HELENA
What I have seen ye, too, with your own eyes, shall see,
If ancient Night, within her wonder-teeming womb,
Hath not forthwith engulfed, once more, her ghastly birth;
But yet, that ye may know, with words I'll tell it you:—
What time the royal mansion's gloomy inner court,
Upon my task intent, with solemn step I trod,
I wondered at the drear and silent corridors.
Fell on mine ear no sound of busy servitors,
No stir of rapid haste, officious, met my gaze;
Before me there appeared no maid, no stewardess,
Who every stranger erst, with friendly greeting, hailed.
But when I neared at length the bosom of the hearth,
There saw I, by the light of dimly smouldering fire,
Crouched on the ground, a crone, close-veiled, of stature huge,
Not like to one asleep, but as absorbed in thought!
With accent of command I summon her to work,
The stewardess in her surmising, who perchance
My spouse, departing hence, with foresight there had placed;
Yet, closely muted up, still sits she, motionless;
At length, upon my threat, up-lifts she her right arm,
As though from hearth and hall she motioned me away.
Wrathful from her I turn, and forthwith hasten out,
Toward the steps, whereon aloft the Thalamos
Rises adorned, thereto the treasure-house hard by;
When, on a sudden, starts the wonder from the floor;
Barring with lordly mien my passage, she herself
In haggard height displays, with hollow eyes, blood-grimed,
An aspect weird and strange, confounding eye and thought.
Yet speak I to the winds; for language all in vain
Creatively essays to body forth such shapes.
There see herself! The light she ventures to confront!
Here are we master, till the lord and monarch comes;
The ghastly brood of Night doth Phoebus, beauty's friend,
Back to their caverns drive, or them he subjugates.
[PHORKYAS stepping on the threshold, between the door-posts.]
CHORUS
Much have I lived through, although my tresses
Youthfully waver still round my temples;
Manifold horrors have mine eyes witnessed;
Warfare's dire anguish, Ilion's night,
When it fell;
Through the o'erclouded, dust over-shadow'd
Tumult of war, to gods have I hearken'd,
Fearfully shouting; hearken'd while discord's
Brazen voices clang through the field
Rampart-wards.
Ah, yet standing were Ilion's
Ramparts; nathless the glowing flames
Shot from neighbor to neighbor roof,
Ever spreading from here and there,
with their tempest's fiery blast,
Over the night-darkened city.—
Flying, saw I through smoke and glare,
And the flash of the tonguèd flames,
Dreadful, threatening gods draw near;
Wondrous figures, of giant mould,
Onward striding through the weird
Gloom of fire-luminous vapor.
Saw I them, or did my mind,
Anguish-torn, itself body forth
Phantoms so terrible—never more
Can I tell; but that I this
Horrible shape with eyes behold,
This of a surety know I!
Yea, with my hands could clutch it even,
Did not fear, from the perilous
Venture, ever withhold me.
Tell me, of Phorkyas'
Daughters which art thou?
For to that family
Thee must I liken.
Art thou, may be, one of the gray-born?
One eye only, and but one tooth
Using still alternately?
One of the Graiæ art thou?
Darest thou, Horror,
Thus beside beauty,
Or to the searching glance
Phoebus' unveil thee?
Nathless step thou forward undaunted;
For the horrible sees he not,
As his hallowed glances yet
Never gazed upon shadows.
But a tragical fate, alas,
Us, poor mortals, constrains to bear
Anguish of vision, unspeakable,
Which the contemptible, ever-detestable,
Doth in lovers of beauty wake!
Yea, so hearken then, if thou dar'st
Us to encounter, hear our curse,
Hark to each imprecation's threat,
Out of the curse-breathing lips of the happy ones,
Who by the gods created are!
PHORKYAS
Trite is the word, yet high and true remains the sense:
That Shame and Beauty ne'er together, hand in hand,
Their onward way pursue, earth's verdant path along.
Deep-rooted in these twain dwelleth an ancient grudge,
So that, where'er they happen on their way to meet,
Upon her hated rival turneth each her back;
Then onward speeds her course with greater vehemence,
Shame filled with sorrow, Beauty insolent of mood,
Till her at length embraces Orcus' hollow night,
Unless old age erewhile her haughtiness hath tamed.
You find I now, ye wantons, from a foreign shore,
With insolence o'erflowing, like the clamorous flight
Of cranes, with shrilly scream that high above our heads,
A long and moving cloud, croaking send down their noise,
Which the lone pilgrim lures wending his silent way,
Aloft to turn his gaze; yet on their course they fare,
He also upon his: so will it be with us.
Who are ye then, that thus around the monarch's house,
With Maenad rage, ye dare like drunken ones to rave?
Who are ye then that ye the house's stewardess
Thus bay, like pack of hounds hoarsely that bay the moon?
Think ye, 'tis hid from me, the race whereof ye are?
Thou youthful, war-begotten, battle-nurtured brood,
Lewd and lascivious thou, seducers and seduced,
Unnerving both, the soldier's and the burgher's strength!
Seeing your throng, to me a locust-swarm ye seem,
Which, settling down, conceals the young green harvest-field.
Wasters of others' toil! ye dainty revellers,
Destroyers in its bloom of all prosperity!
Thou conquer'd merchandise, exchanged and marketed!