OPENING SCENE FROM “AMPHITRYON”
ALCMENA. THREE ASTROLOGERS
Alcmena
I HAVE commanded you as often of old
To ply the doctor’s trade with my disease,
To cure me or to kill; for in whose veins
Courses the age-long poison of despair,
Seeks for himself no gentle surgery,
Nor wishes for the touch of tender hands
Upon his body.
First Astrologer
Something of your need
Has been revealed us. Yet should there remain
No secret hid from the physician’s eye.
Alcmena
It has been said that from the lips of queens
Should come no word more bitter than sweet honey.
If you adjudge me queen, let this too pass
That I must act unqueenly. In my soul
Drips wine more bitter than the taste of gall.
First Astrologer
When roses bloom most fully, death is near.
Alcmena
You too know this?
Second Astrologer
We know that life glides slowly
But death is quicker than a lightning stroke.
Alcmena
Is it of me that you have gained this wisdom?
Third Astrologer
The grand revolving spheres of heaven teach
The mind that hears their music. We have learned
To listen through the clamour of all noons
With evening in the heart.
Alcmena
He does not live
Who hears no noon-day clamour about his ears.
First Astrologer
And you, Queen, that have lived and now confront
Death or his shadow deep within your soul,
Have you in life such wisdom garnered up
As may disarm the heart’s rebellion?
Wherefore then are we summoned?
Second Astrologer
The garden of life
Is barren for you, bearing little fruit,
And yields no store for hungry days ahead.
Third Astrologer
To me you seem as one that has in thought
A hidden sin, and seeks an easy priest
Who shall with smooth and flowing words of grace
Persuade it from the heart.
Alcmena
Nay, I am sinless.
First Astrologer
You are still young to be thus weary of life.
Alcmena
There comes to every man a sudden time
When he undoes the bolts that bar his heart
Displaying hidden shame and scars concealed.
Such season is the present. Hear me now;
For I am sick and pale with lingering
Over a mystery that has no clue
Created idly by an idle brain.
Astrologers, thrice mighty in yourselves,
Say whence crept into me this discontent,
This fretfulness of mine. Say whence arose
My malady, so cunning in its ways,
That I tormented have no skill to guide
My doctors to the secret. Day by day
I feel the heavy burden of the flesh
Grow heavier. Your words rang true indeed.
Though I am young, I am grown weary of life.
The tedious cycle of each passing day
Like streams of dripping tears from blinded eyes
Falls in the cup of my calamity;
While thoughts, such as you guess, are often here,
Bringing a sweet temptation.
I have tried
All means of remedy. This perfumed air,
This gold and ivory, these purple robes
Have caused no change. The mute insistent hours
Wait for me still, interminably slow.
And, as in mental pain a man will crave
For any fierce sensation of the flesh
To rid his agony, so I have craved
The frenzied lashing of tempestuous rain,
The heat of flame, the sharpened fang of frost.
I have gone forth at midnight with no robe,
And walked bare-footed over stony ground
While wind and rain have done their worst on me.
I have kissed flame and held these hands in fire;
These hands have taken the scourge, that is for slaves,
To beat my body. Hear then all my curse.
Neither the blade of sharp-projecting flint
Nor wind nor rain nor burning tongue of flame
Nor knotted scourge can leave a mark on me.
These lips are no less red since they were kissed
By glowing coal; these hands are yet untorn.
Such is my fate, with flesh insensible
To suffer from a mind which has no love
And no distraction. Have it as you will,
I am a shipwreck far on lonely seas
With neither oars aboard, nor land in sight,
Nor mast, nor mast for fluttering rags of sail.
First Astrologer
When you have seen the solemn moon in tears
With long green tresses dipped in a purple sea,
And noted in each tear a breaking heart,
A lump of salty crystal, then your dreams
Will give you counsel which we cannot give.
Second Astrologer
We are empowered to tell you what has been
And what shall be, but this created image
Of your own thought eludes our groping hand.
Third Astrologer
Soon he shall come to you!
That stung your heart?
Alcmena
O wailing winds, scatter these words away
As chaff unfruitful to unfruitful soil.
First Astrologer
As glints the jewel in the toad’s brown head——
Second Astrologer
As lurks a bitter sting in honeyed words——
Third Astrologer
As a foul plague lies hid beneath the skin——
Alcmena
You wrong me.
Third Astrologer
Nay, your heart has uttered it.
When the strong arms of young Amphitryon——
First Astrologer
I hear a voice.
Alcmena
O God! the dream returns.
Third Astrologer
The dream was not, then, of Amphitryon?
Alcmena
May the royal hand of Zeus deliver me.
[Zeus enters in the form of Amphitryon.
Zeus
Your task is ended. Go, astrologers,
Taking your admonition to such ears
As are in need of it. Go silently.
Zeus
Still you pursue their empty sorceries?
Alcmena
Will you now weary me again? You drive
My friends away like dogs. I follow them.
Zeus
A sullen greeting to the traveller.
Alcmena
Have I not told you often how it is
With me and you? Or must you ask again
And hear me through unreasoned reasonings
To the last drop of bitterness? And yet——
Zeus
Why gaze so strangely on me?
Alcmena
I had thought
Your journey would be longer.
Zeus
No, alas!
Alcmena
What brings you here to probe the core of my heart
With your unspoken question?
Zeus
We have need
No longer of these lamps. Quench them. The dawn
Arises in the East.
Alcmena
Since when am I
Become your slave?
Zeus
Since you obeyed my word.
Alcmena
I was no friend to such obedience
In the dead days that were my life’s design.
Zeus
You tremble. Speak your fear.
Alcmena
Heart’s utterance
Were mockery, if spoken by the tongue.
Zeus
Yet, be assured, nothing is hid from me.
Alcmena
Unmoving figure of Amphitryon
I knew and hated, when you crossed the threshold,
Hope seemed to step beside you.
Zeus
Hope is mine.
Alcmena
Then say, where have you found the keys of life,
That you unlock its portals suddenly?
Zeus
At my command all doors are set ajar.
Alcmena
The miserable forebodings of the night
Have fallen from me like the gossamer
Which spiders weave until a master-hand
Sweeps clean their tracery. Mark you a change
In me, as I in you?
Zeus
I am unchanging,
But, till this moment, me you have not known.
Alcmena
Or known myself save as a falling leaf,
The toy of winds, uncherished and unloved,
Gliding to earth and slow decay in earth
Of what was green and young.
Zeus
When you were younger
And guarded still the pitiable illusion
That life is good and destiny exalted,
Did you not dream perhaps of sacrifice
In which yourself as immolated victim
Should satisfy delirious desire,
Wedded at last in death with strength,—which marriage
Humanly shaped has never learned to yield?
Alcmena
Your voice has in it the power of new command
To pierce my secret.
Zeus
Naught is hid from me.
Alcmena
My soul is weak with longing for your counsel.
Zeus
When Semele, with lightning-darted flame
Engirdled, woke with knowledge she must die,
Having aspired to touch the majesty
Of the omnipotent, in no wise dismayed
Was she consumed with that unquenchable fire
Which burns all veils that overspread the flesh.
Alcmena
Whence came the thought of Semele to you?
And why this chain of words now coiled on me
As a predestined victim?
Zeus
I myself
Blaze with the fire of Semele. This hand
Shall rend the veil once more. Myself am hope,
Sole arbiter of germinating life,
The driver of the lusty winds of morning,
The cloud-compeller, dancer of the dance
Wherein the sea is festive and the hills
Nod musical assent, the charioteer
That drags the world behind his flashing wheels,
Bringer of life and change that is called death
And vibrant longing, setter of an end
To fear and doubt, a darting two-edged sword
That heals the wounds created of itself,
The crystal-veined one, in whose blood there flows
The flame of life—in such wise apprehend
Me standing here, and in such wise remark
The honour I have done you.
Alcmena
Open-eyed
At last, I see a spirit stands beside me.
For this cause I grew pale and bent my head
In sweet confusion. Bringer of release,
Even if it should be my worship falls
Before a devil from hell, behold I kneel
To kiss the fragrance of your garment’s hem.