Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Part 49

(_To_ MEROPE)

I sought thee, Merope; I find thee thus, As I have ever found thee; bent to keep, By sad observances and public grief, A mournful feud alive, which else would die.

I blame thee not, I do thy heart no wrong!

Thy deep seclusion, thine unyielding gloom, Thine att.i.tude of cold, estranged reproach, These punctual funeral honours, year by year Repeated, are in thee, I well believe, Courageous, faithful actions, n.o.bly dared.

But, Merope, the eyes of other men Read in these actions, innocent in thee, Perpetual promptings to rebellious hope, War-cries to faction, year by year renew'd, Beacons of vengeance, not to be let die.

And me, believe it, wise men gravely blame, And ignorant men despise me, that I stand Pa.s.sive, permitting thee what course thou wilt.

Yes, the crowd mutters that remorseful fear And paralysing conscience stop my arm, When it should pluck thee from thy hostile way.

All this I bear, for, what I seek, I know: Peace, peace is what I seek, and public calm; Endless extinction of unhappy hates, Union cemented for this nation's weal.

And even now, if to behold me here, This day, amid these rites, this black-robed train, Wakens, O Queen! remembrance in thy heart Too wide at variance with the peace I seek-- I will not violate thy n.o.ble grief, The prayer I came to urge I will defer.

_Merope_

This day, to-morrow, yesterday, alike I am, I shall be, have been, in my mind Tow'rd thee; toward thy silence as thy speech.

Speak, therefore, or keep silence, which thou wilt.

_Polyphontes_

Hear me, then, speak; and let this mournful day, The twentieth anniversary of strife, Henceforth be honour'd as the date of peace.

Yes, twenty years ago this day beheld The king Cresphontes, thy great husband, fall; It needs no yearly offerings at his tomb To keep alive that memory in my heart-- It lives, and, while I see the light, will live.

For we were kinsmen--more than kinsmen--friends; Together we had grown, together lived; Together to this isle of Pelops came To take the inheritance of Heracles, Together won this fair Messenian land-- Alas, that, how to rule it, was our broil!

He had his counsel, party, friends--I mine; He stood by what he wish'd for--I the same; I smote him, when our wishes clash'd in arms-- He had smit me, had he been swift as I.

But while I smote him, Queen, I honour'd him; Me, too, had he prevail'd, he had not scorn'd.

Enough of this! Since that, I have maintain'd The sceptre--not remissly let it fall-- And I am seated on a prosperous throne; Yet still, for I conceal it not, ferments In the Messenian people what remains Of thy dead husband's faction--vigorous once, Now crush'd but not quite lifeless by his fall.

And these men look to thee, and from thy grief-- Something too studiously, forgive me, shown-- Infer thee their accomplice; and they say That thou in secret nurturest up thy son, Him whom thou hiddest when thy husband fell, To avenge that fall, and bring them back to power.

Such are their hopes--I ask not if by thee Willingly fed or no--their most vain hopes; For I have kept conspiracy fast-chain'd Till now, and I have strength to chain it still.

But, Merope, the years advance;--I stand Upon the threshold of old age, alone, Always in arms, always in face of foes.

The long repressive att.i.tude of rule Leaves me austerer, sterner, than I would; Old age is more suspicious than the free And valiant heart of youth, or manhood's firm Unclouded reason; I would not decline Into a jealous tyrant, scourged with fears, Closing in blood and gloom his sullen reign.

The cares which might in me with time, I feel, Beget a cruel temper, help me quell!

The breach between our parties help me close!

a.s.sist me to rule mildly; let us join Our hands in solemn union, making friends Our factions with the friendship of their chiefs.

Let us in marriage, King and Queen, unite Claims ever hostile else, and set thy son-- No more an exile fed on empty hopes, And to an unsubstantial t.i.tle heir, But prince adopted by the will of power, And future king--before this people's eyes.

Consider him! consider not old hates!

Consider, too, this people, who were dear To their dead king, thy husband--yea, too dear, For that destroy'd him. Give them peace! thou can'st.

O Merope, how many n.o.ble thoughts, How many precious feelings of man's heart, How many loves, how many grat.i.tudes, Do twenty years wear out, and see expire!

Shall they not wear one hatred out as well?

_Merope_

Thou hast forgot, then, who I am who hear, And who thou art who speakest to me? I Am Merope, thy murder'd master's wife; And thou art Polyphontes, first his friend, And then ... his murderer. These offending tears That murder moves; this breach that thou would'st close Was by that murder open'd; that one child (If still, indeed, he lives) whom thou would'st seat Upon a throne not thine to give, is heir, Because thou slew'st his brothers with their father.

Who can patch union here? What can there be But everlasting horror 'twixt us two, Gulfs of estranging blood? Across that chasm Who can extend their hands?... Maidens, take back These offerings home! our rites are spoil'd to-day.

_Polyphontes_

Not so; let these Messenian maidens mark The fear'd and blacken'd ruler of their race, Albeit with lips unapt to self-excuse, Blow off the spot of murder from his name.-- Murder!--but what _is_ murder? When a wretch For private gain or hatred takes a life, We call it murder, crush him, brand his name.

But when, for some great public cause, an arm Is, without love or hate, austerely raised Against a power exempt from common checks, Dangerous to all, to be but thus annull'd-- Ranks any man with murder such an act?

With grievous deeds, perhaps; with murder, no!

Find then such cause, the charge of murder falls-- Be judge thyself if it abound not here.

All know how weak the eagle, Heracles, Soaring from his death-pile on OEta, left His puny, callow eaglets; and what trials-- Infirm protectors, dubious oracles Construed awry, misplann'd invasions--wore Three generations of his offspring out; Hardly the fourth, with grievous loss, regain'd Their fathers' realm, this isle, from Pelops named.

Who made that triumph, though deferr'd, secure?

Who, but the kinsmen of the royal brood Of Heracles, scarce Heracleidae less Than they? these, and the Dorian lords, whose king aegimius gave our outcast house a home When Thebes, when Athens dared not; who in arms Thrice issued with us from their pastoral vales, And shed their blood like water in our cause?

Such were the dispossessors; of what stamp Were they we dispossessed?--of us I speak, Who to Messenia with thy husband came; I speak not now of Argos, where his brother, Not now of Sparta, where his nephews reign'd.-- What we found here were tribes of fame obscure, Much turbulence, and little constancy, Precariously ruled by foreign lords From the aeolian stock of Neleus sprung, A house once great, now dwindling in its sons.

Such were the conquer'd, such the conquerors; who Had most thy husband's confidence? Consult His acts! the wife he chose was--full of virtues-- But an Arcadian princess, more akin To his new subjects than to us; his friends Were the Messenian chiefs; the laws he framed Were aim'd at their promotion, our decline.

And, finally, this land, then half-subdued, Which from one central city's guarded seat As from a fastness in the rocks our scant Handful of Dorian conquerors might have curb'd, He parcell'd out in five confederate states, Sowing his victors thinly through them all, Mere prisoners, meant or not, among our foes.

If this was fear of them, it shamed the king; If jealousy of us, it shamed the man.

Long we refrain'd ourselves, submitted long, Construed his acts indulgently, revered, Though found perverse, the blood of Heracles; Reluctantly the rest--but, against all, One voice preach'd patience, and that voice was mine!

At last it reach'd us, that he, still mistrustful, Deeming, as tyrants deem, our silence hate, Unadulating grief conspiracy, Had to this city, Stenyclaros, call'd A general a.s.semblage of the realm, With compact in that concourse to deliver, For death, his ancient to his new-made friends.

Patience was thenceforth self destruction. I, I his chief kinsman, I his pioneer And champion to the throne, I honouring most Of men the line of Heracles, preferr'd The many of that lineage to the one; What his foes dared not, I, his lover, dared; I at that altar, where mid shouting crowds He sacrificed, our ruin in his heart, To Zeus, before he struck his blow, struck mine-- Struck once, and awed his mob, and saved this realm.

Murder let others call this, if they will; I, self-defence and righteous execution.

_Merope_

Alas, how fair a colour can his tongue, Who self-exculpates, lend to foulest deeds!

Thy trusting lord didst thou, his servant, slay; Kinsman, thou slew'st thy kinsman; friend, thy friend-- This were enough; but let me tell thee, too, Thou hadst no cause, as feign'd, in his misrule.

For ask at Argos, asked in Lacedaemon, Whose people, when the Heracleidae came, Were hunted out, and to Achaia fled, Whether is better, to abide alone, A wolfish band, in a dispeopled realm, Or conquerors with conquer'd to unite Into one puissant folk, as he design'd?

These st.u.r.dy and unworn Messenian tribes, Who shook the fierce Neleidae on their throne, Who to the invading Dorians stretch'd a hand, And half bestow'd, half yielded up their soil-- He would not let his savage chiefs alight, A cloud of vultures, on this vigorous race, Ravin a little while in spoil and blood, Then, gorged and helpless, be a.s.sail'd and slain.

He would have saved you from your furious selves, Not in abhorr'd estrangement let you stand; He would have mix'd you with your friendly foes, Foes dazzled with your prowess, well inclined To reverence your lineage, more, to obey; So would have built you, in a few short years, A just, therefore a safe, supremacy.

For well he knew, what you, his chiefs, did not-- How of all human rules the over-tense Are apt to snap; the easy-stretch'd endure.

O gentle wisdom, little understood!

O arts above the vulgar tyrant's reach!

O policy too subtle far for sense Of heady, masterful, injurious men!

This good he meant you, and for this he died!

Yet not for this--else might thy crime in part Be error deem'd--but that pretence is vain.

For, if ye slew him for supposed misrule, Injustice to his kin and Dorian friends, Why with the offending father did ye slay Two unoffending babes, his innocent sons?

Why not on them have placed the forfeit crown, Ruled in their name, and train'd them to your will?

Had _they_ misruled? had _they_ forgot their friends, Forsworn their blood? ungratefully had _they_ Preferr'd Messenian serfs to Dorian lords?

No! but to thy ambition their poor lives Were bar--and this, too, was their father's crime.

That thou might'st reign he died, not for his fault Even fancied; and his death thou wroughtest chief!

For, if the other lords desired his fall Hotlier than thou, and were by thee kept back, Why dost thou only profit by his death?

Thy crown condemns thee, while thy tongue absolves.

And now to me thou tenderest friendly league, And to my son reversion to thy throne!

Short answer is sufficient; league with thee, For me I deem such impious; and for him Exile abroad more safe than heirship here.

_Polyphontes_

I ask thee not to approve thy husband's death, No, nor expect thee to admit the grounds, In reason good, which justified my deed.

With women the heart argues, not the mind.

But, for thy children's death, I stand a.s.soil'd-- I saved them, meant them honour; but thy friends Rose, and with fire and sword a.s.sailed my house By night; in that blind tumult they were slain.

To chance impute their deaths, then, not to me.

_Merope_

Such chance as kill'd the father, kill'd the sons.

_Polyphontes_

One son at least I spared, for still he lives.

_Merope_