University of Virginia Library

Orestes—Archedice
ARCHEDICE
O my lord,
How can I make you think I am in earnest?
If only a feeble girl my words are weak,
Has not my poor pale face some warning in it?
You only smile, and trifle with my hand,
As if I said, the mulberry crop was late
Or like to be; or that my tiring girls
Had sung me a new lyric song about
The swallow in the acanthus column head
Thinking the white sails of the ships her young
Gone home before her; or some everyday
Speech of a girl's most trivial peaceful moods;
When we must chatter anything because
We are happy. I beseech you, Orestes, hear,
I, the weak girl, say to you—death, death, death.
And thrice again. And could I warn my lord,
I would repeat the weary burthen over
Of death, death, death, till sundown. O forget
The weak girl once you played with: I am changed,
A woman; for this death play of the world
Lets us be girls no longer, to plait wreaths
And smile and trifle. Nay, by Artemis,
I will forget henceforth to be a girl—
Return not, O return not with these men.
Lo, I have said; and like a seer foretell
Death to my lord if I speak vainly now.
Respect the message and despise the seer
So thou obey. Consider, if Zeus spake
Thro' me, my ineffectual lips would change
The thunder warning to a maiden's threat—
Believe me, Zeus speaks now and bide at home.

ORESTES
Why, these are wild words for my pretty maid,
I am not worth so fair a Pythoness
To trouble her sweet bosom about my doom.
Dear, be content, this poor unvalued life
Has been so rocked with danger and racked with care,
It is not worthy the sweet drops your eyes
Have trembled on their lashes, no not one
Round perfect tear from either precious light
Dimmed with the pity of old days for me.
Ah, dearest, my best days are knit with thee
And Medius. What is this you say, my sister?
As if with you and Medius long ago
I had not trusted my soul's secret ways,
The old weak dangerous groanings of my life;
The sullen wretch disprinced, and fettered down
In stately bondage, old before his time,
The boy without his boyhood, the court slave,
With a fresh scheme a day to free himself,
And a most craven hesitating fear
Lest his thought turn a monster in the deed.
Add to so mean a creature, that he knows
A curse is on his race; whose sure still feet
Strengthened of Zeus in his good hour to come,
Sits at these royal gates invisible
Until God say, “Arise, and enter in,
As you have waited long, so sweet shall be
Your vengeance.” And, who knows? if pity for me
Has given all quickness to your innocent ears
To catch the deadly feet and trailing robes
Soonest of all; ah dearest, let them come.

ARCHEDICE
You have made me weep: I reel in this great dread:
And my feet fail as tho' I trod among
Deep drifted sands: the life about my heart
Fails off like water. O, pity is a thing
Mighty to break the very nerve of life.
Ah, your hand here, Orestes: I am well
After a little: I will not tremble more—
I have forgotten all I meant to say—
Indeed, your words have moved me very much.
I see my poor lips will not make you heed:
I am most foolish and had best begone.

ORESTES
Tender and sweet, I love thee for thy fear;
But fate is stronger, dove, than pity of thine.
If this lord death is seated in my path,
There is no side road, dear, I must go on.
Better to meet him smiling than with tears,
Careless than careful; let us reason this.
The wise man sees in life no thing complete;
Love only is a music heard at times
Among the noisy nothings that consume
The pith of life, void effort, stale desires,
And nights of awful silence laid between
Days where no light is sweet upon the eyes:
Therefore, I thank thee for thy warning, sweet,
Fearing not much, so evil are the days,
Save I shall be where thy smile may not come.