Balaustion's Adventure/V

Herakles, — not unfastening his hold On that same misery, beyond mistake Hoarse in the words, convulsive in the face, — "I would that I had such a power," said he, "As to lead up into the light again Thy very wife, and grant thee such a grace!"

"Well do I know thou would'st: but where the hope? There is no bringing back the dead to light."

"Be not extravagant in grief, no less! Bear it, by augury of better things!"

"'T is easier to advise 'bear up,' than bear!"

"But how carve way i' the life that lies before, If bent on groaning ever for the past?"

"I myself know that: but a certain love Allures me to the choice I shall not change."

"Ay, but, still loving dead ones, still makes weep."

"And let it be so! She has ruined me, And still more than I say: that answers all."

"Oh, thou hast lost a brave wife: who disputes?"

"So brave a one — that he whom thou behold'st Will never more enjoy his life again!"

"Time will assuage! The evil yet is young!"

"Time, thou may'st say, will; if time mean — to die."

"A wife — the longing for new marriage-joys Will stop thy sorrow!"

"Hush, friend, — hold thy peace! What hast thou said! I could not credit ear!"

"How then? Thou wilt not marry, then, but keep A widowed couch?"

"There is not any one Of womankind shall couch with whom thou seest!"

"Dost think to profit thus in any way The dead one?"

"Her, wherever she abide, My duty is to honour."

"And I praise — Indeed I praise thee! Still, thou hast to pay The price of it, in being held a fool!"

"Fool call me — only one name call me not! Bridegroom!"

"No: it was praise, I portioned thee, Of being good true husband to thy wife!"

"When I betray her, though she is no more, May I die!"

And the thing he said, was true: For out of Herakles a great glow broke. There stood a victor worthy of a prize: The violet-crown that withers on the brow Of the half-hearted claimant. Oh, he knew The signs of battle hard fought and well won, This queller of the monsters! — knew his friend Planted firm foot, now, on the loathly thing That was Admetos late! "would die," he knew, Ere let the reptile raise its crest again. If that was truth, why try the true friend more?

"Then, since thou canst be faithful to the death, Take, deep into thy house, my dame!" smiled he.

"Not so! — I pray, by thy Progenitor!"

"Thou wilt mistake in disobeying me!"

"Obeying thee, I have to break my heart!"

"Obey me! Who knows but the favour done May fall into its place as duty too?"

So, he was humble, would decline no more Bearing a burden: he just sighed, "Alas! Would thou hadst never brought this prize from game!"

"Yet, when I conquered there, thou conqueredst!"

"All excellently urged! Yet — spite of all, Bear with me! let the woman go away!"

"She shall go, if needs must: but ere she go, See if there is need!"

"Need there is! At least, Except I make thee angry with me, so!"

"But I persist, because I have my spice Of intuition likewise: take the dame!"

"Be thou the victor, then! But certainly Thou dost thy friend no pleasure in the act!"

"Oh, time will come when thou shalt praise me! Now — Only obey!"

"Then, servants, since my house Must needs receive this woman, take her there!"

"I shall not trust this woman to the care Of servants."

"Why, conduct her in, thyself, If that seem preferable!"

"I prefer, With thy good leave, to place her in thy hands!"

"I would not touch her! Entry to the house — That, I concede thee."

"To thy sole right-hand, I mean to trust her!"

"King! Thou wrenchest this Out of me by main force, if I submit!"

"Courage, friend! Come, stretch hand forth! Good! Now touch The stranger-woman!"

"There! A hand I stretch — As though it meant to cut off Gorgon's head!"

"Hast hold of her?"

"Fast hold."

"Why, then, hold fast And have her! and, one day, asseverate Thou wilt, I think, thy friend, the son of Zeus, He was the gentle guest to entertain! Look at her! See if she, in any way, Present thee with resemblance of thy wife!"

Ah, but the tears come, find the words at fault! There is no telling how the hero twitched The veil off: and there stood, with such fixed eyes And such slow smile, Alkestis' silent self! It was the crowning grace of that great heart, To keep back joy: procrastinate the truth Until the wife, who had made proof and found The husband wanting, might essay once more, Hear, see, and feel him renovated now — Able to do, now, all herself had done, Risen to the height of her: so, hand in hand, The two might go together, live and die.

Beside, when he found speech, you guess the speech. He could not think he saw his wife again: It was some mocking-God that used the bliss To make him mad! Till Herakles must help: Assure him that no spectre mocked at all; He was embracing whom he buried once. Still, — did he touch, might he address the true, — True eye, true body of the true live wife?

And Herakles said, smiling "All was truth. Spectre? Admetos had not made his guest One who played ghost-invoker, or such cheat! Oh, he might speak and have response, in time! All heart could wish was gained now — life for death: Only, the rapture must not grow immense: Take care, nor wake the envy of the Gods!"

"O thou, of greatest Zeus true son," — so spoke Admetos when the closing word must come, "Go ever in a glory of success, And save, that sire, his offspring to the end! For thou hast — only thou — raised me and mine Up again to this light and life!" Then asked Tremblingly, how was trod the perilous path Out of the dark into the light and life: How it had happened with Alkestis there.

And Herakles said little, but enough — How he engaged in combat with that king O' the dæmons: how the field of contest lay By the tomb's self: how he sprang from ambuscade, Captured Death, caught him in that pair of hands.

But all the time, Alkestis moved not once Out of the set gaze and the silent smile; And a cold fear ran through Admetos' frame: "Why does she stand and front me, silent thus?"

Herakles solemnly replied "Not yet Is it allowable thou hear the things She has to tell thee; let evanish quite That consecration to the lower Gods, And on our upper world the third day rise! Lead her in, meanwhile; good and true thou art, Good, true, remain thou! Practise piety To stranger-guests the old way! So, farewell! Since forth I fare, fulfil my urgent task Set by the king, the son of Sthenelos."

Fain would Admetos keep that splendid smile Ever to light him. "Stay with us, thou heart! Remain our house-friend!"

"At some other day! Now, of necessity, I haste!" smiled he.

"But may'st thou prosper, go forth on a foot Sure to return! Through all the tetrarchy, Command my subjects that they institute Thanksgiving-dances for the glad event, And bid each altar smoke with sacrifice! For we are minded to begin a fresh Existence, better than the life before; Seeing, I own myself supremely blest."

Whereupon all the friendly moralists Drew this conclusion: chirped, each beard to each: "Manifold are thy shapings, Providence! Many a hopeless matter Gods arrange. What we expected, never came to pass: What we did not expect, Gods brought to bear; So have things gone, this whole experience through!"

Ah, but if you had seen the play itself! They say, my poet failed to get the prize: Sophokles got the prize, — great name! They say, Sophokles also means to make a piece. Model a new Admetos, a new wife: Success to him! One thing has many sides. The great name! But no good supplants a good, Nor beauty undoes beauty. Sophokles Will carve and carry a fresh cup, brimful Of beauty and good, firm to the altar-foot, And glorify the Dionusiac shrine: Not clash against this crater, in the place Where the God put it when his mouth had drained, To the last dregs, libation life-blood-like, And praised Euripides for evermore — The Human with his droppings of warm tears.

Still, since one thing may have so many sides, I think I see how, — far from Sophokles, — You, I, or any one might mould a new Admetos, new Alkestis. Ah, that brave Bounty of poets, the one royal race That ever was, or will be, in this world! They give no gift that bounds itself and ends I' the giving and the taking: theirs so breeds I' the heart and soul o' the taker, so transmutes The man who only was a man before, That he grows god-like in his turn, can give — He also: share the poets' privilege, Bring forth new good, new beauty, from the old. As though the cup that gave the wine, gave, too, The God's prolific giver of the grape, That vine, was wont to find out, fawn around His footstep, springing still to bless the dearth, At bidding of a Mainad. So with me: For I have drunk this poem, quenched my thirst, Satisfied heart and soul — yet more remains! Could we too make a poem? Try at least, Inside the head, what shape the rose-mists take!

When God Apollon took, for punishment, A mortal form and sold himself a slave To King Admetos till a term should end, — Not only did he make, in servitude, Such music, while he fed the flocks and herds. As saved the pasturage from wrong or fright, Curing rough creatures of ungentleness: Much more did that melodious wisdom work Within the heart o' the master: there, ran wild Many a lust and greed that grow to strength By preying on the native pity and care, Would else, all undisturbed, possess the land.

And these, the God so tamed, with golden tongue, That, in the plenitude of youth and power, Admetos vowed himself to rule thenceforth In Pherai solely for his people's sake, Subduing to such end each lust and greed That dominates the natural charity.

And so the struggle ended. Right ruled might: And soft yet brave, and good yet wise, the man Stood up to be a monarch; having learned The worth of life, life's worth would he bestow On all whose lot was cast, to live or die, As he determined for the multitude. So stands a statue: pedestalled sublime, Only that it may wave the thunder off, And ward, from winds that vex, a world below.

And then, — as if a whisper found its way E'en to the sense o' the marble, — "Vain thy vow! The royalty of its resolve, that head Shall hide within the dust ere day be done: That arm, its outstretch of beneficence, Shall have a speedy ending on the earth: Lie patient, prone, while light some cricket leaps And takes possession of the masterpiece, To sit, sing louder as more near the sun. For why? A flaw was in the pedestal; Who knows? A worm's work! Sapped, the certain fate O' the statue is to fall, and thine to die!"

Whereat the monarch, calm, addressed himself To die, but bitterly the soul outbroke — "O prodigality of life, blind waste I' the world, of power profuse without the will To make life do its work, deserve its day! My ancestors pursued their pleasure, poured The blood o' the people out in idle war, Or took occasion of some weary peace To bid men dig down deep or build up high, Spend bone and marrow that the king might feast Entrenched and buttressed from the vulgar gaze. Yet they all lived, nay, lingered to old age: As though Zeus loved that they should laugh to scorn The vanity of seeking other ends In rule, than just the ruler's pastime. They Lived; I must die."

And, as some long last moan Of a minor suddenly is propped beneath By note which, new-struck, turns the wail, that was, Into a wonder and a triumph, so Began Alkestis: "Nay, thou art to live! The glory that, in the disguise of flesh, Was helpful to our house, — he prophesied The coming fate: whereon, I pleaded sore That he, — I guessed a God, who to his couch Amid the clouds must go and come again, While we were darkling, — since he loved us both, He should permit thee, at whatever price, To live and carry out to heart's content Soul's purpose, turn each thought to very deed, Nor let Zeus lose the monarch meant in thee.

"To which Apollon, with a sunset smile, Sadly — 'And so should mortals arbitrate! It were unseemly if they aped us Gods, And, mindful of our chain of consequence, Lost care of the immediate earthly link: Forewent the comfort of life's little hour, In prospect of some cold abysmal blank Alien eternity, — unlike the time They know, and understand to practise with, — No, — our eternity — no heart's blood, bright And warm outpoured in its behoof, would tinge Never so palely, warm a whit the more: Whereas retained and treasured — left to beat Joyously on, a life's length, in the breast O' the loved and loving, — it would throb itself Through, and suffuse the earthly tenement, Transform it, even as your mansion here Is love-transformed into a temple-home Where I, a God, forget the Olumpian glow, I' the feel of human richness like the rose: Your hopes and fears, so blind and yet so sweet With death about them. Therefore, well in thee To look, not on eternity, but time: To apprehend that, should Admetos die, All, we Gods purposed in him, dies as sure: That, life's link snapping, all our chain is lost. And yet a mortal glance might pierce, methinks, Deeper into the seeming dark of things, And learn, no fruit, man's life can bear, will fade: Learn, if Admetos die now, so much more Will pity for the frailness found in flesh, Will terror at the earthly chance and change Frustrating wisest scheme of noblest soul, Will these go wake the seeds of good asleep Throughout the world: as oft a rough wind sheds The unripe promise of some field-flower, — true! But loosens too the level, and lets breathe A thousand captives for the year to come. Nevertheless, obtain thy prayer, stay fate! Admetos lives — if thou wilt die for him!'

"So was the pact concluded that I die, And thou live on, live for thyself, for me, For all the world. Embrace and bid me hail, Husband, because I have the victory — Am, heart, soul, head to foot, one happiness!"

Whereto Admetos, in a passionate cry: "Never, by that true word Apollon spoke! All the unwise wish is unwished, O wife! Let purposes of Zeus fulfil themselves, If not through me, then through some other man! Still, in myself he had a purpose too, Inalienably mine, to end with me: This purpose — that, throughout my earthly life. Mine should be mingled and made up with thine, — And we two prove one force and play one part And do one thing. Since death divides the pair, 'T is well that I depart and thou remain Who wast to me as spirit is to flesh: Let the flesh perish, be perceived no more, So thou, the spirit that informed the flesh, Bend yet awhile, a very flame above The rift I drop into the darkness by, — And bid remember, flesh and spirit once Worked in the world, one body, for man's sake. Never be that abominable show Of passive death without a quickening life — Admetos only, no Alkestis now!"

Then she: "O thou Admetos, must the pile Of truth on truth, which needs but one truth more To tower up in completeness, trophy-like, Emprize of man, and triumph of the world, Must it go ever to the ground again Because of some faint heart or faultering hand, Which we, that breathless world about the base, Trusted should carry safe to altitude, Superimpose o' the summit, our supreme Achievement, our victorious coping-stone? Shall thine, Beloved, prove the hand and heart That fail again, flinch backward at the truth Would cap and crown the structure this last time, — Precipitate our monumental hope To strew the earth ignobly yet once more? See how, truth piled on truth, the structure wants, Waits just the crowning truth I claim of thee! Would'st thou, for any joy to be enjoyed, For any sorrow that thou might'st escape, Unwill thy will to reign a righteous king? Nowise! And were there two lots, death and life, — Life, wherein good resolve should go to air, Death, whereby finest fancy grew plain fact I' the reign of thy survivor, — life or death? Certainly death, thou choosest. Here stand I The wedded, the beloved one: hadst thou loved One who less worthily could estimate Both life and death than thou? Not so should say Admetos, whom Apollon made come court Alkestis in a car, submissive brutes Of blood were yoked to, symbolizing soul Must dominate unruly sense in man. Then, shall Admetos and Alkestis see Good alike, and alike choose, each for each, Good, — and yet, each for other, at the last, Choose evil? What? thou soundest in my soul To depths below the deepest, reachest good In evil, that makes evil good again, And so allottest to me that I live And not die — letting die, not thee alone, But all true life that lived in both of us? Look at me once ere thou decree the lot!"

Therewith her whole soul entered into his, He looked the look back, and Alkestis died.

And even while it lay, i' the look of him, Dead, the dimmed body, bright Alkestis' soul Had penetrated through the populace Of ghosts, was got to Koré, — throned and crowned The pensive queen o' the twilight, where she dwells Forever in a muse, but half away From flowery earth she lost and hankers for, — And there demanded to become a ghost Before the time.

Whereat the softened eyes Of the lost maidenhood that lingered still Straying among the flowers in Sicily, Sudden was startled back to Hades' throne, By that demand: broke through humanity Into the orbed omniscience of a God, Searched at a glance Alkestis to the soul, And said — while a long slow sigh lost itself I' the hard and hollow passage of a laugh:

"Hence, thou deceiver! This is not to die, If, by the very death which mocks me now, The life, that's left behind and past my power, Is formidably doubled. Say, there fight Two athletes, side by side, each athlete armed With only half the weapons, and no more, Adequate to a contest with their foe: If one of these should fling helm, sword and shield To fellow — shieldless, swordless, helmless late — And so leap naked o'er the barrier, leave A combatant equipped from head to heel, Yet cry to the other side, 'Receive a friend Who fights no longer!' 'Back, friend, to the fray!' Would be the prompt rebuff; I echo it. Two souls in one were formidable odds: Admetos must not be himself and thou!"

And so, before the embrace relaxed a whit, The lost eyes opened, still beneath the look; And lo, Alkestis was alive again, And of Admetos' rapture who shall speak?

So, the two lived together long and well. But never could I learn, by word of scribe Or voice of poet, rumour wafts our way, That, — of the scheme of rule in righteousness, The bringing back again the Golden Age, Which, rather than renounce, our pair would die — That ever one faint particle came true, With both alive to bring it to effect: Such is the envy Gods still bear mankind!

So might our version of the story prove, And no Euripidean pathos plague Too much my critic-friend of Syracuse.

"Besides your poem failed to get the prize: (That is, the first prize: second prize is none.) Sophokles got it!" Honour the great name! All cannot love two great names; yet some do: I know the poetess who graved in gold, Among her glories that shall never fade, This style and title for Euripides, The Human with his droppings of warm tears.

I know, too, a great Kaunian painter, strong As Herakles, though rosy with a robe Of grace that softens down the sinewy strength: And he has made a picture of it all. There lies Alkestis dead, beneath the sun, She longed to look her last upon, beside The sea, which somehow tempts the life in us To come trip over its white waste of waves, And try escape from earth, and fleet as free. Behind the body, I suppose there bends Old Pheres in his hoary impotence; And women-wailers, in a corner crouch — Four, beautiful as you four — yes, indeed! — Close, each to other, agonizing all, As fastened, in fear's rhythmic sympathy, To two contending opposite. There strains The might o' the hero 'gainst his more than match, — Death, dreadful not in thew and bone, but like The envenomed substance that exudes some dew Whereby the merely honest flesh and blood Will fester up and run to ruin straight, Ere they can close with, clasp and overcome The poisonous impalpability That simulates a form beneath the flow Of those grey garments; I pronounce that piece Worthy to set up in our Poikilé!

And all came, — glory of the golden verse, And passion of the picture, and that fine Frank outgush of the human gratitude Which saved our ship and me, in Syracuse, — Ay, and the tear or two which slipt perhaps Away from you, friends, while I told my tale, — It all came of this play that gained no prize! Why crown whom Zeus has crowned in soul before?