Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays

Excerpt

DEDICATION

  Take thou this gift from out the grave of Time.
  The urns of Greece lie shattered, and the cup
  That for Athenian lips the Muses filled,
  And flowery crowns that on Athenian hair
  Hid the cicala, freedom's golden sign,
  Dust in the dust have fallen. Calmly sad,
  The marble dead upon Athenian tombs
  Speak from their eyes "Farewell": and well have fared
  They and the saddened friends, whose clasping hands
  Win from the solemn stone eternity.
  Yea, well they fared unto the evening god,
  Passing beyond the limit of the world,
  Where face to face the son his mother saw,
  A living man a shadow, while she spake
  Words that Odysseus and that Homer heard,—
  I too, O child, I reached the common doom,
  The grave, the goal of fate, and passed away.
  —Such, Anticleia, as thy voice to him,
  Across the dim gray gulf of death and time
  Is that of Greece, a mother's to a child,—
  Mother of each whose dreams are grave and fair—
  Who sees the Naiad where the streams are bright
  And in the sunny ripple of the sea
  Cymodoce with floating golden hair:
  And in the whisper of the waving oak
  Hears still the Dryad's plaint, and, in the wind
  That sighs through moonlit woodlands, knows the horn
  Of Artemis, and silver shafts and bow.
  Therefore if still around this broken vase,
  Borne by rough hands, unworthy of their load,
  Far from Cephisus and the wandering rills,
  There cling a fragrance as of things once sweet,
  Of honey from Hymettus' desert hill,
  Take thou the gift and hold it close and dear;
  For gifts that die have living memories—
  Voices of unreturning days, that breathe
  The spirit of a day that never dies.

Io, the daughter of Inachus, King of Argos, was beloved of Zeus. But Hera was jealous of that love, and by her ill will was Io given over to frenzy, and her body took the semblance of a heifer: and Argus, a many-eyed herdsman, was set by Hera to watch Io whithersoever she strayed. Yet, in despite of Argus, did Zeus draw nigh unto her in the shape of a bull. And by the will of Zeus and the craft of Hermes was Argus slain. Then Io was driven over far lands and seas by her madness, and came at length to the land of Egypt. There was she restored to herself by a touch of the hand of Zeus, and bare a child called Epaphus. And from Epaphus sprang Libya, and from Libya, Belus; and from Belus, Aegyptus and Danaus. And the sons of Aegyptus willed to take the daughters of Danaus in marriage. But the maidens held such wedlock in horror, and fled with their father over the sea to Argos; and the king and citizens of Argos gave them shelter and protection from their pursuers.

THE SUPPLIANT MAIDENS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  DANAUS, THE KING OF ARGOS, HERALD OF AEGYPTUS.
  Chorus of the Daughters of Danaus. Attendants.

Scene. —A sacred precinct near the gates of Argos: statue and shrines of Zeus and other deities stand around.

CHORUS

  ZEUS!...