Dryden's Palamon and Arcite Part 6

If thou art Venus (for thy charms confess That face was formed in heaven), nor art thou less, Disguised in habit, undisguised in shape, O help us captives from our chains to scape!

But if our doom be past in bonds to lie For life, and in a loathsome dungeon die, Then be thy wrath appeased with our disgrace, And show compa.s.sion to the Theban race, Oppressed by tyrant power!"--While yet he spoke, Arcite on Emily had fixed his look; The fatal dart a ready pa.s.sage found And deep within his heart infixed the wound: So that if Palamon were wounded sore, Arcite was hurt as much as he or more: Then from his inmost soul he sighed, and said, "The beauty I behold has struck me dead: Unknowingly she strikes, and kills by chance; Poison is in her eyes, and death in every glance.

Oh, I must ask; nor ask alone, but move Her mind to mercy, or must die for love."

Thus Arcite: and thus Palamon replies (Eager his tone, and ardent were his eyes,) "Speakest thou in earnest, or in jesting vein?"

"Jesting," said Arcite, "suits but ill with pain."

"It suits far worse," (said Palamon again, And bent his brows,) "with men who honour weigh, Their faith to break, their friendship to betray; But worst with thee, of n.o.ble lineage born, My kinsman, and in arms my brother sworn.

Have we not plighted each our holy oath, That one should be the common good of both; One soul should both inspire, and neither prove His fellow's hindrance in pursuit of love?

To this before the G.o.ds we gave our hands, And nothing but our death can break the bands.

This binds thee, then, to farther my design, As I am bound by vow to farther thine: Nor canst, nor darest thou, traitor, on the plain Appeach my honour, or thy own maintain, Since thou art of my council, and the friend Whose faith I trust, and on whose care depend.

And wouldst thou court my lady's love, which I Much rather than release, would choose to die?

But thou, false Arcite, never shalt obtain, Thy bad pretence; I told thee first my pain: For first my love began ere thine was born; Thou as my council, and my brother sworn, Art bound to a.s.sist my eldership of right, Or justly to be deemed a perjured knight."

Thus Palamon: but Arcite with disdain In haughty language thus replied again: "Forsworn thyself: the traitor's odious name I first return, and then disprove thy claim.

If love be pa.s.sion, and that pa.s.sion nurst With strong desires, I loved the lady first.

Canst thou pretend desire, whom zeal inflamed To worship, and a power celestial named?

Thine was devotion to the blest above, I saw the woman, and desired her love; First owned my pa.s.sion, and to thee commend The important secret, as my chosen friend.

Suppose (which yet I grant not) thy desire A moment elder than my rival fire; Can chance of seeing first thy t.i.tle prove?

And knowst thou not, no law is made for love?

Law is to things which to free choice relate; Love is not in our choice, but in our fate; Laws are not positive; love's power we see Is Nature's sanction, and her first decree, Each day we break the bond of human laws For love, and vindicate the common cause.

Laws for defence of civil rights are placed, Love throws the fences down, and makes a general waste.

Maids, widows, wives without distinction fall; The sweeping deluge, love, comes on and covers all.

If then the laws of friendship I transgress, I keep the greater, while I break the less; And both are mad alike, since neither can possess.

Both hopeless to be ransomed, never more To see the sun, but as he pa.s.ses o'er.

Like aesop's hounds contending for the bone, Each pleaded right, and would be lord alone; The fruitless fight continued all the day, A cur came by and s.n.a.t.c.hed the prize away.

As courtiers therefore justle for a grant, And when they break their friendship, plead their want, So thou, if Fortune will thy suit advance, Love on, nor envy me my equal chance: For I must love, and am resolved to try My fate, or failing in the adventure die."

Great was their strife, which hourly was renewed, Till each with mortal hate his rival viewed: Now friends no more, nor walking hand in hand; But when they met they made a surly stand, And glared like Angry lions as they pa.s.sed, And wished that every look might be their last.

It chanced at length, Pirithous came to attend This worthy Theseus, his familiar friend: Their love in early infancy began, And rose as childhood ripened into man, Companions of the war; and loved so well, That when one died, as ancient stories tell, His fellow to redeem him went to h.e.l.l.

But to pursue my tale: to welcome home His warlike brother is Pirithous come: Arcite of Thebes was known in arms long since, And honoured by this young Thessalian prince.

Theseus, to gratify his friend and guest, Who made our Arcite's freedom his request, Restored to liberty the captive knight, But on these hard conditions I recite: That if hereafter Arcite should be found Within the compa.s.s of Athenian ground, By day or night, or on whate'er pretence, His head should pay the forfeit of the offence.

To this Pirithous for his friend agreed, And on his promise was the prisoner freed.

Unpleased and pensive hence he takes his way, At his own peril; for his life must pay.

Who now but Arcite mourns his bitter fate, Finds his dear purchase, and repents too late?

"What have I gained," he said, "in prison pent, If I but change my bonds for banishment?

And banished from her sight, I suffer more In freedom than I felt in bonds before; Forced from her presence and condemned to live, Unwelcome freedom and unthanked reprieve: Heaven is not but where Emily abides, And where she's absent, all is h.e.l.l besides.

Next to my day of birth, was that accurst Which bound my friendship to Pirithous first: Had I not known that prince, I still had been In bondage and had still Emilia seen: For though I never can her grace deserve, 'Tis recompense enough to see and serve.

O Palamon, my kinsman and my friend, How much more happy fates thy love attend I

Thine is the adventure, thine the victory, Well has thy fortune turned the dice for thee: Thou on that angel's face mayest feed thy eyes, In prison, no; but blissful paradise!

Thou daily seest that sun of beauty shine, And lovest at least in love's extremest line.

I mourn in absence, love's eternal night; And who can tell but since thou hast her sight, And art a comely, young, and valiant knight, Fortune (a various power) may cease to frown, And by some ways unknown thy wishes crown?

But I, the most forlorn of human kind, Nor help can hope nor remedy can find; But doomed to drag my loathsome life in care, For my reward, must end it in despair.

Fire, water, air, and earth, and force of fates That governs all, and Heaven that all creates, Nor art, nor Nature's hand can ease my grief; Nothing but death, the wretch's last relief: Then farewell youth, and all the joys that dwell With youth and life, and life itself, farewell!

But why, alas! do mortal men in vain Of Fortune, Fate, or Providence complain?

G.o.d gives us what he knows our wants require, And better things than those which we desire: Some pray for riches; riches they obtain; But, watched by robbers, for their wealth are slain; Some pray from prison to be freed; and come, When guilty of their vows, to fall at home; Murdered by those they trusted with their life, A favoured servant or a bosom wife.

Such dear-bought blessings happen every day, Because we know not for what things to pray.

Like drunken sots about the streets we roam:

"Well knows the sot he has a certain home, Yet knows not how to find the uncertain place, And blunders on and staggers every pace.

Thus all seek happiness; but few can find, For far the greater part of men are blind.

This is my case, who thought our utmost good Was in one word of freedom understood: The fatal blessing came: from prison free, I starve abroad, and lose the sight of Emily."

Thus Arcite: but if Arcite thus deplore His sufferings, Palamon yet suffers more.

For when he knew his rival freed and gone, He swells with wrath; he makes outrageous moan; He frets, he fumes, he stares, he stamps the ground; The hollow tower with clamours rings around: With briny tears he bathed his fettered feet, And dropped all o'er with agony of sweat.

"Alas!" he cried, "I, wretch, in prison pine, Too happy rival, while the fruit is thine: Thou livest at large, thou drawest thy native air, Pleased with thy freedom, proud of my despair: Thou mayest, since thou hast youth and courage joined, A sweet behaviour and a solid mind, a.s.semble ours, and all the Theban race, To vindicate on Athens thy disgrace; And after (by some treaty made) possess Fair Emily, the pledge of lasting peace.

So thine shall be the beauteous prize, while I Must languish in despair, in prison die.

Thus all the advantage of the strife is thine, Thy portion double joys, and double sorrows mine."

The rage of jealousy then fired his soul, And his face kindled like a burning coal Now cold despair, succeeding in her stead, To livid paleness turns the glowing red.

His blood, scarce liquid, creeps within his veins, Like water which the freezing wind constrains.

Then thus he said: "Eternal Deities, "Who rule the world with absolute decrees, And write whatever time shall bring to pa.s.s With pens of adamant on plates of bra.s.s; What is the race of human kind your care Beyond what all his fellow-creatures are?

He with the rest is liable to pain, And like the sheep, his brother-beast, is slain.

Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a cure, All these he must, and guiltless oft, endure; Or does your justice, power, or prescience fail, When the good suffer and the bad prevail?

What worse to wretched virtue could befal, If Fate or giddy Fortune governed all?

Nay, worse than other beasts is our estate: Them, to pursue their pleasures, you create; We, bound by harder laws, must curb our will, And your commands, not our desires, fulfil: Then, when the creature is unjustly slain, Yet, after death at least, he feels no pain; But man in life surcharged with woe before, Not freed when dead, is doomed to suffer more.

A serpent shoots his sting at unaware; An ambushed thief forelays a traveller; The man lies murdered, while the thief and snake, One gains the thickets, and one thrids the brake.

This let divines decide; but well I know, Just or unjust, I have my share of woe, Through Saturn seated in a luckless place, And Juno's wrath that persecutes my race; Or Mars and Venus in a quartil, move My pangs of jealousy for Arcite's love."

Let Palamon oppressed in bondage mourn, While to his exited rival we return.

By this the sun, declining from his height, The day had shortened to prolong the night: The lengthened night gave length of misery, Both to the captive lover and the free: For Palamon in endless prison mourns, And Arcite forfeits life if he returns; The banished never hopes his love to see, Nor hopes the captive lord his liberty.

'Tis hard to say who suffers greater pains; One sees his love, but cannot break his chains; One free, and all his motions uncontrolled, Beholds whate'er he would but what he would behold.

Judge as you please, for I will haste to tell What fortune to the banished knight befel.

When Arcite was to Thebes returned again, The loss of her he loved renewed his pain; What could be worse than never more to see His life, his soul, his charming Emily?

He raved with all the madness of despair, He roared, he beat his breast, he tore his hair.

Dry sorrow in his stupid eyes appears, For wanting nourishment, he wanted tears; His eyeb.a.l.l.s in their hollow sockets sink, Bereft of sleep; he loathes his meat and drink; He withers at his heart, and looks as wan As the pale spectre of a murdered man: That pale turns yellow, and his face receives The faded hue of sapless boxen leaves; In solitary groves he makes his moan, Walks early out, and ever is alone; Nor, mixed in mirth, in youthful pleasure shares, But sighs when songs and instruments he hears.

His spirits are so low, his voice is drowned, He hears as from afar, or in a swound, Like the deaf murmurs of a distant sound: Uncombed his locks, and squalid his attire, Unlike the trim of love and gay desire; But full of museful mopings, which presage The loss of reason and conclude in rage.

This when he had endured a year and more, Now wholly changed from what he was before, It happened once, that, slumbering as he lay, He dreamt (his dream began at break of day) That Hermes o'er his head in air appeared, And with soft words his drooping spirits cheered; His hat adorned with wings disclosed the G.o.d, And in his hand he bore the sleep-compelling rod; Such as he seemed, when, at his sire's command, On Argus' head he laid the snaky wand.

"Arise," he said, "to conquering Athens go; There Fate appoints an end of all thy woe."

The fright awakened Arcite with a start, Against his bosom bounced his heaving heart; But soon he said, with scarce recovered breath, "And thither will I go to meet my death, Sure to be slain; but death is my desire, Since in Emilia's sight I shall expire."

By chance he spied a mirror while he spoke, And gazing there beheld his altered look; Wondering, he saw his features and his hue So much were changed, that scarce himself he knew.

A sudden thought then starting in his mind, "Since I in Arcite cannot Arcite find, The world may search in vain with all their eyes, But never penetrate through this disguise.

Thanks to the change which grief and sickness give, In low estate I may securely live, And see, unknown, my mistress day by day."

He said, and clothed himself in coa.r.s.e array, A labouring hind in show; then forth he went, And to the Athenian towers his journey bent: One squire attended in the same disguise, Made conscious of his master's enterprise.

Arrived at Athens, soon he came to court, Unknown, unquestioned in that thick resort: Proffering for hire his service at the gate, To drudge, draw water, and to run or wait.

So fair befel him, that for little gain He served at first Emilia's chamberlain; And, watchful all advantages to spy, Was still at hand, and in his master's eye; And as his bones were big, and sinews strong, Refused no toil that could to slaves belong; But from deep wells with engines water drew, And used his n.o.ble hands the wood to hew.

He pa.s.sed a year at least attending thus On Emily, and called Philostratus.

But never was there man of his degree So much esteemed, so well beloved as he.

So gentle of condition was he known, That through the court his courtesy was blown: All think him worthy of a greater place, And recommend him to the royal grace; That exercised within a higher sphere, His virtues more conspicuous might appear.

Thus by the general voice was Arcite praised, And by great Theseus to high favour raised; Among his menial servants first enrolled, And largely entertained with sums of gold: Besides what secretly from Thebes was sent,

Of his own income and his annual rent.

This well employed, he purchased friends and fame, But cautiously concealed from whence it came.