Nor be ye churlish hosts, but glad the heart
Of guests with wine, when they must needs depart:
And reverence most the priests of sacred song:
So, when hell hides you, shall your names live long;
Not doomed to wail on Acheron’s sunless sands,
Like some poor hind, the inward of whose hands
The spade hath gnarled and knotted, born to groan,
Poor sire’s poor offspring, hapless Penury’s own!
Their monthly dole erewhile unnumbered thralls
Sought in Antiochus’, in Aleuas’ halls;
On to the Scopadæ’s byres in endless line
The calves ran lowing with the hornèd kine;
And, marshalled by the good Creondæ’s swains
Myriads of choice sheep basked on Cranron’s plains.
Yet had their joyaunce ended, on the day
When their sweet spirit dispossessed its clay,
To hated Acheron’s ample barge resigned.
Nameless, their stored-up luxury left behind,
With the lorn dead through ages had they lain,
Had not a minstrel bade them live again: —
Had not in woven words the Ceïan sire
Holding sweet converse with his full-toned lyre
Made even their swift steeds for aye renowned,
When from the sacred lists they came home crowned.
Forgot were Lycia’s chiefs, and Hector’s hair
Of gold, and Cycnus femininely fair;
But that bards bring old battles back to mind.
Odysseus — he who roamed amongst mankind
A hundred years and more, reached utmost hell
Alive, and ‘scaped the giant’s hideous cell —
Had lived and died: Eumæus and his swine;
Philoetius, busy with his herded kine;
And great Laërtes’ self, had passed away,
Were not their names preserved in Homer’s lay.
Through song alone may man true glory taste;
The dead man’s riches his survivors waste.
But count the waves, with yon gray wind-swept main
Borne shoreward: from a red brick wash his stain
In some pool’s violet depths: ‘twill task thee yet
To reach the heart on baleful avarice set.
To such I say ‘Fare well’: let theirs be store
Of wealth; but let them always crave for more:
Horses and mules inferior things I find
To the esteem and love of all mankind.
But to what mortal’s roof may I repair,
I and my Muse, and find a welcome there?
I and my Muse: for minstrels fare but ill,
Reft of those maids, who know the mightiest’s will.
The cycle of the years, it flags not yet;
In many a chariot many a steed shall sweat:
And one, to manhood grown, my lays shall claim,
Whose deeds shall rival great Achilles’ fame,
Who from stout Aias might have won the prize
On Simois’ plain, where Phrygian Ilus lies.
Now, in their sunset home on Libya’s heel,
Phoenicia’s sons unwonted chillness feel:
Now, with his targe of willow at his breast,
The Syracusan bears his spear in rest,
Amongst these Hiero arms him for the war,
Eager to fight as warriors fought of yore;
The plumes float darkling o’er his helmèd brow.
O Zeus, the sire most glorious; and O thou,
Empress Athenè; and thou, damsel fair,
Who with thy mother wast decreed to bear
Rule o’er rich Corinth, o’er that city of pride
Beside whose walls Anapus’ waters glide: —
May ill winds waft across the Southern sea
(Of late a legion, now but two or three,)
Far from our isle, our foes; the doom to tell,
To wife and child, of those they loved so well;
While the old race enjoy once more the lands
Spoiled and insulted erst by alien hands!
And fair and fruitful may their cornlands be!
Their flocks in thousands bleat upon the lea,
Fat and full-fed; their kine, as home they wind,
The lagging traveller of his rest remind!
With might and main their fallows let them till:
Till comes the seedtime, and cicalas trill
(Hid from the toilers of the hot midday
In the thick leafage) on the topmost spray!
O’er shield and spear their webs let spiders spin,
And none so much as name the battle-din!
Then Hiero’s lofty deeds may minstrels bear
Beyond the Scythian ocean-main, and where
Within those ample walls, with asphalt made
Time-proof, Semiramis her empire swayed.
I am but a single voice: but many a bard
Beside me do those heavenly maids regard:
May those all love to sing, ‘mid earth’s acclaim,
Of Sicel Arethuse, and Hiero’s fame.
O Graces, royal nurselings, who hold dear
The Minyæ’s city, once the Theban’s fear:
Unbidden I tarry, whither bidden I fare
My Muse my comrade. And be ye too there,
Sisters divine! Were ye and song forgot,
What grace had earth? With you be aye my lot!
IDYLL XVII. The Praise of Ptolemy.
With Zeus begin, sweet sisters, end with Zeus,
When ye would sing the sovereign of the skies:
But first among mankind rank Ptolemy;
First, last, and midmost; being past compare.
Those mighty ones of old, half men half gods,
Wrought deeds that shine in many a subtle strain;
I, no unpractised minstrel, sing but him;
Divinest ears disdain not minstrelsy.
But as a woodman sees green Ida rise
Pine above pine, and ponders which to fell
First of those myriads; even so I pause
Where to begin the chapter of his praise:
For thousand and ten thousand are the gifts
Wherewith high heaven hath graced the kingliest king.
Was not he born to compass noblest ends,
Lagus’ own son, so soon as he matured
Schemes such as ne’er had dawned on meaner minds?
Zeus doth esteem him as the blessèd gods;
In the sire’s courts his golden mansion stands.
And near him Alexander sits and smiles,
The turbaned Persian’s dread; and, fronting both,
Rises the stedfast adamantine seat
Erst fashioned for the bull-slayer Heracles.
Who there holds revels with his heavenly mates,
And sees, with joy exceeding, children rise
On children; for that Zeus exempts from age
And death their frames who sprang from Heracles:
And Ptolemy, like Alexander, claims
From him; his gallant son their common sire.
And when, the banquet o’er, the Strong Man wends,
Cloyed with rich nectar, home unto his wife,
This kinsman hath in charge his cherished shafts
And bow; and that his gnarled and knotted club;
And both to white-limbed Hebè’s bower of bliss
Convoy the bearded warrior and his arms.
Then how among wise ladies — blest the pair
That reared her! — peerless Berenicè shone!
Dionè’s sacred child, the Cyprian queen,
O’er that sweet bosom passed her taper hands:
And hence, ’tis said, no man loved woman e’er
As Ptolemy loved her. She o’er-repaid
His love; so, nothing doubting, he could leave
His substance in his loyal children’s care,
And rest with her, fond husband with fond wife.
She that loves not bears sons, but all unlike
Their father: for her heart was otherwhere.
O Aphroditè, matchless e’en in heaven
For beauty, thou didst love her; wouldst not let
Thy Berenicè cross the wailful waves:
But thy hand snatched her — to the blue lake bound
Else, and the dead’s grim ferryman — and enshrined
With thee, to share thy honours. There she sits,
To mortals ever kind, and passion soft
Inspires, and makes the lover’s burden light.
The dark-browed Argive, linked with Tydeus, bare
Diomed the slayer, famed in Calydon:
And deep-veiled Thetis unto Peleus gave
The javelineer Achilles. Thou wast born
Of Berenicè, Ptolemy by name
And by descent, a warrior’s warrior child.
Cos from its mother’s arms her babe received,
Its destined nursery, on its natal day:
’Twas there Antigonè’s daughter in her pangs
Cried to the goddess that could bid them cease:
Who soon was at her side, and lo! her limbs
Forgat their anguish, and a child was born
Fair, its sire’s self. Cos saw, and shouted loud;
Handled the babe all tenderly, and spake:
“Wake, babe, to bliss: prize me, as Phoebus doth
His azure-spherèd Delos: grace the hill
Of Triops, and the Dorians’ sister shores,
As king Apollo his Rhenæa’s isle.”
So spake the isle. An eagle high overhead
Poised in the clouds screamed thrice, the prophet-bird
Of Zeus, and sent by him. For awful kings
All are his care, those chiefliest on whose birth
He smiled: exceeding glory waits on them:
Theirs is the sovereignty of land and sea.
But if a myriad realms spread far and wide
O’er earth, if myriad nations till the soil
To which heaven’s rain gives increase: yet what land
Is green as low-lying Egypt, when the Nile
Wells forth and piecemeal breaks the sodden glebe?
Where are like cities, peopled by like men?
Lo he hath seen three hundred towns arise,
Three thousand, yea three myriad; and o’er all
He rules, the prince of heroes, Ptolemy.
Claims half Phoenicia, and half Araby,
Syria and Libya, and the Æthiops murk;
Sways the Pamphylian and Cilician braves,
The Lycian and the Carian trained to war,
And all the isles: for never fleet like his
Rode upon ocean: land and sea alike
And sounding rivers hail king Ptolemy.
Many are his horsemen, many his targeteers,
Whose burdened breast is bright with clashing steel:
Light are all royal treasuries, weighed with his.
For wealth from all climes travels day by day
To his rich realm, a hive of prosperous peace.
No foeman’s tramp scares monster-peopled Nile,
Waking to war her far-off villages:
No armed robber from his war-ship leaps
To spoil the herds of Egypt. Such a prince
Sits throned in her broad plains, in whose right arm
Quivers the spear, the bright-haired Ptolemy.
Like a true king, he guards with might and main
The wealth his sires’ arm won him and his own.
Nor strown all idly o’er his sumptuous halls
Lie piles that seem the work of labouring ants.
The holy homes of gods are rich therewith;
Theirs are the firstfruits, earnest aye of more.
And freely mighty kings thereof partake,
Freely great cities, freely honoured friends.
None entered e’er the sacred lists of song,
Whose lips could breathe sweet music, but he gained
Fair guerdon at the hand of Ptolemy.
And Ptolemy do music’s votaries hymn
For his good gifts — hath man a fairer lot
Than to have earned much fame among mankind?
The Atridæ’s name abides, while all the wealth
Won from the sack of Priam’s stately home
A mist closed o’er it, to be seen no more.
Ptolemy, he only, treads a path whose dust
Burns with the footprints of his ancestors,
And overlays those footprints with his own.
He raised rich shrines to mother and to sire,
There reared their forms in ivory and gold,
Passing in beauty, to befriend mankind.
Thighs of fat oxen oftentimes he burns
On crimsoning altars, as the months roll on,
Ay he and his staunch wife. No fairer bride
E’er clasped her lord in royal palaces:
And her heart’s love her brother-husband won.
In such blest union joined the immortal pair
Whom queenly Rhea bore, and heaven obeys:
One couch the maiden of the rainbow decks
With myrrh-dipt hands for Hera and for Zeus.
Now farewell, prince! I rank thee aye with gods:
And read this lesson to the afterdays,
Mayhap they’ll prize it: ‘Honour is of Zeus.’
IDYLL XVIII. The Bridal of Helen.
Whilom, in Lacedæmon,
Tript many a maiden fair
To gold-tressed Menelaus’ halls,
With hyacinths in her hair:
Twelve to the Painted Chamber,
The queenliest in the land,
The clustered loveliness of Greece,
Came dancing hand in hand.
For Helen, Tyndarus’ daughter,
Had just been wooed and won,
Helen the darling of the world,
By Atreus’ younger son:
With woven steps they beat the floor
In unison, and sang
Their bridal-hymn of triumph
Till all the palace rang.
“Slumberest so soon, sweet bridegroom?
Art thou o’erfond of sleep?
Or hast thou leadenweighted limbs?
Or hadst thou drunk too deep
When thou didst fling thee to thy lair?
Betimes thou should’st have sped,
If sleep were all thy purpose,
Unto thy bachelor’s bed:
And left her in her mother’s arms
To nestle, and to play
A girl among her girlish mates
Till deep into the day: —
For not alone for this night,
Nor for the next alone,
But through the days and through the years
Thou hast her for thine own.
“Nay! heaven, O happy bridegroom,
To Sparta, like thy brother kings,
And told thee thou should’st win!
What hero son-in-law of Zeus
Hath e’er aspired to be?
Yet lo! one coverlet enfolds
The child of Zeus, and thee.
Ne’er did a thing so lovely
Roam the Achaian lea.
“And who shall match her offspring,
If babes are like their mother?
For we were playmates once, and ran
And raced with one another
(All varnished, warrior fashion)
Along Eurotas’ tide,
Thrice eighty gentle maidens,
Each in her girlhood’s pride:
Yet none of all seemed faultless,
If placed by Helen’s side.
“As peers the nascent Morning
Over thy shades, O Night,
When Winter disenchains the land,
And Spring goes forth in w
hite:
So Helen shone above us,
All loveliness and light.
“As climbs aloft some cypress,
Garden or glade to grace;
As the Thessalian courser lends
A lustre to the race:
So bright o’er Lacedæmon
Shone Helen’s rosebud face.
“And who into the basket e’er
The yarn so deftly drew,
Or through the mazes of the web
So well the shuttle threw,
And severed from the framework
As closelywov’n a warp: —
And who could wake with masterhand
Such music from the harp,
To broadlimbed Pallas tuning
And Artemis her lay —
As Helen, Helen in whose eyes
The Loves for ever play?
“O bright, O beautiful, for thee
Are matron-cares begun.
We to green paths and blossomed meads
With dawn of morn must run,
And cull a breathing chaplet;
And still our dream shall be,
Helen, of thee, as weanling lambs
Yearn in the pasture for the dams
That nursed their infancy.
“For thee the lowly lotus-bed
We’ll spoil, and plait a crown
To hang upon the shadowy plane;
For thee will we drop down
(‘Neath that same shadowy platan)
Oil from our silver urn;
And carven on the bark shall be
This sentence, ‘HALLOW HELEN’S TREE’;
In Dorian letters, legibly
For all men to discern.
“Now farewell, bride, and bridegroom
Blest in thy new-found sire!
May Leto, mother of the brave,
Bring babes at your desire,
And holy Cypris either’s breast
With mutual transport fire:
And Zeus the son of Cronos
Grant blessings without end,
From princely sire to princely son
For ever to descend.
“Sleep on, and love and longing
Breathe in each other’s breast;
But fail not when the morn returns
To rouse you from your rest:
With dawn shall we be stirring,
When, lifting high his fair
And feathered neck, the earliest bird
To clarion to the dawn is heard.
O god of brides and bridals,
Sing ‘Happy, happy pair!’”
IDYLL XIX. Love Stealing Honey.
Once thievish Love the honeyed hives would rob,
When a bee stung him: soon he felt a throb
Through all his finger-tips, and, wild with pain,
Blew on his hands and stamped and jumped in vain.
To Aphroditè then he told his woe:
‘How can a thing so tiny hurt one so?’