Frantic are ye who seek renown
Amid the horrors of th’ embattled field,
Who masking guilt beneath a laurel crown
With nervous arm the falchion wield,
Not slaughtered thousands can your fury sate.
If still success the judgment guide,
If bloody battle right and wrong decide,
Incessant strife must vex each rival state:
Hence from her home departs each Phrygian wife,
O Helen, when the cruel strife
Which from thy charms arose,
One conference might have closed: now myriads dwell
With Pluto in the shades of Hell,
And flames, as when Jove’s vengeance throws
The bolt, have caught her towers and finished Ilion’s woes.
THEOCLYMENUS, CHORUS (HELEN _and_ MENELAUS _behind the tomb_).
THEOC. Hail, O thou tomb of my illustrious sire!
For thee have I interred before my gate,
That with thy shade I might hold frequent conference,
O Proteus; Theoclymenus thy son
Thee, O my father, oft as he goes forth,
Oft as he enters these abodes, accosts.
But to the palace now convey those hounds
And nets, my servants. I full many a time
Have blamed myself, because I never punished
With death such miscreants; now I am informed
That publicly some Greek to these domains
Is come unnoticed by my guards, a spy,
Or one who means to carry Helen off
By stealth: but if I seize him, he shall die.
Methinks I find all over: for the daughter
Of Tyndarus sits no longer at the tomb,
But from these shores hath fled, and now is crossing
The billowy deep. Unbar the gates, bring forth
My coursers from the stalls, and brazen cars;
Lest through my want of vigilance the dame
Whom I would make my consort, should escape me,
Borne from this land. Yet stay; for I behold
Those we pursue still here beneath this roof,
Nor are they fled. Ho! why in sable vest
Hast thou arrayed thyself, why cast aside
Thy robes of white, and from thy graceful head
With ruthless steel thy glowing ringlets shorn,
And wherefore bathed thy cheek with recent tears?
Groan’st thou, by visions of the night apprized
Of some calamity, or hast thou heard
Within, a rumour that afflicts thy soul?
HEL. My lord (for I already by that name
Accost you), I am utterly undone,
My former bliss is vanished, and I now
Am nothing.
THEOC. Art thou plunged into distress
So irretrievable? what cruel fate
Hath overtaken thee?
HEL. My Menelaus,
(Ah, how shall I express myself?) is dead.
THEOC. Although I must not triumph in th’ event
Thou speak’st of, yet to me ’tis most auspicious.
How know’st thou? Did Theonoe tell thee this?
HEL. She and this mariner, who when he perished
Was present, both concur in the same tale.
THEOC. Is there a man arrived, who for the truth
Of that account can vouch?
HEL. He is arrived:
And would to Heaven that such auspicious fortune
As I could wish attended him.
THEOC. Who is he?
Where is he? I would know the real fact.
HEL. ’Tis he who stupefied with sorrow sits
Upon the tomb.
THEOC. In what unseemly garb
Is he arrayed, O Phœbus!
HEL. In that dress,
Ah me! methinks my husband I behold.
THEOC. But in what country was the stranger born,
And whence did he come hither?
HEL. He’s a Greek,
One of those Greeks who with my husband sailed.
THEOC. How doth he say that Menelaus died?
HEL. Most wretchedly, engulfed amid the waves.
THEOC. Where? as he passed o’er the barbarian seas?
HEL. Dashed on the rocks of Libya, which affords
No haven.
THEOC. But whence happened it, that he
This partner of his voyage did not perish?
HEL. The worthless are more prosperous than the brave.
THEOC. Where left he the wrecked fragments of his ship
When he came hither?
HEL. There, where would to Heaven
Perdition had o’ertaken him, and spared
The life of Menelaus.
THEOC. He, it seems,
Is then no more: but in what bark arrived
This messenger?
HEL. Some sailors, as he says,
By chance passed by, and snatched him from the waves.
THEOC. But where’s that hateful pest which in thy stead
Was sent to Ilion?
HEL. Speak you of a cloud,
Resembling me? it mounted to the skies.
THEOC. O Priam, for how frivolous a cause
Thou with thy Troy didst perish!
HEL. In their woes
I too have been involved.
THEOC. But did he leave
Thy husband’s corse unburied, or strew dust
O’er his remains?
HEL. He left them uninterred,
Ah, wretched me!
THEOC. And didst thou for this cause
Sever the ringlets of thy auburn hair?