University of Virginia Library

Scene VIII.

—Dodona: the sacred grove. Timarete, Nicandra, and Promeneia under three oaks, with their arms lifted. A smoking altar at some distance. Emathion advances to the confines of the grove and kneels.
Emathion.
I hear a sound as if the branches snored,
Hollow and peaceful! What if I should die,
Die suddenly? 'Tis possible, for terror
Oft kills at once. My heart's a stone
That doth depress my side most grievously.
[The wind keeps rising.
The trees wake up. The air is full of noise.
Those ancient women have their hour of grandeur;
Their wrinkles now become them. I shall die!
This shrieking wind will kill me! All the leaves
Stretch out their tongues at me! Why don't they speak?
They move them up and down, and make a noise
As dumb men do, and struggle hideously.
I listen, but there's nothing, nothing, nothing!
[A whirlwind.
Oh, see!
The wind is flaring round the dreadful sisters;
They're twisting spirally! Their hair, their hair!
The wind is carrying it all away
Like whisps of straw!
I think their scarfs will strike against my head,
They seem to grow so long and come so near;
And that I feel would kill me. Heaven help!
What myriad tongues wag at me from the trees!
Would I could hold them still, or tear them out;
But that would want a million hands! O gods!
There's something in the wind which is not noise.
A voice, a voice!

Timarete.
Yes!

Promeneia.
Yes!

Nicandra.
Yes!

Timarete.
Vainly the tomb-fires flashed where the lightning-flame was the midwife
Rending from Semele's womb the boy Zeus had gotten in godhead:
Cephalus' daughter hath scorned the Mænad-cares and Coresus.

Promeneia.
Therefore Zeus will grant no pause from plague ere the maiden
Haughty to Evius' priest shall try the feel of his altars,—
Knife through the milkless breast or riving the throat's spouting vessel.

[Emathion shrieks and falls senseless.
Nicandra.
Keen as the famished for bread, a god in his vengeance claims victims.
Yet will heaven receive the life laid down for another:
Who for Callirrhoë dies, atones her sin of rejection.

Timarete.
Hear!

Promeneia.
Hear!

Nicandra.
Hear!

[The wind slowly goes down and they come out of the grove.
Promeneia.
Where is he? Gone so soon!

Timarete.
What doth she say?

Nicandra.
Hi, sister?

Timarete.
What doth she say?

Nicandra.
Asks where he is.

Timarete.
Along the road—good boy!

Promeneia.
Emathion, Emathion, Emathion!

Timarete.
Her voice—the very squeaking of a mouse!

Nicandra.
Could not be heard the other side o' the bush.

Promeneia.
Emathion, Emathion, Emathion!

Timarete.
She's got it up now to the shriek of an owl.

Nicandra.
Give her an echo; he'll not answer her. “Emathion.”

Promeneia.
He must be far away! I shout so loud.

Nicandra
[stumbling against Emathion].
Why what is this? The stripling; and stone dead!

Timarete.
Nicandra, help me down upon my knee.
He hath but fainted. I can feel his heart.
He'll soon come round, and here's a nurse for him.
[Showing Promeneia.
My back! Nicandra, help me up! My back!
Oh, oh! my back! There—gently, sister!—ho!
Come, Promeneia, squat beside your boy,
Crook up your squeaking knee-joints till he wake.
[To Nicandra.]
That lunge you gave me, sister, might a' loosen'd
The roots o' my back; it almost feels torn up.
I'll thank thee for my stick; it's by the altar.

Nicandra.
I'll fetch it, stay!

[Exit.
Timarete.
And, Promeneia, hold me up a bit.

Promeneia.
I will not. I must light the lamp o' this face.
Gone out completely.

Timarete.
Do, and let me fall.
[Re-enter Nicandra.
Here's my Nicandra, with her harder heart,
Hath brought my stick. We'll shake along together
Who know that we are old and relative.
[To Promeneia.]
Paint, dress in wanton robes!
The interim of this swoon cries out for use;
He'll wake and worship. Thank me, and we'll go.

[Exeunt.
Promeneia.
There's something in it.
I have a pot whose red conserve would dye
The very tint of nature, and a robe
Of richest grain—my mother's—with a hem
That shines as if the sun was underneath
And edged it, as I've often seen a cloud,
And . . . I will do 't! . . . No, no! I will not do it.
If he can love, he loves me as I am,
A brown old woman, shrivelled till her veins
Stand out like those in a mare's side. He's long
In coming to himself. I am a fool!
[She sits by his head, her arms round her knees and her chin on them.
Now I can use him as I will; can gloat
Upon him till my eyes are gorged; can take
His hair up in my hand, thus, thus! A curl
Has caught my finger. He would give to me
A golden ring, a ring; and I will have it
If my one tooth must go. Nay, I have scissors
To cut away this precious bit of him
Which loves me. There! And I can kiss him too.
Can pluck the kisses from his lips as feathers
From strangled birds: and so I will, I will.
I'll pull them from his lips, thus—thus, and thus!
[Kisses him.
He stirs!—Emathion!—and he looks at me!

Emathion.
Are you my grandmother!

Promeneia.
Even so.
Now he will love me.

Emathion.
Yet she died, I know.
How old am I? She watched me when a child.
'Tis very strange! Where am I? Who are you?

Promeneia.
Your grandmother, who never really died,
But went to keep the oracle of Zeus.
Emathion, you are very like your mother;
I watch'd you as you slept, and that revealed it!
Kiss me! I hope you'll love me.

Emathion.
I am not like my mother. I am told
No son was so unlike! Callirrhoë
Is like her! Oh! Callirrhoë—the oracle!
There's something weighs upon me—just as if
A foot was on my heart. Oh, I remember!
You are that damned old woman, and you lie
To call yourself my grandmother! I live
To bear the anguish of my sister's death.
'Twas you said she must die.

Promeneia.
'Twas I that warned you from the oracle;
I, even I. You would not listen then,
Deaf as an adder. Ah! I see, you think
That I'm too old a purse to have within
The golden coins o' kindness.

Emathion.

No help, no help! She'll make a beautiful
corpse. But she must die first, and all the pain of it,
the bleeding, the struggles; there's what makes me
shudder, and I must tell them to do it; and there's no
hope, no help!

Promeneia.
But there is.

Emathion.
What! Help?

Promeneia.
Will you kiss me to tell you?

Emathion.
Kiss you! No!—Yes.

Promeneia.
Thus further spake the oracle:
Yet will heaven receive the life laid down for another;
Who for Callirrhoë dies atones her sin of rejection.

Emathion.

Some one may die for her, die instead of
my sister. She has many lovers—and old Cleitophon—
and—

Promeneia.

You—

Emathion.

Promised . . . I must give it, although
I heave. I can't descend her mouth; it's a valley.
There! [kisses her]
A—ho!

Promeneia.

He's erased it from his lips like a blot!
He's rubbing it off still. Oh, the full, fleshy mouth, it
was like a bee coming down a dried-up flower,—the
roundness, the softness, the warmth came down my hard
crevice, and there was no honey for 't.

Emathion.

This place hath given me a sickness for
life. I'll away. I'm going with my horrible news to
catch the plague and die. Oh, I can't go home!

Promeneia.

Then stay, stay, oh, stay with me! I'll
ask for no more kisses again,—never again, I swear.

Emathion.

Better the plague, for 'tis a short sickness.
I must go home, for I should be tracked if I
went elsewhere; I should be killed if I stayed here,—
and some one will die for her! I'm going.

Promeneia.

Never! I'll have you seized; you must
return.

Emathion.

I'll return if I die not; on my faith, I'll
return, for I mislike you not so much now I discover
your great love, which makes the scale of my favour
heavy. [Aside.]
I'll lie my breath away to escape, for
I'll never, never, never return; and I loathe her as the
smell of a goat. [Aloud.]
I'll but take the oracle to my
city, and then return, so the plague pleases.

Promeneia.
You will?

Emathion.
I will.

Promeneia.
I hope
You are as true as you are beautiful!

Emathion.
Trust me! Farewell.

Promeneia.
Do you affect me enough to—

Emathion.
Shake your kind and honest hand.

Promeneia.
To—

Emathion.

You swore. There's my hand. I'll return.
There's flutter in the beeches! And they'll speak.
There's a wind rising, and they'll speak, and I could not
bear it. They'll say I must die! They're beginning!

But I'll not hear!
[Rushes off.]
Oh, I am leaving hell!

[Exit.
Promeneia.
He's torn my vital parts from out o' me
And carried them away. Yet he'll give back
My life to me. He said he would return:
He said it twice. He also said he liked me—
The dun old woman, with my bits o' hair
That hang like sheep's wool on a wither'd thorn.
He said it! Look, he's on the distant road,
A precious bead that rolls down a white thread.
He drops, and there's the thread without the jewel!
Yet he'll return.
He said so! I am mad to think he will.
He would not kiss me, would not look at me.
He never will return.
Then will I go to him, though bowed with age,
Bowed almost double as a sail with wind.
I'll go to-morrow; nay, to-night; nay, now.
My stick, and kindly lifts in car and waggon
Will help me on. And here I cannot stay.
I'm not an owl or bat that hates the light;
I love it, and the light is in his face.

[Exit: on the other side re-enter Timarete and Nicandra pointing after her.
Timarete.
Ha! ha!

Nicandra.
Hi, hi!

Timarete.
Ha, ha!

Nicandra.
Hi, hi! Light crone!

Timarete.
Sister, she's good to make me cry a bit.
There's nothing touches me, and I must laugh
To find a use for tears. Upon my jowl
There's one that tickles me.

Nicandra.
It is a flea.
I've got it! Ay, for laughter I could sob.

Timarete.
It's comforting, the moisture, when your eyes
Are dry as beetle-cases. Her's are damp,
So damp I wonder that there are no frogs
Within 'em; yet she thinks that men can love
Peer in their dank enclosures.

Nicandra.
Naughty sister!
You'll force me to a crying bout o' mirth.
Hi! hi!

Timarete.
Ha! ha!

[Exeunt.