Where travellers never pass, where only come
Wild beasts, and vultures sailing overhead. 1185
There, there thou liest now, my hapless child!
Stretch’d among briers and stones, the slow, black gore
Oozing through thy soak’d hunting-shirt, with limbs
Yet stark from the death-struggle, tight-clench’d hands,
And eyeballs staring for revenge in vain. 1190
Ah miserable!…
And thou, thou fair-skinn’d Serpent! thou art laid
In a rich chamber, on a happy bed,
In a king’s house, thy victim’s heritage;
And drink’st untroubled slumber, to sleep of 1195
The toils of thy foul service, till thou wake
Refresh’d, and claim thy master’s thanks and gold. —
Wake up in hell from thine unhallow’d sleep,
Thou smiling Fiend, and claim thy guerdon there!
Wake amid gloom, and howling, and the noise 1200
Of sinners pinion’d on the torturing wheel,
And the stanch Furies’ never-silent scourge.
And bid the chief-tormentors there provide
For a grand culprit shortly coming down.
Go thou the first, and usher in thy lord! 1205
A more just stroke than thou gav’st my son,
Take ——
MEROPE advances towards the sleeping AEPYTUS, with the axe uplifted. At the same moment ARCAS returns.
ARCAS (to the chorus)
Not with him to council did the King
Carry his messenger, but left him here.
Sees MEROPE and AEPYTUS.
O Gods!…
MEROPE
Foolish old man, thou spoil my blow!
ARCAS
What do I see?…
MEROPE
A murderer at death’s door. 1210
Therefore no words!
ARCAS
A murderer?…
MEROPE
And captive
To the dear next-of-kin of him he murder’d.
Stand, and let vengeance pass!
ARCAS
Hold, O Queen, hold!
Thou know’st not whom thou strik’st….
MEROPE
I know his crime.
ARCAS
Unhappy one! thou strik’st ——
MEROPE
A most just blow. 1215
ARCAS
No, by the Gods, thou slay’st ——
MEROPE
Stand off!
ARCAS
Thy son!
MEROPE
Ah!…She lets the axe drop, and falls insensible.
AEPYTUS (awaking)
Who are these? What shrill, ear-piercing scream
Wakes me thus kindly from the perilous sleep
Wherewith fatigue and youth had bound mine eyes, 1220
Even in the deadly palace of my foe? —
Arcas! Thou here?
ARCAS (embracing him)
O my dear master! O
My child, my charge belov’d, welcome to life!
As dead we held thee, mourn’d for thee as dead.
AEPYTUS
In word I died, that I in deed might live. 1225
But who are these?
ARCAS
Messenian maidens, friends.
AEPYTUS
And, Arcas! — but I tremble!
ARCAS
Boldly ask.
AEPYTUS
That black-rob’d, swooning figure?…
ARCAS
Merope.
AEPYTUS
O mother! mother!
MEROPE
Who upbraids me? Ah!…
seeing the axe.
AEPYTUS
Upbraids thee? no one.
MEROPE
Thou dost well: but take … 1230
AEPYTUS
What wav’st thou off?
MEROPE
That murderous axe away!
AEPYTUS
Thy son is here.
MEROPE
One said so, sure, but now.
AEPYTUS
Here, here thou hast him!
MEROPE
Slaughter’d by this hand!…
AEPYTUS
No, by the Gods, alive and like to live!
MEROPE
What, thou? — I dream ——
AEPYTUS
May’st thou dream ever so! 1235
MEROPE (advancing towards him)
My child? unhurt?…
AEPYTUS
Only by over joy.
MEROPE
Art thou, then, come?…
AEPYTUS
Never to part again.
They fall into one another’s arms. Then MEROPE, holding AEPYTUS by the hand, turns to THE CHORUS.
MEROPE
O kind Messenian maidens, O my friends,
Bear witness, see, mark well, on what a head
My first stroke of revenge had nearly fallen! 1240
THE CHORUS
We see, dear mistress: and we say, the Gods,
As hitherto they kept him, keep him now.
MEROPE
O my son! strophe.
I have, I have thee.… the years
Fly back, my child! and thou seem’st 1245
Ne’er to have gone from these eyes,
Never been torn from this breast.
AEPYTUS
Mother, my heart runs over: but the time
Presses me, chides me, will not let me weep.
MEROPE
Fearest thou now? 1250
AEPYTUS
I fear not, but I think on my design.
MEROPE
At the undried fount of this breast,
A babe, thou smilest again.
Thy brothers play at my feet,
Early-slain innocents! near, 1255
Thy kind-speaking father stands.
AEPYTUS
Remember, to revenge his death I come!
MEROPE
Ah … revenge! antistrophe.
That word! it kills me! I see
Once more roll back on my house, 1260
Never to ebb, the accurs’d
All-flooding ocean of blood.
AEPYTUS
Mother, sometimes the justice of the Gods
Appoints the way to peace through shedding blood.
MEROPE
Sorrowful peace! 1265
AEPYTUS
And yet the only peace to us allow’d.
MEROPE
From the first-wrought vengeance is born
A long succession of crimes.
Fresh blood flows, calling for blood:
Fathers, sons, grandsons, are all 1270
One death-dealing vengeful train.
AEPYTUS
Mother, thy fears are idle: for I come
To close an old wound, not to open new.
In all else willing to be taught, in this
Instruct me not; I have my lesson clear. — 1275
Arcas, seek out my uncle Laias, now
Concerting in the city with our friends;
Here bring him, ere the king come back from council:
That, how to accomplish what the Gods enjoin,
And the slow-ripening time at last prepares, 1280
We two with thee, my mother, may consult:
For whose help dare I count on if not thine?
MEROPE
Approves my brother Laias this design?
AEPYTUS
Yes, and alone is with me here to share.
MEROPE
And what of thine Arcadian mate, who bears 1285
Suspicion from thy grandsire of thy death,
For whom, as I suppose, thou passest here?
AEPYTUS
Sworn to our plot he is: but, that surmise
Fix’d him the author of my death, I knew not.
MEROPE
Proof, not surmise, sho
ws him in commerce close —— 1290
AEPYTUS
With this Messenian tyrant — that I know.
MEROPE
And entertainst thou, child, such dangerous friends?
AEPYTUS
This commerce for my best behoof he plies.
MEROPE
That thou may’st read thine enemy’s counsel plain?
AEPYTUS
Too dear his secret wiles have cost our house. 1295
MEROPE
And of his unsure agent what demands he?
AEPYTUS
News of my business, pastime, temper, friends.
MEROPE
His messages, then, point not to thy murder?
AEPYTUS
Not yet; though such, no doubt, his final aim.
MEROPE
And what Arcadian helpers bring’st thou here? 1300
AEPYTUS
Laias alone; no errand mine for crowds.
MEROPE
On what relying, to crush such a foe?
AEPYTUS
One sudden stroke, and the Messenians’ love.
MEROPE
O thou long-lost, long seen in dreams alone,
But now seen face to face, my only child! 1305
Why wilt thou fly to lose as soon as found
My new-won treasure, thy beloved life?
Or how expectest not to lose, who com’st
With such slight means to cope with such a foe?
Thine enemy thou know’st not, nor his strength. 1310
The stroke thou purposest is desperate, rash —
Yet grant that it succeeds; — thou hast behind
The stricken king a second enemy
Scarce dangerous less than him, the Dorian lords.
These are not now the savage band who erst 1315
Follow’d thy father from their northern hills,
Mere ruthless and uncounsell’d tools of war,
Good to obey, without a leader naught.
Their chief hath train’d them, made them like himself,
Sagacious, men of iron, watchful, firm, 1320
Against surprise and sudden panic proof:
Their master fall’n, these will not flinch, but band
To keep their master’s power: thou wilt find
Behind his corpse their hedge of serried spears.
But, to match these, thou hast the people’s love? 1325
On what a reed, my child, thou leanest there!
Knowest thou not how timorous, how unsure,
How useless an ally a people is
Against the one and certain arm of power?
Thy father perish’d in this people’s cause, 1330
Perish’d before their eyes, yet no man stirr’d:
For years, his widow, in their sight I stand,
A never-changing index to revenge —
What help, what vengeance, at their hands have I? —
At least, if thou wilt trust them, try them first: 1335
Against the King himself array the host
Thou countest on to back thee ‘gainst his lords:
First rally the Messenians to thy cause,
Give them cohesion, purpose, and resolve,
Marshal them to an army — then advance, 1340
Then try the issue; and not, rushing on
Single and friendless, throw to certain death
That dear-belov’d, that young, that gracious head.
Be guided, O my son! spurn counsel not:
For know thou this, a violent heart hath been 1345
Fatal to all the race of Hercules.
THE CHORUS
With sage experience she speaks; and thou,
O Aepytus, weigh well her counsel given.
AEPYTUS
Ill counsel, in my judgement, gives she here,
Maidens, and reads experience much amiss; 1350
Discrediting the succour which our cause
Might from the people draw, if rightly us’d:
Advising us a course which would, indeed,
If followed, make their succour slack and null.
A people is no army, train’d to fight, 1355
A passive engine, at their general’s will;
And, if so us’d, proves, as thou say’st, unsure.
A people, like a common man, is dull,
Is lifeless, while its heart remains untouch’d;
A fool can drive it, and a fly may scare: 1360
When it admires and loves, its heart awakes;
Then irresistibly it lives, it works:
A people, then, is an ally indeed;
It is ten thousand fiery wills in one.
Now I, if I invite them to run risk 1365
Of life for my advantage, and myself,
Who chiefly profit, run no more than they —
How shall I rouse their love, their ardour so?
But, if some signal, unassisted stroke,
Dealt at my own sole risk, before their eyes, 1370
Announces me their rightful prince return’d —
The undegenerate blood of Hercules —
The daring claimant of a perilous throne —
How might not such a sight as this revive
Their loyal passion tow’rd my father’s house? 1375
Electrify their hearts? make them no more
A craven mob, but a devouring fire?
Then might I use them, then, for one who thus
Spares not himself, themselves they will not spare.
Haply, had but one daring soul stood forth 1380
To rally them and lead them to revenge,
When my great father fell, they had replied: —
Alas! our foe alone stood forward then.
And thou, my mother, hadst thou made a sign —
Hadst thou, from thy forlorn and captive state 1385
Of widowhood in these polluted halls,
Thy prison-house, rais’d one imploring cry —
Who knows but that avengers thou hadst found?
But mute thou sat’st, and each Messenian heart
In thy despondency desponded too. 1390
Enough of this! — though not a finger stir
To succour me in my extremest need;
Though all free spirits in this land be dead,
And only slaves and tyrants left alive —
Yet for me, mother, I had liefer die 1395
On native ground, than drag the tedious hours
Of a protected exile any more.
Hate, duty, interest, passion call one way:
Here stand I now, and the attempt shall be.
THE CHORUS
Prudence is on the other side; but deeds 1400
Condemn’d by prudence have sometimes gone well.
MEROPE
Not till the ways of prudence all are tried,
And tried in vain, the turn of rashness comes.
Thou leapest to thy deed, and hast not ask’d
Thy kinsfolk and thy father’s friends for aid. 1405
AEPYTUS
And to what friends should I for aid apply?
MEROPE
The royal race of Temenus, in Argos ——
AEPYTUS
That house, like ours, intestine murder maims.
MEROPE
Thy Spartan cousins, Procles and his brother ——
AEPYTUS
Love a won cause, but not a cause to win. 1410
MEROPE
My father, then, and his Arcadian chiefs ——
AEPYTUS
Mean still to keep aloof from Dorian broil.
MEROPE
Wait, then, until sufficient help appears.
AEPYTUS
Orestes in Mycenae had no more.
MEROPE
He to fulfil an order rais’d his hand. 1415
AEPYTUS
What order more precise had he than I?
MEROPE
Apollo peal’d it from his Delphian cave.
A mother’s murder needed hest divine.
MEROPE
He had a hest, at least, and thou hast none.
AEPYTUS
The Gods command not where the heart speaks clear. 1420
MEROPE
Thou wilt destroy, I see, thyself and us.
AEPYTUS
O suffering! O calamity! how ten,
How twentyfold worse are ye, when your blows
Not only wound the sense, but kill the soul,
The noble thought, which is alone the man! 1425
That I, to-day returning, find myself
Orphan’d of both my parents — by his foes
My father, by your strokes my mother slain! —
For this is not my mother, who dissuades,
At the dread altar of her husband’s tomb, 1430
His son from vengeance of his murderer;
And not alone dissuades him, but compares
His just revenge to an unnatural deed,
A deed so awful, that the general tongue
Fluent of horrors, falters to relate it — 1435
Of darkness so tremendous, that its author,
Though to his act empower’d, nay, impell’d,
By the oracular sentence of the Gods,
Fled, for years after, o’er the face of earth,
A frenzied wanderer, a God-driven man, 1440
And hardly yet, some say, hath found a grave —
With such a deed as this thou matchest mine,
Which Nature sanctions, which the innocent blood
Clamours to find fulfill’d, which good men praise,
And only bad men joy to see undone? 1445
O honour’d father! hide thee in thy grave
Deep as thou canst, for hence no succour comes;
Since from thy faithful subjects what revenge
Canst thou expect, when thus thy window fails?
Alas! an adamantine strength indeed, 1450
Past expectation, hath thy murderer built:
For this is the true strength of guilty kings,
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Page 34