Men and Women | Page 8

corrector, from corregir, to correct.
ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES
1842
I am a goddess of the ambrosia courts,?And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed?By none whose temples whiten this the world.?Through heaven I roll my lucid moon along;?I shed in hell o'er my pale people peace;?On earth I, caring for the creatures, guard?Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek,?And every feathered mother's callow brood,?And all that love green haunts and loneliness.?Of men, the chaste adore me, hanging crowns 10 Of poppies red to blackness, bell and stem,?Upon my image at Athenai here;?And this dead Youth, Asclepios bends above,?Was dearest to me. He, my buskined step?To follow through the wild-wood leafy ways,?And chase the panting stag, or swift with darts?Stop the swift ounce, or lay the leopard low,?Neglected homage to another god:?Whence Aphrodite, by no midnight smoke?Of tapers lulled, in jealousy despatched 20 A noisome lust that, as the gad bee stings,?Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for himself?The son of Theseus her great absent spouse.?Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage?Against the fury of the Queen, she judged?Life insupportable; and, pricked at heart?An Amazonian stranger's race should dare?To scorn her, perished by the murderous cord:?Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a scroll?The fame of him her swerving made not swerve. 30 And Theseus, read, returning, and believed,?And exiled, in the blindness of his wrath,?The man without a crime who, last as first,?Loyal, divulged not to his sire the truth,?Now Theseus from Poseidon had obtained?That of his wishes should be granted three,?And one he imprecated straight--"Alive?May ne'er Hippolutos reach other lands!"?Poseidon heard, ai ai! And scarce the prince?Had stepped into the fixed boots of the car 40 That give the feet a stay against the strength?Of the Henetian horses, and around?His body flung the rein, and urged their speed?Along the rocks and shingles at the shore,?When from the gaping wave a monster flung?His obscene body in the coursers' path.?These, mad with terror, as the sea-bull sprawled?Wallowing about their feet, lost care of him?That reared them; and the master-chariot-pole?Snapping beneath their plunges like a reed, 50 Hippolutos, whose feet were trammelled fast,?Was yet dragged forward by the circling rein?Which either hand directed; nor they quenched?The frenzy of their flight before each trace,?Wheel-spoke and splinter of the woful car,?Each boulder-stone, sharp stub and spiny shell,?Huge fish-bone wrecked and wreathed amid the sands?On that detested beach, was bright with blood?And morsels of his flesh; then fell the steeds?Head foremost, crashing in their mooned fronts, 60 Shivering with sweat, each white eye horror-fixed.?His people, who had witnessed all afar,?Bore back the ruins of Hippolutos.?But when his sire, too swoln with pride, rejoiced?(Indomitable as a man foredoomed)?That vast Poseidon had fulfilled his prayer,?I, in a flood of glory visible,?Stood o'er my dying votary and, deed?By deed, revealed, as all took place, the truth.?Then Theseus lay the wofullest of men, 70 And worthily; but ere the death-veils hid?His face, the murdered prince full pardon breathed?To his rash sire. Whereat Athenai wails.
So I, who ne'er forsake my votaries,?Lest in the cross-way none the honey-cake?Should tender, nor pour out the dog's hot life;?Lest at my fane the priests disconsolate?Should dress my image with some faded poor?Few crowns, made favors of, nor dare object?Such slackness to my worshippers who turn 80 Elsewhere the trusting heart and loaded hand,?As they had climbed Olumpos to report?Of Artemis and nowhere found her throne--?I interposed: and, this eventful night?(While round the funeral pyre the populace?Stood with fierce light on their black robes which bound?Each sobbing head, while yet their hair they clipped?O'er the dead body of their withered prince,?And, in his palace, Theseus prostrated?On the cold hearth, his brow cold as the slab 90 'T was bruised on, groaned away the heavy grief--?As the pyre fell, and down the cross logs crashed?Sending a crowd of sparkles through the night,?And the gay fire, elate with mastery,?Towered like a serpent o'er the clotted jars?Of wine, dissolving oils and frankincense,?And splendid gums like gold) my potency?Conveyed the perished man to my retreat?In the thrice-venerable forest here.?And this white-bearded sage who squeezes now 100 The berried plant, is Phoibos' son of fame,?Asclepios, whom my radiant brother taught?The doctrine of each herb and flower and root,?To know their secret'st virtue and express?The saving soul of all: who so has soothed?With layers the torn brow and murdered cheeks,?Composed the hair and brought its gloss again,?And called the red bloom to the pale skin back,?And laid the strips and lagged ends of flesh?Even once more, and slacked the sinew's knot 110 Of every tortured limb--that now he lies?As if mere sleep possessed him underneath?These interwoven oaks and pines. Oh cheer,?Divine presenter of the healing rod,?Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye,?Twines his lithe spires around! I say, much cheer!?Proceed thou with thy wisest pharmacies!?And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs,?Ply, as the sage directs, these buds and leaves?That