The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Julian and Maddalo; a Conversation.
• The Witch of Atlas.
• Letter to —
• The Triumph of Life.
• Fragments From an Unfinished Drama.
• Prince Athanase: a Fragment.
• Ode to Naples. *
• Marianne’s Dream.
• Mont Blanc. Lines Written In the Vale of Chamouni.
• Miscellaneous Poems.
• On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci, In the Florentine Gallery.
• Song.
• To Constantia, Singing.
• The Fugitives.
• A Lament.
• The Pine Forest of the Cascine, Near Pisa.
• To Night.
• Evening. Ponte a Mare, Pisa.
• Arethusa.
• The Question.
• Lines to an Indian Air.
• Stanzas Written In Dejection, Near Naples.
• Autumn: a Dirge.
• Hymn of Apollo.
• Hymn of Pan.
• The Boat On the Serchio.
• The Zucca. *
• The Two Spirits. an Allegory.
• A Fragment.
• A Bridal Song.
• The Sunset.
• Song, On a Faded Violet.
• Lines to a Critic.
• Good Night.
• To-morrow.
• Death.
• A Lament.
• Love’s Philosophy.
• To E*** V***
• To —
• Lines.
• To William Shelley.
• An Allegory.
• Mutability.
• From the Arabic. an Imitation.
• To —
• Music.
• Lines.
• Death.
• To —
• Passage of the Apennines.
• To Mary —
• The Past.
• Song of a Spirit.
• Liberty.
• To —
• The Isle.
• To —
• Time.
• Lines.
• A Song.
• The World’s Wanderers.
• A Dirge.
• Lines.
• Dirge For the Year.
• Sonnet I.
• Sonnet II. Political Greatness.
• Sonnet III.
• Sonnet IV.
• Fragments.
• Ginevra. *
• Charles the First. Fragments.
• Prince Athanase. Part II.
• Mazenghi. *
• The Woodman and the Nightingale.
• To the Moon.
• Song For Tasso.
• The Waning Moon.
• Epitaph.
• Alastor; Or the Spirit of Solitude.
• Translations.
• Hymn to Mercury. Translated From the Greek of Homer
• The Cyclops; a Satyric Drama.
• Translation From Moschus.
• Scenes From the “magico Prodigioso” of Calderon.
• Scenes From the Faust of GoËthe.

TRANSLATIONS.

HYMN TO MERCURY.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF HOMER

• • I.

  • Sing, Muse, the son of Maia and of Jove,
  • The Herald-child, king of Arcadia
  • And all its pastoral hills, whom in sweet love
  • Having been interwoven, modest May
  • Bore Heaven’s dread Supreme—an antique grove
  • Shadowed the cavern where the lovers lay
  • In the deep night, unseen by Gods or Men,
  • And white-armed Juno slumbered sweetly then.

• • II.

  • Now, when the joy of Jove had its fulfiling,
  • And Heaven’s tenth moon chronicled her relief,
  • She gave to light a babe all babes excelling,
  • A schemer subtle beyond all belief;
  • A shepherd of thin dreams, a cow-stealing,
  • A night-watching, and door-waylaying thief,
  • Who mongst the Gods was soon about to thieve
  • And other glorious actions to achieve.

• • III.

  • The babe was born at the first peep of day;
  • He began playing on the lyre at noon,
  • And the same evening did he steal away
  • Apollo’s herds;—the fourth day of the moon
  • On which him bore the venerable May,
  • From her immortal limbs he leaped full soon,
  • Nor long could in the sacred cradle keep,
  • But out to seek Apollo’s herds would creep.

• • IV.

  • Out of the lofty cavern wandering
  • He found a tortoise, and cried out—“A treasure!”
  • (For Mercury first made the tortoise sing)
  • The beast before the portal at his leisure
  • The flowery herbage was depasturing,
  • Moving his feet in a deliberate measure
  • Over the turf. Jove’s profitable son
  • Eyeing him laughed, and laughing thus begun:—

• • V.

  • “A useful god-send are you to me now,
  • King of the dance, companion of the feast,
  • Lovely in all your nature! Welcome, you
  • Excellent plaything! Where, sweet mountain beast,
  • Got you that speckled shell? Thus much I know,
  • You must come home with me and be my guest;
  • You will give joy to me, and I will do
  • All that is in my power to honour you.

• • VI.

  • “Better to be at home than out of door;—
  • So come with me, and though it has been said
  • That you alive defend from magic power,
  • I know you will sing sweetly when you’re dead.”
  • Thus having spoken, the quaint infant bore,
  • Lifting it from the grass on which it fed,
  • And grasping it in his delighted hold,
  • His treasured prize into the cavern old.

• • VII.

  • Then scooping with a chisel of grey steel
  • He bored the life and soul out of the beast—
  • Not swifter a swift thought of woe or weal
  • Darts through the tumult of a human breast
  • Which thronging cares annoy—not swifter wheel
  • The flashes of its torture and unrest
  • Out of the dizzy eyes—than Maia’s son
  • All that he did devise hath featly done.

• • VIII.

  • And through the tortoise’s hard strong skin
  • At proper distances small holes he made,
  • And fastened the cut stems of reeds within,
  • And with a piece of leather overlaid
  • The open space and fixed the cubits in,
  • Fitting the bridge to both, and stretched o’er all
  • Symphonious cords of sheep gut rhythmical.

• • IX.

  • When he had wrought the lovely instrument,
  • He tried the chords, and made division meet
  • Preluding with the plectrum, and there went
  • Up from beneath his hand a tumult sweet
  • Of mighty sounds, and from his lips he sent
  • A strain of unpremeditated wit
  • Joyous and wild and wanton—such you may
  • Hear among revellers on a holiday.

• • X.

  • He sung how Jove and May of the bright sandal
  • Dallied in love not quite legitimate;
  • And his own birth, still scoffing at the scandal,
  • And naming his own name, did celebrate;
  • His mother’s cave and servant maids he planned all
  • In plastic verse, her household stuff and state,
  • Perennial pot, trippet, and brazen pan,—
  • But singing he conceived another plan.

• • XI.

  • Seized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat,
  • He in his sacred crib deposited
  • The hollow lyre, and from the cavern sweet
  • Rushed with great leaps up to the mountain’s head,
  • Revolving in his mind some subtle feat
  • Of thievish craft, such as a swindler might
  • Devise in the lone season of dun night.

• • XII.

  • Lo! the great Sun under the ocean’s bed has
  • Driven steeds and chariot—the child meanwhile strode
  • O’er the Pierian mountains clothed in shadows,
  • Where the immortal oxen of the God
  • Are pastured in the flowering unmown meadows,
  • And safely stalled in a remote abode—
  • The archer Argicide, elate and proud,
  • Drove fifty from the herd, lowing aloud.

• • XIII.

  • He drove them wandering o’er the sandy way,
  • But, being ever mindful of his craft,
  • Backward and forward drove he them astray,
  • So that the tracks which seemed before, were aft;
  • His sandals then he threw to the ocean spray,
  • And for each foot he wrought a kind of raft
  • Of tamarisk, and tamarisk-like sprigs,
  • And bound them in a lump with withy twigs.

• • XIV.

  • And on his feet he tied these sandals light,
  • The trail of whose wide leaves might not betray
  • His track; and then, a self-sufficing wight,
  • Like a man hastening on some distant way,
  • He from Piera’s mountain bent his flight;
  • But an old man perceived the infant pass
  • Down green Onchestus heaped like beds with grass.

• • XV.

  • The old man stood dressing his sunny vine:
  • “Halloo! old fellow with the crooked shoulder!
  • You grub those stumps? before they will bear wine
  • Methinks even you must grow a little older:
  • Attend, I pray, to this advice of mine,
  • As you would ’scape what might appal a bolder—
  • Seeing, see not—and hearing, hear not—and—
  • If you have understanding—understand.”

• • XVI.

  • So saying, Hermes roused the oxen vast;
  • O’er shadowy mountain and resounding dell,
  • And flower-paven plains, great Hermes past;
  • Till the black night divine, which favouring fell
  • Around his steps, grew grey, and morning fast
  • Wakened the world to work, and from her cell
  • Sea-strewn, the Pallantean Moon sublime
  • Into her watch-tower just began to climb.

• • XVII.

  • Now to Alpheus he had driven all
  • The broad-foreheaded oxen of the Sun;
  • They came unwearied to the lofty stall
  • And to the water troughs which ever run
  • Through the fresh fields—and when with rushgrass tall,
  • Lotus and all sweet herbage, every one
  • Had pastured been, the great God made them move
  • Towards the stall in a collected drove.

• • XVIII.

  • A mighty pile of wood the God then heaped,
  • And having soon conceived the mystery
  • Of fire, from two smooth laurel branches stript
  • The bark, and rubbed them in his palms,—on high
  • Suddenly forth the burning vapour leapt,
  • And the divine child saw delightedly—
  • Mercury first found out for human weal
  • Tinder-box, matches, fire-irons, flint and steel.

• • XIX.

  • And fine dry logs and roots innumerous
  • He gathered in a delve upon the ground—
  • And kindled them—and instantaneous
  • The strength of the fierce flame was breathed around:
  • And whilst the might of glorious Vulcan thus
  • Wrapt the great pile with glare and roaring sound,
  • Hermes dragged forth two heifers, lowing loud,
  • Close to the fire—such might was in the God.

• • XX.

  • And on the earth upon their backs he threw
  • The panting beasts, and rolled them o’er and o’er,
  • And bored their lives out. Without more ado
  • He cut up fat and flesh, and down before
  • The fire, on spits of wood he placed the two,
  • Toasting their flesh and ribs, and all the gore
  • Pursed in the bowels; and while this was done
  • He stretched their hides over a craggy stone.

• • XXI.

  • We mortals let an ox grow old, and then
  • Cut it up after long consideration,—
  • But joyous-minded Hermes from the glen
  • Drew the fat spoils to the more open station
  • Of a flat smooth space, and portioned them; and when
  • He had by lot assigned to each a ration
  • Of the twelve Gods, his mind became aware
  • Of all the joys which in religion are.

• • XXII.

  • For the sweet savour of the roasted meat
  • Tempted him though immortal. Nathelesse
  • He checked his haughty will and did not eat,
  • Though what it cost him words can scarce express,
  • And every wish to put such morsels sweet
  • Down his most sacred throat, he did repress;
  • But soon within the lofty portalled stall
  • He placed the fat and flesh and bones and all.

• • XXIII.

  • And every trace of the fresh butchery
  • And cooking, the God soon made disappear,
  • As if it all had vanished through the sky;
  • He burned the hoofs and horns and head and hair,
  • The insatiate fire devoured them hungrily;—
  • And when he saw that everything was clear,
  • He quenched the coals and trampled the black dust,
  • And in the stream his bloody sandals tossed.

• • XXIV.

  • All night he worked in the serene moonshine—
  • But when the light of day was spread abroad
  • He sought his natal mountain peaks divine.
  • On his long wandering, neither man nor god
  • Had met him, since he killed Apollo’s kine,
  • Nor house-dog had barked at him on his road;
  • Now he obliquely through the key-hole past,
  • Like a thin mist, or an autumnal blast.

• • XXV.

  • Right through the temple of the spacious cave
  • He went with soft light feet—as if his tread
  • Fell not on earth; no sound their falling gave;
  • Then to his cradle he crept quick, and spread
  • The swaddling-clothes about him; and the knave
  • Lay playing with the covering of the bed
  • With his left hand about his knees—the right
  • Held his beloved tortoise-lyre tight.

• • XXVI.

  • There he lay innocent as a new born child,
  • As gossips say; but though he was a god,
  • The goddess, his fair mother, unbeguiled
  • Knew all that he had done being abroad:
  • “Whence come you, and from what adventure wild,
  • You cunning rogue, and where have you abode
  • All the long night, clothed in your impudence?
  • What have you done since you departed hence?

• • XXVII.

  • “Apollo soon will pass within this gate
  • And bind your tender body in a chain
  • Inextricably tight, and fast as fate,
  • Unless you can delude the God again,
  • Even when within his arms—ah, runagate!
  • A pretty torment both for gods and men
  • Your father made when he made you!”—“Dear mother,”
  • Replied sly Hermes, “Wherefore scold and bother?

• • XXVIII.

  • “As if I were like other babes as old,
  • And understood nothing of what is what;
  • And cared at all to hear my mother scold.
  • I in my subtle brain a scheme have got,
  • Which whilst the sacred stars round Heaven are rolled
  • Will profit you and me—nor shall our lot
  • Be as you counsel, without gifts or food,
  • To spend our lives in this obscure abode.

• • XXIX.

  • “But we will leave this shadow-peopled cave
  • And live among the Gods, and pass each day
  • In high communion, sharing what they have
  • Of profuse wealth and unexhausted prey;
  • And from the portion which my father gave
  • To Phœbus, I will snatch my share away,
  • Which if my father will not—nathelesse I,
  • Who am the king of robbers, can but try.

• • XXX.

  • “And, if Latona’s son should find me out,
  • I’ll countermine him by a deeper plan;
  • I’ll pierce the Pythian temple-walls, though stout,
  • And sack the fane of every thing I can—
  • Cauldrons and tripods of great worth no doubt,
  • Each golden cup and polished brazen pan,
  • All the wrought tapestries and garments gay.”—
  • So they together talked;—meanwhile the Day

• • XXXI.

  • Ætherial born arose out of the flood
  • Of flowing Ocean, bearing light to men.
  • Apollo past toward the sacred wood,
  • Which from the inmost depths of its green glen
  • Echoes the voice of Neptune,—and there stood
  • On the same spot in green Onchestus then
  • That same old animal, the vine-dresser,
  • Who was employed hedging his vineyard there.

• • XXXII.

  • Latona’s glorious Son began:—“I pray
  • Tell, ancient hedger of Onchestus green,
  • Whether a drove of kine has past this way,
  • All heifers with crooked horns? for they have been
  • Stolen from the herd in high Pieria,
  • Where a black bull was fed apart, between
  • Two woody mountains in a neighbouring glen,
  • And four fierce dogs watched there, unanimous as men.

• • XXXIII.

  • “And, what is strange, the author of this theft
  • Has stolen the fatted heifers every one,
  • But the four dogs and the black bull are left:—
  • Stolen they were last night at set of sun,
  • Of their soft beds and their sweet food bereft—
  • Now tell me, man born ere the world begun,
  • Have you seen any one pass with the cows?”—
  • To whom the man of overhanging brows:

• • XXXIV.

  • “My friend, it would require no common skill
  • Justly to speak of everything I see:
  • On various purposes of good or ill
  • Many pass by my vineyard,—and to me
  • ’Tis difficult to know the invisible
  • Thoughts, which in all those many minds may be:—
  • Thus much alone I certainly can say,
  • I tilled these vines till the decline of day.

• • XXXV.

  • “And then I thought I saw, but dare not speak
  • With certainty of such a wondrous thing,
  • A child, who could not have been born a week,
  • Those fair-horned cattle closely following,
  • And in his hand he held a polished stick:
  • And, as on purpose, he walked wavering
  • From one side to the other of the road,
  • And with his face opposed the steps he trod.”

• • XXXVI.

  • Apollo hearing this, past quickly on—
  • No winged omen could have shown more clear
  • That the deceiver was his father’s son.
  • So the God wraps a purple atmosphere
  • Around his shoulders, and like fire is gone
  • To famous Pylos, seeking his kine there,
  • And found their track and his, yet hardly cold,
  • And cried—“What wonder do mine eyes behold!

• • XXXVII.

  • “Here are the footsteps of the horned herd
  • Turned back towards their fields of asphodel;—
  • But these! are not the tracks of beast or bird,
  • Grey wolf, or bear, or lion of the dell,
  • Or maned Centaur—sand was never stirred
  • By man or woman thus! Inexplicable!
  • Who with unwearied feet could e’er impress
  • The sand with such enormous vestiges?

• • XXXVIII.

  • “That was most strange—but this is stranger still!”
  • Thus having said, Phœbus impetuously
  • Sought high Cyllene’s forest-cinctured hill,
  • And the deep cavern where dark shadows lie,
  • And where the ambrosial nymph with happy will
  • Bore the Saturnian’s love-child, Mercury—
  • And a delightful odour from the dew
  • Of the hill pastures, at his coming, flew.

• • XXXIX.

  • And Phœbus stooped under the craggy roof
  • Arched over the dark cavern:—Maia’s child
  • Perceived that he came angry, far aloof,
  • About the cows of which he had been beguiled,
  • And over him the fine and fragrant woof
  • Of his ambrosial swaddling clothes he piled—
  • As among fire-brands lies a burning spark
  • Covered, beneath the ashes cold and dark.

• • XL.

  • There, like an infant who had sucked his fill
  • And now was newly washed and put to bed,
  • Awake, but courting sleep with weary will,
  • And gathered in a lump hands, feet, and head,
  • He lay, and his beloved tortoise still
  • He grasped and held under his shoulder-blade.
  • Phœbus the lovely mountain-goddess knew,
  • Not less her subtle, swindling baby, who

• • XLI.

  • Lay swathed in his sly wiles. Round every crook
  • Of the ample cavern, for his kine, Apollo
  • Looked sharp; and when he saw them not, he took
  • The glittering key, and opened three great hollow
  • Recesses in the rock—where many a nook
  • Was filled with the sweet food immortals swallow,
  • And mighty heaps of silver and of gold
  • Were piled within—a wonder to behold!

• • XLII.

  • And white and silver robes, all overwrought
  • With cunning workmanship of tracery sweet—
  • Except among the Gods there can be nought
  • In the wide world to be compared with it.
  • Latona’s offspring, after having sought
  • His herds in every corner, thus did greet
  • Great Hermes:—“Little cradled rogue, declare
  • Of my illustrious heifers, where they are!

• • XLIII.

  • “Speak quickly! or a quarrel between us
  • Must rise, and the event will be, that I
  • Shall hawl you into dismal Tartarus,
  • In fiery gloom to dwell eternally;
  • Nor shall your father nor your mother loose
  • The bars of that black dungeon—utterly
  • You shall be cast out from the light of day,
  • To rule the ghosts of men, unblest as they.”

• • XLIV.

  • To whom thus Hermes slily answered:—“Son
  • Of great Latona, what a speech is this!
  • Why come you here to ask me what is done
  • With the wild oxen which it seems you miss?
  • I have not seen them, nor from any one
  • Have heard a word of the whole business;
  • If you should promise an immense reward,
  • I could not tell more than you now have heard.

• • XLV.

  • “An ox-stealer should be both tall and strong,
  • And I am but a little new-born thing,
  • Who, yet at least, can think of nothing wrong:—
  • My business is to suck, and sleep, and fling
  • The cradle-clothes about me all day long,—
  • Or half asleep, hear my sweet mother sing,
  • And to be washed in water clean and warm,
  • And hushed and kissed and kept secure from harm.

• • XLVI.

  • “O, let not e’er this quarrel be averred!
  • The astounded Gods would laugh at you, if e’er
  • You should allege a story so absurd,
  • As that a new-born infant forth could fare
  • Out of his home after a savage herd.
  • I was born yesterday—my small feet are
  • Too tender for the roads so hard and rough:—
  • And if you think that this is not enough,

• • XLVII.

  • “I swear a great oath, by my father’s head,
  • That I stole not your cows, and that I know
  • Of no one else, who might, or could, or did.—
  • Whatever things cows are, I do not know,
  • For I have only heard the name.”—This said,
  • He winked as fast as could be, and his brow
  • Was wrinkled, and a whistle loud gave he,
  • Like one who hears some strange absurdity.

• • XLVIII.

  • Apollo gently smiled and said:—“Aye, aye,—
  • You cunning little rascal, you will bore
  • Many a rich man’s house, and your array
  • Of thieves will lay their siege before his door,
  • Silent as night, in night; and many a day
  • In the wild glens rough shepherds will deplore
  • That you or yours, having an appetite,
  • Met with their cattle, comrade of the night!

• • XLIX.

  • “And this among the Gods shall be your gift,
  • To be considered as the lord of those
  • Who swindle, house-break, sheep-steal, and shop-lift;—
  • But now if you would not your last sleep dose,
  • Crawl out!”—Thus saying, Phœbus did uplift
  • The subtle infant in his swaddling clothes,
  • And in his arms, according to his wont,
  • A scheme devised the illustrious Argiphont.

• • L.

  • * * * * *
  • * * * *
  • And sneezed and shuddered—Phœbus on the grass
  • Him threw, and whilst all that he had designed
  • He did perform—eager although to pass,
  • Apollo darted from his mighty mind
  • Towards the subtle babe the following scoff:—
  • “Do not imagine this will get you off,

• • LI.

  • “You little swaddled child of Jove and May!”
  • And seized him:—“By this omen I shall trace
  • My noble herds, and you shall lead the way.”—
  • Cyllenian Hermes from the grassy place,
  • Like one in earnest haste to get away,
  • Rose, and with hands lifted towards his face
  • Roused both his ears—up from his shoulders drew
  • His swaddling clothes, and—“What mean you to do

• • LII.

  • “With me, you unkind God?”—said Mercury:
  • “Is it about these cows you teize me so?
  • I wished the race of cows were perished!—I
  • Stole not your cows—I do not even know
  • What things cows are. Alas! I well may sigh,
  • That since I came into this world of woe,
  • I should have ever heard the name of one—
  • But I appeal to the Saturnian’s throne.”

• • LIII.

  • Thus Phœbus and the vagrant Mercury
  • Talked without coming to an explanation,
  • With adverse purpose. As for Phœbus, he
  • Sought not revenge, but only information,
  • And Hermes tried with lies and roguery
  • To cheat Apollo—But when no evasion
  • Served—for the cunning one his match had found—
  • He paced on first over the sandy ground.

• • LIV.

  • He of the Silver Bow the child of Jove
  • Followed behind, till to their heavenly Sire
  • Came both his children—beautiful as Love,
  • And from his equal balance did require
  • A judgment in the cause wherein they strove.
  • O’er odorous Olympus and its snows
  • A murmuring tumult as they came arose,—

• • LV.

  • And from the folded depths of the great Hill,
  • While Hermes and Apollo reverent stood
  • Before Jove’s throne, the indestructible
  • Immortals rushed in mighty multitude;
  • And whilst their seats in order due they fill,
  • The lofty Thunderer in a careless mood
  • To Phœbus said:—“Whence drive you this sweet prey,
  • This herald-baby, born but yesterday?—

• • LVI.

  • “A most important subject, trifler, this
  • To lay before the Gods!”—“Nay, father, nay,
  • When you have understood the business,
  • Say not that I alone am fond of prey.
  • I found this little boy in a recess
  • Under Cyllene’s mountains far away—
  • A manifest and most apparent thief,
  • A scandal-monger beyond all belief.

• • LVII.

  • “I never saw his like either in heaven
  • Or upon earth for knavery or craft:—
  • Out of the field my cattle yester-even,
  • By the low shore on which the loud sea laughed,
  • He right down to the river-ford had driven;
  • And mere astonishment would make you daft
  • To see the double kind of footsteps strange
  • He has impressed wherever he did range.

• • LVIII.

  • “The cattle’s track on the black dust, full well
  • Is evident, as if they went towards
  • The place from which they came—that asphodel
  • Meadow, in which I feed my many herds,—
  • His steps were most incomprehensible—
  • I know not how I can describe in words
  • Those tracks—he could have gone along the sands
  • Neither upon his feet nor on his hands;—

• • LIX.

  • “He must have had some other stranger mode
  • Of moving on: those vestiges immense,
  • Far as I traced them on the sandy road,
  • Seemed like the trail of oak-toppings:—but thence
  • No mark or track denoting where they trod
  • The hard ground gave:—but, working at his fence,
  • A mortal hedger saw him as he past
  • To Pylos, with the cows, in fiery haste.

• • LX.

  • “I found that in the dark he quietly
  • Had sacrificed some cows, and before light
  • Had thrown the ashes all dispersedly
  • About the road—then, still as gloomy night,
  • Had crept into his cradle, either eye
  • Rubbing, and cogitating some new sleight.
  • No eagle could have seen him as he lay
  • Hid in his cavern from the peering day.

• • LXI.

  • “I tax’d him with the fact, when he averred
  • Most solemnly that he did neither see
  • Or even had in any manner heard
  • Of my lost cows, whatever things cows be;
  • Nor could he tell, though offered a reward,
  • Not even who could tell of them to me.”
  • So speaking, Phœbus sate; and Hermes then
  • Addressed the Supreme Lord of Gods and Men:—

• • LXII.

  • “Great Father, you know clearly before hand
  • That all which I shall say to you is soothe;
  • I am a most veracious person, and
  • Totally unacquainted with untruth.
  • At sunrise, Phœbus came, but with no band
  • Of Gods to bear him witness, in great wrath,
  • To my abode, seeking his heifers there,
  • And saying that I must show him where they are,

• • LXIII.

  • “Or he would hurl me down the dark abyss.
  • I know, that every Apollonian limb
  • Is clothed with speed and might and manliness,
  • As a green bank with flowers—but unlike him
  • I was born yesterday, and you may guess
  • He well knew this when he indulged the whim
  • Of bullying a poor little new-born thing
  • That slept, and never thought of cow-driving.

• • LXIV.

  • “Am I like a strong fellow who steals kine?
  • Believe me, dearest Father, such you are,
  • This driving of the herds is none of mine;
  • Across my threshhold did I wander ne’er,
  • So may I thrive! I reverence the divine
  • Sun and the Gods, and I love you, and care
  • Even for this hard accuser—who must know
  • I am as innocent as they or you.

• • LXV.

  • “I swear by these most gloriously-wrought portals—
  • (It is, you will allow, an oath of might)
  • Through which the multitude of the Immortals
  • Pass and repass forever, day and night,
  • Devising schemes for the affairs of mortals—
  • That I am guiltless; and I will requite,
  • Although mine enemy be great and strong,
  • His cruel threat—do thou defend the young!”

• • LXVI.

  • So speaking, the Cyllenian Argiphont
  • Winked, as if now his adversary was fitted:—
  • And Jupiter according to his wont,
  • Laughed heartily to hear the subtle-witted
  • Infant give such a plausible account,
  • And every word a lie. But he remitted
  • Judgment at present—and his exhortation
  • Was, to compose the affair by arbitration.

• • LXVII.

  • And they by mighty Jupiter were bidden
  • To go forth with a single purpose both,
  • Neither the other chiding nor yet chidden:
  • And Mercury with innocence and truth
  • To lead the way, and show where he had hidden
  • The mighty heifers.—Hermes, nothing loth,
  • Obeyed the Ægis-bearer’s will—for he
  • Is able to persuade all easily.

• • LXVIII.

  • These lovely children of Heaven’s highest Lord
  • Hastened to Pylos and the pastures wide
  • And lofty stalls by the Alphean ford,
  • Where wealth in the mute night is multiplied
  • With silent growth. Whilst Hermes drove the herd
  • Out of the stony cavern, Phœbus spied
  • The hides of those the little babe had slain,
  • Stretched on the precipice above the plain.

• • LXIX.

  • “How was it possible,” then Phœbus said,
  • “That you, a little child, born yesterday,
  • A thing on mother’s milk and kisses fed,
  • Could two prodigious heifers ever flay?
  • Even I myself may well hereafter dread
  • Your prowess, offspring of Cyllenian May,
  • When you grow strong and tall.”—He spoke, and bound
  • Stiff withy bands the infant’s wrists around.

• • LXX.

  • He might as well have bound the oxen wild;
  • The withy bands, though starkly interknit,
  • Fell at the feet of the immortal child,
  • Loosened by some device of his quick wit.
  • Phœbus perceived himself again beguiled,
  • And stared—while Hermes sought some hole or pit,
  • Looking askance and winking fast as thought,
  • Where he might hide himself and not be caught.

• • LXXI.

  • Sudden he changed his plan, and with strange skill
  • Subdued the strong Latonian, by the might
  • Of winning music, to his mightier will;
  • His left hand held the lyre, and in his right
  • The plectrum struck the chords—unconquerable
  • Up from beneath his hand in circling flight
  • The gathering music rose—and sweet as Love
  • The penetrating notes did live and move

• • LXXII.

  • Within the heart of great Apollo—he
  • Listened with all his soul, and laughed for pleasure.
  • Close to his side stood harping fearlessly
  • The unabashed boy; and to the measure
  • Of the sweet lyre, there followed loud and free
  • His joyous voice; for he unlocked the treasure
  • Of his deep song, illustrating the birth
  • Of the bright Gods and the dark desart Earth:

• • LXXIII.

  • And how to the Immortals every one
  • A portion was assigned of all that is;
  • But chief Mnemosyne did Maia’s son
  • Clothe in the light of his loud melodies;—
  • And as each God was born or had begun
  • He in their order due and fit degrees
  • Sung of his birth and being—and did move
  • Apollo to unutterable love.

• • LXXIV.

  • These words were winged with his swift delight:
  • “You heifer-stealing schemer, well do you
  • Deserve that fifty oxen should requite
  • Such minstrelsies as I have heard even now.
  • Comrade of feasts, little contriving wight,
  • One of your secrets I would gladly know,
  • Whether the glorious power you now show forth
  • Was folded up within you at your birth,

• • LXXV.

  • “Or whether mortal taught or God inspired
  • The power of unpremeditated song?
  • Many divinest sounds have I admired,
  • The Olympian Gods and mortal men among;
  • But such a strain of wondrous, strange, untired,
  • And soul-awakening music, sweet and strong,
  • Yet did I never hear except from thee,
  • Offspring of May, impostor Mercury!

• • LXXVI.

  • “What Muse, what skill, what unimagined use,
  • What exercise of subtlest art, has given
  • Thy songs such power?—for those who hear may choose
  • From three, the choicest of the gifts of Heaven,
  • Delight, and love, and sleep,—sweet sleep, whose dews
  • Are sweeter than the balmy tears of even:—
  • And I, who speak this praise, am that Apollo
  • Whom the Olympian Muses ever follow:

• • LXXVII.

  • “And their delight is dance, and the blithe noise
  • Of song and overflowing poesy;
  • And sweet, even as desire, the liquid voice
  • Of pipes, that fills the clear air thrillingly;
  • But never did my inmost soul rejoice
  • In this dear work of youthful revelry,
  • As now I wonder at thee, son of Jove;
  • Thy harpings and thy song are soft as love.

• • LXXVIII.

  • “Now since thou hast, although so very small,
  • Science of arts so glorious, thus I swear,
  • And let this cornel javelin, keen and tall,
  • Witness between us what I promise here,—
  • That I will lead thee to the Olympian Hall,
  • Honoured and mighty, with thy mother dear,
  • And many glorious gifts in joy will give thee,
  • And even at the end will ne’er deceive thee.”

• • LXXIX.

  • To whom thus Mercury with prudent speech:—
  • “Wisely hast thou enquired of my skill:
  • I envy thee no thing I know to teach
  • Even this day:—for both in word and will
  • I would be gentle with thee; thou canst reach
  • All things in thy wise spirit, and thy sill
  • Is highest in heaven among the sons of Jove,
  • Who loves thee in the fulness of his love.

• • LXXX.

  • “The Counsellor Supreme has given to thee
  • Divinest gifts, out of the amplitude
  • Of his profuse exhaustless treasury;
  • By thee, ’tis said, the depths are understood
  • Of his far voice; by thee the mystery
  • Of all oracular fates,—and the dread mood
  • Of the diviner is breathed up, even I—
  • A child—perceive thy might and majesty—

• • LXXXI.

  • “Thou canst seek out and compass all that wit
  • Can find or teach;—yet since thou wilt, come take
  • The lyre—be mine the glory giving it—
  • Strike the sweet chords, and sing aloud, and wake
  • Thy joyous pleasure out of many a fit
  • Of tranced sound—and with fleet fingers make
  • Thy liquid-voiced comrade talk with thee,
  • It can talk measured music eloquently.

• • LXXXII.

  • “Then bear it boldly to the revel loud,
  • Love-wakening dance, or feast of solemn state,
  • A joy by night or day—for those endowed
  • With art and wisdom who interrogate
  • It teaches, babbling in delightful mood
  • All things which make the spirit most elate,
  • Soothing the mind with sweet familiar play,
  • Chasing the heavy shadows of dismay.

• • LXXXIII.

  • “To those who are unskilled in its sweet tongue,
  • Though they should question most impetuously
  • Its hidden soul, it gossips something wrong—
  • Some senseless and impertinent reply.
  • But thou who art as wise as thou art strong
  • Can compass all that thou desirest. I
  • Present thee with this music-flowing shell,
  • Knowing thou canst interrogate it well.

• • LXXXIV.

  • “And let us two henceforth together feed
  • On this green mountain slope and pastoral plain,
  • The herds in litigation—they will breed
  • Quickly enough to recompense our pain,
  • If to the bulls and cows we take good heed;—
  • And thou, though somewhat over fond of gain,
  • Grudge me not half the profit.”—Having spoke,
  • The shell he proffered, and Apollo took.

• • LXXXV.

  • And gave him in return the glittering lash,
  • Installing him as herdsman;—from the look
  • Of Mercury then laughed a joyous flash.
  • And then Apollo with the plectrum strook
  • The chords, and from beneath his hands a crash
  • Of mighty sounds rushed up, whose music shook
  • The soul with sweetness, as of an adept
  • His sweeter voice a just accordance kept.

• • LXXXVI.

  • The herd went wandering o’er the divine mead,
  • Whilst these most beautiful Sons of Jupiter
  • Won their swift way up to the snowy head
  • Of white Olympus, with the joyous lyre
  • Soothing their journey; and their father dread
  • Gathered them both into familiar
  • Affection sweet,—and then, and now, and ever,
  • Hermes must love Him of the Golden Quiver,

• • LXXXVII.

  • To whom he gave the lyre that sweetly sounded,
  • Which skilfully he held and played thereon.
  • He piped the while, and far and wide rebounded
  • The echo of his pipings; every one
  • Of the Olympians sat with joy astounded,
  • While he conceived another piece of fun,
  • One of his old tricks—which the God of Day
  • Perceiving, said:—“I fear thee, Son of May;—

• • LXXXVIII.

  • “I fear thee and thy sly camelion spirit,
  • Lest thou should steal my lyre and crooked bow;
  • This glory and power thou dost from Jove inherit,
  • To teach all craft upon the earth below;
  • Thieves love and worship thee—it is thy merit
  • To make all mortal business ebb and flow
  • By roguery:—now, Hermes, if you dare,
  • By sacred Styx a mighty oath to swear

• • LXXXIX.

  • “That you will never rob me, you will do
  • A thing extremely pleasing to my heart.”
  • Then Mercury sware by the Stygian dew,
  • That he would never steal his bow or dart,
  • Or lay his hands on what to him was due,
  • Or ever would employ his powerful art
  • Against his Pythian fane. Then Phœbus swore
  • There was no God or man whom he loved more.

• • XC.

  • “And I will give thee as a good-will token,
  • The beautiful wand of wealth and happiness;
  • A perfect three-leaved rod of gold unbroken,
  • Whose magic will thy footsteps ever bless;
  • And whatsoever by Jove’s voice is spoken
  • Of earthly or divine from its recess,
  • It, like a loving soul to thee will speak,
  • And more than this, do thou forbear to seek.

• • XCI.

  • “For, dearest child, the divinations high
  • Which thou requirest, ’tis unlawful ever
  • That thou, or any other deity
  • Should understand—and vain were the endeavour;
  • For they are hidden in Jove’s mind, and I
  • In trust of them, have sworn that I would never
  • Betray the counsels of Jove’s inmost will
  • To any God—the oath was terrible.

• • XCII.

  • “Then, golden-wanded brother, ask me not
  • To speak the fates by Jupiter designed;
  • But be it mine to tell their various lot
  • To the unnumbered tribes of human kind.
  • Let good to these, and ill to those be wrought
  • As I dispense—but he who comes consigned
  • By voice and wings of perfect augury
  • To my great shrine, shall find avail in me.

• • XCIII.

  • “Him will I not deceive, but will assist;
  • But he who comes relying on such birds
  • As chatter vainly, who would strain and twist
  • The purpose of the Gods with idle words,
  • And deems their knowledge light, he shall have mist
  • His road—whilst I among my other hoards
  • His gifts deposit. Yet, O son of May,
  • I have another wondrous thing to say.

• • XCIV.

  • “There are three Fates, three virgin Sisters, who
  • Rejoicing in their wind-outspeeding wings,
  • Their heads with flour snowed over white and new,
  • Sit in a vale round which Parnassus flings
  • Its circling skirts—from these I have learned true
  • Vaticinations of remotest things.
  • My father cared not. Whilst they search out dooms,
  • They sit apart and feed on honeycombs.

• • XCV.

  • “They, having eaten the fresh honey, grow
  • Drunk with divine enthusiasm, and utter
  • With earnest willingness the truth they know;
  • But if deprived of that sweet food, they mutter
  • All plausible delusions;—these to you
  • I give;—if you inquire, they will not stutter;
  • Delight your own soul with them:—any man
  • You would instruct, may profit, if he can.

• • XCVI.

  • “Take these and the fierce oxen, Maia’s child—
  • O’er many a horse and toil-enduring mule,
  • O’er jagged-jawed lions, and the wild
  • White-tusked boars, o’er all, by field or pool,
  • Of cattle which the mighty Mother mild
  • Nourishes in her bosom, thou shalt rule—
  • Thou dost alone the veil of death uplift—
  • Thou givest not—yet this is a great gift.”

• • XCVII.

  • Thus king Apollo loved the child of May
  • In truth, and Jove covered them with love and joy.
  • Hermes with Gods and men even from that day
  • Mingled, and wrought the latter much annoy,
  • And little profit, going far astray
  • Through the dun night. Farewell, delightful Boy,
  • Of Jove and Maia sprung,—never by me,
  • Nor thou, nor other songs shall unremembered be.

THE CYCLOPS;

A SATYRIC DRAMA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF EURIPIDES.

Silenus.

Chorus of Satyrs.

Ulysses.

The Cyclops.

silenus.

• O, Bacchus, what a world of toil, both now
• And ere these limbs were overworn with age,
• Have I endured for thee! First, when thou fled’st
• The mountain-nymphs who nurst thee, driven afar
• By the strange madness Juno sent upon thee;
• Then in the battle of the sons of Earth,
• When I stood foot by foot close to thy side,
• No unpropitious fellow combatant,
• And driving through his shield my winged spear,
• Slew vast Enceladus. Consider now,
• Is it a dream of which I speak to thee?
• By Jove it is not, for you have the trophies!
• And now I suffer more than all before.
• For when I heard that Juno had devised
• A tedious voyage for you, I put to sea
• With all my children quaint in search of you,
• And I myself stood on the beaked prow
• And fixed the naked mast, and all my boys
• Leaning upon their oars, with splash and strain
• Made white with foam the green and purple sea,—
• And so we sought you, king. We were sailing
• Near Malea, when an eastern wind arose,
• And drove us to this wild Ætnean rock;
• The one-eyed children of the Ocean God,
• The man-destroying Cyclopses inhabit,
• On this wild shore, their solitary caves,
• And one of these, named Polypheme, has caught us
• To be his slaves; and so, for all delight
• Of Bacchic sports, sweet dance and melody,
• We keep this lawless giant’s wandering flocks.
• My sons indeed, on far declivities,
• Young things themselves, tend on the youngling sheep,
• But I remain to fill the water casks,
• Or sweeping the hard floor, or ministering
• Some impious and abominable meal
• To the fell Cyclops. I am wearied of it!
• And now I must scrape up the littered floor
• With this great iron rake, so to receive
• My absent master and his evening sheep
• In a cave neat and clean. Even now I see
• My children tending the flocks hitherward.
• Ha! what is this? are your Sicinnian measures
• Even now the same, as when with dance and song
• You brought young Bacchus to Athæa’s halls?
• * * * * *

chorus of satyrs.

• STROPHE.
• Where has he of race divine
• Wandered in the winding rocks?
• Here the air is calm and fine
• For the father of the flocks;—
• Here the grass is soft and sweet,
• And the river-eddies meet
• In the trough beside the cave,
• Bright as in their fountain wave.—
• Neither here, nor on the dew
• Of the lawny uplands feeding?
• Oh, you come!—a stone at you
• Will I throw to mend your breeding;—
• Get along, you horned thing,
• Wild, seditious, rambling!

epode.*

• An Iacchic melody
• To the golden Aphrodite
• Will I lift, as erst did I
• Seeking her and her delight
• With the Mænads, whose white feet
• To the music glance and fleet.
• Bacchus, O beloved, where,
• Shaking wide thy yellow hair,
• Wanderest thou alone, afar?
• To the one-eyed Cyclops, we,
• Who by right thy servants are,
• Minister in misery,
• In these wretched goat-skins clad,
• Far from thy delights and thee.

silenus.

• Be silent, sons; command the slaves to drive
• The gathered flocks into the rock-roofed cave.

chorus.

• Go! But what needs this serious haste, O father?

silenus.

• I see a Greek ship’s boat upon the coast,
• And thence the rowers with some general
• Approaching to this cave. About their necks
• Hang empty vessels, as they wanted food,
• And water-flasks.—O, miserable strangers!
• Whence come they, that they know not what and who
• My master is, approaching in ill hour
• The inhospitable roof of Polypheme,
• And the Cyclopian jaw-bone, man-destroying?
• Be silent, Satyrs, while I ask and hear
• Whence coming, they arrive the Ætnean hill.

ulysses.

• Friends, can you show me some clear water spring,
• The remedy of our thirst? Will any one
• Furnish with food seamen in want of it?
• Ha! what is this? We seem to be arrived
• At the blithe court of Bacchus. I observe
• This sportive band of Satyrs near the caves.
• First let me greet the elder.—Hail!

silenus.

• Hail thou,
• O, Stranger! tell thy country and thy race.

ulysses.

• The Ithacan Ulysses and the king:
• Of Cephalonia.

silenus.

• Oh! I know the man,
• Wordy and shrewd, the son of Sisyphus.

ulysses.

• I am the same, but do not rail upon me.—

silenus.

• Whence sailing do you come to Sicily?

ulysses.

• From Ilion, and from the Trojan toils.

silenus.

• How, touched you not at your paternal shore?

ulysses.

• The strength of tempests bore me here by force.

silenus.

• The self-same accident occurred to me.

ulysses.

• Were you then driven here by stress of weather?

silenus.

• Following the Pirates who had kidnapped Bacchus.

ulysses.

• What land is this, and who inhabit it?—

silenus.

• Ætna, the loftiest peak in Sicily.

ulysses.

• And are there walls, and tower-surrounded towns?

silenus.

• There are not;—These lone rocks are bare of men.

ulysses.

• And who possess the land? the race of beasts?

silenus.

• Cyclops, who live in caverns, not in houses.

ulysses.

• Obeying whom? Or is the state popular?

silenus.

• Shepherds: no one obeys any in aught.

ulysses.

• How live they? do they sow the corn of Ceres?

silenus.

• On milk and cheese, and on the flesh of sheep.

ulysses.

• Have they the Bromian drink from the vine’s stream?

silenus.

• Ah! no; they live in an ungracious land.

ulysses.

• And are they just to strangers?—hospitable?

silenus.

• They think the sweetest thing a stranger brings
• Is his own flesh.

ulysses.

• What! do they eat man’s flesh?

silenus.

• No one comes here who is not eaten up.

ulysses.

• The Cyclops now—Where is he? Not at home?

silenus.

• Absent on Ætna, hunting with his dogs.

ulysses.

• Know’st thou what thou must do to aid us hence?

silenus.

• I know not: we will help you all we can.

ulysses.

• Provide us food, of which we are in want.

silenus.

• Here is not anything, as I said, but meat.

ulysses.

• But meat is a sweet remedy for hunger.

silenus.

• Cow’s milk there is, and store of curdled cheese.

ulysses.

• Bring out:—I would see all before I bargain.

silenus.

• But how much gold will you engage to give?

ulysses.

• I bring no gold, but Bacchic juice.

silenus.

• O, joy!
• ’Tis long since these dry lips were wet with wine.

ulysses.

• Maron, the son of the God, gave it me.

silenus.

• Whom I have nursed a baby in my arms.

ulysses.

• The son of Bacchus, for your clearer knowledge.

silenus.

• Have you it now?—or is it in the ship?

ulysses.

• Old man, this skin contains it, which you see.

silenus.

• Why this would hardly be a mouthful for me.

ulysses.

• Nay, twice as much as you can draw from thence.

silenus.

• You speak of a fair fountain, sweet to me.

ulysses.

• Would you first taste of the unmingled wine?

silenus.

• ’Tis just—tasting invites the purchaser.

ulysses.

• Here is the cup, together with the skin.

silenus.

• Pour: that the draught may fillip my remembrance.

ulysses.

• See!

silenus.

• Papaiapæx! what a sweet smell it has!

ulysses.

• You see it then?—

silenus.

• By Jove, no! but I smell it.

ulysses.

• Taste, that you may not praise it in words only.

silenus.

• Babai! Great Bacchus calls me forth to dance!
• Joy! joy!

ulysses.

• Did it flow sweetly down your throat?

silenus.

• So that it tingled to my very nails.

ulysses.

• And in addition I will give you gold.

silenus.

• Let gold alone! only unlock the cask.

ulysses.

• Bring out some cheeses now, or a young goat.

silenus.

• That will I do, despising any master.
• Yes, let me drink one cup, and I will give
• All that the Cyclops feed upon their mountains.
• * * * * *

chorus.

• Ye have taken Troy and laid your hands on Helen?

ulysses.

• And utterly destroyed the race of Priam.

silenus.

• * * * * *
• The wanton wretch! she was bewitched to see
• The many-coloured anklets and the chain
• Of woven gold which girt the neck of Paris,
• And so she left that good man Menclaus.
• There should be no more women in the world
• But such as are reserved for me alone.—
• See, here are sheep, and here are goats, Ulysses,
• Here are unsparing cheeses of pressed milk;
• Take them; depart with what good speed ye may;
• First leaving my reward, the Bacchic dew
• Of joy-inspiring grapes.

ulysses.

• Ah me! Alas!
• What shall we do? the Cyclops is at hand!
• Old man, we perish! whither can we fly?

silenus.

• Hide yourselves quick within that hollow rock.

ulysses.

• ’Twere perilous to fly into the net.

silenus.

• The cavern has recesses numberless;
• Hide yourselves quick.

ulysses.

• That will I never do!
• The mighty Troy would be indeed disgraced
• If I should fly one man. How many times
• Have I withstood, with shield immoveable,
• Ten thousand Phrygians!—if I needs must die,
• Yet will I die with glory;—if I live,
• The praise which I have gained will yet remain.

silenus.

• What, ho! assistance, comrades, haste assistance!

TheCyclops, Silenus, Ulysses; Chorus.

cyclops.

• What is this tumult? Bacchus is not here,
• Nor tympanies nor brazen castanets.
• How are my young lambs in the cavern? Milking
• Their dams or playing by their sides? And is
• The new cheese pressed into the bull-rush baskets?
• Speak! I’ll beat some of you till you rain tears—
• Look up, not downwards when I speak to you.

silenus.

• See! I now gape at Jupiter himself,
• I stare upon Orion and the stars.

cyclops.

• Well, is the dinner fitly cooked and laid?

silenus.

• All ready, if your throat is ready too.

cyclops.

• Are the bowls full of milk besides?

silenus.

• O’er brimming;
• So you may drink a tunful if you will.

cyclops.

• Is it ewe’s milk or cow’s milk, or both mixed?—

silenus.

• Both, either; only pray don’t swallow me.

cyclops.

• By no means.—
• * * *
• What is this crowd I see beside the stalls?
• Outlaws or thieves? for near my cavern-home,
• I see my young lambs coupled two by two
• With willow bands; mixed with my cheeses lie
• Their implements; and this old fellow here
• Has his bald head broken with stripes.

silenus.

• Ah me!
• I have been beaten till I burn with fever.

cyclops.

• By whom? Who laid his first upon your head?

silenus.

• Those men, because I would not suffer them
• To steal your goods.

cyclops.

• Did not the rascals know
• I am a God, sprung from the race of heaven?

silenus.

• I told them so, but they bore off your things,
• And ate the cheese in spite of all I said,
• And carried out the lambs—and said, moreover,
• They’d pin you down with a three cubit collar,
• And pull your vitals out through your one eye,
• Torture your back with stripes, then binding you,
• Throw you as ballast into the ship’s hold,
• And then deliver you, a slave, to move
• Enormous rocks, or found a vestibule.

cyclops.

• In truth? Nay, haste, and place in order quickly
• The cooking knives, and heap upon the hearth,
• And kindle it, a great faggot of wood—
• As soon as they are slaughtered, they shall fill
• My belly, broiling warm from the live coals,
• Or boiled and seethed within the bubbling cauldron.
• I am quite sick of the wild mountain game,
• Of stags and lions I have gorged enough,
• And I grow hungry for the flesh of men.

silenus.

• Nay, master, something new is very pleasant
• After one thing for ever, and of late
• Very few strangers have approached our cave.

ulysses.

• Hear, Cyclops, a plain tale on the other side.
• We, wanting to buy food, came from our ship
• Into the neighbourhood of your cave, and here
• This old Silenus gave us in exchange
• These lambs for wine, the which he took and drank,
• And all by mutual compact, without force.
• There is no word of truth in what he says,
• For slily he was selling all your store.

silenus.

• I? May you perish, wretch—

ulysses.

• If I speak false!

silenus.

• Cyclops, I swear by Neptune who begot thee,
• By mighty Triton and by Nereus old,
• Calypso and the glaucous ocean Nymphs,
• The sacred waves and all the race of fishes—
• Be these the witnesses, my dear sweet master,
• My darling little Cyclops, that I never
• Gave any of your stores to these false strangers:—
• If I speak false may those whom most I love,
• My children, perish wretchedly!

chorus.

• There stop!
• I saw him giving these things to the strangers,
• If I speak false, then may my father perish,
• But do not thou wrong hospitality.

cyclops.

• You lie! I swear that he is juster far
• Than Rhadamanthus—I trust more in him.
• But let me ask, whence have ye sailed, O strangers?
• Who are you? And what city nourished ye?

ulysses.

• Our race is Ithacan—having destroyed
• The town of Troy, the tempests of the sea
• Have driven us on thy land, O Polypheme.

cyclops.

• What, have ye shared in the unenvied spoil
• Of the false Helen, near Scamander’s stream?

ulysses.

• The same, having endured a woful toil.

cyclops.

• O, basest expedition! sailed ye not
• From Greece to Phrygia for one woman’s sake?

ulysses.

• ’Twas the God’s work—no mortal was in fault.
• But, O great offspring of the ocean-king,
• We pray thee and admonish thee with freedom,
• That thou dost spare thy friends who visit thee,
• And place no impious food within thy jaws.
• For in the depths of Greece we have upreared
• Temples to thy great father, which are all
• His homes. The sacred bay of Tœnarus
• Remains inviolate, and each dim recess
• Scooped high on the Malean promontory,
• And aery Sunium’s silver-veined crag,
• Which divine Pallas keeps unprofaned ever,
• The Gerastian asylums, and whate’er
• Within wide Greece our enterprise has kept
• From Phrygian contumely; and in which
• You have a common care, for you inhabit
• The skirts of Grecian land, under the roots
• Of Ætna and its crags, spotted with fire.
• Turn then to converse under human laws,
• Receive us shipwrecked suppliants, and provide
• Food, clothes, and fire, and hospitable gifts;
• Nor fixing upon oxen-piercing spits
• Our limbs, so fill your belly and your jaws.
• Priam’s wide land has widowed Greece enough;
• And weapon-winged murder heaped together
• Enough of dead, and wives are husbandless,
• And ancient women and grey fathers wail
• Their childless age;—if you should roast the rest,
• And ’tis a bitter feast that you prepare,
• Where then would any turn? Yet be persuaded;
• Forego the lust of your jaw-bone; prefer
• Pious humanity to wicked will:
• Many have bought too dear their evil joys.

silenus.

• Let me advise you, do not spare a morsel
• Of all his flesh. If you should eat his tongue
• You would become most eloquent, O Cyclops?

cyclops.

• Wealth, my good fellow, is the wise man’s God,
• All other things are a pretence and boast.
• What are my father’s ocean promontories,
• The sacred rocks whereon he dwells, to me?
• Stranger, I laugh to scorn Jove’s thunderbolt,
• I know not that his strength is more than mine.
• As to the rest I care not:—When he pours
• Rain from above, I have a close pavilion
• Under this rock, in which I lie supine,
• Feasting on a roast calf or some wild beast,
• And drinking pans of milk, and gloriously
• Emulating the thunder of high heaven.
• And when the Thracian wind pours down the snow,
• I wrap my body in the skins of beasts,
• Kindle a fire, and bid the snow whirl on.
• The earth, by force, whether it will or no,
• Bringing forth grass, fattens my flocks and herds,
• Which, to what other God but to myself
• And this great belly, first of deities,
• Should I be bound to sacrifice? I well know
• The wise man’s only Jupiter is this,
• To eat and drink during his little day,
• And give himself no care. And as for those
• Who complicate with laws the life of man,
• I freely give them tears for their reward.
• I will not cheat my soul of its delight,
• Or hesitate in dining upon you:—
• And that I may be quit of all demands,
• These are my hospitable gifts;—fierce fire
• And you ancestral cauldron, which o’er bubbling
• Shall finely cook your miserable flesh.
• Creep in!—
• * * * *

ulysses.

• Ay! ay! I have escaped the Trojan toils,
• I have escaped the sea, and now I fall
• Under the cruel grasp of one impious man.
• O Pallas, mistress, Goddess, sprung from Jove,
• Now, now, assist me! Mightier toils than Troy
• Are these;—I totter on the chasms of peril;—
• And thou who inhabitest the thrones
• Of the bright stars, look, hospitable Jove,
• Upon this outrage of thy deity,
• Otherwise be considered as no God!

chorus(alone).

• • For your gaping gulph, and your gullet wide
  • The ravine is ready on every side,
  • The limbs of the strangers are cooked and done,
  • There is boiled meat, and roast meat, and meat from the coal,
  • You may chop it, and tear it, and gnash it for fun,
  • An hairy goat’s-skin contains the whole.
  • Let me but escape, and ferry me o’er
  • The stream of your wrath to a safer shore.
• • The Cyclops Ætnean is cruel and bold,
  • He murders the strangers
  • That sit on his hearth,
  • And dreads no avengers
  • To rise from the earth.
• • He roasts the men before they are cold,
  • He snatches them broiling from the coal,
  • And from the cauldron pulls them whole,
  • And minces their flesh and gnaws their bone
  • With his cursed teeth, till all begone.
• • Farewell, foul pavilion!
  • Farewell, rites of dread!
  • The Cyclops vermilion,
  • With slaughter uncloying,
  • Now feasts on the dead,
  • In the flesh of strangers joying!

ulysses.

• O Jupiter! I saw within the cave
• Horrible things; deeds to be feigned in words,
• But not believed as being done.

chorus.

• What sawest thou the impious Polypheme
• Feasting upon your loved companions now?

ulysses.

• Selecting two, the plumpest of the crowd,
• He grasped them in his hands.—

chorus.

• Unhappy man
• * * * *

ulysses.

• Soon as we came into this craggy place,
• Kindling a fire, he cast on the broad hearth
• The knotty limbs of an enormous oak,
• Three waggon loads at least, and then he strewed
• Upon the ground, beside the red fire light,
• His couch of pine leaves; and he milked the cows,
• And pouring forth the white milk, filled a bowl
• Three cubits wide and four in depth, as much
• As would contain four amphoræ, and bound it
• With ivy wreaths; then placed upon the fire
• A brazen pot to boil, and made red hot
• The points of spits, not sharpened with the sickle,
• But with a fruit tree bough, and with the jaws
• Of axes for Ætnean slaughterings.*
• And when this God-abandoned cook of hell
• Had made all ready, he seized two of us
• And killed them in a kind of measured manner;
• For he flung one against the brazen rivets
• Of the huge cauldron, and seized the other
• By the foot’s tendon, and knocked out his brains
• Upon the sharp edge of the craggy stone:
• Then peeled his flesh with a great cooking knife
• And put him down to roast. The other’s limbs
• He chopped into the cauldron to be boiled.
• And I, with the tears raining from my eyes,
• Stood near the Cyclops, ministering to him;
• The rest, in the recesses of the cave,
• Clung to the rock like bats, bloodless with fear.
• When he was filled with my companions flesh,
• He threw himself upon the ground and sent
• A loathsome exhalation from his maw.
• Then a divine thought came to me. I filled
• The cup of Maron, and I offered him
• To taste, and said:—“Child of the Ocean God,
• Behold what drink the vines of Greece produce,
• The exultation and the joy of Bacchus.”
• He, satiated with his unnatural food,
• Received it, and at one draught drank it off,
• And taking my hand, praised me:—“Thou hast given
• A sweet draught after a sweet meal, dear guest.”
• And I perceiving that it pleased him, filled
• Another cup, well knowing that the wine
• Would wound him soon and take a sure revenge.
• And the charm fascinated him, and I
• Plied him cup after cup, until the drink
• Had warmed his entrails, and he sang aloud
• In concert with my wailing fellow-seamen
• A hideous discord—and the cavern rung.
• I have stolen out, so that if you will
• You may achieve my safety and your own.
• But say, do you desire, or not, to fly
• This uncompanionable man, and dwell
• As was your wont among the Grecian Nymphs
• Within the fanes of your beloved God?
• Your father there within agrees to it,
• But he is weak and overcome with wine,
• And caught as if with bird-lime by the cup,
• He claps his wings and crows in doting joy.
• You who are young escape with me, and find
• Bacchus your ancient friend; unsuited he
• To this rude Cyclops.

chorus.

• Oh my dearest friend,
• That I could see that day, and leave for ever
• The impious Cyclops.
• * * * *

ulysses.

• Listen then what a punishment I have
• For this fell monster, how secure a flight
• From your hard servitude.

chorus.

• Oh sweeter far
• Than is the music of an Asian lyre
• Would be the news of Polypheme destroyed.

ulysses.

• Delighted with the Bacchic drink he goes
• To call his brother Cyclops—who inhabit
• A village upon Ætna not far off.

chorus.

• I understand, catching him when alone
• You think by some measure to dispatch him,
• Or thrust him from the precipice.

ulysses.

• O no;
• Nothing of that kind; my device is subtle.

chorus.

• How then? I heard of old that thou wert wise.

ulysses.

• I will dissuade him from this plan, by saying
• It were unwise to give the Cyclopses
• This precious drink, which if enjoyed alone
• Would make life sweeter for a longer time.
• When vanquished by the Bacchic power, he sleeps,
• There is a trunk of olive wood within,
• Whose point having made sharp with this good sword
• I will conceal in fire, and when I see
• It is alight, will fix it, burning yet,
• Within the socket of the Cyclops’ eye
• And melt it out with fire—as when a man
• Turns by its handle a great auger round,
• Fitting the frame work of a ship with beams,
• So will I, in the Cyclops’ fiery eye
• Turn round the brand and dry the pupil up.

chorus.

• Joy! I am mad with joy at your device.

ulysses.

• And then with you, my friends, and the old man,
• We’ll load the hollow depth of our black ship,
• And row with double strokes from this dread shore.

chorus.

• May I, as in libations to a God,
• Share in the blinding him with the red brand?
• I would have some communion in his death.

ulysses.

• Doubtless: the brand is a great brand to hold.

chorus.

• Oh! I would lift an hundred waggon loads,
• If like a wasp’s nest I could scoop the eye out
• Of the detested Cyclops.

ulysses.

• Silence now!
• Ye know the close device—and when I call,
• Look ye obey the masters of the craft.
• I will not save myself and leave behind
• My comrades in the cave: I might escape
• Having got clear from that obscure recess,
• But ’twere unjust to leave in jeopardy
• The dear companions who sailed here with me.

chorus.

• Come! who is first, that with his hand
• Will urge down the burning brand
• Through the lids, and quench and pierce
• The Cyclops’ eye so fiery fierce?

semi-chorus i.

• Song within.
• Listen! listen! he is coming,
• A most hideous discord humming,
• Drunken, museless, awkward, yelling,
• Far along his rocky dwelling;
• Let us with some comic spell
• Teach the yet unteachable.
• By all means he must be blinded,
• If my council be but minded.

semi-chorus ii.

• Happy those made odorous
• With the dew which sweet grapes weep,
• To the village hastening thus,
• Seek the vines that soothe to sleep,
• Having first embraced thy friend,
• There in luxury without end,
• With the strings of yellow hair,
• Of thy voluptuous leman fair,
• Shalt sit playing on a bed!—
• Speak what door is opened?

cyclops.

• Ha! ha! ha! I’m full of wine,
• Heavy with the joy divine,
• With the young feast oversated,
• Like a merchant’s vessel freighted
• To the waters edge, my crop
• Is laden to the gullet’s top.
• The fresh meadow grass of spring
• Tempts me forth thus wandering
• To my brothers on the mountains,
• Who shall share the wine’s sweet fountains.
• Bring the cask, O stranger, bring!

chorus.

• One with eyes the fairest
• Cometh from his dwelling;
• Some one loves thee, rarest,
• Bright beyond my telling.
• In thy grace thou shinest
• Like some nymph divinest,
• In her caverns dewy:—
• All delights pursue thee,
• Soon pied flowers, sweet-breathing,
• Shall thy head be wreathing.

ulysses.

• Listen, O Cyclops, for I am well skilled
• In Bacchus, whom I gave thee of to drink.

cyclops.

• What sort of God is Bacchus then accounted?

ulysses.

• The greatest among men for joy of life.

cyclops.

• I gulpt him down with very great delight.

ulysses.

• This is a God who never injures men.

cyclops.

• How does the God like living in a skin?

ulysses.

• He is content wherever he is put.

cyclops.

• Gods should not have their body in a skin.

ulysses.

• If he gives joy, what is his skin to you?

cyclops.

• I hate the skin, but love the wine within.

ulysses.

• Stay here, now drink, and make your spirit glad.

cyclops.

• Should I not share this liquor with my brothers?

ulysses.

• Keep it yourself, and be more honoured so.

cyclops.

• I were more useful, giving to my friends.

ulysses.

• But village mirth breeds contests, broils, and blows.

cyclops.

• When I am drunk none shall lay hands on me.—

ulysses.

• A drunken man is better within doors.

cyclops.

• He is a fool, who drinking, loves not mirth.

ulysses.

• But he is wise, who drunk, remains at home.

cyclops.

• Whall shall I do, Silenus? Shall I stay?

silenus.

• Stay—for what need have you of pot companions?

cyclops.

• Indeed this place is closely carpeted
• With flowers and grass.

silenus.

• And in the sun-warm noon
• ’Tis sweet to drink. Lie down beside me now,
• Placing your mighty sides upon the ground.

cyclops.

• What do you put the cup behind me for?

silenus.

• That no one here may touch it.

cyclops.

• Thievish one!
• You want to drink;—here place it in the midst.
• And thou, O stranger, tell how art thou called?

ulysses.

• My name is Nobody. What favour now
• Shall I receive to praise you at your hands?

cyclops.

• I’ll feast on you the last of your companions.

ulysses.

• You grant your guest a fair reward, O Cyclops.

cyclops.

• Ha! what is this? Stealing the wine, you rogue!

silenus.

• It was this stranger kissing me because
• I looked so beautiful.

cyclops.

• You shall repent
• For kissing the coy wine that loves you not.

silenus.

• By Jupiter! you said that I am fair.

cyclops.

• Pour out, and only give me the cup full.

silenus.

• How is it mixed? let me observe.

cyclops.

• Curse you!
• Give it me so.

silenus.

• Not till I see you wear
• That coronal, and taste the cup to you.

cyclops.

• Thou wily traitor!

silenus.

• But the wine is sweet.
• Aye, you will roar if you are caught in drinking.

cyclops.

• See now, my lip is clean and all my beard.

silenus.

• Now put your elbow right and drink again.
• As you see me drink— * * * *

cyclops.

• How now?

silenus.

• Ye Gods, what a delicious gulp!

cyclops.

• Guest, take it;—you pour out the wine for me.

ulysses.

• The wine is well accustomed to my hand.

cyclops.

• Pour out the wine!

ulysses.

• I pour; only be silent.

cyclops.

• Silence is a hard task to him who drinks.

ulysses.

• Take it and drink it off; leave not a dreg.
• O, that the drinker died with his own draught!

cyclops.

• Papai! the wine must be a sapient plant.

ulysses.

• If you drink much after a mighty feast,
• Moistening your thirsty maw, you will sleep well;
• If you leave aught, Bacchus will dry you up.

cyclops.

• Ho! ho! I can scarce rise. What pure delight!
• The heavens and earth appear to whirl about
• Confusedly. I see the throne of Jove
• And the clear congregation of the Gods.
• Now if the Graces tempted me to kiss
• I would not, for the loveliest of them all
• I would not leave this Ganymede.

silenus.

• Polypheme,
• I am the Ganymede of Jupiter.

cyclops.

• By Jove you are; I bore you off from Dardanus.

Ulyssesand theChorus.

ulysses.

• Come boys of Bacchus, children of high race,
• This man within is folded up in sleep,
• And soon will vomit flesh from his fell maw;
• The brand under the shed thrusts out its smoke,
• No preparation needs, but to burn out
• The monster’s eye;—but bear yourselves like men.

chorus.

• We will have courage like the adamant rock,
• All things are ready for you here; go in,
• Before our father shall perceive the noise.

ulysses.

• Vulcan, Ætnean king! burn out with fire
• The shining eye of this thy neighbouring monster!
• And thou, O Sleep, nursling of gloomy night,
• Descend unmixed on this God-hated beast,
• And suffer not Ulysses and his comrades,
• Returning from their famous Trojan toils,
• To perish by this man, who cares not either
• For God or mortal; or I needs must think
• That Chance is a supreme divinity,
• And things divine are subject to her power.

chorus.

• Soon a crab the throat will seize
• Of him who feeds upon his guest,
• Fire will burn his lamp-like eyes
• In revenge of such a feast!
• A great oak stump now is lying
• In the ashes yet undying.
• Come, Maron, come!
• Raging let him fix the doom,
• Let him tear the eyelid up,
• Of the Cyclops—that his cup
• May be evil!
• O, I long to dance and revel
• With sweet Bromian, long desired,
• In loved ivy-wreathes attired;
• Leaving this abandoned home—
• Will the moment ever come?

ulysses.

• Be silent, ye wild things! Nay, hold your peace,
• And keep your lips quite close; dare not to breathe,
• Or spit, or e’en wink, lest ye wake the monster,
• Until his eye be tortured out with fire.

chorus.

• Nay, we are silent, and we chaw the air.

ulysses.

• Come now, and lend a hand to the great stake
• Within—it is delightfully red hot.

chorus.

• You then command who first should seize the stake
• To burn the Cyclops’ eye, that all may share
• In the great enterprise.

semi-chorus i.

• We are too few,
• We cannot at this distance from the door
• Thrust fire into his eye.

semi-chorus ii.

• And we just now
• Have become lame; cannot move hand or foot.

chorus.

• The same thing has occurred to us,—our ancles
• Are sprained with standing here, I know not how.

ulysses.

• What, sprained with standing still?

chorus.

• And there is dust
• Or ashes in our eyes, I know not whence.

ulysses.

• Cowardly dogs! ye will not aid me then?

chorus.

• With pitying my own back and my back bone,
• And with not wishing all my teeth knocked out,
• This cowardice comes of itself—but stay,
• I know a famous Orphic incantation
• To make the brand stick of its own accord
• Into the skull of this one-eyed son of Earth.

ulysses.

• Of old I knew ye thus by nature; now
• I know ye better.—I will use the aid
• Of my own comrades—yet though weak of hand
• Speak cheerfully, that so ye may awaken
• The courage of my friends with your blithe words.

chorus.

• This I will do with peril of my life,
• And blind you with my exhortations, Cyclops.
• Hasten and thrust,
• And parch up to dust,
• The eye of the beast,
• Who feeds on his guest.
• Burn and blind
• The Ætnean hind!
• Scoop and draw,
• But beware lest he claw
• Your limbs near his maw.

cyclops.

• Ah me! my eye-sight is parched up to cinders.

chorus.

• What a sweet pæan! sing me that again!

cyclops.

• Ah me! indeed, what woe has fallen upon me!
• But wretched nothings, think ye not to flee
• Out of this rock; I, standing at the outlet,
• Will bar the way and catch you as you pass.

chorus.

• What are you roaring out, Cyclops?

cyclops.

• I perish!

chorus.

• For you are wicked.

cyclops.

• And besides miserable.

chorus.

• What, did you fall into the fire when drunk?

cyclops.

• ’Twas Nobody destroyed me.

chorus.

• Why then no one
• Can be to blame.

cyclops.

• I say ’twas Nobody
• Who blinded me.

chorus.

• Why then you are not blind.

cyclops.

• I wish you were as blind as I am.

chorus.

• Nay,
• It cannot be that no one made you blind.

cyclops.

• You jeer me; where, I ask, is Nobody?

chorus.

• No where, O Cyclops * * *

cyclops.

• It was that stranger ruined me:—the wretch
• First gave me wine and then burnt out my eyes,
• For wine is strong and hard to struggle with.
• Have they escaped, or are they yet within?

chorus.

• They stand under the darkness of the rock
• And cling to it.

cyclops.

• At my right hand or left?

chorus.

• Close on your right.

cyclops.

• Where?

chorus.

• Near the rock itself.
• You have them.

cyclops.

• Oh, misfortune on misfortune!
• I’ve cracked my skull.

chorus.

• Now they escape you there.

cyclops.

• Not there, although you say so.

chorus.

• Not on that side.

cyclops.

• Where then?

chorus.

• They creep about you on your left.

cyclops.

• Ah! I am mocked! They jeer me in my ills.

chorus.

• Not there! he is a little there beyond you.

cyclops.

• Detested wretch! where are you?

ulysses.

• Far from you
• I keep with care this body of Ulysses.

cyclops.

• What do you say? You proffer a new name.

ulysses.

• My father named me so; and I have taken
• A full revenge for your unnatural feast;
• I should have done ill to have burned down Troy
• And not revenged the murder of my comrades.

cyclops.

• Ai! ai! the ancient oracle is accomplished;
• It said that I should have my eyesight blinded
• By you coming from Troy, yet it foretold
• That you should pay the penalty for this
• By wandering long over the homeless sea.

ulysses.

• I bid thee weep—consider what I say,
• I go towards the shore to drive my ship
• To mine own land, o’er the Sicilian wave.

cyclops.

• Not so, if whelming you with this huge stone
• I can crush you and all your men together;
• I will descend upon the shore, though blind,
• Groping my way adown the steep ravine.

chorus.

• And we, the shipmates of Ulysses now,
• Will serve our Bacchus all our happy lives.

TRANSLATION FROM MOSCHUS.

• Pan loved his neighbour Echo—but that child
• Of Earth and Air pined for the Satyr leaping;
• The Satyr loved with wasting madness wild
• The bright nymph Lyda,—and so three went weeping.
• As Pan loved Echo, Echo loved the Satyr;
• The Satyr, Lyda—and thus love consumed them.—
• And thus to each—which was a woful matter—
• To bear what they inflicted, justice doomed them;
• For inasmuch as each might hate the lover,
• Each loving, so was hated.—Ye that love not
• Be warned—in thought turn this example over,
• That when ye love, the like return ye prove not.

SCENES

FROM THE “MAGICO PRODIGIOSO” OF CALDERON.

Cyprianas a Student;ClarinandMosconas poor Scholars, with books.

cyprian.

• In the sweet solitude of this calm place,
• This intricate wild wilderness of trees
• And flowers and undergrowth of odorous plants,
• Leave me; the books you brought out of the house
• To me are ever best society.
• And whilst with glorious festival and song
• Antioch now celebrates the consecration
• Of a proud temple to great Jupiter,
• And bears his image in loud jubilee
• To its new shrine, I would consume what still
• Lives of the dying day, in studious thought,
• Far from the throng and turmoil. You, my friends,
• Go and enjoy the festival; it will
• Be worth the labour, and return for me
• When the sun seeks its grave among the billows,
• Which among dim grey clouds on the horizon
• Dance like white plumes upon a hearse;—and here
• I shall expect you.

moscon.

• I cannot bring my mind,
• Great as my haste to see the festival
• Certainly is, to leave you, Sir, without
• Just saying some three or four hundred words.
• How is it possible that on a day
• Of such festivity, you can bring your mind
• To come forth to a solitary country
• With three or four old books, and turn your back
• On all this mirth?

clarin.

• My master’s in the right;
• There is not any thing more tiresome
• Than a procession day, with troops of men,
• And dances, and all that.

moscon.

• From first to last,
• Clarin, you are a temporizing flatterer;
• You praise not what you feel but what he does;—
• Toadeater!

clarin.

• You lie—under a mistake—
• For this is the most civil sort of lie
• That can be given to a man’s face. I now
• Say what I think.

cyprian.

• Enough, you foolish fellows.
• Puffed up with your own doting ignorance,
• You always take the two sides of one question.
• Now go, and as I said, return for me
• When night falls, veiling in its shadows wide
• This glorious fabric of the universe.

moscon.

• How happens it, although you can maintain
• The folly of enjoying festivals,
• That yet you go there?

clarin.

• Nay, the consequence
• Is clear:—who ever did what he advises
• Others to do?—

moscon.

• Would that my feet were wings,
• So would I fly to Livia. [Exit.

clarin.

• To speak truth,
• Livia is she who has surprised my heart;
• But he is more than half way there.—Soho!
• Livia, I come; good sport, Livia, Soho! [Exit.

cyprian.

• Now, since I am alone, let me examine
• The question which has long disturbed my mind
• With doubt; since first I read in Plinius
• The words of mystic import and deep sense
• In which he defines God. My intellect
• Can find no God with whom these marks and signs
• Fitly agree. It is a hidden truth
• Which I must fathom. [Reads.

Enter theDevil,as a fine Gentleman.

dæmon.

• Search even as thou wilt,
• But thou shalt never find what I can hide.

cyprian.

• What noise is that among the boughs? Who moves?
• What art thou?—

dæmon.

• ’Tis a foreign gentleman.
• Even from this morning I have lost my way
• In this wild place, and my poor horse at last
• Quite overcome, has stretched himself upon
• The enamelled tapestry of this mossy mountain,
• And feeds and rests at the same time. I was
• Upon my way to Antioch upon business
• Of some importance, but wrapt up in cares
• (Who is exempt from this inheritance)
• I parted from my company, and lost
• My way, and lost my servants and my comrades.

cyprian.

• ’Tis singular, that even within the sight
• Of the high towers of Antioch, you could lose
• Your way. Of all the avenues and green paths
• Of this wild wood there is not one but leads
• As to its centre, to the walls of Antioch;
• Take which you will you cannot miss your road.

dæmon.

• And such is ignorance! Even in the sight
• Of knowledge it can draw no profit from it.
• But as it still is early, and as I
• Have no acquaintances in Antioch,
• Being a stranger there, I will even wait
• The few surviving hours of the day,
• Until the night shall conquer it. I see
• Both by your dress and by the books in which
• You find delight and company, that you
• Are a great student;—for my part, I feel
• Much sympathy with such pursuits.

cyprian.

• Have you
• Studied much?—

dæmon.

• No,—and yet I know enough
• Not to be wholly ignorant.

cyprian.

• Pray, Sir,
• What science may you know?—

dæmon.

• Many.

cyprian.

• Alas!
• Much pains must we expend on one alone,
• And even then attain it not;—but you
• Have the presumption to assert that you
• Know many without study.

dæmon.

• And with truth.
• For in the country whence I come, sciences
• Require no learning,—they are known.

cyprian.

• Oh, would
• I were of that bright country! for in this
• The more we study, we the more discover
• Our ignorance.

dæmon.

• It is so true that I
• Had so much arrogance as to oppose
• The chair of the most high Professorship,
• And obtained many votes, and though I lost,
• The attempt was still more glorious, than the failure
• Could be dishonourable: if you believe not,
• Let us refer it to dispute respecting
• That which you know best, and although I
• Know not the opinion you maintain, and though
• It be the true one, I will take the contrary.

cyprian.

• The offer gives me pleasure. I am now
• Debating with myself upon a passage
• Of Plinius, and my mind is racked with doubt
• To understand and know who is the God
• Of whom he speaks.

dæmon.

• It is a passage, if
• I recollect it right, couched in these words:
• “God is one supreme goodness, one pure essence,
• One substance, and one sense, all sight, all hands.”

cyprian.

• ’Tis true.

dæmon.

• What difficulty find you here?

cyprian.

• I do not recognise among the Gods
• The God defined by Plinius; if he must
• Be supreme goodness, even Jupiter
• Is not supremely good; because we see
• His deeds are evil, and his attributes
• Tainted with mortal weakness; in what manner
• Can supreme goodness be consistent with
• The passions of humanity?

dæmon.

• The wisdom
• Of the old world masked with the names of Gods,
• The attributes of Nature and of Man;
• A sort of popular philosophy.

cyprian.

• This reply will not satisfy me, for
• Such awe is due to the high name of God
• That ill should never be imputed. Then,
• Examining the question with more care,
• It follows, that the gods should always will
• That which is best, were they supremely good.
• How then does one will one thing—one another?
• And you may not say that I allege
• Poetical or philosophic learning:—
• Consider the ambiguous responses
• Of their oracular statues; from two shrines
• Two armies shall obtain the assurance of
• One victory. Is it not indisputable
• That two contending wills can never lead
• To the same end? And being opposite,
• If one be good is not the other evil?
• Evil in God is inconceivable;
• But supreme goodness fails among the gods
• Without their union.

dæmon.

• I deny your major.
• These responses are means towards some end
• Unfathomed by our intellectual beam.
• They are the work of providence, and more
• The battle’s loss may profit those who lose,
• Than victory advantage those who win.

cyprian.

• That I admit, and yet that God should not
• (Falsehood is incompatible with deity)
• Assure the victory; it would be enough
• To have permitted the defeat; if God
• Be all sight,—God, who beheld the truth,
• Would not have given assurance of an end
• Never to be accomplished; thus, although
• The Deity may according to his attributes
• Be well distinguished into persons, yet,
• Even in the minutest circumstance,
• His essence must be one.

dæmon.

• To attain the end
• The affections of the actors in the scene
• Must have been thus influenced by his voice.

cyprian.

• But for a purpose thus subordinate
• He might have employed genii, good or evil,—
• A sort of spirits called so by the learned,
• Who roam about inspiring good or evil,
• And from whose influence and existence we
• May well infer our immortality:—
• Thus God might easily, without descending
• To a gross falsehood in his proper person,
• Have moved the affections by this mediation
• To the just point.

dæmon.

• These trifling contradictions
• Do not suffice to impugn the unity
• Of the high gods; in things of great importance
• They still appear unanimous; consider
• That glorious fabric—man,—his workmanship,
• Is stamped with one conception.

cyprian.

• Who made man
• Must have, methinks, the advantage of the others.
• If they are equal, might they not have risen
• In opposition to the work, and being
• All hands, according to our author here,
• Have still destroyed even as the other made?
• If equal in their power, and only unequal
• In opportunity, which of the two
• Will remain conqueror?

dæmon.

• On impossible
• And false hypothesis there can be built
• No argument. Say, what do you infer
• From this?

cyprian.

• That there must be a mighty God
• Of supreme goodness and of highest grace,
• All sight, all hands, all truth, infallible,
• Without an equal and without a rival;
• The cause of all things and the effect of nothing,
• One power, one will, one substance, and one essence.
• And in whatever persons, one or two,
• His attributes may be distinguished, one
• Sovereign power, one solitary essence,
• One cause of all cause. [They rise.

dæmon.

• How can I impugn
• So clear a consequence?

cyprian.

• Do you regret
• My victory?

dæmon.

• Who but regrets a check
• In rivalry of wit? I could reply
• And urge new difficulties, but will now
• Depart, for I hear steps of men approaching,
• And it is time that I should now pursue
• My journey to the city.

cyprian.

• Go in peace!

Demon.

• Remain in peace! Since thus it profits him
• To study, I will wrap his senses up
• In sweet oblivion of all thought, but of
• A piece of excellent beauty; and as I
• Have power given me to wage enmity
• Against Justina’s soul, I will extract
• From one effect two vengeances. [Exit.

cyprian.

• I never
• Met a more learned person. Let me now
• Revolve this doubt again with careful mind. [He reads.

EnterLelioandFloro.

lelio.

• Here stop. These toppling rocks and tangled boughs,
• Impenetrable by the noonday beam,
• Shall be sole witnesses of what we —

floro.

• Draw!
• If there were words, here is the place for deeds.

lelio.

• Thou needest not instruct me; well I know
• That in the field the silent tongue of steel
• Speaks thus. [They fight.

cyprian.

• Ha! what is this? Lelio, Floro,
• Be it enough that Cyprian stands between you,
• Although unarmed.

lelio.

• Whence comest thou, to stand
• Between me and my vengeance?

floro.

• From what rocks
• And desart cells?

EnterMosconandClarin.

moscon.

• Run, run! for where we left my master
• We hear the clash of swords.

clarin.

• I never
• Run to approach things of this sort, but only
• To avoid them. Sir! Cyprian! sir!

cyprian.

• Be silent, fellows! What! two friends who are
• In blood and fame the eyes and hope of Antioch;
• One of the noble men of the Colatti,
• The other son of the Governor, adventure
• And cast away, on some slight cause no doubt,
• Two lives the honour of their country?

lelio.

• Cyprian!
• Although my high respect towards your person
• Holds now my sword suspended, thou canst not
• Restore it to the slumber of its scabbard.
• Thou knowest more of science than the duel;
• For when two men of honour take the field,
• No [[         ]] or respect can make them friends,
• But one must die in the pursuit.

floro.

• I pray
• That you depart hence with your people, and
• Leave us to finish what we have begun
• Without advantage.

cyprian.

• Though you may imagine
• That I know little of the laws of duel,
• Which vanity and valour instituted,
• You are in error. By my birth I am
• Held no less than yourselves to know the limits
• Of honour and of infamy, nor has study
• Quenched the free spirit which first ordered them;
• And thus to me, as one well experienced
• In the false quicksands of the sea of honour,
• You may refer the merits of the case;
• And if I should perceive in your relation
• That either has the right to satisfaction
• From the other, I give you my word of honour
• To leave you.

lelio.

• Under this condition then
• I will relate the cause, and you will cede
• And must confess th’ impossibility
• Of compromise; for the same lady is
• Beloved by Floro and myself.

floro.

• It seems
• Much to me that the light of day should look
• Upon that idol of my heart—but he—
• Leave us to fight, according to thy word.

cyprian.

• Permit one question further: is the lady
• Impossible to hope or not?

lelio.

• She is
• So excellent, that if the light of day
• Should excite Floro’s jealousy, it were
• Without just cause, for even the light of day
• Trembles to gaze on her.

cyprian.

• Would you for your
• Part marry her?

floro.

• Such is my confidence.

cyprian.

• And you?

lelio.

• O, would that I could lift my hope
• So high? for though she is extremely poor,
• Her virtue is her dowry.

cyprian.

• And if you both
• Would marry her, is it not weak and vain,
• Culpable and unworthy, thus beforehand
• To slur her honour. What would the world say
• If one should slay the other, and if she
• Should afterwards espouse the murderer?

[The rivals agree to refer their quarrel toCyprian;who in consequence visitsJustina,and becomes enamoured of her: she disdains him, and he retires to a solitary sea-shore.

SCENE II.

cyprian.

• Oh, memory! permit it not
• That the tyrant of my thought
• Be another soul that still
• Holds dominion o’er the will,
• That would refuse, but can no more,
• To bend, to tremble, and adore.
• Vain idolatry!—I saw,
• And gazing, became blind with error;
• Weak ambition, which the awe
• Of her presence bound to terror!
• So beautiful she was—and I,
• Between my love and jealousy,
• Am so convulsed with hope and fear,
• Unworthy as it may appear;—
• So bitter is the life I live,
• That, hear me, Hell! I now would give
• To thy most detested spirit
• My soul, for ever to inherit,
• To suffer punishment and pine,
• So this woman may be mine.
• Hear’st thou, Hell! dost thou reject it?
• My soul is offered!

dæmon(unseen).

• I accept it.

[Tempest, with thunder and lightning.

cyprian.

• What is this? ye heavens for ever pure,
• At once intensely radiant and obscure!
• Athwart the etherial halls
• The lightning’s arrow and the thunder-balls
• The day affright.
• As from the horizon round,
• Burst with earthquake sound,
• In mighty torrents the electric fountains;—
• Clouds quench the sun, and thunder smoke
• Strangles the air, and fire eclipses heaven.
• Philosophy, thou canst not even
• Compel their causes underneath thy yoke,
• From yonder clouds even to the waves below
• The fragments of a single ruin choke
• Imagination’s flight;
• For, on flakes of surge, like feathers light,
• The ashes of the desolation cast
• Upon the gloomy blast,
• Tell of the footsteps of the storm.
• And nearer see the melancholy form
• Of a great ship, the outcast of the sea,
• Drives miserably!
• And it must fly the pity of the port,
• Or perish, and its last and sole resort
• Is its own raging enemy.
• The terror of the thrilling cry
• Was a fatal prophesy
• Of coming death, who hovers now
• Upon that shattered prow,
• That they who die not may be dying still.
• And not alone the insane elements
• Are populous with wild portents,
• But that sad ship is as a miracle
• Of sudden ruin, for it drives so fast
• It seems as if it had arrayed its form
• With the headlong storm.
• It strikes—I almost feel the shock,—
• It stumbles on a jagged rock,—
• Sparkles of blood on the white foam are cast.

A Tempest—All exclaim within,

• We are all lost!

dæmon(within).

• Now from this plank will I
• Pass to the land and thus fulfil my scheme.

cyprian.

• As in contempt of the elemental rage
• A man comes forth in safety, while the ship’s
• Great form is in a watery eclipse
• Obliterated from the Ocean’s page,
• And round its wreck the huge sea-monsters sit,
• A horrid conclave, and the whistling wave
• Are heaped over its carcase, like a grave.

TheDæmonenters, as escaped from the sea.

dæmon(aside).

• It was essential to my purposes
• To wake a tumult on the sapphire ocean,
• That in this unknown form I might at length
• Wipe out the blot of the discomfiture
• Sustained upon the mountain, and assail
• With a new war the soul of Cyprian,
• Forging the instruments of his destruction
• Even from his love and from his wisdom.—Oh!
• Beloved earth, dear mother, in thy bosom
• I seek a refuge from the monster who
• Precipitates itself upon me.

cyprian.

• Friend,
• Collect thyself; and be the memory
• Of thy late suffering, and thy greatest sorrow
• But as a shadow of the past,—for nothing
• Beneath the circle of the moon, but flows
• And changes, and can never know repose.

dæmon.

• And who art thou, before whose feet my fate
• Has prostrated me?

cyprian.

• One who moved with pity,
• Would soothe its stings.

dæmon.

• Oh! that can never be!
• No solace can my lasting sorrows find.

cyprian.

• Wherefore?

dæmon.

• Because my happiness is lost.
• Yet I lament what has long ceased to be
• The object of desire or memory,
• And my life is not life.

cyprian.

• Now, since the fury
• Of this earthquaking hurricane is still,
• And the crystalline heaven has reassumed
• Its windless calm so quickly, that it seems
• As if its heavy wrath had been awakened
• Only to overwhelm that vessel,—speak,
• Who art thou, and whence comest thou?

dæmon.

• Far more
• My coming hither cost, than thou hast seen
• Or I can tell. Among my misadventures
• This shipwreck is the least. Wilt thou hear?

cyprian.

• Speak.

dæmon.

• Since thou desirest, I will then unveil
• Myself to thee;—for in myself I am
• A world of happiness and misery;
• This I have lost, and that I must lament
• For ever. In my attributes I stood
• So high and so heroically great,
• In lineage so supreme, and with a genius
• Which penetrated with a glance the world
• Beneath my feet, that won by my high merit
• A king—whom I may call the king of kings,
• Because all others tremble in their pride
• Before the terrors of his countenance,
• In his high palace roofed with brightest gems
• Of living light—call them the stars of Heaven—
• Named me his counsellor. But the high praise
• Stung me with pride and envy, and I rose
• In mighty competition, to ascend
• His seat and place my foot triumphantly
• Upon his subject thrones. Chastised, I know
• The depth to which ambition falls; too mad
• Was the attempt, and yet more mad were now
• Repentance of the irrevocable deed:—
• Therefore I chose this ruin with the glory
• Of not to be subdued, before the shame
• Of reconciling me with him who reigns
• By coward cession.—Nor was I alone,
• Nor am I now, nor shall I be alone;
• And there was hope, and there may still be hope,
• For many suffrages among his vassals
• Hailed me their lord and king, and many still
• Are mine, and many more, perchance shall be.
• Thus vanquished, though in fact victorious,
• I left his seat of empire, from mine eye
• Shooting forth poisonous lightning, while my words
• With inauspicious thunderings shook Heaven,
• Proclaiming vengeance, public as my wrong,
• And imprecating on his prostrate slaves
• Rapine, and death, and outrage. Then I sailed
• Over the mighty fabric of the world,
• A pirate ambushed in its pathless sands,
• A lynx crouched watchfully among its caves
• And craggy shores; and I have wandered over
• The expanse of these wide wildernesses
• In this great ship, whose bulk is now dissolved
• In the light breathings of the invisible wind,
• And which the sea has made a dustless ruin,
• Seeking ever a mountain, through whose forests
• I seek a man, whom I must now compel
• To keep his word with me. I came arrayed
• In tempest, and although my power could well
• Bridle the forest winds in their career,
• For other causes I forbore to soothe
• Their fury to Favonian gentleness,
• I could and would not; (thus I wake in him [Aside.
• A love of magic art.) Let not this tempest,
• Nor the succeeding calm excite thy wonder;
• For by my art the sun would turn as pale
• As his weak sister with unwonted fear.
• And in my wisdom are the orbs of Heaven
• Written as in a record; I have pierced
• The flaming circles of their wondrous spheres
• And know them as thou knowest every corner
• Of this dim spot. Let it not seem to thee
• That I boast vainly; wouldst thou that I work
• A charm over this waste and savage wood,
• This Babylon of crags and aged trees,
• Filling its leafy coverts with a horror
• Thrilling and strange? I am the friendless guest
• Of these wild oaks and pines—and as from thee
• I have received the hospitality
• Of this rude place, I offer thee the fruit
• Of years of toil in recompense; whate’er
• Thy wildest dream presented to thy thought
• As object of desire, that shall be thine.
• * * * *
• And thenceforth shall so firm an amity
• ’Twixt thou and me be, that neither fortune,
• The monstrous phantom which pursues success,
• That careful miser, that free prodigal,
• Who ever alternates with changeful hand,
• Evil and good, reproach and fame; nor Time,
• That loadstar of the ages, to whose beam
• The winged years speed o’er the intervals
• Of their unequal revolutions; nor
• Heaven itself, whose beautiful bright stars
• Rule and adorn the world, can ever make
• The least division between thee and me,
• Since now I find a refuge in thy favour.

SCENE III.

TheDæmontemptsJustina,who is a Christian.

dæmon.

• Abyss of Hell! I call on thee,
• Thou wild misrule of thine own anarchy!
• From thy prison-house set free
• The spirits of voluptuous death,
• That with their mighty breath
• They may destroy a world of virgin thoughts;
• Let her chaste mind with fancies thick as motes
• Be peopled from thy shadowy deep,
• Till her guiltless phantasy
• Full to overflowing be!
• And with sweetest harmony,
• Let birds, and flowers, and leaves, and all things move
• To love, only to love.
• Let nothing meet her eyes
• But signs of Love’s soft victories;
• Let nothing meet her ear
• But sounds of love’s sweet sorrow,
• So that from faith no succour she may borrow,
• But, guided by my spirit blind
• And in a magic snare entwined,
• She may now seek Cyprian.
• Begin, while I in silence bind
• My voice, when thy sweet song thou hast began.

a voice within.

• What is the glory far above
• All else in human life?

all.

• Love! love!

[While these words are sung, theDæmongoes out at one door, andJustinaenters at another.

the first voice.

• There is no form in which the fire
• Of love its traces has impressed not.
• Man lives far more in love’s desire
• Than by life’s breath, soon possessed not.
• If all that lives must love or die,
• All shapes on earth, or sea, or sky,
• With one consent to Heaven cry
• That the glory far above
• All else in life is—

all.

• Love! O love!

justina.

• Thou melancholy thought which art
• So fluttering and so sweet, to thee
• When did I give the liberty
• Thus to afflict my heart?
• What is the cause of this new power
• Which doth my fevered being move,
• Momently raging more and more?
• What subtle pain is kindled now
• Which from my heart doth overflow
• Into my senses?—

all.

• Love, O, love!

justina.

• • ’Tis that enamoured nightingale
  • Who gives me the reply;
  • He ever tells the same soft tale
  • Of passion and of constancy
  • To his mate, who rapt and fond
  • Listening sits, a bough beyond.
• • Be silent, Nightingale—no more
  • Make me think, in hearing thee
  • Thus tenderly thy love deplore,
  • If a bird can feel his so,
  • What a man would feel for me.
  • And, voluptuous vine, O thou
  • Who seekest most when least pursuing,—
  • To the trunk thou interlacest
  • Art the verdure which embracest,
  • And the weight which is its ruin,—
  • No more, with green embraces, vine,
  • Make me think on what thou lovest,—
  • For whilst thou thus thy boughs entwine,
  • I fear lest thou should’st teach me, sophist,
  • How arms might be entangled too.
• • Light-enchanted sunflower, thou
  • Who gazest ever true and tender
  • On the sun’s revolving splendour!
  • Follow not his faithless glance
  • With thy faded countenance,
  • Nor teach my beating heart to fear,
  • If leaves can mourn without a tear,
  • How eyes must weep! O Nightingale,
  • Cease from thy enamoured tale,—
  • Leafy vine, unwreathe thy bower,
  • Restless sunflower, cease to move,—
  • Or tell me all, what poisonous power
  • Ye use against me—

all.

• Love! love! love!

justina.

• It cannot be!—Whom have I ever loved?
• Trophies of my oblivion and disdain,
• Floro and Lelio did I not reject?
• And Cyprian?—

[She becomes troubled at the name of Cyprian.

• Did I not requite him
• With such severity, that he has fled
• Where none has ever heard of him again?—
• Alas! I now begin to fear that this
• May be the occasion whence desire grows bold,
• As if there were no danger. From the moment
• That I pronounced to my own listening heart,
• Cyprian is absent, O me miserable!
• I know not what I feel! [More calmly.
• It must be pity
• To think that such a man, whom all the world
• Admired, should be forgot by all the world,
• And I the cause. [She again becomes troubled.
• And yet if it were pity,
• Floro and Lelio might have equal share,
• For they are both imprisoned for my sake. [Calmly.
• Alas! what reasonings are these? it is
• Enough I pity him, and that, in vain,
• Without this ceremonious subtlety.
• And woe is me! I know not where to find him now,
• Even should I seek him through this wide world.

EnterDæmon.

dæmon.

• Follow, and I will lead thee where he is.

justina.

• And who art thou, who hast found entrance hither,
• Into my chamber through the doors and locks?
• Art thou a monstrous shadow which my madness
• Has formed in the idle air?

dæmon.

• No. I am one
• Called by the thought which tyrannizes thee
• From his eternal dwelling; who this day
• Is pledged to bear thee unto Cyprian.

justina.

• So shall thy promise fail. This agony
• Of passion which afflicts my heart and soul
• May sweep imagination in its storm,
• The will is firm.

dæmon.

• Already half is done
• In the imagination of an act.
• The sin incurred, the pleasure then remains,
• Let not the will stop half-way on the road.

justina.

• I will not be discouraged, nor despair,
• Although I thought it, and although ’tis true,
• That thought is but a prelude to the deed:—
• Thought is not in my power, but action is:
• I will not move my foot to follow thee.

dæmon.

• But far a mightier wisdom than thine own
• Exerts itself within thee, with such power
• Compelling thee to that which it inclines
• That it shall force thy step; how wilt thou then
• Resist, Justina?

justina.

• By my free-will.

dæmon.

• I
• Must force thy will.

justina.

• It is invincible;
• It were not free if thou hadst power upon it.

[He draws, but cannot move her.

dæmon.

• Come, where a pleasure waits thee.

justina.

• It were bought
• Too dear.

dæmon.

• ’Twill soothe thy heart to softest peace.

justina.

• ’Tis dread captivity.

dæmon.

• ’Tis joy, ’tis glory.

justina.

• ’Tis shame, ’tis torment, ’tis despair.

dæmon.

• But how
• Canst thou defend thyself from that or me,
• If my power drags thee onward?

justina.

• My defence
• Consists in God.

[He vainly endeavours to force her, and at last releases her.

dæmon.

• Woman, thou hast subdued me,
• Only by not owning thyself subdued.
• But since thou thus findest defence in God,
• I will assume a feigned form, and thus
• Make thee a victim of my baffled rage.
• For I will mask a spirit in thy form
• Who will betray thy name to infamy,
• And doubly shall I triumph in thy loss,
• First by dishonouring thee, and then by turning
• False pleasure to true ignominy. [Exit.

justina.

• I
• Appeal to Heaven against thee; so that Heaven
• May scatter thy delusions, and the blot
• Upon my fame vanish in idle thought,
• Even as flame dies in the envious air,
• And as the flowret wanes at morning frost,
• And thou shouldst never—But, alas! to whom
• Do I still speak?—Did not a man but now
• Stand here before me?—No, I am alone,
• And yet I saw him. Is he gone so quickly?
• Or can the heated mind engender shapes
• From its own fear? Some terrible and strange
• Peril is near. Lisander! father! lord!
• Livia!—

EnterLisanderandLivia.

lisander.

• O, my daughter! What?

livia.

• What?

justina.

• Saw you
• A man go forth from my apartment now?—
• I scarce sustain myself!

lisander.

• A man here!

justina.

• Have you not seen him?

livia.

• No, Lady.

justina.

• I saw him.

lisander.

• ’Tis impossible; the doors
• Which led to this apartment were all locked.

livia(aside).

• I dare say it was Moscon whom she saw,
• For he was locked up in my room.

lisander.

• It must
• Have been some image of thy phantasy.
• Such melancholy as thou feedest, is
• Skilful in forming such in the vain air
• Out of the motes and atoms of the day.

livia.

• My master’s in the right.

justina.

• O, would it were
• Delusion; but I fear some greater ill.
• I feel as if out of my bleeding bosom
• My heart were torn in fragments; aye,
• Some mortal spell is wrought against my frame;
• So potent was the charm, that had not God
• Shielded my humble innocence from wrong,
• I should have sought my sorrow and my shame
• With willing steps.—Livia, quick bring my cloak,
• For I must seek refuge from these extremes
• Even in the temple of the highest God
• Which secretly the faithful worship.

livia.

• Here.

justina(putting on her cloak).

• In this, as in a shroud of snow, may I
• Quench the consuming fire in which I burn,
• Wasting away!

lisander.

• And I will go with thee.

livia.

• When I once see them safe out of the house
• I shall breathe freely.

justina.

• So do I confide
• In thy just favour, Heaven!

lisander.

• Let us go.

justina.

• Thine is the cause, great God! turn for my sake,
• And for thine own, mercifully to me!

SCENES

FROM THE FAUST OF GOËTHE.

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN.

The Lord and the Host of Heaven. Enter three Archangels.

raphael.

• The sun makes music as of old
• Amid the rival spheres of Heaven,
• On its predestined circle rolled
• With thunder speed: the Angels even
• Draw strength from gazing on its glance,
• Though none its meaning fathom may:—
• The world’s unwithered countenance
• Is bright as at creation’s day.

gabriel.

• And swift and swift, with rapid lightness,
• The adorned Earth spins silently,
• Alternating Elysian brightness
• With deep and dreadful night; the sea
• Foams in broad billows from the deep
• Up to the rocks, and rocks and ocean,
• Onward, with spheres which never sleep,
• Are hurried in eternal motion.

michael.

• And tempests in contention roar
• From land to sea, from sea to land;
• And, raging, weave a chain of power,
• Which girds the earth, as with a band.—
• A flashing desolation there,
• Flames before the thunder’s way;
• But thy servants, Lord, revere
• The gentle changes of thy day.

chorus of the three.

• The Angels draw strength from thy glance,
• Though no one comprehend thee may;—
• Thy world’s unwithered countenance
• Is bright as on creation’s day.*

EnterMephistopheles.

mephistopheles.

• As thou, O Lord, once more art kind enough
• To interest thyself in our affairs—
• And ask, “How goes it with you there below?”
• And as indulgently at other times
• Thou tookedst not my visits in ill part,
• Thou seest me here once more among thy household.
• Though I should scandalize this company,
• You will excuse me if I do not talk
• In the high style which they think fashionable;
• My pathos would certainly make you laugh too,
• Had you not long since given over laughing.
• Nothing know I to say of suns and worlds;
• I observe only how men plague themselves;—
• The little god o’ the world keeps the same stamp,
• As wonderful as on creation’s day:—
• A little better would he live, hadst thou
• Not given him a glimpse of heaven’s light
• Which he calls reason, and employs it only
• To live more beastlily than any beast.
• With reverence to your Lordship be it spoken,
• He’s like one of those long-legged grasshoppers,
• Who flits and jumps about, and sings for ever
• The same old song i’ the grass. There let him lie,
• Burying his nose in every heap of dung.

the lord.

• Have you no more to say? Do you come here
• Always to scold, and cavil, and complain?
• Seems nothing ever right to you on earth?

mephistopheles.

• No, Lord! I find all there, as ever, bad at best.
• Even I am sorry for man’s days of sorrow;
• I could myself almost give up the pleasure
• Of plaguing the poor things.

the lord.

• Knowest thou Faust?

mephistopheles.

• The Doctor?

the lord.

• Aye; my servant Faust.

mephistopheles.

• In truth
• He serves you in a fashion quite his own;
• And the fool’s meat and drink are not of earth.
• His aspirations bear him on so far
• That he is half aware of his own folly,
• For he demands from Heaven its fairest star,
• And from the earth the highest joy it bears,
• Yet all things far, and all things near, are vain
• To calm the deep emotions of his breast.

the lord.

• Though he now serves me in a cloud of error,
• I will soon lead him forth to the clear day.
• When trees look green full well the gardener knows
• That fruits and blooms will deck the coming year.

mephistopheles.

• What will you bet?—now I am sure of winning—
• Only, observe you give me full permission
• To lead him softly on my path.

the lord.

• As long
• As he shall live upon the earth, so long
• Is nothing unto thee forbidden—Man
• Must err till he has ceased to struggle.

mephistopheles.

• Thanks.
• And that is all I ask; for willingly
• I never make acquaintance with the dead.
• The full fresh cheeks of youth are food for me,
• And if a corpse knocks, I am not at home.
• For I am like a cat—I like to play
• A little with the mouse before I eat it.

the lord.

• Well, well! it is permitted thee. Draw thou
• His spirit from its springs; as thou find’st power,
• Seize him and lead him on thy downward path;
• And stand ashamed when failure teaches thee
• That a good man, even in his darkest longings,
• Is well aware of the right way.

mephistopheles.

• Well and good.
• I am not in much doubt about my bet,
• And if I lose, then ’tis your turn to crow;
• Enjoy your triumph then with a full breast.
• Aye; dust shall he devour, and that with pleasure,
• Like my old paramour, the famous Snake.

the lord.

• Pray come here when it suits you; for I never
• Had much dislike for people of your sort.
• And, among all the Spirits who rebelled,
• The knave was ever the least tedious to me.
• The active spirit of man soon sleeps, and soon
• He seeks unbroken quiet; therefore I
• Have given him the Devil for a companion,
• Who may provoke him to some sort of work,
• And must create for ever.—But ye, pure
• Children of God, enjoy eternal beauty;—
• Let that which ever operates and lives
• Clasp you within the limits of its love;
• And seize with sweet and melancholy thoughts
• The floating phantoms of its loveliness.

[Heaven closes; the Archangels exeunt.

mephistopheles.

• From time to time I visit the old fellow,
• And I take care to keep on good terms with him.
• Civil enough is this same God Almighty,
• To talk so freely with the Devil himself.

SCENES

FROM THE FAUST OF GOËTHE.

MAY-DAY NIGHT.

Scene—The Hartz Mountain, a desolate Country.

Faust, Mephistopheles.

mephistopheles.

• Would you not like a broomstick? As for me
• I wish I had a good stout ram to ride;
• For we are still far from th’ appointed place.

faust.

• This knotted staff is help enough for me,
• Whilst I feel fresh upon my legs. What good
• Is there in making short a pleasant way?
• To creep along the labyrinths of the vales,
• And climb those rocks, where ever-babbling springs
• Precipitate themselves in waterfalls,
• Is the true sport that seasons such a path.
• Already Spring kindles the birchen spray,
• And the hoar pines already feel her breath:
• Shall she not work also within our limbs?

mephistopheles.

• Nothing of such an influence do I feel.
• My body is all wintry, and I wish
• The flowers upon our path were frost and snow.
• But see, how melancholy rises now,
• Dimly uplifting her belated beam,
• The blank unwelcome round of the red moon,
• And gives so bad a light, that every step
• One stumbles ’gainst some crag. With your permission,
• I’ll call an Ignis-fatuus to our aid:
• I see one yonder burning jollily.
• Halloo, my friend! may I request that you
• Would favour us with your bright company?
• Why should you blaze away there to no purpose?
• Pray be so good as light us up this way.

ignis-fatuus.

• With reverence be it spoken, I will try
• To overcome the lightness of my nature;
• Our course, you know, is generally zig-zag.

mephistopheles.

• Ha, ha! your worship thinks you have to deal
• With men. Go strait on, in the Devil’s name,
• Or I shall puff your flickering life out.

ignis-fatuus.

• Well,
• I see you are the master of the house;
• I will accommodate myself to you.
• Only consider, that to-night this mountain
• Is all enchanted, and if Jack-a-lantern
• Shows you his way, though you should miss your own,
• You ought not to be too exact with him.

faust, mephistopheles,andignis-fatuus,in alternate Chorus.

• • The limits of the sphere of dream,
  • The bounds of true and false, are past.
  • Lead us on, thou wandering Gleam,
  • Lead us onward, far and fast,
  • To the wide, the desart waste.
• • But see, how swift advance and shift,
  • Trees behind trees, row by row,—
  • How, clift by clift, rocks bend and lift
  • Their frowning foreheads as we go.
  • The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho!
  • How they snort, and how they blow!
• • Through the mossy sods and stones,
  • Stream and streamlet hurry down
  • A rushing throng! A sound of song
  • Beneath the vault of Heaven is blown!
  • Sweet notes of love, the speaking tones
  • Of this bright day, sent down to say
  • That Paradise on Earth is known,
  • Resound around, beneath, above.
  • All we hope and all we love
  • Finds a voice in this blithe strain,
  • Which wakens hill and wood and rill,
  • And vibrates far o’er field and vale,
  • And which Echo, like the tale
  • Of old times, repeats again.
• • To whoo! to whoo! near, nearer now
  • The sound of song, the rushing throng!
  • Are the screech, the lapwing, and the jay,
  • All awake as if ’twere day?
  • See, with long legs and belly wide,
  • A salamander in the brake!
  • Every root is like a snake,
  • And along the loose hill side,
  • With strange contortions through the night,
  • Curls, to seize or to affright;
  • And, animated, strong, and many,
  • They dart forth polypus-antennæ,
  • To blister with their poison spume
  • The wanderer. Through the dazzling gloom
  • The many-coloured mice, that thread
  • The dewy turf beneath our tread,
  • In troops each other’s motions cross,
  • Through the heath and through the moss;
  • And, in legions intertangled,
  • The fire-flies flit, and swarm, and throng,
  • Till all the mountain depths are spangled.
• • Tell me, shall we go or stay?
  • Shall we onward? Come along!
  • Everything around is swept
  • Forward, onward, far away!
  • Trees and masses intercept
  • The sight, and wisps on every side
  • Are puffed up and multiplied.

mephistopheles.

• Now vigorously seize my skirt, and gain
• This pinnacle of isolated crag.
• One may observe with wonder from this point,
• How Mammon glows among the mountains.

faust.

• Aye—
• And strangely through the solid depth below
• A melancholy light, like the red dawn,
• Shoots from the lowest gorge of the abyss
• Of mountains, lightning hitherward: there rise
• Pillars of smoke, here clouds float gently by;
• Here the light burns soft as the enkindled air,
• Or the illumined dust of golden flowers;
• And now it glides like tender colours spreading;
• And now bursts forth in fountains from the earth;
• And now it winds, one torrent of broad light,
• Through the far valley with a hundred veins;
• And now once more within that narrow corner
• Masses itself into intensest splendour.
• And near us, see, sparks spring out of the ground,
• Like golden sand scattered upon the darkness;
• The pinnacles of that black wall of mountains
• That hems us in, are kindled.

mephistopheles.

• Rare, in faith!
• Does not Sir Mammon gloriously illuminate
• His palace for this festival—it is
• A pleasure which you had not known before.
• I spy the boisterous guests already.

faust.

• How
• The children of the wind rage in the air!
• With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck!

mephistopheles.

• Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag.
• Beware! for if with them thou warrest
• In their fierce flight towards the wilderness,
• Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag
• Thy body to a grave in the abyss.
• A cloud thickens the night.
• Hark! how the tempest crashes through the forest!
• The owls fly out in strange affright;
• The columns of the evergreen palaces
• Are split and shattered;
• The roots creak, and stretch, and groan;
• And ruinously overthrown,
• The trunks are crushed and shattered
• By the fierce blast’s unconquerable stress.
• Over each other crack and crash they all
• In terrible and intertangled fall;
• And through the ruins of the shaken mountain
• The airs hiss and howl—
• It is not the voice of the fountain,
• Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.
• Dost thou not hear?
• Strange accents are ringing
• Aloft, afar, anear;
• The witches are singing!
• The torrent of a raging wizard song
• Streams the whole mountain along.

chorus of witches.

• The stubble is yellow, the corn is green,
• Now to the Brocken the witches go;
• The mighty multitude here may be seen
• Gathering, wizard and witch, below.
• Sir Urean is sitting aloft in the air;
• Hey over stock! and hey over stone!
• ’Twixt witches and incubi, what shall be done?
• Tell it who dare! tell it who dare!

a voice.

• Upon a sow-swine, whose farrows were nine,
• Old Baubo rideth alone.

chorus.

• Honour her, to whom honour is due,
• Old mother Baubo, honour to you!
• An able sow, with old Baubo upon her,
• Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honour!
• The legion of witches is coming behind,
• Darkening the night, and outspeeding the wind—

a voice.

• Which way comest thou?

a voice.

• Over Ilsenstein;
• The owl was awake in the white moon-shine;
• I saw her at rest in her downy nest,
• And she stared at me with her broad, bright eye.

voices.

• And you may now as well, take your course on to Hell,
• Since you ride by so fast, on the headlong blast.

a voice.

• She dropt poison upon me as I past.
• Here are the wounds—

chorus of witches.

• Come away! come along!
• The way is wide, the way is long,
• But what is that for a Bedlam throng?
• Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom,
• The child in the cradle lies strangled at home,
• And the mother is clapping her hands.—

semi-chorus of wizards i.

• We glide in
• Like snails when the women are all away;
• And from a house once given over to sin
• Woman has a thousand steps to stray.

semi-chorus ii.

• A thousand steps must a woman take,
• Where a man but a single spring will make.

voices above.

• Come with us, come with us, from Felunsee.

voices below.

• With what joy would we fly, through the upper sky!
• We are washed, we are ’nointed, stark naked are we;
• But our toil and our pain, is for ever in vain.

both chorusses.

• The wind is still, the stars are fled,
• The melancholy moon is dead;
• The magic notes, like spark on spark,
• Drizzle, whistling through the dark.
• Come away!

voices below.

• Stay, oh, stay!

voices above.

• Out of the crannies of the rocks,
• Who calls?

voices below.

• Oh, let me join your flocks!
• I, three hundred years have striven
• To catch your skirt and mount to Heaven,—
• And still in vain. Oh, might I be
• With company akin to me!

both chorusses.

• Some on a ram and some on a prong,
• On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along;
• Forlorn is the wight, who can rise not to-night.

a half-witch below.

• I have been tripping this many an hour:
• Are the others already so far before?
• No quiet at home, and no peace abroad!
• And less methinks is found by the road.

chorus of witches.

• Come onward away! aroint thee, aroint!
• A witch to be strong must anoint—anoint—
• Then every trough, will be boat enough;
• With a rag for a sail we can sweep through the sky,
• Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly?

both chorusses.

• We cling to the skirt, and we strike on the ground;
• Witch-legions thicken around and around;
• Wizard-swarms cover the heath all over.

[They descend.

mephistopheles.

• What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling;
• What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling;
• What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning,
• As Heaven and Earth were overturning.
• There is a true witch element about us,
• Take hold on me, or we shall be divided:—
• Where are you?

faust(from a distance.)

• Here!

mephistopheles.

• What
• I must exert my authority in the house.
• Place for young Voland! pray make way, good people.
• Take hold on me, doctor, and with one step
• Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd:
• They are too mad for people of my sort.
• Just there shines a peculiar kind of light—
• Something attracts me in those bushes. Come
• This way: we shall slip down there in a minute.

faust.

• Spirit of Contradiction! Well, lead on—
• ’Twere a wise feat indeed to wander out
• Into the Brocken upon May-day night,
• And then to isolate oneself in scorn,
• Disgusted with the humours of the time.

mephistopheles.

• See yonder, round a many-coloured flame
• A merry club is huddled altogether:
• Even with such little people as sit there
• One would not be alone.

faust.

• Would that I were
• Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke,
• Where the blind million rush impetuously
• To meet the evil ones; there might I solve
• Many a riddle that torments me!

mephistopheles.

• Yet
• Many a riddle there is tied anew
• Inextricably. Let the great world rage!
• We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings.
• ’Tis an old custom. Men have ever built
• Their own small world in the great world of all.
• I see young witches naked there, and old ones
• Wisely attired with greater decency.
• Be guided now by me, and you shall buy
• A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble.
• I hear them tune their instruments—one must
• Get used to this damned scraping. Come, I’ll lead you
• Among them; and what there you do and see,
• As a fresh compact ’twixt us two shall be.
• How say you now? this space is wide enough—
• Look forth, you cannot see the end of it—
• An hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they
• Who throng around them seem innumerable:
• Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love,
• And cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend,
• What is there better in the world than this?

faust.

• In introducing us, do you assume
• The character of wizard or of devil?

mephistopheles.

• In truth, I generally go about
• In strict incognito; and yet one likes
• To wear one’s orders upon gala days.
• I have no ribbon at my knee; but here
• At home, the cloven foot is honourable.
• See you that snail there?—she comes creeping up,
• And with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something,
• I could not, if I would, mask myself here.
• Come now, we’ll go about from fire to fire:
• I’ll be the pimp, and you shall be the lover.

[To some Old Women, who are sitting round a heap of glimmering coals.

• Old gentlewomen, what do you do out here?
• You ought to be with the young rioters
• Right in the thickest of the revelry—
• But every one is best content at home.

general.

• Who dare confide in right or a just claim?
• So much as I had done for them! and now—
• With women and the people ’tis the same,
• Youth will stand foremost ever,—age may go
• To the dark grave unhonoured.

minister.

• Now-a-days
• People assert their rights: they go too far;
• But as for me, the good old times I praise;
• Then we were all in all, ’twas something worth
• One’s while to be in place and wear a star;
• That was indeed the golden age on earth.

parvenu.*

• We too are active, and we did and do
• What we ought not, perhaps; and yet we now
• Will seize, whilst all things are whirled round and round,
• A spoke of Fortune’s wheel, and keep our ground.

author.

• Who now can taste a treatise of deep sense
• And ponderous volume? ’tis impertinence
• To write what none will read, therefore will I
• To please the young and thoughtless people try.

mephistopheles

(Who at once appears to have grown very old).

• I find the people ripe for the last day,
• Since I last came up to the wizard mountain;
• And as my little cask runs turbid now,
• So is the world drained to the dregs.

pedlar-witch.

• Look here,
• Gentlemen; do not hurry on so fast
• And lose the chance of a good pennyworth.
• I have a pack full of the choicest wares
• Of every sort, and yet in all my bundle
• Is nothing like what may be found on earth;
• Nothing that in a moment will make rich
• Men and the world with fine malicious mischief—
• There is no dagger drunk with blood; no bowl
• From which consuming poison may be drained
• By innocent and healthy lips; no jewel,
• The price of an abandoned maiden’s shame;
• No sword which cuts the bond it cannot loose,
• Or stabs the wearer’s enemy in the back;
• No—

mephistopheles.

• Gossip, you know little of these times.
• What has been, has been; what is done, is past.
• They shape themselves into the innovations
• They breed, and innovation drags us with it.
• The torrent of the crowd sweeps over us,
• You think to impel, and are yourself impelled.

faust.

• Who is that yonder?

mephistopheles.

• Mark her well. It is
• Lilith.

faust.

• Who?

mephistopheles.

• Lilith, the first wife of Adam.
• Beware of her fair hair, for she excels
• All women in the magic of her locks;
• And when she winds them round a young man’s neck,
• She will not ever set him free again.

faust.

• There sit a girl and an old woman—they
• Seem to be tired with pleasure and with play.

mephistopheles.

• There is no rest to-night for any one:
• When one dance ends another is begun;
• Come, let us to it; We shall have rare fun.

[Faust dances and sings with a Girl, and Mephistopheles with an Old Woman.

brocto-phantasmist.

• What is this cursed multitude about?
• Have we not long since proved to demonstration
• That ghosts move not on ordinary feet?
• But these are dancing just like men and women.

the girl.

• What does he want then at our ball?

faust.

• Oh! he
• Is far above us all in his conceit:
• Whilst we enjoy, he reasons of enjoyment;
• And any step which in our dance we tread,
• If it be left out of his reckoning.
• Is not to be considered as a step.
• There are few things that scandalize him not:
• And when you whirl round in the circle now,
• As he went round the wheel in his old mill,
• He says that you go wrong in all respects,
• Especially if you congratulate him
• Upon the strength of the resemblance.

brocto-phantasmist.

• Fly!
• Vanish! Unheard of impudence! What, still there!
• In this enlightened age too, since you have been
• Proved not to exist!—But this infernal brood
• Will hear no reason and endure no rule.
• Are we so wise, and is the pond still haunted?
• How long have I been sweeping out this rubbish
• Of superstition, and the world will not
• Come clean with all my pains!—it is a case
• Unheard of!

the girl.

• Then leave off teazing us so.

brocto-phantasmist.

• I tell you, spirits, to your faces now,
• That I should not regret this despotism
• Of spirits, but that mine can wield it not.
• To-night I shall make poor work of it,
• Yet I will take a round with you, and hope
• Before my last step in the living dance
• To beat the poet and the devil together.

mephistopheles.

• At last he will sit down in some foul puddle;
• That is his way of solacing himself;
• Until some leech, diverted with his gravity,
• Cures him of spirits and the spirit together.

[ToFaust,who has seceded from the dance.

• Why do you let that fair girl pass from you,
• Who sung so sweetly to you in the dance?

faust.

• A red mouse in the middle of her singing
• Sprung from her mouth.

mephistopheles.

• That was all right, my friend,
• Be it enough that the mouse was not grey.
• Do not disturb your hour of happiness
• With close consideration of such trifles.

faust.

• Then saw I—

mephistopheles.

• What?

faust.

• Seest thou not a pale
• Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away?
• She drags herself now forward with slow steps,
• And seems as if she moved with shackled feet:
• I cannot overcome the thought that she
• Is like poor Margaret.

mephistopheles.

• Let it be—pass on—
• No good can come of it—it is not well
• To meet it—it is an enchanted phantom,
• A lifeless idol; with its numbing look,
• It freezes up the blood of man; and they
• Who meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone,
• Like those who saw Medusa.

faust.

• Oh, too true!
• Her eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse
• Which no beloved hand has closed, alas!
• That is the heart which Margaret yielded to me—
• Those are the lovely limbs which I enjoyed!

mephistopheles.

• It is all magic, poor deluded fool;
• She looks to every one like his first love.

faust.

• Oh, what delight! what woe! I cannot turn
• My looks from her sweet piteous countenance.
• How strangely does a single blood-red line,
• Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife,
• Adorn her lovely neck!

mephistopheles.

• Aye, she can carry
• Her head under her arm upon occasion;
• Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures
• End in delusion.—Gain this rising ground,
• It is as airy here as in a []
• And if I am not mightily deceived,
• I see a theatre—What may this mean?

attendant.

• Quite a new piece, the last of seven, for ’tis
• The custom now to represent that number.
• ’Tis written by a Dilettante, and
• The actors who perform are Dilettanti;
• Excuse me, gentleman; but I must vanish,
• I am a Dilettante curtain-lifter.

the end.

[* ]The Antistrophe is omitted.

[* ]I confess I do not understand this.—Note of the Author.

[* ] raphael.

• The sun sounds, according to ancient custom,
• In the song of emulation of his brother-spheres.
• And its fore-written circle
• Fulfills with a step of thunder.
• Its countenance gives the Angels strength
• Though no one can fathom it.
• The incredible high works
• Are excellent as at the first day.

gabriel.

• And swift, and inconceivably swift
• The adornment of earth winds itself round,
• And exchanges Paradise-clearness
• With deep dreadful night.
• The sea foams in broad waves
• From its deep bottom, up to the rocks,
• And rocks and sea are torn on together
• In the eternal swift course of the spheres.

michael.

• And storms roar in emulation
• From sea to land, from land to sea,
• And make, raging, a chain
• Of deepest operation round about.
• There flames a flashing destruction
• Before the path of the thunderbolt.
• But thy servants, Lord, revere
• The gentle alternations of thy day.

chorus.

• Thy countenance gives the Angels strength,
• Though none can comprehend thee:
• And all thy lofty works
• Are excellent as at the first day.

Such is a literal translation of this astonishing Chorus; it is impossible to represent in another language the melody of the versification; even the volatile strength and delicacy of the ideas escape in the crucible of translation, and the reader is surprised to find a caput mortuum.—Author’s Note.

[* ]A sort of fundholder.