ATALANTA IN CALYDON

A Tragedy

by

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

A New Edition

Tous zontas eu dran. katthanon de pas aner Ge kai skia. to meden eis ouden repei

EUR. Fr. Mel. 20 (537).

London:
Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly
Printed by Spottiswoode and Co., New-Street Square and Parliament Street

1885

TO THE MEMORY

OF

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

I NOW DEDICATE, WITH EQUAL AFFECTION, REVERENCE, AND REGRET, A POEM INSCRIBED TO HIM WHILE YET ALIVE IN WORDS WHICH ARE NOW RETAINED BECAUSE THEY WERE LAID BEFORE HIM; AND TO WHICH, RATHER THAN CANCEL THEM, I HAVE ADDED SUCH OTHERS AS WERE EVOKED BY THE NEWS OF HIS DEATH: THAT THOUGH LOSING THE PLEASURE I MAY NOT LOSE THE HONOUR OF INSCRIBING IN FRONT OF MY WORK THE HIGHEST OF CONTEMPORARY NAMES.

  oixeo de Boreethen apotropos' alla se Numphai
    egagon aspasian edupnooi kath' ala,
  plerousai melitos theothen stoma, me ti Poseidon
    blapsei, en osin exon sen meligerun opa.
  toios aoidos ephus: emeis d' eti klaiomen, oi sou
    deuometh' oixomenou, kai se pothoumen aei.
  eipe de Pieridon tis anastrephtheisa pros allen:
    elthen, idou, panton philtatos elthe broton,
  stemmata drepsamenos neothelea xersi geraiais,
    kai polion daphnais amphekalupse kara, 10
  edu ti Sikelikais epi pektisin, edu ti xordais,
    aisomenos: pollen gar meteballe luran,
  pollaki d' en bessaisi kathemenon euren Apollon,
    anthesi d' estepsen, terpna d' edoke legein,
  Pana t' aeimneston te Pitun Koruthon te dusedron,
    en t' ephilese thean thnetos Amadruada:
  pontou d' en megaroisin ekoimise Kumodameian,
    ten t' Agamemnonian paid' apedoke patri,
  pros d' ierous Delphous theoplekton epempsen Oresten,
    teiromenon stugerais entha kai entha theais. 20

oixeo de kai aneuthe philon kai aneuthen aoides, drepsomenos malakes anthea Persephones. oixeo: kouk et' esei, kouk au pote soi paredoumai azomenos, xeiron xersi thigon osiais: nun d' au mnesamenon glukupikros upeluthen aidos, oia tuxon oiou pros sethen oios exo: oupote sois, geron, omma philois philon ommasi terpso, ses, geron, apsamenos, philtate, dechiteras. e psaphara konis, e psapharos bios esti: ti touton meion ephemerion; ou konis alla bios. 10 alla moi eduteros ge peleis polu ton et' eonton, epleo gar: soi men tauta thanonti phero, paura men, all' apo keros etetuma: med' apotrephtheis, pros de balon eti nun esuxon omma dexou. ou gar exo, mega de ti thelon, sethen achia dounai, thaptomenou per apon: ou gar enestin emoi: oude melikretou parexein ganos : ei gar eneie kai se xeroin psausai kai se pot' authis idein, dakrusi te spondais te kara philon amphipoleuein ophthalmous th' ierous sous ieron te demas. 20 eith' ophelon: mala gar tad' an ampauseie merimnes: nun de prosothen aneu sematos oikton ago: oud' epitumbidion threno melos, all' apamuntheis, all' apaneuthen exon amphidakruta pathe. alla su xaire thanon, kai exon geras isthi pros andron pros te theon, enerois ei tis epesti theos. xaire geron, phile xaire pater, polu phertat' aoidon on idomen, polu de phertat' aeisomenon: xaire, kai olbon exois, oion ge thanontes exousin, esuxian exthras kai philotetos ater. 30 sematos oixomenou soi mnemat' es usteron estai, soi te phile mneme mnematos oixomenou: on Xarites klaiousi theai, klaiei d' Aphrodite kallixorois Mouson terpsamene stephanois. ou gar apach ierous pote geras etripsen aoidous: tende to son phainei mnema tod' aglaian. e philos es makaressi brotos, soi d' ei tini Numphai dora potheina nemein, ustata dor', edosan. tas nun xalkeos upnos ebe kai anenemos aion, kai sunthaptomenai moiran exousi mian. 40 eudeis kai su, kalon kai agakluton en xthoni koilei upnon ephikomenos, ses aponosphi patras, tele para chanthou Tursenikon oidma katheudeis namatos, e d' eti se maia se gaia pothei, all' apexeis, kai prosthe philoptolis on per apeipas: eude: makar d' emin oud' amegartos esei. baios epixthonion ge xronos kai moira kratesei, tous de pot' euphrosune tous de pot' algos exei: pollaki d' e blaptei phaos e skotos amphikaluptei muromenous, daknei d' upnos egregorotas: 50 oud' eth' ot' en tumboisi katedrathen omma thanonton e skotos e ti phaos dechetai eeliou: oud' onar ennuxion kai enupnion oud' upar estai e pote terpomenois e pot' oduromenois: all' ena pantes aei thakon sunexousi kai edran anti brotes abroton, kallimon anti kakes.

ATALANTA IN CALYDON.

THE PERSONS.

CHIEF HUNTSMAN. CHORUS. ALTHAEA. MELEAGER OENEUS. ATALANTA. TOXEUS. PLEXIPPUS. HERALD. MESSENGER. SECOND MESSENGER.

isto d' ostis oux upopteros phrontisin daeis, tan a paidolumas talaina THestias mesato purdae tina pronoian, kataithousa paidos daphoinon dalon elik', epei molon matrothen keladese; summetron te diai biou moirokranton es amar.

Aesch. Cho. 602-612

THE ARGUMENT.

Althaea, daughter of Thestius and Eurythemis, queen of Calydon, being with child of Meleager her first-born son, dreamed that she brought forth a brand burning; and upon his birth came the three Fates and prophesied of him three things, namely these; that he should have great strength of his hands, and good fortune in this life, and that he should live no longer when the brand then in the fire were consumed: wherefore his mother plucked it forth and kept it by her. And the child being a man grown sailed with Jason after the fleece of gold, and won himself great praise of all men living; and when the tribes of the north and west made war upon Aetolia, he fought against their army and scattered it. But Artemis, having at the first stirred up these tribes to war against Oeneus king of Calydon, because he had offered sacrifice to all the gods saving her alone, but her he had forgotten to honour, was yet more wroth because of the destruction of this army, and sent upon the land of Calydon a wild boar which slew many and wasted all their increase, but him could none slay, and many went against him and perished. Then were all the chief men of Greece gathered together, and among them Atalanta daughter of Iasius the Arcadian, a virgin, for whose sake Artemis let slay the boar, seeing she favoured the maiden greatly; and Meleager having despatched it gave the spoil thereof to Atalanta, as one beyond measure enamoured of her; but the brethren of Althaea his mother, Toxeus and Plexippus, with such others as misliked that she only should bear off the praise whereas many had borne the labour, laid wait for her to take away her spoil; but Meleager fought against them and slew them: whom when Althaea their sister beheld and knew to be slain of her son, she waxed for wrath and sorrow like as one mad, and taking the brand whereby the measure of her son's life was meted to him, she cast it upon a fire; and with the wasting thereof his life likewise wasted away, that being brought back to his father's house he died in a brief space, and his mother also endured not long after for very sorrow; and this was his end, and the end of that hunting.

ATALANTA IN CALYDON.

CHIEF HUNTSMAN.

  Maiden, and mistress of the months and stars
  Now folded in the flowerless fields of heaven,
  Goddess whom all gods love with threefold heart,
  Being treble in thy divided deity,
  A light for dead men and dark hours, a foot
  Swift on the hills as morning, and a hand
  To all things fierce and fleet that roar and range
  Mortal, with gentler shafts than snow or sleep;
  Hear now and help and lift no violent hand,
  But favourable and fair as thine eye's beam
  Hidden and shown in heaven, for I all night
  Amid the king's hounds and the hunting men
  Have wrought and worshipped toward thee; nor shall man
  See goodlier hounds or deadlier edge of spears,
  But for the end, that lies unreached at yet
  Between the hands and on the knees of gods,
  O fair-faced sun killing the stars and dews
  And dreams and desolation of the night!
  Rise up, shine, stretch thine hand out, with thy bow
  Touch the most dimmest height of trembling heaven,
  And burn and break the dark about thy ways,
  Shot through and through with arrows; let thine hair
  Lighten as flame above that nameless shell
  Which was the moon, and thine eyes fill the world
  And thy lips kindle with swift beams; let earth
  Laugh, and the long sea fiery from thy feet
  Through all the roar and ripple of streaming springs
  And foam in reddening flakes and flying flowers
  Shaken from hands and blown from lips of nymphs
  Whose hair or breast divides the wandering wave
  With salt close tresses cleaving lock to lock,
  All gold, or shuddering and unfurrowed snow;
  And all the winds about thee with their wings,
  And fountain-heads of all the watered world;
  Each horn of Acheloüs, and the green
  Euenus, wedded with the straitening sea.
  For in fair time thou comest; come also thou,
  Twin-born with him, and virgin, Artemis,
  And give our spears their spoil, the wild boar's hide.
  Sent in thine anger against us for sin done
  And bloodless altars without wine or fire.
  Him now consume thou; for thy sacrifice
  With sanguine-shining steam divides the dawn,
  And one, the maiden rose of all thy maids,
  Arcadian Atalanta, snowy-souled,
  Fair as the snow and footed as the wind,
  From Ladon and well-wooded Maenalus
  Over the firm hills and the fleeting sea
  Hast thou drawn hither, and many an armèd king,
  Heroes, the crown of men, like gods in fight.
  Moreover out of all the Aetolian land,
  From the full-flowered Lelantian pasturage
  To what of fruitful field the son of Zeus
  Won from the roaring river and labouring sea
  When the wild god shrank in his horn and fled
  And foamed and lessened through his wrathful fords,
  Leaving clear lands that steamed with sudden sun,
  These virgins with the lightening of the day
  Bring thee fresh wreaths and their own sweeter hair,
  Luxurious locks and flower-like mixed with flowers,
  Clean offering, and chaste hymns; but me the time
  Divides from these things; whom do thou not less
  Help and give honour, and to mine hounds good speed,
  And edge to spears, and luck to each man's hand.

CHORUS.

  When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
    The mother of months in meadow or plain
  Fills the shadows and windy places
    With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;
  And the brown bright nightingale amorous
  Is half assuaged for Itylus,
  For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,
    The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.

  Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers.
    Maiden most perfect, lady of light,
  With a noise of winds and many rivers,
    With a clamour of waters, and with might;
  Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
  Over the splendour and speed of thy feet;
  For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,
    Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.

  Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
    Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?
  O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her,
    Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!
  For the stars and the winds are unto her
  As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;
  For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,
    And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.

  For winter's rains and ruins are over,
    And all the season of snows, and sins;
  The days dividing lover and lover,
    The light that loses, the night that wins;
  And time remembered is grief forgotten,
  And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
  And in green underwood and cover
    Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

  The full streams feed on flower of rushes,
    Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot,
  The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes
    From leaf to flower and flower to fruit,
  And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,
  And the oat is heard above the lyre,
  And the hoofèd heel of a satyr crushes
    The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.

  And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,
    Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,
  Follows with dancing and fills with delight
    The Maenad and the Bassarid;
  And soft as lips that laugh and hide
  The laughing leaves of the trees divide,
  And screen from seeing and leave in sight
    The god pursuing, the maiden hid.

  The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair
    Over her eyebrows hiding her eyes;
  The wild vine slipping down leaves bare
    Her bright breast shortening into sighs;
  The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves.
  But the berried ivy catches and cleaves
  To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare
    The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.

ALTHAEA.

What do ye singing? what is this ye sing?

CHORUS.

  Flowers bring we, and pure lips that please the gods,
  And raiment meet for service: lest the day
  Turn sharp with all its honey in our lips.

ALTHAEA.

  Night, a black hound, follows the white fawn day,
  Swifter than dreams the white flown feet of sleep;
  Will ye pray back the night with any prayers?
  And though the spring put back a little while
  Winter, and snows that plague all men for sin,
  And the iron time of cursing, yet I know
  Spring shall be ruined with the rain, and storm
  Eat up like fire the ashen autumn days.
  I marvel what men do with prayers awake
  Who dream and die with dreaming; any god,
  Yea the least god of all things called divine,
  Is more than sleep and waking; yet we say,
  Perchance by praying a man shall match his god.
  For if sleep have no mercy, and man's dreams
  Bite to the blood and burn into the bone,
  What shall this man do waking? By the gods,
  He shall not pray to dream sweet things to-night,
  Having dreamt once more bitter things than death.

CHORUS.

  Queen, but what is it that hath burnt thine heart?
  For thy speech flickers like a brown-out flame.

ALTHAEA.

  Look, ye say well, and know not what ye say,
  For all my sleep is turned into a fire,
  And all my dreams to stuff that kindles it.

CHORUS.

Yet one doth well being patient of the gods.

ALTHAEA.

Yea, lest they smite us with some four-foot plague.

CHORUS.

But when time spreads find out some herb for it.

ALTHAEA.

And with their healing herbs infect our blood.

CHORUS.

What ails thee to be jealous of their ways?

ALTHAEA.

What if they give us poisonous drinks for wine?

CHORUS.

They have their will; much talking mends it not.

ALTHAEA.

And gall for milk, and cursing for a prayer?

CHORUS.

Have they not given life, and the end of life?

ALTHAEA.

  Lo, where they heal, they help not; thus they do,
  They mock us with a little piteousness,
  And we say prayers, and weep; but at the last,
  Sparing awhile, they smite and spare no whit.

CHORUS.

  Small praise man gets dispraising the high gods:
  What have they done that thou dishonourest them?

ALTHAEA.

  First Artemis for all this harried land
  I praise not; and for wasting of the boar
  That mars with tooth and tusk and fiery feet
  Green pasturage and the grace of standing corn
  And meadow and marsh with springs and unblown leaves,
  Flocks and swift herds and all that bite sweet grass,
  I praise her not, what things are these to praise?

CHORUS.

  But when the king did sacrifice, and gave
  Each god fair dues of wheat and blood and wine,
  Her not with bloodshed nor burnt-offering
  Revered he, nor with salt or cloven cake;
  Wherefore being wroth she plagued the land, but now
  Takes off from us fate and her heavy things.
  Which deed of these twain were not good to praise?
  For a just deed looks always either way
  With blameless eyes, and mercy is no fault.

ALTHAEA.

  Yea, but a curse she hath sent above all these
  To hurt us where she healed us; and hath lit
  Fire where the old fire went out, and where the wind
  Slackened, hath blown on us with deadlier air.

CHORUS.

What storm is this that tightens all our sail?

ALTHAEA.

Love, a thwart sea-wind full of rain and foam.

CHORUS.

Whence blown, and born under what stormier star?

ALTHAEA.

Southward across Euenus from the sea.

CHORUS.

Thy speech turns toward Arcadia like blown wind.

ALTHAEA.

Sharp as the north sets when the snows are out.

CHORUS.

Nay, for this maiden hath no touch of love.

ALTHAEA.

  I would she had sought in some cold gulf of sea
  Love, or in dens where strange beasts lurk, or fire,
  Or snows on the extreme hills, or iron land
  Where no spring is; I would she had sought therein
  And found, or ever love had found her here.

CHORUS.

  She is holier than all holy days or things,
  The sprinkled water or fume of perfect fire;
  Chaste, dedicated to pure prayers, and filled
  With higher thoughts than heaven; a maiden clean,
  Pure iron, fashioned for a sword, and man
  She loves not; what should one such do with love?

ALTHAEA.

  Look you, I speak not as one light of wit,
  But as a queen speaks, being heart-vexed; for oft
  I hear my brothers wrangling in mid hall,
  And am not moved; and my son chiding them,
  And these things nowise move me, but I know
  Foolish and wise men must be to the end,
  And feed myself with patience; but this most,
  This moves me, that for wise men as for fools
  Love is one thing, an evil thing, and turns
  Choice words and wisdom into fire and air.
  And in the end shall no joy come, but grief,
  Sharp words and soul's division and fresh tears
  Flower-wise upon the old root of tears brought forth,
  Fruit-wise upon the old flower of tears sprung up,
  Pitiful sighs, and much regrafted pain.
  These things are in my presage, and myself
  Am part of them and know not; but in dreams
  The gods are heavy on me, and all the fates
  Shed fire across my eyelids mixed with night,
  And burn me blind, and disilluminate
  My sense of seeing, and my perspicuous soul
  Darken with vision; seeing I see not, hear
  And hearing am not holpen, but mine eyes
  Stain many tender broideries in the bed
  Drawn up about my face that I may weep
  And the king wake not; and my brows and lips
  Tremble and sob in sleeping, like swift flames
  That tremble, or water when it sobs with heat
  Kindled from under; and my tears fill my breast
  And speck the fair dyed pillows round the king
  With barren showers and salter than the sea,
  Such dreams divide me dreaming; for long since
  I dreamed that out of this my womb had sprung
  Fire and a firebrand; this was ere my son,
  Meleager, a goodly flower in fields of fight,
  Felt the light touch him coming forth, and waited
  Childlike; but yet he was not; and in time
  I bare him, and my heart was great; for yet
  So royally was never strong man born,
  Nor queen so nobly bore as noble a thing
  As this my son was: such a birth God sent
  And such a grace to bear it. Then came in
  Three weaving women, and span each a thread,
  Saying This for strength and That for luck, and one
  Saying Till the brand upon the hearth burn down,
  So long shall this man see good days and live.
  And I with gathered raiment from the bed
  Sprang, and drew forth the brand, and cast on it
  Water, and trod the flame bare-foot, and crushed
  With naked hand spark beaten out of spark
  And blew against and quenched it; for I said,
  These are the most high Fates that dwell with us,
  And we find favour a little in their sight,
  A little, and more we miss of, and much time
  Foils us; howbeit they have pitied me, O son,
  And thee most piteous, thee a tenderer thing
  Than any flower of fleshly seed alive.
  Wherefore I kissed and hid him with my hands,
  And covered under arms and hair, and wept,
  And feared to touch him with my tears, and laughed;
  So light a thing was this man, grown so great
  Men cast their heads back, seeing against the sun
  Blaze the armed man carven on his shield, and hear
  The laughter of little bells along the brace
  Ring, as birds singing or flutes blown, and watch,
  High up, the cloven shadow of either plume
  Divide the bright light of the brass, and make
  His helmet as a windy and wintering moon
  Seen through blown cloud and plume-like drift, when ships
  Drive, and men strive with all the sea, and oars
  Break, and the beaks dip under, drinking death;
  Yet was he then but a span long, and moaned
  With inarticulate mouth inseparate words,
  And with blind lips and fingers wrung my breast
  Hard, and thrust out with foolish hands and feet,
  Murmuring; but those grey women with bound hair
  Who fright the gods frighted not him; he laughed
  Seeing them, and pushed out hands to feel and haul
  Distaff and thread, intangible; but they
  Passed, and I hid the brand, and in my heart
  Laughed likewise, having all my will of heaven.
  But now I know not if to left or right
  The gods have drawn us hither; for again
  I dreamt, and saw the black brand burst on fire
  As a branch bursts in flower, and saw the flame
  Fade flower-wise, and Death came and with dry lips
  Blew the charred ash into my breast; and Love
  Trampled the ember and crushed it with swift feet
  This I have also at heart; that not for me,
  Not for me only or son of mine, O girls,
  The gods have wrought life, and desire of life,
  Heart's love and heart's division; but for all
  There shines one sun and one wind blows till night.
  And when night comes the wind sinks and the sun,
  And there is no light after, and no storm,
  But sleep and much forgetfulness of things.
  In such wise I gat knowledge of the gods
  Years hence, and heard high sayings of one most wise,
  Eurythemis my mother, who beheld
  With eyes alive and spake with lips of these
  As one on earth disfleshed and disallied
  From breath or blood corruptible; such gifts
  Time gave her, and an equal soul to these
  And equal face to all things, thus she said.
  But whatsoever intolerable or glad
  The swift hours weave and unweave, I go hence
  Full of mine own soul, perfect of myself,
  Toward mine and me sufficient; and what chance
  The gods cast lots for and shake out on us,
  That shall we take, and that much bear withal.
  And now, before these gather to the hunt,
  I will go arm my son and bring him forth,
  Lest love or some man's anger work him harm.

CHORUS.

    Before the beginning of years
      There came to the making of man
    Time, with a gift of tears,
      Grief, with a glass that ran;
    Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
      Summer, with flowers that fell;
    Remembrance fallen from heaven,
      And madness risen from hell;
    Strength without hands to smite,
      Love that endures for a breath,
    Night, the shadow of light,
      And life, the shadow of death.

    And the high gods took in hand
      Fire, and the falling of tears,
    And a measure of sliding sand
      From under the feet of the years,
    And froth and drift of the sea;
      And dust of the labouring earth;
    And bodies of things to be
      In the houses of death and of birth;
    And wrought with weeping and laughter,
      And fashioned with loathing and love,
    With life before and after
      And death beneath and above,
    For a day and a night and a morrow,
      That his strength might endure for a span
    With travail and heavy sorrow,
      The holy spirit of man.

    From the winds of the north and the south
      They gathered as unto strife;
    They breathed upon his mouth,
      They filled his body with life;
    Eyesight and speech they wrought
      For the veils of the soul therein,
    A time for labour and thought,
      A time to serve and to sin;
    They gave him light in his ways,
      And love, and a space for delight,
    And beauty and length of days,
      And night, and sleep in the night.
    His speech is a burning fire;
      With his lips he travaileth,
    In his heart is a blind desire,
      In his eyes foreknowledge of death;
    He weaves, and is clothed with derision;
      Sows, and he shall not reap,
    His life is a watch or a vision
      Between a sleep and a sleep.

MELEAGER.

  O sweet new heaven and air without a star,
  Fair day, be fair and welcome, as to men
  With deeds to do and praise to pluck from thee,
  Come forth a child, born with clear sound and light,
  With laughter and swift limbs and prosperous looks;
  That this great hunt with heroes for the hounds
  May leave thee memorable and us well sped.

ALTHAEA.

  Son, first I praise thy prayer, then bid thee speed;
  But the gods hear men's hands before their lips,
  And heed beyond all crying and sacrifice
  Light of things done and noise of labouring men.
  But thou, being armed and perfect for the deed,
  Abide; for like rain-flakes in a wind they grow,
  The men thy fellows, and the choice of the world,
  Bound to root out the tusked plague, and leave
  Thanks and safe days and peace in Calydon.

MELEAGER.

  For the whole city and all the low-lying land
  Flames, and the soft air sounds with them that come;
  The gods give all these fruit of all their works.

ALTHAEA.

  Set thine eye thither and fix thy spirit and say
  Whom there thou knowest; for sharp mixed shadow and wind
  Blown up between the morning and the mist,
  With steam of steeds and flash of bridle or wheel,
  And fire, and parcels of the broken dawn,
  And dust divided by hard light, and spears
  That shine and shift as the edge of wild beasts' eyes,
  Smite upon mine; so fiery their blind edge
  Burns, and bright points break up and baffle day.

MELEAGER.

  The first, for many I know not, being far off,
  Peleus the Larissaean, couched with whom
  Sleeps the white sea-bred wife and silver-shod,
  Fair as fled foam, a goddess; and their son
  Most swift and splendid of men's children born,
  Most like a god, full of the future fame.

ALTHAEA.

Who are these shining like one sundered star?

MELEAGER.

Thy sister's sons, a double flower of men.

ALTHAEA.

  O sweetest kin to me in all the world,
  O twin-born blood of Leda, gracious heads
  Like kindled lights in untempestuous heaven,
  Fair flower-like stars on the iron foam of fight,
  With what glad heart and kindliness of soul,
  Even to the staining of both eyes with tears
  And kindling of warm eyelids with desire,
  A great way off I greet you, and rejoice
  Seeing you so fair, and moulded like as gods.
  Far off ye come, and least in years of these,
  But lordliest, but worth love to look upon.

MELEAGER.

  Even such (for sailing hither I saw far hence,
  And where Eurotas hollows his moist rock
  Nigh Sparta with a strenuous-hearted stream)
  Even such I saw their sisters; one swan-white,
  The little Helen, and less fair than she
  Fair Clytaemnestra, grave as pasturing fawns
  Who feed and fear some arrow; but at whiles,
  As one smitten with love or wrung with joy,
  She laughs and lightens with her eyes, and then
  Weeps; whereat Helen, having laughed, weeps too,
  And the other chides her, and she being chid speaks nought,
  But cheeks and lips and eyelids kisses her,
  Laughing; so fare they, as in their bloomless bud
  And full of unblown life, the blood of gods.

ALTHAEA.

  Sweet days befall them and good loves and lords,
  And tender and temperate honours of the hearth,
  Peace, and a perfect life and blameless bed.
  But who shows next an eagle wrought in gold?
  That flames and beats broad wings against the sun
  And with void mouth gapes after emptier prey?

MELEAGER.

  Know by that sign the reign of Telamon
  Between the fierce mouths of the encountering brine
  On the strait reefs of twice-washed Salamis.

ALTHAEA.

  For like one great of hand he bears himself,
  Vine-chapleted, with savours of the sea,
  Glittering as wine and moving as a wave.
  But who girt round there roughly follows him?

MELEAGER.

  Ancaeus, great of hand, an iron bulk,
  Two-edged for fight as the axe against his arm,
  Who drives against the surge of stormy spears
  Full-sailed; him Cepheus follows, his twin-born,
  Chief name next his of all Arcadian men.

ALTHAEA.

  Praise be with men abroad; chaste lives with us,
  Home-keeping days and household reverences.

MELEAGER.

  Next by the left unsandalled foot know thou
  The sail and oar of this Aetolian land,
  Thy brethren, Toxeus and the violent-souled
  Plexippus, over-swift with hand and tongue;
  For hands are fruitful, but the ignorant mouth
  Blows and corrupts their work with barren breath.

ALTHAEA.

  Speech too bears fruit, being worthy; and air blows down
  Things poisonous, and high-seated violences,
  And with charmed words and songs have men put out
  Wild evil, and the fire of tyrannies.

MELEAGER.

Yea, all things have they, save the gods and love.

ALTHAEA.

Love thou the law and cleave to things ordained.

MELEAGER.

Law lives upon their lips whom these applaud.

ALTHAEA.

How sayest thou these? what god applauds new things?

MELEAGER.

Zeus, who hath fear and custom under foot.

ALTHAEA.

But loves not laws thrown down and lives awry.

MELEAGER.

Yet is not less himself than his own law.

ALTHAEA.

Nor shifts and shuffles old things up and down.

MELEAGER.

But what he will remoulds and discreates.

ALTHAEA.

Much, but not this, that each thing live its life.

MELEAGER.

Nor only live, but lighten and lift up higher.

ALTHAEA.

Pride breaks itself, and too much gained is gone.

MELEAGER.

Things gained are gone, but great things done endure.

ALTHAEA.

  Child, if a man serve law through all his life
  And with his whole heart worship, him all gods
  Praise; but who loves it only with his lips,
  And not in heart and deed desiring it
  Hides a perverse will with obsequious words,
  Him heaven infatuates and his twin-born fate
  Tracks, and gains on him, scenting sins far off,
  And the swift hounds of violent death devour.
  Be man at one with equal-minded gods,
  So shall he prosper; not through laws torn up,
  Violated rule and a new face of things.
  A woman armed makes war upon herself,
  Unwomanlike, and treads down use and wont
  And the sweet common honour that she hath,
  Love, and the cry of children, and the hand
  Trothplight and mutual mouth of marriages.
  This doth she, being unloved, whom if one love,
  Not fire nor iron and the wide-mouthed wars
  Are deadlier than her lips or braided hair.
  For of the one comes poison, and a curse
  Falls from the other and burns the lives of men.
  But thou, son, be not filled with evil dreams,
  Nor with desire of these things; for with time
  Blind love burns out; but if one feed it full
  Till some discolouring stain dyes all his life,
  He shall keep nothing praiseworthy, nor die
  The sweet wise death of old men honourable,
  Who have lived out all the length of all their years
  Blameless, and seen well-pleased the face of gods,
  And without shame and without fear have wrought
  Things memorable, and while their days held out
  In sight of all men and the sun's great light
  Have gat them glory and given of their own praise
  To the earth that bare them and the day that bred,
  Home friends and far-off hospitalities,
  And filled with gracious and memorial fame
  Lands loved of summer or washed by violent seas,
  Towns populous and many unfooted ways,
  And alien lips and native with their own.
  But when white age and venerable death
  Mow down the strength and life within their limbs,
  Drain out the blood and darken their clear eyes,
  Immortal honour is on them, having past
  Through splendid life and death desirable
  To the clear seat and remote throne of souls,
  Lands indiscoverable in the unheard-of west,
  Round which the strong stream of a sacred sea
  Rolls without wind for ever, and the snow
  There shows not her white wings and windy feet,
  Nor thunder nor swift rain saith anything,
  Nor the sun burns, but all things rest and thrive;
  And these, filled full of days, divine and dead,
  Sages and singers fiery from the god,
  And such as loved their land and all things good
  And, best beloved of best men, liberty,
  Free lives and lips, free hands of men free-born,
  And whatsoever on earth was honourable
  And whosoever of all the ephemeral seed,
  Live there a life no liker to the gods
  But nearer than their life of terrene days.
  Love thou such life and look for such a death.
  But from the light and fiery dreams of love
  Spring heavy sorrows and a sleepless life,
  Visions not dreams, whose lids no charm shall close
  Nor song assuage them waking; and swift death
  Crushes with sterile feet the unripening ear,
  Treads out the timeless vintage; whom do thou
  Eschewing embrace the luck of this thy life,
  Not without honour; and it shall bear to thee
  Such fruit as men reap from spent hours and wear,
  Few men, but happy; of whom be thou, O son,
  Happiest, if thou submit thy soul to fate,
  And set thine eyes and heart on hopes high-born
  And divine deeds and abstinence divine.
  So shalt thou be toward all men all thy days
  As light and might communicable, and burn
  From heaven among the stars above the hours,
  And break not as a man breaks nor burn down:
  For to whom other of all heroic names
  Have the gods given his life in hand as thine?
  And gloriously hast thou lived, and made thy life
  To me that bare thee and to all men born
  Thankworthy, a praise for ever; and hast won fame
  When wild wars broke all round thy father's house,
  And the mad people of windy mountain ways
  Laid spears against us like a sea, and all
  Aetolia thundered with Thessalian hoofs;
  Yet these, as wind baffles the foam, and beats
  Straight back the relaxed ripple, didst thou break
  And loosen all their lances, till undone
  And man from man they fell; for ye twain stood
  God against god, Ares and Artemis,
  And thou the mightier; wherefore she unleashed
  A sharp-toothed curse thou too shalt overcome;
  For in the greener blossom of thy life
  Ere the full blade caught flower, and when time gave
  Respite, thou didst not slacken soul nor sleep,
  But with great hand and heart seek praise of men
  Out of sharp straits and many a grievous thing,
  Seeing the strange foam of undivided seas
  On channels never sailed in, and by shores
  Where the old winds cease not blowing, and all the night
  Thunders, and day is no delight to men.

CHORUS.

  Meleager, a noble wisdom and fair words
  The gods have given this woman, hear thou these.

MELEAGER.

  O mother, I am not fain to strive in speech
  Nor set my mouth against thee, who art wise
  Even as they say and full of sacred words.
  But one thing I know surely, and cleave to this;
  That though I be not subtle of wit as thou
  Nor womanlike to weave sweet words, and melt
  Mutable minds of wise men as with fire,
  I too, doing justly and reverencing the gods,
  Shall not want wit to see what things be right.
  For whom they love and whom reject, being gods,
  There is no man but seeth, and in good time
  Submits himself, refraining all his heart.
  And I too as thou sayest have seen great things;
  Seen otherwhere, but chiefly when the sail
  First caught between stretched ropes the roaring west,
  And all our oars smote eastward, and the wind
  First flung round faces of seafaring men
  White splendid snow-flakes of the sundering foam,
  And the first furrow in virginal green sea
  Followed the plunging ploughshare of hewn pine,
  And closed, as when deep sleep subdues man's breath
  Lips close and heart subsides; and closing, shone
  Sunlike with many a Nereid's hair, and moved
  Round many a trembling mouth of doubtful gods,
  Risen out of sunless and sonorous gulfs
  Through waning water and into shallow light,
  That watched us; and when flying the dove was snared
  As with men's hands, but we shot after and sped
  Clear through the irremeable Symplegades;
  And chiefliest when hoar beach and herbless cliff
  Stood out ahead from Colchis, and we heard
  Clefts hoarse with wind, and saw through narrowing reefs
  The lightning of the intolerable wave
  Flash, and the white wet flame of breakers burn
  Far under a kindling south-wind, as a lamp
  Burns and bends all its blowing flame one way;
  Wild heights untravelled of the wind, and vales
  Cloven seaward by their violent streams, and white
  With bitter flowers and bright salt scurf of brine;
  Heard sweep their sharp swift gales, and bowing bird-wise
  Shriek with birds' voices, and with furious feet
  Tread loose the long skirts of a storm; and saw
  The whole white Euxine clash together and fall
  Full-mouthed, and thunderous from a thousand throats;
  Yet we drew thither and won the fleece and won
  Medea, deadlier than the sea; but there
  Seeing many a wonder and fearful things to men
  I saw not one thing like this one seen here,
  Most fair and fearful, feminine, a god,
  Faultless; whom I that love not, being unlike,
  Fear, and give honour, and choose from all the gods.

OENEUS.

  Lady, the daughter of Thestius, and thou, son,
  Not ignorant of your strife nor light of wit,
  Scared with vain dreams and fluttering like spent fire,
  I come to judge between you, but a king
  Full of past days and wise from years endured.
  Nor thee I praise, who art fain to undo things done;
  Nor thee, who art swift to esteem them overmuch.
  For what the hours have given is given, and this
  Changeless; howbeit these change, and in good time
  Devise new things and good, not one thing still.
  Us have they sent now at our need for help
  Among men armed a woman, foreign born,
  Virgin, not like the natural flower of things
  That grows and bears and brings forth fruit and dies,
  Unlovable, no light for a husband's house,
  Espoused; a glory among unwedded girls,
  And chosen of gods who reverence maidenhood.
  These too we honour in honouring her; but thou,
  Abstain thy feet from following, and thine eyes
  From amorous touch; nor set toward hers thine heart,
  Son, lest hate bear no deadlier fruit than love.

ALTHAEA.

  O king, thou art wise, but wisdom halts, and just,
  But the gods love not justice more than fate,
  And smite the righteous and the violent mouth,
  And mix with insolent blood the reverent man's,
  And bruise the holier as the lying lips.
  Enough; for wise words fail me, and my heart
  Takes fire and trembles flamewise, O my son,
  O child, for thine head's sake; mine eyes wax thick,
  Turning toward thee, so goodly a weaponed man,
  So glorious; and for love of thine own eyes
  They are darkened, and tears burn them, fierce as fire,
  And my lips pause and my soul sinks with love.
  But by thine hand, by thy sweet life and eyes,
  By thy great heart and these clasped knees, O son,
  I pray thee that thou slay me not with thee.
  For there was never a mother woman-born
  Loved her sons better; and never a queen of men
  More perfect in her heart toward whom she loved.
  For what lies light on many and they forget,
  Small things and transitory as a wind o' the sea,
  I forget never; I have seen thee all thine years
  A man in arms, strong and a joy to men
  Seeing thine head glitter and thine hand burn its way
  Through a heavy and iron furrow of sundering spears;
  But always also a flower of three suns old,
  The small one thing that lying drew down my life
  To lie with thee and feed thee; a child and weak,
  Mine, a delight to no man, sweet to me.
  Who then sought to thee? who gat help? who knew
  If thou wert goodly? nay, no man at all.
  Or what sea saw thee, or sounded with thine oar,
  Child? or what strange land shone with war through thee?
  But fair for me thou wert, O little life,
  Fruitless, the fruit of mine own flesh, and blind,
  More than much gold, ungrown, a foolish flower.
  For silver nor bright snow nor feather of foam
  Was whiter, and no gold yellower than thine hair,
  O child, my child; and now thou art lordlier grown,
  Not lovelier, nor a new thing in mine eyes,
  I charge thee by thy soul and this my breast,
  Fear thou the gods and me and thine own heart,
  Lest all these turn against thee; for who knows
  What wind upon what wave of altering time
  Shall speak a storm and blow calamity?
  And there is nothing stabile in the world
  But the gods break it; yet not less, fair son,
  If but one thing be stronger, if one endure,
  Surely the bitter and the rooted love
  That burns between us, going from me to thee,
  Shall more endure than all things. What dost thou,
  Following strange loves? why wilt thou kill mine heart?
  Lo, I talk wild and windy words, and fall
  From my clear wits, and seem of mine own self
  Dethroned, dispraised, disseated; and my mind,
  That was my crown, breaks, and mine heart is gone,
  And I am naked of my soul, and stand
  Ashamed, as a mean woman; take thou thought:
  Live if thou wilt, and if thou wilt not, look,
  The gods have given thee life to lose or keep,
  Thou shalt not die as men die, but thine end
  Fallen upon thee shall break me unaware.

MELEAGER.

  Queen, my whole heart is molten with thy tears,
  And my limbs yearn with pity of thee, and love
  Compels with grief mine eyes and labouring breath:
  For what thou art I know thee, and this thy breast
  And thy fair eyes I worship, and am bound
  Toward thee in spirit and love thee in all my soul.
  For there is nothing terribler to men
  Than the sweet face of mothers, and the might
  But what shall be let be; for us the day
  Once only lives a little, and is not found.
  Time and the fruitful hour are more than we,
  And these lay hold upon us; but thou, God,
  Zeus, the sole steersman of the helm of things,
  Father, be swift to see us, and as thou wilt
  Help: or if adverse, as thou wilt, refrain.

CHORUS.

  We have seen thee, O Love, thou art fair, thou art goodly, O Love,
  Thy wings make light in the air as the wings of a dove.
  Thy feet are as winds that divide the stream of the sea;
  Earth is thy covering to hide thee, the garment of thee.
  Thou art swift and subtle and blind as a flame of fire;
  Before thee the laughter, behind thee the tears of desire;
  And twain go forth beside thee, a man with a maid;
  Her eyes are the eyes of a bride whom delight makes afraid;
  As the breath in the buds that stir is her bridal breath:
  But Fate is the name of her; and his name is Death.

    For an evil blossom was born
      Of sea-foam and the frothing of blood,
        Blood-red and bitter of fruit,
          And the seed of it laughter and tears,
    And the leaves of it madness and scorn;
      A bitter flower from the bud,
        Sprung of the sea without root,
          Sprung without graft from the years.

    The weft of the world was untorn
      That is woven of the day on the night,
      The hair of the hours was not white
    Nor the raiment of time overworn,
      When a wonder, a world's delight,
    A perilous goddess was born,
      And the waves of the sea as she came
    Clove, and the foam at her feet,
        Fawning, rejoiced to bring forth
      A fleshly blossom, a flame
    Filling the heavens with heat
        To the cold white ends of the north.

    And in air the clamorous birds,
      And men upon earth that hear
    Sweet articulate words
        Sweetly divided apart,
      And in shallow and channel and mere
    The rapid and footless herds,
        Rejoiced, being foolish of heart.

    For all they said upon earth,
      She is fair, she is white like a dove,
        And the life of the world in her breath
    Breathes, and is born at her birth;
      For they knew thee for mother of love,
        And knew thee not mother of death.

    What hadst thou to do being born,
      Mother, when winds were at ease,
    As a flower of the springtime of corn,
      A flower of the foam of the seas?
    For bitter thou wast from thy birth,
      Aphrodite, a mother of strife;
    For before thee some rest was on earth,
        A little respite from tears,
      A little pleasure of life;
    For life was not then as thou art,
        But as one that waxeth in years
      Sweet-spoken, a fruitful wife;
        Earth had no thorn, and desire
    No sting, neither death any dart;
      What hadst thou to do amongst these,
        Thou, clothed with a burning fire,
    Thou, girt with sorrow of heart,
      Thou, sprung of the seed of the seas
    As an ear from a seed of corn,
        As a brand plucked forth of a pyre,
    As a ray shed forth of the morn,
      For division of soul and disease,
    For a dart and a sting and a thorn?
    What ailed thee then to be born?

    Was there not evil enough,
      Mother, and anguish on earth
      Born with a man at his birth,
    Wastes underfoot, and above
      Storm out of heaven, and dearth
    Shaken down from the shining thereof,
        Wrecks from afar overseas
      And peril of shallow and firth,
        And tears that spring and increase
      In the barren places of mirth,
    That thou, having wings as a dove,
      Being girt with desire for a girth,
        That thou must come after these,
    That thou must lay on him love?

    Thou shouldst not so have been born:
      But death should have risen with thee,
        Mother, and visible fear,
          Grief, and the wringing of hands,
    And noise of many that mourn;
      The smitten bosom, the knee
        Bowed, and in each man's ear
        A cry as of perishing lands,
    A moan as of people in prison,
      A tumult of infinite griefs;
          And thunder of storm on the sands,
        And wailing of wives on the shore;
    And under thee newly arisen
      Loud shoals and shipwrecking reefs,
          Fierce air and violent light,
        Sail rent and sundering oar,
          Darkness; and noises of night;
    Clashing of streams in the sea,
      Wave against wave as a sword,
        Clamour of currents, and foam,
          Rains making ruin on earth,
        Winds that wax ravenous and roam
      As wolves in a wolfish horde;
    Fruits growing faint in the tree,
          And blind things dead in their birth
        Famine, and blighting of corn,
        When thy time was come to be born.

    All these we know of; but thee
      Who shall discern or declare?
    In the uttermost ends of the sea
        The light of thine eyelids and hair.
          The light of thy bosom as fire
          Between the wheel of the sun
      And the flying flames of the air?
        Wilt thou turn thee not yet nor have pity,
    But abide with despair and desire
      And the crying of armies undone,
          Lamentation of one with another
        And breaking of city by city;
      The dividing of friend against friend,
          The severing of brother and brother;
      Wilt thou utterly bring to an end?
          Have mercy, mother!

    For against all men from of old
      Thou hast set thine hand as a curse,
        And cast out gods from their places.
          These things are spoken of thee.
    Strong kings and goodly with gold
      Thou hast found out arrows to pierce,
        And made their kingdoms and races
          As dust and surf of the sea.
    All these, overburdened with woes
      And with length of their days waxen weak,
        Thou slewest; and sentest moreover
          Upon Tyro an evil thing,
    Rent hair and a fetter and blows
      Making bloody the flower of the cheek,
        Though she lay by a god as a lover,
          Though fair, and the seed of a king.
    For of old, being full of thy fire,
      She endured not longer to wear
        On her bosom a saffron vest,
          On her shoulder an ashwood quiver;
    Being mixed and made one through desire
      With Enipeus, and all her hair
        Made moist with his mouth, and her breast
          Filled full of the foam of the river.

ATALANTA

  Sun, and clear light among green hills, and day
  Late risen and long sought after, and you just gods
  Whose hands divide anguish and recompense,
  But first the sun's white sister, a maid in heaven,
  On earth of all maids worshipped—hail, and hear,
  And witness with me if not without sign sent,
  Not without rule and reverence, I a maid
  Hallowed, and huntress holy as whom I serve,
  Here in your sight and eyeshot of these men
  Stand, girt as they toward hunting, and my shafts
  Drawn; wherefore all ye stand up on my side,
  If I be pure and all ye righteous gods,
  Lest one revile me, a woman, yet no wife,
  That bear a spear for spindle, and this bow strung
  For a web woven; and with pure lips salute
  Heaven, and the face of all the gods, and dawn
  Filling with maiden flames and maiden flowers
  The starless fold o' the stars, and making sweet
  The warm wan heights of the air, moon-trodden ways
  And breathless gates and extreme hills of heaven.
  Whom, having offered water and bloodless gifts,
  Flowers, and a golden circlet of pure hair,
  Next Artemis I bid be favourable
  And make this day all golden, hers and ours,
  Gracious and good and white to the unblamed end.
  But thou, O well-beloved, of all my days
  Bid it be fruitful, and a crown for all,
  To bring forth leaves and bind round all my hair
  With perfect chaplets woven for thine of thee.
  For not without the word of thy chaste mouth,
  For not without law given and clean command,
  Across the white straits of the running sea
  From Elis even to the Acheloïan horn,
  I with clear winds came hither and gentle gods,
  Far off my father's house, and left uncheered
  Iasius, and uncheered the Arcadian hills
  And all their green-haired waters, and all woods
  Disconsolate, to hear no horn of mine
  Blown, and behold no flash of swift white feet.

MELEAGER.

  For thy name's sake and awe toward thy chaste head,
  O holiest Atalanta, no man dares
  Praise thee, though fairer than whom all men praise,
  And godlike for thy grace of hallowed hair
  And holy habit of thine eyes, and feet
  That make the blown foam neither swift nor white
  Though the wind winnow and whirl it; yet we praise
  Gods, found because of thee adorable
  And for thy sake praiseworthiest from all men:
  Thee therefore we praise also, thee as these,
  Pure, and a light lit at the hands of gods.

TOXEUS.

  How long will ye whet spears with eloquence,
  Fight, and kill beasts dry-handed with sweet words?
  Cease, or talk still and slay thy boars at home.

PLEXIPPUS.

  Why, if she ride among us for a man,
  Sit thou for her and spin; a man grown girl
  Is worth a woman weaponed; sit thou here.

MELEAGER.

Peace, and be wise; no gods love idle speech.

PLEXIPPUS.

Nor any man a man's mouth woman-tongued.

MELEAGER.

For my lips bite not sharper than mine hands.

PLEXIPPUS.

Nay, both bite soft, but no whit softly mine.

MELEAGER.

Keep thine hands clean; they have time enough to stain.

PLEXIPPUS.

For thine shall rest and wax not red to-day.

MELEAGER.

Have all thy will of words; talk out thine heart.

ALTHAEA.

  Refrain your lips, O brethren, and my son,
  Lest words turn snakes and bite you uttering them.

TOXEUS.

  Except she give her blood before the gods,
  What profit shall a maid be among men?

PLEXIPPUS.

  Let her come crowned and stretch her throat for a knife,
  Bleat out her spirit and die, and so shall men
  Through her too prosper and through prosperous gods;
  But nowise through her living; shall she live
  A flower-bud of the flower-bed, or sweet fruit
  For kisses and the honey-making mouth,
  And play the shield for strong men and the spear?
  Then shall the heifer and her mate lock horns,
  And the bride overbear the groom, and men
  Gods, for no less division sunders these;
  Since all things made are seasonable in time,
  But if one alter unseasonable are all.
  But thou, O Zeus, hear me that I may slay
  This beast before thee and no man halve with me
  Nor woman, lest these mock thee, though a god,
  Who hast made men strong, and thou being wise be held
  Foolish; for wise is that thing which endures.

ATALANTA.

  Men, and the chosen of all this people, and thou,
  King, I beseech you a little bear with me.
  For if my life be shameful that I live,
  Let the gods witness and their wrath; but these
  Cast no such word against me. Thou, O mine,
  O holy, O happy goddess, if I sin
  Changing the words of women and the works
  For spears and strange men's faces, hast not thou
  One shaft of all thy sudden seven that pierced
  Seven through the bosom or shining throat or side,
  All couched about one mother's loosening knees,
  All holy born, engrafted of Tantalus?
  But if toward any of you I am overbold
  That take thus much upon me, let him think
  How I, for all my forest holiness,
  Fame, and this armed and iron maidenhood,
  Pay thus much also; I shall have no man's love
  For ever, and no face of children born
  Or feeding lips upon me or fastening eyes
  For ever, nor being dead shall kings my sons
  Mourn me and bury, and tears on daughters' cheeks
  Burn, but a cold and sacred life, but strange,
  But far from dances and the back-blowing torch,
  Far off from flowers or any bed of man,
  Shall my life be for ever: me the snows
  That face the first o' the morning, and cold hills
  Full of the land-wind and sea-travelling storms
  And many a wandering wing of noisy nights
  That know the thunder and hear the thickening wolves—
  Me the utmost pine and footless frost of woods
  That talk with many winds and gods, the hours
  Re-risen, and white divisions of the dawn,
  Springs thousand-tongued with the intermitting reed
  And streams that murmur of the mother snow—
  Me these allure, and know me; but no man
  Knows, and my goddess only. Lo now, see
  If one of all you these things vex at all.
  Would God that any of you had all the praise
  And I no manner of memory when I die,
  So might I show before her perfect eyes
  Pure, whom I follow, a maiden to my death.
  But for the rest let all have all they will;
  For is it a grief to you that I have part,
  Being woman merely, in your male might and deeds
  Done by main strength? yet in my body is throned
  As great a heart, and in my spirit, O men,
  I have not less of godlike. Evil it were
  That one a coward should mix with you, one hand
  Fearful, one eye abase itself; and these
  Well might ye hate and well revile, not me.
  For not the difference of the several flesh
  Being vile or noble or beautiful or base
  Makes praiseworthy, but purer spirit and heart
  Higher than these meaner mouths and limbs, that feed,
  Rise, rest, and are and are not; and for me,
  What should I say? but by the gods of the world
  And this my maiden body, by all oaths
  That bind the tongue of men and the evil will,
  I am not mighty-minded, nor desire
  Crowns, nor the spoil of slain things nor the fame;
  Feed ye on these, eat and wax fat, cry out,
  Laugh, having eaten, and leap without a lyre,
  Sing, mix the wind with clamour, smite and shake
  Sonorous timbrels and tumultuous hair,
  And fill the dance up with tempestuous feet,
  For I will none; but having prayed my prayers
  And made thank-offering for prosperities,
  I shall go hence and no man see me more.
  What thing is this for you to shout me down,
  What, for a man to grudge me this my life
  As it were envious of all yours, and I
  A thief of reputations? nay, for now,
  If there be any highest in heaven, a god
  Above all thrones and thunders of the gods
  Throned, and the wheel of the world roll under him,
  Judge he between me and all of you, and see
  It I transgress at all: but ye, refrain
  Transgressing hands and reinless mouths, and keep
  Silence, lest by much foam of violent words
  And proper poison of your lips ye die.

OENEUS.

  O flower of Tegea, maiden, fleetest foot
  And holiest head of women, have good cheer
  Of thy good words: but ye, depart with her
  In peace and reverence, each with blameless eye
  Following his fate; exalt your hands and hearts,
  Strike, cease not, arrow on arrow and wound on wound,
  And go with gods and with the gods return.

CHORUS.

  Who hath given man speech? or who hath set therein
  A thorn for peril and a snare for sin?
  For in the word his life is and his breath,
    And in the word his death,
  That madness and the infatuate heart may breed
    From the word's womb the deed
  And life bring one thing forth ere all pass by,
  Even one thing which is ours yet cannot die—
  Death. Hast thou seen him ever anywhere,
  Time's twin-born brother, imperishable as he
  Is perishable and plaintive, clothed with care
    And mutable as sand,
  But death is strong and full of blood and fair
  And perdurable and like a lord of land?
  Nay, time thou seest not, death thou wilt not see
  Till life's right hand be loosened from thine hand
    And thy life-days from thee.
  For the gods very subtly fashion
    Madness with sadness upon earth:
  Not knowing in any wise compassion,
    Nor holding pity of any worth;
  And many things they have given and taken,
    And wrought and ruined many things;
  The firm land have they loosed and shaken,
    And sealed the sea with all her springs;
  They have wearied time with heavy burdens
    And vexed the lips of life with breath:
  Set men to labour and given them guerdons,
    Death, and great darkness after death:
  Put moans into the bridal measure
    And on the bridal wools a stain,
  And circled pain about with pleasure,
    And girdled pleasure about with pain;
  And strewed one marriage-bed with tears and fire
  For extreme loathing and supreme desire.

  What shall be done with all these tears of ours?
    Shall they make watersprings in the fair heaven
  To bathe the brows of morning? or like flowers
  Be shed and shine before the starriest hours,
    Or made the raiment of the weeping Seven?
  Or rather, O our masters, shall they be
  Food for the famine of the grievous sea,
    A great well-head of lamentation
  Satiating the sad gods? or fall and flow
  Among the years and seasons to and fro,
    And wash their feet with tribulation
  And fill them full with grieving ere they go?
    Alas, our lords, and yet alas again,
  Seeing all your iron heaven is gilt as gold
    But all we smite thereat in vain,
  Smite the gates barred with groanings manifold,
    But all the floors are paven with our pain.
  Yea, and with weariness of lips and eyes,
  With breaking of the bosom, and with sighs,
    We labour, and are clad and fed with grief
  And filled with days we would not fain behold
  And nights we would not hear of, we wax old,
    All we wax old and wither like a leaf.
  We are outcast, strayed between bright sun and moon;
    Our light and darkness are as leaves of flowers,
  Black flowers and white, that perish; and the noon—
    As midnight, and the night as daylight hours.
    A little fruit a little while is ours,
      And the worm finds it soon.

  But up in heaven the high gods one by one
    Lay hands upon the draught that quickeneth,
  Fulfilled with all tears shed and all things done,
    And stir with soft imperishable breath
    The bubbling bitterness of life and death,
  And hold it to our lips and laugh; but they
  Preserve their lips from tasting night or day,
    Lest they too change and sleep, the fates that spun,
  The lips that made us and the hands that slay;
    Lest all these change, and heaven bow down to none,
  Change and be subject to the secular sway
    And terrene revolution of the sun.
  Therefore they thrust it from them, putting time away.

  I would the wine of time, made sharp and sweet
    With multitudinous days and nights and tears
    And many mixing savours of strange years,
  Were no more trodden of them under feet,
    Cast out and spilt about their holy places:
  That life were given them as a fruit to eat
  And death to drink as water; that the light
  Might ebb, drawn backward from their eyes, and night
    Hide for one hour the imperishable faces.
  That they might rise up sad in heaven, and know
  Sorrow and sleep, one paler than young snow,
    One cold as blight of dew and ruinous rain,
  Rise up and rest and suffer a little, and be
  Awhile as all things born with us and we,
    And grieve as men, and like slain men be slain.

  For now we know not of them; but one saith
    The gods are gracious, praising God; and one,
  When hast thou seen? or hast thou felt his breath
    Touch, nor consume thine eyelids as the sun,
  Nor fill thee to the lips with fiery death?
    None hath beheld him, none
  Seen above other gods and shapes of things,
  Swift without feet and flying without wings,
  Intolerable, not clad with death or life,
    Insatiable, not known of night or day,
  The lord of love and loathing and of strife
    Who gives a star and takes a sun away;
  Who shapes the soul, and makes her a barren wife
    To the earthly body and grievous growth of clay;
  Who turns the large limbs to a little flame
    And binds the great sea with a little sand;
  Who makes desire, and slays desire with shame;
    Who shakes the heaven as ashes in his hand;
  Who, seeing the light and shadow for the same,
    Bids day waste night as fire devours a brand,
  Smites without sword, and scourges without rod;
    The supreme evil, God.

  Yea, with thine hate, O God, thou hast covered us,
    One saith, and hidden our eyes away from sight,
  And made us transitory and hazardous,
    Light things and slight;
  Yet have men praised thee, saying, He hath made man thus,
    And he doeth right.
  Thou hast kissed us, and hast smitten; thou hast laid
  Upon us with thy left hand life, and said,
  Live: and again thou hast said, Yield up your breath,
  And with thy right hand laid upon us death.
  Thou hast sent us sleep, and stricken sleep with dreams,
    Saying, Joy is not, but love of joy shall be,
  Thou hast made sweet springs for all the pleasant streams,
    In the end thou hast made them bitter with the sea.
  Thou hast fed one rose with dust of many men;
    Thou hast marred one face with fire of many tears;
  Thou hast taken love, and given us sorrow again;
    With pain thou hast filled us full to the eyes and ears.
  Therefore because thou art strong, our father, and we
    Feeble; and thou art against us, and thine hand
  Constrains us in the shallows of the sea
    And breaks us at the limits of the land;
  Because thou hast bent thy lightnings as a bow,
    And loosed the hours like arrows; and let fall
  Sins and wild words and many a winged woe
    And wars among us, and one end of all;
  Because thou hast made the thunder, and thy feet
    Are as a rushing water when the skies
  Break, but thy face as an exceeding heat
    And flames of fire the eyelids of thine eyes;
  Because thou art over all who are over us;
    Because thy name is life and our name death;
  Because thou art cruel and men are piteous,
    And our hands labour and thine hand scattereth;
  Lo, with hearts rent and knees made tremulous,
    Lo, with ephemeral lips and casual breath,
      At least we witness of thee ere we die
  That these things are not otherwise, but thus;
    That each man in his heart sigheth, and saith,
      That all men even as I,
  All we are against thee, against thee, O God most high,
    But ye, keep ye on earth
    Your lips from over-speech,
  Loud words and longing are so little worth;
    And the end is hard to reach.
  For silence after grievous things is good,
    And reverence, and the fear that makes men whole,
  And shame, and righteous governance of blood,
    And lordship of the soul.
  But from sharp words and wits men pluck no fruit,
  And gathering thorns they shake the tree at root;
  For words divide and rend;
  But silence is most noble till the end.

ALTHAEA.

  I heard within the house a cry of news
  And came forth eastward hither, where the dawn,
  Cheers first these warder gods that face the sun
  And next our eyes unrisen; for unaware
  Came clashes of swift hoofs and trampling feet
  And through the windy pillared corridor
  Light sharper than the frequent flames of day
  That daily fill it from the fiery dawn;
  Gleams, and a thunder of people that cried out,
  And dust and hurrying horsemen; lo their chief,
  That rode with Oeneus rein by rein, returned.
  What cheer, O herald of my lord the king?

HERALD.

  Lady, good cheer and great; the boar is slain.
  CHORUS.

Praised be all gods that look toward Calydon.

ALTHAEA.

Good news and brief; but by whose happier hand?

HERALD.

A maiden's and a prophet's and thy son's.

ALTHAEA.

Well fare the spear that severed him and life.

HERALD.

Thine own, and not an alien, hast thou blest

ALTHAEA.

Twice be thou too for my sake blest and his.

HERALD.

At the king's word I rode afoam for thine.

ALTHAEA.

Thou sayest he tarrieth till they bring the spoil?

HERALD.

Hard by the quarry, where they breathe, O queen.

ALTHAEA.

  Speak thou their chance; but some bring flowers and crown
  These gods and all the lintel, and shed wine,
  Fetch sacrifice and slay, for heaven is good.

HERALD.

  Some furlongs northward where the brakes begin
  West of that narrowing range of warrior hills
  Whose brooks have bled with battle when thy son
  Smote Acarnania, there all they made halt,
  And with keen eye took note of spear and hound,
  Royally ranked; Laertes island-born,
  The young Gerenian Nestor, Panopeus,
  And Cepheus and Ancaeus, mightiest thewed,
  Arcadians; next, and evil-eyed of these,
  Arcadian Atalanta, with twain hounds
  Lengthening the leash, and under nose and brow
  Glittering with lipless tooth and fire-swift eye;
  But from her white braced shoulder the plumed shafts
  Rang, and the bow shone from her side; next her
  Meleager, like a sun in spring that strikes
  Branch into leaf and bloom into the world,
  A glory among men meaner; Iphicles,
  And following him that slew the biform bull
  Pirithous, and divine Eurytion,
  And, bride-bound to the gods, Aeacides.
  Then Telamon his brother, and Argive-born
  The seer and sayer of visions and of truth,
  Amphiaraus; and a four-fold strength,
  Thine, even thy mother's and thy sister's sons.
  And recent from the roar of foreign foam
  Jason, and Dryas twin-begot with war,
  A blossom of bright battle, sword and man
  Shining; and Idas, and the keenest eye
  Of Lynceus, and Admetus twice-espoused,
  And Hippasus and Hyleus, great in heart.
  These having halted bade blow horns, and rode
  Through woods and waste lands cleft by stormy streams,
  Past yew-trees and the heavy hair of pines,
  And where the dew is thickest under oaks,
  This way and that; but questing up and down
  They saw no trail nor scented; and one said,
  Plexippus, Help, or help not, Artemis,
  And we will flay thy boarskin with male hands;
  But saying, he ceased and said not that he would,
  Seeing where the green ooze of a sun-struck marsh
  Shook with a thousand reeds untunable,
  And in their moist and multitudinous flower
  Slept no soft sleep, with violent visions fed,
  The blind bulk of the immeasurable beast.
  And seeing, he shuddered with sharp lust of praise
  Through all his limbs, and launched a double dart,
  And missed; for much desire divided him,
  Too hot of spirit and feebler than his will,
  That his hand failed, though fervent; and the shaft,
  Sundering the rushes, in a tamarisk stem
  Shook, and stuck fast; then all abode save one,
  The Arcadian Atalanta; from her side
  Sprang her hounds, labouring at the leash, and slipped,
  And plashed ear-deep with plunging feet; but she
  Saying, Speed it as I send it for thy sake,
  Goddess, drew bow and loosed, the sudden string
  Rang, and sprang inward, and the waterish air
  Hissed, and the moist plumes of the songless reeds
  Moved as a wave which the wind moves no more.
  But the boar heaved half out of ooze and slime
  His tense flank trembling round the barbed wound,
  Hateful, and fiery with invasive eyes
  And bristling with intolerable hair
  Plunged, and the hounds clung, and green flowers and white
  Reddened and broke all round them where they came.
  And charging with sheer tusk he drove, and smote
  Hyleus; and sharp death caught his sudden soul,
  And violent sleep shed night upon his eyes.
  Then Peleus, with strong strain of hand and heart,
  Shot; but the sidelong arrow slid, and slew
  His comrade born and loving countryman,
  Under the left arm smitten, as he no less
  Poised a like arrow; and bright blood brake afoam,
  And falling, and weighed back by clamorous arms,
  Sharp rang the dead limbs of Eurytion.
  Then one shot happier; the Cadmean seer,
  Amphiaraus; for his sacred shaft
  Pierced the red circlet of one ravening eye
  Beneath the brute brows of the sanguine boar,
  Now bloodier from one slain; but he so galled
  Sprang straight, and rearing cried no lesser cry
  Than thunder and the roar of wintering streams
  That mix their own foam with the yellower sea;
  And as a tower that falls by fire in fight
  With ruin of walls and all its archery,
  And breaks the iron flower of war beneath,
  Crushing charred limbs and molten arms of men;
  So through crushed branches and the reddening brake
  Clamoured and crashed the fervour of his feet,
  And trampled, springing sideways from the tusk,
  Too tardy a moving mould of heavy strength,
  Ancaeus; and as flakes of weak-winged snow
  Break, all the hard thews of his heaving limbs
  Broke, and rent flesh fell every way, and blood
  Flew, and fierce fragments of no more a man.
  Then all the heroes drew sharp breath, and gazed,
  And smote not; but Meleager, but thy son,
  Right in the wild way of the coming curse
  Rock-rooted, fair with fierce and fastened lips,
  Clear eyes, and springing muscle and shortening limb—
  With chin aslant indrawn to a tightening throat,
  Grave, and with gathered sinews, like a god,—
  Aimed on the left side his well-handled spear
  Grasped where the ash was knottiest hewn, and smote,
  And with no missile wound, the monstrous boar
  Right in the hairiest hollow of his hide
  Under the last rib, sheer through bulk and bone,
  Peep in; and deeply smitten, and to death,
  The heavy horror with his hanging shafts
  Leapt, and fell furiously, and from raging lips
  Foamed out the latest wrath of all his life.
  And all they praised the gods with mightier heart,
  Zeus and all gods, but chiefliest Artemis,
  Seeing; but Meleager bade whet knives and flay,
  Strip and stretch out the splendour of the spoil;
  And hot and horrid from the work all these
  Sat, and drew breath and drank and made great cheer
  And washed the hard sweat off their calmer brows.
  For much sweet grass grew higher than grew the reed,
  And good for slumber, and every holier herb,
  Narcissus, and the low-lying melilote,
  And all of goodliest blade and bloom that springs
  Where, hid by heavier hyacinth, violet buds
  Blossom and burn; and fire of yellower flowers
  And light of crescent lilies, and such leaves
  As fear the Faun's and know the Dryad's foot;
  Olive and ivy and poplar dedicate,
  And many a well-spring overwatched of these.
  There now they rest; but me the king bade bear
  Good tidings to rejoice this town and thee.
  Wherefore be glad, and all ye give much thanks,
  For fallen is all the trouble of Calydon.

ALTHAEA.

  Laud ye the gods; for this they have given is good,
  And what shall be they hide until their time.
  Much good and somewhat grievous hast thou said,
  And either well; but let all sad things be,
  Till all have made before the prosperous gods
  Burnt-offering, and poured out the floral wine.
  Look fair, O gods, and favourable; for we
  Praise you with no false heart or flattering mouth,
  Being merciful, but with pure souls and prayer.

HERALD.

  Thou hast prayed well; for whoso fears not these,
  But once being prosperous waxes huge of heart,
  Him shall some new thing unaware destroy.

CHORUS.

  O that I now, I too were
  By deep wells and water-floods,
  Streams of ancient hills; and where
  All the wan green places bear
  Blossoms cleaving to the sod,
  Fruitless fruit, and grasses fair,
  Or such darkest ivy-buds
  As divide thy yellow hair,
  Bacchus, and their leaves that nod
  Round thy fawnskin brush the bare
  Snow-soft shoulders of a god;
  There the year is sweet, and there
  Earth is full of secret springs,
  And the fervent rose-cheeked hours,
  Those that marry dawn and noon,
  There are sunless, there look pale
  In dim leaves and hidden air,
  Pale as grass or latter flowers
  Or the wild vine's wan wet rings
  Full of dew beneath the moon,
  And all day the nightingale
  Sleeps, and all night sings;
  There in cold remote recesses
  That nor alien eyes assail,
  Feet, nor imminence of wings,
  Nor a wind nor any tune,
  Thou, O queen and holiest,
  Flower the whitest of all things,
  With reluctant lengthening tresses
  And with sudden splendid breast
  Save of maidens unbeholden,
  There art wont to enter, there
  Thy divine swift limbs and golden.
  Maiden growth of unbound hair,
  Bathed in waters white,
  Shine, and many a maid's by thee
  In moist woodland or the hilly
  Flowerless brakes where wells abound
  Out of all men's sight;
  Or in lower pools that see
  All their marges clothed all round
  With the innumerable lily,
  Whence the golden-girdled bee
  Flits through flowering rush to fret
  White or duskier violet,
  Fair as those that in far years
  With their buds left luminous
  And their little leaves made wet
  From the warmer dew of tears,
  Mother's tears in extreme need,
  Hid the limbs of Iamus,
  Of thy brother's seed;
  For his heart was piteous
  Toward him, even as thine heart now
  Pitiful toward us;
  Thine, O goddess, turning hither
  A benignant blameless brow;
  Seeing enough of evil done
  And lives withered as leaves wither
  In the blasting of the sun;
  Seeing enough of hunters dead,
  Ruin enough of all our year,
  Herds and harvests slain and shed,
  Herdsmen stricken many an one,
  Fruits and flocks consumed together,
  And great length of deadly days.
  Yet with reverent lips and fear
  Turn we toward thee, turn and praise
  For this lightening of clear weather
  And prosperities begun.
  For not seldom, when all air
  As bright water without breath
  Shines, and when men fear not, fate
  Without thunder unaware
  Breaks, and brings down death.
  Joy with grief ye great gods give,
  Good with bad, and overbear
  All the pride of us that live,
  All the high estate,
  As ye long since overbore,
  As in old time long before,
  Many a strong man and a great,
  All that were.
  But do thou, sweet, otherwise,
  Having heed of all our prayer,
  Taking note of all our sighs;
  We beseech thee by thy light,
  By thy bow, and thy sweet eyes,
  And the kingdom of the night,
  Be thou favourable and fair;
  By thine arrows and thy might
  And Orion overthrown;
  By the maiden thy delight,
  By the indissoluble zone
  And the sacred hair.

MESSENGER.

  Maidens, if ye will sing now, shift your song,
  Bow down, cry, wail for pity; is this a time
  For singing? nay, for strewing of dust and ash,
  Rent raiment, and for bruising of the breast.

CHORUS.

  What new thing wolf-like lurks behind thy words?
  What snake's tongue in thy lips? what fire in the eyes?

MESSENGER.

Bring me before the queen and I will speak.

CHORUS.

Lo, she comes forth as from thank-offering made.

MESSENGER.

A barren offering for a bitter gift.

ALTHAEA.

  What are these borne on branches, and the face
  Covered? no mean men living, but now slain
  Such honour have they, if any dwell with death.

MESSENGER.

Queen, thy twain brethren and thy mother's sons.

ALTHAEA.

  Lay down your dead till I behold their blood
  If it be mine indeed, and I will weep.

MESSENGER,

Weep if thou wilt, for these men shall no more.

ALTHAEA.

  O brethren, O my father's sons, of me
  Well loved and well reputed, I should weep
  Tears dearer than the dear blood drawn from you
  But that I know you not uncomforted,
  Sleeping no shameful sleep, however slain,
  For my son surely hath avenged you dead.

MESSENGER.

Nay, should thine own seed slay himself, O queen?

ALTHAEA.

Thy double word brings forth a double death.

MESSENGER.

Know this then singly, by one hand they fell.

ALTHAEA.

What mutterest thou with thine ambiguous mouth?

MESSENGER.

Slain by thy son's hand; is that saying so hard?

ALTHAEA.

Our time is come upon us: it is here.

CHORUS.

O miserable, and spoiled at thine own hand.

ALTHAEA.

Wert thou not called Meleager from this womb?

CHORUS.

A grievous huntsman hath it bred to thee.

ALTHAEA.

Wert thou born fire, and shalt thou not devour?

CHORUS.

The fire thou madest, will it consume even thee?

ALTHAEA.

My dreams are fallen upon me; burn thou too.

CHORUS.

Not without God are visions born and die.

ALTHAEA.

The gods are many about me; I am one.

CHORUS

She groans as men wrestling with heavier gods.

ALTHAEA.

They rend me, they divide me, they destroy.

CHORUS.

Or one labouring in travail of strange births.

ALTHAEA.

They are strong, they are strong; I am broken, and these prevail.

CHORUS.

The god is great against her; she will die.

ALTHAEA.

  Yea, but not now; for my heart too is great.
  I would I were not here in sight of the sun.
  But thou, speak all thou sawest, and I will die.
  I would I were not here in sight of the sun.

MESSENGER.

  O queen, for queenlike hast thou borne thyself,
  A little word may hold so great mischance.
  For in division of the sanguine spoil
  These men thy brethren wrangling bade yield up
  The boar's head and the horror of the hide
  That this might stand a wonder in Calydon,
  Hallowed; and some drew toward them; but thy son
  With great hands grasping all that weight of hair
  Cast down the dead heap clanging and collapsed
  At female feet, saying This thy spoil not mine,
  Maiden, thine own hand for thyself hath reaped,
  And all this praise God gives thee: she thereat
  Laughed, as when dawn touches the sacred night
  The sky sees laugh and redden and divide
  Dim lips and eyelids virgin of the sun,
  Hers, and the warm slow breasts of morning heave,
  Fruitful, and flushed with flame from lamp-lit hours,
  And maiden undulation of clear hair
  Colour the clouds; so laughed she from pure heart
  Lit with a low blush to the braided hair,
  And rose-coloured and cold like very dawn,
  Golden and godlike, chastely with chaste lips,
  A faint grave laugh; and all they held their peace,
  And she passed by them. Then one cried Lo now,
  Shall not the Arcadian shoot out lips at us,
  Saying all we were despoiled by this one girl?
  And all they rode against her violently
  And cast the fresh crown from her hair, and now
  They had rent her spoil away, dishonouring her,
  Save that Meleager, as a tame lion chafed,
  Bore on them, broke them, and as fire cleaves wood
  So clove and drove them, smitten in twain; but she
  Smote not nor heaved up hand; and this man first,
  Plexippus, crying out This for love's sake, sweet,
  Drove at Meleager, who with spear straightening
  Pierced his cheek through; then Toxeus made for him,
  Dumb, but his spear spake; vain and violent words,
  Fruitless; for him too stricken through both sides
  The earth felt falling, and his horse's foam
  Blanched thy son's face, his slayer; and these being slain,
  None moved nor spake; but Oeneus bade bear hence
  These made of heaven infatuate in their deaths,
  Foolish; for these would baffle fate, and fell.
  And they passed on, and all men honoured her,
  Being honourable, as one revered of heaven.

ALTHAEA.

What say you, women? is all this not well done?

CHORUS.

No man doth well but God hath part in him.

ALTHAEA.

  But no part here; for these my brethren born
  Ye have no part in, these ye know not of
  As I that was their sister, a sacrifice
  Slain in their slaying. I would I had died for these,
  For this man dead walked with me, child by child,
  And made a weak staff for my feebler feet
  With his own tender wrist and hand, and held
  And led me softly and shewed me gold and steel
  And shining shapes of mirror and bright crown
  And all things fair; and threw light spears, and brought
  Young hounds to huddle at my feet and thrust
  Tame heads against my little maiden breasts
  And please me with great eyes; and those days went
  And these are bitter and I a barren queen
  And sister miserable, a grievous thing
  And mother of many curses; and she too,
  My sister Leda, sitting overseas
  With fair fruits round her, and her faultless lord,
  Shall curse me, saying A sorrow and not a son,
  Sister, thou barest, even a burning fire,
  A brand consuming thine own soul and me.
  But ye now, sons of Thestius, make good cheer,
  For ye shall have such wood to funeral fire
  As no king hath; and flame that once burnt down
  Oil shall not quicken or breath relume or wine
  Refresh again; much costlier than fine gold,
  And more than many lives of wandering men.

CHORUS.

  O queen, thou hast yet with thee love-worthy things,
  Thine husband, and the great strength of thy son.

ALTHAEA.

  Who shall get brothers for me while I live?
  Who bear them? who bring forth in lieu of these?
  Are not our fathers and our brethren one,
  And no man like them? are not mine here slain?
  Have we not hung together, he and I,
  Flowerwise feeding as the feeding bees,
  With mother-milk for honey? and this man too,
  Dead, with my son's spear thrust between his sides,
  Hath he not seen us, later born than he,
  Laugh with lips filled, and laughed again for love?
  There were no sons then in the world, nor spears,
  Nor deadly births of women; but the gods
  Allowed us, and our days were clear of these.
  I would I had died unwedded, and brought forth
  No swords to vex the world; for these that spake
  Sweet words long since and loved me will not speak
  Nor love nor look upon me; and all my life
  I shall not hear nor see them living men.
  But I too living, how shall I now live?
  What life shall this be with my son, to know
  What hath been and desire what will not be,
  Look for dead eyes and listen for dead lips,
  And kill mine own heart with remembering them,
  And with those eyes that see their slayer alive
  Weep, and wring hands that clasp him by the hand?
  How shall I bear my dreams of them, to hear
  False voices, feel the kisses of false mouths
  And footless sound of perished feet, and then
  Wake and hear only it may be their own hounds
  Whine masterless in miserable sleep,
  And see their boar-spears and their beds and seats
  And all the gear and housings of their lives
  And not the men? shall hounds and horses mourn,
  Pine with strange eyes, and prick up hungry ears,
  Famish and fail at heart for their dear lords,
  And I not heed at all? and those blind things
  Fall off from life for love's sake, and I live?
  Surely some death is better than some life,
  Better one death for him and these and me
  For if the gods had slain them it may be
  I had endured it; if they had fallen by war
  Or by the nets and knives of privy death
  And by hired hands while sleeping, this thing too
  I had set my soul to suffer; or this hunt,
  Had this dispatched them, under tusk or tooth
  Torn, sanguine, trodden, broken; for all deaths
  Or honourable or with facile feet avenged
  And hands of swift gods following, all save this,
  Are bearable; but not for their sweet land
  Fighting, but not a sacrifice, lo these
  Dead, for I had not then shed all mine heart
  Out at mine eyes: then either with good speed,
  Being just, I had slain their slayer atoningly,
  Or strewn with flowers their fire and on their tombs
  Hung crowns, and over them a song, and seen
  Their praise outflame their ashes: for all men,
  All maidens, had come thither, and from pure lips
  Shed songs upon them, from heroic eyes
  Tears; and their death had been a deathless life;
  But now, by no man hired nor alien sword,
  By their own kindred are they fallen, in peace,
  After much peril, friendless among friends,
  By hateful hands they loved; and how shall mine
  Touch these returning red and not from war,
  These fatal from the vintage of men's veins,
  Dead men my brethren? how shall these wash off
  No festal stains of undelightful wine,
  How mix the blood, my blood on them, with me,
  Holding mine hand? or how shall I say, son,
  That am no sister? but by night and day
  Shall we not sit and hate each other, and think
  Things hate-worthy? not live with shamefast eyes,
  Brow-beaten, treading soft with fearful feet,
  Each unupbraided, each without rebuke
  Convicted, and without a word reviled
  Each of another? and I shall let thee live
  And see thee strong and hear men for thy sake
  Praise me, but these thou wouldest not let live
  No man shall praise for ever? these shall lie
  Dead, unbeloved, unholpen, all through thee?
  Sweet were they toward me living, and mine heart
  Desired them, but was then well satisfied,
  That now is as men hungered; and these dead
  I shall want always to the day I die.
  For all things else and all men may renew;
  Yea, son for son the gods may give and take,
  But never a brother or sister any more.

CHORUS.

  Nay, for the son lies close about thine heart,
  Full of thy milk, warm from thy womb, and drains
  Life and the blood of life and all thy fruit,
  Eats thee and drinks thee as who breaks bread and eats,
  Treads wine and drinks, thyself, a sect of thee;
  And if he feed not, shall not thy flesh faint?
  Or drink not, are not thy lips dead for thirst?
  This thing moves more than all things, even thy son,
  That thou cleave to him; and he shall honour thee,
  Thy womb that bare him and the breasts he knew,
  Reverencing most for thy sake all his gods.

ALTHAEA.

  But these the gods too gave me, and these my son,
  Not reverencing his gods nor mine own heart
  Nor the old sweet years nor all venerable things,
  But cruel, and in his ravin like a beast,
  Hath taken away to slay them: yea, and she,
  She the strange woman, she the flower, the sword,
  Red from spilt blood, a mortal flower to men,
  Adorable, detestable—even she
  Saw with strange eyes and with strange lips rejoiced,
  Seeing these mine own slain of mine own, and me
  Made miserable above all miseries made,
  A grief among all women in the world,
  A name to be washed out with all men's tears.

CHORUS.

  Strengthen thy spirit; is this not also a god,
  Chance, and the wheel of all necessities?
  Hard things have fallen upon us from harsh gods,
  Whom lest worse hap rebuke we not for these.

ALTHAEA.

  My spirit is strong against itself, and I
  For these things' sake cry out on mine own soul
  That it endures outrage, and dolorous days,
  And life, and this inexpiable impotence.
  Weak am I, weak and shameful; my breath drawn
  Shames me, and monstrous things and violent gods.
  What shall atone? what heal me? what bring back
  Strength to the foot, light to the face? what herb
  Assuage me? what restore me? what release?
  What strange thing eaten or drunken, O great gods.
  Make me as you or as the beasts that feed,
  Slay and divide and cherish their own hearts?
  For these ye show us; and we less than these
  Have not wherewith to live as all these things
  Which all their lives fare after their own kind
  As who doth well rejoicing; but we ill,
  Weeping or laughing, we whom eyesight fails,
  Knowledge and light efface and perfect heart,
  And hands we lack, and wit; and all our days
  Sin, and have hunger, and die infatuated.
  For madness have ye given us and not health,
  And sins whereof we know not; and for these
  Death, and sudden destruction unaware.
  What shall we say now? what thing comes of us?

CHORUS.

Alas, for all this all men undergo.

ALTHAEA.

  Wherefore I will not that these twain, O gods,
  Die as a dog dies, eaten of creeping things,
  Abominable, a loathing; but though dead
  Shall they have honour and such funereal flame
  As strews men's ashes in their enemies' face
  And blinds their eyes who hate them: lest men say,
  'Lo how they lie, and living had great kin,
  And none of these hath pity of them, and none
  Regards them lying, and none is wrung at heart,
  None moved in spirit for them, naked and slain,
  Abhorred, abased, and no tears comfort them:'
  And in the dark this grieve Eurythemis,
  Hearing how these her sons come down to her
  Unburied, unavenged, as kinless men,
  And had a queen their sister. That were shame
  Worse than this grief. Yet how to atone at all
  I know not, seeing the love of my born son,
  A new-made mother's new-born love, that grows
  From the soft child to the strong man, now soft
  Now strong as either, and still one sole same love,
  Strives with me, no light thing to strive withal;
  This love is deep, and natural to man's blood,
  And ineffaceable with many tears.
  Yet shall not these rebuke me though I die,
  Nor she in that waste world with all her dead,
  My mother, among the pale flocks fallen as leaves,
  Folds of dead people, and alien from the sun;
  Nor lack some bitter comfort, some poor praise,
  Being queen, to have borne her daughter like a queen,
  Righteous; and though mine own fire burn me too,
  She shall have honour and these her sons, though dead.
  But all the gods will, all they do, and we
  Not all we would, yet somewhat, and one choice
  We have, to live and do just deeds and die.

CHORUS.

  Terrible words she communes with, and turns
  Swift fiery eyes in doubt against herself,
  And murmurs as who talks in dreams with death.

ALTHAEA.

  For the unjust also dieth, and him all men
  Hate, and himself abhors the unrighteousness,
  And seeth his own dishonour intolerable.
  But I being just, doing right upon myself,
  Slay mine own soul, and no man born shames me.
  For none constrains nor shall rebuke, being done,
  What none compelled me doing, thus these things fare.
  Ah, ah, that such things should so fare, ah me,
  That I am found to do them and endure,
  Chosen and constrained to choose, and bear myself
  Mine own wound through mine own flesh to the heart
  Violently stricken, a spoiler and a spoil,
  A ruin ruinous, fallen on mine own son.
  Ah, ah, for me too as for these; alas,
  For that is done that shall be, and mine hand
  Full of the deed, and full of blood mine eyes,
  That shall see never nor touch anything
  Save blood unstanched and fire unquenchable.

CHORUS.

  What wilt thou do? what ails thee? for the house
  Shakes ruinously; wilt thou bring fire for it?

ALTHAEA.

  Fire in the roofs, and on the lintels fire.
  Lo ye, who stand and weave, between the doors,
  There; and blood drips from hand and thread, and stains
  Threshold and raiment and me passing in
  Flecked with the sudden sanguine drops of death.

CHORUS.

  Alas that time is stronger than strong men,
  Fate than all gods: and these are fallen on us.

ALTHAEA.

  A little since and I was glad; and now
  I never shall be glad or sad again.

CHORUS.

Between two joys a grief grows unaware.

ALTHAEA.

  A little while and I shall laugh; and then
  I shall weep never and laugh not any more.

CHORUS.

  What shall be said? for words are thorns to grief.
  Withhold thyself a little and fear the gods.

ALTHAEA.

  Fear died when these were slain; and I am as dead,
  And fear is of the living; these fear none.

CHORUS.

Have pity upon all people for their sake.

ALTHAEA.

It is done now, shall I put back my day?

CHORUS.

An end is come, an end; this is of God.

ALTHAEA.

I am fire, and burn myself, keep clear of fire.

CHORUS.

The house is broken, is broken; it shall not stand.

ALTHAEA.

  Woe, woe for him that breaketh; and a rod
  Smote it of old, and now the axe is here.

CHORUS.

    Not as with sundering of the earth
      Nor as with cleaving of the sea
    Nor fierce foreshadowings of a birth
      Nor flying dreams of death to be
    Nor loosening of the large world's girth
    And quickening of the body of night,
      And sound of thunder in men's ears
    And fire of lightning in men's sight,
      Fate, mother of desires and fears,
      Bore unto men the law of tears;
    But sudden, an unfathered flame,
      And broken out of night, she shone,
    She, without body, without name,
      In days forgotten and foregone;
    And heaven rang round her as she came
    Like smitten cymbals, and lay bare,
      Clouds and great stars, thunders and snows,
    The blue sad fields and folds of air,
      The life that breathes, the life that grows,
      All wind, all fire, that burns or blows,
    Even all these knew her: for she is great;
      The daughter of doom, the mother of death,
    The sister of sorrow; a lifelong weight
      That no man's finger lighteneth,
    Nor any god can lighten fate,
    A landmark seen across the way
      Where one race treads as the other trod;
    An evil sceptre, an evil stay,
      Wrought for a staff, wrought for a rod,
      The bitter jealousy of God.

    For death is deep as the sea,
      And fate as the waves thereof.
    Shall the waves take pity on thee
      Or the southwind offer thee love?
    Wilt thou take the night for thy day
      Or the darkness for light on thy way,
    Till thou say in thine heart Enough?
  Behold, thou art over fair, thou art over wise;
  The sweetness of spring in thine hair, and the light in thine eyes.
  The light of the spring in thine eyes, and the sound in thine ears;
  Yet thine heart shall wax heavy with sighs and thine eyelids with tears.
  Wilt thou cover thine hair with gold, and with silver thy feet?
  Hast thou taken the purple to fold thee, and made thy mouth sweet?
  Behold, when thy face is made bare, he that loved thee shall hate;
  Thy face shall be no more fair at the fall of thy fate.
  For thy life shall fall as a leaf and be shed as the rain;
  And the veil of thine head shall be grief: and the crown shall be pain.

ALTHAEA.

  Ho, ye that wail, and ye that sing, make way
  Till I be come among you. Hide your tears,
  Ye little weepers, and your laughing lips,
  Ye laughers for a little; lo mine eyes
  That outweep heaven at rainiest, and my mouth
  That laughs as gods laugh at us. Fate's are we,
  Yet fate is ours a breathing-space; yea, mine,
  Fate is made mine for ever; he is my son,
  My bedfellow, my brother. You strong gods,
  Give place unto me; I am as any of you,
  To give life and to take life. Thou, old earth,
  That hast made man and unmade; thou whose mouth
  Looks red from the eaten fruits of thine own womb;
  Behold me with what lips upon what food
  I feed and fill my body; even with flesh
  Made of my body. Lo, the fire I lit
  I burn with fire to quench it; yea, with flame
  I burn up even the dust and ash thereof.

CHORUS.

Woman, what fire is this thou burnest with?

ALTHAEA.

Yea to the bone, yea to the blood and all.

CHORUS.

For this thy face and hair are as one fire.

ALTHAEA.

A tongue that licks and beats upon the dust.

CHORUS.

And in thine eyes are hollow light and heat.

ALTHAEA.

Of flame not fed with hand or frankincense.

CHORUS.

I fear thee for the trembling of thine eyes.

ALTHAEA.

Neither with love they tremble nor for fear.

CHORUS.

And thy mouth shuddering like a shot bird.

ALTHAEA.

Not as the bride's mouth when man kisses it.

CHORUS.

Nay, but what thing is this thing thou hast done?

ALTHAEA.

Look, I am silent, speak your eyes for me.

CHORUS.

I see a faint fire lightening from the hall.

ALTHAEA.

Gaze, stretch your eyes, strain till the lids drop off.

CHORUS.

Flushed pillars down the flickering vestibule.

ALTHAEA.

Stretch with your necks like birds: cry, chirp as they.

CHORUS.

And a long brand that blackens: and white dust

ALTHAEA.

  O children, what is this ye see? your eyes
  Are blinder than night's face at fall of moon.
  That is my son, my flesh, my fruit of life,
  My travail, and the year's weight of my womb,
  Meleager, a fire enkindled of mine hands
  And of mine hands extinguished, this is he.

CHORUS.

O gods, what word has flown out at thy mouth?

ALTHAEA.

I did this and I say this and I die.

CHORUS.

  Death stands upon the doorway of thy lips,
  And in thy mouth has death set up his house.
  ALTHAEA.

  O death, a little, a little while, sweet death,
  Until I see the brand burnt down and die.

CHORUS.

  She reels as any reed under the wind,
  And cleaves unto the ground with staggering feet.

ALTHAEA.

  Girls, one thing will I say and hold my peace.
  I that did this will weep not nor cry out,
  Cry ye and weep: I will not call on gods,
  Call ye on them; I will not pity man,
  Shew ye your pity. I know not if I live;
  Save that I feel the fire upon my face
  And on my cheek the burning of a brand.
  Yea the smoke bites me, yea I drink the steam
  With nostril and with eyelid and with lip
  Insatiate and intolerant; and mine hands
  Burn, and fire feeds upon mine eyes; I reel
  As one made drunk with living, whence he draws
  Drunken delight; yet I, though mad for joy,
  Loathe my long living and am waxen red
  As with the shadow of shed blood; behold,
  I am kindled with the flames that fade in him,
  I am swollen with subsiding of his veins,
  I am flooded with his ebbing; my lit eyes
  Flame with the falling fire that leaves his lids
  Bloodless, my cheek is luminous with blood
  Because his face is ashen. Yet, O child,
  Son, first-born, fairest—O sweet mouth, sweet eyes,
  That drew my life out through my suckling breast,
  That shone and clove mine heart through—O soft knees
  Clinging, O tender treadings of soft feet,
  Cheeks warm with little kissings—O child, child,
  What have we made each other? Lo, I felt
  Thy weight cleave to me, a burden of beauty, O son,
  Thy cradled brows and loveliest loving lips,
  The floral hair, the little lightening eyes,
  And all thy goodly glory; with mine hands
  Delicately I fed thee, with my tongue
  Tenderly spake, saying, Verily in God's time,
  For all the little likeness of thy limbs,
  Son, I shall make thee a kingly man to fight,
  A lordly leader; and hear before I die,
  'She bore the goodliest sword of all the world.'
  Oh! oh! For all my life turns round on me;
  I am severed from myself, my name is gone,
  My name that was a healing, it is changed,
  My name is a consuming. From this time,
  Though mine eyes reach to the end of all these things,
  My lips shall not unfasten till I die.

SEMICHORUS.

    She has filled with sighing the city,
      And the ways thereof with tears;
    She arose, she girdled her sides,
    She set her face as a bride's;
    She wept, and she had no pity,
      Trembled, and felt no fears.

SEMICHORUS.

    Her eyes were clear as the sun,
      Her brows were fresh as the day;
    She girdled herself with gold,
    Her robes were manifold;
    But the days of her worship are done,
      Her praise is taken away.

SEMICHORUS.

    For she set her hand to the fire,
      With her mouth she kindled the same,
    As the mouth of a flute-player,
    So was the mouth of her;
    With the might of her strong desire
      She blew the breath of the flame.

SEMICHORUS.

    She set her hand to the wood,
      She took the fire in her hand;
    As one who is nigh to death,
    She panted with strange breath;
    She opened her lips unto blood,
      She breathed and kindled the brand.

SEMICHORUS.

    As a wood-dove newly shot,
      She sobbed and lifted her breast;
    She sighed and covered her eyes,
    Filling her lips with sighs;
    She sighed, she withdrew herself not,
      She refrained not, taking not rest;

SEMICHORUS.

    But as the wind which is drouth,
      And as the air which is death,
    As storm that severeth ships,
    Her breath severing her lips,
    The breath came forth of her mouth
      And the fire came forth of her breath.

SECOND MESSENGER.

  Queen, and you maidens, there is come on us
  A thing more deadly than the face of death;
  Meleager the good lord is as one slain.

SEMICHORUS.

    Without sword, without sword is he stricken;
      Slain, and slain without hand.

SECOND MESSENGER.

  For as keen ice divided of the sun
  His limbs divide, and as thawed snow the flesh
  Thaws from off all his body to the hair.

SEMICHORUS.

    He wastes as the embers quicken;
      With the brand he fades as a brand
  SECOND MESSENGER.

  Even while they sang and all drew hither and he
  Lifted both hands to crown the Arcadian's hair
  And fix the looser leaves, both hands fell down.

SEMICHORUS.

    With rending of cheek and of hair
      Lament ye, mourn for him, weep.

SECOND MESSENGER.

  Straightway the crown slid off and smote on earth,
  First fallen; and he, grasping his own hair, groaned
  And cast his raiment round his face and fell.

SEMICHORUS.

    Alas for visions that were,
      And soothsayings spoken in sleep.

SECOND MESSENGER.

  But the king twitched his reins in and leapt down
  And caught him, crying out twice 'O child' and thrice,
  So that men's eyelids thickened with their tears.

SEMICHORUS.

    Lament with a long lamentation,
      Cry, for an end is at hand.

SECOND MESSENGER.

  O son, he said, son, lift thine eyes, draw breath,
  Pity me; but Meleager with sharp lips
  Gasped, and his face waxed like as sunburnt grass.

SEMICHORUS.

    Cry aloud, O thou kingdom, O nation,
      O stricken, a ruinous land.

SECOND MESSENGER.

  Whereat king Oeneus, straightening feeble knees,
  With feeble hands heaved up a lessening weight,
  And laid him sadly in strange hands, and wept.

SEMICHORUS.

    Thou art smitten, her lord, her desire,
      Thy dear blood wasted as rain.

SECOND MESSENGER.

  And they with tears and rendings of the beard
  Bear hither a breathing body, wept upon
  And lightening at each footfall, sick to death.

SEMICHORUS.

    Thou madest thy sword as a fire,
      With fire for a sword thou art slain.

SECOND MESSENGER.

  And lo, the feast turned funeral, and the crowns
  Fallen; and the huntress and the hunter trapped;
  And weeping and changed faces and veiled hair.
  MELEAGER.

    Let your hands meet
      Round the weight of my head,
    Lift ye my feet
      As the feet of the dead;
  For the flesh of my body is molten,
            the limbs of it molten as lead.

CHORUS.

    O thy luminous face,
      Thine imperious eyes!
    O the grief, O the grace,
      As of day when it dies!
  Who is this bending over thee, lord,
            with tears and suppression of sighs?

MELEAGER.

    Is a bride so fair?
      Is a maid so meek?
    With unchapleted hair,
      With unfilleted cheek,
  Atalanta, the pure among women,
            whose name is as blessing to speak.

ATALANTA.

    I would that with feet
      Unsandaled, unshod,
    Overbold, overfleet,
      I had swum not nor trod
  From Arcadia to Calydon northward,
            a blast of the envy of God.

MELEAGER.

    Unto each man his fate;
      Unto each as he saith
    In whose fingers the weight
      Of the world is as breath;
  Yet I would that in clamour of battle mine hands
            had laid hold upon death.

CHORUS.

    Not with cleaving of shields
      And their clash in thine ear,
    When the lord of fought fields
      Breaketh spearshaft from spear,
  Thou art broken, our lord, thou art broken;
            with travail and labour and fear,

MELEAGER.

    Would God he had found me
      Beneath fresh boughs
    Would God he had bound me
      Unawares in mine house,
  With light in mine eyes, and songs in my lips,
            and a crown on my brows!

CHORUS.

    Whence art thou sent from us?
      Whither thy goal?
    How art thou rent from us,
      Thou that wert whole,
  As with severing of eyelids and eyes,
            as with sundering of body and soul!

MELEAGER.

    My heart is within me
      As an ash in the fire;
    Whosoever hath seen me,
      Without lute, without lyre,
  Shall sing of me grievous things,
            even things that were ill to desire.

CHORUS.

    Who shall raise thee
      From the house of the dead?
    Or what man praise thee
      That thy praise may be said?
  Alas thy beauty! alas thy body! alas thine head!

MELEAGER.

    But thou, O mother,
      The dreamer of dreams,
    Wilt thou bring forth another
      To feel the sun's beams
  When I move among shadows a shadow,
            and wail by impassable streams?

OENEUS.

    What thing wilt thou leave me
      Now this thing is done?
    A man wilt thou give me,
      A son for my son,
  For the light of mine eyes, the desire of my life,
            the desirable one?

CHORUS.

    Thou wert glad above others,
      Yea, fair beyond word,
    Thou wert glad among mothers;
      For each man that heard
  Of thee, praise there was added unto thee, as wings
            to the feet of a bird.

OENEUS.

    Who shall give back
      Thy face of old years,
    With travail made black,
      Grown grey among fears,
  Mother of sorrow, mother of cursing, mother of tears?

MELEAGER.

    Though thou art as fire
      Fed with fuel in vain,
    My delight, my desire,
      Is more chaste than the rain,
  More pure than the dewfall, more holy than stars
            are that live without stain.

ATALANTA.

    I would that as water
      My life's blood had thawn,
    Or as winter's wan daughter
      Leaves lowland and lawn
  Spring-stricken, or ever mine eyes had beheld thee
            made dark in thy dawn.

CHORUS.

    When thou dravest the men
      Of the chosen of Thrace,
    None turned him again
      Nor endured he thy face
  Clothed round with the blush of the battle,
            with light from a terrible place.

OENEUS.

    Thou shouldst die as he dies
      For whom none sheddeth tears;
    Filling thine eyes
      And fulfilling thine ears
  With the brilliance of battle, the bloom and the beauty,
            the splendour of spears.

CHORUS.

    In the ears of the world
      It is sung, it is told,
    And the light thereof hurled
      And the noise thereof rolled
  From the Acroceraunian snow to the ford
            of the fleece of gold.

MELEAGER.

    Would God ye could carry me
      Forth of all these;
    Heap sand and bury me
      By the Chersonese
  Where the thundering Bosphorus answers
            the thunder of Pontic seas.

OENEUS.

    Dost thou mock at our praise
      And the singing begun
    And the men of strange days
      Praising my son
  In the folds of the hills of home,
            high places of Calydon?

MELEAGER.

    For the dead man no home is;
      Ah, better to be
    What the flower of the foam is
      In fields of the sea,
  That the sea-waves might be as my raiment,
            the gulf-stream a garment for me.

CHORUS.

    Who shall seek thee and bring
      And restore thee thy day,
    When the dove dipt her wing
      And the oars won their way
  Where the narrowing Symplegades whitened the straits
            of Propontis with spray?

MELEAGER.

    Will ye crown me my tomb
      Or exalt me my name,
    Now my spirits consume,
      Now my flesh is a flame?
  Let the sea slake it once, and men speak of me sleeping
            to praise me or shame,

CHORUS.

    Turn back now, turn thee,
      As who turns him to wake;
    Though the life in thee burn thee,
      Couldst thou bathe it and slake
  Where the sea-ridge of Helle hangs heavier,
            and east upon west waters break?

MELEAGER.

    Would the winds blow me back
      Or the waves hurl me home?
    Ah, to touch in the track
      Where the pine learnt to roam
  Cold girdles and crowns of the sea-gods,
            cool blossoms of water and foam!

CHORUS.

    The gods may release
      That they made fast;
    Thy soul shall have ease
      In thy limbs at the last;
  But what shall they give thee for life,
            sweet life that is overpast?

MELEAGER.

    Not the life of men's veins,
      Not of flesh that conceives;
    But the grace that remains,
      The fair beauty that cleaves
  To the life of the rains in the grasses,
            the life of the dews on the leaves.

CHORUS.

    Thou wert helmsman and chief,
      Wilt thou turn in an hour,
    Thy limbs to the leaf,
      Thy face to the flower,
  Thy blood to the water, thy soul to the gods
            who divide and devour?

MELEAGER.

    The years are hungry,
      They wail all their days;
    The gods wax angry
      And weary of praise;
  And who shall bridle their lips?
            and who shall straiten their ways?

CHORUS.

    The gods guard over us
      With sword and with rod;
    Weaving shadow to cover us,
      Heaping the sod,
  That law may fulfil herself wholly,
            to darken man's face before God.

MELEAGER.

  O holy head of Oeneus, lo thy son
  Guiltless, yet red from alien guilt, yet foul
  With kinship of contaminated lives,
  Lo, for their blood I die; and mine own blood
  For bloodshedding of mine is mixed therewith,
  That death may not discern me from my kin.
  Yet with clean heart I die and faultless hand,
  Not shamefully; thou therefore of thy love
  Salute me, and bid fare among the dead
  Well, as the dead fare; for the best man dead
  Fares sadly; nathless I now faring well
  Pass without fear where nothing is to fear
  Having thy love about me and thy goodwill,
  O father, among dark places and men dead.

OENEUS.

  Child, I salute thee with sad heart and tears,
  And bid thee comfort, being a perfect man
  In fight, and honourable in the house of peace.
  The gods give thee fair wage and dues of death,
  And me brief days and ways to come at thee.

MELEAGER.

  Pray thou thy days be long before thy death,
  And full of ease and kingdom; seeing in death
  There is no comfort and none aftergrowth,
  Nor shall one thence look up and see day's dawn
  Nor light upon the land whither I go.
  Live thou and take thy fill of days and die
  When thy day comes; and make not much of death
  Lest ere thy day thou reap an evil thing.
  Thou too, the bitter mother and mother-plague
  Of this my weary body—thou too, queen,
  The source and end, the sower and the scythe,
  The rain that ripens and the drought that slays,
  The sand that swallows and the spring that feeds,
  To make me and unmake me—thou, I say,
  Althaea, since my father's ploughshare, drawn
  Through fatal seedland of a female field,
  Furrowed thy body, whence a wheaten ear
  Strong from the sun and fragrant from the rains
  I sprang and cleft the closure of thy womb,
  Mother, I dying with unforgetful tongue
  Hail thee as holy and worship thee as just
  Who art unjust and unholy; and with my knees
  Would worship, but thy fire and subtlety,
  Dissundering them, devour me; for these limbs
  Are as light dust and crumblings from mine urn
  Before the fire has touched them; and my face
  As a dead leaf or dead foot's mark on snow,
  And all this body a broken barren tree
  That was so strong, and all this flower of life
  Disbranched and desecrated miserably,
  And minished all that god-like muscle and might
  And lesser than a man's: for all my veins
  Fail me, and all mine ashen life burns down.
  I would thou hadst let me live; but gods averse,
  But fortune, and the fiery feet of change,
  And time, these would not, these tread out my life,
  These and not thou; me too thou hast loved, and I
  Thee; but this death was mixed with all my life,
  Mine end with my beginning: and this law,
  This only, slays me, and not my mother at all.
  And let no brother or sister grieve too sore,
  Nor melt their hearts out on me with their tears,
  Since extreme love and sorrowing overmuch
  Vex the great gods, and overloving men
  Slay and are slain for love's sake; and this house
  Shall bear much better children; why should these
  Weep? but in patience let them live their lives
  And mine pass by forgotten: thou alone,
  Mother, thou sole and only, thou not these,
  Keep me in mind a little when I die
  Because I was thy first-born; let thy soul
  Pity me, pity even me gone hence and dead,
  Though thou wert wroth, and though thou bear again
  Much happier sons, and all men later born
  Exceedingly excel me; yet do thou
  Forget not, nor think shame; I was thy son.
  Time was I did not shame thee, and time was
  I thought to live and make thee honourable
  With deeds as great as these men's; but they live,
  These, and I die; and what thing should have been
  Surely I know not; yet I charge thee, seeing
  I am dead already, love me not the less,
  Me, O my mother; I charge thee by these gods,
  My father's, and that holier breast of thine,
  By these that see me dying, and that which nursed,
  Love me not less, thy first-born: though grief come,
  Grief only, of me, and of all these great joy,
  And shall come always to thee; for thou knowest,
  O mother, O breasts that bare me, for ye know,
  O sweet head of my mother, sacred eyes,
  Ye know my soul albeit I sinned, ye know
  Albeit I kneel not neither touch thy knees,
  But with my lips I kneel, and with my heart
  I fall about thy feet and worship thee.
  And ye farewell now, all my friends; and ye,
  Kinsmen, much younger and glorious more than I,
  Sons of my mother's sister; and all farewell
  That were in Colchis with me, and bare down
  The waves and wars that met us: and though times
  Change, and though now I be not anything,
  Forget not me among you, what I did
  In my good time; for even by all those days,
  Those days and this, and your own living souls,
  And by the light and luck of you that live,
  And by this miserable spoil, and me
  Dying, I beseech you, let my name not die.
  But thou, dear, touch me with thy rose-like hands,
  And fasten up mine eyelids with thy mouth,
  A bitter kiss; and grasp me with thine arms,
  Printing with heavy lips my light waste flesh,
  Made light and thin by heavy-handed fate,
  And with thine holy maiden eyes drop dew,
  Drop tears for dew upon me who am dead,
  Me who have loved thee; seeing without sin done
  I am gone down to the empty weary house
  Where no flesh is nor beauty nor swift eyes
  Nor sound of mouth nor might of hands and feet,
  But thou, dear, hide my body with thy veil,
  And with thy raiment cover foot and head,
  And stretch thyself upon me and touch hands
  With hands and lips with lips: be pitiful
  As thou art maiden perfect; let no man
  Defile me to despise me, saying, This man
  Died woman-wise, a woman's offering, slain
  Through female fingers in his woof of life,
  Dishonourable; for thou hast honoured me.
  And now for God's sake kiss me once and twice
  And let me go; for the night gathers me,
  And in the night shall no man gather fruit.

ATALANTA.

  Hail thou: but I with heavy face and feet
  Turn homeward and am gone out of thine eyes.

CHORUS.

  Who shall contend with his lords
  Or cross them or do them wrong?
  Who shall bind them as with cords?
  Who shall tame them as with song?
  Who shall smite them as with swords?
  For the hands of their kingdom are strong.