University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

The Shepherds' Dancing-Place.

A circular space with marble mosaic pavement, skirted by a laurel thicket, and partly shaded by a pergola supported on pillars running diagonally across the stage. At the back of the stage (R. C.), in an alcove at the end of the pergola, stands a terminal statue of Dionysus, crowned with vine-leaves and ripe grapes. The tall pedestal is wreathed with ivy, and around it in the alcove are disposed thyrsi and shepherds' crooks.

Through the pergola is seen a spur of Ætna, with olive-woods and meadows sloping down to the sea.

About half-way up the stage (L.) a marble seat runs around a small segment of the circular pavement, following its curve; and over the back of this seat appears the distant sea, deep blue in the afternoon light. A smaller seat is placed at the foot of one of the pillars (R.), near the front of the stage.

Enter Daphnis playing on his pipe. He breaks off abruptly and sits down on the smaller seat (R.).
Daphnis.
Sad sounds my pipe, sad as the sighing breath
Voiced by its reed. [He lets the pipe fall.]
O cruel Amaryllis!
For thee my flocks, wanting their shepherd's care,
Stray in the glens; for thee the wandering bleat
Of the lost lamb but calls some pitiless foe
To still his tender plaint; for thee their shepherd
Strays, like the shade of an unburied man,
Around the happy haunts of pastoral mirth:
Wander, my flocks, your shepherd is astray!

Enter Thestylis from the back. She remains in the background leaning against the curved marble seat.
Thes.
Here, where his voice once led the gleeful choir,
Our drooping Daphnis comes to make his moan!

Daph.
Ah, well-a-day! maker of mirth no more,
I shun the herdsmen's revels, hear far off
Songs of that realm I enter now no more:
Wander, my flocks, your shepherd is astray!
Feel from afar the dance thrill my slow feet,
Which to the Muse's measure beat no more:
Wander, my flocks, your shepherd is astray!

Thes.
[Aside.]
Poor Daphnis! thy sad looks infect my heart,
Which mocked at love, with pity for thy plight.
[He sighs.]
Ah, what a sigh was there! And here I stay
To catch the trick of sighing as I hear.

Daph.
[Rising, and pacing up and down.]
What boots it though my pipe charm on the boughs
The silence of an hundred nightingales?
It charms not Amaryllis; though my song
Tame with sad sounds the fierce-eyed lynx, or move
The gaunt and cub-drawn wolf in very ruth
To spare the trembling kid between her paws?
It moves not Amaryllis. Wander still,
My flocks forlorn; for Daphnis never more
Shall pasture you 'mid gleaming dews of morn:
Stray, my sheep, for your shepherd is astray.
Lead you at noon by shady streams, or ope,
When Hesper lights his lamp, your fencéd fold:
Stray, my sheep, for your shepherd is astray.

Thes.
[Aside.]
No mateless bird, forsaken on the bough,
Made ever more melodious threnody.

Daph.
Farewell, my half-grown lambs, and ewes new-shorn,
Whose wealthy fleeces were my pride; farewell
My soft-eyed cows, from whose deep udders flow
Rivers of milk! No more I'll plead for love
With unpersuasive breath.

Thes.
[Aside.]
Wisely resolved.
But whither from these valleys will he flee?

Daph.
There is a marsh my browsing goats have found
Where the gaunt hemlock's pipy stems grow rank
With lurid speckles, in whose clammy cells
Lurks death's oblivious wine. This will I drink,
And lay me down by Amaryllis' door,—
With the scorned singer's life end all my songs.

Thes.
[Aside.]
O 'tis a fool! And yet a sweet-voiced fool!
Did he woo me, I too might play the fool,
And Eros, god of fools, have double praise.
[She comes forward.
Thou, Daphnis, here, preluding with fond words
Deeds fonder yet?

Daph.
Forbear me, Thestylis!
Thou art the cold companion of the scorn
That ices my swift blood. Mock me not now!

[Is about to go.
Thes.
Stay, Daphnis; for I bring thee ruth, not scorn.
Lift, shepherd, lift thy heavy-lidded eyes,
Dull with long vigils of unhappy love.
Mad lover, wilt thou carry thy sweet songs
To Hades, and untimely rob the world
And leave thy lovers mourning?
[She takes up his pipe.
Take again
Thy flute of sweetest stop. Play, sing, and live.

[He turns away.
Daph.
Hope shuns me: I am out of love with life.

Thes.
All things that live may hope; the dead alone
Stare from the sullen gloom with hopeless eyes.
Come, sing no more to savage brakes and fells,
Or that more savage still, a loveless heart;
But sing to me, and glut my passionate ear
With music of thy passion: sing to me!

[Offering the pipe.
Daph.
[Taking it.]
Can the dead sing? I am a fleeting ghost,
An alien in the sun of human joy.
And thou, her comrade, whose disdain's cold air
I breathe and die in, O what recks thy heart
Of love? Wherefore begone and mock me not!

[Places the pipe in his belt, and turns away.
Thes.
Sad shepherd, I am pity, not disdain,
And come to crave the pity that I yield,
[She sighs.
Being fallen into thy case.

Daph.
[Turning to her.]
Most wretched maid!

Thes.
Eros, the potent god, hath quelled my spirit
With one swift bolt. Daphnis, I love, I love—
A youth, Daphnis, a youth who loves not me.

[They move up the stage towards the seat.
Daph.
Can love's soft dews bedim the shining morn,
Thestylis, of those eyes? Women can weep
False tears, I know, with laughter on their lips:
Yet wilt thou play with me, I'll play a while
For very luxury of woe, with thee.

Thes.
[Sitting.]
O, could I sing like thee, solace my woe
With lovely words that kiss each other quick
In dancing rhymes, forsooth I would not die!

Daph.
Alas! to sing is to redouble pain;
For when I make sweet songs of happy love,
How passionate Cynthia through the ambrosial dusk
Of the scarce-whispering laurels, in sweet shame,
Stole to her Latmian shepherd, I grow faint
With imaged blisses mocking empty arms.
O Tantalus, o'er-pitied Tantalus,
Thy torments are but the shadows of the state
Of him who loves unloved!

Thes.
A silver tongue,
Daphnis, thou givest my hidden bitter wound.
O love!—I knew not what an ancient woe
Lived in that word, till now I hear thee speak.

Daph.
O flee my tongue, whose plaint infects the wind
With its own sadness, and attunes the voice
Of every wandering echo in the woods
To sighing falls; ay, every rock and tree,
The birds, the streams, the melancholy glades
Most loved of brooding Pan, I have taught them all
To utter but one word, whose venomed sweetness
Is death to hear: Love, Love! But her disdain
Looks from the eyes of heaven, whence all night long
Ten thousand flames of virgin cruelty
Flash scorn on love and me.

Thes.
[Rising, and laying her hand on his shoulder.]
Come, Daphnis, come!
We two lost creatures, let us to the wilds;
With murmured songs and sad antiphonies,
There let us court oblivion. Come away!

Daph.
The Hyblan bees, flying from Ætna's flank,
Crawl drunken from the luscious ivy-flowers,
O'er-surfeited with sweets; and, richly fed,
Die of their ecstasy: I starve on sighs.
Oh, I must herd with all despisèd things,
With all defeated things, despairing things;
A drone, thrust from the comfortable hive
To dream of honey-drops, die of the sting!

Thes.
Nay, Daphnis, lift thy head in manly pride,
Tears are for women's eyes; with plaints of woe
Was never woman won. Come, in sad sport
Call me thy Amaryllis, woo me so;
I'll teach thee how to woo, and win thy suit.

Daph.
I'll call thee death, and woo thee then indeed,
With all love's sweetest, most endearing names.
[Music heard.
But hark! I hear the hated sound of mirth!
Here to their dancing-place the shepherds come,
With pipe and throbbing tabor. Hence, away!

[Exit by upper entrance, L.
Thes.
Now, Daphnis, thou shalt gaze into mine eyes,
See thine own image there, and learn to love
The flattering mirror that doth image thee.

[Exit, following him.
Enter (R.) Chorus of Youths and Maidens, crowned with ivy, and with thyrsi in their hands, and led by a Priest of Bacchus, bearing an amphora of new wine. They sing a hymn to Bacchus, moving rhythmically over the stage.
Hymn to Bacchus.
Strophe.
Antistrophe.

Vintage Dance.
Then enter Amaryllis (L.), a wine-cup in her hand. They salute her, and the Priest pours wine from the amphora into her cup.
Amaryl.
Now to the bounteous god, whose opulent hand
Is potent on our vineyards and our vines,
Honour be given! [She makes a libation.]
Hail, jocund vintagers!
I bid you to our customary feast.
Wide, for your welcome, open stand my doors,
Swept is the threshing-floor, my damsels wait
By tables ranged and ready. Welcome all!

1st Shep.
Thanks, Amaryllis, whom all gods conspire
To bless with all the wealth our peasants prize,
And beauty more desired than flocks and herds.

All.
Bacchus! Hail, Bacchus! On to the vintage feast!

[Amaryllis seats herself on the upper seat. Exeunt Chorus, L.
Enter Thestylis behind. She bends over the seat and kisses Amaryllis.
Amaryl.
Where, Thestylis, have strayed thy truant feet
These three long days?

Thes.
[Sits beside Amaryllis.]
Something I am to blame;
Yet, most dear Amaryllis, chide me not.

Amaryl.
But wherefore in good sooth growest thou so strange?
Hast thou a sorrow, and not share with me?
A joy not halved with me and doubled so?

Thes.
Believe me, I am still thy constant friend.

Amaryl.
Still, Thestylis? That still sounds ominously!
Hast thou not been the sister of my choice,
Dearer than one born of my father's blood;
Of more immortal kinship?

Thes.
That I am.

Amaryl.
Have we not, friendship's twins, with linkèd arms
Walked in one way, content? Have we not vowed
Our souls in maiden wedlock to each other,
And railed at love, the enemy of our vows!

Thes.
Ay, we have railed at love. But, Amaryllis—

Amaryl.
What! has that subtle foe with flattering guile
Won thy fond worship? Am I left alone?

Thes.
I would but plead for one who loves thee well.
I have seen Daphnis, but so woe-begone,
So pale with poring long on passion's book,
So out of love with life, I could not choose
But pity him. Thyself hadst pitied him.

Amaryl.
[Rising impatiently and crossing, R.]
These are the tricks of men, to win the tears
Of silly girls.

Thes.
[Following her.]
What if the man should die
For love of thee? For so, by every oath
Our love-lorn shepherds use, he swears he will.

Amaryl.
Now by our own true love thou angerest me
With such swift dotage! Daphnis die of love!
Ay, a fair death in words; and yet live on
To see maids weeping o'er his epitaph.
For love of me or thee, or any woman,
Never went man to sleep under the clods
His transient pain away. The fabled swan
Dies singing, the crost lover loves again.

Thes.
It is a foolish fashion of our vales
That men whom love ne'er slew foredo themselves,
Thinking they die of love. So Battus gave
His bright head to the keeping of the sea,
When Gorgo had undone him with her scorn.

Amaryl.
Fear not for Daphnis. Sick self-love, that makes
With fond conceit many a tall shepherd pale,
Hath set the stripling pining for a dream.

Thes.
For dreams men die. It is a world of dreams.
We clothe ourselves in dreams, we clothe in dreams
The naked limbs of life that we may live
Unscathed of the dread vision; and the glimpse
'Twixt fading dream and dream is dangerous to us.
For Daphnis, in that perilous pass, I fear.
The sickness he had caught from thy cold eyes
Sits heavy on him now. The man will die.

Amaryl.
[Crossing, L.]
Give him fair burial then, in thine own arms,
For thou art dead, the Thestylis I knew,
And I must weep for thee. [Sitting, and turning to Thestylis]
O Thestylis,
How I have loved thee! Thy sweet looks, thy words,
Thy tones live in me still. Thy little gifts,
Small dainty things thy hands in secret wrought
For tokens of thy love, I have kept them all.

Thes.
As I keep thine.

[Approaches her.
Amaryl.
And now, like summer's birds,
They will come no more. O, what a secret glee
Made vivid every sense when I could think
My thoughts would soon wed thine! My murmuring heart
In absence ever kept sweet dialogue
With thine. And now, O, now, that music's done!

[Turns away.
Thes.
[Kneeling and clasping Amaryllis.]
Gusts of a more imperious music now
Thrill me, as song-birds thrill the April woods;
A thousand sad sweet thoughts are vocal in me,
And long to sing their secrets in thine ear.

Amaryl.
[Rising.]
Better go cast thy limbs into the fire,
Or dungeon up thy body from the sun,
Than scorch thy being in love's bitter flame!

[Crosses, L., and comes down the stage.
Thes.
I cannot tell. My mother loved a man:
I fear I am her daughter.

Amaryl.
I have seen
The tedious tragedies of woman's life
No poet's tongue dare sing, too mean, too common
To tread the scene in pomp of tragic words;
The sullen agonies, the ageing cares,
The dull disease whereof poor famished love
Dies dumbly hour by hour a lingering death.

Thes.
[Approaching.]
But wherefore should love die, folding his wings
Among the household gods, whose homely forms
Catch splendour from the rapture of his face?

Amaryl.
Alas! if love were all that women dream,
His were a name worth worship; and the light
Of his stern face would so renew the world,
The race of man would grow divine as he;
For we are priestesses of that pure flame
Whose temple is the soul; but our dull shepherds
Honour a power unknown with wanton rites
And gross initiations, clowns unschooled,
Who serve their uncouth image of the god,
But not the god indeed.

Thes.
Thou, Amaryllis,
Hast ever roamed the mind's high mountain-peaks,
Lone shepherdess of thought's wide-wandering flocks.
I am the creature of a lowlier sphere,
And love the broken colours of this earth,
Its trivial joys, its very household cares
That move thy spleen. My hand upon the loom
Sets my heart singing to the busy purr
Of the swift shuttle. Heaven's bright waggoner,
Who trots his punctual round with pleasant face,
Tasking and toiling, claims me of his school.
For day by day he comes with jovial cheer,
Comforts man's lot, and ripes his corn, and swells
His grapes with delicate juice: so, in his sight,
Run I my daily round of cheerful toil.
I fear I am in love with dull content;
My very dreams are woven of common things.

Amaryl.
Nay, thou art worthier far than I! the bright
Creative word of love is potent in thee,
Thy daily tasks are ministries of love.
I am the brooding sorrow of this earth,
Pining for things to come. But, Thestylis,
I grudge thee, with more desperate jealousy
Than a mere sister's, for I love thee more,
To any sighing shepherd of them all.

Thes.
Must the poor shepherd lack his shepherdess?
Methinks the power that shaped us man and maid
Moves us to dance in couples, not alone.

Amaryl.
Ay, were the bonds but equal, mate with mate,
Twin-yoked in love! But all the world's awry.
War in our souls, our very loves are wars
Where one alone keeps treaty. When a man
Sits like a conqueror in a captive town,
No more sweet words, no kind observances—
Ah! Thestylis, wilt thou wed a swarm of cares,
Slave for a thankless lord, nurse crying babes
Who, like ungrateful nestlings, quit the nest
And leave it cold, because a shepherd sighs?

[Moves up the stage and sits.
Thes.
A grain of love savours a peck of cares.
[Follows, and leans over the back of the seat.
But, tell me, Amaryllis, hast thou never
Caught thy heart sighing for a love beyond
The friendship of a girl?

Amaryl.
I would not change it
For the contemptuous lordship of a fool.

Thes.
Nor I, in sooth.

Amaryl.
But—

Thes.
Well?

Amaryl.
If I did love,
I should be dangerous to the man I loved.
No more of these vain dreams: I thank the gods
I love no man!

Thes.
[Coming round the seat and crossing to L.]
No man is worth thy love,
Since heroes come no more. But now farewell!
I must go seek my sighing counterpart.
When our great baby, man, cries for the moon,
We must e'en comfort him.

Amaryl.
Provide him then
Corals to cut his wisdom-teeth upon,
Or much I fear the babe will bite his nurse.

Thes.
Corals or none, the babe will bite his nurse.

Amaryl.
Farewell!

Thes.
Farewell, sweet sister of my soul:
Despise me not too much, and love me still.
[Exit Thestylis, L.

Amaryl.
[Gazing after her.]
Is friendship too a dream? this wingless love
I have templed in my breast, can he fly too?
I am grown old in loving, and my heart,
Blank as a house where lies the master dead,
Crowned with pale funeral flowers, looks on a world
Grown suddenly grey. Who shall inhabit now
The emptied chambers? What shall ever break
Its dismal peace, where not a sound of life
Flutters the ordered silence of its halls?

[She remains musing.
Enter (R.) Alcander. He comes near her unperceived.
Alcan.
[Aside.]
This should be that disdainful shepherdess
I come to woo. Now boldness be my speed!
[Aloud.]
Pardon, fair maiden, that with tongue too rude
I break your reverie.

Amaryl.
Who speaks?

Alcan.
A man.

Amaryl.
'Tis a brave title.

[She looks gravely at him.
Alcan.
An amazing one?

Amaryl.
Not so. The title truly is not rare.

Alcan.
No, nor methinks the thing it signifies.

Amaryl.
[Rising and coming down the stage, L.]
Well, I have seen many a tall bearded shape
That called itself a man, was not a woman,
And went erect upon two legs like man,
And yet—

Alcan.
Yet?—

Amaryl.
Lacked erectness of the mind.
The soul, methought, like some dull grazing beast,
Looked ever on the ground.

Alcan.
They were in love.
Went they not so? [Paces to and fro.]
With such head-hanging sighs?
Their arms crost thus? Some woman was the cause.

Amaryl.
Some woman?

Alcan.
Ay. Are we not women's sons,
And made or marred by women? For this love
'Tis a most foolish passion.

Amaryl.
Have you felt it,
That you deride it so?

Alcan.
Well, ay, and no.
I am too much in love to keep in love
With any woman I have ever seen.
Unseen I love them all, most constantly.

Amaryl.
What lacked they then, the women you have seen?

Alcan.
Nothing, but that which, lacking, they lacked all:
The power that draws, as the moon draws the waves,
The tides of manhood to their highest flood;
That kindles soul and sense into one flame;
That rouses, and assuages, and sustains
The spirit of passion in us, till to love
Mates us with heroes. Lacking this, anon
They set me yawning. [Sits on smaller seat, R.]
Ye gods, breathes there no woman
To drain the aching homage of my heart!

Amaryl.
[Aside.]
Here is a man in jest speaks mysteries.
[Aloud.]
'Tis with yourself then that you are in love.
Have you not spied in some clear mountain pool
Your sun-crowned image and adored it straight?

Alcan.
[Springing up and moving towards her.]
Not so, by Heracles! I am too much
A man to love the image of a man!
I love an unseen woman; but am come
Into these valleys to be cured of love.

Amaryl.
How cured?

Alcan.
E'en by the sight of her.

Amaryl.
You seem
A most strange lover.

Alcan.
A most ardent one.
I have sought her, dark or fair, an hundred times,
Called her in secret by an hundred names,
Each the fair label of a bride so fair
She baffled poor conceiving; but when I came
In sight of her, lo! the shy nymph was gone,
And in her place a pitiful siren smiled.

Amaryl.
Haply you knew her not, though there she stood.
'Twas but some imperfection in the eye
Through which you looked, no true defect in her.

Alcan.
Ay, some imperfect blindness, very like;
For love, they say, is blind. It may be so.

Amaryl.
Then are you no true lover. But you yourself,
Are you so rich in graces, built so high
In all perfections, that you cannot stoop
To match save with perfection?

Alcan.
Oh, for me,
I count myself neither the first of men,
Nor yet the meanest—all the more a man:
Most precious to myself, and, being framed
Of infinite desires, resolved to reign
King of the world I conquer. Wherefore then
Should I content myself but with the best?

Amaryl.
[Approaching him.]
You speak not like a shepherd of these vales,
And wear the Phrygian bonnet, as I see.
Come you from far?

Alcan.
Out of the fires of Troy,
Whose siege blind Homer sang.

Amaryl.
O wonderful!
So many centuries old, and not yet grey?

Alcan.
My stock I mean. Alcander is my name,
Evander's son. Yonder my mountain home.

Amaryl.
Are you then that Alcander, who bore off
So many prizes from the harvest games,
Our wondering shepherds vowed that Heracles
Was come again in you?

Alcan.
No Heracles
I boast myself, but surely that Alcander.

Amaryl.
You have done great things.

Alcan.
A unit in the van
Of many ciphers may look monstrous big,
Yet in itself be but a cipher still.

Amaryl.
Nay, you o'erthrew stout Ægon, and out-ran
Wing-footed Corydon, best of their time.
But, for this nymph you seek, in what fair name
Has the hoarse beldame Rumour crooned to you
The invèntory of her charms?

Alcan.
To find her home,
For somewhere here she dwells, did I accost you.
Her name is Amaryllis, and her sire
Damætus left her late vineyards and farms,
And wealth in flocks and herds; but let them be;
For me, I set no store by sheep and goats,
Or such base cattle, while a woman's by.

Amaryl.
How, then, speaks Rumour of this new unseen
Perfection that you follow?

Alcan.
Very ill.
She is proclaimed a shrew; but beautiful,
Cruel to men, they say; but beautiful,
Colder than mountain snows; but beautiful
To abash the tongue of praise! therefore I love her.
A most unnatural maid, she hates all men,
Therefore I love her! Nature, moulding her,
Disdained her common patterns; therefore I love her.

Amaryl.
You praise her very strangely.

Alcan.
By report.

Amaryl.
And you have sought her to be cured of love?

Alcan.
Ay, I have been too long love's fool, and now
I come to see her, and be cured of love.

Amaryl.
See, and be cured then: I am Amaryllis.

Alcan.
Alas, how Rumour lies! [Sits on seat (R.) and gazes at her.]
They said your skin
Was whiter far than snow, redder your lips
Than coral just o'erwhispered by the surge,
Your hair more lustrous than the noonday sun,
Your voice the nightingale's, your eyes twin stars,
Each bright as Sirius when Orion soars
With pendant feet above the southern wave;
If so, I am gone blind.

Amaryl.
Nay, you have seen,
And so are cured.

[She turns away.
Alcan.
[Rising and approaching.]
Oh, by no means! My cure
Is not so light a thing. Think you I came
To clasp a bride of snow, to vex my lips
With kissing coral, or to fret mine eyes
With staring on the noonday sun? Not so;
I came to find a woman such as you,
No more, no less, and in her eyes my fate.

Amaryl.
You are the strangest wooer I have known.
Pity you come so far to seek your fate:
You must go bootless home.

Alcan.
Ay, it were pity
I should go bootless home. But I trust well
I shall not. Having seen you, I have found
The one worth winning. And you, do you not feel
The deeps within you rise in sudden flood
At the calling of your fate?

Amaryl.
No.

Alcan.
But you shall,
Or Rumour spoke one truth: you have no heart.

Amaryl.
Perhaps I have no heart.

[Moves up towards the upper seat.
Alcan.
Put it to proof;
Give me—you will?—before we part, one kiss.

Amaryl.
Shepherd, you grow too bold!

[Retires up the stage towards the alcove.
Alcan.
[Leaning against the seat.]
I would dare all
To win you, and will dare. There is an old
Rough wooer's custom in our mountain glens,
That he who woos must strive for a first kiss;
'Twill serve me here.

[He approaches her.
Amaryl.
[Rushing towards front of stage.]
Back, madman!

Alcan.
[Grasping her arm.]
Love is mad.
[He clasps her in his arms. They struggle. He kisses her.
You have fought well, but I rest conqueror.

[She bursts his hold.
Amaryl.
Rough clown, begone!

Alcan.
Oh, fairest, pardon me!
Never again will I demand from you
Save what you freely give.

Amaryl.
[Half-drawing her dagger.]
If I should kill you!

Alcan.
You will not. That imperious heart of yours
I felt but now bounding beneath my hand
Will plead for me. As well hold back the sun
From rising, or keep out the leaping tide,
Or stay the operation of the winds,
As bar out love, come at his destined hour.

Amaryl.
Begone!

[Sheathes dagger.
Alcan.
I will begone, till you recall me.
[Retiring, R.
I am your fate, remember, and you mine.

[Exit Alcander, rR.
Amaryl.
[Pacing restlessly.]
I have drunk the wine of Circe, and my sense
Reels in some hateful change. The mirroring brook
As I pass by, will shew me a changed face:
I am no more myself. What hath he seen
In me: what base connivance of my soul,
That he should dare this outrage? Still I feel
The power of his bold eyes, still bear about me
His arms' captivity! Oh, to be free
From these tyrannic moments that bear chains
To clank long years upon the limbs of life
And shame the careless past! This place of mirth
Grows dreadful, and the vines tangling the boughs
Seem webs on the dark loom of weaving fate.
My thoughts grow mad!