Part 24

AND. Ah me! a bitter and unwelcome choice Of life on terms like these hast thou proposed; Wretch that I am! for whether I decline Or make such option, I am wretched still. O thou, who by a trifling wrong provoked, Committ’st great crimes, attend: for what offence Wouldst thou bereave me of my life? what city Have I betrayed? what child of thine destroyed? What mansion fired? I to my master’s bed By force was dragged: yet me alone, not him The author of that crime, thou mean’st to slay. Thou, the first cause o’erlooking, on th’ effect Which it produces, vent’st thy rage. What woes Encompass wretched me! alas! my country! How dreadful are the wrongs which I endure! But wherefore was I doomed to bear a child, And to the burden under which I groan Add a new burden? what delight can life To me afford? or on what fortunes past Or present should I turn these eyes which saw The corse of Hector by the victor’s car Whirled round the walls, and wretched Troy a heap Of blazing ruins? I meantime a slave By my dishevelled hair was dragged aboard The Argive navy; when I reached the coast Of Phthia, and cohabited with those Who slew my Hector; (but why lavish plaints On past calamities, without deploring Or taking a due estimate of those Which now impend?) I had this only son My life’s last comfort left, and they who take Delight in deeds of cruelty, would slay him; Yet to preserve my miserable life He shall not perish; for auspicious hopes, Could he be saved, his future days attend: But if I died not for my son, reproach Would be my portion. Lo! I leave the altar And now am in thy hands, stab, slay me, bind, Strain hard the deadly noose. My son, thy mother, To rescue thee from an untimely grave, Descends the shades beneath; if thou escape The ruthless grasp of fate, remember me How miserably I suffered; and with kisses, At his return, when thou goest forth to meet Thy father, when a flood of tears thou shedd’st, And cling’st around him with those pliant arms, Inform him how I acted. All men hold Their children dear as life; but he who scorns them Because he ne’er experienced what it is To be a father, though with fewer griefs Attended, but enjoys imperfect bliss.

[_Rises, and advances from the altar._

CHOR. I with compassion to this moving tale Have listened; for distress, to all mankind, Though strangers, must seem piteous: but on thee, O Menelaus, ’tis incumbent now To reconcile thy daughter, and this captive, That she may from her sorrows be released.

MEN. Seize her, and bind her hands; for she shall hear No pleasing language: I proposed to slay Your son, that you might leave that hallowed altar Of Thetis, and thus craftily induced you To fall into my hands, and meet your death; Be well assured, such is the present state Of your affairs: as for that boy, on him My daughter shall pass judgment, or to kill, Or spare him: but now enter these abodes, That you may learn, slave as you are, to treat Those who are free no longer with disdain.

AND. Thou hast o’erreached me by thy treacherous arts; Alas! I am betrayed.

MEN. Proclaim these tidings To all men; for I shall not contradict them.

AND. By those who dwell beside Eurotas’ stream Are such base frauds called wisdom?

MEN. Both at Troy And there, ’tis just the injured should retaliate.

AND. Believ’st thou that the gods are gods no longer, Nor wield the bolt of vengeance?

MEN. We must look To that: but you shall die.

AND. And wilt thou seize This unfledged bird, to slay him?

MEN. No, I will not, But give him to my daughter, who must act As she thinks fit.

AND. Then how, alas, my son! Can I sufficiently bewail thy fate?

MEN. “Him,” ’twas but now with arrogance you said, “Auspicious hopes attend.”

AND. Ye worst of foes To all mankind, inhabitants of Sparta! Expert in treacherous counsels, still devising New falsehoods, curst artificers of mischief, Your paths are crooked, yet though void of worth, Through Greece by circumspection ye uphold An undeserved pre-eminence. What crimes, What murders, what a thirst for abject gain Characterize your realm! with specious tongue Uttering a language foreign to your heart, Are ye not ever caught? Perdition seize you! Death is less grievous than thou deem’st to me Who date my utter ruin from that hour When Ilion’s wretched city was involved In the same fate with my illustrious lord, Whose spear oft drove thee trembling from the field Into thy ships: but now against his wife A formidable warrior art thou come To murder me: strike, for this coward tongue Shall never leave thine and thy daughter’s shame Unpublished. If in Sparta thou art great, So was I erst in Ilion; but exult not In my disasters, for on thee ere long The same reverse of fortune may attend.

CHORUS.

ODE.

I. 1.

Two rival consorts ne’er can I approve, Or sons, the source of strife, their birth who owe To different mothers; hence connubial love Is banished, and the mansion teems with woe. One blooming nymph let cautious husbands wed, And share with her alone an unpolluted bed.

I. 2.

No prudent city, no well-governed state, More than a single potentate will own; Their subjects droop beneath the grievous weight When two bear rule, and discord shakes the throne; And if two bards awake their sounding lyres E’en the harmonious Muse a cruel strife inspires,

II. 1.

To aid the bark, when prosperous gales arise, Two jarring pilots shall misguide the helm: Weak is a multitude when all are wise, One simpler monarch could have saved the realm. Let a sole chief the house or empire sway, And all who hope for bliss their lord’s behests obey.

II. 2.

This truth hath Menelaus’ daughter shown, Furious she comes the victim to destroy; And, that their blood may nuptial wrongs atone, The Phrygian captive, and that hapless boy, With impious rage unjust would cause to bleed; May pity, awful queen, thy lifted arm impede!

But I before these doors behold the pair On whom the fatal sentence now is passed. Thou wretched dame, and wretched child who diest Because thy mother to a foreign bed By force was dragged, in her imputed guilt Thou wert not an accomplice, thou thy lords Hast not offended.

AND. To the realms beneath, Lo, I am hurried, with these bloody hands Fast bound in galling chains.

MOL. I too, O mother, Under thy wing, to those loathed shades descend A victim. O ye lords of Phthia’s land, And thou, my father, succour those thou lov’st.

AND. Cling to thy mother’s bosom, O my child, Together let us die.

MOL. Ah me! how grievous My sufferings are! too clearly I perceive That I, and thou my mother, both are wretched.

MEN. Go both together to th’ infernal realm: For ye from hostile turrets hither came. Although the cause why you and he must bleed Is not the same, my sentence takes away Your life, and my Hermione’s your son’s. The highest folly were it to permit A foe to live and vex us, whom with ease We might despatch, and from our house remove Such danger.

AND. O my husband, would to Heaven I had thy arm to aid me; and thy spear, Thou son of Priam.

MOL. Wretched me! what charm Can I devise t’ avert impending fate?

AND. My son, implore the mercy of our lord Clasping his knees.

MOL. Dear monarch, spare my life.

AND. Tears from these eyes burst forth like trickling drops By the sun’s heat forced from a solid rock, Wretch that I am!

MOL. What remedy, alas! For these dire evils can my soul devise?

MEN. Why dost thou idly grovel at my feet With fruitless supplications, while I stand Firm as a rock, or as th’ unpitying wave? Such conduct serves my interests: no affection To thee I bear, because my morn of life Was wasted in the conflict, ere I took Troy and thy mother, whose society Thou in the realms of Pluto shalt enjoy.

PELEUS, MENELAUS, ANDROMACHE, MOLOSSUS, CHORUS.

CHOR. Peleus, I see, draws near, his aged feet With eager haste advancing.

PEL. You, and him Who stands presiding o’er a murderous deed, What means this uproar that disturbs the house, I question, and what practices are these Ye carry on unauthorized by law? O Menelaus, stay thy furious hand, And let not execution thus outstrip All righteous judgment. O my friends, lead on; For such a dread emergency appears T’ admit of no delay. Could I regain That youthful vigour which I erst enjoyed As prosperous breezes aid the floating sails, This captive would I favour. Say, what right Have they to bind your hands, and drag along You and your son? for like the bleating mother, Led forth to slaughter with her lamb, you perish, While I and your unwitting lord are absent.

AND. They, as thou seest, O venerable man, Me and my son thus bear to instant death. What shall I say to thee, whom I with speed Not by one single messenger but thousands Have sent for? sure thou, of the fatal strife In these divided mansions, with his daughter, To which I owe my ruin, must have heard: And from the violated shrine of Thetis, Who bore to thee a noble son, the goddess Whom thou rever’st e’en now with brutal force Me have they torn, nor judged my cause, nor wait For absent Neoptolemus, but, knowing That I and that this child who hath committed No fault, are left alone and unprotected, Would slay us both. But, O thou aged man, Thus prostrate on my knees, to thee I sue, And, though this hand must not presume to touch Thy honoured beard, conjure thee by the gods, Rescue us, or to thy eternal shame Both he and I must miserably bleed.

PEL. My orders are that you those galling chains Unbind and loose her hands, else will I make The disobedient weep.

MEN. But I, your equal, Who have much more authority o’er her, Forbid them.

PEL. Com’st thou hither to direct My household? is it not enough for thee To rule thy Spartans?

MEN. Her I took at Troy.

PEL. She, to reward his valour, was bestowed Upon my grandson.

MEN. Doth not all he owns, To me, and what is mine, to him belong?

PEL. For honest purposes, but not for crimes And murderous violence.

MEN. You ne’er shall take her Out of my hands.

PEL. Thy head I with this sceptre Will smite.

MEN. Draw near; if you presume to touch me, Soon shall you rue such outrage.

PEL. O thou villain, Sprung from a race of impious sires, what right To be accounted an illustrious man, And numbered with the truly brave, hast thou, Who by a Phrygian wanderer wert deprived Of thy fair consort, after thou hadst left Thy house unbarred and destitute of guards, As if thou in thy mansions hadst possessed A virtuous dame, though she of all her sex Was the most dissolute? nor if she would Can any Spartan nymph be chaste? for wandering From their own homes, distinguished by bare legs, And zoneless vest, they with young men contend In swiftness and in wrestling; I such customs Hold in abhorrence. Is there any room For wonder if the women prove unchaste Whom thus you educate? thy Helen ought To have proposed these questions, ere she left Her native realm, regardless of thy love, And by that youthful paramour seduced, Wantonly fled into a foreign land. Yet for her sake didst thou that numerous host Of Greeks collect, and lead them to assail The Phrygian ramparts. Thou that beauteous dame Shouldst rather have despised, nor in her cause Wielded the javelin, when thou found’st her worthless, But suffered her in Ilion to remain, And sent rich gifts to Paris on these terms, That to thy house she never should return. But thou, instead of suffering these just motives To make their due impression on thy soul, Full many valiant warriors hast destroyed, Made th’ aged matron childless, and deprived Of his illustrious sons the hoary sire. Numbered with those who owe to thee thy ruin Am wretched I: for like some evil genius In thee do these indignant eyes behold The murderer of Achilles: thou alone, Save by the missile shaft, unwounded cam’st From Ilion’s hostile shores; in burnished chests Didst thou bear thither the same glittering arms Which thou bear’st back again. Before he wedded, I warned my grandson to form no connection With thee, nor into these abodes admit The brood of that adult’ress; for the daughters Their mother emulate in deeds of shame. Look well to this, ye suitors, and select The damsel with maternal worth endued. Then with what scorn didst thou thy brother treat, Commanding him ’gainst reason to transgress, And sacrifice his daughter. Thou such fears, Lest thou that execrable wife shouldst lose, Didst entertain. When thou hadst taken Troy, This too I urge against thee, though thou hadst Thy consort in thy power, thou didst not slay her, But when her throbbing bosom thou beheld’st Didst cast away thy sword, receive her kisses, And soothe the fears of her who had betrayed thee. O worthless miscreant, whom the Cyprian Queen Hath thus debased! thou after this intrud’st Into my grandson’s palace, in his absence Committ’st these outrages, and basely slay’st A miserable woman, and her child, Thee and thy daughter who shall cause to weep Though trebly illegitimate his birth. Oft the parched heath, when duly tilled, exceeds The richest soil, and greater instances Of virtue are in many a bastard found Than in the lawfully begotten race. But take thy daughter hence. Far better is it To form affinity and strictest friendship With a poor man of worth, than him who joins Iniquity with wealth: but as for thee, Thou art a thing of nought.

CHOR. Among mankind, Oft from a small beginning doth the tongue Great strife occasion: but the wise beware Of entering on a contest with their friend.

MEN. Why do we speak in such exalted terms Of aged men, as if they were endued With wisdom, though in former days supposed By the whole Grecian race to judge aright? When you, O Peleus, who derive your birth From an illustrious sire, and with my house So nearly are connected, hold a language Disgraceful to yourself, and slander me, For a barbarian dame, whom from this land You ought to banish far beyond the Nile, Beyond the Phasis, and applaud my vengeance; Because she comes from Asiatic shores, Where many valiant Grecian chiefs lie slain. And hath in part been guilty of the blood Of your famed son; for Paris, by whose shaft, Transpierced, Achilles perished, was the brother, And she the wife of Hector: yet you enter The same abode with her, the genial board With her partake, allow her to bring forth Under your roofs an execrable brood. These mischiefs both to you and me, old man, Foreseeing, have I snatched her from your hands With a design to kill her. But, O say, (For there is nought of meanness in our holding This conference), if my daughter bear no child, And she have sons, will you appoint them lords Of this your Phthian land? shall they who spring From a barbarian race, o’er Greeks bear rule? Am I, because I hate injustice, void Of understanding, and are you discreet? Reflect on this; had you bestowed your daughter On any citizen, were she thus treated, Would you sit down and bear her wrongs in silence? I deem you would not. Why then with such harshness Speak you in favour of a foreign dame Against your nearest friends? as great a right To vengeance as her husband, hath the wife Whom her lord injures: for while he whose doors An unchaste consort enters, in his hands Hath power to right himself, a woman’s strength Lies only in her parents and her friends. My daughter, therefore, am I bound to aid: You show the marks of age: for while you talk Of that famed war I waged, you more befriend me Than if you had been silent. Deep in woe Was Helen plunged, not by her own consent But by the gods: and this event hath proved To Greece most advantageous, for its sons Who knew not how till then to wield the spear, Grew valiant. From experience, best of tutors, Men gather all the knowledge they possess. But when I saw my consort, in forbearing To take away her life, I acted wisely: And would that you had done like me, nor slain Your brother Phocus; this to you I speak Through mere benevolence, and not in wrath: But if resentment o’er your soul usurp An empire, such intemperance of the tongue Will be in you more shameful, while my wishes I by a prudent forethought shall attain.

CHOR. Now both desist (for this were better far) From such unprofitable strife of words, O ye will both offend.

PEL. Ah me! through Greece What mischievous opinions have prevailed! When with the spoils of vanquished foes, the host A trophy rear, they think not how ’twas gained By those brave soldiers who endure the toil Of battle, while their general bears away All the renown: though he was only one Who stood ’midst thousands brandishing his spear, Nor any single combatant surpassed, He gains a larger portion of applause. The venerable rulers of a city, Placed in exalted stations, yet devoid Of any real merit, overlook The populace, though many in the crowd Of their inferiors are more wise than they, If haply courage and an honest zeal Unite to place them in the public view. Thou and thy brother thus are swollen with pride, From having led those troops to conquer Troy, And triumph in the sufferings of your friends. But henceforth will I teach thee not to look On Paris, Ida’s shepherd, as a foe, More terrible than Peleus. If with speed Thou quit not these abodes, and take away Thy childless daughter, my indignant grandson, By her dishevelled hair around the palace Will drag this barren dame, who stung with envy, Cannot endure the fruitful mother’s joys. But, if she prove so luckless as to bare No issue, ought she therefore to deprive us Of our posterity? Begone, ye slaves, That I may see who dares obstruct my loosing Her hands. Rise up: though trembling with old age, Your chains can I unbind. O worthless man, Hast thou thus galled her hands? didst thou suppose Thou held’st a bull or lion in the snare? Or didst thou shudder lest she should snatch up A sword, and wreak just vengeance on thy head? Come hither to these sheltering arms, my child, Unbind thy mother’s chains; in Phthia, thee I’ll educate, to them a bitter foe. Should Sparta’s sons by the protended spear Obtain no fame, nor in th’ embattled field Their prowess signalize, be well assured Ye have no other merit.

CHOR. Old men talk With freedom, and their vehemence of soul Is hard to be restrained.

MEN. Extremely prone Are you to slander; much against my will I came to Phthia, and am here resolved That I will neither do nor suffer aught Disgraceful: but to my own home with speed Am I returning, and have little time In vain debates to lavish: for a city Not far from Sparta’s gates and erst a friend Is waging war against us: I would lead My hardy squadrons forth t’ assail the foe, And utterly subdue them. To my wish Soon as this great affair I shall have settled, Hither will I return, and face to face, When I my reasons to my son-in-law Have in the clearest terms proposed, will hear What he can urge; and if he punish her, And for the future courteously to me Demean himself, from me he in return Shall meet with courtesy; but if he rage, He of my rage the dire effects shall feel: For still such treatment as his deeds deserve Shall he experience. But I am not hurt By these injurious words of yours; for like Some disembodied ghost, you have a voice, Although you are not able to do aught But merely speak.

[_Exit_ MENELAUS.

PEL. Lead on, my boy; here take Thy station under these protecting arms; And thou too, O thou miserable dame, Driven hither by the furious storm; at length Into a quiet haven are ye come.

AND. On thee and thy descendants may the gods Shower every blessing, venerable man, For having saved this child, and wretched me; Yet O beware, lest in some lonely spot They suddenly assail us, and by force Drag me away, perceiving thou art old, That I am a weak woman, and my son Is but an infant: all precautions use, Else we, who have escaped them, may again Be caught.

PEL. Forbear to utter, in such language As this, the dictates of a woman’s fear. Advance, who dares to touch you? he shall weep. For with the blessing of th’ immortal gods, And by unnumbered troops of valiant horse, And infantry supported, I bear rule Over the Phthian land. I am robust, Nor, as you deem, impaired by palsied age. Were I, opposed in battle, but to look On such a man as this, old as I am, An easy conquest soon should I obtain. Superior is the veteran, if with courage Inspired, to many youths: for what avails A vigorous body with a coward’s heart?

[_Exeunt_ PELEUS, ANDROMACHE, _and_ MOLOSSUS.

CHORUS.

ODE.

I.

My wish were this; or never to be born, Or to descend from generous sires, and share The blessings which attend a wealthy heir. If heaviest woes assail, ne’er left forlorn Without a friend are they of nobler race, Hereditary trophies deck their head: The records of the brave with joy we trace, No distant age their memory can efface, For virtue’s torch unquenched pours radiance o’er the dead.

II.

Better is conquest, when we gain our right By no reproachful means, no deeds of shame, Than if to envy we expose our fame, And trample on the laws with impious might. Such laurels which at first too sweetly bloom, Ere long are withered by the frost of time, And scorn pursues their wearers to the tomb. I in my household or the state presume To seek that power alone which rules without a crime.

III.