Chapter 2

From the winds of the north and the south They gathered as unto strife; They breathed upon his mouth, They filled his body with life; Eyesight and speech they wrought For the veils of the soul therein, A time for labour and thought, A time to serve and to sin; They gave him light in his ways, And love, and a space for delight, And beauty and length of days, And night, and sleep in the night. His speech is a burning fire; With his lips he travaileth, In his heart is a blind desire, In his eyes foreknowledge of death; He weaves, and is clothed with derision; Sows, and he shall not reap, His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep.

MELEAGER.

O sweet new heaven and air without a star, Fair day, be fair and welcome, as to men With deeds to do and praise to pluck from thee, Come forth a child, born with clear sound and light, With laughter and swift limbs and prosperous looks; That this great hunt with heroes for the hounds May leave thee memorable and us well sped.

ALTHAEA.

Son, first I praise thy prayer, then bid thee speed; But the gods hear men's hands before their lips, And heed beyond all crying and sacrifice Light of things done and noise of labouring men. But thou, being armed and perfect for the deed, Abide; for like rain-flakes in a wind they grow, The men thy fellows, and the choice of the world, Bound to root out the tusked plague, and leave Thanks and safe days and peace in Calydon.

MELEAGER.

For the whole city and all the low-lying land Flames, and the soft air sounds with them that come; The gods give all these fruit of all their works.

ALTHAEA.

Set thine eye thither and fix thy spirit and say Whom there thou knowest; for sharp mixed shadow and wind Blown up between the morning and the mist, With steam of steeds and flash of bridle or wheel, And fire, and parcels of the broken dawn, And dust divided by hard light, and spears That shine and shift as the edge of wild beasts' eyes, Smite upon mine; so fiery their blind edge Burns, and bright points break up and baffle day.

MELEAGER.

The first, for many I know not, being far off, Peleus the Larissaean, couched with whom Sleeps the white sea-bred wife and silver-shod, Fair as fled foam, a goddess; and their son Most swift and splendid of men's children born, Most like a god, full of the future fame.

ALTHAEA.

Who are these shining like one sundered star?

MELEAGER.

Thy sister's sons, a double flower of men.

ALTHAEA.

O sweetest kin to me in all the world, O twin-born blood of Leda, gracious heads Like kindled lights in untempestuous heaven, Fair flower-like stars on the iron foam of fight, With what glad heart and kindliness of soul, Even to the staining of both eyes with tears And kindling of warm eyelids with desire, A great way off I greet you, and rejoice Seeing you so fair, and moulded like as gods. Far off ye come, and least in years of these, But lordliest, but worth love to look upon.

MELEAGER.

Even such (for sailing hither I saw far hence, And where Eurotas hollows his moist rock Nigh Sparta with a strenuous-hearted stream) Even such I saw their sisters; one swan-white, The little Helen, and less fair than she Fair Clytaemnestra, grave as pasturing fawns Who feed and fear some arrow; but at whiles, As one smitten with love or wrung with joy, She laughs and lightens with her eyes, and then Weeps; whereat Helen, having laughed, weeps too, And the other chides her, and she being chid speaks nought, But cheeks and lips and eyelids kisses her, Laughing; so fare they, as in their bloomless bud And full of unblown life, the blood of gods.

ALTHAEA.

Sweet days befall them and good loves and lords, And tender and temperate honours of the hearth, Peace, and a perfect life and blameless bed. But who shows next an eagle wrought in gold? That flames and beats broad wings against the sun And with void mouth gapes after emptier prey?

MELEAGER.

Know by that sign the reign of Telamon Between the fierce mouths of the encountering brine On the strait reefs of twice-washed Salamis.

ALTHAEA.

For like one great of hand he bears himself, Vine-chapleted, with savours of the sea, Glittering as wine and moving as a wave. But who girt round there roughly follows him?

MELEAGER.

Ancaeus, great of hand, an iron bulk, Two-edged for fight as the axe against his arm, Who drives against the surge of stormy spears Full-sailed; him Cepheus follows, his twin-born, Chief name next his of all Arcadian men.

ALTHAEA.

Praise be with men abroad; chaste lives with us, Home-keeping days and household reverences.

MELEAGER.

Next by the left unsandalled foot know thou The sail and oar of this Aetolian land, Thy brethren, Toxeus and the violent-souled Plexippus, over-swift with hand and tongue; For hands are fruitful, but the ignorant mouth Blows and corrupts their work with barren breath.

ALTHAEA.

Speech too bears fruit, being worthy; and air blows down Things poisonous, and high-seated violences, And with charmed words and songs have men put out Wild evil, and the fire of tyrannies.

MELEAGER.

Yea, all things have they, save the gods and love.

ALTHAEA.

Love thou the law and cleave to things ordained.

MELEAGER.

Law lives upon their lips whom these applaud.

ALTHAEA.

How sayest thou these? what god applauds new things?

MELEAGER.

Zeus, who hath fear and custom under foot.

ALTHAEA.

But loves not laws thrown down and lives awry.

MELEAGER.

Yet is not less himself than his own law.

ALTHAEA.

Nor shifts and shuffles old things up and down.

MELEAGER.

But what he will remoulds and discreates.

ALTHAEA.

Much, but not this, that each thing live its life.

MELEAGER.

Nor only live, but lighten and lift up higher.

ALTHAEA.

Pride breaks itself, and too much gained is gone.

MELEAGER.

Things gained are gone, but great things done endure.

ALTHAEA.

Child, if a man serve law through all his life And with his whole heart worship, him all gods Praise; but who loves it only with his lips, And not in heart and deed desiring it Hides a perverse will with obsequious words, Him heaven infatuates and his twin-born fate Tracks, and gains on him, scenting sins far off, And the swift hounds of violent death devour. Be man at one with equal-minded gods, So shall he prosper; not through laws torn up, Violated rule and a new face of things. A woman armed makes war upon herself, Unwomanlike, and treads down use and wont And the sweet common honour that she hath, Love, and the cry of children, and the hand Trothplight and mutual mouth of marriages. This doth she, being unloved, whom if one love, Not fire nor iron and the wide-mouthed wars Are deadlier than her lips or braided hair. For of the one comes poison, and a curse Falls from the other and burns the lives of men. But thou, son, be not filled with evil dreams, Nor with desire of these things; for with time Blind love burns out; but if one feed it full Till some discolouring stain dyes all his life, He shall keep nothing praiseworthy, nor die The sweet wise death of old men honourable, Who have lived out all the length of all their years Blameless, and seen well-pleased the face of gods, And without shame and without fear have wrought Things memorable, and while their days held out In sight of all men and the sun's great light Have gat them glory and given of their own praise To the earth that bare them and the day that bred, Home friends and far-off hospitalities, And filled with gracious and memorial fame Lands loved of summer or washed by violent seas, Towns populous and many unfooted ways, And alien lips and native with their own. But when white age and venerable death Mow down the strength and life within their limbs, Drain out the blood and darken their clear eyes, Immortal honour is on them, having past Through splendid life and death desirable To the clear seat and remote throne of souls, Lands indiscoverable in the unheard-of west, Round which the strong stream of a sacred sea Rolls without wind for ever, and the snow There shows not her white wings and windy feet, Nor thunder nor swift rain saith anything, Nor the sun burns, but all things rest and thrive; And these, filled full of days, divine and dead, Sages and singers fiery from the god, And such as loved their land and all things good And, best beloved of best men, liberty, Free lives and lips, free hands of men free-born, And whatsoever on earth was honourable And whosoever of all the ephemeral seed, Live there a life no liker to the gods But nearer than their life of terrene days. Love thou such life and look for such a death. But from the light and fiery dreams of love Spring heavy sorrows and a sleepless life, Visions not dreams, whose lids no charm shall close Nor song assuage them waking; and swift death Crushes with sterile feet the unripening ear, Treads out the timeless vintage; whom do thou Eschewing embrace the luck of this thy life, Not without honour; and it shall bear to thee Such fruit as men reap from spent hours and wear, Few men, but happy; of whom be thou, O son, Happiest, if thou submit thy soul to fate, And set thine eyes and heart on hopes high-born And divine deeds and abstinence divine. So shalt thou be toward all men all thy days As light and might communicable, and burn From heaven among the stars above the hours, And break not as a man breaks nor burn down: For to whom other of all heroic names Have the gods given his life in hand as thine? And gloriously hast thou lived, and made thy life To me that bare thee and to all men born Thankworthy, a praise for ever; and hast won fame When wild wars broke all round thy father's house, And the mad people of windy mountain ways Laid spears against us like a sea, and all Aetolia thundered with Thessalian hoofs; Yet these, as wind baffles the foam, and beats Straight back the relaxed ripple, didst thou break And loosen all their lances, till undone And man from man they fell; for ye twain stood God against god, Ares and Artemis, And thou the mightier; wherefore she unleashed A sharp-toothed curse thou too shalt overcome; For in the greener blossom of thy life Ere the full blade caught flower, and when time gave Respite, thou didst not slacken soul nor sleep, But with great hand and heart seek praise of men Out of sharp straits and many a grievous thing, Seeing the strange foam of undivided seas On channels never sailed in, and by shores Where the old winds cease not blowing, and all the night Thunders, and day is no delight to men.

CHORUS.

Meleager, a noble wisdom and fair words The gods have given this woman, hear thou these.

MELEAGER.

O mother, I am not fain to strive in speech Nor set my mouth against thee, who art wise Even as they say and full of sacred words. But one thing I know surely, and cleave to this; That though I be not subtle of wit as thou Nor womanlike to weave sweet words, and melt Mutable minds of wise men as with fire, I too, doing justly and reverencing the gods, Shall not want wit to see what things be right. For whom they love and whom reject, being gods, There is no man but seeth, and in good time Submits himself, refraining all his heart. And I too as thou sayest have seen great things; Seen otherwhere, but chiefly when the sail First caught between stretched ropes the roaring west, And all our oars smote eastward, and the wind First flung round faces of seafaring men White splendid snow-flakes of the sundering foam, And the first furrow in virginal green sea Followed the plunging ploughshare of hewn pine, And closed, as when deep sleep subdues man's breath Lips close and heart subsides; and closing, shone Sunlike with many a Nereid's hair, and moved Round many a trembling mouth of doubtful gods, Risen out of sunless and sonorous gulfs Through waning water and into shallow light, That watched us; and when flying the dove was snared As with men's hands, but we shot after and sped Clear through the irremeable Symplegades; And chiefliest when hoar beach and herbless cliff Stood out ahead from Colchis, and we heard Clefts hoarse with wind, and saw through narrowing reefs The lightning of the intolerable wave Flash, and the white wet flame of breakers burn Far under a kindling south-wind, as a lamp Burns and bends all its blowing flame one way; Wild heights untravelled of the wind, and vales Cloven seaward by their violent streams, and white With bitter flowers and bright salt scurf of brine; Heard sweep their sharp swift gales, and bowing bird-wise Shriek with birds' voices, and with furious feet Tread loose the long skirts of a storm; and saw The whole white Euxine clash together and fall Full-mouthed, and thunderous from a thousand throats; Yet we drew thither and won the fleece and won Medea, deadlier than the sea; but there Seeing many a wonder and fearful things to men I saw not one thing like this one seen here, Most fair and fearful, feminine, a god, Faultless; whom I that love not, being unlike, Fear, and give honour, and choose from all the gods.

OENEUS.

Lady, the daughter of Thestius, and thou, son, Not ignorant of your strife nor light of wit, Scared with vain dreams and fluttering like spent fire, I come to judge between you, but a king Full of past days and wise from years endured. Nor thee I praise, who art fain to undo things done; Nor thee, who art swift to esteem them overmuch. For what the hours have given is given, and this Changeless; howbeit these change, and in good time Devise new things and good, not one thing still. Us have they sent now at our need for help Among men armed a woman, foreign born, Virgin, not like the natural flower of things That grows and bears and brings forth fruit and dies, Unlovable, no light for a husband's house, Espoused; a glory among unwedded girls, And chosen of gods who reverence maidenhood. These too we honour in honouring her; but thou, Abstain thy feet from following, and thine eyes From amorous touch; nor set toward hers thine heart, Son, lest hate bear no deadlier fruit than love.

ALTHAEA.

O king, thou art wise, but wisdom halts, and just, But the gods love not justice more than fate, And smite the righteous and the violent mouth, And mix with insolent blood the reverent man's, And bruise the holier as the lying lips. Enough; for wise words fail me, and my heart Takes fire and trembles flamewise, O my son, O child, for thine head's sake; mine eyes wax thick, Turning toward thee, so goodly a weaponed man, So glorious; and for love of thine own eyes They are darkened, and tears burn them, fierce as fire, And my lips pause and my soul sinks with love. But by thine hand, by thy sweet life and eyes, By thy great heart and these clasped knees, O son, I pray thee that thou slay me not with thee. For there was never a mother woman-born Loved her sons better; and never a queen of men More perfect in her heart toward whom she loved. For what lies light on many and they forget, Small things and transitory as a wind o' the sea, I forget never; I have seen thee all thine years A man in arms, strong and a joy to men Seeing thine head glitter and thine hand burn its way Through a heavy and iron furrow of sundering spears; But always also a flower of three suns old, The small one thing that lying drew down my life To lie with thee and feed thee; a child and weak, Mine, a delight to no man, sweet to me. Who then sought to thee? who gat help? who knew If thou wert goodly? nay, no man at all. Or what sea saw thee, or sounded with thine oar, Child? or what strange land shone with war through thee? But fair for me thou wert, O little life, Fruitless, the fruit of mine own flesh, and blind, More than much gold, ungrown, a foolish flower. For silver nor bright snow nor feather of foam Was whiter, and no gold yellower than thine hair, O child, my child; and now thou art lordlier grown, Not lovelier, nor a new thing in mine eyes, I charge thee by thy soul and this my breast, Fear thou the gods and me and thine own heart, Lest all these turn against thee; for who knows What wind upon what wave of altering time Shall speak a storm and blow calamity? And there is nothing stabile in the world But the gods break it; yet not less, fair son, If but one thing be stronger, if one endure, Surely the bitter and the rooted love That burns between us, going from me to thee, Shall more endure than all things. What dost thou, Following strange loves? why wilt thou kill mine heart? Lo, I talk wild and windy words, and fall From my clear wits, and seem of mine own self Dethroned, dispraised, disseated; and my mind, That was my crown, breaks, and mine heart is gone, And I am naked of my soul, and stand Ashamed, as a mean woman; take thou thought: Live if thou wilt, and if thou wilt not, look, The gods have given thee life to lose or keep, Thou shalt not die as men die, but thine end Fallen upon thee shall break me unaware.

MELEAGER.

Queen, my whole heart is molten with thy tears, And my limbs yearn with pity of thee, and love Compels with grief mine eyes and labouring breath: For what thou art I know thee, and this thy breast And thy fair eyes I worship, and am bound Toward thee in spirit and love thee in all my soul. For there is nothing terribler to men Than the sweet face of mothers, and the might But what shall be let be; for us the day Once only lives a little, and is not found. Time and the fruitful hour are more than we, And these lay hold upon us; but thou, God, Zeus, the sole steersman of the helm of things, Father, be swift to see us, and as thou wilt Help: or if adverse, as thou wilt, refrain.

CHORUS.

We have seen thee, O Love, thou art fair, thou art goodly, O Love, Thy wings make light in the air as the wings of a dove. Thy feet are as winds that divide the stream of the sea; Earth is thy covering to hide thee, the garment of thee. Thou art swift and subtle and blind as a flame of fire; Before thee the laughter, behind thee the tears of desire; And twain go forth beside thee, a man with a maid; Her eyes are the eyes of a bride whom delight makes afraid; As the breath in the buds that stir is her bridal breath: But Fate is the name of her; and his name is Death.

For an evil blossom was born Of sea-foam and the frothing of blood, Blood-red and bitter of fruit, And the seed of it laughter and tears, And the leaves of it madness and scorn; A bitter flower from the bud, Sprung of the sea without root, Sprung without graft from the years.

The weft of the world was untorn That is woven of the day on the night, The hair of the hours was not white Nor the raiment of time overworn, When a wonder, a world's delight, A perilous goddess was born, And the waves of the sea as she came Clove, and the foam at her feet, Fawning, rejoiced to bring forth A fleshly blossom, a flame Filling the heavens with heat To the cold white ends of the north.

And in air the clamorous birds, And men upon earth that hear Sweet articulate words Sweetly divided apart, And in shallow and channel and mere The rapid and footless herds, Rejoiced, being foolish of heart.

For all they said upon earth, She is fair, she is white like a dove, And the life of the world in her breath Breathes, and is born at her birth; For they knew thee for mother of love, And knew thee not mother of death.

What hadst thou to do being born, Mother, when winds were at ease, As a flower of the springtime of corn, A flower of the foam of the seas? For bitter thou wast from thy birth, Aphrodite, a mother of strife; For before thee some rest was on earth, A little respite from tears, A little pleasure of life; For life was not then as thou art, But as one that waxeth in years Sweet-spoken, a fruitful wife; Earth had no thorn, and desire No sting, neither death any dart; What hadst thou to do amongst these, Thou, clothed with a burning fire, Thou, girt with sorrow of heart, Thou, sprung of the seed of the seas As an ear from a seed of corn, As a brand plucked forth of a pyre, As a ray shed forth of the morn, For division of soul and disease, For a dart and a sting and a thorn? What ailed thee then to be born?

Was there not evil enough, Mother, and anguish on earth Born with a man at his birth, Wastes underfoot, and above Storm out of heaven, and dearth Shaken down from the shining thereof, Wrecks from afar overseas And peril of shallow and firth, And tears that spring and increase In the barren places of mirth, That thou, having wings as a dove, Being girt with desire for a girth, That thou must come after these, That thou must lay on him love?

Thou shouldst not so have been born: But death should have risen with thee, Mother, and visible fear, Grief, and the wringing of hands, And noise of many that mourn; The smitten bosom, the knee Bowed, and in each man's ear A cry as of perishing lands, A moan as of people in prison, A tumult of infinite griefs; And thunder of storm on the sands, And wailing of wives on the shore; And under thee newly arisen Loud shoals and shipwrecking reefs, Fierce air and violent light, Sail rent and sundering oar, Darkness; and noises of night; Clashing of streams in the sea, Wave against wave as a sword, Clamour of currents, and foam, Rains making ruin on earth, Winds that wax ravenous and roam As wolves in a wolfish horde; Fruits growing faint in the tree, And blind things dead in their birth Famine, and blighting of corn, When thy time was come to be born.

All these we know of; but thee Who shall discern or declare? In the uttermost ends of the sea The light of thine eyelids and hair. The light of thy bosom as fire Between the wheel of the sun And the flying flames of the air? Wilt thou turn thee not yet nor have pity, But abide with despair and desire And the crying of armies undone, Lamentation of one with another And breaking of city by city; The dividing of friend against friend, The severing of brother and brother; Wilt thou utterly bring to an end? Have mercy, mother!