Hippolytus; The Bacchae Part 8

HIPPOLYTUS They touch me at their peril! Thine own hand Lift, if thou canst, to drive me from the land.

THESEUS That will I straight, unless my will be done!

[HIPPOLYTUS _comes close to him and kneels._]

Nay! Not for thee my pity! Get thee gone!

[HIPPOLYTUS _rises, makes a sign of submission, and slowly moves away._ THESEUS, _as soon as he sees him going, turns rapidly and enters the Castle. The door is closed again._ HIPPOLYTUS _has stopped for a moment before the Statue of _ARTEMIS, _and, as _THESEUS_ departs, breaks out in prayer._]

HIPPOLYTUS So; it is done! O dark and miserable!

I see it all, but see not how to tell The tale.--O thou beloved, Leto's Maid, Chase-comrade, fellow-rester in the glade, Lo, I am driven with a caitiff's brand Forth from great Athens! Fare ye well, O land And city of old Erechtheus! Thou, Trozen, What riches of glad youth mine eyes have seen In thy broad plain! Farewell! This is the end; The last word, the last look!

Come, every friend And fellow of my youth that still may stay, Give me G.o.d-speed and cheer me on my way.

Ne'er shall ye see a man more pure of spot Than me, though mine own Father loves me not!

[HIPPOLYTUS _goes away to the right, followed by many Huntsmen and other young men. The rest of the crowd has by this time dispersed, except the Women of the Chorus and some Men of the Chorus of Huntsmen_.]

CHORUS

_Men_ Surely the thought of the G.o.ds hath balm in it alway, to win me Far from my griefs; and a thought, deep in the dark of my mind, Clings to a great Understanding. Yet all the spirit within me Faints, when I watch men's deeds matched with the guerdon they find.

For Good comes in Evil's traces, And the Evil the Good replaces; And Life, 'mid the changing faces, Wandereth weak and blind.

_Women_ What wilt thou grant me, O G.o.d? Lo, this is the prayer of my travail-- Some well-being; and chance not very bitter thereby; Spirit uncrippled by pain; and a mind not deep to unravel Truth unseen, nor yet dark with the brand of a lie.

With a veering mood to borrow Its light from every morrow, Fair friends and no deep sorrow, Well could man live and die!

_Men_ Yet my spirit is no more clean, And the weft of my hope is torn, For the deed of wrong that mine eyes have seen, The lie and the rage and the scorn; A Star among men, yea, a Star That in h.e.l.las was bright, By a Father's wrath driven far To the wilds and the night.

Oh, alas for the sands of the sh.o.r.e!

Alas for the brakes of the hill, Where the wolves shall fear thee no more, And thy cry to Dictynna is still!

_Women_ No more in the yoke of thy car Shall the colts of Enetia fleet; Nor Limna's echoes quiver afar To the clatter of galloping feet.

The sleepless music of old, That leaped in the lyre, Ceaseth now, and is cold, In the halls of thy sire.

The bowers are discrowned and unladen Where Artemis lay on the lea; And the love-dream of many a maiden Lost, in the losing of thee.

_A Maiden_ And I, even I, For thy fall, O Friend, Amid tears and tears, Endure to the end Of the empty years, Of a life run dry.

In vain didst thou bear him, Thou Mother forlorn!

Ye G.o.ds that did snare him, Lo, I cast in your faces My hate and my scorn!

Ye love-linked Graces, (Alas for the day!) Was he naught, then, to you, That ye cast him away, The stainless and true, From the old happy places?

LEADER Look yonder! 'Tis the Prince's man, I ween Speeding toward this gate, most dark of mien.

[A HENCHMAN _enters in haste_.]

HENCHMAN Ye women, whither shall I go to seek King Theseus? Is he in this dwelling? Speak!

LEADER Lo, where he cometh through the Castle gate!

[THESEUS _comes out from the Castle_.]

HENCHMAN O King, I bear thee tidings of dire weight To thee, aye, and to every man, I ween, From Athens to the marches of Trozen.

THESEUS What? Some new stroke hath touched, unknown to me, The sister cities of my sovranty?

HENCHMAN Hippolytus is...Nay, not dead; but stark Outstretched, a hairsbreadth this side of the dark.

THESEUS (_as though unmoved_) How slain? Was there some other man, whose wife He had like mine denied, that sought his life?

HENCHMAN His own wild team destroyed him, and the dire Curse of thy lips.

The boon of thy great Sire Is granted thee, O King, and thy son slain.

THESEUS Ye G.o.ds! And thou, Poseidon! Not in vain I called thee Father; thou hast heard my prayer!

How did he die? Speak on. How closed the snare Of Heaven to slay the shamer of my blood?

HENCHMAN 'Twas by the bank of beating sea we stood, We thralls, and decked the steeds, and combed each mane; Weeping; for word had come that ne'er again The foot of our Hippolytus should roam This land, but waste in exile by thy doom.

So stood we till he came, and in his tone No music now save sorrow's, like our own, And in his train a concourse without end Of many a chase-fellow and many a friend.

At last he brushed his sobs away, and spake: "Why this fond loitering? I would not break My Father's law--Ho, there! My coursers four And chariot, quick! This land is mine no more."

Thereat, be sure, each man of us made speed.

Swifter than speech we brought them up, each steed Well dight and shining, at our Prince's side.

He grasped the reins upon the rail: one stride And there he stood, a perfect charioteer, Each foot in its own station set. Then clear His voice rose, and his arms to heaven were spread: "O Zeus, if I be false, strike thou me dead!

But, dead or living, let my Father see One day, how falsely he hath hated me!"

Even as he spake, he lifted up the goad And smote; and the steeds sprang. And down the road We henchmen followed, hard beside the rein, Each hand, to speed him, toward the Argive plain And Epidaurus.

So we made our way Up toward the desert region, where the bay Curls to a promontory near the verge Of our Trozen, facing the southward surge Of Saron's gulf. Just there an angry sound, Slow-swelling, like G.o.d's thunder underground Broke on us, and we trembled. And the steeds p.r.i.c.ked their ears skyward, and threw back their heads.

And wonder came on all men, and affright, Whence rose that awful voice. And swift our sight Turned seaward, down the salt and roaring sand.

And there, above the horizon, seemed to stand A wave unearthly, crested in the sky; Till Skiron's Cape first vanished from mine eye, Then sank the Isthmus hidden, then the rock Of Epidaurus. Then it broke, one shock And roar of gasping sea and spray flung far, And sh.o.r.eward swept, where stood the Prince's car.

Three lines of wave together raced, and, full In the white crest of them, a wild Sea-Bull Flung to the sh.o.r.e, a fell and marvellous Thing.

The whole land held his voice, and answering Roared in each echo. And all we, gazing there, Gazed seeing not; 'twas more than eyes could bear.

Then straight upon the team wild terror fell.

Howbeit, the Prince, cool-eyed and knowing well Each changing mood a horse has, gripped the reins Hard in both hands; then as an oarsman strains Up from his bench, so strained he on the thong, Back in the chariot swinging. But the young Wild steeds bit hard the curb, and fled afar; Nor rein nor guiding hand nor morticed car Stayed them at all. For when he veered them round, And aimed their flying feet to gra.s.sy ground, In front uprose that Thing, and turned again The four great coursers, terror-mad. But when Their blind rage drove them toward the rocky places, Silent and ever nearer to the traces, It followed rockward, till one wheel-edge grazed.

The chariot tript and flew, and all was mazed In turmoil. Up went wheel-box with a din, Where the rock jagged, and nave and axle-pin.

And there--the long reins round him--there was he Dragging, entangled irretrievably.

A dear head battering at the chariot side, Sharp rocks, and rippled flesh, and a voice that cried: "Stay, stay, O ye who fattened at my stalls, Dash me not into nothing!--O thou false Curse of my Father!--Help! Help, whoso can, An innocent, innocent and stainless man!"

Many there were that laboured then, I wot, To bear him succour, but could reach him not, Till--who knows how?--at last the tangled rein Unclasped him, and he fell, some little vein Of life still pulsing in him.

All beside, The steeds, the horned Horror of the Tide, Had vanished--who knows where?--in that wild land.

O King, I am a bondsman of thine hand; Yet love nor fear nor duty me shall win To say thine innocent son hath died in sin.

All women born may hang themselves, for me, And swing their dying words from every tree On Ida! For I know that he was true!

LEADER O G.o.d, so cometh new disaster, new Despair! And no escape from what must be!

THESEUS Hate of the man thus stricken lifted me At first to joy at hearing of thy tale; But now, some shame before the G.o.ds, some pale Pity for mine own blood, hath o'er me come.

I laugh not, neither weep, at this fell doom.

HENCHMAN How then? Behoves it bear him here, or how Best do thy pleasure?--Speak, Lord. Yet if thou Wilt mark at all my word, thou wilt not be Fierce-hearted to thy child in misery.

THESEUS Aye, bring him hither. Let me see the face Of him who durst deny my deep disgrace And his own sin; yea, speak with him, and prove His clear guilt by G.o.d's judgments from above.

[_The_ HENCHMAN _departs to fetch_ HIPPOLYTUS; THESEUS _sits waiting in stern gloom, while the_ CHORUS _sing. At the close of their song a Divine Figure is seen approaching on a cloud in the air and the voice of_ ARTEMIS _speaks_.]

CHORUS Thou comest to bend the pride Of the hearts of G.o.d and man, Cypris; and by thy side, In earth-encircling span, He of the changing plumes, The Wing that the world illumes, As over the leagues of land flies he, Over the salt and sounding sea.

For mad is the heart of Love, And gold the gleam of his wing; And all to the spell thereof Bend, when he makes his spring; All life that is wild and young In mountain and wave and stream, All that of earth is sprung, Or breathes in the red sunbeam; Yea, and Mankind. O'er all a royal throne, Cyprian, Cyprian, is thine alone!

A VOICE FROM THE CLOUD O thou that rulest in Aegeus' Hall, I charge thee, hearken!

Yea, it is I, Artemis, Virgin of G.o.d most High.

Thou bitter King, art thou glad withal For thy murdered son?

For thine ear bent low to a lying Queen, For thine heart so swift amid things unseen?

Lo, all may see what end thou hast won!

Go, sink thine head in the waste abyss; Or aloft to another world than this, Birdwise with wings, Fly far to thine hiding, Far over this blood that clots and clings; For in righteous men and in holy things No rest is thine nor abiding!

[_The cloud has become stationary in the air._]