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diff --git a/18550-0.txt b/18550-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..62d2b3b --- /dev/null +++ b/18550-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3021 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Erechtheus, by Algernon Charles Swinburne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Erechtheus + A Tragedy (New Edition) + +Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne + +Release Date: June 11, 2006 [EBook #18550] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERECHTHEUS *** + + + + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Taavi Kalju and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + +ERECHTHEUS: + +A TRAGEDY. + + +BY + +ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE + + + + + ὦ ταὶ λιπαραὶ καὶ ἰοστέφανοι καὶ ἀοίδιμοι + Ἑλλάδος ἔρεισμα, κλειναὶ Ἀθᾶναι δαιμόνιον πτολίεθρον. + +PIND. _Fr._ 47. + + ΑΤ. τίς δὲ ποιμάνωρ ἔπεστι κἀπιδεσπόζει στρατοῦ; + ΧΟ. οὔτινος δοῦλοι κέκληνται φωτὸς οὐδ' ὑπηκόοι. + +ÆSCH. _Pers._ 241-2. + + +_A NEW EDITION._ + + +London: +CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. +1881. + + + + +PERSONS. + + +ERECHTHEUS. +CHORUS OF ATHENIAN ELDERS. +PRAXITHEA. +CHTHONIA. +HERALD OF EUMOLPUS. +MESSENGER. +ATHENIAN HERALD. +ATHENA. + + + + +ERECHTHEUS. + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + Mother of life and death and all men's days, + Earth, whom I chief of all men born would bless, + And call thee with more loving lips than theirs + Mother, for of this very body of thine + And living blood I have my breath and live, + Behold me, even thy son, me crowned of men, + Me made thy child by that strong cunning God + Who fashions fire and iron, who begat + Me for a sword and beacon-fire on thee, + Me fosterling of Pallas, in her shade 10 + Reared, that I first might pay the nursing debt, + Hallowing her fame with flower of third-year feasts, + And first bow down the bridled strength of steeds + To lose the wild wont of their birth, and bear + Clasp of man's knees and steerage of his hand, + Or fourfold service of his fire-swift wheels + That whirl the four-yoked chariot; me the king + Who stand before thee naked now, and cry, + O holy and general mother of all men born, + But mother most and motherliest of mine, 20 + Earth, for I ask thee rather of all the Gods, + What have we done? what word mistimed or work + Hath winged the wild feet of this timeless curse + To fall as fire upon us? Lo, I stand + Here on this brow's crown of the city's head + That crowns its lovely body, till death's hour + Waste it; but now the dew of dawn and birth + Is fresh upon it from thy womb, and we + Behold it born how beauteous; one day more + I see the world's wheel of the circling sun 30 + Roll up rejoicing to regard on earth + This one thing goodliest, fair as heaven or he, + Worth a God's gaze or strife of Gods; but now + Would this day's ebb of their spent wave of strife + Sweep it to sea, wash it on wreck, and leave + A costless thing contemned; and in our stead, + Where these walls were and sounding streets of men, + Make wide a waste for tongueless water-herds + And spoil of ravening fishes; that no more + Should men say, Here was Athens. This shalt thou 40 + Sustain not, nor thy son endure to see, + Nor thou to live and look on; for the womb + Bare me not base that bare me miserable, + To hear this loud brood of the Thracian foam + Break its broad strength of billowy-beating war + Here, and upon it as a blast of death + Blowing, the keen wrath of a fire-souled king, + A strange growth grafted on our natural soil, + A root of Thrace in Eleusinian earth + Set for no comfort to the kindly land, 50 + Son of the sea's lord and our first-born foe, + Eumolpus; nothing sweet in ears of thine + The music of his making, nor a song + Toward hopes of ours auspicious; for the note + Rings as for death oracular to thy sons + That goes before him on the sea-wind blown + Full of this charge laid on me, to put out + The brief light kindled of mine own child's life, + Or with this helmsman hand that steers the state + Run right on the under shoal and ridge of death 60 + The populous ship with all its fraughtage gone + And sails that were to take the wind of time + Rent, and the tackling that should hold out fast + In confluent surge of loud calamities + Broken, with spars of rudders and lost oars + That were to row toward harbour and find rest + In some most glorious haven of all the world + And else may never near it: such a song + The Gods have set his lips on fire withal + Who threatens now in all their names to bring 70 + Ruin; but none of these, thou knowest, have I + Chid with my tongue or cursed at heart for grief, + Knowing how the soul runs reinless on sheer death + Whose grief or joy takes part against the Gods. + And what they will is more than our desire, + And their desire is more than what we will. + For no man's will and no desire of man's + Shall stand as doth a God's will. Yet, O fair + Mother, that seest me how I cast no word + Against them, plead no reason, crave no cause, 80 + Boast me not blameless, nor beweep me wronged, + By this fair wreath of towers we have decked thee with, + This chaplet that we give thee woven of walls, + This girdle of gate and temple and citadel + Drawn round beneath thy bosom, and fast linked + As to thine heart's root--this dear crown of thine, + This present light, this city--be not thou + Slow to take heed nor slack to strengthen her, + Fare we so short-lived howsoe'er, and pay + What price we may to ransom thee thy town, 90 + Not me my life; but thou that diest not, thou, + Though all our house die for this people's sake, + Keep thou for ours thy crown our city, guard + And give it life the lovelier that we died. + + + CHORUS. + + Sun, that hast lightened and loosed by thy might + Ocean and Earth from the lordship of night, + Quickening with vision his eye that was veiled, + Freshening the force in her heart that had failed, + That sister fettered and blinded brother + Should have sight by thy grace and delight of each other, 100 + Behold now and see + What profit is given them of thee; + What wrath has enkindled with madness of mind + Her limbs that were bounden, his face that was blind, + To be locked as in wrestle together, and lighten + With fire that shall darken thy fire in the sky, + Body to body and eye against eye + In a war against kind, + Till the bloom of her fields and her high hills whiten + With the foam of his waves more high. 110 + For the sea-marks set to divide of old + The kingdoms to Ocean and Earth assigned, + The hoar sea-fields from the cornfields' gold, + His wine-bright waves from her vineyards' fold, + Frail forces we find + To bridle the spirit of Gods or bind + Till the heat of their hearts wax cold. + But the peace that was stablished between them to stand + Is rent now in twain by the strength of his hand + Who stirs up the storm of his sons overbold 120 + To pluck from fight what he lost of right, + By council and judgment of Gods that spake + And gave great Pallas the strife's fair stake, + The lordship and love of the lovely land, + The grace of the town that hath on it for crown + But a headband to wear + Of violets one-hued with her hair: + For the vales and the green high places of earth + Hold nothing so fair, + And the depths of the sea bear no such birth 130 + Of the manifold births they bear. + Too well, too well was the great stake worth + A strife divine for the Gods to judge, + A crowned God's triumph, a foiled God's grudge, + Though the loser be strong and the victress wise + Who played long since for so large a prize, + The fruitful immortal anointed adored + Dear city of men without master or lord, + Fair fortress and fostress of sons born free, + Who stand in her sight and in thine, O sun, 140 + Slaves of no man, subjects of none; + A wonder enthroned on the hills and sea, + A maiden crowned with a fourfold glory + That none from the pride of her head may rend, + Violet and olive-leaf purple and hoary, + Song-wreath and story the fairest of fame, + Flowers that the winter can blast not or bend; + A light upon earth as the sun's own flame, + A name as his name, + Athens, a praise without end. 150 + + A noise is arisen against us of waters, [_Str._ 1. + A sound as of battle come up from the sea. + Strange hunters are hard on us, hearts without pity; + They have staked their nets round the fair young city, + That the sons of her strength and her virgin daughters + Should find not whither alive to flee. + And we know not yet of the word unwritten, [_Ant._ 1. + The doom of the Pythian we have not heard; + From the navel of earth and the veiled mid altar + We wait for a token with hopes that falter, 160 + With fears that hang on our hearts thought-smitten + Lest her tongue be kindled with no good word. + O thou not born of the womb, nor bred [_Str._ 2. + In the bride-night's warmth of a changed God's bed, + But thy life as a lightning was flashed from the light of thy + father's head, + O chief God's child by a motherless birth, + If aught in thy sight we indeed be worth, + Keep death from us thou, that art none of the Gods of the dead + under earth. + Thou that hast power on us, save, if thou wilt; [_Ant._ 2. + Let the blind wave breach not thy wall scarce built; 170 + But bless us not so as by bloodshed, impute not for grace to us + guilt, + Nor by price of pollution of blood set us free; + Let the hands be taintless that clasp thy knee, + Nor a maiden be slain to redeem for a maiden her shrine from the + sea. + O earth, O sun, turn back [_Str._ 3. + Full on his deadly track + Death, that would smite you black and mar your creatures, + And with one hand disroot + All tender flower and fruit, + With one strike blind and mute the heaven's fair features, 180 + Pluck out the eyes of morn, and make + Silence in the east and blackness whence the bright songs break. + Help, earth, help, heaven, that hear [_Ant._ 3. + The song-notes of our fear, + Shrewd notes and shrill, not clear or joyful-sounding; + Hear, highest of Gods, and stay + Death on his hunter's way, + Full on his forceless prey his beagles hounding; + Break thou his bow, make short his hand, + Maim his fleet foot whose passage kills the living land. 190 + Let a third wave smite not us, father, [_Str._ 4. + Long since sore smitten of twain, + Lest the house of thy son's son perish + And his name be barren on earth. + Whose race wilt thou comfort rather + If none to thy son remain? + Whose seed wilt thou choose to cherish + If his be cut off in the birth? + For the first fair graft of his graffing [_Ant._ 4. + Was rent from its maiden root 200 + By the strong swift hand of a lover + Who fills the night with his breath; + On the lip of the stream low-laughing + Her green soft virginal shoot + Was plucked from the stream-side cover + By the grasp of a love like death. + For a God's was the mouth that kissed her [_Str._ 5. + Who speaks, and the leaves lie dead, + When winter awakes as at warning + To the sound of his foot from Thrace. 210 + Nor happier the bed of her sister + Though Love's self laid her abed + By a bridegroom beloved of the morning + And fair as the dawn's own face. + For Procris, ensnared and ensnaring [_Ant._ 5. + By the fraud of a twofold wile, + With the point of her own spear stricken + By the gift of her own hand fell. + Oversubtle in doubts, overdaring + In deeds and devices of guile, 220 + And strong to quench as to quicken, + O Love, have we named thee well? + By thee was the spear's edge whetted [_Str._ 6. + That laid her dead in the dew, + In the moist green glens of the midland + By her dear lord slain and thee. + And him at the cliff's end fretted + By the grey keen waves, him too, + Thine hand from the white-browed headland + Flung down for a spoil to the sea. 230 + But enough now of griefs grey-growing [_Ant._ 6. + Have darkened the house divine, + Have flowered on its boughs and faded, + And green is the brave stock yet. + O father all-seeing and all-knowing, + Let the last fruit fall not of thine + From the tree with whose boughs we are shaded, + From the stock that thy son's hand set. + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + O daughter of Cephisus, from all time + Wise have I found thee, wife and queen, of heart 240 + Perfect; nor in the days that knew not wind + Nor days when storm blew death upon our peace + Was thine heart swoln with seed of pride, or bowed + With blasts of bitter fear that break men's souls + Who lift too high their minds toward heaven, in thought + Too godlike grown for worship; but of mood + Equal, in good time reverent of time bad, + And glad in ill days of the good that were. + Nor now too would I fear thee, now misdoubt + Lest fate should find thee lesser than thy doom, 250 + Chosen if thou be to bear and to be great + Haply beyond all women; and the word + Speaks thee divine, dear queen, that speaks thee dead, + Dead being alive, or quick and dead in one + Shall not men call thee living? yet I fear + To slay thee timeless with my proper tongue, + With lips, thou knowest, that love thee; and such work + Was never laid of Gods on men, such word + No mouth of man learnt ever, as from mine + Most loth to speak thine ear most loth shall take 260 + And hold it hateful as the grave to hear. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + That word there is not in all speech of man, + King, that being spoken of the Gods and thee + I have not heart to honour, or dare hold + More than I hold thee or the Gods in hate + Hearing; but if my heart abhor it heard + Being insubmissive, hold me not thy wife + But use me like a stranger, whom thine hand + Hath fed by chance and finding thence no thanks + Flung off for shame's sake to forgetfulness. 270 + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + O, of what breath shall such a word be made, + Or from what heart find utterance? Would my tongue + Were rent forth rather from the quivering root + Than made as fire or poison thus for thee. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + But if thou speak of blood, and I that hear + Be chosen of all for this land's love to die + And save to thee thy city, know this well, + Happiest I hold me of her seed alive. + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + O sun that seest, what saying was this of thine, + God, that thy power has breathed into my lips? 280 + For from no sunlit shrine darkling it came. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + What portent from the mid oracular place + Hath smitten thee so like a curse that flies + Wingless, to waste men with its plagues? yet speak. + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + Thy blood the Gods require not; take this first. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + To me than thee more grievous this should sound. + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + That word rang truer and bitterer than it knew. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + This is not then thy grief, to see me die? + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + Die shalt thou not, yet give thy blood to death. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + If this ring worse I know not; strange it rang. 290 + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + Alas, thou knowest not; woe is me that know. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + And woe shall mine be, knowing; yet halt not here. + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + Guiltless of blood this state may stand no more. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Firm let it stand whatever bleed or fall. + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + O Gods, that I should say it shall and weep. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Weep, and say this? no tears should bathe such words. + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + Woe's me that I must weep upon them, woe. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + What stain is on them for thy tears to cleanse? + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + A stain of blood unpurgeable with tears. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Whence? for thou sayest it is and is not mine. 300 + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + Hear then and know why only of all men I + That bring such news as mine is, I alone + Must wash good words with weeping; I and thou, + Woman, must wail to hear men sing, must groan + To see their joy who love us; all our friends + Save only we, and all save we that love + This holiness of Athens, in our sight + Shall lift their hearts up, in our hearing praise + Gods whom we may not; for to these they give + Life of their children, flower of all their seed, 310 + For all their travail fruit, for all their hopes + Harvest; but we for all our good things, we + Have at their hands which fill all these folk full + Death, barrenness, child-slaughter, curses, cares, + Sea-leaguer and land-shipwreck; which of these, + Which wilt thou first give thanks for? all are thine. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + What first they give who give this city good, + For that first given to save it I give thanks + First, and thanks heartier from a happier tongue, + More than for any my peculiar grace 320 + Shown me and not my country; next for this, + That none of all these but for all these I + Must bear my burden, and no eye but mine + Weep of all women's in this broad land born + Who see their land's deliverance; but much more, + But most for this I thank them most of all, + That this their edge of doom is chosen to pierce + My heart and not my country's; for the sword + Drawn to smite there and sharpened for such stroke + Should wound more deep than any turned on me. 330 + + + CHORUS. + + Well fares the land that bears such fruit, and well + The spirit that breeds such thought and speech in man. + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + O woman, thou hast shamed my heart with thine, + To show so strong a patience; take then all; + For all shall break not nor bring down thy soul. + The word that journeying to the bright God's shrine + Who speaks askance and darkling, but his name + Hath in it slaying and ruin broad writ out, + I heard, hear thou: thus saith he; There shall die + One soul for all this people; from thy womb 340 + Came forth the seed that here on dry bare ground + Death's hand must sow untimely, to bring forth + Nor blade nor shoot in season, being by name + To the under Gods made holy, who require + For this land's life her death and maiden blood + To save a maiden city. Thus I heard, + And thus with all said leave thee; for save this + No word is left us, and no hope alive. + + + CHORUS. + + He hath uttered too surely his wrath not obscurely, nor wrapt + as in mists of his breath, [_Str._ + The master that lightens not hearts he enlightens, but gives them + foreknowledge of death. 350 + As a bolt from the cloud hath he sent it aloud and proclaimed + it afar, + From the darkness and height of the horror of night hath he + shown us a star. + Star may I name it and err not, or flame shall I say, + Born of the womb that was born for the tomb of the day? + O Night, whom other but thee for mother, and Death for the father, + Night, [_Ant._ + Shall we dream to discover, save thee and thy lover, to bring + such a sorrow to sight? + From the slumberless bed for thy bedfellow spread and his bride + under earth + Hast thou brought forth a wild and insatiable child, an unbearable + birth. + Fierce are the fangs of his wrath, and the pangs that they give; + None is there, none that may bear them, not one that would + live. 360 + + + CHTHONIA. + + Forth of the fine-spun folds of veils that hide + My virgin chamber toward the full-faced sun + I set my foot not moved of mine own will, + Unmaidenlike, nor with unprompted speed + Turn eyes too broad or doglike unabashed + On reverend heads of men and thence on thine, + Mother, now covered from the light and bowed + As hers who mourns her brethren; but what grief + Bends thy blind head thus earthward, holds thus mute, + I know not till thy will be to lift up 370 + Toward mine thy sorrow-muffled eyes and speak; + And till thy will be would I know this not. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Old men and childless, or if sons ye have seen + And daughters, elder-born were these than mine, + Look on this child, how young of years, how sweet, + How scant of time and green of age her life + Puts forth its flower of girlhood; and her gait + How virginal, how soft her speech, her eyes + How seemly smiling; wise should all ye be, + All honourable and kindly men of age; 380 + Now give me counsel and one word to say + That I may bear to speak, and hold my peace + Henceforth for all time even as all ye now. + Dumb are ye all, bowed eyes and tongueless mouths, + Unprofitable; if this were wind that speaks, + As much its breath might move you. Thou then, child, + Set thy sweet eyes on mine; look through them well; + Take note of all the writing of my face + As of a tablet or a tomb inscribed + That bears me record; lifeless now, my life 390 + Thereon that was think written; brief to read, + Yet shall the scripture sear thine eyes as fire + And leave them dark as dead men's. Nay, dear child, + Thou hast no skill, my maiden, and no sense + To take such knowledge; sweet is all thy lore, + And all this bitter; yet I charge thee learn + And love and lay this up within thine heart, + Even this my word; less ill it were to die + Than live and look upon thy mother dead, + Thy mother-land that bare thee; no man slain 400 + But him who hath seen it shall men count unblest, + None blest as him who hath died and seen it not. + + + CHTHONIA. + + That sight some God keep from me though I die. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + A God from thee shall keep it; fear not this. + + + CHTHONIA. + + Thanks all my life long shall he gain of mine. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Short gain of all yet shall he get of thee. + + + CHTHONIA. + + Brief be my life, yet so long live my thanks. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + So long? so little; how long shall they live? + + + CHTHONIA. + + Even while I see the sunlight and thine eyes. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Would mine might shut ere thine upon the sun. 410 + + + CHTHONIA. + + For me thou prayest unkindly; change that prayer. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Not well for me thou sayest, and ill for thee. + + + CHTHONIA. + + Nay, for me well, if thou shalt live, not I. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + How live, and lose these loving looks of thine? + + + CHTHONIA. + + It seems I too, thus praying, then, love thee not. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Lov'st thou not life? what wouldst thou do to die? + + + CHTHONIA. + + Well, but not more than all things, love I life. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + And fain wouldst keep it as thine age allows? + + + CHTHONIA. + + Fain would I live, and fain not fear to die. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + That I might bid thee die not! Peace; no more. 420 + + + CHORUS. + + A godlike race of grief the Gods have set + For these to run matched equal, heart with heart. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Child of the chief of Gods, and maiden crowned, + Queen of these towers and fostress of their king, + Pallas, and thou my father's holiest head, + A living well of life nor stanched nor stained, + O God Cephisus, thee too charge I next, + Be to me judge and witness; nor thine ear + Shall now my tongue invoke not, thou to me + Most hateful of things holy, mournfullest 430 + Of all old sacred streams that wash the world, + Ilissus, on whose marge at flowery play + A whirlwind-footed bridegroom found my child + And rapt her northward where mine elder-born + Keeps now the Thracian bride-bed of a God + Intolerable to seamen, but this land + Finds him in hope for her sake favourable, + A gracious son by wedlock; hear me then + Thou likewise, if with no faint heart or false + The word I say be said, the gift be given, 440 + Which might I choose I had rather die than give + Or speak and die not. Ere thy limbs were made + Or thine eyes lightened, strife, thou knowest, my child, + 'Twixt God and God had risen, which heavenlier name + Should here stand hallowed, whose more liberal grace + Should win this city's worship, and our land + To which of these do reverence; first the lord + Whose wheels make lightnings of the foam-flowered sea + Here on this rock, whose height brow-bound with dawn + Is head and heart of Athens, one sheer blow 450 + Struck, and beneath the triple wound that shook + The stony sinews and stark roots of the earth + Sprang toward the sun a sharp salt fount, and sank + Where lying it lights the heart up of the hill, + A well of bright strange brine; but she that reared + Thy father with her same chaste fostering hand + Set for a sign against it in our guard + The holy bloom of the olive, whose hoar leaf + High in the shadowy shrine of Pandrosus + Hath honour of us all; and of this strife 460 + The twelve most high Gods judging with one mouth + Acclaimed her victress; wroth whereat, as wronged + That she should hold from him such prize and place, + The strong king of the tempest-rifted sea + Loosed reinless on the low Thriasian plain + The thunders of his chariots, swallowing stunned + Earth, beasts, and men, the whole blind foundering world + That was the sun's at morning, and ere noon + Death's; nor this only prey fulfilled his mind; + For with strange crook-toothed prows of Carian folk 470 + Who snatch a sanguine life out of the sea, + Thieves keen to pluck their bloody fruit of spoil + From the grey fruitless waters, has their God + Furrowed our shores to waste them, as the fields + Were landward harried from the north with swords + Aonian, sickles of man-slaughtering edge + Ground for no hopeful harvest of live grain + Against us in Bœotia; these being spent, + Now this third time his wind of wrath has blown + Right on this people a mightier wave of war, 480 + Three times more huge a ruin; such its ridge + Foam-rimmed and hollow like the womb of heaven, + But black for shining, and with death for life + Big now to birth and ripe with child, full-blown + With fear and fruit of havoc, takes the sun + Out of our eyes, darkening the day, and blinds + The fair sky's face unseasonably with change, + A cloud in one and billow of battle, a surge + High reared as heaven with monstrous surf of spears + That shake on us their shadow, till men's heads 490 + Bend, and their hearts even with its forward wind + Wither, so blasts all seed in them of hope + Its breath and blight of presage; yea, even now + The winter of this wind out of the deeps + Makes cold our trust in comfort of the Gods + And blind our eye toward outlook; yet not here, + Here never shall the Thracian plant on high + For ours his father's symbol, nor with wreaths + A strange folk wreathe it upright set and crowned + Here where our natural people born behold 500 + The golden Gorgon of the shield's defence + That screens their flowering olive, nor strange Gods + Be graced, and Pallas here have praise no more. + And if this be not I must give my child, + Thee, mine own very blood and spirit of mine, + Thee to be slain. Turn from me, turn thine eyes + A little from me; I can bear not yet + To see if still they smile on mine or no, + If fear make faint the light in them, or faith + Fix them as stars of safety. Need have we, 510 + Sore need of stars that set not in mid storm, + Lights that outlast the lightnings; yet my heart + Endures not to make proof of thine or these, + Not yet to know thee whom I made, and bare + What manner of woman; had I borne thee man, + I had made no question of thine eyes or heart, + Nor spared to read the scriptures in them writ, + Wert thou my son; yet couldst thou then but die + Fallen in sheer fight by chance and charge of spears + And have no more of memory, fill no tomb 520 + More famous than thy fellows in fair field, + Where many share the grave, many the praise; + But one crown shall one only girl my child + Wear, dead for this dear city, and give back life + To him that gave her and to me that bare, + And save two sisters living; and all this, + Is this not all good? I shall give thee, child, + Thee but by fleshly nature mine, to bleed + For dear land's love; but if the city fall + What part is left me in my children then? 530 + But if it stand and thou for it lie dead, + Then hast thou in it a better part than we, + A holier portion than we all; for each + Hath but the length of his own life to live, + And this most glorious mother-land on earth + To worship till that life have end; but thine + Hath end no more than hers; thou, dead, shalt live + Till Athens live not; for the days and nights + Given of thy bare brief dark dividual life, + Shall she give thee half all her agelong own 540 + And all its glory; for thou givest her these; + But with one hand she takes and gives again + More than I gave or she requires of thee. + Come therefore, I will make thee fit for death, + I that could give thee, dear, no gift at birth + Save of light life that breathes and bleeds, even I + Will help thee to this better gift than mine + And lead thee by this little living hand + That death shall make so strong, to that great end + Whence it shall lighten like a God's, and strike 550 + Dead the strong heart of battle that would break + Athens; but ye, pray for this land, old men, + That it may bring forth never child on earth + To love it less, for none may more, than we. + + + CHORUS. + + Out of the north wind grief came forth, [_Str._ 1. + And the shining of a sword out of the sea. + Yea, of old the first-blown blast blew the prelude of this last, + The blast of his trumpet upon Rhodope. + Out of the north skies full of his cloud, + With the clamour of his storms as of a crowd 560 + At the wheels of a great king crying aloud, + At the axle of a strong king's car + That has girded on the girdle of war-- + With hands that lightened the skies in sunder + And feet whose fall was followed of thunder, + A God, a great God strange of name, + With horse-yoke fleeter-hoofed than flame, + To the mountain bed of a maiden came, + Oreithyia, the bride mismated, + Wofully wed in a snow-strewn bed 570 + With a bridegroom that kisses the bride's mouth dead; + Without garland, without glory, without song, + As a fawn by night on the hills belated, + Given over for a spoil unto the strong. + From lips how pale so keen a wail [_Ant._ 1. + At the grasp of a God's hand on her she gave, + When his breath that darkens air made a havoc of her hair, + It rang from the mountain even to the wave; + Rang with a cry, _Woe's me, woe is me!_ + From the darkness upon Hæmus to the sea: 580 + And with hands that clung to her new lord's knee, + As a virgin overborne with shame, + She besought him by her spouseless fame, + By the blameless breasts of a maid unmarried + And locks unmaidenly rent and harried, + And all her flower of body, born + To match the maidenhood of morn, + With the might of the wind's wrath wrenched and torn. + Vain, all vain as a dead man's vision + Falling by night in his old friends' sight, 590 + To be scattered with slumber and slain ere light; + Such a breath of such a bridegroom in that hour + Of her prayers made mock, of her fears derision, + And a ravage of her youth as of a flower. + With a leap of his limbs as a lion's, a cry from his lips as + of thunder, [_Str._ 2. + In a storm of amorous godhead filled with fire, + From the height of the heaven that was rent with the roar of his + coming in sunder, + Sprang the strong God on the spoil of his desire. + And the pines of the hills were as green reeds shattered, + And their branches as buds of the soft spring scattered, 600 + And the west wind and east, and the sound of the south, + Fell dumb at the blast of the north wind's mouth, + At the cry of his coming out of heaven. + And the wild beasts quailed in the rifts and hollows + Where hound nor clarion of huntsman follows, + And the depths of the sea were aghast, and whitened, + And the crowns of their waves were as flame that lightened, + And the heart of the floods thereof was riven. + But she knew not him coming for terror, she felt not her wrong + that he wrought her, [_Ant._ 2. + When her locks as leaves were shed before his breath, 610 + And she heard not for terror his prayer, though the cry was a + God's that besought her, + Blown from lips that strew the world-wide seas with death. + For the heart was molten within her to hear, + And her knees beneath her were loosened for fear, + And her blood fast bound as a frost-bound water, + And the soft new bloom of the green earth's daughter + Wind-wasted as blossom of a tree; + As the wild God rapt her from earth's breast lifted, + On the strength of the stream of his dark breath drifted, + From the bosom of earth as a bride from the mother, 620 + With storm for bridesman and wreck for brother, + As a cloud that he sheds upon the sea. + + Of this hoary-headed woe [_Epode._ + Song made memory long ago; + Now a younger grief to mourn + Needs a new song younger born. + Who shall teach our tongues to reach + What strange height of saddest speech, + For the new bride's sake that is given to be + A stay to fetter the foot of the sea, 630 + Lest it quite spurn down and trample the town, + Ere the violets be dead that were plucked for its crown, + Or its olive-leaf whiten and wither? + Who shall say of the wind's way + That he journeyed yesterday, + Or the track of the storm that shall sound to-morrow, + If the new be more than the grey-grown sorrow? + For the wind of the green first season was keen, + And the blast shall be sharper than blew between + That the breath of the sea blows hither. 640 + + + HERALD OF EUMOLPUS. + + Old men, grey borderers on the march of death, + Tongue-fighters, tough of talk and sinewy speech, + Else nerveless, from no crew of such faint folk + Whose tongues are stouter than their hands come I + To bid not you to battle; let them strike + Whose swords are sharper than your keen-tongued wail, + And ye, sit fast and sorrow; but what man + Of all this land-folk and earth-labouring herd + For heart or hand seems foremost, him I call + If heart be his to hearken, him bid forth 650 + To try if one be in the sun's sight born + Of all that grope and grovel on dry ground + That may join hands in battle-grip for death + With them whose seed and strength is of the sea. + + + CHORUS. + + Know thou this much for all thy loud blast blown, + We lack not hands to speak with, swords to plead, + For proof of peril, not of boisterous breath, + Sea-wind and storm of barren mouths that foam + And rough rock's edge of menace; and short space + May lesson thy large ignorance and inform 660 + This insolence with knowledge if there live + Men earth-begotten of no tenderer thews + Than knit the great joints of the grim sea's brood + With hasps of steel together; heaven to help, + One man shall break, even on their own flood's verge, + That iron bulk of battle; but thine eye + That sees it now swell higher than sand or shore + Haply shall see not when thine host shall shrink. + + + HERALD OF EUMOLPUS. + + Not haply, nay, but surely, shall not thine. + + + CHORUS. + + That lot shall no God give who fights for thee. 670 + + + HERALD OF EUMOLPUS. + + Shall Gods bear bit and bridle, fool, of men? + + + CHORUS. + + Nor them forbid we nor shalt thou constrain. + + + HERALD OF EUMOLPUS. + + Yet say'st thou none shall make the good lot mine? + + + CHORUS. + + Of thy side none, nor moved for fear of thee. + + + HERALD OF EUMOLPUS. + + Gods hast thou then to baffle Gods of ours? + + + CHORUS. + + Nor thine nor mine, but equal-souled are they. + + + HERALD OF EUMOLPUS. + + Toward good and ill, then, equal-eyed of soul? + + + CHORUS. + + Nay, but swift-eyed to note where ill thoughts breed. + + + HERALD OF EUMOLPUS. + + Thy shaft word-feathered flies yet far of me. + + + CHORUS. + + Pride knows not, wounded, till the heart be cleft. 680 + + + HERALD OF EUMOLPUS. + + No shaft wounds deep whose wing is plumed with words. + + + CHORUS. + + Lay that to heart, and bid thy tongue learn grace. + + + HERALD OF EUMOLPUS. + + Grace shall thine own crave soon too late of mine. + + + CHORUS. + + Boast thou till then, but I wage words no more. + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + Man, what shrill wind of speech and wrangling air + Blows in our ears a summons from thy lips + Winged with what message, or what gift or grace + Requiring? none but what his hand may take + Here may the foe think hence to reap, nor this + Except some doom from Godward yield it him. 690 + + + HERALD OF EUMOLPUS. + + King of this land-folk, by my mouth to thee + Thus saith the son of him that shakes thine earth, + Eumolpus; now the stakes of war are set, + For land or sea to win by throw and wear; + Choose therefore or to quit thy side and give + The palm unfought for to his bloodless hand, + Or by that father's sceptre, and the foot + Whose tramp far off makes tremble for pure fear + Thy soul-struck mother, piercing like a sword + The immortal womb that bare thee; by the waves 700 + That no man bridles and that bound thy world, + And by the winds and storms of all the sea, + He swears to raze from eyeshot of the sun + This city named not of his father's name, + And wash to deathward down one flood of doom + This whole fresh brood of earth yeaned naturally, + Green yet and faint in its first blade, unblown + With yellow hope of harvest; so do thou, + Seeing whom thy time is come to meet, for fear + Yield, or gird up thy force to fight and die. 710 + + + ERECHTHEUS. + + To fight then be it; for if to die or live, + No man but only a God knows this much yet + Seeing us fare forth, who bear but in our hands + The weapons not the fortunes of our fight; + For these now rest as lots that yet undrawn + Lie in the lap of the unknown hour; but this + I know, not thou, whose hollow mouth of storm + Is but a warlike wind, a sharp salt breath + That bites and wounds not; death nor life of mine + Shall give to death or lordship of strange kings 720 + The soul of this live city, nor their heel + Bruise her dear brow discrowned, nor snaffle or goad + Wound her free mouth or stain her sanguine side + Yet masterless of man; so bid thy lord + Learn ere he weep to learn it, and too late + Gnash teeth that could not fasten on her flesh, + And foam his life out in dark froth of blood + Vain as a wind's waif of the loud-mouthed sea + Torn from the wave's edge whitening. Tell him this; + Though thrice his might were mustered for our scathe 730 + And thicker set with fence of thorn-edged spears + Than sands are whirled about the wintering beach + When storms have swoln the rivers, and their blasts + Have breached the broad sea-banks with stress of sea, + That waves of inland and the main make war + As men that mix and grapple; though his ranks + Were more to number than all wildwood leaves + The wind waves on the hills of all the world, + Yet should the heart not faint, the head not fall, + The breath not fail of Athens. Say, the Gods 740 + From lips that have no more on earth to say + Have told thee this the last good news or ill + That I shall speak in sight of earth and sun + Or he shall hear and see them: for the next + That ear of his from tongue of mine may take + Must be the first word spoken underground + From dead to dead in darkness. Hence; make haste, + Lest war's fleet foot be swifter than thy tongue + And I that part not to return again + On him that comes not to depart away 750 + Be fallen before thee; for the time is full, + And with such mortal hope as knows not fear + I go this high last way to the end of all. + + + CHORUS. + + Who shall put a bridle in the mourner's lips to chasten + them, [_Str._ 1. + Or seal up the fountains of his tears for shame? + Song nor prayer nor prophecy shall slacken tears nor hasten them, + Till grief be within him as a burnt-out flame; + Till the passion be broken in his breast + And the might thereof molten into rest, + And the rain of eyes that weep be dry, 760 + And the breath be stilled of lips that sigh. + Death at last for all men is a harbour; yet they flee from + it, [_Ant._ 1. + Set sails to the storm-wind and again to sea; + Yet for all their labour no whit further shall they be from it, + Nor longer but wearier shall their life's work be. + And with anguish of travail until night + Shall they steer into shipwreck out of sight, + And with oars that break and shrouds that strain + Shall they drive whence no ship steers again. + Bitter and strange is the word of the God most high, [_Str._ 2. 770 + And steep the strait of his way. + Through a pass rock-rimmed and narrow the light that gleams + On the faces of men falls faint as the dawn of dreams, + The dayspring of death as a star in an under sky + Where night is the dead men's day. + As darkness and storm is his will that on earth is done, [_Ant._ 2. + As a cloud is the face of his strength. + King of kings, holiest of holies, and mightiest of might, + Lord of the lords of thine heaven that are humble in thy sight, + Hast thou set not an end for the path of the fires of the sun, 780 + To appoint him a rest at length? + Hast thou told not by measure the waves of the waste wide + sea, [_Str._ 3. + And the ways of the wind their master and thrall to thee? + Hast thou filled not the furrows with fruit for the + world's increase? + Has thine ear not heard from of old or thine eye not read + The thought and the deed of us living, the doom of us dead? + Hast thou made not war upon earth, and again made peace? + Therefore, O father, that seest us whose lives are a + breath, [_Ant._ 3. + Take off us thy burden, and give us not wholly to death. + For lovely is life, and the law wherein all things live, 790 + And gracious the season of each, and the hour of its kind, + And precious the seed of his life in a wise man's mind; + But all save life for his life will a base man give. + But a life that is given for the life of the whole live + land, [_Str._ 4. + From a heart unspotted a gift of a spotless hand, + Of pure will perfect and free, for the land's life's sake, + What man shall fear not to put forth his hand and take? + For the fruit of a sweet life plucked in its pure green + prime [_Ant._ 4. + On his hand who plucks is as blood, on his soul as crime. + With cursing ye buy not blessing, nor peace with strife, 800 + And the hand is hateful that chaffers with death for life. + Hast thou heard, O my heart, and endurest [_Str._ 5. + The word that is said, + What a garland by sentence found surest + Is wrought for what head? + With what blossomless flowerage of sea-foam and blood-coloured + foliage inwound + It shall crown as a heifer's for slaughter the forehead for + marriage uncrowned? + How the veils and the wreaths that should cover [_Ant._ 5. + The brows of the bride + Shall be shed by the breath of what lover 810 + And scattered aside? + With a blast of the mouth of what bridegroom the crowns shall + be cast from her hair, + And her head by what altar made humble be left of them naked + and bare? + At a shrine unbeloved of a God unbeholden a gift shall be given + for the land, [_Str._ 6. + That its ramparts though shaken with clamour and horror of + manifold waters may stand; + That the crests of its citadels crowned and its turrets that + thrust up their heads to the sun + May behold him unblinded with darkness of waves overmastering + their bulwarks begun. + As a bride shall they bring her, a prey for the bridegroom, a + flower for the couch of her lord; [_Ant._ 6. + They shall muffle her mouth that she cry not or curse them, + and cover her eyes from the sword. + They shall fasten her lips as with bit and with bridle, and + darken the light of her face, 820 + That the soul of the slayer may not falter, his heart be not + molten, his hand give not grace. + If she weep then, yet may none that hear take pity; [_Str._ 7. + If she cry not, none should hearken though she cried. + Shall a virgin shield thine head for love, O city, + With a virgin's blood anointed as for pride? + Yet we held thee dear and hallowed of her favour, [_Ant._ 7. + Dear of all men held thy people to her heart; + Nought she loves the breath of blood, the sanguine savour, + Who hath built with us her throne and chosen her part. + Bloodless are her works, and sweet [_Epode._ 830 + All the ways that feel her feet; + From the empire of her eyes + Light takes life and darkness flies; + From the harvest of her hands + Wealth strikes root in prosperous lands; + Wisdom of her word is made; + At her strength is strength afraid; + From the beam of her bright spear + War's fleet foot goes back for fear; + In her shrine she reared the birth 840 + Fire-begotten on live earth; + Glory from her helm was shed + On his olive-shadowed head; + By no hand but his shall she + Scourge the storms back of the sea, + To no fame but his shall give + Grace, being dead, with hers to live, + And in double name divine + Half the godhead of their shrine. + But now with what word, with what woe may we meet 850 + The timeless passage of piteous feet, + Hither that bend to the last way's end + They shall walk upon earth? + What song be rolled for a bride black-stoled + And the mother whose hand of her hand hath hold? + For anguish of heart is my soul's strength broken + And the tongue sealed fast that would fain have spoken, + To behold thee, O child of so bitter a birth + That we counted so sweet, + What way thy steps to what bride-feast tend, 860 + What gift he must give that shall wed thee for token + If the bridegroom be goodly to greet. + + + CHTHONIA. + + People, old men of my city, lordly wise and hoar of head, + I a spouseless bride and crownless but with garlands of the dead + From the fruitful light turn silent to my dark unchilded bed. + + + CHORUS. + + Wise of word was he too surely, but with deadlier wisdom wise, + First who gave thee name from under earth, no breath from upper + skies, + When, foredoomed to this day's darkness, their first daylight + filled thine eyes. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Child, my child that wast and art but death's and now no more + of mine, + Half my heart is cloven with anguish by the sword made sharp + for thine, 870 + Half exalts its wing for triumph, that I bare thee thus divine. + + + CHTHONIA. + + Though for me the sword's edge thirst that sets no point against + thy breast, + Mother, O my mother, where I drank of life and fell on rest, + Thine, not mine, is all the grief that marks this hour accurst and + blest. + + + CHORUS. + + Sweet thy sleep and sweet the bosom was that gave thee sleep + and birth; + Harder now the breast, and girded with no marriage-band for girth, + Where thine head shall sleep, the namechild of the lords of under + earth. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Dark the name and dark the gifts they gave thee, child, in + childbirth were, + Sprung from him that rent the womb of earth, a bitter seed to bear, + Born with groanings of the ground that gave him way toward heaven's + dear air. 880 + + + CHTHONIA. + + Day to day makes answer, first to last, and life to death; but I, + Born for death's sake, die for life's sake, if indeed this be + to die, + This my doom that seals me deathless till the springs of time + run dry. + + + CHORUS. + + Children shalt thou bear to memory, that to man shalt bring forth + none; + Yea, the lordliest that lift eyes and hearts and songs to meet the + sun, + Names to fire men's ears like music till the round world's race be + run. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + I thy mother, named of Gods that wreak revenge and brand with blame, + Now for thy love shall be loved as thou, and famous with thy fame, + While this city's name on earth shall be for earth her mightiest + name. + + + CHTHONIA. + + That I may give this poor girl's blood of mine 890 + Scarce yet sun-warmed with summer, this thin life + Still green with flowerless growth of seedling days, + To build again my city; that no drop + Fallen of these innocent veins on the cold ground + But shall help knit the joints of her firm walls + To knead the stones together, and make sure + The band about her maiden girdlestead + Once fastened, and of all men's violent hands + Inviolable for ever; these to me + Were no such gifts as crave no thanksgiving, 900 + If with one blow dividing the sheer life + I might make end, and one pang wind up all + And seal mine eyes from sorrow; for such end + The Gods give none they love not; but my heart, + That leaps up lightened of all sloth or fear + To take the sword's point, yet with one thought's load + Flags, and falls back, broken of wing, that halts + Maimed in mid flight for thy sake and borne down, + Mother, that in the places where I played + An arm's length from thy bosom and no more 910 + Shalt find me never, nor thine eye wax glad + To mix with mine its eyesight and for love + Laugh without word, filled with sweet light, and speak + Divine dumb things of the inward spirit and heart, + Moved silently; nor hand or lip again + Touch hand or lip of either, but for mine + Shall thine meet only shadows of swift night, + Dreams and dead thoughts of dead things; and the bed + Thou strewedst, a sterile place for all time, strewn + For my sleep only, with its void sad sheets 920 + Shall vex thee, and the unfruitful coverlid + For empty days reproach me dead, that leave + No profit of my body, but am gone + As one not worth being born to bear no seed, + A sapless stock and branchless; yet thy womb + Shall want not honour of me, that brought forth + For all this people freedom, and for earth + From the unborn city born out of my blood + To light the face of all men evermore + Glory; but lay thou this to thy great heart 930 + Whereunder in the dark of birth conceived + Mine unlit life lay girdled with the zone + That bound thy bridal bosom; set this thought + Against all edge of evil as a sword + To beat back sorrow, that for all the world + Thou brought'st me forth a saviour, who shall save + Athens; for none but I from none but thee + Shall take this death for garland; and the men + Mine unknown children of unsounded years, + My sons unrisen shall rise up at thine hand, 940 + Sown of thy seed to bring forth seed to thee, + And call thee most of all most fruitful found + Blessed; but me too for my barren womb + More than my sisters for their children born + Shall these give honour, yea in scorn's own place + Shall men set love and bring for mockery praise + And thanks for curses; for the dry wild vine + Scoffed at and cursed of all men that was I + Shall shed them wine to make the world's heart warm, + That all eyes seeing may lighten, and all ears 950 + Hear and be kindled; such a draught to drink + Shall be the blood that bids this dust bring forth, + The chaliced life here spilt on this mine earth, + Mine, my great father's mother; whom I pray + Take me now gently, tenderly take home, + And softly lay in his my cold chaste hand + Who is called of men by my name, being of Gods + Charged only and chosen to bring men under earth, + And now must lead and stay me with his staff + A silent soul led of a silent God, 960 + Toward sightless things led sightless; and on earth + I see now but the shadow of mine end, + And this last light of all for me in heaven. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Farewell I bid thee; so bid thou not me, + Lest the Gods hear and mock us; yet on these + I lay the weight not of this grief, nor cast + Ill words for ill deeds back; for if one say + They have done men wrong, what hurt have they to hear, + Or he what help to have said it? surely, child, + If one among men born might say it and live 970 + Blameless, none more than I may, who being vexed + Hold yet my peace; for now through tears enough + Mine eyes have seen the sun that from this day + Thine shall see never more; and in the night + Enough has blown of evil, and mine ears + With wail enough the winds have filled, and brought + Too much of cloud from over the sharp sea + To mar for me the morning; such a blast + Rent from these wide void arms and helpless breast + Long since one graft of me disbranched, and bore 980 + Beyond the wild ways of the unwandered world + And loud wastes of the thunder-throated sea, + Springs of the night and openings of the heaven, + The old garden of the Sun; whence never more + From west or east shall winds bring back that blow + From folds of opening heaven or founts of night + The flower of mine once ravished, born my child + To bear strange children; nor on wings of theirs + Shall comfort come back to me, nor their sire + Breathe help upon my peril, nor his strength 990 + Raise up my weakness; but of Gods and men + I drift unsteered on ruin, and the wave + Darkens my head with imminent height, and hangs + Dumb, filled too full with thunder that shall leave + These ears death-deafened when the tide finds tongue + And all its wrath bears on them; thee, O child, + I help not, nor am holpen; fain, ah fain, + More than was ever mother born of man, + Were I to help thee; fain beyond all prayer, + Beyond all thought fain to redeem thee, torn 1000 + More timeless from me sorrowing than the dream + That was thy sister; so shalt thou be too, + Thou but a vision, shadow-shaped of sleep, + By grief made out of nothing; now but once + I touch, but once more hold thee, one more kiss + This last time and none other ever more + Leave on thy lips and leave them. Go; thou wast + My heart, my heart's blood, life-blood of my life, + My child, my nursling; now this breast once thine + Shall rear again no children; never now 1010 + Shall any mortal blossom born like thee + Lie there, nor ever with small silent mouth + Draw the sweet springs dry for an hour that feed + The blind blithe life that knows not; never head + Rest here to make these cold veins warm, nor eye + Laugh itself open with the lips that reach + Lovingly toward a fount more loving; these + Death makes as all good lesser things now dead, + And all the latter hopes that flowered from these + And fall as these fell fruitless; no joy more 1020 + Shall man take of thy maidenhood, no tongue + Praise it; no good shall eyes get more of thee + That lightened for thy love's sake. Now, take note, + Give ear, O all ye people, that my word + May pierce your hearts through, and the stroke that cleaves + Be fruitful to them; so shall all that hear + Grow great at heart with child of thought most high + And bring forth seed in season; this my child, + This flower of this my body, this sweet life, + This fair live youth I give you, to be slain, 1030 + Spent, shed, poured out, and perish; take my gift + And give it death and the under Gods who crave + So much for that they give; for this is more, + Much more is this than all we; for they give + Freedom, and for a blast, an air of breath, + A little soul that is not, they give back + Light for all eyes, cheer for all hearts, and life + That fills the world's width full of fame and praise + And mightier love than children's. This they give, + The grace to make thy country great, and wrest 1040 + From time and death power to take hold on her + And strength to scathe for ever; and this gift, + Is this no more than man's love is or mine, + Mine and all mothers'? nay, where that seems more, + Where one loves life of child, wife, father, friend, + Son, husband, mother, more than this, even there + Are all these lives worth nothing, all loves else + With this love slain and buried, and their tomb + A thing for shame to spit on; for what love + Hath a slave left to love with? or the heart 1050 + Base-born and bound in bondage fast to fear, + What should it do to love thee? what hath he, + The man that hath no country? Gods nor men + Have such to friend, yoked beast-like to base life, + Vile, fruitless, grovelling at the foot of death, + Landless and kinless thralls of no man's blood, + Unchilded and unmothered, abject limbs + That breed things abject; but who loves on earth + Not friend, wife, husband, father, mother, child, + Nor loves his own life for his own land's sake, 1060 + But only this thing most, more this than all, + He loves all well and well of all is loved, + And this love lives for ever. See now, friends, + My countrymen, my brothers, with what heart + I give you this that of your hands again + The Gods require for Athens; as I give + So give ye to them what their hearts would have + Who shall give back things better; yea, and these + I take for me to witness, all these Gods, + Were their great will more grievous than it is, 1070 + Not one but three, for this one thin-spun thread + A threefold band of children would I give + For this land's love's sake; for whose love to-day + I bid thee, child, fare deathward and farewell. + + + CHORUS. + + O wofullest of women, yet of all + Happiest, thy word be hallowed; in all time + Thy name shall blossom, and from strange new tongues + High things be spoken of thee; for such grace + The Gods have dealt to no man, that on none + Have laid so heavy sorrow. From this day 1080 + Live thou assured of godhead in thy blood, + And in thy fate no lowlier than a God + In all good things and evil; such a name + Shall be thy child this city's, and thine own + Next hers that called it Athens. Go now forth + Blest, and grace with thee to the doors of death. + + + CHTHONIA. + + O city, O glory of Athens, O crown of my father's land, farewell. + + + CHORUS. + + For welfare is given her of thee. + + + CHTHONIA. + + O Goddess, be good to thy people, that in them dominion and freedom + may dwell. + + + CHORUS. + + Turn from us the strengths of the sea. 1090 + + + CHTHONIA. + + Let glory's and theirs be one name in the mouths of all nations + made glad with the sun. + + + CHORUS. + + For the cloud is blown back with thy breath. + + + CHTHONIA. + + With the long last love of mine eyes I salute thee, + O land where my days now are done. + + + CHORUS. + + But her life shall be born of thy death. + + + CHTHONIA. + + I put on me the darkness thy shadow, my mother, and symbol, O + Earth, of my name. + + + CHORUS. + + For thine was her witness from birth. + + + CHTHONIA. + + In thy likeness I come to thee darkling, a daughter whose dawn and + her even are the same. + + + CHORUS. + + Be thine heart to her gracious, O Earth. + + + CHTHONIA. + + To thine own kind be kindly, for thy son's name's sake. + + + CHORUS. + + That sons unborn may praise thee and thy first-born son. 1100 + + + CHTHONIA. + + Give me thy sleep, who give thee all my life awake. + + + CHORUS. + + Too swift a sleep, ere half the web of day be spun. + + + CHTHONIA. + + Death brings the shears or ever life wind up the weft. + + + CHORUS. + + Their edge is ground and sharpened; who shall stay his hand? + + + CHTHONIA. + + The woof is thin, a small short life, with no thread left. + + + CHORUS. + + Yet hath it strength, stretched out, to shelter all the land. + + + CHTHONIA. + + Too frail a tent for covering, and a screen too strait. + + + CHORUS. + + Yet broad enough for buckler shall thy sweet life be. + + + CHTHONIA. + + A little bolt to bar off battle from the gate. + + + CHORUS. + + A wide sea-wall, that shatters the besieging sea. 1110 + + + CHTHONIA. + + I lift up mine eyes from the skirts of the shadow, [_Str._ + From the border of death to the limits of light; + O streams and rivers of mountain and meadow + That hallow the last of my sight, + O father that wast of my mother + Cephisus, O thou too his brother + From the bloom of whose banks as a prey + Winds harried my sister away, + O crown on the world's head lying + Too high for its waters to drown, 1120 + Take yet this one word of me dying, + O city, O crown. + Though land-wind and sea-wind with mouths that blow + slaughter [_Ant._ + Should gird them to battle against thee again, + New-born of the blood of a maiden thy daughter, + The rage of their breath shall be vain. + For their strength shall be quenched and made idle, + And the foam of their mouths find a bridle, + And the height of their heads bow down + At the foot of the towers of the town. 1130 + Be blest and beloved as I love thee + Of all that shall draw from thee breath; + Be thy life as the sun's is above thee; + I go to my death. + + + CHORUS. + + Many loves of many a mood and many a kind [_Str._ 1. + Fill the life of man, and mould the secret mind; + Many days bring many dooms, to loose and bind; + Sweet is each in season, good the gift it brings, + Sweet as change of night and day with altering wings, + Night that lulls world-weary day, day that comforts night, 1140 + Night that fills our eyes with sleep, day that fills with light. + None of all is lovelier, loftier love is none, [_Ant._ 1. + Less is bride's for bridegroom, mother's less for son, + Child, than this that crowns and binds up all in one; + Love of thy sweet light, thy fostering breast and hand, + Mother Earth, and city chosen, and natural land; + Hills that bring the strong streams forth, heights of + heavenlier air, + Fields aflower with winds and suns, woods with shadowing hair. + But none of the nations of men shall they liken to thee, [_Str._ 2. + Whose children true-born and the fruit of thy body are we. 1150 + The rest are thy sons but in figure, in word are thy seed; + We only the flower of thy travail, thy children indeed. + Of thy soil hast thou fashioned our limbs, of thy waters + their blood, + And the life of thy springs everlasting is fount of our flood. + No wind oversea blew us hither adrift on thy shore, + None sowed us by land in thy womb that conceived us and bore. + But the stroke of the shaft of the sunlight that brought us to birth + Pierced only and quickened thy furrows to bear us, O Earth. + With the beams of his love wast thou cloven as with iron or fire, + And the life in thee yearned for his life, and grew great with + desire. 1160 + And the hunger and thirst to be wounded and healed with his dart + Made fruitful the love in thy veins and the depth of thine heart. + And the showers out of heaven overflowing and liquid with love + Fulfilled thee with child of his godhead as rain from above. + Such desire had ye twain of each other, till molten in + one [_Ant._ 2. + Ye might bear and beget of your bodies the fruits of the sun. + And the trees in their season brought forth and were kindled anew + By the warmth of the moisture of marriage, the child-bearing dew. + And the firstlings were fair of the wedlock of heaven and of earth; + All countries were bounteous with blossom and burgeon of birth, 1170 + Green pastures of grass for all cattle, and life-giving corn; + But here of thy bosom, here only, the man-child was born. + All races but one are as aliens engrafted or sown, + Strange children and changelings; but we, O our mother, thine own. + Thy nurslings are others, and seedlings they know not of whom; + For these hast thou fostered, but us thou hast borne in thy womb. + Who is he of us all, O beloved, that owe thee for birth, + Who would give not his blood for his birth's sake, O mother, O + Earth? + What landsman is he that was fostered and reared of thine hand + Who may vaunt him as we may in death though he die for the + land? 1180 + + Well doth she therefore who gives thee in guerdon + The bloom of the life of thy giving; [_Epode._ + And thy body was bowed by no fruitless burden, + That bore such fruit of thee living. + For her face was not darkened for fear, + For her eyelids conceived not a tear, + Nor a cry from her lips craved pity; + But her mouth was a fountain of song, + And her heart as a citadel strong + That guards the heart of the city. 1190 + + + MESSENGER. + + High things of strong-souled men that loved their land + On brass and stone are written, and their deeds + On high days chanted; but none graven or sung + That ever set men's eyes or spirits on fire, + Athenians, has the sun's height seen, or earth + Heard in her depth reverberate as from heaven, + More worth men's praise and good report of Gods + Than here I bring for record in your ears. + For now being come to the altar, where as priest + Death ministering should meet her, and his hand 1200 + Seal her sweet eyes asleep, the maiden stood, + With light in all her face as of a bride + Smiling, or shine of festal flame by night + Far flung from towers of triumph; and her lips + Trembled with pride in pleasure, that no fear + Blanched them nor death before his time drank dry + The blood whose bloom fulfilled them; for her cheeks + Lightened, and brighter than a bridal veil + Her hair enrobed her bosom and enrolled + From face to feet the body's whole soft length 1210 + As with a cloud sun-saturate; then she spake + With maiden tongue words manlike, but her eyes + Lit mildly like a maiden's: _Countrymen, + With more goodwill and height of happier heart + I give me to you than my mother bare, + And go more gladly this great way to death + Than young men bound to battle._ Then with face + Turned to the shadowiest part of all the shrine + And eyes fast set upon the further shade, + _Take me, dear Gods_; and as some form had shone 1220 + From the deep hollow shadow, some God's tongue + Answered, _I bless you that your guardian grace + Gives me to guard this country, takes my blood, + Your child's by name, to heal it_. Then the priest + Set to the flower-sweet snow of her soft throat + The sheer knife's edge that severed it, and loosed + From the fair bondage of so spotless flesh + So strong a spirit; and all that girt them round + Gazing, with souls that hung on that sad stroke, + Groaned, and kept silence after while a man 1230 + Might count how far the fresh blood crept, and bathed + How deep the dark robe and the bright shrine's base + Red-rounded with a running ring that grew + More large and duskier as the wells that fed + Were drained of that pure effluence: but the queen + Groaned not nor spake nor wept, but as a dream + Floats out of eyes awakening so past forth + Ghost-like, a shadow of sorrow, from all sight + To the inner court and chamber where she sits + Dumb, till word reach her of this whole day's end. 1240 + + + CHORUS. + + More hapless born by far [_Str._ + Beneath some wintrier star, + One sits in stone among high Lydian snows, + The tomb of her own woes: + Yet happiest was once of the daughters of Gods, and divine by + her sire and her lord, + Ere her tongue was a shaft for the hearts of her sons, for the + heart of her husband a sword. + For she, too great of mind, [_Ant._ + Grown through her good things blind. + With godless lips and fire of her own breath + Spake all her house to death; 1250 + But thou, no mother unmothered, nor kindled in spirit with + pride of thy seed, + Thou hast hallowed thy child for a blameless blood-offering, + and ransomed thy race by thy deed. + + + MESSENGER. + + As flower is graffed on flower, so grief on grief + Engraffed brings forth new blossoms of strange tears, + Fresh buds and green fruits of an alien pain; + For now flies rumour on a dark wide wing, + Murmuring of woes more than ye knew, most like + Hers whom ye hailed most wretched; for the twain + Last left of all this house that wore last night + A threefold crown of maidens, and to-day 1260 + Should let but one fall dead out of the wreath, + If mad with grief we know not and sore love + For this their sister, or with shame soul-stung + To outlive her dead or doubt lest their lives too + The Gods require to seal their country safe + And bring the oracular doom to perfect end, + Have slain themselves, and fallen at the altar-foot + Lie by their own hands done to death; and fear + Shakes all the city as winds a wintering tree, + And as dead leaves are men's hearts blown about 1270 + And shrunken with ill thoughts, and flowerless hopes + Parched up with presage, lest the piteous blood + Shed of these maidens guiltless fall and fix + On this land's forehead like a curse that cleaves + To the unclean soul's inexpiate hunted head + Whom his own crime tracks hotlier than a hound + To life's veiled end unsleeping; and this hour + Now blackens toward the battle that must close + All gates of hope and fear on all their hearts + Who tremble toward its issue, knowing not yet 1280 + If blood may buy them surety, cleanse or soil + The helpless hands men raise and reach no stay. + + + CHORUS. + + Ill thoughts breed fear, and fear ill words; but these + The Gods turn from us that have kept their law. + Let us lift up the strength of our hearts in song, [_Str._ 1. + And our souls to the height of the darkling day. + If the wind in our eyes blow blood for spray, + Be the spirit that breathes in us life more strong, + Though the prow reel round and the helm point wrong, + And sharp reefs whiten the shoreward way. 1290 + For the steersman time sits hidden astern, [_Ant._ 1. + With dark hand plying the rudder of doom, + And the surf-smoke under it flies like fume + As the blast shears off and the oar-blades churn + The foam of our lives that to death return, + Blown back as they break to the gulfing gloom. + What cloud upon heaven is arisen, what shadow, what + sound, [_Str._ 2. + From the world beyond earth, from the night underground, + That scatters from wings unbeholden the weight of its darkness + around? + For the sense of my spirit is broken, and blinded + its eye, [_Ant._ 2. 1300 + As the soul of a sick man ready to die, + With fear of the hour that is on me, with dread if an end be + not nigh. + O Earth, O Gods of the land, have ye heart now to see and + to hear [_Str._ 3. + What slays with terror mine eyesight and seals mine ear? + O fountains of streams everlasting, are all ye not shrunk up and + withered for fear? + Lo, night is arisen on the noon, and her hounds are in quest + by day, [_Ant._ 3. + And the world is fulfilled of the noise of them crying + for their prey, + And the sun's self stricken in heaven, and cast out of his + course as a blind man astray. + From east to west of the south sea-line [_Str._ 4. + Glitters the lightning of spears that shine; 1310 + As a storm-cloud swoln that comes up from the skirts of the sea + By the wind for helmsman to shoreward ferried, + So black behind them the live storm serried + Shakes earth with the tramp of its foot, and the terror to be. + Shall the sea give death whom the land gave birth? [_Ant._ 4. + O Earth, fair mother, O sweet live Earth, + Hide us again in thy womb from the waves of it, help us or hide. + As a sword is the heart of the God thy brother, + But thine as the heart of a new-made mother, + To deliver thy sons from his ravin, and rage of his tide. 1320 + O strong north wind, the pilot of cloud and rain, [_Str._ 5. + For the gift we gave thee what gift hast thou given us again? + O God dark-winged, deep-throated, a terror to forth-faring ships + by night, + What bride-song is this that is blown on the blast of thy breath? + A gift but of grief to thy kinsmen, a song but of death, + For the bride's folk weeping, and woe for her father, who finds + thee against him in fight. + Turn back from us, turn thy battle, take heed of our + cry; [_Ant._ 5. + Let thy dread breath sound, and the waters of war be dry; + Let thy strong wrath shatter the strength of our foemen, the + sword of their strength and the shield; + As vapours in heaven, or as waves or the wrecks of ships, 1330 + So break thou the ranks of their spears with the breath of + thy lips, + Till their corpses have covered and clothed as with raiment the + face of the sword-ploughed field. + O son of the rose-red morning, O God twin-born with the + day, [_Str._ 6. + O wind with the young sun waking, and winged for the + same wide way, + Give up not the house of thy kin to the host thou hast marshalled + from northward for prey. + From the cold of thy cradle in Thrace, from the mists of the + fountains of night, [_Ant._ 6. + From the bride-bed of dawn whence day leaps laughing, on + fire for his flight, + Come down with their doom in thine hand on the ships thou hast + brought up against us to fight. + For now not in word but in deed is the harvest of spears + begun, [_Str._ 7. + And its clamour outbellows the thunder, its lightning outlightens + the sun. 1340 + From the springs of the morning it thunders and lightens across + and afar + To the wave where the moonset ends and the fall of the last + low star. + With a trampling of drenched red hoofs and an earthquake of men + that meet, + Strong war sets hand to the scythe, and the furrows take fire + from his feet. + Earth groans from her great rent heart, and the hollows of rocks + are afraid, + And the mountains are moved, and the valleys as waves in a + storm-wind swayed. + From the roots of the hills to the plain's dim verge and the dark + loud shore, + Air shudders with shrill spears crossing, and hurtling of wheels + that roar. + As the grinding of teeth in the jaws of a lion that foam as + they gnash + Is the shriek of the axles that loosen, the shock of the poles + that crash. 1350 + The dense manes darken and glitter, the mouths of the mad + steeds champ, + Their heads flash blind through the battle, and death's foot + rings in their tramp. + For a fourfold host upon earth and in heaven is arrayed for + the fight, + Clouds ruining in thunder and armies encountering as clouds in + the night. + Mine ears are amazed with the terror of trumpets, with darkness + mine eyes, + At the sound of the sea's host charging that deafens the roar of + the sky's. + White frontlet is dashed upon frontlet, and horse against horse + reels hurled, + And the gorge of the gulfs of the battle is wide for the spoil + of the world. + And the meadows are cumbered with shipwreck of chariots that + founder on land, [_Ant._ 7. + And the horsemen are broken with breach as of breakers, and + scattered as sand. 1360 + Through the roar and recoil of the charges that mingle their + cries and confound, + Like fire are the notes of the trumpets that flash through the + darkness of sound. + As the swing of the sea churned yellow that sways with the wind + as it swells + Is the lift and relapse of the wave of the chargers that clash + with their bells; + And the clang of the sharp shrill brass through the burst of the + wave as it shocks + Rings clean as the clear wind's cry through the roar of the surge + on the rocks: + And the heads of the steeds in their headgear of war, and their + corsleted breasts, + Gleam broad as the brows of the billows that brighten the storm + with their crests, + Gleam dread as their bosoms that heave to the shipwrecking wind + as they rise, + Filled full of the terror and thunder of water, that slays as + it dies. 1370 + So dire is the glare of their foreheads, so fearful the fire of + their breath, + And the light of their eyeballs enkindled so bright with the + lightnings of death; + And the foam of their mouths as the sea's when the jaws of its + gulf are as graves, + And the ridge of their necks as the wind-shaken mane on the + ridges of waves: + And their fetlocks afire as they rear drip thick with a dewfall + of blood + As the lips of the rearing breaker with froth of the manslaying + flood. + And the whole plain reels and resounds as the fields of the sea + by night + When the stroke of the wind falls darkling, and death is the + seafarer's light. + + But thou, fair beauty of heaven, dear face of the day nigh + dead, [_Epode._ + What horror hath hidden thy glory, what hand hath muffled thine + head? 1380 + O sun, with what song shall we call thee, or ward off thy + wrath by what name, + With what prayer shall we seek to thee, soothe with what + incense, assuage with what gift, + If thy light be such only as lightens to deathward the seaman adrift + With the fire of his house for a beacon, that foemen have + wasted with flame? + Arise now, lift up thy light; give ear to us, put forth thine hand, + Reach toward us thy torch of deliverance, a lamp for the night + of the land. + Thine eye is the light of the living, no lamp for the dead; + O, lift up the light of thine eye on the dark of our dread. + Who hath blinded thee? who hath prevailed on thee? who hath + ensnared? + Who hath broken thy bow, and the shafts for thy battle + prepared? 1390 + Have they found out a fetter to bind thee, a chain for thine + arm that was bared? + Be the name of thy conqueror set forth, and the might of thy + master declared. + O God, fair God of the morning, O glory of day, + What ails thee to cast from thy forehead its garland away? + To pluck from thy temples their chaplet enwreathed of the light, + And bind on the brows of thy godhead a frontlet of night? + Thou hast loosened the necks of thine horses, and goaded their + flanks with affright, + To the race of a course that we know not on ways that are hid from + our sight. + As a wind through the darkness the wheels of their chariot + are whirled, + And the light of its passage is night on the face of the + world. 1400 + And there falls from the wings of thy glory no help from on high, + But a shadow that smites us with fear and desire of thine eye. + For our hearts are as reeds that a wind on the water bows down + and goes by, + To behold not thy comfort in heaven that hath left us untimely + to die. + But what light is it now leaps forth on the land + Enkindling the waters and ways of the air + From thy forehead made bare, + From the gleam of thy bow-bearing hand? + Hast thou set not thy right hand again to the string, + With the back-bowed horns bent sharp for a spring 1410 + And the barbed shaft drawn, + Till the shrill steel sing and the tense nerve ring + That pierces the heart of the dark with dawn, + O huntsman, O king, + When the flame of thy face hath twilight in chase + As a hound hath a blood-mottled fawn? + He has glanced into golden the grey sea-strands, + And the clouds are shot through with the fires of his hands, + And the height of the hollow of heaven that he fills + As the heart of a strong man is quickened and thrills; 1420 + High over the folds of the low-lying lands, + On the shadowless hills + As a guard on his watchtower he stands. + All earth and all ocean, all depth and all height, + At the flash of an eyebeam are filled with his might: + The sea roars backward, the storm drops dumb, + And silence as dew on the fire of the fight + Falls kind in our ears as his face in our sight + With presage of peace to come. + Fresh hope in my heart from the ashes of dread 1430 + Leaps clear as a flame from the pyres of the dead, + That joy out of woe + May arise as the spring out of tempest and snow, + With the flower-feasted month in her hands rose-red + Borne soft as a babe from the bearing-bed. + Yet it knows not indeed if a God be friend, + If rescue may be from the rage of the sea, + Or the wrath of its lord have end. + For the season is full now of death or of birth, + To bring forth life, or an end of all; 1440 + And we know not if anything stand or fall + That is girdled about with the round sea's girth + As a town with its wall; + But thou that art highest of the Gods most high, + That art lord if we live, that art lord though we die, + Have heed of the tongues of our terror that cry + For a grace to the children of Earth. + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + Sons of Athens, heavy-laden with the holy weight of years, + Be your hearts as young men's lightened of their loathlier load + of fears; + For the wave is sunk whose thunder shoreward shook the shuddering + lands, 1450 + And unbreached of warring waters Athens like a sea-rock stands. + + + CHORUS. + + Well thy word has cheered us, well thy face and glittering eyes, + that spake + Ere thy tongue spake words of comfort: yet no pause, behoves it make + Till the whole good hap find utterance that the Gods have given at + length. + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + All is this, that yet the city stands unforced by stranger strength. + + + CHORUS. + + Sweeter sound might no mouth utter in man's ear than this thy word. + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + Feed thy soul then full of sweetness till some bitterer note be + heard. + + + CHORUS. + + None, if this ring sure, can mar the music fallen from heaven as + rain. + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + If no fire of sun or star untimely sear the tender grain. + + + CHORUS. + + Fresh the dewfall of thy tidings on our hopes reflowering lies. 1460 + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + Till a joyless shower and fruitless blight them, raining from + thine eyes. + + + CHORUS. + + Bitter springs have barren issues; these bedew grief's arid sands. + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + Such thank-offerings ask such altars as expect thy suppliant hands. + + + CHORUS. + + Tears for triumph, wail for welfare, what strange godhead's shrine + requires? + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + Death's or victory's be it, a funeral torch feeds all its festal + fires. + + + CHORUS. + + Like a star should burn the beacon flaming from our city's head. + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + Like a balefire should the flame go up that says the king is dead. + + + CHORUS. + + Out of heaven, a wild-haired meteor, shoots this new sign, + scattering fear. + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + Yea, the word has wings of fire that hovered, loth to burn thine + ear. + + + CHORUS. + + From thy lips it leapt forth loosened on a shrill and shadowy + wing. 1470 + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + Long they faltered, fain to hide it deep as death that hides + the king. + + + CHORUS. + + Dead with him blind hope lies blasted by the lightning of one sword. + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + On thy tongue truth wars with error; no man's edge hath touched + thy lord. + + + CHORUS. + + False was thine then, jangling menace like a war-steed's + brow-bound bell? + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + False it rang not joy nor sorrow; but by no man's hand he fell. + + + CHORUS. + + Vainly then good news and evil through so faint a trumpet spake. + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + All too long thy soul yet labours, as who sleeping fain would wake, + Waking, fain would fall on sleep again; the woe thou knowest + not yet, + When thou knowest, shall make thy memory thirst and hunger to + forget. + + + CHORUS. + + Long my heart has hearkened, hanging on thy clamorous ominous + cry, 1480 + Fain yet fearful of the knowledge whence it looks to live or die; + Now to take the perfect presage of thy dark and sidelong flight + Comes a surer soothsayer sorrowing, sable-stoled as birds of night. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + Man, what thy mother bare thee born to say + Speak; for no word yet wavering on thy lip + Can wound me worse than thought forestalls or fear. + + + ATHENIAN HERALD. + + I have no will to weave too fine or far, + O queen, the weft of sweet with bitter speech, + Bright words with darkling; but the brief truth shown + Shall plead my pardon for a lingering tongue, 1490 + Loth yet to strike hope through the heart and slay. + The sun's light still was lordly housed in heaven + When the twain fronts of war encountering smote + First fire out of the battle; but not long + Had the fresh wave of windy fight begun + Heaving, and all the surge of swords to sway, + When timeless night laid hold of heaven, and took + With its great gorge the noon as in a gulf, + Strangled; and thicker than the shrill-winged shafts + Flew the fleet lightnings, held in chase through heaven 1500 + By headlong heat of thunders on their trail + Loosed as on quest of quarry; that our host + Smit with sick presage of some wrathful God + Quailed, but the foe as from one iron throat + With one great sheer sole thousand-throated cry + Shook earth, heart-staggered from their shout, and clove + The eyeless hollow of heaven; and breached therewith + As with an onset of strength-shattering sound + The rent vault of the roaring noon of night + From her throned seat of usurpation rang 1510 + Reverberate answer; such response there pealed + As though the tide's charge of a storming sea + Had burst the sky's wall, and made broad a breach + In the ambient girth and bastion flanked with stars + Guarding the fortress of the Gods, and all + Crashed now together on ruin; and through that cry + And higher above it ceasing one man's note + Tore its way like a trumpet: _Charge, make end, + Charge, halt not, strike, rend up their strength by the roots, + Strike, break them, make your birthright's promise sure, 1520 + Show your hearts hardier than the fenced land breeds + And souls breathed in you from no spirit of earth, + Sons of the sea's waves_; and all ears that heard + Rang with that fiery cry, that the fine air + Thereat was fired, and kindling filled the plain + Full of that fierce and trumpet-quenching breath + That spake the clarions silent; no glad song + For folk to hear that wist how dire a God + Begat this peril to them, what strong race + Fathered the sea-born tongue that sang them death, 1530 + Threatening; so raged through the red foam of fight + Poseidon's son Eumolpus; and the war + Quailed round him coming, and our side bore back, + As a stream thwarted by the wind and sea + That meet it midway mouth to mouth, and beat + The flood back of its issue; but the king + Shouted against them, crying, _O Father-God, + Source of the God my father, from thine hand + Send me what end seems good now in thy sight, + But death from mine to this man_; and the word 1540 + Quick on his lips yet like a blast of fire + Blew them together; and round its lords that met + Paused all the reeling battle; two main waves + Meeting, one hurled sheer from the sea-wall back + That shocks it sideways, one right in from sea + Charging, that full in face takes at one blow + That whole recoil and ruin, with less fear + Startle men's eyes late shipwrecked; for a breath + Crest fronting crest hung, wave to wave rose poised, + Then clashed, breaker to breaker; cloud with cloud 1550 + In heaven, chariot with chariot closed on earth, + One fourfold flash and thunder; yet a breath, + And with the king's spear through his red heart's root + Driven, like a rock split from its hill-side, fell + Hurled under his own horsehoofs dead on earth + The sea-beast that made war on earth from sea, + Dumb, with no shrill note left of storming song, + Eumolpus; and his whole host with one stroke + Spear-stricken through its dense deep iron heart + Fell hurtling from us, and in fierce recoil 1560 + Drew seaward as with one wide wail of waves, + Resorbed with reluctation; such a groan + Rose from the fluctuant refluence of its ranks, + Sucked sullen back and strengthless; but scarce yet + The steeds had sprung and wheels had bruised their lord + Fallen, when from highest height of the sundering heaven + The Father for his brother's son's sake slain + Sent a sheer shaft of lightning writhen and smote + Right on his son's son's forehead, that unhelmed + Shone like the star that shines down storm, and gave 1570 + Light to men's eyes that saw thy lord their king + Stand and take breath from battle; then too soon + Saw sink down as a sunset in sea-mist + The high bright head that here in van of the earth + Rose like a headland, and through storm and night + Took all the sea's wrath on it; and now dead + They bring thee back by war-forsaken ways + The strength called once thy husband, the great guard + That was of all men, stay of all men's lives, + They bear him slain of no man but a God, 1580 + Godlike; and toward him dead the city's gates + Fling their arms open mother-like, through him + Saved; and the whole clear land is purged of war. + What wilt thou say now of this weal and woe? + + + PRAXITHEA. + + I praise the Gods for Athens. O sweet Earth, + Mother, what joy thy soul has of thy son, + Thy life of my dead lord, mine own soul knows + That knows thee godlike; and what grief should mine, + What sorrow should my heart have, who behold + Thee made so heavenlike happy? This alone 1590 + I only of all these blessed, all thy kind, + Crave this for blessing to me, that in theirs + Have but a part thus bitter; give me too + Death, and the sight of eyes that meet not mine. + And thee too from no godless heart or tongue + Reproachful, thee too by thy living name, + Father divine, merciful God, I call, + Spring of my life-springs, fountain of my stream, + Pure and poured forth to one great end with thine, + Sweet head sublime of triumph and these tears, 1600 + Cephisus, if thou seest as gladly shed + Thy blood in mine as thine own waves are given + To do this great land good, to give for love + The same lips drink and comfort the same hearts, + Do thou then, O my father, white-souled God, + To thy most pure earth-hallowing heart eterne + Take what thou gavest to be given for these, + Take thy child to thee; for her time is full, + For all she hath borne she hath given, seen all she had + Flow from her, from her eyes and breasts and hands 1610 + Flow forth to feed this people; but be thou, + Dear God and gracious to all souls alive, + Good to thine own seed also; let me sleep, + Father; my sleepless darkling day is done, + My day of life like night, but slumberless: + For all my fresh fair springs, and his that ran + In one stream's bed with mine, are all run out + Into the deep of death. The Gods have saved + Athens; my blood has bought her at their hand, + And ye sit safe; be glorious and be glad 1620 + As now for all time always, countrymen, + And love my dead for ever; but me, me, + What shall man give for these so good as death? + + + CHORUS. + + From the cup of my heart I pour through my lips along [_Str._ 1. + The mingled wine of a joyful and sorrowful song; + Wine sweeter than honey and bitterer than blood that is poured + From the chalice of gold, from the point of the two-edged sword. + For the city redeemed should joy flow forth as a flood, + And a dirge make moan for the city polluted with blood. + Great praise should the Gods have surely, my country, of + thee, [_Ant._ 1. 1630 + Were thy brow but as white as of old for thy sons to see, + Were thy hands as bloodless, as blameless thy cheek divine; + But a stain on it stands of the life-blood offered for thine. + What thanks shall we give that are mixed not and marred with dread + For the price that has ransomed thine own with thine own child's + head? + For a taint there cleaves to the people redeemed with + blood, [_Str._ 2. + And a plague to the blood-red hand. + The rain shall not cleanse it, the dew nor the sacred flood + That blesses the glad live land. + In the darkness of earth beneath, in the world without + sun, [_Ant._ 2. 1640 + The shadows of past things reign; + And a cry goes up from the ghost of an ill deed done, + And a curse for a virgin slain. + + + ATHENA. + + Hear, men that mourn, and woman without mate, + Hearken; ye sick of soul with fear, and thou + Dumb-stricken for thy children; hear ye too, + Earth, and the glory of heaven, and winds of the air, + And the most holy heart of the deep sea, + Late wroth, now full of quiet; hear thou, sun, + Rolled round with the upper fire of rolling heaven 1650 + And all the stars returning; hills and streams, + Springs and fresh fountains, day that seest these deeds. + Night that shalt hide not; and thou child of mine, + Child of a maiden, by a maid redeemed, + Blood-guiltless, though bought back with innocent blood, + City mine own; I Pallas bring thee word, + I virgin daughter of the most high God + Give all you charge and lay command on all + The word I bring be wasted not; for this + The Gods have stablished and his soul hath sworn, 1660 + That time nor earth nor changing sons of man + Nor waves of generations, nor the winds + Of ages risen and fallen that steer their tides + Through light and dark of birth and lovelier death + From storm toward haven inviolable, shall see + So great a light alive beneath the sun + As the awless eye of Athens; all fame else + Shall be to her fame as a shadow in sleep + To this wide noon at waking; men most praised + In lands most happy for their children found 1670 + Shall hold as highest of honours given of God + To be but likened to the least of thine, + Thy least of all, my city; thine shall be + The crown of all songs sung, of all deeds done + Thine the full flower for all time; in thine hand + Shall time be like a sceptre, and thine head + Wear worship for a garland; nor one leaf + Shall change or winter cast out of thy crown + Till all flowers wither in the world; thine eyes + Shall first in man's flash lightning liberty, 1680 + Thy tongue shall first say freedom; thy first hand + Shall loose the thunder terror as a hound + To hunt from sunset to the springs of the sun + Kings that rose up out of the populous east + To make their quarry of thee, and shall strew + With multitudinous limbs of myriad herds + The foodless pastures of the sea, and make + With wrecks immeasurable and unsummed defeat + One ruin of all their many-folded flocks + Ill shepherded from Asia; by thy side 1690 + Shall fight thy son the north wind, and the sea + That was thine enemy shall be sworn thy friend + And hand be struck in hand of his and thine + To hold faith fast for aye; with thee, though each + Make war on other, wind and sea shall keep + Peace, and take truce as brethren for thy sake + Leagued with one spirit and single-hearted strength + To break thy foes in pieces, who shall meet + The wind's whole soul and might of the main sea + Full in their face of battle, and become 1700 + A laughter to thee; like a shower of leaves + Shall their long galleys rank by staggering rank + Be dashed adrift on ruin, and in thy sight + The sea deride them, and that lord of the air + Who took by violent hand thy child to wife + With his loud lips bemock them, by his breath + Swept out of sight of being; so great a grace + Shall this day give thee, that makes one in heart + With mine the deep sea's godhead, and his son + With him that was thine helmsman, king with king, 1710 + Dead man with dead; such only names as these + Shalt thou call royal, take none else or less + To hold of men in honour; but with me + Shall these be worshipped as one God, and mix + With mine the might of their mysterious names + In one same shrine served singly, thence to keep + Perpetual guard on Athens; time and change, + Masters and lords of all men, shall be made + To thee that knowest no master and no lord + Servants; the days that lighten heaven and nights 1720 + That darken shall be ministers of thine + To attend upon thy glory, the great years + As light-engraven letters of thy name + Writ by the sun's hand on the front of the earth + For world-beholden witness; such a gift + For one fair chaplet of three lives enwreathed + To hang for ever from thy storied shrine, + And this thy steersman fallen with tiller in hand + To stand for ever at thy ship's helm seen, + Shall he that bade their threefold flower be shorn 1730 + And laid him low that planted, give thee back + In sign of sweet land reconciled with sea + And heavenlike earth with heaven; such promise-pledge + I daughter without mother born of God + To the most woful mother born of man + Plight for continual comfort. Hail, and live + Beyond all human hap of mortal doom + Happy; for so my sire hath sworn and I. + + + PRAXITHEA. + + O queen Athena, from a heart made whole + Take as thou givest us blessing; never tear 1740 + Shall stain for shame nor groan untune the song + That as a bird shall spread and fold its wings + Here in thy praise for ever, and fulfil + The whole world's crowning city crowned with thee + As the sun's eye fulfils and crowns with sight + The circling crown of heaven. There is no grief + Great as the joy to be made one in will + With him that is the heart and rule of life + And thee, God born of God; thy name is ours, + And thy large grace more great than our desire. 1750 + + + CHORUS. + + From the depth of the springs of my spirit a fountain is poured + of thanksgiving, + My country, my mother, for thee, + That thy dead for their death shall have life in thy sight and + a name everliving + At heart of thy people to be. + In the darkness of change on the waters of time they shall turn + from afar + To the beam of this dawn for a beacon, the light of these pyres + for a star. + They shall see thee who love and take comfort, who hate thee + shall see and take warning, + Our mother that makest us free; + And the sons of thine earth shall have help of the waves that + made war on their morning, + And friendship and fame of the sea. 1760 + + + + +NOTES. + + +v. 497-503. Cf. Eurip. Fr. _Erechtheus_, 46-49. + +v. 522-530. Id. 32-40. + +v. 778. Æsch. _Supp._ 524-6. + +v. 983. Soph. Fr. (_Oreithyia_) 655. + + ὑπέρ τε πόντον πάντ' ἐπ' ἔσχατα χθονὸς + νυκτός τε πηγὰς οὐρανοῦ τ' ἀναπτυχὰς, + φοίβου παλαιὸν κῆπον. + +v. 1163. Æsch. Fr. (_Danaides_) 38. + + ὄμβρος δ' ἀπ' εὐνάεντος οὐρανοῦ πεσὼν + ἔκυσε γαῖαν. + +v. 1168. Id. + + δενδρῶτις ὥρα δ' ἐκ νοτίζοντος γάμου + τέλειός ἐστι. + +v. 1749. 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