Perseus the Deliverer

Scene I

A rocky and surf-beat margin of land walled in with great frowning cliffs.

 

Cireas, Diomede.

 

CIREAS

Diomede? You here so early and in this wild wanton weather!

 

DIOMEDE

I can find no fault in the weather, Cireas; it is brilliant and frolicsome.

 

CIREAS

The rain has wept itself out and the sun has ventured into the open; but the wind is shouting like mad and the sea is still in a mighty passion. Has your mistress Andromeda sent you then with matin-offerings to Poseidon, or are you walking here to whip the red roses in your cheeks redder with the sea-wind?

 

DIOMEDE

My mistress cares as much for your Poseidon as I for your glum beetle-browed priest Polydaon. But you, Cireas? are you walking here to whip the red nose of you redder with the sea-wind or to soothe with it the marks of his holiness's cudgel?

 

CIREAS

I must carry up these buckets of sea-water to swab down the blue-haired old fellow in the temple. Hang the robustious storm- shaken curmudgeon! I have rubbed him and scrubbed him and bathed him and swathed him for these eighteen years, yet he never sent me one profitable piece of wreckage out of his sea yet. A gold bracelet, now, crusted with jewels, dropped from the arm of some drowned princess, or a sealed casket velvet-lined with a priceless vase carried by the Rhodian merchants: that would not have beggared him! And I with so little could have bought my liberty.

 

DIOMEDE

Maybe 'twas that he feared. For who would wish to lose such an expert body-servant as you, my Cireas?

 

CIREAS

Zeus! if I thought that, I would leave his unwashed back to itch for a fortnight. But these Gods are kittle cattle to joke with. They have too many spare monsters about in their stables trained to snap up offenders for a light breakfast.

 

DIOMEDE

And how prosper the sacrifices, Cireas? I hope you keep your god soothingly and daintily fed in this hot summer season?

 

CIREAS

Alack, poor old Poseidon! He has had nothing but goats and sea-urchins lately, and that is poor food for a palate inured to homme à la Phénicienne, Diomede. It is his own fault, he should provide wreckage more freely. But black Polydaon's forehead grows blacker every day: he will soon be as mad as Cybele's bull on the headland. I am every moment in terror of finding myself tumbled on the altar for a shipwrecked Phoenician and old Blackbrows hacking about in search of my heart with his holy carving-tools.

 

DIOMEDE

You should warn him beforehand that your heart is in your paunch hidden under twenty pounds of fat: so shall he have less cutting-exercise and you an easier exit.

 

CIREAS

Out! would you have me slit for a water-god's dinner? Is this your tenderness for me?

 

DIOMEDE

Heaven forbid, dear Cireas. Syria would lose half her scampishness if you departed untimely to a worse world.

 

CIREAS

Away from here, you long sauciness, you thin edge of naughty satire. But, no! First tell me, what news of the palace? They say King Phineus will wed the Princess Andromeda.

 

DIOMEDE

Yes, but not till the Princess Andromeda weds King Phineus.

What noise is that?

 

CIREAS

It was the cry of many men in anguish.

 

He climbs up a rock.

 

DIOMEDE

Zeus, what a wail was there! surely a royal

Huge ship from Sidon or the Nile has kissed

Our ragged beaches.

 

CIREAS

A Phoenician galley

Is caught and spinning in the surf, the men

Urge desperate oars in vain. Hark, with a crash

She rushes on the boulders' iron fangs

That rip her tender sides. How the white ship

Battered against them by the growling surf

Screams like a woman tortured! From all sides

The men are shaken out, as rattling peas

Leap from a long and bursting sheath: these sink

Gurgling into the billows, those are pressed

And mangled on the jagged rocks.

 

DIOMEDE

O it must be

A memorable sight! help me up, Cireas.

 

CIREAS

No, no, for I must run and tell old Blackbrows

That here's fresh meat for hungry grim Poseidon.

 

He climbs down and out running.

 

DIOMEDE

You disobliging dog! This is the first wreck in eighteen months and I not to see it! I will try and climb round the rock even if my neck and legs pay the forfeit.

 

She goes out in the opposite direction.

 

Scene II

The same.

 

Perseus descends on winged sandals from the clouds.

 

PERSEUS

Rocks of the outland jaggèd with the sea,

You slumbering promontories whose huge backs

Jut into azure, and thou, O many-thundered

Enormous Ocean, hail! Whatever lands

Are ramparted with these forbidding shores,

Yet if you hold felicitous roofs of men,

Homes of delightful laughter, if you have streams

Where chattering girls dip in their pitchers cool

And dabble their white feet in the chill lapse

Of waters, trees and a green-mantled earth,

Cicalas noisy in a million boughs

Or happy cheep of common birds, I greet you,

Syria or Egypt or Ionian shores,

Perseus the son of Danaë, who long

Have sojourned only with the hail-thrashed isles

Wet with cold mists and by the boreal winds

Snow-swathed. The angry voices of the surf

Are welcome to me whose ears have long been sealed

By rigorous silence in the snows. O even

The wail of mortal misery I choose

Rather than that intolerable hush;

For this at least is human. Thee I praise,

O mother Earth and thy guardian Sea, O Sun

Of the warm south nursing fair life of men.

I will go down into bee-murmuring fields

And mix with men and women in the corn

And eat again accustomed food. But first

This galley shattered on the sharp-toothed rocks

I fly to succour. You are grown dear to me,

You smiling weeping human faces, brightly

Who move, who live, not like those stony masks

And Gorgon visions of that monstrous world

Beyond the snows. I would not lose you now

In the dead surges of the inhuman flood.

 

He descends out of sight.

 

Iolaus enters with Cireas, Dercetes and soldiers.

 

IOLAUS

Prepare your ambush, men, amid these boulders,

But at the signal, leave your rocky lairs

With level bristling points and gyre them in.

 

CIREAS

O Poseidon Ennosigaios, man-swallower, earth-shaker, I have swabbed thee for eighteen years. I pray thee tot up the price of those swabbings and be not dishonest with me nor miserly. Eighteen by three hundred and sixty-five by two, that is the sum of them: and forget not the leap years either, O great Poseidon.

 

IOLAUS

Into our ambush, for I hear them come.

 

They conceal themselves.

 

Perseus returns with Tyrnaus and Smerdas.

 

PERSEUS

Chaldean merchants, would my speed to save

Had matched the hawk's when he swoops down for slaughter.

So many beautiful bodies of strong men

Lost in the surge, so many eager hopes

Of happiness now quenched would still have gladdened

The sunlight. Yet for two delightful lives

Saved to the stir and motion of the world

I praise the Gods that help us.

 

TYRNAUS

Thou radiant youth

Whose face is like a joyous god's for beauty,

Whatever worth the body's life may have,

I thank thee that 'tis saved. Smerdas, discharge

That hapless humour from thy lids! If riches

Are lost, the body, thy strong instrument

To gather riches, is not lost, nor mind,

The provident director of its labours.

 

SMERDAS

Three thousand pieces of that wealthy stuff,

Full forty chests all crammed with noble gems,

All lost, all in a moment lost! We are beggars.

 

TYRNAUS

Smerdas, not beggared yet of arm or brain.

 

SMERDAS

The toil-marred peasant has as much.

 

PERSEUS

Merchant,

I sorrow for thy loss: all beautiful things

Were meant to shine in the bright day, and grievous

It is to know the senseless billows play with them.

Yet life, most beautiful of all, is left thee.

Is not mere sunlight something, and to breathe

A joy? Be patient with the gods; they love not

Rebellion and o'ertake it with fresh scourgings.

 

SMERDAS

O that the sea had swallowed me and rolled

In my dear treasure! Tell me, Syrian youth,

Are there not divers in these parts, could pluck

My wealth from the abyss?

 

PERSEUS

Chaldean merchant,

I am not of this country, but like thyself

Hear first today the surf roar on its beaches.

 

SMERDAS

Cursed be the moment when we neared its shores!

O harsh sea-god, if thou wilt have my wealth,

My soul, it was a cruel mercy then to leave

This beggared empty body bared of all

That made life sweet. Take this too, and everything.

 

IOLAUS (stepping forward)

Thy prayer is granted thee, O Babylonian.

 

The soldiers appear and surround Perseus and the merchants.

 

CIREAS

All the good stuff drowned! O unlucky Cireas! O greedy Poseidon!

 

SMERDAS

Shield us! what are these threatening spear-points?

 

TYRNAUS

Fate's.

This is that strange inhospitable coast

Where the wrecked traveller in his own warm blood

Is given guest-bath. (draws) Death's dice are yet to throw.

 

IOLAUS

Draw not in vain, strive not against the gods.

This is the shore near the temple where Poseidon

Sits ivory-limbed in his dim rock-hewn house

And nods above the bleeding mariner

His sapphire locks in gloom. You three are come,

A welcome offering to that long dry altar,

O happy voyagers. Your road is straight

To Elysium.

 

PERSEUS

An evil and harsh religion

You practise in your land, stripling of Syria,

Yet since it is religion, do thy will,

If thou have power no less than will. And yet

I deem that ere I visit death's calm country,

I have far longer ways to tread.

 

TYRNAUS (flinging away his sword)

Take me.

I will not please the gods with impotent writhing

Under the harrow of my fate.

 

They seize Tyrnaus.

 

SMERDAS

O wicked fool!

You might have saved me with that sword. Ah youth!

Ah radiant stranger! help me! thou art mighty.

 

PERSEUS

Still, merchant, thou wouldst live?

 

SMERDAS

I am dead with terror

Of these bright thirsty spears. O they will carve

My frantic heart out of my living bosom

To throw it bleeding on that hideous altar.

Save me, hero!

 

PERSEUS

I war not with the gods for thee.

From belching fire or the deep-mouthed abyss

Of waters to have saved the meanest thing

That wears man's kindly semblance, is a joy.

But he is mad who for another's ease

Incurs the implacable pursuit of heaven.

Yet since each man on earth has privilege

To battle even against the gods for life,

Sweet life, lift up from earth thy fellow's sword;

I will protect meanwhile thy head from onset.

 

SMERDAS

Alas, you mock me! I have no skill with weapons

Nor am a fighter. Save me!

 

The Syrians seize Smerdas.

 

Help! I will give thee

The wealth of Babylon when I am safe.

 

PERSEUS

My sword is heaven's; it is not to be purchased.

 

Smerdas and Tyrnaus are led away.

 

IOLAUS

Take too this radiance.

 

PERSEUS (drawing his sword)

Asian stripling, pause.

I am not weak of hand nor feeble of heart.

Thou art too young, too blithe, too beautiful;

I would not disarrange thy sunny curls

By any harsher touch than an embrace.

 

IOLAUS

I too could wish to spare thy joyous body

From the black knife, whoe'er thou art, O stranger.

But grim compulsion drives and angry will

Of the sea's lord, chafing that mortal men

Insult with their frail keels his rude strong oceans.

Therefore he built his grisly temple here,

And all who are broken in the unequal war

With surge and tempest, though they evade his rocks,

Must belch out anguished blood upon that altar

Miserably.

 

PERSEUS

I come not from the Ocean.

 

IOLAUS

There is no other way that men could come;

For this is ground forbidden to unknown feet.

 

(smiling)

 

Unless these gaudy pinions on thy shoes

Were wings indeed to bear thee through the void!

 

PERSEUS

Are there not those who ask nor solid land

For footing nor the salt flood to buoy their motions?

Perhaps I am of these.

 

IOLAUS

Of these thou art not.

The gods are sombre, terrible to gaze at,

Or, even if bright, remote, grand, formidable.

But thou art open and fair like our blue heavens

In Syria and thy radiant masculine body

Allures the eye. Yield! it may be the God

Will spare thee.

 

PERSEUS

Set on thy war-dogs. Me alive

If they alive can take, I am content

To bleed a victim.

 

IOLAUS

Art thou a demigod

To beat back with one blade a hundred spears?

 

PERSEUS

My sword is in my hand and that shall answer.

I am tired of words.

 

IOLAUS

Dercetes, wait. His face

Is beautiful as Heaven. O dark Poseidon,

What wilt thou do with him in thy dank caves

Under the grey abysms of the salt flood?

Spare him to me and sunlight.

 

Polydaon and Phineus enter from behind.

 

DERCETES

Prince, give the order.

 

IOLAUS

Let this young sun-god live.

 

DERCETES

It is forbidden.

 

IOLAUS

But I allow it.

 

POLYDAON (coming forward)

And when did lenient Heaven

Make thee a godhead, Syrian Iolaus,

To set thy proud decree against Poseidon's?

Wilt thou rescind what Ocean's Zeus has ordered?

 

IOLAUS

Polydaon—

 

POLYDAON

Does a royal name on earth

Inflate so foolishly thy mortal pride,

Thou evenest thyself with the Olympians?

Beware, the blood of kings has dropped ere now

From the grey sacrificial knife.

 

IOLAUS

Our blood!

Thou darest threaten me, presumptuous priest?

Back to thy blood-stained kennel! I absolve

This stranger.

 

POLYDAON

Captain, take them both. You flinch?

Are you so fearful of the name of prince

He plays with? Fear rather dark Poseidon's anger.

 

PHINEUS

Be wise, young Iolaus. Polydaon,

Thy zeal outstrips the reverence due to kings.

 

IOLAUS

I need not thy protection, Tyrian Phineus:

This is my country.

 

He draws.

 

PHINEUS (aside to Polydaon)

It were well done to kill him now, his sword

Being out against the people's gods; for then

Who blames the god's avenger?

 

POLYDAON

Will you accept,

Syrians, the burden of his sacrilege?

Upon them for Poseidon!

 

DERCETES

Seize them but slay not!

Let none dare shed the blood of Syria's kings.

 

SOLDIERS

Poseidon! great Poseidon!

 

PERSEUS

Iolaus,

Rein in thy sword: I am enough for these.

 

He shakes his uncovered shield in the faces of the soldiers: they stagger back covering their eyes.

 

IOLAUS

Gods, what a glory lights up Syria!

 

POLYDAON

Amazement!

Is this a god opposes us? Back, back!

 

CIREAS

Master, master, skedaddle: run, run, good King of Tyre, it is scuttle or be scuttled. Zeus has come down to earth with feathered shoes and a shield made out of phosphorus.

 

He runs off, followed more slowly by Dercetes and the soldiers.

 

PHINEUS

Whate'er thou art, yet thou shalt not outface me.

 

He advances with sword drawn.

 

Hast thou Heaven's thunders with thee too?

 

POLYDAON (pulling him back)

Back, Phineus!

The fiery-tasselled aegis of Athene

Shakes forth these lightnings, and an earthly sword

Were madness here.

 

He goes out with Phineus.

 

IOLAUS

O radiant strong immortal,

Iolaus kneels to thee.

 

PERSEUS

No, Iolaus.

Though great Athene breathes Olympian strength

Into my arm sometimes, I am no more

Than a brief mortal.

 

IOLAUS

Art thou only man?

O then be Iolaus' friend and lover,

Who com'st to me like something all my own

Destined from other shores.

 

PERSEUS

Give me thy hands,

O fair young child of the warm Syrian sun.

Embrace me! Thou art like a springing laurel

Fed upon sunlight by the murmuring waters.

 

IOLAUS

Tell me thy name. What memorable earth

Gave thee to the azure?

 

PERSEUS

I am from Argolis,

Perseus my name, the son of Danaë.

 

IOLAUS

Come, Perseus, friend, with me: fierce entertainment

We have given, unworthy the fair joyousness

Thou carriest like a flag, but thou shalt meet

A kinder Syria. My royal father Cepheus

Shall welcome, my mother give thee a mother's greeting

And our Andromeda's delightful smile

Persuade thee of a world more full of beauty

Than thou hadst dreamed of.

 

PERSEUS

I shall yet be glad with thee,

O Iolaus, in thy father's halls,

But I would not as yet be known in Syria.

Is there no pleasant hamlet near, hedged in

With orchard walls and green with unripe corn

And washed with bright and flitting waves, where I

Can harbour with the kindly village folk

And wake to cock-crow in the morning hours,

As in my dear Seriphos?

 

IOLAUS

Such a village

Lurks near our hills,—there with my kind Cydone

Thou mayst abide at ease, until thou choose,

O Perseus, to reveal thyself to Syria.

I too can visit thee unquestioned.

 

PERSEUS

Thither

Then lead me. I have a thirst for calm obscurity

And cottages and happy unambitious talk

And simple people. With these I would have rest,

Not in the laboured pomp of princely towns

Amid pent noise and purple masks of hate.

I will drink deep of pure humanity

And take the innocent smell of rain-drenched earth,

So shall I with a noble untainted mind

Rise from the strengthening soil to great adventure.

 

They go out.

 

Scene III

The Palace of Cepheus. A room in the women's apartments.

 

Praxilla, to her enters Diomede.

 

DIOMEDE

O Praxilla, Praxilla!

 

PRAXILLA

So, thou art back, thou tall inutility? Where wert thou lingering all this hour? I am tired of always whipping thee. I will hire thee out to a timber-merchant to carry logs from dawn to nightfall. Thou shalt learn what labour is.

 

DIOMEDE

Praxilla, O Praxilla! I am full to the throat with news. I pray you, rip me open.

 

PRAXILLA

Willingly.

 

She advances towards her with an uplifted knife.

 

DIOMEDE (escaping)

A plague! can you not appreciate a fine metaphor when you hear it? I never saw so prosaic a mortal. The soul in you was born of a marriage between a saucepan and a broomstick.

 

PRAXILLA

Tell me your news. If it is good, I will excuse you your whipping.

 

DIOMEDE

I was out on the beach thinking to watch the seagulls flying and crying in the wind amidst the surf dashing and the black cliff-heads—

 

PRAXILLA

And could not Poseidon turn thee into a gull there among thy natural kindred? Thou wert better fitted with that shape than in a reasonable human body.

 

DIOMEDE

Oh then you shall hear the news tell itself, mistress, when the whole town has chewed it and rechewed it.

 

She is going.

 

PRAXILLA

Stop, you long-limbed impertinence. The news!

 

DIOMEDE

I'll be hanged if I tell you.

 

PRAXILLA

You shall be whipped, if you do not.

 

DIOMEDE

Well, your goddess Switch is a potent divinity. A ship with men from the East has broken on the headland below the temple and two Chaldeans are saved alive for the altar.

 

PRAXILLA

This is glorious news indeed.

 

DIOMEDE

It will be a great day when they are sacrificed!

 

PRAXILLA

We have not had such since the long galley from Cnossus grounded upon our shores and the temple was washed richly with blood and the altar blushed as thickly with hearts of victims as the King's throne with rubies. Poseidon was pleased that year and the harvest was so plentiful, men were brought in from beyond the hills to reap it.

 

DIOMEDE

There would have been a third victim, but Prince Iolaus drew sword on the priest Polydaon to defend him.

 

PRAXILLA

I hope this is not true.

 

DIOMEDE

I saw it.

 

PRAXILLA

Is the wild boy

In love with ruin? Not the King himself

Can help him if the grim sacrificant

Demand his fair young head: only a god

Could save him. And he was already in peril

From Polydaon's gloomy hate!

 

DIOMEDE

And Phineus'.

 

PRAXILLA

Hush, silly madcap, hush; or speak much lower.

 

DIOMEDE

Here comes my little queen of love, stepping

As daintily as a young bird in spring

When he would take the hearts of all the forest.

 

Andromeda enters.

 

PRAXILLA

You have slept late, Andromeda.

 

ANDROMEDA

Have I?

The sun had risen in my dreams: perhaps

I feared to wake lest I should find all dark

Once more, Praxilla.

 

DIOMEDE

He has risen in your eyes,

For they are full of sunshine, little princess.

 

ANDROMEDA

I have dreamed, Diomede, I have dreamed.

 

DIOMEDE

What did you dream?

 

ANDROMEDA

I dreamed my sun had risen.

He had a face like the Olympian Zeus

And wings upon his feet. He smiled upon me,

Diomede.

 

PRAXILLA

Dreams are full of stranger fancies.

Why, I myself have seen hooved bears, winged lions,

And many other monsters in my dreams.

 

ANDROMEDA

My sun was a bright god and bore a flaming sword

To kill all monsters.

 

DIOMEDE

I think I've seen today

Your sun, my little playmate.

 

ANDROMEDA

No, you have not.

I'll not have any eyes see him but mine:

He is my own, my very own.

 

DIOMEDE

And yet

I saw him on the wild sea-beach this morning.

 

PRAXILLA

What mean you, Diomede?

 

DIOMEDE (to Andromeda)

You have not heard?

A ship was flung upon the rocks this morning

And all her human burden drowned.

 

ANDROMEDA

Alas!

 

DIOMEDE

It was a marvellous sight, my little playmate,

And made my blood with horror and admiration

Run richer in my veins. The great ship groaned

While the rough boulders dashed her into pieces,

The men with desperate shrieks went tumbling down

Mid laughters of the surge, strangled twixt billows

Or torn by strips upon the savage rocks

That tossed their mangled bodies back again

Into the cruel keeping of the surge.

 

ANDROMEDA

O do not tell me any more! How had you heart

To look at what I cannot bear to hear?

For while you spoke, I felt as if the rocks

Were tearing my own limbs and the salt surge

Choking me.

 

DIOMEDE

I suppose it must have hurt them.

Yes, it was pitiful. Still, 'twas a sight.

Meanwhile the deep surf boomed their grandiose dirge

With fierce triumphant voices. The whole scene

Was like a wild stupendous sacrifice

Offered by the grey-filleted grim surges

On the gigantic altar of the rocks

To the calm cliffs seated like gods above.

 

ANDROMEDA

Alas, the unhappy men, the poor drowned men

Who had young children somewhere whom they loved!

How could you watch them die? Had I been a god,

I would not let this cruel thing have happened.

 

DIOMEDE

Why do you weep for them? they were not Syrians.

 

PRAXILLA

Not they, but barbarous jabbering foreigners

From Indus or Arabia. Fie, my child,

You sit upon the floor and weep for these?

 

ANDROMEDA

When Iolaus fell upon the rocks

And hurt himself, you did not then forbid me

To weep!

 

PRAXILLA

He is your brother. That was loving,

Tender and right.

 

ANDROMEDA

And these men were not brothers?

They too had sisters who will feel as I should

If my dear brother were to die so wretchedly.

 

PRAXILLA

Let their own sisters weep for them: we have

Enough of our own sorrows. You are young

And softly made: because you have yourself

No griefs, but only childhood's soon-dried tears,

You make a luxury of others' woes.

So when we watch a piteous tragedy,

We grace with real tears its painted sorrows.

When you are older and have true things to weep for,

Then you will understand.

 

ANDROMEDA

I'll not be older!

I will not understand! I only know

That men are heartless and your gods most cruel.

I hate them!

 

PRAXILLA

Hush, hush! You know not what you say.

You must not speak such things. Come, Diomede,

Tell her the rest.

 

ANDROMEDA (covering her ears with her hands)

I will not hear you.

 

DIOMEDE (kneeling by her and drawing her hands away)

But I

Will tell you of your bright sun-god.

 

ANDROMEDA

He is not

My sun-god or he would have saved them.

 

DIOMEDE

He did.

 

ANDROMEDA (leaping to her feet)

Then tell me of him.

 

DIOMEDE

Suddenly there dawned

A man, a vision, a brightness, who descended

From where I know not, but to me it seemed

That the blue heavens just then created him

Out of the sunlight. His face and radiant body

Aspired to copy the Olympian Zeus

And wings were on his feet.

 

ANDROMEDA

He was my sun-god!

 

DIOMEDE

He caught two drowning wretches by the robe

And drew them safe to land.

 

ANDROMEDA

He was my sun-god.

Diomede, I have seen him in my dream.

 

PRAXILLA

I think it was Poseidon come to take

His tithe of all that death for the ancient altar,

Lest all be engulfed by his grey billows, he

Go quite unhonoured.

 

DIOMEDE

Hang up your grim Poseidon!

This was a sweet and noble face all bright

With manly kindness.

 

ANDROMEDA

O I know, I know.

Where went he with those rescued?

 

DIOMEDE

Why, just then

Prince Iolaus and his band leaped forth

And took them.

 

ANDROMEDA (angrily)

Wherefore took them? By what right?

 

DIOMEDE

To die according to our Syrian law

On dark Poseidon's altar.

 

ANDROMEDA

They shall not die.

It is a shame, a cruel cold injustice.

I wonder that my brother had any part in it!

My sun-god saved them, they belong to him,

Not to your hateful gods. They are his and mine,

I will not let you kill them.

 

PRAXILLA

Why, they must die

And you will see it done, my little princess.

You shall! Where are you going?

 

ANDROMEDA

Let me go.

I do not love you when you talk like this.

 

PRAXILLA

But you are Syria's lady and must appear

At these high ceremonies.

 

ANDROMEDA

I had rather be

A beggar's daughter who devours the remnants

Rejected from your table, than reign a queen

Doing such cruelty.

 

PRAXILLA

Little passionate scold!

You mean not what you say. A beggar's daughter!

You? You who toss about if only a rose-leaf

Crinkle the creamy smoothness of your sheets,

And one harsh word flings weeping broken-hearted

As if the world had no more joy in store.

You are a little posturer, you make

A theatre of your own mind to act in,

Take parts, declaim such childish rhetoric

As that you speak now. You a beggar's daughter!

Come, listen what became of your bright sun-god.

 

DIOMEDE

Him too they would have seized, but he with steel

Opposed and tranquil smiling eyes appalled them.

Then Polydaon came and Phineus came

And bade arrest the brilliant god. Our Prince,

Seized by his glory, with his virgin point

Resisted their assault.

 

ANDROMEDA

My Iolaus!

 

DIOMEDE

All suddenly the stranger's lifted shield

Became a storm of lightnings. Dawn was blinded:

Far promontories leaped out in the blaze,

The surges were illumined and the horizon

Answered with light.

 

ANDROMEDA (clapping her hands)

O glorious! O my dream!

 

PRAXILLA

You tell the actions of a mighty god,

Diomede.

 

DIOMEDE

A god he seemed to us, Praxilla.

The soldiers ran in terror, Polydaon

Went snorting off like a black whale harpooned,

And even Phineus fled.

 

ANDROMEDA

Was he not killed?

I wish he had been killed.

 

PRAXILLA

This is your pity!

 

ANDROMEDA (angrily)

I do not pity tigers, wolves and scorpions.

I pity men who are weak and beasts that suffer.

 

PRAXILLA

I thought you loved all men and living things.

 

ANDROMEDA

Perhaps I could have loved him like my hound

Or the lion in the park who lets me pat his mane.

But since he would have me even without my will

To foul with his beast touch, my body abhors him.

 

PRAXILLA

Fie, fie! you speak too violently. How long

Will you be such a child?

 

DIOMEDE

Our Iolaus

And that bright stranger then embraced. Together

They left the beach.

 

ANDROMEDA

Where, where is Iolaus?

Why is he long in coming? I must see him.

I have a thousand things to ask.

 

She runs out.

 

DIOMEDE

She is

A strange unusual child, my little playmate.

 

PRAXILLA

None can help loving her, she is in charm

Compelling: but her mind is wry and warped.

She is not natural, not sound in fancy,

But made of wild uncurbed imaginations,

With feelings as unruly as winds and waves

And morbid sympathies. At times she talks

Strange childish blasphemies that make me tremble.

She would impose her fancies on the world

As better than the eternal laws that rule us!

I wish her mother had brought her up more strictly,

For she will come to harm.

 

DIOMEDE

Oh, do not say it!

I have seen no child in all our Syria like her,

None her bright equal in beauty. She pleases me

Like days of sunlight rain when spring caresses

Warmly the air. Oh, here is Iolaus.

 

PRAXILLA

Is it he?

 

DIOMEDE

I know him by the noble strut

He has put on ever since they made him captain.

 

Andromeda comes running.

 

ANDROMEDA

My brother comes! I saw him from the terrace.

 

Enters Iolaus. Andromeda runs and embraces him.

 

Oh, Iolaus, have you brought him to me?

Where is my sun-god?

 

IOLAUS

In heaven, little sister.

 

ANDROMEDA

Oh, do not laugh at me. I want my sun-god

Whose face is like the grand Olympian Zeus'

And wings are on his feet. Where did you leave him

After you took him from our rough sea-beaches?

 

IOLAUS

What do you mean, Andromeda?

 

DIOMEDE

Some power

Divine sent her a dream of that bright strength

Which shone by you on the sea-beach today,

And him she calls her sungod.

 

IOLAUS

Is it so?

My little wind-tossed rose Andromeda!

I shall be glad indeed if Heaven intends this.

 

ANDROMEDA

Where is he?

 

IOLAUS

Do you not know, little rose-sister,

The great gods visit earth by splendid moments

And then are lost to sight? Come, do not weep;

He is not lost to Syria.

 

ANDROMEDA

Iolaus,

Why did you take the two poor foreign men

And give them to the priest? My sun-god saved them,

Brother,—what right had you to kill?

 

IOLAUS

My child,

I only did my duty as a soldier,

Yet grieve I was compelled.

 

ANDROMEDA

Now will you save them?

 

IOLAUS

But they belong to dread Poseidon now!

 

ANDROMEDA

What will be done to them?

 

IOLAUS

They must be bound

On the god's altar and their living hearts

Ripped from their blood-choked breasts to feed his hunger.

 

Andromeda covers her face with her robe.

 

Grieve not for them: they but fulfil their fate.

These things are in the order of the world

Like plagues and slaughters, famines, fires and earthquakes,

Which when they pass us by killing their thousands,

We should not weep for, but be grateful only

That other souls than the dear heads we loved

Have perished.

 

ANDROMEDA

You will not save them?

 

PRAXILLA

Unhappy girl!

It is impiety to think of it.

Fie! Would you have your brother killed for your whimsies?

 

ANDROMEDA

Will you not save them, brother?

 

IOLAUS

I cannot, child.

 

ANDROMEDA

Then I will.

 

She goes out.

 

IOLAUS

Does she mean it?

 

PRAXILLA

Such wild caprices

Are always darting through her brain.

 

IOLAUS

I could not take

Poseidon's wrath upon my head!

 

PRAXILLA

Forget it

As she will too. Her strange imaginations

Flutter awhile among her golden curls,

But soon wing off with careless flight to Lethe.

 

Medes enters.

 

IOLAUS

What is it, Medes?

 

MEDES

The King, Prince Iolaus,

Requires your presence in his audience-chamber.

 

IOLAUS

So? Tell me, Medes, is Poseidon's priest

In presence there?

 

MEDES

He is and full of wrath.

 

IOLAUS

Go, tell them I am coming.

 

Medes goes out.

 

PRAXILLA

Alas!

 

IOLAUS

Fear not.

I have a strength the grim intriguers dream not of.

Let not my sister hear this, Diomede.

 

He goes.

 

PRAXILLA

What may not happen! The priest is dangerous,

Poseidon may be angry. Let us go

And guard our child from peril of this shock.

 

They go.