Poetry · Merope (2/2) (2/2) (1/7)
Laias Son of Cresphontes, we have reach’d the goal Of our night-journey, and thou see’st thy home. Behold thy heritage, thy father’s realm! This is that fruitful, fam’d Messenian land, Wealthy in corn and flocks, which, when at last The late-relenting Gods with victory brought The Heracleidae back to Pelops’ isle, Fell to thy father’s lot, the second prize. Before thy feet this recent city spreads Of Stenyclaros, which he built, and made Of his fresh-conquer’d realm the royal seat, Degrading Pylos from its ancient rule. There stands the temple of thine ancestor, Great Hercules; and, in that public place, Zeus hath his altar, where thy father fell. Thence to the south, behold those snowy peaks, Taygetus, Laconia’s border-wall: And, on this side, those confluent streams which make Pamisus watering the Messenian plain: Then to the north, Lycaeus and the hills Of pastoral Arcadia, where, a babe Snatch’d from the slaughter of thy father’s house, Thy mother’s kin receiv’d thee, and rear’d up.⁠— Our journey is well made, the work remains Which to perform we made it; means for that Let us consult, before this palace sends Its inmates on their daily tasks abroad. Haste and advise, for day comes on apace.
Aepytus O brother of my mother, guardian true, And second father from that hour when first My mother’s faithful servant laid me down, An infant, at the hearth of Cypselus, My grandfather, the good Arcadian king⁠— Thy part it were to advise, and mine to obey. But let us keep that purpose, which, at home, We judg’d the best; chance finds no better way. Go thou into the city, and seek out Whate’er in the Messenian people stirs Of faithful fondness for their former king Or hatred to their present; in this last Will lie, my grandsire said, our fairest chance. For tyrants make man good beyond himself; Hate to their rule, which else would die away, Their daily-practis’d chafings keep alive. Seek this; revive, unite it, give it hope; Bid it rise boldly at the signal given. Meanwhile within my father’s palace I, An unknown guest, will enter, bringing word Of my own death; but, Laias, well I hope Through that pretended death to live and reign.
The Chorus comes forth.
Softly, stand back!⁠—see, tow’rd palace gates What black procession slowly makes approach?⁠— Sad-chanting maidens clad in mourning robes, With pitchers in their hands, and fresh-pull’d flowers: Doubtless, they bear them to my father’s tomb.⁠—
Merope comes forth.
And see, to meet them, that one, grief-plung’d Form, Severer, paler, statelier than they all, A golden circlet on her queenly brow.⁠— O Laias, Laias, let the heart speak here! Shall I not greet her? shall I not leap forth? Polyphontes* comes forth, following Merope*.
Laias Not so: thy heart would pay its moment’s speech By silence ever after; for, behold! The King (I know him, even through many years) Follows the issuing Queen, who stops, as call’d. No lingering now! straight to the city I: Do thou, till for thine entrance to this house The happy moment comes, lurk here unseen Behind the shelter of thy father’s tomb: Remove yet further off, if aught comes near. But, here while harbouring, on its margin lay, Sole offering that thou hast, locks from thy head: And fill thy leisure with an earnest prayer To his avenging Shade, and to the Gods Who under earth watch guilty deeds of men, To guide our effort to a prosperous close. Laias* goes out. Polyphontes, Merope, and The Chorus come forward. As they advance, Aepytus*, who at first conceals himself behind the tomb, moves off the stage.
Polyphontes To The Chorus. Set down your pitchers, maidens! and fall back; Suspend your melancholy rites awhile: Shortly ye shall resume them with your Queen.⁠—
To Merope.
I sought thee, Merope; I find thee thus, As I have ever found thee; bent to keep, By sad observances and public grief, A mournful feud alive, which else would die. I blame thee not, I do thy heart no wrong: Thy deep seclusion, thine unyielding gloom, Thine attitude of cold, estrang’d reproach, These punctual funeral honours, year by year Repeated, are in thee, I well believe, Courageous, faithful actions, nobly dar’d. But, Merope, the eyes of other men Read in these actions, innocent in thee, Perpetual promptings to rebellious hope, War-cries to faction, year by year renew’d, Beacons of vengeance, not to be let die. And me, believe it, wise men gravely blame, And ignorant men despise me, that I stand Passive, permitting thee what course thou wilt. Yes, the crowd mutters that remorseful fear And paralysing conscience stop my arm, When it should pluck thee from thy hostile way. All this I bear, for, what I seek, I know; Peace, peace is what I seek, and public calm: Endless extinction of unhappy hates: Union cemented for this nation’s weal. And even now, if to behold me here, This day, amid these rites, this black rob’d train, Wakens, O Queen! remembrance in thy heart Too wide at variance with the peace I seek⁠— I will not violate thy noble grief, The prayer I came to urge I will defer.
Merope This day, to-morrow, yesterday, alike I am, I shall be, have been, in my mind Tow’rds thee; towards thy silence as thy speech. Speak, therefore, or keep silence, which thou wilt.
Polyphontes Hear me, then, speak; and let this mournful day, The twentieth anniversary of strife, Henceforth be honour’d as the date of peace. Yes, twenty years ago this day beheld The king Cresphontes, thy great husband, fall; It needs no yearly offerings at his tomb To keep alive that memory in my heart; It lives, and, while I see the light, will live. For we were kinsmen⁠—more than kinsmen⁠—friends: Together we had sprung, together liv’d; Together to this isle of Pelops came To take the inheritance of Hercules; Together won this fair Messenian land⁠— Alas, that, how to rule it, was our broil! He had his counsel, party, friends⁠—I mine; He stood by what he wish’d for⁠—I the same; I smote him, when our wishes clash’d in arms⁠— He had smit me, had he been swift as I. But while I smote him, Queen, I honour’d him; Me, too, had he prevail’d, he had not scorn’d. Enough of this!⁠—since then, I have maintain’d The sceptre⁠—not remissly let it fall⁠— And I am seated on a prosperous throne: Yet still, for I conceal it not, ferments In the Messenian people what remains Of thy dead husband’s faction; vigorous once, Now crush’d but not quite lifeless by his fall. And these men look to thee, and from thy grief⁠— Something too studiously, forgive me, shown⁠— Infer thee their accomplice; and they say That thou in secret nurturest up thy son, Him whom thou hiddest when thy husband fell, To avenge that fall, and bring them back to power. Such are their hopes⁠—I ask not if by thee Willingly fed or no⁠—their most vain hopes; For I have kept conspiracy fast-chain’d Till now, and I have strength to chain it still. But, Merope, the years advance;⁠—I stand Upon the threshold of old age, alone, Always in arms, always in face of foes. The long repressive attitude of rule Leaves me austerer, sterner, than I would; Old age is more suspicious than the free And valiant heart of youth, or manhood’s firm, Unclouded reason; I would not decline Into a jealous tyrant, scourg’d with fears, Closing in blood and gloom, his sullen reign. The cares which might in me with time, I feel, Beget a cruel temper, help me quell; The breach between our parties help me close; Assist me to rule mildly: let us join Our hands in solemn union, making friends Our factions with the friendship of their chiefs. Let us in marriage, King and Queen, unite Claims ever hostile else; and set thy son⁠— No more an exile fed on empty hopes, And to an unsubstantial title heir, But prince adopted by the will of power, And future king⁠—before this people’s eyes. Consider him; consider not old hates: Consider, too, this people, who were dear To their dead king, thy husband⁠—yea, too dear, For that destroy’d him. Give them peace; thou can’st. O Merope, how many noble thoughts, How many precious feelings of man’s heart, How many loves, how many gratitudes, Do twenty years wear out, and see expire! Shall they not wear one hatred out as well?
Merope Thou hast forgot, then, who I am who hear, And who thou art who speakest to me? I Am Merope, thy murder’d master’s wife⁠ ⁠… And thou art Polyphontes, first his friend, And then⁠ ⁠… his murderer. These offending tears That murder draws⁠ ⁠… this breach that thou would’st close Was by that murder open’d⁠ ⁠… that one child (If still, indeed, he lives) whom thou would’st seat Upon a throne not thine to give, is heir, Because thou slew’st his brothers with their father⁠ ⁠… Who can patch union here?⁠ ⁠… What can there be But everlasting horror ’twixt us two, Gulfs of estranging blood?⁠ ⁠… Across that chasm Who can extend their hands?⁠ ⁠… Maidens, take back These offerings home! our rites are spoil’d to-day.
Polyphontes Not so: let these Messenian maidens mark The fear’d and blacken’d ruler of their race, Albeit with lips unapt to self-excuse, Blow off the spot of murder from his name.⁠— Murder!⁠—but what is murder? When a wretch For private gain or hatred takes a life, We call it murder, crush him, brand his name: But when, for some great public cause, an arm Is, without love or hate, austerely rais’d Against a Power exempt from common checks, Dangerous to all, to be but thus annull’d⁠— Ranks any man with murder such an act? With grievous deeds, perhaps; with murder⁠—no! Find then such cause, the charge of murder falls: Be judge thyself if it abound not here.⁠— All know how weak the Eagle, Hercules, Soaring from his death-pile on Oeta, left His puny, callow Eaglets; and what trials⁠— Infirm protectors, dubious oracles Construed awry, misplann’d invasions⁠—us’d Two generations of his offspring up; Hardly the third, with grievous loss, regain’d Their fathers’ realm, this isle, from Pelops nam’d.⁠— Who made that triumph, though deferr’d, secure? Who, but the kinsmen of the royal brood Of Hercules, scarce Heracleidae less Than they? these, and the Dorian lords, whose king Aegimius gave our outcast house a home When Thebes, when Athens dar’d not; who in arms Thrice issued with us from their pastoral vales, And shed their blood like water in our cause?⁠— Such were the dispossessors: of what stamp Were they we dispossessed?⁠—of us I speak, Who to Messenia with thy husband came⁠— I speak not now of Argos, where his brother, Not now of Sparta, where his nephews reign’d:⁠— What we found here were tribes of fame obscure, Much turbulence, and little constancy, Precariously rul’d by foreign lords From the Aeolian stock of Neleus sprung, A house once great, now dwindling in its sons. Such were the conquer’d, such the conquerors: who Had most thy husband’s confidence? Consult His acts; the wife he chose was⁠—full of virtues⁠— But an Arcadian princess, more akin To his new subjects than to us; his friends Were the Messenian chiefs; the laws he fram’d Were aim’d at their promotion, our decline; And, finally, this land, then half-subdued, Which from one central city’s guarded seat As from a fastness in the rocks our scant Handful of Dorian conquerors might have curb’d, He parcell’d out in five confederate states, Sowing his victors thinly through them all, Mere prisoners, meant or not, among our foes. If this was fear of them, it sham’d the king: If jealousy of us, it shamed the man.⁠— Long we refrain’d ourselves, submitted long, Construed his acts indulgently, rever’d, Though found perverse, the blood of Hercules: Reluctantly the rest; but, against all, One voice preach’d patience, and that voice was mine. At last it reach’d us, that he, still mistrustful, Deeming, as tyrants deem, our silence hate, Unadulating grief conspiracy, Had to this city, Stenyclaros, call’d A general assemblage of the realm, With compact in that concourse to deliver, For death, his ancient to his new-made friends. Patience was thenceforth self-destruction. I, I his chief kinsman, I his pioneer And champion to the throne, I honouring most Of men the line of Hercules, preferr’d The many of that lineage to the one: What his foes dar’d not, I, his lover, dar’d; I, at that altar, where mid shouting crowds He sacrific’d, our ruin in his heart, To Zeus, before he struck his blow, struck mine: Struck once, and aw’d his mob, and sav’d this realm. Murder let others call this, if they will; I, self-defence and righteous execution.
Merope Alas, how fair a colour can his tongue, Who self-exculpates, lend to foulest deeds. Thy trusting lord didst thou, his servant, slay; Kinsman, thou slew’st thy kinsman; friend, thy friend: This were enough; but let me tell thee, too, Thou hadst no cause, as feign’d, in his misrule. For ask at Argos, asked in Lacedaemon, Whose people, when the Heracleidae came, Were hunted out, and to Achaia fled, Whether is better, to abide alone, A wolfish band, in a dispeopled realm, Or conquerors with conquer’d to unite Into one puissant folk, as he design’d? These sturdy and unworn Messenian tribes, Who shook the fierce Neleidae on their throne, Who to the invading Dorians stretch’d a hand, And half bestow’d, half yielded up their soil⁠— He would not let his savage chiefs alight, A cloud of vultures, on this vigorous race; Ravin a little while in spoil and blood, Then, gorg’d and helpless, be assail’d and slain. He would have sav’d you from your furious selves, Not in abhorr’d estrangement let you stand; He would have mix’d you with your friendly foes, Foes dazzled with your prowess, well inclin’d To reverence your lineage, more, to obey: So would have built you, in a few short years, A just, therefore a safe, supremacy. For well he knew, what you, his chiefs, did not⁠— How of all human rules the over-tense Are apt to snap; the easy-stretch’d endure.⁠— O gentle wisdom, little understood! O arts above the vulgar tyrant’s reach! O policy too subtle far for sense Of heady, masterful, injurious men! This good he meant you, and for this he died. Yet not for this⁠—else might thy crime in part Be error deem’d⁠—but that pretence is vain. For, if ye slew him for suppos’d misrule, Injustice to his kin and Dorian friends, Why with the offending father did ye slay Two unoffending babes, his innocent sons? Why not on them have plac’d the forfeit crown, Rul’d in their name, and train’d them to your will? Had they misrul’d? had they forgot their friends? Forsworn their blood? ungratefully had they Preferr’d Messenian serfs to Dorian lords? No: but to thy ambition their poor lives Were bar; and this, too, was their father’s crime. That thou might’st reign he died, not for his fault Even fancied; and his death thou wroughtest chief. For, if the other lords desir’d his fall Hotlier than thou, and were by thee kept back, Why dost thou only profit by his death? Thy crown condemns thee, while thy tongue absolves. And now to me thou tenderest friendly league, And to my son reversion to thy throne: Short answer is sufficient; league with thee, For me I deem such impious; and for him, Exile abroad more safe than heirship here.