ACT II.
Scene I.—Orestes, Pylades.
ORESTES.
It is the path of death that now we tread:
At every step my soul grows more serene.
When I implored Apollo to remove
The grisly band of Furies from my side,
He seemed, with hope-inspiring, godlike words,
To promise aid and safety in the fane
Of his loved sister, who o'er Tauris rules.
Thus the prophetic word fulfils itself,
That with my life shall terminate my woe.
How easy 'tis for me, whose heart is crushed,
Whose sense is deadened by a hand divine,
Thus to renounce the beauteous light of day!
And must the son of Atreus not entwine
The wreath of conquest round his dying brow?
Must I, as my forefathers, as my sire,
Bleed like a victim,—an ignoble death?
So be it! Better at the alter here,
Than in a nook obscure, where kindred hands
Have spread assassinations, wily net.
Yield me this brief repose, infernal Powers!
Ye, who, like loosened hounds, still scent the blood
Which, trickling from my feet, betrays my path.
Leave me! ere long I come to you below.
Nor you, nor I, should view the light of day.
The soft green carpet of the beauteous earth
Is no arena for unhallowed fiends.
Below I seek you, where an equal fate
Binds all in murky, never-ending night.
Thee only, thee, my Pylades, my friend,
The guiltless partner of my crime and curse,
Thee am I loath, before thy time, to take
To yonder cheerless shore! Thy life or death
Alone awakens in me hope or fear.
PYLADES.
Like thee, Orestes, I am not prepared
Downwards to wander to yon realm of shade.
I purpose still, through the entangled paths,
Which seem as they would lead to blackest night,
Again to wind our upward way to life.
Of death I think not: I observe and mark
Whether the gods may not perchance present
Means and fit moment for a joyful flight.
Dreaded or not, the stroke of death must come,
And though the priestess stood with hand upraised,
Prepared to cut our consecrated locks,
Our safety still should be my only thought:
Uplift thy soul above this weak despair;
Desponding doubts but hasten on our peril.
Apollo pledged to us his sacred word,
That in his sister's holy fane for thee
Were comfort, aid, and glad return prepared.
The words of Heaven are not equivocal,
As in despair the poor oppressed one thinks.
ORESTES.
The mystic web of life my mother cast
Around my infant head, and so I grew
An image of my sire; and my mute look
Was aye a bitter and a keen reproof
To her and base Ægithus. Oh, how oft,
When silently within our gloomy hall
Electra sat, and mused beside the fire,
Have I with anguished spirit climbed her knee,
And watched her bitter tears with sad amaze!
Then would she tell me of our noble sire:
How much I longed to see him—be with him!
Myself at Troy one moment fondly wished,
My sire's return the next. The day arrived—
PYLADES.
Oh, of that awful hour let fiends of hell
Hold nightly converse! Of a time more fair
May the remembrance animate our hearts
To fresh heroic deeds. The gods require
On this wide earth the service of the good,
To work their pleasure. Still they count on thee;
For in thy father's train they sent thee not,
When he to Orcus went unwilling down.
ORESTES.
Would I had seized the border of his robe,
And followed him!
PYLADES.
They kindly cared for me
Who held thee here: for, hadst thou ceased to live,
I know not what had then become of me;
Since I with thee, and for thy sake alone,
Have from my childhood lived, and wish to live.
ORESTES.
Remind me not of those delightsome days
When me thy home a safe asylum gave:
With fond solicitude thy noble sire
The half-nipped tender floweret gently reared;
While thou, a friend and playmate always gay,
Light to a light and brilliant butterfly
Around a dusky flower, didst day by day
Around me with new life thy gambols urge,
And breathe thy joyous spirit in my soul,
Until, my cares forgetting, I with thee
Was lured to snatch the eager joys of youth.
PYLADES.
My very life began when thee I loved.
ORESTES.
Say, then thy woes began, and thou speakest truly.
This is the sharpest sorrow of my lot,
That, like a plague-infected wretch, I bear
Death and destruction hid within my breast;
That, where I tread, e'en on the healthiest spot,
Ere long the blooming faces round betray
The anguished features of a lingering death.
PYLADES.
Were thy breath venom, I had been the first
To die that death, Orestes. Am I not,
As ever, full of courage and of joy?
And love and courage are the spirit's wings
Wafting to noble actions.
ORESTES.
Noble actions?
Time was, when fancy painted such before us!
When oft, the game pursuing, on we roamed
O'er hill and valley; hoping, that ere long,
Like our great ancestors in heart and hand,
With club and weapon armed, we so might track
The robber to his den, or monster huge.
And then at twilight, by the boundless sea,
Peaceful we sat, reclined against each other;
The waves came dancing to our very feet,
And all before us lay the wide, wide world;
Then on a sudden one would seize his sword,
And future deeds shone round us like the stars,
Which gemmed in countless throngs the vault of night.
PYLADES.
Endless, my friend, the projects which the soul
Burns to accomplish. We would ever deed
At once perform as grandly as it shows
After long ages, when from land to land
The poet's swelling song hath rolled it on.
It sounds so lovely what our fathers did,
When, in the silent evening-shade reclined,
We drink it in with music's melting tones;
And what we do is, as their deeds to them,
Toilsome and incomplete!
Thus we pursue what always flies before:
We disregard the path in which we tread,
Scarce see around the footsteps of our sires,
Or heed the trace of their career on earth.
We ever hasten on to chase their shades,
Which, god-like, at a distance far remote,
On golden clouds, the mountain summits crown.
The man I prize not who esteems himself
Just as the people's breath may chance to raise him.
But thou, Orestes, to the gods give thanks,
That they through thee have early done so much.
ORESTES.
When they ordain a man to noble deeds,
To shield from dire calamity his friends,
Extend his empire, or protect its bounds,
Or put to flight its ancient enemies,
Let him be grateful! For to him a god
Imparts the first, the sweetest, joy of life.
Me have they doomed to be a slaughterer,
To be an honoured mother's murderer,
And, shamefully a deed of shame avenging.
Me through their own decree they have o'erwhelmed.
Trust me, the race of Tantalus is doomed;
And I, his last descendant, may not perish,
Or crowned with honour or unstained by crime.
PYLADES.
The gods avenge not on the son the deeds
Done by their father. Each, or good or bad,
Of his own actions reaps the due reward.
The parents' blessing, not their curse, descends.
ORESTES.
Methinks their blessing did not lead us here.
PYLADES.
It was at least the mighty gods' decree.
ORESTES.
Then is it their decree which doth destroy us.
PYLADES.
Perform what they command, and wait the event.
Do thou Apollo's sister bear from hence,
That they at Delphi may united dwell,
There by a noble-thoughted race revered;
Thee, for this deed, the lofty pair will view
With gracious eye, and from the hateful grasp
Of the infernal Powers will rescue thee.
E'en now none dares intrude within this grove.
ORESTES.
So shall I die at least a peaceful death.
PYLADES.
Far other are my thoughts, and not unskilled
Have I the future and the past combined
In quiet meditation. Long, perchance,
Hath ripened in the counsel of the gods
The great event. Diana years to leave
The savage coast of these barbarians,
Foul with their sacrifice of human blood.
We were selected for the high emprise:
To us it is assigned, and strangely thus
We are conducted to the threshold here.
ORESTES.
My friend, with wondrous skill thou linkest thy wish
With the predestined purpose of the gods.
PYLADES.
Of what avail is prudence, if it fail
Heedful to mark the purposes of Heaven?
A noble man, who much hath sinned, some god
Doth summon to a dangerous enterprise,
Which to achieve appears impossible.
The hero conquers, and atoning serves
Mortals and gods, who thenceforth honour him.
ORESTES.
Am I foredoomed to action and to life,
Would that a god from my distempered brain
Might chase this dizzy fever, which impels
My restless steps along a slippery path,
Stained with a mother's blood, to direful death
And, pitying, dry the fountain, whence the blood,
For ever spouting from a mother's wounds,
Eternally defiles me!
PYLADES.
Wait in peace!
Thou dost increase the evil, and dost take
The office of the Furies on thyself.
Let me contrive—be still! And when at length
The time for action claims our powers combined,
Then will I summon thee, and on we'll stride,
With cautious boldness to achieve the event.
ORESTES.
I hear Ulysses speak.
PYLADES.
Nay, mock me not.
Each must select the hero after whom
To climb the steep and difficult ascent
Of high Olympus. And to me it seems
That him nor stratagem nor art defiles
Who consecrates himself to noble deeds.
ORESTES.
I most esteem the brave and upright man.
PYLADES.
And therefore have I not desired thy counsel.
One step's already taken. From our guards
E'en now I this intelligence have gained,—
A strange and godlike woman holds in check
The execution of that bloody law:
Incense and prayer, and an unsullied heart,—
These are the gifts she offers to the gods.
Rumour extols her highly: it is thought
That from the race of Amazon she springs,
And hither fled some great calamity.
ORESTES.
Her gentle sway, it seems, lost all its power
When hither came the culprit whom the curse,
Like murky night, envelops and pursues.
Our doom to seal, the pious thirst for blood
The ancient cruel rite again unchains:
The monarch's savage will decrees our death;
A woman cannot save when he condemns.
PYLADES.
That 'tis a woman, is a ground for hop!
A man, the very best, with cruelty
At length may so familiarise his mind,
His character through custom so transform,
That he shall come to make himself a law
Of what at first his very soul abhorred.
But woman doth retain the stamp of mind
She first assumed. On her we may depend
In good or evil with more certainty.
She comes: leave us alone. I dare not tell
At once our names, nor unreserved confide
Our fortunes to her. Now, retire awhile;
And ere she speaks with thee we'll meet again.
Scene II.—Iphigenia, Pylades.
IPHIGENIA.
Whence art thou? Stranger, speak! To my thy bearing
Stamps thee of Grecian, not of Scythian, race.
(She unbinds his chains.)
The freedom that I give is dangerous:
The gods avert the doom that threatens you!
PYLADES.
Delicious music! dearly welcome tones
Of our own language in a foreign land!
With joy my captive eye once more beholds
The azure mountains of my native coast.
Oh, let this joy that I too am a Greek
Convince thee, priestess! How I need thine aid,
A moment I forget, my spirit rapt
In contemplation of so fair a vision.
If fate's dread mandate doth not seal thy lips,
From which of our illustrious races say,
Dost thou thy god-like origin derive?
IPHIGENIA.
The priestess whom the goddess hath herself
Selected and ordained doth speak with thee.
Let that suffice; but tell me, who art thou,
And what unblessed o'erruling destiny
Hath hither led thee with thy friend?
PYLADES.
The woe;
Whose hateful presence ever dogs our steps,
I can with ease relate. Oh, would that thou
Couldst with like ease, divine one, shed on us
One ray of cheering hope! We are from Crete,
Adrastus' sons, and I, the youngest born,
Named Cephalus; my eldest brother, he,
Laodamus. Between us stood a youth
Savage and wild, who severed e'en in sport
The joy and concord of our early youth.
Long as our father led his powers at Troy,
Passive our mother's mandate we obeyed;
But when, enriched with booty, he returned,
And shortly after died, a contest fierce,
Both for the kingdom and their father's wealth,
His children parted. I the eldest joined;
He slew our brother; and the Furies hence
For kindred murder dog his restless steps.
But to this savage shore the Delphian god
Hath sent us, cheered by hope. He bade us wait
Within his sister's consecrated fane
The blessed hand of aid. Captives we are;
And, hither brought, before thee now we stand
Ordained for sacrifice. My tale is told.
IPHIGENIA.
Fell Troy! Dear man, assure me of its fall.
PYLADES.
Prostrate it lies. Oh, unto us ensure
Deliverance! The promised aid of heaven
More swiftly bring. Take pity on my brother.
Oh, say to him a kind, a gracious word:
But spare him when thou speakest,—earnestly
This I implore; for all too easily,
Through joy and sorrow and through memory,
Torn and distracted in his inmost being,
A feverish madness oft doth seize on him,
Yielding his spirit, beautiful and free,
A prey to Furies.
IPHIGENIA.
Great as is thy woe,
Forget it, I conjure thee, for awhile,
Till I am satisfied.
PYLADES.
The stately town,
Which ten long years withstood the Grecian host,
Now lies in ruins, ne'er to rise again;
Yet many a hero's grave will oft recall
Our sad remembrance to that barbarous shore.
There lies Achilles and his noble friend.
IPHIGENIA.
So are ye god-like forms reduced to dust!
PYLADES.
Nor Palamede, nor Ajax, e'er again
The daylight of their native land beheld.
IPHIGENIA.
He speaks not of my father, doth not name
Him with the fallen. He may yet survive!
I may behold him! still hope on, fond heart!
PYLADES.
Yet happy are the thousands who received
Their bitter death-blow from a hostile hand!
For terror wild, and end most tragical,
Some hostile, angry deity prepared,
Instead of triumph, for the home-returning.
Do human voices never reach this shore?
Far as their sound extends, they bear the fame
Of deeds unparalleled. And is the woe
Which fills Mycene's halls with ceaseless sighs
To thee a secret still?—And knowest thou not
That Clytemnestra, with Ægisthus' aid,
Her royal consort artfully ensnared,
And murdered on the day of his return?—
The monarch's house thou honourest! I perceive
Thy breast with tidings vainly doth contend
Fraught with such monstrous and unlooked-for woe.
Art thou the daughter of a friend? art born
Within the circuit of Mycene's walls?
Conceal it not, nor call me to account
That here the horrid crime I first announce.
IPHIGENIA.
Proceed, and tell me how the deed was done.
PYLADES.
The day of his return, as from the bath
Arose the monarch, tranquil and refreshed,
His robe demanding from his consort's hand,
A tangled garment, complicate with folds,
She o'er his shoulders flung and noble head:
And when, as from a net, he vainly strove
To extricate himself, the traitor, base
Ægisthus, smote him; and, enveloped thus,
Great Agamemnon sought the shades below.
IPHIGENIA.
And what reward received the base accomplice?
PYLADES.
A queen and kingdom he possessed already.
IPHIGENIA.
Base passion prompted, then, the deed of shame?
PYLADES.
And feelings, cherished long, of deep revenge.
IPHIGENIA.
How had the monarch injured Clytemnestra?
PYLADES.
By such a dreadful deed, that, if on earth
Aught could exculpate murder, it were this:
To Aulis he allured her, when the fleet
With unpropitious winds the goddess stayed;
And there, a victim on Diana's shrine,
The monarch, for the welfare of the Greeks,
Her eldest daughter doomed, Iphigenia.
And this, so rumour saith, within her heart
Planted such deep abhorrence, that forthwith
She to Ægisthus hath resigned herself,
And round her husband flung the web of death.
IPHIGENIA (veiling herself).
It is enough! Thou wilt again behold me.
PYLADES (alone).
The fortune of this royal house, it seems,
Doth move her deeply. Whosoe'er she be,
She must herself have known the monarch well;—
For our good fortune, from a noble house,
She hath been sold to bondage. Peace, my heart!
And let us steer our course with prudent zeal
Toward the star of hope which gleams upon us.