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    Erechtheus A Tragedy (New Edition)
    Erechtheus A Tragedy (New Edition)
    Erechtheus A Tragedy (New Edition)
    Ebook228 pages1 hour

    Erechtheus A Tragedy (New Edition)

    By Algernon Charles Swinburne

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    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    Erechtheus A Tragedy (New Edition)

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      Erechtheus A Tragedy (New Edition) - Algernon Charles Swinburne

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Erechtheus, by Algernon Charles Swinburne

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: Erechtheus

      A Tragedy (New Edition)

      Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne

      Release Date: June 11, 2006 [EBook #18550]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERECHTHEUS ***

      Produced by Thierry Alberto, Taavi Kalju and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

      ERECHTHEUS:

      A TRAGEDY.

      BY

      ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

      ὦ ταὶ λιπαραὶ καὶ ἰοστέφανοι καὶ ἀοίδιμοι

      Ἑλλάδος ἔρεισμα, κλειναὶ Ἀθᾶναι δαιμόνιον πτολίεθρον.

      Pind. Fr. 47.

      ΑΤ. τίς δὲ ποιμάνωρ ἔπεστι κἀπιδεσπόζει στρατοῦ;

      ΧΟ. οὔτινος δοῦλοι κέκληνται φωτὸς οὐδ' ὑπηκόοι.

      Æsch. Pers. 241-2.

      A NEW EDITION.

      London:

      CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY.

      1881.

      PERSONS.

      ERECHTHEUS.

      ERECHTHEUS.

      Mother of life and death and all men's days,

      Earth, whom I chief of all men born would bless,

      And call thee with more loving lips than theirs

      Mother, for of this very body of thine

      And living blood I have my breath and live,

      Behold me, even thy son, me crowned of men,

      Me made thy child by that strong cunning God

      Who fashions fire and iron, who begat

      Me for a sword and beacon-fire on thee,

      10

      Me fosterling of Pallas, in her shade

      Reared, that I first might pay the nursing debt,

      Hallowing her fame with flower of third-year feasts,

      And first bow down the bridled strength of steeds

      To lose the wild wont of their birth, and bear

      Clasp of man's knees and steerage of his hand,

      Or fourfold service of his fire-swift wheels

      That whirl the four-yoked chariot; me the king

      Who stand before thee naked now, and cry,

      O holy and general mother of all men born,

      20

      But mother most and motherliest of mine,

      Earth, for I ask thee rather of all the Gods,

      What have we done? what word mistimed or work

      Hath winged the wild feet of this timeless curse

      To fall as fire upon us? Lo, I stand

      Here on this brow's crown of the city's head

      That crowns its lovely body, till death's hour

      Waste it; but now the dew of dawn and birth

      Is fresh upon it from thy womb, and we

      Behold it born how beauteous; one day more

      30

      I see the world's wheel of the circling sun

      Roll up rejoicing to regard on earth

      This one thing goodliest, fair as heaven or he,

      Worth a God's gaze or strife of Gods; but now

      Would this day's ebb of their spent wave of strife

      Sweep it to sea, wash it on wreck, and leave

      A costless thing contemned; and in our stead,

      Where these walls were and sounding streets of men,

      Make wide a waste for tongueless water-herds

      And spoil of ravening fishes; that no more

      40

      Should men say, Here was Athens. This shalt thou

      Sustain not, nor thy son endure to see,

      Nor thou to live and look on; for the womb

      Bare me not base that bare me miserable,

      To hear this loud brood of the Thracian foam

      Break its broad strength of billowy-beating war

      Here, and upon it as a blast of death

      Blowing, the keen wrath of a fire-souled king,

      A strange growth grafted on our natural soil,

      A root of Thrace in Eleusinian earth

      50

      Set for no comfort to the kindly land,

      Son of the sea's lord and our first-born foe,

      Eumolpus; nothing sweet in ears of thine

      The music of his making, nor a song

      Toward hopes of ours auspicious; for the note

      Rings as for death oracular to thy sons

      That goes before him on the sea-wind blown

      Full of this charge laid on me, to put out

      The brief light kindled of mine own child's life,

      Or with this helmsman hand that steers the state

      60

      Run right on the under shoal and ridge of death

      The populous ship with all its fraughtage gone

      And sails that were to take the wind of time

      Rent, and the tackling that should hold out fast

      In confluent surge of loud calamities

      Broken, with spars of rudders and lost oars

      That were to row toward harbour and find rest

      In some most glorious haven of all the world

      And else may never near it: such a song

      The Gods have set his lips on fire withal

      70

      Who threatens now in all their names to bring

      Ruin; but none of these, thou knowest, have I

      Chid with my tongue or cursed at heart for grief,

      Knowing how the soul runs reinless on sheer death

      Whose grief or joy takes part against the Gods.

      And what they will is more than our desire,

      And their desire is more than what we will.

      For no man's will and no desire of man's

      Shall stand as doth a God's will. Yet, O fair

      Mother, that seest me how I cast no word

      80

      Against them, plead no reason, crave no cause,

      Boast me not blameless, nor beweep me wronged,

      By this fair wreath of towers we have decked thee with,

      This chaplet that we give thee woven of walls,

      This girdle of gate and temple and citadel

      Drawn round beneath thy bosom, and fast linked

      As to thine heart's root—this dear crown of thine,

      This present light, this city—be not thou

      Slow to take heed nor slack to strengthen her,

      Fare we so short-lived howsoe'er, and pay

      90

      What price we may to ransom thee thy town,

      Not me my life; but thou that diest not, thou,

      Though all our house die for this people's sake,

      Keep thou for ours thy crown our city, guard

      And give it life the lovelier that we died.

      CHORUS.

      Sun, that hast lightened and loosed by thy might

      Ocean and Earth from the lordship of night,

      Quickening with vision his eye that

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