 | Callirrhoë |  |
Scene III.
—Beneath a sycamore tree. Callirrhoë resting.Enter Coresus at a distance.
Coresus.
How beautiful
The face, how fixed in its forlorness, wan
As Ariadne, when she kept the coast
Of Naxos, ever straining for a sail.
Ay, but Eleleus sought her with acclaim,
Crowned her, and set her bride-wreath in the stars.
Oh, how I love her! how I burn for her!
And yet I fear her obstinate as him
From whom as from the grape its purple coat
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Coresus is too weak.
Callirrhoë,
I seek for a strayed maiden, Nephele
Her name, a bearer of the Bacchic reed,
Lost on the hills last night. I oft have seen
Ye two together on the temple-steps
Or washing at the brook. Where is she fled?
Callirrhoë.
She's safe within her father's house, ashamed
Of her wild yester-revel and revolt
From seemliness and maiden modesty.
Seek not again to capture her!
Coresus.
I seek
To ransom, not enslave, Callirrhoë,
Calling all men to the Deliverer.
Look in mine eyes, and say if servitude
Be not your daily portion. Can you set
Your limbs free to the rhythm of your soul?
Is there a passion in you that dare speak?
Are not your bosom's offspring, young desires,
Served to you mutilate, a sick'ning food
By the world's impious custom? Spurn the feast
As the Divinity the Libyan dish!
Callirrhoë.
These are wild words, bewildering to the brain.
Coresus.
As heaven's inrush. Be brave, Callirrhoë;
Ask yourself have you not a deeper need
Than the stale rites of customary gods
Can satisfy? and speak in earnestness.
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Callirrhoë.
I oft have longed
For speech with the dark sea and glittering hills,
For stories of the world, for wider care
And love of creatures other than myself.
Can your god give me these?
Coresus.
He came to bring
Life, more abundant life, into a world
That doled its joys as a starved city doles
Its miserable scraps of mummying bread.
He came to gladden and exalt, all such
Must suffer. Call men to the battle, swords
Clash the response; bid them arouse themselves
From foolish habit, customary sloth,
In bestial ignorance of your intent,
They trample, tear you. Dionysus thus
Suffered; he still endures at Calydon
Men's insolence in his rejected priest—
Though founder of fair laws, of citied life,
And guide to the untrodden paths of peace.
Callirrhoë.
The potent rioter! Of old the gods
Gave culture by the harp, the helm, the plough,
Not by the ivy-wand.
Coresus.
Seems it so strange
That Semele's sublime audacity
Should be the origin of life urbane?
We must be fools; all art is ecstasy,
All literature expression of intense
Enthusiasm: be beside yourself.
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Suffer sublimely.
Callirrhoë.
Yet I hold it true,
Divinity oft comes with quiet foot.
Coresus.
To give a moment's counsel or to guard
From instant peril. When a god forsakes
Olympus to infuse divinity
In man's mean soul, he must confound, incite,
O'erwhelm, intoxicate, break up fresh paths
To unremembered sympathies. Nay, more,
Accompany me further in my thought,—
Callirrhoë, I tell you there are hours
When the Hereafter comes and touches me
O' the cheek. I see the triumph of the King,
The gleaming crag of the Acropolis,
The mustered city spectatorial
Of vast emotion on the hollowed hill.
In the midst the Bromian altars. Oh, he sways
That peopled amplitude, that press of life,
With so intense a tyranny he holds
The reins of its very breath. Men may not stand
Beholding, when the conflict's at the heat;
The event's cold ere it reaches them. There, there
They watch as mothers watch their wrestling sons,
Fell Mora with humanity in clutch,
The dying hero with the victor lip,
The lordless creature, dominant and lone.
Callirrhoë.
I tremble at your god, for terrible
In wrath I fear him; though you speak him fair.
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That he provokes men to unnatural deeds,
And once stirred frenzied mother as a fell
Tigress to murder her deluded son.
Coresus.
More shalt thou hear; more horrible detail
Of the avenger. Of a churlish king
Sudden he seized the recreant body, lashed
Its members severally limb by limb
To horses fleeter than strong Phœbus reins;
Nor shuddered when the dull Edonian
Left a mere sputtering trail behind the hoofs.
Callirrhoë.
Peace, peace, Coresus; he will bring us woes,
Woes on my father, on Emathion,
On Calydon, my city, if he bears
A breast so ruthless. I will hear no more.
Coresus.
Turn not away, Callirrhoë; by goads
The ox-souled must be driven; yield response
To Heaven's desire of thee; love humanly.
Love is the frenzy that unfolds ourselves;
Before it seize us we are ignorant
Of our own power as reed-bed of the pipe.
The rushes sang not; from Pan's burning lips
Syrinx sucked music. Wert thou lute to love
There were a new song of the heaven and earth.
I have been foolish frighting thee with things
Too wonderful for a soul-snooded girl
To bear the thought of; think of them no more;
Think but of me, no veiled divinity,
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Clasping your knees in his extremity;
Craving the alms of your great love, and yet
Withal so ravenous at heart, he scarce
Can bide the time of his petitioning.
Callirrhoë.
I have not loved—
Coresus.
Till now. You cannot say
You love not.
Callirrhoë.
That I will not yield my love
To Bacchic priest, I can. From earliest days
I have been trained in the old pieties;
And oft 'mid common household work have smiled
To think how like the blessèd gods my hands
From chaos could educe a tiny world
Of perfect order. My dear father's peace
I will not wreck, as Nephele; he ne'er
Shall miss his daughter at the evening board,
Nor sadder, find her truant to herself,
Indocile, indolent. It cannot be
That any but a mocking messenger
Can come in Heaven's name to set the child
Against the parent.
Coresus.
As unseasoned wood
That smokes and will not kindle is flung by
For any refuse purpose, while the train
Of torchlight sinuous winds among the hills,
A starry serpent, so art thou cast out,
An apathetic slave of commonplace,
Sluggish and irreceptive of true life,
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Go to your home.
Callirrhoë.
Oh Heaven shelter it!
Coresus.
Go home, Callirrhoë; ask if all be well
Within the city: do not fear men's looks,
Or any whispering about the streets.
The temple-rites reclaim me; from your loom
You have been too long absent. Go in peace.
[Exeunt severally.
| Callirrhoë | |