Complete works of willia.., p.343
Complete Works of William Morris, page 343
Till we met folk who told us everything,
Both of the slaying of the godlike king,
Aeson my father, and of other folk,
And how the whole land groaned beneath the yoke
Of this dead man; whom sure the Gods have slain
That all our labour might not be in vain,
Nor we, safe passing through the deadly land,
Lie slain in our own country at his hand.
So have the Gods wrought; therefore am I here,
No shield upon mine arm, no glittering spear
In my right hand, but by my unarmed side
This Colchian Queen, by many, sorrows tried.
Therefore, no fear of you is in my heart,
And if ye will, henceforth will I depart,
Nor take mine own: or if it please this town
To slay me, let them lay my dead corpse down,
As on his tomb my father’s image lies,
Like what he was before these miseries
Fell on his head. But in no wise will I
Take seat beneath this golden canopy,
Before ye tell me, people of this land,
Whose throne this is before the which I stand,
Whose towered house is this mine eyes behold,
Girt round with brazen pillars, bright with gold.
THEN, ere he ceased, the people’s shouts broke in
Upon his speech: Most glorious of thy kin!
Be thou our king be thou our king alone,
That we may think the age of iron gone,
And Saturn come with every peaceful thing:
Jason for king! the Conqueror for king!
Therewith the heroes clashed their spears and shields,
And as within the many-flowered fresh fields
This way and that the slim-stalked flowers do bend,
When sweeping gusts the soft west wind doth send
Among their hosts, so moved the people then,
When ceased the shouting of the armed men.
For each unto the other ‘gan to speak,
And o’er the tall men’s head a dame would seek
To raise her child to look upon the king.
And as with smiles and laughter many a thing
They chattered through the great square joyously,
Each careless what his neighbour’s words might be,
It sounded like some February mead,
Where thick the lustred starlings creep and feed,
And each his own song sings unto his mate,
Chiding the fickle spring so cold and late.
BUT through the happy clamour of the folk,
At Jason’s bidding, the great trumpet broke,
And great Echion’s voice rang clear and strong,
As he cried silence; then across the throng,
Did Jason cry: O people, thanked be ye,
That in such wise ye give yourselves to me.
And now, O friends, what more is there to say
But this? Be glad, and feast this happy day,
Nor spend one coin of all your store for this;
Nor shall the altars of the high Gods miss
Their due thankoffering: and She chief of all,
Who caused that this same happy time should fall,
Shall have a tithe of all that ‘longs to me.
And ye, O loved companions o’er the sea,
Come to my golden house, and let us feast,
Nor let time weary us this night at least;
O! be so glad that this our happy day
For all times past, all times to come may pay.
HE ceased, and one more shout the people sent
Up to the heavens, as he descending went
With the fair Colchian through the joyous folk,
From whose well-ordered lane at times there broke
Some little child, thrust forward well to see
The godlike leader of the Minyæ:
Or here and there forth would some young man lean
To gaze upon the beauty of the queen
A little nearer, as they passed him by.
THEN in such guise, they went triumphantly
To all the temples of that city fair,
And royal gifts they gave the great Gods there,
But chiefest from the Queen of Heaven’s own close
The clouds of incense in the air uprose,
And chiefly thither were the white lambs led,
And there the longest, Jason bowed the head
Well garlanded with lily blossoms white.
But She, when all these things were done aright,
And Jason now had turned to go away,
In midmost of that cloudless sunny day
Bade Iris build her many-coloured bow;
That She her favour to the king might show.
Then still more did the royal man rejoice,
And o’er the people, lifting up his voice,
Cried: See, Thessalians, who is on my side,
Nor fear ye now but plenty will abide
In your fair land, and all the folk speak of it,
From places whence the wavering swallows flit,
That they may live with us the sweet half year,
To earth where dwells the sluggish white-felled bear.
SO spake he, glad past words; and for the rest
Did Juno love him well since his great quest
Had brought home bitter death on Pelias,
And his love’s words had brought the thing to pass,
That o’er that head was hanging, since the day
When from Sidero dead he turned away,
And as with Neleus down the steps he trod,
Thought things that fitted some undying God.
THENCE to his father’s tomb did Jason go,
And found the old man’s body laid alow,
Within a lone, unkingly grave, and bade
That straightway should a royal tomb be made
To lay him in, anigh the murmuring sea,
Where, celebrating their great victory,
They might do honour to his head recrowned,
And ‘mid their shouts all mourning might be drowned,
Nor would they gladden Pelias’ lonely shade
By weeping o’er the slaughter he had made.
THEREFROM unto his own house Jason came,
Which had not seen him since his new-cried name
Rang ‘twixt the marble walls triumphantly,
And all folk set their hearts upon the sea.
So, now again, when shadows ‘gan to fall
Still longer from the west, within that hall
Once more the heroes sat above their wine,
Once more they hearkened music nigh divine,
Once more the maidens’ flower-scattering hands
Seemed better prizes than well-peopled lands.
GLORIOUS and royal, now the deed was done,
Seemed in that hall the face of every one,
Who, ‘twixt the thin plank and the bubbling sea,
Had pulled the smooth oar-handle past his knee.
Tuneful each voice seemed as the heroes told
The marvels that their eyes did erst behold,
Unto some merchant of the goodly town,
Or some rich man who on the thymy down
Fed store of sheep, and in whose deep-green mead
The heavy-uddered cows were wont to feed.
AND she who all this world of joy had made,
And dared so many things-all unafraid,
Now sat a Queen beside her crowned King.
And as his love increased with everything
She did or said, forgot her happy state
In Aea of old times, ere mighty fate
Brought Argo’s side from out the Clashers twain,
Betwixt the rainbow and the briny rain.
Yet in the midst of her felicity
She trembled lest another day should see
Another fate, and other deeds for these,
Who hailed her not the least of Goddesses.
Yet surely now, if never more again,
Had she and all these folk forgotten pain,
And idle words to them were Death and Fear
For in the gathering evening could they hear
The carols of the glad folk through the town,
The song of birds within the garden drown;
And when the golden sun had gone away,
Still little darker was the night than day
Without the windows of the goodly hall.
BUT many an hour after the night did fall,
Though outside silence fell on man and beast,
There still they sat, nor wearied of the feast
Yea, ere they parted glimmering light had come
From the far mountains near the Colchian’s home,
And in the twilight birds began to wake.
BUT the next morn, for slaughtered Aeson’s sake
The games began, with many a sacrifice,
And, these being all accomplished, gifts of price
The heroes took at Jason’s open hands,
And, going homewards, unto many lands
They bore the story of their wandering.
And now is Jason mighty lord and king,
And wedded to the fairest queen on earth,
And with no trouble now to break his mirth;
And, loved by all, lives happy free from blame,
Nor less has won the promised meed of fame.
So, having everything he once desired
Within the wild, ere yet his heart was fired
By Juno’s word, he lives an envied man,
Holding these things that scarce another can,
Ease, love, and fame, and youth that knows no dread
Of any horrors lurking far ahead
Across the sunny fair-flowered fields of life:
Youth seeing no end unto the joyous strife.
And thus in happy days, and rest, and peace,
Endeth the Winning of the Golden Fleece.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON: BOOK XVII.
Jason at Corinth. The wedding of Glauce. The death of Jason.
SO ends the Winning of the Golden Fleece;
So ends the tale of that sweet rest and peace
That unto Jason and his love befell;
Another story now my tongue must tell,
And tremble in the telling. Would that I
Had but some portion of that mastery
That from the rose-hung lanes of woody Kent
Through these five hundred years such songs have sent
To us, who, meshed within this smoky net
Of unrejoicing labour, love them yet.
And thou, O Master!...Yea, my Master still,
Whatever feet have scaled Parnassus’ hill,
Since like thy measures, clear and sweet and strong,
Thames’ stream scarce fettered drave the dace along
Unto the bastioned bridge, his only chain…
O Master, pardon me, if yet in vain
Thou art my Master, and I fail to bring
Before men’s eyes the image of the thing
My heart is filled with: thou whose dreamy eyes
Beheld the flush to Cressid’s cheeks arise,
When Troilus rode up the praising street,
As clearly as they saw thy townsmen meet
Those who in vineyards of Poictou withstood
The glittering horror of the steel-topped wood.
TEN years have passed, since in the market-place
The hero stood with flushed and conquering face,
And life before him like one happy day;
But many an hour thereof has passed away
In mingled trouble and felicity.
And now at Corinth, kissed by either sea,
He dwells, not governed now nor governing,
Since there his kinsman Creon is a king.
And with him still abides the Colchian
But little changed, since o’er the waters wan
She gazed upon the mountains that she knew
Still lessening as the plunging Argo flew
Over the billows on the way to Greece.
But in these ten sweet years of rest and peace
Two fair man-children hath she borne to him,
Who, joyous fair of face and strong of limb,
Full oft shall hear the glorious story told
Of Argo and the well-won Fleece of Gold,
By some old mariner; and oft shall go
Where nigh the sea the wind-swept beech-trees grow,
And with a grey old woman tending them,
Shall make an Aea of some beech-tree’s stem,
About whose roots there stands the water black.
Nor of the fleece shall they have any lack,
For in the bushes hangs much tangled wool
From wandering sheep who seek the shadow cool;
And for the dragon shall there be thereby
A many-coloured snake with glazed dull eye,
Slain by the shepherd; so shall pass their days,
Whom folk look soon to gather wealth and praise.
AND ‘midst these living things has Argo found
A home here also; on the spot of ground
‘Twixt Neptune’s temple and the eastern sea,
She looks across the waves unceasingly;
And as their ridges draw on towards the land,
The winds tell stories of the kingly band.
There, with the fixed and unused oars spread out,
She lies amidst the ghosts of song and shout,
And merry laughter, that were wont to fill
Her well-built hollow, slowly dying still,
Like all that glorious company of kings
Who in her did such well-remembered things.
But as the day comes round when o’er the seas
She darted ‘twixt the blue Symplegades,
And when again she rushed across the bar,
With King Aeetes following her afar,
And when at length the heroes laid adown
The well-worn oars at old King Aeson’s town,
When, year by year, these glorious days come round,
Bright with gay garments is that spot of ground,
And the grey rocks that o’ertop Cenchreæ
Send echoes of sweet singing o’er the sea.
For then the keel the maidens go about
Singing the songs of Orpheus, and the shout
Of rough-voiced sea-folk endeth every song;
And then from stem to stern they hang along
Garlands of flowers, and all the oars they twine
With garlands too, and cups of royal wine
Cast o’er her bows; and at the stern a maid
Handles the tiller, she being all arrayed
In Juno’s fashion; while anigh the stem
Stands one with wings and many-coloured hem
About her raiment, like the messenger
Who bears the high Gods’ dreadful words with her,
And through the sea of old that stem did lead.
LO, in such wise they honoured that great deed,
But Jason did they reverence as a God;
And though his kinsman bore the ivory rod
And golden circlet, little could he do
Unless the great Thessalian willed it too.
Yet therefore Creon nowise bore him hate,
But reverencing the wise decrees of fate,
Still honoured him the more; and therewith thought,
Would that this man by some means might be brought
To wed my daughter; since when I am dead,
By none but him the people shall be led.
And on this thought he brooded more and more,
And ‘gan to hate the Colchian very sore,
And through the place, as lightly he might do,
He spread ill tales of false things and of true,
And unto Jason’s self such words did say
As well he thought might turn his heart away
From faith and truth; and as such words will come,
When wise men speak them, to a ready home,
So here they did; though soothly for his part,
He knew it not, nor yet his restless heart.
BUT on a day it fell that as they sat
In Creon’s porch, and talked of this or that,
The king spake: Yea no dread thy strong heart bears,
But is it that no whisper yet it hears
Of what the Gods may do for Pelias?
Nay, Jason said, let what will come to pass!
His day is past and mine is flourishing;
But doubtless is an end to everything,
And soon or late each man shall have his day.
Then said the king: Neither did thine hand slay
The man thyself, or bring his death about;
Each man shall bear his own sin without doubt.
Yet do I bid thee watch and take good heed
Of what the Colchian’s treacheries may breed.
Then quickly Jason turned his head around
And said: What is there dwelling above ground
That loveth me as this one loveth me?
O Creon! I am honoured here as thee;
All do my will as if a God I were;
Scarce can the young men see me without fear,
The elders without tears of vain regret.
And, certes, had this worshipped head been set
Upon some spike of King Aeetes’ house,
But for her tender love and piteous;
For me she gave up country kin and name,
For me she risked tormenting and the flame,
The anger of the Gods and curse of man;
For me she came across the waters wan
Through many woes, and for my sake did go
Alone, unarmed, to my most cruel foe,
Whom there she slew by his own daughters’ hands,
Making me king of all my father’s lands:
Note all these things, and tell me then to flee
From that which threateneth her who loveth me.
Yea, said the king, to make and to unmake
Is her delight; and certes for thy sake
She did all this thou sayest, yea, and yet more;
Seeing thee death-doomed on a foreign shore,
With hardy heart, but helpless; a king’s son,
But with thy thread of life well-nigh outrun;
Therefore, I say, she did all this for thee,
And ever on the way to Thessaly
She taught thee all things needful, since ye were
As void of helpful knowledge as of fear.
All this she did, and so was more than queen
Of thee and thine: but thou, thine age is green,
