University of Virginia Library

Ulysses—Pyrrhus—Philoctetes
PYRRHUS
Peace as thou wilt but as I said I go—
Lo thou, Ulysses, what is here, regard
This Philoctetes he is changed, is changed,
Some god hath surely wrought upon his face.
Speak man, thou tremblest very much, hast lost
Thy voice and breath together? This is I,
Pyrrhus, art mazed? Keep thine eyes fast on mine.
There is a wild sea yonder, nothing more.
Thou knowest us now—ay surely—see he clears
The film and wildness from his look: no word
Yet and the lips move—lay him thus—nay so.
Patience, the man will beat back yet to life.

PHILOCTETES
I can speak now—can speak—yet how to speak?
Moisten my lips with wine to strengthen me.
My master, I have seen him, Heracles,
Ay, plainly as the shadow of thy sword
Is sharp in sunlight upon yonder rock
Before thy feet. Now am I strong to speak;
And I will tell this wonder from the first.
See, man, see, Pyrrhus, I am calm, most calm;
I can speak temperate words and hold your hand;
Ay, look about me on the cloud and wave;
And know the same old stable world; as if
There were no wonders, but the daily march
Of nature, that disturbs not one cloud wisp,
Tho' Zeus himself should slide from Heaven in flame,
But would send up next morning her old sun
And set him all the same. And men would go
About their trivial labour, feed and sleep
And talk their homely matters all the same.
And I that loiter in my telling, tell
Unwillingly, I know not why. It seems
Unholy almost to commune of it here
In the large sun and with the everyday
Unaltered look of the world. And yet he said,
“Reveal it,” therefore hearken. To this cave
Ye saw me enter, Pyrrhus bearing me,
And all my soul was glad with homeward cheer.
Him I dismissed within a little way,
For only I must search the innermost fold
Of the cave's windings seawrought. Here beneath
An altar, hewn myself these many years
Of living rock, I had hoarded time as long
The arrows of my master: for he seem'd
Worthy an altar, as the man I had known
Nearest the ancient gods to suffer and love
Sublimely, and I knew he must be great
Since the new god-brood utterly hated him,
And gave such death and labour to his hand.
Therefore I, kneeling, drew with reverent hand
These arrows from the altar, naming him,
Thrice, Heracles, and rising to be gone
Felt more than saw an excellent great light
Rise from the altar, shape itself, and beat
In on my brain like music; giving glare
And terror, woven with strange breathing sense
Of joy in pain, and pain fused back in joy.
It held me very dumb and very still.
All eye and ear, my lips were baked to the teeth:
And then the gradual feature line by line
Moulded itself upon the screen of light.
And, as the Iris marks its bounds and bands
From merest haze to her sharp-chorded seven,
He came above it there complete at last.
So that the casual stranger who had seen
Him once would say “the same,” and yet great change
Was on him like a god. The old look of pain
So rolled away in radiances. White jets
And little spikes of flame shot in and out
The crispy locks immortal, interlaced
With rosy shuddering shocks and sheets of light.
And yet I saw the glories of his eyes
Were human yet and loved me, as a soft
Suffusion veiled their immortality.
Then his lips trembled, and I heard a sound
As of a single bird in a great wood,
With sunlight blinding down thro' every branch,
And utter silence else over and round.
“Comrade, well done: not vainly hast thou borne
Pain hand in hand with greatness. My old robe
Of agony hath even effect in thee.
But be thou comforted beholding me,
And know that it is noblest to endure:
So shalt thou reach my brightness. And now hear
And do this thing I tell thee. Go not thou
Homewards, return thou to the host with these.
It must be that my arrows shall take Troy.
Learn to forgive, tho' these deserve it not.
Go thou and prosper, so shalt thou ascend
To some fair throne beside me, lord of pain,
Fed with full peace and reaping grand reward.”
And darkness rushed between us.

PYRRHUS
Lo, this man
Has dazed away his living spirit again
By this strange tale. Hath he no comrade here
To tend him? This were better than our care.
Let us go search the isle for such a man.
As for this chief we neither know his ways,
Nor the remedial helps of his disease
Intricate. Time is flowing as we stay;
Ay, for the hour is urgent that we bring
These arrows and this leader in our ship,
Since now he bears so fair a mind to go;
And this thing seen, hero or spectral shade,
Hath moved him, where our lips were merely noise
Of babies wrangling with a sleepy man.