Chapter III (3)

MEN. O woman,
So small an object, as you rightly judge,
Deserves not the attention of my realm,
Nor that of Greece. But learn this obvious truth:
To any man whate’er he greatly needs,
Is of more worth by far than taking Troy.
My daughter I assist, because I deem it
A wrong of great importance should she lose
Her bridal rights: for every woman looks
On all beside as secondary ills:
But if she from her husband’s arms be torn,
Seems reft of life itself. That Phthia’s prince
Direct my servants, and that his obey
Me and my race, is fitting: for true friends
Have no distinct possessions, but hold all
In common. While I wait for the return
Of her long absent lord, should I neglect
My daughter’s interests, I were weak, not wise.
But leave this shrine of Thetis: for the child
Shall if you bleed escape th’ impending doom:
Him, if you die not, will I slay, since fate
Of you or him the forfeit life demands.

AND. Ah me! a bitter and unwelcome choice
Of life on terms like these hast thou proposed;
Wretch that I am! for whether I decline
Or make such option, I am wretched still.
O thou, who by a trifling wrong provoked,
Committ’st great crimes, attend: for what offence
Wouldst thou bereave me of my life? what city
Have I betrayed? what child of thine destroyed?
What mansion fired? I to my master’s bed
By force was dragged: yet me alone, not him
The author of that crime, thou mean’st to slay.
Thou, the first cause o’erlooking, on th’ effect
Which it produces, vent’st thy rage. What woes
Encompass wretched me! alas! my country!
How dreadful are the wrongs which I endure!
But wherefore was I doomed to bear a child,
And to the burden under which I groan
Add a new burden? what delight can life
To me afford? or on what fortunes past
Or present should I turn these eyes which saw
The corse of Hector by the victor’s car
Whirled round the walls, and wretched Troy a heap
Of blazing ruins? I meantime a slave
By my dishevelled hair was dragged aboard
The Argive navy; when I reached the coast
Of Phthia, and cohabited with those
Who slew my Hector; (but why lavish plaints
On past calamities, without deploring
Or taking a due estimate of those
Which now impend?) I had this only son
My life’s last comfort left, and they who take
Delight in deeds of cruelty, would slay him;
Yet to preserve my miserable life
He shall not perish; for auspicious hopes,
Could he be saved, his future days attend:
But if I died not for my son, reproach
Would be my portion. Lo! I leave the altar
And now am in thy hands, stab, slay me, bind,
Strain hard the deadly noose. My son, thy mother,
To rescue thee from an untimely grave,
Descends the shades beneath; if thou escape
The ruthless grasp of fate, remember me
How miserably I suffered; and with kisses,
At his return, when thou goest forth to meet
Thy father, when a flood of tears thou shedd’st,
And cling’st around him with those pliant arms,
Inform him how I acted. All men hold
Their children dear as life; but he who scorns them
Because he ne’er experienced what it is
To be a father, though with fewer griefs
Attended, but enjoys imperfect bliss.

[_Rises, and advances from the altar._

CHOR. I with compassion to this moving tale
Have listened; for distress, to all mankind,
Though strangers, must seem piteous: but on thee,
O Menelaus, ’tis incumbent now
To reconcile thy daughter, and this captive,
That she may from her sorrows be released.

MEN. Seize her, and bind her hands; for she shall hear
No pleasing language: I proposed to slay
Your son, that you might leave that hallowed altar
Of Thetis, and thus craftily induced you
To fall into my hands, and meet your death;
Be well assured, such is the present state
Of your affairs: as for that boy, on him
My daughter shall pass judgment, or to kill,
Or spare him: but now enter these abodes,
That you may learn, slave as you are, to treat
Those who are free no longer with disdain.

AND. Thou hast o’erreached me by thy treacherous arts;
Alas! I am betrayed.

MEN. Proclaim these tidings
To all men; for I shall not contradict them.

AND. By those who dwell beside Eurotas’ stream
Are such base frauds called wisdom?

MEN. Both at Troy
And there, ’tis just the injured should retaliate.

AND. Believ’st thou that the gods are gods no longer,
Nor wield the bolt of vengeance?

MEN. We must look
To that: but you shall die.

AND. And wilt thou seize
This unfledged bird, to slay him?

MEN. No, I will not,
But give him to my daughter, who must act
As she thinks fit.

AND. Then how, alas, my son!
Can I sufficiently bewail thy fate?

MEN. “Him,” ’twas but now with arrogance you said,
“Auspicious hopes attend.”

AND. Ye worst of foes
To all mankind, inhabitants of Sparta!
Expert in treacherous counsels, still devising
New falsehoods, curst artificers of mischief,
Your paths are crooked, yet though void of worth,
Through Greece by circumspection ye uphold
An undeserved pre-eminence. What crimes,
What murders, what a thirst for abject gain
Characterize your realm! with specious tongue
Uttering a language foreign to your heart,
Are ye not ever caught? Perdition seize you!
Death is less grievous than thou deem’st to me
Who date my utter ruin from that hour
When Ilion’s wretched city was involved
In the same fate with my illustrious lord,
Whose spear oft drove thee trembling from the field
Into thy ships: but now against his wife
A formidable warrior art thou come
To murder me: strike, for this coward tongue
Shall never leave thine and thy daughter’s shame
Unpublished. If in Sparta thou art great,
So was I erst in Ilion; but exult not
In my disasters, for on thee ere long
The same reverse of fortune may attend.

CHORUS.

ODE.

I. 1.

Two rival consorts ne’er can I approve,
Or sons, the source of strife, their birth who owe
To different mothers; hence connubial love
Is banished, and the mansion teems with woe.
One blooming nymph let cautious husbands wed,
And share with her alone an unpolluted bed.

I. 2.

No prudent city, no well-governed state,
More than a single potentate will own;
Their subjects droop beneath the grievous weight
When two bear rule, and discord shakes the throne;
And if two bards awake their sounding lyres
E’en the harmonious Muse a cruel strife inspires,

II. 1.

To aid the bark, when prosperous gales arise,
Two jarring pilots shall misguide the helm:
Weak is a multitude when all are wise,
One simpler monarch could have saved the realm.
Let a sole chief the house or empire sway,
And all who hope for bliss their lord’s behests obey.

II. 2.

This truth hath Menelaus’ daughter shown,
Furious she comes the victim to destroy;
And, that their blood may nuptial wrongs atone,
The Phrygian captive, and that hapless boy,
With impious rage unjust would cause to bleed;
May pity, awful queen, thy lifted arm impede!

But I before these doors behold the pair
On whom the fatal sentence now is passed.
Thou wretched dame, and wretched child who diest
Because thy mother to a foreign bed
By force was dragged, in her imputed guilt
Thou wert not an accomplice, thou thy lords
Hast not offended.

AND. To the realms beneath,
Lo, I am hurried, with these bloody hands
Fast bound in galling chains.

MOL. I too, O mother,
Under thy wing, to those loathed shades descend
A victim. O ye lords of Phthia’s land,
And thou, my father, succour those thou lov’st.

AND. Cling to thy mother’s bosom, O my child,
Together let us die.

MOL. Ah me! how grievous
My sufferings are! too clearly I perceive
That I, and thou my mother, both are wretched.

MEN. Go both together to th’ infernal realm:
For ye from hostile turrets hither came.
Although the cause why you and he must bleed
Is not the same, my sentence takes away
Your life, and my Hermione’s your son’s.
The highest folly were it to permit
A foe to live and vex us, whom with ease
We might despatch, and from our house remove
Such danger.

AND. O my husband, would to Heaven
I had thy arm to aid me; and thy spear,
Thou son of Priam.

MOL. Wretched me! what charm
Can I devise t’ avert impending fate?

AND. My son, implore the mercy of our lord
Clasping his knees.

MOL. Dear monarch, spare my life.

AND. Tears from these eyes burst forth like trickling drops
By the sun’s heat forced from a solid rock,
Wretch that I am!

MOL. What remedy, alas!
For these dire evils can my soul devise?

MEN. Why dost thou idly grovel at my feet
With fruitless supplications, while I stand
Firm as a rock, or as th’ unpitying wave?
Such conduct serves my interests: no affection
To thee I bear, because my morn of life
Was wasted in the conflict, ere I took
Troy and thy mother, whose society
Thou in the realms of Pluto shalt enjoy.

PELEUS, MENELAUS, ANDROMACHE, MOLOSSUS, CHORUS.

CHOR. Peleus, I see, draws near, his aged feet
With eager haste advancing.

PEL. You, and him
Who stands presiding o’er a murderous deed,
What means this uproar that disturbs the house,
I question, and what practices are these
Ye carry on unauthorized by law?
O Menelaus, stay thy furious hand,
And let not execution thus outstrip
All righteous judgment. O my friends, lead on;
For such a dread emergency appears
T’ admit of no delay. Could I regain
That youthful vigour which I erst enjoyed
As prosperous breezes aid the floating sails,
This captive would I favour. Say, what right
Have they to bind your hands, and drag along
You and your son? for like the bleating mother,
Led forth to slaughter with her lamb, you perish,
While I and your unwitting lord are absent.

AND. They, as thou seest, O venerable man,
Me and my son thus bear to instant death.
What shall I say to thee, whom I with speed
Not by one single messenger but thousands
Have sent for? sure thou, of the fatal strife
In these divided mansions, with his daughter,
To which I owe my ruin, must have heard:
And from the violated shrine of Thetis,
Who bore to thee a noble son, the goddess
Whom thou rever’st e’en now with brutal force
Me have they torn, nor judged my cause, nor wait
For absent Neoptolemus, but, knowing
That I and that this child who hath committed
No fault, are left alone and unprotected,
Would slay us both. But, O thou aged man,
Thus prostrate on my knees, to thee I sue,
And, though this hand must not presume to touch
Thy honoured beard, conjure thee by the gods,
Rescue us, or to thy eternal shame
Both he and I must miserably bleed.

PEL. My orders are that you those galling chains
Unbind and loose her hands, else will I make
The disobedient weep.

MEN. But I, your equal,
Who have much more authority o’er her,
Forbid them.

PEL. Com’st thou hither to direct
My household? is it not enough for thee
To rule thy Spartans?

MEN. Her I took at Troy.

PEL. She, to reward his valour, was bestowed
Upon my grandson.

MEN. Doth not all he owns,
To me, and what is mine, to him belong?

PEL. For honest purposes, but not for crimes
And murderous violence.

MEN. You ne’er shall take her
Out of my hands.

PEL. Thy head I with this sceptre
Will smite.

MEN. Draw near; if you presume to touch me,
Soon shall you rue such outrage.

PEL. O thou villain,
Sprung from a race of impious sires, what right
To be accounted an illustrious man,
And numbered with the truly brave, hast thou,
Who by a Phrygian wanderer wert deprived
Of thy fair consort, after thou hadst left
Thy house unbarred and destitute of guards,
As if thou in thy mansions hadst possessed
A virtuous dame, though she of all her sex
Was the most dissolute? nor if she would
Can any Spartan nymph be chaste? for wandering
From their own homes, distinguished by bare legs,
And zoneless vest, they with young men contend
In swiftness and in wrestling; I such customs
Hold in abhorrence. Is there any room
For wonder if the women prove unchaste
Whom thus you educate? thy Helen ought
To have proposed these questions, ere she left
Her native realm, regardless of thy love,
And by that youthful paramour seduced,
Wantonly fled into a foreign land.
Yet for her sake didst thou that numerous host
Of Greeks collect, and lead them to assail
The Phrygian ramparts. Thou that beauteous dame
Shouldst rather have despised, nor in her cause
Wielded the javelin, when thou found’st her worthless,
But suffered her in Ilion to remain,
And sent rich gifts to Paris on these terms,
That to thy house she never should return.
But thou, instead of suffering these just motives
To make their due impression on thy soul,
Full many valiant warriors hast destroyed,
Made th’ aged matron childless, and deprived
Of his illustrious sons the hoary sire.
Numbered with those who owe to thee thy ruin
Am wretched I: for like some evil genius
In thee do these indignant eyes behold
The murderer of Achilles: thou alone,
Save by the missile shaft, unwounded cam’st
From Ilion’s hostile shores; in burnished chests
Didst thou bear thither the same glittering arms
Which thou bear’st back again. Before he wedded,
I warned my grandson to form no connection
With thee, nor into these abodes admit
The brood of that adult’ress; for the daughters
Their mother emulate in deeds of shame.
Look well to this, ye suitors, and select
The damsel with maternal worth endued.
Then with what scorn didst thou thy brother treat,
Commanding him ’gainst reason to transgress,
And sacrifice his daughter. Thou such fears,
Lest thou that execrable wife shouldst lose,
Didst entertain. When thou hadst taken Troy,
This too I urge against thee, though thou hadst
Thy consort in thy power, thou didst not slay her,
But when her throbbing bosom thou beheld’st
Didst cast away thy sword, receive her kisses,
And soothe the fears of her who had betrayed thee.
O worthless miscreant, whom the Cyprian Queen
Hath thus debased! thou after this intrud’st
Into my grandson’s palace, in his absence
Committ’st these outrages, and basely slay’st
A miserable woman, and her child,
Thee and thy daughter who shall cause to weep
Though trebly illegitimate his birth.
Oft the parched heath, when duly tilled, exceeds
The richest soil, and greater instances
Of virtue are in many a bastard found
Than in the lawfully begotten race.
But take thy daughter hence. Far better is it
To form affinity and strictest friendship
With a poor man of worth, than him who joins
Iniquity with wealth: but as for thee,
Thou art a thing of nought.

CHOR. Among mankind,
Oft from a small beginning doth the tongue
Great strife occasion: but the wise beware
Of entering on a contest with their friend.

MEN. Why do we speak in such exalted terms
Of aged men, as if they were endued
With wisdom, though in former days supposed
By the whole Grecian race to judge aright?
When you, O Peleus, who derive your birth
From an illustrious sire, and with my house
So nearly are connected, hold a language
Disgraceful to yourself, and slander me,
For a barbarian dame, whom from this land
You ought to banish far beyond the Nile,
Beyond the Phasis, and applaud my vengeance;
Because she comes from Asiatic shores,
Where many valiant Grecian chiefs lie slain.
And hath in part been guilty of the blood
Of your famed son; for Paris, by whose shaft,
Transpierced, Achilles perished, was the brother,
And she the wife of Hector: yet you enter
The same abode with her, the genial board
With her partake, allow her to bring forth
Under your roofs an execrable brood.
These mischiefs both to you and me, old man,
Foreseeing, have I snatched her from your hands
With a design to kill her. But, O say,
(For there is nought of meanness in our holding
This conference), if my daughter bear no child,
And she have sons, will you appoint them lords
Of this your Phthian land? shall they who spring
From a barbarian race, o’er Greeks bear rule?
Am I, because I hate injustice, void
Of understanding, and are you discreet?
Reflect on this; had you bestowed your daughter
On any citizen, were she thus treated,
Would you sit down and bear her wrongs in silence?
I deem you would not. Why then with such harshness
Speak you in favour of a foreign dame
Against your nearest friends? as great a right
To vengeance as her husband, hath the wife
Whom her lord injures: for while he whose doors
An unchaste consort enters, in his hands
Hath power to right himself, a woman’s strength
Lies only in her parents and her friends.
My daughter, therefore, am I bound to aid:
You show the marks of age: for while you talk
Of that famed war I waged, you more befriend me
Than if you had been silent. Deep in woe
Was Helen plunged, not by her own consent
But by the gods: and this event hath proved
To Greece most advantageous, for its sons
Who knew not how till then to wield the spear,
Grew valiant. From experience, best of tutors,
Men gather all the knowledge they possess.
But when I saw my consort, in forbearing
To take away her life, I acted wisely:
And would that you had done like me, nor slain
Your brother Phocus; this to you I speak
Through mere benevolence, and not in wrath:
But if resentment o’er your soul usurp
An empire, such intemperance of the tongue
Will be in you more shameful, while my wishes
I by a prudent forethought shall attain.

CHOR. Now both desist (for this were better far)
From such unprofitable strife of words,
O ye will both offend.

PEL. Ah me! through Greece
What mischievous opinions have prevailed!
When with the spoils of vanquished foes, the host
A trophy rear, they think not how ’twas gained
By those brave soldiers who endure the toil
Of battle, while their general bears away
All the renown: though he was only one
Who stood ’midst thousands brandishing his spear,
Nor any single combatant surpassed,
He gains a larger portion of applause.
The venerable rulers of a city,
Placed in exalted stations, yet devoid
Of any real merit, overlook
The populace, though many in the crowd
Of their inferiors are more wise than they,
If haply courage and an honest zeal
Unite to place them in the public view.
Thou and thy brother thus are swollen with pride,
From having led those troops to conquer Troy,
And triumph in the sufferings of your friends.
But henceforth will I teach thee not to look
On Paris, Ida’s shepherd, as a foe,
More terrible than Peleus. If with speed
Thou quit not these abodes, and take away
Thy childless daughter, my indignant grandson,
By her dishevelled hair around the palace
Will drag this barren dame, who stung with envy,
Cannot endure the fruitful mother’s joys.
But, if she prove so luckless as to bare
No issue, ought she therefore to deprive us
Of our posterity? Begone, ye slaves,
That I may see who dares obstruct my loosing
Her hands. Rise up: though trembling with old age,
Your chains can I unbind. O worthless man,
Hast thou thus galled her hands? didst thou suppose
Thou held’st a bull or lion in the snare?
Or didst thou shudder lest she should snatch up
A sword, and wreak just vengeance on thy head?
Come hither to these sheltering arms, my child,
Unbind thy mother’s chains; in Phthia, thee
I’ll educate, to them a bitter foe.
Should Sparta’s sons by the protended spear
Obtain no fame, nor in th’ embattled field
Their prowess signalize, be well assured
Ye have no other merit.

CHOR. Old men talk
With freedom, and their vehemence of soul
Is hard to be restrained.

MEN. Extremely prone
Are you to slander; much against my will
I came to Phthia, and am here resolved
That I will neither do nor suffer aught
Disgraceful: but to my own home with speed
Am I returning, and have little time
In vain debates to lavish: for a city
Not far from Sparta’s gates and erst a friend
Is waging war against us: I would lead
My hardy squadrons forth t’ assail the foe,
And utterly subdue them. To my wish
Soon as this great affair I shall have settled,
Hither will I return, and face to face,
When I my reasons to my son-in-law
Have in the clearest terms proposed, will hear
What he can urge; and if he punish her,
And for the future courteously to me
Demean himself, from me he in return
Shall meet with courtesy; but if he rage,
He of my rage the dire effects shall feel:
For still such treatment as his deeds deserve
Shall he experience. But I am not hurt
By these injurious words of yours; for like
Some disembodied ghost, you have a voice,
Although you are not able to do aught
But merely speak.

[_Exit_ MENELAUS.

PEL. Lead on, my boy; here take
Thy station under these protecting arms;
And thou too, O thou miserable dame,
Driven hither by the furious storm; at length
Into a quiet haven are ye come.

AND. On thee and thy descendants may the gods
Shower every blessing, venerable man,
For having saved this child, and wretched me;
Yet O beware, lest in some lonely spot
They suddenly assail us, and by force
Drag me away, perceiving thou art old,
That I am a weak woman, and my son
Is but an infant: all precautions use,
Else we, who have escaped them, may again
Be caught.

PEL. Forbear to utter, in such language
As this, the dictates of a woman’s fear.
Advance, who dares to touch you? he shall weep.
For with the blessing of th’ immortal gods,
And by unnumbered troops of valiant horse,
And infantry supported, I bear rule
Over the Phthian land. I am robust,
Nor, as you deem, impaired by palsied age.
Were I, opposed in battle, but to look
On such a man as this, old as I am,
An easy conquest soon should I obtain.
Superior is the veteran, if with courage
Inspired, to many youths: for what avails
A vigorous body with a coward’s heart?

[_Exeunt_ PELEUS, ANDROMACHE, _and_ MOLOSSUS.

CHORUS.

ODE.