 | Callirrhoë |  |
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.
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