University of Virginia Library

Philoctetes—Phimachus
PHIMACHUS
I come with dawn as is my wont to come,
And I have brought thee herbs of healing ways
To lull thy wound, my hero, as is meet
And use with me these many years, and yet
Still earlier than my coming I have heard
The low voice of thy moaning all these years.
And still the god afflicts thee eminent
Of sorrows; and the full black cloud recedes
No fold of thunder, ripe to the very lips
With venom on thy life. The still year goes
About us, and the vivid buds begin
In the rock niches, and the soft time flows
Full of all triumph blossomy; there is change
When autumn sheaves all nature up in death.
Change in thine anguish none; for as this sea
Relaxes not her turmoil, though the rocks
Are full of summer, so thy pain endures
The change of seasons stabler aye than they.
But we accept these gods that round the year,
And eat our bread and crush a little wine,
And thank them; even if we breathe we lift
The hand of praise, for the worst living thing
In life, pain only, even as pain, is more
Than Orcus and the soulless fluttering shades.
Praise thou the gods for this mere power to praise.

PHILOCTETES
You'd have me thank Zeus with this pain upon
My brain, because he will not stamp me out,
Like my old master Heracles, into
The vapours of the pyre! Not so, to him
The savour of my pain is sweet. No worm
Writhes upon earth but he takes pastime in it;
And his god-children learn the trick of him
And ply their lesser vengeances. But he
The master-serpent keeps the subtlest poison
And claims to use it as a king alone.
The under-thrones of heaven may glut their lips
On their more watery vintages of harm.
He may destroy, he only, with the full
Ripe relish of a creature's agony,
All-mighty and all-cruel. For he sits
In the old mild gods' seat, has done away
The kind grey dotard Saturn, snapt like wool
His father's light and golden sceptre-shaft,
As useless as the brittle columned stalk
Of a dried wood-kex. Sons ye were, and next
His love and near his glory; but ye held
Council with anger and an evil lust
Of thronedom, saying, “Saturn shall not rule,
He could not hate, a sorry god indeed;
Would slough his state off and sit down with men
And chatter like a brother, and have heed
Of crop and season, the old idiot god;
And see the trees grow and have joy in them
And healthy herds at pasture, and the bees
Out at their labour happy. But we crept
Upon him, for he trusted us his sons,
But we with hate hated, eternally
Had hated his beneficence, and hate
Had strengthened us to watch with smiling faces
While the deep vengeance griped us keen below;
Ages we watched, the ripe hour came, and then
We strangled him at cup-time with low laughs
And set his grey face underneath our heels.
And stampt him out immortal as he was
Into an inane ghost and emptiness
Hard on annihilation; for our natures
Had thriven on hatreds to a strength beyond
His easier essence; and he had given away
One half his primal virtue in sheer acts
Of large creative kindness. And, O then,
We laughed and cried, Love men now to thy core,
In that thou art a spectre weak as sleep
Under the gloom. But surely now is shed
Upon our brows dominion, eminence
Of empire. Lo, the thunder, a tame hound,
Is resting at our footstool. Chiefly we
Can lust and hate, and therefore are we lords.”

PHIMACHUS
Hero, this anger-fuel to thy pain
Is doubled anguish. Is it wise to shed
Oil on the flame without it fierce enough?
Ay, and these gods may hear thee, and their king
Loves not man's question how he came by rule.

PHILOCTETES
I have outpast the limit of all fear,
I am too wretched for his deaths to care
The feeding on me. Fear him, happier souls;
Shall he regard the murmur of such a thing
As Philoctetes, shall he fear my lips?
Zeus sits in far too firm a chair to dread
The ripples of our protest, weak as foam;
And our rebuke is like a summer wind
Touching his stern lip-corners and no more;
Or crisping perhaps, as thistle-down, one lock
Aside of the square high forehead arrogant.
Nay, rather stifle in behind thy teeth
The moaning of thy torment, crush together
Thy corded lips when it swells up thro' thee;
He will not see the tremulous lids so far—
Be pale—so pale—but move not, nay, nor curse.
'Twill vex him if his grinding scourges seem
To have dulled in over-use their ancient edge;
If this thy plague doth call him father, who sits
Watching his vengeance ripen like a flower,
Between his cloudy cushions where he leans
Calm o'er the grey-green troubled earth below,
With many sweet oppressions in his eye,
Anarch and upstart, and misruler Zeus.

PHIMACHUS
Be wise and be not angry, for he hears;
Ay, far away he hears it, in the thin
Essential azures mist-less. Ay, and calls,
Who knows? if angered, to loose on to thee
A subtler demon. Who art thou to gauge
The arm-reach of his evil? Canst thou sound
The treasures of his poison? For these gods
Lengthen at will their fathom-line of craft
And all contrivance, never striking ground.

PHILOCTETES
Ay me, the soulless herds graze on and fear
No scathe; they do not count the days in care.
That core of evil, knowing ill shall be,
Is not assigned them. And the baby feeds,
Milks at the breasts and smiles, and owneth not
Allegiance yet to knowledge that shall make
The fair earth bitter to his wiser eyes.
Give us the old gods back; this hard new king,
Why doth he reign in that he reigns so ill?

CHORUS

PHILOCTETES
Ay, fallen are ye, my Titans, this new god
Cements his throne firm down with creatures' wrong:
Pain is the sceptre ruling him his earth.
Why have I pain? My master why had he?
The great and best bare chiefly as he bore.
He had vexed the gods with looking heaven in face
And saying, “Do I owe thee anything
Save my discomfort?” And ye know the tale
Bitter and stale, yet never stale its fear;
How not the hated one alone can feed
Their vengeance, crush'd and done with from the earth;
Why a mere man thus rights himself. The fiends
Are wiser, gracious wisdom: they contrive
A winding and hereditary curse
To keep the ancestral blood-taint live and warm.
And so the seeds of torture creep between
The veins of the innocent children, whose meek eyes
Had never known the sweet air, when the sire
Roused the high gods. Subtle ye are and wise
In vengeance, surely gods and good and great.
So I the attendant of this Heracles
Did him some feeble comfort at his end,
And this was treason to their vengeful hands.
More, I beheld how his worst agonies
Were nobler than the soft and sumptuous hours,
When the Olympians sate themselves to the core
On splendid passion, draining radiant-eyed
In their cloud-precincts all deliciousness.
Which thing to have thought is death: but death is mild.
Therefore they gave me torment nine-year long.
For I will tell how it was with Heracles;
For when he drew the accursed garment on
And felt the poison eat his flesh to the bone,
Nor could he tear it from him, baleful web,—
He knew the mighty horror of his doom
Inevitable, clothing him throughout
With creeping flame intensest. And he said,
“My death is on me, comrade, in thy love
I charge thee nowise leave me till the end.
'Twill be a full brief service, for I climb
This Œta, there I sacrifice and die.
And so we clomb together. All day long
We toiled up Œta and the evening fell
One red great ball of sun; and flared and split
The radiance: and he ever moaning clomb,
Moaning and shuddering, and huge agonies
Of sweat were on the muscles of his limbs,
And in his eyes a terrible dumb pain.
And now he clomb, and now in torment sat
With set teeth on some boulder, swaying slow
His head and rugged beard; and all his breast
Lay heaving and the volumes of its breath
Went up in dry hot vapour. Or he sat
Staring as in amazement. And I went
And touched him and he moved not, and again
I touched him. Suddenly the whole man leapt
Straightened on the instant and addressed himself
To the sheer hill and leaning clomb. At length
It ceased into a level desolate
As death, a summit platform: the near clouds
Racked over us until the hill itself
Seemed giddy with their motion. Cruel winds
Flapt icily at our heated limbs, and seem'd
To bite away in very cruelty
The few blank shivering grasses in the peat,
Or tugged the fangs of heath long dead in cold.
And when he saw the horror of the place
He stayed himself and called with a great voice, “Here.”
Suddenly calling it. And I began
To pile an altar at his word of all
The hill-side nourished, birch and pine and stunt
Grey sallow of the peat-tops. He that time
Tore at his flesh or heavily sobbing rolled
Against the shaley edges. And in fear
I built it, tremble-handed, dizzy-eyed;
And when it rose he turned his face and cried,
“O comrade, is all ready?” And I said,
“All ready, master.” Then I lit a brand
Of resinous pine storm-riven, as I strake
Two clear hill pebbles, gave blue fire free birth;
So stood with a great beating heart to wait
The issue, ready with my torch. But he
Climbing disspread upon the wood his vast
And throbbing frame. And after a deep breath,
He gathered up his final strength to speak.
And reached his hand, and thus his speech found way:—
“This is the end, and I am bounded here,
And all my ancient triumph is decayed.
One agony enwraps me, scalp to heel;
So I am made derision to the gods
That smile above my torment. This is he
The eminent of labours, conqueror,
The universal athlete, whose rash arm
Would stifle down the evils of the earth.
Behold, in what a mesh of woven pain
The deity confounds him. Think not thou
Hereafter, simple-hearted as was I,
To stand between the gods and their desire
That man receive no comfort only woes.
They hate for us to stand upon our strength
And love our degradation chiefly. Thou
Consider this, my friend, and think no shame
To let them have their wills, and stand aside,
Seeing my end, and all this ruined flesh
I thought so strong in beautiful living power;
And, lo, a little poison quenches all
Into a writhing worm, ensheathed with fire;
The smoke-sighs of whose torment shall ascend
A music to the sleepy gods, a dream
Lulling the dew of pleasure in their eyes
With echoes of mine infelicity.
Have they not cursed these mortals long ago?
And every curse is fruitful as a seed:
And woe to him who dares disroot but one
Thro' foolish loving of his fellow-men.
And now I die: fire only reaps away
This stain upon me. But, O comrade, learn
I may bequeath thee something, tho' I seem
So utterly naked of all honour now,
Because thou hast not left a stricken man.
Guard thou mine arrows, they to guard are thine.
The gall of hydra on their barbs is death.
And once a strange seer told me they should end
A mighty war of Hellas soon to be.
This fell not out in any day of mine.
Therefore, if blind-eyed Eris fling this dread
Upon the measure of thy time, rejoice,
For I have given thee its remedial power,
To use as thy heart bends thee. Any way
Guard these at least for ancient love of mine.”
And his voice brake; and then he mightily called,
“Light it!” and I forbore; and he called twice,
“If thou dost love me, light it;” and I lit.
Then came the rushing creature of the flame
Over and under, writhing into spire
And branch and eager inward-licking rings,
And mighty stifling pine-smoke, volumed round.
And I endured no longer to behold,
Exceedingly unnerved, and wailing fled
Down the sheer hill, till in a secret vale
I found a corner, and there grovelling lay,
And brought my face into my hands, and hid
The daylight and its doings out. Yet still
Sung in mine ears the horrible hiss of the flame.
Until, a great while after, I had heart,
Again ascending, from the smoulder'd pyre
To gather very reverently his bones.
These I concealed in mounded sepulture,
Guarding the arrows, which I treasure now
To feed my vengeance. Thus died Heracles.

CHORUS

PHILOCTETES
Ay, they are throned, so is it; and their feet
Are on our necks. They hate us and will hate.
And this is terrible: yet worse than all
Beware the tyrant's friendship. Where is he,
Ixion, to whose hand the nectar cup
Lay like the meat of mortals every day?
The hand in hand with brother deities,
Whose friendly arms were on his neck, and his
Large ease of heaven. And even goddesses
Flush'd when the man commended. Is there change
After a little? Ay, and terrible change.
Where has the tyrannous friendship thrust him down?
Chained to a wheel in hell. Above the same
Banquet continues: not a thought about
A certain vacant place; does any guest
Whisper a name wiped out from glory, and say
“Alas!” lest it reach Zeus along the board?
And, if the arch-god heard it, Ganymede
Would fill another beaker less in heaven.
And they must banquet on and put it down
The pale face out of memory, and the ring
Laugh with a tremble in their laugh, and shake
The wine against their lips; and yet the cups
Are glorious: and the easy goddesses,
Armed by their lords at feast, lend the old smiles,
And bend the same great eyes, and brighten on
The love-talk ever, laugh it coyly down,
Or flutter on the ripple of a jest—
And he, Ixion, turns in horrible gyres,
Orbit on orbit everlasting through
The long light and the night, cycles of years.

PHIMACHUS
Ay, but Ixion sinned, so hast not thou.
He could not bear the glory and the light.
The mere man, with man's frailty, dazed and blind
Bare not the exaltation, trembling stood
Before the frequence, with his spots of earth
Thick on him, and his feet bound down by weeds:
And so he howls upon the rocks of hell:
He fell: and wheels for ever and shall wheel.

PHILOCTETES
Why should I howl my heart out on this rock?

PHIMACHUS
Fate ere thy mother's mother drew her milk
Decreed this anguish on thee: bear it thou.

PHILOCTETES
Why single me for agony from the herd?

PHIMACHUS
The hunter draws his arrow to the head
And looses on a thickly feeding drove,
And lets the arrow have its choice and way
He cares not which he strikes so he strike well.

PHILOCTETES
But this is chance and not necessity.

PHIMACHUS
Ay, to the archer chance, but to the beast
Sobbing and bleeding, with the barb of steel
That breeds the darkness, 'tis necessity.
Fate sowed the seed: the appointed hours it lay
Sleeping, then ripened; lo! the fruit is death.

PHILOCTETES
Death is the fruit, ay so: but this same flower
Of pain is long in ripening into it.

PHIMACHUS
Let but the end rush down on us, and all
Before is made as nothing. Pain is then
Even with all deliciousness. The man
Is mock'd no longer with the fair false dream
He bears within his thought, but may not find
In the green earth so marred with pain and sin.
And so in joy he lifts his eyes to death.
And there is lovely calm, established sleep,
Ordained for ever, beautiful and strong.

PHILOCTETES
To know bad things have ending healeth much,
And they will end: for, as all beautiful life
Is yoked to narrow unenduring time,
So evil hath not linked unto herself
As yet eternal days. Something it is,
To know this, softening sorrow it cures not.
Pain nor respects the after or before,
An hour of agony would spoil a god
And make him loathe his old beatitudes.
Tell him these were, as these shall be again,
And he will answer only, “Give me change
Now, now, the eminent and absorbing now:
For I am sick of memory, loose me now.”
The sting hath thrust out all things but desire
To have done with it, utterly blind beyond.

PHIMACHUS
Surely thy pain is much, and it might rend
A Titan's nerve to answer it with calm
Endurance. Yet, may be, this came because
Thou wentest to the wars with these ill kings,
And seeing thee herded up in enterprize
With these, Zeus drew his plague upon thy head
For their misdoing and no thing of thine,
For the gods sort their vengeance in no ways.

PHILOCTETES
Surely I set mine oar to row with men
Utterly evil, whose savage sensual fear
Could well appraise a virgin daughter's blood
Against a puff of wind, to feed their sails
Of vengeance, with the demon powers of the sea.

PHIMACHUS
Why camest thou to Aulis then at all?

PHILOCTETES
An oath unwilling bound me as the rest.

PHIMACHUS
Was then the king so greedy to be gone,
To choose a ready breeze before his child?

PHILOCTETES
Ay, for when calm was idle, men began
To laugh down his supremacy, and some
Made question with their souls, “Why are we here
It is a foolish quarrel.” But with the joy
Of moving forward, and in the flash and jar
Of the armament, its reason was put by.

PHIMACHUS
Ay, and they lightly went upon the bond
Of a light idle word to the low imminent
Thunder of future sorrow. For man's soul
Laughs at the rain with a full sun o'erhead,
Improvident, and yet the rain must come.
And so they make a laughter against themselves
And gather into their bosom pain and death.
And so man's spirit stumbles on till its grave.

PHILOCTETES
Spirit of man, to whom these petty stings
Of pain, that seem so utterly mighty now,
Are but the vestments robing the pure ray
Of thy nobility. O life of man
Greatly afflicted and so great indeed
In spite of thine afflictions: Thou whose prayer
Asketh not love but respite from the gods,
With leave to go about thy ways in peace,
And set thy yearling son upon thy knees
In peace a little while, until he learn
Thy face a little, and the look of thine eyes,
And then the shades may take thee: since indeed
Thou hast left on earth remembrance and some root
To strike down thro' the ages. Why is this
That we should vex our souls that after us,
Our name should linger on, faint echo of love,
In some men's mouths? I know not: O thou earth,
Mother and moulder of this painful breed
Thou callest men, denying them the ease
Thou hast allotted to the beast and flower.
Or, if thou hast not denied it, then these gods
Have marred what thou hast made a gracious thing,
Infusing mischiefs in the lordly brain
And hatreds of its brothers and unrest
And mean revenges. And the wide full earth
Broadens her mother arms in love to us,
And morning takes the hills with a sweet noise,
And down the length of night the crescent dips
In flakes of bluish heaven, and blind we stand
In glories hating all things, both ourselves
And most of all our brothers. And the gods
See this and smile and jest it over their cups,
“How these poor worms will wrangle, when we have made
Even in peace their life a bitter thing.”
Is there no solace? Will no comfort come?
Nay, this whole universe is mad with pain,
As I am, and to hide it smiles to the heaven,
And all her flowers she sets about are lies
To veil her desolation and god's curse.
As some poor woman smiles, and tries to please
One wearied of her beauty for the love
He bare her long ago, and whom she loves
Still, tho' she knows how very mean he is.
Therefore, I say, let Hope be dead, as the Love
Of the old gods is dead, and with the rest
Let us go bury Patience. Time it is
That these old-world delusions ran to end.
Zeus will not weep their ending. Let them go.
And I, the fool that spake of comfort, curse
My Hope of comfort and the brain that bred
The thought that Zeus would pity any more.

PHIMACHUS
Behold, O prince, another comforter,
More suasive than thy comrade, Ægle comes,
As she is wont. Already in thine eye
The ancient glory kindles. Blest is she
To soothe away the demon of thy pain.
And fair and good and gentle in her hand
All healing prospers.