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Merope

Oh had’st thou, Polyphontes, still but kept
The silence thou hast kept for twenty years!

Polyphontes

Henceforth, if what I urge displease, I may.
But fair proposal merits fair reply.

Merope

And thou shalt have it! Yes, because thou hast
For twenty years forborne to interrupt
The solitude of her whom thou hast wrong’d–
That scanty grace shall earn thee this reply.–
First, for our union. Trust me, ‘twixt us two
The brazen footed Fury ever stalks,
Waving her hundred hands, a torch in each,
Aglow with angry fire, to keep us twain.
Now, for thyself. Thou com’st with well-cloak’d joy,
To announce the ruin of my husband’s house,
To sound thy triumph in his widow’s ears,
To bid her share thine unendanger’d throne.
To this thou would’st have answer. Take it: Fly!…
Cut short thy triumph, seeming at its height;
Fling off thy crown, supposed at last secure;
Forsake this ample, proud Messenian realm;
To some small, humble, and unnoted strand,
Some rock more lonely than that Lemnian isle
Where Philoctetes pined, take ship and flee!
Some solitude more inaccessible
Than the ice-bastion’d Caucasian Mount
Chosen a prison for Prometheus, climb!
There in unvoiced oblivion sink thy name,
And bid the sun, thine only visitant,
Divulge not to the far-off world of men
What once-famed wretch he there did espy hid.
There nurse a late remorse, and thank the Gods,
And thank thy bitterest foe, that, having lost
All things but life, thou lose not life as well.

Polyphontes

What mad bewilderment of grief is this?

Merope

Thou art bewilder’d; the sane head is mine.

Polyphontes

I pity thee, and wish thee calmer mind.

Merope

Pity thyself; none needs compassion more.

Polyphontes

Yet, oh! could’st thou but act as reason bids!

Merope

And in my turn I wish the same for thee.

Polyphontes

All I could do to soothe thee has been tried.

Merope

For that, in this my warning, thou art paid.

Polyphontes

Know’st thou then aught, that thus thou sound’st the alarm?

Merope

Thy crime! that were enough to make one fear.

Polyphontes

My deed is of old date, and long atoned.

Merope

Atoned this very day, perhaps, it is.

Polyphontes

My final victory proves the Gods appeased.

Merope

O victor, victor, trip not at the goal!

Polyphontes

Hatred and passionate envy blind thine eyes.

Merope

O Heaven-abandon’d wretch, that envies thee!

Polyphontes

Thou hold’st so cheap, then, the Messenian crown?

Merope

I think on what the future hath in store.

Polyphontes

To-day I reign; the rest I leave to Fate.

Merope

For Fate thou wait’st not long; since, in this hour—-

Polyphontes

What? for so far Fate hath not proved my foe–

Merope

Fate seals my lips, and drags to ruin thee.

Polyphontes

Enough! enough! I will no longer hear
The ill-boding note which frantic hatred sounds
To affright a fortune which the Gods secure.
Once more my friendship thou rejectest; well!
More for this land’s sake grieve I, than mine own.
I chafe not with thee, that thy hate endures,
Nor bend myself too low, to make it yield.
What I have done is done; by my own deed,
Neither exulting nor ashamed, I stand.
Why should this heart of mine set mighty store
By the construction and report of men?
Not men’s good word hath made me what I am.
Alone I master’d power; and alone,
Since so thou wilt, I dare maintain it still.

[POLYPHONTES goes out.

The Chorus

Did I then waver str. 1.
(O woman’s judgment!)
Misled by seeming
Success of crime?
And ask, if sometimes
The Gods, perhaps, allow’d you,
O lawless daring of the strong,
O self-will recklessly indulged?

Not time, not lightning, ant. 1.
Not rain, not thunder,
Efface the endless
Decrees of Heaven–
Make Justice alter,
Revoke, assuage her sentence,
Which dooms dread ends to dreadful deeds,
And violent deaths to violent men.

But the signal example str. 2.
Of invariableness of justice
Our glorious founder
Heracles gave us,
Son loved of Zeus his father–for he sinn’d,