Antistrophe 2
And the strand of Euboea,
And the promontory of Cenaeum,
His painful, solemn
Punishment witness’d,
Beheld his expiation: for he died.
Strophe 3
O villages of Oeta
With hedges of the wild rose!
O pastures of the mountain,
Of short grass, beaded with dew,
Between the pine-woods and the cliffs!
O cliffs, left by the eagles,
On that morn, when the smoke-cloud
From the oak-built, fiercely-burning pyre,
Up the precipices of Trachis,
Drove them screaming from their eyries!
A willing, a willing sacrifice on that day
Ye witness’d, ye mountain lawns,
When the shirt-wrapt, poison-blister’d Hero
Ascended, with undaunted heart,
Living, his own funeral-pile,
And stood, shouting for a fiery torch;
And the kind, chance-arriv’d Wanderer,38
The inheritor of the bow,
Coming swiftly through the sad Trachinians,
Put the torch to the pile:
That the flame tower’d on high to the Heaven
Bearing with it, to Olympus,
To the side of Hebe,
To immortal delight,
The labour-releas’d Hero.
Antistrophe 3
O heritage of Neleus,
Ill-kept by his infirm heirs!
O kingdom of Messenê,
Of rich soil, chosen by craft,
Possess’d in hatred, lost in blood!
O town, high Stenyclaros,
With new walls, which the victors
From the four-town’d, mountain-shadow’d Doris,
For their Hercules-issu’d princes
Built in strength against the vanquish’d!
Another, another sacrifice on this day
Ye witness, ye new-built towers!
When the white-rob’d, garland-crowned Monarch
Approaches, with undoubting heart,
Living, his own sacrifice-block,
And stands, shouting for a slaughterous axe;
And the stern, Destiny-brought Stranger,
The inheritor of the realm,
Coming swiftly through the jocund Dorians,
Drives the axe to its goal:
That the blood rushes in streams to the dust;
Bearing with it, to Erinnys,
To the Gods of Hades,
To the dead unaveng’d,
The fiercely-required Victim.
Epode
Knowing he did it, unknowing pays for it.
Unknowing, unknowing,
Thinking aton’d-for
Deeds unatonable,
Thinking appeas’d
Gods unappeasable,
Lo, the Ill-fated One,
Standing for harbour,
Right at the harbour-mouth,
Strikes, with all sail set,
Full on the sharp-pointed
Needle of ruin! A Messenger comes in.
O honour’d Queen, O faithful followers
Of your dead master’s line, I bring you news
To make the gates of this long-mournful house
Leap, and fly open of themselves for joy!
Hark how the shouting crowds tramp hitherward
With glad acclaim! Ere they forestall my news,
Accept it:—Polyphontes is no more.
The rest to me is little: yet, since that
Must from some mouth be heard, relate it thou.
Not little, if thou saw’st what love, what zeal,
At thy dead husband’s name the people show.
For when this morning in the public square
I took my stand, and saw the unarm’d crowds
Of citizens in holiday attire,
Women and children intermix’d; and then,
Group’d around Zeus’s altar, all in arms,
Serried and grim, the ring of Dorian lords—
I trembled for our prince and his attempt.
Silence and expectation held us all:
Till presently the King came forth, in robe
Of sacrifice, his guards clearing the way
Before him—at his side, the prince, thy son,
Unarm’d and travel-soil’d, just as he was:
With him conferring the King slowly reach’d
The altar in the middle of the square,
Where, by the sacrificing minister,
The flower-dress’d victim stood, a milk-white bull,
Swaying from side to side his massy head
With short impatient lowings: there he stopp’d,
And seem’d to muse awhile, then rais’d his eyes
To heaven, and laid his hand upon the steer,
And cried: O Zeus, let what blood-guiltiness
Yet stains our land be by this blood wash’d out,
And grant henceforth to the Messenians peace!
That moment, while with upturn’d eyes he pray’d,
The prince snatch’d from the sacrificer’s hand
The axe, and on the forehead of the King,
Where twines the chaplet, dealt a mighty blow
Which fell’d him to the earth, and o’er him stood,
And shouted—Since by thee defilement came,
What blood so meet as thine to wash it out?
What hand to strike thee meet as mine, the hand
Of Aepytus, thy murder’d master’s son?
—
But, gazing at him from the ground, the King …
Is it, then, thou?
he murmur’d; and with that,
He bow’d his head, and deeply groan’d, and died.
Till then we all seem’d stone: but then a cry
Broke from the Dorian lords: forward they rush’d
To circle the prince round: when suddenly
Laias in arms sprang to his nephew’s side,
Crying—O ye Messenians, will ye leave
The son to perish as ye left the sire?
And from that moment I saw nothing clear:
For from all sides a deluge, as it seem’d,
Burst o’er the altar and the Dorian lords,
Of holiday-clad citizens transform’d
To armed warriors: I heard vengeful cries;
I heard the clash of weapons; then I saw
The Dorians lying dead, thy son hail’d king.
And, truly, one who sees, what seem’d so strong,
The power of this tyrant and his lords,
Melt like a passing smoke, a nightly dream,
At one bold word, one enterprising blow—
Might ask, why we endur’d their yoke so long:
But that we know how every perilous feat
Of daring, easy as it seems when done,
Is easy at no moment but the right.
Thou speakest well; but here, to give our eyes
Authentic proof of what thou tell’st our ears,
The conquerors, with the King’s dead body, come. Aepytus, Laias, and Arcas come in with the dead body of Polyphontes, followed by a crowd of the Messenians.
Sister, from this day forth thou art no more
The widow of a husband unaveng’d,
The anxious mother of an exil’d son.
Thine enemy is slain, thy son is king!
Rejoice with us! and trust me, he who wish’d
Welfare to the Messenian state, and calm,
Could find no way to found them sure as this.
Mother, all these approve me: but if thou
Approve not too, I have but half my joy.
O Aepytus, my son, behold, behold
This iron man, my enemy and thine,
This politic sovereign, lying at our feet,
With blood-bespatter’d robes, and chaplet shorn!
Inscrutable as ever, see, it keeps
Its sombre aspect of majestic care,
Of solitary thought, unshar’d resolve,
Even in death, that countenance austere.
So look’d he, when to Stenyclaros first,
A new-made wife, I from Arcadia came,
And found him at my husband’s side, his friend,
His kinsman, his right hand in peace and war;
Unsparing in his service of his toil,
His blood; to me, for I confess it, kind:
So look’d he in that dreadful day of death:
So, when he pleaded for our league but now.
What meantest thou, O Polyphontes, what
Desired’st thou, what truly spurr’d thee on?
Was policy of state, the ascendency
Of the Heracleidan conquerors,
