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Arcas

O mistress, by the Gods, do nothing rash!

Merope

Unfaithful servant, dost thou, too, desert me?

Arcas

I go! I go!–The King holds council–there
Will I seek tidings. Take, the while, this word:
Attempting deeds beyond thy power to do,
Thou nothing profitest thy friends, but mak’st
Our misery more, and thine own ruin sure.

[ARCAS goes out.

The Chorus

I have heard, O Queen, how a prince, str. 1.
Agamemnon’s son, in Mycenae,
Orestes, died but in name,
Lived for the death of his foes.

Merope

Peace!

The Chorus

What is it?

Merope

Alas,
Thou destroyest me!

The Chorus

How?

Merope

Whispering hope of a life
Which no stranger unknown,
But the faithful servant and nurse,
Whose tears warrant his truth,
Bears sad witness is lost.

The Chorus

Wheresoe’er men are, there is grief. ant. 1.
In a thousand countries, a thousand
Homes, e’en now is there wail;
Mothers lamenting their sons.

Merope

Yes—-

The Chorus

Thou knowest it?

Merope

This,
Who lives, witnesses.

The Chorus

True.

Merope

But is it only a fate
Sure, all-common, to lose
In a land of friends, by a friend,
One last, murder-saved child?

The Chorus

Ah me! str. 2.

Merope

Thou confessest the prize
In the rushing, thundering, mad,
Cloud-enveloped, obscure,
Unapplauded, unsung
Race of calamity, mine?

The Chorus

None can truly claim that
Mournful preeminence, not
Thou.

Merope

Fate gives it, ah me!

The Chorus

Not, above all, in the doubts,
Double and clashing, that hang—-

Merope

What then? ant. 2.
Seems it lighter, my loss,
If, perhaps, unpierced by the sword,
My child lies in his jagg’d
Sunless prison of rock,
On the black wave borne to and fro?

The Chorus

Worse, far worse, if his friend,
If the Arcadian within,
If—-

Merope (with a start)

How say’st thou? within?…

The Chorus

He in the guest-chamber now,
Faithlessly murder’d his friend.

Merope

Ye, too, ye, too, join to betray, then
Your Queen!

The Chorus

What is this?

Merope

Ye knew,
O false friends! into what
Haven the murderer had dropp’d?
Ye kept silence?

The Chorus

In fear,
O loved mistress! in fear,
Dreading thine over-wrought mood,
What I knew, I conceal’d.

Merope

Swear by the Gods henceforth to obey me!

The Chorus

Unhappy one, what deed
Purposes thy despair?
I promise; but I fear.

Merope

From the altar, the unavenged tomb,
Fetch me the sacrifice-axe!—-

[THE CHORUS goes towards the tomb of CRESPHONTES,
and their leader brings back the axe.

O Husband, O clothed
With the grave’s everlasting,
All-covering darkness! O King,
Well-mourn’d, but ill-avenged!
Approv’st thou thy wife now?—-
The axe!–who brings it?

The Chorus

‘Tis here!
But thy gesture, thy look,
Appals me, shakes me with awe.

Merope

Thrust back now the bolt of that door!

The Chorus

Alas! alas!–
Behold the fastenings withdrawn
Of the guest-chamber door!–
Ah! I beseech thee–with tears—-

Merope

Throw the door open!

The Chorus

‘Tis done!…

[The door of the house is thrown open: the interior
of the guest-chamber is discovered, with AEPYTUS
asleep on a couch.

Merope

He sleeps–sleeps calm. O ye all-seeing Gods!
Thus peacefully do ye let sinners sleep,
While troubled innocents toss, and lie awake?
What sweeter sleep than this could I desire
For thee, my child, if thou wert yet alive?
How often have I dream’d of thee like this,
With thy soil’d hunting-coat, and sandals torn,
Asleep in the Arcadian glens at noon,
Thy head droop’d softly, and the golden curls
Clustering o’er thy white forehead, like a girl’s;
The short proud lip showing thy race, thy cheeks
Brown’d with thine open-air, free, hunter’s life.
Ah me!
And where dost thou sleep now, my innocent boy?–
In some dark fir-tree’s shadow, amid rocks
Untrodden, on Cyllene’s desolate side;
Where travellers never pass, where only come
Wild beasts, and vultures sailing overhead.
There, there thou liest now, my hapless child!
Stretch’d among briars and stones, the slow, black gore
Oozing through thy soak’d hunting-shirt, with limbs
Yet stark from the death-struggle, tight-clench’d hands,
And eyeballs staring for revenge in vain.
Ah miserable!
And thou, thou fair-skinn’d Serpent! thou art laid
In a rich chamber, on a happy bed,
In a king’s house, thy victim’s heritage;
And drink’st untroubled slumber, to sleep off
The toils of thy foul service, till thou wake
Refresh’d, and claim thy master’s thanks and gold.–
Wake up in hell from thine unhallow’d sleep,
Thou smiling Fiend, and claim thy guerdon there!
Wake amid gloom, and howling, and the noise
Of sinners pinion’d on the torturing wheel,
And the stanch Furies’ never-silent scourge.
And bid the chief tormentors there provide
For a grand culprit shortly coming down.
Go thou the first, and usher in thy lord!
A more just stroke than that thou gav’st my son
Take—-