Erechtheus A Tragedy (New Edition)

[Greek: AT. tis de poimanôr epesti kapidespozei stratou? XO. outinos douloi keklê, tai phôtos oud' upêkooi.]

ÆSCH. Pers. 241-2.

A NEW EDITION.

London: CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 1881.

PERSONS.

ERECHTHEUS. CHORUS OF ATHENIAN ELDERS. PRAXITHEA. CHTHONIA. HERALD OF EUMOLPUS. MESSENGER. ATHENIAN HERALD. ATHENA.

ERECHTHEUS.

ERECHTHEUS.

Mother of life and death and all men's days, Earth, whom I chief of all men born would bless, And call thee with more loving lips than theirs Mother, for of this very body of thine And living blood I have my breath and live, Behold me, even thy son, me crowned of men, Me made thy child by that strong cunning God Who fashions fire and iron, who begat Me for a sword and beacon-fire on thee, Me fosterling of Pallas, in her shade 10 Reared, that I first might pay the nursing debt, Hallowing her fame with flower of third-year feasts, And first bow down the bridled strength of steeds To lose the wild wont of their birth, and bear Clasp of man's knees and steerage of his hand, Or fourfold service of his fire-swift wheels That whirl the four-yoked chariot; me the king Who stand before thee naked now, and cry, O holy and general mother of all men born, But mother most and motherliest of mine, 20 Earth, for I ask thee rather of all the Gods, What have we done? what word mistimed or work Hath winged the wild feet of this timeless curse To fall as fire upon us? Lo, I stand Here on this brow's crown of the city's head That crowns its lovely body, till death's hour Waste it; but now the dew of dawn and birth Is fresh upon it from thy womb, and we Behold it born how beauteous; one day more I see the world's wheel of the circling sun 30 Roll up rejoicing to regard on earth This one thing goodliest, fair as heaven or he, Worth a God's gaze or strife of Gods; but now Would this day's ebb of their spent wave of strife Sweep it to sea, wash it on wreck, and leave A costless thing contemned; and in our stead, Where these walls were and sounding streets of men, Make wide a waste for tongueless water-herds And spoil of ravening fishes; that no more Should men say, Here was Athens. This shalt thou 40 Sustain not, nor thy son endure to see, Nor thou to live and look on; for the womb Bare me not base that bare me miserable, To hear this loud brood of the Thracian foam Break its broad strength of billowy-beating war Here, and upon it as a blast of death Blowing, the keen wrath of a fire-souled king, A strange growth grafted on our natural soil, A root of Thrace in Eleusinian earth Set for no comfort to the kindly land, 50 Son of the sea's lord and our first-born foe, Eumolpus; nothing sweet in ears of thine The music of his making, nor a song Toward hopes of ours auspicious; for the note Rings as for death oracular to thy sons That goes before him on the sea-wind blown Full of this charge laid on me, to put out The brief light kindled of mine own child's life, Or with this helmsman hand that steers the state Run right on the under shoal and ridge of death 60 The populous ship with all its fraughtage gone And sails that were to take the wind of time Rent, and the tackling that should hold out fast In confluent surge of loud calamities Broken, with spars of rudders and lost oars That were to row toward harbour and find rest In some most glorious haven of all the world And else may never near it: such a song The Gods have set his lips on fire withal Who threatens now in all their names to bring 70 Ruin; but none of these, thou knowest, have I Chid with my tongue or cursed at heart for grief, Knowing how the soul runs reinless on sheer death Whose grief or joy takes part against the Gods. And what they will is more than our desire, And their desire is more than what we will. For no man's will and no desire of man's Shall stand as doth a God's will. Yet, O fair Mother, that seest me how I cast no word Against them, plead no reason, crave no cause, 80 Boast me not blameless, nor beweep me wronged, By this fair wreath of towers we have decked thee with, This chaplet that we give thee woven of walls, This girdle of gate and temple and citadel Drawn round beneath thy bosom, and fast linked As to thine heart's root--this dear crown of thine, This present light, this city--be not thou Slow to take heed nor slack to strengthen her, Fare we so short-lived howsoe'er, and pay What price we may to ransom thee thy town, 90 Not me my life; but thou that diest not, thou, Though all our house die for this people's sake, Keep thou for ours thy crown our city, guard And give it life the lovelier that we died.

CHORUS.

Sun, that hast lightened and loosed by thy might Ocean and Earth from the lordship of night, Quickening with vision his eye that was veiled, Freshening the force in her heart that had failed, That sister fettered and blinded brother Should have sight by thy grace and delight of each other, 100 Behold now and see What profit is given them of thee; What wrath has enkindled with madness of mind Her limbs that were bounden, his face that was blind, To be locked as in wrestle together, and lighten With fire that shall darken thy fire in the sky, Body to body and eye against eye In a war against kind, Till the bloom of her fields and her high hills whiten With the foam of his waves more high. 110 For the sea-marks set to divide of old The kingdoms to Ocean and Earth assigned, The hoar sea-fields from the cornfields' gold, His wine-bright waves from her vineyards' fold, Frail forces we find To bridle the spirit of Gods or bind Till the heat of their hearts wax cold. But the peace that was stablished between them to stand Is rent now in twain by the strength of his hand Who stirs up the storm of his sons overbold 120 To pluck from fight what he lost of right, By council and judgment of Gods that spake And gave great Pallas the strife's fair stake, The lordship and love of the lovely land, The grace of the town that hath on it for crown But a headband to wear Of violets one-hued with her hair: For the vales and the green high places of earth Hold nothing so fair, And the depths of the sea bear no such birth 130 Of the manifold births they bear. Too well, too well was the great stake worth A strife divine for the Gods to judge, A crowned God's triumph, a foiled God's grudge, Though the loser be strong and the victress wise Who played long since for so large a prize, The fruitful immortal anointed adored Dear city of men without master or lord, Fair fortress and fostress of sons born free, Who stand in her sight and in thine, O sun, 140 Slaves of no man, subjects of none; A wonder enthroned on the hills and sea, A maiden crowned with a fourfold glory That none from the pride of her head may rend, Violet and olive-leaf purple and hoary, Song-wreath and story the fairest of fame, Flowers that the winter can blast not or bend; A light upon earth as the sun's own flame, A name as his name, Athens, a praise without end. 150

A noise is arisen against us of waters, [_Str._ 1. A sound as of battle come up from the sea. Strange hunters are hard on us, hearts without pity; They have staked their nets round the fair young city, That the sons of her strength and her virgin daughters Should find not whither alive to flee. And we know not yet of the word unwritten, [_Ant._ 1. The doom of the Pythian we have not heard; From the navel of earth and the veiled mid altar We wait for a token with hopes that falter, 160 With fears that hang on our hearts thought-smitten Lest her tongue be kindled with no good word. O thou not born of the womb, nor bred [_Str._ 2. In the bride-night's warmth of a changed God's bed, But thy life as a lightning was flashed from the light of thy father's head, O chief God's child by a motherless birth, If aught in thy sight we indeed be worth, Keep death from us thou, that art none of the Gods of the dead under earth. Thou that hast power on us, save, if thou wilt; [_Ant._ 2. Let the blind wave breach not thy wall scarce built; 170 But bless us not so as by bloodshed, impute not for grace to us guilt, Nor by price of pollution of blood set us free; Let the hands be taintless that clasp thy knee, Nor a maiden be slain to redeem for a maiden her shrine from the sea. O earth, O sun, turn back [_Str._ 3. Full on his deadly track Death, that would smite you black and mar your creatures, And with one hand disroot All tender flower and fruit, With one strike blind and mute the heaven's fair features, 180 Pluck out the eyes of morn, and make Silence in the east and blackness whence the bright songs break. Help, earth, help, heaven, that hear [_Ant._ 3. The song-notes of our fear, Shrewd notes and shrill, not clear or joyful-sounding; Hear, highest of Gods, and stay Death on his hunter's way, Full on his forceless prey his beagles hounding; Break thou his bow, make short his hand, Maim his fleet foot whose passage kills the living land. 190 Let a third wave smite not us, father, [_Str._ 4. Long since sore smitten of twain, Lest the house of thy son's son perish And his name be barren on earth. Whose race wilt thou comfort rather If none to thy son remain? Whose seed wilt thou choose to cherish If his be cut off in the birth? For the first fair graft of his graffing [_Ant._ 4. Was rent from its maiden root 200 By the strong swift hand of a lover Who fills the night with his breath; On the lip of the stream low-laughing Her green soft virginal shoot Was plucked from the stream-side cover By the grasp of a love like death. For a God's was the mouth that kissed her [_Str._ 5. Who speaks, and the leaves lie dead, When winter awakes as at warning To the sound of his foot from Thrace. 210 Nor happier the bed of her sister Though Love's self laid her abed By a bridegroom beloved of the morning And fair as the dawn's own face. For Procris, ensnared and ensnaring [_Ant._ 5. By the fraud of a twofold wile, With the point of her own spear stricken By the gift of her own hand fell. Oversubtle in doubts, overdaring In deeds and devices of guile, 220 And strong to quench as to quicken, O Love, have we named thee well? By thee was the spear's edge whetted [_Str._ 6. That laid her dead in the dew, In the moist green glens of the midland By her dear lord slain and thee. And him at the cliff's end fretted By the grey keen waves, him too, Thine hand from the white-browed headland Flung down for a spoil to the sea. 230 But enough now of griefs grey-growing [_Ant._ 6. Have darkened the house divine, Have flowered on its boughs and faded, And green is the brave stock yet. O father all-seeing and all-knowing, Let the last fruit fall not of thine From the tree with whose boughs we are shaded, From the stock that thy son's hand set.

ERECHTHEUS.

O daughter of Cephisus, from all time Wise have I found thee, wife and queen, of heart 240 Perfect; nor in the days that knew not wind Nor days when storm blew death upon our peace Was thine heart swoln with seed of pride, or bowed With blasts of bitter fear that break men's souls Who lift too high their minds toward heaven, in thought Too godlike grown for worship; but of mood Equal, in good time reverent of time bad, And glad in ill days of the good that were. Nor now too would I fear thee, now misdoubt Lest fate should find thee lesser than thy doom, 250 Chosen if thou be to bear and to be great Haply beyond all women; and the word Speaks thee divine, dear queen, that speaks thee dead, Dead being alive, or quick and dead in one Shall not men call thee living? yet I fear To slay thee timeless with my proper tongue, With lips, thou knowest, that love thee; and such work Was never laid of Gods on men, such word No mouth of man learnt ever, as from mine Most loth to speak thine ear most loth shall take 260 And hold it hateful as the grave to hear.