Poor changeling! trembled.
Or the children, plucking
In the thorn-chok’d gullies
Wild gooseberries, scar’d her,
The shy mountain-bear.
Or the shepherds, on slopes
With pale-spik’d lavender
And crisp thyme tufted,
Came upon her, stealing
At daybreak through the dew.
Strophe 3
Once, ’mid those gorges,
Spray-drizzled, lonely,
Unclimb’d by man—
O’er whose cliffs the townsmen
Of crag-perch’d Nonacris
Behold in summer
The slender torrent
Of Styx come dancing,
A wind-blown thread—
By the precipices of Khelmos,
The fleet, desperate hunter,
The youthful Arcas, born of Zeus,
His fleeing mother,
Transform’d Callisto,
Unwitting follow’d—
And raised his spear.
Antistrophe 3
Turning, with piteous
Distressful longing,
Sad, eager eyes,
Mutely she regarded
Her well-known enemy.
Low moans half utter’d
What speech refus’d her;
Tears cours’d, tears human,
Down those disfigur’d,
Once human cheeks.
With unutterable foreboding
Her son, heart-stricken, ey’d her.
The Gods had pity, made them Stars.
Stars now they sparkle
In the northern Heaven;
The guard Arcturus,
The guard-watch’d Bear.
Epode
So, o’er thee and thy child,
Some God, Merope, now,
In dangerous hour, stretches his hand.
So, like a star, dawns thy son,
Radiant with fortune and joy. Polyphontes comes in.
O Merope, the trouble on thy face
Tells me enough thou know’st the news which all
Messenia speaks: the prince, thy son, is dead.
Not from my lips should consolation fall;
To offer that, I come not; but to urge,
Even after news of this sad death, our league.
Yes, once again I come; I will not take
This morning’s angry answer for thy last:
To the Messenian kingdom thou and I
Are the sole claimants left; what cause of strife
Lay in thy son is buried in his grave.
Most honourably I meant, I call the Gods
To witness, offering him return and power:
Yet, had he liv’d, suspicion, jealousy,
Inevitably had surg’d up, perhaps,
’Twixt thee and me; suspicion, that I nurs’d
Some ill design against him; jealousy,
That he enjoy’d but part, being heir to all.
And he himself, with the impetuous heart
Of youth, ’tis like, had never quite forgone
The thought of vengeance on me, never quite
Unclos’d his itching fingers from his sword.
But thou, O Merope, though deeply wrong’d,
Though injur’d past forgiveness, as men deem,
Yet hast been long at school with thoughtful Time,
And from that teacher may’st have learn’d, like me,
That all may be endur’d, and all forgiv’n;
Have learn’d that we must sacrifice the thirst
Of personal vengeance to the public weal;
Have learn’d, that there are guilty deeds, which leave
The hand that does them guiltless; in a word,
That kings live for their peoples, not themselves.
This having learn’d, let us a union found
(For the last time I ask, ask earnestly)
Bas’d on pure public welfare; let us be—
Not Merope and Polyphontes, foes
Blood-sever’d—but Messenia’s King and Queen:
Let us forget ourselves for those we rule.
Speak: I go hence to offer sacrifice
To the Preserver Zeus; let me return
Thanks to him for our amity as well.
Oh had’st thou, Polyphontes, still but kept
The silence thou hast kept for twenty years!
Henceforth, if what I urge displease, I may:
But fair proposal merits fair reply.
And thou shalt have it! Yes, because thou hast
For twenty years forborne to interrupt
The solitude of her whom thou hast wrong’d—
That scanty grace shall earn thee this reply.—
First, for our union. Trust me, ’twixt us two
The brazen footed Fury ever stalks,
Waving her hundred hands, a torch in each,
Aglow with angry fire, to keep us twain.
Now, for thyself. Thou com’st with well-cloak’d joy,
To announce the ruin of my husband’s house,
To sound thy triumph in his widow’s ears,
To bid her share thine unendanger’d throne:—
To this thou would’st have answer.—Take it: Fly!
Cut short thy triumph, seeming at its height;
Fling off thy crown, suppos’d at last secure;
Forsake this ample, proud Messenian realm:
To some small, humble, and unnoted strand,
Some rock more lonely than that Lemnian isle
Where Philoctetes pin’d, take ship and flee:
Some solitude more inaccessible
Than the ice-bastion’d Caucasian Mount
Chosen a prison for Prometheus, climb:
There in unvoic’d oblivion hide thy name,
And bid the sun, thine only visitant,
Divulge not to the far-off world of men
What once-fam’d wretch he he hath seen lurking there.
There nurse a late remorse, and thank the Gods,
And thank thy bitterest foe, that, having lost
All things but life, thou lose not life as well.
Enough! enough! I will no longer hear
The ill-boding note which frantic Envy sounds
To affright a fortune which the Gods secure.
Once more my friendship thou rejectest: well!
More for this land’s sake grieve I, than mine own.
I chafe not with thee, that thy hate endures,
Nor bend myself too low, to make it yield.
What I have done is done; by my own deed,
Neither exulting nor asham’d, I stand.
Why should this heart of mine set mighty store
By the construction and report of men?
Not men’s good-word hath made me what I am.
Alone I master’d power; and alone,
Since so thou wilt, I dare maintain it still. Polyphontes goes out.
Strophe 1
Did I then waver
(O woman’s judgment!)
Misled by seeming
Success of crime?
And ask, if sometimes
The Gods, perhaps, allow’d you,
O lawless daring of the strong,
O self-will recklessly indulg’d?
Antistrophe 1
Not time, not lightning,
Not rain, not thunder,
Efface the endless
Decrees of Heaven—
Make Justice alter,
Revoke, assuage her sentence,
Which dooms dread ends to dreadful deeds,
And violent deaths to violent men.
Strophe 2
But the signal example
Of invariableness of justice
Our glorious founder
Hercules gave us,
Son lov’d of Zeus
