A private loss here founds a nation’s peace. Polyphontes goes out.
Strophe
Peace, who tarriest too long;
Peace, with Delight in thy train;
Come, come back to our prayer!
Then shall the revel again
Visit our streets, and the sound
Of the harp be heard with the pipe,
When the flashing torches appear
In the marriage-train coming on,
With dancing maidens and boys:
While the matrons come to the doors,
And the old men rise from their bench,
When the youths bring home the bride.
Antistrophe
Not decried by my voice
He who restores thee shall be,
Not unfavour’d by Heaven.
Surely no sinner the man,
Dread though his acts, to whose hand
Such a boon to bring hath been given.
Let her come, fair Peace! let her come!
But the demons long nourish’d here,
Murder, Discord, and Hate,
In the stormy desolate waves
Of the Thracian Sea let her leave,
Or the howling outermost Main. Merope comes forth.
A whisper through the palace flies of one
Arriv’d from Tegea with weighty news;
And I came, thinking to find Arcas here.
Ye have not left this gate, which he must pass”
Tell me—hath one not come? or, worse mischance,
Come, but been intercepted by the King?
A messenger, sent from Arcadia here,
Arriv’d, and of the King had speech but now.
Thou frightenest and confound’st me by thy words.
O were but Arcas come, all would be well!
If so, all’s well: for look, the old man speeds
Up from the city tow’rds this gated hill. Arcas comes in.
Not with the failing breath and foot of age
My faithful follower comes. Welcome, old friend!
Faithful, not welcome, when my tale is told.
O that my over-speed and bursting grief
Had on the journey chok’d my labouring breath,
And lock’d my speech for ever in my breast!
Yet then another man would bring this news.—
O honour’d Queen, thy son, my charge, is gone.
Too suddenly thou tellest such a loss.
Look up, O Queen! look up, O mistress dear!
Look up, and see thy friends who comfort thee.
And yet no enemy did this, O Queen:
But the wit-baffling will and hand of Heaven.
No enemy! and what hast thou, then, heard?
Swift as I came, hath Falsehood been before?
A youth arriv’d but now, the son, he said,
Of an Arcadian lord, our prince’s friend,
Jaded with travel, clad in hunter’s garb.
He brought report that his own eyes had seen
The prince, in chase after a swimming stag,
Swept down a chasm rifted in the cliff
Which hangs o’er the Stymphalian Lake, and drown’d.
Ah me! with what a foot doth Treason post,
While Loyalty, with all her speed, is slow!
Another tale, I trow, thy messenger
For the King’s private ear reserves, like this
In one thing only, that the prince is dead.
As much to the King’s wish, more to his shame.
This young Arcadian noble, guard and mate
To Aepytus, the king seduc’d with gold,
And had him at the prince’s side in leash,
Ready to slip on his unconscious prey.
He on a hunting party three days since,
Among the forests on Cyllene’s side,
Perform’d good service for his bloody wage;
The prince, and the good Laias, whom his ward
Had in a father’s place, he basely murder’d.
Take this for true, the other tale for feign’d.
To Cypselus at Basilis he brought
This strange unlikely tale, the prince was drown’d.
Examin’d close, he own’d this story false.
Then evidence came—his comrades of the hunt,
Who saw the prince and Laias last with him,
Never again in lifes—next, agents, fee’d
To ply ’twixt the Messenian king and him,
Spoke, and reveal’d that traffic, and the traitor.
So charg’d, he stood dumb-founder’d: Cypselus,
On this suspicion, cast him into chains.
Thence he escap’d—and next I find him here.
Your King desired the profit of his death,
Not the black credit of his murderer.
That stern word “murder” had too dread a sound
For the Messenian hearts, who lov’d the prince.
Peace! peace! all’s clear.—The wicked watch and work
While the good sleep: the workers have the day.
He who was sent hath sped, and now comes back,
To chuckle with his sender o’er the game
Which foolish innocence plays with subtle guilt.
Ah! now I comprehend the liberal grace
Of this far-scheming tyrant, and his boon
Of heirship to his kingdom for my son:
He had his murderer ready, and the sword
Lifted, and that unwish’d-for heirship void—
A tale, meanwhile, forg’d for his subjects’ ears:
And me, henceforth sole rival with himself
In their allegiance, me, in my son’s death-hour,
When all turn’d tow’rds me, me he would have shown
To my Messenians, dup’d, disarm’d, despis’d,
The willing sharer of his guilty rule,
All claim to succour forfeit, to myself
Hateful, by each Messenian heart abhorr’d.—
His offers I repelled—but what of that?
If with no rage, no fire of righteous hate,
Such as ere now hath spurr’d to fearful deeds
Weak women with a thousandth part my wrongs,
But calm, but unresentful, I endur’d
His offers, coldly heard them, cold repell’d?
While all this time I bear
