The Project Gutenberg eBook ofErechtheus

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofErechtheusThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: ErechtheusAuthor: Algernon Charles SwinburneRelease date: June 11, 2006 [eBook #18550]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Thierry Alberto, Taavi Kalju and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERECHTHEUS ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: ErechtheusAuthor: Algernon Charles SwinburneRelease date: June 11, 2006 [eBook #18550]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Thierry Alberto, Taavi Kalju and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Title: Erechtheus

Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne

Release date: June 11, 2006 [eBook #18550]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Thierry Alberto, Taavi Kalju and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERECHTHEUS ***

ὦ ταὶ λιπαραὶ καὶ ἰοστέφανοι καὶ ἀοίδιμοιἙλλάδος ἔρεισμα, κλειναὶ Ἀθᾶναι δαιμόνιον πτολίεθρον.

Pind.Fr.47.

ΑΤ. τίς δὲ ποιμάνωρ ἔπεστι κἀπιδεσπόζει στρατοῦ;ΧΟ. οὔτινος δοῦλοι κέκληνται φωτὸς οὐδ' ὑπηκόοι.

Æsch.Pers.241-2.

ERECHTHEUS.CHORUS OF ATHENIAN ELDERS.PRAXITHEA.CHTHONIA.HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.MESSENGER.ATHENIAN HERALD.ATHENA.

Mother of life and death and all men's days,Earth, whom I chief of all men born would bless,And call thee with more loving lips than theirsMother, for of this very body of thineAnd living blood I have my breath and live,Behold me, even thy son, me crowned of men,Me made thy child by that strong cunning GodWho fashions fire and iron, who begatMe for a sword and beacon-fire on thee,10Me fosterling of Pallas, in her shadeReared, that I first might pay the nursing debt,Hallowing her fame with flower of third-year feasts,And first bow down the bridled strength of steedsTo lose the wild wont of their birth, and bearClasp of man's knees and steerage of his hand,Or fourfold service of his fire-swift wheelsThat whirl the four-yoked chariot; me the kingWho stand before thee naked now, and cry,O holy and general mother of all men born,20But mother most and motherliest of mine,Earth, for I ask thee rather of all the Gods,What have we done? what word mistimed or workHath winged the wild feet of this timeless curseTo fall as fire upon us? Lo, I standHere on this brow's crown of the city's headThat crowns its lovely body, till death's hourWaste it; but now the dew of dawn and birthIs fresh upon it from thy womb, and weBehold it born how beauteous; one day more30I see the world's wheel of the circling sunRoll up rejoicing to regard on earthThis one thing goodliest, fair as heaven or he,Worth a God's gaze or strife of Gods; but nowWould this day's ebb of their spent wave of strifeSweep it to sea, wash it on wreck, and leaveA costless thing contemned; and in our stead,Where these walls were and sounding streets of men,Make wide a waste for tongueless water-herdsAnd spoil of ravening fishes; that no more40Should men say, Here was Athens. This shalt thouSustain not, nor thy son endure to see,Nor thou to live and look on; for the wombBare me not base that bare me miserable,To hear this loud brood of the Thracian foamBreak its broad strength of billowy-beating warHere, and upon it as a blast of deathBlowing, the keen wrath of a fire-souled king,A strange growth grafted on our natural soil,A root of Thrace in Eleusinian earth50Set for no comfort to the kindly land,Son of the sea's lord and our first-born foe,Eumolpus; nothing sweet in ears of thineThe music of his making, nor a songToward hopes of ours auspicious; for the noteRings as for death oracular to thy sonsThat goes before him on the sea-wind blownFull of this charge laid on me, to put outThe brief light kindled of mine own child's life,Or with this helmsman hand that steers the state60Run right on the under shoal and ridge of deathThe populous ship with all its fraughtage goneAnd sails that were to take the wind of timeRent, and the tackling that should hold out fastIn confluent surge of loud calamitiesBroken, with spars of rudders and lost oarsThat were to row toward harbour and find restIn some most glorious haven of all the worldAnd else may never near it: such a songThe Gods have set his lips on fire withal70Who threatens now in all their names to bringRuin; but none of these, thou knowest, have IChid with my tongue or cursed at heart for grief,Knowing how the soul runs reinless on sheer deathWhose grief or joy takes part against the Gods.And what they will is more than our desire,And their desire is more than what we will.For no man's will and no desire of man'sShall stand as doth a God's will. Yet, O fairMother, that seest me how I cast no word80Against them, plead no reason, crave no cause,Boast me not blameless, nor beweep me wronged,By this fair wreath of towers we have decked thee with,This chaplet that we give thee woven of walls,This girdle of gate and temple and citadelDrawn round beneath thy bosom, and fast linkedAs to thine heart's root—this dear crown of thine,This present light, this city—be not thouSlow to take heed nor slack to strengthen her,Fare we so short-lived howsoe'er, and pay90What price we may to ransom thee thy town,Not me my life; but thou that diest not, thou,Though all our house die for this people's sake,Keep thou for ours thy crown our city, guardAnd give it life the lovelier that we died.

Sun, that hast lightened and loosed by thy mightOcean and Earth from the lordship of night,Quickening with vision his eye that was veiled,Freshening the force in her heart that had failed,That sister fettered and blinded brother100Should have sight by thy grace and delight of each other,Behold now and seeWhat profit is given them of thee;What wrath has enkindled with madness of mindHer limbs that were bounden, his face that was blind,To be locked as in wrestle together, and lightenWith fire that shall darken thy fire in the sky,Body to body and eye against eyeIn a war against kind,Till the bloom of her fields and her high hills whiten110With the foam of his waves more high.For the sea-marks set to divide of oldThe kingdoms to Ocean and Earth assigned,The hoar sea-fields from the cornfields' gold,His wine-bright waves from her vineyards' fold,Frail forces we findTo bridle the spirit of Gods or bindTill the heat of their hearts wax cold.But the peace that was stablished between them to standIs rent now in twain by the strength of his hand120Who stirs up the storm of his sons overboldTo pluck from fight what he lost of right,By council and judgment of Gods that spakeAnd gave great Pallas the strife's fair stake,The lordship and love of the lovely land,The grace of the town that hath on it for crownBut a headband to wearOf violets one-hued with her hair:For the vales and the green high places of earthHold nothing so fair,130And the depths of the sea bear no such birthOf the manifold births they bear.Too well, too well was the great stake worthA strife divine for the Gods to judge,A crowned God's triumph, a foiled God's grudge,Though the loser be strong and the victress wiseWho played long since for so large a prize,The fruitful immortal anointed adoredDear city of men without master or lord,Fair fortress and fostress of sons born free,140Who stand in her sight and in thine, O sun,Slaves of no man, subjects of none;A wonder enthroned on the hills and sea,A maiden crowned with a fourfold gloryThat none from the pride of her head may rend,Violet and olive-leaf purple and hoary,Song-wreath and story the fairest of fame,Flowers that the winter can blast not or bend;A light upon earth as the sun's own flame,A name as his name,150Athens, a praise without end.[Str.1.A noise is arisen against us of waters,A sound as of battle come up from the sea.Strange hunters are hard on us, hearts without pity;They have staked their nets round the fair young city,That the sons of her strength and her virgin daughtersShould find not whither alive to flee.[Ant.1.And we know not yet of the word unwritten,The doom of the Pythian we have not heard;From the navel of earth and the veiled mid altar160We wait for a token with hopes that falter,With fears that hang on our hearts thought-smittenLest her tongue be kindled with no good word.[Str.2.O thou not born of the womb, nor bredIn the bride-night's warmth of a changed God's bed,But thy life as a lightning was flashed from the light of thy father's head,O chief God's child by a motherless birth,If aught in thy sight we indeed be worth,Keep death from us thou, that art none of the Gods of the dead under earth.[Ant.2.Thou that hast power on us, save, if thou wilt;170Let the blind wave breach not thy wall scarce built;But bless us not so as by bloodshed, impute not for grace to us guilt,Nor by price of pollution of blood set us free;Let the hands be taintless that clasp thy knee,Nor a maiden be slain to redeem for a maiden her shrine from the sea.[Str.3.O earth, O sun, turn backFull on his deadly trackDeath, that would smite you black and mar your creatures,And with one hand disrootAll tender flower and fruit,180With one strike blind and mute the heaven's fair features,Pluck out the eyes of morn, and makeSilence in the east and blackness whence the bright songs break.[Ant.3.Help, earth, help, heaven, that hearThe song-notes of our fear,Shrewd notes and shrill, not clear or joyful-sounding;Hear, highest of Gods, and stayDeath on his hunter's way,Full on his forceless prey his beagles hounding;Break thou his bow, make short his hand,190Maim his fleet foot whose passage kills the living land.[Str.4.Let a third wave smite not us, father,Long since sore smitten of twain,Lest the house of thy son's son perishAnd his name be barren on earth.Whose race wilt thou comfort ratherIf none to thy son remain?Whose seed wilt thou choose to cherishIf his be cut off in the birth?[Ant.4.For the first fair graft of his graffing200Was rent from its maiden rootBy the strong swift hand of a loverWho fills the night with his breath;On the lip of the stream low-laughingHer green soft virginal shootWas plucked from the stream-side coverBy the grasp of a love like death.For a God's was the mouth that kissed her[Str.5.Who speaks, and the leaves lie dead,When winter awakes as at warning210To the sound of his foot from Thrace.Nor happier the bed of her sisterThough Love's self laid her abedBy a bridegroom beloved of the morningAnd fair as the dawn's own face.[Ant.5.For Procris, ensnared and ensnaringBy the fraud of a twofold wile,With the point of her own spear strickenBy the gift of her own hand fell.Oversubtle in doubts, overdaring220In deeds and devices of guile,And strong to quench as to quicken,O Love, have we named thee well?[Str.6.By thee was the spear's edge whettedThat laid her dead in the dew,In the moist green glens of the midlandBy her dear lord slain and thee.And him at the cliff's end frettedBy the grey keen waves, him too,Thine hand from the white-browed headland230Flung down for a spoil to the sea.[Ant.6.But enough now of griefs grey-growingHave darkened the house divine,Have flowered on its boughs and faded,And green is the brave stock yet.O father all-seeing and all-knowing,Let the last fruit fall not of thineFrom the tree with whose boughs we are shaded,From the stock that thy son's hand set.

[Str.1.A noise is arisen against us of waters,A sound as of battle come up from the sea.Strange hunters are hard on us, hearts without pity;They have staked their nets round the fair young city,That the sons of her strength and her virgin daughtersShould find not whither alive to flee.[Ant.1.And we know not yet of the word unwritten,The doom of the Pythian we have not heard;From the navel of earth and the veiled mid altar160We wait for a token with hopes that falter,With fears that hang on our hearts thought-smittenLest her tongue be kindled with no good word.[Str.2.O thou not born of the womb, nor bredIn the bride-night's warmth of a changed God's bed,But thy life as a lightning was flashed from the light of thy father's head,O chief God's child by a motherless birth,If aught in thy sight we indeed be worth,Keep death from us thou, that art none of the Gods of the dead under earth.[Ant.2.Thou that hast power on us, save, if thou wilt;170Let the blind wave breach not thy wall scarce built;But bless us not so as by bloodshed, impute not for grace to us guilt,Nor by price of pollution of blood set us free;Let the hands be taintless that clasp thy knee,Nor a maiden be slain to redeem for a maiden her shrine from the sea.[Str.3.O earth, O sun, turn backFull on his deadly trackDeath, that would smite you black and mar your creatures,And with one hand disrootAll tender flower and fruit,180With one strike blind and mute the heaven's fair features,Pluck out the eyes of morn, and makeSilence in the east and blackness whence the bright songs break.[Ant.3.Help, earth, help, heaven, that hearThe song-notes of our fear,Shrewd notes and shrill, not clear or joyful-sounding;Hear, highest of Gods, and stayDeath on his hunter's way,Full on his forceless prey his beagles hounding;Break thou his bow, make short his hand,190Maim his fleet foot whose passage kills the living land.[Str.4.Let a third wave smite not us, father,Long since sore smitten of twain,Lest the house of thy son's son perishAnd his name be barren on earth.Whose race wilt thou comfort ratherIf none to thy son remain?Whose seed wilt thou choose to cherishIf his be cut off in the birth?[Ant.4.For the first fair graft of his graffing200Was rent from its maiden rootBy the strong swift hand of a loverWho fills the night with his breath;On the lip of the stream low-laughingHer green soft virginal shootWas plucked from the stream-side coverBy the grasp of a love like death.For a God's was the mouth that kissed her[Str.5.Who speaks, and the leaves lie dead,When winter awakes as at warning210To the sound of his foot from Thrace.Nor happier the bed of her sisterThough Love's self laid her abedBy a bridegroom beloved of the morningAnd fair as the dawn's own face.[Ant.5.For Procris, ensnared and ensnaringBy the fraud of a twofold wile,With the point of her own spear strickenBy the gift of her own hand fell.Oversubtle in doubts, overdaring220In deeds and devices of guile,And strong to quench as to quicken,O Love, have we named thee well?[Str.6.By thee was the spear's edge whettedThat laid her dead in the dew,In the moist green glens of the midlandBy her dear lord slain and thee.And him at the cliff's end frettedBy the grey keen waves, him too,Thine hand from the white-browed headland230Flung down for a spoil to the sea.[Ant.6.But enough now of griefs grey-growingHave darkened the house divine,Have flowered on its boughs and faded,And green is the brave stock yet.O father all-seeing and all-knowing,Let the last fruit fall not of thineFrom the tree with whose boughs we are shaded,From the stock that thy son's hand set.

O daughter of Cephisus, from all time240Wise have I found thee, wife and queen, of heartPerfect; nor in the days that knew not windNor days when storm blew death upon our peaceWas thine heart swoln with seed of pride, or bowedWith blasts of bitter fear that break men's soulsWho lift too high their minds toward heaven, in thoughtToo godlike grown for worship; but of moodEqual, in good time reverent of time bad,And glad in ill days of the good that were.Nor now too would I fear thee, now misdoubt250Lest fate should find thee lesser than thy doom,Chosen if thou be to bear and to be greatHaply beyond all women; and the wordSpeaks thee divine, dear queen, that speaks thee dead,Dead being alive, or quick and dead in oneShall not men call thee living? yet I fearTo slay thee timeless with my proper tongue,With lips, thou knowest, that love thee; and such workWas never laid of Gods on men, such wordNo mouth of man learnt ever, as from mine260Most loth to speak thine ear most loth shall takeAnd hold it hateful as the grave to hear.

That word there is not in all speech of man,King, that being spoken of the Gods and theeI have not heart to honour, or dare holdMore than I hold thee or the Gods in hateHearing; but if my heart abhor it heardBeing insubmissive, hold me not thy wifeBut use me like a stranger, whom thine handHath fed by chance and finding thence no thanks270Flung off for shame's sake to forgetfulness.

O, of what breath shall such a word be made,Or from what heart find utterance? Would my tongueWere rent forth rather from the quivering rootThan made as fire or poison thus for thee.

But if thou speak of blood, and I that hearBe chosen of all for this land's love to dieAnd save to thee thy city, know this well,Happiest I hold me of her seed alive.

O sun that seest, what saying was this of thine,280God, that thy power has breathed into my lips?For from no sunlit shrine darkling it came.

What portent from the mid oracular placeHath smitten thee so like a curse that fliesWingless, to waste men with its plagues? yet speak.

Thy blood the Gods require not; take this first.

To me than thee more grievous this should sound.

That word rang truer and bitterer than it knew.

This is not then thy grief, to see me die?

Die shalt thou not, yet give thy blood to death.

290If this ring worse I know not; strange it rang.

Alas, thou knowest not; woe is me that know.

And woe shall mine be, knowing; yet halt not here.

Guiltless of blood this state may stand no more.

Firm let it stand whatever bleed or fall.

O Gods, that I should say it shall and weep.

Weep, and say this? no tears should bathe such words.

Woe's me that I must weep upon them, woe.

What stain is on them for thy tears to cleanse?

A stain of blood unpurgeable with tears.

300Whence? for thou sayest it is and is not mine.

Hear then and know why only of all men IThat bring such news as mine is, I aloneMust wash good words with weeping; I and thou,Woman, must wail to hear men sing, must groanTo see their joy who love us; all our friendsSave only we, and all save we that loveThis holiness of Athens, in our sightShall lift their hearts up, in our hearing praiseGods whom we may not; for to these they give310Life of their children, flower of all their seed,For all their travail fruit, for all their hopesHarvest; but we for all our good things, weHave at their hands which fill all these folk fullDeath, barrenness, child-slaughter, curses, cares,Sea-leaguer and land-shipwreck; which of these,Which wilt thou first give thanks for? all are thine.

What first they give who give this city good,For that first given to save it I give thanksFirst, and thanks heartier from a happier tongue,320More than for any my peculiar graceShown me and not my country; next for this,That none of all these but for all these IMust bear my burden, and no eye but mineWeep of all women's in this broad land bornWho see their land's deliverance; but much more,But most for this I thank them most of all,That this their edge of doom is chosen to pierceMy heart and not my country's; for the swordDrawn to smite there and sharpened for such stroke330Should wound more deep than any turned on me.

Well fares the land that bears such fruit, and wellThe spirit that breeds such thought and speech in man.

O woman, thou hast shamed my heart with thine,To show so strong a patience; take then all;For all shall break not nor bring down thy soul.The word that journeying to the bright God's shrineWho speaks askance and darkling, but his nameHath in it slaying and ruin broad writ out,I heard, hear thou: thus saith he; There shall die340One soul for all this people; from thy wombCame forth the seed that here on dry bare groundDeath's hand must sow untimely, to bring forthNor blade nor shoot in season, being by nameTo the under Gods made holy, who requireFor this land's life her death and maiden bloodTo save a maiden city. Thus I heard,And thus with all said leave thee; for save thisNo word is left us, and no hope alive.

[Str.He hath uttered too surely his wrath not obscurely, nor wrapt as in mists of his breath,350The master that lightens not hearts he enlightens, but gives them foreknowledge of death.As a bolt from the cloud hath he sent it aloud and proclaimed it afar,From the darkness and height of the horror of night hath he shown us a star.Star may I name it and err not, or flame shall I say,Born of the womb that was born for the tomb of the day?[Ant.O Night, whom other but thee for mother, and Death for the father, Night,Shall we dream to discover, save thee and thy lover, to bring such a sorrow to sight?From the slumberless bed for thy bedfellow spread and his bride under earthHast thou brought forth a wild and insatiable child, an unbearable birth.Fierce are the fangs of his wrath, and the pangs that they give;360None is there, none that may bear them, not one that would live.

Forth of the fine-spun folds of veils that hideMy virgin chamber toward the full-faced sunI set my foot not moved of mine own will,Unmaidenlike, nor with unprompted speedTurn eyes too broad or doglike unabashedOn reverend heads of men and thence on thine,Mother, now covered from the light and bowedAs hers who mourns her brethren; but what griefBends thy blind head thus earthward, holds thus mute,370I know not till thy will be to lift upToward mine thy sorrow-muffled eyes and speak;And till thy will be would I know this not.

Old men and childless, or if sons ye have seenAnd daughters, elder-born were these than mine,Look on this child, how young of years, how sweet,How scant of time and green of age her lifePuts forth its flower of girlhood; and her gaitHow virginal, how soft her speech, her eyesHow seemly smiling; wise should all ye be,380All honourable and kindly men of age;Now give me counsel and one word to sayThat I may bear to speak, and hold my peaceHenceforth for all time even as all ye now.Dumb are ye all, bowed eyes and tongueless mouths,Unprofitable; if this were wind that speaks,As much its breath might move you. Thou then, child,Set thy sweet eyes on mine; look through them well;Take note of all the writing of my faceAs of a tablet or a tomb inscribed390That bears me record; lifeless now, my lifeThereon that was think written; brief to read,Yet shall the scripture sear thine eyes as fireAnd leave them dark as dead men's. Nay, dear child,Thou hast no skill, my maiden, and no senseTo take such knowledge; sweet is all thy lore,And all this bitter; yet I charge thee learnAnd love and lay this up within thine heart,Even this my word; less ill it were to dieThan live and look upon thy mother dead,400Thy mother-land that bare thee; no man slainBut him who hath seen it shall men count unblest,None blest as him who hath died and seen it not.

That sight some God keep from me though I die.

A God from thee shall keep it; fear not this.

Thanks all my life long shall he gain of mine.

Short gain of all yet shall he get of thee.

Brief be my life, yet so long live my thanks.

So long? so little; how long shall they live?

Even while I see the sunlight and thine eyes.

410Would mine might shut ere thine upon the sun.

For me thou prayest unkindly; change that prayer.

Not well for me thou sayest, and ill for thee.

Nay, for me well, if thou shalt live, not I.

How live, and lose these loving looks of thine?

It seems I too, thus praying, then, love thee not.

Lov'st thou not life? what wouldst thou do to die?

Well, but not more than all things, love I life.

And fain wouldst keep it as thine age allows?

Fain would I live, and fain not fear to die.

420That I might bid thee die not! Peace; no more.

A godlike race of grief the Gods have setFor these to run matched equal, heart with heart.

Child of the chief of Gods, and maiden crowned,Queen of these towers and fostress of their king,Pallas, and thou my father's holiest head,A living well of life nor stanched nor stained,O God Cephisus, thee too charge I next,Be to me judge and witness; nor thine earShall now my tongue invoke not, thou to me430Most hateful of things holy, mournfullestOf all old sacred streams that wash the world,Ilissus, on whose marge at flowery playA whirlwind-footed bridegroom found my childAnd rapt her northward where mine elder-bornKeeps now the Thracian bride-bed of a GodIntolerable to seamen, but this landFinds him in hope for her sake favourable,A gracious son by wedlock; hear me thenThou likewise, if with no faint heart or false440The word I say be said, the gift be given,Which might I choose I had rather die than giveOr speak and die not. Ere thy limbs were madeOr thine eyes lightened, strife, thou knowest, my child,'Twixt God and God had risen, which heavenlier nameShould here stand hallowed, whose more liberal graceShould win this city's worship, and our landTo which of these do reverence; first the lordWhose wheels make lightnings of the foam-flowered seaHere on this rock, whose height brow-bound with dawn450Is head and heart of Athens, one sheer blowStruck, and beneath the triple wound that shookThe stony sinews and stark roots of the earthSprang toward the sun a sharp salt fount, and sankWhere lying it lights the heart up of the hill,A well of bright strange brine; but she that rearedThy father with her same chaste fostering handSet for a sign against it in our guardThe holy bloom of the olive, whose hoar leafHigh in the shadowy shrine of Pandrosus460Hath honour of us all; and of this strifeThe twelve most high Gods judging with one mouthAcclaimed her victress; wroth whereat, as wrongedThat she should hold from him such prize and place,The strong king of the tempest-rifted seaLoosed reinless on the low Thriasian plainThe thunders of his chariots, swallowing stunnedEarth, beasts, and men, the whole blind foundering worldThat was the sun's at morning, and ere noonDeath's; nor this only prey fulfilled his mind;470For with strange crook-toothed prows of Carian folkWho snatch a sanguine life out of the sea,Thieves keen to pluck their bloody fruit of spoilFrom the grey fruitless waters, has their GodFurrowed our shores to waste them, as the fieldsWere landward harried from the north with swordsAonian, sickles of man-slaughtering edgeGround for no hopeful harvest of live grainAgainst us in Bœotia; these being spent,Now this third time his wind of wrath has blown480Right on this people a mightier wave of war,Three times more huge a ruin; such its ridgeFoam-rimmed and hollow like the womb of heaven,But black for shining, and with death for lifeBig now to birth and ripe with child, full-blownWith fear and fruit of havoc, takes the sunOut of our eyes, darkening the day, and blindsThe fair sky's face unseasonably with change,A cloud in one and billow of battle, a surgeHigh reared as heaven with monstrous surf of spears490That shake on us their shadow, till men's headsBend, and their hearts even with its forward windWither, so blasts all seed in them of hopeIts breath and blight of presage; yea, even nowThe winter of this wind out of the deepsMakes cold our trust in comfort of the GodsAnd blind our eye toward outlook; yet not here,Here never shall the Thracian plant on highFor ours his father's symbol, nor with wreathsA strange folk wreathe it upright set and crowned500Here where our natural people born beholdThe golden Gorgon of the shield's defenceThat screens their flowering olive, nor strange GodsBe graced, and Pallas here have praise no more.And if this be not I must give my child,Thee, mine own very blood and spirit of mine,Thee to be slain. Turn from me, turn thine eyesA little from me; I can bear not yetTo see if still they smile on mine or no,If fear make faint the light in them, or faith510Fix them as stars of safety. Need have we,Sore need of stars that set not in mid storm,Lights that outlast the lightnings; yet my heartEndures not to make proof of thine or these,Not yet to know thee whom I made, and bareWhat manner of woman; had I borne thee man,I had made no question of thine eyes or heart,Nor spared to read the scriptures in them writ,Wert thou my son; yet couldst thou then but dieFallen in sheer fight by chance and charge of spears520And have no more of memory, fill no tombMore famous than thy fellows in fair field,Where many share the grave, many the praise;But one crown shall one only girl my childWear, dead for this dear city, and give back lifeTo him that gave her and to me that bare,And save two sisters living; and all this,Is this not all good? I shall give thee, child,Thee but by fleshly nature mine, to bleedFor dear land's love; but if the city fall530What part is left me in my children then?But if it stand and thou for it lie dead,Then hast thou in it a better part than we,A holier portion than we all; for eachHath but the length of his own life to live,And this most glorious mother-land on earthTo worship till that life have end; but thineHath end no more than hers; thou, dead, shalt liveTill Athens live not; for the days and nightsGiven of thy bare brief dark dividual life,540Shall she give thee half all her agelong ownAnd all its glory; for thou givest her these;But with one hand she takes and gives againMore than I gave or she requires of thee.Come therefore, I will make thee fit for death,I that could give thee, dear, no gift at birthSave of light life that breathes and bleeds, even IWill help thee to this better gift than mineAnd lead thee by this little living handThat death shall make so strong, to that great end550Whence it shall lighten like a God's, and strikeDead the strong heart of battle that would breakAthens; but ye, pray for this land, old men,That it may bring forth never child on earthTo love it less, for none may more, than we.

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