Chapter 5

Dead with him blind hope lies blasted by the lightning of one sword.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

On thy tongue truth wars with error; no man's edge hath touched thy lord.

CHORUS.

False was thine then, jangling menace like a war-steed's brow-bound bell?

ATHENIAN HERALD.

False it rang not joy nor sorrow; but by no man's hand he fell.

CHORUS.

Vainly then good news and evil through so faint a trumpet spake.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

All too long thy soul yet labours, as who sleeping fain would wake, Waking, fain would fall on sleep again; the woe thou knowest not yet, When thou knowest, shall make thy memory thirst and hunger to forget.

CHORUS.

Long my heart has hearkened, hanging on thy clamorous ominous cry, 1480 Fain yet fearful of the knowledge whence it looks to live or die; Now to take the perfect presage of thy dark and sidelong flight Comes a surer soothsayer sorrowing, sable-stoled as birds of night.

PRAXITHEA.

Man, what thy mother bare thee born to say Speak; for no word yet wavering on thy lip Can wound me worse than thought forestalls or fear.

ATHENIAN HERALD.

I have no will to weave too fine or far, O queen, the weft of sweet with bitter speech, Bright words with darkling; but the brief truth shown Shall plead my pardon for a lingering tongue, 1490 Loth yet to strike hope through the heart and slay. The sun's light still was lordly housed in heaven When the twain fronts of war encountering smote First fire out of the battle; but not long Had the fresh wave of windy fight begun Heaving, and all the surge of swords to sway, When timeless night laid hold of heaven, and took With its great gorge the noon as in a gulf, Strangled; and thicker than the shrill-winged shafts Flew the fleet lightnings, held in chase through heaven 1500 By headlong heat of thunders on their trail Loosed as on quest of quarry; that our host Smit with sick presage of some wrathful God Quailed, but the foe as from one iron throat With one great sheer sole thousand-throated cry Shook earth, heart-staggered from their shout, and clove The eyeless hollow of heaven; and breached therewith As with an onset of strength-shattering sound The rent vault of the roaring noon of night From her throned seat of usurpation rang 1510 Reverberate answer; such response there pealed As though the tide's charge of a storming sea Had burst the sky's wall, and made broad a breach In the ambient girth and bastion flanked with stars Guarding the fortress of the Gods, and all Crashed now together on ruin; and through that cry And higher above it ceasing one man's note Tore its way like a trumpet: _Charge, make end, Charge, halt not, strike, rend up their strength by the roots, Strike, break them, make your birthright's promise sure, 1520 Show your hearts hardier than the fenced land breeds And souls breathed in you from no spirit of earth, Sons of the sea's waves_; and all ears that heard Rang with that fiery cry, that the fine air Thereat was fired, and kindling filled the plain Full of that fierce and trumpet-quenching breath That spake the clarions silent; no glad song For folk to hear that wist how dire a God Begat this peril to them, what strong race Fathered the sea-born tongue that sang them death, 1530 Threatening; so raged through the red foam of fight Poseidon's son Eumolpus; and the war Quailed round him coming, and our side bore back, As a stream thwarted by the wind and sea That meet it midway mouth to mouth, and beat The flood back of its issue; but the king Shouted against them, crying, _O Father-God, Source of the God my father, from thine hand Send me what end seems good now in thy sight, But death from mine to this man_; and the word 1540 Quick on his lips yet like a blast of fire Blew them together; and round its lords that met Paused all the reeling battle; two main waves Meeting, one hurled sheer from the sea-wall back That shocks it sideways, one right in from sea Charging, that full in face takes at one blow That whole recoil and ruin, with less fear Startle men's eyes late shipwrecked; for a breath Crest fronting crest hung, wave to wave rose poised, Then clashed, breaker to breaker; cloud with cloud 1550 In heaven, chariot with chariot closed on earth, One fourfold flash and thunder; yet a breath, And with the king's spear through his red heart's root Driven, like a rock split from its hill-side, fell Hurled under his own horsehoofs dead on earth The sea-beast that made war on earth from sea, Dumb, with no shrill note left of storming song, Eumolpus; and his whole host with one stroke Spear-stricken through its dense deep iron heart Fell hurtling from us, and in fierce recoil 1560 Drew seaward as with one wide wail of waves, Resorbed with reluctation; such a groan Rose from the fluctuant refluence of its ranks, Sucked sullen back and strengthless; but scarce yet The steeds had sprung and wheels had bruised their lord Fallen, when from highest height of the sundering heaven The Father for his brother's son's sake slain Sent a sheer shaft of lightning writhen and smote Right on his son's son's forehead, that unhelmed Shone like the star that shines down storm, and gave 1570 Light to men's eyes that saw thy lord their king Stand and take breath from battle; then too soon Saw sink down as a sunset in sea-mist The high bright head that here in van of the earth Rose like a headland, and through storm and night Took all the sea's wrath on it; and now dead They bring thee back by war-forsaken ways The strength called once thy husband, the great guard That was of all men, stay of all men's lives, They bear him slain of no man but a God, 1580 Godlike; and toward him dead the city's gates Fling their arms open mother-like, through him Saved; and the whole clear land is purged of war. What wilt thou say now of this weal and woe?

PRAXITHEA.

I praise the Gods for Athens. O sweet Earth, Mother, what joy thy soul has of thy son, Thy life of my dead lord, mine own soul knows That knows thee godlike; and what grief should mine, What sorrow should my heart have, who behold Thee made so heavenlike happy? This alone 1590 I only of all these blessed, all thy kind, Crave this for blessing to me, that in theirs Have but a part thus bitter; give me too Death, and the sight of eyes that meet not mine. And thee too from no godless heart or tongue Reproachful, thee too by thy living name, Father divine, merciful God, I call, Spring of my life-springs, fountain of my stream, Pure and poured forth to one great end with thine, Sweet head sublime of triumph and these tears, 1600 Cephisus, if thou seest as gladly shed Thy blood in mine as thine own waves are given To do this great land good, to give for love The same lips drink and comfort the same hearts, Do thou then, O my father, white-souled God, To thy most pure earth-hallowing heart eterne Take what thou gavest to be given for these, Take thy child to thee; for her time is full, For all she hath borne she hath given, seen all she had Flow from her, from her eyes and breasts and hands 1610 Flow forth to feed this people; but be thou, Dear God and gracious to all souls alive, Good to thine own seed also; let me sleep, Father; my sleepless darkling day is done, My day of life like night, but slumberless: For all my fresh fair springs, and his that ran In one stream's bed with mine, are all run out Into the deep of death. The Gods have saved Athens; my blood has bought her at their hand, And ye sit safe; be glorious and be glad 1620 As now for all time always, countrymen, And love my dead for ever; but me, me, What shall man give for these so good as death?

CHORUS.

From the cup of my heart I pour through my lips along [_Str._ 1. The mingled wine of a joyful and sorrowful song; Wine sweeter than honey and bitterer than blood that is poured From the chalice of gold, from the point of the two-edged sword. For the city redeemed should joy flow forth as a flood, And a dirge make moan for the city polluted with blood. Great praise should the Gods have surely, my country, of thee, [_Ant._ 1. 1630 Were thy brow but as white as of old for thy sons to see, Were thy hands as bloodless, as blameless thy cheek divine; But a stain on it stands of the life-blood offered for thine. What thanks shall we give that are mixed not and marred with dread For the price that has ransomed thine own with thine own child's head? For a taint there cleaves to the people redeemed with blood, [_Str._ 2. And a plague to the blood-red hand. The rain shall not cleanse it, the dew nor the sacred flood That blesses the glad live land. In the darkness of earth beneath, in the world without sun, [_Ant._ 2. 1640 The shadows of past things reign; And a cry goes up from the ghost of an ill deed done, And a curse for a virgin slain.

ATHENA.

Hear, men that mourn, and woman without mate, Hearken; ye sick of soul with fear, and thou Dumb-stricken for thy children; hear ye too, Earth, and the glory of heaven, and winds of the air, And the most holy heart of the deep sea, Late wroth, now full of quiet; hear thou, sun, Rolled round with the upper fire of rolling heaven 1650 And all the stars returning; hills and streams, Springs and fresh fountains, day that seest these deeds. Night that shalt hide not; and thou child of mine, Child of a maiden, by a maid redeemed, Blood-guiltless, though bought back with innocent blood, City mine own; I Pallas bring thee word, I virgin daughter of the most high God Give all you charge and lay command on all The word I bring be wasted not; for this The Gods have stablished and his soul hath sworn, 1660 That time nor earth nor changing sons of man Nor waves of generations, nor the winds Of ages risen and fallen that steer their tides Through light and dark of birth and lovelier death From storm toward haven inviolable, shall see So great a light alive beneath the sun As the awless eye of Athens; all fame else Shall be to her fame as a shadow in sleep To this wide noon at waking; men most praised In lands most happy for their children found 1670 Shall hold as highest of honours given of God To be but likened to the least of thine, Thy least of all, my city; thine shall be The crown of all songs sung, of all deeds done Thine the full flower for all time; in thine hand Shall time be like a sceptre, and thine head Wear worship for a garland; nor one leaf Shall change or winter cast out of thy crown Till all flowers wither in the world; thine eyes Shall first in man's flash lightning liberty, 1680 Thy tongue shall first say freedom; thy first hand Shall loose the thunder terror as a hound To hunt from sunset to the springs of the sun Kings that rose up out of the populous east To make their quarry of thee, and shall strew With multitudinous limbs of myriad herds The foodless pastures of the sea, and make With wrecks immeasurable and unsummed defeat One ruin of all their many-folded flocks Ill shepherded from Asia; by thy side 1690 Shall fight thy son the north wind, and the sea That was thine enemy shall be sworn thy friend And hand be struck in hand of his and thine To hold faith fast for aye; with thee, though each Make war on other, wind and sea shall keep Peace, and take truce as brethren for thy sake Leagued with one spirit and single-hearted strength To break thy foes in pieces, who shall meet The wind's whole soul and might of the main sea Full in their face of battle, and become 1700 A laughter to thee; like a shower of leaves Shall their long galleys rank by staggering rank Be dashed adrift on ruin, and in thy sight The sea deride them, and that lord of the air Who took by violent hand thy child to wife With his loud lips bemock them, by his breath Swept out of sight of being; so great a grace Shall this day give thee, that makes one in heart With mine the deep sea's godhead, and his son With him that was thine helmsman, king with king, 1710 Dead man with dead; such only names as these Shalt thou call royal, take none else or less To hold of men in honour; but with me Shall these be worshipped as one God, and mix With mine the might of their mysterious names In one same shrine served singly, thence to keep Perpetual guard on Athens; time and change, Masters and lords of all men, shall be made To thee that knowest no master and no lord Servants; the days that lighten heaven and nights 1720 That darken shall be ministers of thine To attend upon thy glory, the great years As light-engraven letters of thy name Writ by the sun's hand on the front of the earth For world-beholden witness; such a gift For one fair chaplet of three lives enwreathed To hang for ever from thy storied shrine, And this thy steersman fallen with tiller in hand To stand for ever at thy ship's helm seen, Shall he that bade their threefold flower be shorn 1730 And laid him low that planted, give thee back In sign of sweet land reconciled with sea And heavenlike earth with heaven; such promise-pledge I daughter without mother born of God To the most woful mother born of man Plight for continual comfort. Hail, and live Beyond all human hap of mortal doom Happy; for so my sire hath sworn and I.

PRAXITHEA.

O queen Athena, from a heart made whole Take as thou givest us blessing; never tear 1740 Shall stain for shame nor groan untune the song That as a bird shall spread and fold its wings Here in thy praise for ever, and fulfil The whole world's crowning city crowned with thee As the sun's eye fulfils and crowns with sight The circling crown of heaven. There is no grief Great as the joy to be made one in will With him that is the heart and rule of life And thee, God born of God; thy name is ours, And thy large grace more great than our desire. 1750

CHORUS.

From the depth of the springs of my spirit a fountain is poured of thanksgiving, My country, my mother, for thee, That thy dead for their death shall have life in thy sight and a name everliving At heart of thy people to be. In the darkness of change on the waters of time they shall turn from afar To the beam of this dawn for a beacon, the light of these pyres for a star. They shall see thee who love and take comfort, who hate thee shall see and take warning, Our mother that makest us free; And the sons of thine earth shall have help of the waves that made war on their morning, And friendship and fame of the sea. 1760

NOTES.

v. 497-503. Cf. Eurip. Fr. _Erechtheus_, 46-49.

v. 522-530. Id. 32-40.

v. 778. AEsch. _Supp._ 524-6.

v. 983. Soph. Fr. (_Oreithyia_) 655.

[Greek: hyper te ponton pant' ep' etchata chthonos nyktos te pegas ouranou t' anaptychas, phoibou palaion kepon.]

v. 1163. AEsch. Fr. (_Danaides_) 38.

[Greek: ombros d' ap' eunaentos ouranou peson ekyse gaian.]

v. 1168. Id.

[Greek: dendrotis hora d' ek notizontos gamou teleios esti.]

v. 1749. '_God born of God._' Soph. _Ant._ 834. [Greek: theos toi kai theogennes.]

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End of Project Gutenberg's Erechtheus, by Algernon Charles Swinburne