Atalanta in Calydon Read Online

Yet, O child,

Son, first-born, fairest – O sweet mouth, sweet eyes,

That drew my life out through my suckling breast,

That shone and clove mine heart through – O soft knees

Clinging, O tender treadings of soft feet,

Cheeks warm with little kissings – O child, child,

What have we made each other? Lo, I felt

Thy weight cleave to me, a burden of beauty, O son,

Thy cradled brows and loveliest loving lips,

The floral hair, the little lightening eyes,

And all thy goodly glory; with mine hands

Delicately I fed thee, with my tongue

Tenderly spake, saying, Verily in God's time,

For all the little likeness of thy limbs,

Son, I shall make thee a kingly man to fight,

A lordly leader; and hear before I die,

»She bore the goodliest sword of all the world.«

Oh! oh! For all my life turns round on me;

I am severed from myself, my name is gone,

My name that was a healing, it is changed,

My name is a consuming. From this time,

Though mine eyes reach to the end of all these things,

My lips shall not unfasten till I die.

SEMICHORUS.

She has filled with sighing the city,

And the ways thereof with tears;

She arose, she girdled her sides,

She set her face as a bride's;

She wept, and she had no pity;

Trembled, and felt no fears.

SEMICHORUS.

Her eyes were clear as the sun,

Her brows were fresh as the day;

She girdled herself with gold,

Her robes were manifold;

But the days of her worship are done,

Her praise is taken away.

SEMICHORUS.

For she set her hand to the fire,

With her mouth she kindled the same;

As the mouth of a flute-player,

So was the mouth of her;

With the might of her strong desire

She blew the breath of the flame.

SEMICHORUS.

She set her hand to the wood,

She took the fire in her hand;

As one who is nigh to death,

She panted with strange breath;

She opened her lips unto blood,

She breathed and kindled the brand.

SEMICHORUS.

As a wood-dove newly shot,

She sobbed and lifted her breast;

She sighed and covered her eyes,

Filling her lips with sighs;

She sighed, she withdrew herself not,

She refrained not, taking not rest;

SEMICHORUS.

But as the wind which is drouth,

And as the air which is death,

As storm that severeth ships,

Her breath severing her lips,

The breath came forth of her mouth

And the fire came forth of her breath.

SECOND MESSENGER.

Queen, and you maidens, there is come on us

A thing more deadly than the face of death;

Meleager the good lord is as one slain.

SEMICHORUS.

Without sword, without sword is he stricken;

Slain, and slain without hand.

SECOND MESSENGER.

For as keen ice divided of the sun

His limbs divide, and as thawed snow the flesh

Thaws from off all his body to the hair.

SEMICHORUS.

He wastes as the embers quicken;

With the brand he fades as a brand.

SECOND MESSENGER.

Even while they sang and all drew hither and he

Lifted both hands to crown the Arcadian's hair

And fix the looser leaves, both hands fell down.

SEMICHORUS.

With rending of cheek and of hair

Lament ye, mourn for him, weep.

SECOND MESSENGER.

Straightway the crown slid off and smote on earth,

First fallen; and he, grasping his own hair, groaned

And cast his raiment round his face and fell.

SEMICHORUS.

Alas for visions that were,

And soothsayings spoken in sleep.

SECOND MESSENGER.

But the king twitched his reins in and leapt down

And caught him, crying out twice »O child« and thrice,

So that men's eyelids thickened with their tears.

SEMICHORUS.

Lament with a long lamentation,

Cry, for an end is at hand.

SECOND MESSENGER.

O son, he said, son, lift thine eyes, draw breath,

Pity me; but Meleager with sharp lips

Gasped, and his face waxed like as sunburnt grass.

SEMICHORUS.

Cry aloud, O thou kingdom, O nation,

O stricken, a ruinous land.

SECOND MESSENGER.

Whereat king Œneus, straightening feeble knees,

With feeble hands heaved up a lessening weight,

And laid him sadly in strange hands, and wept.

SEMICHORUS.

Thou art smitten, her lord, her desire,

Thy dear blood wasted as rain.

SECOND MESSENGER.

And they with tears and rendings of the beard

Bear hither a breathing body, wept upon

And lightening at each footfall, sick to death.

SEMICHORUS.

Thou madest thy sword as a fire,

With fire for a sword thou art slain.

SECOND MESSENGER.

And lo, the feast turned funeral, and the crowns

Fallen; and the huntress and the hunter trapped;

And weeping and changed faces and veiled hair.

MELEAGER.

Let your hands meet

Round the weight of my head;

Lift ye my feet

As the feet of the dead;

For the flesh of my body is molten, the limbs of it molten as lead.

CHORUS.

O thy luminous face,

Thine imperious eyes!

O the grief, O the grace,

As of day when it dies!

Who is this bending over thee, lord, with tears and suppression of sighs?

MELEAGER.

Is a bride so fair?

Is a maid so meek?

With unchapleted hair,

With unfilleted cheek,

Atalanta, the pure among women, whose name is as blessing to speak.

ATALANTA.

I would that with feet

Unsandalled, unshod,

Overbold, overfleet,

I had swum not nor trod

From Arcadia to Calydon northward, a blast of the envy of God.

MELEAGER.

Unto each man his fate;

Unto each as he saith

In whose fingers the weight

Of the world is as breath;

Yet I would that in clamour of battle mine hands had laid hold upon death.

CHORUS.

Not with cleaving of shields

And their clash in thine ear,

When the lord of fought fields

Breaketh spearshaft from spear,

Thou art broken, our lord, thou art broken, with travail and labour and fear.

MELEAGER.

Would God he had found me

Beneath fresh boughs!

Would God he had bound me

Unawares in mine house,

With light in mine eyes, and songs in my lips, and a crown on my brows!

CHORUS.

Whence art thou sent from us?

Whither thy goal?

How art thou rent from us,

Thou that wert whole,

As with severing of eyelids and eyes, as with sundering of body and soul!

MELEAGER.

My heart is within me

As an ash in the fire;

Whosoever hath seen me,

Without lute, without lyre,

Shall sing of me grievous things, even things that were ill to desire.

CHORUS.

Who shall raise thee

From the house of the dead?

Or what man praise thee

That thy praise may be said?

Alas thy beauty! alas thy body! alas thine head!

MELEAGER.

But thou, O mother,

The dreamer of dreams,

Wilt thou bring forth another

To feel the sun's beams

When I move among shadows a shadow, and wail by impassable streams?

ŒNEUS.

What thing wilt thou leave me

Now this thing is done?

A man wilt thou give me,

A son for my son,

For the light of mine eyes, the desire of my life, the desirable one?

CHORUS.

Thou wert glad above others,

Yea, fair beyond word;

Thou wert glad among mothers;

For each man that heard

Of thee, praise there was added unto thee, as wings to the feet of a bird.

ŒNEUS.

Who shall give back

Thy face of old years,

With travail made black,

Grown grey among fears,

Mother of sorrow, mother of cursing, mother of tears?

MELEAGER.

Though thou art as fire

Fed with fuel in vain,

My delight, my desire,

Is more chaste than the rain,

More pure than the dewfall, more holy than stars are that live without stain.

ATALANTA.

I would that as water

My life's blood had thawn,

Or as winter's wan daughter

Leaves lowland and lawn

Spring-stricken, or ever mine eyes had beheld thee made dark in thy dawn.

CHORUS.

When thou dravest the men

Of the chosen of Thrace,

None turned him again

Nor endured he thy face

Clothed round with the blush of the battle, with light from a terrible place.

ŒNEUS.

Thou shouldst die as he dies

For whom none sheddeth tears;

Filling thine eyes

And fulfilling thine ears

With the brilliance of battle, the bloom and the beauty, the splendour of spears.

CHORUS.

In the ears of the world

It is sung, it is told,

And the light thereof hurled

And the noise thereof rolled

From the Acroceraunian snow to the ford of the fleece of gold.

MELEAGER.

Would God ye could carry me

Forth of all these;

Heap sand and bury me

By the Chersonese

Where the thundering Bosphorus answers the thunder of Pontic seas.

ŒNEUS.

Dost thou mock at our praise

And the singing begun

And the men of strange days

Praising my son

In the folds of the hills of home, high places of Calydon?

MELEAGER.

For the dead man no home is;

Ah, better to be

What the flower of the foam is

In fields of the sea,

That the sea-waves might be as my raiment, the gulf-stream a garment for me.

CHORUS.

Who shall seek thee and bring

And restore thee thy day,

When the dove dipt her wing

And the oars won their way

Where the narrowing Symplegades whitened the straits of Propontis with spray?

MELEAGER.

Will ye crown me my tomb

Or exalt me my name,

Now my spirits consume,

Now my flesh is a flame?

Let the sea slake it once, and men speak of me sleeping to praise me or shame.

CHORUS.

Turn back now, turn thee,

As who turns him to wake;

Though the life in thee burn thee,

Couldst thou bathe it and slake

Where the sea-ridge of Helle hangs heavier, and east upon west waters break?

MELEAGER.

Would the winds blow me back

Or the waves hurl me home?

Ah, to touch in the track

Where the pine learnt to roam

Cold girdles and crowns of the sea-gods, cool blossoms of water and foam!

CHORUS.

The gods may release

That they made fast;

Thy soul shall have ease

In thy limbs at the last;

But what shall they give thee for life, sweet life that is overpast?

MELEAGER.

Not the life of men's veins,

Not of flesh that conceives;

But the grace that remains,

The fair beauty that cleaves

To the life of the rains in the grasses, the life of the dews on the leaves.

CHORUS.

Thou wert helmsman and chief;

Wilt thou turn in an hour,

Thy limbs to the leaf,

Thy face to the flower,

Thy blood to the water, thy soul to the gods who divide and devour?

MELEAGER.

The years are hungry,

They wail all their days;

The gods wax angry

And weary of praise;

And who shall bridle their lips? and who shall straiten their ways?

CHORUS.

The gods guard over us

With sword and with rod;

Weaving shadow to cover us,

Heaping the sod,

That law may fulfil herself wholly, to darken man's face before God.

MELEAGER.

O holy head of Œneus, lo thy son

Guiltless, yet red from alien guilt, yet foul

With kinship of contaminated lives,

Lo, for their blood I die; and mine own blood

For bloodshedding of mine is mixed therewith,

That death may not discern me from my kin.

Yet with clean heart I die and faultless hand,

Not shamefully; thou therefore of thy love

Salute me, and bid fare among the dead

Well, as the dead fare; for the best man dead

Fares sadly; nathless I now faring well

Pass without fear where nothing is to fear

Having thy love about me and thy goodwill,

O father, among dark places and men dead.

ŒNEUS.

Child, I salute thee with sad heart and tears,

And bid thee comfort, being a perfect man

In fight, and honourable in the house of peace.

The gods give thee fair wage and dues of death,

And me brief days and ways to come at thee.

MELEAGER.

Pray thou thy days be long before thy death,

And full of ease and kingdom; seeing in death

There is no comfort and none aftergrowth,

Nor shall one thence look up and see day's dawn

Nor light upon the land whither I go.

Live thou and take thy fill of days and die

When thy day comes; and make not much of death

Lest ere thy day thou reap an evil thing.

Thou too, the bitter mother and mother-plague

Of this my weary body – thou too, queen,

The source and end, the sower and the scythe,

The rain that ripens and the drought that slays,

The sand that swallows and the spring that feeds,

To make me and unmake me – thou, I say,

Althæa, since my father's ploughshare, drawn

Through fatal seedland of a female field,

Furrowed thy body, whence a wheaten ear

Strong from the sun and fragrant from the rains

I sprang and cleft the closure of thy womb,

Mother, I dying with unforgetful tongue

Hail thee as holy and worship thee as just

Who art unjust and unholy; and with my knees

Would worship, but thy fire and subtlety,

Dissundering them, devour me; for these limbs

Are as light dust and crumblings from mine urn

Before the fire has touched them; and my face

As a dead leaf or dead foot's mark on snow,

And all this body a broken barren tree

That was so strong, and all this flower of life

Disbranched and desecrated miserably,

And minished all that god-like muscle and might

And lesser than a man's: for all my veins

Fail me, and all mine ashen life burns down.

I would thou hadst let me live; but gods averse,

But fortune, and the fiery feet of change,

And time, these would not, these tread out my life,

These and not thou; me too thou hast loved, and I

Thee; but this death was mixed with all my life,

Mine end with my beginning: and this law,

This only, slays me, and not my mother at all.

And let no brother or sister grieve too sore,

Nor melt their hearts out on me with their tears,

Since extreme love and sorrowing overmuch

Vex the great gods, and overloving men

Slay and are slain for love's sake; and this house

Shall bear much better children; why should these

Weep? but in patience let them live their lives

And mine pass by forgotten: thou alone,

Mother, thou sole and only, thou not these,

Keep me in mind a little when I die

Because I was thy first-born; let thy soul

Pity me, pity even me gone hence and dead,

Though thou wert wroth, and though thou bear again

Much happier sons, and all men later born

Exceedingly excel me; yet do thou

Forget not, nor think shame; I was thy son.

Time was I did not shame thee; and time was

I thought to live and make thee honourable

With deeds as great as these men's; but they live,

These, and I die; and what thing should have been

Surely I know not; yet I charge thee, seeing

I am dead already, love me not the less,

Me, O my mother; I charge thee by these gods,

My father's, and that holier breast of thine,

By these that see me dying, and that which nursed,

Love me not less, thy first-born: though grief come,

Grief only, of me, and of all these great joy,

And shall come always to thee; for thou knowest,

O mother, O breasts that bare me, for ye know,

O sweet head of my mother, sacred eyes,

Ye know my soul albeit I sinned, ye know

Albeit I kneel not neither touch thy knees,

But with my lips I kneel, and with my heart

I fall about thy feet and worship thee.

And ye farewell now, all my friends; and ye,

Kinsmen, much younger and glorious more than I,

Sons of my mother's sister; and all farewell

That were in Colchis with me, and bare down

The waves and wars that met us: and though times

Change, and though now I be not anything,

Forget not me among you, what I did

In my good time; for even by all those days,

Those days and this, and your own living souls,

And by the light and luck of you that live,

And by this miserable spoil, and me

Dying, I beseech you, let my name not die.

But thou, dear, touch me with thy rose-like hands.

And fasten up mine eyelids with thy mouth,

A bitter kiss; and grasp me with thine arms,

Printing with heavy lips my light waste flesh,

Made light and thin by heavy-handed fate,

And with thine holy maiden eyes drop dew,

Drop tears for dew upon me who am dead,

Me who have loved thee; seeing without sin done

I am gone down to the empty weary house

Where no flesh is nor beauty nor swift eyes

Nor sound of mouth nor might of hands and feet.

But thou, dear, hide my body with thy veil,

And with thy raiment cover foot and head,

And stretch thyself upon me and touch hands

With hands and lips with lips: be pitiful

As thou art maiden perfect; let no man

Defile me to despise me, saying, This man

Died woman-wise, a woman's offering, slain

Through female fingers in his woof of life,

Dishonourable; for thou hast honoured me.

And now for God's sake kiss me once and twice

And let me go; for the night gathers me,

And in the night shall no man gather fruit

ATALANTA.

Hail thou: but I with heavy face and feet

Turn homeward and am gone out of thine eyes.

CHORUS.

Who shall contend with his lords

Or cross them or do them wrong?

Who shall bind them as with cords?

Who shall tame them as with song?

Who shall smite them as with swords?

For the hands of their kingdom are strong.