 | Callirrhoë |  |
ACT III.
Scene I.
—Citadel of Calydon: Acephalus, Megillus; Machaon on a higher level.Machaon.
Truly this is to affect the god. Thus the
Olympians, choosing a vauntage-ground above the field,
watch men's passions interact. Well, I can do it, and
play the god. 'Tis all I can. There's Acephalus, retributive,
alert, with tight lips where no breath passes.
[Enter Cleitophon.]
Here's old Cleitophon! He makes the hill-brow his
afternoon stroll—nothing perturbed; for the pious have
buzzings from their own bosoms they interpret oracularly,
—a small Dodonic grove in the rocky region of their
prejudices that knows which way the wind blows. How
now, Megillus? Those rosy cheeks belie the rueful
visage.
Megillus.
Why, doctor, I shall be a poor man if the
young fruits keep shrivelling. There's a blight in nature;
something offends. Could you counsel me?
Machaon.
You remember that round the temple of
Æsclepius some folks are stationed, with brains, to be
referred to if the divinity be not curative. Why, man,
you are the only mortal, not half-crazed by sorrow, who
gods hate inhuman parents. Don't tremble so; the
destruction of a few figs is light punishment! I advise
you be patient—Ah! [starting]
—and go help my mother
up the hill; the steepness distresses her.
[Exit Megillus.
Yes, truly, 'mid the dotted dark of yon patch of vine
something stirred. Then I lost it in the cypress grove;
yet I'll fasten my eye on the near edge of the black
trees. If he keep the path he cannot issue un-noted.
Meanwhile, I'll divert these watchers and myself by
learning their unofficial predictions; if these clash with
the oracle, how the fools will be crest-fallen!
[Enter Megillus with Aglauria.]
Aglauria.
I see you climb
Daily the hill as I; 'tis well to learn
How thinks the oracle before one thinks.
Acephalus.
You're curious. The plague has harmed
you not; but should you care—that son you have so doted
on—to leave his clammy corpse, and learn how the winds
blew over Dodona's oaks? An' though it felled the
Titan branches, could it trouble you? Hard woman, I
say Chiron must crowd his boat for the return passage he
ever makes in solitude, ere this calamity be repaired.
Machaon.
Well, if we're all bid straight get drunk and dance,
My comely mother, will you lead the step?
Aglauria.
I shall do what is best.
Machaon.
Time-serving is the true elastic mean
I err in the defect. Old Cleitophon
Is piety stone-blind. [To Cleito.]
What will you do
If faun-skins become ordinary wear
In Calydon; will you be singular?
Cleitophon.
We need no oracle to show our deeds
Clear heinousness. We know where lies the guilt—
By Artemis' lone altars.
[Enter Demophile.
Machaon.
My good nurse,
What brings you to the brow?
Demophile.
Care of my child.
Dear heart! But yester-night a mother brought
A dead stark babe and threw it at her feet.
Since then she has not cried at all. She sits
And spins, and sometimes in an altered voice
Sings snatches of her songs.
Acephalus.
He comes! he comes!
All.
Where, where?
Acephalus.
Out o' the cypress-grove, and he brings death.
Aglauria.
Machaon, he is here!
Machaon.
Hum! Would you make my knowledge know?
Aglauria.
Knew you?
Machaon.
Ay, you begot a prophet.
Megillus.
We'll make him answer for his sloth.
Acephalus.
Sharply.
Machaon.
Now to this people in extreme distress
The gods will give some riddle; it diverts
I have oft tried it. How divinity
Is imitative of my ways, or I
At heart oracular of the divine!
Aglauria.
Oh, see, he comes! Let each man shut his mouth;
Now shall we learn where lies the safest way.
Acephalus.
The safest way! I'll learn where lies the guilt.
[Rushes to meet Emathion.
Demophile.
Oh, now my girl will have her fears relieved!
Cleitophon.
Now will the Bacchic worship be supprest;
The land made clean!
Megillus.
Haply by sacrifice.
Whatever may be asked for we must give.
Machaon.
Truth, father! thinking little of thy life,
If the gods fancy that.
Megillus.
My life! Let those who have begot this plague
Die to allay it, if 'tis so decreed.
Machaon.
Great zeal for justice! Now I think of it,
That very day you beat poor Nephele,
The pestilence—
Before it was a summer sickness—grew
Deadly in force. That I distinctly marked.
The gods, discriminative, will adjust—
Aglauria.
Peace!
[Enter Acephalus, dragging Emathion.
Approachest? Speak, for the plague rages still.
Acephalus.
They are all ashes in the city. Give
A victim to our vengeance.
Demophile.
Speak, she dies,
Callirrhoë, if you delay—
Emathion.
She dies!
Gods, ye said truly. Why, what need of me.
Oh, is she dying fast?
Machaon.
How dare you tax
A man o'er-heated, unrefreshed? He raves.
Give him some drink. Rest on my arm awhile,
And then interpret what the doves and oaks
In concert with Dodona's breezes spoke.
Emathion.
What! Have you heard it, the great
clashing wind?
Machaon.
You see, the prophet's vacancy disturbs
brain's normal action.
[Enter a crowd of Citizens.]
1st Cit.
Speak! the oracle.
2nd Cit.
Speak, or we'll tear your throat to find the
words!
3rd Cit.
What is it? What's to do?
Machaon.
Emathion, make a clean breast of it.
Emathion.
Oh, the burthen of the oracle! the wind
seemed in labour of it, and moaned heavily.
1st Cit.
Do you think, man, we care for its mumbling?
[They lay hold on Emath.
Emathion.
She's to die, do you hear? And the
—you shall have it—as the women tore the sobs out.
Callirrhoë herself, so she find none to die for her, must
die for scorn of Evius' priest.
It said the knife—
It said—through her milkless—Oh, Machaon!
Machaon.
I'm a favourite with the babies; they're
always for my shoulder. You see here's a big one
requesting it. You're too old for a ride. What shall I
do with you? I'd laugh him into manhood.
Demophile.
But we will die.
I will die gladly, and who would not die?
Machaon.
Oh, doubtless many will give votes for death,
Writing a comrade's name upon the shell,
Never their own, for that were insolent
Self-choice in privilege. Nurse, not so fast.
Think you Emathion will not joyfully
Prevent you to preserve Callirrhoë.
Emathion.
Who—I? Why must it be her very blood.
Is there not one who loves her in this town
Would succour her? [Silence.]
Or if indeed her blood,
My uncle Cleitophon, I know your care
And scrupulous observance towards the gods.
You have been foremost in misguided zeal;
And now will doubtlessly desire to bear
The chiefest penalty.
Machaon
(aside).
He dug his nails
But I'll not be the still prey of his fears.
Let him look to't.
Cleitophon.
Except one die for her!
Were not obedience most precise if she
Herself should die?
Aglauria
[looking anxiously at Machaon].
Well said; a substitute
Will never satisfy. Thalia asked
This onyx ring of me. I prize the hoop,
And gave instead chalcedony fair set;
But ever on my finger jealously
She hath kept watch. Is it not laughable
To think the gods would take a shrunken thing
As you, or me, or indeed any one
But just the dainty creature of their choice?
Machaon.
Try them, Emathion; you are young and fair.
Emathion.
She never would consent. You, all of you
Refuse? Why, uncle, I ne'er had a doubt
You would not by a decade forestall death.
Cleitophon.
It is a pious maiden! Shall we learn
How lies her will before we intervene
With fond, precipitate suggestion?
1st Cit.
Her will! 'Tis settled she must die for us.
She dies! She must! she shall!
Machaon.
And you speak reason.
We must not waver; yet an instant pause.
I'll learn the exact conditions, truth's details,
From this poor boy. Soon as we clearly know
Th'ordained victim, we'll go fetch the priest.
Misread a word o' the oracle, we lay
Fresh miseries upon us.
[Citizens talk apart.
[To Emathion.]
Look you here!
She must not die,—
Why, I would die to save her. Save I will,
But never pander to a priestly fool.
Go, bid her fly by the far entrance,
And fly yourself,—there! Change your feet to wings.
And, nurse, prepare and have in readiness
Old garments fitted to dress up escape.
[Exit Demophile.
Stare not so aimlessly; address the crowd
One moment, ere you flee.
Emathion.
I cannot tell—I—I will die for her!
Machaon.
You! till the knife gleams,—but presumably—
Come, exercise your rhetoric; the crowd
Will tear you if you tender not the word,
And promise instant reparation.
Offer to die for her! I'll see you safe.
Emathion.
Good citizens,
Behold me here a wretched, doomèd man,
You thought to welcome a deliverer;
Suppliant I clasp your knees. Most faithfully
And for reward
Learn that this city must be purified
By blood—my sister's or—
Machaon.
He'll choke to death.
Emathion.
My own,—
If none whom life abuses takes this means
Of ridding him of all its miseries.
1st Cit.
We will not listen, we have died enough.
Come, we will bind you.
Machaon.
Softly, gentle friends.
Emathion misinterprets in his haste
To save his sister. 'Tis the girl must die,
If she accept not one to die for her.
Most manifestly she will never choose
Her only brother; me she would but flaunt
As somewhat liberal in my censorship
Of certain phases of Olympic life.
A victim must be passive as a sheep,
Ba-minded, or he'll irritate. You all
Are well content Callirrhoë should die.
She will be well content. Yet ruffianly
To fright and bind her were inhuman. Pause,
[To Emath.]
Keep from her doors a moment's interim.
Prepare your sister. We will keep the brow.
[Exit Emath.
Scene II.
—Callirrhoë's Home. Enter Callirrhoë and Emathion.Callirrhoë.
What says the oracle?
Emathion.
The word is you must die, ere Calydon
Be saved—except . . .
Callirrhoë.
Why pause you? Give me all.
Emathion.
One die for her. My uncle Cleitophon
Refuses, holding precious his grey hair.
Callirrhoë.
My brother, what said he?
Emathion.
Callirrhoë, if you would have it so . . .
If so . . . but yet . . .
'Twas your peculiar impiety,
Slighting Coresus' love, that brought the town
To this great pass. . . But if you'd have it so . . .
Callirrhoë, have it . . .
Callirrhoë.
None will die for me?
Emathion.
Not Cleitophon; the elders were all mute.
Callirrhoë.
It is not that.
You will not die for me. Indeed, I thought
The city loved me.
Emathion.
My dear sister, think.
Men love their lives. You know not how it hurts—
The spectral crowd and the grim ferryman—
Sharp from the burning sunshine and blithe youth.
Come to Demophile's.
My dearest, fly, and we shall both be saved.
Callirrhoë.
My city—I will save it! Oh, be soothed
Poor mother, bending o'er thy tortured babe;—
Say to this people I in ignorance
Have wrought them evil, let them flock to see
The expiation.
Emathion.
No, I'll never see
Knife near your breast.
Callirrhoë.
Although you pierced it through,
Emathion, when I knew you could not die
To save me. Think'st thou I had suffered it,
My beautiful, so amorous of the light?
What, give my mother's only boy to death!
Not so. I was a little grieved you failed,
But so you failed at the palæstra once,
Itys proved stronger—was it possible?
And so I kissed you. Now I add farewell!
Emathion.
Farewell, farewell! What would you have me do?
What do you mean? To leave me raving mad,
To wander round the temple? Stay with me,
Stay with me, succour, teach me to escape!
I shall go mad. I'm like a lighted torch—
There's fire upon my head. Deliver me!
Callirrhoë.
Vex not my few last breaths. Be serious.
Demophile will tend you faithfully,
Nay, dote on you. Think of Callirrhoë
Where she hath been most happy, by the brook;
And of my father, raising to his lips
My little twy-eared bowl.
Emathion.
No, not like that;—
Well, you must love this taste o' the shambles, love it,
To choose it. There, they'll drag me. From the hill
I hear them shriek Emathion. 'Tis like
Actæon with the hounds about his heart!
Pull them away!
Callirrhoë.
Emathion, be calm.
Fear not this people; 'tis for me they cry.
You, by this secret portal shall escape
And take the narrow cliff stairs to the home
Of good Demophile, who ever watches
Her children's blanching faces. Stay with her
Till you see health's bright tincture on their cheeks;
That is the sign that Calydon is saved,
And all at peace.
Emathion.
You . . .?
Callirrhoë.
Think you have left me at the spinning-wheel.
[Shuts and bolts the door behind him.
And that is true. A few more fateful threads!
The scissors blink on me. How very still
It is. They're waiting me. My little bed
Looks dreary, as they'd newly borne away
A corpse from it; ay, and a maiden corpse,
No children crowd to kiss.
To give one's body, with its great desire
For love—the very love it's fashioned for,
As firebrand for the flame-tip—to be cut
Away from sense, so that unlovingly
Men will behold it! Oh, my Hylia!
He hath mistook his place—the rear of love,
Never the vanward. Shame on me! They come!
[Exit.
SCENE III.
—A hill-side, Calydon; on the opposite height a troop of Mænads. Enter Coresus.Coresus.
These lovely ranks I've marshalled for the god,
And the plague-heaps o' the city! Oh, it's vile,
That work; it crazes me. All sights are turned
To madness; all the deep tenacious loves
Drop from my life. Anaitis dead; the faun—
And I had sought for him the whole night through—
My faun. I found him in a moony nook;
So deep his slumber, an arbutus-bell,
Fallen on his lid, there lay; a woodmouse curled
Asleep upon his breast; the topmost lock
On's head hung loose as aspen-leaf to the wind.
Save for that little touch
Of life's disorder, I had feared, he lay
In stillness so deep settled.—Were she hurt,
Hurt to the very quick! All's well with her,
I'm left with my torn Mænads. I'd not live
To be the butt of my malediction,
But for the oracle,
The oracle, that yet may ruin her.
It's a way of tracking guilt down to the seed,
And the guilt's her's. My hands are stained with it
Red to the fibre. (Enter Dione.)
What o' the oracle?
Dione.
Oh, nothing of the oracle?
Coresus.
Then, indeed,
Nothing of note.
Dione.
The bleating children come
Up here. I find them wet-faced i' the cold.
Coresus.
It's nothing; it's the plague.
Dione.
No; the flesh was sound, but the face had a
sort of cry in it. Methinks it died for its mother.
[Enter Messenger.]
Messenger.
Oh, quick, Coresus, for from the oracle
Emathion hath returned, and the word is, Cephalus'
daughter must die for the insult done to Evius' priest.
They've brought her to the altars. None will die for
her. She's waiting. Quick! or she'll not feel it, if
you're laggard.
Coresus.
Will she faint?
Messenger.
No; her face grows sharp and hard as
sculpture. She must bleed. Oh, come to her! The
plague will not budge while she's breathing.
Coresus.
What! No quiver till the knife-thrust?
Dionysus, I thank thee for this rare victim. All things
to my hand. Yet 'tis possible she escape me. All's
marred if one die for her. How said you?
Messenger.
None will die for her; she, Callirrhoë,
stands at the altar steps.
Dione.
Callirrhoë! It's the girl with the blind father,
that sings.
Sings! Have you heard her of late, have
you marked her?
Dione.
To bring all this death! No marvel they'l
not die for her.
Coresus.
Peace, fool! The plague's mine. I own it.
Did you say none would die for her? Deaf, deaf, the
whole city full. O Dionysus, thou tormentest as a god!
Dione.
The people perish. Think! they're innocent.
Save them.
Coresus.
The plague's mine; her blood's mine. I
thirst for it. To uncistern her very heart! And to
think one must get at it as at a beast's heart!—her heart
—Callirrhoë's. See the great knife be sharp. To the
altars!
[Exeunt.
Scene IV.
—Demophile's house. A child in a cradle. Enter Demophile with some clothes.Demophile.
There they be—ancient hoods and coarse
old wraps. This will hang about my girl; and there's
a gown will sit on the sturdy doctor to the very life;
an' this will muffle up the boy. I've kept the dingiest
for the boy; he's so much beauty to hide. May
they all prosper! The babe sleeps My babes were all
restless; but they rest now.
[Knocking.]
Who's there?
Emathion
[without].
Nurse, nurse, nurse!
Demophile
[opening the door].
All right, it is all right.
Everything's ready.—But what haps that you look so
wild and ashy? Is it well with her?
No; ill, ill!
Demophile.
Would she not fly?
Emathion
No, no. She wanted to die. It's against
nature, but she wanted to die.
Demophile.
Is she gone?
Emathion.
Yes, yes! Shut the door! She's no
hinges like that! You can't move her.
Demophile.
'Tis a brave lass, an' I'm glad my milk
went to her making. An' you've left her to die, you
wretched, puny brother? Why, she'd have given you her
blood like a pelican—the tender white thing she is!
When you slapt her in the face and I cuffed you, how
she flushed up and coddled you with her cooing “There
then.” Yes, hang your head and set your lips a-trembling!
I'm glad on 't. An' let me tell you, I never
liked you, and to-day I think you're nothing but offal.
I've a good mind to throw you out o' doors.
Emathion.
O nurse, have pity! Let me stay. She
will die, and she sent me here.
Demophile.
There's no time to spare. Be a good
boy, a good, loving boy, and come wi' me to die for her.
As the kernel's in the hard nut, is happiness in this
hard death. If not . . . Will you come?
Emathion.
I dare not—I cannot; and she sent me
here.
Demophile.
Then stay, and rock the babe—it's all
you're good for. If I return not, take it to it's mother.
Theron's wife. Mind what I say, and rock it.
[Exit.
[dropping on a stool and rocking mechanically].
Oh, I'm unspeakably wretched. And this hateful
child knows not, cares not, with its even humming
breath and its eyes, like two doves' nests with sleep on
them. I can't bear it! I must pinch the child to make
it feel a little, feel pain with me. It shall not mock
me; it shall be hurt like me, be miserable.
[Pinches it.]
There! But it does not content. I must out. I must,
I must, I must see all! Her blood draws me like a
cord to my ankle. They won't note me if I crouch
down. And I must go, wretched, wretched Emathion!
[Exit stealthily.
Scene V.
—Without, afterwards within, the Temple. Enter Callirrhoë, Machaon, Megillus, and Citizens.Callirrhoë.
My people, I am come to die for you;
Curse me no more. To-night in Calydon
There shall be health and sleep.
1st Cit.
Hurry her on!
My children peak and pine, and I must watch
My own good flesh I gave 'em drop away
Like the patrimony of a prodigal.
2nd Cit.
My father's eye was red
As embers on the hearth. Oh! let her die
Before it is a cinder in his head.
Old Man.
My arm's hot. Let her die
Before my stomach burn, and then my pyre!
Push on, push on, ye sluggards! Swords and knives!
I'd make a quicker business.
Sculptor.
Ah! superb
Her attitude! With thong of her own fingers
She's bound her arms back from surrendered breast.
I've got a subject that will make me great.
Woman.
The child is hot and purple as a fig;
It is my only child, and I am old.
Oh, save it!
Callirrhoë
I am ready.
[Enter Demophile].
1st Cit.
What a face!
Sickness and hurry do alternately
Pinch and dilate its features. Let her pass.
Here, woman, drop beneath my arm, just so!
What news?
Demophile.
None, none . . . Oh, stop! for I am come
To die, d'ye hear; to die instead of her.
Dear heart! she's never had upon her skin
Aught red but sticky bits o' sycamore—
That she should have it dabbled with her blood!
Machaon.
'Tis the wet nurse!
Callirrhoë.
It shall not be. Your milk
Feeds the weak human grafts, the stranger shoots
They put within your bosom. Mine's a fountain
Which never hath received within its basin
That it was formed to hold. Demophile,
You'll see how nicely I can walk to death.
Demophile.
Her blood, her blood!
[Faints.
Callirrhoë.
This hand hath often held my clothes for me.
It must not hold them now. You do no service,
Poor kindly fingers—loose.
Machaon.
Your eyes are tearful.
Callirrhoë.
It is giddiness.
Machaon.
You stooped.
Callirrhoë.
I'm straight. They crush me?
Machaon.
Off! stand off!
Acephalus.
The priest, where is the priest?
Callirrhoë.
He keeps me waiting!
Machaon.
Brute!
Callirrhoë.
Comfort my brother.
I used to nurse him when he cried. Machaon,
Comfort him; he hath need.
Machaon.
'Twere better far
Blister the inflammation of his terror
Than pacify with lenatives. Nay, nay!
I'll do it for your sake, Callirrhoë.
Cleitophon.
Hail, my dear kinswoman, so glorified of
the gods, so honoured in death, so dignified as a patriot,
so sanctified as a mortal, so beatified as a maid!
[Enter Promeneia among the crowd.]
Promeneia.
I'm sick and full of pain; a fever runs
Beneath my skin that's dried upon my veins
Stiff as a bat's wing; and my eyes—they feel
O' the sockets. I'm o'er tired; and yet, be brave,
Old sinews! I will beat ye on no more
When I have seen Emathion. His sister!
I thought she'd all the graces o' the world
To be his sister.
1st Cit.
By my word o' faith,
This is a cruel waiting.
2nd Cit.
She looks sick.
He's never kept a beast so long.
[Enter Emathion, creeping behind the crowd.
Promeneia.
'Tis he!
How like a god he looks!
Emathion, I am here.
Emathion.
Oh, horror, horror!
Woman.
Why don't her brother die? [To the child.
Hush-a-hush!
Mother will blow on thy hot little head.
Curse the slow priest!
[Exit Emath.
1st Cit.
Well said, dame. Let's haul up her brother
to the altar. We must pull him as an ox, for he will
walk not as a man.
Promeneia.
You want to kill Emathion? Kill me!
'Tis all the same, because of love!
1st Cit.
Ho! ho!
2nd Cit.
Ha! ha!
3rd Cit.
Just listen! An' he wants to live
To fondle her!—the beautiful Emathion!
Would marble mate with dung?
'Tis a strange world!
2nd Cit.
Well, we must give him up; but we'll not
speak with him henceforth—only hoot at him, mock,
howl, gibber, jeer, and execrate till his flesh shall be sore
with shame, as a bull's hide with gad flies.
[To Prom.]
Come, you said you'd die.
Promeneia.
For him. I will not move a step for her.—
With agony my gums butt at each other.
I cannot stand.—Die you for her. She's nothing.
2nd Cit.
Come on!
Promeneia.
I will not die, I will not die! Oh! oh!
[Falls.
2nd Cit.
A case of plague!
1st Cit.
Away! We're pressed on her.
3rd Cit.
Let us be gone.
1st Cit.
The priest! He comes at last;
He'll stop infection!
[Enter Coresus.
[Pointing to Callirrhoë]
See, her pallor's red
As painted ivory of a goddess' cheek.
2nd Cit.
But the brown priest is pale.
Promeneia.
Lonely and dying! Hateful death, to steal
This weight of love away from my lock'd heart.
Old chests are strong!
You shall not; for I'll fight your each essay
To turn the key! And, oh, it is a fight
Tears me to shreds!
Coresus
[to Callirrhoë].
And will none die for you?
Have you no lover?
For my people, I
Come joyfully to die; each breath I draw
Delays deliv'rance; choose where thou wilt strike.
Coresus.
It is the heart hath sinned. Bare the right breast.
[Aside.
Oh, lovely, snowy summit to the rock
Of her hard heart!—Come near. Behold, ye people,
This maiden-victim. Ye have sorely sinned,
And so hath she, more deeply than you all.
Your sins and hers are blacker than the soles
Of a slave's feet, more vile. Then wonder not
Heav'n sent this hungry-jawed voracious plague,
This tiger of its wrath, to tear your flesh
With teeth of maddening pangs.
Promeneia.
Oh! oh!
Coresus.
Ye hear the cries
That mark its savage feast. Repent! repent!
[Emathion glides behind Promeneia, who seizes him by the foot.
Promeneia.
Emathion, water! My tongue's leather!
For you I'd drain the well o' my body. A little water!
Emathion.
There's for your thirst, and curse you!
[Strikes her dead with a blow on the temple.
They'll have me; they're after me. I'm the pole to a
tent of horror. It's all round me.
[Exit running.
Callirrhoë
[aside].
My brother!
Has he repented? Does he comes at last?
Gone, gone!
Impenitence is man's foolhardiness
Toward God.
Citizens.
We do confess the Bromian;
Have mercy, Dionysus!
Callirrhoë.
And forgive.
[Coresus turns and looks at her.
Coresus.
Behold, great god, this people's humbled mind,
Forgive, and on their sacrifice be pleased
To look with favour. They will worship thee
As I have worshipped. They will drink thy wine
As I have drunk; will know and prophesy.
[Aside.]
Oh, I unanchor—I must die—leave her.
[Aloud.]
Callirrhoë, you are ready?
Callirrhoë.
Yes.
Coresus
[raising the knife].
Accept
The sacrifice!
My god, my god! she's white as holy milk
They pour on other altars; thine must have
Wine. I am dark, and liker wine than she.
I'll keep thy ritual! Behold, I pour!
[Stabs himself.
1st Cit.
He struck wrong, see!—the priest!
2nd Cit.
He struck himself.
3rd Cit.
Yes, yes; he'll bleed to death, dry up the stream
Of blood; tis from his heart.
Callirrhoë.
Nay, touch him not,
I am his Mænad, I alone believe;
The sacrifice. Cry Io for the god!
Citizens.
Io! Io! Io!
Callirrhoë.
He heard the cry, Coresus, your great priest.
A rapture crossed him. Now he hears no more.
I may a little praise him. Calydon,
Bear in your heart your high deliverer.
Swear ye will live no more to common ends
Of food and toil and habit. Swear that here
In condemnation of your petty lives
There shall be mighty passions solemnized
By masque and chorus, that all men may learn
The wealth of such emotion as empowers
To deed like this. All hail, Coresus, hail!
Citizens.
We swear.
All hail, Coresus, our deliverer!
Callirrhoë.
Now go home.
Go all of you, and see how fare the sick.
1st Cit.
Let's see if they are mended.
2nd Cit.
Run, run home.
3rd Cit.
We'll go. Perchance the sick who died last night,
Will presently recover.
1st Cit.
Ay, we'll see.
2nd Cit.
And do you think my wife will live again?
1st Cit.
Who knows!
Woman.
Oh! the child's cooler.
All.
Dionysus, hail!
[Exeunt.
[Machaon goes up and looks at the corpse.]
No hope to staunch that blood. Machaon, seek
Dione, tell her that I come to her
In the deep woods. Oh, tell her—break it soft—
The Mænads have no priest.
[Exit Machaon.
Ah me! ah me!
How thou did'st ope thine eyes wide at the shout;
And I looked down on thee and drank thy love.
I am a Mænad; I must have love's wine,
Coresus, and you die before my face,
Leaving me here to thirst. I dare not mar
Thy holy death, mixing my fruitless blood
With this most precious, sacrificial stream.
Thine be this day's full glory. Oh, my dead,
[taking the knife]
Thus I despoil thee!
[Exit.
[Enter Emathion, creeping round the pillars; advances to Promeneia's body.]
Emathion.
Hath she moved? Oh! she looks but a
heap of wrinkled marl! I thought not a corpse was so
like soil. I had it in my mind to kiss her; but she's so
earthy, she'd crumble into my lips and choke me! I
meant but to say, “Be quiet”—no more; but she took it
so seriously. She's too brown! But my sister is white.
'Twill be fair to see.
[Advances to Coresus' body.]
What!
Brown too—but smooth as clay? Brown, and it looks
not like her. I'm going mad, going mad; for it looks
brown and strange. Oh! I'm mad; for my sister looks
not like my sister, and I'm her brother and should know;
am mad, mad, mad!
[Re-enter Citizens.
1st Cit.
Who's this wolf that smells the dead?
2nd Cit.
Stone him off! 'Tis her brother!
3rd Cit.
The coward!
1st Cit.
Clap him, clap him; he's the hero of the day.
Emathion
[with a warning movement of his hand].
Plague! Plague! Plague! Plague! Plague!
[Exit.
1st Cit.
He says “Plague!” Perchance the god
hath shut it up in him.
2nd Cit.
Well, I'm for Bacchus.
3rd Cit.
The knife's gone.
1st Cit.
Oh, he's ta'en it.
3rd Cit.
He'd best use it! Death would be better
than life now, if you'd give him the scales to weigh 'em.
1st Cit.
O noble priest!
2nd Cit.
O brave deliverer!
[Exeunt with the body of Coresus.
3rd Cit.
[re-entering].
We'd best burn the old
stranger. No fear to touch her now. What's this on
her finger? Hair!—a strange ring, i' faith! I know
nothing about her.
[Exit with the body of Promeneia.
Scene VI
A Plot of Grass in a Wood.[Faun dancing and singing].
Faun
I dance and dance! Another faun,
A black one, dances on the lawn.
He moves with me, and when I lift
My heels, his feet directly shift.
I can't out-dance him, though I try;
He dances nimbler than I.
I toss my head, and so does he;
What tricks he dares to play on me!
I touch the ivy in my hair;
Ivy he has and finger there.
The spiteful thing to mock me so!
I will outdance him! Ho! ho! ho!
Machaon
[behind the trees].
A sight to shake the stiffest sides on earth!
'Twould force a misanthorpe to hang a smile
Upon his lip, as dew-drop on a thorn.
Plutus beholding this would fill with noise
Of laughter all the hollow of his voice,
So exquisitely laughable it is.
'Tis one of nature's jokes she's mistress of.
The little fool
Tries to outcaper his own shadow. Ha!
With what a pettish energy he springs,
His forelock nodding to his sportive heels.
Thus man toils oft for the Impossible
But here's a jocund close to hopeless toil!
He's lying all a-grin because he lies
Upon his shadow, which he reckons caught.
Ha! ha! The very sediments of mirth
Are stirred throughout my nature. This gay knave
I'll question.
[Parting the trees.
Faun.
Ha! ha! ha!
Machaon.
What have you caught?
Something philosophers themselves can't seize
With all their definitions. We'll revere
One who has caught himself, and at his feet
Sit like small scholars.
[Faun offers to run away.
Nay, you shall not go.
I'll make you talk first. You're a funny thing!
Faun.
Oh, let me go! I'll bite! Oh, let me go!
Machaon.
A natural philosopher, I see,
Apt with his mouth. I want to hear you talk.
For lies you are not keen enough. Methinks
The innocence of truth hath never fled
This simple mouth, though like a nested bird
It soon gets feathers, and betakes itself
Even from infant lips. Come, sit you down.
Faun.
No! no!
Machaon.
Down with you. Why, you're on the shade
That danced with you. He's under you! Sit firm!
There's my good knave; you see I mean no harm;
And when you've told me all I want to hear,
Faun.
I will not dance.
Machaon.
No sulks, I'll have no sulks.
Come, tell me what you are, whether a boy
Or but a boyish creature.
Faun.
I'm a faun.
Machaon.
And what is that?
Faun.
Why, 'tis a faun!
Machaon.
Just so.
But then you're not a boy?
Faun.
I am a faun.
Machaon.
His slow conception blocks my questions up.
Well, can you tell me how you were begot?
Dropt from the womb of Nature, I should say;
Or had you once a mother?
Faun.
I'm a faun.
Machaon.
A truism, my rustic sage! But how
Did you become a faun?—I'll try plain phrase.—
Cannot you tell
Aught of your childhood,—of the time, I mean,
When you were smaller?
Faun.
Oh, I danced as now,
And crushed the acorn-cups, and ran the deer,
Sucked the ripe mulberries, tossed the chestnuts up,
As I do now, and . . .
Machaon.
Yes, I understand.
—O Eloquence, the tongue of Love, appeal
To cherished memories of simple things,
And thou art on the silliest of lips
Your life in woods; or is this very wood
Its one green limit?
Faun.
Once I found the trees
Grow few, so few, like hyacinths in June,
Which made me very sorry; then, I saw
Grass without any shade on which I ran.
But then did I grow frightened, for I'm sure
The shade cares for me, and will keep me safe.
And I ran back.
Machaon.
Poor little fool! I shrink
Thus from a new aspect of life, before
Unknown. I cannot run away, like you,
To shades of ignorance to hide amaze.
Have you got any human qualities?
Speak, are you quite inhuman?
Faun.
I'm a faun.
Machaon.
—Like all the world, he doth repeat himself,
Making an adage stuff the holes of thought.
Yet I'm too rough, through grief's ill-timed assault.—
You dance and talk, both actions of the man,
And yet there's something in you I can't fit
Into humanity. I can't tell what.
Faun
[offering to jump up].
Now I may go!
Machaon.
Stop! Tell me, can you love?
Faun.
I love Coresus.
Machaon.
Ah! and you love him!
What do you know of him?
Faun.
He's kind to me.
The knowledge of a brute. I hoped for more.
What! from this simpleton.—He loved your wood?
Faun.
He loves it, and he often plays with me, . . .
Machaon.
How dull are the unfearing to suspect!
Faun.
And bends the bough of the high fir for reach
Of my hand wanting cones, and then he strokes
The smooth back of a deer, and binds its neck
With ivy-leaves, at which, oh, how I laugh!
And then he laughs, and then I clap my hands.
Machaon.
Hast thou seen any in the woods to-day?
Faun.
Two, with their noses on a mossy root,
That looked at me, and . . .
Machaon.
I meant any man.
Hast thou seen man or maiden in these glades?
Faun.
No! no! He has not come so long a time.
When will he come again?
Machaon.
No more, no more.
—I'd better spell the manuscript of Death
To these untutored ears. This ignorance
So blessèd in the present may afflict
The future, with its wonder unallayed,
That growing drearily, at last becomes
The brutish misery that never knows.
—He's dead.
Faun.
Does that mean that he's angry with me?
Oh, I'll be good,
If he will come again, and not be dead!
Machaon.
—He'll melt my manhood! It is strange most strange;
Set ignorance to question, and it straight
Declines to lisping. I am childish-mouthed
Before this unschooled creature.—Come to me.
You will not? Nay, but I must have you near
If I'm to tell you what we mean by dead.
—I make too solemn preparations,
(Oh, cruel priestcraft of my tender dread!)
He's frightened. Brevity but cuts the flesh
Of our anxieties; prolixity
Tears it. So I'll be brief.—
You said that you were sorry when in June
The hyacinths drop away?
Faun.
Yes.
Machaon.
When they're gone.
You cannot get them back again?
Faun.
I can.
Not for a while, but then their streaky buds
Shoot up, and soon they're all with me again.
Machaon.
—Ah! I must give a better rendering
From Death's old bone-grey parchment.—Right, you're right!
The hyacinths blue the ground spring after spring,
Although with different flowers from those you bunched
In grasp too small last year. For oft your hands
Are greedy with the flowers?
Faun.
No, for they look
Long-faced and tired, and do not smile at me
As when they stick straight up out of the ground.
—A thread to guide me, through the labyrinth
Of his simplicity and ignorance,
To the mid-chamber, dark and windowless,
Where understanding lies!—The tired flowers
Grow ugly, lose
All likeness to the bells you jerked about
So merrily when they were purple?
Faun.
Yes.
When they grow tired, I lay them on the grass;
I love to lie upon the grass when tired,
And then they go.
Machaon.
That going I call Death.
Faun.
But then they come again, quite fresh and gay.
But I am tired, tired, tired!
Machaon.
—The thread is snapt, the labyrinthine way
Blocked up with dulness.—Yet you want to know
Wherefore Coresus cannot play with you?
Faun.
Oh yes!
Machaon.
Then tell me, did you ever love
One deer above the rest?
Faun.
Oh yes!
Machaon.
—His yawn
Is to my heart's pain most medicinal.
Tire often blunts the edge of sorrow's sword.—
And did it ever cease to follow you?
Faun.
One day it followed; then lay down; then up
It got, and followed as I ran before.
At last it lay, and would not stir, for all
It lay, and . . .
Machaon.
It was dead!
Faun
[shuddering].
It grew a heap
More nasty than an ant-hill, for it smelt!
Machaon.
He knows the alphabet of Death; my task
To make the grim idea creep through the signs
As snake through blades of grass. Yes, I must form
The sentence of man's doom, and teach to him.
Faun.
I hate the wood about it; never dance,
Or even go there.
Machaon.
It was dead.
Faun.
Perhaps
It's right again; I never go to see.
Machaon.
I tell you it was dead.
Faun.
Then it was dead.
Machaon.
—How shall I lift the lid of his mind's chest,
And empty it of Hope's sweet silver form
That's been its tenant and glad prisoner?—
Coresus thus is dead:
Just like your deer; dead, dead, just like your deer.
—He's all a-tremble; yet his frightened thought
Still dares a vain resistance, like a girl
Who whips the captor's arms. Ah me, ah me!
I dare not comfort him while still he doubts;
Silence is unbelief's best battle-field.—
Faun
[in a whisper].
And is he brown and nasty, like the deer?
Machaon.
—I can't pollute his memory with Yes!—
Nor ever come to play with you again.
Faun.
He'll come with the next hyacinths?
Machaon.
No, no!
You never, never will be with him more,
Or play with him again.
Faun.
Oh—o—h—h!
Machaon.
Belief
At last fills up the doorway of his doubt.—
My boy!—A sob is coming, and the face
Looks older now its lines of joy are bent
To sorrow's converse will.—
[Faun rolls on the grass and sobs.
Nay, do not cry.
Look, here's a cone. I'll pick you cones, and play.
—O Death, how, like a cruel step-mother,
You always put your spite in every joy!
You've torn a great hole in the happiness
Of this quite happy creature, which no stitch
Of Time will mend completely.
Faun.
Dead, dead, dead!
Coresus, don't be dead!
Machaon.
I've got a cone;
I'll give it you. There! Try to love me, boy!
Faun.
Coresus dead! Oh, oh! Dead like the deer.
The horrid deer that lay and smelt! Oh, oh!
Coresus, dead like that?
Machaon.
You'll love me?
Faun.
No.
For then Coresus will be all right too!
[Exit.
Machaon.
Go, have thy foolish way. Thy tears are dry;
I will not raise their flood-gate for the world.
Deception is the ivy of the mind:
I've cut
Its roots at his small brain, and it may hang
Greenly about it for a little while
Before it withers. I must budge, must hence.
Poor youngster! Here's the very place his back
Made in the moss. Would he could lie and laugh
The shadow o' Death uncaught! So Truth can curse:
I thought not it could put its sacred tongue
To such a use. Heigh-ho! From this time forth
He'll have a different laugh. I must be gone!
[Exit.
Scene VII.
—The Market Place in Calydon. Megillus and Acephalus meeting.Megillus.
Good-day, these better times.
Acephalus.
Better times do you call them?—when
the pyre-flames have threshed out our hopes, and left us
but a chaff of cinders, whence the grain is gone to fatten
Death. Better times, you say?
Megillus.
Beshrew they are! We've apples, till the
apple-trees look as if they were the work of Dædalus,
that cunning worker in bronze! Pears! Why they are
worthy to be ear-drops unto Cybele; and so numerous
Many fruits, and few mouths. I would not wish to live
in better times.
Acephalus.
You might have borne no fruit yourself,
in that you decline so to pears and apples.
Megillus.
Forsooth, neighbour, the honey of prosperity
will soon correct thy sourness. Look you! The
town is clean. Yester-night the fiery teeth of Death consumed,
save one, their latest corpse. In youth I never
snuffed the air with keener enjoyment, nor knew it of so
sweet a quality. Thanks to the great god, whose devout
worshipper will I ever be!
Acephalus.
And yet, Megillus, I'm an unbarbed
arrow, with no children to carry me into the future.
Megillus.
Pooh, man! To drive you through a body,
and make you the parent of murder, rather than direct
you to the bull's eye of your expectations. Our children
sow not in our hopes; rather they take the spade and
dig them up.
Acephalus.
They may turn them o'er first; but in
the end they fail not to throw the seed by twos or hundreds.
I hold not with you; but you only had a girl!
Megillus.
Leave we this. To-night they burn the
priest who killed himself to 'scape killing a comely
woman.
Acephalus.
He did it in a fit.
Megillus.
A most likely condition for so mad a deed.
Acephalus.
Let us move on. Here comes a crowd.
[Enter Emathion followed by citizens.]
On my faith, this is Emathion. I'll have a
word with him.—How do you, Runaway?
Emathion.
I shall roll, and tear up the ground; and
I shall become all over like yellow clay. But don't mistake.
I haven't got the plague! Pray you, do not go
away from me, for no one's at home. I can't think
where all are gone. Oh no, I haven't got the plague!
You're running away!
Acephalus.
Nay, only you do that.
Emathion
[pointing at a woman].
She's there! Plague
take her. Look! Did you ever see such a flat mouth!
Was it made to swallow water, like a fish's? And she's
trying to puff it forward for a kiss. Heaven help me!
Woman.
Why should the young man insult me? I
swear I'm not for kissing him, as he impudently asserts.
Emathion.
I only struck as you might pat a horse—
so, so, so! She's there! Water, water, water! Mark
her! She's the locust o' my flower of life. So I pinched
her—very gently;—so! And I got the plague; and
they're all running after. What an eye she's got! When
'twas on the ground 'twas a glow-worm. You think me
mad, but I know it's she. There's her one tooth, like a
yellow stalactite hanging from the cave o' the face!
1st Citizen.
He's lunatic. Young fellow, you need
not mow at him; he's senseless to your faces, and
methinks it's blasphemous.
2nd Citizen.
Just look how he stares at yon olive-tree!
It might be a grey ghost from his desperate countenance.
Listen there! Hark! It's in the trees!
They're moving! See! and they say she must die!
Hark! It's quite clear now. Oh, the cursèd trees!
And they will cut her throat. Oh, no, no, no, no!
They'll cut mine! They've got hold on me. Good
people, I've the plague!
Megillus.
He raves of the oracle I should say.
Emathion.
It's all about my ears; it's in the trees;
it says that she must die. Again! But I'll not hear it!
Yet the wind's everywhere! and they want to make me
die!
1st Citizen.
They drove him from the palæstra with
hoots and mouthings. He cried as if he were a child
again, till the breeze got up; and then he fell into a
frenzy such as you behold.
Emathion.
I'll fly to the Libyan desert, for there are
no trees! To the desert! To the desert, before I've
got the plague! I hope the people won't run after me—
the wind would flap their clothes! To the desert! To
the desert, where there are no trees!
[Emathion and citizens exeunt.
Acephalus.
Where are his kin, that he wanders thus
at large?
Megillus.
They say his eyes like sullen comets
shoot menace at Cleitophon, and the old man hides
from their malignity. Of his sister naught is known.
She was not found at home, and the doctor Machaon is
missed. Whoever would sail safely over this mystery,
let him plumb it first. The young man was comely.
I saw grey hairs on his uncombed head.
Acephalus.
Beauty is a stuff the moths of ill soon
fray. They eat it ravenously, and leave it shameful rags.
Why, my boy lay on the bed with the tatters of beauty
hanging all about his face; his mother screamed at him.
And he did not deserve it as doth this madman. Oh,
misery lays its eggs in loveliness. Itself eats, and bequeaths
the remainder to its progeny—waste and decay,
and wrinkles, and grey hair. Faith, Megillus, they be
mighty big waves that capsize the mind; for billows have
gone over mine, and yet it is afloat.
Megillus.
The boat sinks sooner than the vessel.
There is the danger of these small minds; over they tilt
on a sudden. But ours are better built than such small
craft.
Acephalus.
Thine is a tough piece of shipwright's
work. A sea of affliction would not affect its sailing.
I'll home. Good-day, these better times. Munch your
apples, and look at your daughter's urn. 'Twill give you
an appetite.
[Exit.
Megillus.
That man's gall is spilt all over his body.
The day's still early, and the air is sweet as the breath of
Europa's bull. I'll walk on with its fresh companionship.
[Exit.
Scene VIII.
—A Wood. Enter Callirrhoë, hiding some thing in her robe.Callirrhoë.
Alone at last; deep in the shady hills,
The dark heights I have yearned for. Far below
A pyre is burning. Leap, ye glowing flames,
Leap up to me! Coresus, it avails
Nothing to heap thee with my proffered love.
Do we lay food and wine about the dead,
When the stiff lips are barred, to make amends
For past refusal to the trembling mouth?
Had I done evil deeds, I might atone;
The gods are gracious, and make clean from guilt.
But simply to have lived my summer through
And borne no roses! Nothing compensates
For dearth, for failure, when the season's past.
Ah me, ah me! and he besought my love
As wildly, passionately, as the dead
Beseech their burial. My heart aches with tears.
What do I see? Far down that alley'd green
Glimmers the statue of a human form;
Immovable it sits.
The aspect is Machaon's; yet I scarce
Dare give him speech, so inaccessible
He looks; aloof in spirit, like a god
Hardened against his suppliants
Machaon
(to himself).
The plague
Had spent itself; I clearly marked its course,
Dependent on no priestly sacrifice.
And yet what glory rested on the girl
Who could put life by for her people's peace.
And when he lay—Coresus—at her feet:—
I have watched many death-beds, seen where Death
Was the chief ministrant about the face,
Washing, and laying out the spirit's corse;—
With him it was quite otherwise; life there
Laid death to rest. It was rare dying, that!
Life uppermost at end of the hard strife;
Death forced to terms in the ensuing peace
Involving full subjection. I have brought
Word to Dione of that death. Poor child,
I think she loved him; when I said he died
To save Callirrhoë, she grew as white
As the white sheep-skin of her nebris-fringe,
And cried, “She was not worthy of his love;
She never loved him!”
Callirrhoë.
False, false; oh! she lied
And bore true witness to me all in one.
I never loved him, never.
Confession is the bitterest penalty
When wrongèd Love is plaintiff. I confess;
With this addition, that I love him now
With woman's rapture, when the man she loves
Is god for adoration. I am come
Humbly to supplicate I may receive
Initiation in the Bacchic rites,
Machaon.
It would please him best
You should declare allegiance to the god,
And make all Calydon subservient
To the strange worship. Men acclimatize
To new emotion rapidly; it takes
Time to develop custom. Clear the truth
By uproar of the Asiatic band
Concealed, and overclamoured.
Callirrhoë.
You discern
There is a truth?
Machaon.
Rather a mystery
I would unravel. I have looked abroad,
And learnt to use life deftly as a tool
Keen-edged to execute my purposes.
I had no pleasure; I just won my ends,
Toiled and was served; there was no music born.
Whereas these Mænads, eager as hot Pan,
Catch up all life as the peculiar reed
To make sweet passage for their spirit's breath;
And Nature leaves her shyness, shows her mind,
This sullen Nature, laughing in my face,
Like an idiot, his imbecility
Made resonant
By shrieking echo from the void within.
Deep in the forest here, I found a faun
Coresus loved; I captured him, and tried
To tame his wildness; he would none of me,
Was stubborn, restive; when I made him feel
The creature blanched and shivered, and fled scared,
As though the news were mortal.
Callirrhoë.
Can it be!
A little, wizen body lies along
Yon root o' hazel; and a powdery heap
Of bones is close about; the hand still grips
A horny cone that purple-patches it.
Machaon.
Oh, bring me there! He went to the dead deer.
[They come to the hazel.]
'Tis he; and Death is spread all over him,
Death that looks startled at itself, as if
It had mis-settled, falling on a prey
Unnatural to its appetite. Ah me!
How brutal, coarse, and ignorant I stand
Beside this sweet stray in humanity;
A thing so passionately gay, it seemed
The fresh, warm juice that fills the hyacinth,
And pulses sudden verdure through the pines,
Leapt in his veins; the laughter of the spring
Flowed through him; Nature's vehemence and Youth's
Met in his rapture. Now I see him wear
Death's hoary aspect, shrunken and defaced,
The youth o' the world is gone.
Callirrhoë.
You say he loved
Coresus. I have never looked on one
Who loved him, and I never loved him—Oh!
Dione, you shall yet efface that word!
Here is another sacrifice. For me,
I taught this boy mortality, an art
Of which he was most innocent.
Callirrhoë.
Machaon, it is natural to die
Wherever love is; and Coresus gave
To this poor faun the faculty of love
That stirs the mortal craving. Be content!
Machaon.
Coresus killed him!
Callirrhoë.
If you'd have it so.
Machaon.
Better a plagueful of the city dead
Than this strange life miscarried; 'tis as if
A part of Nature were herself extinct
Coresus cursed all Calydon; here, here,
Machaon, is thy work!
Callirrhoë.
Most surely here,
Where Love hath made the great discovery
Of Death, a grey coast she must civilize.
Machaon.
Oh, never, never can man carry there
The Hestian flames; ne'er in the mother-shores
Of our humanity include that realm.
Callirrhoë.
Who dwell but with themselves grow impotent;
They have no Past; the Past is what hath been
Other than now; the Future is a guest
Comes not to them
Who will admit no novel influence.
Such can but iterate themselves. It needs
Heaven to transmute our days to yesterdays,
And touch our morrows with the mystery
Straightway they worshippèd. Machaon, be
The priest of Dionysus.
Machaon.
You forget;
They would reject me, mindful of my scoffs.
Callirrhoë.
I know a way to win obedience.
Go quickly; gather the great scattered band.
I will await you; but the oath is sworn.
Machaon.
I would not leave that little corpse, except
To learn the secret how he came to die.
I am Machaon, and still curious.
[Exit.
Callirrhoë.
Dead of Coresus' love, poor little one;
Dead, dead for him? And he but stroked thy head,
And showed thee kindness; while for me, oh, see!
I bring this from him.
[Stabs herself with the sacrificial knife.
We will both be dead,
Dead with Coresus!
[Dies.
[Re-enter Machaon with Dione.]
Machaon.
Dione, come to her; look not so hard.
She was the stillest girl in Calydon,
Shy, and a little proud; be pitiful.
[Discovering Callirrhoë's body.
Fool that I was to leave her to herself,
And not divine she bound me to that oath,
To steal to her Coresus! Oh, my boy,
Thou dost not lie so orphanlike; 'tis well.
Mænads
(within).
Swiftly, ye Mænads, come to see this girl
The rocks, encompass her!
1st Mænad.
Yonder's his pyre!
That mounting flame! She lit it; murder her!
Machaon.
Shriek on; the quiet of the dead is safe
As a babe's innocence.
2nd Mænad.
She is our prey.
Machaon.
A heap of leaves will shroud
Safe from espial any woodland thing.
[Covers faun.
Fair vot'ries of the civilizing god,
What delicate urbanity ye need!
Dione!
Dione.
He was our deliverer.
See, there! From that high ridge above the pyre,
A flitting form—no bat's wing!—there again
A Mænad tightens round her neck the coils
Of a live serpent, pressing in the fangs
Fiercely her finger-tips;—these will not live
Without Coresus.
Machaon.
Bare her corpse and speak.
For me, I'll watch them till the fever falls—
I have great patience with delirium.
[Hides.
[Enter Mænads.]
Dione.
This is a Mænad, see!
1st Mænad.
Her hair is tressed.
This face hath known no workings of the god;
It is an unsacked city. Ye are fools,
Duped by a stolen nebris.
Dione.
She came here
Till she had owned the Bromian, and bound
One who was witness of the sacrifice,
A mighty novice, to proclaim the king.
2nd Mænad.
Where is he? Where? All men have mocked at us.
We have come back half-murdered from the town,
Coresus hath forsaken us; he thought
No more of the barbarian women when
The Greek's white bosom glistened Woe to us!
Far are our homes across the sea, our priest
Is slain. Woe, woe! Our god delivers not.
Machaon
[advancing].
Most mightily he succours. Shame on ye,
Doubting your great divinity, the while
Cursed Calydon breathes the young spring-tide air.
I saw Coresus die; your great priest fell,
As Semele sank glowing with the god;
Life flooded him; he was immersed in life.
The power
That draws the white milk bubbling to your mouths
From the hard scaurs, brake out munificent
From kindled lips: this girl stayed not to weep,
Stooped not to kiss her lover; she stood up
Pleading, inspired, prophetic, eloquent,
Inciting the great multitude to praise
The city's saviour and Coresus dead.
1st Mænad.
She is a Mænad; she is one of us!
Machaon.
She would not slay herself where the great life
She came here to the woods, and finding me,
Bound me to be your leader. Solemnly
I swore to bear true witness to the deeds
I had beheld. Believe me, I have looked,
Looked deep into your secret things, and own
The rustic deity who pressed the grape
A god that makes humanity august,
Fulfilling it with mystery and joy.
Mænad.
We take you, we accept you as our priest.
Dione.
The holy ritual . . .
Machaon.
Shall be observed.
If man need god as his ideal self,
He needs the picture of his life sublimed;
And we will put
Before men's eyes the picture of high deeds,
Their hearts will emulate. They shall see acts
Like hers, who poured her unpolluted life
A frank libation; shall again behold
Coresus, with the sacrificial knife,
And how he sheathed it. We will praise the god
By sculpture of the deeds he hath inspired;
Yet not in fixity, for you shall track
Each passion from its quick'ning to its pyre;—
Desires that momently disclose themselves,
In chasmic shock, as the Symplegades
Rift to the Euxine, must be held apart,
As by Athene's cleaving arms, access
Forced to the inmost heart. In you I see
Your agitated gestures shall become
Rhythmic in tidal refluence, your hoarse shrieks
Sonorous intonations. Ye shall dance
And thunder in your mighty mountain hymns,
While I recount
The Evian conflicts, victories, and ye,
With glorious inroad of irruptive praise,
In chorus shall conclude the chronicle.
Do ye accept the doom, ye Bacchanals?
Mænads.
Take us, your garland-bearing company,
Adown the heights; their echoes shall resound
With flute and timbrel, and triumphant shout.
Machaon.
Soon as the sunrise vexes your closed eyes,
Spring from your coverts; rouse the sisterhood,
And, parting into ordered ranks your band,
Assemble here, that we, in solemn train,
May bear this maiden down the wooded steeps
Of Calydon for burial.
Dione.
The faun?
Machaon.
Hush, hush!
I'll bury him at day-break in the wood
While the dew keeps all quiet. Now, begone.
[Exeunt Dione and Mænads.
The white troops through the moonlight steal away;
The last pale nebris glimmers on the hills.
Now can I bare myself
To the white skin o' my spirit unto thee,
Great Evius!—finding not the wherewithal
As I am Bacchanal, I will relax
No effort till mankind be broken in
By discipline of pleasure to true want
In commerce and in dream.—There is a stir
I' the heap of leaves. A few more silver hours,
And I must put them both away from me;—
Callirrhoë
Must go to her Coresus; and the boy—
I'll lay him in the sunny grass-plot, where
No other faun shall vex him with its dance.
| Callirrhoë | |