-04_Act One -Scene-2.htm

The same.
Perseus descends on winged sandals from the clouds.

PERSEUS

Rocks on the outland jagged with the sea,

You slumbering promontories whose huge backs

Jut into azure, and thou, O many-thundered

Enormous Ocean, hail! Whatever lands

Are ramparted with these forbidding shores,

Yet if you hold felicitous roofs of men,

Homes of delightful laughter, if you have streams

Where chattering girls dip in their pitchers cool

And dabble their white feet in the chill lapse

Of waters, trees and a green-mantled earth,

Cicalas noisy in a million boughs

Or happy cheep of common birds, I greet you,

Syria or Egypt or Ionian shores,

Perseus the son of Danaë, who long

Have sojourned only with the hail-thrashed isles

Wet with cold mists and by the boreal winds

Snow-swathed. The angry voices of the surf

Are welcome to me whose ears have long been sealed

By rigorous silence in the snows. O even

The wail of mortal misery I choose

Rather than that intolerable hush;

For this at least is human. Thee I praise,
O mother Earth and thy guardian Sea, O Sun
Of the warm south nursing fair life of men.
I will go down into bee-murmuring fields
And mix with men and women in the corn
And eat again accustomed food. But first
This galley shattered on the sharp-toothed rocks
I fly to succour. You are grown dear to me,
You smiling weeping human faces, brightly
Who move, who live, not like those stony masks

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And Gorgon visions of that monstrous world
Beyond the snows. I would not lose you now
In the dead surges of the inhuman flood.

He descends out of sight. Iolaus enters with Cireas, Dercetes and soldiers.

IOLAUS

Prepare your ambush, men, amid these boulders,
But at the signal, leave your rocky lairs
With level bristling points and gyre them in.

CIREAS

O Poseidon Ennosigaios, man-swallower, earth-shaker, I have swabbed thee for eighteen years. I pray thee tot up the price of those swabbings and be not dishonest with me nor miserly. Eighteen by three hundred and sixty-five by two, that is the sum of them: and forget not the leap years either, O great Poseidon.

IOLAUS

Into our ambush, for I hear them come,

They conceal themselves. Perseus returns with Tyrnaus and Smerdas.

PERSEUS

Chaldean merchants, would my speed to save

Had matched the hawk’s when he swoops down for slaughter.

So many beautiful bodies of strong men

Lost in the surge, so many eager hopes

Of happiness now quenched would still have gladdened

The sunlight. Yet for two delightful lives

Saved to the stir and motion of the world

I praise the Gods that help us.

TYRNAUS

Thou radiant youth
Whose face is like a joyous god’s for beauty,
Whatever worth the body’s life may have,

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I thank thee that ’tis saved. Smerdas, discharge
That hapless humour from thy lids! If riches
Are lost, the body, thy strong instrument
To gather riches, is not lost, nor mind,
The provident director of its labours.

SMERDAS

Three thousand pieces of that wealthy stuff,
Full forty chests all crammed with noble gems,
All lost, all in a moment lost! We are beggars.

TYRNAUS

Smerdas, not beggared yet of arm or brain.

SMERDAS

The toil-marred peasant has as much.

PERSEUS

Merchant,
I sorrow for thy loss: all beautiful things
Were meant to shine in the bright day, and grievous
It is to know the senseless billows play with them.
Yet life, most beautiful of all, is left thee.
Is not mere sunlight something, and to breathe
A joy? Be patient with the gods; they love not
Rebellion and overtake it with fresh scourgings.

SMERDAS

O that the sea had swallowed me and rolled
In my dear treasure! Tell me, Syrian youth,
Are there not divers in these parts, could pluck
My wealth from the abyss ?

PERSEUS

Chaldean merchant,
I am not of this country, but like thyself
Hear first today the surf roar on its beaches.

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SMERDAS

Cursed be the moment when we neared its shores!

O harsh sea-god, if thou wilt have my wealth,

My soul, it was a cruel mercy then to leave

This beggared empty body bared of all

That made life sweet. Take this too, and everything.

IOLAUS (stepping forward)

Thy prayer is granted thee, O Babylonian.

The soldiers appear and surround Perseus and the merchants.

CIREAS

All the good stuff drowned ! O unlucky Cireas ! O greedy
Poseidon!

SMERDAS

Shield us! what are these threatening spear-points ?

TYRNAUS

Fate’s.
This is that strange inhospitable coast
Where the wrecked traveller in his own warm blood
Is given guest-bath, (draws) Death’s dice are yet to throw.

IOLAUS

Draw not in vain, strive not against the gods.
This is the shore near the temple where Poseidon
Sits ivory-limbed in his dim rock-hewn house
And nods above the bleeding mariner
His sapphire locks in gloom. You three are come,
A welcome offering to that long dry altar,
O happy voyagers. Your road is straight
To Elysium.

PERSEUS

An evil and harsh religion

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You practise in your land, stripling of Syria,
Yet since it is religion, do thy will,
If thou have power no less than will. And yet
I deem that ere I visit death’s calm country,
I have far longer ways to tread.

TYRNAUS (flinging away his sword)

Take me.
I will not please the gods with impotent writhing
Under the harrow of my fate.

They seize Tyrnaus.

SMERDAS

O wicked fool!
You might have saved me with that sword. Ah youth!
Ah radiant stranger! help me! thou art mighty.

PERSEUS

Still, merchant, thou wouldst live?

SMERDAS

I am dead with terror
Of these bright thirsty spears. O they will carve
My frantic heart out of my living bosom
To throw it bleeding on that hideous altar.
Save me, hero!

PERSEUS

I war not with the gods for thee.
From belching fire or the deep-mouthed abyss
Of waters to have saved the meanest thing
That wears man’s kindly semblance, is a joy.
But he is mad who for another’s ease
Incurs the implacable pursuit of heaven.
Yet since each man on earth has privilege
To battle even against the gods for life,
Sweet life, lift up from earth thy fellow’s sword;

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I will protect meanwhile thy head from onset.

SMERDAS

Alas, you mock me! I have no skill with weapons
Nor am a fighter. Save me!

The Syrians seize Smerdas.

Help! I will give thee
The wealth of Babylon when I am safe.

PERSEUS

My sword is heaven’s; it is not to be purchased.

Smerdas and Tyrnaus are led away.

IOLAUS

Take too this radiance.

PERSEUS (drawing his sword)

Asian stripling, pause.
I am not weak of hand nor feeble of heart.
Thou art too young, too blithe, too beautiful;

I would not disarrange thy sunny curls
By any harsher touch than an embrace.

IOLAUS

I too could wish to spare thy joyous body

From the black knife, whoe’er thou art, O stranger.

But grim compulsion drives and angry will

Of the sea’s lord, chafing that mortal men

Insult with their frail keels his rude strong oceans.

Therefore he built his grisly temple here,

And all who are broken in the unequal war

With surge and tempest, though they evade his rocks,

Must belch out anguished blood upon that altar

Miserably.

PERSEUS

I come not from the Ocean.

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IOLAUS

There is no other way that men could come;

For this is ground forbidden to unknown feet.

(smiling)

Unless these gaudy pinions on thy shoes
Were wings indeed to bear thee through the void!

PERSEUS

Are there not those who ask nor solid land

For footing nor the salt flood to buoy their motions ?

Perhaps I am of these.

IOLAUS

Of these thou art not.
The gods are sombre, terrible to gaze at,
Or, even if bright, remote, grand, formidable.
But thou art open and fair like our blue heavens
In Syria and thy radiant masculine body
Allures the eye. Yield! it may be the God
Will spare thee.

PERSEUS

Set on thy war-dogs. Me alive
If they alive can take, I am content
To bleed a victim.

IOLAUS

Art thou a demigod
To beat back with one blade a hundred spears ?

PERSEUS

My sword is in my hand and that shall answer.
I am tired of words.

IOLAUS

Dercetes, wait. His face
Is beautiful as Heaven. O dark Poseidon,

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What wilt thou do with him in thy dank caves
Under the grey abysms of the salt flood ?
Spare him to me and sunlight.

Polydaon and Phineus enter from behind.

DERCETES

Prince, give the order.

IOLAUS

Let this young sungod live.

DERCETES

It is forbidden.

IOLAUS

But I allow it.

POLYDAON (coming forward)

And when did lenient Heaven
Make thee a godhead, Syrian lolaus,
To set thy proud decree against Poseidon’s ?
Wilt thou rescind what Ocean’s Zeus has ordered ?

IOLAUS

Polydaon—

POLYDAON

Does a royal name on earth
Inflate so foolishly thy mortal pride,
Thou evenest thyself with the Olympians ?
Beware, the blood of kings has dropped ere now
From the grey sacrificial knife.

IOLAUS

Our blood!
Thou darest threaten me, presumptuous priest ?
Back to thy blood-stained kennel! I absolve

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This stranger.

POLYDAON

Captain, take them both. You flinch?
Are you so fearful of the name of prince
He plays with? Fear rather dark Poseidon’s anger.

PHINEUS

Be wise, young lolaus. Polydaon,
Thy zeal outstrips the reverence due to kings.

IOLAUS

I need not thy protection, Tyrian Phineus:

This is my country.

He draws.

PHINEUS (aside to Polydaon)

It were well done to kill him now, his sword
Being out against the people’s gods; for then
Who blames the god’s avenger?

POLYDAON

Will you accept,
Syrians, the burden of his sacrilege?
Upon them for Poseidon!

DERCETES

Seize them but slay not!
Let none dare shed the blood of Syria’s kings.

SOLDIERS

Poseidon! great Poseidon.

PERSEUS,

lolaus,
Rein in thy sword: I am enough for these.

He shakes his uncovered shield in the

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faces of the soldiers. They stagger back covering their eyes.

IOLAUS

Gods, what a glory lights up Syria!

POLYDAON

Amazement!
Is this a god opposes us? Back, back!

CIREAS

Master, master, skedaddle: run, run, good King of Tyre, it is scuttle or be scuttled. Zeus has come down to earth with feathered shoes and a shield made out of phosphorus.

He runs off, followed more slowly by Dercetes and the soldiers.

PHINEUS

Whate’er thou art, yet thou shalt not outface me.

He advances with sword drawn.
Hast thou Heaven’s thunders with thee too?

POLYDAON (pulling him back)

Back, Phineus!
The fiery-tasselled aegis of Athene
Shakes forth these lightnings, and an earthly sword
Were madness here.

He goes out with Phineus.

IOLAUS

O radiant strong immortal,
lolaus kneels to thee.

PERSEUS

No, lolaus.
Though great Athene breathes Olympian strength
Into my arm sometimes, I am no more

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Than a brief mortal.

IOLAUS

Art thou only man ?
O then be lolaus’ friend and lover,
Who com’st to me like something all my own
Destined from other shores.

PERSEUS

Give me thy hands,
O fair young child of the warm Syrian sun.
Embrace me! Thou art like a springing laurel
Fed upon sunlight by the murmuring waters.

IOLAUS

Tell me thy name. What memorable earth
Gave thee to the azure ?

PERSEUS

I am from Argolis,
Perseus my name, the son of Danaë.

IOLAUS

Come, Perseus, friend, with me: fierce entertainment

We have given, unworthy the fair joyousness

Thou carriest like a flag, but thou shalt meet

A kinder Syria. My royal father Cepheus

Shall welcome, my mother give thee a mother’s greeting

And our Andromeda’s delightful smile

Persuade thee of a world more full of beauty

Than thou hadst dreamed of.

PERSEUS

I shall yet be glad with thee,
O lolaus, in thy father’s halls,
But I would not as yet be known in Syria.
Is there no pleasant hamlet near, hedged in

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With orchard walls and green with unripe corn
And washed with bright and flitting waves, where I
Can harbour with the kindly village folk
And wake to cock-crow in the morning hours,
As in my dear Seriphos ?

IOLAUS

Such a village
Lurks near our hills, — there with my kind Cydone
Thou may’st abide at ease, until thou choose,
O Perseus, to reveal thyself to Syria.
I too can visit thee unquestioned.

PERSEUS

Thither
Then lead me. I have a thirst for calm obscurity
And cottages and happy unambitious talk
And simple people. With these I would have rest,
Not in the laboured pomp of princely towns
Amid pent noise and purple masks of hate.
I will drink deep of pure humanity
And take the innocent smell of rain-drenched earth,
So shall I with a noble untainted mind
Rise from the strengthening soil to great adventure.

They go out.

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