 | Timoleon |  |
Scene I.
—Timoleon's Solitary Retreat near Corinth. After a lapse of twenty years.Timoleon.
Thee first, high Lord of heaven, eternal Zeus,
The Saviour-God, I supplicate, and next
Themis, Olympian Justicer supreme,
Sprung from the primal earth; and I invoke
Dark Hecate, and the stupendous brows
Of Hades, and, coheirs of endless night,
Demeter mother and pale Persephone,
Thrones of the under-world. But chiefly thou,
Apollo, Purifier, thou Lord of light
And order, the bright bringer of the day,
Who for the Python slain erewhile didst vail
Thy godhead to the unconquerable king,
Thou who of old didst intercede to save
From the everlasting doom thy worshipper
Orestes, and didst cleanse him of a spot
More heinous, and blood shed at thy behest—
Have mercy, hearken, and judge my cause and me.
Nay, Lord, thou knowest; thine universal eye,
That sweeps the immeasurable arc of heaven,
Beheld me from the first, and twice ten years—
Slow-crawling centuries of remorseless pain—
Hath seen me in these unfrequented fields
A sufferer, silent. I grow gaunt and old,
And my wits craze with sorrow, and all my strength
Crumbles in premature decrepitude:
For I have ta'en a hurt within the soul,
That mocks all medicine of oblivious time,
Dealt by the sword of Fate, that circling seemed
To crown my head with glory before it fell,
Then smote, and brake within me, and grew to be
Bone of my bone, an evil graft of pain,
A wound inveterate, ineradicable.
As when the splendour of a sudden bolt
Splits darkness, and the clouds clap hands to see—
Day dawns, and silence deepens, but the stone
Wedg'd in the wounded heart-strings of the hills
Sticks fast, and cools there, and henceforth becomes
Part of the mountain which it maimed. Ah, me!
The body's ills how easy to be borne!
Rack, flame, disease, how light, how sufferable,
Match'd with this inward aching of the mind,
That knows no cure, no solace even in thought!
For which way turning shall a soul find rest,
When all the universe is wrapt in storm
Blown from all quarters by all winds at once?
What cloud-break cleaves that sky, what path may save,
Or what roof shelter from its fiery bale?
But as the outpouring of red Vulcan's wrath
Brims o'er from Ætna, and devastates the plain,
One sulphurous ocean fed by flaming streams,
So 'mid the fierce convulsion of my woe
I seem to float upon a gulf of fire,
Where past and present ills, and ills to be,
Melt altogether, and roll one burning lake
Of indistinguishable agony.
For day by day the irrevocable curse
Of a dead mother, like a blight from heaven,
Blasts me unseen, and all the ghostly troops
Of darkness, grim apparitors of Pain,
Have charge to torture me—mute mouthing shapes,
And incorporeal voices, and I am haled
By hands invisible, that rend my flesh
And pluck me by the beard; and bat-like things,
Abominations spawn'd of Stygian slime,
With blood-stained talons and plumes dipped in hell,
Float past, and flap me with their inky vans.
But even these haste with hideous croak dismay'd
In some dark den to hide them, at the approach
Of that blood-freezing horror and threefold pest
The Furies, daughters of primeval Night.
Shaped woman-wise are they with scales for skin,
Monstrous! black-bodied, but of pale fungus-hue
Their faces; and from each gaping nostril goes
A poisonous smoke that through the wholesome air
Spreads pestilence before them; but they run
Bird-footed, and round their clammy shoulders cling—
A moving marvel of portentous hair—
Coiled serpents, as beneath each bristling brow
The loathèd cunning of an aspick's eye
Leers through the sanguine ooze. So foul to tell,
To sight intolerable, these abhorrèd fiends
With faultless scent track out their human prey,
And rend his soul with fangs invisible.
The Saviour-God, I supplicate, and next
Themis, Olympian Justicer supreme,
Sprung from the primal earth; and I invoke
Dark Hecate, and the stupendous brows
Of Hades, and, coheirs of endless night,
Demeter mother and pale Persephone,
Thrones of the under-world. But chiefly thou,
Apollo, Purifier, thou Lord of light
And order, the bright bringer of the day,
Who for the Python slain erewhile didst vail
Thy godhead to the unconquerable king,
Thou who of old didst intercede to save
From the everlasting doom thy worshipper
Orestes, and didst cleanse him of a spot
More heinous, and blood shed at thy behest—
Have mercy, hearken, and judge my cause and me.
Nay, Lord, thou knowest; thine universal eye,
That sweeps the immeasurable arc of heaven,
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Slow-crawling centuries of remorseless pain—
Hath seen me in these unfrequented fields
A sufferer, silent. I grow gaunt and old,
And my wits craze with sorrow, and all my strength
Crumbles in premature decrepitude:
For I have ta'en a hurt within the soul,
That mocks all medicine of oblivious time,
Dealt by the sword of Fate, that circling seemed
To crown my head with glory before it fell,
Then smote, and brake within me, and grew to be
Bone of my bone, an evil graft of pain,
A wound inveterate, ineradicable.
As when the splendour of a sudden bolt
Splits darkness, and the clouds clap hands to see—
Day dawns, and silence deepens, but the stone
Wedg'd in the wounded heart-strings of the hills
Sticks fast, and cools there, and henceforth becomes
Part of the mountain which it maimed. Ah, me!
The body's ills how easy to be borne!
Rack, flame, disease, how light, how sufferable,
Match'd with this inward aching of the mind,
That knows no cure, no solace even in thought!
For which way turning shall a soul find rest,
When all the universe is wrapt in storm
Blown from all quarters by all winds at once?
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Or what roof shelter from its fiery bale?
But as the outpouring of red Vulcan's wrath
Brims o'er from Ætna, and devastates the plain,
One sulphurous ocean fed by flaming streams,
So 'mid the fierce convulsion of my woe
I seem to float upon a gulf of fire,
Where past and present ills, and ills to be,
Melt altogether, and roll one burning lake
Of indistinguishable agony.
For day by day the irrevocable curse
Of a dead mother, like a blight from heaven,
Blasts me unseen, and all the ghostly troops
Of darkness, grim apparitors of Pain,
Have charge to torture me—mute mouthing shapes,
And incorporeal voices, and I am haled
By hands invisible, that rend my flesh
And pluck me by the beard; and bat-like things,
Abominations spawn'd of Stygian slime,
With blood-stained talons and plumes dipped in hell,
Float past, and flap me with their inky vans.
But even these haste with hideous croak dismay'd
In some dark den to hide them, at the approach
Of that blood-freezing horror and threefold pest
The Furies, daughters of primeval Night.
Shaped woman-wise are they with scales for skin,
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Their faces; and from each gaping nostril goes
A poisonous smoke that through the wholesome air
Spreads pestilence before them; but they run
Bird-footed, and round their clammy shoulders cling—
A moving marvel of portentous hair—
Coiled serpents, as beneath each bristling brow
The loathèd cunning of an aspick's eye
Leers through the sanguine ooze. So foul to tell,
To sight intolerable, these abhorrèd fiends
With faultless scent track out their human prey,
And rend his soul with fangs invisible.
Why then live on? because death's hideousness
Affrights me, or desire of life allures?
Nay, but because, living, a man may cope
With misery, because, while breath remains,
Timoleon is not bondsman to despair:
Because one thought sustains me, that ye gods
Live, and that Justice tarries, but is not dead,
Nor fiend nor fury shall avail to damn
Whom his own heart upbraids not—but to die,
Self-driven a shadow to the realm of shades,
Were to fling conquest to these hounds of hell,
And sate their malice everlastingly.
Affrights me, or desire of life allures?
Nay, but because, living, a man may cope
With misery, because, while breath remains,
Timoleon is not bondsman to despair:
Because one thought sustains me, that ye gods
Live, and that Justice tarries, but is not dead,
Nor fiend nor fury shall avail to damn
Whom his own heart upbraids not—but to die,
Self-driven a shadow to the realm of shades,
Were to fling conquest to these hounds of hell,
And sate their malice everlastingly.
But hark! methought e'en now their ravenous cry
Smote on my wakeful ear: it is the hour
They love to torture me, for all night long
They have fasted, and wax hungry for my pain.
Now vanish for a while the attendant shapes
That are their mute and slavish ministers,
Dreams and dumb horrors, that break up my sleep,
Or make it frightful, that the body's strength,
Worn by long battling with the powers of night,
May tremble at their torments. Hark! again,
That savage bay triumphant on the trail!
No help, no hiding! the accursed spell
Binds me already, and the morning air
Grows faint with their pollution ere they come.
Smote on my wakeful ear: it is the hour
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They have fasted, and wax hungry for my pain.
Now vanish for a while the attendant shapes
That are their mute and slavish ministers,
Dreams and dumb horrors, that break up my sleep,
Or make it frightful, that the body's strength,
Worn by long battling with the powers of night,
May tremble at their torments. Hark! again,
That savage bay triumphant on the trail!
No help, no hiding! the accursed spell
Binds me already, and the morning air
Grows faint with their pollution ere they come.
[Enter the Furies.
1st Fury.
Once more, Timoleon, from the obscurest pit
Of hell's profound we come to wait on thee,
That have been too long absent. For thy sake
We have made tireless search, and from a place
So dark that none durst enter it but we,
So foul with noisome vapours, poisonous damps,
Drained through the pores of Tartarus drop by drop,
That we ourselves nigh sickened at the approach,
And Pluto's vaults beside it seemed bright homes
Of air and sunshine, we have groped, and bring
The first-fruit of its garnered floor to thee.
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Thence, for thy will is stubborn, we return
Armed each with sevenfold horrors—ghastly pangs
Of keen remorse and impotent desires,
Of power to madden the mightiest God that sits
Throned on Olympus. See this dead man's skull,
Half choked with grave-dust that was once the brain!
It is thy brother's! In that cup we brewed
Last night a juice of magic potency,
That hath distilled a thousand years in hell,
And thou art first to taste it: if one drop
But pass into thy blood along the veins,
Thenceforth the accumulated agonies,
Which else through all thine after-life were spread
And parcell'd by the slow dividing hours,
Concentred in one mass shall fall on thee
That moment and for ever: matched with this
The bitterest hour that yet thy soul hath known,
Since first we triumphed in thy pains, shall seem
An ecstasy of bliss, more sweet than long
Deep slumber in the lap of Paradise.
3rd Fury.
Moreover, that which thy rebellious heart
Yet dreams not of, self-hate and self-reproach
Shall shoot like fire along thy bones, and lick
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More madly to escape thy cursèd self,
Than shun the avenging plagues that visit thee.
We shall exult to see thee, and hear thy moans
Grow deeper hour by hour; for we are they
Whose office is to punish and to purge
The mad breach of inviolable vows,
Rash-handed outrage and unnatural hate,
And loves unlawful, and whatso lifts a foot
To invade the sanctities of home and kin.
Woe to the sinner, upon whose wilful head
We pour the vials of treasured old revenge
For sins inexpiate! His dear blood of life
Slowly we lap; nor sleep shall overshade,
Nor wine-cup cheer him; hungry he shall heap
The board with dainties, and yet loathe to taste;
His thoughts shall sting like hornets; till at last
From sheer amazement and distraction dire
No flight shall save him, and no God redeem.
Next, to the State partaker of his curse,
Unshrived of its pollution, we mete out
Rapine and lust and blood, all ills that spring
From hot swift acts of vengeance: then we drink
The shrieks of flaming cities, which fierce kings
Sack for their pastime, and unseen ride on
Upon the whirlwind above battling hosts,
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When mounting Virtue from some envious height
Down-toppling swings into the blank abyss,
We spare not, nor we pity; but as it rolls,
And plunging feels the sickening void beneath,
We loose each barrier, close each mouthèd chasm,
Which else had hushed the thunder of its course
But half-way down to ruin. So Fate awards,
And Justice elder than the primal heavens.
Therefore behold! our jealous watch we keep
Each morn by thee, the last grim forfeiture
Of life foretasting, as through finer pangs
Sifted we mark thee dwindling to despair,
Yet in thy fall defiant. O vain worm!
Say must we teach thee with worse whips and stings,
Or wilt thou yield thee to the all-taming yoke,
And hie with us to hell, where thou must be
Our thrall and liegeman? Lo! what profits more
Thy stubborn tarriance? for the hot blood-smell
Smokes in our nostrils, and the days on earth
Suffice not, till we measure out thy doom.
Timoleon.
Vile hags, the sight of you alone is hell,
And hell to suffer at your cursed decrees,
And smart beneath your scourges; yet know I
One deeper hell that far outfathoms all—
To be yourselves and wield them.
And hell to suffer at your cursed decrees,
And smart beneath your scourges; yet know I
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To be yourselves and wield them.
It may be
Sometimes that in the amazement of my woe
Aghast, confounded, blind with agony,
I have raved out mad words of scalding hate
Against the gods, myself, and all the world.
It may be, for I know not; but know ye
That whatso leaping fires of forked dismay
Rive me and rend, heave and convulse my frame,
Henceforth, let Reason hold her sovereign seat,
In one thing I defy you; while I live
Ye shall not force my nature from itself
To blast me with your likeness: I shall still
Suffer and hate you, I Timoleon still
Cleave to mine own uprightness: yea, though men
Forget me, and all gods abandon, this
Mine innocency, despite these guilty spots,
Stands like a pillar when the roof-tree falls
In ashes: never shall my burning tongue,
Delirious with your torments, speak one word
Against the majesty of mine own soul,
No nor profane the vilest name on earth
With curses that are consecrate to you.
Sometimes that in the amazement of my woe
Aghast, confounded, blind with agony,
I have raved out mad words of scalding hate
Against the gods, myself, and all the world.
It may be, for I know not; but know ye
That whatso leaping fires of forked dismay
Rive me and rend, heave and convulse my frame,
Henceforth, let Reason hold her sovereign seat,
In one thing I defy you; while I live
Ye shall not force my nature from itself
To blast me with your likeness: I shall still
Suffer and hate you, I Timoleon still
Cleave to mine own uprightness: yea, though men
Forget me, and all gods abandon, this
Mine innocency, despite these guilty spots,
Stands like a pillar when the roof-tree falls
In ashes: never shall my burning tongue,
Delirious with your torments, speak one word
Against the majesty of mine own soul,
No nor profane the vilest name on earth
With curses that are consecrate to you.
Ah! me, that pang! I never felt your power,
Loathed ones, till now. Yon horrid cup still brims
Untasted, yet your menace is fulfilled.
My bulk contains not the tumultuous throes,
That rage and swell for mastery, till methinks
I am transformed to Suffering's self, and pass
Into the being of immortal Pain.
Fiends, ye may laugh; but at this darkest hour
I faint not; never further from your clutch
Was victory than now: some prophet-voice
In accents long unwonted whispering
Tells of deliverance nigh; and I believe
These are the birth-pangs of new hope, that soon—
Ah! God, these torments! Help me to endure.
Loathed ones, till now. Yon horrid cup still brims
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My bulk contains not the tumultuous throes,
That rage and swell for mastery, till methinks
I am transformed to Suffering's self, and pass
Into the being of immortal Pain.
Fiends, ye may laugh; but at this darkest hour
I faint not; never further from your clutch
Was victory than now: some prophet-voice
In accents long unwonted whispering
Tells of deliverance nigh; and I believe
These are the birth-pangs of new hope, that soon—
Ah! God, these torments! Help me to endure.
1st Fury.
Past prating now! Come, sister, fetch the cup,
And thou wrench open his white quivering lips,
Whilst like a tender sick-nurse down his throat
I pour the medicine.
2nd Fury.
That were labour lost:
Wait till he waken from his swoon.
3rd Fury.
Ay, wait
That he may taste each drop of bitterness,
And know its utter vileness to the dregs.
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Come, dance we round the victim first; 'tis rapture to behold
The toil of our hard hunting crowned at last with victory:
More sweet than flesh of slaughtered swine, or ransom-heap of gold,
Is strength that battles with despair, as fire with surging sea.
The toil of our hard hunting crowned at last with victory:
More sweet than flesh of slaughtered swine, or ransom-heap of gold,
Is strength that battles with despair, as fire with surging sea.
Long-wooed, he yields to us at last: what charms with ours can vie?
Spout, fire and smoke! writhe, serpent-locks! let every ringlet hiss:
His stifled groans are more to us than lover's softest sigh,
Each drop of anguish on his brow more precious than a kiss.
Spout, fire and smoke! writhe, serpent-locks! let every ringlet hiss:
His stifled groans are more to us than lover's softest sigh,
Each drop of anguish on his brow more precious than a kiss.
The eldest of all gods are we, and sprung from ancient Night,
But blacker than our dam the task, stern Fate to us doth give,
Who burn with unappeased desire for our eternal right
To tear the guilty after death, and track them while they live.
But blacker than our dam the task, stern Fate to us doth give,
Who burn with unappeased desire for our eternal right
To tear the guilty after death, and track them while they live.
[They continue dancing.
43
Æschylus.
The shadow of these trees is strangely dark.
Orthagoras.
Ay, and the air is chill: some sudden fog
Hath muffled up the sun, a moment since
So fierce upon our foreheads.
Æschylus.
Look! behold him!
Orthagoras.
Where?
Æschylus.
Stretched beneath yon cypress, whose old roots
Pillow his sunken head! why, mark you not?
Orthagoras.
I see the corpse of some poor wayfarer
By age and misery hunted to this spot,
Where both have left him.
Æschylus.
Know you not that brow?
And see! the wan lips move, as though he prayed
In a great agony. Keep we close awhile,
And tarry till he rise or speak to us.
44
We thirst not for the righteous blood; and those whom headlong sin
By sudden storm of frenzy blown athwart our toils hath cast,
Even such through purifying pains and lustral fires may win
Deliverance of the avenging ones found merciful at last.
By sudden storm of frenzy blown athwart our toils hath cast,
Even such through purifying pains and lustral fires may win
Deliverance of the avenging ones found merciful at last.
But who with rash rebellious hand and mad deliberate mind
Hath seized the helm of violence and struck the shoals of shame,
The curse, that was before the world, about his neck we bind,
Nor know we any younger god shall ease him of the same.
Hath seized the helm of violence and struck the shoals of shame,
The curse, that was before the world, about his neck we bind,
Nor know we any younger god shall ease him of the same.
The clear light of his soul shall wane and wither in eclipse;
The full tide of the swelling heart shrink dwindled to a thread,
The thought that burns for utterance turn to madness on the lips;
And dying none shall pity, no nor mourn for him when dead.
The full tide of the swelling heart shrink dwindled to a thread,
The thought that burns for utterance turn to madness on the lips;
And dying none shall pity, no nor mourn for him when dead.
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How changed he is, and pale! how colourless
His parted lips! the eyelids yet are closed
Upon their sheathèd lightnings—all his face
Channell'd with time or tears; those locks, that were
Like sunbeams saddened in dark water, now
White as in helpless age!—Why doth he start,
Clenching both hands, and gaze so fearfully
On vacant air?
Orthagoras.
Hush! 'tis an awful place:
Keep silence, and regard him, for methinks
He sees some presence that we cannot see.
1st Fury.
Doth he now breathe and feel? or is the blood
In his dull veins yet stagnant, and the spirit
Fast-lock'd in stony-eyed forgetfulness?
2nd Fury.
We have o'er-chased our quarry: in such deep swoon
The soul finds cover, and, safe 'twixt life and death,
Makes void our effort and mocks at our revenge.
3rd Fury.
The lamp of sense rekindling burns so faint
As for a puff to quench: till it revive,
Seek we elsewhere a task more profitable.
46
Sisters, I scent a banquet of new blood
Blown hither from the wan Sicilian fields,
Dear home of fire-eyed Havoc. Hie we hence
Fast, fast, upon the hurricane's dark wing,
To hunt the victim down! a tyrant there
Wades in the blood of his offenceless slaves,
And revels in their groans: crack, snaky whips,
And lash him into madness! We'll be there
Before the axe now lifted has cut through
The cowering victim's throat: then, hither back
Returning, we may mend this broken task,
And glut our hunger in Timoleon's pain.
2nd Fury.
First call some torturing shape to visit him
In our enforcèd absence.
3rd Fury.
'Tis well thought on:
We must not leave him idle. Hence! away!
[They vanish.
Æschylus.
The sky grows brighter now; we seem to breathe
More freely: 'tis as though some stifling weight
Of thunder brooding in a sulphurous cloud
At once were lifted from the upbounding air.
47
His eyes are open, but he sees us not:
Some spell enchains them—he is going to speak!
[Enter the Curse of Demariste.
Timoleon.
Those fearful ones are vanish'd: what art thou?
The Curse.
I am the embodied curse once pass'd on thee
By her that was thy mother; and I am charged
On earth and under it, through life and death,
To cleave and fasten to thy guilty side
For ever.
Timoleon.
Thou art a lying phantom call'd
And conjured by the fiends that fashion'd thee
From hell, where they inhabit. If thou hast power
To blast me, speak again those awful words,
That still are burnt upon my memory; speak,
And I will tremble. No, it vanishes! [Exit Curse.
But what new horror rises on my sight?
[Enter the Ghost of Timophanes.
[Ghost.]
Can the impalpable void womb of air
Breed spectres at your will, and people space
With shadowy semblances of forms that were?
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As when he met us on that fateful morn
Beneath the citadel! Unhappy soul!
If such thou art, I charge thee lay aside
That shape which is the token of thy sin
And mine undoing: with those blood-stained hands,
Hot cruel eyes, and crown-polluted brow,
Thou canst not even move me to regret.
[Exit Ghost.
[Timoleon.]
This was no offspring of a fever'd brain:
It made as though 'twould speak, when suddenly
A thrill of trembling seized its vapoury form,
And, as pursued by some o'ermastering fear,
Eyes all averted, and without a word,
It vanish'd as it came!
Æschylus.
His face is sad,
But has resumed its wonted majesty,
No longer horror-stricken.
Orthagoras.
Nay, he smiles,
As to some loved one hov'ring o'er him.
[Enter the Spirit of Liberty.
49
Ah! who is this with locks uncrown'd and lips unkiss'd of kings?
Who is this Spirit, hither speeds with light upon her wings?
Love's rapture in her fearless eyes, from far she travelleth,
As one who wist not of a world made desolate with death.
The Spirit of Liberty.
My temple is not on the earth; I roam through air and sea;
A wanderer and without a land, my name is Liberty:
Men hunt me from the homes I bless; they desecrate my shrine;
But I come to thee, O well-belov'd, to claim and call thee mine.
Timoleon.
Alas! that thou should'st call in vain! Thou speakest to a slave
Whose chains are strong as adamant, whose dungeon as the grave.
My soul is crush'd beneath a curse, and who shall set me free?
I may not cast my burden down, nor rise and follow thee.
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Thou wert not wont to fold thine arms, nor fain to hang the head;
When warriors waited on thy lips, not such the words they said;
Nor had ten thousand curses tamed the heart so cowed and cold
Toward her who once thy worship was, who loved thee from of old.
Timoleon.
Ah! chide not, for thou dost not know the change of time and fate,
The fire that fell, the sword that slew, her love which turned to hate;
There is no balm to heal, no word of solace to be said:
Would God she had travailèd ere her time, and died, and borne me dead!
The Spirit of Liberty.
Have I not grieved in all thy grief? not wept thy woes to see?
My child, even mine, my youngest-born, what help have I but thee?
What need but for their sorrow's sake who battle still with wrong?
For they that strike for Liberty must toil and tarry long.
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O cast thine arms about my neck! O teach my limbs to stand!
I cannot sleep but in thine arms, nor walk but with thy hand;
O my new mother! I am fain thy new-born son to be;
But who shall break the bands of hell, that hold me still from thee?
The Spirit of Liberty.
I touch thee with my gentle wand; I call thee by thy name:
Timoleon! rise; thy fetters fall; thy fears are put to shame;
My priest and champion thou shalt be; and I to guard and guide
Am still, though hidden from thy sight, for ever at thy side.
[She vanishes.
Æschylus.
See, now he rises! and the old battle-light
Burns on his features! 'Tis as when some rock
Out-frowns a tempest, that has all day long
Rolled up the thunder of ten thousand waves,
And boomed against his bases, but at eve,
Flush'd with disastrous sunset, grimly smiles
Defiance to the untamed and treacherous sea.
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Let us go forward and unfold to him
The purport of our coming; in his eyes
I read glad welcome, and a joyful ‘yes’
To Corinth's high commission.
[They advance towards him.
Timoleon.
O my friends!
With what auspicious omen hath this hour
Leapt from the lap of time to comfort me
With your sweet presence! Do you know me still,
Changed as I am, and love me? years and grief,
That wrought this ruin on my frame, have made
No havoc of my heart: give me your hands—
Nay, both together; since I clasped them thus,
I tell you I have made such inward proof
Of sorrow's fierce caresses, I have served
A term so bitter at her sobering craft,
That till this moment, with rare interval
And seldom respite, had my dearest friend
Brought me vast tidings of invasion quelled,
Or mighty armies mustering to o'erthrow
Some slaughter-house of tyrants, and set up
A fallen freedom, I should scarce have heard,
Much less made answer or regarded him.
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Feast-master sitting at no cheerful board,
The unwilling host of such strange visitors
As might have marred your welcome. But rejoice,
For now the gods have sent you as a sign
That these are foiled for ever.
Orthagoras.
Every word
Thou utterest, like sweet sunshine, turns some flower
Of hope to ripeness of fulfilled desire.
Æschylus.
I never looked to see such happiness,
Or hear these comfortable words from thee.
Timoleon.
Come rest we on yon bank; the shadows there
Are coolest; you have travelled far afoot,
And must be hot and weary with the way.
Æschylus.
Nay, for the bearer of good news or ill
Runs swiftly, and his feet forget to tire.
Timoleon.
Pray you, what news? I am as one long dead
Raised up to hear it. Tell me by degrees
From the beginning, nowise suddenly.
54
'Tis old old news, too common to be new,
Nor like to startle thine accustomed ear;
It needs no sheltering avenues of speech
To preface in these days dark deeds of blood,
And piteous cries for succour.
Timoleon.
Ah! say on.
Æschylus.
Thou knowest that Dionysius reigns again
Two years in Syracuse.
Timoleon.
I knew it not,
But deemed that since Callippus, he who slew
Dion, had perished by the selfsame sword,
The State, now sceptreless and made a prey
To general rapine and fierce rival feuds,
Lay festering in a swamp of anarchy.
Æschylus.
So for six years it miserably endured,
When, as foul insects on a poor maimed beast
Fasten and feed, and swarm about its sore,
Draining the life-blood, till to make an end
Down swoops some famished vulture—so these men,
Lewd parasites and lawless mercenaries,
Robbed, hacked, and pilled, till half the strength was sucked
From out poor Sicily, when she and they
Together, torn and quivering in the clutch,
Became one morsel for his ravenous maw.
When, as foul insects on a poor maimed beast
Fasten and feed, and swarm about its sore,
Draining the life-blood, till to make an end
Down swoops some famished vulture—so these men,
55
Robbed, hacked, and pilled, till half the strength was sucked
From out poor Sicily, when she and they
Together, torn and quivering in the clutch,
Became one morsel for his ravenous maw.
Then waxed yet grosser his insatiate greed,
And from the coals of never-quenched desire,
Fanned by this gust of fortune, leapt a flame
So bloody that beside its baleful light
The torch-fire of each lesser tyranny
Shrunk into darkness. Corinth heard and mourned
The voice of her child's anguish; for a sound
Confused and frightful, echoes of deep groans,
And savage laughter, and imploring shrieks,
Mingled with ocean's uproar, and went forth
Among the nations. But the third day since
Came tidings of clear colour, and withal
This message of entreaty—“Syracuse,
Down-trod by tyrants even to the dust,
To Corinth her own mother cries for aid,
And vengeance on the oppressor.” He that spake
Made all hearts sick with horror, all eyes wet
For pity, as, diving in deep gulfs of sin,
With nets of silk-meshed utterance he drew forth
The abominations of that foul abyss.
Yea, and some doubted of the things they heard,
So monstrous grew the tale, as was unrolled
The crimeful record of his rank excess—
His catlike cunning and mad tiger-thirst
For bloodshed, his luxurious appetite,
In brutish instinct and ungoverned lust
Out-grovelling all before him. Furthermore
To make despair more desperate, even to blight
The opening bud of young rebellion,
Like a dark living cloud upon their shores,
Dread foes to freedom and fair Sicily,
The Punic hosts were gathering. To be brief,
This woeful chronicle and sad appeal
So moved the heart of Corinth, that next morn
Before the assembled State's high majesty,
The people with one shout consenting cried
To send the wished-for succour.
And from the coals of never-quenched desire,
Fanned by this gust of fortune, leapt a flame
So bloody that beside its baleful light
The torch-fire of each lesser tyranny
Shrunk into darkness. Corinth heard and mourned
The voice of her child's anguish; for a sound
Confused and frightful, echoes of deep groans,
And savage laughter, and imploring shrieks,
Mingled with ocean's uproar, and went forth
Among the nations. But the third day since
Came tidings of clear colour, and withal
This message of entreaty—“Syracuse,
Down-trod by tyrants even to the dust,
To Corinth her own mother cries for aid,
And vengeance on the oppressor.” He that spake
Made all hearts sick with horror, all eyes wet
For pity, as, diving in deep gulfs of sin,
With nets of silk-meshed utterance he drew forth
The abominations of that foul abyss.
56
So monstrous grew the tale, as was unrolled
The crimeful record of his rank excess—
His catlike cunning and mad tiger-thirst
For bloodshed, his luxurious appetite,
In brutish instinct and ungoverned lust
Out-grovelling all before him. Furthermore
To make despair more desperate, even to blight
The opening bud of young rebellion,
Like a dark living cloud upon their shores,
Dread foes to freedom and fair Sicily,
The Punic hosts were gathering. To be brief,
This woeful chronicle and sad appeal
So moved the heart of Corinth, that next morn
Before the assembled State's high majesty,
The people with one shout consenting cried
To send the wished-for succour.
Timoleon.
That was well:
Whom chose they to command and marshal them?
Æschylus.
That question probes a wound thyself must heal,
Or perish Syracuse! for when the shout
Ceased, and the Archons to the crowd set forth
Some leader for their choice, each hero named
57
In such a cause, so hopeless, against such odds,
Durst gird him to the danger. Then was heard
A voice, from whence I know not, no man knew,
Which 'mid the silence like a trumpet rang
And cried ‘Timoleon!’ and with such a roar
As though the elements of air and sea
Commingling in one crash made sudden league
To ravage and o'erride the continent,
So from that multitude of tongues poured forth
An inundation of tempestuous sound,
That broke in thunder, as they caught the cry,
And tossed it to the clouds—‘Timoleon!’
Timoleon
(after a pause).
This is the last time I shall watch the sun
Go down behind Cyllene to the sea,
And flood these fields with splendour, which I loved,
Despite of all my suffering. Let us rise:
How calm it is and cool! and how the breeze
Fills with contagious freedom all my soul!
Enter, my friends, for ye have fasted long
Since morn; and thou, Orthagoras, presently
Do sacrifice for us; I think indeed
The gods are favourable, and have heard my prayer,
And I am fain to worship.
58
'Tis most meet
We pay these solemn rites, and then to rest;
For ere to-morrow from the Ægean wave
Flush the proud forehead of the citadel,
We should be gone.
Æschylus.
Set we not forth to-night?
Timoleon.
To-night.
So, false ones, ye are foiled at last,
And the sweet vision triumphs, and is true!
And the sweet vision triumphs, and is true!
| Timoleon | |