Atalanta in Calydon | Page 8

and a sleepless life, Visions not dreams, whose
lids no charm shall close Nor song assuage them waking; and swift
death Crushes with sterile feet the unripening ear, Treads out the
timeless vintage; whom do thou Eschewing embrace the luck of this
thy life, Not without honour; and it shall bear to thee Such fruit as men
reap from spent hours and wear, Few men, but happy; of whom be thou,
O son, Happiest, if thou submit thy soul to fate, And set thine eyes and
heart on hopes high-born And divine deeds and abstinence divine. So
shalt thou be toward all men all thy days As light and might
communicable, and burn From heaven among the stars above the hours,
And break not as a man breaks nor burn down: For to whom other of
all heroic names Have the gods given his life in hand as thine? And
gloriously hast thou lived, and made thy life To me that bare thee and
to all men born Thankworthy, a praise for ever; and hast won fame
When wild wars broke all round thy father's house, And the mad people
of windy mountain ways Laid spears against us like a sea, and all
Aetolia thundered with Thessalian hoofs; Yet these, as wind baffles the
foam, and beats Straight back the relaxed ripple, didst thou break And
loosen all their lances, till undone And man from man they fell; for ye
twain stood God against god, Ares and Artemis, And thou the mightier;
wherefore she unleashed A sharp-toothed curse thou too shalt
overcome; For in the greener blossom of thy life Ere the full blade
caught flower, and when time gave Respite, thou didst not slacken soul
nor sleep, But with great hand and heart seek praise of men Out of
sharp straits and many a grievous thing, Seeing the strange foam of
undivided seas On channels never sailed in, and by shores Where the
old winds cease not blowing, and all the night Thunders, and day is no

delight to men.
CHORUS.
Meleager, a noble wisdom and fair words The gods have given this
woman, hear thou these.
MELEAGER.
O mother, I am not fain to strive in speech Nor set my mouth against
thee, who art wise Even as they say and full of sacred words. But one
thing I know surely, and cleave to this; That though I be not subtle of
wit as thou Nor womanlike to weave sweet words, and melt Mutable
minds of wise men as with fire, I too, doing justly and reverencing the
gods, Shall not want wit to see what things be right. For whom they
love and whom reject, being gods, There is no man but seeth, and in
good time Submits himself, refraining all his heart. And I too as thou
sayest have seen great things; Seen otherwhere, but chiefly when the
sail First caught between stretched ropes the roaring west, And all our
oars smote eastward, and the wind First flung round faces of seafaring
men White splendid snow-flakes of the sundering foam, And the first
furrow in virginal green sea Followed the plunging ploughshare of
hewn pine, And closed, as when deep sleep subdues man's breath Lips
close and heart subsides; and closing, shone Sunlike with many a
Nereid's hair, and moved Round many a trembling mouth of doubtful
gods, Risen out of sunless and sonorous gulfs Through waning water
and into shallow light, That watched us; and when flying the dove was
snared As with men's hands, but we shot after and sped Clear through
the irremeable Symplegades; And chiefliest when hoar beach and
herbless cliff Stood out ahead from Colchis, and we heard Clefts hoarse
with wind, and saw through narrowing reefs The lightning of the
intolerable wave Flash, and the white wet flame of breakers burn Far
under a kindling south-wind, as a lamp Burns and bends all its blowing
flame one way; Wild heights untravelled of the wind, and vales Cloven
seaward by their violent streams, and white With bitter flowers and
bright salt scurf of brine; Heard sweep their sharp swift gales, and
bowing bird-wise Shriek with birds' voices, and with furious feet Tread
loose the long skirts of a storm; and saw The whole white Euxine clash

together and fall Full-mouthed, and thunderous from a thousand throats;
Yet we drew thither and won the fleece and won Medea, deadlier than
the sea; but there Seeing many a wonder and fearful things to men I
saw not one thing like this one seen here, Most fair and fearful,
feminine, a god, Faultless; whom I that love not, being unlike, Fear,
and give honour, and choose from all the gods.
OENEUS.
Lady, the daughter of Thestius, and thou, son, Not ignorant of your
strife nor light