All your griefs to the distance;
Share in your mistress' joy:
Share in fair Helen's joy,
Which to the hearth of her ancestors
Though with a foot late returning
Yet with a surer and firmer one
Joyfully now is approaching.
Praise ye the holy ones,
Kindly restoring ones,
The Deities-the home-leading!
Floats the unchained one yet
As upon pinions
Over the roughest, though vainly
The prisoner, with longings filled,
Over the prison's battlements forth
Stretching his arms, doth sorrow.
But a God laid hold on her
Her the distant;
And from Ilion's fall
Bore her hither with him back
Into the newly-adorned—the ancient
Father-house,
After ineffable
Pleasures and torments,
Panthalis (as Chorus-leader).
Come leave ye now the joy surrounded path of song
And towards the folding gates your glances turn.
Sisters, what see I? Doth not now the queen return
With hurried steps and motion back to us?
What is it, mighty queen, alas, and what could meet
Thee in thy palace halls, except thy servants greeting dear, Which thus should shake thee: this thou canst not, queen conceal, For I perceive abhorrence on thy lofty brow,
A noble anger, that contends with deep surprize.
Helen (who has left the folding gates open) disturbed.
Jove's daughter light and common fear beseemeth not,
Nor moveth her a quick and flighty hand of dread;
And yet the horror, rising from night's bosom old,
Springing from time's commencement, rolling forth itself
As glowing clouds, out from a mountain's fire-abyss,
In many various shapes, might shake a hero's breast.
Thus have to day in horrid sort, the Stygian gods
So shown the entrance to my house, that willingly,
From the oft-stepped-the much-desired threshold, I
Would now withdraw, and part like a dismissèd guest.
Yet no! I have retreated to the light, and
Whoe'er ye be, ye powers, shall drive me hence no more.
I'll think on consecration, that the fire's glow
Once purified, may hail the lady like the lord.
Unto thy servants, who thee reverencing stand
Around, O noble lady, tell what has befallen.
What I have seen, your eyes themselves shall too behold,
If ancient night hath not her phantom swallowed up
Again into the wonder-bosom of her depths.
And yet that ye may know 't, in words I'll tell it ye:
When I made solemn entry in the darksome inner space
Of the king's house, of duty great bethinking me :
I was astonished at the empty passage's silentness.
No sound of servants passing by industrious
Struck on my ear, no busy hastening met my eye,
No maid appeared before my sight, no stewardess,
Who during former times, each stranger greeted well.
But when I to the bosom of the hearth approached,
There saw I by the remnant of the half extinguished ash,
Seated upon the ground a woman, tall and veiled,
Not like a sleeper, but more like a thinking one.
With words commanding, I to work incited her,
Supposing her to be the stewardess, whom perhaps,
My husband's foresight, when he left, appointed here;
Yet still infolded sits there the unmoveable:
At last I threatened, and her right arm then she moved,
As if to motion me away from hearth and hall.
Angry I turned me from her, and with haste I come
Up to the steps whereon aloft the Thalamus
Raises its ornaments, and near the treasure room;
But straight the wonder rouses swiftly from the ground,
And stands commanding in my way, and shows itself
In haggard vastness, with a hollow bloody look,
Of strange appearance, and confounding eyes and soul.
Yet do I speak to air; in vain I strive in words,
To build before you, and create a form like hers.
There is she! see! She dares to venture forth to light!
Here are we masters, till the lord and monarch comes.
These dreadful night-births, Phoebus, friend of beauty he,
Drives back into their caves or tames to gentleness.
Phorkyas (stepping on to the threshold between the door-posts.)
Chorus. Much have I lived through, altho' my tresses
Still wave youthfully over my temples!
I have beheld too much of horror,
Warlike misery, and Ilion's night,
When she fell.
Through the beclouded-the dust-raising tumult
Of thronging warriors, Gods I was hearing,
Fearfully shouting, was hearing the discord.
Of brazen voices sound thro' the field, ·
Towards the walls.
Ah, yet stood they, Ilion's
Walls; but the glow of flames,
Spread from neighbour to neighbour on,
Extending onward from here to there,
With the waving of their own storms,
O'er the nocturnal town.
Flying I saw thro' the smoke and glow,
And through the glance of the tonguèd flame,
The approach of vengefully angry. gods,
Striding forms of great wonder,
Gloomily and gigantic,
Passing thro' fire-surrounded steam.
Did I see it, or did my spirit,
Surrounded with anguish, image forth
Such confusion? O never
Ne'er can I say: but certain
Am I that with my eyes I see
This frightful form before me;
Yes! with my hands I could grasp it,
Did not my fear from the dangerous
Hold me back in terror.
O which of Phorcys'
Daughters art thou?
For I must liken thee
Unto that offspring:
Art thou, perhaps, of the grey born,
One
eye and one tooth
By turns possessing
Aged ones, come here?
Dar'st thou, O monster,
Come near to beauty,
Or before Phoebus'
Searching look show thee?
Yet may'st thou still step forward,
For the hateful he ne'er beholds,
For never has his holy eye.
Yet beheld the shadows.
Yet evil fate compels us,
Compels us mortals, ah sorrow!
To this ineffable eyesore,
Which the contemptible, ever unblessèd,
Stirs in us lovers of beauty.
Yet hear thou now, an thou dar'st
To meet us, hear our curse,
Hear the threat of every blame
Out of the cursing mouths of the happy,
Who by the Deities are created.
The saying's old, and yet the meaning's high and true,
That shame and beauty ne'er together, hand in hand,
Went on their journey o'er earth's fair and verdant path.
Deep and inrooted dwells in each an ancient hate,
That wheresoe'er each other in their journeyings
They meet, each from her adversary turns away;
Then each again more passionately hastens on:
Shame of affliction, but of boldness beauty full,
Till Orcus' hollow night at length environs them,
If old age coming hath not fettered them before.
I find ye here, ye bold ones, from a stranger land,
With haughtiness o'erfoaming like the shrilly train
Of clanging cranes, that high above our heads adown
From their long clouds pour forth their croaking sounds,
Which the still wanderer to gaze above entice;
And yet upon their onward course they move away,
While he pursues his path: thus will it be with us.
Who are ye then, who dare around the monarch's gates,
To rage, like Mænads wild, or like a drunken band?
Who are ye then, who dare to bay the stewardess,
In dreadful howlings, as hounds bay the silver moon?
And think ye then, I know not of what race ye are?
Thou war-begotten, battle-nourished, youthful brood!
Seducing and seduced, lascivious wanton band!
Unnerving citizen's and warrior's strength alike!
Thronged in my sight, ye seem me like a locust swarm,
Pouring adown and covering verdant harvest-fields,
Ye wasters of another's care! devourers ye,
Annihilators of prosperity in bloom!
Thou conquered, marketed, exchanged merchandise!
Whoe'er the servants in the mistress' presence chides,
On her prerogative encroaches daringly;
That which deserves her praise, to her alone belongs
To praise, and that to punish which shall merit it.
And with the service well am I contented, which
They rendered, when the lofty strength of Ilios
Besieged was, and fell, and sank: nor less indeed,
When we endured the miserable changeful woe
Which marked our course, when none think else but of them-
Here also from this cheerful company, I expect the like;
Not what the slave is, asks the lord, but how he serves,
Therefore be silent, and no longer snarl at them.
If thou hast kept the palace of the monarch well
In the Dame's absence, that shall be for praise to thee;
But now that she in person comes, step back again, Lest 'stead of merited reward, thou punished art. Phorkyas.
To threaten servants is a mighty privilege,
Which a God-favoured ruler's lofty wife full well,
Through wise behaviour of full many a year, deserves.
Since thou, now recognised, thine ancient place of queen
And of the lady of the house return'st to take,
Receive the long time loosened reins, and govern now,
Possess the treasures, and together us with them.
How ugly near to beauty seemeth ugliness.
How ignorant near prudence seemeth ignorance.
(From this time the Choristers answer, stepping one by one out of the
Tell of thy father Erebus-thy mother night. Phorkyas.
Of thine own cousin Scylla, prithee, tell us now. Second Chorister.
There's many a monster in thy genealogy.
To Orcus hence away! and seek thy kindred there. Third Chorister.
Those who inhabit there are much too young for thee. Phorkyas.
Address thyself to woo the old Tiresias.
She who Orion nursed was thy great grand-daughter. Phorkyas.
I think that harpies reared thee up in dirt and filth. Fifth Chorister.
Such cherished leanness, tell us, how thou nourishest? Phorkyas.
'Tis not with blood, of which thou all desirous art. Sixth Chorister.
Thou hunger'st after corpses, nasty corpse thyself! Phorkyas.
In thy bold mouth are shining teeth vampyrian. Chorus-leader.
Thine should I stop, if I but told thee who thou art. Phorkyas.
Name thyself first, and then the riddle will be cleared. Helen. Not angry but in grief, between you now I step, Forbidding strict this quarrel's angry noisiness!
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