Erechtheus
A >> Algernon Charles Swinburne >> ErechtheusPRAXITHEA.
Farewell I bid thee; so bid thou not me,
Lest the Gods hear and mock us; yet on these
I lay the weight not of this grief, nor cast
Ill words for ill deeds back; for if one say
They have done men wrong, what hurt have they to hear,
Or he what help to have said it? surely, child,
If one among men born might say it and live 970
Blameless, none more than I may, who being vexed
Hold yet my peace; for now through tears enough
Mine eyes have seen the sun that from this day
Thine shall see never more; and in the night
Enough has blown of evil, and mine ears
With wail enough the winds have filled, and brought
Too much of cloud from over the sharp sea
To mar for me the morning; such a blast
Rent from these wide void arms and helpless breast
Long since one graft of me disbranched, and bore 980
Beyond the wild ways of the unwandered world
And loud wastes of the thunder-throated sea,
Springs of the night and openings of the heaven,
The old garden of the Sun; whence never more
From west or east shall winds bring back that blow
From folds of opening heaven or founts of night
The flower of mine once ravished, born my child
To bear strange children; nor on wings of theirs
Shall comfort come back to me, nor their sire
Breathe help upon my peril, nor his strength 990
Raise up my weakness; but of Gods and men
I drift unsteered on ruin, and the wave
Darkens my head with imminent height, and hangs
Dumb, filled too full with thunder that shall leave
These ears death-deafened when the tide finds tongue
And all its wrath bears on them; thee, O child,
I help not, nor am holpen; fain, ah fain,
More than was ever mother born of man,
Were I to help thee; fain beyond all prayer,
Beyond all thought fain to redeem thee, torn 1000
More timeless from me sorrowing than the dream
That was thy sister; so shalt thou be too,
Thou but a vision, shadow-shaped of sleep,
By grief made out of nothing; now but once
I touch, but once more hold thee, one more kiss
This last time and none other ever more
Leave on thy lips and leave them. Go; thou wast
My heart, my heart's blood, life-blood of my life,
My child, my nursling; now this breast once thine
Shall rear again no children; never now 1010
Shall any mortal blossom born like thee
Lie there, nor ever with small silent mouth
Draw the sweet springs dry for an hour that feed
The blind blithe life that knows not; never head
Rest here to make these cold veins warm, nor eye
Laugh itself open with the lips that reach
Lovingly toward a fount more loving; these
Death makes as all good lesser things now dead,
And all the latter hopes that flowered from these
And fall as these fell fruitless; no joy more 1020
Shall man take of thy maidenhood, no tongue
Praise it; no good shall eyes get more of thee
That lightened for thy love's sake. Now, take note,
Give ear, O all ye people, that my word
May pierce your hearts through, and the stroke that cleaves
Be fruitful to them; so shall all that hear
Grow great at heart with child of thought most high
And bring forth seed in season; this my child,
This flower of this my body, this sweet life,
This fair live youth I give you, to be slain, 1030
Spent, shed, poured out, and perish; take my gift
And give it death and the under Gods who crave
So much for that they give; for this is more,
Much more is this than all we; for they give
Freedom, and for a blast, an air of breath,
A little soul that is not, they give back
Light for all eyes, cheer for all hearts, and life
That fills the world's width full of fame and praise
And mightier love than children's. This they give,
The grace to make thy country great, and wrest 1040
From time and death power to take hold on her
And strength to scathe for ever; and this gift,
Is this no more than man's love is or mine,
Mine and all mothers'? nay, where that seems more,
Where one loves life of child, wife, father, friend,
Son, husband, mother, more than this, even there
Are all these lives worth nothing, all loves else
With this love slain and buried, and their tomb
A thing for shame to spit on; for what love
Hath a slave left to love with? or the heart 1050
Base-born and bound in bondage fast to fear,
What should it do to love thee? what hath he,
The man that hath no country? Gods nor men
Have such to friend, yoked beast-like to base life,
Vile, fruitless, grovelling at the foot of death,
Landless and kinless thralls of no man's blood,
Unchilded and unmothered, abject limbs
That breed things abject; but who loves on earth
Not friend, wife, husband, father, mother, child,
Nor loves his own life for his own land's sake, 1060
But only this thing most, more this than all,
He loves all well and well of all is loved,
And this love lives for ever. See now, friends,
My countrymen, my brothers, with what heart
I give you this that of your hands again
The Gods require for Athens; as I give
So give ye to them what their hearts would have
Who shall give back things better; yea, and these
I take for me to witness, all these Gods,
Were their great will more grievous than it is, 1070
Not one but three, for this one thin-spun thread
A threefold band of children would I give
For this land's love's sake; for whose love to-day
I bid thee, child, fare deathward and farewell.
CHORUS.
O wofullest of women, yet of all
Happiest, thy word be hallowed; in all time
Thy name shall blossom, and from strange new tongues
High things be spoken of thee; for such grace
The Gods have dealt to no man, that on none
Have laid so heavy sorrow. From this day 1080
Live thou assured of godhead in thy blood,
And in thy fate no lowlier than a God
In all good things and evil; such a name
Shall be thy child this city's, and thine own
Next hers that called it Athens. Go now forth
Blest, and grace with thee to the doors of death.
CHTHONIA.
O city, O glory of Athens, O crown of my father's land, farewell.
CHORUS.
For welfare is given her of thee.
CHTHONIA.
O Goddess, be good to thy people, that in them dominion and freedom
may dwell.
CHORUS.
Turn from us the strengths of the sea. 1090
CHTHONIA.
Let glory's and theirs be one name in the mouths of all nations
made glad with the sun.
CHORUS.
For the cloud is blown back with thy breath.
CHTHONIA.
With the long last love of mine eyes I salute thee,
O land where my days now are done.
CHORUS.
But her life shall be born of thy death.
CHTHONIA.
I put on me the darkness thy shadow, my mother, and symbol, O
Earth, of my name.
CHORUS.
For thine was her witness from birth.
CHTHONIA.
In thy likeness I come to thee darkling, a daughter whose dawn and
her even are the same.
CHORUS.
Be thine heart to her gracious, O Earth.
CHTHONIA.
To thine own kind be kindly, for thy son's name's sake.
CHORUS.
That sons unborn may praise thee and thy first-born son. 1100
CHTHONIA.
Give me thy sleep, who give thee all my life awake.
CHORUS.
Too swift a sleep, ere half the web of day be spun.
CHTHONIA.
Death brings the shears or ever life wind up the weft.
CHORUS.
Their edge is ground and sharpened; who shall stay his hand?
CHTHONIA.
The woof is thin, a small short life, with no thread left.
CHORUS.
Yet hath it strength, stretched out, to shelter all the land.
CHTHONIA.
Too frail a tent for covering, and a screen too strait.
CHORUS.
Yet broad enough for buckler shall thy sweet life be.
CHTHONIA.
A little bolt to bar off battle from the gate.
CHORUS.
A wide sea-wall, that shatters the besieging sea. 1110
CHTHONIA.
I lift up mine eyes from the skirts of the shadow, [_Str._
From the border of death to the limits of light;
O streams and rivers of mountain and meadow
That hallow the last of my sight,
O father that wast of my mother
Cephisus, O thou too his brother
From the bloom of whose banks as a prey
Winds harried my sister away,
O crown on the world's head lying
Too high for its waters to drown, 1120
Take yet this one word of me dying,
O city, O crown.
Though land-wind and sea-wind with mouths that blow
slaughter [_Ant._
Should gird them to battle against thee again,
New-born of the blood of a maiden thy daughter,
The rage of their breath shall be vain.
For their strength shall be quenched and made idle,
And the foam of their mouths find a bridle,
And the height of their heads bow down
At the foot of the towers of the town. 1130
Be blest and beloved as I love thee
Of all that shall draw from thee breath;
Be thy life as the sun's is above thee;
I go to my death.
CHORUS.
Many loves of many a mood and many a kind [_Str._ 1.
Fill the life of man, and mould the secret mind;
Many days bring many dooms, to loose and bind;
Sweet is each in season, good the gift it brings,
Sweet as change of night and day with altering wings,
Night that lulls world-weary day, day that comforts night, 1140
Night that fills our eyes with sleep, day that fills with light.
None of all is lovelier, loftier love is none, [_Ant._ 1.
Less is bride's for bridegroom, mother's less for son,
Child, than this that crowns and binds up all in one;
Love of thy sweet light, thy fostering breast and hand,
Mother Earth, and city chosen, and natural land;
Hills that bring the strong streams forth, heights of
heavenlier air,
Fields aflower with winds and suns, woods with shadowing hair.
But none of the nations of men shall they liken to thee, [_Str._ 2.
Whose children true-born and the fruit of thy body are we. 1150
The rest are thy sons but in figure, in word are thy seed;
We only the flower of thy travail, thy children indeed.
Of thy soil hast thou fashioned our limbs, of thy waters
their blood,
And the life of thy springs everlasting is fount of our flood.
No wind oversea blew us hither adrift on thy shore,
None sowed us by land in thy womb that conceived us and bore.
But the stroke of the shaft of the sunlight that brought us to birth
Pierced only and quickened thy furrows to bear us, O Earth.
With the beams of his love wast thou cloven as with iron or fire,
And the life in thee yearned for his life, and grew great with
desire. 1160
And the hunger and thirst to be wounded and healed with his dart
Made fruitful the love in thy veins and the depth of thine heart.
And the showers out of heaven overflowing and liquid with love
Fulfilled thee with child of his godhead as rain from above.
Such desire had ye twain of each other, till molten in
one [_Ant._ 2.
Ye might bear and beget of your bodies the fruits of the sun.
And the trees in their season brought forth and were kindled anew
By the warmth of the moisture of marriage, the child-bearing dew.
And the firstlings were fair of the wedlock of heaven and of earth;
All countries were bounteous with blossom and burgeon of birth, 1170
Green pastures of grass for all cattle, and life-giving corn;
But here of thy bosom, here only, the man-child was born.
All races but one are as aliens engrafted or sown,
Strange children and changelings; but we, O our mother, thine own.
Thy nurslings are others, and seedlings they know not of whom;
For these hast thou fostered, but us thou hast borne in thy womb.
Who is he of us all, O beloved, that owe thee for birth,
Who would give not his blood for his birth's sake, O mother, O
Earth?
What landsman is he that was fostered and reared of thine hand
Who may vaunt him as we may in death though he die for the
land? 1180
Well doth she therefore who gives thee in guerdon
The bloom of the life of thy giving; [_Epode._
And thy body was bowed by no fruitless burden,
That bore such fruit of thee living.
For her face was not darkened for fear,
For her eyelids conceived not a tear,
Nor a cry from her lips craved pity;
But her mouth was a fountain of song,
And her heart as a citadel strong
That guards the heart of the city. 1190
MESSENGER.
High things of strong-souled men that loved their land
On brass and stone are written, and their deeds
On high days chanted; but none graven or sung
That ever set men's eyes or spirits on fire,
Athenians, has the sun's height seen, or earth
Heard in her depth reverberate as from heaven,
More worth men's praise and good report of Gods
Than here I bring for record in your ears.
For now being come to the altar, where as priest
Death ministering should meet her, and his hand 1200
Seal her sweet eyes asleep, the maiden stood,
With light in all her face as of a bride
Smiling, or shine of festal flame by night
Far flung from towers of triumph; and her lips
Trembled with pride in pleasure, that no fear
Blanched them nor death before his time drank dry
The blood whose bloom fulfilled them; for her cheeks
Lightened, and brighter than a bridal veil
Her hair enrobed her bosom and enrolled
From face to feet the body's whole soft length 1210
As with a cloud sun-saturate; then she spake
With maiden tongue words manlike, but her eyes
Lit mildly like a maiden's: _Countrymen,
With more goodwill and height of happier heart
I give me to you than my mother bare,
And go more gladly this great way to death
Than young men bound to battle._ Then with face
Turned to the shadowiest part of all the shrine
And eyes fast set upon the further shade,
_Take me, dear Gods_; and as some form had shone 1220
From the deep hollow shadow, some God's tongue
Answered, _I bless you that your guardian grace
Gives me to guard this country, takes my blood,
Your child's by name, to heal it_. Then the priest
Set to the flower-sweet snow of her soft throat
The sheer knife's edge that severed it, and loosed
From the fair bondage of so spotless flesh
So strong a spirit; and all that girt them round
Gazing, with souls that hung on that sad stroke,
Groaned, and kept silence after while a man 1230
Might count how far the fresh blood crept, and bathed
How deep the dark robe and the bright shrine's base
Red-rounded with a running ring that grew
More large and duskier as the wells that fed
Were drained of that pure effluence: but the queen
Groaned not nor spake nor wept, but as a dream
Floats out of eyes awakening so past forth
Ghost-like, a shadow of sorrow, from all sight
To the inner court and chamber where she sits
Dumb, till word reach her of this whole day's end. 1240
CHORUS.
More hapless born by far [_Str._
Beneath some wintrier star,
One sits in stone among high Lydian snows,
The tomb of her own woes:
Yet happiest was once of the daughters of Gods, and divine by
her sire and her lord,
Ere her tongue was a shaft for the hearts of her sons, for the
heart of her husband a sword.
For she, too great of mind, [_Ant._
Grown through her good things blind.
With godless lips and fire of her own breath
Spake all her house to death; 1250
But thou, no mother unmothered, nor kindled in spirit with
pride of thy seed,
Thou hast hallowed thy child for a blameless blood-offering,
and ransomed thy race by thy deed.
MESSENGER.
As flower is graffed on flower, so grief on grief
Engraffed brings forth new blossoms of strange tears,
Fresh buds and green fruits of an alien pain;
For now flies rumour on a dark wide wing,
Murmuring of woes more than ye knew, most like
Hers whom ye hailed most wretched; for the twain
Last left of all this house that wore last night
A threefold crown of maidens, and to-day 1260
Should let but one fall dead out of the wreath,
If mad with grief we know not and sore love
For this their sister, or with shame soul-stung
To outlive her dead or doubt lest their lives too
The Gods require to seal their country safe
And bring the oracular doom to perfect end,
Have slain themselves, and fallen at the altar-foot
Lie by their own hands done to death; and fear
Shakes all the city as winds a wintering tree,
And as dead leaves are men's hearts blown about 1270
And shrunken with ill thoughts, and flowerless hopes
Parched up with presage, lest the piteous blood
Shed of these maidens guiltless fall and fix
On this land's forehead like a curse that cleaves
To the unclean soul's inexpiate hunted head
Whom his own crime tracks hotlier than a hound
To life's veiled end unsleeping; and this hour
Now blackens toward the battle that must close
All gates of hope and fear on all their hearts
Who tremble toward its issue, knowing not yet 1280
If blood may buy them surety, cleanse or soil
The helpless hands men raise and reach no stay.
CHORUS.
Ill thoughts breed fear, and fear ill words; but these
The Gods turn from us that have kept their law.
Let us lift up the strength of our hearts in song, [_Str._ 1.
And our souls to the height of the darkling day.
If the wind in our eyes blow blood for spray,
Be the spirit that breathes in us life more strong,
Though the prow reel round and the helm point wrong,
And sharp reefs whiten the shoreward way. 1290
For the steersman time sits hidden astern, [_Ant._ 1.
With dark hand plying the rudder of doom,
And the surf-smoke under it flies like fume
As the blast shears off and the oar-blades churn
The foam of our lives that to death return,
Blown back as they break to the gulfing gloom.
What cloud upon heaven is arisen, what shadow, what
sound, [_Str._ 2.
From the world beyond earth, from the night underground,
That scatters from wings unbeholden the weight of its darkness
around?
For the sense of my spirit is broken, and blinded
its eye, [_Ant._ 2. 1300
As the soul of a sick man ready to die,
With fear of the hour that is on me, with dread if an end be
not nigh.
O Earth, O Gods of the land, have ye heart now to see and
to hear [_Str._ 3.
What slays with terror mine eyesight and seals mine ear?
O fountains of streams everlasting, are all ye not shrunk up and
withered for fear?
Lo, night is arisen on the noon, and her hounds are in quest
by day, [_Ant._ 3.
And the world is fulfilled of the noise of them crying
for their prey,
And the sun's self stricken in heaven, and cast out of his
course as a blind man astray.
From east to west of the south sea-line [_Str._ 4.
Glitters the lightning of spears that shine; 1310
As a storm-cloud swoln that comes up from the skirts of the sea
By the wind for helmsman to shoreward ferried,
So black behind them the live storm serried
Shakes earth with the tramp of its foot, and the terror to be.
Shall the sea give death whom the land gave birth? [_Ant._ 4.
O Earth, fair mother, O sweet live Earth,
Hide us again in thy womb from the waves of it, help us or hide.
As a sword is the heart of the God thy brother,
But thine as the heart of a new-made mother,
To deliver thy sons from his ravin, and rage of his tide. 1320
O strong north wind, the pilot of cloud and rain, [_Str._ 5.
For the gift we gave thee what gift hast thou given us again?
O God dark-winged, deep-throated, a terror to forth-faring ships
by night,
What bride-song is this that is blown on the blast of thy breath?
A gift but of grief to thy kinsmen, a song but of death,
For the bride's folk weeping, and woe for her father, who finds
thee against him in fight.
Turn back from us, turn thy battle, take heed of our
cry; [_Ant._ 5.
Let thy dread breath sound, and the waters of war be dry;
Let thy strong wrath shatter the strength of our foemen, the
sword of their strength and the shield;
As vapours in heaven, or as waves or the wrecks of ships, 1330
So break thou the ranks of their spears with the breath of
thy lips,
Till their corpses have covered and clothed as with raiment the
face of the sword-ploughed field.
O son of the rose-red morning, O God twin-born with the
day, [_Str._ 6.
O wind with the young sun waking, and winged for the
same wide way,
Give up not the house of thy kin to the host thou hast marshalled
from northward for prey.
From the cold of thy cradle in Thrace, from the mists of the
fountains of night, [_Ant._ 6.
From the bride-bed of dawn whence day leaps laughing, on
fire for his flight,
Come down with their doom in thine hand on the ships thou hast
brought up against us to fight.
For now not in word but in deed is the harvest of spears
begun, [_Str._ 7.
And its clamour outbellows the thunder, its lightning outlightens
the sun. 1340
From the springs of the morning it thunders and lightens across
and afar
To the wave where the moonset ends and the fall of the last
low star.
With a trampling of drenched red hoofs and an earthquake of men
that meet,
Strong war sets hand to the scythe, and the furrows take fire
from his feet.
Earth groans from her great rent heart, and the hollows of rocks
are afraid,
And the mountains are moved, and the valleys as waves in a
storm-wind swayed.
From the roots of the hills to the plain's dim verge and the dark
loud shore,
Air shudders with shrill spears crossing, and hurtling of wheels
that roar.
As the grinding of teeth in the jaws of a lion that foam as
they gnash
Is the shriek of the axles that loosen, the shock of the poles
that crash. 1350
The dense manes darken and glitter, the mouths of the mad
steeds champ,
Their heads flash blind through the battle, and death's foot
rings in their tramp.
For a fourfold host upon earth and in heaven is arrayed for
the fight,
Clouds ruining in thunder and armies encountering as clouds in
the night.
Mine ears are amazed with the terror of trumpets, with darkness
mine eyes,
At the sound of the sea's host charging that deafens the roar of
the sky's.
White frontlet is dashed upon frontlet, and horse against horse
reels hurled,
And the gorge of the gulfs of the battle is wide for the spoil
of the world.
And the meadows are cumbered with shipwreck of chariots that
founder on land, [_Ant._ 7.
And the horsemen are broken with breach as of breakers, and
scattered as sand. 1360
Through the roar and recoil of the charges that mingle their
cries and confound,
Like fire are the notes of the trumpets that flash through the
darkness of sound.
As the swing of the sea churned yellow that sways with the wind
as it swells
Is the lift and relapse of the wave of the chargers that clash
with their bells;
And the clang of the sharp shrill brass through the burst of the
wave as it shocks
Rings clean as the clear wind's cry through the roar of the surge
on the rocks:
And the heads of the steeds in their headgear of war, and their
corsleted breasts,
Gleam broad as the brows of the billows that brighten the storm
with their crests,
Gleam dread as their bosoms that heave to the shipwrecking wind
as they rise,
Filled full of the terror and thunder of water, that slays as
it dies. 1370
So dire is the glare of their foreheads, so fearful the fire of
their breath,
And the light of their eyeballs enkindled so bright with the
lightnings of death;
And the foam of their mouths as the sea's when the jaws of its
gulf are as graves,
And the ridge of their necks as the wind-shaken mane on the
ridges of waves:
And their fetlocks afire as they rear drip thick with a dewfall
of blood
As the lips of the rearing breaker with froth of the manslaying
flood.
And the whole plain reels and resounds as the fields of the sea
by night
When the stroke of the wind falls darkling, and death is the
seafarer's light.