Chapter XXXIV: Act IV

[_Enter_ Messenger _breathlessly announcing the horror which has just been enacted behind the scenes_.]

_Messenger:_ Oh, for some raging blast to carry me
With headlong speed through distant realms of air,
And wrap me in the darkness of the clouds;
That so I might this monstrous horror tear
From my remembrance. Oh, thou house of shame 625
To Pelops even and to Tantalus!

_Chorus:_ What is the news thou bring'st?

_Messenger:_ What realm is this?
Argos and Sparta, once the noble home
Of pious brothers? Corinth, on whose shores
Two rival oceans beat? Or do I see
The barbarous Danube on whose frozen stream
The savage Alani make swift retreat? 630
Hyrcania beneath eternal snows?
Or those wide plains of wandering Scythians?
What place is this that knows such hideous crime?

_Chorus:_ But tell thy tidings, whatsoe'er they be.

_Messenger:_ When I my scattered senses gather up,
And horrid fear lets go its numbing hold
Upon my limbs. Oh, but I see it still,
The ghastly picture of that dreadful deed! 635
Oh, come, ye whirlwinds wild, and bear me far,
Far distant, where the vanished day is borne.

_Chorus:_ Thou hold'st our minds in dire uncertainty.
Speak out and tell us what this horror is,
And who its author. Yet would I inquire
Not who, but which he is. Speak quickly, then. 640

_Messenger:_ There is upon the lofty citadel
A part of Pelops' house that fronts the south,
Whose farther side lifts up its massive walls
To mountain heights; for so the reigning king
May better sway the town, and hold in check
The common rabble when it scorns the throne.
Within this palace is a gleaming hall, 645
So huge, it may a multitude contain;
Whose golden architraves are high upborne
By stately columns of a varied hue.
Behind this public hall where people throng,
The palace stretches off in spacious rooms;
And, deep withdrawn, the royal sanctum lies, 650
Far from the vulgar gaze. This sacred spot
An ancient grove within a dale confines,
Wherein no tree its cheerful shade affords,
Or by the knife is pruned; but cypress trees
And yews, and woods of gloomy ilex wave
Their melancholy boughs. Above them all 655
A towering oak looks down and spreads abroad,
O'ershadowing all the grove. Within this place
The royal sons of Tantalus are wont
To ask consent of heaven to their rule,
And here to seek its aid when fortune frowns.
Here hang their consecrated offerings:
Sonorous trumpets, broken chariots,
Those famous spoils of the Myrtoan sea; 660
Still hang upon the treacherous axle-trees
The conquered chariot-wheels--mementoes grim
Of every crime this sinful race has done.
Here also is the Phrygian turban hung
Of Pelops' self; and here the spoil of foes,
A rich embroidered robe, the prize of war.
An oozy stream springs there beneath the shade, 665
And sluggish creeps along within the swamp,
Just like the ugly waters of the Styx
Which bind the oaths of heaven. 'Tis said that here
At dead of night the hellish gods make moan,
And all the grove resounds with clanking chains,
And mournful howl of ghosts. Here may be seen 670
Whatever, but to hear of, causes fear.
The spirits of the ancient dead come forth
From old, decaying tombs, and walk abroad;
While monsters, greater than the world has known,
Go leaping round, grotesque and terrible.
The whole wood gleams with an uncanny light,
And without sign of fire the palace glows.
Ofttimes the grove re-echoes with the sound 675
Of threefold bayings of the dogs of hell,
And oft do mighty shapes affright the house.
Nor are these fears allayed by light of day;
For night reigns ever here, and e'en at noon
The horror of the underworld abides.
From this dread spot are sure responses given 680
To those who seek the oracle; the fates
With mighty sound from out the grot are told,
And all the cavern thunders with the god.
'Twas to this spot that maddened Atreus came,
His brother's children dragging in his train.
The sacrificial altars are adorned--
Oh, who can worthily describe the deed?
Behind their backs the noble captives' hands 685
Are bound, and purple fillets wreathe their brows.
All things are ready, incense, sacred wine,
The sacrificial meal, and fatal knife.
The last detail is properly observed,
That this outrageous murder may be done
In strict observance of the ritual!

_Chorus:_ Who lays his hand unto the fatal steel? 690

_Messenger:_ He is himself the priest; the baleful prayer
He makes, and chants the sacrificial song
With wild and boisterous words; before the shrine
He takes his place; the victims doomed to death
He sets in order, and prepares the sword.
He gives the closest heed to all details
And misses no least portion of the rite. 695
The grove begins to tremble, earth to quake,
And all the palace totters with the shock,
And seems to hesitate in conscious doubt
Where it shall throw its ponderous masses down.
High on the left a star with darkling train
Shoots swift athwart the sky; the sacred wine
Poured at the altar fires, with horrid change, 700
Turns bloody as it flows. The royal crown
Fell twice and yet again from Atreus' head,
And the ivory statues in the temple wept.
These monstrous portents moved all others sore;
But Atreus, only, held himself unmoved,
And even set the threat'ning gods at naught.
And now delay is at an end. He stands 705
Before the shrine with lowering, sidelong gaze.
As in the jungle by the Ganges stream
A hungry tigress stands between two bulls,
Eager for both, but yet in doubtful mood
Which first shall feel her fangs (to this she turns 710
With gaping jaws, then back to that again,
And holds her raging hunger in suspense):
So cruel Atreus eyes the victims doomed
To sate his curséd wrath; and hesitates
Who first shall feel the knife, and who shall die
The next in order. 'Tis of no concern,
But still he hesitates, and gloats awhile 715
In planning how to do the horrid deed.

_Chorus:_ Who then is first to die?

_Messenger:_ First place he gives
(Lest you should think him lacking in respect)
Unto his grandsire's namesake, Tantalus.

_Chorus:_ What spirit, what demeanor showed the youth?

_Messenger:_ He stood quite unconcerned, nor strove to plead, 720
Knowing such prayer were vain. But in his neck
That savage butcher plunged his gleaming sword
Clear to the hilt and drew it forth again.
Still stood the corpse upright, and, wavering long,
As 'twere in doubt or here or there to fall, 725
At last prone on the uncle hurled itself.
Then he, his rancor unabated still,
Dragged youthful Plisthenes before the shrine,
And quickly meted him his brother's fate.
With one keen blow he smote him on the neck,
Whereat his bleeding body fell to earth;
While with a murmur inarticulate,
His head with look complaining rolled away.

_Chorus:_ What did he then, this twofold murder done? 730
The last one spare, or heap up crime on crime?

_Messenger:_ As when some manéd lion in the woods
Victorious attacks the Armenian herds--
(His jaws are smeared with blood, his hunger gone;
And yet he does not lay aside his wrath; 735
Now here, now there he charges on the bulls,
And now the calves he worries, though his teeth
Are weary with their work)--so Atreus raves;
He swells with wrath; and, grasping in his hand
The sword with double slaughter dripping yet,
By fury blinded but with deadly stroke,
He drives clean through the body of the boy. 740
And so, from breast to back transfixed, he falls
By double wound, and with his streaming blood
Extinguishes the baleful altar fires.

_Chorus:_ Oh, horrid deed!

_Messenger:_ What! horrid call ye that?
If only there the course of crime had stopped,
'Twould pious seem. 745

_Chorus:_ What more atrocious crime,
What greater sin could human heart conceive?

_Messenger:_ And do ye think his crime was ended here?
'Twas just begun.

_Chorus:_ What further could there be?
Perchance he threw the corpses to be torn
By raving beasts, and kept them from the fire?

_Messenger:_ Would that he had! I do not pray for this,
That friendly earth may give them burial,
Or funeral fires consume; but only this, 750
That as a ghastly meal they may be thrown
To birds and savage beasts. Such is my prayer,
Which otherwise were direful punishment.
Oh, that the father might their corpses see
Denied to sepulture! Oh, crime of crimes,
Incredible in any age; a crime
Which coming generations will refuse
To hear! Behold, from breasts yet warm with life, 755
The exta, plucked away, lie quivering,
The lungs still breathe, the timid heart still beats.
But he the organs with a practiced hand
Turns deftly over, and inquires the fates,
Observing carefully the viscera.
With this inspection satisfied at length,
With mind at ease, he now is free to plan 760
His brother's awful feast. With his own hand
The bodies he dismembers, carving off
The arms and shoulders, laying bare the bones,
And all with savage joy. He only saves
The heads and hands, those hands which he himself
Had clasped in friendly faith. Some of the flesh
Is placed on spits and by the roasting fires 765
Hangs dripping; other parts into a pot
Are thrown, where on the water's seething stream
They leap about. The fire in horror shrinks
From the polluting touch of such a feast,
Recoils upon the shuddering altar-hearth
Twice and again, until at last constrained,
Though with repugnance strong, it fiercely burns.
The liver sputters strangely on the spits; 770
Nor could I say whether the flesh or flames
Groan more. The fitful flames die out in smoke
Of pitchy blackness; and the smoke itself,
A heavy mournful cloud, mounts not aloft
In upward-shooting columns, straight and high,
But settles down like a disfiguring shroud
Upon the very statues of the gods. 775
O all-enduring sun, though thou didst flee
In horror from the sight, and the radiant noon
Didst into darkness plunge; 'twas all too late.
The father tears his sons, and impiously feasts
On his own flesh. See, there in state he sits,
His hair anointed with the dripping nard, 780
His senses dulled with wine. And oft the food,
As if in horror held, sticks in his throat.
In this thine evil hour one good remains,
One only, O Thyestes: that to know
Thy depth of suffering is spared to thee.
But even this will perish. Though the sun
Should turn his chariot backward on its course, 785
And night, at noon arising from the earth,
Should quite obscure this foul and ghastly crime
With shades unknown, it could not be concealed;
For every evil deed shall be revealed.

* * * * *

[_Unnatural darkness has come over the world at midday._]

_Chorus:_ O father of the earth and sky,
Before whose rising beams the night 790
With all her glories flees away;
Oh, whither dost thou turn thy course,
And why, midway of heaven, does day
To darkness turn? O Phoebus, why
Dost turn away thy shining face?
Not yet has evening's messenger
Called forth the nightly stars; not yet 795
The rounding of thy western goal
Bids loose thy horses from their toil;
Not yet, as day fades into night,
Sounds forth the trumpets' evening call.
The plowman stands in dumb amaze, 800
With oxen still unspent with toil,
To see the welcome supper hour
So quickly come. But what, O sun,
Has driven thee from thy heavenly course?
What cause from their accustomed way
Has turned thy steeds? Is war essayed
Once more by giants, bursting forth
From out the riven gates of Dis? 805
Does Tityos, though wounded sore,
Renew his ancient, deadly wrath?
Perchance Typhoeus has thrown off
His mountain, and is free once more;
Perchance once more a way to heaven 810
Those giants, felled in Phlegra's vale,
Are building, and on Pelion's top
Are piling Thracian Ossa high.
The accustomed changes of the heavens
Are gone to come no more. No more
The rising and the setting sun
Shall we behold. Aurora bright, 815
The herald of the dewy morn,
Whose wont it is to speed the sun
Upon his way, now stands amazed
To see her kingdom overturned.
She is not skilled to bathe his steeds,
A-weary with their rapid course,
Nor in the cooling sea to plunge 820
Their reeking manes. The sun himself,
In setting, sees the place of dawn,
And bids the darkness fill the sky
Without the aid of night. No stars
Come out, nor do the heavens gleam
With any fires; no moon dispels 825
The darkness' black and heavy pall.
Oh, that the night itself were here,
Whatever this portends! Our hearts
Are trembling, yea, are trembling sore,
And smitten with a boding fear
Lest all the world in ruins fall, 830
And formless chaos as of yore
O'erwhelm us, gods and men; lest land,
And all-encircling sea, and stars
That wander in the spangled heavens,
Be buried in the general doom.
No more with gleaming, deathless torch, 835
Shall Phoebus, lord of all the stars,
Lead the procession of the years
And mark the seasons; nevermore
Shall Luna, flashing back his rays,
Dispel the fears of night; and pass
In shorter course her brother's car. 840
The throng of heavenly beings soon
Shall in one vast abyss be heaped.
That shining path of sacred stars,
Which cuts obliquely 'thwart the zones, 845
The standard-bearer of the years,
Shall see the stars in ruin fall,
Itself in ruin falling. He,
The Ram, who, in the early spring,
Restores the sails to the warming breeze,
Shall headlong plunge into those waves 850
Through which the trembling maid of Greece
He bore of old. And Taurus, who
Upon his horns like a garland wears
The Hyades, shall drag with him
The sacred Twins, and the stretched-out claws
Of the curving Crab. With heat inflamed,
Alcides' Lion once again 855
Shall fall from heaven; the Virgin, too,
Back to the earth she left shall fall;
And the righteous Scales with their mighty weights,
Shall drag in their fall the Scorpion.
And he, old Chiron, skilled to hold 860
Upon his bow of Thessaly
The feathered dart, shall lose his shafts
And break his bow. Cold Capricorn,
Who ushers sluggish winter in,
Shall fall from heaven, and break thy urn,
Whoe'er thou art, O Waterman. 865
And with thee shall the Fish depart
Remotest of the stars of heaven;
And those monsters[48] huge which never yet
Were in the ocean plunged, shall soon
Within the all-engulfing sea
Be swallowed up. And that huge Snake,
Which like a winding river glides 870
Between the Bears, shall fall from heaven;[49]
United with that serpent huge,
The Lesser Bear, congealed with cold,
And that slow driver of the Wain
No longer stable in its course,
Shall all in common ruin fall.
Have we, of all the race of men, 875
Been worthy deemed to be o'erwhelmed
And buried 'neath a riven earth?
Is this our age the end of all?
Alas, in evil hour of fate
Were we begotten, wretched still,
Whether the sun is lost to us 880
Or banished by our impious sins!
But away with vain complaints and fear:
Eager for life is he who would not die,
Though all the world in death around him lie.

FOOTNOTES:

[48] Reading, _monstra_.

[49] Reading, with a semicolon after _Anguis_.