Offering artless bribes, Ariadne invoked the Immortals,
Kindled voiceless lip with unvoicèd tribute of incense,
Suppliant, not in vain: for, like to an oak upon Taurus,
Gnarlèd, swinging his arms,—like some cone-burthenèd pine tree
Oozing the life from his bark, that, riven to heart by the whirlwind,
Wholly uprooted from earth, falls prone with extravagant ruin,
Perishes, dealing doom with precipitate rush of its branches,—
So was the Cretan brute by Theseus done to destruction,
E'en so, tossing in vain his horns to the vacuous breezes.
Then with abundant laud he turned, unscathed from the combat,
Theseus,—guiding his feet unsure by the filament slender,
Lest as he threaded paths circuitous, ways labyrinthine,
Some perverse, perplexing, erratic alley might foil him.
Why should I tarry to tell how, quitting her sire, Ariadne
Quitting the sister's arms, the infatuate gaze of the mother,—
She whose sole delight, whose life, was her desperate daughter,—
How Ariadne made less of the love of them all than of Theseus?
Why should I sing how sailing they came to the beaches of Dia,—
White with the foam,—how thence, false-hearted, the lover departing
Left her benighted with sleep, the Minoïd, princess of Creta?
Fig. 142. The Sleeping Ariadne
Gazing amain from the marge of the flood-reverberant Dia,
Chafing with ire, indignant, exasperate,—lo, Ariadne,
Lorn Ariadne, beholds swift craft, swift lover retreating.
Nor can be sure she sees what things she sees of a surety,
When upspringing from sleep, she shakes off treacherous slumber,
Lone beholds herself on a shore forlorn of the ocean.
Carelessly hastens the youth, meantime, who, driving his oar-blades
Hard in the waves, consigns void vows to the blustering breezes.
But as, afar from the sedge, with sad eyes still the Minoïd
Mute as a Mænad in stone unmoving stonily gazes—
Heart o'erwhelmed with woe—ah, thus, while thus she is gazing,—
Down from her yellow hair slips, sudden, the weed of the fine-spun
Snood, and the vesture light of her mantle down from the shoulders
Slips, and the twisted scarf encircling her womanly bosom;
Stealthily gliding, slip they downward into the billow,
Fall, and are tossed by the buoyant flood at the feet of the fair one.
Nothing she recks of the coif, of the floating garment as little,
Cares not a moment then, whose care hangs only on Theseus,—
Wretched of heart, soul-wrecked, dependent only on Theseus,—
Desperate, woe-unselfed with a cureless sorrow incessant,
Frantic, bosoming torture of thorns Erycina had planted....
Then, they say, that at last, infuriate out of all measure,
Once and again she poured shrill-voicèd shrieks from her bosom;
Helpless, clambered steeps, sheer beetling over the surges,
Whence to enrange with her eyes vast futile regions of ocean;—
Lifting the folds, soft folds of her garments, baring her ankles,
Dashed into edges of upward waves that trembled before her;
Uttered, anguished then, one wail, her maddest and saddest,—
Catching with tear-wet lips poor sobs that shivering choked her:—
"Thus is it far from my home, O traitor, and far from its altars—
Thus on a desert strand,—dost leave me, treacherous Theseus?
Thus is it thou dost flout our vow, dost flout the Immortals,—
Carelessly homeward bearest, with baleful ballast of curses?
Never, could never a plea forfend thy cruelly minded
Counsel? Never a pity entreat thy bosom for shelter?...
Hence, let never a maid confide in the oath of a lover,
Never presume man's vows hold aught trustworthy within them!
Verily, while in anguish of heart his spirit is longing,
Nothing he spares to assever, nor aught makes scruple to promise:
But, an his dearest desire, his nearest of heart be accorded—
Nothing he recks of affiance, and reckons perjury,—nothing.
"Oh! what lioness whelped thee? Oh! what desolate cavern?
What was the sea that spawned, that spat from its churning abysses,
Thee,—what wolfish Scylla, or Syrtis, or vasty Charybdis,
Thee,—thus thankful for life, dear gift of living, I gave thee?...
Had it not liked thee still to acknowledge vows that we plighted,
Mightest thou homeward, yet, have borne me a damsel beholden,
Fain to obey thy will, and to lave thy feet like a servant,
Fain to bedeck thy couch with purple coverlet for thee.
"But to the hollow winds why stand repeating my quarrel,—
I, for sorrow unselfed,—they, but breezes insensate,—
Potent neither voices to hear nor words to re-echo?...
Yea, but where shall I turn? Forlorn, what succor rely on?
'Haste to the Gnossian hills?' Ah, see how distantly surging
Deeps forbid, distending their gulfs abhorrent before me!
'Comfort my heart, mayhap, with the loyal love of my husband?'
Lo, the reluctant oar, e'en now, he plies to forsake me!—
Nought but the homeless strand of an isle remote of the ocean!
No, no way of escape, where the circling sea without shore is,—
No, no counsel of flight, no hope, no sound of a mortal;
All things desolate, dumb, yea, all things summoning deathward!
Yet mine eyes shall not fade in death that sealeth the eyelids,
Nor from the frame outworn shall fare my lingering senses,
Ere, undone, from powers divine I claim retribution—
Ere I call—in the hour supreme, on the faith of Immortals!
"Come, then, Righters of Wrong, O vengeful dealers of justice,
Braided with coil of the serpents, O Eumenides, ye of
Brows that blazon ire exhaling aye from the bosom,
Haste, oh, haste ye, hither and hear me, vehement plaining,
Destitute, fired with rage, stark-blind, demented for fury!—
As with careless heart yon Theseus sailed and forgot me,
So with folly of heart, may he slay himself and his household!"
... Then with a nod supreme Olympian Jupiter nodded:
Quaked thereat old Earth,—quaked, shuddered the terrified waters,
Ay, and the constellations in Heaven that glitter were jangled.
Straightway like some cloud on the inward vision of Theseus
Dropped oblivion down, enshrouding vows he had cherished,
Hiding away all trace of the solemn behest of his father.
