Complete works of willia.., p.451
Complete Works of William Morris, page 451
For so the wont was, that she still was led
Unto her chamber as a bride new-wed.
Of that sweet sound nought heard the King at all,
But straightway into a short sleep did fall,
Then woke as one who knoweth certainly
That all the hours he now shall hear pass by,
Nor sleep until the sun is up again.
So, waking, did he hear a cry of pain
Within the chamber, and thereat adrad
He turned him round, and saw the Queen, so clad
That on her was her raiment richly wrought,
Yet in such case as though hard fate had brought
Some bane of Kings into the royal place,
And with that far-removed and dainty grace
The rough hands of some outland foe had dealt;
For dragged athwart her was the jewelled belt,
Rent and disordered the Phœnician gown,
The linen from her shoulders dragged adown,
Her arms and glorious bosom made half-bare,
And furthermore such shameful signs were there,
As though not long past hands had there been laid
Heavier than touches of the tiring-maid.
So swiftly through the place from end to end
She paced, but yet stopped now and then to send
Low bitter moans forth on the scented air;
And through the King’s heart shot a bitter fear,
Nor could he move — he had believed her cold,
And wise to draw herself from pleasure’s hold
When it began to sting the heart — but now
What shameful thing would these last minutes show?
Now as she went a look askance she cast
Upon the King, and turning at the last,
With strange eyes drew anigh the royal bed,
And, with clasped hands, before him stood, and said:
“Thou wakest, then? thou wonderest at this sight?
I have a tale to tell to thee this night
I cannot utter, unless words are taught
Unto my lips to draw forth all my thought —
Thou wonderest at my words? Then ask, then ask!
The sooner will be done my heavy task.”
Upright in bed the King sat, pale with doubt
And gathering fear; his right hand he stretched out
To take the Queen’s hand, but aback she drew,
Shuddering; and half he deemed the truth he knew,
As o’er her pale face and her bosom came
Beneath his gaze a flush as if of shame:
“Wilt thou not speak, and make an end?” she cried.
Then he spake slowly, “Why dost thou abide
Without my bed to-night? why dost thou groan,
Whom I ere now no love-sick girl have known?”
She covered up her face at that last word;
The thick folds of her linen gown were stirred
As her limbs writhed beneath them — nought she said,
As though the word was not remembered
She had to say; and, loth the worst to hear,
The King awhile was tongue-tied by his fear.
At last the words came: “Thou bad’st ask of thee
Why thou to-night my playmate wouldst not be —
What hast thou done? Speak quickly of the thing!”
She drew her hands away, and cried, “O King,
Art thou awake yet, that this shameful guise
Seems nothing strange unto thy drowsy eyes,
Wilt thou not ask why this and this is torn?
Why this is bruised? Lo, since the long-passed morn
Thus have I sat, that thou e’en this might see,
And ask what madness there has been in me.
Thus have I sat, and cursed the God who made
The day so long, the night so long delayed.
“Ask! thou art happy that the Lycian sod
Unwearied oft my virgin feet have trod
From dawn to dusk; that in the Lycian wood
Before wild things untrembling I have stood;
That this right arm so oft the javelin threw —
These fingers rather the grey bowstring knew
Than the gold needle: even so, indeed,
Of more than woman’s strength had I had need
If with a real man I had striven to-day;
But he who would have shamed thee went his way
Like a scourged woman — thou wilt spare him, then —
Lay down thy sword! — that is for manly men.”
For while she spake, and in her eyes did burn
The fires of hate, the King’s face had waxed stern,
And ere her bitter speech was fully o’er,
He had arisen, and from off the floor
Had gat his proven sword into his hand,
And eager by the trembling Queen did stand,
And cried, “Nay, hold! for surely I know well
What tale it is thy lips to-night would tell;
Therefore my sword befits me, the tried friend
That many a troublous thing has brought to end.
Yet fear not, for another friend have I
To help me deal with this new villany,
Even the godlike man Bellerophon;
So with one word thy heavy task is done.
— O Sthenobœa, speak the name of him
Who wrought this deed, then let that name wax dim
Within thy mind till it is dead and past;
For, certes, yesterday he saw the last
Of setting suns his doomed eyes shall behold.”
Pale as a corpse she waxed, and stony cold
Amidst these words; silent awhile she was
After the last word from the King did pass,
But in a low voice at the last she said:
“Yea, for this deed of his must he be dead?
And must he be at peace, because he strove
To take from me honour, and peace, and love?
Must a great King do thus? or hast thou not
Some lightless place in mighty Argos got
Where nought can hap to break the memory
Of what he hoped in other days might be;
For great he has been, and of noble birth
As any man who dwelleth on the earth.
— Thou hast forgotten that the dead shall rest,
Whate’er they wrought on earth of worst or best.”
But the King gazed upon her gloomily,
And said, “Nay, nay; — the man shall surely die —
His hope die with him, is it not enow?
But no such mind I bear in me as thou,
Who speakest not as a great Queen should speak,
But rather as a girl made mad and weak
By hope delayed and love cast back again,
Who knoweth not her words are words and vain.
Content thee, thou art loved and honoured still —
Speak forth the name of him who wrought the ill,
For I am fain to meet Bellerophon,
So that we twain may do what must be done.”
He spake, but mid the tumult of her mind
She heard him not, and deaf she was and blind
To all without, nor knew she if her feet
The marble cold or red-hot iron did meet.
She moved not and she felt not, but a sound
Came from her lips, and smote the air around
With slow hard words:
“Ah! thou hast named him then
Twice in this hour alone of earthly men;
That same Bellerophon, that all folk love,
In manly wise this morn against me strove!”
Ah, how the world was changed, as she went by
The King, bewildered with new misery —
Ah, and how little time it was agone
When all that deed of hers was not yet done,
When yet she might have died for him, and made
A little love her lonely tomb to shade
Spring up within his heart — when hope there was
Of many a thing that yet might come to pass —
And now, and now — those spoken words must be
A part of her, an unwrought misery
That would not let her rest till all was o’er, —
Nay, nay, no rest upon the shadowy shore.
Slowly she left the chamber, none the less
With measured steps her feet the floor did press
As a Queen’s should, nor fainted she at all,
But straight unto the door ‘twixt wall and wall
She went, and still perchance had forced a smile
Had she met any one; and all the while
Set in such torment as men cannot name,
If she did think, wondered that still the same
Were all things round her as they had been erst —
That the house fell not — that the feet accurst
To carry her yet left no sign in blood
Of where the wretchedest on earth had stood —
That round about her still her raiment clung —
That no great sudden pain her body stung,
No inward flame her false white limbs would burn,
Or into horror all her beauty turn —
That still the gentle sounds of night were there
As she had known them: the light summer air
Within the thick-leaved trees, as she passed by
Some open window, and the nightbird’s cry
From far; the gnat’s thin pipe about her head,
The wheeling moth delaying to be dead
Within the taper’s flame — yea, certainly
Shall things about her as they have been be,
And even that a torment now has grown.
Yet must she reap the grain that she has sown;
No thought of turning back was in her heart,
No more in those past days can she have part;
Nay, when her glimmering bower she came unto,
She muttered through the dusk, “As I would do
So have I done — so would I do again.”
Lo, thus in unimaginable pain
Leave we her now, and to the King turn back;
Who stood there overwhelmed by sudden lack
Of what he leaned on — with his life left bare
Of a great pleasure that was growing there.
A storm of rage swept through his heart, to think
That he of such a cup as this must drink;
For if he doubted aught, this was his doubt,
That all the tale was not told fully out —
That for Bellerophon the Queen’s great scorn
And loathing was a thing but newly born —
That bitter hate was but a lover’s hate,
Which even yet beneath the hand of fate
Might turn to hottest love. He groaned thereat,
And staggering back, upon the bed he sat;
His bright sword from his hand had fallen down
When that last dreadful word at him was thrown,
And now, with head sunk ‘twixt his hands, he sought
Some outlet from the weary girth of thought
That hemmed him in.
“And must I slay him then,
Him whom I loved above all earthly men?
Behold, if now I slept here, and next morn,
Ere the day’s memory should be fully born
From out of sleep, men came and said to me,
‘Sire, the Corinthian draweth nigh to thee,’
My first thought would be joy that he had come.
And yet I am a King, nor shall my home
Become a brothel before all men’s eyes.
He who drinks deadly poison surely dies,
And he hath drunk, and must abide the end.
Yet hath the image of him been my friend —
What shall I do? Not lightly can I bear
The voice of men about these things to hear;
‘He trusted him, he thought himself right wise
To look into men’s souls through lips and eyes —
— Behold the end!—’ Yea, and most certainly
I will not bear once more his face to see;
Nor in the land where he was purified
Shall grass or marble by his blood be dyed,
Since he must go — green grew a bough of spring
Amidst the barren death of many a thing;
Not barren it, since poison fruits it bore —
Behold now, I, who loved my life of yore,
Begin to weary that I e’er was born;
But let it pass — rather let good men mourn;
Great men, the earth’s salt, wear their lives away
In weeping for the ne’er-returning day:
For surely all is good enough for me.
“And yet alas! what truth there seemed in thee —
— What can I do? Might he not die in war?
Nay, but at peace through him my borders are.
He shall not die here — the deep sea were good
To hide the story of his untamed blood —
Or, further — O thou fool, that so must make
My life so dull, e’en for a woman’s sake!
There in that land, then, shall thy bones have rest
Beneath the sod her worshipped feet have pressed.
In Lycia shalt thou die; her father’s hand
Shall draw the sword, or his lips give command
To make an end of thee — So shall it be,
And that swift Phrygian ready now for sea
Shall bear thee hence — Would I had known thee not;
A new pain hast thou been — a heavy lot
My life in early morn to me shall seem,
When I have dreamed that all was but a dream,
And waked to truth again and lonely life.
“Let be; now must I forge the hidden knife
Against thee, and I would the thing were done.
Thou mayst not die so; thou art such an one
As the Gods love, whatever thou mayst do,
Perchance they pay small heed to false or true
In such as we are. But the lamps burn low,
The night wears, grey the eastern sky doth grow;
I must forget thee; fellow, fare thee well,
Who might have turned my feet from lonely hell!”
So saying, slowly, as a man who needs
Must do a deed that woe and evil breeds,
He rose, and took his writing tools to him.
And ere the day had made the tapers dim,
Two letters with his own hand had he made,
And open was the first one, and it said
‘These words:
Unto the wise Bellerophon —
To Lycia the Gods call thee, O my son;
So when thou hast this letter in thine hand,
Abide no longer in the Argive land
Than if thou fleddest some avenging man,
But make good speed to that swift Phrygian
Who for the southlands saileth this same day.
Take thou this gold for furtherance and stay,
And this for his reward who rules the heel,
And for a token show him this my seal.
This casket to the Lycian king bear forth,
That hath in it a thing of greatest worth;
And let no hand be laid on it but thine
Till in Jobates’ hands its gold doth shine.
Then bid him mind how that he had of me
When last I saw his face the fellow key
To that which in mine hands doth open it —
Awhile the King had stayed when this was writ,
And on the gathering greyness of the morn
Long fixed his eyes, unseeing and forlorn,
Then o’er the tablets moved his hand again.
Mayst thou do well among these outland men.
Perchance my face thou never more shalt see,
Perchance but little more remains to thee
Of thy loved life — thou wert not one to cry
Curses on all because life passeth by.
If woe befalls thee there, think none the less
That I erewhile have wrought thee happiness;
Farewell! and ask thou not to see me first:
Life worsens here, and ere it reach the worst,
Unto the Jove that may be would I speak
To help my people, wandering blind and weak.
Another letter by the King’s side lay,
But closed and sealed; so in the twilight grey
Now did he rise, and summoned presently
A slumbering chamberlain that was thereby,
And bade him toward the treasury lead, and take
Two leathern bags for that same errand’s sake;
So forth the twain went to that golden place;
But when they were therein, a mournful face
Still the King seemed to see, e’en as it was
When he from room to room with him did pass
Who now had wronged him; then the gold waxed dim,
For bitter pain his vexed heart wrought for him,
And filled with unused tears his hard wise eyes.
But choking back the thronging memories,
He laid the letter that he erst did hold
Within a casket wrought of steel and gold,
Which straight he locked; then bade his fellow fill
The bags he bore from a great golden hill,
Then to his room, made cold with morn, returned;
And since for change and some swift deed he yearned,
He bade his chamberlain bring hunter’s weed,
And saddle him straightway his fleetest steed:
“And see,” said he, “before the Prince arise
Ye show this letter to his waking eyes,
And give into his hands these things ye see;
And make good speed, the time grows short for me.”
So spake he, and there grew on him a thought
That thither might Bellerophon be brought
Ere he could get him gone; and therewithal
At last the low sun topped the garden-wall,
And o’er the dewy turf long shadows threw;
Then, being new clad, the porch he hurried to,
And paced betwixt its pillars feverishly,
Until he heard the horse-boys’ cheery cry
And the sharp clatter of the well-shod feet;
Then he ran out, the joyous steed to meet,
And mounted, and rode forth, he scarce knew where,
