Chapter V

O my Ilion, forth I hied me
From his happy home and mine;
Hapless, soon the Greeks descried me,
As I knelt at Phœbe’s shrine.
Then, my husband slain before me,
To the shore they hurried me,
And from all I loved they tore me
Fainting o’er the cruel sea.

BELLEROPHON.

(_Iliad_ vi. 152-195.)

In a far nook of steed-famed Argos, stand
The city Ephyra. Here Sisyphus,
The wily son of Æolus, was king.

His son was Glaucus, and to him was born
Bellerophon of honour without stain,
Gifted with every grace the gods bestow,
And manly spirit that won all men’s love.

Him Prœtus, who by Jove’s supreme consent
Held a harsh sceptre over Argolis,
Hated and doomed to exile or to death.
For fair Antea loved Bellerophon
With a mad passion, and, her royal spouse
Deceiving, told her longing to his guest.
But brave Bellerophon, as good as brave,
Set a pure heart against her evil words.
Then with false tongue she stood before the king:
“O Prœtus, die or slay Bellerophon,
Who sought her love, who only loveth thee.”
And anger seized the king at what he heard,
Yet was he loath to kill him, for the laws
That make the stranger sacred he revered.
But unto Lycia, bearing fatal signs,
And folded in a tablet, words of death,
He sent him, and enjoined him these to give
Unto Antea’s sire--his step-father,
Thinking that he would perish.

So he went,
Blameless, beneath the guidance of the gods,
And reached the eddying Xanthus. There the king
Of wide-extending Lycia honoured him
Nine days with feasting and with sacrifice.
But when the tenth rose-fingered morn had come,
He asked him for his message and the sign
Whate’er he bore from Prœtus,--which he gave.

And when he broke the evil-boding seal,
He first enjoined him the Chimæra dire
To slay,--of race divine and not of men,
In front a lion, dragon in the rear,
And goat between, whose breath was as the strength
Of fiercely blazing fire. And this he slew,
Trusting the portents of the gods. And next
He conquered the wild, far-famed Solymi,--
The hardest battle fought with mortal men.
The man-like Amazons he next subdued;
And as he journed homeward, fearing nought,
An ambuscade of Lycia’s bravest men,
Attacked him, but he slew them one by one,
And they returned no more.

And so the king
Seeing his race divine by noble deeds
Well proven, made the Lycian realm his home,
His beauteous daughter gave him for his wife,
And made him partner in his royal power.
And of the choicest land for corn and wine,
The Lycians gave him to possess and till.

HORACE.

(_Book_ i. _Ode_ xi.)

Seek not to know (for ’tis as wrong as vain)
What term of life to thee or me
The god may grant, Leuconoe,
Nor with Chaldean numbers vex thy brain.
But calmly take what comes of joy or pain,
Whether Jove grant us many winters more,
Or this complete our destiny
Which makes the stormy Tuscan sea
Weary its strength with angry shocks
Against the hollow-echoing rocks.
Be gently wise, my friend, and while you pour
The ruddy wine, live long by living well.
While we are speaking, hark! time’s envious knell!
Let us enjoy to-day, nor borrow
Vague grief by thinking of to-morrow.

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE.

(_From_ VIRGIL--_Georgic_ IV. 457-527.)

The fair, young bride of Orpheus, as she fled
From Aristæus who designed her ill,
With hasty feet, along the river bank
Of Hebrus, found her death. For in her way
There lurked a baleful serpent ’mid the grass.

Full long the choir of Dryads mourned her fate,
And set the mountains wailing with their woe.
Pangæus answered back to Rhodope, and grief
Held all the land of Rhesus, dear to Mars;
And Hebrus, weeping, rolled to distant shores
The story of the dead Eurydice.

But Orpheus in his sorrow touched his harp,
And, sitting by the wild beach all alone,
Sang from the rising till the setting sun
Of his own sweet, lost wife Eurydice.
Till, drawing solace to his wounded love,
Through the fierce jaws of Tænarus he passed,
The gates of Hades, and the gloomy grove,
All thick with darkest horror, and, at last,
Entered the drear abodes where Pluto reigns
Among the dead--inexorable king.

And then he put his fingers to the strings
And sang of her he loved, Eurydice;
And made such sweet, enchanting melody
That all the ghosts of Erebus were charmed,
And hied from all recesses at the sound;
Gathering around him, many as the birds
That hide themselves by thousands ’mid the leaves
Of some sweet-smelling grove, when eventide
Or wintry shower calls them from the hills.

The shades of mothers, sires and mighty men,
Of maids for whom the torch was never lit,
And boys whose pyres their parents’ eyes had seen,
Listened, enchained, and for a while forgot
The slimy weeds that grew upon the banks,
Of black Cocytus, and the hateful Styx,
Whose nine slow streams shut out the happy world.
And even Tartarus, Death’s deepest home,
Was stricken with amazement; and the rage
Of snake-tressed Furies ceased; and Cerberus
Restrained his triple roar, and hellish blasts
Forbore a while to turn Ixion’s wheel.

And now, all danger past, to upper air
He turned his eager feet, Eurydice
Restored, near-following (for Proserpine
Had so enjoined), when Orpheus, mad with joy
And longing to behold her face once more,
Paused and looked back, unmindful. Fatal look,
That robbed him of his treasure on the verge
Of full fruition in the world’s broad light!
No hope of mercy; Hell no mercy knows
For broken law. This Orpheus learned too late,
When triple thunder bellowed through the deeps
Of dark Avernus.

Then Eurydice:
“What frenzy, Orpheus, has possessed thy soul
To ruin thee and me, ah! wretched me,
Whom now the Fates call back to Hades’ gloom!
Alas! the sleep of death is on my eyes.
Farewell, my Orpheus! darkness hems me round--
Farewell! in vain I stretch weak hands to thee--
Thine, thine no more! Farewell! Farewell!”
She said,
And vanished from his sight away, as smoke
Fades into viewless air, nor saw she more
Her Orpheus.

He in vain the fleeting shade
Sought to restrain with outspread hands; in vain
Essayed to speak, dumb-stricken with surprise;
In vain, to cross the gloomy Stygian wave.
Alas! what could he do, or whither go,
Since she was gone, the sum of all his joy?
Or, with what tears, what plaintive, moving words,
Seek respite from the gods that rule below
For her who, shivering, crossed the darksome stream?

So passed she from him; and, for seven long months
Beneath a rock by Strymon’s lonely flood
He wailed her fate and his, till all the caves
Re-echoed mournfully, and savage beasts,
Assuaged, knew milder breasts, and strength of oaks
Was captive led by magic of his song.
Even as, in woods, beneath a poplar’s shade
Lone Philomel laments her callow brood,
Robbed from the nest by cruel, churlish hands;
And she, poor childless mother, all night long,
Perched on a branch, renews the doleful strain,
And with her plaints makes all the grove resound;
So Orpheus mourned Eurydice, nor dreamed
Of other love, nor other nuptial tie.
Alone, ’mid Boreal ice, and by the banks
Of snow-girt Tanais, and through the plains
That feel the chill breath of Niphæan hills,
He sang the loss of sweet Eurydice
And Pluto’s bootless gift. And even when
The Thracian maidens maddened at the slight
Of their own beauty in such lasting grief
And wild from Bacchic orgies, slew the bard,
Strewing the broad fields with his severed limbs;
Then, even then, when Hebrus bore away
The tuneful head torn from the marble neck,
The cold lips, faithful still to their lost love,
Murmured, “Eurydice! Eurydice!”
And the sad banks replied “Eurydice!”

ADRIAN’S ADDRESS TO HIS SOUL.

(_From Catullus._)

Animula! vagula, blandula,
Hospes, comesque corporis,
Quæ nunc abibis in loca,
Pallidula rigida, nudula
Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos?

The same rendered into English:

VERSION I.

Darling, gentle, wandering soul,
Long this body’s friend and guest,
Tell what region is thy goal,
Pale and cold and all undrest,
Lost thy wonted play and jest?

VERSION II.

Spirit! sweet, gentle thing,
Thou seemest taking wing
For some new place of rest;
So long this body’s guest
And friend, dost thou forsake it,
And pallid, cold, and naked,
Thou wanderest,
Bereft of joy and jest,
Whither, ethereal thing?

VERSION III.

Dear, pretty, fluttering, vital thing,
So long this body’s guest and friend,
Ah! tell me, whither dost thou wend
Thy lonely way,
Pallid and nude and shivering,
Nor, as thy wont is, gently gay?

PYRAMUS AND THISBE.

(_From Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.”_)

Fairest of many youths was Pyramus,
And Thisbe beauteous among Eastern maids.
These dwelt in neighbour houses, where, of old,
Semiramis girt Babylon with walls.
And, being neighbours, these two fell in love,
And love with time grew stronger. They had wed,
But that their parents willed it not, and so
Forbade all intercourse. With mutual breasts,
Each sighed for other. Parted thus, they spoke
By signs, and, being hindered, loved the more.

There was an opening in the common wall
That made their houses two, long unobserved,
But (what does not love see?) by them discerned.
Of this they made a passage for the voice,
And, safe from notice, murmured loving words.
As oftentimes they stood, the wall between,
Whispering and catching soft replies in turn,
“O envious wall, that standest in our way,
Who love each other!” they would, vexed, exclaim,
“If thou would’st let us meet full face to face,
Or e’en enough to touch each other’s lips!
And yet we are not thankless; ’tis to thee
We owe this pleasure of exchanging words.”

Thus oft conversing, at approach of night,
They said “farewell,” and kissed with longing lips,
That never met, the wall that stood between;
And when Aurora quenched the fires of night,
And Phœbus dried the dew upon the grass,
They came again unto the trysting place.

Once, having come and many plaints exchanged
Of their sad lot, they each with each agreed
To leave their homes, and in the silent night
Baffling their guardians, through the quiet streets,
Pass to the fields, and meet at Ninus’ tomb.
There stood a tree with snow-white fruit adorned--
A lofty mulberry--a cool fount close by;
This was to be their trysting-place.

That day
Was slow to vanish in the western sea.
Then in the darkness Thisbe issued forth,
With stealthy footsteps, and with close-veiled face.
She reached the tomb, and ’neath the trysting-tree
Sat down (love made her confident); when, lo!
A lioness, her mouth all froth and blood,
From recent slaughter, came to quench her thirst
At the near fountain.

Thisbe saw her come,
(For the moon shone) and fled with frightened feet
Into a cave, and, running, dropt her veil;
Which, having quenched her thirst, the lioness,
Returning, found, and tore with bloody mouth.

Just then, came Pyramus with later feet,
Who saw the lion’s tracks deep in the soil,
And paled with sudden fear. But when he found
His Thisbe’s garment stained with blood, he cried,
“One fatal night two lovers shall destroy,
Of whom she was the worthier of life!
My soul is guilty, O dear perished love,
Who bade thee come at night to scenes of dread,
And let thee come the first. O lions! rush
From where you have your dens beneath the rock,
And tear these cursed limbs with ruthless teeth!
But--’tis a coward’s part to wish for death.”

Then with the veil he seeks the trysting-tree,
And to its cherished folds gives kisses, tears,
And to his sword, “Drink now my blood,” he cries,
And sinks it in his heart, and draws it forth,
And falling, lies at length with upturned face.
The blood spurts forth, as when a pipe that’s burst
Throws from the hissing gap a slender jet,
Beating the obstant air with watery blows.
The trysting-tree is sprinkled with his blood,
Till its fair fruit is changed to gloomy black.

Then Thisbe, half afraid e’en yet, returns,
Lest Pyramus should miss her. Eagerly,
With eyes and heart, she looks for her beloved,
Burning to tell him of the danger past.
But when she gained the place and saw the tree
Sadly discoloured, she was sore in doubt
Whether or no it was the very spot;
Till, all aghast, she saw the blood-stained ground
And quivering limbs, and started, horror-struck,
Trembling as does the sea beneath a breeze.
And when she recognized her dear one’s face,
She threw her tender arms above her head,
And tore her hair, and the dear form embraced,
Filling the wound with tears, and with her lips
Touched the cold face, and called him by his name;
“Pyramus, answer, thine own Thisbe calls!
Oh! hear me, Pyramus, look up once more!”
Touched by the voice, he oped his dying eyes,
Then closed them on the world for evermore.

She now saw all--her veil--the empty sheath.
“Ah! hapless love,” she said, “hath slain my love,
But love will make me strong like him to die,
Fearing no wounds; for I will follow him,
The wretched cause--his comrade, too, in death:
And death that parted us shall re-unite.
O wretched parents of a wretched pair,
Whom true love bound together to the last,
Hear this, my dying voice, and not refuse
To let our ashes mingle in one urn.
O trysting-tree, whose funeral branches shade
The corse of one, and soon shall wave o’er two,
Henceforth forever be our mark of fate,--
Bear in thy fruit the memory of our death!”
She spake these words, and fell upon the sword,
And the point entered deep within her breast.
His blood, yet warm, was mingled with her own.

Her dying prayer the gods in heaven heard,
Her dying prayer touched the lone parents’ hearts,
And both their ashes mingle in one urn.

THE WITHERED LEAF.

(_From the French of A. V. Arnault._)

“De ta tige détachée.”

“From thy branchlet torn away,
Whither, whither dost thou stray,
Poor dry leaf?”--“I cannot say.
Late, the tempest struck the oak,
Which was hitherto my stay.
Ever since that fatal stroke,
To the faithless winds a prey,
Not a moment’s rest I gain.
From the forest to the plain,
I am carried by the gale.
Yet I only go the way
That the rose-leaf shuns in vain,
And where laurel-leaves grow pale.”

ANDRÉ CHÉNIER’S DEATH-SONG.

André Chénier, for having dared to write against the excesses of his countrymen, was summoned before the Revolutional Tribunal, condemned and executed, in the year 1794. The first eight stanzas (in the translation) he composed in prison, after his condemnation; the two last he wrote at the foot of the scaffold, while waiting to be dragged to execution. He had just finished the line, “Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupière,” when his turn came, and his words had their fulfillment. In the translation, the spirit, not the letter, has been regarded.

When one lone lamb is bleating in the shambles,
And gleams the ruthless knife,
His yester playmates pause not in their gambols,
Their wild, free joy of life,

To think of him; the little ones that played
With him in sunny hours,
In bright green fields, and his fair form arrayed
With ribbons gay and flowers,
Mark not his absence from the fleecy throng;
Unwept he sheds his blood;
And this sad destiny is mine. Ere long
From this grim solitude

I pass to death. But let me bear my fate,
And calmly be forgot;
A thousand others in the self-same state
Await the self-same lot.

And what were friends to me? Oh! one kind voice
Heard through those prison-bars,
Did it not make my drooping heart rejoice,
Though from my murderers

’Twas bought, perhaps? Alas! how soon life ends!
And yet why should my death
Make any one unhappy? Live, my friends.
Nor think my fleeting breath

Calls you to come. Mayhap, in days gone by,
I, too, from sight of sorrow
Turned, careless, with self-wrapt unpitying eye,
Not dreaming of the morrow.

And now misfortune presses on my heart,
Erewhile so strong and free,
’Twere craven to ask you to bear its smart--
Farewell, nor think of me!

* * * * *

As a faint ray or zephyr’s latest breath
Revives the dying day,
Beneath the scaffold, that stern throne of death,
I sing my parting lay.

Before an hour, with wakeful foot and loud,
Has marked its journey’s close
On yon bright disc, the sleep of death shall shroud
Mine eyes from worldly woes!

THE LAKE.

(_From Lamartine._)

I.

For ever drifting towards shores unknown,
In endless night, returnless, borne away,
We never, in Time’s sea our anchor thrown,
Pause for a single day!

II.

O Lake, I come alone to sit by thee,
Upon the stone where thou didst see her rest,
Hardly a year ago, it seems, when she
Looked on thy wavy breast!

III.

Thus didst thou threaten to those stooping rocks,
Thus on their wave-worn sides thou then didst beat,
Thus did thy foam, aroused by windy shocks,
Play round my darling’s feet!

IV.

One evening, as we floated on the calm,
And not a sound was heard afar or near,
Save oary music mingling firm and clear,
With thy soft rippling psalm,--

V.

Then, all at once, sweet tones, too sweet for earth,
Awoke the sleeping echoes into bliss,
The waves grew hushed, the voice I loved gave birth
To such a strain as this:

1.

“O Time, suspend thy flight, and happy hours,
Linger upon your ways!
Oh! let us know the fleeting joy that’s ours
These brightest of our days!

2.

For the unhappy ones who thee implore,
Flow swiftly as thou canst,
With all their cares; but leave us, pass us o’er
In happiness entranced!

3.

Alas! in vain I ask some moments more,
For Time escapes and flies!
I ask this night to linger; lo, the power
Of darkness quickly dies!

4.

But let us love, and, while we may, be blest,
Before our hour is gone!
Nor time, nor man has any point of rest,
_It_ flows, and _we_ float on!”

VI.

O jealous Time! those moments of delight,
When Love pours bliss in streams upon the heart,
Must they fly from us with as swift a flight
As days of ill depart?

VII.

Alas! can we not even mark the track?
_Forever lost!_ like all that went before!
And Time that gave them and then took them back
Shall give them back no more!