University of Virginia Library

Scene VI.

Callirrhoë's Home.
Callirrhoë.
There are who think that ignorance is sin
Past pardon, since it is incurable
As blindness, when no faculty of sight
Is native to the eyes. I thus have err'd
Unconsciously, or wherefore could he die,
My father? They are mine, these dead.

[Enter Machaon.]
Machaon.
I come
With tidings of Emathion.

Callirrhoë.
He was missed,
And missing, at two death-beds.

Machaon.
I was near
Your brother when the word from Nephele
Was brought; he shrivelled and turned white, so white
I put my arm in his and drew him off.

Callirrhoë.
And little Nephele, you let her die
Without her lover.

Machaon.
That is aptly said.
One coin less to old Chiron.

Callirrhoë.
Afterwards
Did not Emathion hear that suddenly.
My father had been stricken?

Machaon.
Ay, he heard.
But there was that about him made me know
That if I let him look much on the sick
You would be brotherless.

Callirrhoë.
Why, so I am,
Since my dear father on his death-bed found
That he was sonless. Silently he lay;
But after any stirring at the door,—
The neighbours coming in with anxious step,—
He felt about among the fleecy wraps
For his boy's hand, and being baffled, died.

Machaon.
Be not too harsh; it is no cowardice,
Save on the battle-field, to shrink from death.
Fleet-limb'd Emathion from Dodona soon
Will fetch the remedy Æsclepiads
Are fools at mixing. Had I not prevailed
In urging the bewildered silly folk
To seek the oracle, you had been led
Ere now to Bacchus' altar, to allay
The jealous anger of the genial god
For scorn of young Coresus. You divine?

Callirrhoë.
Would they had come and carried me away
To be their victim!

Machaon.
Oh, leave me to choose
If there be sacrifice. There's Agatha,—
I pass her where she piles her pomegranates
Each day, and daily as I pass repent
I deal not, save for health, with poison-herbs.
Her crooked shadow is detestable;
A thing the sun must draw reluctantly.
Now, she would make
A pretty offering for the amorous god,
And the fair marble wall
She sets her fruit by be no more deformed
By the uncomely darkness of her shape.

Callirrhoë.
Speak not profanely; they are mine, these dead.

Machaon.
The air hath been unwholesome many weeks.
Women, disordered and intoxicate
Returning from their revel on the hills,
Have filled their homes with fever, and increased
A sickness that, without this irritant,
Had not exceeded in fatality
The plague of the great feast ten years ago.
Men were not then half frenzied, and a few,
Yielding to counsel, were restored to health.
Now all essay to heal is idleness,
Though one persuade and argue till one's hoarse,
So resolutely they refuse to touch
What has not magic in it. I deceive
No man, and so they die.

Callirrhoë.
Oh, surely those
Whom the gods love live prosperous and blest.

Machaon.

Love! The cow, with a pleasant consciousness
of offspring, may feed the better her calf by
her side. Such complacency my mother feels in my
presence. 'Tis the sole definition of love my experience
warrants. For my part, I've noted Heaven's
best lovers are fortune's most cruel sport. Truly the
enigma crumples one's eyebrows. Nay, crease not yours.
They're not bristly enough to wrestle with the brain's
pugnacious problems. Keep smooth-browed.

[Enter Demophile.]
Demophile.
Oh, my child,
A fury rises 'gainst the Mænads. Some
By their dishevelled hair are haled about,
Trampled and wounded.

Machaon
[restraining Callirhoë].
Mine shall be the task.
I hate these Mænads, and can therefore keep
The crowd in check.
[To Demophile.]
Ægle, the saffron-haired,
With my own hands I carried to the pyre.
So rest her ghost. Now for the angry crowd.

[Exit.
Callirrhoë.
And is your Ægle dead?

Demophile.
Nay, never mind.
You must not tilt my tears over like this.
I carried my grief straight until you spoke.
An' do not look such struggles—let the eyes
Throw down their silver shields and go to sleep.
Under the sycamore I'll settle you,
Where none have died, and there are many bees.

[Exeunt.