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Title: Erechtheus

Subtitle: A Tragedy (New Edition)

Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne

Release Date: June 11, 2006 [EBook #18550]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Thierry Alberto, Taavi Kalju and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ***

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,

10

Me fosterling of Pallas, in her shade

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,

20

But mother most and motherliest of mine,

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

30

I see the world's wheel of the circling sun

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

40

Should men say, Here was Athens. This shalt thou

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

50

Set for no comfort to the kindly land,

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

60

Run right on the under shoal and ridge of death

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

70

Who threatens now in all their names to bring

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

80

Against them, plead no reason, crave no cause,

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

90

What price we may to ransom thee thy town,

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

100

Should have sight by thy grace and delight of each other,

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

110

With the foam of his waves more high.

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

120

Who stirs up the storm of his sons overbold

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,

130

And the depths of the sea bear no such birth

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,

140

Who stand in her sight and in thine, O sun,

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,

150

Athens, a praise without end.

[Str. 1.

A noise is arisen against us of waters,

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.

[Ant. 1.

And we know not yet of the word unwritten,

The doom of the Pythian we have not heard;

From the navel of earth and the veiled mid altar

160

We wait for a token with hopes that falter,

With fears that hang on our hearts thought-smitten

Lest her tongue be kindled with no good word.

[Str. 2.

O thou not born of the womb, nor bred

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.

[Ant. 2.

Thou that hast power on us, save, if thou wilt;

170

Let the blind wave breach not thy wall scarce built;

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.

[Str. 3.

O earth, O sun, turn back

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,

180

With one strike blind and mute the heaven's fair features,

Pluck out the eyes of morn, and make

Silence in the east and blackness whence the bright songs break.

[Ant. 3.

Help, earth, help, heaven, that hear

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,

190

Maim his fleet foot whose passage kills the living land.

[Str. 4.

Let a third wave smite not us, father,

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?

[Ant. 4.

For the first fair graft of his graffing

200

Was rent from its maiden root

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

210

To the sound of his foot from Thrace.

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.

[Ant. 5.

For Procris, ensnared and ensnaring

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

220

In deeds and devices of guile,

And strong to quench as to quicken,

O Love, have we named thee well?

[Str. 6.

By thee was the spear's edge whetted

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

230

Flung down for a spoil to the sea.

[Ant. 6.

But enough now of griefs grey-growing

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

240

Wise have I found thee, wife and queen, of heart

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

250

Lest fate should find thee lesser than thy doom,

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

260

Most loth to speak thine ear most loth shall take

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

270

Flung off for shame's sake to forgetfulness.

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,

280

God, that thy power has breathed into my lips?

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.

290

If this ring worse I know not; strange it rang.

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.

300

Whence? for thou sayest it is and is not mine.

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

310

Life of their children, flower of all their seed,

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,

320

More than for any my peculiar grace

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

330

Should wound more deep than any turned on me.

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

340

One soul for all this people; from thy womb

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.

[Str.

He hath uttered too surely his wrath not obscurely, nor wrapt as in mists of his breath,

350

The master that lightens not hearts he enlightens, but gives them foreknowledge of death.

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?

[Ant.

O Night, whom other but thee for mother, and Death for the father, Night,

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;

360

None is there, none that may bear them, not one that would live.

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,

370

I know not till thy will be to lift up

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,

380

All honourable and kindly men of age;

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

390

That bears me record; lifeless now, my life

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,

400

Thy mother-land that bare thee; no man slain

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.

410

Would mine might shut ere thine upon the sun.

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.

420

That I might bid thee die not! Peace; no more.

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

430

Most hateful of things holy, mournfullest

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

440

The word I say be said, the gift be given,

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

450

Is head and heart of Athens, one sheer blow

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

460

Hath honour of us all; and of this strife

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;

470

For with strange crook-toothed prows of Carian folk

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

480

Right on this people a mightier wave of war,

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

490

That shake on us their shadow, till men's heads

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

500

Here where our natural people born behold

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

510

Fix them as stars of safety. Need have we,

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

520

And have no more of memory, fill no tomb

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

530

What part is left me in my children then?

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,

540

Shall she give thee half all her agelong own

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

550

Whence it shall lighten like a God's, and strike

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.

[Str. 1.

Out of the north wind grief came forth,

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,

560

With the clamour of his storms as of a crowd

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,

570

Wofully wed in a snow-strewn bed

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.

[Ant. 1.

From lips how pale so keen a wail

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!

580

From the darkness upon Hæmus to the sea:

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

590

Falling by night in his old friends' sight,

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.

[Str. 2.

With a leap of his limbs as a lion's, a cry from his lips as of thunder,

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,

600

And their branches as buds of the soft spring scattered,

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.

[Ant. 2.

But she knew not him coming for terror, she felt not her wrong that he wrought her,

610

When her locks as leaves were shed before his breath,

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,

620

From the bosom of earth as a bride from the mother,

With storm for bridesman and wreck for brother,

As a cloud that he sheds upon the sea.

[Epode.

Of this hoary-headed woe

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

630

A stay to fetter the foot of the sea,

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

640

That the breath of the sea blows hither.

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

650

If heart be his to hearken, him bid forth

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

660

May lesson thy large ignorance and inform

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.

670

That lot shall no God give who fights for thee.

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.

680

Pride knows not, wounded, till the heart be cleft.

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

690

Except some doom from Godward yield it him.

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

700

The immortal womb that bare thee; by the waves

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

710

Yield, or gird up thy force to fight and die.

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

720

Shall give to death or lordship of strange kings

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;

730

Though thrice his might were mustered for our scathe

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,

740

The breath not fail of Athens. Say, the Gods

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

750

On him that comes not to depart away

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.

[Str. 1.

Who shall put a bridle in the mourner's lips to chasten them,

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,

760

And the rain of eyes that weep be dry,

And the breath be stilled of lips that sigh.

[Ant. 1.

Death at last for all men is a harbour; yet they flee from it,

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.

[Str. 2.770

Bitter and strange is the word of the God most high,

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.

[Ant. 2.

As darkness and storm is his will that on earth is done,

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,

780

Hast thou set not an end for the path of the fires of the sun,

To appoint him a rest at length?

[Str. 3.

Hast thou told not by measure the waves of the waste wide sea,

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?

[Ant. 3.

Therefore, O father, that seest us whose lives are a breath,

Take off us thy burden, and give us not wholly to death.

790

For lovely is life, and the law wherein all things live,

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.

[Str. 4.

But a life that is given for the life of the whole live land,

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?

[Ant. 4.

For the fruit of a sweet life plucked in its pure green prime

On his hand who plucks is as blood, on his soul as crime.

800

With cursing ye buy not blessing, nor peace with strife,

And the hand is hateful that chaffers with death for life.

[Str. 5.

Hast thou heard, O my heart, and endurest

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?

[Ant. 5.

How the veils and the wreaths that should cover

The brows of the bride

810

Shall be shed by the breath of what lover

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?

[Str. 6.

At a shrine unbeloved of a God unbeholden a gift shall be given for the land,

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.

[Ant. 6.

As a bride shall they bring her, a prey for the bridegroom, a flower for the couch of her lord;

They shall muffle her mouth that she cry not or curse them, and cover her eyes from the sword.

820

They shall fasten her lips as with bit and with bridle, and darken the light of her face,

That the soul of the slayer may not falter, his heart be not molten, his hand give not grace.

[Str. 7.

If she weep then, yet may none that hear take pity;

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?

[Ant. 7.

Yet we held thee dear and hallowed of her favour,

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.

[Epode.830

Bloodless are her works, and sweet

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;

840

In her shrine she reared the birth

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.

850

But now with what word, with what woe may we meet

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,

860

What way thy steps to what bride-feast tend,

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,

870

Half my heart is cloven with anguish by the sword made sharp for thine,

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,

880

Born with groanings of the ground that gave him way toward heaven's dear air.

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.

890

That I may give this poor girl's blood of mine

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

900

Were no such gifts as crave no thanksgiving,

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

910

An arm's length from thy bosom and no more

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

920

For my sleep only, with its void sad sheets

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

930

Glory; but lay thou this to thy great heart

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,

940

My sons unrisen shall rise up at thine hand,

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,

950

That all eyes seeing may lighten, and all ears

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

960

A silent soul led of a silent God,

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,

970

If one among men born might say it and live

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

980

Long since one graft of me disbranched, and bore

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

990

Breathe help upon my peril, nor his strength

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,

1000

Beyond all thought fain to redeem thee, torn

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

1010

Shall rear again no children; never now

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

1020

And fall as these fell fruitless; no joy more

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,

1030

This fair live youth I give you, to be slain,

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,

1040

The grace to make thy country great, and wrest

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

1050

Hath a slave left to love with? or the heart

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,

1060

Nor loves his own life for his own land's sake,

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,

1070

Were their great will more grievous than it is,

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

1080

Have laid so heavy sorrow. From this day

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.

1090

Turn from us the strengths of the sea.

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.

1100

That sons unborn may praise thee and thy first-born son.

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.

1110

A wide sea-wall, that shatters the besieging sea.

CHTHONIA.

[Str.

I lift up mine eyes from the skirts of the shadow,

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

1120

Too high for its waters to drown,

Take yet this one word of me dying,

O city, O crown.

[Ant.

Though land-wind and sea-wind with mouths that blow slaughter

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

1130

At the foot of the towers of the town.

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.

[Str. 1.

Many loves of many a mood and many a kind

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,

1140

Night that lulls world-weary day, day that comforts night,

Night that fills our eyes with sleep, day that fills with light.

[Ant. 1.

None of all is lovelier, loftier love is none,

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.

[Str. 2.

But none of the nations of men shall they liken to thee,

1150

Whose children true-born and the fruit of thy body are we.

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,

1160

And the life in thee yearned for his life, and grew great with desire.

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.

[Ant. 2.

Such desire had ye twain of each other, till molten in one

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;

1170

All countries were bounteous with blossom and burgeon of birth,

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

1180

Who may vaunt him as we may in death though he die for the land?

Well doth she therefore who gives thee in guerdon

[Epode.

The bloom of the life of thy giving;

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

1190

That guards the heart of the city.

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

1200

Death ministering should meet her, and his hand

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

1210

From face to feet the body's whole soft length

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,

1220

Take me, dear Gods; and as some form had shone

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,

1230

Groaned, and kept silence after while a man

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

1240

Dumb, till word reach her of this whole day's end.

CHORUS.

[Str.

More hapless born by far

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.

[Ant.

For she, too great of mind,

Grown through her good things blind.

With godless lips and fire of her own breath

1250

Spake all her house to death;

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

1260

A threefold crown of maidens, and to-day

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,

1270

And as dead leaves are men's hearts blown about

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

1280

Who tremble toward its issue, knowing not yet

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.

[Str. 1.

Let us lift up the strength of our hearts in song,

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,

1290

And sharp reefs whiten the shoreward way.

[Ant. 1.

For the steersman time sits hidden astern,

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.

[Str. 2.

What cloud upon heaven is arisen, what shadow, what sound,

From the world beyond earth, from the night underground,

That scatters from wings unbeholden the weight of its darkness around?

[Ant. 2.1300

For the sense of my spirit is broken, and blinded its eye,

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.

[Str. 3.

O Earth, O Gods of the land, have ye heart now to see and to hear

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?

[Ant. 3.

Lo, night is arisen on the noon, and her hounds are in quest by day,

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.

[Str. 4.

From east to west of the south sea-line

1310

Glitters the lightning of spears that shine;

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.

[Ant. 4.

Shall the sea give death whom the land gave birth?

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,

1320

To deliver thy sons from his ravin, and rage of his tide.

[Str. 5.

O strong north wind, the pilot of cloud and rain,

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.

[Ant. 5.

Turn back from us, turn thy battle, take heed of our cry;

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;

1330

As vapours in heaven, or as waves or the wrecks of ships,

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.

[Str. 6.

O son of the rose-red morning, O God twin-born with the day,

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.

[Ant. 6.

From the cold of thy cradle in Thrace, from the mists of the fountains of night,

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.

[Str. 7.

For now not in word but in deed is the harvest of spears begun,

1340

And its clamour outbellows the thunder, its lightning outlightens the sun.

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

1350

Is the shriek of the axles that loosen, the shock of the poles that crash.

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.

[Ant. 7.

And the meadows are cumbered with shipwreck of chariots that founder on land,

1360

And the horsemen are broken with breach as of breakers, and scattered as sand.

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,

1370

Filled full of the terror and thunder of water, that slays as it dies.

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.

[Epode.

But thou, fair beauty of heaven, dear face of the day nigh dead,

1380

What horror hath hidden thy glory, what hand hath muffled thine head?

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?

1390

Who hath broken thy bow, and the shafts for thy battle prepared?

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,

1400

And the light of its passage is night on the face of the world.

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,

1410

With the back-bowed horns bent sharp for a spring

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

1420

As the heart of a strong man is quickened and thrills;

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.

1430

Fresh hope in my heart from the ashes of dread

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,

1440

To bring forth life, or an end of all;

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;

1450

For the wave is sunk whose thunder shoreward shook the shuddering lands,

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.

1460

Fresh the dewfall of thy tidings on our hopes reflowering lies.

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.

1470

From thy lips it leapt forth loosened on a shrill and shadowy wing.

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.

1480

Long my heart has hearkened, hanging on thy clamorous ominous cry,

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

1490

Shall plead my pardon for a lingering tongue,

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

1500

Flew the fleet lightnings, held in chase through heaven

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

1510

From her throned seat of usurpation rang

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,

1520

Strike, break them, make your birthright's promise sure,

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

1530

Fathered the sea-born tongue that sang them death,

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,

1540

But death from mine to this man; and the word

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,

1550

Then clashed, breaker to breaker; cloud with cloud

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

1560

Fell hurtling from us, and in fierce recoil

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

1570

Shone like the star that shines down storm, and gave

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,

1580

They bear him slain of no man but a God,

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

1590

Thee made so heavenlike happy? This alone

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,

1600

Sweet head sublime of triumph and these tears,

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

1610

Flow from her, from her eyes and breasts and hands

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,

1620

And ye sit safe; be glorious and be glad

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.

[Str. 1.

From the cup of my heart I pour through my lips along

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.

[Ant. 1.1630

Great praise should the Gods have surely, my country, of thee,

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?

[Str. 2.

For a taint there cleaves to the people redeemed with blood,

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.

[Ant. 2.1640

In the darkness of earth beneath, in the world without sun,

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,

1650

Rolled round with the upper fire of rolling heaven

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

1660

The Gods have stablished and his soul hath sworn,

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

1670

In lands most happy for their children found

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

1680

Shall first in man's flash lightning liberty,

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

1690

Ill shepherded from Asia; by thy side

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

1700

Full in their face of battle, and become

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

1710

With him that was thine helmsman, king with king,

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

1720

Servants; the days that lighten heaven and nights

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,

1730

Shall he that bade their threefold flower be shorn

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

1740

Take as thou givest us blessing; never tear

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,

1750

And thy large grace more great than our desire.

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,

1760

And friendship and fame of the sea.

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. 'God born of God.' Soph. Ant. 834. θεός τοι καὶ θεογεννής.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

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Table of Contents

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Erechtheus, by Algernon Charles Swinburne

ERECHTHEUS:

A TRAGEDY.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

A NEW EDITION.

London: CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 1881.

PERSONS.

ERECHTHEUS.

ERECHTHEUS.

CHORUS.

ERECHTHEUS.

PRAXITHEA.

ERECHTHEUS.

PRAXITHEA.

ERECHTHEUS.

PRAXITHEA.

ERECHTHEUS.

PRAXITHEA.

ERECHTHEUS.

PRAXITHEA.

ERECHTHEUS.

PRAXITHEA.

ERECHTHEUS.

PRAXITHEA.

ERECHTHEUS.

PRAXITHEA.

ERECHTHEUS.

PRAXITHEA.

ERECHTHEUS.

PRAXITHEA.

ERECHTHEUS.

PRAXITHEA.

ERECHTHEUS.

PRAXITHEA.

CHORUS.

ERECHTHEUS.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

PRAXITHEA.

CHTHONIA.

PRAXITHEA.

CHTHONIA.

PRAXITHEA.

CHTHONIA.

PRAXITHEA.

CHTHONIA.

PRAXITHEA.

CHTHONIA.

PRAXITHEA.

CHTHONIA.

PRAXITHEA.

CHTHONIA.

PRAXITHEA.

CHTHONIA.

PRAXITHEA.

CHTHONIA.

PRAXITHEA.

CHORUS.

PRAXITHEA.

CHORUS.

HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.

CHORUS.

HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.

CHORUS.

HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.

CHORUS.

HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.

CHORUS.

HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.

CHORUS.

HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.

CHORUS.

HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.

CHORUS.

HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.

CHORUS.

HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.

CHORUS.

ERECHTHEUS.

HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.

ERECHTHEUS.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

PRAXITHEA.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

PRAXITHEA.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

PRAXITHEA.

CHTHONIA.

PRAXITHEA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

CHTHONIA.

CHORUS.

MESSENGER.

CHORUS.

MESSENGER.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

CHORUS.

PRAXITHEA.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

PRAXITHEA.

CHORUS.

ATHENA.

PRAXITHEA.

CHORUS.

NOTES.

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