Erechtheus | Page 4

thou be to bear and to be great

Haply beyond all women; and the word
Speaks thee divine, dear
queen, that speaks thee dead,
Dead being alive, or quick and dead in
one
Shall not men call thee living? yet I fear
To slay thee timeless
with my proper tongue,
With lips, thou knowest, that love thee; and
such work
Was never laid of Gods on men, such word
No mouth of
man learnt ever, as from mine
Most loth to speak thine ear most loth
shall take 260 And hold it hateful as the grave to hear.
PRAXITHEA.
That word there is not in all speech of man,
King, that being spoken
of the Gods and thee
I have not heart to honour, or dare hold
More
than I hold thee or the Gods in hate
Hearing; but if my heart abhor it
heard
Being insubmissive, hold me not thy wife
But use me like a
stranger, whom thine hand
Hath fed by chance and finding thence no

thanks
Flung off for shame's sake to forgetfulness. 270
ERECHTHEUS.
O, of what breath shall such a word be made,
Or from what heart find
utterance? Would my tongue
Were rent forth rather from the
quivering root
Than made as fire or poison thus for thee.
PRAXITHEA.
But if thou speak of blood, and I that hear
Be chosen of all for this
land's love to die
And save to thee thy city, know this well,

Happiest I hold me of her seed alive.
ERECHTHEUS.
O sun that seest, what saying was this of thine,
God, that thy power
has breathed into my lips? 280 For from no sunlit shrine darkling it
came.
PRAXITHEA.
What portent from the mid oracular place
Hath smitten thee so like a
curse that flies
Wingless, to waste men with its plagues? yet speak.
ERECHTHEUS.
Thy blood the Gods require not; take this first.
PRAXITHEA.
To me than thee more grievous this should sound.
ERECHTHEUS.
That word rang truer and bitterer than it knew.
PRAXITHEA.

This is not then thy grief, to see me die?
ERECHTHEUS.
Die shalt thou not, yet give thy blood to death.
PRAXITHEA.
If this ring worse I know not; strange it rang. 290
ERECHTHEUS.
Alas, thou knowest not; woe is me that know.
PRAXITHEA.
And woe shall mine be, knowing; yet halt not here.
ERECHTHEUS.
Guiltless of blood this state may stand no more.
PRAXITHEA.
Firm let it stand whatever bleed or fall.
ERECHTHEUS.
O Gods, that I should say it shall and weep.
PRAXITHEA.
Weep, and say this? no tears should bathe such words.
ERECHTHEUS.
Woe's me that I must weep upon them, woe.
PRAXITHEA.

What stain is on them for thy tears to cleanse?
ERECHTHEUS.
A stain of blood unpurgeable with tears.
PRAXITHEA.
Whence? for thou sayest it is and is not mine. 300
ERECHTHEUS.
Hear then and know why only of all men I
That bring such news as
mine is, I alone
Must wash good words with weeping; I and thou,

Woman, must wail to hear men sing, must groan
To see their joy who
love us; all our friends
Save only we, and all save we that love
This
holiness of Athens, in our sight
Shall lift their hearts up, in our
hearing praise
Gods whom we may not; for to these they give
Life
of their children, flower of all their seed, 310 For all their travail fruit,
for all their hopes
Harvest; but we for all our good things, we
Have
at their hands which fill all these folk full
Death, barrenness,
child-slaughter, curses, cares,
Sea-leaguer and land-shipwreck; which
of these,
Which wilt thou first give thanks for? all are thine.
PRAXITHEA.
What first they give who give this city good,
For that first given to
save it I give thanks
First, and thanks heartier from a happier tongue,

More than for any my peculiar grace 320 Shown me and not my
country; next for this,
That none of all these but for all these I
Must
bear my burden, and no eye but mine
Weep of all women's in this
broad land born
Who see their land's deliverance; but much more,

But most for this I thank them most of all,
That this their edge of
doom is chosen to pierce
My heart and not my country's; for the
sword
Drawn to smite there and sharpened for such stroke
Should
wound more deep than any turned on me. 330

CHORUS.
Well fares the land that bears such fruit, and well
The spirit that
breeds such thought and speech in man.
ERECHTHEUS.
O woman, thou hast shamed my heart with thine,
To show so strong a
patience; take then all;
For all shall break not nor bring down thy soul.

The word that journeying to the bright God's shrine
Who speaks
askance and darkling, but his name
Hath in it slaying and ruin broad
writ out,
I heard, hear thou: thus saith he; There shall die
One soul
for all this people; from thy womb 340 Came forth the seed that here on
dry bare ground
Death's hand must sow untimely, to bring forth
Nor
blade nor shoot in season,