 | Ulysses |  |
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ACT II
SCENE I
A gloomy barren shore, with black broken cliffs and a few cowering trees: at the back the entrance to a vast cave. Enter Ulysses slowly, armed and carrying a hunting spear; he gazes about him.Ulys.
A dark land and a barren! Hither urged
By strange and cold compulsion of the sea,
What hope for us of shelter or of food?
A grassless, fruitless, unsustaining shore!
I have outpaced my comrades [Calls]
Phocion!
Elpenor! The gods lied to me who swore
That we should see our homes again. Yet now,
What breathèd sweetness as of blended flowers?
Nearer and nearer still!
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Athene! Thou!
Preceded by the fragrance of thy soul.
Ath.
Ulysses, know'st thou to what land thou art come?
Ulys.
I know not, but I know the gods did lie
Who swore that I should see at last my home.
Ath.
The gods lied not, for thou shalt see thy home.
Ulys.
[Eagerly.]
Ah!
Ath.
If thou hast but courage to descend
Thither; to gather tidings of thy land
There, in the dark world, and win back thy way.
Ulys.
What world?
Ath.
Doth not the region even now
Strike to thy heart? These warning cypress trees,
This conscious umbrage cowering to the ground,
The creeping up of the slow fearful foam;
Rocks rooted in the terror of some cry
That rang in the beginning of the world:
All nature frighted into barrenness.
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And this no other than the door of hell!
[Ulysses falls on his face.
Swoonest thou down, Ulysses? Wouldst thou see
Thy home?
Ulys.
My home, alas!
Ath.
Thither! Wouldst thou
Catch to thy breast thy wife?
Ulys.
My wife, my wife!
Ath.
Thither!
Ulys.
[Rising wildly.]
Who should endure this? Back to the sea!
Back to the wild sea! Farewell, Ithaca!
To the wild winds! Penelope, farewell!
[Makes to go.
Ath.
Ulysses!
[He stops.
Hast thou that in thee which I
Have vaunted of thee 'mid the mighty gods,
And have stood surety for thee in high heaven?
Ulys.
Hast thou no pity?
Ath.
More than ever a woman;
But as my pity, so my pride in thee.
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Why unto me, to me alone, is heaven
For ever cruel? Have I not borne enough,
Cyclops and Sirens and Charybdis' whirl,
Ogre and witch and dreadful swoop of winds,
That hell now stands between me and my home?
Ath.
The Power that is behind the gods decrees
To make a fiery trial of thy spirit.
Ulys.
Is there no other way?
Ath.
Thither alone,
Led by cold Hermes, who alone of gods
May pass that portal. Now, Ulysses, learn
What first must be encountered, and o'ercome.
Right in the threshold Hunger stands, and Hate,
And gliding Murder with his lighted face,
And Madness howling, Fear, and neighing Lust,
And Melancholy with her moony smile,
And Beauty with blood dripping from her lips.
Then shalt thou view the inmost house of woe,
And all the faint unhappy host of hell.
If these thou canst endure and pass, thou shalt
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Emerge and come at last to thine own land.
Ulys.
The gods lay on me more than I can bear.
Ath.
Thy native shore!
Ulys.
The darkness and the dead!
Ath.
Thy warm fire-blaze!
Ulys.
The grave and all the grief!
Ath.
Voice of thy wife!
[Faint wailings from the abyss.
Ulys.
That crying from the deep
Ath.
Dare, dare it!
Ulys.
Is it sworn I shall return
Upward and homeward?
Ath.
In thy will it lies.
Thou, thou alone canst issue out of hell.
Ulys.
Then? Then?
Ath.
Thou shalt return. Zeus give thy voice.
[Thunder.
Ulys.
I go!
Ath.
Now thou art mine!
[She vanishes.
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[Heard off.]
Ulysses! Where?
Enter Comrades.
Elpenor.
We have found thee, captain!
Another.
Does this land give aught
That we can eat?
Another.
Or drink?
Another.
O good roast flesh!
Another.
Even bread were something.
Another.
Great Ulysses, speak!
[Ulysses remains with fixed gaze on the entrance of the cave.
Another.
What hast thou speared for supper, hunter fleet?
[Ulysses slowly turns and looks on them.
Ulys.
Listen!
[A sound of cries, at first faint, rises. They all come round him fearfully. Three times the cries arise, each time louder.
Phocion.
Who are they that cry up from the earth?
Ulys.
The dead!
Com.
The dead!
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And this? What is the place?
Ulys.
We now are standing at the door of hell!
[They shudder away from him in silence, all but Phocion.
Phoc.
Come! come away!
Ulys.
No! for I must descend.
Thus only can we reach our homes again.
Phoc.
In every peril have I been with thee:
Let me be with thee here!
Ulys.
[Tenderly.]
My Phocion!
Elp.
I am an old, old man! am long forgotten
Even by my dearest. Let me go with thee!
Ulys.
It may not be: leave me, and say no word!
[They gradually disappear.
[Ulysses advances and peers into the dark. A long solitary cry causes him to reel back, and he seems to hesitate when again Athene
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Herm.
[Within.]
Ulysses!
Com.
[From a distance.]
Ulysses!
[Ulysses after a moment's pause gradually and fearfully descends.
SCENE II
The descent into Hades. As the stage is darkened wailings are heard and a sound of moaning wind which ceases as Scene II. discloses a world of darkness with all things impalpable, save for a precipitous descent dimly seen, and at its foot a livid river flowing, a black barge floating on it. There is a continual movement as of wings and flying things. A sudden flash of Ulysses' armour discovers him beginning to descend warily with Hermes in silence.75
Darkness!
Herm.
Descend!
Ulys.
Thy hand! I fear to fall.
Herm.
Thou, thou alone canst downward tread.
Ulys.
But this!
Is it ocean, land, or air? I grope down, down!
[Pauses.]
A whist world! but for whirring as of wings.
[He looks down intently.
Is that a forest yonder, that sways and sighs
With a vast whisper? yet no trees I see.
And there, what seems an ocean: yet no wave!
The wonder of it takes away the fear.
[They descend further. Ulysses pauses as a faint cry is heard.
Listen!
[Again the cry comes nearer. Again, and nearer.
What cry, so feeble and so frail?
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It is the cry of children that died young.
The glitter of thy armour lures them toward thee.
[The Spirits of Children flit about him with wistful cries.
Ulys.
Little bewildered ghosts in this great night!
They flock about me—
Herm.
Wandering on their way
To banks of asphodel and spirit flowers.
Ulys.
Ah, a girl's face! A boy there with bright hair!
He is new come and is not listless yet.
And thou dost make a little prattling noise
And hast not learned to speak!
A Child.
O the bright armour!
Another.
O father, bring us to the place of flowers!
Another.
We have lost our way! Show us the grassy fields!
[Ulysses makes appealing gesture to Hermes, who stands silent.
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I cannot bring you, children, to those flowers.
[The Children flit away with wistful cries. Ulysses starts forward.
And 'tis not from the prattle of dead babes
I shall have tidings of my home, my wife.
Down and yet down!
[Again they descend.
[Shapes of Furies appear circling in the air.
Hermes, I am pursued,
But O by whom? As sharks to him that drowns,
They make toward me, sidelong swimming shapes!
I'll draw my sword.
[He draws his sword and thrusts vainly at the Shapes.
Herm.
What use to strike at phantoms?
The Furies these, who hurrying to the earth
To scourge the wicked, scent thee in mid-flight.
Ulys.
[In terror.]
Over and over me! and round and round!
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Their eyes go through my body to my heart!
I am but a man! I am all black within!
They leave me, they lift their faces to the wind!
Upward they rush!
Herm.
A sudden scent from earth!
[They again descend.
Ulys.
More and more difficult—yet down and down!
And now I seem to wade, and now to part
Entangled branches, now pass through a cloud.
[He pauses.]
Hermes, a sighing near my feet, as of reeds.
And now about me phantoms, men and women.
[Phantoms of Suicides rise about him.
One hath a scarred throat, and that woman holds
Poison as in a phial—what are ye?
First Phan.
[To Ulysses.]
Thou, thou hast life in thee, and flesh and blood.
See, see the man is in the body yet.
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What are ye?
Second Phan.
Spirits of those who cast away
Sweet life and slew ourselves with violent hands.
[The Phantoms circle about him.
First Phan.
In madness I!
Second Phan.
And I in jealousy!
Phan. of Phædra.
Me! Me! Knowest thou not me? Phædra was I,
The queen that burned for cold Hippolytus,
Who scorned me till I knotted here the noose.
Ulys.
And art thou Phædra?
Phædr.
Give me back the sun
And all the scorn again! Only the sun!
First Phan.
Seest thou that glimmer? there still gleams the world!
Phantoms.
[Together.]
Back: take us back! How soon these wounds would heal!
Ulys.
O ye that being dead, so love the light!
Yet is there not some dear and favourite field,
Some holiest earth where each of ye would be?
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[Wheeling round.]
Ah, ah
Ulys.
Doth one of you perchance remember
A windy land that stands out of the sea
Gull-haunted, and men call it Ithaca?
[The Phantoms float away with sad cries. A pause.
No! not from babes nor these who slew themselves
Wring I one word of that which I would know.
Ah! bring me to that ghost that shall reveal!
[Again they descend, but Ulysses pauses.
Herm.
Why tarry we, Ulysses?
Ulys.
Hermes, this world
Begins to grip my heart with gradual cold!
O how shall I descend in flesh and blood
Unready and unripe? I have not died:
Therefore I fear! You gods, first let me have
The pang, the last sweat and the rattling throat,
The apparelling and the deep burying,
And die ere I descend amid the dead.
Herm.
'Tis in thy will. Remember Ithaca.
Ulys.
[With effort.]
Down, down! Yet terror hath ta'en hold on me.
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O what are ye? What fire consumes you still?
First Phan.
We are the spirits of lovers who still love.
Ulys.
Did not the cold grave all that burning quench?
Second Phan.
No! for that fire did eat into our souls.
Phan. of Eurydice.
Look upon me! I am Eurydice
That for one moment was so near the day,
When Orpheus backward looked, and all was night.
O lay me on his heart again!
[The Phantoms wheel about him.
Phan. of Protesilaus.
Ah! come,
Laodamia!
Phan. of Phyllis.
[Woman].
O Demophoön!
Another.
O fire that dies not with our death!
Another.
Alas!
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Do I not burn for a breast unreachable,
And languish for one voice I may not hear?
For her that weepeth by the rolling sea,
Penelope!
[Phantoms disappear with wailings.
No answer still, no word!
That oath was hollow as this hollow world
Which said I should hear tidings of my home.
Where is that spirit that shall tell me?
Herm.
Lo!
The foot of the descent!
Ulys.
Have I then come
Thro' hell at last: now surely—now to hear.
Herm.
No, for the river waits thee and the barge.
Ulys.
What river?
Herm.
See! the creeping Stygian stream,
The mournful barge in which thou must embark
And drift thro' more tremendous torments, ere
Thou shalt have tidings of thy home and wife.
Ulys.
[Wildly.]
Is't not enough to have descended hither
Breathing and in the flesh? Now must I drift
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Athene, who didst never leave me yet,
Athene! hearken!—Even she forsakes me.
O Hermes!
Herm.
None can aid thee but thy will.
Ulys.
[With a cry.]
On, Hermes, on, even to the river of hell!
[They approach the river, and Hermes enters the barge, but as Ulysses is embarking Charon starts forward oar in hand.]
Charon.
Stay thou! The flesh still clings about thy limbs,
The blood runs in thy veins! Rash fool, forbear!
Here is no passage save for spirits! Back!
Back to the earth or fear some monstrous doom.
[He thrusts Ulysses aside.
Herm.
Charon! by heaven's permission comes this man.
Take thou thy oar and urge us down the stream.
They begin to drift and now they pass the woe of Tantalus and the fruit.
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Still reaching at the fruit he may not grasp.
See how the wind carries the branches from him.
Ulys.
Ah! Tantalus, do I not reach and grasp not?
[They pass the woe of Tantalus and drift onward, when suddenly on the bank Teiresias the Seer starts forward.
Teir.
Ulysses, art thou come, then? Is no toil
Too hard for thee that thou must drift thro' hell?
Ulys.
Teiresias, prophet true! of all men thee,
Thee do I thirst to hear, now shall I know.
Shall I return unto my home at last?
Teir.
Thou shalt return.
Ulys.
O Zeus!
Teir.
Yet with sheer loss
Of all thy comrades under tempest crash.
Ulys.
Alas!
Teir.
And to a home of strife and storm;
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To danger and to darkness shalt return.
Ulys.
And she, Penelope—doth she still live?
Teir.
She lives.
Ulys.
O thou kind heaven! and holds she true?
Teir.
She lives.
Ulys.
O if thou hast a heart, though dead,
Thou wilt not leave me thus.
Teir.
She lives: farewell.
[The Shade of Teiresias disappears; again they drift onward.
Ulys.
‘Lives’ and no more is worse to me than ‘dead.’
Would that I had known nothing! onward—on!
This fire he hath put in me I must quench!
[They pass the woe of Sisyphus and the stone.
Herm.
See Sisyphus that in his anguish rolls
Upward, ever, the stone which still rebounds.
Mark how the sweat falls, and what whirl of dust!
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Ah, brother, such a stone I roll in vain!
There is no torment here that is not mine.
[They pass the woe of Sisyphus, and again drift on.
Ulys.
Is there not one of all these ghosts that throng
The bank, one only, that can tell me truth.
Hermes! yon spirit lordlier than the rest
With something in his pace familiar:
See how he cometh thro' the other shades
With such imperial stride and sovereign motion.
Herm.
[To Shade.]
Stay thou!
[The Shade turns, disclosing the form of Agamemnon.
Ulys.
Ah, mighty Agamemnon! king!
O royal 'mid the dead as in the light!
I am Ulysses: often we took counsel
Under the stars, in the white tents, at Troy.
Now speak to me: a living man I come
Amid the dead for tidings of my wife
Penelope. Doth she hold true to me?
Agam.
Ulysses, fear thy wife! Fear to return.
Ulys.
What? What? O speak!
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Thy wife awaits thee now
Coiled like a snake to strike thee with her fangs.
Ulys.
Unthinkable!
Agam.
She weaveth death for thee!
Ulys.
Horrible!
Agam.
Look on me, me whom my wife
False Clytemnæstra lured unto the bath
And struck me here where now thou see'st the wound.
I that first night did bathe in my own blood,
The first night, the sweet night of my return.
Ulys.
[Bowing his head.]
O Agamemnon!
Agam.
She while I did fight
About Troy city for Ægisthus burned,
She snared, she slew me, then with him she slept.
Ulys.
Penelope! I'll kiss thee and fear not.
Agam.
Never so sweet was Clytemnæstra's kiss
As on that night, her voice, never so soft.
[The Shade of Agamemnon disappears, and again they drift onward.
Ulys.
Are these the tidings, these for which I dared
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I'll not believe it. O for some fresh voice!
On, on! I cannot hear worse words than these.
[They pass the woe of Prometheus and the vulture.
Herm.
Behold Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven;
Now at his heart the eternal vulture eats.
Ulys.
Prometheus, on this breast too anguish feeds,
And on this heart swoops down the eating fear:
The fear lest I should find her false at last,
False, false after such sea, after such storm;
False tho' I stumble toward her out of hell.
You gods, impose some limit! Now to know,
To know if she be true, to know, to know!
[They pass the woe of Prometheus, and again drift onward.
Shade of Anticleia.
[Unseen.]
Ulysses!
Ulys.
Ah, who calls me by my name?
Anti.
Ulysses!
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And the voice, tho' faint it comes,
Is yet the voice of one that was a woman.
Anti.
Ulysses!
Ulys.
And it goes through all my blood.
Hermes, there is one near me whom I loved:
A flitting shadow, and it comes and goes,
It stretches out its arms—the face—the face!
'Tis gone! Come nearer or come not at all!
Again! the first face that on earth I saw,
The shining eyes and the remembered smile!
Mother!
[He leaps on to the bank.
Here to this breast, here to this heart!
[He makes to clasp her but the Phantom eludes him. Again he seeks to embrace her but in vain.
Anti.
Thou canst not touch me, child. I cannot fold thee
For all my yearning. O to have thy head
Again upon this bosom! but alas!
I now am but a shade and a shadow that glides.
Ulys.
Mother, thy kiss!
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These were the lips that kissed thee,
This was the very breast which gave thee milk,
And this the voice that sang thee into sleep.
Ulys.
What brought thee to thy death?
Anti.
Waiting for thee,
Waiting and weeping, and long wondering.
Ulys.
Alas, alas! and mother, she? she lives—
But stays she true to me?
Anti.
Child, I have come
But lately to this place, and when I died
Still was she true to thee, and knew not time.
Ulys.
At last, at last the word that lighteth hell!
One word! and thou alone, mother, couldst speak it!
Thy voice alone: thine out of all the dead!
Anti.
It seems no farther off than yesterday
That she and I were standing hand in hand
Looking for thee across the misted sea.
Ulysses weeps.
But child, tho' lately I did leave her true,
What hath befallen since? Ulysses, home!
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Confusion and a roar of hungry voices,
And peril closing round Penelope:
Fierce peril, child! O hasten!
Ulys.
Ah! what peril?
Anti.
I know not: but the time is short: she hath
Swift need of thee: haste, haste! tho' how I yearn
To keep thee for a little comfort! yet
Home, get thee home!
Ulys.
Farewell, mother—farewell!
[The Ghosts begin to surge about him.
Anti.
Speed, speed!
[Ulysses rushes to the foot of the descent, and stumbles upward, a multitude of Shadows swarming with cries about him.
Ulys.
She lives, and she is true to me.
But she hath need of me! Up to the earth!
[Ghosts wheel about him with cries.
O whirling dead! And a great swirl of souls.
Wife! wife! I come.
[Cries.
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[Fiercer cries.
I gasp and fight toward thee! Still endure!
Think me not dead! O hear me out of hell!
[Fiercer and louder cries of the whirling dead.
Ah! shall I reach that glimmer? Upward, up!
Faint not, Penelope: faint not, endure!
[He falls and the multitude of Ghosts circle over him with cries, obscuring him. He again starts up.
The light, the light! the air, the blessed air!
[Cries.
I come—I come—I stagger up to thee,
I stumble toward the gleam: Hear, hear me yet,
'Tis not too late—Penelope!—the Sun!
[He staggers into the glimmer and stands a moment looking back half in dark, half in light, on a forest of straining arms and faces from whence come wailing cries.
| Ulysses | |