Throw him a pealing word of summons down,
To come, a late avenger, to the aid
Of this poor soul who bore him, and his sire.’
If this will bring him back, be this my prayer! — 585
But Vengeance travels in a dangerous way,
Double of issue, full of pits and snares
For all who pass, pursuers and pursued —
That way is dubious for a mother’s prayer.
Rather on thee I call, Husband belov’d! — 590
May Hermes, herald of the dead, convey
My words below to thee, and make thee hear. —
Bring back our son! if may be, without blood!
Install him in thy throne, still without blood!
Grant him to reign there wise and just like thee, 595
More fortunate than thee, more fairly judg’d!
This for our son: and for myself I pray,
Soon, having once beheld him, to descend
Into the quiet gloom, where thou art now.
These words to thine indulgent ear, thy wife, 600
I send, and these libations pour the while.
They make their offerings at the tomb. MEROPE then goes towards the palace.
THE CHORUS
The dead hath now his offerings duly paid.
But whither go’st thou hence, O Queen, away?
MEROPE
To receive Arcas, who to-day should come,
Bringing me of my boy the annual news. 605
THE CHORUS
No certain news if like the rest it run.
MEROPE
Certain in this, that ‘tis uncertain still.
THE CHORUS
What keeps him in Arcadia from return?
MEROPE
His grandsire and his uncles fear the risk.
THE CHORUS
Of what? it lies with them to make risk none. 610
MEROPE
Discovery of a visit made by stealth.
THE CHORUS
With arms then they should send him, not by stealth.
MEROPE
With arms they dare not, and by stealth they fear.
THE CHORUS
I doubt their caution little suits their ward.
MEROPE
The heart of youth I know; that most I fear. 615
THE CHORUS
I augur thou wilt hear some bold resolve.
MEROPE
I dare not wish it; but, at least, to hear
That my son still survives, in health, in bloom;
To hear that still he loves, still longs for, me;
Yet, with a light uncareworn spirit, turns 620
Quick from distressful thought, and floats in joy —
Thus much from Areas, my old servant true,
Who sav’d him from these murderous halls a babe,
And since has fondly watch’d him night and day
Save for this annual charge, I hope to hear. 625
If this be all, I know not; but I know,
These many years I live for this alone.
MEROPE goes in.
THE CHORUS
Much is there which the Sea str. 1.
Conceals from man, who cannot plumb its depths.
Air to his unwing’d form denies a way, 630
And keeps its liquid solitudes unscal’d.
Even Earth, whereon he treads,
So feeble is his march, so slow,
Holds countless tracts untrod.
But, more than all unplumb’d, ant. 1. 635
Unscal’d, untrodden, is the heart of Man.
More than all secrets hid, the way it keeps.
Nor any of our organs so obtuse,
Inaccurate, and frail,
As those with which we try to test 640
Feelings and motives there.
Yea, and not only have we not explor’d str. 2.
That wide and various world, the heart of others,
But even our own heart, that narrow world
Bounded in our own breast, we hardly know, 645
Of our own actions dimly trace the causes.
Whether a natural obscureness, hiding
That region in perpetual cloud,
Or our own want of effort, be the bar.
Therefore — while acts are from their motives judg’d, ant. 2. 650
And to one act many most unlike motives,
This pure, that guilty may have each impell’d —
Power fails us to try clearly if that cause
Assign’d us by the actor be the true one:
Power fails the man himself to fix distinctly 655
The cause which drew him to his deed,
And stamp himself, thereafter, bad or good.
The most are bad, wise men have said. str. 3.
Let the best rule, they say again.
The best, then, to dominion have the right. 660
Rights unconceded and denied,
Surely, if rights, may be by force asserted —
May be, nay should, if for the general weal.
The best, then, to the throne may carve his way,
And hew opposers down, 665
Free from all guilt of lawlessness,
Or selfish lust of personal power:
Bent only to serve Virtue,
Bent to diminish wrong.
And truly, in this ill-rul’d world, ant. 3. 670
Well sometimes may the good desire
To give to Virtue her dominion due.
Well may they long to interrupt
The reign of Folly, usurpation ever,
Though fenc’d by sanction of a thousand years. 675
Well thirst to drag the wrongful ruler down.
Well purpose to pen back
Into the narrow path of right,
The ignorant, headlong multitude,
Who blindly follow ever 680
Blind leaders, to their bane.
But who can say, without a fear, str. 4.
That best, who ought to rule, am I;
The mob, who ought to obey, are these;
I the one righteous, they the many bad? — 685
Who, without check of conscience, can aver
That he to power makes way by arms,
Sheds blood, imprisons, banishes, attaints,
Commits all deeds the guilty oftenest do,
Without a single guilty thought, 690
Arm’d for right only, and the general good?
Therefore, with censure unallay’d, ant. 4.
Therefore, with unexcepting ban,
Zeus and pure-thoughted Justice brand
Imperious self-asserting Violence. 695
Sternly condemn the too bold man, who dares
Elect himself Heaven’s destin’d arm.
And, knowing well man’s inmost heart infirm,
However noble the committer be,
His grounds however specious shown, 700
Turn with averted eyes from deeds of blood.
Thus, though a woman, I was school’d epode.
By those whom I revere.
Whether I learnt their lessons well,
Or, having learnt them, well apply 705
To what hath in this house befall’n,
If in the event be any proof,
The event will quickly show.
AEPYTUS comes in.
AEPYTUS
Maidens, assure me if they told me true
Who told me that the royal house was here. 710
THE CHORUS
Rightly they told thee, and thou art arriv’d.
AEPYTUS
Here, then, it is, where Polyphontes dwells?
THE CHORUS
He doth: thou hast both house and master right.
AEPYTUS
Might some one straight inform him he is sought?
THE CHORUS
Inform him that thyself, for here he comes.
POLYPHONTES comes forth, with ATTENDANTS and GUARDS. 715
> AEPYTUS
O king, all hail! I come with weighty news:
Most likely, grateful; but, in all case, sure.
POLYPHONTES
Speak them, that I may judge their kind myself.
AEPYTUS
Accept them in one word, for good or bad:
Aepytus, the Messenian prince, is dead! 720
POLYPHONTES
Dead! — and when died he? where? and by what hand?
And who art thou, who bringest me such news?
AEPYTUS
He perish’d in Arcadia, where he liv’d
With Cypselus; and two days since he died.
One of the train of Cypselus am I. 725
POLYPHONTES
Instruct me of the manner of his death.
AEPYTUS
That will I do, and to this end I came.
For, being of like age, of birth not mean,
The son of an Arcadian noble, I
Was chosen his companion from a boy; 730
And on the hunting-rambles which his heart,
Unquiet, drove him ever to pursue,
Through all the lordships of the Arcadian dales
From chief to chief, I wander’d at his side,
The captain of his squires, and his guard. 735
On such a hunting-journey, three morns since,
With beaters, hounds, and huntsmen, he and I
Set forth from Tegea, the royal town.
The prince at start seem’d sad, but his regard
Clear’d with blithe travel and the morning air. 740
We rode from Tegea, through the woods of oaks,
Past Arnê spring, where Rhea gave the babe
Poseidon to the shepherd-boys to hide
From Saturn’s search among the new-yean’d lambs,
To Mantinea, with its unbak’d walls; 745
Thence, by the Sea-God’s Sanctuary, and the tomb
Whither from wintry Maenalus were brought
The bones of Arcas, whence our race is nam’d,
On, to the marshy Orchomenian plain,
And the Stone Coffins; — then, by Caphyae Cliffs, 750
To Pheneos with its craggy citadel.
There, with the chief of that hill-town, we log’d
One night; and the next day, at dawn, far’d on
By the Three Fountains and the Adder’s Hill
To the Stymphalian Lake, our journey’s end, 755
To draw the coverts on Cyllene’s side.
There, on a grassy spur which bathes its root
Far in the liquid lake, we sate, and drew
Cates from our hunters’ pouch, Arcadian fare,
Sweet chestnuts, barely-cakes, and boar’s-flesh dried: 760
And as we ate, and rested there, we talk’d
Of places we had pass’d, sport we had had,
Of beasts of chase that haunt the Arcadian hills,
Wild hog, and bear, and mountain-deer, and roe:
Last, of our quarters with the Arcadian hills, 765
For courteous entertainment, welcome warm,
Sad, reverential homage, had our prince
From all, for his great lineage and his woes:
All which he own’d, and prais’d with grateful mind.
But still over his speech a gloom there hung, 770
As of one shadow’d by impending death;
And strangely, as we talk’d, he would apply
The story of spots mention’d to his own:
Telling us, Arnê minded him, he too
Was sav’d a babe, but to a life obscure, 775
Which he, the seed of Hercules, dragg’d on
Inglorious, and should drop at last unknown,
Even as those dead unepitaph’d, who lie
In the stone coffins at Orchomenus.
And, then, he bade remember how we pass’d 780
The Mantinean Sanctuary, forbid
To foot of mortal, where his ancestor,
Nam’d Aepytus like him, having gone in,
Was blinded by the outgushing springs of brine.
Then, turning westward to the Adder’s Hill — 785
Another ancestor, nam’d, too, like me,
Died of a snake-bite, said he, on that brow:
Still at his mountain tomb men marvel, built
Where, as life ebb’d, his bearers laid him down.
So he play’d on; then ended, with a smile — 790
This region is not happy for my race.
We cheer’d him; but, that moment, from the copse
By the lake-edge, broke the sharp cry of hounds;
The prickers shouted that the stage was gone:
We sprang upon our feet, we snatch’d our spears, 795
We bounded down the swarded slope, we plung’d
Through the dense ilex-thickets to the dogs.
Far in the woods ahead their music rang;
And many times that morn we cours’d in ring
The forests round which belt Cyllene’s side; 800
Till I, thrown out and tired, came to halt
On the same spur where we had sate at morn.
And resting there to breathe, I saw below
Rare, straggling hunters, foil’d by brake and crag,
And the prince, single, pressing on the rear 805
Of that unflagging quarry and the hounds.
Now, in the woods far down, I saw them cross
An open glade; now he was high aloft
On some tall scar fring’d with dark feathery pines,
Peering to spy a goat-track down the cliff, 810
Cheering with hand, and voice, and horn his dogs.
At last the cry drew to the water’s edge —
And through the brushwood, to the pebbly strand,
Broke, black with sweat, the antler’d mountain stag,
And took the lake: two hounds alone pursued; 815
Then came the prince — he shouted and plung’d in. —
There is a chasm rifted in the base
Of that unfooted precipice, whose rock
Walls on one side the deep Stymphalian Lake:
There the lake-waters, which in ages gone 820
Wash’d, as the marks upon the hills still show,
All the Stymphalian plain, are now suck’d down.
A headland, with one aged plane-tree crown’d,
Parts from the cave-pierc’d cliff the shelving bay
Where first the chase plung’d in: the bay is smooth, 825
But round the headland’s point a current sets,
Strong, black, tempestuous, to the cavern-mouth.
Stoutly, under the headland’s lee, they swam:
But when they came abreast the point, the race
Caught them, as wind takes feathers, whirl’d them round 830
Struggling in vain to cross it, swept them on,
Stag, dogs, and hunter, to the yawning gulph.
All this, O king, not piecemeal, as to thee
Now told, but in one flashing instant pass’d:
While from the turf whereon I lay I sprang, 835
And took three strides, quarry and dogs were gone;
A moment more — I saw the prince turn round
Once in the black and arrowy race, and cast
One arm aloft for help; then sweep beneath
The low-brow’d cavern-arch, and disappear. 840
And what I could, I did — to call by cries
Some straggling hunters to my aid, to rouse
Fishers who live on the lake-side, to launch
Boats, and approach, near as we dar’d, the chasm.
But of the prince nothing remain’d, save this, 845
His boar-spear’s broken shaft, back on the lake
Cast by the rumbling subterranean stream;
And this, at landing spied by us and sav’d,
His broad-brimm’d hunter’s hat, which, in the bay,
Where first the stag took water, floated still. 85
0
And I across the mountains brought with haste
To Cypselus, at Basilis, this news:
Basilis, his new city, which he now
Near Lycosura builds, Lycaon’s town,
First city founded on the earth by men. 855
He to thee sends me on, in one thing glad
While all else grieves him, that his grandchild’s death
Extinguishes distrust ‘twixt him and thee.
But I from our deplor’d mischance learn this —
The man who to untimely death is doom’d, 860
Vainly you hedge him from the assault of harm;
He bears the seed of ruin in himself.
THE CHORUS
So dies the last shoot of our royal tree!
Who shall tell Merope this heavy news?
POLYPHONTES
Stranger, the news thou bringest is too great 865
For instant comment, having many sides
Of import, and in silence best receiv’d,
Whether it turn at last to joy or woe.
But thou, the zealous bearer, hast no part
In what it has of painful, whether now, 870
First heard, or in its future issue shown.
Thou for thy labour hast deserv’d our best
Refreshment, needed by thee, as I judge,
With mountain-travel and night-watching spent. —
To the guest-chamber lead him, some one! give 875
All entertainment which a traveller needs,
And such as fits a royal house to show:
To friends, still more, and labourers in our cause.
ATTENDANTS conduct AEPYTUS within the palace.
THE CHORUS
The youth is gone within; alas! he bears
A presence sad for some one through those doors. 880
POLYPHONTES
Admire then, maidens, how in one short hour
The schemes, pursued in vain for twenty years,
Are by a stroke, though undesir’d, complete,
Crown’d with success, not in my way, but Heaven’s!
This at a moment, too, when I had urg’d 885
A last, long-cherish’d project, in my aim
Of concord, and been baffled with disdain.
Fair terms of reconcilement, equal rule,
I offer’d to my foes, and they refus’d:
Worse terms than mine they have obtain’d from Heaven. 890
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Page 32