Part 13

_Ach._ Stay, stay! and thou, good king, and all here, hear me. I would be measured by my best desire, And that’s for peace and love, and the delights Your song hath augured: but to all men fate Apportions a mixed lot, and ’twas for me Foreshown that peace and honour lay apart, Wherever pleasure: and to-day’s event 1630 Questions your hope. I was for this revealed, To lead the Argive battle against Troy: Thither I go; whence to return or not Is out of sight, but yet my marriage-making Enters with better promise on my life Thus hand in hand with glorious enterprise. After some days among you I must away, Tho’ ’tis not far.

_Ul._ Well said! So art thou bound.

_Dio._ The war that hung so long will now begin.

_Lye._ I ask one month, Achilles: grant one moon: They that could wait so long may longer wait. 1641

_Chorus._

1.

Go not, go not, Achilles; is all in vain? Is this the fulfilment of long delight, The promise of favouring heaven, The praise of our song, The choice of Thetis for thee, Thy merry disguise, And happy betrothal? We pray thee, O we beseech thee, all, Son of Thetis, we counsel well, 1650 Do not thy bride this wrong.

2.

For if to-day thou goest, thou wilt go far, Alas, from us thy comrades away, To a camp of revengeful men, The accursed war By warning fate forbidden, To angry disdain, A death unworthy. We pray thee, O we beseech thee, all, Son of Peleus, we counsel well, 1660 This doom the oracle told.

_Lyc._ What said the oracle?

_Ach._ It darkly boded That glory should be death.

_Lyc._ And so may be: Nay, very like. Yet men who would live well, Weigh not these riddles, but unfold their life From day to day. Do thou as seemeth best, Nor fear mysterious warnings of the powers. But, if my voice can reckon with thee at all, I’ll tell thee what myself I have grown to think: That the best life is oft inglorious. 1670 Since the perfecting of ourselves, which seems Our noblest task, may closelier be pursued Away from camps and cities and the mart Of men, where fame, as it is called, is won, By strife, ambition, competition, fashion, Ay, and the prattle of wit, the deadliest foe To sober holiness, which, as I think, Loves quiet homes, where nature laps us round With musical silence and the happy sights That never fret; and day by day the spirit 1680 Pastures in liberty, with a wide range Of peaceful meditation, undisturbed. All which can Scyros offer if thou wilt.—

_Ul._ This speech is idle, thou art bound to me.

_Ach._ I hear you all: and lest it should be said I once was harsh and heedless, where such wrong Were worse than cowardice, I now recall Whate’er I have said. I will not forth to Troy: I will abide in Scyros, and o’erlook The farms and vineyards, and be lessoned well 1690 In government of arts, and spend my life In love and ease, and whatsoever else Our good king here hath praised—I will do this If my bride bid me. Let her choose for me; Her word shall rule me. If she set our pleasure Above my honour, I will call that duty, And make it honourable, and so do well. But, as I know her, if she bid me go Where fate and danger call, then I will go, And so do better: and very sure it is, 1700 Pleasure is not for him who pleasure serves.

_Deid._ Achilles, son of Thetis! As I love thee, I say, go forth to Troy.

_Ach._ Praised be the Gods, Who have made my long desire my love’s command!

_Ch._ Alas! We have no further plea. Alas! Her ever-venturous spirit forecasts no ill.

_Lyc._ Go, win thy fame, my son; I would not stay thee. Thou art a soldier born. But circumstance Demands delay, which thou wilt grant.

_Ach._ And thus To-night may be the feast. To-morrow morn 1710 Do thou, Ulysses, sail to Aulis, there Prepare them for my coming. If, Diomede, Thou wilt to Achaia to collect my men, The time thou usest I can fitly spend, And for some days banish the thought of war.

_Dio._ I will go for thee, prince.

_Lyc._ ’Tis settled so. Stand we no longer here: night falls apace. Come to the palace, we will end this day, As it deserves, never to be forgot.

NOTES

THE FIRST PART OF NERO

This play was not intended for the stage, as the rest of my plays are. It was written as an exercise in dramatic qualities other than scenic; and had its publication been contemplated, I should have been more careful not to deserve censure in one or two places: these however I have not thought it worth while to erase or correct. Owing to its inordinate length I have found it necessary, so that the volumes of this series might be of uniform size, to couple with it the shortest of the other plays. Hence

ACHILLES IN SCYROS

is here out of order. Instead of standing second it should come fifth, that is after _The Christian Captives_. The following note is taken from the first edition.

_Note to_ Achilles in Scyros.—After I had begun this play I came by chance on _Calderon’s_ play on the same subject, _El Monstruo de los Jardines_. The monster is _Achilles_; the gardens the same. Excepting an expression or two I found nothing that it suited me to use, and I should not have recorded the circumstance, if it were not that _Calderon’s_ play seemed to me to contain strong evidence that he had read _The Tempest_. This observation cannot be new, but I have never met with it; so I offer it to my readers, thinking it will interest them as it did me.

_El Monstruo de los Jardines_ opens with a storm at sea, and shipwreck of royal persons, similar as it is inferior to _Shakespeare’s_ (but compare also the Devil’s shipwreck in the second act of _El magicio prodigioso_, which may be read in _Shelley’s_ translation). _Stephano_ has his counterpart,

_Un cofrade de Baco, que ha salido, Por no hacerle traicion, del mar á nado Pues el no beber agua le ha escapado,_

and the whole play is then on a supposed desert island, which turns out to be strangely peopled. There is the monster _Achilles_, who in many respects remembers _Caliban_, and is even addressed as _Señor monstruo_: ’_Monsieur Monster_.’ There is _Thetis_, who is to her nymphs as _Prospero_ to his spirits; with musical enchantments, and voices in the air, and even a _fantastico bajél_. _Calderon_ has moreover hit upon the same device of imitative fancy as tempted _Dryden_ in like sad case, and pictured a man who had never seen a woman. The island is wandered on by the prince and his suite, and one of them says of it _Republica es entera_, &c. A curious reader might find more than I have here noticed: but _Calderon_ is as far from sympathy with _Shakespeare_, as he is from the Greek story, with his drums and trumpets and _El gran Sofí_.

There is a passage in my _Achilles_ (_l. 518 and foll._) which is copied from _Calderon_: but this is after _Muley’s_ well-known speech in the _Principe Constante_ (see note to _The Christian Captives_); which is quoted in most books on _Calderon_. In my short play, which runs on without change of scene or necessary pause, I have had the act and scene divisions indicated by greater and lesser spaces in the printing.[A]

R. B., 1890.

[A] Not followed in this edition. 1901.

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. All other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_.

Line 1374/5 of The First Part of Nero “Now may some god of mischief Dare set me in the roll of puny spirits.” Roll could be a misprint for role but has not been changed.

The varied ellipses remain unchanged.

The titles have various decorative borders. These have not been shown.