horror which I saw so clearly in my dreams touching my son, who is safe in Thrace, and Polyxena my daughter dear. Ye gods of this land! preserve my son, the last and only anchor of my house, now settled in Thrace, the land of snow, safe in the keeping of his father’s friend. Some fresh disaster is in store, a new strain of sorrow will be added to our woe. Such ceaseless thrills of terror never wrung my heart before. Oh! where, ye Trojan maidens, can I find inspired Helenus or Cassandra, that they may read me my dream? For I saw a dappled hind mangled by a wolf’s bloody fangs, torn from my knees by force in piteous wise. And this too filled me with affright; o’er the summit of his tomb appeared Achilles’ phantom, and for his guerdon he would have one of the luckless maids of Troy. Wherefore, I implore you, powers divine, avert this horror from my daughter, from my child.

[The chorus of captive Trojan women enters.]

Chorus [singing]

Hecuba, I have hastened away to thee, leaving my master’s tent, where the lot assigned me as his appointed slave, in the day that was driven from the city of Ilium, hunted by Achaeans thence at the point of the spear; no alleviation bring I for thy sufferings; nay have laden myself with heavy news, and am a herald of sorrow to thee, lady. ‘Tis said the Achaeans have determined in full assembly to offer thy daughter in sacrifice to Achilles; for thou knowest how one day he appeared standing on his tomb in golden harness, and stayed the sea-borne barques, though they had their sails already hoisted, with this pealing cry, “Whither away so fast, ye Danai, leaving my tomb without its prize?” Thereon arose a violent dispute with stormy altercation, and opinion was divided in the warrior host of Hellas, some being in favour of offering the sacrifice at the tomb, others dissenting. There was Agamemnon, all eagerness in thy interest, because of his love for the frenzied prophetess; but the two sons of Theseus, scions of Athens, though supporting different proposals, yet agreed on the same decision, which was to crown Achilles’ tomb with fresh-spilt blood; for they said they never would set Cassandra’s love before Achilles’ valour. Now the zeal of the rival disputants was almost equal, until that shifty, smooth-mouthed varlet, the son of Laertes, whose tongue is ever at the service of the mob, persuaded the army not to put aside the best of all the Danai for want of a bond-maid’s sacrifice, nor have it said by any of the dead that stand beside Persephone, “The Danai have left the plains of Troy without one thought of gratitude for their brethren who died for Hellas.” Odysseus will be here in an instant, to drag the tender maiden from thy breast and tear her from thy aged arms. To the temples, to the altars with thee! at Agamemnon’s knees throw thyself as a suppliant! Invoke alike the gods in heaven and those beneath the earth. For either shall thy prayers avail to spare thee the loss of thy unhappy child, or thou must live to see thy daughter fall before the tomb, her crimson blood spurting in deep dark jets from her neck with gold encircled.

[The following lines between Hecuba and Polyxena are chanted responsively.]

Hecuba

Woe, woe is me! What words, or cries, or lamentations can I utter? Ah me! for the sorrows of my closing years! for slavery too cruel to brook or bear! Woe, woe is me! What champion have I? Sons, and city — where are they? Aged Priam is no more; no more my children now. Which way am I to go, or this or that? Whither shall I turn my steps? Where is any god or power divine to succour me? Ah, Trojan maids! bringers of evil tidings! messengers of woe! ye have made an end, an utter end of me; life on earth has no more charm for me. Ah! luckless steps, lead on, guide your aged mistress to yon tent.

[calling] My child, come forth; come forth, thou daughter of the queen of sorrows; listen to thy mother’s voice, my child, that thou mayst know the hideous rumour I now hear about thy life.

[Polyxena enters from the tent.]

Polyxena

O mother, mother mine! why dost thou call so loud? what news is it thou hast proclaimed, scaring me, like a cowering bird, from my chamber by this alarm?

Hecuba

Alas, my daughter!

Polyxena

Why this ominous address? it bodeth sorrow for me.

Hecuba

Woe for thy life!

Polyxena

Tell all, hide it no longer. Ah mother! how I dread, ay dread the import of thy loud laments.

Hecuba

Ah my daughter! a luckless mother’s child!

Polyxena

Why dost thou tell me this?

Hecuba

The Argives with one consent are eager for thy sacrifice to the son of Peleus at his tomb.

Polyxena

Ah! mother mine! how canst thou speak of such a horror? Yet tell me all, yes all, O mother dear!

Hecuba

‘Tis a rumour ill-boding I tell, my child; they bring me word that sentence is passed upon thy life by the Argives’ vote.

Polyxena

Alas, for thy cruel sufferings! my persecuted mother! woe for thy life of grief! What grievous outrage some fiend hath sent on thee, hateful, horrible! No more shall I thy daughter share thy bondage, hapless youth on hapless age attending. For thou, alas! wilt see thy hapless child torn from thy arms, as a calf of the hills is torn from its mother, and sent beneath the darkness of the earth with severed throat for Hades, where with the dead shall I be laid, ah me! For thee I weep with plaintive wail, mother doomed to a life of sorrow! for my own life, its ruin and its outrage, never a tear I shed; nay, death is become to me a happier lot than life.

Leader of the chorus

See where Odysseus comes in haste, to announce some fresh command to thee, Hecuba.

[Odysseus enters, with his attendants.]

Odysseus Lady, methinks thou knowest already the intention of the host, and the vote that has been passed; still will I declare it. It is the Achaeans’ will to sacrifice thy daughter Polyxena at the mound heaped o’er Achilles’ grave; and they appoint me to take the maid and bring her thither, while the son of Achilles is chosen to preside o’er the sacrifice and act as priest. Dost know then what to do? Be not forcibly torn from her, nor match thy might ‘gainst mine; recognize the limits of thy strength, and the presence of thy troubles. Even in adversity ‘tis wise to yield to reason’s dictates.

Hecuba

Ah me! an awful trial is nigh, it seems, fraught with mourning, rich in tears. Yes, I too escaped death where death had been my due, and Zeus destroyed me not but is still preserving my life, that I may witness in my misery fresh sorrows surpassing all before. Still if the bond may ask the free of things that grieve them not nor wrench their heart-strings, ‘tis well that thou shouldst make an end and hearken to my questioning.

Odysseus

Granted; put thy questions; that short delay I grudge thee not.

Hecuba

Dost remember the day thou camest to spy on Ilium, disguised in rags and tatters, while down thy cheek ran drops of blood?

Odysseus

Remember it! yes; ‘twas no slight impression it made upon my heart.

Hecuba

Did Helen recognize thee and tell me only?

Odysseus

I well remember the awful risk I ran.

Hecuba

Didst thou embrace my knees in all humility?

Odysseus

Yea, so that my hand grew dead and cold upon thy robe.

Hecuba

What saidst thou then, when in my power?

Odysseus

Doubtless I found plenty to say, to save my life.

Hecuba

Was it I that saved and sent thee forth again?

Odysseus

Thou didst, and so I still behold the light of day.

Hecuba

Art not thou then playing a sorry part to plot against me thus, after the kind treatment thou didst by thy own confession receive from me, showing me no gratitude but all the ill thou canst? A thankless race! all ye who covet honour from the mob for your oratory. Oh that ye were unknown to me ye who harm your friends and think no more of it, if ye can but say a word to win the mob. But tell me, what kind of cleverness did they think it, when against this child they passed their bloody vote? Was it duty led them to slay a human victim at the tomb, where sacrifice of oxen more befits? or does Achilles, if claiming the lives of those who slew him as his recompense, show his justice by marking her out for death? No! she at least ne’er injured him. He should have demanded Helen as a victim at his tomb, for she it was that proved his ruin, bringing him to Troy; or if some captive of surpassing beauty was to be singled out for doom, this pointed not to us; for the daughter of Tyndareus was fairer than all womankind, and her injury to him was proved no les than ours. Against the justice of his plea I pit this argument. Now hear the recompense due from thee to me at my request. On thy own confession, thou didst fall at my feet and embrace my hand and aged cheek; I in my turn now do the same to thee, and claim the favour then bestowed; and I implore thee, tear not my child from my arms, nor slay her. There be dead enough; she is my only joy, in her I forget my sorrows; My one comfort she in place of many a loss, my city and my nurse, my staff and journey’s guide. ‘Tis never right that those in power should use it out of season, or when prosperous suppose they will be always so. For I like them was prosperous once, but now my life is lived, and one day robbed me of all my bliss. Friend, by thy beard, have some regard and pity for me; go to Achaea’s host, and talk them over, saying how hateful a thing it is to slay women whom at first ye spared out of pity, after dragging them from the altars. For amongst you the self-same law holds good for bond and free alike respecting bloodshed; such influence as thine will persuade them even though thy words are weak; for the same argument, when proceeding from those of no account, has not the same force as when it is uttered by men of mark.

Leader

Human nature is not so stony-hearted as to hear thy plaintive tale and catalogue of sorrows, without shedding a tear.

Odysseus

O Hecuba! be schooled by me, nor in thy passion count him a foe who speaketh wisely. Thy life I am prepared to save, for the service I received; I say no otherwise. But what I said to all, I will not now deny, that after Troy’s capture I would give thy daughter to the chiefest of our host because he asked a victim. For herein is a source of weakness to most states, whene’er a man of brave and generous soul receives no greater honour than his inferiors. Now Achilles, lady, deserves honour at our hands, since for Hellas he died as nobly as a mortal can. Is not this a foul reproach to treat a man as a friend in life, but, when he is gone from us, to treat him so no more? How now? what will they say, if once more there comes gathering of the host and a contest with the foe? “Shall we fight or nurse our lives, seeing the dead have no honours?” For myself, indeed, though in life my daily store were scant, yet would it be all-sufficient, but as touching a tomb I should wish mine to be an object of respect, for this gratitude has long to run. Thou speakest of cruel sufferings; hear my answer. Amongst us are aged dames and grey old men no less miserable than thou, and brides of gallant husbands reft, o’er whom this Trojan dust has closed. Endure these sorrows; for us, if we are wrong in resolving to honour the brave, we shall bring upon ourselves a charge of ignorance; but as for you barbarians, regard not your friends as such and pay no homage to your gallant dead, that Hellas may prosper and ye may reap the fruits of such policy.

Leader

Alas! how cursed is slavery alway in its nature, forced by the might of the stronger to endure unseemly treatment.

Hecuba

Daughter, my pleading to avert thy bloody death was wasted idly on the air; do thou, if in aught endowed with greater power to move than thy mother, make haste to use it, uttering every pleading note like the tuneful nightingale, to save thy soul from death. Throw thyself at Odysseus’ knees to move his pity, and try to move him. Here is thy plea: he to hath children, so that he can feel for thy sad fate.

Polyxena

Odysseus, I see thee hiding thy right hand beneath thy robe and turning away thy face, that I may not touch thy beard. Take heart; thou art safe from the suppliant’s god in my case, for I will follow thee, alike because I must and because it is my wish to die; for were I loth, a coward should I show myself, a woman faint of heart. Why should I prolong my days? I whose sire was king of all the Phrygians? — my chiefest pride in life, Then was I nursed on fair fond hopes to be a bride for kings, the centre of keen jealousy amongst suitors, to see whose home I would make my own; and o’er each dame of Ida I was queen; ah me! a maiden marked amid her fellows, equal to a goddess, save for death alone, but now slave! That name first makes me long for death, so strange it sounds; and then maybe my lot might give me to some savage master, one that would buy me for money, — me the sister of Hector and many another chief, — who would make me knead him bread within his halls, or sweep his house or set me working at the loom, leading a life of misery; while some slave, bought I know not whence, will taint my maiden charms, once deemed worthy of royalty. No, never! Here I close my eyes upon the light, free as yet, and dedicate myself to Hades. Lead me hence, Odysseus, and do thy worst, for I see naught within my reach to make me hope or expect with any confidence that I am ever again to be happy. Mother mine! seek not to hinder me by word or deed, but join in my wish for death ere I meet with shameful treatment undeserved. For whoso is not used to taste of sorrow’s cup, though he bears it, yet it galls him when he puts his neck within the yoke; far happier would he be dead than alive, for life of honour reft is toil and trouble.

Leader

A wondrous mark, most clearly stamped, doth noble birth imprint on men, and the name goeth still further where it is deserved.

Hecuba

A noble speech, my daughter! but there is sorrow linked with its noble sentiments.

Odysseus, if ye must pleasure the son of Peleus, and avoid reproach, slay not this maid, but lead me to Achilles’ pyre and torture me unsparingly: ‘twas I that bore Paris, whose fatal shaft laid low the son of Thetis.

Odysseus

‘Tis not thy death, old dame, Achilles’ wraith hath demanded of the Achaeans, but hers.

Hecuba

At least then slaughter me with my child; so shall there be a double draught of blood for the earth and the dead that claims this sacrifice.

Odysseus

The maiden’s death suffices; no need to add a second to the first; would we needed not e’en this!

Hecuba

Die with my daughter I must and will.

Odysseus

How so? I did not know I had a master.

Hecuba

I will cling to her like ivy to an oak.

Odysseus

Not if thou wilt hearken to those who are wiser than thyself.

Hecuba

Be sure I will never willingly relinquish my child.

Odysseus

Well, be equally sure I will never go away and leave her here.

Polyxena

Mother, hearken to me; and thou, son of Laertes, make allowance for a parent’s natural wrath. My poor mother, fight not with our masters. Wilt thou be thrown down, be roughly thrust aside and wound thy aged skin, and in unseemly wise be torn from me by youthful arms? This wilt thou suffer; do not so, for ‘tis not right for thee. Nay, dear mother mine give me thy hand beloved, and let me press thy cheek to mine; for never, nevermore, but now for the last time shall I behold the dazzling sun-god’s orb. My last farewells now take! O mother, mother mine! beneath the earth I pass.

Hecuba

O my daughter, I am still to live and be a slave.

Polyxena

Unwedded I depart, never having tasted the married joys that were my due!

Hecuba

Thine, my daughter, is a piteous lot, and sad is mine also.

Polyxena

There in Hades’ courts shall I be laid apart from thee.

Hecuba

Ah me, what shall I do? where shall I end my life?

Polyxena

Daughter of a free-born sire, a slave I am to die.

Hecuba

Not one of all my fifty children left!

Polyxena

What message can I take for thee to Hector or thy aged lord?

Hecuba

Tell them that of all women I am the most miserable.

Polyxena

Ah! bosom and breasts that fed me with sweet food!

Hecuba

Woe is thee, my child, for this untimely fate!

Polyxena

Farewell, my mother! farewell, Cassandra!

Hecuba

“Fare well!” others do, but not thy mother, no!

Polyxena

Thou too, my brother Polydorus, who art in Thrace, the home of steeds!

Hecuba

Aye, if he lives, which much I doubt; so luckless am I every way.

Polyxena

Oh yes, he lives; and, when thou diest, he will close thine eyes.

Hecuba

I am dead; sorrow has forestalled death here.

Polyxena

Come veil my head, Odysseus, and take me hence; for now, ere falls the fatal blow, my heart is melted by my mother’s wailing, and hers no less by mine. O light of day! for still may I call thee by thy name, though now my share in thee is but the time I take to go ‘twixt this and the sword at Achilles’ tomb.

[Odysseus and his attendants lead Polyxena away.]

Hecuba

Woe is me! I faint; my limbs sink under me. O my daughter, embrace thy mother, stretch out thy hand, give it me again; leave me not childless! Ah, friends! ‘tis my death-blow. Oh! to see that Spartan woman, Helen, sister of the sons of Zeus, in such a plight; for her bright eyes have caused the shameful fall of Troy’s once prosperous town.

[Hecuba sinks fainting to the ground.]

Chorus [singing]

O breeze from out the deep arising, that waftest swift galleys, ocean’s coursers, across the surging main! whither wilt thou bear me the child of sorrow? To whose house shall I be brought, to be his slave and chattel? to some haven in the Dorian land, or in Phthia, where men say Apidanus, father of fairest streams, makes fat and rich the tilth? or to an island home, sent on a voyage of misery by oars that sweep the brine, leading a wretched existence in halls where the first-created palm and the bay-tree put forth their sacred shoots for dear Latona, memorial fair of her divine travail? and there with the maids of Delos shall I hymn the golden snood and bow of Artemis their goddess?

Or in the city of Pallas, the home of Athena of the beauteous chariot, shall I upon her saffron robe yoke horses to the car, embroidering them on my web in brilliant varied shades, or the race of Titans, whom Zeus the son of Cronos lays to their unending sleep with bolt of flashing flame?

Woe is me for my children! woe for my ancestors, and my country which is falling in smouldering ruin ‘mid the smoke, sacked by the Argive spear! while I upon a foreign shore am called a slave for-sooth, leaving Asia, Europe’s handmaid, and receiving in its place deadly marriage-bower.

[The herald, Talthybius, enters.]

Talthybius

Where can I find Hecuba, who once was queen of Ilium, ye Trojan maidens?

Leader of the chorus

There she lies near thee, Talthybius, stretched full length upon the ground, wrapt in her robe.

Talthybius

Great Zeus! what can I say? that thine eye is over man? or that we hold this false opinion all to no purpose, thinking there is any race of gods, when it is chance that rules the mortal sphere? Was not this the queen of wealthy Phrygia, the wife of Priam highly blest? And now her city is utterly o’erthrown by the foe, and she, a slave in her old age, her children dead, lies stretched upon the ground, soiling her hair, poor lady in the dust. Well, well; old as I am, may death be my lot before I am caught in any foul mischance. Arise, poor queen! lift up thyself and raise that hoary head.

Hecuba [stirring]

Ah! who art thou that wilt not let my body rest? why disturb me in my anguish, whosoe’er thou art?

Talthybius

‘Tis I, Talthybius, who am here, the minister of the Danai; Agamemnon has sent me for thee, lady.

Hecuba [rising]

Good friend, art come because the Achaeans are resolved to slay me to at the grave? How welcome would thy tidings be! Let us hasten and lose no time; prithee, lead the way, old sir.

Talthybius

I am come to fetch thee to bury thy daughter’s corpse, lady; and those that send me are the two sons of Atreus and the Achaean host.

Hecuba

Ah! what wilt thou say? Art thou not come, as I had thought, to fetch me to my doom, but to announce ill news? Lost, lost, my child! snatched from thy mother’s arms! and I am childless now, at least as touches thee; ah, woe is me!

How did ye end her life? was any mercy shown? or did ye deal ruthlessly with her as though your victim were a foe, old man? Speak, though thy words must be pain to me.

Talthybius

Lady, thou art bent on making mine a double meed of tears in pity for thy child; for now too as I tell the sad tale a tear will wet my eye, as it did at the tomb when she was dying.

All Achaea’s host was gathered there in full array before the tomb to see thy daughter offered; and the son of Achilles took Polyxena by the hand and set her on the top of the mound, while I stood near; and a chosen band of young Achaeans followed to hold thy child and prevent her struggling. Then did Achilles’ son take in his hands a brimming cup of gold and poured an offering to his dead sire, making a sign to me to proclaim silence throughout the Achaean host. So I stood at his side and in their midst proclaimed, “Silence, ye Achaeans! hushed be the people all! peace! be still! “Therewith I hushed the host. Then spake he, “Son of Peleus, father mine, accept the offering I pour thee to appease thy spirit, strong to raise the dead; and come to drink the black blood of a virgin pure, which I and the host are offering thee; oh! be propitious to us; grant that we may loose our prows and the cables of our ships, and, meeting with prosperous voyage from Ilium, all to our country come.” So he; and all the army echoed his prayer. Then seizing his golden sword by the hilt he drew it from its scabbard, signing the while to the picked young Argive warriors to hold the maid. But she, when she was ware thereof, uttered her voice and said: “O Argives, who have sacked my city! of my free will I die; let none lay hand on me; for bravely will I yield my neck. Leave me free, I do beseech; so slay me, that death may find me free; for to be called a slave amongst the dead fills my royal heart with shame.” Thereat the people shouted their applause, and king Agamemnon bade the young men loose the maid. So they set her free, as soon as they heard this last command from him whose might was over all. And she, hearing her captors’ words took her robe and tore it open from the shoulder to the waist, displaying a breast and bosom fair as a statue’s; then sinking on her knee, one word she spake more piteous than all the rest, “Young prince, if ‘tis my breast thou’dst strike, lo! here it is, strike home! or if at my neck thy sword thou’lt aim, behold! that neck is bared.”

Then he, half glad, half sorry in his pity for the maid, cleft with the steel the channels of her breath, and streams of blood gushed forth; but she, e’en in death’s agony, took good heed to fall with maiden grace, hiding from gaze of man what modest maiden must. Soon as she had breathed her last through the fatal gash, each Argive set his hand to different tasks, some strewing leaves o’er the corpse in handfuls, others bringing pine-logs and heaping up a pyre; and he, who brought nothing, would hear from him who did such taunts as these, “Stand’st thou still, ignoble wretch, with never a robe or ornament to bring for the maiden? Wilt thou give naught to her that showed such peerless bravery and spirit?”

Such is the tale I tell about thy daughter’s death, and I regard thee as blest beyond all mothers in thy noble child, yet crossed in fortune more than all.

Leader

Upon the race of Priam and my city some fearful curse hath burst; ‘tis sent by God, and we must bear it.

Hecuba

O my daughter! ‘mid this crowd of sorrows I know not where to turn my gaze; for if I set myself to one, another will not give me pause; while from this again a fresh grief summons me, finding a successor to sorrow’s throne. No longer now can I efface from my mind the memory of thy sufferings sufficiently to stay my tears; yet hath the story of thy noble death taken from the keenness of my grief. Is it not then strange that poor land, when blessed by heaven with a lucky year, yields a good crop, while that which is good, if robbed of needful care, bears but little increase; yet ‘mongst men the knave is never other than a knave, the good man aught but good, never changing for the worse because of misfortune, but ever the same? Is then the difference due to birth or bringing up? Good training doubtless gives lessons in good conduct, and if a man have mastered this, he knows what is base by the standard of good. Random shafts of my soul’s shooting these, I know.

[To Talthybius] Go thou and proclaim to the Argives that they touch not my daughter’s body but keep the crowd away. For when countless host is gathered, the mob knows no restraint, and the unruliness of sailors exceeds that of fire, all abstinence from evil being counted evil. [Talthybius goes out.]

[Addressing a servant] My aged handmaid, take a pitcher and dip it in the salt sea and bring hither thereof, that I for the last time may wash my child, a virgin wife, a widowed maid, and lay her out, — as she deserves, ah! whence can I? impossible! but as best I can; and what will that be? I will collect adornment from the captives, my companions in these tents, if haply any of them escaping her master’s eye have some secret store from her old home.

[The maid departs.] O towering halls, O home so happy once, O Priam, rich in store of fairest wealth, most blest of sires, and I no less, the grey-haired mother of thy race, how are we brought to naught, stripped of our former pride! And spite of all we vaunt ourselves, one on the riches of his house, another be, cause he has an honoured name amongst his fellow-citizens! But these things are naught; in vain are all our thoughtful schemes, in vain our vaunting words. He is happiest who meets no sorrow in his daily walk.

[Hecuba enters the tent.]

Chorus [singing]

Woe and tribulation were made my lot in life, soon as ever Paris felled his beams of pine in Ida’s woods, to sail across the heaving main in quest of Helen’s hand, fairest bride on whom the sun-god turns his golden eye.

For here beginneth trouble’s cycle, and, worse than that, relentless fate; and from one man’s folly came a universal curse, bringing death to the land of Simois, with trouble from an alien shore. The strife the shepherd decided on Ida ‘twixt three daughters of the blessed gods, brought as its result war and bloodshed and the ruin of my home; and many a Spartan maiden too is weeping bitter tears in her halls on the banks of fair Eurotas, and many a mother whose sons are slain, is smiting her hoary head and tearing her cheeks, making her nails red in the furrowed gash.

Maid [entering excitedly, attended by bearers bringing in a covered corpse]

Oh! where, ladies, is Hecuba, our queen of sorrow, who far surpasses all in tribulation, men and women both alike? None shall wrest the crown from her.

Leader of the chorus

What now, thou wretched bird of boding note? Thy evil tidings never seem to rest.

Maid

‘Tis to Hecuba I bring my bitter news; no easy task is it for mortal lips to speak smooth words in sorrow’s hour.

Leader

Lo! she is coming even now from the shelter of the tent appearing just in time to hear thee speak.

[Hecuba comes out of the tent.]

Maid

Alas for thee! most hapless queen, ruined beyond all words of mine to tell; robbed of the light of life; of children, husband, city reft; hopelessly undone!

Hecuba

This is no news but insult; I have heard it all before. But why art thou come, bringing hither to me the corpse of Polyxena, on whose burial Achaea’s host was reported to be busily engaged?

Maid [aside]

She little knows what I have to tell, but mourns Polyxena, not grasping her new sorrows.

Hecuba

Ah! woe is me! thou art not surely bringing hither mad Cassandra, the prophetic maid?

Maid

She lives, of whom thou speakest; but the dead thou dost not weep is here. [Uncovering the corpse] Mark well the body now laid bare; is not this a sight to fill thee with wonder, and upset thy hopes?

Hecuba

Ah me! ‘tis the corpse of my son Polydorus I behold, whom he of Thrace was keeping safe for me in his halls. Alas! this is the end of all; my life is o’er.

[Chanting] O my son, my son, alas for thee! a frantic strain I now begin; thy fate I learnt, a moment gone, from some foul fiend.

Maid

What! so thou knewest thy son’s fate, poor lady.

Hecuba [chanting]

I cannot, cannot credit this fresh sight I see. Woe succeeds to woe; time will never cease henceforth to bring me groans and tears.

Leader

Alas poor lady, our sufferings are cruel indeed.

Hecuba [chanting]

O my son, child of a luckless mother, what was the manner of thy death? what lays thee dead at my feet? Who did the deed?

Maid

I know not. On the sea-shore I found him.

Hecuba [chanting]

Cast up on the smooth sand, or thrown there after the murderous blow?

Maid

The waves had washed him ashore.

Hecuba [chanting]

Alas! alas! I read aright the vision I saw in my sleep, nor did the phantom dusky-winged escape my ken, even the vision I saw concerning my son, who is now no more within the bright sunshine.

Leader

Who slew him then? Can thy dream-lore tell us that?

Hecuba [chanting]

‘Twas my own, own friend, the knight of Thrace, with whom his aged sire had placed the boy in hiding.

Leader

O horror! what wilt thou say? did he slay him to get the gold?

Hecuba [chanting]

O awful crime! O deed without a name! beggaring wonder! impious! intolerable! Where are now the laws ‘twixt guest and host? Accursed monster! how hast thou mangled his flesh, slashing the poor child’s limbs with ruthless sword, lost to all sense of pity!

Leader

Alas for thee! how some deity, whose hand is heavy on thee, hath sent thee troubles beyond all other mortals! But yonder I see our lord and master Agamemnon coming; so let us be still henceforth, my friends.

[Agamemnon enters.]

Agamemnon

Hecuba, why art thou delaying to come and bury thy daughter? for it was for this that Talthybius brought me thy message begging that none of the Argives should touch thy child. And so I granted this, and none is touching her, but this long delay of thine fills me with wonder. Wherefore am I come to send thee hence; for our part there is well performed; if herein there be any place for “well.”

[He sees the body.] Ha! what man is this I see near the tents, some Trojan’s corpse? ‘tis not an Argive’s body; that the garments it is clad in tell me.

Hecuba [aside]

Unhappy one! in naming thee I name myself; O Hecuba, what shall do? throw myself here at Agamemnon’s knees, or bear my sorrows in silence?

Agamemnon

Why dost thou turn thy back towards me and weep, refusing to say, what has happened, or who this is?

Hecuba [aside]

But should he count me as a slave and foe and spurn me from his knees, I should but add to my anguish.

Agamemnon

I am no prophet born; wherefore, if I be not told, I cannot learn the current of thy thoughts.

Hecuba [aside]

Can it be that in estimating this man’s feelings I make him out too ill-disposed, when he is not really so?

Agamemnon

If thy wish really is that I should remain in ignorance, we are of one mind; for I have no wish myself to listen.

Hecuba [aside]

Without his aid I shall not be able to avenge my children. Why do still ponder the matter? I must do and dare whether I win or lose. [Turning to Agamemnon] O Agamemnon! by thy knees, by thy beard and conquering hand I implore thee.

Agamemnon

What is thy desire? to be set free? that is easily done.

Hecuba

Not that; give me vengeance on the wicked, and evermore am I willing to lead a life of slavery.

Agamemnon

Well, but why dost thou call me to thy aid?

Hecuba

‘Tis a matter thou little reckest of, O king. Dost see this corpse, for whom my tears now flow?

Agamemnon

I do; but what is to follow, I cannot guess.

Hecuba

He was my child in days gone by; I bore him in my womb.

Agamemnon

Which of thy sons is he, poor sufferer?

Hecuba

Not one of Priam’s race who fell ‘neath Ilium’s walls.

Agamemnon

Hadst thou any son besides those, lady?

Hecuba

Yes, him thou seest here, of whom, methinks, I have small gain.

Agamemnon

Where then was he, when his city was being destroyed?

Hecuba

His father, fearful of his death, conveyed him out of Troy.

Agamemnon

Where did he place him apart from all the sons he then had?

Hecuba

Here in this very land, where his corpse was found.

Agamemnon

With Polymestor, the king of this country?

Hecuba

Hither was he sent in charge of gold, most bitter trust!

Agamemnon

By whom was he slain? what death o’ertook him?

Hecuba

By whom but by this man? His Thracian host slew him.

Agamemnon

The wretch! could he have been so eager for the treasure?

Hecuba

Even so; soon as ever he heard of the Phrygians’ disaster.

Agamemnon

Where didst find him? or did some one bring his corpse?

Hecuba

This maid, who chanced upon it on the sea-shore.

Agamemnon

Was she seeking it, or bent on other tasks?

Hecuba

She had gone to fetch water from the sea to wash Polyxena.

Agamemnon

It seems then his host slew him and cast his body out to sea.

Hecuba

Aye, for the waves to toss, after mangling him thus.

Agamemnon

Woe is thee for thy measureless troubles!

Hecuba

I am ruined; no evil now is left, O Agamemnon.

Agamemnon

Look you! what woman was ever born to such misfortune?

Hecuba

There is none, unless thou wouldst name misfortune herself. But hear my reason for throwing myself at thy knees. If my treatment seems to thee deserved, I will be content; but, if otherwise, help me to punish this most godless host, that hath wrought a deed most damned, fearless alike of gods in heaven or hell; who, though full oft he had shared my board and been counted first of all my guest-friends and after meeting with every kindness he could claim and receiving my consideration, slew my son, and bent though he was on murder, deigned not to bury him but cast his body forth to sea.

I may be a slave and weak as well, but the gods are strong, and custom too which prevails o’er them, for by custom it is that we believe in them and set up bounds of right and wrong for our lives. Now if this principle, when referred to thee, is to be set at naught, and they are to escape punishment who murder guests or dare to plunder the temples of gods, then is all fairness in things human at an end. Deem this then a disgrace and show regard for me, have pity on me, and, like an artist standing back from his picture, look on me and closely scan my piteous state. I was once queen, but now I am thy slave; a happy mother once, but now childless and old alike, reft of city, utterly forlorn, the most wretched woman living. Ah! woe is me! whither wouldst thou withdraw thy steps from me? [as Agamemnon is turning away] My efforts then will be in vain, ah me! ah me! Why, oh! why do we mortals toil, as needs we must, and seek out all other sciences, but persuasion, the only real mistress of mankind, we take no furthur pains to master completely by offering to pay for the knowledge, so that any man might upon occasion convince his fellows as he pleased and gain his point as well? How shall anyone hereafter hope for prosperity? All those my sons are gone from me, and I, their mother, am led away into captivity to suffer shame, while yonder I see the smoke leaping up o’er my city. Further-though perhaps this were idly urged, to plead thy love, still will I put the case: — at thy side lies my daughter, Cassandra, the maid inspired, as the Phrygians call her. How then, king, wilt thou acknowledge those nights of rapture, or what return shall she my daughter or I her mother have for all the love she has lavished on her lord? For from darkness and the endearments of the night mortals reap by far their keenest joys. Hearken then; dost see this corpse? By doing him a service thou wilt do it to a kinsman of thy bride’s. One thing only have I yet to urge. Oh! would I had a voice in arms, in hands, in hair and feet, placed there by the arts of Daedalus or some god, that all together they might with tears embrace thy knees, bringing a thousand pleas to bear on thee! O my lord and master, most glorious light of Hellas, listen, stretch forth a helping hand to this aged woman, for all she is a thing of naught; still do so. For ‘tis ever a good man’s duty to succour the right, and to punish evil-doers wherever found.

Leader

‘Tis strange how each extreme doth meet in human life! Custom determines even our natural ties, making the most bitter foes friends, and regarding as foes those who formerly were friends.

Agamemnon

Hecuba, I feel compassion for thee and thy son and thy ill-fortune, as well as for thy suppliant gesture, and I would gladly see yon impious host pay thee this forfeit for the sake of heaven and justice, could I but find some way to help thee without appearing to the army to have plotted the death of the Thracian king for Cassandra’s sake. For on one point I am assailed by perplexity; the army count this man their friend, the dead their foe; that he is dear to thee is a matter apart, wherein the army has no share. Reflect on this; for though thou find’st me ready to share thy toil and quick to lend my aid, yet the risk of being reproached by the Achaeans makes me hesitate.

Hecuba

Ah! there is not in the world a single man free; for he is either a slave to money or to fortune, or else the people in their thousands or the fear of public prosecution prevents him from following the dictates of his heart.

But since thou art afraid, deferring too much to the rabble, I will rid thee of that fear. Thus; be privy to my plot if I devise mischief against this murderer, but refrain from any share in it. And if there break out among the Achaeans any uproar or attempt at rescue, when the Thracian is suffering his doom, check it, though without seeming to do so for my sake. For what remains, take heart; I will arrange everything well.

Agamemnon

How? what wilt thou do? wilt take a sword in thy old hand and slay the barbarian, or hast thou drugs or what to help thee? Who will take thy part? whence wilt thou procure friends?

Hecuba

Sheltered beneath these tents is a host of Trojan women.

Agamemnon

Dost mean the captives, the booty of the Hellenes?

Hecuba

With their help will I punish my murderous foe.

Agamemnon

How are women to master men?

Hecuba

Numbers are a fearful thing, and joined to craft a desperate foe.

Agamemnon

True; still I have a mean opinion of the female race.

Hecuba

What? did not women slay the sons of Aegyptus, and utterly clear Lemnos of men? But let it be even thus; put an end to our conference, and send this woman for me safely through the host. And do thou [To servant] draw near my Thracian friend and say, “Hecuba, once queen of Ilium, summons thee, on thy own business no less than hers, thy children too, for they also must hear what she has to say.” [The servant goes out.] Defer awhile, Agamemnon, the burial of Polyxena lately slain, that brother and sister may be laid on the same pyre and buried side by side, a double cause of sorrow to their mother.

Agamemnon

So shall it be; yet had the host been able to sail, I could not have granted thee this boon; but, as it is, since the god sends forth no favouring breeze, we needs must abide, seeing, as we do, that sailing cannot be. Good luck to thee! for this is the interest alike of citizen and state, that the wrong-doer be punished and the good man prosper.

[Agamemnon departs as Hecuba withdraws into the tent.]

Chorus [singing]

No more, my native Ilium, shalt thou be counted among the towns ne’er sacked; so thick a cloud of Hellene troops is settling all around, wasting thee with the spear; shorn art thou of thy coronal of towers, and fouled most piteously with filthy soot; no more, ah me! shall tread thy streets.

‘Twas in the middle of the night my ruin came, in the hour when sleep steals sweetly o’er the eyes after the feast is done. My husband, the music o’er, and the sacrifice that sets the dance afoot now ended, was lying in our bridal-chamber, his spear hung on a peg; with never a thought of the sailor-throng encamped upon the Trojan shores; and I was braiding my tresses ‘neath a tight-drawn snood before my golden mirror’s countless rays, that I might lay me down to rest; when lo! through the city rose a din, and a cry went ringing down the streets of Troy, “Ye sons of Hellas, when, oh! when will ye sack the citadel of Ilium, and seek your homes?”

Up sprang I from my bed, with only a mantle about me, like Dorian maid, and sought in vain, ah me! to station myself at the holy hearth of Artemis; for, after seeing my husband slain, I was hurried away o’er the broad sea; with many a backward look at my city, when the ship began her homeward voyage and parted me from Ilium’s strand; till alas! for very grief I fainted, cursing Helen the sister of the Dioscuri, and Paris the baleful shepherd of Ida; for ‘twas their marriage, which was no marriage but a curse by some demon sent, that robbed me of my country and drove me from my home. Oh! may the sea’s salt flood neer carry her home again; and may she never set foot in her father’s halls!

[Hecuba comes out of the tent as Polymestor, his children and guards enter.]

Polymestor

My dear friend Priam, and thou no less, Hecuba, I weep to see thee and thy city thus, and thy daughter lately slain. Alas! there is naught to be relied on; fair fame is insecure, nor is there any guarantee that weal will not be turned to woe. For the gods confound our fortunes, tossing them to and fro, and introduce confusion, that our perplexity may make us worship them. But what boots it to bemoan these things, when it brings one no nearer to heading the trouble? If thou art blaming me at all for my absence, stay a moment; I was away in the very heart of Thrace when thou wast brought hither; but on my return, just as I was starting from my home for the same purpose, thy maid fell in with me, and gave me thy message, which brought me here at once.

Hecuba

Polymestor, I am holden in such wretched plight that I blush to meet thine eye; for my present evil case makes me ashamed to face thee who didst see me in happier days, and I cannot look on thee with unfaltering gaze. Do not then think it ill-will on my part, Polymestor; there is another cause as well, I mean the custom which forbids women to meet men’s gaze.

Polymestor

No wonder, surely. But what need hast thou of me? Why didst send for me to come hither from my house?

Hecuba

I wish to tell thee and thy children a private matter of my own; prithee, bid thy attendants withdraw from the tent.

Polymestor [to his Attendants]

Retire; this desert spot is safe enough. [The guards go out; to Hecuba] Thou art my friend, and this Achaean host is well-disposed to me. But thou must tell me how prosperity is to succour its unlucky friends; for ready am I to do so.

Hecuba

First tell me of the child Polydorus, whom thou art keeping in thy halls, received from me and his father; is he yet alive? The rest will I ask thee after that.

Polymestor

Yes, thou still hast a share in fortune there.

Hecuba

Well said, dear friend! how worthy of thee!

Polymestor

What next wouldst learn of me?

Hecuba

Hath he any recollection of me his mother?

Polymestor

Aye, he was longing to steal away hither to thee.

Hecuba

Is the gold safe, which he brought with him from Troy?

Polymestor

Safe under lock and key in my halls.

Hecuba

There keep it, but covet not thy neighbour’s goods.

Polymestor

Not I; God grant me luck of what I have, lady!

Hecuba

Dost know what I wish to say to thee and thy children?

Polymestor

Not yet; thy words maybe will declare it.

Hecuba

May it grow as dear to thee as thou now art to me!

Polymestor

What is it that I and my children are to learn?

Hecuba

There be ancient vaults filled full of gold by Priam’s line.

Polymestor

Is it this thou wouldst tell thy son?

Hecuba

Yes, by thy lips, for thou art a righteous man.

Polymestor

What need then of these children’s presence?

Hecuba

‘Tis better they should know it, in case of thy death.

Polymestor

True; ‘tis also the wiser way.

Hecuba

Well, dost thou know where stands the shrine of Trojan Athena?

Polymestor

Is the gold there? what is there to mark it?

Hecuba

A black rock rising above the ground.

Polymestor

Is there aught else thou wouldst tell me about the place?

Hecuba

I wish to keep safe the treasure I brought from Troy.

Polymestor

Where can it be? inside thy dress, or hast thou it hidden?

Hecuba

‘Tis safe amid a heap of spoils within these tents.

Polymestor

Where? This is the station built by the Achaeans to surround their fleet.

Hecuba

The captive women have huts of their own.

Polymestor

It is safe to enter? are there no men about?

Hecuba

There are no Achaeans within; we are alone. Enter then the tent, for the Argives are eager to set sail from Troy for home; and, when thou hast accomplished all that is appointed thee, thou shalt return with thy children to that bourn where thou hast lodged my son.

[Hecuba leads Polymestor and his children into the tent.]

Chorus [chanting]

Not yet hast thou paid the penalty, but maybe thou yet wilt; like one who slips and falls into the surge with no haven near, so shalt thou lose thy own life for the life thou hast taken. For where the rights of justice and the law of heaven are one, there is ruin fraught with death and doom. Thy hopes of this journey shall cheat thee, for it hath led thee, unhappy wretch! to the halls of death; and to no warrior’s hand shalt thou resign thy life.

Polymestor [within the tent]

O horror! I am blinded of the light of my eyes, ah me!

Leader of the chorus

Heard ye, friends, that Thracian’s cry of woe?

Polymestor [within]

O horror! horror! my children! O the cruel blow.

Leader

Friends, new ills are brought to pass in yonder tent.

Polymestor [within]

Nay, ye shall never escape for all your hurried flight; for with my fist will I burst open the inmost recesses of this hall.

Leader

Hark! how he launches ponderous blows! Shall we force an entry? The crisis calls on us to aid Hecuba and the Trojan women.

[Hecuba enters, calling back into the tent.]

Hecuba Strike on, spare not, burst the doors! thou shalt ne’er replace bright vision in thy eyes nor ever see thy children, whom I have slain, alive again.

Leader

What! hast thou foiled the Thracian, and is the stranger in thy power, mistress mine? is all thy threat now brought to pass?

Hecuba

A moment, and thou shalt see him before the tent, his eyes put out, with random step advancing as a blind man must; yea, and the bodies of his two children whom I with my brave daughters of Troy did slay; he hath paid me his forfeit; look where he cometh from the tent. I will withdraw out of his path and stand aloof from the hot fury of this Thracian, my deadly foe.

[Polymestor rushes out. Blood is streaming from his eyes.]

Polymestor [chanting]

Woe is me! whither can I go, where halt, or whither turn? shall crawl upon my hands like a wild four-footed beast on their track? Which path shall I take first, this or that, eager as I am to clutch those Trojan murderesses that have destroyed me? Out upon ye, cursed daughters of Phrygia! to what corner have ye fled cowering before me? O sun-god, would thou couldst heal my bleeding orbs, ridding me of my blindness!

Ha! hush! I catch their stealthy footsteps here. Where can I dart on them and gorge me on their flesh and bones, making for myself wild beasts’ meal, exacting vengeance in requital of their outrage on me? Ah, woe is me! whither am I rushing, leaving my babes unguarded for hell-hounds to mangle, to be murdered and ruthlessly cast forth upon the hills, a feast of blood for dogs? Where shall I stay or turn my steps? where rest? like a ship that lies anchored at sea, so gathering close my linen robe I rush to that chamber of death, to guard my babes.

Leader

Woe is thee! what grievous outrage hath been wreaked on thee! fearful penalty for thy foul deed hath the deity imposed, whoe’er he is whose hand is heavy upon thee.

Polymestor [chanting]

Woe is me! Ho! my Thracian spearmen, clad in mail, a race of knights whom Ares doth inspire! Ho! Achaeans! sons of Atreus ho! to you I loudly call; come hither, in God’s name come! Doth any hearken, or will no man help me? Why do ye delay? Women, captive women have destroyed me. A fearful fate is mine; ah me my hideous outrage! Whither can I turn or go? Shall I take wings and soar aloft to the mansions of the sky, where Orion and Sirius dart from their eyes a flash as of fire, or shall I, in my misery, plunge to Hades’ murky flood?

Leader

‘Tis a venial sin, when a man, suffering from evils too heavy to bear, rids himself of a wretched existence.

[Agamemnon and his retinue enter.]

Agamemnon

Hearing a cry I am come hither; for Echo, child of the mountain-rock, hath sent her voice loud-ringing through the host, causing a tumult. Had I not known that Troy’s towers were levelled by the might of Hellas, this uproar had caused no slight terror.

Polymestor

Best of friends! for by thy voice I know thee, Agamemnon, dost see my piteous state?

Agamemnon

What! hapless Polymestor, who hath stricken thee? who hath reft thine eves of sight, staining the pupils with blood? who hath slain these children? whoe’er he was, fierce must have been his wrath against thee and thy children.

Polymestor

Hecuba, helped by the captive women, hath destroyed me; no! not destroyed, far worse than that.

Agamemnon [addressing Hecuba]

What hast thou to say? Was it thou that didst this deed, as he avers? thou, Hecuba, that hast ventured on this inconceivable daring?

Polymestor

Ha! what is that? is she somewhere near? show me, tell me where, that I may grip her in my hands and rend her limb from limb, bespattering her with gore.

Agamemnon

Ho! madman, what wouldst thou?

Polymestor

By heaven I entreat thee, let me vent on her the fury of my arm.

Agamemnon

Hold! banish that savage spirit from thy heart and plead thy cause, that after hearing thee and her in turn I may fairly decide what reason there is for thy present sufferings.

Polymestor

I will tell my tale. There was a son of Priam, Polydorus, the youngest, a child by Hecuba, whom his father Priam sent to me from Troy to bring up in my halls, suspecting no doubt the fall of Troy. Him I slew; but hear my reason for so doing, to show how cleverly and wisely I had planned. My fear was that if that child were left to be thy enemy, he would re-people Troy and settle it afresh; and the Achaeans, knowing that a son of Priam survived, might bring another expedition against the Phrygian land and harry and lay waste these plains of Thrace hereafter, for the neighbours of Troy to experience the very troubles we were lately suffering, O king. Now Hecuba, having discovered the death of her son, brought me hither on this pretext, saying she would tell me of hidden treasure stored up in Ilium by the race of Priam; and she led me apart with my children into the tent, that none but I might hear her news. So I sat me down on a couch in their midst to rest; for there were many of the Trojan maidens seated there, some on my right hand, some on my left, as it had been beside a friend; and they were praising the weaving of our Thracian handiwork, looking at this robe as they held it up to the light; meantime others examined my Thracian spear and so stripped me of the protection of both. And those that were young mothers were dandling my children in their arms, with loud admiration, as they passed them on from hand to hand to remove them far from their father; and then after their smooth speeches (wouldst thou believe it?) in an instant snatching daggers from some secret place in their dress they stab my children; whilst others, like foes, seized me hand and foot; and if I tried to raise my head, anxious to help my babes, they would clutch me by the hair; while if I stirred my hands, I could do nothing, poor wretch! for the numbers of the women. At last they wrought a fearful deed, worse than what had gone before; for they took their brooches and stabbed the pupils of my hapless eyes, making them gush with blood, and then fled through the chambers; up I sprang like a wild beast in pursuit of the shameless murderesses, searching along each wall with hunter’s care, dealing buffets, spreading ruin. This then is what I have suffered because of my zeal for thee, O Agamemnon, for slaying an enemy of thine. But to spare thee a lengthy speech; if any of the men of former times have spoken ill of women, if any doth so now, or shall do so hereafter, all this in one short sentence will say; for neither land or sea produces a race so pestilent, as whosoever hath had to do with them knows full well.

Leader

Curb thy bold tongue, and do not, because of thy own woes, thus embrace the whole race of women in one reproach; for though some of us, and those a numerous class, deserve to be disliked, there are others amongst us who rank naturally amongst the good.

Hecuba

Never ought words to have outweighed deeds in this world, Agamemnon. No! if a man’s deeds had been good, so should his words have been; if, on the other hand, evil, his words should have betrayed their unsoundness, instead of its being possible at times to give a fair complexion to injustice. There are, ‘tis true, clever persons, who have made a science of this, but their cleverness cannot last for ever; a miserable end awaits them; none ever yet escaped. This is a warning I give thee at the outset. Now will I turn to this fellow, and will give thee thy answer, thou who sayest it was to save Achaea double toil and for Agamemnon’s sake that thou didst slay my son. Nay, villain, in the first place how could the barbarian race ever be friends with Hellas? Impossible, ever. Again, what interest hadst thou to further by thy zeal? was it to form some marriage, or on the score of kin, or, prithee, why? or was it likely that they would sail hither again and destroy thy country’s crops? Whom dost thou expect to persuade into believing that? Wouldst thou but speak the truth, it was the gold that slew my son, and thy greedy spirit. Now tell me this; why, when Troy was victorious, when her ramparts still stood round her, when Priam was alive, and Hector’s warring prospered, why didst thou not, if thou wert really minded to do Agamemnon a service, then slay the child, for thou hadst him in thy palace ‘neath thy care, or bring him with thee alive to the Argives? Instead of this, when our sun was set and the smoke of our city showed it was in the enemy’s power, thou didst murder the guest who had come to thy hearth. Furthermore, to prove thy villainly, hear this; if thou wert really a friend to those Achaeans, thou shouldst have brought the gold, which thou sayst thou art keeping not for thyself but for Agamemnon, and given it to them, for they were in need and had endured a long exile from their native land. Whereas not even now canst thou bring thyself to part with it, but persistest in keeping it in thy palace. Again, hadst thou kept my son safe and sound, as thy duty was, a fair renown would have been thy reward, for it is in trouble’s hour that the good most clearly show their friendship; though prosperity of itself in every case finds friends. Wert thou in need of money and he prosperous, that son of mine would have been as a mighty treasure for thee to draw upon; but now thou hast him no longer to be thy friend, and the benefit of the gold is gone from thee, thy children too are dead, and thyself art in this sorry plight.

To thee, Agamemnon, I say, if thou help this man, thou wilt show thy worthlessness; for thou wilt be serving one devoid of honour or piety, a stranger to the claims of good faith, a wicked host; while I shall say thou delightest in evil-doers, being such an one thyself; but I rail not at my masters.

Leader

Look you! how a good cause ever affords men an opening for a good speech.

Agamemnon

To be judge in a stranger’s troubles goes much against my grain, but still I must; yea, for to take this matter in hand and then put it from me is a shameful course. My opinion, that thou mayst know it, is that it was not for the sake of the Achaeans or me that thou didst slay thy guest, but to keep that gold in thy own house. In thy trouble thou makest a case in thy own interests. Maybe amongst you ‘tis a light thing to murder guests, but with us in Hellas ‘tis a disgrace. How can I escape reproach if I judge the not guilty? I cannot do it. Nay, since thou didst dare thy horrid crime, endure as well its painful consequence.

Polymestor

Woe is me! worsted by a woman and a slave, I am, it seems, to suffer by unworthy hands.

Hecuba

Is it not just for thy atrocious crime?

Polymestor

Ah, my children! ah, my blinded eyes! woe is me!

Hecuba

Dost thou grieve? what of me? thinkst thou I grieve not for my son?

Polymestor

Thou wicked wretch! thy delight is in mocking me.

Hecuba

I am avenged on thee; have I not cause for joy?

Polymestor

The joy will soon cease, in the day when ocean’s flood —

Hecuba

Shall convey me to the shores of Hellas?

Polymestor

Nay, but close o’er thee when thou fallest from the masthead.

Hecuba

Who will force me to take the leap?

Polymestor

Of thy own accord wilt thou climb the ship’s mast.

Hecuba

With wings upon my back, or by what means?

Polymestor

Thou wilt become a dog with bloodshot eyes.

Hecuba

How knowest thou of my transformation?

Polymestor

Dionysus, our Thracian prophet, told me so.

Hecuba

And did he tell thee nothing of thy present trouble?

Polymestor

No; else hadst thou never caught me thus by guile.

Hecuba

Shall I die or live, and so complete my life on earth?

Polymestor

Die shalt thou; and to thy tomb shall be given a name —

Hecuba

Recalling my form, or what wilt thou tell me?

Polymestor

“The hapless hound’s grave,” a mark for mariners.”

Hecuba

‘Tis naught to me, now that thou hast paid me forfeit.

Polymestor

Further, thy daughter Cassandra must die.

Hecuba

I scorn the prophecy! I give it to thee to keep for thyself.

Polymestor

Her shall the wife of Agamemnon, grim keeper of his palace, slay.

Hecuba

Never may the daughter of Tyndareus do such a frantic deed!

Polymestor

And she shall slay this king as well, lifting high the axe.

Agamemnon

Ha! sirrah, art thou mad? art so eager to find sorrow?

Polymestor

Kill me, for in Argos there awaits thee a murderous bath.

Agamemnon

Ho! servants, hale him from my sight

Polymestor

Ha! my words gall thee?

Agamemnon

Stop his mouth!

Polymestor

Close it now; for I have spoken.

Agamemnon

Haste and cast him upon some desert island, since his mouth is full of such exceeding presumption. Go thou, unhappy Hecuba, and bury thy two corpses; and you, Trojan women, to your masters’ tents repair, for lo! I perceive a breeze just rising to waft us home. God grant we reach our country and find all well at home, released from troubles here!

[Polymestor is dragged away by Agamemnon’S guards.]

Chorus [chanting]

Away to the harbour and the tents, my friends, to prove the toils of slavery! for such is fate’s relentless hest.

Helen

Characters in the Play

Helen, wife of Menelaus

Teucer, a Greek warrior, who fought at Troy

Chorus of captive Greek women, attending Helen

Menelaus, King of Sparta

Portress of Theoclymenus

First Messenger

Second Messenger

Theonoe, sister of Theoclymenus

Theoclymenus, King of Egypt

Servant of Theoclymenus

The Dioscuri

Guards, attendants, etc.

[Scene: Before the palace of Theoclymenus in Egypt. It is near the mouth of the Nile. The tomb of Proteus, the father of Theoclymenus is visible. Helen is discovered alone before the tomb.]

Helen

Lo! These are the fair virgin streams of Nile, the river that waters Egypt’s tilth, fed by pure melting snow instead of rain from heaven. Proteus during his life-time was king of this land, dwelling in the isle of Pharos, and ruling o’er Egypt; and he took to wife one of the daughters of the sea, Psamathe, after she left the embraces of Aeacus. Two children she bare in this his palace, a son Theoclymenus, who hath passed his life in duteous service to the gods, and likewise a noble daughter, her mother’s pride, called Eido in her infancy, but when she reached her youthful prime, the age for wedded joys, renamed Theonoe; for well she knew whate’er the gods design, both present and to come, for she had won this guerdon from her grandsire Nereus. Nor is my fatherland unknown to fame, e’en Sparta, or my sire Tyndareus; for a legend tells how Zeus winged his way to my mother Leda’s breast, in the semblance of a bird, even a swan, and thus as he fled from an eagle’s pursuit, achieved by guile his amorous purpose, if this tale be true. My name is Helen, and I will now recount the sorrows I have suffered. To a hollow vale on Ida came three goddesses to Paris, for beauty’s prize contending, Hera and Cypris, and the virgin child of Zeus, eager to secure his verdict on their loveliness. Now Cypris held out my beauty, — if aught so wretched deserves that name, — as a bride before the eyes of Paris, saying he should marry me; and so she won the day; wherefore the shepherd of Ida left his steading, and came to Sparta, thinking to win me for his bride. But Hera, indignant at not defeating the goddesses, brought to naught my marriage with Paris, and gave to Priam’s princely son not Helen, but a phantom endowed with life, that she made in my image out of the breath of heaven; and Paris thought that I was his, although I never was, — an idle fancy! Moreover, the counsels of Zeus added further troubles unto these; for upon the land of Hellas and the hapless Phrygians he brought a war, that he might lighten mother-earth of her myriad hosts of men, and to the bravest of the sons of Hellas bring renown. So I was set up as a prize for all the chivalry of Hellas, to test the might of Phrygia, yet not I, but my name alone; for Hermes caught me up in the embracing air, and veiled me in a cloud; for Zeus was not unmindful of me; and he set me down here in the house of Proteus, judging him to be the most virtuous of all mankind; that so I might preserve my marriage with Menelaus free from taint. Here then I abide, while my hapless lord has gathered an army, and is setting out for the towers of Ilium to track and recover me. And there by Scamander’s streams hath many a life breathed out its last, and all for me; and I, that have endured all this, am accursed, and seem to have embroiled all Hellas in a mighty war by proving a traitress to my husband. Why, then, do I prolong my life? Because I heard Hermes declare, that I should yet again make my home on Sparta’s glorious soil, with my lord, — for Hermes knew I never went to Ilium, — that so I might never submit to any other’s wooing. Now as long as Proteus gazed upon yon glorious sun, I was safe from marriage; but when o’er him the dark grave closed, the dead man’s son was eager for my hand. But I, from regard to my former husband, am throwing myself down in suppliant wise before this tomb of Proteus, praying him to guard my husband’s honour, that, though through Hellas I bear a name dishonoured, at least my body here may not incur disgrace.

[Teucer enters.]

Teucer

Who is lord and master of this fenced palace? The house is one I may compare to the halls of Plutus, with its royal bulwarks and towering buildings. Ha! great gods! what sight is here? I see the counterfeit of that fell murderous dame, who ruined me and all the Achaeans. May Heaven show its loathing for thee, so much dost thou resemble Helen! Were I not standing on a foreign soil, with this well-aimed shaft had worked thy death, thy reward for resembling the daughter of Zeus.

Helen

Oh! why, poor man, whoe’er thou art, dost thou turn from me, loathing me for those troubles Helen caused?

Teucer

I was wrong; I yielded to my anger more than I ought; my reason was, the hate all Hellas bears to that daughter of Zeus. Pardon me, lady, for the words I uttered.

Helen

Who art thou? whence comest thou to visit this land?

Teucer

One of those hapless Achaeans am I, lady.

Helen

No wonder then that thou dost bate Helen. But say, who art thou? Whence comest? By what name am I to call thee?

Teucer

My name is Teucer; my sire was Telamon, and Salamis is the land that nurtured me.

Helen

Then why art thou visiting these meadows by the Nile?

Teucer

A wanderer I, an exile from my native land.

Helen

Thine must be a piteous lot; who from thy country drives thee out?

Teucer

My father Telamon. Couldst find a nearer and a dearer?

Helen

But why? This case is surely fraught with woe.

Teucer

The death of Ajax my brother at Troy was my ruin.

Helen

How so? surely ‘twas not thy sword that stole his life away?

Teucer

He threw himself on his own blade and died.

Helen

Was he mad? for who with sense endowed would bring himself to this?

Teucer

Dost thou know aught of Achilles. son of Peleus?

Helen

He came, so I have heard, to woo Helen once.

Teucer

When he died, he left his arms for his comrades to contest.

Helen

Well, if he did, what harm herein to Ajax?

Teucer

When another won these arms, to himself he put an end.

Helen

Art thou then a sufferer by woes that he inflicted?

Teucer

Yes, because I did not join him in his death.

Helen

So thou camest, sir stranger, to Ilium’s famous town?

Teucer

Aye, and, after helping to sack it, myself did learn what ruin meant.

Helen

Is Troy already fired and utterly by flames consumed?

Teucer

Yea, so that not so much as one vestige of her walls is now to be seen.

Helen

Woe is thee, poor Helen! thou art the cause of Phrygia’s ruin.

Teucer

And of Achaea’s too. Ah! ‘tis a tale of grievous misery!

Helen

How long is it since the city was sacked?

Teucer

Nigh seven fruitful seasons have come and gone.

Helen

And how much longer did ye abide in Troy?

Teucer

Many a weary month, till through ten full years the moon had held her course.

Helen

And did ye capture that Spartan dame?

Teucer

Menelaus caught her by the hair, and was for dragging her away.

Helen

Didst thou thyself behold that unhappy one? or art thou speaking from hearsay?

Teucer

As plain as I now see thee, I then saw her.

Helen

Consider whether ye were but indulging an idle fancy sent by heaven.

Teucer

Bethink thee of some other topic; no more of her!

Helen

Are you so sure this fancy was reliable?

Teucer

With these eyes I saw her face to face, if so be I see thee now.

Helen

Hath Menelaus reached his home by this time with his wife?

Teucer

No; he is neither in Argos, nor yet by the streams of Eurotas.

Helen

Ah me! here is evil news for those to whom thou art telling it.

Teucer

‘Tis said he disappeared with his wife.

Helen

Did not all the Argives make the passage together?

Teucer

Yes: but a tempest scattered them in every direction.

Helen

In what quarter of the broad ocean?

Teucer

They were crossing the Aegean in mid channel.

Helen

And after that, doth no man know of Menelaus’ arrival?

Teucer

No; none; but through Hellas is he reported to be dead.

Helen

Then am I lost. Is the daughter of Thestius alive?

Teucer

Dost speak of Leda? She is dead; aye, dead and gone.

Helen

Was it Helen’s shame that caused her death?

Teucer

Aye, ‘tis said she tied the noose about her noble neck.

Helen

Are the sons of Tyndareus still alive or not?

Teucer

Dead, and yet alive: ‘tis a double story.

Helen

Which is the more credible report? Woe is me for my sorrows!

Teucer

Men say that they are gods in the likeness of stars.

Helen

That is happy news; but what is the other rumour?

Teucer

That they by self-inflicted wounds gave up the ghost because of their sister’s shame. But enough of such talk! I have no wish to multiply my griefs. The reason of my coming to this royal palace was a wish to see that famous prophetess Theonoe. Do thou the means afford, that I from her may obtain an oracle how I shall steer a favourable course to the sea-girt shores of Cyprus; for there Apollo hath declared my home shall be, giving to it the name of Salamis, my island home, in honour of that fatherland across the main.

Helen

That shall the voyage itself explain, sir stranger; but do thou leave these shores and fly, ere the son of Proteus, the ruler of this land, catch sight of thee. Now is he away with his trusty hounds tracking his savage quarry to the death; for every stranger that he catcheth from the land of Hellas doth he slay. His reason never ask to know; my lips are sealed; for what could word of mine avail thee?

Teucer

Lady, thy words are fair. Heaven grant thee a fair requital for this kindness! For though in form thou dost resemble Helen, thy soul is not like hers, nay, very different. Perdition seize her! May she never reach the streams of Eurotas! But thine be joy for evermore, lady!

[Teucer departs. The chorus of captive Greek women enter. They sing responsively with Helen.]

Helen

Ah me! what piteous dirge shall I strive to utter, now that I am beginning my strain of bitter lamentation? What Muse shall I approach with tears or songs of death or woe? Ah me! ye Sirens, Earth’s virgin daughters, winged maids, come, oh! come to aid my mourning, bringing with you the Libyan flute or pipe, to waft to Persephone’s ear a tearful plaint, the echo of my sorrow, with grief for grief, and mournful chant for chant, with songs of death and doom to match my lamentation, that in return she may receive from me, besides my tears, dirges for the departed dead beneath her gloomy roof!

Chorus

Beside the deep-blue water I chanced to be hanging purple robes along the tendrils green and on the sprouting reeds, to dry them in the sun-god’s golden blaze, when lo! I heard a sound of woe, a mournful wail, the voice of one crying aloud in her anguish; yea, such a cry of woe as Naiad nymph might send ringing o’er the hills, while to her cry the depths of rocky grots re-echo her screams at the violence of Pan.

Helen

Woe! woe! ye maids of Hellas, booty of barbarian sailors! one hath come, an Achaean mariner, bringing fresh tears to me, the news of Ilium’s overthrow, how that it is left to the mercy of the foeman’s flame, and all for me the murderess, or for my name with sorrow fraught. While for anguish at my deed of shame, hath Leda sought her death by hanging; and on the deep, to weary wandering doomed my lord hath met his end; and Castor and his brother, twin glory of their native land, are vanished from men’s sight, leaving the plains that shook to their galloping steeds, and the course beside reed-fringed Eurotas, where those youthful athletes strove.

Chorus

Ah, misery! Alas! for thy grievous destiny! Woe for thy sad lot, lady! Ah! ‘twas a day of sorrow meted out for thee when Zeus came glancing through the sky on snowy pinions like a swan and won thy mother’s heart. What evil is not thine? Is there a grief in life that thou hast not endured? Thy mother is dead; the two dear sons of Zeus have perished miserably, and thou art severed from thy country’s sight, while through the towns of men a rumour runs, consigning thee, my honoured mistress, to a barbarian’s bed; and ‘mid the ocean waves thy lord hath lost his life, and never, never more shalt thou fill with joy thy father’s halls or Athena’s temple of the “Brazen House.”

Helen

Ah! who was that Phrygian, who was he, that felled that pine with sorrow fraught for Ilium, and for those that came from Hellas? Hence it was that Priam’s son his cursed barque did build, and sped by barbarian oars sailed unto my home, in quest of beauty, woman’s curse, to win me for his bride; and with him sailed the treacherous queen of Love, on slaughter bent, with death alike for Priam’s sons, and Danai too. Ah me! for my hard lot! Next, Hera, stately bride of Zeus, seated on her golden throne, sent the son of Maia, swift of foot, who caught me up as I was gathering fresh rose-buds in the folds of my robe, that I might go to the “Brazen House,” and bore me through the air to this loveless land, making me an object of unhappy strife ‘twixt Hellas and the race of Priam. And my name is but a sound without reality beside the streams of Simois.

Leader of the chorus

Well I know thou hast a bitter lot to bear; still ‘tis best to bear as lightly as we may the ills that life is heir to.

Helen

Good friends, to what a fate am I united? Did not my mother bear me to be a monster to the world? For no woman, Hellene or barbarian, gives birth to babes in eggs inclosed, as they say Leda bare me to Zeus. My life and all I do is one miracle, partly owing to Hera, and partly is my beauty to blame. Would God I could rub my beauty out like a picture, and assume hereafter in its stead a form less comely, and oh! that Hellas had forgotten the evil fate that now I bear, and were now remembering my career of honour as surely as they do my deeds of shame. Now, if a man doth turn his eyes to a single phase of fortune, and meets ill-usage at heaven’s hands, ‘tis hard no doubt; but still it can be borne; but I in countless troubles am involved. First, although I never sinned, my good name is gone. And this is a grief beyond the reality, if a man incurs blame for sins that are not his. Next, have the gods removed me from my native land, to dwell with men of barbarous ways, and reft of every friend, I arn become a slave though free by birth; for amongst barbarians all are slaves but one. And the last anchor that held my fortunes, the hope that my husband would return one day, and rid me of my woes, is now no more, lost since the day he died. My mother too is dead, and I am called her murderess, unjustly it is true, but still that injustice is mine to bear; and she that was the glory of my house, my darling child, is growing old and grey, unwedded still; and those twin brethren, called the sons of Zeus, are now no more. But ‘tis fortune, not my own doing, that hath crushed me with sorrow and slain me. And this is the last evil of all; if ever I come to my native land. they will shut me up in prison, thinking me that Helen of Ilium, in quest of whom Menelaus came thither. Were my husband still alive, we might have recognized each other, by having recourse to tokens which ourselves alone would know. But now this may not be, nor is there any chance of his escape. Why then do I prolong my life? What fortune have I still in store? Shall I choose marriage as an alternative of evils, and dwell with a barbarian lord, seated at his sumptuous board? No! when a husband she loathes is mated with a woman, even life is loathly to her. Best for her to die; but how shall I die a noble death? The dangling noose is an uncomely end; even slaves consider it disgrace; to stab oneself hath something fair and. noble in it; ‘tis a small thing that moment of ridding the flesh of life. Yes, it must be; I am plunged so deep in misery; for that beauty, which to other women is a boon, to me hath been a very bane.

Leader

Helen, never believe that the stranger, whoe’er he was that came, has spoken naught but truth.

Helen

Yet he said so clearly that my lord was dead.

Leader

There is much that falsehood seems to make quite clear.

Helen

The word of truth hath a very different sound to falsehood.

Leader

Thou art inclined to misfortune, rather than to luck.

Helen

Fear girds me with terrors as with a garment, and takes me in her train.

Leader

What friends hast thou within the palace?

Helen

All are my friends here save him who seeks to wed-me.

Leader

Thy action then is clear; leave thy seat at the tomb.

Helen

To what words or advice art thou leading up?

Leader

Go in and question the daughter of the ocean Nereid, who knoweth all things, even Theonoe, whether thy husband is still alive, or whether he hath left the light of day; and when thou knowest for certain, be glad or sorrowful, as fits thy fortune. But before thou hast right knowledge, what shall sorrow avail thee? Nay, hearken to me; leave this tomb and seek the maiden’s company, that she may tell thee the truth, for from her shalt thou learn all. If thou abide here in this seat, what prospect hast thou? And I will myself go in with thee, and with thee inquire of the maiden’s oracles; for ‘tis a woman’s bounden duty to share a sister’s trouble.

[The following lines are chanted responsively by Helen and the chorus.]

Helen

Kind friends, I welcome your advice. Come in, come in, that ye may learn the result of my struggle within the palace.

Chorus

Thy invitation comes to very willing ears.

Helen

Woe for this heavy day! Ah me! what mournful tidings shall hear?

Chorus

Dear mistress mine, be not a prophetess of sorrow, forestalling lamentation.

Helen

What is the fate of my poor husband? Doth he still behold the light turning towards the sun-god’s chariot and the stars in their courses? Or among the dead, beneath the earth, is he to death consigned?

Chorus

Of the future take a brighter view, whatever shall betide.

Helen

On thee I call, and thee adjure, Eurotas green with river-reeds, to tell me if this rumour of my husband’s death be true.

Chorus

What boots this meaningless appeal?

Helen

About my neck will I fasten the deadly noose from above, or drive the murderous knife with self-aimed thrust deep into my throat to sever it, striving to cut my flesh, a sacrifice to those goddesses three and to that son of Priam, who in days gone by would wake the music of his pipe around his steading.

Chorus

Oh may sorrow be averted otherwhither, and thou be blest!

Helen

Woe is thee, unhappy Troy! Thou through deeds not done by the art ruined, and hast suffered direst woe; for the gift that Cypris gave to me, hath caused a sea of blood to flow, and many an eye to weep, with grief on grief and tear on tear. All this hath Ilium suffered and mothers have lost their children; and virgin sisters of the slain have cut off their tresses by the swollen tide of Phrygian Scamander. And the land of Hellas hath lifted her voice of woe and broken forth in wailing, smiting on her head, and making tender cheeks to stream with gore beneath the rending nail. Ah blest maid Callisto, who long ago in Arcady didst find favour with Zeus, in the semblance of beast four-footed, how much happier was thy lot than my mother’s, for thou hast changed the burden of thy grief and now with savage eye art weeping o’er thy shaggy monster-shape; aye, and hers was a happier lot, whom on a day Artemis drove from her choir, changed to a hind with horns of gold, the fair Titanian maid, daughter of Merops, because of her beauty; but my fair form hath proved the curse of Dardan Troy and doomed Achaea’s sons.

[Helen and the chorus go into the palace. After the doors have closed upon them, Menelaus enters. He is alone and clad in rags.]

Menelaus

Ah! Pelops, easy victor long ago o’er thy rival Oenomaus in the chariot-race on Pisa’s plain, would thou hadst ended thy career amongst the gods that day thou wert beguiled into making a banquet for them, or ever thou hadst begotten my father Atreus, to whom were born by Aerope his wife, Agamemnon and myself Menelaus, an illustrious pair; and herein I make no idle boast, for ‘twas a mighty host, I trow, that I their leader carried o’er the sea to Troy, using no violence to make them follow me, but leading all the chivalry of Hellas by voluntary consent. And some of these must we number ‘mid the slain, and some to their joy have ‘scaped the sea, bearing to their homes again names long reckoned dead. But I, poor wretch, go wandering o’er grey Ocean’s swell a weary space, long as that which saw me sick the towers of Ilium; and for all my longing to reach my country I am not counted worthy of this boon by heaven, but to Libya’s desert cheerless roadsteads have I sailed, to each and all of them; and whensoe’er I draw me near my native land, the storm-wind drives me back again, and never yet have favouring breezes filled my sails, to let me reach my fatherland. And now a wretched, shipwrecked mariner, my friends all lost, am I cast up upon this shore; and my ship is shattered in a thousand pieces against the rocks; and its keel was wrested from its cunning fastenings; thereon did I with difficulty escape, most unexpectedly, and Helen also, for her had I rescued from Troy and had with me. But the name of this country and its people I know not; for I blushed to mingle with the crowd to question them, anxious for very shame to hide my misfortunes which reduce me to these sorry rags. For when a man of high degree meets with adversity, he feels the strangeness of his fallen state more keenly than a sufferer of long standing. Dire want is wasting me; for I have neither food, nor raiment to gird myself withal; behold the facts before you to judge from-I am clad in tatters cast up from the ship; while all the robes I once did wear, glorious attire and ornaments, bath the sea swallowed; and in a cavern’s deep recesses have I hidden my wife, the cause of all my trouble, and have come hither, after straitly charging the survivors of my friends to watch her. Alone am I come, seeking for those there left some help, if haply I may find it after careful search. So when I saw this palace girt with towering walls and stately gates of some prosperous lord, I drew nigh; for I have hope to obtain somewhat for my sailors from this wealthy house, whereas from houses which have no store, the inmates for all their goodwill could furnish naught. Ho! there, who keeps the gate and will come forth to bear my tale of woe into the house?

[A portress comes out of the palace in answer to his call.]

Portress

Who stands before the door? Begone from the housel stand not at the court-yard gate, annoying my masters! otherwise shalt thou die, for thou art a Hellene born. and with them have we no dealings.

Menelaus

Mother, herein sayest thou rightly on all points. ‘Tis well; I will obey; but moderate thy words.

Portress

Away! stranger, my orders are to admit no Hellene to this palace.

Menelaus

Ha! do not seek to push me hence, or thrust me away by violence.

Portress

Thou dost not heed my words, and therefore hast thyself to blame.

Menelaus

Carry my message to thy master in the palace.

Portress

Some one would rue it, methinks, were I to take thy message.

Menelaus

I come as a shipwrecked man and a stranger, whom heaven protects.

Portress

Well, get thee to some other house than this.

Menelaus

Nay, but I will pass into the house; so listen to me.

Portress

Let me tell thee thou art unwelcome, and soon wilt be forcibly ejected.

Menelaus

Ah me! where are now those famous troops of mine?

Portress

Elsewhere maybe thou wert a mighty man; thou art not here.

Menelaus

O fortune! I have not deserved such insult.

Portress

Why are thy eyes with tear-drops wet? Why so sad?

Menelaus

‘Tis the contrast with my fortunes erst so blest.

Portress

Hence! then, and give thy friends those tears.

Menelaus

What land is this? whose is the palace?

Portress

Proteus lives here. It is the land of Egypt.

Menelaus

Egypt? Woe is me! to think that hither I have sailed!

Portress

Pray, what fault hast thou to find with the race of Nile?

Menelaus

‘Twas no fault I found; my own disasters I lament.

Portress

There be plenty in evil case; thou art not the only one.

Menelaus

Is the king, of whom thou speakest, here within?

Portress

There is his tomb; his son rules in his stead.

Menelaus

And where may he be? abroad, or in the house?

Portress

He is not within. To Hellas is he a bitter foe.

Menelaus

His reason, pray, for this enmity? the results whereof I have experienced.

Portress

Beneath this roof dwells the daughter of Zeus, Helen.

Menelaus

What mean’st thou? what is it thou hast said? Repeat, I pray, thy words.

Portress

The daughter of Tyndareus is here, who erst in Sparta dwelt.

Menelaus

Whence came she? What means this business?

Portress

She came from Lacedaemon hither.

Menelaus

When? Surely I have never been robbed of my wife from the cave!

Portress

Before the Achaeans went to Troy, sir stranger. But get thee hence; for somewhat hath chanced within, whereat the whole palace is in an uproar. Thou comest most unseasonably; and if my master catch thee, death will be thy stranger’s gift. This say I, because to Hellas I am well disposed, albeit I gave thee harsh answers for fear of my master.

[The portress goes back into the palace.]

Menelaus

What can I think or say? For after my previous troubles, this is a fresh piece of ill-luck I hear, if, indeed, after recovering my wife from Troy and bringing her hither, and putting her for safety in the cave, I am then to find another woman living here with the same name as my wife. She called her the begotten child of Zeus. Can there be a man that hath the name of Zeus by the banks of Nile? The Zeus of heaven is only one, at any rate. Where is there a Sparta in the world save where Eurotas glides between his reedy banks? The name of Tyndareus is the name of one alone. Is there any land of the same name as Lacedaemon or Troy? I know not what to say; for naturally there are many in the wide world that have the same names, cities and women too; there is nothing, then, to marvel at. Nor yet again will I fly from the alarm a servant raises; for there is none so cruel of heart as to refuse me food when once he hears my name. All have heard of Ilium’s burning, and I, that set it ablaze, am famous now throughout the world, I, Menelaus. I therefore wait the master of this house. There are two issues I must watch; if he prove somewhat stern of heart, I will to my wreck and there conceal myself; but if he show any sign of pity, I will ask for help in this my present strait. This is the crowning woe in all my misery, to beg the means of life from other princes, prince though I be myself; still needs must I. Yea, this is no saying of mine, but a word of wisdom, “Naught in might exceedeth dread necessity.”

[Helen and the chorus enter from the palace. They do not notice Menelaus.]

Chorus [singing]

I have heard the voice of the maiden inspired. Clear is the answer she hath vouchsafed within yon palace, declaring that Menelaus is not yet dead and buried, passed to the land of shades, where darkness takes the place of light; but on the stormy main is wearing out his life, nor yet hath reached the haven of his country, a wanderer dragging out a piteous existence, reft of every friend, setting foot in every corner of the world, as he voyageth home from Troy.

Helen

Lo! once again I seek the shelter of this tomb, with Theonoe’s sweet tidings in my ears; she that knoweth all things of a truth; for she saith my lord is yet alive and in the light of day, albeit he is roaming to and fro after many a weary voyage, and hither shall he come whenso he reach the limit of his toils, no novice in the wanderer’s life. But one thing did she leave unsaid. Is he to escape when he hath come? And I refrained from asking that question clearly, so glad was I when she told me he was safe. For she said that he was somewhere nigh this shore, cast up by shipwreck with a handful of friends. Ah! when shall I see thee come? How welcome will thy advent be! [She catches sight of Menelaus.] Ha! who is this? Am I being snared by some trick of Proteus’ impious son? Oh! let me, like a courser at its speed, or a votary of Bacchus, approach the tomb! for there is something wild about this fellow’s looks, who is eager to o’ertake me.

Menelaus

Ho there! thou that with fearful effort seekest to reach the basement of the tomb and the pillars of burnt sacrifice, stay thee. Wherefore art flying? Ah! with what speechless amaze the sight of thee affects me!

Helen

O friends! I am being ill-treated. This man is keeping me from the tomb, and is eager to take and give me to his master, whose wooing I was seeking to avoid.

Menelaus

No robber I, or minister of evil.

Helen

At any rate the garb wherein thou art clad is unseemly.

Menelaus

Stay thy hasty flight; put fear aside.

Helen

I do so, now that I have reached this spot.

Menelaus

Who art thou? whom do I behold in thee, lady?

Helen

Nay, who art thou? The self-same reason prompts us both.

Menelaus

I never saw a closer resemblance.

Helen

Great God! Yea, for to recognize our friends is of God.

Menelaus

Art thou from Hellas, or a native of this land?

Helen

From Hellas; but I would learn thy story too.

Menelaus

Lady, in thee I see a wondrous likeness to Helen.

Helen

And I in thee to Menelaus; I know not what to say.

Menelaus

Well, thou hast recognized aright a man of many sorrows.

Helen

Hail! to thy wife’s arms restored at last!

Menelaus

Wife indeed! Lay not a finger on my robe.

Helen

The wife that Tyndareus, my father, gave thee.

Menelaus

O Hecate, giver of light, send thy visions favourably!

Helen

In me thou beholdest no spectre of the night, attendant on the queen of phantoms.

Menelaus

Nor yet am I in my single person the husband of two wives.

Helen

What other woman calls thee lord?

Menelaus

The inmate of yonder cave, whom I from Troy convey.

Helen

Thou hast none other wife but me.

Menelaus

Can it be my mind is wandering, my sight failing?

Helen

Dost not believe thou seest in me thy wife?

Menelaus

Thy form resembles her, but the real truth robs me of this belief.

Helen

Observe me well; what need hast thou of clearer proof?

Menelaus

Thou art like her; that will I never deny.

Helen

Who then shall teach thee, unless it be thine own eyes?

Menelaus

Herein is my dilemma; I have another wife.

Helen

To Troy I never went; that was a phantom.

Menelaus

Pray, who fashions living bodies?

Helen

The air, whence thou hast a wife of heaven’s workmanship.

Menelaus

What god’s handiwork? Strange is the tale thou tellest.

Helen

Hera made it as a substitute, to keep me from Paris.

Menelaus

How then couldst thou have been here, and in Troy, at the same time?

Helen

The name may be in many a place at once, though not the body.

Menelaus

Unhand me! the sorrows I brought with me suffice.

Helen

What! wilt leave me, and take that phantom bride away?

Menelaus

For thy likeness unto Helen, fare thee well.

Helen

Ruined! in thee I found my lord only to lose thee.

Menelaus

The greatness of my troubles at Troy convinces me; thou dost not.

Helen

Ah, woe is me! who was ever more unfortunate than I? Those whom I love best are leaving me, nor shall I ever reach Hellas, my own dear native land.

[The First Messenger enters in haste.]

Messenger

At last I find thee, Menelaus, after an anxious search, not till I have evandered through the length and breadth of this foreign strand; I am sent by thy comrades, whom thou didst leave behind.

Menelaus

What news? surely you are not being spoiled by the barbarians?

Messenger

A miracle hath happened; my words are too weak for the reality.

Menelaus

Speak; for judging by this haste, thou hast stirring news.

Messenger

My message is: thy countless toils have all been toiled in vain.

Menelaus

That is an old tale of woe to mourn! come, thy news?

Messenger

Thy wife hath disappeared, soaring away into the embracing air; in heaven she now is hidden, and as she left the hollowed cave where we were guarding her, she hailed us thus, “Ye hapless Phrygians, and all Achaea’s race! for me upon Scamander’s strand by Hera’s arts ye died from day to day, in the false belief that Helen was in the hands of Paris. But I, since I have stayed my appointed time, and kept the laws of fate, will now depart unto the sky that gave me birth; but the unhappy daughter of Tyndareus, through no fault of hers, hath borne an evil name without reason.” [Catching Sight of Helen] Daughter of Leda, hail to thee, so thou art here after all! I was just announcing thy departure to the hidden starry realms, little knowing that thou couldst fly at will. I will not a second time let thee flout us thus, for thou didst cause tiki lord and his comrades trouble all for naught in Ilium.

Menelaus

This is even what she said; her words are proved true; O longed-for day, how hath it restored thee to my arms!

Helen

O Menelaus, dearest husband, the time of sorrow has been long, but joy is now ours at last. Ah, friends, what joy for me to hold my husband in a fond embrace after many a weary cycle of yon blazing lamp of day!

Menelaus

What joy for me to hold my wife! but with all that I would ask about these years, I now know not where I may first begin.

Helen

O rapture! the very hair upon my head starts up for joy! my tears run down! Around thy neck I fling my arms, dear husband, to hug my joy to me.

Menelaus

O happy, happy sight! I have no fault to find; my wife, he daughter of Zeus and Leda, is mine again, she whom her brothers on their snow-white steeds, whilst torches blazed, made my happy bride, but gods removed her from my home. Now is the deity guiding us to a new destiny, happier than of yore.

Helen

Evil into good transformed hath brought us twain together at last, dear husband; but late though it be, God grant me joy of my good luck!

Menelaus

God grant thee joy! I join thee in the self-same prayer; for of us twain one cannot suffer without the other.

Helen

No more, my friends, I mourn the past; no longer now I grieve. My own dear husband is restored to me, whose coming from Troy I have waited many a long year.

Menelaus

I to thee, and thou to me. And after these long, long years I have at last discovered the fraud of the goddess. But these tears, in gladness shed, are tears of thankfulness rather than of sorrow.

Helen

What can I say? What mortal heart could e’er have had such hope? To my bosom I press thee, little as I ever thought to.

Menelaus

And I to mine press thee, who all men thought hadst gone to Ida’s town and the hapless towers of Ilium.

Helen

Ah me! ah me! that is a bitter subject to begin on.

Menelaus

Tell me, I adjure thee, how wert thou from my home conveyed?

Helen

Alas! alas! ‘tis a bitter tale thou askest to hear.

Menelaus

Speak, for I must hear it; all that comes is Heaven’s gift.

Helen

I loathe the story I am now to tell.

Menelaus

Tell it for all that. ‘Tis sweet to hear of trouble past.

Helen

I ne’er set forth to be the young barbarian’s bride, with oars and wings of lawless love to speed me on my way.

Menelaus

What deity or fate tore thee from thy country, then?

Helen

Ah, my lord! ‘twas Hermes, the son of Zeus, that brought and placed me by the banks of Nile.

Menelaus

A miracle! Who sent thee thither? O monstrous story!

Helen

I wept, and still my eyes are wet with tears. ‘Twas the wife of Zeus that ruined me.

Menelaus

Hera? wherefore should she afflict us twain?

Helen

Woe is me for my awful fate! Woe for those founts and baths where the goddesses made brighter still that beauty, which evoked the fatal verdict!

Menelaus

Why did Hera visit thee with evil regarding this verdict?

Helen

To wrest the promise of Cypris —

Menelaus

How now? Say on.

Helen

From Paris, to whom that goddess pledged me.

Menelaus

Woe for thee!

Helen

And so she brought me hither to Egypt to my sorrow.

Menelaus

Then she gave him a phantom in thy stead, as thou tellest me?

Helen

And then began those woes of thine, ah, mother! woe is me!

Menelaus

What meanest thou?

Helen

My mother is no more; my shameful marriage made her fix the noose about her neck.

Menelaus

Ah me! is our daughter Hermione yet alive?

Helen

Still unwed, childless still, she mourns my fatal marriage.

Menelaus

O Paris, who didst utterly o’erthrow my home, here was thy ruin too and theirs, those countless mail-clad Danai.

Helen

From my country, city, and from thee heaven cast me forth unhappy and accursed, because I left, — and yet not I, — home and husband for union of foul shame.

Leader of the chorus

If haply ye find happiness in the future, it will suffice when to the past ye look.

Messenger

Menelaus, grant me too a portion of that joy which, though mine own eyes see, I scarcely comprehend.

Menelaus

Come then, old friend, and share with us our talk.

Messenger

Was it not then in her power to decide all the trouble in Troy?

Menelaus

It was not; I was tricked by the gods into taking to my arms a misty phantom-form, to my sorrow.

Messenger

How so? was it then for this we vainly toiled?

Menelaus

‘Twas Hera’s handiwork, and the jealousy of three goddesses.

Messenger

Is this real woman, then, thy wife?

Menelaus

This is she; trust my word for that.

Messenger

Daughter, how changeful and inscrutable is the nature of God! With some good end doth he vary men’s fortune — now up, now down; one suffers; another who ne’er knew suffering, is in his turn to awful ruin brought, having no assurance in his lot from day to day. Thou and thy husband have had your share of trouble — thou in what the world has said, he in battle’s heat. For all the striving that he strove, he got him naught; while now, without an effort made, every blessing fortune boasts is his. And thou, in spite of all, hast brought no shame upon thy aged sire, or those twin sons of Zeus, nor art thou guilty of those rumoured crimes. Now again do I recall thy wedding rites, remembering the blazing torch I bore beside thee in a four-horsed chariot at full gallop; while thou with this thy lord, a new-made bride, wert driving forth from thy happy home. A sorry servant he, whoso regardeth not his master’s interest, sympathizing with his sorrows and his joys. Slave though I was born, yet may I be numbered amongst honest servants; for in heart, though not in name, I am free. For this is better far than in my single person to suffer these two evils, to feel my heart corrupt, and as the slave of others to be at my neighbour’s beck and call.

Menelaus

Come, old friend, oft hast thou stood side by side with me and taken thy full share of toil; so now be partner in my happiness. Go, tell my comrades, whom I left behind, the state of matters here, as thou hast found them, and the issue of my fortunes; and bid them wait upon the beach and abide the result of the struggle, which I trow awaits me; and if mayhap we find a way to take this lady from the land by stealth, tell them to keep good watch that we may share the luck and escape, if possible, from the barbarian’s clutch.

Messenger

It shall be done, O king. Now I see how worthless are the seers’ tricks, how full of falsehood; nor is there after all aught trustworthy in the blaze of sacrifice or in the cry of feathered fowls; ‘tis folly, the very notion that birds can help mankind. Calchas never by word or sign showed the host the truth, when he saw his friends dying on behalf of a phantom, nor yet did Helenus; but the city was stormed in vain. Perhaps thou wilt say, ‘twas not heaven’s will that they should do so. Then why do we employ these prophets? Better were it to sacrifice to the gods, and crave a blessing, leaving prophecy alone; for this was but devised as a bait to catch livelihood, and no man grows rich by divination if he is idle. No! sound judgment and discernment are the best of seers.

[The Messenger departs.]

Leader

My views about seers agree exactly with this old man’s: whoso hath the gods upon his side will have the best seer in his house.

Helen

Good! so far all is well. But how camest thou, poor husband, safe from Troy? though ‘tis no gain to know, yet friends feel a longing to learn all that their friends have suffered.

Menelaus

That one short sentence of thine contains a host of questions. Why should I tell thee of our losses in the Aegean, or of the beacon Nauplius lighted on Euboea? or of my visits to Crete and the cities of Libya, or of the peaks of Perseus? For I should never satisfy thee with the tale, and by telling thee should add to my own pain, though I suffered enough at the time; and so would my grief be doubled.

Helen

Thy answer shows more wisdom than my question. Omit the rest, and tell me only this; how long wert thou a weary wanderer o’er the wide sea’s face?

Menelaus

Seven long years did I see come and go, besides those ten in Troy.

Helen

Alas, poor sufferer! ‘twas a weary while. And thou hast thence escaped only to bleed here.

Menelaus

How so? what wilt thou tell? Ah wife, thou hast ruined me.

Helen

Escape and fly with all thy speed from this land. Thou wilt be slain by him whose house this is.

Menelaus

What have I done to merit such a fate?

Helen

Thou hast arrived unexpectedly to thwart my marriage.

Menelaus

What! is some man bent on wedding my wife?

Helen

Aye, and on heaping those insults on me, which I have hitherto endured.

Menelaus

Is he some private prince, or a ruler of this land?

Helen

The son of Proteus, king of the country.

Menelaus

This was that dark saying I heard the servant tell.

Helen

At which of the barbarian’s gates wert thou standing?

Menelaus

Here, whence like a beggar I was like to be driven.

Helen

Surely thou wert not begging food? Ah, woe is me!

Menelaus

That was what I was doing, though I had not the name of beggar.

Helen

Of course thou knowest, then, all about my marriage.

Menelaus

I do. But whether thou hast escaped thy lover, I know not.

Helen

Be well assured I have kept my body chaste.

Menelaus

How wilt thou convince me of this? If true, thy words are sweet.

Helen

Dost see the wretched station I have kept at this tomb?

Menelaus

I see, alas! a bed of straw; but what hast thou to do with it?

Helen

There I crave escape from this marriage as a suppliant.

Menelaus

For want of an altar, or because it is the barbarians’ way?

Helen

This was as good a protection to me as the gods’ temples.

Menelaus

May I not then even bear thee homeward on my ship?

Helen

The sword far sooner than thy wife’s embrace is waiting thee.

Menelaus

So should I be of all men the most miserable.

Helen

Put shame aside, and fly from this land.

Menelaus

Leaving thee behind? ‘twas for thy sake I sacked Troy.

Helen

Better so, than that our union should cause thy death.

Menelaus

Oh! these are coward words, unworthy of those days at Troy!

Helen

Thou canst not slay the prince, thy possible intent.

Menelaus

Hath he, then, a body which steel cannot wound?

Helen

Thou shalt hear. But to attempt impossibilities is no mark of wisdom.

Menelaus

Am I to let them bind my hands, and say nothing?

Helen

Thou art in a dilemma; some scheme must be devised.

Menelaus

I had liefer die in action than sitting still.

Helen

There is one hope, and only one, of our safety.

Menelaus

Will gold, or daring deeds, or winning words procure it?

Helen

We are safe if the prince learn not of thy coming.

Menelaus

ary one tell him it is I? He certainly will not know who I am.

Helen

He hath within his palace an ally equal to the gods.

Menelaus

Some voice divine within the secret chambers of his house?

Helen

No; his sister; Theonoe men call her.

Menelaus

Her name hath a prophetic sound; tell me what she doth.

Helen

She knoweth everything, and she will tell her brother thou art come.

Menelaus

Then must we die; for I cannot escape her ken.

Helen

Perchance we might by suppliant prayers win her over.

Menelaus

To what end? To what vain hope art thou leading me?

Helen

That she should not tell her brother thou art here.

Menelaus

Suppose we persuade her, can we get away?

Helen

Easily, if she connive thereat; without her knowledge, no,

Menelaus

Be that thy task; women deal best with women.

Helen

I will not fail, be sure, to clasp her knees.

Menelaus

Come, then; only, suppose she reject our proposals?

Helen

Thou wilt be slain, and I, alas! wedded by force.

Menelaus

Thou wilt betray me; that “force” of thine is but an excuse.

Helen

Nay, by thy life I swear a sacred oath.

Menelaus

What meanest thou? dost swear to die and never to another husband yield?

Helen

Yes, by the self-same sword; I will fall by thy side.

Menelaus

On these conditions touch my right hand.

Helen

I do so, swearing I will quit the light of day if thou art slain.

Menelaus

I, too, will end my life if I lose thee.

Helen

How shall we die so as to gain fame?

Menelaus

I will slay thee and then myself upon the summit of the tomb. But first will I in doughty fight contest another’s claim to thee; and let who will draw nigh! for I will not sully the lustre of my Trojan fame, nor will I, on my return to Hellas, incur a storm of taunts, as one who robbed Thetis of Achilles; saw Ajax, son of Telamon, fall a weltering corpse; and the sort of Neleus of his child bereft; shall I then flinch myself from death for my own wife? No, no! For if the gods are wise, o’er a brave man by his foes laid low they lightly sprinkle the earth that is his tomb, while cowards ‘they cast forth on barren rocky soil.

Leader

Grant, heaven, that the race of Tantalus may at last be blest, and pass from sorrow unto joy!

Helen

Ah, woe is me! Yea, all my lot is woe; O Menelaus, we are utterly undone! Behold! from forth the house comes Theonoe, the prophetess, The palace echoes as the bolts are unfastened; fly! yet what use to fly? For whether absent or present she knows of thy arrival here. Ah me! how lost am I! Saved from Troy and from a barbarian land, thou hast come only to fall a prey to barbarian swords.

[Theonoe enters, attended by hand-maidens carrying torches.]

Theonoe

Lead on, bearing before me blazing brands, and, as sacred rites ordain, purge with incense every cranny of the air, that I may breathe heaven’s breath free from taint; meanwhile do thou, in case the tread of unclean feet have soiled the path, wave the cleansing flame above it, and brandish the torch in front, that I may pass upon my way. And when to heaven ye have paid the customs I exact, bear back into the house the brand from off the hearth. What of my prophecy, Helen? how stands it now? Thou hast seen thy husband Menelaus arrive without disguise, reft of his ships, and of thy counterfeit. Ah, hapless man! what troubles hast thou escaped, and art come hither, and yet knowest not whether thou art to return or to abide here; for there is strife in heaven, and Zeus this very day will sit in solemn conclave on thee. Hera, who erst was thy bitter foe, is now grown kind, and is willing to bring thee and thy wife safe home, that Hellas may learn that the marriage of Paris was all a sham, assigned to him by Cypris; but Cypris fain would mar thy homeward course, that she may not be convicted, or proved to have bought the palm of beauty at the price of Helen in a futile marriage. Now the decision rests with me, whether to ruin thee, as Cypris wishes, by telling my brother of thy presence bere, or to save thy life by taking Hera’s side, concealing thy coming from my brother, for his orders are that I should tell him, whensoe’er thou shouldst reach these shores. Ho! one of you, go show my brother this man is here, that I may secure my safety.

Helen

Maiden, at thy knees I fall a suppliant, and seat myself in this sad posture on behalf of myself and him, whom I am in danger of seeing slain, after I have so hardly found him. Oh! tell not thy brother that my husband is returned to these loving arms; save us, I beseech thee; never for thy brother’s sake sacrifice thy character for uprightness, by evil and unjust means bidding for his favour. For the deity hates violence, and biddeth all men get lawful gains without plundering others. Wealth unjustly gotten, though it bring some power, is to be eschewed. The breath of heaven and the earth are man’s common heritage, wherein to store his home, without taking the goods of others, or wresting them away by force. Me did Hermes at a critical time, to my sorrow, intrust to thy father’s safe keeping for this my lord, who now is here and wishes to reclaim me. But how can he recover me if he be slain? How could thy sire restore the living to the dead? Oh! consider ere that the will of heaven and thy father’s too; would the deity or would thy dead sire restore their neighbour’s goods, or would they forbear? restore them, I feel sure. It is not, therefore, right that thou shouldst more esteem thy wanton brother than thy righteous father. Yet if thou, prophetess as thou art and believer in divine providence, shalt pervert the just intention of thy father and gratify thy unrighteous brother, ‘tis shameful thou shouldst have full knowledge of the heavenly will, both what is and what is not, and yet be ignorant of justice. Oh! save my wretched life from the troubles which beset it, granting this as an accession to our good fortune; for every living soul loathes Helen, seeing that there is gone a rumour throughout Hellas that I was false unto my lord, and took up my abode in Phrygia’s sumptuous halls. Now, if I come to Hellas, and set foot once more in Sparta, they will hear and see how they were ruined by the wiles of goddesses, while was no traitress to my friends after all; and so will they restore to me my virtuous name again, and I shall give my daughter in marriage, whom no man now will wed; and, leaving this vagrant life in Egypt, shall enjoy the treasures in my home. Had Menelaus met his doom at some funeral pyre, with tears should I be cherishing his memory in a far-off land, but must lose him now when he is alive and safe? Ah! maiden, I beseech thee, say not so; grant me this boon, I pray, and reflect thy father’s justice; for this is the fairest ornament of children, when the child of a virtuous sire resembles its parents in character.

Leader

Piteous thy pleading, and a piteous object thou! But I fain would hear what Menelaus will say to save his life.

Menelaus

I will not deign to throw myself at thy knees, or wet mine eyes with tears; for were I to play the coward, I should most foully blur my Trojan fame. And yet men say it shows a noble soul to let the tear-drop fall in misfortune. But that will not be the honourable course that I will choose in preference to bravery, if what I shall say is honourable. Art thou disposed to save a stranger seeking in mere justice to regain his wife, why then restore her and save us likewise; if not, this will not be the first by many a time that I have suffered, though thou wilt get an evil name. All that I deem worthy of me and honest, all that will touch thy heart most nearly, will I utter at the tomb of thy sire with regret for his loss. Old king beneath this tomb of stone reposing, pay back thy trust! I ask of thee my wife whom Zeus sent hither unto thee to keep for me. I know thou canst never restore her to me thyself, for thou art dead; but this thy daughter will never allow her father once so glorious, whom I invoke in his grave, to bear a tarnished name; for the decision rests with her now. Thee, too, great god of death, I call to my assistance, who hast received full many a corpse, slain by me for Helen, and art keeping thy wage; either restore those dead now to life again, or compel the daughter to show herself a worthy equal of her virtuous sire, and give me back my wife. But if ye will rob me of her, I will tell you that which she omitted in her speech. Know then, maiden, I by an oath am bound, first, to meet thy brother sword to sword, when he or I must die — there is no alternative. But if he refuse to meet me fairly front to front, and seek by famine to chase away us suppliants twain at this tomb, I am resolved to slay Helen, and then to plunge this two-edged sword through my own heart, upon the top of the sepulchre, that our streaming blood may trickle down the tomb; and our two corpses will be lying side by side upon this polished slab, a source of deathless grief to thee, and to thy sire reproach. Never shall thy brother wed Helen, nor shall any other; I will bear her hence myself, if not to my house, at any rate to death. And why this stern resolve? Were I to resort to women’s ways and weep, I should be a pitiful creature, not a man of action. Slay me, if it seems thee good; I will not die ingloriously; but better yield to what I say, that thou mayst act with justice, and I regain my wife.

Leader

On thee, maiden, it rests to judge between these arguments. Decide in such a way as to please one and all.

Theonoe

My nature and my inclination lean towards piety; myself, too, I respect, and I will never sully my father’s fair name, or gratify my brother at the cost of bringing myself into open dishonour. For justice hath her temple firmly founded in my nature, and since I have this heritage from Nereus I will strive to save Menelaus; wherefore, seeing it is Hera’s will to stand thy friend, I will give my vote with her. May Cypris be favourable to me! though in me she hath no part, and I will try to remain a maid alway. As for thy reproaches against my father at this tomb; lo! I have the same words to utter; I should be wronging thee, did I not restore thy wife; for my sire, were he living, would have given her back into thy keeping, and thee to her. Yea, for there is recompense for these things as well amongst the dead as amongst all those who breathe the breath of life. The soul indeed of the dead lives no more, yet hath it a consciousness that lasts for ever, eternal as the ether into which it takes the final plunge. Briefly then to end the matter, I will observe strict silence on all that ye prayed I should, and never with my counsel will I aid my brother’s wanton will. For I am doing him good service, though he little thinks it, if turn him from his godless life to holiness. Wherefore devise yourselves some way of escape; my lips are scaled; I will not cross your path. First with the goddesses begin, and of the one, — and that one Cypris, — Crave permission to return unto thy country; and of Hera, that her goodwill may abide in the same quarter, even her scheme to save thee and thy husband. And thou, my own dead sire, shalt never, in so far as rests with me, lose thy holy name to rank with evil-doers.

[Theonoe and her attendants enter the palace.]

Leader

No man ever prospered by unjust practices, but in a righteous cause there is hope of safety.

Helen

Menelaus, on the maiden’s side are we quite safe. Thou must from that point start, and by contributing thy advice, devise with me a scheme to save ourselves.

Menelaus

Hearken then; thou hast been a long while in the palace, and art intimate with the king’s attendants.

Helen

What dost thou mean thereby? for thou art suggesting hopes, as if resolved on some plan for our mutual help.

Menelaus

Couldst thou persuade one of those who have charge of cars and steeds to furnish us with a chariot?

Helen

I might; but what escape is there for us who know nothing of the country and the barbarian’s kingdom?

Menelaus

True; ‘tis impossible. Well, supposing I conceal myself in the palace and slay the king with this two-edged sword?

Helen

His sister would never refrain from telling her brother that thou wert meditating his death.

Menelaus

We have not so much as a ship to make our escape in; for the sea. hath swallowed the one we had.

Helen

Hear me, if haply even a woriian can utter words of wisdom. Dost thou consent to be dead in word, though not really so?

Menelaus

‘Tis a bad omen; still, if by saying so I shall gain aught, I am ready to be dead in word, though not in deed.

Helen

I, too, will mourn thee with hair cut short and dirges, as is women’s way, before this impious wretch.

Menelaus

What saving remedy doth this afford us twain? There is deception in thy scheme.

Helen

I will beg the king of this country leave to bury thee in a cenotaph, as if thou hadst really died at sea.

Menelaus

Suppose he grant it; how, e’en then, are we to escape without a ship, after having committed me to my empty tomb?

Helen

I will bid him give me a vessel, from which to let drop into the sea’s embrace thy funeral offerings.

Menelaus

A clever plan in truth, save in one particular; suppose he bid thee rear the tomb upon the strand, thy pretext comes to naught.

Helen

But I shall say it is not the custom in Hellas to bury those who die at sea upon the shore.

Menelaus

Thou removest this obstacle too; I then will sail with thee and help stow the funeral garniture in the same ship.

Helen

Above all, it is necessary that thou and all thy sailors who escaped from the wreck should be at hand.

Menelaus

Be sure if once I find a ship at her moorings, they shall be there man for man, each with his sword.

Helen

Thou must direct everything; only let there be winds to waft our rails and a good ship to speed before them!

Menelaus

So shall it be; for the deities will cause my troubles to cease. But from whom wilt thou say thou hadst tidings of my death?

Helen

From thee; declare thyself the one and only survivor, telling how thou wert sailing with the son of Atreus, and didst see him perish.

Menelaus

Of a truth the garments I have thrown about me, will bear out my tale that they were rags collected from the wreckage.

Helen

They come in most opportunely, but they were near being lost just at the wrong time. Maybe that misfortune will turn to fortune.

Menelaus

Am I to enter the palace with thee, or are we to sit here at the tomb quietly?

Helen

Abide here; for if the king attempts to do thee any mischief, this tomb and thy good sword will protect thee. But I will go within and cut off my hair, and exchange my white robe for sable weeds, and rend my cheek with this hand’s blood-thirsty nail. For ‘tis a mighty struggle, and I see two possible issues; either I must die if detected in my plot, or else to my country shall I come and save thy soul alive. O Hera! awful queen, who sharest the couch of Zeus, grant some respite from their toil to two unhappy wretches; to thee I pray, tossing my arms upward to heaven, where thou hast thy home in the star-spangled firmament. Thou, too, that didst win the prize of beauty at the price of my marriage; O Cypris! daughter of Dione, destroy me not utterly. Thou hast injured me enough aforetime, delivering up my name, though not my person, to live amongst barbarians. Oh! suffer me to die, if death is thy desire, in my native land. Why art thou so insatiate in mischief, employing every art of love, of fraud, and guileful schemes, and spells that bring bloodshed on families? Wert thou but moderate, only that! — in all else thou art by nature man’s most well, come deity; and I have reason so to say.

[Helen enters the palace and Menelaus withdraws into the background.]

Chorus [singing]

Thee let me invoke, tearful Philomel, lurking ‘neath the leafy covert in thy place of song, most tuneful of all feathered songsters, oh! come to aid me in my dirge, trilling through thy tawny throat, as I sing the piteous woes of Helen, and the tearful fate of Trojan dames made subject to Achaea’s spear, on the day that there came to their plains one who sped with foreign oar across the dashing billows, bringing to Priam’s race from Lacedaemon thee his hapless bride, Helen, — even Paris, luckless bridegroom, by the guidance of Aphrodite.

And many an Achaean hath breathed his last amid the spearmen’s thrusts and hurtling hail of stones, and gone to his sad end; for these their wives cut off their hair in sorrow, and their houses are left without a bride; and one of the Achaeans, that had but a single ship, did light a blazing beacon on sea-girt Euboea, and destroy full many of them, wrecking them on the rocks of Caphareus and the shores that front the Aegean main, by the treacherous gleam he kindled; when thou, O Menelaus, from the very day of thy start, didst drift to harbourless hills, far from thy country before the breath of the storm, bearing on thy ship a prize that was no prize, but a phantom made by Hera out of cloud for the Danai to struggle over.

What mortal claims, by searching to the utmost limit, to have found out the nature of God, or of his opposite, or of that which comes between, seeing as he doth this world of man tossed to and fro by waves of contradiction and strange vicissitudes? Thou, Helen, art the daughter of Zeus; for thy sire was the bird that nestled in Leda’s bosom; and yet for all that art thou become a by-word for wickedness, through the length and breadth of Hellas, as faithless, treacherous wife and godless woman; nor can I tell what certainty is, whatever may pass for it amongst men. That which gods pronounce have I found true.

O fools! all ye who try to win the meed of valour through war and serried ranks of chivalry, seeking thus to still this mortal coil, in senselessness; for if bloody contests are to decide, there will never be any lack of strife in the towns of men; the maidens of the land of Priam left their bridal bowers, though arbitration might have put thy quarrel right, O Helen. And now Troy’s sons are in Hades’ keeping in the world below, and fire hath darted on her walls, as darts the flame of Zeus, and thou art bringing woe on woe to hapless sufferers in their misery.

[Theoclymenus and his hunting attendants enter.]

Theoclymenus

All hail, my father’s tomb! I buried thee, Proteus, at the place where men go out, that I might often greet thee; and so, ever as I go out and in, I, thy son Theoclymenus call on thee, father. Ho! servants, to the palace take my hounds and hunting nets! How often have I blamed myself for never punishing those miscreants with death! I have just heard that son of Hellas has come openly to my land, escaping the notice of the guard, a spy maybe or a would-be thief of Helen; death shall be his lot if only I can catch him. Ha! I find all my plans apparently frustrated, the daughter of Tyndareus has deserted her seat at the tomb and sailed away from my shores. Ho! there, undo the bars, loose the horses from their stalls, bring forth my chariot, servants, that the wife, on whom my heart is set, may not get away from these shores unseen, for want of any trouble I can take. Yet stay; for I see the object of my pursuit is still in the palace, and has not fled. [Helen enters from the palace, clad in the garb of mourning.] How now, lady, why hast thou arrayed thee in sable weeds instead of white raiment, and from thy fair head hast shorn thy tresses with the steel, bedewing thy cheeks the while with tears but lately shed? Is it in response to visions of the night that thou art mourning, or, because thou hast heard some warning voice within, art thus distraught with grief?

Helen

My lord, — for already I have learnt to say that name — I am undone; my luck is gone; I cease to be.

Theoclymenus

In what misfortune art thou plunged? What hath happened?

Helen

Menelaus, ah me! how can I say it? is dead, my husband.

Theoclymenus

How knowest thou? Did Theonoe tell thee this?

Helen

Both she, and one who was there when he perished.

Theoclymenus

What! hath one arrived who actually announces this for certaint?

Helen

One hath; oh may he come e’en as I wish him to!

Theoclymenus

Who and where is he? that I may learn this more surely.

Helen

There he is, sitting crouched beneath the shelter of this tomb,

Theoclymenus

Great Apollo! how clad in unseemly rags!

Helen

Ah me! methinks my own husband too is in like plight.

Theoclymenus

From what country is this fellow? whence landed he here?

Helen

From Hellas, one of the Achaeans who sailed with my husband.

Theoclymenus

What kind of death doth he declare that Menelaus died?

Helen

The most piteous of all; amid the watery waves at sea.

Theoclymenus

On what part of the savage ocean was he sailing?

Helen

Cast up on the harbourless rocks of Libya.

Theoclymenus

How was it this man did not perish if he was with him aboard?

Helen

There are times when churls have more luck than their betters.

Theoclymenus

Where left he the wreck, on coming hither?

Helen

There, where perdition catch it, but not Menelaus!

Theoclymenus

He is lost; but on what vessel came this man?

Helen

According to his story sailors fell in with him and picked him up.

Theoclymenus

Where then is that ill thing that was sent to Troy in thy stead?

Helen

Dost mean the phantom-form of cloud? It hath passed into the air.

Theoclymenus

O Priam, and thou land of Troy, how fruitless thy ruin!

Helen

I too have shared with Priam’s race their misfortunes.

Theoclymenus

Did this fellow leave thy husband unburied, or consign him to the grave?

Helen

Unburied; woe is me for my sad lot!

Theoclymenus

Wherefore hast thou shorn the tresses of thy golden hair?

Helen

His memory lingers fondly in this heart, whate’er his fate.

Theoclymenus

Are thy tears in genuine sorrow for this calamity?

Helen

An easy task no doubt to escape thy sister’s detection!

Theoclymenus

No, surely; impossible. Wilt thou still make this tomb thy abode?

Helen

Why jeer at me? canst thou not let the dead man be?

Theoclymenus

No, thy loyalty to thy husband’s memory makes thee fly from me.

Helen

I will do so no more; prepare at once for my marriage.

Theoclymenus

Thou hast been long in bringing thyself to it; still I do commend the now.

Helen

Dost know thy part? Let us forget the past.

Theoclymenus

On what terms? One good turn deserves another.

Helen

Let us make peace; be reconciled to me.

Theoclymenus

I relinquish my quarrel with thee; let it take wings and fly away.

Helen

Then by thy knees, since thou art my friend indeed, —

Theoclymenus

What art so bent on winning, that to me thou stretchest out a suppliant hand?

Helen

My dead husband would I fain bury.

Theoclymenus

What tomb can be bestowed on lost bodies? Wilt thou bury a shade?

Helen

In Hellas we have a custom, whene’er one is drowned at sea —

Theoclymenus

What is your custom? The race of Pelops truly hath some skill in matters such as this.

Helen

To hold a burial with woven robes that wrap no corpse.

Theoclymenus

Perform the ceremony; rear the tomb where’er thou wilt.

Helen

‘Tis not thus we give drowned sailors burial.

Theoclymenus

How then? I know nothing of your customs in Hellas.

Helen

We unmoor, and carry out to sea all that is the dead man’s due.

Theoclymenus

What am I to give thee then for thy dead husband?

Helen

Myself I cannot say; I had no such experience in my previous happy life.

Theoclymenus

Stranger, thou art the bearer of tidings I welcome.

Menelaus

Well, I do not, nor yet doth the dead man.

Theoclymenus

How do ye bury those who have been drowned at sea?

Menelaus

Each according to his means.

Theoclymenus

As far as wealth goes, name thy wishes for this lady’s sake.

Menelaus

There must be a blood-offering first to the dead.

Theoclymenus

Blood of what? Do thou show me and I will comply.

Menelaus

Decide that thyself; whate’er thou givest will suffice.

Theoclymenus

Amongst barbarians ‘tis customary to sacrifice a horse or bull,

Menelaus

If thou givest at all, let there be nothing mean in thy gift.

Theoclymenus

I have no lack of such in my rich herds

Menelaus

Next an empty bier is decked and carried in procession.

Theoclymenus

It shall be so; what else is it customary to add?

Menelaus

Bronze arms; for war was his delight.

Theoclymenus

These will be worthy of the race of Pelops, and these will we give.

Menelaus

And with them all the fair increase of productive earth.

Theoclymenus

And next, how do ye pour these offerings into the billows?

Menelaus

There must be a ship ready and rowers.

Theoclymenus

How far from the shore does the ship put out?

Menelaus

So far that the foam in her wake can scarce be seen from the strand.

Theoclymenus

Why so? wherefore doth Hellas observe this custom?

Menelaus

That the billow may not cast up again our expiatory offerings.

Theoclymenus

Phoenician rowers will soon cover the distance.

Menelaus

‘Twill be well done, and gratifying to Menelaus, too.

Theoclymenus

Canst thou not perform these rites well enough without Helen?

Menelaus

This task belongs to mother, wife, or children.

Theoclymenus

‘Tis her task then, according to thee, to bury her husband.

Menelaus

To be sure; piety demands that the dead be not robbed of their due.

Theoclymenus

Well, let her go; ‘tis my interest to foster piety in a wife. And thou, enter the house and choose adornment for the dead. Thyself, too, will not send empty-handed away, since thou hast done her a service. And for the good news thou hast brought me, thou shalt receive raiment instead of going bare, and food, too, that thou mayst reach thy country; for as it is, I see thou art in sorry plight. As for thee, poor lady, waste not thyself in a hopeless case; Menelaus has met his doom, and thy dead husband cannot come to life.

Menelaus

This then is thy duty, fair young wife; be content with thy present husband, and forget him who has no existence; for this is thy best course in face of what is happening. And if ever I come to Hellas and secure my safety, I will clear thee of thy former ill-repute, if thou prove a dutiful wife to thy true husband.

Helen

I will; never shall my husband have cause to blame me; thou shalt thyself attend us and be witness thereto. Now go within, poor wanderer, and seek the bath, and change thy raiment. I will show my kindness to thee, and that without delay. For thou wilt perform all service due with kindlier feeling for my dear lord Menelaus, if at my hands thou meet with thy deserts.

[Theoclymenus, Helen, Menelaus enter the palace.]

Chorus [singing]

Through wooded glen, o’er torrent’s flood, and ocean’s booming waves rushed the mountain-goddess, mother of the gods, in frantic haste, once long ago, yearning for her daughter lost, whose name men dare not utter; loudly rattled the Bacchic castanets in shrill accord, what time those maidens, swift as whirlwinds, sped forth with the goddess on her chariot yoked to wild creatures, in quest of her that was ravished from the circling choir of virgins; here was Artemis with her bow, and there the grim-eyed goddess, sheathed in mail, and spear in hand. But Zeus looked down from his throne in heaven, and turned the issue otherwhither.

Soon as the mother ceased from her wild wandering toil, in seeking her daughter stolen so subtly as to baffle all pursuit, she crossed the snow-capped heights of Ida’s nymphs; and in anguish cast her down amongst the rocks and brushwood deep in snow; and, denying to man all increase to his tillage from those barren fields, she wasted the human race; nor would she let the leafy tendrils yield luxuriant fodder for the cattle, wherefore many a beast lay dying; no sacrifice was offered to the gods, and on the altars were no cakes to burn; yea, and she made the dew-fed founts of crystal water to cease their flow, in her insatiate sorrow for her child.

But when for gods and tribes of men alike she made an end to festal cheer, Zeus spoke out, seeking to soothe the mother’s moody soul, “Ye stately Graces, go banish from Demeter’s angry heart the grief her wanderings bring upon her for her child, and go, ye Muses too, with tuneful choir.” Thereon did Cypris, fairest of the blessed gods, first catch up the crashing cymbals, native to that land, and the drum with tight-stretched skin, and then Demeter smiled, and in her hand. did take the deep-toned flute, well pleased with its loud note.

Thou hast wedded as thou never shouldst have done in defiance of all right, and thou hast incurred, my daughter, the wrath of the great mother by disregarding her sacrifices. Oh! mighty is the virtue in dress of dappled fawn-skin, in ivy green that twineth round a sacred thyrsus, in whirling tambourines struck as they revolve in air in tresses wildly streaming for the revelry of Bromius, and likewise in the sleepless vigils of the goddess, when the moon looks down and sheds her radiance o’er the scene. Thou wert confident in thy charms alone.

[Helen comes out of the palace alone.]

Helen

My friends, within the palace all goes well for us; for the daughter of Proteus, who is privy to our stealthy scheme, told her brother nothing when questioned as to my husband’s coming, but for my sake declared him dead and buried. Most fortunate it is my lord hath had the luck to get these weapons; for he is now himself clad in the harness he was to plunge into the sea, his stalwart arm thrust through the buckler’s strap, and in his right hand a spear, on pretence of joining in homage to the dead. He hath girded himself most serviceably for the fray, as if to triumph o’er a host of barbarian foes when once we are aboard yon oared ship; instead of his rags from the wreck hath he donned the robes I gave for his attire, and I have bathed his limbs in water from the stream, a bath he long hath wanted. But I must be silent, for from the house comes forth the man who thinks he has me in his power, prepared to be his bride; and thy goodwill I also claim and thy strict silence, if haply, when we save ourselves, we may save thee too some day.

[Theoclymenus and Menelaus enter, with a train of attendants bearing the offerings for the funeral rites.]

Theoclymenus

Advance in order, servants, as the stranger hath directed, bearing the funeral gifts the sea demands. But thou, Helen, if thou wilt not misconstrue my words, be persuaded and here abide; for thou wilt do thy husband equal service whether thou art present or not. For I am afraid that some sudden shock of fond regret may prompt thee to plunge into the swollen tide, in an ecstasy of gratitude toward thy former husband; for thy grief for him, though he is lost, is running to excess.

Helen

O my new lord, needs must I honour him with whom I first shared married joys; for I could even die with my husband, so well I loved him; yet how could he thank me, were I to share death’s doom with him? Still, let me go and pay his funeral rites unto the dead in person. The gods grant thee the boon I wish and this stranger too, for the assistance he is lending here! And thou shalt find in me a wife fit to share thy house, since thou art rendering kindness to Menelaus and to me; for surely these events are to some good fortune tending. But now appoint someone to give us a ship wherein to convey these gifts, that I may find thy kindness made complete.

Theoclymenus [to an attendant]

Go thou, and furnish them with a Sidonian galley of fifty oars and rowers also.

Helen

Shall not he command the ship who is ordering the funeral?

Theoclymenus

Most certainly; my sailors are to obey him.

Helen

Repeat the order, that they may clearly understand thee.

Theoclymenus

I repeat it, and will do so yet again if that is thy pleasure.

Helen

Good luck to thee and to me in my designs!

Theoclymenus

Oh! waste not thy fair complexion with excessive weeping.

Helen

This day shall show my gratitude to thee.

Theoclymenus

The state of the dead is nothingness; to toil for them is vain.

Helen

In what I say, this world, as well as that, hath share.

Theoclymenus

Thou shalt not find in me a husband at all inferior to Menelaus.

Helen

With thee have I no fault to find; good luck is all I need.

Theoclymenus

That rests with thyself, if thou show thyself a loving wife to me.

Helen

This is not a lesson I shall have to learn now, to love my friends.

Theoclymenus

Is it thy wish that I should escort thee in person with active aid?

Helen

God forbid! become not thy servant’s servant, O king!

Theoclymenus

Up and away! I am not concerned with customs which the race of Pelops holds. My house is pure, for Menelaus did not die here; go some one now and bid my vassal chiefs bring marriage-offerings to my palace; for the whole earth must re-echo in glad accord the hymn of my wedding with Helen, to make men envious. Go, stranger, and pour into the sea’s embrace these offerings to Helen’s former lord, and then speed back again with my bride, that after sharing with me her marriage-feast thou mayst set out for home, or here abide in happiness.

[Theoclymenus and his retinue enter the palace.]

Menelaus

O Zeus, who art called the father of all and god of wisdom, look down on us and change our woe to joy! Lend us thy ready help, as we seek to drag our fortunes up the rugged hill; if with but thy finger-tip thou touch us, we shall reach our longed-for goal. Sufficient are the troubles we ere this have undergone. Full oft have I invoked you gods to near my joys and sorrows; I do not deserve to be for ever unhappy, but to advance and prosper. Grant me but this one boon, and so will ye crown my future with blessing.

[Menelaus, Helen and their train of attendants depart.]

Chorus [singing]

Hail! thou swift Phoenician ship of Sidon! dear to the rowers, mother to the foam, leader of fair dolphins’ gambols, what time the deep is hushed and still, and Ocean’s azure child, the queen of calm, takes up her parable and says: “Away! and spread your canvas to the ocean-breeze. Ho! sailors, ho! come grip your oars of pine, speeding Helen on her way to the sheltered beach where Perseus dwelt of yore.”

It may be thou wilt find the daughters of Leucippus beside the brimming river or before the temple of Pallas, when at last with dance and revelry thou joinest in the merry midnight festival of Hyacinthus, him whom Phoebus slew in the lists by a quoit hurled o’er the mark; wherefore did the son of Zeus ordain that Laconia’s land should set apart that day for sacrifice; there too shalt thou find the tender maid, whom ye left in your house, for as yet no nuptial torch has shed its light for her.

Oh! for wings to cleave the air in the track of Libyan cranes, whose serried ranks leave far behind the wintry storm at the shrill summons of some veteran leader, who raises his exultant cry as he wings his way o’er plains that know no rain and yet bear fruitful increase. Ye feathered birds with necks outstretched, comrades of the racing clouds, on on! till ye reach the Pleiads in their central station and Orion, lord of the night; and as ye settle on Eurotas’ banks proclaim the glad tidings that Menelaus hath sacked the city of Dardanus, and will soon be home.

Ye sons of Tyndareus at length appear, speeding in your chariot through the sky, denizens of heaven’s courts beneath the radiant whirling stars, guide this lady Helen safely o’er the azure main, across the foam-flecked billows of the deep-blue sea, sending the mariners a favouring gale from Zeus; and from your sister snatch the ill-repute of wedding with a barbarian, even the punishment bequeathed to her from that strife on Ida’s mount, albeit she never went to the land of Ilium, to the battlements of Phoebus.

[The Second Messenger enters in haste, as Theoclymenus comes out of the palace.]

Second Messenger

O king, at last have I found thee in the palace; for new tidings of woe art thou soon to hear from me.

Theoclymenus

How now?

Messenger

Make haste to woo a new wife; for Helen hath escaped.

Theoclymenus

Borne aloft on soaring wings, or treading still the earth?

Messenger

Menelaus has succeeded in bearing her hence; ‘twas he that brought the news of his own death.

Theoclymenus

O monstrous story! what ship conveyed her from these shores? Thy tale is past belief.

Messenger

The very ship thou didst thyself give the stranger; and that thou mayest briefly know all, he is gone, taking thy sailors with him.

Theoclymenus

How was it? I long to know, for I never thought that a single arm could master all those sailors with whom thou wert despatched.

Messenger

Soon as the daughter of Zeus had left this royal mansion and come unto the sea, daintily picking her way, most craftily she set to mourn her husband, though he was not dead but at her side. Now when we reached thy docks well walled, we began to launch the fastest of Sidonian ships, with her full complement of fifty rowers, and each task in due succession followed; some set up the mast, others ranged the oars with their blades ready, and stored the white sails within the hold, and the rudder was let down astern and fastened securely. While we were thus employed, those Hellenes, who had been fellow-voyagers with Menelaus, were watching us, it seems, and they drew nigh the beach, clad in the rags of shipwrecked men, — well built enough, but squalid to look upon. And the son of Atreus, directly he saw them approach, bespoke them, craftily introducing the reason for his mourning: “Ye hapless mariners, how have ye come hither? your Achaean ship where wrecked? Are ye here to help bury dead Atreus’ son, whose missing body this lady, daughter of Tyndareas, is honouring with a cenotaph?” Then they with feigned tears proceeded to the ship, bearing aboard the offerings to be thrown into the deep for Menelaus. Thereat were we suspicious, and communed amongst ourselves regarding the number of extra voyagers; but still we kept silence out of respect for thy orders, for by intrusting the command of the vessel to the stranger thou didst thus spoil all. Now the other victims gave no trouble, and we easily put them aboard; only the bull refused to go forward along the gangway, but rolled his eyes around and kept bellowing, and, arching his back and glaring askance towards his horns, he would not let us touch him. But Helen’s lord cried out: “O! ye who laid waste the town of Ilium, come pick up yon bull, the dead man’s offering, on your stout shoulders, as is the way in Hellas, and cast him into the hold;” and as he spoke he drew his sword in readiness. Then they at his command came and caught up the bull and carried him bodily on to the deck. And Menelaus stroked the horse on neck and brow, coaxing it to go aboard. At length, when the ship was fully freighted, Helen climbed the ladder with graceful step and took her seat midway betwixt the rowers’ benches, and he sat by her side, even Menelaus who was called dead; and the rest, equally divided on the right and left side of the ship, sat them down, each beside his man, with swords concealed beneath their cloaks, and the billows soon were echoing to the rowers’ song, as we heard the boatswain’s note. Now when we were put out a space, not very far nor very near, the helmsman asked, “Shall we, sir stranger, sail yet further on our course, or will this serve? For thine it is to command the ship.” And he answered: “‘Tis far enough for me,” while in his right hand he gripped his sword and stepped on to the prow; then standing o’er the bull to slay it, never a word said he of any dead man, but cut its throat and thus made prayer: “Poseidon, lord of the sea, whose home is in the deep, and ye holy daughters of Nereus, bring me and my wife safe and sound to Nauplia’s strand from hence! Anon a gush of blood, fair omen for the stranger, spouted into the tide. One cried, “There is treachery in this voyage; why should we now sail to Nauplia? Give the order, helmsman, turn thy rudder.” But the son of Atreus, standing where he slew the bull, called to his comrades, “Why do ye, the pick of Hellas, delay to smite and slay the barbarians and fling them from the ship into the waves?” While to thy crew the boatswain cried the opposite command: “Ho! some of you catch up chance spars, break up the benches, or snatch the oar-blade from the thole, and beat out the brains of these our foreign foes.” Forthwith up sprang each man, the one part armed with poles that sailors use, the other with swords. And the ship ran down with blood; while Helen from her seat upon the stern thus cheered them on: “Where is the fame ye won in Troy? show it against these barbarians.” Then as they hasted to the fray, some would fall and some rise up again, while others hadst thou seen laid low in death. But Menelaus in full armour, made his way, sword in hand, to any point where his watchful eye perceived his comrades in distress; so we leapt from the ship and swam, and he cleared the benches of thy rowers. Then did the prince set himself to steer, and bade them make a straight course to Hellas. So they set up the mast, and favouring breezes blew; and they are clear away, while I, from death escaped, let myself down by the anchor chain into the sea; and, just as I was spent, one threw me a rope and rescued me, and drew me to land to bring to thee this message. Ah! there is naught more serviceable to mankind than a prudent distrust.

Leader of the chorus

I would never have believed that Menelaus could have eluded us and thee, O king, in the way he did on his coming.

Theoclymenus

Woe is me! cozened by a woman’s tricks! My bride hath escaped me. If the ship could have been pursued and overtaken, I would have used every means forthwith to catch the strangers; as it is, I will avenge myself upon my treacherous sister, in that she saw Menelaus in my palace and did not tell me. Wherefore shall she nevermore deceive another by her prophetic art.

[A servant comes out of the palace.]

Servant

Ho, there! whither away so fast, my lord? on what bloody thought intent?

Theoclymenus

Whither justice calls me. Out of my path!

Servant

I will not loose thy robe, for on grievous mischief art thou bent.

Theoclymenus

Shalt thou, a slave, control thy master?

Servant

Yea, for I am in my senses.

Theoclymenus

I should not say so, if thou wilt not let me

Servant

Nay, but that I never will.

Theoclymenus

Slay my sister most accursed.

Servant

Say rather, most righteous.

Theoclymenus

“Righteous?” She who betrayed me?

Servant

There is an honourable treachery, which ‘tis right to commit.

Theoclymenus

By giving my bride to another?

Servant

Only to those who had a better right.

Theoclymenus

Who hath any rights o’er mine?

Servant

He that received her from her father.

Theoclymenus

Nay, but fortune gave her to me.

Servant

And destiny took her away.

Theoclymenus

“Tis not for thee to decide my affairs.

Servant

Only supposing mine be the better counsel.

Theoclymenus

So I am thy subject, not thy ruler.

Servant

Aye, a subject bound to do the right, and eschew the wrong.

Theoclymenus

It seems thou art eager to be slain.

Servant

Slay me; thy sister shalt thou never slay with my consent, but me perchance; for to die for their masters is the fairest death that noble slaves can find.

[The Dioscuri appear from above.]

Dioscuri

Restrain those bursts of rage that hurry thee to undue lengths, Theoclymenus, king of this country. We are the twin sons of Zeus that call to thee by name, whom Leda bore one day, with Helen too who hath fled from thy palace. For thou art wroth for a marriage never destined for thee; nor is thy sister Theonoe, daughter of a Nereid goddess, wronging thee because she honours the word of God and her father’s just behests. For it was ordained that Helen should abide within thy halls up till the present time, but since Troy is razed to the ground and she hath lent her name to the goddesses, no longer need she stay, now must she be united in the self-same wedlock as before, and reach her home and share it with her husband. Withhold then thy malignant blade from thy sister, and believe that she herein is acting with discretion. Long, long ago had we our sister saved, seeing that Zeus has made us gods, but we were too weak for destiny as well as the deities, who willed these things to be. This is my bidding to thee; while to my sister I say, “Sail on with thy husband; and ye shall have a prosperous breeze; for we, thy brethren twain, will course along the deep and bring you safely to your fatherland. And when at last thy goal is reached and thy life ended, thou shalt be famous as a goddess, and with thy twin brethren share the drink-offering, and like us receive gifts from men, for such is the will of Zeus. Yea, and that spot where the son o Maia first appointed thee a home when from Sparta he removed thee, after stealing an image of thee from Heaven’s mansions to prevent thy marriage with Paris, even the isle that lies like a sentinel along the Attic coast, shall henceforth be called by thy name amongst men, for that it welcomed thee when stolen from thy home. Moreover, Heaven ordains that the wanderer Menelaus shall find a home within an island of the blest; for to noble souls hath the deity no dislike, albeit these oft suffer more than those of no account.”

Theoclymenus

Ye sons of Leda and of Zeus, I will forego my former quarrel about your sister, nor no longer seek to slay mine own. Let Helen to her home repair, if such is Heaven’s pleasure. Ye know that ye are sprung of the same stock as your sister, best of women, chastest too; hail then for the true nobility of Helen’s soul, a quality too seldom found amongst her sex!

Chorus [chanting]

Many are the forms the heavenly will assumes; and many a thing God brings to pass contrary to expectation: that which was looked for is not accomplished, while Heaven finds out a way for what we never hoped; e’en such has been the issue here.

The Heracleidae

Characters in the Play

Iolaus, friend of Heracles

Copreus, herald of Eurystheus

Demophon, King of Athens

Macaria, daughter of Heracles

Servant, of Hyllus, son of Heracles

Alcmena, mother of Heracles

Messenger

Eurystheus; King of Argos

Chorus of aged Athenians

Acamas, the brother of Demophon, younger sons of Heracles, attendants, guards, etc.

[Scene: Before the altar and temple of Zeus at Marathon. Iolaus, an old man, and the children of Heracles are seen on the steps of the altar.]

Iolaus

I hold this true, and long have held: Nature hath made one man upright for his neighbours’ good, while another hath a disposition wholly given over to gain, useless alike to the state and difficult to have dealings with, but for himself the best of men; and this I know, not from mere hearsay. For I, from pure regard and reverence for my kith and kin, though might have lived at peace in Argos, alone of all my race shared with Heracles his labours, while he was yet with us, and now that he dwells in heaven, I keep these his children safe beneath my wing, though myself need protection. For when their father passed from earth away, Eurystheus would first of all have slain us, but we escaped. And though our home is lost, our life was saved. But in exile we wander from city to city, ever forced to roam. For, added to our former wrongs, Eurystheus thought it fit to put this further outrage upon us: wheresoe’er he heard that we were settling, thither would he send heralds demanding our surrender and driving us from thence, holding out this threat, that Argos is no meal city to make a friend or foe, and furthermore pointing to his own prosperity. So they, seeing how weak my means, and these little ones left without a father, bow to his superior might and drive us from their land. And I share the exile of these children, and help them bear their evil lot by my sympathy, loth to betray them, lest someone say, “Look you! now that the children’s sire is dead, Iolaus no more protects them, kinsman though he is.” Not one corner left us in the whole of Hellas, we are come to Marathon and its neighbouring land, and here we sit as suppliants at the altars of the gods, and pray their aid; for ‘tis said two sons of Theseus dwell upon these plains, the lot of their inheritance, scions of Pandion’s stock, related to these children; this the reason we have come on this our way to the borders of glorious Athens. To lead the flight two aged guides are we; my care is centred on these boys, while she, I mean Alcmena, clasps her son’s daughter in her arms, and bears her for safety within this shrine, for we shrink from letting tender maidens come anigh the crowd or stand as suppliants at the altar. Now Hvllus and the elder of his brethren are seeking some place for us to find a refuge, if we are driven by force from this land. O children, children, come hither! hold unto my robe; for lo! I see a herald coming towards us from Eurystheus, by whom we are persecuted, wanderers excluded from every land. A curse on the and him that sent thee, hateful wretch! for that same tongue of thine hath oft announced its master’s evil hests to these children’s noble sire as well.

[Copreus, the herald of Eurystheus, enters.]

Copreus

Doubtless thy folly lets thee think this is a good position to have taken up, and that thou art come to a city that will help thee. No! there is none that will prefer thy feeble arm to the might of Eurystheus. Begone! why take this trouble? Thou must arise and go to Argos, where awaits thee death by stoning.

Iolaus

Not so, for the god’s altar will protect me, and this land of freedom, wherein we have set foot.

Copreus

Wilt give me the trouble of laying hands on thee?

Iolaus

By force at least shalt thou never drag these children hence.

Copreus

That shalt thou soon learn; it seems thou wert a poor prophet, after all, in this.

[Copreus seizes the children.]

Iolaus

This shall never happen while I live.

Copreus

Begone! for I will take them hence, for all thy refusals, for I hold that they belong to Eurystheus, as they do indeed.

[He throws Iolaus to the ground.]

Iolaus

Help, ye who long have had your home in Athens! we suppliants at Zeus’ altar in your market-place are being haled by force away, our sacred wreaths defiled, shame to your city, to the gods dishonour.

[The Chorus of aged Athenians enters.]

Leader of the chorus

Hark, hark! What cry is this that rises near the altar? At once explain the nature of the trouble.

Iolaus

See this aged frame hurled in its feebleness upon the ground! Woe is me!

Leader

Who threw thee down thus pitiably?

Iolaus

Behold the man who flouts your gods, kind sirs, and tries by force to drag me from my seat before the altar of Zeus.

Chorus [chanting]

From what land, old stranger, art thou come to this confederate state of four cities? or have ye left Euboea’s cliffs, and, with the oar that sweeps the sea, put in here from across the firth?

Iolaus

Sirs, no island life I lead, but from Mycenae to thy land I come.

Chorus [chanting]

What do they call thee, aged sir, those folk in Mycenae?

Iolaus

Maybe ye have heard of Iolaus, the comrade of Heracles, for he was not unknown to fame.

Chorus [chanting]

Yea, I have heard of him in bygone days; but tell me, whose are the tender boys thou bearest in thine arms?

Iolaus

These, sirs, are the sons of Heracles, come as suppliants to you and your city.

Chorus [chanting]

What is their quest? Are they anxious, tell me, to obtain an audience of the state?

Iolaus

That so they may escape surrender, nor be torn with violence from thy altars, and brought to Argos.

Copreus

Nay, this will nowise satisfy thy masters, who o’er thee have a right, and so have tracked thee hither.

Chorus [chanting]

Stranger, ‘tis but right we should reverence the gods’ suppliants, suffering none with violent hand to make them leave the altars, for that will dread justice ne’er permit.

Copreus

Do thou then drive these subjects of Eurystheus forth, and this hand of mine shall abstain from violence.

Chorus [chanting]

‘Twere impious for the state to neglect the suppliant stranger’s prayer.

Copreus

Yet ‘tis well to keep clear of troubles, by adopting that counsel, which is the wiser.

Leader

Thou then shouldst have told the monarch of this land thy errand before being so bold, out of regard to his country’s freedom, instead of trying to drag strangers by force from the altars of the gods.

Copreus

Who is monarch of this land and state?

Leader

Demophon, son of gallant Theseus.

Copreus

Surely it were most to the purpose to discuss this matter somewhat with him; all else has been said in vain.

Leader

Lo! here he comes in person, in hot haste, and Acamas his brother, to hear what thou hast to say.

[Demophon, Acamas, and their retinue enter.]

Demophon

Since thou for all thy years hast outstripped younger men in coming to the rescue to this altar of Zeus, do thou tell me what hath chanced to bring this crowd together.

Leader

There sit the sons of Heracles as suppliants, having wreathed the altar, as thou seest, O king, and with them is Iolaus, trusty comrade of their sire.

Demophon

Why should this event have called for cries of pain?

Leader [turning to Copreus]

This fellow caused the uproar by trying to drag them forcibly from this altar, and he hurled down the old man, till my tears for pity flowed.

Demophon

Hellenic dress and fashion in his robes doth he no doubt adopt, but deeds like these betray the barbarian. Thou, sirrah, tell me straight the country whence thou camest thither.

Copreus

An Argive I; since that thou seek’st to know. Who sent me, and the object of my coming, will I freely tell. Eurystheus, king of Mycenae, sends me hither to fetch these back; and I have come, sir stranger, with just grounds in plenty, alike for speech or action. An Argive myself, Argives I come to fetch, taking with me these runaways from my native city, on whom the doom of death was passed by our laws there; and we have right, since we rule our city independently, to ratify its sentences. And though they have come as suppliants to the altars of numerous others, we have taken our stand on these same arguments, and no one has ventured to bring upon himself evils of his own getting. But they have come hither, either because they perceived some folly in thee, or, in their perplexity, staking all on one risky throw to win or lose; for surely they do not suppose that thou, if so thou hast thy senses still, and only thou, in all the breadth of Hellas they have traversed, wilt pity their foolish troubles. Come now, put argument against argument: what will be thy gain, suppose thou admit them to thy land, or let us take them hence? From us these benefits are thine to win: this city can secure as friends Argos, with its far-reaching arm, and Eurystheus’ might complete; whilst if thou lend an ear to their piteous pleading and grow soft, the matter must result in trial of arms; for be sure we shall not yield this struggle without appealing to the sword. What pretext wilt thou urge? Of what domains art thou robbed that thou shouldst take and wage war with the Tirynthian Argives? What kind of allies art thou aiding? For whom will they have fallen whom thou buriest? Surely thou wilt get an evil name from the citizens, if for the sake of an old man near the grave, a mere shadow I may say, and for these children, thou wilt plunge into troublous waters. The best thou canst say is, that thou wilt find in them a hope, and nothing more; and yet this falls far short of the present need; for these would be but a poor match for Argives even when fully armed and in their prime, if haply that raises thy spirits; moreover, the time ‘twixt now and then is long, wherein ye may be blotted out. Nay, hearken to me; give me naught, but let me take mine own, and so gain Mycenae; but forbear to act now, as is your Athenian way, and take the weaker side, when it is in thy power to choose the stronger as thy friends.

Leader

Who can decide a cause or ascertain its merits, till from both sides he clearly learn what they would say?

Iolaus

O king, in thy land I start with this advantage, the right to hear and speak in turn, and none, ere that, will drive me hence as elsewhere they would. ‘Twixt us and him is naught in common, for we no longer have aught to do with Argos since that decree was passed, but we are exiles from our native land; how then can he justly drag us back as subjects of Mycenae, seeing that they have banished us? For we are strangers. Or do ye claim that every exile from Argos is exiled from the bounds of Hellas? Not from Athens surely; for ne’er will she for fear of Argos drive the children of Heracles from her land. Here is no Trachis, not at all; no! nor that Achaean town, whence thou, defying justice, but boasting of the might of Argos in the very words thou now art using, didst drive the suppliants from their station at the altar. If this shall be, and they thy words approve, why then I trow this is no more Athens, the home of freedom. Nay, but I know the temper and nature of these citizens; they would rather die, for honour ranks before mere life with men of worth. Enough of Athens! for excessive praise is apt to breed disgust; and oft ere now have myself felt vexed at praise that knows no bounds. But to thee, as ruler of this land, fain would show the reason why thou art bound to save these children. Pittheus was the son of Pelops; from him sprung Aethra, and from her Theseus thy sire was born. And now will I trace back these children’s lineage for thee. Heracles was son of Zeus and Alcmena; Alcmena sprang from Pelops’ daughter; therefore thy father and their father would be the sons of first cousins. Thus then art thou to them related, O Demophon, but thy just debt to them beyond the ties of kinship do I now declare to thee; for I assert, in days gone by, I was with Theseus on the ship, as their father’s squire, when they went to fetch that girdle fraught with death; yea, and from Hades’ murky dungeons did Heracles bring thy father up; as all Hellas doth attest. Wherefore in return they crave this boon of thee, that they be not surrendered up nor torn by force from the altars of thy gods and cast forth from the land. For this were shame on thee, and hurtful likewise in thy state, should suppliants, exiles, kith and kin of thine, be haled away by force. In pity cast one glance at them. I do entreat thee, laying my suppliant bough upon thee, by thy hands and beard, slight not the sons of Heracles, now that thou hast them in thy power to help. Show thyself their kinsman and their friend; be to them father, brother, lord; for better each and all of these than to fall beneath the Argives’ hand.

Leader

O king, I pity them, hearing their sad lot. Now more than ever do see noble birth o’ercome by fortune; for these, though sprung from noble sire, are suffering what they ne’er deserved.

Demophon

Three aspects of the circumstance constrain me, Iolaus, not to spurn the guests thou bringest; first and foremost, there is Zeus, at whose altar thou art seated with these tender children gathered round thee; next come ties of kin, and the debt I owe to treat them kindly for their father’s sake; and last, mine honour, which before all I must regard; for if I permit this altar to be violently despoiled by stranger hands, men will think the land I inhabit is free no more, and that through fear I have surrendered suppliants to Argives, and this comes nigh to make one hang oneself. Would that thou hadst come under a luckier star! yet, as it is, fear not that any man shall tear thee and these children from the altar by force. [to Copreus] Get thee to Argos and tell Eurystheus so; yea and more, if he have any charge against these strangers, he shall have justice; but never shalt thou drag them hence.

Copreus

Not even if I have right upon my side and prove my case?

Demophon

How can it be right to drag the suppliant away by force?

Copreus

Well, mine is the disgrace; no harm will come to thee.

Demophon

‘Tis harm to me, if I let them be haled away by thee.

Copreus

Banish them thyself, and then will I take them from elsewhere.

Demophon

Nature made thee a fool, to think thou knowest better than the god.

Copreus

It seems then evildoers are to find a refuge here.

Demophon

A temple of the gods is an asylum open to the world.

Copreus

Maybe they will not take this view in Mycenae.

Demophon

What! am I not lord of this domain?

Copreus

So long as thou injure not the Argives, and if wise, thou wilt not.

Demophon

Be injured for all I care, provided I sin not against the gods.

Copreus

I would not have thee come to blows with Argos.

Demophon

I am of like mind in this; but I will not dismiss these from my protection.

Copreus

For all that, I shall take and drag my own away.

Demophon

Why then perhaps thou wilt find a difficulty in returning to Argos.

Copreus

That shall I soon find out by making the attempt.

Demophon

Touch them and thou shalt rue it, and that without delay.

Leader

I conjure thee, never dare to strike a herald.

Demophon

Strike I will, unless that herald learn discretion.

Leader

Depart; and thou, O king, touch him not.

Copreus

I go; for ‘tis feeble fighting with a single arm. But I will come again, bringing hither a host of Argive troops, spearmen clad in bronze; for countless warriors are awaiting my return, and king Eurystheus in person at their head; anxiously he waits the issue here on the borders of Alcathous’ realm. And when he hears thy haughty answer, he will burst upon thee, and thy citizens, on this land and all that grows therein; for all in vain should we possess such hosts of picked young troops in Argos, should we forbear to punish thee.

[Copreus departs.]

Demophon

Perdition seize thee! I am not afraid of thy Argos. Be very sure thou shalt not drag these suppliants hence by force, to my shame; for I hold not this city subject unto Argos, but independently.

Chorus [singing]

‘Tis time to use our forethought, ere the host of Argos approach our frontier, for exceeding fierce are the warriors of Mycenae, and in the present case still more than heretofore. For all heralds observe this custom, to exaggerate what happened twofold. Bethink the what a tale he will tell his master of his dreadful treatment, how he came near losing his life altogether.

Iolaus

Children have no fairer prize than this, the being born of a good and noble sire, and the power to wed from noble families; but whoso is enslaved by passion and makes a lowborn match, I cannot praise for leaving to his children a legacy of shame, to gratify himself. For noble birth offers a stouter resistance to adversity than base parentage; for we, in the last extremity of woe, have found friends and kinsmen here, the only champions of these children through all the length and breadth of this Hellenic world. Give, children, give to them your hand, and they the same to you; draw near to them. Ah! children, we have made trial of our friends, and if ever ye see the path that leads you back to your native land, and possess your home and the honours of your father, count them ever as your friends and saviours, and never lift against their land the foeman’s spear, in memory of this, but hold this city first midst those ye love. Yea, they well deserve your warm regard, in that they have shifted from our shoulders to their own the enmity of so mighty a land as Argos and its people, though they saw we were vagabonds and beggars; still they did not give us up nor drive us forth. So while I live, and after death, — come when it will, — loudly will I sing thy praise, good friend, and will extol thee as I stand at Theseus’ side, and cheer his heart, as I tell how thou didst give kind welcome and protection to the sons of Heracles, and how nobly thou dost preserve thy father’s fame through the length of Hellas, and hast not fallen from the high estate to which thy father brought thee, a lot which few others can boast; for ‘mongst the many wilt thou find one maybe, that is not degenerate from his sire.

Leader of the chorus

This land is ever ready in an honest cause to aid the helpless. Wherefore ere now it hath endured troubles numberless for friends, and now in this I see a struggle nigh at hand.

Demophon

Thou hast spoken well, and I feel confident their conduct will be such; our kindness will they not forget. Now will I muster the citizens and set them in array, that I may receive Mycenae’s host with serried ranks. But first will I send scouts to meet them, lest they fall upon me unawares; for at Argos every man is prompt to answer to the call, and I will assemble prophets and ordain a sacrifice. But do thou leave the altar of Zeus and go with the children into the house; for there are those who will care for thee, even though I be abroad. Enter then my house, old man.

Iolaus

I will not leave the altar. Let us sit here still, praying for the city’s fair success, and when thou hast made a glorious end of this struggle, will we go unto the house; nor are the gods who champion us weaker than the gods of Argos, O king; Hera, wife of Zeus, is their leader; Athena ours. And this I say is an omen of success, that we have the stronger deity, for Pallas will not brook defeat.

[Demophon and his retinue go out.]

Chorus [singing]

Though loud thy boasts, there be others care no more for thee for that, O stranger from the land of Argos; nor wilt thou scare my soul with swelling words. Not yet be this the fate of mighty Athens, beauteous town! But thou art void of sense, and so is he, who lords it o’er Argos, the son of Sthenelus, thou that comest to another state, in no wise weaker than Argos, and, stranger that thou art, wouldst drag away by force suppliants of the gods, wanderers that cling to my land for help, refusing to yield to our king, nor yet having any honest plea to urge. How can such conduct count as honourable, at least in wise men’s judgment?

I am for peace myself; yet I tell thee, wicked king, although thou come unto my city, thou shalt not get so easily what thou expectest. Thou art not the only man to wield a sword or targe with plates of brass. Nay, thou eager warrior, I warn thee, bring not war’s alarms against our lovely town; restrain thyself.

[Demophon re-enters.]

Iolaus

My son, why, prithee, art thou returned with that anxious look? Hast thou news of the enemy? Are they coming, are they here, or what thy tidings? For of a surety yon herald will not play us false. No! sure I am their captain, prosperous heretofore, will come, with thoughts exceeding proud against Athens. But Zeus doth punish overweening pride.

Demophon

The host of Argos is come, and Eurystheus its king; my own eyes saw him, for the man who thinks he knows good generalship must see the foe not by messengers alone. As yet, however, he hath not sent his host into the plain, but, camped upon a rocky brow, is watching — I only tell thee what I think this means — to see by which road to lead his army hither without fighting, and how to take up a safe position in this land. However, all my plans are by this time carefully laid; the city is under arms, the victims stand ready to be slain to every god, whose due this is; my seers have filled the town with sacrifices, to turn the foe to flight and keep our country safe. All those who chant prophetic words have I assembled, and have examined ancient oracles, both public and secret, as means to save this city. And though the several answers differ in many points, yet in one is the sentiment of all clearly the same; they bid me sacrifice to Demeter’s daughter some maiden from a noble father sprung. Now I, though in your cause I am as zealous as thou seest, yet will not slay my child, nor will I compel any of my subjects to do so against his will; for who of his own will doth harbour such an evil thought as to yield with his own hands the child he loves? And now thou mayest see angry gatherings, where some declare, ‘tis right to stand by suppliant strangers, while others charge me with folly; but if I do this deed, a civil war is then and there at hand. Do thou then look to this and help to find a way to save yourselves and this country without causing me to be slandered by the citizens. For I am no despot like a barbarian monarch; but provided do what is just, just will my treatment be.

Leader of the chorus

Can it be that heaven forbids this city to help strangers, when it hath the will and longing so to do?

Iolaus

My children, we are even as those mariners, who have escaped the storm’s relentless rage, and have the land almost within their reach, but after all are driven back from shore by tempests to the deep again. Even so we, just as we reach the shore in seeming safety, are being thrust back from this land. Ah me! Why, cruel hope, didst thou then cheer my heart, though thou didst not mean to make the boon complete? The king may well be pardoned, if he will not slay his subjects’ children; and with my treatment here I am content; if indeed ‘tis heaven’s will, I thus should fare, still is my gratitude to thee in no wise lost. Children, I know not what to do for you. Whither shall we turn? for what god’s altar have we left uncrowned? to what fenced city have we failed to go? Ruin and surrender are our instant lot, poor children! If I must die, ‘tis naught to me, save that thereby I give those foes of mine some cause for joy. But you, children, I lament and pity, and that aged mother of your sire, Alcmena. Ah, woe is thee for thy long span of life! and woe is me for all my idle toil! ‘Twas after all our destined doom to fall into the hands of our hated foe, and die a death of shame and misery. But lend me thine aid, thou knowest how; for all hope of these children’s safety has not yet left me. Give me up instead of them to the Argives, O king; run no risk, but let me save the children; to love my life becomes me not; let it pass. Me will Eurystheus be most glad to take and treat despitefully, as I was Heracles’ companion; for the man is but a boor; wherefore wise men ought to pray to get a wise man for their foe, and not a proud senseless fool; for so, even if by fortune flouted, one would meet with much consideration.

Leader

Old man, blame not this city; for though perhaps a gain to us, yet would it be a foul reproach that we betrayed strangers.

Demophon

A generous scheme is thine, but impossible. ‘Tis not in quest of the yon king comes marching hither; what would Eurystheus gain by the death of one so old? Nay, ‘tis these children’s blood he wants. For there is danger to a foe in the youthful scions of a noble race, whose memory dwells upon their father’s wrongs; all this Eurystheus must foresee. But if thou hast any scheme besides, that better suits the time, be ready with it, for, since I heard that oracle, I am at a loss and full of fear.

[Macaria enters from the temple.]

Macaria

Sirs, impute not boldness to me, because I venture forth; this shall be my first request, for a woman’s fairest crown is this, to practise silence and discretion, and abide at home in peace. But when I heard thy lamentations, Iolaus, I came forth, albeit I was not appointed to take the lead in my family. Still in some sense am I fit to do so, for these my brothers are my chiefest care, and I fain would ask, as touching myself, whether some new trouble, added to the former woes, is gnawing at thy heart.

Iolaus

My daughter, ‘tis nothing new that I should praise thee, as I justly may, above all the children of Heracles. Our house seemed to be prospering, when back it fell again into a hopeless state; for the king declares the prophets signify that he must order the sacrifice, not of bull or heifer, but of some tender maid of noble lineage, if we and this city are to exist. Herein is our perplexity; the king refuses either to sacrifice his own or any other’s child. Wherefore, though he use not terms express, yet doth he hint, that, unless we find some way out of this perplexity, we must seek some other land, for he this country fain would save.

Macaria

Are these indeed the terms on which our safety depends?

Iolaus

Yea, on these; if, that is, we are successful otherwise.

Macaria

No longer then cower before the hated Argive spear; for I, of my own free will, or ever they bid me, am ready to die and offer myself as a victim. For what excuse have we, if, while this city deems it right to incur great danger on our behalf, we, though we might save ourselves, fly from death, by foisting our trouble on others? No! indeed, ‘twere surely most ridiculous to sit and mourn as suppliants of the gods, and show ourselves but cowards, children as we are of that illustrious sire. Where among the brave is such conduct seen? Better, I suppose, this city should be taken and I (which Heaven forefend!) fall into the hands of the enemy, and then, for all I am my noble father’s child, meet an awful doom, and face the Death-god none the less. Shall I wander as an exile from this land? Shall I not feel shame then, when someone says, as say they will, “Why are ye come hither with suppliant boughs, loving your lives too well? Begone from our land! for we will not succour cowards.” Nay, if these be slain and I alone be saved, I have no hope in any wise of being happy, though many ere now have in this hope betrayed their friends, For who will care to wed a lonely maid or make me mother of his children? ‘Tis better I should die than meet such treatment, little as I merit it. This were fitter treatment for some other, one that is not born to fame as I am. Conduct me to the scene of death, crown me with garlands, and begin the rites, if so it please you; then be victorious o’er the foe, for here I offer my life freely and without constraint, and for my brothers and myself I undertake to die. For I, by loving not my life too well, have found a treasure very fair, a glorious means to leave it.

Leader

Ah, what shall I say on hearing the maid’s brave words, she that is ready to die for her brothers? Who can speak more noble words or do more noble deeds henceforth for ever?

Iolaus

Daughter, thou art his own true child, no other man’s but Heracles’, that godlike soul; proud am I of thy words, though I sorrow for thy lot. Yet will I propose a fairer method: ‘tis right to summon hither all the sisters of this maiden, and then let her, on whom the lot shall fall, die for her family; for that thou shouldst die without the lot is not just.

Macaria

My death shall no chance lot decide; there is no graciousness in that; peace! old friend. But if ye accept and will avail you of my readiness, freely do I offer my life for these, and without constraint.

Iolaus

Ah, this is even nobler than thy former word; that was matchless, but thou dost now surpass thy bravery and noble speech. I cannot bid, will not forbid thy dying, O my daughter! for by thy death thou dost thy brothers serve.

Macaria

A cautious bidding thine! Fear not to take a stain of guilt from me, only let me die as one whose death is free. Follow me, old friend, for in thy arms I fain would die; stand by and veil my body with my robe, for I will go even to the dreadful doom of sacrifice, seeing whose daughter I avow myself.

Iolaus

I cannot stand by and see thee bleed.

Macaria

At least do thou beg me this boon of the king, that I may breathe out my life in women’s arms instead of men’s.

Demophon

It shall be so, unhappy maid; for this were shame to me to refuse the honour due, for many reasons: because thou hast a soul so brave; because ‘tis right; and thou hast shown more courage than any of thy sex my eyes have ever seen. Now, if thou hast aught to say to these children or thy aged guide. oh! say the last thou hast to say — then go.

Macaria

Farewell, old friend, farewell and prithee teach these children to be like thyself, wise at every point; let them strive no further, for that will suffice them. And seek to save them from death, even as thou art anxious to do; thy children are we, thy care it was that nurtured us. Thou seest how I yield my bridal bloom to die for them. For you, my brothers gathered here, may you be happy! and may every blessing be yours, for the which my blood shall pay the price! Honour this old friend, and her that is within the house, Alcmena, the aged mother of my sire, and these strangers too. And if ever heaven for you devise release from trouble and a return to your home, remember the burial due to her that saved you, funeral fair as I deserve; for I have not failed, but stood by you, and died to save my race. This shall be my pearl of price instead of children, and for the maiden life I leave, if there be really aught beyond the grave — God grant there may not be! For if, e’en there, we who are to die shall find a life of care, I know not whither one shall turn; for death is held a sovereign cure for every ill.

Iolaus

Maiden of heroic soul, transcending all thy race, be sure the fame that thou shalt win from us, in life, in death, shall leave the rest of women far behind; farewell to thee! I dare not say harsh words of her to whom thou art devoted, the goddess-daughter of Demeter. [Demophon leads Macaria away.]

Children, I am undone, grief unnerves my limbs; take hold and support me to a seat hard by, when ye have drawn my mantle o’er my face, my sons. For I am grieved at what hath happened, and yet, were it not fulfilled, we could not live; thus were our fate worse, though this is grief enough.

Chorus [singing]

Without the will of heaven none is blest, none curst, I do maintain; nor doth the same house for ever tread the path of bliss; for one kind of fortune follows hard upon another; one man it brings to naught from his high estate, another though of no account it crowns with happiness. To shun what fate decrees, is no wise permitted; none by cunning shall thrust it from him; but he, who vainly would do so, shall have unceasing trouble.

Then fall not prostrate thou, but bear what heaven sends, and set limit to thy soul’s grief; for she, poor maid! in dying for her brothers and this land, hath won a glorious death, and splendid fame shall be her meed from all mankind; for virtue’s path leads through troublous ways. Worthy of her father, worthy of her noble birth is this she does. And if thou dost honour the virtuous dead, I share with thee that sentiment.

[The Servant of Hyllus enters.]

Servant of Hyllus

All hail, ye children! Where is aged Iolaus? where the mother of your ‘sire, absent from their place at this altar?

Iolaus

Here am I, so far as I can be here at all.

Servant

Why dost thou lie there? Why that downcast look?

Iolaus

There is come a sorrow on my house, whereby I suffer.

Servant

Arise, lift up thy head.

Iolaus

I am old, and all my strength is gone.

Servant

But I come with tidings of great joy for thee.

Iolaus

Who art thou? Where have I met thee? I have no remembrance.

Servant

I am a vassal of Hyllus; dost not recognize me now?

Iolaus

Best of friends, art thou come to save us twain from hurt?

Servant

Assuredly; and moreover thou art lucky in the present case.

Iolaus

Alcmena, mother of a noble son, to thee I call! come forth, hear this welcome news. For long has anguish caused thee inwardly to waste, wondering if those, who now are here, would ever come.

[Alcmena enters from the temple in answer to the call.]

Alcmena

What means that shout, that echoes throughout the house? Hath there come yet a herald from Argos, O Iolaus, and is he treating thee with violence? Feeble is any strength of mine; yet thus much let me tell thee, stranger, never, whilst I live, shalt thou drag them hence. Shouldst thou succeed, no more let me be thought the mother of that hero. And if thou lay a finger on them, thou wilt struggle to thy shame with two aged foes.

Iolaus

Courage, aged dame, fear not; not from Argos is a herald come, with hostile messages.

Alcmena

Why then didst raise a cry, fear’s harbinger?

Iolaus

I called thee to come to me in front of this temple.

Alcmena

I know not what it means; who is this?

Iolaus

A messenger who says thy grandson cometh hither.

Alcmena

All hail to thee for these thy tidings! But why is he not here, where is he? if in this land he hath set foot. What hath happened to keep him from coming hither with thee, to cheer my heart?

Servant

He is posting the army he brought with him, and seeing it marshalled.

Alcmena

Then have I no concern herein.

Iolaus

Yes, thou hast; though it is my business to inquire.

Servant

What then wouldst thou learn of these events?

Iolaus

About how many allies has he with him?

Servant

A numerous force; I cannot otherwise describe the number.

Iolaus

The leaders of the Athenians know this, I suppose?

Servant

They do; already is their left wing set in array.

Iolaus

Is then the host already armed for battle?

Servant

Yea, and already are the victims brought near the ranks.

Iolaus

About what distance is the Argive host from us?

Servant

Near enough for their general to be plainly seen.

Iolaus

What is he about? marshalling the enemy’s line?

Servant

So we guessed; we could not hear exactly. But I must go, for I would not that my master should engage the foe without me, if I can help it.

Iolaus

I also will go with thee; for I like thee am minded, so it seems, to be there and help my friends.

Servant

It least of all becomes thee thus to utter words of folly.

Iolaus

Far less to shrink from sharing with my friends the stubborn fight.

Servant

Mere looks can wound no one, if the arm do naught.

Iolaus

Why, cannot I smite even through their shields?

Servant

Smite perhaps, more likely be smitten thyself.

Iolaus

No foe will dare to meet me face to face.

Servant

Friend, the strength, that erst was thine, is thine no more.

Iolaus

Well, at any rate, I will fight with as many as ever I did.

Servant

Small the weight thou canst throw into the balance for thy friends,

Iolaus

Detain me not, when I have girded myself for action.

Servant

The power to act is thine no more, the will maybe is there.

Iolaus

Stay here I will not, say what else thou wilt.

Servant

How shalt thou show thyself before the troops unarmed?

Iolaus

There be captured arms within this shrine; these will I use, and, if I live, restore; and, if I am slain, the god will not demand them of me back. Go thou within, and from its peg take down a suit of armour and forthwith bring it to me. To linger thus at home is infamous, while some go fight, and others out of cowardice remain behind.

[The Servant goes into the temple.]

Chorus [singing]

Not yet hath time laid low thy spirit, ‘tis young as ever; but thy body’s strength is gone. Why toil to no purpose? ‘Twill do thee hurt and benefit our city little. At thy age thou shouldst confess thy error and let impossibilities alone. Thou canst in no way get thy vigour back again.

Alcmena

What means this mad resolve to leave me with my children undefended here?

Iolaus

Men must fight; and thou must look to them.

Alcmena

And what if thou art slain? what safety shall I find?

Iolaus

Thy son’s surviving children will care for thee.

Alcmena

Suppose they meet with some reverse? which Heaven forefend!

Iolaus

These strangers will not give thee up, fear not.

Alcmena

They are my last and only hope, I have no other.

Iolaus

Zeus too, I feel sure, cares for thy sufferings.

Alcmena

Ah! of Zeus will I never speak ill, but himself doth know whether he is just to me.

[The Servant enters from the temple, carrying the arms.]

Servant

Lo! here thou seest a full coat of mail; make haste to case thyself therein; for the strife is nigh, and bitterly doth Ares loathe loiterers; but if thou fear the weight of the armour, go now without it, and in the ranks do on this gear; meantime will I carry it.

Iolaus

Well said! keep the harness ready to my hand, put a spear within my grasp, and support me on the left side, guiding my steps.

Servant

Am I to lead this warrior like a child?

Iolaus

To save the omen, we must go without stumbling.

Servant

Would thy power to act were equal to thy zeal!

Iolaus

Hasten; I shall feel it grievously, if I am too late for the battle.

Servant

‘Tis thou who art slow, not I, though thou fanciest thou art doing wonders.

Iolaus

Dost not mark how swift my steps are hasting?

Servant

I mark more seeming than reality in thy haste,

Iolaus

Thou wilt tell a different tale when thou seest me there.

Servant

What shall I see thee do? I wish thee all success, at any rate.

Iolaus

Thou shalt see me smite some foeman through the shield.

Servant

Perhaps, if ever we get there. I have my fears of that.

Iolaus

Ah! would to Heaven that thou, mine arm, e’en as I remember thee in thy lusty youth, when with Heracles thou didst sack Sparta, couldst so champion me to-day! how I would put Eurystheus to flight! since he is to craven to wait the onslaught. For prosperity carries with it this error too, a reputation for bravery; for we think the prosperous man a master of all knowledge.

[Iolaus and the servant depart.]

Chorus [singing]

O earth, and moon that shines by night, and dazzling radiance of the god, that giveth light to man, bear the tidings to me, shout aloud to heaven for joy, and beside our ruler’s throne, and in the shrine of grey-eyed Athene. For my fatherland and home will I soon decide the issue of the strife with the gleaming sword, because I have taken suppliants under my protection.

‘Tis a fearful thing, that a city prosperous as Mycenae is, one famed for martial prowess, should harbour wrath against my land; still, my countrymen, it were a shameful thing in us to yield up suppliant strangers at the bidding of Argos. Zeus is on my side, I am not afraid; Zeus hath a favour unto me, as is my due; never by me shall gods be thought weaker than mortal men.

O dread goddess, thine the soil whereon we stand, thine this city, for thou art its mother, queen, and saviour; wherefore turn some other way the impious king, who leadeth a host from Argos with brandished lance against this land; for, such my worth, I little merit exile from my home.

For thy worship is aye performed with many a sacrifice, and never art thou forgotten as each month draweth to its close, when young voices sing and dancers’ music is heard abroad, while on our wind-swept hill goes up the cry of joy to the beat of maidens’ feet by night.

[The servant enters.]

Servant

Mistress, the message that I bring is very short for thee to hear and fair for me, who stand before thee, to announce. O’er our foes we are victorious, and trophies are being set up, with panoplies upon them, taken from thy enemies.

Alcmena

Best of friends! this day hath wrought thy liberty by reason of these tidings. But there still remains one anxious thought thou dost not free me from; — a thought of fear; — are those, whose lives I cherish, spared to me?

Servant

They are, and high their fame through all the army spreads.

Alcmena

The old man Iolaus, — is he yet alive?

Servant

Aye, that he is, a hero whom the gods delight to honour.

Alcmena

How so? Did he perform some deed of prowess?

Servant

He hath passed from age to youth once more.

Alcmena

Thy tale is passing strange; but first I would that thou shouldst tell me how our friends won the day.

Servant

One speech of mine puts it all clearly before thee. When we had deployed our troops and marshalled them face to face with one another, Hyllus dismounted from his four-horsed chariot and stood midway betwixt the hosts. Then cried he, “Captain, who art come from Argos, why cannot we leave this land alone? No hurt wilt thou do Mycenae, if of one man thou rob her; come! meet me in single combat. and if thou slay me, take the children of Heracles away with thee, but, if thou fall, leave me to possess my ancestral honours and my home.” The host cried yes! saying the scheme he offered was a fair one, both to rid them of their trouble and satisfy their valour. But that other, feeling no shame before those who heard the challenge or at his own cowardice, quailed, general though he was, to come within reach of the stubborn spear, showing himself an abject coward; yet with such a spirit he came to enslave the children of Heracles. Then did Hyllus withdraw to his own ranks again, and the prophets seeing that no reconciliation would be effected by single combat, began the sacrifice without delay and forthwith let flow from a human throat auspicious streams of blood. And some were mounting chariots, while others couched beneath the shelter of their shields, and the king of the Athenians, as a highborn chieftain should, would exhort his host — “Fellow-citizens, the land, that feeds you and that gave you birth, demands to-day the help of every man.” Likewise Eurystheus besought his allies that they should scorn to sully the fame of Argos and Mycenae. Anon the Etrurian trumpet sounded loud and clear, and hand to hand they rushed; then think how loudly clashed their ringing shields, what din arose of cries and groans confused! At first the onset of the Argive spearmen broke our ranks; then they in turn gave ground; next, foot to foot and man to man, they fought their stubborn fray, many falling the while. And either chief cheered on his men, “Sons of Athens! Ye who till the fields of Argos! ward from your land disgrace.” Do all we could, and spite of every effort, scarce could we turn the Argive line in flight. When lo! old Iolaus sees Hyllus starting from the ranks, whereon he lifts his hands to him with a prayer to take him up into his chariot. Thereon he seized the reins and went hard after the horses of Eurystheus. From this point onward must I speak from hearsay, though hitherto as one whose own eyes saw. For as he was crossing Pallene’s hill, sacred to the goddess Athene, he caught sight of Eurystheus’ chariot, and prayed to Hebe and to Zeus, that for one single day he might grow young again and wreak his vengeance on his foes. Now must thou hear a wondrous tale: two stars settled on the horses’ yokes and threw the chariot into dark shadow, which — at least so say our wiser folk — were thy son and Hebe; and from that murky gloom appeared that aged man in the form of a youth with strong young arms; then by the rocks of Sciron the hero Iolaus o’ertakes Eurystheus’ chariot. And he bound his hands with gyves, and is bringing that chieftain once so prosperous as a trophy hither, whose fortune now doth preach a lesson, clear as day, to all the sons of men, that none should envy him, who seems to thrive, until they see his death; for fortune’s moods last but a day.

Leader of the chorus

O Zeus, who puttest my foes to flight, now may I behold the day that frees me from cruel fear!

Alcmena

At last, O Zeus, hast thou turned a favouring eye on my affliction; yet do I thank thee for what has happened. And though ere this I did not believe my son was gathered to the gods, now am I convinced thereof. My children, now at last from toil shall ye be free, free from him, whom hideous death awaits, Eurystheus; now shall ye behold your father’s city, and set foot in the land of your inheritance, and sacrifice to those ancestral gods, from whom ye have been debarred and forced to lead in strangers’ lands a life of wretched vagrancy. But tell me, what sage purpose Iolaus nursed in his heart, that he spared the life of Eurystheus, for to my mind this is no wisdom, to catch a foe and wreak no vengeance on him.

Servant

‘Twas his regard for thee, that thou might’st see him subject to thy hand, and triumph o’er him. Rest assured, ‘twas no willing prisoner he made, but by strong constraint he bound him, for Eurystheus was loth indeed to come alive into thy presence and pay his penalty. Farewell, my aged mistress; I pray thee remember thy first promise when I was beginning my story; set me free; for, at such a time as this, sincerity becometh noble lips.

[The servant departs.]

Chorus [singing]

Sweet is the dance to me, whenso the clear-toned flute and lovely Aphrodite shed grace upon the feast; and a joyful thing too it is, trow, to witness the good luck of friends, who till then ne’er dreamt of it. For numerous is the offspring of Fate, that bringeth all to pass, and of Time, the son of Cronus.

Thine is the path of justice, O my city; this must no man wrest from thee, thy reverence for the gods, and, whoso denieth it of thee, draws nigh to frenzy’s goal, with these plain proofs in view. Yea, for the god proclaims it clearly, by cutting short the bad man’s pride in every case.

In heaven, mother, lives thy son, passed from earth away; that he went down to Hades’ halls, his body burnt by the fire’s fierce flame, is past belief; in golden halls reclined he has to wife Hebe, lovely nymph. Thou, O Hymen, hast honoured them, children both of Zeus.

Things for the most part form a single chain; for men say Athene used to champion their father, and now the citizens of that goddess have saved his children, and checked the insolence of him whose heart preferred violence to justice. God save me from such arrogance, such greed of soul!

[A messenger enters. He is followed by guards who bring in Eurystheus bound.]

Messenger

Mistress, though thine eyes see him, yet will I announce we have brought Eurystheus hither for thy pleasure, an unexpected sight, for him no less a chance he ne’er foresaw; for little he thought of ever falling into thy hands, what time he marched from Mycenae with his toil-worn warriors, to sack Athens, thinking himself far above fortune. But a power divine hath reversed our destinies, changing their position. Now Hyllus and brave Iolaus I left raising an image to Zeus, who routs the foe, for their triumphant victory, whilst they bid me bring this prisoner to thee, wishing to gladden thy heart; for ‘tis the sweetest sight to see a foe fall on evil days after prosperity.

Alcmena

Art come, thou hateful wretch? Hath justice caught thee then at last? First, turn thy head this way to me, and endure to look thy enemies in the face, for thou art no more the ruler, but the slave. Art thou the man — for this I fain would learn — who didst presume to heap thy insults on my son, who now is where he is, thou miscreant? What outrage didst thou abstain from putting upon him? Thou that didst make him go down alive even to Hades, and wouldst send him with an order to slay hydras and lions? Thy other evil schemes I mention not, for to tell them were a tedious task for me. Nor did it content thee to venture thus far only; no! but from all Hellas wouldst thou drive me and my children, heaven’s suppliants though we were, grey-beards some of us, and some still tender babes. But here hast thou found men and a free city, that feared not thee. Die in torment must thou, and e’en so wilt thou gain in every way, for one death is not thy due, after all the sorrow thou hast caused.

Messenger

Thou mayst not slay him.

Alcmena

Then have we taken him captive in vain. But say, what law forbids his death?

Messenger

It is not the wiff of the rulers of this land.

Alcmena

Why, what is this? Do they not approve of slaying enemies?

Messenger

Not such as they have taken alive in battle.

Alcmena

Did Hyllus uphold this decision?

Messenger

He, I suppose, ought to have disobeyed the law of the land.

Alcmena

The prisoner’s life ought not to have been spared a moment.

Messenger

It was then that he was wronged, by not being slain at first.

Alcmena

Why, then, he is still in time to pay his penalty.

Messenger

There is no one who will slay him now.

Alcmena

I will; and yet I count myself someone.

Messenger

Well, thou wilt incur great blame, if thou do this deed.

Alcmena

I love this city well; that cannot be gainsaid. But since this man hath fallen into my power, no mortal hand shall wrest him from me. Wherefore let who will, call me the woman bold, with thoughts too high for her sex; yet shall this deed be brought to pass by me.

Leader of the chorus

Lady, full well I understand thou hast a dire quarrel with this man, and ‘tis pardonable.

Eurystheus

Woman, be sure I will not flatter thee nor say aught to save my life, that can give any occasion for a charge of cowardice. It was not of my own free will I took this quarrel up; I am aware that I was born thy cousin, and kinsman to Heracles, thy son; but whether I would or no, Hera, by her power divine, caused me to be afflicted thus. Still, when undertook to be his foe, and when I knew I had to enter on this struggle, I set myself to devise trouble in plenty, and oft from time to time my midnight communing bore fruit, scheming how to push aside and slay my foes, and for the future divorce myself from fear; for I knew that son of thine was no mere cipher, but a man indeed; yea, for, though he was my foe, I will speak well of him, because he was a man of worth. Now, after he was taken hence, was I not forced, by reason of these children’s hatred, and because I was conscious of an hereditary feud, to leave no stone unturned by slaying, banishing, and plotting against them? So long as I did so, my safety was assured. Suppose thyself hadst had my lot, wouldst not thou have set to harassing the lion’s angry whelps, instead of letting them dwell at Argos undisturbed? Thou wilt not persuade us otherwise. Now therefore, since they did not slay me then, when I was prepared to die, by the laws of Hellas my death becomes a curse on him who slays me now. The city wisely let me go, in that she regarded the gods more than her hatred of me. Thou hast had my answer to thy words; henceforth must I be called avenging spirit and noble hero too. ‘Tis even thus with me; to die have I no wish, but, if I leave my life, I shall in no way be grieved.

Leader

Alcmena, fain I would advise thee somewhat; let this man go, for ‘tis the city’s will.

Alcmena

Suppose he die, and yet I obey the city?

Leader

That would be best of all; but how can this be?

Alcmena

I will teach thee easily. I will slay him and then give up his corpse to those of his friends who come for it, for, as regards his body, I will not disobey the state; but by his death shall he pay me the penalty.

Eurystheus

Slay me, I do not ask thee for mercy; yet since this city let me go and shrunk from slaying me, I will reward it with an old oracle of Loxias, which in time will benefit them more than doth appear. Bury my body after death in its destined grave in front of the shrine of the virgin goddess at Pallene. And I will be thy friend and guardian of thy city for ever, where I lie buried in a foreign soil, but a bitter foe to these children’s descendants, whensoe’er with gathered host they come against this land, traitors to your kindness now; such are the strangers ye have championed. Why then came I hither, if I knew all this, instead of regarding the god’s oracle? Because I thought, that Hera was mightier far than any oracle, and would not betray me. Waste no drink-offering on my tomb, nor spill the victim’s blood; for I will requite them for my treatment here with a journey they shall rue; and ye shall have double gain from me, for I will help you and harm them by my death.

Alcmena

Why, why delay to kill this man, after hearing this, since this is needed to secure the safety of your city and your children? Himself points out the safest road. Though the man is now our foe, yet after death is he our gain. Away with him, ye servants, and cast him to the dogs when ye have slain him. Think not thou shalt live to cast me forth from my native land again.

[The guards lead out Eurystheus.]

Chorus [chanting]

I agree. Lead on, servants. Our conduct shall bring no stain of guilt upon our rulers.

Heracles

Characters in the Play

Amphitryon, husband of Alcmena, the mother of Heracles

Megara, wife of Heracles, daughter of Creon

Lycus, unlawful King of Thebes

Iris

Madness

Messenger

Heracles, son of Zeus and Alcmena

Theseus, King of Athens

Chorus of old men of Thebes

Sons of Heracles, guards, attendants

[Scene: Before the palace of Heracles at Thebes. Nearby stands the altar of Zeus, on the steps of which are now seated Amphitryon, Megara and her sons by Heracles. They are seeking refuge at the altar.]

Amphitryon

What mortal hath not heard of him who shared a wife with Zeus, Amphitryon of Argos, whom on a day Alcaeus, son of Perseus begat, Amphitryon the father of Heracles? He it was dwelt here in Thebes, where from the sowing of the dragon’s teeth grew up a crop of earth-born giants; for of these Ares saved a scanty band, and their children’s children people the city of Cadmus. Hence sprung Creon, son of Menoeceus, king of this land; and Creon became the father of this lady Megara, whom once all Cadmus’ race escorted with the glad music of lutes at her wedding, in the day that Heracles, illustrious chief, led her to my halls. Now he, my son, left Thebes where I was settled, left his wife Megara and her kin, eager to make his home in Argolis, in that walled town which the Cyclopes built, whence I am exiled for the slaying of Electryon; so he, wishing to lighten my affliction and to find a home in his own land, did offer Eurystheus a mighty price for my recall, even to free the world of savage monsters, whether it was that Hera goaded him to submit to this, or that fate was leagued against him. Divers are the toils he hath accomplished, and last of all hath he passed through the mouth of Taenarus into the halls of Hades to drag to the light that hound with bodies three, and thence is he never returned. Now there is an ancient legend amongst the race of Cadmus, that one Lycus in days gone by was husband to Dirce being king of this city with its seven towers, before that Amphion and Zethus, sons of Zeus, lords of the milk-white steeds, became rulers in the land. His son, called by the same name as his father, albeit no Theban but a stranger from Euboea, slew Creon, and after that seized the government, having fallen on this city when weakened by dissension. So this connection with Creon is likely to prove to us a serious evil; for now that my son is in the bowels of the earth, this illustrious monarch Lycus is bent on extirpating the children of Heracles, to quench one bloody feud with another, likewise his wife and me, if useless age like mine is to rank amongst men, that the boys may never grow up to exact a blood-penalty of their uncle’s family. So I, left here by my son, whilst he is gone into the pitchy darkness of the earth, to tend and guard his children in his house, am taking my place with their mother, that the race of Heracles may not perish, here at the altar of Zeus the Saviour, which my own gallant child set up to commemorate his glorious victory over the Minyae. And here we are careful to keep our station, though in need of everything, of food, of drink, and raiment, huddled together on the hard bare ground; for we are barred out from our house and sit here for want of any other safety. As for friends, some I see are insincere; while others, who are staunch, have no power to help us further. This is what misfortune means to man; God grant it may never fall to the lot of any who bears the least goodwill to me, to apply this never-failing test of friendship!

Megara

Old warrior, who erst did raze the citadel of the Taphians leading on the troops of Thebes to glory, how uncertain are God’s dealings with man! For I, as far as concerned my sire was never an outcast of fortune, for he was once accounted a man of might by reason of his wealth, possessed as he was of royal power, for which long spears are launched at the lives of the fortunate through love of it; children too he had; and me did he betroth to thy son, matching me in glorious marriage with Heracles. Whereas now all that is dead and gone from us; and I and thou, old friend, art doomed to die, and these children of Heracles, whom I am guarding ‘neath my wing as a bird keepeth her tender chicks under her. And they the while in turn keep asking me, “Mother, whither is our father gone from the land? what is he about? when will he return?” Thus they inquire for their father, in childish perplexity; while I put them off with excuses, inventing stories; but still I wonder if ‘tis he whenever a door creaks on its hinges, and up they all start, thinking to embrace their father’s knees. What hope or way of salvation art thou now devising, old friend? for to thee I look. We can never steal beyond the boundaries of the land unseen, for there is too strict a watch set on us at every outlet, nor have we any longer hopes of safety in our friends. Whatever thy scheme is, declare it, lest our death be made ready, while we are only prolonging the time, powerless to escape.

Amphitryon

‘Tis by no means easy, my daughter, to give one’s earnest advice on such matters easily, without weary thought.

Megara

Dost need a further taste of grief, or cling so fast to life?

Amphitryon

Yes, I love this life, and cling to its hopes.

Megara

So do I; but it boots not to expect the unexpected, old friend.

Amphitryon

In these delays is left the only cure for our evils.

Megara

‘Tis the pain of that interval I feel so.

Amphitryon

Daughter, there may yet be a happy escape from present troubles for me and thee; my son, thy husband, may yet arrive. So calm thyself, and wipe those tears from thy children’s eyes, and soothe them with soft words, inventing a tale to delude them, piteous though such fraud be. Yea, for men’s misfortunes ofttimes flag, and the stormy wind doth not always blow so strong, nor are the prosperous ever so; for all things change, making way for each other. The bravest man is he who relieth ever on his hopes, but despair is the mark of a coward.

[The Chorus of old men of Thebes enters.]

Chorus [chanting]

To the sheltering roof, to the old man’s couch, leaning on my staff have I set forth, chanting a plaintive dirge like some bird grown grey, I that am but a voice and nothing more, a fancy bred of the visions of sleep by night, palsied with age, yet meaning kindly. All hail! ye orphaned babes! all hail, old friend thou too, — unhappy mother, wailing for thy husband in the halls of Hades!

Faint not too soon upon your way, nor let your limbs grow weary, even as a colt beneath the yoke grows weary as he mounts some stony hill, dragging the weight of a wheeled car. Take hold of hand or robe, whoso feels his footsteps falter. Old friend, escort another like thyself, who erst amid his toiling peers in the days of our youth would take his place beside thee, no blot upon his country’s glorious record.

See, how like their father’s sternly flash these children’s eyes! Misfortune, God wot, hath not failed his children, nor yet hath his comeliness been denied them. O Hellas! if thou lose these, of what allies wilt thou rob thyself!

Leader of the chorus

But I see Lycus, the ruler of this land, drawing near the house.

[Lycus and his attendants enter.]

Lycus

One question, if I may, to this father of Heracles and his wife; and certainly as your lord and master I have a right to put what questions choose. How long do ye seek to prolong your lives? What hope, what succour do ye see to save you from death? Do you trust that these children’s father, who lies dead in the halls of Hades, will return? How unworthily ye show your sorrow at having to die, thou

[to Amphitryon] after thy idle boasts, scattered broadcast through Hellas, that Zeus was partner in thy marriage-bed and there begat a new god; and thou [to Megara] after calling thyself the wife of so peerless a lord.

After all, what was the fine exploit thy husband achieved, if he did kil a hydra in a marsh or that monster of Nemea? which he caught in a snare, for all he says he strangled it to death in his arms. Are these your weapons for the hard struggle? Is it for this then that Heracles’ children should be spared? a man who has won a reputation for valour in his contests with beasts, in all else a weakling; who ne’er buckled shield to arm nor faced the spear, but with a bow, that coward’s weapon, was ever ready to run away. Archery is no test of manly bravery; no! he is a man who keeps his post in the ranks and steadily faces the swift wound the spear may plough. My policy, again, old man, shows no reckless cruelty, but caution; for I am well aware I slew Creon, the father of Megara, and am in possession of his throne. So I have no wish that these children should grow up and be left to take vengeance on me in requital for what I have done.

Amphitryon

As for Zeus, let Zeus defend his son’s case; but as for me, Heracles, I am only anxious on thy behalf to prove by what I say this tyrant’s ignorance; for I cannot allow thee to be ill spoken of. First then for that which should never have been said, — for to speak of thee Heracles as coward is, methinks, outside the pale of speech, — of that must I clear the with heaven to witness. I appeal then to the thunder of Zeus, and the chariot wherein he rode, when he pierced the giants, earth’s brood, to the heart with his winged shafts, and with gods uplifted the glorious triumph-song; or go to Pholoe and ask the insolent tribe of four-legged Centaurs, thou craven king, ask them who they would judge their bravest foe; will they not say my son, who according to thee is but a pretender? Wert thou to ask Euboean Dirphys, thy native place, it would nowise sing thy praise, for thou hast never done a single gallant deed to which thy country can witness. Next thou dost disparage that clever invention, an archer’s weapon; come, listen to me and learn wisdom. A man who fights in line is a slave to his weapons, and if his fellow-comrades want for courage he is slain himself through the cowardice of his neighbours, or, if he break his spear, he has not wherewithal to defend his body from death, having only one means of defence; whereas all who are armed with the trusty bow, though they have but one weapon, yet is it the best; for a man, after discharging countless arrows, still has others wherewith to defend himself from death, and standing at a distance keeps off the enemy, wounding them for all their watchfulness with shafts invisible, and never exposing himself to the foe, but keeping under cover; and this is far the wisest course in battle, to harm the enemy, if they are not stationed out of shot, and keep safe oneself. These arguments are completely opposite to thine with regard to the point at issue. Next, why art thou desirous of slaying these children? What have they done to thee? One piece of wisdom credit thee with, thy coward terror of a brave man’s descendants. Still it is hard on us, if for thy cowardice we must die; a fate that ought to have overtaken thee at our braver hands, if Zeus had been fairly disposed towards us. But, if thou art so anxious to make thyself supreme in the land, let us at least go into exile; abstain from all violence, else thou wilt suffer by it whenso the deity causes fortune’s breeze to veer round.

Ah! thou land of Cadmus, — for to thee too will I turn, upbraiding thee with words of reproach, — is this your succour of Heracles and his children? the man who faced alone the Minyan host in battle and allowed Thebes to see the light with freemen’s eyes. I cannot praise Hellas, nor will I ever keep silence, finding her so craven as regards my son; she should have come with fire and sword and warrior’s arms to help these tender babes, to requite him for all his labours in purging land and sea. Such help, my children, neither Hellas nor the city of Thebes affords you; to me a feeble friend ye look, that am but empty sound and nothing more. For the vigour which once I had, is gone from me; my limbs are palsied with age, and my strength is decayed. Were I but young and still a man of my hands, I would have seized my spear and dabbled those flaxen locks of his with blood, so that the coward would now be flying from my prowes beyond the bounds of Atlas.

Leader

Have not the brave amongst mankind a fair opening for speech, albeit slow to begin?

Lycus

Say what thou wilt of me in thy exalted phrase, but I by deeds will make thee rue those words. [Calling to his servants] Ho! bid wood-cutters go, some to Helicon, others to the glens of Parnassus, and cut me logs of oak, and when they are brought to the town, pile up a stack of wood all round the altar on either side thereof, and set fire to it and burn them all alive, that they may learn that the dead no longer rules this land, but that for the present I am king.

[angrily to the Chorus] As for you, old men, since ye thwart my views, not for the children of Heracles alone shall ye lament but likewise for every blow that strikes his house, and ye shall ne’er forget ye are slaves and I your prince.

Leader

Ye sons of Earth, whom Ares on a day did sow, when from the dragon’s ravening jaw he had torn the teeth, up with your staves, whereon ye lean your hands, and dash out this miscreant’s brains! a fellow who, without even being a Theban, but a foreigner, lords it shamefully o’er the younger folk; but my master shalt thou never be to thy joy, nor shalt thou reap the harvest of all my toil; begone with my curse upon thee! carry thy insolence back to the place whence it came. For never whilst I live, shalt thou slay these sons of Heracles; not so deep beneath the earth hath their father disappeared from his children’s ken. Thou art in possession of this land which thou hast ruined, while he its benefactor has missed his just reward; and yet do I take too much upon myself because I help those I love after their death, when most they need a friend? Ah! right hand, how fain wouldst thou wield the spear, but thy weakness is a death-blow to thy fond desire; for then had I stopped thee calling me slave, and I would have governed Thebes, wherein thou art now exulting, with credit; for city sick with dissension and evil counsels thinketh not aright; otherwise it would never have accepted thee as its master.

Megara

Old sirs, I thank you; ‘tis right that friends should feel virtuous indignation on behalf of those they love; but do not on our account vent your anger on the tyrant to your own undoing. Hear my advice, Amphitryon, if haply there appear to thee to be aught in what I say. I love my children; strange if I did not love those whom I laboured to bring forth! Death I count a dreadful fate; but the man who wrestles with necessity I esteem a fool. Since we must die, let us do so without being burnt alive, to furnish our foes with food for merriment, which to my mind is an evil worse than death; for many a fair guerdon do we owe our family. Thine has ever been a warrior’s fair fame, so ‘tis not to be endured that thou shouldst die a coward’s death; and my husband’s reputation needs no one to witness that he would ne’er consent to save these children’s lives by letting them incur the stain of cowardice; for the noble are afflicted by disgrace on account of their children, nor must I shrink from following my lord’s example. As to thy hopes consider how I weigh them. Thou thinkest thy son will return from beneath the earth: who ever has come back from the dead out of the halls of Hades? Thou hast a hope perhaps of softening this man by entreaty: no, no! better to fly from one’s enemy when he is so brutish, but yield to men of breeding and wisdom; for thou wilt more easily obtain mercy there by friendly overtures. True, a thought has already occurred to me that we might by entreaty obtain a sentence of exile for the children; yet this too is misery, to compass their deliverance with dire penury as the result; for ‘tis a saying that hosts look sweetly on banished friends for a day and no more. Steel thy heart to die with us, for that awaits thee after all. By thy brave soul I challenge thee, old friend; for whoso struggles hard to escape destiny shows zeal no doubt, but ‘tis zeal with a taint of folly; for what must be, no one will ever avail to alter.

Leader

If a man had insulted thee, while yet my arms were lusty, there would have been an easy way to stop him; but now am I a thing of naught; and so thou henceforth, Amphitryon, must scheme how to avert misfortune.

Amphitryon

‘Tis not cowardice or any longing for life that hinders my dying, but my wish to save my son’s children, though no doubt I am vainly wishing for impossibilities. Lo! here is my neck ready for thy sword to pierce, my body for thee to hack or hurl from the rock; only one boon I crave for both of us, O king; slay me and this hapless mother before thou slay the children, that we may not see the hideous sight, as they gasp out their lives, calling on their mother and their father’s sire; for the rest work thy will, if so thou art inclined; for we have no defence against death.

Megara

I too implore thee add a second boon, that by thy single act thou mayst put us both under a double obligation; suffer me to deck my children in the robes of death, — first opening the palace gates, for now are we shut out, — that this at least they may obtain from their father’s halls.

Lycus

I grant it, and bid my servants undo the bolts. Go in and deck yourselves; robes I grudge not. But soon as ye have clothed yourselves, I will return to you to consign you to the nether world.

[Lycus and his retinue withdraw.]

Megara

Children, follow the footsteps of your hapless mother to your father’s halls, where others possess his substance, though his name is still ours.

[Megara and her children enter the palace.]

Amphitryon

O Zeus, in vain it seems, did I get thee to share my bride with me; in vain used we to call thee father of my son. After all thou art less our friend than thou didst pretend. Great god as thou art, I, a mere mortal. surpass thee in true worth. For I did not betray the children of Heracles; but thou by stealth didst find thy way to my couch, taking another’s wife without leave given, while to save thy own friends thou hast no skill. Either thou art a god of little sense, or else naturally unjust.

[Amphitryon follows Megara into the palace.]

Chorus [singing]

Phoebus is singing a plaintive dirge to drown his happier strains, striking with key of gold his sweet-tongued lyre; so too am I fain to sing a song of praise, a crown to all his toil, concerning him who is gone to the gloom beneath the nether world, whether I am to call him son of Zeus or of Amphitryon. For the praise of noble toils accomplished is a glory to the dead. First he cleared the grove of Zeus of a lion, and put its skin upon his back, hiding his auburn hair in its fearful gaping jaws;

Then on a day, with murderous bow he wounded the race of wild Centaurs, that range the hills, slaying them with winged shafts; Peneus, the river of fair eddies, knows him well, and those far fields unharvested, and the steadings on Pelion and they who haunt the glens of Homole bordering thereupon, whence they rode forth to conquer Thessaly, arming themselves with pines for clubs; likewise he slew that dappled hind with horns of gold, that preyed upon the country-folk, glorifying Artemis, huntress queen of Oenoe;

Next he mounted on a car and tamed with the bit the steeds of Diomede, that greedily champed their bloody food at gory mangers with jaws unbridled, devouring with hideous joy the flesh of men; then crossing Hebrus’ silver stream he still toiled on to perform the hests of the tyrant of Mycenae, till he came to the strand of the Malian gulf by the streams of Anaurus, where he slew with his arrows Cycnus, murderer of his guests, the savage wretch who dwelt in Amphanae;

Also he came to those minstrel maids, to their orchard in the west, to pluck from the leafy apple-tree its golden fruit, when he had slain the tawny dragon, whose awful coils were twined all round to guard it; and he made his way into ocean’s lairs, bringing calm to men that use the oar; moreover he sought the home of Atlas, and stretched out his hands to uphold the firmament, and on his manly shoulders took the starry mansions of the gods;

Then he went through the waves of heaving Euxine against the mounted host of Amazons dwelling round Maeotis, the lake that is fed by many a stream, having gathered to his standard all his friends from Hellas, to fetch the gold-embroidered raiment of the warrior queen, a deadly quest for a girdle. And Hellas won those glorious spoils of the barbarian maid, and safe in Mycenae are they now. On Lerna’s murderous hound, the many-headed hydra, he set his branding-iron, and smeared its venom on his darts, wherewith he slew the shepherd of Erytheia, a monster with three bodies;

And many another glorious achievement he brought to a happy issue; to Hades’ house of tears hath he now sailed, the goal of his labours, where he is ending his career of toil, nor cometh he thence again. Now is thy house left without a friend, and Charon’s boat awaits thy children to bear them on that journey out of life, whence is no returning, contrary to God’s law and man’s justice; and it is to thy prowess that thy house is looking although thou art not here. Had I been strong and lusty, able to brandish the spear in battle’s onset, my Theban compeers too, I would have stood by thy children to champion them; but now my happy youth is gone and I am left.

But lo! I see the children of Heracles who was erst so great, clad in the vesture of the grave, and his loving wife dragging her babes along at her side, and that hero’s aged sire. Ah! woe is me! no longer can I stem the flood of tears that spring to my old eyes.

[Megara, Amphitryon, and the children enter from the palace.]

Megara

Come now, who is to sacrifice or butcher these poor children? or rob me of my wretched life? Behold! the victims are ready to be led to Hades’ halls. O my children! an ill-matched company are we hurried off to die, old men and babes, and mothers, all together. Alas! for my sad fate and my children’s, whom these eyes now for the last time behold. So I gave you birth and reared you only for our foes to mock, to flout, and slay. Ah me! how bitterly my hopes have disappointed me in the expectation once formed from the words of your father. [Addressing each of her sons in turn] To thee thy dead sire was for giving Argos; and thou wert to dwell in the halls of Eurystheus, lording it o’er the fair fruitful land of Argolis; and o’er thy head would he throw that lion’s skin wherewith himself was girt. Thou wert to be king of Thebes, famed for its chariots, receiving as thy heritage my broad lands, for so thou didst coax thy father dear; and to thy hand used he to resign the carved club, his sure defence, pretending to give it thee. To thee he promised to give Oechalia, which once his archery had wasted. Thus with three principalities would your father exalt you his three sons, proud of your manliness; while I was choosing the best brides for you, scheming to link you by marriage to Athens, Thebes, and Sparta, that ye might live a happy life with a fast sheet-anchor to hold by. And now that is all vanished; fortune’s breeze hath veered and given to you for brides the maidens of death in their stead, and tears to me to bathe them in; woe is me for my foolish thoughts and your grandsire here is celebrating your marriage-feast, accepting Hades as the father of your brides, a grim relationship to make. Ah me! which of you shall I first press to my bosom, which last? on which bestow my kiss, or clasp close to me? Oh! would that like the bee with russet wing, I could collect from every source my sighs in one, and, blending them together, shed them in one copious flood! Heracles, dear husband mine, to thee I call, if haply mortal voice can make itself heard in Hades’ halls; thy father and children are dying and I am doomed, I who once because of thee was counted blest as men count bliss. Come to our rescue; appear, I pray, if but as a phantom, since thy mere coming would be enough, for they are cowards compared with thee, who are slaying thy children.

Amphitryon

Lady, do thou prepare the funeral rites; but I, O Zeus, stretching out my hand to heaven, call on thee to help these children, if such be thy intention; for soon will any aid of thine be unavailing; and yet thou hast been oft invoked; my toil is wasted; death seems inevitable. Ye aged friends, the joys of life are few; so take heed that ye pass through it as gladly as ye may, without a thought of sorrow from morn till night; for time recks little of preserving our hopes; and, when he has busied himself on his own business, away he flies. Look at me, a man who had made mark amongst his fellows by deeds of note; yet hath fortune in a single day robbed me of it as of a feather that floats away toward the sky. know not any whose plenteous wealth and high reputation is fixed and sure; fare ye well, for now have ye seen the last of your old friend, my comrades.

[Megara catches sight of Heracles approaching.]

Megara

Ha! old friend, is it my own, my dearest I behold? or what am I to say?

Amphitryon

I know not, my daughter; I too am struck dumb.

Megara

Is this he who, they told us, was beneath the earth?

Amphitryon

‘Tis he, unless some day-dream mocks our sight.

Megara

What am I saying? What visions do these anxious eyes behold? Old man, this is none other than thy own son. Come hither, my children, cling to your father’s robe, make haste to come, never loose your hold, for here is one to help you, nowise behind our saviour Zeus.

[Heracles enters.]

Heracles

All hail! my house, and portals of my home, how glad am I to emerge to the light and see thee. Ha! what is this? I see my children before the house in the garb of death, with chaplets on their heads, my wife amid a throng of men, and my father weeping o’er some mischance. Let me draw near to them and inquire; lady, what strange stroke of fate hath fallen on the house?

Megara

Dearest of all mankind to me! O ray of light appearing to thy sire! art thou safe, and is thy coming just in time to help thy dear ones?

Heracles

What meanest thou? what is this confusion I find on my arrival, father?

Megara

We are being ruined; forgive me, old friend, if I have anticipated that which thou hadst a right to tell him; for woman’s nature is perhaps more prone than man’s to grief, and they are my children that were being led to death, which was my own lot too.

Heracles

Great Apollo! what a prelude to thy story!

Megara

Dead are my brethren, dead my hoary sire.

Heracles

How so? what befell him? who dealt the fatal blow?

Megara

Lycus, our splendid monarch, slew him.

Heracles

Did he meet him in fair fight, or was the land sick and weak?

Megara

Aye, from faction; now is he master of the city of Cadmus with its seven gates.

Heracles

Why hath panic fallen on thee and my aged sire?

Megara

He meant to kill thy father, me, and my children.

Heracles

Why, what had he to fear from my orphan babes?

Megara

He was afraid they might some day avenge Creon’s death.

Heracles

What means this dress they wear, suited to the dead?

Megara

‘Tis the garb of death we have already put on.

Heracles

And were ye being haled to death? O woe is me!

Megara

Yes, deserted by every friend, and informed that thou wert dead.

Heracles

What put such desperate thoughts into your heads?

Megara

That was what the heralds of Eurystheus kept proclaiming.

Heracles

Why did ye leave my hearth and home?

Megara

He forced us; thy father was dragged from his bed.

Heracles

Had he no mercy, to ill-use the old man so?

Megara

Mercy forsooth! that goddess and he dwell far enough apart.

Heracles

Was I so poor in friends in my absence?

Megara

Who are the friends of a man in misfortune?

Heracles

Do they make so light of my hard warring with the Minyae?

Megara

Misfortune, to repeat it to thee, has no friends.

Heracles

Cast from your heads these chaplets of death, look up to the light, for instead of the nether gloom your eyes behold the welcome sun. I, meantime, since here is work for my hand, will first go raze this upstart tyrant’s halls, and when I have beheaded the miscreant, I will throw him to dogs to tear; and every Theban who I find has played the traitor after my kindness, will I destroy with this victorious club; the rest will I scatter with my feathered shafts and fill Ismenus full of bloody corpses, and Dirce’s clear fount shall run red with gore. For whom ought I to help rather than wife and children and aged sire? Farewell my labours! for it was in vain I accomplished them rather than succoured these. And yet I ought to die in their defence, since they for their sire were doomed; else what shall we find so noble in having fought a hydra and a lion at the hests of Eurystheus, if I make no effort to save my own children from death? No longer I trow, as heretofore, shall I be called Heracles the victor.

Leader of the chorus

‘Tis only right that parents should help their children, their aged sires, and the partners of their marriage.

Amphitryon

My son, ‘tis like thee to show thy love for thy dear ones and thy hate for all that is hostile; only curb excessive hastiness.

Heracles

Wherein, father, am I now showing more than fitting haste?

Amphitryon

The king hath a host of allies, needy villains though pretending to be rich, who sowed dissension and o’erthrew the state with a view to plundering their neighbours; for the wealth they had in their houses was ali spent, dissipated by their sloth. Thou wast seen entering the city; and, that being so, beware that thou bring not thy enemies together and be slain unawares.

Heracles

Little I reck if the whole city saw me; but chancing to see a bird perched in an ill-omened spot, from it I learnt that some trouble had befallen my house; so I purposely made my entry to the land by stealth.

Amphitryon

For thy lucky coming hither, go salute thy household altar, and let thy father’s halls behold thy face. For soon will the king be here in person to drag away thy wife and children and murder them, and to add me to the bloody list. But if thou remain on the spot all will go well, and thou wilt profit by this security; but do not rouse thy city ere thou hast these matters well in train, my son.

Heracles

I will do so; thy advice is good; I will enter my house. After my return at length from the sunless den of Hades and the maiden queen of hell, I will not neglect to greet first of all the gods beneath my roof.

Amphitryon

Why, didst thou in very deed go to the house of Hades, my son?

Heracles

Aye, and brought to the light that three-headed monster.

Amphitryon

Didst worst him in fight, or receive him from the goddess?

Heracles

In fair fight; for I had been lucky enough to witness the rites of the initiated.

Amphitryon

Is the monster really lodged in the house of Eurystheus?

Heracles

The grove of Demeter and the city of Hermione are his prison.

Amphitryon

Does not Eurystheus know that thou hast returned to the upper world?

Heracles

He knows not; I came hither first to learn your news.

Amphitryon

How is it thou wert so long beneath the earth?

Heracles

I stayed awhile attempting to bring back Theseus from Hades, father.

Amphitryon

Where is he? gone to his native land?

Heracles

He set out for Athens right glad to have escaped from the lower world. Come, children, attend your father to the house. My entering in is fairer in your eyes, I trow, than my going out. Take heart, and no more let the tears stream from your eyes; thou too, dear wife, collect thy courage, cease from fear; let go my robe; for I cannot fly away, nor have I any wish to flee from those I love. Ah! they do not loose their hold, but cling to my garments all the more; were ye in such jeopardy? Well, I must lead them, taking them by the hand to draw them after me, like a ship when towing; for I too do not reject the care of my children; here all mankind are equal; all love their children, both those of high estate and those; who are naught; ‘tis wealth that makes distinctions among them; some have, others want; but all the human race loves its offspring.

[Heracles, Megara, Amphitryon and the children enter the palace.]

Chorus [singing]

Dear to me is youth, but old age is ever hanging o’er my head, a burden heavier than Aetna’s crags, casting its pall of gloom upon my eyes. Oh! never may the wealth of Asia’s kings tempt me to barter for houses stored with gold my happy youth, which is in wealth and poverty alike most fair! But old age is gloomy and deathly; I hate it; let it sink beneath the waves! Would it had never found its way to the homes and towns of mortal men, but were still drifting on for ever down the wind.

Had the gods shown discernment and wisdom, as mortals count these things, men would have gotten youth twice over, a visible mark of worth amongst whomsoever found, and after death would these have retraced their steps once more to the sun-light, while the mean man would have had but a single portion of life; and thus would it have been possible to distinguish the good and the bad, just as sailors know the number of the stars amid the clouds. But, as it is, the gods have set no certain boundary ‘twixt good and bad, but time’s onward roll brings increase only to man’s wealth.

Never will I cease to link in one the Graces and the Muses, fairest union. Never may my lines be cast among untutored boors, but ever may I find a place among the crowned choir! Yes, still the aged bard lifts up his voice of bygone memories; still is my song of the triumphs of Heracles, whether Bromius the giver of wine is nigh, or the strains of the seven-stringed lyre and the Libyan flute are rising; not yet will I cease to sing the Muses’ praise, my patrons in the dance.

As the maids of Delos raise their song of joy, circling round the temple gates in honour of Leto’s fair son, the graceful dancer; so with my old lips will sing songs of victory at thy palace-doors, song of my old age, such as sings the dying swan; for there is a goodly theme for minstrelsy; he is the son of Zeus; yet high above his noble birth tower his deeds of prowess, for his toil secured this life of calm for man, having destroyed all fearsome beasts.

[Amphitryon comes out of the palace as Lycus and his retinue enter.]

Lycus

Ha! Amphitryon, ‘tis high time thou camest forth from the palace; ye have been too long arraying yourselves in the robes and trappings of the dead. Come, bid the wife and children of Heracles show themselves outside the house, to die on the conditions you yourselves offered.

Amphitryon

O king, thou dost persecute me in my misery and heapest insult upon me over and above the loss of my son; thou shouldst have been more moderate in thy zeal, though thou art my lord and master. But since thou dost impose death’s stern necessity on me, needs must I acquiesce and do thy will.

Lycus

Pray, where is Megara? where are the children of Alcmena’s son?

Amphitryon

She, I believe, so far as I can guess from outside —

Lycus

What grounds hast thou to base thy fancy on?

Amphitryon

Is sitting as a suppliant on the altar’s hallowed steps.

Lycus

Imploring them quite uselessly to save her life.

Amphitryon

And calling on her dead husband, quite in vain.

Lycus He is nowhere near, and he certainly will never come.

Amphitryon

No, unless perhaps a god should raise him from the dead.

Lycus

Go to her and bring her from the palace.

Amphitryon

By doing so I should become an accomplice in her murder.

Lycus

Since thou hast this scruple, I, who have left fear behind, will myself bring out the mother and her children. Follow me, servants, that we may put an end to this delay of our work to our joy.

[Lycus and his servants enter the palace.]

Amphitryon

Then go thy way along the path of fate; for what remains, maybe another will provide. Expect for thy evil deeds to find some ill thyself. Ah! my aged friends, he is marching fairly to his doom; soon will he be entangled in the snare of the sword, thinking to slay his neighbours, the villain! I will hence, to see him fall dead; for the sight of a foe being slain and paying the penalty of his misdeeds gives pleasure.

[Amphitryon follows Lycus into the palace.]

Chorus [singing]

Evil has changed sides; he who was erst a mighty king is now turning his life backward into the road to Hades.

Hail to thee! justice and heavenly retribution.

At last hast thou reached the goal where thy death will pay the forfeit,

For thy insults against thy betters.

Joy makes my tears burst forth.

There is come a retribution, which the prince of the land never once thought in his heart would happen.

Come, old friends, let us look within to see if one we know has met the fate I hope.

Lycus [within]

Ah me! ah me!

Chorus [singing]

Ha! how sweet to hear that opening note of his within the house; death is not far off him now.

Hark! the prince cries out in his agony; that preludes death.

Lycus [within]

O kingdom of Cadmus, by treachery I am perishing!

Chorus [singing]

Thou wert thyself for making others perish; endure thy retribution; ‘tis only the penalty of thy own deeds thou art paying.

Who was he, weak son of man, that aimed his silly saying at the blessed gods of heaven with impious blasphemy, maintaining that they are weaklings after all?

Old friends, our godless foe is now no more.

The house is still; let us to our dancing.

Yea, for fortune smiles upon my friends as I desire.

Dances and banquets now prevail throughout the holy town of Thebes. For release from tears and respite from sorrow give birth to song. The upstart king is dead and gone; our former monarch now is prince, having made his way even from the bourn of Acheron. Hope beyond all expectation is fulfilled.

To heed the right and wrong is heaven’s care. ‘Tis their gold and their good luck that lead men’s hearts astray, bringing in their train unholy tyranny. For no man ever had the courage to reflect what reverses time might bring; but, disregarding law to gratify lawlessness, he shatters in gloom the car of happiness.

Deck thee with garlands, O Ismenus! break forth into dancing, ye paved streets of our seven-gated city! come Dirce, fount of waters fair; and joined with her ye daughters of Asopus, come from your father’s waves to add your maiden voices to our hymn, the victor’s prize that Heracles hath won. O Pythian rock, with forests crowned, and haunts of the Muses on Helicon! make my city and her walls re-echo with cries of joy; where sprang the earth-born crop to view, a warrior-host with shields of brass, who are handing on their realm to children’s children, a light divine to Thebes.

All hail the marriage! wherein two bridegrooms shared; the one, a mortal; the other, Zeus, who came to wed the maiden sprung from Perseus; for that marriage of thine, O Zeus, in days gone by has been proved to me a true story beyond all expectation; and time hath shown the lustre of Heracles’ prowess, who emerged from caverns ‘neath the earth after leaving Pluto’s halls below. To me art thou a worthier lord than that base-born king, who now lets it be plainly seen in this struggle ‘twixt armed warriors, whether justice still finds favour in heaven. [The spectres of Madness and Iris appear from above. The Chorus sees them.]

Ha! see there, my old comrades! is the same wild panic fallen on us all; what phantom is this I see hovering o’er the house? Fly, fly, bestir thy tardy steps! begone! away! away! O saviour prince, avert calamity from me!

Iris

Courage, old men! she, whom you see, is Madness, daughter of Night, and I am Iris, the handmaid of the gods. We have not come to do your city any hurt, but against the house of one man only is our warfare, even against him whom they call the son of Zeus and Alcmena. For until he had finished all his grievous toils, Destiny was preserving him, nor would father Zeus ever suffer me or Hera to harm him. But now that he hath accomplished the labours of Eurystheus, Hera is minded to brand him with the guilt of shedding kindred blood by slaying his own children, and I am one with her. Come then, maid unwed, child of murky Night, harden thy heart relentlessly, send forth frenzy upon him, confound his mind even to the slaying of his children, drive him, goad him wildly on his mad career, shake out the sails of death, that when he has sent o’er Acheron’s ferry that fair group of children by his own murderous hand, he may learn to know how fiercely against him the wrath of Hera burns and may also experience mine; otherwise, if he escape punishment, the gods will become as naught, while man’s power will grow.

Madness

Of noble parents was I born, the daughter of Night, sprung from the blood of Uranus; and these prerogatives I hold, not to use them in anger against friends, nor have I any joy in visiting the homes of men; and fain would I counsel Hera, before I see her err, and thee too, if ye will hearken to my words. This man, against whose house thou art sending me, has made himself a name alike in heaven and earth; for, after taming pathless wilds and raging sea, he by his single might raised up again the honours of the gods when sinking before man’s impiety; wherefore I counsel thee, do not wish him dire mishaps.

Iris

Spare us thy advice on Hera’s and my schemes.

Madness

I seek to turn thy steps into the best path instead of into this one of evil.

Iris

‘Twas not to practice self-control that the wife of Zeus sent thee hither.

Madness

I call the sun-god to witness that herein I am acting against my will; but if indeed I must forthwith serve thee and Hera and follow you in full cry as hounds follow the huntsman, why go I will; nor shall ocean with its moaning waves, nor the earthquake, nor the thunderbolt with blast of agony be half so furious as the headlong rush I will make into the breast of Heracles; through his roof will I burst my way and swoop upon his house, after first slaying his children; nor shall their murderer know that he is killing his own-begotten babes, till he is released from my madness. Behold him! see how even now he is wildly tossing his head at the outset, and rolling his eyes fiercely from side to side without word; nor can he control his panting breath; but like a bull in act to charge, he bellows fearfully, calling on the goddesses of nether hell. Soon will I rouse thee to yet wilder dancing and sound a note of terror in thine ear. Soar away, O Iris, to Olympus on thy honoured course; while I unseen will steal into the halls of Heracles.

[Iris and Madness vanish.]

Chorus [chanting]

Alas! alas! lament, O city; the son of Zeus, thy fairest bloom, is being cut down.

Woe is thee, Hellas! that wilt cast from thee thy benefactor, and destroy him as he madly, wildly dances where no pipe is heard.

She is mounted on her car, the queen of sorrow and sighing, and is goading on her steeds, as if for outrage, the Gorgon child of Night, with hundred hissing serpent-heads, Madness of the flashing eyes.

Soon hath the god changed his good fortune; soon will his children breathe their last, slain by a father’s hand.

Ah me! alas! soon will vengeance, mad, relentless, lay low by cruel death thy unhappy son, O Zeus, exacting a full penalty.

Alas, O house! the fiend begins her dance of death without the cymbal’s crash, with no glad waving of the wine-god’s staff.

Woe to these halls toward bloodshed she moves, and not to pour libations of the juice of the grape.

O children, haste to fly; that is the chant of death her piping plays.

Ah, yes! he is chasing the children. Never, ah! never will Madness lead her revel rout in vain.

Ah misery!

Ah me! how I lament that aged sire, that mother too that bore his babes in vain.

Look! look!

A tempest rocks the house; the roof is falling with it.

Oh! what art thou doing, son of Zeus?

Thou art sending hell’s confusion against thy house, as erst did Pallas on Enceladus.

[A Messenger enters from the palace.]

Messenger

Ye hoary men of eld!

Chorus

Why, oh! why this loud address to me?

Messenger

Awful is the sight within!

Chorus

No need for me to call another to announce that.

Messenger

Dead lie the children.

Chorus

Alas!

Messenger

Ah weep! for here is cause for weeping.

Chorus

A cruel murder, wrought by parents’ hands!

Messenger

No words can utter more than we have suffered.

Chorus

What, canst thou prove this piteous ruin was a father’s outrage on his children? Tell me how these heaven-sent woes came rushing on the house; say how the children met their sad mischance.

Messenger

Victims to purify the house were stationed before the altar of Zeus, for Heracles had slain and cast from his halls the king of the land. There stood his group of lovely children, with his sire and Megara; and already the basket was being passed round the altar, and we were keeping holy silence. But just as Alcmena’s son was bringing the torch in his right hand to dip it in the holy water, he stopped without a word. And as their father lingered, his children looked at him; and lo! he was changed; his eyes were rolling; he was distraught; his eyeballs were bloodshot and starting from their sockets, and foam was oozing down his bearded cheek. Anon he spoke, laughing the while a madman’s laugh, “Father, why should I sacrifice before I have slain Eurystheus, why kindle the purifying flame and have the toil twice over, when I might at one stroke so fairly end it all? Soon as I have brought the head of Eurystheus hither, I will cleanse my hands for those already slain. Spill the water, cast the baskets from your hands. Ho! give me now my bow and club! To famed Mycenae will I go; crow-bars and pick-axes must I take, for I will heave from their very base with iron levers those city-walls which the Cyclopes squared with red plumb-line and mason’s tools.”

Then he set out, and though he had no chariot there, he thought he had, and was for mounting to its seat, and using a goad as though his fingers really held one. A twofold feeling filled his servants’ breasts, half amusement, and half fear; and one looking to his neighbour said, “Is our master making sport for us, or is he mad?” But he the while was pacing to and fro in his house; and, rushing into the men’s chamber, he thought he had reached the city of Nisus, albeit he had gone into his own halls. So he threw himself upon the floor, as if he were there, and made ready to feast. But after waiting a brief space he began saying he was on his way to the plains amid the valleys of the Isthmus; and then stripping himself of his mantle, he fell to competing with an imaginary rival, o’er whom he proclaimed himself victor with his own voice, calling on imaginary spectators to listen. Next, fancy carrying him to Mycenae, he was uttering fearful threats against Eurystheus. Meantime his father caught him by his stalwart arm, and thus addressed him, “My son, what meanest thou hereby? What strange doings are these? Can it be that the blood of thy late victims has driven thee frantic?” But he, supposing it was the father of Eurystheus striving in abject supplication to touch his hand, thrust him aside, and then against his own children aimed his bow and made ready his quiver, thinking to slay the sons of Eurystheus. And they in wild affright darted hither and thither, one to his hapless mother’s skirts, another to the shadow of a pillar, while a third cowered ‘neath the altar like a bird. Then cried their mother, “O father, what art thou doing? dost mean to slay thy children?” Likewise his aged sire and all the gathered servants cried aloud. But he, hunting the child round and round, the column, in dreadful circles, and coming face to face with him shot him to the heart; and he fell upon his back, sprinkling the stone pillars with blood as he gasped out his life. Then did Heracles shout for joy and boasted loud, “Here lies one of Eurystheus’ brood dead at my feet, atoning for his father’s hate.” Against a second did he aim his bow, who had crouched at the altar’s foot thinking to escape unseen. But ere he fired, the poor child threw himself at his father’s knees, and, flinging his hand to reach his beard or neck, cried, “Oh! slay me not, dear father mine! I am thy child, thine own; ‘tis no son of Eurystheus thou wilt slay.”

But that other, with savage Gorgon-scowl, as the child now stood in range of his baleful archery, smote him on the head, as smites a smith his molten iron, bringing down his club upon the fair-haired boy, and crushed the bones. The second caught, away he hies to add a third victim to the other twain. But ere he could, the poor mother caught up her babe and carried him within the house and shut the doors; forthwith the madman, as though he really were at the Cyclopean walls, prizes open the doors with levers, and, hurling down their posts, with one fell shaft laid low his wife and child. Then in wild career he starts to slay his aged sire; but lo! there came a phantom, — so it seemed to us on-lookers, — Of Pallas, with plumed helm, brandishing a spear; and she hurled a rock against the breast of Heracles, which stayed him from his frenzied thirst for blood and plunged him into sleep; to the ground he fell, smiting his back against a column that had fallen on the floor in twain when the roof fell in. Thereon we rallied from our flight, and with the old man’s aid bound him fast with knotted cords to the pillar, that on his awakening he might do no further evil. So there he sleeps, poor wretch! a sleep that is not blest, having murdered wife and children; nay, for my part know not any son of man more miserable than he.

[The Messenger withdraws.]

Chorus [singing]

That murder wrought by the daughters of Danaus, whereof my native Argos wots, was formerly the most famous and notorious in Hellas; but this hath surpassed and outdone those previous horrors. I could tell of the murder of that poor son of Zeus, whom Procne, mother of an only child, slew and offered to the Muses; but thou hadst three children, wretched parent, and all of them hast thou in thy frenzy slain. What groans or wails, what funeral dirge, or chant of death am I to raise? Alas and woe! see, the bolted doors of the lofty palace are being rolled apart. Ah me! behold these children lying dead before their wretched father, who is sunk in awful slumber after shedding their blood. Round him are bonds and cords, made fast with many a knot about the body of Heracles, and lashed to the stone columns of his house. While he, the aged sire, like mother-bird wailing her unfledged brood, comes hasting hither with halting steps on his bitter journey.

[The central doors of the palace have opened and have disclosed Heracles lying asleep, bound to a shattered column. Amphitryon steps out. The following lines between Amphitryon and the Chorus are chanted responsively.]

Amphitryon

Softly, softly! ye aged sons of Thebes, let him sleep on and forget his sorrows.

Chorus

For thee, old friend, I weep and mourn, for the children too and that victorious chief.

Amphitryon

Stand further off, make no noise nor outcry, rouse him not from his calm deep slumber.

Chorus

O horrible! all this blood-

Amphitryon

Hush, hush! ye will be my ruin.

Chorus

That he has spilt is rising up against him.

Amphitryon

Gently raise your dirge of woe, old friends; lest he wake, and, bursting his bonds, destroy the city, rend his sire, and dash his house to pieces.

Chorus

I cannot, cannot —

Amphitryon

Hush! let me note his breathing; come, let me put my ear close.

Chorus

Is he sleeping?

Amphitryon

Aye, that is he, a deathly sleep, having slain wife and children with the arrows of his twanging bow.

Chorus

Ah! Mourn —

Amphitryon

I do.

Chorus

The children’s death;

Amphitryon

Ah me!

Chorus

And thy own son’s doom.

Amphitryon

Ah misery!

Chorus

Old friend —

Amphitryon

Hush! hush! he is turning, he is waking! Oh Oh! let me hide myself beneath the covert of yon roof.

Chorus

Courage! darkness still broods o’er thy son’s eye.

Amphitryon

Oh! beware; ‘tis not that I shrink from leaving the light after my miseries, poor wretch! but should he slay me that am his father, then will he be devising woe on woe, and to the avenging curse will add a parent’s blood.

Chorus

Well for thee hadst thou died in that day, when, to win thy wife, thou didst go forth to exact vengeance for her slain brethren by sacking the Taphians’ sea-beat town.

Amphitryon

Fly, fly, my aged friends, haste from before the palace, escape his waking fury! For soon will he heap up fresh carnage on the old, ranging wildly once more through the streets of Thebes.

Chorus

O Zeus, why hast thou shown such savage hate against thine own son and plunged him in this sea of troubles?

Heracles [waking]

Aha! my breath returns; I am alive; and my eyes see, opening on the sky and earth and yon sun’s darting beam; but how my senses reel! in what strange turmoil am I plunged! my fevered breath in quick spasmodic gasps escapes my lungs. How now? why am I lying here, made fast with cables like a ship, my brawny chest and arms tied to a shattered piece of masonry, with corpses for my neighbours; while o’er the floor my bow and arrows are scattered, that erst like trusty squires to my arm both kept me safe and were kept safe of me? Surely I am not come a second time to Hades’ halls, having just returned from thence for Eurystheus? No, I do not see Sisyphus with his stone, or Pluto, or his queen, Demeter’s child. Surely I am distraught; I cannot remember where I am. Ho, there! which of my friends is near or far to help me in my ignorance? For I have no clear knowledge of things once familiar.

Amphitryon

My aged friends, shall I approach the scene of my sorrow?

Leader of the chorus

Yes, and let me go with thee, nor desert thee in thy trouble.

Heracles

Father, why dost thou weep and veil thy eyes, standing aloof from thy beloved son?

Amphitryon

My child! mine still, for all thy misery.

Heracles

Why, what is there so sad in my case that thou dost weep?

Amphitryon

That which might make any of the gods weep, were he to suffer so.

Heracles

A bold assertion that, but thou art not yet explaining what has happened.

Amphitryon

Thine own eyes see that, if by this time thou are restored to thy senses.

Heracles

Fill in thy sketch if any change awaits my life.

Amphitryon

I will explain, if thou art no longer mad as a fiend of hell.

Heracles

God help us! what suspicions these dark hints of thine again excite!

Amphitryon

I am still doubtful whether thou art in thy sober senses.

Heracles

I never remember being mad.

Amphitryon

Am I to loose my son, old friends, or what?

Heracles

Loose and say who bound me; for I feel shame at this.

Amphitryon

Rest content with what thou knowest of thy woes; the rest forego.

Heracles

Enough! I have no wish to probe thy silence.

Amphitryon

O Zeus, dost thou behold these deeds proceeding from the throne of Hera?

Heracles

What! have I suffered something from her enmity?

Amphitryon

A truce to the goddess! attend to thy own troubles.

Heracles

I am undone; what mischance wilt thou unfold?

Amphitryon

See here the corpses of thy children.

Heracles

O horror! what hideous sight is here? ah me!

Amphitryon

My son, against thy children hast thou waged unnatural war.

Heracles

War! what meanst thou? who killed these?

Amphitryon

Thou and thy bow and some god, whoso he be that is to blame.

Heracles

What sayst thou? what have I done? Speak, father, thou messenger of evil.

Amphitryon

Thou wert distraught; ‘tis a sad explanation thou art asking.

Heracles

Was it I that slew my wife also?

Amphitryon

Thy own unaided arm hath done all this.

Heracles

Ah, woe is me! a cloud of sorrow wraps me round.

Amphitryon

The reason this that I lament thy fate.

Heracles

Did I dash my house to pieces or incite others thereto?

Amphitryon

Naught know I save this, that thou art utterly undone.

Heracles

Where did my frenzy seize me? where did it destroy me?

Amphitryon

In the moment thou wert purifying thyself witb fire at the altar.

Heracles

Ah me! why do I spare my own life when I have taken that of my dear children? Shall I not hasten to leap from some sheer rock, or aim the sword against my heart and avenge my children’s blood, or burn my body in the fire and so avert from my life the infamy which now awaits me?

But hither I see Theseus coming to check my deadly counsels, my kinsman and friend. Now shall I stand revealed, and the dearest of my friends will see the pollution I have incurred by my children’s murder. Ah, woe is me! what am I to do? Where can I find release from my sorrows? shall I take wings or plunge beneath the earth? Come, let me veil my head in darkness; for I am ashamed of the evil I have done, and, since for these I have incurred fresh blood-guiltiness, I would fain not harm the innocent.

[Theseus and his retinue enter.]

Theseus

I am come, and others with me, young warriors from the land of Athens, encamped by the streams of Asopus, to help thy son, old friend. For a rumour reached the city of the Erechtheidae, that Lycus had usurped the sceptre of this land and was become your enemy even to battle. Wherefore I came making recompense for the former kindness of Heracles in saving me from the world below, if haply ye have any need of such aid as I or my allies can give, old prince.

Ha! what means this heap of dead upon the floor? Surely I have not delayed too long and come too late to check new ills? Who slew these children? whose wife is this I see? Boys do not go to battle; nay, it must be some other strange mischance I here discover.

[The following lines between Theseus and Amphitryon are chanted responsively.]

Amphitryon

O king, whose home is that olive-clad hill!

Theseus

Why this piteous prelude in addressing me?

Amphitryon

Heaven has afflicted us with grievous suffering.

Theseus

Whose be these children, o’er whom thou weepest?

Amphitryon

My own son’s children, woe to him! their father and butcher both was he, hardening his heart to the bloody deed.

Theseus

Hush good words only!

Amphitryon

I would I could obey!

Theseus

What dreadful words!

Amphitryon

Fortune has spread her wings, and we are ruined, ruined.

Theseus

What meanest thou? what hath he done?

Amphitryon

Slain them in a wild fit of frenzy with arrows dipped in the venom of the hundred-headed hydra.

Theseus

This is Hera’s work; but who lies there among the dead, old man?

Amphitryon

My son, my own enduring son, that marched with gods to Phlegra’s plain, there to battle with giants and slay them, warrior that he was.

Theseus

Ah, woe for him! whose fortune was e’er so curst as his?

Amphitryon

Never wilt thou find another that hath borne a larger share of suffering or been more fatally deceived.

Theseus

Why doth he veil his head, poor wretch, in his robe?

Amphitryon

He is ashamed to meet thine eye; his kinsman’s kind intent and his children’s blood make him abashed.

Theseus

But I come to sympathize; uncover him.

Amphitryon

My son, remove that mantle from thine eyes, throw it from thee, show thy fare unto the sun; a counterpoise to weeping is battling for the mastery. In suppliant wise I entreat thee, as I grasp thy beard, thy knees, thy hands, and let fall the tear from my old eyes. O my child! restrain thy savage lion-like temper, for thou art rushing forth on an unholy course of bloodshed, eager to join woe to woe.

Theseus

Ho! To thee I call who art huddled there in thy misery, show to they friends thy face; for no darkness is black enough to hide thy sad mischance. Why dost thou wave thy hand at me, signifying murder? is it that I may not be polluted by speaking with thee? If I share thy misfortune, what is that to me? For if I too had luck in days gone by, must refer it to the time when thou didst bring me safe from the dead to the light of life. I hate a friend whose gratitude grows old; one who ready to enjoy his friends’ prosperity but unwilling to sail in the same ship with them when their fortune lours. Arise, unveil thy head, poor wretch! and look on me. The gallant soul endures without a word such blows as heaven deals.

Heracles

O Theseus, didst thou witness this struggle with my children?

Theseus

I heard of it, and now I see the horrors thou meanest.

Heracles

Why then hast thou unveiled my head to the sun?

Theseus

Why have I? Thou, a man, canst not pollute what is of God.

Heracles

Fly, luckless wretch, from my unholy taint.

Theseus

The avenging fiend goes not forth from friend to friend.

Heracles

For this I thank thee; I do not regret the service I did thee.

Theseus

While I, for kindness then received, now show my pity for thee.

Heracles

Ah yes! I am piteous, a murderer of my sons.

Theseus

I weep for thee in thy changed fortunes.

Heracles

Didst ever find another more afflicted?

Theseus

Thy misfortunes reach from earth to heaven.

Heracles

Therefore am I resolved on death.

Theseus

Dost thou suppose the gods attend to these thy threats?

Heracles

Remorseless hath heaven been to me; so I will prove the like to it.

Theseus

Hush! lest thy presumption add to thy sufferings.

Heracles

My barque is freighted full with sorrow; there is no room to stow aught further.

Theseus

What wilt thou do? whither is thy fury drifting thee?

Heracles

I will die and return to that world below whence I have just come.

Theseus

Such language is fit for any common fellow.

Heracles

Ah! thine is the advice of one outside sorrow’s pale.

Theseus

Are these indeed the words of Heracles, the much-enduring?

Heracles

Though never so much as this. Endurance must have a limit.

Theseus

Is this man’s benefactor, his chiefest friend?

Heracles

Man brings no help to me; no! Hera has her way.

Theseus

Never will Hellas suffer thee to die through sheer perversity.

Heracles

Hear me a moment, that I may enter the lists with words in answer to thy admonitions; and I will unfold to thee why life now as well as formerly has been unbearable to me. First I am the son of a man who incurred the guilt of blood, before he married my mother Alcmena, by slaying her aged sire. Now when the foundation is badly laid at birth, needs must the race be cursed with woe; and Zeus, whoever this Zeus may be, begot me as a butt for Hera’s hate; yet be not thou vexed thereat, old man; for thee rather than Zeus do I regard as my father. Then whilst I was yet being suckled, that bride of Zeus did foist into my cradle fearsome snakes to compass my death. After I was grown to man’s estate, of all the toils I then endured what need to tell? of all the lions, Typhons triple-bodied, and giants that I slew; or of the battle I won against the hosts of four-legged Centaurs? or how when I had killed the hydra, that monster with a ring of heads with power to grow again, I passed through countless other toils besides and came unto the dead to fetch to the light at the bidding of Eurystheus the three-headed hound, hell’s porter. Last, ah, woe is me have I perpetrated this bloody deed to crown the sorrows of my house with my children’s murder. To this sore strait am I come; no longer may I dwell in Thebes, the city that I love; for suppose I stay, to what temple or gathering of friends shall I repair? For mine is no curse that invites address. Shall I to Argos? how can I, when I am an exile from my country? Well, is there a single other city I can fly to? And if there were, am I to be looked at askance as a marked man, branded by cruel stabbing tongues, “Is not this the son of Zeus that once murdered wife and children? Plague take him from the land!”

Now to one who was erst called happy, such changes are a grievous thing; though he who is always unfortunate feels no such pain, for sorrow is his birthright. This, methinks, is the piteous pass I shall one day come to; for earth will cry out forbidding me to touch her, the sea and the river-springs will refuse me a crossing, and I shall become like Ixion who revolves in chains upon that wheel. Wherefore this is best, that henceforth I be seen by none of the Hellenes, amongst whom in happier days I lived in bliss. What right have I to live? what profit can I have in the possession of a useless, impious life? So let that noble wife of Zeus break forth in dancing, beating with buskined foot on heaven’s bright floor; for now hath she worked her heart’s desire in utterly confounding the chiefest of Hellas’ sons. Who would pray to such a goddess? Her jealousy of Zeus for his love of a woman hath destroyed the benefactors of Hellas, guiltless though they were.

Leader of the chorus

This is the work of none other of the gods than the wife of Zeus; thou art right in that surmise.

Theseus

I cannot counsel you to die rather than to go on suffering. There is not a man alive that hath wholly ‘scaped misfortune’s taint, nor any god either, if what poets sing is true. Have they not intermarried in ways that law forbids? Have they not thrown fathers into ignominious chains to gain the sovereign power? Still they inhabit Olympus and brave the issue of their crimes. And yet what shalt thou say in thy defence, if thou, child of man, dost kick against the pricks of fate, while they do not? Nay, then, leave Thebes in compliance with the law, and come with me to the city of Pallas. There, when I have purified thee of thy pollution, will I give thee temples and the half of all I have. Yea, I will give thee all those presents I received from the citizens for saving their children, seven sons and daughters seven, on the day I slew the bull of Crete; for I have plots of land assigned me throughout the country; these shall henceforth be called after thee by men, whilst thou livest; and at thy death, when thou art gone to Hades’ halls, the city of Athens shall unite in exalting thy honour with sacrifices and a monument of stone. For ‘tis a noble crown for citizens to win from Hellas, even a reputation fair, by helping a man of worth. This is the return that I will make thee for saving me, for now art thou in need of friends. But when heaven delights to honour a man, he has no need of friends; for the god’s aid, when he chooses to give it, is enough.

Heracles

Alas! this is quite beside the question of my troubles. For my part, I do not believe that the gods indulge in unholy unions; and as for putting fetters on parents’ hands, I have never thought that worthy of belief, nor will I now be so persuaded, nor again that one god is naturally lord and master of another. For the deity, if he be really such, has no wants; these are miserable fictions of the poets. But I, for all my piteous plight, reflected whether I should let myself be branded as a coward for giving up my life. For whoso schooleth not his frail mortal nature to bear fate’s buffets as he ought, will never be able to withstand even a man’s weapon. I will harden my heart against death and seek thy city, with grateful thanks for all thou offerest me.

[He weeps.] Of countless troubles have I tasted, God knows, but never yet did faint at any or shed a single tear; nay, nor ever dreamt that I should come to this, to let the tear-drop fall. But now, it seems, I must be fortune’s slave. Well, let it pass; old father mine, thou seest me go forth to exile, and in me beholdest my own children’s murderer. Give them burial and lay them out in death with the tribute of a tear, for the law forbids my doing so. Rest their heads upon their mother’s bosom and fold them in her arms, sad pledges of our union, whom I, alas! unwittingly did slay. And when thou hast buried these dead, live on here still, in bitternes maybe, but still constrain thy soul to share my sorrows. O children! he who begat you, your own father, hath been your destroyer, and ye have had no profit of my triumphs, all my restless toil to win you a fair name in life, a glorious guerdon from a sire. Thee too, unhappy wife, this hand hath slain, a poor return to make thee for preserving mine honour so safe, for all the weary watch thou long hast kept within my house. Alas for you, my wife, my sons! and woe for me, how sad my lot, cut off from wife and child! Ah! these kisses, bitter-sweet! these weapons which ‘tis pain to own! I am not sure whether to keep or let them go; dangling at my side they thus will say, “With us didst thou destroy children and wife; we are thy children’s slayers, and thou keepest us.” Shall I carry them after that? what answer can I make? Yet, am I to strip me of these weapons, the comrades of my glorious career in Hellas, and put myself thereby in the power of my foes, to die a death of shame? No! I must not let them go, but keep them, though it grieve me. In one thing, Theseus, help my misery; come to Argos with me and aid in settling my reward for bringing Cerberus thither; lest, if I go all alone, my sorrow for my sons do me some hurt.

O land of Cadmus, and all ye folk of Thebes! cut off your hair, and mourn with me; go to my children’s burial, and with united dirge lament alike the dead and me; for on all of us hath Hera inflicted the same cruel blow of destruction.

Theseus

Rise, unhappy man! thou hast had thy fill of tears.

Heracles

I cannot rise; my limbs are rooted here.

Theseus

Yea, even the strong are o’erthrown by misfortunes.

Heracles

Ah! would I could grow into a stone upon this spot, oblivious of trouble!

Theseus

Peace! give thy hand to a friend and helper.

Heracles

Nay, let me not wipe off the blood upon thy robe.

Theseus

Wipe it off and spare not; I will not say thee nay.

Heracles

Reft of my own sons, I find thee as a son to me.

Theseus

Throw thy arm about my neck; I will be thy guide.

Heracles

A pair of friends in sooth are we, but one a man of sorrows. Ah! aged sire, this is the kind of man to make a friend.

Amphitryon

Blest in her sons, the country that gave him birth!

Heracles

O Theseus, turn me back again to see my babes.

Theseus

What charm dost think to find in this to soothe thy soul?

Heracles

I long to do so, and would fain embrace my sire.

Amphitryon

Here am I, my son; thy wish is no less dear to me.

Theseus

Hast thou so short a memory for thy troubles?

Heracles

All that I endured of yore was easier to bear than this.

Theseus

If men see thee play the woman, they will scoff.

Heracles

Have I by living grown so abject in thy sight? ‘twas not so once, methinks.

Theseus

Aye, too much so; for how dost show thyself the glorious Heracles of yore?

Heracles

What about thyself? what kind of hero wert thou when in trouble in the world below?

Theseus

I was worse than anyone as far as courage went.

Heracles

How then canst thou say of me, that I am abased by my troubles?

Theseus

Forward!

Heracles

Farewell, my aged sire!

Amphitryon

Farewell to thee, my son!

Heracles

Bury my children as I said.

Amphitryon

But who will bury me, my son?

Heracles

I will.

Amphitryon

When wilt thou come?

Heracles

After thou hast buried my children.

Amphitryon

How?

Heracles

I will fetch thee from Thebes to Athens. But carry my children within, a grievous burden to the earth. And I, after ruining my house by deeds of shame, will follow in the wake of Theseus, totally destroyed. Whoso prefers wealth or might to the possession of good friends, thinketh amiss.

[Theseus and his attendants lead Heracles away.]

Chorus [chanting]

With grief and many a bitter tear we go our way, robbed of all we prized most dearly.

Hippolytus

Characters in the Play

Aphrodite

Hippolytus, bastard son of Theseus

Attendants of Hippolytus

Chorus of Troezenian women

Nurse of Phaedra

Phaedra, wife of Theseus

Theseus

Messenger

Artemis

[Scene: Before the royal palace at Troezen. There is a statue of Aphrodite on one side; on the other, a statue of Artemis. There is an altar before each image. The goddess Aphrodite appears alone.]

Aphrodite

Wide o’er man my realm extends, and proud the name that I, the goddess Cypris, bear, both in heaven’s courts and ‘mongst all those who dwell within the limits of the sea and the bounds of Atlas, beholding the sun-god’s light; those that respect my power I advance to honour, but bring to ruin all who vaunt themselves at me. For even in the race of gods this feeling finds a home, even pleasure at the honour men pay them. And the truth of this I soon will show; for that son of Theseus, born of the Amazon, Hippolytus, whom holy Pittheus taught, alone of all the dwellers in this land of Troezen, calls me vilest of the deities. Love he scorns, and, as for marriage, will none of it; but Artemis, daughter of Zeus, sister of Phoebus, he doth honour, counting her the chief of goddesses, and ever through the greenwood, attendant on his virgin goddess, he clears the earth of wild beasts with his fleet hounds, enjoying the comradeship of one too high for mortal ken. ‘Tis not this I grudge him, no! why should I? But for his sins against me, I will this very day take vengeance on Hippolytus; for long ago I cleared the ground of many obstacles, so it needs but trifling toil. For as he came one day from the home of Pittheus to witness the solemn mystic rites and be initiated therein in Pandion’s land, Phaedra, his father’s noble wife, caught sight of him, and by my designs she found her heart was seized with wild desire. And ere she came to this Troezenian realm, a temple did she rear to Cypris hard by the rock of Pallas where it o’erlooks this country, for love of the youth in another land; and to win his love in days to come she called after his name the temple she had founded for the goddess. Now, when Theseus left the land of Cecrops, flying the pollution of the blood of Pallas’ sons, and with his wife sailed to this shore, content to suffer exile for a year, then began the wretched wife to pine away in silence, moaning ‘neath love’s cruel scourge, and none of her servants knows what disease afflicts her. But this passion of hers must not fail thus. No, I will discover the matter to Theseus, and all shall be laid bare. Then will the father slay his child, my bitter foe, by curses, for the lord Poseidon granted this boon to Theseus; three wishes of the god to ask, nor ever ask in vain. So Phaedra is to die, an honoured death ‘tis true, but still to die; for I will not let her suffering outweigh the payment of such forfeit by my foes as shall satisfy my honour. But lo! I see the son of Theseus coming hither-Hippolytus, fresh from the labours of the chase. I will get me hence. At his back follows a long train of retainers, in joyous cries of revelry uniting and hymns of praise to Artemis, his goddess; for little he recks that Death hath oped his gates for him, and that this is his last look upon the light.

[Aphrodite vanishes. Hippolytus and his retinue of hunting Attendants enter, singing. They move to worship at the altar of Artemis.]

Hippolytus

Come follow, friends, singing to Artemis, daughter of Zeus, throned in the sky, whose votaries we are.

Attendants

Lady goddess, awful queen, daughter of Zeus, all hail! hail! of Latona and of Zeus, peerless mid the virgin choir, who hast thy dwelling in heaven’s wide mansions at thy noble father’s court, in the golden house of Zeus. All hail! most beauteous Artemis, lovelier far than all the daughters of Olympus!

Hippolytus [speaking]

For thee, O mistress mine, I bring this woven wreath, culled from a virgin meadow, where nor shepherd dares to herd his flock nor ever scythe hath mown, but o’er the mead unshorn the bee doth wing its way in spring; and with the dew from rivers drawn purity that garden tends. Such as know no cunning lore, yet in whose nature self-control, made perfect, hath a home, these may pluck the flowers, but not the wicked world. Accept, I pray, dear mistress, mine this chaplet from my holy hand to crown thy locks of gold; for I, and none other of mortals, have this high guerdon, to be with thee, with thee converse, hearing thy voice, though not thy face beholding. So be it mine to end my life as I began.

Leader of the Attendants

My prince! we needs must call upon the gods, our lords, so wilt thou listen to a friendly word from me?

Hippolytus

Why, that will I! else were I proved a fool.

Leader

Dost know, then, the way of the world?

Hippolytus

Not I; but wherefore such a question?

Leader

It hates reserve which careth not for all men’s love.

Hippolytus

And rightly too; reserve in man is ever galling.

Leader

But there’s a charm in courtesy?

Hippolytus

The greatest surely; aye, and profit, too, at trifling cost.

Leader

Dost think the same law holds in heaven as well?

Hippolytus

I trow it doth, since all our laws we men from heaven draw.

Leader

Why, then, dost thou neglect to greet an august goddess?

Hippolytus

Whom speak’st thou of? Keep watch upon thy tongue lest it same mischief cause.

Leader

Cypris I mean, whose image is stationed o’er thy gate.

Hippolytus

I greet her from afar, preserving still my chastity.

Leader

Yet is she an august goddess, far renowned on earth.

Hippolytus

‘Mongst gods as well as men we have our several preferences.

Leader

I wish thee luck, and wisdom too, so far as thou dost need it.

Hippolytus

No god, whose worship craves the night, hath charms for me.

Leader

My son, we should avail us of the gifts that gods confer.

Hippolytus

Go in, my faithful followers, and make ready food within the house; a well-filled board hath charms after the chase is o’er. Rub down my steeds ye must, that when I have had my fill I may yoke them to the chariot and give them proper exercise. As for thy Queen of Love, a long farewell to her.

[Hippolytus goes into the palace, followed by all the Attendants except the leader, who prays before the statue of Aphrodite.]

Leader

Meantime I with sober mind, for I must not copy my young master, do offer up my prayer to thy image, lady Cypris, in such words as it becomes a slave to use. But thou should’st pardon all, who, in youth’s impetuous heat, speak idle words of thee; make as though thou hearest not, for gods must needs be wiser than the sons of men.

[The leader goes into the palace. The Chorus of Troezenian women enters.]

Chorus [singing]

A rock there is, where, as they say, the ocean dew distils, and from its beetling brow it pours a copious stream for pitchers to be dipped therein; ‘twas here I had a friend washing robes of purple in the trickling stream, and she was spreading them out on the face of warm sunny rock; from her I had the tidings, first of all, that my mistress —

Was wasting on the bed of sickness, pent within her house, a thin veil o’ershadowing her head of golden hair. And this is the third day I hear that she hath closed her lovely lips and denied her chaste body all sustenance, eager to hide her suffering and reach death’s cheerless bourn.

Maiden, thou must be possessed, by Pan made frantic or by Hecate, or by the Corybantes dread, and Cybele the mountain mother. Or maybe thou hast sinned against Dictynna, huntress-queen, and art wasting for thy guilt in sacrifice unoffered. For she doth range o’er lakes’ expanse and past the bounds of earth upon the ocean’s tossing billows.

Or doth some rival in thy house beguile thy lord, the captain of Erechtheus’ sons, that hero nobly born, to secret amours hid from thee? Or hath some mariner sailing hither from Crete reached this port that sailors love, with evil tidings for our queen, and she with sorrow for her grievous fate is to her bed confined?

Yea, and oft o’er woman’s wayward nature settles a feeling of miserable helplessness, arising from pains of child-birth or of passionate desire. I, too, have felt at times this sharp thrill shoot through me, but I would cry to Artemis, queen of archery, who comes from heaven to aid us in our travail, and thanks to heaven’s grace she ever comes at my call with welcome help. Look! where the aged nurse is bringing her forth from the house before the door, while on her brow the cloud of gloom is deepening. My soul longs to learn what is her grief, the canker that is wasting our queen’s fading charms.

[Phaedra is led out and placed upon a couch by the nurse and attendants. The following lines between the nurse and Phaedra are chanted.]

Nurse

O, the ills of mortal men! the cruel diseases they endure! What can I do for thee? from what refrain? Here is the bright sunlight, here the azure sky; lo! we have brought thee on thy bed of sickness without the palace; for all thy talk was of coming hither, but soon back to thy chamber wilt thou hurry. Disappointment follows fast with thee, thou hast no joy in aught for long; the present has no power to please; on something absent next thy heart is set. Better be sick than tend the sick; the first is but a single ill, the last unites mental grief with manual toil. Man’s whole life is full of anguish; no respite from his woes he finds; but if there is aught to love beyond this life, night’s dark pall doth wrap it round. And so we show our mad love of this life because its light is shed on earth, and because we know no other, and have naught revealed to us of all our earth may hide; and trusting to fables we drift at random.

Phaedra [wildly]

Lift my body, raise my head! My limbs are all unstrung, kind friends. O handmaids, lift my arms, my shapely arms. The tire on my head is too heavy for me to wear; away with it, and let my tresses o’er my shoulders fall.

Nurse

Be of good heart, dear child; toss not so wildly to and fro. Lie still, be brave, so wilt thou find thy sickness easier to bear; suffering for mortals is nature’s iron law.

Phaedra

Ah! would I could draw a draught of water pure from some dew-fed spring, and lay me down to rest in the grassy meadow ‘neath the poplar’s shade!

Nurse

My child, what wild speech is this? O say not such things in public, wild whirling words of frenzy bred!

Phaedra

Away to the mountain take me! to the wood, to the pine-trees will go, where hounds pursue the prey, hard on the scent of dappled fawns. Ye gods! what joy to hark them on, to grasp the barbed dart, to poise Thessalian hunting-spears close to my golden hair, then let them fly.

Nurse

Why, why, my child, these anxious cares? What hast thou to do with the chase? Why so eager for the flowing spring, when hard by these towers stands a hill well watered, whence thou may’st freely draw?

Phaedra

O Artemis, who watchest o’er sea-beat Limna and the race-course thundering to the horse’s hoofs, would I were upon thy plains curbing Venetian steeds!

Nurse

Why betray thy frenzy in these wild whirling words? Now thou wert for hasting hence to the hills away to hunt wild beasts, and now thy yearning is to drive the steed over the waveless sands. This needs a cunning seer to say what god it is that reins thee from the course, distracting thy senses, child.

Phaedra [more sanely]

Ah me! alas! what have I done? Whither have I strayed, my senses leaving? Mad, mad! stricken by some demon’s curse! Woe is me! Cover my head again, nurse. Shame fills me for the words I have spoken. Hide me then; from my eyes the tear-drops stream, and for very shame I turn them away. ‘Tis painful coming to one’s senses again, and madness, evil though it be, has this advantage, that one has no knowledge of reason’s overthrow.

Nurse

There then I cover thee; but when will death hide my body in the grave? Many a lesson length of days is teaching me. Yea, mortal men should pledge themselves to moderate friendships only, not to such as reach the very heart’s core; affection’s ties should be light upon them to let them slip or draw them tight. For one poor heart to grieve for twain, as I do for my mistress, is a burden sore to bear. Men say that too engrossing pursuits in life more oft cause disappointment than pleasure, and too oft are foes to health. Wherefore do not praise excess so much as moderation, and with me wise men will agree.

[Phaedra lies back upon the couch.]

Leader of the chorus [speaking]

O aged dame, faithful nurse of Phaedra, our queen, we see her sorry plight; but what it is that ails her we cannot discern, so fain would learn of thee and hear thy opinion.

Nurse

I question her, but am no wiser, for she will not answer.

Leader

Nor tell what source these sorrows have?

Nurse

The same answer thou must take, for she is dumb on every point.

Leader

How weak and wasted is her body!

Nurse

What marvel? ‘tis three days now since she has tasted food.

Leader

Is this infatuation, or an attempt to die?

Nurse

‘Tis death she courts; such fasting aims at ending life.

Leader

A strange story if it satisfies her husband.

Nurse

She hides from him her sorrow, and vows she is not ill.

Leader

Can he not guess it from her face?

Nurse

He is not now in his own country.

Leader

But dost not thou insist in thy endeavour to find out her complaint, her mind?

Nurse

I have tried every plan, and all in vain; yet not even now will I relax my zeal, that thou too, if thou stayest, mayst witness my devotion to my unhappy mistress. Come, come, my darling child, let us forget, the twain of us, our former words; be thou more mild, smoothing that sullen brow and changing the current of thy thought, and I, if in aught before failed in humouring thee, will let that be and find some better course. If thou art sick with ills thou canst not name, there be women here to help to set thee right; but if thy trouble can to men’s ears be divulged, speak, that physicians may pronounce on it. Come, then, why so dumb? Thou shouldst not so remain, my child, but scold me if I speak amiss, or, if I give good counsel, yield assent. One word, one look this way! Ah me! Friends, we waste our toil to no purpose; we are as far away as ever; she would not relent to my arguments then, nor is she yielding now. Well, grow more stubborn than the sea, yet be assured of this, that if thou diest thou art a traitress to thy children, for they will ne’er inherit their father’s halls, nay, by that knightly queen the Amazon who bore a son to lord it over thine, a bastard born but not a bastard bred, whom well thou knowest, e’en Hippolytus —

[At the mention of his name Phaedra’S attention is suddenly caught.]

Phaedra

Oh! oh!

Nurse

Ha! doth that touch the quick?

Phaedra

Thou hast undone me, nurse; I do adjure by the gods, mention that man no more.

Nurse

There now! thou art thyself again, but e’en yet refusest to aid thy children and preserve thy life.

Phaedra

My babes I love, but there is another storm that buffets me.

Nurse

Daughter, are thy hands from bloodshed pure?

Phaedra

My hands are pure, but on my soul there rests a stain.

Nurse

The issue of some enemy’s secret witchery?

Phaedra

A friend is my destroyer, one unwilling as myself.

Nurse

Hath Theseus wronged thee in any wise?

Phaedra

Never may I prove untrue to himl

Nurse

Then what strange mystery is there that drives thee on to die?

Phaedra

O, let my sin and me alone, ‘tis not ‘gainst thee I sin.

Nurse

Never willingly! and, if I fail, ‘twill rest at thy door.

Phaedra

How now? thou usest force in clinging to my hand.

Nurse

Yea, and I will never loose my hold upon thy knees.

Phaedra

Alas for thee! my sorrows, shouldst thou learn them, would recoil on thee.

Nurse

What keener grief for me than failing to win thee?

Phaedra

‘Twill be death to thee; though to me that brings renown.

Nurse

And dost thou then conceal this boon despite my prayers?

Phaedra

I do, for ‘tis out of shame I am planning an honourable escape.

Nurse

Tell it, and thine honour shall the brighter shine.

Phaedra

Away, I do conjure thee; loose my hand.

Nurse

I will not, for the boon thou shouldst have granted me is denied.

Phaedra

I will grant it out of reverence for thy holy suppliant touch.

Nurse

Henceforth I hold my peace; ‘tis thine to speak from now.

Phaedra

Ah! hapless mother, what a love was thine!

Nurse

Her love for the bull? daughter, or what meanest thou?

Phaedra

And woe to thee! my sister, bride of Dionysus.

Nurse

What ails thee, child? speaking ill of kith and kin.

Phaedra

Myself the third to suffer! how am I undone!

Nurse

Thou strik’st me dumb! Where will this history end?

Phaedra

That “love” has been our curse from time long past.

Nurse

I know no more of what I fain would learn.

Phaedra

Ah! would thou couldst say for me what I have to tell.

Nurse

I aw no prophetess to unriddle secrets.

Phaedra

What is it they mean when they talk of people being in “love —”?

Nurse

At once the sweetest and the bitterest thing, my child.

Phaedra

I shall only find the latter half.

Nurse

Ha! my child, art thou in love?

Phaedra

The Amazon’s son, whoever he may be —

Nurse

Mean’st thou Hippolytus?

Phaedra

‘Twas thou, not I, that spoke his name.

Nurse

O heavens! what is this, my child? Thou hast ruined me. Outrageous! friends; I will not live and bear it; hateful is life, hateful to mine eyes the light. This body I resign, will cast it off, and rid me of existence by my death. Farewell, my life is o’er. Yea, for the chaste I have wicked passions, ‘gainst their will maybe, but still they have. Cypris, it seems, is not goddess after all, but something greater far, for she hath been the ruin of my lady and of me and our whole family.

Chorus [chanting]

O, too clearly didst thou hear our queen uplift her voice to tell her startling tale of piteous suffering. Come death ere I reach thy state of feeling, loved mistress. O horrible! woe, for these miseries! woe, for the sorrows on which mortals feed! Thou art undone! thou hast disclosed thy sin to heaven’s light. What hath each passing day and every hour in store for thee? Some strange event will come to pass in this house. For it is no longer uncertain where the star of thy love is setting, thou hapless daughter of Crete.

Phaedra

Women of Troezen, who dwell here upon the frontier edge of Pelops’ land, oft ere now in heedless mood through the long hours of night have I wondered why man’s life is spoiled; and it seems to me their evil case is not due to any natural fault of judgment, for there be many dowered with sense, but we must view the matter in this light: by teaching and experience to learn the right but neglect it in practice, some from sloth, others from preferring pleasure of some kind or other to duty. Now life has many pleasures, protracted talk, and leisure, that seductive evil; likewise there is shame which is of two kinds, one a noble quality, the other a curse to families; but if for each its proper time were clearly known, these twain could not have had the selfsame letters to denote them. So then since I had made up my mind on these points, ‘twas not likely any drug would alter it and make me think the contrary. And I will tell the too the way my judgment went. When love wounded me, I bethought me how I best might bear the smart. So from that day forth I began to hide in silence what I suffered. For I put no faith in counsellors, who know well to lecture others for presumption, yet themselves have countless troubles of their own. Next I did devise noble endurance of these wanton thoughts, striving by continence for victory. And last when I could not succeed in mastering love hereby, methought it best to die; and none can gainsay my purpose. For fain I would my virtue should to all appear, my shame have few to witness it. I knew my sickly passion now; to yield to it I saw how infamous; and more, I learnt to know so well that I was but woman, a thing the world detests. Curses, hideous curses on that wife who first did shame her marriage-vow for lovers other than her lord! ‘Twas from noble families this curse began to spread among our sex. For when the noble countenance disgrace, poor folk of course will think that it is right. Those too I hate who make profession of purity, though in secret reckless sinners. How can these, queen Cypris, ocean’s child, e’er look their husbands in the face? do they never feel one guilty thrill that their accomplice, night, or the chambers of their house will find a voice and speak? This it is that calls on me to die, kind friends, that so I may ne’er be found to have disgraced my lord, or the children I have borne; no! may they grow up and dwell in glorious Athens, free to speak and act, heirs to such fair fame as a mother can bequeath. For to know that father or mother has sinned doth turn the stoutest heart to slavishness. This alone, men say, can stand the buffets of life’s battle, a just and virtuous soul in whomsoever found. For time unmasks the villain soon or late, holding up to them a mirror as to some blooming maid. ‘Mongst such may I be never seen!

Leader of the chorus

Now look! how fair is chastity however viewed, whose fruit is good repute amongst men.

Nurse

My queen, ‘tis true thy tale of woe, but lately told, did for the moment strike me with wild alarm, but now I do reflect upon my foolishness; second thoughts are often best even with men. Thy fate is no uncommon nor past one’s calculations; thou art stricken by the passion Cypris sends. Thou art in love; what wonder? so are many more. Wilt thou, because thou lov’st, destroy thyself? ‘Tis little gain, I trow, for those who love or yet may love their fellows, if death must be their end; for though the Love-Queen’s onset in her might is more than man can bear, yet doth she gently visit yielding hearts, and only when she finds a proud unnatural spirit, doth she take and mock it past belief. Her path is in the sky, and mid the ocean’s surge she rides; from her all nature springs; she sows the seeds of love, inspires the warm desire to which we sons of earth all owe our being. They who have aught to do with books of ancient scribes, or themselves engage in studious pursuits, know how Zeus of Semele was enamoured, how the bright-eyed goddess of the Dawn once stole Cephalus to dwell in heaven for the love she bore him; yet these in heaven abide nor shun the gods’ approach, content, I trow, to yield to their misfortune. Wilt thou refuse to yield? thy sire, it seems, should have begotten thee on special terms or with different gods for masters, if in these laws thou wilt not acquiesce. How many, prithee, men of sterling sense, when they see their wives unfaithful, make as though they saw it not? How many fathers, when their sons have gone astray, assist them in their amours? ‘Tis part of human wisdom to conceal the deed of shame. Nor should man aim at too great refinement in his life; for they cannot with exactness finish e’en the roof that covers in a house; and how dost thou, after falling into so deep a pit, think to escape? Nay, if thou hast more of good than bad, thou wilt fare exceeding well, thy human nature considered. O cease, my darling child, from evil thoughts, let wanton pride be gone, for this is naught else, this wish to rival gods in perfectness. Face thy love; ‘tis heaven’s will thou shouldst. Sick thou art, yet turn thy sickness to some happy issue. For there are charms and spells to soothe the soul; surely some cure for thy disease will be found. Men, no doubt, might seek it long and late if our women’s minds no scheme devise.

Leader

Although she gives thee at thy present need the wiser counsel, Phaedra, yet do I praise thee. Still my praise may sound more harsh and jar more cruelly on thy ear than her advice.

Phaedra

‘Tis even this, too plausible a tongue, that overthrows good governments and homes of men. We should not speak to please the ear but point the path that leads to noble fame.

Nurse

What means this solemn speech? Thou needst not rounded phrases, — but a man. Straightway must we move to tell him frankly how it is with thee. Had not thy life to such a crisis come, or wert thou with self-control I endowed, ne’er would I to gratify thy passions have urged thee to this course; but now ‘tis a struggle fierce to save thy life, and therefore less to blame.

Phaedra

Accursed proposal! peace, woman! never utter those shameful words again!

Nurse

Shameful, maybe, yet for thee better than honour’s code. Better this deed, if it shall save thy life, than that name thy pride will kill thee to retain.

Phaedra

I conjure thee, go no further! for thy words are plausible but infamous; for though as yet love has not undermined my soul, yet, if in specious words thou dress thy foul suggestion, I shall be beguiled into the snare from which I am now escaping.

Nurse

If thou art of this mind, ‘twere well thou ne’er hadst sinned; but as it is, hear me; for that is the next best course; I in my house have charms to soothe thy love, — ‘twas but now I thought of them; — these shall cure thee of thy sickness on no disgraceful terms, thy mind unhurt, if thou wilt be but brave. But from him thou lovest we must get some token, word or fragment of his robe, and thereby unite in one love’s twofold stream.

Phaedra

Is thy drug a salve or potion?

Nurse

I cannot tell; be content, my child, to profit by it and ask no questions.

Phaedra

I fear me thou wilt prove too wise for me.

Nurse

If thou fear this, confess thyself afraid of all; but why thy terror!

Phaedra

Lest thou shouldst breathe a word of this to Theseus’ son.

Nurse

Peace, my child! I will do all things well; only be thou, queen Cypris, ocean’s child, my partner in the work! And for the rest of my purpose, it will be enough for me to tell it to our friends within the house.

[The nurse goes into the palace.]

Chorus [singing]

O Love, Love, that from the eyes diffusest soft desire, bringing on the souls of those, whom thou dost camp against, sweet grace, O never in evil mood appear to me, nor out of time and tune approach! Nor fire nor meteor hurls a mightier bolt than Aphrodite’s shaft shot by the hands of Love, the child of Zeus.

Idly, idly by the streams of Alpheus and in the Pythian shrines of Phoebus, Hellas heaps the slaughtered steers; while Love we worship not, Love, the king of men, who holds the key to Aphrodite’s sweetest bower, — worship not him who, when he comes, lays waste and marks his path to mortal hearts by wide-spread woe.

There was that maiden in Oechalia, a girl unwed, that knew no wooer yet nor married joys; her did the Queen of Love snatch from her home across the sea and gave unto Alcmena’s son, mid blood and smoke and murderous marriage-hymns, to be to him a frantic fiend of hell; woe! woe for his wooing! Ah! holy walls of Thebes, ah! fount of Dirce, ye could testify what course the love-queen follows. For with the blazing levin-bolt did she cut short the fatal marriage of Semele, mother of Zeus-born Bacchus. All things she doth inspire, dread goddess, winging her flight hither and thither like a bee.

Phaedra

Peace, oh women, peace! I am undone.

Leader of the chorus

What, Phaedra, is this dread event within thy house?

Phaedra

Hush! let me hear what those within are saying.

Leader

I am silent; this is surely the prelude to evil.

Phaedra [chanting]

Great gods! how awful are my sufferings!

Chorus [chanting]

What a cry was there! what loud alarm! say what sudden terror, lady, doth thy soul dismay.

Phaedra

I am undone. Stand here at the door and hear the noise arising in the house.

Chorus [chanting]

Thou art already by the bolted door; ‘tis for thee to note the sounds that issue from within. And tell me, O tell me what evil can be on foot.

Phaedra

‘Tis the son of the horse-loving Amazon who calls, Hippolytus, uttering foul curses on my servant.

Chorus [chanting]

I hear a noise but cannot dearly tell which way it comes. Ah! ‘tis through the door the sound reached thee.

Phaedra

Yes, yes, he is calling her plainly enough a go-between in vice, traitress to her master’s honour.

Chorus [chanting]

Woe, woe is me! thou art betrayed, dear mistress! What counsel shall I give thee? thy secret is out; thou art utterly undone.

Phaedra

Ah me! ah me!

Chorus [chanting]

Betrayed by friends!

Phaedra

She hath ruined me by speaking of my misfortune; ‘twas kindly meant, but an ill way to cure my malady.

Leader of the chorus

O what wilt thou do now in thy cruel dilemma?

Phaedra

I only know one way, one cure for these my woes, and that is instant death.

[Hippolytus bursts out of the palace, followed closely by the nurse.]

Hippolytus

O mother earth! O sun’s unclouded orb! What words, unfit for any lips, have reached my ears!

Nurse

Peace, my son, lest some one hear thy outcry.

Hippolytus

I cannot hear such awful words and hold my peace.

Nurse

I do implore thee by thy fair right hand.

Hippolytus

Let go my hand, touch not my robe.

Nurse

O by thy knees I pray, destroy me not utterly.

Hippolytus

Why say this, if, as thou pretendest, thy lips are free from blame?

Nurse

My son, this is no story to be noised abroad.

Hippolytus

A virtuous tale grows fairer told to many.

Nurse

Never dishonour thy oath, my son.

Hippolytus

My tongue an oath did take, but not my heart.

Nurse

My son, what wilt thou do? destroy thy friends?

Hippolytus

Friends indeed! the wicked are no friends of mine.

Nurse

O pardon me; to err is only human, child.

Hippolytus

Great Zeus, why didst thou, to man’s sorrow, put woman, evil counterfeit, to dwell where shines the sun? If thou wert minded that the human race should multiply, it was not from women they should have drawn their stock, but in thy temples they should have paid gold or iron or ponderous bronze and bought a family, each man proportioned to his offering, and so in independence dwelt, from women free. But now as soon as ever we would bring this plague into our home we bring its fortune to the ground. ‘Tis clear from this how great a curse a woman is; the very father, that begot and nurtured her, to rid him of the mischief, gives her a dower and packs her off; while the husband, who takes the noxious weed into his home, fondly decks his sorry idol in fine raiment and tricks her out in robes, squandering by degrees, unhappy wight! his house’s wealth. For he is in this dilemma; say his marriage has brought him good connections, he is glad then to keep the wife he loathes; or, if he gets a good wife but useless kin, he tries to stifle the bad luck with the good. But it is easiest for him who has settled in his house as wife mere cipher, incapable from simplicity. I hate a clever woman; never may she set foot in my house who aims at knowing more than women need; for in these clever women Cypris implants a larger store of villainy, while the artless woman is by her shallow wit from levity debarred. No servant should ever have had access to a wife, but men should put to live with them beasts, which bite, not talk, in which case they could not speak to any one nor be answered back by them. But, as it is, the wicked in their chambers plot wickedness, and their servants carry it abroad. Even thus, vile wretch, thou cam’st to make me partner in an outrage on my father’s honour; wherefore I must wash that stain away in running streams, dashing the water into my ears. How could I commit so foul a crime when by the very mention of it I feel myself polluted? Be well assured, woman, ‘tis only my religious scruple saves thee. For had not I unawares been caught by an oath, ‘fore heaven! I would not have refrained from telling all unto my father. But now I will from the house away, so long as Theseus is abroad, and will maintain strict silence. But, when my father comes, I will return and see how thou and thy mistress face him, and so shall I learn by experience the extent of thy audacity. Perdition seize you both! I can never satisfy my hate for women, no! not even though some say this is ever my theme, for of a truth they always are evil. So either let some one prove them chaste, or let me still trample on them for ever.

[Hippolytus departs in anger.]

Chorus [chanting]

O the cruel, unhappy fate of women! What arts, what arguments have we, once we have made a slip, to loose by craft the tight-drawn knot?

Phaedra [chanting]

I have met my deserts. O earth, O light of day! How can I escape the stroke of fate? How my pangs conceal, kind friends? What god will appear to help me, what mortal to take my part or help me in unrighteousness? The present calamity of my life admits of no escape. Most hapless I of all my sex!

Leader of the chorus

Alas, alas! the deed is done, thy servant’s schemes have gone awry, my queen, and all is lost.

Phaedra [to the Nurse]

Accursed woman! traitress to thy friends! How hast thou ruined me! May Zeus, my ancestor, smite thee with his fiery bolt and uproot thee from thy place. Did I not foresee thy purpose, did I not bid thee keep silence on the very matter which is now my shame? But thou wouldst not be still; wherefore my fair name will not go with me to the tomb. But now I must another scheme devise. Yon youth, in the keenness of his fury, will tell his father of my sin, and the aged Pittheus of my state and fill the world with stories to my shame. Perdition seize thee and every meddling fool who by dishonest means would serve unwilling friends!

Nurse

Mistress, thou may’st condemn the mischief I have done, for sorrow’s sting o’ermasters thy judgment; yet can I answer thee in face of this, if thou wilt hear. ‘Twas I who nurtured thee; I love thee still; but in my search for medicine to cure thy sickness I found what least I sought. Had I but succeeded, I had been counted wise, for the credit we get for wisdom is measured by our success.

Phaedra

Is it just, is it any satisfaction to me, that thou shouldst wound me first, then bandy words with me?

Nurse

We dwell on this too long; I was not wise, I own; but there are yet ways of escape from the trouble, my child.

Phaedra

Be dumb henceforth; evil was thy first advice to me, evil too thy attempted scheme. Begone and leave me, look to thyself; I will my own fortunes for the best arrange. [The Nurse goes into the palace.]

Ye noble daughters of Troezen, grant me the only boon I crave; in silence bury what ye here have heard.

Leader

By majestic Artemis, child of Zeus, I swear I will never divulge aught of thy sorrows.

Phaedra

‘Tis well. But I, with all my thought, can but one way discover out of this calamity, that so I may secure my children’s honour, and find myself some help as matters stand. For never, never will I bring shame upon my Cretan home, nor will I, to save one poor life, face Theseus after my disgrace.

Leader

Art thou bent then on some cureless woe?

Phaedra

On death; the means thereto must I devise myself.

Leader

Hush!

Phaedra

Do thou at least advise me well. For this very day shall I gladden Cypris, my destroyer, by yielding up my life, and shall own myself vanquished by cruel love. Yet shall my dying be another’s curse, that he may learn not to exult at my misfortunes; but when he comes to share the self-same plague with me, he will take a lesson in wisdom.

[Phaedra enters the palace.]

Chorus [chanting]

O to be nestling ‘neath some pathless cavern, there by god’s creating hand to grow into a bird amid the winged tribes! Away would I soar to Adria’s wave-beat shore and to the waters of Eridanus; where a father’s hapless daughters in their grief for Phaethon distil into the glooming flood the amber brilliance of their tears.

And to the apple-bearing strand of those minstrels in the west then would come, where ocean’s lord no more to sailors grants passage o’er the deep dark main, finding there the heaven’s holy bound, upheld by Atlas, where water from ambrosial founts wells up beside the couch of Zeus inside his halls, and holy earth, the bounteous mother, causes joy to spring in heavenly breasts.

O white-winged bark, that o’er the booming ocean-wave didst bring my royal mistress from her happy home, to crown her queen ‘mongst sorrow’s brides! Surely evil omens from either port, at least from Crete, were with that ship, what time to glorious Athens it sped its way, and the crew made fast its twisted cable-ends upon the beach of Munychus, and on the land stept out.

Whence comes it that her heart is crushed, cruelly afflicted by Aphrodite with unholy love; so she by bitter grief o’erwhelmed will tie a noose within her bridal bower to fit it to her fair white neck, to modest for this hateful lot in life, prizing o’er all her name and fame, and striving thus to rid her soul of passion’s sting.

[The Nurse rushes out of the palace.]

Nurse

Help! ho! To the rescue all who near the palace stand! She hath hung herself, our queen, the wife of Theseus.

Leader of the chorus

Woe worth the day! the deed is done; our royal mistress is no more, dead she hangs in the dangling noose.

Nurse

Haste! some one bring a two-edged knife wherewith to cut the knot about her neck.

First semi-chorus

Friends, what shall we do? think you we should enter the house, and loose the queen from the tight-drawn noose?

Second semi-chorus

Why should we? Are there not young servants here? To do too much is not a safe course in life.

Nurse

Lay out the hapless corpse, straighten the limbs. This was a bitter way to sit at home and keep my master’s house!

[She goes in.]

Leader of the chorus

She is dead, poor lady; ‘tis this I hear. Already are they laying out the corpse.

[Theseus and his retinue have entered, unnoticed.]

Theseus

Women, can ye tell me what the uproar in the palace means? There came the sound of servants weeping bitterly to mine ear. None of my household deign to open wide the gates and give me glad welcome as traveller from prophetic shrines. Hath aught befallen old Pittheus? No, Though he be well advanced in years, yet should I mourn, were he to quit this house.

Leader

‘Tis not against the old, Theseus, that fate, to strike thee, aims this blow; prepare thy sorrow for a younger corpse.

Theseus

Woe is me! is it a child’s life death robs me of?

Leader

They live; but, cruellest news of all for thee, their mother is no more.

Theseus

What! my wife dead? By what cruel stroke of chance?

Leader

About her neck she tied the hangman’s knot.

Theseus

Had grief so chilled her blood? or what had befallen her?

Leader

I know but this, for I am myself but now arrived at the house to mourn thy sorrows, O Theseus.

Theseus

Woe is me! why have I crowned my head with woven garlands, when misfortune greets my embassage? Unbolt the doors, servants, loose their fastenings, that I may see the piteous sight, my wife, whose death is death to me. [The central doors of the palace open, disclosing the corpse.]

Woe! woe is thee for thy piteous lot! thou hast done thyself a hurt deep enough to overthrow this family. Ah! ah! the daring of it done to death by violence and unnatural means, the desperate effort of thy own poor hand! Who cast the shadow o’er thy life, poor lady?

Theseus [chanting]

Ah me, my cruel lot! sorrow hath done her worst on me. O fortune, how heavily hast thou set thy foot on me and on my house, by fiendish hands inflicting an unexpected stain? Nay, ‘tis complete effacement of my life, making it not to be lived; for I see, alas! so wide an ocean of grief that I can never swim to shore again, nor breast the tide of this calamity. How shall I speak of thee, my poor wife, what tale of direst suffering tell? Thou art vanished like a bird from the covert of my hand, taking one headlong leap from me to Hades’ halls. Alas, and woe! this is a bitter, bitter sight! This must be a judgment sent by God for the sins of an ancestor, which from some far source I am bringing on myself.

Leader of the chorus

My prince, ‘tis not to thee alone such sorrows come; thou hast lost a noble wife, but so have many others.

Theseus [chanting]

Fain would I go hide me ‘neath earth’s blackest depth, to dwell in darkness with the dead in misery, now that I am reft of thy dear presence! for thou hast slain me than thyself e’en more. Who can tell me what caused the fatal stroke that reached thy heart, dear wife? Will no one tell me what befell? doth my palace all in vain give shelter to a herd of menials? Woe, woe for thee, my wife! sorrows past speech, past bearing, I behold within my house; myself ruined man, my home a solitude, my children orphans!

Chorus [chanting]

Gone and left us hast thou, fondest wife and noblest of all women ‘neath the sun’s bright eye or night’s star-lit radiance. Poor house, what sorrows are thy portion now! My eyes are wet with streams of tears to see thy fate; but the ill that is to follow has long with terror filled me.

Theseus

Ha! what means this letter? clasped in her dear hand it hath some strange tale to tell. Hath she, poor lady, as a last request, written her bidding as to my marriage and her children? Take heart, poor ghost; no wife henceforth shall wed thy Theseus or invade his house. Ah! how yon en ring affects my sight! Come, I will unfold the sealed packet and read her letter’s message to me.

Chorus [chanting]

Woe unto us! Here is yet another evil in the train by heaven sent. Looking to what has happened, I should count my lot in life no longer worth one’s while to gain. My master’s house, alas! is ruined, brought to naught, I say. Spare it, O Heaven, if it may be. Hearken to my prayer, for I see, as with prophetic eye, an omen boding ill.

Theseus

O horror! woe on woe! and still they come, too deep for words, to heavy to bear. Ah me!

Leader of the chorus

What is it? speak, if I may share in it.

Theseus [chanting]

This letter loudly tells a hideous tale! where can I escape my load of woe? For I am ruined and undone, so awful are the words I find here written clear as if she cried them to me; woe is me!

Leader

Alas! thy words declare themselves the harbingers of woe.

Theseus

I can no longer keep the cursed tale within the portal of my lips, cruel though its utterance be. Ah me! Hippolytus hath dared by brutal force to violate my honour, recking naught of Zeus, whose awful eye is over all. O father Poseidon, once didst thou promise to fulfil three prayers of mine; answer one of these and slay my son, let him not escape this single day, if the prayers thou gavest me were indeed with issue fraught.

Leader

O king, I do conjure thee, call back that prayer; hereafter thou wilt know thy error. Hear, I pray.

Theseus

It cannot be! Moreover I will banish him from this land, and by one of two fates shall he be struck down; either Poseidon, out of respect to my prayer, will cast his dead body into the house of Hades; or exiled from this land, a wanderer to some foreign shore, shall he eke out a life of misery.

Leader

Lo! where himself doth come, thy son Hippolytus, in good time; dismiss thy hurtful rage, King Theseus, and bethink thee what is best for thy house,

[Hippolytus enters.]

Hippolytus

I heard thy voice, father, and hasted to come hither; yet know I not the cause of thy present sorrow, but would fain learn of thee.

[He sees Phaedra’S body.] Ha! what is this? thy wife is dead? ‘Tis very strange; it was but now I left her; a moment since she looked upon the light. How came she thus? the manner of her death? this would I learn of thee, father. Art dumb? silence availeth not in trouble; nay, for the heart that fain would know all must show its curiosity even in sorrow’s hour. Be sure it is not right, father, to hide misfortunes from those who love, ay, more than love thee.

Theseus

O ye sons of men, victims of a thousand idle errors, why teach your countless crafts, why scheme and seek to find a way for everything, while one thing ye know not nor ever yet have made your prize, a way to teach them wisdom whose souls are void of sense?

Hippolytus

A very master in his craft the man, who can force fools to be wise! But these ill-timed subtleties of thine, father, make me fear thy tongue is running wild through trouble.

Theseus

Fie upon thee! man needs should have some certain test set up to try his friends, some touchstone of their hearts, to know each friend whether he be true or false; all men should have two voices, one the voice of honesty, expediency’s the other, so would honesty confute its knavish opposite, and then we could not be deceived.

Hippolytus

Say, hath some friend been slandering me and hath he still thine ear? and I, though guiltless, banned? I am amazed, for thy random, frantic words fill me with wild alarm.

Theseus

O the mind of mortal man! to what lengths will it proceed? What limit will its bold assurance have? for if it goes on growing as man’s life advances, and each successor outdo the man before him in villainy, the gods will have to add another sphere unto the world, which shall take in the knaves and villians. Behold this man; he, my own son, hath outraged mine honour, his guilt most clearly proved by my dead wife. Now, since thou hast dared this loathly crime, come, look thy father in the face. Art thou the man who dost with gods consort, as one above the vulgar herd? art thou the chaste and sinless saint? Thy boasts will never persuade me to be guilty of attributing ignorance to gods. Go then, vaunt thyself, and drive thy petty trade in viands formed of lifeless food; take Orpheus for thy chief and go a-revelling, with all honour for the vapourings of many a written scroll, seeing thou now art caught. Let all beware, I say, of such hypocrites! who hunt their prey with fine words, and all the while are scheming villainy. She is dead; dost think that this will save thee? Why this convicts thee more than all, abandoned wretch! What oaths, what pleas can outweigh this letter, so that thou shouldst ‘scape thy doom? Thou wilt assert she hated thee, that ‘twixt the bastard and the true-born child nature has herself put war; it seems then by thy showing she made a sorry bargain with her life, if to gratify her hate of thee she lost what most she prized. ‘Tis said, no doubt, that frailty finds no place in man but is innate in woman; my experience is, young men are no more secure than women, whenso the Queen of Love excites a youthful breast; although their sex comes in to help them. Yet why do I thus bandy words with thee, when before me lies the corpse, to be the clearest witness? Begone at once, an exile from this land, and ne’er set foot again in god-built Athens nor in the confines of my dominion. For if I am tamely to submit to this treatment from such as thee, no more will Sinis, robber of the Isthmus, bear me witness how I slew him, but say my boasts are idle, nor will those rocks Scironian, that fringe the sea, call me the miscreants’ scourge.

Leader

I know not how to call happy any child of man; for that which was first has turned and now is last.

Hippolytus

Father, thy wrath and the tension of thy mind are terrible; yet this charge, specious though its arguments appear, becomes a calumny, if one lay it bare. Small skill have I in speaking to a crowd, but have a readier wit for comrades of mine own age and small companies. Yea, and this is as it should be; for they, whom the wise despise, are better qualified to speak before a mob. Yet am I constrained under the present circumstances to break silence. And at the outset will I take the point which formed the basis of thy stealthy attack on me, designed to put me out of court unheard; dost see yon sun, this earth? These do not contain, for all thou dost deny it, chastity surpassing mine. To reverence God I count the highest knowledge, and to adopt as friends not those who attempt injustice, but such as would blush to propose to their companions aught disgraceful or pleasure them by shameful services; to mock at friends is not my way, father, but I am still the same behind their backs as to their face. The very crime thou thinkest to catch me in, is just the one I am untainted with, for to this day have I kept me pure from women. Nor know I aught thereof, save what I hear or see in pictures, for I have no wish to look even on these, so pure my virgin soul. I grant my claim to chastity may not convince thee; well, ‘tis then for thee to show the way I was corrupted. Did this woman exceed in beauty all her sex? Did aspire to fill the husband’s place after thee and succeed to thy house? That surely would have made me out a fool, a creature void of sense. Thou wilt say, “Your chaste man loves to lord it.” No, no! say I, sovereignty pleases only those whose hearts are quite corrupt. Now, I would be the first and best at all the games in Hellas, but second in the state, for ever happy thus with the noblest for my friends. For there one may be happy, and the absence of danger gives a charm beyond all princely joys. One thing I have not said, the rest thou hast. Had I a witness to attest my purity, and were I pitted ‘gainst her still alive, facts would show thee on enquiry who the culprit was. Now by Zeus, the god of oaths, and by the earth, whereon we stand, I swear to thee I never did lay hand upon thy wife nor would have wished to, or have harboured such a thought. Slay me, ye gods! rob me of name and honour, from home and city cast me forth, a wandering exile o’er the earth! nor sea nor land receive my bones when I am dead, if I am such a miscreant! I cannot say if she through fear destroyed herself, for more than this am I forbid. With her discretion took the place of chastity, while I, though chaste, was not discreet in using this virtue.

Leader

Thy oath by heaven, strong security, sufficiently refutes the charge.

Theseus

A wizard or magician must the fellow be, to think he can first flout me, his father, then by coolness master my resolve.

Hippolytus

Father, thy part in this doth fill me with amaze; wert thou my son and I thy sire, by heaven! I would have slain, not let thee off with banishment, hadst thou presumed to violate my honour.

Theseus

A just remark! yet shalt thou not die by the sentence thine own lips pronounce upon thyself; for death, that cometh in a moment, is an easy end for wretchedness. Nay, thou shalt be exiled from thy fatherland, and wandering to a foreign shore drag out a life of misery, for such are the wages of sin.

Hippolytus

Oh! what wilt thou do? Wilt thou banish me, without so much as waiting for Time’s evidence on my case?

Theseus

Ay, beyond the sea, beyond the bounds of Atlas, if I could, so deeply do I hate thee.

Hippolytus

What! banish me untried, without even testing my oath, the pledge offer, or the voice of seers?

Theseus

This letter here, though it bears no seers’ signs, arraigns thy pledges; as for birds that fly o’er our heads, a long farewell to them.

Hippolytus [aside]

Great gods! why do I not unlock my lips, seeing that I am ruined by you, the objects of my reverence? No, I will not; I should nowise persuade those whom I ought to, and in vain should break the oath I swore.

Theseus

Fie upon thee! that solemn air of thine is more than I can bear. Begone from thy native land forthwith!

Hippolytus

Whither shall I turn? Ah me! whose friendly house will take me in, an exile on so grave, a charge?

Theseus

Seek one who loves to entertain as guests and partners in his crimes corrupters of men’s wives.

Hippolytus

Ah me! this wounds my heart and brings me nigh to tears to think that I should appear so vile, and thou believe me so.

Theseus

Thy tears and forethought had been more in season when thou didst presume to outrage thy father’s wife.

Hippolytus

O house, I would thou couldst speak for me and witness if I am so vile!

Theseus

Dost fly to speechless witnesses? This deed, though it speaketh not, proves thy guilt clearly.

Hippolytus

Alas! Would I could stand and face myself, so should I weep to see the sorrows I endure.

Theseus

Ay, ‘tis thy character to honour thyself far more than reverence thy parents, as thou shouldst.

Hippolytus

Unhappy mother! son of sorrow! Heaven keep all friends of mine from bastard birth!

Theseus

Ho! servants, drag him hence! You heard my proclamation long ago condemning him to exile.

Hippolytus

Whoso of them doth lay a hand on me shall rue it; thyself expel me, if thy spirit move thee, from the land.

Theseus

I will, unless my word thou straight obey; no pity for thy exile steals into my heart.

[Theseus goes in. The central doors of the palace are closed.]

Hippolytus

The sentence then, it seems, is passed. Ah, misery! How well I know the truth herein, but know no way to tell it! O daughter of Latona, dearest to me of all deities, partner, comrade in the chase, far from glorious Athens must I fly. Farewell, city and land of Erechtheus; farewell, Troezen, most joyous home wherein to pass the spring of life; ‘tis my last sight of thee, farewell! Come, my comrades in this land, young like me, greet me kindly and escort me forth, for never will ye behold a purer soul, for all my father’s doubts.

[Hippolytus departs. Many follow him.]

Chorus [singing]

In very deed the thoughts I have about the gods, whenso they come into my mind, do much to soothe its grief, but though I cherish secret hopes of some great guiding will, yet am I at fault when survey the fate and doings of the sons of men; change succeeds to change, and man’s life veers and shifts in endless restlessness.

Fortune grant me this, I pray, at heaven’s hand, — a happy lot in life and a soul from sorrow free; opinions let me hold not too precise nor yet too hollow; but, lightly changing my habits to each morrow as it comes, may I thus attain a life of bliss!

For now no more is my mind free from doubts, unlooked-for sights greet my vision; for lo! I see the morning star of Athens, eye of Hellas, driven by his father’s fury to another land. Mourn, ye sands of my native shores, ye oak-groves on the hills, where with his fleet hounds he would hunt the quarry to the death, attending on Dictynna, awful queen.

No more will he mount his car drawn by Venetian steeds, filling the course round Limna with the prancing of his trained horses. Nevermore in his father’s house shall he wake the Muse that never slept beneath his lute-strings; no hand will crown the spots where rests the maiden Latona ‘mid the boskage deep; nor evermore shall our virgins vie to win thy love, now thou art banished.

While I with tears at thy unhappy fate shall endure a lot all undeserved. Ah! hapless mother, in vain didst thou bring forth, it seems. I am angered with the gods; out upon them! O ye linked Graces, why are ye sending from his native land this poor youth, guiltless sufferer, far from his home?

Leader of the chorus

But lo! I see a servant of Hippolytus hasting with troubled looks towards the palace.

[A messenger enters.]

Messenger

Ladies, where may I find Theseus, king of the country? pray, tell me if ye know; is he within the palace here?

Leader

Lo! himself approaches from the palace.

[Theseus enters.]

Messenger

Theseus, I am the bearer of troublous tidings to thee and all citizens who dwell in Athens or the bounds of Troezen.

Theseus

How now? hath some strange calamity o’ertaken these two neighbouring cities?

Messenger

In one brief word, Hippolytus is dead. ‘Tis true one slender thread still links him to the light of life.

Theseus

Who slew him? Did some husband come to blows with him, one whose wife, like mine, had suffered brutal violence?

Messenger

He perished through those steeds that drew his chariot and through the curses thou didst utter, praying to thy sire, the ocean-king, to slay thy son.

Theseus

Ye gods and king Poseidon, thou hast proved my parentage by hearkening to my prayer! Say how he perished; how fell the uplifted hand of justice to smite the villain who dishonoured me?

Messenger

Hard by the wave-beat shore were we combing out his horses’ manes, weeping the while, for one had come to say that Hippolytus was harshly exiled by thee and nevermore would return to set foot in this land. Then came he, telling the same doleful tale to us upon the beach, and with him was a countless throng of friends who followed after. At length he stayed his lamentation and spake: “Why weakly rave on this wise? My father’s commands must be obeyed. Ho! servants, harness my horses to the chariot; this is no longer now city of mine.” Thereupon each one of us bestirred himself, and, ere a man could say ‘twas done, we had the horses standing ready at our master’s side. Then he caught up the reins from the chariot-rail, first fitting his feet exactly in the hollows made for them. But first with outspread palms he called upon the gods, “O Zeus, now strike me dead, if I have sinned, and let my father learn how he is wronging me, in death at least, if not in life.” Therewith he seized the whip and lashed each horse in turn; while we, close by his chariot, near the reins, kept up with him along the road that leads direct to Argos and Epidaurus. And just as we were coming to a desert spot, a strip of sand beyond the borders of this country, sloping right to the Saronic gulf, there issued thence a deep rumbling sound, as it were an earthquake, fearsome noise, and the horses reared their heads and pricked their ears, while we were filled with wild alarm to know whence came the sound; when, as we gazed toward the wave-beat shore, a wave tremendous we beheld towering to the skies, so that from our view the cliffs of Sciron vanished, for it hid the isthmus and the rock of Asclepius; then swelling and frothing with a crest of foam, the sea discharged it toward the beach where stood the harnessed car, and in the moment that it broke, that mighty wall of waters, there issued from the wave a monstrous bull, whose bellowing filled the land with fearsome echoes, a sight too awful as it seemed to us who witnessed it. A panic seized the horses there and then, but our master, to horses’ ways quite used, gripped in both hands his reins, and tying them to his body pulled them backward as the sailor pulls his oar; but the horses gnashed the forged bits between their teeth and bore him wildly on, regardless of their master’s guiding hand or rein or jointed car. And oft as he would take the guiding rein and steer for softer ground, showed that bull in front to turn him back again, maddening his team with terror; but if in their frantic career they ran towards the rocks, he would draw nigh the chariot-rail, keeping up with them, until, suddenly dashing the wheel against a stone, he upset and wrecked the car; then was dire confusion, axle-boxes and linchpins springing into the air. While he, poor youth, entangled in the reins was dragged along, bound by a stubborn knot, his poor head dashed against the rocks, his flesh all torn, the while he cried out piteously, “Stay, stay, my horses whom my own hand hath fed at the manger, destroy me not utterly. O luckless curse of a father! Will no one come and save me for all my virtue?” Now we, though much we longed to help, were left far behind. At last, I know not how, he broke loose from the shapely reins that bound him, a faint breath of life still in him; but the horses disappeared, and that portentous bull, among the rocky ground, I know not where. I am but a slave in thy house, ‘tis true, O king, yet will I never believe so monstrous a charge against thy son’s character, no! not though the whole race of womankind should hang itself, or one should fill with writing every pine-tree tablet grown on Ida, sure as I am of his uprightness.

Leader

Alas! new troubles come to plague us, nor is there any escape from fate and necessity.

Theseus

My hatred for him who hath thus suffered made me glad at thy tidings, yet from regard for the gods and him, because he is my son, I feel neither joy nor sorrow at his sufferings.

Messenger

But say, are we to bring the victim hither, or how are we to fulfil thy wishes? Bethink thee; if by me thou wilt be schooled, thou wilt not harshly treat thy son in his sad plight.

Theseus

Bring him hither, that when I see him face to face, who hath denied having polluted my wife’s honour, I may by words and heaven’s visitation convict him.

[The messenger departs.]

Chorus [singing]

Ah! Cypris, thine the hand that guides the stubborn hearts of gods and men; thine, and that attendant boy’s, who, with painted plumage gay, flutters round his victims on lightning wing. O’er the land and booming deep on golden pinion borne flits the god of Love, maddening the heart and beguiling the senses of all whom he attacks, savage whelps on mountains bred, ocean’s monsters, creatures of this sun-warmed earth, and man; thine, O Cypris, thine alone the sovereign power to rule them all.

[Artemis appears above.]

Artemis [chanting]

Hearken, I bid thee, noble son of Aegeus: lo! ‘tis I, Latona’s child, that speak, I, Artemis. Why, Theseus, to thy sorrow dost thou rejoice at these tidings, seeing that thou hast slain thy son most impiously, listening to a charge not clearly proved, but falsely sworn to by thy wife? though clearly has the curse therefrom upon thee fallen. Why dost thou not for very shame hide beneath the dark places of the earth, or change thy human life and soar on wings to escape this tribulation? ‘Mongst men of honour thou hast now no share in life.

[She now speaks.] Hearken, Theseus; I will put thy wretched case. Yet will it naught avail thee, if I do, but vex thy heart; still with this intent I came, to show thy son’s pure heart, — that he may die with honour, — as well the frenzy and, in a sense, the nobleness of thy wife; for she was cruelly stung with a passion for thy son by that goddess whom all we, that joy in virgin purity, detest. And though she strove to conquer love by resolution, yet by no fault of hers she fell, thanks to her nurse’s strategy, who did reveal her malady unto thy son under oath. But he would none of her counsels, as indeed was right, nor yet, when thou didst revile him, would he break the oath he swore, from piety. She meantime, fearful of being found out, wrote a lying letter, destroying by guile thy son, but yet persuading thee.

Theseus

Woe is me!

Artemis

Doth my story wound thee, Theseus? Be still awhile; hear what follows, so wilt thou have more cause to groan. Dost remember those three prayers thy father granted thee, fraught with certain issue? ‘Tis one of these thou hast misused, unnatural wretch, against thy son, instead of aiming it at an enemy. Thy sea-god sire, ‘tis true, for all his kind intent, hath granted that boon he was compelled, by reason of his promise, to grant. But thou alike in his eyes and in mine hast shewn thy evil heart, in that thou hast forestalled all proof or voice prophetic, hast made no inquiry, nor taken time for consideration, but with undue haste cursed thy son even to the death.

Theseus

Perdition seize me! Queen revered!

Artemis

An awful deed was thine, but still even for this thou mayest obtain pardon; for it was Cypris that would have it so, sating the fury of her soul. For this is law amongst us gods; none of us will thwart his neighbour’s will, but ever we stand aloof. For be well assured, did I not fear Zeus, never would I have incurred the bitter shame of handing over to death a man of all his kind to me most dear. As for thy sin, first thy ignorance absolves thee from its villainy, next thy wife, who is dead, was lavish in her use of convincing arguments to influence thy mind. On thee in chief this storm of woe hath burst, yet is it some grief to me as well; for when the righteous die, there is no joy in heaven, albeit we try to destroy the wicked, house and home.

Chorus [chanting]

Lo! where he comes, this hapless youth, his fair young flesh and auburn locks most shamefully handled. Unhappy house! what two-fold sorrow doth o’ertake its halls, through heaven’s ordinance!

[Hippolytus enters, assisted by his attendants.]

Hippolytus [chanting]

Ah! ah! woe is me! foully undone by an impious father’s impious imprecation! Undone, undone! woe is me! Through my head dart fearful pains; my brain throbs convulsively. Stop, let me rest my worn-out frame. Oh, oh! Accursed steeds, that mine own hand did feed, ye have been my ruin and my death. O by the gods, good sirs, beseech ye, softly touch my wounded limbs. Who stands there at my right side? Lift me tenderly; with slow and even step conduct a poor wretch cursed by his mistaken sire. Great Zeus, dost thou see this? Me thy reverent worshipper, me who left all men behind in purity, plunged thus into yawning Hades ‘neath the earth, reft of life; in vain the toils I have endured through my piety towards mankind. Ah me! ah me! O the thrill of anguish shooting through me! Set me down, poor wretch I am; come Death to set me free! Kill me, end my sufferings. O for a sword two-edged to hack my flesh, and close this mortal life! Ill-fated curse of my father! the crimes of bloody kinsmen, ancestors of old, now pass their boundaries and tarry not, and upon me are they come all guiltless as I am; ah! why? Alas, alas! what can I say? How from my life get rid of this relentless agony? O that the stern Death-god, night’s black visitant, would give my sufferings rest!

Artemis

Poor sufferer! cruel the fate that links thee to it! Thy noble soul hath been thy ruin.

Hippolytus

Ah! the fragrance from my goddess wafted! Even in my agony I feel thee near and find relief; she is here in this very place, my goddess Artemis.

Artemis

She is, poor sufferer! the goddess thou hast loved the best.

Hippolytus

Dost see me, mistress mine? dost see my present suffering?

Artemis

I see thee, but mine eyes no tear may weep.

Hippolytus

Thou hast none now to lead the hunt or tend thy fane.

Artemis

None now; yet e’en in death I love thee still.

Hippolytus

None to groom thy steeds, or guard thy shrines.

Artemis

‘Twas Cypris, mistress of iniquity, devised this evil.

Hippolytus

Ah me! now know I the goddess who destroyed me.

Artemis

She was jealous of her slighted honour, vexed at thy chaste life.

Hippolytus

Ah! then I see her single hand hath struck down three of us.

Artemis

Thy sire and thee, and last thy father’s wife.

Hippolytus

My sire’s ill-luck as well as mine I mourn.

Artemis

He was deceived by a goddess’s design.

Hippolytus

Woe is thee, my father, in this sad mischance!

Theseus

My son, I am a ruined man; life has no joys for me.

Hippolytus

For this mistake I mourn thee rather than myself.

Theseus

O that I had died for thee, my son!

Hippolytus

Ah! those fatal gifts thy sire Poseidon gave.

Theseus

Would God these lips had never uttered that prayer!

Hippolytus

Why not? thou wouldst in any case have slain me in thy fury then.

Theseus

Yes; Heaven had perverted my power to think.

Hippolytus

O that the race of men could bring a curse upon the gods!

Artemis

Enough! for though thou pass to gloom beneath the earth, the wrath of Cypris shall not, at her will, fall on thee unrequited, because thout hadst a noble righteous soul. For I with mine own hand will with these unerring shafts avenge me on another, who is her votary, dearest to her of all the sons of men. And to thee, poor sufferer, for thy anguish now will grant high honours in the city of Troezen; for thee shall maids unwed before their marriage cut off their hair, thy harvest through the long roll of time of countless bitter tears. Yea, and for ever shall the virgin choir hymn thy sad memory, nor shall Phaedra’s love for thee fall into oblivion and pass away unnoticed. But thou, O son of old Aegeus, take thy son in thine arms, draw him close to thee, for unwittingly thou slewest him, and men may well commit an error when gods put it in their way. And thee Hippolytus, I admonish; hate not thy sire, for in this death thou dost but meet thy destined fate. And now farewell! ‘tis not for me to gaze upon the dead, or pollute my sight with death-scenes, and e’en now I see thee nigh that evil.

[Artemis vanishes.]

Hippolytus

Farewell, blest virgin queen! leave me now! Easily thou resignest our long friendship! I am reconciled with my father at thy desire, yea, for ever before I would obey thy bidding. Ah me! the darkness is settling even now upon my eyes. Take me, father, in thy arms, lift me up.

Theseus

Woe is me, my son! what art thou doing to me thy hapless sire!

Hippolytus

I am a broken man; yes, I see the gates that close upon the dead.

Theseus

Canst leave me thus with murder on my soul!

Hippolytus

No, no; I set thee free from this bloodguiltiness.

Theseus

What sayest thou? dost absolve me from bloodshed?

Hippolytus

Artemis, the archer-queen, is my witness that I do.

Theseus

My own dear child, how generous dost thou show thyself to thy father!

Hippolytus

Farewell, dear father! a long farewell to thee!

Theseus

O that holy, noble soul of thine!

Hippolytus

Pray to have children such as me born in lawful wedlock.

Theseus

O leave me not, my son; endure awhile.

Hippolytus

‘Tis finished, my endurance; I die, father; quickly veil my face with a mantle.

Theseus

O glorious Athens, realm of Pallas, what a splendid hero ye have lost! Ah me, ah me! How oft shall I remember thy evil works, P Cypris!

Chorus [singing]

On all our citizens hath come this universal sorrow, unforeseen. Now shall the copious tear gush forth, for sad news about great men takes more than usual hold upon the heart.

Ion

Characters in the Play

Mercury

Ion

Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus

Xuthus, husband of Creusa

Tutor

Attendant

Priestess of Apollo

Minerva

Chorus of handmaidens of Creusa

Attendants of the Temple of Apollo

[Scene: Before the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The sun is about to rise. Mercury enters.]

Mercury

Atlas, that on his brazen shoulders rolls

Yon heaven, the ancient mansion of the gods,

Was by a goddess sire to Maia; she

To supreme Jove bore me, and call’d me Hermes;

Attendant on the king, his high behests

I execute. To Delphi am I come,

This land where Phoebus from his central throne

Utters to mortals his high strain, declaring

The present and the future; this is the cause;

Greece hath a city of distinguish’d glory,

Which from the goddess of the golden lance

Received its name; Erechtheus was its king;

His daughter, call’d Creusa, to the embrace

Of nuptial love Apollo strain’d perforce,

Where northward points the rock beneath the heights

Crown’d with the Athenian citadel of Pallas,

Call’d Macrai by the lords of Attica.

Her growing burden, to her sire unknown

(Such was the pleasure of the god), she bore,

Till in her secret chamber to a son

The rolling months gave birth: to the same cave,

Where by the enamour’d god she was compress’d,

Creusa bore the infant: there for death

Exposed him in a well-compacted ark

Of circular form, observant of the customs

Drawn from her great progenitors, and chief

From Erichthonius, who from the Attic earth

Deriv’d his origin: to him as guards

Minerva gave two dragons, and in charge

Consign’d him to the daughters of Aglauros:

This rite to the Erechthidae hence remains,

Mid serpents wreathed in ductile gold to nurse

Their children. What of ornament she had

She hung around her son, and left him thus

To perish. But to me his earnest prayer

Phoebus applied, “To the high-lineaged sons

Of glorious Athens go, my brother; well

Thou know’st the city of Pallas; from the cave

Deep in the hollow rock a new-born babe,

Laid as he is, and all his vestments with him;

Bring to thy brother to my shrine, and place

At the entrance of my temple; of the rest

(For, know, the child is mine) I will take care.”

To gratify my brother thence I bore

The osier-woven ark, and placed the boy

Here at the temple’s base, the wreathed lid

Uncovering, that the infant might be seen.

It chanced, as the orient sun the steep of heav’n

Ascended, to the god’s oracular seat

The priestess entering, on the infant cast

Her eye, and marvelled, deeming that some nymph

Of Delphi at the fane had dared to lay

The secret burden of her womb: this thought

Prompts her to move it from the shrine: but soon

To pity she resign’d the harsh intent;

The impulse of the god secretly acting

In favour of the child, that in his temple

It might abide; her gentle hand then took it,

And gave it nurture; yet conceived she not

That Phoebus was the sire, nor who the mother

Knew aught, nor of his parents could the child

Give information. All his youthful years

Sportive he wandered round the shrine, and there

Was fed: but when his firmer age advanced

To manhood, o’er the treasures of the god

The Delphians placed him, to his faithful care

Consigning all; and in this royal dome

His hallow’d life he to this hour hath pass’d.

Meantime Creusa, mother of the child,

To Xuthus was espoused, the occasion this: —

On Athens from Euboean Chalcis roll’d

The waves of war; be join’d their martial toil,

And with his spear repell’d the foe; for this

To the proud honour of Creusa’s bed

Advanc’d; no native, in Achaea sprung

From Aeolus, the son of Jove. Long time

Unbless’d with children, to the oracular shrine

Of Phoebus are they come, through fond desire

Of progeny: to this the god hath brought

The fortune of his son, nor, as was deem’d,

Forgets him; but to Xuthus, when he stands

This sacred seat consulting, will he give

That son, declared his offspring; that the child,

When to Creusa’s house brought back, by her

May be agnized; the bridal rites of Phoebus

Kept secret, that the youth may claim the state

Due to his birth, through all the states of Greece

Named Ion, founder of the colonies

On the Asiatic coast. The laurell’d cave

Now will I visit, there to learn what fortune

Is to the boy appointed, for I see

This son of Phoebus issuing forth to adorn

The gates before the shrine with laurel boughs.

First of the gods I hail him by the name

Of Ion, which his fortune soon will give him.

[Mercury vanishes. Ion and the attendants of the temple enter.]

Ion [chanting]

Now flames this radiant chariot of the sun

High o’er the earth, at whose ethereal fire

The stars into the sacred night retreat:

O’er the Parnassian cliffs the ascending wheels

To mortals roll the beams of day; the wreaths

Of incense-breathing myrrh mount to the roof

Of Phoebus’ fane; the Delphic priestess now

Assumes her seat, and from the hallow’d tripod

Pronounces to the Greeks the oracular strains

Which the god dictates. Haste, ye Delphic train,

Haste to Castalia’s silver-streaming fount;

Bathed in its chaste dews to the temple go;

There from your guarded mouths no sound be heard

But of good omen, that to those who crave

Admission to the oracle, your voice

May with auspicious words expound the answers.

My task, which from my early infancy

Hath been my charge, shall be with laurel boughs

And sacred wreaths to cleanse the vestibule

Of Phoebus, on the pavement moistening dews

To rain, and with my bow to chase the birds

Which would defile the hallow’d ornaments.

A mother’s fondness, and a father’s care

I never knew: the temple of the god

Claims then my service, for it nurtured me.

[The attendants leave. Ion busies himself before the temple as he continues to sing.]

Haste, thou verdant new-sprung bough,

Haste, thy early office know;

Branch of beauteous laurel come,

Sweep Apollo’s sacred dome,

Cropp’d this temple’s base beneath,

Where the immortal gardens breathe,

And eternal dews that round

Water the delicious ground,

Bathe the myrtle’s tresses fair.

Lightly thus, with constant care,

The pavement of the god I sweep,

When over the Parnassian steep

Flames the bright sun’s mounting ray;

This my task each rising day.

Son of Latona, Paean, Paean, hail!

Never, O never may thy honours fail!

Grateful is my task, who wait

Serving, Phoebus, at thy gate;

Honouring thus thy hallow’d shrine,

Honour for the task is mine.

Labouring with unwilling hands,

Me no mortal man commands:

But, immortal gods, to you

All my pleasing toil is due.

Phoebus is to me a sire;

Grateful thoughts my soul inspire;

Nurtured by thy bounty here,

Thee, Apollo, I revere;

As a father’s I repeat.

Son of Latona, Paean, Paean, hail!

Never, O never may thy honours fail!

Now from this labour with the laurel bough

I cease; and sprinkling from the golden vase

The chaste drops which Castalia’s fountain rolls,

Bedew the pavement. Never may I quit

This office to the god; or, if I quit it,

Be it, good Fortune, at thy favouring call!

But see, the early birds have left their nests,

And this way from Parnassus wing their flight.

Come not, I charge you, near the battlements,

Nor near the golden dome. Herald of Jove,

Strong though thy beak beyond the feather’d kind,

My bow shall reach thee. Towards the altar, see,

A swan comes sailing: elsewhere wilt thou move

Thy scarlet-tinctured foot? or from my bow

The lyre of Phoebus to thy notes attuned

Will not protect thee; farther stretch thy wings;

Go, wanton, skim along the Delian lake,

Or wilt thou steep thy melody in blood.

Look, what strange bird comes onwards; wouldst thou fix

Beneath the battlements thy straw-built nest?

My singing bow shall drive thee hence; begone,

Or to the banks of Alpheus, gulfy stream,

Or to the Isthmian grove; there hatch thy young;

Mar not these pendent ornaments, nor soil

The temple of the god: I would not kill you:

‘Twere pity, for to mortal man you bear

The message of the gods; yet my due task

Must be perform’d, and never will I cease

My service to the god who nurtured me.

[The Chorus enters. The following lines between Ion and the Chorus are chanted responsively as they gaze admiringly at the decorations on the temple.]

Chorus

The stately column, and the gorgeous dome

Raised to the gods, are not the boast alone

Of our magnificent Athens; nor the statues

That grace her streets; this temple of the god,

Son of Latona, beauteous to behold,

Beams the resplendent light of both her children.

Ion

Turn thine eyes this way; look, the son of Jove

Lops with his golden scimitar the heads

Of the Lernean Hydra: view it well.

Chorus

I see him.

Ion

And this other standing nigh, Who snatches from the fire the blazing brand.

Chorus

What is his name? the subject, on the web

Design’d, these hands have wrought in ductile gold.

Ion

The shield-supporting Iolaus, who bears

The toils in common with the son of Jove.

View now this hero; on his winged steed

The triple-bodied monster’s dreadful force

He conquers through the flames his jaws emit.

Chorus

I view it all attentively.

Ion

Observe

The battle of the giants, on the walls

Sculptured in stone.

Chorus

Let us note this, my friends.

Ion

See where against Enceladus she shakes

Her gorgon shield.

Chorus

I see my goddess, Pallas.

Ion

Mark the tempestuous thunder’s flaming bolt

Launch’d by the hand of Jove.

Chorus

The furious Mimas

Here blazes in the volley’d fires: and there

Another earth-born monster falls beneath

The wand of Bacchus wreathed with ivy round,

No martial spear. But, as ‘tis thine to tend

This temple, let me ask thee, is it lawful,

Leaving our sandals, its interior parts

To visit?

Ion

Strangers, this is not permitted.

Chorus

Yet may we make inquiries of thee?

Ion

Speak;

What wouldst thou know?

Chorus

Whether this temple’s site

Be the earth’s centre?

Ion

Ay, with garlands hung,

And gorgons all around.

Chorus

So fame reports.

Ion

If at the gate the honey’d cake be offer’d,

Would you consult the oracle, advance

To the altar: till the hallow’d lamb has bled

In sacrifice, approach not the recess.

Chorus

I am instructed: what the god appoints

As laws, we wish not to transgress: without

Enough of ornament delights our eyes.

Ion

Take a full view of all; that is allow’d.

Chorus

To view the inmost shrine was our lord’s order.

Ion

Who are you call’d? Attendants on what house?

Chorus

Our lords inhabit the magnific domes

Of Pallas. — But she comes, of whom thou askest.

[Creusa and attendants enter.]

Ion

Lady, whoe’er thou art, that liberal air

Speaks an exalted mind: there is a grace,

A dignity in those of noble birth,

That marks their high rank. Yet I marvel much

That from thy closed lids the trickling tear

Water’d thy beauteous cheeks, soon as thine eye

Beheld this chaste oracular seat of Phoebus.

What brings this sorrow, lady? All besides,

Viewing the temple of the god, are struck

With joy; thy melting eye o’erflows with tears.

Creusa

Not without reason, stranger, art thou seized

With wonder at my tears: this sacred dome

Awakes the sad remembrance of things past.

I had my mind at home, though present here.

How wretched is our sex! And, O ye gods,

What deeds are yours! Where may we hope for right,

If by the injustice of your power undone?

Ion

Why, lady, this inexplicable grief?

Creusa

It matters not; my mind resumes its firmless:

I say no more; cease thy concern for me.

Ion

But say, who art thou? whence? what country boasts

Thy birth? and by what name may we address thee?

Creusa

Creusa is my name, drawn from Erechtheus

My high-born lineage; Athens gave me birth.

Ion

Illustrious is thy state; thy ancestry

So noble that I look with reverence on thee.

Creusa

Happy indeed is this, in nothing farther.

Ion

But tell me, is it true what fame has blazon’d?

Creusa

What wouldst thou ask? Stranger, I wish to know.

Ion

Sprung the first author of thy line from the earth?

Creusa

Ay, Erichthonius; but my race avails not.

Ion

And did Minerva raise him from the earth?

Creusa

Held in her virgin hands: she bore him not.

Ion

And gave him as the picture represents?

Creusa

Daughters of Cecrops these, charged not to see him.

Ion

The virgins ope’d the interdicted chest?

Creusa

And died, distaining with their blood the rock.

Ion

But tell me, is this truth, or a vain rumour?

Creusa

What wouldst thou ask? I am not scant of time.

Ion

Thy sisters did Erechtheus sacrifice?

Creusa

He slew the virgins, victims for their country.

Ion

And thou of all thy sisters saved alone?

Creusa

I was an infant in my mother’s arms.

Ion

And did the yawning earth swallow thy father?

Creusa

By Neptune’s trident smote; and so he perish’d.

Ion

And Macrai call you not the fatal place?

Creusa

Why dost thou ask? What thoughts hast thou recall’d?,

Ion

Does Phoebus, do his lightnings honour it?

Creusa

Honour! Why this? Would I had never seen it!

Ion

Why? Dost thou hate the place dear to the god?

Creusa

No: but for some base deed done in the cave.

Ion

But what Athenian, lady, wedded thee?

Creusa

Of Athens none, but one of foreign birth.

Ion

What is his name? Noble he needs must be.

Creusa

Xuthus, by Aeolus derived from Jove.

Ion

How weds a stranger an Athenian born?

Creusa

Euboea is a state neighbouring on Athens.

Ion

A narrow sea flows, I have heard, between.

Creusa

Joining the Athenian arms, that state he wasted.

Ion

Confederate in the war, thence wedded thee?

Creusa

The dowral meed of war, earn’d by his spear.

Ion

Comest thou with him to Delphi, or alone?

Creusa

With him, gone now to the Trophonian shrine.

Ion

To view it, or consult the oracle?

Creusa

Both that and this, anxious for one response.

Ion

For the earth’s fruits consult you, or for children?

Creusa

Though wedded long, yet childless is our bed.

Ion

Hast thou ne’er borne a child, that thou hast none?

Creusa

My state devoid of children Phoebus knows.

Ion

Bless’d in all else, luckless in this alone.

Creusa

But who art thou? Bless’d I pronounce thy mother.

Ion

Call’d as I am the servant of the god.

Creusa

Presented by some state, or sold to this?

Ion

I know not aught save this, I am the god’s.

Creusa

And in my turn, stranger, I pity thee.

Ion

As knowing not my mother, or my lineage.

Creusa

Hast thou thy dwelling here, or in some house?

Ion

The temple is my house, ev’n when I sleep.

Creusa

A child brought hither, or in riper years?

Ion

An infant, as they say, who seem to know.

Creusa

What Delphian dame sustain’d thee at her breast?

Ion

I never knew a breast. She nourish’d me.

Creusa

Who, hapless youth? Diseased, I find disease.

Ion

The priestess: as a mother I esteem her.

Creusa

Who to these manly years gave thee support?

Ion

The altars, and the still-succeeding strangers.

Creusa

Wretched, whoe’er she be, is she that bore thee.

Ion

I to some woman am perchance a shame.

Creusa

Are riches thine? Thou art well habited.

Ion

Graced with these vestments by the god I serve.

Creusa

Hast thou made no attempt to trace thy birth?

Ion

I have no token, lady, for a proof.

Creusa

Ah, like thy mother doth another suffer.

Ion

Who? tell me: shouldst thou help me, what a joy

Creusa

One for whose sake I come before my husband.

Ion

Say for what end, that I may serve thee, lady.

Creusa

To ask a secret answer of the god.

Ion

Speak it: my service shall procure the rest.

Creusa

Hear then the tale: but Modesty restrains me.

Ion

Ah, let her not; her power avails not here.

Creusa

My friend then says that to the embrace of Phoebus —

Ion

A woman and a god! Say not so, stranger.

Creusa

She bore a son: her father knew it not.

Ion

Not so: a mortal’s baseness he disdains.

Creusa

This she affirms; and this, poor wretch, she suffer’d.

Ion

What follow’d, if she knew the god’s embrace?

Creusa

The child, which hence had birth, she straight exposed.

Ion

This exposed child, where is he? doth he live?

Creusa

This no one knows; this wish I to inquire.

Ion

If not alive, how probably destroyed?

Creusa

Torn, she conjectures, by some beast of prey.

Ion

What ground hath she on which to build that thought?

Creusa

Returning to the place she found him not.

Ion

Observed she drops of blood distain the path?

Creusa

None, though with anxious heed she search’d around.

Ion

What time hath pass’d since thus the child was lost?

Creusa

Were he alive, his youth were such as thine.

Ion

The god hath done him wrong: the unhappy mother —

Creusa

Hath not to any child been mother since.

Ion

What if in secret Phoebus nurtures him!

Creusa

Unjust to enjoy alone a common right.

Ion

Ah me! this cruel fate accords with mine.

Creusa

For thee too thy unhappy mother mourns.

Ion

Ah, melt me not to griefs I would forget!

Creusa

I will be silent: but impart thy aid.

Ion

Seest thou what most the inquiry will suppress?

Creusa

And to my wretched friend what is not ill?

Ion

How shall the god what he would hide reveal?

Creusa

As placed on the oracular seat of Greece.

Ion

The deed must cause him shame: convict him not.

Creusa

To the poor sufferer ‘tis the cause of grief.

Ion

It cannot be; for who shall dare to give

The oracle? With justice would the god,

In his own dome affronted, pour on him

Severest vengeance, who should answer thee.

Desist then, lady: it becomes us ill,

In opposition to the god, to make

Inquiries at his shrine; by sacrifice

Before their altars, or the flight of birds,

Should we attempt to force the unwilling gods

To utter what they wish not, ‘twere the excess

Of rudeness; what with violence we urge

‘Gainst their consent would to no good avail us:

What their spontaneous grace confers on us,

That, lady, as a blessing we esteem.

Leader of the chorus

How numberless the ills to mortal man,

And various in their form! One single blessing

By any one through life is scarcely found.

Creusa

Nor here, nor there, O Phoebus, art thou just

To her; though absent, yet her words are present.

Nor didst thou save thy son, whom it became thee

To save; nor, though a prophet, wilt thou speak

To the sad mother who inquires of thee;

That, if he is no more, to him a tomb

May rise; but, if he lives, that he may bless

His mother’s eyes. But even thus behooves us

To omit these things, if by the god denied

To know what most I wish. — But, for I see

The noble Xuthus this way bend, return’d

From the Trophonian cave; before my husband

Resume not, generous stranger, this discourse,

Lest it might cause me shame that thus I act

In secret, and perchance lead on to questions

I would not have explain’d. Our hapless sex

Oft feel our husbands’ rigour: with the bad

The virtuous they confound, and treat us harshly.

[Xuthus and his retinue enter.]

Xuthus

With reverence to the god my first address

I pay: Hail, Phoebus! Lady, next to thee:

Absent so long, have I not caused thee fear?

Creusa

Not much: as anxious thoughts ‘gan rise, thou’rt come.

But, tell me, from Trophonius what reply

Bearest thou; what means whence offspring may arise?

Xuthus

Unmeet he held it to anticipate

The answer of the god: one thing he told me.

That childless I should not return, nor thou,

Home from the oracle.

Creusa

Goddess revered,

Mother of Phoebus, be our coming hither

In lucky hour; and our connubial bed

Be by thy son made happier than before!

Xuthus

It shall be so. But who is president here?

Ion

Without, that charge is mine; within, devolved

On others, stranger, seated near the tripod;

The chiefs of Delphi these, chosen by lot.

Xuthus

‘Tis well: all that I want is then complete.

Let me now enter: for the oracle

Is given, I hear, in common to all strangers

Before the shrine; on such a day, that falls

Propitious thus, the answer of the god

Would I receive: meanwhile, these laurel boughs

Bear round the altars; lady, breathe thy prayers

To every god, that from Apollo’s shrine

I may bring back the promise of a son.

[Xuthus, after giving the laurel boughs to Creusa, enters the temple.]

Creusa

It shall, it shall be so. Should Phoebus now

At least be willing to redress the fault

Of former times, he would not through the whole

Be friendly to us: yet will I accept

What he vouchsafes us, for he is a god.

[Creusa departs to the shrines in the outer precinct of the temple.]

Ion

Why does this stranger always thus revile

With obscure speech the god? Is it through love

Of her, for whom she asks? or to conceal

Some secret of importance? But to me

What is the daughter of Erechtheus? Naught

Concerns it me. Then let me to my task,

And sprinkle from the golden vase the dew.

Yet must I blame the god, if thus perforce

He mounts the bed of virgins, and by stealth

Becomes a father, leaving then his children

To die, regardless of them. Do not thou

Act thus; but, as thy power is great, respect

The virtues; for whoe’er, of mortal men,

Dares impious deeds, him the gods punish: how

Is it then just that you, who gave the laws

To mortals, should yourselves transgress those laws?,

If (though it is not thus, yet will I urge

The subject), — if to mortals you shall pay

The penalty of forced embraces, thou,

Neptune, and Jove, that reigns supreme in heaven,

Will leave your temples treasureless by paying

The mulcts of your injustice: for unjust

You are, your pleasures to grave temperance

Preferring: and to men these deeds no more

Can it be just to charge as crimes, these deeds

If from the gods they imitate: on those

Who gave the ill examples falls the charge.

[Ion goes out.]

Chorus [singing]

Thee prompt to yield thy lenient aid,

And sooth a mother’s pain:

And thee, my Pallas, martial maid,

I call: O, hear the strain!

Thou, whom the Titan from the head of Jove,

Prometheus, drew, bright Victory, come,

Descending from thy golden throne above;

Haste, goddess, to the Pythian dome,

Where Phoebus, from his central shrine,

Gives the oracle divine,

By the raving maid repeated,

On the hallow’d tripod seated:

O haste thee, goddess, and with thee

The daughter of Latona bring;

A virgin thou, a virgin she,

Sisters to the Delphian king;

Him, virgins, let your vows implore,

That now his pure oracular power

Will to Erechtheus’ ancient line declare

The blessing of a long-expected heir!

To mortal man this promised grace

Sublimest pleasure brings,

When round the father’s hearth a race

In blooming lustre springs.

The wealth, the honours, from their high-drawn line

From sire to son transmitted down,

Shall with fresh glory through their offspring shine,

And brighten with increased renown:

A guard, when ills begin to lower,

Dear in fortune’s happier hour;

For their country’s safety waking,

Firm in fight the strong spear shaking;

More than proud wealth’s exhaustless store,

More than a monarch’s bride to reign,

The dear delight, to virtue’s lore

Careful the infant mind to train.

Doth any praise the childless state?

The joyless, loveless life I hate;

No; my desires to moderate wealth I bound,

But let me see my children smile around.Ye rustic seats, Pan’s dear delight;

Ye caves of Macrai’s rocky height,

Where oft the social virgins meet,

And weave the dance with nimble feet;

Descendants from Aglauros they

In the third line, with festive play,

Minerva’s hallow’d fane before

The verdant plain light-tripping o’er,

When thy pipe’s quick-varying sound

Rings, O Pan, these caves around;

Where, by Apollo’s love betray’d,

Her child some hapless mother laid,

Exposed to each night-prowling beast,

Or to the ravenous birds a feast;

For never have I heard it told,

Nor wrought it in historic gold,

That happiness attends the race,

When gods with mortals mix the embrace.

[Ion re-enters.]

Ion

Ye female train, that place yourselves around

This incense-breathing temple’s base, your lord

Awaiting, hath he left the sacred tripod

And oracle, or stays he in the shrine,

Making inquiries of his childless state?

Leader of the chorus

Yet in the temple, stranger, he remains.

Ion

But he comes forth; the sounding doors announce

His near approach; behold, our lord is here.

[Xuthus enters from the temple. He rushes to greet Ion.]

Xuthus

Health to my son! This first address is proper.

Ion

I have my health: be in thy senses thou,

And both are well.

Xuthus

O let me kiss thy hand,

And throw mine arms around thee.

Ion

Art thou, stranger,

Well in thy wits? or hath the god’s displeasure

Bereft thee of thy reason?

Xuthus

Reason bids,

That which is dearest being found, to wish

A fond embrace.

Ion

Off, touch me not; thy hands

Will mar the garlands of the god.

Xuthus

My touch

Asserts no pledge: my own, and that most dear,

I find.

Ion

Wilt thou not keep thee distant, ere

Thou hast my arrow in thy heart?

Xuthus

Why fly me,

When thou shouldst own what is most fond of thee?

Ion

I am not fond of curing wayward strangers,

And madmen.

Xuthus

Kill me, raise my funeral pyre;

But, if thou kill me, thou wilt kill thy father.

Ion

My father thou! how so? it makes me laugh

To hear thee.

Xuthus

This my words may soon explain.

Ion

What wilt thou say to me?

Xuthus

I am thy father,

And thou my son.

Ion

Who declares this?

Xuthus

The god,

That nurtured thee, though mine.

Ion

Thou to thyself

Art witness.

Xuthus

By the oracle inform’d.

Ion

Misled by some dark answer.

Xuthus

Well I heard it.

Ion

What were the words of Phoebus?

Xuthus

That who first

Should meet me —

Ion

How? — what meeting?

Xuthus

As I pass’d.

Forth from the temple.

Ion

What the event to him?

Xuthus

He is my son.

Ion

Born so, or by some other

Presented?

Xuthus

Though a present, born my son.

Ion

And didst thou first meet me?

Xuthus

None else, my son.

Ion

This fortune whence?

Xuthus

At that we marvel both.

Ion

Who is my mother?

Xuthus

That I cannot say.

Ion

Did not the god inform thee?

Xuthus

Through my joy,

For this I ask’d not.

Ion

Haply from the earth

I sprung, my mother.

Xuthus

No, the earth no sons

Produces.

Ion

How then am I thine?

Xuthus

I know not.

To Phoebus I appeal.

Ion

Be this discourse

Chang’d to some other.

Xuthus

This delights me most.

Ion

Hast thou e’er mounted an unlawful bed?

Xuthus

In foolishness of youth.

Ion

Was that before

Thy marriage with the daughter of Erechtheus?

Xuthus

Since never.

Ion

Owe I then my birth to that?

Xuthus

The time agrees.

Ion

How came I hither then?

Xuthus

I can form no conjecture.

Ion

Was I brought

From some far distant part?

Xuthus

That fills my mind

With doubtful musing.

Ion

Didst thou e’er before

Visit the Pythian rock?

Xuthus

Once, at the feast

Of Bacchus.

Ion

By some public host received?

Xuthus

Who with the Delphian damsels —

Ion

To the orgies

Led thee, or how?

Xuthus

And with the Maenades

Of Bacchus —

Ion

In the temperate hour, or warm

With wine?

Xuthus

Amid the revels of the god.

Ion

From thence I date my birth.

Xuthus

And fate, my son,

Hath found thee.

Ion

How then came I to the temple?

Xuthus

Perchance exposed.

Ion

The state of servitude

Have I escaped.

Xuthus

Thy father now, my son,

Receive.

Ion

Indecent were it in the god

Not to confide.

Xuthus

Thy thoughts are just.

Ion

What else

Would we?

Xuthus

Thou seest what thou oughtst to see.

Ion

Am I the son then of the son of Jove?

Xuthus

Such is thy fortune.

Ion

Those that gave me birth

Do I embrace?

Xuthus

Obedient to the god.

Ion

My father, hail!

Xuthus

That dear name I accept

With joy.

Ion

This present day —

Xuthus

Hath made me happy.

Ion

O my dear mother, when shall I behold

Thy face? Whoe’er thou art, more wish I now

To see thee than before; but thou perchance

Art dead, and nothing our desires avail.

Leader

We in the blessing of our house rejoice.

Yet wish we that our mistress too were happy

In children, and the lineage of Erechtheus.

Xuthus

Well hath the god accomplish’d this, my son,

Discovering thee, well hath he joined thee to me;

And thou hast found the most endearing ties,

To which, before this hour, thou wast a stranger.

And the warm wish, which thou hast well conceived,

Is likewise mine, that thou mayst find thy mother;

I from what woman thou derivest thy birth.

This, left to time, may haply be discover’d.

Now quit this hallow’d earth, the god no more

Attending, and to mine accord thy mind,

To visit Athens, where thy father’s sceptre,

No mean one, waits thee, and abundant wealth:

Nor, though thou grieve one parent yet unknown,

Shalt thou be censured as ignobly born,

Or poor: no, thou art noble, and thy state

Adorn’d with rich possessions. Thou art silent.

Why is thine eye thus fixed upon the ground?

Why on thy brow that cloud? The smile of joy

Vanish’d, thou strikest thy father’s heart with fear.

Ion

Far other things appear when nigh, than seen

At distance. I indeed embrace my fortune,

In thee my father found. But hear what now

Wakes sad reflections. Proud of their high race

Are your Athenians, natives of the land,

Not drawn from foreign lineage: I to them

Shall come unwelcome, in two points defective,

My father not a native, and myself

Of spurious birth: loaded with this reproach,

If destitute of power, I shall be held

Abject and worthless: should I rush among

The highest order of the state, and wish

To appear important, inferior ranks

Will hate me; aught above them gives disgust.

The good, the wise, men form’d to serve the state,

Are silent, nor at public honours aim

Too hastily: by such, were I not quiet

In such a bustling state, I should be deem’d

Ridiculous, and proverb’d for a fool.

Should I attain the dignity of those,

Whose approved worth hath raised them to the height

Of public honours, by such suffrage more

Should I be watch’d; for they that hold in states

Rule and pre-eminence, bear hostile minds

To all that vie with them. And should I come

To a strange house a stranger, to a woman

Childless herself, who that misfortune shared

Before with thee, now sees it her sole lot,

And feels it bitterly, would she not hate me,

And that with justice? When I stand before them.

With what an eye would she, who hath no child,

Look on thy child? In tenderness to her,

Thy wife, thou must forsake me, or embroil

Thy house in discord, if thou favour me.

What murderous means, what poisonous drugs for men

Have women with inventive rage prepared!

Besides, I have much pity for thy wife,

Now growing old without a child, that grief

Unmerited, the last of her high race,

The exterior face indeed of royalty,

So causelessly commended, bath its brightness;

Within, all gloom: for what sweet peace of mind,

What happiness is his, whose years are pass’d

In comfortless suspicion, and the dread

Of violence? Be mine the humble blessings

Of private life, rather than be a king,

From the flagitious forced to choose my friends,

And hate the virtuous through the fear of death.

Gold, thou mayst tell me, hath o’er things like these

A sovereign power, and riches give delight:

I have no pleasure in this noisy pomp,

Nor, while I guard my riches, in the toil:

Be mine a modest mean that knows not care.

And now, my father, hear the happy state

I here enjoy’d; and first, to mortal man

That dearest blessing, leisure, and no bustle

To cause disturbance: me no ruffian force

Shoved from the way: it is not to be borne,

When every insolent and worthless wretch

Makes you give place. The worship of the god

Employ’d my life, or (no unpleasing task)

Service to men well pleased: the parting guest

I bade farewell-welcomed the new-arrived.

Thus something always new made every hour

Glide sweetly on; and to the human mind

That dearest wish, though some regard it not,

To be, what duty and my nature made me,

Just to the god: revolving this, my father,

I wish not for thy Athens to exchange

This state; permit me to myself to live;

Dear to the mind pleasures that arise

From humble life, as those which greatness brings.

Leader

Well hast thou said, if those whom my soul holds

Most dear shall in thy words find happiness.

Xuthus

No more of this discourse; learn to be happy.

It is my will that thou begin it here,

Where first I found thee, son: a general feast

Will I provide, and make a sacrifice,

Which at thy birth I made not: at my table

Will I receive thee as a welcome guest,

And cheer thee with the banquet, then conduct the

To Athens with me as a visitant,

Not as my son: for, mid my happiness,

I would not grieve my wife, who hath no child.

But I will watch the occasions time may bring,

And so present thee, and obtain her leave

That thou mayst hold the sceptre which I bear.

Ion I name thee, as befits thy fortune,

As first thou met’st me from the hallow’d shrine

As I came forth; assemble then thy friends,

Invite them all to share the joyful feast,

Since thou art soon to leave the Delphic state.

And you, ye females, keep, I charge you, keep

This secret; she that tells my wife shall die.

Ion

Let us then go; yet one thing to my fortune

Is wanting: if I find not her that bore me,

Life hath no joy. Might I indulge a wish,

It were to find her an Athenian dame,

That from my mother I might dare to assume

Some confidence; for he whose fortune leads him

To a free state proud of their unmix’d race,

Though call’d a citizen, must close his lips

With servile awe, for freedom is not his.

[Xuthus and Ion go out.]

Chorus [singing]

Yes, sisters, yes, the streaming eye,

The swelling heart I see, the bursting sigh,

When thus rejoicing in his son

Our queen her royal lord shall find,

And give to grief her anguish’d mind,

Afflicted, childless, and alone.

What means this voice divine,

Son of Latona, fate-declaring power?

Whence is this youth, so fondly graced,

That to ripe manhood, from his infant hour,

Hath in thy hallow’d courts been plac’d

And nurtured at thy shrine?

Thy dark reply delights not me;

Lurking beneath close fraud I see:

Where will this end? I fear, I fear —

‘Tis strange, and strange events must hence ensue:

But grateful sounds it to his ear,

The youth, that in another’s state

(Who sees not that my words are true?)

Enjoys the fraud, and triumphs in his fate.

Say, sisters, say, with duteous zeal

Shall we this secret to our queen reveal?

She, to her royal lord resign’d,

With equal hope, with equal care,

Form’d her his joys, his griefs to share,

And gave him an her willing mind.

But joys are his alone;

While she, poor mourner, with a weight of woes,

To hoary age advancing, bends;

He the bright smile of prosperous fortune knows.

Ev’n thus, unhonour’d by his friends,

Plac’d on another’s throne,

Mischance and ruin on him wait,

Who fails to guard its happy state.

Him may mischance and ruin seize,

Who round my lov’d queen spreads his wily trains.

No god may his oblation please,

No favouring flame to him ascend!

To her my faith, my zeal remains,

Known to her ancient royal house a friend.

Now the father and the new-found son

The festive table haste to spread,

Where to the skies Parnassus lifts his head,

And deep beneath the hanging stone

Forms in its rudely-rifted side

A cavern wild and wide;

Where Bacchus, shaking high his midnight flames,

In many a light fantastic round

Dances o’er the craggy ground,

And revels with his frantic dames.

Ne’er to my city let him come,

This youth: no, rather let him die,

And sink into an early tomb!

With an indignant eye

Athens would view the stranger’s pride

Within her gates triumphant ride:

Enough for her the honour’d race that springs

From old Erechtheus and her line of kings.

[Creusa and her aged Tutor enter.]

Creusa

Thou venerable man, whose guiding voice

My father, while he lived, revered, advance

Up to the oracular seat thy aged steps;

That, if the royal Phoebus should pronounce

Promise of offspring, thou with me mayst share

The joy; for pleasing is it when with friends

Good fortune we receive; if aught of ill

(Avert it, Heaven!) befalls, a friend’s kind eye

Beams comfort; thee, as once thou didst revere

My father, though thy queen, I now revere.

Tutor

In thee, my child, the nobleness of manners

Which graced thy royal ancestors yet lives;

Thou never wilt disgrace thy high-born lineage.

Lead me, then, lead me to the shrine, support me:

High is the oracular seat, and steep the ascent;

Be thou assistant to the foot of age.

Creusa

Follow; be heedful where thou set thy steps.

Tutor

I am: my foot is slow, my heart hath wings.

Creusa

Fix thy staff firm on this loose-rolling ground.

Tutor

That hath no eyes; and dim indeed my sight.

Creusa

Well hast thou said; on cheerful then, and faint not.

Tutor

I have the will, but o’er constraint no power.

Creusa

Ye females, on my richly-broider’d works

Faithful attendants, say, respecting children,

For which we came, what fortune hath my lord

Borne hence? if good, declare it: you shall find

That to no thankless masters you give joy.

Leader of the chorus

O fortune!

Creusa

To thy speech this is a proem

Not tuned to happiness.

Leader

Unhappy fortune!

But why distress me for the oracle

Given to our lords? Be that as fate requires

In things which threaten death, what shall we do?

Creusa

What means this strain of woe? Whence are these fears?

Leader

What! shall we speak, or bury this in silence?

Creusa

Speak, though thy words bring wretchedness to me.

Leader

It shall be spoken, were I twice to die.

To thee, my queen, it is not given to clasp

In thy fond arms a child, or at thy breast

To hold it.

Tutor

O my child, would I were dead!

Creusa

Yes, this is wretchedness indeed, a grief

That makes life joyless.

Tutor

This is ruin to us.

Creusa

Unhappy me! this is a piercing grief,

That rends my heart with anguish.

Tutor

Groan not yet.

Creusa

Yet is the affliction present.

Tutor

Till we learn —

Creusa

To me what tidings?

Tutor

If a common fate

Await our lord, partaker of thy griefs,

Or thou alone art thus unfortunate.

Leader

To him, old man, the god hath given a son,

And happiness is his unknown to her.

Creusa

To ill this adds the deepest ill, a grief

For me to mourn.

Tutor

Born of some other woman

Is this child yet to come, or did the god

Declare one now in being?

Leader

One advanced

To manhood’s prime he gave him: I was present.

Creusa

What hast thou said? Thy words denounce to me

Sorrows past speech, past utterance.

Tutor

And to me.

Creusa

How was this oracle accomplish’d? Tell me

With clearest circumstance: who is this youth?

Leader

Him as a son Apollo gave, whom first,

Departing from the god, thy lord should meet.

Creusa

O my unhappy fate! I then am left

Childless to pass my life, childless, alone,

Amid my lonely house! Who was declared?

Whom did the husband of this wretch first meet?

How meet him? Where behold him? Tell me all.

Leader

Dost thou, my honoured mistress, call to mind

The youth that swept the temple? This is he.

Creusa

O, through the liquid air that I could fly,

Far from the land of Greece, ev’n to the stars

Fix’d in the western sky! Ah me, what grief,

What piercing grief is mine I

Tutor

Say, by what name

Did he address his son, if thou hast heard it?

Or does it rest in silence, yet unknown?

Leader

Ion, for that he first advanced to meet him.

Tutor

And of what mother?

Leader

That I could not learn:

Abrupt was his departure (to inform the

Of all I know, old man) to sacrifice,

With hospitable rites, a birthday feast;

And in the hallow’d cave, from her apart,

With his new son to share the common banquet.

Tutor

Lady, we by thy husband are betrayed,

For I with thee am grieved, with contrived fraud

Insulted, from thy father’s house cast forth.

I speak not this in hatred to thy lord,

But that I love thee more: a stranger he

Came to the city and thy royal house,

And wedded thee, all thy inheritance

Receiving, by some other woman now

Discover’d to have children privately:

How privately I’ll tell thee: when he saw

Thou hadst no child, it pleased him not to bear

A fate like thine; but by some favourite slave,

His paramour by stealth, he hath a son.

Him to some Delphian gave he, distant far,

To educate; who to this sacred house

Consign’d, as secret here, received his nurture.

He knowing this, and that his son advanced

To manhood, urged thee to attend him hither,

Pleading thy childless state. Nor hath the god

Deceived thee: he deceived thee, and long since

Contrived this wily plan to rear his son,

That, if convicted, he might charge the god,

Himself excusing: should the fraud succeed,

He would observe the times when he might safely

Consign to him the empire of thy land.

And this new name was at his leisure form’d,

Ion, for that he came by chance to meet him.

I hate those ill-designing men, that form

Plans of injustice, and then gild them over

With artificial ornament: to me

Far dearer is the honest simple friend,

Than one whose quicker wit is train’d to ill.

And to complete this fraud, thou shalt be urged

To take into thy house, to lord it there,

This low-born youth, this offspring of a slave.

Though ill, it had been open, had he pleaded

Thy want of children, and, thy leave obtain’d,

Brought to thy house a son that could have boasted

His mother noble; or, if that displeased thee,

He might have sought a wife from Aeolus.

Behooves thee then to act a woman’s part,

Or grasp the sword, or drug the poison’d bowl,

Or plan some deep design to kill thy husband,

And this his son, before thou find thy death

From them: if thou delay, thy life is lost:

For when beneath one roof two foes are met,

The one must perish. I with ready zeal

Will aid thee in this work, and kill the youth,

Entering the grot where he prepares the feast;

Indifferent in my choice, so that I pay

What to my lords I owe, to live or die.

If there is aught that causes slaves to blush,

It is the name; in all else than the free

The slave is nothing worse, if he be virtuous.

I too, my honour’d queen, with cheerful mind

Will share thy fate, or die, or live with honour.

Creusa [chanting]

How, o my soul, shall I be silent, how

Disclose this secret? Can I bid farewell

To modesty? What else restrains my tongue?

To how severe a trial am I brought!

Hath not my husband wrong’d me? Of my house

I am deprived, deprived of children; hope

Is vanish’d, which my heart could not resign,

With many an honest wish this furtive bed

Concealing, this lamented bed concealing.

But by the star-bespangled throne of Jove,

And by the goddess high above my rocks

Enshrined, by the moist banks that bend around

The hallow’d lake by Triton form’d, no longer

Will I conceal this bed, but ease my breast,

The oppressive load discharged. Mine eyes drop tears,

My soul is rent, to wretchedness ensnared

By men, by gods, whom I will now disclose,

Unkind betrayers of the beds they forced.

O thou, that wakest on thy seven-string’d lyre

Sweet notes, that from the rustic lifeless horn

Enchant the ear with heavenly melody,

Son of Latona, thee before this light

Will I reprove. Thou camest to me, with gold

Thy locks all glittering, as the vermeil flowers

I gather’d in my vest to deck my bosom

With the spring’s glowing hues; in my white hand

Thy hand enlocking, to the cavern’d rock

Thou led’st me; naught avail’d my cries, that call’d

My mother; on thou led’st me, wanton god,

Immodestly, to Venus paying homage.

A son I bare thee, O my wretched fate!

Him (for I fear’d my mother) in thy cave

I placed, where I unhappy was undone

By thy unhappy love. Woe, woe is me!

And now my son and thine, ill-fated babe,

Is rent by ravenous vultures; thou, meanwhile,

Art to thy lyre attuning strains of joy.

Set of Latona, thee I call aloud

Who from thy golden seat, thy central throne,

Utterest thine oracle: my voice shall reach

Thine ear: ungrateful lover, to my husband,

No grace requiting, thou hast given a son

To bless his house; my son and thine, unown’d,

Perish’d a prey to birds; the robes that wrapp’d

The infant’s limbs, his mother’s work, lost with him.

Delos abhors thee, and the laurel boughs

With the soft foliage of the palm o’erhung,

Grasping whose round trunk with her hands divine,

Latona thee, her hallow’d offspring, bore.

Leader

Ah, what a mighty treasury of ills

Is open’d here, a copious source of tears!

Tutor

Never, my daughter, can I sate my eyes

With looking on thy face: astonishment

Bears me beyond my senses. I had stemm’d

One tide of evils, when another flood

High-surging overwhelm’d me from the words

Which thou hast utter’d, from the present ills

To an ill train of other woes transferr’d.

What say’st thou? Of what charge dost thou implead

The god? What son hast thou brought forth? Where placed him

A feast for vultures? Tell me all again.

Creusa

Though I must blush, old man, yet I will speak.

Tutor

I mourn with generous grief at a friend’s woes.

Creusa

Hear then: the northward-pointing cave thou knowest,

And the Cecropian rocks, which we call Macrai.

Tutor

Where stands a shrine to Pan, and altars nigh.

Creusa

There in a dreadful conflict I engaged.

Tutor

What! my tears rise ready to meet thy words.

Creusa

By Phoebus drawn reluctant to his bed.

Tutor

Was this, my daughter, such as I suppose?

Creusa

I know not: but if truth, I will confess it.

Tutor

Didst thou in silence mourn this secret ill?

Creusa

This was the grief I now disclose to thee.

Tutor

This love of Phoebus how didst thou conceal?

Creusa

I bore a son. Hear me, old man, with patience.

Tutor

Where? who assisted? or wast thou alone?

Creusa

Alone, in the same cave where compress’d.

Tutor

Where is thy son, that childless now no more

Creusa

Dead, good old man, to beasts of prey exposed.

Tutor

Dead! and the ungrateful Phoebus gives no aid?

Creusa

None: in the house of Pluto a young guest.

Tutor

Whose hands exposed him? Surely not thine own.

Creusa

Mine, in the shades of night, wrapp’d in his vests.

Tutor

Hadst thou none with thee conscious to this deed?

Creusa

My misery, and the secret place alone.

Tutor

How durst thou in a cavern leave thy son?

Creusa

How? uttering many sad and plaintive words.

Tutor

Ah, cruel was thy deed, the god more cruel.

Creusa

Hadst thou but seen him stretch his little hands!

Tutor

Seeking the breast, or reaching to thine arms?

Creusa

To this, deprived of which he suffer’d wrong.

Tutor

And what induced thee to expose thy child?

Creusa

Hope that the god’s kind care would save his son.

Tutor

How are the glories of thy house destroy’d!

Creusa

Why, thine head cover’d, dost thou pour these tears?

Tutor

To see thee and thy father thus unhappy.

Creusa

This is the state of man: nothing stands firm.

Tutor

No longer then, my child, let grief oppress us.

Creusa

What should I do? In misery all is doubt.

Tutor

First on the god that wrong’d thee be avenged.

Creusa

How shall a mortal ‘gainst a god prevail?

Tutor

Set this revered oracular shrine on fire.

Creusa

I fear: ev’n now I have enough of ills.

Tutor

Attempt what may be done then; kill thy husband.

Creusa

The nuptial bed I reverence, and his goodness.

Tutor

This son then, which is now brought forth against thee.

Creusa

How? Could that be, how warmly should I wish it.

Tutor

Thy train hath swords: instruct them to the deed.

Creusa

I go with speed: but where shall it be done?

Tutor

In the hallow’d tent, where now he feasts his friends.

Creusa

An open murder, and with coward slaves!

Tutor

If mine displease, propose thou some design.

Creusa

I have it, close and easy to achieve.

Tutor

In both my faithful services are thine.

Creusa

Hear then: not strange to thee the giants’ war.

Tutor

When they in Phlegra fought against the gods.

Creusa

There the earth brought forth the Gorgon, horrid monster.

Tutor

In succour of her sons to annoy the gods?

Creusa

Ev’n so: her Pallas slew, daughter of Jove.

Tutor

What fierce and dreadful form did she then wear?

Creusa

Her breastplate arm’d with vipers wreathed around.

Tutor

A well-known story; often have I heard it.

Creusa

Her spoils before her breast Minerva wore.

Tutor

The aegis; so they call the vest of Pallas.

Creusa

So named, when in the war she join’d the gods.

Tutor

But how can this, my child, annoy thy foes?

Creusa

Thou canst not but remember Erichthonius.

Tutor

Whom first of thy high race the earth brought forth.

Creusa

To him while yet an infant Pallas gave —

Tutor

What? Thy slow preface raises expectation.

Creusa

Two drops of blood that from the Gorgon fell.

Tutor

And on the human frame what power have these?

Creusa

The one works death, the other heals disease.

Tutor

In what around the infant’s body hung?

Creusa

Enclosed in gold: he gave them to my father.

Tutor

At his decease then they devolved to thee?

Creusa

Ay, and I wear it as a bracelet; look.

Tutor

Their double qualities how temper’d, say.

Creusa

This drop, which from her hollow vein distill’d, —

Tutor

To what effect applied? What is its power?

Creusa

Medicinal, of sovereign use to life.

Tutor

The other drop, what faculties hath that?

Creusa

It kills, the poison of the Gorgon dragons.

Tutor

And dost thou bear this gore blended in one?

Creusa

No, separate; for with ill good mixes not.

Tutor

O my dear child, thou hast whate’er we want.

Creusa

With this the boy shall die, and thou shalt kill him.

Tutor

Where? How? ‘Tis thine to speak, to dare be mine.

Creusa

At Athens, when he comes beneath my roof.

Tutor

I like not this; what I proposed displeased.

Creusa

Dost thou surmise what enters now my thoughts?

Tutor

Suspicion waits thee, though thou kill him not.

Creusa

Thou hast judged well: a stepdame’s hate is proverb’d.

Tutor

Then kill him here; thou mayst disown the deed.

Creusa

My mind ev’n now anticipates the pleasure.

Tutor

Thus shalt thou meet thy husband’s wiles with wiles

Creusa

This shalt thou do: this little golden casket

Take from my hand, Minerva’s gift of old;

To where my husband secretly prepares

The sacrifice, bear this beneath thy vest.

That supper ended, when they are to pour

Libations to the gods, thou mayst infuse

In the youth’s goblet this: but take good heed,

Let none observe thee; drug his cup alone

Who thinks to lord it in my house: if once

It pass his lips, his foot shall never reach

Illustrious Athens: death awaits him here.

[She gives him the casket.]

Tutor

Go thou then to the hospitable house

Prepared for thy reception: be it mine,

Obedient to thy word to do this deed.

Come then, my aged foot, be once more young

In act, though not in years, for past recall

That time is fled: kill him, and bear him forth.

Well may the prosperous harbour virtuous thought;

But when thou wouldst avenge thee on thy foes,

There is no law of weight to hinder thee.

[They both go out.]

Chorus [singing]

Daughter of Ceres, Trivia hear, Propitious regent of each public way

Amid the brightness of the day, Nor less when night’s dark hour engenders fear;

The fulness of this goblet guide

To check with death this stripling’s pride, For whom my queen this fatal draught prepares,

Tinged with the Gorgon’s venom’d gore: That seat, which mid Erechtheus’ royal heirs

His pride claims, it shall claim no more: Never may one of alien blood disgrace

The imperial honours of that high-born race!

Should not this work of fate succeed, Nor the just vengeance of my queen prevail;

Should this apt time of daring fail, And hope, that flatters now, desert the deed;

Slaughter shall other means afford,

The strangling cord, the piercing sword; For rage from disappointed rage shall flow,

And try each. various form of death; For never shall my queen this torment know;

Ne’er while she draws this vital breath, Brook in her house that foreign lords should shine, Clothed with the splendours of her ancient line.

Thou whom the various hymn delights, Then thy bright choir of beauteous dames among,

Dancing the stream’s soft brink along, Thou seest the guardian of thy mystic rites,

Thy torch its midnight vigils keep,

Thine eye meantime disdaining sleep; While with thee dances Jove’s star-spangled plain.

And the moon dances up the sky: Ye nymphs, that lead to grots your frolic train,

Beneath the gulfy founts that lie: Thou gold-crown’d queen, through night’s dark regions fear’d,

And thou, her mother, power revered, How should I blush to see this youth unknown! This Delphic vagrant, hope to seize the throne.

You, who the melting soul to move, In loose, dishonest airs the Muse employ

To celebrate love’s wanton joy, The joy of unallow’d, unholy love,

See how our pure and modest law

Can lavish man’s lewd deeds o’erawe! Ye shameless bards, revoke each wanton air;

No more these melting measures frame; Bid the chaste muse in Virtue’s cause declare,

And mark man’s lawless bed with shame! Ungrateful is this Jove-descended lord;

For, his wife’s childless bed abhorr’d, Lewdly he courts the embrace of other dames, And with a spurious son his pride inflames.

[An Attendant of Creusa enters.]

Attendant

Athenian dames, where shall I find our queen,

The daughter of Erechtheus? Seeking her,

This city have I walked around in vain.

Leader of the chorus

And for what cause, my fellow-slave? What means

Thy hasty foot? What tidings dost thou bring?

Attendant

We are discover’d; and the rulers here

Seek her, that she may die o’erwhelm’d with stones.

Leader

Ah me! what wouldst thou say? Are our designs

Of secret ruin to this youth disclosed?

Attendant

They are; and know, the worst of ills await you.

Leader

How were our dark devices brought to light?

Attendant

The god, that justice might receive no stain

Caused it to triumph o’er defeated wrong.

Leader

How? as a suppliant, I conjure thee, tell me

Of this inform’d, if we must die, more freely

Wish we to die than see the light of heaven.

Attendant

Soon as the husband of Creusa left

The god’s oracular shrine, this new-found son

He to the feast, and sacrifice prepared

To the high gods, led with him. Xuthus then

Went where the hallow’d flame of Bacchus mounts,

That on each rock’s high point the victim’s blood

Might flow, a grateful offering for his son

Thus recognised, to whom he gave in charge,

“Stay thou, and with the artist’s expert aid

Erect the sheltering tent: my rites perform’d

To the kind gods that o’er the genial bed

Preside, should I be there detain’d too long,

Spread the rich table to my present friends.”

This said, he led the victims to the rocks.

Meanwhile with reverent heed the son ‘gan rear

On firm supporters the wide tent, whose sides

No masonry require, yet framed to exclude

The mid-day sun’s hot beams, or his last rays

When sinking in the west: the lengthen’d lines

Equally distant comprehend a square

Of twice five thousand feet (the skilful thus

Compute it), space to feast (for so he will’d)

All Delphi: from the treasures of the god

He took the sacred tapestry, and around

Hung the rich shade, on which the admiring eye

Gazes with fix’d delight: first over head,

Like a broad pennon spread the extended woof,

Which from the Amazonian spoils the son

Of Jove, Alcides, hallow’d to the god;

In its bright texture interwov’n a sky

Gathering the stars in its ethereal round,

While downwards to the western wave the sun

His steeds declines, and to his station high

Draws up the radiant flame of Hesperus.

Meanwhile the Night robed in her sable stole,

Her unreign’d car advances; on her state

The stars attend; the Pleiads mounting high,

And with his glittering sword Orion arm’d;

Above, Arcturus to the golden pole

Inclines; full-orb’d the month-dividing moon

Takes her bright station, and the Hyades

Marked by the sailor: distant in the rear,

Aurora ready to relume the day,

And put the stars to flight. The sides were graced

With various textures of the historic woof,

Barbaric arguments; in gallant trim

Against the fleet of Greece the hostile fleet

Rides proudly on. Here monstrous forms portray’d

Human and brutal mix’d: the Thracian steeds

Are seized, the hinds, and the adventurous chase

Of savage lions: figured nigh the doors,

Cecrops, attended by his daughter’s, roll’d

His serpent train: in the ample space within

He spread the festal table, richly deck’d

With golden goblets. Now the herald walk’d

His round, each native that inclined to grace

The feast inviting: to the crowded tent

They hasten, crown’d with garlands, and partake

The exquisite repast. The pleasured sense

Now satiate, in the midst an old man stood,

Officious in his ministry, which raised

Much mirth among the guests; for from the urns

He fill’d the lavers, and with fragrant myrrh

Incensed the place; the golden bowls he claim’d

His charge. When now the jocund pipes ‘gan breathe

Harmonious airs, and the fresh goblet stood

Ready to walk its round, the old man said,

“Away with these penurious cups, and bring

Capacious bowls; so shall you quickly bathe

Your spirits in delight.” With speed were brought

Goblets of gold and silver: one he took

Of choicer frame; and, seemingly intent

To do his young lord honour, the full vase

Gave to his hands, but in the wine infused

A drug of poisonous power, which, it is said,

His queen supplied, that the new son no more

Might view the light of heav’n; but unobserved

He mix’d it. As the youth among the rest

Pour’d the libation, ‘mid the attendant slaves

Words of reproach one utter’d: he, as train’d

Within the temple and with expert seers,

Deem’d them of evil omen, and required

Another goblet to be filled afresh —

The former a libation to the god,

He cast upon the ground, instructing all

To pour, like him, the untasted liquor down.

Silence ensued: the sacred bowls we fill

With wines of Byblos; when a troop of doves

Came fluttering in, for undisturb’d they haunt

The dome of Phoebus: in the floating wine

They dipp’d their bills to drink, then raised their heads,

Gurgling it down their beauteous-plumed throats.

Harmless to all the spilt wine, save to her

That lighted where the youth had pour’d his bowl:

She drank, and straight convulsive shiverings seized

Her beauteous plumes; around in giddy rings

She whirl’d, and in a strange and mournful note

Seem’d to lament: amazement seized the guests,

Seeing the poor bird’s pangs: her heart heaved thick,

And stretching out her scarlet legs, she died.

Rending his robes, the son of Phoebus given

Sprung from the table, and aloud exclaim’d, —

“What wretch design’d to kill me? Speak, old man:

Officious was thy ministry; the bowl

I from thy hand received.” Then straight he seized

His aged arm, and to the question held him,

As in the fact discover’d: he thus caught,

Reluctant and constrain’d, own’d the bold deed,

The deadly goblet by Creusa drugg’d.

Forth from the tent, the guests attending, rush’d

The youth announced by Phoebus, and amid

The Pythian regents says, — “O hallow’d land!

This stranger dame, this daughter of Erechtheus

Attempts my life by poison.” Then decreed

The Delphian lords (nor did one voice dissent)

That she should die, my mistress, from the rock

Cast headlong, as the deed was aim’d against

A sacred life, and impiously presumed

This hallow’d place with murder to profane.

Demanded by the state, she this way bends

Her wretched steps. Unhappy to this shrine

She came through fond desire of children; here,

Together with her hopes, her life is lost.

Chorus [singing]

None, there is none, from death no flight,

To me no refuge; our dark deed

Betray’d, betray’d to open light;

The festive bowl, with sprightly wine that flow’d

Mix’d with the Gorgon’s viperous blood,

An offering to the dead decreed,

All is betray’d to light: and I,

Cast headlong from the rock, must die.

What flight shall save me from this death,

Borne on swift pinions through the air,

Sunk to the darksome cave beneath,

Or mounted on the rapid car?

Or shall the flying bark unfurl its sails?

Alas, my queen, no flight avails,

Save when some god’s auspicious power

Shall snatch us from the dangerous hour.

Unhappy queen, what pangs shall rend thy heart!

Shall we, who plann’d the deathful deed,

Be caught within the toils we spread,

While justice claims severe her chast’ning part?

[Creusa rushes in.]

Creusa

I am pursued, ye faithful females, doom’d

To death: the Pythian council hath decreed it:

My life is forfeited.

Leader of the chorus

Unhappy lady,

We know the dreadful ills that close thee round.

Creusa

Ah, whither shall I fly? From instant death

Scarce hath my foot sped hither, from my foes

By stealth escaping.

Leader

Whither wouldst thou fly,

But to this altar?

Creusa

What will that avail me?

Leader

To kill a suppliant there the law forbids.

Creusa

But by the law I perish.

Leader

If their hands

Had seized thee.

Creusa

Dreadful contest, with drawn swords

They hastily advance.

Leader

Now take thy seat

At the altar: shouldst thou die ev’n there, thy blood

Will call the vengeance of the god on those

That spilt it: but our fortune we must bear.

[She takes refuge at the altar as Ion, guards, and Delphians enter.]

Ion

Bull-visaged sire Cephisus, what a viper

Hast thou produced? a dragon from her eyes

Glaring pernicious flame. Each daring deed

Is hers: less venomous the Gorgon’s blood,

With which she purposed to have poison’d me.

Seize her, that the Parnassian rocks may tease

Those nice-adjusted ringlets of her hair,

As down the craggy precipice she bounds.

Here my good genius saved me, e’er I came

To Athens, there beneath my stepdame’s wiles

To fall; amid my friends thy fell intents

Have I unravell’d, what a pest to me,

Thy hate how deadly: had thy toils inclosed me

In thine own house, thou wouldst at once have sent me

With complete ruin to the shades below.

But nor the altar nor Apollo’s shrine

Shall save thee. Pity, might her voice be heard,

Would rather plead for me and for my mother,

She absent, yet the name remains with me.

Behold that sorceress; with what art she wove

Wile after wile; the altar of the god

Impress’d her not with awe, as if secure.

No vengeance waited her unhallow’d deeds.

Creusa

I charge thee, kill me not, in my own right,

And in the god’s, whose suppliant here I stand.

Ion

What right hast thou to plead Apollo’s name?

Creusa

My person hallow’d to the god I offer.

Ion

Yet wouldst thou poison one that is the god’s.

Creusa

Thou wast no more Apollo’s, but thy father’s.

Ion

I have been, of a father’s wealth I speak.

Creusa

And now I am: thou hast that claim no more.

Ion

But thou art impious: pious were my deeds.

Creusa

As hostile to my house, I would have kill’d thee.

Ion

Did I against thy country march in arms?

Creusa

And more; thou wouldst have fired Erechtheus’ house.

Ion

What torch, what brands, what flames had I prepared?

Creusa

There wouldst thou fix, seizing my right by force.

Ion

The land which he possess’d, my father gave me.

Creusa

What claim hath there the race of Aeolus?

Ion

He was its guardian, not with words but arms.

Creusa

Its soldier then; an inmate, not its lord.

Ion

Wouldst thou, through fear of what might happen, kill me?

Creusa

Lest death should be my portion, if not thine.

Ion

Childless thou enviest that my father found me.

Creusa

And wilt thou make a childless house thy spoil?

Ion

Devolves my father then no share to me?

Creusa

His shield, his spear; be those thine heritage.

Ion

Come from the altar, quit that hallow’d seat.

Creusa

Instruct thy mother, whosoe’er she be.

Ion

Shalt thou unpunish’d meditate my death?

Creusa

Within this shrine if thou wilt murder me.

Ion

What pleasure mid these sacred wreaths to die?

Creusa

We shall grieve one, by whom we have been grieved.

Ion

Strange, that the god should give these laws to men,

Bearing no stamp of honour, nor design’d

With provident thought: it is not meet to place

The unrighteous at his altars; worthier far

To be chased thence; nor decent that the vile

Should with their touch pollute the gods: the good,

Oppress’d with wrongs, should at those hallow’d seats

Seek refuge: ill beseems it that the unjust

And just alike should seek protection there.

[As Ion and his followers are about to tear Creusa from the altar, the Priestess of Apollo enters from the temple.]

Priestess

Forbear, my son, leaving the oracular seat,

I pass this pale, the priestess of the god,

The guardian of the tripod’s ancient law,

Call’d to this charge from all the Delphian dames.

Ion

Hail, my loved mother, dear, though not my parent.

Priestess

Yet let me have the name, ‘tis grateful to me.

Ion

Hast thou yet heard their wily trains to kill me?

Priestess

I have; but void of mercy thou dost wrong.

Ion

Should I not ruin those that sought my life?

Priestess

Stepdames to former sons are always hostile.

Ion

And I to stepdames ill intreated thus.

Priestess

Be not, this shrine now leaving for thy country.

Ion

How, then, by thy monition should I act?

Priestess

Go with good omens, pure to Athens go.

Ion

All must be pure that kill their enemies.

Priestess

So do not thou: attentive mark my words.

Ion

Speak: from good will whate’er thou say’st must flow.

Priestess

Seest thou the vase I hold beneath mine arm?

Ion

I see an ancient ark entwined with wreaths.

Priestess

In this long since an infant I received thee.

Ion

What say’st thou? New is thy discourse and strange.

Priestess

In silence have I kept them: now I show them.

Ion

And why conceal’d, as long since thou received’st me?

Priestess

The god would have thee in his shrine a servant.

Ion

Is that no more his will? How shall I know it?

Priestess

Thy father shown, he sends thee from this land.

Ion

Hast thou preserved these things by charge, or how?

Priestess

It was the god that so disposed my thought.

Ion

With what design? Speak, finish thy discourse.

Priestess

Ev’n to this hour to keep what then I found.

Ion

What gain imports this to me, or what loss?

Priestess

There didst thou lie wrapp’d in thy infant vests.

Ion

Thou hast produced whence I may find my mother.

Priestess

Since now the god so wills, but not before.

Ion

This is a day of bless’d discoveries.

Priestess

Now take them: o’er all Asia, and the bounds

Of Europe hold thy progress: thou shalt know

These tokens. To do pleasure to the god,

I nurtured thee, my son; now to thy hand

Restore what was his will I should receive

Unbidden, and preserve: for what intent

It was his will, I have not power to say.

That I had these, or where they were conceal’d,

No mortal knew. And now farewell: the love

I bear thee equals what a parent feels.

Let thy inquiries where they ought begin;

First, if some Delphian virgin gave thee birth,

And in this shrine exposed thee; next, if one

Of Greece. From me, and from the god, who feels

An interest in thy fortune, thou hast all.

[She goes into the temple after giving Ion the ark.]

Ion

Ah me! the moist tear trickles from mine eye,

When I reflect that she who gave me birth,

By stealth espoused, may with like secrecy

Have sold me, to my infant lips her breast

Denied: but in the temple of the god

Without a name, a servile life I led.

All from the god was gracious, but from fortune

Harsh; for the time when in a mother’s arms

I in her fondness should have known some joy

Of life, from that sweet care was I estranged,

A mother’s nurture: nor less wretched she,

Thus forced to lose the pleasure in her son.

But I will take this vase, and to the god

Bear it, a hallow’d offering; that from thence

I may find nothing which I would not find.

Should she, that gave me being, chance to be

A slave, to find her were a greater ill,

Than to rest silent in this ignorance.

O Phoebus, in thy temple hang I this.

What am I doing? War I not against

The pleasure of the god, who saved for me

These pledges of my mother? I must dare,

And open these: my fate cannot be shunn’d.

[He opens the ark.]

Ye sacred garlands, what have you so long

Conceal’d: ye bands, that keep these precious relics?

Behold the cover of this circular vase;

Its freshness knows no change, as if a god

So will’d; this osier-woven ark yet keeps

Its soundness undecay’d; yet many a year,

Since it contain’d this treasured charge, has pass’d.

Creusa

What an unhoped-for sight do I behold!

Ion

I thought thou long hadst known to keep thee silent.

Creusa

Silence is mine no more; instruct not me;

For I behold the ark, wherein of old

I laid thee, O my son, an infant babe;

And in the caves of Cecrops, with the rocks

Of Macrai roof’d, exposed thee: I will quit

This altar, though I run on certain death.

Ion

Seize her; for by the impulse of the god

She leaves the sculptured altar: bind her bands.

Creusa

Instantly kill me, so that I embrace

This vase, and thee, and these thy conceal’d pledges.

Ion

Is not this strange? I take thee at thy word.

Creusa

Not strange: a friend thou by thy friends art found.

Ion

Thy friend! Yet wouldst thou kill me secretly.

Creusa

My son: if that to parents is most dear.

Ion

Forbear thy wiles; I shall refute them well.

Creusa

Might I but to come to what I wish, my son!

Ion

Is this vase empty, or contains it aught?

Creusa

Thy infant vests, in which I once exposed thee.

Ion

And wilt thou name them to me, ere thou see them?

Creusa

If I recount them not, be death my meed.

Ion

Speak then: thy confidence hath something strange.

Creusa

A tissue, look, which when a child I wrought.

Ion

What is it? Various are the works of virgins.

Creusa

A slight, unfinish’d essay of the loom.

Ion

What figure wrought? Thou shalt not take me thus.

Creusa

A Gorgon central in the warp enwoven —

Ion

What fortune haunts me, O supreme of gods!

Creusa

And like an aegis edged with serpents round.

Ion

Such is the woof, and such the vest I find.

Creusa

Thou old embroidery of my virgin bands!

Ion

Is there aught else besides this happy proof?

Creusa

Two dragons, an old work, their jaws of gold.

Ion

The gift of Pallas, who thus nurtures children?

Creusa

Emblems of Erichthonius of old times.

Ion

Why? for what use? Explain these works of gold.

Creusa

For ornaments to grace the infant’s neck.

Ion

See, here they are; the third I wish to know.

Creusa

A branch of olive then I wreathed around thee,

Pluck’d from that tree which from Minerva’s rock

First sprung; if it be there, it still retains

Its verdure: for the foliage of that olive,

Fresh in immortal beauty, never fades.

Ion

O my dear mother! I with joy behold thee.

With transport ‘gainst thy cheek my cheek recline.

[They embrace.]

Creusa

My son, my son, far dearer to thy mother

Than yon bright orb (the god will pardon me),

Do I then hold thee in my arms, thus found

Beyond my hopes, when in the realms below,

I thought thy habitation ‘mong the dead?

Ion

O my dear mother, in thy arms I seem

As one that had been dead to life return’d.

Creusa

Ye wide-expanded rays of heavenly light,

What notes, what high-raised strains shall tell my joy?

This pleasure whence, this unexpected transport?

Ion

There was no blessing farther from my thoughts

Than this, my mother, to be found thy son.

Creusa

I tremble yet.

Ion

And hast thou yet a fear,

Holding me, not to hold me?

Creusa

Such fond hopes

Long time have I renounced. Thou hallow’d matron,

From whom didst thou receive my infant child?

What bless’d hand brought him to Apollo’s shrine?

Ion

It was the god’s appointment: may our life

To come be happy, as the past was wretched.

Creusa

Not without tears, my son, wast thou brought forth;

Nor without anguish did my hands resign thee.

Now breathing on thy cheek I feel a joy

Transporting me with heartfelt ecstasies.

Ion

The words expressive of thy joys speak mine.

Creusa

Childless no more, no more alone, my house

Now shines with festive joy; my realms now own

A lord; Erechtheus blooms again; no more

His high-traced lineage sees night darkening round,

But glories in the sun’s refulgent beams.

Ion

Now let my father, since he’s present here,

Be partner of the joy which I have given you.

Creusa

What says my son?

Ion

Such, such as I am proved.

Creusa

What mean thy words? Far other is thy birth.

Ion

Ah me! thy virgin bed produced me base.

Creusa

Nor bridal torch, my son, nor bridal dance

Had graced my nuptial rites, when thou wast born.

Ion

Then I’m a wretch, a base-born wretch: say whence.

Creusa

Be witness, thou by whom the Gorgon died, —

Ion

What means this adjuration?

Creusa

Who hast fix’d

High o’er my cave thy seat amid the rocks

With olive clothed.

Ion

Abstruse thy words, and dark.

Creusa

Where on the cliffs the nightingale attunes

Her songs, Apollo —

Ion

Why Apollo named?

Creusa

Led me in secret to his bed.

Ion

Speak on;

Thy words import some glorious fortune to me.

Creusa

Thee in the tenth revolving month, my son,

A secret pang to Phoebus did I bear.

Ion

Thy words, if true, are grateful to my soul.

Creusa

These swathing bands, thy mother’s virgin work,

Wove by my flying shuttle, round thy body

I roll’d; but from thy lips my breast withheld,

A mother’s nouriture, nor bathed thy bands

In cleansing lavers; but to death exposed thee,

Laid in the dreary cave, to birds of prey

A feast, rent piecemeal by their ravenous beaks.

Ion

Cruel, my mother, was thy deed.

Creusa

By fear

Constrain’d, my son, I cast thy life away;

Unwillingly I left thee there to die.

Ion

And from my hands unholy were thy death.

Creusa

Dreadful was then my fortune, dreadful here,

Whirl’d by the eddying blast from misery there

To misery here, and back again to joy:

Her boisterous winds are changed; may she remain

In this repose: enough of ills are past:

After the storm soft breathes a favouring gale.

Leader

From this example, mid the greatest ills

Never let mortal man abandon hope.

Ion

O thou, that hast to thousands wrought a change

Of state ere this, involving them in ills,

And raising them to happiness again;

Fortune, to what a point have I been carried,

Ready to kill my mother, horrid thought!

But in the sun’s bright course each day affords

Instruction. Thee, my mother, have I found,

In that discovery bless’d; nor hath my birth

Aught I can blame: yet one thing would I say

To thee alone: — walk this way: to thine ear

In secret would I whisper this, and throw

The veil of darkness o’er each circumstance.

Take heed, my mother, lest thy maiden fault

Seeks in these secret nuptials to conceal

Its fault, then charges on the god the deed;

And, fearing my reproach, to Phoebus gives

A son, to Phoebus whom thou didst not bear.

Creusa

By her, who ‘gainst the giants in her car

Fought by the side of Jove, victorious Pallas,

No one of mortal race is father to thee,

But he who brought thee up, the royal Phoebus.

Ion

Why give his son then to another father?

Why say that I was born the son of Xuthus?

Creusa

Not born the son of Xuthus; but he gives thee,

Born from himself (as friend to friend may give)

His son, and heir adopted to his house.

Ion

True is the god, his tripod else were vain.

Not without cause then is my mind perplex’d.

Creusa

Hear what my thoughts suggest: to work thee good

Apollo placed thee in a noble house.

Acknowledged his, the rich inheritance

Could not be thine, nor could a father’s name;

For I conceal’d my nuptials, and had plann’d

To kill thee secretly: for this the god

In kindness gives thee to another father.

Ion

My mind is prompt to entertain such thoughts;

But, entering at his shrine will I inquire

If from a mortal father I am sprung,

Or from Apollo. — Ha! what may this be?

What god above the hallow’d dome unveils

His radiant face that shines another sun?

Haste, let us fly: the presence of the gods

‘Tis not for mortals to behold, and live.

[Minerva appears from above.]

Minerva

Fly not; in me no enemy you fly;

At Athens friendly to you, and no less

Here. From that land I come, so named from me,

By Phoebus sent with speed: unmeet he deems it

To show himself before you, lest with blame

The past be mention’d; this he gave in charge,

To tell thee that she bore thee, and to him,

Phoebus thy father; he to whom he gave thee,

Not as to the author of thy being gives thee,

But to the inheritance of a noble house.

This declaration made, lest thou shouldst die,

Kill’d by thy mother’s wily trains, or she

By thee, these means to save you he devised.

These things in silence long conceal’d, at Athens

The royal Phoebus would have made it known

That thou art sprung from her, thy father he:

But to discharge my office, and unfold

The oracle of the god, for which you yoked

Your chariots, hear: Creusa, take thy son,

Go to the land of Cecrops: let him mount

The royal throne; for, from Erechtheus sprung,

That honour is his due, the sovereignty

Over my country: through the states of Greece

Wide his renown shall spread; for from his root

Four sons shall spring, that to the land, the tribes,

The dwellers on my rock, shall give their names.

Geleon the first, Hopletes, Argades,

And from my aegis named Aegicores:

Their sons in fate’s appointed time shall fix

Their seats along the coast, or in the isles

Girt by the Aegean sea, and to my land

Give strength; extending thence the opposite plains

Of either continent shall make their own,

Europe and Asia, and shall boast their name

Ionians, from the honour’d Ion call’d.

To thee by Xuthus shall a son be born,

Dorus, from whom the Dorian state shall rise

To high renown; in the Pelopian land,

Another near the Rhian cliffs, along

The sea-wash’d coast, his potent monarchy

Shall stretch, Achaeus; and his subject realms

Shall glory in their chief’s illustrious name.

Well hath Apollo quitted him in all:

First, without pain he caused thee bear a son.

That from thy friends thou mightst conceal his birth;

After the birth, soon as his infant limbs

Thy hands had clothed, to Mercury he gave

The charge to take the babe, and in his arms

Convey him hither; here with tenderness

He nurtured him, nor suffer’d him to perish.

Guard now the secret that he is thy son,

That his opinion Xuthus may enjoy

Delighted: thou too hast thy blessings, lady.

And now, farewell: from this relief from ills

A prosperous fortune I to both announce.

Ion

O Pallas, daughter of all-powerful Jove!

Not with distrust shall we receive thy words:

I am convinced that Phoebus is my father,

My mother she, not unassured before.

Creusa

Hear me too, now: Phoebus I praise, before

Unpraised; my son he now restores, of whom

Till now I deem’d him heedless. Now these gates

Are beauteous to mine eyes; his oracles

Now grateful to my soul, unpleasant late.

With rapture on these sounding rings my hands

Now hang; with rapture I address the gates.

Minerva

This I approve, thy former wayward thoughts

Resign’d, with honour that thou name the god.

Slow are the gifts of Heaven, but found at length

Not void of power.

Creusa

My son, let us now go

To Athens.

Minerva

Go; myself will follow you.

Creusa

A noble guard, and friendly to the state.

Minerva

But seat him high on thy paternal throne.

Creusa

A rich possession, and I glory in him.

[Minerva disappears.]

Chorus [singing]

Son of Latona and all-powerful Jove,

Apollo, hail! Though fortune’s blackest storms

Rage on his house, the man whose pious soul

Reveres the gods, assumes a confidence,

And justly: for the good at length obtain

The meed of virtue; but the unholy wretch

(Such is his nature) never can be happy.

Iphigenia at Aulis

Characters in the Play

Agamemnon

Attendant, an old man

Chorus of Women of Chalcis

Menelaus

Clytaemnestra

Iphigenia

Achilles

Messenger

[The sea-coast at Aulis. Enter Agamemnon and Attendant.]

Agamemnon

Old man, come hither and stand before my dwelling.

Attendant

I come; what new schemes now, king Agamemnon?

Agamemnon

Thou shalt hear.

Attendant

I am all eagerness. ‘Tis little enough sleep old age allows me and keenly it watches o’er my eyes.

Agamemnon

What can that star be, steering his course yonder?

Attendant

Sirius, still shooting o’er the zenith on his way near the Pleiads’ sevenfold track.

Agamemnon

The birds are still at any rate and the sea is calm; hushed are the winds, and silence broods o’er this narrow firth.

Attendant

Then why art thou outside thy tent, why so restless, my lord Agamemnon? All is yet quiet here in Aulis, the watch on the walls is not yet astir. Let us go in.

Agamemnon

I envy thee, old man, aye, and every man who leads a life secure, unknown and unrenowned; but little I envy those in office.

Attendant

And yet ‘tis there we place the be-all and end-all of existence.

Agamemnon

Aye, but that is where the danger comes; and ambition, sweet though it seems, brings sorrow with its near approach. At one time the unsatisfied claims of Heaven upset our life, at another the numerous peevish fancies of our subjects shatter it.

Attendant

I like not these sentiments in one who is a chief. It was not to enjoy all blessings that Atreus begot thee, O Agamemnon; but thou must needs experience joy and sorrow alike, mortal as thou art. E’en though thou like it not, this is what the gods decree; but thou, after letting thy taper spread its light abroad, writest the letter which is still in thy hands and then erasest the same words again, sealing and re-opening the scroll, then flinging the tablet to the ground with floods of tears and leaving nothing undone in thy aimless behaviour to stamp thee mad. What is it troubles thee? what news is there affecting thee, my liege? Come, share with me thy story; to a loyal and trusty heart wilt thou be telling it; for Tyndareus sent me that day to form part of thy wife’s dowry and to wait upon the bride with loyalty.

Agamemnon

Leda, the daughter of Thestius, had three children, maidens, Phoebe, Clytaemnestra my wife, and Helen; this last it was who had for wooers the foremost of the favoured sons of Hellas; but terrible threats of spilling his rival’s blood were uttered by each of them, should he fail to win the maid. Now the matter filled Tyndareus, her father, with perplexity; at length this thought occurred to him; the suitors should swear unto each other and join right hands thereon and pour libations with burnt sacrifice, binding themselves by this curse, “Whoever wins the child of Tyndareus for wife, him will we assist, in case a rival takes her from his house and goes his way, robbing her husband of his rights; and we will march against that man in armed array and raze his city to the ground, Hellene no less than barbarian.”

Now when they had once pledged their word and old Tyndareus with no small cleverness had beguiled them by his shrewd device, he allowed his daughter to choose from among her suitors the one towards whom the breath of love might fondly waft her. Her choice fell on Menelaus; would she had never taken him! Anon there came to Lacedaemon from Phrygia’s folk the man who, legend says, adjudged the goddesses’ dispute; in robes of gorgeous hue, ablaze with gold, in true barbaric pomp; and he, finding Menelaus gone from home, carried Helen off with him to his steading on Ida, a willing paramour. Goaded to frenzy Menelaus flew through Hellas, invoking the ancient oath exacted by Tyndareus and declaring the duty of helping the injured husband. Whereat the chivalry of Hellas, brandishing their spears and donning their harness, came hither to the narrow straits of Aulis with armaments of ships and troops, with many a steed and many a car, and they chose me to captain them all for the sake of Menelaus, since I was his brother. Would that some other had gained that distinction instead of me! But after the army was gathered and come together, we still remained at Aulis weather-bound; and Calchas, the seer, bade us in our perplexity sacrifice my own begotten child Iphigenia to Artemis, whose home is in this land, declaring that if we offered her, we should sail and sack the Phrygians’ capital, but if we forbore, this was not for us. When I heard this, I commanded Talthybius with loud proclamation to disband the whole host, as I could never bear to slay daughter of mine. Whereupon my brother, bringing every argument to bear, persuaded me at last to face the crime; so I wrote in a folded scroll and sent to my wife, bidding her despatch our daughter to me on the pretence of wedding Achilles, at the same time magnifying his exalted rank and saying that he refused to sail with the Achaeans, unless a bride of our lineage should go to Phthia. Yes, this was the inducement I offered my wife, inventing, as I did, a sham marriage for the maiden. Of all the Achaeans we alone know the real truth, Calchas, Odysseus, Menelaus and myself; but that which I then decided wrongly, I now rightly countermand again in this scroll, which thou, old man, hast found me opening and resealing beneath the shade of night. Up now and away with this missive to Argos, and I will tell thee by word of mouth all that is written herein, the contents of the folded scroll, for thou art loyal to my wife and house.

Attendant

Say on and make it plain, that what my tongue utters may accord with what thou hast written.

Agamemnon

“Daughter of Leda, in addition to my first letter I now send thee word not to despatch thy daughter to Euboea’s embosomed wing, to the to the waveless bay of Aulis; for after all we will celebrate our child’s wedding at another time.”

Attendant

And how will Achilles, cheated of his bride, curb the fury of his indignation against thee and thy wife?

Agamemnon

Here also is a danger.

Attendant

Tell me what thou meanest.

Agamemnon

It is but his name, not himself, that Achilles is lending, knowing nothing of the marriage or of my scheming or my professed readiness to betroth my daughter to him for a husband’s embrace.

Attendant

A dreadful venture thine, king Agamemnon! thou that, by promise of thy daughter’s hand to the son of the goddess, wert for bringing the maid hither to be sacrificed for the Danai.

Agamemnon

Woe is me! ah woe! I am utterly distraught; bewilderment comes o’er me. Away hurry thy steps, yielding nothing to old age.

Attendant

In haste I go, my liege.

Agamemnon

Sit not down by woodland founts; scorn the witcheries of sleep.

Attendant

Hush!

Agamemnon

And when thou passest any place where roads diverge, cast thine eyes all round, taking heed that no mule-wain pass by on rolling wheels, bearing my daughter hither to the ships of the Danai, and thou see it not.

Attendant

It shall be so.

Agamemnon

Start then from the bolted gates, and if thou meet the escort, start them back again, and drive at full speed to the abodes of the Cyclopes.

Attendant

But tell me, how shall my message find credit with thy wife or child?

Agamemnon

Preserve the seal which thou bearest on this scroll. Away! already the dawn is growing grey, lighting the lamp of day yonder and the fire of the sun’s four steeds; help me in my trouble. [Exit Attendant.]

None of mortals is prosperous or happy to the last, for none was ever born to a painless life.

[Exit Agamemnon.]

[Enter Chorus of Women of Chalcis.]

Chorus

To the sandy beach of sea-coast Aulis I came after a voyage through the tides of Euripus, leaving Chalcis on its narrow firth, my city which feedeth the waters of far-famed Arethusa near the sea, that I might behold the army of the Achaeans and the ships rowed by those god-like heroes; for our husbands tell us that fair-haired Menelaus and high-born Agamemnon are leading them to Troy on a thousand ships in quest of the lady Helen, whom herdsman Paris carried off from the banks of reedy Eurotas, his guerdon from Aphrodite, when that queen of Cyprus entered beauty’s lists with Hera and Pallas at the gushing fount.

Through the grove of Artemis, rich with sacrifice, I sped my course, the red blush mantling on my cheeks from maiden modesty, in my eagerness to see the soldiers’ camp, the tents of the mail-clad Danai, and their gathered steeds. Two chieftains there I saw met together in council; one was Aias, son of Oileus; the other Aias, son of Telamon, crown of glory to the men of Salamis; and I saw Protesilaus and Palamedes, sprung from the son of Poseidon, sitting there amusing themselves with intricate figures at draughts; Diomedes too at his favourite sport of hurling quoits; and Meriones, the War-god’s son, a marvel to mankind, stood at his side; likewise I beheld the offspring of Laertes, who came from his island hills, and with him Nireus, handsomest of all Achaeans; Achilles next, that nimble runner, swift on his feet as the wind, whom Thetis bore and Chiron trained; him I saw upon the beach, racing in full armour along the shingle and straining every nerve to beat a team of four horses, as he sped round the track on foot; and Eumelus, the grandson of Pheres, their driver, was shouting when I saw him, goading on his goodly steeds, with their bits of chased goldwork; whereof the centre pair, that bore the yoke, had dappled coats picked out with white, while the trace-horses, on the outside, facing the turning-post in the course, were bays with spotted fetlocks. Close beside them Peleus’ son leapt on his way, in all his harness, keeping abreast the rail by the axle-box.

Next I sought the countless fleet, a wonder to behold, that I might fill my girlish eyes with gazing, a sweet delight. The warlike Myrmidons from Phthia held the right wing with fifty swift cruisers, upon whose sterns, right at the ends, stood Nereid goddesses in golden effigy, the ensign of Achilles’ armament. Near these were moored the Argive ships in equal numbers, o’er which Mecisteus’ son, whom Taulaus his grandsire reared, and Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, were in command; next in order, Theseus’ son was stationed at the head of sixty ships from Attica, having the goddess Pallas set in a winged car drawn by steeds with solid hoof, a lucky sight for mariners. Then I saw Boeotia’s fleet of fifty sails decked with ensigns; these had Cadmus at the stern holding a golden dragon at the beaks of the vessels, and earth-born Leitus was their admiral. Likewise there were ships from Phocis; and from Locris came the son of Oileus with an equal contingent, leaving famed Thronium’s citadel; and from Mycenae, the Cyclopes’ town, Atreus’ son sent a hundred well-manned galleys, his brother being with him in command, as friend with friend, that Hellas might exact on her, who had fled her home to wed a foreigner. Also I saw upon Gerenian Nestor’s prows twelve from Pylos the sign of his neighbor Alpheus, four-footed like a bull. Moreover there was a squadron of Aenianian sail under King and next the lords of Elis, stationed near them, whom all the people named Epeians; and Eurytus was lord of these; likewise he led the Taphian warriors with the white oar-blades, the subjects of Meges, son of Phyleus, who had left the isles of the Echinades, where sailors cannot land. Lastly, Aias, reared in Salamis, was joining his right wing to the left of those near whom he was posted, closing the line with his outermost ships — twelve barques obedient to the helm — as I heard and then saw the crews; no safe return shall he obtain, who bringeth his barbaric boats to grapple Aias. There I saw the naval armament, but some things I heard at home about the gathered host, whereof I still have a recollection.

[Enter Menelaus and Attendant.]

Attendant [as Menelaus wrests a letter from him]

Strange daring thine, Menelaus, where thou hast no right.

Menelaus

Stand back! thou carriest loyalty to thy master too far.

Attendant

The very reproach thou hast for me is to my credit.

Menelaus

Thou shalt rue it, if thou meddle in matters that concern thee not.

Attendant

Thou hadst no right to open a letter, which I was carrying.

Menelaus

No, nor thou to be carrying sorrow to all Hellas.

Attendant

Argue that point with others, but surrender that letter to me.

Menelaus

I shall not let go.

Attendant

Nor yet will I let loose my hold.

Menelaus

Why then, this staff of mine will be dabbling thy head with blood ere long.

Attendant

To die in my master’s cause were a noble death.

Menelaus

Let go! thou art too wordy for a slave.

Attendant [seeing Agamemnon approaching]

Master, he is wronging me; he snatched thy letter violently from my grasp, Agamemnon, and will not heed the claims of right.

[Enter Agamemnon.]

Agamemnon

How now? what means this uproar at the gates, this indecent brawling?

Menelaus

My tale, not his, has the better right to be spoken.

Agamemnon

Thou, Menelaus! what quarrel hast thou with this man, why art thou haling him hence?

[Exit Attendant.]

Menelaus

Look me in the face! Be that the prelude to my story.

Agamemnon

Shall I, the son of Atreus, close my eyes from fear?

Menelaus

Seest thou this scroll, the bearer of a shameful message?

Agamemnon

I see it, yes; and first of all surrender it.

Menelaus

No, not till I have shewn its contents to all the Danai.

Agamemnon

What! hast thou broken the seal and dost know already what thou shouldst never have known?

Menelaus

Yes, I opened it and know to thy sorrow the secret machinations of thy heart.

Agamemnon

Where didst thou catch my servant? Ye gods what a shameless heart thou hast!

Menelaus

I was awaiting thy daughter’s arrival at the camp from Argos.

Agamemnon

What right hast thou to watch my doings? Is not this a proof of shamelessness?

Menelaus

My wish to do it gave the spur, for I am no slave to thee.

Agamemnon

Infamous! Am I not to be allowed the management of my own house?

Menelaus

No, for thou thinkest crooked thoughts, one thing now, another formerly, and something different presently.

Agamemnon

Most exquisite refining on evil themes! A hateful thing the tongue of cleverness!

Menelaus

Aye, but a mind unstable is an unjust possession, disloyal to friends. Now I am anxious to test thee, and seek not thou from rage to turn aside from the truth, nor will I on my part overstrain the case. Thou rememberest when thou wert all eagerness to captain the Danai against Troy, making a pretence of declining, though eager for it in thy heart; how humble thou wert then! taking each man by the hand and keeping open doors for every fellow townsman who cared to enter, affording each in turn a chance to speak with thee, even though some desired it not, seeking by these methods to purchase popularity from all bidders; then when thou hadst secured the command, there came a change over thy manners; thou wert no longer so cordial as before to whilom friends, but hard of access, seldom to be found at home. But the man of real worth ought not to change his manners in the hour of prosperity, but should then show himself most staunch to friends, when his own good fortune can help them most effectually. This was the first cause I had to reprove thee, for it was here I first discovered thy villainy; but afterwards, when thou camest to Aulis with all the gathered hosts of Hellas, thou wert of no account; no! the want of a favourable breeze filled thee with consternation at the chance dealt out by Heaven. Anon the Danai began demanding that thou shouldst send the fleet away instead of vainly toiling on at Aulis; what dismay and confusion was then depicted in thy looks, to think that thou, with a thousand ships at thy command, hadst not occupied the plains of Priam with thy armies! And thou wouldst ask my counsel, “What am I to do? what scheme can I devise? where find one?” to save thyself being stripped of thy command and losing thy fair fame. Next when Calchas bade thee offer thy daughter in sacrifice to Artemis, declaring that the Danai should then sail, thou wert overjoyed, and didst gladly undertake to offer the maid, and of thine own accord — never allege compulsion! — thou art sending word to thy wife to despatch thy daughter hither on pretence of wedding Achilles. This is the same air that heard thee say it; and after all thou turnest round and hast been caught recasting thy letter to this effect, “I will no longer be my daughter’s murderer.” Exactly so! Countless others have gone through this phase in their conduct of public affairs; they make an effort while in power, and then retire dishonourably, sometimes owing to the senselessness of the citizens, sometimes deservedly, because they are too feeble of themselves to maintain their watch upon the state. For my part, I am more sorry for our unhappy Hellas, whose purpose was to read these worthless foreigners a lesson, while now she will let them escape and mock her, thanks to thee and thy daughter. May I never then appoint a man to rule my country or lead its warriors because his of kinship! Ability is what the general must have; since any man, with ordinary intelligence, can govern a state.

Chorus

For brethren to come to words and blows, whene’er they disagree, is terrible.

Agamemnon

I wish to rebuke thee in turn, briefly, not lifting mine eyes too high in shameless wise, but in more sober fashion, as a brother; for it is a good man’s way to be considerate. Prithee, why this burst of fury, these bloodshot eyes? who wrongs thee? what is it thou wantest? Thou art fain to win a virtuous bride. Well, I cannot supply thee; for she, whom thou once hadst, was ill controlled by thee. Am I then, a man who never went astray, to suffer for thy sins? or is it my popularity that galls thee? No! it is the longing thou hast to keep a fair wife in thy embrace, casting reason and honour to the winds. A bad man’s pleasures are like himself Am I mad, if I change to wiser counsels, after previously deciding amiss? Thine is the madness rather in wishing to recover a wicked wife, once thou hadst lost her — a stroke of Heaven-sent luck. Those foolish suitors swore that oath to Tyndareus in their longing to wed; but Hope was the goddess that led them on, I trow, and she it was that brought it about rather then thou and thy mightiness. So take the field with them; they are ready for it in the folly of their hearts; for the deity is not without insight, but is able to discern where oaths have been wrongly pledged or forcibly extorted. I will not slay my children, nor shall thy interests be prospered by justice in thy vengeance for a worthless wife, while I am left wasting, night and day, in sorrow for what I did to one of my own flesh and blood, contrary to all law and justice. There is thy answer shortly given, clear and easy to understand; and if thou wilt not come to thy senses, I shall do the best for myself.

Chorus

This differs from thy previous declaration, but there is good in it — thy child’s reprieve.

Menelaus

Ah me, how sad my lot! I have no friends then after all.

Agamemnon

Friends thou hast, if thou seek not their destruction.

Menelaus

Where wilt thou find any proof that thou art sprung from the same sire as I?

Agamemnon

Thy moderation, not thy madness do I share by nature.

Menelaus

Friends should sympathize with friends in sorrow.

Agamemnon

Claim my help by kindly service, not by paining me.

Menelaus

So thou hast no mind to share this trouble with Hellas?

Agamemnon

No, Hellas is diseased like thee according to some god’s design.

Menelaus

Go vaunt thee then on thy sceptre, after betraying thine own brother! while seek some different means and other friends.

[Enter Messenger.]

Messenger

Agamemnon, lord of all Hellenes! I am come and bring thee thy daughter, whom thou didst call Iphigenia in thy home; and her mother, thy wife Clytemnestra, is with her, and the child Orestes, a sight to gladden thee after thy long absence from thy palace; but, as they had been travelling long and far, they are now refreshing their tender feet at the waters of a fair spring, they and their horses, for we turned these loose in the grassy meadow to browse their fill; but I am come as their forerunner to prepare thee for their reception; for the army knows already of thy daughter’s arrival, so quickly did the rumour spread; and all the folk are running together to the sight, that they may see thy child; for Fortune’s favourites enjoy a worldwide fame and have all eyes fixed on them. “Is it a wedding?” some ask, “or what is happening? or has king Agamemnon from fond yearning summoned his daughter hither?” From others thou wouldst have heard: “They are presenting the maiden to Artemis, queen of Aulis, previous to marriage; who can the bridegroom be, that is to lead her home?”

Come, then, begin the rites — that is the next step — by getting the baskets ready; crown your heads; prepare the wedding-hymn, thou and prince Menelaus with thee; let flutes resound throughout the tents with noise of dancer’s feet; for this is a happy day, that is come for the maid.

Agamemnon

Thou hast my thanks; now go within; for the rest it will be well, as Fate proceeds.

[Exit Messenger.] Ah, woe is me! unhappy wretch, what can I say? where shall I begin? Into what cruel straits have I been plunged! Fortune has outwitted me, proving far cleverer than any cunning of mine. What an advantage humble birth possesses! for it is easy for her sons to weep and tell out all their sorrows; while to the high-born man come these same sorrows, but we have dignity throned o’er our life and are the people’s slaves. I, for instance, am ashamed to weep, nor less, poor wretch, to check my tears at the awful pass to which I am brought. Oh! what am I to tell my wife? how shall I welcome her? with what face meet her? for she too has undone me by coming uninvited in this my hour of sorrow; yet it was but natural she should come with her daughter to prepare the bride and perform the fondest duties, where she will discover my villainy. And for this poor maid — why maid? Death, methinks, will soon make her his bride — how I pity her! Thus will she plead to me, I trow: “My father will thou slay me? Be such the wedding thou thyself mayst find, and whosoever is a friend to thee!” while Orestes, from his station near us, will cry in childish accents, inarticulate, yet fraught with meaning. Alas! to what utter ruin Paris, the son of Priam, the cause of these troubles, has brought me by his union with Helen!

Chorus

I pity her myself, in such wise as a woman, and she a stranger, may bemoan the misfortunes of royalty.

Menelaus [offering his hand]

Thy hand, brother! let me grasp it.

Agamemnon

I give it; thine is the victory, mine the sorrow.

Menelaus

By Pelops our reputed grandsire and Atreus our father I swear to tell thee the truth from my heart, without any covert purpose, but only what I think. The sight of thee in tears made me pity thee, and in return I shed a tear for thee myself; I withdraw from my former proposals, ceasing to be a cause of fear to thee; yea, and I will put myself in thy present position; and I counsel thee, slay not thy child nor prefer my interests to thine; for it is not just that thou shouldst grieve, while I am glad, or that thy children should die, while mine still see the light of day. What is it, after all, I seek? If I am set on marriage, could I not find a bride as choice elsewhere? Was I to lose a brother — the last I should have lost — to win a Helen, getting bad for good? I was mad, impetuous as a youth, till I perceived, on closer view, what slaying children really meant. Moreover I am filled with compassion for the hapless maiden, doomed to bleed that I may wed, when I reflect that we are kin. What has thy daughter to do with Helen? Let the army be disbanded and leave Aulis; dry those streaming eyes, brother, and provoke me not to tears. Whatever concern thou hast in oracles that affect thy child, let it be none of mine; into thy hands I resign my share therein. A sudden change, thou’lt say, from my fell proposals! A natural course for me; affection for my brother caused the change. These are the ways of a man not void of virtue, to pursue on each occasion what is best.

Chorus

A generous speech, worthy of Tantalus, the son of Zeus! Thou dost not shame thy ancestry.

Agamemnon

I thank thee, Menelaus, for this unexpected suggestion; ‘tis an honourable proposal, worthy of thee.

Menelaus

Sometimes love, sometimes the selfishness of their families causes a quarrel between brothers; I loathe a relationship of this kind which is bitterness to both.

Agamemnon

‘Tis useless, for circumstances compel me to carry out the murderous sacrifice of my daughter.

Menelaus

How so? who will compel thee to slay thine own child?

Agamemnon

The whole Achaean army here assembled.

Menelaus

Not if thou send her back to Argos.

Agamemnon

I might do that unnoticed, but there will be another thing I cannot.

Menelaus

What is that? Thou must not fear the mob too much.

Agamemnon

Calchas will tell the Argive host his oracles.

Menelaus

Not if he be killed ere that — an easy matter.

Agamemnon

The whole tribe of seers is a curse with its ambition.

Menelaus

Yes, and good for nothing and useless, when amongst us.

Agamemnon

Has the thought, which is rising in my mind, no terrors for thee?

Menelaus

How can I understand thy meaning, unless thou declare it?

Agamemnon

The son of Sisyphus knows all.

Menelaus

Odysseus cannot possibly hurt us.

Agamemnon

He was ever shifty by nature, siding with the mob.

Menelaus

True, he is enslaved by the love of popularity, a fearful evil.

Agamemnon

Bethink thee then, will he not arise among the Argives and tell them the oracles that Calchas delivered, saying of me that I undertook to offer Artemis a victim, and after all am proving false? Then, when he has carried the army away with him, he will bid the Argives slay us and sacrifice the maiden; and if I escape to Argos, they will come and destroy the place, razing it to the ground, Cyclopean walls and all. That is my trouble. Woe is me! to what straits Heaven has brought me at this pass! Take one precaution for me, Menelaus, as thou goest through the host, that Clytemnestra learn this not, till I have taken my child and devoted her to death, that my affliction may be attended with the fewest tears. (Turning to the Chorus) And you, ye stranger dames, keep silence.

[Exeunt Agamemnon and Menelaus.]

Chorus

Happy they who find the goddess come in moderate might, sharing with self-restraint in Aphrodite’s gift of marriage and enjoying calm and rest from frenzied passions, wherein the Love-god, golden-haired, stretches his charmed bow with arrows twain, and one is aimed at happiness, the other at life’s confusion. O lady Cypris, queen of beauty! far from my bridal bower I ban the last. Be mine delight in moderation and pure desires, and may I have a share in love, but shun excess therein.

Men’s natures vary, and their habits differ, but true virtue is always manifest. Likewise the training that comes of education conduces greatly to virtue; for not only is modesty wisdom, but it has also the rare grace of seeing by its better judgment what is right; whereby glory, ever young, is shed o’er life by reputation. A great thing it is to follow virtue’s footsteps — for women in their secret loves; while in men again an inborn sense of order, shown in countless ways, adds to a city’s greatness.

Thou camest, O Paris, to the place where thou wert reared to herd the kine amid the white heifers of Ida, piping in foreign strain and breathing on thy reeds an echo of the Phrygian airs Olympus played. Full-uddered cows were browsing at the spot where that verdict ‘twixt goddesses was awaiting thee the cause of thy going to Hellas to stand before the ivory palace, kindling love in Helen’s tranced eyes and feeling its flutter in thine own breast; whence the fiend of strife brought Hellas with her chivalry and ships to the towers of Troy.

Oh! great is the bliss the great enjoy. Behold Iphigenia, the king’s royal child, and Clytaemnestra, the daughter of Tyndareus; how proud their lineage! how high their pinnacle of fortune! These mighty ones, whom wealth attends, are very gods in the eyes of less favoured folk.

Halt we here, maidens of Chalcis, and lift the queen from her chariot to the ground without stumbling, supporting her gently in our arms, with kind intent, that the renowned daughter of Agamemnon but just arrived may feel no fear; strangers ourselves, avoid we aught that may disturb or frighten the strangers from Argos.

[Enter Clytaemnestra and Iphigenia.]

Clytaemnestra

I take this as a lucky omen, thy kindness and auspicious greeting, and have good hope that it is to a happy marriage I conduct the bride.

[To attendants] Take from the chariot the dowry I am bringing for my daughter and convey it within with careful heed.

My daughter, leave the horse-drawn car, planting thy faltering footstep delicately. [To the chorus] Maidens, take her in your arms and lift her from the chariot, and let one of you give me the support of her hand, that I may quit my seat in the carriage with fitting grace.

Some of you stand at the horses’ heads; for the horse has a timid eye, easily frightened; here take this child Orestes, son of Agamemnon, babe as he still is.

What! sleeping, little one, tired out by thy ride in the chariot? Awake to bless thy sister’s wedding; for thou, my gallant boy, shalt get by this marriage a kinsman gallant as thyself, the Nereid’s godlike offspring. Come hither to thy mother, my daughter, Iphigenia, and seat thyself beside me, and stationed near show my happiness to these strangers; yes, come hither and welcome the sire thou lovest so dearly.

Hail! my honoured lord, king Agamemnon! we have obeyed thy commands and are come.

[Enter Agamemnon.]

Iphigenia [throwing herself into Agamemnon’s arms]

Be not wroth with me, mother, if I run from thy side and throw myself on my father’s breast.

O my father! I long to outrun others and embrace thee after this long while; for I yearn to see thy face; be not wroth with me.

Clytaemnestra

Thou mayst do so, daughter; for of all the children I have born, thou hast ever loved thy father best.

Iphigenia

I see thee, father, joyfully after a long season.

Agamemnon

And I thy father thee; thy words do equal duty for both of us.

Iphigenia

All hail, father! thou didst well in bringing me hither to thee.

Agamemnon

I know not how I am to say yes or no to that, my child.

Iphigenia

Ha! how wildly thou art looking, spite of thy joy at seeing me.

Agamemnon

A man has many cares when he is king and general too.

Iphigenia

Be mine, all mine to-day; turn not unto moody thoughts.

Agamemnon

Why so I am, all thine to-day; I have no other thought.

Iphigenia

Then smooth thy knitted brow, unbend and smile.

Agamemnon

Lo! my child, my joy at seeing thee is even as it is.

Iphigenia

And hast thou then the tear-drop streaming from thy eyes?

Agamemnon

Aye, for long is the absence from each other, that awalts us.

Iphigenia

I know not, dear father mine, I know not of what thou art speaking.

Agamemnon

Thou art moving my pity all the more by speaking so sensibly.

Iphigenia

My words shall turn to senselessness, if that will cheer thee more.

Agamemnon [aside]

Ah, woe is me! this silence is too much. [to Iphigenia] Thou hast my thanks.

Iphigenia

Stay with thy children at home, father.

Agamemnon

My own wish! but to my sorrow I may not humour it.

Iphigenia

Ruin seize their warring and the woes of Menelaus!

Agamemnon

First will that, which has been my life-long ruin, bring ruin unto others.

Iphigenia

How long thou wert absent in the bays of Aulis!

Agamemnon

Aye, and there is still a hindrance to my sending the army forward.

Iphigenia

Where do men say the Phrygians live, father?

Agamemnon

In a land where I would Paris, the son of Priam, ne’er had dwelt.

Iphigenia

‘Tis a long voyage thou art bound on, father, after thou leavest me.

Agamemnon

Thou wilt meet thy father again, my daughter.

Iphigenia

Ah! would it were seemly that thou shouldst take me as a fellow-voyager!

Agamemnon

Thou too hast a voyage to make to a haven where thou wilt remember thy father.

Iphigenia

Shall I sail thither with my mother or alone?

Agamemnon

All alone, without father or mother.

Iphigenia

What! hast thou found me a new home, father!

Agamemnon

Enough of this! ‘tis not for girls to know such things.

Iphigenia

Speed home from Troy, I pray thee, father, as soon as thou hast triumphed there.

Agamemnon

There is a sacrifice I have first to offer here.

Iphigenia

Yea, ‘tis thy duty to heed religion with aid of holy rites.

Agamemnon

Thou wilt witness it, for thou wilt be standing near the laver.

Iphigenia

Am I to lead the dance then round the altar, father?

Agamemnon [aside]

I count thee happier than myself because thou knowest nothing. [To Iphigenia] Go within into the presence of maidens, after thou hast given me thy hand and one sad kiss, on the eve of thy lengthy sojourn far from thy father’s side.

Bosom, cheek, and golden hair! ah, how grievous ye have found Helen and the Phrygians’ city! I can no more; the tears come welling to my eyes, the moment I touch thee. [Exit Iphigenia.]

[Turning to Clytaemnestra] Herein I crave thy pardon, daughter of Leda, if I showed excessive grief at the thought of resigning my daughter to Achilles; for though we are sending her to taste of bliss, still it wrings a parent’s heart, when he, the father who has toiled so hard for them, commits his children to the homes of strangers.

Clytaemnestra

I am not so void of sense; bethink thee, I shall go through this as well, when I lead the maiden from the chamber to the sound of the marriage-hymn; wherefore I chide thee not; but custom will combine with time to make the smart grow less.

As touching him, to whom thou hast betrothed our daughter, I know his name, ‘tis true, but would fain learn his lineage and the land of his birth.

Agamemnon

There was one Aegina, the daughter of Asopus.

Clytaemnestra

Who wedded her? some mortal or a god?

Agamemnon

Zeus, and she bare Aeacus, the prince of Cenone.

Clytaemnestra

What son of Aeacus secured his father’s halls?

Agamemnon

Peleus, who wedded the daughter of Nereus.

Clytaemnestra

With the god’s consent, or when he had taken her in spite of gods?

Agamemnon

Zeus betrothed her, and her guardian gave consent.

Clytaemnestra

Where did he marry her? amid the billows of the sea?

Agamemnon

In Chiron’s home, at sacred Pelion’s foot.

Clytaemnestra

What! the abode ascribed to the race of Centaurs?

Agamemnon

It was there the gods celebrated the marriage feast of Peleus.

Clytaemnestra

Did Thetis or his father train Achilles?

Agamemnon

Chiron brought him up, to prevent his learning the ways of the wicked.

Clytaemnestra

Ah wise the teacher, still wiser the father, who intrusted his son to such hands.

Agamemnon

Such is the future husband of thy daughter.

Clytaemnestra

A blameless lord; but what city in Hellas is his?

Agamemnon

He dwells on the banks of the river Apidanus, in the borders of Phthia.

Clytaemnestra

Wilt thou convey our daughter thither?

Agamemnon

He who takes her to himself will see to that.

Clytaemnestra

Happiness attend the pair! Which day will he marry her?

Agamemnon

As soon as the full moon comes to give its blessing.

Clytaemnestra

Hast thou already offered the goddess a sacrifice to usher in the maiden’s marriage?

Agamemnon

I am about to do so; that is the very thing I was engaged in.

Clytaemnestra

Wilt thou celebrate the marriage-feast thereafter?

Agamemnon

Yes, when I have offered a sacrifice required by Heaven of me.

Clytaemnestra

But where am I to make ready the feast for the women?

Agamemnon

Here beside our gallant Argive ships.

Clytaemnestra

Finely here! but still I must; good come of it for all that!

Agamemnon

I will tell thee, lady, what to do; so obey me now.

Clytaemnestra

Wherein? for I was ever wont to yield thee obedience.

Agamemnon

Here, where the bridegroom is, will!

Clytaemnestra

Which of my duties will ye perform in the mother’s absence?

Agamemnon

Give thy child away with help of Danai.

Clytaemnestra

And where am I to be the while?

Agamemnon

Get thee to Argos, and take care of thy unwedded daughters.

Clytaemnestra

And leave my child? Then who will raise her bridal torch?

Agamemnon

I will provide the proper wedding torch.

Clytaemnestra

That is not the custom; but thou thinkest lightly of these things.

Agamemnon

It is not good thou shouldst be alone among a soldier-crowd.

Clytaemnestra

It is good that a mother should give her own child away.

Agamemnon

Aye, and that those maidens at home should not be left alone.

Clytaemnestra

They are in safe keeping, pent in their maiden-bowers.

Agamemnon

Obey.

Clytaemnestra

Nay, by the goddess-queen of Argos! go, manage matters out of doors; but in the house it is my place to decide what is proper for maidens at their wedding. (Exit.)

Agamemnon

Woe is me! my efforts are baffled; I am disappointed in my hope, anxious as I was to get my wife out of sight; foiled at every point, I form my plots and subtle schemes against my best-beloved. But I will go, in spite of all, with Calchas the priest, to inquire the goddess’s good pleasure, fraught with ill-luck as it is to me, and with trouble to Hellas. He who is wise should keep in his house a good and useful wife or none at all.

[Exit.]

Chorus

They say the Hellenes’ gathered host will come in arms aboard their ships to Simois with its silver eddies, even to Ilium, the plain of Troy beloved by Phoebus; where famed Cassandra, I am told, whene’er the god’s resistless prophecies inspire her, wildly tosses her golden tresses, wreathed with crown of verdant bay. And on the towers of Troy and round her walls shall Trojans stand, when sea-borne troops with brazen shields row in on shapely ships to the channels of the Simois, eager to take Helen, the sister of that heavenly pair whom Zeus begat, from Priam, and bear her back to Hellas by toil of Achaea’s shields and spears; encircling Pergamus, the Phrygians’ town, with murderous war around her stone-built towers, dragging men’s heads backward to cut their throats, and sacking the citadel of Troy from roof to base, a cause of many tears to maids and Priam’s wife; and Helen, the daughter of Zeus, shall weep in bitter grief, because she left her lord.

Oh! ne’er may there appear to me or to my children’s children the prospect which the wealthy Lydian dames and Phrygia’s brides will have, as at their looms they hold converse: “Say who will pluck this fair blossom from her ruined country, tightening his grasp on lovely tresses till the tears flow? ‘Tis all through thee, the offspring of the long-necked swan; if indeed it be a true report that Leda bare thee to a winged bird, when Zeus transformed himself thereto, or whether, in the pages of the poets, fables have carried these tales to men’s ears idly, out of season.”

[Enter Achilles.]

Achilles

Where in these tents is Achaea’s general? Which of his servants will announce to him that Achilles, the son of Peleus, is at his gates seeking him? For this delay at the Euripus is not the same for all of us; there be some, for instance, who, though still unwed, have left their houses desolate and are idling here upon the beach, while others are married and have children; so strange the longing for this expedition that has fallen on their hearts by Heaven’s will. My own just plea must I declare, and whoso else hath any wish will speak for himself. Though I have left Pharsalia and Peleus, still I linger here by reason of these light breezes at the Euripus, restraining my Myrmidons, while they are ever instant with me saying, “Why do we tarry, Achilles? how much longer must we count the days to the start for Ilium? do something, if thou art so minded; else lead home thy men, and wait not for the tardy action of these Atridae.”

[Enter Clytaemnestra.]

Clytaemnestra

Hail to thee, son of the Nereid goddess! I heard thy voice from within the tent and therefore came forth.

Achilles

O modesty revered! who can this lady be whom I behold, so richly dowered with beauty’s gifts?

Clytaemnestra

No wonder thou knowest me not, seeing I am one thou hast never before set eyes on; I praise thy reverent address to modesty.

Achilles

Who art thou, and wherefore art thou come to the mustering of the Danai — thou, a woman, to a fenced camp of men?

Clytaemnestra

The daughter of Leda I; my name Clytaemnestra; and my husband king Agamemnon.

Achilles

Well and shortly answered on all important points! but it ill befits that I should stand talking to women.

Clytaemnestra

Stay; why seek to fly? Give me thy hand, a prelude to a happy marriage.

Achilles

What is it thou sayest? I give thee my hand? Were I to lay a finger where I have no right, I could ne’er meet Agamemnon’s eye.

Clytaemnestra

The best of rights hast thou, seeing it is my child thou wilt wed, O son of the sea-goddess, whom Nereus begat.

Achilles

What wedding dost thou speak of? words fail me, lady; can thy wits have gone astray and art thou inventing this?

Clytaemnestra

All men are naturally shy in the presence of new relations, when these remind them of their wedding.

Achilles

Lady, I have never wooed daughter of thine, nor have the sons of Atreus ever mentioned marriage to me.

Clytaemnestra

What can it mean? thy turn now to marvel at my words, for thine are passing strange to me.

Achilles

Hazard a guess; that we can both do in this matter; for it may be we are both correct in our statements.

Clytaemnestra

What! have I suffered such indignity? The marriage I am courting has no reality, it seems; I am ashamed of it.

Achilles

Some one perhaps has made a mock of thee and me; pay no heed thereto; make light of it.

Clytaemnestra

Farewell; I can no longer face thee with unfaltering eyes, after being made a liar and suffering this indignity.

Achilles

‘Tis “farewell” too I bid thee, lady; and now I go within the tent to seek thy husband.

Attendant [calling through the tent-door]

Stranger of the race of Aeacus, stay awhile! Ho there! thee I mean, O goddess-born, and thee, daughter of Leda.

Achilles

Who is it calling through the half-opened door? what fear his voice betrays!

Attendant

A slave am I; of that I am not proud, for fortune permits it not.

Achilles

Whose slave art thou? not mine; for mine and Agamemnon’s goods are separate.

Attendant

I belong to this lady who stands before the tent, a gift to her from Tyndareus her father.

Achilles

I am waiting; tell me, if thou art desirous, why thou hast stayed me.

Attendant

Are ye really all alone here at the door?

Clytaemnestra

To us alone wilt thou address thyself; come forth from the king’s tent.

Attendant [coming out]

O Fortune and my own foresight, preserve whom I desire!

Achilles

That speech will save them in the future; it has a certain pompous air.

Clytaemnestra

Delay not for the sake of touching my right hand, if there is aught that thou wouldst say to me.

Attendant

Well, thou knowest my character and my devotion to thee and thy children.

Clytaemnestra

I know thou hast grown old in the service of my house.

Attendant

Likewise thou knowest it was in thy dowry king Agamemnon received me.

Clytaemnestra

Yes, thou camest to Argos with me, and hast been mine this long time past.

Attendant

True; and though I bear thee all goodwill, I like not thy lord so well.

Clytaemnestra

Come, come, unfold whate’er thou hast to say.

Attendant

Her father, he that begat her, is on the point of slaying thy daughter with his own hand.

Clytaemnestra

How? Out upon thy story, old dotard! thou art mad.

Attendant

Severing with a sword the hapless maid’s white throat.

Clytaemnestra

Ah, woe is me! Is my husband haply mad?

Attendant

Nay; sane, except where thou and thy daughter are concerned; there he is mad.

Clytaemnestra

What is his reason? what vengeful fiend impels him?

Attendant

Oracles — at least so Calchas says, in order that the host may start

Clytaemnestra

Whither? Woe is me, and woe is thee, thy father’s destined victim!

Attendant

To the halls of Dardanus, that Menelaus may recover Helen.

Clytaemnestra

So Helen’s return then was fated to affect Iphigenia?

Attendant

Thou knowest all; her father is about to offer thy child to Artemis.

Clytaemnestra

But that marriage — what pretext had it for bringing me from home?

Attendant

An inducement to thee to bring thy daughter cheerfully, to wed her to Achilles.

Clytaemnestra

On a deadly errand art thou come, my daughter, both thou, and I, thy mother.

Attendant

Piteous the lot of both of you — and fearful Agamemnon’s venture.

Clytaemnestra

Alas! I am undone; my eyes can no longer stem their tears.

Attendant

What more natural than to weep the loss of thy children?

Clytaemnestra

Whence, old man, dost say thou hadst this news?

Attendant

I had started to carry thee a letter referring to the former writing.

Clytaemnestra

Forbidding or combining to urge my bringing the child to her death?

Attendant

Nay, forbidding it, for thy lord was then in his sober senses.

Clytaemnestra

How comes it then, if thou wert really bringing me a letter, that thou dost not now deliver into my hands?

Attendant

Menelaus snatched it from me — he who caused this trouble.

Clytaemnestra

Dost thou hear that, son of Peleus, the Nereid’s child?

Achilles

I have been listening to the tale of thy sufferings, and I am indignant to think I was used as a tool.

Clytaemnestra

They will slay my child; they have tricked her with thy marriage.

Achilles

Like thee I blame thy lord, nor do I view it with mere indifference.

Clytaemnestra

No longer will I let shame prevent my kneeling to thee, a mortal to one goddess-born; why do I affect reserve? whose interests should I consult before my child’s? [Throwing herself before Achilles]

Oh! help me, goddess-born, in my sore distress, and her that was called thy bride — in vain, ‘tis true, yet called she was. For thee it was I wreathed her head and led her forth as if to marriage, but now it is to slaughter I am bringing her. On thee will come reproach because thou didst not help her; for though not wedded to her, yet wert thou the loving husband of my hapless maid in name at any rate. By thy beard, right hand, and mother too I do implore thee; for thy name it was that worked my ruin, and thou art bound to stand by that. Except thy knees I have no altar whereunto to fly; and not a friend stands at my side. Thou hast heard the cruel abandoned scheme of Agamemnon; and I, a woman, am come, as thou seest, to a camp of lawless sailor-folk, bold in evil’s cause, though useful when they list; wherefore if thou boldly stretch forth thine arm in my behalf, our safety is assured; but if thou withhold it, we are lost.

Chorus

A wondrous thing is motherhood, carrying with it a potent spell, wherein all share, so that for their children’s sake they will endure affliction.

Achilles

My proud spirit is stirred to range aloft, but it has learnt to grieve in misfortune and rejoice in high prosperity with equal moderation. For these are the men who can count on ordering all their life aright by wisdom’s rules. True, there are cases where ‘tis pleasant not to be too wise, but there are others, where some store of wisdom helps. Brought up in godly Chiron’s halls myself, I learnt to keep a single heart; and provided the Atridae lead aright, I will obey them; but when they cease therefrom, no more will I obey. Nay, but here and in Troy I will show the freedom of my nature, and, as far as in me lies, do honour to Ares with my spear. Thee, lady, who hast suffered so cruelly from thy nearest and dearest, will I, by every effort in a young man’s power, set right, investing thee with that amount of pity, and never shall thy daughter, after being once called my bride, die by her father’s hand; for I will not lend myself to thy husband’s subtle tricks; no! for it will be my name that kills thy child, although it wieldeth not the steel. Thy own husband is the actual cause, but I shall no longer be guiltless, if, because of me and my marriage, this maiden perishes, she that hath suffered past endurance and been the victim of affronts most strangely undeserved. So am I made the poorest wretch in Argos; I a thing of naught, and Menelaus counting for a man! No son of Peleus I, but the issue of a vengeful fiend, if my name shall serve thy husband for the murder. Nay! by Nereus, who begat my mother Thetis, in his home amid the flowing waves, never shall king Agamemnon touch thy daughter, no! not even to the laying of a finger-tip upon her robe; else will Sipylus, that frontier town of barbarism, the cradle of those chieftains’ line, be henceforth a city indeed, while Phthia’s name will nowhere find mention. Calchas, the seer, shall rue beginning the sacrifice with his barley-meal and lustral water. Why, what is a seer? A man who with luck tells the truth sometimes, with frequent falsehoods, but when his luck deserts him, collapses then and there. It is not to secure a bride that I have spoken thus — there be maids unnumbered eager to have my love — no! but king Agamemnon has put an insult on me; he should have asked my leave to use my name as a means to catch the child, for it was I chiefly who induced Clytaemnestra to betroth her daughter to me; verily I had yielded this to Hellas, if that was where our going to Ilium broke down; I would never have refused to further my fellow soldiers’ common interest. But, as it is, I am as naught in the eyes of those chieftains, and little they reck of treating me well or ill. My sword shall soon know if any one is to snatch thy daughter from me, for then will I make it reek with the bloody stains of slaughter, ere it reach Phrygia. Calm thyself then; as a god in his might I appeared to thee, without being so, but such will I show myself for all that.

Chorus

Son of Peleus, thy words are alike worthy of thee and that sea-born deity, the holy goddess.

Clytaemnestra

Ah! would I could find words to utter thy praise without excess, and yet not lose the graciousness thereof by stinting it; for when the good are praised, they have a feeling, as it were, of hatred for those who in their praise exceed the mean. But I am ashamed of intruding a tale of woe, since my affliction touches myself alone and thou art not affected by troubles of mine; but still it looks well for the man of worth to assist the unfortunate, even when he is not connected with them. Wherefore pity us, for our sufferings cry for pity; in the first place, I have harboured an idle hope in thinking to have thee wed my daughter; and next, perhaps, the slaying of my child will be to thee an evil omen in thy wooing hereafter, against which thou must guard thyself. Thy words were good, both first and last; for if thou will it so, my daughter will be saved. Wilt have her clasp thy knees in suppliant wise? ‘Tis no maid’s part; yet if it seem good to thee, why come she shall with the modest look of free-born maid; but if I shall obtain the self-same end from thee without ker coming, then let her abide within, for there is dignity in her reserve; still reserve must only go as far as the case allows.

Achilles

Bring not thou thy daughter out for me to see, lady, nor let us incur the reproach of the ignorant; for an army, when gathered together without domestic duties to employ it, loves the evil gossip of malicious tongues. After all, should ye supplicate me, ye will attain a like result as if I had ne’er been supplicated; for I am myself engaged in a mighty struggle to rid you of your troubles. One thing be sure thou hast heard; I will not tell a lie; if I do that or idly mock thee, may I die, but live if I preserve the maid.

Clytaemnestra

Bless thee for ever succouring the distressed!

Achilles

Hearken then to me, that the matter may succeed.

Clytaemnestra

What is thy proposal? for hear thee I must.

Achilles

Let us once more urge her father to a better frame of mind.

Clytaemnestra

He is something of a coward, and fears the army too much.

Achilles

Still argument o’erthroweth argument.

Clytaemnestra

Cold hope indeed; but tell me what I must do.

Achilles

Entreat him first not to slay his children, and if he is stubborn, come to me. For if he consents to thy request, my intervention need go no further, since this consent insures thy safety. I too shall show myself in a better light to my friend, and the army will not blame me, if I arrange the matter by reason rather than force; while, should things turn out well, the result will prove satisfactory both to thee and thy friends, even without my interference.

Clytaemnestra

How sensibly thou speakest! I must act as seemeth best to thee; but should I fail of my object, where am I to see thee again? whither must I turn my wretched steps and find thee ready to champion my distress?

Achilles

I am keeping watch to guard thee, where occasion calls, that none see thee passing through the host of Danai with that scared look. Shame not thy father’s house; for Tyndareus deserveth not to be ill spoken of, being a mighty man in Hellas.

Clytaemnestra

‘Tis even so. Command me; I must play the slave to thee. If there are gods, thou for thy righteous dealing wilt find them favourable; if there are none, what need to toil?

[Exeunt Achilles and Clytaemnestra.]

Chorus

What wedding-hymn was that which raised its strains to the sound of Libyan flutes, to the music of the dancer’s lyre, and the note of the pipe of reeds?

‘Twas in the day Pieria’s fair-tressed choir came o’er the slopes of Pelion to the marriage-feast of Peleus, beating the ground with print of golden sandals at the banquet of the gods, and hymning in dulcet strains the praise of Thetis and the son of Aeacus, o’er the Centaurs’ hill, down through the woods of Pelion.

There was the Dardanian boy, Phrygian Ganymede, whom Zeus delights to honour, drawing off the wine he mixed in the depths of golden bowls; while, along the gleaming sand, the fifty daughters of Nereus graced the marriage with their dancing, circling in a mazy ring.

Came too the revel-rout of Centaurs, mounted on horses, to the feast of the gods and the mixing-bowl of Bacchus, leaning on fir-trees, with wreaths of green foliage round their heads; and loudly cried the prophet Chiron, skilled in arts inspired by Phoebus; “Daughter of Nereus, thou shalt bear a son”— whose name he gave —”a dazzling light to Thessaly; for he shall come with an army of spearmen to the far-famed land of Priam, to set it in a blaze, his body cased in a suit of golden mail forged by Hephaestus, a gift from his goddess-mother, even from Thetis who bore him.”

Then shed the gods a blessing on the marriage of the high-born bride, who was first of Nereus’ daughters, and on the wedding of Peleus. But thee, will Argives crown, wreathing the lovely tresses of thy hair, like a dappled mountain hind brought from some rocky cave or a heifer undefiled, and staining with blood thy human throat; though thou wert never reared like these amid the piping and whistling of herdsmen, but at thy mother’s side, to be decked one day by her as the bride of a son of Inachus. Where now does the face of modesty or virtue avail aught? seeing that godlessness holds sway, and virtue is neglected by men and thrust behind them, lawlessness o’er law prevailing, and mortals no longer making common cause to keep the jealousy of gods from reaching them.

Clytaemnestra [reappearing from the tent]

I have come from the tent to look out for my husband, who went away and left its shelter long ago; while that poor child, my daughter, hearing of the death her father designs for her, is in tears, uttering in many keys her piteous lamentation. (Catching sight of Agamemnon) It seems I was speaking of one not far away; for there is Agamemnon, who will soon be detected in the commission of a crime against his own child.

[Enter Agamemnon.]

Agamemnon

Daughter of Leda, ‘tis lucky I have found thee outside the tent, to discuss with thee in our daughter’s absence subjects not suited for the ears of maidens on the eve of marriage.

Clytaemnestra

What, pray, is dependent on the present crisis?

Agamemnon

Send the maiden out to join her father, for the lustral water stands there ready, and barley-meal to scatter with the hand on the cleansing flame, and heifers to be slain in honour of the goddess Artemis, to usher in the marriage, their black blood spouting from them.

Clytaemnestra

Though fair the words thou usest, I know not how I am to name thy deeds in terms of praise.

Come forth, my daughter; full well thou knowest what is in thy father’s mind; take the child Orestes, thy brother, and bring him with thee in the folds of thy robe.

[Enter Iphigenia.] Behold child, she comes, in obedience to thy summons. Myself will speak the rest alike for her and me.

Agamemnon

My child, why weepest thou and no longer lookest cheerfully? why art thou fixing thine eyes upon the ground and holding thy robe before them?

Clytaemnestra

Alas! with which of my woes shall I begin? for I may treat them all as first, or put them last or midway anywhere.

Agamemnon

How now? I find you all alike, confusion and alarm in every eye.

Clytaemnestra

My husband, answer frankly the questions I ask thee.

Agamemnon

There is no necessity to order me; I am willing to be questioned.

Clytaemnestra

Dost thou mean to slay thy child and mine?

Agamemnon [starting]

Ha! these are heartless words, unwarranted suspicions!

Clytaemnestra

Peace! answer me that question first.

Agamemnon

Put a fair question and thou shalt have a fair answer.

Clytaemnestra

I have no other questions to put; give me no other answers.

Agamemnon

O fate revered, O destiny, and fortune mine!

Clytaemnestra

Aye, and mine and this maid’s too; the three share one bad fortune.

Agamemnon

Whom have I injured?

Clytaemnestra

Dost thou ask me this question? A thought like that itself amounts to thoughtlessness.

Agamemnon

Ruined! my secret out!

Clytaemnestra

I know all; I have heard what thou art bent on doing to me. Thy very silence and those frequent groans are a confession; tire not thyself by telling it.

Agamemnon

Lo! I am silent; for, if I tell thee a falsehood, needs must I add effrontery to misfortune.

Clytaemnestra

Well, listen; for I will now unfold my meaning and no longer employ dark riddles. In the first place — to reproach thee first with this — it was not of my own free will but by force that thou didst take and wed me, after slaying Tantalus, my former husband, and dashing my babe on the ground alive, when thou hadst torn him from my breast with brutal violence. Then, when those two sons of Zeus, who were likewise my brothers, came flashing on horseback to war with thee, Tyndareus, my aged sire, rescued thee because of thy suppliant prayers, and thou in turn hadst me to wife. Once reconciled to thee upon this footing, thou wilt bear me witness I have been a blameless wife to thee and thy family, chaste in love, an honour to thy house, that so thy coming in might be with joy and thy going out with gladness. And ‘tis seldom a man secures a wife like this, though the getting of a worthless woman is no rarity. Besides three daughters, of one of whom thou art heartlessly depriving me, I am the mother of this son of thine. If anyone asks thee thy reason for slaying her, tell me, what wilt thou say? or must say it for thee? “It is that Menelaus may recover Helen.” An honourable exchange, indeed, to pay a wicked woman’s price in children’s lives! ‘Tis buying what we most detest with what we hold most dear. Again, if thou go forth with the host, leaving me in thy halls, and art long absent at Troy, what will my feelings be at home, dost think? when I behold each vacant chair and her chamber now deserted, and then sit down alone in tears, making ceaseless lamentation for her, “Ah! my child, he that begat thee hath slain thee himself, he and no one else, nor was it by another’s hand ... to thy home, after leaving such a price to be paid; for it needs now but a trifling pretext for me and the daughters remaining to give thee the reception it is right thou shouldst receive. I adjure thee by the gods, compel me not to sin against thee, nor sin thyself. Go to; suppose thou sacrifice the child; what prayer wilt thou utter, when ‘tis done? what will the blessing be that thou wilt invoke upon thyself as thou art slaying our daughter? an ill returning maybe, seeing the disgrace that speeds thy going forth. Is it right that I should pray for any luck to attend thee? Surely we should deem the gods devoid of sense, if we harboured a kindly feeling towards murderers. Shalt thou embrace thy children on thy coming back to Argos? Nay, thou hast no right. Will any child of thine e’er face thee, if thou have surrendered one of them to death? Has this ever entered into thy calculations, or does thy one duty consist in carrying a sceptre about and marching at the head of an army? when thou mightest have made this fair proposal among the Argives; “Is it your wish, Achaeans, to sail for Phrygia’s shores? Why then, cast lots whose daughter has to die.” For that would have been a fair course for thee to pursue, instead of picking out thy own child for the victim and presenting her to the Danai; or Menelaus, inasmuch as it was his concern, should have slain Hermione for her mother. As it is, I, who still am true to thee, must lose my child; while she, who went astray, will return with her daughter, and live in happiness at Sparta. If I am wrong in aught herein, answer me; but if my words have been fairly urged, do not still slay thy child, who is mine too, and thou wilt be wise.

Chorus

Hearken to her Agamemnon, for to join in saving thy children’s lives is surely a noble deed; none would gainsay this.

Iphigenia

Had I the eloquence of Orpheus, my father, to move the rocks by chanted spells to follow me, or to charm by speaking whom I would, I had resorted to it. But as it is, I’ll bring my tears — the only art I know; for that I might attempt. And about thy knees, in suppliant wise, I twine my limbs these limbs thy wife here bore. Destroy me not before my time, for sweet is to look upon the light, and force me not to visit scenes below. I was the first to call thee father, thou the first to call me child; the first was I to sit upon thy knee and give and take the fond caress. And this was what thou then wouldst say, “Shall I see thee, my child, living a happy prosperous life in a husband’s home one day, in a manner worthy of myself?” And I in my turn would ask, as I hung about thy beard, whereto I now am clinging, “How shall I see thee? Shall I be giving thee a glad reception in my halls, father, in thy old age, repaying all thy anxious care in rearing me?

I remember all we said, ‘tis thou who hast forgotten and now wouldst take my life. By Pelops, I entreat thee spare me, by thy father Atreus and my mother here, who suffers now a second time the pangs she felt before when bearing me! What have I to do with the marriage of Paris and Helen? why is his coming to prove my ruin, father? Look upon me; one glance, one kiss bestow, that this at least I may carry to my death as a memorial of thee, though thou heed not my pleading.

[Holding up the babe to Orestes] Feeble ally though thou art, brother, to thy loved ones, yet add thy tears to mine and entreat our father for thy sister’s life; even in babes there is a natural sense of ill. O father, see this speechless supplication made to thee; pity me; have mercy on my tender years! Yea, by thy beard we two fond hearts implore thy pity, the one a babe, a full-grown maid the other. By summing all my pleas in one, I will prevail in what I say. To gaze upon yon light is man’s most cherished gift; that life below is nothingness, and whoso longs for death is mad. Better live a life of woe than die a death of glory!

Chorus

Ah, wretched Helen! Awful the struggle that has come to the sons of Atreus and their children, thanks to thee and those marriages of thine.

Agamemnon

While loving my own children, I yet understand what should move my pity and what should not; I were a madman else. ‘Tis terrible for me to bring myself to this, nor less terrible is it to refuse, daughter; for I must fare the same. Ye see the vastness of yon naval host, and the numbers of bronze clad warriors from Hellas, who can neither make their way to Ilium’s towers nor raze the far-famed citadel of Troy, unless I offer thee according to the word of Calchas the seer. Some mad desire possesses the host of Hellas to sail forthwith to the land of the barbarians, and put a stop to the rape of wives from Hellas, and they will slay my daughters in Argos as well as you and me, if I disregard the goddess’s behests. It is not Menelaus who hath enslaved me to him, child, nor have I followed wish of his; nay, ‘tis Hellas, for whom I must sacrifice thee whether I will or no; to this necessity I bow my head; for her freedom must be preserved, as far as any help of thine, daughter, or mine can go; nor must they, who are the sons Hellas, be pillaged of their wives by barbarian robbery.

[Agamemnon rushes from the stage.]

Clytaemnestra

My child! Ye stranger ladies!

Woe is me for this thy death! Thy father flies, surrendering thee to Hades.

Iphigenia

Woe is me, O mother mine! for the same strain hath fallen to both of us in our fortune. No more for me the light of day! no more the beams of yonder sun! Woe for that snow-beat glen in Phrygia and the hills of Ida, where Priam once exposed a tender babe, torn from his mother’s arms to meet a deadly doom, e’en Paris, called the child of Ida in the Phrygians’ town. Would Priam ne’er had settled him, the herdsman reared amid the herds, beside that water crystal-clear, where are fountains of the Nymphs and their meadow rich with blooming flowers, where hyacinths and rose-buds blow for goddesses to gather! Hither one day came Pallas and Cypris of the subtle heart, Hera too and Hermes messenger of Zeus — Cypris, proud of the longing she causes; Pallas of her prowess; and Hera of her royal marriage with king Zeus — to decide a hateful strife about their beauty; but it is my death, maidens — fraught, ‘tis true, with glory to the Danai — that Artemis has received as an offering, before they begin the voyage to Ilium.

O mother, mother! he that begat me to this life of sorrow has gone and left me all alone. Ah! woe is me! a bitter, bitter sight for me was Helen, evil Helen! to me now doomed to bleed and die, slaughtered by an impious sire.

I would this Aulis had never received in its havens here the sterns of their bronze-beaked ships, the fleet which was speeding them to Troy; and would that Zeus had never breathed on the Euripus a wind to stop the expedition, tempering, as he doth, a different breeze to different men, so that some have joy in setting sail, and sorrow some, and others hard constraint, to make some start and others stay and others furl their sails! Full of trouble then, it seems, is the race of mortals, full of trouble verily; and ‘tis ever Fate’s decree that man should find distress. Woe! woe to thee, thou child of Tyndareus, for the suffering and anguish sore, which thou art causing the Danai!

Chorus

I pity thee for thy cruel fate — a fate I would thou ne’er hadst met!

Iphigenia

O mother that bare me! I see a throng of men approaching.

Clytaemnestra

It is the goddess-born thou seest, child, for whom thou camest hither.

Iphigenia [calling into the tent]

Open the tent-door to me, servants, that I may hide myself.

Clytaemnestra

Why seek to fly, my child?

Iphigenia

I am ashamed to face Achilles.

Clytaemnestra

Wherefore?

Iphigenia

The luckless ending to our marriage causes me to feel abashed.

Clytaemnestra

No time for affectation now in face of what has chanced. Stay then; reserve will do no good, if only we can —

[Enter Achilles.]

Achilles

Daughter of Leda, lady of sorrows!

Clytaemnestra

No misnomer that.

Achilles

A fearful cry is heard among the Argives.

Clytaemnestra

What is it? tell me.

Achilles

It concerns thy child.

Clytaemnestra

An evil omen for thy words.

Achilles

They say her sacrifice is necessary.

Clytaemnestra

And is there no one to say a word against them?

Achilles

Indeed I was in some danger myself from the tumult.

Clytaemnestra

In danger of what? kind sir.

Achilles

Of being stoned.

Clytaemnestra

Surely not for trying to save my daughter?

Achilles

The very reason.

Clytaemnestra

Who would have dared to lay a finger on thee?

Achilles

The men of Hellas, one and all.

Clytaemnestra

Were not thy Myrmidon warriors at thy side?

Achilles

They were the first who turned against me.

Clytaemnestra

My child! we are lost, undone, it seems.

Achilles

They taunted me as the man whom marriage had enslaved.

Clytaemnestra

And what didst thou answer them?

Achilles

I craved the life of her I meant to wed —

Clytaemnestra

Justly so.

Achilles

The wife her father promised me.

Clytaemnestra

Aye, and sent to fetch from Argos.

Achilles

But I was overcome by clamorous cries.

Clytaemnestra

Truly the mob is a dire mischief.

Achilles

But I will help thee for all that.

Clytaemnestra

Wilt thou really fight them single-handed?

Achilles

Dost see these warriors here, carrying my arms?

Clytaemnestra

Bless thee for thy kind intent!

Achilles

Well, I shall be blessed.

Clytaemnestra

Then my child will not be slaughtered now?

Achilles

No, not with my consent at any rate.

Clytaemnestra

But will any of them come to lay hands on the maid?

Achilles

Thousands of them, with Odysseus at their head.

Clytaemnestra

The son of Sisyphus?

Achilles

The very same.

Clytaemnestra

Acting for himself or by the army’s order?

Achilles

By their choice — and his own.

Clytaemnestra

An evil choice indeed, to stain his hands in blood!

Achilles

But I will hold him back.

Clytaemnestra

Will he seize and bear her hence against her will?

Achilles

Aye, by her golden hair no doubt.

Clytaemnestra

What must I do, when it comes to that?

Achilles

Keep hold of thy daughter.

Clytaemnestra

Be sure that she shall not be slain, as far as that can help her.

Achilles

Believe me, it will come to this.

Iphigenia

Mother, hear me while I speak, for I see that thou art wroth with thy husband to no purpose; ‘tis hard for us to persist in impossibilities. Our thanks are due to this stranger for his ready help; but thou must also see to it that he is not reproached by the army, leaving us no better off and himself involved in trouble. Listen, mother; hear what thoughts have passed across my mind. I am resolved to die; and this I fain would do with honour, dismissing from me what is mean. Towards this now, mother, turn thy thoughts, and with me weigh how well I speak; to me the whole of mighty Hellas looks; on me the passage o’er the sea depends; on me the sack of Troy; and in my power it lies to check henceforth barbarian raids on happy Hellas, if ever in the days to come they seek to seize her daughters, when once they have atoned by death for the violation of Helen’s marriage by Paris. All this deliverance will my death insure, and my fame for setting Hellas free will be a happy one. Besides, I have no right at all to cling too fondly to my life; for thou didst not bear me for myself alone, but as a public blessing to all Hellas. What! shall countless warriors, armed with shields, those myriads sitting at the oar, find courage to attack the foe and die for Hellas, because their fatherland is wronged, and my one life prevent all this? What kind of justice is that? could I find a word in answer? Now turn we to that other point. It is not right that this man should enter the lists with all Argos or be slain for a woman’s sake. Better a single man should see the light than ten thousand women. If Artemis is minded to take this body, am I, a weak mortal, to thwart the goddess? Nay, that were impossible. To Hellas I resign it; offer this sacrifice and make an utter end of Troy. This is my enduring monument; marriage, motherhood, and fame — all these is it to me. And it is but right, mother, that Hellenes should rule barbarians, but not barbarians Hellenes, those being slaves, while these are free.

Chorus

Thou playest a noble part, maiden; but sickly are the whims of Fate and the goddess.

Achilles

Daughter of Agamemnon I some god was bent on blessing me, could I but have won thee for my wife. In thee I reckon Hellas happy, and thee in Hellas; for this that thou hast said is good and worthy of thy fatherland; since thou, abandoning a strife with heavenly powers, which are too strong for thee, has fairly weighed advantages and needs. But now that I have looked into thy noble nature, I feel still more a fond desire to win thee for my bride. Look to it; for I would fain serve thee and receive thee in my halls; and witness Thetis, how I grieve to think I shall not save thy life by doing battle with the Danai. Reflect, I say; a dreadful ill is death.

Iphigenia

This I say, without regard to anyone. Enough that the daughter of Tyndareus is causing wars and bloodshed by her beauty; then be not slain thyself, sir stranger, nor seek to slay another on my account; but let me, if I can, save Hellas.

Achilles

Heroic spirit! I can say no more to this, since thou art so minded; for thine is a noble resolve; why should not one avow the truth? Yet will I speak, for thou wilt haply change thy mind; that thou mayst know then what my offer is, I will go and place these arms of mine near the altar, resolved not to permit thy death but to prevent it; for brave as thou art, at sight of the knife held at thy throat, thou wilt soon avail thyself of what I said. So I will not let thee perish through any thoughtlessness of thine, but will go to the temple of the goddess with these arms and await thy arrival there.

[Exit Achilles.]

Iphigenia

Mother, why so silent, thine eyes wet with tears?

Clytaemnestra

I have reason, woe is me! to be sad at heart.

Iphigenia

Forbear; make me not a coward; here in one thing obey me.

Clytaemnestra

Say what it is, my child, for at my hands thou shalt ne’er suffer injury.

Iphigenia

Cut not off the tresses of thy hair for me, nor clothe thyself in sable garb.

Clytaemnestra

Why, my child, What is it thou hast said? Shall I, when I lose thee —

Iphigenia

“Lose” me, thou dost not; I am saved and thou renowned, as far as I can make thee.

Clytaemnestra

How so? Must I not mourn thy death?

Iphigenia

By no means, for I shall have no tomb heaped o’er me.

Clytaemnestra

What, is not the act of dying held to imply burial?

Iphigenia

The altar of the goddess, Zeus’s daughter, will be my tomb.

Clytaemnestra

Well, my child, I will let thee persuade me, for thou sayest well.

Iphigenia

Aye, as one who prospereth and doeth Hellas service.

Clytaemnestra

What message shall I carry to thy sisters?

Iphigenia

Put not mourning raiment on them either.

Clytaemnestra

But is there no fond message I can give the maidens from thee?

Iphigenia

Yes, my farewell words; and promise me to rear this babe Orestes to manhood.

Clytaemnestra

Press him to thy bosom; ‘tis thy last look.

Iphigenia

O thou that art most dear to me! thou hast helped thy friends as thou hadst means.

Clytaemnestra

Is there anything I can do to pleasure thee in Argos?

Iphigenia

Yes, hate not my father, thy own husband.

Clytaemnestra

Fearful are the trials through which he has to go because of thee.

Iphigenia

It was against his will he ruined me for the sake of Hellas.

Clytaemnestra

Ah! but be employed base treachery, unworthy of Atreus.

Iphigenia

Who will escort me hence, before my hair is torn?

Clytaemnestra

I will go with thee.

Iphigenia

No, not thou; thou say’st not well.

Clytaemnestra

I will, clinging to thy robes.

Iphigenia

Be persuaded by me, mother, stay here; for this is the better way alike for me and thee; but let one of these attendants of my father conduct me to the meadow of Artemis, where I shall be sacrificed.

Clytaemnestra

Art gone from me, my child?

Iphigenia

Aye, and with no chance of ever returning.

Clytaemnestra

Leaving thy mother?

Iphigenia

Yes, as thou seest, undeservedly.

Clytaemnestra

Hold! leave me not!

Iphigenia

I cannot let thee shed a tear. [Exit Clytaemnestra. To the Chorus] Be it yours, maidens, to hymn in joyous strains Artemis, the child of Zeus, for my hard lot; and let the order for a solemn hush go forth to the Danai. Begin the sacrifice with the baskets, let the fire blaze for the purifying meal of sprinkling, and my father pace from left to right about the altar; for I come to bestow on Hellas safety crowned with victory. Lead me hence, me the destroyer of Ilium’s town and the Phrygians; give me wreaths to cast about me; bring them hither; here are my tresses to crown; bring lustral water too. Dance to Artemis, queen Artemis the blest, around her fane and altar; for by the blood of my sacrifice I will blot out the oracle, if it needs must be.

O mother, lady revered! for thee shall my tears be shed, and now; for at the holy rites I may not weep.

Sing with me, maidens, sing the praises of Artemis, whose temple faces Chalcis, where angry spearmen madly chafe, here in the narrow havens of Aulis, because of me.

O Pelasgia, land of my birth, and Mycenae, my home!

Chorus

Is it on Perseus’ citadel thou callest, that town Cyclopean workmen build?

Iphigenia

To be a light to Hellas didst thou rear me, and so I say not No to death.

Chorus

Thou art right; no fear that fame will e’er desert thee!

Iphigenia

Hail to thee, bright lamp of day and light of Zeus! A different life, different lot is henceforth mine. Farewell I bid thee, light beloved!

[Exit Iphigenia.]

Chorus

Behold the maiden on her way, the destroyer of Ilium’s town and its Phrygians, with garlands twined about her head, and drops of lustral water on her, soon to besprinkle with her gushing blood the altar of a murderous goddess, what time her shapely neck is severed.

For thee fair streams of a father’s pouring and lustral waters are in store, for thee Achaea’s host is waiting, eager to reach the citadel of Ilium. But let us celebrate Artemis, the daughter of Zeus, queen among the gods, as if upon some happy chance.

O lady revered, delighting in human sacrifice, send on its way to Phrygia’s land the host of the Hellenes, to Troy’s abodes of guile, and grant that Agamemnon may wreathe his head with deathless fame, a crown of fairest glory for the spearmen of Hellas.

[Enter Messenger.]

Messenger

Come forth, O Clytaemnestra, daughter of Tyndareus, from the tent, to hear my news.

[Enter Clytaemnestra.]

Clytaemnestra

I heard thy voice and am come in sad dismay and fearful dread, not sure but what thou hast arrived with tidings of some fresh trouble for me besides the present woe.

Messenger

Nay, rather would I unfold to thee a story strange and marvellous about thy child.

Clytaemnestra

Delay not, then, but speak at once.

Messenger

Dear mistress, thou shalt learn all clearly; from the outset will I tell it, unless my memory fail me somewhat and confuse my tongue in its account. As soon as we reached the grove of Artemis, the child of Zeus, and the meadows gay with flowers, where the Achaean troops were gathered, bringing thy daughter with us, forthwith the Argive host began assembling; but when king Agamemnon saw the maiden on her way to the grove to be sacrificed, he gave one groan, and, turning away his face, let the tears burst from his eyes, as he held his robe before them. But the maid, standing close by him that begot her, spake on this wise, “O my father, here am I to do thy bidding; freely I offer this body of mine for my country and all Hellas, that ye may lead me to the altar of the goddess and sacrifice me, since this is Heaven’s ordinance. Good luck be yours for any help that I afford! and may ye obtain the victor’s gift and come again to the land of your fathers. So then let none of the Argives lay hands on me, for I will bravely yield my neck without a word.”

She spake; and each man marvelled, as he heard the maiden’s brave, unflinching speech. But in the midst up stood Talthybius — for his this duty was — and bade the host refrain from word or deed; and Calchas, the seer, drawing a sharp sword from out its scabbard laid it in a basket of beaten gold, crowning the maiden’s head the while. Then the son of Peleus, taking the basket and with it lustral water in his hand, ran round the altar of the goddess uttering these words, “O Artemis, thou child of Zeus, slayer of wild beasts, that wheelest thy dazzling light amid the gloom, accept this sacrifice, which we, the host of the Achaeans and king Agamemnon with us, offer to thee, even pure blood from a beauteous maiden’s neck; and grant us safe sailing for our ships and the sack of Troy’s towers by our spears.”

Meantime the sons of Atreus and all the host stood looking on the ground, while the priest, seizing his knife, offered up a prayer and was closely scanning the maiden’s throat to see where he should strike. ‘Twas no slight sorrow filled my heart, as I stood by with bowed head; when lo! a sudden miracle! Each one of us distinctly heard the sound of a blow, but none saw the spot where the maiden vanished. Loudly the priest cried out, and all the host took up the cry at the sight of a marvel all unlooked for, due to some god’s agency, and passing all belief, although ‘twas seen; for there upon the ground lay a hind of size immense and passing fair to sec, gasping out her life, with whose blood the altar of the goddess was thoroughly bedewed. Whereon spake Calchas thus — his joy thou canst imagine-”Ye captains of this leagued Achaean host, do ye see this victim, which the goddess has set before her altar, a mountain roaming hind? This is more welcome to her by far than the maid, that she may not defile her altar by shedding noble blood. Gladly has she accepted it and is granting us a prosperous voyage for our attack on Ilium. Wherefore take heart, sailors, each man of you, and away to your ships, for to-day must we leave the hollow bays of Aulis and cross the Aegean main.”

Then, when the sacrifice was wholly burnt to ashes in the blazing flame, he offered such prayers as were meet, that the army might win return; but me Agamemnon sends to tell thee this, and say what Heaven-sent luck is his, and how he hath secured undying fame throughout the length of Hellas. Now I was there myself and speak as an eye-witness; without a doubt thy child flew away to the gods. A truce then to thy sorrowing, and cease to be wroth with thy husband; for God’s ways with man are not what we expect, and those whom he loves, he keepeth safe; yea, for this day hath seen thy daughter dead and brought to life again.

[Exit Messenger.]

Chorus

What joy to hear these tidings from the messenger! He tells thee thy child is living still, among the gods.

Clytaemnestra

Which of the gods, my child, hath stolen thee? How am I to address thee? How can I be sure that this is not an idle tale told to cheer me, to make me cease my piteous lamentation for thee?

Chorus

Lo! king Agamemnon approaches, to confirm this story for thee.

[Enter Agamemnon.]

Agamemnon

Happy may we be counted, lady, as far as concerns our daughter; for she hath fellowship with gods in very sooth. But thou must take this tender babe and start for home, for the host is looking now to sail. Fare thee well! ‘tis long ere I shall greet thee on my return from Troy; may it be well with thee!

Chorus

Son of Atreus, start for Phrygia’s land with joy and so return, I pray, after taking from Troy her fairest spoils.

[Exeunt omnes.]

Iphigenia in Tauris

Characters in the Play

Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon

Orestes, brother of Iphigenia

Pylades, friend Of Orestes

Thoas, King of the Taurians

Herdsman

Messenger

Minerva

Chorus of Greek women, captives, attendants on Iphigenia in the temple

[Scene: Before the great temple of Diana of the Taurians. A blood-stained altar is prominently in view. Iphigenia, clad as a priestess, enters from the temple.]

Iphigenia

To Pisa, by the fleetest coursers borne,

Comes Pelops, son of Tantalus, and weds

The virgin daughter of Oenomaus:

From her sprung Atreus; Menelaus from him,

And Agamemnon; I from him derive

My birth, his Iphigenia, by his queen,

Daughter of Tyndarus. Where frequent winds

Swell the vex’d Euripus with eddying blasts,

And roll the darkening waves, my father slew me,

A victim to Diana, so he thought,

For Helen’s sake, its bay where Aulis winds,

To fame well known; for there his thousand ships,

The armament of Greece, the imperial chief

Convened, desirous that his Greeks should snatch

The glorious crown of victory from Troy,

And punish the base insult to the bed

Of Helen, vengeance grateful to the soul

Of Menelaus. But ‘gainst his ships the sea

Long barr’d, and not one favouring breeze to swell

His flagging sails, the hallow’d flames the chief

Consults, and Calchas thus disclosed the fates: —

“Imperial leader of the Grecian host,

Hence shalt thou not unmoor thy vessels, ere

Diana as a victim shall receive

Thy daughter Iphigenia: what the year

Most beauteous should produce, thou to the queen

Dispensing light didst vow to sacrifice:

A daughter Clytemnestra in thy house

Then bore (the peerless grace of beauty thus

To me assigning); her must thou devote

The victim.” Then Ulysses by his arts,

Me, to Achilles as design’d a bride,

Won from my mother. My unhappy fate

To Aulis brought me; on the altar there

High was I placed, and o’er me gleam’d the sword,

Aiming the fatal wound: but from the stroke

Diana snatch’d me, in exchange a hind

Giving the Grecians; through the lucid air

Me she conveyed to Tauris, here to dwell,

Where o’er barbarians a barbaric king

Holds his rude sway, named Thoas, whose swift foot

Equals the rapid wing: me he appoints

The priestess of this temple, where such rites

Are pleasing to Diana, that the name

Alone claims honour; for I sacrifice

(Such, ere I came, the custom of the state)

Whatever Grecian to this savage shore

Is driven: the previous rites are mine; the deed

Of blood, too horrid to be told, devolves

On others in the temple: but the rest,

In reverence to the goddess, I forbear.

But the strange visions which the night now past

Brought with it, to the air, if that may soothe

My troubled thought, I will relate. I seem’d,

As I lay sleeping, from this land removed,

To dwell at Argos, resting on my couch

Mid the apartments of the virgin train.

Sudden the firm earth shook: I fled, and stood

Without; the battlements I saw, and all

The rocking roof fall from its lofty height

In ruins to the ground: of all the house,

My father’s house, one pillar, as I thought,

Alone was left, which from its cornice waved

A length of auburn locks, and human voice

Assumed: the bloody office, which is mine

To strangers here, respecting, I to death,

Sprinkling the lustral drops, devoted it

With many tears. My dream I thus expound: —

Orestes, whom I hallow’d by my rites,

Is dead: for sons are pillars of the house;

They, whom my lustral lavers sprinkle, die.

I cannot to my friends apply my dream,

For Strophius, when I perish’d, had no son.

Now, to my brother, absent though he be,

Libations will I offer: this, at least,

With the attendants given me by the king,

Virgins of Greece, I can: but what the cause

They yet attend me not within the house,

The temple of the goddess, where I dwell?

[She goes into the temple. Orestes and Pylades enter cautiously.]

Orestes

Keep careful watch, lest some one come this way.

Pylades

I watch, and turn mine eye to every part.

Orestes

And dost thou, Pylades, imagine this

The temple of the goddess, which we seek,

Our sails from Argos sweeping o’er the main?

Pylades

Orestes, such my thought, and must be thine.

Orestes

And this the altar wet with Grecian blood?

Pylades

Crimson’d with gore behold its sculptured wreaths.

Orestes

See, from the battlements what trophies hang!

Pylades

The spoils of strangers that have here been slain.

Orestes

Behooves us then to watch with careful eye.

O Phoebus, by thy oracles again

Why hast thou led me to these toils? E’er since,

In vengeance for my father’s blood, I slew

My mother, ceaseless by the Furies driven,

Vagrant, an outcast, many a bending course

My feet have trod: to thee I came, of the

Inquired this whirling frenzy by what means,

And by what means my labours I might end.

Thy voice commanded me to speed my course

To this wild coast of Tauris, where a shrine

Thy sister hath, Diana; thence to take

The statue of the goddess, which from heaven

(So say the natives) to this temple fell:

This image, or by fraud or fortune won,

The dangerous toil achieved, to place the prize

In the Athenian land: no more was said;

But that, performing this, I should obtain

Rest from my toils. Obedient to thy words,

On this unknown, inhospitable coast

Am I arrived. Now, Pylades (for thou

Art my associate in this dangerous task),

Of thee I ask, What shall we do? for high

The walls, thou seest, which fence the temple round.

Shall we ascend their height? But how escape

Observing eyes? Or burst the brazen bars?

Of these we nothing know: in the attempt

To force the gates, or meditating means

To enter, if detected, we shall die.

Shall we then, ere we die, by flight regain

The ship in which we hither plough’d the sea?

Pylades

Of flight we brook no thought, nor such hath been

Our wont; nor may the god’s commanding voice

Be disobey’d; but from the temple now

Retiring, in some cave, which the black sea

Beats with its billows, we may lie conceal’d

At distance from our bark, lest some, whose eyes

May note it, bear the tidings to the king,

And we be seized by force. But when the eye

Of night comes darkling on, then must we dare,

And take the polish’d image from the shrine,

Attempting all things: and the vacant space

Between the triglyphs (mark it well) enough

Is open to admit us; by that way

Attempt we to descend: in toils the brave

Are daring; of no worth the abject soul.

Orestes

This length of sea we plough’d not, from this coast,

Nothing effected, to return: but well

Hast thou advised; the god must be obey’d.

Retire we then where we may lie conceal’d;

For never from the god will come the cause,

That what his sacred voice commands should fall

Effectless. We must dare. No toil to youth

Excuse, which justifies inaction, brings.

[They go out. Iphigenia and the Chorus enter from the temple.]

Iphigenia [singing]

You, who your savage dwellings hold

Nigh this inhospitable main,

‘Gainst clashing rocks with fury roll’d,

From all but hallow’d words abstain.

Virgin queen, Latona’s grace,

Joying in the mountain chase,

To thy court, thy rich domain,

To thy beauteous-pillar’d fane

Where our wondering eyes behold

Battlements that blaze with gold,

Thus my virgin steps I bend,

Holy, the holy to attend;

Servant, virgin queen, to thee;

Power, who bear’st life’s golden key,

Far from Greece for steeds renown’d,

From her walls with towers crown’d,

From the beauteous-planted meads

Where his train Eurotas leads,

Visiting the loved retreats,

Once my father’s royal seats.

Chorus [singing]

I come. What cares disturb thy rest?

Why hast thou brought me to the shrine?

Doth some fresh grief afflict thy breast?

Why bring me to this seat divine?

Thou daughter of that chief, whose powers

Plough’d with a thousand keels the strand

And ranged in arms shook Troy’s proud towers

Beneath the Atreidae’s great command!

Iphigenia [singing]

O ye attendant train,

How is my heart oppress’d with wo!

What notes, save notes of grief, can flow,

A harsh and unmelodious strain?

My soul domestic ills oppress with dread,

And bid me mourn a brother dead.

What visions did my sleeping sense appall

In the past dark and midnight hour! ‘Tis ruin, ruin all.

My father’s houses — it is no more:

No more is his illustrious line.

What dreadful deeds hath Argos known!

One only brother, Fate, was mine;

And dost thou rend him from me? Is he gone

To Pluto’s dreary realms below?

For him, as dead, with pious care This goblet I prepare;

And on the bosom of the earth shall flow

Streams from the heifer mountain-bred,

The grape’s rich juice, and, mix’d with these,

The labour of the yellow bees,

Libations soothing to the dead.

Give me the oblation: let me hold

The foaming goblet’s hallow’d gold.

O thou, the earth beneath,

Who didst from Agamemnon spring;

To thee, deprived of vital breath,

I these libations bring.

Accept them: to thy honour’d tomb,

Never, ah! never shall I come;

Never these golden tresses bear,

To place them there, there shed the tear;

For from my country far, a hind

There deem’d as slain, my wild abode I find.

Chorus [singing]

To thee thy faithful train

The Asiatic hymn will raise,

A doleful, a barbaric strain,

Responsive to thy lays,

And steep in tears the mournful song, —

Notes, which to the dead belong;

Dismal notes, attuned to woe

By Pluto in the realms below:

No sprightly air shall we employ

To cheer the soul, and wake the sense of joy.

Iphigenia [singing]

The Atreidae are no more;

Extinct their sceptre’s golden light;

My father’s house from its proud height

Is fallen: its ruins I deplore.

Who of her kings at Argos holds his reign,

Her kings once bless’d? But Sorrow’s train

Rolls on impetuous for the rapid steeds

Which o’er the strand with Pelops fly.

From what atrocious deeds

Starts the sun back, his sacred eye

Of brightness, loathing, turn’d aside?

And fatal to their house arose,

From the rich ram, Thessalia’s golden pride,

Slaughter on slaughter, woes on woes:

Thence, from the dead ages past,

Vengeance came rushing on its prey,

And swept the race of Tantalus away.

Fatal to thee its ruthless haste;

To me too fatal, from the hour

My mother wedded, from the night

She gave me to life’s opening light,

Nursed by affliction’s cruel power.

Early to me, the Fates unkind,

To know what sorrow is assign’d:

Me Leda’s daughter, hapless dame,

First blooming offspring of her bed

(A father’s conduct here I blame),

A joyless victim bred;

When o’er the strand of Aulis, in the pride

Of beauty kindling flames of love,

High on my splendid car I move,

Betrothed to Thetis’ son a bride:

Ah, hapless bride, to all the train

Of Grecian fair preferr’d in vain!

But now, a stranger on this strand,

‘Gainst which the wild waves beat,

I hold my dreary, joyless seat,

Far distant from my native land,

Nor nuptial bed is mine, nor child, nor friend.

At Argos now no more I raise

The festal song in Juno’s praise;

Nor o’er the loom sweet-sounding bend,

As the creative shuttle flies;

Give forms of Titans fierce to rise;

And, dreadful with her purple spear,

Image Athenian Pallas there:

But on this barbarous shore

The unhappy stranger’s fate I moan,

The ruthless altar stain’d with gore,

His deep and dying groan;

And, for each tear that weeps his woes,

From me a tear of pity flows.

Of these the sad remembrance now must sleep:

A brother dead, ah me! I weep:

At Argos him, by fate oppress’d,

I left an infant at the breast,

A beauteous bud, whose opening charms

Then blossom’d in his mother’s arms;

Orestes, born to high command,

The imperial sceptre of the Argive land.

Leader of the chorus

Leaving the sea-wash’d shore a herdsman comes

Speeding, with some fresh tidings to thee fraught.

[A Herdsman enters.]

Herdsman

Daughter of Agamemnon, and bright gem

Of Clytemnestra, hear strange things from me.

Iphigenia

And what of terror doth thy tale import?

Herdsman

Two youths, swift-rowing ‘twixt the clashing rocks

Of our wild sea, are landed on the beach,

A grateful offering at Diana’s shrine,

And victims to the goddess. Haste, prepare

The sacred lavers, and the previous rites.

Iphigenia

Whence are the strangers? from what country named?

Herdsman

From Greece: this only, nothing more, I know.

Iphigenia

Didst thou not hear what names the strangers bear?

Herdsman

One by the other was call’d Pylades.

Iphigenia

How is the stranger, his companion, named?

Herdsman

This none of us can tell: we heard it not.

Iphigenia

How saw you them? how seized them? by what chance?

Herdsman

Mid the rude cliffs that o’er the Euxine hang —

Iphigenia

And what concern have herdsmen with the sea?

Herdsman

To wash our herds in the salt wave we came.

Iphigenia

To what I ask’d return: how seized you them?

Tell me the manner; this I wish to know:

For slow the victims come, nor hath some while

The altar of the goddess, as was wont,

Been crimson’d with the streams of Grecian blood.

Herdsman

Our herds, which in the forest feed, we drove

Amid the tide that rushes to the shore,

‘Twixt the Symplegades: it was the place,

Where in the rifted rock the chafing surge

Hath hallow’d a rude cave, the haunt of those

Whose quest is purple. Of our number there

A herdsman saw two youths, and back return’d

With soft and silent step; then pointing, said,

“Do you not see them? These are deities

That sit there.” One, who with religious awe

Revered the gods, with hands uplifted pray’d,

His eyes fix’d on them, — “Son of the sea-nymph

Leucothoe, guardian of the labouring bark,

Our lord Palaemon, be propitious to us!

Or sit you on our shores, bright sons of Jove,

Castor and Pollux? Or the glorious boast

Of Nereus, father of the noble choir

Of fifty Nereids?” One, whose untaught mind

Audacious folly harden’d ‘gainst the sense

Of holy awe, scoff’d at his prayers, and said, —

“These are wreck’d mariners, that take their seat

In the cleft rock through fear, as they have heard

Our prescribed rite, that here we sacrifice

The stranger.” To the greater part he seem’d

Well to have spoken, and we judged it meet

To seize the victims, by our country’s law

Due to the goddess. Of the stranger youths,

One at this instant started from the rock:

Awhile he stood, and wildly toss’d his head,

And groan’d, his loose arms trembling all their length,

Convulsed with madness; and a hunter loud

Then cried, — “Dost thou behold her, Pylades?

Dost thou not see this dragon fierce from hell

Rushing to kill me, and against me rousing

Her horrid vipers? See this other here,

Emitting fire and slaughter from her vests,

Sails on her wings, my mother in her arms

Bearing, to hurl this mass of rock upon me!

Ah, she will kill me! Whither shall I fly?”

His visage might we see no more the same,

And his voice varied; now the roar of bulls,

The howl of dogs now uttering, mimic sounds

Sent by the maddening Furies, as they say.

Together thronging, as of death assured,

We sit in silence; but he drew his sword,

And, like a lion rushing mid our herds,

Plunged in their sides the weapon, weening thus

To drive the Furies, till the briny wave

Foam’d with their blood. But when among our herds

We saw this havoc made, we all ‘gan rouse

To arms, and blew our sounding shells to alarm

The neighbouring peasants; for we thought in fight

Rude herdsmen to these youthful strangers, train’d

To arms, ill match’d; and forthwith to our aid

Flock’d numbers. But, his frenzy of its force

Abating, on the earth the stranger falls,

Foam bursting from his mouth: but when he saw

The advantage, each adventured on and hurl’d

What might annoy him fallen: the other youth

Wiped off the foam, took of his person care,

His fine-wrought robe spread over him; with heed

The flying stones observing, warded of

The wounds, and each kind office to his friend

Attentively perform’d. His sense return’d;

The stranger started up, and soon perceived

The tide of foes that roll’d impetuous on,

The danger and distress that closed them round.

He heaved a sigh; an unremitting storm

Of stones we pour’d, and each incited each:

Then we his dreadful exhortation heard: —

“Pylades, we shall die; but let us die

With glory: draw thy sword, and follow me.”

But when we saw the enemies advance

With brandish’d swords, the steep heights crown’d with wood

We fell in flight: but others, if one flies,

Press on them; if again they drive these back,

What before fled turns, with a storm of stones

Assaulting them; but, what exceeds belief,

Hurl’d by a thousand hands, not one could hit

The victims of the goddess: scarce at length,

Not by brave daring seized we them, but round

We closed upon them, and their swords with stones

Beat, wily, from their hands; for on their knees

They through fatigue had sunk upon the ground:

We bare them to the monarch of this land:

He view’d them, and without delay to the

Sent them devoted to the cleansing vase,

And to the altar. Victims such as these,

O virgin, wish to find; for if such youths

Thou offer, for thy slaughter Greece will pay,

Her wrongs to thee at Aulis well avenged.

Leader

These things are wonderful, which thou hast told

Of him, whoe’er he be, the youth from Greece

Arrived on this inhospitable shore.

Iphigenia

‘Tis well: go thou, and bring the strangers hither:

What here is to be done shall be our care.

[The Herdsman departs.]

O my unhappy heart! before this hour

To strangers thou wast gentle, always touch’d

With pity, and with tears their tears repaid,

When Grecians, natives of my country, came

Into my hands: but from the dreams, which prompt

To deeds ungentle, showing that no more

Orestes views the sun’s fair light, whoe’er

Ye are that hither come, me will you find

Relentless now. This is the truth, my friends:

My heart is rent; and never will the wretch,

Who feels affliction’s cruel tortures, bear

Good-will to those that are more fortunate.

Never came gale from Jove, nor flying bark,

Which ‘twixt the dangerous rocks of the Euxine sea

Brought Helen hither, who my ruin wrought,

Nor Menelaus; that on them my foul wrongs

I might repay, and with an Aulis here

Requite the Aulis there, where I was seized,

And, as a heifer, by the Grecians slain:

My father too, who gave me birth, was priest.

Ah me! the sad remembrance of those ills

Yet lives: how often did I stroke thy cheek,

And, hanging on thy knees, address thee thus: —

“Alas, my father! I by thee am led

A bride to bridal rites unbless’d and base:

Them, while by thee I bleed, my mother hymns,

And the Argive dames, with hymeneal strains,

And with the jocund pipe the house resounds:

But at the altar I by thee am slain;

For Pluto was the Achilles, not the son

Of Peleus, whom to me thou didst announce

The affianced bridegroom, and by guile didst bring

To bloody nuptials in the rolling car.”

But, o’er mine eyes the veil’s fine texture spread,

This brother in my hands who now is lost,

I clasp’d not, though his sister; did not press

My lips to his, through virgin modesty,

As going to the house of Peleus: then

Each fond embrace I to another time

Deferr’d, as soon to Argos to return.

If, O unhappy brother, thou art dead,

From what a state, thy father’s envied height

Of glory, loved Orestes, art thou torn! —

These false rules of the goddess much I blame:

Whoe’er of mortals is with slaughter stain’d,

Or hath at childbirth given assisting hands,

Or chanced to touch aught dead, she as impure

Drives from her altars; yet herself delights

In human victims bleeding at her shrine.

Ne’er did Latona from the embrace of Jove

Bring forth such inconsistence: I then deem

The feast of Tantalus, where gods were guests,

Unworthy of belief, as that they fed

On his son’s flesh delighted; and I think

These people, who themselves have a wild joy

In shedding human blood, their savage guilt

Charge on the goddess: for this truth I hold;

None of the gods is evil, or doth wrong.

[She enters the temple.]

Chorus [singing]

Ye rocks, ye dashing rocks, whose brow

Frowns o’er the darken’d deeps below;

Whose wild, inhospitable wave,

From Argos flying and her native spring,

The virgin once was known to brave,

Tormented with the brize’s maddening sting,

From Europe when the rude sea o’er

She pass’d to Asia’s adverse shore;

Who are these hapless youths, that dare to land,

Leaving those soft, irriguous meads,

Where, his green margin fringed with reeds,

Eurotas rolls his ample tide,

Or Dirce’s hallow’d waters glide,

And touch this barbarous, stranger-hating strand,

The altars where a virgin dews,

And blood the pillar’d shrine imbrues?

Did they with oars impetuous sweep

(Rank answering rank) the foamy deep,

And wing their bark with flying sails,

To raise their humble fortune their desire;

Eager to catch the rising gales,

Their bosoms with the love of gain on fire?

For sweet is hope to man’s fond breast;

The hope of gain, insatiate guest,

Though on her oft attends Misfortune’s train;

For daring man she tempts to brave

The dangers of the boisterous wave,

And leads him heedless of his fate

Through many a distant barbarous state.

Vain his opinions, his pursuits are vain!

Boundless o’er some her power is shown,

But some her temperate influence own.

How did they pass the dangerous rocks

Clashing with rude, tremendous shocks?

How pass the savage-howling shore,

Where once the unhappy Phineus held his reign,

And sleep affrighted flies its roar,

Steering their rough course o’er this boisterous main,

Form’d in a ring, beneath whose waves

The Nereid train in high arch’d caves

Weave the light dance, and raise the sprightly song,

While, whispering in their swelling sails,

Soft Zephyrs breathe, or southern gales

Piping amid their tackling play,

As their bark ploughs its watery way

Those hoary cliffs, the haunts of birds, along,

To that wild strand, the rapid race

Where once Achilles deign’d to grace?

O that from Troy some chance would bear

Leda’s loved daughter, fatal fair

(The royal virgin’s vows are mine)

That her bright tresses roll’d in crimson dew,

Her warm blood flowing at this shrine

The altar of the goddess might imbrue;

And Vengeance, righteous to repay

Her former mischiefs, seize her prey!

But with what rapture should I hear his voice,

If one this shore should reach from Greece,

And bid the toils of slavery cease!

Or might I in the hour of rest

With pleasing dreams of Greece be bless’d;

So in my house, my native land rejoice;

In sleep enjoy the pleasing strain

For happiness restored again

[Iphigenia enters from the temple.]

Iphigenia

But the two youths, their hands fast bound in chains,

The late-seized victims to the goddess, come.

Silence, my friends; for, destined at the shrine

To bleed, the Grecian strangers near approach;

And no false tidings did the herdsman bring.

Leader of the chorus

Goddess revered, if grateful to thy soul

This state presents such sacrifice, accept

The victims, which the custom of this land

Gives thee, but deem’d unholy by the Greeks.

[Guards lead in Orestes and Pylades, bound.]

Iphigenia

No more; that to the goddess each due rite

Be well perform’d shall be my care. Unchain

The strangers’ hands; that, hallow’d as they are,

They may no more be bound.

[The guards release Orestes and Pylades.]

Go you, prepare

Within the temple what the rites require.

Unhappy youths, what mother brought you forth,

Your father who? Your sister, if perchance

Ye have a sister, of what youths deprived?

For brother she shall have no more. Who knows

Whom such misfortunes may attend? For dark

What the gods will creeps on; and none can tell

The ills to come: this fortune from the sight

Obscures. But, O unhappy strangers, say,

Whence came you? Sail’d you long since for this land?

But long will be your absence from your homes,

For ever, in the dreary realms below.

Orestes

Lady, whoe’er thou art, why for these things

Dost thou lament? why mourn for ills, which soon

Will fall on us? Him I esteem unwise,

Who, when he sees death near, tries to o’ercome

Its terrors with bewailings, without hope

Of safety: ill he adds to ill, and makes

His folly known, yet dies. We must give way

To fortune; therefore mourn not thou for us:

We know, we are acquainted with your rites.

Iphigenia

Which of you by the name of Pylades

Is call’d? This first it is my wish to know.

Orestes

If aught of pleasure that may give thee, he.

Iphigenia

A native of what Grecian state, declare.

Orestes

What profit knowing this wouldst thou obtain?

Iphigenia

And are you brothers, of one mother born?

Orestes

Brothers by friendship, lady, not by birth.

Iphigenia

To thee what name was by thy father given?

Orestes

With just cause I Unhappy might be call’d.

Iphigenia

I ask not that; to fortune that ascribe.

Orestes

Dying unknown, rude scoffs I shall avoid.

Iphigenia

Wilt thou refuse? Why are thy thoughts so high?

Orestes

My body thou mayst kill, but not my name.

Iphigenia

Wilt thou not say a native of what state?

Orestes

The question naught avails, since I must die.

Iphigenia

What hinders thee from granting me this grace?

Orestes

The illustrious Argos I my country boast.

Iphigenia

By the gods, stranger, is thy birth from thence?

Orestes

My birth is from Mycenae, once the bless’d.

Iphigenia

Dost thou an exile fly, or by what fate?

Orestes

Of my free will, in part not free, I fly.

Iphigenia

Wilt thou then tell me what I wish to know?

Orestes

Whate’er is foreign to my private griefs.

Iphigenia

To my dear wish from Argos art thou come.

Orestes

Not to my wish; but if to thine, enjoy it.

Iphigenia

Troy, whose fame spreads so wide, perchance thou know’st.

Orestes

O that I ne’er had known her, ev’n in dreams!

Iphigenia

They say she is no more, by war destroy’d.

Orestes

It is so: you have heard no false reports.

Iphigenia

Is Helena with Menelaus return’d?

Orestes

She is; and one I love her coming rues.

Iphigenia

Where is she? Me too she of old hath wrong’d.

Orestes

At Sparta with her former lord she dwells.

Iphigenia

By Greece, and not by me alone abhorr’d!

Orestes

I from her nuptials have my share of grief.

Iphigenia

And are the Greeks, as Fame reports, return’d?

Orestes

How briefly all things dost thou ask at once!

Iphigenia

This favour, ere thou die, I wish to obtain.

Orestes

Ask, then: since such thy wish, I will inform thee.

Iphigenia

Calchas, a prophet, — came he back from Troy?

Orestes

He perish’d at Mycenae such the fame.

Iphigenia

Goddess revered! But doth Ulysses live?

Orestes

He lives, they say, but is not yet return’d.

Iphigenia

Perish the wretch, nor see his country more!

Orestes

Wish him not ill, for all with him is ill.

Iphigenia

But doth the son of sea-born Thetis live?

Orestes

He lives not: vain his nuptial rites at Aulis.

Iphigenia

That all was fraud, as those who felt it say.

Orestes

But who art thou, inquiring thus of Greece?

Iphigenia

I am from thence, in early youth undone.

Orestes

Thou hast a right to inquire what there hath pass’d.

Iphigenia

What know’st thou of the chief, men call the bless’d?

Orestes

Who? Of the bless’d was not the chief I knew.

Iphigenia

The royal Agamemnon, son of Atreus.

Orestes

Of him I know not, lady; cease to ask.

Iphigenia

Nay, by the gods, tell me, and cheer my soul.

Orestes

He’s dead, the unhappy chief: no single ill.

Iphigenia

Dead! By what adverse fate? O wretched me!

Orestes

Why mourn for this? How doth it touch thy breast?

Iphigenia

The glories of his former state I mourn.

Orestes

Dreadfully murdered by a woman’s hand.

Iphigenia

How wretched she that slew him, he thus slain!

Orestes

Now then forbear: of him inquire no more.

Iphigenia

This only: lives the unhappy monarch’s wife?

Orestes

She, lady, is no more, slain by her son.

Iphigenia

Alas, the ruin’d house! What his intent?

Orestes

To avenge on her his noble father slain.

Iphigenia

An ill, but righteous deed, how justly done!

Orestes

Though righteous, by the gods be is not bless’d.

Iphigenia

Hath Agamemnon other offspring left?

Orestes

He left one virgin daughter, named Electra.

Iphigenia

Of her that died a victim is aught said?

Orestes

This only, dead, she sees the light no more.

Iphigenia

Unhappy she! the father too who slew her!

Orestes

For a bad woman she unseemly died.

Iphigenia

At Argos lives the murdered father’s son?

Orestes

Nowhere he lives, poor wretch! and everywhere.

Iphigenia

False dreams, farewell; for nothing you import.

Orestes

Nor are those gods, that have the name of wise,

Less false than fleeting dreams. In things divine,

And in things human, great confusion reigns.

One thing is left; that, not unwise of soul,

Obedient to the prophet’s voice he perish’d;

For that he perish’d, they who know report.

Leader

What shall we know, what of our parents know?

If yet they live or not, who can inform us?

Iphigenia

Hear me: this converse prompts a thought, which gives

Promise of good, ye youths of Greece, to you,

To these, and me: thus may it well be done,

If, willing to my purpose, all assent.

Wilt thou, if I shall save thee, go for me

A messenger to Argos, to my friends

Charged with a letter, which a captive wrote,

Who pitied me, nor murderous thought my hand,

But that he died beneath the law, these rites

The goddess deeming just? for from that hour

I have not found who might to Argos bear

Himself my message, back with life return’d,

Or send to any of my friends my letter.

Thou, therefore, since it seems thou dost not bear

Ill-will to me, and dost Mycenae know,

And those I wish to address, be safe, and live,

No base reward for a light letter, life

Receiving; and let him, since thus the state

Requires, without thee to the goddess bleed.

Orestes

Virgin unknown, well hast thou said in all

Save this, that to the goddess he should bleed

A victim; that were heavy grief indeed.

I steer’d the vessel to these ills; he sail’d

Attendant on my toils: to gain thy grace

By his destruction, and withdraw myself

From sufferings, were unjust: thus let it be:

Give him the letter; to fulfil thy wish,

To Argos he will bear it: me let him

Who claims that office, slay: base is his soul,

Who in calamities involves his friends,

And saves himself; this is a friend, whose life,

Dear to me as my own, I would preserve.

Iphigenia

Excellent spirit! from some noble root

It shows thee sprung, and to thy friends a friend

Sincere; of those that share my blood if one

Remains, such may he be! for I am not

Without a brother, strangers, from my sight

Though distant now. Since then thy wish is such,

Him will I send to Argos; he shall bear

My letter; thou shalt die; for this desire

Hath strong possession of thy noble soul.

Orestes

Who then shall do the dreadful deed, and slay me?

Iphigenia

I: to atone the goddess is my charge.

Orestes

A charge unenvied, virgin, and unbless’d.

Iphigenia

Necessity constrains: I must obey.

Orestes

Wilt thou, a woman, plunge the sword in men?

Iphigenia

No: but thy locks to sprinkle round is mine.

Orestes

Whose then, if I may ask, the bloody deed?

Iphigenia

To some within the temple this belongs.

Orestes

What tomb is destined to receive my corse?

Iphigenia

The hallow’d fire within, and a dark cave.

Orestes

O, that a sister’s hand might wrap these limbs!

Iphigenia

Vain wish, unhappy youth, whoe’er thou art,

Hast thou conceived; for from this barbarous land

Far is her dwelling. Yet, of what my power

Permits (since thou from Argos draw’st thy birth),

No grace will I omit: for in the tomb

I will place much of ornament, and pour

The dulcet labour of the yellow bee,

From mountain flowers extracted, on thy pyre.

But I will go, and from the temple bring

The letter; yet ‘gainst me no hostile thought

Conceive. You, that attend here, guard them well,

But without chains. To one, whom most I love

Of all my friends, to Argos I shall send

Tidings perchance unlook’d for; and this letter,

Declaring those whom he thought dead alive,

Shall bear him an assured and solid joy.

[She enters the temple.]

Chorus [chanting]

Thee, o’er whose limbs the bloody drops shall soon

Be from the lavers sprinkled, I lament.

Orestes

This asks no pity, strangers: but farewell.

Chorus [chanting]

Thee for thy happy fate we reverence, youth

Who to thy country shall again return.

Pylades

To friends unwish’d, who leave their friends to die.

Chorus [chanting]

Painful dismission! Which shall I esteem

Most lost, alas, alas! which most undone?

For doubts my wavering judgment yet divide,

If chief for thee my sighs should swell, or thee.

Orestes

By the gods, Pylades, is thy mind touch’d

In manner like as mine?

Pylades

I cannot tell;

Nor to thy question have I to reply.

Orestes

Who is this virgin? With what zeal for Greece

Made she inquiries of us what the toils

At Troy, if yet the Grecians were return’d,

And Calchas, from the flight of birds who form’d

Presages of the future. And she named

Achilles: with what tenderness bewail’d

The unhappy Agamemnon! Of his wife

She ask’d me, — of his children: thence her race

This unknown virgin draws, an Argive; else

Ne’er would she send this letter, nor have wish’d

To know these things, as if she bore a share

(If Argos flourish) in its prosperous state.

Pylades

Such were my thoughts (but thou hast given them words,

Preventing me) of every circumstance,

Save one: the fate of kings all know, whose state

Holds aught of rank. But pass to other thoughts.

Orestes

What? Share them; so thou best mayst be inform’d.

Pylades

That thou shouldst die, and I behold this light,

Were base: with thee I sail’d, with thee to die

Becomes me; else shall I obtain the name

Of a vile coward through the Argive state,

And the deep vales of Phocis. Most will think

(For most think ill) that by betraying the

I saved myself, home to return alone;

Or haply that I slew thee, and thy death

Contrived, that in the ruin of thy house

Thy empire I might grasp, to me devolved

As wedded to thy sister, now sole heir.

These things I fear, and hold them infamous.

Behooves me then with thee to die, with the

To bleed a victim, on the pyre with thine

To give my body to the flames; for this

Becomes me as thy friend. who dreads reproach.

Orestes

Speak more auspicious words: ‘tis mine to bear

Ills that are mine; and single when the wo,

I would not bear it double. What thou say’st

Is vile and infamous, would light on me,

Should I cause thee to die, who in my toils

Hast borne a share: to me, who from the gods

Suffer afflictions which I suffer, death

Is not unwelcome: thou art happy, thine

An unpolluted and a prosperous house;

Mine impious and unbless’d: if thou art saved,

And from my sister (whom I gave to thee,

Betroth’d thy bride) art bless’d with sons, my name

May yet remain, nor all my father’s house

In total ruin sink. Go then, and live:

Dwell in the mansion of thy ancestors:

And when thou comest to Greece, to Argos famed

For warrior-steeds, by this right hand I charge the

Raise a sepulchral mound, and on it place

A monument to me; and to my tomb

Her tears, her tresses let my sister give;

And say, that by an Argive woman’s hand

I perish’d, to the altar’s bloody rites

A hallow’d victim. Never let thy soul

Betray my sister, for thou seest her state,

Of friends how destitute, her father’s house

How desolate. Farewell. Of all my friends,

Thee have I found most friendly, from my youth

Train’d up with me, in all my sylvan sports

Thou dear associate, and through many toils

Thou faithful partner of my miseries.

Me Phoebus, though a prophet, hath deceived,

And, meditating guile, hath driven me far

From Greece, of former oracles ashamed;

To him resign’d, obedient to his words,

I slew my mother, and my meed is death.

Pylades

Yes, I will raise thy tomb: thy sister’s bed

I never will betray, unhappy youth,

For I will hold thee dearer when thou art dead,

Than while thou livest; nor hath yet the voice

Of Phoebus quite destroy’d thee, though thou stand

To sometimes mighty but sometimes mighty woes

Yield mighty changes, so when Fortune wills.

Orestes

Forbear: the words of Phoebus naught avail me;

For, passing from the shrine, the virgin comes.

[Iphigenia enters from the temple. She is carrying a letter.]

Iphigenia [to the guards]

Go you away, and in the shrine prepare

What those, who o’er the rites preside, require.

[The guards go into the temple.]

Here, strangers, is the letter folded close:

What I would further, hear. The mind of man

In dangers, and again, from fear relieved,

Of safety when assured, is not the same:

I therefore fear lest he, who should convey

To Argos this epistle, when return’d

Safe to his native country, will neglect

My letter, as a thing of little worth.

Orestes

What wouldst thou then? What is thy anxious thought?

Iphigenia

This: let him give an oath that he will bear

To Argos this epistle to those friends,

To whom it is my ardent wish to send it.

Orestes

And wilt thou in return give him thy oath?

Iphigenia

That I will do, or will not do, say what.

Orestes

To send him from this barbarous shore alive.

Iphigenia

That’s just: how should he bear my letter else?

Orestes

But will the monarch to these things assent?

Iphigenia

By me induced. Him I will see embark’d.

Orestes

Swear then; and thou propose the righteous oath.

Iphigenia

This, let him say, he to my friends will give.

Pylades

Well, to thy friends this letter I will give.

Iphigenia

Thee will I send safe through the darkening rocks.

Pylades

What god dost thou invoke to attest thy oath?

Iphigenia

Diana, at whose shrine high charge I hold.

Pylades

And I heaven’s potent king, the awful Jove.

Iphigenia

But if thou slight thy oath, and do me wrong?

Pylades

Never may I return. But if thou fail,

And save me not?

Iphigenia

Then never, while I live,

May I revisit my loved Argos more!

Pylades

One thing, not mention’d, thy attention claims.

Iphigenia

If honour owes it, this will touch us both.

Pylades

Let me in this be pardon’d, if the bark

Be lost, and with it in the surging waves

Thy letter perish, and I naked gain

The shore; no longer binding be the oath.

Iphigenia

Know’st thou what I will do? For various ills

Arise to those that plough the dangerous deep.

What in this letter is contain’d, what here

Is written, all I will repeat to thee,

That thou mayst bear my message to my friends.

‘Gainst danger thus I guard: if thou preserve

The letter, that though silent will declare

My purport; if it perish in the sea,

Saving thyself, my words too thou wilt save.

Pylades

Well hast thou said touching the gods and me.

Say then to whom at Argos shall I bear

This letter? What relate as heard from thee?

Iphigenia [reading]

This message to Orestes, to the son

Of Agamemnon, bear: — She, who was slain

At Aulis, Iphigenia, sends thee this:

She lives, but not to those who then were there.

Orestes

Where is she? From the dead return’d to life?

Iphigenia

She whom thou seest: but interrupt me not.

To Argos, O my brother, ere I die,

Bear me from this barbaric land, and far

Remove me from this altar’s bloody rites,

At which to slay the stranger is my charge. —

Orestes

What shall I say? Where are we, Pylades?

Iphigenia

Or on thy house for vengeance will I call,

Orestes. Twice repeated, learn the name.

Orestes

Ye gods!

Iphigenia

In my cause why invoke the gods?

Orestes

Nothing: proceed: my thoughts were wandering wide:

Strange things of thee unask’d I soon shall learn.

Iphigenia

Tell him the goddess saved me, in exchange

A hind presenting, which my father slew

A victim, deeming that he plunged his sword

Deep in my breast: me in this land she placed.

Thou hast my charge: and this my letter speaks.

Pylades

O, thou hast bound me with an easy oath:

What I have sworn with honest purpose, long

Defer I not, but thus discharge mine oath.

To thee a letter from thy sister, lo,

I bear, Orestes; and I give it thee.

[Pylades hands the letter to Orestes.]

Orestes

I do receive it, but forbear to unclose

its foldings, greater pleasure first to enjoy

Than words can give. My sister, O most dear,

Astonish’d ev’n to disbelief, I throw

Mine arms around thee with a fond embrace,

In transport at the wondrous things I hear.

Leader of the chorus

Stranger, thou dost not well with hands profane

Thus to pollute the priestess of the shrine,

Grasping her garments hallow’d from the touch.

Orestes

My sister, my dear sister, from one sire,

From Agamemnon sprung, turn not away,

Holding thy brother thus beyond all hope.

Iphigenia

My brother! Thou my brother! Wilt thou not

Unsay these words? At Argos far he dwells.

Orestes

Thy brother, O unhappy! is not there.

Iphigenia

Thee did the Spartan Tyndarus bring forth?

Orestes

And from the son of Pelops’ son I sprung,

Iphigenia

What say’st thou? Canst thou give me proof of this?

Orestes

I can: ask something of my father’s house.

Iphigenia

Nay, it is thine to speak, mine to attend.

Orestes

First let me mention things which I have heard

Electra speak: to thee is known the strife

Which fierce ‘twixt Atreus and Thyestes rose.

Iphigenia

Yes, I have heard it; for the golden ram, —

Orestes

In the rich texture didst thou not inweave it?

Iphigenia

O thou most dear! Thou windest near my heart.

Orestes

And image in the web the averted sun?

Iphigenia

In the fine threads that figure did I work.

Orestes

For Aulis did thy mother bathe thy limbs?

Iphigenia

I know it, to unlucky spousals led.

Orestes

Why to thy mother didst thou send thy locks?

Iphigenia

Devoted for my body to the tomb.

Orestes

What I myself have seen I now as proofs

Will mention. In thy father’s house, hung high

Within thy virgin chambers, the old spear

Of Pelops, which he brandish’d when he slew

Oenomaus, and won his beauteous bride,

The virgin Hippodamia, Pisa’s boast.

Iphigenia

O thou most dear (for thou art he), most dear

Acknowledged, thee, Orestes, do I hold,

From Argos, from thy country distant far?

Orestes

And hold I thee, my sister, long deem’d dead?

Grief mix’d with joy, and tears, not taught by woe

To rise, stand melting in thy eyes and mine.

Iphigenia

Thee yet an infant in thy nurse’s arms

I left, a babe I left thee in the house.

Thou art more happy, O my soul, than speech

Knows to express. What shall I say? ‘tis all

Surpassing wonder and the power of words.

Orestes

May we together from this hour be bless’d!

Iphigenia

An unexpected pleasure, O my friends,

Have I received; yet fear I from my hands

Lest to the air it fly. O sacred hearths

Raised by the Cyclops! O my country, loved

Mycenae! Now that thou didst give me birth,

I thank thee; now I thank thee, that my youth

Thou trainedst, since my brother thou has train’d,

A beam of light, the glory of his house.

Orestes

We in our race are happy; but our life,

My sister, by misfortunes is unhappy.

Iphigenia

I was, I know, unhappy, when the sword

My father, frantic, pointed at my neck.

Orestes

Ah me! methinks ev’n now I see thee there.

Iphigenia

When to Achilles, brother, not a bride,

I to the sacrifice by guile was led,

And tears and groans the altar compass’d round.

Orestes

Alas, the lavers there!

Iphigenia

I mourn’d the deed

My father dared; unlike a father’s love;

Cruel, unlike a father’s love, to me.

Orestes

Ill deeds succeed to ill: if thou hadst slain

Thy brother, by some god impell’d, what griefs

Must have been thine at such a dreadful deed!

Iphigenia [chanting]

Dreadful my brother, O how dreadful! Scarce

Hast thou escaped a foul, unhallow’d death,

Slain by my hands. But how will these things end?

What Fortune will assist me? What safe means

Shall I devise to send thee from this state,

From slaughter, to thy native land, to Argos,

Ere with thy blood the cruel sword be stain’d?

This to devise, O my unhappy soul!

This to devise is thine. Wilt thou by land,

Thy bark deserted, speed thy flight on foot?

Perils await thee mid these barbarous tribes,

Through pathless wilds; and ‘twixt the clashing rocks,

Narrow the passage for the flying bark,

And long. Unhappy, ah, unhappy me!

What god, what mortal, what unlook’d for chance

Will expedite our dangerous way, and show

Two sprung from Atreus a release from ills?

Leader

What having seen and heard I shall relate,

Is marvellous, and passes fabling tales.

Pylades

When after absence long, Orestes, friend

Meets friend, embraces will express their joy.

Behooves us now, bidding farewell to grief,

And heedful to obtain the glorious name

Of safety, from this barbarous land to fly.

The wise, of fortune not regardless, seize

The occasion, and to happiness advance.

Orestes

Well hast thou said; and Fortune here, I ween,

Will aid us; to the firm and strenuous mind

More potent works the influence divine.

Iphigenia

Nothing shall check, nothing restrain my speech:

First will I question thee what fortune waits

Electra: this to know would yield me joy.

Orestes

With him [pointing to Pylades] she dwells, and happy is her life,

Iphigenia

Whence then is he? and from what father sprung?

Orestes

From Phocis: Strophius is his father named.

Iphigenia

By Atreus’ daughter to my blood allied?

Orestes

Nearly allied: my only faithful friend.

Iphigenia

He was not then, me when my father slew.

Orestes

Childless was Strophius for some length of time.

Iphigenia

O thou, the husband of my sister, hail

Orestes

More than relation, my preserver too.

Iphigenia

But to thy mother why that dreadful deed?

Orestes

Of that no more: to avenge my father’s death.

Iphigenia

But for what cause did she her husband slay?

Orestes

Of her inquire not: thou wouldst blush to hear.

Iphigenia

The eyes of Argos now are raised to thee.

Orestes

There Menelaus is lord; I, outcast, fly.

Iphigenia

Hath he then wrong’d his brother’s ruin’d house?

Orestes

Not so: the Furies fright me from the land.

Iphigenia

The madness this, which seized thee on the shore?

Orestes

I was not first beheld unhappy there.

Iphigenia

Stern powers! they haunt thee for thy mother’s blood.

Orestes

And ruthless make me champ the bloody bit.

Iphigenia

Why to this region has thou steer’d thy course?

Orestes

Commanded by Apollo’s voice, I come.

Iphigenia

With what intent? if that may be disclosed.

Orestes

I will inform thee, though to length of speech

This leads. When vengeance from my hands o’ertook

My mother’s deeds-foul deeds, which let me pass

In silence — by the Furies’ fierce assaults

To flight I was impell’d: to Athens then

Apollo sent me, that, my cause there heard,

I might appease the vengeful powers, whose names

May not be utter’d: the tribunal there

Is holy, which for Mars, when stain’d with blood,

Jove in old times establish’d. There arrived,

None willingly received me, by the gods

As one abhorr’d; and they, who felt the touch

Of shame, the hospitable board alone

Yielded; and though one common roof beneath,

Their silence showing they disdain’d to hold

Converse with me, I took from them apart

A lone repast; to each was placed a bowl

Of the same measure; this they filled with wine,

And bathed their spirits in delight. Unmeet

I deem’d it to express offence at those

Who entertain’d me, but in silence grieved,

Showing a cheer as though I mark’d it not,

And sigh’d for that I shed my mother’s blood.

A feast, I hear, at Athens is ordain’d

From this my evil plight, ev’n yet observed,

In which the equal-measured bowl then used

Is by that people held in honour high.

But when to the tribunal on the mount

Of Mars I came, one stand I took, and one

The eldest of the Furies opposite:

The cause was heard touching my mother’s blood,

And Phoebus saved me by his evidence:

Equal, by Pallas number’d, were the votes

And I from doom of blood victorious freed

Such of the Furies as there sat, appeased

By the just sentence, nigh the court resolved

To fix their seat; but others, whom the law

Appeased not, with relentless tortures still

Pursued me, till I reach’d the hallow’d soil

Of Phoebus: stretch’d before his shrine, I swore

Foodless to waste my wretched life away,

Unless the god, by whom I was undone,

Would save me: from the golden tripod burst

The voice divine, and sent me to this shore,

Commanding me to bear the image hence,

Which fell from Jove, and in the Athenian land

To fix it. What the oracular voice assign’d

My safety, do thou aid: if we obtain

The statue of the goddess, I no more

With madness shall be tortured, but this arm

Shall place thee in my bark, which ploughs the waves

With many an oar, and to Mycenae safe

Bear thee again. Show then a sister’s love,

O thou most dear; preserve thy father’s house,

Preserve me too; for me destruction waits,

And all the race of Pelops, if we bear not

This heaven-descended image from the shrine.

Leader

The anger of the gods hath raged severe,

And plunged the race of Tantalus in woes.

Iphigenia

Ere thy arrival here, a fond desire

To be again at Argos, and to see

Thee, my loved brother, fill’d my soul. Thy wish

Is my warm wish, to free thee from thy toils,

And from its ruins raise my father’s house;

Nor harbour I ‘gainst him, that slew me, thought

Of harsh resentment: from thy blood my hands

Would I keep pure, thy house I would preserve.

But from the goddess how may this be hid?

The tyrant too I fear, when he shall find

The statue on its marble base no more.

What then from death will save me? What excuse

Shall I devise? Yet by one daring deed

Might these things be achieved: couldst thou bear hence

The image, me too in thy gallant bark

Placing secure, how glorious were the attempt!

Me if thou join not with thee, I am lost

Indeed; but thou, with prudent measures form’d,

Return. I fly no danger, not ev’n death,

Be death required, to save thee: no: the man

Dying is mourn’d, as to his house a loss;

But woman’s weakness is of light esteem.

Orestes

I would not be the murderer of my mother,

And of thee too; sufficient is her blood.

No; I will share thy fortune, live with thee,

Or with thee die: to Argos I will lead thee,

If here I perish not; or dying, here

Remain with thee. But what my mind suggests,

Hear: if Diana were averse to this,

How could the voice of Phoebus from his shrine

Declare that to the state of Pallas hence

The statue of the goddess I should bear,

And see thy face? All this, together weigh’d,

Gives hope of fair success, and our return.

Iphigenia

But how effect it, that we neither die,

And what we wish achieve? For our return

On this depends: this claims deliberate thought.

Orestes

Have we not means to work the tyrant’s death?

Iphigenia

For strangers full of peril were the attempt.

Orestes

Thee would it save and me, it must be dared.

Iphigenia

I could not: yet thy promptness I approve.

Orestes

What if thou lodge me in the shrine conceal’d?

Iphigenia

That in the shades of night we may escape?

Orestes

Night is a friend to frauds, the light to truth.

Iphigenia

Within are sacred guards; we ‘scape not them.

Orestes

Ruin then waits us: how can we be saved?

Iphigenia

I think I have some new and safe device.

Orestes

What is it? Let me know: impart thy thought,

Iphigenia

Thy sufferings for my purpose I will use, —

Orestes

To form devices quick is woman’s wit.

Iphigenia

And say, thy mother slain, thou fledd’st from Argos.

Orestes

If to aught good, avail thee of my ills.

Iphigenia

Unmeet then at this shrine to offer thee.

Orestes

What cause alleged? I reach not thine intent.

Iphigenia

As now impure: when hallow’d, I will slay thee.

Orestes

How is the image thus more promptly gain’d?

Iphigenia

Thee I will hallow in the ocean waves.

Orestes

The statue we would gain is in the temple.

Iphigenia

That, by thy touch polluted, I would cleanse.

Orestes

Where? On the watery margin of the main?

Iphigenia

Where thy tall bark secured with cables rides.

Orestes

And who shall bear the image in his hands?

Iphigenia

Myself; profaned by any touch, but mine.

Orestes

What of this blood shall on my friend be charged?

Iphigenia

His hands, it shall be said, like thine are stain’d.

Orestes

In secret this, or to the king disclosed?

Iphigenia

With his assent; I cannot hide it from him.

Orestes

My bark with ready oars attends thee near.

Iphigenia

That all be well appointed, be thy charge.

Orestes

One thing alone remains; that these conceal

Our purpose: but address them, teach thy tongue

Persuasive words: a woman hath the power

To melt the heart to pity: thus perchance

All things may to our warmest wish succeed.

Iphigenia

Ye train of females, to my soul most dear,

On you mine eyes are turn’d, on you depends

My fate; with prosperous fortune to be bless’d,

Or to be nothing, to my country lost,

Of a dear kinsman and a much-loved brother

Deprived. This plea I first would urge, that we

Are women, and have hearts by nature form’d

To love each other, of our mutual trusts

Most firm preservers. Touching our design,

Be silent, and assist our flight: naught claims

More honour than the faithful tongue. You see

How the same fortune links us three, most dear

Each to the other, to revisit safe

Our country, or to die. If I am saved,

That thou mayst share my fortune, I to Greece

Will bring thee safe: but thee by this right hand,

Thee I conjure, and thee; by this loved cheek

Thee, by thy knees, by all that in your house

Is dearest to you, father, mother, child,

If you have children. What do you reply?

Which of you speaks assent? Or which dissents?

But be you all assenting: for my plea

If you approve not, ruin falls on me,

And my unhappy brother too must die.

Leader

Be confident, loved lady and consult

Only thy safety: all thou givest in charge,

Be witness, mighty Jove, I will conceal.

Iphigenia

O, for this generous promise be you bless’d.

[To Orestes and Pylades]

To enter now the temple be thy part,

And thine: for soon the monarch of the land

Will come, inquiring if the strangers yet

Have bow’d their necks as victims at the shrine.

Goddess revered, who in the dreadful bay

Of Aulis from my father’s slaughtering hand

Didst save me; save me now, and these: through thee,

Else will the voice of Phoebus be no more

Held true by mortals. From this barbarous land

To Athens go propitious: here to dwell

Beseems thee not; thine be a polish’d state!

[Orestes, Pylades, and Iphigenia enter the temple.]

Chorus [singing]

O bird, that round each craggy height

Projecting o’er the sea below,

Wheelest thy melancholy flight,

Thy song attuned to notes of woe;

The wise thy tender sorrows own,

Which thy lost lord unceasing moan;

Like thine, sad halcyon, be my strain,

A bird, that have no wings to fly:

With fond desire for Greece I sigh,

And for my much-loved social train;

Sigh for Diana, pitying maid,

Who joys to rove o’er Cynthus’ heights.

Or in the branching laurel’s shade,

Or in the soft-hair’d palm delights,

Or the hoar olive’s sacred boughs,

Lenient of sad Latona’s woes;

Or in the lake, that rolls its wave

Where swans their plumage love to lave;

Then, to the Muses soaring high,

The homage pay of melody.

Ye tears, what frequent-falling showers

Roll’d down these cheeks in streams of woe,

When in the dust my country’s towers

Lay levell’d by the conquering foe;

And, to their spears a prey, their oars

Brought me to these barbaric shores!

For gold exchanged, a traffic base,

No vulgar slave, the task is mine,

Here at Diana’s awful shrine,

Who loves the woodland hind to chase,

The virgin priestess to attend,

Daughter of rich Mycenae’s lord;

At other shrines her wish to bend,

Where bleeds the victim less abhorr’d:

No respite to her griefs she knows;

Not so the heart inured to woes,

As train’d to sorrow’s rigid lore:

Now comes a change; it mourns no more:

But lo long bliss when ill succeeds,

The anguish’d heart for ever bleeds.

Thee, loved virgin, freed from fear

Home the Argive bark shall bear:

Mountain Pan, with thrilling strain,

To the oars that dash the main

In just cadence well agreed,

Shall accord his wax-join’d reed:

Phoebus, with a prophet’s fire

Sweeping o’er his seven-string’d lyre,

And his voice attuning high

To the swelling harmony,

Thee shall guide the wild waves o’er

To the soft Athenian shore.

Leaving me, thy oars shall sweep

Eager o’er the foaming deep:

Thou shalt catch the rising gales

Swelling in thy firm-bound sails;

And thy bark in gallant pride

Light shall o’er the billows glide.

Might I through the lucid air

Fly where rolls yon flaming car,

O’er those loved and modest bowers,

Where I pass’d my youthful hours,

I would stay my weary flight,

Wave no more my pennons light,

But, amid the virgin band,

Once my loved companions, stand:

Once mid them my charms could move,

Blooming then, the flames of love;

When the mazy dance I trod,

While with joy my mother glow’d;

When to vie in grace was mine,

And in splendid robes to shine;

For, with radiant tints impress’d,

Glow’d for me the gorgeous vest;

And these tresses gave new grace,

As their ringlets shade my face.

[Thoas and his retinue enter.]

Thoas

Where is the Grecian lady, to whose charge

This temple is committed? Have her rites

Hallow’d the strangers? Do their bodies burn

In the recesses of the sacred shrine?

Leader of the chorus

She comes, and will inform thee, king, of all.

[Iphigenia comes out of the temple. She is carrying the sacred statue of Diana.]

Thoas

Daughter of Agamemnon, what means this?

The statue of the goddess in thine arms

Why dost thou bear, from its firm base removed?

Iphigenia

There in the portal, monarch, stay thy step.

Thoas

What of strange import in the shrine hath chanced?

Iphigenia

Things ominous: that word I, holy, speak.

Thoas

To what is tuned thy proem? Plainly speak.

Iphigenia

Not pure the victims, king, you lately seized.

Thoas

What showd thee this? Or speak’st thou but thy thought?

Iphigenia

Back turn’d the sacred image on its base.

Thoas

Spontaneous turn’d, or by an earthquake moved?

Iphigenia

Spontaneous, and, averted, closed its eyes.

Thoas

What was the cause? The blood-stain’d stranger’s guilt?

Iphigenia

That, and naught else; for horrible their deeds.

Thoas

What, have they slain some Scythian on the shore?

Iphigenia

They came polluted with domestic blood.

Thoas

What blood? I have a strong desire to know.

Iphigenia

They slew their mother with confederate swords.

Thoas

O Phoebus! This hath no barbarian dared.

Iphigenia

All Greece indignant chased them from her realms.

Thoas

Bear’st thou for this the image from the shrine?

Iphigenia

To the pure air, from stain of blood removed.

Thoas

By what means didst thou know the stranger’s guilt?

Iphigenia

I learn’d it as the statue started back.

Thoas

Greece train’d thee wise: this well hast thou discern’d.

Iphigenia

Now with sweet blandishments they soothe my soul.

Thoas

Some glozing tale from Argos telling thee?

Iphigenia

I have one brother: he, they say, lives happy, —

Thoas

That thou mayst save them for their pleasing news?

Iphigenia

And that my father lives, by fortune bless’d.

Thoas

But on the goddess well thy thoughts are turn’d.

Iphigenia

I hate all Greece; for it hath ruin’d me.

Thoas

What with the strangers, say then, should be done?

Iphigenia

The law ordain’d in reverence we must hold.

Thoas

Are then thy lavers ready, and the sword?

Iphigenia

First I would cleanse them with ablutions pure.

Thoas

In fountain waters, or the ocean wave?

Iphigenia

All man’s pollutions doth the salt sea cleanse.

Thoas

More holy to the goddess will they bleed.

Iphigenia

And better what I have in charge advance.

Thoas

Doth not the wave ev’n ‘gainst the temple beat?

Iphigenia

This requires solitude: more must I do.

Thoas

Lead where thou wilt: on secret rite I pry not.

Iphigenia

The image of the goddess I must cleanse.

Thoas

If it be stain’d with touch of mother’s blood.

Iphigenia

I could not else have borne it from its base.

Thoas

Just is thy provident and pious thought;

For this by all the state thou art revered.

Iphigenia

Know’st thou what next I would?

Thoas

‘Tis thine thy will

To signify.

Iphigenia

Give for these strangers chains.

Thoas

To what place can they fly?

Iphigenia

A Grecian knows

Naught faithful.

Thoas

Of my train go some for chains.

[Some attendants go out.]

Iphigenia

Let them lead forth the strangers.

Thoas

Be it so.

Iphigenia

And veil their faces.

Thoas

From the sun’s bright beams?

Iphigenia

Some of thy train send with me.

Thoas

These shall go,

Attending thee.

Iphigenia

One to the city send.

Thoas

With what instructions charged?

Iphigenia

That all remain

Within their houses.

Thoas

That the stain of blood

They meet not?

Iphigenia

These things have pollution in them.

Thoas

Go thou, and bear the instructions.

[An attendant departs.]

Iphigenia

That none come

In sight,

Thoas

How wisely careful for the city!

Iphigenia

Warn our friends most.

Thoas

This speaks thy care for me.

Iphigenia

Stay thou before the shrine.

Thoas

To what intent?

Iphigenia

Cleanse it with lustral fires.

Thoas

That thy return

May find it pure?

Iphigenia

But when the strangers come

Forth from the temple, —

Thoas

What must I then do?

Iphigenia

Spread o’er thine eyes a veil.

Thoas

That I receive not

Pollution?

Iphigenia

Tedious if my stay appear, —

Thoas

What bounds may be assign’d?

Iphigenia

Deem it not strange.

Thoas

At leisure what the rites require perform.

Iphigenia

May this lustration as I wish succeed!

Thoas

Thy wish is mine.

[Orestes and Pylades, bound, are led from the temple in solemn procession by the guards. Thoas and his retinue veil their heads as it slowly moves past.]

Iphigenia [chanting]

But from the temple, see,

The strangers come, the sacred ornaments,

The hallow’d lambs — for I with blood must wash

This execrable blood away, — the light

Of torches, and what else my rites require

To purify these strangers to the goddess.

But to the natives of this land my voice

Proclaims, from this pollution far remove,

Art thou attendant at the shrine, who liftest

Pure to the gods thy hands, or nuptial rites

Dost thou prepare, or pregnant matron; hence,

Begone, that this defilement none may touch.

Thou, daughter of Latona and high Jove,

O royal virgin, if I cleanse the stain

Of these, and where I ought with holy rites

Address thee, thou shalt hold thy residence

In a pure mansion; we too shall be bless’d.

More though I speak not, goddess, unexpress’d,

All things to thee and to the gods are known.

[Iphigenia, carrying the statue, joins the procession as is goes out. Thoas and his retinue enter the temple.]

Chorus [singing]

Latona’s glorious offspring claims the song,

Born the hallow’d shades among,

Where fruitful Delos winds her valleys low;

Bright-hair’d Phoebus, skill’d to inspire

Raptures, as he sweeps the lyre,

And she that glories in the unerring bow.

From the rocky ridges steep,

At whose feet the hush’d waves sleep,

Left their far-famed native shore,

Them the exulting mother bore

To Parnassus, on whose heights

Bacchus shouting holds his rites;

Glittering in the burnish’d shade,

By the laurel’s branches made,

Where the enormous dragon lies,

Brass his scales, and flame his eyes,

Earth-born monster, that around

Rolling guards the oracular ground;

Him, while yet a sportive child,

In his mother’s arms that smiled,

Phoebus slew, and seized the shrine

Whence proceeds the voice divine:

On the golden tripod placed,

Throne by falsehood ne’er disgraced,

Where Castalia’s pure stream flows,

He the fates to mortal shows.

But when Themis, whom of yore

Earth, her fruitful mother, bore,

From her hallow’d seat he drove,

Earth to avenge her daughter strove,

Forming visions of the night,

Which, in rapt dreams hovering light,

All that Time’s dark volumes hold

Might to mortal sense unfold,

When in midnight’s sable shades

Sleep the silent couch invades:

Thus did Earth her vengeance boast.

His prophetic honours lost,

Royal Phoebus speeds his flight

To Olympus, on whose height

At the throne of Jove he stands,

Stretching forth his little hands,

Suppliant that the Pythian shrine

Feel no more the wrath divine;

That the goddess he appease;

That her nightly visions cease.

Jove with smiles beheld his son

Early thus address his throne,

Suing with ambitious pride

O’er the rich shrine to preside;

He, assenting, bow’d his head.

Straight the nightly visions fled;

And prophetic dreams no more

Hover’d slumbering mortals o’er:

Now to Phoebus given again,

All his honours pure remain;

Votaries distant regions send

His frequented throne to attend:

And the firm decrees of fate

On his faithful voice await.

[A Messenger enters.]

Messenger

Say you, that keep the temple, and attend

The altar, where is Thoas, Scythia’s king?

Open these strong-compacted gates, and cal

Forth from the shrine the monarch of the land.

Leader of the chorus

Wherefore? at thy command if I must speak.

Messenger

The two young men are gone, through the device

Of Agamemnon’s daughter: from this land

They fly; and, in their Grecian galley placed,

The sacred image of the goddess bear.

Leader

Incredible thy tale: but whom thou seek’st,

The monarch, from the temple went in haste.

Messenger

Whither? for what is doing he should know.

Leader

We know not: but go thou, and seek for him:

Where’er thou find him, thou wilt tell him this.

Messenger

See, what a faithless race you women are!

In all that hath been done you have a part.

Leader

Sure thou art mad! what with the strangers’ flight

Have we to do? But wilt thou not, with all

The speed thou mayst, go to the monarch’s house?

Messenger

Not till I first am well inform’d, if here

Within the temple be the king, or not.

[Shouting]

Unbar the gates (to you within I speak);

And tell your lord that at the portal here

I stand, and bring him tidings of fresh ills.

[Thoas and his attendants enter from the temple.]

Thoas

Who at the temple of the goddess dares

This clamour raise, and, thundering at the gates,

Strikes terror through the ample space within?

Messenger

With falsehoods would these women drive me hence,

Without to seek thee: thou wast in the shrine.

Thoas

With what intent? or what advantage sought?

Messenger

Of these hereafter; what more urgent now

Imports thee, hear: the virgin, in this place

Presiding at the altars, from this land

Is with the strangers fled, and bears with her

The sacred image of the goddess; all

Of her ablutions but a false pretence.

Thoas

How say’st thou? What is her accursed design?

Messenger

To save Orestes: this too will amaze thee.

Thoas

Whom? What Orestes? Clytemnestra’s son?

Messenger

Him at the altar hallow’d now to bleed.

Thoas

Portentous! for what less can it be call’d?

Messenger

Think not on that, but hear me; with deep thought

Reflect: weigh well what thou shalt hear; devise

By what pursuit to reach and seize the strangers.

Thoas

Speak: thou advisest well: the sea though nigh,

They fly not so as to escape my spear.

Messenger

When to the shore we came, where station’d rode

The galley of Orestes, by the rocks

Conceal’d to us, whom thou hadst sent with her

To hold the strangers’ chains, the royal maid

Made signs that we retire, and stand aloof,

As if with secret rites she would perform

The purposed expiation: on she went,

In her own hands holding the strangers’ chains

Behind them: not without suspicion this,

Yet by thy servants, king, allow’d. At length,

That we might deem her in some purpose high

Employ’d, she raised her voice, and chanted loud

Barbaric strains, as if with mystic rites

She cleansed the stain of blood. When we had sat

A tedious while, it came into our thought,

That from their chains unloosed, the stranger youths

Might kill her, and escape by flight: yet fear

Of seeing what we ought not, kept us still

In silence; but at length we all resolved

To go, though not permitted, where they were.

There we behold the Grecian bark with oars

Well furnish’d, wing’d for flight; and at their seats,

Grasping their oars, were fifty rowers; free

From chains beside the stern the two youths stood

Some from the prow relieved the keel with poles;

Some weigh’d the anchors up; the climbing ropes

Some hasten’d, through their hands the cables drew,

Launch’d the light bark, and gave her to the main.

But when we saw their treacherous wiles, we rush’d

Heedless of danger, seized the priestess, seized

The halsers, hung upon the helm, and strove

To rend the rudder-bands away. Debate

Now rose: — “What mean you, sailing o’er the seas,

The statue and the priestess from the land

By stealth conveying? Whence art thou, and who,

That bear’st her, like a purchased slave, away?”

He said, “I am her brother; be of this

Inform’d; Orestes, son of Agamemnon:

My sister, so long lost, I bear away,

Recover’d here.” But naught the less for that

Held we the priestess, and by force would lead

Again to thee: hence dreadful on our cheeks

The blows; for in their hands no sword they held,

Nor we; but many a rattling stroke the youths

Dealt witb their fists, against our sides and breasts

Their arms fierce darting, till our batter’d limbs

Were all disabled: now with dreadful marks

Disfigured, up the precipice we fly,

Some bearing on their heads, some in their eyes

The bloody bruises: standing on the heights,

Our fight was safer, and we hurl’d at them

Fragments of rocks; but, standing on the stern,

The archers with their arrows drove us thence;

And now a swelling wave roll’d in, which drove

The galley towards the land. The sailors fear’d

The sudden swell: on his left arm sustain’d,

Orestes bore his sister through the tide,

Mounted the bark’s tall side, and on the deck

Safe placed her, and Diana’s holy image,

Which fell from heaven; from the midship his voice

He sent aloud: — “Ye youths, that in this bark

From Argos plough’d the deep, now ply your oars,

And dash the billows till they foam: those things

Are ours, for which we swept the Euxine sea.

And steer’d our course within its clashing rocks.”

They gave a cheerful shout, and with their oars

Dash’d the salt wave. The galley, while it rode

Within the harbour, work’d its easy way;

But having pass’d its mouth, the swelling flood

Roll’d on it, and with sudden force the wind

Impetuous rising drove it back: their oars

They slack’d not, stoutly struggling ‘gainst the wave;

But towards the land the refluent flood impell’d

The galley: then the royal virgin stood,

And pray’d: — “O daughter of Latona, save me,

Thy priestess save; from this barbaric land

To Greece restore me, and forgive my thefts:

For thou, O goddess, dost thy brother love,

Deem then that I love those allied to me.”

The mariners responsive to her prayer

Shouted loud paeans, and their naked arms,

Each cheering each, to their stout oars apply.

But nearer and yet nearer to the rock

The galley drove: some rush’d into the sea,

Some strain’d the ropes that bind the loosen’d sails.

Straight was I hither sent to thee, O king,

To inform thee of these accidents. But haste,

Take chains and gyves with thee: for if the flood

Side not to a calm, there is no hope

Of safety to the strangers. Be assured,

That Neptune, awful monarch of the main,

Remembers Troy; and, hostile to the race

Of Pelops, will deliver to thy hands,

And to thy people, as is meet, the son

Of Agamemnon; and bring back to the

His sister, who the goddess hath betray’d,

Unmindful of the blood at Aulis shed.

Leader

Unhappy Iphigenia, thou must die,

Thy brother too must die, if thou again,

Seized in thy flight, to thy lord’s hands shalt come.

Thoas

Inhabitants of this barbaric land,

Will you not rein your steeds, will you not fly

Along the shore, to seize whate’er this skiff

Of Greece casts forth; and, for your goddess roused,

Hunt down these impious men? Will you not launch

Instant your swift-oar’d barks, by sea, by land

To catch them, from the rugged rock to hurl

Their bodies, or impale them on the stake?

But for you, women, in these dark designs

Accomplices, hereafter, as I find

Convenient leisure, I will punish you.

The occasion urges now, and gives no pause.

[Minerva appears above.]

Minerva

Whither, O royal Thoas, dost thou lead

This vengeful chase? Attend: Minerva speaks.

Cease thy pursuit, and stop this rushing flood

Of arms; for hither, by the fateful voice

Of Phoebus, came Orestes, warn’d to fly

The anger of the Furies, to convey

His sister to her native Argos back,

And to my land the sacred image bear.

Thoas, I speak to thee: him, whom thy rage

Would kill, Orestes, on the wild waves seized,

Neptune, to do me grace, already wafts

On the smooth sea, the swelling surges calm’d.

And thou, Orestes (for my voice thou hear’st,

Though distant far), to my commands attend:

Go, with the sacred image, which thou bear’st,

And with thy sister: but when thou shalt come

To Athens built by gods, there is a place

On the extreme borders of the Attic land,

Close neighbouring to Carystia’s craggy height,

Sacred; my people call it Alae: there

A temple raise, and fix the statue there,

Which from the Tauric goddess shall receive

Its name, and from thy toils, which thou, through Greece

Driven by the Furies’ maddening stings, hast borne;

And mortals shall in future times with hymns

The Tauric goddess there, Diana, hail.

And be this law establish’d; when the feast

For thy deliverance from this shrine is held,

To a man’s throat that they apply the sword,

And draw the blood, in memory of these rites,

That of her honours naught the goddess lose.

Thou, Iphigenia, on the hallow’d heights

Of Brauron on this goddess shalt attend

Her priestess, dying shalt be there interr’d,

Graced with the honours of the gorgeous vests

Of finest texture, in their houses left

By matrons who in childbed pangs expired.

These Grecian dames back to their country lead,

I charge thee; justice this return demands,

For I saved thee, when on the mount of Mars

The votes were equal; and from that decree

The shells in number equal still absolve.

But, son of Agamemnon, from this land

Thy sister bear; nor, Thoas, be thou angry.

Thoas

Royal Minerva, he that hears the gods

Commanding, and obeys not, is unwise.

My anger ‘gainst Orestes flames no more,

Gone though he be, and bears with him away

The statue of the goddess, and his sister.

Have mortals glory ‘gainst the powerful gods

Contending? Let them go, and to thy land

The sacred image bear, and fix it there;

Good fortune go with them. To favour Greece,

These dames, at thy high bidding, I will send.

My arms will I restrain, which I had raised

Against the strangers, and my swift-oar’d barks,

Since, potent goddess, this is pleasing to thee.

Minerva

I praise thy resolution; for the power

Of Fate o’er thee and o’er the gods prevails.

Breathe soft, ye favouring gales, to Athens bear

These sprung from Agamemnon; on their course

Attending, I will go, and heedful save

My sister’s sacred image. You too go (to the Chorus)

Prosperous, and in the fate that guards you bless’d.

[Minerva vanishes.]

Chorus [chanting]

O thou, among the immortal gods revered

And mortal men, Minerva, we will do

As thou commandest; for with transport high,

Exceeding hope, our ears receive thy words.

O Victory, I revere thy awful power:

Guard thou my life, nor ever cease to crown me!

Medea

Characters in the Play

Nurse of Medea

Attendant on her children

Medea

Chorus of Corinthian women

Creon, King of Corinth

Jason

Aegeus, King of Athens

Messenger

The two sons of Jason and Medea

[Scene: Before Medea’s house in Corinth, near the palace of Creon. The nurse enters from the house.]

Nurse

Ah! Would to Heaven the good ship Argo ne’er had sped its course to the Colchian land through the misty blue Symplegades, nor ever in the glens of Pelion the pine been felled to furnish with oars the chieftain’s hands, who went to fetch the golden fleece for Pelias; for then would my own mistress Medea never have sailed to the turrets of Iolcos, her soul with love for Jason smitten, nor would she have beguiled the daughters of Pelias to slay their father and come to live here in the land of Corinth with her husband and children, where her exile found favour with the citizens to whose land she had come, and in all things of her own accord was she at one with Jason, the greatest safeguard this when wife and husband do agree; but now their love is all turned to hate, and tenderest ties are weak. For Jason hath betrayed his own children and my mistress dear for the love of a royal bride, for he hath wedded the daughter of Creon, lord of this land. While Medea, his hapless wife, thus scorned, appeals to the oaths he swore, recalls the strong pledge his right hand gave, and bids heaven be witness what requital she is finding from Jason. And here she lies fasting, yielding her body to her grief, wasting away in tears ever since she learnt that she was wronged by her husband, never lifting her eye nor raising her face from off the ground; and she lends as deaf an ear to her friend’s warning as if she were a rock or ocean billow, save when she turns her snow-white neck aside and softly to herself bemoans her father dear, her country and her home, which she gave up to come hither with the man who now holds her in dishonour. She, poor lady, hath by sad experience learnt how good a thing it is never to quit one’s native land. And she hates her children now and feels no joy at seeing them; I fear she may contrive some untoward scheme; for her mood is dangerous nor will she brook her cruel treatment; full well I know her, and I much do dread that she will plunge the keen sword through their hearts, stealing without a word into the chamber where their marriage couch is spread, or else that she will slay the prince and bridegroom too, and so find some calamity still more grievous than the present; for dreadful is her wrath; verily the man that doth incur her hate will have no easy task to raise o’er her a song of triumph. Lo! where her sons come hither from their childish sports; little they reck of their mother’s woes, for the soul of the young is no friend to sorrow.

[The Attendant leads in Medea’s children.]

Attendant

Why dost thou, so long my lady’s own handmaid, stand here at the gate alone, loudly lamenting to thyself the piteous tale? how comes it that Medea will have thee leave her to herself?

Nurse

Old man, attendant on the sons of Jason, our masters’ fortunes when they go awry make good slaves grieve and touch their hearts. Oh! have come to such a pitch of grief that there stole a yearning wish upon me to come forth hither and proclaim to heaven and earth my mistress’s hard fate.

Attendant

What! has not the poor lady ceased yet from her lamentation?

Nurse

Would I were as thou art! the mischief is but now beginning; it has not reached its climax yet.

Attendant

O foolish one, if I may call my mistress such a name; how little she recks of evils yet more recent!

Nurse

What mean’st, old man? grudge not to tell me.

Attendant

‘Tis naught; I do repent me even of the words I have spoken.

Nurse

Nay, by thy beard I conjure thee, hide it not from thy fellow-slave; will be silent, if need be, on that text.

Attendant

I heard one say, pretending not to listen as I approached the place where our greybeards sit playing draughts near Pirene’s sacred spring, that Creon, the ruler of this land, is bent on driving these children and their mother from the boundaries of Corinth; but I know not whether the news is to be relied upon, and would fain it were not.

Nurse

What! will Jason brook such treatment of his sons, even though he be at variance with their mother?

Attendant

Old ties give way to new; he bears no longer any love to this family.

Nurse

Undone, it seems, are we, if to old woes fresh ones we add, ere we have drained the former to the dregs.

Attendant

Hold thou thy peace, say not a word of this; ‘tis no time for our mistress to learn hereof.

Nurse

O children, do ye hear how your father feels towards you? Perdition catch him, but no he is my master still; yet is he proved a very traitor to his nearest and dearest.

Attendant

And who ‘mongst men is not? Art learning only now, that every single man cares for himself more than for his neighbour, some from honest motives, others for mere gain’s sake? seeing that to indulge his passion their father has ceased to love these children.

Nurse

Go, children, within the house; all will be well. Do thou keep them as far away as may be, and bring them not near their mother in her evil hour. For ere this have I seen her eyeing them savagely, as though she were minded to do them some hurt, and well I know she will not cease from her fury till she have pounced on some victim. At least may she turn her hand against her foes, and not against her friends.

Medea [chanting within]

Ah, me! a wretched suffering woman I! O would that I could die!

Nurse [hanting]

‘Tis as I said, my dear children; wild fancies stir your mother’s heart, wild fury goads her on. Into the house without delay, come not near her eye, approach her not, beware her savage mood, the fell tempest of her reckless heart. In, in with what speed ye may. For ‘tis plain she will soon redouble her fury; that cry is but the herald of the gathering storm-cloud whose lightning soon will flash; what will her proud restless soul, in the anguish of despair, be guilty of?

[The attendant takes the children into the house.]

Medea [chanting within]

Ah, me! the agony I have suffered, deep enough to call for these laments! Curse you and your father too, ye children damned, sons of a doomed mother! Ruin seize the whole family!

Nurse [chanting]

Ah me! ah me! the pity of it! Why, pray, do thy children share their father’s crime? Why hatest thou them? Woe is you, poor children, how do I grieve for you lest ye suffer some outrage! Strange are the tempers of princes, and maybe because they seldom have to obey, and mostly lord it over others, change they their moods with difficulty. ‘Tis better then to have been trained to live on equal terms. Be it mine to reach old age, not in proud pomp, but in security! Moderation wins the day first as a better word for men to use, and likewise it is far the best course for them to pursue; but greatness that doth o’erreach itself, brings no blessing to mortal men; but pays a penalty of greater ruin whenever fortune is wroth with a family.

[The Chorus enters. The following lines between the Nurse, Chorus, and Medea are sung.]

Chorus

I heard the voice, uplifted loud, of our poor Colchian lady, nor yet is she quiet; speak, aged dame, for as I stood by the house with double gates I heard a voice of weeping from within, and I do grieve, lady, for the sorrows of this house, for it hath won my love.

Nurse

‘Tis a house no more; all that is passed away long since; a royal bride keeps Jason at her side, while our mistress pines away in her bower, finding no comfort for her soul in aught her friends can say.

Medea [within]

Oh, oh! Would that Heaven’s levin bolt would cleave this head in twain! What gain is life to me? Woe, woe is me! O, to die and win release, quitting this loathed existence!

Chorus

Didst hear, O Zeus, thou earth, and thou, O light, the piteous note of woe the hapless wife is uttering? How shall a yearning for that insatiate resting-place ever hasten for thee, poor reckless one, the end that death alone can bring? Never pray for that. And if thy lord prefers a fresh love, be not angered with him for that; Zeus will judge ‘twixt thee and him herein. Then mourn not for thy husband’s loss too much, nor waste thyself away.

Medea [within]

Great Themis, and husband of Themis, behold what I am suffering now, though I did bind that accursed one, my husband, by strong oaths to me! O, to see him and his bride some day brought to utter destruction, they and their house with them, for that they presume to wrong me thus unprovoked. O my father, my country, that I have left to my shame, after slaying my own brother.

Nurse

Do ye hear her words, how loudly she adjures Themis, oft invoked, and Zeus, whom men regard as keeper of their oaths? On no mere trifle surely will our mistress spend her rage.

Chorus

Would that she would come forth for us to see, and listen to the words of counsel we might give, if haply she might lay aside the fierce fury of her wrath, and her temper stern. Never be my zeal at any rate denied my friends! But go thou and bring her hither outside the house, and tell her this our friendly thought; haste thee ere she do some mischief to those inside the house, for this sorrow of hers is mounting high.

Nurse

This will I do; but I doubt whether I shall persuade my mistress; still willingly will I undertake this trouble for you; albeit, she glares upon her servants with the look of a lioness with cubs, whenso anyone draws nigh to speak to her. Wert thou to call the men of old time rude uncultured boors thou wouldst not err, seeing that they devised their hymns for festive occasions, for banquets, and to grace the board, a pleasure to catch the ear, shed o’er our life, but no man hath found a way to allay hated grief by music and the minstrel’s varied strain, whence arise slaughters and fell strokes of fate to o’erthrow the homes of men. And yet this were surely a gain, to heal men’s wounds by music’s spell, but why tune they their idle song where rich banquets are spread? For of itself doth the rich banquet, set before them, afford to men delight.

Chorus

I heard a bitter cry of lamentation! loudly, bitterly she calls on the traitor of her marriage bed, her perfidious spouse; by grievous wrongs oppressed she invokes Themis, bride of Zeus, witness of oaths, who brought her unto Hellas, the land that fronts the strand of Asia, o’er the sea by night through ocean’s boundless gate.

[As the chorus finishes its song, Medea enters from the house.]

Medea

From the house I have come forth, Corinthian ladies, for fear lest you be blaming me; for well I know that amongst men many by showing pride have gotten them an ill name and a reputation for indifference, both those who shun men’s gaze and those who move amid the stranger crowd, and likewise they who choose a quiet walk in life. For there is no just discernment in the eyes of men, for they, or ever they have surely learnt their neighbour’s heart, loathe him at first sight, though never wronged by him; and so a stranger most of all should adopt a city’s views; nor do I commend that citizen, who, in the stubbornness of his heart, from churlishness resents the city’s will.

But on me hath fallen this unforeseen disaster, and sapped my life; ruined I am, and long to resign the boon of existence, kind friends, and die. For he who was all the world to me, as well thou knowest, hath turned out the worst of men, my own husband. Of all things that have life and sense we women are the most hapless creatures; first must we buy a husband at a great price, and o’er ourselves a tyrant set which is an evil worse than the first; and herein lies the most important issue, whether our choice be good or bad. For divorce is not honourable to women, nor can we disown our lords. Next must the wife, coming as she does to ways and customs new, since she hath not learnt the lesson in her home, have a diviner’s eye to see how best to treat the partner of her life. If haply we perform these tasks with thoroughness and tact, and the husband live with us, without resenting the yoke, our life is a happy one; if not, ‘twere best to die. But when a man is vexed with what he finds indoors, he goeth forth and rids his soul of its disgust, betaking him to some friend or comrade of like age; whilst we must needs regard his single self.

And yet they say we live secure at home, while they are at the wars, with their sorry reasoning, for I would gladly take my stand in battle array three times o’er, than once give birth. But enough! this language suits not thee as it does me; thou hast a city here, a father’s house, some joy in life, and friends to share thy thoughts, but I am destitute, without a city, and therefore scorned by my husband, a captive I from a foreign shore, with no mother, brother, or kinsman in whom to find a new haven of refuge from this calamity. Wherefore this one boon and only this I wish to win from thee,-thy silence, if haply I can some way or means devise to avenge me on my husband for this cruel treatment, and on the man who gave to him his daughter, and on her who is his wife. For though woman be timorous enough in all else, and as regards courage, a coward at the mere sight of steel, yet in the moment she finds her honour wronged, no heart is filled with deadlier thoughts than hers.

Leader of the chorus

This will I do; for thou wilt be taking a just vengeance on thy husband, Medea. That thou shouldst mourn thy lot surprises me not. But lo! I see Creon, king of this land coming hither, to announce some new resolve.

[Creon enters, with his retinue.]

Creon

Hark thee, Medea, I bid thee take those sullen looks and angry thoughts against thy husband forth from this land in exile, and with thee take both thy children and that without delay, for I am judge in this sentence, and I will not return unto my house till I banish thee beyond the borders of the land.

Medea

Ah, me! now is utter destruction come upon me, unhappy that I am! For my enemies are bearing down on me full sail, nor have I any landing-place to come at in my trouble. Yet for all my wretched plight I will ask thee, Creon, wherefore dost thou drive me from the land?

Creon

I fear thee, — no longer need I veil my dread ‘neath words,-lest thou devise against my child some cureless ill. Many things contribute to this fear of mine; thou art a witch by nature, expert in countless sorceries, and thou art chafing for the loss of thy husband’s affection. I hear, too, so they tell me, that thou dost threaten the father of the bride, her husband, and herself with some mischief; wherefore I will take precautions ere our troubles come. For ‘tis better for me to incur thy hatred now, lady, than to soften my heart and bitterly repent it hereafter.

Medea

Alas! this is not now the first time, but oft before, O Creon, hath my reputation injured me and caused sore mischief. Wherefore whoso is wise in his generation ought never to have his children taught to be too clever; for besides the reputation they get for idleness, they purchase bitter odium from the citizens. For if thou shouldst import new learning amongst dullards, thou wilt be thought a useless trifler, void of knowledge; while if thy fame in the city o’ertops that of the pretenders to cunning knowledge, thou wilt win their dislike. I too myself share in this ill-luck. Some think me clever and hate me, others say I am too reserved, and some the very reverse; others find me hard to please and not so very clever after all. Be that as it may, thou dost fear me lest I bring on thee something to mar thy harmony. Fear me not, Creon, my position scarce is such that should seek to quarrel with princes. Why should I, for how hast thou injured me? Thou hast betrothed thy daughter where thy fancy prompted thee. No, ‘tis my husband I hate, though I doubt not thou hast acted wisely herein. And now I grudge not thy prosperity; betroth thy child, good luck to thee, but let me abide in this land, for though I have been wronged I will be still and yield to my superiors.

Creon

Thy words are soft to hear, but much I dread lest thou art devising some mischief in thy heart, and less than ever do I trust thee now; for cunning woman, and man likewise, is easier to guard against when quick-tempered than when taciturn. Nay, begone at once! speak me no speeches, for this is decreed, nor hast thou any art whereby thou shalt abide amongst us, since thou hatest me.

Medea

O, say not so! by thy knees and by thy daughter newlywed, I do implore!

Creon

Thou wastest words; thou wilt never persuade me.

Medea

What, wilt thou banish me, and to my prayers no pity yield?

Creon

I will, for I love not thee above my own family.

Medea

O my country! what fond memories I have of thee in this hour!

Creon

Yea, for I myself love my city best of all things save my children.

Medea

Ah me! ah me! to mortal man how dread a scourge is love!

Creon

That, I deem, is according to the turn our fortunes take.

Medea

O Zeus! let not the author of these my troubles escape thee.

Creon

Begone, thou silly woman, and free me from my toil.

Medea

The toil is mine, no lack of it.

Creon

Soon wilt thou be thrust out forcibly by the hand of servants.

Medea

Not that, not that, I do entreat thee, Creon

Creon

Thou wilt cause disturbance yet, it seems.

Medea

I will begone; I ask thee not this boon to grant.

Creon

Why then this violence? why dost thou not depart?

Medea

Suffer me to abide this single day and devise some plan for the manner of my exile, and means of living for my children, since their father cares not to provide his babes therewith. Then pity them; thou too hast children of thine own; thou needs must have a kindly heart. For my own lot I care naught, though I an exile am, but for those babes I weep, that they should learn what sorrow means.

Creon

Mine is a nature anything but harsh; full oft by showing pity have suffered shipwreck; and now albeit I clearly see my error, yet shalt thou gain this request, lady; but I do forewarn thee, if tomorrow’s rising sun shall find thee and thy children within the borders of this land, thou diest; my word is spoken and it will not lie. So now, if abide thou must, stay this one day only, for in it thou canst not do any of the fearful deeds I dread.

[Creon and his retinue go out.]

Chorus [chanting]

Ah! poor lady, woe is thee! Alas, for thy sorrows! Whither wilt thou turn? What protection, what home or country to save thee from thy troubles wilt thou find? O Medea, in what a hopeless sea of misery heaven hath plunged thee!

Medea

On all sides sorrow pens me in. Who shall gainsay this? But all is not yet lost! think not so. Still are there troubles in store for the new bride, and for her bridegroom no light toil. Dost think I would ever have fawned on yonder man, unless to gain some end or form some scheme? Nay, would not so much as have spoken to him or touched him with my hand. But he has in folly so far stepped in that, though he might have checked my plot by banishing me from the land, he hath allowed me to abide this day, in which I will lay low in death three of my enemies-a father and his daughter and my husband too. Now, though I have many ways to compass their death, I am not sure, friends, which I am to try first. Shall I set fire to the bridal mansion, or plunge the whetted sword through their hearts, softly stealing into the chamber where their couch is spread? One thing stands in my way. If I am caught making my way into the chamber, intent on my design, I shall be put to death and cause my foes to mock, ‘Twere best to take the shortest way-the way we women are most skilled in-by poison to destroy them. Well, suppose them dead; what city will receive me? What friendly host will give me a shelter in his land, a home secure, and save my soul alive? None. So I will wait yet a little while in case some tower of defence rise up for me; then will I proceed to this bloody deed in crafty silence; but if some unexpected mischance drive me forth, I will with mine own hand seize the sword, e’en though I die for it, and slay them, and go forth on my bold path of daring. By that dread queen whom I revere before all others and have chosen to share my task, by Hecate who dwells within my inmost chamber, not one of them shall wound my heart and rue it not. Bitter and sad will I make their marriage for them; bitter shall be the wooing of it, bitter my exile from the land. Up, then, Medea, spare not the secrets of thy art in plotting and devising; on to the danger. Now comes a struggle needing courage. Dost see what thou art suffering? ‘Tis not for thee to be a laughing-stock to the race of Sisyphus by reason of this wedding of Jason, sprung, as thou art, from noble sire, and of the Sun-god’s race. Thou hast cunning; and, more than this, we women, though by nature little apt for virtuous deeds, are most expert to fashion any mischief.

Chorus [singing]

Back to their source the holy rivers turn their tide. Order and the universe are being reversed. ‘Tis men whose counsels are treacherous, whose oath by heaven is no longer sure. Rumour shall bring a change o’er my life, bringing it into good repute. Honour’s dawn is breaking for woman’s sex; no more shall the foul tongue of slander fix upon us.

The songs of the poets of old shall cease to make our faithlessness their theme. Phoebus, lord of minstrelsy, hath not implanted in our mind the gift of heavenly song, else had I sung an answering strain to the race of males, for time’s long chapter affords many a theme on their sex as well as ours.

With mind distraught didst thou thy father’s house desert on thy voyage betwixt ocean’s twin rocks, and on a foreign strand thou dwellest thy bed left husbandless, poor lady, and thou an exile from the land, dishonoured, persecuted.

Gone is the grace that oaths once had. Through all the breadth of Hellas honour is found no more; to heaven hath it sped away. For thee no father’s house is open, woe is thee! to be a haven from the troublous storm, while o’er thy home is set another queen, the bride that is preferred to thee.

[As the chorus finishes its song, Jason enters, alone. Medea comes out of the house.]

Jason

It is not now I first remark, but oft ere this, how unruly a pest is a harsh temper. For instance, thou, hadst thou but patiently endured the will of thy superiors, mightest have remained here in this land and house, but now for thy idle words wilt thou be banished. Thy words are naught to me. Cease not to call Jason basest of men; but for those words thou hast spoken against our rulers, count it all gain that exile is thy only punishment. I ever tried to check the outbursts of the angry monarch, and would have had thee stay, but thou wouldst not forego thy silly rage, always reviling our rulers, and so thou wilt be banished. Yet even after all this I weary not of my goodwill, but am come with thus much forethought, lady, that thou mayst not be destitute nor want for aught, when, with thy sons, thou art cast out. Many an evil doth exile bring in its train with it; for even though thou hatest me, never will I harbour hard thoughts of thee.

Medea

Thou craven villain (for that is the only name my tongue can find for thee, a foul reproach on thy unmanliness), comest thou to me, thou, most hated foe of gods, of me, and of all mankind? ‘Tis no proof of courage or hardihood to confront thy friends after injuring them, but that worst of all human diseases-loss of shame. Yet hast thou done well to come; for I shall ease my soul by reviling thee, and thou wilt be vexed at my recital. I will begin at the very beginning. I saved thy life, as every Hellene knows who sailed with thee aboard the good ship Argo, when thou wert sent to tame and yoke fire-breathing bulls, and to sow the deadly tilth. Yea, and I slew the dragon which guarded the golden fleece, keeping sleepless watch o’er it with many a wreathed coil, and I raised for thee a beacon of deliverance. Father and home of my free will I left and came with the to Iolcos, ‘neath Pelion’s hills, for my love was stronger than my prudence. Next I caused the death of Pelias by a doom most grievous, even by his own children’s hand, beguiling them of all their fear. All this have I done for thee, thou traitor! and thou hast cast me over, taking to thyself another wife, though children have been born to us. Hadst thou been childless still, I could have pardoned thy desire for this new union. Gone is now the trust I put in oaths. I cannot even understand whether thou thinkest that the gods of old no longer rule, or that fresh decrees are now in vogue amongst mankind, for thy conscience must tell thee thou hast not kept faith with me. Ah! poor right hand, which thou didst often grasp. These knees thou didst embrace! All in vain, I suffered a traitor to touch me! How short of my hopes I am fallen! But come, I will deal with the as though thou wert my friend. Yet what kindness can I expect from one so base as thee? But yet I will do it, for my questioning will show thee yet more base. Whither can I turn me now? to my father’s house, to my own country, which I for thee deserted to come hither? to the hapless daughters of Pelias? A glad welcome, I trow, would they give me in their home, whose father’s death I compassed! My case stands even thus: I am become the bitter foe to those of mine own home, and those whom I need ne’er have wronged I have made mine enemies to pleasure thee. Wherefore to reward me for this thou hast made me doubly blest in the eyes of many wife in Hellas; and in thee I own a peerless, trusty lord. O woe is me, if indeed I am to be cast forth an exile from the land, without one friend; one lone woman with her babes forlorn! Yea, a fine reproach to thee in thy bridal hour, that thy children and the wife who saved thy life are beggars and vagabonds! O Zeus! why hast thou granted unto man clear signs to know the sham in gold, while on man’s brow no brand is stamped whereby to gauge the villain’s heart?

Leader of the chorus

There is a something terrible and past all cure, when quarrels arise ‘twixt those who are near and dear.

Jason

Needs must I now, it seems, turn orator, and, like a good helmsman on a ship with close-reefed sails, weather that wearisome tongue of thine. Now, I believe, since thou wilt exaggerate thy favours, that to Cypri, alone of gods or men I owe the safety of my voyage. Thou hast a subtle wit enough; yet were it a hateful thing for me to say that the Love-god constrained thee by his resistless shaft to save my life. However, I will not reckon this too nicely; ‘twas kindly done, however thou didst serve me. Yet for my safety hast thou received more than ever thou gavest, as I will show. First, thou dwellest in Hellas, instead of thy barbarian land, and hast learnt what justice means and how to live by law, not by the dictates of brute force; and all the Hellenes recognize thy cleverness, and thou hast gained a name; whereas, if thou hadst dwelt upon the confines of the earth, no tongue had mentioned thee. Give me no gold within my halls, nor skill to sing a fairer strain than ever Orpheus sang, unless there-with my fame be spread abroad! So much I say to thee about my own toils, for ‘twas thou didst challenge me to this retort. As for the taunts thou urgest against my marriage with the princess, I will prove to thee, first, that I am prudent herein, next chastened in my love, and last powerful friend to thee and to thy sons; only hold thy peace. Since I have here withdrawn from Iolcos with many a hopeless trouble at my back, what happier device could I, an exile, frame than marriage with the daughter of the king? ‘Tis not because I loathe thee for my wife-the thought that rankles in thy heart; ‘tis not because I am smitten with desire for a new bride, nor yet that I am eager to vie with others in begetting many children, for those we have are quite enough, and I do not complain. Nay, ‘tis that we-and this is most important-may dwell in comfort, instead of suffering want (for well I know that every whilom friend avoids the poor), and that I might rear my sons as doth befit my house; further, that I might be the father of brothers for the children thou hast borne, and raise these to the same high rank, uniting the family in one,-to my lasting bliss. Thou, indeed, hast no need of more children, but me it profits to help my present family by that which is to be. Have I miscarried here? Not even thou wouldest say so unless a rival’s charms rankled in thy bosom. No, but you women have such strange ideas, that you think all is well so long as your married life runs smooth; but if some mischance occur to ruffle your love, all that was good and lovely erst you reckon as your foes. Yea, men should have begotten children from some other source, no female race existing; thus would no evil ever have fallen on mankind.

Leader

This speech, O Jason, hast thou with specious art arranged; but yet I think-albeit in speaking I am indiscreet-that thou hast sinned in thy betrayal of thy wife.

Medea

No doubt I differ from the mass of men on many points; for, to my mind, whoso hath skill to fence with words in an unjust cause, incurs the heaviest penalty; for such an one, confident that he can cast a decent veil of words o’er his injustice, dares to practise it; and yet he is not so very clever after all. So do not thou put forth thy specious pleas and clever words to me now, for one word of mine will lay thee low. Hadst thou not had a villain’s heart, thou shouldst have gained my consent, then made this match, instead of hiding it from those who loved thee.

Jason

Thou wouldest have lent me ready aid, no doubt, in this proposal, if had told thee of my marriage, seeing that not even now canst thou restrain thy soul’s hot fury.

Medea

This was not what restrained thee; but thine eye was turned towards old age, and a foreign wife began to appear a shame to thee.

Jason

Be well assured of this: ‘twas not for the woman’s sake I wedded the king’s daughter, my present wife; but, as I have already told thee, I wished to insure thy safety and to be the father of royal sons bound by blood to my own children-a bulwark to our house.

Medea

May that prosperity, whose end is woe, ne’er be mine, nor such wealth as would ever sting my heart!

Jason

Change that prayer as I will teach thee, and thou wilt show more wisdom. Never let happiness appear in sorrow’s guise, nor, when thy fortune smiles, pretend she frowns!

Medea

Mock on; thou hast a place of refuge; I am alone, an exile soon to be.

Jason

Thy own free choice was this; blame no one else.

Medea

What did I do? Marry, then betray thee?

Jason

Against the king thou didst invoke an impious curse.

Medea

On thy house too maybe I bring the curse.

Jason

Know this, I will no further dispute this point with thee. But, if thou wilt of my fortune somewhat take for the children or thyself to help thy exile, say on; for I am ready to grant it with ungrudging hand, yea and to bend tokens to my friends elsewhere who shall treat thee well. If thou refuse this offer, thou wilt do a foolish deed, but if thou cease from anger the greater will be thy gain.

Medea

I will have naught to do with friends of thine, naught will I receive of thee, offer it not to me; a villain’s gifts can bring no blessing.

Jason

At least I call the gods to witness, that I am ready in all things to serve thee and thy children, but thou dost scorn my favours and thrustest thy friends stubbornly away; wherefore thy lot will be more bitter still.

Medea

Away! By love for thy young bride entrapped, too long thou lingerest outside her chamber; go wed, for, if God will, thou shalt have such a marriage as thou wouldst fain refuse.

[Jason goes out.]

Chorus [singing]

When in excess and past all limits Love doth come, he brings not glory or repute to man; but if the Cyprian queen in moderate might approach, no goddess is so full of charm as she. Never, O never, lady mine, discharge at me from thy golden bow a shaft invincible, in passion’s venom dipped.

On me may chastity, heaven’s fairest gift, look with a favouring eye; never may Cypris, goddess dread, fasten on me a temper to dispute, or restless jealousy, smiting my soul with mad desire for unlawful love, but may she hallow peaceful married life and shrewdly decide whom each of us shall wed.

O my country, O my own dear home! God grant I may never be an outcast from my city, leading that cruel helpless life, whose every day is misery. Ere that may I this life complete and yield to death, ay, death; for there is no misery that doth surpass the loss of fatherland.

I have seen with mine eyes, nor from the lips of others have I the lesson learnt; no city, not one friend doth pity thee in this thine awful woe. May he perish and find no favour, whoso hath not in him honour for his friends, freely unlocking his heart to them. Never shall he be friend of mine.

[Medea has been seated in despair on her door-step during the choral song. Aegeus and his attendants enter.]

Aegeus

All hail, Medea! no man knoweth fairer prelude to the greeting of friends than this.

Medea

All hail to thee likewise, Aegeus, son of wise Pandion. Whence comest thou to this land?

Aegeus

From Phoebus’ ancient oracle.

Medea

What took thee on thy travels to the prophetic centre of the earth?

Aegeus

The wish to ask how I might raise up seed unto myself.

Medea

Pray tell me, hast thou till now dragged on a childless life?

Aegeus

I have no child owing to the visitation of some god.

Medea

Hast thou a wife, or hast thou never known the married state?

Aegeus

I have a wife joined to me in wedlock’s bond.

Medea

What said Phoebus to thee as to children?

Aegeus

Words too subtle for man to comprehend.

Medea

Surely I may learn the god’s answer?

Aegeus

Most assuredly, for it is just thy subtle wit it needs.

Medea

What said the god? speak, if I may hear it.

Aegeus

He bade me “not loose the wineskin’s pendent neck.”

Medea

Till when? what must thou do first, what country visit?

Aegeus

Till I to my native home return.

Medea

What object hast thou in sailing to this land?

Aegeus

O’er Troezen’s realm is Pittheus king.

Medea

Pelops’ son, a man devout they say.

Aegeus

To him I fain would impart the oracle of the god.

Medea

The man is shrewd and versed in such-like lore.

Aegeus

Aye, and to me the dearest of all my warrior friends.

Medea

Good luck to thee! success to all thy wishes!

Aegeus

But why that downcast eye, that wasted cheek?

Medea

O Aegeus, my husband has proved most evil.

Aegeus

What meanest thou? explain to me clearly the cause of thy despondency.

Medea

Jason is wronging me though I have given him no cause.

Aegeus

What hath he done? tell me more clearly.

Medea

He is taking another wife to succeed me as mistress of his house.

Aegeus

Can he have brought himself to such a dastard deed?

Medea

Be assured thereof; I, whom he loved of yore, am in dishonour now.

Aegeus

Hath he found a new love? or does he loathe thy bed?

Medea

Much in love is he! A traitor to his friend is he become.

Aegeus

Enough! if he is a villain as thou sayest.

Medea

The alliance he is so much enamoured of is with a princess.

Aegeus

Who gives his daughter to him? go on, I pray.

Medea

Creon, who is lord of this land of Corinth.

Aegeus

Lady, I can well pardon thy grief.

Medea

I am undone, and more than that, am banished from the land.

Aegeus

By whom? fresh woe this word of thine unfolds.

Medea

Creon drives me forth in exile from Corinth.

Aegeus

Doth Jason allow it? This too I blame him for.

Medea

Not in words, but he will not stand out against it. O, I implore thee by this beard and by thy knees, in suppliant posture, pity, O pity my sorrows; do not see me cast forth forlorn, but receive me in thy country, to a seat within thy halls. So may thy wish by heaven’s grace be crowned with a full harvest of offspring, and may thy life close in happiness! Thou knowest not the rare good luck thou findest here, for I will make thy childlessness to cease and cause thee to beget fair issue; so potent are the spells I know.

Aegeus

Lady, on many grounds I am most fain to grant thee this thy boon, first for the gods’ sake, next for the children whom thou dost promise I shall beget; for in respect of this I am completely lost. ‘Tis thus with me; if e’er thou reach my land, I will attempt to champion thee as I am bound to do. Only one warning I do give thee first, lady; I will not from this land bear thee away, yet if of thyself thou reach my halls, there shalt thou bide in safety and I will never yield thee up to any man. But from this land escape without my aid, for I have no wish to incur the blame of my allies as well.

Medea

It shall be even so; but wouldst thou pledge thy word to this, I should in all be well content with thee.

Aegeus

Surely thou dost trust me? or is there aught that troubles thee?

Medea

Thee I trust; but Pelias’ house and Creon are my foes. Wherefore, if thou art bound by an oath, thou wilt not give me up to them when they come to drag me from the land, but, having entered into a compact and sworn by heaven as well, thou wilt become my friend and disregard their overtures. Weak is any aid of mine, whilst they have wealth and a princely house.

Aegeus

Lady, thy words show much foresight, so if this is thy will, I do not, refuse. For I shall feel secure and safe if I have some pretext to offer to thy foes, and thy case too the firmer stands. Now name thy gods.

Medea

Swear by the plain of Earth, by Helios my father’s sire, and, in one comprehensive oath, by all the race of gods.

Aegeus

What shall I swear to do, from what refrain? tell me that.

Medea

Swear that thou wilt never of thyself expel me from thy land, nor, whilst life is thine, permit any other, one of my foes maybe, to hale me thence if so he will.

Aegeus

By Earth I swear, by the Sun-god’s holy beam and by all the host of heaven that I will stand fast to the terms I hear thee make.

Medea

‘Tis enough. If thou shouldst break this oath, what curse dost thou invoke upon thyself?

Aegeus

Whate’er betides the impious.

Medea

Go in peace; all is well, and I with what speed I may, will to thy city come, when I have wrought my purpose and obtained my wish.

[Aegeus and his retinue depart.]

Chorus [chanting]

May Maia’s princely son go with thee on thy way to bring thee to thy home, and mayest thou attain that on which thy soul is set so firmly, for to my mind thou seemest a generous man, O Aegeus.

Medea

O Zeus, and Justice, child of Zeus, and Sun-god’s light, now will triumph o’er my foes, kind friends; on victory’s road have I set forth; good hope have I of wreaking vengeance on those I hate. For where we were in most distress this stranger hath appeared, to be a haven in my counsels; to him will we make fast the cables of our ship when we come to the town and citadel of Pallas. But now will I explain to thee my plans in full; do not expect to hear a pleasant tale. A servant of mine will I to Jason send and crave an interview; then when he comes I will address him with soft words, say, “this pleases me,” and, “that is well,” even the marriage with the princess, which my treacherous lord is celebrating, and add “it suits us both, ‘twas well thought out”; then will I entreat that here my children may abide, not that I mean to leave them in a hostile land for foes to flout, but that I may slay the king’s daughter by guile. For I will send them with gifts in their hands, carrying them unto the bride to save them from banishment, a robe of finest woof and a chaplet of gold. And if these ornaments she take and put them on, miserably shall she die, and likewise everyone who touches her; with such fell poisons will I smear my gifts. And here I quit this theme; but I shudder at the deed I must do next; for I will slay the children I have borne; there is none shall take them from my toils; and when I have utterly confounded Jason’s house I will leave the land, escaping punishment for my dear children’s murder, after my most unholy deed. For I cannot endure the taunts of enemies, kind friends; enough! what gain is life to me? I have no country, home, or refuge left. O, I did wrong, that hour I left my father’s home, persuaded by that Hellene’s words, who now shall pay the penalty, so help me God, Never shall he see again alive the children I bore to him, nor from his new bride shall he beget issue, for she must die a hideous death, slain by my drugs. Let no one deem me a poor weak woman who sits with folded hands, but of another mould, dangerous to foes and well-disposed to friends; for they win the fairest fame who live then, life like me.

Leader of the chorus

Since thou hast imparted this design to me, I bid thee hold thy hand, both from a wish to serve thee and because I would uphold the laws men make.

Medea

It cannot but be so; thy words I pardon since thou art not in the same sorry plight that I am.

Leader

O lady, wilt thou steel thyself to slay thy children twain?

Medea

I will, for that will stab my husband to the heart.

Leader

It may, but thou wilt be the saddest wife alive.

Medea

No matter; wasted is every word that comes ‘twixt now and then. Ho! [The nurse enters in answer to her call.] Thou, go call me Jason hither, for thee I do employ on every mission of trust. No word divulge of all my purpose, as thou art to thy mistress loyal and likewise of my sex.

[The nurse goes out.]

Chorus [singing]

Sons of Erechtheus, heroes happy from of yore, children of the blessed gods, fed on wisdom’s glorious food in a holy land ne’er pillaged by its foes, ye who move with sprightly step through a climate ever bright and clear, where, as legend tells, the Muses nine, Pieria’s holy maids, were brought to birth by Harmonia with the golden hair.

And poets sing how Cypris drawing water from the streams of fair-flowing Cephissus breathes o’er the land a gentle breeze of balmy winds, and ever as she crowns her tresses with a garland of sweet rose-buds sends forth the Loves to sit by wisdom’s side, to take part in every excellence.

How then shall the city of sacred streams, the land that welcomes those it loves, receive thee, the murderess of thy children, thee whose presence with others is a pollution? ‘Think on the murder of thy children, consider the bloody deed thou takest on thee. Nay, by thy knees we, one and all, implore thee, slay not thy babes.

Where shall hand or heart find hardihood enough in wreaking such a fearsome deed upon thy sons? How wilt thou look upon thy babes, and still without a tear retain thy bloody purpose? Thou canst not, when they fall at thy feet for mercy, steel thy heart and dip in their blood thy hand.

[Jason enters.]

Jason

I am come at thy bidding, for e’en though thy hate for me is bitter thou shalt not fail in this small boon, but I will hear what new request thou hast to make of me, lady.

Medea

Jason, I crave thy pardon for the words I spoke, and well thou mayest brook my burst of passion, for ere now we twain have shared much love. For I have reasoned with my soul and railed upon me thus, “Ah! poor heart! why am I thus distraught, why so angered ‘gainst all good advice, why have I come to hate the rulers of the land, my husband too, who does the best for me he can, in wedding with a princess and rearing for my children noble brothers? Shall I not cease to fret? What possesses me, when heaven its best doth offer? Have I not my children to consider? do I forget that we are fugitives, in need of friends?” When I had thought all this I saw how foolish I had been, how senselessly enraged. So now do commend thee and think thee most wise in forming this connection for us; but I was mad, I who should have shared in these designs, helped on thy plans, and lent my aid to bring about the match, only too pleased to wait upon thy bride. But what we are, we are, we women, evil I will not say; wherefore thou shouldst not sink to our sorry level nor with our weapons meet our childishness.

I yield and do confess that I was wrong then, but now have I come to a better mind. Come hither, my children, come, leave the house, step forth, and with me greet and bid farewell to your father, be reconciled from all past bitterness unto your friends, as now your mother is; for we have made a truce and anger is no more.

[The attendant comes out of the house with the children.]

Take his right hand; ah me! my sad fate! when I reflect, as now, upon the hidden future. O my children, since there awaits you even thus a long, long life, stretch forth the hand to take a fond farewell. Ah me! how new to tears am I, how full of fear! For now that I have at last released me from my quarrel with your father, I let the tear-drops stream adown my tender cheek.

Leader of the chorus

From my eyes too bursts forth the copious tear; O, may no greater ill than the present e’er befall!

Jason

Lady, I praise this conduct, not that I blame what is past; for it is but natural to the female sex to vent their spleen against a husband when he trafficks in other marriages besides his own. But thy heart is changed to wiser schemes and thou art determined on the better course, late though it be; this is acting like a woman of sober sense. And for you, my sons, hath your father provided with all good heed a sure refuge, by God’s grace; for ye, I trow, shall with your brothers share hereafter the foremost rank in this Corinthian realm. Only grow up, for all the rest your sire and whoso of the gods is kind to us is bringing to pass. May I see you reach man’s full estate, high o’er the heads of those I hate! But thou, lady, why with fresh tears dost thou thine eyelids wet, turning away thy wan cheek, with no welcome for these my happy tidings?

Medea

‘Tis naught; upon these children my thoughts were turned.

Jason

Then take heart; for I will see that it is well with them.

Medea

I will do so; nor will I doubt thy word; woman is a weak creature, ever given to tears.

Jason

Why prithee, unhappy one, dost moan o’er these children?

Medea

I gave them birth; and when thou didst pray long life for them, pity entered into my soul to think that these things must be. But the reason of thy coming hither to speak with me is partly told, the rest will I now mention. Since it is the pleasure of the rulers of the land to banish me, and well I know ‘twere best for me to stand not in the way of thee or of the rulers by dwelling here, enemy as I am thought unto their house, forth from this land in exile am I going, but these children,-that they may know thy fostering hand, beg Creon to remit their banishment.

Jason

I doubt whether I can persuade him, yet must I attempt it.

Medea

At least do thou bid thy wife ask her sire this boon, to remit the exile of the children from this land.

Jason

Yea, that will I; and her methinks I shall persuade, since she is woman like the rest.

Medea

I too will aid thee in this task, for by the children’s hand I will send to her gifts that far surpass in beauty, I well know, aught that now is seen ‘mongst men, a robe of finest tissue and a chaplet of chased gold. But one of my attendants must haste and bring the ornaments hither. [A servant goes into the house.] Happy shall she be not once alone but ten thousand-fold, for in thee she wins the noblest soul to share her love, and gets these gifts as well which on a day my father’s sire, the Sun-god, bestowed on his descendants. [The servant returns and hands the gifts to the children.] My children, take in your hands these wedding gifts, and bear them as an offering to the royal maid, the happy bride; for verily the gifts she shall receive are not to be scorned.

Jason

But why so rashly rob thyself of these gifts? Dost think a royal palace wants for robes or gold? Keep them, nor give them to another. For well I know that if my lady hold me in esteem, she will set my price above all wealth.

Medea

Say not so; ‘tis said that gifts tempt even gods; and o’er men’s minds gold holds more potent sway than countless words. Fortune smiles upon thy bride, and heaven now doth swell her triumph; youth is hers and princely power; yet to save my children from exile I would barter life, not dross alone. Children, when we are come to the rich palace, pray your father’s new bride, my mistress, with suppliant voice to save you from exile, offering her these ornaments the while; for it is most needful that she receive the gifts in her own hand. Now go and linger not; may ye succeed and to your mother bring back the glad tidings she fain would hear

[Jason, the attendant, and the children go out together.]

Chorus [singing]

Gone, gone is every hope I had that the children yet might live; forth to their doom they now proceed. The hapless bride will take, ay, take the golden crown that is to be her ruin; with her own hand will she lift and place upon her golden locks the garniture of death.

Its grace and sheen divine will tempt her to put on the robe and crown of gold, and in that act will she deck herself to be a bride amid the dead. Such is the snare whereinto she will fall, such is the deadly doom that waits the hapless maid, nor shall she from the curse escape.

And thou, poor wretch, who to thy sorrow art wedding a king’s daughter, little thinkest of the doom thou art bringing on thy children’s life, or of the cruel death that waits thy bride. Woe is thee! how art thou fallen from thy high estate!

Next do I bewail thy sorrows, O mother hapless in thy children, thou who wilt slay thy babes because thou hast a rival, the babes thy husband hath deserted impiously to join him to another bride.

[The attendant enters with the children.]

Attendant

Thy children, lady, are from exile freed, and gladly did the royal bride accept thy gifts in her own hands, and so thy children made their peace with her.

Medea

Ah!

Attendant

Why art so disquieted in thy prosperous hour? Why turnest thou thy cheek away, and hast no welcome for my glad news?

Medea

Ah me!

Attendant

These groans but ill accord with the news I bring.

Medea

Ah me! once more I say.

Attendant

Have I unwittingly announced some evil tidings? Have I erred in thinking my news was good?

Medea

Thy news is as it is; I blame thee not.

Attendant

Then why this downcast eye, these floods of tears?

Medea

Old friend, needs must I weep; for the gods and I with fell intent devised these schemes.

Attendant

Be of good cheer; thou too of a surety shalt by thy sons yet be brought home again.

Medea

Ere that shall I bring others to their home, ah! woe is me

Attendant

Thou art not the only mother from thy children reft. Bear patiently thy troubles as a mortal must.

Medea

I will obey; go thou within the house and make the day’s provision for the children. [The attendant enters the house. Medea turns to the children.] O my babes, my babes, ye have still a city and a home, where far from me and my sad lot you will live your lives, reft of your mother for ever; while I must to another land in banishment, or ever I have had my joy of you, or lived to see you happy, or ever I have graced your marriage couch, your bride, your bridal bower, or lifted high the wedding torch. Ah me! a victim of my own self-will. So it was all in vain I reared you, O my sons; in vain did suffer, racked with anguish, enduring the cruel pangs of childbirth. ‘Fore Heaven I once had hope, poor me! high hope of ye that you would nurse me in my age and deck my corpse with loving hands, a boon we mortals covet; but now is my sweet fancy dead and gone; for I must lose you both and in bitterness and sorrow drag through life. And ye shall never with fond eyes see your mother more for o’er your life there comes a change. Ah me! ah me! why do ye look at me so, my children? why smile that last sweet smile? Ah me! what am I to do? My heart gives way when I behold my children’s laughing eyes. O, I cannot; farewell to all my former schemes; I will take the children from the land, the babes I bore. Why should I wound their sire by wounding them, and get me a twofold measure of sorrow? No, no, I will not do it. Farewell my scheming! And yet what possesses me? Can I consent to let those foes of mine escape from punishment, and incur their mockery? I must face this deed. Out upon my craven heart! to think that I should even have let the soft words escape my soul. Into the house, children! [The children go into the house.] And whoso feels he must not be present at my sacrifice, must see to it himself; I will not spoil my handiwork. Ah! ah! do not, my heart, O do not do this deed! Let the children go, unhappy one, spare the babes! For if they live, they will cheer thee in our exile there. Nay, by the fiends of hell’s abyss, never, never will I hand my children over to their foes to mock and flout. Die they must in any case, and since ‘tis so, why I, the mother who bore them, will give the fatal blow. In any case their doom is fixed and there is no escape. Already the crown is on her head, the robe is round her, and she is dying, the royal bride; that do I know full well. But now since I have a piteous path to tread, and yet more piteous still the path I send my children on, fain would I say farewell to them. [The children come out at her call. She takes them in her arms.] O my babes, my babes, let your mother kiss your hands. Ah! hands I love so well, O lips most dear to me! O noble form and features of my children, I wish ye joy, but in that other land, for here your father robs you of your home. O the sweet embrace, the soft young cheek, the fragrant breath! my children! Go, leave me; I cannot bear to longer look upon ye; my sorrow wins the day. At last I understand the awful deed I am to do; but passion, that cause of direst woes to mortal man, hath triumphed o’er my sober thoughts.

[She goes into the house with the children.]

Chorus [chanting]

Oft ere now have I pursued subtler themes and have faced graver issues than woman’s sex should seek to probe; but then e’en we aspire to culture, which dwells with us to teach us wisdom; I say not all; for small is the class amongst women —(one maybe shalt thou find ‘mid many)— that is not incapable of wisdom. And amongst mortals I do assert that they who are wholly without experience and have never had children far surpass in happiness those who are parents. The childless, because they have never proved whether children grow up to be a blessing or curse to men are removed from all share in many troubles; whilst those who have a sweet race of children growing up in their houses do wear away, as I perceive, their whole life through; first with the thought how they may train them up in virtue, next how they shall leave their sons the means to live; and after all this ‘tis far from clear whether on good or bad children they bestow their toil. But one last crowning woe for every mortal man now will name; suppose that they have found sufficient means to live, and seen their children grow to man’s estate and walk in virtue’s path, still if fortune so befall, comes Death and bears the children’s bodies off to Hades. Can it be any profit to the gods to heap upon us mortal men beside our other woes this further grief for children lost, a grief surpassing all?

[Medea comes out of the house.]

Medea

Kind friends, long have I waited expectantly to know how things would at the palace chance. And lo! I see one of Jason’s servants coming hither, whose hurried gasps for breath proclaim him the bearer of some fresh tidings.

[A messenger rushes in.]

Messenger

Fly, fly, Medea! who hast wrought an awful deed, transgressing every law: nor leave behind or sea-borne bark or car that scours the plain.

Medea

Why, what hath chanced that calls for such a flight of mine?

Messenger

The princess is dead, a moment gone, and Creon too, her sire, slain by those drugs of thine.

Medea

Tidings most fair are thine! Henceforth shalt thou be ranked amongst my friends and benefactors.

Messenger

Ha! What? Art sane? Art not distraught, lady, who hearest with joy the outrage to our royal house done, and art not at the horrid tale afraid?

Medea

Somewhat have I, too, to say in answer to thy words. Be not so hasty, friend, but tell the manner of their death, for thou wouldst give me double joy, if so they perished miserably.

Messenger

When the children twain whom thou didst bear came with their father and entered the palace of the bride, right glad were we thralls who had shared thy griefs, for instantly from ear to ear a rumour spread that thou and thy lord had made up your former quarrel. One kissed thy children’s hands, another their golden hair, while I for very joy went with them in person to the women’s chambers. Our mistress, whom now we do revere in thy room, cast a longing glance at Jason, ere she saw thy children twain; but then she veiled her eyes and turned her blanching cheek away, disgusted at their coming; but thy husband tried to check his young bride’s angry humour with these words: “O, be not angered ‘gainst thy friends; cease from wrath and turn once more thy face this way, counting as friends whomso thy husband counts, and accept these gifts, and for my sake crave thy sire to remit these children’s exile.” Soon as she saw the ornaments, no longer she held out, but yielded to her lord in all; and ere the father and his sons were far from the palace gone, she took the broidered robe and put it on, and set the golden crown about her tresses, arranging her hair at her bright mirror, with many a happy smile at her breathless counterfeit. Then rising from her seat she passed across the chamber, tripping lightly on her fair white foot, exulting in the gift, with many a glance at her uplifted ankle. When lo! a scene of awful horror did ensue. In a moment she turned pale, reeled backwards, trembling in every limb, and sinks upon a seat scarce soon enough to save herself from falling to the ground. An aged dame, one of her company, thinking belike it was a fit from Pan or some god sent, raised a cry of prayer, till from her mouth she saw the foam-flakes issue, her eyeballs rolling in their sockets, and all the blood her face desert; then did she raise a loud scream far different from her former cry. Forthwith one handmaid rushed to her father’s house, another to her new bridegroom to tell his bride’s sad fate, and the whole house echoed with their running to and fro. By this time would a quick walker have made the turn in a course of six plethra and reached the goal, when she with one awful shriek awoke, poor sufferer, from her speechless trance and oped her closed eyes, for against her a twofold anguish was warring. The chaplet of gold about her head was sending forth a wondrous stream of ravening flame, while the fine raiment, thy children’s gift, was preying on the hapless maiden’s fair white flesh; and she starts from her seat in a blaze and seeks to fly, shaking her hair and head this way and that, to cast the crown therefrom; but the gold held firm to its fastenings, and the flame, as she shook her locks, blazed forth the more with double fury. Then to the earth she sinks, by the cruel blow o’ercome; past all recognition now save to a father’s eye; for her eyes had lost their tranquil gaze, her face no more its natural look preserved, and from the crown of her head blood and fire in mingled stream ran down; and from her bones the flesh kept peeling off beneath the gnawing of those secret drugs, e’en as when the pine-tree weeps its tears of pitch, a fearsome sight to see. And all were afraid to touch the corpse, for we were warned by what had chanced. Anon came her haples father unto the house, all unwitting of her doom, and stumbles o’er the dead, and loud he cried, and folding his arms about her kissed her, with words like these the while, “O my poor, poor child, which of the gods hath destroyed thee thus foully? Who is robbing me of thee, old as I am and ripe for death? O my child, alas! would I could die with thee!” He ceased his sad lament, and would have raised his aged frame, but found himself held fast by the fine-spun robe as ivy that clings to the branches of the bay, and then ensued a fearful struggle. He strove to rise, but she still held him back; and if ever he pulled with all his might, from off his bones his aged flesh he tore. At last he gave it up, and breathed forth his soul in awful suffering; for he could no longer master the pain. So there they lie, daughter and aged sire, dead side by side, a grievous sight that calls for tears. And as for thee, I leave thee out of my consideration, for thyself must discover a means to escape punishment. Not now for the first time I think this human life a shadow; yea, and without shrinking I will say that they amongst men who pretend to wisdom and expend deep thought on words do incur a serious charge of folly; for amongst mortals no man is happy; wealth may pour in and make one luckier than another, but none can happy be.

[The messenger departs.]

Leader of the chorus

This day the deity, it seems, will mass on Jason, as he well deserves, heavy load of evils. Woe is thee, daughter of Creon We pity thy sad fate, gone as thou art to Hades’ halls as the price of thy marriage with Jason.

Medea

My friends, I am resolved upon the deed; at once will I slay my children and then leave this land, without delaying long enough to hand them over to some more savage hand to butcher. Needs must they die in any case; and since they must, I will slay them-I, the mother that bare them. O heart of mine, steel thyself! Why do I hesitate to do the awful deed that must be done? Come, take the sword, thou wretched hand of mine! Take it, and advance to the post whence starts thy life of sorrow! Away with cowardice! Give not one thought to thy babes, how dear they are or how thou art their mother. This one brief day forget thy children dear, and after that lament; for though thou wilt slay them yet they were thy darlings still, and I am a lady of sorrows.

[Medea enters the house.]

Chorus [chanting]

O earth, O sun whose beam illumines all, look, look upon this lost woman, ere she stretch forth her murderous hand upon her sons for blood; for lo! these are scions of thy own golden seed, and the blood of gods is in danger of being shed by man. O light, from Zeus proceeding, stay her, hold her hand, forth from the house chase this fell bloody fiend by demons led. Vainly wasted were the throes thy children cost thee; vainly hast thou borne, it seems, sweet babes, O thou who hast left behind thee that passage through the blue Symplegades, that strangers justly hate. Ah! hapless one, why doth fierce anger thy soul assail? Why in its place is fell murder growing up? For grievous unto mortal men are pollutions that come of kindred blood poured on the earth, woes to suit each crime hurled from heaven on the murderer’s house.

First son [within]

Ah, me; what can I do? Whither fly to escape my mother’s blows?

Second son [within]

I know not, sweet brother mine; we are lost.

Chorus [chanting]

Didst hear, didst hear the children’s cry? O lady, born to sorrow, victim of an evil fate! Shall I enter the house? For the children’s sake I am resolved to ward off the murder.

First son [within]

Yea, by heaven I adjure you; help, your aid is needed.

Second son [within]

Even now the toils of the sword are closing round us.

Chorus [chanting]

O hapless mother, surely thou hast a heart of stone or steel to slay the offspring of thy womb by such a murderous doom. Of all the wives of yore I know but one who laid her hand upon her children dear, even Ino, whom the gods did madden in the day that the wife of Zeus drove her wandering from her home. But she, poor sufferer, flung herself into the sea because of the foul murder of her children, leaping o’er the wave-beat cliff, and in her death was she united to her children twain. Can there be any deed of horror left to follow this? Woe for the wooing of women fraught with disaster! What sorrows hast thou caused for men ere now!

[Jason and his attendants enter.]

Jason

Ladies, stationed near this house, pray tell me is the author of these hideous deeds, Medea, still within, or hath she fled from hence? For she must hide beneath the earth or soar on wings towards heaven’s vault, if she would avoid the vengeance of the royal house. Is she so sure she will escape herself unpunished from this house, when she hath slain the rulers of the land? But enough of this! I am forgetting her children. As for her, those whom she hath wronged will do the like by her; but I am come to save the children’s life, lest the victim’s kin visit their wrath on me, in vengeance for the murder foul, wrought by my children’s mother.

Leader of the chorus

Unhappy man, thou knowest not the full extent of thy misery, else had thou never said those words.

Jason

How now? Can she want to kill me too?

Leader

Thy sons are dead; slain by their own mother’s hand.

Jason

O God! what sayest thou? Woman, thou hast sealed my doom.

Leader

Thy children are no more; be sure of this.

Jason

Where slew she them; within the palace or outside?

Leader

Throw wide the doors and see thy children’s murdered corpses.

Jason

Haste, ye slaves, loose the bolts, undo the fastenings, that I may see the sight of twofold woe, my murdered sons and her, whose blood in vengeance I will shed.

[Medea appears above the house, on a chariot drawn by dragons; the children’s corpses are beside her.]

Medea

Why shake those doors and attempt to loose their bolts, in quest of the dead and me their murderess? From such toil desist. If thou wouldst aught with me, say on, if so thou wilt; but never shalt thou lay hand on me, so swift the steeds the sun, my father’s sire, to me doth give to save me from the hand of my foes.

Jason

Accursed woman! by gods, by me and all mankind abhorred as never woman was, who hadst the heart to stab thy babes, thou their mother, leaving me undone and childless; this hast thou done and still dost gaze upon the sun and earth after this deed most impious. Curses on thee! now perceive what then I missed in the day I brought thee, fraught with doom, from thy home in a barbarian land to dwell in Hellas, traitress to thy sire and to the land that nurtured thee. On me the gods have hurled the curse that dogged thy steps, for thou didst slay thy brother at his hearth ere thou cam’st aboard our fair ship, Argo. Such was the outset of thy life of crime; then didst thou wed with me, and having borne me sons to glut thy passion’s lust, thou now hast slain them. Not one amongst the wives of Hellas e’er had dared this deed; yet before them all I chose thee for my wife, wedding a foe to be my doom, no woman, but a lioness fiercer than Tyrrhene Scylla in nature. But with reproaches heaped thousandfold I cannot wound thee, so brazen is thy nature. Perish, vile sorceress, murderess of thy babes! Whilst I must mourn my luckless fate, for I shall ne’er enjoy my new-found bride, nor shall I have the children, whom I bred and reared, alive to say the last farewell to me; nay, I have lost them.

Medea

To this thy speech I could have made a long reply, but Father Zeus knows well all I have done for thee, and the treatment thou hast given me. Yet thou wert not ordained to scorn my love and lead a life of joy in mockery of me, nor was thy royal bride nor Creon, who gave thee a second wife, to thrust me from this land and rue it not. Wherefore, if thou wilt, call me e’en a lioness, and Scylla, whose home is in the Tyrrhene land; for I in turn have wrung thy heart, as well I might.

Jason

Thou, too, art grieved thyself, and sharest in my sorrow.

Medea

Be well assured I am; but it relieves my pain to know thou canst not mock at me.

Jason

O my children, how vile a mother ye have found!

Medea

My sons, your father’s feeble lust has been your ruin!

Jason

‘Twas not my hand, at any rate, that slew them.

Medea

No, but thy foul treatment of me, and thy new marriage.

Jason

Didst think that marriage cause enough to murder them?

Medea

Dost think a woman counts this a trifling injury?

Jason

So she be self-restrained; but in thy eyes all is evil.

Medea

Thy sons are dead and gone. That will stab thy heart.

Jason

They live, methinks, to bring a curse upon thy head.

Medea

The gods know, whoso of them began this troublous coil.

Jason

Indeed, they know that hateful heart of thine.

Medea

Thou art as hateful. I am aweary of thy bitter tongue.

Jason

And I likewise of thine. But parting is easy.

Medea

Say how; what am I to do? for I am fain as thou to go.

Jason

Give up to me those dead, to bury and lament.

Medea

No, never! I will bury them myself, bearing them to Hera’s sacred field, who watches o’er the Cape, that none of their foes may insult them by pulling down their tombs; and in this land of Sisyphus I will ordain hereafter a solemn feast and mystic rites to atone for this impious murder. Myself will now to the land of Erechtheus, to dwell with Aegeus, Pandion’s son. But thou, as well thou mayst, shalt die a caitiff’s death, thy head crushed ‘neath a shattered relic of Argo, when thou hast seen the bitter ending of my marriage.

Jason

The curse of our sons’ avenging spirit and of justice, that calls for blood, be on thee!

Medea

What god or power divine hears thee, breaker of oaths and every law of hospitality?

Jason

Fie upon thee! cursed witch! child-murderess!

Medea

To thy house! go, bury thy wife.

Jason

I go, bereft of both my sons.

Medea

Thy grief is yet to come; wait till old age is with thee too.

Jason

O my dear, dear children!

Medea

Dear to their mother, not to thee.

Jason

And yet thou didst slay them?

Medea

Yea, to vex thy heart.

Jason

One last fond kiss, ah me! I fain would on their lips imprint.

Medea

Embraces now, and fond farewells for them; but then a cold repulse!

Jason

By heaven I do adjure thee, let me touch their tender skin.

Medea

No, no! in vain this word has sped its flight.

Jason

O Zeus, dost hear how I am driven hence; dost mark the treatment I receive from this she-lion, fell murderess of her young? Yet so far as I may and can, I raise for them a dirge, and do adjure the gods to witness how thou hast slain my sons, and wilt not suffer me to embrace or bury their dead bodies. Would I had never begotten them to see thee slay them after all!

[The chariot carries Medea away.]

Chorus [chanting]

Many a fate doth Zeus dispense, high on his Olympian throne; oft do the gods bring things to pass beyond man’s expectation; that, which we thought would be, is not fulfilled, while for the unlooked-for god finds out a way; and such hath been the issue of this matter.

Orestes

Characters in the Play

Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra

Helen, wife of Menelaus

Chorus of Argive Maidens

Orestes, brother of Electra

Menelaus, brother of Agamemnon; King of Argos

Pylades, friend Of Orestes

Messenger, formerly servant of Agamemnon

Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen

A Phrygian Eunuch, in Helen’s retinue

Apollo

Tyndareus, father of Clytemnestra

Attendants

[Scene: Before the royal palace at Argos. It is the sixth day after the murder of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Electra is discovered alone. Orestes lies sleeping on a couch in the background.]

Electra

There is naught so terrible to describe, be it physical pain or heaven-sent affliction, that man’s nature may not have to bear the burden of it. Tantalus, they say, once so prosperous,-and I am not now taunting him with his misfortunes,-Tantalus, the reputed son of Zeus, hangs suspended in mid air, quailing at the crag which looms above his head; paying this penalty, they say, for the shameful weakness he displayed in failing to keep a bridle on his lips, when admitted by gods, though he was but mortal, to share the honours of their feasts like one of them.

He it was that begat Pelops, the father of Atreus, for whom the goddess, when she had carded her wool, spun a web of strife, even to the making of war with his own brother Thyestes. But why need I repeat that hideous tale?

Well, Atreus slew Thyestes’ children and feasted him on them; but,-passing over intermediate events-from Atreus and Aerope of Crete sprang Agamemnon, that famous chief,-if his was really fame,-and Menelaus. Now it was this Menelaus who married Helen, Heaven’s abhorrence; while his brother, King Agamemnon, took Clytemnestra to wife, name of note in Hellas, and we three daughters were his issue, Chrysothemis, Iphigenia, and myself Electra; also a son Orestes; all of that one accursed mother, who slew her lord, after snaring him in a robe that had no outlet. Her reason a maiden’s lips may not declare, and so leave that unexplained for the world to guess at. What need for me to charge Phoebus with wrong-doing, though he instigated Orestes to slay his own mother, a deed that few approved; still it was his obedience to the god that made him slay her; I, too, feebly as a woman would, shared in the deed of blood, as did Pylades who helped us to bring it about.

After this my poor Orestes fell sick of a cruel wasting disease; upon his couch he lies prostrated, and it is his mother’s blood that goads him into frenzied fits; this I say, from dread of naming those goddesses, whose terrors are chasing him before them,-even the Eumenides. ‘Tis now the sixth day since the body of his murdered mother was committed to the cleansing fire; since then no food has passed his lips, nor hath he washed his skin; but wrapped in his cloak he weeps in his lucid moments, whenever the fever leaves him; other whiles he bounds headlong from his couch, as colt when it is loosed from the yoke. Moreover, this city of Argos has decreed that no man give us shelter at his fireside or speak to matricides like us; yea, and this is the fateful day on which Argos will decide our sentence, whether we are both to die by stoning, or to whet the steel and plunge it in our necks. There is, ‘tis true, one hope of escape still left us; Menelaus has landed from Troy; his fleet now crowds the haven of Nauplia where he is come to anchor, returned at last from Troy after ceaseless wanderings; but Helen, that “lady of sorrows,” as she styles herself, hath he sent on to our palace, carefully waiting for the night, lest any of those parents whose sons were slain beneath the walls of Troy, might see her if she went by day, and set to stoning her. Within she sits, weeping for her sister and the calamities of her family, and yet she hath still some solace in her woe; for Hermione, the child she left at home in the hour she sailed for Troys-the maid whom Menelaus brought from Sparta and entrusted to my mother’s keeping,-is still a cause of joy to her and a reason to forget her sorrows.

I, meantime, am watching each approach, against the moment I see Menelaus arriving; for unless we find some safety there, we have but feeble anchor to ride on otherwise.

A helpless thing, an unlucky house!

[Helen enters from the palace.]

Helen

Daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, hapless Electra, too long now left a maid unwed! how is it with thee and thy brother, this ill-starred Orestes who slew his mother! Speak; for referring the sin as I do to Phoebus, I incur no pollution by letting thee accost me; and yet am truly sorry for the fate of my sister Clytenmestra, on whom I ne’er set eyes after I was driven by heaven-sent frenzy to sail on my disastrous voyage to Ilium; but now that I am parted from her I bewail our misfortunes.

Electra

Prithee, Helen, why should I speak of that which thine own eyes can see the son of Agamemnon in his misery?

Beside his wretched corpse I sit, a sleepless sentinel; for corpse he is, so faint his breath; not that I reproach him with his sufferings; but thou art highly blest and thy husband too, and ye are come upon us in the hour of adversity.

Helen

How long hath he been laid thus upon his couch?

Electra

Ever since he spilt his mother’s blood-.

Helen

Unhappy wretch! unhappy mother! what a death she died!

Electra

Unhappy enough to succumb to his misery.

Helen

Prithee, maiden, wilt hear me a moment?

Electra

Aye, with such small leisure as this watching o’er a brother leaves.

Helen

Wilt go for me to my sister’s tomb?

Electra

Wouldst have me seek my mother’s tomb? And why?

Helen

To carry an offering of hair and a libation from me.

Electra

Art forbidden then to go to the tombs of those thou lovest?

Helen

Nay, but I am ashamed to show myself in Argos.

Electra

A late repentance surely for one who left her home so shamefully then.

Helen

Thou hast told the truth, but thy telling is not kind to me.

Electra

What is this supposed modesty before the eyes of Mycenae that possesses thee?

Helen

I am afraid of the fathers of those who lie dead beneath the walls of Ilium.

Electra

Good cause for fear; thy name is on every tongue in Argos.

Helen

Then free me of my fear and grant me this boon.

Electra

I could not bear to face my mother’s grave.

Helen

And yet ‘twere shame indeed to send these offerings by a servant’s hand.

Electra

Then why not send thy daughter Hermione?

Helen

‘Tis not seemly for a tender maid to make her way amongst a crowd.

Electra

And yet she would thus be repaying her dead foster-mother’s care.

Helen

True; thou hast convinced me, maiden. Yes, I will send my daughter; for thou art right. [Calling] Hermione, my child, come forth before the palace; [Hermione and attendants come out of the palace.] take these libations and these tresses of mine in thy hands, and go pour round Clytemnestra’s tomb a mingled cup of honey, milk, and frothing wine; then stand upon the heaped-up grave, and proclaim therefrom, “Helen, thy sister, sends thee these libations as her gift, fearing herself to approach thy tomb from terror of the Argive mob”; and bid her harbour kindly thoughts towards me and thee and my husband; towards these two wretched sufferers, too, whom Heaven hath afflicted. Likewise promise that I will pay in full whatever funeral gifts are due from me to a sister. Now go, my child, and tarry not; and soon as thou hast made the offering at the tomb, bethink thee of thy return.

[Helen goes into the palace as Hermione and her attendants depart with the offerings.]

Electra

O human nature, what a grievous curse thou art in this world! and what salvation, too, to those who have a goodly heritage therein!

Did ye mark how she cut off her hair only at the ends, careful to preserve its beauty? ‘Tis the same woman as of old. May Heaven’s hate pursue thee! for thou hast proved the ruin of me and my poor brother and all Hellas.

Alack! here are my friends once more, coming to unite their plaintive dirge with mine; they will soon put an end to my brother’s peaceful sleep and cause my tears to flow when I see his frenzied fit.

[The chorus of Argive Maidens enters quietly. The following lines between Electra and the Chorus are chanted responsively.]

Good friends, step softly; not a sound; not a whisper! for though this kindness is well-meant, rouse him and I shall rue it.

Chorus

Hush! hush! let your footsteps fall lightly! not a sound! not whisper!

Electra

Further, further from his couch! I beseech ye.

Chorus

There! there! I obey.

Electra

Hush! hush! good friend, I pray. Soft as the breath of slender reedy pipe be thy every accent!

Chorus

Hark, how soft and low I drop my voice!

Electra

Yes, lower thy voice e’en thus; approach now, softly, softly! Tell me what reason ye had for coming at all. ‘Tis so long since he laid him down to sleep.

Chorus

How is it with him? Impart thy news, dear lady. Is it weal or woe I am to tell?

Electra

He is still alive, but his moans grow feeble.

Chorus

What sayest thou? [Turning to Orestes] Poor wretch!

Electra

Awake him from the deep sweet slumber he is now enjoying and thou wilt cause his death.

Chorus

Ah, poor sufferer! victim of Heaven’s vengeful hate!

Electra

Ah, misery! It seems it was a wicked utterance by a wicked god delivered, the day that Loxias from his seat upon the tripod of Themis decreed my mother’s most unnatural murder.

Chorus

He stirs beneath his robe! Dost see?

Electra

Alas! I do; thy noisy words have roused him from his sleep.

Chorus

Nay, methinks he slumbers still.

Electra

Begone! quit the house! retrace thy footsteps! a truce to this din!

Chorus

He sleeps. Thou art right.

Electra

O Night, majestic queen, giver of sleep to toiling men, rise from the abyss of Erebus and wing thy way to the palace of Agamemnon! For beneath our load of misery and woe we sink, aye, sink oppressed.

There! [To the chorus] that noise again! Be still and keep that high-pitched voice of thine away from his couch; suffer him to enjoy his sleep in peace!

Chorus

Tell me, what end awaits his troubles?

Electra

Death, death; what else? for he does not even miss his food.

Chorus

Why, then his doom is full in view.

Electra

Phoebus marked us out as his victims by imposing a foul unnatural task, even the shedding of the blood of our mother, who slew our sire.

Chorus

‘Twas just, but ‘twas not well.

Electra

Dead, dead, O mother mine! and thou hast slain a father and these the children of thy womb; for we are dead or as the dead. Yes, thou art in thy grave, and more than half my life is spent in weeping and wailing and midnight lamentations; oh, look on me! a maid unwed, unblest with babes, I drag out a joyless existence as if for ever.

Leader of the chorus

My daughter Electra, from thy near station there see whether thy brother hath not passed away without thy knowing it; for I like not his utter prostration.

Orestes [awaking refreshed]

Sweet charm of sleep! saviour in sickness! how dear to me thy coming was! how needed! All hail, majestic power, oblivion of woe! How wise this goddess is, how earnestly invoked by every suffering soul!

[Addressing Electra] Whence came I hither? How is it I am here? for I have lost all previous recollection and remember nothing.

Electra

Dearest brother, how glad I was to see thee fall asleep! Wouldst have me take thee in my arms and lift thy body?

Orestes

Take, oh! take me in thy arms, and from this sufferer’s mouth and eyes wipe off the flakes of foam.

Electra

Ah! ‘tis a service I love; nor do I scorn with sister’s hand to tend a brother’s limbs.

Orestes

Prop me up, thy side to mine; brush the matted hair from off my face, for I see but dimly.

Electra

Ah, poor head! how squalid are thy locks become! How wild thy look from remaining so long uncleansed!

Orestes

Lay me once more upon the couch; when my fit leaves me, I am all unnerved, unstrung.

Electra [as she lays him down]

Welcome to the sick man is his couch, for painful though it be to take thereto, yet is it necessary.

Orestes

Set me upright once again, turn me round; it is their helplessness makes the sick so hard to please.

Electra

Wilt put thy feet upon the ground and take a step at last? Change is always pleasant.

Orestes

That will I; for that has a semblance of health; and that seeming, though it be far from the reality, is preferable to this.

Electra

Hear me then, O brother mine, while yet the avenging fiends permit thee to use thy senses.

Orestes

Hast news to tell? so it be good, thou dost me a kindness; but if it tend to my hurt, lo! I have sorrow enough.

Electra

Menelaus, thy father’s brother, is arrived; in Nauplia his fleet lies at anchor.

Orestes

Ha! is he come to cast a ray of light upon our gloom, a man of our own kin who owes our sire a debt of gratitude?

Electra

Yes, he is come, and is bringing Helen with him from the walls of Troy; accept this as a sure proof of what I say.

Orestes

Had he returned alone in safety, he were more to be envied; for if he is bringing his wife with him, he is bringing a load of evil.

Electra

Tyndareus begat a race of daughters notorious for the shame they earned, infamous throughout Hellas.

Orestes

Be thou then different from that evil brood, for well thou mayest, and that not only in profession, but also in heart.

Electra

Ah! brother, thine eye is growing wild, and in a moment art thou passing from thy recent saneness back to frenzy.

Orestes [starting up wildly]

Mother, I implore thee! let not loose on me those maidens with their bloodshot eyes and snaky hair. Ha! see, see where they approach to leap upon me!

Electra

Lie still, poor sufferer, on thy couch; thine eye sees none of the things which thy fancy paints so clear.

Orestes

O Phoebus! they will kill me, yon hounds of hell, death’s priestesses with glaring eyes, terrific goddesses.

Electra

I will not let thee go; but with arms twined round thee will prevent thy piteous tossing to and fro.

Orestes

Loose me! thou art one of those fiends that plague me, and art gripping me by the waist to hurl my body into Tartarus.

Electra

Woe is me! what succour can I find, seeing that we have Heaven’s forces set against us?

Orestes

Give me my horn-tipped bow, Apollo’s gift, wherewith that god declared that I should defend myself against these goddesses, if ever they sought to scare me with wild transports of madness.

A mortal hand will wound one of these goddesses, unless she vanish from my sight. Do ye not heed me, or mark the feathered shaft of my far-shooting bow ready to wing its flight? What! do ye linger still? Spread your pinions, skim the sky, and blame those oracles of Phoebus.

Ah! why am I raving, panting, gasping? Whither, oh! whither have leapt from off my couch? Once more the storm is past; I see a calm.

Sister, why weepest thou, thy head wrapped in thy robe? I am ashamed that I should make thee a partner in my sufferings and distress a maid like thee through sickness of mine. Cease to fret for my troubles; for though thou didst consent to it, yet ‘twas I that spilt our mother’s blood. ‘Tis Loxias I blame, for urging me on to do a deed most damned, encouraging me with words but no real help; for I am sure that, had I asked my father to his face whether I was to slay my mother, he would have implored me oft and earnestly by this beard never to plunge a murderer’s sword into my mother’s breast, since he would not thereby regain his life, whilst I, poor wretch, should be doomed to drain this cup of sorrow.

E’en as it is, dear sister, unveil thy face and cease to weep, despite our abject misery; and whensoe’er thou seest me give way to despair, be it thine to calm and soothe the terrors and distorted fancies of my brain; likewise when sorrow comes to thee, I must be at thy side and give the words of comfort; for to help our friends like this is a gracious task.

Seek thy chamber now, poor sister; lie down and close awhile thy sleepless eyes; take food and bathe thy body; for if thou leave me or fall sick from nursing me, my doom is sealed; for thou art the only champion I now have, by all the rest deserted, as thou seest.

Electra

I leave thee! never! With thee I am resolved to live and die; for ‘tis the same; if thou diest, what can I, a woman, do? How shall I escape alone, reft of brother, sire, and friends?

Still if it be thy pleasure, I must do thy bidding. But lay thee down upon thy couch, and pay not too great heed to the terrors and alarms that scare thee from thy rest; lie still upon thy pallet bed; for e’en though one be not sick but only fancy it, this is a source of weariness and perplexity to mortals.

[Electra enters the palace, as Orestes lies back upon his couch.]

Chorus [singing]

Ah! ye goddesses terrific, swiftly careering on outspread pinions, whose lot it is ‘mid tears and groans to hold revel not with Bacchic rites; ye avenging spirits swarthy-hued, that dart along the spacious firmament, exacting a penalty for blood, a penalty for murder, to you I make my suppliant prayer: suffer the son of Agamemnon to forget his wild whirling frenzy!

Ah, woe for the troublous task! which thou, poor wretch, didst strive to compass to thy ruin, listening to the voice prophetic, proclaimed aloud by Phoebus from the tripod throughout his sanctuary, where is a secret spot they call “the navel of the earth.”

O Zeus! What pity will be shown? what deadly struggle is here at hand, hurrying thee on o’er thy path of woe, a victim on whom some fiend is heaping tribulation, by bringing on thy house thy mother’s bloodshed which drives thee raving mad? I weep for thee, for thee I weep.

Great prosperity abideth not amongst mankind; but some power divine, shaking it to and fro like the sail of a swift galley, plunges it deep in the waves of grievous affliction, boisterous and deadly as the waves of the sea. For what new family am I henceforth to honour by preference other than that which sprung from a marriage divine, even from Tantalus?

Behold a king draws near, prince Menelaus! From his magnificence ‘tis plain to see that he is a scion of the race of Tantalus.

All hail! thou that didst sail with a thousand ships to Asia’s strand, and by Heaven’s help accomplish all thy heart’s desire, making good-fortune a friend to thyself.

[Menelaus and his retinue enter.]

Menelaus

All hail, my home! Some joy I feel on seeing thee again on my return from Troy, some sorrow too the sight recalls; for never yet have I beheld a house more closely encircled by the net of dire affliction.

Concerning Agamemnon’s fate and the awful death he died at his wife’s hands I learnt as I was trying to put in at Malea, when the sailors’ seer from out the waves, unerring Glaucus, Nereus’ spokesman, brought the news to me; for he stationed himself in full view by our ship and thus addressed me. “Yonder, Menelaus, lies thy brother slain, plunged in a fatal bath, the last his wife will ever give him”; filling high the cup of tears for me and my brave crew. Arrived at Nauplia, my wife already, on the point of starting hither, I was dreaming of folding Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, and his mother in a fond embrace, as if ‘twere well with them, when I heard a mariner relate the murder of the daughter of Tyndareus. Tell me then, good girls, where to find the son of Agamemnon, the daring author of that fearful crime; for he was but a babe in Clytemnestra’s arms that day I left my home to go to Troy, so that I should not recognize him, e’en were I to see him.

Orestes [staggering towards him from the couch]

Behold the object of thy inquiry, Menelaus; this is Orestes. To the will I of mine own accord relate my sufferings. But as the prelude to my speech I clasp thy knees in suppliant wise, seeking thus to tie to thee the prayer of lips that lack the suppliant’s bough; save me, for thou art arrived at the very crisis of my trouble.

Menelaus

Ye gods! what do I see? what death’s-head greets my sight?

Orestes

Thou art right; I am dead through misery, though I still gaze upon the sun.

Menelaus

How wild the look thy unkempt hair gives thee, poor wretch!

Orestes

‘Tis not my looks, but my deeds that torture me.

Menelaus

How terribly thy tearless eyeballs glare!

Orestes

My body is vanished and gone, though my name hath not yet deserted me.

Menelaus

Unsightly apparition, so different from what I expected!

Orestes

In me behold a man that hath slain his hapless mother.

Menelaus

I have heard all; be chary of thy tale of woe.

Orestes

I will; but the deity is lavish of woe to me.

Menelaus

What ails thee? what is thy deadly sickness?

Orestes

My conscience; I know that I am guilty of an awful crime.

Menelaus

Explain thyself; wisdom is shown in clearness, not in obscurity.

Orestes

‘Tis grief that is my chief complaint.

Menelaus

True; she is a goddess dire; yet are there cures for her.

Orestes

Mad transports too, and the vengeance due to a mother’s blood.

Menelaus

When did thy fit begin? which day was it?

Orestes

On the day I was heaping the mound o’er my poor mother’s grave,

Menelaus

When thou wast in the house, or watching by the pyre?

Orestes

As I was waiting by night to gather up her bones.

Menelaus

Was any one else there to help thee rise?

Orestes

Yes, Pylades who shared with me the bloody deed, my mother’s murder.

Menelaus

What phantom forms afflict thee thus?

Orestes

Three maidens black as night I seem to see.

Menelaus

I know of whom thou speakest, but I will not name them.

Orestes

Do not; they are too dread; thou wert wise to avoid naming them.

Menelaus

Are these the fiends that persecute thee with the curse of kindred blood?

Orestes

Oh! the torment I endure from their hot pursuit!

Menelaus

That they who have done an awful deed should be so done by is not strange.

Orestes

Ah, well! I must have recourse in these troubles —

Menelaus

Speak not of dying; that were folly.

Orestes

To Phoebus, by whose command I shed my mother’s blood.

Menelaus

Showing a strange ignorance of what is fair and right.

Orestes

We must obey the gods, whatever those gods are.

Menelaus

Spite of all this doth not Loxias help thy affliction?

Orestes

He will in time; to wait like this is the way with gods.

Menelaus

How long is it since thy mother breathed her last?

Orestes

This is now the sixth day; her funeral pyre is still warm.

Menelaus

How soon the goddesses arrived to require thy mother’s blood of thee!

Orestes

To cleverness I lay no claim, but I was a true friend to friends.

Menelaus

Does thy father afford thee any help at all?

Orestes

Not as yet; and delaying to do so is, methinks, equivalent to not doing it.

Menelaus

How dost thou stand towards the city after that deed of thine?

Orestes

So hated am I that I cannot speak to any man.

Menelaus

Have not thy hands been even cleansed of their blood-guiltiness, as the law requires?

Orestes

No; for where’er I go, the door is shut against me.

Menelaus

Which of the citizens drive thee from the land?

Orestes

Œax, who refers to my father his reason for hating Troy.

Menelaus

I understand; he is visiting on thee the blood of Palamedes.

Orestes

I at least had naught to do with that; yet am I utterly o’erthrown.

Menelaus

Who else? some of the friends of AEgisthus perhaps?

Orestes

Yes, they insult me, and the city listens to them now.

Menelaus

Will it not suffer thee to keep the sceptre of Agamemnon?

Orestes

How should it? seeing that they will not suffer me to remain alive.

Menelaus

What is their method? canst thou tell me plainly?

Orestes

Today is sentence to be passed upon me.

Menelaus

Exile, or death, or something else?

Orestes

Death by stoning at the hands of the citizens.

Menelaus

Then why not cross the frontier and fly?

Orestes

Why not? because I am hemmed in by a ring of armed men.

Menelaus

Private foes or Argive troops?

Orestes

By all the citizens, to the end that I may die; ‘tis shortly told.

Menelaus

Poor wretch! thou hast arrived at the extremity of woe.

Orestes

In thee I still have hopes of escape from my troubles. Yea, since fortune smiles upon thy coming, impart to thy less favoured friends some of thy prosperity, not reserving that luck exclusively for thyself; no! take thy turn too at suffering, and so pay back my father’s kindness to those who have a claim on thee. For such friends as desert us in the hour of adversity, are friends in name but not in reality.

Chorus

Lo! Tyndareus, the Spartan, is making his way hither with the step of age, clad in black raiment, with his hair shorn short in mourning for his daughter.

Orestes

Menelaus, I am ruined. See! Tyndareus approaches, the man of all others I most shrink from facing, because of the deed I have done; for he it was that nursed me when a babe, and lavished on me many a fond caress, carrying me about in his arms as the son of Agamemnon, and so did Leda; for they both regarded me as much as the Dioscuri,

Ah me! my wretched heart and soul! ‘twas a sorry return I made them. What darkness can I find to veil my head? what cloud can I spread before me in my efforts to escape the old man’s eye?

Tyndareus

Where, where may I find Menelaus, my daughter’s husband? for as I was pouring libations on Clytemnestra’s grave I heard that he was come to Nauplia with his wife, safe home again after many a long year. Lead me to him; for I would fain stand at his right hand and give him greeting as a friend whom at last I see again.

Menelaus

Hail, reverend father! rival of Zeus for a bride!

Tyndareus

All hail to thee! Menelaus, kinsman mine!

Ha! [Catching sight of Orestes.] What an evil it is to be ignorant of the future! There lies that matricide before the house, a viper darting venom from his eyes, whom my soul abhors. What! Menelaus, speaking to a godless wretch like him?

Menelaus

And why not? He is the son of one whom I loved well.

Tyndareus

This his son? this creature here?

Menelaus

Yes, his son; and therefore worthy of respect, albeit in distress.

Tyndareus

Thou hast been so long amongst barbarians that thou art one of them.

Menelaus

Always to respect one’s kith and kin is a custom in Hellas.

Tyndareus

Aye, another custom is to yield a willing deference to the laws.

Menelaus

The wise hold that everything which depends on necessity, is its slave.

Tyndareus

Keep that wisdom for thyself; I will not admit it.

Menelaus

No, for thou art angry, and old age is not wise.

Tyndareus

What could a dispute about wisdom have to do with him? If right and wrong are clear to all, who was ever more senseless than this man, seeing that he never weighed the justice of the case, nor yet appealed to the universal law of Hellas? For instance, when Agamemnon breathed his last beneath the blow my daughter dealt upon his head, — a deed most foul, which I will never defend, — he should have brought a charge against his mother and inflicted the penalty allowed by law for bloodshed, banishing her from his house; thus would he have gained the credit of forbearance from the calamity, keeping strictly to the law and showing his piety as well. As it is, he is come into the same misfortune as his mother; for though he had just cause for thinking her a wicked woman, he has surpassed her himself by murdering her. I will ask thee, Menelaus, just one question. Take this case: the wife of his bosom has slain him; his son follows suit and kills his mother in revenge; next the avenger’s son to expiate this murder commits another; where, pray, will the chain of horrors end?

Our forefathers settled these matters the right way. They forbade any one with blood upon his hands to appear in their sight or cross their path; “purify him by exile,” said they, “but no retaliation!” Otherwise there must always have been one who, by taking the pollution last upon his hands, would be liable to have his own blood shed.

For my part I abhor wicked women, especially my daughter who slew her husband; Helen, too, thy own wife, will I ne’er commend; no! I would not even speak to her, and little I envy thee a voyage to Troy for so worthless a woman. But the law will I defend with all my might, seeking to check this brutal spirit of murder, which is always the ruin of countries and cities alike. Wretch! [Turning to Orestes.] Hadst thou no heart when thy mother was baring her breast in her appeal to thee? True; I did not witness that awful deed, yet do my poor old eyes run down with tears. One thing at least attests the truth of what I say: thou art abhorred by Heaven, and this aimless wandering, these transports of madness and terror are thy atonement for a mother’s blood. What need have I of others to testify where I can see for myself? Take warning therefore, Menelaus; seek not to oppose the gods from any wish to help this wretch, but leave him to be stoned to death by his fellow-citizens; [else set not foot on Sparta’s soil.] My daughter is dead, and she deserved her fate; but it should not have been his hand that slew her. In all except my daughters have I been a happy man; there my fortune stopped.

Chorus

His is an enviable lot, who is blest in his dhildren, and does not find himself brought into evil notoriety.

Orestes

I am afraid to speak before thee, aged prince [in a matter where I am sure to grieve thee to the heart.] Only let thy years, which frighten me from speaking, set no barrier in the path of my words, and I will go forward; but, as it is, I fear thy grey hairs. My crime is, I slew my mother; yet on another count this is no crime, being vengeance for my father. What ought I to have done? Set one thing against another. My father begat me; thy daughter gave me birth, being the field that received the seed from another; for without a sire no child would ever be born. So I reasoned thus: I ought to stand by the author of my being rather than the woman who undertook to rear me. Now thy daughter — mother I blush to call her — was engaged in secret intrigues with a lover; reviling her I shall revile myself; yet speak I will AEgisthus was that stealthy paramour who lived with her; him I slew, and after him I sacrificed my mother, — a crime, no doubt, but done to avenge my father. Now, as regards the matters for which I deserve to be stoned as thou threatenest, hear the service I am conferring on all Hellas. If women become so bold as to murder their husbands, taking refuge in their children, with the mother’s breast to catch their pity, they would think nothing of destroying their husbands on any plea whatsoever. But I, by a horrible crime — such is thy exaggerated phrase — have put an end to this custom. I hated my mother and had good cause to slay her. She was false to her husband when he was gone from his home to fight for all Hellas at the head of its armies, neither did she keep his honour undefiled; and when her sin had found her out, she wreaked no punishment upon herself, but, to avoid the vengeance of her lord, visited her sins on my father and slew him. By Heaven! ill time as it is for me to mention Heaven, when defending the cause of murder; still, suppose I had by my silence consented to my mother’s conduct, what would the murdered man have done to me? Would he not now for very hate be tormenting me with avenging fiends? or are there goddesses to help my mother, and are there none to aid him in his deeper wrong? Thou, yes! thou, old man, hast been my ruin by begetting a daughter so abandoned; for it was owing to her audacious deed that I lost my father and became my mother’s murderer.

Attend, I say. Telemachus did not kill the wife of Odysseus; why? because she wedded not a second husband, but the marriage-bed remained untainted in her halls. Once more; Apollo, who makes the navel of the earth his home, vouchsafing unerring prophecies to man, the god whom we obey in all he saith, — ‘twas he to whom I hearkened when I slew my mother. Find him guilty of the crime, slay him; his was the sin, not mine. What ought I to have done? or is not the god competent to expiate the pollution when I refer it to him? Whither should one fly henceforth, if he will not rescue me from death after giving his commands? Say not then that the deed was badly done, but unfortunately for me who did it.

A blessed life those mortals lead who make wise marriages; but those who wed unhappily are alike unfortunate in their public and private concerns.

Chorus

Tis ever woman’s way to thwart men’s fortunes to the increase of their sorrow.

Tyndareus

Since thou adoptest so bold a tone, suppressing naught, but answering me back in such wise that my heart is vexed within me, thou wilt incense me to go to greater lengths in procuring thy execution; and I shall regard this as a fine addition to my purpose in coming hither to deck my daughter’s grave. Yes; I will go .to the chosen council of Argos and set the citizens, whether they will or not, on thee and thy sister, that ye may suffer stoning. She deserves to die even more than thou, for it was she who embittered thee against thy mother by carrying tales to thine ear from time to time to whet thy hate the more [announcing dreams from Agamemnon], and speaking of the amour with AEgisthus as an abomination to the gods in Hades, for even here on earth it was hateful, till she set the house ablaze with fires never kindled by Hephaestus. This I tell thee, Menelaus; and more, — I will perform it. If then thou makest my hatred or our connexion of any account, seek not to avert this miscreant’s doom in direct defiance of the gods, but leave him to be stoned to death by the citizens; else never set foot on Spartan soil. Remember thou hast been told all this, and choose not for friends the ungodly, excluding more righteous folk.

Ho! servants, lead me hence. [Exit Tyndareus.

Orestes

Get thee gone! that the remainder of my speech may be addressed to Menelaus without interruption, free from the restrictions thy old age exerts.

Wherefore, Menelaus, art thou pacing round and round to think the matter over, up and down in thought perplexed?

Menelaus

Let me alone! I am somewhat at a loss, as I turn it over in my mind, towards which side I am to lean.

Orestes

Do not then decide finally, but after first hearing what I have to say, then make up thy mind.

Menelaus

Good advice! say on. There are occasions when silence would be better than speech; there are others when the reverse holds good.

Orestes

I will begin forthwith. A long statement has advantages over a short one and is more intelligible to listen to. Give me nothing of thine own, Menelaus, but repay what thou didst thyself receive from my father. [As Menelaus makes a deprecating gesture.] ‘Tis not goods I mean; save my life, and that is goods, the dearest I possess.

Say I am doing wrong. Well, I have a right to a little wrong-doing at thy hands to requite that wrong; for my father Agamemnon also did wrong in gathering the host of Hellas and going up against Ilium, not that he had sinned himself, but he was trying to find a cure for the sin and wrong-doing of thy wife. So this is one thing thou art bound to pay me back. For he had really sold his life to thee, a duty owed by friend to friend, toiling hard in the press of battle that so thou mightest win thy wife again. This is what thou didst receive at Troy; make me the same return. For one brief day exert thyself, not ten full years, on my behalf, standing up in my defence.

As for the loan paid to Aulis in the blood of my sister, I leave that to thy credit, not saying .” Slay Hermione”; for in my present plight thou must needs have an advantage over me and I must let that pass. But grant my hapless sire this boon, my life and the life of her who has pined so long in maidenhood, my sister; for by my death I shall leave my father’s house without an heir.

“Impossible!” thou’lt say. Why, there’s the point of that old adage, “ Friends are bound to succour friends in trouble.” But when fortune giveth of her best, what need of friends? for God’s help is enough of itself when he chooses to give it.

All Hellas credits thee with deep affection for thy wife — and I am not saying this with any subtle attempt at wheedling thee — by her I implore thee.

[As Menelaus turns away.] Ah me, my misery! at what a pass have I arrived! what avails my wretched effort? Still, (preparing to make a final appeal) ‘tis my whole family on whose behalf I am making this appeal! O my uncle, my father’s own brother! imagine that the dead man in his grave is listening, that his spirit is hovering o’er thy head and speaking through my lips. (I have said my say with reference to tears and groans and misfortunes, and I have begged my life — the aim of every man’s endeavour, not of mine alone.)

Chorus

I, too, weak woman though I am, beseech thee, as thou hast the power, succour those in need.

Menelaus

Orestes, thou art a man for whom I have a deep regard, and I would fain help thee bear thy load of woe; yea, for it is a duty, too, to lend a kinsman such assistance by dying or slaying his enemies, provided Heaven grants the means. I only wish I had that power granted me by the gods; as it is, I have arrived quite destitute of allies, after my long weary wanderings, with such feeble succour as my surviving friends afford. As then we should never get the better of Pelasgian Argos by fighting, our hopes now rest on this, the chance of prevailing by persuasion; and we must try that, for how can you win a great cause by small efforts? it were senseless even to wish it. For when the people fall into a fury and their rage is still fresh, they are as hard to appease as a fierce fire is to quench; but if you gently slacken your hold and yield a little to their tension, cautiously watching your opportunity, they may possibly exhaust their fit; and then as soon as they have spent their rage, thou mayest obtain whatever thou wilt from them without any trouble; for they have a natural sense of pity, and a hot temper too, an invaluable quality if you watch it closely. So I will go and try to persuade Tyndareus and the citizens to moderate their excessive anger against thee; for it is with them as with a ship; she dips if her sheet is hauled too taut, but rights herself again if it is let go.

Attempts to do too much are as keenly resented by the citizens as they are by the gods; and so it must be by cleverness, not by the force of superior numbers, I frankly tell thee, that I must try to save thee. No prowess of mine as perhaps thou fanciest, could do it; for, had it been so easy to triumph single-handed over the troubles that beset thee, I should never have tried to bring Argives over to the side of mercy; but, as it is, the wise find themselves forced to bow to fortune. [Exit Menelaus.

Orestes

O thou that hast no use, save to head a host in a woman’s cause! thou traitor in thy friends’ defence! dost turn thy back on me? What Agamemnon did is all forgotten.

Ah, my father! thy friends, it seems, desert thee in adversity. Alas! I am betrayed; no longer have I any hope of finding a refuge where I may escape the death-sentence of Argos; for this man was my haven of safety.

Ha! a welcome sight, there comes Pylades, my best of friends, running hither from Phocis. A trusty comrade is a more cheering sight in trouble than a calm is to sailors.

Pylades

On my way hither I traversed the town with more haste than I need have used, to find thee and thy sister, having heard or rather myself seen the citizens assembling, under the belief that they intend your immediate execution. What is happening here? how is it with thee? how farest thou, my best of comrades, friends, and kin? for thou art all these to me.

Orestes

Let one brief word declare to thee my evil case — it is “Ruin.”

Pylades

Include me then in it; for friends have all in common.

Orestes

Menelaus is a traitor to me and my sister.

Pylades

‘Tis only natural that the husband of a traitress should prove a traitor.

Orestes

He no more repaid me when he came than if he had never come.

Pylades

Has he really arrived then in this land?

Orestes

He was a long time coming, but very soon detected for all that in treachery to his friends.

Pylades

And did he bring his wife, that queen of traitresses, with him on his ship?

Orestes

It was not he who brought her, but she him.

Pylades

Where is she who proved the ruin of so many Achaeans, though she was only a woman?

Orestes

In my house; if, that is, I ought to call it mine.

Pylades

And thou — what didst thou say to thy father’s brother?

Orestes

I besought him not to look on, while I and my sister were slain by the citizens.

Pylades

By heaven! what said he to this? I fain would know.

Orestes

Caution was the line he took — the usual policy of traitorous friends.

Pylades

What excuse does he allege? when I have heard that, I know all.

Orestes

The worthy sire arrived, who begat those peerless daughters.

Pylades

Thou meanest Tyndareus; he was angry with thee, perhaps, for his daughter’s sake.

Orestes

Thou hast it; and Menelaus preferred his relationship to my father’s.

Pylades

Had he not courage enough to share thy troubles, when he did come?

Orestes

Not he; he never was a warrior, though a doughty knight amongst women.

Pylades

Thy case is desperate, it seems, and thou must die.

Orestes

The citizens are to give their vote about us on the question of the murder.

Pylades

And what is that to decide? tell me, for I am alarmed.

Orestes

Our life or death; so short the words that tell of things so long!

Pylades

Leave the palace, then, with thy sister and fly.

Orestes

Look! we are being watched by guards on every side.

Pylades

I saw that the streets of the city were secured with armed men.

Orestes

We are as closely beleaguered as a city by its foes.

Pylades

Ask me also of my state; for I too am ruined.

Orestes

By whom? this would be a further sorrow to add to mine.

Pylades

Strophius, my father, in a fit of anger, hath banished me his halls.

Orestes

On some private charge, or one in which the citizens share?

Pylades

He says it is a crime to have helped thee slay thy mother.

Orestes

Woe is me! it seems my troubles will cause thee grief as well.

Pylades

I am not like Menelaus; this must be endured.

Orestes

Art thou not afraid that Argos will desire thy death as well as mine?

Pylades

I am not theirs to punish; I belong to Phocis.

Orestes

A terrible thing is the mob, when it has villains to lead it.

Pylades

Aye, but with honest leaders its counsels are honest.

Orestes

Go to; we must consult together.

Pylades

What is it we must consider?

Orestes

Suppose I go and tell the citizens —

Pylades

That thy action was just —

Orestes

In avenging my father?

Pylades

I am afraid they will be glad enough to catch thee.

Orestes

Well, am I to crouch in fear and die without a word?

Pylades

That were cowardly.

Orestes

How then shall I act?

Pylades

Suppose thou stay here, what means of safety hast thou?

Orestes

None.

Pylades

And if thou go away, is there any hope of escaping thy troubles?

Orestes

There might be possibly.

Pylades

Well, is not that better than staying?

Orestes

Am I to go, then?

Pylades

Yes; if thou art slain, there will be some honour in dying thus.

Orestes

True; thus I escape cowardice.

Pylades

Better than by staying.

Orestes

After all, I can justify my action.

Pylades

Pray that this may be the only view they take.

Orestes

Some one or two maybe will pity me —

Pylades

Yes, thy noble birth is a great point.

Orestes

Resenting my father’s death.

Pylades

That is all quite clear.

Orestes

I must go, for to die ignobly is a coward’s part.

Pylades

Well said!

Orestes

Shall we tell my sister?

Pylades

God forbid!

Orestes

True, there might be tears.

Pylades

Would not that be a grave omen?

Orestes

Yes, silence is manifestly the better course.

Pylades

Thou wilt thus gain time.

Orestes

There is only one obstacle in my way, —

Pylades

What fresh objection now?

Orestes

I am afraid the goddesses will prevent me by madness.

Pylades

Nay, but I will take care of thee.

Orestes

A wretched task, to come in contact with a sick man.

Pylades

That is not my view in thy case.

Orestes

Beware of becoming a partner in my madness.

Pylades

Let that pass!

Orestes

Thou wilt not hesitate?

Pylades

Not I; hesitation is a grave mischief amongst friends.

Orestes

On then, pilot of my course!

Pylades

A service I am glad to render.

Orestes

And guide me to my father’s tomb.

Pylades

For what purpose?

Orestes

That I may appeal to him to save me.

Pylades

No doubt that is the proper way.

Orestes

May I not even see my mother’s grave!

Pylades

No; she was an enemy. But hasten, supporting those limbs, so slow from sickness, on mine, that the decision of Argos may not catch thee first; for I will carry thee through the town, careless of the mob and unabashed. For how shall I prove my friendship if not by helping thee in sore distress?

Orestes

Ah! the old saying again, “ Get friends, not relations only.” For a man whose soul is knit with thine, though he is not of thy kin, is better worth owning as a friend than a whole host of relations.

[Exeunt Orestes and Pylades.]

Chorus

Long, long ago, by reason of an old misfortune to their house, the sons of Atreus saw the tide roll back frofn weal to woe, carrying with it their great prosperity and that prowess proudly vaunted through the length of Hellas and by the streams of Simois, on the day that strife found its way to the sons of Tantalus — that strife for a golden ram, to end in bitter banqueting and the slaughter of high-born .babes; and this is why a succession of murders committed by kinsmen never fails the twin Atridae.

What seemed so right became so wrong, to cut a mother’s skin with ruthless hand and show the bloodstained sword to the sun’s bright beams; and yet her guilty deed was a piece of frantic wickedness and the folly of beings demented. Hapless daughter of Tyndareus! in terror of death she screamed to him, “My son, this is a crime, thy bold attempt upon thy mother’s life; do not, whilst honouring thy father, fasten on thyself an eternity of shame.”

To stain the hand in a mother’s blood! What affliction on earth surpasseth this? what calls for keener grief or pity? Oh! what an awful crime Agamemnon’s son committed, ending in his raving madness, so that he is become a prey to the avenging fiends for the murder, darting distracted glances round him! O the wretch! to have seen a mother’s bosom o’er her robe of golden woof, and yet make her his victim, in recompense for his father’s sufferings!

Electra

Surely, friends, my poor Orestes hath never left the house, mastered by the heaven-sent madness?

Chorus

No; but he is gone to stand the trial appointed concerning his life before the Argive populace, in which it will be decided whether he and thou are to live or die.

Electra

Oh! why did he do it? who persuaded him?

Chorus

Pylades; but this messenger, now close at hand, will no doubt tell us thy brother’s fate at the trial.

Messenger

Woe is thee, unhappy daughter of our captain Agamemnon, my lady Electra! hearken to the sad tidings I bring thee.

Electra

Alas! our fate is sealed; thy words show it; thou art clearly come with tidings of woe.

Messenger

Today have the folk decided by vote that thou and thy brother are to die, poor lady.

Electra

Alas! my expectations are realized. I have long feared this, and been wasting away in mourning for what was sure to happen. But come, old friend, describe the trial, and tell me what was said in the Argive assembly to condemn us and confirm our doom; is it stoning or the sword that is to cut short my existence? for I share my brother’s misfortunes.

Messenger

I had just come from the country and was entering the gates, anxious to learn what was decided about thee and Orestes — for I was ever well-disposed to thy father, and it was thy house that fed and reared me, poor, ‘tis true, yet loyal in the service of friends — when lo! I saw a crowd streaming to their seats on yonder height, where ‘tis said Danaus first gathered his people and settled them in new homes, when he was paying the penalty to AEgyptus. So, when I saw them thronging together, I asked a citizen, “What news in Argos? Have tidings of hostilities ruffled the city of Danaus? “ But he replied, “ Dost thou not see the man Orestes on his way to be tried for his life?” Then I beheld an unexpected sight, which I would I never had seen — Pylades and thy brother approaching together; the one with his head sunken on his breast, weakened by sickness; the other like a brother in the way he shared his friend’s sorrow, tending his complaint with constant care.

Now when the Argives were fully gathered, a herald rose and asked, “ Who wishes to give his opinion whether Orestes is to be slain or not for the murder of his mother?” Then up stood Talthybius, who helped thy father sack the Phrygians’ city. He adopted a trimming tone, a mere tool of those in power as he always is, expressing high admiration for thy father, but saying not a word for thy brother, urging his crooked sentiments in specious words, to this effect; “it is not a good precedent he is establishing as regards parents,” and all the while he had a pleasant look for the friends of AEgisthus. That is like the tribe of heralds; they always trip across to the lucky side; whoso hath influence in the city or a post in the government, he is the friend for them. After him prince Diomedes made harangue; not death but exile was the punishment he would have had them inflict on thee and thy brother, and so keep clear of guilt. Some murmured their assent, saying his words were good, but others disapproved.

Next stood up a fellow, who cannot close his lips; one whose impudence is his strength; an Argive, but not of Argos; an alien forced on us; confident in bluster and licensed ignorance, and plausible enough to involve his hearers in some mischief sooner or later; for when a man with a pleasing trick of speech, but of unsound principles, persuades the mob, it is a serious evil to the state; whereas all who give sound and sensible advice on all occasions, if not immediately useful to the state, yet prove so afterwards. And this is the light in which to regard a party leader; for the position is much the same [in the case of an orator and a man in office.] This fellow was for stoning thee and Orestes to death, but it was Tyndareus who kept suggesting arguments of this kind to him as he urged the death of both of you.

Another then stood up, not fair to outward view perhaps but a brave man, rarely coming in contact with the town or the gatherings in the market-place; a yeoman, one of a class who form the only real support of our country; shrewd enough, and eager to grapple with the arguments; his character without a blemish, his walk in life beyond reproach. He moved that they should crown Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, for showing his willingness to avenge a father in the blood of a wicked profligate who was preventing men from taking up arms and going on foreign service; “since,” said he, “those, who remain behind, corrupt and seduce our wives left at home to keep house.” To the better sort his words carried conviction; and no one rose to speak after him. So thy brother advanced and spoke. “Ye dwellers in the land of Inachus! [Pelasgians in ancient times, and later Danai,’] I helped you no less than my father when I slew my mother; for if the murder of men by women is to be sanctioned, then the sooner you die, the better for you; otherwise you must needs become the slaves of women; and that will be doing the very reverse of what ye should. As it is, she who betrayed my father’s honour has met her death, but if ye take my life, as is proposed, the strictness of the law becomes relaxed, and the sooner every one of you is dead, the better; for it will” never be daring at any rate that they will lack.” Yet, for all he seemed to speak so fair, he could not persuade the assembly; but that villain who spoke in favour of slaying thee and thy brother, gained his point by appealing to the mob.

Orestes, poor wretch, scarce prevailed on them to spare him death by stoning, promising to die by his own hand, and thou by thine, within the space of today; and Pylades is now bringing him from the conclave, weeping the while, and his friends bear him company, with tears and lamentation; so he Cometh, a sad and piteous sight for thee to see. Make ready the sword, prepare the noose for thy neck, for thou must die; thy noble birth availed thee naught, nor Phoebus either from his seat on the tripod at Delphi; no! he was thy undoing.

[Exit Messenger.]

Chorus

Ah, hapless maid! How dumb thou art, thy face veiled and bent upon the ground, as if ere long to start on a course of lamentation and wailing!

Electra

Land of Argos! I take up the dirge, doing bloody outrage on my cheek with pearly nail, and beating on my head, the meed of [Persephone ‘] that fair young goddess of the nether world. Let the land of the Cyclopes break forth into wailing for the sorrows of our house, laying the steel upon the head to crop it close. This is the piteous strain that goeth up for those who are doomed to perish, the chieftains once of Hellas.

Gone, gone and brought to naught is all the race of Pelops’ sons! and with them the blessedness that crowned their happy home of yore; the wrath of God gat hold on them and that cruel murdering vote which prevails among the citizens.

Woe to you! ye tribes of short-lived men, full of tears and born to suffering, see how fate runs counter to your hopes! All in time’s long march receive in turn their several troubles; and man throughout his life can never rest.

Oh! to reach that rock which hangs suspended midway ‘twixt earth and heaven, that fragment from Olympus torn, which swings on chains of gold in ceaseless revolution, that I may utter my lament to Tantalus my forefather, who begat the ancestors of my house; these were witnesses of infatuate deeds when Pelops in four-horsed car drove winged steeds in hot pursuit along the sea, hurling the corpse of murdered Myrtilus into the heaving deep, after his race near the foam-flecked strand of Geraestus. From this came a woful curse upon my house, in the day that there appeared among the flocks of Atreus, breeder of horses, that baleful portent of a lamb with golden fleece, the creation of the son of Maia; for from it sprang a quarrel, which made the sun’s winged steeds swerve from their course, turning them by a westward track along the sky towards the single horse of Dawn; and Zeus diverted the career of the seven Pleiads into a new path; yea, and it is that banquet to which Thyestes gave his name, and the guilty love of Cretan AErope, the treacherous wife, that is requiting those murders with others; but the crowning woe is come on me and on my sire by reason of the bitter destinies of our house.

Chorus

See where thy brother comes, condemned to die, and with him Pylades, most loyal of friends, true as a brother, guiding the feeble steps of Orestes, as he paces carefully at his side.

Electra

Ah! brother mine, I weep to see thee stand before the tomb, face to face with the funeral pyre. Again that sigh escapes me; my senses leave me as I take my last fond look at thee.

Orestes

Peace! an end to womanish lamenting! resign thyself to thy fate. True, ‘tis a piteous end, but yet we needs must bear the present.’

Electra

How can I hold my peace, when we poor sufferers are no more to gaze upon the sun-god’s light?

Orestes

Oh! spare me that death! Enough that this unhappy wretch is already slain by Argives; forego our present sufferings.

Electra

Alas for thy young life, Orestes! alas for the untimely death o’ertaking it! Thou shouldst have begun to live just as thou art dying.

Orestes

Unman me not, I do adjure thee! bringing me to tears by the recollection of my sorrows.

Electra

We are to die, and I cannot but bemoan our fate; for all men grieve to lose dear life.

Orestes

This is the day appointed us; and we must fit the dangling noose about our necks or whet the sword for use.

Electra

Be thou my executioner, brother, that no Argive may insult the child of Agamemnon and slay her.

Orestes

Enough that I have a mother’s blood upon me; thee I will not slay; but die by any self-inflicted death thou wilt.

Electra

Agreed; I will not be behind thee in using the sword; only I long to throw my arms about thy neck.

Orestes

Enjoy that idle satisfaction, if embraces have any joy for those who are come so nigh to death.

Electra

Dear brother mine! bearer of a name that sounds most sweet in thy sister’s ear, partner in one soul with her!

Orestes

Oh! thou wilt melt my heart. I long to give thee back a fond embrace; and why should such a wretch as I feel any shame henceforth? [embracing Electra]. Heart to heart, O sister mine! how sweet to me this close embrace! In place of wedded joys, in place of babes, this greeting is all that is possible to us poor sufferers.

Electra

Ah, would the self-same sword, if only it might be, could slay us both, and one cofiin of cedar-wood receive us!

Orestes

That would be an end most sweet; but surely thou seest we are too destitute of friends to be allowed one tomb between us.

Electra

Did not that coward Menelaus, that traitor to my father’s memory, even speak for thee, making an effort to save thy life?

Orestes

He did not so much as show himself, but having his hopes centred on the throne he was more cautious than to attempt the rescue of relatives.

Ah! well, let us take care to quit ourselves gallantly and die as most befits the children of Agamemnon. I, for my part, will let this city see my noble spirit when I plunge the sword to my heart, and thou, for thine, must imitate my brave example. Do thou, Pylades, stand umpire to our bloody feat, and, when we both are dead, lay out our bodies decently; then carry them to our father’s grave and bury us there with him. Farewell now; I go to do the deed, as thou seest.

Pylades

Stay a moment; there is first one point I have to blame thee for, if thou thinkest I care to live when thou art dead.

Orestes

But why art thou called on to die with me?

Pylades

Canst ask? What is life to me with thee my comrade gone?

Orestes

Thou didst not slay thy mother, as I did to my sorrow.

Pylades

At least I helped thee; and so I ought to suffer alike.

Orestes

Surrender to thy father; and seek not to die with me. Thou hast still a city, while I no longer have; thou hast still thy father’s home, and mighty stores of wealth: and though thou art disappointed in thy marriage with my poor sister, whom I betrothed to thee from a deep regard for thy fellowship, yet choose thee another bride and rear a family; for the tie which bound us binds no more. Fare thee well, my comrade fondly called; for us such faring cannot be, for thee perhaps; for we that are as dead are robbed of joy henceforth.

Pylades

How far thou art from grasping what I mean! Oh! may the fruitful earth, the radiant sky refuse to hold my blood, if ever I turn traitor and desert thee when I have cleared myself; for I not only shared in the murder, which I will not disown, but also schemed the whole plot for which thou art now paying the penalty; wherefore I ought also to die as much as thou or she; for I consider her, whose hand thou didst promise me, as my wife. What specious tale shall I ever tell, when I reach Delphi, the citadel of Phocis? I who, before your misfortunes came, was so close a friend, but ceased to be, when thou wert unlucky. That must not be; no! this is my business too. But since we are to die, let us take counsel together that Menelaus may share our misfortune.

Orestes

Best of friends! if only I could see this ere I die!

Pylades

Hearken then, and defer awhile the fatal stroke.

Orestes

I will wait in the hope of avenging me on my foe.

Pylades

Hush! I have small confidence in women.

Orestes

Have no fear of these; for they are our friends who are here.

Pylades

Let us kill Helen, a bitter grief to Menelaus.

Orestes

How? I am ready enough, if there is any chance of success.

Pylades

With our swords; she is hiding in thy house.

Orestes

Aye, that she is, and already she is putting her seal on everything.

Pylades

She shall do so no more, after she is wedded to Hades.

Orestes

Impossible! she has her barbarian attendants.

Pylades

Barbarians indeed! I am not the man to fear any Phrygian.

Orestes

Creatures only fit to look after mirrors and unguents!

Pylades

What I has she brought Trojan effeminacy with her here?

Orestes

So much so that Hellas is become too small for her to live in.

Pylades

The race of slaves is no match for free-born men.

Orestes

Well, if I can do this deed, I fear not death twice over.

Pylades

No, nor I either, if it is thee I am avenging.

Orestes

Declare the matter and tell me what thou proposest.

Pylades

We will enter the house on the pretence of going to our death.

Orestes

So far I follow thee, but not beyond.

Pylades

We will begin bewailing our suflferings to her.

Orestes

Aye, so that she will shed tears, although her heart is glad.

Pylades

And we shall then be in the same predicament as she.

Orestes

How shall we proceed next in the enterprise?

Pylades

We shall have swords concealed in our cloaks.

Orestes

But, before attacking her, how are we to kill her attendants?

Pylades

We will shut them up in different parts of the house.

Orestes

And whoever refuses to be quiet, we must kill.

Pylades

That done, our very deed shows us to what we must direct our efforts.

Orestes

To Helen’s slaughter; I understand that watch-word.

Pylades

Thou hast it; now hear how sound my scheme is; if we had drawn the sword upon a woman of better morals, it would have been foul murder; but, as it is, she will be punished for the sake of all Hellas, whose sires she slew; while those whose children she destroyed, whose wives she widowed, will shout aloud for joy and kindle the altars of the gods, invoking on our heads a thousand blessings, because we shed this wicked woman’s blood; for after killing her, thy name shall no more be “the matricide,” but, resigning that title, thou shalt succeed to a, better and be called “the slayer of Helen the murderess.” It can never, never be right that Menelaus should prosper, and thy father, thy sister and thou be put to death, and thy mother too — (but I pass that by, for it is not seemly to mention it); — while he possesses thy home, though it was by Agamemnon’s prowess that he recovered his wife. May I perish then, if I draw not my sword upon her! But if after all we fail to compass Helen’s death, we will fire the palace and die; for we will not fail to achieve one distinction, be it an honourable death or an honourable escape therefrom.

Chorus

The daughter of Tyndareus, who has brought shame on her sex, has justly earned the hate of every woman.

Orestes

Ah! there is nothing better than a trusty friend, neither wealth nor princely power; mere number is a senseless thing to set off against a noble friend. Such art thou, for thou didst not only devise the vengeance we took on AEgisthus, but didst stand by me at the gates of danger, and now again thou art offering me a means to punish my foes and dost not stand aloof thyself; but I will cease praising thee, for there is something wearisome even in being praised to excess. Now since in any case I must breathe my last, I would fain my death should do my foes some hurt, that I may requite with ruin those who betrayed me, and that they too who made me suffer may taste of sorrow. Lo! I am the son of that Agamemnon, who was counted worthy to rule Hellas, exerting no tyrant’s power but yet possessed of almost god-like might; him will I not disgrace by submitting to die like a slave; no! my last breath shall be free and I will avenge me on Menelaus. For could we but secure one object we should be lucky, if from some unexpected quarter a means of safety should arise and we be the slayers, not the slain; this is what I pray for; for this wish of mine is a pleasant dream to cheer the heart, without cost, by means of the tongue’s winged utterances.

Electra

Why, brother, I have it! a means of safety, first for thee, then for him, and thirdly for myself.

Orestes

Divine providence, I suppose. But what use in suggesting that? seeing that I know the natural shrewdness of thy heart.

Electra

Hearken a moment; do thou [to Pvlades] like-wise attend.

Orestes

Say on; the prospect of hearing good news affords a certain pleasure.

Electra

Thou knowest Helen’s daughter? of course thou must.

Orestes

Hermione, whom my own mother reared, — know her? yes.

Electra

She hath gone to Clytemnestra’s grave.

Orestes

With what intent? What hope art thou hinting at?

Electra

Her purpose was to pour a libation over the tomb of our mother.

Orestes

Well, granting that, how does this which thou hast mentioned conduce to our safety?

Electra

Seize her as a hostage on her way back.

Orestes

What good can thy suggested remedy do us three friends?

Electra

If, after Helen’s slaughter, Menelaus does anything to thee or to Pylades and me, — for we three friends are wholly one, — say thou wilt slay Hermione; then draw thy sword and keep it at the maiden’s throat. If Menelaus, when he sees Helen weltering in her blood, tries to save thee to insure his daughter’s life, allow him to take his child to his father’s arms; but if he makes no effort to curb the angry outburst and leaves thee to die, then do thou plunge thy sword in his daughter’s throat. Methinks though he show himself violent at first, he will gradually grow milder; for he is not naturally bold or brave. That is the tower of defence I have for us, and now my tale is told.

Orestes

O thou that hast the spirit of a man, though thy body clearly shows thee a tender woman, how far more worthy thou to live than die! This, Pylades, is the peerless woman thou wilt lose to thy sorrow, or, shouldst thou live, wilt marry to thy joy!

Pylades

Then may I live and may she be brought to the capital of Phocis with all the honours of a happy marriage!

Orestes

How soon will Hermione return to the palace? All else thou saidst was well, if only we are lucky in catching the villain’s child.

Electra

I expect she is near the house already, for the time agrees exactly.

Orestes

Tis well. Plant thyself before the palace, Electra my sister, and await the maid’s approach; keep watch in case any one, an ally maybe or my father’s brother, forestal us by his entry, ere the bloody deed is completed; and then make a signal to be heard inside the house, either by beating on a panel of the door or calling to us within.

Let us enter now, Pylades, and arm ourselves for the final struggle, for thou art the comrade that sharest the enterprise with me. Hearken! father, in thy home of darkest gloom! it is thy son Orestes who is calling thee to come to the rescue of the destitute; it is on thy account I am unjustly suffering woe, and it is by thy brother that I have been betrayed for practising justice; wherefore I would fain take and slay his wife; and do thou help us compass this.

Electra

Oh! come, my father, come! if within the ground thou hearest the cry of thy children, who for thy sake are dying.

Pylades

Hear my prayer too, Agamemnon, kinsman of my father, and save thy children.

Orestes

I slew my mother, —

Pylades

I held the sword —

Electra

‘Twas I that urged them on and set them free from fear —

Orestes

All to succour thee, my sire.

Electra

I proved no traitress either.

Pylades

Wilt thou not hearken then to these reproaches and save thy children?

Orestes

With tears I pour thee a libation.

Electra

And I with notes of woe.

Pylades

Cease, and let us about our business. If prayers do really penetrate the ground, he hears. O Zeus, god of my fathers, O Justice, queen revered, vouchsafe us three success; three friends are we, but one the struggle, one the forfeit all must pay, to live or die.

[Exeunt Orestes and Pylades.]

Electra

My own townswomen, of foremost rank in Argos, the home of the Pelasgi!

Chorus

Mistress, why dost thou address us? for still this honoured name is left thee in the Danaid town.

Electra

Station yourselves, some here along the high road, others yonder on some other path, to watch the house.

Chorus

But why dost thou summon me to this service? tell me, dear mistress.

Electra

I am afraid that some one, who is stationed at the house for a bloody purpose, may cause troubles, only to find them himself.

First Semi-Chorus

Lead on; let us hasten; I will keep careful watch upon this track towards the east.

Second Semi-Chorus

And I on this, that leadeth westward. Throw a glance sideways, letting the eye range from point to point; then look back again.

First Semi-Chorus

We are directing them as thou biddest.

Electra

Cast your eyes around, let them peer in every direction through your tresses.

Second Semi-Chorus

Who is that on the road? Who is yonder countryman I see wandering round thy house?

Electra

Ah! friends, we are undone; he will at once reveal to our enemies the armed ambush of that lion-like pair.

First Semi-Chorus [reconnoitring.]

Calm thy fears; the road is not occupied, as thou thinkest, dear mistress.

Electra [turning to the other watchers.]

And can I count thy side safe still? reassure me; is yonder space before the courtyard still deserted?

Second Semi-Chorus

All goes well here; look to thy own watch, for no Argive is approaching us.

First Semi-Chorus

Thy report agrees with mine; there is no Doise here either.

Electra

Well then, let me make myself heard in the gateway. [Calling through the door.] Why are ye within the house delaying to spill your victim’s blood, now that all is quiet? They do not hear; ah, woe is me! Can it be that their swords have lost their edge at the sight of her beauty? Soon will some mail-clad Argive, hurrying to her rescue, attack the palace. Keep a better look-out; ‘tis no time for sitting still; bestir yourselves, some here, some there.

Chorus

My eye is ranging to and fro all along the road.

Helen [within.]

Help, Pelasgian Argos! I am being foully murdered.

First Semi-Chorus

Heard ye that? Those men are now about the bloody deed.

Second Semi-Chorus

‘Tis Helen screaming, to hazard a guess.

Electra

Come, eternal might of Zeus, oh, come to help my friends!

Helen [within.]

Menelaus, I am being murdered, but thou, though near, affordest me no aid.

Electra

Cut, stab, and kill; all eager for the fray dart out your swords, double-handed, double-edged, against the woman who left her father’s home and husband’s side, and did to death so many of the men of Hellas, slain beside the river-bank, where tears rained down beneath the iron darts all round Scamander’s eddying tides.

Chorus

Hush! hush! I caught the sound of a foot-fall on the road near the house.

Electra

Ladies, my dearest friends, it is Hermione advancing into the midst of the bloodshed. Let our clamour cease; on she comes headlong into the meshes of the net. Fair will the quarry prove if caught. Resume your station, looks composed and faces not betraying what has happened; and I too will wear a look of melancholy, as if forsooth I knew nothing of that desperate deed. [Addressing Hermione as she approaches.] Ah! maiden, hast thou come from wreathing Clytemnestra’s grave and from pouring libations to the dead?

Hermione

Yes, I have returned after securing a gracious recognition; but I was filled with some alarm as to the import of a cry I heard in the palace as I was still at a distance.

Electra

But why? Our present lot gives cause for groans.

Hermione

Hush! What is thy news?

Electra

Argos has sentenced Orestes and myself to death.

Hermione

Kinsfolk of my own! God forbid!

Electra

It is decreed; the yoke of necessity is on our necks.

Hermione

Was this the reason then of the cry within?

Electra

Yes, ‘twas the cry of the suppliant as he fell at Helen’s knees.

Hermione

Who is he? I am none the wiser, if thou tell me not.

Electra

Orestes the hapless, entreating mercy for himself and me.

Hermione

Good reason then has the house to cry out.

Electra

What else would make a man entreat more earnestly? Come, throw thyself before thy mother in her proud prosperity, and join thy friends in beseeching Menelaus not to look on and see us die. O thou that wert nursed in the same mother’s arms as I, have pity on us and relieve our pain. Come hither to the struggle, and I myself will be thy guide; for thou and thou alone, hast the issue of our safety in thy hands.

Hermione

Behold me hastening to the house; as far as rests with me, regard yourselves as safe. [Exit Hermione.]

Electra

Now, friends, secure the prey in your armed ambush in the house.

Hermione [calling from within.]

Ah! who are these I see?

Orestes [within]

Silence! ‘tis our safety, not thine, thou art here to insure.

Electra

Hold her hard and fast; point a sword at her throat; then wait in silence, that Menelaus may learn that they are men, not Phrygian cowards, whom he has found and treated as only cowards deserve.

Chorus

What ho! my comrades, raise a din, a din and shouting before the house, that the murder done may not inspire the Argives with wild alarm, to make them bring aid to the royal palace, before I see for certain whether Helen’s corpse lies weltering in the house or hear the news from one of her attendants; for I know but a part of the tragedy, of the rest I am not sure. Thanks to Justice the wrath of God has come on Helen; for she filled all Hellas with tears because of her accursed paramour, Paris of Ida, who took our countrymen to Troy.

But hist! the bolts of the palace-doors rattle; be silent; for one of her Phrygians is coming out, from whom we will inquire of the state of matters within.

Phrygian [expressing the most abject terror]

From death escaped, in my barbaric slippers have I fled away, away from the Argive sword, escaping as best a barbarian might by clambering over the cedar beams that roof the porch and through the Doric triglyphs. (O my country, my country!) Alack, alack! oh! whither can I fly, ye foreign dames, winging my way through the clear bright sky or over the sea, whose circle horned Ocean draws, as he girdles the world in his embrace?

Chorus

What news, slave of Helen, creature from Ida?

Phrygian

Ah me for Ilium, for Ilium, the city of Phrygia, and for Ida’s holy hill with fruitful soil! in foreign accents hear me raise a plaintive strain over thee, whose ruin luckless Helen caused,-that lovely child whom Leda bore to a feathered swan, to be a curse to Apollo’s towers of polished stone. Ah! well-a-day! woe to Dardania for the wailings wrung from it by the steeds that bought his minion Ganymede for Zeus.

Chorus

Tell us plainly exactly what happened in the house, for till now have been guessing at what I do not clearly understand.

Phrygian

“Ah, for Linus! woe is him!” That is what barbarians say in their eastern tongue as a prelude to the dirge of death, whene’er royal blood is spilt upon the ground by deadly iron blades.

To tell thee exactly what happened: there came into the palace two lion-like men of Hellas, twins in nature; your famous chief was sire of one, ‘twas said; the other was the son of Strophius; a crafty knave was he, like to Odysseus, subtle, silent, but staunch to his friends, daring enough for any valiant deed, versed in war and blood-thirsty as a serpent. Ruin seize him for his quiet plotting, the villain!

In they came, their eyes bedimmed with tears, and took their seats in all humility near the chair of the lady whom Paris the archer once wedded, one on this side, one on that, to right and left, with weapons on them; and both threw their suppliant arms round the knees of Helen; whereon her Phrygian servants started to their feet in wild alarm, each in his terror calling to his fellow, “Beware of treachery!” To some there seemed no cause, but others thought that the viper who had slain his mother, was entangling the daughter of Tyndareus in the toils of his snare.

Chorus

And where wert thou the while? fled long before in terror?

Phrygian

It happened that I, in Phrygian style, was wafting the breeze past Helen’s curls with a round feather-fan, stationed before her face; and she the while, as eastern ladies use, was twisting flax on her distaff with her fingers, but letting her yarn fall on the floor, for she was minded to embroider purple raiment as an offering from the Trojan spoils, a gift for Clytemnestra at her tomb.

Then to the Spartan maid Orestes spake, “Daughter of Zeus, quit thy chair and cross the floor to a seat at the old altar of Pelops, our ancestor, to hear something I have to say.” Therewith he led the way and she followed, little guessing his designs. Meantime his accomplice, the Phocian miscreant, was off on other business. “Out of my way! Well, Phrygians always were cowards.” So he shut them up in different parts of the house, some in the stables, others in private chambers, one here, one there, disposing of them severally at a distance from their mistress.

Chorus

What happened next?

Phrygian

Mother of Ida, mighty parent! Oh! the murderous scenes and lawless wickedness that I witnessed in the royal palace! They drew forth swords from under their purple cloaks, each darting his eye all round him in either direction to see that none was near, and then, like boars that range the hills, they stood at bay before her, crying, “Thou must die; it is thy craven husband that will slay thee, because he betrayed his brother’s son to death in Argos.” But she with piercing screams brought down her snow-white arm upon her bosom and loudly smote on her poor head; then turned her steps in flight, shod in her golden shoon; but Orestes, outstripping her slippered feet, clutched his fingers in her hair and bending back her neck on to her left shoulder was on the point of driving the grim steel into her throat.

Chorus

Where were those Phrygians in the house to help her then?

Phrygian

With a loud cry we battered down the doors and doorposts of the rooms we had been penned in, by means of bars, and ran to her assistance from every direction, one arming himself with stones, another with javelins, a third having a drawn sword; but Pylades came to meet us, all undaunted, like Hector of Troy or Ajax triple-plumed, as I saw him on the threshold of Priam’s palace; and we met point to point. But then it became most manifest how inferior we Phrygians were to the warriors of Hellas in martial prowess. There was one man flying, another slain, a third wounded, yet another craving mercy to stave off death; but we escaped under cover of the darkness: while some were falling, others staggering, and some laid low in death. And just as her unhappy mother sunk to the ground to die, came luckless Hermione to the palace; whereon those twain, like Bacchanals when they drop their wands and seize a mountain-cub, rushed and seized her; then turned again to the daughter of Zeus to slay her; but lo! she had vanished from the room, passing right through the house by magic spells or wizards’arts or heavenly fraud; O Zeus and earth, O day and night!

What happened afterwards I know not, for I stole out of the palace and ran away. So Menelaus went through all his toil and trouble to recover his wife Helen from Troy to no purpose.

[Orestes comes out of the palace.]

Leader of the chorus

Behold another strange sight succeeding its predecessors; I see Orestes sword in hand before the palace, advancing with excited steps.

Orestes

Where is he who fled from the palace to escape my sword?

Phrygian [falling at the feet of Orestes]

Before thee I prostrate myself, O prince, and do obeisance in my foreign way.

Orestes

‘Tis not Ilium that is now the scene, but the land of Argos.

Phrygian

No matter where, the wise love life more than death.

Orestes

I suppose that shouting of thine was not for Menelaus to come to the rescue?

Phrygian

Oh no! it was to help thee I called out, for thou art more deserving.

Orestes

Was it a just fate that overtook the daughter of Tyndareus?

Phrygian

Most just, though she had had throats to die with.

Orestes

Thy cowardice makes thee glib; these are not thy real sentiments.

Phrygian

Why, surely she deserved it for the havoc she made of Hellas as well as Troy?

Orestes

Swear thou art not saying this to humour me, or I will slay thee.

Phrygian

By my life I swear,-an oath likely to be true in my case.

Orestes

Did every Phrygian in Troy show the same terror of steel as thou dost?

Phrygian

Oh, take thy sword away! held so near it throws a horrid gleam of blood.

Orestes

Art thou afraid of being turned to a stone, as if it were a Gorgon thou seest?

Phrygian

To a stone, no! but to a corpse; that Gorgon’s head is not within my ken.

Orestes

A slave, and so fearful of death, which will release thee from trouble!

Phrygian

Bond or free, every one is glad to gaze upon the light.

Orestes

Well said! thy shrewdness saves thee; go within.

Phrygian

Thou wilt not kill me after all?

Orestes

Thou art spared!

Phrygian

O gracious words!

Orestes

Come, I shall change my mind-

Phrygian

Ill-omened utterance!

Orestes

Thou fool dost think I could endure to plunge my sword in throat of thine, thou that neither art woman nor amongst men hast any place? The reason I left the palace was to gag thy noisy tongue; for Argos is quickly roused, once it hears a cry to the rescue. As for Menelaus, we are not afraid of measuring swords with him; no! he may go upon his way proud of the golden ringlets on his shoulders; for if, to avenge the slaying of Helen, he gathers the Argives and leads them against the palace, refusing to attempt the rescue of me, my sister, and Pylades my fellow-conspirator, he shall have two corpses to behold, his daughter’s as well as his wife’s.

[The Phrygian departs as Orestes re-enters the palace.]

Chorus [singing]

Ah! fortune, fortune! again and yet again the house is entering on a fearful contest for the race of Atreus.

First Semi-chorus [chanting]

What are we to do? carry tidings to the town, or hold our peace?

Second Semi-chorus [chanting]

It is safer to keep silence, friends.

First Semi-chorus [chanting]

Look, look at that sudden rush of smoke to the sky in front of the palace, telling its tale in advance!

Second Semi-chorus [chanting]

They are kindling torches to fire the halls of Tantalus; they do not shrink even from murder.

Chorus [singing]

God holds the issue in his hand, to give to mortal men what end he will. Some mighty power is his; it was through a vengeful fiend that this family started on its career of murder, by hurling Myrtilus from the chariot.

But lo! I see Menelaus approaching the palace in hot haste; no doubt he has heard what is happening here. What ho! within, descendants of Atreus, make haste and secure the doors with bars. A man in luck is a dangerous adversary for luckless wretches like thyself, Orestes.

[Orestes and Pylades appear on the roof, holding Hermione. Menelaus and his attendants enter.]

Menelaus

Strange news of violent deeds done by a pair of savages,-men I do not call them,-has brought me hither. What I heard was that my wife was not killed after all, but had vanished out of sight,-an idle rumour doubtless, brought to me by some dupe of his own terror; a ruse perhaps of the matricide to turn the laugh against me.

Throw wide the palace doors! My orders to my servants are that they force the doors, that I may rescue my child at any rate from the hands of the murderers and recover my poor wife’s corpse, that dear partner whose slayers must die with her by my arm.

Orestes [from the roof]

Ho, fellow! Keep thy fingers off those bolts, thou Menelaus, who vauntest thyself so high; else will I tear off the ancient parapet, the work of masons, and shatter thy skull with this coping-stone. The doors are bolted and barred, which will prevent thy entrance to the palace and thy eagerness to bring aid.

Menelaus

Ha! what now? I see a blaze of torches and men standing at bay on the house-top yonder, with a sword held at my daughter’s throat.

Orestes

Wouldst question me or hear me speak?

Menelaus

Neither; but I suppose I must hear thee.

Orestes

Well, if thou art anxious to know, I intend to slay thy daughter.

Menelaus

After slaying Helen, art thou bent on adding another murder?

Orestes

I would I had compassed that, instead of being duped by the gods!

Menelaus

Dost thou deny having slain her, saying this out of wanton insult?

Orestes

Yes, I do deny it to my sorrow. Would God-

Menelaus

Would God-what? Thou provokest my fears.

Orestes

I had hurled to Hades the pollution of Hellas!

Menelaus

Surrender my wife’s dead body, that I may bury her.

Orestes

Ask the gods for her; but thy daughter I will slay.

Menelaus

This matricide is bent on adding murder to murder.

Orestes

This champion of his sire, betrayed by thee to death.

Menelaus

Art thou not content with the stain of the mother’s blood which is on thee?

Orestes

I should not grow tired if I had these wicked women to slay for ever.

Menelaus

Art thou too, Pylades, a partner in this bloody work?

Orestes

His silence says he is; so my saying it will suffice.

Menelaus

Not without thy ruing it, unless thou take wings and fly.

Orestes

Fly we never will, but will fire the palace.

Menelaus

What! wilt thou destroy the home of thy ancestors?

Orestes

To prevent thee getting it I will, offering this maid in sacrifice upon its flames.

Menelaus

Kill her, for thou wilt be punished by me for such a murder.

Orestes

Agreed.

Menelaus

No, no! refrain!

Orestes

Silence! thy sufferings are just; endure them.

Menelaus

Pray, is it just that thou shouldst live?

Orestes

And rule a kingdom, yes.

Menelaus

A kingdom — where?

Orestes

Here in Pelasgian Argos.

Menelaus

Thou art so well qualified to handle sacred water!

Orestes

And, pray, why not?

Menelaus

And to slay victims before battle!

Orestes

Well, art thou?

Menelaus

Yes, my hands are clean.

Orestes

But not thy heart.

Menelaus

Who would speak to thee?

Orestes

Every man that loves his father.

Menelaus

And the man who honours his mother?

Orestes

He’s a happy man.

Menelaus

Thou didst not honour thine, at any rate.

Orestes

No, for I delight not in your wicked women.

Menelaus

Remove that sword from my daughter’s throat.

Orestes

Thou art wrong.

Menelaus

What! wilt slay her?

Orestes

Right once more.

Menelaus

Ah me! what can I do?

Orestes

Go to the Argives and persuade them —

Menelaus

To what?

Orestes

Entreat the city that we may not die.

Menelaus

Otherwise, will ye slay my child?

Orestes

That is the alternative.

Menelaus

Alas for thee, Helen!

Orestes

And is it not “alas!” for me?

Menelaus

I brought her back from Troy only for thee to butcher.

Orestes

Would I had!

Menelaus

After troubles innumerable.

Orestes

Except where I was concerned.

Menelaus

Dread treatment mine!

Orestes

The reason being thy refusal to help me then?

Menelaus

Thou hast me.

Orestes

Thy own cowardice has. [Calling from the roof to Electra] Ho there! fire the palace from beneath, Electra; and, Pylades, my trusty friend, kindle the parapet of yonder walls. [The palace is seen to be ablaze.]

Menelaus

Help, help, ye Danai! gird on your harness and come, ye dwellers in knightly Argos! for here is a fellow trying to wrest his life from your whole city, though he has caused pollution by shedding his mother’s blood.

[Apollo appears from above with Helen.]

Apollo

Menelaus, calm thy excited mood; I am Phoebus, the son of Latona, who draw nigh to call thee by name, and thou no less, Orestes, who, sword in hand, art keeping guard on yonder maid, that thou mayst hear what have come to say. Helen, whom all thy eagerness failed to destroy, when thou wert seeking to anger Menelaus, is here as ye see in the enfolding air, rescued from death instead of slain by thee. ‘Twas I that saved her and snatched her from beneath thy sword at the bidding of her father Zeus; for she his child must put on immortality, and take her place with Castor and Polydeuces in the bosom of the sky, a saviour to mariners. Choose thee then another bride and take her to thy home, for the gods by means of Helen’s loveliness embroiled Troy and Hellas, causing death thereby, that they might lighten mother Earth of the outrage done her by the increase of man’s number. Such is Helen’s end.

But as for thee, Orestes, thou must cross the frontier of this land and dwell for one whole year on Parrhasian soil, which from thy flight thither shall be called the land of Orestes by Azanians and Arcadians; and when thou returnest thence to the city of Athens, submit to be brought to trial by “the Avenging Three” for thy mother’s murder, for the gods will be umpires between you and will pass a most righteous sentence on thee upon the hill of Ares, where thou art to win thy case. Likewise, it is ordained, Orestes, that thou shalt wed Hermione, at whose neck thou art pointing thy sword; Neoptolemus shall never marry her, though he thinks he will; for his death is fated to o’ertake him by a Delphian sword, when he claims satisfaction of me for the death of his father Achilles. Bestow thy sister’s hand on Pylades, to whom thou didst formerly promise her; the life awaiting him henceforth is one of bliss.

Menelaus, leave Orestes to rule Argos; go thou and reign oer Sparta, keeping it as the dowry of a wife, who till this day ne’er ceased exposing thee to toils innumerable. Between Orestes and the citizens, I, who forced his mother’s murder on him, will bring about a reconciliation.

Orestes

Hail to thee, prophetic Loxias, for these thy utterances! Thou art not a lying prophet after all, but a true seer; and yet there came a dreadful thought into my heart that it was some fiend I had listened to, when seemed to hear thy voice; but all is ending well, and I obey thy word. There! I release Hermione from a violent death and agree to make her my wife whenever her father gives consent.

Menelaus

All hail, Helen, daughter of Zeus! I wish thee joy of thy home in heaven’s happy courts. To thee, Orestes, I betroth my daughter according to the word of Phoebus, and good luck attend thee, a noble wooer nobly wived, and me the parent of thy bride!

Apollo

Repair each one to the place appointed by me; reconcile all strife.

Menelaus

Obedience is a duty.

Orestes

I think thus also, Menelaus; so here I make a truce with sorrow and with thy oracles, O Loxias.

Apollo [chanting]

Go your ways, and honour Peace, most fair of goddesses; I, meantime, will escort Helen to the mansions of Zeus, soon as I reach the star-lit firmament. There, seated side by side with Hera and Hebe, the bride of Heracles, she shall be honoured by men with drink-offerings as a goddess for ever, sharing with those Zeus-born sons of Tyndareus their empire o’er the sea, for the good of mariners.

[Apollo and Helen vanish.]

Chorus [chanting]

Hail! majestic Victory, still in thy keeping hold my life and ne’er withhold the crown!

The Phoenissae

Characters in the Play

Jocasta, wife of Oedipus

Old servant, an attendant of Antigone

Antigone, daughter of Oedipus

Chorus of Phoenician maidens

Polyneices, exiled son of Oedipus

Eteocles, now King of Thebes; son of Oedipus

Creon, brother of Jocasta

Teiresias, a blind prophet

Menoeceus, son of Creon

First messenger

Second messenger

Oedipus, formerly King of Thebes

Daughter of Teiresias, guards, attendants

[Scene: Before the royal palace of Thebes. Jocasta enters from the palace alone.]

Jocasta

O Sun-god, who cleavest thy way along the starry sky, mounted on golden-studded car, rolling on thy path of flame behind fleet coursers, how curst the beam thou didst shed on Thebes, the day that Cadmus left Phoenicia’s realm beside the sea and reached this land! He it was that in days long gone wedded Harmonia, the daughter of Cypris, and begat Polydorus from whom they say sprung Labdacus, and Laius from him. I am known as the daughter of Menoeceus, and Creon is my brother by the same mother. Men called me Jocasta, for so my father named me, and I am married to Laius. Now when he was still childless after being wedded to me a long time, he went and questioned Phoebus, craving moreover that our love might be crowned with sons born to his house. But the god said, “King of Thebes for horses famed! seek not to beget children against the will of heaven; for if thou beget a son, that child shall slay thee, and all thy house shall wade through blood.” But he, yielding to his lust in a drunken fit, begat a son of me, and when his babe was born, conscious of his sin and of the god’s warning, he gave the child to shepherds to expose in Hera’s meadow on mount Cithaeron, after piercing his ankles with iron spikes; whence it was that Hellas named him Oedipus. But the keepers of the horses of Polybus finding him took him home and laid him in the arms of their mistress. So she suckled the child that I had borne and persuaded her husband she was its mother. Soon as my son was grown to man’s estate, the tawny beard upon his cheek, either because he had guessed the fraud or learnt it from another, he set out for the shrine of Phoebus, eager to know for certain who his parents were; and likewise Laius, my husband, was on his way thither, anxious to find out if the child he had exposed was dead. And they twain met where the branching roads to Phocis unite; and the charioteer of Laius called to him, “Out of the way, stranger, room for my lord!” But he, with never a word, strode on in his pride; and the horses with their hoofs drew blood from the tendons of his feet. Then — but why need I tell aught beyond the sad issue? — son slew father, and taking his chariot gave it to Polybus his foster-father. Now when the Sphinx was grievously harrying our city after my husband’s death, my brother Creon proclaimed that he would wed me to any who should guess the riddle of that crafty maiden. By some strange chance, my own son, Oedipus, guessed the Sphinx’s riddle, and so he became king of this land and received its sceptre as his prize, and married his mother, all unwitting, luckless wretch! nor did I his mother know that I was wedded to my son; and I bore him two sons, Eteocles and the hero Polyneices, and two daughters as well; the one her father called Ismene, the other, which was the elder, I named Antigone. Now when Oedipus, that awful sufferer, learnt that I his wedded wife was his mother too, he inflicted a ghastly outrage upon his eyes, tearing the bleeding orbs with a golden brooch. But since my sons have grown to bearded men, they have confined their father closely, that his misfortune, needing as it did full many a shift to hide it, might be forgotten. He is still living in the palace, but his misfortunes have so unhinged him that he imprecates the most unholy curses on his sons, praying that they may have to draw the sword before they share this house between them. So they, fearful that heaven may accomplish his prayer if they dwell together, have made an agreement, arranging that Polyneices, the younger, should first leave the land in voluntary exile, while Eteocles should stay and hold the sceptre for a year and then change places. But as soon as Eteocles was seated high in power, he refused to give up the throne, and drove Polyneices into exile from the kingdom; so Polyneices went to Argos and married into the family of Adrastus, and having collected a numerous force of Argives is leading them hither; and he is come up against our seven-gated walls, demanding the sceptre of his father and his share in the kingdom. Wherefore I, to end their strife, have prevailed on one son to meet the other under truce, before appealing to arms; and the messenger I sent tells me that he will come. O Zeus, whose home is heaven’s radiant vault, save us, and grant that my sons may be reconciled! For thou, if thou art really wise, must not suffer the same poor mortal to be for ever wretched.

[Jocasta re-enters the palace, as the Old servant appears on the roof.]

Old servant

Antigone, choice blossom in a father’s house, although thy mother allowed thee at thy earnest treaty to leave thy maiden chamber for the topmost story of the house, thence to behold the Argive host, yet a stay moment that I may first reconnoitre the path, whether there be any of the citizens visible on the road, lest reproach, little as it matters to a slave like me, fasten on thee, my royal mistress; and when I am quite sure will tell thee everything that I saw and heard from the Argives, when carried the terms of the truce to and fro between this city and Polyneices. [After a slight pause] No, there is no citizen approaching the palace; so mount the ancient cedar steps, and view the plains that skirt Ismenus and the fount of Dirce to see the mighty host of foemen.

[Antigone appears beside him. She chants her replies to him.]

Antigone

Stretch out thy hand to me from the stairs, the hand of age to youth, helping me to mount.

Old servant

There! clasp it, my young mistress; thou art come at a lucky moment; for Pelasgia’s host is just upon the move, and their several contingents are separating.

Antigone

O Hecate, dread child of Latona! the plain is one blaze of bronze.

Old servant

Ah! this is no ordinary home-coming of Polyneices; with many a knight and clash of countless arms he comes.

Antigone

Are the gates fast barred, and the brazen bolts shot home into Amphion’s walls of stone?

Old servant

Never fear! all is safe within the town. But mark him who cometh first, if thou wouldst learn his name.

Antigone

Who is that with the white crest, who marches in the van, lightly bearing on his arm a buckler all of bronze?

Old servant

A chieftain, lady —

Antigone

Who is he? whose son? his name? tell me, old man.

Old servant

Mycenae claims him for her son; in Lerna’s glens he dwells, the prince Hippomedon.

Antigone

Ah! how proud and terrible his mien! like to an earth-born giant he moves, with stars engraved upon his targe, resembling not a child of earth.

Old servant

Dost see yon chieftain crossing Dirce’s stream?

Antigone

His harness is quite different. Who is that?

Old servant

Tydeus, the son of Oeneus; true Aetolian spirit fires his breast.

Antigone

Is this he, old man, who wedded a sister of the wife of Polyneices? What a foreign look his armour has! a half-barbarian he!

Old servant

Yes, my child; all Aetolians carry shields, and are most unerring marksmen with their darts.

Antigone

How art thou so sure of these descriptions, old man?

Old servant

I carefully noted the blazons on their shields before when I went with the terms of the truce to thy brother; so when I see them now I know who carry them.

Antigone

Who is that youth passing close to the tomb of Zethus, with long flowing hair, but a look of fury in his eye? is he a captain? for crowds of warriors follow at his heels.

Old servant

That is Parthenopaeus, Atalanta’s son.

Antigone

May Artemis, who hies o’er the hills with his mother, lay him low with an arrow, for coming against my city to sack it!

Old servant

May it be so, my daughter; but with justice are they come hither, and my fear is that the gods will take the rightful view,

Antigone

Where is he who was born of the same mother as I was by a cruel destiny? Oh! tell me, old friend, where Polyneices is.

Old servant

He is yonder, ranged next to Adrastus near the tomb of Niobe’s seven unwed daughters. Dost see him?

Antigone

I see him, yes! but not distinctly; ‘tis but the outline of his form the semblance of his stalwart limbs I see. Would I could speed through the sky, swift as a cloud before the wind, towards my own dear brother, and throw my arms about my darling’s neck, so long, poor boy! an exile. How bright his golden weapons flash like the sun-god’s morning rays!

Old servant

He will soon be here, to fill thy heart with joy, according to the truce.

Antigone

Who is that, old man, on yonder car driving snow-white steeds?

Old servant

That, lady, is the prophet Amphiaraus; with him are the victims, whose streaming blood the thirsty earth will drink.

Antigone

Daughter of Latona with the dazzling zone, O moon, thou orb of golden light! how quietly, with what restraint he drives, goading first one horse, then the other! But where is Capaneus who utters those dreadful threats against this city?

Old servant

Yonder he is, calculating how he may scale the towers, taking the measure of our walls from base to summit.

Antigone

O Nemesis, with booming thunder-peals of Zeus and blazing levin-light, thine it is to silence such presumptuous boasting. Is this the man, who says he will give the maids of Thebes as captives of his spear to Mycenae’s dames, to Lerna’s Trident, and the waters of Amymone, dear to Poseidon, when he has thrown the toils of slavery round them? Never, never, Artemis, my queen revered, child of Zeus with locks of gold, may I endure the yoke of slavery!

Old servant

My daughter, go within, and abide beneath the shelter of thy maiden chamber, now that thou hast had thy wish and seen all that thy heart desired; for I see a crowd of women moving toward the royal palace, confusion reigning in the city. Now the race of women by nature loves to find fault; and if they get some slight handle for their talk they exaggerate it, for they seem to take a pleasure in saying everything bad of one another.

[Antigone and the Old servant descend into the palace, as the chorus of Phoenician maidens enters.]

Chorus [singing]

From the Tyrian main I come, an offering choice for Loxias from Phoenician isle, to minister to Phoebus in his halls, where his fane lies nestling ‘neath the snow-swept peaks of Parnassus; over the Ionian sea I rowed my course, for above the plains unharvested, that fringe the coast of Sicily, the boisterous west-wind coursed, piping sweetest music in the sky.

Chosen from my city as beauty’s gift for Loxias, to the land of Cadmus I came, sent thither to the towers of Laius, the home of my kin, the famous sons of Agenor; and there I became the handmaid of Phoebus, dedicated like his offerings of wrought gold. But as yet the water of Castaly is waiting for me to bedew the maiden glory of my tresses for the service of Phoebus.

Hail! thou rock that kindlest bright fire above the twin-peaked heights of Dionysus. Hail! thou vine, that, day by day, makest the lush bunches of thy grapes to drip. Hail! awful cavern of the serpent, and the god’s outlook on the hills, and sacred mount by snow-storms lashed! would I were now circling in the dance of the deathless god, free from wild alarms, having left Dirce ere this for the vales of Phoebus at the centre of the world!

But now I find the impetuous god of war is come to battle before these walls, and hath kindled murder’s torch in this city. God grant he fail! for a friend’s sorrows are also mine; and if this land with its seven towers suffer any mischance, Phoenicia’s realm must share it. Ah me! our stock is one; all children we of Io, that horned maid, whose sorrows I partake.

Around the city a dense array of serried shields is rousing the spectre of bloody strife, whose issue Ares shall soon learn to his cost, if he brings upon the sons of Oedipus the horrors of the curse. O Argos, city of Pelasgia! I dread thy prowess and the vengeance Heaven sends; for he who cometh against our home in full panoply is entering the lists with justice on his side.

[Polyneices enters alone.]

Polyneices

Those who kept watch and ward at the gate admitted me so readily within the walls that my only fear is, that now they have caught me in their toils, they will not let me out unscathed; so I must turn my eye in every direction, hither and thither, to guard against all treachery. Armed with this sword, I shall inspire myself with the trust that is born of boldness. [Starting] What ho! who goes there? or is it an idle sound I fear? Everything seems a danger to venturous spirits, when their feet begin to tread an enemy’s country. Still I trust my mother, and at the same time mistrust her for persuading me to come hither under truce. Well, there is help at hand, for the altar’s hearth is close and there are people in the palace. Come, let me sheath my sword in its dark scabbard and ask these maidens standing near the house, who they are.

Ladies of another land, tell me from what country ye come to the halls of Hellas.

Leader of the chorus

Phoenicia is my native land where I was born and bred; and Agenor’s children’s children sent me hither as a first-fruits of the spoils of war foy Phoebus; but when the noble son of Oedipus was about to escort me to the hallowed oracle and the altars of Loxias, came Argives meantime against his city. Now tell me in return who thou art that comes to this fortress of the Theban realm with its seven gates.

Polyneices

My father was Oedipus, the son of Laius; my mother Jocasta, daughter of Menoeceus; and I am called Polyneices by the folk of Thebes.

Chorus [chanting]

O kinsman of Agenor’s race, my royal masters who sent me hither at thy feet, prince, I throw myself, according to the custom of my home. At last art thou come to thy native land; at last! Hail to thee! all hail! Come forth, my honoured mistress, open wide the doors. Dost hear, O mother of this chief? Why art thou delaying to leave the sheltering roof to fold thy son in thy embrace?

[Jocasta enters from the palace.]

Jocasta [chanting]

Maidens, I hear you call in your Phoenician tongue, and my old feet drag their tottering steps to meet my son. O my son, my son, at last after many a long day I see thee face to face; throw thy arms about thy mother’s bosom; reach hither thy cheek to me and thy dark locks of clustering hair, o’ershadowing my neck therewith. Hail to thee! all hail! scarce now restored to thy mother’s arms, when hope and expectation both were dead. What can I say to thee? how recall in every way, by word, by deed, the bliss of days long past, expressing my joy in the mazy measures of the dance? Ah! my son, thou didst leave thy father’s halls desolate, when thy brother’s despite drove thee thence in exile. Truly thou wert missed alike by thy friends and Thebes. This was why I cut off my silvered locks and let them fall for grief with many a tear, not clad in robes of white, my son, but instead thereof taking for my wear these sorry sable tatters; while within the palace that aged one with sightless orbs, ever nursing the sorrow of a double regret for the pair of brethren estranged from their home, rushed to lay hands upon himself with the sword or by the noose suspended o’er his chamber-roof, moaning his curses on his sons; and now he buries himself in darkness, weeping ever and lamenting. And thou, my child, — I hear thou hast taken an alien to wife and art begetting children to thy joy in thy home; they tell me thou art courting a foreign alliance, a ceaseless woe to me thy mother and to Laius thy ancestor, to have this woeful marriage foisted on us. ‘Twas no hand of mine that lit for thee the marriage-torch, as custom ordains and as a happy mother ought; no part had Ismenus at thy wedding in supplying the luxurious bath; and there was silence through the streets of Thebes, what time thy young bride entered her home. Curses on them! whether it be the sword or strife or thy sire that is to blame, or heaven’s visitation that hath burst so riotously upon the house of Oedipus; for on me is come all the anguish of these troubles.

Leader of the chorus

Wondrous dear to woman is the child of her travail, and all her race hath some affection for its babes.

Polyneices

Mother, I have come amongst enemies wisely or foolishly; but all men needs must love their native land; whoso saith otherwise is pleased to say so but his thoughts are turned elsewhere. So fearful was I and in such terror, lest my brother might slay me by treachery that I made my way through the city sword in hand, casting my eyes all round me. My only hope is the truce and thy plighted word which induced me to enter my paternal walls; and many a tear I shed by the way, seeing after a weary while my home and the altars of the gods, the training ground, scene of my childhood, and Dirce’s founts from which I was unjustly driven to sojourn in a strange city, with tears ever gushing from mine eyes. Yea, and to add to my grief I see thee with hair cut short and clad in sable robe; woe is me for my sorrows!

How terrible, dear mother, is hatred ‘twixt those once near and dear; how hard it makes all reconciliation! What doth my aged sire within the house, his light all darkness now? what of my sisters twain? Ah! they, I know, bewail my bitter exile.

Jocasta

Some god with fell intent is plaguing the race of Oedipus. Thus it all began; I broke God’s law and bore a son, and in an evil hour married thy father and thou wert born. But why repeat these horrors? what Heaven sends we have to bear. I am afraid to ask thee what I fain would, for fear of wounding thy feelings; yet I long to.

Polyneices

Nay, question me, leave naught unsaid; for thy will, mother, is my pleasure too.

Jocasta

Well then, first I ask thee what I long to have answered. What means exile from one’s country? is it a great evil?

Polyneices

The greatest; harder to bear than tell.

Jocasta

What is it like? what is it galls the exile?

Polyneices

One thing most of all; he cannot speak his mind.

Jocasta

This is a slave’s lot thou describest, to refrain from uttering what one thinks.

Polyneices

The follies of his rulers must be bear.

Jocasta

That too is bitter, to join in the folly of fools.

Polyneices

Yet to gain our ends we must submit against our nature.

Jocasta

Hope, they say, is the exile’s food.

Polyneices

Aye, hope that looks so fair; but she is ever in the future.

Jocasta

But doth not time expose her futility?

Polyneices

She hath a certain winsome charm in misfortune.

Jocasta

Whence hadst thou means to live, ere thy marriage found it for thee?

Polyneices

One while I had enough for the day, and then maybe I had it not.

Jocasta

Did not thy father’s friends and whilom guests assist thee?

Polyneices

Seek to be prosperous; once let fortune lour, and the aid supplied by friends is naught.

Jocasta

Did not thy noble breeding exalt thy horn for thee?

Polyneices

Poverty is a curse; breeding would not find me food.

Jocasta

Man’s dearest treasure then, it seems, is his country.

Polyneices

No words of thine could tell how dear.

Jocasta

How was it thou didst go to Argos? what was thy scheme?

Polyneices

I know not; the deity summoned me thither in accordance with my destiny.

Jocasta

He doubtless had some wise design; but how didst thou win thy wife?

Polyneices

Loxias had given Adrastus an oracle.

Jocasta

What was it? what meanest thou? I cannot guess.

Polyneices

That he should wed his daughters to a boar and a lion.

Jocasta

What hadst thou, my son, to do with the name of beasts?

Polyneices

It was night when I reached the porch of Adrastus.

Jocasta

In search of a resting-place, or wandering thither in thy exile?

Polyneices

Yes, I wandered thither; and so did another like me.

Jocasta

Who was he? he too it seems was in evil plight.

Polyneices

Tydeus, son of Oeneus, was his name.

Jocasta

But why did Adrastus liken you to wild beasts?

Polyneices

Because we came to blows about our bed.

Jocasta

Was it then that the son of Talaus understood the oracle?

Polyneices

Yes, and he gave to us his daughters twain.

Jocasta

Art thou blest or curst in thy marriage?

Polyneices

As yet I have no fault to find with it.

Jocasta

How didst thou persuade an army to follow thee hither?

Polyneices

To me and to Tydeus who is my kinsman by marriage, Adrastus sware an oath, even to the husbands of his daughters twain, that he would restore us both to our country, but me the first. So many a chief from Argos and Mycenae has joined me, doing me a bitter though needful service, for ‘tis against my own city I am marching. Now I call heaven to witness, that it is not willingly I have raised my arm against parents whom I love full well. But to thee, mother, it belongs to dissolve this unhappy feud, and, by reconciling brothers in love, to end my troubles and thine and this whole city’s. ‘Tis an old-world maxim, but I will cite it for all that: “Men set most store by wealth, and of all things in this world it hath the greatest power.” This am I come to secure at the head of my countless host; for good birth is naught if poverty go with it.

Leader

Lo! Eteocles comes hither to discuss the truce. Thine the task, mother Jocasta, to speak such words as may reconcile thy sons.

[Eteocles and his retinue enter.]

Eteocles

Mother, I am here; but it was only to pleasure thee I came. What am to do? Let some one begin the conference; for I stopped marshalling the citizens in double lines around the walls, that I might hear thy arbitration. between us; for it is under this truce that thou hast persuaded me to admit this fellow within the walls.

Jocasta

Stay a moment; haste never carries justice with it; but slow deliberation oft attains a wise result. Restrain the fierceness of thy look, that panting rage; for this is not the Gorgon’s severed head but thy own brother whom thou seest here. Thou too, Polyneices, turn and face thy brother; for if thou and he stand face to face, thou wilt adopt a kindlier tone and lend a readier ear to him. I fain would give you both one piece of wholesome counsel; when a man that is angered with his friend confronts him face to face, he ought only to keep in view the object of his coming, forgetting all previous quarrels. Polyneices my son, speak first, for thou art come at the head of a Danaid host, alleging wrongful treatment; and may some god judge betwixt us and reconcile the trouble.

Polyneices

The words of truth are simple, and justice needs no subtle interpretations, for it hath a fitness in itself; but the words of injustice, being rotten in themselves, require clever treatment. I provided for his interests and mine in our father’s palace, being anxious to avoid the curse which Oedipus once uttered against us; of my own free-will I left the land, allowing him to rule our country for one full year, on condition that I should then take the sceptre in turn, instead of plunging into deadly enmity and thereby doing others hurt or suffering it myself, as is now the case. But he, after consenting to this and calling the gods to witness his oath, has performed none of his promises, but is still keeping the sovereignty in his own hands together with my share of our heritage. Even now am I ready to take my own and dismiss my army from this land, receiving my house in turn to dwell therein, and once more restore it to him for a like period instead of ravaging our country and planting scaling-ladders against the towers, as I shall attempt to do if I do not get my rights. Wherefore I call the gods to witness that spite of my just dealing in everything I am being unjustly robbed of my country by most godless fraud. Here, mother, have I stated the several points on their own merits, without collecting words to fence them in, but urging a fair case, I think, alike in the judgment of skilled or simple folk.

Leader

To me at least, albeit I was not born and bred in Hellas, thy words seem full of sense.

Eteocles

If all were at one in their ideas of honour and wisdom, there would have been no strife to make men disagree; but, as it is, fairness and equality have no existence in this world beyond the name; there is really no such thing. For instance, mother, I will tell thee this without any concealment; I would ascend to the rising of the stars and the sun or dive beneath the earth, were I able so to do, to win a monarch’s power, the chief of things divine. Therefore, mother, I will never yield this blessing to another, but keep it for myself; for it were a coward’s act to lose the greater and to win the less. Besides, I blush to think that he should gain his object by coming with arms in his hand and ravaging the land; for this were foul disgrace to glorious Thebes, if I should yield my sceptre up to him for fear of Argive might. He ought not, mother, to have attempted reconcilement by armed force, for words compass everything that even the sword of an enemy might effect. Still, if on any other terms he cares to dwell here, he may; but the sceptre will I never willingly let go. Shall I become his slave, when I can be his master? Never! Wherefore come fire, come sword! harness your steeds, fill the plains with chariots, for I will not forego my throne for him. For if we must do wrong, to do so for a kingdom were the fairest cause, but in all else virtue should be our aim.

Leader

Fair words are only called for when the deeds they crown are fair; otherwise they lose their charm and offend justice.

Jocasta

Eteocles, my child, it is not all evil that attends old age; sometimes its experience can offer sager counsel than can youth. Oh why, my son, art thou so set upon Ambition, that worst of deities? Forbear; that goddess knows not justice; many are the homes and cities once prosperous that she hath entered and left after the ruin of her votaries; she it is thou madly followest. Better far, my son, prize Equality that ever linketh friend to friend, city to city, and allies to each other; for Equality is man’s natural law; but the less is always in opposition to the greater, ushering in the dayspring of dislike. For it is Equality that hath set up for man measures and divisions of weights and hath distinguished numbers; night’s sightless orb, and radiant sun proceed upon their yearly course on equal terms, and neither of them is envious when it has to yield. Though sun and gloom then both are servants in man’s interests, wilt not thou be content with thy fair share of thy heritage and give the same to him? if not, why where is justice? Why prize beyond its worth the monarch’s power, injustice in prosperity? why think so much of the admiring glances turned on rank? Nay, ‘tis vanity. Or wouldst thou by heaping riches in thy halls, heap up toil therewith? what advantage is it? ‘tis but a name; for the wise find that enough which suffices for their wants. Man indeed hath no possessions of his own; we do but hold a stewardship of the gods’ property; and when they will, they take it back again. Riches make no settled home, but are as transient as the day. Come, suppose I put before thee two alternatives, whether thou wilt rule or save thy city? Wilt thou say “Rule”?

Again, if Polyneices win the day and his Argive warriors rout the ranks of Thebes, thou wilt see this city conquered and many a captive maid brutally dishonoured by the foe; so will that wealth thou art so bent on getting become a grievous bane to Thebes; but still ambition fills thee. This I say to thee; and this to thee, Polyneices; Adrastus hath conferred a foolish favour on thee; and thou too hast shown little sense in coming to lay thy city waste. Suppose thou conquer this land (which Heaven forefend!) tell me, I conjure thee, how wilt thou rear a trophy to Zeus? how wilt thou begin the sacrifice after thy country’s conquest or inscribe the spoils at the streams of Inachus with “Polyneices gave Thebes to the flames and dedicated these shields to the gods”? Oh! never, my son, be it thine to win such fame from Hellas! If, on the other hand, thou art worsted and thy brother’s cause prevail, how shalt thou return to Argos, leaving countless dead behind? Some one will be sure to say, “Out on thee! Adrastus, for the evil bridegroom thou hast brought unto thy house; thanks to one maid’s marriage, ruin is come on us.”

Towards two evils, my son, art thou hasting, — loss of influence there and ruin in the midst of thy efforts here. Oh! my children, lay aside your violence; two men’s follies, once they meet, result in very deadly evil.

Leader

O heaven, avert these troubles and reconcile the sons of Oedipus in some way!

Eteocles

Mother, the season for parley is past; the time we still delay is idle waste; thy good wishes are of no avail, for we shall never be reconciled except upon the terms already named, namely, that I should keep the sceptre and be king of this land: wherefore cease these tedious warnings and let me be. [Turning to Polyneices] And as for thee, outside the walls, or die!

Polyneices

Who will slay me? who is so invulnerable as to plunge his sword in my body without reaping the self-same fate?

Eteocles

Thou art near him, aye, very near; dost see my arm?

Polyneices

I see it; but wealth is cowardly, a craven too fond of life.

Eteocles

Was it then to meet a dastard thou camest with all that host to war?

Polyneices

In a general caution is better than foolhardiness.

Eteocles

Relying on the truce, which saves thy life, thou turnest boaster.

Polyneices

Once more I ask thee to restore my sceptre and share in the kingdom.

Eteocles

I have naught to restore; ‘tis my own house, and I will dwell therein.

Polyneices

What! and keep more than thy share?

Eteocles

Yes, I will. Begone!

Polyneices

O altars of my fathers’ gods! —

Eteocles

Which thou art here to raze.

Polyneices

Hear me.

Eteocles

Who would hear thee after thou hast marched against thy fatherland?

Polyneices

O temples of those gods that ride on snow-white steeds!

Eteocles

They hate thee.

Polyneices

I am being driven from my country.

Eteocles

Because thou camest to drive others thence.

Polyneices

Unjustly, O ye gods!

Eteocles

Call on the gods at Mycenae, not here.

Polyneices

Thou hast outraged right —

Eteocles

But I have not like thee become my country’s foe.

Polyneices

By driving me forth without my portion.

Eteocles

And further I will slay thee.

Polyneices

O father, dost thou hear what I am suffering?

Eteocles

Yea, and he hears what thou art doing.

Polyneices

Thou too, mother mine?

Eteocles

Thou hast no right to mention thy mother.

Polyneices

O my city!

Eteocles

Get thee to Argos, and invoke the waters of Lerna.

Polyneices

I will; trouble not thyself; all thanks to thee though, mother mine —

Eteocles

Forth from the land!

Polyneices

I go, yet grant me to behold my father.

Eteocles

Thou shalt not have thy wish.

Polyneices

At least then my tender sisters.

Eteocles

No! them too thou shalt never see.

Polyneices

Ah, sisters mine!

Eteocles

Why dost thou, their bitterest foe, call on them?

Polyneices

Mother dear, to thee at least farewell!

Jocasta

A joyous faring mine in sooth, my son!

Polyneices

Thy son no more!

Jocasta

Born to sorrow, endless sorrow, I!

Polyneices

‘Tis because my brother treats me despitefully.

Eteocles

I am treated just the same.

Polyneices

Where wilt thou be stationed before the towers?

Eteocles

Why ask me this?

Polyneices

I will array myself against thee for thy death.

Eteocles

I too have the same desire.

Jocasta

Woe is me! what will ye do, my sons?

Polyneices

The event will show.

Jocasta

Oh, fly your father’s curse!

[Jocasta enters the palace.]

Eteocles

Destruction seize our whole house!

Polyneices

Soon shall my sword be busy, plunged in gore. But I call my native land and heaven too to witness, with what contumely and bitter treatment I am being driven forth, as though I were a slave, not a son of Oedipus as much as he. If aught happen to thee, my city, blame him, not me; for I came not willingly, and all unwillingly am I driven hence. Farewell, king Phoebus, lord of highways; farewell palace and comrades; farewell ye statues of the gods, at which men offer sheep; for I know not if shall ever again address you, though hope is still awake, which makes me confident that with heaven’s help I shall slay this fellow and rule my native Thebes.

[Polyneices departs.]

Eteocles

Forth from the land! ‘twas a true name our father gave thee, when, prompted by some god, he called thee Polyneices, a name denoting strife.

Chorus [singing]

To this land came Cadmus of Tyre, at whose feet an unyoked heifer threw itself down, giving effect to an oracle on the spot where the god’s response bade him take up his abode in Aonia’s rich cornlands, where gushing Dirce’s fair rivers of water pour o’er verdant fruitful fields; here was born the Bromian god by her whom Zeus made a mother, round whom the ivy twined its wreaths while he was yet a babe, swathing him amid the covert of its green foliage as child of happy destiny, to be a theme for Bacchic revelry among the maids and wives inspired in Thebes.

There lay Ares’ murderous dragon, a savage warder, watching with roving eye the watered glens and quickening streams; him did Cadmus slay with a jagged stone, when he came thither to draw him lustral water, smiting that fell head with a blow of his death-dealing arm; but by the counsel of Pallas, motherless goddess, he cast the teeth upon the earth into deep furrows, whence sprang to sight mail-clad host above the surface of the soil; but grim slaughter once again united them to the earth they loved, bedewing with blood the ground that had disclosed them to the sunlit breath of heaven.

Thee too, Epaphus, child of Zeus, sprung from Io our ancestress, call on in my foreign tongue; all hail to thee! hear my prayer uttered in accents strange, and visit this land; ‘twas in thy honour thy descendants settled here, and those goddesses of twofold name, Persephone and kindly Demeter or Earth the queen of all, that feedeth every mouth, won it for themselves; send to the help of this land those torch-bearing queens; for to gods all things are easy.

Eteocles [to an attendant]

Go, fetch Creon son of Menoeceus, the brother of jocasta my mother; tell him I fain would confer with him on matters affecting our public and private weal, before we set out to battle and the arraying of our host. But lo! he comes and saves thee the trouble of going; I see him on his way to my palace.

[Creon enters.]

Creon

To and fro have I been, king Eteocles, in my desire to see thee, and have gone all round the gates and sentinels of Thebes in quest of thee.

Eteocles

Why, and I was anxious to see thee, Creon; for I found the terms of peace far from satisfactory, when I came to confer with Polyneices.

Creon

I hear that he has wider aims than Thebes, relying on his alliance with the daughter of Adrastus and his army. Well, we must leave this dependent on the gods; meantime I am come to tell thee our chief obstacle.

Eteocles

What is that? I do not understand what thou sayest.

Creon

There is come one that was captured by the Argives.

Eteocles

What news does he bring from their camp?

Creon

He says the Argive army intend at once to draw a ring of troops round the city of Thebes, about its towers.

Eteocles

In that case the city of Cadmus must lead out its troops.

Creon

Whither? art thou so young that thine eyes see not what they should?

Eteocles

Across yon trenches for immediate action.

Creon

Our Theban forces are small, while theirs are numberless.

Eteocles

I well know they are reputed brave.

Creon

No mean repute have those Argives among Hellenes.

Eteocles

Never fear! I will soon fill the plain with their dead.

Creon

I could wish it so; but I see great difficulties in this.

Eteocles

Trust me, I will not keep my host within the walls.

Creon

Still victory is entirely a matter of good counsel.

Eteocles

Art anxious then that I should have recourse to any other scheme?

Creon

Aye to every scheme, before running the risk once for all.

Eteocles

Suppose we fall on them by night from ambuscade?

Creon

Good! provided in the event of defeat thou canst secure thy return hither.

Eteocles

Night equalizes risks, though it rather favours daring.

Creon

The darkness of night is a terrible time to suffer disaster.

Eteocles

Well, shall I fall upon them as they sit at meat?

Creon

That might cause them fright, but victory is what we want.

Eteocles

Dirce’s ford is deep enough to prevent their retreat.

Creon

No plan so good as to keep well guarded.

Eteocles

What if our cavalry make a sortie against the host of Argos?

Creon

Their troops too are fenced all round with chariots.

Eteocles

What then can I do? am I to surrender the city to the foe?

Creon

Nay, nay! but of thy wisdom form some plan.

Eteocles

Pray, what scheme is wiser than mine?

Creon

They have seven chiefs, I hear.

Eteocles

What is their appointed task? their might can be but feeble.

Creon

To lead the several companies and storm our seven gates.

Eteocles

What are we to do? I will not wait till every chance is gone.

Creon

Choose seven chiefs thyself to set against them at the gates.

Eteocles

To lead our companies, or to fight single-handed?

Creon

Choose our very bravest men to lead the troops.

Eteocles

I understand; to repel attempts at scaling our walls.

Creon

With others to share the command, for one man sees not everything.

Eteocles

Selecting them for courage or thoughtful prudence?

Creon

For both; for one is naught without the other.

Eteocles

It shall be done; I will away to our seven towers and post captains at the gates, as thou advisest, pitting them man for man against the foe. To tell thee each one’s name were grievous waste of time, when the foe is camped beneath our very walls. But I will go, that my hands may no longer hang idle. May I meet my brother face to face, and encounter him hand to hand, e’en to the death, for coming to waste my country! But if I suffer any mischance, thou must see to the marriage ‘twixt Antigone my sister and Haemon, thy son; and now, as I go forth to battle, I ratify their previous espousal. Thou art my mother’s brother, so why need I say more? take care of her, as she deserves, both for thy own sake and mine. As for my sire he hath been guilty of folly against himself in putting out his eyes; small praise have I for him; by his curses maybe he will slay us too. One thing only have we still to do, to ask Teiresias, the seer, if he has aught to tell of heaven’s will. Thy son Menoeceus, who bears thy father’s name, will I send to fetch Teiresias hither, Creon; for with the he will readily converse, though I have ere now so scorned his art prophetic to his face, that he has reasons to reproach me. This commandment, Creon, I lay upon the city and thee; should my cause prevail, never give Polyneices’ corpse a grave in Theban soil, and if so be some friend should bury him, let death reward the man. Thus far to thee; and to my servants thus, bring forth my arms and coat of mail, that I may start at once for the appointed combat, with right to lead to victory. To save our city we will pray to Caution, the best goddess to serve our end.

[Eteocles and his retinue go out.]

Chorus [singing]

O Ares, god of toil and trouble! why, why art thou possessed by love of blood and death, out of harmony with the festivals of Bromius? ‘Tis for no crowns of dancers fair that thou dost toss thy youthful curls to the breeze, singing the while to the lute’s soft breath a strain to charm the dancers’ feet; but with warriors clad in mail thou dost lead thy sombre revelry, breathing into Argive breasts lust for Theban blood; with no wild waving of the thyrsus, clad in fawnskin thou dancest, but with chariots and bitted steeds wheelest thy charger strong of hoof. O’er the waters of Ismenus in wild career thou art urging thy horses, inspiring Argive breasts with hate of the earth-born race, arraying in brazen harness against these stone-built walls a host of warriors armed with shields. Truly Strife is a goddess to fear, who devised these troubles for the princes of this land, for the much-enduring sons of Labdacus.

O Cithaeron, apple of the eye of Artemis, holy vale of leaves, amid whose snows full many a beast lies couched, would thou hadst never reared the child exposed to die, Oedipus the fruit of Jocasta’s womb, when as a babe he was cast forth from his home, marked with golden brooch; and would the Sphinx, that winged maid, fell monster from the hills, had never come to curse our land with inharmonious strains; she that erst drew nigh our walls and snatched the sons of Cadmus away in her taloned feet to the pathless fields of light, a fiend sent by Hades from hell to plague the men of Thebes; once more unhappy strife is bursting out between the sons of Oedipus in city and home. For never can wrong be right, nor children of unnatural parentage come as a glory to the mother that bears them, but as a stain on the marriage of him who is father and brother at once.

O earth, thou once didst bear, — so long ago I heard the story told by foreigners in my own home, — a race which sprang of the teeth of a snake with blood-red crest, that fed on beasts, to be the glory and reproach of Thebes. In days gone by the sons of heaven came to the wedding of Harmonia, and the walls of Thebes arose to the sound of the lyre and her towers stood up as Amphion played, in the midst between the double streams of Dirce, that watereth the green meadows fronting the Ismenus; and Io, our horned ancestress was mother of the kings of Thebes; thus our city through an endless succession of divers blessings has set herself upon the highest pinnacle of martial glory.

[Teiresias enters, led by his daughter. They are accompanied by Menoeceus.]

Teiresias

Lead on, my daughter; for thou art as an eye to my blind feet, as certain as a star to mariners; lead my steps on to level ground; then go before, that we stumble not, for thy father has no strength; keep safe for me in thy maiden hand the auguries I took in the days I observed the flight and cries of birds seated in my holy prophet’s chair. Tell me, young Menoeceus, son of Creon, how much further toward the city is it ere reach thy father? for my knees grow weary, and I can scarce keep up this hurried pace.

Creon

Take heart, Teiresias, for thou hast reached thy moorings and art near thy friends; take him by the hand, my child; for just as every carriage has to wait for outside help to steady it, so too hath the step of age.

Teiresias

Enough; I have arrived; why, Creon, dost thou summon me so urgently?

Creon

I have not forgotten that; but first collect thyself and regain breath, shaking off the fatigue of thy journey.

Teiresias

I am indeed worn out, having arrived here only yesterday from the court of the Erechtheidae; for they too were at war, fighting with Eumolpus, in which contest I insured the victory of Cecrops’ sons; and I received the golden crown, which thou seest me wearing, as first-fruits of the enemy’s spoil.

Creon

I take thy crown of victory as an omen. We, as thou knowest, are exposed to the billows of an Argive war, and great is the struggle for Thebes. Eteocles, our king, is already gone in full harness to meet Mycenae’s champions, and hath bidden me inquire of thee our best course to save the city.

Teiresias

For Eteocles I would have closed my lips and refrained from all response, but to thee I will speak, since ‘tis thy wish to learn. This country, Creon, has been long afflicted, ever since Laius became a father in heaven’s despite, begetting hapless Oedipus to be his own mother’s husband. That bloody outrage on his eyes was planned by heaven as an ensample to Hellas; and the sons of Oedipus made a gross mistake in wishing to throw over it the veil of time, as if forsooth they could outrun the gods’ decree; for by robbing their father of his due honour and allowing him no freedom, they enraged their luckless sire; so he, stung by suffering and disgrace as well, vented awful curses against them; and I, because I left nothing undone or unsaid to prevent this, incurred the hatred of the sons of Oedipus. But death inflicted by each other’s hands awaits them, Creon; and the many heaps of slain, some from Argive, some from Theban missiles, shall cause bitter lamentation in the land of Thebes. Alas! for thee, poor city, thou art being involved in their ruin, unless I can persuade one man. The best course was to prevent any child of Oedipus becoming either citizen or king in this land, since they were under a ban and would overthrow the city. But as evil has the mastery of good, there is still one other way of safety; but this it were unsafe for me to tell, and painful too for those whose high fortune it is to supply their city witb the saving cure. Farewell! I will away; amongst the rest must I endure my doom, if need be; for what will become of me?

Creon

Stay here, old man.

Teiresias

Hold me not.

Creon

Abide, why dost thou seek to fly?

Teiresias

‘Tis thy fortune that flies thee, not I.

Creon

Tell me what can save Thebes and her citizens.

Teiresias

Though this be now thy wish, it will soon cease to be.

Creon

Not wish to save my country? how can that be?

Teiresias

Art thou still eager to be told?

Creon

Yea; for wherein should I show greater zeal?

Teiresias

Then straightway shalt thou hear my words prophetic. But first would fain know for certain where Menoeceus is, who led me hither.

Creon

Here, not far away, but at thy side.

Teiresias

Let him retire far from my prophetic voice.

Creon

He is my own son and will preserve due silence.

Teiresias

Wilt thou then that I tell thee in his presence?

Creon

Yea, for he will rejoice to hear the means of safety.

Teiresias

Then hear the purport of my oracle, the which if ye observe ye shall save the city of Cadmus. Thou must sacrifice Menoeceus thy son here for thy country, since thine own lips demand the voice of fate.

Creon

What mean’st thou? what is this thou hast said, old man?

Teiresias

To that which is to be thou also must conform.

Creon

O the eternity of woe thy minute’s tale proclaims!

Teiresias

Yes to thee, but to thy country great salvation.

Creon

I shut my ears; I never listened; to city now farewell!

Teiresias

Ha! the man is changed; he is drawing back.

Creon

Go in peace; it is not thy prophecy I need.

Teiresias

Is truth dead, because thou art curst with woe?

Creon

By thy knees and honoured locks I implore thee!

Teiresias

Why implore me? thou art craving a calamity hard to guard against.

Creon

Keep silence; tell not the city thy news.

Teiresias

Thou biddest me act unjustly; I will not hold my peace.

Creon

What wilt thou then do to me? slay my child?

Teiresias

That is for others to decide; I have but to speak.

Creon

Whence came this curse on me and my son?

Teiresias

Thou dost right to ask me and to test what I have said. In yonder lair, where the earth-born dragon kept watch and ward o’er Dirce’s springs, must this youth be offered and shed his life-blood on the ground by reason of Ares’ ancient grudge against Cadmus, who thus avenges the slaughter of his earth-born snake. If ye do this, ye shall win Ares as an ally; and if the earth receive crop for crop and human blood for blood, ye shall find her kind again, that erst to your sorrow reared from that dragon’s seed a crop of warriors with golden casques; for needs must one sprung from the dragon’s teeth be slain. Now thou art our only survivor of the seed of that sown race, whose lineage is pure alike on mother’s and on father’s side, thou and these thy sons. Haemon’s marriage debars him from being the victim, for he is no longer single; for even if he have not consummated his marriage, yet is he betrothed; but this tender youth, consecrated to the city’s service, might by dying rescue his country; and bitter will he make the return of Adrastus and his Argives, flinging o’er their eyes death’s dark pall, and will glorify Thebes. Choose thee one of these alternatives; either save the city or thy son.

Now hast thou all I have to say. Daughter, lead me home. A fool, the man who practises the diviner’s art; for if he should announce an adverse answer, he makes himself disliked by those who seek to him; while, if from pity he deceives those who are consulting him, he sins against Heaven. Phoebus should have been man’s only prophet, for he fears no man.

[His daughter leads Teiresias out.]

Leader of the chorus

Why so silent, Creon, why are thy lips hushed and dumb? I too am no less stricken with dismay.

Creon

Why, what could one say? ‘Tis clear what my words must be. For will never plunge myself so deeply into misfortune as to devote my son to death for the city; for love of children binds all men to life, and none would resign his own son to die. Let no man praise me into slaying my children. I am ready to die myself-for I am ripe in years — to set my country free. But thou, my son, ere the whole city learn this, up and fly with all haste away from this land, regardless of these prophets’ unbridled utterances; for he will go to the seven gates and the captains there and tell all this to our governors and leaders; now if we can forestall him, thou mayst be saved, but if thou art too late, we are undone and thou wilt die.

Menoeceus

Whither can I fly? to what city? to which of our guest-friends?

Creon

Fly where thou wilt be furthest removed from this land.

Menoeceus

‘Tis for thee to name a place, for me to carry out thy bidding.

Creon

After passing Delphi —

Menoeceus

Whither must I go, father?

Creon

To Aetolia.

Menoeceus

Whither thence?

Creon

To the land of Thesprotia.

Menoeceus

To Dodona’s hallowed threshold?

Creon

Thou followest me.

Menoeceus

What protection shall I find me there?

Creon

The god will send thee on thy way.

Menoeceus

How shall I find the means?

Creon

I will supply thee with money.

Menoeceus

A good plan of thine, father. So go; for I will to thy sister, Jocasta, at whose breast I was suckled as a babe when reft of my mother and left a lonely orphan, to give her kindly greeting and then will I seek my safety. Come, come! be going, that there be no hindrance on thy part.

[Creon departs.] How cleverly, ladies, I banished my father’s fears by crafty words to gain my end; for he is trying to convey me hence, depriving the city of its chance and surrendering me to cowardice. Though an old man may be pardoned, yet in my case there is no excuse for betraying the country that gave me birth. So I will go and save the city, be assured thereof, and give my life up for this land. For this were shame, that they whom no oracles bind and who have not come under Fate’s iron law, should stand there, shoulder to shoulder, with never a fear of death, and fight for their country before her towers, while I escape the kingdom like a coward, a traitor to my father and brother and city; and wheresoe’er I live, I shall appear a dastard. Nay, by Zeus and all his stars, by Ares, god of blood, who ‘stablished the warrior-crop that sprung one day from earth as princes of this land, that shall not be! but go I will, and standing on the topmost battlements, will deal my own death-blow over the dragon’s deep dark den, the spot the seer described, and will set my country free. I have spoken. Now I go to make the city a present of my life, no mean offering, to rid this kingdom of its affliction. For if each were to take and expend all the good within his power, contributing it to his country’s weal, our states would experience fewer troubles and would for the future prosper.

[Menoeceus goes out.]

Chorus [singing]

Thou cam’st, O winged fiend, spawn of earth and hellish viper-brood, to prey upon the sons of Cadmus, rife with death and fraught with sorrow, half a monster, half a maid, a murderous prodigy, with roving wings and ravening claws, that in days gone by didst catch up youthful victims from the haunts of Dirce, with discordant note, bringing a deadly curse, a woe of bloodshed to our native land. A murderous god he was who brought all this to pass. In every house was heard a cry of mothers wailing and of wailing maids, lamentation and the voice of weeping, as each took up the chant of death from street to street in turn. Loud rang the mourners’ wail, and one great cry went up, whene’er that winged maiden bore some victim out of sight from the city.

At last came Oedipus, the man of sorrow, on his mission from Delphi to this land of Thebes, a joy to them then but afterwards cause of grief; for, when he had read the riddle triumphantly, he formed with his mother an unhallowed union, woe to him! polluting the city; and by his curses, luckless wight, he plunged his sons into a guilty strife, causing them to wade through seas of blood. All reverence do we feel for him, who is gone to his death in his country’s cause, bequeathing to Creon a legacy of tears, but destined to crown with victory our seven fenced towers. May our motherhood be blessed with such noble sons, O Pallas, kindly queen, who with well-aimed stone didst spill the serpent’s blood, rousing Cadmus as thou didst to brood upon the task, whereof the issue was a demon’s curse that swooped upon this land and harried it.

[The first messenger enters.]

Messenger

Ho there! who is at the palace-gates? Open the door, summon Jocasta forth. Ho there! once again I call; spite of this long delay come forth; hearken, noble wife of Oedipus; cease thy lamentation and thy tears of woe.

[Jocasta enters from the palace in answer to his call.]

Jocasta

Surely thou art not come, my friend, with the sad news of Eteocles’ death, beside whose shield thou hast ever marched, warding from him the foeman’s darts? What tidings art thou here to bring me? Is my son alive or dead? Declare that to me.

Messenger

To rid thee of thy fear at once, he lives; that terror banish.

Jocasta

Next, how is it with the seven towers that wall us in?

Messenger

They stand unshattered still; the city is not yet a prey.

Jocasta

Have they been in jeopardy of the Argive spear?

Messenger

Aye, on the very brink; but our Theban warriors proved too strong for Mycenae’s might.

Jocasta

One thing tell me, I implore; knowest thou aught of Polyneices, is he yet alive? for this too I long to learn.

Messenger

As yet thy sons are living, the pair of them.

Jocasta

God bless thee! How did you succeed in beating off from our gates the Argive hosts, when thus beleaguered? Tell me, that I may go within and cheer the old blind man, since our city is still safe.

Messenger

After Creon’s son, who gave up life for country, had taken his stand on the turret’s top and plunged a sword dark-hilted through his throat to save this land, thy son told off seven companies with their captains to the seven gates to keep watch on the Argive warriors, and stationed cavalry to cover cavalry, and infantry to support infantry, that assistance might be close at hand for any weak point in the walls. Then from our lofty towers we saw the Argive host with their white shields leaving Teumessus, and, when near the trench, they charged up to our Theban city at the double. In one loud burst from their ranks and from our battlements rang out the battle-cry and trumpet-call. First to the Neistian gate, Parthenopaeus, son of the huntress maid, led a company bristling with serried shields, himself with his own peculiar badge in the centre of his targe, Atalanta slaying the Aetolian boar with an arrow shot from far. To the gates of Proetus came the prophet Amphiaraus, bringing the victims on a chariot; no vaunting blazon he carried, but weapons chastely plain. Next, prince Hippomedon came marching to the Ogygian port with this device upon his boss, Argus the all-seeing with his spangled eyes upon the watch whereof some open with the rising stars, while others he closes when they set, as one could see after he was slain. At the Homoloian gates Tydeus was posting himself, a lion’s skin with shaggy mane upon his buckler, while in his right hand he bore a torch, like Titan Prometheus, to fire the town. Thy own son Polyneices led the battle ‘gainst the Fountain gate; upon his shield for blazon were the steeds of Potniae galloping at frantic speed, revolving by some clever contrivance on pivots inside the buckler close to the handle, so as to appear distraught. At Electra’s gate famed Capaneus brought up his company, bold as Ares for the fray; this device his buckler bore upon its iron back, an earth-born giant carrying on his shoulders a whole city which he had wrenched from its base, hint to us of the fate in store for Thebes. Adrastus was stationed at the seventh gate; a hundred vipers filled his shield with graven work, as he bore on his left arm that proud Argive badge, the hydra, and serpents were carrying off in their jaws the sons of Thebes from within their very walls. Now I was enabled to see each of them, as I carried the watch-word along the line to the leaders of our companies. To begin with, we fought with bows and thonged javelins, with slings that shoot from far and showers of crashing stones; and as we were conquering, Tydeus and thy son on sudden cried aloud, “Ye sons of Argos, before being riddled by their fire, why delay to fall upon the gates with might and main, the whole of you, light-armed and horse and charioteers?” No loitering then, soon as they heard that call; and many a warrior fell with bloody crown, and not a few of us thou couldst have seen thrown to the earth like tumblers before the walls, after they had given up the ghost, bedewing the thirsty ground with streams of gore. Then Atalanta’s son, who was not an Argive but an Arcadian, hurling himself like a hurricane at the gates, called for fire and picks to raze the town; but Periclymenus, son of the ocean-god, stayed his wild career, heaving on his head a waggon-load of stone, even the coping torn from the battlements; and it shattered his head with the hair and crashed through the sutures of the skull, dabbling with blood his cheek just showing manhood’s flush; and never shall he go back alive to his fair archer-mother, the maid of Maenalus.

Thy son then, seeing these gates secure, went on to the next, and I with him. There I saw Tydeus and his serried ranks of targeteers hurling their Aetolian spears into the opening at the top of the turrets, with such good aim that our men fled and left the beetling battlements: but thy son rallied them once more, as a huntsman cheers his hounds, and made them man the towers again. And then away we hastened to other gates, after stopping the panic there. As for the madness of Capaneus, how am I to describe it? There was he, carrying with him a long scaling-ladder and loudly boasting that even the awful lightning of Zeus would not stay him from giving the city to utter destruction; and even as he spoke, he crept up beneath the hail of stones, gathered under the shelter of his shield, mounting from rung to rung on the smooth ladder; but, just as he was scaling the parapet of the wall, Zeus smote him with a thunderbolt; loud the earth re-echoed, and fear seized every heart; for his limbs were hurled from the ladder far apart as from a sling, his head toward the sky, his blood toward earth, while his legs and arms went spinning round like Ixion’s wheel, till his charred corpse fell to the ground. But when Adrastus saw that Zeus was leagued against his army, he drew the Argive troops outside the trench and halted them. Meantime our horse, marking the lucky omen of Zeus, began driving forth their chariots, and our men-at-arms charged into the thick of the Argives, and everything combined to their discomfiture; men were falling and hurled headlong from chariots, wheels flew off, axles crashed together, while ever higher grew the heaps of slain; so for to-day at least have we prevented the destruction of our country’s bulwarks; but whether fortune will hereafter smile upon this land, that rests with Heaven; for, even as it is, it owes its safety to some deity.

Victory is fair; and if the gods are growing kinder, it would be well with me.

Jocasta

Heaven and fortune smile; for my sons are yet alive and my country hath escaped ruin. But Creon seems to have reaped the bitter fruit of my marriage with Oedipus, by losing his son to his sorrow, a piece of luck-for Thebes, but bitter grief to him. Prithee to thy tale again and say what my two sons next intend.

Messenger

Forbear to question further; all is well with thee so far.

Jocasta

Thy words but rouse my suspicions; I cannot leave it thus.

Messenger

Hast thou any further wish than thy sons’ safety?

Jocasta

Yea, I would learn whether in the sequel I am also blest.

Messenger

Let me go; thy son is left without his squire.

Jocasta

There is some evil thou art hiding, veiling it in darkness.

Messenger

Maybe; I would not add ill news to the good thou hast heard.

Jocasta

Thou must, unless thou take wings and fly away.

Messenger

Ah! why didst thou not let me go after announcing my good news, instead of forcing me to disclose evil? Those two sons of thine are resolved on deeds of shameful recklessness, a single combat apart from the host, addressing to Argives and Thebans alike words I would they had never uttered. Eteocles, taking his stand on a lofty tower, after ordering silence to be proclaimed to the army, began on this wise, “Ye captains of Hellas, chieftains of Argos here assembled, and ye folk of Cadmus, barter not your lives for Polyneices or for me! For I myself excuse you from this risk, and will engage my brother in single combat; and if I slay him, will possess my palace without rival, but if I am worsted I will bequeath the city to him. Ye men of Argos, give up the struggle and return to your land, nor lose your lives here; of the earth-sown folk as well there are dead enough in those already slain.”

So he; then thy son Polyneices rushed from the array and assented to his proposal; and all the Argives and the people of Cadmus shouted their approval, as though they deemed it just. On these terms the armies made a truce, and in the space betwixt them took an oath of each other for their leaders to abide by. Forthwith in brazen mail those two sons of aged Oedipus were casing themselves; and lords of Thebes with friendly care equipped the captain of this land, while Argive chieftains armed the other. There they stood in dazzling sheen, neither blenching, all eagerness to hurl their lances each at the other. Then came their friends to their side, first one, then another, with words of encouragement, to wit:

“Polyneices, it rests with thee to set up an image of Zeus as a trophy, and crown Argos with fair renown.”

Others hailed Eteocles: “Now art thou fighting for thy city; now, if victorious, thou hast the sceptre in thy power.”

So spake they, cheering them to the fray.

Meantime the seers were sacrificing sheep and noting the tongues and forks of fire, the damp reek which is a bad omen, and the tapering flame, which gives decisions on two points, being both a sign of victory and defeat. But, if thou hast any power or subtle speech or charmed spell, go, stay thy children from this fell affray, for great is the risk they run. The issue thereof will be grievous sorrow for thee, if to-day thou art reft of both thy sons.

[The messenger departs in haste as Antigone comes out of the palace.]

Jocasta

Antigone, my daughter, come forth before the palace; this heaven-sent crisis is no time for thee to be dancing or amusing thyself with girlish pursuits. But thou and thy mother must prevent two gallant youths, thy own brothers, from plunging into death and falling by each other’s hand.

Antigone

Mother mine, what new terror art thou proclaiming to thy dear ones before the palace?

Jocasta

Daughter, thy brothers are in danger of their life.

Antigone

What mean’st thou?

Jocasta

They have resolved on single combat.

Antigone

O horror! what hast thou to tell, mother?

Jocasta

No welcome news; follow me.

Antigone

Whither away from my maiden-bower?

Jocasta

To the army.

Antigone

I cannot face the crowd.

Jocasta

Modesty is not for thee now.

Antigone

But what can I do?

Jocasta

Thou shalt end thy brothers’ strife.

Antigone

By what means, mother mine?

Jocasta

By falling at their knees with me.

Antigone

Lead on till we are ‘twixt the armies; no time for lingering now.

Jocasta

Haste, my daughter, haste! For, if I can forestall the onset of my sons, may yet live; but if they be dead, I will lay me down and die with them.

[Jocasta and Antigone hurriedly depart.]

Chorus [singing]

Ah me! my bosom thrills with terror; and through my flesh there passes a throb of pity for the hapless mother. Which of her two sons will send the other to a bloody grave? ah, woe is me! O Zeus, O earth, alas! brother severing brother’s throat and robbing him of life, cleaving through his shield to spill his blood? Ah me! ah me! which of them will claim my dirge of death?

Woe unto thee, thou land of Thebes! two savage beasts, two murderous souls, with brandished spears will soon be draining each his fallen foeman’s gore. Woe is them, that they ever thought of single combat! in foreign accent will I chant a dirge of tears and wailing in mourning for the dead. Close to murder stands their fortune; the coming day will decide it. Fatal, ah! fatal will this slaughter be, because of the avenging fiends.

But I see Creon on his way hither to the palace with brow o’ercast; I will check my present lamentations.

[Creon enters. He is followed by attendants carrying the body of Menoeceus.]

Creon

Ah me! what shall I do? Am I to mourn with bitter tears myself or my city, round which is settling a swarm thick enough to send us to Acheron? My own son hath died for his country, bringing glory to his name but grievous woe to me. His body I rescued but now from the dragon’s rocky lair and sadly carried the self-slain victim hither in my arms; and my house is fallen with weeping: but now I come to fetch my sister Jocasta, the living must reverence the nether god by paying honour to the dead.

Leader of the chorus

Thy sister, Creon, hath gone forth and her daughter Antigone went with her.

Creon

Whither went she? and wherefore? tell me.

Leader

She heard that her sons were about to engage in single combat for the royal house.

Creon

What is this? I was paying the last honours to my dead son, and so am late in learning this fresh sorrow.

Leader

‘Tis some time, Creon, since thy sister’s departure, and I expect the struggle for life and death is already decided by the sons of Oedipus.

Creon

Alas! I see an omen there, the gloomy look and clouded brow of yonder messenger coming to tell us the whole matter.

[The Second messenger enters.]

Messenger

Ah, woe is me! what language can I find to tell my tale?

Creon

Our fate is sealed; thy opening words do naught to reassure us.

Messenger

Ah, woe is me! I do repeat; for beside the scenes of woe already enacted I bring tidings of new horror.

Creon

What is thy tale?

Messenger

Thy sister’s sons are now no more, Creon.

Creon

Alas! thou hast a heavy tale of woe for me and Thebes

Leader

O house of Oedipus, hast thou heard these tidings?

Creon

Of sons slain by the self-same fate.

Leader

A tale to make it weep, were it endowed with sense.

Creon

Oh! most grievous stroke of fate! woe is me for my sorrows! woe!

Messenger

Woe indeed! didst thou but know the sorrows still to tell.

Creon

How can they be more hard to bear than these?

Messenger

With her two sons thy sister has sought her death.

Chorus [chanting]

Loudly, loudly raise the wail, and with white hands smite upon your heads!

Creon

Ah! woe is thee, Jocasta! what an end to life and marriage hast thou found the riddling of the Sphinx! But tell me how her two sons wrought the bloody deed, the struggle caused by the curse of Oedipus.

Messenger

Of our successes before the towers thou knowest, for the walls are not so far away as to prevent thy learning each event as it occurred. Now when they, the sons of aged Oedipus, had donned their brazen mail, they went and took their stand betwixt the hosts, chieftains both and generals too, to decide the day by single combat. Then Polyneices, turning his eyes towards Argos, lifted up a prayer; “O Hera, awful queens-for thy servant I am, since I have wedded the daughter of Adrastus and dwell in his land, — grant that I may slay my brother, and stain my lifted hand with the blood of my conquered foe. A shameful prize it is I ask, my own brother’s blood.” And to many an eye the tear would rise at their sad fate, and men looked at one another, casting their glances round.

But Eteocles, looking towards the temple of Pallas with the golden shield, prayed thus, “Daughter of Zeus, grant that this right arm may launch the spear of victory against my brother’s breast and slay him who hath come to sack my country.” Soon as the Tuscan trumpet blew, the signal for the bloody fray, like the torch that falls,’ they darted wildly at one another and, like boars whetting their savage tusks, began the fray, their beards wet with foam; and they kept shooting out their spears, but each crouched beneath his shield to let the steel glance idly off; but if either saw the other’s face above the rim, he would aim his lance thereat, eager to outwit him.

But both kept such careful outlook through the spy-holes in their shields, that their weapons found naught to do; while from the on-lookers far more than the combatants trickled the sweat caused by terror for their friends. Suddenly Eteocles, in kicking aside a stone that rolled beneath his tread, exposed a limb outside his shield, and Polyneices seeing a chance of dealing him a blow, aimed a dart at it, and the Argive shaft went through his leg; whereat the Danai, one and all, cried out for joy. But the wounded man, seeing a shoulder unguarded in this effort, plunged his spear with all his might into the breast of Polyneices, restoring gladness to the citizens of Thebes, though he brake off the spear-head; and so, at a loss for a weapon, he retreated foot by foot, till catching up splintered rock he let it fly and shivered the other’s spear; and now was the combat equal, for each had lost his lance. Then clutching their sword-hilts they closed, and round and round, with shields close-locked, they waged their wild warfare. Anon Eteocles introduced that crafty Thessalian trick, having some knowledge thereof from his intercourse with that country; disengaging himself from the immediate contest, he drew back his left foot but kept his eye closely on the pit of the other’s stomach from a distance; then advancing his right foot he plunged his weapon through his navel and fixed it in his spine. Down falls Polyneices, blood-bespattered, ribs and belly contracting in his agony. But that other, thinking his victory now complete, threw down his sword and set to spoiling him, wholly intent thereon, without a thought for himself. And this indeed was his ruin; for Polyneices, who had fallen first, was still faintly breathing, and having in his grievous fall retained his sword, he made last effort and drove it through the heart of Eteocles. There they lie, fallen side by side, biting the dust with their teeth, without having decided the mastery.

Leader of the chorus

Ah, woe is thee! Oedipus, for thy sorrows! how I pity thee! Heaven, it seems, has fulfilled those curses of thine.

Messenger

Now hear what further woes succeeded. Just as her two sons had fallen and lay dying, comes their wretched mother on the scene, her daughter with her, in hot haste; and when she saw their mortal wounds, “Too late,” she moaned, “my sons, the help I bring”; and throwing herself on each in turn she wept and wailed, sorrowing o’er all her toil in suckling them; and so too their sister, who was with her, “Supporters of your mother’s age I dear brothers, leaving me forlorn, unwed!” Then prince Eteocles with one deep dying gasp, hearing his mother’s cry, laid on her his moist hand, and though he could not say a word, his tear-filled eyes were eloquent to prove his love. But Polyneices was still alive, and seeing his sister and his aged mother he said, “Mother mine, our end is come; I pity thee and my sister Antigone and my dead brother. For I loved him though he turned my foe, I loved him, yes! in spite of all. Bury me, mother mine, and thou, my sister dear, in my native soil; pacify the city’s wrath that may get at least that much of my own fatherland, although I lost my home. With thy hand, mother, close mine eyes [therewith he himself places her fingers on the lids]; and fare ye well; for already the darkness wraps me round.”

So both at once breathed out their life of sorrow. But when their mother saw this sad mischance, in her o’ermastering grief she snatched from a corpse its sword and wrought an awful deed, driving the steel right through her throat; and there she lies, dead with the dead she loved so well, her arms thrown round them both.

Thereon the host sprang to their feet and fell to wrangling, we maintaining that victory rested with my master, they with theirs; and amid our leaders the contention raged, some holding that Polyneices gave the first wound with his spear, others that, as both were dead, victory rested with neither. Meantime Antigone crept away from the host; and those others rushed to their weapons, but by some lucky forethought the folk of Cadmus had sat down under arms; and by a sudden attack we surprised the Argive host before it was fully equipped. Not one withstood our onset, and they filled the plain with fugitives, while blood was streaming from the countless dead our spears had slain. Soon as victory crowned our warfare, some began to rear an image to Zeus for the foe’s defeat, others were stripping the Argive dead of their shields and sending their spoils inside the battlements; and others with Antigone are bringing her dead brothers hither for their friends to mourn. So the result of this struggle to our city hovers between the two extremes of good and evil fortune.

[The messenger goes out.]

Chorus [chanting]

No longer do the misfortunes of this house extend to hearsay only; three corpses of the slain lie here at the palace for all to see, who by one common death have passed to their life of gloom.

[During the lament, Antigone enters, followed by servants who hear the bodies Of Jocasta, Eteocles, and Polyneices.]

Antigone [chanting]

No veil I draw o’er my tender cheek shaded with its clustering curls; no shame I feel from maiden modesty at the hot blood mantling ‘neath my eyes, the blush upon my face, as I hurry wildly on in death’s train, casting from my hair its tire and letting my delicate robe of saffron hue fly loose, a tearful escort to the dead. Ah me!

Woe to thee, Polyneices! rightly named, I trow; woe to thee, Thebes! no mere strife to end in strife was thine; but murder completed by murder hath brought the house of Oedipus to ruin with bloodshed dire and grim. O my home, my home! what minstrel can I summon from the dead to chant a fitting dirge o’er my tearful fate, as I bear these three corpses of my kin, my mother and her sons, welcome sight to the avenging fiend that destroyed the house of Oedipus, root and branch, in the hour that his shrewdness solved the Sphinx’s riddling rhyme and slew that savage songstress. Woe is me! my father! what other Hellene or barbarian, what noble soul among the bygone tribes of man’s poor mortal race ever endured the anguish of such visible afflictions?

Ah! poor maid, how piteous is thy plaint! What bird from its covert ‘mid the leafy oak or soaring pine-tree’s branch will come to mourn with me, the maid left motherless, with cries of woe, lamenting, ere it comes, the piteous lonely life, that henceforth must be always mine with tears that ever stream? On which of these corpses shall I throw my offerings first, plucking the hair from my head? on the breast of the mother that suckled me, or beside the ghastly death-wounds of my brothers’ corpses? Woe to thee, Oedipus, my aged sire with sightless orbs, leave thy roof, disclose the misery of thy life, thou that draggest out a weary existence within the house, having cast a mist of darkness o’er thine eyes. Dost hear, thou whose aged step now gropes its way across the court, now seeks repose on wretched pallet couch?

[Oedipus enters from the palace. He chants the following lines responsively with Antigone.]

Oedipus

Why, daughter, hast thou dragged me to the light, supporting my blind footsteps from the gloom of my chamber, where I lie upon my bed and make piteous moan, a hoary sufferer, invisible as a phantom of the air, or as a spirit from the pit, or as a dream that flies?

Antigone

Father, there are tidings of sorrow for thee to bear; no more thy sons behold the light, or thy wife who ever would toil to tend thy blind footsteps as with a staff. Alas for thee, my sire!

Oedipus

Ah me, the sorrows I endure! I may well say that. Tell me, child, what fate o’ertook those three, and how they left the light.

Antigone

Not to reproach or mock thee say I this, but in all sadness; ‘tis thy own avenging curse, with all its load of slaughter, fire, and ruthless war, that is fallen on thy sons. Alas for thee, my sire!

Oedipus

Ah me!

Antigone

Why dost thou groan?

Oedipus

‘Tis for my sons.

Antigone

Couldst thou have looked towards yon sun-god’s four-horsed car and turned the light of thine eyes on these corpses, it would have been agony to thee.

Oedipus

‘Tis clear enough how their evil fate o’ertook my sons; but she, my poor wife tell me, daughter, how she came to die.

Antigone

All saw her weep and heard her moan, as she rushed forth to carry to her sons her last appeal, a mother’s breast. But the mother found her sons at the Electran gate, in a meadow where the lotus blooms, fighting out their duel like lions in their lair, eager to wound each other with spears, their blood already congealed, a murderous libation to the Death-god poured out by Ares. Then, snatching from corpse a sword of hammered bronze, she plunged it in her flesh, and in sorrow for her sons fell with her arms around them. So to-day, father, the god, whose’er this issue is, has gathered to a head the sum of suffering for our house.

Leader of the chorus

To-day is the beginning of many troubles to the house of Oedipus; may he live to be more fortunate!

Creon

Cease now your lamentations; ‘tis time we bethought us of their burial. Hear what I have to say, Oedipus. Eteocles, thy son, left me to rule this land, by assigning it as a marriage portion to Haemon with the hand of thy daughter Antigone. Wherefore I will no longer permit thee to dwell therein, for Teiresias plainly declared that the city would never prosper so long as thou wert in the land. So begone! And this I say not to flout thee, nor because I bear thee any grudge, but from fear that some calamity will come upon the realm by reason of those fiends that dog thy steps.

Oedipus

O destiny! to what a life of pain and sorrow didst thou bear me beyond all men that ever were, e’en from the very first; yea for when I was yet unborn, or ever I had left my mother’s womb and seen the light, Apollo foretold to Laius that I should become my father’s murderer; woe is me! So, as soon as I was born, my father tried to end again the hapless life he had given, deeming me his foe, for it was fated he should die at my hand; so he sent me still unweaned to make a pitiful meal for beasts, but I escaped from that. Ah! would that Cithaeron had sunk into hell’s yawning abyss, in that it slew me not! Instead thereof Fate made me a slave in the service of Polybus; and I, poor wretch, after slaying my own father came to wed my mother to her sorrow, and begat sons that were my brothers, whom also I have destroyed, by bequeathing unto them the legacy of curses I received from Laius. For nature did not make me so void of understanding, that I should have devised these horrors against my own eyes and my children’s life without the intervention of some god. Let that pass. What am I, poor wretch, to do? Who now will be my guide and tend the blind man’s step? Shall she, that is dead? Were she alive, I know right well she would. My pair of gallant sons, then? But they are gone from me. Am I still so young myself that I can find a livelihood? Whence could I? O Creon, why seek thus to slay me utterly? For so thou wilt, if thou banish me from the land. Yet will I never twine my arms about thy knees and betray cowardice, for I will not belie my former gallant soul, no! not for all my evil case.

Creon

Thy words are brave in refusing to touch my knees, and I am equally resolved not to let thee abide in the land. For these dead, bear one forth-with to the palace; but the other, who came with stranger folk to sack his native town, the dead Polyneices, cast forth unburied beyond our frontiers. To all the race of Cadmus shall this be proclaimed, that whosoe’er is caught decking his corpse with wreaths or giving it burial, shall be requited with death; unwept, unburied let him lie, a prey to birds. As for thee, Antigone, leave thy mourning for these lifeless three and betake thyself indoors to abide there in maiden state until to-morrow, when Haemon waits to wed thee.

Antigone

O father, in what cruel misery are we plunged! For thee I mourn more than for the dead; for in thy woes there is no opposite to trouble, but universal sorrow is thy lot. As for thee, thou new-made king, why, I ask, dost thou mock my father thus with banishment? Why start making laws over a helpless corpse?

Creon

This was what Eteocles, not I, resolved.

Antigone

A foolish thought, and foolish art thou for entertaining it!

Creon

What! ought I not to carry out his behests?

Antigone

No; not if they are wrong and ill-advised.

Creon

Why, is it not just for that other to be given to the dogs?

Antigone

Nay, the vengeance ye are exacting is no lawful one.

Creon

It is; for he was his country’s foe, though not a foeman born.

Antigone

Well, to fate he rendered up his destinies.

Creon

Let him now pay forfeit in his burial too.

Antigone

What crime did he commit in coming to claim his heritage?

Creon

Be very sure of this, yon man shall have no burial.

Antigone

I will bury him, although the state forbids.

Creon

Do so, and thou wilt be making thy own grave by his.

Antigone

A noble end, for two so near and dear to be laid side by side!

Creon [to his servants]

Ho! seize and bear her within the palace.

Antigone

Never! for I will not loose my hold upon this corpse.

Creon

Heaven’s decrees, girl, fit not thy fancies.

Antigone

Decrees! here is another, “No insult to the dead.”

Creon

Be sure that none shall sprinkle over the corpse the moistened dust.

Antigone

O Creon, by my mother’s corpse, by Jocasta, I implore thee!

Creon

‘Tis but lost labour; thou wilt not gain thy prayer.

Antigone

Let me but bathe the dead body —

Creon

Nay, that would be part of what the city is forbidden.

Antigone

At least let me bandage the gaping wounds.

Creon

No; thou shalt never pay honour to this corpse.

Antigone

O my darling! one kiss at least will I print upon thy lips.

Creon

Do not let this mourning bring disaster on thy marriage.

Antigone

Marriage! dost think I will live to wed thy son?

Creon

Most certainly thou must; how wilt thou escape his bed?

Antigone

Then if I must, our wedding-night will find another Danaid bride in me.

Creon [turning to Oedipus]

Dost witness how boldly she reproached me?

Antigone

Witness this steel, the sword by which I swear!

Creon

Why art so bent on being released from this marriage?

Antigone

I mean to share my hapless father’s exile.

Creon

A noble spirit thine but somewhat touched with folly.

Antigone

Likewise will I share his death, I tell thee further.

Creon

Go, leave the land; thou shalt not murder son of mine.

[Creon goes out, followed by his attendants who carry with them the body Of Menoeceus.]

Oedipus

Daughter, for this loyal spirit I thank thee.

Antigone

Were I to wed, then thou, my father, wouldst be alone in thy exile.

Oedipus

Abide here and be happy; I will bear my own load of sorrow.

Antigone

And who shall tend thee in thy blindness, father?

Oedipus

Where fate appoints, there will I lay me down upon the ground.

Antigone

Where is now the famous Oedipus, where that famous riddle?

Oedipus

Lost for ever! one day made, and one day marred my fortune.

Antigone

May not I too share thy sorrows?

Oedipus

To wander with her blinded sire were shame unto his child.

Antigone

Not so, father, but glory rather, if she be a maid discreet.

Oedipus

Lead me nigh that I may touch thy mother’s corpse.

Antigone

So! embrace the aged form so dear to thee.

Oedipus

Woe is thee, thy motherhood, thy marriage most unblest!

Antigone

A piteous corpse, a prey to every ill at once!

Oedipus

Where lies the corpse of Eteocles, and of Polyneices, where?

Antigone

Both lie stretched before thee, side by side.

Oedipus

Lay the blind man’s hand upon his poor sons’ brows.

Antigone

There then! touch the dead, thy children.

Oedipus

Woe for you! dear fallen sons, sad offspring of a sire as sad!

Antigone

O my brother Polyneices, name most dear to me!

Oedipus

Now is the oracle of Loxias being fulfilled, my child.

Antigone

What oracle was that? canst thou have further woes to tell?

Oedipus

That I should die in glorious Athens after a life of wandering.

Antigone

Where? what fenced town in Attica will take thee in?

Oedipus

Hallowed Colonus, home of the god of steeds. Come then, attend on thy blind father, since thou art minded to share his exile.

[Oedipus and Antigone chant their remaining lines as they slowly depart.]

Antigone

To wretched exile go thy way; stretch forth thy hand, my aged sire, taking me to guide thee, like a breeze that speedeth barques.

Oedipus

See, daughter, I am advancing; be thou my guide, poor child.

Antigone

Ah, poor indeed! the saddest maid of all in Thebes.

Oedipus

Where am I planting my aged step? Bring my staff, child.

Antigone

This way, this way, father mine! plant thy footsteps here, like dream for all the strength thou hast.

Oedipus

Woe unto thee that art driving my aged limbs in grievous exile from their land! Ah me! the sorrows I endure!

Antigone

“Endure”! why speak of enduring? Justice regardeth not the sinner and requiteth not men’s follies.

Oedipus

I am he whose name passed into high songs of victory because I guessed the maiden’s baffling riddle.

Antigone

Thou art bringing up again the reproach of the Sphinx. Talk no more of past success. This misery was in store for thee all the while, to become an exile from thy country and die thou knowest not where; while I, bequeathing to my girlish friends tears of sad regret, must go forth from my native land, roaming as no maiden ought.

Ah! this dutiful resolve will crown me with glory in respect of my father’s sufferings. Woe is me for the insults heaped on thee and on my brother whose dead body is cast forth from the palace unburied; poor boy! I will yet bury him secretly, though I have to die for it, father.

Oedipus

To thy companions show thyself.

Antigone

My own laments suffice.

Oedipus

Go pray then at the altars.

Antigone

They are weary of my piteous tale.

Oedipus

At least go seek the Bromian god in his hallowed haunt amongst the Maenads’ hills.

Antigone

Offering homage that is no homage in Heaven’s eyes to him in whose honour I once fringed my dress with the Theban fawn-skin and led the dance upon the hills for the holy choir of Semele?

Oedipus

My noble fellow-countrymen, behold me; I am Oedipus, who solved the famous riddle, and once was first of men, I who alone cut short the murderous Sphinx’s tyranny am now myself expelled the land in shame and misery. Go to; why make this moan and bootless lamentation? Weak mortal as I am, I must endure the fate that God decrees.

Chorus [chanting]

Hail majestic Victory! keep thou my life nor ever cease to crown my song!

Rhesus

Characters in the Play

Chorus of Trojan sentinels

Odysseus

Hector

Diomedes

Aeneas

Paris

Dolon

Athena

Messenger (a shepherd)

The Muse

Rhesus

The Charioteer of Rhesus

[Before Hector’s tent at the gates of Troy. Enter chorus]

Chorus

To Hector’s couch away, one of you wakeful squires that tend the prince, to see if he have any fresh tidings from the warriors who were set to guard the assembled host during the fourth watch of the night. [Calls to Hector in the tent] Lift up thy head! Prop thine arm beneath it! Unseal that louring eye from its repose; thy lowly couch of scattered leaves, O Hector, quit! ‘Tis time to hearken.

[Enter Hector]

Hector

Who goes there? Is it a friend who calls? Who art thou? Thy watchword? Speak! Who in the dark hours comes nigh my couch, must tell me who he is.

Chorus

Sentinels we of the army.

Hector

Why this tumultuous haste?

Chorus

Be of good courage.

Hector

Is there some midnight ambuscade?

Chorus

Nay.

Hector

Then why dost thou desert thy post and rouse the army, save thou have some tidings of the night? Art not aware how near the Argive host we take our night’s repose in all our harness clad?

Chorus

To arms! O Hector, seek thine allies’ sleeping camp! Bid them wield the spear! Awake them! thine own company despatch a friend. Saddle and bridle the steeds. Who will to the son of Panthus? who to Europa’s son, captain of the Lycian band? Where are they who should inspect the victims? Where be the leaders of the light-armed troops? Ye Phrygian archers, string your horn-tipped bows.

Hector

Now fear, now confidence thy tidings inspire; nothing is plainly set forth. Can it be that thou art smitten with wild affright by Pan, the son of Cronion, and leaving thy watch therefore dost rouse the host? What means thy noisy summons? What tidings can I say thou bringest? Thy words are many, but no plain statement hast thou made.

Chorus

The long night through, O Hector, the Argive host hath kindled fires, and bright with torches shines the anchored fleet. To Agamemnon’s tent the whole army moves clamorously by night, eager for fresh orders maybe, for never before have I seen such commotion among yon sea-faring folk. Wherefore I was suspicious of what might happen and came to tell thee, that thou mayest have no cause to blame me hereafter.

Hector

In good season com’st thou, albeit thy tidings are fraught with terror; for those cowards are bent on giving me the slip and stealing away from this land in their ships by night; their midnight signalling convinces me of this. Ah! Fortune, to rob me in my hour of triumph, a lion of his prey, or ever this spear of mine with one fell swoop had made an end for aye of yonder Argive host! Yea, had not the sun’s bright lamp withheld his light, I had not stayed my victor’s spear, ere I had fired their ships and made my way from tent to tent, drenching this hand in Achaean gore. Right eager was I to make a night attack and take advantage of the stroke of luck by heaven sent, but those wise seers of mine, who have heaven’s will so pat, persuaded me to wait the dawn, and then leave not one Achaean in the land. But those others await not the counsels of my soothsayers; darkness turns runaways to heroes. Needs must we now without delay pass this word along the line “Arm, arm! from slumber cease!” for many a man of them, e’en as he leaps aboard his ship, shall be smitten through the back and sprinkle the ladders with blood, and others shall be fast bound with cords and learn to till our Phrygian glebe.

Chorus

Thou hastest, Hector, before thou knowest clearly what is happening; for we do not know for certain whether our foes are flying.

Hector

What reason else had the Argive host to kindle fires?

Chorus

I cannot say; my soul doth much misgive me.

Hector

If this thou fearest, be sure there’s nought thou wouldst not fear.

Chorus

Never aforetime did the enemy kindle such a blaze.

Hector

No, nor ever before did they suffer such shameful defeat and rout.

Chorus

This thou didst achieve; look now to what remains to do.

Hector

I have but one word to say, “Arm, arm against the foe!”

Chorus

Lo! where Aeneas comes, in hot haste too, as though he hath news to tell his friends.

[Enter Aeneas]

Aeneas

Why, Hector, have the sentinels in terror made their way through the host to thy couch to hold a midnight conclave and disturb the army?

Hector

Case thee in thy coat of mail, Aeneas.

Aeneas

How now? are tidings come of some secret stratagem set on foot during the night by the foe?

Hector

They are flying, these foes of ours, and going aboard their ships.

Aeneas

What sure proof canst thou give of this?

Hector

The livelong night they are kindling blazing torches; methinks they will not wait for the morrow, but after lighting brands upon their ships’ decks will leave this and to their homes.

Aeneas

And thou, wherefore dost thou gird thee with thy sword?

Hector

With my spear will I stop them even as they fly and leap aboard their ships, and my hand shail be heavy upon them; for shameful it were in us, aye, and cowardly as well as shameful, when God gives them into our hands, to let our foes escape without a blow after all the injuries they have done us.

Aeneas

Would thou wert as sage as thou art bold But lo! among mortals the same man is not dowered by nature with universal knowledge; each hath his special gift appointed him, thine is arms, another’s is sage counsel. Thou hearest their torches are blazing, and art fired with the hope that the Achaeans are flying, and wouldst lead on our troops across the trenches in the calm still night. Now after crossing the deep yawning trench, supposing thou shouldst find the enemy are not flying from the land, but are awaiting thy onset, beware lest thou suffer defeat and so never reach this city again; for how wilt thou pass the palisades in a rout? And how shall thy charioteers cross the bridges without dashing the axles of their cars to pieces? And, if victorious, thou hast next the son of Peleus to engage; he will ne’er suffer thee to cast the firebrand on the fleet, no, nor to harry the Achaeans as thou dost fondly fancy. Nay, for yon man is fierce as fire, a very tower of valiancy. Let us rather then leave our men to sleep calmly under arms after the weariness of battle, while we send, as I advise, whoe’er will volunteer, to spy upon the enemy; and if they really are preparing to fly, let us arise and fall upon the Argive host, but if this signalling is a trap to catch us, we shall discover from the spy the enemy’s designs and take our measures; such is my advice, O King.

Chorus

It likes me well; so change thy mind and adopt this counsel. I love not hazardous commands in generals. What better scheme could be than for a fleet spy to approach the ships and learn why our foes are lighting fires in front of their naval station?

Hector

Since this finds favour with you all, prevail. [To Aeneas] Go thou and marshal our allies; mayhap the host hearing of our midnight council is disturbed. Mine shall it be to send one forth to spy upon the foe. And if I discover any plot amongst them, thou shalt fully hear thereof, and at the council-board shalt learn our will; but in case they be starting off in flight, with cager ear await the trumpet’s call, for then I will not stay, but will this very night engage the Argive host there where their ships are hauled up.

Aeneas

Send out the spy forthwith; there’s safety in thy counsels now. And thou shalt find me steadfast at thy side, whene’er occasion call.

[Exit Aeneas]

Hector

What Trojan now af all our company doth volunteer to go and spy the Argive fleet? Who will be that patriot? Who saith “I will”? Myself cannot at every point serve my country and my friends in arms.

Dolon [comes from the rear]

I for my country will gladly run this risk and go to spy the Argive fleet, and when I have learnt fully all that the Acheans plot I will return. Hear the conditions on which I undertake this toil.

Hector

True to his name in sooth, his country’s friend is Dolon. Thy father’s house was famed of yore, but thou hast made it doubly so.

Dolon

So must I toil, but for my pains a meet reward should I receive. For set a price on any deed, and then and there it gives to it a double grace.

Hector

Yea, that is but fair; I cannot gainsay it. Name any prize for thyself save the sway I bear.

Dolon

I covet not thy toilsome sovereignty.

Hector

Well then, marry a daughter of Priam and become my good brother.

Dolon

Nay, I care not to wed amongst those beyond my station.

Hector

There’s gold, if this thou’lt claim as thy guerdon.

Dolon

Gold have I in my home; no sustenance lack I.

Hector

What then is thy desire of all that Ilium stores within her?

Dolon

Promise me my gift when thou dost conquer the Achaeans.

Hector

I will give it thee; do thou ask anything except the captains of the fleet.

Dolon

Slay them; I do not ask thee to keep thy hand off Menelaus.

Hector

Is it the son of Oileus thou wouldst ask me for?

Dolon

Ill hands to dig and delve are those mid luxury nursed.

Hector

Whom then of the Acheans wilt thou have alive to hold to ransom?

Dolon

I told thee before, my house is stored with gold.

Hector

Why then, thou shalt come and with thine own hands choose out some spoil.

Dolon

Nail up the spoils for the gods on their temple walls.

Hector

Prithee, what higher prize than these wilt ask me for?

Dolon

Achilles’ coursers. Needs must the prize be worth the toil when one stakes one’s life on Fortune’s die.

Hector

Ah! but thy wishes clash with mine anent those steeds; for of immortal stock, they and their sires before them, are those horses that bear the son of Peleus on his headlong course. Them did king Poseidon, ocean’s god, break and give to Peleus, so runs the legend-yet, for I did urge thee on, I will not break my word; to thee will I give Achilles’ team, to add a splendour to thy house.

Dolon

I thank thee; in receiving them I avow I am taking a fairer gift than any other Phrygian for my bravery. Yet thee it needs not to be envious; countless joys besides this will glad thy heart in thy kingship o’er this land.

[Exit Hector]

Chorus

Great the enterprise, and great the boon thou designest to receive. Happy, ay, happy wilt thou be, if thou succeed; fair the fame thy toil shall win. Yet to wed with a prince’s sister were a distinction high. On Heaven’s decrees let Justice keep her eye! what man can give thou hast, it seems, in full.

Dolon

Now will I set forth, and going within my house will don such garb as suits, and then will hasten to the Argive fleet.

Chorus

Why, what dress in place of this wilt thou assume?

Dolon

Such as suits my task and furtive steps.

Chorus

One should ever learn wisdom from the wise; tell me wherewith thou wilt drape thy body.

Dolon

I will fasten a wolf skin about my back, and o’er my head put the brute’s gaping jaws; then fitting its fore-feet to my hands and its hind-feet to my legs I will go on all-fours in imitation of its gait to puzzle the enemy when I approach their trenches and barriers round the ships. But whenever I come to a deserted spot, on two feet will I walk; such is the ruse I have decided on.

Chorus

May Hermes, Maia’s child, escort thee safely there and back, prince of tricksters as he is! Thou knowest what thou hast to do; good luck is all thou needest now.

Dolon

I shall return in safety, and bring to thee the head of Odysseus when I have slain him, or maybe the son of Tydeus, and with this clear proof before thee thou shalt avow that Dolon went unto the Argive fleet; for, ere the dawn appear, I will win back home with bloodstained hand.

[Exit Dolon]

Chorus

O Apollo, blest godhead, lord of Thymbra and of Delos, who hauntest thy fane in Lycia, come with all thy archery, appear this night, and by thy guidance save our friend now setting forth, and aid the Dardans’ scheme, almighty god whose hands in days of yore upreared Troy’s walls! Good luck attend his mission to the ships! may he reach the host of Hellas and spy it out, then turn again and reach the altars of his father’s home in Ilium! Grant him to mount the chariot drawn by Phthia’s steeds, when Hector, our master, hath sacked Achae’s camp, those steeds that the sea-god gave to Peleus, son of Aeacus; for he and he alone had heart enough for home and country to go and spy the naval station; his spirit I admire; how few stout hearts there be, when on the sea the sunlight dies and the city labours in the surge; Phrygia yet hath left a valiant few, and bold hearts in the battle’s press; ‘tis only Mysia’s sons who scorn us as allies.

Which of the Achaeans will their four-footed murderous foe slay in their beds, as he crosses the ground, feigning to be a beast? May he lay Menelaus low or slay Agamemnon and bring his head to Helen’s hands, causing her to lament her evil kinsman, who hath come against my city, against the land of Troy with his countless host of ships.

[Dolon reappears disguised and departs for the Greek camp. Enter messenger.]

Messenger (a shepherd)

Great king, ever in days to come be it mine to bring my masters such news as I am bearing now unto thine ears.

[Enter Hector]

Hector

Full oft the rustic mind is afflicted with dulness; so thou, as like as not, art come to this ill-suited place to tell thy master that his flocks are bearing well. Knowest thou not my palace or my father’s throne? Thither thou shouldst carry thy tale when thou hast prospered with thy flocks.

Messenger

Dull herdsmen are; I do not gainsay thee.

But none the less I bring thee joyful news.

Hector

A truce to thy tale of how the sheep-fold fares; I have battles to fight and spears to wield.

Messenger

The very things of which I, too, came to tell thee; for a chieftain of a countless host is on his way to join thee as thy friend and to champion this land.

Hector

His country? and the home that he hath left?

Messenger

His country, Thrace: men call his father Strymon.

Hector

Didst say that Rhesus was setting foot in Troy?

Messenger

Thou hast it; and savest me half my speech.

Hector

How is it that he comes to Ida’s meadows, wandering from the broad waggon track across the plain?

Messenger

I cannot say for certain, though I might guess. To make his entry by night is no idle scheme, when he hears that the plains are packed with foemen’s troops. But he frightened us rustic hinds who dwell alog the slopes of Ida, the earliest settlement in the land, as he came by night through yon wood where wild beasts couch. On surged the tide of Thracian warriors with loud shouts; whereat in wild amaze we drove our flocks unto the heights, for fear that some Argives were coming to plunder and harry thy steading, till that we caught the sound of voices other than Greek and ceased from our alarm. Then went I and questioned in the Thracian tongue those who were reconnoitring the road, who it was that lead them, and whose he avowed him to be, that came to the city to help the sons of Priam. And when I had heard all I wished to learn, I stood still awhile; and lo! I see Rhesus mounted like a god upon his Thracian chariot. Of gold was the yoke that linked the necks of his steeds whiter than the snow; and on his shoulders flashed his targe with figures welded in gold; while a gorgon of bronze like that which gleams from the aegis of the goddess was bound upon the frontlet of his horses, ringing out its note of fear with many a bell. The number of his host thou couldst not reckon to a sum exact, for it was beyond one’s comprehension; many a knight was there, and serried ranks of targeteers, and archers not a few, with countless swarms of light-armed troops, in Thracian garb arrayed, to bear them company. Such the ally who comes to Troy’s assistance; him the son of Peleus will ne’er escape or if he fly or meet him spear to spear.

Chorus

Whenso the gods stand by the burghers staunch and true, the tide of fortune glides with easy flow to a successful goal.

Hector

I shall find a host of friends now that fortune smiles upon my warring and Zeus is on my side. But no need have we of those who shared not our toils of erst, what time the War-god, driving all before him, was rending the sails of our ship of state with his tempestuous blast. Rhesus hath shewn the friendship he then bore to Troy; for he cometh to the feast, albeit he was not with the hunters when they took the prey, nor joined his spear with theirs.

Chorus

Thou art right to scorn and blame such friends; yet welcome those who fain would help the state.

Hector

Sufficient we who long have kept Ilium safe.

Chorus

Art so sure thou hast already caught the foe?

Hector

Quite sure I am; to-morrow’s light will make that plain.

Chorus

Beware of what may chance; full oft doth fortune veer.

Hector

I loathe the friend who brings his help too late.

Messenger

O prince, to turn away allies earns hatred. His mere appearing would cause a panic amongst the foe.

Chorus

Let him, at least, since he is come, approach thy genial board as guest, if not ally, for the gratitude of Priam’s sons is forfeit in his case.

Hector

Thou counsellest aright; thou too dost take the proper view. Let Rhesus in his gilded mail join the allies of this land, thanks to the messenger’s report.

[Exeunt the messenger and Hector]

Chorus

May Nemesis, daughter of Zeus, check the word that may offend; for lo! I will utter all that my soul fain would say. Thou art come, O son of the river god, art come, thrice welcome in thy advent, to the halls of Phrygia; late in time thy Pierian mother and Strymon thy sire, that stream with bridges fair, are sending thee to us — Strymon who begat thee his strong young son, that day his swirling waters found a refuge in the tuneful Muse’s virgin bosom. Thou art my Zeus, my god of light, as thou comest driving thy dappled steeds. Now, O Phrygia, O my country, now mayst thou by God’s grace address thy saviour Zeus! Shall old Troy once more at last spend the live-long day in drinking toasts and singing love’s praise, while the wildering wine-cup sends a friendly challenge round, as o’er the sea for Sparta bound, the sons of Atreus quit the Ilian strand? Ah! best of friends, with thy strong arm and spear mayst thou this service do me, then safe return. Come, appear, brandish that shield of gold full in Achilles’ face; raise it aslant along the chariot’s branching rail, urging on thy steeds the while, and shaking thy lance with double point. For none after facing thee will ever join the dance on the lawns of Argive Hera; no, but he shall die by Thracians slain, and this land shall bear the burden of his corpse and be glad.

[Enter Rhesus] Hail, all bail O mighty prince! fair the scion thou hast bred, O Thrace, a ruler in his every look. Mark his stalwart frame cased in golden corslet! Hark to the ringing bells that peal so proudly from his targehandle hung. A god, O Troy, a god, a very Ares, a scion of Strymon’s stream and of the tuneful Muse, breathes courage into thee.

[Re-enter Hector]

Rhesus

Brave son of sire as brave, Hector, prince of this land, all haill After many a long day I greet thee. Right glad am I of thy success, to see thee camped hard on the foemen’s towers; I come to help thee raze their walls and fire their fleet of ships.

Hector

Son of that tuneful mother, one of the Muses nine, and of Thracian Strymon’s stream, I ever love to speak plain truth; nature gave me not a double tongue. Long, long ago shouldst thou have come and shared the labours this land nor suffered Troy for any help of thine to fall o’er thrown by hostile Argive spears. Thou canst not say ‘twas any want of invitation that kept thee from coming with thy help to visit us. How oft came heralds and embassies from Phrygia urgently requiring thine aid for our city? What sumptuous presents did we not send to thee? But thou, brother barbarian though thou wert, didst pledge away to Hellenes us thy barbarian brethren, for ill the help thou gavest. Yet ‘twas I with this strong arm that raised thee from thy paltry princedom to high lordship over Thrace, that day I fell upon the Thracian chieftains face to face around Pangaeus in Paeonia’s land and broke their serried ranks, and gave their people up to thee with the yoke upon their necks; but thou hast trampled on this great favour done thee, and comest with laggard step to give thine aid when friends are in distress. While they, whom no natural tic of kin constrains, have long been here, and some are dead and in their graves beneath the heaped-up cairn, no mean proof of loyalty to the city, and others in harness clad and mounted on their cars, with steadfast soul endure the icy blast and parching heat of the sun, not pledging one another, as thou art wont, in long deep draughts on couches soft. This is the charge I bring against thee and utter to thy face, that thou mayst know how frank is Hector’s tongue.

Rhesus

I too am such another as thyself; straight to the point I cut my way; no shuffling nature mine. My heart was wrung with sorer anguish than ever thine was at my absence from this land; I fumed and chafed, but Scythian folk, whose borders march with mine, made war on me on the very eve of my departure for Ilium; already had I reached the strand of the Euxine sea, there to transport my Thracian army. Then did my spear pour out o’er Scythia’s soil great drops of bloody rain, and Thrace too shared in the mingled slaughter. This then was what did chance to keep me from coming to the land of Troy and joining thy standard. But soon as I had conquered these and taken their children as hostages and appointed the yearly tribute they should pay my house, I crossed the firth, and lo! am here; on foot I traversed all thy borders that remained to pass, not as thou in thy jeers at those carousals of my countrymen hintest, nor sleeping soft in gilded palaces, but amid the frozen hurricanes that vex the Thracian main and the Paeonian shores, learning as I lay awake what suffering is, this soldier’s cloak-my only wrap. True my coming hath tarried, but yet am I in time; ten long years already hast thou been at the fray, and naught accomplished yet; day in, day out, thou riskest all in this game of war with Argives. While I will be content once to see the sungod rise, and sack yon towers and fall upon their anchored fleet and slay the Achaeans; and on the morrow home from Ilium will I go, at one stroke ending all thy toil. Let none of you lay hand to spear to lift it, for I, for all my late arrival, will with my lance make utter havoc of those vaunting Achaeans.

Chorus

Joy, joy! sweet champion sent by Zeus! Only may Zeus, throned on high, keep jealousy, resistless foe, from thee for thy presumptuous words! Yon fleet of ships from Argos sent, never brought, nor formerly nor now, among all its warriors a braver than thee; how I wonder will Achilles, how will Aias stand the onset of thy spear? Oh! to live to see that happy day, my prince, that thou mayest wreak vengeance on them, gripping thy lance in thy deathdealing hand!

Rhesus

Such exploits am I ready to achieve to atone for my long absence; (with due submission to Nemesis I say this;) then when we have cleared this city of its foes and thou hast chosen out firstfruits for the gods, I fain would march with thee against the Argives’ country and coming thither, lay Hellas waste with war, that they in turn may know the taste of ill.

Hector

If thou couldst rid the city of this present curse and restore it to its old security, sure I should feel deep gratitude towards heaven. But as for sacking Argos and the pasture-lands of Hellas, as thou sayest, ‘tis no easy task.

Rhesus

Avow they not that hither came the choicest chiefs of Hellas?

Hector

Aye, and I scorn them not; enough have I to do in driving them away.

Rhesus

Well, if we slay these, our task is fully done.

Hector

Leave not the present need, nor look to distant schemes.

Rhesus

Thou art, it seems, content to suffer tamely and make no return.

Hector

I rule an empire wide enough, e’en though I here abide. But on the left wing or the right or in the centre of the allies thou mayst plant thy shield and marshal thy troops.

Rhesus

Alone will I face the foe, Hector. But if thou art ashamed, after all thy previous toil, to have no share in firing their ships’ prows, place me face to face at least with Achilles and his host.

Hector

‘Gainst him thou canst not range thy eager spear.

Rhesus

Why, ‘twas surely said he sailed to Ilium.

Hector

He sailed and is come hither; but he is wroth and takes no part with the other chieftains in the fray.

Rhesus

Who next to him hath won a name in their host?

Hector

Aias and the son of Tydeus are, I take it, no whit his inferiors; there is Odysseus too, a noisy knave to talk, but bold enough withal, of all men he country. For he her image he made his a vagrant in a beggar’s garb, and loudly did he curse the Argives, sent as a spy to Ilium; and then sneaked out again, when he had slain the sentinels and warders at the gate. He is ever to be found lurking in ambush about the altar of Thymbraean Apollo nigh the city. In him we have a troublous pest to wrestle with.

Rhesus

No brave man deigns to his foe in secret, but to meet him face to face. If I can catch this knave alive, who, as thou sayest, skulks in stealthy ambuscade and plots his mischief, I will impale him at the outlet of the gates and set him up for vultures of the air to make their meal upon. This is the death he ought to die, pirate and temple-robber that he is.

Hector

To your quarters now, for night draws on. For thee I will myself point out a spot where thy host can watch this night apart from our array. Our watchword is Phorbus, if haply there be need thereof; hear and mark it well and tell it to the Thracian army. Ye must advance in front of our ranks and keep a watchful guard, and so receive Dolon who went to spy the ships, for he, if safe he is, is even now approaching the camp of Troy.

[Exeunt Hector and Rhesus]

Chorus

Whose watch is it? who relieves me? night’s earlier stars are on the wane, and the seven Pleiads mount the sky; athwart the firmament the eagle floats. Rouse ye, why delay? Up from your beds to the watch! See ye not the moon’s pale beam? Dawn is near, day is coming, and lo! a star that heralds it.

Semi-chorus

Who was told off to the first watch?

The son of Mygdon, whom men call Coroebus.

Who after him?

The Paconian contingent roused the Cilicians;

And the Mysians us.

Is it not then high time we went and roused the Lycians for the fifth watch, as the lot decided?

Chorus

Hark! hark! a sound; ‘tis the nightingale, that slew her child, singing where she sits upon her bloodstained nest by Simois her piteous plaint, sweet singer of the many trills; already along Ida’s slopes they are pasturing the flocks, and o’er the night I catch the shrill pipe’s note; sleep on my closing eyelids softly steals, the sweetest sleep that comes at dawn to tired eyes.

Semi-chorus

Why doth not our scout draw near, whom Hector sent to spy the fleet?

He is so long away, I have my fears.

Is it possible he hath plunged into a hidden ambush and been slain?

Soon must we know.

My counsel is we go and rouse the Lycians to the fifth watch, as the lot ordained.

[Exit semi-chorus]

[Enter Diomedes and Odysseus cautiously with drawn swords.]

Odysseus

Didst not hear, O Diomedes, the clash of arms? or is it an idle noise that rings in my ears?

Diomedes

Nay, ‘tis the rattle of steel harness on the chariot-rails; me, too, did fear assail, till I perceived ‘twas but the clang of horses’ chains.

Odysseus

Beware thou stumble not upon the guard in the darkness.

Diomedes

I will take good care how I advance even in this gloom.

Odysseus

If however thou shouldst rouse them, dost know their watchword?

Diomedes

Yea, ‘tis “Phorbus”; I heard Dolon use it.

[They enter the tent, then return.]

Odysseus

Ha! the foe I see have left this bivouac.

Diomedes

Yet Dolon surely said that here was Hector’s couch, against whom this sword of mine is drawn.

Odysseus

What can it mean? Is his company withdrawn elsewhere?

Diomedes

Perhaps to form some stratagem against us.

Odysseus

Like enough, for Hector now is grown quite bold by reason of his victory.

Diomedes

What then are we to do, Odysseus? we have not found our man asleep; our hopes are dashed.

Odysseus

Let us to the fleet with what speed we may. Some god, whiche’er it be that gives him his good luck, is preserving him; ‘gainst fate we must not strive.

Diomedes

Well, we twain must go against Eneas or Paris, most hateful of Phrygians, and withour swords cut off their heads.

Odysseus

How, pray, in the darkness canst thou find them amid a hostile army, and slay them without risk?

Diomedes

Yet ‘twere base to go unto the Agrive ships if we have worked the enemy no harm.

Odysseus

What! no harm! Have we not slain Dolon who spied upon the anchored fleet, and have we not his spoils safe here? Dost thou expect to sack the entire camp? Be led by me, let us return; and good luck go with us!

[Athena appears]

Athena

Whither away from the Trojan ranks, with sorrow gnawing at your hearts, because fortune granteth not you twain to slay Hector or Paris? Have ye not heard that Rhesus is come to succour Troy in no mean sort? If he survive this night until to-morrow’s dawn, neither Achilles nor Aias, stout spearman, can stay him from utterly destroying the Argive fleet, razing its palisades and carrying the onslaught of his lance far and wide within the gates; slay him, and all is thine; let Hector’s sleep alone, nor hope to leave him a weltering trunk, for he shall find death at another hand.

Odysseus

Queen Athena, ‘tis the well-known accent of thy voice I hear; for thou art ever at my side to help me in my toil. Tell us where the warrior lies asleep, in what part of the barbarian army he is stationed.

Athena

Here lies he close at hand, not marshalled with the other troops, but outside the ranks hath Hector given him quarters, till night gives place to day. And nigh him are tethered his white steeds to his Thracian chariot, easy to see in the darkness; glossy white are they like to the plumage of a river swan. Slay their master and bear them off, a glorious prize to any home, for nowhere else in all the world is such a splendid team to be found.

Odysseus

Diomedes, either do thou slay the Thracian folk, or leave that to me, while thy care must be the horses.

Diomedes

I will do the killing, and do thou look to the steeds. For thou art well versed in clever tricks, and hast a ready wit. And ‘tis right to allot a man to the work he can best perform.

Athena

Lo! yonder I see Paris coming towards us; he hath heard maybe from the guard a rumour vague that foes are near.

Diomedes

Are others with him or cometh he alone?

Athena

Alone; to Hector’s couch he seems to wend his way, to announce to him that spies are in the camp.

Diomedes

Ought not he to head the list of slain?

Athena

Thou canst not o’erreach Destiny. And it is not decreed that he should fall by thy hand; but hasten on thy mission of slaughter fore-ordained, [exeunt Odysseus and Diomedes] while I feigning to be Cypris, his ally, and to aid him in his efforts will answer thy foe with cheating words. Thus much I have told you, but the fated victim knoweth not, nor hath he heard one word, for all he is so near.

[Enter Paris]

Paris

To thee I call, general and brother, Hector! Sleep’st thou? shouldst not thou awake? Some foeman draws anigh our host, or thieves maybe, or spies.

Athena

Courage! lo! Cypris watches o’er thee in gracious mood. Thy warfare is my care, for I do not for the honour thou once didst me, and I thank thee for thy good service. And now, when the host of Troy is triumphant, am I come bringing to thee a powerful friend, the Thracian child of the Muse, the heavenly songstress, whose father’s name is Strymon.

Paris

Ever unto this city and to me a kind friend art thou, and I am sure that decision I then made conferred upon this city the highest treasure life affords in thy person. I heard a vague report, and so I came, for there prevailed amongst the guard a rumour that Achaean spies are here. One man, that saw them not, saith so, while another, that saw them come, cannot describe them, and so I am on my way to Hector’s tent.

Athena

Fear naught; all is quiet in the host, and Hector is gone to assign a sleeping-place to the Thracian army.

Paris

Thou dost persuade me, and I believe thy words, and will go to guard my post, free of fear.

Athena

Go, for ‘tis my pleasure ever to watch thy interests, that so I may see my allies prosperous. Yea, and thou too shalt recognize my zeal. [Exit Paris]

[Enter Odysseus and Diomedes] O son of Laertes, I bid you sheathe your whetted swords, ye warriors all too keen; for dead before you lies the Thracian chief, his steeds are captured, but the foe have wind thereof, and are coming forth against you; fly with all speed to the ships’ station. Why delay to save your lives when the foemen’s storm is just bursting on you?

Chorus

On, on! strike, strike, lay on, lay on! deal death in every blow!

Semi-chorus

Who goes there?

Look you, that man I mean. There are the thieves who in the gloom disturbed this host. Hither, come hither, every man of you! I have them — I have clutched them fast.

What is the watchword? Whence cam’st thou? Thy country?

Odysseus

‘Tis not for thee to know.

Semi-chorus

Speak, or thou diest as a vile traitor this day.

Wilt not the watchword declare, ere my sword finds its way to thy heart?

Odysseus

What! hast thou slain Rhesus?

Semi-chorus

Nay, I am asking thee about him who came to slay us.

Odysseus

Be of good heart, approach.

Semi-chorus

Strike every man of you, strike, strike home!

Odysseus

Stay every man of you!

Semi-chorus

No, no, lay on!

Odysseus

Ah! slay not a friend.

Semi-chorus

What is the watchword, then?

Odysseus

Phoebus.

Semi-chorus

Right! stay every man his spear! Dost know whither those men are gone?

Odysseus

Somewhere here I caught a sight of them.

Semi-chorus

Close on their track each man of you, or else must we shout for aid.

Odysseus

Nay, ‘twere conduct strange to disturb our friends with wild alarms by night.

[Exeunt Odysseus and Diomedes]

Chorus

Who was that man who slipped away? Who was he that will loudly boast his daring in escaping me? How shall I catch him now? to whom liken him? the man who came by night with fearless step passing through our ranks and the guard we set. Is he a Thessalian or a dweller in some seacoast town of Locris, or hath he his home amid the scattered islands of the main? Who was he, and whence came he? What is his fatherland? What god doth he avow as lord of the rest?

Semi-chorus

Whose work is this? is it the deed of Odysseus?

If one may conjecture from his former acts, of course it is.

Dost think so really? Why, of course.

He is a bold foe for us.

Who is? whom art thou praising for valiancy?

Odysseus

Praise not the crafty weapons that a robber uses.

Chorus

Once before he came into this city, with swimming bleary eyes, in rags and tatters clad, his sword hidden in his cloak. And like some vagrant menial he slunk about begging his board, his hair all tousled and matted with filth, and many a bitter curse he uttered against the royal house of the Atreidae, as though forsooth he were to those chiefs opposed. Would, oh! Would, oh! would he had perished, as was his due, or ever he set foot on Phrygia’s soil!

Semi-chorus

Whether it were really Odysseus or not, I am afeard.

Aye surely, for Hector will blame us sentinels.

What can he allege?

He will suspect.

What have we done? why art afeard?

By us did pass —

Well, who?

They who this night came to the Phrygian host.

[Enter charioteer]

Charioteer

O crue! stroke of fate. Woe, woe!

Chorus

Hush! be silent all! Crouch low, for maybe there cometh someone into the snare.

Charioteer

Oh, oh! dire mishap to the Thracian allies.

Chorus

Who is he that groans?

Charioteer

Alack, alack! Woe is me and woe is thee, O king of thrace! How curst the sight of Troy to thee! how sad the blow that closed thy life!

Chorus

Who art thou? an ally? which? night’s gloom hath dulled these eyes, I cannot clearly recognize thee.

Charioteer

Where can I find some Trojan chief? Where doth Hector take his rest under arms? Alack and well-a-day! To which of the captains of the host am I to tell my tale? What sufferings ours! What dark deeds someone hath wrought on us and gone his way, when he had wound up a clew of sorrow manifest to every Thracian!

Chorus

From what I gather of this man’s words, some calamity, it seems, is befalling the Thracian host.

Charioteer

Lost is all our host, our prince is dead, slain by a treacherous blow. Woe worth the hour! woe worth the day! O the cruel anguish of this bloody wound that inly racks my frame! Would I were dead! Was it to die this inglorious death that Rhesus and I did come to Troy?

Chorus

This is plain language; in no riddles he declares the disaster; all too clearly he asserts our friends’ destruction.

Charioteer

A sorry deed it was, and more than that a deed most foul; yea, ‘tis an evil doubly bad; to die with glory, if die one must, is bitterness enough I trow to him who dies; assuredly it is; though to the living it add dignity and honour for their house. But we, like fools, have died a death of shame. No sooner had great Hector given us our quarters and told us the watchword than we laid us down to sleep upon the ground, o’ercome by weariness. No guard our army set to watch by night. Our arms we set not in array, nor were the whips hung ready on the horses’ yokes, for our prince was told that you were masters now, and had encamped hard on their ships; so carelessly we threw us down to sleep. Now I with thoughtful mind awoke from my slumber, and with ungrudging hand did measure out the horses’ feed, expecting to harness them at dawn unto the fray; when lo! through the thick gloom two men I see roaming around our army. But when I roused myself they fled away, and were gone once more; and I called out to them to keep away from our army, for I thought they might be thieves from our allies. No answer made they, so I too said no more, but came back to my couch and slept again. And lo! as I slept came a strange fancy o’er me: I saw, methought as in a dream, those steeds that I had groomed and used to drive, stationed at Rhesus’ side, with wolves mounted on their backs; and these with their tails did lash the horses’ flanks and urge them on, while they did snort and breathe fury from their nostrils, striving in terror to unseat their riders. Up I sprang to defend the horses from the brutes, for the horror of the night scared me. Then as I raised my head I heard the groans of dying men, and a warm stream of new-shed blood bespattered me where I lay close to my murdered master as he gave up the ghost. To my feet I start, but all unarmed; and as I peer about and grope to find my sword, a stalwart hand from somewhere nigh dealt me a sword-thrust beneath the ribs. I know the sword that dealt that blow from the deep gaping wound it gave me. Down on my face I fell, while they fled clean away with steeds and chariot. Alack, alack! Tortured with pain, too weak to stand, a piteous object I know what happened, for I saw it; but how the victims met their death I cannot say, nor whose the hand that smote them; but I can well surmise we have our friends to thank for this mischance.

Chorus

O charioteer of Thrace’s hapless king, never suspect that any but foes have had a hand in this. Lo! Hector himself is here, apprized of thy mischance; he sympathizes as he should with thy hard fate.

[Enter Hector]

Hector

Ye villains who have caused this mischief dire, how came the foemen’s spies without your knowledge, to your shame, and spread destruction through the host, and you drove them not away as they passed in or out? Who but you shall pay the penalty for this? You, I say, were stationed here to the host. But they are gone without a wound, with many a scoff at Phrygian cowardice, and at me their leader. Now mark ye this-by father Zeus I swear at least the scourge, if not the headsman’s axe, awaits such conduct; else count Hector a thing of naught, a mere coward.

Chorus

Woe, woe is me! A grievous, grievous woe came on me, I can see, great lord of my city, in the hour that I brought my news to thee that the Argive host was kindling fires about the ships; for by the springs of Simois I vow my eye kept sleepless watch by night, nor did I slumber or sleep. O be not angered with me, my lord; I am guiltless of all; yet if hereafter thou find that I in word or deed have done amiss, bury me alive beneath the earth; I ask no mercy.

Charioteer

Why threaten these? Why try to undermine my poor barbarian wit by crafty words, barbarian thou thyself? Thou didst this deed; nor they who have suffered ail, nor we by wounds disabled will believe it was any other. A long and subtle speech thou’lt need to prove to me thou didst not slay thy friends because thou didst covet the horses, and to gain them didst murder thine own allies, after bidding them come so straitly. They came, and they are dead. Why, Paris found more decent means to shame the rights of hospitality than thou, with thy slaughter of thy allies. Never tell me some Argive came and slaughtered us. Who could have passed the Trojan lines and come against us without detection? Thou and thy Phrygian troops were camped in front of us. Who was wounded, who was slain amongst thy friends, when that foe thou speak’st of came? ‘Twas we were wounded, while some have met a sterner fate and said farewell to heaven’s light. Briefly, then, no Achaean do I blame. For what enemy could have come and found the lowly bed of Rhesus in the dark, unless some deity were guiding the murderers’ steps? They did not so much as know of his arrival. No, ‘tis thy plot this!

Hector

‘Tis many a long year now since I have had to do with allies, aye, ever since Achoea’s host settled in this land, and never an ill word have I known them say of me; but with thee I am to make a beginning. Never may such longing for horses seize me that I should slay my friends! This is the work of Odysseus. Who of all the Argives but he would have devised or carried out such a deed? I fear him much; and somewhat my mind misgives me lest he have met and slain Dolon as well; for ‘tis long since he set out, nor yet appears.

Charioteer

I know not this Odysseus of whom thou speakest. ‘Twas no foe’s hand that smote me.

Hector

Well, keep that opinion for thyself, if it please thee.

Charioteer

O land of my fathers, would I might die in thee!

Hector

Die! No! Enough are those already dead.

Charioteer

Where am I to turn, I ask thee, reft of my master now?

Hector

My house shall shelter thee and cure thee of thy hurt.

Charioteer

How shall murderers’ hands care for me?

Hector

This fellow will never have done repeating the same story.

Charioteer

Curses on the doer of this deed! On thee my tongue doth fix no charge, as thou complainest; but justice is over all.

Hector

Ho! him hence! Carry him to my palace and tend him carefully, that he may have no fault to find. And you must go to those upon the walls, to Priam and his aged councillors, and tell them to give orders for the burial of the dead at the place where folk turn from the road to rest.

[Charioteer is carried off]

Chorus

Why, with what intent doth fortune change and bring Troy once again to mourning after her famous victory? See, see! O look! What goddess, O king, is hovering o’er our heads, bearing in her hands as on a bier the warrior slain but now? I shudder at this sight of woe.

[The Muse appears]

The Muse

Behold me, sons of Troy! Lo! I the Muse, one of the sisters nine, that have honour among the wise, am here, having seen the piteous death his foes have dealt my darling son. Yet shall the crafty Odysseus, that slew him, one day hereafter pay a fitting penalty. O my son, thy mother’s grief, I mourn for thee in self-taught strains of woe! What a journey thou didst make to Troy, a very path of woe and sorrow! starting, spite of all my warnings and thy father’s earnest prayers, in defiance of us. Woe is me for thee, my dear, dear son! Ah, woe! my son, my son!

Chorus

I, too, bewail and mourn thy son, as far as one can who hath no common tie of kin.

The Muse

Curses on the son of Oeneus! Curses on Laertes’ child! who hath reft me of my fair son and made me childless! and on that woman, too, that left her home in Hellas, and sailed hither with her Phrygian paramour, bringing death to thee, my dearest son, ‘neath Ilium’s walls, and stripping countless cities of their heroes brave. Deep, deep the wounds, son of Philammon, hast thou inflicted on my heart, in life, nor less in Hades’ halls. Yea, for ‘twas thy pride, thy own undoing, and thy rivalry with us Muses that made me mother of this poor son of mine. For as I crossed the river’s streams I came too nigh to Strymon’s fruitful couch, that day we Muses came unto the brow of Mount Pangaeus with its soil of gold, with all our music furnished forth for one great trial of minstrel skill with that clever Thracian bard, and him we reft of sight, even Thamyris, the man who oft reviled our craft. Anon, when I gave birth to thee, because I felt shame of my sisters and my maiden years, I sent thee to the swirling stream of thy sire, the water-god; and Strymon did not entrust thy nurture to mortal hands, but to the fountain nymphs. There wert thou reared most fairly by the maiden nymphs, and didst rule o’er Thrace, a leader amongst men, my child. So long as thou didst range thy native land in quest of bloody deeds of prowess I feared not for thy death, but I bade thee ne’er set out for Troy-town, for well I knew thy doom; but Hector’s messages and those countless embassies urged thee to go and help thy friends. This was thy doing, Athena; thou alone art to blame for his death (neither Odysseus nor the son of Tydeus had aught to do with it); think not it hath escaped mine eye. And yet we sister Muses do special honour to thy city, thy land we chiefly haunt; yea, and Orpheus, own cousin of the dead whom thou hast slain, did for thee unfold those dark mysteries with their torch processions. Musaeus, too, thy holy citizen, of all men most advanced in lore, him did Phoebus with us sisters train. And here is my reward for this; dead in my arms I hold my child and mourn for him. Henceforth no other learned man I’ll bring to thee.

Chorus

Vainly it seems the Thracian charioteer reviled us with plotting this man’s murder, Hector.

Hector

I knew it; it needed no seer to say that he had perished by the arts of Odysseus. Now I, when I saw the Hellene host camped in my land, of course would not hesitate to send heralds to my friends, bidding them come and help my country; and so I sent, and he as in duty bound came my toils to share. It grieves me sorely to see him dead; and now am I ready to raise a tomb for him and burn at his pyre great store of fine raiment; for he came as a friend and in sorrow is he going hence.

The Muse

He shall not descend into earth’s darksome soil; so earnest a prayer will I address to the bride of the nether world, the daughter of the goddess Demeter, giver of increase, to release his soul, and debtor, as she is to me, show that she honours the friends of Orpheus. Yet from henceforth will he be to me as one dead that seeth not the light; for never again will he meet me or see his mother’s face, but will lurk hidden in a cavern of the land with veins of silver, restored to life, no longer man but god, even as the prophet of Bacchus did dwell in a grotto ‘neath Pangaeus, a god whom his votaries honoured. Lightly now shall I feel the grief of the sea-goddess, for her son too must die. First then for thee we sisters must chaunt our dirge, and then for Achilles when Thetis mourns some day. Him shall not Pallas, thy slayer, save; so true the shaft Loxias keeps in his quiver for him. Ah me! the sorrows that a mother feels! the troubles of mortals! whoso fairly reckons you up will live and die a childless man and will have no children to bury.

[The Muse disappears]

Chorus

His mother now must see to this her son’s burial; but for thee, Hector, if thou wilt carry out any scheme, now is the time, for day is dawning.

Hector

Go, bid our comrades arm at once; yoke the horses; torch in hand ye must await the blast of the Etrurian trumpet; for I hope with this day’s mounting sun to pass beyond their lines and walls and fire ships of the Acheans, restoring freedom’s light once more to Troy.

Chorus

Obedience to our prince! let us array ourselves in mail, and go forth and these orders tell to our allies, and haply the god who is on our side will grant us victory.

The Suppliants

Characters in the Play

Aethra, mother of Theseus

Chorus of Argive mothers

Theseus, King of Athens

Adrastus, King of Argos

Herald, of Creon, King of Thebes

Messenger

Evadne, wife of Capaneus

Iphis, father of Evadne

Children of the slain chieftains

Athena

Guards, attendants, soldiers

[Scene: Before the temple of Demeter at Eleusis. On the steps of the great altar is seated Aethra. Around her, in the garb of suppliants, is the chorus of Argive mothers. Adrastus lies on the ground before the altar, crushed in abject grief. The children of the slain chieftains stand nearby. Around the altar are the attendants of the goddess.]

Aethra

O Demeter, guardian of this Eleusinian land, and ye servants of the goddess who attend her fane, grant happiness to me and my son Theseus, to the city of Athens and the country of Pittheus, wherein my father reared me, Aethra, in a happy home, and gave me in marriage to Aegeus, Pandion’s son, according to the oracle of Loxias. This prayer I make, when I behold these aged dames, who, leaving their homes in Argos, now throw themselves with suppliant branches at my knees in their awful trouble; for around the gates of Cadmus have they lost their seven noble sons, whom on a day Adrastus, king of Argos, led thither, eager to secure for exiled Polyneices, his son-in-law, a share in the heritage of Oedipus; so now their mothers would bury in the grave the dead, whom the spear hath slain, but the victors prevent them and will not allow them to take up the corpses, spurning Heaven’s laws. Here lies Adrastus on the ground with streaming eye, sharing with them the burden of their prayer to me, and bemoaning the havoc of the sword and the sorry fate of the warriors whom he led from their homes. And he doth urge me use entreaty, to persuade my son to take up the dead and help to bury them, either by winning words or force of arms, laying on my son and on Athens this task alone. Now it chanced, that I had left my house and come to offer sacrifice on behalf of the earth’s crop at this shrine, where first the fruitful corn showed its bristling shocks above the soil. And here at the holy altars of the twain goddesses, Demeter and her daughter, I wait, holding these sprays of foliage, a bond that bindeth not, in compassion for these childless mothers, hoary with age, and from reverence for the sacred fillets. To call Theseus hither is my herald to the city gone, that he may rid the land of that which grieveth them, or loose these my suppliant bonds, with pious observance of the gods’ will; for such as are discreet amongst women should in all cases invoke the aid of men.

Chorus [chanting]

At thy knees I fall, aged dame, and my old lips beseech thee; arise, rescue from the slain my children’s bodies, whose limbs, by death relaxed, are left a prey to savage mountain beasts,

Beholding the bitter tears which spring to my eyes and my old wrinkled skin torn by my hands; for what can I do else? who never laid out my children dead within my halls, nor now behold their tombs heaped up with earth.

Thou too, honoured lady, once a son didst bear, crowning thy lord’s marriage with fond joy; then share, O share with me thy mother’s feelings, in such measure as my sad heart grieves for my own dead sons; and persuade thy son, whose aid we implore, to go unto the river Ismenus, there to place within my hapless arms the bodies of my children, slain in their prime and left without a tomb.

Though not as piety enjoins, yet from sheer necessity I have come to the fire-crowned altars of the gods, falling on my knees with instant supplication, for my cause is just, and ‘tis in thy power, blest as thou art in thy children, to remove from me my woe; so in my sore distress I do beseech thee of my misery place in my hands my son’s dead body, that I may throw my arms about his hapless limbs.

[The attendants of the goddess take up the lament.] Behold a rivalry in sorrow! woe takes up the tale of woe; hark! thy servants beat their breasts. Come ye who join the mourners’ wail, come, O sympathetic band, to join the dance, which Hades honours; let the pearly nail be stained red, as it rends your cheeks, let your skin be streaked with gore; for honours rendered to the dead are credit to the living.

Sorrow’s charm doth drive me wild, insatiate, painful, endless, even as the trickling stream that gushes from some steep rock’s face; for ‘tis woman’s way to fall a-weeping o’er the cruel calamity of children dead. Ah me! would I could die and forget my anguish

[Theseus and his retinue enter.]

Theseus

What is this lamentation that I hear, this beating of the breast, these dirges for the dead, with cries that echo from this shrine? How fluttering fear disquiets me, lest haply my mother have gotted some mischance, in quest of whom I come, for she hath been long absent from home. Ha! what now? A strange sight challenges my speech; I see my aged mother sitting at the altar and stranger dames are with her, who in various note proclaim their woe; from aged eyes the piteous tear is starting to the ground, their hair is shorn, their robes are not the robes of joy. What means it, mother? ‘Tis thine to make it plain to me, mine to listen; yea, for I expect some tidings strange.

Aethra

My son, these are the mothers of those chieftains seven, who fell around the gates of Cadmus’ town. With suppliant boughs they keep me prisoner, as thou seest, in their midst.

Theseus

And who is yonder man, that moaneth piteously in the gateway?

Aethra

Adrastus, they inform me, king of Argos.

Theseus

Are those his children, those boys who stand round him?

Aethra

Not his, but the sons of the fallen slain.

Theseus

Why are they come to us, with suppliant hand outstretched?

Aethra

I know; but ‘tis for them to tell their story, my son.

Theseus

To thee, in thy mantle muffled, I address my inquiries; thy head, let lamentation be, and speak; for naught can be achieved save through the utterance of thy tongue.

Adrastus [rising]

Victorious prince of the Athenian realm, Theseus, to thee and to thy city I, a suppliant, come.

Theseus

What seekest thou? What need is thine?

Adrastus

Dost know how I did lead an expedition to its ruin?

Theseus

Assuredly; thou didst not pass through Hellas, all in silence.

Adrastus

There I lost the pick of Argos’ sons.

Theseus

These are the results of that unhappy war.

Adrastus

I went and craved their bodies from Thebes.

Theseus

Didst thou rely on heralds, Hermes’ servants, in order to bury them?

Adrastus

I did; and even then their slayers said me nay.

Theseus

Why, what say they to thy just request?

Adrastus

Say! Success makes them forget how to bear their fortune.

Theseus

Art come to me then for counsel? or wherefore?

Adrastus

With the wish that thou, O Theseus, shouldst recover the sons of the Argives.

Theseus

Where is your Argos now? were its vauntings all in vain?

Adrastus

Defeat and ruin are our lot. To thee for aid we come.

Theseus

Is this thy own private resolve, or the wish of all the city?

Adrastus

The sons of Danaus, one and all, implore thee to bury the dead.

Theseus

Why didst lead thy seven armies against Thebes?

Adrastus

To confer that favour on the husbands of my daughters twain.

Theseus

To which of the Argives didst thou give thy daughters in marriage?

Adrastus

I made no match for them with kinsmen of my family.

Theseus

What! didst give Argive maids to foreign lords?

Adrastus

Yea, to Tydeus, and to Polyneices, who was Theban-born

Theseus

What induced thee to select this alliance?

Adrastus

Dark riddles of Phoebus stole away my judgment.

Theseus

What said Apollo to determine the maidens’ marriage?

Adrastus

That I should give my daughters twain to a wild boar and a lion.

Theseus

How dost thou explain the message of the god?

Adrastus

One night came to my door two exiles.

Theseus

The name of each declare: thou art speaking of both together.

Adrastus

They fought together, Tydeus with Polyneices.

Theseus

Didst thou give thy daughters to them as to wild beasts?

Adrastus

Yea, for, as they fought, I likened them to those monsters twain.

Theseus

Why had they left the borders of their native land and come to thee?

Adrastus

Tydeus was exiled for the murder of a kinsman.

Theseus

Wherefore had the son of Oedipus left Thebes?

Adrastus

By reason of his father’s curse, not to spill his brother’s blood.

Theseus

Wise no doubt that voluntary exile.

Adrastus

But those who stayed at home were for injuring the absent.

Theseus

What! did brother rob brother of his inheritance?

Adrastus

To avenge this I set out; hence my ruin.

Theseus

Didst consult seers, and gaze into the flame of burnt-offerings?

Adrastus

Ah me! thou pressest on the very point wherein I most did fail.

Theseus

It seems thy going was not favoured by heaven.

Adrastus

Worse; I went in spite even of Amphiaraus.

Theseus

And so heaven lightly turned its face from thee.

Adrastus

I was carried away by the clamour of younger men.

Theseus

Thou didst favour courage instead of discretion.

Adrastus

True; and many a general owes defeat to that. O king of Athens, bravest of the sons of Hellas, I blush to throw myself upon the ground and clasp thy knees, I a grey-haired king, blest in days gone by; yet needs must yield to my misfortunes. I pray thee save the dead; have pity on my sorrows and on these, the mothers of the slain, whom hoary eld finds reft of their sons; yet they endured to journey hither and tread a foreign soil with aged tottering steps, bearing no embassy to Demeter’s mysteries; only seeking burial for their dead, which lot should have been theirs, e’en burial by the hands of sons still in their prime. And ‘tis wise in the rich to see the poor man’s poverty, and in the poor man to turn ambitious eyes toward the rich, that so he may himself indulge a longing for possessions; and they, whom fortune frowns not on, should gaze on misery’s presentment; likewise, who maketh songs should take a pleasure in their making; for if it be not so with him, he will in no wise avail to gladden others, if himself have sorrow in his home; nay, ‘tis not even right to expect it. Mayhap thou’lt say, “Why pass the land of Pelops o’er, and lay this toil on Athens?” This am I bound to declare. Sparta is cruel, her customs variable; the other states are small and weak. Thy city alone would be able to undertake this labour; for it turns an eye on suffering, and hath in thee a young and gallant king, for want whereof to lead their hosts states ere now have often perished.

Leader of the chorus

I too, Theseus, urge the same plea to thee; have pity on my hard fate.

Theseus

Full oft have I argued out this subject with others. For there are who say, there is more bad than good in human nature, to the which I hold contrary view, that good o’er bad predominates in man, for if it were not so, we should not exist. He hath my praise, whoe’er of gods brought us to live by rule from chaos and from brutishness, first by implanting reason, and next by giving us a tongue to declare our thoughts, so as to know the meaning of what is said, bestowing fruitful crops, and drops of rain from heaven to make them grow, wherewith to nourish earth’s fruits and to water her lap; and more than this, protection from the wintry storm, and means to ward from us the sun-god’s scorching heat; the art of sailing o’er the sea, so that we might exchange with one another whatso our countries lack. And where sight fails us and our knowledge is not sure, the seer foretells by gazing on the flame, by reading signs in folds of entrails, or by divination from the flight of birds. Are we not then to proud, when heaven hath made such preparation for our life, not to be content therewith? But our presumption seeks to lord it over heaven, and in the pride of our hearts we think we are wiser than the gods. Methinks thou art even of this number, a son of folly, seeing that thou, though obedient to Apollo’s oracle in giving thy daughters to strangers, as if gods really existed, yet hast hurt thy house by mingling the stream of its pure line with muddy waters; no! never should the wise man have joined the stock of just and unjust in one, but should have gotten prosperous friends for his family. For the deity, confusing their destinies, doth oft destroy by the sinner’s fate him who never sinned nor committed injustice. Thou didst lead all Argos forth to battle, though seers proclaimed the will of heaven, and then in scorn of them and in violent disregard of the gods hast ruined thy city, led away by younger men, such as court distinction, and add war to war unrighteously, destroying their fellow-citizens; one aspires to lead an army; another fain would seize the reins of power and work his wanton will; a third is bent on gain, careless of any ill the people thereby suffer. For there are three ranks of citizens; the rich, a useless set, that ever crave for more; the poor and destitute, fearful folk, that cherish envy more than is right, and shoot out grievous stings against the men who have aught, beguiled as they are by the eloquence of vicious leaders; while the class that is midmost of the three preserveth cities, observing such order as the state ordains. Shall I then become thy ally? What fair pretext should I urge before my countrymen? Depart in peace! For why shouldst thou, having been ill-advised thyself, seek to drag our fortune down?

Leader

He erred; but with the young men rests this error, while he may well be pardoned.

Adrastus

I did not choose thee, king, to judge my affliction, but came to thee to cure it; no! nor if in aught my fortunes prove me wrong, came I to the to punish or correct them, but to seek thy help. But if thou wilt not, must be content with thy decision; for how can I help it? Come, aged dames, away! Yet leave behind you here the woven leaves of pale green foliage, calling to witness heaven and earth, Demeter, that fire-bearing goddess, and the sun-god’s light, that our prayers to heaven availed us naught.

Chorus [singing]

...who was Pelops’ son, and we are of the land of Pelops and share with thee the blood of ancestors. What art thou doing? wilt thou betray these suppliant symbols, and banish from thy land these aged women without the boon they should obtain? Do not so; e’en the wild beast finds a refuge in the rock, the slave in the altars of the gods, and a state when tempest-tossed cowers to its neighbour’s shelter; for naught in this life of man is blest unto its end.

Rise, hapless one, from the sacred floor of Persephone; rise, clasp him by the knees and implore him, “O recover the bodies of our dead sons, the children that I lost-ah, woe is me!-beneath the walls of Cadmus’ town.” Ah me! ah me! Take me by the hand, poor aged sufferer that I am, support and guide and raise me up. By thy beard, kind friend, glory of Hellas, I do beseech thee, as I clasp thy knees and hands in my misery; O pity me as I entreat for my sons with my tale of wretched woe, like some beggar; nor let my sons lie there unburied in the land of Cadmus, glad prey for beasts, whilst thou art in thy prime, I implore thee. See the teardrop tremble in my eye, as thus I throw me at thy knees to win my children burial.

Theseus

Mother mine, why weepest thou, drawing o’er thine eyes thy veil? Is it because thou didst hear their piteous lamentations? To my own heart it goes. Raise thy silvered head, weep not where thou sittest at the holy altar of Demeter.

Aethra

Ah woe!

Theseus

‘Tis not for thee their sorrows to lament.

Aethra

Ye hapless dames!

Theseus

Thou art not of their company.

Aethra

May I a scheme declare, my son, that shall add to thy glory and the state’s?

Theseus

Yea, for oft even from women’s lips issue wise counsels.

Aethra

Yet the word, that lurks within my heart, makes me hesitate.

Theseus

Shame! to hide from friends good counsel.

Aethra

Nay then, I will not hold my peace to blame myself hereafter for having now kept silence to my shame, nor will I forego my honourable proposal, from the common fear that it is useless for women to give good advice. First, my son, I exhort thee give good heed to heaven’s will, lest from slighting it thou suffer shipwreck; for in this one single point thou failest, though well-advised in all else. Further, I would have patiently endured, had it not been my duty to venture somewhat for injured folk; and this, my son, it is that brings thee now thy honour, and causes me no fear to urge that thou shouldst use thy power to make men of violence, who prevent the dead from receiving their meed of burial and funeral rites, perform this bounden duty, and check those who would confound the customs of all Hellas; for this it is that holds men’s states together,-strict observance of the laws. And some, no doubt, will say, ‘twas cowardice made thee stand aloof in terror, when thou mightest have won for thy city a crown of glory, and, though thou didst encounter a savage swine, labouring for a sorry task, yet when the time came for thee to face the helmet and pointed spear, and do thy best, thou wert found to be coward. Nay! do not so if thou be son of mine. Dost see how fiercely thy country looks on its revilers when they mock her for want of counsel? Yea, for in her toils she groweth greater. But states, whose policy is dark and cautious, have their sight darkened by their carefulness. My son, wilt thou not go succour the dead and these poor women in their need? have no fears for thee, starting as thou dost with right upon thy side; and although I see the prosperity of Cadmus’ folk, still am I confident they will throw a different die; for the deity reverses all things again.

Leader of the chorus

Ah! best of friends, right well hast thou pleaded for me and for Adrastus, and hence my joy is doubled.

Theseus

Mother, the words that I have spoken are his fair deserts, and I have declared my opinion of the counsels that ruined him; yet do I perceive the truth of thy warning to me, that it ill suits my character to shun dangers. For by a long and glorious career have I displayed this my habit among Hellenes, of ever punishing the wicked. Wherefore I cannot refuse toil. For what will spiteful tongues say of me, when thou, my mother, who more than all others fearest for my safety, bidst me undertake this enterprise? Yea, I will go about this business and rescue the dead by words persuasive; or, failing that, the spear forthwith shall decide this issue, nor will heaven grudge me this. But I require the whole city’s sanction also, which my mere wish will ensure; still by communicating the proposal to them I shall find the people better disposed. For them I made supreme, when I set this city free, by giving all an equal vote. So I will take Adrastus as a text for what I have to say and go to their assembly, and when have won them to these views, I will return hither, after collecting a picked band of young Athenians; and then remaining under arms I will send a message to Creon, begging the bodies of the dead. But do ye, aged ladies, remove from my mother your holy wreaths, that I may take her by the hand and conduct her to the house of Aegeus; for a wretched son is he who rewards not his parents by service; for, when he hath conferred on them the best he hath, he in his turn from his own sons receives all such service as he gave to them.

[Aethra leaves the altar and departs.]

Chorus [singing]

O Argos, home of steeds, my native land! ye have heard with your ears these words, the king’s pious will toward the gods in the sight of great Pelasgia and throughout Argos.

May he reach the goal! yea, and triumph o’er my sorrows, rescuing the gory corpse, the mother’s idol and making the land of Inachus his friend by helping her.

For pious toil is a fair ornament to cities, and carries with it grace that never wastes away. What will the city decide, I wonder? Will it conclude a friendly truce with me, and shall we obtain burial for our sons?

Help, O help, city of Pallas, the mother’s cause, that so they may not pollute the laws of all mankind. Thou, I know, dost reverence right, and to injustice dealest out defeat, a protection at all times to the afflicted.

[Theseus addresses one of his own heralds. As he speaks, the Herald from King Creon of Thebes enters.]

Theseus

Forasmuch as with this thy art thou hast ever served the state and me by carrying my proclamations far and wide, so now cross Asopus and the waters of Ismenus, and declare this message to the haughty king of the Cadmeans: “Theseus, thy neighbour, one who well may win the boon he craves, begs as a favour thy permission to bury the dead, winning to thyself thereby the love of all the Erechtheidae.” And if they will acquiesce, come back again, but if they hearken not, thy second message runneth thus, they may expect my warrior host; for at the sacred fount of Callichorus my army camps in readiness and is being reviewed. Moreover, the city gladly of its own accord undertook this enterprise, when it perceived my wish. Ha! who comes hither to interrupt my speech? A Theban herald, so it seems, though I am not sure thereof. Stay; haply he may save the thy trouble. For by his coming he meets my purpose half-way.

Theban herald

Who is the despot of this land? To whom must I announce the message of Creon, who rules o’er the land of Cadmus, since Eteocles was slain by the hand of his brother Polyneices, at the sevenfold gates of Thebes?

Theseus

Sir stranger, thou hast made a false beginning to thy speech, in seeking here a despot. For this city is not ruled by one man, but is free. The people rule in succession year by year, allowing no preference to wealth, but the poor man shares equally with the rich.

Theban herald

Thou givest me here an advantage, as it might be in a game of draughts; for the city, whence I come, is ruled by one man only, not by the mob; none there puffs up the citizens with specious words, and for his own advantage twists them this way or that,-one moment dear to them and lavish of his favours, the next a bane to all; and yet by fresh calumnies of others he hides his former failures and escapes punishment. Besides, how shall the people, if it cannot form true judgments, be able rightly to direct the state? Nay, ‘tis time, not haste, that affords a better understanding. A poor hind, granted be he not all unschooled, would still be unable from his toil to give his mind to politics. Verily the better sort count it no healthy sign when the worthless man obtains a reputation by beguiling with words the populace, though aforetime he was naught.

Theseus

This herald is a clever fellow, a dabbler in the art of talk. But since thou hast thus entered the lists with me, listen awhile, for ‘twas thou didst challenge a discussion. Naught is more hostile to a city than a despot; where he is, there are first no laws common to all, but one man is tyrant, in whose keeping and in his alone the law resides, and in that case equality is at an end. But when the laws are written down, rich and poor alike have equal justice, and it is open to the weaker to use the same language to the prosperous when he is reviled by him, and the weaker prevails over the stronger if he have justice on his side. Freedom’s mark is also seen in this: “Who hath wholesome counsel to declare unto the state?” And he who chooses to do so gains renown, while he, who hath no wish, remains silent. What greater equality can there be in a city? Again, where the people are absolute rulers of the land, they rejoice in having reserve of youthful citizens, while a king counts this a hostile element, and strives to slay the leading men, all such as he deems discreet, for he feareth for his power. How then can a city remain stable, where one cuts short all enterprise and mows down the young like meadow-flowers in spring-time? What boots it to acquire wealth and livelihood for children, merely to add to the tyrant’s substance by one’s toil? Why train up virgin daughters virtuously in our homes to gratify a tyrant’s whim, whenso he will, and cause tears to those who rear them? May my life end if ever my children are to be wedded by violence! This bolt I launch in answer to thy words. Now say, why art thou come? what needest thou of this land? Had not thy city sent thee, to thy cost hadst thou come with thy outrageous utterances; for it is the herald’s duty to tell the message he is bidden and hie him back in haste. Henceforth let Creon send to my city some other messenger less talkative than thee.

Leader of the chorus

Look you! how insolent the villains are, when Fortune is kind to them, just as if it would be well with them for ever.

Theban herald

Now will I speak. On these disputed points hold thou this view, but the contrary. So I and all the people of Cadmus forbid thee to admit Adrastus to this land, but if he is here, drive him forth in disregard of the holy suppliant bough he bears, ere sinks yon blazing sun, and attempt not violently to take up the dead, seeing thou hast naught to do with the city of Argos. And if thou wilt hearken to me, thou shalt bring thy barque of state into port unharmed by the billows; but if not, fierce shall the surge of battle be, that we and our allies shall raise. Take good thought, nor, angered at my words, because forsooth thou rulest thy city with freedom, return a vaunting answer from thy feebler means. Hope is man’s curse; many a state hath it involved in strife, by leading them into excessive rage. For whenso the city has to vote on the question of war, no man ever takes his own death into account, but shifts this misfortune on to his neighbour; but if death had been before their eyes when they were giving their votes, Hellas would ne’er have rushed to her doom in mad desire for battle. And yet each man amongst us knows which of the two to prefer, the good or ill, and how much better peace is for mankind than war,-peace, the Muses’ chiefest friend, the foe of sorrow, whose joy is in glad throngs of children, and its delight in prosperity. These are the blessings we cast away and wickedly embark on war, man enslaving his weaker brother, and cities following suit. Now thou art helping our foes even after death, trying to rescue and bury those whom their own acts of insolence have ruined. Verily then it would seem Capaneus was unjustly blasted by the thunderbolt and charred upon the ladder he had raised against our gates, swearing he would sack our town, whether the god would or no; nor should the yawning earth have snatched away the seer, opening wide her mouth to take his chariot and its horses in, nor should the other chieftains be stretched at our gates, their skeletons to atoms crushed ‘neath boulders. Either boast thy wit transcendeth that of Zeus, or else allow that gods are right to slay the ungodly. The wise should love their children first, next their parents and country, whose fortunes it behoves them to increase rather than break down. Rashness in a leader, as in a pilot, causeth shipwreck; who knoweth when to be quiet is a wise man. Yea and this too is bravery, even forethought.

Leader

The punishment Zeus hath inflicted was surely enough; there was no need to heap this wanton insult on us.

Adrastus

Abandoned wretch!

Theseus

Peace, Adrastus! say no more; set not thy words before mine, for ‘tis not to thee this fellow is come with his message, but to me, and I must answer him. Thy first assertion will I answer first: I am not aware that Creon is my lord and master, or that his power outweigheth mine, that so he should compel Athens to act on this wise; nay! for then would the tide of time have to flow backward, if we are to be ordered, as he thinks. ‘Tis not I who choose this war, seeing that I did not even join these warriors to go unto the land of Cadmus; but still I claim to bury the fallen dead, not injuring any state nor yet introducing murderous strife, but preserving the law of all Hellas. What is not well in this? If ye suffered aught from the Argives-lo! they are dead; ye took a splendid vengeance on your foes and covered them with shame, and now your right is at an end. Let the dead now be buried in the earth, and each element return to the place from whence it came to the body, the breath to the air, the body to the ground; for in no wise did we get it for our own, but to live our life in, and after that its mother earth must take it back again. Dost think ‘tis Argos thou art injuring in refusing burial to the dead? Nay! all Hellas shares herein, if a man rob the dead of their due and keep them from the tomb; for, if this law be enacted, it will strike dismay into the stoutest hearts. And art thou come to cast dire threats at me while thy own folk are afraid of giving burial to the dead? What is your fear? Think you they will undermine your land in their graves, or that they will beget children in the womb of earth, from whom shall rise an avenger? A silly waste of words, in truth it was, to show your fear of paltry groundless terrors. Go, triflers, learn the lesson of human misery; our life is made up of struggles; some men there be that find their fortune soon, others have to wait, while some at once are blest. Fortune lives a dainty life; to her the wretched pays his court and homage to win her smile; her likewise doth the prosperous man extol, for fear the favouring gale may leave him. These lessons should we take to heart, to bear with moderation, free from wrath, our wrongs, and do naught to hurt a whole city. What then? Let us, who will the pious deed perform, bury the corpses of the slain. Else is the issue clear; I will go and bury them by force. For never shall it be proclaimed through Hellas that heaven’s ancient law was set at naught, when it devolved on me and the city of Pandion.

Leader

Be of good cheer; for if thou preserve the light of justice, thou shalt escape many a charge that men might urge.

Theban herald

Wilt thou that I sum up in brief all thou wouldst say?

Theseus

Say what thou wilt; for thou art not silent as it is.

Theban herald

Thou shalt never take the sons of Argos from our land.

Theseus

Hear, then, my answer too to that, if so thou wilt.

Theban herald

I will hear thee; not that I wish it, but I must give thee thy turn.

Theseus

I will bury the dead, when from Asopus’ land I have removed them.

Theban herald

First must thou adventure somewhat in the front of war.

Theseus

Many an enterprise and of a different kind have I ere this endured.

Theban herald

Wert thou then begotten of thy sire to cope with every foe?

Theseus

Ay, with all wanton villains; virtue I punish not.

Theban herald

To meddle is aye thy wont and thy city’s too.

Theseus

Hence her enterprise on many a field hath won her many blessings.

Theban herald

Come then, that the warriors of the dragon-crop may catch thee in our city.

Theseus

What furious warrior-host could spring from dragon’s seed?

Theban herald

Thou shalt learn that to thy cost. As yet thou art young and rash.

Theseus

Thy boastful speech stirs not my heart at all to rage. Yet get thee gone from my land, taking with thee the idle words thou broughtest; for we are making no advance. [The Theban herald withdraws.] ‘Tis time for all to start, each stout footman, and whoso mounts the car; ‘tis time the bit, dripping with foam, should urge the charger on toward the land of Cadmus. For I will march in person to the seven gates thereof with the sharp sword in my hand, and be myself my herald. But thee, Adrastus, I bid stay, nor blend with mine thy fortunes, for I will take my own good star to lead my host, a chieftain famed in famous deeds of arms. One thing alone I need, the favour of all gods that reverence right, for the presence of these things insures victory. For their valour availeth men naught, unless they have the god’s goodwill.

[Theseus and his retinue depart. The following lines between the semi-choruses are chanted responsively.]

First semi-chorus

Unhappy mothers of those hapless chiefs! How wildly in my heart pale fear stirs up alarm!

Second semi-chorus

What is this new cry thou utterest?

First semi-chorus

I fear the issue of the strife, whereto the hosts of Pallas march.

Second semi-chorus

Dost speak of issues of the sword, or interchange of words?

First semi-chorus

That last were gain indeed; but if the carnage of battle, fighting, and the noise of beaten breasts again be heard in the land, what, alas! will be said of me, who am the cause thereof?

Second semi-chorus

Yet may fate again bring low the brilliant victor; ‘tis this brave thought that twines about my heart.

First semi-chorus

Thou speak’st of the gods as if they were just.

Second semi-chorus

For who but they allot whate’er betides?

First semi-chorus

I see much at variance in their dealings with men.

Second semi-chorus

The former fear hath warped thy judgment. Vengeance calls vengeance forth; slaughter calls for slaughter, but the gods give respite from affliction, holding in their own hands each thing’s allotted end.

First semi-chorus

Would I could reach yon plains with turrets crowned, leaving Callichorus, fountain of the goddess!

Second semi-chorus

O that some god would give me wings to fly to the city of rivers twain!

First semi-chorus

So might’st thou see and know the fortunes of thy friends.

Second semi-chorus

What fate, what issue there awaits the valiant monarch of this land?

First semi-chorus

Once more do we invoke the gods we called upon before; yea, in our fear this is our first and chiefest trust.

Second semi-chorus

O Zeus, father to the child the heifer-mother bore in days long past, that daughter of Inachus!

First semi-chorus

O be gracious, I pray, and champion this city!

Second semi-chorus

‘Tis thy own darling, thy own settler in the city of Argos that I am striving from outrage to rescue for the funeral pyre.

[A Messenger enters.]

Messenger

Ladies, I bring you tidings of great joy, myself escaped-for I was taken prisoner in the battle which cost those chieftains seven their lives near Dirce’s fount — to bear the news of Theseus’ victory. But I will save thee tedious questioning; I was the servant of Capaneus, whom Zeus with scorching bolt to ashes burnt.

Leader of the chorus

Friend of friends, fair thy news of thy own return, nor less the news about Theseus; and if the host of Athens, too, is safe, welcome will all thy message be.

Messenger

‘Tis safe, and all hath happened as I would it had befallen Adrastus and his Argives, whom from Inachus he led, to march against the city of the Cadmeans.

Leader

How did the son of Aegeus and his fellow-warriors raise their trophy to Zeus? Tell us, for thou wert there and canst gladden us who were not.

Messenger

Bright shone the sun, one levelled line of light, upon the world, as by Electra’s gate I stood to watch, from a turret with a far outlook. And lo! I saw the host in three divisions, deploying its mail-clad warriors on the high ground by the banks of Ismenus; this last I heard; and with them was the king himself, famous son of Aegeus; his own men, natives of old Cecropia, were ranged upon the right; while on the left, hard by the fountain of Ares, were the dwellers by the sea, harnessed spearmen they; on either wing were posted cavalry, in equal numbers, and chariots were stationed in the shelter of Amphion’s holy tomb. Meantime, the folk of Cadmus set themselves before the walls, placing in the rear the bodies for which they fought. Horse to horse, and car to car stood ranged. Then did the herald of Theseus cry aloud to all: “Be still, ye folk! hush, ye ranks of Cadmus, hearken! we are come to fetch the bodies of the slain, wishing to bury them in observance of the universal law of Hellas; no wish have we to lengthen out the slaughter.” Not a word would Creon let his herald answer back, but there he stood in silence under arms. Then did the drivers of the four-horse cars begin the fray; on, past each other they drave their chariots, bringing the warriors at their sides up into line. Some fought with swords, some wheeled the horses back to the fray again for those they drove. Now when Phorbas, who captained the cavalry of the Erechtheidae, saw the thronging chariots, he and they who had the charge of the Theban horse met hand to hand, and by turns were victors and vanquished. The many horrors happening there I saw, not merely heard about, for I was at the spot where the chariots and their riders met and fought, but which to tell of first I know not, — the clouds of dust that mounted to the sky, the warriors tangled in the reins and dragged this way and that, the streams of crimson gore, when men fell dead, or when, from shattered chariot-seats, they tumbled headlong to the ground, and, amid the splinters of their cars, gave up the ghost. But Creon, when he marked our cavalry’s success on one wing, caught up a shield and rushed into the fray, ere that despondency should seize his men; but not for that did Theseus recoil in fear; no! snatching up at once his glittering harnes he hied him on. And the twain, clashing their shields together as they met in the midst of the assembled host, were dealing death and courting it, shouting loudly each to his fellow the battle-cry: “Slay, and with thy spear strike home against the sons of Erechtheus.” Fierce foes to cope with were the warriors whom the dragon’s teeth to manhood reared; so fierce, they broke our left wing, albeit theirs was routed by our right and put to flight, so that the struggle was evenly balanced. Here again our chief deserved all praise, for this success was not the only one he gained; no! next he sought that part of his army which was wavering; and loud he called to them, that the earth rang again, “My sons, if ye cannot restrain the earth-born warriors’ stubborn spear, the cause of Pallas is lost.” His word inspired new courage in all the Danaid host. Therewith himself did seize a fearsome mace, weapon of Epidaurian warfare, and swung it to and fro, and with that club, as with a sickle, he shore off necks and heads and helmets thereupon. Scarce even then they turned themselves to fly. I cried aloud for joy, and danced and clapped my hands; while to the gates they ran. Throughout the town echoed the shrieks of young and old, as they crowded the temples in terror. But Theseus, when he might have come inside the walls, held back his men, for he had not come, said he, to sack the town, but to ask for the bodies of the dead. Such the general men should choose, one who shows his bravery in danger, yet hates the pride of those that in their hour of fortune lose the bliss they might have enjoyed, through seeking to scale the ladder’s topmost step.

Leader

Now do I believe in the gods after seeing this unexpected day, and feel my woes are lighter now that these have paid their penalty.

Adrastus

O Zeus, why do men assert the wisdom of the wretched human race? On thee we all depend, and all we do is only what thou listest. We thought our Argos irresistible, ourselves a young and lusty host, and so when Eteocles was for making terms, in spite of his fair offer we would not accept them, and so we perished. Then in their turn those foolish folk of Cadmus, to fortune raised, like some beggar with his newly-gotten wealth, waxed wanton, and, waxing so, were ruined in their turn. Ye foolish sons of men! who strain your bow like men who shoot beyond their mark, and only by suffering many evils as ye deserve, though deaf to friends, yet yield to circumstances; ye cities likewise, though ye might by parley end your ills, yet ye choose the sword instead of reason to settle all disputes. But wherefore these reflections? This I fain would learn, the way thou didst escape; and after that I will ask thee of the rest.

Messenger

During the uproar which prevailed in the city owing to the battle, I passed the gates, just as the host had entered them.

Adrastus

Are ye bringing the bodies, for the which the strife arose?

Messenger

Ay, each of the seven chiefs who led their famous hosts.

Adrastus

What sayest thou? the rest who fell-say, where are they?

Messenger

They have found burial in the dells of Cithaeron.

Adrastus

On this or that side of the mount? And who did bury them?

Messenger

Theseus buried them ‘neath the shadow of Eleutherae’s cliff.

Adrastus

Where didst thou leave the dead he hath not buried?

Messenger

Not far away; earnest haste makes every goal look close.

Adrastus

No doubt in sorrow slaves would gather them from the carnage.

Messenger

Slaves! not one of them was set to do this toil.

[A speech belonging to Adrastus has been lost.]

Messenger

Thou wouldst say so, hadst thou been there to see his loving tendance of the dead.

Adrastus

Did he himself wash the bloody wounds of the hapless youths?

Messenger

Ay, and strewed their biers and wrapped them in their shrouds.

Adrastus

An awful burden this, involving some disgrace.

Messenger

Why, what disgrace to men are their fellows’ sorrows?

Adrastus

Ah me! how much rather had I died with them!

Messenger

‘Tis vain to weep and move to tears these women.

Adrastus

Methinks ‘tis they who give the lesson. Enough of that! My hands lift at meeting of the dead, and pour forth a tearful dirge to Hades, calling on my friends, whose loss I mourn in wretched solitude; for this one thing, when once ‘tis spent, man cannot recover, the breath of life, though he knoweth ways to get his wealth again.

Chorus [singing]

Joy is here and sorrow too, — for the state fair fame, and for our captains double meed of honour. Bitter for me it is to see the limbs of my dead sons, and yet a welcome sight withal, because I shall behold the unexpected day after sorrow’s cup was full.

Would that Father Time had kept me unwed from my youth up e’en till now when I am old! What need had I of children? Methinks I should not have suffered overmuch, had I never borne the marriage-yoke; but now I have my sorrow full in view, the loss of children dear.

Lo! I see the bodies of the fallen youths. Woe is me! would I could join these children in their death and descend to Hades with them!

[Theseus and his soldiers enter, carrying the corpses of the slain chieftains. Adrastus and the Chorus chant the lament responsively.]

Adrastus

Mothers, raise the wail for the dead departed; cry in answer when ye hear my note of woe.

Chorus

My sons, my sons! O bitter words for loving mothers to address to you! To thee, my lifeless child, I call.

Adrastus

Woe! woe!

Chorus

Ah me, my sufferings!

Adrastus

Alas! We have endured, alas! —

Chorus

Sorrows most grievous.

Adrastus

O citizens of Argos! do ye not behold my fate?

Chorus

They see thee, and me the hapless mother, reft of her children.

Adrastus

Bring near the blood-boltered corpses of those hapless chiefs, foully slain by foes unworthy, with whom lay the decision of the contest.

Chorus

Let me embrace and hold my children to my bosom in my enfolding arms.

Adrastus

There, there! thou hast —

Chorus

Sorrows heavy enough to bear.

Adrastus

Ah me!

Chorus

Thy groans mingle with those of their parents.

Adrastus

Hear me.

Chorus

O’er both of us thou dost lament.

Adrastus

Would God the Theban ranks had laid me dead in the dust!

Chorus

Oh that I had ne’er been wedded to a husband!

Adrastus

Ah! hapless mothers, behold this sea of troubles!

Chorus

Our nails have ploughed our cheeks in furrows, and o’er our heads have we strewn ashes.

Adrastus

Ah me! ah me! Oh that earth’s floor would swallow me, or the whirlwind snatch me away, or Zeus’s flaming bolt descend upon my head!

Chorus

Bitter the marriages thou didst witness, bitter the oracle of Phoebus! The curse of Oedipus, fraught with sorrow, after desolating his house, is come on thee.

Theseus

I meant to question thee when thou wert venting thy lamentations to the host, but I will let it pass; yet, though I dropped the matter then and left it alone, I now do ask Adrastus, “Of what lineage sprang those youths, to shine so bright in chivalry?” Tell it to our younger citizens of thy fuller wisdom, for thou art skilled to know. Myself beheld their daring deeds, too high for words to tell, whereby they thought to capture Thebes. One question will I spare thee, lest I provoke thy laughter; the foe that each of them encountered in the fray, the spear from which each received his death-wound. These be idle tales alike for those who hear or him who speaks, that any man amid the fray, when clouds of darts are hurtling before his eyes, should declare for certain who each champion is. I could not ask such questions, nor yet believe those who dare assert the like; for when a man is face to face with the foe, he scarce can see even that which ‘tis his bounden duty to observe.

Adrastus

Hearken then. For in giving this task to me thou findest a willing eulogist of friends, whose praise I would declare in all truth and sincerity. Dost see yon corpse by Zeus’s bolt transfixed? That is Capaneus; though he had ample wealth, yet was he the last to boast of his prosperity; nor would he ever vaunt himself above a poorer neighbour, but shunned the man whose sumptuous board had puffed him up too high and made him scorn mere competence, for he held that virtue lies not in greedy gluttony, but that moderate means suffice. True friend was he, alike to present or to absent friends the same; of such the number is not great. His was guileless character, a courteous address, that left no promise unperformed either towards his own household or his fellow-citizens. The next I name is Eteoclus; a master he of other kinds of excellence; young, nor richly dowered with store, yet high in honour in the Argive land. And though his friends oft offered gifts of gold, he would not have it in his house, to make his character its slave by taking wealth’s yoke upon him. Not his city, but those that sinned against her did he hate, for a city is no wise to be blamed if it get an evil name by reason of an evil governor. Such another was Hippomedon, third of all this band; from his very boyhood he refrained from turning towards the allurements of the Muses, to lead life of ease; his home was in the fields, and gladly would he school his nature to hardships with a view to manliness, aye hasting to the chase, rejoicing in his steeds or straining of his bow, because he would make himself of use unto his state. Next behold the huntress Atalanta’s son, Parthenopaeus, a youth of peerless beauty; from Arcady he came even to the streams of Inachus, and in Argos spent his boyhood. There, when he grew to man’s estate, first, as is the duty of strangers settled in another land, he showed no pique or jealousy against the state, became no quibbler, chiefest source of annoyance citizen or stranger can give, but took his stand amid the host, and fought for Argos as he were her own son, glad at heart whenso the city prospered, deeply grieved if e’er reverses came; many a lover though he had midst men and maids, yet was he careful to avoid offence. Of Tydeus next the lofty praise I will express in brief; no brilliant spokesman he, but a clever craftsman in the art of war, with many a shrewd device; inferior in judgment to his brother Meleager, yet through his warrior skill lending his name to equal praise, for he had found in arms a perfect science; his was an ambitious nature, a spirit rich in store of deeds, with words less fully dowered. From this account then wonder not, Theseus, that they dared to die before the towers; for noble nurture carries honour with it, and every man, when once he hath practised virtue, scorns the name of villain. Courage may be learnt, for even a babe doth learn to speak and hear things it cannot comprehend; and whatso’er a child hath learnt, this it is his wont to treasure up till he is old. So train up your children in a virtuous way.

Chorus [chanting]

Alas! my son, to sorrow I bare thee and carried thee within my womb, enduring the pangs of travail; but now Hades takes the fruit of all my hapless toil, and I that had a son am left, ah me! with none to nurse my age.

Theseus

As for the noble son of Oecleus, him, while yet he lived, the gods snatched hence to the bowels of the earth, and his chariot too, manifestly blessing him; while I myself may truthfully tell the praises of the son of Oedipus, that is, Polyneices, for he was my guest-friend ere he left the town of Cadmus and crossed to Argos in voluntary exile. But dost thou know what I would have thee do in this?

Adrastus

I know naught save this, — to yield obedience to thy hests.

Theseus

As for yon Capaneus, stricken by the bolt of Zeus —

Adrastus

Wilt bury him apart as a consecrated corpse?

Theseus

Even so; but all the rest on one funeral pyre.

Adrastus

Where wilt thou set the tomb apart for him?

Theseus

Here near this temple have I builded him a sepulchre.

Adrastus

Thy thralls forthwith must undertake this toil.

Theseus

Myself will look to those others; let the biers advance.

Adrastus

Approach your sons, unhappy mothers.

Theseus

This thy proposal, Adrastus, is anything but good.

Adrastus

Must not the mothers touch their sons?

Theseus

It would kill them to see how they are altered.

Adrastus

‘Tis bitter, truly, to see the dead even at the moment of death.

Theseus

Why then wilt thou add fresh grief to them?

Adrastus

Thou art right. Ye needs must patiently abide, for the words of Theseus are good. But when we have committed them unto the flames, ye shall collect their bones. O wretched sons of men! Why do ye get you weapons and bring slaughter on one another? Cease therefrom, give o’er your toiling, and in mutual peace keep safe your cities. Short is the span of life, so ‘twere best to run its course as lightly as we may, from trouble free.

[The corpses, followed by the Children of the slain chieftains, are carried off to the pyre which is kindled within the sight of the persons on the stage.]

Chorus [singing]

No more a happy mother I, with children blest; no more I share, among Argive women, who have sons, their happy lot; nor any more will Artemis in the hour of travail kindly greet these childless mothers. Most dreary is my life, and like some wandering cloud drift before the howling blast.

The seven noblest sons in Argos once we had, we seven hapless mothers; but now my sons are dead, I have no child, and on me steals old age in piteous wise, nor ‘mongst the dead nor ‘mongst the living do I count myself, having as it were a lot apart from these.

Tears alone are left me; in my house sad memories of my son are stored; mournful tresses shorn from his head, chaplets that he wore, libations for the dead departed, and songs, but not such as golden-haired Apollo welcometh; and when I wake to weep, my tears will ever drench the folds of my robe upon my bosom. Ah! there I see the sepulchre ready e’en now for Capaneus, his consecrated tomb, and the votive offerings Theseus gives unto the dead outside the shrine, and nigh yon lightning-smitten chief I see his noble bride, Evadne, daughter of King Iphis. Wherefore stands she on the towering rock, which o’ertops this temple, advancing along yon path?

[Evadne is seen on a rock which overhangs the burning pyre. She is dressed as though for a festival.]

Evadne [chanting]

What light, what radiancy did the sun-god’s car dart forth, and the moon athwart the firmament, while round her in the gloom swift stars careered, in the day that the city of Argos raised the stately chant of joy at my wedding, in honour of my marriage with mail-clad Capaneus? Now from my home in frantic haste with frenzied mind rush to join thee, seeking to share with thee the fire’s bright flame and the self-same tomb, to rid me of my weary life in Hades’ halls, and of the pains of life; yea, for ‘tis the sweetest end to share the death of those we love, if only fate will sanction it.

Leader of the chorus

Behold yon pyre, which thou art overlooking, nigh thereto, set apart for Zeus! There is thy husband’s body, vanquished by the blazing bolt.

Evadne [chanting]

Life’s goal I now behold from my station here; may fortune aid me in my headlong leap from this rock in honour’s cause, down into the fire below. to mix my ashes in the ruddy blaze with my husband’s, to lay me side by side with him, there in the couch of Persephone; for ne’er will to save my life, prove untrue to thee where thou liest in thy grave. Away with life and marriage too! Oh! may my children live to see the dawn of a fairer, happier wedding-day in Argos! May loyalty inspire the husband’s heart, his nature fusing with his wife’s!

Leader

Lo! the aged Iphis, thy father, draweth nigh to hear thy startling speech, which yet he knows not and will grieve to learn.

[Iphis enters.]

Iphis

Unhappy child! lo! I am come, a poor old man, with twofold sorrow in my house to mourn, that I may carry to his native land the corpse of my son Eteoclus, slain by the Theban spear, and further in quest of my daughter who rushed headlong from the house, for she was the wife of Capaneus and longed with him to die. Ere this she was well guarded in my house, but, when I took the watch away in the present troubles, she escaped. But I feel sure that she is here; tell me if ye have seen her.

Evadne

Why question them? Lo, here upon the rock, father, o’er the pyre of Capaneus, like some bird I hover lightly, in my wretchedness.

Iphis

What wind hath blown thee hither, child? Whither thy journey? Why didst thou pass the threshold of my house and seek this land?

Evadne

It would but anger thee to hear what I intend, and so I fain would keep thee ignorant, my father.

Iphis

What hath not thy own father a right to know?

Evadne

Thou wouldst not wisely judge my purpose.

Iphis

Why dost thou deck thyself in that apparel?

Evadne

A purport strange this robe conveys, father.

Iphis

Thou hast no look of mourning for thy lord.

Evadne

No, the reason why I thus am decked is strange, maybe.

Iphis

Dost thou in such garb appear before a funeral-pyre?

Evadne

Yea, for hither it is I come to take the meed of victory.

Iphis

“Victory!” What victory? This would I learn of thee.

Evadne

A victory o’er all women on whom the sun looks down.

Iphis

In Athena’s handiwork or in prudent counsel?

Evadne

In bravery; for I will lay me down and die with my lord.

Iphis

What dost thou say? What is this silly riddle thou propoundest?

Evadne

To yonder pyre where lies dead Capaneus, I will leap down.

Iphis

My daughter, speak not thus before the multitude!

Evadne

The very thing I wish, that every Argive should learn it.

Iphis

Nay, I will ne’er consent to let thee do this deed.

Evadne

‘Tis all one; thou shalt never catch me in thy grasp. Lo! I cast me down, no joy to thee, but to myself and to my husband blazing on the pyre with me.

[She leaps into the pyre.]

Chorus [chanting]

O lady, thou hast done a fearful deed!

Iphis

Ah me! I am undone, ye dames of Argos!

Chorus [chanting]

Alack, alack! a cruel blow is this to thee, but thou must yet witness, poor wretch, the full horror of this deed.

Iphis

A more unhappy wretch than me ye could not find.

Chorus [chanting]

Woe for thee, unhappy man! Thou, old sir, hast been made partaker in the fortune of Oedipus, thou and my poor city too.

Iphis

Ah, why are mortal men denied this boon, to live their youth twice o’er, and twice in turn to reach old age? If aught goes wrong within our homes, we set it right by judgment more maturely formed, but our life we may not so correct. Now if we had a second spell of youth and age, this double term of life would let us then correct each previous slip. For I, seeing others blest with children, longed to have them too, and found my ruin in that wish. Whereas if I had had present experience, and by a father’s light had learnt how cruel a thing it is to be bereft of children, never should have fallen on such evil days as these, — I who did beget a brave young son, proud parent that I was, and after all am now bereft of him. Enough of this. What remains for such a hapless wretch as me? Shall I to my home, there to see its utter desolation and the blank within my life? or shall to the halls of that dead Capaneus? — halls I smiled to see in days gone by, when yet my daughter was alive. But she is lost and gone, she that would ever draw down my cheek to her lips, and take my head between her hands; for naught is there more sweet unto an aged sire than a daughter’s love; our sons are made of sterner stuff, but less winning are their caresses. Oh! take me to my house at once, in darkness hide me there, to waste and fret this aged frame with fasting! What shall it avail me to touch my daughter’s bones? Old age, resistless foe, how do I loathe thy presence! Them too I hate, whoso desire to lengthen out the span of life, seeking to turn the tide of death aside by philtres, drugs, and magic spells, — folk that death should take away to leave the young their place, when they no more can benefit the world.

[Iphis departs. A procession enters from the direction of the pyre, led by the Children of the slain chieftains, who carry the ashes of their fathers in funeral urns. The following lines between the Chorus and the Children are chanted responsively.]

Chorus

Woe, woe! Behold your dead sons’ bones are brought hither; take them, servants of your weak old mistress, for in me is no strength left by reason of my mourning for my sons; time’s comrade long have I been, and many a tear for many a sorrow have I shed. For what sharper pang wilt thou ever find for mortals than the sight of children dead?

Children

Poor mother mine, behold I bring my father’s bones gathered from the fire, a burden grief has rendered heavy, though this tiny urn contains my all.

Chorus

Ah me! ah me! Why bear thy tearful load to the fond mother of the dead, a handful of ashes in the stead of those who erst were men of mark in Mycenae?

Children

Woe worth the hour! woe worth the day! Reft of my hapless sire, a wretched orphan shall I inherit a desolate house, torn from my father’s arms.

Chorus

Woe is thee! Where is now the toil I spent upon my sons? what thank have I for nightly watch? Where the mother’s nursing care? the sleepless vigils mine eyes have kept? the loving kiss upon my children’s brow?

Children

Thy sons are dead and gone. Poor mother! dead and gone; the boundless air now wraps them round.

Chorus

Turned to ashes by the flame, they have winged their flight to, Hades.

Children

Father, thou hearest thy children’s lamentation; say, shall I e’er, as warrior dight, avenge thy slaughter?

Chorus

God grant it, O my child

Children

Some day, if god so will, shall the avenging of my father be my task; not yet this sorrow sleeps.

Chorus

Alas! Fortune’s sorrows are enough for me, I have enough of troubles now.

Children

Shall Asopus’ laughing tide ever reflect my brazen arms as I lead on my Argive troops?

Chorus

To avenge thy fallen sire.

Children

Methinks I see thee still before my eye, my father —

Chorus

Printing a loving kiss upon thy cheek.

Children

But thy words of exhortation are borne on the winds away.

Chorus

Two mourners hath he left behind, thy mother and thee, bequeathing to thee an endless legacy of grief for thy father.

Children

The weight of grief I have to bear hath crushed me utterly.

Chorus

Come, let me clasp the ashes of my son to my bosom.

Children

I weep to hear that piteous word; ‘it stabs me to the heart,

Chorus

My child, thou art undone; no more shall I behold thee, thy own fond mother’s treasure.

Theseus

Adrastus, and ye dames from Argos sprung, ye see these children bearing in their hands the bodies of their valiant sires whom I redeemed; to thee I give these gifts, I and Athens. And ye must bear in mind the memory of this favour, marking well the treatment ye have had of me. And to these children I repeat the self-same words, that they may honour this city, to children’s children ever handing on the kindness ye received from us. Be Zeus the witness, with the gods in heaven, of the treatment we vouchsafed you ere you left us.

Adrastus

Theseus, well we know all the kindness thou hast conferred upon the land of Argos in her need, and ours shall be a gratitude that never waxeth old, for your generous treatment makes us debtors for a like return.

Theseus

What yet remains, wherein I can serve you?

Adrastus

Fare thee well, for such is thy desert and such thy city’s too.

Theseus

Even so. Mayst thou too have the self-same fortune!

[Athena appears from above.]

Athena

Hearken, Theseus, to the words that I Athena utter, telling thee thy duty, which, if thou perform it, will serve thy city. Give not these bones to the children to carry to the land of Argos, letting them go so lightly; nay, take first an oath of them that they will requite thee and thy city for your efforts. This oath must Adrastus swear, for as their king it is his right to take the oath for the whole realm of Argos. And this shall be the form thereof: “We Argives swear we never will against this land lead on our mail-clad troops to war, and, if others come, we will repel them.” But if they violate their oath and come against the city, pray that the land of Argos may be miserably destroyed. Now hearken while I tell thee where thou must slay the victims. Thou hast within thy halls a tripod with brazen feet, which Heracles, in days gone by, after he had o’erthrown the foundations of Ilium and was starting on another enterprise, enjoined the to set up at the Pythian shrine. O’er it cut the throats of three sheep; then grave within the tripod’s hollow belly the oath; this done, deliver it to the god who watches over Delphi to keep, a witness and memorial unto Hellas of the oath. And bury the sharp-edged knife, wherewith thou shalt have laid the victims open and shed their blood, deep in the bowels of the earth, hard by the pyres where the seven chieftains burn; for its appearance shall strike them with dismay, if e’er against thy town they come, and shall cause them to return with sorrow. When thou hast done all this, dismiss the dead from thy land. And to the god resign as sacred land the spot where their bodies were purified by fire, there by the meeting of the triple roads that lead unto the Isthmus. Thus much to thee, Theseus, address; next to the sons of Argos I speak; when ye are grown to men’s estate, the town beside Ismenus shall ye sack, avenging the slaughter of your dead sires; thou too, Aegialeus, shalt take thy father’s place and in thy youth command the host, and with thee Tydeus’ son marching from Aetolia,-him whom his father named Diomedes. Soon as the beards your cheeks o’ershadow must ye lead an armed Danaid host against the battlements of Thebes with sevenfold gates. For to their sorrow shall ye come like lion’s whelps in full-grown might to sack their city. No otherwise is it to be; and ye shall be a theme for minstrels’ songs in days to come, known through Hellas as “the After-born”; so famous shall your expedition be, thanks to Heaven.

Theseus

Queen Athena, I will hearken to thy bidding; for thou it is dost set me up, so that I go not astray. And I will bind this monarch by an oath; do thou but guide my steps aright. For if thou art friendly to our state, we shall henceforth live secure.

[Athena vanishes.]

Chorus [chanting]

Let us go, Adrastus, and take the oath to this monarch and his state; for the service they have already done us claims our reverence.

The Trojan Women

Characters in the Play

Poseidon

Athena

Hecuba

Chorus of Captive Trojan Women

Talthybius

Cassandra

Andromache

Menelaus

Helen

[Scene: Before Agamemnon’s Tent in the Camp near Troy. Hecuba asleep. Enter Poseidon.]

Poseidon

Lo! from the depths of salt Aegean floods I, Poseidon, come, where choirs of Nereids trip in the mazes of the graceful dance; for since the day that Phoebus and myself with measurement exact set towers of stone about this land of Troy and ringed it round, never from my heart hath passed away a kindly feeling for my Phrygian town, which now is smouldering and o’erthrown, a prey to Argive prowess. For, from his home beneath Parnassus, Phocian Epeus, aided by the craft of Pallas, framed a horse to bear within its womb an armed host, and sent it within the battlements, fraught with death; whence in days to come men shall tell of “the wooden horse,” with its hidden load of warriors. Groves forsaken stand and temples of the gods run down with blood, and at the altar’s very base, before the god who watched his home, lies Priam dead. While to Achaean ships great store of gold and Phrygian spoils are being conveyed, and they who came against this town, those sons Of Hellas, only wait a favouring breeze to follow in their wake, that after ten long years they may with joy behold their wives and children. Vanquished by Hera, Argive goddess, and by Athena, who helped to ruin Phrygia, I am leaving Ilium, that famous town, and the altars that I love; for when drear desolation seizes on a town, the worship of the gods decays and tends to lose respect. Scamander’s banks re-echo long and loud the screams of captive maids, as they by lot receive their masters. Arcadia taketh some, and some the folk of Thessaly; others are assigned to Theseus’ sons, the Athenian chiefs. And such of the Trojan dames as are not portioned out, are in these tents, set apart for the leaders of the host; and with them Spartan Helen, daughter of Tyndarus, justly counted among the captives. And wouldst thou see that queen of misery, Hecuba, thou canst; for there she lies before the gates, weeping many a bitter tear for many a tribulation; for at Achilles’ tomb-though she knows not this-her daughter Polyxena has died most piteously; likewise is Priam dead, and her children too; Cassandra, whom the king Apollo left to be a virgin, frenzied maid, hath Agamemnon, in contempt of the god’s ordinance and of piety, forced to a dishonoured wedlock. Farewell, O city prosperous once! farewell, ye ramparts of hewn stone! had not Pallas, daughter of Zeus, decreed thy ruin, thou wert standing firmly still.

[Enter Athena]

Athena

May I address the mighty god whom Heaven reveres and who to my own sire is very nigh in blood, laying aside our former enmity?

Poseidon

Thou mayst; for o’er the soul the ties of kin exert no feeble spell, great queen Athena.

Athena

For thy forgiving mood my thanks! Somewhat have I to impart affecting both thyself and me, O king.

Poseidon

Bringst thou fresh tidings from some god, from Zeus, or from some lesser power?

Athena

From none of these; but on behalf of Troy, whose soil we tread, am I come to seek thy mighty aid, to make it one with mine.

Poseidon

What! hast thou laid thy former hate aside to take compassion on the town now that it is burnt to ashes?

Athena

First go back to the former point; wilt thou make common cause with me in the scheme I purpose?

Poseidon

Ay surely; but I would fain learn thy wishes, whether thou art come to help Achaens or Phrygians.

Athena

I wish to give my former foes, the Trojans, joy, and on the Achaean host impose a return that they will rue.

Poseidon

Why leap’st thou thus from mood to mood? Thy love and hate both go too far, on whomsoever centred.

Athena

Dost not know the insult done to me and to the shrine I love?

Poseidon

Surely, in the hour that Aias tore Cassandra thence.

Athena

Yea, and the Achaeans did naught, said naught to him.

Poseidon

And yet ‘twas by thy mighty aid they sacked Ilium.

Athena

For which cause I would join with thee to work their bane.

Poseidon

My powers are ready at thy will. What is thy intent?

Athena

A returning fraught with woe will I impose on them.

Poseidon

While yet they stay on shore, or as they cross the briny deep?

Athena

When they have set sail from Ilium for their homes. On them will Zeus also send his rain and fearful hail, and inky tempests from the sky; yea, and he promises to grant me his levin-bolts to hurl on the Achaeans and fire their ships. And do thou, for thy part, make the Aegean strait to roar with mighty billows and whirlpools, and fill Euboea’s hollow bay with corpses, that Achaeans may learn henceforth to reverence my temples and regard all other deities.

Poseidon

So shall it be, for the boon thou cravest needs but few words. I will vex the broad Aegean sea; and the beach of Myconus and the reefs round Delos, Scyros and Lemnos too, and the cliffs of Caphareus shall be strown with many a corpse. Mount thou to Olympus, and taking from thy father’s hand his lightning bolts, keep careful watch against the hour when Argos’ host lets slip its cables. A fool is he who sacks the towns of men, with shrines and tombs, the dead man’s hallowed home, for at the last he makes a desert round himself, and dies. Exeunt.

Hecuba [awakening]

Lift thy head, unhappy lady, from the ground; thy neck upraise; this is Troy no more, no longer am I queen in Ilium. Though fortune change, endure thy lot; sail with the stream, and follow fortune’s tack, steer not thy barque of life against the tide, since chance must guide thy course. Ah me! ah me! What else but tears is now my hapless lot, whose country, children, husband, all are lost? Ah! the high-blown pride of ancestors! how cabined now how brought to nothing after all What woe must I suppress, or what declare? What plaintive dirge shall I awake? Ah, woe is me! the anguish I suffer lying here stretched upon this pallet hard! O my head, my temples, my side! Ah! could I but turn over, and he now on this, now on that, to rest my back and spine, while ceaselessly my tearful wail ascends. Fore ‘en this is music to the wretched, to chant their cheerless dirge of sorrow.

Ye swift-prowed ships, rowed to sacred Ilium o’er the deep dark sea, past the fair havens of Hellas, to the flute’s ill-omened music and the dulcet voice of pipes, even to the bays of Troyland (alack the day!), wherein ye tied your hawsers, twisted handiwork from Egypt, in quest of that hateful wife of Menelaus, who brought disgrace on Castor, and on Eurotas foul reproach; murderess she of Priam, sire of fifty children, the cause why I, the hapless Hecuba, have wrecked my life upon this troublous strand. Oh that I should sit here o’er against the tent of Agamemnon Forth from my home to slavery they hale my aged frame, while from my head in piteous wise the hair is shorn for grief. Ah! hapless wives of those mail-clad sons of Troy! Ah! poor maidens, luckless brides, come weep, for Ilium is now but a ruin; and I, like some mother-bird that o’re her fledglings screams, will begin the strain; how different from that song I sang to the gods in days long past, as I leaned on Priam’s staff, and beat with my foot in Phrygian time to lead the dance!

[Enter chorus of captive Trojan women]

Semi-chorus I

O Hecuba why these cries, these piercing shrieks? What mean thy words? For I heard thy piteous wail echo through the building, and a pang terror shoots through each captive Trojan’s breast, as pent within these walls they mourn their slavish lot.

Hecuba

My child, e’en now the hands of Argive rowers are busy at their ships.

Semi-chorus I

Ah, woe is me! what is their intent? Will they really bear me hence in sorrow from my country in their fleet?

Hecuba

I know not, though I guess our doom.

Semi-chorus I

O misery! woe to us Trojan dames, soon to hear the order given, “Come forth from the house; the Argives are preparing to return.”

Hecuba

Oh! do not bid the wild Cassandra leave her chamber, the frantic prophetess, for Argives to insult, nor to my griefs add yet another. Woe to thee, ill-fated Troy, thy sun is set; and woe to thy unhappy children, quick and dead alike, who are leaving thee behind!

Semi-chorus II

With trembling step, alas! I leave this tent of Agamemnon to learn of thee, my royal mistress, whether the Argives have resolved to take my wretched life, whether the sailors at the prow are making ready to ply their oars.

Hecuba

My child, a fearful dread seized on my wakeful heart and sent me hither.

Semi-chorus II

Hath a herald from the Danai already come? To whom am I, poor captive, given as a slave?

Hecuba

Thou art not far from being allotted now.

Semi-chorus II

Woe worth the day! What Argive or Phthiotian chief will bear me far from Troy, alas! unto his home, or haply to some island fastness?

Hecuba

Ah me! ah me! Whose slave shall I become in my old age? in what far clime? a poor old drone, the wretched copy of a corpse, set to keep the gate or tend their children, I who once held royal rank in Troy.

Chorus

Woe, woe is thee! What piteous dirge wilt thou devise to mourn the outrage done thee? No more through Ida’s looms shall I-ply the shuttle to and fro. I look my last and latest on my children’s bodies; henceforth shall I endure surpassing misery; it may be as the unwilling bride of some Hellene (perish the night and fortune that brings me to this!); it may be as a wretched slave I from Peirene’s sacred fount shall draw their store of water.

Oh be it ours to come to Theseus’ famous realm, a land of joy! Never, never let me see Eurotas’ swirling tide, hateful home of Helen, there to meet and be the slave of Menelaus, whose hand laid Troyland waste! Yon holy land by Peneus fed, nestling in all its beauty at Olympus’ foot, is said, so have I heard, to be a very granary of wealth and teeming fruitage; next to the sacred soil of Theseus, I could wish to reach that land. They tell me too Hephaestus’ home, beneath the shadow of Aetna, fronting Phoenicia, the mother of Sicilian hills, is famous for the crowns it gives to worth. Or may I find a home on that shore which lieth very nigh Ionia’s sea, a land by Crathis watered, lovely stream, that dyes the hair an auburn tint, feeding with its holy waves and making glad therewith the home of heroes good and true.

But mark! a herald from the host of Danai, with store of fresh proclamations, comes hasting hither. What is his errand? what saith he? List, for we are slaves to Dorian lords henceforth.

[Enter Talthybius]

Talthybius

Hecuba, thou knowest me from my many journeys to and fro as herald ‘twixt the Achaean host and Troy; no stranger I to thee, lady, even aforetime, I Talthybius, now sent with a fresh message.

Hecuba

Ah, kind friends, ‘tis come! what I so long have dreaded.

Talthybius

The lot has decided your fates already, if that was what you feared.

Hecuba

Ah me! What city didst thou say, Thessalian, Phthian, or Cadmean?

Talthybius

Each warrior took his prize in turn; ye were not all at once assigned.

Hecuba

To whom hath the lot assigned us severally? Which of us Trojan dames doth a happy fortune await?

Talthybius

I know, but ask thy questions separately, not all at once.

Hecuba

Then tell me, whose prize is my daughter, hapless Cassandra?

Talthybius

King Agamemnon hath chosen her out for himself.

Hecuba

To be the slave-girl of his Spartan wife? Ah me!

Talthybius

Nay, to share with him his stealthy love.

Hecuba

What! Phoebus’ virgin-priestess, to whom the god with golden locks granted the boon of maidenhood?

Talthybius

The dart of love hath pierced his heart, love for the frenzied maid.

Hecuba

Daughter, cast from thee the sacred keys, and from thy body tear the holy wreaths that drape thee in their folds.

Talthybius

Why! is it not an honour high that she should win our monarch’s love?

Hecuba

What have ye done to her whom late ye took from me-my child?

Talthybius

Dost mean Polyxena, or whom dost thou inquire about?

Hecuba

To whom hath the lot assigned her?

Talthybius

To minister at Achilles’ tomb hath been appointed her.

Hecuba

Woe is me! I the mother of a dead man’s slave! What custom, what ordinance is this amongst Hellenes, good sir?

Talthybius

Count thy daughter happy: ‘tis well with her.

Hecuba

What wild words are these? say, is she still alive?

Talthybius

Her fate is one that sets her free from trouble.

Hecuba

And what of mail-clad Hector’s wife, sad Andromache? declare her fate.

Talthybius

She too was a chosen prize; Achilles’ son did take her.

Hecuba

As for me whose hair is white with age, who need to hold a staff to be to me a third foot, whose servant am I to be?

Talthybius

Odysseus, king of Ithaca, hath taken thee to be his slave.

Hecuba

O God! Now smite the close-shorn head! tear your cheeks with your nails. God help me! I have fallen as a slave to a treacherous foe I hate, a monster of lawlessness, one that by his double tongue hath turned against us all that once was friendly in his camp, changing this for that and that for this again. Oh weep for me, ye Trojan dames! Undone! undone and lost! ah woel a victim to a most unhappy lot!

Chorus

Thy fate, royal mistress, now thou knowest; but for me, what Hellene or Achaean is master of my destiny?

Talthybius

Ho, servants! haste and bring Cassandra forth to me here, that I may place her our captain’s hands, and then conduct to the rest of the chiefs the captives each hath had assigned. Ha what is the blaze of torches there within? What do these Trojan dames? Are they firing the chambers, because they must leave this land and be carried away to Argos? Are they setting themselves aflame in their longing for death? Of a truth the free bear their troubles in cases like this with a stiff neck. Ho, there! open! lest their deed, which suits them well but finds small favour with the Achaeans, bring blame on me.

Hecuba

‘Tis not that they are setting aught ablaze, but my child Cassandra, frenzied maid, comes rushing wildly hither.

[Enter Cassandra carrying torches]

Cassandra

Bring the light, uplift and show its flame! I am doing the god’s service, see! I making his shrine to glow with tapers bright. O Hymen, king of marriage! blest is the bridegroom; blest am I also, the maiden soon to wed a princely lord in Argos. Hail Hymen, king of marriage! Since thou, my mother, art ever busied with tears and lamentations in thy mourning for my father’s death and for our country dear, I at my own nuptials am making this torch to blaze and show its light, in thy honour, O Hymen, king of marriage! Grant thy light too, Hecate, at the maiden’s wedding, as the custom is. Nimbly lift the foot aloft, lead on the dance, with cries of joy, as if to greet my father’s happy fate. To dance I hold a sacred duty; come, Phoebus, lead the way, for ‘tis in thy temple mid thy bay-trees that I minister. Hail Hymen, god of marriage! Hymen, hail! Come, mother mine, and join the dance, link thy steps with me, and circle in the gladsome measure, now here, now there. Salute the bride on her wedding-day with hymns and cries of joy. Come, ye maids of Phrygia in raiment fair, sing my marriage with the husband fate ordains that I should wed.

Chorus

Hold the frantic maiden, royal mistress mine, lest with nimble foot she rush to the Argive army.

Hecuba

Thou god of fire,’tis thine to light the bridal torch for men, but piteous is the flame thou kindlest here, beyond my blackest bodings. Ah, my child! how little did I ever dream that such would be thy marriage, a captive, and of Argos tool Give up the torch to me; thou dost not bear its blaze aright in thy wild frantic course, nor have thy afflictions left thee in thy sober senses, but still art thou as frantic as before. Take in those torches, Trojan friends, and for her wedding madrigals weep your tears instead.

Cassandra

O mother, crown my head with victor’s wreaths; rejoice in my royal match; lead me to my lord; nay, if thou find me loth at all, thrust me there by force; for if Loxias be indeed a prophet, Agamemnon, that famous king of the Achaeans, will find in me a bride more fraught with woe to him than Helen. For I will slay him and lay waste his home to avenge my father’s and my bretheren’s death. But of the deed itself I will not speak; nor will I tell of that axe which shall sever my neck and the necks of others, or of the conflict ending in a mother’s death, which my marriage shall cause, nor of the overthrow of Atreus’ house; but I, for all my frenzy, will so far rise above my frantic fit, that I will prove this city happier far than those Achaeans, who for the sake of one woman and one man’s love of her have lost a countless host in seeking Helen. Their captain too, whom men call wise, hath lost for what he hated most what most he prized, yielding to his brother for a woman’s sake-and she a willing prize whom no man forced-the joy he had of his own children in his home. For from the day that they did land upon Scamander’s strand, their doom began, not for loss of stolen frontier nor yet for fatherland with frowning towers; whomso Ares slew, those never saw their babes again, nor were they shrouded for the tomb by hand of wife, but in a foreign land they lie. At home the case was still the same; wives were dying widows, parents were left childless in their homes, having reared their sons for others, and none is left to make libations of blood upon the ground before their tombs. Truly to such praise as this their host can make an ample claim. Tis better to pass their shame in silence by, nor be mine the Muse to tell that evil tale. But the Trojans were dying, first for their fatherland, fairest fame to win; whomso the sword laid low, all these found friends to bear their bodies home and were laid to rest in the bosom of their native land, their funeral rites all duly paid by duteous hands. And all such Phrygians as escaped the warrior’s death lived ever day by day with wife and children by them-joys the Achaeans had left behind. As for Hector and his griefs, prithee hear how stands the case; he is dead and gone, but still his fame remains as bravest of the brave, and this was a result of the Achaeans’ coming; for had they remained at home, his worth would have gone unnoticed. So too with Paris, he married the daughter of Zeus, whereas, had he never done so, the alliance he made in his family would have been forgotten. Whoso is wise should fly from making war; but if he be brought to this pass, a noble death will crown his city with glory, a coward’s end with shame. Wherefore, mother mine, thou shouldst not pity thy country or my spousal, for this my marriage will destroy those whom thou and I most hate.

Chorus

How sweetly at thy own sad lot thou smilest, chanting a strain, which, spite of thee, may prove thee wrong!

Talthybius

Had not Apollo turned thy wits astray, thou shouldst not for nothing have sent my chiefs with such ominous predictions forth on their way. But, after all, these lofty minds, reputed wise, are nothing better than those that are held as naught. For that mighty king of all Hellas, own son of Atreus, has yielded to a passion for this mad maiden of all others; though I am poor enough, yet would I ne’er have chosen such a wife as this. As for thee, since thy senses are not whole, I give thy taunts ‘gainst Argos and thy praise of Troy to the winds to carry away. Follow me now to the ships to grace the wedding of our chief. And thou too follow, whensoe’er the son of Laertes demands thy presence, for thou wilt serve a mistress most discreet, as all declare who came to Ilium.

Cassandra

A clever fellow this menial! Why is it heralds hold the name they do? All men unite in hating with one common hate the servants who attend on kings or governments. Thou sayest my mother shall come to the halls of Odysseus; where then be Apollo’s words, so clear to me in their interpretation, which declare that here she shall die? What else remains, I will not taunt her with. Little knows he, the luckless wight, the sufferings that await him; or how these ills I and my Phrygians endure shall one day seem to him precious as gold. For beyond the ten long years spent at Troy he shall drag out other ten and then come to his country all alone, by the route where fell Charybdis lurks in a narrow channel ‘twixt the rocks; past Cyclops the savage shepherd, and Ligurian Circe that turneth men to swine; shipwrecked oft upon the salt sea-wave; fain to eat the lotus, and the sacred cattle of the sun, whose flesh shall utter in the days to come a human voice, fraught with misery to Odysseus. But to briefly end this history, he shall descend alive to Hades, and, though he ‘scape the waters’ flood, yet shall he find a thousand troubles in his home when he arrives. Enough why do I recount the troubles of Odysseus? Lead on, that I forthwith may wed my husband for his home in Hades’ halls. Base thou art, and basely shalt thou be buried, in the dead of night when day is done, thou captain of that host of Danai, who thinkest so proudly of thy fortune! Yea, and my corpse cast forth in nakedness shall the rocky chasm with its flood of wintry waters give to wild beasts to make their meal upon, hard by my husband’s tomb, me the handmaid of Apollo. Farewell, ye garlands of that god most dear to me! farewell, ye mystic symbols! I here resign your feasts, my joy in days gone by. Go, I tear ye from my body, that, while yet mine honour is intact, I may give them to the rushing winds to waft to thee, my prince of prophecy I Where is yon general’s ship? Whither must I go to take my place thereon? Lose no further time in watching for a favouring breeze to fill thy sails, doomed as thou art to carry from this land one of the three avenging spirits. Fare thee well, mother mine! dry thy tears, O country dear! yet a little while, my brothers sleeping in the tomb and my own father true, and ye shall welcome me; yet shall victory crown my advent ‘mongst the dead, when I have overthrown the home of our destroyers, the house of the sons of Atreus.

[Exeunt Talthybius and Cassandra]

Chorus

Ye guardians of the grey-haired Hecuba, see how your mistress is sinking speechless to the ground! Take hold of her! will ye let her fall, ye worthless slaves? lift up again, from where it lies, her silvered head.

Hecuba

Leave me lying where I fell, my maidens unwelcome service grows not welcome ever-my sufferings now, my troubles past, afflictions yet to come, all claim this lowly posture. Gods of heaven! small help I find in calling such allies, yet is there something in the form of invoking heaven, whenso we fall on evil days. First will I descant upon my former blessings; so shall I inspire the greater pity for my present woes. Born to royal estate and wedded to a royal lord, I was the mother of a race of gallant sons; no mere ciphers they, but Phrygia’s chiefest pride, children such as no Trojan or Hellenic or barbarian mother ever had to boast. All these have I seen slain by the spear of Hellas, and at their tombs have I shorn off my hair; with these my eyes I saw their sire, my Priam, butchered on his own hearth, and my city captured, nor did others bring this bitter news to me. The maidens I brought up to see chosen for some marriage high, for strangers have I reared them, and seen them snatched away. Nevermore can I hope to be seen by them, nor shall my eyes behold them ever in the days to come. And last, to crown my misery, shall I be brought to Hellas, a slave in my old age. And there the tasks that least befit the evening of my life will they impose on me, to watch their gates and keep the keys, me Hector’s mother, or bake their bread, and on the ground instead of my royal bed lay down my shrunken limbs, with tattered rags about my wasted frame. a shameful garb for those who once were prosperous. Ah, woe is me! and this is what I bear and am to bear for one weak woman’s wooing! O my daughter, O Cassandra! whom gods have summoned to their frenzied train, how cruel the lot that ends thy virgin days! And thou, Polyxena! my child of sorrow, where, oh! where art thou? None of all the many sons and daughters have I born comes to aid a wretched mother. Why then raise me up? What hope is left us? Guide me, who erst trod so daintily the streets of Troy, but now am but a slave, to a bed upon the ground, nigh some rocky ridge, that thence I may cast me down and perish, after I have wasted my body with weeping. Of all the prosperous crowd, count none a happy man before he die.

Chorus

Sing me, Muse, a tale of Troy, a funeral dirge in strains unheard as yet, with tears the while; for now will I uplift for Troy a piteous chant, telling how I met my doom and fell a wretched captive to the Argives by reason of a four-footed beast that moved on wheels, in the hour that Achaea’s sons left at our gates that horse, loud rumbling on its way, with its trappings of gold and its freight of warriors; and our folk cried out as they stood upon the rocky citadel, “Up now ye whose toil is o’er, and drag this sacred image to the shrine of the Zeus-born maiden, goddess of our Ilium!” Forth from his house came every youth and every grey-head too; and with songs of joy they took the fatal snare within. Then hastened all the race of Phrygia to the gates, to make the goddess a present of an Argive band ambushed in the polished mountain-pine, Dardania’s ruin, a welcome gift to be to her, the virgin queen of deathless steeds; and with nooses of cord they dragged it, as it had been a ship’s dark hull, to the stone-built fane of the goddess Pallas, and set it on that floor so soon to drink our country’s blood. But, as they laboured and made merry, came on the pitchy night; loud the Libyan flute was sounding, and Phrygian songs awoke, while maidens beat the ground with airy foot, uplifting their gladsome song; and in the halls a blaze of torchlight shed its flickering shadows on sleeping eyes. In that hour around the house was I singing as I danced to that maiden of the hills, the child of Zeus; when lo! there rang along the town a cry of death which filled the homes of Troy, and little babes in terror clung about their mothers’ skirts, as forth from their ambush came the warrior-band, the handiwork of maiden Pallas. Anon the altars ran with Phrygian blood, and desolation reigned o’er every bed where young men lay beheaded, a glorious crown for Hellas won, ay, for her, the nurse of youth, but for our Phrygian fatherland a bitter grief. Look, Hecuba! dost see Andromache advancing hither on a foreign car? and with her, clasped to her throbbing breast, is her dear Astyanax, Hector’s child.

[Enter Andromache]

Hecuba

Whither art thou borne, unhappy wife, mounted on that car, side by side with Hector’s brazen arms and Phrygian spoils of war, with which Achilles’ son will deck the shrines of Phthia on his return from Troy?

Andromache

My Achaean masters drag me hence.

Hecuba

Woe is thee!

Andromache

Why dost thou in note of woe utter the dirge that is mine?

Hecuba

Ah me!

Andromache

For these sorrows.

Hecuba

O Zeus!

Andromache

And for this calamity.

Hecuba

O my children!

Andromache

Our day is past.

Hecuba

Joy is fled, and Troy o’erthrown.

Andromache

Woe is me!

Hecuba

Dead too all my gallant sons!

Andromache

Alack and well-a-day!

Hecuba

Ah me for my —

Andromache

Misery!

Hecuba

Piteous the fate —

Andromache

Of our city.

Hecuba

Smouldering in the smoke.

Andromache

Come, my husband, come to me!

Hecuba

Ah hapless wife! thou callest on my son who lieth in the tomb.

Andromache

Thy wife’s defender, come!

Hecuba

Do thou, who erst didst make the Achaeans grieve, eldest of the sons I bare to Priam in the days gone by, take me to thy rest in Hades’ halls!

Andromache

Bitter are these regrets, unhappy mother, bitter these woes to bear; our city ruined, and sorrow evermore to sorrow added, through the will of angry heaven, since the day that son’ of thine escaped his doom, he that for a bride accursed brought destruction on the Trojan citadel. There lie the gory corpses of the slain by the shrine of Pallas for vultures to carry off; and Troy is come to slavery’s yoke.

Hecuba

O my country, O unhappy land, I weep for thee now left behind; now dost thou behold thy piteous end; and thee, my house, I weep, wherein I suffered travail. O my children! reft of her city as your mother is, she now is losing you. Oh, what mourning and what sorrow! oh, what endless streams of tears in our houses! The dead alone forget their griefs and never shed a tear.

Chorus

What sweet relief to sufferers ‘tis to weep, to mourn, lament, and chant the dirge that tells of grief!

Andromache

Dost thou see this, mother of that Hector, who once laid low in battle many a son of Argos?

Hecuba

I see that it is heaven’s way to exalt what men accounted naught, and ruin what they most esteemed.

Andromache

Hence with my child as booty am I borne; the noble are to slavery brought-a bitter, bitter change.

Hecuba

This is necessity’s grim law; it was but now Cassandra was torn with brutal violence from my arms.

Andromache

Alas, alas! it seems a second Aias hath appeared to wrong thy daughter; but there be other ills for thee.

Hecuba

Ay, beyond all count or measure are my sorrows; evil vies with evil in the struggle to be first.

Andromache

Thy daughter Polyxena is dead, slain at Achilles’ tomb, an offering to his lifeless corpse.

Hecuba

O woe is me! This is that riddle Talthybius long since told me, a truth obscurely uttered.

Andromache

I saw her with mine eyes; so I alighted from the chariot, and covered her corpse with a mantle, and smote upon my breast.

Hecuba

Alas! my child, for thy unhallowed sacrifice! and yet again, ah me! for this thy shameful death!

Andromache

Her death was even as it was, and yet that death of hers was after all a happier fate than this my life.

Hecuba

Death and life are not the same, my child; the one is annihilation, the other keeps a place for hope.

Andromache

Hear, O mother of children give ear to what I urge so well, that I may cheer my drooping spirit. ‘Tis all one, I say, ne’er to have been born and to be dead, and better far is death than life with misery. For the dead feel no sorrow any more and know no grief; but he who has known prosperity and has fallen on evil days feels his spirit straying from the scene of former joys. Now that child of thine is dead as though she ne’er had seen the light, and little she recks of her calamity; whereas I, who aimed at a fair repute, though I won a higher lot than most, yet missed my lick in life. For all that stamps the wife a woman chaste, I strove to do in Hector’s home. In the first place, whether there is a slur upon a woman, or whether there is not, the very fact of her not staying at home brings in its train an evil name; therefore I gave up any wish to do so, and abode ever within my house, nor would I admit the clever gossip women love, but conscious of a heart that told an honest tale I was content therewith. And ever would I keep a silent tongue and modest eye before my lord; and well I knew where I might rule my lord, and where ‘twas best to yield to him; the fame whereof hath reached the Achaean host, and proved my ruin; for when I was taken captive, Achilles’ son would have me as his wife, and I must serve in the house of murderers. And if I set aside my love for Hector, and ope my heart to this new lord, I shall appear a traitress to the dead, while, if I hate him, I shall incur my master’s displeasure. And yet they say a single night removes a woman’s dislike for her husband; nay, I do hate the woman who, when she hath lost her former lord, transfers her love by marrying another. Not e’en the horse, if from his fellow torn, will cheerfully draw the yoke; and yet the brutes have neither speech nor sense to help them, and are by nature man’s inferiors. O Hector mine! in thee I found a husband amply dowered with wisdom, noble birth and fortune, a brave man and a mighty; whilst thou didst take me from my father’s house a spotless bride, thyself the first to make this maiden wife. But now death hath claimed thee, and I to Hellas am soon to sail, a captive doomed to wear the yoke of slavery. Hath not then the dead Polyxena, for whom thou wailest, less evil to bear than I? I have not so much as hope, the last resource of every human heart, nor do I beguile myself with dreams of future bliss, the very thought whereof is sweet.

Chorus

Thou art in the self-same plight as I; thy lamentations for thyself remind me of my own sad case.

Hecuba

I never yet have set foot on a ship’s deck, though I have seen such things in pictures and know of them from hearsay. Now sailors, if there come a storm of moderate force, are all eagerness to save themselves by toil; one at the tiller stands, another sets himself to work the sheets, a third meantime is baling out the ship; but if tempestuous waves arise to overwhelm them, they yield to fortune and commit themselves to the driving billows. Even so I, by reason of my countless troubles, am dumb and forbear to say a word; for Heaven with its surge of misery is too strong for me. Cease, Oh cease, my darling child, to speak of Hector’s fate; no tears of thine can save him; honour thy present lord, offering thy sweet nature as the bait to win him. If thou do this, thou wilt cheer thy friends as well as thyself, and thou shalt rear my Hector’s child to lend stout aid to Ilium, that so thy children in the after-time may build her up again, and our city yet be stablished. But lo! our talk must take a different turn; who is this Achaean menial I see coming hither, sent to tell us of some new design?

[Enter Talthybius]

Talthybius

Oh hate me not, thou that erst wert Hector’s wife, the bravest of the Phrygians! for my tongue would fain not tell that which the Danai and sons of Pelops both command.

Andromache

What is it? Thy prelude bodeth evil news.

Talthybius

‘Tis decreed thy son is-how can I tell my news?

Andromache

Surely not to have a different master from me?

Talthybius

None of all Achaea’s chiefs shall ever lord it over him.

Andromache

Is it their will to leave him here, a remnant yet of Phrygia’s race?

Talthybius

I know no words to break the sorrow lightly to thee.

Andromache

I thank thee for thy consideration, unless indeed thou hast good news to tell.

Talthybius

They mean to slay thy son; there is my hateful message to thee.

Andromache

O God! this is worse tidings than my forced marriage.

Talthybius

So spake Odysseus to the assembled Hellenes, and his word prevails.

Andromache

Oh once again ah me there is no measure in the woes I bear.

Talthybius

He said they should not rear so brave a father’s son.

Andromache

May such counsels yet prevail about children of his!

Talthybius

From Troy’s battlements he must be thrown. Let it be even so, and thou wilt show more wisdom; cling not to him, but bear thy sorrows with heroic heart, nor in thy weakness deem that thou art strong. For nowhere hast thou any help; consider this thou must; thy husband and thy city are no more, so thou art in our power, and I alone am match enough for one weak woman; wherefore I would not see thee bent on strife, or any course to bring thee shame or hate, nor would I hear thee rashly curse the Achaeans. For if thou say aught whereat the host grow wroth, this child will find no burial nor pity either. But if thou hold thy peace and with composure take thy fate, thou wilt not leave his corpse unburied, and thyself wilt find more favour with the Achaeans.

Andromache

My child! my own sweet babe and priceless treasure! thy death the foe demands, and thou must leave thy wretched mother. That which saves the lives of others, proves thy destruction, even thy sire’s nobility; to thee thy father’s valiancy has proved no boon. O the woeful wedding rites, that brought me erst to Hector’s home, hoping to be the mother of a son that should rule o’er Asia’s fruitful fields instead of serving as a victim to the sons of Danaus! Dost weep, my babe? dost know thy hapless fate? Why clutch me with thy hands and to my garment cling, nestling like a tender chick beneath my wing? Hector will not rise again and come gripping his famous spear to bring thee salvation; no kinsman of thy sire appears, nor might of Phrygian hosts; one awful headlong leap from the dizzy height and thou wilt dash out thy life with none to pity thee Oh to clasp thy tender limbs, a mother’s fondest joy! Oh to breathe thy fragrant breath! In vain it seems these breasts did suckle thee, wrapped in thy swaddling-clothes; all for naught I used to toil and wore myself away! Kiss thy mother now for the last time, nestle to her that bare thee, twine thy arms about my neck and join thy lips to mine! O ye Hellenes, cunning to devise new forms of cruelty, why slay this child who never wronged any? Thou daughter of Tyndarus, thou art no child of Zeus, but sprung, I trow, of many a sire, first of some evil demon, next of Envy, then of Murder and of Death, and every horror that the earth begets. That Zeus was never sire of thine I boldly do assert, bane as thou hast been to many a Hellene and barbarian too. Destruction catch thee! Those fair eyes of thine have brought a shameful ruin on the fields of glorious Troy. Take the babe and bear him hence, hurl him down if so ye list, then feast upon his flesh! ‘Tis heaven’s high will we perish, and I cannot ward the deadly stroke from my child. Hide me and my misery; cast me into the ship’s hold; for ‘tis to a fair wedding I am going, now that I have lost my child!

Chorus

Unhappy Troy! thy thousands thou hast lost for one woman’s sake and her accursed wooing.

Talthybius

Come, child, leave fond embracing of thy woful mother, and mount the high coronal of thy ancestral towers, there to draw thy parting breath, as is ordained. Take him hence. His should the duty be to do such herald’s work, whose heart knows no pity and who loveth ruthlessness more than my soul doth.

[Exeunt Andromache and Talthybius with Astyanax]

Hecuba

O child, son of my hapless boy, an unjust fate robs me and thy mother of thy life. How is it with me? What can I do for thee, my luckless babe? for thee I smite upon my head and beat my breast, my only gift; for that alone is in my power. Woe for my city! woe for thee! Is not our cup full? What is wanting now to our utter and immediate ruin?

Chorus

O Telamon, King of Salamis, the feeding ground of bees, who hast thy home in a sea-girt isle that lieth nigh the holy hills where first Athena made the grey olive-branch to appear, a crown for heavenly heads and a glory unto happy Athens, thou didst come in knightly brotherhood with that great archer, Alcemena’s son, to sack our city Ilium, in days gone by, on thy advent from Hellas, what time he led the chosen flower of Hellas, vexed for the steeds denied him, and at the fair stream of Simois he stayed his sea-borne ship and fastened cables to the stern, and forth therefrom he took the bow his hand could deftly shoot, to be the doom of Laomedon; and with the ruddy breath of fire he wasted the masonry squared by Phoebus’ line and chisel, and sacked the land of Troy; so twice in two attacks hath the bloodstained spear destroyed Dardania’s walls.

In vain, it seems, thou Phrygian boy, pacing with dainty step amid thy golden chalices, dost thou fill high the cup of Zeus, a service passing fair; seeing that the land of thy birth is being consumed by fire. The shore re-echoes to our cries; and, as a bird bewails its young, so we bewail our husbands or our children, or our grey-haired mothers. The dew-fed springs where thou didst bathe, the course where thou didst train, are now no more; but thou beside the throne of Zeus art sitting with a calm, sweet smile upon thy fair young face, while the spear of Hellas lays the land of Priam waste. Ah! Love, Love, who once didst seek these Dardan halls, deep-seated in the hearts of heavenly gods, how high didst thou make Troy to tower in those days, allying her with deities! But I will cease to urge reproaches against Zeus; for white-winged dawn, whose light to man is dear, turned a baleful eye upon our land and watched the ruin of our citadel, though she had within her bridal bower a husband from this land, whom on a day a car of gold and spangled stars caught up and carried thither, great source of hope to his native country; but all the love the gods once had for Troy is passed away.

[Enter Menelaus]

Menelaus

Hail! thou radiant orb by whose fair light I now shall capture her that was my wife, e’en Helen; for I am that Menelaus, who hath toiled so hard, I and Achaea’s host. To Troy I came, not so much as men suppose to take this woman, but to punish him who from my house stole my wife, traitor to my hospitality. But he, by heaven’s will, hath paid the penalty, ruined, and his country too, by the spear of Hellas. And I am come to bear that Spartan woman hence-wife I have no mind to call her, though she once was mine; for now she is but one among the other Trojan dames who share these tents as captives. For they-the very men who toiled to take her with the spear-have granted her to me to slay, or, if I will, to spare and carry back with me to Argos. Now my purpose is not to put her to death in Troy, but to carry her to Hellas in my seaborne ship, and then surrender her to death, a recompense to all whose friends were slain in Ilium. Ho! my trusty men, enter the tent, and drag her out to me by her hair with many a murder foul; and when a favouring breeze shall blow, to Hellas will we convey her.

Hecuba

O thou that dost support the earth and restest thereupon, whosoe’er thou art, a riddle past our ken! be thou Zeus, or natural necessity, or man’s intellect, to thee I pray; for, though thou treadest o’er a noiseless path, all thy dealings with mankind are by justice guided.

Menelaus

How now? Strange the prayer thou offerest unto heaven!

Hecuba

I thank thee, Menelaus, if thou wilt slay that wife of thine. Yet shun the sight of her, lest she smite thee with regret. For she ensnares the eyes of men, o’erthrows their towns, and burns their houses, so potent are her witcheries! Well I know her; so dost thou and those her victims too.

[Enter Helen]

Helen

Menelaus! this prelude well may fill me with alarm; for I am haled with violence by thy servants’ hands and brought before these tents. Still, though I am well-nigh sure thou hatest me, yet would I fain inquire what thou and Hellas have decided about my life.

Menelaus

To judge thy case required no great exactness; the host with one consent-that host whom thou didst wrong-handed thee over to me to die.

Helen

May I answer this decision, proving that my death, if to die I am, will be unjust?

Menelaus

I came not to argue, but to slay thee.

Hecuba

Hear her, Menelaus; let her not die for want of that, and let me answer her again, for thou knowest naught of her villainies in Troy; and the whole case, if thus summed up, will insure her death against all chance of an escape.

Menelaus

This boon needs leisure; still, if she wishes to speak, the leave is given. Yet will I grant her this because of thy words, that she may hear them, and not for her own sake.

Helen

Perhaps thou wilt not answer me, from counting me a foe, whether my words seem good or ill. Yet will I put my charges and thine over against each other, and then reply to the accusations I suppose thou wilt advance against me. First, then, she was the author of these troubles by giving birth to Paris; next, old Priam ruined Troy and me, because he did not slay his babe Alexander, baleful semblance of a fire-brand, long ago. Hear what followed. This Paris was to judge the claims of three rival goddesses; so Pallas offered him command of all the Phrygians, and the destruction of Hellas; Hera promised he should spread his dominion over Asia, and the utmost bounds of Europe, if he would decide for her; but Cypris spoke in rapture of my loveliness, and promised him this boon, if she should have the preference o’er those twain for beauty; now mark the inference I deduce from this; Cypris won the day o’er them, and thus far hath my marriage proved of benefit to Hellas, that ye are not subject to barbarian rule, neither vanquished in the strife, nor yet by tyrants crushed. What Hellas gained, was ruin to me, a victim for my beauty sold, and now am I reproached for that which should have set a crown upon my head. But thou wilt say I am silent on the real matter at issue, how it was I started forth and left thy house by stealth. With no mean goddess at his side he came, my evil genius, call him Alexander or Paris, as thou wilt; and him didst thou, thrice guilty wretch, leave behind thee in thy house, and sail away from Sparta to the land of Crete. Enough of this! For all that followed I must question my own heart, not thee; what frantic thought led me to follow the stranger from thy house, traitress to my country and my home? Punish the goddess, show thyself more mighty e’en than Zeus, who, though he lords it o’er the other gods, is yet her slave; wherefore I may well be pardoned. Still, from hence thou mightest draw a specious argument against me; when Paris died, and Earth concealed his corpse, I should have left his house and sought the Argive fleet, since my marriage was no longer in the hands of gods. That was what I fain had done; yea, and the warders on the towers and watchmen on the walls can bear me witness, for oft they found me seeking to let myself down stealthily by cords from the battlements; but there was that new husband, Deiphobus, that carried me off by force to be his wife against the will of Troy. How then, my lord, could I be justly put to death by thee, with any show of right, seeing that he wedded me against my will, and those my other natural gifts have served a bitter slavery, instead of leading on to triumph? If ‘tis thy will indeed to master gods, that very wish displays thy folly.

Chorus

O my royal mistress, defend thy children’s and thy country.’s cause, bringing to naught her persuasive arguments, for she pleads well in spite of all her villainy; ‘tis monstrous this!

Hecuba

First will I take up the cause of those goddesses, and prove how she perverts the truth. For I can ne’er believe that Hera or the maiden Pallas would have been guilty of such folly, as to sell, the one, her Argos to barbarians, or that Pallas e’er would make her Athens subject to the Phrygians, coming as they did in mere wanton sport to Ida to contest the palm of beauty. For why should goddess Hera set her heart so much on such a prize? Was it to win a nobler lord than Zeus? or was Athena bent on finding ‘mongst the gods a husband, she who in her dislike of marriage won from her sire the boon of remaining unwed? Seek not to impute folly to the goddesses, in the attempt to gloze o’er thy own sin; never wilt thou persuade the wise. Next thou hast said-what well may make men jeer-that Cypris came with my son to the house of Menelaus. Could she not have stayed quietly in heaven and brought thee and Amyclae to boot to Ilium? Nay! my son was passing fair, and when thou sawest him thy fancy straight became thy Cypris; for every sensual act that men commit, they lay upon this goddess, and rightly does her name of Aphrodite begin the word for “senselessness”; so when thou didst catch sight of him in gorgeous foreign garb, ablaze with gold, thy senses utterly forsook thee. Yea, for in Argos thou hadst moved in simple state, but, once free of Sparta, ‘twas thy fond hope to deluge by thy lavish outlay Phrygia’s town, that flowed with gold; nor was the palace of Menelaus rich enough for thy luxury to riot in. Ha! my son carried thee off by force, so thou savest; what Spartan saw this? what cry for help didst thou ever raise, though Castor was still alive, a vigorous youth, and his brother also, not yet amid the stars? Then when thou wert come to Troy, and the Argives were on thy track, and the mortal combat was begun, whenever tidings came to thee of Menelaus’ prowess, him wouldst thou praise, to grieve my son, because he had so powerful a rival in his love; but if so the Trojans prospered, Menelaus was nothing to thee. Thy eye was fixed on Fortune, and by such practice wert thou careful to follow in her steps, careless of virtue’s cause. And then, in spite of all, thou dost assert that thou didst try to let thyself down from the towers by stealth with twisted cords, as if loth to stay? Pray then, wert thou ever found fastening the noose about thy neck, or whetting the knife, as noble wife would have done in regret for her former husband? And yet full oft I advised thee saying, “Get thee gone, daughter, and let my sons take other brides; I will help thee to steal away, and convey thee to the Achaean fleet; oh end the strife ‘twixt us and Hellas!” But this was bitter in thy ears. For thou wert wantoning in Alexander’s house, fain to have obeisance done thee by barbarians. Yes, ‘twas a proud time for thee; and now after all this thou hast bedizened thyself, and come forth and hast dared to appear under the same sky as thy husband, revolting wretchl Better hadst thou come in tattered raiment, cowering humbly in terror, with hair shorn short, if for thy past sins thy feeling were one of shame rather than effrontery. O Menelaus, hear the conclusion of my argument; crown Hellas by slaying her as she deserves, and establish this law for all others of her sex, e’en death to every traitress to her husband.

Chorus

Avenge thee, Menelaus, on thy wife, as is worthy of thy home and ancestors, clear thyself from the reproach of effeminacy at the lips of Hellas, and let thy foes see thy spirit.

Menelaus

Thy thoughts with mine do coincide, that she, without constraint, left my palace, and sought a stranger’s love, and now Cypris is introduced for mere bluster. Away to those who shall stone thee, and by thy speedy death requite the weary toils of the Achaeans, that thou mayst learn not to bring shame on me!

Helen

Oh, by thy knees, I implore thee, impute not that heaven-sent affliction to me, nor slay me; pardon, I entreat!

Hecuba

Be not false to thy allies, whose death this woman caused; on their behalf, and for my children’s sake, I sue to thee.

Menelaus

Peace, reverend dame; to her I pay no heed. Lo! I bid my servants take her hence, aboard the ship, wherein she is to sail.

Hecuba

Oh never let her set foot within the same ship as thee.

Menelaus

How now? is she heavier than of yore?

Hecuba

Who loveth once, must love alway.

Menelaus

Why, that depends how those we love are minded. But thy wish shall be granted; she shall not set foot upon the same ship with me; for thy advice is surely sound; and when she comes to Argos she shall die a shameful death as is her due, and impress the need of chastity on all her sex; no easy task; yet shall her fate strike their foolish hearts with terror, e’en though they be more lost to shame than she.

[Exit Menelaus, dragging Helen with him]

Chorus

So then thou hast delivered into Achaea’s hand, O Zeus, thy shrine in Ilium and thy fragrant altar, the offerings of burnt sacrifice with smoke of myrrh to heaven uprising, and holy Pergamos, and glens of Ida tangled with ivy’s growth, where rills of melting snow pour down their flood, a holy sunlit land that bounds the world and takes the god’s first rays! Gone are thy sacrifices! gone the dancer’s cheerful shout! gone the vigils of the gods as night closed in! Thy images of carven gold are now no more; and Phrygia’s holy festivals, twelve times a year, at each full moon, are ended now. ‘Tis this that filleth me with anxious thought whether thou, O king, seated on the sky, thy heavenly throne, carest at all that my city is destroyed, a prey to the furious fiery blast. Ah! my husband, fondly loved, thou art a wandering spectre; unwashed, unburied lies thy corpse, while o’er the sea the ship sped by wings will carry me to Argos, land of steeds, where stand Cyclopian walls of stone upreared to heaven. There in the gate the children gather, hanging round their mothers’ necks, and weep their piteous lamentation, “O mother, woe is me! torn from thy sight Achaeans bear me away from thee to their dark ship to row me o’er the deep to sacred Salamis or to the hill’ on the Isthmus, that o’erlooks two seas, the key to the gates of Pelops.” Oh may the blazing thunderbolt, hurled in might from its holy home, smite the barque of Menelaus full amidships as it is crossing the Aegean main, since he is carrying me away in bitter sorrow from the shores of Ilium to be a slave in Hellas, while the daughter of Zeus still keeps her golden mirrors, delight-of maidens’ hearts. Never may he reach his home in Laconia or his father’s hearth and home, nor come to the town of Pitane or the temple of the goddess’ with the gates of bronze, having taken as his captive her whose marriage brought disgrace on Hellas through its length and breadth and woful anguish on the streams of Simois! Ah me! ah me! new troubles on my country fall, to take the place of those that still are fresh! Behold, ye hapless wives of Troy, the corpse of Astyanax! whom the Danai have cruelly slain by hurling him from the battlements.

[Enter Talthybius and attendants, bearing the corpse of Astyanax on Hector’s shield]

Talthybius

Hecuba, one ship alone delays its plashing oars, and it is soon to sail to the shores of Phthia freighted with the remnant of the spoils of Achilles’ son; for Neoptolemus is already out at sea, having heard that new calamities have befallen Peleus, for Acastus, son of Pelias, hath banished him the realm. Wherefore he is gone, too quick to indulge in any delay, and with him goes Andromache, who drew many a tear from me what time she started hence, wailing her country and crying her farewell to Hector’s tomb. And she craved her master leave to bury this poor dead child of Hector who breathed his last when from the turrets hurled, entreating too that he would not carry this shield, the terror of the Achaeans-this shield with plates of brass wherewith his father would gird himself-to the home of Peleus or to the same bridal bower whither she, herself the mother of this corpse, would be led, a bitter sight to her, but let her bury the child therein instead of in a coffin of cedar or a tomb of stone, and to thy hands commit the corpse that thou mayst deck it with robes and garlands as best thou canst with thy present means; for she is far away and her master’s haste prevented her from burying the child herself. So we, when thou the corpse hast decked, will heap the earth above and set thereon a spear; but do thou with thy best speed perform thy allotted task; one toil however have I already spared thee, for I crossed Scamander’s stream and bathed the corpse and cleansed its wounds. But now will I go to dig a grave for him, that our united efforts shortening our task may speed our ship towards home.

[Exit Talthybius]

Hecuba

Place the shield upon the ground, Hector’s shield so deftly rounded, a piteous sight, a bitter grief for me to see. O ye Achaeans, more reason have ye to boast of your prowess than your wisdom I Why have ye in terror of this child been guilty of murder never matched before? Did ye fear that some day he would rear again the fallen walls of Troy? it seems then ye were nothing after all, when, though Hector’s fortunes in the war were prosperous and he had ten thousand other arms to back him, we still were daily overmatched; and yet, now that our city is taken and every Phrygian slain, ye fear a tender babe like this! Out upon his fear! say I, who fears, but never yet hath reasoned out the cause. Ah! my beloved, thine is a piteous death indeed! Hadst thou died for thy city, when thou hadst tasted of the sweets of manhood, of marriage, and of godlike power o’er others, then wert thou blest, if aught herein is blest. But now after one glimpse, one dream thereof thou knowest them no more, my child, and hast no joy of them, though heir to all. Ah, poor babe! how sadly have thy own father’s walls, those towers that Loxias reared, shorn from thy head the locks thy mother fondled, and so oft caressed, from which through fractured bones the face of murder grins-briefly to dismiss my shocking theme. O hands, how sweet the likeness ye retain of his father, and yet ye lie limp in your sockets before me! Dear mouth, so often full of words of pride, death hath closed thee, and thou hast not kept the promise thou didst make, when nestling in my robe, “Ah, mother mine, many a lock of my hair will I cut off for thee, and to thy tomb will lead my troops of friends, taking a fond farewell of thee.” But now ‘tis not thy hand that buries me, but I, on whom is come old age with loss of home and children, am burying thee, a tender child untimely slain. Ah me! those kisses numberless, the nurture that I gave to thee, those sleepless nights-they all are lost! What shall the bard inscribe-upon thy tomb about thee? “Argives once for fear of him slew this child!” Foul shame should that inscription be to Hellas. O child, though thou hast no part in all thy father’s wealth, yet shalt thou have his brazen shield wherein to find a tomb. Ah! shield that didst keep safe the comely arm of Hector, now hast thou lost thy valiant keeper! How fair upon thy handle lies his imprint, and on the rim, that circles round the targe, are marks of sweat, that trickled oft from Hector’s brow as he pressed it ‘gainst his beard in battle’s stress. Come, bring forth, from such store as we have, adornment for the hapless dead, for fortune gives no chance now for offerings fair; yet of such as I possess, shalt thou receive these gifts. Foolish mortal he! who thinks his luck secure and so rejoices; for fortune, like a madman in her moods, springs towards this man, then towards that; and none ever experiences the same unchanging luck.

Chorus

Lo! all is ready and they are bringing at thy bidding from the spoils of Troy garniture to put upon the dead.

Hecuba

Ah! my child, ‘tis not as victor o’er thy comrades with horse or bow-customs Troy esteems, without pursuing them to excess-that Hector’s mother decks thee now with ornaments from the store that once was thine, though now hath Helen, whom the gods abhor, reft thee of thine own, yea, and robbed thee of thy life and caused thy house to perish root and branch.

Chorus

Woe! thrice woe! my heart is touched, and thou the cause, my mighty prince in days now passed!

Hecuba

About thy body now I swathe this Phrygian robe of honour, which should have clad thee on thy marriage-day, wedded to the noblest of Asia’s daughters. Thou too, dear shield of Hector, victorious parent of countless triumphs past, accept thy crown, for though thou share the dead child’s tomb, death cannot touch thee; for thou dost merit honours far beyond those arms’ that the crafty knave Odysseus won.

Chorus

Alas! ah me! thee, O child, shall earth take to her breast, a cause for bitter weeping. Mourn, thou mother!

Hecuba

Ah me!

Chorus

Wail for the dead.

Hecuba

Woe is me!

Chorus

Alas! for thy unending sorrow!

Hecuba

Thy wounds in part will I bind up with bandages, a wretched leech in name alone, without reality; but for the rest, thy sire must look to that amongst the dead.

Chorus

Smite, oh smite upon thy head with frequent blow of hand. Woe is me!

Hecuba

My kind, good friends!

Chorus

Speak out, good the word that was on thy lips.

Hecuba

It seems the only things that heaven concerns itself about are my troubles and Troy hateful in their eyes above all other cities. In vain did we sacrifice to them. Had not the god caught us in his grip and plunged us headlong ‘neath the earth, we should have been unheard of, nor ever sung in Muses’ songs, furnishing to bards of after-days a subject for their minstrelsy. Go, bury now in his poor tomb the dead, wreathed all duly as befits a corpse. And yet I deem it makes but little difference to the dead, although they get a gorgeous funeral; for this is but a cause of idle pride to the living.

[The corpse is carried off to burial]

Chorus

Alas! for thy unhappy mother, who o’er thy corpse hath closed the high hopes of her life! Born of a noble stock, counted most happy in thy lot, ah! what a tragic death is thine! Ha! who are those I see on yonder pinnacles darting to and fro with flaming torches in their hands? Some new calamity will soon on Troy alight.

[Enter Talthybius above. Soldiers are seen on the battlements of Troy, torch in hand]

Talthybius

Ye captains, whose allotted task it is to fire this town of Priam, to you I speak. No longer keep the firebrand idle in your hands, but launch the flame, that when we have destroyed the city of Ilium we may set forth in gladness on our homeward voyage from Troy. And you, ye sons of Troy-to let my orders take at once a double form-start for the Achaean ships for your departure hence, soon as ever the leaders of the host blow loud and clear upon the trumpet. And thou, unhappy grey haired dame, follow; for yonder come servants from Odysseus to fetch thee, for to him thou art assigned by lot to be a slave far from thy country.

Hecuba

Ah, woe is me! This surely is the last, the utmost limit this, of all my sorrows; forth from my land I go; my city is ablaze with flame. Yet, thou aged foot, make one painful struggle to hasten, that I may say a farewell to this wretched town. O Troy, that erst hadst such a grand career amongst barbarian towns, soon wilt thou be reft of that splendid name. Lo! they are burning thee, and leading us e’en now from our land to slavery. Great gods! Yet why call on the gods? They did not hearken e’en aforetime to our call. Come, let us rush into the flames, for to die with my country in its blazing ruin were a noble death for me.

Talthybius

Thy sorrows drive thee frantic, poor lady. Go, lead her hence, make no delay, for ye must deliver her into the hand of Odysseus, conveying to him his prize.

Hecuba

O son of Cronos, prince of Phrygia, father of our race, dost thou behold our sufferings now, unworthy of the stock of Dardanus?

Chorus

He sees them, but our mighty city is a city no more, and Troy’s day is done.

Hecuba

Woe! thrice woe upon me! Ilium is ablaze; the homes of Pergamos and its towering walls are now one sheet of flame.

Chorus

As the smoke soars on wings to heaven, so sinks our city to the ‘ground before the spear. With furious haste both fire and foeman’s spear devour each house.

Hecuba

Hearken, my children, hear your mother’s voice.

Chorus

Thou art calling on the dead with voice of lamentation.

Hecuba

Yea, as I stretch my aged limbs upon the ground, and beat upon the earth with both my hands.

Chorus

I follow thee and kneel, invoking from the nether world my hapless husband.

Hecuba

I am being dragged and hurried away.

Chorus

O the sorrow of that cry!

Hecuba

From my own dear country, to dwell beneath a master’s roof. Woe is me! O Priam, Priam, unburied, left without a friend, naught dost thou know of my cruel fate.

Chorus

No, for o’er his eyes black death hath drawn his pall-a holy man by sinners slain!

Hecuba

Woe for the temples of the gods! Woe for our dear city!

Chorus

Woe!

Hecuba

Murderous flame and foeman’s spear are now your lot.

Chorus

Soon will ye tumble to your own loved soil, and be forgotten.

Hecuba

And the dust, mounting to heaven on wings like smoke, will rob me of the sight of my home.

Chorus

The name of my country will pass into obscurity; all is scattered far and wide, and hapless Troy has ceased to be.

Hecuba

Did ye hear that and know its purport?

Chorus

Aye, ‘twas the crash of the citadel.

Hecuba

The shock will whelm our city utterly. O woe is me! trembling, quaking limbs, support my footsteps! away! to face the day that begins thy slavery.

Chorus

Woe for our unhappy town! And yet to the Achaean fleet advance.

Hecuba

Woe for thee, O land that nursed my little babes!

Chorus

Ah! woe!

[Exeunt omnes]