|
I AM a Goddess of the ambrosial courts, And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed By none whose temples whiten this the world. Thro’ Heaven I roll my lucid moon along; I shed in Hell o’er my pale people peace; On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek. And every feathered mother’s callow brood, And all that love green haunts and loneliness. Of men, the chaste adore me, hanging crowns Of poppies red to blackness, bell and stem, Upon my image at Athenai here; And this dead Youth, Asclepios bends above, Was dearest to me. He my buskined step To follow thro’ the wild-wood leafy ways, And chase the panting stag, or swift with darts Stop the swift ounce, or lay the leopard low, Neglected homage to another God: Whence Aphrodite, by no midnight smoke Of tapers lulled, in jealousy dispatched A noisome lust that, as the gadbee stings, Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for himself The son of Theseus her great absent spouse. Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage Against the miserable Queen, she judged Life insupportable, and, pricked at heart An Amazonian stranger’s race should dare To scorn her, perished by the murderous cord: Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a scroll The fame of him her swerving made not swerve, Which Theseus read, returning, and believed, So, exiled in the blindness of his wrath, The man without a crime, who, last as first, Loyal, divulged not to his sire the truth. Now Theseus from Poseidon had obtained That of his wishes should be granted Three, And this he imprecated straight—alive May ne’er Hippolutos reach other lands! Poseidon heard, ai ai! And scarce the prince Had stepped into the fixed boots of the car, That gave the feet a stay against the strength Of the Henetian horses, and around His body flung the reins, and urged their speed Along the rocks and shingles of the shore, When from the gaping wave a monster flung His obscene body in the coursers’ path! These, mad with terror as the sea-bull sprawled Wallowing about their feet, lost care of him That reared them; and the master-chariot-pole Snapping beneath their plunges like a reed, Hippolutos, whose feet were trammeled fast, Was yet dragged forward by the circling rein Which either hand directed; nor was quenched The frenzy of that flight before each trace, Wheel-spoke and splinter of the woeful car, Each boulder-stone, sharp stub, and spiny shell, Huge fish-bone wrecked and wreathed amid the sands On that detested beach, was bright with blood And morsels of his flesh: then fell the steeds Head-foremost, crashing in their mooned fronts, Shivering with sweat, each white eye horror-fixed. His people, who had witnessed all afar, Bore back the ruins of Hippolutos. But when his sire, too swoln with pride, rejoiced, (Indomitable as a man foredoomed) That vast Poseidon had fulfilled his prayer, I, in a flood of glory visible, Stood o’er my dying votary, and deed By deed revealed, as all took place, the truth. Then Theseus lay the woefullest of men, And worthily; but ere the death-veils hid His face, the murdered prince full pardon breathed To his rash sire. Whereat Athenai wails. So, I who ne’er forsake my votaries, Lest in the cross-way none the honey-cake Should tender, nor pour out the dog’s hot life; Lest at my fain the priests disconsolate Should dress my image with some faded poor Few crowns, made favours of, nor dare object Such slackness to my worshippers who turn The trusting heart and loaded hand elsewhere As they had climbed Oulumpos to report Of Artemis and nowhere found her throne— I interposed: and, this eventful night, While round the funeral pyre the populace Stood with fierce light on their black robes that blind Each sobbing head, while yet their hair they clipped O’er the dead body of their withered prince, And, in his palace, Theseus prostrated On the cold hearth, his brow cold as the slab ’Twas bruised on, groaned away the heavy grief— As the pyre fell, and down the cross logs crashed, Sending a crowd of sparkles thro’ the night, And the gay fire, elate with mastery, Towered like a serpent o’er the clotted jars Of wine, dissolving oils and frankincense, And splendid gums, like gold,—my potency Conveyed the perished man to my retreat In the thrice venerable forest here. And this white-bearded Sage who squeezes now The berried plant, is Phoibos’ son of fame, Asclepios, whom my radiant brother taught The doctrine of each herb and flower and root, To know their secret’st virtue and express The saving soul of all—who so has soothed With lavers the torn brow and murdered cheeks, Composed the hair and brought its gloss again, And called the red bloom to the pale skin back, And laid the strips and jagged ends of flesh Even once more, and slacked the sinew’s knot Of every tortured limb—that now he lies As if mere sleep possessed him underneath These interwoven oaks and pines. Oh, cheer, Divine presenter of the healing rod Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye, Twines his lithe spires around! I say, much cheer! Proceed thou with thy wisest pharmacies! And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs, Ply, as the Sage directs, these buds and leaves That strew the turf around the Twain! While I Await, in fitting silence, the event. |