Chapter 5

Their monthly dole erewhile unnumbered thralls Sought in Antiochus', in Aleuas' halls; On to the Scopadæ's byres in endless line The calves ran lowing with the hornèd kine; And, marshalled by the good Creondæ's swains Myriads of choice sheep basked on Cranron's plains. Yet had their joyaunce ended, on the day When their sweet spirit dispossessed its clay, To hated Acheron's ample barge resigned. Nameless, their stored-up luxury left behind, With the lorn dead through ages had they lain, Had not a minstrel bade them live again:-- Had not in woven words the Ceïan sire Holding sweet converse with his full-toned lyre Made even their swift steeds for aye renowned, When from the sacred lists they came home crowned. Forgot were Lycia's chiefs, and Hector's hair Of gold, and Cycnus femininely fair; But that bards bring old battles back to mind. Odysseus--he who roamed amongst mankind A hundred years and more, reached utmost hell Alive, and 'scaped the giant's hideous cell-- Had lived and died: Eumæus and his swine; Philoetius, busy with his herded kine; And great Laërtes' self, had passed away, Were not their names preserved in Homer's lay. Through song alone may man true glory taste; The dead man's riches his survivors waste.

But count the waves, with yon gray wind-swept main Borne shoreward: from a red brick wash his stain In some pool's violet depths: 'twill task thee yet To reach the heart on baleful avarice set. To such I say 'Fare well': let theirs be store Of wealth; but let them always crave for more: Horses and mules inferior things _I_ find To the esteem and love of all mankind.

But to what mortal's roof may I repair, I and my Muse, and find a welcome there? I and my Muse: for minstrels fare but ill, Reft of those maids, who know the mightiest's will. The cycle of the years, it flags not yet; In many a chariot many a steed shall sweat: And one, to manhood grown, my lays shall claim, Whose deeds shall rival great Achilles' fame, Who from stout Aias might have won the prize On Simois' plain, where Phrygian Ilus lies. Now, in their sunset home on Libya's heel, Phoenicia's sons unwonted chillness feel: Now, with his targe of willow at his breast, The Syracusan bears his spear in rest, Amongst these Hiero arms him for the war, Eager to fight as warriors fought of yore; The plumes float darkling o'er his helmèd brow. O Zeus, the sire most glorious; and O thou, Empress Athenè; and thou, damsel fair, Who with thy mother wast decreed to bear Rule o'er rich Corinth, o'er that city of pride Beside whose walls Anapus' waters glide:-- May ill winds waft across the Southern sea (Of late a legion, now but two or three,) Far from our isle, our foes; the doom to tell, To wife and child, of those they loved so well; While the old race enjoy once more the lands Spoiled and insulted erst by alien hands!

And fair and fruitful may their cornlands be! Their flocks in thousands bleat upon the lea, Fat and full-fed; their kine, as home they wind, The lagging traveller of his rest remind! With might and main their fallows let them till: Till comes the seedtime, and cicalas trill (Hid from the toilers of the hot midday In the thick leafage) on the topmost spray! O'er shield and spear their webs let spiders spin, And none so much as name the battle-din! Then Hiero's lofty deeds may minstrels bear Beyond the Scythian ocean-main, and where Within those ample walls, with asphalt made Time-proof, Semiramis her empire swayed. I am but a single voice: but many a bard Beside me do those heavenly maids regard: May those all love to sing, 'mid earth's acclaim, Of Sicel Arethuse, and Hiero's fame.

O Graces, royal nurselings, who hold dear The Minyæ's city, once the Theban's fear: Unbidden I tarry, whither bidden I fare My Muse my comrade. And be ye too there, Sisters divine! Were ye and song forgot, What grace had earth? With you be aye my lot!

IDYLL XVII.

The Praise of Ptolemy.

With Zeus begin, sweet sisters, end with Zeus, When ye would sing the sovereign of the skies: But first among mankind rank Ptolemy; First, last, and midmost; being past compare. Those mighty ones of old, half men half gods, Wrought deeds that shine in many a subtle strain; I, no unpractised minstrel, sing but him; Divinest ears disdain not minstrelsy. But as a woodman sees green Ida rise Pine above pine, and ponders which to fell First of those myriads; even so I pause Where to begin the chapter of his praise: For thousand and ten thousand are the gifts Wherewith high heaven hath graced the kingliest king.

Was not he born to compass noblest ends, Lagus' own son, so soon as he matured Schemes such as ne'er had dawned on meaner minds? Zeus doth esteem him as the blessèd gods; In the sire's courts his golden mansion stands. And near him Alexander sits and smiles, The turbaned Persian's dread; and, fronting both, Rises the stedfast adamantine seat Erst fashioned for the bull-slayer Heracles. Who there holds revels with his heavenly mates, And sees, with joy exceeding, children rise On children; for that Zeus exempts from age And death their frames who sprang from Heracles: And Ptolemy, like Alexander, claims From him; his gallant son their common sire. And when, the banquet o'er, the Strong Man wends, Cloyed with rich nectar, home unto his wife, This kinsman hath in charge his cherished shafts And bow; and that his gnarled and knotted club; And both to white-limbed Hebè's bower of bliss Convoy the bearded warrior and his arms.

Then how among wise ladies--blest the pair That reared her!--peerless Berenicè shone! Dionè's sacred child, the Cyprian queen, O'er that sweet bosom passed her taper hands: And hence, 'tis said, no man loved woman e'er As Ptolemy loved her. She o'er-repaid His love; so, nothing doubting, he could leave His substance in his loyal children's care, And rest with her, fond husband with fond wife. She that loves not bears sons, but all unlike Their father: for her heart was otherwhere.

O Aphroditè, matchless e'en in heaven For beauty, thou didst love her; wouldst not let Thy Berenicè cross the wailful waves: But thy hand snatched her--to the blue lake bound Else, and the dead's grim ferryman--and enshrined With thee, to share thy honours. There she sits, To mortals ever kind, and passion soft Inspires, and makes the lover's burden light. The dark-browed Argive, linked with Tydeus, bare Diomed the slayer, famed in Calydon: And deep-veiled Thetis unto Peleus gave The javelineer Achilles. Thou wast born Of Berenicè, Ptolemy by name And by descent, a warrior's warrior child. Cos from its mother's arms her babe received, Its destined nursery, on its natal day: 'Twas there Antigonè's daughter in her pangs Cried to the goddess that could bid them cease: Who soon was at her side, and lo! her limbs Forgat their anguish, and a child was born Fair, its sire's self. Cos saw, and shouted loud; Handled the babe all tenderly, and spake:

"Wake, babe, to bliss: prize me, as Phoebus doth His azure-spherèd Delos: grace the hill Of Triops, and the Dorians' sister shores, As king Apollo his Rhenæa's isle."

So spake the isle. An eagle high overhead Poised in the clouds screamed thrice, the prophet-bird Of Zeus, and sent by him. For awful kings All are his care, those chiefliest on whose birth He smiled: exceeding glory waits on them: Theirs is the sovereignty of land and sea. But if a myriad realms spread far and wide O'er earth, if myriad nations till the soil To which heaven's rain gives increase: yet what land Is green as low-lying Egypt, when the Nile Wells forth and piecemeal breaks the sodden glebe? Where are like cities, peopled by like men? Lo he hath seen three hundred towns arise, Three thousand, yea three myriad; and o'er all He rules, the prince of heroes, Ptolemy. Claims half Phoenicia, and half Araby, Syria and Libya, and the Æthiops murk; Sways the Pamphylian and Cilician braves, The Lycian and the Carian trained to war, And all the isles: for never fleet like his Rode upon ocean: land and sea alike And sounding rivers hail king Ptolemy. Many are his horsemen, many his targeteers, Whose burdened breast is bright with clashing steel: Light are all royal treasuries, weighed with his. For wealth from all climes travels day by day To his rich realm, a hive of prosperous peace. No foeman's tramp scares monster-peopled Nile, Waking to war her far-off villages: No armed robber from his war-ship leaps To spoil the herds of Egypt. Such a prince Sits throned in her broad plains, in whose right arm Quivers the spear, the bright-haired Ptolemy. Like a true king, he guards with might and main The wealth his sires' arm won him and his own. Nor strown all idly o'er his sumptuous halls Lie piles that seem the work of labouring ants. The holy homes of gods are rich therewith; Theirs are the firstfruits, earnest aye of more. And freely mighty kings thereof partake, Freely great cities, freely honoured friends. None entered e'er the sacred lists of song, Whose lips could breathe sweet music, but he gained Fair guerdon at the hand of Ptolemy. And Ptolemy do music's votaries hymn For his good gifts--hath man a fairer lot Than to have earned much fame among mankind? The Atridæ's name abides, while all the wealth Won from the sack of Priam's stately home A mist closed o'er it, to be seen no more. Ptolemy, he only, treads a path whose dust Burns with the footprints of his ancestors, And overlays those footprints with his own. He raised rich shrines to mother and to sire, There reared their forms in ivory and gold, Passing in beauty, to befriend mankind. Thighs of fat oxen oftentimes he burns On crimsoning altars, as the months roll on, Ay he and his staunch wife. No fairer bride E'er clasped her lord in royal palaces: And her heart's love her brother-husband won. In such blest union joined the immortal pair Whom queenly Rhea bore, and heaven obeys: One couch the maiden of the rainbow decks With myrrh-dipt hands for Hera and for Zeus.

Now farewell, prince! I rank thee aye with gods: And read this lesson to the afterdays, Mayhap they'll prize it: 'Honour is of Zeus.'

IDYLL XVIII.

The Bridal of Helen.

Whilom, in Lacedæmon, Tript many a maiden fair To gold-tressed Menelaus' halls, With hyacinths in her hair: Twelve to the Painted Chamber, The queenliest in the land, The clustered loveliness of Greece, Came dancing hand in hand. For Helen, Tyndarus' daughter, Had just been wooed and won, Helen the darling of the world, By Atreus' younger son: With woven steps they beat the floor In unison, and sang Their bridal-hymn of triumph Till all the palace rang.

"Slumberest so soon, sweet bridegroom? Art thou o'erfond of sleep? Or hast thou leadenweighted limbs? Or hadst thou drunk too deep When thou didst fling thee to thy lair? Betimes thou should'st have sped, If sleep were all thy purpose, Unto thy bachelor's bed: And left her in her mother's arms To nestle, and to play A girl among her girlish mates Till deep into the day:-- For not alone for this night, Nor for the next alone, But through the days and through the years Thou hast her for thine own.

"Nay! heaven, O happy bridegroom, Smiled as thou enteredst in To Sparta, like thy brother kings, And told thee thou should'st win! What hero son-in-law of Zeus Hath e'er aspired to be? Yet lo! one coverlet enfolds The child of Zeus, and thee. Ne'er did a thing so lovely Roam the Achaian lea.

"And who shall match her offspring, If babes are like their mother? For we were playmates once, and ran And raced with one another (All varnished, warrior fashion) Along Eurotas' tide, Thrice eighty gentle maidens, Each in her girlhood's pride: Yet none of all seemed faultless, If placed by Helen's side.

"As peers the nascent Morning Over thy shades, O Night, When Winter disenchains the land, And Spring goes forth in white: So Helen shone above us, All loveliness and light.

"As climbs aloft some cypress, Garden or glade to grace; As the Thessalian courser lends A lustre to the race: So bright o'er Lacedæmon Shone Helen's rosebud face.

"And who into the basket e'er The yarn so deftly drew, Or through the mazes of the web So well the shuttle threw, And severed from the framework As closelywov'n a warp:-- And who could wake with masterhand Such music from the harp, To broadlimbed Pallas tuning And Artemis her lay-- As Helen, Helen in whose eyes The Loves for ever play?

"O bright, O beautiful, for thee Are matron-cares begun. We to green paths and blossomed meads With dawn of morn must run, And cull a breathing chaplet; And still our dream shall be, Helen, of thee, as weanling lambs Yearn in the pasture for the dams That nursed their infancy.

"For thee the lowly lotus-bed We'll spoil, and plait a crown To hang upon the shadowy plane; For thee will we drop down ('Neath that same shadowy platan) Oil from our silver urn; And carven on the bark shall be This sentence, 'HALLOW HELEN'S TREE'; In Dorian letters, legibly For all men to discern.

"Now farewell, bride, and bridegroom Blest in thy new-found sire! May Leto, mother of the brave, Bring babes at your desire, And holy Cypris either's breast With mutual transport fire: And Zeus the son of Cronos Grant blessings without end, From princely sire to princely son For ever to descend.

"Sleep on, and love and longing Breathe in each other's breast; But fail not when the morn returns To rouse you from your rest: With dawn shall we be stirring, When, lifting high his fair And feathered neck, the earliest bird To clarion to the dawn is heard. O god of brides and bridals, Sing 'Happy, happy pair!'"

IDYLL XIX.

Love Stealing Honey.

Once thievish Love the honeyed hives would rob, When a bee stung him: soon he felt a throb Through all his finger-tips, and, wild with pain, Blew on his hands and stamped and jumped in vain. To Aphroditè then he told his woe: 'How can a thing so tiny hurt one so?' She smiled and said; 'Why thou'rt a tiny thing, As is the bee; yet sorely thou canst sting.'

IDYLL XX.

Town and Country

Once I would kiss Eunicè. "Back," quoth she, And screamed and stormed; "a sorry clown kiss me? Your country compliments, I like not such; No lips but gentles' would I deign to touch. Ne'er dream of kissing me: alike I shun Your face, your language, and your tigerish fun. How winning are your tones, how fine your air! Your beard how silken and how sweet your hair! Pah! you've a sick man's lips, a blackamoor's hand: Your breath's defilement. Leave me, I command."

Thrice spat she on her robe, and, muttering low, Scanned me, with half-shut eyes, from top to toe: Brought all her woman's witcheries into play, Still smiling in a set sarcastic way, Till my blood boiled, my visage crimson grew With indignation, as a rose with dew: And so she left me, inly to repine That such as she could flout such charms as mine.

O shepherds, tell me true! Am I not fair? Am I transformed? For lately I did wear Grace as a garment; and my cheeks, o'er them Ran the rich growth like ivy round the stem. Like fern my tresses o'er my temples streamed; O'er my dark eyebrows, white my forehead gleamed: My eyes were of Athenè's radiant blue, My mouth was milk, its accents honeydew. Then I could sing--my tones were soft indeed!-- To pipe or flute or flageolet or reed: And me did every maid that roams the fell Kiss and call fair: not so this city belle. She scorns the herdsman; knows not how divine Bacchus ranged once the valleys with his kine; How Cypris, maddened for a herdsman's sake, Deigned upon Phrygia's mountains to partake His cares: and wooed, and wept, Adonis in the brake. What was Endymion, sweet Selenè's love? A herdsman's lad. Yet came she from above, Down to green Latmos, by his side to sleep. And did not Rhea for a herdsman weep? Didst not thou, Zeus, become a wandering bird, To win the love of one who drove a herd? Selenè, Cybelè, Cypris, all loved swains: Eunicè, loftier-bred, their kiss disdains. Henceforth, by hill or hall, thy love disown, Cypris, and sleep the livelong night alone.

IDYLL XXI.

The Fishermen.

_ASPHALION, A COMRADE._

Want quickens wit: Want's pupils needs must work, O Diophantus: for the child of toil Is grudged his very sleep by carking cares: Or, if he taste the blessedness of night, Thought for the morrow soon warns slumber off.

Two ancient fishers once lay side by side On piled-up sea-wrack in their wattled hut, Its leafy wall their curtain. Near them lay The weapons of their trade, basket and rod, Hooks, weed-encumbered nets, and cords and oars, And, propped on rollers, an infirm old boat. Their pillow was a scanty mat, eked out With caps and garments: such the ways and means, Such the whole treasury of the fishermen. They knew no luxuries: owned nor door nor dog; Their craft their all, their mistress Poverty: Their only neighbour Ocean, who for aye Bound their lorn hut came floating lazily.

Ere the moon's chariot was in mid-career, The fishers girt them for their customed toil, And banished slumber from unwilling eyes, And roused their dreamy intellects with speech:--

ASPHALION. "They say that soon flit summer-nights away, Because all lingering is the summer day: Friend, it is false; for dream on dream have I Dreamed, and the dawn still reddens not the sky. How? am I wandering? or does night pass slow?"

HIS COMRADE. "Asphalion, scout not the sweet summer so. 'Tis not that wilful seasons have gone wrong, But care maims slumber, and the nights seem long."

ASPHALION. "Didst thou e'er study dreams? For visions fair I saw last night; and fairly thou should'st share The wealth I dream of, as the fish I catch. Now, for sheer sense, I reckon few thy match; And, for a vision, he whose motherwit Is his sole tutor best interprets it. And now we've time the matter to discuss: For who could labour, lying here (like us) Pillowed on leaves and neighboured by the deep, Or sleeping amid thorns no easy sleep? In rich men's halls the lamps are burning yet; But fish come alway to the rich man's net."

COMRADE. "To me the vision of the night relate; Speak, and reveal the riddle to thy mate."

ASPHALION. "Last evening, as I plied my watery trade, (Not on an o'erfull stomach--we had made Betimes a meagre meal, as you can vouch,) I fell asleep; and lo! I seemed to crouch Among the boulders, and for fish to wait, Still dangling, rod in hand, my vagrant bait. A fat fellow caught it: (e'en in sleep I'm bound To dream of fishing, as of crusts the hound:) Fast clung he to the hooks; his blood outwelled; Bent with his struggling was the rod I held: I tugged and tugged: my efforts made me ache: 'How, with a line thus slight, this monster take?' Then gently, just to warn him he was caught, I twitched him once; then slacked and then made taut My line, for now he offered not to ran; A glance soon showed me all my task was done. 'Twas a gold fish, pure metal every inch That I had captured. I began to flinch: 'What if this beauty be the sea-king's joy, Or azure Amphitritè's treasured toy!' With care I disengaged him--not to rip With hasty hook the gilding from his lip: And with a tow-line landed him, and swore Never to set my foot on ocean more, But with my gold live royally ashore. So I awoke: and, comrade, lend me now Thy wits, for I am troubled for my vow."

COMRADE. "Ne'er quake: you're pledged to nothing, for no prize You gained or gazed on. Dreams are nought but lies. Yet may this dream bear fruit; if, wide-awake And not in dreams, you'll fish the neighbouring lake. Fish that are meat you'll there mayhap behold, Not die of famine, amid dreams of gold."

IDYLL XXII.

The Sons of Leda

The pair I sing, that Ægis-armèd Zeus Gave unto Leda; Castor and the dread Of bruisers Polydeuces, whensoe'er His harnessed hands were lifted for the fray. Twice and again I sing the manly sons Of Leda, those Twin Brethren, Sparta's own: Who shield the soldier on the deadly scarp, The horse wild-plunging o'er the crimson field, The ship that, disregarding in her pride Star-set and star-rise, meets disastrous gales:-- Such gales as pile the billows mountain-high, E'en at their own wild will, round stem or stern: Dash o'er the hold, the timbers rive in twain, Till mast and tackle dangle in mid-air Shivered like toys, and, as the night wears on, The rain of heaven falls fast, and, lashed by wind And iron hail, broad ocean rings again. Then can they draw from out the nether abyss Both craft and crew, each deeming he must die: Lo the winds cease, and o'er the burnished deep Comes stillness; this way flee the clouds and that; And shine out clear the Great Bear and the Less, And, 'twixt the Asses dimly seen, the Crib Foretells fair voyage to the mariner. O saviours, O companions of mankind, Matchless on horse or harp, in lists or lay; Which of ye twain demands my earliest song? Of both I sing; of Polydeuces first.