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 sturdy 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, gorg’d and helpless, be assail’d and slain.
He would have sav’d 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 inclin’d
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 suppos’d 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 plac’d the forfeit crown,
Rul’d in their name, and train’d them to your will?
Had they misrul’d? 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 desir’d 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.
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 assoil’d:
I sav’d them, meant them honour: but thy friends
Rose, and with fire and sword assailed my house
By night; in that blind tumult they were slain.
To chance impute their deaths, then, not to me.
Beware! from thee upbraidings I receive
With pity, nay, with reverence; yet, beware!
I know, I know how hard it is to think
That right, that conscience pointed to a deed,
Where interest seems to have enjoin’d it too.
Most men are led by interest; and the few
Who are not, expiate the general sin,
Involv’d in one suspicion with the base.
Dizzy the path and perilous the way
Which in a deed like mine a just man treads,
But it is sometimes trodden, oh! believe it.
Yet how canst thou believe it? therefore thou
Hast all impunity. Yet, lest thy friends,
Embolden’d by my lenience, think it fear,
And count on like impunity, and rise,
And have to thank thee for a fall, beware!
To rule this kingdom I intend: with sway
Clement, if may be, but to rule it: there
Expect no wavering, no retreat, no change.—
And now I leave thee to these rites, esteem’d
Pious, but impious, surely, if their scope
Be to foment old memories of wrath.
Pray, as thou pour’st libations on this tomb,
To be deliver’d from thy foster’d hate,
Unjust suspicion, and erroneous fear. Polyphontes goes into the palace. The Chorus and Merope approach the tomb with their offerings.
Strophe
Draw, draw near to the tomb.
Lay honey-cakes on its marge,
Pour the libation of milk,
Deck it with garlands of flowers.
Tears fall thickly the while!
Behold, O King from the dark
House of the grave, what we do.
Antistrophe
O Arcadian hills,
Send us the Youth whom ye hide,
Girt with his coat for the chase,
With the low broad hat of the tann’d
Hunter o’ershadowing his brow:
Grasping firm, in his hand
Advanc’d, two javelins, not now
Dangerous alone to the deer.
Strophe 1
What shall I bear, O lost
Husband and King, to thy grave?—
Pure libations, and fresh
Flowers? But thou, in the gloom,
Discontented, perhaps,
Demandest vengeance, not grief?
Sternly requirest a man,
Light to spring up to thy house?
Strophe 2
Vengeance, O Queen, is his due,
His most just prayer: yet his house—
If that might soothe him below—
Prosperous, mighty, came back
In the third generation, the way
Order’d by Fate, to their home.
And now, glorious, secure,
Fill the wealth-giving thrones
Of their heritage, Pelops’ isle.
Antistrophe 1
Suffering sent them, Death
March’d with them, Hatred and Strife
Met them entering their halls.
For from the day when the first
Heracleidae receiv’d
That Delphic hest to return,
What hath involv’d them, but blind
Error on error, and blood?
Antistrophe 2
Truly I hear of a Maid
Of that stock born, who bestow’d
Her blood that so she might make
Victory sure to her race,
When the fight hung in doubt: but she now,
Honour’d and sung of by all,
Far on Marathon plain,
Gives her name to the spring
Macaria, blessed Child.
Strophe 3
She led the way of death.
And the
