University of Virginia Library

The other side of Seismos's Hill.
Mephistopheles, Dryad, Phorcyads.
Mephistopheles
(clambering up).
Up the steep rock-stairs must I make my way,
And 'mong the old oaks' stiff roots stumbling stray.
O'er my own Hartz the vapour of the pine
Breathes pitch, and that is a delight of mine:
I love it next to brimstone. 'Mongst the Greeks
The slightest smell of it in vain one seeks.
Without it, how they light their fires in Hell,
Or plague the inmates there, I cannot tell.

Dryad.
In your own country you perhaps are shrewd!
But, as a foreigner, unwise and rude.
Your thoughts should not revert to home-scenes here:
While in this land, the holy Oak revere.

Mephistopheles.
What one has lost, he deems beyond all price;
The customary is man's paradise.
But what's that clump of Three in the weak light?
Crowding down in the cave it cowers from sight.

Dryad.
The Phorcyads! Speak to them, if you are bold
Enough for it—if your blood runs not cold.

Mephistopheles.
Bold! That I am. I see it with amaze—
I never saw the like in my born days:
Worse than the mandrake's writhings. One begins,
Looking on them, to think the deadly sins
Less horrible, compared with the enormity
Of this vile three-coiled tangle of deformity.
Monsters like these we never would let dwell
Even on the threshold of our murkiest Hell.
Here—in the land of Beauty, where men pique
Themselves upon the fame of the Antique—
Here to strike root! Hark! Stirring in their cell!
They scent the stranger near them. They would speak—
The vampire-bat's thin twittering feeble squeak.

Phorcyads.
Sisters, hand me the eye! Let it look forth
And see who treads our temple without leave.

Mephistopheles.
Bending in reverential awe I seek
Your threefold benediction to receive.
I am a stranger here: but you will give
Kind welcome to a distant relative.
Of your old gods I've seen some of great worth:
Ops, Rhea—bowed before both down to earth.
The Parcæ, of the good old family
Of Chaos's: I know them well—the three—
They're sisters of yours. I have met them all
A few days since, in costume, at a ball:
But never, never have I seen before,
Among the things men honour and adore,
Anything any way resembling you.
Words have I none to say how your charms move
My admiration. What shall I then do?
In silence think of you—in silence love.

Phorcyads.
There's much good sense in what this Spirit says.

Mephistopheles.
I am amazed no poet hymns your praise.
How comes their silence? How can it have been
No sketch of you in painting have I seen?
Here were Art's perfect triumph! and how blest
The sculptor who such charmers fixed in stone,
Not Juno, Venus, Pallas, or the rest!

Phorcyads.
Living in depths of night, and all alone,
Thought of the kind never occurred to us.

Mephistopheles.
How could it? You, in deep den hidden thus,
Know nobody—by nobody are known.
Had the world seen you, you ere now would grace
With your peculiar beauties some high place,
Where Art and princely Splendour share the throne.
'Tis there your marble block in every street
Steps into life a hero on two feet.
'Tis there—

Phorcyads.
Hush! leave us where we are, resigned!
Wake not ambitious longings in our mind!
Born of the Night, of kin with Night alone;
Scarce to ourselves and to none other known.

Mephistopheles.
'Twill give no trouble: you need take no journey.
It may be done by proctor or attorney.
I'll manage it. As one eye for you three,
And one tooth does, surely it would not be
A contradiction in Mythology
Just to compress the triple essence into
A smaller compass. Let the Three be Two:
Consign to me the figure of the Third
For a little while.

First Phorcyad.
This is not so absurd
As it sounds. There's something in't. What's your reply?

Second Phorcyad.
I'm for it; but without the tooth and eye.

Mephistopheles.
In keeping those, you're keeping back the best.
How can I make a picture of the rest?

Phorcyads.
Nothing more easy. It is but to draw
An eye down, and projecting from the jaw
Let glare a front tooth. The profile will strike
As one in every way extremely like.

Mephistopheles.
Thanks; so be it.

Phorcyads.
And be it so.

Mephistopheles
(as a Phorcyad in profile).
'Tis done!
Look I not Chaos' well-beloved son?

Phorcyads.
Daughter! We're Daughters, undeniably.

Mephistopheles.
Daughter or Son—all now will laugh at me.

Phorcyads.
New Triad this! What beauty! We in truth
Are gainers. An eye more—another tooth!

Mephistopheles.
I must go hide myself from every eye
In very hell—the devils to terrify.

[Exit.