Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

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Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 143

by Robert Browning


  His age was ripe at least.”

  ”My father lives,

  And she who bore me lives too, Herakles.”

  “It cannot be thy wife Alkestis gone?”

  “Two-fold the tale is, I can tell of her.”

  “Dead dost thou speak of her, or living yet?”

  “She is — and is not: hence the pain to me!”

  “I learn no whit the more, so dark thy speech!”

  “Know’st thou not on what fate she needs must fall?” 1160

  “I know she is resigned to die for thee.”

  “How lives she still, then, if submitting so?”

  “Eh, weep her not beforehand! wait till then!”

  “Who is to die is dead; doing is done.”

  “To be and not to be are thought diverse.”

  “Thou judgest this — I, that way, Herakles!”

  “Well, but declare what causes thy complaint!

  Who is the man has died from out thy friends?”

  “No man: I had a woman in my mind.”

  “Alien, or someone born akin to thee?” 1170

  “Alien: but still related to my house.”

  “How did it happen then that here she died?”

  “Her father dying left his orphan here.”

  “Alas, Admetos — would we found thee gay,

  Not grieving!”

  ”What as if about to do

  Subjoinest thou that comment?”

  ”I shall seek

  Another hearth, proceed to other hosts.”

  “Never, O king, shall that be! No such ill

  Betide me!”

  ”Nay, to mourners, should there come

  A guest, he proves importunate!”

  ”The dead — 1180

  Dead are they: but go thou within my house!”

  “‘T is base carousing beside friends who mourn.”

  “The guest-rooms, whither we shall lead thee, lie

  Apart from ours.”

  ”Nay, let me go my way!

  Ten thousandfold the favor I shall thank!”

  “It may not be thou goest to the hearth

  Of any man but me!” so made an end

  Admetos, softly and decisively,

  Of the altercation. Herakles forbore:

  And the king bade a servant lead the way, 1190

  Open the guest-rooms ranged remote from view

  O’ the main hall, tell the functionaries, too,

  They had to furnish forth a plenteous feast:

  And then shut close the doors o’ the hall, midway,

  “Because it is not proper friends who feast

  Should hear a groaning or be grieved,” quoth he.

  Whereat the hero, who was truth itself,

  Let out the smile again, repressed awhile

  Like fountain-brilliance one forbids to play.

  He did too many grandnesses, to note 1200

  Much in the meaner things about his path:

  And stepping there, with face towards the sun,

  Stopped seldom to pluck weeds or ask their names.

  Therefore he took Admetos at the word:

  This trouble must not hinder any more

  A true heart from good will and pleasant ways.

  And so, the great arm, which had slain the snake,

  Strained his friend’s head a moment in embrace

  On that broad breast beneath the lion’s-hide,

  Till the king’s cheek winced at the thick rough gold; 1210

  And then strode off, with who had care of him,

  To the remote guest-chamber: glad to give

  Poor flesh and blood their respite and relief

  In the interval ‘twixt fight and fight again —

  All for the world’s sake. Our eyes followed him,

  Be sure, till those mid-doors shut us outside.

  The king, too, watched great Herakles go off

  All faith, love, and obedience to a friend.

  And when they questioned him, the simple ones,

  “What dost thou? Such calamity to face, 1220

  Lies full before thee — and thou art so bold

  As play the host, Admetos? Hast thy wits?”

  He replied calmly to each chiding tongue:

  “But if from house and home I forced away

  A coming guest, would’st thou have praised me more?

  No, truly! since calamity were mine,

  Nowise diminished; while I showed myself

  Unhappy and inhospitable too:

  So adding to my ills this other ill,

  That mine were styled a stranger-hating house. 1230

  Myself have ever found this man the best

  Of entertainers when 1 went his way

  To parched and thirsty Argos.”

  ”If so be —

  Why didst thou hide what destiny was here,

  When one came that was kindly, as thou say’st?”

  “He never would have willed to cross my door

  Had he known aught of my calamities.

  And probably to some of you I seem

  Unwise enough in doing what I do;

  Such will scarce praise me: but these halls of mine 1240

  Know not to drive off and dishonour guests.”

  And so, the duty done, he turned once more

  To go and busy him about his dead.

  As for the sympathizers left to muse,

  There was a change, a new light thrown on things,

  Contagion from the magnanimity

  O’ the man whose life lay on his hand so light,

  As up he stepped, pursuing duty still

  “Higher and harder,” as he laughed and said.

  Somehow they found no folly now in the act 1250

  They blamed erewhile: Admetos’ private grief

  Shrank to a somewhat pettier obstacle

  I’ the way o’ the world: they saw good days had been,

  And good days, peradventure, still might be;

  Now that they over-looked the present cloud

  Heavy upon the palace opposite.

  And soon the thought took words and music thus: —

  “Harbour of many a stranger, free to friend,

  Ever and always, O thou house o’ the man

  We mourn for! Thee, Apollon’s very self, 1260

  The lyric Puthian, deigned inhabit once,

  Become a shepherd here in thy domains,

  And pipe, adown the winding hill-side paths,

  Pastoral marriage-poems to thy flocks

  At feed: while with them fed in fellowship,

  Through joy i’ the music, spot-skin lynxes; ay,

  And lions too, the bloody company,

  Came, leaving Othrus’ dell; and round thy lyre,

  Phoibos, there danced the speckle-coated fawn,

  Pacing on lightsome fetlock past the pines 1270

  Tress-topped, the creature’s natural boundary,

  Into the open everywhere; such heart

  Had she within her, beating joyous beats,

  At the sweet reassurance of thy song!

  Therefore the lot o’ the master is, to live

  In a home multitudinous with herds,

  Along by the fair-flowing Boibian lake,

  Limited, that ploughed land and pasture-plain,

  Only where stand the sun’s steeds, stabled west

  I’ the cloud, by that mid-air which makes the clime 1280

  Of those Molossoi: and he rules as well

  O’er the Aigaian, up to Pelion’s shore, —

  Sea-stretch without a port! Such lord have we:

  And here he opens house now, as of old,

  Takes to the heart of it a guest again:

  Though moist the eyelid of the master, still

  Mourning his dear wife’s body, dead but now!”

  And they admired: nobility of soul

  Was self-impelled to reverence, they saw:

  The best men ever prove the wisest too: 1290r />
  Something instinctive guides them still aright.

  And on each soul this boldness settled now,

  That one, who reverenced the Gods so much

  Would prosper yet: (or — I could wish it ran —

  Who venerates the Gods i’ the main, will still

  Practise things honest though obscure to judge.)

  They ended, for Admetos entered now;

  Having disposed all duteously indoors,

  He came into the outside world again,

  Quiet as ever: but a quietude 1300

  Bent on pursuing its descent to truth,

  As who must grope until he gain the ground

  O’ the dungeon doomed to be his dwelling now.

  Already high o’er head was piled the dusk,

  When something pushed to stay his downward step,

  Pluck back despair just reaching its repose.

  He would have bidden the kind presence there

  Observe that, — since the corpse was coming out,

  Cared for in all things that befit the case,

  Carried aloft, in decency and state, 1310

  To the last burial place and burning pile, —

  ‘T were proper friends addressed, as custom prompts,

  Alkestis bound on her last journeying.

  “Ay, for we see thy father,” they subjoined,

  “Advancing as the aged foot best may;

  His servants, too: each bringing in his hand

  Adornments for thy wife, all pomp that’s due

  To the downward-dwelling people.” And in truth,

  By slow procession till they filled the stage,

  Came Pheres, and his following, and their gifts. 1320

  You see, the worst of the interruption was,

  It plucked back, with an over-hasty hand,

  Admetos from descending to the truth,

  (I told you) — put him on the brink again,

  Full i’ the noise and glare where late he stood:

  With no fate fallen and irrevocable,

  But all things subject still to chance and change:

  And that chance, — life, and that change, — happiness.

  And with the low strife came the little mind:

  He was once more the man might gain so much, 1330

  Life too and wife too, would his friends but help!

  All he felt now was, that there faced him one

  Supposed the likeliest, in emergency.

  To help: and help, by mere self-sacrifice

  So natural, it seemed as if the sire

  Must needs lie open still to argument,

  Withdraw the rash decision, not to die

  But rather live, though death would save his son: —

  Argument like the ignominious grasp

  O’ the drowner whom his fellow grasps as fierce, 1340

  Each marvelling that the other needs must hold

  Head out of water, though friend choke thereby.

  And first the father’s salutation fell.

  Burthened, he came, in common with his child,

  Who lost, none would gainsay, a good chaste spouse:

  Yet such things must be borne, though hard to bear.

  “So, take this tribute of adornment, deep

  In the earth let it descend along with her!

  Behoves we treat the body with respect

  — Of one who died, at least, to save thy life, 1350

  Kept me from being childless, nor allowed

  That I, bereft of thee, should peak and pine

  In melancholy age; she, for the sex,

  All of her sisters, put in evidence,

  By daring such a feat, that female life

  Might prove more excellent than men suppose.

  O thou Alkestis!” out he burst in fine,

  “Who, while thou savedst this my son, didst raise

  Also myself from sinking, — hail to thee!

  Well be it with thee even in the house 1360

  Of Hades! I maintain, if mortals must

  Marry, this sort of marriage is the sole

  Permitted those among them who are wise!”

  So his oration ended. Like hates like:

  Accordingly Admetos, — full i’ the face

  Of Pheres, his true father, outward shape

  And inward fashion, body matching soul, —

  Saw just himself when years should do their work

  And reinforce the selfishness inside

  Until it pushed the last disguise away: 1370

  As when the liquid metal cools i’ the mould,

  Stands forth a statue: bloodless, hard, cold bronze.

  So, in old Pheres, young Admetos showed,

  Pushed to completion: and a shudder ran,

  And his repugnance soon had vent in speech:

  Glad to escape outside, nor, pent within,

  Find itself there fit food for exercise.

  “Neither to this interment called by me

  Comest thou, nor thy presence I account

  Among the covetable proofs of love. 1380

  As for thy tribute of adornment, — no!

  Ne’er shall she don it, ne’er in debt to thee

  Be buried! What is thine, that keep thou still!

  Then it behoved thee to commiserate

  When I was perishing: but thou, who stood’st

  Foot-free o’ the snare, wast acquiescent then

  That I, the young, should die, not thou, the old —

  Wilt thou lament this corpse thyself hast slain?

  Thou wast not, then, true father to this flesh;

  Nor she, who makes profession of my birth 1390

  And styles herself my mother, neither she

  Bore me: but, come of slave’s blood, I was cast

  Stealthily ‘neath the bosom of thy wife!

  Thou showedst, put to touch, the thing thou art,

  Nor I esteem myself born child of thee!

  Otherwise, thine is the preeminence

  O’er all the world in cowardice of soul:

  Who, being the old man thou art, arrived

  Where life should end, didst neither will nor dare

  Die for thy son, but left the task to her, 1400

  The alien woman, whom I well might think

  Own, only mother both and father too!

  And yet a fair strife had been thine to strive,

  — Dying for thy own child; and brief for thee

  In any case, the rest of time to live;

  While I had lived, and she, our rest of time,

  Nor I been left to groan in solitude.

  Yet certainly all things which happy man

  Ought to experience, thy experience grasped.

  Thou wast a ruler through the bloom of youth, 1410

  And I was son to thee, recipient due

  Of sceptre and demesne, — no need to fear

  That dying thou should’st leave an orphan house

  For strangers to despoil. Nor yet wilt thou

  Allege that as dishonouring, forsooth,

  Thy length of days, I gave thee up to die, —

  I, who have held thee in such reverence!

  And in exchange for it, such gratitude

  Thou, father, — thou award’st me, mother mine!

  Go, lose no time, then, in begetting sons 1420

  Shall cherish thee in age, and, when thou diest,

  Deck up and lay thee out, as corpses claim!

  For never I, at least, with this my hand

  Will bury thee: it is myself am dead

  So far as lies in thee. But if I light

  Upon another saviour, and still see

  The sunbeam, — his, the child I call myself,

  His, the old age that claims my cherishing.

  How vainly do these aged pray for death,

  Abuse the slow drag of senility! 1430

  But should death step up, nobody inclines

  To die, nor age is now the weight it was!”
r />   You see what all this poor pretentious talk

  Tried at, — how weakness strove to hide itself

  In bluster against weakness, — the loud word

  To hide the little whisper, not so low

  Already in that heart beneath those lips!

  Ha, could it be, who hated cowardice

  Stood confessed craven, and who lauded so

  Self-immolating love, himself had pushed 1440

  The loved one to the altar in his place?

  Friends interposed, would fain stop further play

  O’ the sharp-edged tongue: they felt love’s champion here

  Had left an undefended point or two.

  The antagonist might profit by; bade “Pause!

  Enough the present sorrow! Nor, O son,

  Whet thus against thyself thy father’s soul!”

  Ay, but old Pheres was the stouter stuff!

  Admetos, at the flintiest of the heart,

  Had so much soft in him as held a fire: 1450

  The other was all iron, clashed from flint

  Its fire, but shed no spark and showed no bruise.

  Did Pheres crave instruction as to facts?

  He came, content, the ignoble word, for him,

  Should lurk still in the blackness of each breast,

  As sleeps the water-serpent half-surmised:

  Not brought up to the surface at a bound,

  By one touch of the idly-probing spear,

  Reed-like against the unconquerable scale.

  He came pacific, rather, as strength should, 1460

  Bringing the decent praise, the due regret,

  And each banality prescribed of old.

  Did he commence “Why let her die for you?”

  And rouse the coiled and quiet ugliness

  “What is so good to man as man’s own life?”

  No: but the other did: and, for his pains,

  Out, full in face of him, the venom leapt.

  “And whom dost thou make bold, son — Ludian slave,

  Or Phrugian whether, money made thy ware.

  To drive at with revilings? Know’st thou not 1470

  I, a Thessalian, from Thessalian sire

  Spring and am born legitimately free?

  Too arrogant art thou; and, youngster-words

  Casting against me, having had thy fling,

  Thou goest not off as all were ended so!

  I gave thee birth indeed and mastership

  I’ the mansion, brought thee up to boot: there ends

  My owing, nor extends to die for thee!

  Never did I receive it as a law

  Hereditary, no, nor Greek at all, 1480

  That sires in place of sons were bound to die.

  For to thy sole and single self wast thou

  Born, with whatever fortune, good or bad;

  Such things as bear bestowment, those thou hast;

  Already ruling widely, broad lands, too,

  Doubt not but I shall leave thee in due time:

 

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