The Seven Plays in English Verse Part 18

MEN. I have seen ere now a man of doughty tongue Urge sailors in foul weather to unmoor, Who, caught in the sea-misery by and by, Lay voiceless, m.u.f.fled in his cloak, and suffered Who would of the sailors over trample him Even so methinks thy truculent mouth ere long Shall quench its outcry, when this little cloud Breaks forth on thee with the full tempest's might.

TEU. I too have seen a man whose windy pride Poured forth loud insults o'er a neighbour's fall, Till one whose cause and temper showed like mine Spake to him in my hearing this plain word: 'Man, do the dead no wrong; but, if thou dost, Be sure thou shalt have sorrow.' Thus he warned The infatuate one: ay, one whom I behold, For all may read my riddle--thou art he.

MEN. I will be gone. 'Twere shame to me, if known, To chide when I have power to crush by force.

TEU. Off with you, then! 'Twere triple shame in me To list the vain talk of a bl.u.s.tering fool. [_Exit_ MENELAUS

LEADER OF CHORUS.

High the quarrel rears his head!

Haste thee, Teucer, trebly haste, Grave-room for the valiant dead Furnish with what speed thou mayst, Hollowed deep within the ground, Where beneath his mouldering mound Aias aye shall be renowned.

_Re-enter_ TECMESSA _with_ EURYSAKES.

TEU. Lo! where the hero's housemate and his child, Hitting the moment's need, appear at hand, To tend the burial of the ill fated dead.

Come, child, take thou thy station close beside: Kneel and embrace the author of thy life, In solemn suppliant fas.h.i.+on holding forth This lock of thine own hair, and hers, and mine With threefold consecration, that if one Of the army force thee from thy father's corse, My curse may banish him from holy ground, Far from his home, unburied, and cut off From all his race, even as I cut this curl.

There, hold him, child, and guard him; let no hand Stir thee, but lean to the calm breast and cling.

(_To_ CHORUS) And ye, be not like women in this scene, Nor let your manhoods falter; stand true men To this defence, till I return prepared, Though all cry No, to give him burial. [_Exit_

CHORUS.

When shall the tale of wandering years be done? I 1 When shall arise our exile's latest sun?

Oh, where shall end the incessant woe Of troublous spear-encounter with the foe, Through this vast Trojan plain, Of Grecian arms the lamentable stain?

Would he had gone to inhabit the wide sky, I 2 Or that dark home of death where millions lie, Who taught our Grecian world the way To use vile swords and knit the dense array!

His toil gave birth to toil In endless line. He made mankind his spoil.

His tyrant will hath forced me to forgo II 1 The garland, and the goblet's bounteous flow: Yea, and the flute's dear noise, And night's more tranquil joys; Ay me! nor only these, The fruits of golden ease, But Love, but Love--O crowning sorrow!-- Hath ceased for me. I may not borrow Sweet thoughts from him to smooth my dreary bed, Where dank night-dews fall ever on my head, Lest once I might forget the sadness of the morrow.

Even here in Troy, Aias was erst my rock, II 2 From darkling fears and 'mid the battle-shock To screen me with huge might: Now he is lost in night And horror. Where again Shall gladness heal my pain?

O were I where the waters h.o.a.ry, Round Sunium's pine-clad promontory, Plash underneath the flowery upland height.

Then holiest Athens soon would come in sight, And to Athena's self I might declare my story.

_Enter_ TEUCER.

TEU. My steps were hastened, brethren, when I saw Great Agamemnon hitherward afoot.

He means to talk perversely, I can tell.

_Enter_ AGAMEMNON.

AG. And so I hear thou'lt stretch thy mouth agape With big bold words against us undismayed-- Thou, the she-captive's offspring! High would scale Thy voice, and pert would be thy strutting gait, Were but thy mother n.o.ble; since, being naught, So stiff thou stand'st for him who is nothing now, And swear'st we came not as commanders here Of all the Achaean navy, nor of thee; But Aias sailed, thou say'st, with absolute right.

Must we endure detraction from a slave?

What was the man thou noisest here so proudly?

Have I not set my foot as firm and far?

Or stood his valour unaccompanied In all this host? High cause have we to rue That prize-encounter for Pelides' arms, Seeing Teucer's sentence stamps our knavery For all to know it; and nought will serve but ye, Being vanquished, kick at the award that pa.s.sed By voice of the majority in the court, And either pelt us with rude calumnies, Or stab at us, ye laggards! with base guile.

Howbeit, these ways will never help to build The wholesome order of established law, If men shall hustle victors from their right, And mix the hindmost rabble with the van.

That craves repression. Not by bulky size, Or shoulders' breadth, the perfect man is known; But wisdom gives chief power in all the world.

The ox hath a huge broadside, yet is held Right in the furrow by a slender goad; Which remedy, I perceive, will pa.s.s ere long To visit thee, unless thy wisdom grow; Who hast uttered forth such daring insolence For the pale shadow of a vanished man.

Learn modestly to know thy place and birth, And bring with thee some freeborn advocate To plead thy cause before us in thy room.

I understand not in the barbarous tongue, And all thy talk sounds nonsense to mine ear.

CH. Would ye might both have sense to curb your ire!

No better hope for either can I frame.

TEU. Fie! How doth grat.i.tude when men are dead Prove renegade and swiftly pa.s.s away!

This Agamemnon hath no slightest word Of kind remembrance any more for thee, Aias, who oftentimes for his behoof Hast jeoparded thy life in labour of war.

Now all is clean forgotten and out of mind.

Thou who hast multiplied words void of sense, Hast thou no faintest memory of the time When who but Aias came and rescued you Already locked within the toils,--all lost, The rout began: when close abaft the s.h.i.+ps The torches flared, and o'er the bootless trench Hector was bounding high to board our fleet?

Who stayed that onset? Was not Aias he?

Whom thou deny'st to have once set foot by thine.

Find ye no merit there? And once again When he met Hector singly, man to man, Not by your bidding, but the lottery's choice, His lot, that skulked not low adown i' the heap, A moist earth-clod, but sure to spring in air, And first to clear the plumy helmet's brim.

Yes, Aias was the man, and I too there Kept rank, the 'barbarous mother's servile son.'

I pity thee the blindness of that word.

Who was thy father's father? A barbarian, Pelops, the Phrygian, if you trace him far!

And what was Atreus, thine own father? One Who served his brother with the abominable Dire feast of his own flesh. And thou thyself Cam'st from a Cretan mother, whom her sire Caught with a man who had no right in her And gave dumb fishes the polluted prey.

Such was thy race. What is the race thou spurnest?

My father, Telamon, of all the host Being foremost proved in valour, took as prize My mother for his mate: a princess she, Born of Laomedon; Alcmena's son Gave her to grace him--a triumphant meed.

Thus royally descended and thus brave, Shall I renounce the brother of my blood, Or suffer thee to thrust him in his woes Far from all burial, shameless that thou art?

Be sure that, if ye cast him forth, ye'll cast Three bodies more beside him in one spot; For n.o.bler should I find it here to die In open quarrel for my kinsman's weal, Than for thy wife--or Menelaus', was 't?

Consider then, not my case, but your own.

For if you harm me you will wish some day To have been a coward rather than dare me.

CH. Hail, Lord Odysseus! thou art come in time Not to begin, but help to end, a fray.

_Enter_ ODYSSEUS.

OD. What quarrel, sirs? I well perceived from far The kings high-voicing o'er the valiant dead.

AG. Yea, Lord Odysseus, for our ears are full Of this man's violent heart-offending talk.

OD. What words have pa.s.sed? I cannot blame the man Who meets foul speech with bitterness of tongue.

AG. My speech was bitter, for his deeds were foul.

OD. What deed of his could harm thy sovereign head?

AG. He boldly says this corse shall not be left Unburied, but he'll bury it in our spite.

OD. May I then speak true counsel to my friend, And pull with thee in policy as of yore?

AG. Speak. I were else a madman; for no friend Of all the Argeians do I count thy peer.

OD. Then hear me in Heaven's name! Be not so hard Thus without ruth tombless to cast him forth; Nor be so vanquished by a vehement will, That to thy hate even Justice' self must bow.

I, too, had him for my worst enemy, Since I gained mastery o'er Pelides' arms.

But though he used me so, I ne'er will grudge For his proud scorn to yield him thus much honour, That, save Achilles' self, I have not seen So n.o.ble an Argive on the fields of Troy.

Then 'twere not just in thee to slight him now; Nor would thy treatment wound him, but confound The laws of Heaven. No hatred should have scope To offend the n.o.ble spirits of the dead.

AG. Wilt thou thus fight against me on his side?

OD. Yea, though I hated him, while hate was comely.