The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning Cambridge Edition (part 13 of 21)

The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning Cambridge Edition (part 13 of 21)

"'Comedy is prescription and a rite.' Since when? No growth of the blind antique time, 'It rose in Attiké with liberty; When freedom falls, it too will fall.' Scarce so! Your games,--the Olumpian, Zeus gave birth to these; Your Puthian,--these were Phoibos' institute. Isthmian, Nemeian,--Theseus, Herakles Appointed each, the boys and barbers say! Earth's day is growing late: where 's Comedy? 'Oh, that commenced an age since,--two, belike,-- In Megara, whence here they brought the thing!' Or I misunderstand, or here 's the fact-- Your grandsire could recall that rustic song, How such-an-one was thief, and miser such, And how,--immunity from chastisement Once promised to bold singers of the same By daylight on the drunkard's holiday,-- The clever fellow of the joyous troop Tried acting what before he sang about, Acted and stole, or hoarded, acting too: While his companions ranged a-row, closed up For Choros,--bade the general rabblement Sit, see, hear, laugh,--not join the dance themselves. Soon, the same clever fellow found a mate, And these two did the whole stage-mimicking, Still closer in approach to Tragedy,-- So led the way to Aristophanes, Whose grandsire saw Sousarion, and whose sire-- Chionides; yourself wrote 'Banqueters' When Aischulos had made 'Prometheus,' nay, All of the marvels; Sophokles,--I 'll cite, 'Oidipous'--and Euripides--I bend The head--'Medeia' henceforth awed the world! 'Banqueters,' 'Babylonians'--next come you! Surely the great days that left Hellas free Happened before such advent of huge help, Eighty-years-late assistance? Marathon, Plataia, Salamis were fought, I think, Before new educators stood reproved, Or foreign legates blushed, excepted to! Where did the helpful rite pretend its rise? Did it break forth, as gifts divine are wont, Plainly authentic, incontestably Adequate to the helpful ordinance? Founts, dowered with virtue, pulse out pure from source; 'T is there we taste the god's benign intent: Not when,--fatigued away by journey, foul With brutish trampling,--crystal sinks to slime, And lymph forgets the first salubriousness. Sprang Comedy to light thus crystal-pure? 'Nowise!' yourself protest with vehemence; 'Gross, bestial, did the clowns' diversion break; Every successor paddled in the slush; Nay, my contemporaries one and all Gay played the mudlark till I joined their game; Then was I first to change buffoonery For wit, and stupid filth for cleanly sense, Transforming pointless joke to purpose fine, Transfusing rude enforcement of home-law-- "Drop knave's-tricks, deal more neighbor-like, ye boors!"-- With such new glory of poetic breath As, lifting application far past use O' the present, launched it o'er men's lowly heads To future time, when high and low alike Are dead and done with, while my airy power Flies disengaged, as vapor from what stuff It--say not, dwelt in--fitlier, dallied with To forward work, which done,--deliverance brave,-- It soars away, and mud subsides to dust. Say then, myself invented Comedy!'

"So mouths full many a famed Parabasis! Agreed! No more, then, of prescriptive use, Authorization by antiquity, For what offends our judgment! 'T is your work, Performed your way: not work delivered you Intact, intact producible in turn. Everywhere have you altered old to new-- Your will, your warrant: therefore, work must stand Or stumble by intrinsic worth. What worth? Its aim and object! Peace you advocate, And war would fain abolish from the land: Support religion, lash irreverence, Yet laughingly administer rebuke To superstitious folly,--equal fault! While innovating rashness, lust of change, New laws, new habits, manners, men and things, Make your main quarry,--'oldest' meaning 'best.' You check the fretful litigation-itch, Withstand mob-rule, expose mob-flattery, Punish mob-favorites; most of all press hard On sophists who assist the demagogue, And poets their accomplices in crime. Such your main quarry,--by the way, you strike Ignobler game, mere miscreants, snob or scamp, Cowardly, gluttonous, effeminate: Still with a bolt to spare when dramatist Proves haply unproficient in his art, Such aims--alone, no matter for the means-- Declare the unexampled excellence Of their first author--Aristophanes!

"Whereat--Euripides, oh, not thyself-- Augustlier than the need!--thy century Of subjects dreamed and dared and done, before 'Banqueters' gave dark earth enlightenment, Or 'Babylonians' played Prometheus here,-- These let me summon to defend thy cause! Lo, as indignantly took life and shape Labor by labor, all of Herakles,-- Palpably fronting some o'erbold pretence 'Eurustheus slew the monsters, purged the world!' So shall each poem pass you and imprint Shame on the strange assurance. You praised Peace? Sing him full-face, Kresphontes! 'Peace' the theme? 'Peace, in whom depths of wealth lie,--of the blest Immortals beauteousest,-- Come! for the heart within me dies away, So long dost thou delay! Oh, I have feared lest old age, much annoy, Conquer me, quite outstrip the tardy joy, Thy gracious triumph-season I would see, The song, the dance, the sport, profuse of crowns to be. But come! for my sake, goddess great and dear. Come to the city here! Hateful Sedition drive thou from our homes, With Her who madly roams Rejoicing in the steel against the life That 's whetted--banish Strife!'

"Shall I proceed? No need of next and next! That were too easy, play so presses play, Trooping tumultuous, each with instance apt, Each eager to confute the idle boast! What virtue but stands forth panegyrized, What vice, unburned by stigma, in the books Which bettered Hellas,--beyond graven gold Or gem-indenture, sung by Phoibos' self And saved in Kunthia's mountain treasure-house-- Ere you, man, moralist, were youth or boy? --Not praise which, in the proffer, mocks the praised By sly admixture of the blameworthy And enforced coupling of base fellowship,-- Not blame which gloats the while it frowning laughs, 'Allow one glance on horrors--laughable!'-- This man's entire of heart and soul, discharged Its love or hate, each unalloyed by each, On objects worthy either; earnestness, Attribute him, and power! but novelty? Nor his nor yours a doctrine--all the world's! What man of full-grown sense and sanity Holds other than the truth,--wide Hellas through,-- Though truth he acts discredit truth he holds? What imbecile has dared to formulate 'Love war, hate peace, become a litigant!'-- And so preach on, reverse each rule of right Because he quarrels, combats, goes to law? No, for his comment runs, with smile or sigh According to heart's temper, 'Peace were best, Except occasions when we put aside Peace, and bid all the blessings in her gift Quick join the crows, for sake of Marathon!'

"'Nay,' you reply; for one, whose mind withstands His heart, and, loving peace, for conscience' sake Wants war,--you find a crowd of hypocrites Whose conscience means ambition, grudge and greed. On such, reproof, sonorous doctrine, melts Distilled like universal but thin dew Which all too sparsely covers country: dear, No doubt, to universal crop and clown, Still, each bedewed keeps his own head-gear dry With upthrust skiadeion, shakes adroit The droppings to his neighbor. No! collect All of the moisture, leave unhurt the heads Which nowise need a washing, save and store And dash the whole condensed to one fierce spout On some one evil-doer, sheltered close,-- The fool supposed,--till you beat guard away, And showed your audience, not that war was wrong, But Lamachos absurd,--case, crests and all,-- Not that democracy was blind of choice, But Kleon and Huperbolos were shams: Not superstition vile, but Nikias crazed,-- The concrete for the abstract; that 's the way! What matters Choros crying 'Hence, impure!' You cried 'Ariphrades does thus and thus!' Now, earnestness seems never earnest more Than when it dons for garb--indifference; So, there 's much laughing: but, compensative, When frowning follows laughter, then indeed Scout innuendo, sarcasm, irony!-- Wit's polished warfare glancing at first graze From off hard headpiece, coarsely-coated brain O' the commonalty--whom, unless you prick To purpose, what avails that finer pates Succumb to simple scratching? Those--not these-- 'T is Multitude, which, moved, fines Lamachos, Banishes Kleon and burns Sokrates, House over head, or, better, poisons him. Therefore in dealing with King Multitude, Club-drub the callous numskulls! In and in Beat this essential consequential fact That here they have a hater of the three, Who hates in word, phrase, nickname, epithet And illustration, beyond doubt at all! And similarly, would you win assent To--Peace, suppose? You tickle the tough hide With good plain pleasure her concomitant-- And, past mistake again, exhibit Peace-- Peace, vintager and festive, cheesecake-time, Hare-slice-and-peasoup-season, household-joy; Theoria's beautiful belongings match Opora's lavish condescendings: brief, Since here the people are to judge, you press Such argument as people understand: If with exaggeration--what care you?

"Have I misunderstood you in the main? No! then must answer be, such argument, Such policy, no matter what good love Or hate it help, in practice proves absurd, Useless and null: henceforward intercepts Sober effective blow at what you blame, And renders nugatory rightful praise Of thing or person. The coarse brush has daubed-- What room for the finer limner's pencil-mark? Blame? You curse, rather, till who blames must blush-- Lean to apology or praise, more like! Does garment, simpered o'er as white, prove gray? 'Black, blacker than Acharnian charcoal, black Beyond Kimmerian, Stugian blackness black,' You bawl, till men sigh 'nearer snowiness!' What follows? What one faint-rewarding fall Of foe belabored ne'er so lustily? Laugh Lamachos from out the people's heart? He died, commanding, 'hero,' say yourself! Gibe Nikias into privacy?--nay, shake Kleon a little from his arrogance By cutting him to shoe-sole-shreds? I think, He ruled his life long, and, when time was ripe, Died fighting for amusement,--good tough hide! Sokrates still goes up and down the streets, And Aristullos puts his speech in book, When both should be abolished long ago. Nay, wretchedest of rags, Ariphrades-- You have been fouling that redoubtable Harp-player, twenty years, with what effect? Still he strums on, strums ever cheerily, And earns his wage,--'Who minds a joke?' men say. No, friend! The statues stand--mud-stained at most-- Titan or pygmy: what achieves their fall Will be, long after mud is flung and spent, Some clear thin spirit-thrust of lightning--truth!

"Your praise, then--honey-smearing helps your friend, More than blame's ordure-smirch hurts foe, perhaps? Peace, now, misunderstood, ne'er prized enough, You have interpreted to ignorance Till ignorance opes eye, bat-blind before, And for the first time knows Peace means the power On maw of pancake, cheese-cake, barley-cake, No stop nor stint to stuffing. While, in camp, Who fights chews rancid tunny, onions raw, Peace sits at cosy feast with lamp and fire, Complaisant smooth-sleeked flute-girls giggling gay. How thick and fast the snow falls, freezing War Who shrugs, campaigns it, and may break a shin Or twist an ankle! come, who hesitates To give Peace, over War, the preference? Ah, friend--had this indubitable fact Haply occurred to poor Leonidas, How had he turned tail on Thermopulai! It cannot be that even his few wits Were addled to the point that, so advised, Preposterous he had answered--'Cakes are prime, Hearth-sides are snug, sleek dancing-girls have worth, And yet--for country's sake, to save our gods Their temples, save our ancestors their tombs, Save wife and child and home and liberty,-- I would chew sliced salt-fish, bear snow--nay, starve, If need were,--and by much prefer the choice!' Why, friend, your genuine hero, all the while, Has been--who served precisely for your butt-- Kleonumos that, wise, cast shield away On battle-ground; cried 'Cake my buckler be, Embossed with cream-clot! peace, not war, I choose, Holding with Dikaiopolis!' Comedy Shall triumph, Dikaiopolis win assent, When Miltiades shall next shirk Marathon, Themistokles swap Salamis for--cake, And Kimon grunt 'Peace, grant me dancing-girls!' But sooner, hardly! twenty-five years since, The war began,--such pleas for Peace have reached A reasonable age. The end shows all! And so with all the rest you advocate! 'Wise folk leave litigation! 'ware the wasps! Whoso loves law and lawyers, heliast-like, Wants hemlock!' None shows that so funnily. But, once cure madness, how comports himself Your sane exemplar, what 's our gain thereby? Philokleon turns Bdelukleon! just this change,-- New sanity gets straightway drunk as sow, Cheats baker-wives, brawls, kicks, cuffs, curses folk, Parades a shameless flute-girl, bandies filth With his own son who cured his father's cold By making him catch fever--funnily! But as for curing love of lawsuits--faugh!

"And how does new improve upon the old --Your boast--in even abusing? Rough, may be-- Still, honest was the old mode. 'Call thief--thief!' But never call thief even--murderer! Much less call fop and fribble, worse one whit Than fribble and fop! Spare neither! beat your brains For adequate invective,--cut the life Clean out each quality,--but load your lash With no least lie, or we pluck scourge from hand! Does poet want a whipping, write bad verse, Inculcate foul deeds? There 's the fault to flog! You vow, 'The rascal cannot read nor write, Spends more in buying fish than Morsimos, Somebody helps his Muse and courts his wife, His uncle deals in crockery, and last-- Himself 's a stranger!' That 's the cap and crown Of stinging-nettle, that 's the master-stroke! What poet-rival,--after 'housebreaker,' 'Fish-gorging,' 'midnight footpad,' and so forth,-- Proves not, beside, 'a stranger'? Chased from charge To charge, and, lie by lie, laughed out of court,-- Lo, wit's sure refuge, satire's grand resource-- All, from Kratinos downward--'strangers' they! Pity the trick's too facile! None so raw Among your playmates but have caught the ball And sent it back as briskly to--yourself! You too, my Attic, are styled 'stranger'--Rhodes, Aigina, Lindos or Kameiros,--nay, 'T was Egypt reared (if Eupolis be right) Who wrote the comedy (Kratinos vows) Kratinos helped a little! Kleon's self Was nigh promoted Comic, when he haled My poet into court, and o'er the coals Hauled and re-hauled 'the stranger,--insolent, Who brought out plays, usurped our privilege!' Why must you Comics one and all take stand On lower ground than truth from first to last? Why all agree to let folk disbelieve, So laughter but reward a funny lie? Repel such onslaughts--answer, sad and grave, Your fancy-fleerings--who would stoop so low? Your own adherents whisper,--when disgust Too menacingly thrills Logeion through At--Perikles invents this present war Because men robbed his mistress of three maids-- Or--Sokrates wants burning, house o'er head,-- 'What, so obtuse, not read between the lines? Our poet means no mischief! All should know-- Ribaldry here implies a compliment! He deals with things, not men,--his men are things-- Each represents a class, plays figure-head And names the ship: no meaner than the first Would serve; he styles a trireme "Sokrates"-- Fears "Sokrates" may prove unseaworthy, (That's merely--"Sophists are the bane of boys") Rat-riddled ("they are capable of theft") Rotten or whatsoe'er shows ship-disease, ("They war with gods and worship whirligig.") You never took the joke for earnest? scarce Supposed mere figure-head meant entire ship, And Sokrates--the whole fraternity?'

"This then is Comedy, our sacred song, Censor of vice, and virtue's guard as sure: Manners-instructing, morals' stop-estray, Which, born a twin with public liberty, Thrives with its welfare, dwindles with its wane! Liberty? what so exquisitely framed And fitted to suck dry its life of life To last faint fibre?--since that life is truth. You who profess your indignation swells At sophistry, when specious words confuse Deeds right and wrong, distinct before, you say-- (Though all that 's done is--dare veracity, Show that the true conception of each deed Affirmed, in vulgar parlance, 'wrong' or 'right,' Proves to be neither, as the hasty hold, But, change your side, shoots light, where dark alone Was apprehended by the vulgar sense)-- You who put sophistry to shame, and shout 'There 's but a single side to man and thing; A side so much more big than thing or man Possibly can be, that--believe 't is true? Such were too marvellous simplicity!'-- Confess, those sophists whom yourself depict, (--Abide by your own painting!) what they teach, They wish at least their pupil to believe, And, what believe, to practise! Did you wish Hellas should haste, as taught, with torch in hand, And fire the horrid Speculation-shop? Straight the shop's master rose and showed the mob What man was your so monstrous Sokrates; Himself received amusement, why not they? Just as did Kleon first play magistrate And bid you put your birth in evidence-- Since no unbadged buffoon is licensed here To shame us all when foreign guests may mock-- Then,--birth established, fooling licensed you,-- He, duty done, resumed mere auditor, Laughed with the loudest at his Lamia-shape, Kukloboros-roaring, and the camel-rest. Nay, Aristullos,--once your volley spent On the male-Kirké and her swinish crew,-- PLATON,--so others call the youth we love,-- Sends your performance to the curious king-- 'Do you desire to know Athenai's knack At turning seriousness to pleasantry? Read this! One Aristullos means myself. The author is indeed a merry grig!' Nay, it would seem as if yourself were bent On laying down the law, 'Tell lies I must-- Aforethought and of purpose, no mistake!' When forth yourself step, tell us from the stage, 'Here you behold the King of Comedy-- Me, who, the first, have purged my every piece From each and all my predecessors' filth, Abjured those satyr-adjuncts sewn to bid The boys laugh, satyr-jokes whereof not one Least sample but would make my hair turn gray Beyond a twelvemonth's ravage! I renounce Mountebank-claptrap, such as firework-fizz And torchflare, or else nuts and barleycorns Scattered among the crowd, to scramble for And stop their mouths with; no such stuff shames me! Who--what's more serious--know both when to strike And when to stay my hand: once dead, my foe, Why, done, my fighting! I attack a corpse? I spare the corpse-like even! punish age? I pity from my soul that sad effete Toothless old mumbler called Kratinos! once My rival,--now, alack, the dotard slinks Ragged and hungry to what hole 's his home; Ay, slinks through byways where no passenger Flings him a bone to pick. You formerly Adored the Muses' darling: dotard now, Why, he may starve! O mob most mutable!' So you harangued in person; while,--to point Precisely out, these were but lies you launched,-- Prompt, a play followed primed with satyr-frisks, No spice spared of the stomach-turning stew, Full-fraught with torch-display, and barley-throw, And Kleon, dead enough, bedaubed afresh; While daft Kratinos--home to hole trudged he, Wrung dry his wit to the last vinous dregs, Decanted them to 'Bottle,'--beat, next year,-- 'Bottle' and dregs--your best of 'Clouds' and dew! Where, Comic King, may keenest eye detect Improvement on your predecessors' work Except in lying more audaciously?

"Why--genius! That's the grandeur, that 's the gold-- That 's you--superlatively true to touch-- Gold, leaf or lump--gold, anyhow the mass Takes manufacture and proves Pallas' casque Or, at your choice, simply a cask to keep Corruption from decay. Your rivals' hoard May ooze forth, lacking such preservative: Yours cannot--gold plays guardian far too well! Genius, I call you: dross, your rivals share; Ay, share and share alike, too! says the world, However you pretend supremacy In aught beside that gold, your very own. Satire? 'Kratinos for our satirist!' The world cries. Elegance? 'Who elegant As Eupolis?' resounds as noisily. Artistic fancy? Choros-creatures quaint? Magnes invented 'Birds' and 'Frogs' enough, Archippos punned, Hegemon parodied, To heart's content, before you stepped on stage. Moral invective? Eupolis exposed 'That prating beggar, he who stole the cup,' Before your 'Clouds' rained grime on Sokrates; Nay, what beat 'Clouds' but 'Konnos,' muck for mud? Courage? How long before, well-masked, you poured Abuse on Eukrates and Lusikles, Did Telekleides and Hermippos pelt Their Perikles and Kumon? standing forth, Bareheaded, not safe crouched behind a name,-- Philonides or else Kallistratos, Put forth, when danger threatened,--mask for face, To bear the brunt,--if blame fell, take the blame,-- If praise ... why, frank laughed Aristophanes 'They write such rare stuff? No, I promise you!' Rather, I see all true improvements, made Or making, go against you--tooth and nail Contended with; 't is still Moruchides, 'T is Euthumenes, Surakosios, nay, Argurrhios and Kinesias,--common sense And public shame, these only cleanse your sty! Coerced, prohibited,--you grin and bear, And, soon as may be, hug to heart again The banished nastiness too dear to drop! Krates could teach and practise festive song Yet scorn scurrility; as gay and good, Pherekrates could follow. Who loosed hold, Must let fall rose-wreath, stoop to muck once more? Did your particular self advance in aught, Task the sad genius--steady slave the while-- To further--say, the patriotic aim? No, there 's deterioration manifest Year by year, play by play! survey them all, From that boy's-triumph when 'Acharnes' dawned, To 'Thesmophoriazousai,'--this man's-shame! There, truly, patriot zeal so prominent Allowed friends' plea perhaps: the baser stuff Was but the nobler spirit's vehicle. Who would imprison, unvolatilize A violet's perfume, blends with fatty oils Essence too fugitive in flower alone; So, calling unguent--violet, call the play-- Obscenity impregnated with 'Peace'! But here 's the boy grown bald, and here 's the play With twenty years' experience: where 's one spice Of odor in the hogs'-lard? what pretends To aught except a grease-pot's quality? Friend, sophist-hating! know,--worst sophistry Is when man's own soul plays its own self false, Reasons a vice into a virtue, pleads 'I detail sin to shame its author'--not 'I shame Ariphrades for sin's display!' 'I show Opora to commend Sweet Home'-- Not 'I show Bacchis for the striplings' sake!'

"Yet all the same--O genius and O gold-- Had genius ne'er diverted gold from use Worthy the temple, to do copper's work And coat a swine's trough--which abundantly Might furnish Phoibos' tripod, Pallas' throne! Had you, I dream, discarding all the base, The brutish, spurned alone convention's watch And ward against invading decency Disguised as license, law in lawlessness, And so, re-ordinating outworn rule, Made Comedy and Tragedy combine, Prove some new Both-yet-neither, all one bard, Euripides with Aristophanes Co-operant! this, reproducing Now As that gave Then existence: Life to-day, This, as that other--Life dead long ago! The mob decrees such feat no crown, perchance, But--why call crowning the reward of quest? Tell him, my other poet,--where thou walk'st Some rarer world than e'er Ilissos washed!

"But dream goes idly in the air. To earth! Earth's question just amounts to--which succeeds, Which fails of two life-long antagonists? Suppose my charges all mistake! assume Your end, despite ambiguous means, the best-- The only! you and he, a patriot-pair, Have striven alike for one result--say, Peace! You spoke your best straight to the arbiters-- Our people: have you made them end this war By dint of laughter and abuse and lies And postures of Opora? Sadly--No! This war, despite your twenty-five years' work, May yet endure until Athenai falls, And freedom falls with her. So much for you! Now, the antagonist Euripides-- Has he succeeded better? Who shall say? He spoke quite o'er the heads of Kleon's crowd To a dim future, and if there he fail, Why, you are fellows in adversity. But that 's unlike the fate of wise words launched By music on their voyage. Hail, Depart, Arrive, Glad Welcome! Not my single wish-- Yours also wafts the white sail on its way, Your nature too is kingly. All beside I call pretension,--no true potentate, Whatever intermediary be crowned, Zeus or Poseidon, where the vulgar sky Lacks not Triballos to complete the group. I recognize--behind such phantom-crew-- Necessity, Creation, Poet's Power, Else never had I dared approach, appeal To poetry, power, Aristophanes! But I trust truth's inherent kingliness, Trust who, by reason of much truth, shall reign More or less royally--may prayer but push His sway past limit, purge the false from true! Nor, even so, had boldness nerved my tongue But that the other king stands suddenly, In all the grand investiture of death, Bowing your knee beside my lowly head-- Equals one moment!

"Now, arise and go! Both have done homage to Euripides!"

Silence pursued the words: till he broke out--

"Scarce so! This constitutes, I may believe, Sufficient homage done by who defames Your poet's foe, since you account me such; But homage-proper,--pay it by defence Of him, direct defence and not oblique, Not by mere mild admonishment of me!"

"Defence? The best, the only!" I replied. "A story goes--When Sophokles, last year, Cited before tribunal by his son (A poet--to complete the parallel), Was certified unsound of intellect, And claimed as only fit for tutelage, Since old and doting and incompetent To carry on this world's work,--the defence Consisted just in his reciting (calm As the verse bore, which sets our heart a-swell And voice a-heaving too tempestuously) That choros-chant 'The station of the steed, Stranger! thou comest to,--Kolonos white!' Then he looked round and all revolt was dead. You know the one adventure of my life-- What made Euripides Balaustion's friend. When I last saw him, as he bade farewell, 'I sang another "Herakles,"' smiled he; 'It gained no prize: your love be prize I gain! Take it--the tablets also where I traced The story first with stulos pendent still-- Nay, the psalterion may complete the gift, So, should you croon the ode bewailing Age, Yourself shall modulate--same notes, same strings-- With the old friend who loved Balaustion once.' There they lie! When you broke our solitude, We were about to honor him once more By reading the consummate Tragedy. Night is advanced; I have small mind to sleep; May I go on, and read,--so make defence, So test true godship? You affirm, not I, --Beating the god, affords such test: I hold That when rash hands but touch divinity, The chains drop off, the prison-walls dispart, And--fire--he fronts mad Pentheus! Dare we try?"

Accordingly I read the perfect piece.

HERAKLES

Amphitruon. Zeus' Couchmate,--who of mortals knows not me, Argive Amphitruon whom Alkaios sired Of old, as Perseus him, I--Herakles? My home, this Thebai where the earth-born spike Of Sown-ones burgeoned: Ares saved from these A handful of their seed that stocks to-day With children's children Thebai, Kadmos built. Of these had Kreon birth, Menoikeus' child, King of the country,--Kreon that became The father of this woman, Megara, Whom, when time was, Kadmeians one and all Pealed praise to, marriage-songs with fluted help, While to my dwelling that grand Herakles Bore her, his bride. But, leaving Thebes--where I Abode perforce--this Megara and those Her kinsmen, the desire possessed my son Rather to dwell in Argos, that walled work, Kuklopian city, which I fly, myself, Because I slew Elektruon. Seeking so To ease away my hardships and once more Inhabit his own land, for my return Heavy the price he pays Eurustheus there-- The letting in of light on this choked world! Either he promised, vanquished by the goad Of Heré, or because fate willed it thus. The other labors--why, he toiled them through; But for this last one--down by Tainaros, Its mouth, to Haides' realm descended he To drag into the light the three-shaped hound Of Hell: whence Herakles returns no more. Now, there 's an old-world tale, Kadmeians have, How Dirké's husband was a Lukos once, Holding the seven-towered city here in sway Before they ruled the land, white-steeded pair, The twins Amphion, Zethos, born to Zeus. This Lukos' son,--named like his father too, No born Kadmeian but Euboia's gift,-- Comes and kills Kreon, lords it o'er the land, Falling upon our town sedition-sick. To us, akin to Kreon, just that bond Becomes the worst of evils, seemingly; For, since my son in the earth's abysms, This man of valor, Lukos, lord and king, Seeks now to slay these sons of Herakles, And slay his wife as well,--by murder thus Thinking to stamp out murder,--slay too me, (If me 't is fit you count among men still,-- Useless old age,) and all for fear lest these, Grown men one day, exact due punishment Of bloodshed and their mother's father's fate. I therefore, since he leaves me in these domes, The children's household guardian,--left, when earth's Dark dread he underwent, that son of mine,-- I, with their mother, lest his boys should die, Sit at this altar of the savior Zeus Which, glory of triumphant spear, he raised Conquering--my nobly-born!--the Minuai. Here do we guard our station, destitute Of all things, drink, food, raiment, on bare ground Couched side by side: sealed out of house and home Sit we in a resourcelessness of help. Our friends--why, some are no true friends, I see! The rest, that are true, want the means to aid. So operates in man adversity: Whereof may never anybody--no, Though half of him should really wish me well,-- Happen to taste! a friend-test faultless, that!

Megara. Old man, who erst did raze the Taphian town, Illustriously, the army-leader, thou, Of speared Kadmeians--how gods play men false! I, now, missed nowise fortune in my sire, Who, for his wealth, was boasted mighty once, Having supreme rule,--for the love of which Leap the long lances forth at favored breasts,-- And having children too: and me he gave Thy son, his house with that of Herakles Uniting by the far-famed marriage-bed. And now these things are dead and flown away. While thou and I await our death, old man, These Herakleian boys too, whom--my chicks-- I save beneath my wings like brooding bird. But one or other falls to questioning. "O mother," cries he, "where in all the world Is father gone to? What 's he doing? when Will he come back?" At fault through tender years, They seek their sire. For me, I put them off, Telling them stories; at each creak of doors, All wonder "Does he come?"--and all a-foot Make for the fall before the parent knee. Now then, what hope, what method of escape Facilitatest thou?--for, thee, old man, I look to,--since we may not leave by stealth The limits of the land, and guards, more strong Than we, are at the outlets: nor in friends Remain to us the hopes of safety more. Therefore, whatever thy decision be. Impart it for the common good of all! Lest now should prove the proper time to die, Though, being weak, we spin it out and live.

Amph. Daughter, it scarce is easy, do one's best, To blurt out counsel, things at such a pass.

Meg. You want some sorrow more, or so love life?

Amph. I both enjoy life, and love hopes beside.

Meg. And I; but hope against hope--no, old man!

Amph. In these delayings of an ill lurks cure.

Meg. But bitter is the meantime, and it bites.

Amph. Oh, there may be a run before the wind From out these present ills, for me and thee, Daughter, and yet may come my son, thy spouse! But hush! and from the children take away Their founts aflow with tears, and talk them calm, Steal them by stories--sad theft, all the same! For, human troubles--they grow weary too; Neither the wind-blasts always have their strength, Nor happy men keep happy to the end: Since all things change--their natures part in twain; And that man's bravest therefore, who hopes on, Hopes ever: to despair is coward-like.

Choros. These domes that overroof, This long-used couch, I come to, having made A staff my prop, that song may put to proof The swan-like power, age-whitened,--poet's aid Of sobbed-forth dirges--words that stand aloof From action now: such am I--just a shade With night for all its face, a mere night-dream-- And words that tremble too: howe'er they seem, Devoted words, I deem.

O of a father ye unfathered ones, O thou old man, and thou whose groaning stuns-- Unhappy mother--only us above, Nor reaches him below in Haides' realm, thy love! --(Faint not too soon, urge forward foot and limb Way-weary, nor lose courage--as some horse Yoked to the car whose weight recoils on him Just at the rock-ridge that concludes his course! Take by the hand, the peplos, any one Whose foothold fails him, printless and fordone! Aged, assist along me aged too, Who,--mate with thee in toils when life was new, And shields and spears first made acquaintanceship,-- Stood by thyself and proved no bastard-slip Of fatherland when loftiest glory grew.)-- See now, how like the sire's Each eyeball fiercely fires! What though ill-fortune have not left his race? Neither is gone the grand paternal grace! Hellas! O what--what combatants, destroyed In these, wilt thou one day seek--seek, and find all void!

Pause! for I see the ruler of this land, Lukos, now passing through the palace-gate.

Lukos. The Herakleian couple--father, wife-- If needs I must, I question: "must" forsooth? Being your master--all I please, I ask. To what time do you seek to spin out life? What hope, what help see, so as not to die? Is it you trust the sire of these, that 's sunk In Haides, will return? How past the pitch, Suppose you have to die, you pile the woe-- Thou, casting, Hellas through, thy empty vaunts As though Zeus helped thee to a god for son; And thou, that thou wast styled our best man's wife! Where was the awful in his work wound up, If he did quell and quench the marshy snake Or the Nemeian monster whom he snared And--says, by throttlings of his arm, he slew? With these do you outwrestle me? Such feats Shall save from death the sons of Herakles Who got praise, being naught, for bravery In wild-beast-battle, otherwise a blank? No man to throw on left arm buckler's weight, Not he, nor get in spear's reach! bow he bore-- True coward's-weapon: shoot first and then fly! No bow-and-arrow proves a man is brave, But who keeps rank,--stands, one unwinking stare As, ploughing up, the darts come,--brave is he. My action has no impudence, old man! Providence, rather: for I own I slew Kreon, this woman's sire, and have his seat. Nowise I wish, then, to leave, these grown up, Avengers on me, payment for my deeds.

Amph. As to the part of Zeus in his own child, Let Zeus defend that! As to mine, 't is me The care concerns to show by argument The folly of this fellow,--Herakles, Whom I stand up for! since to hear thee styled-- Cowardly--that is unendurable. First then, the infamous (for I account Amongst the words denied to human speech, Timidity ascribed thee, Herakles!) This I must put from thee, with gods in proof. Zeus' thunder I appeal to, those four steeds Whereof he also was the charioteer When, having shut down the earth's Giant-growth-- (Never shaft flew but found and fitted flank)-- Triumph he sang in common with the gods. The Kentaur-race, four-footed insolence-- Go ask at Pholoé, vilest thou of kings, Whom they would pick out and pronounce best man, If not my son, "the seeming-brave," say'st thou! But Dirphus, thy Abantid mother-town, Question her, and she would not praise, I think! For there 's no spot, where having done some good, Thy country thou might'st call to witness worth. Now, that allwise invention, archer's-gear, Thou blamest: hear my teaching and grow sage! A man in armor is his armor's slave, And, mixed with rank and file that want to run, He dies because his neighbors have lost heart. Then, should he break his spear, no way remains Of warding death off,--gone that body-guard, His one and only; while, whatever folk Have the true bow-hand,--here 's the one main good,-- Though he have sent ten thousand shafts abroad, Others remain wherewith the archer saves His limbs and life, too,--stands afar and wards Away from flesh the foe that vainly stares Hurt by the viewless arrow, while himself Offers no full front to those opposite, But keeps in thorough cover: there 's the point That 's capital in combat--damage foe, Yet keep a safe skin--foe not out of reach As you are! Thus my words contrast with thine, And such, in judging facts, our difference. These children, now, why dost thou seek to slay? What have they done thee? In a single point I count thee wise--if, being base thyself, Thou dread'st the progeny of nobleness. Yet this bears hard upon us, all the same, If we must die--because of fear in thee-- A death 't were fit thou suffer at our hands, Thy betters, did Zeus rightly judge us all. If therefore thou art bent on sceptre-sway, Thyself, here--suffer us to leave the land, Fugitives! nothing do by violence, Or violence thyself shalt undergo When the gods' gale may chance to change for thee! Alas, O land of Kadmos,--for 't is thee I mean to close with, dealing out the due Revilement,--in such sort dost thou defend Herakles and his children? Herakles Who, coming, one to all the world, against The Minuai, fought them and left Thebes an eye Unblinded henceforth to front freedom with! Neither do I praise Hellas, nor shall brook Ever to keep in silence that I count Towards my son, craven of cravens--her Whom it behooved go bring the young ones here Fire, spears, arms--in exchange for seas made safe, And cleansings of the land, his labor's price. But fire, spears, arms,--O children, neither Thebes Nor Hellas has them for you! 'T is myself, A feeble friend, ye look to: nothing now But a tongue's murmur, for the strength is gone We had once, and with age are limbs a-shake And force a-flicker! Were I only young, Still with the mastery o'er bone and thew, Grasping first spear that came, the yellow locks Of this insulter would I bloody so-- Should send him skipping o'er the Atlantic bounds Out of my arm's reach through poltroonery!

Cho. Have not the really good folk starting-points For speech to purpose,--though rare talkers they?

Luk. Say thou against us words thou towerest with! I, for thy words, will deal thee blows, their due. Go, some to Helikon, to Parnasos Some, and the clefts there! Bid the woodmen fell Oak-trunks, and, when the same are brought inside The city, pile the altar round with logs, Then fire it, burn the bodies of them all, That they may learn thereby, no dead man rules The land here, but 't is I, by acts like these! As for you, old sirs, who are set against My judgments, you shall groan for--not alone The Herakleian children, but the fate Of your own house beside, when faring ill By any chance: and you shall recollect Slaves are you of a tyranny that 's mine!

Cho. O progeny of earth,--whom Ares sowed When he laid waste the dragon's greedy jaw-- Will ye not lift the staves, right-hand supports, And bloody this man's irreligious head? Who, being no Kadmeian, rules,--the wretch,-- Our easy youth: an interloper too! But not of me, at least, shalt thou enjoy Thy lordship ever; nor my labor's fruit-- Hand worked so hard for--have! A curse with thee, Whence thou didst come, there go and tyrannize! For never while I live shalt thou destroy The Herakleian children: not so deep Hides he below ground, leaving thee their lord! But we bear both of you in mind,--that thou, The land's destroyer, dost possess the land, While he who saved it, loses every right. I play the busybody--for I serve My dead friends when they need friends' service most? O right-hand, how thou yearnest to snatch spear And serve indeed! in weakness dies the wish, Or I had stayed thee calling me a slave, And nobly drawn my breath at home in Thebes Where thou exultest!--city that's insane, Sick through sedition and bad government, Else never had she gained for master--thee!

Meg. Old friends, I praise you: since a righteous wrath For friend's sake well becomes a friend. But no! On our account in anger with your lord, Suffer no injury! Hear my advice, Amphitruon, if I seem to speak aright. Oh, yes, I love my children! how not love What I brought forth, what toiled for? and to die-- Sad I esteem too; still, the fated way Who stiffens him against, that man I count Poor creature; us, who are of other mood, Since we must die, behooves us meet our death Not burnt to cinders, giving foes the laugh-- To me, worse ill than dying, that! we owe Our houses many a brave deed, now to pay. Thee, indeed, gloriously men estimate For spear-work, so that unendurable Were it that thou shouldst die a death of shame. And for my glorious husband, where wants he A witness that he would not save his boys If touched in their good fame thereby? since birth Bears ill with baseness done for children's sake, My husband needs must be my pattern here. See now thy hope--how much I count thereon! Thou thinkest that thy son will come to light: And, of the dead, who came from Haides back? But we with talk this man might mollify: Never! Of all foes, fly the foolish one! Wise, well-bred people, make concession to! Sooner you meet respect by speaking soft. Already it was in my mind--perchance We might beg off these children's banishment; But even that is sad, involving them In safety, ay--and piteous poverty! Since the host's visage for the flying friend Has, only one day, the sweet look, 'tis said. Dare with us death, which waits thee, dared or no! We call on thine ancestral worth, old man! For who out-labors what the gods appoint Shows energy, but energy gone mad. Since what must--none e'er makes what must not be!

Cho. Had any one, while yet my arms were strong, Been scorning thee, he easily had ceased. But we are naught, now; thine henceforth to see-- Amphitruon, how to push aside these fates!

Amph. Nor cowardice nor a desire of life Stops me from dying: but I seek to save My son his children. Vain! I set my heart, It seems, upon impossibility. See, it is ready for the sword, this throat To pierce, divide, dash down from precipice! But one grace grant us, king, we supplicate! Slay me and this unhappy one before The children, lest we see them--impious sight!-- Gasping the soul forth, calling all the while On mother and on father's father! Else, Do as thy heart inclines thee! No resource Have we from death, and we resign ourselves.

Meg. And I too supplicate: add grace to grace, And, though but one man, doubly serve us both! Let me bestow adornment of the dead Upon these children! Throw the palace wide! For now we are shut out. Thence these shall share At least so much of wealth was once their sire's!

Luk. These things shall be. Withdraw the bolts, I bid My servants! Enter and adorn yourselves! I grudge no peploi; but when these ye wind About your bodies,--that adornment done,-- Then I shall come and give you to the grave.

Meg. O children, follow this unhappy foot, Your mother's, into your ancestral home, Where others have the power, are lords in truth, Although the empty name is left us yet!

Amph. O Zeus, in vain I had thee marriage-mate, In vain I called thee father of my child! Thou wast less friendly far than thou didst seem. I, the mere man, o'ermatch in virtue thee The mighty god: for I have not betrayed The Herakleian children,--whereas thou Hadst wit enough to come clandestinely Into the chamber, take what no man gave, Another's place; and when it comes to help Thy loved ones, there thou lackest wit indeed! Thou art some stupid god or born unjust.

Cho. Even a dirge, can Phoibos suit In song to music jubilant For all its sorrow: making shoot His golden plectron o'er the lute, Melodious ministrant. And I, too, am of mind to raise, Despite the imminence of doom, A song of joy, outpour my praise To him--what is it rumor says?-- Whether--now buried in the ghostly gloom Below ground--he was child of Zeus indeed, Or mere Amphitruon's mortal seed-- To him I weave the wreath of song, his labor's meed. For, is my hero perished in the feat? The virtues of brave toils, in death complete, These save the dead in song,--their glory-garland meet!

First, then, he made the wood Of Zeus a solitude, Slaying its lion-tenant; and he spread The tawniness behind--his yellow head Enmuffled by the brute's, backed by that grin of dread. The mountain-roving savage Kentaur-race He strewed with deadly bow about their place, Slaying with wingèd shafts: Peneios knew, Beauteously-eddying, and the long tracts too Of pasture trampled fruitless, and as well Those desolated haunts Mount Pelion under, And, grassy up to Homolé, each dell Whence, having filled their hands with pine-tree plunder, Horse-like was wont to prance from, and subdue The land of Thessaly, that bestial crew. The golden-headed spot-back'd stag he slew, That robber of the rustics: glorified Therewith the goddess who in hunter's pride Slaughters the game along Oinoé's side. And, yoked abreast, he brought the chariot-breed To pace submissive to the bit, each steed That in the bloody cribs of Diomede Champed and, unbridled, hurried down that gore For grain, exultant the dread feast before-- Of man's flesh: hideous feeders they of yore! All as he crossed the Hebros' silver-flow Accomplished he such labor, toiling so For Mukenaian tyrant; ay, and more-- He crossed the Melian shore And, by the sources of Amauros, shot To death that strangers'-pest Kuknos, who dwelt in Amphanaia: not Of fame for good to guest!

And next, to the melodious maids he came, Inside the Hesperian court-yard: hand must aim At plucking gold fruit from the appled leaves, Now he had killed the dragon, backed like flame, Who guards the unapproachable he weaves Himself all round, one spire about the same. And into those sea-troughs of ocean dived The hero, and for mortals calm contrived, Whatever oars should follow in his wake. And under heaven's mid-seat his hands thrust he, At home with Atlas: and, for valor's sake, Held the gods up their star-faced mansionry. Also, the rider-host of Amazons About Maiotis many-streamed, he went To conquer through the billowy Euxin once, Having collected what an armament Of friends from Hellas, all on conquest bent Of that gold-garnished cloak, dread girdle-chase! So Hellas gained the girl's barbarian grace And at Mukenai saves the trophy still-- Go wonder there, who will!

And the ten-thousand-headed hound Of many a murder, the Lernaian snake He burned out, head by head, and cast around His darts a poison thence,--darts soon to slake Their rage in that three-bodied herdsman's gore Of Erutheia. Many a running more He made for triumph and felicity, And, last of toils, to Haides, never dry Of tears, he sailed: and there he, luckless, ends His life completely, nor returns again. The house and home are desolate of friends, And where the children's life-path leads them, plain I see,--no step retraceable, no god Availing, and no law to help the lost! The oar of Charon marks their period, Waits to end all. Thy hands, these roofs accost!-- To thee, though absent, look their uttermost!

But if in youth and strength I flourished still, Still shook the spear in fight, did power match will In these Kadmeian co-mates of my age, They would,--and I,--when warfare was to wage, Stand by these children; but I am bereft Of youth now, lone of that good genius left!

But hist, desist! for here come these,-- Draped as the dead go, under and over,-- Children long since--now hard to discover-- Of the once so potent Herakles! And the loved wife dragging, in one tether About her feet, the boys together; And the hero's aged sire comes last! Unhappy that I am! Of tears which rise,-- How am I all unable to hold fast, Longer, the aged fountains of these eyes!

Meg. Be it so! Who is priest, who butcher here Of these ill-fated ones, or stops the breath Of me, the miserable? Ready, see, The sacrifice--to lead where Haides lives! O children, we are led--no lovely team Of corpses--age, youth, motherhood, all mixed! O sad fate of myself and these my sons Whom with these eyes I look at, this last time! I, indeed, bore you: but for enemies I brought you up to be a laughing-stock, Matter for merriment, destruction-stuff! Woe's me! Strangely indeed my hopes have struck me down From what I used to hope about you once-- The expectation from your father's talk! For thee, now, thy dead sire dealt Argos to: Thou wast to have Eurustheus' house one day, And rule Pelasgia where the fine fruits grow; And, for a stole of state, he wrapped about Thy head with that the lion-monster bore, That which himself went wearing armor-wise. And thou wast King of Thebes--such chariots there! Those plains I had for portion--all for thee, As thou hadst coaxed them out of who gave birth To thee, his boy: and into thy right hand He thrust the guardian-club of Daidalos,-- Poor guardian proves the gift that plays thee false! And upon thee he promised to bestow Oichalia--what, with those far-shooting shafts, He ravaged once; and so, since three you were, With threefold kingdoms did he build you up To very towers, your father,--proud enough, Prognosticating, from your manliness In boyhood, what the manhood's self would be. For my part, I was picking out for you Brides, suiting each with his alliance--this From Athens, this from Sparté, this from Thebes-- Whence, suited--as stern-cables steady ship-- You might have hold on life gods bless. All gone! Fortune turns round and gives us--you, the Fates Instead of brides--me, tears for nuptial baths, Unhappy in my hoping! And the sire Of your sire--he prepares the marriage-feast Befitting Haides who plays father now-- Bitter relationship! Oh me! which first-- Which last of you shall I to bosom fold? To whom shall I fit close, his mouth to mine? Of whom shall I lay hold and ne'er let go? How would I gather, like the brown-winged bee, The groans from all, and, gathered into one, Give them you back again, a crowded tear! Dearest, if any voice be heard of men Dungeoned in Haides, thee--to thee I speak! Here is thy father dying, and thy boys! And I too perish, famed as fortunate By mortals once, through thee! Assist them! Come! But come! though just a shade, appear to me! For, coming, thy ghost-grandeur would suffice, Such cowards are they in thy presence, these Who kill thy children now thy back is turned!

Amph. Ay, daughter, bid the powers below assist! But I will rather, raising hand to heaven, Call thee to help, O Zeus, if thy intent Be, to these children, helpful anyway, Since soon thou wilt be valueless enough! And yet thou hast been called and called; in vain I labor: for we needs must die, it seems. Well, aged brothers--life's a little thing! Such as it is, then, pass life pleasantly From day to night, nor once grieve all the while! Since Time concerns him not about our hopes,-- To save them,--but his own work done, flies off. Witness myself, looked up to among men, Doing noteworthy deeds: when here comes fate Lifts me away, like feather skyward borne, In one day! Riches then and glory,--whom These are found constant to, I know not. Friends, Farewell! the man who loved you all so much, Now, this last time, my mates, ye look upon!

Meg. Ha! O father, do I see my dearest? Speak!

Amph. No more than thou canst, daughter--dumb like thee!

Meg. Is this he whom we heard was under ground?

Amph. Unless at least some dream in day we see!

Meg. What do I say? what dreams insanely view? This is no other than thy son, old sire! Here, children! hang to these paternal robes, Quick, haste, hold hard on him, since here's your true Zeus that can save--and every whit as well!

Herakles. Oh, hail, my palace, my hearth's propula,-- How glad I see thee as I come to light! Ha, what means this? My children I behold Before the house in garments of the grave, Chapleted, and, amid a crowd of men, My very wife--my father weeping too, Whatever the misfortune! Come, best take My station nearer these and learn it all! Wife, what new sorrow has approached our home?

Meg. O dearest! light flashed on thy father now! Art thou come? art thou saved and dost thou fall On friends in their supreme extremity?

Her. How say'st thou? Father! what's the trouble here?

Meg. Undone are we!--but thou, old man, forgive If first I snatch what thou shouldst say to him! For somehow womanhood wakes pity more. Here are my children killed and I undone!

Her. Apollon, with what preludes speech begins!

Meg. Dead are my brothers and old father too.

Her. How say'st thou?--doing what?--by spear-stroke whence?

Meg. Lukos destroyed them--the land's noble king!

Her. Met them in arms? or through the land's disease?

Meg. Sedition: and he sways seven-gated Thebes.

Her. Why then came fear on the old man and thee?

Meg. He meant to kill thy father, me, our boys.

Her. How say'st thou? Fearing what from orphanage?

Meg. Lest they should some day pay back Kreon's death.

Her. And why trick out the boys corpse-fashion thus?

Meg. These wraps of death we have already donned.

Her. And you had died through violence? Woe's me!

Meg. Left bare of friends: and thou wast dead, we heard.

Her. And whence came on you this faintheartedness?

Meg. The heralds of Eurustheus brought the news.

Her. And why was it you left my house and hearth?

Meg. Forced thence: thy father--from his very couch!

Her. And no shame at insulting the old man?

Meg. Shame, truly! no near neighbors he and Shame!

Her. And so much, in my absence, lacked I friends?

Meg. Friends,--are there any to a luckless man?

Her. The Minuai-war I waged,--they spat forth these?

Meg. Friendless--again I tell thee--is ill-luck.

Her. Will not you cast these hell-wraps from your hair And look on light again, and with your eyes Taste the sweet change from nether dark to day? While I--for now there needs my handiwork-- First I shall go, demolish the abodes Of these new lordships; next hew off the head Accurst and toss it for the dogs to trail. Then, such of the Kadmeians as I find Were craven though they owed me gratitude,-- Some I intend to handle with this club Renowned for conquest; and with wingèd shafts Scatter the others, fill Ismenos full With bloody corpses,--Dirké's flow so white Shall be incarnadined. For, whom, I pray, Behooves me rather help than wife and child And aged father? Farewell, "Labors" mine! Vainly I wrought them: my true work lay here! My business is to die defending these,-- If for their father's sake they meant to die. Or how shall we call brave the battling it With snake and lion, as Eurustheus bade, If yet I must not labor death away From my own children? "Conquering Herakles" Folk will not call me as they used, I think! The right thing is for parents to assist Children, old age, the partner of the couch.

Amph. True, son! thy duty is--be friend to friends And foe to foes: yet--no more haste than needs!

Her. Why, father, what is over-hasty here?

Amph. Many a pauper--seeming to be rich, As the word goes--the king calls partisan. Such made a riot, ruined Thebes to rob Their neighbor: for, what good they had at home Was spent and gone,--flew off through idleness. You came to trouble Thebes, they saw: since seen, Beware lest, raising foes, a multitude, You stumble where you apprehend no harm.

Her. If all Thebes saw me, not a whit care I. But seeing as I did a certain bird Not in the lucky seats, I knew some woe Was fallen upon the house: so, purposely, By stealth I made my way into the land.

Amph. And now, advancing, hail the hearth with praise And give the ancestral home thine eye to see! For he himself will come, thy wife and sons The drag-forth--slaughter--slay me too,--this king! But, here remaining, all succeeds with thee-- Gain lost by no false step. So, this thy town Disturb not, son, ere thou right matters here!

Her. Thus will I do, for thou say'st well; my home Let me first enter! Since at the due time Returning from the unsunned depths where dwells Haides' wife Koré, let me not affront Those gods beneath my roof, I first should hail!

Amph. For didst thou really visit Haides, son?

Her. Ay--dragged to light, too, his three-headed beast.

Amph. By fight didst conquer--or through Koré's gift?

Her. Fight: well for me, I saw the Orgies first!

Amph. And is he in Eurustheus' house, the brute?

Her. Chthonia's grove, Hermion's city, holds him now.

Amph. Does not Eurustheus know thee back on earth?

Her. No: I would come first and see matters here.

Amph. But how wast thou below ground such a time?

Her. I stopped, from Haides, bringing Theseus up.

Amph. And where is he?--bound o'er the plain for home?

Her. Gone glad to Athens--Haides' fugitive! But, up, boys! follow father into house! There's a far better going-in for you Truly, than going-out was! Nay, take heart, And let the eyes no longer run and run! And thou, O wife, my own, collect thy soul Nor tremble now! Leave grasping, all of you, My garments! I'm not winged, nor fly from friends! Ah,-- No letting go for these, who all the more Hang to my garments! Did you foot indeed The razor's edge? Why, then I'll carry them-- Take with my hands these small craft up, and tow Just as a ship would. There! don't fear I shirk My children's service! this way, men are men, No difference! best and worst, they love their boys After one fashion: wealth they differ in-- Some have it, others not; but each and all Combine to form the children-loving race.

Cho. Youth is a pleasant burden to me; But age on my head, more heavily Than the crags of Aitna, weighs and weighs, And darkening cloaks the lids and intercepts the rays. Never be mine the preference Of an Asian empire's wealth, nor yet Of a house all gold, to youth, to youth That's beauty, whatever the gods dispense! Whether in wealth we joy, or fret Paupers,--of all God's gifts most beautiful, in truth!

But miserable murderous age I hate! Let it go to wreck, the waves adown, Nor ever by rights plague tower or town Where mortals bide, but still elate With wings, on ether, precipitate, Wander them round--nor wait!

But if the gods, to man's degree, Had wit and wisdom, they would bring Mankind a twofold youth, to be Their virtue's sign-mark, all should see, In those with whom life's winter thus grew spring. For when they died, into the sun once more Would they have traversed twice life's race-course o'er; While ignobility had simply run Existence through, nor second life begun, And so might we discern both bad and good As surely as the starry multitude Is numbered by the sailors, one and one. But now the gods by no apparent line Limit the worthy and the base define; Only, a certain period rounds, and so Brings man more wealth,--but youthful vigor, no!

Well! I am not to pause Mingling together--wine and wine in cup-- The Graces with the Muses up-- Most dulcet marriage: loosed from music's laws, No life for me! But where the wreaths abound, there ever may I be! And still, an aged bard, I shout Mnemosuné-- Still chant of Herakles the triumph-chant, Companioned by the seven-stringed tortoise-shell And Libuan flute, and Bromios' self as well, God of the grape, with man participant! Not yet will we arrest their glad advance-- The Muses who so long have led me forth to dance! A paian--hymn the Delian girls indeed, Weaving a beauteous measure in and out His temple-gates, Latona's goodly seed; And paians--I too, these thy domes about, From these gray cheeks, my king, will swan-like shout-- Old songster! Ay, in song it starts off brave-- "Zeus' son is he!" and yet, such grace of birth Surpassing far, to man his labors gave Existence, one calm flow without a wave, Having destroyed the beasts, the terrors of the earth.

Luk. From out the house Amphitruon comes--in time! For 'tis a long while now since ye bedecked Your bodies with the dead-folks' finery. But quick! the boys and wife of Herakles-- Bid them appear outside this house, keep pact To die, and need no bidding but your own!

Amph. King! you press hard on me sore-pressed enough, And give me scorn--beside my dead ones here. Meet in such matters were it, though you reign, To temper zeal with moderation. Since You do impose on us the need to die-- Needs must we love our lot, obey your will.

Luk. Where's Megara, then? Alkmené's grandsons, where?

Amph. She, I think,--as one figures from outside,--

Luk. Well, this same thinking,--what affords its ground?

Amph. --Sits suppliant on the holy altar-steps,--

Luk. Idly indeed a suppliant to save life!

Amph. --And calls on her dead husband, vainly too!

Luk. For he's not come, nor ever will arrive.

Amph. Never--at least, if no god raise him up.

Luk. Go to her, and conduct her from the house!

Amph. I should partake the murder, doing that.

Luk. We,--since thou hast a scruple in the case,-- Outside of fears, we shall march forth these lads, Mother and all. Here, follow me, my folk-- And gladly so remove what stops our toils!

Amph. Thou--go then! March where needs must! What remains-- Perhaps concerns another. Doing ill, Expect some ill be done thee! Ha, old friends! On he strides beautifully! in the toils O' the net, where swords spring forth, will he be fast-- Minded to kill his neighbors--the arch-knave! I go, too--I must see the falling corpse! For he has sweets to give--a dying man, Your foe, that pays the price of deeds he did.

Cho. Troubles are over! He the great king once, Turns the point, tends for Haides, goal of life! O justice, and the gods' back-flowing fate!

Amph. Thou art come, late indeed, where death pays crime-- These insults heaped on better than thyself!

Cho. Joy gives this outburst to my tears! Again Come round those deeds, his doing, which of old He never dreamed himself was to endure-- King of the country! But enough, old man! Indoors, now, let us see how matters stand-- If somebody be faring as I wish!

Luk. Ah me--me!

Cho. This strikes the keynote--music to my mind, Merry i' the household! Death takes up the tune! The king gives voice, groans murder's prelude well!

Luk. O all the land of Kadmos! slain by guile!

Cho. Ay, for who slew first? Paying back thy due, Resign thee! make, for deeds done, mere amends! Who was it grazed the gods through lawlessness-- Mortal himself, threw up his fools'-conceit Against the blessed heavenly ones--as though Gods had no power? Old friends, the impious man Exists not any more! The house is mute. Turn we to song and dance! For, those I love, Those I wish well to, well fare they, to wish!

Dances, dances and banqueting To Thebes, the sacred city through, Are a care! for, change and change Of tears to laughter, old to new, Our lays, glad birth, they bring, they bring! He is gone and past, the mighty king! And the old one reigns, returned--Oh, strange! From the Acherontian harbor too! Advent of hope, beyond thought's widest range! To the gods, the gods, are crimes a care, And they watch our virtue, well aware That gold and that prosperity drive man Out of his mind--those charioteers who hale Might-without-right behind them: face who can Fortune's reverse which time prepares, nor quail? --He who evades law and in lawlessness Delights him,--he has broken down his trust-- The chariot, riches haled--now blackening in the dust!

Ismenos, go thou garlanded! Break into dance, ye ways, the polished bed O' the seven-gated city! Dirké, thou Fair-flowing, with the Asopiad sisters all, Leave your sire's stream, attend the festival Of Herakles, one choir of nymphs, sing triumph now! O woody rock of Puthios and each home O the Helikonian Muses, ye shall come With joyous shouting to my walls, my town Where saw the light that Spartan race, those "Sown," Brazen-shield-bearing chiefs, whereof the band With children's children renovates our land, To Thebes a sacred light! O combination of the marriage rite-- Bed of the mortal-born and Zeus, who couched Beside the nymph of Perseus' progeny! For credible, past hope, becomes to me That nuptial story long ago avouched, O Zeus! and time has turned the dark to bright, And made one blaze of truth the Herakleidan might-- His, who emerged from earth's pavilion, left Plouton's abode, the nether palace-cleft, Thou wast the lord that nature gave me--not That baseness born and bred--my king, by lot! --Baseness made plain to all, who now regard The match of sword with sword in fight,-- If to the gods the Just and Right Still pleasing be, still claim the palm's award.

Horror! Are we come to the selfsame passion of fear, Old friends?--such a phantasm fronts me here Visible over the palace-roof! In flight, in flight, the laggard limb Bestir! and haste aloof From that on the roof there--grand and grim! O Paian, king! Be thou my safeguard from the woeful thing!

Iris. Courage, old men! beholding here--Night's birth-- Madness, and me the handmaid of the gods, Iris: since to your town we come, no plague-- Wage war against the house of but one man From Zeus and from Alkmené sprung, they say. Now, till he made an end of bitter toils, Fate kept him safe, nor did his father Zeus Let us once hurt him, Heré nor myself. But, since he has toiled through Eurustheus' task, Heré desires to fix fresh blood on him-- Slaying his children: I desire it too.

Up then, collecting the unsoftened heart, Unwedded virgin of black Night! Drive, drag Frenzy upon the man here--whirls of brain Big with child-murder, while his feet leap gay! Let go the bloody cable its whole length! So that,--when o'er the Acherousian ford He has sent floating, by self-homicide, His beautiful boy-garland,--he may know First, Heré's anger, what it is to him, And then learn mine. The gods are vile indeed And mortal matters vast, if he 'scape free!

Madness. Certes, from well-born sire and mother too Had I my birth, whose blood is Night's and Heaven's; But here's my glory,--not to grudge the good! Nor love I raids against the friends of man. I wish, then, to persuade,--before I see You stumbling, you and Heré! trust my words! This man, the house of whom ye hound me to, Is not unfamed on earth nor gods among; Since, having quelled waste land and savage sea, He alone raised again the falling rights Of gods--gone ruinous through impious men. Desire no mighty mischief, I advise!

Iris. Give thou no thought to Heré's faulty schemes!

Mad. Changing her step from faulty to fault-free!

Iris. Not to be wise, did Zeus' wife send thee here!

Mad. Sun, thee I cite to witness--doing what I loathe to do! But since indeed to Heré and thyself I must subserve. And follow you quick, with a whiz, as the hounds a-hunt with the huntsman, --Go I will! and neither the sea, as it groans with its waves so furiously, Nor earthquake, no, nor the bolt of thunder gasping out heaven's labor-throe, Shall cover the ground as I, at a bound, rush into the bosom of Herakles! And home I scatter, and house I batter, Having first of all made the children fall,-- And he who felled them is never to know He gave birth to each child that received the blow, Till the Madness, I am, have let him go!

Ha, behold, already he rocks his head--he is off from the starting-place! Not a word, as he rolls his frightful orbs, from their sockets wrenched in the ghastly race! And the breathings of him he tempers and times no more than a bull in act to toss, And hideously he bellows invoking the Keres, daughters of Tartaros. Ay, and I soon will dance thee madder, and pipe thee quite out of thy mind with fear! So, up with the famous foot, thou Iris, march to Olumpos, leave me here! Me and mine, who now combine, in the dreadful shape no mortal sees, And now are about to pass, from without, inside of the home of Herakles!

Cho. Otototoi,--groan! Away is mown Thy flower, Zeus' offspring, City! Unhappy Hellas, who dost cast (the pity!) Who worked thee all the good, Away from thee,--destroyest in a mood Of madness him, to death whom pipings dance! There goes she, in her chariot--groans, her brood-- And gives her team the goad, as though adrift For doom, Night's Gorgon, Madness, she whose glance Turns man to marble! with what hissings lift Their hundred heads the snakes, her head's inheritance! Quick has the god changed fortune: through their sire Quick will the children, that he saved, expire! O miserable me! O Zeus! thy child-- Childless himself--soon vengeance, hunger-wild, Craving for punishment, will lay how low-- Loaded with many a woe!

O palace-roofs! your courts about, A measure begins all unrejoiced By the tympanies and the thyrsos hoist Of the Bromian revel-rout! O ye domes! and the measure proceeds For blood, not such as the cluster bleeds Of the Dionusian pouring-out!

Break forth, fly, children! fatal this-- Fatal the lay that is piped, I wis! Ay, for he hunts a children-chase-- Never shall Madness lead her revel And leave no trace in the dwelling-place! Ai ai, because of the evil! Ai ai, the old man--how I groan For the father, and not the father alone! She who was nurse of his children,--small Her gain that they ever were born at all!

See! See! A whirlwind shakes hither and thither The house--the roof falls in together! Ha, ha! what dost thou, son of Zeus? A trouble of Tartaros broke loose, Such as once Pallas on the Titan thundered, Thou sendest on thy domes, roof-shattered and wall-sundered!

Messenger. O bodies white with age!--

Cho. What cry, to me-- What, dost thou call with?

Mes. There 's a curse indoors!

Cho. I shall not bring a prophet: you suffice!

Mes. Dead are the children!

Cho. Ai ai!

Mes. Groan! for, groans Suit well the subject! Dire the children's death, Dire too the parent's hands that dealt the fate. No one could tell worse woe than we have borne!

Cho. How dost thou that same curse--curse, cause for groan The father's on the children, make appear? Tell in what matter they were hurled from heaven Against the house--these evils; and recount The children's hapless fate, O Messenger!

Mes. The victims were before the hearth of Zeus A household-expiation: since the king O' the country, Herakles had killed and cast From out the dwelling; and a beauteous choir Of boys stood by his sire, too, and his wife. And now the basket had been carried round The altar in a circle, and we used The consecrated speech. Alkmené's son-- Just as he was about, in his right hand, To bear the torch, that he might dip into The cleansing-water--came to a stand-still; And, as their father yet delayed, his boys Had their eyes on him. But he was himself No longer: lost in rollings of the eyes; Out-thrusting eyes--their very roots--like blood! Froth he dropped down his bushy-bearded cheek, And said--together with a madman's laugh-- "Father! why sacrifice, before I slay Eurustheus? why have twice the lustral fire, And double pains, when 't is permitted me To end, with one good hand-sweep, matters here? Then,--when I hither bring Eurustheus' head,-- Then for these just slain, wash hands once for all! Now,--cast drink-offerings forth, throw baskets down! Who gives me bow and arrows, who my club? I go to that Mukenai! One must match Crowbars and mattocks, so that--those sunk stones The Kuklops squared with picks and plumb-line red. I, with my bent steel, may o'ertumble town!" Which said, he goes and--with no car to have-- Affirms he has one! mounts the chariot-board, And strikes, as having really goad in hand! And two ways laughed the servants--laugh with awe; And one said, as each met the other's stare, "Playing us boys' tricks? or is master mad?" But up he climbs, and down along the roof, And, dropping into the men's place, maintains He 's come to Nisos city, when he 's come Only inside his own house! then reclines On floor, for couch, and, as arrived indeed, Makes himself supper; goes through some brief stay, Then says he 's traversing the forest-flats Of Isthmos; thereupon lays body bare Of bucklings, and begins a contest with --No one! and is proclaimed the conqueror-- He by himself--having called out to hear --Nobody! Then, if you will take his word, Blaring against Eurustheus horribly, He 's at Mukenai. But his father laid Hold of the strong hand and addressed him thus: "O son, what ails thee? Of what sort is this Extravagance? Has not some murder-craze, Bred of those corpses thou didst just dispatch, Danced thee drunk?" But he,--taking him to crouch, Eurustheus' sire, that apprehensive touched His hand, a suppliant,--pushes him aside, Gets ready quiver, and bends low against His children--thinking them Eurustheus' boys He means to slay. They, horrified with fear, Rushed here and there,--this child, into the robes O' the wretched mother,--this, beneath the shade O' the column,--and this other, like a bird, Cowered at the altar-foot. The mother shrieks, "Parent--what dost thou?--kill thy children?" So Shriek the old sire and crowd of servitors. But he, outwinding him, as round about The column ran the boy,--a horrid whirl O' the lathe his foot described!--stands opposite, Strikes through the liver! and supine the boy Bedews the stone shafts, breathing out his life. But "Victory" he shouted! boasted thus: "Well, this one nestling of Eurustheus--dead-- Falls by me, pays back the paternal hate!" Then bends bow on another who was crouched At base of altar--overlooked, he thought-- And now prevents him, falls at father's knee, Throwing up hand to beard and cheek above. "O dearest!" cries he, "father, kill me not! Yours, I am--your boy: not Eurustheus' boy You kill now!" But he, rolling the wild eye Of Gorgon,--as the boy stood all too close For deadly bowshot,--mimicry of smith Who batters red-hot iron,--hand o'er head Heaving his club, on the boy's yellow hair Hurls it and breaks the bone. This second caught,-- He goes, would slay the third, one sacrifice He and the couple; but, beforehand here, The miserable mother catches up, Carries him inside house and bars the gate. Then he, as he were at those Kuklops' work, Digs at, heaves doors up, wrenches doorposts out, Lays wife and child low with the selfsame shaft. And this done, at the old man's death he drives; But there came, as it seemed to us who saw, A statue--Pallas with the crested head, Swinging her spear--and threw a stone which smote Herakles' breast and stayed his slaughter-rage, And sent him safe to sleep. He falls to ground-- Striking against the column with his back-- Column which, with the falling of the roof, Broken in two, lay by the altar-base. And we, foot-free now from our several flights, Along with the old man, we fastened bonds Of rope-noose to the column, so that he, Ceasing from sleep, might not go adding deeds To deeds done. And he sleeps a sleep, poor wretch, No gift of any god! since he has slain Children and wife. For me, I do not know What mortal has more misery to bear.

Cho. A murder there was which Argolis Holds in remembrance, Hellas through, As, at that time, best and famousest: Of those, the daughters of Danaos slew. A murder indeed was that! but this Outstrips it, straight to the goal has pressed. I am able to speak of a murder done To the hapless Zeus-born offspring, too-- Proknè's son, who had but one-- Or a sacrifice to the Muses, say Rather, who Itus sing alway, Her single child! But thou, the sire Of children three--O thou consuming fire!-- In one outrageous fate hast made them all expire! And this outrageous fate-- What groan, or wail, or deadmen's dirge, Or choric dance of Haides shall I urge The Muse to celebrate?

Woe! woe! behold! The portalled palace lies unrolled, This way and that way, each prodigious fold! Alas for me! these children, see, Stretched, hapless group, before their father--he The all-unhappy, who lies sleeping out The murder of his sons, a dreadful sleep! And bonds, see, all about,-- Rope-tangle, ties and tether,--these Tightenings around the body of Herakles To the stone columns of the house made fast!

But--like a bird that grieves For callow nestlings some rude hand bereaves-- See, here, a bitter journey overpast, The old man--all too late--is here at last!

Amph. Silently, silently, aged Kadmeians! Will ye not suffer my son, diffused Yonder, to slide from his sorrows in sleep?

Cho. And thee, old man, do I, groaning, weep, And the children too, and the head there--used Of old to the wreaths and paians!

Amph. Farther away! Nor beat the breast, Nor wail aloud, nor rouse from rest The slumberer--asleep, so best!

Cho. Ah me--what a slaughter!

Amph. Refrain--refrain! Ye will prove my perdition!

Cho. Unlike water, Bloodshed rises from earth again!

Amph. Do I bid you bate your breath, in vain-- Ye elders? Lament in a softer strain! Lest he rouse himself, burst every chain, And bury the city in ravage--bray Father and house to dust away!

Cho. I cannot forbear--I cannot forbear!

Amph. Hush! I will learn his breathings: there! I will lay my ears close.

Cho. What, he sleeps?

Amph. Ay,--sleeps! A horror of slumber keeps The man who has piled On wife and child Death and death, as he shot them down With clang o'the bow.

Cho. Wail--

Amph. Even so!

Cho. --The fate of the children--

Amph. Triple woe!

Cho. --Old man, the fate of thy son!

Amph. Hush, hush! Have done! He is turning about! He is breaking out! Away! I steal And my body conceal, Before he arouse, In the depths of the house!

Cho. Courage! The Night Maintains her right On the lids of thy son there, sealed from sight!

Amph. See, see! To leave the light And, wretch that I am, bear one last ill, I do not avoid; but if he kill Me, his own father, and devise Beyond the present miseries A misery more ghastly still-- And to haunt him, over and above Those here who, as they used to love, Now hate him, what if he have with these My murder, the worst of Erinues?

Cho. Then was the time to die, for thee, When ready to wreak in the full degree Vengeance on those Thy consort's foes Who murdered her brothers! glad, life's close, With the Taphioi down, And sacked their town Clustered about with a wash of sea!

Amph. Tonight--to flight! Away from the house, troop off, old men! Save yourselves out of the maniac's sight! He is rousing himself right up: and then, Murder on murder heaping anew, He will revel in blood your city through!

Cho. O Zeus, why hast, with such unmeasured hate, Hated thy son, whelmed in this sea of woes?

Her. Ha,-- In breath indeed I am--see things I ought-- Æther, and earth, and these the sunbeam-shafts! But then--some billow and strange whirl of sense I have fallen into! and breathings hot I breathe-- Smoked upwards, not the steady work from lungs. See now! Why, bound--at moorings like a ship,-- About my young breast and young arm, to this Stone piece of carved work broke in half, do I Sit, have my rest in corpses' neighborhood? Strewn on the ground are wingèd darts, and bow Which played, my brother-shieldman, held in hand,-- Guarded my side, and got my guardianship! I cannot have gone back to Haides--twice. Begun Eurustheus' race I ended thence? But I nor see the Sisupheian stone, Nor Plouton, nor Demeter's sceptred maid! I am struck witless sure! Where can I be? Ho there! what friend of mine is near or far-- Some one to cure me of bewilderment? For naught familiar do I recognize.

Amph. Old friends, shall I go close to these my woes?

Cho. Ay, and let me too,--nor desert your ills!

Her. Father, why weepest thou, and buriest up Thine eyes, aloof so from thy much-loved son?

Amph. O child!--for, faring badly, mine thou art!

Her. Do I fare somehow ill, that tears should flow?

Amph. Ill,--would cause any god who bore to groan!

Her. That's boasting, truly! still, you state no hap.

Amph. For, thyself seest--if in thy wits again.

Her. Heyday! How riddlingly that hint returns!

Amph. Well, I am trying--art thou sane and sound!

Her. Say if thou lay'st aught strange to my life's charge!

Amph. If thou no more art Haides-drunk,--I tell!

Her. I bring to mind no drunkenness of soul.

Amph. Shall I unbind my son, old men, or what?

Her. And who was binder, tell!--not that, my deed!

Amph. Mind that much of misfortune--pass the rest!

Her. Enough! from silence, I nor learn nor wish.

Amph. O Zeus, dost witness here throned Heré's work?

Her. But have I had to bear aught hostile thence?

Amph. Let be the goddess--bury thine own guilt!

Her. Undone! What is the sorrow thou wilt say?

Amph. Look! See the ruins of thy children here!

Her. Ah me! What sight do wretched I behold?

Amph. Unfair fight, son, this fight thou fastenedst On thine own children!

Her. What fight? Who slew these?

Amph. Thou and thy bow, and who of gods was cause.

Her. How say'st? What did I? Ill-announcing sire!

Amph. --Go mad! Thou askest a sad clearing up!

Her. And am I also murderer of my wife?

Amph. All the work here was just one hand's work--thine!

Her. Ai ai--for groans encompass me--a cloud!

Amph. For these deeds' sake do I begroan thy fate!

Her. Did I break up my house or dance it down?

Amph. I know just one thing--all 's a woe with thee!

Her. But where did the craze catch me, where destroy?

Amph. When thou didst cleanse hands at the altar-flame.

Her. Ah me! why is it then I save my life-- Proved murderer of my dearest ones, my boys? Shall not I rush to the rock-level's leap, Or, darting sword through breast and all, become My children's blood-avenger? or, this flesh Burning away with fire, so thrust away The infamy, which waits me there, from life? Ah, but,--a hindrance to my purposed death, Theseus arrives, my friend and kinsman, here! Eyes will be on me! my child-murder-plague In evidence before friends loved so much! O me, what shall I do? Where, taking wing Or gliding underground, shall I seek out A solitariness from misery? I will pull night upon my muffled head! Let this wretch here content him with his curse Of blood: I would pollute no innocents!

Theseus. I come,--with others who await beside Asopos' stream, the armed Athenian youth,-- Bring thy son, old man, spear's fight-fellowship! For a bruit reached the Erechtheidai's town That, having seized the sceptre of this realm, Lukos prepares you battle-violence. So, paying good back,--Herakles began, Saving me down there,--I have come, old man, If aught, of my hand or my friends', you want. What 's here? Why all these corpses on the ground? Am I perhaps behindhand--come too late For newer ill? Who killed these children now? Whose wife was she, this woman I behold? Boys, at least, take no stand in reach of spear! Some other woe than war, I chance upon!

Amph. O thou, who sway'st the olive-bearing height!--

Thes. Why hail'st thou me with woeful prelude thus?

Amph. Dire sufferings have we suffered from the gods.

Thes. These boys,--who are they, thou art weeping o'er?

Amph. He gave them birth, indeed, my hapless son! Begot, but killed them--dared their bloody death.

Thes. Speak no such horror!

Amph. Would I might obey!

Thes. O teller of dread tidings!

Amph. Lost are we-- Lost--flown away from life!

Thes. What sayest thou? What did he?

Amph. Erring through a frenzy-fit, He did all, with the arrows dipt in dye Of hundred-headed Hudra.

Thes. Heré 's strife! But who is this among the dead, old man?

Amph. Mine, mine, this progeny--the labor-plagued, Who went with gods once to Phlegruia's plain. And in the giant-slaying war bore shield!

Thes. Woe--woe! What man was born mischanceful thus!

Amph. Thou couldst not know another mortal man Toil-weary, more outworn by wanderings.

Thes. And why i' the peploi hides he his sad head?

Amph. Not daring meet thine eye, thy friendliness And kinship,--nor that children's--blood about!

Thes. But I come to who shared my woe with me! Uncover him!

Amph. O child, put from thine eyes The peplos, throw it off, show face to sun! Woe's weight well matched contends with tears in thee. I supplicate thee, falling at thy cheek And knee and hand, and shedding this old tear! O son, remit the savage lion's mood, Since to a bloody, an unholy race Art thou led forth, if thou be resolute To go on adding ill to ill, my child!

Thes. Let me speak! Thee, who sittest--seated woe-- I call upon to show thy friends thine eye! For there 's no darkness has a cloud so black May hide thy misery thus absolute. Why, waving hand, dost sign me--murder 's done? Lest a pollution strike me, from thy speech? Naught care I to--with thee, at least--fare ill: For I had joy once! Then,--soul rises to,-- When thou didst save me from the dead to light! Friends' gratitude that tastes old age, I loathe, And him who likes to share when things look fine, But, sail along with friends in trouble--no! Arise, uncover thine unhappy head! Look on us! Every man of the right race Bears what, at least, the gods inflict, nor shrinks.

Her. Theseus, hast seen this match--my boys with me?

Thes. I heard of, now I see the ills thou sign'st.

Her. Why then hast thou displayed my head to sun?

Thes. Why? mortals bring no plague on aught divine!

Her. Fly, O unhappy, this my impious plague!

Thes. No plague of vengeance flits to friends from friends.

Her. I praise thee! But I helped thee,--that is truth.

Thes. And I, advantaged then, now pity thee.

Her. --The pitiable,--my children's murderer!

Thes. I mourn for thy sake, in this altered lot.

Her. Hast thou found others in still greater woe?

Thes. Thou, from earth, touchest heaven, one huge distress!

Her. Accordingly, I am prepared to die.

Thes. Think'st thou thy threats at all import the gods?

Her. Gods please themselves: to gods I give their like.

Thes. Shut thy mouth, lest big words bring bigger woe!

Her. I am full fraught with ills--no stowing more!

Thes. Thou wilt do--what, then? Whither moody borne?

Her. Dying, I go below earth whence I came.

Thes. Thou hast used words of--what man turns up first!

Her. While thou, being outside sorrow, schoolest me.

Thes. The much-enduring Herakles talks thus?--

Her. Not the so much-enduring: measure's past!

Thes. --Mainstay to mortals, and their mighty friend?

Her. They nowise profit me: but Heré rules.

Thes. Hellas forbids thou shouldst ineptly die.

Her. But hear, then, how I strive by arguments Against thy teachings! I will ope thee out My life--past, present--as unlivable. First, I was born of this man, who had slain His mother's aged sire, and, sullied so, Married Alkmené, she who gave me birth. Now, when the basis of a family Is not laid right, what follows needs must fall; And Zeus, whoever Zeus is, formed me foe To Heré (take not thou offence, old man! Since father, in Zeus' stead, account I thee) And, while I was at suck yet, frightful snakes She introduced among my swaddling-clothes,-- That bedfellow of Zeus!--to end me so. But when I gained the youthful garb of flesh, The labors I endured--what need to tell? What lions ever, or three-bodied brutes, Tuphons or giants, or the four-legg'd swarms Of Kentaur-battle, did not I end out? And that hound, headed all about with heads Which cropped up twice, the Hudra, having slain-- I both went through a myriad other toils In full drove, and arrived among the dead To convoy, as Eurustheus bade, to light Haides' three-headed dog and doorkeeper. But then I,--wretch,--dared this last labor--see! Slew my sons, keystone-coped my house with ills, To such a strait I come! nor my dear Thebes Dare I inhabit,--and, suppose I stay? Into what fane or festival of friends Am I to go? My curse scarce courts accost! Shall I seek Argos? How, if fled from home? But say,--I hurry to some other town! And there they eye me, as notorious now,-- Kept by sharp tongue-taunts under lock and key-- "Is not this he, Zeus' son, who murdered once Children and wife? Let him go rot elsewhere!" To any man renowned as happy once, Reverses are a grave thing; but to whom Evil is old acquaintance, there 's no hurt To speak of, he and misery are twins. To this degree of woe I think to come: For earth will utter voice forbidding me To touch the ground, and sea--to pierce the wave, The river-springs--to drink, and I shall play Ixion's part quite out, the chained and wheeled! And best of all will be, if so I 'scape Sight from one man of those Hellenes,--once I lived among, felicitous and rich! Why ought I then to live? What gain accrues From good-for-nothing, wicked life I lead? In fine, let Zeus' brave consort dance and sing, Stamp foot, the Olumpian Zeus' own sandal-trick! What she has willed, that brings her will to pass-- The foremost man of Hellas pedestalled, Up, over, and down whirling! Who would pray To such a goddess?--that, begrudging Zeus Because he loved a woman, ruins me-- Lover of Hellas, faultless of the wrong!

Thes. This strife is from no other of the gods Than Zeus' wife; rightly apprehend, as well, Why, to no death--thou meditatest now-- I would persuade thee, but to bear thy woes! None, none of mortals boasts a fate unmixed, Nor gods--if poets' teaching be not false. Have not they joined in wedlock against law With one another? not, for sake of rule, Branded their sires in bondage? Yet they house, All the same, in Olumpos, carry heads High there, notorious sinners though they be! What wilt thou say, then, if thou, mortal-born, Bearest outrageously fate gods endure? Leave Thebes, now, pay obedience to the law, And follow me to Pallas' citadel! There, when thy hands are purified from stain, House will I give thee, and goods shared alike. What gifts I hold too from the citizens For saving twice seven children, when I slew The Knosian bull, these also give I thee. And everywhere about the land are plots Apportioned me: these, named by thine own name, Shall be henceforward styled by all men--thine, Thy life-long; but at death, when Haides-bound, All Athens shall uphold the honored one With sacrifices, and huge marble heaps: For that's a fair crown our Hellenes grant Their people--glory, should they help the brave! And I repay thee back this grace for thine That saved me, now that thou art lorn of friends-- Since, when the gods give honor, friends may flit: For, a god's help suffices, if he please.

Her. Ah me, these words are foreign to my woes! I neither fancy gods love lawless beds, Nor, that with chains they bind each other's hands, Have I judged worthy faith, at any time; Nor shall I be persuaded--one is born His fellows' master! since God stands in need-- If he is really God--of naught at all. These are the poets' pitiful conceits! But this it was I pondered, though woe-whelmed-- "Take heed lest thou be taxed with cowardice Somehow in leaving thus the light of day!" For whoso cannot make a stand against These same misfortunes, neither could withstand A mere man's dart, oppose death, strength to strength. Therefore unto thy city I will go And have the grace of thy ten thousand gifts. There! I have tasted of ten thousand toils As truly--never waived a single one, Nor let these runnings drop from out my eyes! Nor ever thought it would have come to this-- That I from out my eyes do drop tears! Well! At present, as it seems, one bows to fate. So be it! Old man, thou seest my exile-- Seest, too, me--my children's murderer! These give thou to the tomb, and deck the dead, Doing them honor with thy tears--since me Law does not sanction! Propping on her breast, And giving them into their mother's arms, --Reinstitute the sad community Which I, unhappy, brought to nothingness-- Not by my will! And, when earth hides the dead, Live in this city!--sad, but, all the same, Force thy soul to bear woe along with me! O children, who begat and gave you birth-- Your father--has destroyed you! naught you gain By those fair deeds of mine I laid you up, As by main-force I labored glory out To give you,--that fine gift of fatherhood! And thee, too, O my poor one, I destroyed. Not rendering like for like, as when thou kept'st My marriage-bed inviolate,--those long Household-seclusions draining to the dregs Inside my house! O me, my wife, my boys-- And--O myself, how, miserably moved. Am I disyoked now from both boys and wife! Oh, bitter those delights of kisses now-- And bitter these my weapons' fellowship! For I am doubtful whether shall I keep Or cast away these arrows which will clang Ever such words out, as they knock my side-- "Us--thou didst murder wife and children with! Us--child--destroyers--still thou keepest thine!" Ha, shall I bear them in my arms, then? What Say for excuse? Yet, naked of my darts Wherewith I did my bravest, Hellas through, Throwing myself beneath foot to my foes, Shall I die basely? No! relinquishment Of these must never be,--companions once, We sorrowfully must observe the pact! In just one thing, co-operate with me Thy sad friend, Theseus! Go along with him To Argos, and in concert get arranged The price my due for bringing there the Hound! O land of Kadmos, Theban people all, Shear off your locks, lament one wide lament, Go to my children's grave and, in one strain, Lament the whole of us--my dead and me-- Since all together are foredone and lost, Smitten by Herd's single stroke of fate!

Thes. Rise up now from thy dead ones! Tears enough, Poor friend!

Her. I cannot: for my limbs are fixed.

Thes. Ay: even these strong men fate overthrows!

Her. Woe! Here might I grow a stone, nor mind woes more!

Thes. Cease! Give thy hand to friendly helpmate now!

Her. Nay, but I wipe off blood upon thy robes!

Thes. Squeeze out and spare no drop! I take it all!

Her. Of sons bereaved, I have thee like my son!

Thes. Give to my neck thy hand! 'tis I will lead.

Her. Yoke-fellows friendly--one heartbroken, though! O father! such a man we need for friend!

Amph. Certes, the land that bred him boasts good sons!

Her. Turn me round, Theseus--to behold my boys!

Thes. What? will the having such a love-charm soothe?

Her. I want it; and to press my father's breast.

Amph. See here, O son! for, what I love thou seek'st!

Thes. Strange! Of thy labors no more memory?

Her. All those were less than these, those ills I bore!

Thes. Who sees thee grow a woman,--will not praise!

Her. I live low to thee? Not so once, I think!

Thes. Too low by far! "Famed Herakles"--where 's he?

Her. Down amid evils, of what kind wast thou?

Thes. As far as courage--least of all mankind!

Her. How say'st, then, I in evils shrink to naught?

Thes. Forward!

Her. Farewell, old father!

Amph. Thou too, son!

Her. Bury the boys as I enjoined!

Amph. And me-- Who will be found to bury now, my child?

Her. Myself!

Amph. When, coming?

Her. When thy task is done.

Amph. How?

Her. I will have thee carried forth from Thebes To Athens. But bear in the children, earth Is burdened by! Myself,--who with these shames Have cast away my house,--a ruined hulk, I follow--trailed by Theseus--on my way; And whoso rather would have wealth and strength Than good friends, reasons foolishly therein!

Cho. And we depart, with sorrow at heart, Sobs that increase with tears that start; The greatest of all our friends of yore We have lost forevermore!

* * * * *

When the long silence ended,--"Our best friend-- Lost, our best friend!" he muttered musingly. Then, "Lachares the sculptor" (half aloud) "Sinned he or sinned he not? 'Outrageous sin!' Shuddered our elders, 'Pallas should be clothed: He carved her naked.' 'But more beautiful!' Answers this generation: 'Wisdom formed For love not fear!' And there the statue stands, Entraps the eye severer art repels. Moreover, Pallas wields the thunderbolt, Yet has not struck the artist all this while. Pheidias and Aischulos? Euripides And Lachares? But youth will have its way! The ripe man ought to be as old as young-- As young as old. I too have youth at need. Much may be said for stripping wisdom bare!

"And who 's 'our best friend'? You play kottabos; Here 's the last mode of playing. Take a sphere With orifices at due interval, Through topmost one of which, a throw adroit Sends wine from cup, clean passage, from outside To where, in hollow midst, a manikin Suspended ever bobs with head erect Right underneath whatever hole 's a-top When you set orb a-rolling: plumb, he gets Ever this benediction of the splash. An other-fashioned orb presents him fixed: Of all the outlets, he fronts only one, And only when that one--and rare the chance-- Comes uppermost, does he turn upward too: He can't turn all sides with the turning orb. Inside this sphere of life--all objects, sense And soul perceive--Euripides hangs fixed, Gets knowledge through the single aperture Of High and Right: with visage fronting these He waits the wine thence ere he operate, Work in the world and write a tragedy. When that hole happens to revolve to point, In drops the knowledge, waiting meets reward. But, duly in rotation, Low and Wrong-- When these enjoy the moment's altitude, His heels are found just where his head should be! No knowledge that way! I am movable,-- To slightest shift of orb make prompt response, Face Low and Wrong and Weak and all the rest, And still drink knowledge, wine-drenched every turn,-- Equally favored by their opposites. Little and Bad exist, are natural: Then let me know them, and be twice as great As he who only knows one phase of life! So doubly shall I prove 'best friend of man,' If I report the whole truth--Vice, perceived While he shut eyes to all but Virtue there. Man 's made of both: and both must be of use To somebody: if not to him, to me. While, as to your imaginary Third, Who,--stationed (by mechanics past my guess) So as to take in every side at once, And not successively,--may reconcile The High and Low in tragicomic verse,-- He shall be hailed superior to us both When born--in the Tin-islands! Meantime, here In bright Athenai, I contest the claim, Call myself Iostephanos' 'best friend,' Who took my own course, worked as I descried Ordainment, stuck to my first faculty!

"For, listen! There 's no failure breaks the heart, Whate'er be man's endeavor in this world, Like the rash poet's when he--nowise fails By poetizing badly,--Zeus or makes Or mars a man, so--at it, merrily! But when,--made man,--much like myself,--equipt For such and such achievement,--rash he turns Out of the straight path, bent on snatch of feat From--who 's the appointed fellow born thereto,-- Crows take him!--in your Kassiterides? Half-doing his work, leaving mine untouched, That were the failure! Here I stand, heart-whole, No Thamuris!

"Well thought of, Thamuris! Has zeal, pray, for 'best friend' Euripides Allowed you to observe the honor done His elder rival, in our Poikilé? You don't know? Once and only once, trod stage, Sang and touched lyre in person, in his youth, Our Sophokles,--youth, beauty, dedicate To Thamuris who named the tragedy. The voice of him was weak; face, limbs and lyre, These were worth saving: Thamuris stands yet Perfect as painting helps in such a case. At least you know the story, for 'best friend' Enriched his 'Rhesos' from the Blind Bard's store; So haste and see the work, and lay to heart What it was struck me when I eyed the piece! Here stands a poet punished for rash strife With Powers above his power, who see with sight Beyond his vision, sing accordingly A song, which he must needs dare emulate! Poet, remain the man nor ape the Muse!

"But--lend me the psalterion! Nay, for once-- Once let my hand fall where the other's lay! I see it, just as I were Sophokles, That sunrise and combustion of the east!"

And then he sang--are these unlike the words?

Thamuris marching,--lyre and song of Thrace-- (Perpend the first, the worst of woes that were, Allotted lyre and song, ye poet-race!)

Thamuris from Oichalia, feasted there By kingly Eurutos of late, now bound For Dorion at the uprise broad and bare

Of Mount Pangaios (ore with earth enwound Glittered beneath his footstep)--marching gay And glad, Thessalia through, came, robed and crowned,

From triumph on to triumph, 'mid a ray Of early morn,--came, saw and knew the spot Assigned him for his worst of woes, that day.

Balura--happier while its name was not-- Met him, but nowise menaced; slipt aside, Obsequious river, to pursue its lot

Of solacing the valley--say, some wide Thick busy human cluster, house and home, Embanked for peace, or thrift that thanks the tide.

Thamuris, marching, laughed "Each flake of foam" (As sparklingly the ripple raced him by) "Mocks slower clouds adrift in the blue dome!"

For Autumn was the season: red the sky Held morn's conclusive signet of the sun To break the mists up, bid them blaze and die.

Morn had the mastery as, one by one, All pomps produced themselves along the tract From earth's far ending to near heaven begun.

Was there a ravaged tree? it laughed compact With gold, a leaf-ball crisp, high-brandished now, Tempting to onset frost which late attacked.

Was there a wizened shrub, a starveling bough, A fleecy thistle filched from by the wind, A weed, Pan's trampling hoof would disallow?

Each, with a glory and a rapture twined About it, joined the rush of air and light And force: the world was of one joyous mind.

Say not the birds flew! they forebore their right-- Swam, revelling onward in the roll of things. Say not the beasts' mirth bounded! that was flight--

How could the creatures leap, no lift of wings? Such earth's community of purpose, such The ease of earth's fulfilled imaginings,--

So did the near and far appear to touch I' the moment's transport,--that an interchange Of function, far with near, seemed scarce too much;

And had the rooted plant aspired to range With the snake's license, while the insect yearned To glow fixed as the flower it were not strange--

No more than if the fluttery tree-top turned To actual music, sang itself aloft; Or if the wind, impassioned chantress, earned

The right to soar embodied in some soft Fine form all fit for cloud-companionship, And, blissful, once touch beauty chased so oft.

Thamuris, marching, let no fancy slip Born of the fiery transport; lyre and song Were his, to smite with hand and launch from lip--

Peerless recorded, since the list grew long Of poets (saith Homeros) free to stand Pedestalled 'mid the Muses' temple-throng,

A statued service, laurelled, lyre in hand, (Ay, for we see them)--Thamuris of Thrace Predominating foremost of the band.

Therefore the morn-ray that enriched his face, If it gave lambent chill, took flame again From flush of pride; he saw, he knew the place.

What wind arrived with all the rhythms from plain, Hill, dale, and that rough wildwood interspersed? Compounding these to one consummate strain,

It reached him, music; but his own outburst Of victory concluded the account, And that grew song which was mere music erst.

"Be my Parnassos, thou Pangaian mount! And turn thee, river, nameless hitherto! Famed shalt thou vie with famed Pieria's fount!

Here I await the end of this ado: Which wins--Earth's poet or the Heavenly Muse." ...

But song broke up in laughter. "Tell the rest, Who may! I have not spurned the common life, Nor vaunted mine a lyre to match the Muse Who sings for gods, not men! Accordingly, I shall not decorate her vestibule-- Mute marble, blind the eyes and quenched the brain, Loose in the hand a bright, a broken lyre! --Not Thamuris but Aristophanes!

"There! I have sung content back to myself, And started subject for a play beside. My next performance shall content you both. Did 'Prelude-Battle' maul 'best friend' too much? Then 'Main-Fight' be my next song, fairness' self! Its subject--Contest for the Tragic Crown. Ay, you shall hear none else but Aischulos Lay down the law of Tragedy, and prove 'Best friend' a stray-away,--no praise denied His manifold deservings, never fear-- Nor word more of the old fun! Death defends! Sound admonition has its due effect. Oh, you have uttered weighty words, believe! Such as shall bear abundant fruit, next year, In judgment, regular, legitimate. Let Bacchos' self preside in person! Ay-- For there 's a buzz about those 'Bacchanals' Rumor attributes to your great and dead For final effort: just the prodigy Great dead men leave, to lay survivors low! --Until we make acquaintance with our fate And find, fate's worst done, we, the same, survive Perchance to honor more the patron-god, Fitlier inaugurate a festal year. Now that the cloud has broken, sky laughs blue, Earth blossoms youthfully! Athenai breathes! After a twenty-six years' wintry blank Struck from her life,--war-madness, one long swoon, She wakes up: Arginousai bids good cheer! We have disposed of Kallikratidas; Once more will Sparté sue for terms,--who knows? Cede Dekeleia, as the rumor runs: Terms which Athenai, of right mind again, Accepts--she can no other! Peace declared, Have my long labors borne their fruit or no? Grinned coarse buffoonery so oft in vain? Enough--it simply saved you. Saved ones, praise Theoria's beauty and Opora's breadth! Nor, when Peace realizes promised bliss, Forget the Bald Bard, Envy! but go burst As the cup goes round, and the cates abound, Collops of hare, with roast spinks rare! Confess my pipings, dancings, posings served A purpose: guttlings, guzzlings, had their use! Say whether light Muse, Rosy-finger-tips, Or, 'best friend's' Heavy-hand, Melpomené, Touched lyre to purpose, played Amphion's part, And built Athenai to the skies once more! Farewell, brave couple! Next year, welcome me!"

* * * * *

No doubt, in what he said that night, sincere! One story he referred to, false or fact, Was not without adaptability. They do say--Laïs the Corinthian once Chancing to see Euripides (who paced Composing in a garden, tablet-book In left hand, with appended stulos prompt)-- "Answer me," she began, "O Poet,--this! What didst intend by writing in thy play, Go hang, thou filthy doer?" Struck on heap, Euripides, at the audacious speech-- "Well now," quoth he, "thyself art just the one I should imagine fit for deeds of filth!" She laughingly retorted his own line "What 's filth,--unless who does it, thinks it so?"

So might he doubtless think. "Farewell," said we.

And he was gone, lost in the morning-gray, Rose-streaked and gold to eastward. Did we dream? Could the poor twelve-hours hold this argument We render durable from fugitive, As duly at each sunset's droop of sail, Delay of oar, submission to sea-might, I still remember, you as duly dint Remembrance, with the punctual rapid style, Into--what calm cold page!

Thus soul escapes From eloquence made captive: thus mere words --Ah, would the lifeless body stay! But no: Change upon change till,--who may recognize What did soul service, in the dusty heap? What energy of Aristophanes Inflames the wreck Balaustion saves to show? Ashes be evidence how fire--with smoke-- All night went lamping on! But morn must rise. The poet--I shall say--burned up and, blank, Smouldered this ash, now white and cold enough.

Nay, Euthukles! for best, though mine it be, Comes yet! Write on, write ever, wrong no word!

Add, first,--he gone, if jollity went too, Some of the graver mood, which mixed and marred, Departed likewise. Sight of narrow scope Has this meek consolation: neither ills We dread, nor joys we dare anticipate, Perform to promise. Each soul sows a seed-- Euripides and Aristophanes; Seed bears crop, scarce within our little lives; But germinates--perhaps enough to judge-- Next year?

Whereas, next year brought harvest-time! For, next year came, and went not, but is now, Still now, while you and I are bound for Rhodes That 's all but reached!--and harvest has it brought, Dire as the homicidal dragon-crop! Sophokles had dismissal ere it dawned, Happy as ever; though men mournfully Plausive,--when only soul could triumph now, And Iophon produced his father's play,-- Crowned the consummate song where Oidipous Dared the descent 'mid earthquake-thundering, And hardly Theseus' hands availed to guard Eyes from the horror, as their grove disgorged Its dread ones, while each daughter sank to ground.

Then Aristophanes, on heel of that, Triumphant also, followed with his "Frogs:" Produced at next Lenaia,--three months since,-- The promised Main-Fight, loyal, license-free! As if the poet, primed with Thasian juice, (Himself swore--wine that conquers every kind For long abiding in the head) could fix Thenceforward any object in its truth, Through eyeballs bathed by mere Castalian dew, Nor miss the borrowed medium,--vinous drop That colors all to the right crimson pitch When mirth grows mockery, censure takes the tinge Of malice!

All was Aristophanes: There blazed the glory, there shot black the shame! Ay, Bacchos did stand forth, the Tragic God In person! and when duly dragged through mire,-- Having lied, filched, played fool, proved coward, flung The boys their dose of fit indecency, And finally got trounced to heart's content, At his own feast, in his own theatre (--Oh, never fear! 'T was consecrated sport, Exact tradition, warranted no whit Offensive to instructed taste,--indeed, Essential to Athenai's liberty, Could the poor stranger understand!) why, then-- He was pronounced the rarely-qualified To rate the work, adjust the claims to worth, Of Aischulos (of whom, in other mood, This same appreciative poet pleased To say, "He 's all one stiff and gluey piece Of back of swine's-neck!")--and of Chatterbox Who, "twisting words like wool," usurped his seat In Plouton's realm: "the arch-rogue, liar, scamp That lives by snatching-up of altar-orts," --Who failed to recognize Euripides?

Then came a contest for supremacy-- Crammed full of genius, wit and fun and freak. No spice of undue spite to spoil the dish Of all sorts,--for the Mystics matched the Frogs In poetry, no Seiren sang so sweet!-- Till, pressed into the service (how dispense With Phaps-Elaphion and free foot-display?) The Muse of dead Euripides danced frank, Rattled her bits of tile, made all too plain How baby-work like "Herakles" had birth! Last, Bacchos--candidly disclaiming brains Able to follow finer argument-- Confessed himself much moved by three main facts: First,--if you stick a "Lost his flask of oil" At pause of period, you perplex the sense,-- Were it the Elegy for Marathon! Next, if you weigh two verses, "car"--the word, Will outweigh "club"--the word, in each packed line! And--last, worst fact of all! in rivalry The younger poet dared to improvise Laudation less distinct of--Triphales? (Nay, that served when ourself abused the youth!) Pheidippides--(nor that's appropriate now!) Then,--Alkibiades, our city's hope, Since times change and we Comics should change too! These three main facts, well weighed, drew judgment down, Conclusively assigned the wretch his fate-- "Fate due," admonished the sage Mystic choir, "To sitting, prate-apace, with Sokrates, Neglecting music and each tragic aid!" --All wound-up by a wish "We soon may cease From certain griefs, and warfare, worst of them!" --Since, deaf to Comedy's persistent voice, War still raged, still was like to rage. In vain Had Sparté cried once more, "But grant us Peace, We give you Dekeleia back!" Too shrewd Was Kleophon to let escape, forsooth, The enemy--at final gasp, besides!

So, Aristophanes obtained the prize, And so Athenai felt she had a friend Far better than her "best friend," lost last year; And so, such fame had "Frogs" that, when came round This present year, those Frogs croaked gay again At the great Feast, Elaphebolion-month. Only--there happened Aigispotamoi!

And, in the midst of the frog-merriment, Plump o' the sudden, pounces stern King Stork On the light-hearted people of the marsh! Spartan Lusandros swooped precipitate, Ended Athenai, rowed her sacred bay With oars which brought a hundred triremes back Captive!

And first word of the conqueror Was "Down with those Long Walls, Peiraios' pride! Destroy, yourselves, your bulwarks! Peace needs none!" And "We obey" they shuddered in their dream.

But, at next quick imposure of decree-- "No longer democratic government! Henceforth such oligarchy as ourselves Please to appoint you!"--then the horror-stung Dreamers awake; they started up a-stare At the half-helot captain and his crew --Spartans, "men used to let their hair grow long, To fast, be dirty, and just--Sokratize"-- Whose word was "Trample on Themistokles!"

So, as the way is with much misery, The heads swam, hands refused their office, hearts Sunk as they stood in stupor. "Wreck the Walls? Ruin Peiraios?--with our Pallas armed For interference?--Herakles apprised, And Theseus hasting? Lay the Long Walls low?"

Three days they stood, stared,--stonier than their walls.

Whereupon, sleep who might, Lusandros woke: Saw the prostration of his enemy, Utter and absolute beyond belief, Past hope of hatred even. I surmise He also probably saw fade in fume Certain fears, bred of Bakis-prophecy, Nor apprehended any more that gods And heroes,--fire, must glow forth, guard the ground Where prone, by sober day-dawn, corpse-like lay Powerless Athenai, late predominant Lady of Hellas,--Sparté's slave-prize now! Where should a menace lurk in those slack limbs? What was to move his circumspection? Why Demolish just Peiraios?

"Stay!" bade he: "Already promise-breakers? True to type, Athenians! past, and present, and to come,-- The fickle and the false! No stone dislodged, No implement applied, yet three days' grace Expire! Forbearance is no longer-lived. By breaking promise, terms of peace you break-- Too gently framed for falsehood, fickleness! All must be reconsidered--yours the fault!"

Wherewith, he called a council of allies. Pent-up resentment used its privilege,-- Outburst at ending: this the summed result.

"Because we would avenge no transient wrong But an eternity of insolence, Aggression,--folly, no disasters mend, Pride, no reverses teach humility,-- Because too plainly were all punishment, Such as comports with less obdurate crime, Evadable by falsehood, fickleness-- Experience proves the true Athenian type,-- Therefore, 't is need we dig deep down into The root of evil; lop nor bole nor branch. Look up, look round and see, on every side, What nurtured the rank tree to noisome fruit! We who live hutted (so they laugh) not housed, Build barns for temples, prize mud-monuments, Nor show the sneering stranger aught but--men,-- Spartans take insult of Athenians just Because they boast Akropolis to mount, And Propulaia to make entry by, Through a mad maze of marble arrogance Such as you see--such as let none see more! Abolish the detested luxury! Leave not one stone upon another, raze Athenai to the rock! Let hill and plain Become a waste, a grassy pasture-ground Where sheep may wander, grazing goats depend From shapeless crags once columns! so at last Shall peace inhabit there, and peace enough."

Whereon, a shout approved "Such peace bestow!"

Then did a Man of Phokis rise--O heart! Rise--when no bolt of Zeus disparted sky, No omen-bird from Pallas scared the crew, Rise--when mere human argument could stem No foam-fringe of the passion surging fierce, Baffle no wrath-wave that o'er barrier broke-- Who was the Man of Phokis rose and flung A flower i' the way of that fierce foot's advance, Which--stop for?--nay, had stamped down sword's assault! Could it be He stayed Sparté with the snatch-- "Daughter of Agamemnon, late my liege, Elektra, palaced, once a visitant To thy poor rustic dwelling, now I come?"

Ay, facing fury of revenge, and lust Of hate, and malice moaning to appease Hunger on prey presumptuous, prostrate now-- Full in the hideous faces--last resource, You flung that choric flower, my Euthukles!

And see, as through some pinhole, should the wind Wedgingly pierce but once, in with a rush Hurries the whole wild weather, rends to rags The weak sail stretched against the outside storm-- So did the power of that triumphant play Pour in, and oversweep the assembled foe! Triumphant play, wherein our poet first Dared bring the grandeur of the Tragic Two Down to the level of our common life, Close to the beating of our common heart. Elektra? 'T was Athenai, Sparté's ice Thawed to, while that sad portraiture appealed-- Agamemnonian lady, lost by fault Of her own kindred, cast from house and home, Despoiled of all the brave inheritance, Dowered humbly as befits a herdsman's mate, Partaker of his cottage, clothed in rags, Patient performer of the poorest chares, Yet mindful, all the while, of glory past When she walked darling of Mukenai, dear Beyond Orestes to the King of Men!

So, because Greeks are Greeks, though Sparté's brood, And hearts are hearts, though in Lusandros' breast, And poetry is power, and Euthukles Had faith therein to, full-face, fling the same-- Sudden, the ice-thaw! The assembled foe, Heaving and swaying with strange friendliness, Cried, "Reverence Elektra!"--cried, "Abstain Like that chaste Herdsman, nor dare violate The sanctity of such reverse! Let stand Athenai!"

Mindful of that story's close, Perchance, and how,--when he, the Herdsman chaste, Needs apprehend no break of tranquil sleep,-- All in due time, a stranger, dark, disguised, Knocks at the door: with searching glance, notes keen, Knows quick, through mean attire and disrespect, The ravaged princess! Ay, right on, the clutch Of guiding retribution has in charge The author of the outrage! While one hand, Elektra's, pulls the door behind, made fast On fate,--the other strains, prepared to push The victim-queen, should she make frightened pause Before that serpentining blood which steals Out of the darkness where, a pace beyond, Above the slain Aigisthos, bides his blow Dreadful Orestes!

Klutaimnestra, wise This time, forebore; Elektra held her own; Saved was Athenai through Euripides, Through Euthukles, through--more than ever--me, Balaustion, me, who, Wild-pomegranate-flower, Felt my fruit triumph, and fade proudly so!

But next day, as ungracious minds are wont, The Spartan, late surprised into a grace, Grew sudden sober at the enormity, And grudged, by daybreak, midnight's easy gift; Splenetically must repay its cost By due increase of rigor, doglike snatch At aught still left dog to concede like man. Rough sea, at flow of tide, may lip, perchance, Smoothly the land-line reached as for repose-- Lie indolent in all unquestioned sway; But ebbing, when needs must, all thwart and loth, Sea claws at sand relinquished strugglingly. So, harsh Lusandros--pinioned to inflict The lesser penalty alone--spoke harsh, As minded to embitter scathe by scorn.

"Athenai's self be saved then, thank the Lyre! If Tragedy withdraws her presence--quick, If Comedy replace her,--what more just? Let Comedy do service, frisk away, Dance off stage these indomitable stones, Long Walls, Peiraian bulwarks! Hew and heave, Pick at, pound into dust each dear defence! Not to the Kommos--eleleleleu With breast bethumped, as Tragic lyre prefers, But Comedy shall sound the flute, and crow At kordax-end--the hearty slapping-dance! Collect those flute-girls--trash who flattered ear With whistlings, and fed eye with caper-cuts, While we Lakonians supped black broth or crunched Sea-urchin, conchs and all, unpricked--coarse brutes! Command they lead off step, time steady stroke To spade and pickaxe, till demolished lie Athenai's pride in powder!"

Done that day-- That sixteenth famed day of Munuchion-month! The day when Hellas fought at Salamis, The very day Euripides was born, Those flute-girls--Phaps-Elaphion at their head-- Did blow their best, did dance their worst, the while Sparté pulled down the walls, wrecked wide the works, Laid low each merest molehill of defence, And so the Power, Athenai, passed away!

We would not see its passing! Ere I knew The issue of their counsels,--crouching low And shrouded by my peplos,--I conceived, Despite the shut eyes, the stopped ears,--by count Only of heart-beats, telling the slow time,-- Athenai's doom was signed and signified In that assembly,--ay, but knew there watched One who would dare and do, nor bate at all The stranger's licensed duty,--speak the word Allowed the Man from Phokis! Naught remained But urge departure, flee the sights and sounds, Hideous exultings, wailings worth contempt, And pressed to other earth, new heaven, by sea That somehow ever prompts to 'scape despair.

Help rose to heart's wish; at the harbor-side, The old gray mariner did reverence To who had saved his ship, still weather-tight As when with prow gay-garlanded she praised The hospitable port and pushed to sea. "Convoy Balaustion back to Rhodes, for sake Of her and her Euripides!" laughed he.

Rhodes,--shall it not be there, my Euthukles, Till this brief trouble of a lifetime end, That solitude--two make so populous!-- For food finds memories of the past suffice, Maybe, anticipations,--hope so swells,-- Of some great future we, familiar once With who so taught, should hail and entertain? He lies now in the little valley, laughed And moaned about by those mysterious streams, Boiling and freezing, like the love and hate Which helped or harmed him through his earthly course. They mix in Arethousa by his grave. The warm spring, traveller, dip thine arms into, Brighten thy brow with! Life detests black cold!

I sent the tablets, the psalterion, so Rewarded Sicily; the tyrant there Bestowed them worthily in Phoibos' shrine. A gold-graved writing tells--"I also loved The poet, Free Athenai cheaply prized-- King Dionusios,--Archelaos-like!"

And see if young Philemon,--sure one day To do good service and be loved himself,-- If he too have not made a votive verse! "Grant, in good sooth, our great dead, all the same, Retain their sense, as certain wise men say, I 'd hang myself--to see Euripides!" Hands off, Philemon! nowise hang thyself, But pen the prime plays, labor the right life, And die at good old age as grand men use,-- Keeping thee, with that great thought, warm the while,-- That he does live, Philemon! Ay, most sure! "He lives!" hark,--waves say, winds sing out the same, And yonder dares the citied ridge of Rhodes Its headlong plunge from sky to sea, disparts North bay from south,--each guarded calm, that guest May enter gladly, blow what wind there will,-- Boiled round with breakers, to no other cry! All in one choros,--what the master-word They take up?--hark! "There are no gods, no gods! Glory to God--who saves Euripides!"

PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU

SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY

Ὕδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ' ἄλλον πόνων διῆλφον ἀγέλας ... τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τονδ' ἔτλην τάλας πόνον, ... ~δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς~.

I slew the Hydra, and from labor pass'd To labor--tribes of labors! Till, at last, Attempting one more labor, in a trice, Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

This poem, written in Scotland in 1871, shortly after the downfall of Napoleon III., was published in December of the same year. The suggestion of the emperor is transparent, and Browning writing in January, 1872, to Miss Isa Blagden, says of it: "I am glad you have got my little book, and seen for yourself whether I make the best or the worst of the case. I think, in the main, he meant to do what I say, and, but for weakness--grown more apparent in his last years than formerly--would have done what I say he did not. I thought badly of him at the beginning of his career, et pour cause: better afterward, on the strength of the promises he made, and gave indications of intending to redeem. I think him very weak in the last miserable year. At his worst I prefer him to Thiers's best. I am told my little thing is succeeding--sold 1400 in the first five days, and before any notice appeared." And again, to the same correspondent: "I am glad you like what the editor of the Edinburgh calls my eulogium on the second empire--which it is not, any more than what another wiseacre affirms it to be, 'a scandalous attack on the old constant friend of England'--it is just what I imagine the man might, if he pleased, say for himself." Mrs. Browning's well-known enthusiasm for Napoleon III. as instanced in her poems unquestionably gave distinctness to Browning's own reflections. The motto is from the Hercules Furens of Euripides, vv. 1276-1280, and the translation is presumably by Browning. There is a palace Hohen-Schwangau, built by the Bavarian mad king Ludwig.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I-- And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well, Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same, And wished and had their trouble for their pains. Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline, And, latish, pounce on Sphinx in Leicester Square? Or likelier, what if Sphinx in wise old age, Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads, And jealous for her riddle's proper rede,-- Jealous that the good trick which served the turn Have justice rendered it, nor class one day With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,-- What if the once redoubted Sphinx, I say, (Because night draws on, and the sands increase, And desert-whispers grow a prophecy,) Tell all to Corinth of her own accord, Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Laïs' sake, Who finds me hardly gray, and likes my nose, And thinks a man of sixty at the prime? Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself! But listen, for we must co-operate; I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!

First, how to make the matter plain, of course-- What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see: Ay, we must take one instant of my life Spent sitting by your side in this neat room: Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh! Here 's paper on the table, pen and ink: Give me the soiled bit--not the pretty rose! See! having sat an hour, I 'm rested now, Therefore want work: and spy no better work For eye and hand and mind that guides them both, During this instant, than to draw my pen From blot One--thus--up, up to blot Two--thus-- Which I at last reach, thus, and here 's my line Five inches long and tolerably straight: Better to draw than leave undrawn, I think, Fitter to do than let alone, I hold, Though better, fitter, by but one degree. Therefore it was that, rather than sit still Simply, my right-hand drew it while my left Pulled smooth and pinched the moustache to a point.

Now I permit your plump lips to unpurse: "So far, one possibly may understand Without recourse to witchcraft!" True, my dear. Thus folks begin with Euclid,--finish, how? Trying to square the circle!--at any rate, Solving abstruser problems than this first, "How find the nearest way 'twixt point and point." Deal but with moral mathematics so-- Master one merest moment's work of mine, Even this practising with pen and ink,-- Demonstrate why I rather plied the quill Than left the space a blank,--you gain a fact, And God knows what a fact 's worth! So proceed By inference from just this moral fact --I don't say, to that plaguy quadrature, "What the whole man meant, whom you wish you knew," But, what meant certain things he did of old, Which puzzled Europe,--why, you 'll find them plain, This way, not otherwise: I guarantee, Understand one, you comprehend the rest. Rays from all round converge to any point: Study the point then ere you track the rays! The size o' the circle 's nothing; subdivide Earth, and earth's smallest grain of mustard-seed, You count as many parts, small matching large If you can use the mind's eye: otherwise, Material optics, being gross at best, Prefer the large and leave our mind the small-- And pray how many folk have minds can see? Certainly you--and somebody in Thrace Whose name escapes me at the moment. You-- Lend me your mind then! Analyze with me This instance of the line 'twixt blot and blot I rather chose to draw than leave a blank, Things else being equal. You are taught thereby That 't is my nature, when I am at ease, Rather than idle out my life too long, To want to do a thing--to put a thought, Whether a great thought or a little one, Into an act, as nearly as may be. Make what is absolutely new--I can't, Mar what is made already well enough-- I won't: but turn to best account the thing That 's half-made--that I can. Two blots, you saw I knew how to extend into a line Symmetric on the sheet they blurred before-- Such little act sufficed, this time, such thought.

Now, we 'll extend rays, widen out the verge, Describe a larger circle; leave this first Clod of an instance we began with, rise To the complete world many clods effect. Only continue patient while I throw, Delver-like, spadeful after spadeful up, Just as truths come, the subsoil of me, mould Whence spring my moods: your object,--just to find, Alike from handlift and from barrow-load, What salts and silts may constitute the earth-- If it be proper stuff to blow man glass, Or bake him pottery, bear him oaks or wheat-- What 's born of me, in brief; which found, all 's known. If it were genius did the digging-job, Logic would speedily sift its product smooth And leave the crude truths bare for poetry; But I 'm no poet, and am stiff i' the back. What one spread fails to bring, another may. In goes the shovel and out comes scoop--as here!

I live to please myself. I recognize Power passing mine, immeasurable, God-- Above me, whom he made, as heaven beyond Earth--to use figures which assist our sense. I know that he is there as I am here, By the same proof, which seems no proof at all, It so exceeds familiar forms of proof. Why "there," not "here"? Because, when I say "there" I treat the feeling with distincter shape That space exists between us: I,--not he,-- Live, think, do human work here--no machine, His will moves, but a being by myself, His, and not he who made me for a work, Watches my working, judges its effect, But does not interpose. He did so once, And probably will again some time--not now, Life being the minute of mankind, not God's, In a certain sense, like time before and time After man's earthly life, so far as man Needs apprehend the matter. Am I clear? Suppose I bid a courier take to-night-- (... Once for all, let me talk as if I smoked Yet in the Residenz, a personage: I must still represent the thing I was, Galvanically make dead muscle play, Or how shall I illustrate muscle's use?) I could then, last July, bid courier take Message for me, post-haste, a thousand miles. I bid him, since I have the right to bid, And, my part done so far, his part begins; He starts with due equipment, will and power, Means he may use, misuse, not use at all, At his discretion, at his peril too. I leave him to himself: but, journey done, I count the minutes, call for the result In quickness and the courier quality, Weigh its worth, and then punish or reward According to proved service; not before. Meantime, he sleeps through noontide, rides till dawn, Sticks to the straight road, tries the crooked path, Measures and manages resource, trusts, doubts Advisers by the wayside, does his best At his discretion, lags or launches forth, (He knows and I know) at his peril too. You see? Exactly thus men stand to God: I with my courier, God with me. Just so I have his bidding to perform; but mind And body, all of me, though made and meant For that sole service, must consult, concert With my own self and nobody beside, How to effect the same: God helps not else. 'T is I who, with my stock of craft and strength, Choose the directer cut across the hedge, Or keep the foot-track that respects a crop. Lie down and rest, rise up and ran,--live spare, Feed free,--all that 's my business: but, arrive, Deliver message, bring the answer back, And make my bow, I must: then God will speak, Praise me or haply blame as service proves. To other men, to each and every one, Another law! what likelier? God, perchance, Grants each new man, by some as new a mode, Intercommunication with himself, Wreaking on finiteness infinitude; By such a series of effects, gives each Last his own imprint: old yet ever new The process: 't is the way of Deity. How it succeeds, he knows: I only know That varied modes of creatureship abound, Implying just as varied intercourse For each with the creator of them all. Each has his own mind and no other's mode. What mode may yours be? I shall sympathize! No doubt, you, good young lady that you are, Despite a natural naughtiness or two, Turn eyes up like a Pradier Magdalen And see an outspread providential hand Above the owl's-wing aigrette--guard and guide-- Visibly o'er your path, about your bed, Through all your practisings with London-town. It points, you go; it stays fixed, and you stop; You quicken its procedure by a word Spoken, a thought in silence, prayer and praise. Well, I believe that such a hand may stoop, And such appeals to it may stave off harm, Pacify the grim guardian of this Square, And stand you in good stead on quarter-day: Quite possible in your case; not in mine. "Ah, but I choose to make the difference, Find the emancipation?" No, I hope! If I deceive myself, take noon for night, Please to become determinedly blind To the true ordinance of human life, Through mere presumption--that is my affair, And truly a grave one; but as grave I think Your affair, yours, the specially observed,-- Each favored person that perceives his path Pointed him, inch by inch, and looks above For guidance, through the mazes of this world, In what we call its meanest life-career --Not how to manage Europe properly, But how keep open shop, and yet pay rent, Rear household, and make both ends meet, the same. I say, such man is no less tasked than I To duly take the path appointed him By whatsoever sign he recognize. Our insincerity on both our heads! No matter what the object of a life, Small work or large,--the making thrive a shop, Or seeing that an empire take no harm,-- There are known fruits to judge obedience by. You 've read a ton's weight, now, of newspaper-- Lives of me, gabble about the kind of prince-- You know my work i' the rough; I ask you, then, Do I appear subordinated less To hand-impulsion, one prime push for all, Than little lives of men, the multitude That cried out, every quarter of an hour, For fresh instructions, did or did not work, And praised in the odd minutes?

Eh, my dear? Such is the reason why I acquiesced In doing what seemed best for me to do, So as to please myself on the great scale, Having regard to immortality No less than life--did that which head and heart Prescribed my hand, in measure with its means Of doing--used my special stock of power-- Not from the aforesaid head and heart alone, But every sort of helpful circumstance, Some problematic and some nondescript: All regulated by the single care I' the last resort--that I made thoroughly serve The when and how, toiled where was need, reposed As resolutely at the proper point, Braved sorrow, courted joy, to just one end: Namely, that just the creature I was bound To be, I should become, nor thwart at all God's purpose in creation. I conceive No other duty possible to man,-- Highest mind, lowest mind,--no other law By which to judge life failure or success: What folk call being saved or cast away.

Such was my rule of life; I worked my best, Subject to ultimate judgment, God's not man's. Well then, this settled,--take your tea, I beg, And meditate the fact, 'twixt sip and sip,-- This settled--why I pleased myself, you saw, By turning blot and blot into a line, O' the little scale,--we 'll try now (as your tongue Tries the concluding sugar-drop) what 's meant To please me most o' the great scale. Why, just now, With nothing else to do within my reach, Did I prefer making two blots one line To making yet another separate Third blot, and leaving those I found unlinked? It meant, I like to use the thing I find, Rather than strive at unfound novelty: I make the best of the old, nor try for new. Such will to act, such choice of action's way, Constitute--when at work on the great scale, Driven to their farthest natural consequence By all the help from all the means--my own Particular faculty of serving God, Instinct for putting power to exercise Upon some wish and want o' the time, I prove Possible to mankind as best I may. This constitutes my mission,--grant the phrase,-- Namely, to rule men--men within my reach, To order, influence and dispose them so As render solid and stabilify Mankind in particles, the light and loose, For their good and my pleasure in the act. Such good accomplished proves twice good to me-- Good for its own sake, as the just and right, And, in the effecting also, good again To me its agent, tasked as suits my taste.

Is this much easy to be understood At first glance? Now begin the steady gaze!

My rank--(if I must tell you simple truth-- Telling were else not worth the whiff o' the weed I lose for the tale's sake)--dear, my rank i' the world Is hard to know and name precisely: err I may, but scarcely overestimate My style and title. Do I class with men Most useful to their fellows? Possibly,-- Therefore, in some sort, best; but, greatest mind And rarest nature? Evidently no. A conservator, call me, if you please, Not a creator nor destroyer: one Who keeps the world safe. I profess to trace The broken circle of society, Dim actual order, I can redescribe Not only where some segment silver-true Stays clear, but where the breaks of black commence Baffling you all who want the eye to probe-- As I make out yon problematic thin White paring of your thumb-nail outside there, Above the plaster-monarch on his steed-- See an inch, name an ell, and prophesy O' the rest that ought to follow, the round moon Now hiding in the night of things: that round, I labor to demonstrate moon enough For the month's purpose,--that society, Render efficient for the age's need: Preserving you in either case the old, Nor aiming at a new and greater thing, A sun for moon, a future to be made By first abolishing the present law: No such proud task for me by any means! History shows you men whose master-touch Not so much modifies as makes anew: Minds that transmute nor need restore at all. A breath of God made manifest in flesh Subjects the world to change, from time to time, Alters the whole conditions of our race Abruptly, not by unperceived degrees Nor play of elements already there, But quite new leaven, leavening the lump, And liker, so, the natural process. See! Where winter reigned for ages--by a turn I' the time, some star-change, (ask geologists,) The ice-tracts split, clash, splinter and disperse, And there 's an end of immobility, Silence, and all that tinted pageant, base To pinnacle, one flush from fairy-land Dead-asleep and deserted somewhere,--see!-- As a fresh sun, wave, spring and joy outburst. Or else the earth it is, time starts from trance, Her mountains tremble into fire, her plains Heave blinded by confusion: what result? New teeming growth, surprises of strange life Impossible before, a world, broke up And re-made, order gained by law destroyed. Not otherwise, in our society Follow like portents, all as absolute Regenerations: they have birth at rare Uncertain unexpected intervals O' the world, by ministry impossible Before and after fulness of the days: Some dervish desert-spectre, swordsman, saint, Lawgiver, lyrist,--oh, we know the names! Quite other these than I. Our time requires No such strange potentate,--who else would dawn,-- No fresh force till the old have spent itself. Such seems the natural economy. To shoot a beam into the dark, assists: To make that beam do fuller service, spread And utilize such bounty to the height, That assists also,--and that work is mine. I recognize, contemplate, and approve The general compact of society, Not simply as I see effected good, But good i' the germ, each chance that 's possible I' the plan traced so far: all results, in short, For better or worse of the operation due To those exceptional natures, unlike mine, Who, helping, thwarting, conscious, unaware, Did somehow manage to so far describe This diagram left ready to my hand, Waiting my turn of trial. I see success, See failure, see what makes or mars throughout. How shall I else but help complete this plan Of which I know the purpose and approve, By letting stay therein what seems to stand, And adding good thereto of easier reach To-day than yesterday?

So much, no more! Whereon, "No more than that?"--inquire aggrieved Half of my critics: "nothing new at all? The old plan saved, instead of a sponged slate And fresh-drawn figure?"--while, "So much as that?" Object their fellows of the other faith: "Leave uneffaced the crazy labyrinth Of alteration and amendment, lines Which every dabster felt in duty bound To signalize his power of pen and ink By adding to a plan once plain enough? Why keep each fool's bequeathment, scratch and blur Which overscrawl and underscore the piece-- Nay, strengthen them by touches of your own?"

Well, that 's my mission, so I serve the world, Figure as man o' the moment,--in default Of somebody inspired to strike such change Into society--from round to square, The ellipsis to the rhomboid, how you please, As suits the size and shape o' the world he finds. But this I can,--and nobody my peer,-- Do the best with the least change possible: Carry the incompleteness on, a stage, Make what was crooked straight, and roughness smooth, And weakness strong: wherein if I succeed, It will not prove the worst achievement, sure, In the eyes at least of one man, one I look Nowise to catch in critic company: To wit, the man inspired, the genius' self Destined to come and change things thoroughly. He, at least, finds his business simplified, Distinguishes the done from undone, reads Plainly what meant and did not mean this time We live in, and I work on, and transmit To such successor: he will operate On good hard substance, not mere shade and shine. Let all my critics, born to idleness And impotency, get their good, and have Their hooting at the giver: I am deaf-- Who find great good in this society, Great gain, the purchase of great labor. Touch The work I may and must, but--reverent In every fall o' the finger-tip, no doubt. Perhaps I find all good there 's warrant for I' the world as yet: nay, to the end of time,-- Since evil never means part company With mankind, only shift side and change shape. I find advance i' the main, and notably The Present an improvement on the Past, And promise for the Future--which shall prove Only the Present with its rough made smooth, Its indistinctness emphasized; I hope No better, nothing newer for mankind, But something equably smoothed everywhere, Good, reconciled with hardly-quite-as-good, Instead of good and bad each jostling each. "And that 's all?" Ay, and quite enough for me! We have toiled so long to gain what gain I find I' the Present,--let us keep it! We shall toil So long before we gain--if gain God grant-- A Future with one touch of difference I' the heart of things, and not their outside face,-- Let us not risk the whiff of my cigar For Fourier, Comte, and all that ends in smoke!

This I see clearest probably of men With power to act and influence, now alive: Juster than they to the true state of things; In consequence, more tolerant that, side By side, shall co-exist and thrive alike In the age, the various sorts of happiness Moral, mark!--not material--moods o' the mind Suited to man and man his opposite: Say, minor modes of movement--hence to there, Or thence to here, or simply round about-- So long as each toe spares its neighbor's kibe, Nor spoils the major march and main advance. The love of peace, care for the family, Contentment with what 's bad but might be worse-- Good movements these! and good, too, discontent, So long as that spurs good, which might be best, Into becoming better, anyhow: Good--pride of country, putting hearth and home I' the background, out of undue prominence: Good--yearning after change, strife, victory, And triumph. Each shall have its orbit marked, But no more,--none impede the other's path In this wide world,--though each and all alike, Save for me, fain would spread itself through space And leave its fellow not an inch of way. I rule and regulate the course, excite, Restrain: because the whole machine should march Impelled by those diversely-moving parts, Each blind to aught beside its little bent. Out of the turnings round and round inside, Comes that straightforward world-advance, I want, And none of them supposes God wants too And gets through just their hindrance and my help. I think that to have held the balance straight For twenty years, say, weighing claim and claim And giving each its due, no less no more, This was good service to humanity, Right usage of my power in head and heart, And reasonable piety beside. Keep those three points in mind while judging me! You stand, perhaps, for some one man, not men,-- Represent this or the other interest, Nor mind the general welfare,--so, impugn My practice and dispute my value: why? You man of faith, I did not tread the world Into a paste, and thereof make a smooth Uniform mound whereon to plant your flag, The lily-white, above the blood and brains! Nor yet did I, you man of faithlessness, So roll things to the level which you love, That you could stand at ease there and survey The universal Nothing undisgraced By pert obtrusion of some old church-spire I' the distance! Neither friend would I content, Nor, as the world were simply meant for him, Thrust out his fellow and mend God's mistake. Why, you two fools,--my dear friends all the same,-- Is it some change o' the world and nothing else Contents you? Should whatever was, not be? How thanklessly you view things! There 's the root Of the evil, source of the entire mistake: You see no worth i' the world, nature and life, Unless we change what is to what may be, Which means,--may be, i' the brain of one of you! "Reject what is?"--all capabilities-- Nay, you may style them chances if you choose-- All chances, then, of happiness that lie Open to anybody that is born, Tumbles into this life and out again,-- All that may happen, good and evil too, I' the space between, to each adventurer Upon this 'sixty, Anno Domini: A life to live--and such a life! a world To learn, one's lifetime in,--and such a world! How did the foolish ever pass for wise By calling life a burden, man a fly Or worm or what 's most insignificant? "O littleness of man!" deplores the bard; And then, for fear the Powers should punish him, "O grandeur of the visible universe Our human littleness contrasts withal! O sun, O moon, ye mountains and thou sea, Thou emblem of immensity, thou this, That and the other,--what impertinence In man to eat and drink and walk about And have his little notions of his own, The while some wave sheds foam upon the shore!" First of all, 't is a lie some three-times thick: The bard,--this sort of speech being poetry,-- The bard puts mankind well outside himself And then begins instructing them: "This way I and my friend the sea conceive of you! What would you give to think such thoughts as ours Of you and the sea together?" Down they go On the humbled knees of them: at once they draw Distinction, recognize no mate of theirs In one, despite his mock humility, So plain a match for what he plays with. Next, The turn of the great ocean-playfellow, When the bard, leaving Bond Street very far From ear-shot, cares not to ventriloquize, But tells the sea its home-truths: "You, my match? You, all this terror and immensity And what not? Shall I tell you what you are? Just fit to hitch into a stanza, so Wake up and set in motion who 's asleep O' the other side of you in England, else Unaware, as folk pace their Bond Street now, Somebody here despises them so much! Between us,--they are the ultimate! to them And their perception go these lordly thoughts: Since what were ocean--mane and tail, to boot-- Mused I not here, how make thoughts thinkable? Start forth my stanza and astound the world! Back, billows, to your insignificance! Deep, you are done with!"

Learn, my gifted friend, There are two things i' the world, still wiser folk Accept--intelligence and sympathy. You pant about unutterable power I' the ocean, all you feel but cannot speak? Why, that 's the plainest speech about it all. You did not feel what was not to be felt. Well, then, all else but what man feels is naught-- The wash o' the liquor that o'erbrims the cup Called man, and runs to waste adown his side, Perhaps to feed a cataract,--who cares? I 'll tell you: all the more I know mankind, The more I thank God, like my grandmother, For making me a little lower than The angels, honor-clothed and glory-crowned: This is the honor,--that no thing I know, Feel or conceive, but I can make my own Somehow, by use of hand or head or heart: This is the glory,--that in all conceived, Or felt or known, I recognize a mind Not mine but like mine,--for the double joy,-- Making all things for me and me for Him. There 's folly for you at this time of day! So think it! and enjoy your ignorance Of what--no matter for the worthy's name-- Wisdom set working in a noble heart, When he, who was earth's best geometer Up to that time of day, consigned his life With its results into one matchless book, The triumph of the human mind so far, All in geometry man yet could do: And then wrote on the dedication-page In place of name the universe applauds, "But, God, what a geometer art Thou!" I suppose Heaven is, through Eternity, The equalizing, ever and anon, In momentary rapture, great with small, Omniscience with intelligency, God With man,--the thunder-glow from pole to pole Abolishing, a blissful moment-space, Great cloud alike and small cloud, in one fire-- As sure to ebb as sure again to flow When the new receptivity deserves The new completion. There 's the Heaven for me. And I say, therefore, to live out one's life I' the world here, with the chance,--whether by pain Or pleasure be the process, long or short The time, august or mean the circumstance To human eye,--of learning how set foot Decidedly on some one path to Heaven, Touch segment in the circle whence all lines Lead to the centre equally, red lines Or black lines, so they but produce themselves-- This, I do say,--and here my sermon ends,-- This makes it worth our while to tenderly Handle a state of things which mend we might, Mar we may, but which meanwhile helps so far. Therefore my end is--save society!

"And that 's all?" twangs the never-failing taunt O' the foe--"No novelty, creativeness, Mark of the master that renews the age?" "Nay, all that?" rather will demur my judge I look to hear some day, nor friend nor foe-- "Did you attain, then, to perceive that God Knew what he undertook when he made things?" Ay: that my task was to co-operate Rather than play the rival, chop and change The order whence comes all the good we know, With this,--good's last expression to our sense,-- That there 's a further good conceivable Beyond the utmost earth can realize: And, therefore, that to change the agency, The evil whereby good is brought about-- Try to make good do good as evil does-- Were just as if a chemist, wanting white, And knowing black ingredients bred the dye, Insisted these too should be white forsooth! Correct the evil, mitigate your best, Blend mild with harsh, and soften black to gray If gray may follow with no detriment To the eventual perfect purity! But as for hazarding the main result By hoping to anticipate one half In the intermediate process,--no, my friends! This bad world, I experience and approve; Your good world,--with no pity, courage, hope, Fear, sorrow, joy,--devotedness, in short, Which I account the ultimate of man, Of which there 's not one day nor hour but brings, In flower or fruit, some sample of success, Out of this same society I save-- None of it for me! That I might have none, I rapped your tampering knuckles twenty years, Such was the task imposed me, such my end.

Now for the means thereto. Ah, confidence-- Keep we together or part company? This is the critical minute! "Such my end?" Certainly; how could it be otherwise? Can there be question which was the right task-- To save or to destroy society? Why, even prove that, by some miracle, Destruction were the proper work to choose, And that a torch best remedies what 's wrong I' the temple, whence the long procession wound Of powers and beauties, earth's achievements all, The human strength that strove and overthrew,-- The human love that, weak itself, crowned strength,-- The instinct crying, "God is whence I came!"-- The reason laying down the law, "And such His will i' the world must be!"--the leap and shout Of genius, "For I hold his very thoughts, The meaning of the mind of him!"--nay, more The ingenuities, each active force That turning in a circle on itself Looks neither up nor down but keeps the spot, Mere creature-like and, for religion, works, Works only and works ever, makes and shapes And changes, still wrings more of good from less, Still stamps some bad out, where was worst before, So leaves the handiwork, the act and deed, Were it but house and land and wealth, to show Here was a creature perfect in the kind-- Whether as bee, beaver, or behemoth, What 's the importance? he has done his work For work's sake, worked well, earned a creature's praise;-- I say, concede that same fane, whence deploys Age after age, all this humanity, Diverse but ever dear, out of the dark Behind the altar into the broad day By the portal--enter, and, concede there mocks Each lover of free motion and much space A perplexed length of apse and aisle and nave,-- Pillared roof and carved screen, and what care I?-- Which irk the movement and impede the march,-- Nay, possibly, bring flat upon his nose At some odd breakneck angle, by some freak Of old-world artistry, that personage Who, could he but have kept his skirts from grief And catching at the hooks and crooks about, Had stepped out on the daylight of our time Plainly the man of the age,--still, still, I bar Excessive conflagration in the case. "Shake the flame freely!" shout the multitude: The architect approves I stuck my torch Inside a good stout lantern, hung its light Above the hooks and crooks, and ended so. To save society was well: the means Whereby to save it,--there begins the doubt Permitted you, imperative on me; Were mine the best means? Did I work aright With powers appointed me?--since powers denied Concern me nothing.

Well, my work reviewed Fairly, leaves more hope than discouragement. First, there 's the deed done: what I found, I leave,-- What tottered, I kept stable: if it stand One month, without sustainment, still thank me The twenty years' sustainer! Now, observe, Sustaining is no brilliant self-display Like knocking down or even setting up: Much bustle these necessitate; and still To vulgar eye, the mightier of the myth Is Hercules, who substitutes his own For Atlas' shoulder and supports the globe A whole day,--not the passive and obscure Atlas who bore, ere Hercules was born, And is to go on bearing that same load When Hercules turns ash on Œta's top. 'T is the transition-stage, the tug and strain. That strike men: standing still is stupid-like, My pressure was too constant on the whole For any part's eruption into space 'Mid sparkles, crackling, and much praise of me. I saw that, in the ordinary life, Many of the little make a mass of men Important beyond greatness here and there; As certainly as, in life exceptional, When old things terminate and new commence, A solitary great man 's worth the world. God takes the business into his own hands At such time: who creates the novel flower Contrives to guard and give it breathing-room: I merely tend the cornfield, care for crop, And weed no acre thin to let emerge What prodigy may stifle there perchance, --No, though my eye have noted where he lurks. Oh those mute myriads that spoke loud to me-- The eyes that craved to see the light, the mouths That sought the daily bread and nothing more, The hands that supplicated exercise, Men that had wives, and women that had babes, And all these making suit to only live! Was I to turn aside from husbandry, Leave hope of harvest for the corn, my care, To play at horticulture, rear some rose Or poppy into perfect leaf and bloom When, 'mid the furrows, up was pleased to sprout Some man, cause, system, special interest I ought to study, stop the world meanwhile? "But I am Liberty, Philanthropy, Enlightenment, or Patriotism, the power Whereby you are to stand or fall!" cries each: "Mine and mine only be the flag you flaunt!" And, when I venture to object, "Meantime, What of yon myriads with no flag at all-- My crop which, who flaunts flag must tread across?" "Now, this it is to have a puny mind!" Admire my mental prodigies: "down--down-- Ever at home o' the level and the low, There hides he brooding! Could he look above, With less of the owl and more of the eagle eye, He 'd see there 's no way helps the little cause Like the attainment of the great. Dare first The chief emprise; dispel yon cloud between The sun and us; nor fear that, though our heads Find earlier warmth and comfort from his ray, What lies about our feet, the multitude, Will fail of benefaction presently. Come now, let each of us awhile cry truce To special interests, make common cause Against the adversary--or perchance Mere dullard to his own plain interest! Which of us will you choose?--since needs must be Some one o' the warring causes you incline To hold, i' the main, has right and should prevail: Why not adopt and give it prevalence? Choose strict Faith or lax Incredulity,-- King, Caste, and Cultus--or the Rights of Man, Sovereignty of each Proudhon o'er himself, And all that follows in just consequence! Go free the stranger from a foreign yoke; Or stay, concentrate energy at home; Succeed!--when he deserves, the stranger will. Comply with the Great Nation's impulse, print By force of arms,--since reason pleads in vain, And, 'mid the sweet compulsion, pity weeps,-- Hohenstiel-Schwangau on the universe! Snub the Great Nation, cure the impulsive itch With smartest fillip on a restless nose Was ever launched by thumb and finger! Bid Hohenstiel-Schwangau first repeal the tax On pig-tails and pomatum, and then mind Abstruser matters for next century! Is your choice made? Why then, act up to choice! Leave the illogical touch now here now there I' the way of work, the tantalizing help First to this, then the other opposite: The blowing hot and cold, sham policy, Sure ague of the mind and nothing more, Disease of the perception or the will, That fain would hide in a fine name! Your choice, Speak it out and condemn yourself thereby!"

Well, Leicester Square is not the Residenz: Instead of shrugging shoulder, turning friend The deaf ear, with a wink to the police-- I 'll answer--by a question, wisdom's mode. How many years, o' the average, do men Live in this world? Some score, say computists. Quintuple me that term and give mankind The likely hundred, and with all my heart I 'll take your task upon me, work your way, Concentrate energy on some one cause: Since, counseller, I also have my cause, My flag, my faith in its effect, my hope In its eventual triumph for the good O' the world. And once upon a time, when I Was like all you, mere voice and nothing more, Myself took wings, soared sunward, and thence sang, "Look where I live i' the loft, come up to me, Groundlings, nor grovel longer! gain this height, And prove you breathe here better than below! Why, what emancipation far and wide Will follow in a trice! They too can soar, Each tenant of the earth's circumference Claiming to elevate humanity, They also must attain such altitude, Live in the luminous circle that surrounds The planet, not the leaden orb itself. Press out, each point, from surface to yon verge Which one has gained and guaranteed your realm!" Ay, still my fragments wander, music-fraught, Sighs of the soul, mine once, mine now, and mine Forever! Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct. Alive with tremors in the shaggy growth Of wild-wood, crevice-sown, that triumphs there Imparting exultation to the hills! Sweep of the swathe when only the winds walk And waft my words above the grassy sea Under the blinding blue that basks o'er Rome,-- Hear ye not still--"Be Italy again"? And ye, what strikes the panic to your heart? Decrepit council-chambers,--where some lamp Drives the unbroken black three paces off From where the graybeards huddle in debate, Dim cowls and capes, and midmost glimmers one Like tarnished gold, and what they say is doubt, And what they think is fear, and what suspends The breath in them is not the plaster-patch Time disengages from the painted wall Where Rafael moulderingly bids adieu, Nor tick of the insect turning tapestry Which a queen's finger traced of old, to dust; But some word, resonant, redoubtable, Of who once felt upon his head a hand Whereof the head now apprehends his foot. "Light in Rome, Law in Rome, and Liberty O' the soul in Rome--the free Church, the free State! Stamp out the nature that's best typified By its embodiment in Peter's Dome, The scorpion-body with the greedy pair Of outstretched nippers, either colonnade Agape for the advance of heads and hearts!" There 's one cause for you! one and only one, For I am vocal through the universe, I' the workshop, manufactory, exchange And market-place, seaport and custom-house O' the frontier: listen if the echoes die-- "Unfettered commerce! Power to speak and hear, And print and read! The universal vote! Its rights for labor!" This, with much beside, I spoke when I was voice and nothing more, But altogether such an one as you My censors. "Voice, and nothing more, indeed!" Re-echoes round me: "that 's the censure, there 's Involved the ruin of you soon or late! Voice,--when its promise beat the empty air: And nothing more,--when solid earth's your stage, And we desiderate performance, deed For word, the realizing all you dreamed In the old days: now, for deed, we find at door O' the council-chamber posted, mute as mouse, Hohenstiel-Schwangau, sentry and safeguard O' the graybeards all a-chuckle, cowl to cape, Who challenge Judas,--that 's endearment's style,-- To stop their mouths or let escape grimace, While they keep cursing Italy and him. The power to speak, hear, print and read is ours? Ay, we learn where and how, when clapped inside A convict-transport bound for cool Cayenne! The universal vote we have: its urn, We also have where votes drop, fingered-o'er By the universal Prefect. Say, Trade 's free And Toil turned master out o' the slave it was: What then? These feed man's stomach, but his soul Craves finer fare, nor lives by bread alone, As somebody says somewhere. Hence you stand Proved and recorded either false or weak, Faulty in promise or performance: which?" Neither, I hope. Once pedestalled on earth, To act not speak, I found earth was not air. I saw that multitude of mine, and not The nakedness and nullity of air Fit only for a voice to float in free. Such eyes I saw that craved the light alone, Such mouths that wanted bread and nothing else, Such hands that supplicated handiwork, Men with the wives, and women with the babes, Yet all these pleading just to live, not die! Did I believe one whit less in belief, Take truth for falsehood, wish the voice revoked That told the truth to heaven for earth to hear? No, this should be, and shall; but when and how? At what expense to these who average Your twenty years of life, my computists? "Not bread alone," but bread before all else For these: the bodily want serve first, said I; If earth-space and the lifetime help not here, Where is the good of body having been? But, helping body, if we somewhat balk The soul of finer fare, such food 's to find Elsewhere and afterward--all indicates, Even this selfsame fact that soul can starve Yet body still exist its twenty years: While, stint the body, there 's an end at once O' the revel in the fancy that Rome 's free, And superstition's fettered, and one prints Whate'er one pleases, and who pleases reads The same, and speaks out and is spoken to, And divers hundred thousand fools may vote A vote untampered with by one wise man, And so elect Barabbas deputy In lieu of his concurrent. I who trace The purpose written on the face of things, For my behoof and guidance--(whoso needs No such sustainment, sees beneath my signs, Proves, what I take for writing, penmanship, Scribble and flourish with no sense for me O' the sort I solemnly go spelling out,-- Let him! there 's certain work of mine to show Alongside his work: which gives warranty Of shrewder vision in the workman--judge!) I who trace Providence without a break I' the plan of things, drop plumb on this plain print Of an intention with a view to good, That man is made in sympathy with man At outset of existence, so to speak; But in dissociation, more and more, Man from his fellow, as their lives advance In culture; still humanity, that 's born A mass, keeps flying off, fining away Ever into a multitude of points, And ends in isolation, each from each: Peerless above i' the sky, the pinnacle,-- Absolute contact, fusion, all below At the base of being. How comes this about? This stamp of God characterizing man And nothing else but man in the universe-- That, while he feels with man (to use man's speech) I' the little things of life, its fleshly wants Of food and rest and health and happiness, Its simplest spirit-motions, loves and hates, Hopes, fears, soul-cravings on the ignoblest scale, O' the fellow-creature,--owns the bond at base,-- He tends to freedom and divergency In the upward progress, plays the pinnacle When life 's at greatest (grant again the phrase! Because there 's neither great nor small in life). "Consult thou for thy kind that have the eyes To see, the mouths to eat, the hands to work, Men with the wives, and women with the babes!" Prompts Nature. "Care thou for thyself alone I' the conduct of the mind God made thee with! Think, as if man had never thought before! Act, as if all creation hung attent On the acting of such faculty as thine, To take prime pattern from thy masterpiece!" Nature prompts also: neither law obeyed To the uttermost by any heart and soul We know or have in record: both of them Acknowledged blindly by whatever man We ever knew or heard of in this world. "Will you have why and wherefore, and the fact Made plain as pikestaff?" modern Science asks. "That mass man sprung from was a jelly-lump Once on a time; he kept an after-course Through fish and insect, reptile, bird and beast, Till he attained to be an ape at last Or last but one. And if this doctrine shock In aught the natural pride" ... Friend, banish fear, The natural humility replies. Do you suppose, even I, poor potentate, Hohenstiel-Schwangau, who once ruled the roast,-- I was born able at all points to ply My tools? or did I have to learn my trade, Practise as exile ere perform as prince? The world knows something of my ups and downs: But grant me time, give me the management And manufacture of a model me, Me fifty-fold, a prince without a flaw,-- Why, there 's no social grade, the sordidest, My embryo potentate should blink and 'scape. King, all the better he was cobbler once, He should know, sitting on the throne, how tastes Life to who sweeps the doorway. But life 's hard, Occasion rare; you cut probation short, And, being half-instructed, on the stage You shuffle through your part as best you can, And bless your stars, as I do. God takes time. I like the thought he should have lodged me once I' the hole, the cave, the hut, the tenement, The mansion and the palace; made me learn The feel o' the first, before I found myself Loftier i' the last, not more emancipate; From first to last of lodging, I was I, And not at all the place that harbored me. Do I refuse to follow farther yet I' the backwardness, repine if tree and flower, Mountain or streamlet were my dwelling-place Before I gained enlargement, grew mollusc? As well account that way for many a thrill Of kinship, I confess to, with the powers Called Nature: animate, inanimate, In parts or in the whole, there 's something there Man-like that somehow meets the man in me. My pulse goes altogether with the heart O' the Persian, that old Xerxes, when he stayed His march to conquest of the world, a day I' the desert, for the sake of one superb Plane-tree which queened it there in solitude: Giving her neck its necklace, and each arm Its armlet, suiting soft waist, snowy side, With cincture and apparel. Yes, I lodged In those successive tenements; perchance Taste yet the straitness of them while I stretch Limb and enjoy new liberty the more. And some abodes are lost or ruinous; Some, patched-up and pieced-out, and so transformed They still accommodate the traveller His day of lifetime. Oh, you count the links, Descry no bar of the unbroken man? Yes,--and who welds a lump of ore, suppose He likes to make a chain and not a bar, And reach by link on link, link small, link large, Out to the due length--why, there 's forethought still Outside o' the series, forging at one end, While at the other there 's--no matter what The kind of critical intelligence Believing that last link had last but one For parent, and no link was, first of all, Fitted to anvil, hammered into shape. Else, I accept the doctrine, and deduce This duty, that I recognize mankind, In all its height and depth and length and breadth. Mankind i' the main have little wants, not large: I, being of will and power to help, i' the main, Mankind, must help the least wants first. My friend, That is, my foe, without such power and will, May plausibly concentrate all he wields, And do his best at helping some large want, Exceptionally noble cause, that's seen Subordinate enough from where I stand. As he helps, I helped once, when like himself, Unable to help better, work more wide; And so would work with heart and hand to-day; Did only computists confess a fault, And multiply the single score by five, Five only, give man's life its hundred years. Change life, in me shall follow change to match! Time were then, to work here, there, everywhere, By turns and try experiment at ease! Full time to mend as well as mar: why wait The slow and sober uprise all around O' the building? Let us run up, right to roof, Some sudden marvel, piece of perfectness, And testify what we intend the whole! Is the world losing patience? "Wait!" say we: "There 's time: no generation needs to die Unsolaced; you 've a century in store!" But, no: I sadly let the voices wing Their way i' the upper vacancy, nor test Truth on this solid as I promised once. Well, and what is there to be sad about? The world 's the world, life 's life, and nothing else. 'T is part of life, a property to prize, That those o' the higher sort engaged i' the world, Should fancy they can change its ill to good, Wrong to right, ugliness to beauty: find Enough success in fancy turning fact, To keep the sanguine kind in countenance And justify the hope that busies them: Failure enough,--to who can follow change Beyond their vision, see new good prove ill I' the consequence, see blacks and whites of life Shift square indeed, but leave the checkered face Unchanged i' the main,--failure enough for such, To bid ambition keep the whole from change, As their best service. I hope naught beside. No, my brave thinkers, whom I recognize, Gladly, myself the first, as, in a sense, All that our world 's worth, flower and fruit of man! Such minds myself award supremacy Over the common insignificance, When only Mind 's in question,--Body bows To quite another government, you know. Be Kant crowned king o' the castle in the air! Hans Slouch--his own, and children's mouths to feed I' the hovel on the ground--wants meat, nor chews "The Critique of Pure Reason" in exchange. But, now,--suppose I could allow your claims And quite change life to please you,--would it please? Would life comport with change and still be life? Ask, now, a doctor for a remedy: There 's his prescription. Bid him point you out Which of the five or six ingredients saves The sick man. "Such the efficacity? Then why not dare and do things in one dose Simple and pure, all virtue, no alloy Of the idle drop and powder?" What 's his word? The efficacity, neat, were neutralized: It wants dispersing and retarding,--nay, Is put upon its mettle, plays its part Precisely through such hindrance everywhere, Finds some mysterious give and take i' the case. Some gain by opposition, he foregoes Should he unfetter the medicament. So with this thought of yours that fain would work Free in the world: it wants just what it finds-- The ignorance, stupidity, the hate, Envy and malice and uncharitableness That bar your passage, break the flow of you Down from those happy heights where many a cloud Combined to give you birth and bid you be The royalest of rivers: on you glide Silverly till you reach the summit-edge, Then over, on to all that ignorance, Stupidity, hate, envy, bluffs and blocks, Posted to fret you into foam and noise. What of it? Up you mount in minute mist, And bridge the chasm that, crushed your quietude, A spirit-rainbow, earthborn jewelry Outsparkling the insipid firmament Blue above Terni and its orange-trees. Do not mistake me! You, too, have your rights! Hans must not burn Kant's house above his head Because he cannot understand Kant's book: And still less must Hans' pastor burn Kant's self Because Kant understands some books too well. But, justice seen to on this little point, Answer me, is it manly, is it sage To stop and struggle with arrangements here It took so many lives, so much of toil, To tinker up into efficiency? Can't you contrive to operate at once,-- Since time is short and art is long,--to show Your quality i' the world, whate'er you boast, Without this fractious call on folks to crush The world together just to set you free, Admire the capers you will cut perchance, Nor mind the mischief to your neighbors?

"Age! Age and experience bring discouragement," You taunt me: I maintain the opposite. Am I discouraged who--perceiving health, Strength, beauty, as they tempt the eye of soul, Are uncombinable with flesh and blood-- Resolve to let my body live its best, And leave my soul what better yet may be Or not be, in this life or afterward? --In either fortune, wiser than who waits Till magic art procure a miracle. In virtue of my very confidence Mankind ought to outgrow its babyhood; I prescribe rocking, deprecate rough hands, While thus the cradle holds it past mistake. Indeed, my task 's the harder--equable Sustainment everywhere, all strain, no push-- Whereby friends credit me with indolence, Apathy, hesitation. "Stand stock-still If able to move briskly? 'All a-strain'-- So must we compliment your passiveness? Sound asleep, rather!"

Just the judgment passed Upon a statue, luckless like myself, I saw at Rome once! 'T was some artist's whim To cover all the accessories close I' the group, and leave you only Laocoön With neither sons nor serpents to denote The purpose of his gesture. Then a crowd Was called to try the question, criticise Wherefore such energy of legs and arms, Nay, eyeballs, starting from the socket. One-- I give him leave to write my history-- Only one said, "I think the gesture strives Against some obstacle we cannot see." All the rest made their minds up. "'T is a yawn Of sheer fatigue subsiding to repose: The statue 's 'Somnolency' clear enough!"

There, my arch stranger-friend, my audience both And arbitress, you have one half your wish, At least: you know the thing I tried to do! All, so far, to my praise and glory--all Told as befits the self-apologist,-- Who ever promises a candid sweep And clearance of those errors miscalled crimes None knows more, none laments so much as he, And ever rises from confession, proved A god whose fault was--trying to be man. Just so, fair judge,--if I read smile aright-- I condescend to figure in your eyes As biggest heart and best of Europe's friends, And hence my failure. God will estimate Success one day; and, in the mean time--you!

I daresay there 's some fancy of the sort Frolicking round this final puff I send To die up yonder in the ceiling-rose,-- Some consolation-stakes, we losers win! A plague of the return to "I--I--I Did this, meant that, hoped, feared the other thing!" Autobiography, adieu! The rest Shall make amends, be pure blame, history And falsehood: not the ineffective truth, But Thiers-and-Victor-Hugo exercise. Hear what I never was, but might have been I' the better world where goes tobacco-smoke! Here lie the dozen volumes of my life: (Did I say "lie"? the pregnant word will serve.) Cut on to the concluding chapter, though! Because the little hours begin to strike. Hurry Thiers-Hugo to the labor's end!

Something like this the unwritten chapter reads.

Exemplify the situation thus! Hohenstiel-Schwangau, being, no dispute, Absolute mistress, chose the Assembly, first, To serve her: chose this man, its President Afterward, to serve also,--specially To see that folk did service one and all. And now the proper term of years was out, When the Head-servant must vacate his place; And nothing lay so patent to the world As that his fellow-servants one and all Were--mildly to make mention--knaves or fools, Each of them with his promise flourished full I' the face of you by word and impudence, Or filtered slyly out by nod and wink And nudge upon your sympathetic rib-- That not one minute more did knave or fool Mean to keep faith and serve as he had sworn Hohenstiel-Schwangau, once her Head away. Why should such swear except to get the chance, When time should ripen and confusion bloom, Of putting Hohenstielers-Schwangauese To the true use of human property-- Restoring souls and bodies, this to Pope, And that to King, that other to his planned Perfection of a Share-and-share-alike, That other still, to Empire absolute In shape of the Head-servant's very self Transformed to Master whole and sole? each scheme Discussible, concede one circumstance-- That each scheme's parent were, beside himself, Hohenstiel-Schwangau, not her serving-man Sworn to do service in the way she chose Rather than his way: way superlative, Only,--by some infatuation,--his And his and his and every one's but hers Who stuck to just the Assembly and the Head. I make no doubt the Head, too, had his dream Of doing sudden duty swift and sure On all that heap of untrustworthiness-- Catching each vaunter of the villany He meant to perpetrate when time was ripe, Once the Head-servant fairly out of doors,-- And, caging here a knave and there a fool, Cry, "Mistress of your servants, these and me, Hohenstiel-Schwangau! I, their trusty Head, Pounce on a pretty scheme concocting here That's stopped, extinguished by my vigilance. Your property is safe again: but mark! Safe in these hands, not yours, who lavish trust Too lightly. Leave my hands their charge awhile! I know your business better than yourself: Let me alone about it! Some fine day, Once we are rid of the embarrassment, You shall look up and see your longings crowned!" Such fancy might have tempted him be false, But this man chose truth and was wiser so. He recognized that for great minds i' the world There is no trial like the appropriate one Of leaving little minds their liberty Of littleness to blunder on through life, Now aiming at right ends by foolish means, Now, at absurd achievement through the aid Of good and wise endeavor--to acquiesce In folly's life-long privilege, though with power To do the little minds the good they need, Despite themselves, by just abolishing Their right to play the part and fill the place I' the scheme of things He schemed who made alike Great minds and little minds, saw use for each. Could the orb sweep those puny particles It just half-lights at distance, hardly leads I' the leash--sweep out each speck of them from space They anticise in with their days and nights And whirlings round and dancings off, forsooth, And all that fruitless individual life One cannot lend a beam to but they spoil-- Sweep them into itself and so, one star, Preponderate henceforth i' the heritage Of heaven! No! in less senatorial phrase, The man endured to help, not save outright The multitude by substituting him For them, his knowledge, will and way, for God's: Nor change the world, such as it is, and was And will be, for some other, suiting all Except the purpose of the maker. No! He saw that weakness, wickedness will be, And therefore should be: that the perfect man, As we account perfection--at most pure O' the special gold, whate'er the form it take, Head-work or heart-work, fined and thrice-refined I' the crucible of life, whereto the powers Of the refiner, one and all, are flung To feed the flame, he saw that e'en the block, Such perfect man holds out triumphant, breaks Into some poisonous ore, gold's opposite, At the very purest, so compensating Man's Adversary--what if we believe? For earlier stern exclusion of his stuff. See the sage, with the hunger for the truth, And see his system that's all true, except The one weak place that's stanchioned by a lie! The moralist, who walks with head erect I' the crystal clarity of air so long, Until a stumble, and the man's one mire! Philanthropy undoes the social knot With axe-edge, makes love room 'twixt head and trunk: Religion--but, enough, the thing's too clear! Well, if these sparks break out i' the greenest tree, Our topmost of performance, yours and mine, What will be done i' the dry ineptitude Of ordinary mankind, bark and bole, All seems ashamed of but their mother-earth? Therefore throughout Head's term of servitude He did the appointed service, and forebore Extraneous action that were duty else, Done by some other servant, idle now Or mischievous: no matter, each his own-- Own task, and, in the end, own praise or blame! He suffered them strut, prate, and brag their best, Squabble at odds on every point save one, And there shake hands,--agree to trifle time, Obstruct advance with, each, his cricket-cry, "Wait till the Head be off the shoulders here! Then comes my King, my Pope, my Autocrat, My Socialist Republic to her own-- To-wit, that property of only me, Hohenstiel-Schwangau who conceits herself Free, forsooth, and expects I keep her so!" --Nay, suffered when, perceiving with dismay Head's silence paid no tribute to their noise, They turned on him. "Dumb menace in that mouth, Malice in that unstridulosity! He cannot but intend some stroke of state Shall signalize his passage into peace Out of the creaking,--hinder transference O' the Hohenstielers-Schwangauese to king, Pope, autocrat, or socialist republic! That 's Exact the cause his lips unlocked would cry! Therefore be stirring: brave, beard, bully him! Dock, by the million, of its friendly joints, The electoral body short at once! who did, May do again, and undo us beside; Wrest from his hands the sword for self-defence, The right to parry any thrust in play We peradventure please to meditate!" And so forth; creak, creak, creak: and ne'er a line His locked mouth oped the wider, till at last O' the long degraded and insulting day, Sudden the clock told it was judgment-time. Then he addressed himself to speak indeed To the fools, not knaves: they saw him walk straight down Each step of the eminence, as he first engaged, And stand at last o' the level,--all he swore. "People, and not the people's varletry, This is the task you set myself and these! Thus I performed my part of it, and thus They thwarted me throughout, here, here and here: Study each instance! yours the loss, not mine. What they intend now is demonstrable As plainly: here's such man, and here's such mode Of making you some other than the thing You, wisely or unwisely, choose to be, And only set him up to keep you so. Do you approve this? Yours the loss, not mine. Do you condemn it? There 's a remedy. Take me--who know your mind, and mean your good. With clearer brain and stouter arm than they, Or you, or haply anybody else-- And make me master for the moment! Choose What time, what power you trust me with: I too Will choose as frankly ere I trust myself With time and power: they must be adequate To the end and aim, since mine the loss, with yours, If means be wanting; once their worth approved, Grant them, and I shall forthwith operate-- Ponder it well!--to the extremist stretch O' the power you trust me: if with unsuccess, God wills it, and there 's nobody to blame."

Whereon the people answered with a shout, "The trusty one! no tricksters any more!" How could they other? He was in his place.

What followed? Just what he foresaw, what proved The soundness of both judgments,--his, o' the knaves And fools, each trickster with his dupe,--and theirs, The people's, in what head and arm could help. There was uprising, masks dropped, flags unfurled, Weapons outflourished in the wind, my faith! Heavily did he let his fist fall plumb On each perturber of the public peace, No matter whose the wagging head it broke-- From bald-pate craft and greed and impudence Of night-hawk at first chance to prowl and prey For glory and a little gain beside, Passing for eagle in the dusk of the age,-- To florid head-top, foamy patriotism And tribunitial daring, breast laid bare Through confidence in rectitude, with hand On private pistol in the pocket: these And all the dupes of these, who lent themselves As dust and feather do, to help offence O' the wind that whirls them at you, then subsides In safety somewhere, leaving filth afloat, Annoyance you may brush from eyes and beard,-- These he stopped: bade the wind's spite howl or whine Its worst outside the building, wind conceives Meant to be pulled together and become Its natural playground so. What foolishness Of dust or feather proved importunate And fell 'twixt thumb and finger, found them gripe To detriment of bulk and buoyancy. Then followed silence and submission. Next, The inevitable comment came on work And work's cost: he was censured as profuse Of human life and liberty: too swift And thorough his procedure, who had lagged At the outset, lost the opportunity Through timid scruples as to right and wrong. "There 's no such certain mark of a small mind" (So did Sagacity explain the fault) "As when it needs must square away and sink To its own small dimensions, private scale Of right and wrong,--humanity i' the large, The right and wrong of the universe, forsooth! This man addressed himself to guard and guide Hohenstiel-Schwangau. When the case demands He frustrate villany in the egg, unhatched, With easy stamp and minimum of pang E'en to the punished reptile, 'There 's my oath Restrains my foot,' objects our guide and guard, 'I must leave guardianship and guidance now: Rather than stretch one handbreadth of the law, I am bound to see it break from end to end. First show me death i' the body politic: Then prescribe pill and potion, what may please Hohenstiel-Schwangau! all is for her sake: 'T was she ordained my service should be so. What if the event demonstrate her unwise, If she unwill the thing she willed before? I hold to the letter and obey the bond And leave her to perdition loyally.' Whence followed thrice the expenditure we blame Of human life and liberty: for want O' the by-blow, came deliberate butcher's-work!"

"Elsewhere go carry your complaint!" bade he. "Least, largest, there 's one law for all the minds, Here or above: be true at any price! 'T is just o' the great scale, that such happy stroke Of falsehood would be found a failure. Truth Still stands unshaken at her base by me, Reigns paramount i' the world, for the large good O' the long late generations,--I and you Forgotten like this buried foolishness! Not so the good I rooted in its grave."

This is why he refused to break his oath, Rather appealed to the people, gained the power To act as he thought best, then used it, once For all, no matter what the consequence To knaves and fools. As thus began his sway, So, through its twenty years, one rule of right Sufficed him: govern for the many first, The poor mean multitude, all mouths and eyes: Bid the few, better favored in the brain, Be patient, nor presume on privilege, Help him or else be quiet,--never crave That he help them,--increase, forsooth, the gulf Yawning so terribly 'twixt mind and mind I' the world here, which his purpose was to block At bottom, were it by an inch, and bridge, If by a filament, no more, at top. Equalize things a little! And the way He took to work that purpose out, was plain Enough to intellect and honesty And--superstition, style it if you please, So long as you allow there was no lack O' the quality imperative in man-- Reverence. You see deeper? thus saw he, And by the light he saw, must walk: how else Was he to do his part? a man's, with might And main, and not a faintest touch of fear, Sure he was in the hand of God who comes Before and after, with a work to do Which no man helps nor hinders. Thus the man,-- So timid when the business was to touch The uncertain order of humanity, Imperil, for a problematic cure Of grievance on the surface, any good I' the deep of things, dim yet discernible,-- This same man, so irresolute before, Show him a true excrescence to cut sheer, A devil's graft on God's foundation-stock, Then--no complaint of indecision more! He wrenched out the whole canker, root and branch, Deaf to who cried that earth would tumble in At its four corners if he touched a twig. Witness that lie of lies, arch-infamy, When the Republic, with her life involved In just this law--"Each people rules itself Its own way, not as any stranger please"-- Turned, and for first proof she was living, bade Hohenstiel-Schwangau fasten on the throat Of the first neighbor that claimed benefit O' the law herself established: "Hohenstiel For Hohenstielers! Rome, by parity Of reasoning, for Romans? That 's a jest Wants proper treatment,--lancet--puncture suits The proud flesh: Rome ape Hohenstiel forsooth!" And so the siege and slaughter and success Whereof we nothing doubt that Hohenstiel Will have to pay the price, in God's good time. Which does not always fall on Saturday When the world looks for wages. Anyhow, He found this infamy triumphant. Well: Sagacity suggested, make this speech! "The work was none of mine: suppose wrong wait, Stand over for redressing? Mine for me, My predecessors' work on their own head! Meantime, there 's plain advantage, should we leave Things as we find them. Keep Rome manacled Hand and foot: no fear of unruliness! Her foes consent to even seem our friends So long, no longer. Then, there 's glory got By boldness and bravado to the world: The disconcerted world must grin and bear The old saucy writing,--'Grunt thereat who may, So shall things be, for such my pleasure is-- Hohenstiel-Schwangau's.' How that reads in Rome, I' the capitol where Brennus broke his pate, And lends a flourish to our journalists!" Only, it was nor read nor flourished of, Since, not a moment did such glory stay Excision of the canker! Out it came, Root and branch, with much roaring, and some blood, And plentiful abuse of him from friend And foe. Who cared? Not Nature, who assuaged The pain and set the patient on his legs Promptly: the better! had it been the worse, 'T is Nature you must try conclusions with, Not he, since nursing canker kills the sick For certain, while to cut may cure, at least. "Ah," groaned a second time Sagacity, "Again the little mind, precipitate, Rash, rude, when even in the right, as here! The great mind knows the power of gentleness, Only tries force because persuasion fails. Had this man, by prelusive trumpet-blast, Signified, 'Truth and Justice mean to come, Nay, fast approach your threshold! Ere they knock, See that the house be set in order, swept And garnished, windows shut, and doors thrown wide! The free State comes to visit the free Church: Receive her! or ... or ... never mind what else!' Thus moral suasion heralding brute force, How had he seen the old abuses die, And new life kindle here, there, everywhere, Roused simply by that mild yet potent spell-- Beyond or beat of drum or stroke of sword-- Public opinion!"

"How, indeed?" he asked, "When all to see, after some twenty years, Were your own fool-face waiting for the sight, Faced by as wide a grin from ear to ear O' the knaves who, while the fools were waiting, worked-- Broke yet another generation's heart-- Twenty years' respite helping! Teach your nurse 'Compliance with, before you suck, the teat!' Find what that means, and meanwhile hold your tongue!"

Whereof the war came which he knew must be.

Now, this had proved the dry-rot of the race He ruled o'er, that, i' the old day, when was need They fought for their own liberty and life, Well did they fight, none better: whence, such love Of fighting somehow still for fighting's sake Against no matter whose the liberty And life, so long as self-conceit should crow And clap the wing, while justice sheathed her claw,-- That what had been the glory of the world When thereby came the world's good, grew its plague Now that the champion-armor, donned to dare The dragon once, was clattered up and down Highway and by-path of the world, at peace, Merely to mask marauding, or for sake O' the shine and rattle that apprised the fields Hohenstiel-Schwangau was a fighter yet, And would be, till the weary world suppressed Her peccant humors out of fashion now. Accordingly the world spoke plain at last, Promised to punish who next played with fire.

So, at his advent, such discomfiture Taking its true shape of beneficence, Hohenstiel-Schwangau, half-sad and part-wise, Sat: if with wistful eye reverting oft To each pet weapon, rusty on its peg, Yet, with a sigh of satisfaction too That, peacefulness become the law, herself Got the due share of godsends in its train, Cried shame and took advantage quietly. Still, so the dry-rot had been nursed into Blood, bones and marrow, that, from worst to best, All,--clearest brains and soundest hearts save here,-- All had this lie acceptable for law Plain as the sun at noonday--"War is best, Peace is worst; peace we only tolerate As needful preparation for new war: War may be for whatever end we will-- Peace only as the proper help thereto. Such is the law of right and wrong for us Hohenstiel-Schwangau: for the other world, As naturally, quite another law. Are we content? The world is satisfied. Discontent? Then the world must give us leave To strike right, left, and exercise our arm Torpid of late through overmuch repose, And show its strength is still superlative At somebody's expense in life or limb: Which done,--let peace succeed and last a year!" Such devil's-doctrine so was judged God's law, We say, when this man stepped upon the stage, That it had seemed a venial fault at most Had he once more obeyed Sagacity. "You come i' the happy interval of peace, The favorable weariness from war: Prolong it! artfully, as if intent On ending peace as soon as possible. Quietly so increase the sweets of ease And safety, so employ the multitude, Put hod and trowel so in idle hands, So stuff and stop up wagging jaws with bread, That selfishness shall surreptitiously Do wisdom's office, whisper in the ear Of Hohenstiel-Schwangau, there 's a pleasant feel In being gently forced down, pinioned fast To the easy arm-chair by the pleading arms O' the world beseeching her to there abide Content with all the harm done hitherto, And let herself be petted in return, Free to re-wage, in speech and prose and verse, The old unjust wars, nay--in verse and prose And speech,--to vaunt new victories, shall prove A plague o' the future,--so that words suffice For present comfort, and no deeds denote That--tired of illimitable line on line Of boulevard-building, tired o' the theatre With the tuneful thousand in their thrones above, For glory of the male intelligence, And Nakedness in her due niche below, For illustration of the female use-- That she, 'twixt yawn and sigh, prepares to slip Out of the arm-chair, wants fresh blood again From over the boundary, to color-up The sheeny sameness, keep the world aware Hohenstiel-Schwangau's arm needs exercise Despite the petting of the universe! Come, you 're a city-builder: what 's the way Wisdom takes when time needs that she entice Some fierce tribe, castled on the mountain-peak, Into the quiet and amenity O' the meadow-land below? By crying 'Done With fight now, down with fortress'? Rather--'Dare On, dare ever, not a stone displaced!' Cries Wisdom: 'Cradle of our ancestors, Be bulwark, give our children safety still! Who of our children please may stoop and taste O' the valley-fatness, unafraid,--for why? At first alarm they have thy mother-ribs To run upon for refuge; foes forget Scarcely that Terror on her vantage-coign, Couchant supreme among the powers of air, Watches--prepared to pounce--the country wide! Meanwhile the encouraged valley holds its own, From the first hut's adventure in descent, Half home, half hiding-place,--to dome and spire Befitting the assured metropolis: Nor means offence to the fort which caps the crag, All undismantled of a turret-stone, And bears the banner-pole that creaks at times Embarrassed by the old emblazonment, When festal days are to commemorate: Otherwise left untenanted, no doubt, Since, never fear, our myriads from below Would rush, if needs were, man the walls again, Renew the exploits of the earlier time At moment's notice! But till notice sound, Inhabit we in ease and opulence!' And so, till one day thus a notice sounds, Not trumpeted, but in a whisper-gust Fitfully playing through mute city streets At midnight weary of day's feast and game-- 'Friends, your famed fort 's a ruin past repair! Its use is--to proclaim it had a use Obsolete long since. Climb and study there How to paint barbican and battlement I' the scenes of our new theatre! We fight Now--by forbidding neighbors to sell steel Or buy wine, not by blowing out their brains! Moreover, while we let time sap the strength O' the walls omnipotent in menace once, Neighbors would seem to have prepared surprise-- Run up defences in a mushroom-growth, For all the world like what we boasted: brief-- Hohenstiel-Schwangau's policy is peace!'"

Ay, so Sagacity advised him filch Folly from fools; handsomely substitute The dagger o' lath, while gay they sang and danced, For that long dangerous sword they liked to feel, Even at feast-time, clink and make friends start. No! he said: "Hear the truth, and bear the truth, And bring the truth to bear on all you are And do, assured that only good comes thence Whate'er the shape good take! While I have rule, Understand!--war for war's sake, war for sake O' the good war gets you as war's sole excuse, Is damnable and damned shall be. You want Glory? Why so do I, and so does God. Where is it found,--in this paraded shame,-- One particle of glory? Once you warred For liberty against the world, and won: There was the glory. Now, you fain would war Because the neighbor prospers overmuch,-- Because there has been silence half-an-hour, Like Heaven on earth, without a cannon-shot Announcing Hohenstielers-Schwangauese Are minded to disturb the jubilee,-- Because the loud tradition echoes faint, And who knows but posterity may doubt If the great deeds were ever done at all, Much less believe, were such to do again, So the event would follow: therefore, prove The old power, at the expense of somebody! Oh, Glory,--gilded bubble, bard and sage So nickname rightly,--would thy dance endure One moment, would thy vaunting make believe Only one eye thy ball was solid gold, Hadst thou less breath to buoy thy vacancy Than a whole multitude expends in praise, Less range for roaming than from head to head Of a whole people? Flit, fall, fly again, Only, fix never where the resolute hand May prick thee, prove the glassy lie thou art! Give me real intellect to reason with, No multitude, no entity that apes One wise man, being but a million fools! How and whence wishest glory, thou wise one? Wouldst get it,--didst thyself guide Providence,-- By stinting of his due each neighbor round In strength and knowledge and dexterity So as to have thy littleness grow large By all those somethings once, turned nothings now, As children make a molehill mountainous By scooping out a trench around their pile, And saving so the mudwork from approach? Quite otherwise the cheery game of life, True yet mimetic warfare, whereby man Does his best with his utmost, and so ends The victor most of all in fair defeat. Who thinks,--would he have no one think beside? Who knows, who does,--save his must learning die And action cease? Why, so our giant proves No better than a dwarf, once rivalry Prostrate around him. Let the whole race stand For him to try conclusions fairly with! Show me the great man would engage his peer Rather by grinning 'Cheat, thy gold is brass!' Than granting 'Perfect piece of purest ore! Still, is it less good mintage, this of mine?' Well, and these right and sound results of soul I' the strong and healthy one wise man,--shall such Be vainly sought for, scornfully renounced I' the multitude that make the entity-- The people?--to what purpose, if no less, In power and purity of soul, below The reach of the unit than, by multiplied Might of the body, vulgarized the more, Above, in thick and threefold brutishness? See! you accept such one wise man, myself: Wiser or less wise, still I operate From my own stock of wisdom, nor exact Of other sort of natures you admire, That whoso rhymes a sonnet pays a tax, Who paints a landscape dips brush at his cost, Who scores a septett true for strings and wind Mulcted must be--else how should I impose Properly, attitudinize aright, Did such conflicting claims as these divert Hohenstiel-Schwangau from observing me? Therefore, what I find facile, you be sure, With effort or without it, you shall dare-- You, I aspire to make my better self And truly the Great Nation. No more war For war's sake, then! and,--seeing, wickedness Springs out of folly,--no more foolish dread O' the neighbor waxing too inordinate A rival, through his gain of wealth and ease! What?--keep me patient, Powers!--the people here, Earth presses to her heart, nor owns a pride Above her pride i' the race all flame and air And aspiration to the boundless Great, The incommensurably Beautiful-- Whose very falterings groundward come of flight Urged by a pinion all too passionate For heaven and what it holds of gloom and glow: Bravest of thinkers, bravest of the brave Doers, exalt in Science, rapturous In Art, the--more than all--magnetic race To fascinate their fellows, mould mankind Hohenstiel-Schwangau-fashion,--these, what?--these Will have to abdicate their primacy Should such a nation sell them steel untaxed, And such another take itself, on hire For the natural sennight, somebody for lord Unpatronized by me whose back was turned? Or such another yet would fain build bridge, Lay rail, drive tunnel, busy its poor self With its appropriate fancy: so there 's--flash-- Hohenstiel-Schwangau up in arms at once! Genius has somewhat of the infantine: But of the childish, not a touch nor taint Except through self-will, which, being foolishness, Is certain, soon or late, of punishment. Which Providence avert!--and that it may Avert what both of us would so deserve, No foolish dread o' the neighbor, I enjoin! By consequence, no wicked war with him, While I rule!

"Does that mean--no war at all When just the wickedness I here proscribe Comes, haply, from the neighbor? Does my speech Precede the praying that you beat the sword To ploughshare, and the spear to pruning-hook, And sit down henceforth under your own vine And fig-tree through the sleepy summer month, Letting what hurly-burly please explode On the other side the mountain-frontier? No, Beloved! I foresee and I announce Necessity of warfare in one case, For one cause: one way, I bid broach the blood O' the world. For truth and right, and only right And truth,--right, truth, on the absolute scale of God, No pettiness of man's admeasurement,-- In such case only, and for such one cause, Fight your hearts out, whatever fate betide Hands energetic to the uttermost! Lie not! Endure no lie which needs your heart And hand to push it out of mankind's path-- No lie that lets the natural forces work Too long ere lay it plain and pulverized-- Seeing man's life lasts only twenty years! And such a lie, before both man and God, Proving, at this time present, Austria's rule O'er Italy,--for Austria's sake the first, Italy's next, and our sake last of all, Come with me and deliver Italy! Smite hip and thigh until the oppressor leave Free from the Adriatic to the Alps The oppressed one! We were they who laid her low In the old bad day when Villany braved Truth And Right, and laughed 'Henceforward, God deposed, Satan we set to rule forevermore I' the world!'--whereof to stop the consequence, And for atonement of false glory there Gaped at and gabbled over by the world, I purpose to get God enthroned again For what the world will gird at as sheer shame I' the cost of blood and treasure, 'All for naught-- Not even, say, some patch of province, splice O' the frontier?--some snug honorarium-fee Shut into glove and pocketed apace?' (Questions Sagacity) 'in deference To the natural susceptibility Of folks at home, unwitting of that pitch You soar to, and misdoubting if Truth, Right And the other such augustnesses repay Expenditure in coin o' the realm,--but prompt To recognize the cession of Savoy And Nice as marketable value!' No, Sagacity, go preach to Metternich, And, sermon ended, stay where he resides! Hohenstiel-Schwangau, you and I must march The other road! war for the hate of war, Not love, this once!" So Italy was free.

What else noteworthy and commendable I' the man's career?--that he was resolute-- No trepidation, much less treachery On his part, should imperil from its poise The ball o' the world, heaved up at such expense Of pains so far, and ready to rebound, Let but a finger maladroitly fall, Under pretence of making fast and sure The inch gained by late volubility, And run itself back to the ancient rest At foot o' the mountain. Thus he ruled, gave proof The world had gained a point, progressive so, By choice, this time, as will and power concurred, O' the fittest man to rule; not chance of birth, Or such-like dice-throw. Oft Sagacity Was at his ear: "Confirm this clear advance, Support this wise procedure! You, elect O' the people, mean to justify their choice And out-king all the kingly imbeciles; But that 's just half the enterprise: remains You find them a successor like yourself, In head and heart and eye and hand and aim, Or all done 's undone; and whom hope to mould So like you as the pupil Nature sends, The son and heir's completeness which you lack? Lack it no longer! Wed the pick o' the world, Where'er you think you find it. Should she be A queen,--tell Hohenstielers-Schwangauese, 'So do the old enthroned decrepitudes Acknowledge, in the rotten hearts of them, Their knell is knolled, they hasten to make peace With the new order, recognize in me Your right to constitute what king you will, Cringe therefore crown in hand and bride on arm, To both of us: we triumph, I suppose!' Is it the other sort of rank?--bright eye, Soft smile, and so forth, all her queenly boast? Undaunted the exordium--'I, the man O' the people, with the people mate myself: So stand, so fall. Kings, keep your crowns and brides! Our progeny (if Providence agree) Shall live to tread the baubles underfoot And bid the scarecrows consort with their kin. For son, as for his sire, be the free wife In the free state!'"

That is, Sagacity Would prop up one more lie, the most of all Pernicious fancy that the son and heir Receives the genius from the sire, himself Transmits as surely,--ask experience else! Which answers,--never was so plain a truth As that God drops his seed of heavenly flame Just where he wills on earth: sometimes where man Seems to tempt--such the accumulated store Of faculties--one spark to fire the heap; Sometimes where, fireball-like, it falls upon The naked unpreparèdness of rock, Burns, beaconing the nations through their night. Faculties, fuel for the flame? All helps Come, ought to come, or come not, crossed by chance, From culture and transmission. What 's your want I' the son and heir? Sympathy, aptitude, Teachableness, the fuel for the flame? You 'll have them for your pains: but the flame's self, The novel thought of God shall light the world? No, poet, though your offspring rhyme and chime I' the cradle,--painter, no, for all your pet Draws his first eye, beats Salvatore's boy,--And thrice no, statesman, should your progeny Tie bib and tucker with no tape but red, And make a foolscap-kite of protocols! Critic and copyist and bureaucrat To heart's content! The seed o' the apple-tree Brings forth another tree which bears a crab: 'T is the great gardener grafts the excellence On wildings where he will.

"How plain I view, Across those misty years 'twixt me and Rome"-- (Such the man's answer to Sagacity) "The little wayside temple, halfway down To a mild river that makes oxen white Miraculously, un-mouse-colors skin, Or so the Roman country people dream! I view that sweet small shrub-embedded shrine On the declivity, was sacred once To a transmuting Genius of the land, Could touch and turn its dunnest natures bright, --Since Italy means the Land of the Ox, we know. Well, how was it the due succession fell From priest to priest who ministered i' the cool Calm fane o' the Clitumnian god? The sire Brought forth a son and sacerdotal sprout, Endowed instinctively with good and grace To suit the gliding gentleness below-- Did he? Tradition tells another tale. Each priest obtained his predecessor's staff, Robe, fillet and insignia, blamelessly, By springing out of ambush, soon or late, And slaying him: the initiative rite Simply was murder, save that murder took, I' the case, another and religious name. So it was once, is now, shall ever be With genius and its priesthood in this world: The new power slays the old--but handsomely. There he lies, not diminished by an inch Of stature that he graced the altar with, Though somebody of other bulk and build Cries, 'What a goodly personage lies here Reddening the water where the bulrush roots! May I conduct the service in his place, Decently and in order, as did he, And, as he did not, keep a wary watch When meditating 'neath yon willow shade!' Find out your best man, sure the son of him Will prove best man again, and, better still Somehow than best, the grandson-prodigy! You think the world would last another day Did we so make us masters of the trick Whereby the works go, we could pre-arrange Their play and reach perfection when we please? Depend on it, the change and the surprise Are part o' the plan: 't is we wish steadiness; Nature prefers a motion by unrest, Advancement through this force which jostles that. And so, since much remains i' the world to see, Here 's the world still, affording God the sight." Thus did the man refute Sagacity, Ever at this old whisper in his ear: "Here are you picked out, by a miracle, And placed conspicuously enough, folks say And you believe, by Providence outright Taking a new way--nor without success-- To put the world upon its mettle: good! But Fortune alternates with Providence; Resource is soon exhausted. Never count On such a happy hit occurring twice! Try the old method next time!"

"Old enough," (At whisper in his ear, the laugh outbroke,) "And mode the most discredited of all, By just the men and women who make boast They are kings and queens thereby! Mere self-defence Should teach them, on one chapter of the law Must be no sort of trifling--chastity: They stand or fall, as their progenitors Were chaste or unchaste. Now, run eye around My crowned acquaintance, give each life its look And no more,--why, you 'd think each life was led Purposely for example of what pains Who leads it took to cure the prejudice, And prove there 's nothing so unprovable As who is who, what son of what a sire, And--inferentially--how faint the chance That the next generation needs to fear Another fool o' the selfsame type as he Happily regnant now by right divine And luck o' the pillow! No: select your lord By the direct employment of your brains As best you may,--bad as the blunder prove, A far worse evil stank beneath the sun When some legitimate blockhead managed so Matters that high time was to interfere, Though interference came from hell itself And not the blind mad miserable mob Happily ruled so long by pillow-luck And divine right,--by lies in short, not truth. And meanwhile use the allotted minute ..."

* * * * *

One,-- Two, three, four, five--yes, five the pendule warns! Eh? Why, this wild work wanders past all bound And bearing! Exile, Leicester Square, the life I' the old gay miserable time, rehearsed, Tried on again like cast clothes, still to serve At a pinch, perhaps? "Who 's who?" was aptly asked, Since certainly I am not I! since when? Where is the bud-mouthed arbitress? A nod Out-Homering Homer! Stay--there flits the clue I fain would find the end of! Yes,--"Meanwhile, Use the allotted minute!" Well, you see, (Veracious and imaginary Thiers, Who map out thus the life I might have led, But did not,--all the worse for earth and me,-- Doff spectacles, wipe pen, shut book, decamp!) You see 't is easy in heroics! Plain Pedestrian speech shall help me perorate. Ah, if one had no need to use the tongue! How obvious and how easy 't is to talk Inside the soul, a ghostly dialogue-- Instincts with guesses,--instinct, guess, again With dubious knowledge, half-experience: each And all the interlocutors alike Subordinating,--as decorum bids, Oh, never fear! but still decisively,-- Claims from without that take too high a tone, --("God wills this, man wants that, the dignity Prescribed a prince would wish the other thing")-- Putting them back to insignificance Beside one intimatest fact--myself Am first to be considered, since I live Twenty years longer and then end, perhaps! But, where one ceases to soliloquize, Somehow the motives, that did well enough I' the darkness, when you bring them into light Are found, like those famed cave-fish, to lack eye And organ for the upper magnitudes. The other common creatures, of less fine Existence, that acknowledge earth and heaven, Have it their own way in the argument. Yes, forced to speak, one stoops to say--one's aim Was--what it peradventure should have been: To renovate a people, mend or end That bane come of a blessing meant the world-- Inordinate culture of the sense made quick By soul,--the lust o' the flesh, lust of the eye, And pride of life,--and, consequent on these, The worship of that prince o' the power o' the air Who paints the cloud and fills the emptiness And bids his votaries, famishing for truth, Feed on a lie.

Alack, one lies one's self Even in the stating that one's end was truth, Truth only, if one states as much in words! Give me the inner chamber of the soul For obvious easy argument! 't is there One pits the silent truth against a lie-- Truth which breaks shell a careless simple bird, Nor wants a gorget nor a beak filed fine, Steel spurs and the whole armory o' the tongue, To equalize the odds. But, do your best, Words have to come: and somehow words deflect As the best cannon ever rifled will.

"Deflect" indeed! nor merely words from thoughts But names from facts: "Clitumnus" did I say? As if it had been his ox-whitening wave Whereby folk practised that grim cult of old-- The murder of their temple's priest by who Would qualify for his succession. Sure-- Nemi was the true lake's style. Dream had need Of the ox-whitening peace of prettiness And so confused names, well known once awake.

So, i' the Residenz yet, not Leicester Square, Alone,--no such congenial intercourse!-- My reverie concludes, as dreaming should, With daybreak: nothing done and over yet, Except cigars! The adventure thus may be, Or never needs to be at all: who knows? My Cousin-Duke, perhaps, at whose hard head --Is it, now--is this letter to be launched, The sight of whose gray oblong, whose grim seal, Set all these fancies floating for an hour?

Twenty years are good gain, come what come will! Double or quits! The letter goes! Or stays?

FIFINE AT THE FAIR

DONE ELVIRE

Vous plaît-il, don Juan, nous éclaircir ces beaux mystères?

DON JUAN

Madame, à vous dire la vérité...

DONE ELVIRE

Ah! que vous savez mal vous défendre pour un homme de cour, et qui doit être accoutumé à ces sortes de choses! J'ai pitié de vous voir la confusion que vous avez. Que ne vous armez-vous le front d'une noble effronterie? Que ne me jurez-vous que vous êtes toujours dans les mêmes sentimens pour moi, que vous m'aimez toujours avec une ardeur sans égale, et que rien n'est capable de vous détacher de moi que la mort?--(MOLIERE, Don Juan, Acte i, Sc 3.)

* * * * *

DONNA ELVIRA

Don Juan, might you please to help one give a guess, Hold up a candle, clear this fine mysteriousness?

DON JUAN

Madam, if needs I must declare the truth,--in short ...

DONNA ELVIRA

Fie, for a man of mode, accustomed at the court To such a style of thing, how awkwardly my lord Attempts defence! You move compassion, that 's the word-- Dumb-foundered and chapfallen! Why don't you arm your brow With noble impudence? Why don't you swear and vow No sort of change is come to any sentiment You ever had for me? Affection holds the bent, You love me now as erst, with passion that makes pale All ardor else: nor aught in nature can avail To separate us two, save what, in stopping breath, May peradventure stop devotion likewise--death!