University of Virginia Library

THE HELOTS. A TRAGEDY.

THE HELOTS. A TRAGEDY.

PERSONS.

• High Priest of Apollo.
• Aristodemus Chief Helot
• Alcander Chief Helot
• Philemon Chief Helot
• Amphidamas Chief Helot
• Phorbas Chief Helot
• Memnon , a supposed Persian captive, overseer of the Helots.
• Phæbidas , a Spartan.
• Alcebiades , an Athenian Ambassador.
• Helots.
• Semanthe , daughter to Aristodemus, the chief of the Helots.

ACT I.

SCENE I

Scene—A Wood near Amyclæ in Laconia.
AMPHIDAMAS and DYMAS—two Helots.
Amph.
What! Memnon told you!—Memnon! Sparta's spy!
Messenia's scourge! and will you trust to him?
A fabler! a barbarian! Slave of slaves!
Long galled by Persian bondage, and in scorn
Set over us, to aggravate our wrongs,
With the last insult to the Grecian name?
He told you that a casual quarrel caus'd
This cruel stroke that lops our strength away!
What was the circumstance? Repeat the tale!
And then, observe my comment!

Dym.
What I heard
Carries its own conviction on its face;
Nor would our magistrates at such a time,
Like gray-hair'd ideots, break in wanton sport
The laws themselves had made. Alcander's doom
(Ever lamented by Messenia's sons)
Rose from a casual quarrel, in the fane
Of Jove's immortal daughters. There, at noon,
When midst ascending fumes, the swelling hymn
Roll'd in long plaudits round the awful dome,
The fierce Androcles saw Alcander nigh,
Listning the chorus; and inflam'd with rage
At the intrusion of a branded slave
Amid the rites of freemen, in a tone
Of mingled rage and scorn, address'd the youth;
Who, too incautious, or inflam'd by wrongs,
Retorted with like scorn. The brother, then,
Of proud Androcles interpos'd to soothe
His rising rancour, and a transient calm
Promis'd fallacious peace, but night beheld
His smother'd passions kindle like the fires
That promise future tempest. By the moon
The savage trac'd his noble prey along,
Even to his native woods, and struck the blow.

Amph.
Time will detect the falsehood, or confirm
Its truth. If our proud masters meant to shew
Respect to their own laws, the legal sword
Had punish'd the assassin.

Dym.
This is certain,
Androcles has absconded; or (at least,
As Fame reports,) he has not since appear'd.—

Amph.
I trust no rumours; what I clearly know,
That I'll believe. But Rumour is suborn'd
(I fear) to soothe us in deceitful calm.
Spite of surrounding foes, and rude alarms;
Some dreadful machination is on foot
Some baneful damp, to quench the rising flame
Of Liberty, that kindles thro' our bands.
Else why, with all this semblance of regard,
This sanctimonious face of sympathy,
Why, when the council met to change the law
For our relief, was midnight nam'd the hour
Of dark decision? Why did they select
The Temple of the Furies for the seat
Of counsel? Did Humanity's soft laws
E'er take their birth from these detested walls?
Why were the Helot's try'd and constant friends
Excluded from the dark divan? And why
Are all Messenia's friends, where'er they rul'd,
In Lacedeamon's martial bands, cashier'd,
Despoil'd, at once, of all their crested pride,
And, in their room, our most inveterate foes,
The gloomiest bigots of their cruel code
Promoted? Say, my friend, are these the signs
Of lasting league, of amity, and peace?

Dym.
Be calm—methought I heard a rustling noise
At hand—I would not wish your words were heard.
My ear was not deceiv'd—'tis Memnon's self—
He must not find us here!

Amph.
I wish it not.
Of all the proud surveyors of our toils,
Tho' some are more imperious, none I dread
Nor hate so much as him, yet know not why.

Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Scene continues.
Enter ASPASIA in the Character of MEMNON.
Asp.
Ye kindred spirits! oft within those groves
Your tears of old for our repeated wrongs,
Perhaps, have fallen. But fate, with iron hand,
Long since has dry'd those tears, and laid the sigh
That in those glades rose frequent! still indeed
Perhaps, even in the blest Elysian plains
Ye mourn the fair occasion, ever lost,
When to the tomb ye sunk without a name!
I too could mourn like you, could wander on
Inglorious thro' those groves, and wail my lot.
—But I disdain this lot.—I too must fall
Like you; but whether lapse of lingering years
Shall lay me low, or some auspicious hour
Devote me for a people, on myself
Depends! I was not born to die a slave.—
And now the deed is done which lifts my name
Conspicuous to the nations. Hence—away
Vile habit! Stern Androcles' bloody steel
That laid the blooming Helot low, denies
Concealment! Like the flash that fires the dome
Of some proud temple, and discloses wide
The solemn shrine that holds the guardian god,
This blow detects me to their wond'ring tribes.
This is no common fate, like those who fell
Ignobly doom'd beneath the conscious night
To try the temper of a stripling's steel!
No Bacchanalian chorus wakes the groves,
No festal dance, no rural song! 'Tis rage,
Revenge, and loud rebellion! Let it come.
This arm shall point the lightning on the heads
Of our proud despots! This is near the spot,
Where, nightly, their divan the seniors hold;
There, in the moment, when their passions mount
In due ferment, my skilful hand shall throw
The last ingredient in, that bids them blaze,
Till in the billowy conflagration caught,
Yon haughty walls subside. What I have told
Has rais'd their wonder at my skill, that seems
Far, far above the sublunary range
Of human comprehension. Could I see
The afflicted father, ere the assembly meets
The train were surer laid. And lo! he comes;
See! where he wanders like a stricken deer,
The barbed shaft deep rankling in his side!
Yet thro' the cloud of sorrow that o'er-hangs
His brow, vindictive rage, with transient gleam
Illumes his reverend visage. Here I'll shrowd;
Still somewhat, even from him, may yet be learn'd

[Retires.
Enter ARISTODEMUS.
Arist.
Then all my vigilance, my cares were vain,
To check thy daring soul. Poor youth! I ought,
(If I had priz'd thy life) with double seal
The secret to have kept within my breast,
Untold even by a look. But that pure flame,
Deriv'd from him whose ashes slumber here,
Had mark'd thee out some prowling Spartan's prey,
And thou had'st fallen as now. In other realms,
When partial Heaven awakes the patriot fire,
It leads the blest possessor on to fame,
And kindles in the course! But here, alas!
It blasts the owner, as a bolt from Heaven,
And sets in blood! But let the vengeance come,
I have deserv'd it well! In every chance
And change of sad disaster, which befell
Our toiling tribes, when every night was mark'd
With blood, each day with violence and wrong,
I scap'd till now! I never felt at home
Till now! Oh, injur'd people! I, your lord,
For whom your dearest blood, if I requir'd,
Had stream'd, was too, too timid, too remiss,
Too patient, selfish, cold! Or if I felt,
'Twas not for you I felt, but for my son!—
I fear'd, I strove to ward his doom in vain,
But Fate has reach'd him now! O had his blood,
From gallant Aristomenes deriv'd,
Bedew'd some glorious field, I then had smil'd
Upon my boy's distinguish'd tomb! But now
He falls in blooming youth, yet falls in vain,
Like some unwarlike savage to his den,
Trac'd by the pack that snuff the tainted gale,
And hunt him to his covert. But shall I—
—Shame to the blood of Aristomenes!—
Shall I, thus like a woman, wail his loss,
And say, he fell in vain? No—not in vain
While I survive! What tho' the frost of age
Congeal my blood, my tongue that us'd to preach
Patience, shall trumpet now revenge and slaughter;
I have a son to tremble for no more!
Then rouse, ye quiet groves! Rebellion! come.
Awake! Sedition! Haste! ye gathering storms,
I'll point you to your prey! Alcander's blood
Has wash'd away my fears! Why should I linger
Thus on the trembling verge of life, while rage—
Athens—Messenia—and immortal fame,
Marshall me on to glory!—

[To him. Enter Memnon in a Persian habit.
Arist.
What art thou?
Art thou the soul of my brave ancestor
That comes to check my rage, or fan the flame?
Aerial visitant! Thou seest a man
Who dares to hear, whate'er thou dar'st to tell,
And execute whate'er thou bidst.

Memn.
Aside.
He thinks me
A spirit or a god, the midnight gloom
Favours the thought. He shall not know me yet. [To Aristodemus.

Whate'er I am, it is not mine to tell.—
But persevere! the gods are on thy side,
And favour freedom! I am sent to warm
Your bands with new desires, and give the glow
That lifts the slave to manhood; think not then,
That mangled form, which soon, with pious rites,
Thy slaves shall carry to the funeral pile,
Thy son! His better part survives, and walks
From soul to soul, with unseen steps, but not
Unfelt. Observe his motions, and adore
His holy footsteps! He will lead you on
To certain conquest! Fare thee well, and prosper.

[Exit.
Arist.
Is it even so!—Why, then, lamented youth!
Those eyes no more, with weak, effeminate drops,
Mean to profane thy glorious fall! Thou setst
And setst in blood! But, like the lamp of day,
That rises on the vernal morn, and brings
The zephyrs in his train for the rude blast
That swept the summer buds away, thou livest,
As ere few suns decline, the world shall know!

To him MEMNON again—PHILEMON and other Chiefs of the Helots.
Phil.
to Mem.
Thou hast astonish'd us! Where couldst thou learn
That Dorian dialect of perfect phrase.
Thou seem'st a native here! Could'st thou have gain'd
In Asia's melting climes among the hordes
Of willing slaves, such hardihood of thought,
Such glowing sentiments, as seem to shame
Athens, in all her independent pride?
Forgive us, if we doubt.

Arist.
Aside.
Is this the form
So lately seen by me?

Phil.
Thou seest us to the verge of ruin led,
Our recent hope of independence quench'd,
When brave Alcander fell. On Sparta's lords
Thou art dependant. Thou, perhaps, suborn'd
By them, the ready minion of their will,
Employ'st thy supple arts, thy fair pretext
Of generous sentiments to probe our hearts,
To try, if yet we feel; if aught remains,
Aught, not to be extinguish'd by our tears,
Aught yet unquell'd beneath the weight of woe,
Ready once more to catch the falling spark
And flame for liberty. We are not now
So lost to prudence, as to fall a prey
To such low machinations.

Mem.
That you doubt
My own assertions, till my proofs are given
To clear my conduct, no resentment breeds
In me, Philemon! nor suppose I scorn
To choose thee umpire of the test I bring,
When to this reverend sire I now appeal,
With grief deprest; yet still in him survives
Messenia's latest most endearing hope,
Scorning the frowns of Fate.

Arist.
O mock us not
With hopes! But why encroach upon the hour
Of sympathizing sorrow? Can you raise
The dead? Can you restore my gallant son?
Why didst thou, like a vision, come even now,
(For well I know 'twas thou, whom late I saw)
With mystic words to raise fallacious hope?
Say, Persian! do your native plains produce
Balm to the bleeding heart? You rather came,
I fear, with poison to foment the wound!
Yet pay some reverence to paternal woes!
Retire, and ye, my friends! let me entreat
Your absence, till the funeral rites begin!

Mem.
Be sorrow sacred. But, remember, sire,
To sorrow like a man! This woman's dew
But ill becomes the old, imperial stem
Of fallen Messenia!

Arist.
Who informed thee! say!

[Surprized.
Mem.
The same who told
Of things unknown to human ears, but mine,
Yet known in other worlds, where those, whose dust
In this long consecrated mold repose,
This instant are consulting on the doom
Of old Messenia.

Arist.
Ha! thou startst a thought
Might wake the dead! Who slumbers here? Unfold!
Some know the secret, but to alien ears
It is a secret still.

Mem.
Beneath this mold
Slumbers the last of your imperial line,
Who follow'd down Eurotas plaintive stream
With desolation, fell revenge, and blood,
For Sparta's wrongs! I need not add his name!—

Arist.
Here sleeps the dust of Aristomenes!
Amazement. Who informed thee?

Mem.
First declare
Whether I guess the number of the kings
That rest around their great progenitor
On everlasting guard, like yonder stars
That circle round the pole!

Arist.
What number, say!

Mem.
The number equals the celestial choir
Of Jove's harmonious daughters!

Arist.
Heaven and earth!—
Some god or demon told thee!

Mem.
Now recall
From memory's dormant stores, if e'er thou heardst
An uncouth saw, by antient prophet's sung
What should befall the tenth, if still he kept
His ancient regal honours unprofan'd
By Hope, by Interest, or by Fear!

Arist.
To him
Was the revival of Messenia's hopes
Assur'd; and hence, alas! my sad despair,
Since my Alcander's loss! To him I gave
My right!

Mem.
Despair not yet, there still remains
The tenth—thou liv'st for vengeance! Others still
Of the Herculean line survive, by thee
To be adopted. Rouse to vengeance! Rouse!
The frozen snake at Spring's reviving breath
Feels the return of life!

Phil.
Unequall'd man!
Heaven's favourite! Yet vouchsafe another glimpse
Of heaven's eternal counsels (if 'tis given
To mortal minds to know), why did the powers
Above, permit the spirit of the state
So long to dream away the rolling years
And why that mystic number chosen, that seems
A ninefold charm?

Mem.
Young man, you aim aright!
It is a ninefold charm: The holy choir
Of Pindus Fount, the lovely guardians still
Of Sparta's throne, with everlasting prayer
Long wearied their immortal sire, to grant
Each one, thy thrones depression, till the Fates
Had nine times spun the long empurpled thread
For nine of thine imperial ancestry,
From Aristomenes to thee deriv'd—
Each gain'd a royal sacrifice, a life
Of old Messenia's line, so long to save
Their favour'd Lacedæmon. Pheron fell
The last, thy royal sire!

Arist.
By all the gods
Then there are hopes! had not Alcander fallen!

Mem.
Mistaken man! thy son's lamented fall
Is life to old Messenia's cause!

Arist.
Explain,
Thou more than prophet! even the beating storm
Much more the tempest of the mind would calm
To hear thee ope the mysteries of heaven!—
How is the state advantag'd by the blood
Of fallen Alcander?

Mem.
Much afflicted sire!
Be it thy consolation to be told
Thy son was summon'd by the awful call
Of providence, to fire the general breast
With keen vindictive rage, to add revenge
To public spirit, to cement with blood
Messenia's combination: Have I given
A test of more than mortal reach?

Phil.
Thou hast!

Mem.
Then let the hopes of more than mortal aid
Expell despondence from your sinking hearts!
And, to assure you more, this instant hour
Rites, to your climes unknown, shall ope the gates
Of yon Empyrean, on this gloomy scene
To let in more than day. Then shall ye know
With due precision, what the gods require
And what they promise. Haste ye slaves, erect [To some of his own slaves.

The altar of the Magi. Light the flame
And meet the coming dirge with holy songs!—
—Break the deep gloom of yon funereal cloud
With heavenly splendours, like created light
With Hades old contending.

[The slaves prepare the altar, the holy fire, &c. the Helot chiefs with Aristodemus go to meet the funeral procession.
MEMNON
—ALONE.
Thanks to the knowlege from my sire deriv'd
Of old Messenia's story! To those swains
I seem a delegate from heaven! They take
My flowery fictions, my poetic tales
For dictates of the gods, immortal themes!
Yet of such prophecies I have been told
Or true or false. If true, why should not I
Avail me of that energy they breathe
To second my own views? Alcander's life
(Had he surviv'd,) had serv'd me as a base
To build my claims; on one congenial stem
Our titles might have grown to after times
In everlasting bloom. But he is gone!—
His sister still remains; her claims to mine
Are hostile; tho' alike. I must contrive
To break this bar, or move it from my way!
I would not dip my hands in regal blood!
It only then remains, by artifice
To spirit her away, or fright her hence
By fear of some impending ill,—they come!

[The funeral procession approaches, attended by Aristodemus, Philemon, and the rest of the Helot chiefs.
Phil.
There fell Messenia's glories! Thou art fled
Brave spirit! Who amidst the bellowing storm
(When prying curiosity, appall'd,
Dreaded to walk our vales, and murther slunk
Into her wolvish den, with blood embath'd)
Came like the spirit of the tempest forth
When, riding on the clouds, he calls to arms
His fiery factions in the angry air,
Then, when the loud revolt of nature seem'd
In Ithome's aspiring sons to rouse
Each independent passion, dormant long.
When to the waving woods and sobbing storm
Eurotas, swoln to rage, by watry moons
His solemn cadence join'd,—then—how he stood
Like some sage master of a powerful spell
Thro' the fermenting multitude around
Erecting their fallen hopes, and teaching slaves
To think and feel like men. But oh, ye shades
Of old Amyclæ! you, ye conscious groves!
The fatal secret was not kept! Ye storms!
Ye winds proclaim'd it! Every partial god
That favour'd Sparta, watch'd the gloomy hour
Pale Hecat watch'd, and mixt her midnight bane
To dash our sacred counsels—else, how dar'd
Those wolves of Sparta, crouching to their dens
Before the Attic hunter, they, who long
Have seem'd afraid to stain our peaceful cots
With moon-light massacre, or lust, again,
Thus to insult a people? Thus to shed
Our dearest blood?

Amph.
Alas! my friend, too sure
The mystic secret of his birth, so long
Our best palladium, and the charm, that kept
Whate'er of ancient manhood yet remain'd
Or loyalty alive, tho' known to few
Was certainly divulged—else why on him
(After a long deceitful pause) should Fate
Fasten at once, and bear our hopes away?

Phil.
Behold the slaughter'd son, and mourning sire.

[Enter Helots, bearing the body of Alcander, Aristodemus, &c.
Arist.
Here rest the lov'd Alcander's last remains!
That daring and intrepid soul, so late
Who might have rais'd Alcides' falling race
Now ranges in Elysian liberty,
No longer manacled to earth, compell'd
In painful post to combat with the tide
Of this bad world!—Thy virtues—noble youth!
Were splendid signs that led the venom'd shaft
With surer level to its mortal mark!—
Thy worth undid thee!—hadst thou been content
To slumber out the live-long, thoughtless night
Amongst thy fellow hinds without a dream
Of what thy ancestors once were,—I now
Like other sires had own'd a living son!—
But, oft when others slept, thy soaring soul
Took wing from this ignoble nook, and sped
Her way to other worlds, congenial climes
To hold high converse with thy mighty sires
And breathe that pure Ethereal flame, that lifts
The man to godhead! Why those splendid boons
This prodigality of heaven, and waste
Of worth, like some vile hind, to fall obscure
By a Laconian ruffian's hand, unless
To mock the hopes of Man?

Mem.
I thought, old sire.
Those earthly vapours had no longer power
To trouble thy clear intellect, so late
Admitted to the counsel of the gods
An earthly guest!—must I again repeat
The need of some uncommon sacrifice
Some deed of direst import, whose deep guilt
Devotes the bloody city to the power
Of him, who is the source of every ill?—
—To those lethargic spirits, long disus'd
To flame at common wrongs, some flagrant act
Was requisite, to fire plebeian souls
To thoughts of vengeance! Know, the heav'nly powers
Work not by human means, else man might think
All things the regular effect of Fate
Or rul'd by yon revolving orbs above
And quite forget their being! But full oft
Dreadful and devious, as the comet's course
By signal and astounding steps they move
To call us back, when wand'ring. Know besides
The two contending powers, who sway below
Great Orosmades, and the dreaded name
Of Arimanius, source of every ill
(Your Jove, and Pluto) oft in council dread
Meet on their frontiers, and with league unknown
Dispense the fortunes of this nether world
The scene of their alternate sway), like Sol
And his fair nightly sister, silver-thron'd.—
Oft, when the power beneficent is pleased
To raise some state, or bid a people breathe
Th'ambrosial air of dear bought liberty
He gives his dark competitor the power
To arm his red right hand with every plague
That humbles mortals, famine, fire and sword,
Inclement seasons, and the dreadful band
Of pestilential armies in mid air
Encamping on the settled gloom. By them
He wreaks his horrible intent, and deems
The subject world his own, but deems in vain
The friendly power permits his fell carreer
And over rules his rage. The dire extreme
Sharpens the human intellect, and calls
The manly virtues forth, calm Vigilance,
Devotion, Fortitude, the social tyes
That fasten man to man with links of love
And lists a band of heroes, fit to brave
The mortal menace of oppressive power.

Phil.
Interpreter of heaven! thou well hast prov'd
Thy mighty Mission by no vulgar signs!—
—Thy words might chear despondence, but, alas!
Had Jove design'd our freedom, he had left
The heir of Aristomenes to lead
Her loyal armies!—I am chill'd with years!
Without a son!

Mem.
But not without a child!
Thou hast a daughter, lovely as the morn
She has a lover, bold, aspiring, brave,
And one who shares the honour of thy blood
Adopt him to your line!

Arist.
His worth is witness'd
By the attachment of his fellow slaves
O be their love less perilous to him
Than to Alcander! heaven benights our views!

Mem.
To clear your doubts, (if any doubts remain)
An awful revelation, yet behind
Ripe for disclosure, labours to a birth!—

Amph.
Where will this end? I feel a sacred awe
As if some god in human shape, were near!

Phil.
A god or man he seems, the sent of heaven
Attend! he opes her lips to speak again.

Mem.
Know then! desponding men! on Persia's bounds
My youth, observant of the will of heaven
Was fixt to watch the never dying flame
To which th'imperial heirs of Cyrus bend.
Thence, when reliev'd at last, at early day
As, overwatch'd, I laid me down to rest
Where thro' the purple gates of morn ascend
Visions of true presage, methought I saw
The blush of early day, ascending still—
I seem'd to watch the mists that roll away
From fair Gedrosia's western hills, before
The coming god, to spy the first, faint beam
That gilds their lofty brows, and hail the power
With wonted hymns adoring:—Soon aslant
The misty curtain mov'd away in folds
Of gorgeous tissue, by the orient beam
Enrich'd with all heaven's drapery, that seem'd
To match the labour of cælestial looms—
The piny mounts umbrageous sides appear'd
In pomp of light and shade, disclosing full
His giant lineaments, as the light clouds
Mov'd over his majestic front, now hid
Now manifest, in morns resplendent vest.
Deep echo from the vales return'd the voice
Of morning flocks and herds, the ruffling groves
Swell'd with aerial minstrelsie and all
Was vernal life and joy! but, westward far
An hovering cloud, upon the mountain brow
Seem'd settling long, and oft was seen to poise
His grey extended wings to fleet away
And often seem'd, with light, fantastic toe
To spurn the heath-crown'd height, like the blue flame
That hovers o'er the dying taper's point.—
—At last, from every glade and thicket near
Each gulphy stream, and sedgy glen, it seem'd
Its kindred fogs to call—the kindred bands
In dim detachments up the channel'd sides
Of that steep wilderness ascend, and mount
Blotting the pure æthereal bounds.—Anon
The bands of ancient night, disperst so late
Seem'd rallying fast from their Tartarean caves
And wide encroaching on the golden edge
Of day, which, circumscrib'd, but lovely still
Skirted the rosy orient. Like the powers
Of Ariman they seem'd, when his proud hand
Unfurls the flag of darkness in the face
Of Orosmades, lord of life and love.—
But with the west wind soon the stormy south
His potent breath combin'd, and swept along
The rallying fogs, wide verging to the poles
In broad circumference around. The day
Seem'd to retire, and call its orient beams
Back to the fount of light. The fount of light
Was seen no more. But in its stead, forth lanc'd
The lurid lightning; in those peaceful bounds
Where fair tranquillity for ever smiles
The delegate of darkness seem'd to take
His gloomy post and sadden all the sky:
Then hurl'd his spells around; the last faint beam
Soon sicken'd into night. I saw with dread
The fearful portent, nor the portent long
Was unexplain'd, for soon a faded form
Desponding stood before my mental eye—
It bore th'undoubted ensigns of the god
Whose presence gilds our temples. But his looks
Were all eclips'd, his dazzling crown was lost
Shorn of his beams he stood, like one depos'd
From his celestial honours, and at length
In sighs began. “Those signs which late you saw
“Are ominous to Persia. From the west
“The hand of Ariman conducts a foe
“Portentous to her glory, as yon clouds
“That blot my beams—from fair Ionias isles
“The Doric bounds and Macedon they came
“Like night and darken all Choaspes shore!
“The heir of Cyrus from his noontide height
“Falls like proud Clymene's presumptuous son
“His safety is the discord of the foe
“His hope is Sparta's fall.”

Arist.
Mysterious heaven!
Her hope is Sparta's fall, and what is ours?

Mem.
After a solemn pause, he thus proceeds
“Even now great Orosmades lends the means.
“The Athenian squadrons, like the raging north
“Lay the proud honours of her forests low
“And in Amyclæ's groves a secret fire
“Kindles amain, and soon will lift its head
“O'er their devoted shades—the guardian god
“Of Thebes , who led his conquering squadrons on
“To Ganges from Ismenos; will not scorn
“To aid me, for of old my potent help
“Confirm'd his victories, my temper'd beam
“Foster'd his vines on India's palmy shore;
“Held in suspense the periodic rains
“Or gave the timely shower, with milky flow
“To call the power of vegetation forth.
“And, when the Naiad train, whose viewless bands
“Supply the springs of Ganges, and dispense
“To their calm votaries the limpid bowl
“(Deem'd sacred as the noctar of the Gods)
“To all the tribes of that religious land)
“Dreading the vines inspiring juice, of power
“To spread revolt among the sober swains
“With deep nocturnal orisons implor'd
“My sister goddess of the watry star
“With her cold influence, and malignant power
“To chill th'inverted year; to brew the rains
“With deep'ning inundations from the hills
“To sweep their summer glories all away
“To Ethiopia's main.—I soon perceiv'd
“The close confederacy, tho' wrapt in night—
“Then when the congregated vapours spread
“Dispensing wide their chill Tartarean steam
“To the deep cavern, where the sisters sate
“Prisoning the infant moons, I pointed full
“My burning beam—the scatter'd vapours fled
“And left the mountain's brow, the Naiad's band
“Felt my full glories scorch their sea-green hair
“And drop'd their tinkling urns, and fled away
“To hide them in the mines, among the stores
“Of unsunn'd silver, and forbid the fount
“Above the flowery bank to swell the stream
“Or drench, with ceaseless rain, the viny plant,
“In favour to the god who gave the boon—
“Go thou! I here divest thee of thy robes
“As priest of Mithras! Go! and seek the shore
“Where first he saw the light, approach the fane
“On Daulias lofty summit, and declare
“(After due Orisons) my urgent claims
“For his alliance, bought with friendship old.
“Bid him inspire his Thebans to the field
“Against the Spartans haughty race, who threat
“Even now, the throne of Cyrus! thence depart
“And seek in fair Amyclæs groves, the tribes
“Who boast the blood of old Messenia's line
“(Tho' now the name be gone, disgrac'd and sunk
“In that of Helot). If the swains receive
“Thy mission gladly, rouse the bolder youths
“To turn upon their lords, and nobly wrench
“From their slack hands, the old, paternal spear
“And face their cruel hunters.” Here he soar'd
Amid the gathering gloom. Suspense I stood,
Now wrapt in wonder, now in doubt involv'd
How best to win my way to Daulias bounds
Thro' warring nations. To Miletus thence
Many a long league, in many a quaint disguise
I shap'd my course at last, and thence embark'd
Aboard a ship of Samos for the strand
Of old Cithæron. Soon the black north west
Arose, and drove our fated barque along
To Malea's hostile bay, when soon we met
Lysander's martial brigandine, and struck
To his superior flag—the crew in chains
Were doom'd to various toils, but I was sent
(Thanks to the gods, who led my fated steps)
To join my lot with you.

Arist.
Propitious gods!
Could he, who sills his clay-cold bed, again
Arise, how would he soar above all dread
And coward doubt! How would he grasp the bolt
Of thund'ring Jove, in fancy, and disperse
His foes, with heaven's own lightning?

Mem.
Better thus!—
Perhaps, were he alive, his eager spirit
Burning for premature exploits, would lead
His Helots on to ruin, where the way
Seem'd to conduct to glory.—Let that thought
Be now thy solace! our revenge, tho' slow.
Is certain.

Arist.
Then! Laconian tygers! then!
I yet may live to thank you! not content
With simple murther, on his godlike form
Of matchless mold your savage malice stamp'd
A thousand wounds—ye meant it his disgrace.
It is his glory, that his worth provok'd
Such wolves as you, that bay the radiant moon
For shining on your fell misdeeds—ye marr'd
That beauteous face with wounds—the sovereign feat
Of manly beauty, where revenge and malice
Might look their rage away!—

Mem.
Old man! no more!
The time prohibits weak complaint—let all
Loud passions cease! and in this quiet grove
No accent of impatience taint the time
Due to religion.—You, the ministers
(Selected for the purpose,) light the lamp
The symbol of that radiant power, who leads
The golden day, whom Persia's tribes adore
At dead of night, and at the blushing dawn,
He led them on to glory—from the east
Inspiring godlike Cyrus to pursue
The flaming track of his diurnal car
Till Asia's western climes confest their lord
And Egypt sunk before him!—Call around
Your Helots to partake the solemn rite
And from the splendid shrine, with beating heart
Inhale the present god, while breathing high
Poetic rapture swells the solemn strain
Such as from Sparta's flute yet never flow'd:
Devoting Lacedæmon to the powers
Of Ariman and everlasting night
Others prepare Alcander's funeral pile.

[The sacred lamp is lighted and set on the urn over the tomb of Aristomenes.
Mem.
Chaos, and ancient night! Ye nameless powers
Who share the throne of darkness, and preside
Over the moonless realms, forgive the strain
That hails your luminous rivals, far remote!
Nor deem us rebels to your ancient sway
That thus we sing the god, whose orient beam
Pierc'd your primæval shadows, and expell'd
From half your bounds Oblivion's torpid reign.
Ye swarthy Satraps! from your ancient claims
We mean not to detract! But (if our vows
Merit acceptance in your gloomy realms,
Dishonour'd by creation) to send down
New colonies from these devoted plains,
Whose deeds of genuine darkness well have earn'd
The dire distinction. Now begin the hymn.

Mem.
Break off—break off—the bright symbolic sign
Burns ominous and dim, like Persia's god,
When Night's fair empress comes, with envy pale,
To intercept his glory. We must try
Some other charms. I shudder but to think
On those that still remain! For, what remains
But that, which cleaves the mundane shell, and calls
The weary ghost (new reconcil'd to night,
And all her solemn charms) to hated day
Again?—And one portentous bribe alone
Has weight to gain the gloomy Ariman,
To render back his purchase!

Arist.
What is that?
Say, Persian! thou, that hold'st with either world,
Thy dread communication, is it needful
That more of old Messenia's royal race
Should bleed? My gallant ancestor (whose name
Is now, alas! my only boast) when Sparta,
(Detested Sparta!) girt with direful siege
His capital; when thy resplendent god
(Our Delphian oracle) with sad response,
Demanded from the Herculean line
A spotless maid (to please the powers below,
And with her immolated blood atone
For thousands) soon o'ercame paternal fear.—
I have a daughter. Does that stern regard,
Say, I must also quell paternal fear?

Mem.
Aside.
Such is my aim, old man!—You guess aright,
But know not yet my motive nor my claim
To old Messenia's throne, were she remov'd,
Her fears, if nothing else, shall chace her hence.

Arist.
My child is dear as life—nay, dearer far.
Slavery had long ere now sunk this grey head
To seek a welcome grave. But love prolong'd
My days, in thraldom, and in shame. Yet say not
That she shall bleed! I have no hopes but her,
Nor other hope does now Messenia boast.—
—Some, it is true, of great Alcides line,
In bondage, or in exile, may survive,
But she alone is known the lineal heir
Of our Messenian stem! And, should she fall,
The bond, that holds our wretched tribes together,
Sinks with her to the ground, and what am I
To fill a nation's trust?

Mem.
Aside.
[To Aristodemus.
Aside.

Enter PHORBAS.
Arist.
Come, without preface,
Deliver what you bring! The time precludes
All ceremonious prelude!—

Phor.
Then I fear
We are betray'd. At least, that our proud lords
Suspect our purpose!

Mem.
On what grounds dost thou
Imagine this?

Phor.
When first I reach'd the fane,
At morn, I met Pausanias in the porch,
He spoke not; but with dark suspicious look
Survey'd me round, as if to read my soul,
And strait departed.

Arist.
We, alas! have felt
His fear, by marks more deadly. Oh! my son!
Thy fall too plainly spoke the Spartan dread!

Phor.
seeing the body.
Ha!—is Alcander fallen—Oh! mortal wound
To all our hopes!—Ye Helicean bands,
Ye now may stray, like flocks without a guide!
That youthful leader, whom your hopes pourtray'd,
Your dearest hopes beguiles!

Arist.
Enough of him.—
But say!—You nam'd the Helicean bands.
What bands of Helice?

Phor.
That unseen power,
Which bids alternate waves of night and day
Roll o'er this nether globe (while here ye mourn
In double depth of woe and midnight gloom)
Leads on the day-spring from Naupactus height,
In bright procession!

Arist.
From Naupactus coast?
Has Athens seiz'd the strait; and, from the shore
Of Pisa, pour'd her legions? Then her sword,
From either quarter lops the giant limbs
Of this new Typhon! Pylos, Pisa now
Confess th'Athenian sway!

Phor.
From Athens nought
I learn'd, but from the Delphian porch I saw
A noble youth, with looks of chearful haste
Returning.

Mem.
But those Helicean bands,
What are they, and from whence?

Phor.
Lament no more.
Forget your bonds! For oh! thou happy sire!
Thou yet mayst see Messenia lift her head,
Her crested head, proud as yon waving pines,
Proud as the sons of old Ithome, led
By godlike Aristomenes, to sweep
The haughty files of Sparta from the field,
Or send them trembling to their wolfish dens!
For know, my friends, on the Crissean shores,
Your nation still survives, that seem'd extinct,
For ever sunk on sandy Pylos coast.
It lives again, like that sulphureous mine,
That sinks, they say, in Etna's flaming gorge,
Then from Vesuvius, lances to the stars,
And frights fair Italy. These poor remains
Of Ithome, long hid, and foster'd long
Obscurely in Ætolia; have burst forth
Like yonder Pleiads from the wintry storm,
That takes a surly leave! But late they crost
In many a proud bark o'er the wond'ring wave
Of Crissa, clad in arms, and settle now
Round Helice and Bura, to the strand
Of western Elis. Like a band they come,
Of hornets, from our fields to drive away
Those monsters fed with gore! Their pæans loud
Peal to the sounding main. The sounding main
Sends them provisions, arms, and warlike stores
From rich Naupactus, and the ports around,
That skirt the long Crissean, and obey
Athenian influence, or Athenian power.

Arist.
This from report we learn'd before, but fear'd
It was some hostile stratagem, to lure
Our hopes to blossom, like untimely spring,
Check'd by the nipping North's invidious breath.

Phor.
Those eyes beheld them.

Mem.
Where?

Phor.
Even now—But now
That sun, whose steeds a few short hours ago
Plung'd in the broad Ionian, saw the scene,
Saw his red splendours as they rose, return'd
By old Messenia's far reflecting files
Doubling the day;—the purple main afar,
In hoarse applause, remurmur'd to the voice
Of early vows to the associate gods,
Latona's son, and Neptune. Either god,
From the blue empire and the burning throne,
Each other seem'd with mutual smiles to hail,
Mingling their glories!

Mem.
He that rules the day
From his bright station deals impartial light,
Both to the proud oppressor and the slave
Who drags the clanking chain. The tyrant scorns
Th'ætherial blessing, and the weary wretch
But wakes to curse his rising beam, that shows
A long variety of woe and pain.
But in the nightly visions of the just,
(After his radiant eyes have view'd the world,
Its miseries and wrongs) he deals around
That awful verdict oft, that seals the doom
Of thoughtless tyrants, tho' they bask secure
Beneath his blessed beam.

Phor.

Arist.
By all our wrongs
Thou bring'st an answer, worthy of a god!
And may the tide of time for ever bear
Our generations to oblivion's deep
If now we miss the fair occasion given
At once to seize, that lifts us to the view
On this wide theatre of gods and men
Applauding!

Phorb.
Hear the sequel, for the maid
Forsook not yet the tripod “Sons of Ithome”
In calmest mood she thus began “The means
“How to commence the dread carreer of fame
“Are yet to learn: the goal is in your view
“The first step gains the race, the conscious moon
“Must see you turn against the savage foe
“Who marks your tracks with blood! the coming night
“Soon in her shadowy retinue shall bring
“The wonted ruffian to your peaceful plains
“With wolvish spirit, prowling for his prey
“Him seize, and to the subterranean gods
“Pour his devoted blood! The manly deed
“By all partaken, will to all dispense
“Unshaken fortitude and firm resolve.
“Kindled by taste of hostile blood, despair
“Of pardon from their dire vindictive lords
“And settled purpose to succeed, or dye.”

Mem.
Aside.
Then I must haste to wake my rival's fears
And from th'imagin'd danger speed her flight.

[Exit privately.
Phil.
'Twas then that ruffian's shadow which obscur'd
The lamp of Mithras, when it burn'd so dim!
The prescient gods have sent the dark eclipse
To warn us of the prey, which now, perhaps
On this dread verge with blind unconscious tread
Is entring on our snares.—Begin the search.

Arist.
Then this alone remains.—Oh! had I learn'd
The secret sooner! had Apollo deign'd
To wake our fears before Alcander fell
And mark'd the ruffian as he walk'd our woods
Alcander yet had liv'd, or we, at worst,
Had seen the murth'rer pour his hated blood
To the dread queen of Vengeance!

Phorb.
Yet, perhaps
Flush'd with success, the ruffian of the night
Again may visit these sad groves; the blame
If then he scapes, will light on us. The gods
Have free'd themselves.

Arist.
Go Mardon! Cephatus!
Terpander! Pheron! Pyramus! and Dymas!
Each in your several districts, wake your friends
And bid their busy footsteps trace the dews
Till dawn—no common prey shall crown their toil.—
—Fair daughter of Latona, whose bright lamp
So oft has led the robber to his prey—
O thou, whose virgin ear was oft profan'd
With cries of violation. Thou whose shafts
On Tityus and Orion, veng'd of old
Their brutal purpose—pierce those envious clouds
Remove the veil of night, and give to view
The secret foe, that comes, with fell intent
To stain thy virgin walks with recent blood!

ACT II.

Scene—The Same.
MEMNON
—SOLUS.
The billet did its business well—it woke
Her fears, and chac'd her from her father's house.—
But why return'd, and whence this wond'rous tale
Of violence and rescue? Is it feign'd
Or true?—It is no time to question now!
I still am unsuspected, and some means
Of more effect this working brain must find
To spirit her away, and leave no space
To lay the basis of my fortunes deep
But here the rangers, and their captive come,
I hasten to resume my priestly garb!

[Exit.
[Aristodemus, and Helots, bring in a captive.
Arist.
[The captive is led forward.

1st Hel.
No sign of guilt he show'd,
No mark of terror his demeanor wore,
More than you see at present; nay, he ask'd
To be conducted hither.

Arist.
to the Cap.
Tell me—say
Why that impassion'd gate? that scornful smile!

Cap.
From no contempt. I smile at your mistake.
Yourselves will smile, when you forget your rage
Against your firmest friends!

Arist.
What! art thou not
A Spartan, and a ruffian, sent to spy,
And single from our tribes the choicest prey
To dye your maiden sword in Helot's gore?

Cap.
From no Laconian veins my birth I draw,
As well my dialect may show. My country
Is that distinguish'd land, where Theseus rul'd,
Now the proud arbitress of Greece. To you,
(If you command those Helot tribes) I bear
My orders.

Arist.
Tell thy business! Falter not!
It must be bloody, deep, important, secret,
Well suited to the past; but no disguise
Will here avail. Messenia's tottering state
(To be cemented by thy Spartan blood)
Must not be baffled by a soothing tale!

Cap.
Mistaken men! Would Heaven the time allow'd
To send to Athens, (if you doubt my faith)
Your fears would soon disperse!

Arist.
An artful scheme!
But futile as the former! You would gain
Time to elude our vengeance, and to leave us
To wonder at our folly!

Cap.
Send this instant.—
Be I your hostage till your messenger
Returns. Then will you find me not a spy,
But delegated from th'Athenian state,
To proffer aid; nay more, to raise you high
From this inglorious state, akin to beasts,
To cope with men.

Arist.
You think us beasts, indeed,
Devoid of all sagacity!—Whate'er
Thy purpose, thou and thy confederate friends
Can best disclose. But now thy thin pretext
Is all transparent as the air. Thy words—
Yes—thine own words condemn thee! We ourselves
A messenger already have dismiss'd
To Athens and to Delphi, both at once,
And were there aught of moment, not by thee,
But them, the answer had been sent. But thou
Prepare to meet thy doom!

[As they are going to seize him.
Cop.
Hold! On your lives
Presume not thou to touch me, or thy slaves!
Approach not, or by all th'Athenian gods,
An horrible revenge awaits the deed.
Let me but send to Athens! Let me wait
In bonds, till my credentials may arrive!

Amph.
Could it be done!—But think, Aristodemus,
How often wild temerity has rued
The violence of direful deeds too late.

Arist.
He only wants to profit by delay,
And what from thence might grow. He bears no stamp
Of Athens in his dialect, or garb!—
Have we not seen Athenians? And from whence
Can he then be, but from our deadliest foes,
Our masters of Laconia! Call the priest, [Exit Helot.

And bid the altars fume. Propitious gods
Accept our offering!

Cap.
Am I then to fall
Obscure, inglorious, by a curst mistake?
Nay, then, whatever hostile power, whose hate
Has lur'd me to the snare, shall never see me
Thus tamely, like a steer, to slaughter led!

[Struggles and overthrows several of the Helots, but is at last overpowered and muffled for sacrifice.
Enter MEMNON, as Priest.—The Altar lighted and surrounded with preparations for Necromancy.
Mem.
Ye nameless powers! who in the dark profound,
Despise the common sacrifice, and joy
To see the voluntary victim throw
The load of life aside! Ye who inspire
The Gentian widow with the dire resolve
To plunge amid the slaming bounds, that part
Both worlds, and seek the partner of her soul
In other elements than ours—command
The dull, reluctant, lingering wish away.
That ties the sullen captive to the world!
Give him to taste of immortality.
That his exalted sentiment may scorn
The vapid pleasures of this nether clime,
That sicken in enjoyment! Imp his wings,
That droop like some young eaglet's, on the verge
Of dread vacuity, yet unexplored,
Till his undaunted parent heaves him off,
To poise his pinions in the wide expanse
Of the sustaining air. If ye accept
The offering, by thy dread response, we soon
Shall learn! The gods, who rule our changing spheres
Remand us back to you, who know no change
In purpose or in fortune. They will melt
At human woe, and turn at human prayer,
Like their own clouds and sunshine. Ye are stern,
Immoveable, and scorn the wav'ring breeze
That causes chance and change below! Prepare
The rites! And now produce the captive youth,
Unmask him—let him look upon his fate.

[The mask is taken off and discovers Alcibiades.
Mem.
Aside.
Ha!—Who is here! Oh Nemesis and Jove!
What dreadful vision bursts upon my sight!
My deadliest foe within my power! The man
That caus'd my exile, forc'd me to renounce
My native clime—and oh—but I must save him,
Else my revenge were short of half its ends.—
It must be full, complete!

Arist.
What new delay?
Some sudden ecstasy has seiz'd our priest,
Mark his disorder'd mein, his kindling eyes
Like glaring orbs, that threat revenge and war!—
And now they melt to pity—say what means
This strange convulsion?—

Mem.
Aside.
To Arist.

Arist.
We will not be deluded!—say, what means
Your mystic rapture?—Name the wondrous man
So late our captive for intended crimes
On bloody purpose bent, and seiz'd within
Our groves; now suddenly transform'd and claim'd
The favourite of the gods!—

Mem.
The gods demand
A Spartan life, but should your hasty hand
Shed this youth's blood (no Spartan blood perhaps)
Messenia still might mourn.

[To them, enter Semanthe in haste.
Sem.
Immortal gods!
I am not yet, I hope, too late to save
My saviour—to return him life for life!

Arist.
What profanation's this!—Semanthe! Why
Forgetful of your sex, will you intrude
Where yet no female is allowed to spy
Our interdicted rites?

Sem.
Forgive me, father!
Forgive the transports of a grateful mind
I heard the rumour of a captive's fate—
My heart presag'd it might be he, whose arm
Guarded my life—I ran, I flew to save him
Oh my prophetic heart! this! this is he
Who snatch'd me from the ruffians!

Arist.
Gracious heaven!
From what a dreadful plunge of fate I rise
How every hour with strange discoveries teems
Forgive, whoe'er thou art, the dark intent.—
What horrour had surrounded me! What guilt
Of black ingratitude, tho' undesign'd
Tho' sanction'd by religion! Yet disclose
Why thus involv'd in night, and dark disguise
You chose to hide your worth!

Alcib.
Thy son could tell
Whom oft I met in secret—but I spare
Your heart the keen remembrance of your loss.—
I did not wish that more than one (and he
Of highest trust) should know the deep intent
That led me hither—tho' my lucky hand
Rescu'd the fair Semanthe, when I learn'd
Alcander's fate, I deem'd Messenia's hope
For ever sunk, and deep desponding trac'd
My backward steps, irresolute to go
Or stay. To warm your Helots to revenge
Or leave them tamely in their turns to fall
Deliberating long I stood—Till fate
Drew these night rangers on my lonely track.—
But those strange rites, this midnight sacrifice,
Those awful preparations shew, that still
The spirit of my slaughter'd friend survives.
Even from below, the powers that love revenge
Seem to call on us. Even the fates proclaim
Some mighty birth at hand!

Arist.
Twas then to thee
We owe my son's too sanguine hopes. Alas!
Too long it seem'd the birth of youthful fancy
And generous ardour! Too intense it flam'd,
Too, too conspicuous! Like the lambent blaze
That hovers o'er Eurotas' banks by night,
It led the midnight murtherer to his mark,
Whose fatal dagger struck my noblest hopes
To earth!

Alcib.
If consolation yet can touch
Thy heart, be it thy comfort, reverend sire,
That now, with better caution we pursue
Our plan, which else the ardour of thy son,
(Generous and bold, but to the perilous times
Ill suited) had undone. He, by his birth
And merit, mark'd our pilot, in a sea,
Full of quick sands, and shoals, and sudden flaws,
And dangerous currents, had o'erset our bark,
Which needs more steady hands (like yours) to steer.

Arist.
Alas, I am too old! My nerves are slack
With grief and age! Tho' vengeance well might brace
Limbs more decrepid and relax'd than mine.

Alcib.
Your son is fallen, but still the line survives
In your fair daughter. On her choice, by you
Confirm'd, the fortunes of your line depend.
A race, that underneath the patron power
Of Athens, yet may climb its antient throne.
—But let us leave this dark, ill-omen'd spot,
This scene, design'd for massacre and blood;
Its omen suits not with our better hopes.
Come—I have something further to propose,
Beyond your boldest aims.

[Exit Alcib. Arist. Seman. and Helots.
Mem.
Alone.

[Walks apart.
Enter SEMANTHE.
[SEMANTHE]
Shall I that secret to the gods disclose
I scarce can tell myself? O thought profane,
Will they, too partial, aid my fond pursuits,
And with the mist of passion blind, release
From right's eternal bonds, the heedless wretch,
A willing captive of the wand'ring heart?
I dare not think it. Syren! cease your strain,
For from that urn there comes a solemn voice
That checks the passions in their wild career,
And pales the rosy hue of Hope. It says,
“Oh think, Semanthe! on my fate!—no more,
“Thy brother's hand the helm of Reason sways,
“Or aids thee with his counsels! Thou, perhaps,
“Sole heiress of Messenia's line, canst boast
“That awful verdict lodged within thy lips,
“On which thy country's weal depends! thy choice
“Sows discord thro' our plains, or gently sooths
“Our patriotic bands to peace! Thy choice,
“Or Hymen, with the Graces shall attend,
“Or the pale Furies light the nuptial flame.”
And how shall I resolve, when either choice
Frowns with alternate danger! On each hand
I see the deep fermenting storm, that wrecks
My peace—but with mute eloquence, my heart
Presses decision. Friendly monitor!
Dumb guide to wisdom! Thy successful vote
At last I find will turn the fatal scale!

Mem.
Aside.
Then it is time, misguided maid, to foil
The Stygian charm that brews eternal feuds
Against the coming peace! The public cause
And mine are now combin'd: with confidence
I go to thwart her hopes.

[Comes forward.
Sem.
Kneels
Immortal gods!
Who art thou? Of this earth, or from above?
It was not fancy then! The voice was thine
Which even but now I heard, or seem'd to hear!
Whence and what art thou? Let not feeble mortals
Dissolve with terror at this awful hour,
When the dread barriers of the meeting worlds
Are broke!—When heaven converses oft with earth,
And to the charm'd soul, of her kindred skies,
The rapturous hint conveys!

Mem.
That humble posture
Befits not fellow mortals. Know'st thou not
My voice, my garb?

Sem.
Ha! Memnon! Why this time,
This place? I sink with terror! Why delay
Behind! Doth it become a man, like thee,
To listen to my orisons? But here
It suits me ill to be observ'd with thee,
If any eye beheld us!

Mem.
From thy slave,
Dread not a deed or word, but such as Virtue
Might hear and see! Thou shalt not need thy friend,
Thy hardy champion in those awful shades,
To virtue sacred, and to public love,
To vengeance, and to fame!

Sem.
My champion! mean'st thou
An insult by this word?

Mem.
Thy pardon, fair one!
I did not mean to call the burning blush
Over thy cheek! He, whom thy father's voice,
Destin'd to that blest union, were he nam'd,
Had scarcely wak'd a warmer tinge.

Sem.
Thy words,
And sly, officious observation, veil'd
Beneath the covert of the night, to spy,
(Like some dark fiend, who waits the witching hour
To shed infection) the disclosing soul;
But ill becomes my father's seeming friend,
A person delegated by the gods
To offices more dignified!

Mem.
I pardon
This error—'tis the time's mistake—nor thine.
So far your first conjecture was well founded.
—I am not what I seem.—

Sem.
Aside.
To Mem.

Mem.
Your indignation
Becomes you well. But it is needless now.
Our meeting was to me the work of chance.
But what I heard, nor time, nor chance, nor change
Shall from this bosom wring. Tho' much, perhaps,
(More than you yet surmise) your secret words,
(When none, you thought, was near) alarm'd my soul,
And wak'd a grief which years had lull'd to rest.
—Wonder not that it flows—and for a time
Denies you the discovery.

Sem.
Tears! Amazement!
How could the casual breathing of a prayer
In calm deliberation, heard or not
Concern your peace.—A sojourner, an Asian
A few short moons with us! A foreigner
Born in a climate half the world from us
Remote?

Mem.
Fair maid! No drop of Persian blood
Flows in those veins! Full sixteen summers past
O'er this devoted head before I crost
The swelling main, and lost the Grecian name,
(My birthright,) by the doom of cruel Fate
And yet more cruel man, torn from me!—

Sem.
Still
Your words bewilder,—but excuse me, stranger,
If other proofs, besides your bare assertion
Are needed!—were it my concern.—

Mem.
Full proof
I could disclose, and will.—The fraud itself
Bears witness to my truth.—

Sem.
You speak in riddles
Yourself, your dress, your words, are mystic all.

Mem.
A single word dispells the mournful cloud
That hangs upon my fate! This Persian garb
(A dress, to either sex adapted well)
Conceals—a woman.

Sem.
Gracious Heaven! A woman!
From whence thy origin. What country claims
Thy birth!

Asph.
[Opening her bosom.

Sem.
Aside.
To her.

Asp.
To that city
Whose fleets now ride triumphant round your coasts,
The seat of arts, of eloquence, and arms
I owe my birth. Yet not of Attic stem.
—My parents were by race Athenian exiles.
Oft have I heard, and wept the mournful tale
Of Ithomes sad fate.

Sem.
More wonders still!
Where will this end? Thou of Messenian race!

Asp.
And of no vulgar one. To Euphaes
Nearly allied. Oh! had my lofty birth
Inspir'd me with the spirit which belong'd
To that high rank, I ne'er had worn disguise,
Nor past for a plebeian slave, the spy
Of sunburnt swains!

Sem.
Say, what disastrous chance
Sent you to Athens?

Asp.
Ask the young Athenian,
Your captive, and your champion, on whose word
Perhaps your country's weal depends, and guess
The rest!

Sem.
It is then as I fear'd.

[Aside.
Asp.
His vows
Upon my fond belief impos'd, the sooner,
As all our meetings were by night conceal'd,
My hapless father had a tincture still
Of regal pride, and would have scorn'd the son
Of Clinias for his heir!

Sem.
Aside.
And so, perhaps,
Would mine! But my poor father's royal blood
Is tainted with vile slavery; and the son
Of Clinias, in his turn, might scorn me too!

Asp.
His vows impos'd upon my virgin heart—
My shame was known— my father doom'd me dead.—
—A faithful slave, partaker of my guilt,
Attended my escape. In man's disguise
We stole by moonlight thro' the neighbouring port,
Where stood a brigantine for Samos bound.—
Our gold obtain'd our passage, and the bark,
With easy sail, divided the blue wave,
That sparkled to the moon beam, as she plow'd
Her foamy course. But, oh! thou conscious moon!
Pale witness of my guilt, and of my flight,
Thy radiant light serene, the cloudless sky
Caus'd our unhappy doom! Oh had the clouds
From either end of Heaven roll'd o'er our heads,
And hid our shining sails! Our shining sails
By a Milesian corsair was descry'd,
The splendid bucklers, rang'd along her side,
By fits, thick flashing to the lunar beam
Glar'd fate upon us, like the comet's blaze,
As he advanc'd amain;—we yielded soon,
For his force trebled ours—in Persia's pay.
To Pharnabazus he his captive sold,
The noblest far of our barbarian foes.
A languishing disease had long confin'd
This Persian lord. Some little skill I learn'd
In herbs and simples from an hoary sire
Who dwelt on fair Hymettus, (oft at morn
My charming walk) was now of sovereign use,
To the great satrap. I found out the means
That rais'd him. With his health, his gratitude,
To me, commenc'd: he gave me to the king.
There Æsculapius still (to whom my pray'rs
With unabating fervour flow'd) return'd
My vows with every wish'd success; full thrice
The circling sun had cloth'd Gedrosia's hills
In summer pride, since next to regal state
Was mine in Sufa's haughty court: I scorn'd
These honours, when I felt each languid hour,
(Tho' rich with many a gift,) the galling chain
Of slavery, to the warm, ingenuous mind,
More galling for its splendour. Some dark scheme,
Some secret preparation 'gainst the weal
Of my lov'd Athens urg'd me on to speed
My wish'd return.
I found—wouldst thou believe it?—In the hills
Of Margiana , the detested source
Of all the civil feuds that waste our states
There, from the mines, near to the Stygian realm
The pale fiend rises on the day, whose hand
Sows discord thro' our nations, and dissolves
That harmony of Greece, which Asia dreads
Worse than the red-wing'd pestilence which rides
The burning sky.—With steel and banded fleets
Bold Xerxes sought our shores. His subtler heir—
Directs his engines not against our walls
Our forts, or navies—but against our minds
And bears down all before him!—

Sem.
Why then here
Delays thy mighty Mission? Why to Athens
Returnst thou not, to Thebes, to Argos, Corinth,
And show, what fatal spell, unknown to them
Brews the dark storm that wrecks them?

Asp.
No design,
No wish of mine to the Laconian shore
Led my devoted steps, but wayward fate
Or some kind god that wept Messenia's doom.
I burn'd for liberty; and long'd, once more
To see my native country, and expose
The fatal arts of Persia.—From the court
Veil'd in the humble habit of a slave
Feigning a message to the Sardian court
Where Tissaphernes rules Ionia's court.
I journey'd on, and reach'd the Carian shore,
There in a Rhodian vessel I embark'd
Bound for the port of Sunium. Adverse gales
Drove us to Malea southward, and again
Doom'd me to cruel bonds a wretched prey.—
The rest were mingled with the Helot band
Except a few, whom their more wealthy friends
Thought fit to ransom, as for me, thou seest
My fate and knowst my fortune since!—

Sem.
Thy tale
Would call attention from the dead, yet still
Seems it not strange that here you waste away
The precious hours of action, when a voice
Like thunder, calls thee to forsake those woods
And save desponding Greece!

Asp.
Yet wonder not!
My fate, has fixt me here.—You know my birth.—
Deep interest in your fortunes, and your wrongs
A sympathizing pang to see your woes,
Rooted me to this soil like yonder oaks
That wave so awful to the midnight gale.
I saw a manly spirit far diffus'd
Among your tribes.—With transport I perceiv'd
That nothing but religion's mighty charm
Was wanting to enflame the nascent spark
And form that influence, whose potent spell
Gives the due energy. A short exertion
In old Messenia's tribes, to free their hands
I knew, would turn the balance, and incline
Laconia's lords to think on moderate terms
As yet too haughty far.—

Sem.
Great are thy views
And laudable! Already Athens sends
To warm us with the hope of present aid
And present freedom!

Asp.
Would to all the gods
Another Envoy had been chosen! I then
Had not been led to this disast'rous tale.—

Sem.
I sought it not.

Asp.
Yet thou alone compell'st
The sad recital.—

Sem.
I compell! I know not
The purport of thy words!—

Asp.
Mistake me not—
I saw thee on a precipice—I knew
The dangers of that honey'd tongue, that flows
With Aspics deadly venom,—tho' disguis'd
Beneath the sweets of Hybla!—

Sem.
What to me
The venom, or its sweets? Dost thou presume
Upon my weakness, measur'd by thine own
Or a few whispers, by the dubious ear,
Heard indistinctly in the midnight hour?
The business of a list'ner ill accords
With all thy pomp, and high pretext of office?
From an ignobler passion, low surmise,
Thy seeming friendly caution came!

Asp.
Semanthe,
I can forgive thee—but thou wrong'st me much.
Time long has heal'd the deep corrosive wound,
And I have too much pride to court a man,
Who now, perhaps, contemns me. No.—Those groves,
That tomb shall be my witness, that, for me,
The secret of my birth and sex shall rest
Unknown. Unless it be, perhaps, thy choice
To give this Greek the means to triumph o'er
A maid, who once had not disgrac'd his hand
—Even in her fall. But tho' to me, my love
Was death, my wand'rings may to Greece procure
The glorious means of harmony and peace
Thro' her unequall'd states.

Sem.
I scorn the office,
And for Messenia's state my zeal would glow,
Perhaps, as warm as yours!

Asp.
Then lay your hand
Upon your heart; for, on that pulse that moves
Your snowy bosom, now, even now, perhaps,
Thy father's, and his people's weal depends—
A worthy youth, Philemon, is his choice
For thee, already to the royal stem
Ally'd, and powerful in his vote, among
The tribes of old Messenia. Let thy voice
Confirm thy father's will! Like balmy Peace,
When first she harmoniz'd the new-made world,
Thou breath'st sweet concord thro' the loyal bands,
That, on thy brother's doom, look up to thee,
And on thy choice, to fix a nation's weal!
—Philemon is thy father's choice. To thee,
Perhaps our envoy may pretend, elate
With his Athenian birth, and offer'd aid.
He has a specious person, and the means
To gain the coldest heart. Apollo's grace,
The lip of Hermes, and the port of Mars.
But trust not to his vows!—
Philemon's spirit soars above the pitch
Of his obscure and servile doom. The swains
Revere him as their leader to the field
After Alcander's fall. His name is dear,
Even as the life-blood to their heart. Should he,
Admit the bane of dark surmise, his pride
Might make him raise a faction in the tribes,
Merely to thwart his rival, and undo
All that the gods and Athens have perform'd
For freedom and Messenia. Thus the fate
Of a whole people were perhaps involv'd
In his dread efforts of revenge;

Sem.
From thee
Those precepts? I accountable to thee
For aught I do? And thou, dost thou pretend
To read my heart?—Alas! thou only show'st
Thine own too plain. Beneath the friendly mask
Of patriotic zeal! shalt thou, a stranger,
Feel for my country more than I? Should fate,
Ordain by me, in closer league to join
Ascending Athens, and our sinking state,
Shall I oppose it? But it is not mine,
Nor thine, alas! but the Messenian cause.
It is a father's fiat shall determine
For me! To thee and thine officious zeal
I give its due of gratitude! No more—
But, heed this friendly caution: When a friend
Taxes thy wisdom for advice, employ
Thy choicest stores of prudence in her cause,
And all th'experience of thy wand'rings gain'd.—
—But should his modesty or pride deny
The expedience—proffer not too rashly thou
Thy service, lest he spurn it, and deny
Belief to thy romantic tale of love,
Of exile, and of Asiatic honours!

Asp.
Be it as thou and they decide. For me,
I might have err'd thro' zeal. Even Honesty
Is oft misguided, and some bitter dregs,
Tho' wholesome, mingle in the needful cup
Of counsel!

Seman.
As for me, 'tis not of import
What thy designs may be; at thy best leisure
Frame thy apology! But other cares
Demand my absence hence.

[Exit.
Asp.
Alone.
Go where thou wilt.
Go! where thy passions hurry thee along.
Perhaps, where Ruin lurks. Ha!—Is it thus,
That poor Messenia's public friends avow'd,
Consult her safety; to ferment the storm,
That slumbers yet in peace; and to confound
The firm confederacy, (just at the point
To close) with new convulsions? Be it so!
—But I am not in apathy so school'd,
So chill'd with stoic maxims, as to see
Another reap the harvest of my toil,
And triumph in my tears, perhaps with pity,
Insulting pity, to deride my wrong!—
—Ere she possesses him, first perish all
Messenia, Sparta, with their hopes and claims
In one wide ruin, sinking to the fiends!—
The raging flame that in my bosom glows
Shall burn down every obstacle, to find him!—
—But let me yet be calm, and temper well
My plans with cautious prudence, so to guard
Public and private ends at once! For her,
I know she dare not yet disclose my trust,
For that would tell her love, enflame the rage
Of wrong'd Philemon, and incense her sire
To rouse the storm I mean to lay. But see,
Her lover comes to seek her.

To her PHILEMON.
Asp.
Hail, Philemon!
You come not, if I read your looks aright,
To water with desponding tears, the urn
Of him that slumbers here! What, tho' his fall
Seem'd, like an earthquake, to disjoint the frame
Of new-cemented freedom; yet you stood,
And, like Alcides, plac'd your mighty hand
Against th'impending ruin! Now on thee
Our tribes rely; on thee, thy godlike sire,
The father of thy race, Alcides, bends
A parent's eye! and with the scrutiny
Of heavenly minds, observes thy rising thought—
Applauds the bright ideas, as they form
In glorious schemes of freedom like his own!—
And marks thy soaring soul, the progeny
Of his great mind, as this majestic port,
That marks the fam'd Herculean race!

Phil.
Such praise
From such cælestial lips, (tho' yet by me
Unearn'd,) I look on as a stimulant
In that illustrious course, which heaven's behest
Calls on me now to enter!—

Asp.
True, brave youth.—
I had not so addrest thee, but I know
That thou hast much to do—and much to suffer.

Phil.
Talk'st thou of suffering to a slave.—Alas!
We smile at sufferings—we have suffer'd long!
What, but the keenest sufferings could impell
A multitude, to wish their plagues exchanged
For the worst fiends that iron-handed war
Brings in her hideous train? To wish the foe
Already in our fields, our vineyards all
Our harvests and our hamlets wrapt in flames
That, in the conflagration we might 'scape
Woes more intolerable? The whips, the scorns
The contumelious, wanton injuries
Of proud unfeeling Sparta?—I have seen
And felt too much of this to be appall'd
With dread of suffering violence! Besides
We now have little to suspect of harm.—
Even danger smiles upon us!—The Athenians
By their late envoy, send most flattering terms,
If true.

Asp.
To him your debt of gratitude
Is ample, and demands a due return.

Phil.
As how.—

Asp
The fair Semanthe to his arm.—

Phil.
'Tis true, my friend, and while the life-blood springs
Thro' this warm heart, I live to thank him.

Asp.
She
Already has repaid him life for life!
But for her intervention, now perhaps
His blood had stain'd our Altars, and her prayers
Were offer'd up with fervour! Had they rose
For thee, I think she had not breath'd the vow
With deeper energy! and, when they met
Their due return.—Say, didst thou mark her eyes?
What transport there! but thou, I think, wast absent.

Phil.
disturbed.
She has a feeling heart.

Asp.
And now my friend,
Think what thy country claims from thee, thy birth
Demands no common proof of public love!
Even should it cross thy dearest hopes, and blast
The joy most native to thy heart.

Phil.
My heart
Is all my country's.—Is there ought she claims
But to stand foremost in the day of peril
And sill the fallen Alcander's place?

Asp.
For that
A common warriour might suffice!—but he
Whose energy of soul aspires to lead
A people in the arduous paths of fame
Must lead them first in virtue: his example
Must foster those bright sparks of public love
And fan them to a flame, instruct them how
To quell their petty, selfish views, and feel
For all. Else let them never hope to form
A state conspicuous in the list of nations!
'Tis this, and this alone, that breathes around
That sacred ardour whose felt influence
Wakes in the general breast no common sense
Of public good, that emulative glow
By which the Spartans and Athenians rose
Conspicuous rivals in the lists of fame
Like two bright suns, in one resplendent sphere!

Phil.
Why this harangue to me? does Athens claim
More than a just alliance?

Asp.
What she claims
I know not.—But, if aught of heaven descend;
To this once favour'd bosom.—Even from thee
That sacrifice the gods expect, which gives
Concord and safety to Messenia's tribes!—

Phil.
Is there a rival chief that claims my post?
—Let him produce his claims!—And judge me then
If public love, or selfish ends inspire
Philemon's views!—

Asp.
There is—but arm thy soul
With patience—one, whose wishes interfere
With thine.—

Phil.
Mean'st thou the young Athenian?

Asp.
Yes.—
He claims no post of honour, but aspires
To more.

Phil.
Semanthe's love?

Asp.
Think not of love.
Think, should'st thou plead thy prior claim, the links
Of new alliance with the Attic state,
He may dissolve. His faction governs there
Once every moon.

Phil.
Is Athens then a tyrant?
Claims she from us, what Sparta durst not claim,
With our own hands to pierce our bleeding hearts,
And rend them from our bosoms? Then, for us,
'Tis better far to cherish, as our lives,
Our antient vassalage, than court new lords!
Our-masters hid their guilt in conscious night,
And came, like prowling wolves, beneath the moon,
To waste our hamlets, and profane our woods
With secret murthers! But our new allies
Resolve to hunt us in the face of day,
If this be true!

Asp.
Think what your country claims.

Phil.
My country! Does she then command to yield
Our dearest rights, for which alone we live,
The priceless boon of heaven, domestic bliss?
Is this the bright example I am called
To shew our swains? to teach our trampled slaves
New lessons of subjection, meaner proofs
Of low submission? This our haughty lords,
In all their hey-day of prosperity
Yet never dar'd! Nay, take my hated life!
For what is life when every comfort flies?
Why should I crawl on earth, contemn'd and scorn'd,
An impotent example of the pride
And pity of my foe? O thou, stern god,
From whom I draw my being, with contempt
Repay my fervent prayer, when I disgrace
Thy name, by such debasement of thy blood!
I am not yet so friendless. Her old sire,
The good Aristodemus, will support
My claim, tho' all the legions, all the fleets
Of Athens leave us naked to the foe!
Our friends of Helice are on their march.

Asp.
My friend, be calm! nor with ungovern'd passion
Disturb the new-form'd league. The haughty lover
May yet relent!

Phil.
And shall I owe to him
The favour of her hand? Thou seem'st to doubt—
But I am fixt for certainty or death!—

Asp.
Yet—yet be cautious. Let us sound the flood
Before we take the fatal plunge. Be calm—
It may be yet we dread too much!

Phil.
From her!—
From her I go to learn my doom, and spy,
If in her cold, averted look I read
A changing heart.

Asp.
Meantime, be mine the care
To sound her lover. Here we meet again
To sit in judgment on our country's fate.

ACT III.

[Scene I.]

Scene.—An open space in Sparta, before a prison.
EUDEMON—PHÆBIDAS.
Eud.
'Tis now, oh Phæbidas! we feel the loss
Of brave Androcles! By th'eternal gods
Some fiend with folly and pernicious-rage
Dashes our counsels! Both our kings at once
You know, are absent, on the frontier bounds
Watching at every pass the coming foe
Like some pale shepherd, on a rock, forlorn
With stunn'd ear list'ning to the land-floods roar
That threats to desolate the plenteous year!—
Our Ephori in mute despondence sit
Or with vile brawls disturb the deep debate—
By heaven! to abject Helots all are turn'd!—
Some god has robb'd us of our better minds
And given them to our slaves!—In yonder woods
Like nobler savages they growl for freedom
And Athens listens to their awful voice
Delighted! Nay, they say, her envoys there
Manage, with skill refin'd, the dreadful strain
And pitch the horrid note so loud and shrill
That nations tremble at the din!—O thou
Great lion-tamer! teach thy torpid sons
How to subdue this monster of the groves
That yells for carnage!

Phæb.
From the northern hills
Messenia's exiles on the sounding shore
Of Helice and Bura, boldly spread
Their Ensigns to the wind, and, but some omens
Withhold them, it is fear'd, that, long ere now
By fatal instinct they had found their friends
Who spurn their chains in old Amyclæs vale!
O thou, that o'er the unseen world of horrors
Rulest paramount, and hurl'st thy dreadful spells
Thro' the scar'd soul, which, like the spreading plague
Catches from man to man, till armies fly
Before embattled nothings.—grant thine aid
Transfer thy terrours from the Spartan mind
And send them (like yon fogs that roll away
Over the dawning hills) upon our foes
Or all is lost!—

Eud.
By Jove it must not be!
Was it for this the Spartan glory rose
So formidable to the nations round
Like a red comet o'er the trembling world
That the vile hand of a revolted slave
Should pluck it from the stars, and tread it out
Like an extinguish'd lamp whose oil is spent?
—And now, I know, some cold-blood compromise
Is our dull subject of debate!—for me
I always blamed the stern and rigid laws
Which, not content with unremitting toil
Prest from our groaning slaves the vital flood
Mixt with their tears,—but, to submit, to sue
For league with them, what is it; but to blend
The name of Lacedemon with the dregs
Of mankind, who along our fruitful fields
Clank the vile chain of bondage?—If we fall—
Why—let us fall like Spartans, like the lion
Which our brave father slew, and not like dogs
That crouch beneath the blow, and let their lords
Twist the suspending cord around their necks
And drag them to their doom—if by their aid
We face the war, oh! never let us hope
Again to bend them to their ancient state
Of tame fervility! for settled peace
And unassuming, calm timidity
That scarcely seem'd to writhe beneath the scourge
Expect the brow of bold rebellion rais'd
At every fancy'd wrong! our quiet groves
Profan'd with midnight meetings, when they deem
Some privilege infring'd, or right withheld—
—And shall we teach their sacrilegious eyes
To pry into the mystic things of state
To peep behind the scene, and find, that we
(Whom, with implicit reverence, like the gods,
For ages they have worship'd) are but men
Subject like them to fear, the common prey
Of every mutinous passion?

Phæb.
Is there aught
In kindness, love, and mutual offices
Of friendship, and of favour, to command
Their mutual confidence and love? If not
Society is but a rope of sand
To be untwisted by the coming breeze!
Had we, by nobler maxims, rul'd our slaves
They now had wall'd us, like a mound of brass
Or measur'd equal steps with you to meet
Th'insulting foe! But we, alas! forgetting
That we ourselves are men, and own'd, with them
A common nature, have deprav'd ourselves,
And them to savages, by uncouth deeds
Of cruelty, of wrong, and violence!

Eud.
Had these more friendly maxims been adopted
In other times! But now, what would they seem
But the result of abject fear? The state
Seems to prefer thy reasoning. Fare thee well.
We meet no more, till this important crisis
Is past, for on the winged moments ride
The doom of Lacedæmon!

[Exit,
Phæb.
Alone.
Now, may heaven
Second my purpose! If I reason right,
The means are yet my own, (if duly us'd)
To reconcile those fell domestic foes.
—God of Cyllene! teach my lips the art
Of soothing rage to harmony! Apollo!
With thine own magic numbers tune my voice,
Like thine own son's, who charm'd the silent woods
To listen and obey. O bid me touch
The sacred spring of sympathy, the source
Of every noble sentiment, and warm
To glorious growth, the full expanding mind
Like the blest touch of thy benignant beam!

[Exit.

SCENE II.

The inside of a Prison.
ALCANDER
—ALONE.
I wonder what delays my doom so long?
This terrible suspence is worse than death.
Were I, in any other's power but his
Whose brother fell by me, I should incline
To hope they meant remission. But they now
Spend their invention in new kinds of torture.
—Perhaps they have found out my birth, and here
Detain me, as an hostage for the faith
Of our oppressed helots. Or, they mean,
By menaces to me, of torments new,
Unheard of pains, and terrible as those
Inflicted on the Titans by the rage
Of angry Jove, to bend the Helots down
To tame submission! This, if this they mean,
Would double every pang! Shall I, the heir
Of great Alcides, in ignoble bonds,
Pine here in hopeless gloom, while on my breath,
(Precarious tenure!) hangs the destiny
Of poor Messenia, like the gossamer,
That trembles at the breeze! Will not my foes
Thus hold me, till extremity of age?—
Till with my slow, declining spirit, sinks
The languid flame of liberty, subdued
By this rare spell of despotism refin'd,
This fraudful policy? or, like the forms
(Fashion'd in wax by wizard's plastic power
Of those alive) by slow consuming fires,
In secret waste, while those, whose shapes they wear
Confess the horrible decay, nor know
The cause! I cannot—cannot bear the thought
With patience! I shall find some means to send
My last, my dearest testament to those
Who mourn for me! I'll bid them look to him,
Who weds the last of the Herculean race,
Their leader now! For me, let tortures rend,
Or slow consuming sorrow waste my frame.—
—Let them look on me as a sacrifice
Devoted for my people! Could I think
They meant to make me a degraded tool,
A living instrument, a mere machine,
To play upon a people's hopes and fears,
And tame a gallant nation on the verge
Of freedom, to the galling scourge again,
This hand would soon decide my doom! But hark,
Perhaps this instant moment turns the scale!

Enter a MAN masqued.
Alc.
I thank thee. Thou art come, I hope, to speed
A wretche's doom, who trembles not to see
The welcome steel, that sends his soaring soul
To mingle with his fathers! He exults
At instant fate, but dreads the dungeon's gloom,
And the slow wasting chain! Be quick and merciful,
And he will thank you!

Spar.
Follow me! I come
To give thee all thy wish; but in this cell
Thy fall were too obscure—thou must be made
A fearful warning to thy fellow-slaves,
And teach a wholesome lesson of obedience.

Alc.
Then I were short of half my hopes! Art thou
More than a man, to force me hence? I see not
Who comes to aid thee, and a wretch can die
Even here! I will not leave this penal spot,
(Unless the rigorous hand of force compell me)
A spectacle to Sparta's haughty sons,
And poor Messenia's suffering tribes! Thou seem'st
Irresolute. But dread me not—my bosom
Is open to the blow, and I shall bless
The hand that lays me here, unseen, unknown!
For well proud Sparta knows, how I'm belov'd
By the afflicted Helots, and they bear
Enough already, not to have their woes
Enhanc'd by mine!

Spar.
I'll try a stronger charm
To lure thee hence. [Unmasks.]
Say, art thou now convinc'd
That there's no hopes for thee, and that my power
Can call a speedy guard to force you hence?

Alc.
Ha! Phæbidas! I would not lift my hand
Against thy life; nor had thy brother fallen
By me, but in my own defence!

Phæb.
I know it—
And, probably, my knowledge even of thee
Exceeds thy thoughts! Before this period, long
Thy slaughter had aton'd a brother's blood.
—But, let me not be thought to want the touch
Of kindred feeling, when I own his rage
Deserv'd, and drew his fate upon himself.
He lov'd his country—but his fiery zeal
Was indiscreet; he scorn'd to try the means
Of generous policy, but thought to sweep,
By the strong current of resistless power,
All that oppos'd his favourite views, away;
He thought, by terror, to obtain, what love,
Humanity, and mercy had ensured!

Alc.
Oh had such generous sentiments been his,
He now, perhaps, had liv'd, and thousands more,
(Whose life-blood, shed in wanton sport, distain'd
Our moonlight vales) had now enjoy'd the day.
But other policy prevail'd, and Sparta
Learns, in her turn, to weep!

Phæb.
Stern Justice claims
Blood, for his blood!

Alc.
I know it, and I stand
Prepar'd to meet my doom! Let it be sudden,
And leave all retribution to the gods!
Perhaps, even they may think a people's wrongs
A full atonement for their sins of old,
And turn the scale of vengeance!

Phæd.
What canst thou
Expect from me in justice, call'd by heaven
And earth, the avenger of a brother's blood?

Alc.
It matters not what Justice claims:—to Justice
Sparta has long been deaf! But for my fate,
I well have earn'd it, and I count it fame!
I might have led my Helots with an arm
Of flesh! but now my disembodied soul,
With all the Manes of th'immortal line!
Shall fire the van, and marshal them to vengeance!

Phæb.
Canst thou, deprest with bondage and with blows,
An abject Helot, burn with patriot love;
And canst thou glory in thy fall, to soothe
An empty hope of raising servile souls
To cherish liberty? And what from me,
A Spartan born, will honour claim to match
Our haughty boasts of yet unequall'd virtue?

Alc.
It calls on blood for blood, a nobler policy,
Than midnight murthers, unprovok'd and cool,
Weeding the noblest of our youth away,
Thro' base, unmanly dread: the men, whose spears
In this dread crisis, in the battles' edge
Had stood the shock of Athens! But, alas!
Why need I argue with a son of Sparta,
On justice, and on virtue?

Phæb.
All, perhaps,
Are not the advocates of cruelty
As thou presumest. There are, who scorn to wield
The scourge; there are who would disdain to hunt
Their slaves in midnight walks, with ruffian blade;
There are, who wish to raise their country's glory
On the broad basis of humanity,
And mutual deeds of love!

Alc.
Where do they hide
When the stern mandate goes abroad to lay
Our fields in blood, and bid our matrons weep?

Phæb.
Alas! amid the cry of savage fury
Their milder voice is lost! Their reason reels
Amid the gusts of prejudice and passion,
One only godlike privilege remains,
By private influence to serve the state.
Unseen benevolence, like the blest gods,
Who, tho' to us invisible, dispense
Their benefits around us. That to me,
(Mean as I am) this boon is not deny'd,
I count my greatest glory!

Alc.
Say, canst thou
Change the determin'd purpose of yon wolves?
Expell the savage lust for blood? Command
The tyger to grow tame, and in his paw
Dandle the kid? Say, canst thou purge away
The wrongs, deep-character'd, that glow for years
In the dark memory, till fermenting long,
They burst their way in rage? Canst thou do this?
—Then say thou art a god, and tell yon star
Of morn to rise no more, and bid the dawn
Forget her hour to shine!

Phæb.
I can do more!
I can at will command the world within,
Can bid my passions in their full career
Obey the check of Reason! when the blood
Of a fallen brother loud for vengeance calls,
And raises every holy sentiment
Of kindred sympathy, within my breast,
I can attend my country's deeper call
(A sound more solemn to the purged ear
Of Reason) and can bid his murtherer—go,
Free as the winds, to bless a weeping father,
And turn a people's tears to joy!

Alc.
To me!—
To me this unexpected boon! I dream.
From Phæbidas! A Spartan! Can it be?—

Phæb
Doubt not thy sense, or my fidelity,
In what I promise. Thou, (at my request)
Wast given to me in custody, as one
Whom all our Ephori, with justice deem'd
The most concern'd to see a brother's blood
Aton'd at full:—thou'rt number'd with the dead.
For Rumour, (so suborn'd by me) proclaims it.—
—I see the conflict of thy soul! I know
Thy power among thy friends!

Alc.
Tell me at once
On what conditions must I purchase life!
—Are they not hostile to my people's cause?
If I must buy a few short hours to breathe
A momentary privilege to view
The blessed sun (if I dare lift my eyes
To that prime orb) at the detested price
Of using my hereditary sway
To rob Messenia of her lofty claims,
If this devoted voice, to slavery tun'd
Must lure the slaves to thraldom down again
From that exalted height to which they soar'd,
Take my devoted blood—'tis freely given,
Ere I seduce them to their bonds again!—
Such life I scorn—altho' with generous views,
With pure, abstracted, public love bestow'd,
I must reject it! rather give me death,
Than life on terms like these! Thou lovest thy country,
Already have I seen you sacrifice
Thy feelings for a brother's fate. Of me
And of my feeling, judge, as of thine own
And sooner give me death than life, if life
Be branded with the shame of base revolt
From poor Messenia's cause, the cause of man!

Phæb.
Could you confide in Sparta, if my prayers
Prevail'd, even to relax your bondage?

Alc.
Never!—
Never! her inborn persidy and pride
Would ne'er relent to those she trode so low!
Nor will I ever give my voice for less
Than equal liberty, unqualified
Alliance!—less were dangerous, for this spirit
Of mutiny has so provok'd our lords
They'll take their time for vengeance, if we swerve
A single moment, from the manly bent—
Then reconcile my fighting duties all
And take my forfeit life!

Phæb.
Then every hope
Were lost at once—thou bear'st a charmed life—
Thy very hairs are sacred—all the gods
Shed round thy favour'd form an hallow'd awe!
Curst be the hand that wounds thee, when thou art
The solitary spell that holds our tribes
In short, precarious concord! When you fall
Then, then perdition with alternate rage
Swallows her double prey! The sires that glow
At Sparta's crimes would blaze to swift revenge
Break down the barriers of our trembling state
And Athens and Messenia soon would sweep
Our very name away!
Already they believe you dead—your fall
(So far from damping their resolves) sublimes
The flame to tenfold fury—there is left
No hope, but from thy influence!

Alc.
Just gods
What shall I think! on what resolve.

Phæb.
Relent!

Alc.
Honour, my country, and my name forbids!

Phæb.
One only method then for me remains—
Dreadful—but glorious—to retract my words
Given for thy liberty my soul disdains!—
I here dismiss thee to thy native woods
To join thy friends—no bonds—no tyes—but those
That fasten mind to mind, the links of honour,
Of virtue, friendship,—shall I say—of gratitude?
No—I remit the debt. Thou owest me nought.—
—Go and relume the flame of liberty
Go—triumph in my country's fall—the light
Of Greece, and glory of those latter times!—
For oh! her fall is certain!

Alc.
Let me seek
The Spartan lords, and give my forfeit life!

Phæb.
No—there is one way left,—no more but this—
Proud Athens—you, her allies, press our state
On every hand around—thy single death
But added to the rising beam, would turn
The scale to our destruction! To the field
Your kindred armies from the northern bounds
Already bend their march, and burn to join
The war.—Two thousand Helots of thy tribe
Burst from our bleeding bowels, (like the train
That hunt their scaly mother in the seas,
Of Sicily,) and spread destruction round
Answering the havoc of external war
With threats of desolation.—What is left
For me? Shall I survive to bear the blame
Of letting loose a man, sworn to destroy
My country?—No! Since all my eloquence
Is vain, to teach you mercy, here I stand
Prepar'd, in the devouring chasm, to meet
The anger of the hostile gods for all.
That moment then that sees you head your bands
In glittering steel, once more we meet in arms!

Alc.
Deem'st thou me such a monster as to lift
A spear, against that generous breast, which gave
Life, liberty, and all to him, who slew
His brother?

Phæb.
No.—I would not stain thy sword
With blood of mine, nor taint thy better mind,
Nor bid one conscious pang thy bosom wring
For me! The gods, and Fate will find a lance
To finish a devoted life!

Alc.
Devoted!

Phæb.
Last night, with solemn sacrifice and prayer
To all th'infernal gods, that claim the soul
Of those, that for their country fall, my doom
Was fixt beyond recall! I know not then
Whether my prayers had power with you or not
To gain thee to the common good. I yet
Would try the means; as they have fail'd, I stand
Devoted for my country, at the sound,
At the first trump, at the first flight of spears
That sing along the sky, expect to see
The incense of my smoking blood ascend
Pure to the ambient skies, thence to draw down
Accumulated plagues upon our foes,
In this dread rite devoted all with me.—
Yet I forgive my blood to thee, as freely
As I forgave my brother's. And, by heavens!
I triumph in the glorious chance that gives
My happy name, to after times, enroll'd
With Iphigene and Hæmon.

Alc.
Yet, oh yet
Spare me this conflict, let my blood atone!

Phæb.
By heaven, I would not to my king forego
The glorious privilege. Farewell, at once!
—Nay go!—
Longer should I detain you. Danger waits,
Perhaps, to intercept your flight! The star
Of morning sparkles o'er yon piny hill,
And on Eurotas' banks, the morning bird
Laments her antient loss. Away! away
Before Suspicion's eagle-eye awakes.—
When next we meet—how shall that meeting be?—
Death will be there, and Discord, civil rage
And the dire conflict of contending nations!
—Thou then, perhaps, may'st triumph to behold
Red Vengeance, with th'accumulated wrongs
Of many a summer arm'd, ride thro' our ranks,
Scattering confusion, havoc, and dismay
Where'er she goes. But then—memember me—
For ere the battle's whirlwind sweeps along
The line, I am no more! If conquest then
Attend your arms. And if my vows should fail
To gain the gods.—indulge not thou the sword
Too far! Reflect on Sparta, and revere
Those rites, and that far-celebrated soil
Which bred Leonidas! when thou beholdst
The mighty mother prostrate, gently raise her
Respect her reverend hairs, and think of peace!
Cherish her then remains, and join your power
With her sad bands in one cemented league
To check th'Athenians overweening pride!

Alc.
Yet hear me Phæbidas! I cannot go
On such conditions.

Phæb.
Stay then, and be lost!
No more—but think on me—begone, begone,
The day will overtake us, hence—avaunt
I hear the tread of early passengers.

[Exeunt severally.

ACT IV.

ASPASIA
—SOLUS.
Ha—Empire! glory! well! the time has been
That love had charms for this Athenian youth!
But now, a prey to wild, ambitious thoughts
He dreams of founding kingdoms on the ruins
Of old Messenia, dreams of future kings
From his Semanthe to descend! O fall
How low! to court a slave! but he, alas
Vain of his splendid talents, holds in scorn
The voice of reason! Little does he think
What means are ours to cross him, when he soars
An eagle-flight to glory! Shall it be
That I must tamely see my ancient right
Seiz'd by another? No—whoever scorns
My prayer, shall feel my power! What! to retire
And, like a votarist, weep in secret cell
My ruin'd fortunes, and my blasted hopes,
Blasted by him! while, with contemptuous pity
To his young bride he tells the hapless tale
Of my disastrous love. What tye, what claim
Compells me to forget such wrongs?—Not Athens
Proud Athens, from whose sanguinary laws
I hardly 'scap'd with life! Nor this new realm
This rising state , beneath the guardian wing
Of Athens to be form'd, can claim from me
Regard or reverence! Shall I stoop to build
A rivals throne, and mourn my abject lot
In low obscurity? Had he adopted
My safe proposal, he, with me had sway'd
Messenia's sceptre.—But I still can shew him
A sample of my power—then if he dare
To thwart me further, if he still persists
In causeless infidelity, and scorns
Those gods that heard his oft repeated vows
Then, Discord, Rage, and Tumult at their heels
Shall mingle with that syren minstrelsie
Which sooths his mind to short, fallacious peace!
Soon shall he hear an unexpected call
To start his soul to madness! This fair slave,
Believ'd the fabling message in the name
Of this young, cruel false one! fraud with fraud
Dissimulation meets her sister fiend
With a like gorgon mask—her passion leads
Semanthe to the snare, and she absconds.—
Her sudden flight awakes Philemon's rage;
By jealousy inspir'd, he turns the blame
On his proud rival, of the seeming rape.
Then, then the buffled lover, in his turn
Might call to memory his forgotten vows!
And—should Semanthe ne'er return, the right
Of old Messenia's royalty reverts
To me, and Athens would afford her aid,
I have th'ascendant o'er this people's minds
Already—then Ambition, Love, Revenge
Were satisfied—but see! Philemon comes
The father—and a stranger! Now my charms
Begin to work.—

[Retires.
Scene Continues.
ARISTODEMUS, ALCIBIADES, PHILEMON, SPARTAN AMBASSADOR, AMPHIDAMAS, and HELOTS.
ARISTODEMUS
—TO THE AMBASSADOR.
We doubt thee not. Thou bear'st the proper ensigns
Of thine authority—our fears extend
Far beyond thee.—Of Lacedemon's faith
We now dispute not, nor their solemn oaths
Nor leagues, pretend to question—their demeanour
To others, nought imports to us. We know
(Fallen as we are beneath the rank of men)
That we are far too mean to hope or trust
To peace on equal terms. Do shepherds deign
To make alliance with the curs that tend
Their flocks? or bind themselves in solemn league
To mend their offals, or remit their stripes?—
They do not think us worthy that respect
Due to their fellow creatures, had not fear
Taught them another lesson! and shall we
Trust to their solemn oaths, tho' doubly bound
By all the burning thrones beneath the deep?

Spar.
Helot, you have your choice! it ill becomes
A Spartan, like a fuppliant slave, to bend
To any power on earth, much less to thine
Come thou, or Athens to our gates at once
With new conditions, on the lances point
We give an answer!

Arist.
Tarry yet awhile—
The crisis calls not such resolves—to me
Now bending to the tomb, my passions cool'd
By age's wintry hand, it scarce belongs
To undertake, at such a time, the charge
Of a high-spirited nation, yet my counsels
May serve to mitigate the headlong haste
Of thoughtless youth. Thy reasons have been heard
And now our friend of Athens claims his time
To speak—our Helots then shall arbitrate
The question for themselves—their liberty
(If ever independence be their lot)
Must be no fleeting shadow, no proud name
No glittering phantom to beguile their grasp!
It must be palpable, well known, secure
Founded on the broad base of full consent
Not to be shaken by the potent breath
Of foreign tyrants or domestic pride—
Now speak, Athenian!

Alcib.
Well didst thou conclude
Thy charge, old man! the spirit of our state,
That liberal energy that warms our counsels
Already glows in each Messenian breast,
A people, in deliberation join'd
With their elected king! What more remains
Than—let them boldly speak their thoughts and tell
If they will longer crouch beneath the scourge
Of their proud lords, and bear the cumbrous load
Of insults, wounds, and death; or strike at once
At the tall fabric of Laconian pride,
Nor wait the tardy and deliberate hand
Of time, to sweep the mighty columns down
—The very moment warns—if now they lose
The golden opportunity, let sleep
Oblivious, ever seize them! Now the tide
Returning with full sway, beneath the rule
Of time and stern necessity, invites
The spreading sail! nor let the louring threat
Of gathering storms, deter the daring keel
From this distinguish'd voyage! now the flag
Of Athens leads to freedom, and to fame!
The man, who trembles at the summer, cloud
That wanders o'er the main, nor dares to loose
His cautious anchor, ne'er will reach the coast
Where glory calls him to her opening fane!
—Then why delay? Will yon diurnal lamp
Arrest his burning wheels, till you resolve
To seize the precious moment? Will the seasons
Obey your call in their perennial dance?
Does rain or sunshine bless your waving fields
At your request? or do your harvests bend
Whene'er you chuse to reap the golden grain?
No—in continual revolution still
The stormy and serene in turn succeed.
And all our earnest supplications fail
To check the stern approach of rugged winter
With all his furious flaws!—'Tis so with you!
Your glorious harvest now is ripe, and calls
For the keen sickle. But, if torpid sloth
Or smooth persuasion slack the nerve of steel
Or ease delude, perhaps to-morrow's sun
Brings the contagious mildew, or the storm
That lays your hopes all waste!—Oh—if a thought
Worthy of men, has ever warm'd your breasts!
If ye are aught above the herds that graze—
Employ the moment!—nay, the beasts that range
The woods, despise the yoke, and, on the man
Who madly ventures on their gloomy walks
Glare independence and disdain! they know
How, on the foreseen danger, to prepare
The means to guard their young: they want the power
Of combination, and of mutual aid
Yet they preserve their liberty! they claim
The forest, and the den their own! they spurn
The chain, and when they fall, in open fight
They breathe away their generous souls! But ye
Possess the means they want, by mutual signs
Each others thoughts to know, to calculate
Each others strength, and brood for years before
On the great scheme of vengeance and of glory;
These are prerogatives of men, they're yours
If ye be men!

Amph.
We are,—but give us arms
And you shall find us in the bloody fields
No mean allies,—we do not boast the blood
Of Hercules in vain!—

Alcib.
Ye shall not want them—
Brave men! ye shall not want the means to meet
Your haughty foes,—our fleet that rides at hand
Waits but the signal to disbark her stores
And furbish all your files, that your own groves
Shall wonder at your glory, when ye run
In full career along your gloomy glades
And glitter to the day, like the young snake
That casts her old disguise in early spring
And o'er the green sward rolls in spiry pride
A rival to the sun! The fearful swain
Flies his approach, and runs to shelter near.
So will the Spartans tremble at the view
When first your glittering files become the field!

Spar.
The Spartans never tremble; they may fall—
But dreadful is their fall, even to their foes.

Alcib.
That will be seen, when Athens to the field
Sends your revolted subjects!

Phil.
to Alcib.
Yes—to fight
Your battles—think not, proud Republican,
With all your fire-new gloss of eloquence
To varnish o'er our shame! Low as we are
Better to be the thralls of Sparta still
Than tools of haughty Athens! we, 'tis true
Too deeply feel the cruel, galling chain,
And many years have bent us to the yoke!
But fate, and ill success in arms, impos'd
The hard conditions! we, before we feel
Try'd the decision of the spear, but now
You bid us change our master, by the name
Of liberty, beguil'd! Such is our change!
For our hereditary lords, a crowd
Of proud Athenian artizans: the sport
Of every faction, whose imperious vote
Might plunge us in the mines beyond the hope
Of day? And now what glorious privilege
Is ours? ye give us arms, ye nobly grant
The post of danger—on the fearful edge
Of battle you dispose us first, to blunt
The keen Laconian blade, and labour down
The first dread onset of the Spartan spear!
They waste their fury on their slaves, and come
Like a spent tyger on your level'd pikes
An easy conquest. What does Sparta grant?
The privilege of kinsmen, all the dues
Of the Heraclidæ!—Her choicest bands
Wait our enrollment in the files—from you
We gain an empty title of allies
To gild our chains!—but let the nations tell—
Go—summons from the isles their envoys here
They once were crown'd with liberty—let them
Proclaim the blessed fruits of your alliance
Taxation, robbery, violence and chains,
Whate'er the ruffian in his rage inflicts!
—Oh gracious heaven! are we reduc'd so low
As to renounce the whip and madly chuse
The chastisement of scorpions in its stead?

Alcib.
Who is this talker?—is it thus, Messenians?
Ye suffer your sound reason to be warped
By words without a meaning? your resolves
Turn'd to the lane of children, by the breath
Of a proud demagogue?

Phil.
Is that your plea?—
Now see, as in a mirrour, how your state
Is sway'd by factious breath! perhaps to day
You vote us allies, and to-morrow, slaves,
Just as the sky is louring or serene
And a debauch, or surfeit sours your speakers.
Or bribes allure them!

Alcib.
Heavens! what demons rule
Our counsels now! O that the gods awhile
Would stop the wheel of fate, whose mighty sway
Bears down with it the Spartan state! We then
From all the broad Ionian! and the isles
From this to Asia, could produce such witness
As soon would send the falsehood to the source
That bred it!

Phil.
Yes,—we know the means too well—
Nor make a question of your will, to bring
False witnesses to sanction with their oaths
Whatever you suggest. But say, thou traitor
To public faith! What specimens already
Have you not given us of your perfidy?
You, an Ambassador, the public guardian
Of a whole people's honour, thus, to lure
A virgin from her home!—It calls aloud
For vengeance! vengeance!

Arist.
Why this rage, my son!
What has provoked such language! quickly tell
What meanst thou!

Phil.
Too, too well my bursting tears
Proclaim my meaning, and thy deep disgrace—
Bid him,—yet ere he sends for delegates
From the confederate isles to vouch his truth—
—Bid him produce thy daughter!

Arist.
He—my daughter!
Is she not safe within my lodge?

Phil.
That, time
Will tell!—send to thy home, and seek her there
Where I have sought in vain and—if she's found
Call me a felon! an Athenian! one
Who underneath the consecrated mask
Of hospitality, with worse than sacrilege
Plunders his host of his most valued gem!

Alcib.
By all the gods—by Nemesis and Jove
Whoe'er thou art, thou wrong'st me, but I go—
The terms, which you contemn, our conquering state
Needs not to force on any! Tell thy tribes
She needs not Helots aid!

[Going.
Arist.
Yet stay, Athenian!
You move not hence—but, as an hostage here
We keep thee till my daughter's found

[Seizing him.
Alcib.
To thee:—
Hostage to thee! instant unhand me, slave!
Or I will crush thee into dust!

Arist.
Indeed
We yet are slaves, but soon, without the help
Of Athens, we are called to lift our names
With Spartans, and with men! If Sparta oft
Wrong'd us, her wrongs were mixt with conscious night;
Imperious, haughty as she was, she durst not
Show the bold brow of injury by day
Which thou, a delegate from Athens sent,
Hast dar'd to do!

Alcib.
When thro' your gloomy groves
Rages the hostile flame, when you behold
Your hamlets smoaking, and your slaughter'd sons,
Remember this!—your masters then in vain
Will battle for their servants! These proud Spartans
Already for fidelity and truth
So fam'd! you thought not so, when in contempt
Of their late edict, brave Alcander fell,
Fell, by a midnight ruffian!

Phil
He, perhaps!
By his precipitation earn'd his fate!—
Had he but seen this day, thou hadst not now
Presum'd as thou hast done! thy boiling blood
Had paid for poor Semanthe's wrongs! Semanthe!
Produce her! Traitor! Where hast thou conceal'd
Thy theft? produce her! or this dagger drinks
Thy gore!

Alcib.
Some demon sure, the friend of Sparta
Confounds your minds!

Phil.
Think not with smooth address
To baulk our just resentment!—or produce
The virgin, or thou diest!—Why do I rave?—
Perhaps her voluntary flight attends
Thy faithful envoy to the Attic coast—
And shall I waste my life in sighs for her?
O father, pardon me!

Arist.
Afflicted youth!
Be patient! she, perhaps, may still be found,
She is not missing long.

Phil.
Too plain I saw
Her alienated mind! Too soon I mark'd
The signs of soft, seductive art! smooth villain!
This dagger soon shall thank you for the deed!

[Going to stab him.
Arist.
interfering.
Yet hold! rash man! is this your vow'd respect
For me, to violate this pledge, to me
Committed? yet perhaps you know not all

[As the struggle continues, enter Alcander, they all stand amazed.
Arist.
Alcander! dost thou live? or art thou sent
From the blest realms to save our hands from blood?
Oh! do not mock us with unreal hope—
But say thou art my son!

Alc.
I am, I am,
Father, Philemon! my assembled friends!
All wondrous as it seems to see me here
You do not bend your eyes upon a shape
Form'd of the passing air. Behold, and feel
It is Alcander's self!

Arist.
[Embracing him.]
Mysterious powers!
We saw thee dead! we saw thee stretch'd along
The flaming funeral pile! how cam'st thou here?
How shall we trust our eyes, that saw your corse
All mangled o'er with wounds! yet view thee now
Exulting in proud youth and health! Say, is it
A dream! explain the miracle?

Alc.
Most easy!—
A proud, vindictive man, Androcles nam'd,
(Whom you may well remember, my free words
At old Amyclæ's fane incenst,) pursued
My homeward steps beneath the rising moon.—
I was beforehand—for I fear'd his purpose
And soon a trusty few in ambush laid
Who gave him death, for me design'd! our hands
In my known vesture soon disguised the dead
And scar'd his face, to keep him long unknown
And pass him for an Helot, (as his friends
Were potent, proud, vindictive as the fiends)
While in his Spartan garb I meant to 'scape,
His brother Phæbidas, along the lawns
With purpose to prevent him, had pursued
His steps, but came too late, a chosen band
Of Spartans follow'd him, their eager search
Soon found me, with the recent marks of blood.
Soon was I known—expecting instant death
I stood collected. But, when pious grief
For his fallen brother had given way, he spoke
In milder mood “I know my brother's rage
“Rose high, and nought but blood could quench the flame.
“Helot, I doubt not, in thine own defence
“You struck the blow. But shew me where his corse
“Is now dispos'd.” My friends had borne him thence
Nor could he, by our strictest search, be found.

Arist.
Not on Alcander, but Androcles then
Our honours were bestow'd! Mysterious heaven.
A slaughter'd Spartan fills the regal urn!—
His ashes slumber with our Kings! but who
Was conscious to the deed? will none reveal
The secret? would our Helots see me spend
Our sacred, incommunicable rites
On the fallen carcase of a foe?

Amph.
To me
The blame is due. 'Twas I the counsel gave.
'Twas I that led the party; hear my plea,
Condemn then if you can! I knew Alcander
Was led a captive, and my public love
Led me to fear, lest, were his bondage known
'Twould quash our high resolves and make us pause
Even on the spur of onset, much I fear'd
His precious life might buy ignoble peace—
I gave the counsel. I, by threats and prayers
Bound the important secret on the souls
Of that nocturnal party, till some blow
Were struck, for freedom, and for fame.

Alc.
By heavens
My generous friend! I thank thee! may my deeds
Answer your lofty expectations!

Arist.
Tell
O tell, how could you 'scape immediate death?

Alc.
He thought me stubborn, and, in harsher tone
“Thou must with me, to answer as thou may'st
“A deed so daring, else a brother's ghost
“Would wander unaveng'd!” It nought avail'd
For me to struggle with my fate. Confin'd
In dungeon gloom, I long expected death—
At last the moment came, that gave me life
And liberty at once.

Amph.
To Phil.

Phil.
Rancorous slave!
Did not this presence awe me, soon thy tongue
Tho' agonizing in the pangs of death
Should own thy hireling eloquence procur'd
By Attic gold or promises!

Arist.
Be calm
I charge you both—your frenzy interrupts
A tale might claim attention from the grave.

Alc.
Something, the grave alone shall know, remains—
Meantime, behold me here, free as the winds!—
Without condition, bond, or oath, releas'd
From death, to glad my friends, to lead, them on
To conquest, if they dare the glorious toil!

Alcib.
Dare they? with Athens at their head, the gods
Alone, shall point the limits of their claims.

Alc.
They best can tell their limits and their claims!
Their prowess and their aids! but there are limits
The checks of mind, which, like a magic spell
Confine the warriours arm, and bind it fast
As yonder trees, long wedded to the soil!
Such are the links that drag me back to Sparta,
Free as I seem; Free as the birds that sport
In yonder boughs! But there are bonds, my friend,
(Strong as the linked adamant) that chain
The stern, relentless spirit to its purpose.

Arist.
What means my son? what tyes?

Alc.
Justice and honour.
Honour, the sole possession, which is left
Thy ruin'd house. I prize it though, beyond
The mines of Asia!

Arist.
What a strain is this,
That soars so high above the sober tenor
Of mortal things! Explain yourself, my son!

Alc.
I have a friend in bonds—I will not live
To have a father blush to see his son
Breathe out his life, a forfeit to the laws
Of honour, with a vile deserter's name!

Arist.
Must I then loose thee! late so lost, so found
O spare thy father's aged locks! Too much
Already have I borne! But this were death,
Distraction!

Alc.
Oh! my father! can I live
And see the man that sav'd me, fall a victim!
Sav'd me, from worse than death, from torture! shame,
And vile exposure after death, deny'd
The rites of funeral?—No! Amphidamas!
Thou never shalt reproach me with the name
Of traitor to my fame. Even thou thyself
Mayst take Philemon's place and mine, if fate
Forbids him to be trusted!

Arist.
Say, what friend?—
How grew the strange dilemma? are no means
In heaven or earth allow'd us yet to solve
This gordian knot, and save you?

Alc.
None, but such
As you would spurn!—my generous friend is doom'd,
Doom'd, in my stead, to drain the bitter bowl
Which I expected.

Arist.
Curst alternative!—
How could thy friend deserve it? did he give
A volunteer, his life for thine?

Alc.
Enflam'd
By patriot love, be, self-devoted, falls.
For Sparta, if her tutelary gods
Protect her not, and spare his valued life!

Alcib.
Aside.
Devoted men! I see your headlong fall
To ruin, and the moment seize, while doubt
And perturbation hold your senses bound
To steal from the approaching storm.

[Exit.
Arist.
Is nought
In possibility's wide range, to save
His precious life, and yours? O tell me who
And what he is?

Alc.
The brother of the man
Who sought my life! he had me in his power
And tho' both Piety and Vengeance call'd
For retribution, yet he would not strike
(Such his regard to Justice) as he knew
His brother rush'd upon his fate, and call'd
The deadly blow. He must not, shall not dye
I will not breath on such conditions—no—
Farewell my father, ye, my friends, farewell!
And thou! Amphidamas! with constant care
Cherish the vestal flame, and bid it burn
Conspicuous, bright, as that which fires the souls
Of your confederate Athens!

Alc.
Oh, my son,
Did you not say, but now, that, should you fall,
His life could not be sav'd? And must you perish
In vain? Must poor Messenia's royal blood
Be sold for nought?

Alc.
Alas! my hapless father!
He falls a victim to th'infernal gods,
With solemn rites devoted for the weal
Of Sparta! If the powers below receive
The sacrifice, with omens good; our fall
Is the dire consequence, unless a life
For you devoted, stop the fearful chasm
That opens to receive us! Can I fall
More glorious than for you, for liberty,
For glory? Judge for me, Amphidamas,
Plead with my father! Bid him throw aside
The timid feelings of a partial sire,
And glow, the patriot, and the upright judge,
Unprejudic'd, unpassion'd! I, like him,
Devote me for my country! Be my fame,
My deathless fame, your new-adopted heir,
And cherish it for me!

Arist.
Oh! yet my friends!
Amphidamas! assist me to detain him!—
Will ye permit your hero to return
To certain fate?

Helots.
No—no—Our lives shall answer
For his!

Alc.
Retire! my inconsiderate friends!
Your kindness pains me. I must not be held,
You may detain my body, but my soul
Shall force its way!

Phil.
Is there no means allow'd?

Amph.
Alcander's self
Mention'd but now, some other means!

Alc.
Yes—means
Which you would be the first, Amphidamas,
To spurn!

2 Hel.
Amphidamas! and what is he,
That he should sway our fixt resolves? We own
No other but Alcander for our lord,
After Aristodemus! We request
With one assent, Alcander to declare
What he proposes!

Alc.
It requires no sage
To guess the means! Oh father! Oh ye Helots!
Could ye forget your wrongs, could ye but know
The deep distress of Sparta, hem'd around
By foes at every pass, ye would relent,
And join your bands to her's!

Amph.
Is it then so?—
But fate has seal'd my lips.

Alc.
Let reason weigh
Our merits, and our wrongs! the blest effects
Of unexpected love, where Discord rag'd;
And Gratitude's strong tyes, should we relent!

Amph.
I'll speak, altho' I perish.—Say, Alcander,
What reason have we to confide in them,
The ruling passion of whose lives has been
But the continuance of unvary'd wrong,
Oppression, murther, persidy, and lust?

Alc.
Send them a bold defiance! let my life
Victim for victim, please the nether gods
And gain conspicuous omens for the cause
Of liberty and Athens!

Helots.
No—no—no
No royal blood shall fall to please the powers
Beneath—a meaner victim must suffice.

Arist.
What hostage do they give to prove their faith?

Alc.
They set me free, when in their power!

Arist
What oath?
Have they appeal'd to any of the gods
The founders of our common race?

Alc.
They have—
Their Ephori before th'infernal gods
With dreadful imprecations bound their souls
To give us freedom, to inroll our youth
( Rais'd to the rank of Sparta's men at arms)
In fam'd Laconia's bands—if you refuse
This offer, nought remains, but I return
To pay that forfeit life which honour claims!

Arist.
The people never will permit such proof
Of your high spirit—but what document
What public bond and signature confirm'd
By due authority will you produce
Of this alliance?

Alc.
Be th'alliance void
Unless they give the solemn witness'd bond!

Amph.
Can reconcilement dwell with countless wrongs?

Alc.
And what would be th'effect of vengeance, say—
But propagated vengeance, blood and death
From sire to son deriv'd; if they could 'scape
Impending ruin now? Should Sparta fall
Would our condition be improv'd? our All
Would then depend on Athens! say, could we
Hope for a better station in her favour
Than the subjected isles that mourn her yoke
All o'er the wide Ægean? Nay, our state
Were worse! We have no boistrous waves to guard
Our trembling shores, but, hem'd with hostile tribes,
Must live in trepidation, or subside
To the dead level of our fellow slaves
To slavery worse than now! But should we chuse
The nobler province, to return, for wrongs,
For violence, for treachery, and blood.
Protection, friendship, in the dreadful hour
When Sparta, trembling, looks to us for succour
The genial seed of virtue would produce
Immortal fruit! the tide of gratitude
Would flow for ever, like Eurotas stream!
The glorious deed would melt their stubborn souls
Like fire to steel, and mould them into men,
Else they were monsters, savages, unfit
To live in harmony with men! The ills
That, with close siege have hem'd them long around
Ere now, have low'r'd their haughty crests, and taught
The lessons of humanity—if not,
They have less feeling than those aged trunks
That own the touch of heaven's ætherial ray
And spread their lofty honours to the gale!

Amph.
Must we confide in this precarious test?
On this uncertain plank embark our all?
Where does this worth, this gratitude reside
On which we must rely?

Alc.
In Phæbidas!

2 Helot.
Enough—enough—proceed, we all attend.

Alc.
Let us then, in the presence of the gods
That smile on virtue, try upon our friends
Nobly, the great experiment! do we
Wish to subdue them?—Let us aim the blow
Not at their bodies, but their minds—if still
They feel not in their souls the generous deed
They would defy the thunder—nay, the powers
Of heaven, in dreadful synod met above
Would muster all the enginry of heaven
And in one general explosion, send
Such miscreants from the world!

Amph.
Shouldst thou prevail
And they for our beneficence, return
Their usual contumely, how could you
'Midst Helots, lift your head, or dare to plead
For Sparta, or yourself?

Alc.
This life should pay
The forfeit to this hand!—remember, friend!
I am devoted still, if sad reverse
Demands the sacrifice!

Phil.
And why mistrust
So much Alcides', mighty line yet place
Such confidence in Athens? they, be sure
Would still regard with no benignant eye
Revolted slaves, that might revolt again
Slaves, long devoted to their Dorian foes
By blood, and inclination. Virtue still To Alc.

Survives in Sparta, while thy saviour lives
Else, how dost thou survive? The dark attempt
Against thy life, was but a private wrong
Unsanction'd by the state. To milder thoughts,
Misfortunes and the numerous ills that wait
On life, have tam'd them. Let us, then confirm
Their faltering steps in virtue! lead them on
Like the paternal eagle who divides
The fleeting air before her callow young
And bids them ride the clouds! Thus we shall gain
The proud ascendant in the lists of fame;
And after times, with long applause shall tell
How the Laconians, in the lists of blood
Distinguish'd long above a warring world
Rais'd their proud heads, while in her sanguine car
Bellona led them on, and chanted loud
The song of desolation. But their slaves
Taught them a nobler lesson, open'd wide
A brighter track to glory, bade them cast
Those ruffian virtues to the midnight wolves
And learn humanity.

Arist.
It is a perilous venture—if we fail
Ruin attends on both!

Alc.
And be our fall
Illustrious, rather by a noble daring
(Tho' unsuccessful) for the Dorian name
Than here to live for ever stigmatiz'd
As traitors, as deserters to the cause
Of our old enemies of Ion's race
Union abhorr'd! but, if we still remain
True to this fostering soil, that fed us long
Our native walks, true to ourselves, our fame
We must defend, (even with our dearest blood)
This remnant of the great Herculean name
A suppliant now for succour! Shall we stand
Insensate, while a new Deucalion's flood
For ever whelms the better light of Greece?
Forbid it, Honour! and forbid it, Fame!
Forbid it Thou! whose heavenly guidance here
Planted the Spartan, and Messenian race
Fraternal branches, in those happy fields
Till discord rose between them!

Amph.
Shall we then
Fawn, like the beaten spaniel, on the hand
Rais'd for correction? Say, would this become
The race of Hercules? He suffer'd woes
'Tis true, but woes inflicted by the gods
He did not labour for the cruel king
That slew his children! Mention not the gods—
The gods have planted vengeance in our hands
Arm'd us with their consuming bolts, and we
Shall we, like children, fly with terrour back
From the celestial shaft, as if we fear'd
To wield heaven's enginry, and boldly hurl
Her vengeance on their heads? 'Tis vengeance; vengeance!
That sets the man above the grazing herd
And show his native energy of soul!
For what was memory given, but to record
Our wrong? or reason, but to guard against
Such wrongs in future? What, the powers of fancy.
But, in their proper colours to display them?

Alc.
A noble sentiment! but here misplac'd
It shows the man, I show the greater means
That bids him rank with gods. Forgiveness, friend,
That marks true magnanimity of soul
Above the lion, and the lynx; for they
Have spirits for revenge; and, rankling deep
Wrongs in the glowing fancy oft survive
For many a sullen year, but we are men!
Let us a nobler vengeance seize! a deed
To tinge their haughty fronts with honest shame!
Let us subdue their souls, more glorious far
Than mere subjection of the shackled limbs
Now may we to such heights of virtue rise
To such an awful pitch, as Sparta's sons
Shall never dare to wrong their benefactors
And deem it equal sacrilege to strike
At us, as if they meant to wound the gods!

3 Helot.
I doubt their faith—and yet I still confide
In Athens for her aid, if Sparta dare
Her insults to renew!

Amph.
How, Athens aid us!
When we renounce her league! futile and false!

Arist.
Cease—for behold the delegate of heaven
Apollo's priest himself in suppliant garb,
Comes, with the ensigns of his god—revere
The holy man! ye Helots!—with respect
Receive him.

Enter the PRIEST of APOLLO—the HELOTS make obeisance.
Priest.
Be these the signs of your obedient souls
To the great name of the far-darting god
That god, who clad in humble weeds, like you
Erst kept Admetus flock, a simple swain;
Who toil'd beneath Laomedon, to build
The walls of Troy, and met a foul return,
Who knew th'indignity and scorn of men.
Tho' rob'd in flame, he walks the ætherial road!
Yet he, that felt such wrongs, and feels them still
By me requires you to relent and save
The state of Sparta—Great Alcides sues
To guard the reliques of his race, else all
Must, with the sons of old Laconia, perish—
For what are you, and that Crissæan band
(Should Lacedæmon sink in night) to keep
The Dorian name alive? When yonder god
(Whose glorious presence o'er your eastern hills
Awoke the woodland choiristers); at eve
Beyond the broad Ionian dips his wheels.
Say, can a little twinkling lamp of heaven
A pensionary planet, on the verge
Of day, with dim and ineffectual fire
Repell the slow-wing'd dragons of the night
That drag her curtain'd car? even such were ye
When Sparta sets in blood, to rise no more!—
Oh! then, obedient to the will of heaven
Unite your fate to hers! I see your strength
Assembled here. O let it be to aid us!

Arist.
Chosen from our tribes, two thousand valiant youths
Not inexpert in martial exercise
But wait the word to arm: their delegates
Shall answer for themselves!

Phil.
May yonder gods
Forbid, that Dorians, tho' opprest with wrongs
Should part from Dorians, and with impious hand
Destroy themselves and us!

Amph.
Flamen! before
We answer, name your terms!

Priest.
Your leader has them
And that they shall be granted, be yon god
The witness!
Ye shall this instant be enroll'd among
The martial, free-born sons of Sparta's state
Vested with every privilege that lifts
The slave to match his lord! The man that claims
His rank in battle, from that hour is free,
A slave no more! the rest is outward form
But needful, with lustration pure to purge
The servile stain away!

Phil.
Then, what remains
But, give us arms, and try if we can wield
A Dorian lance?

Priest.
In yon deep vale below
Where, 'mongst embowring woods, with unseen lapse
Eurotas echoes thro' th'opposing rocks
And fills with reverential awe profound
The musing votarist, in the rustic fane
Of him , (who deals involuntary fears
Along the nerves, and sees the demon band
Of griesly terrours dancing to his pipe
In soul-astounding gambola), pil'd there lies
A magazine of arms, to mighty Pan—
From Argos won when erst our arms repell'd
The Thyrean's wild invasion. There you'll find
Selected, holy hands, to deal around
The dazzling spoils among your willing bands
And send you glittering thro' your native woods
Startling your Dryads with the glorious change
They scarce will know their shepherds!

Phil.
But, behold!
What stranger's that, who comes with looks of haste
And draws our chief aside?

Amph.
Whate'er it be
Our common danger, and our common claims
Forbid all secrecy—divulge your message
To all, or none!

Arist.
Stranger! my private ear
Hears no proposal to my friends unknown!
Their cause and mine are one, the crisis now
All secrecy forbids, and even excludes
Deliberation! on the common voice
Of those brave youths, for instant action leagu'd
Our fame, our fortune, and our all depends!

Mess.
Is there no man, whose sovereign voice compells
The multitude? and must I hazard all
In giving breath to that which brings along
(When known) the fate of nations?

2 Helot.
To that youth [Pointing to Alcander.

Apply! his influence o'er our sylvan tribes
Is uncontroll'd! whatever he decides
Messenia follows.

[Messenger whispers Alcander.
Alc.
Never! Helot! never!
What! must we court perdition! fling away
Our scheme of reconcilement, like a toy
Of little value, to preserve a band
By folly led to ruin?

Mess.
Led by you!
Led by your promise! since I must divulge
Your shame, before your Helots!—lur'd by leagues
And oaths, now violated, we forsook
Our homes, to fight your battles! now we stand
Perhaps on ruin's verge, for you, unless
You instant thro' yon forest force your way
And mount the steep (where, in the yawning pass
Laconia's sons oppose us) and hurl down
Perdition on their heads? Ye need no weapons
But those loose rocks, that, with tremendous frown
Threaten the vale!

Alc.
We must not risque for them
Our dawning hopes—they fail'd us in our need!

Amph.
Will you forget your leagues? ye Helots! say!
Speak for yourselves!

Priest.
Aside.
All, all, I fear, is lost.
Event accurst!

Alc.
The Helots may decide!—
For me—my doom's determin'd! If they join
The band of Helice, my fate is fixt!—
I will not live to see my best friend's life
Given, a devoted sacrifice for me!—
Messenia has her victim too, to buy
Prosperity for blood!

Helots.
No—never—never.
Thou shalt not die for us. We go—where'er
You point the way.

Mess.
And dare you baffle thus
Your friends? Ungrateful men! No single victim
Atones for this! If Lacedæmon fall
Athens and we with terrible revenge
Will sweep your confines. Now, even now, perhaps,
The dread chastisement of a broken league,
In yonder clouds awaits you. Mark your doom!

[Exit
Amph.
Aside.
Then, ye devoted men! to ruin go!
It is not mine to check you! Why should I
Draw premature destruction on myself.
Vain ruin! Fate is now in full career,
For yonder, see! where Demaratus comes;
What mean his wild looks, and his breathless signs? To them a HELOT.

Ye are betray'd! Around yon woods I saw
The banded Spartans march in complete steel;
Even now they line the grove!

Arist.
Send, and observe!
Now, surely now, at this important crisis,
They would not venture to infringe their faith,
And on themselves accumulate the plagues
To treason due!

[Helots in confusion.
Priest.
Stay a single moment
Till rumour yields to truth!

2 Hel.
Lead to the fane,
The Argive trophies there will arm our hands,
Or to repel the persidy of friends,
Or front the public foe!

Priest.
Stay but a moment!

Amph.
What counsel's this? Thou canst not surely mean
They should be found defenceless, when the hour
May prove their last!

Priest.
Say, Helot, am I here
Your hostage? Is my life within your power,
And dare I utter falsehood? I that own
The power of him whose piercing eye pervades
The secrets of the darkest soul? Yet wait.—
—A moment may determine.

Enter a SPARTAN.
Phil.
Oh, in haste,
Ye Helots! fly to arms! the foes advance,
We spy their dust afar!
Yon little remnant of despairing Spartans
Take their last farewell of the golden day,
Last of the Dorian name, if ye refuse
To join their band!

Phil.
That is the train, whose march
Inspir'd the panic terror.

Alc.
to the Helots.
Join the foe!
And they will thank you; but will never trust
Revolting slaves! That proud and popular state,
So free at home, with servile bonds abroad,
Her partizans repays.

Helots.
Lead on! Lead on!
We go where'er you call! We are not savages,
But men!

[Amph. and some Helots consult apart.
Arist.
[March to music—Some stay behind.

Amph.
I want not arms
From Pan! No causeless terrors are my dread!
Tho' here I mean to stay. My friends suspect
The presents of an enemy. The foe,
Perhaps, is there already.

Arist.
Oh! thou dastard,
When they return, besure thou shalt abide
A dreadful censure.

Amph.
Better from my friends
Than foes. For, what could be my hopes if there
I join'd our lords, but jealousy or hate,
(For well they know I hate them) or a post
Perhaps, of certain death? But, if I stay,
And—if my fears be true—a remnant still
Is left to keep Messenia's name alive!
If I have wrong'd our masters, this grey head
Alone shall pay the forfeit! Heaven forefend
The ills I augur! Be thou witness, Heaven!
Whatever woes invade our rising state,
They are not mine to answer. Wait th'event.

[Exeunt severally.

ACT V.

Scene Continues.
ARISTODEMUS, AMPHIDAMUS, HELOTS.
Arist.
Yet all is still and quiet, nought is seen
Save o'er the tranquil groves the birds of prey
That tend the falling victim! But behold
When the young Asian comes, with changed dress
More flowing and majestic! Like the queen
Of night he seems, sailing in spotless veil
between the parting clouds! A prophet's wreath
Adorns his brow. He looks not of this earth
Yet seems his ecstacy disturb'd and wild!
His fine eyes roll, as if vacuity
Contain'd some horrid vision. Here he comes!

Enter ASPASIA.
Arist.
Whence this wild strain—the Asian seems possest!

Asp.
Sound, Clarions, sound! Let images of war
Possess your souls! for see! beyond your hopes
The god of bloody trophies leads you on!
—But soon the conflict ends—too soon it ends—
Yet, tho' tranquillity along your fields
Flits, like a dove, on solitary wing
Tho' envy's self forbid, your name shall live
To after ages, while Eurotas flows
In triumph to the main!

Arist.
This had been well
After some victory, but now it seems
A pitch of exultation, premature
As strange!

Asp.
Nay it is strange, and passing strange
To see the humble swain forsake the shore
And, like th'amphibious scaly brood, that swim
The broad Nile, take the flood!—our wars at land
Are ended—see!—we triumph on the main!
Even on the proud Palladian element!—
Our Helots!—mark them, how they brave the foe
And dye the waves with blood—Eurotas wonders
At his unusual freight! the water-nymphs
Welcome their bridegrooms from the shore. The Dryads
Astonish'd stand upon the woody verge
In wondering pause!

Arist.
And I in awful pause
No less, to hear thee like the Pythian maid!—
O sport no longer with our hopes and fears!

Asp.
I see the chambers of the deep disclose
And all the blue-hair'd deities advance
To meet their new compeers! O hoary Neptune!
For whom ascends that pearly-studded car
With many a gem from Ormus, and from Ind!
Who guides the reins? It seems Alcander's self
Purg'd from mortality, august and large,
Like young Palemon, rising from the wave!
And see our Helots all with coral crowns
Sport thro' the wat'ry element! Arion
To his sea-harp attunes, in deathless strains
Their triumphs! old Eurotas wafts them down
To the wide world of waters, See! they sail
Thro' the applauding isles; but why, oh why
Forbid them on our shores to lift the spear
And try their fortune on the stable soil?
They might have triumph'd on the land—let Tyre
And Carthage brave the flood!
Let them explore the treasures of the deep
But let us combat on the dusty plain
It best befits the Dorian name—full soon
Their old Athenian friends at Pylos moor'd
Will view the floating triumph, and admire
The new alliance of the Dorian name!

Arist.
Go some, and learn, what tidings! I am fixt
And every pulse is check'd by cold dismay!

[Exit Helots.
Asp.
The blue main tells it to the wond'ring stars
In tempest tells it to the hostile fleet
By Malea moor'd! I see another fleet
Waiting to waft you o'er an unknown wave
Where delegated hands the wreaths prepare
Soon to adorn your brows! but other palms
Must first be worn!—The sacrifice begins
The offerings due to Neptune are prepar'd—
Stern god of arms! why that unwonted mask
That hides thy martial terrours? Why prefer
That holy vizor to thy genuine frown?
Why moves thy car so slow? Thy proud steeds champ
And struggle with the rein! but, why conceal
The ruffian's blade beneath the saintly pall?
Thou bloody hypocrite! that holy leer
But ill becomes the leader of debate
And master of misrule!

Arist.
What dost thou mean?
Thou seem'st to labour with some horrid theme
Too big for utterance!

Asp.
May it ne'er be known!
Conceal it night! in everlasting gloom!—
Soon shall the raven's note your ears profane!
One, to whose voice my soul suspending strains
Are music!

2 Helot.
Yonder, see! the tidings come.

To them—Enter third HELOT.
Arist.
But this is one whose chearful looks declare
How empty are thy visions—tell at once
Have our Messenians reach'd the rustic fane
And met a kind reception from the lords?

3 Helot.
As kind as heart could wish—I saw them march
I saw them pass in pairs between the ranks
Of Spartan warriors!

Arist.
Ha! that looks not well!

3 Helot.
Withhold thy dark surmises—Sparta's faith
Is pure—the power of solemn bonds protects
Our friends! I saw them from the postern gate
Glancing in radiant files along the grove
Now half eclips'd, now glittering on the day
Like these long dormant tribes they seem, that sleep
The winter o'er in low, degraded forms
Till having past the mystic change, they wake
At summer's breezy call, and wing the winds
In gay embroidery, purple, gems, and gold,
Exulting in the warm, paternal ray.—
To soothe the new recruits, the rural pipe
That call'd them oft to toil, at blush of morn
Warbles respondent to the shrill ton'd fife
That fires our martial bands.

Asp.
Soft is thy pipe
O Pan! Its gentle breathings, heard afar
Inviting to the fold the peaceful flock,
Seems to console our sorrows!—but no strain
Of clangorous trump, that wakes the battle's rage!
Is half so dreadful! Oh! resign that pipe—
Its music leads the poor misguided flock
To the dark precipice.—Ye cruel swains!
Say, is it thus ye wash your harmless flocks
And send them, with their costly spoils at once
At random, down the stream? their costly spoils
Had blest you many a year!

Arist.
No more—no more
Hence with thy prophecies, thy noon-day dreams
Ill-boding Maniac!

Asp.
If it be a dream
Yon walls, yon waters, yonder conscious grove
Can witness!

Arist.
Thou, be sure, shalt feel the wrath
Of Sparta.

Asp.
Could I singly fall! my doom
Were welcome! But alas! by gloomy Styx
I meet the grim accusing band, whose fate
(Due partly to my influence,) hurl me down
Among the doubly damn'd!

Arist.
Immortal powers!
Is he distracted or inspir'd? my blood
Runs cold to hear him!

Asp.
No—ye Helots! no!
My inspiration's gone.—'Tis now despair,
Shame, horrour, and repentance that awoke
Those wailings—Fly,—Oh fly—and save at least
A remnant of Messenia.

Arist.
Where's the danger?

Asp.
Could my confession but atone my crime
Or stop the raging sword, already stain'd
In Ithome's best blood! I could enlarge
Upon my deeds, dilate the dreadful tale
Till ye would start with horrour—but escape!—
Fly! that alone is left you!

Arist.
Why escape?
Suppose the peril certain,—must we call
The murtherers to pursue us? We, alas!
The refuse of our tribes, are hardly worth
Extermination, our imperious lords
Must still have slaves, in cruelty to train
Their savage brood!

Asp.
To thee, unhappy sire!
Yet flight were safety! tho' the vulgar tribe
Were overlook'd, or spar'd to till the ground
They water'd with their blood, Alcander's sire
Yet could not hope to 'scape!

Arist.
Alcander's sire!
What of himself? already lost and found
In one revolving sun? Say, what of him
If he be seiz'd, or fallen, I would not bear
The load of life for kingdoms!

Asp.
Rest you still
In your suspence!—I cannot bear to tell
What heaven reveals! On thee alas! and all
That share the blood of Aristomenes.
The sentence is pronounc'd! I would not bear
The pressure of my guilt a moment more
But that the fell exterminating sword
Already red with murther, will dispense
To me, a stroke of justice!

Arist.
What's thy guilt?

Asp.
Too great to bear! Beneath the holy mask
Of inspiration, with unhallow'd voice
I dar'd to mock the mysteries of heaven
And utter lying oracles! but that
Had led to independence, freedom, fame.
Had that been all! but, with insidious arts
I scatter'd discord, sow'd dissension's bane
Among your leaders, for low, selfish ends
Too tedious to recount—my hatred sprung
From rival love, (for I bely'd my sex,)
I lov'd the Attic youth, he hated, spurn'd me
He scorn'd me for Semanthe.—In revenge
Philemon's mind with jealous rage I fir'd
To thwart his measures! I with artful wiles
Allur'd Semanthe from her native woods.—
This was the fair pretext; that, she remov'd
The rivals would support the general cause
And emulation cease. My arts inspir'd
New rancour 'twixt the rivals. Soon the flame
Of discord blaz'd around. If you desire
Atonement in my blood (tho' poor revenge
For what you soon must suffer) take my blood!
'Tis yours!—

2 Helot.
Thy tale, I fear, is true, for Dymas comes!
What horrid vision has disturb'd his brain
And bristled up his locks?

Enter DYMAS.
Dym.
Helots! away!
Treason and murther lurk within those groves!

Arist.
What murther, say! what signs?

2 Helot.
Eurotas runs
With blood!

Arist
Perhaps, the blood of slaughter'd steers
Or immolated flocks! why thus disturb
Our yet precarious peace with causeless fears?

3 Helot.
Saw'st thou the bodies of these murther'd men?
Or thou, or I must dream! the radiant files
I saw parading thro' yon plausive groves
Were gaudy visions of unreal bands,
The day-dreams of a boy, who in the clouds
Figures unreal armies!

4 Helot.
Be thy sight
However clear, the Spartan fraud might post
This moving pomp, this spectacle of war
Behind the fane, to favour the deceit
To personate those bands, whose bodies now
Perhaps are floating down the plaintive stream!

To them—Enter Fifth HELOT.
5 Helot.
They come! they come! O fathers! haste and see
The triumphs of your sons! Oh blasting view
I saw them rolling down the sanguine flood!

Arist.
Saw whom?

5 Helot.
The victims of your impious foes!
Oh Alcibiades! had we believ'd
Thy words, we had not thus ignobly stood
To see the slaughter'd victims borne along
Nor one is found to drag the freight to land.—
—Alas! behold the wretched father falls
Bear him away.

[Aristodemus borne out.
Amph.
Yonder the brother comes
Of fallen Androcles, to pronounce our doom!

To them—PHÆBIDAS.
Phæb.
No—to pronounce his own—behold the man
Who led your friends to slaughter! if my blood
Content you, bid it flow—for I must fall
By your hands or my own! I bear a life
Long, long devoted to th'infernal gods
For cruel Sparta's weal—for Sparta's weal
Unknowingly, I led your guiltless friends
To ruin—The warm confidence I felt
In Sparta's faith, I bade Alcander feel!—
For his reliance on my vain surmise
My fruitless hopes, already has he paid
With life, and all his basely-murther'd friends
Atone our follies or our faults with blood!
Alas! to save my self-devoted life
Alcander fell, in vain, lamented youth
You fell—my blood must flow!

Amph.
Philemon too!

Phæb.
Philemon, all!

Amph.
Yet say, unhappy man
How did your counsels sway Alcander's mind?

Phæb.
Ah ye curst Ephori! your dark designs
(While in the smooth and smiling surface still
We plac'd our trust) with deep destruction flow'd
With seeming clemency they lur'd you on
Relax'd their laws, to draw a larger prey
Within the meshes of their bloody toils!
—When seeming ruin over Sparta hung
My country's love impell'd me to devote
Myself a victim to the angry gods.
If so, perhaps, I might have sooth'd their rage
And make them force the Helots from their league
With our stern foes! Alcander, in my charge
And freed from bonds by me, with grateful heart
Resolv'd to use his influence with his friends
To save our state, to break the menac'd league
To save his friend, or perish by his side.
—Behold the consequence!—

Amph
Thy boldness thus
To rush among thy foes, and tell our fate
So dreadful to thyself; at least approves
Thy truth—but let the gods, and Athens find
The guilty in their wrath—for thee to bleed
Were useless now.—

Phæb.
O never, never more
Was such a victim wanted! deeper guilt
In Sparta for a new atonement calls
And I embrace my doom with joy! For Sparta
If thro' all hearts the universal taint
Of Persidy and Vice had spread abroad
Their gangrene? not by all the breathing fumes
Of Saba, nor by immolated hosts
Were heaven's acceptance gain'd.—But I have laid
A train to bring the guilty to their doom
Those perjur'd Ephori, whose curst advice
Caus'd this foul treason to humanity
And poison'd half our troops! To Sparta's king
And his untainted bands: (who still uphold
My country's name;) a trusty friend dispatch'd
Shall tell the traitors names, disclose their guilt
And shew the proofs. Their office soon expires
And to the people's dread tribunal call'd
They too shall expiate this disastrous day.

Amph.
Live to avenge us!

Phæb.
Your revenge is sure
Whether I live or dye!

Amph.
Oh yet proclaim
In justice to mankind, the dreadful steps
Which led us to our fate.

Phæb.
I know not all—
Me they suspected, and dispatch'd me thence
To save the bands of Helice—my fears
And doubts were waken'd by the troops delay
Meant to support my onset. I began
To dread, that Athens with Messenia join'd
Had stop'd the march of my auxiliar bands;
Then, leaving to my second in command
My post, I hurried homeward to prevent
The spreading ruin, and to close the breach
With my devoted life. Ah how unlike
Those imag'd terrours was the direful truth
I found at home! 'Twas one vast solitude
Dreary and silent, from the city's bounds
To fair Amyclæ! Rumour's self had lost
Her voice, or faintly told a dubious tale
That all Laconia's military bands
Were must'ring by Eurotas—then the truth—
The dreadful truth came flashing on my mind
At once.—I hasted—but arrived too late.—
Where o'er the dark flood hangs the rustic fane
A shelving passage, arch'd beneath the walls
Admits the murmurs of the passing stream
Where, dark and gulphy, under bow'ring shades
It rolls in gloomy whirlpools,—clos'd within
A troop of bold assassins took their stand;
Another cohort lin'd the sacred gate;
And, as by pairs the Helots came, assign'd
The victims to their fellows, far within
Who gave the deadly stroke, and hurl'd them down
To welter in the waves.—Meantime, without
A band of seeming Helots, all in arms
March'd from the postern, in long siles, and lin'd
The parting shades, or mixt in sportive war;
Those, to the candidates for arms, abroad,
Seem'd their exulting fellows, clad in steel
And prompt for action, All around was heard
The trump, the timbrel, and the martial sife
In warlike symphony to drown the groans
Of slaughter—while abroad, in cheerful din
According clamours, pealing to the stars
The baffled ear beguil'd. The sylvan screen
Flinging her canopy athwart the flood
Deceiv'd the sight, and hid the frequent fall
Of many a corse thick-plunging in the wave;
From an exulting Spartan this I learn'd
Who triumph'd in the tale.

2 Helot.
Are all—all—slaughter'd? can we snatch from fate
No remnant of our bands? To arms! to arms
Ye Helots who survive! let us revenge
Or join our slaughter'd brethren!

Phæb.
All in vain!
Are these becoming ardours! deep around
The grove is lin'd by a determin'd band
Who menace ruin on the coming foe
With level'd spears,—Ye hasten to your doom
For ye may live to soothe your ceaseless toil
With bitter tears, and mourn the hateful boon
Of life, more wretched than your fellows fall!
Their fall was glorious.—To the dreaded flame
Of liberty, that in their bosom burn'd
Victims they fell untimely! Ye may live
For Sparta's cruel policy requires
A nursery of patient slaves, to till
With doubled labour, their detested soil.—
For me, I wish'd to fall in glorious fight
And tinge the point of some Athenian spear
With my devoted gore!—That is deny'd
—Yet have I hope that Sparta may revenge
My fall, and bring these monsters of the state
To bloody justice.—Honour yet survives
In some distinguish'd breasts, by freedom warm'd;
The gale of public spirit yet will rise
And sweep away the thick-ensanguin'd cloud
Which hides us from the skies.—Oh! Sparta—yes—
Thou yet art worth atonement, else this stroke
Were vain, and impious folly to the gods! [Stabs himself.

Oh my Alcander! if we meet again
Thine awful council of departed heroes
Will grant admission to my gory shade!—
Our cause was one, a glorious, public cause
We fell to save our country!

[Dies.
Amph.
And with him
Messenia fell at once! her long career
Is closed at length by Fate's relentless hand!
There lies the man who could have sav'd our tribes
From insult and from ruin, had his power
Been equal to his mild humanity.—
Let us forget our upright form—our name
Of men! let memory die! let hope expire!
Nor hope have we, nor claim, nor country now!
But—if we had, Alcander's hapless fall
And poor Philemon's might afford a theme
To lesson future ages! One, misled
By private friendship, sold that public faith
That awful duty, which he owed his people
To syren sympathy.—Philemon, sir'd
To rage, because a woman frown'd, forgot
He was a man, and basely flung away
In a mad fit of jealousy, the means
Of endless glory. Had they nobly stood
True to the dictates of their reason, firm
Against th'assaults of passion. They had led
Those bands to freedom, whom in death they led
Down the lamenting stream, whose Naiads mourn
The man, whom every muse perhaps had crown'd
With endless glory to succeeding times.—
But now the work is o'er—the bloody band
All reeking from the horrid task return! [Martial music heard at a distance.

I hear the deadly fife's triumphant tones!—
May all the furies speed them on their way
And hell resound their dirge, whene'er they fall.—
They must not find us here—hence let us haste
Where no fell despot checks our falling tears.

[Exit Omnes.