SCENE FROM ION.
CHARACTERS.
Adrastus.Crythes.
Adrastusdiscovered.—CrythesintroducingIon.
Cry.The king!Ad.Stranger, I bid thee welcome:We are about to tread the same dark passage,Thou almost on the instant.—Is the sword[ToCrythes.Of justice sharpened, and the headsman ready?Cry.Thou mayst behold them plainly in the court;Even now the solemn soldiers line the ground,The steel gleams on the altar, and the slaveDisrobes himself for duty.Ad.(toIon) Dost thou see them?Ion.I do.Ad.By Heaven! he does not change.If, even now, thou wilt depart, and leaveThy traitorous thoughts unspoken, thou art free.Ion.I thank thee for thy offer; but I standBefore thee for the lives of thousands, richIn all that makes life precious to the brave;Who perish not alone, but in their fallBreak the far-spreading tendrils that they feed,And leave them nurtureless. If thou wilt hear meFor them, I am content to speak no more.Ad.Thou hast thy wish, then.—Crythes! till yon dialCasts its thin shadow on the approaching hour,I hear this gallant traitor. On the instant,Come without word, and lead him to his doom.Now leave us.Cry.What, alone?Ad.Yes, slave, alone:He is no assassin![ExitCrythes.Tell me who thou art.What generous source owns that heroic blood,Which holds its course thus bravely? What great warsHave nursed the courage that can look on death—Certain and speedy death—with placid eye?Ion.I am a simple youth who never boreThe weight of armor; one who may not boastOf noble birth, or valor of his own.Deem not the powers which nerve me thus to speakIn thy great presence, and have made my heart,Upon the verge of bloody death, as calm,As equal in its beatings, as when sleepApproached me nestling from the sportive toilsOf thoughtless childhood, and celestial formsBegan to glimmer through the deepening shadowsOf soft oblivion,—to belong to me!These are the strengths of Heaven; to thee they speak,Bid thee to hearken to thy people’s cry,Or warn thee that thy hour must shortly come!Ad.I know it must; so mayst thou spare thy warnings.The envious gods in me have doomed a race,Whose glories stream from the same cloud-girt fountsWhence their own dawn upon the infant world;And I shall sit on my ancestral throneTo meet their vengeance; but till then I ruleAs I have ever ruled, and thou wilt feel.Ion.I will not further urge thy safety to thee;It may be, as thou sayest, too late; nor seekTo make thee tremble at the gathering curseWhich shall burst forth in mockery at thy fall;But thou art gifted with a nobler sense,—I know thou art my sovereign!—sense of painEndured by myriad Argives, in whose souls,And in whose fathers’ souls, thou and thy fathersHave kept their cherished state; whose heart-strings, stillThe living fibres of thy rooted power,Quiver with agonies thy crimes have drawnFrom heavenly justice on them.Ad.How! my crimes?Ion.Yes; ’tis the eternal law, that where guilt is,Sorrow shall answer it; and thou hast notA poor man’s privilege to bear alone,Or in the narrow circle of his kinsmen,The penalties of evil; for in thine,A nation’s fate lies circled. King Adrastus!Steeled as thy heart is with the usagesOf pomp and power, a few short summers sinceThou wert a child, and canst not be relentless.Oh, if maternal love embraced thee then,Think of the mothers who with eyes unwetGlare o’er their perishing children; hast thou sharedThe glow of a first friendship which is born’Midst the rude sports of boyhood, think of youthSmitten amidst its playthings; let the spiritOf thy own innocent childhood whisper pity!Ad.In every word thou dost but steel my soul.My youth was blasted: parents, brother, kin—All that should people infancy with joy—Conspired to poison mine; despoiled my lifeOf innocence and hope,—all but the swordAnd sceptre. Dost thou wonder at me now?Ion.I know that we should pity—Ad.Pity! DareTo speak that word again, and torture waits thee!I am yet king of Argos. Well, go on;The time is short, and I am pledged to hear.Ion.If thou hast ever loved—Ad.Beware! beware!Ion.Thou hast! I see thou hast! Thou art not marble,And thou shalt hear me! Think upon the timeWhen the clear depths of thy yet lucid soulWere ruffled with the troublings of strange joy,As if some unseen visitant from heavenTouched the calm lake, and wreathed its imagesIn sparkling waves; recall the dallying hopeThat on the margin of assurance trembled,As loath to lose in certainty too blestIts happy being; taste in thought againOf the stolen sweetness of those evening walks,When pansied turf was air to wingèd feet,And circling forests, by ethereal touchEnchanted, wore the livery of the sky,As if about to melt in golden light,Shapes of one heavenly vision; and thy heart,Enlarged by its new sympathy with one,Grew bountiful to all!Ad.That tone! that tone!Whence came it? from thy lips? It cannot beThe long-hushed music of the only voiceThat ever spake unbought affection to me,And waked my soul to blessing. O sweet hoursOf golden joy, ye come! your glories breakThrough my pavilion’d spirit’s sable folds.Roll on! roll on!—Stranger, thou dost enforce meTo speak of things unbreathed by lip of mineTo human ear: wilt listen?Ion.As a child.Ad.Again! that voice again! Thou hast seen me movedAs never mortal saw me, by a toneWhich some light breeze, enamoured of the sound,Hath wafted through the woods, till thy young voiceCaught it to rive and melt me. At my birthThis city, which, expectant of its prince,Lay hushed, broke out in clamorous ecstasies;Yet, in that moment, while the uplifted cupsFoamed with the choicest product of the sun,And welcome thundered from a thousand throats,My doom was sealed. From the hearth’s vacant space,In the dark chamber where my mother lay,Faint with the sense of pain-bought happiness,Came forth in heart-appalling tone, these wordsOf me, the nursling: “Woe unto the babe!Against the life which now begins shall life,Lighted from thence, be armed, and, both soon quenched,End this great line in sorrow!” Ere I grewOf years to know myself a thing accursed,A second son was born, to steal the loveWhich fate had else scarce rifled: he becameMy parents’ hope, the darling of the crewWho lived upon their smiles, and thought it flatteryTo trace in every foible of my youth—A prince’s youth—the workings of the curse.My very mother—Jove! I cannot bearTo speak it now—looked freezingly upon me.Ion.But thy brother—Ad.Died. Thou hast heard the lie,The common lie that every peasant tellsOf me, his master,—that I slew the boy.’Tis false! One summer’s eve, below a cragWhich, in his wilful mood, he strove to climb,He lay a mangled corpse: the very slaves,Whose cruelty had shut him from my heart,Now coined their own injustice into proofsTo brand me as his murderer.Ion.Did they dareAccuse thee?Ad.Not in open speech: they feltI should have seized the miscreant by the throat,And crushed the lie half-spoken with the lifeOf the base speaker: but the tale looked outFrom the stolen gaze of coward eyes, which shrankWhen mine have met them; murmured through the crowdThat at the sacrifice, or feast, or game,Stood distant from me; burnt into my soul,When I beheld it in my father’s shudder!Ion.Didst not declare thy innocence?Ad.To whom?To parents who could doubt me? To the ringOf grave impostors, or their shallow sons,Who should have studied to prevent my wishBefore it grew to language; hailed my choiceTo service as a prize to wrestle for;And whose reluctant courtesy I bore,Pale with proud anger, till from lips compressedThe blood has started? To the common herd,The vassals of our ancient house, the massOf bones and muscles framed to till the soilA few brief years, then rot unnamed beneath it;Or, decked for slaughter at their master’s call,To smite, and to be smitten, and lie crushedIn heaps to swell his glory or his shame?Answer to them? No! though my heart had burst,As it was nigh to bursting! To the mountainsI fled, and on their pinnacles of snowBreasted the icy wind, in hope to coolMy spirit’s fever; struggled with the oakIn search of weariness, and learned to riveIts stubborn boughs, till limbs once lightly strungMight mate in cordage with its infant stems;Or on the sea-beat rock tore off the vestWhich burnt upon my bosom, and to airHeadlong committed, clove the water’s depthWhich plummet never sounded,—but in vain.Ion.Yet succor came to thee?Ad.A blessed one!Which the strange magic of thy voice revives,And thus unlocks my soul. My rapid stepsWere in a wood-encircled valley stayedBy the bright vision of a maid, whose faceMost lovely, more than loveliness revealedIn touch of patient grief, which dearer seemedThan happiness to spirit seared like mine.With feeble hands she strove to lay in earthThe body of her aged sire, whose deathLeft her alone. I aided her sad work;And soon two lonely ones by holy ritesBecame one happy being. Days, weeks, months,In streamlike unity flowed silent by usIn our delightful nest. My father’s spies—Slaves, whom my nod should have consigned to stripesOr the swift falchion—tracked our sylvan home,Just as my bosom knew its second joy,And, spite of fortune, I embraced a son.Ion.Urged by thy trembling parents to avertThat dreadful prophecy.Ad.Fools! did they deemIts worst accomplishment could match the illWhich they wrought on me? It had left unharmedA thousand ecstasies of passioned years,Which, tasted once, live ever, and disdainFate’s iron grapple! Could I now beholdThat son with knife uplifted at my heart,A moment ere my life-blood followed it,I would embrace him with my dying eyes,And pardon destiny! While jocund smilesWreathed on the infant’s face, as if sweet spiritsSuggested pleasant fancies to its soul,The ruffians broke upon us—seized the child—Dashed through the thicket to the beetling rock’Neath which the deep sea eddies; I stood still,As stricken into stone: I heard him cry,Pressed by the rudeness of the murderer’s grip,Severer ill unfearing—then the splashOf waters that shall cover him forever;And could not stir to save him!Ion.And the mother?Ad.She spake no word; but clasped me in her arms,And laid her down to die! A lingering gazeOf love she fixed on me,—none other loved,—And so passed from hence. By Jupiter! her look,Her dying patience glimmers in thy face!She lives again! She looks upon me now!There’s magic in’t. Bear with me—I am childish.EnterCrythesandGuards.Why art thou here?Cry.The dial points the hour.Ad.Dost thou not see that horrid purpose passed?Hast thou no heart—no sense?Cry.Scarce half an hourHath flown since the command on which I wait.Ad.Scarce half an hour! Years, years have rolled since then.Begone! Remove that pageantry of death;It blasts my sight. And hearken! Touch a hairOf this brave youth, or look on him as now,With thy cold headsman’s eye, and yonder bandShall not expect a fearful show in vain.Hence! without a word.[ExitCrythes.What wouldst thou have me do?Ion.Let thy awakened heart speak its own language:Convene thy sages; frankly, nobly meet them;Explore with them the pleasure of the gods,And whatsoe’er the sacrifice, perform it.Ad.Well, I will seek their presence in an hour:Go summon them, young hero! Hold! no wordOf the strange passion thou hast witnessed here.Ion.Distrust me not.—Benignant powers! I thank ye![Exit.Ad.Yet stay!—He’s gone—his spell is on me yet;What have I promised him? To meet the menWho from my living head would strip the crown,And sit in judgment on me? I must do it.Yet shall my band be ready to o’eraweThe cause of liberal speech, and if it riseSo as too loudly to offend my ear,Strike the rash brawler dead! What idle dreamOf long-past days had melted me? It fades—It vanishes—I am again a king.Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd.
Cry.The king!Ad.Stranger, I bid thee welcome:We are about to tread the same dark passage,Thou almost on the instant.—Is the sword[ToCrythes.Of justice sharpened, and the headsman ready?Cry.Thou mayst behold them plainly in the court;Even now the solemn soldiers line the ground,The steel gleams on the altar, and the slaveDisrobes himself for duty.Ad.(toIon) Dost thou see them?Ion.I do.Ad.By Heaven! he does not change.If, even now, thou wilt depart, and leaveThy traitorous thoughts unspoken, thou art free.Ion.I thank thee for thy offer; but I standBefore thee for the lives of thousands, richIn all that makes life precious to the brave;Who perish not alone, but in their fallBreak the far-spreading tendrils that they feed,And leave them nurtureless. If thou wilt hear meFor them, I am content to speak no more.Ad.Thou hast thy wish, then.—Crythes! till yon dialCasts its thin shadow on the approaching hour,I hear this gallant traitor. On the instant,Come without word, and lead him to his doom.Now leave us.Cry.What, alone?Ad.Yes, slave, alone:He is no assassin![ExitCrythes.Tell me who thou art.What generous source owns that heroic blood,Which holds its course thus bravely? What great warsHave nursed the courage that can look on death—Certain and speedy death—with placid eye?Ion.I am a simple youth who never boreThe weight of armor; one who may not boastOf noble birth, or valor of his own.Deem not the powers which nerve me thus to speakIn thy great presence, and have made my heart,Upon the verge of bloody death, as calm,As equal in its beatings, as when sleepApproached me nestling from the sportive toilsOf thoughtless childhood, and celestial formsBegan to glimmer through the deepening shadowsOf soft oblivion,—to belong to me!These are the strengths of Heaven; to thee they speak,Bid thee to hearken to thy people’s cry,Or warn thee that thy hour must shortly come!Ad.I know it must; so mayst thou spare thy warnings.The envious gods in me have doomed a race,Whose glories stream from the same cloud-girt fountsWhence their own dawn upon the infant world;And I shall sit on my ancestral throneTo meet their vengeance; but till then I ruleAs I have ever ruled, and thou wilt feel.Ion.I will not further urge thy safety to thee;It may be, as thou sayest, too late; nor seekTo make thee tremble at the gathering curseWhich shall burst forth in mockery at thy fall;But thou art gifted with a nobler sense,—I know thou art my sovereign!—sense of painEndured by myriad Argives, in whose souls,And in whose fathers’ souls, thou and thy fathersHave kept their cherished state; whose heart-strings, stillThe living fibres of thy rooted power,Quiver with agonies thy crimes have drawnFrom heavenly justice on them.Ad.How! my crimes?Ion.Yes; ’tis the eternal law, that where guilt is,Sorrow shall answer it; and thou hast notA poor man’s privilege to bear alone,Or in the narrow circle of his kinsmen,The penalties of evil; for in thine,A nation’s fate lies circled. King Adrastus!Steeled as thy heart is with the usagesOf pomp and power, a few short summers sinceThou wert a child, and canst not be relentless.Oh, if maternal love embraced thee then,Think of the mothers who with eyes unwetGlare o’er their perishing children; hast thou sharedThe glow of a first friendship which is born’Midst the rude sports of boyhood, think of youthSmitten amidst its playthings; let the spiritOf thy own innocent childhood whisper pity!Ad.In every word thou dost but steel my soul.My youth was blasted: parents, brother, kin—All that should people infancy with joy—Conspired to poison mine; despoiled my lifeOf innocence and hope,—all but the swordAnd sceptre. Dost thou wonder at me now?Ion.I know that we should pity—Ad.Pity! DareTo speak that word again, and torture waits thee!I am yet king of Argos. Well, go on;The time is short, and I am pledged to hear.Ion.If thou hast ever loved—Ad.Beware! beware!Ion.Thou hast! I see thou hast! Thou art not marble,And thou shalt hear me! Think upon the timeWhen the clear depths of thy yet lucid soulWere ruffled with the troublings of strange joy,As if some unseen visitant from heavenTouched the calm lake, and wreathed its imagesIn sparkling waves; recall the dallying hopeThat on the margin of assurance trembled,As loath to lose in certainty too blestIts happy being; taste in thought againOf the stolen sweetness of those evening walks,When pansied turf was air to wingèd feet,And circling forests, by ethereal touchEnchanted, wore the livery of the sky,As if about to melt in golden light,Shapes of one heavenly vision; and thy heart,Enlarged by its new sympathy with one,Grew bountiful to all!Ad.That tone! that tone!Whence came it? from thy lips? It cannot beThe long-hushed music of the only voiceThat ever spake unbought affection to me,And waked my soul to blessing. O sweet hoursOf golden joy, ye come! your glories breakThrough my pavilion’d spirit’s sable folds.Roll on! roll on!—Stranger, thou dost enforce meTo speak of things unbreathed by lip of mineTo human ear: wilt listen?Ion.As a child.Ad.Again! that voice again! Thou hast seen me movedAs never mortal saw me, by a toneWhich some light breeze, enamoured of the sound,Hath wafted through the woods, till thy young voiceCaught it to rive and melt me. At my birthThis city, which, expectant of its prince,Lay hushed, broke out in clamorous ecstasies;Yet, in that moment, while the uplifted cupsFoamed with the choicest product of the sun,And welcome thundered from a thousand throats,My doom was sealed. From the hearth’s vacant space,In the dark chamber where my mother lay,Faint with the sense of pain-bought happiness,Came forth in heart-appalling tone, these wordsOf me, the nursling: “Woe unto the babe!Against the life which now begins shall life,Lighted from thence, be armed, and, both soon quenched,End this great line in sorrow!” Ere I grewOf years to know myself a thing accursed,A second son was born, to steal the loveWhich fate had else scarce rifled: he becameMy parents’ hope, the darling of the crewWho lived upon their smiles, and thought it flatteryTo trace in every foible of my youth—A prince’s youth—the workings of the curse.My very mother—Jove! I cannot bearTo speak it now—looked freezingly upon me.Ion.But thy brother—Ad.Died. Thou hast heard the lie,The common lie that every peasant tellsOf me, his master,—that I slew the boy.’Tis false! One summer’s eve, below a cragWhich, in his wilful mood, he strove to climb,He lay a mangled corpse: the very slaves,Whose cruelty had shut him from my heart,Now coined their own injustice into proofsTo brand me as his murderer.Ion.Did they dareAccuse thee?Ad.Not in open speech: they feltI should have seized the miscreant by the throat,And crushed the lie half-spoken with the lifeOf the base speaker: but the tale looked outFrom the stolen gaze of coward eyes, which shrankWhen mine have met them; murmured through the crowdThat at the sacrifice, or feast, or game,Stood distant from me; burnt into my soul,When I beheld it in my father’s shudder!Ion.Didst not declare thy innocence?Ad.To whom?To parents who could doubt me? To the ringOf grave impostors, or their shallow sons,Who should have studied to prevent my wishBefore it grew to language; hailed my choiceTo service as a prize to wrestle for;And whose reluctant courtesy I bore,Pale with proud anger, till from lips compressedThe blood has started? To the common herd,The vassals of our ancient house, the massOf bones and muscles framed to till the soilA few brief years, then rot unnamed beneath it;Or, decked for slaughter at their master’s call,To smite, and to be smitten, and lie crushedIn heaps to swell his glory or his shame?Answer to them? No! though my heart had burst,As it was nigh to bursting! To the mountainsI fled, and on their pinnacles of snowBreasted the icy wind, in hope to coolMy spirit’s fever; struggled with the oakIn search of weariness, and learned to riveIts stubborn boughs, till limbs once lightly strungMight mate in cordage with its infant stems;Or on the sea-beat rock tore off the vestWhich burnt upon my bosom, and to airHeadlong committed, clove the water’s depthWhich plummet never sounded,—but in vain.Ion.Yet succor came to thee?Ad.A blessed one!Which the strange magic of thy voice revives,And thus unlocks my soul. My rapid stepsWere in a wood-encircled valley stayedBy the bright vision of a maid, whose faceMost lovely, more than loveliness revealedIn touch of patient grief, which dearer seemedThan happiness to spirit seared like mine.With feeble hands she strove to lay in earthThe body of her aged sire, whose deathLeft her alone. I aided her sad work;And soon two lonely ones by holy ritesBecame one happy being. Days, weeks, months,In streamlike unity flowed silent by usIn our delightful nest. My father’s spies—Slaves, whom my nod should have consigned to stripesOr the swift falchion—tracked our sylvan home,Just as my bosom knew its second joy,And, spite of fortune, I embraced a son.Ion.Urged by thy trembling parents to avertThat dreadful prophecy.Ad.Fools! did they deemIts worst accomplishment could match the illWhich they wrought on me? It had left unharmedA thousand ecstasies of passioned years,Which, tasted once, live ever, and disdainFate’s iron grapple! Could I now beholdThat son with knife uplifted at my heart,A moment ere my life-blood followed it,I would embrace him with my dying eyes,And pardon destiny! While jocund smilesWreathed on the infant’s face, as if sweet spiritsSuggested pleasant fancies to its soul,The ruffians broke upon us—seized the child—Dashed through the thicket to the beetling rock’Neath which the deep sea eddies; I stood still,As stricken into stone: I heard him cry,Pressed by the rudeness of the murderer’s grip,Severer ill unfearing—then the splashOf waters that shall cover him forever;And could not stir to save him!Ion.And the mother?Ad.She spake no word; but clasped me in her arms,And laid her down to die! A lingering gazeOf love she fixed on me,—none other loved,—And so passed from hence. By Jupiter! her look,Her dying patience glimmers in thy face!She lives again! She looks upon me now!There’s magic in’t. Bear with me—I am childish.EnterCrythesandGuards.Why art thou here?Cry.The dial points the hour.Ad.Dost thou not see that horrid purpose passed?Hast thou no heart—no sense?Cry.Scarce half an hourHath flown since the command on which I wait.Ad.Scarce half an hour! Years, years have rolled since then.Begone! Remove that pageantry of death;It blasts my sight. And hearken! Touch a hairOf this brave youth, or look on him as now,With thy cold headsman’s eye, and yonder bandShall not expect a fearful show in vain.Hence! without a word.[ExitCrythes.What wouldst thou have me do?Ion.Let thy awakened heart speak its own language:Convene thy sages; frankly, nobly meet them;Explore with them the pleasure of the gods,And whatsoe’er the sacrifice, perform it.Ad.Well, I will seek their presence in an hour:Go summon them, young hero! Hold! no wordOf the strange passion thou hast witnessed here.Ion.Distrust me not.—Benignant powers! I thank ye![Exit.Ad.Yet stay!—He’s gone—his spell is on me yet;What have I promised him? To meet the menWho from my living head would strip the crown,And sit in judgment on me? I must do it.Yet shall my band be ready to o’eraweThe cause of liberal speech, and if it riseSo as too loudly to offend my ear,Strike the rash brawler dead! What idle dreamOf long-past days had melted me? It fades—It vanishes—I am again a king.Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd.
Cry.The king!
Ad.Stranger, I bid thee welcome:We are about to tread the same dark passage,Thou almost on the instant.—Is the sword[ToCrythes.Of justice sharpened, and the headsman ready?
Cry.Thou mayst behold them plainly in the court;Even now the solemn soldiers line the ground,The steel gleams on the altar, and the slaveDisrobes himself for duty.
Ad.(toIon) Dost thou see them?
Ion.I do.
Ad.By Heaven! he does not change.If, even now, thou wilt depart, and leaveThy traitorous thoughts unspoken, thou art free.
Ion.I thank thee for thy offer; but I standBefore thee for the lives of thousands, richIn all that makes life precious to the brave;Who perish not alone, but in their fallBreak the far-spreading tendrils that they feed,And leave them nurtureless. If thou wilt hear meFor them, I am content to speak no more.
Ad.Thou hast thy wish, then.—Crythes! till yon dialCasts its thin shadow on the approaching hour,I hear this gallant traitor. On the instant,Come without word, and lead him to his doom.Now leave us.
Cry.What, alone?
Ad.Yes, slave, alone:He is no assassin![ExitCrythes.Tell me who thou art.What generous source owns that heroic blood,Which holds its course thus bravely? What great warsHave nursed the courage that can look on death—Certain and speedy death—with placid eye?
Ion.I am a simple youth who never boreThe weight of armor; one who may not boastOf noble birth, or valor of his own.Deem not the powers which nerve me thus to speakIn thy great presence, and have made my heart,Upon the verge of bloody death, as calm,As equal in its beatings, as when sleepApproached me nestling from the sportive toilsOf thoughtless childhood, and celestial formsBegan to glimmer through the deepening shadowsOf soft oblivion,—to belong to me!These are the strengths of Heaven; to thee they speak,Bid thee to hearken to thy people’s cry,Or warn thee that thy hour must shortly come!
Ad.I know it must; so mayst thou spare thy warnings.The envious gods in me have doomed a race,Whose glories stream from the same cloud-girt fountsWhence their own dawn upon the infant world;And I shall sit on my ancestral throneTo meet their vengeance; but till then I ruleAs I have ever ruled, and thou wilt feel.
Ion.I will not further urge thy safety to thee;It may be, as thou sayest, too late; nor seekTo make thee tremble at the gathering curseWhich shall burst forth in mockery at thy fall;But thou art gifted with a nobler sense,—I know thou art my sovereign!—sense of painEndured by myriad Argives, in whose souls,And in whose fathers’ souls, thou and thy fathersHave kept their cherished state; whose heart-strings, stillThe living fibres of thy rooted power,Quiver with agonies thy crimes have drawnFrom heavenly justice on them.
Ad.How! my crimes?
Ion.Yes; ’tis the eternal law, that where guilt is,Sorrow shall answer it; and thou hast notA poor man’s privilege to bear alone,Or in the narrow circle of his kinsmen,The penalties of evil; for in thine,A nation’s fate lies circled. King Adrastus!Steeled as thy heart is with the usagesOf pomp and power, a few short summers sinceThou wert a child, and canst not be relentless.Oh, if maternal love embraced thee then,Think of the mothers who with eyes unwetGlare o’er their perishing children; hast thou sharedThe glow of a first friendship which is born’Midst the rude sports of boyhood, think of youthSmitten amidst its playthings; let the spiritOf thy own innocent childhood whisper pity!
Ad.In every word thou dost but steel my soul.My youth was blasted: parents, brother, kin—All that should people infancy with joy—Conspired to poison mine; despoiled my lifeOf innocence and hope,—all but the swordAnd sceptre. Dost thou wonder at me now?
Ion.I know that we should pity—
Ad.Pity! DareTo speak that word again, and torture waits thee!I am yet king of Argos. Well, go on;The time is short, and I am pledged to hear.
Ion.If thou hast ever loved—
Ad.Beware! beware!
Ion.Thou hast! I see thou hast! Thou art not marble,And thou shalt hear me! Think upon the timeWhen the clear depths of thy yet lucid soulWere ruffled with the troublings of strange joy,As if some unseen visitant from heavenTouched the calm lake, and wreathed its imagesIn sparkling waves; recall the dallying hopeThat on the margin of assurance trembled,As loath to lose in certainty too blestIts happy being; taste in thought againOf the stolen sweetness of those evening walks,When pansied turf was air to wingèd feet,And circling forests, by ethereal touchEnchanted, wore the livery of the sky,As if about to melt in golden light,Shapes of one heavenly vision; and thy heart,Enlarged by its new sympathy with one,Grew bountiful to all!
Ad.That tone! that tone!Whence came it? from thy lips? It cannot beThe long-hushed music of the only voiceThat ever spake unbought affection to me,And waked my soul to blessing. O sweet hoursOf golden joy, ye come! your glories breakThrough my pavilion’d spirit’s sable folds.Roll on! roll on!—Stranger, thou dost enforce meTo speak of things unbreathed by lip of mineTo human ear: wilt listen?
Ion.As a child.
Ad.Again! that voice again! Thou hast seen me movedAs never mortal saw me, by a toneWhich some light breeze, enamoured of the sound,Hath wafted through the woods, till thy young voiceCaught it to rive and melt me. At my birthThis city, which, expectant of its prince,Lay hushed, broke out in clamorous ecstasies;Yet, in that moment, while the uplifted cupsFoamed with the choicest product of the sun,And welcome thundered from a thousand throats,My doom was sealed. From the hearth’s vacant space,In the dark chamber where my mother lay,Faint with the sense of pain-bought happiness,Came forth in heart-appalling tone, these wordsOf me, the nursling: “Woe unto the babe!Against the life which now begins shall life,Lighted from thence, be armed, and, both soon quenched,End this great line in sorrow!” Ere I grewOf years to know myself a thing accursed,A second son was born, to steal the loveWhich fate had else scarce rifled: he becameMy parents’ hope, the darling of the crewWho lived upon their smiles, and thought it flatteryTo trace in every foible of my youth—A prince’s youth—the workings of the curse.My very mother—Jove! I cannot bearTo speak it now—looked freezingly upon me.
Ion.But thy brother—
Ad.Died. Thou hast heard the lie,The common lie that every peasant tellsOf me, his master,—that I slew the boy.’Tis false! One summer’s eve, below a cragWhich, in his wilful mood, he strove to climb,He lay a mangled corpse: the very slaves,Whose cruelty had shut him from my heart,Now coined their own injustice into proofsTo brand me as his murderer.
Ion.Did they dareAccuse thee?
Ad.Not in open speech: they feltI should have seized the miscreant by the throat,And crushed the lie half-spoken with the lifeOf the base speaker: but the tale looked outFrom the stolen gaze of coward eyes, which shrankWhen mine have met them; murmured through the crowdThat at the sacrifice, or feast, or game,Stood distant from me; burnt into my soul,When I beheld it in my father’s shudder!
Ion.Didst not declare thy innocence?
Ad.To whom?To parents who could doubt me? To the ringOf grave impostors, or their shallow sons,Who should have studied to prevent my wishBefore it grew to language; hailed my choiceTo service as a prize to wrestle for;And whose reluctant courtesy I bore,Pale with proud anger, till from lips compressedThe blood has started? To the common herd,The vassals of our ancient house, the massOf bones and muscles framed to till the soilA few brief years, then rot unnamed beneath it;Or, decked for slaughter at their master’s call,To smite, and to be smitten, and lie crushedIn heaps to swell his glory or his shame?Answer to them? No! though my heart had burst,As it was nigh to bursting! To the mountainsI fled, and on their pinnacles of snowBreasted the icy wind, in hope to coolMy spirit’s fever; struggled with the oakIn search of weariness, and learned to riveIts stubborn boughs, till limbs once lightly strungMight mate in cordage with its infant stems;Or on the sea-beat rock tore off the vestWhich burnt upon my bosom, and to airHeadlong committed, clove the water’s depthWhich plummet never sounded,—but in vain.
Ion.Yet succor came to thee?
Ad.A blessed one!Which the strange magic of thy voice revives,And thus unlocks my soul. My rapid stepsWere in a wood-encircled valley stayedBy the bright vision of a maid, whose faceMost lovely, more than loveliness revealedIn touch of patient grief, which dearer seemedThan happiness to spirit seared like mine.With feeble hands she strove to lay in earthThe body of her aged sire, whose deathLeft her alone. I aided her sad work;And soon two lonely ones by holy ritesBecame one happy being. Days, weeks, months,In streamlike unity flowed silent by usIn our delightful nest. My father’s spies—Slaves, whom my nod should have consigned to stripesOr the swift falchion—tracked our sylvan home,Just as my bosom knew its second joy,And, spite of fortune, I embraced a son.
Ion.Urged by thy trembling parents to avertThat dreadful prophecy.
Ad.Fools! did they deemIts worst accomplishment could match the illWhich they wrought on me? It had left unharmedA thousand ecstasies of passioned years,Which, tasted once, live ever, and disdainFate’s iron grapple! Could I now beholdThat son with knife uplifted at my heart,A moment ere my life-blood followed it,I would embrace him with my dying eyes,And pardon destiny! While jocund smilesWreathed on the infant’s face, as if sweet spiritsSuggested pleasant fancies to its soul,The ruffians broke upon us—seized the child—Dashed through the thicket to the beetling rock’Neath which the deep sea eddies; I stood still,As stricken into stone: I heard him cry,Pressed by the rudeness of the murderer’s grip,Severer ill unfearing—then the splashOf waters that shall cover him forever;And could not stir to save him!
Ion.And the mother?
Ad.She spake no word; but clasped me in her arms,And laid her down to die! A lingering gazeOf love she fixed on me,—none other loved,—And so passed from hence. By Jupiter! her look,Her dying patience glimmers in thy face!She lives again! She looks upon me now!There’s magic in’t. Bear with me—I am childish.
EnterCrythesandGuards.
Why art thou here?
Cry.The dial points the hour.
Ad.Dost thou not see that horrid purpose passed?Hast thou no heart—no sense?
Cry.Scarce half an hourHath flown since the command on which I wait.
Ad.Scarce half an hour! Years, years have rolled since then.Begone! Remove that pageantry of death;It blasts my sight. And hearken! Touch a hairOf this brave youth, or look on him as now,With thy cold headsman’s eye, and yonder bandShall not expect a fearful show in vain.Hence! without a word.[ExitCrythes.What wouldst thou have me do?
Ion.Let thy awakened heart speak its own language:Convene thy sages; frankly, nobly meet them;Explore with them the pleasure of the gods,And whatsoe’er the sacrifice, perform it.
Ad.Well, I will seek their presence in an hour:Go summon them, young hero! Hold! no wordOf the strange passion thou hast witnessed here.
Ion.Distrust me not.—Benignant powers! I thank ye![Exit.Ad.Yet stay!—He’s gone—his spell is on me yet;What have I promised him? To meet the menWho from my living head would strip the crown,And sit in judgment on me? I must do it.Yet shall my band be ready to o’eraweThe cause of liberal speech, and if it riseSo as too loudly to offend my ear,Strike the rash brawler dead! What idle dreamOf long-past days had melted me? It fades—It vanishes—I am again a king.Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd.