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AEpytus

Might some one straight inform him he is sought?

The Chorus

Inform him that thyself, for here he comes.

[POLYPHONTES comes forth, with ATTENDANTS and
GUARDS.

AEpytus

O King, all hail! I come with weighty news;
Most likely, grateful; but, in all case, sure.

Polyphontes

Speak them, that I may judge their kind myself.

AEpytus

Accept them in one word, for good or bad:
AEpytus, the Messenian prince, is dead!

Polyphontes

Dead!–and when died he? where? and by what hand?
And who art thou, who bringest me such news?

AEpytus

He perish’d in Arcadia, where he dwelt
With Cypselus; and two days since he died.
One of the train of Cypselus am I.

Polyphontes

Instruct me of the manner of his death.

AEpytus

That will I do, and to this end I came.
For, being of like age, of birth not mean,
The son of an Arcadian noble, I
Was chosen his companion from a boy;
And on the hunting-rambles which his heart,
Unquiet, drove him ever to pursue
Through all the lordships of the Arcadian dales,
From chief to chief, I wander’d at his side,
The captain of his squires, and his guard.
On such a hunting-journey, three morns since,
With beaters, hounds, and huntsmen, he and I
Set forth from Tegea, the royal town.
The prince at start seem’d sad, but his regard
Clear’d with blithe travel and the morning air.
We rode from Tegea, through the woods of oaks,
Past Arne spring, where Rhea gave the babe
Poseidon to the shepherd-boys to hide
From Saturn’s search among the new-yean’d lambs,
To Mantineia, with its unbaked walls;
Thence, by the Sea-God’s Sanctuary and the tomb
Whither from wintry Maenalus were brought
The bones of Arcas, whence our race is named,
On, to the marshy Orchomenian plain,
And the Stone Coffins;–then, by Caphyae Cliffs,
To Pheneos with its craggy citadel.
There, with the chief of that hill-town, we lodged
One night; and the next day at dawn fared on
By the Three Fountains and the Adder’s Hill
To the Stymphalian Lake, our journey’s end,
To draw the coverts on Cyllene’s side.
There, on a high green spur which bathes its point
Far in the liquid lake, we sate, and drew
Cates from our hunters’ pouch, Arcadian fare,
Sweet chestnuts, barley-cakes, and boar’s-flesh dried;
And as we ate, and rested there, we talk’d
Of places we had pass’d, sport we had had,
Of beasts of chase that haunt the Arcadian hills,
Wild hog, and bear, and mountain-deer, and roe;
Last, of our quarters with the Arcadian chiefs.
For courteous entertainment, welcome warm,
Sad, reverential homage, had our prince
From all, for his great lineage and his woes;
All which he own’d, and praised with grateful mind.
But still over his speech a gloom there hung,
As of one shadow’d by impending death;
And strangely, as we talk’d, he would apply
The story of spots mention’d to his own;
Telling us, Arne minded him, he too
Was saved a babe, but to a life obscure,
Which he, the seed of Heracles, dragg’d on
Inglorious, and should drop at last unknown,
Even as those dead unepitaph’d, who lie
In the stone coffins at Orchomenus.
And, then, he bade remember how we pass’d
The Mantinean Sanctuary, forbid
To foot of mortal, where his ancestor,
Named AEpytus like him, having gone in,
Was blinded by the outgushing springs of brine.
Then, turning westward to the Adder’s Hill–
Another ancestor, named, too, like me,
Died of a snake-bite, said he, on that brow;
Still at his mountain-tomb men marvel, built
Where, as life ebb’d, his bearers laid him down.
So he play’d on; then ended, with a smile:
This region is not happy for my race.
We cheer’d him; but, that moment, from the copse
By the lake-edge, broke the sharp cry of hounds;
The prickers shouted that the stag was gone.
We sprang upon our feet, we snatch’d our spears,
We bounded down the swarded slope, we plunged
Through the dense ilex-thickets to the dogs.
Far in the woods ahead their music rang;
And many times that morn we coursed in ring
The forests round that belt Cyllene’s side;
Till I, thrown out and tired, came to halt
On that same spur where we had sate at morn.
And resting there to breathe, I watch’d the chase–
Rare, straggling hunters, foil’d by brake and crag,
And the prince, single, pressing on the rear
Of that unflagging quarry and the hounds.
Now in the woods far down I saw them cross
An open glade; now he was high aloft
On some tall scar fringed with dark feathery pines,
Peering to spy a goat-track down the cliff,
Cheering with hand, and voice, and horn his dogs.
At last the cry drew to the water’s edge–
And through the brushwood, to the pebbly strand,
Broke, black with sweat, the antler’d mountain-stag,
And took the lake. Two hounds alone pursued,
Then came the prince; he shouted and plunged in.
–There is a chasm rifted in the base
Of that unfooted precipice, whose rock
Walls on one side the deep Stymphalian Lake;
There the lake-waters, which in ages gone
Wash’d, as the marks upon the hills still show,
All the Stymphalian plain, are now suck’d down.
A headland, with one aged plane-tree crown’d,
Parts from this cave-pierced cliff the shelving bay
Where first the chase plunged in; the bay is smooth,
But round the headland’s point a current sets,
Strong, black, tempestuous, to the cavern-mouth.
Stoutly, under the headland’s lee, they swam;
But when they came abreast the point, the race
Caught them as wind takes feathers, whirl’d them round
Struggling in vain to cross it, swept them on,
Stag, dogs, and hunter, to the yawning gulph.
All this, O King, not piecemeal, as to thee
Now told, but in one flashing instant pass’d.
While from the turf whereon I lay I sprang
And took three strides, quarry and dogs were gone;
A moment more–I saw the prince turn round
Once in the black and arrowy race, and cast
An arm aloft for help; then sweep beneath
The low-brow’d cavern-arch, and disappear.
And what I could, I did–to call by cries
Some straggling hunters to my aid, to rouse
Fishers who live on the lake-side, to launch
Boats, and approach, near as we dared, the chasm.
But of the prince nothing remain’d, save this,
His boar-spear’s broken shaft, back on the lake
Cast by the rumbling subterranean stream;
And this, at landing spied by us and saved,
His broad-brimm’d hunter’s hat, which, in the bay,
Where first the stag took water, floated still.
And I across the mountains brought with haste
To Cypselus, at Basilis, this news–
Basilis, his new city, which he now
Near Lycosura builds, Lycaon’s town,
First city founded on the earth by men.
He to thee sends me on, in one thing glad,
While all else grieves him, that his grandchild’s death
Extinguishes distrust ‘twixt him and thee.
But I from our deplored mischance learn this:
The man who to untimely death is doom’d,
Vainly you hedge him from the assault of harm;
He bears the seed of ruin in himself.