Poetry · Merope (2/2) (2/2) (6/7)

| The Chorus | O Son and Mother, Whom the Gods o’ershadow In dangerous trial, With certainty of favour! As erst they shadow’d Your race’s founders From irretrievable woe: When the seed of Lycaon Lay forlorn, lay outcast, Callisto and her Boy. What deep-grass’d meadow At the meeting valleys⁠— Where clear-flowing Ladon, Most beautiful of waters, Receives the river Whose trout are vocal, The Aroanian stream⁠— Without home, without mother, Hid the babe, hid Arcas, The nursling of the dells? But the sweet-smelling myrtle, And the pink-flower’d oleander, And the green agnus-castus, To the West-Wind’s murmur, Rustled round his cradle; And Maia rear’d him. Then, a boy, he startled, In the snow-fill’d hollows Of high Cyllene, The white mountain-birds; Or surpris’d, in the glens, The basking tortoises, Whose striped shell founded In the hand of Hermes The glory of the lyre. But his mother, Callisto, In her hiding-place of the thickets Of the lentisk and ilex In her rough form, fearing The hunter on the outlook, Poor changeling! trembled. Or the children, plucking In the thorn-chok’d gullies Wild gooseberries, scar’d her, The shy mountain-bear. Or the shepherds, on slopes With pale-spik’d lavender And crisp thyme tufted, Came upon her, stealing At daybreak through the dew. Once, ’mid those gorges, Spray-drizzled, lonely, Unclimb’d by man⁠— O’er whose cliffs the townsmen Of crag-perch’d Nonacris Behold in summer The slender torrent Of Styx come dancing, A wind-blown thread⁠— By the precipices of Khelmos, The fleet, desperate hunter, The youthful Arcas, born of Zeus, His fleeing mother, Transform’d Callisto, Unwitting follow’d⁠— And raised his spear. Turning, with piteous Distressful longing, Sad, eager eyes, Mutely she regarded Her well-known enemy. Low moans half utter’d What speech refus’d her; Tears cours’d, tears human, Down those disfigur’d, Once human cheeks. With unutterable foreboding Her son, heart-stricken, ey’d her. The Gods had pity, made them Stars. Stars now they sparkle In the northern Heaven; The guard Arcturus, The guard-watch’d Bear. So, o’er thee and thy child, Some God, Merope, now, In dangerous hour, stretches his hand. So, like a star, dawns thy son, Radiant with fortune and joy. Polyphontes comes in. | | Polyphontes | O Merope, the trouble on thy face Tells me enough thou know’st the news which all Messenia speaks: the prince, thy son, is dead. Not from my lips should consolation fall; To offer that, I come not; but to urge, Even after news of this sad death, our league. Yes, once again I come; I will not take This morning’s angry answer for thy last: To the Messenian kingdom thou and I Are the sole claimants left; what cause of strife Lay in thy son is buried in his grave. Most honourably I meant, I call the Gods To witness, offering him return and power: Yet, had he liv’d, suspicion, jealousy, Inevitably had surg’d up, perhaps, ’Twixt thee and me; suspicion, that I nurs’d Some ill design against him; jealousy, That he enjoy’d but part, being heir to all. And he himself, with the impetuous heart Of youth, ’tis like, had never quite forgone The thought of vengeance on me, never quite Unclos’d his itching fingers from his sword. But thou, O Merope, though deeply wrong’d, Though injur’d past forgiveness, as men deem, Yet hast been long at school with thoughtful Time, And from that teacher may’st have learn’d, like me, That all may be endur’d, and all forgiv’n; Have learn’d that we must sacrifice the thirst Of personal vengeance to the public weal; Have learn’d, that there are guilty deeds, which leave The hand that does them guiltless; in a word, That kings live for their peoples, not themselves. This having learn’d, let us a union found (For the last time I ask, ask earnestly) Bas’d on pure public welfare; let us be⁠— Not Merope and Polyphontes, foes Blood-sever’d⁠—but Messenia’s King and Queen: Let us forget ourselves for those we rule. Speak: I go hence to offer sacrifice To the Preserver Zeus; let me return Thanks to him for our amity as well. | | Merope | Oh had’st thou, Polyphontes, still but kept The silence thou hast kept for twenty years! | | Polyphontes | Henceforth, if what I urge displease, I may: But fair proposal merits fair reply. | | Merope | And thou shalt have it! Yes, because thou hast For twenty years forborne to interrupt The solitude of her whom thou hast wrong’d⁠— That scanty grace shall earn thee this reply.⁠— First, for our union. Trust me, ’twixt us two The brazen footed Fury ever stalks, Waving her hundred hands, a torch in each, Aglow with angry fire, to keep us twain. Now, for thyself. Thou com’st with well-cloak’d joy, To announce the ruin of my husband’s house, To sound thy triumph in his widow’s ears, To bid her share thine unendanger’d throne:⁠— To this thou would’st have answer.⁠—Take it: Fly! Cut short thy triumph, seeming at its height; Fling off thy crown, suppos’d at last secure; Forsake this ample, proud Messenian realm: To some small, humble, and unnoted strand, Some rock more lonely than that Lemnian isle Where Philoctetes pin’d, take ship and flee: Some solitude more inaccessible Than the ice-bastion’d Caucasian Mount Chosen a prison for Prometheus, climb: There in unvoic’d oblivion hide thy name, And bid the sun, thine only visitant, Divulge not to the far-off world of men What once-fam’d wretch he he hath seen lurking there. There nurse a late remorse, and thank the Gods, And thank thy bitterest foe, that, having lost All things but life, thou lose not life as well. | | Polyphontes | What mad bewilderment of grief is this? | | Merope | Thou art bewilder’d: the sane head is mine. | | Polyphontes | I pity thee, and wish thee calmer mind. | | Merope | Pity thyself; none needs compassion more. | | Polyphontes | Yet, oh! could’st thou but act as reason bids! | | Merope | And in my turn I wish the same for thee. | | Polyphontes | All I could do to soothe thee has been tried. | | Merope | For that, in this my warning, thou art paid. | | Polyphontes | Know’st thou then aught, that thus thou sound’st the alarm? | | Merope | Thy crime: that were enough to make one fear. | | Polyphontes | My deed is of old date, and long aton’d. | | Merope | Aton’d this very day, perhaps, it is. | | Polyphontes | My final victory proves the Gods appeas’d. | | Merope | O victor, victor, trip not at the goal! | | Polyphontes | Hatred and passionate Envy blind thine eyes. | | Merope | O Heaven-abandon’d wretch, that envies thee! | | Polyphontes | Thou hold’st so cheap, then, the Messenian crown? | | Merope | I think on what the future hath in store. | | Polyphontes | To-day I reign: the rest I leave to Fate. | | Merope | For Fate thou wait’st not long; since, in this hour⁠— | | Polyphontes | What? for so far Fate hath not prov’d my foe⁠— | | Merope | Fate seals my lips, and drags to ruin thee. | | Polyphontes | Enough! enough! I will no longer hear The ill-boding note which frantic Envy sounds To affright a fortune which the Gods secure. Once more my friendship thou rejectest: well! More for this land’s sake grieve I, than mine own. I chafe not with thee, that thy hate endures, Nor bend myself too low, to make it yield. What I have done is done; by my own deed, Neither exulting nor asham’d, I stand. Why should this heart of mine set mighty store By the construction and report of men? Not men’s good-word hath made me what I am. Alone I master’d power; and alone, Since so thou wilt, I dare maintain it still. Polyphontes goes out. | | The Chorus | Did I then waver (O woman’s judgment!) Misled by seeming Success of crime? And ask, if sometimes The Gods, perhaps, allow’d you, O lawless daring of the strong, O self-will recklessly indulg’d? Not time, not lightning, Not rain, not thunder, Efface the endless Decrees of Heaven⁠— Make Justice alter, Revoke, assuage her sentence, Which dooms dread ends to dreadful deeds, And violent deaths to violent men. But the signal example Of invariableness of justice Our glorious founder Hercules gave us, Son lov’d of Zeus his father: for he err’d, And the strand of Euboea, And the promontory of Cenaeum, His painful, solemn Punishment witness’d, Beheld his expiation: for he died. O villages of Oeta With hedges of the wild rose! O pastures of the mountain, Of short grass, beaded with dew, Between the pine-woods and the cliffs! O cliffs, left by the eagles, On that morn, when the smoke-cloud From the oak-built, fiercely-burning pyre, Up the precipices of Trachis, Drove them screaming from their eyries! A willing, a willing sacrifice on that day Ye witness’d, ye mountain lawns, When the shirt-wrapt, poison-blister’d Hero Ascended, with undaunted heart, Living, his own funeral-pile, And stood, shouting for a fiery torch; And the kind, chance-arriv’d Wanderer,38 The inheritor of the bow, Coming swiftly through the sad Trachinians, Put the torch to the pile: That the flame tower’d on high to the Heaven Bearing with it, to Olympus, To the side of Hebe, To immortal delight, The labour-releas’d Hero. O heritage of Neleus, Ill-kept by his infirm heirs! O kingdom of Messenê, Of rich soil, chosen by craft, Possess’d in hatred, lost in blood! O town, high Stenyclaros, With new walls, which the victors From the four-town’d, mountain-shadow’d Doris, For their Hercules-issu’d princes Built in strength against the vanquish’d! Another, another sacrifice on this day Ye witness, ye new-built towers! When the white-rob’d, garland-crowned Monarch Approaches, with undoubting heart, Living, his own sacrifice-block, And stands, shouting for a slaughterous axe; And the stern, Destiny-brought Stranger, The inheritor of the realm, Coming swiftly through the jocund Dorians, Drives the axe to its goal: That the blood rushes in streams to the dust; Bearing with it, to Erinnys, To the Gods of Hades, To the dead unaveng’d, The fiercely-required Victim. Knowing he did it, unknowing pays for it. Unknowing, unknowing, Thinking aton’d-for Deeds unatonable, Thinking appeas’d Gods unappeasable, Lo, the Ill-fated One, Standing for harbour, Right at the harbour-mouth, Strikes, with all sail set, Full on the sharp-pointed Needle of ruin! A Messenger comes in. | | Messenger | O honour’d Queen, O faithful followers Of your dead master’s line, I bring you news To make the gates of this long-mournful house Leap, and fly open of themselves for joy! | | | Noise and shouting heard. | | | Hark how the shouting crowds tramp hitherward With glad acclaim! Ere they forestall my news, Accept it:⁠—Polyphontes is no more. | | Merope | Is my son safe? that question bounds my care. | | Messenger | He is, and by the people hail’d for king. | | Merope | The rest to me is little: yet, since that Must from some mouth be heard, relate it thou. | | Messenger | Not little, if thou saw’st what love, what zeal, At thy dead husband’s name the people show. For when this morning in the public square I took my stand, and saw the unarm’d crowds Of citizens in holiday attire, Women and children intermix’d; and then, Group’d around Zeus’s altar, all in arms, Serried and grim, the ring of Dorian lords⁠— I trembled for our prince and his attempt. Silence and expectation held us all: Till presently the King came forth, in robe Of sacrifice, his guards clearing the way Before him⁠—at his side, the prince, thy son, Unarm’d and travel-soil’d, just as he was: With him conferring the King slowly reach’d The altar in the middle of the square, Where, by the sacrificing minister, The flower-dress’d victim stood, a milk-white bull, Swaying from side to side his massy head With short impatient lowings: there he stopp’d, And seem’d to muse awhile, then rais’d his eyes To heaven, and laid his hand upon the steer, And cried: O Zeus, let what blood-guiltiness Yet stains our land be by this blood wash’d out, And grant henceforth to the Messenians peace! That moment, while with upturn’d eyes he pray’d, The prince snatch’d from the sacrificer’s hand The axe, and on the forehead of the King, Where twines the chaplet, dealt a mighty blow Which fell’d him to the earth, and o’er him stood, And shouted⁠—Since by thee defilement came, What blood so meet as thine to wash it out? What hand to strike thee meet as mine, the hand Of Aepytus, thy murder’d master’s son?⁠— But, gazing at him from the ground, the King⁠ ⁠… Is it, then, thou? he murmur’d; and with that, He bow’d his head, and deeply groan’d, and died. Till then we all seem’d stone: but then a cry Broke from the Dorian lords: forward they rush’d To circle the prince round: when suddenly Laias in arms sprang to his nephew’s side, Crying⁠—O ye Messenians, will ye leave The son to perish as ye left the sire? And from that moment I saw nothing clear: For from all sides a deluge, as it seem’d, Burst o’er the altar and the Dorian lords, Of holiday-clad citizens transform’d To armed warriors: I heard vengeful cries; I heard the clash of weapons; then I saw The Dorians lying dead, thy son hail’d king. And, truly, one who sees, what seem’d so strong, The power of this tyrant and his lords, Melt like a passing smoke, a nightly dream, At one bold word, one enterprising blow⁠— Might ask, why we endur’d their yoke so long: But that we know how every perilous feat Of daring, easy as it seems when done, Is easy at no moment but the right. | | The Chorus | Thou speakest well; but here, to give our eyes Authentic proof of what thou tell’st our ears, The conquerors, with the King’s dead body, come. Aepytus*, Laias, and Arcas come in with the dead body of Polyphontes, followed by a crowd of the Messenians*. | | Laias | Sister, from this day forth thou art no more The widow of a husband unaveng’d, The anxious mother of an exil’d son. Thine enemy is slain, thy son is king! Rejoice with us! and trust me, he who wish’d Welfare to the Messenian state, and calm, Could find no way to found them sure as this. | | Aepytus | Mother, all these approve me: but if thou Approve not too, I have but half my joy. |