SISYPHUS
Then as I passed,
I marked against the hardly dawning sky
A toilsome figure standing, bent and strained,
Before a rocky mass, which with great pain
And agony of labour it would thrust
Up a steep hill. But when upon the crest
It poised a moment, then I held my breath
With dread, for, lo! the poor feet seemed to clutch
The hillside as in fear, and the poor hands
With hopeless fingers pressed into the stone
In agony, and the limbs stiffened, and a cry
Like some strong swimmer's, whom the mightier stream
Sweeps downward, and he sees his children's eyes
Upon the bank; broke from him; and at last,
After long struggles of despair, the limbs
Relaxed, and as I closed my fearful eyes,
Seeing the inevitable doom—a crash,
A horrible thunderous noise, as down the steep
The shameless fragment leapt. From crag to crag
It bounded ever swifter, striking fire
And wrapt in smoke, as to the lowest depths
Of the vale it tore, and seemed to take with it
The miserable form whose painful gaze
I caught, as with the great rock whirled and dashed
Downward, and marking every crag with gore
And long gray hairs, it plunged, yet living still,
To the black hollow; and then a silence came
More dreadful than the noise, and a low groan
Was all that I could hear.
When to the foot
Of the dark steep I hurried, half in hope
To find the victim dead—not recognizing
The undying life of Hell—I seemed to see
An aged man, bruised, bleeding, with gray hairs,
And eyes from which the cunning leer of greed
Was scarcely yet gone out.
A crafty voice
It was that answered me, the voice of guile
Part purified by pain:
"There comes not death
To those who live in Hell, nor hardly pause
Of suffering longer than may serve to make
The pain renewed, more piercing. Long ago,
I thought that I had cheated Death, and now
I seek him; but he comes not, nor know I
If ever he will hear me. Whence art thou?
Comest thou from earthly air, or whence? What power
Has brought thee hither? For I know indeed
Thou art not lost as I; for never here
I look upon a human face, nor see
The ghosts who doubtless here on every side
Suffer a common pain, only at times
I hear the echo of a shriek far off,
Like some faint ghost of woe which fills the pause
And interval of suffering; but from whom
The voice may come, or whence, I know not, only
The air teems with vague pain, which doth distract
The ear when for a moment comes surcease
Of agony, and the sense of effort spent
In vain and fruitless labour, and the pang
Of long-deferred defeat, which waits and takes
The world-worn heart, and maddens it when all—
Heaven, conscience, happiness, are staked and lost
For gains which still elude it.
Yet 'twas sweet,
A King in early youth, when pleasure is sweet,
To live the fair successful years, and know
The envy and respect of men. I cared
For none of youth's delights: the dance, the song,
Allured me not; the smooth soft ways of sense
Tempted me not at all. I could despise
The follies that I shared not, spending all
The long laborious days in toilsome schemes
To compass honour and wealth, and, as I grew
In name and fame, finding my hoarded gains
Transmuted into Power. The seas were white
With laden argosies, and all were mine.
The sheltering moles defied the wintry storms,
And all were mine. The marble aqueducts,
The costly bridges, all were mine. Fair roads
Wound round and round the hills—my work. The gods
Alone I heeded not, nor cared at all
For aught but that my eyes and ears might take,
Spurning invisible things, nor built I to them
Temple or shrine, wrapt up in life, set round
With earthly blessings like a god. I rose
To such excess of weal and fame and pride,
My people held me god-like. I grew drunk
With too great power, scoffing at men and gods,
Careless of both, but not averse to fling
To those too weak themselves, what benefits
My larger wisdom spurned.
Then suddenly
I knew the pain of failure. Summer storms
Sucked down my fleets even within sight of port.
A grievous blight wasted the harvest-fields,
Mocking my hopes of gain. Wars came and drained
My store, and I grew needy, knowing now
The hell of stronger souls, the loss of power
Wherein they exulted once. There comes no pain
Deeper than to have known delight of power,
And then to lose it all. But I, I would not
Sit tame beneath defeat, trimming my sails
To wait the breeze of Fortune—fickle breath
Which perhaps might breathe no more—but chose instead
By rash conceit and bolder enterprise
To win her aid again. I had no thought
Of selfish gain, only to be and act
As a god to those, feeding my sum of pride
With acted good.
But evermore defeat
Dogged me, and evermore my people grew
To doubt me, seeing no more the wealth, the force,
Which once they worshipped. Then the lust of power
Loved, not for sake of others, but itself,
Grew on me, and the pride which can dare all,
Save failure only, seized me. Evil finds
Its ready chance. There were rich argosies
Upon the seas: I sank them, ship and crew,
In the unbetraying ocean. Wayfarers
Crossing the passes with rich merchandise
My creatures, hid behind the crags, o'erwhelmed
With rocks hurled downward. Yet I spent my gains
For the public weal, not otherwise; and they,
The careless people, took the piteous spoils
Which cost the lives of many, and a man's soul,
And blessed the giver. Empty venal blessings,
Which sting more deep than curses!
For awhile
I was content with this, but at the last
A great contempt and hatred of them took me,
The base, vile churls! Why should I stain my soul
For such as those—dogs that would fawn and lick
The hand that fed them, but, if food should fail,
Would turn and rend me? I would none of them;
I would grow rich and happy, being indeed
Godlike in brain to such. So with all craft,
And guile, and violence I enriched me, loading
My treasuries with gold. My deep-laid schemes
Of gain engrossed the long laborious days,
Stretched far into the night. Enjoy, I might not,
Seeing it was all to do, and life so brief
That ere a man might gain the goal he would,
Lo! Age, and with it Death, and so an end!
For all the tales of the indignant gods,
What were they but the priests'? I had myself
Broken all oaths; long time deceived and ruined
With every phase of fraud the pious fools
Whom oath-sworn Justice bound; battened on blood
And what was I the worse? How should the gods
Bear rule if I were happy? Death alone
Was certain. Therefore must I haste to heap
Treasure sufficient for my need, and then
Enjoy the gathered good.
But gradually
There came—not great disasters which might crush
All hope, but petty checks which did decrease
My store, and left my labour vain, and me
Unwilling to enjoy; and gradually
I felt the chill approach of age, which stole
Higher and higher on me, till the life,
As in a paralytic, left my limbs
And heart, and mounted upwards to my brain,
Its last resort, and rested there awhile
Ere it should spread its wings. But even thus,
Tho' powerless to enjoy, the insatiate greed
And thirst of power sustained me, and supplied
Life's spark with some scant fuel, till it seemed,
Year after year, as if I could not die,
Holding so fast to life. I grew so old
That all the comrades of my youth, my prime,
My age, were gone, and I was left alone
With those who knew me not, bereft of all
Except my master passion—an old man
Forlorn, forgotten of the gods and Death.
So all the people, seeing me grow old
And prosperous, held me wise, and spread abroad
Strange fables, growing day by day more strange—
How I deceived the very gods. They thought
That I was blest, remembering not the wear
Of anxious thought, the growing sum of pain,
The failing ear and eye, the slower limbs,
Whose briefer name is Age: and yet I trow
I was not all unhappy, though I knew
It was too late to enjoy, and though my store
Increased not as my greed—nay, even sunk down
A little, year by year. Till, last of all,
When now my time was come and I had grown
A little tired of living, a trivial hurt
Laid me upon my bed; and as I mused
On my long life and all its villanies,
The wickedness I did, the blood I shed,
The guile, the frauds of years—they came with news,
One now, and now another; how my schemes
Were crushed, my enterprises lost, my toil
And labour all in vain. Day after day
They brought these tidings, while I longed to rise
And stay the tide of ill, and raved to know
I could not. At the last the added sum
Of evil, like yon great rock poised awhile
Uncertain, gathered into one, o'erwhelmed
My feeble strength, and left me ruined and lost,
And showed me all I was, and all the depth
And folly of my sin, and racked my brain,
And sank me in despair and misery,
And broke my heart and slew me.
Therefore 'tis
I spend the long, long centuries which have come
Between me and my sin, in such dread tasks
As that thou sawest. In the soul I sinned:
In body and soul I suffer. What I bade
My minions do to others, that of woe
I bear myself; and in the pause of ill,
As now, I know again the bitter pang
Of failure, which of old pierced thro' my soul
And left me to despair. The pain of mind
Is fiercer far than any bodily ill,
And both are mine—the pang of torture-pain
Always recurring; and, far worse, the pang
Of consciousness of black sins sinned in vain—
The doom of constant failure.
Will, fierce Will!
Thou parent of unrest and toil and woe,
Measureless effort! growing day by day
To force strong souls along the giddy steep
That slopes to the pit of Hell, where effort serves
Only to speed destruction! Yet I know
Thou art not, as some hold, the primal curse
Which doth condemn us; since thou bearest in thee
No power to satisfy thyself; but rather,
The spring of act, whereby in earth and heaven
Both men and gods do breathe and live and are,
Since Life is Act and not to Do is Death—
I do not blame thee: but to work in vain
Is bitterest penalty: to find at last
The soul all fouled with sin and stained with blood
In vain; ah, this is hell indeed—the hell
Of lost and striving souls!"
Then as I passed,
The halting figure bent itself again
To the old task, and up the rugged steep
Thrust the great rock with groanings. Horror chained
My parting footsteps, like a nightmare dream
Which holds us that we flee not, with wide eyes
That loathe to see, yet cannot choose but gaze
Till all be done. Slowly, with dreadful toil
And struggle and strain, and bleeding hands and knees,
And more than mortal strength, against the hill
He pressed, the wretched one! till with long pain
He trembled on the summit, a gaunt form,
With that great rock above him, poised and strained,
Now gaining, now receding, now in act
To win the summit, now borne down again,
And then the inevitable crash—the mass
Leaping from crag to crag. But ere it ceased
In dreadful silence, and the low groan came,
My limbs were loosed with one convulsive bound;
I hid my face within my hands, and fled,
Surfeit with horror.
CLYTÆMNESTRA
Then it was again
A woman whom I saw, pitiless, stern,
Bearing the brand of blood—a lithe dark form,
And cruel eyes which glared beneath the gems
That argued her a Queen, and on her side
An ancient stain of gore, which did befoul
Her royal robe. A murderess in thought
And dreadful act, who took within the toils
Her kingly Lord, and slew him of old time
After burnt Troy. I had no time to speak
When she shrieked thus:
"It doth repent me not
I would 'twere yet to do, and I would do it
Again a thousand times, if the shed blood
Might for one hour restore me to the kisses
Of my Ægisthus. Oh, he was divine,
My hero, with the godlike locks and eyes
Of Eros' self! What boots it that they prate
Of wifely duty, love of spouse or child,
Honour or pity, when the swift fire takes
A woman's heart, and burns it out, and leaps
With fierce forked tongue around it, till it lies
In ashes, a dead heart, nor aught remains
Of old affections, naught but the new flame
Which is unquenched desire?
It did not come,
My blessing, all at once, but the slow fruit
Of solitude and midnight loneliness,
And weary waiting for the tardy news
Of taken Troy. Long years I sate alone,
Widowed, within my palace, while my Lord
Was over seas, waging the accursèd war,
First of the file of Kings. Year after year
Came false report, or harder, no report
Of the great fleet. The summers waxed and waned,
The wintry surges smote the sounding shores,
And yet there came no end of it. They brought
Now hopeless failure, now great victories;
And all alike were false, all but delay
And hope deferred, which cometh not, but breaks
The heart which suffering wrings not.
So I bore
Long time the solitary years, and sought
To solace the dull days with motherly cares
For those my Lord had left me. My firstborn,
Iphigeneia, sailed at first with him
Upon that fatal voyage, but the young
Orestes and Electra stayed with me—
Not dear as she was, for the firstborn takes
The mother's heart, and, with the milk it draws
From the mother's virgin breast, drains all the love
It bore, ay, even tho' the sire be dear;
Much more, then, when he is a King indeed,
Mighty in war and council, but too high
To stoop to a woman's love. But she was gone,
Nor heard I tidings of her, knowing not
If yet she walked the earth, nor if she bare
The load of children, even as I had borne
Her in my opening girlhood, when I leapt
From child to Queen, but never loved the King.
Thus the slow years rolled onward, till at last
There came a dreadful rumour—'She is dead,
Thy daughter, years ago. The cruel priests
Clamoured for blood; the stern cold Kings stood round
Without a tear, and he, her sire, with them,
To see a virgin bleed. They cut with knives
The taper girlish throat; they watched the blood
Drip slowly on the sand, and the young life
Meek as a lamb come to the sacrifice
To appease the angry gods.' And he, the King,
Her father, stood by too, and saw them do it,
The wickedness, breathing no word of wrath,
Till all was done! The cowards! the dull cowards!
I would some black storm, bursting suddenly,
Had whelmed them and their fleets, ere yet they dared
To waste an innocent life!
I had gone mad,
I know it, but for him, my love, my dear,
My fair sweet love. He came to comfort me
With words of friendship, holding that my Lord
Was bound, perhaps, to let her die—'The gods
Were ofttimes hard to appease—or was it indeed
The priests who asked it? Were there any gods?]
Or only phantoms, creatures of the brain,
Born of the fears of men, the greed of priests,
Useful to govern women? Had he been
Lord of the fleet, not all the soothsayers
Who ever frighted cowards should have brought
His soul to such black depths.' I hearkening to him
As 'twere my own thought grown articulate,
Found my grief turn to hate, and hate to love—
Hate of my Lord, love of the voice which spoke
Such dear and comfortable words. And thus,
Love to a storm of passion growing, swept
My wounded soul and dried my tears, as dries
The hot sirocco all the bitter pools
Of salt among the sand. I never knew
True love before; I was a child, no more,
When the King cast his eyes on me. What is it
To have borne the weight of offspring 'neath the zone,
If Love be not their sire; or live long years
Of commerce, not of love? Better a day
Of Passion than the long unlovely years
Of wifely duty, when Love cometh not
To wake the barren days!
And yet at first
I hesitated long, nor would embrace
The blessing that was mine. We are hedged round,
We women, by such close-drawn ordinances,
Set round us by our tyrants, that we fear
To overstep a hand's breadth the dull bounds
Of custom; but at last Love, waking in me,
Burst all my chains asunder, and I lived
For naught but Love.
My son, the young Orestes,
I sent far off; my girl Electra only
Remained, too young to doubt me, and I knew
At last what 'twas to live.
So the swift years
Fleeted and found me happy, till the dark
Ill-omened day when Rumour, thousand-tongued,
Whispered of taken Troy; and from my dream
Of happiness, sudden I woke, and knew
The coming retribution. We had grown
Too loving for concealment, and our tale
Of mutual love was bruited far and wide
Through Argos. All the gossips bruited it,
And were all tongue to tell it to the King
When he should come. And should the cold proud Lord
I never loved, the murderer of my girl,
Come 'twixt my love and me? A swift resolve
Flashed through me pondering on it: Love for Love
And Blood for Blood—the simple golden rule
Taught by the elder gods.
When I had taken
My fixed resolve, I grew impatient for it,
Counting the laggard days. Oh, it was sweet
To simulate the yearning of a wife
Long parted from her Lord, and mock the fools
Who dogged each look and word, and but for fear
Had torn me from my throne—the pies, the jays,
The impotent chatterers, who thought by words
To stay me in the act! 'Twas sweet to mock them
And read distrust within their eyes, when I,
Knowing my purpose, bade them quick prepare
All fitting honours for the King, and knew
They dared not disobey—oh, 'twas enough
To wing the slow-paced hours.
But when at last
I saw his sails upon the verge, and then
The sea-worn ship, and marked his face grown old,
The body a little bent, which was so straight,
The thin gray hairs which were the raven locks
Of manhood when he went, I felt a moment
I could not do the deed. But when I saw
The beautiful sad woman come with him,
The future in her eyes, and her sad voice
Proclaimed the tale of doom, two thoughts at once
Assailed me, bidding me despatch with a blow
Him and his mistress, making sure the will
Of fate, and my revenge.
Oh, it was strange
To see all happen as we planned; as 'twere
Some drama oft rehearsed, wherein each step,
Each word, is so prepared, the poorest player
Knows his turn come to do—the solemn landing—
The ride to the palace gate—the courtesies
Of welcome—the mute crowds without—the bath
Prepared within—the precious circling folds
Of tissue stretched around him, shutting out
The gaze, and folding helpless like a net
The mighty limbs—the battle-axe laid down
Against the wall, and I, his wife and Queen,[65]
Alone with him, waiting and watching still,
Till the woman shrieked without. Then with swift step
I seized the axe, and struck him as he lay
Helpless, once, twice, and thrice—once for my girl,
Once for my love, once for the woman, and all
For Fate and my Revenge!
He gave a groan,
Once only, as I thought he might; and then
No sound but the quick gurgling of the blood,
As it flowed from him in streams, and turned the pure
And limpid water of the bath to red—
I had not looked for that—it flowed and flowed,
And seemed to madden me to look on it,
Until my love with hands bloody as mine,
But with the woman's blood, rushed in, and eyes
Rounded with horror; and we turned to go,
And left the dead alone.
But happiness
Still mocked me, and a doubt unknown before
Came on me, and amid the silken shows
And luxury of power I seemed to see
Another answer to my riddle of life
Than that I gave myself, and it was 'murder;'
And in my people's sullen mien and eyes,
'Murder;' and in the mirror, when I looked,
'Murder' glared out, and terror lest my son
Returning, grown to manhood, should avenge
His father's blood. For somehow, as 'twould seem,
The gods, if gods there be, or the stern Fate
Which doth direct our little lives, do filch
Our happiness—though bright with Love's own ray,
There comes a cloud which veils it. Yet, indeed,
My days were happy. I repent me not;
I would wade through seas of blood to know again
Those fierce delights once more.
But my young girl
Electra, grown to woman, turned from me
Her modest maiden eyes, nor loved to set
Her kiss upon my cheek, but, all distraught
With secret care, hid her from all the pomps
And revelries which did befit her youth,
Walking alone; and often at the tomb
Of her lost sire they found her, pouring out
Libations to the dead. And evermore
I did bethink me of my son Orestes,
Who now should be a man; and yearned sometimes
To see his face, yet feared lest from his eyes
His father's soul should smite me.
So I lived
Happy and yet unquiet—a stern voice
Speaking of doom, which long time softer notes
Of careless weal, the music that doth spring
From the fair harmonies of life and love,
Would drown in their own concord. This at times
Nay, day by day, stronger and dreadfuller,
With dominant accent, marred the sounds of joy
By one prevailing discord. So at length
I came to lose the Present in the dread
Of what might come; the penalty that waits
Upon successful sin; who, having sinned,
Had missed my sin's reward.
Until one day
I, looking from my palace casement, saw
A humble suppliant, clad in pilgrim garb,
Approach the marble stair. A sudden throb
Thrilled thro' me, and the mother's heart went forth
Thro' all disguise of garb and rank and years,
Knowing my son. How fair he was, how tall
And vigorous, my boy! What strong straight limbs
And noble port! How beautiful the shade
Of manhood on his lip! I longed to burst
From my chamber down, yearning to throw myself
Upon his neck within the palace court,
Before the guards—spurning my queenly rank,
All but my motherhood. And then a chill
Of doubt o'erspread me, knowing what a gulf
Fate set between our lives, impassable
As that great gulf which yawns 'twixt life and death
And 'twixt this Hell and Heaven. I shrank back,
And turned to think a moment, half in fear,
And half in pain; dividing the swift mind,
Yet all in love.
Then came a cry, a groan,
From the inner court, the clash of swords, the fall
Of a body on the pavement; and one cried,
'The King is dead, slain by the young Orestes,
Who cometh hither.' With the word, the door
Flew open, and my son stood straight before me,
His drawn sword dripping blood. Oh, he was fair
And terrible to see, when from his limbs,[70]
The suppliant's mantle fallen, left the mail
And arms of a young warrior. Love and Hate,
Which are the offspring of a common sire,
Strove for the mastery, till within his eyes
I saw his father's ghost glare unappeased
From out Love's casements.
Then I knew my fate
And his—mine to be slain by my son's hand,
And his to slay me, since the Furies drave
Our lives to one destruction; and I took
His point within my breast.
But I praise not
The selfish, careless gods who wrecked our lives,
Making the King the murderer of his girl,
And me his murderess; making my son
The murderer of his mother and her love—
A mystery of blood!—I curse them all,
The careless Forces, sitting far withdrawn
Upon the heights of Space, taking men's lives
For playthings, and deriding as in sport
Our happiness and woe—I curse them all.
We have a right to joy; we have a right,
I say, as they have. Let them stand confessed
The puppets that they are—too weak to give
The good they feign to love, since Fate, too strong
For them as us, beyond their painted sky,
Sits and derides them, too. I curse Fate too,
The deaf blind Fury, taking human souls
And crushing them, as a dull fretful child
Crushes its toys and knows not with what skill
Those feeble forms are feigned.
I curse, I loathe,
I spit on them. It doth repent me not.
I would 'twere yet to do. I have lived my life.
I have loved. See, there he lies within the bath,
And thus I smite him! thus! Didst hear him groan?
Oh, vengeance, thou art sweet! What, living still?
Ah me! we cannot die! Come, torture me,
Ye Furies—for I love not soothing words—
As once ye did my son. Ye miserable
Blind ministers of Hell, I do defy you;
Not all your torments can undo the Past
Of Passion and of Love!"
Even as she spake
There came a viewless trouble in the air,
Which took her, and a sweep of wings unseen,
And terrible sounds, which swooped on her and hushed
Her voice, and seemed to occupy her soul
With horror and despair; and as she passed
I marked her agonized eyes.
But as I went,
Full many a dreadful shape of lonely pain
I saw. What need to tell them? We are filled
Who live to-day with a more present sense
Of the great love of God, than those of old
Who, groping in the dawn of Knowledge, saw
Only dark shadows of the Unknown; or he,
First-born of modern singers, who swept deep
His awful lyre, and woke the voice of song,
Dumb for long centuries of pain. We dread
To dwell on those long agonies its sin
Brings on the offending soul; who hold a creed
Of deeper Pity, knowing what chains of ill
Bind round our petty lives. Each phase of woe,
Suffering, and torture which the gloomy thought
Of bigots feigns for others—all were there.
One there was stretched upon a rolling wheel,
Which was the barren round of sense, that still
Returned upon itself and broke the limbs
Bound to it day and night. Others I saw
Doomed, with unceasing toil, to fill the urns
Whose precious waters sank ere they could slake
Their burning thirst. Another shapeless soul,
Full of revolts and hates and tyrannous force,
The weight of earth, which was its earth-born taint,
Pressed groaning down, while with fierce beak and claw
The vulture of remorse, piercing his breast,
Preyed on his heart. For others, overhead,
Great crags of rock impending seemed to fall,
But fell not nor brought peace. I felt my soul
Blunted with horrors, yearning to escape
To where, upon the limits of the wood,
Some scanty twilight grew.
But ere I passed
From those grim shades a deep voice sounded near,
A voice without a form.
"There is an end
Of all things that thou seest! There is an end
Of Wrong and Death and Hell! When the long wear
Of Time and Suffering has effaced the stain
Ingrown upon the soul, and the cleansed spirit,
Long ages floating on the wandering winds
Or rolling deeps of Space, renews itself
And doth regain its dwelling, and, once more
Blent with the general order, floats anew
Upon the stream of Things,[2] and comes at length,
After new deaths, to that dim waiting-place
Thou next shalt see, and with the justified
White souls awaits the End; or, snatched at once,[76]
If Fate so will, to the pure sphere itself,
Lives and is blest, and works the Eternal Work
Whose name and end is Love! There is an end
Of Wrong and Death and Hell!"
Even as I heard,
I passed from out the shadow of Death and Pain,
Crying, "There is an end!"
