PELEUS AND THETIS.
Thetis.
O Peleus! whom the Gods have given me
For all my happiness on earth, a bliss
I thought too great . .
Peleus.
Why sighest thou? why shed
Those tears? why sudden silence? our last tears
Should then have fallen when the Fates divided us,
Saying, earth is not thine; that he who rules
The waters call'd thee. Bitter those that flow
Between the loved and loving when they part,
And ought to be; woe to the inhuman wretch
Who wishes they were not: but such as fall
At the returning light of blessed feet
Should be refreshing and divine as morn.
Thetis.
Support me, O support me in thy arms
Once more, once only. Lower not thy cheek
In sadness; let me look into thine eyes;
Tho' the heavens frown on us, they, now serene,
Threaten us no fresh sorrow . . us? ah me!
The word of Zeus is spoken: our Achilles
Discovered, borne away in the Argive ships
To Aulis, froward youth! his fearless heart
Had bounded faster than those ships to Troy.
Ah! surely there are some among the Gods
Or Goddesses who might have, knowing all,
Forewarn'd thee.
Were there neither auguries
Nor dreams to shake off thy security,
No priest to prophesy, no soothsayer?
And yet what pastures are more plentiful
Than round Larissa? victims where more stately?
Come, touch the altar with me.
Pious man,
Doth not thy finger even now impress
The embers of an incense often burnt
For him, for thee?
The lowing of the herds
Are audible, whose leaders lead them forth
For sacrifice from where Apidanos
Rises, to where Enipeus widens, lost
In the sea-beach: and these may yet avail.
Peleus.
Alas! alas! priests may foretell calamity
But not avert it: all that they can give
Are threats and promises and hopes and fears.
Despond not, long-lost Thetis! hath no God
Now sent thee back to me? why not believe
He will preserve our son? which of them all
Hath he offended?
Thetis.
Yet uncertainties,
Worse than uncertainties, oppress my heart,
And overwhelm me.
Peleus.
Thetis! in the midst
Of all uncertainties some comfort lies,
Save those which even perplex the Gods on high
And which confound men the most godlike . . love,
Despond not so. Long may Achilles live
Past our old-age . . ours? had I then forgot,
Dazed by thy beauty, thy divinity?
Thetis.
Immortal is thy love, immutable.
Peleus.
Time without grief might not have greatly changed me.
Thetis.
There is a loveliness which wants not youth,
And which the Gods may want, and sometimes do.
The soft voice of compassion is unheard
Above; no shell of ocean is attuned
To that voice there; no tear hath ever dropt
Upon Olympos.
Fondly now as ever
Thou lookest, but more pensively; hath grief
Done this, and grief alone? tell me at once,
Say have no freshly fond anxieties . .
Peleus.
Smile thus, smile thus anew. Ages shall fly
Over my tomb while thou art flourishing
In youth eternal, the desire of Gods,
The light of Ocean to its lowest deep,
The inspirer and sustainer here on earth
Of ever-flowing song.
Thetis.
I bless thy words
And in my heart will hold them; Gods who see
Within it may desire me, but they know
I have loved Peleus. When we were so happy
They parted us, and, more unmerciful,
Again unite us in eternal woe.
Peleus.
Powerfuller than the elements their will,
And swifter than the light, they may relent,
For they are mutable, and thou mayest see
Achilles every day and every hour.
Thetis.
Alas! how few! . . I see him in the dust,
In agony, in death, I see his blood
Along the flints, his yellow hair I see
Darken'd, and flapping a red stream, his hand
Unable to remove it from the eyes.
I hear his voice . . his voice that calls on me.
I could not save him; and he would have left
The grots of Nereus, would have left the groves
And meadows of Elysium, bent on war.
Peleus.
Yet Mars may spare him. Troy hath once been won.
Thetis.
Perish he must, perish at Troy, and now.
Peleus.
The now of Gods is more than life's duration;
Other Gods, other worlds, are form'd within it.
If he indeed must perish, and at Troy,
His ashes will lie softly upon hers,
Thus fall our beauteous boy, thus fall Achilles.
Songs such as Keiron's harp could never reach
Shall sound his praises, and his spear shall shine
Over far lands, when even our Gods are mute.
Thetis.
Over his head nine years had not yet past
When in the halls of Tethys these were words
Reiterated oftenest . . O thou brave
Golden-hair'd son of Peleus! What a heap
Of shells were broken by impatient Nymphs
Because of hoarseness rendering them unfit
For their high symphonies! and what reproofs
Against some Tritons from their brotherhood
For breaking by too loud a blast the slumber
Of those who, thinking of him, never slept.
To me appear'd the first light of his eyes,
The dayspring of the world; such eyes were thine
At our first meeting on the warm sea-shore.
Why should youth linger with me? why not come
Age, and then death? The beast of Kalydon
Made his impetuous rush against this arm
No longer fit for war nor for defence
Of thy own people; is the day come too
When it no longer can sustain thy Thetis?
Protend it not toward the skies, invoke not,
Name not, a Deity; I dread them all.
No; lift me not above thy head, in vain
Reproving them with such an awful look,
A look of beauty which they will not pity,
And of reproaches which they may not brook.
Peleus.
Doth not my hand now, Thetis, clasp that foot
Which seen the Powers of ocean cease to rage,
Indignant when the brood of Æolos
Disturbs their rest? If that refreshing breath
Which now comes over my unquiet head
Be not the breath of immortality,
If Zeus hath any thunderbolt for it,
Let this, beloved Thetis, be the hour!
