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Perseus the Deliverer
A Drama The Legend of Perseus
Acrisius, the Argive king, warned by an oracle that his daughter’s son would be the agent of his death, hoped to escape his doom by shutting her up in a brazen tower. But Zeus, the King of the Gods, descended into her prison in a shower of gold and Danae bore to him a son named Perseus. Danae and her child were exposed in a boat without sail or oar on the sea, but here too fate and the gods intervened and, guided by a divine protection, the boat bore her safely to the Island of Seriphos. There Danae was received and honoured by the King. When Perseus had grown to manhood the King, wishing to marry Danae, decided to send him to his death and to that end ordered him to slay the Gorgon Medusa in the wild, unknown and snowy North and bring to him her head the sight of which turned men to stone. Perseus, aided by Athene, the Goddess of Wisdom, who gave him the divine sword Herpe, winged shoes to bear him through the air, her shield or aegis and the cap of invisibility, succeeded in his quest after many adventures. In his returning he came to Syria and found Andromeda, daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopea, King and Queen of Syria, chained to the rocks by the people to be devoured by a sea-monster as an atonement for her mother’s impiety against the sea-god, Poseidon. Perseus slew the monster and rescued and wedded Andromeda. In this piece the ancient legend has been divested of its original character of a heroic myth; it is made the nucleus round which there could grow the scenes of a romantic story of human temperament and life-impulses on the Elizabethan model. The country in which the action is located is a Syria of romance, not of history. Indeed a Hellenic legend could not at all be set in the environments of the life of a Semitic people and its early Aramaean civilisation: the town of Cepheus must be looked at as a Greek colony with a blonde Achaean dynasty ruling
Page – 327 a Hellenised people who worship an old Mediterranean deity under a Greek name. In a romantic work of imagination of this type these outrages on history do not matter. Time there is more than Einsteinian in its relativity, the creative imagination is its sole disposer and arranger; fantasy reigns sovereign; the names of ancient countries and peoples are brought in only as fringes of a decorative background; anachronisms romp in wherever they can get an easy admittance, ideas and associations from all climes and epochs mingle; myth, romance and realism make up a single whole. For here the stage is the human mind of all times: the subject is an incident in its passage from a semi- primitive temperament surviving in a fairly advanced outward civilisation to a brighter intellectualism and humanism — never quite safe against the resurgence of the dark or violent life-forces which are always there subdued or subordinated or somnolent in the make-up of civilised man — and the first promptings of the deeper and higher psychic and spiritual being which it is his ultimate destiny to become.
Page – 328 Persons of the Drama
PALLAS ATHENE. POSEIDON. PERSEUS, son of Zeus and Danae. CEPHEUS, King of Syria. IOLAUS, son of Cepheus and Cassiopea. POLYDAON, priest of Poseidon. PHINEUS, King of Tyre.
THEROPS, a popular leader. PERISSUS, a citizen butcher. DERCETES, a Syrian captain. NEBASSAR, captain of the Chaldean Guard.
CIREAS, a servant in the temple of Poseidon. MEDES, an usher in the palace.
CASSIOPEA, princess of Chaldea, Queen of Syria. ANDROMEDA, daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopea. CYDONE, mistress of Iolaus. PRAXILLA, head of the palace household in the women’s apartments. DIOMEDE, a slave-girl, servant and playmate of Andromeda.
SCENE. — The city of Cepheus, the seashore, the temple of Poseidon on the headland and the surrounding country. Prologue
The Ocean in tumult, and the sky in storm: Pallas Athene appears in the heavens with lightnings playing over her head and under her feet.
ATHENE Error of waters rustling through the world, Vast Ocean, call thy ravenous waves that march With blue fierce nostrils quivering for prey, Back to thy feet. Hush thy impatient surges At my divine command and do my will.
VOICES OF THE SEA Who art thou layest thy serene command Upon the untamed waters?
ATHENE I am Pallas, Daughter of the Omnipotent.
VOICES What wouldst thou? For we cannot resist thee; our clamorous hearts Are hushed in terror at thy marble feet.
ATHENE Awake your dread Poseidon. Bid him rise And come before me.
VOICES Let thy compelling voice Awake him: for the sea is hushed.
Page – 331 ATHENE Arise, Illimitable Poseidon! let thy blue And streaming tresses mingle with the foam Emerging into light. Poseidon appears upon the waters.
POSEIDON What quiet voice Compels me from my rocky pillow piled Upon the floor of the enormous deep?
VOICES A whiteness and a strength is in the skies.
POSEIDON How art thou white and beautiful and calm, Yet clothed in tumult! Heaven above thee shakes Wounded with lightnings, goddess, and the sea Flees from thy dreadful tranquil feet. Thy calm Troubles me: who art thou, dweller in the light?
ATHENE I am Athene.
P
Virgin formidable In beauty, disturber of the ancient world! Ever thou seekest to enslave to man The eternal Universe, and our huge motions That shake the mountains and upheave the seas Wouldst with the glancing visions of thy brain Coerce and bridle.
ATHENE Me the Omnipotent Made from His being to lead and discipline
Page – 332 The immortal spirit of man, till it attain To order and magnificent mastery Of all his outward world.
POSEIDON What wouldst thou of me?
A THENEThe powers of the earth have kissed my feet In deep submission, and they yield me tribute, Olives and corn and all fruit-bearing trees, And silver from the bowels of the hills, Marble and iron ore. Fire is my servant. But thou, Poseidon, with thy kindred gods And the wild wings of air resist me. I come To set my feet upon thy azure locks, O shaker of the cliffs. Adore thy sovereign.
P OSEIDONThe anarchy of the enormous seas Is mine, O terrible Athene: I sway Their billows with my nod. Man’s feeble feet Leave there no traces, nor his destiny Has any hold upon the shifting waves.
A THENEThou severest him with thy unmeasured wastes Whom I would weld in one. But I will lead him Over thy waters, thou wild thunderer, Spurning thy tops in hollowed fragile trees. He shall be confident in me and dare The immeasurable oceans till the West Mingles with India, and reach the northern isles That dwell beneath my dancing aegis bright, Snow-weary. He shall, armed with clamorous fire, Rush o’er the angry waters when the whale Is stunned between two waves and slay his foe Page – 333 Betwixt the thunders. Therefore I bid thee not, O azure strong Poseidon, to abate Thy savage tumults: rather his march oppose. For through the shocks of difficulty and death Man shall attain his godhead.
POSEIDON What then desir’st thou,
Athene? A On yonder inhospitable coast Far-venturing merchants from the East, or those Who put from Tyre towards Atlantic gains, Are by thy trident fiercely shaken forth Upon the jagged rocks, and who escape, The gay and savage Syrians on their altars Massacre hideously, thee to propitiate, Moloch-Poseidon of the Syrian coasts, Dagon of Gaza, lord of many names And many natures, many forms of power Who rulest from Philistia to the north, A terror and a woe. O iron King, Desist from blood, be glad of kindlier gifts And suffer men to live.
POSEIDON Behold, Athene, My waters! see them lift their foam-white tops Charging from sky to sky in rapid tumult: Admire their force, admire their thunderous speed. With green hooves and white manes they trample onwards. My mighty voices fill the world, Athene. Shall I permit the grand anarchic seas To be a road and the imperious Ocean A means of merchandise? Shall the frail keels Of thy ephemeral mortals score its back
Page – 334 With servile furrows and petty souls of men Triumphing tame the illimitable sea? I am not of the mild and later gods, But of that elder world; Lemuria And old Atlantis raised me crimson altars, And my huge nostrils keep that scent of blood For which they quiver. Return into thy heavens, Pallas Athene, I into my deep.
ATHENE Dash then thy billows up against my aegis In battle! think not to hide in thy deep oceans; For I will drive thy waters from the world And leave thee naked to the light.
P Dread virgin! I will not war with thee, armipotent.
A Then send thy champion forth to meet my champion, And let their conflict govern ours, Poseidon.
P Who is thy champion?
A Perseus, the Olympian’s son, Whom Danae in her strong brazen tower, Acrisius’ daughter, bore, by heavenly gold Lapped into slumber: for of that shining rain He is the beautiful offspring.
P The parricide That is to be? But my sea-monster’s fangs And fiery breathings shall prevent that murder. Page – 335 Farewell, Athene!
ATHENE Farewell, until I press My feet upon thy blue enormous mane And add thy Ocean to my growing empire. Poseidon disappears into the sea. He dives into the deep and with a din The thunderous divided waters meet Above his grisly head. Thou wingest, Perseus, From northern snows to this fair sunny land, Not knowing in the night what way thou wendest; But the dawn comes and over earth’s far rim The round sun rises, as thyself shalt rise On Syria and thy rosy Andromeda, A thing of light. Rejoice, thou famous hero! Be glad of love, be glad of life, whose bosom Harbours the quiet strength of pure Athene. She disappears into light.
Page – 336 Act I
A rocky and surf-beat margin of land walled in with great frowning cliffs. Cireas, Diomede.
C IREASDiomede? You here so early and in this wild wanton weather!
D I can find no fault in the weather, Cireas; it is brilliant and frolicsome.
C The rain has wept itself out and the sun has ventured into the open; but the wind is shouting like mad and the sea is still in a mighty passion. Has your mistress Andromeda sent you then with matin-offerings to Poseidon, or are you walking here to whip the red roses in your cheeks redder with the sea-wind?
D My mistress cares as much for your Poseidon as I for your glum beetle-browed priest Polydaon. But you, Cireas? are you walking here to whip the red nose of you redder with the sea-wind or to soothe with it the marks of his holiness’s cudgel?
C I must carry up these buckets of sea-water to swab down the blue-haired old fellow in the temple. Hang the robustious storm- shaken curmudgeon! I have rubbed him and scrubbed him and
Page – 337 bathed him and swathed him for these eighteen years, yet he never sent me one profitable piece of wreckage out of his sea yet. A gold bracelet, now, crusted with jewels, dropped from the arm of some drowned princess, or a sealed casket velvet-lined with a priceless vase carried by the Rhodian merchants: that would not have beggared him! And I with so little could have bought my liberty.
DIOMEDE Maybe ’twas that he feared. For who would wish to lose such an expert body-servant as you, my Cireas?
C Zeus! if I thought that, I would leave his unwashed back to itch for a fortnight. But these Gods are kittle cattle to joke with. They have too many spare monsters about in their stables trained to snap up offenders for a light breakfast.
D And how prosper the sacrifices, Cireas? I hope you keep your god soothingly and daintily fed in this hot summer season?
C Alack, poor old Poseidon! He has had nothing but goats and sea-urchins lately, and that is poor food for a palate inured to homme à la Phenicienne, Diomede. It is his own fault, he should provide wreckage more freely. But black Polydaon’s forehead grows blacker every day: he will soon be as mad as Cybele’s bull on the headland. I am every moment in terror of finding myself tumbled on the altar for a shipwrecked Phoenician and old Blackbrows hacking about in search of my heart with his holy carving-tools.
DIOMEDE You should warn him beforehand that your heart is in your paunch hidden under twenty pounds of fat: so shall he have less cutting-exercise and you an easier exit. Page – 338 CIREAS Out! would you have me slit for a water-god’s dinner? Is this your tenderness for me?
D Heaven forbid, dear Cireas. Syria would lose half her scampishness if you departed untimely to a worse world.
C Away from here, you long sauciness, you thin edge of naughty satire. But, no! First tell me, what news of the palace? They say King Phineus will wed the Princess Andromeda.
D Yes, but not till the Princess Andromeda weds King Phineus. What noise is that?
C It was the cry of many men in anguish.
He climbs up a rock. D Zeus, what a wail was there! surely a royal Huge ship from Sidon or the Nile has kissed Our ragged beaches.
C A Phoenician galley Is caught and spinning in the surf, the men Urge desperate oars in vain. Hark, with a crash She rushes on the boulders’ iron fangs That rip her tender sides. How the white ship Battered against them by the growling surf Screams like a woman tortured! From all sides The men are shaken out, as rattling peas Leap from a long and bursting sheath: these sink Gurgling into the billows, those are pressed
Page – 339 And mangled on the jagged rocks.
DIOMEDE O it must be A memorable sight! help me up, Cireas.
C No, no, for I must run and tell old Blackbrows That here’s fresh meat for hungry grim Poseidon.
He climbs down and out running. D You disobliging dog! This is the first wreck in eighteen months and I not to see it! I will try and climb round the rock even if my neck and legs pay the forfeit. She goes out in the opposite direction.
Page – 340
The same. Perseus descends on winged sandals from the clouds.
P ERSEUSRocks of the outland jagged with the sea, You slumbering promontories whose huge backs Jut into azure, and thou, O many-thundered Enormous Ocean, hail! Whatever lands Are ramparted with these forbidding shores, Yet if you hold felicitous roofs of men, Homes of delightful laughter, if you have streams Where chattering girls dip in their pitchers cool And dabble their white feet in the chill lapse Of waters, trees and a green-mantled earth, Cicalas noisy in a million boughs Or happy cheep of common birds, I greet you, Syria or Egypt or Ionian shores, Perseus the son of Danae, who long Have sojourned only with the hail-thrashed isles Wet with cold mists and by the boreal winds Snow-swathed. The angry voices of the surf Are welcome to me whose ears have long been sealed By rigorous silence in the snows. O even The wail of mortal misery I choose Rather than that intolerable hush; For this at least is human. Thee I praise, O mother Earth and thy guardian Sea, O Sun Of the warm south nursing fair life of men. I will go down into bee-murmuring fields And mix with men and women in the corn And eat again accustomed food. But first Page – 341 This galley shattered on the sharp-toothed rocks I fly to succour. You are grown dear to me, You smiling weeping human faces, brightly Who move, who live, not like those stony masks And Gorgon visions of that monstrous world Beyond the snows. I would not lose you now In the dead surges of the inhuman flood. He descends out of sight. Iolaus enters with Cireas, Dercetes and soldiers. IOLAUS Prepare your ambush, men, amid these boulders, But at the signal, leave your rocky lairs With level bristling points and gyre them in.
C O Poseidon Ennosigaios, man-swallower, earth-shaker, I have swabbed thee for eighteen years. I pray thee tot up the price of those swabbings and be not dishonest with me nor miserly. Eighteen by three hundred and sixty-five by two, that is the sum of them: and forget not the leap years either, O great Poseidon.
I Into our ambush, for I hear them come. They conceal themselves.
Perseus returns with Tyrnaus and Smerdas. P Chaldean merchants, would my speed to save Had matched the hawk’s when he swoops down for slaughter. So many beautiful bodies of strong men Lost in the surge, so many eager hopes Of happiness now quenched would still have gladdened The sunlight. Yet for two delightful lives Saved to the stir and motion of the world I praise the Gods that help us. Page – 342
TYRNAUS Thou radiant youth Whose face is like a joyous god’s for beauty, Whatever worth the body’s life may have, I thank thee that ’tis saved. Smerdas, discharge That hapless humour from thy lids! If riches Are lost, the body, thy strong instrument To gather riches, is not lost, nor mind, The provident director of its labours.
S Three thousand pieces of that wealthy stuff, Full forty chests all crammed with noble gems, All lost, all in a moment lost! We are beggars.
T Smerdas, not beggared yet of arm or brain.
S The toil-marred peasant has as much.
P Merchant, I sorrow for thy loss: all beautiful things Were meant to shine in the bright day, and grievous It is to know the senseless billows play with them. Yet life, most beautiful of all, is left thee. Is not mere sunlight something, and to breathe A joy? Be patient with the gods; they love not Rebellion and o’ertake it with fresh scourgings.
S O that the sea had swallowed me and rolled In my dear treasure! Tell me, Syrian youth, Are there not divers in these parts, could pluck My wealth from the abyss? Page – 343
PERSEUS Chaldean merchant, I am not of this country, but like thyself Hear first today the surf roar on its beaches.
S Cursed be the moment when we neared its shores! O harsh sea-god, if thou wilt have my wealth, My soul, it was a cruel mercy then to leave This beggared empty body bared of all That made life sweet. Take this too, and everything.
I Thy prayer is granted thee, O Babylonian. he soldiers appear and surround
Perseus and the merchants. C All the good stuff drowned! O unlucky Cireas! O greedy Poseidon!
S Shield us! what are these threatening spear-points?
T Fate’s. This is that strange inhospitable coast Where the wrecked traveller in his own warm blood Is given guest-bath. (draws) Death’s dice are yet to throw.
I Draw not in vain, strive not against the gods. This is the shore near the temple where Poseidon Sits ivory-limbed in his dim rock-hewn house And nods above the bleeding mariner His sapphire locks in gloom. You three are come, A welcome offering to that long dry altar, Page – 344 O happy voyagers. Your road is straight To Elysium.
PERSEUS An evil and harsh religion You practise in your land, stripling of Syria, Yet since it is religion, do thy will, If thou have power no less than will. And yet I deem that ere I visit death’s calm country, I have far longer ways to tread.
T Take me. I will not please the gods with impotent writhing Under the harrow of my fate.
They seize Tyrnaus. S O wicked fool! You might have saved me with that sword. Ah youth! Ah radiant stranger! help me! thou art mighty.
P Still, merchant, thou wouldst live?
S I am dead with terror Of these bright thirsty spears. O they will carve My frantic heart out of my living bosom To throw it bleeding on that hideous altar. Save me, hero!
P I war not with the gods for thee. From belching fire or the deep-mouthed abyss Of waters to have saved the meanest thing That wears man’s kindly semblance, is a joy.
Page – 345 But he is mad who for another’s ease Incurs the implacable pursuit of heaven. Yet since each man on earth has privilege To battle even against the gods for life, Sweet life, lift up from earth thy fellow’s sword; I will protect meanwhile thy head from onset.
SMERDAS Alas, you mock me! I have no skill with weapons Nor am a fighter. Save me! The Syrians seize Smerdas. Help! I will give thee The wealth of Babylon when I am safe.
P My sword is heaven’s; it is not to be purchased.
Smerdas and Tyrnaus are led away. I Take too this radiance.
P Asian stripling, pause. I am not weak of hand nor feeble of heart. Thou art too young, too blithe, too beautiful; I would not disarrange thy sunny curls By any harsher touch than an embrace.
I I too could wish to spare thy joyous body From the black knife, whoe’er thou art, O stranger. But grim compulsion drives and angry will Of the sea’s lord, chafing that mortal men Insult with their frail keels his rude strong oceans. Therefore he built his grisly temple here, And all who are broken in the unequal war With surge and tempest, though they evade his rocks,
Page – 346 Must belch out anguished blood upon that altar Miserably.
PERSEUS I come not from the Ocean. I There is no other way that men could come; For this is ground forbidden to unknown feet. (smiling) Unless these gaudy pinions on thy shoes Were wings indeed to bear thee through the void!
P Are there not those who ask nor solid land For footing nor the salt flood to buoy their motions? Perhaps I am of these.
I Of these thou art not. The gods are sombre, terrible to gaze at, Or, even if bright, remote, grand, formidable. But thou art open and fair like our blue heavens In Syria and thy radiant masculine body Allures the eye. Yield! it may be the God Will spare thee.
P Set on thy war-dogs. Me alive If they alive can take, I am content To bleed a victim.
I Art thou a demigod To beat back with one blade a hundred spears?
Page – 347
PERSEUS My sword is in my hand and that shall answer. I am tired of words.
I Dercetes, wait. His face Is beautiful as Heaven. O dark Poseidon, What wilt thou do with him in thy dank caves Under the grey abysms of the salt flood? Spare him to me and sunlight.
Polydaon and Phineus enter from behind. D Prince, give the order.
I Let this young sun-god live.
D It is forbidden.
I But I allow it.
P And when did lenient Heaven Make thee a godhead, Syrian Iolaus, To set thy proud decree against Poseidon’s? Wilt thou rescind what Ocean’s Zeus has ordered?
I Polydaon —
POLYDAON Does a royal name on earth Inflate so foolishly thy mortal pride, Thou evenest thyself with the Olympians?
Page – 348 Beware, the blood of kings has dropped ere now From the grey sacrificial knife.
IOLAUS Our blood! Thou darest threaten me, presumptuous priest? Back to thy blood-stained kennel! I absolve This stranger.
P Captain, take them both. You flinch? Are you so fearful of the name of prince He plays with? Fear rather dark Poseidon’s anger.
P Be wise, young Iolaus. Polydaon, Thy zeal outstrips the reverence due to kings.
I I need not thy protection, Tyrian Phineus: This is my country.
He draws. P It were well done to kill him now, his sword Being out against the people’s gods; for then Who blames the god’s avenger?
P Will you accept, Syrians, the burden of his sacrilege? Upon them for Poseidon!
D Seize them but slay not! Let none dare shed the blood of Syria’s kings.
Page – 349
SOLDIERS Poseidon! great Poseidon!
P Iolaus, Rein in thy sword: I am enough for these. He shakes his uncovered shield in the faces of the soldiers: they stagger
back covering their eyes. I Gods, what a glory lights up Syria!
P Amazement! Is this a god opposes us? Back, back!
C Master, master, skedaddle: run, run, good King of Tyre, it is scuttle or be scuttled. Zeus has come down to earth with feathered shoes and a shield made out of phosphorus. He runs off, followed more slowly by
Dercetes and the soldiers. P Whate’er thou art, yet thou shalt not outface me. He advances with sword drawn. Hast thou Heaven’s thunders with thee too?
P Back, Phineus! The fiery-tasselled aegis of Athene Shakes forth these lightnings, and an earthly sword Were madness here. He goes out with Phineus. Page – 350 IOLAUS O radiant strong immortal, Iolaus kneels to thee.
P ERSEUSNo, Iolaus. Though great Athene breathes Olympian strength Into my arm sometimes, I am no more Than a brief mortal.
IOLAUS Art thou only man? O then be Iolaus’ friend and lover, Who com’st to me like something all my own Destined from other shores.
PERSEUS Give me thy hands, O fair young child of the warm Syrian sun. Embrace me! Thou art like a springing laurel Fed upon sunlight by the murmuring waters.
IOLAUS Tell me thy name. What memorable earth Gave thee to the azure?
PERSEUS I am from Argolis, Perseus my name, the son of Danae.
IOLAUS Come, Perseus, friend, with me: fierce entertainment We have given, unworthy the fair joyousness Thou carriest like a flag, but thou shalt meet A kinder Syria. My royal father Cepheus Shall welcome, my mother give thee a mother’s greeting And our Andromeda’s delightful smile
Page – 351 Persuade thee of a world more full of beauty Than thou hadst dreamed of.
PERSEUS I shall yet be glad with thee, O Iolaus, in thy father’s halls, But I would not as yet be known in Syria. Is there no pleasant hamlet near, hedged in With orchard walls and green with unripe corn And washed with bright and flitting waves, where I Can harbour with the kindly village folk And wake to cock-crow in the morning hours, As in my dear Seriphos?
IOLAUS Such a village Lurks near our hills, — there with my kind Cydone Thou mayst abide at ease, until thou choose, O Perseus, to reveal thyself to Syria. I too can visit thee unquestioned.
PERSEUS Thither Then lead me. I have a thirst for calm obscurity And cottages and happy unambitious talk And simple people. With these I would have rest, Not in the laboured pomp of princely towns Amid pent noise and purple masks of hate. I will drink deep of pure humanity And take the innocent smell of rain-drenched earth, So shall I with a noble untainted mind Rise from the strengthening soil to great adventure. They go out. Page – 352
The Palace of Cepheus. A room in the women’s apartments. Praxilla, to her enters Diomede.
DIOMEDE O Praxilla, Praxilla!
PRAXILLA So, thou art back, thou tall inutility? Where wert thou lingering all this hour? I am tired of always whipping thee. I will hire thee out to a timber-merchant to carry logs from dawn to nightfall. Thou shalt learn what labour is.
DIOMEDE Praxilla, O Praxilla! I am full to the throat with news. I pray you, rip me open.
PRAXILLA Willingly. She advances towards her with an uplifted knife. DIOMEDE (escaping) A plague! can you not appreciate a fine metaphor when you hear it? I never saw so prosaic a mortal. The soul in you was born of a marriage between a saucepan and a broomstick.
PRAXILLA Tell me your news. If it is good, I will excuse you your whipping.
DIOMEDE I was out on the beach thinking to watch the seagulls flying and crying in the wind amidst the surf dashing and the black cliff-heads —
Page – 353 PRAXILLA And could not Poseidon turn thee into a gull there among thy natural kindred? Thou wert better fitted with that shape than in a reasonable human body.
DIOMEDE Oh then you shall hear the news tell itself, mistress, when the whole town has chewed it and rechewed it. She is going. PRAXILLA Stop, you long-limbed impertinence. The news!
DIOMEDE I’ll be hanged if I tell you.
PRAXILLA You shall be whipped, if you do not.
DIOMEDE Well, your goddess Switch is a potent divinity. A ship with men from the East has broken on the headland below the temple and two Chaldeans are saved alive for the altar.
PRAXILLA This is glorious news indeed.
DIOMEDE It will be a great day when they are sacrificed!
PRAXILLA We have not had such since the long galley from Cnossus grounded upon our shores and the temple was washed richly with blood and the altar blushed as thickly with hearts of victims as the King’s throne with rubies. Poseidon was pleased that year and the harvest was so plentiful, men were brought in from beyond the hills to reap it.
Page – 354 DIOMEDE There would have been a third victim, but Prince Iolaus drew sword on the priest Polydaon to defend him.
PRAXILLA I hope this is not true.
DIOMEDE I saw it.
PRAXILLA Is the wild boy In love with ruin? Not the King himself Can help him if the grim sacrificant Demand his fair young head: only a god Could save him. And he was already in peril From Polydaon’s gloomy hate!
DIOMEDE And Phineus’.
PRAXILLA Hush, silly madcap, hush; or speak much lower.
DIOMEDE Here comes my little queen of love, stepping As daintily as a young bird in spring When he would take the hearts of all the forest. Andromeda enters. PRAXILLA You have slept late, Andromeda.
ANDROMEDA Have I? The sun had risen in my dreams: perhaps I feared to wake lest I should find all dark Page – 355 Once more, Praxilla.
DIOMEDE He has risen in your eyes, For they are full of sunshine, little princess.
ANDROMEDA I have dreamed, Diomede, I have dreamed.
DIOMEDE What did you dream?
ANDROMEDA I dreamed my sun had risen. He had a face like the Olympian Zeus And wings upon his feet. He smiled upon me, Diomede.
PRAXILLA Dreams are full of stranger fancies. Why, I myself have seen hooved bears, winged lions, And many other monsters in my dreams.
ANDROMEDA My sun was a bright god and bore a flaming sword To kill all monsters.
DIOMEDE I think I’ve seen today Your sun, my little playmate.
ANDROMEDA No, you have not. I’ll not have any eyes see him but mine: He is my own, my very own. Page – 356 DIOMEDE And yet I saw him on the wild sea-beach this morning.
PRAXILLA What mean you, Diomede?
DIOMEDE (to Andromeda) You have not heard? A ship was flung upon the rocks this morning And all her human burden drowned.
ANDROMEDA Alas!
DIOMEDE It was a marvellous sight, my little playmate, And made my blood with horror and admiration Run richer in my veins. The great ship groaned While the rough boulders dashed her into pieces, The men with desperate shrieks went tumbling down Mid laughters of the surge, strangled twixt billows Or torn by strips upon the savage rocks That tossed their mangled bodies back again Into the cruel keeping of the surge.
ANDROMEDA O do not tell me any more! How had you heart To look at what I cannot bear to hear? For while you spoke, I felt as if the rocks Were tearing my own limbs and the salt surge Choking me.
DIOMEDE I suppose it must have hurt them. Yes, it was pitiful. Still, ’twas a sight. Meanwhile the deep surf boomed their grandiose dirge
Page – 357 With fierce triumphant voices. The whole scene Was like a wild stupendous sacrifice Offered by the grey-filleted grim surges On the gigantic altar of the rocks To the calm cliffs seated like gods above.
ANDROMEDA Alas, the unhappy men, the poor drowned men Who had young children somewhere whom they loved! How could you watch them die? Had I been a god, I would not let this cruel thing have happened.
DIOMEDE Why do you weep for them? they were not Syrians.
PRAXILLA Not they, but barbarous jabbering foreigners From Indus or Arabia. Fie, my child, You sit upon the floor and weep for these?
ANDROMEDA When Iolaus fell upon the rocks And hurt himself, you did not then forbid me To weep!
PRAXILLA He is your brother. That was loving, Tender and right.
ANDROMEDA And these men were not brothers? They too had sisters who will feel as I should If my dear brother were to die so wretchedly.
PRAXILLA Let their own sisters weep for them: we have Enough of our own sorrows. You are young Page – 358 And softly made: because you have yourself No griefs, but only childhood’s soon-dried tears, You make a luxury of others’ woes. So when we watch a piteous tragedy, We grace with real tears its painted sorrows. When you are older and have true things to weep for, Then you will understand.
ANDROMEDA I’ll not be older! I will not understand! I only know That men are heartless and your gods most cruel. I hate them!
PRAXILLA Hush, hush! You know not what you say. You must not speak such things. Come, Diomede, Tell her the rest.
ANDROMEDA (covering her ears with her hands) I will not hear you.
DIOMEDE (kneeling by her and drawing her hands away) But I Will tell you of your bright sun-god.
ANDROMEDA He is not My sun-god or he would have saved them.
DIOMEDE He did.
ANDROMEDA (leaping to her feet) Then tell me of him. Page – 359 DIOMEDE Suddenly there dawned A man, a vision, a brightness, who descended From where I know not, but to me it seemed That the blue heavens just then created him Out of the sunlight. His face and radiant body Aspired to copy the Olympian Zeus And wings were on his feet.
ANDROMEDA He was my sun-god!
DIOMEDE He caught two drowning wretches by the robe And drew them safe to land.
ANDROMEDA He was my sun-god. Diomede, I have seen him in my dream.
PRAXILLA I think it was Poseidon come to take His tithe of all that death for the ancient altar, Lest all be engulfed by his grey billows, he Go quite unhonoured.
DIOMEDE Hang up your grim Poseidon! This was a sweet and noble face all bright With manly kindness.
ANDROMEDA O I know, I know. Where went he with those rescued?
DIOMEDE Why, just then Page – 360 Prince Iolaus and his band leaped forth And took them.
ANDROMEDA (angrily) Wherefore took them? By what right?
DIOMEDE To die according to our Syrian law On dark Poseidon’s altar.
ANDROMEDA They shall not die. It is a shame, a cruel cold injustice. I wonder that my brother had any part in it! My sun-god saved them, they belong to him, Not to your hateful gods. They are his and mine, I will not let you kill them.
PRAXILLA Why, they must die And you will see it done, my little princess. You shall! Where are you going?
ANDROMEDA Let me go. I do not love you when you talk like this.
PRAXILLA But you are Syria’s lady and must appear At these high ceremonies.
ANDROMEDA I had rather be A beggar’s daughter who devours the remnants Rejected from your table, than reign a queen Doing such cruelty. Page – 361 PRAXILLA Little passionate scold! You mean not what you say. A beggar’s daughter! You? You who toss about if only a rose-leaf Crinkle the creamy smoothness of your sheets, And one harsh word flings weeping broken-hearted As if the world had no more joy in store. You are a little posturer, you make A theatre of your own mind to act in, Take parts, declaim such childish rhetoric As that you speak now. You a beggar’s daughter! Come, listen what became of your bright sun-god.
DIOMEDE Him too they would have seized, but he with steel Opposed and tranquil smiling eyes appalled them. Then Polydaon came and Phineus came And bade arrest the brilliant god. Our Prince, Seized by his glory, with his virgin point Resisted their assault.
ANDROMEDA My Iolaus!
DIOMEDE All suddenly the stranger’s lifted shield Became a storm of lightnings. Dawn was blinded: Far promontories leaped out in the blaze, The surges were illumined and the horizon Answered with light.
ANDROMEDA (clapping her hands) O glorious! O my dream!
PRAXILLA You tell the actions of a mighty god, Diomede. Page – 362 DIOMEDE A god he seemed to us, Praxilla. The soldiers ran in terror, Polydaon Went snorting off like a black whale harpooned, And even Phineus fled.
ANDROMEDA Was he not killed? I wish he had been killed.
PRAXILLA This is your pity!
ANDROMEDA (angrily) I do not pity tigers, wolves and scorpions. I pity men who are weak and beasts that suffer.
PRAXILLA I thought you loved all men and living things.
ANDROMEDA Perhaps I could have loved him like my hound Or the lion in the park who lets me pat his mane. But since he would have me even without my will To foul with his beast touch, my body abhors him.
PRAXILLA Fie, fie! you speak too violently. How long Will you be such a child?
DIOMEDE Our Iolaus And that bright stranger then embraced. Together They left the beach.
ANDROMEDA Where, where is Iolaus? Page – 363 Why is he long in coming? I must see him. I have a thousand things to ask. She runs out. DIOMEDE She is A strange unusual child, my little playmate.
PRAXILLA None can help loving her, she is in charm Compelling: but her mind is wry and warped. She is not natural, not sound in fancy, But made of wild uncurbed imaginations, With feelings as unruly as winds and waves And morbid sympathies. At times she talks Strange childish blasphemies that make me tremble. She would impose her fancies on the world As better than the eternal laws that rule us! I wish her mother had brought her up more strictly, For she will come to harm.
DIOMEDE Oh, do not say it! I have seen no child in all our Syria like her, None her bright equal in beauty. She pleases me Like days of sunlight rain when spring caresses Warmly the air. Oh, here is Iolaus.
PRAXILLA Is it he?
DIOMEDE I know him by the noble strut He has put on ever since they made him captain. Andromeda comes running. Page – 364 ANDROMEDA My brother comes! I saw him from the terrace. Enters Iolaus. Andromeda runs and embraces him. Oh, Iolaus, have you brought him to me? Where is my sun-god?
IOLAUS In heaven, little sister.
ANDROMEDA Oh, do not laugh at me. I want my sun-god Whose face is like the grand Olympian Zeus’ And wings are on his feet. Where did you leave him After you took him from our rough sea-beaches?
IOLAUS What do you mean, Andromeda?
DIOMEDE Some power Divine sent her a dream of that bright strength Which shone by you on the sea-beach today, And him she calls her sun-god.
IOLAUS Is it so? My little wind-tossed rose Andromeda! I shall be glad indeed if Heaven intends this.
ANDROMEDA Where is he?
IOLAUS Do you not know, little rose-sister, The great gods visit earth by splendid moments And then are lost to sight? Come, do not weep; He is not lost to Syria. Page – 365 ANDROMEDA Iolaus, Why did you take the two poor foreign men And give them to the priest? My sun-god saved them, Brother, — what right had you to kill?
IOLAUS My child, I only did my duty as a soldier, Yet grieve I was compelled.
ANDROMEDA Now will you save them?
IOLAUS But they belong to dread Poseidon now!
ANDROMEDA What will be done to them?
IOLAUS They must be bound On the god’s altar and their living hearts Ripped from their blood-choked breasts to feed his hunger. Andromeda covers her face with her robe. Grieve not for them: they but fulfil their fate. These things are in the order of the world Like plagues and slaughters, famines, fires and earthquakes, Which when they pass us by killing their thousands, We should not weep for, but be grateful only That other souls than the dear heads we loved Have perished.
ANDROMEDA You will not save them? Page – 366 PRAXILLA Unhappy girl! It is impiety to think of it. Fie! Would you have your brother killed for your whimsies?
ANDROMEDA Will you not save them, brother?
IOLAUS I cannot, child.
ANDROMEDA Then I will. She goes out. IOLAUS Does she mean it?
PRAXILLA Such wild caprices Are always darting through her brain.
IOLAUS I could not take Poseidon’s wrath upon my head!
PRAXILLA Forget it As she will too. Her strange imaginations Flutter awhile among her golden curls, But soon wing off with careless flight to Lethe. Medes enters. IOLAUS What is it, Medes? Page – 367 MEDES The King, Prince Iolaus, Requires your presence in his audience-chamber.
IOLAUS So? Tell me, Medes, is Poseidon’s priest In presence there?
MEDES He is and full of wrath.
IOLAUS Go, tell them I am coming. Medes goes out. PRAXILLA Alas!
IOLAUS Fear not. I have a strength the grim intriguers dream not of. Let not my sister hear this, Diomede. He goes. PRAXILLA What may not happen! The priest is dangerous, Poseidon may be angry. Let us go And guard our child from peril of this shock. They go. Page – 368 |
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