Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams :: :: University of Virginia Library

When Agelaos heard the first report,
Curses he uttered on the stepmother,
Fewer on Paris by her spells enthrall'd,
For in the man he now but saw the child,
Ingenuous, unsuspicious. He resolved
To hasten back to Ida, praying death
To come and intercept him on the way.
What tale to tell Œnone! and what thanks
From parent at a prosperous son's return,
Anxiously hoped for after many years,
Last gift of wife deserted, now deprived
Of him whose voice, whose gesture, day and night
Brought the beloved betrayer back again
Into her closing and unclosing eyes,
And sometimes with her child upon the knee
Of her who knew him not, nor cared to know.
Grief and indignant virtue wrung her breast
When she repeated to the fond old man
Such intermingled and such transient joys;
But when she met him on his sad return
Ida was hateful in her eyes, for there
Love bore such bitter and such deadly fruit.

When Paris knew the truth, on cheek supine
And cold a thousand kisses he imprest,
Weeping and wailing; he would expiate
(If expiation there might ever be)
The murderous deed: he built up high a pyre
Of fragrant cedar, and in broken voice

348

Call'd on the name, a name he knew so late.
“O Corythos! my son! my son!” he cried,
And smote his breast and turn'd his eyes away;
Grief wrencht him back, grief that impell'd him on,
But soon return'd he, resolute to catch
The fleeting ashes and o'ertake the winds;
So from the brittle brands he swept away
The whiter ashes, placed them in their urn,
And went back slowly, often went alone
In the still night beneath the stars that shed
Light on a turf not solid yet, above
The priceless treasure there deposited.
Achaians, wandering on the shore, observ'd
His movements thither, Laertiades,
Epeos, and that hero last arrived,
Pæantios, catching the cool air with gasps.
There rose the foss before them: they advanced
From the Sigæan side thro' copse and brake
Along the winding dell of darker shade,
Awaiting Paris.

Under a loose string
Rattles a quiver; and invisibly
Hath flown an arrow, and a shout succeeds:
No voices answer it. One listens, groans,
Calls for his foe; but calls not any God's
Or any mortal's aid; he raves, and rests
Upon his elbow. Back thro' the soft sands
They from their ambush hasten, for no shield,
No helmet had they taken, no defence.
Below his knee the arrow has transfixt
The pulp, and hindered all pursuit; in vain
Strove he to tear it out; his vigorous arm
Could only break the arrow; blood flow'd hot
Where he would wrench it.

All night thro', he roll'd
His heavy eyes; he saw the lamps succeed
Each other in the city far below,
He saw them in succession dim and die.
In the fresh morn, when iron light awakes

349

The gentle cattle from their brief repose,
His menials issue thro' the nearer fields
And groves adjacent to explore their lord,
And lastly (where perchance he might be found)
Nearer the pointed barrow of his son.
Thither ran forward that true-hearted race
Which cheers the early morn, and shakes the frost
From stiffened herbs, which lies before the gate
Alike of rich and poor, but faithful most
To the forsaken and afflicted, came
And howl'd and croucht and lickt their master's face,
And now unchided mixt their breath with his.

When man's last day is come, how clear are all
The former ones! Now appear manifest
Neglected Gods, now Sparta's Furies rise,
Now flames the fatal torch of Hecuba
Portended at his birth, but deem'd extinct
Until that arrow sped across the tombs
Of heroes, by a hand unseen, involves
In flame and smoke the loftiest tower of Troy.
Such were the thoughts that vanisht like a mist,
And thee, Œnone, thee alone he sees,
He sees thee under where the grot was strown
With the last winter leaves, a couch for each,
Sees thee betrotht, deserted, desolate,
Childless . . how lately not so! what avail
The promises of Gods? false! false as mine!

“Seek out, ye trusty men, seek out,” said he,
“The Nymph Œnone: tell her that I lie
Wounded to death: tell her that I implore
Her pardon not her aid.”

They, when they reacht
High up the hill the woodland's last recess,
And saw her habitation, saw the door
Closed, and advancing heard deep groans, which brought
Even to the sill her favourite doe and stag
Springing before them with defiant breasts,
They paus'd; they entered; few and slow the words
They brought with them, the last they heard him speak.

350

Briefly she answered with her face aside.

“I could not save my child; one who could save
Would not.”

Thick sobs succeeded.

'Twas not long
Ere down the narrow and steep path are heard
The pebbles rattling under peasants' feet,
Whose faces the dense shrubs at every side
Smite as they carry on his bier the man
Who thinks his journey long; 'twas long to him
Wounded so grievously, to him about
To close his waning day, before his eyes
Might rest on hers and mix with hers his tears.
How shall he meet her?

Where the rocks were clear
Of ivy, more than once the trace is seen
Of name or verse, the hunter's idle score
Indifferent to pursue the chase; and where
There was a leveler and wider track
He might remember, if indeed he cared
For such remembrances, the scene of games
At quoit or cestus closed by dance and feast.
He drew both hands before his face, and wept,
And those who carried him, and found him faint
And weary, placed their burden on the ground,
And with averted faces they wept too.

Œnone came not out; her feet were fixt
Upon the threshold at the opened door,
Her head turn'd inward that her tears might fall
Unseen by stranger; but not long unseen
By Paris: he was in his youth's domains,
He view'd his earliest home, his earliest loves,
And heard again his earliest sighs, and hers.

“After how many and what years!” he cried,
“Return I, O Œnone! thus to thee!”

She answered not; no anger, no reproach;
For, hours before, she prayed the Eumenides
That they would, as befits the just, avenge
The murder of her Corythos; she prayed

351

That she might never have the power to help
The cruel father in the hour of need.
A voice now tells her from her inmost heart,
Voice never, to the listener, indistinct,
It is not granted to so wild a prayer.
Weary of light and life, again she prayed.

“Grant me, O Zeus! what thou alone canst grant.
Is death too great a boon? too much for me,
A wretched Nymph, to ask? bestow it now.”

When she had spoken, on the left was heard
Thunder, and there shone flame from sky serene;
Now on her child and father of her child
Equally sad and tender were her thoughts;
She saw them both in one, and wept the more.
Heedless and heartless wretch she call'd herself,
But her whole life, now most, those words belied.

Paris had heard the words. “Those words were mine
Could I have uttered them: wounds make men weak,
Shame makes them weaker: neither knowest thou,
Pure soul! one fit for immortality!
Let us, Œnone, shouldst thou ever die,
Be here united, here is room for both . .
Both did I say? and not for one beside?
Oh! will his ashes ever rest near mine?”
To these few words he added these few more.
“Restrain, Œnone, those heartrending sobs!”
His he could not restrain, nor deeper groans,
Yet struggled to console her. “Are not these
Our true espousals? Many may have loved
But few have died together!” Then she shriekt
“Let me die first, O husband! Hear my prayer
Tho' the Gods have not heard it! one embrace!
Paris is mine at last; eternally
Paris is mine.

Oh do not thou, my child,
Shun or disdain amid the shades below
Those who now die, and would have died for thee!

The gift of Venus I have often mourn'd,
With this one consolation, that my grief

352

Could not increase: such consolation lasts
No longer: punishment far less severe
Could Heré or could Pallas have decreed
Than Venus on this Ida, where she won
A prize so fatal, and to more than me.”

The maidens of the mountain came and rais'd
Her drooping head, and drew from tepid springs
The water of her grot, and, from above,
Cedar and pine of tender spray, and call'd
Her father Cebren: he came forth, and fill'd
After due sacrifice the larger space
That was remaining of the recent urn.

Paris had given his faithful friends command,
Whether the Fates might call him soon or late,
That, if were found some ashes on his breast,
Those to the bones they covered be restored.