Wind, wave, and bark, bear Euthukles and me,Balaustion, from—not sorrow but despair,Not memory but the present and its pang!Athenai, live thou hearted in my heart:Never, while I live, may I see thee more,Never again may these repugnant orbsAche themselves blind before the hideous pomp,The ghastly mirth which mocked thine overthrow—Death's entry, Haides' outrage!Doomed to die,—Fire should have flung a passion of embraceAbout thee till, resplendently inarmed,(Temple by temple folded to his breast,All thy white wonder fainting out in ash,)Lightly some vaporous sigh of soul escapedAnd so the Immortals bade Athenai back!Or earth might sunder and absorb thee, save,Buried below Olumpos and its gods,Akropolis to dominate her realmFor Koré, and console the ghosts; or, sea,What if thy watery plural vastitude,Rolling unanimous advance, had rushed,Might upon might, a moment,—stood, one stare,Sea-face to city-face, thy glaucous waveGlassing that marbled last magnificence,—Till fate's pale tremulous foam-flower tipped the gray,And when wave broke and overswarmed, and, suckedTo bounds back, multitudinously ceased,Let land again breathe unconfused with sea,Attiké was, Athenai was not now!Such end I could have borne, for I had shared.But this which, glanced at, aches within my orbsTo blinding,—bear me thence, bark, wind and wave!Me, Euthukles, and, hearted in each heart,Athenai, undisgraced as Pallas' self,Bear to my birthplace, Helios' island-bride,Zeus' darling: thither speed us, homeward-bound,Wafted already twelve hours' sail awayFrom horror, nearer by one sunset Rhodes!Why should despair be? Since, distinct aboveMan's wickedness and folly, flies the windAnd floats the cloud, free transport for our soulOut of its fleshly durance dim and low,—Since disembodied soul anticipates(Thought-borne as now in rapturous unrestraint)Above all crowding; crystal silentness,Above all noise, a silver solitude:—Surely, where thought so bears soul, soul in timeMay permanently bide, "assert the wise,"There live in peace, there work in hope once more—Oh, nothing doubt, Philemon! Greed and strife,Hatred and cark and care, what place have theyIn yon blue liberality of heaven?How the sea helps! How rose-smit earth will riseBreast-high thence, some bright morning, and be Rhodes!Heaven, earth and sea, my warrant—in their name,Believe—o'er falsehood, truth is surely sphered,O'er ugliness beams beauty, o'er this worldExtends that realm where "as the wise assert,"Philemon, thou shalt see EuripidesClearer than mortal sense perceived the man!A sunset nearer Rhodes, by twelve hours' sweepOf surge secured from horror? Rather say,Quieted out of weakness into strength.I dare invite, survey the scene my senseStaggered to apprehend: for, disenvolvedFrom the mere outside anguish and contempt,Slowly a justice centred in a doomReveals itself. Ay, pride succumbed to pride,Oppression met the oppressor and was matched.Athenai's vaunt braved Sparté's violenceTill, in the shock, prone fell Peiraios, lowRampart and bulwark lay, as—timing strokeOf hammer, axe, and beam hoist, poised and swung—The very flute-girls blew their laughing best,In dance about the conqueror while he badeMusic and merriment help engineryBatter down, break to pieces all the trustOf citizens once, slaves now. See what wallsPlay substitute for the long double rangeThemistoklean, heralding a guestFrom harbor on to citadel! Each sideTheir senseless walls demolished stone by stone,See,—outer wall as stonelike, heads and hearts,—Athenai's terror-stricken populace!Prattlers, tongue-tied in crouching abjectness,—Braggarts, who wring hands wont to flourish swords—Sophist and rhetorician, demagogue,(Argument dumb, authority a jest,)Dikast and heliast, pleader, litigant,Quack-priest, sham-prophecy-retailer, scoutO' the customs, sycophant, whate'er the style,Altar-scrap-snatcher, pimp and parasite,—Rivalities at truce now each with each,Stupefied mud-banks,—such an use they serve!While the one order which performs exactTo promise, functions faithful last as first,What is it but the city's lyric troop,Chantress and psaltress, flute-girl, dancing-girl?Athenai's harlotry takes laughing careTheir patron miss no pipings, late she loved,But deathward tread at least the kordax-step.Die then, who pulled such glory on your heads!There let it grind to powder! Perikles!The living are the dead now: death be life!Why should the sunset yonder waste its wealth?Prove thee Olumpian! If my heart supplyInviolate the structure,—true to type,Build me some spirit-place no flesh shall find,As Pheidias may inspire thee; slab on slab,Renew Athenai, quarry out the cloud,Convert to gold yon west extravagance!'Neath Propulaia, from AkropolisBy vapory grade and grade, gold all the way,Step to thy snow-Pnux, mount thy Bema-cloud,Thunder and lighten thence a Hellas throughThat shall be better and more beautifulAnd too august for Sparté's foot to spurn!Chasmed in the crag, again our TheatrePredominates, one purple: Staghunt-month,Brings it not Dionusia? Hail, the Three!Aischulos, Sophokles, EuripidesCompete, gain prize or lose prize, godlike still.Nay, lest they lack the old god-exercise—Their noble want the unworthy,—as of old,(How otherwise should patience crown their might?)What if each find his ape promoted man,His censor raised for antic service still?Some new Hermippos to pelt Perikles,Kratinos to swear Pheidias robbed a shrine,Eruxis—I suspect, Euripides,No brow will ache because with mop and mowHe gibes my poet! There 's a dog-faced dwarfThat gets to godship somehow, yet retainsHis apehood in the Egyptian hierarchy,More decent, indecorous just enough:Why should not dog-ape, graced in due degree,Grow Momos as thou Zeus? Or didst thou sighRightly with thy Makaria? "After life,Better no sentiency than turbulence;Death cures the low contention." Be it so!Yet progress means contention, to my mind.Euthukles, who, except for love that speaks,Art silent by my side while words of mineProvoke that foe from which escape is vainHenceforward, wake Athenai's fate and fall,—Memories asleep as, at the altar-foot,Those Furies in the Oresteian song,—Do I amiss, who wanting strength use craft,Advance upon the foe I cannot fly,Nor feign a snake is dormant though it gnaw?That fate and fall, once bedded in our brain,Roots itself past upwrenching; but coaxed forth,Encouraged out to practise fork and fang,—Perhaps, when satiate with prompt sustenance,It may pine, likelier die than if left swellIn peace by our pretension to ignore,Or pricked to threefold fury, should our stampBruise and not brain the pest.A middle course!What hinders that we treat this tragic themeAs the Three taught when either woke some woe,—How Klutaimnestra hated, what the prideOf Iokasté, why Medeia cloveNature asunder. Small rebuked by large,We felt our puny hates refine to air,Our poor prides sink, prevent the humbling hand,Our petty passions purify their tide.So, Euthukles, permit the tragedyTo re-enact itself, this voyage through,Till sunsets end and sunrise brighten Rhodes!Majestic on the stage of memory,Peplosed and kothorned, let Athenai fallOnce more, nay, oft again till life conclude,Lent for the lesson: Choros, I and thou!What else in life seems piteous any moreAfter such pity, or proves terribleBeside such terror?Still—since PhrunichosOffended, by too premature a touchOf that Milesian smart-place freshly frayed—(Ah, my poor people, whose prompt remedyWas—fine the poet, not reform thyself!)Beware precipitate approach! RehearseRather the prologue, well a year away,Than the main misery, a sunset old.What else but fitting prologue to the pieceStyle an adventure, stranger than my firstBy so much as the issue it enwombedLurked big beyond Balaustion's littleness?Second supreme adventure! O that Spring,That eve I told the earlier to my friends!Where are the four now, with each red-ripe mouthCrumpled so close, no quickest breath it fetchedCould disengage the lip-flower furled to budFor fear Admetos—shivering head and foot,As with sick soul and blind averted faceHe trusted hand forth to obey his friend—Should find no wife in her cold hand's response,Nor see the disenshrouded statue start.Alkestis, live the life and love the love!I wonder, does the streamlet ripple still,Out-smoothing galingale and watermintIts mat-floor? while at brim, 'twixt sedge and sedge,What bubblings past Baccheion, broadened much,Pricked by the reed and fretted by the fly,Oared by the boatman-spider's pair of arms!Lenaia was a gladsome month ago—Euripides had taught "Andromedé"Next month, would teach "Kresphontes"—which same monthSome one from Phokis, who companioned meSince all that happened on those temple-steps,Would marry me and turn Athenian too.Now! if next year the masters let the slavesDo Bacchic service and restore mankindThat trilogy whereof, 'tis noised, one playPresents the Bacchai,—no EuripidesWill teach the choros, nor shall we be tingedBy any such grand sunset of his soul,Exiles from dead Athenai,—not the liveThat's in the cloud there with the new-born star!Speak to the infinite intelligence,Sing to the everlasting sympathy!Winds belly sail, and drench of dancing brineBuffet our boat-side, so the prore bound free!Condense our voyage into one great dayMade up of sunset-closes: eve by eve,Resume that memorable night-discourseWhen—like some meteor-brilliance, fire and filth,Or say, his own Amphitheos, deityAnd dung, who, bound on the gods' embassage,Got men's acknowledgement in kick and cuff—We made acquaintance with a visitorOminous, apparitional, who wentStrange as he came, but shall not pass away.Let us attempt that memorable talk,Clothe the adventure's every incidentWith due expression: may not looks be told,Gesture made speak, and speech so amplifiedThat words find blood-warmth which, cold-writ, they lose?Recall the night we heard the news from Thrace,One year ago, Athenai still herself.We two were sitting silent in the house,Yet cheerless hardly. Euthukles, forgive!I somehow speak to unseen auditors.Notyou, but—Euthukles had entered, grave,Grand, may I say, as who brings laurel-branchAnd message from the tripod: such it proved.He first removed the garland from his brow,Then took my hand and looked into my face."Speak good words!" much misgiving faltered I."Good words, the best, Balaustion! He is crowned,Gone with his Attic ivy home to feast,Since Aischulos required companionship.Pour a libation for Euripides!"When we had sat the heavier silence out—"Dead and triumphant still!" began replyTo my eye's question. "As he willed, he worked:And, as he worked, he wanted not, be sure,Triumph his whole life through, submitting workTo work's right judges, never to the wrong,To competency, not ineptitude.When he had run life's proper race and workedQuite to the stade's end, there remained to tryThe stade's turn, should strength dare the double course.Half the diaulos reached, the hundred playsAccomplished, force in its rebound sufficedTo lift along the athlete and ensureA second wreath, proposed by fools for first,The statist's olive as the poet's bay.Wiselier, he suffered not a twofold aimRetard his pace, confuse his sight; at oncePoet and statist; though the multitudeGirded him ever 'All thine aim thine art?The idle poet only? No regardFor civic duty, public service, here?We drop our ballot-bean for Sophokles!Not only could he write "Antigoné"But—since (we argued) whoso penned that pieceMight just as well conduct a squadron,—straightGood-naturedly he took on him command.Got laughed at, and went back to making plays,Having allowed us our experimentRespecting the fit use of faculty.'No whit the more did athlete slacken pace.Soon the jeers grew: 'Cold hater of his kind,A sea-cave suits him, not the vulgar hearth!What need of tongue-talk, with a bookish storeWould stock ten cities?' Shadow of an ass!No whit the worse did athlete touch the markAnd, at the turning-point, consign his scornO' the scorners to that final trilogy'Hupsipule,' 'Phoinissai,' and the MatchOf Life Contemplative with Active Life,Zethos against Amphion. Ended so?Nowise!—began again; for heroes restDropping shield's oval o'er the entire man.Ami he who thus took Contemplation's prizeTurned stade-point but to face Activity.Out of all shadowy hands extending helpFor life's decline pledged to youth's labor still,Whatever renovation flatter age,—Society with pastime, solitudeWith peace,—he chose the hand that gave the heart,Bade Macedonian Archelaos takeThe leavings of Athenai, ash once flame.For fifty politicians' frosty work,One poet's ash proved ample and to spare:He propped the state and filled the treasury,Counselled the king as might a meaner soul,Furnished the friend with what shall stand in steadOf crown and sceptre, star his name aboutWhen these are dust; for him, EuripidesLast the old hand on the old phorminx flung,Clashed thence 'Alkaion,' maddened 'Pentheus' up;Then music sighed itself away, one moanIphigeneia made by Aulis' strand;With her and music died Euripides."The poet-friend who followed him to Thrace,Agathon, writes thus much: the merchant-shipMoreover brings a message from the kingTo young Euripides, who went on boardThis morning at Mounuchia: all is true."I said "Thank Zeus for the great news and good!""Nay, the report is running in brief fireThrough the town's stubbly furrow," he resumed:—"Entertains brightly what their favorite styles'The City of Gapers' for a week perhaps,Supplants three luminous tales, but yesterdayPronounced sufficient lamps to last the month:How Glauketes, outbidding Morsimos,Paid market-price for one Kopaic eelA thousand drachmai, and then cooked his prizeNot proper conger-fashion but in oilAnd nettles, as man fries the foam-fish-kind;How all the captains of the triremes, lateVictors at Arginousai, on returnWill, for return, be straightway put to death;How Mikon wagered a Thessalian mimeTrained him by Lais, looked on as complete,Against Leogoras' blood-mare koppa-marked,Valued six talents,—swore, accomplished so,The girl could swallow at a draught, nor breathe,A choinix of unmixed Mendesian wine;And having lost the match will—dine on herbs!Three stories late aflame, at once extinct,Outblazed by just 'Euripides is dead'!"I met the concourse from the Theatre,The audience flocking homeward: victoryAgain awarded AristophanesPrecisely for his old play chopped and changed,'The Female Celebrators of the Feast'—That Thesmophoria, tried a second time.'Never such full success!'—assured the folk,Who yet stopped praising to have word of mouthWith 'Euthukles, the bard's own intimate,Balaustion's husband, the right man to ask.'"'Dead, yes, but how dead, may acquaintance know?You were the couple constant at his cave:Tell us now, is it true that women, movedBy reason of his liking Krateros' ..."I answered 'He was loved by Sokrates.'"'Nay,' said another, 'envy did the work!For, emulating poets of the place,One Arridaios, one Krateues, bothEstablished in the royal favor, these' ..."'Protagoras instructed him,' said I."'Phu,' whistled Comic Platon, 'hear the fact!'Twas well said of your friend by Sophokles,"He hate our women? In his verse, belike.But when it comes to prose-work,—ha, ha, ha!"New climes don't change old manners: so, it chanced,Pursuing an intrigue one moonless nightWith Arethousian Nikodikos' wife,(Come now, his years were simply seventy-five,)Crossing the palace-court, what haps he onBut Archelaos' pack of hungry hounds?Who tore him piecemeal ere his cry brought help.'"I asked: Did not you write 'The Festivals'?You best know what dog tore him when alive.You others, who now make a ring to hear,Have not you just enjoyed a second treat,Proclaimed that ne'er was play more worthy prizeThan this, myself assisted at, last year,And gave its worth to,—spitting on the same?Appraise no poetry,—price cuttlefish,Or that seaweed-alphestes, scorpion-sort,Much famed for mixing mud with fantasyOn midnights! I interpret no foul dreams."If so said Euthukles, so could not I,Balaustion, say. After "Lusistraté"No more for me of "people's privilege,"No witnessing "the Grand old ComedyCoeval with our freedom, which, curtailed,Were freedom's deathblow: relic of the past,When Virtue laughingly told truth to Vice,Uncensured, since the stern mouth, stuffed with flowers,Through poetry breathed satire, perfumed blastWhich sense snuffed up while searched unto the bone!"I was a stranger: "For first joy," urged friends,"Go hear our Comedy, some patriot pieceThat plies the selfish advocates of warWith argument so unevadableThat crash fall Kleons whom the finer playOf reason, tickling, deeper wounds no whitThan would a spear-thrust from a savory-stalk!No: you hear knave and fool told crime and fault,And see each scourged his quantity of stripes.'Rough dealing, awkward language,' whine our fops:The world's too squeamish now to bear plain wordsConcerning deeds it acts with gust enough:But, thanks to wine-lees and democracy,We've still our stage where truth calls spade a spade!Ashamed? Phuromachos' decree providesThe sex may sit discreetly, witness all,Sorted, the good with good, the gay with gay,Themselves unseen, no need to force a blush.A Rhodian wife and ignorant so long?Go hear next play!"I heard "Lusistraté."Waves, said to wash pollution from the world,Take that plague-memory, cure that pustule caughtAs, past escape, I sat and saw the pieceBy one appalled at Phaidra's fate,—the chaste,Whom, because chaste, the wicked goddess chainedTo that same serpent of unchastityShe loathed most, and who, coiled so, died distraughtRather than make submission, loose one limbLove-wards, at lambency of honeyed tongue,Or torture of the scales which scraped her snow—I say, the piece by him who charged this piece(Because Euripides shrank not to teach,If gods be strong and wicked, man, though weak,May prove their match by willing to be good)With infamies the Scythian's whip should cure—"Such outrage done the public—Phaidra named!Such purpose to corrupt ingenuous youth,Such insult cast on female character!"—Why, when I saw that bestiality—So beyond all brute-beast imagining,That when, to point the moral at the close,Poor Salabaccho, just to show how fairWas "Reconciliation," stripped her charms,That exhibition simply bade us breathe,Seemed something healthy and commendableAfter obscenity grotesqued so muchIt slunk away revolted at itself.Henceforth I had my answer when our sagePattern-proposing seniors pleaded grave,"You fail to fathom here the deep design!All's acted in the interest of truth,Religion, and those manners old and dearWhich made our city great when citizensLike Aristeides and like MiltiadesWore each a golden tettix in his hair."What do they wear now under—Kleophon?Well, for such reasons,—I am out of breath,But loathsomeness we needs must hurry past,—I did not go to see, nor then nor now,The "Thesmophoriazousai." But, since malesChoose to brave first, blame afterward, nor brandWithout fair taste of what they stigmatize,Euthukles had not missed the first display,Original portrait of EuripidesBy "Virtue laughingly reproving Vice:""Virtue,"—the author, Aristophanes,Who mixed an image out of his own depths,Ticketed as I tell you. Oh, this timeNo more pretension to recondite worth!No joke in aid of Peace, no demagoguePun-pelleted from Pnux, no kordax-danceOvert helped covertly the Ancient Faith!All now was muck, home-produce, honestmanThe author's soul secreted to a playWhich gained the prize that day we heard the death.I thought "How thoroughly death alters things!Where is the wrong now, done our dead and great?How natural seems grandeur in relief,Cliff-base with frothy spites against its calm!"Euthukles interposed—he read my thought—"O'er them, too, in a moment came the change.The crowd's enthusiastic, to a man:Since, rake as such may please the ordure-heapBecause of certain sparkles presumed ore,At first flash of true lightning overhead,They look up, nor resume their search too soon.The insect-scattering sign is evident,And nowhere winks a firefly rival now,Nor bustles any beetle of the broodWith trundled dung-ball meant to menace heaven.Contrariwise, the cry is 'Honor him!''A statue in the theatre!' wants one;Another 'Bring the poet's body back,Bury him in Peiraios: o'er his tombLet Alkamenes carve the music-witch,The songstress-siren, meed of melody:Thoukudides invent his epitaph!'To-night the whole town pays its tribute thus."Our tribute should not be the same, my friend!Statue? Within our heart he stood, he stands!As for the vest outgrown now by the form,Low flesh that clothed high soul,—a vesture's fate—Why, let it fade, mix with the elementsThere where it, falling, freed Euripides!But for the soul that's tutelary nowTill time end, o'er the world to teach and bless—How better hail its freedom than by firstSinging, we two, its own song back again,Up to that face from which flowed beauty—faceNow abler to see triumph and take loveThan when it glorified Athenai once?The sweet and strange Alkestis, which saved me,Secured me—you, ends nowise, to my mind,In pardon of Admetos. Hearts are fainTo follow cheerful weary HeraklesStriding away from the huge gratitude,Club shouldered, lion-fleece round loin and flank,Bound on the next new labor "height o'er heightEver surmounting,—destiny's decree!"Thither He helps us: that's the story's end;He smiling said so, when I told him mine—My great adventure, how Alkestis helped.Afterward, when the time for parting fell,He gave me, with two other precious gifts,This third and best, consummating the grace,"Herakles," writ by his own hand, each line."If it have worth, reward is still to seek.Somebody, I forget who, gained the prizeAnd proved arch-poet: time must show!" he smiled:"Take this, and, when the noise tires out, judge me—Some day, not slow to dawn, when somebody—Who? I forget—proves nobody at all!"Is not that day come? What if you and IRe-sing the song, inaugurate the fame?We have not waited to acquaint ourselvesWith song and subject; we can prologizeHow, at Eurustheus' bidding,—hate strained hard,—Herakles had departed, one time more,On his last labor, worst of all the twelve;Descended into Haides, thence to dragThe triple-headed hound, which sun should seeSpite of the god whose darkness whelped the Fear.Down went the hero, "back—how should he come?"So laughed King Lukos, an old enemy,Who judged that absence testified defeatOf the land's loved one,—since he saved the landAnd for that service wedded MegaraDaughter of Thebai, realm her child should rule.Ambition, greed and malice seized their prey,The Heracleian House, defenceless left,Father and wife and child, to trample outTrace of its hearth-fire: since extreme old ageWakes pity, woman's wrong wins championship,And child may grow up man and take revenge.Hence see we that, from out their palace-homeHunted, for last resource they cluster nowCouched on the cold ground, hapless supplicantsAbout their court-yard altar,—Household ZeusIt is, the Three in funeral garb beseech,Delaying death so, till deliverance come—When did it ever?—from the deep and dark.And thus breaks silence old Amphitruon's voice....Say I not true thus far, my Euthukles?Suddenly, torch-light! knocking at the door,Loud, quick, "Admittance for the revels' lord!"Some unintelligible Komos-cry—Raw-flesh red, no cap upon his head,Dionusos, Bacchos, Phales, Iacchos,In let him reel with the kid-skin at his heel,Where it buries in the spread of the bushy myrtle-bed!(Our Rhodian Jackdaw-song was sense to that!)Then laughter, outbursts ruder and more rude,Through which, with silver point, a fluting pierced,And ever "Open, open, Bacchos bids!"But at last—one authoritative word,One name of an immense significance:For Euthukles rose up, threw wide the door.There trooped the Choros of the ComedyCrowned and triumphant; first, those flushed Fifteen,Men that wore women's garb, grotesque disguise.Then marched the Three,—who played Mnesilochos,Who, Toxotes, and who, robed right, masked rare,Monkeyed our Great and Dead to heart's contentThat morning in Athenai. Masks were downAnd robes doffed now; the sole disguise was drink.Mixing with these—I know not what gay crowd,Girl-dancers, flute-boys, and pre-eminentAmong them,—doubtless draped with such reserveAs stopped fear of the fifty-drachma fine(Beside one's name on public fig-tree nailed)Which women pay who in the streets walk bare,—Behold Elaphion of the Persic dance!Who lately had frisked fawn-foot, and the rest,—All for the Patriot Cause, the Antique Faith,The Conservation of True Poesy—Could I but penetrate the deep design!Elaphion, more Peiraios-known as "Phaps,"Tripped at the head of the whole banquet-bandWho came in front now, as the first fell back;And foremost—the authoritative voice,The revels-leader, he who gained the prize,And got the glory of the Archon's feast—There stood in person Aristophanes.And no ignoble presence! On the bulgeOf the clear baldness,—all his head one brow,—True, the veins swelled, blue network, and there surgedA red from cheek to temple,—then retiredAs if the dark-leaved chaplet damped a flame,—Was never nursed by temperance or health.But huge the eyeballs rolled back native fire,Imperiously triumphant: nostrils wideWaited their incense; while the pursed mouth's poutAggressive, while the beak supreme above,While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back,Beard whitening tinder like a vinous foam,These made a glory, of such insolence—I thought,—such domineering deityHephaistos might have carved to cut the brineFor his gay brother's prow, imbrue that pathWhich, purpling, recognized the conqueror.Impudent and majestic: drunk, perhaps,But that's religion; sense too plainly snuffed:Still, sensuality was grown a rite.What I had disbelieved most proved most true.There was a mind here, mind a-wantoningAt ease of undisputed masteryOver the body's brood, those appetites.Oh, but he grasped them grandly, as the godHis either struggling handful,—hurtless snakesHeld deep down, strained hard off from side and side!Mastery his, theirs simply servitude,So well could firm fist help intrepid eye.Fawning and fulsome, had they licked and hissed?At mandate of one muscle, order reigned.They had been wreathing much familiar nowAbout him on his entry; but a squeezeChoked down the pests to place: their lord stood free.Forward he stepped: I rose and fronted him."Hail, house, the friendly to Euripides!"(So he began) "Hail, each inhabitant!You, lady? What, the Rhodian? Form and face,Victory's self upsoaring to receiveThe poet? Right they named you ... some rich name,Vowel-buds thorned about with consonants,Fragrant, felicitous, rose-glow enrichedBy the Isle's unguent: some diminished endInion, Kallistion? delicater still,Kubelion or Melittion,—or, suppose(Less vulgar love than bee or violet)Phibalion, for the mouth split red-fig-wise,Korakinidion for the coal-black hair,Nettarion, Phabion for the darlingness?But no, it was some fruit-flower, Rhoidion ... ha,We near the balsam-bloom—Balaustion! Thanks,Rhodes! Folk have called me Rhodian, do you know?Not fools so far! Because, if Helios wived,As Pindaros sings somewhere prettily,Here blooms his offspring, earth-flesh with sun-fire,Rhodes' blood and Helios' gold. My phorminx, boy!Why does the boy hang back and balk an odeTiptoe at spread of wing? But like enough,Sunshine frays torchlight. Witness whom you scare,Superb Balaustion! Look outside the house!Pho, you have quenched my Komos by first frown,Struck dead all joyance: not a fluting puffsFrom idle cheekband! Ah, my Choros too?You've eaten cuckoo-apple? Dumb, you dogs?So much good Thasian wasted on your throatsAnd out of them not oneThrettanelo?Neblaretai!Because this earth-and-sunProduct looks wormwood and all bitter herbs?Well, do I blench, though me she hates the mostOf mortals? By the cabbage, off they slink!You, too, my Chrusomelolonthion-Phaps,Girl-goldling-beetle-beauty? You, abashed,Who late, supremely unabashable,Propped up my play at that important pointWhen Artamouxia tricks the Toxotes?Ha, ha,—thank Hermes for the lucky throw,—We came last comedy of the whole seven,So went all fresh to judgment well-disposedFor who should fatly feast them, eye and ear,We two between us! What, you fail your friend?Away then, free me of your cowardice!Go, get you the goat's breakfast! Fare afield,Ye circumcised of Egypt, pigs to sow,Back to the Priest's or forward to the crows,So you but rid me of such company!Once left alone, I can protect myselfFrom statuesque Balaustion pedestalledOn much disapprobation and mistake!She dares not beat the sacred brow, beside!Bacchos' equipment, ivy safeguards wellAs Phoibos' bay."They take me at my word!One comfort is, I shall not want them long,The Archon's cry creaks, creaks, 'Curtail expense!'The war wants money, year the twenty-sixth!Cut down our Choros number, clip costume,Save birds' wings, beetles' armor, spend the cashIn three-crest skull-caps, three days' salt-fish-slice,Three-banked-ships for these sham-ambassadors,And what not: any cost but Comedy's!'No Choros'—soon will follow; what care I?Archinos and Agurrhios, scrape your flint,Flay your dead dog, and curry favor so!Choros in rags, with loss of leather next,We lose the boys' vote, lose the song and dance,Lose my Elaphion! Still, the actor stays.Save but my acting, and the baldhead bardKudathenaian and Pandionid,Son of Philippos, AristophanesSurmounts his rivals now as heretofore,Though stinted to mere sober prosy verse—'Manners and men,' so squeamish gets the world!No more 'Step forward, strip for anapæsts!'No calling naughty people by their names,No tickling audience into gratitudeWith chickpease, barleygroats and nuts and plums,No setting Salabaccho" ...
Wind, wave, and bark, bear Euthukles and me,Balaustion, from—not sorrow but despair,Not memory but the present and its pang!Athenai, live thou hearted in my heart:Never, while I live, may I see thee more,Never again may these repugnant orbsAche themselves blind before the hideous pomp,The ghastly mirth which mocked thine overthrow—Death's entry, Haides' outrage!Doomed to die,—Fire should have flung a passion of embraceAbout thee till, resplendently inarmed,(Temple by temple folded to his breast,All thy white wonder fainting out in ash,)Lightly some vaporous sigh of soul escapedAnd so the Immortals bade Athenai back!Or earth might sunder and absorb thee, save,Buried below Olumpos and its gods,Akropolis to dominate her realmFor Koré, and console the ghosts; or, sea,What if thy watery plural vastitude,Rolling unanimous advance, had rushed,Might upon might, a moment,—stood, one stare,Sea-face to city-face, thy glaucous waveGlassing that marbled last magnificence,—Till fate's pale tremulous foam-flower tipped the gray,And when wave broke and overswarmed, and, suckedTo bounds back, multitudinously ceased,Let land again breathe unconfused with sea,Attiké was, Athenai was not now!Such end I could have borne, for I had shared.But this which, glanced at, aches within my orbsTo blinding,—bear me thence, bark, wind and wave!Me, Euthukles, and, hearted in each heart,Athenai, undisgraced as Pallas' self,Bear to my birthplace, Helios' island-bride,Zeus' darling: thither speed us, homeward-bound,Wafted already twelve hours' sail awayFrom horror, nearer by one sunset Rhodes!Why should despair be? Since, distinct aboveMan's wickedness and folly, flies the windAnd floats the cloud, free transport for our soulOut of its fleshly durance dim and low,—Since disembodied soul anticipates(Thought-borne as now in rapturous unrestraint)Above all crowding; crystal silentness,Above all noise, a silver solitude:—Surely, where thought so bears soul, soul in timeMay permanently bide, "assert the wise,"There live in peace, there work in hope once more—Oh, nothing doubt, Philemon! Greed and strife,Hatred and cark and care, what place have theyIn yon blue liberality of heaven?How the sea helps! How rose-smit earth will riseBreast-high thence, some bright morning, and be Rhodes!Heaven, earth and sea, my warrant—in their name,Believe—o'er falsehood, truth is surely sphered,O'er ugliness beams beauty, o'er this worldExtends that realm where "as the wise assert,"Philemon, thou shalt see EuripidesClearer than mortal sense perceived the man!A sunset nearer Rhodes, by twelve hours' sweepOf surge secured from horror? Rather say,Quieted out of weakness into strength.I dare invite, survey the scene my senseStaggered to apprehend: for, disenvolvedFrom the mere outside anguish and contempt,Slowly a justice centred in a doomReveals itself. Ay, pride succumbed to pride,Oppression met the oppressor and was matched.Athenai's vaunt braved Sparté's violenceTill, in the shock, prone fell Peiraios, lowRampart and bulwark lay, as—timing strokeOf hammer, axe, and beam hoist, poised and swung—The very flute-girls blew their laughing best,In dance about the conqueror while he badeMusic and merriment help engineryBatter down, break to pieces all the trustOf citizens once, slaves now. See what wallsPlay substitute for the long double rangeThemistoklean, heralding a guestFrom harbor on to citadel! Each sideTheir senseless walls demolished stone by stone,See,—outer wall as stonelike, heads and hearts,—Athenai's terror-stricken populace!Prattlers, tongue-tied in crouching abjectness,—Braggarts, who wring hands wont to flourish swords—Sophist and rhetorician, demagogue,(Argument dumb, authority a jest,)Dikast and heliast, pleader, litigant,Quack-priest, sham-prophecy-retailer, scoutO' the customs, sycophant, whate'er the style,Altar-scrap-snatcher, pimp and parasite,—Rivalities at truce now each with each,Stupefied mud-banks,—such an use they serve!While the one order which performs exactTo promise, functions faithful last as first,What is it but the city's lyric troop,Chantress and psaltress, flute-girl, dancing-girl?Athenai's harlotry takes laughing careTheir patron miss no pipings, late she loved,But deathward tread at least the kordax-step.Die then, who pulled such glory on your heads!There let it grind to powder! Perikles!The living are the dead now: death be life!Why should the sunset yonder waste its wealth?Prove thee Olumpian! If my heart supplyInviolate the structure,—true to type,Build me some spirit-place no flesh shall find,As Pheidias may inspire thee; slab on slab,Renew Athenai, quarry out the cloud,Convert to gold yon west extravagance!'Neath Propulaia, from AkropolisBy vapory grade and grade, gold all the way,Step to thy snow-Pnux, mount thy Bema-cloud,Thunder and lighten thence a Hellas throughThat shall be better and more beautifulAnd too august for Sparté's foot to spurn!Chasmed in the crag, again our TheatrePredominates, one purple: Staghunt-month,Brings it not Dionusia? Hail, the Three!Aischulos, Sophokles, EuripidesCompete, gain prize or lose prize, godlike still.Nay, lest they lack the old god-exercise—Their noble want the unworthy,—as of old,(How otherwise should patience crown their might?)What if each find his ape promoted man,His censor raised for antic service still?Some new Hermippos to pelt Perikles,Kratinos to swear Pheidias robbed a shrine,Eruxis—I suspect, Euripides,No brow will ache because with mop and mowHe gibes my poet! There 's a dog-faced dwarfThat gets to godship somehow, yet retainsHis apehood in the Egyptian hierarchy,More decent, indecorous just enough:Why should not dog-ape, graced in due degree,Grow Momos as thou Zeus? Or didst thou sighRightly with thy Makaria? "After life,Better no sentiency than turbulence;Death cures the low contention." Be it so!Yet progress means contention, to my mind.Euthukles, who, except for love that speaks,Art silent by my side while words of mineProvoke that foe from which escape is vainHenceforward, wake Athenai's fate and fall,—Memories asleep as, at the altar-foot,Those Furies in the Oresteian song,—Do I amiss, who wanting strength use craft,Advance upon the foe I cannot fly,Nor feign a snake is dormant though it gnaw?That fate and fall, once bedded in our brain,Roots itself past upwrenching; but coaxed forth,Encouraged out to practise fork and fang,—Perhaps, when satiate with prompt sustenance,It may pine, likelier die than if left swellIn peace by our pretension to ignore,Or pricked to threefold fury, should our stampBruise and not brain the pest.A middle course!What hinders that we treat this tragic themeAs the Three taught when either woke some woe,—How Klutaimnestra hated, what the prideOf Iokasté, why Medeia cloveNature asunder. Small rebuked by large,We felt our puny hates refine to air,Our poor prides sink, prevent the humbling hand,Our petty passions purify their tide.So, Euthukles, permit the tragedyTo re-enact itself, this voyage through,Till sunsets end and sunrise brighten Rhodes!Majestic on the stage of memory,Peplosed and kothorned, let Athenai fallOnce more, nay, oft again till life conclude,Lent for the lesson: Choros, I and thou!What else in life seems piteous any moreAfter such pity, or proves terribleBeside such terror?Still—since PhrunichosOffended, by too premature a touchOf that Milesian smart-place freshly frayed—(Ah, my poor people, whose prompt remedyWas—fine the poet, not reform thyself!)Beware precipitate approach! RehearseRather the prologue, well a year away,Than the main misery, a sunset old.What else but fitting prologue to the pieceStyle an adventure, stranger than my firstBy so much as the issue it enwombedLurked big beyond Balaustion's littleness?Second supreme adventure! O that Spring,That eve I told the earlier to my friends!Where are the four now, with each red-ripe mouthCrumpled so close, no quickest breath it fetchedCould disengage the lip-flower furled to budFor fear Admetos—shivering head and foot,As with sick soul and blind averted faceHe trusted hand forth to obey his friend—Should find no wife in her cold hand's response,Nor see the disenshrouded statue start.Alkestis, live the life and love the love!I wonder, does the streamlet ripple still,Out-smoothing galingale and watermintIts mat-floor? while at brim, 'twixt sedge and sedge,What bubblings past Baccheion, broadened much,Pricked by the reed and fretted by the fly,Oared by the boatman-spider's pair of arms!Lenaia was a gladsome month ago—Euripides had taught "Andromedé"Next month, would teach "Kresphontes"—which same monthSome one from Phokis, who companioned meSince all that happened on those temple-steps,Would marry me and turn Athenian too.Now! if next year the masters let the slavesDo Bacchic service and restore mankindThat trilogy whereof, 'tis noised, one playPresents the Bacchai,—no EuripidesWill teach the choros, nor shall we be tingedBy any such grand sunset of his soul,Exiles from dead Athenai,—not the liveThat's in the cloud there with the new-born star!Speak to the infinite intelligence,Sing to the everlasting sympathy!Winds belly sail, and drench of dancing brineBuffet our boat-side, so the prore bound free!Condense our voyage into one great dayMade up of sunset-closes: eve by eve,Resume that memorable night-discourseWhen—like some meteor-brilliance, fire and filth,Or say, his own Amphitheos, deityAnd dung, who, bound on the gods' embassage,Got men's acknowledgement in kick and cuff—We made acquaintance with a visitorOminous, apparitional, who wentStrange as he came, but shall not pass away.Let us attempt that memorable talk,Clothe the adventure's every incidentWith due expression: may not looks be told,Gesture made speak, and speech so amplifiedThat words find blood-warmth which, cold-writ, they lose?Recall the night we heard the news from Thrace,One year ago, Athenai still herself.We two were sitting silent in the house,Yet cheerless hardly. Euthukles, forgive!I somehow speak to unseen auditors.Notyou, but—Euthukles had entered, grave,Grand, may I say, as who brings laurel-branchAnd message from the tripod: such it proved.He first removed the garland from his brow,Then took my hand and looked into my face."Speak good words!" much misgiving faltered I."Good words, the best, Balaustion! He is crowned,Gone with his Attic ivy home to feast,Since Aischulos required companionship.Pour a libation for Euripides!"When we had sat the heavier silence out—"Dead and triumphant still!" began replyTo my eye's question. "As he willed, he worked:And, as he worked, he wanted not, be sure,Triumph his whole life through, submitting workTo work's right judges, never to the wrong,To competency, not ineptitude.When he had run life's proper race and workedQuite to the stade's end, there remained to tryThe stade's turn, should strength dare the double course.Half the diaulos reached, the hundred playsAccomplished, force in its rebound sufficedTo lift along the athlete and ensureA second wreath, proposed by fools for first,The statist's olive as the poet's bay.Wiselier, he suffered not a twofold aimRetard his pace, confuse his sight; at oncePoet and statist; though the multitudeGirded him ever 'All thine aim thine art?The idle poet only? No regardFor civic duty, public service, here?We drop our ballot-bean for Sophokles!Not only could he write "Antigoné"But—since (we argued) whoso penned that pieceMight just as well conduct a squadron,—straightGood-naturedly he took on him command.Got laughed at, and went back to making plays,Having allowed us our experimentRespecting the fit use of faculty.'No whit the more did athlete slacken pace.Soon the jeers grew: 'Cold hater of his kind,A sea-cave suits him, not the vulgar hearth!What need of tongue-talk, with a bookish storeWould stock ten cities?' Shadow of an ass!No whit the worse did athlete touch the markAnd, at the turning-point, consign his scornO' the scorners to that final trilogy'Hupsipule,' 'Phoinissai,' and the MatchOf Life Contemplative with Active Life,Zethos against Amphion. Ended so?Nowise!—began again; for heroes restDropping shield's oval o'er the entire man.Ami he who thus took Contemplation's prizeTurned stade-point but to face Activity.Out of all shadowy hands extending helpFor life's decline pledged to youth's labor still,Whatever renovation flatter age,—Society with pastime, solitudeWith peace,—he chose the hand that gave the heart,Bade Macedonian Archelaos takeThe leavings of Athenai, ash once flame.For fifty politicians' frosty work,One poet's ash proved ample and to spare:He propped the state and filled the treasury,Counselled the king as might a meaner soul,Furnished the friend with what shall stand in steadOf crown and sceptre, star his name aboutWhen these are dust; for him, EuripidesLast the old hand on the old phorminx flung,Clashed thence 'Alkaion,' maddened 'Pentheus' up;Then music sighed itself away, one moanIphigeneia made by Aulis' strand;With her and music died Euripides."The poet-friend who followed him to Thrace,Agathon, writes thus much: the merchant-shipMoreover brings a message from the kingTo young Euripides, who went on boardThis morning at Mounuchia: all is true."I said "Thank Zeus for the great news and good!""Nay, the report is running in brief fireThrough the town's stubbly furrow," he resumed:—"Entertains brightly what their favorite styles'The City of Gapers' for a week perhaps,Supplants three luminous tales, but yesterdayPronounced sufficient lamps to last the month:How Glauketes, outbidding Morsimos,Paid market-price for one Kopaic eelA thousand drachmai, and then cooked his prizeNot proper conger-fashion but in oilAnd nettles, as man fries the foam-fish-kind;How all the captains of the triremes, lateVictors at Arginousai, on returnWill, for return, be straightway put to death;How Mikon wagered a Thessalian mimeTrained him by Lais, looked on as complete,Against Leogoras' blood-mare koppa-marked,Valued six talents,—swore, accomplished so,The girl could swallow at a draught, nor breathe,A choinix of unmixed Mendesian wine;And having lost the match will—dine on herbs!Three stories late aflame, at once extinct,Outblazed by just 'Euripides is dead'!"I met the concourse from the Theatre,The audience flocking homeward: victoryAgain awarded AristophanesPrecisely for his old play chopped and changed,'The Female Celebrators of the Feast'—That Thesmophoria, tried a second time.'Never such full success!'—assured the folk,Who yet stopped praising to have word of mouthWith 'Euthukles, the bard's own intimate,Balaustion's husband, the right man to ask.'"'Dead, yes, but how dead, may acquaintance know?You were the couple constant at his cave:Tell us now, is it true that women, movedBy reason of his liking Krateros' ..."I answered 'He was loved by Sokrates.'"'Nay,' said another, 'envy did the work!For, emulating poets of the place,One Arridaios, one Krateues, bothEstablished in the royal favor, these' ..."'Protagoras instructed him,' said I."'Phu,' whistled Comic Platon, 'hear the fact!'Twas well said of your friend by Sophokles,"He hate our women? In his verse, belike.But when it comes to prose-work,—ha, ha, ha!"New climes don't change old manners: so, it chanced,Pursuing an intrigue one moonless nightWith Arethousian Nikodikos' wife,(Come now, his years were simply seventy-five,)Crossing the palace-court, what haps he onBut Archelaos' pack of hungry hounds?Who tore him piecemeal ere his cry brought help.'"I asked: Did not you write 'The Festivals'?You best know what dog tore him when alive.You others, who now make a ring to hear,Have not you just enjoyed a second treat,Proclaimed that ne'er was play more worthy prizeThan this, myself assisted at, last year,And gave its worth to,—spitting on the same?Appraise no poetry,—price cuttlefish,Or that seaweed-alphestes, scorpion-sort,Much famed for mixing mud with fantasyOn midnights! I interpret no foul dreams."If so said Euthukles, so could not I,Balaustion, say. After "Lusistraté"No more for me of "people's privilege,"No witnessing "the Grand old ComedyCoeval with our freedom, which, curtailed,Were freedom's deathblow: relic of the past,When Virtue laughingly told truth to Vice,Uncensured, since the stern mouth, stuffed with flowers,Through poetry breathed satire, perfumed blastWhich sense snuffed up while searched unto the bone!"I was a stranger: "For first joy," urged friends,"Go hear our Comedy, some patriot pieceThat plies the selfish advocates of warWith argument so unevadableThat crash fall Kleons whom the finer playOf reason, tickling, deeper wounds no whitThan would a spear-thrust from a savory-stalk!No: you hear knave and fool told crime and fault,And see each scourged his quantity of stripes.'Rough dealing, awkward language,' whine our fops:The world's too squeamish now to bear plain wordsConcerning deeds it acts with gust enough:But, thanks to wine-lees and democracy,We've still our stage where truth calls spade a spade!Ashamed? Phuromachos' decree providesThe sex may sit discreetly, witness all,Sorted, the good with good, the gay with gay,Themselves unseen, no need to force a blush.A Rhodian wife and ignorant so long?Go hear next play!"I heard "Lusistraté."Waves, said to wash pollution from the world,Take that plague-memory, cure that pustule caughtAs, past escape, I sat and saw the pieceBy one appalled at Phaidra's fate,—the chaste,Whom, because chaste, the wicked goddess chainedTo that same serpent of unchastityShe loathed most, and who, coiled so, died distraughtRather than make submission, loose one limbLove-wards, at lambency of honeyed tongue,Or torture of the scales which scraped her snow—I say, the piece by him who charged this piece(Because Euripides shrank not to teach,If gods be strong and wicked, man, though weak,May prove their match by willing to be good)With infamies the Scythian's whip should cure—"Such outrage done the public—Phaidra named!Such purpose to corrupt ingenuous youth,Such insult cast on female character!"—Why, when I saw that bestiality—So beyond all brute-beast imagining,That when, to point the moral at the close,Poor Salabaccho, just to show how fairWas "Reconciliation," stripped her charms,That exhibition simply bade us breathe,Seemed something healthy and commendableAfter obscenity grotesqued so muchIt slunk away revolted at itself.Henceforth I had my answer when our sagePattern-proposing seniors pleaded grave,"You fail to fathom here the deep design!All's acted in the interest of truth,Religion, and those manners old and dearWhich made our city great when citizensLike Aristeides and like MiltiadesWore each a golden tettix in his hair."What do they wear now under—Kleophon?Well, for such reasons,—I am out of breath,But loathsomeness we needs must hurry past,—I did not go to see, nor then nor now,The "Thesmophoriazousai." But, since malesChoose to brave first, blame afterward, nor brandWithout fair taste of what they stigmatize,Euthukles had not missed the first display,Original portrait of EuripidesBy "Virtue laughingly reproving Vice:""Virtue,"—the author, Aristophanes,Who mixed an image out of his own depths,Ticketed as I tell you. Oh, this timeNo more pretension to recondite worth!No joke in aid of Peace, no demagoguePun-pelleted from Pnux, no kordax-danceOvert helped covertly the Ancient Faith!All now was muck, home-produce, honestmanThe author's soul secreted to a playWhich gained the prize that day we heard the death.I thought "How thoroughly death alters things!Where is the wrong now, done our dead and great?How natural seems grandeur in relief,Cliff-base with frothy spites against its calm!"Euthukles interposed—he read my thought—"O'er them, too, in a moment came the change.The crowd's enthusiastic, to a man:Since, rake as such may please the ordure-heapBecause of certain sparkles presumed ore,At first flash of true lightning overhead,They look up, nor resume their search too soon.The insect-scattering sign is evident,And nowhere winks a firefly rival now,Nor bustles any beetle of the broodWith trundled dung-ball meant to menace heaven.Contrariwise, the cry is 'Honor him!''A statue in the theatre!' wants one;Another 'Bring the poet's body back,Bury him in Peiraios: o'er his tombLet Alkamenes carve the music-witch,The songstress-siren, meed of melody:Thoukudides invent his epitaph!'To-night the whole town pays its tribute thus."Our tribute should not be the same, my friend!Statue? Within our heart he stood, he stands!As for the vest outgrown now by the form,Low flesh that clothed high soul,—a vesture's fate—Why, let it fade, mix with the elementsThere where it, falling, freed Euripides!But for the soul that's tutelary nowTill time end, o'er the world to teach and bless—How better hail its freedom than by firstSinging, we two, its own song back again,Up to that face from which flowed beauty—faceNow abler to see triumph and take loveThan when it glorified Athenai once?The sweet and strange Alkestis, which saved me,Secured me—you, ends nowise, to my mind,In pardon of Admetos. Hearts are fainTo follow cheerful weary HeraklesStriding away from the huge gratitude,Club shouldered, lion-fleece round loin and flank,Bound on the next new labor "height o'er heightEver surmounting,—destiny's decree!"Thither He helps us: that's the story's end;He smiling said so, when I told him mine—My great adventure, how Alkestis helped.Afterward, when the time for parting fell,He gave me, with two other precious gifts,This third and best, consummating the grace,"Herakles," writ by his own hand, each line."If it have worth, reward is still to seek.Somebody, I forget who, gained the prizeAnd proved arch-poet: time must show!" he smiled:"Take this, and, when the noise tires out, judge me—Some day, not slow to dawn, when somebody—Who? I forget—proves nobody at all!"Is not that day come? What if you and IRe-sing the song, inaugurate the fame?We have not waited to acquaint ourselvesWith song and subject; we can prologizeHow, at Eurustheus' bidding,—hate strained hard,—Herakles had departed, one time more,On his last labor, worst of all the twelve;Descended into Haides, thence to dragThe triple-headed hound, which sun should seeSpite of the god whose darkness whelped the Fear.Down went the hero, "back—how should he come?"So laughed King Lukos, an old enemy,Who judged that absence testified defeatOf the land's loved one,—since he saved the landAnd for that service wedded MegaraDaughter of Thebai, realm her child should rule.Ambition, greed and malice seized their prey,The Heracleian House, defenceless left,Father and wife and child, to trample outTrace of its hearth-fire: since extreme old ageWakes pity, woman's wrong wins championship,And child may grow up man and take revenge.Hence see we that, from out their palace-homeHunted, for last resource they cluster nowCouched on the cold ground, hapless supplicantsAbout their court-yard altar,—Household ZeusIt is, the Three in funeral garb beseech,Delaying death so, till deliverance come—When did it ever?—from the deep and dark.And thus breaks silence old Amphitruon's voice....Say I not true thus far, my Euthukles?Suddenly, torch-light! knocking at the door,Loud, quick, "Admittance for the revels' lord!"Some unintelligible Komos-cry—Raw-flesh red, no cap upon his head,Dionusos, Bacchos, Phales, Iacchos,In let him reel with the kid-skin at his heel,Where it buries in the spread of the bushy myrtle-bed!(Our Rhodian Jackdaw-song was sense to that!)Then laughter, outbursts ruder and more rude,Through which, with silver point, a fluting pierced,And ever "Open, open, Bacchos bids!"But at last—one authoritative word,One name of an immense significance:For Euthukles rose up, threw wide the door.There trooped the Choros of the ComedyCrowned and triumphant; first, those flushed Fifteen,Men that wore women's garb, grotesque disguise.Then marched the Three,—who played Mnesilochos,Who, Toxotes, and who, robed right, masked rare,Monkeyed our Great and Dead to heart's contentThat morning in Athenai. Masks were downAnd robes doffed now; the sole disguise was drink.Mixing with these—I know not what gay crowd,Girl-dancers, flute-boys, and pre-eminentAmong them,—doubtless draped with such reserveAs stopped fear of the fifty-drachma fine(Beside one's name on public fig-tree nailed)Which women pay who in the streets walk bare,—Behold Elaphion of the Persic dance!Who lately had frisked fawn-foot, and the rest,—All for the Patriot Cause, the Antique Faith,The Conservation of True Poesy—Could I but penetrate the deep design!Elaphion, more Peiraios-known as "Phaps,"Tripped at the head of the whole banquet-bandWho came in front now, as the first fell back;And foremost—the authoritative voice,The revels-leader, he who gained the prize,And got the glory of the Archon's feast—There stood in person Aristophanes.And no ignoble presence! On the bulgeOf the clear baldness,—all his head one brow,—True, the veins swelled, blue network, and there surgedA red from cheek to temple,—then retiredAs if the dark-leaved chaplet damped a flame,—Was never nursed by temperance or health.But huge the eyeballs rolled back native fire,Imperiously triumphant: nostrils wideWaited their incense; while the pursed mouth's poutAggressive, while the beak supreme above,While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back,Beard whitening tinder like a vinous foam,These made a glory, of such insolence—I thought,—such domineering deityHephaistos might have carved to cut the brineFor his gay brother's prow, imbrue that pathWhich, purpling, recognized the conqueror.Impudent and majestic: drunk, perhaps,But that's religion; sense too plainly snuffed:Still, sensuality was grown a rite.What I had disbelieved most proved most true.There was a mind here, mind a-wantoningAt ease of undisputed masteryOver the body's brood, those appetites.Oh, but he grasped them grandly, as the godHis either struggling handful,—hurtless snakesHeld deep down, strained hard off from side and side!Mastery his, theirs simply servitude,So well could firm fist help intrepid eye.Fawning and fulsome, had they licked and hissed?At mandate of one muscle, order reigned.They had been wreathing much familiar nowAbout him on his entry; but a squeezeChoked down the pests to place: their lord stood free.Forward he stepped: I rose and fronted him."Hail, house, the friendly to Euripides!"(So he began) "Hail, each inhabitant!You, lady? What, the Rhodian? Form and face,Victory's self upsoaring to receiveThe poet? Right they named you ... some rich name,Vowel-buds thorned about with consonants,Fragrant, felicitous, rose-glow enrichedBy the Isle's unguent: some diminished endInion, Kallistion? delicater still,Kubelion or Melittion,—or, suppose(Less vulgar love than bee or violet)Phibalion, for the mouth split red-fig-wise,Korakinidion for the coal-black hair,Nettarion, Phabion for the darlingness?But no, it was some fruit-flower, Rhoidion ... ha,We near the balsam-bloom—Balaustion! Thanks,Rhodes! Folk have called me Rhodian, do you know?Not fools so far! Because, if Helios wived,As Pindaros sings somewhere prettily,Here blooms his offspring, earth-flesh with sun-fire,Rhodes' blood and Helios' gold. My phorminx, boy!Why does the boy hang back and balk an odeTiptoe at spread of wing? But like enough,Sunshine frays torchlight. Witness whom you scare,Superb Balaustion! Look outside the house!Pho, you have quenched my Komos by first frown,Struck dead all joyance: not a fluting puffsFrom idle cheekband! Ah, my Choros too?You've eaten cuckoo-apple? Dumb, you dogs?So much good Thasian wasted on your throatsAnd out of them not oneThrettanelo?Neblaretai!Because this earth-and-sunProduct looks wormwood and all bitter herbs?Well, do I blench, though me she hates the mostOf mortals? By the cabbage, off they slink!You, too, my Chrusomelolonthion-Phaps,Girl-goldling-beetle-beauty? You, abashed,Who late, supremely unabashable,Propped up my play at that important pointWhen Artamouxia tricks the Toxotes?Ha, ha,—thank Hermes for the lucky throw,—We came last comedy of the whole seven,So went all fresh to judgment well-disposedFor who should fatly feast them, eye and ear,We two between us! What, you fail your friend?Away then, free me of your cowardice!Go, get you the goat's breakfast! Fare afield,Ye circumcised of Egypt, pigs to sow,Back to the Priest's or forward to the crows,So you but rid me of such company!Once left alone, I can protect myselfFrom statuesque Balaustion pedestalledOn much disapprobation and mistake!She dares not beat the sacred brow, beside!Bacchos' equipment, ivy safeguards wellAs Phoibos' bay."They take me at my word!One comfort is, I shall not want them long,The Archon's cry creaks, creaks, 'Curtail expense!'The war wants money, year the twenty-sixth!Cut down our Choros number, clip costume,Save birds' wings, beetles' armor, spend the cashIn three-crest skull-caps, three days' salt-fish-slice,Three-banked-ships for these sham-ambassadors,And what not: any cost but Comedy's!'No Choros'—soon will follow; what care I?Archinos and Agurrhios, scrape your flint,Flay your dead dog, and curry favor so!Choros in rags, with loss of leather next,We lose the boys' vote, lose the song and dance,Lose my Elaphion! Still, the actor stays.Save but my acting, and the baldhead bardKudathenaian and Pandionid,Son of Philippos, AristophanesSurmounts his rivals now as heretofore,Though stinted to mere sober prosy verse—'Manners and men,' so squeamish gets the world!No more 'Step forward, strip for anapæsts!'No calling naughty people by their names,No tickling audience into gratitudeWith chickpease, barleygroats and nuts and plums,No setting Salabaccho" ...
Wind, wave, and bark, bear Euthukles and me,Balaustion, from—not sorrow but despair,Not memory but the present and its pang!Athenai, live thou hearted in my heart:Never, while I live, may I see thee more,Never again may these repugnant orbsAche themselves blind before the hideous pomp,The ghastly mirth which mocked thine overthrow—Death's entry, Haides' outrage!Doomed to die,—Fire should have flung a passion of embraceAbout thee till, resplendently inarmed,(Temple by temple folded to his breast,All thy white wonder fainting out in ash,)Lightly some vaporous sigh of soul escapedAnd so the Immortals bade Athenai back!Or earth might sunder and absorb thee, save,Buried below Olumpos and its gods,Akropolis to dominate her realmFor Koré, and console the ghosts; or, sea,What if thy watery plural vastitude,Rolling unanimous advance, had rushed,Might upon might, a moment,—stood, one stare,Sea-face to city-face, thy glaucous waveGlassing that marbled last magnificence,—Till fate's pale tremulous foam-flower tipped the gray,And when wave broke and overswarmed, and, suckedTo bounds back, multitudinously ceased,Let land again breathe unconfused with sea,Attiké was, Athenai was not now!
Wind, wave, and bark, bear Euthukles and me,
Balaustion, from—not sorrow but despair,
Not memory but the present and its pang!
Athenai, live thou hearted in my heart:
Never, while I live, may I see thee more,
Never again may these repugnant orbs
Ache themselves blind before the hideous pomp,
The ghastly mirth which mocked thine overthrow
—Death's entry, Haides' outrage!
Doomed to die,—
Fire should have flung a passion of embrace
About thee till, resplendently inarmed,
(Temple by temple folded to his breast,
All thy white wonder fainting out in ash,)
Lightly some vaporous sigh of soul escaped
And so the Immortals bade Athenai back!
Or earth might sunder and absorb thee, save,
Buried below Olumpos and its gods,
Akropolis to dominate her realm
For Koré, and console the ghosts; or, sea,
What if thy watery plural vastitude,
Rolling unanimous advance, had rushed,
Might upon might, a moment,—stood, one stare,
Sea-face to city-face, thy glaucous wave
Glassing that marbled last magnificence,—
Till fate's pale tremulous foam-flower tipped the gray,
And when wave broke and overswarmed, and, sucked
To bounds back, multitudinously ceased,
Let land again breathe unconfused with sea,
Attiké was, Athenai was not now!
Such end I could have borne, for I had shared.But this which, glanced at, aches within my orbsTo blinding,—bear me thence, bark, wind and wave!Me, Euthukles, and, hearted in each heart,Athenai, undisgraced as Pallas' self,Bear to my birthplace, Helios' island-bride,Zeus' darling: thither speed us, homeward-bound,Wafted already twelve hours' sail awayFrom horror, nearer by one sunset Rhodes!
Such end I could have borne, for I had shared.
But this which, glanced at, aches within my orbs
To blinding,—bear me thence, bark, wind and wave!
Me, Euthukles, and, hearted in each heart,
Athenai, undisgraced as Pallas' self,
Bear to my birthplace, Helios' island-bride,
Zeus' darling: thither speed us, homeward-bound,
Wafted already twelve hours' sail away
From horror, nearer by one sunset Rhodes!
Why should despair be? Since, distinct aboveMan's wickedness and folly, flies the windAnd floats the cloud, free transport for our soulOut of its fleshly durance dim and low,—Since disembodied soul anticipates(Thought-borne as now in rapturous unrestraint)Above all crowding; crystal silentness,Above all noise, a silver solitude:—Surely, where thought so bears soul, soul in timeMay permanently bide, "assert the wise,"There live in peace, there work in hope once more—Oh, nothing doubt, Philemon! Greed and strife,Hatred and cark and care, what place have theyIn yon blue liberality of heaven?How the sea helps! How rose-smit earth will riseBreast-high thence, some bright morning, and be Rhodes!Heaven, earth and sea, my warrant—in their name,Believe—o'er falsehood, truth is surely sphered,O'er ugliness beams beauty, o'er this worldExtends that realm where "as the wise assert,"Philemon, thou shalt see EuripidesClearer than mortal sense perceived the man!
Why should despair be? Since, distinct above
Man's wickedness and folly, flies the wind
And floats the cloud, free transport for our soul
Out of its fleshly durance dim and low,—
Since disembodied soul anticipates
(Thought-borne as now in rapturous unrestraint)
Above all crowding; crystal silentness,
Above all noise, a silver solitude:—
Surely, where thought so bears soul, soul in time
May permanently bide, "assert the wise,"
There live in peace, there work in hope once more—
Oh, nothing doubt, Philemon! Greed and strife,
Hatred and cark and care, what place have they
In yon blue liberality of heaven?
How the sea helps! How rose-smit earth will rise
Breast-high thence, some bright morning, and be Rhodes!
Heaven, earth and sea, my warrant—in their name,
Believe—o'er falsehood, truth is surely sphered,
O'er ugliness beams beauty, o'er this world
Extends that realm where "as the wise assert,"
Philemon, thou shalt see Euripides
Clearer than mortal sense perceived the man!
A sunset nearer Rhodes, by twelve hours' sweepOf surge secured from horror? Rather say,Quieted out of weakness into strength.I dare invite, survey the scene my senseStaggered to apprehend: for, disenvolvedFrom the mere outside anguish and contempt,Slowly a justice centred in a doomReveals itself. Ay, pride succumbed to pride,Oppression met the oppressor and was matched.Athenai's vaunt braved Sparté's violenceTill, in the shock, prone fell Peiraios, lowRampart and bulwark lay, as—timing strokeOf hammer, axe, and beam hoist, poised and swung—The very flute-girls blew their laughing best,In dance about the conqueror while he badeMusic and merriment help engineryBatter down, break to pieces all the trustOf citizens once, slaves now. See what wallsPlay substitute for the long double rangeThemistoklean, heralding a guestFrom harbor on to citadel! Each sideTheir senseless walls demolished stone by stone,See,—outer wall as stonelike, heads and hearts,—Athenai's terror-stricken populace!Prattlers, tongue-tied in crouching abjectness,—Braggarts, who wring hands wont to flourish swords—Sophist and rhetorician, demagogue,(Argument dumb, authority a jest,)Dikast and heliast, pleader, litigant,Quack-priest, sham-prophecy-retailer, scoutO' the customs, sycophant, whate'er the style,Altar-scrap-snatcher, pimp and parasite,—Rivalities at truce now each with each,Stupefied mud-banks,—such an use they serve!While the one order which performs exactTo promise, functions faithful last as first,What is it but the city's lyric troop,Chantress and psaltress, flute-girl, dancing-girl?Athenai's harlotry takes laughing careTheir patron miss no pipings, late she loved,But deathward tread at least the kordax-step.
A sunset nearer Rhodes, by twelve hours' sweep
Of surge secured from horror? Rather say,
Quieted out of weakness into strength.
I dare invite, survey the scene my sense
Staggered to apprehend: for, disenvolved
From the mere outside anguish and contempt,
Slowly a justice centred in a doom
Reveals itself. Ay, pride succumbed to pride,
Oppression met the oppressor and was matched.
Athenai's vaunt braved Sparté's violence
Till, in the shock, prone fell Peiraios, low
Rampart and bulwark lay, as—timing stroke
Of hammer, axe, and beam hoist, poised and swung—
The very flute-girls blew their laughing best,
In dance about the conqueror while he bade
Music and merriment help enginery
Batter down, break to pieces all the trust
Of citizens once, slaves now. See what walls
Play substitute for the long double range
Themistoklean, heralding a guest
From harbor on to citadel! Each side
Their senseless walls demolished stone by stone,
See,—outer wall as stonelike, heads and hearts,—
Athenai's terror-stricken populace!
Prattlers, tongue-tied in crouching abjectness,—
Braggarts, who wring hands wont to flourish swords—
Sophist and rhetorician, demagogue,
(Argument dumb, authority a jest,)
Dikast and heliast, pleader, litigant,
Quack-priest, sham-prophecy-retailer, scout
O' the customs, sycophant, whate'er the style,
Altar-scrap-snatcher, pimp and parasite,—
Rivalities at truce now each with each,
Stupefied mud-banks,—such an use they serve!
While the one order which performs exact
To promise, functions faithful last as first,
What is it but the city's lyric troop,
Chantress and psaltress, flute-girl, dancing-girl?
Athenai's harlotry takes laughing care
Their patron miss no pipings, late she loved,
But deathward tread at least the kordax-step.
Die then, who pulled such glory on your heads!There let it grind to powder! Perikles!The living are the dead now: death be life!Why should the sunset yonder waste its wealth?Prove thee Olumpian! If my heart supplyInviolate the structure,—true to type,Build me some spirit-place no flesh shall find,As Pheidias may inspire thee; slab on slab,Renew Athenai, quarry out the cloud,Convert to gold yon west extravagance!'Neath Propulaia, from AkropolisBy vapory grade and grade, gold all the way,Step to thy snow-Pnux, mount thy Bema-cloud,Thunder and lighten thence a Hellas throughThat shall be better and more beautifulAnd too august for Sparté's foot to spurn!Chasmed in the crag, again our TheatrePredominates, one purple: Staghunt-month,Brings it not Dionusia? Hail, the Three!Aischulos, Sophokles, EuripidesCompete, gain prize or lose prize, godlike still.Nay, lest they lack the old god-exercise—Their noble want the unworthy,—as of old,(How otherwise should patience crown their might?)What if each find his ape promoted man,His censor raised for antic service still?Some new Hermippos to pelt Perikles,Kratinos to swear Pheidias robbed a shrine,Eruxis—I suspect, Euripides,No brow will ache because with mop and mowHe gibes my poet! There 's a dog-faced dwarfThat gets to godship somehow, yet retainsHis apehood in the Egyptian hierarchy,More decent, indecorous just enough:Why should not dog-ape, graced in due degree,Grow Momos as thou Zeus? Or didst thou sighRightly with thy Makaria? "After life,Better no sentiency than turbulence;Death cures the low contention." Be it so!Yet progress means contention, to my mind.
Die then, who pulled such glory on your heads!
There let it grind to powder! Perikles!
The living are the dead now: death be life!
Why should the sunset yonder waste its wealth?
Prove thee Olumpian! If my heart supply
Inviolate the structure,—true to type,
Build me some spirit-place no flesh shall find,
As Pheidias may inspire thee; slab on slab,
Renew Athenai, quarry out the cloud,
Convert to gold yon west extravagance!
'Neath Propulaia, from Akropolis
By vapory grade and grade, gold all the way,
Step to thy snow-Pnux, mount thy Bema-cloud,
Thunder and lighten thence a Hellas through
That shall be better and more beautiful
And too august for Sparté's foot to spurn!
Chasmed in the crag, again our Theatre
Predominates, one purple: Staghunt-month,
Brings it not Dionusia? Hail, the Three!
Aischulos, Sophokles, Euripides
Compete, gain prize or lose prize, godlike still.
Nay, lest they lack the old god-exercise—
Their noble want the unworthy,—as of old,
(How otherwise should patience crown their might?)
What if each find his ape promoted man,
His censor raised for antic service still?
Some new Hermippos to pelt Perikles,
Kratinos to swear Pheidias robbed a shrine,
Eruxis—I suspect, Euripides,
No brow will ache because with mop and mow
He gibes my poet! There 's a dog-faced dwarf
That gets to godship somehow, yet retains
His apehood in the Egyptian hierarchy,
More decent, indecorous just enough:
Why should not dog-ape, graced in due degree,
Grow Momos as thou Zeus? Or didst thou sigh
Rightly with thy Makaria? "After life,
Better no sentiency than turbulence;
Death cures the low contention." Be it so!
Yet progress means contention, to my mind.
Euthukles, who, except for love that speaks,Art silent by my side while words of mineProvoke that foe from which escape is vainHenceforward, wake Athenai's fate and fall,—Memories asleep as, at the altar-foot,Those Furies in the Oresteian song,—Do I amiss, who wanting strength use craft,Advance upon the foe I cannot fly,Nor feign a snake is dormant though it gnaw?That fate and fall, once bedded in our brain,Roots itself past upwrenching; but coaxed forth,Encouraged out to practise fork and fang,—Perhaps, when satiate with prompt sustenance,It may pine, likelier die than if left swellIn peace by our pretension to ignore,Or pricked to threefold fury, should our stampBruise and not brain the pest.
Euthukles, who, except for love that speaks,
Art silent by my side while words of mine
Provoke that foe from which escape is vain
Henceforward, wake Athenai's fate and fall,—
Memories asleep as, at the altar-foot,
Those Furies in the Oresteian song,—
Do I amiss, who wanting strength use craft,
Advance upon the foe I cannot fly,
Nor feign a snake is dormant though it gnaw?
That fate and fall, once bedded in our brain,
Roots itself past upwrenching; but coaxed forth,
Encouraged out to practise fork and fang,—
Perhaps, when satiate with prompt sustenance,
It may pine, likelier die than if left swell
In peace by our pretension to ignore,
Or pricked to threefold fury, should our stamp
Bruise and not brain the pest.
A middle course!What hinders that we treat this tragic themeAs the Three taught when either woke some woe,—How Klutaimnestra hated, what the prideOf Iokasté, why Medeia cloveNature asunder. Small rebuked by large,We felt our puny hates refine to air,Our poor prides sink, prevent the humbling hand,Our petty passions purify their tide.So, Euthukles, permit the tragedyTo re-enact itself, this voyage through,Till sunsets end and sunrise brighten Rhodes!Majestic on the stage of memory,Peplosed and kothorned, let Athenai fallOnce more, nay, oft again till life conclude,Lent for the lesson: Choros, I and thou!What else in life seems piteous any moreAfter such pity, or proves terribleBeside such terror?
A middle course!
What hinders that we treat this tragic theme
As the Three taught when either woke some woe,
—How Klutaimnestra hated, what the pride
Of Iokasté, why Medeia clove
Nature asunder. Small rebuked by large,
We felt our puny hates refine to air,
Our poor prides sink, prevent the humbling hand,
Our petty passions purify their tide.
So, Euthukles, permit the tragedy
To re-enact itself, this voyage through,
Till sunsets end and sunrise brighten Rhodes!
Majestic on the stage of memory,
Peplosed and kothorned, let Athenai fall
Once more, nay, oft again till life conclude,
Lent for the lesson: Choros, I and thou!
What else in life seems piteous any more
After such pity, or proves terrible
Beside such terror?
Still—since PhrunichosOffended, by too premature a touchOf that Milesian smart-place freshly frayed—(Ah, my poor people, whose prompt remedyWas—fine the poet, not reform thyself!)Beware precipitate approach! RehearseRather the prologue, well a year away,Than the main misery, a sunset old.What else but fitting prologue to the pieceStyle an adventure, stranger than my firstBy so much as the issue it enwombedLurked big beyond Balaustion's littleness?Second supreme adventure! O that Spring,That eve I told the earlier to my friends!Where are the four now, with each red-ripe mouthCrumpled so close, no quickest breath it fetchedCould disengage the lip-flower furled to budFor fear Admetos—shivering head and foot,As with sick soul and blind averted faceHe trusted hand forth to obey his friend—Should find no wife in her cold hand's response,Nor see the disenshrouded statue start.Alkestis, live the life and love the love!I wonder, does the streamlet ripple still,Out-smoothing galingale and watermintIts mat-floor? while at brim, 'twixt sedge and sedge,What bubblings past Baccheion, broadened much,Pricked by the reed and fretted by the fly,Oared by the boatman-spider's pair of arms!Lenaia was a gladsome month ago—Euripides had taught "Andromedé"Next month, would teach "Kresphontes"—which same monthSome one from Phokis, who companioned meSince all that happened on those temple-steps,Would marry me and turn Athenian too.Now! if next year the masters let the slavesDo Bacchic service and restore mankindThat trilogy whereof, 'tis noised, one playPresents the Bacchai,—no EuripidesWill teach the choros, nor shall we be tingedBy any such grand sunset of his soul,Exiles from dead Athenai,—not the liveThat's in the cloud there with the new-born star!
Still—since Phrunichos
Offended, by too premature a touch
Of that Milesian smart-place freshly frayed—
(Ah, my poor people, whose prompt remedy
Was—fine the poet, not reform thyself!)
Beware precipitate approach! Rehearse
Rather the prologue, well a year away,
Than the main misery, a sunset old.
What else but fitting prologue to the piece
Style an adventure, stranger than my first
By so much as the issue it enwombed
Lurked big beyond Balaustion's littleness?
Second supreme adventure! O that Spring,
That eve I told the earlier to my friends!
Where are the four now, with each red-ripe mouth
Crumpled so close, no quickest breath it fetched
Could disengage the lip-flower furled to bud
For fear Admetos—shivering head and foot,
As with sick soul and blind averted face
He trusted hand forth to obey his friend—
Should find no wife in her cold hand's response,
Nor see the disenshrouded statue start.
Alkestis, live the life and love the love!
I wonder, does the streamlet ripple still,
Out-smoothing galingale and watermint
Its mat-floor? while at brim, 'twixt sedge and sedge,
What bubblings past Baccheion, broadened much,
Pricked by the reed and fretted by the fly,
Oared by the boatman-spider's pair of arms!
Lenaia was a gladsome month ago—
Euripides had taught "Andromedé"
Next month, would teach "Kresphontes"—which same month
Some one from Phokis, who companioned me
Since all that happened on those temple-steps,
Would marry me and turn Athenian too.
Now! if next year the masters let the slaves
Do Bacchic service and restore mankind
That trilogy whereof, 'tis noised, one play
Presents the Bacchai,—no Euripides
Will teach the choros, nor shall we be tinged
By any such grand sunset of his soul,
Exiles from dead Athenai,—not the live
That's in the cloud there with the new-born star!
Speak to the infinite intelligence,Sing to the everlasting sympathy!Winds belly sail, and drench of dancing brineBuffet our boat-side, so the prore bound free!Condense our voyage into one great dayMade up of sunset-closes: eve by eve,Resume that memorable night-discourseWhen—like some meteor-brilliance, fire and filth,Or say, his own Amphitheos, deityAnd dung, who, bound on the gods' embassage,Got men's acknowledgement in kick and cuff—We made acquaintance with a visitorOminous, apparitional, who wentStrange as he came, but shall not pass away.Let us attempt that memorable talk,Clothe the adventure's every incidentWith due expression: may not looks be told,Gesture made speak, and speech so amplifiedThat words find blood-warmth which, cold-writ, they lose?
Speak to the infinite intelligence,
Sing to the everlasting sympathy!
Winds belly sail, and drench of dancing brine
Buffet our boat-side, so the prore bound free!
Condense our voyage into one great day
Made up of sunset-closes: eve by eve,
Resume that memorable night-discourse
When—like some meteor-brilliance, fire and filth,
Or say, his own Amphitheos, deity
And dung, who, bound on the gods' embassage,
Got men's acknowledgement in kick and cuff—
We made acquaintance with a visitor
Ominous, apparitional, who went
Strange as he came, but shall not pass away.
Let us attempt that memorable talk,
Clothe the adventure's every incident
With due expression: may not looks be told,
Gesture made speak, and speech so amplified
That words find blood-warmth which, cold-writ, they lose?
Recall the night we heard the news from Thrace,One year ago, Athenai still herself.
Recall the night we heard the news from Thrace,
One year ago, Athenai still herself.
We two were sitting silent in the house,Yet cheerless hardly. Euthukles, forgive!I somehow speak to unseen auditors.Notyou, but—Euthukles had entered, grave,Grand, may I say, as who brings laurel-branchAnd message from the tripod: such it proved.
We two were sitting silent in the house,
Yet cheerless hardly. Euthukles, forgive!
I somehow speak to unseen auditors.
Notyou, but—Euthukles had entered, grave,
Grand, may I say, as who brings laurel-branch
And message from the tripod: such it proved.
He first removed the garland from his brow,Then took my hand and looked into my face.
He first removed the garland from his brow,
Then took my hand and looked into my face.
"Speak good words!" much misgiving faltered I.
"Speak good words!" much misgiving faltered I.
"Good words, the best, Balaustion! He is crowned,Gone with his Attic ivy home to feast,Since Aischulos required companionship.Pour a libation for Euripides!"
"Good words, the best, Balaustion! He is crowned,
Gone with his Attic ivy home to feast,
Since Aischulos required companionship.
Pour a libation for Euripides!"
When we had sat the heavier silence out—"Dead and triumphant still!" began replyTo my eye's question. "As he willed, he worked:And, as he worked, he wanted not, be sure,Triumph his whole life through, submitting workTo work's right judges, never to the wrong,To competency, not ineptitude.When he had run life's proper race and workedQuite to the stade's end, there remained to tryThe stade's turn, should strength dare the double course.Half the diaulos reached, the hundred playsAccomplished, force in its rebound sufficedTo lift along the athlete and ensureA second wreath, proposed by fools for first,The statist's olive as the poet's bay.Wiselier, he suffered not a twofold aimRetard his pace, confuse his sight; at oncePoet and statist; though the multitudeGirded him ever 'All thine aim thine art?The idle poet only? No regardFor civic duty, public service, here?We drop our ballot-bean for Sophokles!Not only could he write "Antigoné"But—since (we argued) whoso penned that pieceMight just as well conduct a squadron,—straightGood-naturedly he took on him command.Got laughed at, and went back to making plays,Having allowed us our experimentRespecting the fit use of faculty.'No whit the more did athlete slacken pace.Soon the jeers grew: 'Cold hater of his kind,A sea-cave suits him, not the vulgar hearth!What need of tongue-talk, with a bookish storeWould stock ten cities?' Shadow of an ass!No whit the worse did athlete touch the markAnd, at the turning-point, consign his scornO' the scorners to that final trilogy'Hupsipule,' 'Phoinissai,' and the MatchOf Life Contemplative with Active Life,Zethos against Amphion. Ended so?Nowise!—began again; for heroes restDropping shield's oval o'er the entire man.Ami he who thus took Contemplation's prizeTurned stade-point but to face Activity.Out of all shadowy hands extending helpFor life's decline pledged to youth's labor still,Whatever renovation flatter age,—Society with pastime, solitudeWith peace,—he chose the hand that gave the heart,Bade Macedonian Archelaos takeThe leavings of Athenai, ash once flame.For fifty politicians' frosty work,One poet's ash proved ample and to spare:He propped the state and filled the treasury,Counselled the king as might a meaner soul,Furnished the friend with what shall stand in steadOf crown and sceptre, star his name aboutWhen these are dust; for him, EuripidesLast the old hand on the old phorminx flung,Clashed thence 'Alkaion,' maddened 'Pentheus' up;Then music sighed itself away, one moanIphigeneia made by Aulis' strand;With her and music died Euripides.
When we had sat the heavier silence out—
"Dead and triumphant still!" began reply
To my eye's question. "As he willed, he worked:
And, as he worked, he wanted not, be sure,
Triumph his whole life through, submitting work
To work's right judges, never to the wrong,
To competency, not ineptitude.
When he had run life's proper race and worked
Quite to the stade's end, there remained to try
The stade's turn, should strength dare the double course.
Half the diaulos reached, the hundred plays
Accomplished, force in its rebound sufficed
To lift along the athlete and ensure
A second wreath, proposed by fools for first,
The statist's olive as the poet's bay.
Wiselier, he suffered not a twofold aim
Retard his pace, confuse his sight; at once
Poet and statist; though the multitude
Girded him ever 'All thine aim thine art?
The idle poet only? No regard
For civic duty, public service, here?
We drop our ballot-bean for Sophokles!
Not only could he write "Antigoné"
But—since (we argued) whoso penned that piece
Might just as well conduct a squadron,—straight
Good-naturedly he took on him command.
Got laughed at, and went back to making plays,
Having allowed us our experiment
Respecting the fit use of faculty.'
No whit the more did athlete slacken pace.
Soon the jeers grew: 'Cold hater of his kind,
A sea-cave suits him, not the vulgar hearth!
What need of tongue-talk, with a bookish store
Would stock ten cities?' Shadow of an ass!
No whit the worse did athlete touch the mark
And, at the turning-point, consign his scorn
O' the scorners to that final trilogy
'Hupsipule,' 'Phoinissai,' and the Match
Of Life Contemplative with Active Life,
Zethos against Amphion. Ended so?
Nowise!—began again; for heroes rest
Dropping shield's oval o'er the entire man.
Ami he who thus took Contemplation's prize
Turned stade-point but to face Activity.
Out of all shadowy hands extending help
For life's decline pledged to youth's labor still,
Whatever renovation flatter age,—
Society with pastime, solitude
With peace,—he chose the hand that gave the heart,
Bade Macedonian Archelaos take
The leavings of Athenai, ash once flame.
For fifty politicians' frosty work,
One poet's ash proved ample and to spare:
He propped the state and filled the treasury,
Counselled the king as might a meaner soul,
Furnished the friend with what shall stand in stead
Of crown and sceptre, star his name about
When these are dust; for him, Euripides
Last the old hand on the old phorminx flung,
Clashed thence 'Alkaion,' maddened 'Pentheus' up;
Then music sighed itself away, one moan
Iphigeneia made by Aulis' strand;
With her and music died Euripides.
"The poet-friend who followed him to Thrace,Agathon, writes thus much: the merchant-shipMoreover brings a message from the kingTo young Euripides, who went on boardThis morning at Mounuchia: all is true."
"The poet-friend who followed him to Thrace,
Agathon, writes thus much: the merchant-ship
Moreover brings a message from the king
To young Euripides, who went on board
This morning at Mounuchia: all is true."
I said "Thank Zeus for the great news and good!"
I said "Thank Zeus for the great news and good!"
"Nay, the report is running in brief fireThrough the town's stubbly furrow," he resumed:—"Entertains brightly what their favorite styles'The City of Gapers' for a week perhaps,Supplants three luminous tales, but yesterdayPronounced sufficient lamps to last the month:How Glauketes, outbidding Morsimos,Paid market-price for one Kopaic eelA thousand drachmai, and then cooked his prizeNot proper conger-fashion but in oilAnd nettles, as man fries the foam-fish-kind;How all the captains of the triremes, lateVictors at Arginousai, on returnWill, for return, be straightway put to death;How Mikon wagered a Thessalian mimeTrained him by Lais, looked on as complete,Against Leogoras' blood-mare koppa-marked,Valued six talents,—swore, accomplished so,The girl could swallow at a draught, nor breathe,A choinix of unmixed Mendesian wine;And having lost the match will—dine on herbs!Three stories late aflame, at once extinct,Outblazed by just 'Euripides is dead'!
"Nay, the report is running in brief fire
Through the town's stubbly furrow," he resumed:
—"Entertains brightly what their favorite styles
'The City of Gapers' for a week perhaps,
Supplants three luminous tales, but yesterday
Pronounced sufficient lamps to last the month:
How Glauketes, outbidding Morsimos,
Paid market-price for one Kopaic eel
A thousand drachmai, and then cooked his prize
Not proper conger-fashion but in oil
And nettles, as man fries the foam-fish-kind;
How all the captains of the triremes, late
Victors at Arginousai, on return
Will, for return, be straightway put to death;
How Mikon wagered a Thessalian mime
Trained him by Lais, looked on as complete,
Against Leogoras' blood-mare koppa-marked,
Valued six talents,—swore, accomplished so,
The girl could swallow at a draught, nor breathe,
A choinix of unmixed Mendesian wine;
And having lost the match will—dine on herbs!
Three stories late aflame, at once extinct,
Outblazed by just 'Euripides is dead'!
"I met the concourse from the Theatre,The audience flocking homeward: victoryAgain awarded AristophanesPrecisely for his old play chopped and changed,'The Female Celebrators of the Feast'—That Thesmophoria, tried a second time.'Never such full success!'—assured the folk,Who yet stopped praising to have word of mouthWith 'Euthukles, the bard's own intimate,Balaustion's husband, the right man to ask.'
"I met the concourse from the Theatre,
The audience flocking homeward: victory
Again awarded Aristophanes
Precisely for his old play chopped and changed,
'The Female Celebrators of the Feast'—
That Thesmophoria, tried a second time.
'Never such full success!'—assured the folk,
Who yet stopped praising to have word of mouth
With 'Euthukles, the bard's own intimate,
Balaustion's husband, the right man to ask.'
"'Dead, yes, but how dead, may acquaintance know?You were the couple constant at his cave:Tell us now, is it true that women, movedBy reason of his liking Krateros' ...
"'Dead, yes, but how dead, may acquaintance know?
You were the couple constant at his cave:
Tell us now, is it true that women, moved
By reason of his liking Krateros' ...
"I answered 'He was loved by Sokrates.'
"I answered 'He was loved by Sokrates.'
"'Nay,' said another, 'envy did the work!For, emulating poets of the place,One Arridaios, one Krateues, bothEstablished in the royal favor, these' ...
"'Nay,' said another, 'envy did the work!
For, emulating poets of the place,
One Arridaios, one Krateues, both
Established in the royal favor, these' ...
"'Protagoras instructed him,' said I.
"'Protagoras instructed him,' said I.
"'Phu,' whistled Comic Platon, 'hear the fact!'Twas well said of your friend by Sophokles,"He hate our women? In his verse, belike.But when it comes to prose-work,—ha, ha, ha!"New climes don't change old manners: so, it chanced,Pursuing an intrigue one moonless nightWith Arethousian Nikodikos' wife,(Come now, his years were simply seventy-five,)Crossing the palace-court, what haps he onBut Archelaos' pack of hungry hounds?Who tore him piecemeal ere his cry brought help.'
"'Phu,' whistled Comic Platon, 'hear the fact!
'Twas well said of your friend by Sophokles,
"He hate our women? In his verse, belike.
But when it comes to prose-work,—ha, ha, ha!"
New climes don't change old manners: so, it chanced,
Pursuing an intrigue one moonless night
With Arethousian Nikodikos' wife,
(Come now, his years were simply seventy-five,)
Crossing the palace-court, what haps he on
But Archelaos' pack of hungry hounds?
Who tore him piecemeal ere his cry brought help.'
"I asked: Did not you write 'The Festivals'?You best know what dog tore him when alive.You others, who now make a ring to hear,Have not you just enjoyed a second treat,Proclaimed that ne'er was play more worthy prizeThan this, myself assisted at, last year,And gave its worth to,—spitting on the same?Appraise no poetry,—price cuttlefish,Or that seaweed-alphestes, scorpion-sort,Much famed for mixing mud with fantasyOn midnights! I interpret no foul dreams."
"I asked: Did not you write 'The Festivals'?
You best know what dog tore him when alive.
You others, who now make a ring to hear,
Have not you just enjoyed a second treat,
Proclaimed that ne'er was play more worthy prize
Than this, myself assisted at, last year,
And gave its worth to,—spitting on the same?
Appraise no poetry,—price cuttlefish,
Or that seaweed-alphestes, scorpion-sort,
Much famed for mixing mud with fantasy
On midnights! I interpret no foul dreams."
If so said Euthukles, so could not I,Balaustion, say. After "Lusistraté"No more for me of "people's privilege,"No witnessing "the Grand old ComedyCoeval with our freedom, which, curtailed,Were freedom's deathblow: relic of the past,When Virtue laughingly told truth to Vice,Uncensured, since the stern mouth, stuffed with flowers,Through poetry breathed satire, perfumed blastWhich sense snuffed up while searched unto the bone!"I was a stranger: "For first joy," urged friends,"Go hear our Comedy, some patriot pieceThat plies the selfish advocates of warWith argument so unevadableThat crash fall Kleons whom the finer playOf reason, tickling, deeper wounds no whitThan would a spear-thrust from a savory-stalk!No: you hear knave and fool told crime and fault,And see each scourged his quantity of stripes.'Rough dealing, awkward language,' whine our fops:The world's too squeamish now to bear plain wordsConcerning deeds it acts with gust enough:But, thanks to wine-lees and democracy,We've still our stage where truth calls spade a spade!Ashamed? Phuromachos' decree providesThe sex may sit discreetly, witness all,Sorted, the good with good, the gay with gay,Themselves unseen, no need to force a blush.A Rhodian wife and ignorant so long?Go hear next play!"
If so said Euthukles, so could not I,
Balaustion, say. After "Lusistraté"
No more for me of "people's privilege,"
No witnessing "the Grand old Comedy
Coeval with our freedom, which, curtailed,
Were freedom's deathblow: relic of the past,
When Virtue laughingly told truth to Vice,
Uncensured, since the stern mouth, stuffed with flowers,
Through poetry breathed satire, perfumed blast
Which sense snuffed up while searched unto the bone!"
I was a stranger: "For first joy," urged friends,
"Go hear our Comedy, some patriot piece
That plies the selfish advocates of war
With argument so unevadable
That crash fall Kleons whom the finer play
Of reason, tickling, deeper wounds no whit
Than would a spear-thrust from a savory-stalk!
No: you hear knave and fool told crime and fault,
And see each scourged his quantity of stripes.
'Rough dealing, awkward language,' whine our fops:
The world's too squeamish now to bear plain words
Concerning deeds it acts with gust enough:
But, thanks to wine-lees and democracy,
We've still our stage where truth calls spade a spade!
Ashamed? Phuromachos' decree provides
The sex may sit discreetly, witness all,
Sorted, the good with good, the gay with gay,
Themselves unseen, no need to force a blush.
A Rhodian wife and ignorant so long?
Go hear next play!"
I heard "Lusistraté."Waves, said to wash pollution from the world,Take that plague-memory, cure that pustule caughtAs, past escape, I sat and saw the pieceBy one appalled at Phaidra's fate,—the chaste,Whom, because chaste, the wicked goddess chainedTo that same serpent of unchastityShe loathed most, and who, coiled so, died distraughtRather than make submission, loose one limbLove-wards, at lambency of honeyed tongue,Or torture of the scales which scraped her snow—I say, the piece by him who charged this piece(Because Euripides shrank not to teach,If gods be strong and wicked, man, though weak,May prove their match by willing to be good)With infamies the Scythian's whip should cure—"Such outrage done the public—Phaidra named!Such purpose to corrupt ingenuous youth,Such insult cast on female character!"—Why, when I saw that bestiality—So beyond all brute-beast imagining,That when, to point the moral at the close,Poor Salabaccho, just to show how fairWas "Reconciliation," stripped her charms,That exhibition simply bade us breathe,Seemed something healthy and commendableAfter obscenity grotesqued so muchIt slunk away revolted at itself.Henceforth I had my answer when our sagePattern-proposing seniors pleaded grave,"You fail to fathom here the deep design!All's acted in the interest of truth,Religion, and those manners old and dearWhich made our city great when citizensLike Aristeides and like MiltiadesWore each a golden tettix in his hair."What do they wear now under—Kleophon?
I heard "Lusistraté."
Waves, said to wash pollution from the world,
Take that plague-memory, cure that pustule caught
As, past escape, I sat and saw the piece
By one appalled at Phaidra's fate,—the chaste,
Whom, because chaste, the wicked goddess chained
To that same serpent of unchastity
She loathed most, and who, coiled so, died distraught
Rather than make submission, loose one limb
Love-wards, at lambency of honeyed tongue,
Or torture of the scales which scraped her snow
—I say, the piece by him who charged this piece
(Because Euripides shrank not to teach,
If gods be strong and wicked, man, though weak,
May prove their match by willing to be good)
With infamies the Scythian's whip should cure—
"Such outrage done the public—Phaidra named!
Such purpose to corrupt ingenuous youth,
Such insult cast on female character!"—
Why, when I saw that bestiality—
So beyond all brute-beast imagining,
That when, to point the moral at the close,
Poor Salabaccho, just to show how fair
Was "Reconciliation," stripped her charms,
That exhibition simply bade us breathe,
Seemed something healthy and commendable
After obscenity grotesqued so much
It slunk away revolted at itself.
Henceforth I had my answer when our sage
Pattern-proposing seniors pleaded grave,
"You fail to fathom here the deep design!
All's acted in the interest of truth,
Religion, and those manners old and dear
Which made our city great when citizens
Like Aristeides and like Miltiades
Wore each a golden tettix in his hair."
What do they wear now under—Kleophon?
Well, for such reasons,—I am out of breath,But loathsomeness we needs must hurry past,—I did not go to see, nor then nor now,The "Thesmophoriazousai." But, since malesChoose to brave first, blame afterward, nor brandWithout fair taste of what they stigmatize,Euthukles had not missed the first display,Original portrait of EuripidesBy "Virtue laughingly reproving Vice:""Virtue,"—the author, Aristophanes,Who mixed an image out of his own depths,Ticketed as I tell you. Oh, this timeNo more pretension to recondite worth!No joke in aid of Peace, no demagoguePun-pelleted from Pnux, no kordax-danceOvert helped covertly the Ancient Faith!All now was muck, home-produce, honestmanThe author's soul secreted to a playWhich gained the prize that day we heard the death.
Well, for such reasons,—I am out of breath,
But loathsomeness we needs must hurry past,—
I did not go to see, nor then nor now,
The "Thesmophoriazousai." But, since males
Choose to brave first, blame afterward, nor brand
Without fair taste of what they stigmatize,
Euthukles had not missed the first display,
Original portrait of Euripides
By "Virtue laughingly reproving Vice:"
"Virtue,"—the author, Aristophanes,
Who mixed an image out of his own depths,
Ticketed as I tell you. Oh, this time
No more pretension to recondite worth!
No joke in aid of Peace, no demagogue
Pun-pelleted from Pnux, no kordax-dance
Overt helped covertly the Ancient Faith!
All now was muck, home-produce, honestman
The author's soul secreted to a play
Which gained the prize that day we heard the death.
I thought "How thoroughly death alters things!Where is the wrong now, done our dead and great?How natural seems grandeur in relief,Cliff-base with frothy spites against its calm!"
I thought "How thoroughly death alters things!
Where is the wrong now, done our dead and great?
How natural seems grandeur in relief,
Cliff-base with frothy spites against its calm!"
Euthukles interposed—he read my thought—
Euthukles interposed—he read my thought—
"O'er them, too, in a moment came the change.The crowd's enthusiastic, to a man:Since, rake as such may please the ordure-heapBecause of certain sparkles presumed ore,At first flash of true lightning overhead,They look up, nor resume their search too soon.The insect-scattering sign is evident,And nowhere winks a firefly rival now,Nor bustles any beetle of the broodWith trundled dung-ball meant to menace heaven.Contrariwise, the cry is 'Honor him!''A statue in the theatre!' wants one;Another 'Bring the poet's body back,Bury him in Peiraios: o'er his tombLet Alkamenes carve the music-witch,The songstress-siren, meed of melody:Thoukudides invent his epitaph!'To-night the whole town pays its tribute thus."
"O'er them, too, in a moment came the change.
The crowd's enthusiastic, to a man:
Since, rake as such may please the ordure-heap
Because of certain sparkles presumed ore,
At first flash of true lightning overhead,
They look up, nor resume their search too soon.
The insect-scattering sign is evident,
And nowhere winks a firefly rival now,
Nor bustles any beetle of the brood
With trundled dung-ball meant to menace heaven.
Contrariwise, the cry is 'Honor him!'
'A statue in the theatre!' wants one;
Another 'Bring the poet's body back,
Bury him in Peiraios: o'er his tomb
Let Alkamenes carve the music-witch,
The songstress-siren, meed of melody:
Thoukudides invent his epitaph!'
To-night the whole town pays its tribute thus."
Our tribute should not be the same, my friend!Statue? Within our heart he stood, he stands!As for the vest outgrown now by the form,Low flesh that clothed high soul,—a vesture's fate—Why, let it fade, mix with the elementsThere where it, falling, freed Euripides!But for the soul that's tutelary nowTill time end, o'er the world to teach and bless—How better hail its freedom than by firstSinging, we two, its own song back again,Up to that face from which flowed beauty—faceNow abler to see triumph and take loveThan when it glorified Athenai once?
Our tribute should not be the same, my friend!
Statue? Within our heart he stood, he stands!
As for the vest outgrown now by the form,
Low flesh that clothed high soul,—a vesture's fate—
Why, let it fade, mix with the elements
There where it, falling, freed Euripides!
But for the soul that's tutelary now
Till time end, o'er the world to teach and bless—
How better hail its freedom than by first
Singing, we two, its own song back again,
Up to that face from which flowed beauty—face
Now abler to see triumph and take love
Than when it glorified Athenai once?
The sweet and strange Alkestis, which saved me,Secured me—you, ends nowise, to my mind,In pardon of Admetos. Hearts are fainTo follow cheerful weary HeraklesStriding away from the huge gratitude,Club shouldered, lion-fleece round loin and flank,Bound on the next new labor "height o'er heightEver surmounting,—destiny's decree!"Thither He helps us: that's the story's end;He smiling said so, when I told him mine—My great adventure, how Alkestis helped.Afterward, when the time for parting fell,He gave me, with two other precious gifts,This third and best, consummating the grace,"Herakles," writ by his own hand, each line.
The sweet and strange Alkestis, which saved me,
Secured me—you, ends nowise, to my mind,
In pardon of Admetos. Hearts are fain
To follow cheerful weary Herakles
Striding away from the huge gratitude,
Club shouldered, lion-fleece round loin and flank,
Bound on the next new labor "height o'er height
Ever surmounting,—destiny's decree!"
Thither He helps us: that's the story's end;
He smiling said so, when I told him mine—
My great adventure, how Alkestis helped.
Afterward, when the time for parting fell,
He gave me, with two other precious gifts,
This third and best, consummating the grace,
"Herakles," writ by his own hand, each line.
"If it have worth, reward is still to seek.Somebody, I forget who, gained the prizeAnd proved arch-poet: time must show!" he smiled:"Take this, and, when the noise tires out, judge me—Some day, not slow to dawn, when somebody—Who? I forget—proves nobody at all!"
"If it have worth, reward is still to seek.
Somebody, I forget who, gained the prize
And proved arch-poet: time must show!" he smiled:
"Take this, and, when the noise tires out, judge me—
Some day, not slow to dawn, when somebody—
Who? I forget—proves nobody at all!"
Is not that day come? What if you and IRe-sing the song, inaugurate the fame?We have not waited to acquaint ourselvesWith song and subject; we can prologizeHow, at Eurustheus' bidding,—hate strained hard,—Herakles had departed, one time more,On his last labor, worst of all the twelve;Descended into Haides, thence to dragThe triple-headed hound, which sun should seeSpite of the god whose darkness whelped the Fear.Down went the hero, "back—how should he come?"So laughed King Lukos, an old enemy,Who judged that absence testified defeatOf the land's loved one,—since he saved the landAnd for that service wedded MegaraDaughter of Thebai, realm her child should rule.Ambition, greed and malice seized their prey,The Heracleian House, defenceless left,Father and wife and child, to trample outTrace of its hearth-fire: since extreme old ageWakes pity, woman's wrong wins championship,And child may grow up man and take revenge.Hence see we that, from out their palace-homeHunted, for last resource they cluster nowCouched on the cold ground, hapless supplicantsAbout their court-yard altar,—Household ZeusIt is, the Three in funeral garb beseech,Delaying death so, till deliverance come—When did it ever?—from the deep and dark.And thus breaks silence old Amphitruon's voice....Say I not true thus far, my Euthukles?
Is not that day come? What if you and I
Re-sing the song, inaugurate the fame?
We have not waited to acquaint ourselves
With song and subject; we can prologize
How, at Eurustheus' bidding,—hate strained hard,—
Herakles had departed, one time more,
On his last labor, worst of all the twelve;
Descended into Haides, thence to drag
The triple-headed hound, which sun should see
Spite of the god whose darkness whelped the Fear.
Down went the hero, "back—how should he come?"
So laughed King Lukos, an old enemy,
Who judged that absence testified defeat
Of the land's loved one,—since he saved the land
And for that service wedded Megara
Daughter of Thebai, realm her child should rule.
Ambition, greed and malice seized their prey,
The Heracleian House, defenceless left,
Father and wife and child, to trample out
Trace of its hearth-fire: since extreme old age
Wakes pity, woman's wrong wins championship,
And child may grow up man and take revenge.
Hence see we that, from out their palace-home
Hunted, for last resource they cluster now
Couched on the cold ground, hapless supplicants
About their court-yard altar,—Household Zeus
It is, the Three in funeral garb beseech,
Delaying death so, till deliverance come—
When did it ever?—from the deep and dark.
And thus breaks silence old Amphitruon's voice....
Say I not true thus far, my Euthukles?
Suddenly, torch-light! knocking at the door,Loud, quick, "Admittance for the revels' lord!"Some unintelligible Komos-cry—Raw-flesh red, no cap upon his head,Dionusos, Bacchos, Phales, Iacchos,In let him reel with the kid-skin at his heel,Where it buries in the spread of the bushy myrtle-bed!(Our Rhodian Jackdaw-song was sense to that!)Then laughter, outbursts ruder and more rude,Through which, with silver point, a fluting pierced,And ever "Open, open, Bacchos bids!"
Suddenly, torch-light! knocking at the door,
Loud, quick, "Admittance for the revels' lord!"
Some unintelligible Komos-cry—
Raw-flesh red, no cap upon his head,
Dionusos, Bacchos, Phales, Iacchos,
In let him reel with the kid-skin at his heel,
Where it buries in the spread of the bushy myrtle-bed!
(Our Rhodian Jackdaw-song was sense to that!)
Then laughter, outbursts ruder and more rude,
Through which, with silver point, a fluting pierced,
And ever "Open, open, Bacchos bids!"
But at last—one authoritative word,One name of an immense significance:For Euthukles rose up, threw wide the door.
But at last—one authoritative word,
One name of an immense significance:
For Euthukles rose up, threw wide the door.
There trooped the Choros of the ComedyCrowned and triumphant; first, those flushed Fifteen,Men that wore women's garb, grotesque disguise.Then marched the Three,—who played Mnesilochos,Who, Toxotes, and who, robed right, masked rare,Monkeyed our Great and Dead to heart's contentThat morning in Athenai. Masks were downAnd robes doffed now; the sole disguise was drink.
There trooped the Choros of the Comedy
Crowned and triumphant; first, those flushed Fifteen,
Men that wore women's garb, grotesque disguise.
Then marched the Three,—who played Mnesilochos,
Who, Toxotes, and who, robed right, masked rare,
Monkeyed our Great and Dead to heart's content
That morning in Athenai. Masks were down
And robes doffed now; the sole disguise was drink.
Mixing with these—I know not what gay crowd,Girl-dancers, flute-boys, and pre-eminentAmong them,—doubtless draped with such reserveAs stopped fear of the fifty-drachma fine(Beside one's name on public fig-tree nailed)Which women pay who in the streets walk bare,—Behold Elaphion of the Persic dance!Who lately had frisked fawn-foot, and the rest,—All for the Patriot Cause, the Antique Faith,The Conservation of True Poesy—Could I but penetrate the deep design!Elaphion, more Peiraios-known as "Phaps,"Tripped at the head of the whole banquet-bandWho came in front now, as the first fell back;And foremost—the authoritative voice,The revels-leader, he who gained the prize,And got the glory of the Archon's feast—There stood in person Aristophanes.
Mixing with these—I know not what gay crowd,
Girl-dancers, flute-boys, and pre-eminent
Among them,—doubtless draped with such reserve
As stopped fear of the fifty-drachma fine
(Beside one's name on public fig-tree nailed)
Which women pay who in the streets walk bare,—
Behold Elaphion of the Persic dance!
Who lately had frisked fawn-foot, and the rest,
—All for the Patriot Cause, the Antique Faith,
The Conservation of True Poesy—
Could I but penetrate the deep design!
Elaphion, more Peiraios-known as "Phaps,"
Tripped at the head of the whole banquet-band
Who came in front now, as the first fell back;
And foremost—the authoritative voice,
The revels-leader, he who gained the prize,
And got the glory of the Archon's feast—
There stood in person Aristophanes.
And no ignoble presence! On the bulgeOf the clear baldness,—all his head one brow,—True, the veins swelled, blue network, and there surgedA red from cheek to temple,—then retiredAs if the dark-leaved chaplet damped a flame,—Was never nursed by temperance or health.But huge the eyeballs rolled back native fire,Imperiously triumphant: nostrils wideWaited their incense; while the pursed mouth's poutAggressive, while the beak supreme above,While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back,Beard whitening tinder like a vinous foam,These made a glory, of such insolence—I thought,—such domineering deityHephaistos might have carved to cut the brineFor his gay brother's prow, imbrue that pathWhich, purpling, recognized the conqueror.Impudent and majestic: drunk, perhaps,But that's religion; sense too plainly snuffed:Still, sensuality was grown a rite.
And no ignoble presence! On the bulge
Of the clear baldness,—all his head one brow,—
True, the veins swelled, blue network, and there surged
A red from cheek to temple,—then retired
As if the dark-leaved chaplet damped a flame,—
Was never nursed by temperance or health.
But huge the eyeballs rolled back native fire,
Imperiously triumphant: nostrils wide
Waited their incense; while the pursed mouth's pout
Aggressive, while the beak supreme above,
While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back,
Beard whitening tinder like a vinous foam,
These made a glory, of such insolence—
I thought,—such domineering deity
Hephaistos might have carved to cut the brine
For his gay brother's prow, imbrue that path
Which, purpling, recognized the conqueror.
Impudent and majestic: drunk, perhaps,
But that's religion; sense too plainly snuffed:
Still, sensuality was grown a rite.
What I had disbelieved most proved most true.There was a mind here, mind a-wantoningAt ease of undisputed masteryOver the body's brood, those appetites.Oh, but he grasped them grandly, as the godHis either struggling handful,—hurtless snakesHeld deep down, strained hard off from side and side!Mastery his, theirs simply servitude,So well could firm fist help intrepid eye.Fawning and fulsome, had they licked and hissed?At mandate of one muscle, order reigned.They had been wreathing much familiar nowAbout him on his entry; but a squeezeChoked down the pests to place: their lord stood free.
What I had disbelieved most proved most true.
There was a mind here, mind a-wantoning
At ease of undisputed mastery
Over the body's brood, those appetites.
Oh, but he grasped them grandly, as the god
His either struggling handful,—hurtless snakes
Held deep down, strained hard off from side and side!
Mastery his, theirs simply servitude,
So well could firm fist help intrepid eye.
Fawning and fulsome, had they licked and hissed?
At mandate of one muscle, order reigned.
They had been wreathing much familiar now
About him on his entry; but a squeeze
Choked down the pests to place: their lord stood free.
Forward he stepped: I rose and fronted him.
Forward he stepped: I rose and fronted him.
"Hail, house, the friendly to Euripides!"(So he began) "Hail, each inhabitant!You, lady? What, the Rhodian? Form and face,Victory's self upsoaring to receiveThe poet? Right they named you ... some rich name,Vowel-buds thorned about with consonants,Fragrant, felicitous, rose-glow enrichedBy the Isle's unguent: some diminished endInion, Kallistion? delicater still,Kubelion or Melittion,—or, suppose(Less vulgar love than bee or violet)Phibalion, for the mouth split red-fig-wise,Korakinidion for the coal-black hair,Nettarion, Phabion for the darlingness?But no, it was some fruit-flower, Rhoidion ... ha,We near the balsam-bloom—Balaustion! Thanks,Rhodes! Folk have called me Rhodian, do you know?Not fools so far! Because, if Helios wived,As Pindaros sings somewhere prettily,Here blooms his offspring, earth-flesh with sun-fire,Rhodes' blood and Helios' gold. My phorminx, boy!Why does the boy hang back and balk an odeTiptoe at spread of wing? But like enough,Sunshine frays torchlight. Witness whom you scare,Superb Balaustion! Look outside the house!Pho, you have quenched my Komos by first frown,Struck dead all joyance: not a fluting puffsFrom idle cheekband! Ah, my Choros too?You've eaten cuckoo-apple? Dumb, you dogs?So much good Thasian wasted on your throatsAnd out of them not oneThrettanelo?Neblaretai!Because this earth-and-sunProduct looks wormwood and all bitter herbs?Well, do I blench, though me she hates the mostOf mortals? By the cabbage, off they slink!You, too, my Chrusomelolonthion-Phaps,Girl-goldling-beetle-beauty? You, abashed,Who late, supremely unabashable,Propped up my play at that important pointWhen Artamouxia tricks the Toxotes?Ha, ha,—thank Hermes for the lucky throw,—We came last comedy of the whole seven,So went all fresh to judgment well-disposedFor who should fatly feast them, eye and ear,We two between us! What, you fail your friend?Away then, free me of your cowardice!Go, get you the goat's breakfast! Fare afield,Ye circumcised of Egypt, pigs to sow,Back to the Priest's or forward to the crows,So you but rid me of such company!Once left alone, I can protect myselfFrom statuesque Balaustion pedestalledOn much disapprobation and mistake!She dares not beat the sacred brow, beside!Bacchos' equipment, ivy safeguards wellAs Phoibos' bay.
"Hail, house, the friendly to Euripides!"
(So he began) "Hail, each inhabitant!
You, lady? What, the Rhodian? Form and face,
Victory's self upsoaring to receive
The poet? Right they named you ... some rich name,
Vowel-buds thorned about with consonants,
Fragrant, felicitous, rose-glow enriched
By the Isle's unguent: some diminished end
Inion, Kallistion? delicater still,
Kubelion or Melittion,—or, suppose
(Less vulgar love than bee or violet)
Phibalion, for the mouth split red-fig-wise,
Korakinidion for the coal-black hair,
Nettarion, Phabion for the darlingness?
But no, it was some fruit-flower, Rhoidion ... ha,
We near the balsam-bloom—Balaustion! Thanks,
Rhodes! Folk have called me Rhodian, do you know?
Not fools so far! Because, if Helios wived,
As Pindaros sings somewhere prettily,
Here blooms his offspring, earth-flesh with sun-fire,
Rhodes' blood and Helios' gold. My phorminx, boy!
Why does the boy hang back and balk an ode
Tiptoe at spread of wing? But like enough,
Sunshine frays torchlight. Witness whom you scare,
Superb Balaustion! Look outside the house!
Pho, you have quenched my Komos by first frown,
Struck dead all joyance: not a fluting puffs
From idle cheekband! Ah, my Choros too?
You've eaten cuckoo-apple? Dumb, you dogs?
So much good Thasian wasted on your throats
And out of them not oneThrettanelo?
Neblaretai!Because this earth-and-sun
Product looks wormwood and all bitter herbs?
Well, do I blench, though me she hates the most
Of mortals? By the cabbage, off they slink!
You, too, my Chrusomelolonthion-Phaps,
Girl-goldling-beetle-beauty? You, abashed,
Who late, supremely unabashable,
Propped up my play at that important point
When Artamouxia tricks the Toxotes?
Ha, ha,—thank Hermes for the lucky throw,—
We came last comedy of the whole seven,
So went all fresh to judgment well-disposed
For who should fatly feast them, eye and ear,
We two between us! What, you fail your friend?
Away then, free me of your cowardice!
Go, get you the goat's breakfast! Fare afield,
Ye circumcised of Egypt, pigs to sow,
Back to the Priest's or forward to the crows,
So you but rid me of such company!
Once left alone, I can protect myself
From statuesque Balaustion pedestalled
On much disapprobation and mistake!
She dares not beat the sacred brow, beside!
Bacchos' equipment, ivy safeguards well
As Phoibos' bay.
"They take me at my word!One comfort is, I shall not want them long,The Archon's cry creaks, creaks, 'Curtail expense!'The war wants money, year the twenty-sixth!Cut down our Choros number, clip costume,Save birds' wings, beetles' armor, spend the cashIn three-crest skull-caps, three days' salt-fish-slice,Three-banked-ships for these sham-ambassadors,And what not: any cost but Comedy's!'No Choros'—soon will follow; what care I?Archinos and Agurrhios, scrape your flint,Flay your dead dog, and curry favor so!Choros in rags, with loss of leather next,We lose the boys' vote, lose the song and dance,Lose my Elaphion! Still, the actor stays.Save but my acting, and the baldhead bardKudathenaian and Pandionid,Son of Philippos, AristophanesSurmounts his rivals now as heretofore,Though stinted to mere sober prosy verse—'Manners and men,' so squeamish gets the world!No more 'Step forward, strip for anapæsts!'No calling naughty people by their names,No tickling audience into gratitudeWith chickpease, barleygroats and nuts and plums,No setting Salabaccho" ...
"They take me at my word!
One comfort is, I shall not want them long,
The Archon's cry creaks, creaks, 'Curtail expense!'
The war wants money, year the twenty-sixth!
Cut down our Choros number, clip costume,
Save birds' wings, beetles' armor, spend the cash
In three-crest skull-caps, three days' salt-fish-slice,
Three-banked-ships for these sham-ambassadors,
And what not: any cost but Comedy's!
'No Choros'—soon will follow; what care I?
Archinos and Agurrhios, scrape your flint,
Flay your dead dog, and curry favor so!
Choros in rags, with loss of leather next,
We lose the boys' vote, lose the song and dance,
Lose my Elaphion! Still, the actor stays.
Save but my acting, and the baldhead bard
Kudathenaian and Pandionid,
Son of Philippos, Aristophanes
Surmounts his rivals now as heretofore,
Though stinted to mere sober prosy verse—
'Manners and men,' so squeamish gets the world!
No more 'Step forward, strip for anapæsts!'
No calling naughty people by their names,
No tickling audience into gratitude
With chickpease, barleygroats and nuts and plums,
No setting Salabaccho" ...