Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Captive!

  And first word of the conqueror

  Was “Down with those Long Walls, Peiraios’ pride!

  Destroy, yourselves, your bulwarks! Peace needs none!”

  And “We obey” they shuddered in their dream.

  But, at next quick imposure of decree —

  “No longer democratic government!

  Henceforth such oligarchy as ourselves

  Please to appoint you!” — then the horror stung

  Dreamers awake; they started up a-stare

  At the half-helot captain and his crew

  — Spartans, “men used to let their hair grow long,

  To fast, be dirty, and just — Socratize” —

  Whose word was “Trample on Themistokles!”

  So, as the way is with much misery,

  The heads swam, hands refused their office, hearts

  Sunk as they stood in stupor. “Wreck the Walls?

  Ruin Peiraios? — with our Pallas armed

  For interference? — Herakles apprised,

  And Theseus hasting? Lay the Long Walls low?”

  Three days they stood, stared, — stonier than their walls.

  Whereupon, sleep who might, Lusandros woke:

  Saw the prostration of his enemy,

  Utter and absolute beyond belief,

  Past hope of hatred even. I surmise

  He also probably saw fade in fume

  Certain fears, bred of Bakis-prophecy,

  Nor apprehended any more that gods

  And heroes, — fire, must glow forth, guard the ground

  Where prone, by sober day-dawn, corpse-like lay

  Powerless Athenai, late predominant

  Lady of Hellas, — Sparté’s slave-prize now!

  Where should a menace lurk in those slack limbs?

  What was to move his circumspection? Why

  Demolish just Peiraios?

  “Stay!” bade he:

  “Already promise-breakers? True to type,

  Athenians! past and present and to come —

  The fickle and the false! No stone dislodged,

  No implement applied, yet three days’ grace

  Expire! Forbearance is no longer-lived.

  By breaking promise, terms of peace you break —

  Too gently framed for falsehood, fickleness!

  All must be reconsidered — yours the fault!”

  Wherewith, he called a council of allies.

  Pent-up resentment used its privilege, —

  Outburst at ending: this the summed result.

  “Because we would avenge no transient wrong

  But an eternity of insolence,

  Aggression, — folly, no disasters mend,

  Pride, no reverses teach humility, —

  Because too plainly were all punishment,

  Such as comports with less obdurate crime,

  Evadable by falsehood, fickleness —

  Experience proves the true Athenian type, —

  Therefore, ‘t is need we dig deep down into

  The root of evil; lop nor bole nor branch.

  Look up, look round and see, on every side,

  What nurtured the rank tree to noisome fruit!

  We who live hutted (so they laugh) not housed,

  Build barns for temples, prize mud-monuments,

  Nor show the sneering stranger aught but — men, —

  Spartans take insult of Athenians just

  Because they boast Akropolis to mount,

  And Propulaia to make entry by,

  Through a mad maze of marble arrogance

  Such as you see — such as let none see more!

  Abolish the detested luxury!

  Leave not one stone upon another, raze

  Athenai to the rock! Let hill and plain

  Become a waste, a grassy pasture-ground

  Where sheep may wander, grazing goats depend

  From shapeless crags once columns! so at last

  Shall peace inhabit there, and peace enough.”

  Whereon, a shout approved “Such peace bestow!”

  Then did a Man of Phokis rise — O heart!

  Rise — when no bolt of Zeus disparted sky,

  No omen-bird from Pallas scared the crew,

  Rise — when mere human argument could stem

  No foam-fringe of the passion surging fierce,

  Baffle no wrath-wave that o’er barrier broke —

  Who was the Man of Phokis rose and flung

  A flower i’ the way of that fierce foot’s advance,

  Which — stop for? — nay, had stamped down sword’s assault!

  Could it be He stayed Sparté with the snatch

  “Daughter of Agamemnon, late my liege,

  Elektra, palaced once, a visitant

  To thy poor rustic dwelling, now I come?”

  Ay, facing fury of revenge, and lust

  Of hate, and malice moaning to appease

  Hunger on prey presumptuous, prostrate now —

  Full in the hideous faces — last resource,

  You flung that choric flower, my Euthukles!

  And see, as through some pinhole, should the wind

  Wedgingly pierce but once, in with a rush

  Hurries the whole wild weather, rends to rags

  The weak sail stretched against the outside storm —

  So did the power of that triumphant play

  Pour in, and oversweep the assembled foe!

  Triumphant play, wherein our poet first

  Dared bring the grandeur of the Tragic Two

  Down to the level of our common life,

  Close to the beating of our common heart.

  Elektra? ‘T was Athenai, Sparté’s ice

  Thawed to, while that sad portraiture appealed —

  Agamemnonian lady, lost by fault

  Of her own kindred, cast from house and home,

  Despoiled of all the brave inheritance,

  Dowered humbly as befits a herdsman’s mate,

  Partaker of his cottage, clothed in rags,

  Patient performer of the poorest chares,

  Yet mindful, all the while, of glory past

  When she walked darling of Mukenai, dear

  Beyond Orestes to the King of Men!

  So, because Greeks are Greeks, though Sparté’s brood,

  And hearts are hearts, though in Lusandros’ breast,

  And poetry is power, and Euthukles

  Had faith therein to, full-face, fling the same —

  Sudden, the ice-thaw! The assembled foe,

  Heaving and swaying with strange friendliness,

  Cried “Reverence Elektra!” — cried “Abstain

  Like that chaste Herdsman, nor dare violate

  The sanctity of such reverse! Let stand

  Athenai!”

  Mindful of that story’s close,

  Perchance, and how, — when he, the Herdsman chaste,

  Needs apprehend no break of tranquil sleep, —

  All in due time, a stranger, dark, disguised,

  Knocks at the door: with searching glance, notes keen,

  Knows quick, through mean attire and disrespect,

  The ravaged princess! Ay, right on, the clutch

  Of guiding retribution has in charge

  The author of the outrage! While one hand,

  Elektra’s, pulls the door behind, made fast

  On fate, — the other strains, prepared to push

  The victim-queen, should she make frightened pause

  Before that serpentining blood which steals

  Out of the darkness where, a pace beyond,

  Above the slain Aigisthos, bides his blow

  Dreadful Orestes!

  Klutaimnestra, wise

  This time, forbore; Elektra held her own;

  Saved was Athenai through Euripides,

  Through Euthukles, through — more than ever — me,

  Balaustion, me, who, Wild-pomegranate-flower,

&nb
sp; Felt my fruit triumph, and fade proudly so!

  But next day, as ungracious minds are wont,

  The Spartan, late surprised into a grace,

  Grew sudden sober at the enormity,

  And grudged, by daybreak, midnight’s easy gift;

  Splenetically must repay its cost

  By due increase of rigour, doglike snatch

  At aught still left dog to concede like man.

  Rough sea, at flow of tide, may lip, perchance,

  Smoothly the land-line reached as for repose —

  Lie indolent in all unquestioned sway;

  But ebbing, when needs must, all thwart and loth,

  Sea claws at sand relinquished strugglingly.

  So, harsh Lusandros — pinioned to inflict

  The lesser penalty alone — spoke harsh,

  As minded to embitter scathe by scorn.

  “Athenai’s self be saved then, thank the Lyre!

  If Tragedy withdraws her presence — quick,

  If Comedy replace her, — what more just?

  Let Comedy do service, frisk away,

  Dance off stage these indomitable stones,

  Long Walls, Peiraian bulwarks! Hew and heave,

  Pick at, pound into dust each dear defence!

  Not to the Kommos — eleleleleu

  With breast bethumped, as Tragic lyre prefers,

  But Comedy shall sound the flute, and crow

  At kordax-end — the hearty slapping-dance!

  Collect those flute-girls — trash who flattered ear

  With whistlings and fed eye with caper-cuts

  While we Lakonians supped black broth or crunched

  Sea-urchin, conchs and all, unpricked — coarse brutes!

  Command they lead off step, time steady stroke

  To spade and pickaxe, till demolished lie

  Athenai’s pride in powder!”

  Done that day —

  That sixteenth famed day of Munuchion-month!

  The day when Hellas fought at Salamis,

  The very day Euripides was born,

  Those flute-girls — Phaps-Elaphion at their head —

  Did blow their best, did dance their worst, the while

  Sparté pulled down the walls, wrecked wide the works,

  Laid low each merest molehill of defence,

  And so the Power, Athenai, passed away!

  We would not see its passing. Ere I knew

  The issue of their counsels, — crouching low

  And shrouded by my peplos, — I conceived,

  Despite the shut eyes, the stopped ears, — by count

  Only of heart-beats, telling the slow time, —

  Athenai’s doom was signed and signified

  In that assembly, — ay, but knew there watched

  One who would dare and do, nor bate at all

  The stranger’s licensed duty, — speak the word

  Allowed the Man from Phokis! Nought remained

  But urge departure, flee the sights and sounds,

  Hideous exultings, wailings worth contempt,

  And press to other earth, new heaven, by sea

  That somehow ever prompts to ‘scape despair.

  Help rose to heart’s wish; at the harbour-side,

  The old grey mariner did reverence

  To who had saved his ship, still weather-tight

  As when with prow gay-garlanded she praised

  The hospitable port and pushed to sea.

  “Convoy Balaustion back to Rhodes, for sake

  Of her and her Euripides!” laughed he.

  Rhodes, — shall it not be there, my Euthukles,

  Till this brief trouble of a life-time end,

  That solitude — two make so populous! —

  For food finds memories of the past suffice,

  May be, anticipations, — hope so swells, —

  Of some great future we, familiar once

  With who so taught, should hail and entertain?

  He lies now in the little valley, laughed

  And moaned about by those mysterious streams,

  Boiling and freezing, like the love and hate

  Which helped or harmed him through his earthly course.

  They mix in Arethousa by his grave.

  The warm spring, traveller, dip thine arms into,

  Brighten thy brow with! Life detests black cold.

  I sent the tablets, the psalterion, so

  Rewarded Sicily; the tyrant there

  Bestowed them worthily in Phoibos’ shrine.

  A gold-graved writing tells — ”I also loved

  The poet, Free Athenai cheaply prized —

  King Dionusios, — Archelaos-like!”

  And see if young Philemon, — sure one day

  To do good service and be loved himself, —

  If he too have not made a votive verse!

  “Grant, in good sooth, our great dead, all the same,

  Retain their sense, as certain wise men say,

  I’d hang myself — to see Euripides!”

  Hands off, Philemon! nowise hang thyself,

  But pen the prime plays, labour the right life,

  And die at good old age as grand men use, —

  Keeping thee, with that great thought, warm the while, —

  That he does live, Philemon! Ay, most sure!

  “He lives!” hark, — waves say, winds sing out the same,

  And yonder dares the citied ridge of Rhodes

  Its headlong plunge from sky to sea, disparts

  North bay from south, — each guarded calm, that guest

  May enter gladly, blow what wind there will, —

  Boiled round with breakers, to no other cry!

  All in one choros, — what the master-word

  They take up? — hark! “There are no gods, no gods!

  Glory to God — who saves Euripides!”

  THE AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS

  PERSONS.

  Warder.

  Choros of Old Men.

  Klutaimnestra.

  Talthubios , Herald .

  Agamemnon.

  Kassandra.

  Aigisthos.

  THE AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS 1877.

  WARDER.

  The gods I ask deliverance from these labours,

  Watch of a year’s length whereby, slumbering through it

  On the Atreidai’s roofs on elbow, — dog-like —

  I know of nightly star-groups the assemblage,

  And those that bring to men winter and summer

  Bright dynasts, as they pride them in the æther

  — Stars, when they wither, and the uprisings of them.

  And now on ward I wait the torch’s token,

  The glow of fire, shall bring from Troia message

  And word of capture: so prevails audacious

  The man’s-way-planning hoping heart of woman.

  But when I, driven from night-rest, dew-drenched hold to

  This couch of mine — not looked upon by visions,

  Since fear instead of sleep still stands beside me,

  So as that fast I fix in sleep no eyelids —

  And when to sing or chirp a tune I fancy,

  For slumber such song-remedy infusing,

  I wail then, for this House’s fortune groaning,

  Not, as of old, after the best ways governed.

  Now, lucky be deliverance from these labours,

  At good news — the appearing dusky fire!

  O hail, thou lamp of night, a day-long lightness

  Revealing, and of dances the ordainment!

  Halloo, halloo!

  To Agamemnon’s wife I show, by shouting,

  That, from bed starting up at once, i’ the household

  Joyous acclaim, good-omened to this torch-blaze,

  She send aloft, if haply Ilion’s city

  Be taken, as the beacon boasts announcing.

  Ay, and, for me, myself will dance a prelude,

  For, that my m
asters’ dice drop right, I’ll reckon:

  Since thrice-six has it thrown to me, this signal.

  Well, may it hap that, as he comes, the loved hand

  O’ the household’s lord I may sustain with this hand!

  As for the rest, I’m mute: on tongue a big ox

  Has trodden. Yet this House, if voice it take should,

  Most plain would speak. So, willing I myself speak.

  To those who know: to who know not — I’m blankness.

  CHOROS.

  The tenth year this, since Priamos’ great match,

  King Menelaos, Agamemnon King,

  — The strenuous yoke-pair of the Atreidai’s honour

  Two-throned, two-sceptred, whereof Zeus was donor —

  Did from this land the aid, the armament despatch,

  The thousand-sailored force of Argives clamouring

  “Ares” from out the indignant breast, as fling

  Passion forth vultures which, because of grief

  Away, — as are their young ones, — with the thief,

  Lofty above their brood-nests wheel in ring,

  Row round and round with oar of either wing,

  Lament the bedded chicks, lost labour that was love:

  Which hearing, one above

  — Whether Apollon, Pan or Zeus — that wail,

  Sharp-piercing bird-shriek of the guests who fare

  Housemates with gods in air —

  Suchanone sends, against who these assail,

  What, late-sent, shall not fail

  Of punishing — Erinus. Here as there,

  The Guardian of the Guest, Zeus, the excelling one,

  Sends against Alexandros either son

  Of Atreus: for that wife, the many-husbanded,

  Appointing many a tug that tries the limb,

  While the knee plays the prop in dust, while, shred

  To morsels, lies the spear-shaft; in those grim

  Marriage-prolusions when their Fury wed

  Danaoi and Troes, both alike. All’s said:

  Things are where things are, and, as fate has willed,

  So shall they be fulfilled.

  Not gently-grieving, not just doling out

  The drops of expiation — no, nor tears distilled —

  Shall he we know of bring the hard about

  To soft — that intense ire

  At those mock rites unsanctified by fire.

  But we pay nought here: through our flesh, age-weighed,

  Left out from who gave aid

  In that day, — we remain,

  Staying on staves a strength

  The equal of a child’s at length.

  For when young marrow in the breast doth reign,

  That’s the old man’s match, — Ares out of place

  In either: but in oldest age’s case,

  Foliage a-fading, why, he wends his way

  On three feet, and, no stronger than a child,