Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 1837-1909 / 2008-06-29 00:00:00
EBOOK ERECHTHEUS ***
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ERECHTHEUS:
A TRAGEDY.
BY
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
[Greek: o tai liparai kai iostephanoi kai aoidimoi,
Hellados ereisma, kleinai Athanai, daimonion ptoliethron.]
PIND. _Fr._ 47.
[Greek: AT. tis de poimanor epesti kapidespozei stratou?
XO. outinos douloi kekle, tai photos oud' upekooi.]
AESCH. _Pers._ 241-2.
_A NEW EDITION._
London:
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
1881.
PERSONS.
ERECHTHEUS.
CHORUS OF ATHENIAN ELDERS.
PRAXITHEA.
CHTHONIA.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
MESSENGER.
ATHENIAN HERALD.
ATHENA.
ERECHTHEUS.
ERECHTHEUS.
Mother of life and death and all men's days,
Earth, whom I chief of all men born would bless,
And call thee with more loving lips than theirs
Mother, for of this very body of thine
And living blood I have my breath and live,
Behold me, even thy son, me crowned of men,
Me made thy child by that strong cunning God
Who fashions fire and iron, who begat
Me for a sword and beacon-fire on thee,
Me fosterling of Pallas, in her shade 10
Reared, that I first might pay the nursing debt,
Hallowing her fame with flower of third-year feasts,
And first bow down the bridled strength of steeds
To lose the wild wont of their birth, and bear
Clasp of man's knees and steerage of his hand,
Or fourfold service of his fire-swift wheels
That whirl the four-yoked chariot; me the king
Who stand before thee naked now, and cry,
O holy and general mother of all men born,
But mother most and motherliest of mine, 20
Earth, for I ask thee rather of all the Gods,
What have we done? what word mistimed or work
Hath winged the wild feet of this timeless curse
To fall as fire upon us? Lo, I stand
Here on this brow's crown of the city's head
That crowns its lovely body, till death's hour
Waste it; but now the dew of dawn and birth
Is fresh upon it from thy womb, and we
Behold it born how beauteous; one day more
I see the world's wheel of the circling sun 30
Roll up rejoicing to regard on earth
This one thing goodliest, fair as heaven or he,
Worth a God's gaze or strife of Gods; but now
Would this day's ebb of their spent wave of strife
Sweep it to sea, wash it on wreck, and leave
A costless thing contemned; and in our stead,
Where these walls were and sounding streets of men,
Make wide a waste for tongueless water-herds
And spoil of ravening fishes; that no more
Should men say, Here was Athens.
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