Story of Orestes Part 13

Then the Chorus address themselves to a Choral Ode in memory of the Spirit now pa.s.sed beneath the earth: the evolutions as usual, carrying them with each Strophe to one end of the Orchestra, and with the Antistrophe back to the Altar._

CHORAL INTERLUDE II

_Strophe_ I

Immortal bliss be thine, {446} Daughter of Pelias, in the realms below, Immortal pleasures round thee flow, Though never there the sun's bright beams shall shine.

Be the black-brow'd Pluto told, And the Stygian boatman old, Whose rude hands grasp the oar, the rudder guide, The dead conveying o'er the tide,-- Let him be told, so rich a freight before His light skiff never bore; Tell him that o'er the joyless lakes The n.o.blest of her s.e.x her dreary pa.s.sage takes.

_Antistrophe I_

Thy praise the bards shall tell, When to their hymning voice the echo rings, Or when they sweep the solemn strings, And wake to rapture the seven-chorded sh.e.l.l: Or in Sparta's jocund bow'rs, Circling when the vernal hours Bring the Carnean Feast, whilst through the night Full-orb'd the high moon rolls her light; Or where rich Athens, proudly elevate, Shows her magnific state: Their voice thy glorious death shall raise, And swell th' enraptured strain to celebrate thy praise.

_Strophe II_

O that I had the pow'r, Could I but bring thee from the shades of night, Again to view this golden light, To leave that boat, to leave that dreary sh.o.r.e, Where Cocytus, deep and wide, Rolls along his sullen tide!

For thou, O best of women, thou alone For thy lord's life daredst give thy own.

Light lie the earth upon thy gentle breast, And be thou ever blest!

While, should he choose to wed again, Mine and his children's hearts would hold him in disdain.

_Antistrophe II_

When, to avert his doom, His mother in the earth refused to lie; Nor would his ancient father die To save his son from an untimely tomb; Though the hand of time had spread h.o.a.r hairs o'er each aged head: In youth's fresh bloom, in beauty's radiant glow, The darksome way thou daredst to go, And for thy youthful lord's to give thy life.

Be ours so true a wife!

Though rare the lot, then should we prove Th' indissoluble bond of faithfulness and love.

EPISODE II

_Enter on the Stage through the distance-entrance [Left Side-door] the colossal figure of Hercules. Here is the turning-point of the play: which has the peculiarity of combining an element of the Satyric Drama (or Burlesque) with Tragedy, the combination antic.i.p.ating the 'Action-Drama' (or 'Tragi-Comedy') of modern times. Accordingly the costume and mask of Hercules are compounded, of his conventional appearance in Tragedy, in which he is conceived as the perfection of physical strength toiling and suffering for mankind, and his conventional appearance in Satyric plays as the gigantic feeder, etc.

The two are harmonized in the conception of conscious energy rejoicing in itself, and plunging with equal eagerness into duty and relaxation, while each lasts._

_Hercules_ hails the Chorus and enquires for Admetus. They reply that he is within the Palace, and [shrinking, like all Greeks, from being the first to tell evil tidings] turn the conversation by enquiring what brings the Demi-G.o.d to Pherae--_in stichomuthic dialogue_ it is brought out that Hercules is on his way to one of his 'Labors'--that of the Thracian Steeds; and (so lightly does the thought of toil sit on him) it appears he has not troubled to enquire what the task meant: from the Chorus he learns for the first time the many dangers before him, and how the Steeds are devourers of human flesh.

_Herc._ A toil you tell of that well fits my fate, {517} My life of hardship, ever struggling upward.

Admetus now appears, in mourning garb: after first salutations between the two friends, Hercules enquires what his trouble is, which gives scope for a favorite effect in Greek Drama--'dissimulation.'

_Herc._ Why are thy locks in sign of mourning shorn? {530} _Adm._ 'Tis for one dead, whom I to-day must bury.

_Herc._ The G.o.ds avert thy mourning for a child!

_Adm._ My children, what I had, live in my house.

_Herc._ Thy aged father, haply he is gone.

_Adm._ My father lives, and she that bore me lives.

_Herc._ Lies then thy wife Alcestis mongst the dead?

_Adm._ Of her I have in double wise to speak.

_Herc._ As of the living speakst thou, or the dead?

_Adm._ She is, and is no more: this grief afflicts me.

_Herc._ This gives no information: dark thy words. {540} _Adm._ Knowst thou not then the destiny a.s.sign'd her?

_Herc._ I know that she submits to die for thee.

_Adm._ To this a.s.senting is she not no more?

_Herc._ Lament her not too soon: await the time.

_Adm._ She's dead: one soon to die is now no more.

_Herc._ It differs wide to be, and not to be.

_Adm._ Such are thy sentiments, far other mine.

_Herc._ But wherefore are thy tears? What man is dead?

_Adm._ A woman: of a woman I made mention.

_Herc._ Of foreign birth, or one allied to thee? {550} _Adm._ Of foreign birth, but to my home most dear.

Hercules is moving away for the purpose of seeking hospitality elsewhere: Admetus will not hear of it, and, when Hercules loudly protests, puts aside his opposition with the air of one whose authority in matters of hospitable rites is not to be disputed. He orders attendants to conduct Hercules to a distant quarter of the Palace, to spread a sumptuous feast, and bar fast the doors, lest the voice of woe should affect the feasting guest. When Hercules is gone the _Chorus_ are staggered by such a mastery of personal grief as this implies. But _Admetus_ asks how could he let a guest depart from his house?

My affliction would not thus {575} Be less, but more unhospitable I.

But why, the _Chorus_ ask, conceal the truth?--His friend, answers _Admetus_, would never have entered, had he known. Some may blame him, he continues, but his house simply knows not how to do dishonor to a guest.--Admetus returns into the Palace, to his funeral preparations: the _Chorus_ are moved to enthusiasm by this forgetfulness of self in hospitable devotion; their enthusiasm breaks out in an Ode celebrating the glories of their king's hospitality in the past, and ending in a gleam of hope that it may yet do something for him in the future. {588}

CHORAL INTERLUDE III

_Evolutions, etc., as usual._

_Strophe I_

O liberal house! with princely state {589} To many a stranger, many a guest, Oft hast thou oped thy friendly gate, Oft spread the hospitable feast.

Beneath thy roof Apollo deign'd to dwell, Here strung his silver-sounding sh.e.l.l, And, mixing with thy menial train, Deigned to be called the shepherd of the plain: And as he drove his flocks along, Whether the winding vale they rove, Or linger in the upland grove, He tuned the pastoral pipe, or rural song.

_Antistrophe I_

Delighted with his tuneful lay, {601} No more the savage thirsts for blood; Amidst the flocks, in harmless play, Wantons the lynx's spotted brood; Pleas'd from his lair on Othrys' rugged brow The lion seeks the vale below: Whilst to the lyre's melodious sound The dappled hinds in sportive measures bound; And as the vocal echo rings, Lightly their nimble feet they ply, Leaving their pine-clad forests high, Charm'd by the sweet notes of his gladdening strings.

_Strophe II_

Hence is thy house, Admetus, graced With all that plenty's hand bestows; Near the sweet-streaming current placed, That from the lake of Boebia flows; Far towards the shades of night thy wide domain, Rich-pastured mead and cultured plain, Extends, to those Molossian meads Where the sun stations his unharnessed steeds; And stretching towards his eastern ray, Where Pelion, rising in his pride, Frowns o'er th' Aegean's portless tide: Reaches from sea to sea thy ample sway.

_Antistrophe II_

And thou wilt ope thy gate e'en now, {625} E'en now wilt thou receive this guest; Though from thine eye the warm tear flow, Though sorrow rend thy suffering breast, Sad tribute to thy wife, who, new in death, Lamented lies thy roof beneath!

Nature in truth has thus decreed: The pure soul must bear fruit of reverent deed.

Lo, all the pow'r of wisdom lies Fix'd in the righteous bosom: hence Rests in my soul this confidence-- The good shall yet safe from their trials rise. {636}

EPISODE III

_The Central Gates open and the Funeral Procession slowly files out and begins to fill the Stage_. Admetus beside the bier of Alcestis is calling on the Chorus (as representing the citizens of Pherae) to join in the invocations to the dead--when _suddenly another Procession appears on the Stage [entering by the Right Side-door, as from the immediate neighborhood]: it is headed by the father and mother of Admetus, both of whom have reached the furthest verge of old age, and who with difficulty totter along, while attendants follow them bearing sumptuous drapery and other funeral gifts. The scene settles down into the 'Forensic Contest,' a fixed feature of every Greek Tragedy, in which the 'case' of the hero and the opposition to it are brought out with all the formality of a judicial process, the long rheses representing advocates' speeches, the stichomuthic dialogue suggesting cross-examination, and the Chorus interposing as moderators_.

_Pheres_ in the tone of conventional consolation speaks of the virtues of the dead, and the special virtue of Alcestis's sacrifice, which has saved her husband's life, and himself from a childless old age; it is meet then that he should do honor to the corpse. _Attendants of Admetus advance to receive the presents: Admetus waves them back and stands coldly confronting his father. At last he speaks._ His father is an uninvited guest at this funeral feast, and unwelcome: the dead shall never be arrayed in his gifts. Then was the time for his father to show kindness when a life was demanded: and yet he could stand aloof and let a younger die! He will never believe himself the son of so mean and abject a soul.

At such an age, just trembling on the verge {677} Of life, thou would'st not, nay, thou dared'st not die For thine own son; but thou couldst suffer _her_, Though sprung from foreign blood: with justice then Her only as my father must I deem, Her only as my mother. Yet this course Mightst thou have run with glory, for thy son Daring to die; brief was the s.p.a.ce of life That could remain to thee: I then had lived My destin'd time, she too had lived.

Yet Pheres had already had his share of all that makes life happy: a youth amid royal luxury, a prosperous reign, a son to inherit his state and who ever did him honor. But let him beget him new sons to cherish his age and attend him in death: Admetus's hand shall never do such offices for him. And this is all that comes of old age's longing for death: let death show itself, and the old complaints of life are all silenced!

_Cho._ Forbear! Enough the present weight of woe: {710} My son, exasperate not a father's mind.

To this long rhesis _Pheres_ answers in a set speech of similar length.

Is he a slave to be so rated by his own son? And for what? He has given his son birth and nurture, he has already handed over to him a kingdom and will bequeath him yet more wide lands; all that fathers owe to sons he gives. What new obligation is this for Greece to submit to, that a father should die for his son?