 | The Serpent Play |  |
Scene II.
—The Gate of Cœlis.Cœlis, Voragine, Volupsa, Vivia, and Hayus, as a Troubadour.
‘Begin once more,’ the warrior says:
‘Not oft such music greets our ears;
Your song hath left this maid in tears.’
With grateful looks the bard obeys.
The warrior lists as through him rings
The growing burden of the verses
Which the grand Troubadour rehearses,
And to the depths of anguish sings.
The warrior knew his arms had spread
Dismay where hosts but live to mourn the dead:
The wife and child together slain;
The bride hair-dragged to slaughter, screaming;
Her prayer unheard, poured out in vain;
Then her young blood in silence streaming.
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What is your story, Minstrel?
HAYUS.
I, alone,
Am left of the true bards for ever gone,
Of the old Troubadours descended,
Whose days but not whose songs have ended.
They rise up from the buried time,
And story lives in monuments of rhyme.
Men seldom now the minstrel hear;
Ghost-like he passes o'er his father's track
And for a moment flashes back;
Ere long to wholly disappear.
Cœlis loves the Troubadour,
So human were those deep-set eyes,
That had a troubled look divinely pure;
And kindly thus unto his words replies:
So human were those deep-set eyes,
That had a troubled look divinely pure;
And kindly thus unto his words replies:
‘You can our hearts already read;
There seek your welcome; speak your need:
What is it brings you to the door?’
There seek your welcome; speak your need:
What is it brings you to the door?’
HAYUS.
I will be bold; affairs of state
Have brought me to this noble house;
Our cause I pray all present to espouse!
On this depends my country's fate.
My father was a sacred bard
Whose songs with filial reverence I guard;
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Rehearsing newer deeds than yet had flown
O'er homes that to each other were unknown,
And well the legend of this house he knew.
My father taught me reverence for your name:
From that high source my inspiration came!
The Serpent was the guardian of your race;
And they who braved his anger rued too soon
The woes that once befel Laocoon!
And many shared that victim's throes;
Not sadder than my own dear country's woes!
So as we spread your fame from place to place,
Of you I ask a boon; to spare
Our land and take its people to your care.
Myself the leader of a strolling band,
Rare actors every one, and nigh at hand,
I seek the favour first, not hard to grant,
That we may act our play on yonder sward;
And if our effort please, be our reward
That mercy wakens to our nobler want!
CŒLIS.
Tell us at once your full desire;
Willing are we to give it heed;
But first shall we your band of actors hire,
Whatever else may be your pressing need.
HAYUS.
It is that Voragine, your chief, revoke
The impost on our hungry soil:
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And few remain to sweat and toil.
Humble are we, our people are subdued
And seek to thrive in peace, the only lasting good.
VORAGINE.
The little that you ask shall be conceded,
With all the spoils; and more, if more be needed.
‘Then are you not my country's foe,’
The Minstrel said, and to the chief bowed low.
‘Since that all hearts are in our favour stirred,
Let me speak on; speak of your sires whose dust
Here sleeps; of whom are many marvels heard:
And who to legends listens in mistrust?
My fathers to your fathers oft have sung
The weird traditions, true though symbolized,
That to this house for centuries have clung.
Above all wealth are they, above all honours prized!
They bear us back into the infant times,
Of virgin lands on earth, and early climes,
Whence men derived their origin obscure;
Who since into the forest-world have spread
With the traditions of their dead,
Which to these latest days endure.
In a dark hour the whisperer of death
Approached their mother with his glozing breath:
Well they remembered all that mother told
As she wept o'er her Paradise of old.’
The Minstrel said, and to the chief bowed low.
‘Since that all hearts are in our favour stirred,
Let me speak on; speak of your sires whose dust
Here sleeps; of whom are many marvels heard:
And who to legends listens in mistrust?
My fathers to your fathers oft have sung
The weird traditions, true though symbolized,
That to this house for centuries have clung.
Above all wealth are they, above all honours prized!
They bear us back into the infant times,
Of virgin lands on earth, and early climes,
Whence men derived their origin obscure;
Who since into the forest-world have spread
With the traditions of their dead,
Which to these latest days endure.
In a dark hour the whisperer of death
Approached their mother with his glozing breath:
Well they remembered all that mother told
As she wept o'er her Paradise of old.’
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The Troubadour's devoted eyes
Rest on the prospect that beneath him lies;
Then the inviting heaven they slowly gauge
To catch some well-timed thought of its highteaching page.
‘Yon Soul of All,’ he says, ‘had striven
To plan our being free of pain:
She, the Wise-Worker, strove in vain,
Not limitless her power.
Change would arise and change was but Decay;
The night would feed upon the day,
The day the night devour.
Despite her, Nature must the work rehearse,
Else had She swept away this universe
Whose charm alternates only with its curse.
But love within her still prevailed,
Though by the Serpent ceaselessly assailed,
Who, ever pressing on her rear,
Poisons the love-born offerings of the year.
The bloom of her all-fruitful being
She sheds even to the future's farthest date;
Throughout all time the day foreseeing
When man should lose no more his soul's estate.
Hard was the struggle for our race;
The fierceness of the tiger was its base,
But reason had a growth self-lifting
Above the common nature of mankind:
Through storms within, through trials drifting,
Still the good and evil sifting,
While loftier rose the wondrous mind.
Oft-times it grew to godlike stature
And won such conquests over nature
As in eternal archives ever shine,
And claim for it an origin divine.
But, as in legend still is rife,
The Serpent with the Soul of All at strife
Was lord of death, ensconced in arm-like shape
That clasped within its many circled coil
The soul that would his will escape
And balk him of his richest spoil.
So speak the legends of old times,
That come to us in their heart-clinging rhymes;
That every ear with sweetness sate,
And, once caught up, none dare adulterate.
All these traditions, nobly sung,
To our great troubadours have clung:
And those which breathe the fame and glory
Of this high house rank first in ancient story.
All who dwell here are of Laocoon's line,
A kingly race, priests of a sun-god's shrine:
But they had foes that never slept;
And from the sea two jealous serpents crept,
Entwining sire and sons within their grasp,
And still those suffering souls they seem to clasp.
Who gazed, stood in their presence numb,
The tongues of olden bards were stricken dumb;
But lives the record in that marble rock
Which, thrilled with horror, trembled in the shock,
And, scaling gave to sight the Serpent's skin
And all the direful group that writhed within.
There stood the three in fiery anguish seething,
The knotted Serpents sire and sons enwreathing.’
Rest on the prospect that beneath him lies;
Then the inviting heaven they slowly gauge
To catch some well-timed thought of its highteaching page.
‘Yon Soul of All,’ he says, ‘had striven
To plan our being free of pain:
She, the Wise-Worker, strove in vain,
Not limitless her power.
Change would arise and change was but Decay;
The night would feed upon the day,
The day the night devour.
Despite her, Nature must the work rehearse,
Else had She swept away this universe
Whose charm alternates only with its curse.
But love within her still prevailed,
Though by the Serpent ceaselessly assailed,
Who, ever pressing on her rear,
Poisons the love-born offerings of the year.
The bloom of her all-fruitful being
She sheds even to the future's farthest date;
Throughout all time the day foreseeing
When man should lose no more his soul's estate.
Hard was the struggle for our race;
The fierceness of the tiger was its base,
But reason had a growth self-lifting
Above the common nature of mankind:
Through storms within, through trials drifting,
Still the good and evil sifting,
While loftier rose the wondrous mind.
73
And won such conquests over nature
As in eternal archives ever shine,
And claim for it an origin divine.
But, as in legend still is rife,
The Serpent with the Soul of All at strife
Was lord of death, ensconced in arm-like shape
That clasped within its many circled coil
The soul that would his will escape
And balk him of his richest spoil.
So speak the legends of old times,
That come to us in their heart-clinging rhymes;
That every ear with sweetness sate,
And, once caught up, none dare adulterate.
All these traditions, nobly sung,
To our great troubadours have clung:
And those which breathe the fame and glory
Of this high house rank first in ancient story.
All who dwell here are of Laocoon's line,
A kingly race, priests of a sun-god's shrine:
But they had foes that never slept;
And from the sea two jealous serpents crept,
Entwining sire and sons within their grasp,
And still those suffering souls they seem to clasp.
Who gazed, stood in their presence numb,
The tongues of olden bards were stricken dumb;
But lives the record in that marble rock
Which, thrilled with horror, trembled in the shock,
And, scaling gave to sight the Serpent's skin
And all the direful group that writhed within.
74
The knotted Serpents sire and sons enwreathing.’
The maidens hand in hand have met,
With open mouths and brows firm set;
Yet eager and with frighted stare
They listen, though the tale their senses scare.
With open mouths and brows firm set;
Yet eager and with frighted stare
They listen, though the tale their senses scare.
‘The serpents crept through every land,
In one all-tempting purpose clanned:
In forest stretched across from bole to bole
Waiting their prey, the wandering soul,
Were they below the lofty branches slung,
And there in emerald dyes and ruby lustre hung,
Green where the summer boughs were green,
Red where the tangled creepers tinged the autumnal scene.
Then could I tell you, ne'er to be forgot,
How the great lords, your sires, were led
By the arch-serpent to this pleasant spot,
Where o'er the gateway still he rears his head,
The mystic symbol of a form
That winds its will about the darting storm.
But these old legends reach so high,
They burn into the page of prophecy,
Where none can loose the fiery letters,
Bound and clasped in iron fetters,
Till, on the dreaded day foredoomed,
They burst in flame and are, with all, consumed.
In one all-tempting purpose clanned:
In forest stretched across from bole to bole
Waiting their prey, the wandering soul,
Were they below the lofty branches slung,
And there in emerald dyes and ruby lustre hung,
Green where the summer boughs were green,
Red where the tangled creepers tinged the autumnal scene.
Then could I tell you, ne'er to be forgot,
How the great lords, your sires, were led
By the arch-serpent to this pleasant spot,
Where o'er the gateway still he rears his head,
The mystic symbol of a form
That winds its will about the darting storm.
But these old legends reach so high,
They burn into the page of prophecy,
Where none can loose the fiery letters,
Bound and clasped in iron fetters,
Till, on the dreaded day foredoomed,
They burst in flame and are, with all, consumed.
| The Serpent Play | |