Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  “Have courage!” interposed the friends, “For him

  I have no scruple to declare — all this

  Will he perform, except he fail of sense.”

  “All this shall be — shall be!” Admetos sobbed:

  “Fear not! And, since I had thee living, dead 830

  Alone wilt thou be called my wife: no fear

  That some Thessalian ever styles herself

  Bride, hails this man for husband in thy place!

  No woman, be she of such lofty line

  Or such surpassing beauty otherwise!

  Enough of children: gain from these I have,

  Such only may the Gods grant! since in thee

  Absolute is our loss, where all was gain.

  And I shall bear for thee no year-long grief.

  But grief that lasts while my own days last, love! 840

  Love! For my hate is she who bore me, now;

  And him I hate, my father: loving-ones

  Truly, in word not deed! But thou didst pay

  All dearest to thee down, and buy my life,

  Saving me so! Is there not cause enough

  That I who part with such companionship

  In thee, should make my moan? I moan, and more:

  For I will end the feastings — social flow

  O’ the wine friends flock for, garlands and the Muse

  That graced my dwelling. Never now for me 850

  To touch the lyre, to lift my soul in song

  At summons of the Lybian flute; since thou

  From out my life hast emptied all the joy!

  And this thy body, in thy likeness wrought

  By some wise hand of the artificers,

  Shall lie disposed within my marriage-bed:

  This I will fall on, this enfold about,

  Call by thy name, — my dear wife in my arms

  Even though I have not, I shall seem to have —

  A cold delight, indeed, but all the same 860

  So should I lighten of its weight my soul!

  And, wandering my way in dreams perchance,

  Thyself wilt bless me: for, come when they will,

  Even by night our loves are sweet to see.

  But were the tongue and tune of Orpheus mine,

  So that to Koré crying, or her lord,

  In hymns, from Hades I might rescue thee —

  Down would I go, and neither Plouton’s dog

  Nor Charon, he whose oar sends souls across,

  Should stay me till again I made thee stand 870

  Living, within the light! But, failing this,

  There, where thou art, await me when I die,

  Make ready our abode, my house-mate still!

  For in the self-same cedar, me with thee,

  Will I provide that these our friends shall place,

  My side lay close by thy side! Never, corpse

  Although I be, would I division bear

  From thee, my faithful one of all the world!”

  So he stood sobbing: nowise insincere,

  But somehow child-like, like his children, like 880

  Childishness the world over. What was new

  In this announcement that his wife must die?

  What particle of pain beyond the pact

  He made, with eyes wide open, long ago —

  Made and was, if not glad, content to make?

  Now that the sorrow, he had called for, came,

  He sorrowed to the height: none heard him say,

  However, what would seem so pertinent,

  “To keep this pact, I find surpass my power:

  Rescind it, Moirai! Give me back her life, 890

  And take the life I kept by base exchange!

  Or, failing that, here stands your laughing-stock

  Fooled by you, worthy just the fate o’ the fool

  Who makes a pother to escape the best

  And gain the worst you wiser Powers allot!”

  No, not one word of this: nor did his wife

  Despite the sobbing, and the silence soon

  To follow, judge so much was in his thought —

  Fancy that, should the Moirai acquiesce,

  He would relinquish life nor let her die. 900

  The man was like some merchant who, in storm,

  Throws the freight over to redeem the ship:

  No question, saving both were better still.

  As it was, — why, he sorrowed, which sufficed.

  So, all she seemed to notice in his speech

  Was what concerned her children. Children, too,

  Bear the grief and accept the sacrifice.

  Rightly rules nature: does the blossomed bough

  O’ the grape-vine, or the dry grape’s self, bleed wine?

  So, bending to her children all her love, 910

  She fastened on their father’s only word

  To purpose now, and followed it with this:

  “O children, now yourselves have heard these things —

  Your father saying he will never wed

  Another woman to be over you,

  Nor yet dishonour me!”

  ”And now at least

  I say it, and I will accomplish too!”

  “Then, for such promise of accomplishment,

  Take from my hand these children!”

  “Thus I take —

  Dear gift from the dear hand!”

  ”Do thou become 920

  Mother, now, to these children in my place!”

  “Great the necessity I should be so,

  At least, to these bereaved of thee!”

  ”Child — child!

  Just when I needed most to live, below

  Am I departing from you both!”

  ”Ah me!

  And what shall I do, then, left lonely thus?”

  “Time will appease thee: who is dead is nought.”

  “Take me with thee — take, by the Gods below!”

  “We are sufficient, we who die for thee.”

  “O Powers, ye widow me of what a wife!” 930

  “And truly the dimmed eye draws earthward now!”

  “Wife, if thou leav’st me, I am lost indeed!”

  “She once was — now is nothing, thou may’st say.”

  “Raise thy face nor forsake thy children thus!”

  “Ah, willingly indeed I leave them not!

  But — fare ye well, my children!”

  ”Look on them —

  Look!”

  ”I am nothingness.”

  ”What dost thou? Leav’st...”

  “Farewell!”

  And in the breath she passed away.

  “Undone — me miserable!” moaned the king,

  While friends released the long-suspended sigh. 940

  “Gone is she: no wife for Admetos more!”

  Such was the signal: how the woe broke forth,

  Why tell? — or how the children’s tears ran fast,

  Bidding their father note the eye-lids’ stare,

  Hands’ droop, each dreadful circumstance of death.

  “Ay, she hears not, she sees not: I and you,

  ‘T is plain, are stricken hard and have to bear!”

  Was all Admetos answered; for, I judge,

  He only now began to taste the truth:

  The thing done lay revealed, which undone thing, 950

  Rehearsed for fact by fancy, at the best,

  Never can equal. He had used himself

  This long while (as he muttered presently)

  To practise with the terms, the blow involved

  By the bargain, sharp to bear, but bearable

  Because of plain advantage at the end.

  Now that, in fact not fancy, the blow fell —

  Needs must he busy him with the surprise.

  “Alkestis — not to see her nor be seen,

  Hear nor be heard of by her, any more 960

  To-day, to-morrow, to the end of time, —

  Did I mean thi
s should buy my life?” thought he.

  So, friends came round him, took him by the hand,

  Bade him remember our mortality,

  Its due, its doom: how neither was he first,

  Nor would be last, to thus deplore the loved. “I understand,” slow the words came at last.

  “Nor of a sudden did the evil here

  Fly on me: I have known it long ago,

  Ay, and essayed myself in misery; 970

  Nothing is new. You have to stay, you friends,

  Because the next need is to carry forth

  The corpse here: you must stay and do your part,

  Chant proper pæan to the God below;

  Drink-sacrifice he likes not. I decree

  That all Thessalians over whom I rule

  Hold grief in common with me; let them shear

  Their locks, and be the peplos black they show!

  And you who to the chariot yoke your steeds.

  Or manage steeds one-frontleted, — I charge, 980

  Clip from each neck with steel the mane away!

  And through my city, nor of flute nor lyre

  Be there a sound till twelve full moons succeed.

  For I shall never bury any corpse

  Dearer than this to me, nor better friend:

  One worthy of all honour from me, since

  Me she has died for, she and she alone.”

  With that, he sought the inmost of the house,

  He and his dead, to get grave’s garniture,

  While the friends sang the pæan that should peal. 990

  “Daughter of Pelias, with farewell from me,

  I’ the house of Hades have thy unsunned home!

  Let Hades know, the dark-haired deity, —

  And he who sits to row and steer alike,

  Old corpse-conductor, let him know he bears

  Over the Acherontian lake, this time,

  I’ the two-oared boat, the best — oh, best by far

  Of womankind! For thee, Alkestis Queen!

  Many a time those haunters of the Muse

  Shall sing thee to the seven-stringed mountain-shell, 1000

  And glorify in hymns that need no harp,

  At Sparta when the cycle comes about,

  And that Karneian month wherein the moon

  Rises and never sets the whole night through:

  So too at splendid and magnificent

  Athenai. Such the spread of thy renown,

  And such the lay that, dying, thou hast left

  Singer and sayer. O that I availed

  Of my own might to send thee once again

  From Hades’ hall, Kokutos’ stream, by help 1010

  O’ the oar that dips the river, back to day!”

  So, the song sank to prattle in her praise:

  “Light, from above thee, lady, fall the earth,

  Thou only one of womankind to die,

  Wife for her husband! If Admetos take

  Anything to him like a second spouse —

  Hate from his offspring and from us shall be

  His portion, let the king assure himself!

  No mind his mother had to hide in earth

  Her body for her son’s sake, nor his sire 1020

  Had heart to save whom he begot, — not they,

  The white-haired wretches! only thou it was,

  I’ the bloom of youth, didst save him and so die!

  Might it be mine to chance on such a mate

  And partner! For there’s penury in life

  Of such allowance: were she mine at least,

  So wonderful a wife, assuredly

  She would companion me throughout my days

  And never once bring sorrow!”

  A great voice —

  “My hosts here!”

  Oh, the thrill that ran through us! 1030

  Never was aught so good and opportune

  As that great interrupting voice! For see!

  Here maundered this dispirited old age

  Before the palace; whence a something crept

  Which told us well enough without a word

  What was a-doing inside, — every touch

  O’ the garland on those temples, tenderest

  Disposure of each arm along its side,

  Came putting out what warmth i’ the world was left.

  Then, as it happens at a sacrifice 1040

  When, drop by drop, some lustral bath is brimmed:

  Into the thin and clear and cold, at once

  They slaughter a whole wine-skin; Bacchos’ blood

  Sets the white water all a-flame: even so,

  Sudden into the midst of sorrow, leapt

  Along with the gay cheer of that great voice,

  Hope, joy, salvation: Herakles was here!

  Himself, o’ the threshold, sent his voice on first

  To herald all that human and divine

  I’ the weary happy face of him, — half God 1050

  Half man, which made the god-part God the more.

  “Hosts mine,” he broke upon the sorrow with,

  “Inhabitants of this Pheraian soil,

  Chance I upon Admetos inside here?”

  The irresistible sound wholesome heart

  O’ the hero, — more than all the mightiness

  At labour in the limbs that, for man’s sake,

  Laboured and meant to labour their life long, —

  This drove back, dried up sorrow at its source.

  How could it brave the happy weary laugh 1060

  Of who had bantered sorrow “Sorrow here?

  What have you done to keep your friend from harm?

  Could no one give the life I see he keeps?

  Or, say there’s sorrow here past friendly help,

  Why waste a word or let a tear escape

  While other sorrows wait you in the world,

  And want the life of you, though helpless here?”

  Clearly there was no telling such an one

  How, when their monarch tried who loved him more

  Than he loved them, and found they loved, as he, 1070

  Each man, himself, and held, no otherwise,

  That, of all evils in the world, the worst

  Was — being forced to die, whate’er death gain:

  How all this selfishness in him and them

  Caused certain sorrow which they sang about, —

  I think that Herakles, who held his life

  Out on his hand, for any man to take —

  I think his laugh had marred their threnody.

  “He is i’ the house,” they answered. After all,

  They might have told the story, talked their best 1080

  About the inevitable sorrow here,

  Nor changed nor checked the kindly nature, — no!

  So long as men were merely weak, not bad,

  He loved men: were they Gods he used to help?

  “Yea, Pheres’ son is in-doors, Herakles:

  But say, what sends thee to Thessalian soil,

  Brought by what business to this Pherai town?”

  “A certain labour that I have to do

  Eurustheus the Tirunthian,” laughed the God.

  “And whither wendest — on what wandering 1090

  Bound now?” (they had an instinct, guessed what meant

  Wanderings, labours, in the God’s light mouth.)

  “After the Thracian Diomedes’ car

  With the four horses.”

  ”Ah, but canst thou that?

  Art inexperienced in thy host to be?”

  “All-inexperienced: I have never gone

  As yet to the land o’ the Bistones.”

  ”Then, look

  By no means to be master of the steeds

  Without a battle!”

  ”Battle there may be:

  I must refuse no labour, all the same.” 1100

  “Certainly, either having slain a foe

  Wilt thou return to us, or, slain thyself,


  Stay there!”

  ”And, even if the game be so,

  The risk in it were not the first I run.”

  “But, say thou over-power the lord o’ the place,

  What more advantage dost expect thereby?”

  “I shall drive off his horses to the king.”

  “No easy handling them to bit the jaw!”

  “Easy enough; except, at least, they breathe

  Fire from their nostrils!”

  ”But they mince up men 1110

  With those quick jaws!”

  ”You talk of provender

  For mountain-beasts, and not mere horses’ food!”

  “Thou may’st behold their mangers caked with gore!”

  “And of what sire does he who bred them boast

  Himself the son?”

  ”Of Ares, king o’ the targe —

  Thrakian, of gold throughout.”

  Another laugh.

  “Why, just the labour, just the lot for me

  Dost thou describe in what I recognize!

  Since hard and harder, high and higher yet,

  Truly this lot of mine is like to go 1120

  If I must needs join battle with the brood

  Of Ares: ay, I fought Lukaon first,

  And again, Kuknos: now engage in strife

  This third time, with such horses and such lord.

  But there is nobody shall ever see

  Alkmené’s son shrink, foemen’s hand before!”

  — “Or ever hear him say” (the chorus thought)

  “That death is terrible; and help us so

  To chime in — ‘terrible beyond a doubt.

  And, if to thee, why, to ourselves much more: 1130

  Know what has happened, then, and sympathize!’ “

  Therefore they gladly stopped the dialogue,

  Shifted the burthen to new shoulder straight,

  As, “Look where comes the lord o’ the land, himself,

  Admetos, from the palace!” they out-broke

  In some surprise, as well as much relief.

  What had induced the king to waive his right

  And luxury of woe in loneliness?

  Out he came quietly; the hair was dipt,

  And the garb sable; else no outward sign 1140

  Of sorrow as he came and faced his friend.

  Was truth fast terrifying tears away?

  “Hail, child of Zeus, and sprung from Perseus too!”

  The salutation ran without a fault.

  “And thou, Admetos, King of Thessaly!”

  “Would, as thou wishest me, the grace might fall!

  But my good-wisher, that thou art, I know.”

  “What’s here? these shorn locks, this sad show of thee?”

  “I must inter a certain corpse to-day.”

  “Now, from thy children God avert mischance!” 1150

  “They live, my children; all are in the house!”

  “Thy father — if ‘t is he departs indeed,