Chapters 5
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1 01 - ACT I 30:14
Adrastus. Read by Thomas Peter. Read by Alan Mapstone. Tassafon. Read by Todd. Cassander. Read by Greg Giordano. Adjunor. Read by Wayne Cook. Cleon. Read by Will Forbus. Read by...
Staged Directions, read by Larry Wilson. Act One. Scene One. The interior of the Temple of Apollo, which is supposed to be placed on a rocky eminence. Early morning. The interior lighted by a single lamp suspended from the roof. Ajinor resting against a column right. Iris seated on a bench at the side of the scene left. Ajinor comes forward and speaks center. Will the dawn never visit us? These hours twail heavy with the unresting curse they bear to do the work of desolating years. All distant sounds are hushed. The shriek of death, and the survivor's wail now unheard, as grief had worn itself to patience. Eris, I'm loath so soon to break thy scanty respite, my hark seekens for the tardy morn.
Sure it is breaking. Speed, and look, yet hold. Know'st thou the fearful shelf of rock that hangs above the encroaching waves, the loftiest point that stretches eastward? Know it? Yes, my lord. There often have I blessed the opening day, which thy free kindness gave me leave to waste in happy wandering through the forests. Well, thou art not then afraid to tread it. There the earliest drink from the unreason sun is to be welcomed. Tell me how it gleams, in bloody portent, or in saffron hope, and hasten back to slumber. I shall hasten. Believe not that thy summons broke my rest. I was not sleeping. Exit left. Heaven be with thee, child. His grateful mention of delights, bestowed on that most piteous state of servile childhood by liberal words chance dropped, hath touched a vein of feeling which I deemed forever numbed, and by a gush of household memories breaks the ice casing of that thick despair which Day by day hath gathered o'er my heart.
While basely safe, within this column circle, uplifted far into the purer air, and by Apollo's partial love secured, I have in spirit, glided with the plague, as in foul darkness or in sickliest light, and wafted death through Argos, and mine ears, Listening athirst for any human sound, have caught the dismal cry of confused pain, which to this dizzy height defeatful wind hath borne from each sad quarter of the vale where life was. Are there signs of daybreak? None. The eastern sky is still unbroken gloom. It cannot surely be. Thine eyes are dim, no fault thine. for want of rest, or now I look upon them ne'er with scalding tears. Hath care alighted on a head so young? What grief hast thou been weeping?
Pardon me. I never thought at such a mournful time to plead my humble sorrow in excuse of poorly rendered service, but my brother, thou mayst have noted him, a sturdy lad, with eyes so merry and with foot so light that none could chide his gamesomeness, Fell sick but yesterday, and died in my weak arms ere I could seek for stouter aid. I hoped that I had taught my grief to veil at signs from thy observant care. But when I stood upon the well-known terrace where we loved arm linked an arm to watch the gleaming sails. His favorite pastime, for he burned to share a seaman's hardy lot. My tears would flow, and I forgot to dry them. But I see Cleon is walking yonder. Let me call him, for sure it will cheer thy heart to speak with him.
Call him good youth, and then go in to sleep, or, if thou wilt, to weep. Exit Eris left. I envy thee the privilege, but Jupiter forfend that I should rob thee of it. Enter Cleon left. Hail Agenor! Dark as our lot remains, tis a comfort yet to see thy age unstricken. Rather mourn. That I am destined still to linger here in strange unnatural strength, while death is around me. I chide these sinews that are framed so tough grief cannot palsy them. I chide the air which round the citadel of nature breathes with sweetness, not of this world. I would share the common grave of my dear countrymen, and sink to rest while all familiar things Old custom has endeared our failing with me, rather than shiver on in life behind them.
Nor should these walls detain me from the paths where death may be embraced, but that my word, in a rash moment, plighted to our host, forbids me to depart without his license, which firmly he refuses. Do not chide me. If I rejoice to find the generous priest means, with Apollo's blessing, to preserve the treasure of thy wisdom, nay, he trusts not to promises alone. His gates are barred against thy egress. None, indeed, may pass them, save the youth I own, whose earnest prayer his foster-father grants reluctant leave to visit the sad city at his will, and freely does he use the dangerous boon which, in my thought, the love that cherished him. Since he was found within the sacred grove, smiling amidst the storm, a most rare infant should have had the sternness to deny.
What? Aion, the only inmate of this fain allowed to seek the mournful walks where death is busy. Aion, our sometime darling, whom he prized as a stray gift, by bounteous heaven, dismissed from some bright sphere which sorrow may not cloud, To make the happier happier. As he sent to grapple with the miseries of this time, whose nature such ethereal aspects wears as it would perish at the touch of wrong, by no internal contest is he trained for such hard duty. No emotions rude hath his clear spirit vanquished. Love, the germ of his mild nature, has spread graces forth Expanding with its progress as the store of rainbow color which the seed conceals sheds out its tints from its dim treasury to flush and circle in the flower.
No tear hath filled his eye save that of thoughtful joy when, in the evening stillness, lovely things pressed on his soul too busily, his voice, if in the earnestness of childish sports, Raised to the tone of anger, checked its force, as if it feared to break its being's law, and faltered into music, when the forums of guilty passion have been made to live in pictured speech, and others have waxed loud in righteous indignation. He hath heard with septic smile, or from some slender vein of goodness, which surrounding gloom concealed, Struck sunlight o'er it, so his life hath flowed from his mysterious arm, a sacred stream, in whose calm depth the beautiful and pure alone are mirrored, which, though shapes of ill may hover around its surface, glides in light, and takes no shadow from them.
Yet, methinks thou hast not lately met him, or a change passed strangely on him had not missed thy wonder. His form appears dilated. In the eyes, where pleasure danced, a thoughtful sadness dwells. Stern purpose knits the forehead, which, till now, knew not the passing wrinkle of a care. Those limbs which in their heedless motion owned a stripling's playful happiness are strong, as if iron hardships of the camp had given them sturdy nature, and his step, its airiness of yesterday, forgotten. Awakens the echoes of the desolate courts, as if a hero of gigantic mould paced them in armour. Hope is in thy tale. This is no freak of nature's wayward course, but work of pitying heaven. For not in vain the gods have poured into that guileless heart the strengths that nerve the hero.
They are ours. How can he aid us? Can he stay the pull of ebbing life? Arrest the infecting winds, or smite the hungry spectre of the grave. And dost thou think these breezes are our foes, the innocent airs that used to dance around us, as if they felt the blessings they conveyed, or that the death they bear is casual? No. Tis human guilt that blackens in the cloud, flashes a throat its mass in jagged fire, whirls in the hurricane, pollutes the air. Turns all the joyous melodies of earth to murmurings of doom. There is a foe who, in the glorious summit of the state, draws down the great resentment of the gods, whom he defies to strike us. Yet his power partakes that just infirmity which nature blends in the empire of her proudest sons.
That it is cased within a single breast, And may be plucked thence by a single arm. Let but that arm, selected by the gods, do this great office on the tyrant's life, and Argos breathes again. A footstep. Hush! Thy wishes, following our slavish year, would tempt another outrage. It is a friend, an honest, though corrupt one. Timocles. Something hath ruffled him. Good day, Timocles. Timocles passes in front. He will not speak to us. Timocles, but he shall speak. Timocles, nay then, thus I must enforce thee. Staying him. Sure thou wilt not refuse a comrade's hand that may be cold ere sunset. Timocles giving his hand. Timocles, thou mayest school me. Thy years and love have license, but I own not a stripling's mastery.
Isst fit, Agenor? Nay, thou mayst tell thy wrong. Whatever it prove, I hail thy anger as a hopeful sign. For it revives the thought of household days, when the small bickerings of friends had space to fret, and death was not for ever nigh to frown upon its arrangement. What has moved thee? I blushed to tell it. Weary of the night, and of my life, I sought the western portal. It opened. When ascending from the stair that through the rock wind spiral from the town, Ion, the foundling, cherished by the priest, stood in the entrance. With such mild command as he has often smilingly obeyed, I bade him stand aside and let me pass. When, wouldst thou think it, in determined speech, he gave me counsel to return, I pressed, impatient, onward.
He, with honeyed phrase, his daring act excusing, grasped my arm with strength resistless, led me from the gate, replaced its ponderous bars, and with a look as modest as he wore in childhood left me. And thou wilt thank him for it soon. He comes. Now hold thy angry purpose, if thou canst. Enter Ion left. I seek thee, good Timocles, to implore again thy pardon. I am young in trust, and fear lest, in the earnestness of love, I stayed thy course too rudely. Thou hast borne my childish folly often. Do not frown if I ventured with unmannered zeal to guard the ripe experiences of years from one rash moment's danger. Leave thy care. If I am weary of the flutterer life, is mortal bidding thus to cage it in?
And art thou tired of being? Has the grave no terrors for thee? Hast thou sundered quite those thousand meshes, which old custom weaves to bind us earthward, and gay fancy films with airy lustre various? Hast subdued those cleavings of the spirit to its prison, those nice regards, dear habits, pensive memories, that change the valor of the thoughtful breast to brave dissimulation of its fears? Is hope quenched in thy bosom? Thou art free, and in the simple dignity of man standest apart untempted. Do not lose the great occasion thou hast plucked from misery, nor play the spinthrift with a great despair, but use it nobly. What? To strike? To slay? No, not unless the audible voice of heaven call thee to that dire office, but to shed on ears abused by falsehood truce of power in words immortal.
Not such words as flash from the fierce demagogue's unthinking rage to madden for a moment and expire, nor such as the rapt orator imbues with warmth of facile sympathy and molds to mirrors radiant with fair images to grace the noble fervor of an hour, but words which bear the spirits of great deeds, winged for the future. Which the dying breath of freedom's martyr shapes as it exhales, and to the most enduring forms of earth commits, to linger in the craggy shade of the huge valley neath the eagle's home, or in the sea-cave where the tempest sleeps, till some heroic leader bids them wake to thrill the world with echoes. But I talk of things beyond my grasp. which strangely press upon my soul, and tempt me to forget the duties of my youth.
Pray you, forgive me. Have I not said so? Welcome to the morn. The Easter gates unfold. The priest approaches. As Aginor speaks, the great gates at the back of the scene open. The sea is discovered far beneath, the dawn breaking over it. Medan, the priest, enters attended. And lo! The sun is struggling with the gloom, whose masses fill the eastern sky and tints its edges with tulderad. But he will triumph. Blessed be the omen. God of light and joy, once more delight us with thy healing beams. If I may trace thy language in the clouds that wait upon thy rising, help is nigh, but help achieved in blood. Sayest thou, in blood? Yes, Ion. Why, he sickens at the word. Spite of all his newborn strength, the sights of woe that he will seek have shed their paleness on him.
Has this night's walk shown more than common sorrow? I pass'd the palace, where the frantic king yet holds his crimson revel, whence the roar of desperate mirth came, mingling the sigh of desubdued robustness, and the gleam of festal lamps, mid spectral columns hung flaunting o'er shapes of anguish, made them ghastlier. How can I cease to tremble for the sad ones he mocks, and him? The wretchedest of all. And canst thou pity him? Dost thou discern, amidst his impious darings, plea for him? Is he not childless, friendless, and a king? He's human. And some pulse of good must live within his nature. Have ye not tried to wake it? Yes, I believe he felt our suffering once, when, at my strong entreaty, he dispatched Phocion, my son, to Delphos, there to seek our cause of sorrow.
But as time dragged on without his messenger's return, he grew impatient of all counsel. To his palace, in awful mood retiring, wildly called the reckless of his court to share its stores, and end all with him. When we dared disturb his dreadful feasting with a humble prayer that he would meet us, The poor slave who bore the message flew back smarting from the scourge, and muttered a decree that he who next unbidden met the tyrant's glance should die. I am prepared to brave it. So am I. And I. O sages, do not think my prayer bespeaks unseemly forwardness. Send me. The coarsest reed that trembles in the marsh If heaven, selected for its instrument, may shed celestial music on the breeze, as clearly as the pipe whose virgin gold befits the lip of Phoebus.
Ye are wise, and needed by your country. Ye are fathers. I am a lone stray thing. Whose little life, by strangers' bounty cherished, like a wave, that from the summer sea a wanton breeze lifts for a moment's sparkle, will subside, light as it rose, nor leave a sigh in breaking. I am no sigh. Forgive me if I seem to doubt that thou wilt mourn me if I fall, nor would I tax thy love with such a fear. But that high promptings, which could never rise spontaneous in my nature, bid me plead thus boldly for the mission. My brave boy, it shall be as thou wilt. I see thou art called to this great peril, and I will not stay thee. When wilt thou be prepared to seek it? Now, only before I go, thus on my knee, let me in one word...
Thank thee for a life made by thy love a cloudless holiday, and, O, more than a father, let me look up to thy face, as if indeed a father's, and give me a son's blessing. Bless thee, son. I should be marble now. Let's part at once. If I should not return, bless Phocion for me, and for Clamante, May I speak one word, one parting word, with my fair playfellow? If thou would have it so, thou shalt. Farewell, then. Your prayers wait on my steps. The arm of heaven, I feel, in life or death, will be around me. Exit left. Oh, grant it be in life. Let's to the sacrifice. Exxuent right. Scene two. An apartment of the temple. Enter Clamante, followed by Abra, right. Is he so changed? His bearing is so altered, that distant, I scarce knew him for himself.
But looking in his face, I felt his smile, gracious as ever, though its sweetness wore unwanted sorrow in it. He will go to some high fortune and forget us all. Reclaimed, be sure of it. By noble parents. Me, he forgets already. For five days, five melancholy days, I have not seen him. Thou knowest that he has privilege to range the infected city, and, tis said, he spends the hours of needful rest in squalid hovels, where death is most forsaken. Why is this? Why should my father— Niggard of the lives of aged men, be prodigal of youth, so rich in glorious prophecy as his. He comes to answer for himself. I leave you. Exit right. Stay. Well, my heart may guard its secret best by its own strength.
Enter Ion left. How fares my pensive sister? How should I fare but ill? When the pale hand draws the black foldings of the eternal curtain closer and closer round us, Phocion absent, and thou, forsaking all within thy home, wilt risk thy life with strangers, in whose aid even thou canst do but little. It is little, but in these sharp extremities of fortune the blessings which the weak and poor can scatter have their own season. "'Tis a little thing to give a cup of water, yet its draught of cool refreshment, drained by fevered lips, may give a shock of pleasure to the frame more exquisite than when nectarine juice renews the life of joy in happiest hours. It is a little thing to speak a phrase of common comfort, which by daily use has almost lost its sense.
Yet on the ear of him who thought to die unmourned, twill fall like choicest music, fill the glazing eye with gentle tears, relax the knotted hand to know the bonds of fellowship again, and shed on the departing soul a sense more precious than the benison of friends about the honored deathbed of the rich. To him who else were lonely, that feels another of the great family is near and feels. O thou canst never bear these mournful offices! So blithe, so merry once, will not the sight of frenzied agonies unfix thy reason, or the dumb woe congeal thee? No, Clemente, they are the patient sorrows that touch nearest. If thou hadst seen the warrior, when he writhed in the last grapple of his sinewy frame, with conquering anguish, strive to cast a smile, and not in vain, upon his fragile wife, waning beside him, and, his limbs composed, the widow of the moment fix her gaze of longing, speechless love upon the babe, The only living thing which yet was hers, spreading its arm for its own resting place, yet the attenuated hand wave off the unstricken child, and so embraceless die, stifling the mighty hunger of the heart.
Thou couldst endure the sight of selfish grief in sullenness or frenzy, but to-day another lot falls on me. Thou wilt leave us. I read it plainly in thy altered mien. Is it forever? That is with the gods. I go but to the palace, urged by hope, which from afar hath darted on my soul, that to the humbleness of one like me the haughty king may listen. To the palace knowest thou the peril, nay, the certain issue that waits thee? Death, the tyrant has decreed it, confirmed it with an oath. And he has power to keep that oath, for hated as he is, the reckless soldiers who partake his riot are swift to do his bidding. I know all, but they who call me to the work can shield me or make me strong to suffer.
Then the sword falls on thy neck. O God, to think that thou, who in the plentitude of youthful life art now before me, ere the sun decline, perhaps in one short hour. Shalt thou lie cold, cold, to speak, smile, bless no more? Thou shalt not go. Thou must not stay me, fair one. Even thy father, who, blessings on him, loves me as his son, yields to the will of heaven. And can he do this? I shall not bear his presence, if thou fallest by his consent. So shall I be alone. Forcyon will soon return, and just your thoughts of thy admiring father close the gap thy old companion left behind him. Never! What will be to me, father, brother, friends, when thou art gone? The light of our life quenched, haunting like specters of departed joy, the home where thou wert dearest.
Thrill me not with words that, in their agony, suggest a hope. Too ravishing, or my head will swim, and my heart faint within me. Has my speech such blessed power? I will not mourn it then. Though it had told a secret I had borne till death and silence, how affection grew to this, I know not. Day succeeded day, each fraught with the same innocent delights. Without one shock to ruffle the disguise of sisterly regard which veiled it well. Till thy changed mien revealed it to my soul, and thy great peril makes me bold to tell it. Do not despise it in me. With deep joy, thus I receive it. Trust me, it is long since I have learned to tremble mid our pleasures, lest I should break the golden dream around me with most ungrateful rashness.
I should bless the sharp and perilous duty which hath pressed a life's deliciousness into these moments, which here must end. I came to say farewell, and the word must be said. Thou canst not mean it. Have I disclaimed all maiden bashfulness to tell the cherished secret of my soul to my soul's master? And in rich return— Obtained the dearest assurance of his love. To hear him speak that miserable word, I cannot, will not, echo. Mr. Heaven has called me, and I have pledged my honor. When thy heart bestowed its preference on a friendless boy, thou didst not imagine him a recreant, nor must he prove so by thy election crowned. Thou hast endowed me with a right to claim thy help through this our journey, be its course lengthened to age, or in an hour to end, and I now ask it.
Bid my courage hold, and with thy free approval send me forth in sole apparelled for my office. Go. I would not have thee other than thou art, living or dying. And if thou shouldst fall— Be sure I shall return. If thou shouldst fall, I shall be happier as the affianced bride of thy cold ashes than in the proudest fortunes. Thine, ever thine. She faints in his arms. Aion calls. Abra! So best to part. Enter Abra with attendant right. Let her have air. Be near her through the day. I know thy tenderness. Should ill news come, or any friend, she will require it all. Abra bears Clemente outright. Ye gods that have enriched the life ye claim with priceless treasure, strengthen me to yield it. Exit left.
End of Act One.
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2 02 - ACT II 44:13
Adastris, Crythes, and Guards from the Terrace Center. The air breathes freshly after a long night of glorious reverie. I'll walk awhile. It blows across the town. Dost thou not fear it bear infection with it? Fear? Dost talk of fear to me? I deemed even thy poor thoughts had better scanned their master. Prithee tell me, in what act, word, or look? Since I have borne thy converse here, hast thou discerned such baseness as makes thee bold to prate to me of fear? My liege, of human might, all know thee fearless. But may not heroes shun the elements, when sickness taints them? Let them blast me now. I stir not, tremble not. These massive walls whose date are all's tradition, gird the home of a great race of kings, along whose line the eager mind lives aching through the darkness of ages else unstoried, till its shapes of armoured sovereigns spread to godlike port, and, frowning in the uncertain dawn of time, strike awe as powers who ruled an elder world in mute obedience.
I, sad heritor of all their glories, feel our doom is nigh, and I will meet it as befits their fame. Nor will I vary my selected path the breadth of my soul's edge, nor check a wish if such unkingly yielding might avert it. Thou art ever royal in thy thoughts. No more. I would be private. Exit Quythes with guards right. Groveling parasite. Why should I waste these fete-envarined hours, and pledge my great defiance to despair with flatterers such as thou, as if my joys required the pale reflections cast by slaves in mirrored mockery round my throne, or lacked the aid of reptile sympathies to stream through fete's black pageantry? Let weakness seek companionship. I'll henceforth feast alone. Enter a soldier right.
My liege, forgive me. Well? Speak out at once thy business and retire. I have no part in the presumptuous message that I bear. Tell it or go. There is no time to waste on idle terrors. Thus it is, my lord. As we were burnishing our arms, a man entered the court, and when we saw him first was tending towards the palace. In amaze we hailed the rash intruder. Still he walked, unheeding onward, till the western gate barred further course, then turning. He besought our startled band to herald him to thee, that he might urge a message which the sages had charged him to deliver. Ha! The Greybeards who, mid the altars of the gods, conspire to cast the image of supernal power from earth, its shadow consecrates.
What sage is so resolved to play the orator that he would die for it? He is but a youth, yet urged his prayer with sad constancy which could not be denied. Most bravely planned. Sedition worthy of the reverend host of sophist traitors, brave to scatter fancies of discontent amidst sturdy artisans, whose honest sinews they direct unseen, and make their proxies in the work of peril. Tis fit, when burning, to insult their king, and warned the pleasure must be bought with life, their valour send a boy to speak their wisdom. Thou know'st my last decree. Tell this rash youth the danger he incurs, then let him pass, and own the king more gentle than his masters. We have already told him of the fate which waits his daring.
Courteously he thanked us, but with still solemn aspect urged his suit. Tell him once more if he persists he dies. Then, if he will, admit him, should he hold his purpose. Order cry these to conduct him, and see the headsman instantly prepared to do his office. Exit a soldier. So resolved, so young, to have pity he should fall. Yet he must fall, for the great sceptre, which has swayed the fears of ages, will become a common staff for youth to wield, or age to rest upon, and is spoiled of all its virtues. He must fall, else— They who prompt the insult will grow bold, and with their pestilent vaunting through the city raise the low fog of murky discontent, which now creeps harmless through its marshy birthplace to veil my setting glories.
He is warned, and if he cross yon threshold he shall die. Enter Criothes in Ion, right. The King! Stranger, I bid thee welcome. We are about to tread the same dark passage, thou almost on the instant. To Crythes. Is the sword of justice sharpened, and the headsman ready? Thou mayest behold them plainly in the court. Even now the solemn soldiers line the ground. The steel gleams on the altar, and the slave disrobes himself for duty. Address to Ion. Dost thou see them? I do. By heaven he does not change. If even now thou wilt depart, and leave thy traitorous thoughts unspoken, thou art free. I thank thee for thy offer. But I stand before thee for the lives of thousands, rich in all that makes life precious to the brave, who perish not alone, but in their fall break the far-spreading tendrils that they feed, and leave them nurtureless.
If thou wilt hear me for them, I am content to speak no more. Thou hast thy wish, then. Cry these, till yon dire casts its thin shadow on the approaching hour. I hear this gallant traitor. On the instant, come without word, and lead him to his doom. Now leave us. What? Alone? Yes, slave, alone. He is no assassin. Exit Crythi's right. Tell me who thou art. What generous source owns that heroic blood which holds its course thus bravely? What great wars have nursed the courage that can look on death certain, and speedy death with placid eye? I am a simple youth, who never bore the weight of armor, who may not boast of noble birth or valor of his own. Deem not the powers which nerve me thus to speak, in thy great presence, and have made my heart upon the verge of bloody death as calm, as equal in its beatings, as when sleep approached me nestling from the sportive toils of thoughtless childhood, and celestial dreams began to glimmer through the deepening shadows of soft oblivion to belong to me.
These are the strengths of heaven. To thee they speak. Bid thee to hearken to thy people's cry, or warn thee that thy hour must shortly come. I know it must. So mayest thou spare thy warnings. The envious gods in me have doomed a race, whose glory stream from the same cloud-gird founts whence their own dawned upon the infant world, and I shall sit on my ancestral throne to meet their vengeance. But till then I rule as I have ever ruled, and thou wilt feel. I will not further urge thy safety to thee. It may be, as thou sayest, too late. Nor seek to make thee tremble at the gathering curse, which shall burst forth in mockery at thy fall. But thou art gifted with a nobler sense. I know thou art my sovereign.
Since a pain endured by myriad Argives, in whose souls, and in whose fathers' souls, thou and thy fathers, have kept their cherished state, whose heart-strings still, the living fibers of thy rooted power, quiver with agonies thy crimes have drawn from heavenly justice on them. How? My crimes? Yes. Tis the eternal law, that where guilt is, sorrow shall answer it. And thou hast not a poor man's privilege to bear it alone, or in the narrow circle of his kinsmen the penalties of evil. For in thine a nation fate lies circled, King Adrastus, steeled as thy heart is with the usages of pomp and power. A few short summers since, thou wert a child, and canst not be relentless. Oh, if a maternal love embraced thee then, think of the mothers who, with eyes unwet, glare o'er their perishing children.
Hast thou shared the glow of a first friendship, which is born midst the rude sports of boyhood? Think of youth, Smitten amidst its playthings, let the spirit of thine own innocent childhood whisper pity. In every word thou dost but steal my soul. My youth was blasted. Parents, brother, kin, all that should people infancy with joy, conspired to poison mine, despoiled my life of innocence and hope, all but the sword and sceptre. Dost thou wander at me now? I knew that we should pity. Pity? Dare to speak that word again, and torture awaits thee. I am yet King of Argus. Well, go on. Thy time is short, and I am pledged to hear. If thou hast ever loved— Beware, beware. Thou hast, I see thou hast, thou art not marble, and thou shalt hear me.
Think upon the time when the clear depths of thy yet lucid soul were ruffled with the troublings of strange joy as of some unseen visitant from heaven, touched the calm lake, and wreathed its images in sparkling waves, Recall the dallying hope that on the margin of assurance trembled, as loath to lose in certainty, too blessed its happy being. Taste in thought again of stolen sweetness those evening walks, when pansied turf was heir to winged feet, and circling forest, by ethereal touch. Enchanted, wore the livery of the sky, as if to melt in golden light, shapes of one heavenly vision. And thy heart, enlarged by its new sympathy with one, grew bountiful to all. That tone, that tone! Whence came it?
From thy lips? It cannot be. The long, hushed music of the only voice that ever spake unbought affection to me, and waked my soul to blessing. O sweet hours of golden joy, ye come! Your glories break through my pavilion spirit's sable folds. Roll on, roll on! Stranger, thou dost enforce me to speak of things unbreathed by lip of mind to human ear. But listen. As a child. Again. That voice again. Thou hast seen me moved as never mortal saw me, by a tone in which some light breeze, enamoured of the sound, hath wafted through the woods, till thy young voice caught it to writhe and melt me. At my birth the city, which expectant of its prince lay hushed, broke out in clamorous ecstasies. Yet in that moment, while the uplifted cups foamed with the choicest product of the sun, and welcome thundered from a thousand throats, My doom was sealed from the hearth's vacant space in the dark chamber where my mother lay.
Faint with a sense of pain-bought happiness came forth in heart-appalling tone these words of me, the nursling. Woe unto the babe! Against the life which now begins shall life, lighted from thence, be armed and both soon quenched. End this great line in sorrow. Here I grew of years to know myself a thing accursed. A second son was born to steal the love which fate had else scarce rivalled. He became my parents' hope, the darling of the crew who lived upon their smiles, and thought it flattery to trace in every foible of my youth, a prince's youth, the workings of the curse. My very mother, Jove, I cannot bear to speak it now. Looked freezingly upon me. But thy brother... Died. Thou hast heard the lie, the common lie that every peasant tells of me as master, that I slew the boy.
It is false. One summer's eve, below a crag, which, in his wilful mood, he strove to climb, he lay a mangled corpse. The very slaves whose cruelty had shut him from my heart. Now coined their own injustice into proofs to brand me as his murderer. Did they dare accuse thee? Not in open speech. They felt I should have seized the miscreant by the throat, and crushed the lie, half spoken with the life of the bass speaker. But the lie looked out from the stolen gaze of coward eyes, which shrank when mine have met them, murmured through the crowd that at the sacrifice, or feast, or game, stood distant from me. Burnt into my soul when I beheld it in my father's shudder. Didst not declare thy innocence?
To whom? To parents who could doubt me, to the ring of grave impostors, or their shallow sons who should have studied to prevent my wish before it grew to language, hailed my choice to service as a prize to wrestle for, and whose reluctant courtesy I bore. Pale with proud anger, till from lips compressed the blood has started. To the common herd, the vassals of our ancient house, the mass of bones and muscles framed to till the soil a few brief years, then rot unnamed beneath it, or decked for slaughter at their master's call, to smite and to be smitten, and lie crushed in heaps to swell his glory or his shame. Answer to them! No, though my heart had burst as it was night, a-bursting. To the mountains I fled, and on their pinnacles of snow breasted the icy wind, and hoped to cool my spirit's fever.
Struggled with the yoke in search of weariness, and learned to rive its stubborn bow, still limbs, once lightly strung, might mate and cordage with its infant stems. Or on the sea-beat rock tore off the vest which burnt upon my bosom, and to air headlong committed clove the waters, a depth which plummet never sounded, but in vain. Yet succor came to thee. A blessed one, which the strange magic of thy voice revives, and thus unlocks my soul. My rapid steps were in a wood-encircled valley, stayed by the bright vision of a maid, whose face most lovely, more than loveliness revealed, in touch of patient grief, which Deere seemed than happiness to spirits seared like mine. With feeble hands she strove to lay in earth the body of her aged sire, whose death left her alone.
I aided her sad work. And soon two lonely ones, by holy rites, became one happy being. Days, weeks, months, and stream-like unity flowed silent by us in our delightful nest. My father's spies, slaves whom I not should have consigned to stripes or the swift falchion, tracked our sylvan home just as my bosom knew its second joy. In spite of fortune, I embraced a son. Urged by thy trembling parents to avert that dreadful prophecy. Fools! Did they deem its worst accomplishment could match the ill which they wrought on me? It had left unharmed a thousand ecstasies of passioned years, which, taste at once, live ever, and disdain fate's iron grapple. Could I now behold that sun, with a knife uplifted at my heart, a moment ere my life-blood followed it?
I would embrace him with my dying eyes and pardon destiny. While jock and smiles wreathed on the infant's face, as if sweet spirits suggested pleasant fancies to his soul, the raffines broke upon us, seized the child, dashed through the thicket to the beetling rock neath which the deep wave eddies. I stood still as stricken into stone. I heard him cry. Pressed by the rudeness of the murderer's gripe, severer ill and fearing, than the splash of waters that shall cover him forever, and could not stir to save him. And the mother? She spake no word, but clasped me in her arms and lay her down to die. A lingering gaze of love she fixed on me. None other loved. And so past tense.
By Jupiter, her look, her dying patience glimmers in thy face. She lives again. She looks upon me now.
This magic and...
Bear with me. I am childish. Enter, cry these, and guards right. Why art thou here? The dial. points the hour. Dost thou not see that horrid purpose past? Hast thou no heart, no sense? Scarce half an hour hath flown since the command, on which I wait. Scarce half an hour? Years. Years have rolled since then. Begone. Remove that pageantry of death. It blasts my sight. And hearken, Dutch, a hair of this brave youth. Or look on him as now with thy cold headsman's eye, and yonder band shall not expect a fearful show in vain. Hence without word. Exit, Crethe's right. What wouldst thou have me do? Let thy awakened heart speak its own language. Convene thy sages, frankly, nobly meet them. Explore with them the pleasure of the gods.
And whatsoever the sacrifice. Perform it. Well, I will seek their presence in an hour. Go summon them, young hero. Hold. No word of the strange passion thou hast witnessed here. Distrust me not. Meninid powers, I thank thee. Exit right. It's day. He's gone. His spell is on me yet. What have I promised him? To meet the men who from my living head would strip the crown and sit in judgment on me. I must do it. Yet shall my band be ready to o'er all the course of liberal speech, and if it rise so as to loudly to offend my ear, strike the rash brawler dead. What idle dream of long past days had mounted me? It fades. It vanishes. I am again a king.
Scene Two. The interior of the temple. Same as Act I, Scene I. Clementi seated. Abra attending her. Look, dearest lady. The thin smoke aspires in the calm air, as when in happier times it showed the gods propitious. Wilt thou seek thy chamber? Lest thy father and his friends returning find us hinderers of their counsel? She answers not. She hearkens not. With joy could I believe her, for the first time, sullen. Still, she is rapt. Enter Aginor left. O speak to my sweet mistress. Happily thy voice may rouse her. Dear Clemente, hope dance in every omen. We shall hail our tranquil hours again. Enter Medan, Cleon, Timocles, and others left. Clemente, here? How sad, how pale. Her eye is kindling. Hush!
Hark! Hear ye not a distant footstep? No. Look round, my fairest child. Thy friends are near thee. Yes. Now tis lost. Tis on that endless stair. Nearer and more distinct. "'Tis his. "'Tis his. "'He lives. "'He comes." Rises and rushes to back of the stage, at which Aion appears, center, and returns with her center. Here is your messenger, whom heaven has rescued from the tyrant's rage. Ye sent him forth to brave. Rejoice, old men, that ye are guiltless of his blood. Why pause ye? Why shout ye not his welcome? Dearest girl, this is no scene for thee. Go to thy chamber. I'll come to thee ere long. Exxuant Clamonthe Inabra. She is o'erwrought by fear and joy for one whose infant hopes were mingled with her own, even as a brother's.
Ay, hon, how shall we do thee honour? None is due. Save to the gods, whose gracious influence sways the king ye deemed relentless. He consents to meet ye presently in council. Speed! This may be nature's latest rally in him. In fitful strength ere it be quenched forever. Haste to your seats. I will but speak a word with our brave friend and follow. Though convened in speed, let our assembly lack no forms of due observance, which to furious power plead with the silent emphasis of years. Exeunt all that Medan and Ion left. Ion, draw near me. This eventful day hath shown thy nature's graces circled round with firmness which accomplishes the hero. And it would bring to me but one proud thought, that virtues which required not culture's aid shed their first fragrance neath my roof, and there found shelter.
But it also hath revealed, what I may not hide from thee, that my child, my blithe and innocent girl, more fair in soul, more delicate in fancy than in mould, loves thee with other than a sister's love. I should have cared for this. I vainly deemed a fellowship in childhood's thousand joys, and household memories had nurtured friendship, which might hold blameless empire in the soul. But in that guise the traitor hath stolen in, and the fair citadel is thine. I did not think the nursling of thy house could thus disturb its holiest inmate's duty with a tale of selfish passion. But we met as playmates who might never meet again, and the hidden truth flashed forth and showed to each the image of the other's soul in one bright instant.
Be that instant blessed which made thee truly ours, my son, my son. "'Tis we should feel uplifted, for the seal of greatness is upon thee. Yet I know that when the gods, won by thy virtues, draw the veil which now conceals their lofty birthplace, thou wilt not spurn the maid who prized them lowly." Spurn her? My father! Enter Ctesiphon. Ctesiphon. And breathless. I come to chide me to the council. No, to bring unwanted joy. Thy son approaches. Thank heaven! Hast spoken with him? Is he well? I strove in vain to reach him, for the crowd, roused from the untended couch and dismal hearth by the strange visiting of hope, pressed round him. But by his head erect and fiery glance, I know that he is well.
and that he bears a message which shall shake the tyrant. Shouts without. See? The throng is tending this way. Now it parts, and yields him to thy arms. Interphocion. Welcome, my Phocion. Long waited for in Argos. How detain now matters not, since thou art here in joy. Hast brought the answer of the gods? I have. Now let Adrastus tremble. May we hear it? I am sworn first to utter it to him. But it is fatal to him. Say but that. Ha! Tassiphon, I mocked thee not before. How fares thy father? Aion to Phocion. Do not speak of him. Overhearing Aion. Not speak of him? Dost think there is a moment when common things eclipse the burning thought of him and vengeance? Has the tyrant's sword? No, Phocion.
That were merciful and brave compared to his base deed. Yet will I tell it, to make the flashing of thine eye more deadly, and edge thy words that they may writhe his heart-strings. The last time that Adrastus dared to face the sages of the State, although my father, yielding to nature's mild decay, had left all worldly toil and hope, he gathered strength in his old seat. To speak one word of warning. Thou knowest how bland with years his wisdom grew, and with what phrases, steeped in love, he sheathed the sharpness of rebuke. Yet, ere his speech was closed, the tyrant started from his throne, and with his base hand smote him. T'was his death-stroke. The old man tottered home, and only once raised his head after.
Thou wert absent? Yes, the royal miscreant lives. Had I beheld that sacrilege, the tyrant had lay dead, for I had been torn piecemeal by his minions. But I was far away. When I returned, I found my father on the nearest bench within our door, his thinly silvered head supported by wan hands, which hid his face and would not be withdrawn. No groan, no sigh was audible, and we might only learn, by short convulsive tremblings of his frame, that life still flickered in it. Yet, at last, by some unearthly inspiration roused, he dropped his withered hands, and sat erect as in his manhood's glory. The free blood flushed crimson through his cheeks, his forward brow expanded clear, and his eyes, opening full, gleamed with a youthful fire.
I fell in awe upon my knees before him. Still he spake not. But slowly raised his arm, untrembling, clenched his hand as if it grasped an airy knife, and struck in air. My hand was joined with his in nervous grasp. My lifted eye met his in steadfast gaze. My pressure answered his. We knew at once each other's thought. A smile of the old sweetness played upon his lips, and life forsook him. Weaponless I flew to seek the tyrant. And was driven with scoffs from the proud gates which shelter him. He lives, and I am here to babble of revenge. It comes, my friend. Haste with me to the king. Even while we speak, Adrastus meets his counsel. There let us seek him. Should ye find him touched with penitence, as happily we may, O give allowance to his softened nature!
Show grace to him? Dost dare? I had forgot. Thou dost not know how a son loves a father. I know enough to feel for thee. I know thou hast endured the vilest wrongs that tyranny in the worst frenzy can inflict. Yet think, oh think, before the irrevocable deed shuts out all thought, how much of power's excess is theirs who raise the idol. Do we groan beneath the personal force of this rash man, who, forty summers since, hung at the breast a playful weakling, who the heat unnerves, the north wind pierces, the hand of death may, in a moment, change to clay as vile as that of the scourged slave whose chain it severs. No. "'Tis our weakness grasping o'er the shows of outward strength that builds up tyranny and makes it look glorious.
If we shrink faint-hearted from the reckoning of our span of mortal days, we pamper the fond wish for long duration in a line of kings." If the rich pageantry of thoughts must fade, all unsubstantial, as the regal hues of Eve which purple them, our cunning frailties must robe a living image with their pomp, and wreathe a diadem around its brow, in which our sunny fantasies may live, impearled, and gleam in fatal splendor, far on earth. After ages, we must look within for that which makes us slaves, on sympathies which find no kindred objects in the plane of common life, affections that aspire in air too thin. And fancies dewy film floating for rest, for even such delicate threads, gathered by fate's engrossing hand, supply the eternal spindle whence she weaves the bond of cable strength in which our nature struggles.
Go, talk to others if thou wilt. To me all argument, say that of steel, is idle. No more. Let's to the council. There, my son, tell thy great message nobly. And for thee, poor orphaned youth, be sure the gods are just. Exuent left. Scene Three. The great square of the city. Adastris seated on a throne. Agenor, Timoclese, Cleon, and others seated as councillors. Soldiers line the stage at a distance. Upon your summons, sages, I am here. Your king attends to know your pleasure. Speak it. And canst thou ask, if the heart dead within thee receives no impress of this awful time? Art thou of sense forsaken? Are thine ears so charmed by strains of slavish minstrelsy, that the dog groan and frenzy pointage shriek?
Pass them unheard to heaven? Or are thine eyes so conversant with the prodigies of grief they cease to dazzle at them? Art thou armed against wonder, while in all things nature turns to dreadful contraries? While youth's full cheek is shrivelled into furrows of sad years, and neath its glossy curls, untinged by care, looks out a keen anatomy. While age is stung by feverish torture for an hour into youth's strength, while fragile womanhood starts into frightful courage. All unlike the gentle strength its gentle weakness feeds to make affliction beautiful and stalks abroad, a terrorless and unshuddering thing, while childhood, in its orphan freedom blithes, Finds, in the shapes of wretchedness which seem grotesque to its unsaddened vision, cause for dreadful mirth that shortly shall be hushed in never-broken silence.
And while love, immortal, through all change, makes ghastly death its idol, and with furious passion digs amid sacrial images for gods to cheat its fancy with. Do sights like these glare through the realm thou shouldst be paired to? And canst thou find the voice to ask our pleasure? Cease, babbler. Wherefore would ye stun my ears with vain recital of the griefs I know, and cannot heal? Will treason turn aside the shafts of fate, or medicine nature's ills? I have no skill in pharmacy, nor power to sway the elements. Thou hast the power to cast thyself upon the earth. with us, in penitential shame. Or, if this power hath left a heart made weak by luxury and hard by pride, thou hast at least the power to cease the mockery of thy frantic revels.
A.D. I have yet power to punish insult. Look, I use it not, A.D. Fate may dash my sceptre from me, but shall not command my will to hold it with a feebler grasp. Nay, if few hours of empire yet are mine, they shall be colored with a sterner pride, and peopled with more lustrous joys than flushed in the serene procession of its greatness, which looked perpetual as the flowing course of human things. Have you beheld a pine that clasped the mountain summit with a root as firm as its rough marble? And apart from the huge shade of undistinguished trees, lifted its head as in delight to share the evening glories of the sky, and taste the wanton dalliance of the heavenly breeze that no ignoble vapor from the veil could mingle with.
Smit by the flaming marl, and lighted for destruction, how it stood one glorious moment, fringed and raised with fire, which showed the inward graces of its shape, Uncumber now, and midst its topmost boughs, that young ambition's airy fancies made their giddy nest leaped sportive. Never clad by liberal summer in a pomp so rich as waited on its downfall, While it took the storm-cloud rolled behind it for a curtain, to gird its benders round, and made the blast its minister to whirl its flashing shreds aloft towards heaven, or to the startled depths of forests that afar might share its doom. So shall the royalty of Argus pass it in festal blaze to darkness. Have ye spoken? I speak no more to thee, great Jove.
Look down. Shouts without. What faction's brawl is this? Disperse it, soldiers. Shouting renewed. As some of the soldiers are about to march, Phocion rushes in, followed by Ctesiphon, Ion, and Medan. Whence is this insolent intrusion? King, I bear Apollo's answer to thy prayer. Has not thy travel taught thy needs duty? Here we had schooled thee better. Kneel to thee. Patience, my son. Do homage to the King. Never thou talk'st of schooling. No, Adrastus, that I have studied an ennobler school than the dull haunt of venal sophistry, or the lewd guardroom, o'er which ancient heaven extends its arch for all, and mocks the span of palaces and dungeons, where the heart in its free beatings, neath the coarsest vest, claims kindred with diviner things than power of kings can raise or stifle in the school of mighty nature.
Where I learned to blush at sight like this, of thousands basely hushed before a man no mightier than themselves, save in the absence of that love that softens. Peace! Speak thy message. Shall I tell it here, or shall I seek thy couch at dead of night, and breathe it in low whispers, as thou wilt? Here, and this instant. Hearken then, Adrastus, and hearken, Argives. Thus Apollo speaks. Argos ne'er shall find release, till her monarch's race shall cease. "'Tis not God's will, but man's sedition speaks. Guards, tear that lying parchment from his hands and bear him to the palace." Touch him not. He is Apollo's messenger, whose lips were never stained with falsehood. Come on, all. Surround him, friends.
Die with him. Soldiers, charge upon these rebels. Hew them down. On! On! The soldiers advance and surround the people. They seize Phocion. Aion rushes from the back of the stage and throws himself between Adastris and Phocion. Phocion to Adastris. Yet I defy thee. Aion to Phocion. Friend, for sake of all, enrage him not. Wait, while I speak a word. To Adastris. My Sovereign, I implore thee, do not stain this sacred place with blood. In heaven's great name I do conjure thee, and in hers, whose spirit is mourning for thee now. Release this stripling. Let him go spread his treason where he will. He is not worth my anger. To the palace. Nay, yet an instant, let my speech have power from heaven to move thee further.
Thou hast heard the sentence of the God, and thy heart owns it. If thou wilt cast aside this cumbrous pomp, and in seclusion purify thy soul, long fevered and sophisticated, the gods may give thee space for penitential thoughts. If not, As surely as thou standest here, wilt thou lie stiff and weltering in thy blood. The vision presses on me now. Not mad. Resign my state. Sue to the gods for life, the common life which every slave endures and meanly clings to. No. Within yon walls I shall resume the banquet, never more broken by man's intrusion. Counselors, farewell. Go mutter treason till ye perish. Exxuunt Adastris, Crythes, and soldiers left. Ion stands apart, leaning on a pedestal. "'Tis sealed!"
Let us withdraw, and strive by sacrifice to pacify the gods. Medan, Agenor, and Counselors retire. They leave Tassiphon, Phocion, and Ion. Ion still stands apart as wrapped in meditation. "'Tis well. The measure of his guilt is filled. Where shall we meet at sunset?" In the grove, which with its matted shade embrowns the veil, between those buttresses of rock that guard the sacred mountain on its western side, stands a rude altar, overgrown with moss, and stained with drippings of a million showers. So old that no tradition names the power that hallowed it, which we will consecrate anew to freedom and justice. Thither will I bring friends to meet thee. Shall we speak to yon rapt youth? Pointing to Ion.
His nature is too gentle. At sunset we will meet. With arms? A knife. One sacrificial knife will serve. At sunset. Exit Tassafon right. Fulcyon center left. Ion comes forward. O wretched man! Thy words have sealed thy doom. Why should I shiver at it, when no way save this remains to break the ponderous cloud that hangs above my wretched country? Death, a single death, the common lot of all, which it will not be mine to look upon, and yet its ghastly shape dilates before me. I cannot shut it out. My thoughts grow rigid. And as that grim and prostrate figure haunts them, my sinews stiffen like it. Courage, Ion. No spectral form is here. All outward things wear their own familiar looks. No dye pollutes them.
And yet the air has the scent of blood, and now it eddies with a hurtling sound, as if some weapon swiftly clove it. No. The Falchion's course is silent as the grave, that yawns before its victim. Gracious powers, if the great duty of my life be near, grant it may be to suffer, not to strike. Exuant right. End of act two.
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3 03 - ACT III 26:01
A Terrace of the Temple. Enter Clementi and Aion Wright. Nay, I must chide the sorrow from thy brow, or t'will rebuke my happiness. I know too well the miseries that hem us round, and yet the inward sunshine of my soul, unclouded by their melancholy shadows, bathes in its deep tranquillity one image, only one image, which no outward storm can ever ruffle. Let me wean thee, then, from this vain pondering o'er the general woe, which makes my joy look ugly. No, my fair one, the gloom that wrongs thy love is unredeemed by a generous sense of others' woe. Too sure it rises from dark presages within, and not from me. Then it is most groundless. Hast thou not won the blessing of the perishing by constancy, the fame of which shall live while a heart beats in Argos?
Hast thou not upon one agitated bosom poured the sweetest peace? And can thy generous nature, while it thus sheds felicity around it, remain itself unblest? I strove a while to think the assured possession of thy love, with too divine a burthen weighed my heart, and pressed my spirits down. But tis not so. Nor will I with false tenderness beguile thee, by feigning that my sadness has a cause so exquisite. Thou wilt find me a sad companion. I, who knew not life, save as the sport of breath of happiness, now fill my minutes teeming as they rise with grave experiences. I dream no more of azure reams, where restless beauty sports in myriad shapes fantastic. Dismal vaults in black succession open, till the gloom afar is broken by a streak of fire that shapes my name.
The fearful wind that moans before the storm articulates its sound, and I passed but now the solemn range of Argive monarchs that, in sculptured mockery of the present empire, sit. Their eyes of stone They bent on me instinct with a frightful life that drew me into fellowship with them as conscious marvel, while their ponderous lips fit organs of eternity, unclosed, and, as I lived to tell thee, murmured, Hail, Hail, Aion. The devoted. These are fancies which thy soul, late expanded with great purpose, shapes as it quivers to its natural circle, in which its joys should lurk as in the bud the cells of fragrance cluster. Bid them from thee, and strive to be thyself. I will do so. I'll gaze upon thy loveliness, and drink its quiet inn.
How beautiful thou art! My pulse throbs now as it was wont. A being which owns so fair a glass, to mirror it cannot show darkly. We shall soon be happy. My father will rejoice to bless our love, and Argos waken. For her tyrant's course must have a speedy end. It must! It must! Yes. For no empty talk of public wrongs assails him now. Keen hatred and revenge are roused to crush him. Not by such base agents may the august lustration be achieved. He who shall cleanse his country from the guilt for which heaven smites her must be pure of soul. Guileless as infancy, and undisturbed by personal anger as thy father is, when, with unswerving hand and piteous eye, he stops the brief life of the innocent kid, bound with white fillets to the altar.
So, enwreathed by fate, the royal victim heaves, and soon his breast shall shrink beneath the knife, Of the selected slayer. "'Tis thyself whom thy strange language pictures. Ion, thou—' She has said it. Her pure lips have spoken out what all things intimate. Didst thou not mark me for the office of Avenger? Me? No, save from the wild picture that thy fancy, thy overwrought fancy drew. I thought it looked too like thee, and I shuddered. So do I. And yet I almost wish I shuddered more, for the dire thought has grown familiar with me. Could I escape it? Twill away in sleep. No, no, I dare not sleep, for well I know that then the knife will gleam, the blood will gush, the form will stiffen. I will walk awhile in the sweet evening light.
And try to chase these fearful images away. Let me go with thee. Oh, how often, hand in hand, in such a lovely light we have roamed westward, aimless and blessed, when we were no more than playmates. Surely we are not grown strangers since yesterday. No, dearest, not tonight. The plague yet rages fiercely in the vale, and I am placed in grave commission here to watch the gates. Indeed, thou shalt not pass. I will be merrier when we meet again. Trust me, my love, I will. Farewell. Exit left. Farewell, then. How fearful disproportion shows in one whose life hath been all harmony. He bends toward that thick covert where, in blessed hour, my father found him. Which has ever been his chosen place of musing?
Shall I follow? Am I already grown a selfish mistress, to watch his solitude with jealous eye, and claim him all? That let me never be. Yet danger from within besets him now, known to me only. I will follow him. Exit left. Scene two. An opening in a deep wood, in front of an old gray altar. Enter Ion. O winding pathways, o'er whose scanty blades Of unaspiring grass mine eyes have bent so often, when by musing fancy swayed, that craved alliance with no wider sense than your fair thickets bordered, but was pleased to deem the toilsome years of manhood flown, and, on the pictured mellowness of age, idly reflect, Image my return from careful wanderings to fine gleam with unchanged aspect on a heart unchanged, and melt the busy past to a sweet dream, as then the future was.
Why should ye now echo my steps with melancholy sound, as ye were conscious of a guilty presence? The lovely light of Eve that, as it waned, Touched ye with softer, homelier look, now fades in dismal blackness, and yon twisted roots of ancient trees, whose fantastic forms my thoughts grew humorous, looked terrible, as if to start to serpent life and hiss about me. Whither shall I turn? Where to fly? I see the myrtle cradle spot where human love, instructed by divine, found and embraced me first. I'll cast me down upon the earth as on a mother's breast in hope to feel myself again a child. Retires into the wood. Enter Ctesiphon, Cassander, another Argive youths. Sure, this must be the place that Falcione spoke of.
The twilight deepens. Yet he does not come. Ah! if, instead of idle dreams of freedom, he knew the sharpness of a grief like mine, he would not linger thus. The sun's broad disk of misty red, a few brief minutes since, sank neath the leaden wave. But night steals on with rapid pace to veil us, and thy thoughts are eager as the favoring darkness. Interfusion. Welcome. Thou knowest all here. Yes, I rejoice. Cassandra, to find thee my companion in a deed worthy of all the dreamings of old days, when we, two rebel youths, grew safely brave in visionary perils. We'll not shame our young imaginations. Tassiphon, we look to thee for guidance in our aim. I bring you glorious news. There is a soldier who, in his reckless boyhood, was my comrade.
And though by taste of luxury subdued even to brook the tyrant's service, burns with generous anger to avenge that grief I bear above all others. He has made the retribution sure. From him I learnt that when Adrastus reached his palace court, he paused to struggle with some mighty throw of passion, then called eagerly for wine, and bade his soldiers share his choicest stores, and snatch, like him, a day from fortune. Soon, As one worn out by watching an excess, he staggered to his couch, where now he lies oppressed with heavy sleep, while his loose soldiers, made by the fierce carousal vainly mad or grossly dull, are scattered through the courts, unarmed and cautionless. The eastern portal is at this moment open.
By that gate we all may enter unperceived, and line the passages which gird the royal chamber, Whilst one blessed hand within completes the doom which heaven pronounces, nothing now remains, but that, as all would share this action's glory, we join in one great vow, and choose one arm our common minister. Oh! If these sorrows confer on me the office to return upon the tyrant's shivering heart the blow which crushed my father's spirit, I will leave to him who cares for toys the patriot's laurel and the applause of ages. Let the gods by the old course of Lot reveal the name of the predestined champion. For myself, here do I solemnly devote all powers of soul and body to that glorious purpose we live but to fulfill.
And I. And I. Aion, who has advanced from the wood, rushes to the altar and exclaims. And I. Most welcome. The serenest powers of justice, in prompting thy unspotted soul to join our bloody councils, sanctify and bless them. The gods have prompted me, for they have given one dreadful voice to all things which should be else dumb or musical, and I rejoice to step from the grim round of waking dreams into this fellowship which makes all clear. Wilt thou trust me, Tassiphon? Yes. But we waste the precious minutes in vain talk. If lots must guide us, have ye scrolls? Cassander has them. The flickering light of yonder glade will serve him to inscribe them with our names. Be quick, Cassander. I wear a cask, beneath whose iron circlet my father's dark hairs whitened.
Let it hold the names of his Avengers. Tessiphon takes off his helmet and gives it to Cassander, who retires with it right. Phocion to Tessiphon. He whose name thou shalt draw first shall fill the post of glory. Were it not all so well, the second name should designate another, charged to take the same great office, if the first should leave his work imperfect. There can scarce be need, yet as thou wilt. May the first chance be mine. I will leave little for a second arm. Cassandra returns with the helmet. Now gods, decide. Ctesiphon draws a lot from the helmet. The name. Why dost thou pause? Tis Ion. Well, I knew it would be mine. Ctesiphon draws another lot. Phocion, it will be thine to strike him dead, if he should prove faint-hearted.
With my life I'll answer for his constancy. Cry these to Ion. Thy hand? Tis cold as death. Yes, but it is as firm. What's ceremony next? Ctesiphon leads Ion to the altar, and gives him a knife. Receive this steel. For ages dedicate my sad home to sacrificial uses. Grasp it nobly, and consecrate it to untrembling service against the king of Argos and his race. His race? Is he not left alone on earth? He has no brother and no child. Such words the god hath used, who never speaks in vain. There were old rumors of an infant born, and strangely vanishing, a tale of guilt, half-hushed, perchance distorted in the hushing. And by the wise scarce heeded, for they deemed it one of a thousand guilty histories, which if the walls of palaces could speak, would show that, nursed by prideful luxury, to pamper which the virtuous peasant toils, crimes go unpunished, which the pirates nest, or once foul hovel, or the cell with justice keeps for unlicensed guilt, would startle at.
We must root out the stock, that no stray scion renew the tree whose branches stifling virtue. Shed poisoned Jews on joy. Aion approaches the altar, and lifting up the knife, speaks. Ye eldest gods, who in no statues of exactus form are palpable, who shun the azure heights of beautiful Olympus and the sound of ever young Apollo's minstrelsy, yet, mindful of the empire which he held over dim chaos, keep revengeful watch. on falling nations, and on kingly lines about to sink forever. Ye who shed into the passions of earth's giant brood, and their fierce usages the sense of justice, who clothe the fated battlements of tyranny with blackness as a funeral pall, and breathe through the proud halls of time-emboldened guilt, portents of ruin, hear me.
In your presence, for now I feel ye nigh, I dedicate this arm to the destruction of the king and of his race. Oh, keep me pitiless. Expel all human weakness from my frame. That this keen weapon shake not when his heart should feel its point. And if he has a child, whose blood is needful to the sacrifice, my country ask, Harden my soul to shed it. Was that not thunder? No, I heard no sound. Now mark me, Ion. Thou shalt straight be led to the King's chamber. We shall be at hand. Nothing can give thee pause. Hold. One should watch the city's eastern portal. Lest the troops, returning from the work of plunder home, surround us unprepared. Be that thy duty. To Fulcian. I am to second Aion, if he fail.
He cannot fail. I shall be nigh. What Aion? Who spake to me? Where am I? Friends, your pardon. I am prepared. Yet grant me a moment, one little moment, to be left alone. Be brief, then, or the season of revenge will pass. At yonder thicket we'll expect thee. Exuant all but Ion left. Methinks I breathe more freely, now my lot is palpable, and mortals gird me round, though my soul owns no sympathy with theirs. Someone approaches. I must hide this knife. Hide. I have ne'er till now had aught to hide from any human eye. He conceals the knife in his vest. Enter Clemente, up right, left. Clemente, hear. Forgive me that I break upon thee thus. I meant to watch thy steps unseen. But night is thickening.
Thou art haunted by sad fancies, and tis more terrible to think upon thee, wandering with such companions in thy bosom, than in peril thou art wont to seek beside the bed of death. Death, sayest thou, death? Is it not righteous when the gods decree it, and brief its sharpest agony? Yet, fairest, it is no theme for thee. Go in at once, and think of it no more. Not without thee. Indeed thou art not well. Thy hands are marble, thine eyes are fixed. Let me support thee, love. Ah! what is that gleaming within thy vest? A knife! Tell me its purpose, Ion. No, my oath forbids. An oath? O gentle Ion, what can have linked thee to a cause which needs a stronger cement than a good man's word? There's danger in it.
Will thou keep it from me? Alas, I must. Thou wilt know all full soon. Voices without call. Ion. Hark, I am cold. Nay, do not leave me thus. Tis very sad. Voices again. I dare not stay. Farewell. Exit first right left. It must be too adastrous that he hastes. If by his hand the fated tyrant die, austere remembrance of the deed will hang upon his delicate spirit like a cloud, and tinge its world of happy images with hues of horror. Shall I to the palace, and, as the price of my disclosure, claim his safety? No, tis never woman's part out of her fond misgivings to perplex the fortunes of the man to whom she cleaves. Tis hers to weave all that she has of fair and bright in the dark meshes of their web, inseparate from their windings.
My poor heart hath found its refuge in a hero's love. Whatever destiny his generous soul shaped for him, tis its duty to be still. And trust him till it bound or break with his. Exit Left Scene Three. A Chamber in the Temple. Enter Medan, followed by Abra, right. My daughter not within the temple, say'st thou? Abroad at such an hour? Sure, not alone, she wondered. Tell me truly, did Phocion or Ion bear her company? Twas Ion. Confess? Was it not he? I shall not chide. Indeed, I shall not. She went forth alone. But it is true that Aion just before had taken the same path. It was to meet with him. Ay, would they were returned, the night is grown of unusual blackness. Someone comes. Look if it be my daughter.
Abra looking out. No. Young Eris, the little slave, whose pretty tale of grief, Agenor, with so gracious a respect, this morning told us. Let him come. He bears some message from his master. Enter Eris left. Medan to Eris. Thou art pale. Has any evil happened to Agenor? Agenor. No, my good lord. I do not come from him. I bear to thee a scroll from one who now is numbered with the dead. He was my kinsman, but I had never seen him till he lay upon his deathbed, for he left these shores long before I was born, and no one knew his place of exile. On this mournful day he landed, was plague-stricken and expired. My gentle master gave me leave to tend his else unsolaced deathbed. When he found the clammy chillness of the grave steel on, he called for parchment, and with trembling hand that seemed to gather firmness from its task, wrote earnestly.
Conjured me take the scroll instant to thee, and died. Eris gives the scroll to Medan. Medan redeemed the scroll. These are high tidings. Abra, is not Clemanthe come? I long to tell her all. Enter Clemanthe. Sit down, my pensive child. Abra, this boy is faint. See him refreshed with food and wine before thou let'st him pass. I have been too long absent from a genoir who needs my slender help. Nay, I will use thy master's firmness here, and use it so as he would use it. Keep him prisoner, Abra, till he has done my bidding. Exund Abra nearest right. Now, Clamante, though thou hast played the truant and the rebel— I will not be too strict in my ward, by keeping from thee news of one to thee most dear.
Nay, do not blush. I say, most dear. It is of Ion. No, I do not blush, but tremble. O my father, what of Ion! How often have we guessed his lineage noble? And now tis proved. The kinsman of that youth was, with another, hired to murder him, a babe. They tore him from his mother's breast, and to a sea-girt summit, where a rock o'erhung a chasm, by the surge's force made terrible, rushed with him. As the gods in mercy ordered it, the foremost ruffian, who bore no burden, pressing through the gloom in a wild hurry of his guilty purpose, trod at the extreme verge upon a crag, loosened by summer from its granite bed, and suddenly fell with it, and with his fall sank the base daring of the man who held the infant.
So he placed the unconscious babe upon the spot where it was found by me, watched till he saw the infant safe, then fled, fearful of question, and returned to die. That child is Ion. Whom doth guess his sire? The first in Argos. Dost thou mean Adastris? He cannot. Must not be that tyrant's son. It is most certain. Nay, my thankless girl, he hath no touch of his rash father's pride, for nature, from whose genial lap he smiled upon us first, hath moulded for her own the suppliant of her bounty. Thou art blest. Thus let me bid thee joy. Joy, sayest thou? Joy? Then I must speak. He seeks a dastrous life, and at this moment, while we talk, may stain his soul with parasite. Impossible. I am the gentlest.
It is true, my father. I saw the weapon gleaming in his vest. I heard him called. Shall I alarm the palace? No. In the fierce confusion he would fall before our tale could be his safeguard. Gods, is there no hope? No refuge? Yes, if heaven assist us. I bethink me of a passage which, fashioned by a king in pious zeal, that he might seek the altar of the god in secret, from the temple's inmost shrine, leads to the royal chamber. I have tracked it in youth for pastime. Could I tread it now, I yet might save him. O make haste, my father! Shall I attend thee? No, thou wouldst impede my steps. Thou art fainting. When I have lodged thee safe in thy own chamber, I will light the torch and instantly set forward.
Do not waste an instant space on me. Speed, speed, my father. The fatal moments fly. I need no aid. Thou seest I am calm, quite calm. The gods protect thee. Exit median left, Clementi right. End of Act Three.
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4 04 - ACT IV 25:14
Enter Ion with the knife. Why do I creep thus stealthily along with trembling steps? Am I not armed by heaven to execute its mandate on a king whom it hath doomed? And shall I alter now, while every moment that he breathes may crush some life else happy? Can I be deceived by some foul passion crouching in my soul, which takes a radiant form to lure me on? Assure me, gods! Yes, I have heard your voices, for I dare, pray ye now, to nerve my arm and see me strike. He goes to the couch. He's smiling in his slumber, as if some happy thought of innocent days played at his heart-strings. Must I scare it thence with death's sharp agony? He lies condemned by the high judgment of supernal powers, and he shall know their sentence.
Wake, Adrastus, collect thy spirits, and be strong to die. Who dares disturb my rest? Guards, soldiers, recreants, where tarry ye? Why smite ye not to earth this bold intruder? Ha! No weapon here. What wouldst thou with me, Raffian? Rising. I am none but a sad instrument in Jove's great hand, to take thy life, long forfeited. Prepare, thy hour is come. Villains, does no one here. Vex not the closing minutes of thy being with torturing hope or idle rage. Thy guards— Palsied with revelry, are scattered senseless, while the most valiant of our Argive youths hold every passage by which human aid could reach thee. Present death is the award of powers who watch above me while I stand to execute their sentence.
Thou, I know thee, the youth I spared this morning, in whose ear I poured the secrets of my bosom. Kill me, if thou darest do it. But bethink thee first how the grim memory of thy thankless deed will haunt thee to the grave. It is most true. Thou sparest my life, and therefore do the gods ordain me to this office, lest thy fall seem the chance forfeit of some single sin, and not the great redress of Argos. Now. Now, while I parley, spirits that have left within this hour their plague-tormented flesh to rot untombed glide by, and frown on me their slow avenger, and the chamber swarms with a look of furies. Yet a moment wait, ye dreadful prompters. If there is a friend whom, dying, thou wouldst greet by word or token, Speak thy last bidding.
I have none on earth. If thou hast courage, end me. Not one friend, most piteous doom. Art melted. If I am, hope nothing from my weakness. Mortal arms and eyes unseen that sleep not, gird us round, and we shall fall together, be it so. No. Strike at once. My hour is come. In thee I recognize the minister of Jove, and kneeling thus, submit me to his power. Kneels. Avert thy face. No, let me meet thy gaze, for breathing pity lights thy features up into more awful likeness of a form which once shone on me, and which now my sense shapes palpable. Inhabit of the grave, inviting me to the sad realm where shades of innocence, whom passionate regard linked with the guilty, are content to pace with them the margin of the inky flood, mournful and calm.
It is surely there. She waves her pallid hand in circle over thy head as if to bless thee. And I bless thee, too, death's gracious angel. Do not turn away. Guards, to what office have ye doomed me? Now! Aion raises his arm to stab Adastris, who is kneeling, and gazes steadfastly upon him. The voice of Medan is heard without, calling, Aion! Aion! Aion drops his arm. Be quick, or thou art lost! As Aion has again raised his arm to strike. Medan rushes in behind him, center. Aion, forbear! Behold thy son, Adrastus! Aion stands for a moment, stupefied with horror, drops the knife, and falls senseless to the ground. What strange words are these, which call my senses from the death they were composed to welcome?
Son, it is false. I had but one. And the deep wave rose o'er him. That wave received, instead of the fair nursling, one of the slaves who bore him from thy sight in wicked haste to slay. I'll give thee proofs. Great Shave, I thank thee. Raise him gently. Proofs. Are there not here the linements of her who made me happy once? The voice now still that Bade the long-sealed fount of love gush out, while with the Prince's constancy he came to lay his noble life down. And assure the dreadful proof that he whose guileless brow was instinct with their spirit, stood out of the Ion reviving, sinks on one knee before Adastris. Father. The clang of arms. They come! They come! They who are league with me against thy life!
Here, let us fall! I will confront them yet. Within I have a weapon which has drunk a traitor's blood here now. There will I await them. No power less strong than death shall part us now. Exund Adastris and Ion, as into an inner chamber, upper entrance left. Have mercy on him, gods, for the dear sake of your most single-hearted worshipper. Entered Tassiphon, Cassander, and others left. What a treachery is this? The tyrant fled, and Ion fled too? Comrades, stay the stoddard while I search yonder chamber. Spare him, friends. Spare him to clasp a while his newfound son. Spare him as Ion's father. Father? Yes, that is indeed a name to bid me spare. Let me but find him, gods. Rushes into an inner chamber.
Medan to Cassander and others. Had ye but seen what I have seen, ye would have mercy on him. Crythes enters with soldiers right. Ah, soldiers! "'Hasten to defend your master. That way!' As Crythes is about to enter the inner chamber, upper entrance left. Tassiphon rushes from it with a bloody dagger, and stops them. "'It is accomplished. The foul blood is wiped away. Shade of my murdered father, look on thy son and smile!' "'Whose blood is that? It cannot be the king's.' "'It cannot be.' Thinkest thou, foul minion of a tyrant's will, he was to crush, and thou to crawl for ever? Look there, and tremble. Wretch! Thy life shall pay the forfeit of this deed. Crythes and soldiers seize Tassiphon. Enter Adastris, mortally wounded, supported by Aion, upper entrance left.
Here, let me rest. In this old chamber did my life begin, and here I will end it. Cry this. Thou hast timed thy visit well to bring thy soldiers hither, to gaze upon my parting. To avenge thee, here is the traitor. Set him free at once.
Why do ye not obey me?
Chesiphon. I gave thee cause for this. Believe me now that thou true steel hast made thy vengeance sure, and as we now stand equal, I will sue for a small boon. Let me not see thee more. Farewell. Exit right. Address to Crythes and soldiers. Why do ye tarry here? Begone. Still do you hover round my couch.
If the commandment of a dying king is feeble, if the man who has embraced his child for the first time since infancy, and presently must part with him for ever, I do adjure ye leave us. Exuunt all but Ion and Adastris. O my father. How is it with thee now? Well, very well. Avenging fate hath spent its utmost force against me, and I gaze upon my son with the sweet certainty that naught can part us, till all is quiet here.
How like a dream seems the succession of my regal pumps, since I embraced thy helplessness. To me, at the interval, hath been a weary one. How hath it passed with thee? But that my heart hath sometimes ached for a sweet sense of kindred, I had enjoyed a round of happy years, as cherished youth e'er knew. I bless the gods, that they have strewn along thy humble path, delights unblamed. And in this hour I seem even as I had lived so. I feel that I shall live in thee, unless that curse, if it should survive me. Think not of it. The gods have shed such sweetness in this moment, that howsoever they deal with me hereafter, I shall not ding them angry. Let me call for such help to staunch thy wound.
Thou art strong yet, and yet may live to bless me. Do not stir. My strength is ebbing fast, yet as it leaves me, the spirit of my stainless days of love awakens, and their images of joy, which at thy voice started from blank oblivion, when thou wert strange to me, and then have shone, looked sadly through the mist of guilty years, now glimmer on me in the lovely light which at thy age they wore. Thou art all thy mothers, her elements of gentlest virtue cast in mould heroical. Thy speech grows fainter. Can I do nothing for thee? Yes, my son, thou art the best, the bravest of a race of rightful monarchs.
Thou must mount the throne thy ancestors have filled. And by great deeds face the memory of thy fated sire, and with the blessing of the gods for men stricken for him.
Swear to me thou wilt do this, and I shall die forgiven. I will. Rejoice, sufferers of Argos.
I am growing weak, and my eyes Let me rest my hands, ere they have lost their feeling, on thy head. So, so, for thy hair is glossy to the touch, as when I last and wreathe this tiny curl about my finger.
I did image, then, thy reign excelling mine.
It is fulfilled, and I die happy.
Bless thee, King of August. Dies. He's dead, and I am fatherless again. King, did he hail me? Shall I make that word a spell to bid all happiness awake throughout the lovely land that fathered me in my forsaken childhood? He sees the knife on the ground and takes it up. Most vain dream! This austere monitor hath bid me vanish, e'er half revealed. Come back, thou truant steel, and half of the work of the gods absolve thee from. The rest remains. Lie there. He conceals the knife in his vest, shouts heard without. The voice of joy! Is this thy funeral wailing? O my father, mournful and brief will be thy heritage thou leavest me. Yet I promise thee in death to grasp it, and I will embrace it now.
Enter Agenor. Thus the king live. Alas, in me! The son of him whose princely spirit is at rest claims his ancestral honors. Thy thought anticipates the prayer of Argus, roused to sudden joy. The sages wait without to greet thee. Wilt thou confer with them tonight?
Now. The city's state allows the past no sorrow. I attend them. Exuant. Scene Two. Before the Gate of the City. Fulcian on guard. Fool that I was to take this idle office, at most inglorious distance from the scene which shall be freedom's birthplace, to endure the fantasies of danger which the soul, uncheered by action, coldly dallies with. Till it begins to shiver. Long ere this, if Ion's hand be firm, the deed is passed, and yet no shout announces that the bonds of tyranny are broken. Shouts at a distance. Hark! Tis done. All hail, my brother Freeman. Art not so? Thy looks are haggard. Is the tyrant slain? Is liberty achieved? The king is dead. This arm I bless the righteous Furies. Slew him.
Did Ion quail, then? Ion? Clothe thy speech in phrase more courtly. He is King of Argos, accepted as the tyrant's son, and reigns. It cannot be. I can believe him born of such high lineage. Yet he will not change his own rich treasury of unruffled thoughts, for all the frigid glories that invest the loveless state in which the monarch dwells. A terror and a slave? Shouts again. Dost hear that shout? Tis raised for him. The craven-hearted world is ever eager thus to hail a master, and patriots might for it in vain. Our soldiers, in the gay recklessness of men who sport with life as with a plaything, citizens, on wretched beds gaping for show, and sages, vain of a royal sophist, madly join in humble prayer that He would deign to tread upon their necks, and he is pleased to grant it.
He shall not grant it. If my life, my sense, my heart's affections, and my tongue's free scope, weight the dominion of a mortal will, what is the sound to me, whether my soul bear Ion or Adrastos burnt within it, as my heart's sole owner? Ion, tyrant? No. Grant me a moment's pleading with his heart, which has not known a selfish throb till now. And thou shalt see him smile this greatness from him. Go teach the eagle, when in azure heaven he upward darts to seize his maddened prey, shivering through the death-circle of its sphere, to pause and let it scape, and thou mayst win man to forego the sparkling round of power, when it floats airily within his grasp. Why thus severe? Are nature's common wrongs affect thee not?
And that which touched thee nearly is well avenged. Not while the son of him who smote my father reigns. I little guessed thou wouldst require a prompter to awake the memory of the oath so freshly sworn, or of the place assigned to thee by lot should our first champion fail to crush the race. Mark me, the race of him my arm has dealt with. Now is the time, the palace all confused. And the prince dizzy with strange turns of fortune to do thy part. Have mercy on my weakness. If thou hadst known this comrade of my sports, one of the same small household whom his mirth unfailing gladdened, if a thousand times thou hadst, by strong prosperity made thoughtless, touched his unfathered nature in its nerve of agony, and felt no chiding glance, hadst thou beheld him over tax's strength to serve the wish his genial instinct guessed?
Till his dim smile the weariness betrayed, which it would fain dissemble. Hadst thou known in sickness the sweet magic of his care, thou couldst not ask it. Hear me, Tassiphon, if I had a deadly fever once, and slaves fed me, he watched, and glided to my bed, and soothed my dull ear with discourse which grew by nice degrees to ravishment, till pain seemed an heroic sense, which made me kin to the great deeds he pictured. And the brood of dizzy weakness flickering through the gloom of my small-curtained prison caught the hues of beauty spangling out in glorious change, and it became a luxury to lie and faintly listen. Canst thou bid me slay him? The deed be mine. Thou'll not betray me? Go in. Hold.
If by our dreadful compact he must fall, I will not smite him with my coward thought, winging a distant arm. I will confront him. Armed with delicious memories of our youth, and pierce him through them all. Be speedy, then. Fear not that I shall prove a laggard, charged with weight of such a purpose. Fate commands, and I live now but to perform her bidding. Exuant Tassafon right, Phocion left. Scene Three. A Terrace in the Garden of the Palace. Moonlight. Enter Ion and Agenor. Center. Wilt thou not in to rest? My rest is here, beneath the greatness of the heavens, which oars my spirit, tossed by sudden change, and torn by various passions to repose. Yet age requires more genial nourishment. Pray, seek it.
I will but stay thee to inquire once more. If any symptom of returning health bless the wan city— No. The perishing lift up their painful heads to bless thy name, and their eyes kindle as the arrowlet. But still they perish. So, give instant order. The rites which shall confirm me in my throne be solemnized tomorrow. How, so soon? Will the more sacred duties to the dead remain unpaid? Let them abide my time. They will not tarry long. I see thee gaze with wonder on me. Do my bidding now, and trust me till to-morrow. Pray go in. The night will chill thee else. Farewell, my lord. Exit right. Now all is stillness in my breast. How soon to be displaced by a more profound repose, in which no thread of consciousness shall live, to feel how calm it is.
O lamp-serene, do I lift up to thee undazzled eyes for the last time. Shall I enjoy no more thy golden haziness, which seem akin to my young fortune's dim felicity? And when it coldly shall embrace the urn that shall contain my ashes, will no thought of all the sweet ones cherished by thy beams awake to tremble with them? Vain regret. The pathway of my duty lies in sunlight, and I would tread it with his firmer step, though it should terminate in cold oblivion, as if Elysian pleasures at its close gleamed palpable to sight of things of earth. Who passes there? Enter Phocion, upper entrance left, who strikes at Ion with a dagger. This to the King of Argos. Aion struggles with him, seizes the dagger which he throws away.
I will not fall by thee, poor wavering novice in the assassin's trade. Thy arm is feeble. He confronts Phocion. Phocion! Was this well aimed? Thou didst not mean— I meant to take thy life, urged by remembrance of yesterday's great vow. And couldst thou think I had forgotten? Thou? Couldst thou believe that one whose nature had been armed to stop the life's blood current in a fellow's veins would hesitate when gentler duty turned his steel to nearer use? Tomorrow's dawn shall see me will the sceptre of my fathers. Come, watch beside my throne, and— If I fail in sternest duty which my country needs, my bosom will be open to thy steel, as now to thy embrace. Thus let me fall, lowered thy feet, and kneeling.
Here receive forgiveness. Do not crush me with more love than lies in the word pardon. And that word will I not speak. What have I to forgive? A devious fancy? A muscle raised, obedient to its impulse? Dost thou think the tracings of a thousand kindnesses, which taught me all I guessed of brotherhood, are in the rashness of a moment lost? I cannot look upon thee. Let me go and lose myself in darkness. Nay, O playmate, we part not thus. The duties of my state will shortly end our fellowship, but spend a few short minutes with me. Dost remember how in a night like this we climbed yon hills, two vagrant urchins, and with tremulous joy skimmed through those statue-bordered walks that gleamed in bright succession?
Let us tread them now, and think we are but older by a day, and that the pleasant walk of yesternight we are to-night retracing. Come, my friend. What? Drooping yet, thou would not want to seem so stubborn. Cheerily, my Phocion, come.
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5 05 - ACT V 24:40
V. Scene I.
The Terrace of the Palace. Time, the morning of the second day. Two soldiers on guard. A stirring season, comrade. Our new prince has leapt as eagerly into his seat as he had languished an expectant air, weary of nature's kindness to old age. He was esteemed a modest tripling, strange that he should, with such reckless hurry, seize the gaudy shows of power. "'Tis honest nature. The royal instinct was but smouldering in him, and now it blazes forth.' I pray the gods he may not give us cause to mourn his sire. No more. He comes. Enter Ion's center. Why, dear Lord, you're here. Are all the statues decked with festal wreaths, as I commanded? We have been on guard here, by Agenor's order, since the nightfall.
On guard? Well, hasten now and see it done. I need no guards. Excellent soldiers. The awful hour draws near. I am composed to meet it. Phocion comes. He will unman me. Yet he must not go, thinking his presence painful. Enter Phocion left. Friend, good morrow. Thou play'st the courtier early. Canst thou speak, in that old tone of common cheerfulness, that blithely promises delightful years, and hold thy mournful purpose? I have drawn from the selectest fountain of repose a blessed calm. When I lay down to rest, I feared lest bright remembrances of childhood should with untimely visitation mock me. But deep and dreamless have my slumbers been. If sight of thee renews the thoughts of life too busily, I prize the love that wakes them.
O, I cherish them, and let them plead with thee to grant my prayer, that thou wouldst live for Argos, not die for her. Thy gracious life shall win, more than thy death, the favour of the gods. And charm the marble aspect of grim fate into a blessed change. I, who am vowed, and who so late was armed fate's minister, implore thee. Speak to me no more of life. There is a dearer name I would recall. Thou understandest me. Enter Agenor, left. Thou hast forgotten the name who shall be bidden at this evening's feast. The feast? Most true. I had forgotten it. Bid whom thou wilt, but let there be a large store, if our sad walls contain it, for the wretched whom hunger palsies. It may be few else will taste it with a relish.
Exit Aginor left. Aion resumes his address to Phocion, and continues it, broken by the interruptions which follow. I would speak a word of her who yestermorn rose to her light duties. With as blithe a heart as ever yet its equal beating veiled, in moveless alabaster, plighted now, in liberal hour, to one whose destiny shall freeze the sources of enjoyment in it, and make it heavy with a lifelong pang a widowed spirit bears. Enter Cleon left. The heralds wait to learn the hour which the solemn game shall be proclaimed. The games. Yes, I remember that sorrow's darkest pageantries give place to youth's robustest pastimes, death and life embracing at the hour of noon. The wrestlers pray thee crown the victor.
If I live, their wish shall govern me. Could I recall one hour and bid thy sister think of me with gentle sorrow? As a playmate lost, I should escape the guilt of having stopped the pulse of hope. In the most innocent soul that ever passion ruffled. Do not talk of me, as I shall seem to thy kind thoughts, but harshly as thou canst. And if thou still from thy rich Enter Cassander Wright. Of thy once cherished friends to bid thee joy, of that which swells their pride. They'll madden me. Dost thou not see me circled round with care? Urge me no more. As Cassander is going, Ion leaves Sosyon, and comes to him. Come back, Cassander. See how greatness frets the temper. Keep this ring. It may remind thee of the pleasant hours that we spent together ere our fortunes grew separate, and with thy gracious speech excuse me to our friends.
Exit Cassandra Wright. Tis time we seek the temple. Phocion, must I to the temple? Their sacrificial rites must be performed before thou art enthroned. Then must I gaze on things which will arouse the struggling thoughts I had subdued. Perchance. May meet with her, whose name I dare not utter. I am ready. Excellent at left. Scene Two. The Temple. Clemanthe and Abra discovered. Be comforted, dear lady. He must come to sacrifice. Recall that churlish word, that stubborn must, that bounds my living hopes as with an iron circle. He must come. How piteous its affection state that gleaves to such a wretched prop. I had flown to him long before this, but that I feared my presence might prove a burthen.
And he sends no word, no token that he thinks of me. Aren't sure that he must come? The hope has torture in it. Yet it is all my bankrupt heart hath left to feed upon. I see him now with Phocion pass through the inner court. He will not come this way, then, to the place for sacrifice. I can endure no more. Speed to him, Abra, and bid him, if he holds Clemanthe's life worthy a minute's loss, to seek me here. Dear lady. Do not answer me. But run, or I shall give yon crowd of sycophants to gaze upon my sorrow. It is hard, yet I must strive to bear it, and find solace in that high fortune which has made him strange. He bends this way, but slowly, mournfully. Oh, he is ill! How has my slander wronged him?
What wouldst thou with me, lady? Is it so? Nothing, my lord, save to implore thy pardon, that the departing gleams of a bright dream, from which I scarce had wakened, made me bold to crave a word with thee. But all are fled, and I have naught to seek. A goodly dream, but thou art right to think it no more, and study to forget it. To forget it? Indeed, my lord, I cannot wish to lose. What, being past, is all my future hath, all I shall live for? Do not grudge me this, the brief space I shall need it. Speak not, fair one, in a tone so mournful, for it makes me feel too sensibly the hapless wretch I am, that troubled the deep quiet of thy soul in that pure fountain which reflected heaven, for a brief taste of rapture.
Dost thou yet esteem at rapture, then? My foolish heart, be still. Yet wherefore should a crown divide us? O my dear Ion, let me call thee so, this once at least. It could not in my thoughts increase the distance that there was between us, when, rich in spirit, thou to strangers' eyes seemed a poor foundling. It must separate us. Think it no harmless bauble, but a curse, will freeze the current in the veins of youth, and from familiar touch of genial hand, from household of pleasures, from sweet daily task, from airy thought, free wanderer of the heavens, for ever banish me. Thou dost accuse thy state too hardly. It may give some room, some little space, amid its radiant folds. for love to make its nest in.
Not for me. My pomp must be most lonesome, far removed from that sweet fellowship of humankind the slave rejoices in. My solemn robes shall wrap me as a panoply of ice, and the attendants who may throng around me shall want the flatteries which may basely warm the septural thing they circle. Dark and cold stretches the path, which, when I wear the crown, I needs must enter. The great gods forbid that thou shouldst follow in it. O, unkind! And shall we never see each other? Aion, after a pause. Yes. I have asked that dreadful question of the hills that look eternal. Of the flowing streams that lucid flow forever, of the stars, amid whose fields of azure my raised spirit hath trod in glory, all were dumb.
But now, while I gaze upon thy living face, I feel the love that kindles through its beauty can never wholly perish. We shall meet again, Clamante. Bless thee for that name. Call me that name again. Thy words sound strangely, yet they breathe kindness. Shall we meet indeed? Think not I would intrude upon thy cares, thy counsels, or thy pomps, to sit at distance, to weave, with the nice labor which preserves the rebel pulses even, from gay threads, faint records of thy deeds. and sometimes catch the falling music of a gracious word or the stray sunshine of a smile, will be comfort enough. Do not deny me this, or, if stern fate compel thee to deny, kill me at once. No, thou must live, my fair one.
There are a thousand joyous things in life which shall pass unheeded in a life of joy As thine hath been, till breezy sorrow comes to ruffle it, and daily duties paid hardly at first, at length shall bring repose to the sad mind that studies to perform them. Thou dost not mark me. Oh, I do. I do. If for thy brother's and father's sake thou art content to live, the healer time will reconcile thee to the lovelier things of this delightful world, and if another a happier—no, I cannot bid thee love another. I did think I could say it, but tis in vain. Thou art my own, then. Still? I am thy own. Thus let me clasp thee nearer. Oh joy, too thrilling and too short. Enter Ajinor, right. My lord, the sacrificial rites await thy presence.
I come. One more embrace. The last. The last. In this world. Now, farewell. Exun Ajinor and Aion. The last embrace. Then he has cast me off. No. "'Tis not so. Some mournful secret of his fate divides us. I'll struggle to bear that, and snatch a comfort from seeing him uplifted. I will look upon him on his throne. Minerva's shrine will shelter me from vulgar gaze. I'll hasten and feast my sad eyes with his greatness there." On the left, a throne of state prepared. On the right, an altar. The statues decorated with garlands. Enter Ctesiphon and Cassander, right upper entrance. Vex me no more, by telling me, Cassander, of his fair speech. I prize it at its worth. Thou'llt see how he will act, when seated firm upon the throne the craven tyrant filled, whose blood he boasts.
Unless some honest arm should shed it first. Hast thou forgot the time when thou thyself wert eager to foretell his manhood's glory? From his childish virtues? Let me not think thee one of those fond prophets who are well pleased still to foretell success. So it remains their dream. Thou dost forget what has chilled fancy and delight within me. Music at a distance. Hark! Servile trumpet speak is coming. Watch how power will change him. They stand aside. The procession. Enter upper entrance right, Medan, Agenor, Phocion, Timocles, Cleon, Sages, and People. Ion lasts in royal robes. He advances amidst shouts. I thank you for your greeting. Shout no more, but in deep silence raise your hearts to heaven, that it may strengthen one so young and frail as I am for the business of this hour.
Must I sit here? Permit thy earliest friend, who has so often propped thy tottering steps, To lead thee to thy throne, and thus fulfill his fondest vision. Thou art most kind. Nay, do not think of me. My son, my son, what ails thee? When thou shouldst reflect the joy of Argos, the strange paleness of the grave marbles thy face. Am I indeed so pale? It is a solemn office, I assume. And yet, thus, with Phoebus's blessing, I embrace it. Sits on the throne. Stand forth, Agenor. I await thy will. To thee I look as to the wisest friend of this afflicted people. Thou must leave awhile the quiet which thy life hath earned to rule our councils. Fill the seats of justice with good men. Not so absolute in goodness as to forget what human frailty is, and order my sad country.
Pardon me. Nay, I will promise tis my last request. Thou never couldst deny me what I sought in my boyish wantonness, and shall not grudge thy wisdom to me till our state revive from its long anguish. And it will not be long if heaven approve me here. Thou hast all power, whether I live or die. Die. I am old. Death is not jealous of thy mild decay, which gently wins thee his. Exulting youth provokes the ghastly monarch's sudden stride, and makes his horrid fingers quick to clasp his shivering prey at noontide. Let me see the captain of the garden. I kneel to crave, humbly the favor which thy sire bestowed, on one who loved him well. I cannot thank thee that wakest the memory of my father's weakness.
But I will not forget that thou hast shared the light enjoyments of a noble spirit, and learned the need of luxury, I grant for thee and thy brave comrades ample share of such rich treasures as my stores contain, to grace thy passage to some distant land, where, if an honest cause engage thy sword, may glorious laurels wreathe it. In our realm we shall not need it longer. Dost intend to banish the firm troops before whose valor Barbarian millions shrink up holland and leave our city naked to the first assault of reckless foes. No cry fees, and our cells and our own honest hearts and chainless hands will be our safeguard. While we seek no use of arms, we would not have our children blend with their first innocent wishes.
While the love of Argos and of Justice shall be won to their young reason, while their sinews grow firm midst the gladness of heroic sports, we shall not ask to guard our country's peace one selfish passion or one venal sword. I would not grieve thee, but thy valiant troop, for I esteem them valiant, must no more. With luxury which suits a desperate camp, infect us. See that they embark, Agenor, ere night. My lord! No more. My word hath passed. Maedon, there is no office I can add to those thou hast grown old in. Thou wilt guard the shrine of Phoebus, and within thy home, thy too delightful home, befriend the stranger as thou didst me. There sometimes waste the thought. on thy spirl'd inmate.
Think of thee, my lord. Long shall we triumph in thy glorious reign. Prithee, no more. Argives, I have a boon to crave of you. Whene'er I shall join in death the father from whose heart in life stern fate divided me, think gently of him. For ye who saw him In his full-blown pride, knew little of affections crushed within, and wrongs which frenzied him. Yet nevermore let the great interest of states depend upon the thousand chances that may sway a piece of human frailty. Swear to me that you will seek hereafter in yourselves the means of sovereign rule. Our narrow space, so happy in its confines, so compact, needs not the magic of a single name, Which wider regions may require to draw their interest into one, but, circled thus, like a blessed family, by simple laws may tenderly be governed.
All decrees molded together as a single form of nymph-like loveliness, which Finest chords of sympathy pervading shall suffuse in times of quiet with one bloom, and fill with one resistless impulse. If the host of foreign power should threaten, swear to me that ye will do this. Wherefore ask this now? Thou shalt live long. The paleness of thy face, which late appalled me, is grown radiant now, and thine eyes kindle with the prophecy of lustrous years. The gods approve me, then. Yet will I use the function of a king and claim obedience, promise, if I leave no issue, that sovereign power will live In the affections of a general heart, and in the wisdom of the best. We swear it! Hear and record the oath of mortal powers.
Now give me leave a moment to approach that altar unattended. He goes to the altar. Gracious gods, in whose mild service my glad youth was spent, look upon me now. And if there is a power, as at this solemn time I feel there is, beyond ye that hath breathed through all your shapes the spirit of the beautiful that lives in earth and heaven, to ye I offer up this conscious being, full of life and love for my dear country's welfare, Let this blow end all her sorrows. Stabs himself and falls. Tassiphon rushes to support him. Tassiphon, thou art avenged, and wilt forgive me. Thou hast plucked the poor disguise of hatred from my soul, and made me feel how shallow is the wish of vengeance. Could I die to save thee?
Clemente rushes forward. Hold! Let me support him. Stand away. Indeed, I have the best right, although ye know it not, to cling to him in death. This is a joy I did not hope for. This is sweet indeed. Bend thy eyes on me. And for this it was thou wouldst have weaned me from thee. Couldst thou think I would be so divorced? Thou art right, Clomontë. It was a shallow and an idle thought. Tis past. No show of coldness frets us now. No vain disguise, my love. Yet thou wilt think on that which, when I feigned, I truly said. Wilt thou not, sweet one? I will treasure all. Enter Eris left. I bring you glorious tidings.
No joy can enter here. Yes. Is it as I hope? The pestilence abates. Aion springs on his feet. Do ye not hear? Why shout ye not? Ye are strong. Think not of me. Hearken! The curse of my ancestry had spread. Or Argos is dispell'd. Agenor, give this gentle youth his freedom, who hath wrought sweet tidings, that I shall not die in vain. And Maedon, cherish him as thou hast won, who, dying, blesses thee. My own Clamante, let this console thee all, though. Argos, Lives. The offering is accepted. All is well. Dies. The curtain falls. End of Act Five. End of Ion by Thomas Noon Talford.