Perish’d before their eyes, yet no man stirr’d:
For years, his widow, in their sight I stand,
A never-changing index to revenge—
What help, what vengeance, at their hands have I?—
At least, if thou wilt trust them, try them first:
Against the King himself array the host
Thou countest on to back thee ’gainst his lords:
First rally the Messenians to thy cause,
Give them cohesion, purpose, and resolve,
Marshal them to an army—then advance,
Then try the issue; and not, rushing on
Single and friendless, give to certain death
That dear-belov’d, that young, that gracious head.
Be guided, O my son! spurn counsel not:
For know thou this, a violent heart hath been
Fatal to all the race of Hercules.
With sage experience she speaks; and thou,
O Aepytus, weigh well her counsel given.
Ill counsel, in my judgment, gives she here,
Maidens, and reads experience much amiss;
Discrediting the succour which our cause
Might from the people draw, if rightly us’d:
Advising us a course which would, indeed,
If follow’d, make their succour slack and null.
A people is no army, train’d to fight,
A passive engine, at their general’s will;
And, if so us’d, proves, as thou say’st, unsure.
A people, like a common man, is dull,
Is lifeless, while its heart remains untouch’d;
A fool can drive it, and a fly may scare:
When it admires and loves, its heart awakes;
Then irresistibly it lives, it works:
A people, then, is an ally indeed;
It is ten thousand fiery wills in one.
Now I, if I invite them to run risk
Of life for my advantage, and myself,
Who chiefly profit, run no more than they—
How shall I rouse their love, their ardour so?
But, if some signal, unassisted stroke,
Dealt at my own sole risk, before their eyes,
Announces me their rightful prince return’d—
The undegenerate blood of Hercules—
The daring claimant of a perilous throne—
How might not such a sight as this revive
Their loyal passion tow’rd my father’s house?
Electrify their hearts? make them no more
A craven mob, but a devouring fire?
Then might I use them, then, for one who thus
Spares not himself, themselves they will not spare.
Haply, had but one daring soul stood forth
To rally them and lead them to revenge,
When my great father fell, they had replied:—
Alas! our foe alone stood forward then.
And thou, my mother, hadst thou made a sign—
Hadst thou, from thy forlorn and captive state
Of widowhood in these polluted halls,
Thy prison-house, rais’d one imploring cry—
Who knows but that avengers thou hadst found?
But mute thou sat’st, and each Messenian heart
In thy despondency desponded too.
Enough of this!—Though not a finger stir
To succour me in my extremest need;
Though all free spirits in this land were dead,
And only slaves and tyrants left alive—
Yet for me, mother, I had liefer die
On native ground, than drag the tedious hours
Of a protected exile any more.
Hate, duty, interest, passion call one way;]:
Here stand I now, and the attempt shall be.
Prudence is on the other side; but deeds
Condemn’d by prudence have sometimes gone well.
Not till the ways of prudence all are tried,
And tried in vain, the turn of rashness comes.
Thou leapest to thy deed, and hast not ask’d
Thy kinsfolk and thy father’s friends for aid.
O suffering! O calamity! how ten,
How twentyfold worse are ye, when your blows
Not only wound the sense, but kill the soul,
The noble thought, which is alone the man!
That I, to-day returning, find myself
Orphan’d of both my parents—by his foes
My father, by your strokes my mother slain!—
For this is not my mother, who dissuades,
At the dread altar of her husband’s tomb,
His son from vengeance on his murderer;
And not alone dissuades him, but compares
His just revenge to an unnatural deed,
A deed so awful, that the general tongue
Fluent of horrors, falters to relate it—
Of darkness so tremendous, that its author,
Though to his act empower’d, nay, impell’d,
By the oracular sentence of the Gods,
Fled, for years after, o’er the face of earth,
A frenzied wanderer, a God-driven man,
And hardly yet, some say, hath found a grave—
With such a deed as this thou matchest mine,
Which Nature sanctions, which the innocent blood
Clamours to find fulfill’d, which good men praise,
And only bad men joy to see undone?
O honour’d father! hide thee in thy grave
Deep as thou canst, for hence no succour comes;
Since from thy faithful subjects what revenge
Canst thou expect, when thus thy widow fails?
Alas! an adamantine strength indeed,
Past expectation, hath thy murderer built:
For this is the true strength of guilty kings,
When they corrupt the souls of those they rule.
Zeal makes him most unjust: but, in good time,
Here, as I guess, the noble Laias comes.
Break off, break off your talking, and depart
Each to his post, where the occasion calls;
Lest from the council-chamber presently
The King return, and find you prating here.
A time will come for greetings; but to-day
The hour for words is gone, is come for deeds.
O princely Laias! to what purpose calls
The occasion, if our chief confederate fails?
My mother stands aloof, and blames our deed.
My royal sister? … but, without some cause,
I know, she honours not the dead so ill.
Brother, it seems thy sister must present,
At this first meeting after absence long,
Not welcome, exculpation to her kin:
Yet exculpation needs it, if I seek,
A woman and a mother, to avert
Risk from my new-restor’d, my only son?—
Sometimes, when he was gone, I wish’d him back,
Risk what he might; now that I have him here,
Now that I feed mine eyes
