 | Callirrhoë |  |
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!
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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,
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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
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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?
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'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?
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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!
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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;
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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.]
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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;
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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.
| Callirrhoë | |