Part 5 (1/2)
I know not how to speak false words of weal For friends to reap thereof a harvest true.
LEADER.
Canst speak of truth with comfort joined? Those two Once parted, 'tis a gulf not lightly crossed.
HERALD.
Your king is vanished from the Achaian host, He and his s.h.i.+p! Such comfort have I brought.
LEADER.
Sailed he alone from Troy? Or was he caught By storms in the midst of you, and swept away?
HERALD.
Thou hast hit the truth; good marksman, as men say!
And long to suffer is but brief to tell.
LEADER.
How ran the sailors' talk? Did there prevail One rumour, showing him alive or dead?
HERALD.
None knoweth, none hath tiding, save the head Of Helios, ward and watcher of the world.
LEADER.
Then tell us of the storm. How, when G.o.d hurled His anger, did it rise? How did it die?
HERALD.
It likes me not, a day of presage high With dolorous tongue to stain. Those twain, I vow, Stand best apart. When one with shuddering brow, From armies lost, back beareth to his home Word that the terror of her prayers is come; One wound in her great heart, and many a fate For many a home of men cast out to sate The two-fold scourge that worketh Ares' l.u.s.t, Spear crossed with spear, dust wed with b.l.o.o.d.y dust; Who walketh laden with such weight of wrong, Why, let him, if he will, uplift the song That is h.e.l.l's triumph. But to come as I Am now come, laden with deliverance high, Home to a land of peace and laughing eyes, And mar all with that fury of the skies Which made our Greeks curse G.o.d--how should this be?
Two enemies most ancient, Fire and Sea, A sudden friends.h.i.+p swore, and proved their plight By war on us poor sailors through that night Of misery, when the horror of the wave Towered over us, and winds from Strymon drave Hull against hull, till good s.h.i.+ps, by the horn Of the mad whirlwind gored and overborne, One here, one there, 'mid rain and blinding spray, Like sheep by a devil herded, pa.s.sed away.
And when the blessed Sun upraised his head, We saw the Aegean waste a-foam with dead, Dead men, dead s.h.i.+ps, and spars disasterful.
Howbeit for us, our one unwounded hull Out of that wrath was stolen or begged free By some good spirit--sure no man was he!-- Who guided clear our helm; and on till now Hath Saviour Fortune throned her on the prow.
No surge to mar our mooring, and no floor Of rock to tear us when we made for sh.o.r.e.
Till, fled from that sea-h.e.l.l, with the clear sun Above us and all trust in fortune gone, We drove like sheep about our brain the thoughts Of that lost army, broken and scourged with knouts Of evil. And, methinks, if there is breath In them, they talk of us as gone to death-- How else?--and so say we of them! For thee, Since Menelaus thy first care must be, If by some word of Zeus, who wills not yet To leave the old house for ever desolate, Some ray of sunlight on a far-off sea Lights him, yet green and living ... we may see His s.h.i.+p some day in the harbour!--'Twas the word Of truth ye asked me for, and truth ye have heard!
[_Exit_ HERALD. _The_ CHORUS _take position for the Third Stasimon_.
CHORUS.
(_Surely there was mystic meaning in the name_ HELENA, _meaning which was fulfilled when she fled to Troy._)
Who was He who found for thee That name, truthful utterly-- Was it One beyond our vision Moving sure in pre-decision Of man's doom his mystic lips?-- Calling thee, the Battle-wed, Thee, the Strife-encompa.s.sed, HELEN? Yea, in fate's derision, h.e.l.l in cities, h.e.l.l in s.h.i.+ps, h.e.l.l in hearts of men they knew her, When the dim and delicate fold Of her curtains backward rolled, And to sea, to sea, she threw her In the West Wind's giant hold; And with spear and sword behind her Came the hunters in a flood, Down the oarblade's viewless trail Tracking, till in Simos' vale Through the leaves they crept to find her, A Wrath, a seed of blood.
(_The Trojans welcomed her with triumph and praised Alexander till at last their song changed and they saw another meaning in Alexander's name also._)
So the Name to Ilion came On G.o.d's thought-fulfilling flame, She a vengeance and a token Of the unfaith to bread broken, Of the hearth of G.o.d betrayed, Against them whose voices swelled Glorying in the prize they held And the Spoiler's vaunt outspoken And the song his brethren made 'Mid the bridal torches burning; Till, behold, the ancient City Of King Priam turned, and turning Took a new song for her learning, A song changed and full of pity, With the cry of a lost nation; And she changed the bridegroom's name: Called him Paris Ghastly-wed; For her sons were with the dead, And her life one lamentation, 'Mid blood and burning flame.
(_Like a lion's whelp reared as a pet and turning afterwards to a great beast of prey,_)