Argeia

Alas, alas, what heavy words are these,That in the place of joy forbid your tongue,That cloud and change his face, while desperate sorrowSighs in his heart? I came to share a triumph:All is dismay and terror. What is this?

IN. True, wife, I spake of triumph, and I told theeThe winter-withering hope of my whole lifeHas flower'd to-day in amaranth: what the hopeThou knowest, who hast shared; but the conditionI told thee not and thou hast heard: this prophet,Who comes to bring us fire, hath said that ZeusWills not the gift he brings, and will be wrothWith us that take it.

AR. O doleful change, I cameIn pious purpose, nay, I heard withinThe hymn to glorious Zeus: I rose and said,The mighty god now bends, he thrusts asideHis heavenly supplicants to hear the prayerOf Inachus his servant; let him hear.O let him turn away now lest he hear.Nay, frown not on me; though a woman's voiceThat counsels is but heard impatiently,Yet by thy love, and by the sons I bare thee,By this our daughter, our last ripening fruit,By our long happiness and hope of more,Hear me and let me speak.IN. Well, wife, speak on.

AR. Thy voice forbids more than thy words invite:Yet say whence comes this stranger. Know'st thou not?Yet whencesoe'er, if he but wish us well,He will not bound his kindness in a day.Do nought in haste. Send now to SicyonAnd fetch thy son Phorôneus, for his stakeIn this is more than thine, and he is wise.'Twere well Phorôneus and ÆgialeusWere both here: maybe they would both refuseThe strange conditions which this stranger brings.Were we not happy too before he came?Doth he not offer us unhappiness?Bid him depart, and at some other time,When you have well considered, then return.

IN. 'Tis his conditions that we now shall hear.

AR. O hide them yet! Are there not tales enoughOf what the wrathful gods have wrought on men?Nay, 'twas this very fire thou now wouldst take,Which vain Salmoneus, son of Æolus,Made boast to have, and from his rattling carThrew up at heaven to mock the lightning. HimThe thunderer stayed not to deride, but sentOne blinding fork, that in the vacant skyShook like a serpent's tongue, which is but seenIn memory, and he was not, or for burialRode with the ashes of his royal cityUpon the whirlwind of the riven air.And after him his brother Athamas,King of Orchomenos, in frenzy fellFor Hera's wrath, and raving killed his son;And would have killed fair Ino, but that she fledInto the sea, preferring there to wooThe choking waters, rather than that the armWhich had so oft embraced should do her wrong.For which old crimes the gods yet unappeasedDemand a sacrifice, and the king's sonDreads the priest's knife, and all the city mourns.Or shall I say what shameful fury it wasWith which Poseidon smote Pasiphaë,But for neglect of a recorded vow:Or how Actæon fared of ArtemisWhen he surprised her, most himself surprised:And even while he looked his boasted bowFell from his hands, and through his veins there ranA strange oblivious trouble, darkening senseTill he knew nothing but a hideous fearWhich bade him fly, and faster, as behindHe heard his hounds give tongue, that through the woodWere following, closing, caught him and tore him down.And many more thus perished in their prime;Lycaon and his fifty sons, whom ZeusIn their own house spied on, and unawaresWatching at hand, from his disguise arose.And overset the table where they satAround their impious feast and slew them all:Alcyonè and Ceyx, queen and king,Who for their arrogance were changed to birds:And Cadmus now a serpent, once a king:And saddest Niobe, whom not the loveOf Leto aught availed, when once her boastWent out, though all her crime was too much prideOf heaven's most precious gift, her children fair.Six daughters had she, and six stalwart sons;But Leto bade her two destroy the twelve.And somewhere now, among lone mountain rocksOn Sipylus, where couch the nymphs at nightWho dance all day by Achelous' stream,The once proud mother lies, herself a rock,And in cold breast broods o'er the goddess' wrong.

IN. Now hush thy fear. See how thou tremblest still.Or if thou fear, fear passion; for the freshesOf tenderness and motherly love will drownThe eye of judgment: yet, since even excessOf the soft quality fits woman well,I praise thee; nor would ask thee less to aidWith counsel, than in love to share my choice.Tho' weak thy hands to poise, thine eye may markThis balance, how the good of all outweighsThe good of one or two, though these be us.Let not reluctance shame the sacrificeWhich in another thou wert first to praise.

AR. Alas for me, for thee and for our children,Who, being our being, having all our having,If they fare ill, our pride lies in the dust.

IN. O deem not a man's children are but thoseOut of his loins engendered--our spirit's loveHath such prolific consequence, that VirtueCometh of ancestry more pure than blood,And counts her seed as sand upon the shore.Happy is he whose body's sons proclaimTheir father's honour, but more blest to whomThe world is dutiful, whose children springOut of all nations, and whose pride the proudRise to regenerate when they call him sire.

AR. Thus, husband, ever have I bought and buyNobleness cheaply being linked with thee.Forgive my weakness; see, I now am bold;Tell me the worst I'll hear and wish 'twere more.IN. Retire--thy tears perchance may stir again.

AR. Nay, I am full of wonder and would hear.

PR. Bid me not tell if ye have fear to hear;But have no fear. Knowledge of future thingsCan nothing change man's spirit: and though he seemTo aim his passion darkly, like a shaftShot toward some fearful sound in thickest night,He hath an owl's eye, and must blink at day.The springs of memory, that feed alikeHis thought and action, draw from furthest timeTheir constant source, and hardly brook constraintOf actual circumstance, far less attendOn glassed futurity; nay, death itself,His fate unquestioned, his foretasted pain,The certainty foreknown of things unknown,Cannot discourage his habitual beingIn its appointed motions, to make waverHis eager hand, nor loosen the desireOf the most feeble melancholy heartEven from the unhopefullest of all her dreams.

IN. Since then I long to know, now something sayOf what will come to mine when I am gone.

PR. And let the maid too hear, for 'tis of herI speak, to tell her whither she should turnThe day ye drive her forth from hearth and home.

IN. What say'st thou? drive her out? and we? from home?Banish the comfort of our eyes? Nay ratherBelieve that these obedient hands will tearThe heart out of my breast, ere it do this.

PR. When her wild cries arouse the house at night,And, running to her bed, ye see her setUpright in trancèd sleep, her starting hairWith deathly sweat bedewed, in horror shaking,Her eyeballs fixed upon the unbodied dark,Through which a draping mist of luminous gloomDrifts from her couch away,--when, if asleep,She walks as if awake, and if awakeDreams, and as one who nothing hears or sees,Lives in a sick and frantic mood, whose causeShe understands not or is loth to tell--

AR. Ah, ah, my child, my child!--Dost thou feel aught?Speak to me--nay, 'tis nothing--hearken not.

PR. Ye then distraught with sorrow, neither knowingWhether to save were best or lose, will seekApollo's oracle.

IN. And what the answer?Will it discover nought to avert this sorrow?PR. Or else thy whole race perish root and branch.